Season 1

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Weapons expert Mike Loades looks at the weapons that made Britain's history. The weapon perhaps most associated with the medieval period is the sword. Mike teaches a crash course in 15th-century fighting techniques using authentic techniques, observes the weeks-long Anglo Saxon technique of sword making, tests swords against the armour of the day, and tests different designs of swords.

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Mike has a medieval longbow specially made for him, and takes it to Crecy to show just how British archers destroyed the cream of French chivalry in a devastating arrow attack. Mike also fires from horseback in order to understand the special tactics used by Edward III's army while fighting their way across France.

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When Norman knights charged Harold's army at Hastings they hurled their spears from horseback. Less than a century later those spears were tucked under knights' arms and had become the ultimate heavy impact weapon: the cavalry charge with lances. It was to change warfare forever as armies had to find a way of stopping the thundering combination of men and horses.

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In Anglo Saxon England, the shield-wall ruled the battlefield and no warrior was complete without his shield. Mike creates his own volunteer shield-wall and tests the battlefield tactics King Alfred the Great used to fight off the Vikings.

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During the medieval arms race, advances in weapons technology were in constant competition with innovations in armour. Technological ingenuity and design culminate in the most enduring icon of the era: the fully armoured mounted knight, covered from head to toe in an exoskeleton of armour.