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20 Articles

Pointy shoes led to bunions

One of the odder fashion fads during the Middle Ages was the wearing of pointy shoes. A new study suggests that the people who wore this footwear would suffer from hallux valgus of the big toe – better known as bunions. Hallux valgus is a minor deformity in which the largest toe becomes angled outward and a bony protrusion forms at its base, on the inside of the foot. While various factors can predispose someone to bunions, from genetics to muscle imbalance, by far the most common contemporary cause is constrictive boots and shoes. The condition is often associated with wearing high heels. Archaeologists analysed 177 skeletons from cemeteries in and around the English city of Cambridge and found that only 6% of individuals buried between the eleventh and thirteenth centuries had…

Pointy shoes led to bunions

Editorial The Battle of Largs is certainly not one of the most well-known battles from the Middle Ages, but it is an important one. It would change the borders within the British Isles and remove one of the major players in the politics of the region. Even in the thirteenth century, the Kingdom of Norway was still very much involved in the British Isles, but this battle would quickly change that. It would also be instrumental in helping define the nation of Scotland, which would soon find itself in an even more massive struggle with their southern neighbours. To tell this story we have Andrew R. McDonald and Angus Somerville, who have collaborated on the history of the Vikings and Norse peoples. They are joined by Kate Buchanan, an expert on Scottish…

£5 million project for Caerphilly Castle

Caerphilly Castle, one of the major medieval castles in Wales, will undergo a £5 million development that will include an extensive programme of conservation, site access improvements, and a complete overhaul of site interpretation. The project, which is funded by Cadw, the Welsh Government’s historic environment service, will include a dramatic makeover of Caerphilly’s medieval Great Hall – a space that has played host to events that shaped history. Originally built in the late thirteenth century, the Great Hall – the largest of its kind in the United Kingdom – will be redecorated to invoke the splendour of its medieval heyday. “Caerphilly Castle is one of the great castles of medieval Europe,” says Dr Kate Roberts, Chief Inspector of Ancient Monuments at Cadw. “Our project will both conserve the castle and help…

£5 million project for Caerphilly Castle

THE BATTLE THAT MADE SPAIN

On September 18, 1468, a humiliated King Enrique IV of Castile met his sister Isabella at Toros de Guisando, a kind of Iberian Stonehenge. The bulls or pigs, of Celtic origin, carved from granite around 300 BC, were the silent witnesses to the embrace between brother and sister and to the signing of the Treaty of Guisando. Through this treaty, Enrique repudiated his own daughter, Juana, and designated Isabella as heir, with a further condition that the princess should get the approval from the king to her husband. This was the last stage of the struggle between the great Castilian families to control weak and manageable King Enrique. His daughter became known as Juana la Beltraneja, as it was said that her father was Beltrán de la Cueva, the favourite…

THE BATTLE THAT MADE SPAIN

ARRAY ALL THE MEN

The defence of England by the fourteenth century rested on several key systems for its protection. These all stemmed from one central feature of medieval English life: the general levy. The basis of this system was simple. All men were required to own certain armaments and provide these and themselves to go to war to protect the kingdom. By the fourteenth century the requirements were divided by age and wealth. All men between the ages of sixteen and sixty were required to take up arms when called upon. From October 1322, from the Calendar of Patent Rolls of Edward II, we see such an example. It states, “Commission to Walter de Pavely and the sheriff of Wiltshire to array all the men between sixteen and sixty in that county; Walter de…

ARRAY ALL THE MEN

A light in darkness

One interesting part of the general levy was the use of beacons. These fiery signals were the way in the medieval world to raise these men with speed. These beacons were massive fires that would be lit to alert communities nearby that an enemy was incoming. We know from period documents that such beacons were used as a network to alert areas further away of the impending threat. It was also probable this was a way to allow communities the ability to keep at their more day-to-day tasks while also being kept on the ready to fight if needed. These beacons were to have sentries and guardians who maintained and prepared them but also observed the terrain for enemy movement; if seen, the beacons were set ablaze and the men…

A light in darkness

LITHUANIA’S WAR MASTER

The ideal leader had to possess substantial diplomatic and military skills. Moreover, he had to be aggressive. This was important because the Lithuanians had a golden opportunity to capitalize on the political vacuum that existed in the Tartar-ruled Rus’ principalities that bordered Lithuania to the south and east. Only by acquiring new territory, and hence new wealth, could the Lithuanians amass wealth sufficient to wage war against the determined German crusaders. Mindaugus, the first Lithuanian grand duke, had initiated the Lithuanian expansion to the southeast in the mid-thirteenth century, but his unpopular conversion to Christianity resulted in his assassination after a ten-year reign. Two decades after his assassination in 1263, the Teutonic Order completed its subjugation of the pagan Prussians after 60 years of sustained warfare against the Western Baltic tribe.…

LITHUANIA’S WAR MASTER

Heinrich von Hesler wrote the Apokalypse in the early fourteenth century. Written in rhymed prose, the text is a German version of the biblical version of the Book of Revelation. It soon became associated with the Teutonic Knights and two manuscripts were made for its Grand Master in the 1330s. New research by Patrick Eickman shows how they relate to the Teutonic Order’s war against the Lithuananians. He notes how depictions of the enemies of Christendom, such as demons and the armies of Gog and Magog, are a mixture of the monstrous and the Lithuanians and other Baltic peoples. For example, various parts of their arms and armour, such as clubs, would be associated with the Lithuanians. These illustrations aim to present the Lithuanians as cruel, violent and unredeemable – a…

THE (SEA) ROAD TO LARGS, 1230-1263

By the time Sturla was writing his saga of King Hakon in the mid-1260s, the truth of those words was manifest. In 1247-1248, King Hakon possessed the power to summon the king of Man and the Isles to him and bind him by a marriage to his daughter, but by the time Sturla was writing, Man and the Isles had been lost to Norway forever. Although the chain of events that led to the Norwegian loss of Man and the Isles, including the famous clash at Largs in 1263 and the subsequent Treaty of Perth in 1266, did not begin with the shipwreck of 1248, there is no doubt that the catastrophic loss of this vessel served as a catalyst that accelerated the confrontation between Scotland and Norway over the…

THE (SEA) ROAD TO LARGS, 1230-1263

KING ALEXANDER III OF SCOTLAND

In 1249, Alexander III was taken to Scone to be inaugurated as King of Scotland even before the burial of his father. Only eight years old, Alexander could not rule himself, and much of the power within the kingdom was in the hands of his regents and the Scottish nobility. A marriage with Margaret, the daughter of King Henry III of England, established an alliance with England. Henry III exercised influence over the young King of Scotland, resulting in the resignation of all the Scottish royal officials present at the wedding. This thoroughly uprooted the minority government that had been in place and opened the doors for continued conflict and resentment among Alexander’s nobles. Henry III’s position as father-in-law to the King of Scotland prompted him to step in on several…

KING ALEXANDER III OF SCOTLAND

THE BATTLE OF LARGS

Of greater concern to Hakon was Alexander III, king of an increasingly confident Alba, who had continued his father’s westward push against Norwegian rule in the Hebrides. The islands of Bute and Arran and the Mull of Kintyre had been brought under Scottish control, but these areas lay close to the borders of the Scottish kingdom. More ominously, in 1262, Scottish forces had burned and pillaged in Skye. This deliberate provocation, close to the heart of the sea route between Norway and the tributary kingdom of Man, was the immediate cause of Hakon’s expedition. Royal prestige was at stake for Hakon rather than vital economic or territorial interests. The Norwegian ruler had worked hard to establish an international profile for himself and his rocky little kingdom. His foreign policy included…

THE BATTLE OF LARGS

The Saga of Hakon Hakonsson

Sturla Thordarson (Sturla Þórðarson), 1214-1284, both poet and historian, was a prominent chieftain of the Sturlung clan, one of the most important families in thirteenth-century Iceland. A political exile from Iceland, Sturla arrived in Norway in 1263 to throw himself on the mercy of his family’s enemy, King Hakon, now king of Iceland, who had just set out on his expedition to Scotland. With Hakon’s death, the Norwegian throne came to his son Magnus VI (r. 1263-1280). Sturla’s literary ability and reputation earned him the job of being Hakon IV’s biographer. Sturla would go on to write Hákonar saga Hákonarsonar (Saga of Hakon Hakonsson), an important source on Hakon’s life as the author had access to the direct witness of Hakon’s contemporaries and companions as well as contemporary documentation.…

The Saga of Hakon Hakonsson

THE TRAUMA OF WAR

When Edward III gathered his troops and marched on France in October 1359, he had one clear objective: take Reims and finally be crowned King of France. The situation between England and France had been tense for twenty years and Edward III had never been in such a position before: the victory at the Battle of Poitiers in 1356 had given him the upper hand in the Hundred Years’ War, earned him a fortune in ransoms – £300,000, three times what he had spent over the 1356 campaign – and more importantly, allowed him to capture the King of France himself, John II, who would spend years in custody. France was effectively in chaos, ruined, and ready to be seized. The 1359-1360 campaign thus represented a unique opportunity for Edward III.…

THE TRAUMA OF WAR

THE MAMLUKS AND CYPRUS

It was only a few generations earlier that the Cypriots were manoeuvring to become major players in the Eastern Mediterranean. The reign of King Peter I (1358-1369) saw attacks and raids against the coasts of both Asia Minor and Syria, even managing to capture and hold some ports. The King of Cyprus had even bigger plans, and Peter spent three years touring Europe to solicit support and money for a crusade against Egypt. In 1365 he led a fleet that attacked the Egyptian city of Alexandria, which was captured and plundered. That was the end of the crusade, and Peter’s real goals may have been to cripple trade out of the Egyptian port so it could be redirected through Cyprus. The island’s fortunes would only go down from here – King…

THE MAMLUKS AND CYPRUS

Guarding the city

From 1374 to 1464, the Cypriot city of Famagusta was essentially a Genoese colony. The entire city, as well as the territory two leagues around it, was given over to the control of Genoa, and the Italian city-state was soon governing it and hoping to maintain its status as one of the most important trade centres in the Eastern Mediterranean. However, most of its native inhabitants left the city, as did its non-Genoese merchants. The declining city still had to be managed, and that included its defence. The city authorities of Famagusta had to hire mercenaries to serve as the city guard, and they kept records of who they hired and how much they were paid. Michel Balard has studied these records, selecting five years during the fifteenth century for a…

Guarding the city

THE WRITHEN-HILTED SWORD

Recently, we visited the Royal Armouries in Leeds, and there is one sword that we usually make a point of visiting and then speculating about. It relates to the painted example in the hand of St Michael. Carrying out research into medieval weapons can be very satisfying, especially when various and seemingly unrelated strands of work coalesce to reveal the bigger picture. However, the opposite can also be true – a superb weapon can stubbornly refuse to yield up its secrets. Such is the case with a notable sword in the collection of the Royal Armouries – the so-called ‘writhen-hilted sword’. It is a wonderful example of the hilt-makers’ skill and a marvel that it has survived in such good condition. The sword is also quite a mystery. So, let’s have a…

THE WRITHEN-HILTED SWORD

DEADLY ELEGANCE

As the population grew and competition for food-growing regions intensified, warfare in Japan shifted from a focus on the farming settlements themselves to the overlords ruling them. By fighting each other, Japan’s ruling class could acquire greater access to the production of rice without risking the destruction of those precious lands. Thus, by the Heian period (794-1185), the need to fortify a lord’s manor became common. Over time more and more of these complexes would be relocated into Japan’s highlands. Initially, Japanese ramparts were constructed of rammed earth topped by a wooden stockade. The walls were augmented by high wooden towers designed to mitigate weak sections or reinforce against likely points of attack. The concept was to create a defence-in-depth within a single strongpoint. Thus, Japanese fortifications featured multiple baileys from…

DEADLY ELEGANCE

WHERE WAS THE HOLY LAND?

Before the late eleventh century, the idea that the sacred sites in the East could be damaged in some way by the presence of those who belonged to different religious groups was not widespread. Pilgrims made transitory use of the space and do not appear to have felt that adherents of other faiths who also visited the site somehow harmed its spiritual function. However, the advent of the crusading age was accompanied by a change in the way in which Western Christendom thought about holy places. Suddenly, the use of such sites by Jews and Muslims was no longer appropriate. A new image of the East emerged in the imagination of the West, one in which the sacred sites had always, by divine right, belonged to Christendom. In line with…

WHERE WAS THE HOLY LAND?

KNOW YOUR CASTLE

Let us now imagine we are approaching a large masonry castle in medieval western Europe. Our medieval social status matters a great deal, as it will alter our perception of the castle architecture and its symbolism. However, we will focus on identifying the features we encounter, and which we may have spotted on the exterior of other castles we have visited in the past. The first part of the castle we reach is the external walls and any moat or ditches (a ditch is also called a fosse). If this is a concentric castle, as were many Crusader castles and King Edward I of England’s Welsh castles of Harlech and Beaumaris, then this is the first set of walls you reach, as a concentric castle was so named for the layers…

KNOW YOUR CASTLE

THE BATTLE OF LARGS

The Edge of the World: A Cultural History of the North Sea and the Transformation of Europe By Michael Pye Pegasus Books, 2015 ISBN: 978-1681772066 Cross and Scepter: The Rise of the Scandinavian Kingdoms from the Vikings to the Reformation By Sverre Bakke Princeton University Press, 2014 ISBN: 978-0691161501 Kings, Usurpers, and Concubines in the ‘Chronicles of the Kings of Man and the Isles’ By R. Andrew McDonald Springer International Publishing, 2019 ISBN: 978-3030220259 The Sea Kings: the Late Norse kingdoms of Man and the Isles c.1066-1275 By R. Andrew McDonald John Donald (Birlinn), 2019 ISBN: 978-1910900215 Alexander III, 1249-1286: First Among Equals By Norman H. Reid John Donald (Birlinn), 2019 ISBN: 978-1910900222 The reign of Alexander II, 1214-49 By Richard D. Oran Brill, 2005 ISBN: 978-9004142060 R. Andrew McDonald and Angus Somerville have developed a good collaboration, as can be seen in the two books they wrote together. Their first was The Viking…

THE BATTLE OF LARGS

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