Medieval
The First Crusades
At the end of the eleventh century, Europeans began their first concerted attempt to expand beyond the frontiers of Europe by conquering the land of Palestine. CHRONOL0GY – The Crusades Pope Urban II’s call for a Crusade at Clermont 1095 First Crusade 1096–1099 Second Crusade 1147–1149 Saladin’s conquest of Jerusalem 1187 Third Crusade 1189–1192 Fourth Crusade—sack of Constantinople 1204 Latin…
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ARAGONESE CRUSADE
The Aragonese Crusade or Crusade of Aragón, a part of the larger War of the Sicilian Vespers, was declared by Pope Martin IV against the King of Aragón, Peter III the Great, in 1284 and 1285. Because of the recent conquest of Sicily by Peter, the Pope declared a crusade…
Grace Dieu 1420
I never saw so large and so beautiful a construction’ Luca di Masa degli Albizzi, Florentine Captain of the Galleys, 1430. The greatest of all medieval ships, Henry V’s the Grace Dieu was a remarkable vessel of a similar size to HMS Victory, although with her towering castles she looked…
H-NET REVIEW PUBLICATION: ‘MALTA: A SMALL NATION WITH A HUGE HISTORY’
Ayse Devrim Atauz. Eight Thousand Years of Maltese Maritime History: Trade, Piracy, and Naval Warfare in the Central Mediterranean. Gainseville University Press of Florida, 2008. xiv + 379 pp. $69.95 (cloth), ISBN 978-0-8130-3179-8. Reviewed by Thomas Scheben Published on H-War (December, 2008) Commissioned by Brian Ditcham Malta: A Small Nation…
QUINQUEREMES AND HEAVIER WAR GALLEYS
The word trireme (Greek trieres) is usually taken to mean a war galley with three banks of oars, superimposed one above another. Representations of galleys with two and three banks of oars have survived; in the fifth century, Athenian rowers were divided into thranitai, zygitai, and thalamitai, according to the…