HIST 192 Discussion Materials (Fall 2018 – Week 14)

Warfare and Siege

Tuesday:

Readings:

Pounds, pp. 113-21 (“castles in medieval warfare”)

Fulk of Chartres: The Capture of  Jerusalem, 1099:  http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/source/fulk2.asp

Warfare Between England and Scotland, 1299 – 1301, according to documents from the English Government:
http://deremilitari.org/2016/10/warfare-between-england-and-scotland-1299-1301-according-to-documents-from-the-english-government/

Images from the Maciejowski Bible:

Building the Tower of Babel
Delivery of military supplies

Attacking the castle

Storming a castle

Archer (detail)

Trebuchet (detail)

Siege engine used as gallows?

Use of scaling ladders and crossbows

Murdering the commander

Another murder (Jael murders Sisera)

Execution by hanging

Identify and discuss in relation to medieval warfare:  https://web.archive.org/web/20160429085835/http://xenophongroup.com/montjoie/scene.jpg

Siege of Bedford Castle and execution of its garrison (1224)

Hedingham Castle, Essex (c. 1140):
keepclose-up of walls
great hall;  unlighted view
gallery passage
circular stairway

Dirleton Castle, East Lothian (Scotland):
Exterior (13th cent.); another view
Moat, bridge, and batter of external walls
Reconstruction of medieval appearance of Dirleton Castle
Plan
Draw well (water was drawn from ground floor and also floor above)
Ramparts, with dome of 13th-century Hall ; slide for rolling stones from ramparts
Spiral staircase
Arrow slit (interior)

From the following photos, identify some defensive features and some non-defensive or purely decorative features:

Rochester Castle, Kent (keep)

Launceston Castle, Cornwall:
aerial photo (town and castle)
aerial photo (castle)
view from shell-keep

Restormel Castle, Cornwall:
aerial photo (with nearby town of Lostwithiel and River Fowey)
aerial photo (castle, with late 13 C. stone keep)
keep interior
sketch reconstruction

Trematon Castle, Cornwall:
aerial photo

Eaton Bray (Bedfordshire): site of castle (only moat remains, at left)

Acton Burnell (Shropshire):  exterior and interior

Stokesay (Shropshire): exteriorinterior of hall ; 18th-cent. engraving showing wet moat ; plan

Aydon Castle (Northumberland): aerial view

From the following photos, identify some of the features used by David Macaulay in creating his fictional castle at Aberwyvern:

Beaumaris: plan;  aerial viewphotos

Conwy (or Conway): planfrom distanceaerial photomodel of the castle and its walled townphotos

Caernarfon (or Carnarvon): planaerial viewphotosbanding on walls

Harlech: planaerial viewgatehouse approachgatehousephotos

 

 

Thursday:

Readings:

Prestwich, pp. 281-304

Jean Froissart (1338-1410?), Chronicle (read all three of the following selections):
1) editor’s introduction
2) “A few Scots capture Berwick”  (in Book II)
3) “The English recapture Berwick”  (in Book II)
http://faculty.nipissingu.ca/muhlberger/FROISSART/TALES.HTM

 

GUNPOWDER WEAPONS:

In Europe, the first known recipe for gunpowder (sulphur, charcoal, and saltpetre) is in Roger Bacon’s De secretis operibus artis et naturae (“On the Secret Works of Art and Nature,” 1248). However, Bacon wrote of gunpowder as being used to make children’s crackers (Opus maius, 1268), and his pupil, Albertus Magnus (d. 1280), mentioned only “flying fire” (rockets or roman candles?) and crackers as uses for gunpowder. (See website “Handgonnes and Matchlocks” at http://homepages.ihug.com.au/~dispater/handgonnes.htm)

Two drawings of cannons, 1326
(Upper: from De Nobilitatibus, Sapientiis, et Prudentiis Regum, by Walter de Milemete, 1326
Lower: from Aristotle’s De Secretis Secretorum, attributed to Milemete, 1326)

Loshult cannon, early 14th cent.? (cast bronze; 30 cm long; muzzle caliber 36 mm; weight 9.07 kg)
Found in Loshult, Skåne, Sweden; now in the Statens Historika Museum, Stockholm.

Beginning in the mid 14th cent., cannon were made of wrought iron strips placed lengthwise on a cylindrical wooden core.  Heated metal hoops were hammered over them, and the whole cannon was then heated to burn out the core and fuse the wrought iron together.

German bombarde, 1377 (Cologne, Stadtmuseum)

Handgun, c. 1390-1400 (Paris, Musée de l’Armée)

Mörkö Handgun, c. 1390 (Statens Historika Museum, Sweden)

Handgun or “hand cannon” in use, 1400  (from Karl Keyser, Belli fortis)

Handgun with serpentine lock; casting bullets, 1411 (Vienna, Austrian National Library, Codex Vindobana 3069)

Siege weapons, late 14th or early 15th cent.

Siege, from 15th-cent. copy of Froissart’s Chronicle

Medieval cannon in Avignon

Mons Meg (Edinburgh Castle)

“Ribald” or ribauldequin (volley gun), first recorded 1339 (Edw. III), here drawn by Leonardo da Vinci