HIST 398
SYLLABUS
WEEKLY DISCUSSION MATERIALS
Warfare and Siege
Tuesday:
Readings:
Pounds, pp. 113-21 (“castles in medieval warfare”)
Carlin and Crouch, Lost Letters, Documents 24-25 (pp. 99-108), 33 (pp. 123-124)
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
Use of scaling ladders and crossbows
Another murder (Jael murders Sisera)
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):
keep; close-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 (c. 1140):
keep
keep with round (SE) tower, rebuilt after siege of 1215
Launceston Castle, Cornwall:
aerial photo (town and castle)
view of castle from the town
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
reconstruction of great hall
Trematon Castle, Cornwall:
aerial photo
Eaton Bray (Bedfordshire): site of castle (only moat remains, at left)
Acton Burnell (Shropshire): exterior and interior
Stokesay (Shropshire): exterior; interior 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 view; photos
Conwy (or Conway): plan; aerial photo, with town; model of the castle and its walled town; photos
Caernarfon (or Carnarvon): plan; aerial view; photos; banding on walls
Harlech: plan; aerial view; gatehouse approach; gatehouse; photos
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
Map of Britain and Ireland, showing Anglo-Scottish border
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
https://web.archive.org/web/20190401122042/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.
