describes a knight from the period of the
Crusades is revealing today.
"As a physical specimen, the men at arms must have
been incredibly tough, wiry, resistant to disease. The medieval
lord in his castle tolerated filth and hardship which left
weaklings small chance of survival; and the metabolism of
the age is indicated by the fact that Europe imported spices
to stomach dangerously tainted foods. That the knight was
not usually a large man we know from suits of armor in modern
museums. It may also be concluded that we had muscles of
steel, since he wielded a lance and broadsword that would
exhaust a heavier man of today. He was, in short, a sheer
fighting animal bred by a relentless process of selection."
The death of the conquistador Francisco Pizzaro serves to
further illustrate this point. Due to the execution of a
rival, Diego de Almagro, Pizzaro was targeted for assassination.
The assailants decided to kill Pizzaro on Sunday, 26 June,
1541, as he walked home from church. Learning of the plan,
Pizzaro did not attend mass that day and stayed home. The
assailants, 10 in number, went instead to Pizzaro's residence
to commit the murder. In the fight that followed, the old
conquistador, fighting for his life in his own home at the
age of 70, killed three of them with his sword before he
himself was run through. Pizzaro, a product of a blade culture,
was a dangerous, deadly, and resolute foe, more than a match
on even terms with men half his age who sought to kill him.
The fact that Pizzaro killed three of his assassins before
dying brings up another interesting point. These men-and
there were uncounted thousands more like them-were products
of blade cultures across the ages and across the geographical
regions of the world. They were true killers of men in the
purest sense. There are numerous accounts of individual
feats of arms whereby a combatant would kill from three
to ten or more opponents in a single deadly encounter with
edged weapons. Paul Kirchner In his book The Deadliest Men,
available from Paladin Press, cites the example of the noted
Viking warrior/poet Egil Skallagrimsson. Egil was on a raid
in Frisland, and in the ensuing battle became separated
from his men and surrounded by the enemy. In fighting his
way to safety, Skallagrimsson single-handedly killed 11
of them. In an ambush and battle with a group of Varmlanders
on another occasion, Egil and his men killed 25 of them
with Egil killing eight in one skirmish and eleven in another.
Egil Skallagrimsson died of natural causes in the autumn
of the year 990. He was 80 years old, having survived scores,
perhaps even hundreds, of deadly encounters during loner
than six decades of deadly combat.
Robert the Bruce was born 11 July 1274. From childhood,
he was trained for war and mastered the weapons of the titled
gentry. It was well he did, for the stormy and violent environment
for the Scottish fight for independence from England generated
particularly hard of conditions of combat and retribution
that have spawned hatreds that endure to this day. In an
era of skilled and adept fighting men on both sides, the
exploits at arms of Robert the Bruce were such that he became
a legend in his own time. One such instance involved an
engagement in Robert's own earldom, Carrick, between Robert
and about sixty of his followers, and the Macdowalls of
Galloway. The Macdowalls had a force about 200 strong and
were attempting to ford a steep-banked river under the cover
of darkness, when they were discovered by Robert. According
to Robert's 14th century biographer, John Barbour, Robert
and then his followers mounted a successful defense of the
river crossing. After the engagment, Robert's men found
him sitting and resting. "They found lying in that
place 14 slain by his hand" as well.
When you consider that throughout the ages men such as Pizzaro,
Egil Skallagrimsson, Robert the Bruce, and countless others
both known and unknown, participated in scores of individual
battles and skirmishes in their lifetime, you begin to realize
that many of these individuals killed hundreds of men in
individual combat. The fact is lost today that this was
not an unusual occurrence in the warrior societies that
were the result of blade cultures throughout the world.
Firearms have changed the complexion of warfare. It is no
longer necessary to be within arms reach of your opponent
to kill him, and warfare has as a result become depersonalized
to a very great extent. This has resulted in the near-disappearance
of the driving emotion that perpetuated blood feuds that
raged for generations and made some cultures such as the
Vikings "battle glad" and "strife eager",
if their chronicles are to be believed.
