Medieval transport - the beginners' guide
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- Опубликовано: 23 ноя 2020
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Carts! Waggons! Boats! I drone on about land and water transport (or 'transportation' as my American cousins would say) for an hour or so.
Support me on Patreon: / lindybeige
Picture credits:
Barrel image
By Gerard Prins - Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, commons.wikimedia.org/w/index...
Barrel sizes
By Grolltech - Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, commons.wikimedia.org/w/index...
Roman wine ship
Stefan Kühn, CC BY-SA 3.0 creativecommons.org/licenses/b..., via Wikimedia Commons
Maps of the Titchfield Itineraries, travels of Henry III, travels of the Bursar of Durham, rivers of Yorkshire and the south west from THE TRANSPORT SYSTEM OF MEDIEVAL ENGLAND AND WALES - A GEOGRAPHICAL SYNTHESIS by James Frederick Edwards 1987.
Nemi ship reconstruction
By CM Knight-Smith - Scientific American Volume 95 Number 02 (July 1906), Publication date 1906-07-14, Public Domain, commons.wikimedia.org/w/index...
Nemi ship remains photograph
By www.portraitsofcaligula.com/3/... and additionally nemiship.multiservers.com/arch..., en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?...
Turkish litter
Public Domain, commons.wikimedia.org/w/index...
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Lindybeige: a channel of archaeology, ancient and medieval warfare, rants, swing dance, travelogues, evolution, and whatever else occurs to me to make.
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Me as a teenager in history class: *Zzzzzz*
Lindy: I'm gonna talk to your for an hour about medieval transport
Me as a 34 year old: f*ck yes!
This man could talk about the discovery of fertilized soil and I'd sit here and watch it no differently than I would a video about medieval armor
That's because Lindy makes it interesting, he's not just blandly going through a lesson plan waiting to get home to a box of wine.
@@ev6558 Exactly. Teachers that taught with his enthusiasm were very few and far between.
@@fauxmarmorer9544 no joke, i would watch that.
replace the 34 yr old part with teenager then yeah same lol
"In 1333, I read an account..."
He admits to being a time-traveler!
Ah ha! I knew it all along!
Or he's just one of the highlanders.
1333? That's lunchtime. Shall I put the kettle on?
@@aleisterlavey9716 > Or he's just one of the highlanders.
Immortals. Despite the accent, the character that Sean Connery played was an Egyptian claiming to be Spanish. Then there was the series.
We got 'em, lads! Quick, call the time police!
"A horse is a horse"
Incans and Aztecs: *stares at Llama in annoyance.*
Being an Incan message runner must've sucked, then again you didn't have to go the whole way only from your station to the next station for the handoff for another runner
@@JBGARINGAN Worked quite great for them if I recall correctly
@@sirxarounthefrenchy7773 but most likely like today's mail services somebody's package must've been late or damaged at least once. Also the Incan government could have checked letters between suspected people like how today they wiretap and record private conversations and have access to your search history which may or may not be unconstitutional but is certainly authoritarian.
**Egyptians staring at their camels in annoyance**
I love how he speaks, as if he only has an hour to give you an hour and a half's worth of information.
If it were slow i'd find it unbearably boring, even though i'm interested in the subject matter.
Perktube1 same
it's more like he has an hour to condense many generations of researchers' lifes' works worth of information into.
It takes about 10 minutes to rewire your brain to consider life in the time period being discussed. You have to internalise life like a method actor. Only then once your built their world in your head can you add more detail. So a slow and uninspiring history lesson is pretty much useless. You'll never even get to the point where you start learning, you'll probably only memorise
Nah he just speaks like someone who actually knows how to speak English
"It came from Ware"
"Where?"
"Yes"
"Yes but where? Here?"
"No not Heer, Ware"
"Where's that?"
"No Ware's not Heer, Ware is there."
"Well where's Ware!?"
"Here."
"What?"
"No that's in Switzerland."
(Context: Ware, England Heer, Belgium, and Watt, Switzerland)
Who's on first?
Watt's on second lol
@@aric7726 I don't know
3RD BASE!!!!
@@Maldoro81 I don't GIVE a damn!
Everyone knows that 'fast travel' is the easiest and quickest way to travel in the medieval world.
You gotta get there first to unlock the location though
Not to mention safer.
@@TheIfifi Sometimes when I fast travel there will be a group of mercenaries hired to find and kill me, so not MUCH safer lol
Only if there are no hostiles in the area.
@@JohnsonTheSecond i would really like that as a super power ngl
“Rivers are good at avoiding hills...ITS LIKE THEY KNOW!”
That was great my good sir. Get this man knighted already!
The boy gets better and better every decade I have watched him
I can't find it, do you have a timestamp?
@@jarrah580 it’s early on like first third of the video. I’ll watch again later and try to find one tho later
@@jarrah580 2:30 or so
'Rivers Always Get There In The End ..... From The excellent book, 'The Tao of Pooh', written by Benjamin Hoff
“Rivers are very low maintenance”
Me who lives near the mouth of the Mississippi: “Boy do i wish that were true”
It's still true for the Mississippi, isn't it? The Mississippi wants more maintenance than smaller rivers, but compared to a road that would carry as much the Mississippi is almost free.
@@Milamberinx the Army Corps of Engineers would probably dispute that.
The Thames barrier might dispute that also.
Well, the river will be just fine if you skip all that maintenance.
The things near the river, not so much.
me who lives next to the Missouri River: "dude stop complaining, you barely gotta do anything to keep it open"
"Today, of course, we travel a lot more than they did in the medieval period".
Double checks upload date... well not *today* today.
Unfortunately it is true.
You could take a drive up country to test your eyes
The extent of my travel in recent months has been between rooms. I remember a myth about something called “the outside world,” but I don’t think it actually exists.
@@QualityPen IKR! I watch Overly Sarcastic Productions. The other day on one of the myth videos Red talked about the "outside world" I thought she halucinated it.
@@kathrynehiersche1817 Hey, someone else that watches that channel!
*Norwegian obsessively takes notes on navigable rivers*
"Would you say you could get a long boat up your rivers? Asking for a friend."
Very good
And these days they probably don't know why.
@@theenhancer *Proceeds to navigate down a river to Paris*
@Edgar Miller YOU CAN'T FIGHT HERE THIS IS THE WAR ROOM
"Rivers are good at avoiding hills."
* laughs in waterfall
Aaron Seet British rivers don’t have huge water falls
@@ashleyoasis7948 Falls of Glomach, Steall Waterfall, Grey Mares Tail Nature Reserve, Falls of Foyers, etc. Plus they said nothing about waterfalls being large.
@@yonneye2427 falls are well beyond the navigable part of a river in the uk
@@TheMiccamuk Why does that matter?
you can go around a waterfall. I'm pretty sure I watched a video explaining how vikings did it. Probably from Lindy.
Granted, it's probably not overly viable if you're transporting lots of goods.
"Amateurs talk about tactics, but professionals study logistics." - Gen. Robert H. Barrow, USMC
This video truly brings that statement to life.
I'd like to see "Medieval transport - advanced guide"
I feel I could be a fairly effective medieval merchant after watching the video ngl. Now on to invent the time machine.
"Part 1 of 67"
this
it's probably available on either audible or greatcoursesplus
i think that's a collage class over 5 years
"And if you are blessed, blessed to live in England you are never far from navigable water"
*The Norse raise their heads and look at their longships*
The trouble with the inland waterways in Scandinavia is this: They (mostly) aint navigable - outside Denmark and southern Sweden. They flow too fast and often go down obstacles rather than around. As for the sea: Lots of trade yes, but the ships had to be sturdy to cope with waves and storms - so carrying capacity suffered.
@@Michael-jx9bh True. So they sailed to England where life was easier and people conveniently kept their gold all together in handy, plunderable monasteries, all easily accessible by water.
@Edgar Miller no, those are the ones that took the high ground.
@@wouter.de.ruiter Did they hence aquire a more burgundian character?
@@TheBayru I'm sure they drank plenty of Burgundy ;)
"I'm not going to tell you why a penny is marked with a d. Look it up. I like to leave a certain amount of mystery"
Who are you and what have you done with my rambling British history professor
The reason is probably because he had planned to release a video about that less than month later.
@@Tjalve70 most likely but I am going to tell all u who ae not English why this is
an English penny is maked with a d b/c of christian influence on it the latin world for their penny starts with a D Dont remember what the word is just have this in my mind from somewhere got a lot of shit like this in there
ppl will not play trivia with me any more b/c I always win At 72 I have up a lot of totally useless information in there
@@frerderickbays2762 The word is "denarius".
But this has absolutely nothing to do with christian influence, and more to do with the fact that Britain used to be a Roman province. So it's ROMAN influence, not christian.
@@Tjalve70 But why do we use the dead language Latin. B.c the church use it no other reason what so ever
@@frerderickbays2762 laughs in Norman French
"I decided not to tell you, why it is 1/2d"
One month later: Making a video about british coinage
What amazes me is that these videos are always continuous -- no cuts, no breaks -- yet he never stops talking and rarely stops making sense.
He must have cue cards behind the camera.
@@kevinbyrne4538 Lloyd is amazing - he was in academia for a while and also made a very thorough video on public speaking, so i do believe he is talking without aid
@@Crowborn I could do the same on a subject i know a lot about some ppl find this annoying about me for I do it when talking with someone They have to tell e to stop with a TMI but at times I do get an subiance who sit and listen to my ramblings on history
I am 72 with bad back so cant do that much anymore. Real work for me is done 5 to 30 minutes at a time but then I have to set and let pain go away. So I read a lot and watch a lot of videos. Back gave up 26 yr ago. Even before that I read a lot and still do
@@Crowborn I'm curious, what academia? He must have made a living before RUclips.
@@fazdoll i dont recall the university name but he studied evolutionary psychology i believe. He talks about it in some videos, i think one of them being the Q&A about his best memory and another about Glass production in medieval england. I dont believe he made money off of that as in another q&a he mentioned being a dance teacher before RUclips.
I didn't realize that Lloyd was a roads scholar.
He knows a tun about medieval commerce.
urgh
Lol thanks I needed a little laugh today!!
Imagine doing a doctorate about the tracks and trails on a certain island in the Mediterranean. Would that make him a Rhodes roads Rhodes scholar?
In Berlin there is still the "Oberbaumbrücke" (Upper tree bridge). It refers to a tree trunk that was lowered across the river, to stop boats from entering the city without paying taxes / customs
"A horse is a horse"
Of course, of course...
And no one can talk to a horse of course
That is of course unless the horse,
Is called a horse across the course
Most people: Roads were an alternative to river transport in the Middle Ages.
Lloyd: ROADS! THE *ARCH-RIVAL* OF RIVER TRANSPORT !!!
I was waiting for a pun about roads crossing rivers on *arch* bridges, but it never came.
It tickles me that medieval folk had to regularly work out tsiokolvsky's rocket equation for wagons
That's what i thought
with the downside that they can't just eject horses and cart stages when they become dead weight..
@@glitterboy2098 That's a very funny mental image though, a multi-stage cart built like a rocket
@@lukeman9851 I mean, assuming the stopping points were large enough to absorb the extra carts and horses, you could sell off extra carts and horses as your journey continued and your supplies went down!
It's a good joke, but the rocket equation gives you delta vee. The required delta vee to make a trip over land is 0, so the equation predicts you always need no fuel. (It's not the right equation to use.)
I am still amazed that this channel is hour-long in-person presentations with (almost) no cuts, and yet it gets so many views and such a followship.
new algorithm :p
What's a fellowship?
@@johnnyseagull29 He said followship, but that's not a correct use of the word. Followship is generally used as a descriptor of a person whom does what they're told and follows instruction well.
@@liyifenn sorry mate, it's just not a word.
@@johnnyseagull29?
The passion in his voice while he talks about this subject (and many others) truely displays his love for this subject. That passion is very much infectious and will influence many for years to come. Thank you for time.
"if you don't mind" oh lindy you could narrate my murder and I wouldn't mind
"And now an assassination sponsored by your enemies, but more on that later.."
At least you'd have an extra hour or so
@@mazaltovcocktail
I'm not sure that's a plus if you're being murdered all the while 😆
In real time?
with any luck he'd go off on some tangent about the type of murder weapon in use
Me: I'm having a terrible, low energy day.
Lindybeige: Have a one hour video of highly interesting content.
he could narrate watching paint dry and it would be worth watching tbh.
@@prettyokandy230 To be fair, there is a lot of interesting chemistry that happens while paint dries. Of course, I did just spend (before watching this video) several hours studying how to make a fresco and those were typically painted in layers as the plaster dried, with each new layer being put down at a specific point in the drying process. Very interesting stuff. Far more technical and time sensitive than I expected, but that's what made it fascinating.
Honestly the mechanics of travel in medieval England and Wales could be an exceedingly boring subject, and honestly should be. Lloyd is just a very dynamic speaker, thus making topics far more interesting than they have any inherent right to be.
@@Oberonjames More power to you!
So true.
"How much fodder do you keep on your waggon?" This is actually an important question to this day in rocket science. Because rocket engines tend to eat through a lot of fuel, speaking tons per second here. So you're basically doing that equation from 1000 years ago only the numbers are moderately higher...
The tyranny of the mule equation...
Funny tangent: You've mentioned the need for horses to pull their own supplies. That beautifully parallels the fundamental issue with rockets: they need to lift their own propellant. The gist of it is expressed in the "Tsiolkovsky Rocket Equation", which can be used to derive... basically an effective limit to what rockets are able to lift.
That's an excellent point!
But what if you strapped a horse to the rocket to carry more fuel 🤔
@@tmdgyde>>> The HORSE might OBJECT...😉
@@Allan_aka_RocKITEmanI don't think the Soviet Space Program ever cared about the objections of the various animals they launched into space.
tangent? yes indeed
funny? questionable my lad
We had an iron-clad rule when driving the back roads of Fort Lewis: never drive through a mudpuddle. The hole an Abrams tank can make is much bigger than a civilian SUV can navigate.
Just a general note- the red line in the thumbnail made me think I've watched this video already, almost skipped it
Yes. RUclipsrs should never do that
This!! Please don't respect your audience, I myself am a fool
Real talk, I only tapped the video because it's Lindy. If it was anyone else I wouldn't have bothered. He's worth it though, I rewatch all his content ::)
Same
Me too, but I thought, no, that was a short history of ladders....104min all about ladders....LB spices it up with sieges, boiling oil, Bar Wenches....
I grew up in Düsseldorf. That museum is in a big tower right near the Rhine in the oldtown. Its kinda nice to know that Lindy was there. :-D
Very interesting. I travel around with 2 donkeys and a wagon so understand very well these logistics. You really have to know your individual team and wagon to give a reliable estimate. How fit are the animals, the quality of the food they're getting whilst traveling, how many rest days a week you give them, quality of the harness and fittings and most importantly the mood the animal is in. If the animal is unhappy about something don't expect it to work very hard. Many things to conside... I can estimate right now my team can pull 700kg all day on a flat road, 300kg all day going up hills. Couldn't give a reliable estimate for anyone elses team however without knowing the animals.
@Aidan Haughton maybe, check my videos and find out
''I'd like to talk to you for a bit''
*an hour length video*
I wouldn't have it any other way
Thats my favorite thing about Lindy, he'll ramble on for an hour and still have so much more to say
Not long enough :(
you must be new here.
@@elroyjennings7833 yeah,sadly.
Pats raft. "This bad boy can fit so much commercial goods on it."
Just a note, the pony express was viable in the great plains area because there was no better transport. They went bankrupt because the trans contentinal railroad was finally completed in 1861 and cut the price of sending a letter to well below what the express needed to stay solvent. The express filled a need, until something better came along.
No the Pony Express lasted about a year, until the first transcontinental telegraph liner was built and placed into operation. The Pacific Railroad was completed in May, 1869
I work on the ohio river in the United states and it's awesome to see you explain how important rivers are to trade Thanks alot. Keep up your amazing content and have a safe and happy day !
The problem with trying to figure out a river's navigability even going back a century is that rivers are rather dynamic. Even without human influence, they respond to changes in weather and climate and even wildlife. Throw in human influence and it gets even more complicated. Wetlands being drained for agriculture, beaver being eradicated for their pelts, agricultural runoff, agricultural erosion and more have radically altered many rivers around the world.
@Edgar Miller Where are you that the Coast Guard does not recruit humans?
Chester was a bustling river port in in Roman Britain. By the middle ages the river had silted up too much to be viable. QED etc.
And even without any changes in external conditions, a river will just meander around all by itself, which would change the navigability as well - much easier to move down a river that is currently being relatively straight-ish than one that is wildly bending and on the cusp of shearing off a bunch of fresh oxbow lakes.
@@zuthalsoraniz6764 People built a _lot_ of canals in Europe. Until the railroad came around, that was pretty much the only way to spread wealth inland.
If you have a deep draughted boat rivers are ok to the point the keel drags on the bottom. Shallower wider rafts will be able to go further where depth allows but only to where the width matches the width of the raft or you meet another vessel.
Having a red bar across the bottom of the thumbnail is just confusing - I had to double-check to realise I hadn't already watched this one.
Me too!
Same here, unfortunately I suspect the thumbnail is gonna cost this video a fair number of views.
Same
Agreed. I said the same thing... though RUclips is also being spotty with videos I can view, and which ones produce error messages instead, right in the middle of any given channel's list of videos (I would expect either all to play, or none to play, not mixed results).
@@Christopher-N
Perhaps you should update your browser or use a different browser. Most RUclips videos have at least two types of video codecs.
The rocket equation being applied to carts and horse fodder.
Thankyou!
Maritime Modern historian here. Funny thing, one of the very first oceanic maps, called portulanos in Spanish and Portuguese contexts, seem quite inspired by the itinerary maps you described here, it's just a coastline peppered with the names of ports and coastal hamlets. Everywhere else there's just sea monsters. Nice, easy video.
the monsters equate to the unknown ;) pretty to look at as well
Obviously monster attacks kept the cartographers from including those other areas.
What I learned from watching this is that horse carting is basically rocket science.
Basically it’s impossible
Ditto. Found myself thinking 'Tsiolkovsky Equation' too.
This joke is much more accurate than it seems at first glance!
It is.
and he didn't even get into the difficulty of the hierarchy amongst the horses. you cannot just put any horse at the front and expect the others to follow its lead. so, it was actually _way more_ complicated than his explanations.
Pubs called “The Waggon and Horses” are usually at the bottom of a hill. A good place to rest the horses before the climb.
Norfolk folk scan the horizon and think; that can't be right.
Regarding the toll on the rivers etc. I find the Danish model very interesting: you tell the captain to appraise his own cargo so that he can pay toll for it.
You then have an inspector going aboard ship deciding if the king wants to buy the full load of the ship at the appraised value given by the captain.
A very quick and efficient way to get toll and punish people who tried to cheat.
I used a similar method to teach kids fairness.
When one kid pours drinks for both of them, the second kid gets to choose which glass.
That way the levels in the glasses are meticulously even.
@@mr.dalerobinson i do exactly the same with my two sons!
@@mr.dalerobinson my parents did the same thing with bowls of crisps it got to the point where we would weigh the bowl before and after the crisps where put in the bowl to work out the exact amount of crisps
Traveller: "Can you tell me the quickest way to get to town?" Local: "Are you walking or going by car?" Traveller: "By car". Local: "Well...that's the quickest way."
I love that the rocket equation applied to wagons, too.
I havent watched the video yet, but judging by the comments this is gonna be a crazy one!
@@ultrasuperkiller Talking about having nothing but fodder on your wagon.
Too bad we didn't have lindybeige instruction videos back in the 1300s AD.
I had a thought when you were talking about fodder for horses, and it struck me as pretty much the same dilemma as the Tsiolkovsky rocket equation. More 'power' (i.e horses) needs more propellant (i.e hay), which itself needs to be hauled into orbit (or Shrewsbury), and consequently there's a point where your mass fraction (the actual cargo, as a fraction of the total mass including propellant) becomes so tiny as to be totally inefficient.
Then it is good that during most of the year nature produce free natural fodder for horses, it is called grass.It could be found in most places in great amounts.
@@Kibernautas nah. Not everywhere it 'most of the year". But good point
@@kuroinokitsune People were traveling mostly during the time when grass was available. Even in winter time you do not have to carry all fodder for all journey, there were Inns and other hospitality institutions available, including monasteries, where you could buy some extra hay/fodder. If you stop for night at peasants house, for sure you can pay or barter for your horses to be fed.
@@Kibernautas part about only traveling when grass available doesn't sound believable. Who the hell will stop all the market movements for 5-8 months? People always forget that not entire world like their home...
@@kuroinokitsune "traveling mostly during the time when grass was available"
What in "mostly" is not clear?
Also, in medieval times travel during winter was very difficult and transporting heavy loads nearly impossible, you know, foot or two of snow on the road and no snowplow trucks. Winter was time to stay at home and not to travel without extreme necessity.
Markets were forced to adapt to reality.
A medieval itinerary must've been like the driving instructions I used to make for myself back when I didn't bother to buy me a navigator and I had no printer; A list of road numbers with turn instructions like: 9, ↰ 320, ↱ 341 and so on.
I love little roads and did the same. I had my list fixed to the car dashboard with a magnet.
I've been able to reach the Loire River from Milan, through the higher pass of Switzerland, without using any motorway.
"A man drowned and the local bishop claimed all the man's goods, because the man died on his lands. Yeah, bishops were ... great in those days."
Doctor Foster went to Gloucester,
In a shower of rain;
He stepped in a puddle,
Right up to his middle,
And never went there again.
They haven’t changed much in my opinion. Maybe after the definitive fall of the last European dictatorships... but go to Africa and you’ll find the same thing. The church has always pretended to be either a parallel state or the state itself.
Pennies have the abbreviation d because it is derived from the Latin "denarius". The £ symbol exists because it is an old fashioned way of writing the letter L which is short for Librum.
L/S/D - Pounds/Shillings/Pence
@@lonzo51191 -- Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds.
Thanks, didn't know that.
I spent 12 hours today with you talking away in the background on various topics.
Today was a good day.
It's interesting when studying the US "Civil War, " to read about how the Department of the Navy was overwhelmingly more concerned with rivers and river boats than it was with anything having to do with salt water.
A really good book is Thunder Along the Mississippi. It's about the River Ironclads and the clashes they had with splitting the traitors' land in two.
Most of the Navy stayed loyal to the Union so the South had almost no blue-water naval capacity, most they could do was blockade runners and foreign built privateers. Blockade service is practically business as usual, but the rivers were where naval power could swing things on the battlefield.
I wish more youtubers would make LONGER vids of them just talking. I find his speaking so nice
To be fair talking for a long time and staying interesting is super hard, Lloyd is incredibly skilled to do this
Llyod has a PhD in ranting. And a voice that keeps you listening,
Rivers are amazing they are just there and flowing and God Put Them There For Free. So... Rivers. Are. Good.
😆 I can throw a rock from my house into an old canal used in the 19th century? Which is basically a man made river, isn't it? And can walk to 12 Mile Creek so I can't argue with his facts on the benefits of rivers and that they are good.
@@flameconvoy7424 true, but there are several very well spoken Brits who could do this. Simon Roper for example
@@LankyAssMofka when i was rebuilding a canal, i found so much stuff down there to the point it became a common joke "we found a roman beer bottle"
@Edgar Miller not by millenials you stupit fork! but by their own interests. but if you crave for some millenials you have here! :)
I truly appreciate these "slice of life" looks at more common topics. Thanks for all the hard work you put in to this!
Very interesting video. My wife & I decided to backpack across the USA dressed & outfitted in medieval gear. It was a difficult trip. It took us 1 day shy of 1 full year to travel from Maine to the pacific Northwest. I lost 40lbs. However it was far easier than i expected it to be. Much of the gear they used is much heavier than modern gear but a good chunk of it works a lot better than our modern stuff. Not all of it obviously but who wouldve thought?
Is there a website with more information on your trip/gear?
@@stephentaylor3125I agree, this sounds very interesting
I always forget about the trouble of hills, coming from the Netherlands
A 500 tun ship did not weigh 500 tons. It meant they could load 500 casks :) a far more useful measurement than weight.
47:55 Soldier: Lord Lloyd, there is a tree on the road. We have to remove it.
Lord Lloyd: NO! We shall build a ramp. I give you two days.
Love the video! I might want to mention that in the early USA Americans would use oxen to pull wagons and transport companies would string together wagons to maximize profit so the oxen teams would often be 40 to 50 head, just pulling that cargo "train" these companies often found themselves in direct competition with the railroad so they would simply MOVE to an opening territory where no rails had been laid yet and they were able to corner the market in freight transport. Mines would rely on these massive "trains" to transport the ore to the smelters. In fact, the term "teamster" dates back to these days! Once the switchover to trucks began in the 1900's, the "teamsters" simply learned how to drive the new trucks and carried the name "teamster" with them! Oddly enough the LAST PLACE in the USA to widely use Castogna wagons was the deep Great Plains States. There is a photo dating to 1924 (yes 1924!!) Of one of the last uses of the wagon on the Great Plains. I think the reason why the locals were using oxen and wagons and not the new trucks was likely price and affordability. Also it might have been a total lack of roads in the area. Much of Northern Montana didn't start getting roads until the 1940's-1950's so homesteader farmers would ride their horses between the homesteads. Got to love the "brigadoons" sometimes! 😁
5 star comment laddy
I was in Cambodia back in 2004 and one of the traders I saw was a cart stacked to an incredible height of pottery and the trader has used hay stuffed between each pot to stop them from breaking and chipping, well at the time that's all I thought it was for, however now I realise it was also the feed for the donkey pulling the cart, what a wonderful ingenious way to tackle both the problem of stacking the cart and feeding the donkey.
Just a little feedback on the thumbnail: Please don't use a thumbnail with a red stripe on the bottom, it looks like i've already watched the video, so if people are distracted they will not notices that this is a new video.
This is a great point.
Way underrated comment!
True, that one got me for a moment. Fortunately the video was surrounded by unwatched stuff, but I'm sure I missed a video or two over the years on the merits of the color red.
this caught me out too!
Had me scratching my head too
Yep, I had been avoiding this one, if I had not seen the "4 days ago" time I would have passed it by
A kidle / kidel / kedel was a wear or dam in a river to catch fish (the Edward Phillips dictionary 1706)
And a heck was later renamed to a pound, then to a hatch, a hash and a pound again. It was mostly the annoying millenials after the 1000s that abused them. #KeepYourBloodyFencesOutOfMyRiver
weir?
One fact I came upon was that in the US a day's travel was considered to be around eight miles by horse or walking. You will notice that most towns in the US are about 8 miles apart (especially in the east). You can also observe this in the big cities by how far apart the centers of various suburbs are from the main city. Over time the outlying (eight miles apart) towns merged into the city centers and became its suburbs.
What I would have given for such a presenter in college...leaving a class with a smile on your face would be nice...
Today I learned that the "Tyranny of the Rocket Equation" more-or-less applies to medieval road transport...
Not just medieval road transport. It was still a gigantic factor in the 20th century, and it was always extremely important in warfare. Offensives stop really far when the maintenance of your wagon train takes a good chunk of a wagon train. It's not an accident that railroads enabled true settlement of regions far from the coast and navigable rivers - for a long time, they were the only viable long distance transport on land. It wasn't until relatively modern trucks (and especially tankers) that the roads were able to fully support themselves - though rail is still extremely important, of course.
Argh, beat me to it by a year. Didn’t scroll enough before posting.
11:03 - D is for Denarius.
Being about a thousand years old, I still remember real (ie pre-decimal) money. Twelve D to the S (Solidus), twenty S to the L (Libra). The fact that money back then was referred to as LSD is not a drug reference. Oh, happier times.
Anyway. A quick bit of arithmetic tells you that there were 240 D to the L - which is in accordance with a law passed by Charlemagne in the eighth century. He decreed that silver denarii should be struck so that 240 of them weighed a pound (consider the terms Pound Sterling and Sterling Silver...). England, wanting to trade freely with Europe, adopted the same standard - and kept it up until 1971.
You have been listening to a nerd.
thank you for your service o7
We did away with it in Australia in the mid 1960s, though sixpences commonly masqueraded as 5 cent pieces for a while afterwards.
@@peterbrown6224 Having read Afferbeck Lauder, I know that in Australia it's called Dismal Guernsey.
Which makes a lot of sense, because 12 (dozen) and 20 (score) are easy to count and calculate with. The decimal system is more suitable for compley calculations.
@@95DarkFire Having grown up before the advent of pocket calculators, I can multiply by 10, 12 and 20 without too much difficulty - though multiplying by ten is easiest.
Fun fact: The ancient Babylonians counted in Base 12, rather than Base 10. This is why there are twelve numbers on your watch, rather than ten.
I love the excitement and side tracking Lindy does, it reminds me of my high school history teacher. She was eccentric and passionate and amazing.
In German language a "Tonne" can be used as both weight (1000 kg) and as a kind of metal cask or bin or barrel.
Same in old fashioned English . But tonne was spelt “tun”. There are a few old pubs that are named “The Three Tuns”.
I feel like this world doesn’t deserve Lloyd. Never the less, he is truly loved.
Lloved*
I didn’t know I wanted to learn about Medieval transport until I saw the title
thanks to this video, I learned that giving an itinerary is very useful when directing other players while playing my favorite open-world survival game
Hey Lindybeige I do live in the home of the Pony Express in the US. We have a ton of statues here, my favorite one has the wanted ad for pony express riders. They only wanted young orphans, who were light, and no one would miss if they died.
"A toll is a toll, and a roll is a roll. And if we don't get no tolls, than we don't eat no rolls."
Classic!!!!
Well why should the people listen to you?
A toll on a river contributes nothing to society.
You made that up?
What we expected: an hour of talk about medieval transport
What we got: Lindy imitating a toddler
"this dark, mysterious southwestern peninsula, that it seems they didn't bother with, so i imagine things were quite different down there"
an bleddy right too.
Great video! Reminds me of a scheme (to use the British term) in Pennsylvania in the US to ship coal to Philadelphia. They would cut timber, build crude boats called "arks", load them with coal, float them downstream to Philadelphia, then sell the coal and timber. Rail transport put an end to that as the canal/river locks were expensive to maintain and couldn't be used in winter.
When you talk about how much they could cover each day, maybe 20 miles with an effort, I start to understand how important mass production bicycles must have been.
It is incredible to think that I commute 33km (just over 20mi) to work, and without much traffic it takes 25 minutes or so. My point of departure is close to a goodly river, and upstream of my destination, which is still several km from said river. The trip back would be a helluva slog though.
" and here lies the controversy: and i don't want to align myself with one side or the other; i'm sure there's some compromise here "
ha - good one. *grabs pitchfork, digs heels in, for a position, about a subject i learned about an hour ago*
crossin hills with a full wagon: at the base of hills, from roman times onward, there used to be be "service stations" where you could rent additional animals (usually oxen) to help pull your wagon up and help brake going down on the other side (which you completely forgot to mention). here in central Europe, horses were what ferraris are now: no wagons were pulled by horses (far to expensive compared to an ox - mind you, oxen were relatively cheap as every second calf was male and you only needed one bull to keep a cow herd of a whole village going).
Armies moving through your area were the eighth plague, they "lived off the land" = they plundered whatever they needed and burned down what they didn´t need so the enemy could not make use of it. for the local peasants, it didn´t matter if it was the army of their own king or that of the enemy.
Messenger speed in Roman times: e.g. emperor Pertinax was killed in Rome on march 28 - in Carnuntum, Septimius Severus learned about this on April 7 (9 days for 1150km)
Not a topic that would interest me, ordinarily. Except when it's Lindy Beige presenting it, he made ladders interesting that one time.
Hey Lloyd, if Ware has the biggest bed, wouldn't the house have to be really big to house the biggest bed? Perhaps you could call it a "Warehouse"
Ba-dum-tish!
I loved this joke enough to look into it. Turns out the name "Ware" for the town comes not from wares (goods) but weirs, a type of dam. So the town sat at a point between two navigable stretches of water, a place you'd _have_ to stop if you wanted to go further upstream. Thereby reinforcing the importance of rivers to transport in medieval England!
@@wulfherecyning1282 Are you aware that Ware was where werewolves were?
@@jhonbus Where in Ware? Were the werewolves in Ware to see the weir, or the Warehouse? I am not aware of where the werewolves were within Ware.
_What?_
They still used huge rafts on the Rhine in the 1950's. My father remembers seeing them.
I started a group for fantasy writers because I got tired of reading impossible trip time frames. Good fantasy knows when to separate realism from fantasy. This helps.
Yeah, George MacDonald Fraser's parody "The Pyrates" has one man rowing from Madagascar to Jamaica in a month.
"I want to talk to you for a bit about X"
..."A bit" is an hour to this man? Good gods, this is a channel for me. SUBBED!
Just wait until he wants to talk to you for a byte.
11:26 I imagine there being a lot of 9ton and 19ton boats around and virtually no 21-39ton boats
don't you just feel a sense of pure exactment when you see a 1 hour lindybeige video
You mean excitement?
Badger I don’t know....I’m pretty exacted
@@Emperor_of_all_Badgers excitely
I love the casual irreverence and the obvious love for your subject. It's been a real pleasure to hear your stories.
I have a few examples of travel speed from my country:
- Jan Žižka (Hussite) - whole army with waggons from Vilemov to Horice - 100 km in 10 days
- John the Blind (not blind yet) - Prague to Paris - 1000 km in 12 days
It's important to note that John the Blind went through friendly country that gave support on the way. This was a huge factor back in the day, for all the obvious reasons (like not having to take your fodder with you, or "forage", which is a wonderful euphemism for "steal what you need on the way" (or at least buy, sometimes, if they're willing to sell - if not, it's back to stealing)).
Wake up babe, lindybeige just uploaded another 1 hour video
Your videos are a massive help to me in running my D&D games! Im having a blast including so many details like this to make the world in the game more immersive!
Me too!
Nerds, I just like roads
My Worldbuilding has had so much help from this channel.
I actually came here from Matt Colville's channel :P
@@nothankyouRUclips420 What is nerdier, liking roads or liking dnd?
Toddler.. exhausted very quickly... It is at that moment when you know LindyBeige does not have kids.
I don’t have kids (only 21) but I find toddlers tend to go 100% for a what feels like ages cos we are at 50% so to speak and then they quickly collapse to 0.
@@blablabubles toddlers could walk infinitely.. the only reason they'd want to be picked up is to prove they have the power over you NOT because they're tired.
If we could put every toddler on a treadmill generator, we could harness the power of unlimited energy
They could but they won't.
Toddlers tire quickly on long walks... They are boring. But walks to toys, mom, dad, or that neat thing over there never tire a toddler... Instant second and tenth wind.
I thought he said "exhausts u quickly" XD
That random poster of Jeor Mormont on a wall full of nature posters had me in tears :))
The red line at the bottom of your thumbnail makes it look like at a glance in the subscriptions view that this has been fully watched. May cause this video to have slightly lower viewership just wanted to let you know :)
I noticed that
I also noticed! Maybe a different shade or hue?
same, I nearly had a mental breakdown, thinking I spent over an hour learning about medieval transport, without remembering a thing.
Yup
Yep. Thats why I'm a month late. That does explain why I didnt remember watching it.
You remind me of the best lecturer I ever had, Lindybeige. His entire lectures were just slides with a simple title and he could thoroughly and beautiful explain what he needed without any kinds of notes or prompts or text. Bloody brilliant.
He really does have a spectacularly distinct style of public speaking. It makes his videos, even his hour long ones, an absolute pleasure to watch.
Very rare ability in my experience.
One of the many reasons the Netherlands became so wealthy during the 15th/16th centuries is that the country is mostly very flat, and mostly very wet. So they dug tons of canals that allowed barges pulled by horses to quickly and cheaply transport people and goods to where they were needed/wanted. This is also one of the reasons the Netherlands were slow with the adoption of the steam train in the 19th century; the existing infrastructure was still decent enough.
“The limitations of being European”
Based
“Just set the horses free” is our current approach to space travel just drop the first stage.
Pretty much, there are a lot of reasons why space travel is so astronomically expensive most of them including this one are a side effect of how we work around the physics described by the rocket equation.
Elon would like to have a word with you.
-"Do you know how much can a horse pull?" -"Yes, you know how human toddlers are crap at walking...."
tun and ton come from the same old german word "Tonne" - which just means barrel.
The "tonne" so barrel was used as a measurement cause it was convenient. And that means it did not really measure any weight or volume but just counted physical objects.
So "1 Tonne Salz" - "1 ton of salt" was not the weight of 1000 kg but the a barrel filled with salt had. barrels were also quite uniform in their volume so it came to be used to measure volumes as well. In short -solid materials were also measured not by weight but volume.
Only later was it used to name a specified fixed weight regardless of the material.
Thank you for making videos. You manage to make oftentimes dry information fascinating by tying in meaning and relevance. I’ve always loved history, but your observations are a treat