The History of the World Podcast, written and presented by Chris Hasler

Volume 4, The Medieval World.

Episode 30, Medieval weaponry. Oh, yeah. A good starting point for the study of medieval weaponry is the continent of Europe.

Those Germanic kingdoms who inherited the weaponry advanced from the Romans and

took us forward into the age of knights and chivalry.

However, the advances of European weaponry was thanks to the influence of non-European

cultures too, so we must study and compare them to.

Ultimately the age of the night was rendered inefficient by the emergence of a non-European technology called Gunpowder.

But even though the medieval period is made more interesting by the emergence of Gunpowder,

there is so much more to talk about than that.

The vast array of weaponry from the many different cultures is diverse enough to be

more imagination inspiring than those weapons of the ancient times, yet still

simplistic enough to be explained without the need for a deep understanding of physical mechanics. You only need to look at a night's morning star, a

spiked metal ball on a shaft handle to have a good idea of how to use it and what would happen if you did.

It's not always the power of the weapon that won battles in medieval times,

but the nature in which it was deployed.

As with all periods, no battle was won without good strategy,

but the weapon itself may be better understood by looking at it on an individual

level. By the classical age, many different societies had realised the value of horses within their forces.

The Romans were breeding horses for many different purposes

and especially for use within the ranks of their cavalry.

During the later years of the Western Roman Empire

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