Cut and Thrust

In the first episode, Sam receives a lesson in swordsmanship from the earliest combat manual as he gets to grips with the swords, shields and lances that dominated the battlefield a thousand years ago. Sam finds out what the Bayeux Tapestry reveals about the brutal reality of combat, why the crossbow came to be seen as an instrument of the devil, and he tries his hand at a longbow, the decisive weapon of medieval warfare.