Warriors
The Way of the Warrior
As the Japanese imperial court gradually lost power to military authorities in the countryside, a further distinctive feature of Japanese civilization emerged in the celebration of martial virtues and the warrior class—the samurai—that embodied those values. From the twelfth through the mid-nineteenth century, public life and government in Japan was dominated by the samurai, while their culture and values, known…
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1400-1590: Ottoman weapons II
Armour and weapons of an Ottoman Sipahi cavalryman, circa 1550, on display at the Musée de l’Armée in Paris, France. The feudal-based sipahi cavalry were a core feature of Ottoman armies from the Fifteenth through to the late Eighteenth centuries. The sipahi’s were professional mounted warriors granted a land…
Ministerialis
Ministerialis (plural ministeriales); a post-classical Latin word, used in English, meaning originally servitor, agent, in a broad range of senses. In Germany, in the High Middle Ages, the word and its German translations, Ministeriale(n) and Dienstmann, came to describe those unfree knights who made up a large majority of German…
Before Stamford Bridge
Unnamed and unarmoured Norwegian warrior, wielding an axe, who according to the Anglo-Saxons sources killed 40 warriors on the Stamford bridge inn 1066. Modern British Viking reenactment group demonstrates a skjaldborg (shield-wall) Harald of Norway certainly had more than enough experience and the necessary temperament to undertake an invasion of…
Zulu Rebellions
King Dinuzulu kaCetshwayo German interest in the Zululand coast during the mid-1880s prompted British action to secure the area. In October 1886 the New Republic Boers agreed to limit their territorial ambitions and dropped their protection of Zulu King Dinuzulu. In January 1887 a British commission defined the boundary of…
True Pure Land
The Battle of Azukizaka was the climatic clash between Ieyasu and the Ikki ‘‘Ikkō-ikki’’ or ‘‘single-minded bands.’’ Adherents of Jodo Shinshu, or the True Pure Land sect of Buddhism. Most were warrior monks or peasant farmers. The Ikkō-ikki bands of the 16th century, due largely to their origins as countryside…
TIBETAN ARMY 6th to 13th Centuries
LINK About 560 AD a local Tibetan chieftain, Gnam-ri slon mtshan, revolted against his Zan-Zun overlords and established the Yarlung dynasty. By about 630 his successor Sron btsan sgampo had unified the Tibetan clans and founded an empire which over the next two centuries fought expansionist wars. After 841 this…