The Impenetrable Castle of Krak des Chevaliers Was Captured With A Single Sheet of Paper
A hulking edifice of sun-bleached stone, Krak des Chevaliers loomed against a clear blue sky. How many men had died to hold those walls, and…
Building Armies in the Harsh World of Medieval England
Recruiting an army could be a difficult business in the Middle Ages. Most people’s lives consisted of farming small patches of land. When people didn’t…
The beginning of the end for the Teutonic Knights, Grunwald 1410
For more than two hundred years the might of the Order of Teutonic Knights had been steadily growing. It was forged in 1190, in the…
5 Of The Bloodiest and Most Devastating Sieges We Tend To Forget
The rebel army of Yan fought against the Chinese Tang army in an attempt to take the Suiyang territory. The Suiyang city was under the…
Last Battle Of The Vikings On The West Coast Of Scotland
It was the age of the Great Mongol Khans. It was the age of Byzantium, of the Holy Roman Empire. The wars of the Reconquista…
Arab Women Shame Their Fleeing Men Back Towards the Fight At The Battle of Yarmouk
Most people are familiar with the general history of the Arab expansion after the death of Mohammad. The Arabs didn’t sit idly in Saudi Arabia,…
The Viking Mercenaries of the Byzantine Empire – The Varangian Guard
The Byzantines Hired Viking Mercenaries as Guards The relationship between the Byzantine Emperors and their Varangian Guard was a complex affair. The Byzantines were first…
The One of the Bloodiest Medieval Wars Was Fought Because Of A Bucket
In 1325, two armies clashed near what is today the Italian town of Castello di Serravalle in the region of Emilia-Romagna. It was the largest…
How Artillery Evolved During The Brutal And Merciless 100 Years War
The Hundred Years War (1337-1453) saw the first appearances of gunpowder artillery in English and French warfare. These fearsome weapons, which had been largely unused…
Nine Factors That Caused The First Crusade To Happen
On the surface, the First Crusade looks like something with a simple cause – the hatred of one religious group for another. In reality, the…
7 Types of Medieval Armor – From Quilted Cloth to Full Steel Plate
More than any other artifact of war, armor dominates visual images of medieval Europe. From the chainmail carefully stitched onto each warrior in the Bayeux…
Siege of Vienna: Led by a Mercenary, This Desperate Army Turned the Tide on the Ottoman Empire
For four hundred years, the Crusades had seen European powers take war deep into lands far from home, under the banner of Christianity. The clash…