I'm not big on military history, but you've got to admit that the innovation and design quality involved in kitting out the fighters and hunters of the past was pretty amazing.


With this in mind, I decided to go out on a noble quest to the Royal Armouries in Leeds to see some of these innovations in action.


The first thing to know about the Royal Armouries is that it's free entry, which is always brilliant to see, and open 10am to 5pm. There's easy public parking not far away at Clarence Dock for about £10 for all day and the museum is situated on the dockside and walking distance from the town centre. Often it has live demonstrations and particular workshops and talks that you can attend, as well as exhibitions that - like most museums- mix the cyclical with the permanent: on my visit the special attraction was a display of some the treasures of the Staffordshire Horde. In my case we were a little too early to see the live tournament fights etc, but if you're visiting and especially if you're bringing kids along it might be worth aiming for after 11 or 12 and going for the weekend slots when everything is a little busier.


So what's in the museum?

The main displays on offer were War, Oriental, Hunting, Tournament, Self Defense and the Staffordshire Hoard. But it would be a crime to review the museum without talking about THAT entrance hall...
The museum is arranged vertically over a few floors and linking them all is a wide spiral staircase that surrounds a stunning display of historical arms and armour. War has always been a game of numbers and this is clearly shown in the sheer amount of items arranged in a grimly beautiful piece of gleaming art, perfectly regimented like the armies that bore the equipment.

Impressive, to say the least.

The level of attention to detail, pomp and circumstance follows through the whole museum: there really are some very important artifacts on display that belonged to very famous figures in history and the museum knows just how to present them so you can appreciate their full view. The tournament section is perhaps the most star-studded, displaying armour from Henry VIII to the Holy Roman Emperor, as well as the Armouries' famous mask that appears on their logos. But the War section does a fantastic job of showing a timeline of quality items from wars throughout the ages, and manages to inspire a little of the awe and fear people must have felt when facing down these warriors due to their fantastic model displays. One, for example, sees a full-sized pair of armoured soldiers facing off against soldiers with lances. Another, in the oriental section, shows the largest example of animal armour in the world - a 17thc almost fully complete set of war elephant armour. And you'd better believe that they've mounted it on a fully-scaled model of an Indian elephant, complete with rider. Intimidating stuff.

   The museum is set perfectly to help visitors appreciate the level of skill and craftsmanship involved from practical pieces to the decorative gifts that were given to great leaders. One element that I found fascinating was when they deconstructed armour or turned it inside out so that you could see the clever construction of an armoured jerkin, for example, or the intricate embroidery on the inside of a helmet. Image was everything in war, but the hidden details had real value to them too.


Does the Royal Armouries museum glorify war?

Miniature commoners caught in the fray.

It's impossible not to be struck with awe and an appreciation for the beauty in these instruments of protection and death, but does this mean that the museum glorifies war in a way that's distasteful? For my part I would say no. It's important to appreciate the beauty of these items and the skill of their use, both for their own sake and also to enable us to get into the minds of our ancestors and how they responded to them. Tournaments, chivalry, bravery and pomp were all huge parts of how mainstream masculinity was (and is) constructed, and how nationalism and many symbols of each country's culture are expressed. The important thing is that even in the rooms where the idealism and romance of war is most expressed by the exhibits, the curators are careful to include important details that impress upon you the reality of war. Those large imposing figures aren't just picture-bait, but put you in the position of someone facing them in person - looking up into that killing machine on horseback. The insides of the armour show the realities of living inside of them. And even in tiny details - such as the miniature representation of a great battle - they take the time to show common people fleeing in terror.

Finally the 'self defense' room, which pulls us into the modern age, acts as a sobering example of what war and violence means for us now. Here you can find testimonies of people affected by gun violence, different types of brutal common weapons throughout the twentieth century, and a display case swimming with examples of real weapons seized from every-day people by the police. Oddly, at the end of this exhibit there is also a display of the different swords from The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit, further emphasising the conflict between the fantasy and reality of violence and battles, even in the modern mindset today.
In the end I appreciate the blend of realities: the good and bad sides of these battles in our culture. And neither side is turned into melodrama.


So....should I visit?

Absolutely! Not only is it free, but it has some seriously important and valuable artifacts, all beautifully presented. Definitely worth your time.




When you visit, keep your eyes peeled for these...

I wonder if king Henry noticed...

• The craftsman's mistake on the patterning Henry VIII's duelling armour and his rushed-job attempt to fix it. (We've all been there, man!)
• A very cool demon's-mask for a horse in the oriental section.
• An unsettlingly anatomically correct realisation of a lady boar's nether region on one of the models. (That's..uh...good attention to detail there, buddy.)
• Armadillo-scaled armour in the oriental section
• Tiny, tiny full-plate armour for children.
• The biggest codpiece I've ever seen.
• A completely adorable chinese dog/demon face on a sword hilt.
• The most badass elephant & hunters vs tiger model you're ever likely to see.

I love weird history. While at times it can be gimmicky, it's always illuminating. Social history at its best.

So, fellow readers, you're probably not surprised that I loved Melissa Mohr's "Holy Sh*t: A Brief History of Swearing." I mean, come on. Look at that title, then look me in the eye and tell me that this wouldn't be a great book.

Admittedly, when you pick this off the shelf it's likely for the same reason why you flick to the dirty words in the dictionary or why you put Who Cut the Cheese? on your Amazon wishlist - you want a dirty snicker while education floats vaguely in the background as plausible deniability. But Holy Sh*t is a lot more than an excuse to see scatological humour and swearwords in an academic setting. Through pulling apart two versions of swearing - 'the holy' (curses and oaths) and 'the shit' ('dirty' swearing) - and tracking their development from the Romans to the modern day, Mohr provides a fascinating and insightful lens into our cultural development. Look to what offends a culture most and you will often see what it values most. Focus on what's classified as good manners and how these are broken, and you will always find what the history books are so often trying to hide.

In her journey through the history of swearing Mohr keeps her tongue firmly in her cheek, but treats her history with respect and meticulous detail when it's important. I would even recommend this book alone for her treatment of the history of God's emergence as a monotheistic deity in the bible, which is a fascinating and revealing read that demands a book of its own. By understanding how oaths  was used by God at his youngest in the bible, it informs us as to why they ('the Holy' swears) had such a power to 'hurt' him in the eyes of his believers, and how the power of these oaths died down by the Georgians to modern day.
Also fascinating, by explaining how medieval people were what we would now see as so vulgar - desensitized to 'the Shit' swears - she explains in illuminating detail the power dynamics of the time and why, at the brink before these became offensive, it was perfectly acceptable for Queen Elizabeth 1st to greet esteemed visitors with her boobs out.

For me, social history is always a great pleasure and I applaud anyone who is willing to put in the research to explore these more under-represented areas of history. Holy Sh*t: A Brief History of Swearing is a fantastic little book that you absolutely must go out and buy. 
You'll fuckin' love it.

Good morning, I hope you're all enjoying your bank holiday weekend!

This week I'd like to nudge you all towards The History Girls' interesting article on Medieval Cosmetics and, even more importantly, our own relationship with how we view history.

To read the full article click here

A lot can change in almost 1,000 years, but there is always a comforting familiarity about the lives of people throughout history.

 A photographic survey of military uniforms throughout history brings this to light by using the trendy fashion-blogger presentation of laying it all out neatly for us. In doing so the clothes take on their own aesthetic that we seldom appreciate when we see these pieces in museums.
As time goes on and warfare changes the kit grows along with the growing complexity of more and more modern technology.

I've never been a huge military history fan, but for me this is an emotive set of pictures. By laying everything out ready for dressing you can feel the presence of the man behind the clothes taking stock of his life.

Make sure to check out the Daily Telegraph article for detailed descriptions of each item in the kit. For more detailed descriptions of the individual soliders of each period, check out the photographer Thom Atkinson's comments in the 'Inventories of war' article.


 

Sources:
-Pinterest (via 9gag)
- The Daily Telegraph full article
-'Inventories of War'
-Photos by Thom Atkinson

Why, right here of course!

If you've seen A Knight's Tale then you're sure to remember the brilliant scene where all the Medieval party-goers start out dancing to what sounds like vaguely Medieval music, which soon blends into David Bowie's Golden Years. 

 It looks and sounds fantastic and pretty much sums up the whole film's approach to history.
While plenty of people were put off by the anachronism, effectively it displays the film's whole approach to handling history. By juxtaposing the modern with the old fashioned, and risking a little anachronism, it elevated the characters away from just 'fusty old medieval people' and into the clever, fun reality of what people in that time may have been like within their own context. It helped us identify with them and so brought the history fully to life.


But, of course, this post isn't about Knights Tale, it's about music. 

If you've ever been curious about what Medieval music actually sounded like outside of the silver-screen, then you should definately check out the great website Free Early and Renaissance Music. Here Medieval music has been recorded, categorised by country and is free to listen to or to even download.


Personally, I really like April is in My Mistress' Face by Thomas Morley which was written in his lifetime (between around 1557 and 1602) and is based on this poem:

     April is in my mistress' face.
    And July in her eyes hath place.
    Within her bosom is September,
    But in her heart a cold December.

If you want to put on your academic hat, you should also take a look at the Digital Image Archive of Medieval Music.

Happy exploring, music fans!

Nowadays we don't really think of short (or long) sightedness as any sort of disability.

It's commonplace to the point of near invisibility. CBS statistics state that approximately 61% of the population needed some form of sight or reading aids in 2012 (as compared to 57% in 2001). The number only increases as the population weighs in with an increasingly towards older generations and as our lives become more affixed to our screens and books. 

Take away your glasses and contact lenses, however, and it's soon very clear just how vulnerable you are.

Usually I'm reminded of this when I go to the hairdressers. They sit me down, I take my glasses off and instantly I'm plunged back into a world of vague fuzzy shapes. I put blind trust in what the hairdresser is snipping away at. While we make small talk I look straight ahead and try not to squint, and I try to give friendly eye contact when I can't actually see her eyes. There's always something unsettling in holding a conversation with a face that, for all intents and purposes, has more in common with Slenderman's than something human.

I find it hard not to think how difficult life would be without my glasses when I sit in that chair, and how much they enrich my life.

So how was life like for people before glasses were invented? And who were the people in history who worked to give the precious gift of sight?

 

There is debate about just how developed ancient eye-correction was.

 

 According to the scholar Edward Rosen, the first known reference to a pair of eyeglasses was in 1305 when Friar Giodarno di Rivolta remarked 'It is not yet twenty years since there was found the art of making eyeglasses which make for good vision, one of the best and most necessary the world has.'  However, the inventive use of lenses and the like to correct faulty vision potentially much older.

 

Astriophanes (approx 450-385 bc) mentions plan-convex lenses and globes of water that were used to see, and the Roman Seneca is said to have read through a globe of water. However, the use of these aids were not so widespread as to stop a prominent Roman in 100bc from complaining in a letter that he lamented his poor eyesight preventing him from reading. He instead had to rely on his slave reading out any text for him.

 

While it is not confirmed what its use was, the Nimrud Lens is the oldest known lens found in the world and is dated to somewhere between 4,500-3,500 years old. It's entirely possible that people could have used this to aid them in reading. It is thought that the Romans, Babylonians, Greeks and even Vikings all could create similar lenses of varying quality (thought it is suggested that the vikings instead had these manufactures in the Byzantium empire).

 

The Nimrud Lens

  

Eyeglasses as we now know them were likely created in medieval times.

While the gradual wearing of sight is a common ailment of people as they grow older, it is likely that the increase in reading and scholastic learning in the Medieval period drew more attention and inventiveness to the problem of long-sightedness. In 1289 di'Popozo wrote that "I am so debilita-ted-by age that without the glasses known as spectacles, I would no longer be able to read or write. These have recently been invented for the benefit of poor old people whose sight has become weak"

Monastic populations were often the focus for the development of eyeglasses. For example, in the 14th century, it is thought that Friar Alessandro reverse-engineered earlier sight-aids and transformed them into a useful eyeglass, proceeding to share the invention with the population. This was a significent shift away from the norm of invention: in the times before copyrighting craftsmen endeavoured to keep their methods a secret in order to better profit from them, so Alessandro's act of kindness allowed for a great leap forwards in the technology.

 

Art at the time begins to depict people wearing spectacles and they were gradually associated as a status symbols for learned men, though of course this was dictated to by the shifting fashions of the time.

 

It wasn't until the 16th century that concave lenses were created for the short-sighted rather than the long-sightedness that is a usual symptom of age. Perhaps the most famous customer for these new short-sighted glassed was Pope Leo the 10th, who used to wear them while he was hunting. Sometime between 1760 and 1780 Benjamin Franklin began experimenting with even fusing the two, creating verifocals.

 

While the efficiency of glasses were dependant on the sophistication of glass-making technology, perhaps the biggest design challenge was how on earth to keep them on your head!

 

Many spectacles were designed on a hinge that would perch on the edge of the nose like scissors or could be held up to the face. In the 17th and 18th centuries it was common to have glasses on a stick to hold up opera-style, and ribbons were commonly used to affix glasses more tightly to the face in order to get a better focus from them. In 1781-89 glasses with sliding extension temples were created, but these didn't see widespread use until the 19thc.

Nowadays, the commonest style is through temple bars that hook around the ears but, even so, Opthalmologist Melvin Rueban insisted that these spectacles were 'one of technology's best examples of poor engineering design'.

 Modern glasses designs can be adjusted through heating and which curve around the ear, supported by adjustable nose-pads and springs, though any glasses user could quickly tell you that these are still far from perfect.

 

 

Nowadays, technology has advanced to the point of potentially erasing the need for frames all together.

 

Spectacle frames are and, for the foreseeable future, will continue to be the most popular option for vision correction due to their practicality and relative(!) cheapness. However, we are now lucky enough to have the options of contact lenses and laser eye correction to cure short or long sightedness.

 

Contact lenses were suggested as early as 1845 by Sir John Herschel, but it was F. E Muller who first put them into practice by blowing a glass lens over the eyeball of a man whose lid has been destroyed by cancer. This contact lens was said to have lasted until his death 20 years later. While further experiements and studies commenced, it wasn't until the 1940s that a full variety of contact lenses became available to the public and widely used.

By 1964 some 6 million people in the US wore contact lenses, with 65% of which were female. Given the vulnerability of spectacles to rather severe criticism in fashion, and the close link of traditional female identity with her looks, this is rather unsurprising.

 

 

In the 1970s the development of the excimer laser offered a ground breaking alternative to both spectacles and contact lenses - what if short or long sightedness could actually be cured?

Stephen L Trokel used it to experiement on the eyes of cadavers and then living animals, seeing how their corneas could be altered for the better. In 1988 Trokel was lucky enough to have a willing human participant: a 60-year old woman who was due to have her eye removed due to a malignant melanoma asked if they would like to experiment on her. Trokel's colleague, Marguerite MacDonalD performed the first photorefractive Keratectomy on the lady that year. By the early 1990s the procedure was approved in Canada and the US.

In 1999 the development of wavefront technology allowed doctors to map out a patient's prescription on the unique corneas and by 2002 100% bladeless surgery was finally possible.

Sight correction has come a long way in our history and it can only get better

 

Currently scientists are even on the verge of helping the blind to see.

In 2009, following a work accident, the builder Martin Jones was left blind but, luckily, with one eye still intact. Groundbreaking surgery, carried out by the surgeon Christopher Liu, allowed one of Martin's teeth to act as a replacement lens. While admittedly quite a grisly procedure, it allowed Martin to see his wife after 12 years of blindness. As the tooth is part of Martin's body, there is a far smaller chance of his body rejecting it than if it was made form synthetic materials.

How Martin Jones gained his sight back

Oxford University's smart glasses are designed to help near-blind users by amplifying what little available sight they have.

 The device takes 3d objects and alters the images, making them into bright defined silhouettes.

 One user, Lyn Oliver, was diagnosed with Retinis Pigmentosa in her early 20s which gradually led to extensive vision loss. She relies on her guide dog Jess to navigate, but using the glasses made this significantly easier.

 

“If Jess stops, the glasses can tell me if she’s stopped because there’s a kerb, there’s something on the floor or it’s roadworks, and it’ll give me a sense of which way she may go around the obstacle.
‘If people are stood outside a shop talking, they often go silent when they see me and watch me walk past. But they’ve disappeared as far as I am concerned. Have they moved? Have they gone inside the shop?
“There’s a sudden stress about avoiding them. The glasses help remove this layer of stress and they do it in a way that is natural to the person using them. After taking them off I was missing them." 
Here are the smart glasses in action:

 

Clearly there is still a lot of work to be done but it's amazing how far we have come in giving preserving the most precious of our senses.

Sources

-CBS Statistics

-Is too much TV really bad for your eyes?

-The History of Eyeglasses

-The history of eyeglasses (shopko optical)

-The evolution of eyeglasses

-The early history of eyeglasses - optiboard

-Ancient Wisdom

-Amsterdam's Museum of Spectacles

-The history of laser vision correction

-Blind man see wife for first time after having tooth implanted into his eye.

-Oxford University's smart glasses

The spread of the Black Death in Europe

The black death is one of the worst pandemics in human history. 

Also known as The Plague, it has recurred at frequent intervals for centuries and  even today in America there are 5-15 known cases of plague per year, and in 2013 in madagascar 20 people have died from the disease, with 60 deaths the year before. The most infamous outbreaks took place in Europe between 1347 and 1353 AD and have been estimated to have killed between 75-200 million people: roughly one third of all people in Europe at the time.

The Plague had three forms: Bubonic, Pneumonic and Sceptecimic.
The Bubonic plague is perhaps the most well known, with it's primary symptom being the painful buboes that swell up in the lymph nodes. Pneumonic plague infected the lungs and scepticemic plague infected the blood.

The majority of Europe fought a losing battle due to ignorence about the disease and more primitive' medical practice: nowadays the plague is combatted by a mix of increasingly hygienic living conditions to combat the rat plague carriers and antibiotics to combat the disease itself. However, as you can see from the image above, there were a few notable 'islands' that managed to fight off the plague: Poland and Milan.

The Tumblr post that inspired this article gives the fascinating reason for these phenomena, and I will leave it to these ladies and/or gents to explain it in their own words:


unseilie:

If I remember correctly, Poland’s secret is that the Jews where being blamed all over Europe (as usual) as scapegoats for the black plague. Poland was the only place that accepted Jewish refugees, so pretty much all of them moved there. 
Now, one of the major causes of getting the plague was poor hygiene. This proved very effective for the plague because everyone threw their poop into the streets because there were no sewers, and literally no one bathed because it was against their religion. Unless they were Jewish, who actually bathed relatively often. When all the Jews moved to Poland, they brought bathing with them, and so the plague had little effect there.
Milan survived by quarantining its city and burning down the house of anyone showing early symptoms, with the entire family inside it. 

By Ace-Thorn

platinumpixels:

Poland: “Hey, feeling a bit down? Have a quick wash! There, you see? All better”
Milan: “Aw, feeling a bit sick are we? BURN MOTHERFUCKER, BURN!!!!!”




 the-sonic-screw:

Also, this might have something to do with it: from what I understand, O blood type is uncommonly… common in Poland. Something to do with large families in small villages and a LOT of intermarriage. The black plague was caused by a bacterium that produced, in its waste in the human body, wastes that very closely mimic the “B” marker sugars on red blood cells that keep the body from attacking its own immune system. Anyone who has a B blood type had an immune system that was naturally desensitized to the presence of the bacterium, and therefore was more prone to developing the disease. Anyone who had an O type was doubly lucky because the O blood type means the total absence of ANY markers, A or B, meaning that their bodys’ immune system would react quickly and violently against the invaders, while someone with an A may show symptoms and recover more slowly, while someone with B would have just died. Because O is a recessive blood type, it shows in higher numbers when more people who carry the recessive genes marry other people who also carry the recessive gene. Poland, which has a nearly 700 year history of being conquered by or partnering with every other nation in the surrounding area, was primarily an agricultural country, focused around smaller, farming communities where people were legally tied to, and required to work, “their” land, and so historically never “spread” their genes across a large area. The economy was, and had been, unstable for a very long period of time leading up to the plague, the government had been ineffective and had very little reach in comparison to the armies of the other countries around for a very very long time, and so its people largely remained in small communities where multiple generations of cross-familial inbreeding could have allowed for this more recessive gene to show up more frequently. Thus, there could be a higher percentage of O blood types in any region of the country, guaranteeing less spread of the illness and moving slower when it did manage to travel. Combine this with the fact that there were very few large, urban centres where the disease would thrive, and with the above facts, and you’ve got a lovely recipe for avoiding the plague.
Interestingly enough, as a result from the plague, the entirety of Europe now has a higher percentage of people with O blood type than any other region of the world. 


 detenebrate
Just to throw a nod in, as a medieval historian, this is all credible, and is the leading theory as to the plagues effectiveness at this point. So. Enjoy your new knowledge.


 So there you have it. If you're Jewish, or have a type O blood type, you can rest safe in the knowledge that you probably wouldn't have died of the plague!
...Probably.

The Black Death, however, is still perhaps not the most prevalent and deadly disease in all of human history.
In 1918 the 'Spanish Flu' killed 100 million people - 3% of the world's population. But this pales in comparison to Malaria. Researchers suggest that across all of human history, of all the humans that have ever existed, one half have died due to Malaria.

Pandemics and disease are humanity's greatest foe and how we cope with their impact will always be an important and fascinating part of our history.


Sources:
 -Vsauce - 'The most dangerous place on Earth'
-This Tumblr Post, originally by 'Them-days-was-old-as-fuck'
-The Gaurdian: Bubonic plague killed 20 villagers
-The deadliest pandemics in history
-Plague Doctor Image