What Does Fantasy Get Wrong about Medieval Warfare?

Interesting to know.

Nicholas C. Rossis

Largely thanks to Tolkien, the fantasy genre consists basically of how we imagine the Medieval times. Readers of this blog will know of my many articles on the Middle Ages and my keen interest in historical accuracy. In the interest of improving our (fantasy) writing, I’m sharing here some great information from Quora on what fantasy often gets wrong about Medieval warfare.

Summary

As this is a long post, I will start by summarizing some key points about Medieval warfare (and life in general) here:

• Spears are awesome. They can even stop cavalry. It was the weapon of choice for centuries.
• Swords are sidearms, not your main weapon. That’s why they are light – and you don’t need to wind up to swing a sword. Swords cut through technique, not force.
• If you have to use a sword, use it properly. People used them in techniques like half-swording (holding it…

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