The Quiet Armoury

The Quiet Armoury
  • 0.0 (0)
  • History
  • Weekly

Swords and armour through history, told slowly: how each one was made, why it changed, and the people who carried it. Calm stories for the late hours. Read by a synthetic voice.

Episodes

  1. 3d ago

    8. Shields

    Of everything people carried into a fight, the shield is the only thing made entirely to protect someone. A spring evening around the year 900, on a Norwegian fjord: you and your sister paint the shields for a new ship, half yellow, half black... Inside: wood, hide and wicker, the bronze shields that were never meant for battle, a Spartan mother's 'with it, or on it', the Roman shield wall, the Viking round shield, the kite shields of the Bayeux Tapestry, how painted shields became heraldry, the shields that walked, the small shields of the duel, shields far beyond Europe, and the shield's return in our own time. Chapters: Wood, hide and wicker · The bronze shields that were not · With it, or on it · The Roman wall · The round shield · The king's shield · The shield wall · Three shields · The kite · Painted signs · The words we keep · Shields that walked · The small shields · Elsewhere · The shield comes back · The ship. Read by a synthetic voice; script written and fact-checked by the show's team. Additional sounds: Joseph Sardin, BigSoundBank.com (CC0). More calm shows for the late hours: Embers of History (history), Slow Orbit (space), Myth and Score (composers). Every episode's full script: https://garryassistantoffice-alt.github.io/armoury/8.html On YouTube: Opera Stories https://www.youtube.com/@operastoriestv · Slow Orbit https://www.youtube.com/@sloworbitlectures Free line-by-line English translations of art songs: https://garryassistantoffice-alt.github.io/art-songs/ Enjoying the show? Leave a tip (no fees): https://ko-fi.com/artsongtranslations

    8. Shields

  2. 6d ago

    7. Spears, Pikes and Halberds

    The oldest weapon in the world is not a sword. It is a stick with a point. A winter evening in 1620, in the arsenal of a small Swiss city: the keeper has gone home with a cold, and you, his fourteen-year-old helper, count and oil the long weapons rack by rack... Inside: the oldest spears ever found, the long hedge of the Macedonian sarissa, farm tools turned to war, Flemish townsmen against French knights at Courtrai, the mountain men of Sempach and the Winkelried story, the Swiss square, push of pike, the drill, the knight's poleaxe, the lance, the bayonet that ended the pike, the Pope's Swiss Guard, and long weapons far beyond Europe. Chapters: The first long weapon · The long hedge · Tools of the farm · The day of the spurs · The mountain men · The square · The battle of giants · Ash · Push of pike · The drill · The staff · The knight's axe · The lance · The end of the pike · The finest halberds · The Pope's guard · Elsewhere · The count. Read by a synthetic voice; script written and fact-checked by the show's team. Additional sounds: Joseph Sardin, BigSoundBank.com (CC0). More calm shows for the late hours: Embers of History (history), Slow Orbit (space), Myth and Score (composers). Every episode's full script: https://garryassistantoffice-alt.github.io/armoury/7.html On YouTube: Opera Stories https://www.youtube.com/@operastoriestv · Slow Orbit https://www.youtube.com/@sloworbitlectures Free line-by-line English translations of art songs: https://garryassistantoffice-alt.github.io/art-songs/ Enjoying the show? Leave a tip (no fees): https://ko-fi.com/artsongtranslations

    7. Spears, Pikes and Halberds

  3. Oct 29

    6. The Rapier

    Fleuret: French, a little flower or bud, after the button on the point of a practice sword; in English, the foil. London, autumn 1595: a young law student walks to an Italian fencing school in Blackfriars, and we follow the sword of the robe from Spain to Bologna, Rome, Madrid and Paris... Inside: officers at the city gate breaking off over-long rapiers, guards numbered one to four, the lunge, measure and time, an Englishman's challenge on a scaffold, the seven degrees of the lie, a geometry circle painted on a fencing floor, a duel in the most fashionable square in Paris, the real d'Artagnan, and an opera singer who beat three noblemen in a garden. Vincentio Saviolo and George Silver will be there too. Chapters: The sword of the robe · The hilt · The blade · A yard and half a quarter · The Italians · The lunge · The school at Blackfriars · Measure and time · The Englishman who disagreed · On the stage · The blade makers · Spain · The duels · The musketeers · The smallsword · The singer · Evening · The point. Sources: Marozzo (1536), Agrippa (1553), Carranza (1582), Saviolo (1595), Silver (1599), Fabris (1606), Capo Ferro (1610), Shakespeare, Cervantes, Richelieu's edict (1626). Read by a synthetic voice; script written and fact-checked by the show's team. Additional sounds: Joseph Sardin, BigSoundBank.com (CC0). More calm shows for the late hours: Embers of History (history), Slow Orbit (space), Myth and Score (composers). Every episode's full script: https://garryassistantoffice-alt.github.io/armoury/6.html On YouTube: Opera Stories https://www.youtube.com/@operastoriestv · Slow Orbit https://www.youtube.com/@sloworbitlectures Free line-by-line English translations of art songs: https://garryassistantoffice-alt.github.io/art-songs/ Enjoying the show? Leave a tip (no fees): https://ko-fi.com/artsongtranslations

    6. The Rapier

  4. Oct 29

    5. The Sabre

    Sabre: from Hungarian szablya, one of the few words that came into Europe on horseback. Spring 1800, a cavalry barracks in England: a new light dragoon holds a sword for the first time, and we ride back a thousand years to the grasslands where the blade first curved... Inside: why a curved edge draws as it cuts, the kilij's false edge, the winged hussars at Vienna, the Cossack sword worn edge up, the Mamluks at the pyramids, six cuts on a painted wheel, blades proved by bending, the valley at Balaclava, the Patton sabre that does not curve, a charge against tanks that never happened, and a Hungarian fencer who won gold at fifty. John Gaspard Le Marchant will be there too. Chapters: The grasslands · Westward · The winged horsemen · The hussars of Europe · The Cossacks · The Mamluks · The book · The six cuts · The proof · Cut or thrust? · The valley · The last swords · The sabre that stayed · The students · Evening · A thousand years. Sources: Le Marchant's Sword Exercise (1796), Royal Armouries and National Army Museum notes, Polish Army Museum, Olympic records. Read by a synthetic voice; script written and fact-checked by the show's team. Additional sounds: Joseph Sardin, BigSoundBank.com (CC0). More calm shows for the late hours: Embers of History (history), Slow Orbit (space), Myth and Score (composers). Every episode's full script: https://garryassistantoffice-alt.github.io/armoury/5.html On YouTube: Opera Stories https://www.youtube.com/@operastoriestv · Slow Orbit https://www.youtube.com/@sloworbitlectures Free line-by-line English translations of art songs: https://garryassistantoffice-alt.github.io/art-songs/ Enjoying the show? Leave a tip (no fees): https://ko-fi.com/artsongtranslations

    5. The Sabre

  5. Oct 29

    4. Samurai Armour

    Gusoku: Japanese, 'complete', a full armour with every piece. Summer 1750, in a castle town at peace: a young samurai helps his uncle air the clan's armours in the sun, box by box, from a four-hundred-year-old great armour to the face masks with real moustaches... Inside: a leather panel for the bowstring, ten thousand little plates laced in silk, the coward's plate, a fan shot from a rocking boat at Yashima, helmets shaped like crescents, antlers and cliffs, lacquer that hardens only in damp air, Japanese mail sewn onto cloth, and two armours sent to King James I in 1613. Nasu no Yoichi will be there too. Chapters: The oldest armour · The great armour · Ten thousand little plates · The helmet · The way of horse and bow · Armour for walking · The age of war · The strange helmets · The faces · The lacquer · Putting it on · Mail in Japan · The horses · The long peace · A gift for a king · The end of the samurai · Why the legend? · Evening. Sources: Tokyo National Museum and Metropolitan Museum notes, Royal Armouries (the Saris armours), the Tanegashima account, the Tale of the Heike, Arai Hakuseki. Read by a synthetic voice; script written and fact-checked by the show's team. Additional sounds: Joseph Sardin, BigSoundBank.com (CC0). More calm shows for the late hours: Embers of History (history), Slow Orbit (space), Myth and Score (composers). Every episode's full script: https://garryassistantoffice-alt.github.io/armoury/4.html On YouTube: Opera Stories https://www.youtube.com/@operastoriestv · Slow Orbit https://www.youtube.com/@sloworbitlectures Free line-by-line English translations of art songs: https://garryassistantoffice-alt.github.io/art-songs/ Enjoying the show? Leave a tip (no fees): https://ko-fi.com/artsongtranslations

    4. Samurai Armour

  6. Oct 29

    3. The Longsword and the Fight Books

    Indes: Middle High German, 'meanwhile', the instant when the blades touch and you feel which way the other will move. Strasbourg, spring 1570: a cutler's apprentice watches his master's fencing book arrive from the printer, and we go back two hundred years to a master no one ever saw... Inside: the Ox, the Plough, the Fool and the Roof, the Wrath Cut, a lynx with compasses and an elephant with a castle, a duel between a man in a pit and a woman with a stone, a priest's long knife, blood on the scalp at the Frankfurt fair, and a city treasurer hanged for his fencing books. Johannes Liechtenauer, Fiore dei Liberi and Joachim Meyer will be there too. Chapters: The sword itself · The parts of the sword · The master no one ever saw · The flower of battle · In armour · On horseback · The judicial duel · The long knife · The brotherhoods · The fencing school · An evening lesson · The book · The man who wanted everything · The end of the longsword · The return · Evening. Sources: Meyer (1570), the Döbringer manuscript (c. 1389), Fiore's Fior di Battaglia (c. 1409), Talhoffer, Lecküchner (1478), the 1487 Marxbrüder privilege, Paulus Hector Mair. Read by a synthetic voice; script written and fact-checked by the show's team. Additional sounds: Joseph Sardin, BigSoundBank.com (CC0). More calm shows for the late hours: Embers of History (history), Slow Orbit (space), Myth and Score (composers). Every episode's full script: https://garryassistantoffice-alt.github.io/armoury/3.html On YouTube: Opera Stories https://www.youtube.com/@operastoriestv · Slow Orbit https://www.youtube.com/@sloworbitlectures Free line-by-line English translations of art songs: https://garryassistantoffice-alt.github.io/art-songs/ Enjoying the show? Leave a tip (no fees): https://ko-fi.com/artsongtranslations

    3. The Longsword and the Fight Books

  7. Oct 29

    2. Armour, from Linen to Plate

    Harness: the old word for a complete armour, from the French harneis, gear. Before dawn, around 1450, a young squire arms his knight for a tournament, feet first, the way the old English treatise says it must be done, and between the buckles, three thousand years of armour... Inside: Greek marines who wore a Bronze Age armour for eleven hours, the helmet with flapping bronze wings, a chest of Roman armour left behind at Corbridge, the pig-faced bascinet, the dent that gave us the word bulletproof, a knight who climbed the underside of a ladder, warhorses the size of ponies, and Spanish soldiers who borrowed Aztec cotton armour. Boucicaut will be there too. Chapters: Cloth and hide · The bronze men · Rings of iron · The Romans in strips · The knight in mail · Plates · The armourers · The arming · The squire · How heavy? · The tournament · The horse · Elsewhere · The last of the harness · What armour is. Sources: the Dendra endurance test (2023), Kalkriese and Corbridge, How a Man Schall Be Armyd (c. 1450), Le Livre des fais de Boucicaut, the Leeds armour treadmill study (2011). Read by a synthetic voice; script written and fact-checked by the show's team. Additional sounds: Joseph Sardin, BigSoundBank.com (CC0). More calm shows for the late hours: Embers of History (history), Slow Orbit (space), Myth and Score (composers). Every episode's full script: https://garryassistantoffice-alt.github.io/armoury/2.html On YouTube: Opera Stories https://www.youtube.com/@operastoriestv · Slow Orbit https://www.youtube.com/@sloworbitlectures Free line-by-line English translations of art songs: https://garryassistantoffice-alt.github.io/art-songs/ Enjoying the show? Leave a tip (no fees): https://ko-fi.com/artsongtranslations

    2. Armour, from Linen to Plate

  8. Oct 29

    1. The Sword, from Bronze to the Rapier

    Fuller: the long groove down a sword blade. Often called a blood groove; it is nothing of the kind. A night walk through a museum hall of swords, case by case, from the first bronze blades of five thousand years ago to the officer's sword of the last cavalry... Inside: a planted myth about the Gauls' bent swords, the patterned steel of the migration age, a fake Ulfberht, a knight's sword weighing as much as a bag of sugar, a smith reading the colours of hot steel, the murder stroke, a Zweihänder taller than a man, and a katana that was never folded a thousand times. Ewart Oakeshott will be there too. Chapters: Before the sword · The first swords · Iron · The Romans · The patterned blades · The Viking sword · The knight's sword · The smith · The longsword · The giants · The sword leaves the battlefield · Elsewhere · What a sword is. Sources: Royal Armouries and Wallace Collection notes, Oakeshott's and Petersen's typologies, studies of the Ulfberht blades, Polybius, the Arslantepe finds. Read by a synthetic voice; script written and fact-checked by the show's team. Additional sounds: Joseph Sardin, BigSoundBank.com (CC0). More calm shows for the late hours: Embers of History (history), Slow Orbit (space), Myth and Score (composers). Every episode's full script: https://garryassistantoffice-alt.github.io/armoury/1.html On YouTube: Opera Stories https://www.youtube.com/@operastoriestv · Slow Orbit https://www.youtube.com/@sloworbitlectures Free line-by-line English translations of art songs: https://garryassistantoffice-alt.github.io/art-songs/ Enjoying the show? Leave a tip (no fees): https://ko-fi.com/artsongtranslations

    1. The Sword, from Bronze to the Rapier
  • 8 Episodes

About

Swords and armour through history, told slowly: how each one was made, why it changed, and the people who carried it. Calm stories for the late hours. Read by a synthetic voice.

Information

  • Creator
    The Quiet Armoury
  • Years Active
    2026
  • Episodes
    8
  • Rating
    Clean
  • Show Website
    The Quiet Armoury