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While watching "The Tudors" I keep looking things up.
Things like the armor shown during The Pilgrimage of Grace and Bigod's Rebellion being basically correct, the swords are all wrong.
The blades are consistent with much earlier patterns. 13th and 14th century according to Oakeshott.
16th century swords were trending towards rapiers.
Arming swords would have been the severely tapered XV or XVa. Broadswords suitable for thrusting into the very well designed armor of the period.
There's a scene where an assassin shoots someone (Robert Pakington) with a pistol. A wheel-lock. Period correct, but that's a very well heeled assassin. A wheel lock costs as much as a sword in 1536.
This is not to say that correct swords are not present, they're there; but not when someone is wearing armor.
Speaking of armor...
The Tudor period is firmly TL4 and, as I said, the armor shown is period correct for the most part.
Armor that is firmly entrenched in most people's imaginations as "medieval".
But medieval is TL3.
The plate armor most people think of as typical fantasy plate-mail is a TL more advanced than the time frame they're romantically thinking of.
I blame Renaissance artists.
You can also blame the Victorians, who ret-conned, with extreme violence in some instances, a whole buncha medieval and renaissance history, which we are struggling to this day to correct.
ReplyDeleteBoth medieval and renaissance artists portrayed earlier subjects in the dress and equipment of current times.
But the Victorians? They just made up BS out of thin air and then made it stick. Kind of like... the Tudors in their ability to rewrite history until it fits the current politics.
Still waiting for the 'period drama' where someone tries to cap the big armored dude but he's wearing a proofed harness and shrugs off the shot, maybe with some splatter damage that gets caught up in his arming doublet. Ah, one can dream...
Swords are almost NEVER period correct. I suspect this is due to Directors having a certain visual idea in their heads they want portrayed, or perhaps an even weirder psychosis dealing with the symbolism of the weapon. Whatever. It's a continual irritation to an Historian.
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