Medieval

Orderly Knighthood

Fortification Medieval 35 Min Read

“What is the function of orderly knighthood?” wrote the twelfth-century English philosopher John of Salisbury. “To protect the Church, to fight against treachery, to reverence the priesthood, to fend off injustice from the poor, to make peace in your own province, to shed blood for your brethren, and if needs must, to lay down your life.” This was a splendid…

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Medieval 25 Min Read

Medieval Scotland: Kings and Bishops II

The Storm Breaks The final decade of the eighth century brought the first Viking raids on the British Isles. As worshippers of pagan gods, the Scandinavian warriors gave no immunity to Christian religious settlements and regarded them as soft targets. Isolated monasteries in the Hebrides were particularly vulnerable to seaborne…

Medieval Medieval battle 33 Min Read

THE KNIGHT IN BATTLE

This late 15th-century picture of the battle of Neville’s Cross in 1346 shows fallen warhorses. Despite their power, horses proved vulnerable to English archers, especially when using hunting broadhead arrows with wide cutting surfaces. This late 15th-century depiction from Jean Froissart’s Chroniques of the battle of Crécy on 26 August…

Medieval Medieval battle Weapons 1 Min Read

Arrows Versus Armour: The Minefield of Opinions

Archers carried specialist arrows, bodkins with needle-pointed heads to punch through mail links, or armour-piercing heads perhaps tipped with steel to penetrate steel plates. Tests have shown that the spin of the arrow in flight enables the head, striking at right angles, to drill a hole into armour plate. The…

Medieval Wargame 15 Min Read

Field of Glory 2: Medieval

The Wargamer.com: review – my kingdom, for a longsword Hack and Slash Day has come: FOG2 Medieval is finally here in full, and spoilers: they’ve absolutely nailed it Happy Hack and Slash Day! Never heard of this holiday? Well, it’s February 4, 2021 and celebrates the release of Matrix-Slitherine Games’…

Battle Medieval 7 Min Read

BATTLE OF RONCESVALLES

15 August 778 The events that took place in a high gorge in the western Pyrenees one August day in 778 were turned three centuries later into one of the most famous European epic poems, the Chanson de Roland, the ‘Song of Roland’. The author of the poem is not…

Medieval Military and Naval Sail 10 Min Read

AN EXEMPLARY MARITIME REPUBLIC: VENICE AT THE END OF THE MIDDLE AGES Part I

Bernard Doumerc In Venice, ‘the sea was all that mattered’. Truly, this was the founding principle that marked the history of this celebrated city.1 For a very long time historians made the Serenissima a model of success, wealth, and opulence, sometimes asserting that the Venetians ‘had a monopoly of the…

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The Mauryan Empire Military

Chandragupta governed a true monarchical imperial state. The king ruled with the help of a…

The Military of the Byzantines

Dominant military forces of the Middle East between the fourth and fifteenth centuries. At Manzikert…

Wars of Charlemagne

The composition and equipment of Charlemagne’s army was continuously evolving. Initially, the Carolingian Army was…

The Medieval Siege

In ancient times, cities often had strong walls around them, and warfare against these cities…