More than a week has passed since my return and I have been reminded that I promised to write something “evocative and gritty” about the accumulation of minor physical wounds whilst fighting in full armour… In my case comprising of a riveted mail hauberk (knee length, full sleeves), closed helm, hardened leather legs with steel knee cops, other sundry bits and pieces of padding and protection, and a centre-grip round shield.
All told it weighs a shade under 30kg, despite the fact I haven’t added the riveted camail to the helm yet, which is why I don’t fly to tournaments any more.
So without further ado here is a list of what my poor body suffered…
1) Three contusions, two minor, one major. The minor bruises were located on the inside of my lower right calf muscle and the other on my lower ribs, again on the right hand side. The major bruise was more serious, being the accumulation of five separate blows to the exact same location – forming an elongated stripe running from the upper front of my right thigh round and up to my right hip. It measured over 25cm in length and 6cm in width which shows the phenomenal accuracy of the left handed opponent (an old friend) who managed to find the exact same location each time, although admittedly several of those blows I’d deliberately left my leg open in order to gain an opening on the left hand side of his head.
Sadly for me, the power of his shots were enough to penetrate the combined protection of the mail, gambeson, 5mm hardened leather and the extra padding sewn into the shorts over the hip, which goes to show what kind of power is being generated. The blue-black of the contusion has slowly faded, but even now, 14 days later it has not completely healed. It also itches like crazy!
Fortunately there’s only a handful of fellow fighters I know who can penetrate my defences like this, so I was pleased that I only received two other minor bruises in total – a good indication that my skills are not atrophying quite as badly as I’d feared living in the remote far north.
2) A minor hyper-extention and twisting of my sword arm. This was gained during a battle where the troops of both sides were crushed together whilst we attempted to force our way through a gateway. I could write much about the inability to move, much less fight during these situations. No matter how big and strong you are personally, once you are caught in such a press you are rendered helpless; and in open field situations there is a significant fear of falling and being trampled by the heavily armoured participants around you.
In this particular circumstance I had led the charge, ending up squashed up against the shield wall. Although I had been ‘killed’ I quite literally could not move an inch nor even drop to my knees, which resulted in my head being needlessly pounded on since nobody can hear you shout ‘Good Blow’ over the noise of impacting weapons, grunting and yelled orders. My head however was not my primary concern given that I own a fine helmet, but my arm was trapped in an overhead position where it was both twisted and battered by the enemy’s polearms.
Luckily this was the last main battle of the day, but during my remaining single combats that afternoon I suffered painful twinges each time I threw a blow and so I decided to not fight on the final day of the event.
3) Minor abrasions to the arms. An interesting aspect of riveted mail is that depending on the manufacturer the rivets show a degree of protuberance. I have the slightly ‘smoother’ side of my mail on the inside of course, but even so there are still imperfections. Since a blow to the arm is actually quite rare in freeform full force combat (most fighters seemingly forget about it as a target) I don’t have thick padding on the sleeves save at the elbows, leaving just a layer of fabric to prevent chafing.
Although the mail itself absorbs a large amount of force from most blows to the arm, so that they rarely cause any pain, those tiny rivets still inflict damage – gauging out small sections of skin, even through the fabric. Thus I ended up after the event with twenty-something little scabs covering the outer areas of my lower and upper weapon arm. Now it looks strangely mottled with all these weird looking small red blotches!
4) Muscular aches and sore feet. No need to expand too greatly upon this. The simple fact of wearing so much armour for extended periods on contiguous days takes its toll. I don’t generally suffer from back pain of any type, but obviously my body has become a bit soft in the last couple of years since I normally only don full armour once a week. Age catching up with me I suppose.
However, it does go to show why knee and wrist length hauberks don’t begin to show up much in history until mounted warriors adopt its use. Foot troops such as Republican Romans or early period Vendels and Vikings usually have mail vests ending at the waist and short sleeves (if at all). Getting the horse to bear the weight is far more sensible.
5) Weight loss. This is a normal by-product of what happens to my appetite when I’m fighting. In the mornings I want a light breakfast so no food sits heavily in my stomach. Once in armour and/or have begun fighting I cannot face food at all, my body instinctively knowing that all my blood flow is needed to keep me cool. Digestion appropriates a considerable portion of your blood and when you are exercising profusely you cannot afford to divert too much of it away from the muscles and skin.
Once I finish fighting for the day, after however many hours sweating in armour, the last thing I am interested in is food. Instead my prime motivation is rehydrating, getting clean and perhaps relaxing in the sauna to head-off any muscular soreness.
So lack of eating, a high level of physical activity and sometimes the additional physiological strain of keeping warm whilst wearing period clothing if the event is cold, can all combine to place me in slow starvation mode. On the positive side I did lose most of my winter flabbiness.
6) A snipped finger. Not so much a fighting injury, I managed to snip through the base of my left index finger whilst trying to finish mounting some cast silver badges to one of my belts. A stupid accident but one which required me to locate my squire (who is a doctor) and ask him to stitch the wound.
Lacking a surgical suture kit however, we had to apply some innovative solutions – namely some silk embroidery thread and sewing needles. Now normally I consider sewing needles to be reasonably sharp, after all I’ve picked my fingers innumerable times when stitching garb. However, forcing said needles through thick layers of flesh to suture a wound back together is a different matter entirely… especially when lacking any form of anaesthesia.
Needless to say I now appreciate the difference in sharpness between surgical and embroidery needles. I still think we should have performed the operation in public as a demonstration of Medieval surgery, but other wiser heads disagreed. Probably a good thing considering the amount of blood…
7) Last but not least, total hair loss. Again nothing specifically to do with combat per se, although people stupid enough to wear mail on bare skin soon learn their lesson, but it is rather apt considering this was a re-enactment event.
Before anyone jumps to conclusions, no, I didn’t manage to set fire to my head. My children did however manage to pick up an infestation of head lice. Very period.
Well, those folks who know me personally will remember that my hair has been rather thin on top for a number of years. I’ve wanted to shave my head for a while, but my wife has steadfastly refused. The head lice infestation gave me the perfect excuse for digging out the clippers and shaving it all off.
The result? My head is nice and cool, I don’t need to use shampoo any more and I now look like a thug. My wife still winces when she catches sight of my head in the morning but I think she’s getting used to it…
