Set in a parallel Renaissance world, two major religions, the Jaddites who worship the sun, and the Asharites who worship the stars, struggle amidst the backdrop of court politics, murder, espionage, faith and family.
BOOK REVIEW: Children of Earth and Sky – Guy Gavriel Kay
June 16, 2016 By
BOOK REVIEW: Children of Earth and Sky – Guy Gavriel Kay
A Comparative Analysis of the Concepts of Holy War and the Idealized Topos of Holy Warrior In Medieval Anatolian And European Sources
July 13, 2015 By
This thesis focuses on the relations between the idea of holy war and the portrayals of holy warriors in medieval narratives composed by those in the service of power-holders.
The Secret Attack on Gallipoli in 1473
May 10, 2015 By
During the Venetian-Ottoman wars, a group of seven men attempted a secret attack on the Ottoman base at Gallipoli. The attack did not go completely as planned…
Lasting Falls and Wishful Recoveries: Crusading in the Black Sea Region after the Fall of Constantinople
April 21, 2015 By
This paper examines the Black Sea question in the second half of the 15th century, with special emphasis on crusading and religious questions.
The Impalings of Vlad the Impaler
January 11, 2015 By
One of the most infamous chararacters from the Middle Ages was Vlad III Dracula, the prince of Wallachia. Here is the story of how he gained the name of ‘the Impaler’.
War-Winning Weapons? On the Decisiveness of Ottoman Firearms from the Siege of Constantinople (1453) to the Battle of Mohács (1526)
December 22, 2014 By
How important a role did gunpowder weapons play in these Ottoman victories? The following re-examination of selected sieges and battles attempts to answer this question.
The Book of Felicity
November 17, 2014 By
The Book of Felicity features descriptions of the twelve signs of the zodiac accompanied by splendid miniatures; a series of paintings showing how human circumstances are influenced by the planets; astrological and astronomical tables; and an enigmatic treatise on fortune telling.
Banditry and the Clash of Powers in 14th-Century Thrace: Momcilo and his Fragmented Memory
September 7, 2014 By
In the 14th century, a time of civil wars, religious and dynastic strifes, epidemics, natural disasters and miserable living conditions for the wider strata in the cities and the countryside that increased migratory movements, banditry, an indigenous phenomenon in the Balkan mountainous regions, intermingled with the intensified political struggles.
Medieval Perspectives: Jean de Waurin and His Perception of the Turks in Anatolia in the Late Middle Ages
September 2, 2014 By
This paper discusses the reasons Wavrin wrote his account of the crusade of Varna and Walerin de Wavrin’s expedition into the Balkans, which was later published within his history of Britain and how he perceived and accordingly presented the Turks to the renaissance readers.
Slaves, Money Lenders, and Prisoner Guards: The Jews and the Trade in Slaves and Captives in the Crimean Khanate
August 20, 2014 By
Trade in slaves and captives was one of the most important (if not the most important) sources of income of the Crimean Khanate in the sixteenth to eighteenth centuries.
Espionage in the 16th century Mediterranean: Secret Diplomacy, Mediterranean Go-betweens and the Ottoman-Habsburg Rivalry
March 15, 2014 By
This dissertation compares both empires’ secret services and explains the differences between the two systems of information gathering based on these empires’ differing organizational structures.
Struggle for East-European Empire 1400 – 1700 : The Crimean Khanate, Ottomans and the Rise of the Russian Empire
March 4, 2014 By
By the middle of the 15th century, in Eastern Europe instead of one dominant imperial power there were newly rising states which eventually came to compete for supremacy over the whole region
The Means of Destruction: How the Ottoman Empire Finally Ended the Byzantine Empire
February 8, 2014 By
No European had any reason to believe that the Ottomans would capture Constantinople, since they had tried two times previously and had failed in both of those attempts.
Manuel II Palaeologus in Paris (1400-1402): Theology, Diplomacy, and Politics
January 20, 2014 By
The end of the fourteenth century found the Byzantine Empire in a critical state.
Janos Hunyadi: Preventing the Ottomans from Conquering Western Europe in the Fifteenth Century
December 15, 2013 By
By using his experiences gained in the condottiere wars in Italy and in the Hussite Wars in Bohemia, he was able to defend the Hungarian borders, and successfully attacked the Turks on their territory
Beautiful Daughters and Rich Tournaments: Pleasures of the East in Correspondences between Ottoman Sultans and Christian Princes in the 14th and 15th century
November 17, 2013 By
When I was working on Anti-Turkish print products of the 15th century I came across a most curious little letter written by a certain Morbisanus to pope Pius II.
The Dragon and the Storm The Saracen anti-knight in Orlando furioso and Gerusalemme liberata
August 2, 2013 By
The Dragon and the Storm The Saracen anti-knight in Orlando furioso and Gerusalemme liberata Cam Lindley Cross University of Chicago, March 8 (2011) Abstract When Peter the Venerable commissioned Robert of Ketton to translate the Qur’an in 1142 CE, under the title Lex Mahumet pseudoprophete, it was with done for the express purpose of refuting Islamic doctrine […]
Glass Bridges: Cross-Cultural Exchange between Florence and the Ottoman Empire
July 24, 2013 By
During the medieval period, the main aim of the crusades was recovery of the Holy Land. However, this changed in the fifteenth century for various reasons.
‘Defending the Christian Faith with Our Blood’. The Battle of Lepanto (1571) and the Venetian Eastern Adriatic: Impact of a Global Conflict on the Mediterranean Periphery
July 22, 2013 By
The battle of Lepanto, which took place on the 7th of October 1571, was the greatest naval battle of oar driven vessels in the history of the Mediterranean1. It was then that the mighty Ottoman navy suffered its first and utter defeat in a direct confrontation with Christian forces, joined in the Holy League. Its purpose was to help Venice in the defence of Cyprus, stormed by the Ottoman troops in July of 1570, but to no avail, as on the 3rd of August 1571 the island was taken by the Ottomans.
Negotiation and warfare: The Hospitallers of Rhodes around and after the Fall of Constantinople (1426–1480)
June 20, 2013 By
At the beginning of the 14th century, the Order of the Hospital, unlike the Temple, had managed to safeguard its image as a religious military order still able to pursue its mission to fight against the enemies of the Christian faith.
Comparing Harems: Abbasid and Ottoman Harem Organization
April 26, 2013 By
The following research delves into the organizational structures of the luxurious harems of Medieval Abbasid and Ottoman Empires; comparing the two different empires’ harems within the political, economic, and social spheres that the royal women lived in.
Barbarians to the Balkans
March 17, 2013 By
In the High Middle Ages, in a now clearly articulated opposition between the West and the East, Europe and the Balkans began to emerge and be fixed as distinct and hostile entities. In Crusading chronicles, the Balkan lands lay on the way from Europe to the Holy Land. In the late twelfth and in the thirteenth centuries, the conventional separation line between the civilized and barbarian world, identical with the river Danube, began to break down and the barbarians came to be located in the Balkans.
The Effect of Killing the Christian Prisoners at the Battle of Nicopolis
January 7, 2013 By
The Ottoman Turks acted against the customary laws of war, which bound both Christians and Muslims even when fighting one another: no prisoner of war was ever to be executed, especially if he was a noble!
What was the British Perception of the Turk between the Fall of Constantinople and the Siege of Vienna?
October 17, 2012 By
In assessing the British perception of the Turk during the halcyon centuries of the Ottoman Empire, it is hard not to drown in a cacophony of opinions. However, it would be simply too convenient to claim that the sources were too contradictory and fluid; the patterns too faint and far between, to construct a decent argument.
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