> But when Stephen’s men told John Marshal that his son’s life would be forfeit for his treachery, Marshal is said to have replied that he didn’t care, because he still had “the anvils and the hammers to forge even finer ones.”
> History does not *specifically* record that he was grabbing his junk as he said this, but one can assume.
Does the book dig into why a destrier was so remarkably expensive? Truthfully it sounds a little baffling to me that a creature you can literally breed more of would be so much more costly even than other horses.
Makes sense! I suppose I was imagining they'd buy a young horse and train with it themselves, but I guess that was just wrong. And since feeding a horse was a large, constant expense in this time, I suppose the price of a new warhorse would carry the implied cost of feeding the horse while it was raised up and trained.
You can see the last remnants of the European tradition of military equitation in Vienna at the Hofreitschule. They're doing very different things than a destrier would have! But a few things are probably similar:
- The mature, trained animals are jacked. You have to feed considerable muscle mass.
- Modern racehorses might start on the track at two, but these horses mature slower and don't even begin training until four years old.
- Not all of the carefully bred Lipizzaners are considered suitable for the Hofreitschule. You have to maintain a large-ish stud to give yourself a decent selection.
- They're not considered fully trained for about six years. They're useful before then, but they reach peak value when fully trained.
I imagine that it is some combination of their increased size (warhorses are ENORMOUS) and perhaps more significantly, their training. Horses are very easily frightened and are not eager to charge toward pointy things.
One thing I always have found interesting about William Marshal is how rarely actual medieval people actually lived up to any of the supposed ideals of chivalry.
In their defence, getting stabbed probably sucks (I've never tried it myself) and a lot of the ideals of chivalry put you in a position to be stabbed. It does not surprise me to learn that most people in the higher social classes payed lipservice to those ideals, but looked for ways to avoid getting stabbed. I would also likely do so.
The chivalry / tournament thing somehow reminds me of cricket and rugby, both of which are scary dangerous games which would turn into big fights if there wasn't a fairly rigid code of honourable behaviour.
But because of the honour code everyone goes for a drink afterwards and laughs about their injuries and looks forward to next year's game.
> Anyway, the tournaments of the 12th century were professional sports just as much as were the later, more cinematic jousts, but because they were spread over so much territory they couldn’t support spectators outside of the participants. That didn’t really matter, though: there existed no outside social class to spectate. The knights who rode in tournaments were performing for each other.
Dear god, the things men throughout history have done. Women can be just as insane as men, but we have no proof that they'd have taken killing for sport to *these* depths.
And I don't understand this: " Sadly. . .the vast estates he’d amassed were split among his daughters’ families." What's sad about his daughters inheriting?
Thanks! What a ripping yarn! Most of us look at history through a modern lens, but the past really was a profoundly different world.
You might look into another great English knight named John Hawkwood. He was a mercenary who basically controlled (i.e. terrorized) Italy in the 14th century. He was maybe Marshal's evil twin.
> But when Stephen’s men told John Marshal that his son’s life would be forfeit for his treachery, Marshal is said to have replied that he didn’t care, because he still had “the anvils and the hammers to forge even finer ones.”
> History does not *specifically* record that he was grabbing his junk as he said this, but one can assume.
https://www.tumblr.com/kontextmaschine/75101381560/william-marshall-greatest-knight-in-english
"because it assumed a level of familiarity with the Flemish ports that, like a Y chromosome, I just don’t possess."
Probably related, tbqh
Also, fascinating case of nominative determinism that the fightiest knight in England was named Marshal, Will.
Does the book dig into why a destrier was so remarkably expensive? Truthfully it sounds a little baffling to me that a creature you can literally breed more of would be so much more costly even than other horses.
Training! It takes a lot of work to get a prey animal to go *towards* a fight, let alone engage itself.
Makes sense! I suppose I was imagining they'd buy a young horse and train with it themselves, but I guess that was just wrong. And since feeding a horse was a large, constant expense in this time, I suppose the price of a new warhorse would carry the implied cost of feeding the horse while it was raised up and trained.
You can see the last remnants of the European tradition of military equitation in Vienna at the Hofreitschule. They're doing very different things than a destrier would have! But a few things are probably similar:
- The mature, trained animals are jacked. You have to feed considerable muscle mass.
- Modern racehorses might start on the track at two, but these horses mature slower and don't even begin training until four years old.
- Not all of the carefully bred Lipizzaners are considered suitable for the Hofreitschule. You have to maintain a large-ish stud to give yourself a decent selection.
- They're not considered fully trained for about six years. They're useful before then, but they reach peak value when fully trained.
This is just a wildly expensive undertaking.
I imagine that it is some combination of their increased size (warhorses are ENORMOUS) and perhaps more significantly, their training. Horses are very easily frightened and are not eager to charge toward pointy things.
One thing I always have found interesting about William Marshal is how rarely actual medieval people actually lived up to any of the supposed ideals of chivalry.
In their defence, getting stabbed probably sucks (I've never tried it myself) and a lot of the ideals of chivalry put you in a position to be stabbed. It does not surprise me to learn that most people in the higher social classes payed lipservice to those ideals, but looked for ways to avoid getting stabbed. I would also likely do so.
The chivalry / tournament thing somehow reminds me of cricket and rugby, both of which are scary dangerous games which would turn into big fights if there wasn't a fairly rigid code of honourable behaviour.
But because of the honour code everyone goes for a drink afterwards and laughs about their injuries and looks forward to next year's game.
I really hope screenwriters are mining y'all for ideas. His life would make an epic HBO series.
Nobody would believe it.
Isn't that business as usual for HBO?
This thoroughly review saved me from reading the book itself, without missing much.
Great review, thanks. I was enthralled by this book, which I came to after listening to Dan Snow's podcast episode based on the book. https://www.thepodcastbrowser.com/the-greatest-knight-that-ever-lived-william-the-marshal/
> Anyway, the tournaments of the 12th century were professional sports just as much as were the later, more cinematic jousts, but because they were spread over so much territory they couldn’t support spectators outside of the participants. That didn’t really matter, though: there existed no outside social class to spectate. The knights who rode in tournaments were performing for each other.
This reminds me of modern LARPs.
Anybody interested in a fictionalized account of these events should check out Sharon Kay Penman’s Plantagenet book series.
Dear god, the things men throughout history have done. Women can be just as insane as men, but we have no proof that they'd have taken killing for sport to *these* depths.
And I don't understand this: " Sadly. . .the vast estates he’d amassed were split among his daughters’ families." What's sad about his daughters inheriting?
> killing for sport to *these* depths
Depths? Tournaments sound like *great* fun. Especially if everyone's being all sporting and witty and you only get killed occasionally.
Nobody said anything about being sporting or witty.
Presumably, the “sad” part is that the daughters took on their husbands’ names, so Marshal’s family name died with him.
If men want to arrange society so that daughters can't keep their own names, that's another problem created by men.
It's not sad. It's dumb.
Primogeniture
There's nothing sad about daughters inheriting their parents' wealth.
What's sad is daughters being EXCLUDED from inheriting.
Thanks! What a ripping yarn! Most of us look at history through a modern lens, but the past really was a profoundly different world.
You might look into another great English knight named John Hawkwood. He was a mercenary who basically controlled (i.e. terrorized) Italy in the 14th century. He was maybe Marshal's evil twin.