The Quiet Armoury
Swords and armour through history, told slowly: how each one was made, why it changed, and the people who carried it. Calm history for the late hours, to fall asleep to.
Episodes
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…
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…
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…
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…
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,…
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…
Also from the late hours: Embers of History · Slow Orbit · Myth and Score