medieval – Book and Sword

Cross-Post: Deeds of Arms Series

Until Monday 2 October, the Deeds of Arms series from Freelance Academy Press in Ilinois is on sale for 30% off (about USD 19 per volume). This is a collection of translations of sources about formal combats in front of an audience in western Europe in the fourteenth and fifteenth century. In an earlier life... Continue reading: Cross-Post: Deeds of Arms Series

Tlusty on Bearing Swords in the Later Middle Ages

the cover of B. Ann Tlusty's book "The Martial Ethic in Early Modern Germany" with a painting of two men in doublets and hose fighting with swords while a man behind a desk hangs his head in his hands

A classic problem in social history goes like this: in the thirteenth century CE, the heaviest weapon that was commonly worn in European towns was a dagger or long knife with a blade up to 30 cm long. By the sixteenth century CE, towns were full of men wearing swords, particularly in the British Isles, the Low Countries, Germany, and Bohemia (in Italy and Spain wearing swords may have been restricted to gentlemen). How and when did this change happen? This has caught the attention of academics because it is linked to the civilizing process, state formation, and the monopoly on violence and those were fashionable at universities in the twentieth century. Back when I was in contact with them, the people who study German fencing from the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries tell people that one book shows that medieval Germans wore swords everywhere just like people in the sixteenth century: B. Ann Tlusty, The Martial Ethic in Early Modern Germany: Civic Duty and the Right of Arms (Palgrave Macmillan: 2011). What does it actually say about medieval law?

Cross-Post: Chris Dobson’s “Beaten Black and Blue”

Armour scholar Chris Dobson has released a new book: Beaten Black and Blue: The Myth of the Medieval Knight in Shining Armour. This will be a limited edition like an academic monograph to make sure its available for armour scholars centuries to come. I have ordered a copy.

A4 Format printed hardback, 322 pages,
376 illustrations, almost all colour.
£79.95 GBP plus shipping.
Website https://renaissancedissident.com/medieval-armour-colour-finishes.html
Information booklet https://renaissancedissident.com/pdfs/Beaten%20Black%20and%20Blue%20Leaflet.pdf

John of Garland on Satraps and Satrapies

a harbour with a rubble shore revetted with concrete blocks in the foreground and a low shore with a mix of human-sized buuldings and towers across the water — Staring across the Inner Harbour of Victoria, BC at the former site of Capitol Iron (at one time a shipbreaker which recycled parts of the WW II Canadian Navy). Photo by Sean Manning July 2023

I got a blog post (and a sentence in a scholarly encyclopedia) out of what Niccolo Machiavelli thought about the fall of the Persian empire. I found another comment by the medieval scholar John of Garland who was active from c. 1220 to 1252.

Sir Charles Oman Missed This Too

One of the most frustrating things about Charles Oman is that he ignores when his medieval sources were alluding to famous ancient texts. At the battle of Benevento in 1266, the army of Charles of Anjou crossed the Apennines in February only to find themselves trapped between the mountains and the swollen River Calore with Manfred of Sicily and his army on the other side. Charles’ men were already reduced to eating fallen pack animals, and it was hard to see how they could go forward or back. But then fortune intervened:

Ricordano Malaspina wonders why Manfred crossed the River Calore at all since if he had waited a day or two, King Charles and his people would have been killed without a blow of a sword through lack of vittles (columns 1002, 1003). Oman wonders whether Manfred was worried about treachery or desertion, and asks whether “perhaps in the spirit of the mediaeval knight, he preferred to beat his adversary by the sword rather than hunger.” But any attentive reader in the 13th century would have seen that beating the enemy with hunger rather than the sword is a strategic principle from the third book of Vegetius on military matters. He mentions it three times: 3.3.1, 3.9.8., 3.26.32. It seems to me that Malaspina was just as unimpressed with Manfred’s strategic decisions as Oman was.
snippet cut from a forthcoming piece in Medieval World (Karwansaray Bv)

Some Thoughts on “Armour of the English Knight, Volume 3”

Tobias Capwell, Armour of the English Knight, Volume 3: Continental Armour in England, 1435-1500 (Thomas Del Mar Ltd.: Great Britain, 2022) only for sale from the publisher

My copy of Armour of the English Knight, Volume 3 arrived in December 2022. I hope to publish a review somewhere which will count on my CV, so I will be brief here.

Turning Victory into Conquest

a colour photo of a piece of wood 85 cm long and 2.5 cm thick clamped in a vice being sawed lengthwise — I am not conquering this offcut of wood as I turn it into two laths for a scabbard core but I hope to get something lasting and valuable out of it

In 2023, Assyriologists specialized in the Achaemenid and Neo-Assyrian empires such as Christopher W. Jones and historians of warfare since 1500 such as Wayne E. Lee are interested in the mechanics of conquest. In the USA this may grow out of their failed adventures in Iraq and Afghanistan (link), while in Europe its part of the attempt to build support for the study of the ancient world. This post contains a bibliography on how people try to turn military success into lasting gains, whether by conquering and governing new subjects, terrorizing the inhabitants into giving periodic tribute, depopulating an area and settling it with their own people, or carrying off slaves and precious goods.

Cimabue’s Painting “Christ Mocked”

a cracked and dirty painting of Christ mocked. The crowd wear a mix of Roman and medieval clothing, and two carry sheathed swords in hand. The background is gilt. — “Christ Mocked” by Cimabue, a panel painting on poplar wood. Public domain photo care of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Cimabue_Christ_Mocked.jpg

In January the Scholarly Skater reminded me of the panel painting of Christ mocked found in France and attributed to Cimabue of Florence who died in or after 1302. The panel is not in the best shape, but if you have seen the Maciejowski Bible or some 13th century French sculpture its nothing special. Panel paintings from the 13th century are rare but not as rare as many things. So why the fuss?

Southern Scandinavia is Weird

the cover of Martin Rundkvist's book "Mead Halls of the Eastern Geats" with a photo of a reconstructed mead-hall on a snowy winter day

Martin Rundkvist, Mead-halls of the Eastern Geats: Elite Settlements and Political Geography AD 375–1000 in Östergötland, Sweden (Kungl. Vitterhets Historie och Antikvitets Akademien: Stockholm, Sweden, 2011) academia.edu

The first time I read Martin Rundkvist’s book on early medieval southern Sweden, I realized that Sweden is weird. That is because for the past two or three thousand years, the area has never been conquered or occupied by foreigners bringing an alien language and culture. The closest things to that are the arrival of Christianity and whatever happened in northern Scandinavia between Indo-European speakers, Finno-Urgic speakers, and whoever was there before them. I struggle to think of anywhere else in the world which could say the same. Norway got invaded by outsiders once in 1940, and Denmark sometimes had trouble with (Latin Christian) Carolingians, British, or Prussians, but basically wars in southern Scandinavia were between Southern Scandinavians whom the proverbial Martian would have a hard time telling apart.

On Thud and Blunder (1978)

a screenshot from a historical drama. The clothes are dark browns, greys, and blacks with light blue hose, the shields are black and faded yellow, the tent is blue-white, and the sky is a faded blue — In medieval films and TV, bright colours are forbidden on the battlefield and colours other than black, grey, brown, and blue are strongly discouraged. A clip from a Flemish historical drama on the Battle of the Golden Spurs from 1302 (*The Story of Flanders* / *Het Verhaal van Vlaanderen* (Bert Ceulemans and Filip Lenaerts directors, 2023)

Something elsewhere made me think of Poul Anderson’s classic essay “On Thud and Blunder” about sword-and-sorcery authors who don’t bother to consider the how and why as well as the what. I wanted to check when it was first published and link to the online text.

It was first published in Andrew J. Offutt (ed.), Swords Against Darkness III (Zebra Books, 1978) and reprinted online by the Science Fiction & Fantasy Writers’ Association. Anderson’s essay was the predecessor to Diana Wyne Jones’ book The Tough Guide to Fantasyland (first edition 1996, revised 2006 – Wikipedia).