The Quiet Armoury

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 the sword of the robe from Spain to Bologna, Rome, Madrid and Paris... Inside: officers at the city gate breaking off over-long rapiers, guards numbered one to four, the lunge, measure and time, an Englishman's challenge on a scaffold, the seven degrees of the lie, a geometry circle painted on a fencing floor, a duel in the most fashionable square in Paris, the real d'Artagnan, and an opera singer who beat three noblemen in a garden. Vincentio Saviolo and George Silver will be there too. Chapters: The sword of the robe · The hilt · The blade · A yard and half a quarter · The Italians · The lunge · The school at Blackfriars · Measure and time · The Englishman who disagreed · On the stage · The blade makers · Spain · The duels · The musketeers · The smallsword · The singer · Evening · The point. Sources: Marozzo (1536), Agrippa (1553), Carranza (1582), Saviolo (1595), Silver (1599), Fabris (1606), Capo Ferro (1610), Shakespeare, Cervantes, Richelieu's edict (1626). Read by a synthetic voice; script written and fact-checked by the show's team. Additional sounds: Joseph Sardin, BigSoundBank.com (CC0).

More calm shows for the late hours: Embers of History (history), Slow Orbit (space), Myth and Score (composers). Every episode's full script: https://garryassistantoffice-alt.github.io/armoury/6.html

On YouTube: Opera Stories https://www.youtube.com/@operastoriestv · Slow Orbit https://www.youtube.com/@sloworbitlectures

Free line-by-line English translations of art songs: https://garryassistantoffice-alt.github.io/art-songs/

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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 to the grasslands where the blade first curved... Inside: why a curved edge draws as it cuts, the kilij's false edge, the winged hussars at Vienna, the Cossack sword worn edge up, the Mamluks at the pyramids, six cuts on a painted wheel, blades proved by bending, the valley at Balaclava, the Patton sabre that does not curve, a charge against tanks that never happened, and a Hungarian fencer who won gold at fifty. John Gaspard Le Marchant will be there too. Chapters: The grasslands · Westward · The winged horsemen · The hussars of Europe · The Cossacks · The Mamluks · The book · The six cuts · The proof · Cut or thrust? · The valley · The last swords · The sabre that stayed · The students · Evening · A thousand years. Sources: Le Marchant's Sword Exercise (1796), Royal Armouries and National Army Museum notes, Polish Army Museum, Olympic records. Read by a synthetic voice; script written and fact-checked by the show's team. Additional sounds: Joseph Sardin, BigSoundBank.com (CC0).

More calm shows for the late hours: Embers of History (history), Slow Orbit (space), Myth and Score (composers). Every episode's full script: https://garryassistantoffice-alt.github.io/armoury/5.html

On YouTube: Opera Stories https://www.youtube.com/@operastoriestv · Slow Orbit https://www.youtube.com/@sloworbitlectures

Free line-by-line English translations of art songs: https://garryassistantoffice-alt.github.io/art-songs/

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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 armour to the face masks with real moustaches... Inside: a leather panel for the bowstring, ten thousand little plates laced in silk, the coward's plate, a fan shot from a rocking boat at Yashima, helmets shaped like crescents, antlers and cliffs, lacquer that hardens only in damp air, Japanese mail sewn onto cloth, and two armours sent to King James I in 1613. Nasu no Yoichi will be there too. Chapters: The oldest armour · The great armour · Ten thousand little plates · The helmet · The way of horse and bow · Armour for walking · The age of war · The strange helmets · The faces · The lacquer · Putting it on · Mail in Japan · The horses · The long peace · A gift for a king · The end of the samurai · Why the legend? · Evening. Sources: Tokyo National Museum and Metropolitan Museum notes, Royal Armouries (the Saris armours), the Tanegashima account, the Tale of the Heike, Arai Hakuseki. Read by a synthetic voice; script written and fact-checked by the show's team. Additional sounds: Joseph Sardin, BigSoundBank.com (CC0).

More calm shows for the late hours: Embers of History (history), Slow Orbit (space), Myth and Score (composers). Every episode's full script: https://garryassistantoffice-alt.github.io/armoury/4.html

On YouTube: Opera Stories https://www.youtube.com/@operastoriestv · Slow Orbit https://www.youtube.com/@sloworbitlectures

Free line-by-line English translations of art songs: https://garryassistantoffice-alt.github.io/art-songs/

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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 printer, and we go back two hundred years to a master no one ever saw... Inside: the Ox, the Plough, the Fool and the Roof, the Wrath Cut, a lynx with compasses and an elephant with a castle, a duel between a man in a pit and a woman with a stone, a priest's long knife, blood on the scalp at the Frankfurt fair, and a city treasurer hanged for his fencing books. Johannes Liechtenauer, Fiore dei Liberi and Joachim Meyer will be there too. Chapters: The sword itself · The parts of the sword · The master no one ever saw · The flower of battle · In armour · On horseback · The judicial duel · The long knife · The brotherhoods · The fencing school · An evening lesson · The book · The man who wanted everything · The end of the longsword · The return · Evening. Sources: Meyer (1570), the Döbringer manuscript (c. 1389), Fiore's Fior di Battaglia (c. 1409), Talhoffer, Lecküchner (1478), the 1487 Marxbrüder privilege, Paulus Hector Mair. Read by a synthetic voice; script written and fact-checked by the show's team. Additional sounds: Joseph Sardin, BigSoundBank.com (CC0).

More calm shows for the late hours: Embers of History (history), Slow Orbit (space), Myth and Score (composers). Every episode's full script: https://garryassistantoffice-alt.github.io/armoury/3.html

On YouTube: Opera Stories https://www.youtube.com/@operastoriestv · Slow Orbit https://www.youtube.com/@sloworbitlectures

Free line-by-line English translations of art songs: https://garryassistantoffice-alt.github.io/art-songs/

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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, and between the buckles, three thousand years of armour... Inside: Greek marines who wore a Bronze Age armour for eleven hours, the helmet with flapping bronze wings, a chest of Roman armour left behind at Corbridge, the pig-faced bascinet, the dent that gave us the word bulletproof, a knight who climbed the underside of a ladder, warhorses the size of ponies, and Spanish soldiers who borrowed Aztec cotton armour. Boucicaut will be there too. Chapters: Cloth and hide · The bronze men · Rings of iron · The Romans in strips · The knight in mail · Plates · The armourers · The arming · The squire · How heavy? · The tournament · The horse · Elsewhere · The last of the harness · What armour is. Sources: the Dendra endurance test (2023), Kalkriese and Corbridge, How a Man Schall Be Armyd (c. 1450), Le Livre des fais de Boucicaut, the Leeds armour treadmill study (2011). Read by a synthetic voice; script written and fact-checked by the show's team. Additional sounds: Joseph Sardin, BigSoundBank.com (CC0).

More calm shows for the late hours: Embers of History (history), Slow Orbit (space), Myth and Score (composers). Every episode's full script: https://garryassistantoffice-alt.github.io/armoury/2.html

On YouTube: Opera Stories https://www.youtube.com/@operastoriestv · Slow Orbit https://www.youtube.com/@sloworbitlectures

Free line-by-line English translations of art songs: https://garryassistantoffice-alt.github.io/art-songs/

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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 the officer's sword of the last cavalry... Inside: a planted myth about the Gauls' bent swords, the patterned steel of the migration age, a fake Ulfberht, a knight's sword weighing as much as a bag of sugar, a smith reading the colours of hot steel, the murder stroke, a Zweihänder taller than a man, and a katana that was never folded a thousand times. Ewart Oakeshott will be there too. Chapters: Before the sword · The first swords · Iron · The Romans · The patterned blades · The Viking sword · The knight's sword · The smith · The longsword · The giants · The sword leaves the battlefield · Elsewhere · What a sword is. Sources: Royal Armouries and Wallace Collection notes, Oakeshott's and Petersen's typologies, studies of the Ulfberht blades, Polybius, the Arslantepe finds. Read by a synthetic voice; script written and fact-checked by the show's team. Additional sounds: Joseph Sardin, BigSoundBank.com (CC0).

More calm shows for the late hours: Embers of History (history), Slow Orbit (space), Myth and Score (composers). Every episode's full script: https://garryassistantoffice-alt.github.io/armoury/1.html

On YouTube: Opera Stories https://www.youtube.com/@operastoriestv · Slow Orbit https://www.youtube.com/@sloworbitlectures

Free line-by-line English translations of art songs: https://garryassistantoffice-alt.github.io/art-songs/

Enjoying the show? Leave a tip (no fees): https://ko-fi.com/artsongtranslations