Secret why MEDIEVAL people LOVED WHEEL POMMELS on Swords?

do you have a minute spare to talk about The Wonder of the wheel Pummel hi folks Mattis and Scholar gladiatoria now I'll try and keep this pretty brief so I am in the process at the moment of reviewing the nearly final prototypes of the royal armor is batch two swords that we do with windless so I work with uh windless and the Royal armories and we develop accurate replicas very accurate replicas of swords in the Royal armor is for your uh Joy pleasure and uh purchasing and we're working on the second batch which is uh coming out soon now this is one of the swords that we have replicated from the Royal armorers collection more about this in the future but uh in reviewing this it just so happens I've got back from an armored fighting weekend organized by Dr capwell and Dom seel um of historic equitation and it was a fantastic weekend I got to spend the whole weekend with a bunch of people who've got lovely armor even nicer armor than than my own and we got to do lots of armored training me and Gavin you know from my videos we ran armored training and then we had sparring and games and all kinds of stuff and it was absolutely fantastic and hopefully we'll be doing it again um so look out for news about that but um in doing that we get lots of uh Enlightenment about the realities of fighting in armor now how does this relate to wheel pummels well when we're looking at the world of modern sword collecting and heer and uh you know backyard cutting and cutting competitions all this kind of stuff it's quite notable that a lot of people out there don't like wheel pommels now um it is completely true and evident that wheel pommels were hugely popular throughout most of the medieval period and in fact Beyond it okay so wheel pommels were still being mounted on side swords as we call them into the 16th century and they were the most prevalent type of pommels found on pretty much most types of swords c yeah certainly one-handed swords and even a lot of long swords throughout the medieval period now wheel pommels first develop from a sort of blob likee round pommel that's around in the Norman era so if we look at the like Battle of the Hastings period sword we've moved on at least in most parts of Europe maybe not in Scandinavia but we've moved on from uh kind of Viking style Hilt and actually in actual fact it's not a viking style Hilt it's like a more generic Germanic style Hilt that you found in France England Germany and Italy everywhere else um and some of those developed into a blob type Pummel that became the wheel Pummel so by the time we get into for example the 1100s we've got a lot of sorts of wheel pummels the 1200s the 1300s the 1400s and into the 1500s as well so in a lot of the periods we're talking about where you've got Knights the typical medieval image you get in your mind of the the uh Knight in male from head to foot with a a great Helm or later on with bits of plate armor um and then a bassinet and then later on with full plate armor with things like salet and armit these types of knights most of those using arming swords had arming swords of real pommel so here's the question if they were so popular in Period why are they so I won't say unpopular but why aren't they that massively popular now if I just put the arming sword down for a second and I go to another sword uh from the uh from the Royal armor is line which we'll look at I won't this is just a minor spoiler okay this has got a massive wheel pommel okay now a lot of people don't like long swords with massive wheel pommels but I'll tell you with this specific sword it really really works it works so fantastically okay now I'll come back to talking about this long sword and why that wheel pommel works so well with this type of sword at a at a later Point okay but I'm just to show you that you do get large wheel pummels on long swords not just AR arming swords now back to the arming sword so here's the thing often when we're looking at modern fencing hea we're looking at uh very often sparring weapons which are I won't say are optimized for sparring but we're looking at things which are you know they hit a little bit lighter than real swords cuz they're safe they're blunt they have to have a hilt which will accommodate a modern sparring hemo sparring glove this is also an issue in reenactment as well um and if you look at Viking hilts used in a lot of Viking reenactment the hilts are made unhistoric long uh to accommodate the types of hand protection they have to wear in Viking reenactment a lot of the time um but here's an interesting thing the wheel Pummel by itself might not feel that natural or comfortable to a lot of people but there is a key to this if we actually put on the sorts of hand stuff that a lot of knights at that time if we ignore we'll come back to archers and people like that in a second we come back to them and put these sorts of things on and think about the context that the armored person is in they are in head to- foot armor they certainly in the 14th and fifth well even 13th 14th 15th century they were wearing types of helmet which often mean that they can't necessarily easily look down and often they're having to go by feel they're also fighting they're fighting for their lives they're in war and sometimes they're on Horseback sometimes they're on foot they've got people trying to kill them trying to wrestle with them trying to disarm them trying to throw them on the ground all of these things and in those situation their primary weapon will often be a lance on Horseback or a spear on foot or a poleax on foot or or a glaive or something like this and the sword will be a backup a lot of the time not always but a lot of the time and in that situation you want to really quickly get a sword out and you want to make sure that when you start fighting for your life it stays really securely in your hand and do you know what wheel pommels really really do now a lot of people like scent stoer pommels or you know and and I do as well um pear-shaped pommels and other lovely forms of Pummel that feel nice in your hand but you have to say once you've got a glove on and once you've got a gauntlet on and this is the most extreme type of Gauntlet this is a Italian style Mitten Gauntlet you might have fingered uh hourglass gauntlets in the 14th century late 14th century for example or earlier uh fingered gaunlets which come before that the kind of visby type or you might have in the 15th century you know fingered gauntlets of various kinds English or French or um uh German types later on sort of Gothic gauntlets all this kind of stuff so there's different types of gauntlets and they will interact with the sword hilt in different ways but fundamentally look how tucked in that Pummel is and that grip is into my um into my uh Gauntlet and what's beautiful about this is this type of Gauntlet is exactly contemporary with this type of sword and this sword is exactly modeled on the original in the Royal armor the measurements are exactly the same the weight is exactly the same the grip is exactly the same length the pummels exactly the same cross-section and shape um so when I hold this sword in my hand with my good replica of uh period Italian style Mitten and gaunlets made by Art of Steel in Ukraine incidentally shout out to them um these two marry together and whether I'm on Horseback or on foot I know that this thing yes I've got I've got limited angles that I can move my move my wrist in Gauntlet but I know that using this sword it's absolutely to stay put in my hand doesn't matter how tired I am doesn't matter if I fall off my horse if I got knocked to the ground someone's wrestling with me or I'm parrying a a heavy Blow from a mace or a poleax this is utterly secure in my grip thanks to that wheel Pummel and I don't believe that many scent stopper or pearshaped Ps which admittedly we find more on long swords than on one-handed swords but if you put one of those on a oneand sword and you do sometimes find them on oneand swords they would not be as secure as this wheel pommel is and that's my fundamental belief for why wheel pommels were so popular in the medieval period even before plate gaunlets even with maale gauntlets or leather gloves um they are incredibly secure and very quick and easy to get out and that's why even someone with bare hands like an Archer or a Billman or someone like that even they might prefer a wheel pommel because it's perfectly comfortable in your hand once you're used to it and it's not going to come out of your hand it's very very secure okay not only is it secure once it's in your hand it's also really quick and easy to find when you need to pull it out quickly and draw it which other types of pommel might not necessarily be and there's a parallel to be made here with the shape of a rondel diger hilt as well which I've talked about in previous videos and I'm sure we'll cover again soon perhaps soon in another video actually and just as a brief tangent we also shouldn't ignore the fact that there is an aesthetic there is a design Choice involved in choosing wheel pummels and whatever our modern design choices and Aesthetics and preferences are in period it's very clear that they had a strong sense of design and meaning and uh geometry in some cases and Harmony and balance in things like architecture in the clothing in the style of you know jewelry and indeed in the design of weapons and many of you will be familiar with Peter Johnson the famous sword Maker's work on Geometry and his use of uh Sur CES for example and in that we could also argue that the wheel Pummel very much ties into that look into that proportion and I personally think that a wheel Pummel looks beautiful completely aside from practicalities or how it is to hold it I think that a wheel Pummel looks absolutely spectacular on the back end of a sword and if we put some other shape there I mean you do find square pommels in Hungary for example on early skona um if you put a Square pommel on there generally to most people that wouldn't look as attractive and I would argue if you put certain types of pear pommel on an arming sword for some reason it just doesn't look so nice it looks great on a long sword but just not so good on an arming sword so I think that we should never Overlook the aesthetic preferences of the period as well and also remember that what looked good to them doesn't necessarily tally with what looks good to us look at all the gy colors they like to wear um so design geometry and perhaps some hidden meanings that we haven't yet thought of so there's something for you to think about uh your views and opinions and experiences maybe if you do reenactment or living history or heor and you have views on will pommels do you hate them do you love them have you changed your opinions of will pommels I actually have over the years I didn't used to like them and I have grown to love them for a lot of the aforementioned reasons anyway thanks a lot for watching and I hope I'll see you back on the channel really soon I have been Matt Easton I will will continue to be and take care folks thanks for watching we've got extra videos on patreon please give our Facebook a like And subscribe if you haven't already cheers folks

Channel: scholagladiatoria

Views: 69,296

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Id: nY4aW3GEE38

Length: 11min 11sec (671 seconds)

Published: Fri Mar 08 2024