- Chainmail is nearly impervious to all attacks, especially arrows.
- Nearly 95% of casualties were inflicted during a rout - the disorganised fleeing after an armies morale or formation was broken.
- Child marriage was rarer than many think, especially for nobles. The normal marrying age was 18 to 25. Except in early medieval England, where for some reason it was 16.
- Most highborn commanders were neither incompetent nor cowardly. They spent their whole lives being trained on how to command battles and lead and inspire men.
- The average bow was a terrible weapon. They were always deployed en mass and few archers hit what they aimed at.
- The longbow required years of practice, but a single arrow was worth more than a soldiers spear.
- Archers had to be some of the biggest most muscular men in the army to handle the massive draw of a medieval bow.
- Crusading knights walked through storms of arrows like rain because Saracen (Muslim) bows were too weak to pierce steel mail and leather.
- Nearly all knights suffered from extreme PTSD. They cried and screamed in their sleep, had horrifying flashbacks and thoughts of suicide and according to Sir Geoffrie De Charney, some would scream and cry at the sound of metal.
- Most wars were either religious differences between Christian peasants or business transactions of the nobility for land and power. Honour, righteousness and glory had little or nothing to do with it.
- Guns had no value over bows except the noise. For nearly 200 years, guns and canons were used to a minor degree and bows still had a monopoly on power, force, range and rate of fire.
- Plate armour could easily block bullets. Contrary to public opinion guns were never able to easily slay knights. They were just easy to use and cheap to make compared to suits of plate.
- The Normans were the finest soldiers in all of Europe for over a century and invented castle building, knights, finalized the feudal system and conquered lands from England to Africa.
- The Byzantine empire contained some of the brightest military minds of the middle ages. They had a battle doctrine for every foe possible. According to them, Saracens were the smartest and Franks (Europeans) were the fiercest.
- Most medieval battles were not exciting pitched battles like LoTR or GoT. Nearly all of them were completely one-sided massacres.
- Your average medieval arming sword 'knight sword' was designed for piercing and hacking to get through mail. After plate became more popular in the 1300s, almost no-one carried these swords into battle anymore and relied on longswords, maces, hammers, voulges, picks and hooks instead.
- Many people call arming swords 'longswords' while in fact, a longsword is a two-handed weapon and greatswords never existed during the middle ages.
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