The smell (stench) of knights and soldiers.

I will not say a word about the smells I remember from the military service. The fact is, that “stench follows an army” as the saying has it.
Basing on a simplified picture of a medieval armor we will consider the potentail and real exposure to fragrance, known not only to the medieval knighthood.
It is good to remember that many other cultures had their own armoured knighthood, e.g. Parthians.
I know a man, whose hobby is to put on such plates in order to do some sword fighting. Such dressing takes him, and everybody else, about one hour.
As he bathed and perfumed himself before, now in washed clothes, he does not sense the stench known to real knights, and he is supporting the idea how nice it was to have such a fight. After the whole fight and chats about the tournament he is again being undressed by his helper.
However, the true experiences are different than the experiences of Sunday amateur knigts.
Let’s have a look how complicated is a knight’s armour. It consists of many movable parts, tied to the body and to each other by a twine, rivets etc. A knight also had armoured plated gloves (gauntlets) on his hands, so after being locked in his armour, the matter of smell, and what is more important, the matter of defecation were both locked together with him.
Under the armour a knight has his pants, shirt, some warmer clothes for cold days and he is wearing all that for hours. Undoubtedly, during the way to the battefield, and especially during the battle, the knights didn’t satisfy their physiological needs according to any timetables e.g. 30 minutes of fighting and after that 15 minutes to have a drink, a sandwich and to pee. Many descriptions of battles lasting continuingly for hours, have preserved till the present day. The hussar companions used to spend even 24 hours on horses. And what happened when they had to satisfy their physiological needs?
They did everything without leaving their saddle, that is, straight into their pants, under themselves, in their own armours. After a little while everything drained down into their pant legs and armoured boots.
And the smells went up. It is also an allusion to the essence of knights’ nature, combative Soul and the being. Defecating in your pants, under yourself – this is an area of interest for the bedridden or the mentally ill …
Another friend of mine went to Caucasus to do some wolf hunting and he spent a week riding a horse. After he returned he told us that he was not able to tell the difference between the odour of his horse and his own smell. He did not know which one of them began to rot.
While in a frowsy armour a knight also sniffed his own smell, as well the smell of others, including his horse, sweat, excrements, urine, blood shed in the battle, body fluids and even rotting wounds.
On the other hand the air could get into the nostrills only by the little wholes in the helmet.
Letting off the knighthood stenches has also many other aspects, e.g. cleaning the armour from the inside and from the inside and outside. That wasn’t the job for the brave master, dirty from his feet to his armpits, but for his loyal, violet-smelling armour-bearer, or another lout from the military camp. It’s better not to clean an armour after a fight.
Ps.
One of the Prussian kings gave the order to sew buttons on sleeves of the soldiers uniforms, because when the soldiers were cold and had a runny nose they wiped their noses on their sleeves. Those buttons were meant to teach boys with a cold a bit of good manners. I wonder how the knigths dealt with their runny noses.

As for the Polish culture and the Polish military, a real officer should smell of cigars, horses and wine. Link All that made him recognized from afar.

Ps 2.
A knights’ life was full of other suprises, different from fragrances. Many present knights dream of becoming somebody like e.g. Alexander of Macedon. They want to copy him and be like him. Not having read the complete information about him, they do not know that he was a zoophile and for 20 years he had sex with his horse Bucephlaus, not to mention herds of goats, sheep or cows.

Translated by Łukasz Szczęk
[email protected]

Opublikowano: 28/07/2016
Autor: s_majda

Comments