[migueldiaz]

Originally Posted by katana

A number of researchers have discovered that knights fighting in the melee, would take turns at the front....returning after a rest and the intake of much needed water.

Originally Posted by katana

However, some accounts state that hand to hand fighting could last for hours ...

Hi David,

How true. In this article, More Cannae, 216 BC, we read of how ancient ancient battles are actually fought --

"More lull than actual fighting -- 'Fuller (1965, p. 91) estimated a period of fifteen minutes' fighting before men became exhausted, and Kromayer (in Kromayer and Veith, 1912, p. 354) and Goldsworthy (1996, p. 224) estimate even less. After a certain period of fighting it would have been necessary for the lines to draw apart perhaps by only a few metres, in order to allow both sides to rest. Meanwhile, wounded troops might be brought to safety and line replacement could occur. Sabin argues that these rests were the natural state of the fighting, with the troops standing a distance apart, hurling insults at each other or simply catching their breath, before advancing once more . Any single combat which may have taken place would have happened during such lulls ... Successive advances would have lacked the power of the initial charge, primarily because troops would have tired, and pauses would have begun to last for longer than the fighting itself (Goldsworthy, 1996, p. 224; 1997, p.21). It was under such circumstances that battles could go on for hours.' "

Note the 'hurling insults' part!