People Walked a Little Differently During Medieval Times: A Quick Primer

Roland Warzecha runs a Youtube chan­nel where he delves into the world of medieval weapons and com­bat. If you want to learn some­thing about Viking shields and swords, medieval spears and com­bat tech­niques, spend some time there.

Above, Roland departs from his reg­u­lar­ly sched­uled pro­gram­ming and explores anoth­er facet of medieval life. Walk­ing. That’s right, walk­ing. It turns out that, as Boing Boing sum­ma­rizes it, “before struc­tured shoes became preva­lent in the 16th cen­tu­ry … peo­ple walked with a dif­fer­ent gait, push­ing onto the balls of our feet instead of rock­ing for­ward on our heels.” And that’s your les­son on medieval body mechan­ics for today…

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Relat­ed Con­tent:

Fash­ion­able 2,000-Year-Old Roman Shoe Found in a Well

What’s It Like to Fight in 15th Cen­tu­ry Armor?: A Sur­pris­ing Demon­stra­tion

Won­der­ful­ly Weird & Inge­nious Medieval Books

See The Guidon­ian Hand, the Medieval Sys­tem for Read­ing Music, Get Brought Back to Life

Wear­able Books: In Medieval Times, They Took Old Man­u­scripts & Turned Them into Clothes

How Walk­ing Fos­ters Cre­ativ­i­ty: Stan­ford Researchers Con­firm What Philoso­phers and Writ­ers Have Always Known