I would take Lloyd's opinions with a very, very large mountain of salt. He is an (over)enthusiastic amateur who has a a very good, energetic presentation style, and an ability to state things with confidence which is easily consumed by the general public. Unfortunately, his confidence as a speaker to camera far, far outweighs his actual academic or practical experience of the subjects he so dearly likes to talk about, and he really only has an ability to use entertaining anecdotes - often entirely unrelated to the subjects he is trying to argue for - to put forward his "points". Those points are unfortunately mostly made up by himself with no actual references, and which are generally mingled with significant amounts of ignorance of real martial practice, archaeology, and a complete absence of any actual research. This is pretty clearly demonstrated by things like his comment about "and unusually, has a pommel" - the pommel being a design feature almost universally used in western European arms for
only about 1,000 years before the Wars of the Roses started.... While it may be accurate for a Bronze Age Ewart Park sword or a Roma Spatha not to have a counterbalancing weight, claiming it to be "unusual" in the medieval age its a clear demonstration of his lack of any credible knowledge on the subject. That he proceeds to talk about the practicality of a sword type which is well noted to be designed for slashing cuts on horseback, for fighting on foot, is another failure of Lloyd to actually understand the subject at all. The rest of the video gets no better, either. Also it should be noted that as a re-enactor, Lloyd focuses normally on the Greek classical era. He has very little knowledge about anything from the medieval era at all.... That video is exactly such a demonstration of his ignorance. On the other hand, Matt's commentary in the video Dark_P posted is, as ever, spot on, as you would expect from a professional instructor of Historic Martial Arts, who researches the actual subject from primary sources, and actually notes the sources in his videos. Or, to put it another way, Lindybeige likes the sound of his voice too much, and his "points" are a waste of time to watch. Avoid his videos in the same way you would avoid carriers of ebola...
Summary of some of Lloyd's crap: 0:14 "Standard late medieval sword". No, its a type (an XIII) used in the 12th century. that's slap bang in the middle of the medieval period. Late medieval is about 200 years later. 0:20 "quillons". No. Quillons are what you find on a late 17th century small-sword. on a medieval sword, it is called the cross. 0:22 "unusually for a sword, a weighted pommel." A feature universally present in the entire medieval age on all Western and Eastern European and most Byzantine swords. Also present in the Viking age in Scandinavian, Saxon and Frankish weapons, and which appears in the Dark Ages on spatha type swords somewhere around 450-500AD. Not having a pommel is significantly more unusual. 0:35 "that works fine", as he swings it around in the sort of way that makes practitioners of HEMA bruise their foreheads from head-slapping... 0:45 "waving this around this doesn't feel to me...right" That, you dear imbecile is because you are using it wrong. this is pretty much akin to handing someone a pistol, and asking them how they like it for sniping targets a mile away. That sword is designed for long, cleaving cuts from on top of a horse, down into the heads of opponents, in the hands of a maille-clad knight, where its reach and extremely thin blade serve to deliver powerful cuts. it is not a sword designed for the sort of multiple cuts and changes of direction he is pretending to demonstrate. 0:47 "However, we don't really know how much about how this style of sword was used." No. He doesn't know how that style of sword was used, and therefore concludes that no-one does. People who've actually studied how to fight, instead of how to play a game of tag with metal bars in polite re enactments do know exactly how that type was used. See above. 0:55 "and I'm going to guess that there's something about how these were used that I don't know". Well, no shit, Sherlock. And yet we still have 5 more bloody minutes of him talking about how a sword he doesn't know how to use, is used to look forward to... 1:01 "if I were fighting with a shield" then it would also help if you had thought about being on top of a horse too, Mate. 1:06 "but it would depend on what my opponent is using". Oh, bother, I see you're using a shorter, more mobile sword designed for fighting on foot. Would you kindly wait while I go back to my camp and pick up a different sword, sir? And again, He demonstrates his total ignorance of how the weapon is designed to be used, and his lack of actual martial training. you don't pick a weapon depending on what your opponent is, unless its a polite duel. 1:10-1:40: Still fails to realise that one is for use on horseback... 1:41: "so what is this? In the first advanced dungeons and dragons rulebook" Kill me now. this man has 3 more minutes of talking and I swear to god this c*** is really starting to get my radge on in such a way that I want to kick the living sh**e out of him while yelling "D&D is not ******* archaeology reference material, you ******* wee gobsh**e!". This sort of stuff is enough to make me want to demonstrate exactly why Zornhau is called the Zornhau (Wrath stroke) 1:50 -2:55 Does he even have anything to say here without waffling? It could be summed up in a dozen words: "The terminology is impossibly vague; these names were used for many different weapons". Instead we're treated to another minute of bullsh**ting without any sources to back up his claims. 2:55 "The Bastard sword seems to be something of an English thing". If you happen to be completely ignorant of medieval French, where Epee Batarde is used in plenty of texts - sadly un-illustrated ones. 3:04 "and yet in England, people were definitely using bastard swords". It never occurs to Lloyd that "bastard sword" is simply a local phrase for exactly the same sword as that called a langes schwert in German. Because its a different sword in the D&D rulebook isn't it? 3:12 "so some people would imagine you would use one... with a shield" No. Because by the time that the hand and a half longsword comes to maturity in the late 14th century, plate armour's evolved to the point that the shield is being abandoned, because it lets you use both hands on the sword for more power and control, instead of needing the extra defence of a shield, as you did 100 years earlier with mail and padding only. 3:20 - 4:49. Some more waffling, some clear demonstrations that he's never studied a single hour of any lichtenaur/vadi/fiore/gladiatoria tradition of longsword, but might have done a bit of sport fencing years ago. The bruise on my forehead from face-palming is starting to really hurt. 3:55 "there are so many confusing terms" Oakeshott, mother*****r, do you speak it? This is why actual academics try to use the typologies, so we know what we're referring to. 4:49 "supposedly that's the limit". no, that's the recommendation of one Italian. many German masters suggested different. Spanish masters suggest larger. and so on. 5:02 "zweihander" Stating the obvious. Shame he does'nt know of any other synonyms, in period manuscripts, the term was bidenhander, Spadone, or Montante. (as Matt pointed out in his video response) 5:05 - 5:15 Talks about "Great swords". Describes a 16th century bidenhander. Meanwhile, he's blissfully ignorant that the type of thing he picked up at 1:24 is exactly the sort of sword which in period texts of the 13-14th C is described as the "Grete swerd of war" (Also he uses "quillons" again, when describing what are actually called "flukes". ) 5:30: "for me". so I've just sat through 5 sodding minutes of this drivel to be told that the sum total of this wisdom is.... his own sodding opinion. No actual research at all. 5:40: Ah! An academic referenc- No, its another ****ing roleplaying game being used for his argument. Please. Can I re-enact the death of Edward II with this bloody idiot? I'll even provide the red-hot poker. In fact a shorter response to Lindybeige videos is as follows: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2dducMqMl8c