Thomas Carlyle posited the theory that right-handed warriors in medieval times had an advantage over left-handed warriors because they could hold their shields over their hearts. This according to Carlyle explained why there were more right handed people than left handed.
This argument, of course, was a joke. It was a tongue in cheek comment aimed at Darwin with whom Carlyle had some scholarly disagreements.
There is no practical reason why, using medieval weapons, a rightie would have any kind of advantage over a southpaw. Dynamically it would give both combatants the advantage of attacking the unshielded side directly, which means they would both have to do a lot of dodging, jumping and wiggling to avoid blows. Shields and swords are in construction ambidextrous, mainly due to their simplicity. In all illustrations that I can think of, the warriors are using swords, axes, maces, or spears in their right hands. Maybe because warriors didn’t want to have to completely exhaust themselves every time they fought [img]smilies/wink.gif[/img]. But I think rather that this was probably due to the predominate medieval attitude toward left handedness. The Latin word for left is “sinister”. That says enough, ey?
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I prefer Gillaume d’Férny, connoisseur of fine fruit.
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