05-27-2009, 08:19 PM
I would like you address what you guys said about the unwearability of the Crupellarius armor. In paricular, Endre has said:
I wonder how much of it is a psychological description rather than a qualitative difference. The Romans were someone who were really enthusiastic about mobility, were they not? Wouldn't it be accurate to say that they would've found any kind of full-plate suit unpleasant to wear in full combat? Yet I think we're using their reaction to a full-plate suit as a measure to gauge whether it was or was not up to par with its medieval counterpart, which seems entirely subjective to me.
One thing that was mentioned was the knights' comfort in their suits -- does that mean that the actual armor itself was lighter than what a Crupellarius would've had to wear? That would be an objective comparison. Do we have any qualitative measure to say that armor produced in the Medieval period was lighter than in the Roman times? Or were the knights comfortable simply because they didn't care to move as flexibly as the Romans did?
I think this equivocates a bit on the word 'technically'. No the Romans couldn't have built trebuchets, because the invention of the idea was absent, and that idea is just as palpable a presence as a presence of some natural resource. My question revolves around the question of -- were there any inventions lacking in the Roman period that could have prevented them from a Medieval suit of armor? If not, then they had all of the technology but simply rejected it anyway. What I often hear from medievalists is that the Knights were supported by all sorts of inventions that made them inconceivable during the Classical world, and that's really the premise that I'm trying to look at here.
Quote:Even taking Tacitus at phase value, he spesifically mentions that these crupellarii were inferendis ictibus inhabilis. Now that is a lightyear away from what we see in the late medieval/early modern period. In fact, it is lightyears away from high medieval early maille-and-plate combinations
I wonder how much of it is a psychological description rather than a qualitative difference. The Romans were someone who were really enthusiastic about mobility, were they not? Wouldn't it be accurate to say that they would've found any kind of full-plate suit unpleasant to wear in full combat? Yet I think we're using their reaction to a full-plate suit as a measure to gauge whether it was or was not up to par with its medieval counterpart, which seems entirely subjective to me.
One thing that was mentioned was the knights' comfort in their suits -- does that mean that the actual armor itself was lighter than what a Crupellarius would've had to wear? That would be an objective comparison. Do we have any qualitative measure to say that armor produced in the Medieval period was lighter than in the Roman times? Or were the knights comfortable simply because they didn't care to move as flexibly as the Romans did?
Quote:Technically, the romans could have built trebuchets in the 1st century. Technically, high medieval people could have built steam engines and used them to power wagons.
I think this equivocates a bit on the word 'technically'. No the Romans couldn't have built trebuchets, because the invention of the idea was absent, and that idea is just as palpable a presence as a presence of some natural resource. My question revolves around the question of -- were there any inventions lacking in the Roman period that could have prevented them from a Medieval suit of armor? If not, then they had all of the technology but simply rejected it anyway. What I often hear from medievalists is that the Knights were supported by all sorts of inventions that made them inconceivable during the Classical world, and that's really the premise that I'm trying to look at here.
Multi viri et feminae philosophiam antiquam conservant.
James S.
James S.
