France during the Dark Ages (Illustrated)

Illuminated manuscript

---

Customers who bought this item also bought.

Page 1 of 1 Start over Page 1 of 1. The Dark Ages A. Fools, Frauds and Firebrands: Thinkers of the New Left. Gaul Under the Merovingians Illustrated. Product description Product Description Focusing on the development of France during the historical period known as the Dark Ages, this book covers the kingdom of the Merovingians through the rise of the Franks into the invasions by the Vikings and the fall of the Carlovingian dynasty. Kindle Edition File Size: Didactic Press 14 July Sold by: Medieval builders did not know about the lead protection and used iron ties that rusted, expanded and fractured the surrounding stone.

So it was with military engines like the balista and military techniques like the Romans' famous tortoise. So too, ancient techniques for making quick-setting concrete and prefabricated defences were forgotten. To some extent the development of the Renaissance and the Enlightenment is the story of the rediscovery of ancient techniques.

For larger battles, planning typically consisted of a council of the war leaders, which could either be the commander laying down a plan or a debate between the different leaders, depending on how much authority the commander possessed. Often decisions were dictated by the Church and formulated for religious rather than military reasons.

This explains for example some of the worst disasters suffered by crusaders armies during the Crusades where senior clergy in command of armies routinely ignored advice from seasoned commanders. Infantry, including missile troops, would typically be employed at the outset of the battle to break open infantry formations.

Cavalry attempted to defeat the enemy cavalry.

Medieval art in Europe

Once one side coaxed their opposing infantry into breaking formation, the cavalry would be deployed in attempt to exploit the loss of cohesion in the opposing infantry lines and begin slaying the infantrymen from horse top. Once a break in the lines was exploited, the cavalry became instrumental to victory - causing further breakage in the lines and wreaking havoc amongst the infantrymen, as it is much easier to kill a man from the top of a horse than to stand on the ground and face a half-ton destrier carrying an armed knight.

Until a significant break in the enemy infantry lines arose, the cavalry could not be used to much effect against infantry since horses are not easily harried into a wall of pikemen. Pure infantry conflicts would be drawn-out affairs. A hasty retreat could cause greater casualties than an organized withdrawal, because the fast cavalry of the winning side's rearguard would intercept the fleeing enemy while their infantry continued their attack. In most medieval battles, more soldiers were killed during the retreat than in battle, since mounted knights could quickly and easily dispatch the archers and infantry who were no longer protected by a line of pikes as they had been during the previous fighting.

Breakdowns in centralized states led to the rise of a number of groups that turned to large-scale pillage as a source of income. Most notably the Vikings, Arabs, Mongols and Magyars raided significantly. As these groups were generally small and needed to move quickly, building fortifications was a good way to provide refuge and protection for the people and the wealth in the region.

These fortifications evolved over the course of the Middle Ages, the most important form being the castle, a structure which has become synonymous with the Medieval era to many. The castle served as a protected place for the local elites. Inside a castle they were protected from bands of raiders and could send mounted warriors to drive the raiders from the area, or to disrupt the efforts of larger armies to supply themselves in the region by gaining local superiority over foraging parties that would be impossible against the whole enemy host.

Fortifications provided safety to the lord, his family, his servants and his local vassals. They provided refuge from armies too large to face in open battle. Heavy cavalry which dominate an open battle was useless against fortifications. Building siege engines was a time-consuming process, and could seldom be effectively done without preparations before the campaign.

Sieges could take months, or even years, to weaken or demoralize the defenders sufficiently. In the Medieval period besieging armies used a wide variety of siege engines including: Siege techniques also included mining. Advances in the prosecution of sieges encouraged the development of a variety of defensive counter-measures. In particular, medieval fortifications became progressively stronger — for example, the advent of the concentric castle from the period of the Crusades — and more dangerous to attackers as witnessed by the increasing use of machicolations and murder-holes, as well the preparation of hot or incendiary substances.

Arrow slits, concealed doors for sallies, and deep water wells were also integral to resisting siege. Designers of castles paid particular attention to defending entrances, protecting gates with drawbridges, portcullises and barbicans. Wet skins of freshly slaughtered animals were draped over gates, hourdes and other wooden structures to retard fire. Moats and other water defences, whether natural or augmented, were also vital to defenders. In the European Middle Ages, virtually all large cities had city walls. Carcassonne and Dubrovnik in Dalmatia are well-preserved examples. The more important cities had citadels, forts or castles inside them, often built against the city walls.

Great effort was expended to ensure a good water supply inside the city in case of siege. In some cases, long tunnels were constructed to carry water into the city. Attackers would try to get over the walls using scaling ladders, siege towers called belfries, and grapples. Alternatively they could try to get through the doors using a battering ram, or through the walls using heavy artillery.

They might try tunnelling under the walls to gain access, but more often they would try to undermine the walls to bring them down. In a siege one army typically attacks an enemy within a stronghold. Medieval towns were generally surrounded by defensive walls, just like castles. Indeed the distinction between castles and fortified towns is often blurred. Castles were often located within fortified towns - in fact many towns grew up around existing castles - so that the castle became a sort of citadel within the fortified town. Attackers therefore often had two sets of obstacles - first the city walls, then the castle walls.

This could lead to interesting complications as at Beaucaire in For months Simon de Montfort besieged Raymondet in the town, while Raymondet besieged a garrison loyal to de Montfort in the castle within the town. Sometimes there were three sets of obstacles, because fauxburgs with their own defensive walls were often built on to the exterior of city walls, as at Carcassonne and Termes. Besiegers had a number of techniques for gaining control of their objective - either by forcing a way in, or by forcing the besieged garrison out. Specific techniques - established since prehistoric times - include:.

Until the invention of gunpowder-based weapons and the resulting higher-velocity projectiles , the balance of power and logistics definitely favoured the defender. With the invention of gunpowder, the traditional methods of defence became less and less effective against a determined siege, giving rise to a new form of defensive structure, the star-fort.

Philippe Augustus, King of France, recieves the keys of a surrendered city from two of the inhabitants. The medieval belfry was not a church tower, but a siege engine - the modern meaning seemsto have come about by the erroneous association of towers and bells etymologically, the bel in belfry is not connected with the word "bell".

A belfry was used for gaining access to a castle, generally at the level of the battlements. It was typically constructed in wood, on several stories - as many as necessary to reach the battlements. Each story offered a location for attack - bows and crossbows in the lower levels, and armed men in the upper level, ready to drop a sort of drawbridge and gain access to the castle ramparts. The belfry was normally wheeled, so that it could be moved up against the castle walls, and like all exposed wooden engines of war it would be covered in the hides of freshly slaughtered animals and regularly dowsed in water to keep it fireproof.

One way to foil the approach of a belfry was to have sloping castle walls. This forced the attackers to cover a greater distance from the top of the belfry to the top of the castle wall. This was one of the benefits of a talus. Another way to foil the approach was to build ditches and moats to prevent the approach of belfries. As on the right, attackers often needed to fill up the ditch or moat to provide a level surface that extended all the way to the foot of the castle wall.

In practice, all sorts of material was used for this: If too much wood was used in the infill then the infill itself became a target for fire setters. A battering ram is a siege engine originating in ancient times to breach fortification walls or doors. In its simplest form, a battering ram is just a large, heavy log carried by several people and propelled with force against the target, the momentum of the ram damaging the target.

Some battering rams were supported by rollers. This gave the ram much greater travel so that it could achieve a greater speed before striking its target and was therefore more destructive. Such a ram was used by Alexander the Great. In a more sophisticated design, the ram was slung from a wheeled support frame so that it could be much more massive and also more easily swung against its target. Sometimes the ram's attacking point would be reinforced with a metal head. A capped ram is a battering ram that has an accessory at the head usually made of iron or steel, traditionally shaped into the head and horns of a ram to do more damage to a building.

Many battering rams had protective roofs and side-screens covered in materials, often fresh wet hides to prevent the ram being set on fire, as well as to protect the ram's operators of the ram from enemies firing arrows down on them. An image of an Assyrian battering ram shows how sophisticated attack and defence had come by the 9th century BC. In the image defenders are trying to set the ram alight with torches and have also put a chain under the ram.

The attackers are trying to pull on the chain to free the ram - the same scene could have been depicted in Roman, Visigothic or Medieval times.

Stay Informed

When a castle was being attacked, defenders attempted to foil battering rams by dropping obstacles in front of the ram just before it hit a wall, using grappling hooks to immobilize the log, setting the ram on fire, or sallying out to attack the ram. Battering rams had an important effect on the evolution of defensive walls - the talus for example was one way of reinforcing walls. In practice, wooden gates would generally offer the easiest targets. He was himself besieged in the town by Simon de Montfort 's Crusader forces , while he himself was besieging the garisson of the castle within the fortified town.

The The Song of the Crusade the Canso tells us a little about the ram. We know for example that it had an iron head. The poet tells us that it was.

When the besieged Crusaders saw that, they did not panic but made a rope lasso and used a device to fling it so that they caught and held the ram's head, to the rage of all in Beaucaire. Then the engineer who had set up the battering ram arrived. He and his men slipped secretly into the rock itself [presumably the hole already made by the ram, intending to break through the wall with their sharp picks.

But when the men in the keep realised this, they cast down fire, sulphur and tow together in a piece of cloth and let it down on a chain.

When the fire caught and the sulphur ran, the flames and stench so stupefied them that not one of them could stay there. Then they used their stone throwers and broke down the beams and palisades.

Support the Project

A Cat was a wooden structure built or moved up to a defensive wall. From surviving documents it seems that an arm could manipulated to claw away at the castle wall - hence the name. Cats could be large multi-purpose structures, perhaps with a trebuchet on top and sappers operating from the protected interior. Cats were much feared and if they possibly could, castle defenders would try to destroy them by mounting sorties, by using stone throwing engines, or by setting fire to them.

Like all wooden siege engines they would be routinely covered in the skins of freshly slaughtered animals and regularly dowsed with water to keep them fireproof. Simon de Montfort used a cat at the Siege of Beaucaire in , but unsuccessfully. According to the Canso it had "no more effect than an enchanter's dream". It was "a spider's web and a sheer waste of material". Perhaps the most famous cat was one Simon built two years later, attempting to besiege the City of Toulouse in It was while protecting his cat from counter attack by the citizens of Toulouse that Simon de Montfort was struck on the head by a massive stone projectile from a trebuchet on the city walls, and killed instantly.

A weasel was a similar sort of structure to a cat, but smaller and lighter. It seems to have been more manoeuvrable and used a spike rather than a paw to attack castle walls. It may have taken its name from its business end looking like a weasel's nose, or perhaps its long thin body, or both. As Simon de Montfort was conducting a Council of War, a beggar burst in, shouting that he had seen a weasel. The weasel was already against the citadel wall and ready to drive a spike into it.

Paris in the Middle Ages

The defenders were quick to react. The chief engineer hurled a pot of molten pitch at it, hitting it in exactly the right spot and it burst into flames. A Cat depicted at Carcassonne. Incendiary devices were standard weapons of war.

Wooden defences always needed protection from burning. Wet animal hides were highly effective against burning arrows so military engineers dedicated themselves to finding ways of ensuring that fires burned as long and as strongly as necessary to catch. All sorts of chemicals could be used for this purpose - petroleum, sulphur, quicklime and tar barrels for example. Liquid fire is represented on Assyrian bas-reliefs. At the siege of Plataea in BC the Spartans attempted to burn the town by piling up against the walls wood saturated with pitch and sulphur and setting it on fire, and at the siege of Delium in BC a cauldron containing pitch, sulphur and burning charcoal was placed against the walls.

A century later Aeneas Tacticus mentions a mixture of sulphur, pitch, charcoal, incense and tow packed in wooden vessels, ignited and thrown onto the decks of enemy ships. Formulae given by Vegetius around AD add naphtha or petroleum. Some nine centuries later the same substances are found and later recipes include saltpetre and turpentine make their appearance. The ultimate in this form of chemical warfare was called Greek-Fire.

Greek fire was a burning-liquid used as a weapon of war by the Byzantines, and also by Arabs, Chinese, and Mongols. Incendiary weapons had been in use for centuries: Greek fire was vastly more potent. Similar to modern napalm, it would adhere to surfaces, ignite upon contact, and could not be extinguished by water alone. Byzantines used it in naval battles to great effect because it burned on water. It was responsible for numerous Byzantine military victories on land as well as at sea - and also for enemies preferring discretion to valour so that many battles never took place at all.

It was the ultimate deterrent of the time, and helps explain the Byzantine Empire's survival until There was no defence. As the Lord of Joinville noted in the thirteenth century "Every time they hurl the fire at us, we go down on our elbows and knees, and beseech Our Lord to save us from this danger. On the other hand Greek fire was very hard to control, and it would often accidentally set Byzantine ships ablaze.

The formula for Greek fire was a closely guarded secret and it remains a mystery to this day. The term Greek Fire was not attributed to it until the time of the European Crusades. Muslims against whom the weapon was used called the Byzantines Romans. The weapon was first used by the Byzantine navy, and the most common method of deployment was to squirt it through a large bronze tube onto enemy ships. Usually the mixture would be stored in heated, pressurised barrels and projected through the tube by some sort of pump, operators being protected behind large iron shields.

Byzantines used Greek Fire only rarely, apparently out of fear that the secret mixture might fall into enemy hands. The loss of the secret would be a greater loss to Byzantium then the loss of any single battle. In the Byzantines utterly destroyed a Muslim fleet - over 30, men were lost. In Caliph Suleiman attacked Constantinople Byzantium. Most of the Muslim fleet was once again destroyed by Greek Fire, and the Caliph was forced to flee. There is virtually no documentation of its usage after this time by the Byzantines and it is generally believed that it was during this era that the secret of creating Greek Fire was lost.

Formulae used after this date never seems to have had the same devastating effect. Some form of Greek Fire continued to be used for centuries. Byzantines used it against the Venetians during the Fourth Crusade. A so-called "carcass composition" containing sulphur, tallow, rosin, turpentine, saltpetre and antimony, became known to the Crusaders as Greek fire but is more correctly called wildfire. So far, no-one has been able to recreate Greek Fire. Arabian armies, who eventually created their own version sometime between the mid-seventh century and the early tenth.

It was relatively weak copy of the original Byzantine substance, though still one of the most devastating weapons of the period. Arabs used the Greek Fire much like Byzantines, using brass tubes mounted aboard ships or on castle walls. They also filled jars with it, to be hurled by hand at their opponents. Arrows and javelins would be used to carry the mixture further and engines of war could be used to throw larger amounts over castle walls.

As a defence, water alone was ineffective. On land sand could be used to stop the burning. Intriguingly it is also known that vinegar and urine were effective - suggesting an alkaline composition that could be neutralised by acid. According to some accounts pure or salt water served to intensify the burning, suggesting that Greek Fire may have been a 'thermite-like' reaction, perhaps involving quicklime.

Introduction to the middle ages

According to some sources, Greek Fire burst into flames on contact with water. Some have suggested phosphorus, Others have suggested a form of naphtha or another low-density liquid hydrocarbon petroleum was already known in the East. There are numerous candidates including liquid petroleum, naphtha, burning pitch, sulphur, resin, quicklime and bitumen, along with a hypothetical unknown "secret ingredient".

The exact composition is unlikely ever to be deduced from the inadequate surviving records. It is not clear from contemporary reports if the operator ignited the mixture with a flame as it emerged from the syringe, or if it ignited spontaneously on contact with water or air. If the latter is the case, it is possible that the active ingredient was calcium phosphide, made by heating lime, bones, and charcoal.

On contact with water, calcium phosphide releases phosphine, which ignites spontaneously. The reaction of quicklime with water also creates enough heat to ignite hydrocarbons, especially if an oxidiser such as saltpetre is present. Ingredients were apparently preheated in a cauldron, and then pumped through a pump or used in hand grenades.

If a pyrophoric reaction was involved, perhaps these grenades contained chambers for the fluids, which mixed and ignited when the vessel broke on impact with the target. More information Professor J. Greek fire was not the only Chemical Weapon. Poisoned arrows could be employed and in the late medieval period gunpowder became common. To log in and use all the features of Khan Academy, please enable JavaScript in your browser. Medieval art in Europe.

Introduction to the middle ages. Christianity, an introduction for the study of art history. Standard scenes from the life of Christ in art. A New Pictorial Language: The Image in Early Medieval Art. Catacomb of Priscilla, Rome. Basilica of Santa Sabina, Rome. Jacob wrestling the angel, Vienna Genesis. Rebecca and Eliezer at the Well, Vienna Genesis. A beginner's guide to Byzantine Art. Justinian Mosaic, San Vitale. Theotokos mosaic, apse, Hagia Sophia, Istanbul.

Hagia Sophia as a mosque. Saint Louis Bible moralized bible. Giotto, Arena Scrovegni Chapel part 1. Giotto, Arena Scrovegni Chapel part 2.

• Queer Thing, Painting
• The Gene Autry Book
• Cruising 101
• Gift of Japanese Flowers
• Un oncle nommé Hergé (Arts, littérature et spectacle) (French Edition)
• Consecration
• Divorcio en el aire (Spanish Edition)