this post was submitted on 07 Sep 2025
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I was taught that the stairs are designed to give the defenders the advantage. In the painting you can see that the fighter at the top of the steps has room to swing his axe, but the attacker's right arm is blocked.
Imagine spending all that time building your fortress and then you get invaded by the southpaw division
You raised an interesting question so I did some quick research.
This is more about modern [post Civil War] armies.
https://thegunzone.com/did-the-military-ever-reject-left-handed-individhttps://triskeleheritage.triskelepublishing.com/2023/08/15/mediaeval-mythbusting-blog-24-the-left-handed-kerrs/uals/
Anything involving swords seems to suggest that left handed fighters were pretty rare, and I couldn't find an instance of an army training people to southpaw.
imho, any military tends to be traditionalist. If you can actually find an actual example of a left handed division I'd be surprised and impressed.
Edit = https://triskeleheritage.triskelepublishing.com/2023/08/15/mediaeval-mythbusting-blog-24-the-left-handed-kerrs/
You learn something new everyday. Turns out my original comment, that the spiral stairs were to make it tough on righthanded fighters, was hooey. There were plenty of steps that twisted the other way. Also learned about the Kerrs. Someone needs to contact Ned Flanders ASAP
It is also notable that in religious and superstitious Christian medieval Europe, being left handed is considered "evil" (because the person who who berated Jesus while he was nailed to the cross was on his left side) and so the left handedness was beaten out of people. There are anecdotes of left handed people who went to Catholic schools in 1950s and 60s, and were forced to be right handed.
Southpaw folks are already not that many, but they would have been all the more rarer in medieval Europe because of superstition and forcing them to be right handed.
Don't have to go back to 50s and 60s for that. My sister-in-law was forced to write right handed by her grandmother in the 2000's...
The old-world Italian version of this that I always heard was: left-handedness was considered evil because if one was to stab someone in the back, a lefty would be better oriented for the heart. Supposedly this is why the word "sinister" exists, in Italian "left" is "sinestro".
Hell my mother is old enough to have her hand smacked for writing with her left hand.
I'm seeing some fencing manuals talking about left handed fighting but I can't find any real evidence of a southpaw division. It seems obvious to me, surely it would have to the great tactical minds of the era. Of course there are almost certainly things I'm not considering, for instance the fact that these cinematic staircase duels were probably really uncommon when you could instead just trebuchet some cows with TB over the walls and wait.
Never underestimate the power of tradition. The US Army was segregated until the Korean War and fought the idea of women in combat even longer. Back in anceint times lefties were considered devil spawn. "Sinister" is Latin for left.
Also, just because something isn't used often doesn't mean it's not a consideration. Fire exits and heart attack kits don't get used every day, but we get annoyed if a place doesn't have them.
“But the Kerrs were aye the deadliest foes
That e’er to Englishmen were known
For they were all bred left-handed men
And fence [defence] against them there was none.”
See the edit I've made to my original comment.
I trained to be able to use both arms/hands in Blade and Sorcery due to occasional injuries and overuse of my dominant hand. E.g: With a two handed spear, I could just change stance so my left shoulder faced forwards and I could swap to a belt weapon in my left-hand.
You're not as strong with your off-hand but rapier don't care.
“But the Kerrs were aye the deadliest foes
That e’er to Englishmen were known
For they were all bred left-handed men
And fence [defence] against them there was none.”