The video of the guy putting his plate armor on reminded me of the age old question... Just how in the heck did knights in armor go to the bathroom?
Posted Jun 20, 2022, 8:34 PM UTC
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Carefully.
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Hehe that was my tl;dr takeaway as well.
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Like the video showed, urination was no problem in either mail or full plate armour. Check out the ridiculously oversized codpiece on the tourney armour of Henry VIII (not our Henry of Skalitz, of course). It’s made to protect his genitals while allowing for urination. Regarding defecation, on Tourney day, one would wake at dawn, “perform the necessaries,” and then perhaps after a big breakfast have a nice BM. That would probably suffice for the main part of the day for a fit, trained man in his 20s.
Note: I am over 40. A “nice” BM is any BM which does not leave anal fissures. It has nothing to do with Deutsches scheisse kino, which my mom was never in, and besides, she’d tell me if she was, wouldn’t she?
Combat would be something different. As the video notes, about 25% of soldiers involuntarily soil themselves due to fear and adrenaline. Those who’ve seen The Sopranos may remember Chris’s would-be assassins, and how one of them always had to defecate when they were robbing a place. Frankly, it would be understandable that, unable to stop and worry about personal hygiene and dignity, they would just fight on in the mud and the blood and the shit.
Remember, 600 years ago they had a much different sense of what was hygienic. Soiling one’s self was so common, it’s probably why scribes left it out of the chronicles. No shame in it.
Chain mail was cleaned by rolling it in a barrel, so the visions of a shit-flooded cask to clean it can be dispelled. More like kitty litter.
As for the picture of the two dudes back to back and their mates clapping, I think this had more to do with either a bet, a gang initiation, or a sick sexual delight picked up from fighting ze Germans. Scheisse films before film existed.
In the end, it’s an interesting question, one which probably has as many answers as cultures and armour had styles.
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Eating an early big breakfast seems like a good way to ensure your mid-afternoon perforated abdomen will absolutely tear the bowel and go septic.
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An army marches on its stomach.
But I meant on Tourney day. Celebratory, the entire village turned out for the festivities. Traders from all around selling their wares as the children of summer laugh and imagine being knights and fair maidens themselves.
A nice smoked haunch of goat, or calf, a roasted chicken. Meat and mead, with weak ale to wash it down.
The King sending his wife’s dolt cousin to find the breastplate stretcher…
If you do catch one on the gut, you’re dead anyway. There was a strange lack of ambulatory paramedics. Maybe a priest trained as a chiurgeon, or a whore trained as a nurse, or a priest trained as a whore…no judging on Tourney day!
It’s good to be the King!
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I just thought you guys might find this mildly amusing/entertaining. This question certainly crossed my mind once or twice while playing KCD and selecting Henry's armor configuration, haha.
Probably a string emergency release rope a line up ready men clink clink clink clink aim fire
The bathhouse girls take care of all my Henry’s necessaries.
Yeah.