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Very cool video, love these history ones. One other bias I could think of is that these accounts are of people in most cases attempting to kill each other and it sounds like a lot of them occurred with just the two participants present (theoretically - though it could be important). Idea being that if you're trying to kill someone, or someone from killing you and give them a disabling wound that wouldn't necessarily be fatal if the wound was treated immediately -- the likelihood is that the person striking the other, because they were trying to kill them, wouldn't make an attempt to save the person. So perhaps a wound to the lower leg or arms that was severe enough to disable the person and cause moderate but not severe bleeding, if the person wasn't assisted, it is still possible they could die from blood loss etc or maybe going into shock if they were unlucky. Could be overthinking this lol. At any rate, again great video.
would a thrust or cut have any likelihood of filling the wound channel with fabric and other clothing material that could contribute to long term infection issues?
"Shock" the body shutting down to loss of blood or similar - also the mental 'shock' of victims hearing 'OH, my god! his leg's cut off!' sending him over the edge. I was an Army medic. There's a lot more on medical 'shock'.
@@johnnyjet3.1412 I understand what you mean, I meant shock from blood loss or the like. But shock probably wasn't the right word for me to use. Thank you for the correction.(sincerely)
As a doctor, I'm intrigued by the cut "above the knee" resulting in quick death. There are some arteries immediately above the knee on the front of the thigh but generally I wouldn't think they are big enough to result in rapid exsanguination if severed. The popliteal artery at the back of the knee carries a lot of blood and might bleed fast enough to cause rapid death but that seems like a somewhat unusual place to be stabbed or cut in a fight. Perhaps they were using "above the knee" in a broad sense and the wound actually was in what we would more commonly call the thigh. There's no way to know for sure, but my money would be on terminology rather than anatomy.
Wouldn't a sideways cut to the inner thigh "just above the knee" sever the femoral artery? Picture, from your point of view - the enemy sword sings in from your left, catches your right leg just above the knee, leaving an injury on the left side of the right leg, about a hands width above the knee.
Is it possible that it's just unreliable eyewitness testimony? These people weren't medical experts, and might interpret a person passing out from shock as them dying from a wound. Then death happens later as the wound goes untreated.
As someone whose majority of winning strikes are a "cut above the knee", I can tell you that when executed well a lot of those cuts are hard and deep. I do agree though, that the description is a generally a bit vague, and I would say that the mid thigh could well be considered "above the knee". Even including that caveat though, we're talking capacity to cut to the bone. One of the major reasons for this is the nature of slashing cuts, in that it is much easier to accelerate a downward slash, especially on the exit. That lets you deliver a fast, powerful whipping blow while disengaging, which leaves both you alive, and your opponent likely unable to pursue.
A cut above the knee the certainly does result in a quick death simply because you go down like a sack of spuds and then get some cold steel elsewhere.
I'm not sure that 'instantly' would have had quite the same meaning as we understand it today- it's older dictionary definition was 'urgently' or 'quickly'. In this context, it might have just meant that the person died at the scene, rather than being moved someplace else first and dying some time later, like a lot of the other victims described.
My thought also. See, for example, the use of "instant" meaning "the current month" in older usage. "I wrote to you on the 7th instant" meaning, for example, "I wrote to you the 7th of this current month." I think your assumption that it means "immediately," "in the same place without being taken anywhere else," is well-founded. "Instantly" should probably be taken as "without being moved, within a few minutes."
When they mention 'parlay' or meeting in a field, I think we can assume that's a duel. Also belly or thigh could be groin, I'm not sure if codpieces were a thing in this time or not. It's also possible that belly injuries were rare from lacing or wide leather belts. Some of the 'died instantly' ones could be shock. It's not something you can account for in sparring but especially if you're older and haven't received wounds of any significant sort before shock is a major cause of death, especially in pre-modern conflicts. Just because shock isn't that hard to treat any more and weapons tends to be more lethal. Just some thoughts.
A thrust to the heart would be near enough a quick death similarly a Thrust with a rapier sword to the head going right through would more then likely be enough for that person to be despatched Rightly so "instantly"" still qualifies as would receiving a blow to a unprotected head with a medieval Mace type weapon Interesting fact during the American civil war wounds to the '''belly"" or stomach area were untreatable it was beyond the surgeon's of that era the ability or understanding of internal surgery the biggest cause of death in the American civil war due to lack of knowledge or understanding of germs or bacteria infection Interesting during WW1 in the early period of the conflict wounds to the stomach /chest area became untreatable because of post surgery infection so many soldiers died of infection since antibiotics were never around this point that surgeons would not treat them anymore ,instead they would be given ""morphine"" and left to die. it wasn't untill the situation improved due to more effective""" antibacterial wash solutions"" Found by a British biochemistry Henry Darkin who perfected a solution of a sodium mix a antibacterial solution wash to clean out the open wound that killed the most dangerous bacteria, general known as ""gangrene "" and this was the reason why thousands apon thousands of soldiers who were left on the battlefield unable to be carried to a dressing station with survivable wounds quickly enough before the more serious bacterial infection took hold and became untreatable and died of shock and bacteria infection until Henry Darkin arrived and a french military surgeon Alexis Carrel who took this new antibacterial solution and used it open up the wound and irrigate throughy known as the Carrel /Darkin method currently used to this day in battlefield wounds
I'm thinking that we who know things need to learn to "dumb down" to realistic levels. General civilians know almost nothing at all about medical trauma, general civilians in those days knew barely anything. I'd guess that their descriptions of 'died instantly' are not judgements based on medical knowledge of today, or of then. Big cuts can probably give enough of a schock to some persons that they'll crash down and lie still. Actual medical chock will come later. I think that anyone lying down and being unresponsive would mostly be seen as pretty much dead. There is also a legal detail that might affect people's medical judgement of the situation, if the victim died instantly, then there was no point in needing to do any pesky lifesaving attempts to put bandages on or such, which might lead to an enemy miraculously surviving. No, best if you see that he succumbed immediately. So sad. Fun anecdote about psychological shock, from the book Handgun Stopping Power there was a case described where a bank was robbed, and one guard heard a shot go off, felt a burning sensation in hos belly, and just collapsed down on the floor. Not unconscious, but out of the fight. When the police cleared it all up and medics looked at the guard's status, it was shown that he wasn't hit. There is a lot of psychology, expectation and genetic disposition involved in one's reaction to injuries and trauma, and there's a high likelihood that many of the dead ones have a non-survivor bias in their handling of injuries.
For the record, this is pretty much always what "died instantly" means even today. If you hear somebody is shot and died instantly, that's probably not actually meaning they were hit once and just fell over like it was a magic killing curse, it means they were shot *at least* once and died before medical attention could be provided.
As long as there isn't a lot repetition it's fine, but quite often the longer videos have a lot of repetition of the initial point that are basically 5 mins of a well edited video stretched to 30 mins.
I used to be an Army Medic and one of the injuries we looked at was for the Popliteal artery which runs just above and behind the knee's , if it gets cut you can bleed out fairly quickly so we were trained to treat like a Femoral artery injury , though the attack would mostly have to be from the side or back of the knee.
But don't these reports of ''instant death'' seem a bit suspicious? Decapitation or blows to the head and heart may cause an instant death, everything else in the context of a swordfight would take minutes of bleeding out. It seems to me the victim often bled out for considerably longer time than the reports claim, something they must have been aware of but left it out for some reason.
@@kacperwoch4368 I assume ti's a different meaning of the term. Either 'instant death' means in less than a minute as opposed to in ten or fifteen minutes, since you'd have no way of knowing seconds unless someone had been counting in the middle of a fight, or 'died instantly' doesn't mean 'immediately lost all cardiac function' as it does in a hospital but rather collapsing and being dead soon after is considered much the same thing.
That story around the 18 minute mark, accidental death by sword scabbard to the eye, reminds me of a case I had in a military ER. It was an aircraft antenna to the eye. Poor illumination at night on the tarmac. Reportedly went into the orbit of the eye. Miraculously, he was not severely injured.
Related to 26:00, at the martial arts school I attend, we spent a great deal of time lobbying to _add_ legs as a valid target to our soft weapons practice on the grounds that, if it were a battlefield situation, someone would absolutely cut your legs off, and you had better learn to defend against losing those legs.
Hell, just if you piss a hiker off in the middle of the wood you could have someone break your calves. The blade bit just makes it easier to do damage with a polearm, the pole can still mess someone up.
@@sleep-of-ages Chen taijiquan (new frame 83 form), and a bit of competition form wushu. Sanda, briefly, but that was subject to scheduling issues on my part.
Very interesting. Especially your comments about leg wounds. A few years back while working overseas I witnessed a man die from a deliberate spear wound to his upper thigh, causing him to bleed out and die in less than 10 minutes even with him immediately receiving the full range of advanced first aid techniques, tourniquet, haemostatic agents etc. The point here is that bleeding from a severed femoral artery can prove almost impossible to staunch.
I must admit your anecdote raised my curiosity: how does the scenario of being stabbed with a spear in the XXI century arise? (I don't mean this in a morbid way, no need for details as I'm sure the experience was horrific enough)
@@urosmarjanovic663 He didn't say it was a judicial punishment, but a traditional one. Given it was Australia, I'm going to guess it was not legal but something more like you'd see in a blood-feud type situation.
19:00 My mommy always said "It's all fun and games until someone loses an eye!" On another point, I think they specify often "fore" and "front" to indicate that the guy was facing his foe and not running away and getting stabbed in the back which would perhaps be perfidious and not self defense (or something Elizabethan like that).
A factor to remember in leg wounds is that a major fracture to a long bone will cause profuse bleeding. People tend to forget that bones are well supplied with blood (it's where your blood gets made, ya know?) and a complete fracture (as opposed to a 'crack') will cause serious issues with bleeding. Bleeding into the muscle dompartment (your muscles are all sheathed in a special tissue that keeps the muscles in place and is necessary for function) can cause 'compartment syndrome' where the pressure builds up inside this sheathing, the pressure cuts off blood supply and in a few hours your nickname become 'Stumpy'. Not an 'instant' fatal wound, but let's face it, you don't want to get stabbed .
First off, thanks for your videos, really interesting as always. Just to relate a personal experience that is related to your video. Back in the early 2000's in Perth Western Australia I was sending off my friend Jeff for his bucks night. The party had just left one establishment and saw an altercation between two gents. One guy stabbed the other in the upper inner thigh near the groin and he dropped instantly to the ground. In the time it took us to run across the road there was a stream of blood that had travelled about two metres to a drain. I applied pressure to the wound and shortly after the gent regained consciousness. I spent the next 15 minutes until the ambulance and paramedics arrived keeping up the pressure and talking to him as he drifted in and out of consciousness. Thank god or the people who created it for modern medicine. Trauma to an artery can cause someone to fall instantly.
The number of fatal wounds to the left leg are interesting. Perhaps it is the stance leaving the inner part of the left thigh more open to a thrust, whereas the artery on the right leg is shielded to some extent by the muscle.
I used to do HEMA with the NFPS back in the 1980s. I'm a short bloke, not particularly strong, but wiry and fast (well, i used to be, I'm 68 now). Fighting with a relatively short sword and small shield, I took on a much bigger opponent armed with heavy sword and a big shield. I struck repeatedly at his arms and legs and only lost because he ignored the blows and knocked me down with sheer strength. A friend took a video (rare in those days), and many agreed that my opponent would have died from blood loss. Watching the video, I couldn't believe how fast I was. It was watching a terrier fighting a bear. No wonder I was knackered afterwards!
I think something that might be interesting is test cutting and thrusting through various common historical clothing materials (and thicknesses of materials) like wool cotton gambison etc.
In these times I imagine it was basically impossible to treat a wound that went through or past the ribs since the ribcage prevents easy access. They could maybe get to a wound close to the top or bottom of the ribcage, by lifting the ribs away, but I don’t want to imagine the pain of the patient. We can see such a wound in the movie „master and commander“. Here the doctor was hit by a muscet by accident and he operates on himself and his assistant has to raise a rib so he could reach underneath. We also have to consider that the blades and firearms sometimes carried fabrics of the penetrated clothing into the wound, where it would further increase the risk of inflammation and infection. Something the movie also shows when they compare the fabric taken from the wound with the hole in the shirt to confirm if there is fabric left in the wound.
As an aside, its suprizingly easy to pierce the front of the face into the skull. I sadly saw this happen when a man tripped and ended up spiked with a piece of rebar (maybe not rebar but something like that) and the poor man was basically dead on the spot. I could easily imagine a sword going right through. :(
I am writing this for follow up readers and estimating the force involved, Im not minimizing the horror of the accident nor do I mean and insult to you. There was more energy in this accident than one might think, even a guy of 6' or ~2m and 220lbs/100kg will fall at 9.8m/second/second, and from 6ft there is about .7 seconds of freefall. Force is mass times acceleration 100kg*(9.8*.7). His head hit that spike with almost 700 Nm or 500ft/lbs of force. Given that many cars can be moved by less, we can see that though a seemingly minor fall his skull was propelled quite hard onto the object. Our skulls are amazingly resistant to heavy slow impacts, but not great at resisting punctures. The area behind eyes and nose is more vulnerable to perforation as you note as well, but that would be enough force to penetrate the skull anywhere if hitting head on, sadly a glancing blow would have needed only staples.
To add to that blades work by having an extremely small surface area that creates a localized shear force. This is the reason you pull a blade on a giving surface to cut. Since the surface gives downward force is lessened. Pull the cut and the surface will have force to push against from as second axis. Once a structure is compromised it becomes easier for the rest of a blade to begin breaking through. Green one isn't that hard and you get a lot of force with a lunge.
You are severely overestimating the energy involved. To get to that kind of impact the body would have to be completely rigid and you would have to throw the whole body from a 2m high platform with is center of gravity straight behind the impact point. Due to the body's flexibility modeling the head falling alone is much closer to reality than what you did. So a 5 kg head from 2 m yields 100Nm of impact energy (E = m x g x h), which is still plenty to Pierce the skull. Also your math is of. 100 kg from 2m yields 2000Nm, not 700Nm.
@@marcelmuller8166 I have to disagree. @Marcel Müller I have to disagree, a flail head on a rope or chain which is flexible, or a human arm with a tool can both strike as hard as a rigid bar if the accelerate at a similar rate. The deceased was walking and tripped, which would produce a significant torque, though I left out sonme additional components that could generate force. You can't get anywhere pretending it would be similar to dropping a detached head, but perhaps the whole body's mass isn't accelerating for the entire .7 sec. I could agree to cutting the mass by 60% to account for the reduction as the lower body comes to rest. Most importantly, you are arbitrarily assuming a full second of freefall, when I used 6ft (1.8m) yet only included the metric values so all could follow along. I'm not sure where you're getting 2000, I think you're calculating for kinetic energy not simple force which is F=M*A not M*A²=KE.
@@warpdriveby That depends on the exact mechanism of the fall. If you just go limp and fall there is no whip action, just like holding a flail over a surface and letting go. If you trip and fall there is still no whipping action like moving a flail perpendicular to the ground and letting go. To get a whipping action you need to move at significant speed AND the foot needs to stay attached to the tripping point, which is unlikely but possible. In this case impact energy of the head depends on a lot of factors. Without whip effect my approximation is way better than yours but is of course still an approximation. Regarding the calculation I used a little trick: I calculated gravitational potential energy which is mass times acceleration (i.e. force as you state correctly) TIMES DISTANCE (E=m x g x h). In a fall gravitational potential energy gets almost entirely converted into kinetic energy. Kinetic energy directly is half mass times velocity squared (E = 1/2 m x v^2), which is probably what you wanted to do. But since you do not know velocity you can not use it directly and since velocity depends on acceleration time and acceleration time depends on velocity you would get a rather nasty differential equation which is beyond my and also probably your math pay grade. The 2000J or Nm is just E = m x g x h so E = 100kg x 10m/s^2 x 2m = 2000 Nm = 2000J
I've heard "in the common way," within other old writings about swordplay before. I believe it means "as untrained" or "skilless/amateur" styles. Like how street fights with opponents often devolves to wild sluging
I have noticed from your reading of official court records that they claim to the person died instantly. It seems that unless the deceased person was able to keep moving and talking, they died instantly. It is likely equivalent to reports claiming that they were pronounced dead after arriving at the hospital. It is not that they didn't die until they got to the hospital. It is just that they can't be legally pronounced dead until they are examined by a doctor at the hospital.
I think old single stick allowed leg attacks but later period was head only. Silver wentions "Woodknives" along with Hangers, Falchions, Skaines and Daggers along with the imperfect short weapons section of Paradoxes.
11:59 'in the common way': This doesn't mean 'in the usual manner' but 'in the public street' (the 'common' thoroughfare, or the square, or anywhere else that the public was allowed to pass through). So it's about location, not the manner of fighting. It's explicitly legal terminology here, because specific laws apply to behaviour in private vs public land; but it was also used in common parlance for England (and countries subject to her laws) right up frmo the middle ages through the 19th century. - cf 'in the common street' in some of the other accounts. (And just having listened through to the rest of the vid, it's fascinating how careful all these accounts are to specify location: not just 'near this landmark' but also making clear issues of land ownership and legal status.) I'd also suggest that 'of which he died immediately' doesn't necessarily mean what we'd call immediately today, or even swooned immediately: it might just be 'died within an hour or so as a direct result of this injury' and was therefore legally considered to be an immediate result of the wound, rather than a death from later complications.
also at 13:00 - 'came upon the said James with malice afterthought' - does that really say afterthought? or is it 'malice aforethought'? I've only ever heard the latter but I'd be fascinated to hear its opposite was actually a legal charge/defence! Basically 'non-premeditated'...
On the cases where leg wound above the knee caused 'immediate death then and there', it's probable that the receivers went into a shock due to pain and fainted (syncope), never to rise again due to serious blood loss and for no one to render first aid to them immediately.
The blows to the left side of the chest are may be plain and simply the result of "finishing off" an opponent who is already subdued by previous blows.
I remember my old fencing trainer who told me about a fencing master who won all his fights by attacking his enemies legs (and feets), which are still valid targets in olympic epee fencing.
I think another reason that an arm wound is less likely to be fatal is that is less likely to prevent disengagement. A head or chest wound is likely to be immediately fatal, a leg wound is likely to be immediately fatal or just disabling ones' mobility, allowing a fatal blow to be delivered, but an arm wound, the person can still escape to seek medical treatment.
These sources are just amazing, telling us so much about these altercations. I love the idea of some of these fights being between a bloke with a spear and the other with sword and buckler! Amazing stuff.
I really dig these videos... interesting to know if they would actually account for grappling while fighting? Or do they just kind of wrap it all up into just "fighting?"
Never apologize for these longer videos being "long winded" I found this video very interesting and I thank you for it Also I think a lot of these "died Instantly" accounts were rapid drops in blood pressure resulting in unconsciousness, they in my opinion likely died minutes later, but with the knowledge of the time were considered "dead" when they fell unconscious
Hi Matt! great videos as always. From a legal point of view, I think it would be interesting to know what was the meaning of "died then and there instantly", because it either may not mean what it literally means (welcome to legal language) or it may be a result from the legal practice back then. I'm a lawyer, not a doctor, but it seems hard to believe that some of those injuries resulted in instant death.
agreed: I'm a medieval historian who mostly works on language rather than the physical objects and behaviour that Matt's looking at, and the phrasing struck me as something that probably means 'died within the space of time that we can class as immediately resulting from that wound rather than' ... rather than whatever the alternative might be in contemporary legal terminology. Whatever space of time allows for plausible deniability of the 'oh they should have treated that wound better and then he'd still be alive' variety.
It could be that the term “above the knee” was used to indicate the upper leg rather than lower in general. If that is the case them the femoral arteries are still the possible wound site.
@~30:00 I had the same reaction to leg wounds lateral of the femur or distal to mid thigh "how did those kill in minutes?" Without modern surgical treatments or antibiotics they could certainly be fatal in hours or days, or leave one vulnerable to a coup de grace, but "instantly" feels off. I'm thinking it means the fight ended immediately at that point, or consciousness was lost perhaps?
When evaluating wounds as a martial artist, it needs to be kept in mind that you can only rely on the mechanical/physiological effects. To give an example, most rule-sets assume a stab wound to the lung will cause near-instant incapacitation, but in truth, it takes several seconds for lung damage to notably reduce a combatant's physical capabilities and possibly several minutes to render them incapable of posing a threat. If you're facing an opponent determined/intoxicated enough, they'll fight through the pain and shock for a good long time. Thus, a more realistic approach to simulating combat wounds would be to add an element of chance to afterblow periods (eg, judges secretly rolling dice before each round to determine how long the afterblow period will last), with wound-related handicaps during those periods (eg, injury to the leg requires the fencer to keep both feet on the floor at all times). More irritating, too, I'm sure, although maybe not for the spectators. 😉
I suspect another reason for belly wounds rarely being named as a cause of death is that even a lethal belly wound might not end the fight. If the one with the lethal belly wound killed the other, it was unlikely to make it to a trial, and, if the one with the belly wound received a more quickly lethal wound, that other wound would be named as the cause of death. Might "above the knee" simply mean 'thigh', with the leg being seen as two parts, "below the knee and above the foot" and "above the knee and below the hip", the second specifier being unnecessary once it's clear that the wound is in the leg? If so, that would explain how wounds "above the knee" could be "instantly lethal". The large femoral artery is a huge blood vessel, with high pressure. There's a smaller femoral artery on the outside of the thigh, btw, which will also bleed profusely, explaining why it would be hard to staunch, and, if not staunched, lethal in a matter of minutes rather than hours.
I absolutely love these and am glad you're still doing them. As long as you continue to I will always watch them they're among my favorite content on here I think it's absolutely fascinating to hear the period accounts. And your long videos are your best content in general anyway I love the feature length ones. I know it's a lot of work but keep it up we all appreciate it
I'm with some of the others, Shakespearean English was not quite modern English & the words "instantly" & "immediately" (more-so the former) were used to mean "quickly", "soon" or "shortly thereafter", which I would suggest is the context in which they were used in these reports. So, when someone "died instantly" he probably died within a few minutes of receiving the injury, rather than dropped dead on the spot. So, the "thrust beneath the ribs of the left side" which killed the victim "instantly" may have ruptured the abdomen, pierced the diaphragm & entered the lungs of the victim causing a severe haemopneumothorax which may have rendered the victim unconscious in a couple of minutes & killed him within ten, or it may have nicked the aorta, the inferior vena cava, or the left pulmonary vein/artery, all of which could kill quickly but, in most cases, not immediately (in the modern sense). Of course coming up from below the left ribs it may have pierced his heart & that would be, pretty much, instantaneous death.
Clear lesson here: if you have a reach advantage, go for the leg. Also, with the pike stab 2 hour death, the stab may have mostly crushed the artery, delaying bleed out. My god why would you fight someone with a longer weapon voluntarily.
For an arm wound to be guaranteed fatal. The brachial artery on the inside of the arm needs to be severed between the armpit and the elbow. If the brachial artery is severed on someone's left arm, they will lose a fatal amount of blood within 15-35 seconds. If severed on the right arm, it could take up to 90 seconds for someone to lose the same fatal volume of blood. A fatal arm wound might be less common due to the inside of the someone's arm naturally being protected by their body. As well as it not being very exposed in the common fighting styles.
I think that last point where multiple injuries could have occurred, though only the mortal injuries were recorded is very valuable to consider. Look at some medieval battles and see that skeletal records show a lot of extremity damage in concurrence with head and torso damage. Then think in the heat of the moment, won't you hit the arm out of the way and then thrust the chest/ head
Randall Holmes " Academies of Armouries ' (c.1680) probably our first 'encyclopaedia' , is a great source for all things armoury . He explains the each item , its history and provides a picture for heraldic purposes . The cutlass was also known as a 'Cuttoo' . Great name , everyone should call it a cutoo from now on ! The copy I used during the 90s is at the British Library but may now be available on line now . Interesting the number of duels in Middlesex . Hounslow ( sp. 'Hounsloe' or 'Houndsloe' in that period ) had a well established sword industry .
It’s interesting that in the melee the guy with the rapier was the one who was killed by presumably the more cut centric sword. In some ways indicates why cutting was often defaulted to in the chaos of close in multi-combat battles.
Very interesting to hear. Unfortunate that there was no information on minor injuries. It sounded a bit like every encounter ended in just one hit but that is probably just the way the documents are written. I always thought that it would have been quite dangerous to get cut to the hands as well because of infections for example but there seemed to be only fairly few cases where the effects take a long time. I wonder how effective the treatments for wounds were and how it was done.
21:35 -- RE: Form, and Function; excellent analysis in my amateur and audience opinion! I was anticipating the Thigh Wound, but the Belly thing is wickedly instructive. *If* most of the mortal wounds come from blows or thrusts to the head and chest, *of course* most people will keep a high guard.
From my ancient surgical experience ( 50 yrs ago) the death after almost a day from a chest wound suggests a punctured lung and accompanying pneumothorax. " Sucking Wound" ...ultimately fatal...mentioned in a lot of Naval Battle accounts in Napoleonic Wars ( from balls, splinters, edges weapons.) Ambrose Pare', French Surgery great in 1600s, advised his students if they wanted to properly learn the surgical arts, to " go to war" ( at a time when Surgery was classed as a "Trade" rather than a Profession.)
I love the videos when you read primary source accounts like this for us! It's one of the most difficult things, as an amateur enthusiast, to find primary sources, so it's a great service you are doing for the community by compiling these accounts and curating them. I would seriously love it if you published a book that was just this kind of thing with your observations, something like "Scholagladiatoria: A Reader." I would buy several of these for various time periods from before the Norman Invasion up to the Victorian era.
Regarding the issue of what qualifies as a fight stopper, I suspect a lot of the modern discussion is to some extent shaped by gun based thinking. A person needs fairly little capacity to aim and shoot with potentially deadly effect. You're certainly not going to be pulling off a sniper shot with a belly wound, but shooting someone with a pistol who's 2 meters away, you don't need much more than enough strength left to lift the pistol and point it vaguely in the right direction. This kind of thing is what leads to the idea of "stopping power" - the ability to deliver injury so horrific that the victim is *stopped* - ie: dead or very close to it. However, with almost any other kind of weapon, a person needs quite a lot more to actually be a threat. If I've just had a bad cut to my leg, I'm probably not standing in anywhere approaching proper footwork and thus I'm not really going to be able to deliver a competent cut with my sword. I might still be upright if I'm worried about the person giving the coup de grace, but that's not the same as being a real threat. (A thrust might be more of a threat - yes it's clumsy with bad footwork, but if it connects it's still doing about as much damage, whereas if you're flailing about desperately with a sword you're probably not maintaining edge alignment and thus are likely to give a pretty glancing blow unless you get lucky and swing for a spot like the neck where the shoulder and side of the head would kinda steer the edge into alignment.) I could be wrong, of course. The folks who do HEMA and other martial arts are far, far more used to thinking in terms of their fields than I am. But the threat of the gun is all but omnipresent in the world - even in countries that have reasonable gun laws, there's always the possibility that the person attacking you has a gun. (After all the fact that they are, y'know, attacking you probably means that the law doesn't necessarily mean that much to them.) My point is that this seems like it would be a hard bias to set aside.
Something I don't think you emphasize enough is the possibility (probability) that significant cuts to arms and hands would end a fight - without fatality. Cue Monty Python 'But I've cut your arm off!' I doubt anyone would say 'Tis but a scratch.' unless it happened on a battlefield. Second thing I must point out, especially in light of the combat with two Dane Lances, is that in the 15th century every type of sword (or weapon) common PRIOR to that time would be more common than weapons that were new and expensive at that time. Which would suggest that, unless specified, most of the swords mentioned were probably NOT rapiers. Which would explain the dramatic injuries done with a clearly chopping or slashing blow.
For the leg cuts, I think, shock, both in his clinical meaning and as pain+fear+surprise, is a reasonable explanation of "instant" death. For the arms wound, or lack thereof, I find it very expected in a recollection of fatal wounds; outside of the big blood vessels under the armpit or a complete "chop of" they are not so vitals.
I think instant death is a term that varies with use. If someone falls over and proceeds to bleed to death within five minites it maybe considered instant.
I never considered that the poofy sleeves would be a sort of armour even though textile armour was so common in earlier parts of history. It makes me wonder if that was the reason for all the neck doileys and frills on the upper chest. The upper chest would be a lot easier to stick into because of increased resistance compared to an arm that would easily get pushed along with the blade (or across the blade meaning your edge just slides along more and more material).
To comment on the "died instantly" statements; I wouldn't be surprised if "instantly" might be a slight exaggeration compared to what many of us assume when we hear that (as you went on to say), and probably encompass people bleeding out from arterial wounds. I imagine the only truly instantaneous deaths are ones involving significant trauma to specific areas of the brain which can cause instantaneous death and collapse. I'm not even sure if piercing the heart can lead to truly instantaneous deaths. This obviously isn't directly equivalent to people, but when animals like deer get shot through the heart with modern hunting rifles, they can still stay alive for some time. Does anyone know if damage to the heart can lead to truly instantaneous death? I'm wondering if there's some kind of shock reaction
Well, define "instantly". Even a penetrating wound to the brain isn't necessarily 'instant' death, unless to the brain stem area. As for the heart, there are documented instances (police vs. bad guy) where a shotgun wound obliterated the heart , but the victim lived long enough to return fire, in some cases killing the opponent as well. Now this is where we get to the definition of 'instant': a few seconds? under a minute? Collapse, unconsciousness and subsequent death within a few minutes? A thorough knowledge of anatomy is a great advantage in combat situations, it's the knowledge that many martial arts are based upon. Knowing where the major arteries, nerve plexuses, organs, etc. are located gives one a huge advantage. A solid blow to the solar plexus will disable someone immedietely by paralyzing the diaphram. A similar blow to the side of the neck will also pretty much instantly disable an opponent. Severing any major artery will result in death pretty quickly, a minute or so for ascending aorta descending aorta, abdominal aorta, femoral artery, etc. (if not emergently treated). At the time Matt's talking about, some fighters might have had a certain general knowledge of vulnerable anatomy, after all, humans have been killing one another for a long time. The Romans knew that a quick death (for executions) involved driving a gladius downward just behind the left clavicle, severing all the arteries branching from the ascending aorta. Unconsciousness would be essentially instant, death would be perhaps thirty seconds later, or less. (Gee, I could have had a career as an assassin! Opportunity missed!)
During the period, a person who inflicted a wound that killed the victim within a year and a day was held liable, which could make an "instant" death of some considerable duration.
At 3:43 is that a square buckler? For some reason I only ever think of them as round. Have you discussed the pros and cons of various shapes for bucklers, their history and geographic usage?
For the one at 11 minutes, I'd say a spinal injury is also likely to result in immediate paralysis and loss of consciousness from overdilation of blood vessels below the point of the injury could be more or less immediate and while that would be temporary if they survived (the unconsciousness, the paralysis is very permanent) they did just take a sword through the chest so odds aren't great they'd ever wake up.
Remember, on the victims right side there are large organs such as the liver (and to the rear kidneys) with huge blood supply and on the left side in similar position is the spleen of huge blood volume (and to the rear again kidneys)… then centrally in front of the spine there are also huge arteries and veins running vertically, descending aorta, inferior vena cava… if you want to see how quickly one can die from that being punctured look up dissecting aortic aneurysm. Generally a gut wounding is a painfully, protracted death from sepsis or slow exsanguination… but a rapier capable of piercing straight through from front to back has lots of opportunities to deliver rapid death by hitting any of the aforementioned targets.
Well I mean it kind of makes sense that it would be the thorax and head. Limb cuts rely on severing a major vessel and even then, blood loss from an amputated limb isn't guaranteed to be fatal. Hits to the gut or pelvis do cause important damage and might cause infection, but probably aren't fast enough for instant incapacitation. By comparison, there are many directly important mechanism of injury in the head, neck, and thorax that can swiftly lead to death. Damage to the pleural cavity or lung can cause it fill with air or blood making breathing ineffective. Damage to the heart can cause heart failure or enormous blood loss. Damage to the brain can cause organ malfunction, as well as incapacitate by sensory, processing, or motor control problems or fainting, and secondary swelling of the brain or serious blood loss can be fatal as well, and any penetrating injury by a no sterile implement would be very dangerous in the long run due to brain infection being almost guaranteed and almost invariably fatal. Damage to the neck can affect organ function, motor control, airway function, sensory abilities, blood volume, blood pressure in the brain (causing blackout due to oxygen starvation well before lethal blood loss occurs), and of course decapitation, combining all of the above and more for instant death. The relative density of immediately vital organs in these areas is extremely high. Vastly more than in other areas of the body.
In sparring stomach cuts also tend to be tip cuts, so they wouldn't be too deep with a sharp sword. Stomach also does tend to be the deepest target, thighs stick out and are closer to the opponent often times. Got sparring tonight, gonna keep all this in mind and take a tally.
It would be interesting to know about pants and boots of people hit in lower legs. My impression is that unless it is very (un)lucky cut, cutting on lower legs with rapier wouldn't do much damage because such cuts are weaker (experience from sparing), rapier is not great cutter and lather and fabric would diminish damage to body even further. Stab into lower legs would most likely be pure luck.
39:32 I'd say, that the arm is idealy behind the sword, and at least always near it, when you hold it on your hand, at the end of your arm. Quite close to the blade I'd say. Oh, and arms move more quickly.
loved the vid. Could it be that the clothes of the period had more impact on target areas than thought. Particularly the belly and thigh? The padding on trunk hose and a peascod belly could be quite extensive.
I always try to consider the clothing, because in my opinion clothing makes a much bigger difference in these matters than most people recognise. It's surprisingly hard to cut through some types of clothing, though thrusts tend to go through most clothes fairly easily if the sword is designed for it.
the other thing with arm hits, if you're thrusting, it's the smallest target (except maybe the neck) and arms are the easiest part of your body to move out of the way. I also wonder if all the bucklers and parry daggers were doing their job of guarding the arms too.
It does surprise me that the belly wasn't targeted more often. Especially when it comes to knife fighting, the belly is a far better target than the chest. With a rapier, you cannot count on splitting a skull or cleaving the chest wide open, but it can still slice a throat, or make entrails fall out (if the cloth above it can be cut). Obviously, with a rapier, you should primarily thrust, but cuts to the arm and other more situational cuts are still likely. If you want to kill someone with a cutlass, the head and neck will be prime targets and then it's probably the weapon arm, followed by the belly and other limbs. The belly is still an easier target than the legs for the most part and when the opponent defends his head, the belly becomes available.
It seems that in these reports, "Instantly" might well denote any situation where the person perished at the spot of the duel before anything could really be done (which, depending on conditions might well have taken half an hour or more). So, approximately during the duel or immediately after it, probably with the sentiment that the blow decisively ended their life from the immediate damage or exsanguination, rather than a protracted complication (infection etc). It was likely much easier for the officials involved to mark any situation where a fight resulted in someone breathing their last at the location to simply denote their death as "instant" following the blow. For all actual purposes, the relevancy was that the death happened immediately following the fight, and not days later. Not like forensic science in the 1500s is going to exactly pinpoint whether they died then and there or in fifteen minutes following shock and gross bleeding.
It is also plausible that a leg wound, whether leading to dearh or not, puts a person put of the fight. Important muscles, tendons and joints in the area, so a wound can be incapacitating and is certainly painful. Shock and loss in blood pressure may also cause fainting even if the wound is not fatal.
Shock is something else worth considering. Being stabbed or shot is VERY painful, and your brain could be fooled into thinking you've just been killed. There are records of people dying even though they were shot in the foot, because the shock of being injured can be that extreme.
Extremely good and interesting video, as usual, Matt! Could you please return to quoting what the session rolls say about the occupation of the combatants, which is super awesome: i.e., '... on the aforementioned Sunday, near St. Martin-in-the-Fields, Matt Easton (GENTLEMAN) was awaiting Sidney Barber (TAILOR'S APPRENTICE) WITH LADDISH AFORETHOUGHT...' &c. Also: Being now an old geezer, I recall the old "Inspector Morse" series of the '80s and '90s, wherein Inspector Morse (played by John Thaw) once chides his sergeant, Lewis (played by Kevin Whately), for saying that '... death must have been instant...' with a retort that only 'coffee' (he gives some other examples, which I can't remember) could be 'instant', whereas as death could only be described as 'instantaneous'. Apparently, in Shakespearean times, death could be described as being 'instant'.
Oh one other thing Matt, as you mention a cut across the chest, the record said it caused instant death and you surmise it might be perhaps a heart puncture… it could be as you say… but bear in mind the thoracic cavity and the positive pressure therein has the effect of reducing left ventricular afterload and also aids left ventricular ejection. A large slash opening up the lungs, dropping pressure could cause loss of cardiac output, blood pressure crash, loss of consciousness and perhaps death. Never tested it myself 😂 but trauma clinicians might cast light on this as they see more chest injuries than I ever did mostly from car crashes.
Can you imagine if Oklahoma existed in medieval times? "he stepped a quarter inch onto his property, and one John Smith drew his hand and a half sword, giving him 38 cuts to the head, neck, hands, arms, knees, thighs, feet, lowrr back, and chest in self defense, of which he then and there died instantly."
Another great video. I completely agree about the leg attack thing; it seems ludicrous to me that modern HEMA (a bit of a contradiction in terms there) should discount any attack really, certainly those against the leg. All martial arts are subject to this, even in the - sadly defunct in the UK - Practical Pistol shooting, where there was a divergence between the purely competition orientated and those such as bodyguards and Sky Marshalls who did it for a living. Anyway, thanks for the videos and keep up the good work!
This just reminds me of the sword and buckler video versus rapier and dagger video you did a while back. Be cool to see sword and dagger v rapier and dagger. The video Stocatta has on the development of the buckler during the period of basket hilted swords is kinda flipping insane. Some peoplewent through allot to perserve something going out of fashion as viable .
i would say a cut to the torso in some cases can put a man out of action very quickly, a significant cut to the under arm or even the left side of the ribs (where organs like spleen are hard to control bleeding from) you would be surprised what a simple punch to the chest can do in terms of putting someone down i can imagine the hilt of a rapier could do pretty well
In regards to the ‘instant death’ head injury; it’s incredibly difficult to penetrate the thick bone of the forehead via thrust, and certainly a handshake or hammer grip on a sword wouldn’t give the best angle to deliver such a stroke. Definitely a chop/cut with a heavier blade, or a reverse grip stab with a dagger 🤔. A stab through the ‘triangle of death’ is possible, the nasal cavity/turbinates are quite delicate, or through the orbital bones/socket would potentially deliver enough trauma to potentially cause death.
At least based on the gel dummy tests I've seen, you can definitely slice bone off the forehead with a conventional arming sword. At the very least, you can definitely take splinters or "shrapnel" off. Similarly, excavated skeletons from infamous battle sites also show a lot of slice marks on skulls, sometimes cutting through the brain case, but you usually assume halberds and the like, like the case of Richard III which matches the written description of how he fell.
Considering belly wounds. Do the records state whether someone died days or possibly weeks later after such a wound from the results of damage to the intestines causing a fatal infection
Kind of reminds me of the people who say "shoot them in the leg so you don't kill them!"....thing is getting it in the leg seems to be pretty damn fatal if it hits the right bits. The one that confused you Matt about the guy getting hit in the leg and taking a couple hours to croak,maybe a stab that hit the main artery but because of the small hole took longer to bleed out while people tried to stem the flow? Some of the others "above the knee" would help to know the sword,a large cutter and a wack to the inside of the leg above the knee could get that artery.
I have a question about Shields; how does a Medieval Kite Shield compare to the Classical Mediterranean "Crescent Shields" like the ones we see in the movie Troy 2004? It's just a curiosity of mine and I don't know enough about this subject to begin speculating
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Very cool video, love these history ones.
One other bias I could think of is that these accounts are of people in most cases attempting to kill each other and it sounds like a lot of them occurred with just the two participants present (theoretically - though it could be important). Idea being that if you're trying to kill someone, or someone from killing you and give them a disabling wound that wouldn't necessarily be fatal if the wound was treated immediately -- the likelihood is that the person striking the other, because they were trying to kill them, wouldn't make an attempt to save the person. So perhaps a wound to the lower leg or arms that was severe enough to disable the person and cause moderate but not severe bleeding, if the person wasn't assisted, it is still possible they could die from blood loss etc or maybe going into shock if they were unlucky. Could be overthinking this lol. At any rate, again great video.
would a thrust or cut have any likelihood of filling the wound channel with fabric and other clothing material that could contribute to long term infection issues?
"Shock" the body shutting down to loss of blood or similar - also the mental 'shock' of victims hearing 'OH, my god! his leg's cut off!' sending him over the edge. I was an Army medic. There's a lot more on medical 'shock'.
@@johnnyjet3.1412 I understand what you mean, I meant shock from blood loss or the like. But shock probably wasn't the right word for me to use. Thank you for the correction.(sincerely)
@@beepboop204 it certainly can happen with gunshot wounds, and so I would imagine it probably could with deep enough stab wounds.
As a doctor, I'm intrigued by the cut "above the knee" resulting in quick death. There are some arteries immediately above the knee on the front of the thigh but generally I wouldn't think they are big enough to result in rapid exsanguination if severed. The popliteal artery at the back of the knee carries a lot of blood and might bleed fast enough to cause rapid death but that seems like a somewhat unusual place to be stabbed or cut in a fight. Perhaps they were using "above the knee" in a broad sense and the wound actually was in what we would more commonly call the thigh. There's no way to know for sure, but my money would be on terminology rather than anatomy.
Wouldn't a sideways cut to the inner thigh "just above the knee" sever the femoral artery? Picture, from your point of view - the enemy sword sings in from your left, catches your right leg just above the knee, leaving an injury on the left side of the right leg, about a hands width above the knee.
Is it possible that it's just unreliable eyewitness testimony? These people weren't medical experts, and might interpret a person passing out from shock as them dying from a wound. Then death happens later as the wound goes untreated.
As someone whose majority of winning strikes are a "cut above the knee", I can tell you that when executed well a lot of those cuts are hard and deep. I do agree though, that the description is a generally a bit vague, and I would say that the mid thigh could well be considered "above the knee". Even including that caveat though, we're talking capacity to cut to the bone.
One of the major reasons for this is the nature of slashing cuts, in that it is much easier to accelerate a downward slash, especially on the exit. That lets you deliver a fast, powerful whipping blow while disengaging, which leaves both you alive, and your opponent likely unable to pursue.
A cut above the knee the certainly does result in a quick death simply because you go down like a sack of spuds and then get some cold steel elsewhere.
Above the knee on the inside of the thigh and it could cut the Really Big Tube
I'm not sure that 'instantly' would have had quite the same meaning as we understand it today- it's older dictionary definition was 'urgently' or 'quickly'. In this context, it might have just meant that the person died at the scene, rather than being moved someplace else first and dying some time later, like a lot of the other victims described.
My thought also. See, for example, the use of "instant" meaning "the current month" in older usage. "I wrote to you on the 7th instant" meaning, for example, "I wrote to you the 7th of this current month."
I think your assumption that it means "immediately," "in the same place without being taken anywhere else," is well-founded. "Instantly" should probably be taken as "without being moved, within a few minutes."
When they mention 'parlay' or meeting in a field, I think we can assume that's a duel. Also belly or thigh could be groin, I'm not sure if codpieces were a thing in this time or not. It's also possible that belly injuries were rare from lacing or wide leather belts. Some of the 'died instantly' ones could be shock. It's not something you can account for in sparring but especially if you're older and haven't received wounds of any significant sort before shock is a major cause of death, especially in pre-modern conflicts. Just because shock isn't that hard to treat any more and weapons tends to be more lethal. Just some thoughts.
A thrust to the heart would be near enough a quick death similarly a Thrust with a rapier sword to the head going right through would more then likely be enough for that person to be despatched Rightly so "instantly"" still qualifies as would receiving a blow to a unprotected head with a medieval Mace type weapon
Interesting fact during the American civil war wounds to the '''belly"" or stomach area were untreatable it was beyond the surgeon's of that era the ability or understanding of internal surgery the biggest cause of death in the American civil war due to lack of knowledge or understanding of germs or bacteria infection
Interesting during WW1 in the early period of the conflict wounds to the stomach /chest area became untreatable because of post surgery infection so many soldiers died of infection since antibiotics were never around this point that surgeons would not treat them anymore ,instead they would be given ""morphine"" and left to die. it wasn't untill the situation improved due to more effective""" antibacterial wash solutions"" Found by a British biochemistry Henry Darkin who perfected a solution of a sodium mix a antibacterial solution wash to clean out the open wound that killed the most dangerous bacteria, general known as ""gangrene "" and this was the reason why thousands apon thousands of soldiers who were left on the battlefield unable to be carried to a dressing station with survivable wounds quickly enough before the more serious bacterial infection took hold and became untreatable and died of shock and bacteria infection until Henry Darkin arrived and a french military surgeon Alexis Carrel who took this new antibacterial solution and used it open up the wound and irrigate throughy known as the Carrel /Darkin method currently used to this day in battlefield wounds
I'm thinking that we who know things need to learn to "dumb down" to realistic levels.
General civilians know almost nothing at all about medical trauma, general civilians in those days knew barely anything.
I'd guess that their descriptions of 'died instantly' are not judgements based on medical knowledge of today, or of then.
Big cuts can probably give enough of a schock to some persons that they'll crash down and lie still. Actual medical chock will come later.
I think that anyone lying down and being unresponsive would mostly be seen as pretty much dead.
There is also a legal detail that might affect people's medical judgement of the situation, if the victim died instantly, then there was no point in needing to do any pesky lifesaving attempts to put bandages on or such, which might lead to an enemy miraculously surviving.
No, best if you see that he succumbed immediately. So sad.
Fun anecdote about psychological shock, from the book Handgun Stopping Power there was a case described where a bank was robbed, and one guard heard a shot go off, felt a burning sensation in hos belly, and just collapsed down on the floor. Not unconscious, but out of the fight.
When the police cleared it all up and medics looked at the guard's status, it was shown that he wasn't hit.
There is a lot of psychology, expectation and genetic disposition involved in one's reaction to injuries and trauma, and there's a high likelihood that many of the dead ones have a non-survivor bias in their handling of injuries.
For the record, this is pretty much always what "died instantly" means even today. If you hear somebody is shot and died instantly, that's probably not actually meaning they were hit once and just fell over like it was a magic killing curse, it means they were shot *at least* once and died before medical attention could be provided.
I can only speak for myself, but I enjoy the long videos. Lot of interesting points discussed and thoughts made. Thank you for doing these!
Me too
Me too.
I invariably want to know more then what is covered in a 15 min video!
Dido
As long as there isn't a lot repetition it's fine, but quite often the longer videos have a lot of repetition of the initial point that are basically 5 mins of a well edited video stretched to 30 mins.
I used to be an Army Medic and one of the injuries we looked at was for the Popliteal artery which runs just above and behind the knee's , if it gets cut you can bleed out fairly quickly so we were trained to treat like a Femoral artery injury , though the attack would mostly have to be from the side or back of the knee.
Fascinating!
But don't these reports of ''instant death'' seem a bit suspicious? Decapitation or blows to the head and heart may cause an instant death, everything else in the context of a swordfight would take minutes of bleeding out. It seems to me the victim often bled out for considerably longer time than the reports claim, something they must have been aware of but left it out for some reason.
@@kacperwoch4368 being unconscious from shock was often interpreted historically as death.
@@kacperwoch4368 I assume ti's a different meaning of the term. Either 'instant death' means in less than a minute as opposed to in ten or fifteen minutes, since you'd have no way of knowing seconds unless someone had been counting in the middle of a fight, or 'died instantly' doesn't mean 'immediately lost all cardiac function' as it does in a hospital but rather collapsing and being dead soon after is considered much the same thing.
That story around the 18 minute mark, accidental death by sword scabbard to the eye, reminds me of a case I had in a military ER. It was an aircraft antenna to the eye. Poor illumination at night on the tarmac. Reportedly went into the orbit of the eye. Miraculously, he was not severely injured.
Related to 26:00, at the martial arts school I attend, we spent a great deal of time lobbying to _add_ legs as a valid target to our soft weapons practice on the grounds that, if it were a battlefield situation, someone would absolutely cut your legs off, and you had better learn to defend against losing those legs.
Out of curiosity which martial arts style do your practice?
Hell, just if you piss a hiker off in the middle of the wood you could have someone break your calves. The blade bit just makes it easier to do damage with a polearm, the pole can still mess someone up.
@@sleep-of-ages Chen taijiquan (new frame 83 form), and a bit of competition form wushu. Sanda, briefly, but that was subject to scheduling issues on my part.
Very interesting. Especially your comments about leg wounds. A few years back while working overseas I witnessed a man die from a deliberate spear wound to his upper thigh, causing him to bleed out and die in less than 10 minutes even with him immediately receiving the full range of advanced first aid techniques, tourniquet, haemostatic agents etc. The point here is that bleeding from a severed femoral artery can prove almost impossible to staunch.
I must admit your anecdote raised my curiosity: how does the scenario of being stabbed with a spear in the XXI century arise? (I don't mean this in a morbid way, no need for details as I'm sure the experience was horrific enough)
This still happens as a traditional punishment in some communities in central Australia.
@@mrfitz96 thank you
@@mrfitz96 So he got stabbed as punishment and then immediately treated for the stab wound?
WTF?
@@urosmarjanovic663 He didn't say it was a judicial punishment, but a traditional one. Given it was Australia, I'm going to guess it was not legal but something more like you'd see in a blood-feud type situation.
19:00 My mommy always said "It's all fun and games until someone loses an eye!" On another point, I think they specify often "fore" and "front" to indicate that the guy was facing his foe and not running away and getting stabbed in the back which would perhaps be perfidious and not self defense (or something Elizabethan like that).
A factor to remember in leg wounds is that a major fracture to a long bone will cause profuse bleeding. People tend to forget that bones are well supplied with blood (it's where your blood gets made, ya know?) and a complete fracture (as opposed to a 'crack') will cause serious issues with bleeding. Bleeding into the muscle dompartment (your muscles are all sheathed in a special tissue that keeps the muscles in place and is necessary for function) can cause 'compartment syndrome' where the pressure builds up inside this sheathing, the pressure cuts off blood supply and in a few hours your nickname become 'Stumpy'. Not an 'instant' fatal wound, but let's face it, you don't want to get stabbed .
First off, thanks for your videos, really interesting as always. Just to relate a personal experience that is related to your video.
Back in the early 2000's in Perth Western Australia I was sending off my friend Jeff for his bucks night. The party had just left one establishment and saw an altercation between two gents. One guy stabbed the other in the upper inner thigh near the groin and he dropped instantly to the ground.
In the time it took us to run across the road there was a stream of blood that had travelled about two metres to a drain. I applied pressure to the wound and shortly after the gent regained consciousness. I spent the next 15 minutes until the ambulance and paramedics arrived keeping up the pressure and talking to him as he drifted in and out of consciousness. Thank god or the people who created it for modern medicine.
Trauma to an artery can cause someone to fall instantly.
More videos like this please! I love it when you actually bring in 1st hand accounts and other historical accounts into your videos.
The number of fatal wounds to the left leg are interesting. Perhaps it is the stance leaving the inner part of the left thigh more open to a thrust, whereas the artery on the right leg is shielded to some extent by the muscle.
I used to do HEMA with the NFPS back in the 1980s. I'm a short bloke, not particularly strong, but wiry and fast (well, i used to be, I'm 68 now). Fighting with a relatively short sword and small shield, I took on a much bigger opponent armed with heavy sword and a big shield. I struck repeatedly at his arms and legs and only lost because he ignored the blows and knocked me down with sheer strength. A friend took a video (rare in those days), and many agreed that my opponent would have died from blood loss. Watching the video, I couldn't believe how fast I was. It was watching a terrier fighting a bear. No wonder I was knackered afterwards!
Still just holding out until "of which he then and there died instantly" becomes a meme on this channel.
I just know that someone will go for the low hanging fruit and combine this with a pommel joke :)
Someone like me x)
I think something that might be interesting is test cutting and thrusting through various common historical clothing materials (and thicknesses of materials) like wool cotton gambison etc.
In these times I imagine it was basically impossible to treat a wound that went through or past the ribs since the ribcage prevents easy access. They could maybe get to a wound close to the top or bottom of the ribcage, by lifting the ribs away, but I don’t want to imagine the pain of the patient.
We can see such a wound in the movie „master and commander“. Here the doctor was hit by a muscet by accident and he operates on himself and his assistant has to raise a rib so he could reach underneath.
We also have to consider that the blades and firearms sometimes carried fabrics of the penetrated clothing into the wound, where it would further increase the risk of inflammation and infection.
Something the movie also shows when they compare the fabric taken from the wound with the hole in the shirt to confirm if there is fabric left in the wound.
As an aside, its suprizingly easy to pierce the front of the face into the skull. I sadly saw this happen when a man tripped and ended up spiked with a piece of rebar (maybe not rebar but something like that) and the poor man was basically dead on the spot. I could easily imagine a sword going right through. :(
I am writing this for follow up readers and estimating the force involved, Im not minimizing the horror of the accident nor do I mean and insult to you. There was more energy in this accident than one might think, even a guy of 6' or ~2m and 220lbs/100kg will fall at 9.8m/second/second, and from 6ft there is about .7 seconds of freefall. Force is mass times acceleration 100kg*(9.8*.7). His head hit that spike with almost 700 Nm or 500ft/lbs of force. Given that many cars can be moved by less, we can see that though a seemingly minor fall his skull was propelled quite hard onto the object. Our skulls are amazingly resistant to heavy slow impacts, but not great at resisting punctures. The area behind eyes and nose is more vulnerable to perforation as you note as well, but that would be enough force to penetrate the skull anywhere if hitting head on, sadly a glancing blow would have needed only staples.
To add to that blades work by having an extremely small surface area that creates a localized shear force. This is the reason you pull a blade on a giving surface to cut. Since the surface gives downward force is lessened. Pull the cut and the surface will have force to push against from as second axis. Once a structure is compromised it becomes easier for the rest of a blade to begin breaking through. Green one isn't that hard and you get a lot of force with a lunge.
You are severely overestimating the energy involved. To get to that kind of impact the body would have to be completely rigid and you would have to throw the whole body from a 2m high platform with is center of gravity straight behind the impact point. Due to the body's flexibility modeling the head falling alone is much closer to reality than what you did. So a 5 kg head from 2 m yields 100Nm of impact energy (E = m x g x h), which is still plenty to Pierce the skull. Also your math is of. 100 kg from 2m yields 2000Nm, not 700Nm.
@@marcelmuller8166 I have to disagree. @Marcel Müller I have to disagree, a flail head on a rope or chain which is flexible, or a human arm with a tool can both strike as hard as a rigid bar if the accelerate at a similar rate. The deceased was walking and tripped, which would produce a significant torque, though I left out sonme additional components that could generate force. You can't get anywhere pretending it would be similar to dropping a detached head, but perhaps the whole body's mass isn't accelerating for the entire .7 sec. I could agree to cutting the mass by 60% to account for the reduction as the lower body comes to rest. Most importantly, you are arbitrarily assuming a full second of freefall, when I used 6ft (1.8m) yet only included the metric values so all could follow along. I'm not sure where you're getting 2000, I think you're calculating for kinetic energy not simple force which is F=M*A not M*A²=KE.
@@warpdriveby That depends on the exact mechanism of the fall. If you just go limp and fall there is no whip action, just like holding a flail over a surface and letting go. If you trip and fall there is still no whipping action like moving a flail perpendicular to the ground and letting go. To get a whipping action you need to move at significant speed AND the foot needs to stay attached to the tripping point, which is unlikely but possible. In this case impact energy of the head depends on a lot of factors. Without whip effect my approximation is way better than yours but is of course still an approximation.
Regarding the calculation I used a little trick: I calculated gravitational potential energy which is mass times acceleration (i.e. force as you state correctly) TIMES DISTANCE (E=m x g x h). In a fall gravitational potential energy gets almost entirely converted into kinetic energy.
Kinetic energy directly is half mass times velocity squared (E = 1/2 m x v^2), which is probably what you wanted to do. But since you do not know velocity you can not use it directly and since velocity depends on acceleration time and acceleration time depends on velocity you would get a rather nasty differential equation which is beyond my and also probably your math pay grade. The 2000J or Nm is just E = m x g x h so E = 100kg x 10m/s^2 x 2m = 2000 Nm = 2000J
I appreciate that you mentioned how common of a target the face and head were in earlier times! Many people today don't realize this.
I've heard "in the common way," within other old writings about swordplay before. I believe it means "as untrained" or "skilless/amateur" styles. Like how street fights with opponents often devolves to wild sluging
As far as I recall from Silver-reading "longsword" at this time meant rapier (as did "rapier").
Love these somewhat deeper dives into historical sources 🤩
I have noticed from your reading of official court records that they claim to the person died instantly. It seems that unless the deceased person was able to keep moving and talking, they died instantly. It is likely equivalent to reports claiming that they were pronounced dead after arriving at the hospital. It is not that they didn't die until they got to the hospital. It is just that they can't be legally pronounced dead until they are examined by a doctor at the hospital.
I think old single stick allowed leg attacks but later period was head only. Silver wentions "Woodknives" along with Hangers, Falchions, Skaines and Daggers along with the imperfect short weapons section of Paradoxes.
11:59 'in the common way': This doesn't mean 'in the usual manner' but 'in the public street' (the 'common' thoroughfare, or the square, or anywhere else that the public was allowed to pass through). So it's about location, not the manner of fighting. It's explicitly legal terminology here, because specific laws apply to behaviour in private vs public land; but it was also used in common parlance for England (and countries subject to her laws) right up frmo the middle ages through the 19th century. - cf 'in the common street' in some of the other accounts. (And just having listened through to the rest of the vid, it's fascinating how careful all these accounts are to specify location: not just 'near this landmark' but also making clear issues of land ownership and legal status.)
I'd also suggest that 'of which he died immediately' doesn't necessarily mean what we'd call immediately today, or even swooned immediately: it might just be 'died within an hour or so as a direct result of this injury' and was therefore legally considered to be an immediate result of the wound, rather than a death from later complications.
also at 13:00 - 'came upon the said James with malice afterthought' - does that really say afterthought? or is it 'malice aforethought'? I've only ever heard the latter but I'd be fascinated to hear its opposite was actually a legal charge/defence! Basically 'non-premeditated'...
On the cases where leg wound above the knee caused 'immediate death then and there', it's probable that the receivers went into a shock due to pain and fainted (syncope), never to rise again due to serious blood loss and for no one to render first aid to them immediately.
The blows to the left side of the chest are may be plain and simply the result of "finishing off" an opponent who is already subdued by previous blows.
I remember my old fencing trainer who told me about a fencing master who won all his fights by attacking his enemies legs (and feets), which are still valid targets in olympic epee fencing.
I think another reason that an arm wound is less likely to be fatal is that is less likely to prevent disengagement. A head or chest wound is likely to be immediately fatal, a leg wound is likely to be immediately fatal or just disabling ones' mobility, allowing a fatal blow to be delivered, but an arm wound, the person can still escape to seek medical treatment.
I really like hearing the stories, not long-winded at all, imo.
Wow, this is really starting to make me think that swords are pretty dangerous!
I saw some comments without context claiming swords are useless etc... Well, I assume dead man don't refute.
Don't worry. Everyone knows that swords are less dangerous than pens and nobody has ever gotten hurt by a pen.
@@MarcRitzMD I would have to disagree with your second assertion.
Swords are only not dangerous when you have armor
@@MarcRitzMD the joker killed a guy with a pencil…
These sources are just amazing, telling us so much about these altercations. I love the idea of some of these fights being between a bloke with a spear and the other with sword and buckler! Amazing stuff.
I really dig these videos... interesting to know if they would actually account for grappling while fighting? Or do they just kind of wrap it all up into just "fighting?"
Never apologize for these longer videos being "long winded" I found this video very interesting and I thank you for it
Also I think a lot of these "died Instantly" accounts were rapid drops in blood pressure resulting in unconsciousness, they in my opinion likely died minutes later, but with the knowledge of the time were considered "dead" when they fell unconscious
" 'tis not so deep as a well, nor so wide as a church-door, but 'tis enough, 'twill serve. Ask for me to-morrow, and you shall find me a grave man"
Hi Matt! great videos as always. From a legal point of view, I think it would be interesting to know what was the meaning of "died then and there instantly", because it either may not mean what it literally means (welcome to legal language) or it may be a result from the legal practice back then. I'm a lawyer, not a doctor, but it seems hard to believe that some of those injuries resulted in instant death.
agreed: I'm a medieval historian who mostly works on language rather than the physical objects and behaviour that Matt's looking at, and the phrasing struck me as something that probably means 'died within the space of time that we can class as immediately resulting from that wound rather than' ... rather than whatever the alternative might be in contemporary legal terminology. Whatever space of time allows for plausible deniability of the 'oh they should have treated that wound better and then he'd still be alive' variety.
It could be that the term “above the knee” was used to indicate the upper leg rather than lower in general. If that is the case them the femoral arteries are still the possible wound site.
@~30:00 I had the same reaction to leg wounds lateral of the femur or distal to mid thigh "how did those kill in minutes?" Without modern surgical treatments or antibiotics they could certainly be fatal in hours or days, or leave one vulnerable to a coup de grace, but "instantly" feels off. I'm thinking it means the fight ended immediately at that point, or consciousness was lost perhaps?
When evaluating wounds as a martial artist, it needs to be kept in mind that you can only rely on the mechanical/physiological effects. To give an example, most rule-sets assume a stab wound to the lung will cause near-instant incapacitation, but in truth, it takes several seconds for lung damage to notably reduce a combatant's physical capabilities and possibly several minutes to render them incapable of posing a threat. If you're facing an opponent determined/intoxicated enough, they'll fight through the pain and shock for a good long time.
Thus, a more realistic approach to simulating combat wounds would be to add an element of chance to afterblow periods (eg, judges secretly rolling dice before each round to determine how long the afterblow period will last), with wound-related handicaps during those periods (eg, injury to the leg requires the fencer to keep both feet on the floor at all times). More irritating, too, I'm sure, although maybe not for the spectators. 😉
I suspect another reason for belly wounds rarely being named as a cause of death is that even a lethal belly wound might not end the fight. If the one with the lethal belly wound killed the other, it was unlikely to make it to a trial, and, if the one with the belly wound received a more quickly lethal wound, that other wound would be named as the cause of death.
Might "above the knee" simply mean 'thigh', with the leg being seen as two parts, "below the knee and above the foot" and "above the knee and below the hip", the second specifier being unnecessary once it's clear that the wound is in the leg? If so, that would explain how wounds "above the knee" could be "instantly lethal". The large femoral artery is a huge blood vessel, with high pressure. There's a smaller femoral artery on the outside of the thigh, btw, which will also bleed profusely, explaining why it would be hard to staunch, and, if not staunched, lethal in a matter of minutes rather than hours.
As regards instantly fatal leg wounds I wonder if shock could be a contributory factor?
And adrenaline
I absolutely love these and am glad you're still doing them. As long as you continue to I will always watch them they're among my favorite content on here I think it's absolutely fascinating to hear the period accounts. And your long videos are your best content in general anyway I love the feature length ones. I know it's a lot of work but keep it up we all appreciate it
I'm with some of the others, Shakespearean English was not quite modern English & the words "instantly" & "immediately" (more-so the former) were used to mean "quickly", "soon" or "shortly thereafter", which I would suggest is the context in which they were used in these reports. So, when someone "died instantly" he probably died within a few minutes of receiving the injury, rather than dropped dead on the spot. So, the "thrust beneath the ribs of the left side" which killed the victim "instantly" may have ruptured the abdomen, pierced the diaphragm & entered the lungs of the victim causing a severe haemopneumothorax which may have rendered the victim unconscious in a couple of minutes & killed him within ten, or it may have nicked the aorta, the inferior vena cava, or the left pulmonary vein/artery, all of which could kill quickly but, in most cases, not immediately (in the modern sense). Of course coming up from below the left ribs it may have pierced his heart & that would be, pretty much, instantaneous death.
Clear lesson here: if you have a reach advantage, go for the leg.
Also, with the pike stab 2 hour death, the stab may have mostly crushed the artery, delaying bleed out.
My god why would you fight someone with a longer weapon voluntarily.
For an arm wound to be guaranteed fatal. The brachial artery on the inside of the arm needs to be severed between the armpit and the elbow. If the brachial artery is severed on someone's left arm, they will lose a fatal amount of blood within 15-35 seconds. If severed on the right arm, it could take up to 90 seconds for someone to lose the same fatal volume of blood. A fatal arm wound might be less common due to the inside of the someone's arm naturally being protected by their body. As well as it not being very exposed in the common fighting styles.
I think that last point where multiple injuries could have occurred, though only the mortal injuries were recorded is very valuable to consider. Look at some medieval battles and see that skeletal records show a lot of extremity damage in concurrence with head and torso damage. Then think in the heat of the moment, won't you hit the arm out of the way and then thrust the chest/ head
Randall Holmes " Academies of Armouries ' (c.1680) probably our first 'encyclopaedia' , is a great source for all things armoury . He explains the each item , its history and provides a picture for heraldic purposes . The cutlass was also known as a 'Cuttoo' . Great name , everyone should call it a cutoo from now on ! The copy I used during the 90s is at the British Library but may now be available on line now .
Interesting the number of duels in Middlesex . Hounslow ( sp. 'Hounsloe' or 'Houndsloe' in that period ) had a well established sword industry .
It’s interesting that in the melee the guy with the rapier was the one who was killed by presumably the more cut centric sword. In some ways indicates why cutting was often defaulted to in the chaos of close in multi-combat battles.
Very interesting to hear. Unfortunate that there was no information on minor injuries. It sounded a bit like every encounter ended in just one hit but that is probably just the way the documents are written. I always thought that it would have been quite dangerous to get cut to the hands as well because of infections for example but there seemed to be only fairly few cases where the effects take a long time. I wonder how effective the treatments for wounds were and how it was done.
Go back to the Odyssey and Iliad wounds to the left breast, and especially the nipple were lethal. The old greeks did great work with rocks also.
Note that King Lear makes reference to his "Quick-biting falchion".
21:35 -- RE: Form, and Function; excellent analysis in my amateur and audience opinion! I was anticipating the Thigh Wound, but the Belly thing is wickedly instructive. *If* most of the mortal wounds come from blows or thrusts to the head and chest, *of course* most people will keep a high guard.
From my ancient surgical experience ( 50 yrs ago) the death after almost a day from a chest wound suggests a punctured lung and accompanying pneumothorax. " Sucking Wound" ...ultimately fatal...mentioned in a lot of Naval Battle accounts in Napoleonic Wars ( from balls, splinters, edges weapons.)
Ambrose Pare', French Surgery great in 1600s, advised his students if they wanted to properly learn the surgical arts, to " go to war"
( at a time when Surgery was classed as a "Trade" rather than a Profession.)
I love the videos when you read primary source accounts like this for us! It's one of the most difficult things, as an amateur enthusiast, to find primary sources, so it's a great service you are doing for the community by compiling these accounts and curating them. I would seriously love it if you published a book that was just this kind of thing with your observations, something like "Scholagladiatoria: A Reader." I would buy several of these for various time periods from before the Norman Invasion up to the Victorian era.
Regarding the issue of what qualifies as a fight stopper, I suspect a lot of the modern discussion is to some extent shaped by gun based thinking. A person needs fairly little capacity to aim and shoot with potentially deadly effect. You're certainly not going to be pulling off a sniper shot with a belly wound, but shooting someone with a pistol who's 2 meters away, you don't need much more than enough strength left to lift the pistol and point it vaguely in the right direction.
This kind of thing is what leads to the idea of "stopping power" - the ability to deliver injury so horrific that the victim is *stopped* - ie: dead or very close to it. However, with almost any other kind of weapon, a person needs quite a lot more to actually be a threat. If I've just had a bad cut to my leg, I'm probably not standing in anywhere approaching proper footwork and thus I'm not really going to be able to deliver a competent cut with my sword. I might still be upright if I'm worried about the person giving the coup de grace, but that's not the same as being a real threat.
(A thrust might be more of a threat - yes it's clumsy with bad footwork, but if it connects it's still doing about as much damage, whereas if you're flailing about desperately with a sword you're probably not maintaining edge alignment and thus are likely to give a pretty glancing blow unless you get lucky and swing for a spot like the neck where the shoulder and side of the head would kinda steer the edge into alignment.)
I could be wrong, of course. The folks who do HEMA and other martial arts are far, far more used to thinking in terms of their fields than I am. But the threat of the gun is all but omnipresent in the world - even in countries that have reasonable gun laws, there's always the possibility that the person attacking you has a gun. (After all the fact that they are, y'know, attacking you probably means that the law doesn't necessarily mean that much to them.) My point is that this seems like it would be a hard bias to set aside.
Something I don't think you emphasize enough is the possibility (probability) that significant cuts to arms and hands would end a fight - without fatality. Cue Monty Python 'But I've cut your arm off!' I doubt anyone would say 'Tis but a scratch.' unless it happened on a battlefield.
Second thing I must point out, especially in light of the combat with two Dane Lances, is that in the 15th century every type of sword (or weapon) common PRIOR to that time would be more common than weapons that were new and expensive at that time. Which would suggest that, unless specified, most of the swords mentioned were probably NOT rapiers. Which would explain the dramatic injuries done with a clearly chopping or slashing blow.
For the leg cuts, I think, shock, both in his clinical meaning and as pain+fear+surprise, is a reasonable explanation of "instant" death.
For the arms wound, or lack thereof, I find it very expected in a recollection of fatal wounds; outside of the big blood vessels under the armpit or a complete "chop of" they are not so vitals.
I think instant death is a term that varies with use. If someone falls over and proceeds to bleed to death within five minites it maybe considered instant.
I never considered that the poofy sleeves would be a sort of armour even though textile armour was so common in earlier parts of history. It makes me wonder if that was the reason for all the neck doileys and frills on the upper chest. The upper chest would be a lot easier to stick into because of increased resistance compared to an arm that would easily get pushed along with the blade (or across the blade meaning your edge just slides along more and more material).
To comment on the "died instantly" statements; I wouldn't be surprised if "instantly" might be a slight exaggeration compared to what many of us assume when we hear that (as you went on to say), and probably encompass people bleeding out from arterial wounds. I imagine the only truly instantaneous deaths are ones involving significant trauma to specific areas of the brain which can cause instantaneous death and collapse. I'm not even sure if piercing the heart can lead to truly instantaneous deaths. This obviously isn't directly equivalent to people, but when animals like deer get shot through the heart with modern hunting rifles, they can still stay alive for some time. Does anyone know if damage to the heart can lead to truly instantaneous death? I'm wondering if there's some kind of shock reaction
Well, define "instantly". Even a penetrating wound to the brain isn't necessarily 'instant' death, unless to the brain stem area. As for the heart, there are documented instances (police vs. bad guy) where a shotgun wound obliterated the heart , but the victim lived long enough to return fire, in some cases killing the opponent as well. Now this is where we get to the definition of 'instant': a few seconds? under a minute? Collapse, unconsciousness and subsequent death within a few minutes? A thorough knowledge of anatomy is a great advantage in combat situations, it's the knowledge that many martial arts are based upon. Knowing where the major arteries, nerve plexuses, organs, etc. are located gives one a huge advantage. A solid blow to the solar plexus will disable someone immedietely by paralyzing the diaphram. A similar blow to the side of the neck will also pretty much instantly disable an opponent. Severing any major artery will result in death pretty quickly, a minute or so for ascending aorta descending aorta, abdominal aorta, femoral artery, etc. (if not emergently treated). At the time Matt's talking about, some fighters might have had a certain general knowledge of vulnerable anatomy, after all, humans have been killing one another for a long time. The Romans knew that a quick death (for executions) involved driving a gladius downward just behind the left clavicle, severing all the arteries branching from the ascending aorta. Unconsciousness would be essentially instant, death would be perhaps thirty seconds later, or less. (Gee, I could have had a career as an assassin! Opportunity missed!)
During the period, a person who inflicted a wound that killed the victim within a year and a day was held liable, which could make an "instant" death of some considerable duration.
At 3:43 is that a square buckler? For some reason I only ever think of them as round. Have you discussed the pros and cons of various shapes for bucklers, their history and geographic usage?
For the one at 11 minutes, I'd say a spinal injury is also likely to result in immediate paralysis and loss of consciousness from overdilation of blood vessels below the point of the injury could be more or less immediate and while that would be temporary if they survived (the unconsciousness, the paralysis is very permanent) they did just take a sword through the chest so odds aren't great they'd ever wake up.
Remember, on the victims right side there are large organs such as the liver (and to the rear kidneys) with huge blood supply and on the left side in similar position is the spleen of huge blood volume (and to the rear again kidneys)… then centrally in front of the spine there are also huge arteries and veins running vertically, descending aorta, inferior vena cava… if you want to see how quickly one can die from that being punctured look up dissecting aortic aneurysm.
Generally a gut wounding is a painfully, protracted death from sepsis or slow exsanguination… but a rapier capable of piercing straight through from front to back has lots of opportunities to deliver rapid death by hitting any of the aforementioned targets.
Well I mean it kind of makes sense that it would be the thorax and head. Limb cuts rely on severing a major vessel and even then, blood loss from an amputated limb isn't guaranteed to be fatal. Hits to the gut or pelvis do cause important damage and might cause infection, but probably aren't fast enough for instant incapacitation.
By comparison, there are many directly important mechanism of injury in the head, neck, and thorax that can swiftly lead to death. Damage to the pleural cavity or lung can cause it fill with air or blood making breathing ineffective. Damage to the heart can cause heart failure or enormous blood loss. Damage to the brain can cause organ malfunction, as well as incapacitate by sensory, processing, or motor control problems or fainting, and secondary swelling of the brain or serious blood loss can be fatal as well, and any penetrating injury by a no sterile implement would be very dangerous in the long run due to brain infection being almost guaranteed and almost invariably fatal. Damage to the neck can affect organ function, motor control, airway function, sensory abilities, blood volume, blood pressure in the brain (causing blackout due to oxygen starvation well before lethal blood loss occurs), and of course decapitation, combining all of the above and more for instant death.
The relative density of immediately vital organs in these areas is extremely high. Vastly more than in other areas of the body.
Not long-winded at all! These are great videos, love the source material, so please keep them coming!
The real question is, is there a sword wound that makes me immortal?
Yes
Up the bum.
@@zoiders Thjat is good advice, I'm going to try that. Unfortunately, this comment was too impolite for RUclips
@@m0-m0597 not immortal, but there does exist a sword wound that’ll prolong your life…the one in the other guy!
😜
In sparring stomach cuts also tend to be tip cuts, so they wouldn't be too deep with a sharp sword. Stomach also does tend to be the deepest target, thighs stick out and are closer to the opponent often times. Got sparring tonight, gonna keep all this in mind and take a tally.
Do you actually practice HEMA? Cause thats actually the opposite of the truth in a lot of HEMA fencing styles.
It would be interesting to know about pants and boots of people hit in lower legs. My impression is that unless it is very (un)lucky cut, cutting on lower legs with rapier wouldn't do much damage because such cuts are weaker (experience from sparing), rapier is not great cutter and lather and fabric would diminish damage to body even further. Stab into lower legs would most likely be pure luck.
39:32 I'd say, that the arm is idealy behind the sword, and at least always near it, when you hold it on your hand, at the end of your arm. Quite close to the blade I'd say.
Oh, and arms move more quickly.
loved the vid. Could it be that the clothes of the period had more impact on target areas than thought. Particularly the belly and thigh? The padding on trunk hose and a peascod belly could be quite extensive.
I always try to consider the clothing, because in my opinion clothing makes a much bigger difference in these matters than most people recognise. It's surprisingly hard to cut through some types of clothing, though thrusts tend to go through most clothes fairly easily if the sword is designed for it.
@@scholagladiatoria : Even todays bullet protection vests weared under usual cloth can be penetrated sometimes by pointy and narrow blades.
the other thing with arm hits, if you're thrusting, it's the smallest target (except maybe the neck) and arms are the easiest part of your body to move out of the way. I also wonder if all the bucklers and parry daggers were doing their job of guarding the arms too.
I love these historical accounts t
So much. The juxtaposition between topic and delivery by old-time vebage kinda brings a humorous tone
It does surprise me that the belly wasn't targeted more often. Especially when it comes to knife fighting, the belly is a far better target than the chest. With a rapier, you cannot count on splitting a skull or cleaving the chest wide open, but it can still slice a throat, or make entrails fall out (if the cloth above it can be cut). Obviously, with a rapier, you should primarily thrust, but cuts to the arm and other more situational cuts are still likely. If you want to kill someone with a cutlass, the head and neck will be prime targets and then it's probably the weapon arm, followed by the belly and other limbs. The belly is still an easier target than the legs for the most part and when the opponent defends his head, the belly becomes available.
It seems that in these reports, "Instantly" might well denote any situation where the person perished at the spot of the duel before anything could really be done (which, depending on conditions might well have taken half an hour or more). So, approximately during the duel or immediately after it, probably with the sentiment that the blow decisively ended their life from the immediate damage or exsanguination, rather than a protracted complication (infection etc).
It was likely much easier for the officials involved to mark any situation where a fight resulted in someone breathing their last at the location to simply denote their death as "instant" following the blow. For all actual purposes, the relevancy was that the death happened immediately following the fight, and not days later. Not like forensic science in the 1500s is going to exactly pinpoint whether they died then and there or in fifteen minutes following shock and gross bleeding.
It is also plausible that a leg wound, whether leading to dearh or not, puts a person put of the fight. Important muscles, tendons and joints in the area, so a wound can be incapacitating and is certainly painful. Shock and loss in blood pressure may also cause fainting even if the wound is not fatal.
Shock is something else worth considering. Being stabbed or shot is VERY painful, and your brain could be fooled into thinking you've just been killed. There are records of people dying even though they were shot in the foot, because the shock of being injured can be that extreme.
Extremely good and interesting video, as usual, Matt! Could you please return to quoting what the session rolls say about the occupation of the combatants, which is super awesome: i.e., '... on the aforementioned Sunday, near St. Martin-in-the-Fields, Matt Easton (GENTLEMAN) was awaiting Sidney Barber (TAILOR'S APPRENTICE) WITH LADDISH AFORETHOUGHT...' &c.
Also: Being now an old geezer, I recall the old "Inspector Morse" series of the '80s and '90s, wherein Inspector Morse (played by John Thaw) once chides his sergeant, Lewis (played by Kevin Whately), for saying that '... death must have been instant...' with a retort that only 'coffee' (he gives some other examples, which I can't remember) could be 'instant', whereas as death could only be described as 'instantaneous'. Apparently, in Shakespearean times, death could be described as being 'instant'.
Oh one other thing Matt, as you mention a cut across the chest, the record said it caused instant death and you surmise it might be perhaps a heart puncture… it could be as you say… but bear in mind the thoracic cavity and the positive pressure therein has the effect of reducing left ventricular afterload and also aids left ventricular ejection. A large slash opening up the lungs, dropping pressure could cause loss of cardiac output, blood pressure crash, loss of consciousness and perhaps death.
Never tested it myself 😂 but trauma clinicians might cast light on this as they see more chest injuries than I ever did mostly from car crashes.
Maybe sometimes the neck is included in "head"? Maybe head can mean face, forehead, skull, neck or throat?
Can you imagine if Oklahoma existed in medieval times?
"he stepped a quarter inch onto his property, and one John Smith drew his hand and a half sword, giving him 38 cuts to the head, neck, hands, arms, knees, thighs, feet, lowrr back, and chest in self defense, of which he then and there died instantly."
What I learned today. Trying to murder people is dangerous
ayo 🤨📸
yeah most people seem to be pretty against being murdered
Another great video. I completely agree about the leg attack thing; it seems ludicrous to me that modern HEMA (a bit of a contradiction in terms there) should discount any attack really, certainly those against the leg. All martial arts are subject to this, even in the - sadly defunct in the UK - Practical Pistol shooting, where there was a divergence between the purely competition orientated and those such as bodyguards and Sky Marshalls who did it for a living. Anyway, thanks for the videos and keep up the good work!
This just reminds me of the sword and buckler video versus rapier and dagger video you did a while back. Be cool to see sword and dagger v rapier and dagger. The video Stocatta has on the development of the buckler during the period of basket hilted swords is kinda flipping insane. Some peoplewent through allot to perserve something going out of fashion as viable .
Speaking of death in the early 1600s (and Late 1500s), have you come across any using wheel locks or (once you get far enough) flintlocks yet?
Not in civilian situations, no. At this time it is predominantly hand weapons.
How did they stop bleeding in the field from amputations?
I'm a simple man:
I see a long duration video by Matt - I click
When I was a police officer we still had common law affray on the books and did charge it in cases of mutual combat.
i would say a cut to the torso in some cases can put a man out of action very quickly, a significant cut to the under arm or even the left side of the ribs (where organs like spleen are hard to control bleeding from) you would be surprised what a simple punch to the chest can do in terms of putting someone down i can imagine the hilt of a rapier could do pretty well
In regards to the ‘instant death’ head injury; it’s incredibly difficult to penetrate the thick bone of the forehead via thrust, and certainly a handshake or hammer grip on a sword wouldn’t give the best angle to deliver such a stroke. Definitely a chop/cut with a heavier blade, or a reverse grip stab with a dagger 🤔. A stab through the ‘triangle of death’ is possible, the nasal cavity/turbinates are quite delicate, or through the orbital bones/socket would potentially deliver enough trauma to potentially cause death.
At least based on the gel dummy tests I've seen, you can definitely slice bone off the forehead with a conventional arming sword. At the very least, you can definitely take splinters or "shrapnel" off. Similarly, excavated skeletons from infamous battle sites also show a lot of slice marks on skulls, sometimes cutting through the brain case, but you usually assume halberds and the like, like the case of Richard III which matches the written description of how he fell.
Battle of Visby, between a Danish army against Gotland commoners, there were a lot of leg wounds on the remains of the losing commoners.
it is somewhat implied that many were mutilated after they were felled , apparently one had both of his legs cut off with a single sword slash
This is amazing. Please more of these. You should write a book on this topic
I like this historic info. Don't stop doing your other types of videos though!
Considering belly wounds. Do the records state whether someone died days or possibly weeks later after such a wound from the results of damage to the intestines causing a fatal infection
Whats the sword in your hand at 3:32 ? I like it
Kind of reminds me of the people who say "shoot them in the leg so you don't kill them!"....thing is getting it in the leg seems to be pretty damn fatal if it hits the right bits.
The one that confused you Matt about the guy getting hit in the leg and taking a couple hours to croak,maybe a stab that hit the main artery but because of the small hole took longer to bleed out while people tried to stem the flow? Some of the others "above the knee" would help to know the sword,a large cutter and a wack to the inside of the leg above the knee could get that artery.
Shout out to the fella using two pointy sticks and won the duel! The definition of a main character
Very interesting data. I use what I learn in my heroic fantasy stories
I enjoy most of what you do, but this type of video is my favorite.
I have a question about Shields; how does a Medieval Kite Shield compare to the Classical Mediterranean "Crescent Shields" like the ones we see in the movie Troy 2004?
It's just a curiosity of mine and I don't know enough about this subject to begin speculating
This is a very interesting analysis of the subject matter