Issue 11 - 2024

Medieval Warfare Magazine

Warfare in the age of kings and castles

Medieval Warfare Magazine1 min read
Medieval World Culture & Conflict Magazine
Editor-in-chief: Jasper Oorthuys Editor: Alice Isabella Sullivan Image research: Lauren van Zoonen Design & media: Christy Beall Artwork advisers: Robert W. Jones (Advanced Studies in England, Franklin and Marshall College), Robert C. Woosnam-Savage
Medieval Warfare Magazine2 min read
Editorial
Charles IV of Bohemia (1316–1378, r. 1346-1378) was King of the Romans and of Bohemia, as well as Holy Roman Emperor. Born Wenceslaus to parents connected with the notable Luxembourg and Přemyslid dynasties, he took on the name Charles to honor his F
Medieval Warfare Magazine1 min read
Evidence For Viking Dental Care
Viking Age teeth from Sweden bear witness to surprisingly advanced dentistry. The study, carried out at the University of Gothenburg, examined 3,293 teeth from 171 individuals among the population of Varnhem in Västergötland, Sweden. In 2005 uncovere
Medieval Warfare Magazine1 min read
DNA Used To Discover Origins Of Medieval Chess Set
Researchers in Poland have discovered new details about a nearly complete medieval chess set. By obtaining DNA from pieces of the Sandomierz chess set, they could determine what animals were used to make them. Discovered in 1962 during an archaeologi
Medieval Warfare Magazine2 min read
‘Govan Warrior’ Discovered In Scotland
Archaeologists working in the Scottish city of Glasgow have discovered an early medieval carved stone of a warrior figure. Dubbed the ‘Govan Warrior’, it is a unique object, even compared to other medieval stone artifacts found at the Govan Old Churc
Medieval Warfare Magazine1 min read
Early Medieval Saddle Discovered In Mongolia
In April 2015, looters sacked an ancient cave burial at a site called Urd Ulaan Uneet high within the Altai Mountains of western Mongolia. When police apprehended the criminals, they uncovered, among other artifacts, an elegantly carved saddle made f
Medieval Warfare Magazine1 min read
The Secrets Of A Queen's Lost Letters
Coded letters penned by Mary Queen of Scots while she was imprisoned in England by her cousin Queen Elizabeth I have been uncovered by a team of international codebreakers. The contents of the letters were believed to have been lost for centuries. Th
Medieval Warfare Magazine2 min read
A Prehistoric Artefact In A Fifteenth-century Painting
Researchers believe that an object in a fifteenth-century painting is actually a handaxe that could be as much as 500,000 years old. Half a million years ago, our human ancestors began to use large, stone tools known as “Acheulean handaxes” to cut me
Medieval Warfare Magazine1 min read
On The Cover
A detail from the wall painting in the Chapel of Our Lady from Karlštejn Castle, showing Charles IV placing a relic of the True Cross (i.e. the cross on which Christ was crucified) into the large gold and gemencrusted Bohemian Reliquary Cross. The pa
Medieval Warfare Magazine8 min read
Tsushima Island
As the thirteenth century drew to a close, Northeast Asia looked very different than it had for the previous millennium. The Mongols had exploded across the region in shocking fashion, altering the geo-political landscape in a way that sent ripples w
Medieval Warfare Magazine1 min read
The Imjin War
In 1592, with Hideyoshi Toyotomi having unified Japan into a single, centrally run state, plans were underway for a new invasion. This time, from Japan to the Korean Peninsula. Tsushima Island would once again find itself in the way. Hideyoshi's init
Medieval Warfare Magazine3 min read
It's In The Mail
Armour was essential to the identity of the medieval knight. In medieval sources, they are often referred to as armati or loricati – ‘armoured men’ or ‘mail-clad men'. Knights, and those with the income of a ‘knight's fee’ (traditionally £20 per year
Medieval Warfare Magazine9 min read
The Battle Of Adrianople
Geoffrey of Villehardouin recorded how Comte Louis “immediately started off in pursuit of the Comans” outside of Adrianople. Perceptions of cowardice on the field of battle could prove the ruin of a medieval lord, but in the case of Baldwin of Fland
Medieval Warfare Magazine2 min read
The ‘Roman Slayer'
When Basil II destroyed and absorbed the Bulgarian empire in 1014, the victory earned him the title of the ‘Bulgar Slayer.’ Almost two hundred years later, the ruler of a restored Bulgaria dubbed himself the ‘Roman slayer’ in revenge. It was a title
Medieval Warfare Magazine3 min read
Charles IV Of Bohemia
Born to a father connected to the Luxembourg dynasty (the royal family of the Holy Roman Empire) and a mother tied to the Přemyslid dynasty (the royal family of Bohemia), Charles had only a minimum of Czech blood. But this did not impede him from bec
Medieval Warfare Magazine8 min read
A New Charles
Charles united the dynasty of a powerful Central European country with the dynasty that had previously attained the crown of the Holy Roman Empire. Beginning in the late tenth century, the Bohemian lands – traditionally including Bohemia and Moravia
Medieval Warfare Magazine2 min read
The Bohemian Crown Jewels
The Crown Jewels of Bohemia – the coronation regalia of Bohemian monarchs – are preserved in a special chamber in Saint Vitus Cathedral. Modeled on the coronation regalia of the Holy Roman Emperors, equally lavish and symbolically meaningful, the Cro
Medieval Warfare Magazine5 min read
The Charles Bridge
After his death, Charles IV's embalmed body was on view in Prague Castle for eleven days. Then, on 11 December 1378, a city-wide procession began, which lasted four days. The emperor's body made its way from Hradčany through the Lesser Town and onto
Medieval Warfare Magazine3 min read
A Ruler's Dual Identity
The introduction to the Vita Karoli, the autobiography of Charles IV, opens up the theme of the moral evaluation of an individual's performance in the world: “To my successors who sit upon my double throne: recognize the dual nature of life on earth
Medieval Warfare Magazine4 min read
CULTURAL & POLITICAL SUPERPOWERS
Charles became king of Bohemia (1346), king of the Romans (1346), and later Holy Roman Emperor (1355), and promoted a concept of royal power based on respect for the sacred. Moreover, in the footsteps of his father, Charles combined the territorial g
Medieval Warfare Magazine2 min read
Charles IV And Historiography
The rule of Charles IV could be characterized as a ‘golden age’ of medieval Bohemian historiography. The importance of the past and its instrumentalisation in the context of regal and dynastic representation were key aspects of his ruling style. Ther
Medieval Warfare Magazine2 min read
Charles IV As Knight And Commander
Charles IV of Bohemia was a peaceful king, diplomat, builder, and collector of religious relics; not at all a knight and commander like his father, John of Luxembourg. During the national revival of the nineteenth century, Czech historians reinforced
Medieval Warfare Magazine5 min read
The Likenesses Of Charles IV
A double portrait of Charles IV and his wife Anna of Świdnica holding up a reliquary in the Chapel of Saint Catherine at Karlštejn Castle. Throughout his reign, Charles's likeness was used to convey various political, spiritual, and ideological messa
Medieval Warfare Magazine8 min read
Give Point!
In February 1266, factions backed by the emperor and the pope were fighting for control of the Kingdom of Sicily and its lands in the Italian peninsula. The pope had called Count Charles of Anjou to lead an army into Italy, and the usurper Manfred, k
Medieval Warfare Magazine1 min read
Latin And Translation
The proficiency of Latin among medieval writers varied widely. But the writers who could write the kind of Latin that Cicero or Augustine wrote had been trained to imitate ancient writers. Christian monks copied pagan poets because those poets were f
Medieval Warfare Magazine7 min readIslam
Creating The Quran
The Great Mosque of Sana'a in Yemen has preserved one of the earliest manuscripts of the Quran, dating to the seventh century. What makes a Muslim a good Muslim? Once the Arabs ruled the world from the Atlantic to Persia, this became an important que
Medieval Warfare Magazine6 min read
The Turtle's Husband Or The Legend Of Urashima The Fisherman
You might already be familiar with this story. Urashima Taro is a long-standing and popular Japanese fairy tale. Even if you are not, you are probably familiar with another story of a person who encounters an animal who turns out to be a human in dis
Medieval Warfare Magazine3 min read
Reviews
After coming to the end of any great work of the imagination it is hard not to ask, “What now?” One option is to become just as obsessed with how the book or movie or piece of music was made. Tom Shippey has already written a history of Tolkien's Lor
Medieval Warfare Magazine3 min read
Victory In The East
Victory in the East: A Military History of the First Crusade By John France ISBN: 978-0521589871 Cambridge University Press, 1997 $37.99 (paperback) www.cambridge.org The First Crusade was a military undertaking greater than any of its participants h
Medieval Warfare Magazine3 min read
Medieval World readings CHARLES IV OF BOHEMIA
Prague: The Crown of Bohemia, 1347–1437 Edited by Barbara Drake Boehm and Jirí Fajt Yale University Press, 2005 ISBN: 978-0300111385 Autobiography of Emperor Charles IV and his Legend of St Wenceslas Edited by Balázs Nagy Central European University

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