Body type, fighting style and armour...

[chef de chambre]

With a slight shift here, living in the SW of the USA (Tucson AZ), I have access to many museums that have extant clothing from the "Wild West" ear. US cavalry uniforms are Small! Both girth and stature. Womens clothing is smaller!

Looking at photos of the era, you do see "portly" looking folks, but, most were not more than 5'6" in height (based on comparison to existing landmarks). Bisbee AZ, copper mining town, had a large population of Welsh, Cornish, German, French, Irish, and Swedish immigrants. The flower of Europe and the Isles! Not very tall....

Mathghamhain
Who is descended from some of those Welsh, German/French and Irish folk. At 5'9", I tower over most of my immediate family members and had an uncle, who at 5'11" was the giant of our clan.

Most of the calvary and westward bound were immigrants, with spotty childhood diets, and often a city background. The Industrial Revolution marked the naider of Europeans height, usually due to the poor living conditions people grew up in - childhood illness will effect height as well. The doctors estimated I would reach 6', but a near fatal and lengthy childhood illness stunted my growth, and I only reached 5'8".

It has been pretty thoroughly proven that peoples height is a matter of genetics, diet, and health, and that potential human height has been fairly constant for millenia. For example, look at Cambodian immigrants, and then look at their kids - invariably, the immigrant parents are VERY short, but the kids born here, and growing up here, tower over them, and fall in the height range of other normal teens.

The phenomenon was observed, but not understood as to the why, as early as the 18th century in England, with army recruiters noting 'country lads' invariably towered over those recruited out of urban areas. It also got to be noted, that the healthy, fit, country lads, were the first ones to fall to illness, while those growing up in an urban setting were more exposed to various illness, and more resistant to same.

So, those guys going west in the mid 19th century were the product of the Industrial Revolution, and when you look at the data for army recruits during the Civil War, you see the phenomenon laid out in clear black and white of ink and paper, at height and weight on enlistment, listed profession, place of residence, and then follow it out looking at casualties due to illness, with a lot of 6' farmboys laid low by exposure to childhood diseases they were never exposed to, before enlistment.

[Aaron]

Height is another thing. Despite the references from writers about sumptuous banquets offered by Yorkists or Lancastrians, most people did not eat THAT well. And while some may have thrived, the protein intake necessary to allow height development was not necessarily there.

Actually from the burial digs at Towton and other locations, the height of the average army male has been a standard 170 cm tall (give or take) all the way to the Roman era. Now as the population increases we'll see more on the high and low range. You'll see Andre the Giant and Roybn of Rye. But from Roman times to the current era, the height has been about 170 cm on the average.

As a comparison, I'm 180.3 cm tall. I'm truly above average, but not out of the norm from the time of Roman to the modern era.

The chart (figure 5. on pg. 55 of Blood Red Roses, has male stature as follows (all in cm).

Roman 154-182 (mid 169.5)
Anglo-Saxon 157.1-185.9 (mid 172.5)
Medieval 150-184 (mid 170.6)
Towton 158.6-183.5 (mid 171.6)
Post-Medieval 150-190 (mid 170.3)

Now, from my Blood Red Roses book, I would say that the teeth of the average infantryman during the War of the Roses would have been better than the average Red Bull drinking computer warrior of today.

And we don't get outside that much and get the 8-15 hours of daily exercise they did just walking around. So we're fatter (myself included).

So the difference would be...better teeth and not as fat.

With respect,

-Aaron

[chef de chambre]

Of course, getting that average, you have to factor in the phenomenon of the riding retinue of everyone from Gentlemen to Lords, who prefered, and chose 'likely and tall' lads, to make a good visual impression, which was *everything* in fixing ones place in the social ladder. Your servants reflected your status, by their appearance, and could make you, or break you socially.

Keep in mind, while "Blood Red Roses" is a seminal work, of extreme imporatance, most of the people making the commentary and coming to conclusions are people specialized in forensics - some insupportable conclusions were reached.

IN example, one of the people in that book came to the conclusion that helmets were not worn, or were uncommon (but body armour was), due to the number of head wounds in the grave (and lack of torso wounds), when documentary evidence makes 'sallet and jack' de-rigure. She didn't closely consider that people might throw their helmets away in the rout, or, conversely, that the particular pit likely marked the burial of people executed on the scene after capture, given its distance from the battlefield.

[Aaron]

Chef,

I did read in Blood Red Roses that they may have dropped their helmets.

-Aaron

[chef de chambre]

Yeah, read it again. She (the forensic scientist doing the examination the actual forensic report) didn't emphasize it as the most likely hypothisis, and threw out the idea of lack of helmets being equally likely.

It doesn't alter that the sampling from the Towton grave is skewed, for the reasons I outlined above, regarding the types of men chosen to be in riding retinues.

It would be akin to looking at Marine or Army personels physical fitness and body type reflecting the American average somehow.

Unlike modern American or Western Society, being in the riding retinue of a lord would be considered a plumb job, highly desirable, and well compensated, with a great chance for future advancement - in todays Western society, many civilians look down on the military, and would never consider it to be an excellent career choice.


End result, the men in riding retinues by natural selection would be superior specimens to the rest of the commons.

[Aaron]

Well reasoned Chef. I've noticed that US Army officers who gain the highest ranks also tend to be taller.

I'll reread the book.

-Aaron

[Bastior]

I've been hunting a dimly recalled height refrence since I saw this thread, sometimes having lots of books isn't helpful.

Tony Allan's 'Vikings' cites, a saddly unattributed, finding that men of fighting age from viking graves averaged 5'8" (172 cm)at a time when the European average was 5'5" (165 cm). So assuming good research went into the findings Aaron's figures may need a regional modifier as well.

B

Now I just need to recruit enough short vikings to make the statistical anomally of exceeding that figure by eight inches reasonable