REAL medieval knights and scientists

[MaDuce]

Based on everything I've been able to find in history, this is the most accurate AND entertaining documentary series I've been able to find on the medieval period. The entire series was uploaded to youtube by the copy write holders.

 

MEDIEVAL KNIGHTS This one has allot of "booers" from people in to chivalry as it brings out the dark truth about medieval knights and the real culture of chivalry. If anything, this gives medieval knights TOO much credit. Allot of the individual cases I've studied of knight behavior from this time sound allot like the murder videos by the Mexican drug cartels that are going around on the internet right now but more amped up. The best short description I've ever heard describing medieval knights was actually a historian on another program who said, "Real medieval knights had more in common with Tony Supprano then Sir Lancelot.

 

BTW. The Cesana Massacre, as you can imagine was one of the historical examples of the purpose and function of gun control that gun rights activists sometimes used during the Clinton and Early GWB years. Now that we're on the winning team, it's once again been swept under the rug.

 

MEDIEVAL SCIENTISTS IMO, this is the least funny but most interesting episode in the series. I was turned on to this subject in the early 2000s when; while looking online for information on the "Roger Bacon" character in the video game, "Shadow Hearts", I discovered he was a real person and a medieval scientist. Needless to say, I was pretty shocked and fascinated by how much of our scientific knowledge we owe to not only medieval scientists, but medieval scientists who were among the catholic clergy! It also gives insight to what sort of motives Issac Newton might have had for involving himself with the search for the philosopher's stone. In other words, that it had a serious and practical side to it. I've spent nearly a decade pulling my hair out listening to people go on about the church persecuting scientists in the middle ages and so on. When I heard Roger Bacon's name brought up in this episode, the effect it had on me was probably the same as the effect Penn and Teller's BS episode about gun control had on you if you saw it in it's premier year. I could be wrong but I think this is the only historical documentary I've seen that gives medieval scientists and the catholic church any real fair credit for their contributions to science, even though there's no way a half hour episode can even cover all the general subject matters, let alone cover that whole world. If you are religious but are in to science, then you are going to LOVE this:

[Sisco]

You are dead on. Any one below you in social standing was fair game. If after too much Absinthe had eaten holes in your brain, and you decided you didn't like any one below you on the social scale, you pulled out the sword and took off their head. Nothing would come of it. You wanted to sleep with the wife of a minion, you did. A vassal got married, you claimed right of maidenhead and spent the wedding night with her. You considered anything below you just an animal. Then the commoners got their revenge, at least on the French Nobles at Agincourt, by butchering them while they were stuck in mud with their armor. The long bow started to change that, but The real end was the reverse of the "All men are created equal, Sam Colt made them even." bit. All men were created unequal, until the invention of gun powder and firearms made them even. Then a commoner could kill a knight as easily as vice versa, and that was the end of the Golden Age of Knighthood, which wasn't so golden.

[MaDuce]

The hundred years war REALLY brought about the beginning of the end for those days. One, (specific to England) was obviously the peasant revolt of 1381 which taught not just England but the rest of Europe a lesson about abusing their citizens. Some countries got the message more then others. The other and perhaps more significant one was the opening battle of the war, the battle of Crecy. The English long bow tactic for one brought about a break in the code of chivalry in addition to the fact that one of the reasons for it was that knights by that time were turning more in to fat slobs then real warriors and hard to get on the battlefield. One of the reasons why King Edward III would knight just about anyone who would show him worthy skill and dedication.The other big game changer in the battle of Crecy is one significant detail that keeps getting overlooked. It was the first time powder guns were used successfully on the battlefield. In other words, it was the opening battle of the age of gun fire.

 

 So, all in one century, aristocrat knights turned in to spoiled cowards, peasants became elite warriors and armor was made useless.

 

I fear that brain enhancing computer systems will threaten to bring those days back before the end of this century.