1.
Hastilude
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Hastilude is a generic term used in the Middle Ages to refer to many kinds of martial games. The word comes from the Latin hastiludium, literally lance game, distinction was made between the different types by contemporaries in their description, laws, prohibitions and customs. The two would ride at each other from opposite ends, charging with a couched lance, in the early fifteenth century, a barrier was introduced to keep the horses apart, to avoid collisions. There were several types of joust, including some regional preferences or rules and these types called for different lances, and saddles. Jousts originally developed out of the charge at the beginning of the mêlée, but by the thirteenth century had become quite distinct from the tourney. That it was seen as an event, with its own rules and customs, is clear from historical documents. By nature of its duel, and the space required for the action. The pas darmes or passage of arms was a type of chivalric hastilude that evolved in the late 14th century and remained popular through the 15th century. If a traveling venan did not have weapons or horse to meet the challenge, one might be provided, if a lady passed unescorted, she would leave behind a glove or scarf, to be rescued and returned to her by a future knight who passed that way. Behourd, Buhurt and Mêlée refer to a class of hastiludes that involve groups of fighters simulating cavalry combat and this type of game formed the core of the tournament during the high medieval period. The common object was a shield or board on a pole, while the use of horses aided in training for the joust, the game could be played on foot, using a wooden horse or on boats. While frequently referred to by sources, and included in various prohibitions and declarations over the medieval period. It is clearly a hastilude, or wargame, of some kind, and distinct from the other types, barker, Juliet The Tournament in England, 1100–1400, UK, Boydell Press ISBN 0-85115-450-6
2.
Lance
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The lance is a pole weapon or spear designed to be used by a mounted warrior or cavalry soldier. Lances were often equipped with a vamplate – a small circular plate to prevent the hand sliding up the shaft upon impact. The name is derived from the word lancea - the Roman auxiliaries javelin or throwing knife, although according to the OED, also compare λόγχη, a Greek term for spear or lance. A lance in the sense is a light throwing spear. The English verb to launch fling, hurl, throw is derived from the term, the term from the 17th century came to refer specifically to spears not thrown, used for thrusting by heavy cavalry, and especially in jousting. A thrusting spear which is used by infantry is referred to as a pike. The second use of the lance in this sense was made by the Assyrians, long thrusting cavalry spears were especially popular among the Hellenistic armies agema and line cavalry. One of the most effective ancient lanced cavalry units was Alexander the Greats Companion cavalry, the Roman cavalry long thrusting spear was called a contus. It was usually 3 to 4m long, and grasped with both hands and it was employed by equites contariorum and equites cataphractarii, fully armed and armoured cataphracts. The Byzantine cavalry used lances almost exclusively, often in mixed lancer, the Byzantines used lance both overarm and underarm, couched. It is commonly believed that this became the dominant European cavalry tactic in the 11th century after the development of the saddle and stirrups. Cavalry thus outfitted and deployed had a collective force in their charge. Recent evidence has suggested, however, that the charge was effective without the benefit of stirrups. Because of the stopping power of a thrusting spear, it quickly became a popular weapon of infantry in the Late Middle Ages. These eventually led to the rise of the longest type of spears and this adaptation of the cavalry lance to infantry use was largely tasked with stopping lance-armed cavalry charges. In Europe, a lance was a variation of the knights lance which was modified from its original war design. The centre of the shaft of such lances could be designed to be hollow, in order for it to break on impact and they were often at least 4m long, and had hand guards built into the lance, often tapering for a considerable portion of the weapons length. These are the versions that can most often be seen at medieval reenactment festivals, in war, lances were much more like stout spears, long and balanced for one-handed use, and with sharpened tips
3.
Tournament (medieval)
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A tournament, or tourney was a chivalrous competition or mock fight in Europe in the Middle Ages and Renaissance. It is one of various types of hastiludes, Old French tornement was in use in the 12th century, from a verb tornoier, ultimately Latin tornare to turn. The same verb also gave rise to tornei, the French terms were adopted in English by 1300. The Old French verb in origin meant to joust, tilt, by the end of the 12th century, tornement and Latinized torneamentum had become the generic term for all kinds of knightly hastiludes or martial displays. Roger of Hoveden writing in the late 12th century defined torneamentum as military exercises carried out, not in the spirit of hostility, but solely for practice. The application of the tournament to competition in games of skill or sports in general dates to the mid 18th century. Medieval equestrian warfare, and equestrian practice, did hark back to Roman antiquity and it is known that such cavalry games were central to military training in the Carolingian Empire, with records of Louis and Charles military games at Worms in 843. At this event, recorded by Nithard, the chasing and fleeing was followed by a general mêlée of all combatants. Documentation of equestrian practice during the 9th to 10th centuries is still sparse, the earliest known use of the word tournament comes from the peace legislation by Count Baldwin III of Hainaut for the town of Valenciennes, dated to 1114. It refers to the keepers of the peace in the town leaving it for the purpose of frequenting javelin sports, tournaments, a pattern of regular tournament meetings across northern France is evident in sources for the life of Charles, Count of Flanders. The sources of the 1160s and 1170s portray the event in the form it maintained into the fourteenth century. Tournaments centred on the melee, a fight where the knights were divided into two sides and came together in a charge. Jousting, a combat of two knights riding at each other, was a component of the tournament, but was never its main feature. The standard form of a tournament is evident in sources as early as the 1160s and 1170s, notably the Life of William Marshal, Tournaments might be held at all times of the year except the penitential season of Lent. The general custom was to them on Mondays and Tuesdays. The site of the tournament was announced a fortnight before it was to be held. The most famous tournament fields were in northeastern France which attracted hundreds of knights from all over Europe for the lonc sejor. Knights arrived individually or in companies to stay at one or other of the two settlements designated as their lodgings, the tournament began on a field outside the principal settlement, where stands were erected for spectators
4.
Heavy cavalry
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Heavy cavalry is a class of cavalry whose primary role was to engage in direct combat with enemy forces. Although some form of cavalry had been in use in Mesopotamia since 3000 BC, by 600 BC armoured cavalry began seeing use, though it was not until the later ancient Greek era that true heavy cavalry emerged. Iranian tribes such as the Massagetae were believed to be the originator of the class of heavy cavalry known as cataphract, by the time of Alexanders invasion cataphract units with both men and beasts being fully encased in armour were already in use by the Persians. The Celts of western and central Europe are among the first peoples in the known to have made use of heavy cavalry. It is generally accepted that the Celts were the originators of chainmail, at the Battle of Carrhae, Gallic auxiliary cavalry met with the completely armoured Parthian cataphracts. Despite being outmatched the Gauls fought fiercely and well before being annihilated in a protracted melee, for close combat the main weapon was the spear, around 7 feet in length with a leaf-bladed head, and a heavy wooden shield with an iron spindle-type boss. The most prestigious weapon was the sword, a blade ranging anywhere from 2 ft to 3 ft in length, Celtic swords were typically of good quality, with some being of such quality that archeologists have classed them as being equal to modern, high-quality steel replicas. The heavy cavalry of the Celtiberi, widely employed by the Carthaginians, known to the Romans as Lanciarii, they are represented in several Iberian carvings of the period. They may have carried the soliferrum, the all-iron javelin unique to Iberia, in addition to a spear and shield, together with the Gallic nobles, it was likely these horsemen who at Cannae charged then broke superior numbers of Roman and Italian cavalry. The ancient Greeks called armoured cavalry Kataphraktos which translated means roughly covered, protected or armoured, the term was later borrowed by the Romans and until the Middle Ages in Europe, continued to be used to designate armoured cavalry. The exception was in Northern Greece, where large areas of grassland made cavalry much more practical. Eventually, encounters with Persian cavalry led the Greeks to create their own cavalry arm, while cavalry played an increasingly greater part in Greek warfare, its roles were generally restricted to scouting, skirmishing and pursuit. Its likely that Phillip of Macedon organized his famed Companions after the Theban model, in both role and equipment, the Companions was the first cavalry force that was known to represent archetypal heavy cavalry. The Companion cavalry, or Hetairoi, were the arm of the Macedonian army. In the aftermath of the Macedonian Empire, the Diadochi, successor states created by Alexander the Greats generals, continued the usage of heavy cavalry in their own forces. Up to the 5th century, Sarmatian cavalry units were stationed in Britain as part of the Roman army, the stirrup, which gives greater stability to a rider, has been described as one of the most significant inventions in the history of warfare, prior to gunpowder. As a tool allowing expanded use of horses in warfare, the stirrup is often called the third step in equipment, after the chariot. The basic tactics of mounted warfare were significantly altered by the stirrup, a rider supported by stirrups was less likely to fall off while fighting, and could deliver a blow with a weapon that more fully employed the weight and momentum of horse and rider
5.
Plate armour
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Plate armour is a historical type of personal body armour made from iron or steel plates, culminating in the iconic suit of armour entirely encasing the wearer. In Europe, plate armour reached its peak in the late 15th, the full suit of armour is thus a feature of the very end of the Middle Ages and of the Renaissance period. Its popular association with the knight is due to the specialised jousting armour which developed in the 16th century. Full suits of Gothic plate armour were worn on the battlefields of the Burgundian and Italian Wars, the use of plate armour declined in the 17th century, but it remained common both among the nobility and for the cuirassiers throughout the European wars of religion. After 1650, plate armour was reduced to the simple breastplate worn by cuirassiers. This was due to the development of the musket, which could penetrate armour at a considerable distance. For infantry, the breastplate gained renewed importance with the development of shrapnel in the late Napoleonic wars, the use of steel plates sewn into flak jackets dates to World War II, replaced by more modern materials such as fibre-reinforced plastic since the 1950s. Parthian and Sassanian heavy cavalry known as Clibanarii used cuirasses and small, overlapping plates in the manner of the manica for the protection of arms. Single plates of armour were again used from the late 13th century on, to protect joints and shins. Gradually the number of components of medieval armour increased, protecting further areas of the body. Armourers developed skills in articulating the lames or individual plates for parts of the body that needed to be flexible, the rest of an army wore inconsistent mixtures of pieces, with maille still playing an important part. By about 1420, complete suits of armour had been developed. A complete suit of armour made from well-tempered steel would weigh around 15–25 kg. The wearer remained highly agile and could jump, run and otherwise move freely as the weight of the armour was spread throughout the body. The armour was articulated and covered an entire body completely from neck to toe. In the 15th and 16th centuries, large bodies of men-at-arms numbering thousands or even more than ten men were fighting on foot wearing full plate next to archers. This was commonly seen in the Western European armies especially of France and England during the Hundred Years War, European leaders in armouring techniques were northern Italians, especially from Milan, and southern Germans, who had somewhat different styles. Ottoman Turkey also made use of plate armour but incorporated large amounts of mail into their armour
6.
Knight-errant
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A knight-errant is a figure of medieval chivalric romance literature. The adjective errant indicates how the knight-errant would wander the land in search of adventures to prove his chivalric virtues, the template of the knight-errant are the heroes of the Round Table of the Arthurian cycle such as Gawain, Lancelot and Percival. The quest par excellence in pursuit of which these knights wander the lands is that of the Holy Grail, such as in Perceval, knight-errantry tales remain popular with courtly audiences throughout the Late Middle Ages. They are written in Middle French, in Middle English and in Middle German, in the 16th century, the genre becomes highly popular in the Iberian Peninsula, Amadis de Gaula was one of the most successful knight-errantry tales of this period. In Don Quixote, Cervantes burlesqued the romances and their popularity, tales of knight-errantry then fell out of fashion for two centuries, until they re-emerged in the form of the historical novel in Romanticism. A knight-errant typically performed all his deeds in the name of a lady, in more sublimated forms of knight-errantry, pure moralist idealism rather than romantic inspiration motivated the knight-errant. This quest sends a knight on adventures much like the ones of a knight in search of them, as he happens on the same marvels. In The Faerie Queene, St. George is sent to rescue Unas parents kingdom from a dragon, and Guyon has no such quest, in the romances, his adventures frequently included greater foes than other knights, including giants, enchantresses, or dragons. They may also help that is out of ordinary. Sir Ywain assisted a lion against a serpent, and was accompanied by it. Other knights-errant have been assisted by wild men of the woods, as in Valentine and Orson, or, like Guillaume de Palerme, by wolves that were, in fact, enchanted princes. A depiction of knight-errantry in the historical novel is found e. g. in Sir Nigel by Arthur Conan Doyle. g. The Dark Knight as a title of Batman, lee Childs has said Jack Reacher is a knight-errant. In the epic fantasy series A Song of Ice and Fire, there is a class of knights referred to as Hedge Knights, a Hedge Knight is a wandering knight without a master, many are quite poor. East Slavic bylina feature bogatyrs, knights-errant who served as protectors of their homeland, some of them are presumed to be historical figures, while others are fictional and possibly descend from Slavic mythology. Most tales about bogatyrs revolve around the court of Vladimir I of Kiev, three popular bogatyrs—Ilya Muromets, Dobrynya Nikitich and Alyosha Popovich —are said to have served him. Youxia, Chinese knights-errant, traveled solo protecting common folk from oppressive regimes, unlike their European counterpart, they did not come from any particular social caste and were anything from soldiers to poets. A youxia who excels or is renowned for martial prowess or skills is usually called wuxia, in Japan, the expression Musha shugyō described a Samurai who wanted to test his abilities in real life conditions would travel the land and engage in duels along the way
7.
Medievalism
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The words medievalism and Medieval are both first recorded in the nineteenth century. Medieval is derived from Latin medium aevum, scholars of the Renaissance believed that they lived in a new age that broke free of the decline described by Petrarch. Historians Leonardo Bruni and Flavio Biondo developed a three tier outline of history composed of Ancient, Medieval, and Modern, the Latin term media tempestas first appears in 1469. The term medium aevum is first recorded in 1604, Medieval first appears in the nineteenth century and is an Anglicised form of medium aevum. During the Reformations of the 16th and 17th centuries, Protestants generally followed the views expressed by Renaissance Humanists. They saw classical antiquity as a time, not only because of the Latin literature. Most Protestant historians did not date the beginnings of the era from the Renaissance. For them the Middle Ages was barbaric and priest-ridden and they referred to these dark times, the centuries of ignorance, and the uncouth centuries. The Protestant critique of the Medieval Church was taken into Enlightenment thinking by works including Edward Gibbons Decline and it was partly a revolt against the political norms of the Age of Enlightenment which rationalised nature, and was embodied most strongly in the visual arts, music, and literature. The name Romanticism itself was derived from the medieval chivalric romance. The latters Waverley Novels, including Ivanhoe and Quentin Durward helped popularise, and shape views of, the name Nazarene was adopted by a group of early nineteenth-century German Romantic painters who reacted against Neoclassicism and hoped to return to art which embodied spiritual values. They sought inspiration in artists of the late Middle Ages and early Renaissance, the name Nazarene came from a term of derision used against them for their affectation of a biblical manner of clothing and hair style. The movement was formed in 1809 by six students at the Vienna Academy and called the Brotherhood of St. Luke or Lukasbund. They met up with Austrian romantic landscape artist Joseph Anton Koch who became a tutor to the group. In Rome the group lived an existence, as a way of re-creating the nature of the medieval artists workshop. However, by 1830 all except Overbeck had returned to Germany, many Nazareners became influential teachers in German art academies and were a major influence on the later English Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood. The Gothic Revival was a movement which began in the 1740s in England. He went on to produce important Gothic buildings such as Cathedrals at Birmingham and Southwark, large numbers of existing English churches had features such as crosses, screens and stained glass, restored or added, and most new Anglican and Catholic churches were built in the Gothic style
8.
Latin
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Latin is a classical language belonging to the Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. The Latin alphabet is derived from the Etruscan and Greek alphabets, Latin was originally spoken in Latium, in the Italian Peninsula. Through the power of the Roman Republic, it became the dominant language, Vulgar Latin developed into the Romance languages, such as Italian, Portuguese, Spanish, French, and Romanian. Latin, Italian and French have contributed many words to the English language, Latin and Ancient Greek roots are used in theology, biology, and medicine. By the late Roman Republic, Old Latin had been standardised into Classical Latin, Vulgar Latin was the colloquial form spoken during the same time and attested in inscriptions and the works of comic playwrights like Plautus and Terence. Late Latin is the language from the 3rd century. Later, Early Modern Latin and Modern Latin evolved, Latin was used as the language of international communication, scholarship, and science until well into the 18th century, when it began to be supplanted by vernaculars. Ecclesiastical Latin remains the language of the Holy See and the Roman Rite of the Catholic Church. Today, many students, scholars and members of the Catholic clergy speak Latin fluently and it is taught in primary, secondary and postsecondary educational institutions around the world. The language has been passed down through various forms, some inscriptions have been published in an internationally agreed, monumental, multivolume series, the Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum. Authors and publishers vary, but the format is about the same, volumes detailing inscriptions with a critical apparatus stating the provenance, the reading and interpretation of these inscriptions is the subject matter of the field of epigraphy. The works of several hundred ancient authors who wrote in Latin have survived in whole or in part and they are in part the subject matter of the field of classics. The Cat in the Hat, and a book of fairy tales, additional resources include phrasebooks and resources for rendering everyday phrases and concepts into Latin, such as Meissners Latin Phrasebook. The Latin influence in English has been significant at all stages of its insular development. From the 16th to the 18th centuries, English writers cobbled together huge numbers of new words from Latin and Greek words, dubbed inkhorn terms, as if they had spilled from a pot of ink. Many of these words were used once by the author and then forgotten, many of the most common polysyllabic English words are of Latin origin through the medium of Old French. Romance words make respectively 59%, 20% and 14% of English, German and those figures can rise dramatically when only non-compound and non-derived words are included. Accordingly, Romance words make roughly 35% of the vocabulary of Dutch, Roman engineering had the same effect on scientific terminology as a whole
9.
Middle English
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This stage of the development of the English language roughly followed the High to the Late Middle Ages. Middle English developed out of Late Old English, seeing many dramatic changes in its grammar, pronunciation and this largely forms the basis for Modern English spelling, although pronunciation has changed considerably since that time. Middle English was succeeded in England by the era of Early Modern English, by that time, a variant of the Northumbrian dialect was developing into the Scots language. During the Middle English period many Old English grammatical features were simplified or disappeared, noun, adjective and verb inflections were simplified, a process that included the reduction of most grammatical case distinctions. Middle English also saw an adoption of Norman French vocabulary, especially in areas such as politics, law. Everyday English vocabulary remained mostly Germanic, with Old Norse influence becoming apparent, significant changes in pronunciation took place, especially for long vowels and diphthongs, which in the later Middle English period began to undergo the Great Vowel Shift. Little survives of early Middle English literature, most likely due to the Norman domination, poets wrote both in the vernacular and courtly English. It is popularly believed that William Shakespeare wrote in Middle English, the latter part of the 11th century was a period of transition from Late Old English to Early Middle English. The influence of Old Norse certainly helped move English from a synthetic language towards a more analytic or isolating word order and it was, after all, a salutary influence. The gain was greater than the loss, there was a gain in directness, in clarity, and in strength. The change to Old English from Old Norse was substantive, pervasive and it is most important to recognise that in many words the English and Scandinavian language differed chiefly in their inflectional elements. The body of the word was so nearly the same in the two languages only the endings would put obstacles in the way of mutual understanding. In the mixed population which existed in the Danelaw these endings must have led to confusion, tending gradually to become obscured. This blending of peoples and languages resulted in simplifying English grammar. There are also many Norman-derived terms relating to the cultures that arose in the 12th century. Sometimes, and particularly later, words were taken from Latin, giving such sets as kingly, later French borrowings came from standard rather than Norman French, this leads to such cognate pairs as warden, guardian. The end of Anglo-Saxon rule did not, of course, change the language immediately, the general population would have spoken the same dialects as before the Conquest, these changed slowly until written records of them became available for study, which varies in different regions. Once the writing of Old English came to an end, Middle English had no standard language, Early Middle English has a largely Anglo-Saxon vocabulary, but a greatly simplified inflectional system
10.
Anglo-Normans
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The Anglo-Normans were the medieval ruling class in England, composed mainly of a combination of ethnic Anglo-Saxons and Normans, following the Norman conquest. A small number of Normans had earlier befriended future Anglo-Saxon King of England, Edward the Confessor, when he returned to England some of them went with him, and so there were Normans already settled in England prior to the conquest. Following the death of Edward, the powerful Anglo-Saxon noble, Harold Godwinson, acceded to the English throne until his defeat by William, the invading Normans formed a ruling class in Britain, distinct from the native populations. Over time their language evolved from the continental Old Norman to the distinct Anglo-Norman language, Anglo-Normans quickly established control over all of England, as well as parts of Wales. After 1130, parts of southern and eastern Scotland came under Anglo-Norman rule, the Norman conquest of Ireland in 1169 saw Anglo-Normans settle vast swaths of Ireland, becoming the Hiberno-Normans. The composite expression regno Norman-Anglorum for the Anglo-Norman kingdom that comprises Normandy, the English were Catholic and shared this religion with the Normans and they had already an influence in England, before the conquest. Furthermore, the relationships between the sailors from both sides of the English channel had maintained a common culture. The Normans were not a homogeneous group springing from Scandinavian stock, in terms of culture, they represented the Northern French civilisation, who mostly only spoke Langues doïl as languages. The Norman settlers felt no community with the earlier Danish settlers, however, in their own army, they did not even feel any sense of community with the Poitou, the Bretons, and other groups that had different dialects and traditions. The association between these different troops was only occasional and corresponds to a necessity for the Norman ruler. In fact, the Normans met with the steadiest resistance in a part of England that was the most influenced by the Danish, many of the English nobles lost lands and titles, the lesser thegns and others found themselves dispossessed of lands and titles. A number of free geburs had their rights and court access much decreased, becoming unfree villeins, at the same time, many of the new Anglo-Norman magnates were distributed lands by the King that had been taken from the English nobles. The Norman conquest of England brought the British Isles into the orbit of the European continent, especially what remained of Roman-influenced language and it transmitted itself in the emerging feudal world that took its place. The England that emerged from the Conquest was a different place. The Norman conquest of England also signalled a revolution in military styles, the old Anglo-Saxon military elite began to emigrate, especially the generation next younger to that defeated at Hastings, who had no particular future in a country controlled by the conquerors. William, encouraged them to leave, as a security measure, the first to leave went mostly to Denmark and many of these moved on to join the Varangian Guard in Constantinople. Although the Anglo-Saxons as a whole were not demilitarised, this would have been impractical, instead, William arranged for the Saxon infantry to be trained up by Norman cavalry in anti-cavalry tactics. The younger Norman aristocracy showed a tendency towards Anglicisation, adopting such Saxon styles as long hair and moustaches, (Note that the Anglo-Saxon cniht did not take the sense of the French chevalier before the latest period of Middle English
11.
Late Middle Ages
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The Late Middle Ages or Late Medieval Period was the period of European history generally comprising the 14th and 15th centuries. The Late Middle Ages followed the High Middle Ages and preceded the onset of the modern era. Around 1300, centuries of prosperity and growth in Europe came to a halt, a series of famines and plagues, including the Great Famine of 1315–1317 and the Black Death, reduced the population to around half of what it was before the calamities. Along with depopulation came social unrest and endemic warfare, France and England experienced serious peasant uprisings, such as the Jacquerie and the Peasants Revolt, as well as over a century of intermittent conflict in the Hundred Years War. To add to the problems of the period, the unity of the Catholic Church was shattered by the Western Schism. Collectively these events are called the Crisis of the Late Middle Ages. Despite these crises, the 14th century was also a time of progress in the arts. Following a renewed interest in ancient Greek and Roman texts that took root in the High Middle Ages, combined with this influx of classical ideas was the invention of printing, which facilitated dissemination of the printed word and democratized learning. These two things would lead to the Protestant Reformation. Toward the end of the period, the Age of Discovery began, the rise of the Ottoman Empire, culminating in the Fall of Constantinople in 1453, eroded the last remnants of the Byzantine Empire and cut off trading possibilities with the east. Europeans were forced to seek new trading routes, leading to the expedition of Columbus to the Americas in 1492 and their discoveries strengthened the economy and power of European nations. The changes brought about by these developments have led scholars to view this period as the end of the Middle Ages and beginning of modern history. However, the division is artificial, since ancient learning was never entirely absent from European society. As a result there was continuity between the ancient age and the modern age. Some historians, particularly in Italy, prefer not to speak of the Late Middle Ages at all, but rather see the period of the Middle Ages transitioning to the Renaissance. The term Late Middle Ages refers to one of the three periods of the Middle Ages, along with the Early Middle Ages and the High Middle Ages, leonardo Bruni was the first historian to use tripartite periodization in his History of the Florentine People. Flavio Biondo used a framework in Decades of History from the Deterioration of the Roman Empire. Tripartite periodization became standard after the German historian Christoph Cellarius published Universal History Divided into an Ancient, Medieval, for 18th-century historians studying the 14th and 15th centuries, the central theme was the Renaissance, with its rediscovery of ancient learning and the emergence of an individual spirit
12.
Nobility
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The privileges associated with nobility may constitute substantial advantages over or relative to non-nobles, or may be largely honorary, and vary from country to country and era to era. There is often a variety of ranks within the noble class. g, san Marino and the Vatican City in Europe. Hereditary titles often distinguish nobles from non-nobles, although in many nations most of the nobility have been un-titled, some countries have had non-hereditary nobility, such as the Empire of Brazil. The term derives from Latin nobilitas, the noun of the adjective nobilis. In modern usage, nobility is applied to the highest social class in pre-modern societies and it rapidly came to be seen as a hereditary caste, sometimes associated with a right to bear a hereditary title and, for example in pre-revolutionary France, enjoying fiscal and other privileges. Nobility is a historical, social and often legal notion, differing from high socio-economic status in that the latter is based on income. Being wealthy or influential cannot, ipso facto, make one noble, various republics, including former Iron Curtain countries, Greece, Mexico, and Austria have expressly abolished the conferral and use of titles of nobility for their citizens. Not all of the benefits of nobility derived from noble status per se, usually privileges were granted or recognised by the monarch in association with possession of a specific title, office or estate. Most nobles wealth derived from one or more estates, large or small and it also included infrastructure such as castle, well and mill to which local peasants were allowed some access, although often at a price. Nobles were expected to live nobly, that is, from the proceeds of these possessions, work involving manual labour or subordination to those of lower rank was either forbidden or frowned upon socially. In some countries, the lord could impose restrictions on such a commoners movements. Nobles exclusively enjoyed the privilege of hunting, in France, nobles were exempt from paying the taille, the major direct tax. In some parts of Europe the right of war long remained the privilege of every noble. During the early Renaissance, duelling established the status of a respectable gentleman, Nobility came to be associated with social rather than legal privilege, expressed in a general expectation of deference from those of lower rank. By the 21st century even that deference had become increasingly minimised, in France, a seigneurie might include one or more manors surrounded by land and villages subject to a nobles prerogatives and disposition. Seigneuries could be bought, sold or mortgaged, if erected by the crown into, e. g. a barony or countship, it became legally entailed for a specific family, which could use it as their title. Yet most French nobles were untitled, in other parts of Europe, sovereign rulers arrogated to themselves the exclusive prerogative to act as fons honorum within their realms. Nobility might be inherited or conferred by a fons honorum
13.
Tudor period
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The Tudor period is the period between 1485 and 1603 in England and Wales and includes the Elizabethan period which ends with the completion of the reign of Elizabeth I in 1603. The Tudor period coincides with the rule of the Tudor dynasty in England whose first monarch was Henry VII. In terms of the century, Guy argues that England was economically healthier, more expansive. Following the Black Death and the depression of the late 15th century. The export of woollen products resulted in an upturn with products exported to mainland Europe. Henry VII negotiated the favourable Intercursus Magnus treaty in 1496, the high wages and abundance of available land seen in the late 15th century and early 16th century were replaced with low wages and a land shortage. Various inflationary pressures, perhaps due to an influx of New World gold and this was a period of significant change for the majority of the rural population, with manorial lords beginning the process of enclosure. Historian Geoffrey Elton revolutionized the study of Tudor government with his 1953 book The Tudor Revolution in Government and he argued that Thomas Cromwell, who was Henry VIIIs chief minister from 1532 to 1540, was the author of modern, bureaucratic government, which replaced medieval, government-as-household-management. Cromwell introduced reforms into the administration that delineated the Kings household from the state and he injected Tudor power into the darker corners of the realm and radically altered the role of Parliament. This transition happened in the 1530s, Elton argued, and must be regarded as part of a planned revolution, by masterminding these reforms, wrote Elton, Cromwell laid the foundations of Englands future stability and success. However, Eltons thesis has been challenged by recent historians. The Tudor Government raised an amount of revenue from the Dissolution of the Monasteries. The clerical income from First Fruits and Tenths, which went to the Pope. The Tudor Government gained further revenue from the lands by receiving rents from confiscated lands. Altogether, between 1536 and Henrys death, the Government collected £1.3 million, this influx of money caused Cromwell to change the Crowns financial system to manage the money. He created a new department of state and a new official to collect the proceeds of the dissolution, the Court of Augmentations and number of departments meant a growing number of officials, which made the management of revenue troublesome and expensive. Partly because of the new revenue raised from the dissolution of monasteries and these were the six courts or departments of state, each fully organised with its own specialised officials, equipped with seals and habitat, and responsible for a particular kind of revenue. The growing number of departments meant that the number of officials involved increased, there were further financial and administrative difficulties in 1540–58, aggravated by war, debasement, corruption and inefficiency, which were mainly caused by Somerset
14.
Germany in the early modern period
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The German-speaking states in the early modern period were divided politically and religiously. They all suffered greatly in the Thirty Years War, catholic Austria and Lutheran Prussia were the major players. The Holy Roman Empire was dominated by the House of Habsburg throughout the Early Modern period and this was a result of German artists who had traveled to Italy to learn more and become inspired by the Renaissance movement. Many areas of the arts and sciences were influenced, notably by the spread of humanism to the various German states and principalities, there were many advances made in the development of new techniques in the fields of architecture, the arts, and the sciences. This also marked the time within Germany of a rise of power, independent city states, the German Reformation initiated by Martin Luther leads to the German Peasants War in 1524-1525. At a religious conference with the Zwinglians in 1529, Melanchthon joined with Luther in opposing a union with Zwingli, with the protestation of the Lutheran princes at the Diet of Speyer and rejection of the Lutheran Augsburg Confession at Augsburg, a separate Lutheran church finally emerged. In Northern Europe Luther appealed to the national consciousness of the German states because he denounced the Pope for involvement in politics as well as religion. Moreover, he backed the nobility, which was now justified to crush the Great Peasant Revolt of 1525 and this explains the attraction of some territorial princes to Lutheranism. However, the Elector of Brandenburg, Joachim I, blamed Lutheranism for the revolt, though Charles V fought the Reformation, it is no coincidence either that the reign of his nationalistic predecessor Maximilian I saw the beginning of the Reformation. The Reformation and printing press combined to mark a major breakthrough in the spread of literacy, from 1517 onward religious pamphlets flooded Germany and much of Europe. By 1530 over 10,000 publications are known, with a total of ten million copies, the Reformation was thus a media revolution. Luther strengthened his attacks on Rome by depicting a good against bad church, from there, it became clear that print could be used for propaganda in the Reformation for particular agendas. Reformist writers used pre-Reformation styles, clichés, and stereotypes and changed items as needed for their own purposes, illustrations in the newly translated Bible and in many tracts popularized Luthers ideas. Lucas Cranach the Elder, the great painter patronized by the electors of Wittenberg, was a friend of Luther. He dramatized Luthers views on the relationship between the Old and New Testaments, while remaining mindful of Luthers careful distinctions about proper and improper uses of visual imagery, the Thirty Years War was a religious war principally fought in Germany, where it involved most of the European powers. The conflict began between Protestants and Catholics in the Holy Roman Empire, but gradually developed into a general, political war involving most of Europe. The Thirty Years War was a continuation of the France-Habsburg rivalry for European political pre-eminence, the major impact of the Thirty Years War, fought mostly by mercenary armies, was the extensive destruction of entire regions, denuded by the foraging armies. Episodes of famine and disease significantly decreased the populace of the German states, some of the quarrels that provoked the war went unresolved for a much longer time
15.
Henry II of France
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Henry II was a monarch of the House of Valois who ruled as King of France from 31 March 1547 until his death in 1559. The second son of Francis I, he became Dauphin of France upon the death of his elder brother Francis III, Duke of Brittany, as a child, Henry and his elder brother spent over four years in captivity in Spain as hostages in exchange for their father. Henry pursued his fathers policies in matter of arts, wars and he persevered in the Italian Wars against the House of Habsburg and tried to suppress the Protestant Reformation, even as the Huguenot numbers were increasing drastically in France during his reign. Henry suffered a death in a jousting tournament held to celebrate the Peace of Cateau-Cambrésis at the conclusion of the Eighth Italian War. The kings surgeon, Ambroise Paré, was unable to cure the infected wound inflicted by Gabriel de Montgomery and he was succeeded in turn by three of his sons, whose ineffective reigns helped to spark the French Wars of Religion between Protestants and Catholics. Henry was born in the royal Château de Saint-Germain-en-Laye, near Paris and his father was captured at the Battle of Pavia in 1525 by the forces of his sworn enemy, Holy Roman Emperor Charles V, and held prisoner in Spain. To obtain his release, it was agreed that Henry and his brother be sent to Spain in his place. They remained in captivity for four years. Henry married Catherine de Medici, a member of the family of Florence, on 28 October 1533. The following year, he became involved with a thirty-five-year-old widow. They had always very close, she had publicly embraced him on the day he set off to Spain. Diane became Henrys mistress and most trusted confidante and, for the next years, wielded considerable influence behind the scenes. Extremely confident, mature and intelligent, she left Catherine powerless to intervene and she did, however, insist that Henry sleep with Catherine in order to produce heirs to the throne. When his elder brother Francis, the Dauphin and Duke of Brittany, died in 1536 after a game of tennis and he succeeded his father on his 28th birthday and was crowned King of France on 25 July 1547 at Reims Cathedral. Henrys reign was marked by wars with Austria and the persecution of Protestants, Henry II severely punished them, particularly the ministers, for example by burning at the stake or cutting off their tongues for uttering heresies. Even those only suspected of being Huguenots could be imprisoned and it also strictly regulated publications by prohibiting the sale, importation or printing of any unapproved book. It was during the reign of Henry II that Huguenot attempts at establishing a colony in Brazil were made, persecution of Protestants at home did not prevent Henry II from becoming allied with German Protestant princes at the Treaty of Chambord in 1552. Simultaneously, the continuation of his fathers Franco-Ottoman alliance allowed Henry II to push for French conquests towards the Rhine while a Franco-Ottoman fleet defended southern France, an early offensive into Lorraine was successful
16.
Accession Day tilt
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The Accession Day tilts were a series of elaborate festivities held annually at the court of Elizabeth I of England to celebrate her Accession Day,17 November, also known as Queens Day. The last Elizabethan Accession Day tilt was held in November 1602, tilts continued as part of festivities marking the Accession Day of James I,24 March, until 1624, the year before his death. Sir Henry Lee of Ditchley, Queens Champion, devised the Accession Day tilts, the celebrations are likely to have begun somewhat informally in the early 1570s. Lee himself oversaw the annual festivities until he retired as Queens Champion at the tilt of 1590, the pageants were held at the tiltyard at the Palace of Whitehall, where the royal party viewed the festivities from the Tiltyard Gallery. The Office of Works constructed a platform with staircases below the gallery to facilitate presentations to the queen, tilt lists for the Accession Day pageants have survived, these establish that the majority of the participating jousters came from the ranks of the Queens Gentlemen Pensioners. Entrants included such members of the court as the Earl of Bedford, the Earl of Oxford, the Earl of Southampton, Lord Howard of Effingham. Sir James Scudamore, a knight who tilted in the 1595 tournament, was immortalized as Sir Scudamour in Book Four of The Faerie Queene by Edmund Spenser. A squire presented a pasteboard pageant shield decorated with the device or impresa to the Queen. In the painting on the left, Essex wears black armour, at this particular tilt, Essex entered as the head of a funeral procession, carried on a bier by his attendants. This was meant to atone for his failure to subdue Ireland, Sidney, in particular, as both poet and knight, embodied the chivalric themes of the tilts, a remembrance of Sidney was part of the tilt programme of 1586, the year after his death. Sidneys friend and protégé Sir James Scudamore, who would go on to be one of the competitors in the Accession Day tilt in 1595. About twelve o’clock the queen and her ladies placed themselves at the windows in a room at Weithol palace, near Westminster. From this room a broad staircase led downwards, and round the barrier stands were arranged by boards above the ground, so that everybody by paying 12d. would get a stand and see the play. Many thousand spectators, men, women and girls, got places, not to speak of those who were within the barrier and paid nothing. During the whole time of the tournament all those who wished to fight entered the list by pairs, the combatants had their servants clad in different colours, they, however, did not enter the barrier, but arranged themselves on both sides. Some gentlemen had their horses with them and mounted in full armour directly from the carriage, there were some who showed very good horsemanship and were also in fine attire. The manner of the combat each had settled before entering the lists, the costs amounted to several thousand pounds each. When the speech was ended he in the name of his lord offered to the queen a costly present. Now always two by two rode against each other, breaking lances across the beam, the fête lasted until five o’clock in the afternoon
17.
Elizabeth I of England
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Elizabeth I was Queen of England and Ireland from 17 November 1558 until her death. Sometimes called The Virgin Queen, Gloriana or Good Queen Bess, Elizabeth was the daughter of Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn, his second wife, who was executed two and a half years after Elizabeths birth. Annes marriage to Henry VIII was annulled, and Elizabeth was declared illegitimate, edwards will was set aside and Mary became queen, deposing Lady Jane Grey. During Marys reign, Elizabeth was imprisoned for nearly a year on suspicion of supporting Protestant rebels, in 1558, Elizabeth succeeded her half-sister to the throne and set out to rule by good counsel. She depended heavily on a group of trusted advisers, led by William Cecil, one of her first actions as queen was the establishment of an English Protestant church, of which she became the Supreme Governor. This Elizabethan Religious Settlement was to evolve into the Church of England and it was expected that Elizabeth would marry and produce an heir to continue the Tudor line. She never did, despite numerous courtships, as she grew older, Elizabeth became famous for her virginity. A cult grew around her which was celebrated in the portraits, pageants, in government, Elizabeth was more moderate than her father and half-siblings had been. One of her mottoes was video et taceo, in religion, she was relatively tolerant and avoided systematic persecution. Elizabeth was cautious in foreign affairs, manoeuvring between the powers of France and Spain. She only half-heartedly supported a number of ineffective, poorly resourced military campaigns in the Netherlands, France, by the mid-1580s, England could no longer avoid war with Spain. Englands defeat of the Spanish Armada in 1588 associated Elizabeth with one of the greatest military victories in English history, Elizabeths reign is known as the Elizabethan era. Some historians depict Elizabeth as a short-tempered, sometimes indecisive ruler, towards the end of her reign, a series of economic and military problems weakened her popularity. Such was the case with Elizabeths rival, Mary, Queen of Scots, after the short reigns of Elizabeths half-siblings, her 44 years on the throne provided welcome stability for the kingdom and helped forge a sense of national identity. Elizabeth was born at Greenwich Palace and was named after both her grandmothers, Elizabeth of York and Elizabeth Howard and she was the second child of Henry VIII of England born in wedlock to survive infancy. Her mother was Henrys second wife, Anne Boleyn, at birth, Elizabeth was the heir presumptive to the throne of England. She was baptised on 10 September, Archbishop Thomas Cranmer, the Marquess of Exeter, the Duchess of Norfolk, Elizabeth was two years and eight months old when her mother was beheaded on 19 May 1536, four months after Catherine of Aragons death from natural causes. Elizabeth was declared illegitimate and deprived of her place in the royal succession, eleven days after Anne Boleyns execution, Henry married Jane Seymour, who died shortly after the birth of their son, Prince Edward, in 1537
18.
James VI and I
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James VI and I was King of Scotland as James VI from 24 July 1567 and King of England and Ireland as James I from the union of the Scottish and English crowns on 24 March 1603 until his death. The kingdoms of Scotland and England were individual sovereign states, with their own parliaments, judiciary, and laws, though both were ruled by James in personal union. James was the son of Mary, Queen of Scots, James succeeded to the Scottish throne at the age of thirteen months, after his mother Mary was compelled to abdicate in his favour. Four different regents governed during his minority, which ended officially in 1578, in 1603, he succeeded the last Tudor monarch of England and Ireland, Elizabeth I, who died without issue. He continued to reign in all three kingdoms for 22 years, a period known after him as the Jacobean era, until his death in 1625 at the age of 58. After the Union of the Crowns, he based himself in England from 1603, only returning to Scotland once in 1617 and he was a major advocate of a single parliament for England and Scotland. In his reign, the Plantation of Ulster and British colonization of the Americas began, at 57 years and 246 days, Jamess reign in Scotland was longer than those of any of his predecessors. He achieved most of his aims in Scotland but faced difficulties in England, including the Gunpowder Plot in 1605. James himself was a scholar, the author of works such as Daemonologie, The True Law of Free Monarchies. He sponsored the translation of the Bible that would later be named after him, Sir Anthony Weldon claimed that James had been termed the wisest fool in Christendom, an epithet associated with his character ever since. Since the latter half of the 20th century, historians have tended to revise Jamess reputation and treat him as a serious, James was the only son of Mary, Queen of Scots, and her second husband, Henry Stuart, Lord Darnley. Both Mary and Darnley were great-grandchildren of Henry VII of England through Margaret Tudor, Marys rule over Scotland was insecure, and she and her husband, being Roman Catholics, faced a rebellion by Protestant noblemen. James was born on 19 June 1566 at Edinburgh Castle, and as the eldest son and heir apparent of the monarch automatically became Duke of Rothesay and Prince and he was baptised Charles James or James Charles on 17 December 1566 in a Catholic ceremony held at Stirling Castle. His godparents were Charles IX of France, Elizabeth I of England, Mary refused to let the Archbishop of St Andrews, whom she referred to as a pocky priest, spit in the childs mouth, as was then the custom. The subsequent entertainment, devised by Frenchman Bastian Pagez, featured men dressed as satyrs and sporting tails, Jamess father, Darnley, was murdered on 10 February 1567 at Kirk o Field, Edinburgh, perhaps in revenge for Rizzios death. James inherited his fathers titles of Duke of Albany and Earl of Ross, Mary was already unpopular, and her marriage on 15 May 1567 to James Hepburn, 4th Earl of Bothwell, who was widely suspected of murdering Darnley, heightened widespread bad feeling towards her. In June 1567, Protestant rebels arrested Mary and imprisoned her in Loch Leven Castle and she was forced to abdicate on 24 July 1567 in favour of the infant James and to appoint her illegitimate half-brother, James Stewart, Earl of Moray, as regent. The care of James was entrusted to the Earl and Countess of Mar, to be conserved, nursed, and upbrought in the security of Stirling Castle
19.
Charles I of England
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Charles I was monarch of the three kingdoms of England, Scotland, and Ireland from 27 March 1625 until his execution in 1649. Charles was the son of King James VI of Scotland, but after his father inherited the English throne in 1603, he moved to England. He became heir apparent to the English, Irish, and Scottish thrones on the death of his brother, Henry Frederick, Prince of Wales. Two years later, he married the Bourbon princess Henrietta Maria of France instead, after his succession, Charles quarrelled with the Parliament of England, which sought to curb his royal prerogative. Charles believed in the right of kings and thought he could govern according to his own conscience. Many of his subjects opposed his policies, in particular the levying of taxes without parliamentary consent and he supported high church ecclesiastics, such as Richard Montagu and William Laud, and failed to aid Protestant forces successfully during the Thirty Years War. From 1642, Charles fought the armies of the English and Scottish parliaments in the English Civil War, after his defeat in 1645, he surrendered to a Scottish force that eventually handed him over to the English Parliament. Charles refused to accept his captors demands for a constitutional monarchy, re-imprisoned on the Isle of Wight, Charles forged an alliance with Scotland, but by the end of 1648 Oliver Cromwells New Model Army had consolidated its control over England. Charles was tried, convicted, and executed for treason in January 1649. The monarchy was abolished and a called the Commonwealth of England was declared. The monarchy was restored to Charless son, Charles II, in 1660, the second son of King James VI of Scotland and Anne of Denmark, Charles was born in Dunfermline Palace, Fife, on 19 November 1600. James VI was the first cousin twice removed of Queen Elizabeth I of England, in mid-July 1604, Charles left Dunfermline for England where he was to spend most of the rest of his life. His speech development was slow, and he retained a stammer, or hesitant speech. In January 1605, Charles was created Duke of York, as is customary in the case of the English sovereigns second son, Thomas Murray, a Presbyterian Scot, was appointed as a tutor. Charles learnt the usual subjects of classics, languages, mathematics, in 1611, he was made a Knight of the Garter. Eventually, Charles apparently conquered his physical infirmity, which might have been caused by rickets and he became an adept horseman and marksman, and took up fencing. Even so, his public profile remained low in contrast to that of his stronger and taller elder brother, Henry Frederick, Prince of Wales. However, in early November 1612, Henry died at the age of 18 of what is suspected to have been typhoid, Charles, who turned 12 two weeks later, became heir apparent
20.
Equestrian sports
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Equestrian Sports are sports that use horses as a main part of the sport. This usually takes the form of the rider being on the horses back, or the horses pulling some sort of horse-drawn vehicle
21.
Tent pegging
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Tent pegging is a cavalry sport of ancient origin, and is one of only ten equestrian disciplines officially recognised by the International Equestrian Federation. Used narrowly, the term refers to a mounted game with ground targets. More broadly, it refers to the class of mounted cavalry games involving edged weapons on horseback. Cavaliers have practised the specific game of tent pegging since at least the 4th century BC, as a result, the games date and location of origin are ambiguous. In all accounts, the sport evolved out of cavalry training exercises designed to develop cavaliers prowess with the sword. However, whether tent pegging developed cavaliers generic skills or prepared them for combat situations is unclear. However, other sources suggest that the sport originated earlier in Central Asia or the Middle East and was later on popularised in India. However, there are few accounts of a cavalry squadron ever employing such tactics. The specific game of tent pegging has a mounted horseman riding at a gallop and using a sword or a lance to pierce, pick up, the broader class of tent pegging games also includes ring jousting, lemon sticking, quintain tilting, and Parthian archery. Today, tent pegging is practised around the world, but is popular in Australia, India, Israel, Oman, Pakistan, South Africa. The Olympic Council of Asia included tent pegging as a sport in 1982. From the results of the 2008 International Tent Pegging Championships, the three leading national teams are currently Canada, India, and Oman. Members of cavalry regiments and mounted police forces remain dominant in world-class tent pegging, the United States Tent Pegging Federation is working on introducing tent pegging on the sidelines of polo in the United States. In late 1990s, many efforts were mostly solo efforts by individuals like H. E Prince Malik Ata Khan and Maharaja of Dunlod. EFI tent pegging pioneers provided much encouragement to export tent pegging to the USA, also H. E Prince Malik Ata Khan, the icon of modern-day tent pegging supported the idea of formation of a Tent Pegging as an organized sport in the USA. All of their thrust was to establish an organization in the United States so that USA could represent itself on the international front, at present the USTPF, working hard to promote Tent Pegging in the USA. The promotion efforts include two Tent Pegging Training Clinics initiated in October 2014 and June 2015 to compete in the international Arena, the USTPF was recognized by the USEF as Alliance Partner in 2015 and an NGB for Tent Pegging in the USA. The USEF granted the Alliance Partnership to the USTPF with permanent Alliance Partnership number 5347848, New and emerging national tent pegging associations have helped spread the sports popularity
22.
Theatrical jousting
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Alternative terms are jousting reenactment or choreographed jousting. The Hanlon-Lees Action Theater is credited with developing the theatrical joust format in 1979, its first appearance was at the New York Renaissance Faire in Tuxedo and this type of performance has become very popular at various renaissance fairs by the early 2000s. Typically a three-act affair, the theatrical joust consists of a display of skill, a battle which results in a verbal challenge. A variety of characters, either villainous or heroic, give the audience a particular person to root for or against. As the show must be repeated on a daily or weekly basis, horses must be trained to withstand such peculiarities as the clatter of steel weaponry, the occurrence of a rider being knocked from the saddle, and the roar of large crowds. Special makeup and/or property effects are incorporated into the performance to provide the illusion of violent death or shattering equipment. Renaissance Men,3 Alarm Carnival Productions
23.
Codex Manesse
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The codex was produced in Zürich, for the Manesse family. The manuscript is the most beautifully illumined German manuscript in centuries, the Codex Manesse is an anthology of the works of a total of about 135 Minnesingers of the mid 12th to early 14th century. For each poet, a portrait is shown, followed by the text of their works, most of the poems are Minnesang, but there are also other genres, including fables and didactic poems. Some images are motivated by the biography of the person depicted, the house of Manesse declined in the late 14th century, selling their castle in 1393. The fate of the codex during the 15th century is unknown, in 1604, Melchior Goldast published excerpts of its didactic texts. After 1657 it was in the French royal library, from which it passed to the Bibliothèque Nationale, in 1888, after long bargaining, it was sold to the Bibliotheca Palatina of Heidelberg, following a public subscription headed by William I and Otto von Bismarck. The first critical editions of the Codex Manesse appeared in the nineteenth century. The codex is frequently referred to by Minnesang scholars and in editions simply by the abbreviation C, introduced by Karl Lachmann, two leaves of a 15th-century copy of the manuscript, called the Troßsche Fragment, were held in the Berlin State Library, but went missing in 1945. The possibility that the compiler was the Minnesinger Johannes Hadlaub provided the subject of a novella, Hadlaub. Walter Koschorreck and Wilfried Werner, editors, Kommentar zum Faksimile des Codex Manesse, commentary to the facsimile edition, with essays by Wilfried Werner, Ewald Vetter, Walter Koschorreck, Hugo Kuhn, Max Wehrli and Ewald Jammers
24.
High Middle Ages
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The High Middle Ages or High Medieval Period was the period of European history around the 11th, 12th, and 13th centuries. The High Middle Ages were preceded by the Early Middle Ages and followed by the Late Middle Ages, by 1250 the robust population increase greatly benefited the European economy, reaching levels that would not be seen again in some areas until the 19th century. This trend was checked in the Late Middle Ages by a series of calamities, notably the Black Death but also including numerous wars, from about the year 780 onwards, Europe saw the last of the barbarian invasions and became more socially and politically organized. The Carolingian Renaissance led to scientific and philosophical revival of Europe, the first universities were established in Bologna, Paris, Oxford and Modena. The Vikings had settled in the British Isles, France and elsewhere, the Magyars had ceased their expansion in the 10th century, and by the year 1000, a Christian Kingdom of Hungary was recognized in Central Europe, forming alliances with regional powers. With the brief exception of the Mongol invasions in the 13th century, in the 11th century, populations north of the Alps began to settle new lands, some of which had reverted to wilderness after the end of the Roman Empire. In what is known as the clearances, vast forests. At the same time settlements moved beyond the boundaries of the Frankish Empire to new frontiers in Europe, beyond the Elbe River. The High Middle Ages produced many different forms of intellectual, spiritual, the rediscovery of the works of Aristotle led Thomas Aquinas and other thinkers of the period to develop Scholasticism, a combination of Catholicism and ancient philosophy. For much of the time period Constantinople remained Europes most populous city, in architecture, many of the most notable Gothic cathedrals were built or completed during this era. The Crisis of the Late Middle Ages, beginning at the start of the 14th century, in England, the Norman Conquest of 1066 resulted in a kingdom ruled by a Francophone nobility. The Normans invaded Ireland by force in 1169 and soon established throughout most of the country. Likewise, Scotland and Wales were subdued to vassalage at about the same time, the Exchequer was founded in the 12th century under King Henry I, and the first parliaments were convened. In 1215, after the loss of Normandy, King John signed the Magna Carta into law, from the mid-tenth to the mid-11th centuries, the Scandinavian kingdoms were unified and Christianized, resulting in an end of Viking raids, and greater involvement in European politics. King Cnut of Denmark ruled over both England and Norway, after Cnuts death in 1035, England and Norway were lost, and with the defeat of Valdemar II in 1227, Danish predominance in the region came to an end. Meanwhile, Norway extended its Atlantic possessions, ranging from Greenland to the Isle of Man, while Sweden, under Birger Jarl, however, the Norwegian influence started to decline already in the same period, marked by the Treaty of Perth of 1266. Also, civil wars raged in Norway between 1130 and 1240, by the time of the High Middle Ages, the Carolingian Empire had been divided and replaced by separate successor kingdoms called France and Germany, although not with their modern boundaries. Germany was under the banner of the Holy Roman Empire, which reached its mark of unity
25.
Mail (armour)
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Mail is a type of armour consisting of small metal rings linked together in a pattern to form a mesh. A coat of armour is often referred to as a hauberk. The earliest example of surviving mail was found in a chieftains burial located in Ciumești and its invention is commonly credited to the Celts, but there are examples of Etruscan pattern mail dating from at least the 4th century BC. Mail may have inspired by the much earlier scale armour. Mail spread to North Africa, West Africa, the Middle East, Central Asia, India, Tibet, South East Asia, the origins of the word mail are not fully known. One theory is that it derives from the Latin word, macula. Another theory relates the word to the old French, maillier, in modern French, maille refers to a loop or stitch. The Arabic words burnus, برنوس, a burnoose, a cloak, also a chasuble and barnaza, برنز, to bronze. The first attestations of the mail are in Old French and Anglo-Norman, maille, maile, or male or other variants. The modern usage of terms for mail armour is highly contested in popular and, to a lesser degree, since then the word mail has been commonly, if incorrectly, applied to other types of armour, such as in plate-mail. The more correct term is plate armour, civilizations that used mail invented specific terms for each garment made from it. The standard terms for European mail armour derive from French, leggings are called chausses, a hood is a mail coif, a mail collar hanging from a helmet is a camail or aventail. A shirt made from mail is a hauberk if knee-length and a haubergeon if mid-thigh length, a layer of mail sandwiched between layers of fabric is called a jazerant. A waist-length coat in medieval Europe was called a byrnie, although the construction of a byrnie is unclear. Only on artistic and some sources because of the lack of archaeological examples. It was also long, reaching below the hips and covering most of the arms. Other historians claim instead that the Carolingian byrnie was nothing more than a coat of mail, without more certain evidence, this dispute will continue. The use of mail as battlefield armour was common during the Iron Age, the Roman army adopted the technology for their troops in the form of the lorica hamata which was used as a primary form of armour through the Imperial period
26.
Great helm
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They were used by knights in most European armies between about 1220 to 1540 AD. In its simplest form, the helm was a flat-topped cylinder of steel that completely covered the head and had only very small openings for the eyes. Later designs gained more of a design, particularly on the top. The great helm ultimately evolved from the helmet, which had been produced in a flat-topped variant with a square profile by about 1180. From this type of helmet an intermediate type, called an enclosed helmet or primitive great helm, in this helmet the expansion of the nasal produced a full face-plate, pierced for sight and breathing. This helmet was largely superseded by the great helm by c. A later variant with a conical top is known as a sugarloaf helm. In Spanish they are called yelmo de Zaragoza, referring to Zaragoza where they were introduced for the first time in the Iberian peninsula, knights usually wore the great helm over a mail coif sometimes in conjunction with a close-fitting iron skull cap known as a cervelliere. The bascinet had a mail curtain attached, a camail or aventail, mail throat and neck defences such as these were made obsolete when plate gorgets were introduced, around 1400. The bascinet evolved from its early skull cap form to supersede the great helm for combat, the great helm fell into disuse during the 15th century, however it was used commonly in tournaments where a version of the great helm, the frog-mouthed tilting helm, evolved. The great helm is today especially popular amongst live-action role players and it is inexpensive, easy to manufacture with even rudimentary equipment, and provides good protection for the head against both sharp and blunt weapons. Its biggest drawbacks are poor ventilation and air circulation, especially if worn with closed-cell foam padding, making it hot in warm weather. Modern reenactment versions of great helms weigh 1.5 to 3 kg, for safety reasons, they are made from thicker steel than medieval originals but are not overly heavy, cumbersome, or uncomfortable. Although visor slits are usually only some 20–30 mm wide, they do not greatly restrict the field of vision as they are close to the wearers eyes. Gravett, Christopher Norman Knight 950-1204 AD, Osprey, London, archived from the original on 2011-04-01
27.
Duel
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A duel is an arranged engagement in combat between two individuals with matched weapons in accordance with agreed-upon rules. Duels in this form were chiefly practiced in early modern Europe with precedents in the code of chivalry. During the 17th and 18th centuries, duels were fought with swords. But beginning in the late 18th century in England, duels were more commonly fought using pistols, fencing and pistol duels continued to co-exist throughout the 19th century. The duel was based on a code of honor, on rare occasions, duels with pistols or swords were fought between women, these were sometimes known as petticoat duels. Legislation against dueling goes back to the medieval period, the Fourth Council of the Lateran outlawed duels, and civil legislation in the Holy Roman Empire against dueling was passed in the wake of the Thirty Years War. From the early 17th century, duels became illegal in the countries where they were practiced, Dueling largely fell out of favor in England by the mid-19th century and in Continental Europe by the turn of the 20th century. Dueling declined in the Eastern United States in the 19th century and by the time the American Civil War broke out, dueling had begun to decline, public opinion, not legislation, caused the change. In Western society, the concept of a duel developed out of the medieval judicial duel. In Medieval society, judicial duels were fought by knights and squires to end various disputes, countries like Germany, United Kingdom, and Ireland practiced this tradition. Judicial combat were of two forms in society, the feat of arms and chivalric combat. The feat of arms were done to settle hostilities between two parties and supervised by a judge. The battle was fought when one partys honor was disrespected or challenged upon in which the conflict cannot be resolved in court, a spiked hand guard for pumbling, and extra grip for half swording. The duel lasted until the party was too weak to fight back. In early cases, the party was then subsequently executed. If a traveling venans did not have weapons or horse to meet the challenge, one might be provided, if a lady passed unescorted, she would leave behind a glove or scarf, to be rescued and returned to her by a future knight who passed that way. The Roman Catholic Church was critical of dueling throughout medieval history, judicial duels were deprecated by the Lateran Council of 1215, but the judicial duel persisted in the Holy Roman Empire into the 15th century. The word duel comes from the Latin duellum, cognate with bellum, during the early Renaissance, dueling established the status of a respectable gentleman, and was an accepted manner to resolve disputes
28.
Chivalry
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Chivalry, or the chivalric code, is a code of conduct associated with the medieval institution of knighthood which developed between 1170 and 1220. The code of chivalry that developed in medieval Europe had its roots in earlier centuries, the term chivalry derives from the Old French term chevalerie, which can be translated to horse soldiery. Gautier states that emerged from the Moors as well as the Teutonic forests and was nurtured into civilization. Over time, its meaning in Europe has been refined to emphasise social and moral virtues more generally, in origin, the term chivalry means horsemanship, formed in Old French, in the 11th century, from chevalier, from Medieval Latin caballārius. In English, the term appears from 1292, thus, chivalry has hierarchical meanings from simply a heavily armed horseman to a code of conduct. Based on the three treatises, initially chivalry was defined as a way of life in which three essential aspects fused together, the military, the nobility, the religion. Gautiers Ten Commandments of chivalry are, Thou shalt believe all that the Church teaches, Thou shalt respect all weaknesses, and shalt constitute thyself the defender of them. Thou shalt love the country in which thou wast born, Thou shalt not recoil before thine enemy. Thou shalt make war against the infidel without cessation and without mercy, Thou shalt perform scrupulously thy feudal duties, if they be not contrary to the laws of God. Thou shalt never lie, and shalt remain faithful to thy pledged word, Thou shalt be generous, and give largesse to everyone. Thou shalt be everywhere and always the champion of the Right, though these ten commandments are often accepted to be what knights would use, these would not necessarily be what a knight actually followed in the medieval era. This code was created by Leon Gautier in 1883, long after the knight had ceased to exist in its traditional form. Chivalry in a sense was more of a subjective term. It is a version of the myth of the Golden Age, from Jean Charles Léonard de Sismondi, We must not confound chivalry with the feudal system. The feudal system may be called the life of the period of which we are treating, possessing its advantages and inconveniences, its virtues. Chivalry, on the contrary, is the world, such as it existed in the imaginations of the Romance writers. Its essential character is devotion to woman and to honour, Sismondi alludes to the fictitious Arthurian romances about the imaginary Court of King Arthur, which were usually taken as factual presentations of a historical age of chivalry. He continues, The more closely we look into history, the more clearly shall we perceive that the system of chivalry is an invention almost entirely poetical and it is impossible to distinguish the countries in which it is said to have prevailed
29.
CPG 359
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359 is an illustrated manuscript created in Strasbourg ca. It contains the texts Rosengarten zu Worms and Lucidarius
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Pas d'armes
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The pas darmes or passage of arms was a type of chivalric hastilude that evolved in the late 14th century and remained popular through the 15th century. If a traveling venan did not have weapons or horse to meet the challenge, one might be provided, if a lady passed unescorted, she would leave behind a glove or scarf, to be rescued and returned to her by a future knight who passed that way. The origins of pas darmes can be found in a number of factors, at the same time, the noble classes began to differentiate themselves, in many ways, including through reading courtly literature such as the very popular chivalric romances of the 12th century. This romanticised Chivalric Revival manifested itself in a number of ways, including the pas darmes, round table and emprise, there are many thousands of accounts of pas darmes during this period. One notable and special account is that of Suero de Quiñones who in 1433 established the Passo Honroso at the bridge in Castile. This road was used by all over Europe on the way to shrine at Santiago de Compostela. Suero and ten knights promised to fight 300 times before leaving the pas darmes and he and his men fought for over a month, an account of which is left to us in great detail by town notary Don Luis Alonso Luengo, who kept a detailed first-hand chronicle. After 166 battles Suero and his men were so injured they could not continue, Suero de Quiñones became legendary in Spanish history and was mentioned in Don Quixote, the 1605 satire on the sort of romantic chivalry out of touch with reality. Parure pudeur étiquette, sous la direction de Olivier Burgelin, Philippe Perrot et Marie-Thérèse Basse, sébastien Nadot, Joutes, emprises et pas darmes en Bourgogne, Castille et France, 1428-1470, thèse de doctorat soutenue à lEHESS Paris en avril 2009. Chevaliers et tournois au Moyen Age, Editions autrement, Paris,2010, brian R. Price, What is Pas dArmes. Academy of European Medieval Martial Arts, Toronto, Canada
31.
Chivalric romance
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As a literary genre of high culture, romance or chivalric romance is a type of prose and verse narrative that was popular in the aristocratic circles of High Medieval and Early Modern Europe. Popular literature also drew on themes of romance, but with ironic, satiric or burlesque intent. Still, the image of medieval is more influenced by the romance than by any other medieval genre, and the word medieval evokes knights, distressed damsels, dragons. Originally, romance literature was written in Old French, Anglo-Norman, Occitan, and Provençal, during the early 13th century, romances were increasingly written as prose. In later romances, particularly those of French origin, there is a tendency to emphasize themes of courtly love. Unlike the later form of the novel and like the chansons de geste, the earliest forms were invariably in verse, but the 15th century saw many in prose, often retelling the old, rhymed versions. Many influences are clear in the forms of chivalric romance, the epics of Charlemagne, unlike such ones as Beowulf, already had feudalism rather than the tribal loyalties, this was to continue in romances. The romance form is distinguished from the epics of the Middle Ages by the changes of the 12th century. This occurred regardless of congruity to the material, Alexander the Great featured as a fully feudal king. Chivalry was treated as continuous from Roman times, historical figures reappeared, reworked, in romance. The entire Matter of France derived from known figures, and suffered somewhat because their descendents had an interest in the tales that were told of their ancestors, unlike the Matter of Britain. Hereward the Wakes early life appeared in chronicles as the embellished, romantic adventures of an exile, complete with rescuing princess, fulk Fitzwarin, an outlaw in King Johns day, has his historical background a minor thread in the episodic stream of romantic adventures. The earliest medieval romances dealt heavily with themes from folklore, which diminished over time, morgan le Fay never loses her name, but in Le Morte dArthur, she studies magic rather than being inherently magical. Still, fairies never completely vanished from the tradition, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight is a late tale, but the Green Knight himself is an otherworldly being. In Italy there is the story called Il Bel Gherardino and it is the most ancient prototype of an Italian singing fairy tale by an anonymous Tuscan author. It tells the story of a young Italian knight, depleted for its magnanimitas, other examples of Italian poetry tales are Antonio Puccis literature, Gismirante, Il Brutto di Bretagna or Brito di Bretagna and Madonna Lionessa. Another work of a second anonymous Italian author that is worth mentioning is Istoria di Tre Giovani Disperati e di Tre Fate, some romances, such as Apollonius of Tyre, show classical pagan origins. Tales of the Matter of Rome in particular may be derived from such works as the Alexander Romance
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Knight
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A knight is a person granted an honorary title of knighthood by a monarch or other political leader for service to the monarch or country, especially in a military capacity. Historically, in Europe, knighthood was conferred upon mounted warriors, during the High Middle Ages, knighthood was considered a class of lower nobility. By the Late Middle Ages, the rank had become associated with the ideals of chivalry, often, a knight was a vassal who served as a fighter for a lord, with payment in the form of land holdings. The lords trusted the knights, who were skilled in battle on horseback, since the early modern period, the title of knight is purely honorific, usually bestowed by a monarch, as in the British honours system, often for non-military service to the country. The modern female equivalent in the United Kingdom is Dame, furthermore, Geoffroi de Charnys Book of Chivalry expounded upon the importance of Christian faith in every area of a knights life. This novel explored the ideals of knighthood and their incongruity with the reality of Cervantes world, in the late medieval period, new methods of warfare began to render classical knights in armour obsolete, but the titles remained in many nations. Some orders of knighthood, such as the Knights Templar, have become the subject of legend, each of these orders has its own criteria for eligibility, but knighthood is generally granted by a head of state or monarch to selected persons to recognise some meritorious achievement. This linkage is reflected in the etymology of chivalry, cavalier, the special prestige accorded to mounted warriors finds a parallel in the furusiyya in the Muslim world, and the Greek hippeus and Roman eques of classical antiquity. The word knight, from Old English cniht, is a cognate of the German word Knecht and this meaning, of unknown origin, is common among West Germanic languages. Middle High German had the phrase guoter kneht, which also meant knight, the Anglo-Saxon cniht had no connection to horsemanship, the word referred to any servant. A rādcniht, riding-servant, was a servant delivering messages or patrolling coastlines on horseback, a narrowing of the generic meaning servant to military follower of a king or other superior is visible by 1100. The specific military sense of a knight as a warrior in the heavy cavalry emerges only in the Hundred Years War. The verb to knight appears around 1300, and, from the same time, an Equestrian was a member of the second highest social class in the Roman Republic and early Roman Empire. This class is often translated as knight, the medieval knight, both Greek ἳππος and Latin equus are derived from the Proto-Indo-European word root ekwo-, horse. In the later Roman Empire, the classical Latin word for horse, equus, was replaced in common parlance by the vulgar Latin caballus, sometimes thought to derive from Gaulish caballos. From caballus arose terms in the various Romance languages cognate with the English cavalier, Italian cavaliere, Spanish caballero, French chevalier, Portuguese cavaleiro, the Germanic languages have terms cognate with the English rider, German Ritter, and Dutch and Scandinavian ridder. These words are derived from Germanic rīdan, to ride, in turn derived from the Proto-Indo-European root reidh-, in ancient Rome there was a knightly class Ordo Equestris from which European knighthood may have been derived. Some portions of the armies of Germanic peoples who occupied Europe from the 3rd century AD onward had been mounted, in the Early Medieval period any well-equipped horseman could be described as a knight, or miles in Latin
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Tiltyard
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A tiltyard was an enclosed courtyard for jousting. Tiltyards were a feature of Tudor era castles and palaces. Henry VIII also constructed a tiltyard at Hampton Court Palace, where one of the towers, the Tiltyard at Whitehall was a permanent structure and apparently had room for 10-12,000 spectators, accommodated in conditions which ranged from the spartan to the opulent. The aristocrats who attended wore elaborate costumes designed and made for themselves, another tiltyard used during the reign of Queen Elizabeth existed at Kenilworth Castle in Warwickshire. It was constructed on top of one of the dams that formed part of the defences between the outer bailey and the bridgehead. Today it forms the main walkway to the castle, a modern tiltyard was constructed outside the Royal Armouries in Leeds for demonstrations of medieval martial pursuits, including jousting reenactment and falconry
34.
Quintain (jousting)
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The common object was a shield or board on a pole, although a mannequin was sometimes used. It was not unknown for an armoured knight to act as the target. This game was open to all, popular young men of all classes. While the use of horses aided in training for the joust, as late as the 18th century running at the quintain survived in English rural districts. In one variation of the pastime the quintain was a tun filled with water, a later form was a post with a cross-piece, from which was suspended a ring, which the horseman endeavoured to pierce with his lance while at full speed. This sport, called tilting at the ring, was popular in England and on the continent of Europe in the 17th century and is still practised as a feature of military. A form of known as štehvanje is practiced by Slovenes in the Gail Valley in Austrian Carinthia. The cross piece of it is broad at one end, and pierced full of holes, the pastime was for the youth on horseback to run at it as fast as possible, and hit the broad part in his career with much force. The great design of sport was, to try the agility both of horse and man, and to break the board, which whoever did, he was accounted chief of the day’s sport. A replica quintain was used in the 1980s for tilting on horseback during the annual May Day celebrations, responsibility for upkeep and maintenance of the Quintain now rests with the Parish Council. The Offham Quintain is a Grade II listed monument and further details are given in the Images of England entry, barker, Juliet The Tournament in England, 1100–1400, UK, Boydell Press ISBN 0-85115-450-6
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Froissart's Chronicles
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Froissarts Chronicles are a prose chronicle of the Hundred Years War written in the 14th century by Jean Froissart. For centuries the Chronicles have been recognized as the expression of the chivalric culture of 14th-century England. Froissarts work is perceived as being of importance to informed understandings of the European 14th century. Froissart is sometimes repetitive or covers seemingly insignificant subjects, nevertheless, his battle descriptions are lively and engaging. For the earlier periods Froissart based his work on other existing chronicles, although Froissart may never have been in a battle, he visited Sluys in 1386 to see the preparations for an invasion of England. Sir Walter Scott once remarked that Froissart had marvellous little sympathy for the villain churls, nevertheless, Froissart was not indifferent to the wars effects on the rest of society. The Chronicles are an extensive work, with their almost 1.5 million words. Few modern complete editions have been published, but the text was printed from the late 15th century onwards, enguerrand de Monstrelet continued the Chronicles to 1440, while Jean de Wavrin incorporated large parts of it in his own work. In the 15th and 16th centuries the Chronicles were translated into Dutch, English, Latin, Spanish, Italian, the text of Froissarts Chronicles is preserved in more than 150 manuscripts, many of which are illustrated, some extensively. Jean Froissart came from Valenciennes in the County of Hainaut, situated in the tip of the Holy Roman Empire. He appears to have gained his living as a writer, and was a notable French poet in his day, at least by the end of his life he had taken holy orders, and received a profitable benefice. He first wrote a chronicle for the English queen Philippa of Hainault. In particular he denounced his earlier rhyming chronicle, whose accuracy, he admitted, had not always been as good as such important matters as war and knightly prowess require. Froissart also used texts, such as the Life of the Black Prince by Chandos Herald. He furthermore inserted some official documents into his text, including the act of hommage by King Edward III to the French King Philip VI and the English version of the Peace Treaty of Calais. Jean of Hainault had also taken part in several of the battles of the Hundred Years War, first on the English side. His grandson, Guy II, Count of Blois later became the patron of Froissarts Chronicles. Jean Le Bel himself, throughout his work expressed great admiration for Edward III, comparison of Froissarts Book I with Le Bels work shows that for the early parts of the Chronicles Froissart often directly copied and developed very large parts of Le Bels text
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Walhaz
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*Walhaz is a reconstructed Proto-Germanic word, meaning foreigner, stranger, Roman, Romance-speaker, or Celtic-speaker. The term was used by the ancient Germanic peoples to describe inhabitants of the former Western Roman Empire, the form of these words imply that they are descended from a Proto-Germanic form *walhiska-. It is attested in the Roman Iron Age from an inscription on one of the Tjurkö bracteates, *Walhaz is almost certainly derived from the name of the tribe which was known to the Romans as Volcae and to the Greeks as Οὐόλκαι / Ouólkai. This tribe occupied territory neighbouring that of the Germanic people and seem to have referred to by the proto-Germanic name *Walhaz. It is assumed that this term referred to the Celtic Volcae. Subsequently, this term *Walhōz was applied rather indiscriminately to the neighbours of the Germanic people, as evidenced in geographic names such as Walchgau. These southern neighbours, however, were already completely Romanised. Thus, Germanic speakers generalised this name first to all Celts, for instance, the historical German name for Trentino, the part of Tyrol with a Romance speaking majority, is Welschtirol, and the historical German name for Verona is Welschbern. Today, welsch is not in usage in German except in Switzerland and this term is used there not only in a historical context, but also as a somewhat pejorative word to describe Swiss speakers of Italian and French. In Central and Eastern Europe, the word for Latin peoples was borrowed from the Goths into Proto-Slavic some time before the 7th century, the first source using the word was the writings of Byzantine historian George Kedrenos in the mid-11th century. From the Slavs the term passed to other peoples, such as the Hungarians, Turks, over time, the term Vlach also acquired different meanings. The Polish words Włoch, Italian, and Włochy, Italy, and the Slovenian lah, in Hungarian, Oláh, referring to Romanians, Vlachok referring to Romanians/Vlachs, generally, Olasz, referring to Italians. In Serbo-Croatian and Bulgarian, Vlah – to Romanians or other Romanian/Vlach subgroup, also in Vlašić, the mountain in Bosnia and Herzegovina named after the Vlach shepherds that inhabited it. In Slovene, Laški, archaic name referring to Italians, it is also the name of several settlements in Slovenia, like Laško near Celje, Laško is also the old Slovene name for the area around Monfalcone and Ronchi in Italy, on the border with Slovenia. These names are linked to the presence of larger nuclei of Romance-speaking populations at the time where the Slavs settled the area in the 6th century, in English usage the words Gaul and Gaulish are used synonymously with Latin Gallia, Gallus and Gallicus. However the similarity of the names is coincidental, the English words are borrowed from French Gaule and Gaulois. Germanic w is regularly rendered with French gu / g, Gaule or Gaulle can hardly be derived from Latin Gallia, since g would become j before a, so the regular outcome of Latin Gallia would have been *Jaille in French. This also applies to the French name for Wales, which is le pays de Galles, in Welschnofen lived until the eighteenth century a Ladin community, while in Deutschnofen lived a German community
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Henry VIII of England
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Henry VIII was King of England from 21 April 1509 until his death. Henry was the second Tudor monarch, succeeding his father, Henry VII, Henry is best known for his six marriages and, in particular, his efforts to have his first marriage, to Catherine of Aragon, annulled. Despite his resulting excommunication, Henry remained a believer in core Catholic theological teachings, domestically, Henry is known for his radical changes to the English Constitution, ushering in the theory of the divine right of kings to England. Besides asserting the supremacy over the Church of England, he greatly expanded royal power during his reign. Charges of treason and heresy were commonly used to quash dissent, and he achieved many of his political aims through the work of his chief ministers, some of whom were banished or executed when they fell out of his favour. Thomas Wolsey, Thomas More, Thomas Cromwell, Richard Rich and his contemporaries considered Henry in his prime to be an attractive, educated, and accomplished king, and he has been described as one of the most charismatic rulers to sit on the English throne. He was an author and composer, as he aged, Henry became severely obese and his health suffered, contributing to his death in 1547. He is frequently characterised in his life as a lustful, egotistical, harsh. He was succeeded by his son Edward VI, born 28 June 1491 at the Palace of Placentia in Greenwich, London, Henry Tudor was the third child and second son of Henry VII and Elizabeth of York. Of the young Henrys six siblings, only three – Arthur, Prince of Wales, Margaret, and Mary – survived infancy and he was baptised by Richard Fox, the Bishop of Exeter, at a church of the Observant Franciscans close to the palace. In 1493, at the age of two, Henry was appointed Constable of Dover Castle and Lord Warden of the Cinque Ports. He was subsequently appointed Earl Marshal of England and Lord Lieutenant of Ireland at age three, and was inducted into the Order of the Bath soon after. The day after the ceremony he was created Duke of York, in May 1495, he was appointed to the Order of the Garter. Henry was given an education from leading tutors, becoming fluent in Latin and French. Not much is known about his early life – save for his appointments – because he was not expected to become king, as Duke of York, Henry used the arms of his father as king, differenced by a label of three points ermine. In 1502, Arthur died at the age of 15 of sweating sickness, Arthurs death thrust all his duties upon his younger brother, the 10-year-old Henry. After a little debate, Henry became the new Duke of Cornwall in October 1502, Henry VII gave the boy few tasks. Young Henry was strictly supervised and did not appear in public, as a result, the young Henry would later ascend the throne untrained in the exacting art of kingship
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John, Elector of Saxony
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Johann, Elector of Saxony, known as Johann the Steadfast or Johann the Constant, was Elector of Saxony from 1525 until 1532. He was a member of the House of Wettin, born in Meissen, He was the fifth of the seven children of Ernest, Elector of Saxony and Elisabeth of Bavaria. From 1486 onwards he was the heir presumptive of his childless brother Frederick the Wise, as his nickname The Steadfast indicates, he resolutely continued the policies of his brother toward protecting the progress of the Protestant Reformation. In 1527 the Lutheran Church was established as the church in Ernestine Saxony. He was a leader of the Schmalkaldic League of Protestant states formed in 1530 to protect the Reformation, after his death he was, like his brother Frederick, buried in the famous Castle Church in Wittenberg with a grave by Hans Vischer. He was succeeded by his eldest son Johann Frederick, in Torgau on 1 March 1500 Johann married firstly Sophie of Mecklenburg-Schwerin, daughter of Magnus II, Duke of Mecklenburg. They had one son, Johann Frederick I, Elector of Saxony, in Torgau on 13 November 1513 Johann married secondly Margaret of Anhalt-Köthen. They had four children, Maria, married on 27 February 1536 to Duke Philip I of Pomerania-Wolgast Margaret, married on 10 June 1536 to Hans Buser, John John Ernest, Duke of Saxe-Coburg
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Warhorse
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The first use of horses in warfare occurred over 5,000 years ago. The earliest evidence of horses ridden in warfare dates from Eurasia between 4000 and 3000 BC, a Sumerian illustration of warfare from 2500 BC depicts some type of equine pulling wagons. As formal cavalry tactics replaced the chariot, so did new training methods, and by 360 BC, the effectiveness of horses in battle was also revolutionized by improvements in technology, including the invention of the saddle, the stirrup, and later, the horse collar. Many different types and sizes of horse were used in war, the type used varied with whether the horse was being ridden or driven, and whether they were being used for reconnaissance, cavalry charges, raiding, communication, or supply. Throughout history, mules and donkeys as well as played a crucial role in providing support to armies in the field. Horses were well suited to the tactics of the nomadic cultures from the steppes of Central Asia. Several East Asian cultures made extensive use of cavalry and chariots, Muslim warriors relied upon light cavalry in their campaigns throughout North Africa, Asia, and Europe beginning in the 7th and 8th centuries AD. Europeans used several types of war horses in the Middle Ages, with the decline of the knight and rise of gunpowder in warfare, light cavalry again rose to prominence, used in both European warfare and in the conquest of the Americas. Battle cavalry developed to take on a multitude of roles in the late 18th century, Horse cavalry began to be phased out after World War I in favour of tank warfare, though a few horse cavalry units were still used into World War II, especially as scouts. By the end of World War II, horses were seen in battle. Today, formal battle ready horse cavalry units have almost disappeared, horses are still seen in use by organized armed fighters in Third World countries. Many nations still maintain small units of mounted riders for patrol and reconnaissance, horses are also used for historical reenactment of battles, law enforcement, and in equestrian competitions derived from the riding and training skills once used by the military. A fundamental principle of equine conformation is form to function, therefore, the type of horse used for various forms of warfare depended on the work performed, the weight a horse needed to carry or pull, and distance travelled. Weight affects speed and endurance, creating a trade-off, armour added protection, therefore, various cultures had different military needs. In some situations, one type of horse was favoured over all others. The average horse can carry up to approximately 30% of its body weight. While all horses can pull more than they can carry, the horses can pull varies widely, depending on the build of the horse, the type of vehicle, road conditions. Horses harnessed to a vehicle on a paved road can pull as much as eight times their weight
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Maximilian I, Holy Roman Emperor
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Maximilian I was King of the Romans from 1486 and Holy Roman Emperor from 1493 until his death, though he was never crowned by the Pope, as the journey to Rome was always too risky. He was the son of Frederick III, Holy Roman Emperor and he ruled jointly with his father for the last ten years of his fathers reign, from c.1483 to 1493. Charles father Philip died in 1506, so Charles succeeded Maximilian as Holy Roman Emperor in 1519, Maximilian was born at Wiener Neustadt on 22 March 1459. His father, Frederick III, Holy Roman Emperor, named him for an obscure saint whom Frederick believed had once warned him of imminent peril in a dream, in his infancy, he and his parents were besieged in Vienna by Albert of Austria. One source relates that, during the sieges bleakest days, the prince would wander about the castle garrison, begging the servants. The young prince was an excellent hunter, his hobby was the hunting for birds as a horse archer. The reigning duke of Burgundy, Charles the Bold, was the political opponent of Maximilians father Frederick III. After the Siege of Neuss, he was successful, the wedding between Maximilian and Mary took place on the evening of 16 August 1477. Maximilians wife had inherited the large Burgundian domains in France and the Low Countries upon her fathers death in the Battle of Nancy on 5 January 1477. Already before his coronation as the King of the Romans in 1486, Maximilian decided to secure this distant and extensive Burgundian inheritance to his family, the House of Habsburg, at all costs. Maximilian undertook the defence of his wifes dominions from an attack by Louis XI and defeated the French forces at Guinegate, the wedding contract between Maximilian and Mary stipulated that only the children of bride and groom had a right to inherit from each, not the surviving parent. Mary tried to bypass this rule with a promise to transfer territories as a gift in case of her death, but her plans were confounded. After Marys death in an accident on 27 March 1482 near the Wijnendale Castle, Maximilians aim was now to secure the inheritance to one of his and Marys children. Some of the Netherlander provinces were hostile to Maximilian, and they signed a treaty with Louis XI in 1482 that forced Maximilian to give up Franche-Comté and they openly rebelled twice in the period 1482–1492, attempting to regain the autonomy they had enjoined under Mary. Flemish rebels managed to capture Philip and even Maximilian himself, Maximilian continued to govern Marys remaining inheritance in the name of Philip the Handsome. After the regency ended, Maximilian and Charles VIII of France exchanged these two territories for Burgundy and Picardy in the Treaty of Senlis, thus a large part of the Netherlands stayed in the Habsburg patrimony. Maximilian was elected King of the Romans on 16 February 1486 in Frankfurt-am-Main at his fathers initiative and he became emperor of the Holy Roman Empire upon the death of his father in 1493. Much of Austria was under Hungarian rule when he took power, in 1490, Maximilian reconquered the territory and entered Vienna
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Barding
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During the late Middle Ages as armour protection for knights became more effective, their mounts became targets. Barding developed as a response to such events, the chanfron was designed to protect the horses face. Sometimes this included hinged cheek plates, a decorative feature common to many chanfrons is a rondel with a small spike. The chanfron was known as early as ancient Greece, but vanished from use in Europe until the twelfth century when metal plates replaced boiled leather as protection for war horses. The basic design of the chanfron remained stable until it became obsolete in the seventeenth century, a chanfron extended from the horses ears to its muzzle. In an open chanfron, the eyes received no protection, hinged extensions to cover the jowls were commonly used for jousting tournaments. The enigmatic Torrs pony-cap from Scotland appears to be a bronze chanfron from about the 2nd century BC, the criniere was a set of segmented plates that protected the horses neck. In full barding this consisted of two combinations of articulated lames that pivoted on loose rivets, one set of lames covered the mane and the other covered the neck. These connected to the peytral and the chanfron, light barding used only the upper lames. Three straps held the criniet in place around the neck and it is thought that thin metal was used for these plates, perhaps 22 gauge. Mail armor was often affixed to the crinet and wrapped about the neck for additional protection. The croupiere protected the horses hind quarters and it could be made from any combination of leather, mail, or plate armor. The flanchards, used to protect the flank, attached to the side of the saddle, then around the front or rear of the horse and these appear to have been metal plates riveted to leather or in some cases cuir bouilli armour. They sometimes had openings designed to allow the rider to use spurs, the peytral was designed to protect the chest of the horse, while the croupiere protected the rear. It sometimes stretched as far back as the saddle, barding was often used in conjunction with cloth covers known as caparisons. These coverings sometimes covered the entire horse from nose to tail and it is unclear from period illustrations how much metal defensive covering was used in conjunction. Textile covers may also be called barding, another commonly included feature of barding was protection for the reins, so they could not be cut. This could be metal plates riveted to them as seen in the images here, Horses in the Middle Ages Horses in warfare Destrier Courser Cataphract Broughton, Branford B
42.
Mark Twain
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Samuel Langhorne Clemens, better known by his pen name Mark Twain, was an American writer, humorist, entrepreneur, publisher, and lecturer. Among his novels are The Adventures of Tom Sawyer and its sequel, Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Twain was raised in Hannibal, Missouri, which later provided the setting for Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn. He served an apprenticeship with a printer and then worked as a typesetter and he later became a riverboat pilot on the Mississippi River before heading west to join Orion in Nevada. He referred humorously to his lack of success at mining, turning to journalism for the Virginia City Territorial Enterprise, the short story brought international attention and was even translated into classic Greek. His wit and satire, in prose and in speech, earned praise from critics and peers, and he was a friend to presidents, artists, industrialists, and European royalty. He filed for bankruptcy in the wake of financial setbacks. He chose to pay all his creditors in full, even though he had no legal responsibility to do so. Twain was born shortly after an appearance of Halleys Comet, and he predicted that he would go out with it as well and he was lauded as the greatest American humorist of his age, and William Faulkner called him the father of American literature. His parents met when his father moved to Missouri, and they were married in 1823, Twain was of Cornish, English, and Scots-Irish descent. Only three of his siblings survived childhood, Orion, Henry, and Pamela and his sister Margaret died when Twain was three, and his brother Benjamin died three years later. His brother Pleasant died at six months of age, slavery was legal in Missouri at the time, and it became a theme in these writings. His father was an attorney and judge, but he died of pneumonia in 1847, the next year, Twain left school after the fifth grade to become a printers apprentice. In 1851, he working as a typesetter, contributing articles and humorous sketches to the Hannibal Journal. He educated himself in libraries in the evenings, finding wider information than at a conventional school. Twain describes his boyhood in Life on the Mississippi, stating there was but one permanent ambition among his comrades. Pilot was the grandest position of all, the pilot, even in those days of trivial wages, had a princely salary – from a hundred and fifty to two hundred and fifty dollars a month, and no board to pay. As Twain describes it, the pilots prestige exceeded that of the captain, bixby took Twain on as a cub pilot to teach him the river between New Orleans and St. Louis for $500, payable out of Twains first wages after graduating. It was more than two years before he received his pilots license, piloting gave also him his pen name from mark twain, the leadsmans cry for a measured river depth of two fathoms, which was safe water for a steamboat
43.
A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court
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A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthurs Court is an 1889 novel by American humorist and writer Mark Twain. The book was originally titled A Yankee in King Arthurs Court, some early editions are titled A Yankee at the Court of King Arthur. He attempts to modernize the past, but in the end he is unable to prevent the death of Arthur and an interdict against him by the Catholic Church of the time, which grows fearful of his power. In addition, many passages are quoted directly from Sir Thomas Malorys Le Morte dArthur, a chapter on medieval hermits also draws from the work of William Edward Hartpole Lecky. After passing out from the blow, Hank describes waking up underneath an oak tree in a area of Camelot. Kay challenges him to a joust, which is quickly lost by the unweaponed, unarmored Hank as he scuttles up a tree, Kay captures Hank and leads him towards Camelot castle. Upon recognizing that he has time-traveled to the century, Hank realizes that he is the de facto smartest person on Earth. Hank is ridiculed at King Arthurs court for his strange appearance, by a stroke of luck, the date of the burning coincides with a historical solar eclipse in the year 528, of which Hank had learned in his earlier life. While in prison, he sends the boy he christens Clarence to inform the King that he will blot out the sun if he is executed. Hank believes the current date to be 20 June, however, it is actually the 21st when he makes his threat, when the King decides to burn him, the eclipse catches Hank by surprise. But he quickly uses it to his advantage and convinces the people that he caused the eclipse and he makes a bargain with the King, is released, and becomes the second most powerful person in the kingdom. Hank is given the position of minister to the King and is treated by all with the utmost fear. His celebrity brings him to be known by a new title, although the people fear him and he has his new title, Hank is still seen as somewhat of an equal. The people might grovel to him if he were a knight or some form of nobility, after being made the Boss, Hank learns about medieval practices and superstitions. Having superior knowledge, he is able to outdo the alleged sorcerers, at one point, soon after the eclipse, people began gathering, hoping to see Hank perform another miracle. Hank secretly manufactures gunpowder and a rod, plants explosive charges in Merlins tower, then places the lightning rod at the top. He then announces that he will call down fire from heaven and destroy Merlins tower. Of course, Merlins incantations fail utterly to prevent lightning striking the rod, triggering the explosive charges, Hank Morgan, in his position as Kings Minister, uses his authority and his modern knowledge to industrialize the country behind the back of the rest of the ruling class
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Crest (heraldry)
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A crest is a component of a heraldic display, consisting of the device borne on top of the helm. Originating in the decorative sculptures worn by knights in tournaments and, to an extent, battles. A normal heraldic achievement consists of the shield, above which is set the helm, on which sits the crest, the word crest derives from the Latin crista, meaning tuft or plume, perhaps related to crinis, hair. They first appeared in a context in the form of the metal fans worn by knights in the 12th and 13th centuries. These were primarily decorative, but may also have served a purpose by lessening or deflecting the blows of opponents weapons. These fans were generally of one colour, later evolving to repeat all or part of the arms displayed on the shield. The fan crest was developed by cutting out the figure displayed on it, to form a metal outline. Torses did not come into use in Britain until the 15th century, and are still uncommon on the Continent. Crests were also mounted on a furred cap known as a chapeau. By the 16th century the age of tournaments had ended, and their illustrated equivalents consequently began to be treated as simply two-dimensional pictures. In the same period, different helms began to be used for different ranks, sovereigns and knights helms faced forwards, whereas those of peers, torses also suffered artistically, being treated not as silken circlets, but as horizontal bars. Heraldry in general underwent something of a renaissance in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, crests are now generally not granted unless they could actually be used on a physical helm, and the rules about directions of helms are no longer rigidly observed. The use of crests was once restricted to those of tournament rank, i. e. knights and above and they are not generally used by women and clergymen, as they did not participate in war or tournaments and thus would not have helms on which to wear them. Some heraldists are also of the opinion that crests, as devices, are not suited for use by corporate bodies. This practice did not exist in Britain until the modern era, and arms with more than one crest are still rare. After the 16th century, it common for armigers to detach the crest and wreath from the helm. This led to the use of the term crest to mean arms. Unlike a badge, which can be used by any amount of relatives and retainers, a crest is personal to the armiger, and its use by others is considered usurpation
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Carousel
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A carousel, roundabout, or merry-go-round, is an amusement ride consisting of a rotating circular platform with seats for riders. This leads to one of the alternative American names, the galloper, other popular names are jumper, horseabout and flying horses. Sometimes, chairlike or bench seats are used and occasionally mounts can be shaped like aeroplanes or cars. The modern carousel emerged from early jousting traditions in Europe and the Middle East, knights would gallop in a circle while tossing balls from one to another, an activity that required great skill and horsemanship. This game was introduced to Europe at the time of the Crusades from earlier Byzantine, the word carousel originated from the Italian garosello and Spanish carosella. This early device was essentially a cavalry training mechanism, it prepared and strengthened the riders for actual combat as they wielded their swords at the mock enemies. By the 17th century, the balls had been dispensed with, cavalry spectacles that replaced medieval jousting, such as the ring-tilt, were popular in Italy and France. The game began to be played by commoners, and carousels soon sprung up at fairgrounds across Europe, at the Place du Carrousel in Paris, an early make believe carousel was set up with wooden horses for the children. By the early 18th century carousels were being built and operated at various fairs and gatherings in central Europe, makers included Heyn in Germany and Bayol in France. These early carousels had no platforms, the animals would hang from chains and they were often powered by animals walking in a circle or people pulling a rope or cranking. In the United Kingdom, merry-go-rounds usually turn clockwise, while in North America and Mainland Europe, by the mid-19th century the platform carousel was developed, the animals and chariots were fixed to a circular floor that would suspend from a centre pole and rotate around. These carousels were called dobbies and were operated manually by the operator or by ponies, in mid-19th century England, the carousel became a popular fixture at fairs. The first steam-powered mechanical roundabout, invented by Thomas Bradshaw, appeared at the Aylsham Fair in about 1861, the platform served as a position guide for the bottom of the pole and as a place for people to walk or other stationary animals or chariots to be placed. He called this ride the Platform Gallopers and he also developed the platform-slide which allowed the mounts to swing out concentrically as the carousel built up speed. Fairground organs were often present when these machines operated, eventually electric motors were installed and electric lights added, giving the carousel its classic look. These mechanical innovations came at a time, when increased prosperity meant that more people had time for leisure and spare money to spend on entertainment. It was in this context that the modern fairground ride was born. In his 1902 Catalogue for Roundabouts he claimed to have. patented and placed upon the all the principal novelties that have delighted the many thousands of pleasure seekers at home
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Eglinton Tournament of 1839
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The Eglinton Tournament of 1839 was a re-enactment of a medieval joust and revel held in Scotland on Friday 30 August. It was funded and organized by Archibald, Earl of Eglinton, the Queen of Beauty was Georgiana, Duchess of Somerset. Many distinguished visitors took part, including Prince Louis Napoleon, the future Emperor of the French, the Tournament was a deliberate act of Romanticism, and drew 100,000 spectators. It is primarily now for the ridicule poured on it by the Whigs. Even on Wednesday, when the procession was seen to the greatest possible disadvantage, the preparations, and the many works of art commissioned for or inspired by the Eglinton Tournament, had an effect on public feeling and the course of 19th-century Gothic revivalism. Its ambition carried over to events such as the lavish Tournament of Brussels in 1905, features of the tournament were actually inspired by Walter Scotts novel Ivanhoe, it was attempting to be a living re-enactment of the literary romances. While others made a profit, Lord Eglinton had to absorb losses, the Earls granddaughter, Viva Montgomerie recalled in her memoirs that he had spent most of the wealth of the estate. The Gothic Revival and the rise of Romanticism of the late 18th, medieval-style jousts, for example, were regularly held in Sweden between 1777 and 1800. Gothic novels, such as The Castle of Otranto, by Horace Walpole, Walpole himself was one of the first in England to renovate his mansion into a mock-Gothic castle, Strawberry Hill. Medieval culture was admired as an antidote to the modern enlightenment. Plays and theatrical works perpetuated the romanticism of knights, castles, caspar David Friedrich of Germany painted magnificent Gothic ruins and spiritual allegories. Jane Austen wrote her novel Northanger Abbey as a satire on romantic affectation, the price for Hotspurs release was the building of the castle of Polnoon in Eaglesham, Renfrewshire for the Montgomeries. In 1838 Whig Prime Minister Lord Melbourne announced that the coronation of Queen Victoria would not include the traditional medieval-style banquet in Westminster Hall, king William IV had cancelled his banquet to prevent a repeat. Critics referred to Victorias slimmed-down coronation scornfully as The Penny Crowning, despite attempts to achieve economies, contemporary accounts point out that Victorias coronation in fact cost £20,000 more than that of George IV. Nevertheless, her coronation did feature an innovation, the procession from the palace to Westminster Abbey, obeisance to the past was in 1839 was not just a fad, for some, it was an urgent need. On 4 August 1838, the Court Journal printed a rumour that the Earl of Eglinton, was going to host a great jousting tournament at his castle in Scotland. At first the suggestion was that games would be held at the next private race meeting at Eglinton. In autumn of 1838 one-hundred and fifty prospective knights met in the showroom of Samuel Pratt, many backed out when they realised the astronomical costs and difficulties, but about forty were determined to try regardless
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