Where the Middle Ages Begin
On land, English armies faced a highly mobile, because lightly armed, infantry whose favoured tactics were ambushes and guerrilla strikes although some native retinues did boast heavy cavalry and siege engines; surprise and speed had to be matched by vigilance and the capacity to concentrate troops swiftly at the point of need.
This paper was also featured in SESSION III: The Medieval Experience of Siege at the Haskins conference. It explained the importance and contributions of Angevin engineers during the twelfth century.
These are two papers from SESSION III: The Medieval Experience of Siege given at Boston College’s Haskin’s Conference. The first paper examined knightly interaction during sieges and the second paper delved into the actions of the besieged and besiegers during times of war.
A book review of the new release “Edric the Wild”, by Jayden Woods
The recovery, however, proved to be too superficial for the continuing prosperity of either Gaul or the Western Roman Empire. The problems of the imperial government continued with little relief. The government still had to drive out and keep out the barbarians…
What was going through the minds ofthese men who were fighting for the cross when they attacked a Christian city, which was one oftheir allies?
Baldwin IV was born in Jerusalem of King Amalric and Queen Agnes of Courtney in 1161. Intellectually
and physically gifted as a boy, he seemed well equipped to inherit the Crusader kingdom.
Mann argues that a rare text of the Skazanie o Mamaevom poboishche comes from an early, fifteenth-century redaction that scholars could never locate—a redaction that is the prototype for all the redactions that have been studied heretofore. He maintains that unique parallels between this redaction and the Slovo o polka Igoreve support the hypothesis that the Igor Tale was an oral epic song in a tradition that actually continued into the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, when oral tales about the Kulikovo Battle (1380) were composed. He places the new parallels in the context of other evidence for oral composition in the Igor Tale.
This article makes and attempt to disclose the dynamics of development of social interactions in an aggravated environment in relation to the distinctive features of religious wars and their negative impact to the society. Crisis situations that took place in all spheres of social life are described, on the grounds of which the author comes to specific conclusions.
Modern assumptions about medieval justice still tend to see this process of amelioration as merely occasional and exceptional: mercy needed to be applied only where special circumstances made it inappropriate to apply the full rigours of the law. This, however, is seriously to misunderstand both the purpose and the pervasiveness of mercy in the operation of medieval justice.
It is my intention to show that the participation of monarchs in the Third Crusade had an adverse effect on the outcome of the Crusade. Whatever positive aspects of monarchical involvement in the Third Crusade were to be had can be seen at the beginning of the venture, when the Church needed financial and material support, as well as the prestige that royal participation could offer.
Nevertheless, the experiences of medieval combatants are best understood in the context of the local communities from which they were recruited and the retinues in which they served. Consequently, an attempt is also made to reassess the subject of military organisation under the first two Edwards by examining the composition and structure of these armies from the perspective of the soldiers and small units that comprised them.
How, for example, are we to assess the likely extent and distribution of campaigning profits (and, indeed, costs) in society – or the impact of military service on the workings of shire administration, or the influence of war on the retaining practices of the nobility and gentry – without first establishing the identities of those who served in the king’s armies during this period? There can be few major research undertakings in the field of late medieval English history that would offer such wide-ranging benefits as a full-scale reconstruction of the military community.
This thesis will attempt to unravel how it came to be that men who claimed to fight in the name of the cross had come to attack one of the most important cities in all of Christendom. It shall focus particularly on the motivations and actions of the Venetians, a people whose involvement in this crusade and the crusading movement in general has often been misunderstood.
So our basic aim was to bring only true facts about the life of William Wallace, Robert the Bruce and the Scottish War of Independence, to compare all these facts with the film version and to enlight the mind of readers and film spectators.
The German Hanse, whose rise and decline spanned almost four centuries, was a rather unique institution in late medieval Europe.
SVEN EKDAHL is Assistant Professor of History at Gothenburg University and Professor of Medieval History at the Polish-Scandinavian Research Institute in Copenhagen. He has published extensively on the history of the Teutonic Order in Prussia as well as treated Polish, Baltic, and Scandinavian themes.
In medieval Iberia, particularly from the twelfth century onward, warfare took on some religious overtones. As a consequence, the prisoners of war that appear in the sources were for the most part defined by their religious status, as either Muslims or Christians.
Father’s Day is just around the corner – here are some fun medieval reads to make his day special!
From their Balkan homeland the Vlachs began their migrations north in the thirteenth century, migrations that were accelerated no doubt by the beginning of Ottoman Turkish expansion into the Balkans.
In this thesis, I demonstrate the significance of feudal law to European populations and how it functions as a source of maintenance of peace and stability of land tenure.
These days when chivalry is everywhere on the decline, and no one dares to tourney anymore, and all knights are cowards, women are all the more courageous in battle.’
Many visitors do not realize that nearly half of Rothenburg’s medieval architectural heritage was destroyed in 1945.
This paper examined the role of Medb and Fedelm, the seer in the Táin. It focuses on this conversation between the seer and Medb.
This paper will explore and analyze strategic decision making by Edward III, King of England, and Philip VI, King of France, at the Battle of Crecy using the critical thinking model as a conceptual framework, in conjunction with egocentrism and sociocentrism as the two main cognitive frames of reference.
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