medieval warfare
After a century and a half of efforts—with mixed success—by Western Europe to seize control of the Holy Land, the Seventh Crusade of 1250 led by Louis IX of France was the last best chance to change the political and military situation in the Eastern world before the Reformation. Read more
medieval warfare
The medieval polearm was the Colt Pistol equalizer of the Middle Ages. it placed the common infantry soldier on par with the heavily armored horseman. Read more
medieval warfare
Royalist knights under the command of Prince Edward of England rode with furious speed toward the thousands of London militia who had been sent to set fire to the town of Lewes. Read more
medieval warfare
English King Edward III’s ship drew out from the fog, and before him he saw such a long, deep concentration of masts that it looked like a forest rising to meet him. Read more
medieval warfare
The Age of Chivalry brings to mind knights in shining armor and damsels in distress, along with traveling troubadours and minstrels singing chansons de geste, “songs of deeds,” telling of feats of arms and labors of love. Read more
medieval warfare
By the middle of the 12th century, much of western Europe had settled into a tenuous, often interrupted peace, and many modern nation-states had begun to emerge. Read more
medieval warfare
Long columns of heavily armed soldiers streamed southeast along the left bank of the Adige River in the Veneto region of northern Italy on March 11, 1387. Read more
medieval warfare
Russian historical documents dating back to 1095 speak of an unknown people living beyond the Ural Mountains in Siberia who spoke an incomprehensible language and traded furs for iron knives and axes. Read more
medieval warfare
Venetian military engineer Gabriel Tandini listened intently in the semi-darkness of the Knights Hospitaller counter-tunnels beneath the walls of Rhodes for sound of Turkish sappers trying to dig under the city’s walls. Read more
medieval warfare
The hot sun beat down on the mud-brick and wooden buildings, the lush orchards, and the patchwork of pastoral fields around the oval-shaped, walled city of Damascus in southern Syria on the morning of July 24, 1148. Read more
medieval warfare
The 15-year-long Hussite War erupted in Bohemia in 1419 between the followers of martyred Czech theologian Jan Hus and the Roman Catholic Church. Read more
medieval warfare
In November 1455 a most extraordinary ecclesiastical court convened in the Cathedral of Notre Dame in Paris at the behest of the French Inquisition. Read more
medieval warfare
In the first week of October 844, Emir Abd ar-Rahman II of Cordoba learned disturbing news: Vikings had captured Seville. Read more
medieval warfare
Thick black smoke rose skyward from burning villages on the southern frontier of the Hungarian Kingdom in the spring of 1395. Read more
medieval warfare
The Wars of the Roses (1455-1487) encompassed three civil wars that were fought between two rival branches, York and Lancaster, of the House of Plantagenet, for control of the English throne. Read more
medieval warfare
In the late spring of ad 732, an 80,000-man-strong Muslim army spilled northward through gaps in the western Pyrenees onto the verdant, gently rolling landscape of Gascony. Read more
medieval warfare
Duke Henry the Lion, the ruler of Saxony and Bavaria, seethed with rage. The pagan Wends had rebelled once more against their Saxon overlords. Read more
medieval warfare
The shafted ax has been around since 6000 bc, in both peaceful and warlike uses. The so-called battle-ax cultures (3200 to 1800 bc) extended over much of northern Europe from the late Stone Age through the early Bronze Age. Read more
medieval warfare
Jan Zizka belongs to the elite group of leaders who never lost a battle. He was born on or around 1360 in the village of Trocnov in the Kingdom of Bohemia. Read more
medieval warfare
On December 12, 1466, a small group of horsemen led by an old man with a long white beard rode up to the gates of Rome. Read more
