If you did, though, you might have some idea of what it was like for the knights in medieval times who wore the great helm.



A fully armoured knight would wear a hauberk, which is a coat of mail, beneath which he'd wear a gambeson, a thick cloth coat to prevent chafing and to some extent protect his body from the heat of the sun off his mail.

Headwise, things weren't too bad with the conical helm and nasal, but later on in the 12th. century, the great helm came into its own.

It covered the head and neck completely, and if you found yourself in a battle which lasted for a few hours, the discomfort felt by the Crusading knights must have been acute.

True, they were incredibly tough. The knight would train from boyhood in the use of weapons and it was considered that if a boy was unable to ride and control a destrier by the time he was 12, he may just as well settle for a career in the church.

In the main, they trained with wooden weapons, twice the weight of the real ones. A sword would weigh about three and a half pounds, although I read a book a short time ago where one of the knights used one weighing 14lbs! Ever tried hefting 14 lbs? True, they were tremendously strong, but there's no way on earth they could fight with a weapon of that weight.

They had what's known as "the knight's build." Massively broad shoulders tapering down to a slim waist and hips, with huge thighs and calves. They'd have made the wrestlers we see on TV today look like wimps!

But 14 lbs? I don't think so. Another fierce argument that raises its head periodically is to do with the size of their horses.

I read a book some time ago that stated the horses must have been no more that twelve hands high, and relatively light. This is ridiculous. The animal had to carry a fully armed warrior into battle, withstand the shock of the initial charge, and continue on, probably throughout the day, with its rider in close combat, retreating, advancing, chasing and being chased.

It would require a very strong animal for this sort of duty. The argument for the knights having much shorter horses is that in contemporary pictures, they're shown with their legs below the animal's barrel. But this is because they wore their stirrups much longer than riders do now. Their legs were straight down, not bent to an angle of very roughly 110 degrees as they are today.

To go from the sublime to the ridiculous, I read on one website where the horse was 24 hands high!! Good grief, you'd need a scaling ladder to mount such a brute. But let's be fair. That was probably a typo.

I don't think there's any horse that size, nor has there ever been. It seems that they stood between 15 and 16 hands and possessed a very powerful build. They'd have to be around that size to endure the hardships to which they were subjected.

Another point worth noting is the criticism levelled, particularly against the knights of the First Crusade, who slaughtered everyone in Jerusalem, Saracen and gentile alike, and then, when their appetites for carnage and looting were sated, marched around the Holy Sepulcre, weeping and singing hymns to Jesus.

Seem bad? Of course it does - to our more delicate feelings. There's a leading televangelist who rails frequently against the Crusaders for what they did.

But we have to remember the times in which they lived, and the incredible hardships they faced actually travelling to Jerusalem. Mark you, even some of the Crusaders were sickened by the slaughter.

But their lives on that journey ranged from freezing cold to insufferable heat. From starvation to plenty. From thirst we can barely imagine to sweet water and wine.

By the time they reached poor old Jerusalem, and after they breached the walls, they were in no mood for anyone standing in their way.

So we tut-tut and say it could never happen today. Oh really? How about the holocaust? Or the slaughter in Rwanda?

I don't think we're a whole lot different from those people a thousand years ago, do you?

Copyright (c) 2009 Mike Bond