I really do appreciate the vids on weapons and ancient warfare. But what I appreciate more is these vids on ordinary life in the past, how they lived, far more informative of people of the past. More of these please!
I liked his tips on thatching a roof. roofs are often one of the harder parts of survival, (which I'm supposed to be good at) so I appreciated the information.
US Republicans, of course. Because there's legitimate virginity, which means a woman's body just shuts down the defloration and regrows the hymen. And then there's non-legitimate virginity which just leaves a woman being called a slut or the like - i.e. the kind of woman conservative politicians prefer as long as nobody notices - and in case somebody does, results in public grovelling, confessing to be "just a sinner" and unintentionally reminding everybody how easy a pretty unplausible God can be tricked into forgiving for the umpteenth time just by confession etcetera. I guess you know the drill.
Drops2cents Liberals call women sluts too. In fact, conservative females get called sluts and whores and bitches all the time by liberals who imagined that their genitalia would decide their political party. Same with non-whites and LGBT who are right wing. They get racism and homophobia from the supposed liberals.
It would also certainly be prudent to advise your bard to throw a torch in the general direction of your enemies if he notices that he's about to drop one. Just saying. You might also ask your resident mage nicely to cast a spell which would light up your surroundings. Or you just use a magical mace which starts to glow in the vicinity of orcs, like one of our fighters had when we were plaing MERS years ago (albeit such a weapon could be quite cumbersome if you're trying to sneak up on a camp full of orcs, as we we were forced to find out).
+Trevor H You know, they just knew Latin back then. So they probably never found out what Gamma meant and just mistook it for some arcane heathen symbol which should best be ignored, which resulted in them stumbling around in the dark. Hence the term "Dark Ages", because they needed a *lot* of trial and error to get around in the dark without hurting their shins and toes too badly.
Because they were told that they needed to adjust brightness so that the symbol on the left would be barely visible, but that just left them in total darkness. Those darn symbols at the start are never accurate.
When trecking or just going out I've always considered the flashlight the most important tool of our time (after the good shoes). Everything else you can use streight out of the 13th century- a knife, rope, backpack, cloak etc...but having light at night that is stronger and more effective than fire, yet doesnt tread to burn the whole forest down-that sure is magic!
Please do more videos like this! Oceans of info on weapons is out there and it's such a small part of life. This sort of thing is more important and gold!
Lindybeige: Archaeologist, War Gaming Enthusiast, LARPer, Fire Juggler, Professional Lindy Hopper. (Is that the right name for one who preforms the lindy hop?)
I honestly think I would rather a medieval film be historically accurate with slightly crappy lighting using candles/lamps for indoors and moonlight/lamps for outdoors than just using tons of torches to create lots of light for "film effects". Just my thoughts
Yes, but you would be in the minority. The general public would not receive the movies well had they poor lighting. They don't know or care about torches. Also, torches are pleasing to look at, more so than candles. Even if not historically accurate, it makes people respond with positive emotions to the movie and that's what will make money in the end.
A lot of excellent, influential films were shot using only natural light. French New Wave and Italian Neorealism are both famous for it, in addition to mostly shooting on location. I would love to see modern filmmakers bring that sort of focused aesthetic to medieval historical dramas. But I don't think most movie scenes are actually being lit by torches, anyway. The torches are just set dressing. You could remove them without affecting the lighting at all.
I just used this as an actual real source for information that I actually really needed. I have come upon some old looking things and I thought they might be ancient lamps. Based on the facsimile in this video, I now think I might actually have been right. Thanks mr. Beige! Needless to say I shall now pursue the matter further.
Almost went to look up what tallow was to make sure I was right, and then you explained it below. That's the sort of useful thing that you do consistently, and it's quality that I really appreciate. I just started watching your videos yesterday, but I'm already a massive fan and have shared a fair amount of things I find useful to the players in my group. Thanks for all the great content, and here's to you!
Candles are so much fun. It could just be my inner pyromaniac speaking here, but fire - when handled safely and properly - seems to have been possibly the most important "resource" (so to speak) in medieval times. Hell, even today it's used quite a lot - gas cooktops, power plants, and so on.
Every time our power goes out and I break out the candles I'm always impressed how much light a single candle emits. A nice glow that makes everything pretty darn visible especially as your eyes adjust. Add one more candle and everything is pretty well lit.
There was once a power outage in my town in the middle of one cloudy summer night. I was reading in my bed, and suddenly all the lights went out. TOTAL darkness. So I went into the kitchen, fetched myself a nice candle, lit it and wandered around the town barefoot in my pajamas and bathrobe until the lights came back on. Ever since then I wish for more power outages at night, so I can go on another nightly adventure!
Modern material science has loads to teach us about glass. Most examples of glass that spring to mind (windows, windshields, bottles/glasses/jars, globes) are quite far removed from "old-school" glass.
Get a long tube of card from the core of a roll of kitchen foil, fill it with molten wax. Wait for it to solidify. Light. BIG bright flame. Warning: keep upright at all times and work out a way of extinguishing it in advance (bucket of water).
This is the 3rd video I've seen from you and I appreciate the practicality of thought as well as the energetic presentation. (1/4 staff, torches, and this). Cant wait to see more :) subscribed.
Movies used a combination of double-wick candles (kept in fridges until needed as they burn very quickly), and inkies with barn doors. Inkies are small ~100W production lights. You'd need one per character and probably some spun (sheets of spun glass used as diffusers) to soften the light enough. I dont' know if any of that is needed anymore, between digital camera and led lights. Makes for a MUCH cooler set.
I know I'm a little late to the party but pro point, whenever there is a black out we use modern torches to find and light our store of candles which we then use to light up the entire house until power comes back . . . it's amazing how useful these little bundles of wax and flame can be even in the modern era
we are given paper lantern once a year here in my town for a parade in the streets. (candle in a paper lantern, held with a wooden stick). It last for as long as the candle burns. But sometimes the paper catches fire, this happens quite often, especially if you intend to walk with it (i'd say 1 on 50 catches fire), if it's simply for lighting your house, i think it can last forever.
Lanterns were also made with slivers of horn for the "windows" And in Greenland they fueled their lamps with blubber and used moss for a whick. And I think I heard that the chineese also had lamps made from a bamboo pipe and a bladder filled with coal gas.And finally there are "rush lights", which are reeds soaked in tallow.
They must have had better eyes back then. the other week the power went out and one of my family members though they'd been really cleaver by stocking up on candles... Yea, we had enough candles going to be considered a fire hazard and couldn't see anything, and Insistently, reading by candle light sucks too.
Modern candles are decorative. The wicks are generally smaller and provide less light than many traditional ones. Also despite what Lindy says candles were very expensive and not used as much as you may think.
shanes channel You can imagine the cost of beewax (and honey) by this fact, that a beekeeper or "Zeidler" in medieval german in some region not must go to the "Fron" on the crops of his lord, mend ways, or whatever he has to do as a serf for his lord. Instead of this he produce and deliver more wax and honey as tax. This brought much more income to his lord as simple serf labor.
Thing is, if you use candles in total darkness, they're really nice. But I've noticed that they're basically worthless if you try to lighten up the place when it's just kinda gloomy. Like, say, it's dark enough that reading will be a pain, but not so dark that you can't see where you're going. For some reason, candles really don't help in this situation at all.
I can attest to the usefulness of candles in a house as after an ice storm last year we had no power for 10 days. Even with many modern candles being designed for decoration instead of lighting a single one still does a nice job of lighting up a room enough to be able to see to safely get around and find things. Sure I still often used a flashlight if I was going to different sections of the house as decoration candles aren't really designed to be moved around when lit (unless I was going into the living room since we used a fire in the evenings for lighting and heating) but a candle does provide a useful alternative even in modern times.
I remember making a comment about lanterns in one of the earlier torch videos. I didn't know that they used rawhide or horn as a semi transparent material. What I was getting at was a kind of wind break with holes in it to let light out and air in. Some countries used woven leaves or grass while others used ceramic or wood. These holes would seem to shoot a beam of light out which would illuminate anything close enough in that general direction.
Wax candles were expensive in the old days. The common people used what in french is called "chandelle" which was either a wick in the middle of a piece of fat or a dried reed filled with fat.
I was a bit surprised at your description of how painful the molten (no, boiling) wax was, but then my experience is with paraffin, and sure enough, paraffin has a significantly lower melting point.
dude....'great big lumps of it round the back'....I use that as a repost when acosted by crazy people...the looks you get !...never fails to make em bugger off ....your the only person ive ever heard use it :)......Jailer...wise man !
Yes, but it is a skill quickly acquired. Try walking around your home at night without lights. You'll be slow and careful at first but quickly speed up.
In this series on torches, which I've enjoyed quite a lot, it would have been nice if you'd mentioned at least one practical use of torches, viz. link boys (or "linkboys" if you prefer). The earliest reference I can find quickly is late 16th century, but as a practical matter the service must have been available for millennia.
Thin leather with grease smeared on it, inches away from an open flame. What could go wrong? But hey, I learned something today, and that's always good. Thanx Lindy!
I think some of the interesting differences between modern culture and medieval culture are the food and the music. What the films portray and what was really going on are two different things. The king is often shown eating some huge chunk of meat off the bone, but really the organs were the delicacy, and a more accurate portrayal would be the king chowing down on some beef lungs. The difference music is probably too difficult to explain in comments, with 45 characters left.
Through the Boy Scouts I have attended several mass ceremonies which I am not at liberty to divulge details of, however, with a large number of torches they can be useful. Ours were toilet paper rolls soaked in diesel oil on rather long sticks, held overhead, and burned almost a greasy yellow-orange. With several dozen around a football field area was illuminated, and afterwards individual parties with one or two torches could easily navigate the roads. Your torch might be too short and too bright to be practical due to the obvious night-blinding.
Interesting is what changes came with cheap, universally available illumination. Today in parts of Africa people are studying at night in remote areas by led lights charged by solar cells in the daylight.
+ScienceDiscoverer once you get a critical mass of people doing something, it ends up cheap. they ended up using wood and paper for everything cos they didn't have much else.
+ScienceDiscoverer Well the rich people did, the poor lived in wooden shacks with reed thatch. Much like the people in the west. Paper walls were to cope with the heat during the summer, with wooden/stone parts of the house for the winter.
Maybe, in part. But mostly because from some point henceforward there were too many people in Japan and too little trees. The technology was used to save lumber.
Of course a candle is a great light source. If it wasn't then the unit for luminous intensity would not have been called candela :P. Oh, and congratulations on your first 10 000 subscribers.
It doesn't apply high up north either. I live in Stockholm, and at this time of year, there's not really a dusk. Sure, the sun sets, but there's still plenty of light outside to do photography with a regular cellphone camera.
The only way I could see a Hollywood movie following lindybeige's accurate advice would be if an established director found it in himself to make an accurate medieval recreation movie. A director who previously demonstrated an obsession with historical and/or scientific accuracy, like a James Cameron, a Darren Aronofsky, a David Fincher.
this is also the truth to a pirates eye-patch, they didn't use them to look cool or because they just couldn't get the hang of friday night darts, they would use them for boarding ships so that when they went below deck they would have at least 1 eye already perfectly adjusted to the dark. however, i think TheDondaffno is making more of an evolutionary argument. it is possible that our night vision 400 years ago was better than it is now.
"Italians invented this oil, which is extra virgin." Greeks, the inventors of olive oil: **SEETHING** Spaniards, the inventors of extra virgin olive oil: **SEETHING**
+FMHammyJ About 2000 years and more ago, the American Indians in the neighborhood of Mammoth Cave, KY used "cane torches' to penetrate deep into the cave -- more than a mile, if i recall correctly -- and mine gypsum and other minerals. These obviously worked quite well, did not require any soaking in anything, and were perhaps less smoky than 19th-century lanterns, which definitely left residue on the ceilings. Guides used to use them for demonstrations on the tours, but eventually this was seen as conflicting with conservation. For some reason, use of the caves stopped about 2000 years ago and was not resumed until modern times.
Wonder if any enterprising souls tried mica. You generally can't get natural mica in huge sheets like your lantern, but then, since mica is in non-flammable and won't melt until it reaches a few hundred degrees you can also put it right up near your candle to make a smaller lantern...
I have to disagree with the annotation on tallow. I have made it several times for use in my little terra cotta lamp. While there was some minor odor during the rendering process, after the second straining this was nearly eliminated. In actual use, the lamp preforms comparably to candles in terms of light, soot, and odor.
It really depends on the use. Paper was made in Europe from around the year 1080 onwards, so it was at least some use during much of the medieval times, but it was rare in the beginning. It was likely a luxury thing used mostly for books and the like. Paper as a lantern screen had the unfortunate downside of being rather flammable and not being very durable. It'd break easily, and could even catch fire very easily ff the candle flame touched it. So, not very brilliant for this purpose. Paper was also quite a bit rougher and less fine back then. It was basically made by crushing plant fibers into pulp and then drying the mass (which was mixed with some chemicals) in thin sheets they obtained by using square frames with sieves in them. Kinda like the insects screens you put in windows. You'd put the frame into the water tub, and then add the pulp in, and lift up the frame so that a layer of pulp stayed on top of it while the water drained through the mesh back into the tub. When this layer dried, it became stuck together and became a sheet of paper. As you'd expect, it wasn't exactly as nice as the modern paper we have, and was likely lot darker. Probably not brilliant for lanterns, as I said.
Paper is better to make books out of, while it gives shitty protection to pretty much anything. Rawhide is not as good for writing at, and has become much more expensive than paper, but it makes for a good shield.
+Goblin Rat If you watch enough samurai movies you will see the paper lanterns catch on fire and burn when dropped or jostled. The Japanese paper lanterns(still made today) provide decent soft light that is easy on the eyes, but they should be handled gently!
You registered in 07, so I'll assume you're not a child: Make sure the fingers aren't very dry. A little water or spit cab help if you happen to have naturally dry fingers. Then just press against the flame (not against a huge flame, please) with index finger and thumb. It'll vaporate the water on your fingers first, then the water in your fingers, and only if that's all gone it'll set the dry skin aflame. Stop immediately if it hurts, you shouldn't feel it if you do it right.
Since matches, in the sense you're thinking, didn't exist in the dark ages (or anything close to the dark ages. Try the 1800s), I'm pretty sure they weren't banned. Or maybe they were really, really banned.
if you have a PS3, get demons souls/ dark souls, demons souls is, in tunnels etc VERY dark, and often your only source of illumination is your own portable glowing crystal on your belt which illuminates maybe 3 metres in each direction, maybe a bit less, and yes, it means that in tunnels you are quite frequently an easy target for ambushers.
Fraid not, I've done a few night exercises back when I was in the army. Black is a really poor choice at night. It actually makes you stand out more. Dark blues and greens work better. Night is not black its various tones of greyish mess even on a moonless night. If a room was dark enough to hide a man dressed in black it would be too dark to see what you are doing.
In norway it was not to uncommn to use fishoil for lamps. Fishoil was abundant but not very useful for this task because it made everything reak of fishoil. I have tried this with fishoil and even though i imagine the fishoil we use now ismuch more purified, it was still quite rank.
At that point did they use candle holders with a mirrored back (like some polished copper or tin) to amplify and direct the light, or was that a later invention?
I once remember reading that matches were banned for a time in England, I think, possibly during the dark ages. How did people during this era light things? Did they have one big fire going and light everything off of that?
Yes and no in my experience. On the whole they do tend to get small details like this much more accurately than western films do but they also make errors in their choice of proper title when addressing main characters due to numerous name changes that occurred in many of Asian history's dynasties.
3:16 - Was that a moth? :P Aside from that - I noticed something interesting. Don't you think that a lantern, even though it blocks some of the light of the flame is more useful in dark than a candle (and especially torch)? It surely spreads the light more evenly and makes it softer, therefore making everything more clear and easier to look at. It also doesn't nightblind you as much as a candle flame.
The candle you are using to make your point is also a very modern invention. Try using actual tallow candles before commenting about how neat and clean they are. ;)
The main take-away from these videos for me is: When it was dark back then, people stayed put inside if they possibly could. Nobody would start an attack at night, things would have to be desperate to go out at night trying to find someone, and you surely wouldn´t race your horse over unknown terrain at night. All this happens regularly in movies and it annoys the heck out of me.
It would actually be better not to use lanterns or anything at all. After a while, in the dark, your eyes get used to it and you can actually see better than you would with a light source.
you could light an area with torches for a while, but I think he just meant that you couldn't really use it for _searching_ someone out, as they often portray torches in media.
Sire I was wondering if you could put all these, medieval/LARP/RPG type thinggies in one playlist? I would love to have my D&D crew have a gander at them all at once. Thank you for your attention, and once again an interesting vid.
I really do appreciate the vids on weapons and ancient warfare. But what I appreciate more is these vids on ordinary life in the past, how they lived, far more informative of people of the past. More of these please!
My thoughts exactly.
Yes, please.
I concur.
I liked his tips on thatching a roof. roofs are often one of the harder parts of survival, (which I'm supposed to be good at) so I appreciated the information.
Karl-Johan Embretsen agreed
"Who but the Italians would invent degrees of virginity?"
.. Indecisive Paedophiles?
ISIS when they to heaven?
US Republicans, of course.
Because there's legitimate virginity, which means a woman's body just shuts down the defloration and regrows the hymen.
And then there's non-legitimate virginity which just leaves a woman being called a slut or the like - i.e. the kind of woman conservative politicians prefer as long as nobody notices - and in case somebody does, results in public grovelling, confessing to be "just a sinner" and unintentionally reminding everybody how easy a pretty unplausible God can be tricked into forgiving for the umpteenth time just by confession etcetera. I guess you know the drill.
Drops2cents Liberals call women sluts too. In fact, conservative females get called sluts and whores and bitches all the time by liberals who imagined that their genitalia would decide their political party. Same with non-whites and LGBT who are right wing. They get racism and homophobia from the supposed liberals.
Who would have imagined that this comment will turn into a political blabber...
seems like juggling three torches gives off a good amount of light. Now I know what I can make our bard do next time we are in a dark dungeon.
It would also certainly be prudent to advise your bard to throw a torch in the general direction of your enemies if he notices that he's about to drop one. Just saying.
You might also ask your resident mage nicely to cast a spell which would light up your surroundings. Or you just use a magical mace which starts to glow in the vicinity of orcs, like one of our fighters had when we were plaing MERS years ago (albeit such a weapon could be quite cumbersome if you're trying to sneak up on a camp full of orcs, as we we were forced to find out).
Rudofaux I will do the same great idea
Why didn't people just turn the brightness up?
Maybe they couldn't find the gamma adjustment.
It looks very bad
+Trevor H
You know, they just knew Latin back then. So they probably never found out what Gamma meant and just mistook it for some arcane heathen symbol which should best be ignored, which resulted in them stumbling around in the dark.
Hence the term "Dark Ages", because they needed a *lot* of trial and error to get around in the dark without hurting their shins and toes too badly.
Drops2cents
This makes sense. Well played.
Because they were told that they needed to adjust brightness so that the symbol on the left would be barely visible, but that just left them in total darkness. Those darn symbols at the start are never accurate.
We've got lovely big lumps of it 'round the back. - Lindybeige, Medieval Smuggler
Lanterns were indeed originally made of thin sheets of animal horn. This is why the original spelling (still used by Shakespeare) was lanthorn.
They are also called horn lights in Danish.
only for the west world. in the east, they use paper. or just that arabian oil lamp thing
No, I expected a torch inside that lantern
+BountyFlamor well, candle is, basically, a mini-torch! So you where right!
+BountyFlamor I expected a light bulb, stupid medieval age lighting systems.
I expected a flaming pommel....
When trecking or just going out I've always considered the flashlight the most important tool of our time (after the good shoes). Everything else you can use streight out of the 13th century- a knife, rope, backpack, cloak etc...but having light at night that is stronger and more effective than fire, yet doesnt tread to burn the whole forest down-that sure is magic!
Please do more videos like this! Oceans of info on weapons is out there and it's such a small part of life. This sort of thing is more important and gold!
Lindybeige: Archaeologist, War Gaming Enthusiast, LARPer, Fire Juggler, Professional Lindy Hopper. (Is that the right name for one who preforms the lindy hop?)
you forgot Beige Enthusiast.
Sheesh, talk about eclecticism.
Sounds like your typical INTP.
+Gromnok Windwaker he is like modern days Leonardo Da Vinchi!
also french hater
Oh lord, the ending caught me by surprise. Sent me into a laughing fit.
Every fan of Fantasy should watch you to get their knowledge fix up. Also you are awesome source of knowledge to play any medieval RPG properly.
I honestly think I would rather a medieval film be historically accurate with slightly crappy lighting using candles/lamps for indoors and moonlight/lamps for outdoors than just using tons of torches to create lots of light for "film effects". Just my thoughts
Yes, but you would be in the minority. The general public would not receive the movies well had they poor lighting. They don't know or care about torches. Also, torches are pleasing to look at, more so than candles. Even if not historically accurate, it makes people respond with positive emotions to the movie and that's what will make money in the end.
A lot of excellent, influential films were shot using only natural light. French New Wave and Italian Neorealism are both famous for it, in addition to mostly shooting on location. I would love to see modern filmmakers bring that sort of focused aesthetic to medieval historical dramas.
But I don't think most movie scenes are actually being lit by torches, anyway. The torches are just set dressing. You could remove them without affecting the lighting at all.
So glad I discovered this channel! I've been looking everywhere for an engaging source of useful information about the middle ages.
I just used this as an actual real source for information that I actually really needed.
I have come upon some old looking things and I thought they might be ancient lamps. Based on the facsimile in this video, I now think I might actually have been right.
Thanks mr. Beige!
Needless to say I shall now pursue the matter further.
Almost went to look up what tallow was to make sure I was right, and then you explained it below. That's the sort of useful thing that you do consistently, and it's quality that I really appreciate. I just started watching your videos yesterday, but I'm already a massive fan and have shared a fair amount of things I find useful to the players in my group.
Thanks for all the great content, and here's to you!
You're not sorry to disappoint, you love it!
Candles are so much fun. It could just be my inner pyromaniac speaking here, but fire - when handled safely and properly - seems to have been possibly the most important "resource" (so to speak) in medieval times. Hell, even today it's used quite a lot - gas cooktops, power plants, and so on.
Best channel on the interwebs, this is!!
Stanley Kubricks Barry Lindon has probably the most realistic lighting you'll ever see in a movie.
Every time our power goes out and I break out the candles I'm always impressed how much light a single candle emits. A nice glow that makes everything pretty darn visible especially as your eyes adjust. Add one more candle and everything is pretty well lit.
There was once a power outage in my town in the middle of one cloudy summer night. I was reading in my bed, and suddenly all the lights went out. TOTAL darkness.
So I went into the kitchen, fetched myself a nice candle, lit it and wandered around the town barefoot in my pajamas and bathrobe until the lights came back on.
Ever since then I wish for more power outages at night, so I can go on another nightly adventure!
Modern material science has loads to teach us about glass. Most examples of glass that spring to mind (windows, windshields, bottles/glasses/jars, globes) are quite far removed from "old-school" glass.
Get a long tube of card from the core of a roll of kitchen foil, fill it with molten wax. Wait for it to solidify. Light. BIG bright flame. Warning: keep upright at all times and work out a way of extinguishing it in advance (bucket of water).
Put the candle thru an upside-down Frisbee. Fasten it somehow. This will Atchison a lot of the wax
This is the 3rd video I've seen from you and I appreciate the practicality of thought as well as the energetic presentation. (1/4 staff, torches, and this). Cant wait to see more :) subscribed.
Movies used a combination of double-wick candles (kept in fridges until needed as they burn very quickly), and inkies with barn doors. Inkies are small ~100W production lights. You'd need one per character and probably some spun (sheets of spun glass used as diffusers) to soften the light enough. I dont' know if any of that is needed anymore, between digital camera and led lights. Makes for a MUCH cooler set.
I know I'm a little late to the party but pro point, whenever there is a black out we use modern torches to find and light our store of candles which we then use to light up the entire house until power comes back . . . it's amazing how useful these little bundles of wax and flame can be even in the modern era
we are given paper lantern once a year here in my town for a parade in the streets. (candle in a paper lantern, held with a wooden stick). It last for as long as the candle burns. But sometimes the paper catches fire, this happens quite often, especially if you intend to walk with it (i'd say 1 on 50 catches fire), if it's simply for lighting your house, i think it can last forever.
Good juggling at the end. :)
Lanterns were also made with slivers of horn for the "windows" And in Greenland they fueled their lamps with blubber and used moss for a whick. And I think I heard that the chineese also had lamps made from a bamboo pipe and a bladder filled with coal gas.And finally there are "rush lights", which are reeds soaked in tallow.
The torch transitions are pretty cool
They must have had better eyes back then.
the other week the power went out and one of my family members though they'd been really cleaver by stocking up on candles...
Yea, we had enough candles going to be considered a fire hazard and couldn't see anything, and Insistently, reading by candle light sucks too.
Modern candles are decorative. The wicks are generally smaller and provide less light than many traditional ones. Also despite what Lindy says candles were very expensive and not used as much as you may think.
you'd be surprised at how well you actually see at night, but you need half an hour for full effect.
shanes channel
You can imagine the cost of beewax (and honey) by this fact, that a beekeeper or "Zeidler" in medieval german in some region not must go to the "Fron" on the crops of his lord, mend ways, or whatever he has to do as a serf for his lord. Instead of this he produce and deliver more wax and honey as tax. This brought much more income to his lord as simple serf labor.
You're using the wrong candles, I had a power outage recently and all it took was one candle to see well enough to move around and even read.
Thing is, if you use candles in total darkness, they're really nice. But I've noticed that they're basically worthless if you try to lighten up the place when it's just kinda gloomy. Like, say, it's dark enough that reading will be a pain, but not so dark that you can't see where you're going. For some reason, candles really don't help in this situation at all.
I can attest to the usefulness of candles in a house as after an ice storm last year we had no power for 10 days. Even with many modern candles being designed for decoration instead of lighting a single one still does a nice job of lighting up a room enough to be able to see to safely get around and find things. Sure I still often used a flashlight if I was going to different sections of the house as decoration candles aren't really designed to be moved around when lit (unless I was going into the living room since we used a fire in the evenings for lighting and heating) but a candle does provide a useful alternative even in modern times.
I remember making a comment about lanterns in one of the earlier torch videos. I didn't know that they used rawhide or horn as a semi transparent material. What I was getting at was a kind of wind break with holes in it to let light out and air in. Some countries used woven leaves or grass while others used ceramic or wood.
These holes would seem to shoot a beam of light out which would illuminate anything close enough in that general direction.
I love this guy so much
Another quality lindybiege offering - keep up the good work.
Wax candles were expensive in the old days. The common people used what in french is called "chandelle" which was either a wick in the middle of a piece of fat or a dried reed filled with fat.
I was a bit surprised at your description of how painful the molten (no, boiling) wax was, but then my experience is with paraffin, and sure enough, paraffin has a significantly lower melting point.
dude....'great big lumps of it round the back'....I use that as a repost when acosted by crazy people...the looks you get !...never fails to make em bugger off ....your the only person ive ever heard use it :)......Jailer...wise man !
"Oh don't mind him sir, he's mu-mu-mu-mad sir!"
Yes, but it is a skill quickly acquired. Try walking around your home at night without lights. You'll be slow and careful at first but quickly speed up.
In this series on torches, which I've enjoyed quite a lot, it would have been nice if you'd mentioned at least one practical use of torches, viz. link boys (or "linkboys" if you prefer). The earliest reference I can find quickly is late 16th century, but as a practical matter the service must have been available for millennia.
Thin leather with grease smeared on it, inches away from an open flame. What could go wrong? But hey, I learned something today, and that's always good. Thanx Lindy!
Tallow was much used in the 1800s. There’s a beach in eastern Australia where a shipment of tallow was spilled all over.
I think some of the interesting differences between modern culture and medieval culture are the food and the music. What the films portray and what was really going on are two different things. The king is often shown eating some huge chunk of meat off the bone, but really the organs were the delicacy, and a more accurate portrayal would be the king chowing down on some beef lungs.
The difference music is probably too difficult to explain in comments, with 45 characters left.
Through the Boy Scouts I have attended several mass ceremonies which I am not at liberty to divulge details of, however, with a large number of torches they can be useful. Ours were toilet paper rolls soaked in diesel oil on rather long sticks, held overhead, and burned almost a greasy yellow-orange. With several dozen around a football field area was illuminated, and afterwards individual parties with one or two torches could easily navigate the roads. Your torch might be too short and too bright to be practical due to the obvious night-blinding.
Interesting is what changes came with cheap, universally available illumination. Today in parts of Africa people are studying at night in remote areas by led lights charged by solar cells in the daylight.
Oh, so that's why all Japanese windows and walls and doors was made out of paper - cos they had no glass? And paper was really cheap?
+ScienceDiscoverer once you get a critical mass of people doing something, it ends up cheap. they ended up using wood and paper for everything cos they didn't have much else.
+ScienceDiscoverer Well the rich people did, the poor lived in wooden shacks with reed thatch. Much like the people in the west. Paper walls were to cope with the heat during the summer, with wooden/stone parts of the house for the winter.
Also... the environment didn't support expensive structures.....
Maybe, in part. But mostly because from some point henceforward there were too many people in Japan and too little trees. The technology was used to save lumber.
Of course a candle is a great light source. If it wasn't then the unit for luminous intensity would not have been called candela :P. Oh, and congratulations on your first 10 000 subscribers.
Don't I mention the horn windows?
It doesn't apply high up north either. I live in Stockholm, and at this time of year, there's not really a dusk. Sure, the sun sets, but there's still plenty of light outside to do photography with a regular cellphone camera.
The only way I could see a Hollywood movie following lindybeige's accurate advice would be if an established director found it in himself to make an accurate medieval recreation movie. A director who previously demonstrated an obsession with historical and/or scientific accuracy, like a James Cameron, a Darren Aronofsky, a David Fincher.
When we had power outages in the 1960s, we often relied on candles.
We still do here
That, and oil lamps
A subscriber from 2018 explores the catacombs of Lindybeige's channel.
What the hell was that at 3:17, spooky!
torch cut.
Fire, would you believe.
Another question; How did they actually light and put flames on these things?
I love these, "everyday items" videos. Do you have any plans for similar?
I feel they are just as interesting than weapons, shields and such.
this is also the truth to a pirates eye-patch, they didn't use them to look cool or because they just couldn't get the hang of friday night darts, they would use them for boarding ships so that when they went below deck they would have at least 1 eye already perfectly adjusted to the dark.
however, i think TheDondaffno is making more of an evolutionary argument. it is possible that our night vision 400 years ago was better than it is now.
"Italians invented this oil, which is extra virgin."
Greeks, the inventors of olive oil: **SEETHING**
Spaniards, the inventors of extra virgin olive oil: **SEETHING**
I always wondered about the wisdom of paper lanterns. Paper burns...
A savage bandit from the medieval times in the woods 😂 4:35
Im surprised you didn't mention rushlights.....candles were comparatively expensive....and poor people used rushlights......
+FMHammyJ About 2000 years and more ago, the American Indians in the neighborhood of Mammoth Cave, KY used "cane torches' to penetrate deep into the cave -- more than a mile, if i recall correctly -- and mine gypsum and other minerals. These obviously worked quite well, did not require any soaking in anything, and were perhaps less smoky than 19th-century lanterns, which definitely left residue on the ceilings. Guides used to use them for demonstrations on the tours, but eventually this was seen as conflicting with conservation.
For some reason, use of the caves stopped about 2000 years ago and was not resumed until modern times.
Wonder if any enterprising souls tried mica. You generally can't get natural mica in huge sheets like your lantern, but then, since mica is in non-flammable and won't melt until it reaches a few hundred degrees you can also put it right up near your candle to make a smaller lantern...
Wick, yes, wood, no. Certain woods burn well.
Glass alternative? Micah. Yes micah, the kind in the ground. The mineral, crystal, rock, type substance. They used it in lanterns.
I have to disagree with the annotation on tallow. I have made it several times for use in my little terra cotta lamp. While there was some minor odor during the rendering process, after the second straining this was nearly eliminated. In actual use, the lamp preforms comparably to candles in terms of light, soot, and odor.
Keep calm and juggle on
Was paper a superior solution to rawhide? When did we start having paper in Europe?
It really depends on the use. Paper was made in Europe from around the year 1080 onwards, so it was at least some use during much of the medieval times, but it was rare in the beginning. It was likely a luxury thing used mostly for books and the like. Paper as a lantern screen had the unfortunate downside of being rather flammable and not being very durable. It'd break easily, and could even catch fire very easily ff the candle flame touched it. So, not very brilliant for this purpose.
Paper was also quite a bit rougher and less fine back then. It was basically made by crushing plant fibers into pulp and then drying the mass (which was mixed with some chemicals) in thin sheets they obtained by using square frames with sieves in them. Kinda like the insects screens you put in windows. You'd put the frame into the water tub, and then add the pulp in, and lift up the frame so that a layer of pulp stayed on top of it while the water drained through the mesh back into the tub. When this layer dried, it became stuck together and became a sheet of paper. As you'd expect, it wasn't exactly as nice as the modern paper we have, and was likely lot darker. Probably not brilliant for lanterns, as I said.
Paper is better to make books out of, while it gives shitty protection to pretty much anything. Rawhide is not as good for writing at, and has become much more expensive than paper, but it makes for a good shield.
+Goblin Rat If you watch enough samurai movies you will see the paper lanterns catch on fire and burn when dropped or jostled. The Japanese paper lanterns(still made today) provide decent soft light that is easy on the eyes, but they should be handled gently!
i cracked up laughing to the Monty Python: Life of Brian reference there lol
You registered in 07, so I'll assume you're not a child: Make sure the fingers aren't very dry. A little water or spit cab help if you happen to have naturally dry fingers. Then just press against the flame (not against a huge flame, please) with index finger and thumb. It'll vaporate the water on your fingers first, then the water in your fingers, and only if that's all gone it'll set the dry skin aflame. Stop immediately if it hurts, you shouldn't feel it if you do it right.
Since matches, in the sense you're thinking, didn't exist in the dark ages (or anything close to the dark ages. Try the 1800s), I'm pretty sure they weren't banned. Or maybe they were really, really banned.
No mention of rushlight? I am surprised you didn't mention this.
if you have a PS3, get demons souls/ dark souls, demons souls is, in tunnels etc VERY dark, and often your only source of illumination is your own portable glowing crystal on your belt which illuminates maybe 3 metres in each direction, maybe a bit less, and yes, it means that in tunnels you are quite frequently an easy target for ambushers.
I have the same oil lamp for larping works good for going to bed or to toilet ;)
Charcoal Grey is best.
On the cardboard tube candles: Which didn't you guys make a Holder/Sconce for it?
Think the Roman wax torches.
You did, must have had a car drive by my window just then, because I was paying attention :P
''Boiling wax''
I don't know why this annoys me so much, but I do recall reading that wax doesn't boil, it combusts.
Anyone else notice be never blinks?
Fraid not, I've done a few night exercises back when I was in the army. Black is a really poor choice at night. It actually makes you stand out more. Dark blues and greens work better. Night is not black its various tones of greyish mess even on a moonless night.
If a room was dark enough to hide a man dressed in black it would be too dark to see what you are doing.
please do one video on the bull-eye lantern
Can you make a video showing how to make a mantle with a hood like your wearing in this video ?? I really want one
In norway it was not to uncommn to use fishoil for lamps. Fishoil was abundant but not very useful for this task because it made everything reak of fishoil. I have tried this with fishoil and even though i imagine the fishoil we use now ismuch more purified, it was still quite rank.
At that point did they use candle holders with a mirrored back (like some polished copper or tin) to amplify and direct the light, or was that a later invention?
I once remember reading that matches were banned for a time in England, I think, possibly during the dark ages. How did people during this era light things? Did they have one big fire going and light everything off of that?
So... what were torches used for? From these three videos, I can only assume that the only viable use for a torch is an impressive juggling tool.
Yes and no in my experience. On the whole they do tend to get small details like this much more accurately than western films do but they also make errors in their choice of proper title when addressing main characters due to numerous name changes that occurred in many of Asian history's dynasties.
Lindybeige!
I used to own an early 20th century lamp with sheet mica panes. Any idea when they started using sheet mica?
3:16 - Was that a moth? :P
Aside from that - I noticed something interesting. Don't you think that a lantern, even though it blocks some of the light of the flame is more useful in dark than a candle (and especially torch)? It surely spreads the light more evenly and makes it softer, therefore making everything more clear and easier to look at. It also doesn't nightblind you as much as a candle flame.
“Gentle viewer” made me laugh lol
This..this is genius!
The candle you are using to make your point is also a very modern invention. Try using actual tallow candles before commenting about how neat and clean they are. ;)
I once blew out a candle quite violently and I got hot wax on my face, it hurt but only for a little while
They would be prohibitively expensive for most people.
The main take-away from these videos for me is: When it was dark back then, people stayed put inside if they possibly could. Nobody would start an attack at night, things would have to be desperate to go out at night trying to find someone, and you surely wouldn´t race your horse over unknown terrain at night. All this happens regularly in movies and it annoys the heck out of me.
HAH! Never had any idea what was in a lantern.
It would actually be better not to use lanterns or anything at all. After a while, in the dark, your eyes get used to it and you can actually see better than you would with a light source.
So torches were only used for lighting things on fire, especially in wartime? Huh. I never would have guessed that was their true, main use.
you could light an area with torches for a while, but I think he just meant that you couldn't really use it for _searching_ someone out, as they often portray torches in media.
Did houses in the past not have glass in windows? If it was so expensive?
Sire I was wondering if you could put all these, medieval/LARP/RPG type thinggies in one playlist?
I would love to have my D&D crew have a gander at them all at once.
Thank you for your attention, and once again an interesting vid.