From OpenCulture:
Curious about the degree to which 15th-century knights were encumbered by their protective plating, medievalist Daniel Jaquet commissioned a top armor specialist from the Czech Republic to make a suit specific to his own personal measurements. The result is based on a 15th century specimen in Vienna that has been studied by the Wallace Collection’s archaeometallurgist Alan Williams.
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Great… now I gotta get new workout gear.Report
I don’t know if we’re picking teams for any reason right now, but if we are, or in case we do, I just want to say I’m pretty sure this guy is my first choice.Report
At the beginning, the video said the armor weighed a little over 26 kg — call it 60 pounds. In Iraq and Afghanistan, US ground troops’ body armor came in at about 33 pounds w/o helmet, and covered much less area. The Army does seem to be making a significant effort in the last few years to lighten that, as a result of numerous studies indicating that the contemporary answer to the headline question is “Not very well.”
March load in Iraq and Afghanistan was frequently over 100 pounds. I seem to recall reading somewhere recently that one-third of the medical evacuations of service personnel there were spine and joint injuries related to the loads they were carrying.Report
This is a young man in exquisite physical shape, and exercising in a not quite 60 pound suit of metal armor seems like an excellent way to maintain that condition. So it’s possible. Probably takes a lot of time to get into that kind of shape and a lot of time to stay in that kind of shape once you get there. The medieval texts suggest that the fellow being emulated knew of few others of similar physical prowess.
I also wonder about nutrition: a medieval person’s diet would be very different than our own. A noble probably was wealthy and had access to a lot of meat, which a peasant or a merchant might not.Report
Yeah one of the biggest things about the past was the incredible disparity in nutrition. We don’t appreciate, these days, how much more scarce protein was for even middle class individuals. You can see it in the Briggs cartoons too and they only date back a century and change.Report
One of the interesting features of the Colorado State Capitol is that here and there, in odd places, are a whole raft of large blow-ups of pictures obtained from the state historical society that were mostly taken in the 1900-1910 decade. One of the things you notice in most of them is how big people’s heads are relative to their body. In the large box of old family photos in my closet, this trend seemed to have continued at least into the 1950s.
An exception is a picture of the state senate chamber with the Senators present. White, male, and quite overweight on average.Report
Wow, yeah, talk about illustrative of my point!
If a bunch of us were somehow moved into the 16th century they’d think we were elves or something and, for all intents and purposes, we would be.Report
Because 3000 calories of bread is suddenly short on protein? That’s around 100 grams per day, dude.
Kwashikor was unknown to the Middle Ages peasant, because of the prevalence of protein (both consumed via breads and beans, and the weevils that fed on both).
We do not appreciate, these days, how rotten or spoiled the food was.Report
In quantity, sure, but bread and beans wasn’t eaten by middle ages peasants in anything like the quantity that we do. A good point about bugs and spoilage though.Report
https://news.osu.edu/men-from-early-middle-ages-were-nearly-as-tall-as-modern-people/
Try again. They ate more food, in general, judging by Monks’ records and all that — which shouldn’t surprise you, we lead sedentary lives in comparison.
Have me walk 20 miles every day with a 30lb pack (I’ve done so), and 3000 calories is a “losing weight” diet.Report
I think they got the climbing thing wrong. An “ell” is approximately half a meter from what I can dig up online, so I assume this was more of a shimmy up between two closely-spaced walls and not a rock-wall style ascent.
Still, this is impressive on so many levels. I started walking around in a weighted vest during the pandemic as it was often my only source of exercise. Fully loaded, it was 60 pounds. I couldn’t go far with that weight. I could routinely walk for a few miles with it at about 36 pounds but the pressure put on the shoulders eventually becomes unbearable.Report
So, Wizards and Paizo should raise the dex modifier cap on full plate?Report
They did right off the bat actually. Half plate is actually more cumbersome and difficult to move in for those systems than full plate specifically because full plate works better.Report