Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Could a Peasant Defeat a Knight in Battle?

medievalists.net

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

221–230 of 326 posts

Re: Could a Peasant Defeat a Knight in Battle?

#221

Post by krapp »

romanoderoma wrote: post #216
romanoderoma wrote: post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's so ourageous isn't it? a thousand years before the 2nd amendment was conceived, peasant had other preoccupations than bearing expensive, heavy, difficult to handle arms. What were they thinking? Did they not love freedom? It's so incredible that they did not copy the US Constitution, even though the first Constitution in the human history /, the Magna Charts, was written 4 centuries later than the Annales Bertin…

Seriously guys, 2nd amendment was written in 1791, the Annales Bertiniani are from 840. The idea that the 2nd amendment protects the peasants is also wrong and it's one of the reasons people laugh at USA, when the 2nd amendment was approved, Grand Duchy of Tuscany had already abolished death penalty. 2nd amendment was introduced to permit people to shoot tax collectors (i.e. the British)

>2nd amendment was introduced to permit people to shoot tax collectors (i.e. the British)

The 2nd Amendment was introduced because the states were afraid a standing national army would give too much power to the Federal government, so the plan was to have individual states field their own militias instead. Also because the principles of the right to self defense were established in British common law at the time - but that has more to do with keeping cougars and vandals away than any abstract fears of tyranny.

You're right that it didn't really protect "peasants" - it mostly protected the interests of rich landowners. Which is, ironically, what Ben Franklin was actually arguing against with his often repeated (and misinterpreted) quote about those who trade a little liberty for safety deserving neither.

Re: Could a Peasant Defeat a Knight in Battle?

#222

Post by WJW »

nlitened wrote: post #138
briefcomment wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wonder if one day in the distant future, humans will each have their own autonomous mutually assured destruction devices hovering around them at all times, almost like a guardian angel. It would even the playing field in some ways.

Isn’t the second amendment about exactly that?

The government has weapons that are literally thousands of times more destructive than anything you can wield under the second amendment. That's just apart from the fact that the vast majority of citizens cannot afford even a single fighter jet or cruise missile.

Re: Could a Peasant Defeat a Knight in Battle?

#223

Post by romanoderoma »

prepend wrote: post #219
romanoderoma wrote: post #218

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You don't need the right to bear arms to revolt to tyrants. There is no similar right in any other part of the World, in every other part of the World there have been revolts, sometimes much larger than US has ever witnessed. Many countries have also revolted against USA, that more often than not has been the tryrant.

It’s not a requirement, but it certainly helps.

it depends on who gets the arms.

there is no "the people" as a single entity and interests when there is a revolt.

if everybody is armed, the supporters of the tyrant are going to be armed as well.

But with better equipment.

Re: Could a Peasant Defeat a Knight in Battle?

#224

Post by [deleted] »

WJW wrote: post #220
kebman wrote: post #208

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's one of the reasons the 2nd Amendment was written; to avoid tyrannical rule, and to allow the "peasants" (regular people) to revolt if a tyrant ever took power.

As a European I've always thought that this bit of US law has not aged all that well. Imagine a tyrant takes hold of the US armed forces and uses that to overthrow the rest of government so they can rule alone. The US armed forces have equipment going up to tanks, fighter jets, bombers, drones and nuclear weapons. A militia is going to struggle to field even heavy machine guns, let alone an air force. I doubt they'd…

[deleted]

Re: Could a Peasant Defeat a Knight in Battle?

#226

Post by fallingknife »

WJW wrote: post #220
kebman wrote: post #208

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's one of the reasons the 2nd Amendment was written; to avoid tyrannical rule, and to allow the "peasants" (regular people) to revolt if a tyrant ever took power.

As a European I've always thought that this bit of US law has not aged all that well. Imagine a tyrant takes hold of the US armed forces and uses that to overthrow the rest of government so they can rule alone. The US armed forces have equipment going up to tanks, fighter jets, bombers, drones and nuclear weapons. A militia is going to struggle to field even heavy machine guns, let alone an air force. I doubt they'd…

You don't have to win open battles. You just have to make it not worthwhile to keep fighting. Think Vietnam war. Also, in this scenario the army will not be united. In our civil war, many army units joined the rebels.

Re: Could a Peasant Defeat a Knight in Battle?

#227

Post by motoboi »

raducu wrote: post #150
defen wrote: post #112

One thing to keep in mind when imagining "Knight vs Peasant" combat is that it's not like they would be fighting in some sort of idealized battle arena. Knights have horses and peasants do not, which means that barring exceptional circumstances, the knight has the initiative to determine when and where combat happens. People without horses have an extremely difficult time fighting people with horses, beyond just the…

Knights and aristocracy held their power through force, so there is no question that knights could overwhelmingly defeat peasants. However, what is often missed in the depictions of peasants is that they were much stronger than modern folk, they did kill animals quite often, they did fight other peasants quite often. Free peasants were a different story from bound peasants, mountain peasants a different story from lo…

Yes, they did. Lot of physical demanding tasks, but no, they were in a almost constant state of sub nutrition to be stronger that a modern working class person.

Re: Could a Peasant Defeat a Knight in Battle?

#229

Post by forinti »

agency wrote: post #46
cmrdporcupine wrote: post #17

In the Annals of St Bertin there's mention of an attack by the Danes (Vikings) on a region of Francia in 859 AD, where the peasants formed an association to defend themselves and fought off the Vikings, and drove them off without the assistance of the Carolingian rulers. This is reported by the Carolingians as brave but immoral, because Charlemagne had banned any such associations or militias, and military service wa…

The more I hear about this feudalism thing the less I like it.

My view is that nobility were really like gangs that controlled and fought over territory and extorted the common people.

So the current nobility are really just the heirs of criminal associations. They shouldn't have a place in the modern world.

Re: Could a Peasant Defeat a Knight in Battle?

#230

Post by creativityEng »

motoboi wrote: post #227
raducu wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Knights and aristocracy held their power through force, so there is no question that knights could overwhelmingly defeat peasants. However, what is often missed in the depictions of peasants is that they were much stronger than modern folk, they did kill animals quite often, they did fight other peasants quite often. Free peasants were a different story from bound peasants, mountain peasants a different story from lo…

Yes, they did. Lot of physical demanding tasks, but no, they were in a almost constant state of sub nutrition to be stronger that a modern working class person.

It should be noted that practicing hard movements will train the PNS to fire all at the same time.

No extra muscle necessary.

Post reply on HN