The Quiet Armoury
By The Quiet Armoury
Categories: History
Swords and armour through history, told slowly: how each one was made, why it changed, and the people who carried it. Calm stories for the late hours. Read by a synthetic voice.
7 episodes indexed on PodSearch.
Recent episodes
- 6. The Rapier
Fleuret: French, a little flower or bud, after the button on the point of a practice sword; in English, the foil. London, autumn 1595: a young law student walks to an Italian fencing school in Blackfriars, and we follow the sword of the robe from Spain to Bologna, Rome, Madrid and Paris... Inside…
- 5. The Sabre
Sabre: from Hungarian szablya, one of the few words that came into Europe on horseback. Spring 1800, a cavalry barracks in England: a new light dragoon holds a sword for the first time, and we ride back a thousand years to the grasslands where the blade first curved... Inside: why a curved edge…
- 4. Samurai Armour
Gusoku: Japanese, 'complete', a full armour with every piece. Summer 1750, in a castle town at peace: a young samurai helps his uncle air the clan's armours in the sun, box by box, from a four-hundred-year-old great armour to the face masks with real moustaches... Inside: a leather panel for the…
- 3. The Longsword and the Fight Books
Indes: Middle High German, 'meanwhile', the instant when the blades touch and you feel which way the other will move. Strasbourg, spring 1570: a cutler's apprentice watches his master's fencing book arrive from the printer, and we go back two hundred years to a master no one ever saw... Inside…
- 2. Armour, from Linen to Plate
Harness: the old word for a complete armour, from the French harneis, gear. Before dawn, around 1450, a young squire arms his knight for a tournament, feet first, the way the old English treatise says it must be done, and between the buckles, three thousand years of armour... Inside: Greek marines…
- 2. Armour, from Linen to Plate
Harness: the old word for a complete armour, from the French harneis, gear. Before dawn, around 1450, a young squire arms his knight for a tournament, feet first, the way the old English treatise says it must be done, and between the buckles, three thousand years of armour... Inside: Greek marines…
- 1. The Sword, from Bronze to the Rapier
Fuller: the long groove down a sword blade. Often called a blood groove; it is nothing of the kind. A night walk through a museum hall of swords, case by case, from the first bronze blades of five thousand years ago to the officer's sword of the last cavalry... Inside: a planted myth about the…
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