Medieval
Martial Art – archery (kyudo/kyujutsu)
Archery (kyudo; literally “the way of the bow”) was the weapon most closely associated with warriors and was in common use by the end of the prehistoric era, during the fourth or fifth centuries C.E. While the term kyudo is more common today, kyujutsu (“technique of the bow”) was used to describe archery in the age of the samurai. Warriors…
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Medieval Catapults and Trebuchets
Recent reconstructions and computer simulations reveal the operating principles of the most powerful weapon of its time. Scholars now generally agree that the successor states of the Roman empire in the early medieval West inherited two basic types of artillery from their imperial predecessors. The first of these consisted of…
The siege of Rouen, July 1418–January 1419 Part I
Early in June 1418 Henry V joined his army at Bec-Hellouin and advanced to the Eure. On 8 June the English crossed the river and laid siege to Louviers from both banks. Louviers was the last walled town of the Eure before it flowed into the Seine. It was a…
The siege of Rouen, July 1418–January 1419 Part II
By October 1418 the English army was securely established around Rouen. The whole of the lower reach of the Seine was under their control. The harvest had been brought in. Armed foraging expeditions were returning daily with supplies. Large markets had been set up at the edge of their encampments…
The siege of Rouen, July 1418–January 1419 Part III
Illustration of the Siege of Rouen illustration from A Short History of the English People, by John Richard Green, illustrated edition, Volume II, Macmillan and Co, London, New York, 1893. The negotiations were awkward from the start. They were punctuated by repeated wrangling about procedure. The two sides argued about…
Jousts
The joust is an individual conflict between two knights; it is distinct and different from the tournament. It will often be agreed that there should be three rounds; the two men ride at each other, aiming to pass each other on the left-hand side, and to strike each other with…
PLAGUE AND PEASANTS
In the summer of 1348 a ship docked at the Channel port of Melcombe Regis in Dorset. In the fleas infesting the fur of the black rats on board were the deadliest plague bacillae that have ever visited mankind. The Black Death emptied towns, wiped out villages, and struck at…