Uploaded by MILITARY HISTORY 2015. A look at the Military History of Medieval Armour and Axes. Returns to the days of chivalry to find out why personal armor developed–from horn and linen to chain mail to full plate. We visit an armorer’s workshop to see how it was made, and our expert team tries on various types, including the classic medieval plate armor, to assess their strengths and weaknesses, and tests fighting techniques with various knightly armor-piercing weapons. Then, we put the armored knight in his proper place–mounted on a charger!
Part 2 starts at 21:27 and guides viewers back to a time when knowing how to swing an ax meant the difference in life and death. Our experts practice with the Viking single- and double-headed types and learn that in the right hands these difficult and exhausting weapons had no equal. We also examine the berserker, an ax-wielding Viking warrior who worked himself into a state of concentrated fury. Finally, we look at the double-headed Saxon ax that was nearly the size of a man.
Much of what we know of ancient history is the history of militaries: their conquests, their movements, and their technological innovations. There are many reasons for this. Kingdoms and empires, the central units of control in the ancient world, could only be maintained through military force. Due to limited agricultural ability, there were relatively few areas that could support large communities, so fighting was common.
Weapons and armor, designed to be sturdy, tended to last longer than other artifacts, and thus a great deal of surviving artifacts recovered tend to fall in this category as they are more likely to survive. Weapons and armor were also mass-produced to a scale that makes them quite plentiful throughout history, and thus more likely to be found in archaeological digs.