Indholdsfortegnelse for MW X1.3 i Medieval World Culture & Conflict Magazine

On September 18, 1468, a humiliated King Enrique IV of Castile met his sister Isabella at Toros de Guisando, a kind of Iberian Stonehenge. The bulls or pigs, of Celtic origin, carved from granite around 300 BC, were the silent witnesses to the embrace between brother and sister and to the signing of the Treaty of Guisando. Through this treaty, Enrique repudiated his own daughter, Juana, and designated Isabella as heir, with a further condition that the princess should get the approval from the king to her husband. This was the last stage of the struggle between the great Castilian families to control weak and manageable King Enrique. His daughter became known as Juana la Beltraneja, as it was said that her father was Beltrán de la Cueva, the favourite…

In 1249, Alexander III was taken to Scone to be inaugurated as King of Scotland even before the burial of his father. Only eight years old, Alexander could not rule himself, and much of the power within the kingdom was in the hands of his regents and the Scottish nobility. A marriage with Margaret, the daughter of King Henry III of England, established an alliance with England. Henry III exercised influence over the young King of Scotland, resulting in the resignation of all the Scottish royal officials present at the wedding. This thoroughly uprooted the minority government that had been in place and opened the doors for continued conflict and resentment among Alexander’s nobles. Henry III’s position as father-in-law to the King of Scotland prompted him to step in on…

Recently, we visited the Royal Armouries in Leeds, and there is one sword that we usually make a point of visiting and then speculating about. It relates to the painted example in the hand of St Michael. Carrying out research into medieval weapons can be very satisfying, especially when various and seemingly unrelated strands of work coalesce to reveal the bigger picture. However, the opposite can also be true – a superb weapon can stubbornly refuse to yield up its secrets. Such is the case with a notable sword in the collection of the Royal Armouries – the so-called ‘writhen-hilted sword’. It is a wonderful example of the hilt-makers’ skill and a marvel that it has survived in such good condition. The sword is also quite a mystery. So, let’s…

Let us now imagine we are approaching a large masonry castle in medieval western Europe. Our medieval social status matters a great deal, as it will alter our perception of the castle architecture and its symbolism. However, we will focus on identifying the features we encounter, and which we may have spotted on the exterior of other castles we have visited in the past. The first part of the castle we reach is the external walls and any moat or ditches (a ditch is also called a fosse). If this is a concentric castle, as were many Crusader castles and King Edward I of England’s Welsh castles of Harlech and Beaumaris, then this is the first set of walls you reach, as a concentric castle was so named for the…

The defence of England by the fourteenth century rested on several key systems for its protection. These all stemmed from one central feature of medieval English life: the general levy. The basis of this system was simple. All men were required to own certain armaments and provide these and themselves to go to war to protect the kingdom. By the fourteenth century the requirements were divided by age and wealth. All men between the ages of sixteen and sixty were required to take up arms when called upon. From October 1322, from the Calendar of Patent Rolls of Edward II, we see such an example. It states, “Commission to Walter de Pavely and the sheriff of Wiltshire to array all the men between sixteen and sixty in that county; Walter…

It was only a few generations earlier that the Cypriots were manoeuvring to become major players in the Eastern Mediterranean. The reign of King Peter I (1358-1369) saw attacks and raids against the coasts of both Asia Minor and Syria, even managing to capture and hold some ports. The King of Cyprus had even bigger plans, and Peter spent three years touring Europe to solicit support and money for a crusade against Egypt. In 1365 he led a fleet that attacked the Egyptian city of Alexandria, which was captured and plundered. That was the end of the crusade, and Peter’s real goals may have been to cripple trade out of the Egyptian port so it could be redirected through Cyprus. The island’s fortunes would only go down from here –…

As the population grew and competition for food-growing regions intensified, warfare in Japan shifted from a focus on the farming settlements themselves to the overlords ruling them. By fighting each other, Japan’s ruling class could acquire greater access to the production of rice without risking the destruction of those precious lands. Thus, by the Heian period (794-1185), the need to fortify a lord’s manor became common. Over time more and more of these complexes would be relocated into Japan’s highlands. Initially, Japanese ramparts were constructed of rammed earth topped by a wooden stockade. The walls were augmented by high wooden towers designed to mitigate weak sections or reinforce against likely points of attack. The concept was to create a defence-in-depth within a single strongpoint. Thus, Japanese fortifications featured multiple baileys…

Caerphilly Castle, one of the major medieval castles in Wales, will undergo a £5 million development that will include an extensive programme of conservation, site access improvements, and a complete overhaul of site interpretation. The project, which is funded by Cadw, the Welsh Government’s historic environment service, will include a dramatic makeover of Caerphilly’s medieval Great Hall – a space that has played host to events that shaped history. Originally built in the late thirteenth century, the Great Hall – the largest of its kind in the United Kingdom – will be redecorated to invoke the splendour of its medieval heyday. “Caerphilly Castle is one of the great castles of medieval Europe,” says Dr Kate Roberts, Chief Inspector of Ancient Monuments at Cadw. “Our project will both conserve the castle…

One interesting part of the general levy was the use of beacons. These fiery signals were the way in the medieval world to raise these men with speed. These beacons were massive fires that would be lit to alert communities nearby that an enemy was incoming. We know from period documents that such beacons were used as a network to alert areas further away of the impending threat. It was also probable this was a way to allow communities the ability to keep at their more day-to-day tasks while also being kept on the ready to fight if needed. These beacons were to have sentries and guardians who maintained and prepared them but also observed the terrain for enemy movement; if seen, the beacons were set ablaze and the men…

From 1374 to 1464, the Cypriot city of Famagusta was essentially a Genoese colony. The entire city, as well as the territory two leagues around it, was given over to the control of Genoa, and the Italian city-state was soon governing it and hoping to maintain its status as one of the most important trade centres in the Eastern Mediterranean. However, most of its native inhabitants left the city, as did its non-Genoese merchants. The declining city still had to be managed, and that included its defence. The city authorities of Famagusta had to hire mercenaries to serve as the city guard, and they kept records of who they hired and how much they were paid. Michel Balard has studied these records, selecting five years during the fifteenth century for…

Before the late eleventh century, the idea that the sacred sites in the East could be damaged in some way by the presence of those who belonged to different religious groups was not widespread. Pilgrims made transitory use of the space and do not appear to have felt that adherents of other faiths who also visited the site somehow harmed its spiritual function. However, the advent of the crusading age was accompanied by a change in the way in which Western Christendom thought about holy places. Suddenly, the use of such sites by Jews and Muslims was no longer appropriate. A new image of the East emerged in the imagination of the West, one in which the sacred sites had always, by divine right, belonged to Christendom. In line with…