Middle Ages

The French Revolution Was Not Started By The Masses. Rather, By The Upper Classes

by Daniel Russ on July 30, 2017

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The populations of European nations in the middle of the 18th century put France clearly as the western world leader with 28 million people living and working there. Italy had a population of 17 million. Russia had about 24 million inhabitants. Prussia had 9 million people, Austria had 8 million, Ireland had 4 million. […]

Religion And Genocide.

by Daniel Russ on September 27, 2016

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The Battle For Jerusalem It is telling that religion is a place where often the insane find solace for crimes that could never be justified in any reasonable way. Here we look at a few horrific moments in history and the quotes by clerics, up to their knees in blood, that are unintentionally and […]

The Country Of Edessa, Formed After The First Crusades, Lasted Only 50 Years.

September 17, 2016

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The Crusades were of course a series of Christian invasions of Muslim held lands in the Levant. All of the Crusades were called upon by the Roman Catholic Church and the purpose was to replevin Jerusalem for the Christian faith. The Seljuk Turks held the area tightly since 638 in the Rashidun Caliphate. […]

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Crécy.

June 3, 2014

Edward III Counts The Dead After The Battle Of Crécy At the end of this long bell weather day, the flower of the French aristocracy, some of the most important and influential and wealthy people in Europe lay in death’s repose across a battlefield. It was a shocking thing that […]

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The Unintended Consequences of Conquest.

February 12, 2014

When the Romans were building out permanent roads, connecting the kingdoms under their purview around the Mediterranean, Christianity was rising and supplanting and threatening Roman hegemony. Rome was expanding as fast as it was changing. And not everything the Romans transported came with legionnaires. Rome was the worlds biggest buyer of foreign […]

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The Ulfberht Sword. One Of the First Weapon Brands.

August 28, 2013

The word Ulfberht is a Frankish Name. Perhaps it is an indication of its actual place of manufacture, but the Ulfberht sword was a Viking Sword . All of them were manufactured by tradesmen who practiced a tightly held manufacturing line between 850 and 1100 AD. Ulfberht […]

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Tsuba.

July 25, 2013

Tsuba are the swordguards on Samurai swords. They are small round slabs of metal, about four ounces at most. In the center is a long traingular slot that fits around the blade. The tusba themselves were ornate and beautiful and quite creative and forged from bronze or pewter or brass or steel. Just like the […]

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The Sack of Magdenburg.

May 3, 2013

The Thirty Years War was a battle to end the absolute totalitarian Catholic church rule over the ways to God, as it were. It was fought primarily by the Byzantines, or the remnants of the Eastern Roman Empire who were allies with the Vatican against a series of Bohemian and Germanic states. The radical […]

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The Poodle And The Peninsular War

February 16, 2013

During the Peninsular War, close proximity between troops and citizen often resulted in fraternizations of all sorts. In 1813, a young French matron was curious to see the fearsome British Redcoats assembled near town and showed up with her poodle in her arms. Alarmed, the poodle jumped from her arms and headed barking all […]

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The Mollwitz Grey.

February 14, 2013

Frederick the Soldier King was trapped behind enemy lines with nothing between him, and escape from Prussian troops at Mollwitz. There he was carried to safety by a horse that will forever be known as the Mollwitz Grey. The Grey was immediately retired to a parade ground in Postdam. Whenever a military honor guard came […]

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Beware The Landsknecht.

February 5, 2013

Landknecht Landknecht With Wife Well, you have to be careful what you wish for. Or ask for. When Byzantine Emperor Alexios asked Urban II for help rousting Ottoman raiders, he expected about 600 armored knights. What he got was a teeming mass of hungry, illiterate peasants. The middle ages are rife with this […]

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Arms And Armor Is Now Permanent Display Featured At The Met.

October 6, 2012

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The Three Waves. Why Ninth And Tenth Century Europe Sucked.

July 10, 2012

There are some stubborn romantic notions of Kings ensconced in cozy castles, in repose by vast fireplaces, the air thick with the scents and sounds of feasts warming in brick ovens tucked near ornate halls. Chicken fat spitting and roiling on hot coals, minstrels strumming ancient tunes, and wine. Some of this was in fact […]

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Haunted Hastings Castle.

January 26, 2012

October 14th, 1066 AD. 700 Norman ships appear in the choppy waters of the English Channel, make their way onto the beaches and an army disembarks. Some 4500 infantry and 1700 archers form lines. William the Conqueror would earn his moniker here as he faced roughly 8,000 soldiers under King Harold Godwinson that […]

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The First Crusade. The Rabble And The Tragedy.

December 22, 2011

1095. Alexis Comnenus is busy. He is preparing to defend Constantinople from the hordes of mounted Arab warriors who have begun a long process of overtaking the Mediterranean. The Seljuk Turks storm out of Anatolia and all but sack Constantinople. He is defending the same city he sacked in 1081 on his way to […]

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French Knight Fall.

November 22, 2011

The thing about military industrial complexes, is that they often act only to keep themselves comfortable and happy and forget the higher goals that birthed the army. The famed French knights that terrorized infantry in the 14th century all across Europe were a classic example of a military industrial complex. The individual parts of […]

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The Artillery of the Middle Ages

September 24, 2009

Trebuchets were early forms of artillery, that used a counterweight and a high radial throwing arm to toss projectiles into or over castle walls. Here area couple of large Trebuchets, the top one recreated in France. The throwing machines were less sophisticate than rope torsion catapults and easier to load. They were parked outside of […]

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