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Tonight I'm watching Ironclad (a movie about the siege of Rochester Castle by King John in 1215), and even halfway through I've learned loads.
King John had a time machine that allowed him to recruit 11th century pagan Danish vikings as mercenaries (silly chroniclers who said he hired Christian Flemings from his own 13th century).
The city of Rochester (which in 1215 was over 1,300 years old) was completely invisible, as were its inhabitants, during this famous siege. Also invisible was the cathedral (first established in 630, then rebuilt in the 11th century), which stands hard by the castle.
I'm wondering how the Danes managed to conquer England back in the Dark Ages, as these time-travelling ones seem to have employed the same level of efficiency as Star Wars Imperial stormtroopers. How else to explain the way that, with 2,000 men, they only seem able to attack the one ten-yard portion of the outer walls that is being defended by the motley collection of two or three knights and a dozen peasants, instead of attacking all around the castle and overwhelming the defenders with sheer numbers.
The silly chroniclers have been at it again, BTW, as these twenty defenders are only a portion of the hundred or so knights and the several hundred footmen who those goofy scribes claim defended the castle originally. (Curiously, King John seems to know exactly how many of them there are, and who they are, before he approaches the castle--clearly, along with his time machine he has a couple of UAVs with good optics.) Perhaps the rest of the chroniclers' defenders are sheltering in the invisible city...
But the royal attackers shouldn't have to worry too much, as they have quite a few mangonels (clearly carried on lorries, since they begin hurling stones within an hour of the royal army's arrival). And what stones! King John has got a connection that has hooked him up with rocks that explode, not only hurling fragments all around (as ordinary rocks might) but also producing huge clouds of smoke and occasionally gouts of flame and fire.
ETA: Oh, noes! The defenders build their own mangonel out of scrap lumber, and they too have found napalm somewhere.
The defenders have a few tricks up their sleeves too. They have oil, which though it is being heated dozens of yards away from the walls where it is needed, can be quickly carried up in small leather buckets without cooling too much to be highly disconcerting when hurled from the parapet. Disconcerting only in that it resembles a highly liquid tar instead of oil--maybe it's some special ink-like oil?
I can understand why King John is so upset; among other things, despite his having historically spent £115 nearly ten years before on the castle's walls and ditches, it is apparently without a moat. Or so the fictional Knight Templar who organizes the defenses says, standing on the solid ground outside the gatehouse; the captain of the time-travelling Danish mercenaries insists that the castle is protected by water, but maybe he's just making excuses for his mens' abject failure to overwhelm a force that they outnumber by 100 to 1.
I must say, though, these are doughty warriors on both sides; instead of the normal 5 or 6 liters of blood, most of them seem to have at least 8 or 10, judging by how much comes squirting out when any of them are hit. I'm curious to know if "Jonathan English" is just a British pseudonym for "Quentin Tarantino". And they are so tough that most of them wear no armour--not even helmets in combat most of the time. And apart from the Danes (who of course carry the proper round shields of their time), only one or two of the original garrison carry shields. Of course, most of the defenders are peasants, not actual soldiers (which does make one wonder where they got all of their super weapons skills), so maybe the lacks of armour and shields is understandable.
And lest you think this film is only about the tougher side of life in the 1200s, we do have occasional glimpses of the constable's wife, a comely young woman who doesn't seem to be to her husband's taste. (He's played by Derek Jacobi, which may suggest why he'd rather drink with the boys in the great hall than make sweet, sweet love to his pretty young wife.) But she goes out of her way to tend to the wounded after the first attack, wearing a very fetching headdress of leather straps and little silver rosettes that she doubtless got at her local Renn Faire, instead of a more appropriate but dowdy wimple. But then, she may have torn up her wimple to make rags for washing wounds--she washes off the Templar's flesh wound very assiduously, while teasing him about the papal decree that makes it a sin for knights in holy orders to look at women or even speak to them (I can imagine how awkward that must have made things--if you couldn't look at women, you'd be always bumping into them, and then not being able to say "Oh, sorry!")
ETA: Oh, she has a corset, too, that she must also have bought at the Renn Faire. But she must have blown her clothes budget on it, as she apparently can't afford any decent linen underclothes--she has no shirt, and even her strangely figured overrobe has no sleeves (or even shoulders).
ETA: Those Templars had a lot of rules; they weren't allowed to kill their own horses? Wow. Though I'm still trying to figure out how the defenders could starve nearly to death in six weeks...
Films are so great. I don't know how I would learn anything if it weren't for films.
King John had a time machine that allowed him to recruit 11th century pagan Danish vikings as mercenaries (silly chroniclers who said he hired Christian Flemings from his own 13th century).
The city of Rochester (which in 1215 was over 1,300 years old) was completely invisible, as were its inhabitants, during this famous siege. Also invisible was the cathedral (first established in 630, then rebuilt in the 11th century), which stands hard by the castle.
I'm wondering how the Danes managed to conquer England back in the Dark Ages, as these time-travelling ones seem to have employed the same level of efficiency as Star Wars Imperial stormtroopers. How else to explain the way that, with 2,000 men, they only seem able to attack the one ten-yard portion of the outer walls that is being defended by the motley collection of two or three knights and a dozen peasants, instead of attacking all around the castle and overwhelming the defenders with sheer numbers.
The silly chroniclers have been at it again, BTW, as these twenty defenders are only a portion of the hundred or so knights and the several hundred footmen who those goofy scribes claim defended the castle originally. (Curiously, King John seems to know exactly how many of them there are, and who they are, before he approaches the castle--clearly, along with his time machine he has a couple of UAVs with good optics.) Perhaps the rest of the chroniclers' defenders are sheltering in the invisible city...
But the royal attackers shouldn't have to worry too much, as they have quite a few mangonels (clearly carried on lorries, since they begin hurling stones within an hour of the royal army's arrival). And what stones! King John has got a connection that has hooked him up with rocks that explode, not only hurling fragments all around (as ordinary rocks might) but also producing huge clouds of smoke and occasionally gouts of flame and fire.
ETA: Oh, noes! The defenders build their own mangonel out of scrap lumber, and they too have found napalm somewhere.
The defenders have a few tricks up their sleeves too. They have oil, which though it is being heated dozens of yards away from the walls where it is needed, can be quickly carried up in small leather buckets without cooling too much to be highly disconcerting when hurled from the parapet. Disconcerting only in that it resembles a highly liquid tar instead of oil--maybe it's some special ink-like oil?
I can understand why King John is so upset; among other things, despite his having historically spent £115 nearly ten years before on the castle's walls and ditches, it is apparently without a moat. Or so the fictional Knight Templar who organizes the defenses says, standing on the solid ground outside the gatehouse; the captain of the time-travelling Danish mercenaries insists that the castle is protected by water, but maybe he's just making excuses for his mens' abject failure to overwhelm a force that they outnumber by 100 to 1.
I must say, though, these are doughty warriors on both sides; instead of the normal 5 or 6 liters of blood, most of them seem to have at least 8 or 10, judging by how much comes squirting out when any of them are hit. I'm curious to know if "Jonathan English" is just a British pseudonym for "Quentin Tarantino". And they are so tough that most of them wear no armour--not even helmets in combat most of the time. And apart from the Danes (who of course carry the proper round shields of their time), only one or two of the original garrison carry shields. Of course, most of the defenders are peasants, not actual soldiers (which does make one wonder where they got all of their super weapons skills), so maybe the lacks of armour and shields is understandable.
And lest you think this film is only about the tougher side of life in the 1200s, we do have occasional glimpses of the constable's wife, a comely young woman who doesn't seem to be to her husband's taste. (He's played by Derek Jacobi, which may suggest why he'd rather drink with the boys in the great hall than make sweet, sweet love to his pretty young wife.) But she goes out of her way to tend to the wounded after the first attack, wearing a very fetching headdress of leather straps and little silver rosettes that she doubtless got at her local Renn Faire, instead of a more appropriate but dowdy wimple. But then, she may have torn up her wimple to make rags for washing wounds--she washes off the Templar's flesh wound very assiduously, while teasing him about the papal decree that makes it a sin for knights in holy orders to look at women or even speak to them (I can imagine how awkward that must have made things--if you couldn't look at women, you'd be always bumping into them, and then not being able to say "Oh, sorry!")
ETA: Oh, she has a corset, too, that she must also have bought at the Renn Faire. But she must have blown her clothes budget on it, as she apparently can't afford any decent linen underclothes--she has no shirt, and even her strangely figured overrobe has no sleeves (or even shoulders).
ETA: Those Templars had a lot of rules; they weren't allowed to kill their own horses? Wow. Though I'm still trying to figure out how the defenders could starve nearly to death in six weeks...
Films are so great. I don't know how I would learn anything if it weren't for films.
