Wednesday, May 11, 2011

Chain Maille








I am going to be taking a leave of absence so i am giving y'all a bonus long lecture today.






The Relation between Chain Maille and Credit Cards




An explanation of why without Chain Maille there would be no Credit Cards
I am here to tell you why there would be no Credit Cards if Chain Maille had not been invented. I know this may sound quiet random but it really isn’t. The thought all started when I was thinking about the progression of the industrial revolution. I did some research on it and found out a series of events that happened which allowed it to start. I will go from step to step explaining everything through out this paper.

Chain Maille was invented by the Celts; a civilization that was being pressed into submission by the roman army in the year around the year 500A.D. After defeating the Celts the Romans took the Chain Maille because it was more flexible and allowed easier protection. In a simultaneous series of events it was invented in Asia. It was primarily used by the Japanese; because most weapons used by the Chinese were slashing weapons. These weapons could slice through leather and cut the enemy causing them to bleed to death. Because Chain Maille’s main strength was resisting slashing it was very successful in protecting the Japanese. When the Roman empire fell and the dark ages started Chain Maille was lost for many years.

When Chain Maille was began to be used it once again was key in preventing slashing. Before the reinvention of Chain Maille a simple dagger could kill you (At this time no armor other efficient protective armor existed). Because of this the simple blacksmith who at that time could make weapons was now needed to make armor. Now the blacksmith needed to have others helping making the Chains (His apprentice did that) while he worked on assembling them in the proper way.

With the effectiveness of knives, daggers and swords diminished signicently they were hardly useful anymore. Instead they started to use crushing weapons such as clubs and broad swords. Now able to be used because your armor would protect you from a nimble slash. They were used to break bones and crush organs.

Just with any new weapon a new counter to it is invented. This was Plate Armor, a strong and solid plate that provided protection from slashing and crushing. But because it was solid it required much more heat to work with requiring people to gather and tend the fire specifically so that the blacksmith could focus on producing weapons and armor. With all of the demand for armor and weapons soldier would travel far and wide to a blacksmith. With the new influx of travellers taverns sprung up to provide them with places to sleep and entertain at. Farmers now could sell supplies to the leaving travellers. This caused villages to become towns.

Being faced with the new problem of Plate Armor , came the height of piercing weapons such as arrows, pikes, and halberds. This created a new arms race of who could get the longest pikes and the most archers. Because archery was a life skill archers were expensive and hard to come by. This is what caused the new hand canons to gain popularity. Because they were cheap and easy to use. One could be taught to load and fire within one hour, essentially allowing anyone to become a cannoner. With the widespread use of hand canons alchemists making could make a living selling and developing gunpowder. Because the gunpowder and hand canons had to work hand and hand the alchemists worked with the blacksmiths to provide efficient weapons. This caused the small towns to grow into cities.

As cities got bigger and bigger they started to unite with neighboring cities creating empires. As the empires grew to prominent ones appeared within Europe; France and England. In the late 17th century the French empire wanted to reform causing them to become fully independent and self sustaining. Jean-Baptist Colbert wanted to compete with England as a world power. To do this he needed a navy but could not build it because the forests had been ravaged and decimated by fuel-collectors. To solve this he put strict regulations regarding deforestation. This caused the fuel-collectors to have to find a new fuel. This is what caused the discovery of coal. Without this invention the industrial revolution would have never happened.

With the industrial revolution the world took a major change. Now a few farmers could provide enough food for entire towns. This allowed people to form larger and larger cities and allowed people to start providing new objects and services on entertainment and enjoyment over essentiality. New things inventions such as Henry Ford’s Model T could cost more then you had. He solved this by giving you credit; all you had to do was pay a little back each month until you had paid of the entire 800 dollars. On another scale high-class citizens could buy food from a restaurant without having to pay until the end of the month.

With the new advances in credit there were lots of people realizing that they could make a living off of loaning and credit. This caused new credit card companies to spring up. They started mailing credit cards to everyone they could. These cards were under your name and were already set up so that you could start purchasing instantly. Once this was found out many people started to steal them from you mailbox and buy many things with them. With these problems the government stepped in and made many laws and regulations essentially forming the credit cards known today.

10 comments:

  1. read the entire thing. interesting how society developed from warriors to business men

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  2. Now I know the difference between chain mails and credit cards, thanks for the post.

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  3. hahaha wow...i can't believe you linked those two...even though they came one after the other i doubt that there was that clear of a link between them..

    nice post..made me laugh a bit.

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  4. Great post. Makes up for the absence! :D

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  5. Short and helpful history lesson, loving this blog

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  6. That guy looks like a meme or something, but I know you created it. That means you are super funny.

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  7. GREAT post, i love hearing about the development of civilizations, and how the medieval times shapes modern america

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  8. Very interesting article and the most interesting part to me is that they were actually randomly send to people.

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