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Could a Peasant Defeat a Knight in Battle?

medievalists.net

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Re: Could a Peasant Defeat a Knight in Battle?

#271

Post by magicsmoke »

frockington1 wrote: post #256
WJW wrote: post #222

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I'm all for citizens owning cruise missiles but, I think that's missing the point. The point is that an organized and armed population of say Vietnamese farmers could theoretically hold off against the largest power in the world until they decided to move on

Sure, but after they move on you're left with nothing but your homes burnt down and your family dead, while they're still the largest economic and military power in the world living it up in their first-world mansions. Pyrrhic victories taste just like defeat.

Re: Could a Peasant Defeat a Knight in Battle?

#272

Post by sgt101 »

throwaway0a5e wrote: post #249
WJW wrote: post #220

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Remember those guys who let their house guest attack the US a little under 20yr ago? Last I checked they're in the process of getting their country back. The "but they have tanks and nukes" argument has been long debunked. To actually run an oppressive nation you need boots on the ground which requires very strong support from a very sizeable minority (e.g South Africa, Northern Ireland). The less firepower the peasa…

>quickly the Troubles wrapped up once the bombs started going off in England

The Birmingham pub bombings (for example) happened in 1974. The Belfast agreement (ending the troubles so far) was signed in 1998.

>requires very strong support from a very sizeable minority (e.g South Africa, Northern Ireland)

Please see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demography_of_Northern_Ireland.

You will note that Northern Ireland has a plurality of Protestants (48%) compared to a sizable Catholic community (45%). The majority of people in Northern Ireland do not support a united Ireland up to this point. At some point in the future that may change and a referendum for reunification may be held (if the Irish government agrees). And, note, it is not at all for sure that the Irish government would agree because Northern Ireland is a cats cradle of trouble and problem - demographically, economically, politically and in terms of civil order. I think only with very significant backing from the EU could Ireland contemplate taking it on.

Currently the UK (read England, because the Welsh and Scots are also net recipients of significant monies from England) subsidizes every subject in Northern Ireland to the tune of $7k per year, if that is "crapping all over Ireland" frankly I'd like a bag of that shit please.

And frankly there is peace in Ireland now because the IRA lost, it lost support in it's communities and it lost interest in freedom fighting because one element of it realized that a political solution had been available for at least 10 years, and one element realised it was far more interested in trading drugs and protection.

Anyway : please do some research and reading and don't use straight falsehoods to support an otherwise reasonable argument. Perhaps traveling to Ireland would be a good start.

Re: Could a Peasant Defeat a Knight in Battle?

#273

Post by rsync »

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…

"Peasant autonomy and self-defense of any kind could not be tolerated."

In the United States, "gun control" (restrictions on gun rights) is universally classified as a liberal/left policy and the absence of "gun control" is classified as a conservative/right policy.

Without entering into a discussion of these politics I would like to point out that those classifications are completely backwards.

The US Second Amendment (and associated US gun rights, court interpretations, etc.) are extremely liberal, from an historical perspective.

Re: Could a Peasant Defeat a Knight in Battle?

#274

Post by s1artibartfast »

dodobirdlord wrote: post #193
s1artibartfast wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do You have a citation for the 8 inches claim? I found this interesting article while looking: Heights across the Last 2,000 Years in England: https://oro.open.ac.uk/53774/3/53774.pdf

I believe it must have come from Height, Health and History by Roderick Floud, but I can't find a digital copy of that book to link, despite it being 30 years old. The closest thing I could find is another work citing Floud, and only with regard to the difference in height at the beginning of the 19th century. It gives "nearly 6 inches taller", but note that it's comparing 14-year-olds in 1800, when nutrition for the…

Really fascinating. It sounds like the interclass differences were greater then the variation within England over time.

Re: Could a Peasant Defeat a Knight in Battle?

#275

Post by sgt101 »

scottlocklin wrote: post #214
questionfor wrote: post #159

People who suggest that knights could be defeated by peasants in one-on-one or even one-on-many combat often overlook that many (or most?) knights spent their time practicing how to kill people in combat. Peasants on the other hand were busy tending to their land or cattle or doing whatever they had to survive. The modern analogy for adult peasant fighting an adult knight would be a bar fight between a random bystand…

It's not clear that knightly training was as useful as UFC training. Ineffective martial arts were a big deal for literal decades before the Gracie family came along, I guess because people didn't want to put in a mouth guard and see what happens. How often did the knights actually see combat, as opposed to train for combat, and do non-lethal sparring? The one form of training which is of undoubted utility is group t…

Knights in different places at different times saw combat at different rates. If you lived on the Scotish borders or the Welsh marches you would be very likely to see combat on a regular basis. Raiding was a way of life for both sides... England was probably relatively unusual in having a relatively stable core for a relatively long time, but even then civil strife was not uncommon, and wars were fought as soon as either side could afford them. I think that a medieval knight that didn't take martial training really seriously risked being killed pretty promptly. On the other hand I guess that there was a large random element and there may have been a bit of "it makes no real difference so sod it" in their attitude, I don't suppose we will ever know because it seems that there was no real attempt to codify and share the knowledge - it was an oral tradition.

Re: Could a Peasant Defeat a Knight in Battle?

#276

Post by craig1f »

rsync wrote: post #273
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…

"Peasant autonomy and self-defense of any kind could not be tolerated." In the United States, "gun control" (restrictions on gun rights) is universally classified as a liberal/left policy and the absence of "gun control" is classified as a conservative/right policy. Without entering into a discussion of these politics I would like to point out that those classifications are completely backwards. The US Second Amendme…

Incorrect. Republicans have successfully branded themselves as gun advocates, and Democrats as anti-gun. There are as many liberal gun owners as conservatives. Liberals just don't jerk off with their guns on social media.

Re: Could a Peasant Defeat a Knight in Battle?

#277

Post by NovemberWhiskey »

rsync wrote: post #273
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…

"Peasant autonomy and self-defense of any kind could not be tolerated." In the United States, "gun control" (restrictions on gun rights) is universally classified as a liberal/left policy and the absence of "gun control" is classified as a conservative/right policy. Without entering into a discussion of these politics I would like to point out that those classifications are completely backwards. The US Second Amendme…

Please do not confuse "liberalism", the moral philosophy espoused by Locke/Montesquieu/Mill et al., with "liberal" as used as an adjective in modern-day US politics. The two have almost nothing to do with each other.

Re: Could a Peasant Defeat a Knight in Battle?

#278

Post by [deleted] »

hamilyon2 wrote: post #217
tshaddox wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That’s not so crazy, is it? “Civilian” is used in the thought experiment to refer to an expected level of training, experience, and equipment. You wouldn’t reasonably expect a “civilian” in this context to have an RPG or an attack aircraft. The clear point of the thought experiment is “would a civilian be able to kill an armored vehicle with the level of training, experience, and equipment that would reasonably be ex…

In some countries, most civilians are former soldiers. Knowing how to destroy an armored vehicle is not a common knowledge around where I live. It is given for granted however that around the world people are creative, can learn new things, and generally could figure out how to make explosives. And I guess they still qualify as civilians.

[deleted]

Re: Could a Peasant Defeat a Knight in Battle?

#279

Post by magicsmoke »

dragonelite wrote: post #161
agency wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

The shitty thing is the west is gradually moving into neo feudalism, like the World Economic Forum said "You'll own nothing, and you'll be happy".

My pet theory about why modern democracy appeared when it did instead of earlier during the Medieval period is that it coincided with the rise of cheap muskets, which overturned the power dynamic between masses of untrained and unequipped peasants and knights with lifelong combat training and the best armor technology available. When victories started to depend less on whoever had the best elite fighting force and more on whoever had the most muskets in the field, the winner is whoever had a better system for funneling wealth and power to as many people as possible instead of to just a small class of elite fighters. For a new state with little government tax revenue or wealth, the democratic vote was a cheap and effective way for America to raise as many militiamen and muskets as possible. If muskets didn't come onto the military scene when it did and the American revolution was fought between armored knights, I'm quite confident the vote would have remained limited to only landowners that had enough economic surplus to spend their time training and maintaining their war equipment instead of spreading to anyone that could hold a musket.

Based on this model, WW2 was probably peak democratic potential. Everyone had the same capacity to hold a rifle or work on an assembly line, and whatever country could mobilize the most workers/soldiers would be the strongest. With automation and computerization, a member of the technology elite that can program a robot to make widgets or shoot hostiles can roll that out to replace millions of humans instantly. The world is reverting back to the economic and technological setup that fostered feudalism, where someone trained from birth with the best equipment can outproduce and outfight a numerically superior force.

The big difference between old and neofeudalism I can see is that the technological elites in neofeudalism are more vulnerable than the old military elites because they individually also have lower bargaining power. For a medieval knight, their effectiveness is the same no matter which king they serve under, which gives them plenty of power to switch sides. For a member of the technological elite, you may be so hyperspecialized in your niche that if you leave the system that gives you the ecosystem and tools to do your work, your economic value plunges. An individual chip designer without a company that can pay thousands for monthly EDA software licenses or the millions needed to tape out a chip is as unproductive as any member of the unskilled labor pool. Even the average web developer is dependent on a surrounding national/international technological ecosystem far more than a medieval knight would be on his private estate. In neofeudalism, the real holders of power are the same as in older feudalism. They're propagandists, kings, clergymen, academics, populists, think tanks, revolutionaries, people with enough social acumen to get others to do things that coincide with what they want and make them like it at the same time.

Re: Could a Peasant Defeat a Knight in Battle?

#280

Post by bitdizzy »

NovemberWhiskey wrote: post #277
rsync wrote: post #273

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Peasant autonomy and self-defense of any kind could not be tolerated." In the United States, "gun control" (restrictions on gun rights) is universally classified as a liberal/left policy and the absence of "gun control" is classified as a conservative/right policy. Without entering into a discussion of these politics I would like to point out that those classifications are completely backwards. The US Second Amendme…

Please do not confuse "liberalism", the moral philosophy espoused by Locke/Montesquieu/Mill et al., with "liberal" as used as an adjective in modern-day US politics. The two have almost nothing to do with each other.

I would not consider the philosophy of those three writers to be the same philosophy.
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