31. What was the most dangerous medieval weapon?

(This is NOT a gory episode!)

We visit an enormous medieval weapons store in some bloke’s back garden.

We hang with “The Company of the Dagger” and talk to knights and weapons-builders as they make the largest medieval weapon of them all.

You’ll find out where the word “freelancer” comes from and you’ll hear our latest knight and Fort-nite jokes!

You’ll find images of all the weapons we discuss on this Medieval Warfare web-page.

Read industry reviews of Dad’s new World War II Asia-Pacific novel, The Slightest Chance, at paulletters.com. It’s now out on Kindle for US$6.99, as well as in paperback. So is Dad’s first wartime novel, A Chance Kill, a love-story/thriller based on real events in Poland, Paris, London and Prague.

Here are some questions based on today’s episode:

1. When was the medieval period?
2. What does “freelancer” mean today?
3. What’s a lance?
4. Who were the first people in history known as freelancers?
5. You would use a trebuchet to attack what?
6. Which weapon could you load and fire more quickly, a crossbow or a longbow?

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We’ll be back on the first Saturday of next month!

Podcast cover art by Molly Austin

All music is from https://filmmusic.io and composed by Kevin MacLeod (https://incompetech.com) License: CC BY (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/)

Sound effects used under RemArc Licence. Copyright 2020 © BBC