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In this activity students will survey a series of images of the Three Kings/Magi dating from the Middle Ages to the modern era. They will talk about the presence of a black Magus, what he is supposed to represent, and why he was introduced in the first place. This activity will introduce students to ways of thinking about human difference that pre-dated modern scientific racism.

Goal

As part of lessons on how Germans in the Middle Ages thought about blackness, this activity will challenge the presumption that depictions of black people must invariably be determined by racist prejudice. Students will come to understand that, before the age of scientific racism, Europeans conceived of human difference first and foremost in terms of religion, with Blackness a much more fluid category with both negative and positive associations. The Black Magus illustrates how blackness could be used to represent an inclusive, Christian egalitarianism that transcended all differences. Represented as an outsider, he is nevertheless also a figure of veneration who symbolized the universal reach of Christianity. This was a useful symbol in an era of increasing contact with the wider world, which Europeans defined in terms of a battle between Christians and non-Christians, Muslims in particular.

Lesson Plan

Break students into small groups and give each group a packet of images, arranged randomly. Ask them to put them in chronological order and to explain any shifts they notice. The most noteworthy feature is the appearance of black figures and eventually the black Magus himself and his persistence into the present. Students in the US or UK may not be familiar with the idea of a black Magus, so it may be necessary at this point to explain that in Germany and the rest of the continent it is assumed that one of the Kings is black (referring to the Playmobil image can help make this point), and Germans are generally surprised to hear that there was a time when all the Kings were light-skinned.

Students will hopefully have discussed what the black Magus looks like, but if not then direct them to examine and interpret his features relative to his companions. They should notice his flashy, exotic clothing; his youth; and the fact that he is placed to one side rather than in the center. Upon asking them to explain these features, students often start from the presumption that he is being marginalized and exoticized, but push them as well to think of ways that this depiction is positive: he is not caricatured, his bearing is noble and attractive, his clothing rich and admirable if also fantastical. Ask them to think about why artists might have started to include a black figure. Depending on prep and background reading they may or may not know the answers to this, but eventually guide them into thinking about the value of including people who represent distant lands.

In the Middle Ages Europeans thought of the world as divided into three continents (Asia, Europe, Africa-see T-O maps LINK), and in the context of fights against Muslims in the Iberian peninsula, the Holy Land (Crusades), and Eastern Europe it was a useful propaganda tool to show the "entire" world bowing before the Christ child. Africa is the youngest not because it was the least important but because it was imagined (incorrectly) to have been the most recent convert to Christianity. Although there were longstanding associations between blackness and devils and paganism, these images turn those on their head and provide a positive portrayal.

The magus's blackness here is not incidental-it does mark him as coming from a distant land-but in these images it is not assumed to be demeaning nor to make him different on the inside from white Europeans, presuming that he accepts the truth of the Gospels of course. In the end students should be encouraged to step away from a present-day mindset to inhabit a different way of seeing the world, which will give them a better appreciation for the significance of later developments (e.g. the slave trade, the Enlightenment) for changing how Europeans viewed black people.

Important contextual events to be aware of might include the following:

711-1492: Muslims crossed the Straits of Gibraltar in 711 and soon extended their reach as far as France. A few Christian nobles and rebels resisted their authority, and, supported by their co-religionists across Europe, were able to "reconquer" (Reconquista) some territories over the span of many centuries. What had been the most sophisticated court in Europe declined until the final conquest of Granada and the expulsion of Muslims from Spain in 1492.

1095-1291: In the seventh century Muslim armies took the Holy Land from the Byzantine Empire but it was only when threatened by Ottoman Turks in 1095 that the Byzantines called on their western brethren to come to their aid. Pope Urban II called for Christians to reconquer the Holy Land, sparking a wave of more or less successful military expeditions over the next two centuries. Although some initial successes led to the establishment of Christian kingdoms, they gradually fell to later opponents, with the fall of the fortress at Acre in 1291 marking the end of the Christian kingdoms. The Crusades brought Christian Europeans into direct contact with Muslims in the Holy Land through warfare but also, when many settled there, through trade, diplomacy, and intermarriage.

ca. 1299-1683: But even while advancing against Muslims in western Europe, in eastern Europe and the Holy Land Christian kingdoms were being overwhelmed by the expansion of the Ottoman Turks. After establishing a base in Anatolia and conquering lands in the Balkans, they eventually defeated the Byzantine Empire (Constantinople finally fell in 1453) and came to rule a vast empire reaching from Hungary through the Middle East all the way across North Africa and around the Red Sea. At its height in 1683 the Ottomans besieged Vienna (for the second time!), but their expansion in Europe was halted then. In the nineteenth century the Ottoman Empire entered a period of decline that culminated in its collapse during the First World War.

The expansion of Islam provoked hopes of a Christian ruler in distant lands (India or Africa) known as Prester John who might become an ally.

The association of Muslims with darker skin tones and "African" facial features came from the presence of sub-Saharan Africans among Muslim forces, especially in Egypt.

Lesson Materials
Black Magus lesson plan PDF download

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Lesson Plan - Medieval Germany: The Black Magus

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Overview In this activity students will survey a series of images of the Three Kings/Magi dating from the Middle Ages to the modern era. They will talk about the presence of a black Magus, what he is supposed to represent, and why he was introduced in the first place.

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Fourteenth-century charitable institution

Fourteenth-century granary and church of the guilds

Fourteenth- and fifteenth-century Franciscan church and friary

The Loggia of the Bigallo

Florence As It Was' first 3D model is that of the Loggia of the Bigallo, one of Florence's most visible structures on the Piazza San Giovanni and a physical reminder of the city's rich Medieval past. The structure housed charitable organizations that ministered to orphaned children, poor unwed girls, the homeless, and pilgrims on the way to and from Rome. These confraternities sponsored the creation of some of the city's most unique art in order to decorate their residence and proclaim their importance in the fabric of Florentine society. And like much of Florence's past, the Bigallo has undergone significant changes-changes that we hope to unravel, peeling back the layers of time to find the Medieval city that gave birth to the Italian Renaissance. The Bigallo, then, is a perfect starting point for our work, and a snapshot that captures the essence of Florence As It Was.

Sam Joseph created the model using thousands images (which he took with a point-and-shoot camera and a tripod over the summer of 2017) and pieced it together using a process called photogrammetry. For future models, we hope to gain access to a high-resolution drone for detailed exteriors and a laser scanner for interiors.

Del Migliore

Italian, 1628-1696

Ferdinando del Migliore was born in 1628 and spent his adult life researching and writing about the history of Florence. A gifted archivist, del Migliore scoured the registers and contracts of individuals and institutions in an effort to present to his readers accurate accounts of the city's past.

Migliore on the Bigallo

Richa

Italian, 1752-1760

Richa on the Bigallo

Paatz

Paatz - German, 1952-1955 - A German husband-and-wife team of art historians with an incredible attention to detail.

Paatz on the Bigallo

Paatz on Orsanmichele

Miscellaneous

Context-Dependent Sources

Summer's End

August 28th, 2019

This is it for me! It's been an incredibly productive month for the website and for our photogrammetry. Alice is hard at work on finishing up the Siena model, while I finally finished the San Miniato model - which we'll hopefully be able to add to the Potree interior of that model!

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Fourteenth-century charitable institution Fourteenth-century granary and church of the guilds Fourteenth- and fifteenth-century Franciscan church and friary Florence As It Was' first 3D model is that of the Loggia of the Bigallo, one of Florence's most visible structures on the Piazza San Giovanni and a physical reminder of the city's rich Medieval past.

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Yasuke: Story of the African Samurai in Japan

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A Good Roast Alows de Beef Autre Vele en Bokenade Balls or Skinless Sausages Beef Pie Beef y-Stewed Bukkenade (beef stew) Chopped Liver Cinnamon Brewet Custarde (savory quiche with meat) Drawyn Grwel Florentine Style Meat in a Baking Dish Heathen Cakes Kabobs Pompys Pumpes (meatballs) Roman Meatloaf Sausedge Stewet Beef Veal Tart with Cream

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A journey to the medieval city of Burgos

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A journey to the medieval city of Burgos

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This Course Video Transcript

This advanced course focuses on two primary goals: (1) appraising how Jews, Christians, and Muslims shaped the history of medieval Spain and (2) mastering the craft of Spanish paleography, the skill of identifying Spanish handwriting in the 11th- through 15th-century manuscripts. Through the lens of the medieval history of Burgos, we dedicate 75% percent of our efforts to developing pragmatic expertise in the interpretation of Carolingian/French/Gothic handwriting. Specifically, the course explores how the royal Castilian city of Burgos influenced, and was influenced by, Jews, Christians, and Muslims. We closely evaluate the Spanish Christian Reconquest, the Plague and the 14th-century Castilian civil war, anti-Jewish pogroms, the emergence of elite conversos (Jewish converts to Christianity), and the role of the king and Roman Catholic Church in the creation of Catholic Spain. Through onsite interviews in archives and museums in Burgos, we experience the medieval city, artifacts, and manuscripts. While we teach using Spanish manuscripts, very little or no knowledge of the Spanish language is necessary to complete the course. Using an intensive array of paleography practices, exams, independent projects, and collaborative efforts, you will garner exceptional skills that you can apply to interpreting any medieval European handwriting. To demonstrate your mastery of paleography you will (1) create a 14th-15th-century alphabet, numeral, and abbreviation guide using manuscript images, and (2) transcribe one selection from a medieval manuscript.

View Syllabus

14th Century Tragedy, Jewish and Christian Museum Artifacts, and Continuing 11th Century Manuscripts

This week we delve into the Castilian crisis of the 14th-century -- the arrival of the Black Death (Plague), an intensive civil war, and rampant anti-Jewish violence. We explore the creation of a new Spanish identity -- the conversos -- Jewish converts to Christianity. Via virtual field trips, we visit medieval Burgos and return to the Museo de Burgos. We continue our investigation of 11th-century manuscripts, working hard to perfect our paleography skills.

Taught By

Dr. Roger Louis Martínez-Dávila

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Virtual Field Trip: A journey to the medieval city of Burgos - 14th Century Tragedy, Jewish and Christian Museum Artifacts, and Continuing 11th Century Manuscripts | Coursera

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Video created by University of Colorado System for the course "Burgos: Deciphering Secrets of Medieval Spain". This week we delve into the Castilian crisis of the 14th-century -- the arrival of the Black Death (Plague), an intensive civil war, ...

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Medieval West Africa (African Geography)

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Medieval China: Crash Course History of Science #8

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Lesson Activities on Antisemitism in Medieval Times

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Lesson Activities on Antisemitism in Medieval Times

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The common people were divided into peasants and serfs. There was a huge difference between being a peasant and being a a serf.

Serfs were bound to the land. They were almost like slaves. The people could not be bought and sold, but they could not leave their land without permission. Their land could be bought and sold. The land and all the food they grew belonged to the manor (noble). A serf's job was whatever the noble told them it was, carpenter, blacksmith, baker, farmer, and tax collector, serfs did it all. A serf could buy their own freedom if they could get the money, but where could they get the money? They were uneducated and mostly unskilled.

Peasants were free sort of. Sometimes they owned their own business or small plot of land, again most were uneducated and unskilled. They were in the same boat as the serfs.

Taxes: Everyone had to pay taxes. The peasants paid taxes to the lord or noble; they paid taxes up to the local duke or count who paid taxes to the king. Sometimes the taxes were paid in crops, sometimes in money, plus they had to set aside a number of days every year to work for the noble.

Festivals: Festivals were a big deal. This was the only time a peasant or serf could relax and socialize. All Festivals were church festivals usually to honor a saint or holy day. At a festival, a peasant could watch a play or take part in contests like archery or wrestling, and maybe even see a juggler or magician. The noble paid the local church to put on the festival.

Power of the Church: During medieval times, the church was all powerful. The only way to get to heaven was to follow the Bible. However, since most people couldn't read. the local priest had to read it to them. The local priest could tell people that the Bible told them how to behave, who to obey, even who to marry.

New Ideas: Since most people never left their village area, ideas spread thoughout Europe through the priests and wandering musicians and traders. This was a slow process.

Commoner Homes: Peasants homes were usually one room huts, made of logs held together with mud, with thatched roofs. There was a hole in the roof for the smoke to get out so people could cook inside. Homes had little furniture, perhaps a three-legged stool and beds made of straw covered with a leather toss. There were pegs on the walls to hold clothes. They usually had iron cooking pots and pans.

Food: Peasants grew their own food. Three days a week, they worked to provide food for the lord of the manor. Three days a week they worked to provide food for themselves. Sunday was a day for prayer. They kept bees to make honey. They drew water from the village well, or if they were lucky, from a nearby stream. They kept fruit trees. They grew vegetables. They kept chickens. A peasant might own a cow for milk.

Animals: Because winters were cold, animals were brought inside at night, to keep them warm.

Clothes: Their clothes were made of wool. They were held together with a rope tied around their waist. They usually went barefooted, even in the winter. Shoes took leather to make. Leather was made, but it was used to make shoes and clothing for the lord of the manor and his family. If there was any leather left over, they could make shoes for themselves.

Baths: Both peasants and nobles took infrequent baths. There was no running water or hot water heater. They bathed in a creek or river. Most had a barrel outside to catch rainwater. The soap was made of lye and was very rough on your skin. The peasants slept and worked in the same clothing for days and even weeks at a time, especially in the winter. There was no toothpaste or toothbrushes. People used watered spices on their lips and teeth, but all that did was to briefly hide the smell of rotting teeth.

Garbage: In the towns and villages, people threw their garbage in the streets. They handled cattle and then directly handled food.

Death: Peasants died young from malnutrition and the simplest of diseases. Women died in childbirth from ignorance. There was almost no medical help, although they did have doctors. But they believed in blood letting, cutting you to let your blood run out. The idea was that the disease would run out with your blood. Naturally, many people died because they lost too much blood.

On a typical day: Peasants and serfs got up, while it was still dark usually. The first thing they did was say their morning prayers. Then the men left to get their assignement for the day from the reeve, the manor lords' who directed their work. Usually the peasant's wife stayed home, fed the livestock, collected eggs, milked the cow, pulled water from the well or river, and cooked and washed. Women were responsible for weeding the garden near their home, picking vegetables, and spinning cloth. Kids did not go to school. Children worked with their mother. When the boys got old enough, they worked with their father. At night, they ate a simple meal of stew and black bead and sometimes cheese. Right after sunset, they went to bed.

Peasants were content. They knew nothing else. The Middle Ages was time of violence. Peasants and serfs were glad to have the protection of the manor lord.

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The Middle Ages for Kids - Manorial System, Commoners, Peasants - Middle Ages for Kids

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The common people were divided into peasants and serfs. There was a huge difference between being a peasant and being a a serf. Serfs were bound to the land. They were almost like slaves. The people could not be bought and sold, but they could not leave their land without permission.

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Introduction: Context and Definition of a Serf

A serf is a worker bound to a certain piece of land (called a fief) who is loyal to a vassal (lord or noble) above him, usually called a lord. Serfs are tied to the land they work, perform the same menial tasks each day, and receive little or no benefit for their labors. Serfs were part of the feudal system that existed in the European Dark Ages, ca 500-1450 CE.

After the fall of the Roman Empire in 476 CE, Europe was a dark and scary place. Life was unpredictable, attacks from outsiders common, and nothing was certain. In fact, many historians refer to this era as the Dark Ages. Over time, and through the intercessions of leaders, such as William the Conqueror in England, a system of social order developed called feudalism. In this system, people were ranked on a pyramid-shaped hierarchical system, bound to the person above them. Here is a simple visual:

Role of Serfs in the Feudal System

In the feudal system, serfs were at the bottom of the social order. As feudalism follows a hierarchical form, there were more serfs than any other role. Above serfs were peasants, who shared similar responsibilities and reported to the vassal. The main difference between serf and peasant is that peasants were free to move from fief to fief or manor to manor to look for work. Serfs, on the other hand, were like slaves except that they could not be bought or sold.

Above peasants were knights whose job it was to be the police force of the manor. After several years and stages of training, these armor-wearing, sword-carrying protectors of all traveled from manor to manor. They would swear loyalty to the feudal role above them as well as protection, and in return, the lord, the next feudal role, would allow them to live on the manor as well as provide them with food. Lords also dictated what serfs did for the manor.

At the top of the feudal pyramid were monarchs, more commonly known as a king or queen. They over saw everything on the manor and were the undisputed leaders of all. They were given loyalty by the lords/nobles in exchange for the power to control day-to-day aspects of the manor.

Life for Serfs

Serf life was dull, boring, and downright difficult. Clothes were ragged, housing substandard, and food scarce. Each day was spent working hard on the land they were bound to. They did not receive this land for free, though. They had to pay taxes called tallage to the lord. This tax could be actual money or, more commonly, providing services to the lord. An additional aspect of the tallage consisted of giving a part of their sowed crops to the manor.

All this was done in exchange for the ability to work land on the fief. It seems unusual that a serf would have to pay something to work land to which they were bound, yet this system existed for hundreds of years. Such a requirement was a larger part of the system of near-slavery to which they were tied. It contributed to the oppressed nature of serfs in Europe.

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Serf: Definition, System & Life | Study.com

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A serf is a worker bound to a certain piece of land (called a fief) who is loyal to a vassal (lord or noble) above him, usually called a lord. Serfs are tied to the land they work, perform the same menial tasks each day, and receive little or no benefit for their labors.

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Tips from the Middle Ages

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Heraldry is a huge subject, and some people spend their lives studying it. This guide will help you get to grips with the basics and give you the facts you need to design your very own piece of heraldry or coat of arms.

Why not also make your own cardboard shield to display your design?

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Heraldry is a huge subject, and some people spend their lives studying it. This guide will help you get to grips with the basics and give you the facts you need to design your very own piece of heraldry or coat of arms. Why not also make your own cardboard shield to display your design?

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Video and Text Instructions

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Follow our simple guide to making a Norman-style sword out of cardboard and foil.

Knights need a weapon at their side to go on the attack, but there's no need to get injured before battle commences. Young squires might need some help from an experienced warrior when cutting out pieces.

Make a Shield

Make and decorate a shield and have the best looking protection around.

1066: The Year of the Normans

Discover more about the year that shaped English history forever.

Family Events

Find your next historical adventure for you and your family. In rain or shine we've got something to entertain the whole family.

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Follow our simple guide to making a Norman-style sword out of cardboard and foil. Knights need a weapon at their side to go on the attack, but there's no need to get injured before battle commences. Young squires might need some help from an experienced warrior when cutting out pieces.

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Compare and Contrast

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Middle Ages Compare Contrast Response Template

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Video and Text Instructions

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Medieval Europe: Crash Course European History #1

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English Heritage

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Duke William of Normandy's resounding triumph over King Harold at the Battle of Hastings in 1066 marked the dawn of a new era. The overthrow of the Saxon kingdom of England was to transform the country the Normans conquered, from how it was organised and governed to its language and customs - and perhaps most visibly today, its architecture.

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In our telling of the story of England, the medieval period is the time between William the Conqueror's victory at Hastings in 1066 and Richard III's defeat at Bosworth in 1485.

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Japan in the Heian Period and Cultural History: Crash Course World History 227

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The Empire of Mali - The Twang of a Bow - Extra History - #1

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English Heritage

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The six and a half centuries between the end of Roman rule and the Norman Conquest are among the most important in English history. This long period is also one of the most challenging to understand - which is why it has traditionally been labelled the 'Dark Ages'. Yet a kingdom of England emerged in these centuries, and with it a new 'English' identity and language.

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An Introduction to Early Medieval England

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The six and a half centuries between the end of Roman rule and the Norman Conquest are among the most important in English history. But the period is also one of the most challenging to understand.

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Explore the Ruins of a Medieval East African Empire

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Explore the Ruins of a Medieval East African Empire

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Explore the Ruins of a Medieval East African Empire

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Africa's Medieval History in Rap Form

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Griot B - Medieval West Africa (Black History Rap)

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Japan by National Geographic

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History of the Samurai - Feudal Japan - Full Documentary

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Japan

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Japan

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What Life Was Like as a Samurai In Feudal Japan

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"Daimyo," a 27-minute film from 1988, explores the "dual way" of the feudal lords (Daimyo) in Japan, in which skill in the warrior arts was balanced by time and attention to the peaceful arts, including calligraphy, poetry and the tea ceremony.

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What If You Lived During the Middle Ages?

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China, Part 1

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Engineering an Empire - Medieval China 1of2

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A Tale of Swords and Gunpowder - Weapons in Ancient China l HISTORY OF CHINA

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Shaanxi Changan Female Traditional Music Troupe - Topic

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Provided to YouTube by The Orchard Enterprises Ancient Music Of Tang Dynasty · Shaanxi Changan Female Traditional Music Troupe Ancient Music Of Changan Vol. 2 ℗ 2006 China Record Corporation Released on: 2004-01-01 Screenplay Author: Jiao Jie Auto-generated by YouTube.

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Many have imagined going back in time and becoming a real medieval knight or lady. Life for knights is assumed to have been brimming with jousting, courting, and slaying dragons. However, most of this isn't true. Jousting took some time to become popular, chivalry was a list of rules about whom not to abuse, and dragons didn't exist.

Much of a knight's life involved sitting around waiting for the next war to happen. When they did don their shining armor for battle, the gear was likely so bulky and heavy that the knights might have been better off with nothing at all.

Even if the daily life of a knight wasn't as glamorous as we initially believed, it still offers insight into medieval lives and times.

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What It Was Actually Like To Be A Knight During Medieval Times

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Many have imagined going back in time and becoming a real medieval knight or lady. Life for knights is assumed to have been brimming with jousting, courting, and slaying dragons. However, most of this isn't true. Jousting took some time to become popular, chivalry was...

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China

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How did Tang Dynasty of China dominate East and Central Asia?

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China

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The Fall of the Golden Age - The Tang Dynasty l HISTORY OF CHINA

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In 1023, Bishop Warin of Beauvais suggested a few additions to the knight's oath. Warin asked King Robert of France to modify his loyalty oath. The bishop recommended asking knights to swear not to assault, rob, or kidnap villagers. Knights should also vow to avoid plundering and pillaging the poor or burning down their homes. With his recommendations, Warin hoped to address the intense onslaught caused by knights.

Bishop Warin wasn't the only one pleading with knights to stop targeting the defenseless. In 989, Archbishop Gunbald of Bordeaux warned knights not to go after unarmed priests and monks. He also told knights to stop taking from the poor, particularly by abducting their farm animals.

Today, we often imagine medieval knights as honorable warriors fighting for the chivalric code. Knights protected the weak, defending women's honor and fighting nobly for their lords. When they weren't off fighting, knights practiced their skills with jousts and competitions. But during the medieval period, many saw knights as a menace that was tearing apart society. As noblemen who had more wealth and power than peasants, knights frequently took advantage of Europe's poorest farmers and villagers. As a result, men like Warin and Gunbald repeatedly pleaded with knights to stop targeting peasants.

Knights Blackmailed And Kidnapped Peasants During Wartime

Medieval knights wielded their swords in the name of honor. They fought for their kings, raising troops and training on horseback to hone their skills. But during those clashes, the main victims were often peasants. Although we imagine knights riding off to fight each other, most clashes involved raiding, pillaging, and wiping out Europe's peasants and the land they worked.

Peasants often became pawns in the conflicts between nobles. Knights burned the fields, villages, and manors held by their rivals, ending the lives of peasants in the process.

And sometimes knights even targeted their own peasants. In France, during the disastrous Hundred Years' War, French knights vented their rage at the peasants. According to cleric Jean de Venette, the nobles "subjected and despoiled the peasants and the men of the villages." Instead of protecting the weak, as the code of chivalry demanded, these knights "trample [their country] underfoot, robbing and pillaging the peasants' goods."
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In the 12th century, chronicler Orderic Vitalis strongly praised a knight for not slaying 100 unarmed peasants. By sparing their lives, the knight "did something that deserves to be remembered forever," according to Orderic. The knight could have kidnapped the peasants and held them for ransom, which would have earned him a "great price." Instead, the noble only looted their homes. Orderic's praise for sparing the lives of the peasants shows how often knights slayed peasants.

Cruelty was common among the knights. One, Count Waleran, stumbled on peasants cutting wood and decided to take them as prisoners. He cut off their feet, making the peasants worthless to their lord. Because nobles depended on peasants for their wealth, targeting defenseless peasants was a common way knights punished their rivals.

Nobles Exploited Peasants With Heavy Taxes And Few Rights

Knights relied on peasants for their livelihood. While knights in stories devoted their time to noble quests and adventures, in practice knights spent most of their time acting as landlords. And many nobles misused their powers, demanding heavy taxes and giving peasants little control over their lives.

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In the medieval period, around 85% of Europe's population lived as peasants. But not all peasants lived in the same conditions. Some were called freemen. They might rent land from a noble or even own their land. At the bottom were the serfs, legally bound to the land. In many ways, the serfs were owned by the nobles. Serfs owed their labor to the landlords, who demanded work from the serfs in exchange for a place to live. Serfs generally worked at least three days a week on the lord's lands. During harvest time, they were expected to work even more to earn their keep.

In some places, the labor obligation of the serfs transformed into heavy taxes. In 1366, Swedish peasants paid the equivalent of over 350 pounds of butter each year in taxes to the royal treasury. Peasants also had to pay rent and a tithe to the church, equivalent to 10% of the peasant's entire farming output. Many were forced to pay in seeds, farm animals, or crops. After paying all their taxes, many peasants were left nearly destitute. To add to the peasant burden, nobles were often exempt from paying taxes.

On top of taxes, nobles charged serfs fees for all kinds of things. When the lord's daughter married, the serfs had to pay a fine. If a serf perished, the lord claimed an inheritance tax on everything passed on to the deceased's heirs. If a serf's daughter married someone who didn't live on the noble's estate, the serf had to pay a fine. These fees increased resentment between knights and peasants.

Peasants Were Described As Ignorant And Treacherous By Nobles

Nobles owned the land while peasants worked it. Peasants certainly felt dependent on the landowners, but nobles also feared the power of the peasants. As a result, many sources written by the nobility described peasants as treacherous, animal-like, and ignorant.

In 1381, England's peasants revolted, demanding an end to serfdom. In response, the noble chronicler Jean Froissart called the peasants evil. According to Froissart, the peasants nearly wiped out the country. "Never was a country in such jeopardy as was [England]," Froissart lamented, "and all through the too great comfort of the commonality." Peasants had it too good, Froissart claimed, which made them jealous of their betters.

The nobleman also likened the Peasants' Revolt to a "pestilence." The word choice points to Froissart's fear of the peasants. Only a generation earlier, the Black Death truly did devastate England, but by the late 14th century, Froissart saw peasants as another pestilence.

The Peasants' Revolt was quickly suppressed after King Richard II went back on his promise to free the peasants. Noblemen quickly executed the revolt's leaders. England's nobility reacted swiftly to peasants demanding more rights than farm beasts, underscoring the precarious relationship between the two social classes.
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What were the English peasants' grievances? According to John Ball, the peasants resented the nobles living finely off their labor:

They are clothed in velvets and rich stuffs, ornamented with ermine and other furs, while we are forced to wear poor cloth. They have wines, spices, and fine bread, when we have only rye and the refuse of the straw; and if we drink, it must be water. They have handsome seats and manors, when we must brave the wind and rain in our labours in the field; but it is from our labour they have wherewith to support their pomp.

This language terrified knights, as they lived off the peasants' labor.

In addition to fearing the peasants, knights mocked them relentlessly. In one story, a group of knights found a beautiful field, perfect for jousting, only to have their plans disrupted by peasants using the field as a toilet. Other noble stories described peasants as beast-like, cowardly, and deformed.

Peasants And Clerics Agreed That Knights Were Out Of Control

Medieval Europeans wrote about the three orders of society: those who pray, those who fight, and those who work. In the 11th century, Gerard of Cambrai explained, "From the beginning, mankind has been divided into three parts, among men of prayer, farmers, and men of war."
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Knights and clerics were often grouped together as men who used their minds rather than their hands. But the clerics agreed with the peasants on a fundamental problem in society: The knights were out of control. In fact, the clergy created the code of chivalry to limit the cruelty of knights. As a result, the chivalric code ordered knights to protect the weak and poor - during an era when most knights were exploiting peasants.

Europe's knights were incredibly ruinous. They burned villages, slayed peasants, and wiped out crops. According to medievalist Norman Cohn, their onslaught even helped inspire the First Crusade. When Pope Urban II called for a crusade in 1095, Cohn explains, he was hoping to give "the largely unemployed and over-aggressive nobility of France something to do, get them out of Europe and stop them devastating the... land."

On their way to the Holy Land, the Crusaders slayed thousands of Jewish people, turning their rage against non-Christians. That was also one of the pope's goals: Stop knights from slaying Christians and send them off to end the lives of other people.

The Code Of Chivalry Was Supposed To Improve Relations Between Knights And Peasants

Ironically, the code of chivalry that gives knights a good reputation today was actually created to stem their mayhem. Courtier Olivier de la Marche said that knighting men would ennoble them because they would become part of the "profession of arms," which required valorous service to their prince. William Caxton advised King Richard III to hold "jousts of peace" multiple times a year, which would "cause gentlemen to resort to the ancient customs of chivalry." By promoting valor and giving knights an outlet for their aggression, jousting encouraged better behavior.
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Instead of simply slaying everyone, armed nobles were supposed to follow a code of honor designed to protect the vulnerable. Yet even during the height of chivalry, knights continued to oppress and slay peasants. As John Ball said, "It is from our labour [nobles] have wherewith to support their pomp." While the English Peasants' Revolt failed, sweeping changes would end serfdom across most of Europe and decrease the power of the knights. The era of chivalry ended - and the peasants were happy to see it go.

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What Did The Relationship Between Medieval Knights And Peasants Actually Look Like?

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In 1023, Bishop Warin of Beauvais suggested a few additions to the knight's oath. Warin asked King Robert of France to modify his loyalty oath. The bishop recommended asking knights to swear not to assault, rob, or kidnap villagers. Knights should also vow to avoid plundering and pillagi...

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What It Was Like to be a Knight During Medieval Times

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History and Literacy and Learning, OH MY!

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Abbot vs Monk

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What were they eating in Europe?

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Key Facts & Summary

Cereals were consumed in the form of bread, oatmeal, polenta, and pasta by virtually all members of society.

Vegetables represented an important supplement to the cereal-based diet. Meat was more expensive and, therefore, considered a more prestigious food and was mostly present on the tables of the rich and noble.

The most common types of meat were pork and chicken, whereas beef was less common.

Cod and herring were very common in the diet of northern populations.

Diet restrictions depending on social class

Before delving into the types of foods that people ate in the Middle Ages, it is necessary to be aware of the social distinctions present at the time. Medieval society was stratified and strictly divided into classes. In an age where famines were quite frequent and social hierarchies were often enforced with violence, food was an important sign of social distinction and possessed great value.

Following the ideology of the era, society was made up of individuals belonging to the nobility, the clergy and the common people (i.e. most of the working class). The relationship between the classes was strictly hierarchical: the nobility and the clergy claimed their material and spiritual superiority over ordinary people. Between the nobility and the clergy, there also existed a multitude of levels that ranged from the king to the Pope, from the dukes to the bishops down to their subordinates such as knights and priests. In general, everyone was expected to remain within the social class to which they were born and to respect the authority of the ruling classes. Political power was shown not only through government action but also by displaying one's own wealth. The nobles exhibited their refined manners at the table and were able to afford eating fresh meat flavoured with exotic spices. By contrast, men of toil had to be content with crude barley bread and salted pork. They were not expected to know the correct etiquette. The diet of nobles and high-level prelates was considered both a sign of their refined physical constitution and their economic prosperity. The digestive system of a gentleman was believed to be more delicate than that of one of his peasants and subordinates and, therefore, required more refined foods.

Food

Before the 14th century, bread was not a very common food among the lower classes, especially in the north where wheat grew with difficulty. Bread-based diets gradually became more common during the 15th century.

Throughout the Middle Ages, rice remained an expensive imported product and began to be cultivated in northern Italy only towards the end of the era. Wheat was common throughout Europe and considered the most nutritious of all cereals and, as a consequence, it was regarded as the most prestigious and most expensive cereal.

Although cereals represented the basis of every meal, vegetables such as cabbage, beets, onions, garlic, and carrots were also very common foods. Many of these vegetables were consumed on a daily basis by farmers and manual workers and, therefore, were considered less prestigious foods than meat.

Legumes such as chickpeas, beans, and peas were also commonly consumed and were an essential source of protein, especially for the lower classes.

Except for peas, legumes were often viewed with suspicion by the dieticians of the time, who recommended the upper classes avoid them because they caused flatulence and because they were associated with peasants.

Meals

Typically, there were two meals a day: lunch at midday and a light dinner in the evening. The two-meal system remained widespread until the late Middle Ages. Small snacks between meals were quite common, but it was also a matter of social class, as those who did not have to do arduous manual work did without them.

For practical reasons, morning breakfast was consumed by the working classes and was tolerated for children, women, the elderly and the sick. However, since the church preached against the sins of gluttony and other weaknesses of the flesh, people tended to be ashamed of having breakfast in the morning, since it was considered a sign of weakness.

Evening banquets and dinners consumed late at night with considerable consumption of alcoholic beverages were considered immoral. Alcohol, in particular, was associated with gambling, vulgar language, drunkenness, and lewd behaviour. Although the Church disapproved, small meals and snacks were common and those who worked generally had permission from their employers to buy food to nibble on during their breaks.

Preparation of food

Cooking included the use of fire: since stoves were not invented until the 18th century, people cooked directly over the fire. Ovens were also used, however, building them was very expensive and they were only found in larger houses and baker's shops. Often, medieval communities had an oven whose ownership was shared. Therefore, essential food was prepared in public rather than private. There also existed portable ovens that moved thanks to wheels: they were used to sell cakes and pies along the streets of medieval cities.

Most people cooked in simple pots, and soups and stews were, therefore, the most common dishes.

In some dishes, fruits were mixed with meat, eggs, and fish. For example, the tart de brymlent is a recipe that dates back to the 14th century. This dish was a salmon or cod pie that included a mixture of figs, prunes, raisins, apples, and pears.

Following the four humours medical and dietary prescriptions of the time, food had to be combined with sauces, spices, and other specific ingredients depending on the nature of food. For instance, fish was considered cold and humid in nature, therefore, it was believed that the best way to cook it was by frying it, by placing it in the oven, or by seasoning it with hot and dry spices. Beef was considered dry and warm and, as a consequence, it was boiled. Pork was regarded as warm and moist, therefore, it had to be roasted.

Food preservation

The methods of food preservation were essentially the same as those that had been used since ancient times and things did not change much until the beginning of the 19th century with the introduction of food preservation in airtight metal cans.

One of the simplest and most common methods to preserve food consisted of heating the food, or exposing it to the wind in order to eliminate its humidity and prolong the life of almost all types of food.

In fact, drying food drastically reduces the activity of various hydrophilic microorganisms that cause decomposition. While in hot climates this result was reached mostly by exposing the food to the sun, in the colder countries wind or ovens were exploited. Moreover, subjecting foods to certain chemical processes, such as smoking, salting, fermentation or preservation in the form of jam, served to make the food last longer. These methods were advantageous because they contributed to the creation of new flavours. Smoking or salting meat in the fall was a fairly widespread strategy to avoid having to feed more animals than necessary during the harsh winter months. It was common to add a lot of butter (around 5-10%) because it did not deteriorate. Vegetables, eggs, and fish were often pickled. Another method of food preservation consisted of creating a thick crust around the food, cooking it in sugar, honey or fat, and then storing it. The changes caused by the bacteria were also exploited in various ways: cereals, fruit and grapes were transformed into alcoholic beverages, whilst milk was fermented and transformed into a wide variety of cheeses and dairy products.

Beverages

In modern times, water is a popular choice for a drink to accompany a meal. In the Middle Ages, however, concerns about its purity, medical recommendations and its low prestige made it a secondary choice and alcoholic beverages were always preferred. In fact, they were considered more nutritious and better for promoting digestion than water. Wine was consumed daily in most of France and in all the countries of the Mediterranean basin where vines were cultivated. In the northern countries, it was the drink preferred by the bourgeoisie and only the upper classes that could afford it. However, it was much less common among the peasants and the working class. In the Nordic countries, ordinary people's most popular drink was beer. However, since it was difficult to preserve beer for a long time, it was mostly consumed fresh and it was consequently less clear than modern beers and had a lower percentage of alcohol.

Milk was not drunk by adults. It was reserved for the poor, the sick, children, and the elderly. Milk was much less widespread than other dairy products due to the lack of technologies to prevent it from going sour quickly.

Juices were prepared with different fruits and berries: pomegranate and blackberry wine, as well as pear and apple cider, were especially popular in the Nordic countries where these fruits grew abundantly.

Among the surviving medieval drinks that we still drink in the present day is prunellé, which is made with wild plums and is currently called slivovitz. Another example is mead, a type of wine made from honey.

Bibliography

[1.] Adamson, M. W. (editor), Food in the Middle Ages: A Book of Essays. Garland, New York. 1995.

[2.] Dyer, C., Everyday life in medieval England, Continuum International Publishing Group, 2000

[3.] Freedman, P., Out of the East: Spices and the Medieval Imagination. Yale University Press, New Haven. 2008.

[4.] Harvey, B.F., Living and dying in England, 1100-1540: the monastic experience, Oxford University Press, 1993

Image sources:

[1.] https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/ce/Aertsen%2C_Pieter_-_Market_Scene.jpg

[2.] http://sms6thmiddleages.weebly.com/uploads/1/0/2/9/102979698/nobility_orig.jpg

[3.] https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/a7/Peasants_breaking_bread.jpg

[4.] https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/a1/Medieval_peasant_meal.jpg

[5.] https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/c0/Cuisine_m%C3%A9di%C3%A9vale.jpg

[6.] https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/d3/Monk_sneaking_a_drink.jpg

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Medieval Food and Drink | Facts, Diet, Preparation & Preservation

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Cereals were consumed in the form of bread, oatmeal, polenta, and pasta by virtually all members of society. Vegetables represented an important supplement to the cereal-based diet. Meat was more expensive and, therefore, considered a more prestigious food and was mostly present on the tables of the rich and noble.

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Feasting and enjoying food was an important part of medieval life, because during a war there wasn't very much to eat. Nobles had to pay for food and wages for his household.

Bread was the basic food in the Middle Ages, it could be made with barley, rye, and wheat. Wealthy people used thick slices of brown bread as bowls called trenchers to soak up juice and sauce from the food.

Flour made for the castle was ground at the lord's own mill by his miller. Millers produced different kinds of flour, fine, to make white bread for the king or lord, and brown bread for the servants.

Birds like chickens, geese, and ducks were keptr. On special occasions the wealthy ate swan and peacock. Beef and venison were well liked, so was pork.

Mustard was a favorite ingredient.

Medieval people liked fish and fresh meat that was not salted yet. Meat was salted in huge wooden vats so that the food would not spoil.

Salt was expensive but large quantities were bought every year. Most people ate with their fingers and their own knives; forks were introduced towards the end of the Middle Ages. Many people thought forks were silly, but every one had to behave properly at mealtime.

There were many rules on the correct way to eat and where people sat at the table.

Before 1100 honey was the only way to sweeten food because spices were expensive because they came from the Far East.

Herbs were used to season food and make remedies for the ill.

Crusaders brought new foods like raisins, dates, and figs to Europe.

Cereals remained the most important staples during the early Middle Ages, as rice was a late introduction to Europe and the potato was only introduced in 1536 (and for centuries was used almost exclusively to feed animals). Barley, oat and rye among the poor, and wheat for the governing classes, were eaten as bread, porridge, gruel and pasta by all members of society. Fava beans and vegetables were important supplements to the cereal-based diet of the lower orders.

Meat was more expensive and therefore more prestigious and in the form of game was common only on the tables of the nobility and poachers. The most prevalent butcher's meats were pork and chicken and other domestic fowl. Beef, which required greater investment in land, was less common.

Cod and herring were mainstays among the northern populations, and dried, smoked or salted made their way far inland. A wide variety of other saltwater and freshwater fish were also eaten - castles generally had their own fishponds.

Slow transportation and inefficient food preservation techniques,(drying, salting, smoking and pickling) made long-distance trade of many foods expensive. Because of this, the food of the nobility was more prone to foreign influence than the cuisine of the poor, and dependent on exotic spices and expensive imports. As each level of society imitated the one above it, innovations from international trade and foreign wars from the 12th century onwards gradually disseminated through the upper middle class of medieval cities. Aside from economic unavailability of luxuries such as spices, decrees outlawed consumption of certain foods among certain social classes,

Sumptuary laws limited the conspicuous consumption among the nouveau riche. Social norms also dictated that the food of the working class be less refined, since it was believed there was a natural resemblance between one's labor and one's food, so manual labor required coarser, cheaper food.

A type of refined cooking developed in the late Middle Ages that set the standard among the nobility all over Europe. Common seasonings in the highly spiced sweet-sour repertory typical of upper-class medieval food included verjuice, wine and vinegar in combination with spices such as black pepper, saffron and ginger. These, along with the widespread use of sugar or honey gave many dishes a sweet-sour flavor.

Almonds were very popular as a thickener in soups, stews, and sauces, particularly as almond milk.

The cuisines of the cultures of the Mediterranean Basin had since antiquity been based on cereals, particularly various types of wheat. Porridge and gruel, and later bread became the basic food staple that made up the majority of calorie intake for most of the population. From the 8th to the 11th centuries, the proportion of various cereals of the diet rose from about 1⁄3 to 3⁄4. Dependence on wheat remained significant throughout the medieval era, and spread northwards. In colder climates, wheat was usually unaffordable for most people, and was associated with the higher classes. The centrality of bread in religious rituals such as the Eucharist meant that it enjoyed an especially high prestige among foodstuffs. Only olive oil and wine had a comparable value, but both remained exclusive outside of the warmer wine- and olive-growing regions.

In the British Isles, northern France, the Low Countries, the northern German-speaking areas, Scandinavia and the Baltic the climate was generally too harsh for the cultivation of grapes and olives. In the south, wine was the common drink for both rich and poor alike (though the commoner usually had to settle for cheap second pressing wine) while beer was the commoner's drink in the north and wine an expensive import. Citrus fruits (though not the kinds most common today) and pomegranates were common around in the Mediterranean. Dried figs and dates occurred in the north, but were used rather sparingly in cooking.

Olive oil was a ubiquitous ingredient around the Mediterranean, but remained an expensive import in the north where oil of poppy, walnut, hazel and filbert was the most affordable alternative. Butter and lard, especially after the terrible mortality during the Black Death, was used in considerable quantities in the northern and northwestern regions.

Food
Drinks

from the Luttrell Psalter (England, c. 1325-35)

from the Luttrell Psalter (England, c. 1325-35)

from the Luttrell Psalter (England, c. 1325-35)

Food preparation

All types of cooking involved the use of open fires. Stoves did not appear until the 18th century, and cooks had to know how to cook directly over an open fire.

Ovens were used, but they were expensive to construct and only existed in fairly large households and bakeries. Castles, of course would have their own ovens - often several different ones. Outside of castles it was common for a community to have shared ownership of an oven to ensure that the bread baking essential to everyone was made communal rather than private. There were also portable ovens designed to be filled with food and then buried in hot coals, and even larger ones on wheels that were used to sell pies in the streets of medieval towns.

Almost all cooking was done in simple stewpots, since this was the most efficient use of firewood and did not waste precious cooking juices, making potages and stews the most common dishes. Overall, most evidence suggests that medieval dishes had a fairly high fat content, or at least when fat could be afforded. This was considered less of a problem in a time of back-breaking toil, famine, and a greater acceptance, even desirability, of plumpness; only the poor or sick, and devout ascetics, were thin.

Fruit was readily combined with meat, fish and eggs. It was considered important to make sure that the dish agreed with contemporary standards of medicine and dietetics. This meant that food had to be "tempered" according to its nature by an appropriate combination of preparation and mixing certain ingredients, condiments and spices; fish was seen as being cold and moist, and best cooked in a way that heated and dried it, such as frying or oven baking, and seasoned with hot and dry spices; beef was dry and hot and should therefore be boiled; pork was hot and moist and should therefore always be roasted. In some recipe collections, alternative ingredients were assigned with more consideration to the humoral nature than what a modern cook would consider to be similarity in taste. In a recipe for quince pie, cabbage is said to work equally well, and in another turnips could be replaced by pears.

The completely edible shortcrust pie did not appear in recipes until the 15th century. Before that the pastry was primarily used as a cooking container in a technique known as 'huff paste' . Recipe collections show that gastronomy in the Late Middle Ages developed significantly. New techniques, like the shortcrust pie and the clarification of jelly with egg whites began to appear in recipes in the late 14th century and recipes began to include detailed instructions instead of being mere memory aids to an already skilled cook.

Cereals

The period between c. 500 and 1300 saw a major change in diet that affected most of Europe. More intense agriculture on an ever-increasing acreage resulted in a shift from animal products, meat and dairy products to various grains and vegetables as the staple of the majority population. Before the 14th century bread was not as common among the lower classes, especially in the north where wheat was more difficult to grow. A bread-based diet became gradually more common during the 15th century and replaced warm intermediate meals that were porridge- or gruel-based. Leavened bread was more common in wheat-growing regions in the south, while unleavened flatbread of barley, rye or oats remained more common in northern and highland regions, and unleavened flatbread was also common as provisions for troops.

The most common grains were rye, barley, buckwheat, millet, and oats. Rice remained a fairly expensive import for most of the Middle Ages and was grown in northern Italy only towards the end of the period. Wheat was common all over Europe and was considered to be the most nutritious of all grains, but was more prestigious and thus more expensive. The finely sifted white flour that modern Europeans are most familiar with was reserved for the bread of the upper classes. As one descended the social ladder, bread became coarser, darker, and its bran content increased. In times of grain shortages or outright famine, grains could be supplemented with cheaper and less desirable substitutes like chestnuts, dried legumes, acorns, ferns, and a wide variety of more or less nutritious vegetable matter.

One of the most common constituents of a medieval meal, either as part of a banquet or as a small snack, were sops, pieces of bread with which a liquid like wine, soup, broth, or sauce could be soaked up and eaten. Another common sight at the medieval dinner table was the frumenty, a thick wheat porridge often boiled in a meat broth and seasoned with spices. Porridges were also made of every type of grain and could be served as desserts or dishes for the sick, if boiled in milk (or almond milk) and sweetened with sugar. Pies filled with meats, eggs, vegetables, or fruit were common throughout Europe, as were turnovers, fritters, doughnuts, and many similar pastries. By the Late Middle Ages biscuits and especially wafers, eaten for dessert, had become high-prestige foods and came in many varieties. Grain, either as bread crumbs or flour, was also the most common thickener of soups and stews, alone or in combination with almond milk.

Selling Bread

Fruit

Fruit was popular and could be served fresh, dried, or preserved, and was a common ingredient in many cooked dishes.[

Since sugar and honey were both expensive, it was common to include many types of fruit in dishes that called for sweeteners of some sort. The fruits of choice in the south were lemons, citrons, bitter oranges (the sweet type was not introduced until several hundred years later), pomegranates, quinces, and, of course, grapes. Further north, apples, pears, plums, and strawberries were more common. figs and dates were eaten all over Europe, but remained rather expensive imports in the north.

Vegetables

Vegetables such as cabbage, beets, onions, garlic and carrots were common foodstuffs. Many of these were eaten daily by peasants and workers, but were less prestigious than meat.

Cookbooks, intended mostly for those who could afford such luxuries, which appeared in the late Middle Ages, only contained a small number of recipes using vegetables as the main ingredient. The lack of recipes for many basic vegetable dishes, such as potages, has been interpreted not to mean that they were absent from the meals of the nobility, but rather that they were considered so basic that they did not require recording.

Carrots were available in many variants during the Middle Ages: among them a tastier reddish-purple variety and a less prestigious green-yellow type. Various legumes, like chickpeas, fava beans and peas were also common and important sources of protein, especially among the lower classes. With the exception of peas, legumes were often viewed with some suspicion by the dietitians advising the upper class, partly because of their tendency to cause flatulence but also because they were associated with the coarse food of peasants.

Common and often basic ingredients in many modern European cuisines like potatoes, kidney beans, cacao, vanilla, tomatoes, chili peppers and maize were not available to Europeans until the late 15th century after European contact with the Americas, and even then it often took a long time for the new foodstuffs to be accepted by society at large.

Harvesting cabbage; Tacuinum Sanitatis, 15th century.

Fish and Seafood

Although less prestigious than other animal meats, and often seen as merely an alternative to meat on fast days, seafood was the mainstay of many coastal populations.

"Fish" to the medieval person was also a general name for anything not considered a proper land-living animal, including marine mammals such as whales and porpoises. Also included were the beaver, due to its scaly tail and considerable time spent in water, and barnacle geese, due to lack of knowledge of where they migrated. Such foods were also considered appropriate for fast days.

Especially important was the fishing and trade in herring and cod in the Atlantic and the Baltic Sea. The herring was of unprecedented significance to the economy of much of Northern Europe, and it was one of the most common commodities traded by the Hanseatic League.

Kippers made from herring caught in the North Sea could be found in markets as far away as Constantinople.

While large quantities of fish were eaten fresh, a large proportion was salted, dried, and, to a lesser extent, smoked. Stockfish, cod that was split down the middle, fixed to a pole and dried, was very common, though preparation could be time-consuming, and meant beating the dried fish with a mallet before soaking it in water.

A wide range of molluscs including oysters, mussels and scallops were eaten by coastal and river-dwelling populations, and freshwater crayfish were seen as a desirable alternative to meat during fish days. Compared to meat, fish was much more expensive for inland populations, especially in Central Europe, and therefore not an option for most. Freshwater fish such as pike, carp, bream, perch, lamprey, and trout were common.

Fishing lamprey in a stream; Tacuinum Sanitatis, 15th century.

Meat

Wild game were popular among those who could obtain it, but most meat came from domesticated animals.

Beef was not as common as today because raising cattle was labor-intensive, requiring pastures and feed, and oxen and cows were much more valuable as draught animals and for producing milk. Animals slaughtered because they were no longer able to work were not particularly appetizing and were therefore less valued. Far more common was pork, as pigs required less attention and cheaper feed.

Domestic pigs often ran freely even in towns and could be fed on just about any organic kitchen waste, and suckling pig was a sought-after delicacy. Mutton and lamb were fairly common, especially in areas with a sizeable wool industry, as was veal.

Every part of the animal was eaten, including ears, snout, tail, tongue, and womb. Intestines, bladder and stomach could be used as casings for sausage or even illusion food such as giant eggs. Among the meats that today are rare or even considered inappropriate for human consumption the hedgehog and porcupine, occasionally mentioned in late medieval recipe collections.

A wide range of birds was eaten, including swans, peafowl, quail, partridge, storks, cranes, larks, linnets and other songbirds that could be trapped in nets, and just about any other wild bird that could be hunted. Swans and peafowl were domesticated to some extent, but were only eaten by the social elite, and more praised for their fine appearance as stunning entertainment dishes, entremets, than for their meat.

Geese and ducks had been domesticated but were not as popular as the chicken, the fowl equivalent of the pig.

Meats were more expensive than plant foods. Though rich in protein, the calorie-to-weight ratio of meat was less than that of plant food. Meat could be up to four times as expensive as bread. Fish was up to 16 times as costly, and was still expensive even for coastal populations. This meant that fasts could mean an especially meager diet for those who could not afford alternatives to meat and animal products like milk and eggs.

It was only after the Black Death had eradicated up to half of the European population that meat became more common even for poorer people. The drastic reduction in many populated areas resulted in a labor shortage, meaning that wages shot up. It also left vast areas of farmland untended, making them available for pasture and putting more meat on the market.

Dairy products

Milk was an important source of animal protein for those who could not afford meat. It would mostly come from cows, but milk from goats and sheep was also common. Plain fresh milk was not consumed by adults except the poor or sick, and was usually reserved for the very young or elderly.

Poor adults would sometimes drink buttermilk or whey or milk that was soured or watered down. Fresh milk was overall less common than other dairy products because of the lack of technology to keep it from spoiling. On occasion it was used in upper-class kitchens in stews, but it was difficult to keep fresh in bulk and almond milk was generally used in its stead.

Cheese was far more important as a foodstuff, especially for common people, and it has been suggested that it was, during many periods, the chief supplier of animal protein among the lower classes. Many varieties of cheese eaten today, like Dutch Edam, Northern French Brie and Italian Parmesan, were available and well-known in late medieval times. There were also whey cheeses, like ricotta, made from by-products of the production of harder cheeses.

Cheese was used in cooking for pies and soups, the latter being common fare in German-speaking areas. Butter, another important dairy product, was in popular use in the regions of Northern Europe that specialized in cattle production in the latter half of the Middle Ages, the Low Countries and Southern Scandinavia. While most other regions used oil or lard as cooking fats, butter was the dominant cooking medium in these areas. Its production also allowed for a lucrative butter export from the 12th century onward.

Preparing and serving cheese; Tacuinum Sanitatis, 14th century

Herbs & Spices

Spices were among the most luxurious products available in the Middle Ages, the most common being black pepper, cinnamon (and the cheaper alternative cassia), cumin, nutmeg, ginger and cloves.

They all had to be imported from plantations in Asia and Africa, which made them extremely expensive, and gave them social cachet such that pepper for example was hoarded, traded and conspicuously donated in the manner of gold bullion.

It has been estimated that around 1,000 tons of pepper and 1,000 tons of the other common spices were imported into Western Europe each year during the late Middle Ages. The value of these goods was the equivalent of a yearly supply of grain for 1.5 million people.

While pepper was the most common spice, the most exclusive, though not the most obscure in its origin, was saffron, used as much for its vivid yellow-red color as for its flavor, for according to the humours, yellow signified hot and dry, valued qualities; turmeric provided a yellow substitute, and touches of gilding at banquets supplied both the medieval love of ostentatious show and Galenic dietary lore: at the sumptuous banquet that Cardinal Riario offered the daughter of the King of Naples in June 1473, the bread was gilded.[

Among the spices that have now fallen into obscurity are grains of paradise, a relative of cardamom which almost entirely replaced pepper in late medieval north French cooking, long pepper, mace, spikenard, galangal and cubeb.

Sugar, unlike today, was considered to be a type of spice due to its high cost and humoral qualities.[ Few dishes employed just one type of spice or herb, but rather a combination of several different ones. Even when a dish was dominated by a single flavorer it was usually combined with another to produce a compound taste, for example parsley and cloves or pepper and ginger.

Common herbs such as sage, mustard, and parsley were grown and used in cooking all over Europe, as were caraway, mint, dill and fennel. Many of these plants grew throughout all of Europe or were cultivated in gardens, and were a cheaper alternative to exotic spices. Mustard was particularly popular with meat products and was described by Hildegard of Bingen (1098-1179) as poor man's food. While locally grown herbs were less prestigious than spices, they were still used in upper-class food, but were then usually less prominent or included merely as coloring. Anise was used to flavor fish and chicken dishes, and its seeds were served as sugar-coated comfits.

Surviving medieval recipes frequently call for flavoring with a number of sour, tart liquids. Wine, verjuice (the juice of unripe grapes or fruits) vinegar and the juices of various fruits, especially one those with tart flavors were almost universal and a hallmark of late medieval cooking. In combination with sweeteners and spices, it produced a distinctive "pungeant, fruity" flavor.

Equally common, and used to complement the tanginess of these ingredients, were (sweet) almonds. They were used in a variety of ways: whole, shelled or unshelled, slivered, ground and, most importantly, processed into almond milk. This last type of non-dairy milk product is probably the single most common ingredient in late medieval cooking and blended the aroma of spices and sour liquids with a mild taste and creamy texture.

Salt was a ubiquitous and indispensable in medieval cooking. Salting and drying was the most common form of food preservation and meant that especially fish and meat were often heavily salted. Many medieval recipes specifically warn against oversalting and there were recommendations for soaking certain products in water to get rid of excess salt.

Salt was present during more elaborate or expensive meals. The richer the host, and the more prestigious the guest, the more elaborate would be the container in which it was served and the quality and price of the salt. Wealthy guests were provided with salt cellars made of pewter, precious metals or other fine materials, often intricately decorated. The rank of a diner also decided how finely ground and white the salt was. Salt for cooking, preservation or for use by common people was coarser; sea salt, or "bay salt", in particular, had more impurities, and was described in colors ranging from black to green. Expensive salt, on the other hand, looked like the standard commercial salt common today.

Puddings ( Sweets and Desserts)

The term "dessert" comes from the Old French desservir, "to clear a table", literally "to un-serve", and originated during the Middle Ages. It would typically consist of dragées and mulled wine accompanied by aged cheese, and by the Late Middle Ages could also include fresh fruit covered in sugar, honey or syrup and boiled-down fruit pastes.

Sugar, from its first appearance in Europe, was viewed as much as a drug as a sweetener; its long-lived medieval reputation as an exotic luxury encouraged its appearance in elite contexts accompanying meats and other dishes that to modern taste are more naturally savoury.

There was a wide variety of fritters, crêpes with sugar, sweet custards and darioles, almond milk and eggs in a pastry shell that could also include fruit and sometimes even bone marrow or fish.

Marzipan in many forms was well-known in Italy and southern France by the 1340s and is assumed to be of Arab origin.

Anglo-Norman cookbooks are full of recipes for sweet and savory custards, potages, sauces and tarts with strawberries, cherries, apples and plums.

English chefs also had a penchant for using flower petals such as roses, violets, and elder flowers.

An early form of quiche can be found in Forme of Cury, a 14th century recipe collection, as a Torte de Bry with a cheese and egg yolk filling.

In northern France, a wide assortment of waffles and wafers was eaten with cheese and hypocras or a sweet malmsey as issue de table ("departure from the table").

The ever-present candied ginger, coriander, aniseed and other spices were referred to as épices de chambre ("parlor spices") and were taken as digestables at the end of a meal to "close" the stomach.

Like their Muslim counterparts in Spain, the Arab conquerors of Sicily introduced a wide variety of new sweets and desserts that eventually found their way to the rest of Europe. Just like Montpellier, Sicily was once famous for its comfits, nougat candy (torrone, or turrón in Spanish) and almond clusters (confetti).

From the south, the Arabs also brought the art of ice cream making that produced sorbet and several examples of sweet cakes and pastries; cassata alla Siciliana (from Arabic qas'ah, the term for the terra cotta bowl with which it was shaped), made from marzipan, sponge cake and sweetened ricotta and cannoli alla Siciliana, originally cappelli di turchi ("Turkish hats"), fried, chilled pastry tubes with a sweet cheese filling.

Food Preservation

Even if food was plentiful in the summer, it was rarely so in the winter. Food had to be preserved to carry people through to the next season of plenty. Also preserved food became even more important in times of siege.

Food preservation methods were the same as had been used since antiquity (and did not change much until the invention of canning in the 19th century). The most common and simplest method was to expose foodstuffs to heat or wind to remove moisture, thereby prolonging the durability if not the flavour of almost any type of food from cereals to meats; the drying of food worked by drastically reducing the activity of various water-dependent microorganisms that cause decay. In warm climates this was mostly achieved by leaving food out in the sun, and in the cooler northern climates by exposure to strong winds (especially common for the preparation of stockfish), or in warm ovens, cellars, attics, and even in living quarters.

Subjecting food to a number of chemical processes such as smoking, salting, brining, conserving or fermenting also made it keep longer. Most of these methods had the advantage of shorter preparation times and of introducing new flavors. Smoking or salting meat of livestock butchered in the fall was a common household strategy to avoid having to feed more animals than necessary during the lean winter months. Butter tended to be heavily salted (5-10%) in order not to spoil. Vegetables, eggs or fish were also often pickled in tightly packed jars, containing brine and acidic liquids (lemon juice, verjuice or vinegar). Another method was to create a seal around the food by cooking it in sugar or honey or fat, in which it was then stored. Bacterial modification was also encouraged, however, by a number of methods; grains, fruit and grapes were turned into alcoholic drinks thus killing any bacteria, and milk was fermented and cured into a multitude of cheeses or buttermilk.

Influence of Church Teaching

Both Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox Churches exercised control on eating habits - most npotably through regulations about fasting. Consumption of meat was forbidden for a full third of the year for most Christians.All animal products, including eggs and dairy products (but not fish), were prohibited during Lent and on other fast days. Additionally, it was customary for Christians to fast prior to taking the Eucharist. In most of Europe, Wednesdays, Fridays, sometimes Saturdays and various other days on the calendar, including Advent, were fast days. During particularly severe fast days, the number of daily meals was also reduced to one. Even if most people respected these restrictions and usually made penance when they violated them, there were also numerous ways of circumventing the problem, a conflict of ideals and practice summarized by writer Bridget Ann Henisch:

Although animal products were to be avoided during times of penance, people found ways to vary their diets. The definition of "fish" was extended to marine and semi-aquatic animals such as whales, barnacle geese, puffins and beavers. The choice of ingredients may have been limited, but that did not mean that meals were smaller. Neither were there any restrictions against (moderate) drinking or eating sweets. Banquets held on fish days could be splendid, and they were popular occasions for serving illusion food that imitated meat, cheese and eggs; fish could be molded to look like venison, ham or bacon. Almond milk replaced animal milk as an expensive non-dairy alternative;. Faux eggs made from fish roe and almond milk were cooked in blown-out eggshells, flavoored and colored with exclusive spices.

While the poor were required to conform to the Church's rules, nobles and churchmen were not. Nobles could buy exceptions - many so caled "butter towers" around Europe were funded by selling excemptions from the requirement not eat dairy products. Monstic orders simply ignored therules for themselves, often justifying themselves by improbable interpretations of the Bible. Since the sick were exempt from fasting, there often evolved the notion that fasting restrictions did not apply in hospitals and this was extended to anywhere outside the refectory. Monk and Friars would simply eat their fast day meals outside the refectory.

Food was an important marker of social status. According to Christian teaching of the time, society consisted of the three estates of the realm: nobility, clergy, and commoners - the working class. The relationship between the classes was strictly hierarchical, with the nobility and clergy claiming worldly and spiritual overlordship over commoners. In the late Middle Ages, the increasing wealth of middle class merchants and traders meant that commoners began emulating the aristocracy, and threatened to break down some of the symbolic barriers between the nobility and the lower classes. The response came in two forms: didactic literature warning of the dangers of adapting a diet inappropriate for one's class, and sumptuary laws that limited the lavishness of commoners' banquets.

Moralists frowned on breaking the overnight fast ("breakfast") too early, and members of the Church, the nobility and cultivated gentry avoided it. For practical reasons, breakfast was still eaten by working men, and was tolerated for young children, women, the elderly and the sick.

Because the church preached against gluttony and other weaknesses of the flesh, men tended to be ashamed of needing to eat additional meals. Lavish dinner banquets and late-night reresopers (from Occitan rèire-sopar, "late supper") with considerable amounts of alcoholic beverage were considered immoral. The latter were especially associated with gambling, crude language, drunkenness, and lewd behavior.

Minor meals and snacks were common (although also discouraged by the church, and working men commonly received an allowance from their employers in order to buy nuncheons, small morsels to be eaten during breaks.

"Healthy" Eating

Medical science of the Middle Ages had a considerable influence on what was considered healthy and nutritious among the upper classes. One's lifestyle including diet, exercise, appropriate social behaviour, and approved medical remedies was the way to good health, and all types of food were assigned certain properties that affected a person's health. All foodstuffs were also classified on scales ranging from hot to cold and moist to dry, according to the four bodily humors theory proposed by Galen that dominated Western medical science from late Antiquity until the 17th century.

Medieval scholars considered human digestion to be a process similar to cooking. The processing of food in the stomach was seen as a continuation of the preparation initiated by the cook. In order for the food to be properly "cooked" and for the nutrients to be properly absorbed, it was important that the stomach be filled in an appropriate manner.

Easily digestible foods would be consumed first, followed by gradually heavier dishes. If this regimen was not respected it was believed that heavy foods would sink to the bottom of the stomach, thus blocking the digestion duct, so that food would digest very slowly and cause putrefaction of the body and draw bad humors into the stomach. It was also of vital importance that food of differing properties not be mixed.

Before a meal, the stomach would preferably be "opened" with an apéritif that was preferably of a hot and dry nature: confections made from sugar- or honey-coated spices like ginger, caraway and seeds of anise, fennel or cumin, wine and sweetened fortified milk drinks.

A meal would ideally begin with easily digestible fruit, such as apples. It would then be followed by vegetables such as lettuce, cabbage, purslane, herbs, moist fruits, light meats, like chicken or goat kid, with potages and broths. After that came the "heavy" meats, such as pork and beef, as well as vegetables and nuts, including pears and chestnuts, both considered difficult to digest. It was popular, and recommended by medical expertise, to finish the meal with aged cheese and various digestives.

The most ideal food was that which most closely matched the humor of human beings, i.e. moderately warm and moist. Food should preferably also be finely chopped, ground, pounded and strained to achieve a true mixture of all the ingredients.

White wine was believed to be cooler than red and the same distinction was applied to red and white vinegar. Milk was moderately warm and moist, but the milk of different animals was believed to differ.

Egg yolks were considered to be warm and moist while the whites were cold and moist. Skilled cooks were expected to conform to the regimen of humoral medicine. Even if this limited the combinations of food they could prepare, there was still ample room for artistic variation by the chef.

As the stomach had been opened, it should then be "closed" at the end of the meal with the help of a digestive, most commonly a dragée, which during the Middle Ages consisted of lumps of spiced sugar, or hypocras, a wine flavored with fragrant spices, along with aged cheese.

Meals & Etiquette

In Europe there were typically two meals a day: dinner at mid-day and a lighter supper in the evening. The two-meal system remained consistent throughout the late Middle Ages. Smaller intermediate meals were common, but became a matter of social status, as those who did not have to perform manual labor could go without them.

As with almost every part of life, a medieval meal was generally a communal affair. The entire household, including servants, would eat together. To sneak off to enjoy private company was considered a haughty and inefficient egotism in a world where people depended very much on each other. In the 13th century, English bishop Robert Grosseteste advised the Countess of Lincoln: "forbid dinners and suppers out of hall, in secret and in private rooms, for from this arises waste and no honour to the lord and lady." He also recommended to watch that the servants not make off with leftovers to make merry at rere-suppers, rather than giving it as alms.

Towards the end of the Middle Ages, the wealthy increasingly sought to escape this regime of stern collectivism. When possible, rich hosts retired with their consorts to private chambers where the meal could be enjoyed in greater exclusivity and privacy.

Being invited to a lord's chambers was a great privilege and could be used as a way to reward friends and allies and to awe subordinates. It allowed lords to distance themselves further from the household and to enjoy more luxurious treats while serving inferior food to the rest of the household that still dined in the great hall.

At major occasions and banquets the host and hostess dined in the great hall with the other diners, with multiple courses, luxurious spices.. Before the meal and between courses, shallow basins and linen towels were offered to guests so they could wash their hands, as cleanliness was emphasized. Social codes made it difficult for women to uphold the ideal of immaculate neatness and delicacy while enjoying a meal, so the wife of the host often dined in private with her entourage or ate very little at such feasts. She could then join dinner only after the potentially messy business of eating was done. Overall, fine dining was a predominantly male affair, and it was uncommon for anyone but the most honoured of guests to bring his wife or her ladies-in-waiting. The lower ranked were expected to help the higher, the younger to assist the elder, and men to spare women the risk of sullying dress and reputation by having to handle food in an unwomanly fashion. Shared drinking cups were common even at lavish banquets for all but those who sat at the high table, as was the standard etiquette of breaking bread and carving meat for one's fellow diners.

Food was mostly served on plates or in stew pots, and diners would take their share from the dishes and place it on trenchers of stale bread, or plates of wood or pewter with the help of spoons or bare hands.( In lower-class households it was common to eat food straight off the table). Knives were used at the table, but most people were expected to bring their own, and only highly favored guests would be given a personal knife. A knife was usually shared with at least one other dinner guest, unless one was of very high rank or well-acquainted with the host. Forks for eating were not in widespread usage in Europe until the early modern period, and early on were limited to Italy. Even there it was not until the 14th century that the fork became common among Italians of all social classes. The change in attitudes can be illustrated by the reactions to the table manners of the Byzantine princess Theodora Doukaina in the late 11th century. She was the future wife of the Doge of Venice, Domenico Selvo, and caused considerable dismay among upstanding Venetians. The foreign consort's insistence on having her food cut up by her eunuch servants and then eating the pieces with a golden fork shocked and upset the diners so much that the Bishop of Ostia later interpreted her refined foreign manners as pride and referred to her as "...the Venetian Doge's wife, whose body, after her excessive delicacy, entirely rotted away."

John, Duke of Berry enjoying a grand meal. The Duke is seen sitting at the high table surrounded by numerous servants, guests and dependents. Illustration from Très Riches Heures du Duc de Berry, ca 1410.

Banquet given in Paris in 1378 by Charles V of France (center, blue) for Charles IV, Holy Roman Emperor (left) and his son Wenceslaus, King of the Romans. Each diner has two knives, a square salt container, napkin, bread and a plate; by Jean Fouquet, 1455-60. Paris, BnF, département des Manuscrits, Français 6465, fol. 444v. (Livre de Charles V) Le repas a lieu dans la grand salle du Palais en présence de la cour et d'une foule considérable de dignitaires.

More on Life in a Medieval Castle
Introduction to Life in a Medieval Castle Rooms in a Medieval Castle Officers & Servants in a Medieval Castle Medieval Clothing Medieval Food & Cooking Medieval Drinks Medieval Gardens Medieval Warfare: Medieval Taxes Medieval Games & Pastimes The Feudal System Commendation Desmenes Rivers & Fishponds
Mills: Windmills and Water Mills

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Feasting and enjoying food was an important part of medieval life, because during a war there wasn't very much to eat. Nobles had to pay for food and wages for his household. Bread was the basic food in the Middle Ages, it could be made with barley, rye, and wheat.

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The Romans grow olive oil in North Africa

The foods people ate in Africa didn't just stay the same. Instead, they changed slowly over time. Around 800 BC, with the arrival of Greek and Phoenician invaders, the people of North Africa began to plant olive orchards and produce olive oil. They ate a lot of olives and olive oil, even though they also shipped a lot of olive oil all over the Mediterranean and Europe, and even as far away as India. But olives wouldn't grow south of the Sahara Desert. The weather wasn't right for them.

South Africans start to eat beef and drink milk

Then in South Africa, the Khoikhoi got hold of cattle around 400 AD and they began cattle herding. So after that, Khoikhoi people ate a lot of meat. Soon they began milking their cows too and drinking milk. Their DNA adapted to the new diet, so even grownups could drink milk without getting sick.

Bananas and sugar come to Africa from India

Then the process sped up a lot more. Around 800 AD, in the Middle Ages, African people began to eat a lot of new foods all at once. Indonesian settlers in Madagascar, and traders from India and Iran, brought many new kinds of Asian foods to Africa. Medieval African food was very different from African food in the Iron Age.

There were bananas, plantains, coconuts, and sugar (from sugar-cane). African people also started to eat some new kinds of yams, and new kinds of rice. These foods came first to the east coast of Africa, but they quickly spread with Islam to North Africa and West Africa too.

Coffee, couscous, and rice

Sometime before 1000 AD, soldiers in East Africa also began to eat coffee beans when they needed extra energy for fighting. Soon East African traders were selling coffee to Islamic traders from Yemen. Around the same time, people in North Africa began to make their millet into couscous, which replaced millet porridge () as the basic staple food of North Africa from the Atlantic to Tunis. The adoption of rice in East and West Africa may have influenced the switch, because couscous looks a lot like rice.

By this time, most people in North Africa, West Africa, the Congo river basin, and East Africa were farmers. In south-east Africa most people were cattle herders. Only in the most dry desert areas, or in the wettest, thickest part of the rain forest, were people still hunting and gathering most of their food.

Did you find out what you wanted to know about medieval African food? Let us know in the comments!

Bibliography and further reading about African food:

Food and Recipes of Africa (Kids in the Kitchen.) by Theresa M. Beatty
The People of Africa and Their Food(Multicultural Cookbooks) by Ann Burckhardt
A Taste of West Africa (Food Around the World) by Colin Harris

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Medieval African food - what did people eat?

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Medieval African food was very different from the food of early Africa. In North Africa, the Romans introduced olive oil. In South Africa, people started to herd cattle and drink milk. Indian traders brought bananas, sugar, and rice to East Africa, and people started to eat couscous and drink coffee.

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The history of Chinese food dates back to about 5000 BC. Over this vast period of time, Chinese people have developed their own unique way of preparing food. Their ways of identifying ingredients to make perfect combinations, their multi-phased cooking techniques, and their administering of multi-phased flavoring have all been developed gradually. The ancient Chinese had a very healthy diet, and from historical evidence, we can see that farming in China seems to have started approximately 5,000 years ago.

Chinese cuisine is marked by both variety and change. Since ancient times, food has been at the center of social interaction, and many present-day dishes with their varieties of aroma and taste can be traced back to ancient Chinese food traditions. The Chinese have always considered food an art, placing the emphasis on the preparation of food as well as how it is served.
This article has put together 10 of the most popular traditional foods of ancient China. Let's explore these foods one by one:

10. Vegetables (Soybeans and Cucumber)

There were not many varieties of vegetables in ancient China, but nonetheless, vegetables were an essential part of people's diets. When they could afford it, they ate vegetables with their food staple, rice.

The major vegetables during that period were soybeans and cucumbers, and the consumption of soybeans can be traced back to 1000 BC when the soybean became the staple grain in ancient China. The character shu, meaning soybean, started appearing on bronze vessels from the early Zhou period. Soybeans were also mentioned in the fifth century BC in the Analects of Confucius or the Lunyu.

9. Wine (Rice and Millet)

China is regarded as one of the first countries in the world to have made wine. Since its introduction, wine was not just a drink but was also endowed with a spiritual and cultural significance, reflecting social and political life and aesthetic ideas, and cropping up in contemporary literature as well. During the Shang dynasty (16th to 11th century BC), people began to drink wine and used it to worship the gods; yellow rice wine is considered the first of this kind. All other varieties of wine are supposed to have been developed after the Han (206 BC-220 BC) and Tang (618 BC -907 BC) dynasties. Years later, millet wine was introduced and it was a big hit, even more popular than tea.

8. Sorghum

Sorghum (also known as milo) is known as "the camel of crops" because it doesn't need much water and grows in soil where other grains won't. The seed and fertilizer costs for sorghum are also lower than for other grains. The use of sorghum dates back to the Neolithic period. A large amount of carbonized sorghum was discovered from the Warring State Period (475 BC-221 BC) in Shijiazhuang. According to the Genetic Resources Center, "China is the oldest and the largest center for the origin of sorghum."

7. Meat (Pork, Beef, and Chicken)

Pork is the most commonly consumed meat in China, among other kinds such as beef, mutton, chicken, duck, pigeon, etc. The Chinese people were eating pork, which was native to China, from 4000 or 3000 BC, but sheep and cattle were not native and reached China from West Asia soon after. As meat was so expensive and because Buddhists don't eat meat, many people used tofu, or bean curd, in their diet as a source of protein instead.

6. Tea

The history of Chinese tea can be traced back over 4,000 years. The Chinese consider the drinking of tea as an exquisite artform with many customs and rituals attached to it. Tea is the national drink of China at the present time and one of the three most popular soft drinks in the world along with coffee and cocoa. China proudly regards itself as the birthplace of tea as China was the first country to introduce its planting techniques, processing, and drinking methods to the rest of the world.

See also:
Top 18 Ancient Chinese Inventions and Discoveries

5. Tofu

Tofu, or bean curd, is also of Chinese origin and is made from soya milk, water, and a curdling agent. Being rich in nutrients, low in fat, and high in protein, calcium, and iron, it has been a staple food in Chinese and Asian cuisine since ancient times.

Chinese doctors discovered that meat was an essential food because it was a rich source of protein, but only the wealthy could afford to eat it. To fix this, a law was made that every week, every person living in China would get a free cup of tofu, which was a mixture of soybean and other things like rice to give them the same amount of nutritions as meat would. In China at that time it was difficult to cook on a large scale, so people would break their food into small pieces to cook it. Tofu has also become a popular ingredient in Western vegetarian dishes as well.

4. Noodles

Noodles are also an ancient Chinese food. The history of noodles goes back to as early as the Eastern Han Dynasty (206 BC-220 BC), when noodles became an essential staple ingredient in Chinese cuisine. In ancient times, noodles were made from wheat dough. During the Song dynasty (960-1279 AD) noodles were so popular that noodle shops remained open all night. In the year 2002, an earthenware bowl containing the world's oldest noodles was found at the Lajia archaeological site in China.

3. Wheat

By around 2500 BC, people in China started growing and eating wheat, having previously relied on imports from West Asia, and wheat quickly became the main source of carbohydrate. Ancient Chinese people ate porridge but they didn't make wheat into bread. The major reason behind this was that the charcoal they used as fuel was too expensive to bake the bread.

2. Millet

Wheat was not native to China and it took longer to become the main source of food, but people have been farming millet in northern China (where the cold, dry conditions are ideal) since about 4500 BC. Millet grew wild in China and was used as a major source of food even before it was farmed. During the Han dynasty, millet was also used for making wine and later on, millet porridge became a popular foodstuff in northern China.

1. Rice

Like millet, wheat, and other grains, rice is also a rich source of carbohydrate. The history of rice in China dates back to the late Stone Age (about 3000 BC). The farming of rice is considered to have started in Thailand but it was probably Chinese farmers who invented the rice paddy. Rice paddies are the system of growing rice in muddy, artificial ponds.

Since ancient times, rice has been used as a staple in China, and when you think of Chinese food, most likely the first thing that you think of is rice. Even though rice has been grown in China for a long time, in northern China, it was too cold to farm rice so they farmed millet and sorghum instead. People usually cooked rice by boiling or steaming it to make it soft, and rice was also used for making a type of wine called rice wine, which still is drunk in China today.

Conclusion

We can see that China has been rich in food culture ever since ancient times. We can also note that there is a diversity between farming and food production in the south of China and the north, which gives rise to the regional differences in cuisines. Agriculture seems to have played an important role in China's history, and the agricultural practices of the ancient times played a central role in the political, economic, social and ideological advances of China.

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Top 10 Traditional Ancient Chinese Foods - Ancient History Lists

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The history of Chinese food dates back to about 5000 BC. Over this vast period of time, Chinese people have developed their own unique way of preparing food. Their ways of identifying ingredients to make perfect combinations, their multi-phased cooking techniques, and their administering of multi-phased flavoring have all been developed gradually.

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Awabi- Abalone

Azuki~ Red beans

Daikon~ Giant radish

Daizu~ Soya

Ebi~ Shrimp

Genmai~ Unhusked brown rice

Ginnan~ Gingko nut

Hasu~ Lotus root

Kaki~ Oyster

Katsuobushi~ Dried bonito

Kuri~ Chestnuts

Kyuri~ Cucumber

Miso~ Fermented soybean and rice dish

Misoshiro~ Bean paste soup

Mochi~ Rice cake

Negi~ Green onion

Niboshi~ Dried sardines

Sake~ Rice wine

Sanhso~ Red pepper

Sashimi~ Raw fish
Shiitake~ Mushroom

Shoga~ Ginger

Takenoko~ Bamboo shoot

Tofu~ Soybean curd

Tororo~ Yams

Unagi~ Eel

Wasabi~ Horse radish

Zoni~ Rice cake soup

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Awabi- Abalone Azuki~ Red beans Daikon~ Giant radish Daizu~ Soya Ebi~ Shrimp Genmai~ Unhusked brown rice Ginnan~ Gingko nut Hasu~ Lotus root Kaki~ Oyster Katsuobushi~ Dried bonito Kuri~ Chestnuts Kyuri~ Cucumber Miso~ Fermented soybean and rice dish Misoshiro~ Bean paste soup Mochi~ Rice cake Negi~ Green onion Niboshi~ Dried sardines Sake~ Rice wine Sanhso~ Red pepper Sashimi~ Raw fish Shiitake~ Mushroom Shoga~ Ginger Takenoko~ Bamboo shoot Tofu~ Soybean curd Tororo~ Yams Unagi~ Eel Wasabi~ Horse radish Zoni~ Rice cake soup

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Africa

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Christianity came first to the continent of Africa in the 1st or early 2nd century AD. Oral tradition says the first Muslims appeared while the prophet Mohammed was still alive (he died in 632).
Islam And Christianity

Read more about Christianity
Thus both religions have been on the continent of Africa for over 1,300 years. Some would argue that both Islam and Christianity are indigenous African religions. Not everyone shares this view.
Certainly the first Muslim teachers and Christian missionaries had little respect for the traditional religions they came across. Both Islam and Christianity are religions of the book; their doctrinal authority lies in their scriptures. Read more about Islam

The degree to which, either Muslim or Christian teachers, demanded strict adherence to the tenets of their respective faiths, varied considerably. Early Christian missionaries in sub-Saharan Africa were less exacting than the missionaries of the 19th century.
Listen to historian and writer, Chief Mrs Oku, talking about the retention of traditional beliefs alongside Christian practices in Calabar, Nigeria

Islam sat side by side with African traditional religions. The King of the ancient Empire of Ghana of the 11th century was essentially a traditionalist, but that did not stop him employing Muslim scribes and administrators in his government. The Muslims, for their part, did not try and convert the King and his people.

At the end of the day, spiritual faith was not the only issue determining whether Christianity or Islam succeeded in converting people in Africa. The adoption of either of these religions involved a good deal of material and political interests, involving African and European leaders, as well as a host of traders hungry for profit.

In the 1880's and 1890's, Mwanga, the Kabaka (or ruler) of Buganda played off Catholic, Protestant and Muslim emissaries against each other, basing his strategy on who would best strengthen his power as king.

Many communities mixed Muslim or Christian practices with traditional ones. The Wolof, in Senegal, might go to the Mosque to pray for rain. If that failed they would ask the women to do a rain dance. In Calabar, in south eastern Nigeria, there is a mixture of Christian and traditional practices living side by side.

African traditional religions produced no written works, but derived their authority from oral history, custom and practice, and the power of priests, kings and others gifted in dealing with spiritual issues. This lack of scriptures led to the assumption that people in Africa were not capable of 'proper' religious observance. But some European missionaries and explorers were struck by the intense spirituality of Africans.

Islam sits more comfortably with some aspects of traditional religion than Christianity. A key area is marriage. Christianity demands monogamy, that is, not more than one wife. Islam, by contrast, allows a man to take several wives. So Islam had a better chance of being accepted in the polygamous societies of Africa. If a man converted to Christianity, he was obliged to dismiss all but one of his wives; this was the cause of much resentment and bitterness.

&quot'We like you as well as if you had been born among us; you are the only white man we can become familiar with (thoaela); but we wish you to give up that everlasting preaching and praying; we cannot become familiar with that at all.

You see we never get rain, while those tribes who never pray as we do obtain abundance.' This was a fact; and we often saw it raining on the hills ten miles off, while it would not even look at us 'even with one eye.'&quot
Taken from an account of Living with the Bakwain, by Scottish missionary David Livingstone.

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Christianity came first to the continent of Africa in the 1st or early 2nd century AD. Oral tradition says the first Muslims appeared while the prophet Mohammed was still alive (he died in 632). Islam And Christianity Read more about Christianity Thus both religions have been on the continent of Africa for over 1,300 years.

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Under the Han Dynasty (about 200 BC to 200 AD), scholars working for the emperors tried to find a way to combine Taoism and Confucianism. They believed that the emperors should follow the Tao, or the Way. Emperors should help people to be good by rewarding good deeds. That way, people would naturally want to be good, and wouldn't have to be forced into it.

Around 500 AD, in the period of the Three Kingdoms, Buddhism came to China along the Silk Road from India, where the Buddha had lived and where Buddhism got started. Actually there were Buddhists in China even during the Han Dynasty, starting about 50 AD. But there got to be a lot more Buddhists under the Three Kingdoms.

Chinese people created new ways of thinking about Buddhism, including Zen Buddhism. so Buddhism in China was different from Indian Buddhism. The emperors persecuted some Buddhists, but generally Buddhism was popular and accepted. The T'ang Dynasty Empress Wu, for example, was a Buddhist. But Taoism was still very strong in China too.

During the T'ang Dynasty, also, trade with the Sassanians and then the Islamic Empire in West Asia meant that Zoroastrianism, Christianity, Judaism and Islam all found converts in China. In 636 AD, for instance, some Christians from Syria in West Asia built a church in China. By 750, Chinese Muslims built the Great Mosque in Chang'an. Many Uighur Manichaeans also lived in western China. Jews settled at Kaifeng, at the end of the Silk Road, and built a synagogue there in 1163 AD.

Under the Song Dynasty (about 1000 AD), a sort of Confucianism combined with Buddhism got to be popular. Scholars reread the old Confucian philosophical writings in Buddhist terms. They tried to get Buddhist meanings out of Confucian books.

With the Mongol conquests around 1200 AD a new multiculturalism came to China. Kublai Khan, a Mongol emperor, although he was himself a Buddhist, was very interested in all different faiths. He encouraged Christians, Muslims, Jews, Hindus and Tibetan lamas to all come debate each other at his court in China. But most people in China remained either Buddhists or Taoists.

Under the Ming Dynasty (begins in 1368 AD), Confucianism was again the main principle of the emperors, while Buddhism and Taoism were still popular among ordinary people. Throughout this whole time, however, the old ideas of the Mandate of Heaven, the traditional Chinese gods, and ancestor worship remained normal for everyone in China.

Bibliography and further reading about Chinese religion:

One World, Many Religions: The Ways We Worship, by Mary Pope Osborne (1996).

The Gods and Goddesses of Ancient China, by Leonard Everett Fisher (2003). One page for each god, with lots of pictures and some historical context.

Five Heavenly Emperors: Chinese Myths of Creation, by Song Nan Zhang (1994). Stories.

Dragons, Gods and Spirits from Chinese Mythology, by Tao Sanders (1983). More of a child's encyclopedia.

Chinese Mythology A to Z, by Jeremy Roberts (2004).

Dragons and Demons : Myths of China, by Stewart Ross (1998). A few Chinese stories, retold .

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Medieval Chinese religion - Buddhism comes to China

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Under the Han Dynasty (about 200 BC to 200 AD), scholars working for the emperors tried to find a way to combine Taoism and Confucianism. They believed that the emperors should follow the Tao, or the Way. Emperors should help people to be good by rewarding good deeds.

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Izanagi and Izanami, progenitors of everything

Amaterasu Omikami, the Sun goddess

Susano, the Storm god also associated with forests

Fudo, fighter of demons

Uke-mochi, the Food Deity

Fujin, the Wind god

Fire Fade and Fire Flash, associated with tides

Sea King, associated with the ocean/sea

Raiden, the Thunder god

Suku-na-biko, the Dwarf god

Uzume, the Mirth Goddess

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Izanagi and Izanami, progenitors of everything Amaterasu Omikami, the Sun goddess Susano, the Storm god also associated with forests Fudo, fighter of demons Uke-mochi, the Food Deity Fujin, the Wind god Fire Fade and Fire Flash, associated with tides Sea King, associated with the ocean/sea Raiden, the Thunder god Suku-na-biko, the Dwarf god Uzume, the Mirth Goddess

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Most people in the Middle Ages lived their lives fully believing in the reality of a spiritual realm all around them and in heaven or hell when they died. At this time, the people of the British Isles were Roman Catholic and the majority of people strongly believed in this religion and its values.

In the Middle Ages, the Church provided for the religious aspects of people's lives - baptism of babies, marriages, confession, the last rites for the dying and burying the dead.

But the Church did much more than this:

Monks could often read and write when many other people could not, so they copied books and documents and taught children.

Monasteries often had libraries.

Church festivals and saints' days were 'holy days', when people didn't have to work.

The Church put on processions and 'miracle plays'.

The Church played a big part in government:

Bishops sat in the House of Lords.

They could raise an army for the king in times of war.

It was a mistake for a king to fall out with the Church - King John was excommunicated , and King Henry II was whipped after the death of . Thomas Becket

Religion played an important part in people's lives:

Many people went on a pilgrimage to try to reduce the time they thought they would spend in purgatory . A person who had been on pilgrimage would wear a badge to show which shrine he had visited.

Each shrine would have a different symbol that could be understood even by people who couldn't read or write. The symbols were:

a small bottle of oil (St Thomas Becket at Canterbury)

a shell (St James of Compostela in Spain)

a palm leaf (Jerusalem)

cross keys (Rome)

Anybody who was not a Roman Catholic Christian was persecuted:

Jewish people were often attacked and in 1290 were expelled from England.

Many poor people still believed in pagan superstitions. If they were caught, they were burned as a witch or sorcerer.

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Religion in the Middle Ages - Religion through time in the UK - KS3 History Revision - BBC Bitesize

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Most people in the Middle Ages lived their lives fully believing in the reality of a spiritual realm all around them and in heaven or hell when they died. At this time, the people of the British Isles were Roman Catholic and the majority of people strongly believed in this religion and its values.

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You might expect full armor to be incredibly restrictive. In some ways, that was true, but you might also be surprised by just how much mobility some of these knights had. They could jump and run fairly well, but the plates were still an encumbrance. In fact, thanks to contemporary re-enactors, historians estimate that running in 15th-century chain mail armor required twice the amount of energy of running without it.

Nowhere was that more apparent than the Battle of Agincourt, which the French famously lost. One of the biggest reasons for that loss was the weather. It had rained for two straight weeks beforehand, turning the ground into a field of mud. Marching through that in 50 kilograms of armor made the French troops incredibly tired before they even had a chance to fight.

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7 Ways Medieval Knight Armor Was More Dangerous Than Just Wearing Nothing

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Chain mail and suits of armor were some of the most recognizable parts of medieval warfare. Created in response to swordplay, the dominant form of combat at the time, they've become somewhat legendary for their striking appearance on the battlefield. A good suit of plate armor was c...

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The Middle Ages saw the development of new modes of warfare encompassing both pitched battles and siege warfare. Then as now the western world was engaged in an arms race. New weapons technology prompted new defensive technologies, for example the introduction of cross-bows led quickly to the adoption of plate armour rather than chain mail.

During the Dark Ages Christendom had largely abandoned the sophisticated techniques of Classical times, arguing that anything not mentioned in the bible was of satanic origin and that God would ensure victory for his faithful followers.

Along with the scientific advances, military techniques had been abandoned and forgotten. This affected building as well as weaponry. For example the Greeks and Romans had used iron ties to join blocks of stone together. Knowing the effects of rust they encased the iron in lead so that it did not rust, and stonework using this technique survives intact today. 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.

Preparations for Medieval Battle
Medieval Pitched Battles
Medieval Fortifications
Medieval Siege Warfare
Medieval Water Supplies
Medieval Supplies and Logistics
Medieval Equipment & Weapons
Medieval Weapons Technology
Medieval Communications
Medieval Military Organisation
Medieval Women at War

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.

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.

A medieval pitched battle

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: scaling ladders; battering rams; siege towers and various types of catapults such as the mangonel, onager, ballista, and trebuchet. 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. Complex systems of underground tunnels were used for storage and communications in medieval cities like Tábor in Bohemia.

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. either a castle or a fortified town. 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 1216. 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:

breaching the walls or doorways. Attackers would use weapons to get through walls. Examples are stone throwing machines petriers such as trebuchets and mangonels); machines to knock holes in walls such as battering rams; and engines to extract individual dressed stones one by one (cats, weasels and simple picks).

tunelling under the walls. Attackers would build mines, either to gain access to the interior or to undermine and collapse the defensive walls.

getting over the walls. Attackers would use scaling ladders and siege engines such as large mobile wooden towers known as belfries.

sitting and waiting. If communications between the besieged and the outside world could be cut then the defenders could be denied food supplies and sometimes water (as at Beaucaire,Carcassonne,Minerve, andTermes). This was not always possible (as for Raymondet at Beaucaire and at Montsegur). The word siege means "to sit", an indication that this was a standard technique.

A Fifth Column. Inducing someone on the inside to assist the attackers, either by bribery or exploiting divided loyalties. They could for example open a postern gate at night. Occasionally attackers could be smuggled in to the besieged fortification to fulfil this role, as for example in ancient times in the famous Trojan horse.

Diplomacy, threats, terror and psychological techniques. To help weaken the will of the defenders, attackers could make threats or promises, or terrorise the defenders - for example by mutilating or executing hostages, or by using throwing machines to lob fire, or human heads or other body parts, into the the fortification.

Biological Warfare. Medieval besiegers were known to project diseased animals into fortifications with the deliberate intention of spreading disease and so weakening the garisson. I some cases it was possible to poison water supplies, though most fortifications had their own wells or water cisterns.

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.

Siege Towers (Belfries, Belfrois)

Battering Rams

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.

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.

Raymondet, the future Raymond VII, Count of Toulouse, used a ram at Beaucaire in 1216. 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

"... long, straight, sharp and shod with iron; it thrust, carved and smashed till the wall was breached and many of the dressed stones thrown down. 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." ( The Song of the Crusade, laisse 164).

The Cat

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 1216, 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 1217-18. 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.

The Weasel

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.

A weasel was used by the forces of Raymondet, the future Count Raymond VII of Toulouse, at Beaucaire in 1216 according to the The Song of the Crusade (Canso de la crozada). 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. 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.

Chemical Weapons - Greek Fire

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 429 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 424 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 350 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: petroleum and sulphur had both been in use since the early days of the Christianity. 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 1453. 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." Men were known to simply flee their posts rather than face Greek Fire. On the other hand Greek fire was very hard to control, and it would often accidentally set Byzantine ships ablaze.

Greek Fire is said to have been invented by a Syrian Engineer, one Callinicus or Kallinikos, a refugee from Maalbek, or an architect from Heliopolis in the Byzantine Province of Judaea, in the seventh century (673 AD). 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. Some of the original names include Liquid Fire, Marine Fire, Artificial Fire and Roman Fire. (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 678 the Byzantines utterly destroyed a Muslim fleet - over 30,000 men were lost. In 717-718 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. 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.R. Partington, A History of the Greek Fire and Gunpowder, Heffer, 1960.

Greek fire was not the only Chemical Weapon. Poisoned arrows could be employed and in the late medieval period gunpowder became common.

Biological Weapons

Medieval warriors also used basic biological weapons, for example catapulting dead and diseased animals into a defended fortress to help spread disease.

Psychological Weapons

Ancient armies had used sophisticated psychological weapons. For example would have mad armour suitable for a man of several times normal size. He would then leave a few samples laying around the scene of his victories against the Persians. After he had gone Persians would find this armour and were were soon spreading stories of Alexander's superhuman giant soldiers.

Christendom did not stretch to this level of sophistication, but it did engage in some psychological warfare, spreading rumours for example, sometimes with success effectively turning a military defeat into a political victory. Other examples of psychological warfare include making loud noises (an old Celtic practice) and catapulting the severed heads of captured enemies back into the enemy camp.

Defenders in castles under siege might prop up dummies beside the walls to make it look like there were more defenders than there really were. They might throw food from the walls to show besiegers that provisions were plentiful (Dame Carcas, who saw off the Franks, supposedly gave her name to Carcassonne after feeding the last few scraps of food in the besieged city to the last pig and then tossing over the walls as a present to the Franks. As intended, they deduced that their siege was useless and raised it the next day).

Firearms provided a strong psychological benefit when they were introduced, even though their rate of fire rendered them almost useless - and their users often blew themselves up rather than the enemy - literally hoist by their own petard.

A"mine" was a tunnel dug to destabilise and bring down castles and other fortifications. The technique could be used only when the fortification was not built on solid rock. It was developed as a response to stone built castles that could not be burned like earlier-style wooden forts.

A tunnel would be excavated under the outer defences either to provide access into the fortification or more often to collapse the walls. These tunnels were supported by temporary wooden props as the digging progressed, just as in any mine. Once the excavation was complete, the mine was filled with combustible material. When lit it would burn away the props leaving the structure above unsupported and liable to collapse.

To save effort attackers would start the digging as near as possible to the wall or tower to be undermined. This exposed the sappers to enemy fire so it was necessary to provide some sort of defence. Pierre des Vaux de Cernay recounts that at the siege of Carcassonne in 1209, during the Cathar wars (Albigensian Crusade),

"... after the top of the wall had been somewhat weakened by bombardment from petraries, our engineers succeeded with great difficulty in bringing a four-wheeled wagon, covered in oxhides, close to the wall, from which they set to work to sap the wall" (Historia Albigensis - Pierre des Vaux de Cernay, 53).

Successful sapping usually ended the battle since either the defenders would no longer be able to defend and surrender, or the attackers would simply charge in and engage the defenders in close combat.

There were several methods to resist under mining. Often the siting of a castle would be such as to make mining difficult. The walls of a castle could be constructed either on solid rock or water-logged land making it difficult to dig mines. A very deep ditch or moat could be constructed in front of the walls, or even an artificial. This makes it more difficult to dig a mine and even if a breach is made the ditch or moat makes exploiting the breach difficult.

The defenders could also dig counter mines. From these they could then either dig into the attackers tunnels and sortie into them to either kill the sappers or to set fire to the pit-props to collapse the attackers' tunnel. Alternatively they could undermine the attackers' tunnel to collapse it.

If the walls were breached they could either place obstacles in the breach for example a chevaux de frise to hinder an attack, or construct a coupure.

The practice has left us reminders in English. "undermining" has acquired figurative as well as literal meanings. And military engineers are still known as Sappers.

Water was essential to any army and the defence of any stronghold. Wherever practical castles were built on the site of natural springs but that was not always possible.

Where it was not, much effort went into digging wells or aqueducts (sometimes subterranean), or massive cisterns.

Many of the castles that fell during the Cathar Wars did so because of a shortage of water, including Termes and Carcassonne. The illustration on the left shows a massive defensive structure built at Carcassonne to ensure a water supply and access to the River Aude.

The usual method for solving logistical problems for smaller armies was foraging or "living off the land" - effectively stealing whatever was needed: animals, crops, wood and so on.

The normal "campaign season" corresponded to the seasons of the year when there would be food on the ground and relatively good weather. This season was usually from spring to autumn. Soldiers were rarely full-time and often needed to attend to their own land at home. In many European countries peasants were obliged to perform around 45 days of military service per year without pay, usually during this campaign season when they were not required for agriculture. By early-spring all the crops would be planted, freeing the male population for warfare until they were needed for harvest time in late-autumn.

Plunder in itself was often an objective of military campaigns, to either pay mercenary forces, seize resources, reduce the fighting capacity of enemy forces, or even just as a public insult to the enemy ruler.

With the advent of castle-building and the extended siege, supply problems became much greater, as armies had to stay in one spot for months, or even years.

Supply trains are as much a feature of Medieval warfare as they are of ancient and modern warfare. Due to the impossibility of maintaining a real front in pre-modern warfare, supplies had to be carried with the army or transported to it while under guard. However, a supply source moving with the army was necessary for any large-scale army to operate. Medieval supply trains are often found in illuminations and even poems of the period.

River and sea travel often provided the easiest way to transport supplies. During his invasion of the Levant, Richard I of England was forced to supply his army as it was marching through a barren desert. By marching his army along the shore, Richard was regularly re-supplied by ships travelling along the coast. Likewise, as in Roman Imperial times, armies would frequently follow rivers while their supplies were being carried by barges. Supplying armies by mass land-transport would not become practical until the invention of rail transport and the internal combustion engine.

The baggage train provided an alternative supply method that was not dependent on access to a water-way. However, it was often a tactical liability. Supply chains forced armies to travel more slowly than a light skirmishing force and were typically centrally placed in the army, protected by the infantry and outriders. Attacks on an enemy's baggage when it was unprotected - as for instance the French attack on the English train at Agincourt, highlighted in the play Henry V-could cripple an army's ability to continue a campaign. This was particularly true in the case of sieges, when large amounts of supplies had to be provided for the besieging army. To refill its supply train, an army would forage extensively as well as re-supply itself in cities or supply points - border castles were frequently stocked with supplies for this purpose.

A failure in logistics often resulted in famine and disease for a medieval army, with corresponding deaths and loss of morale. A besieging force could starve while waiting for the same to happen to the besieged, which meant the siege had to be lifted. With the advent of the great castles of high medieval Europe however, this problem was typically something commanders prepared for on both sides, so sieges could be long, drawn-out affairs.

Epidemics of diseases such as smallpox, cholera, typhoid, and dysentery often swept through medieval armies, especially when poorly supplied or sedentary. In a famous example, in 1347 the bubonic plague erupted in the besieging Mongol army outside the walls of Caffa, Crimea where the disease then spread throughout Europe as the Black Death.

For the inhabitants of a contested area, famine often followed protracted periods of warfare, because foraging armies ate any food stores they could find, reducing or depleting reserve stores. In addition, the overland routes taken by armies on the move could easily destroy a carefully planted field, preventing a crop the following season. Moreover, the death toll in war hit the farming labour pool particularly hard, making it even more difficult to recoup losses.

Umayyad conquest of Hispania (711-718)

Muslim conquest of southern Italy (831-902)

Byzantine-Seljuk wars (1064-1308)

Byzantine-Ottoman wars (1299-1453)

Bulgarian-Ottoman Wars (1354-1422)

The Byzantine-Bulgarian Wars (680-1364)

The Saxon Wars - (772-804)

The Spanish Reconquista (718-1492): In which the Moors were driven from the Iberian Peninsula; begun under Pelayo in Asturias, concluded under the Catholic Monarchs (Isabella I of Castile and Ferdinand II of Aragon), of Columbus fame.

The Crusades (1096-1291): A generic, catch-all term for Church-sanctioned wars against non-Christians or heretics.

1096-1099-First Crusade: The only "successful" crusade against the Islamic Near East; Christian states were established throughout the Levant.

1101-Crusade of 1101

1147-1149-Second Crusade

1147-1410-Northern Crusades

1187-1191-Third Crusade

1202-1204-Fourth Crusade: In which the Western forces sacked Constantinople

1209-1229-Albigensian Crusade: In which the Albigensians in southern France were crushed.

1217-1221-Fifth Crusade

1228-Sixth Crusade

1248-1254-Seventh Crusade

1270-Eighth Crusade

1271-1291-Ninth Crusade

The Hussite Wars (1420-1434)

The Hundred Years' War (1337-1453): In which the English were eventually driven out of France;

The Wars of the Roses (1455-1487): War for the English throne between the Houses of Lancaster and York

Bladed Hand Weapons Blunt Hand Weapons Polearms Ranged Weapons.

Armour

Chain Mail, Hauberks or Haubergeons, Coifs and Pixanes

Plate Armour

Head Armour: Helms, Nasal Helmets, Great Helms, Templar Helms, Bascinets,Armets,Sallets,Barbutes,Close Helms, Burgonets,Morions

Neck Armour, Aventails or Camails, Bevor, Gorget

Body Armour, Brigandines, Cuirasses, Corslets, Plackards, Faulds, Culets

Arm and Shoulder Armour

Hand Armour: Gauntlets

Leg Armour:Tasset or Tuille, Cuisse, Poleyn, Schynbald, Greave, Chausses,

Foot Armour: Sabatons or Sollerets

Horses

Perhaps the most important technological advancement for medieval warfare in Europe was the invention of the stirrup, which had been unknown to the Romans. It most likely came to Europe with the Avars in the 600's AD, although it was not fully adopted by Europeans until the 900's AD.

In the Medieval period, the mounted cavalry long held sway on the battlefield. Heavily armoured, mounted knights represented a formidable foe for peasant draftees and lightly-armoured freemen. To defeat mounted cavalry, infantry used swarms of missiles or a tightly packed phalanx of men, techniques developed in Antiquity by the Greeks. Ancient generals of Asia used regiments of archers to fend off mounted threats. Alexander the Great combined both methods in his clashes with swarming Asiatic horseman, screening the central infantry core with slingers, archers and javelin men, before unleashing his cavalry to see off attackers.

The use of long pikes and densely-packed foot troops was not uncommon in Medieval times. Flemish footmen at the Battle of the Golden Spurs met and overcame French knights in 1302, and the Scots held their own against heavily-armoured English invaders.

During the St. Louis' crusade, dismounted French knights formed a tight lance-and-shield phalanx to repel Egyptian cavalry. The Swiss used pike tactics in the late medieval period. While pikemen usually grouped together and awaited a mounted attack, the Swiss developed flexible formations and aggressive manoeuvring, forcing their opponents to respond. The Swiss won at Morgarten, Laupen, Sempach, Grandson and Murten, and between 1450 and 1550 every leading prince in Europe hired Swiss pikemen, or emulated their tactics and weapons.

Welsh & English longbowman used a single-piece longbow to deliver arrows that could penetrate contemporary plate armour and mail. The longbow was a difficult weapon to master, requiring years of use and constant practice. A skilled longbowman could shoot about 12 shots per minute. This rate of fire was far superior to competing weapons like the crossbow or early gunpowder weapons. The nearest competitor to the longbow was the much more expensive crossbow, used often by urban militias and mercenary forces. The crossbow had greater range and penetrating power, and did not require the extended years of training.

At Crécy and Agincourt bowmen unleashed clouds of arrows into the ranks of knights. At Crécy, even 15,000 Genoese' crossbowmen could not dislodge them from their hill. At Agincourt, thousands of French knights were brought down by armour-piercing bodkin point arrows and horse-maiming broadheads. The Welsh longbowmen decimated an entire generation of the French nobility.

Since the longbow was difficult to deploy in a thrusting mobile offensive, it was best used in a defensive configuration. Bowmen were extended in thin lines and protected and screened by pits (as at the Battle of Bannockburn), staves or trenches. The terrain was usually chosen to put the archers at an advantage forcing their opponents into a bottleneck (Agincourt) or a hard climb under fire (Crécy). Sometimes bowmen were deployed in a shallow "W", enabling them to trap and enfilade their foes.

The pike and the longbow put an end to the dominance of cavalry in European warfare, making the use of foot soldiers more important than they had been in recent years. Knights began themselves to rather fight dismounted, using two-handed swords, poleaxes and other polearms, as the improved knightly plate armour made them fairly immune to arrows.

Gunpowder eventually was to provoke even more significant changes. However, a mounted reserve was often kept, and the heavy cavalry continued to be an important battlefield arm of European armies until the nineteenth century, when new and more accurate weapons made the mounted soldier too easy a target.

In the armies of Europe, mounted and unmounted crossbowmen, often mixed with javeliners and archers, occupied a central position in battle formations. Usually they engaged the enemy in offensive skirmishes before an assault of mounted knights. Crossbowmen were also valuable in counterattacks to protect their infantry. The rank of commanding officer of the crossbowmen corps was one of the highest positions in any army of this time. Along with polearm weapons made from farming equipment, the crossbow was also a weapon of choice for insurgent peasants such as the Taborites.

Mounted knights armed with lances proved ineffective against formations of pikemen combined with crossbowmen whose weapons could penetrate most knights' armor. The invention of pushlever and ratchet drawing mechanisms enabled the use of crossbows on horseback, leading to the development of new cavalry tactics. Knights and mercenaries deployed in triangular formations, with the most heavily armoured knights at the front. Some of these riders would carry small, powerful all-metal crossbows of their own. Crossbows were eventually replaced in warfare by more powerful gunpowder weapons, although early guns had slower rates of fire and much worse accuracy than contemporary crossbows. Later, similar competing tactics would feature arquebusiers or musketeers in formation with pikemen, pitted against cavalry firing pistols or carbines.

Cannons were introduced to the battlefield in the later medieval period. However, their very poor rate of fire (which often meant that only one shot was fired in the course of an entire battle) and their inaccuracy made them more of a psychological force multiplier than an effective anti-personnel weapon.

Later on in medieval warfare, one handed cannons were introduced, the rate of fire improved only slightly, but the cannons became far easier to aim, largely because they were smaller and much closer to their wielder. Users could be easily protected, because the cannons were lighter and could be moved far more quickly. Real field artillery did not become truly effective or commonly employed until well into the early modern period. The introduction of the arquebus is reflected in contemporary castle architecture - traditional arrow slits were replaced by (or adapted into gun ports).

Some Medieval Battles

The Siege of Constantinople (718)

The Battle of Tours (732)

The Battle of Brunanburh (937)

The Battle of Lechfeld (955)

The Battle of Tara (980)

The Battle of Maldon (c. 991)

The Battle of Kleidion (1014)

The Battle of Stamford Bridge (1066)

The Battle of Hastings (1066)

The Battle of Manzikert (1071)

The Battle of Levounion (1091)

The Siege of Jerusalem (1099)

The Siege of Lisbon (1147)

The Battle of Sirmium (1167)

The Battle of Myriokephalon (1176)

The Battle of Hattin (1187)

The Battle of Adrianople (1205)

The Battle of Las Navas de Tolosa (1212)

The Battle of Bouvines (1214)

The Battle of Baghdad (1258)

The Battle of Fishing Town (1259)

The Battle of Ain Jalut (1260)

The Battle on the Marchfeld (1278)

The Battle of Yamen (1279)

The Second Battle of Homs (1281)

The Battle of Stirling Bridge (1297)

The Battle of the Golden Spurs (1302)

The Battle of Bannockburn (1314)

The Battle of Dysert O'Dea (1318)

The Battle of Faughart (1318)

The Battle of Velbazhd (1330)

The Battle of Crécy (1346)

The Battle of Poitiers (1356)

The Battle of Lake Poyang (1363)

The Battle of Maritsa (1371)

The Battle of Kulikovo (1380)

The Battle of Aljubarrota (1385)

The Battle of Kosovo (1389)

The Battle of Nicopolis (1396)

The Battle of Ankara (1402)

The Battle of Grunwald/Tannenberg (1410)

The Battle of Agincourt (1415)

The Battle of Patay (1429)

The Battle of Varna (1444)

The Fall of Constantinople (1453)

The Siege of Belgrade (1456)

The Battle of Towton (1461)

The Battle of Vaslui (1475)

The Battle of Nancy (1477)

The Siege of Rhodes (1480)

The Battle of Bosworth Field (1485)

The Battle of Knockdoe (1504)

Battlefield communications before the advent of strict lines of communication were difficult. Communication was done through musical signals (drums and horns), audible commands, mounted messengers, and visual signals such as flags.

Fire beacons were used in many places where there was a network of towers or castles visible one from another. On the border between England and scotland a line of Peel Towers was built for exactly this purpose. In Scandinavia many hill forts were part of beacon networks to warn against invading pillagers. In Wales, the Brecon Beacons were named for beacons used to warn of approaching English raiders. In England, the most famous examples are the beacons used in Elizabethan England to warn of the approaching Spanish Armada. Many hills in England were named Beacon Hill after such beacons. In the Languedoc, where castles were often built on mountain tops, castles were almost invariably in view of at least one one other castle.

Carrier pigeons historically carried messages only one way, to their home. They had to be transported manually before another flight.

By placing their food at one location and their home at another location, pigeons have been trained to fly back and forth up to twice a day reliably. This setup allows Pigeons to cover 160 km round trip.

Fire Beacon

The medieval knight was usually mounted and armoured, often connected with nobility or royalty, although especially in north-eastern Europe knights could also come from the lower classes.

The cost of a knight's armour, horses, and weapons was great. This helped transform the knight, at least in western Europe, into a distinct social class separate from other warriors.

During the crusades, holy orders of monks who were also knights were created, including the Knights Templar, the Knights Hospitaller and the Teutonic Knights. They were formed to fight in the Holy Land and became the "storm troops" of the Christian crusaders.

Heavy cavalry, armed with lances and an assortment of hand weapons, played a significant part in the battles of the Middle Ages. The heavy cavalry consisted of nobles and wealthy knights who could afford the equipment.

Heavy cavalry made the difference between victory and defeat in many key battles. Their charges could break the lines of most infantry formations, making them a valuable asset to all medieval armies, the equivalent of twentieth century tank regiments.

Light cavalry consisted of lighter armed and armoured men, who could have lances, javelins or missile weapons, such as bows or crossbows. Light cavalry were used as scouts, skirmishers or outflankers. Many countries developed their own styles of light cavalry, such as Hungarian mounted archers, Spanish jinetes, Italian and German mounted crossbowmen.

Crusaders tended to favour heavy cavalry mounted on mares while the Saracens favoured light cavalry mounted on stallions.

Infantry were recruited and trained in a wide variety of manners in different regions of Europe all through the Middle Ages, and probably always formed the most numerous part of a medieval field army. Many infantrymen in prolonged wars would be mercenaries. Most armies contained significant numbers of spearmen, archers and other unmounted soldiers.

In sieges, perhaps the most common element of medieval warfare, infantry units served as garrison troops and archers, among other positions. Towards the end of the Middle Ages, with the advancements of weapons and armour, infantrymen became more important.

In the earliest Middle Ages it was the obligation of every noble to respond to the call to battle from his liege lord with his own equipment, archers, and infantry. This decentralized system was necessary due to the social order of the time, but could lead to motley forces with variable training, equipment and abilities. The more resources the noble had access to, the better his troops would typically be.

Typically feudal armies consisted of a core of highly skilled knights and their household troops, mercenaries hired for the time of the campaign and feudal levies fulfilling their feudal obligations, who usually were little more than rabble. They could, however, be efficient in disadvantageous terrain. Towns and cities could also field militias.

As central governments grew in power, a return to the citizen and mercenary armies of the classical period also began, as central levies of the peasantry began to be the central recruiting tool. It is often claimed that the best infantrymen came from the younger sons of free land-owning yeomen, such as the English archers and Swiss pikemen.

England was one of the most centralized states in the Middle Ages, and the armies that fought the Hundred Years' War were mostly paid professionals. In theory, every Englishman had an obligation to serve for forty days. Forty days (called quarantine) was not long enough for a campaign, especially one on the continent.

Scutage was introduced, under which most Englishmen paid to escape their service and this money was used to create a permanent army. Almost all high medieval armies in Europe were composed of a great deal of paid core troops, and there was a large mercenary market in Europe from the early twelfth century.

As the Middle Ages progressed, both the Papacy and Italian cities began to rely mostly on mercenaries to do their fighting rather than the militias that had dominated the early and high medieval period in this region. These would be groups of career soldiers who would be paid a set rate. Mercenaries tended to be effective soldiers, especially in combination with standing forces. In Italy they came to dominate the armies of the city states. While at war they were considerably more reliable than a standing army, but in peacetime they proved a risk to the state itself (as the Pretorian Guard had once been in Roman times).

Mercenary-on-mercenary warfare in Italy led to relatively bloodless campaigns which relied as much on manoeuvre as on battles, since the condottieri recognized it was more efficient to attack the enemy's ability to wage war rather than his battle forces,, and attempting to attack the enemy supply lines, his economy and his ability to wage war rather than risking an open battle, and manoeuvre him in a position where risking a battle would have been suicidal.

Knights were drawn to battle by feudal and social obligation, but also by the prospect of profit and advancement. Those who performed well stood to increase their landholdings and advance in the social hierarchy - this was a major factor in the Crusades in the Holy Land and also European crusades such as the Albigensian Crusade - the War against the Cathars of the Languedoc.

For the mounted knight Medieval Warfare could be a relatively low risk affair. Nobles avoided killing each other, rather preferring capturing them alive, for several reasons for one, many were related to each other, had fought alongside one another, and they were all members of the same elite culture; for another, a noble's ransom could be very high, and indeed some made a living by capturing and ransoming nobles in battle.

Huge ransoms could be demanded for captured knights and more still for high nobles and kings. Some knights made their fortunes by fighting. William the Marshall being the best known example. Even peasants, who did not share the bonds of kinship and culture, would often avoid killing a nobleman, valuing the high ransom that a live capture could bring, as well as the valuable horse, armour and equipment that came with him. On the other hand it was quite common, even at the height of "chivalric" warfare, for the knights to suffer heavy casualties during battles. Christendom was shaken when King Peter II of Aragon was killed fighting on the side of his vassal Raymond of Toulouse at Muret in the Languedoc.

Clergymen played a major part in battles - from their planning to building siege engines (a clerical specialty), encouraging the troops and taking part in the fighting. We have many accounts of senior clergy leading battles and not only during the crusades. They are also depicted in contemporary art - popes, cardinals and bishops, wearing full armour and wielding weapons. The role of military bishops is commemorated today by the presence of four bishops on a chess board. Clerical combatants are depicted in medieval art and according to tradition favoured the mace as a weapon (a mace could kill without shedding blood which the Church considered desirable).

On the other hand swords feature more heavily than maces in the arms of England bishops

Bishop of London

Bishop of St-Albans

Bishop of Winchester

Bishop of Exeter

Knights Templar and Knights Hospitaller, the shock troops of Christian armies, were monks in the fullest sense- they took the same vows as other monks in addition to their vows as knights. If caught by the enemy they were almost always executed while other knights were usually ransomed. The reason was that they were such fanatical fighters that it made sense to put them permanently out of the war whenever possible.

The practice of carrying relics into battle is a feature that distinguishes medieval warfare from its predecessors or from early modern warfare. The presence of relics was believed to be an important source of supernatural power that served both as a spiritual weapon and a form of defence; the relics of martyrs were considered by Saint John Chrysostom much more powerful than "walls, trenches, weapons and hosts of soldiers" - another reason for so many lost battles.

In Italy, the carroccio or carro della guerra, the "war wagon" , was an elaboration of this practice that developed during the 13th century. A Carroccio was a four-wheeled war altar drawn by oxen, used by the medieval republics of Italy. It was a rectangular platform on which the standard of the city and an altar were erected. Priests held services on the altar before the battle, and the trumpeters beside them encouraged the fighters to the fray.

The carro della guerra of Milan was draped in scarlet cloth and drawn by three yoke of oxen caparisoned in white with the red cross of Saint George, the city's patron, it carried a crucifix so massive it took four men to step it in place, like a ship's mast.

Women at War

Contrary to popular belief, women often engaged in medieval warfare. If the Chatelaine happened to be at home while their husband was away and their castle was besieged, it was routine for her to command the defences.

Here are some examples of notable Medieval femail warriors:

8th century: Shieldmaidens fight at the Battle of Bråvalla on the side of the Danes.

722: Queen Aethelburg of Wessex destroys the town of Taunton.

750: Veborg, as well as many other Shieldmaidens, participate in the Battle of Bråvalla in Sweden.

783: Saxon women throw themselves barebreasted into battle against Charlemagne's forces. Among them is Fastrada, who became Charlemagne's fourth wife.

Early 9th century: Cwenthryth fights Wulfred, Archbishop of Canterbury, for control of her abbey estates.

880: Ermengarda defends Vienne.[20]

912-922: Reign of Ethelfleda, ruler of Mercia. She commanded armies, fortified towns, and defeated the Danes. She also defeated the Welsh and forced them to pay tribute to her.

Mid 10th century: Queen Thyra of Denmark leads an army against the Germans.

971: The Scandinavian ruler of Kiev attacked the Byzantines in Bulgaria in 971. When the Norsemen had been defeated, the victors discovered shieldmaidens among the fallen warriors.

Early 11th century: Freydís Eiríksdóttir, a Viking woman, sails to Vinland with Thorfinn Karlsefni. When she faced hostile natives while pregnant, she exposed her breasts and beat her chest with a sword. This caused the natives to run away.

1040-1090: Sichelgaita of Salerno second wife of Robert Guiscard, Duke of Apulia, accompanies her husband on military campaigns, and regularly puts on full armor and rides into battle at his side. At the Battle of Dyrrhachium (1081) she rallied Robert's troops when they were initially repulsed by the Byzantine army.

1046-1115: Lifetime of Matilda of Tuscany, the principal Italian supporter of Pope Gregory VII during the Investiture Controversy.. She is sometimes called la Gran Contessa ("the Great Countess") or Matilda of Canossa after her ancestral castle of Canossa.

1071: Richilde, Countess of Mons and Hainaut is captured fighting in the Battle of Cassel.

1072: Urraca of Zamora, Infanta of Castile, defends the city of Zamora against her brother, Sancho II of Castile.

1075: Emma de Guader, Countess of Norfolk defends Norwich castle while it is under siege.

1090: A Norman woman Isabel of Conches rides armed as a knight.

1121:Urraca of Castile fights her half-sister, Theresa, Countess of Portugal when she refuses to surrender the city of Tuy.

1131-1160: Melisende of Jerusalem ruler of the crusader Kingdom of Jerusalem is one of the rulers involved in the Second Crusade.

1136: Welsh princess Gwenllian ferch Gruffydd leads an army against the Normans. She is defeated and killed.

1141: Matilda of Boulogne raises an army to continue the fight for the crown of England, after her husband, King Stephen is captured by the Empress Matilda.

1145: Eleanor of Aquitaine accompanies her husband on the Second Crusade.

1172: Alrude Countess of Bertinoro ends a siege of Aucona by leading an army into battle and crushing imperial troops.

Late 12th century: Eva MacMurrough conducts battles on behalf of her husband, the Earl of Pembroke.

3rd May 1211. The chatelaine of Lavaur, Gerauda (or Geralda) de Lavaur, was murdered by Catholic Crusaders because of her part in resisting their siege of Lavaur during the Cathar Crusade. Click here to read more about the siege of Lavaur

Mid 13th century: Eleanor of Castile accompanies her husband on his crusade. According to legend, she saves his life by sucking poison from his wound when he was injured.

1264: Eleanor of Provence raises troops in France for her husband during the Baron's War.

1271: Isabella of Aragon dies at Consenza on the way back from the Crusades.

1290: An illustration of a woman named Walpurgis is shown training in sword and buckler techniques

14th century: Jane, Countess of Montfort leads troops into battle. Countess Jeanne de Penthievre is among her antagonists.

1326: Isabella of France invades England with Roger de Mortimer, and overthrows Edward II, replacing him with her son Edward III, with her and de Mortimer acting as regents.

1334: Agnes Dunbar successfully defends her castle against a siege by the Earl of Salisbury.

1335: The Scots defeat a company led by the Count of Namur. Amongst the Count's casualties was a female lancer who had killed her opponent, Richard Shaw, at the same moment that he had killed her. Her gender was only discovered when the bodies were being stripped of their armour at the end of the engagement. "The chronicler Bower seems to have been at least as impressed by the rarity of two mounted soldiers simultaneously transfixing one another with their lances as with the fact that one of them was a woman."

1364-1405: Tamerlane uses female archers to defend baggage trains.

1383: Eleanor of Arborea, ruler of Sardinia, conducts a defensive war against Aragon.

15th century: Maire o Ciaragain leads Irish clans in rebellion.

15th century: Isabella, Duchess of Lorraine, leads an army to rescue her husband from the Duke of Burgundy.

1429: Joan of Arc leads the French army. Yolande of Aragon supports her. Pierronne, a contemporary of hers, also hears voices and fights for the king of France.

1461: Queen Margaret of Anjou defeats the Earl of Warwick in the Wars of the Roses.

1461: Lady Knyvet defends Buckingham Castle at Norfolk against Sir Gilbert of Debenhem

1471: Queen Margaret of Anjou is defeated in battle at Tewksbury.

1472: Onorata Rodiana from Cremona, Italy is mortally wounded in battle. She had disguised herself as a man to become a soldier.

June 27, 1472: Jeanne Hachette rips down the flag of the invading Burgundians at Beauvais, inspiring the garrison to win the engagement

Fall of Acre, the Crusaders' last stronghold in the Holy Land, in 1291.

Recommended sites for Further Information
Medievality
http://www.medievality.com/Knights and Armor
http://www.knightsandarmor.com
Warfare during the Crusades
http://www.deremilitari.org/resources/categories/crusadeswarfare.htm
A collection of translations of primary source material, articles and reviews on the period.
Medieval Sourcebook
http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/sbook.html Online Reference Book for Medieval Studies
http://the-orb.net/Cunnan
http://cunnan.sca.org.au/wiki/Main_Page Mostly Medieval
http://www.mostly-medieval.com/Flags of the Crusades 1099-1291
http://flagspot.net/flags/crusade.html
Medieval Fiefdom
http://library.thinkquest.org/10949/
An educational site about living and working in eleventh to fourteenth century England, produced by high school students.

The End of Europe's Middle Ages
http://www.ucalgary.ca/applied_history/tutor/endmiddle/
A large tutorial site designed to assist those students engaged in Renaissance, Reformation and Early Modern studies who lack a background in medieval European history.

The History of Costume
http://www.siue.edu/COSTUMES/COSTUME3_INDEX.HTML
Illustrations from Braun & Schneider - c.1861-1880

Eyewitness to History
http://www.eyewitnesstohistory.com/mefrm.htm
Important events described by eyewitnesses, with introductory explanations. Includes the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle on the 12th-century English civil war, Marco Polo describing Kublai Khan in battle, and the discovery of America by Columbus.

The Normans, A European People
http://www.mondes-normands.caen.fr/angleterre/index.htm
Comprehensive coverage of the history, culture and heritage of the Normans in France, the British Isles and Italy. Includes biographies, genealogies of rulers, a gazetteer of Norman buildings, places to visit and bibliographies.

The Year 1000
http://www.mille.org/scholarship/1000/1000-pg.html
Medieval attitudes to the end of the previous millennium and argues for an apocalyptic viewpoint, Center for Millennial Studies.

Archery articles
http://margo.student.utwente.nl/sagi/artikel/
Selection of articles from the Journal of the Society of Archer-Antiquaries.

De Re Militari Society homepage
http://www.deremilitari.org/
An academic association examining medieval warfare and military history. Features information on the society as well as original articles and book reviews.

The Society of Ancients
http://www.soa.org.uk/
The International Amateur Society for Ancient and Medieval Wargamers

ORB
http://the-orb.net/bibliographies/castles.html

Os Jacques são massacrados em Meaux (1358) (FR 2813), fol. 414v, Grandes Chroniques de France, France, Paris, XIVe s. (70 x 65 mm)

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The Middle Ages saw the development of new modes of warfare encompassing both pitched battles and siege warfare. Then as now the western world was engaged in an arms race. New weapons technology prompted new defensive technologies, for example the introduction of cross-bows led quickly to the adoption of plate armour rather than chain mail.

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While most samurai warriors were men, some women were renowned for their skill in battle. A monument was erected to honor Nakano Takeko - a female warrior - at the Hokai temple in Fukushima prefecture because she asked her sister to behead her rather than die dishonorably from a gunshot wound in captivity.

Being a warrior in feudal Japan was more than just a job. It was a way of life. The collapse of aristocratic rule ushered in a new age of chaos - appropriately called the Warring States period (c.1400-1600) - in which military might dictated who governed and who followed.

The samurai warriors, also known as bushi, took as their creed what later became known as the "Way of the Warrior" ( Bushidô), a rigid value system of discipline and honor that required them to live and die in the service of their lords.

If commanded, true bushi were expected to give their lives without hesitation. Any form of disgrace - cowardice, dishonor, defeat - reflected poorly on the lord and was reason enough for a bushi to commit suicide by seppuku, or ritual disembowelment. In return for this devotion, the lord provided protection, financial security, and social status - in short, a reason to live.

The bushi swore unwavering loyalty to their immediate masters in the chain of command. But this wasn't always easy. Frequently, switched loyalties and shifting alliances forced the bushi to decide between obeying the daimyô (baron) or following their more immediate lord.

Although elegant and refined in appearance, Japanese castles were used as military installments. The wood used in their construction allowed these castles to withstand Japan's many earthquakes, but made them susceptible to fire at the same time.

Shôgun Might

The daimyô reported to the shôgun, more out of political and military necessity than out of loyalty. The shôgun became the most dominant feudal lord by subduing the other daimyô and receiving from the emperor the impressive title "Barbarian-Quelling Generalissimo." Not that the emperor wielded any sort of political power - the awesome military might of the shôgun often left the emperor little choice but to grant the title.

The shogunal rule of the bakufu, (tent government) began in earnest with the Kamakura period (1185-1333), when the Minamoto clan defeated its bitter rival, the Taira family.

When Mongol invaders tried to land in western Japan, they were repelled by the Kamakura bakufu - with the help of kamikaze, powerful storms thought to be of divine origin. Despite this seeming divine favor, though, the bakufu could not withstand the unstable political situation on the domestic front.

The Kinkakuji - or "Golden Pavilion" - was originally built as a villa for the third Ashikaga shogun, Yoshimitsu. Upon his death, the eye-catching structure became a Zen Buddhist temple - creating an unusual combination of extravagant decor and minimalist doctrine.

The next to ascend to power were the Ashikaga, who established the Muromachi bakufu (1336-1573). The third Ashikaga shôgun, Yoshimitsu (1358-1408), was a patron of the arts and oversaw such cultural achievements as the construction of the picturesque Kinkakuji (Golden Pavilion) and the flowering of Nô drama as the classical theater of Japan. The greatest figure in Nô was Zeami Motokiyo (1363-1443), whose aesthetic and critical theories defined the genre and influenced subsequent performing arts.

The downfall of the Ashikaga came about with the rise of the first of three "Great Unifiers" who sought to consolidate power. Oda Nobunaga (1534-1582) was a minor daimyô who embarked on a ruthless campaign for control that culminated in the removal of the last Ashikaga shôgun.

Western Influence, Feudal Struggle

Japan was a land of mystery to foreign explorers such as the English and Dutch, as shown by this somewhat inaccurate 17th-century map.

It was under Nobunaga's watch that Europeans first arrived in Japan, and he took full advantage of their presence. Part of his military success came from his use of firearms, brought to Japan by the Portuguese, which allowed him swift and complete dominance.

Nobunaga's hostility toward Buddhism, which he expressed by burning countless monasteries and slaughtering monks, made him receptive to the influx of Jesuit missionaries from Spain and Portugal.

When Nobunaga's tenure ended in betrayal and death, the next leader who rose from the ensuing chaos was Toyotomi Hideyoshi (1537-1598), one of Nobunaga's loyal vassals.

The Japanese tea ceremony, otherwise known as chadô, has very precise steps to follow. This participant demonstrates the correct way to hold a teacup; in her left hand while steadying it with her right.

Originally a peasant of humble origins, Hideyoshi surged through the ranks to become a leading general. His hunger for power knew no bounds. He organized two invasions of Korea (both failed) and schemed to make the Spanish Philippines, China, and even India part of his empire.

Hideyoshi's obsession with complete control pushed him to execute Christian missionaries and even to order the great master of the tea ceremony, Sen no Rikyû (1522-91), to commit suicide for no apparent reason. But because of his peasant origins, Hideyoshi was never able to become shôgun, and instead he became regent to the emperor.

After Hideyoshi's death, another power struggle ensued, in which two factions battled over the realm. The side led by the powerful daimyô Tokugawa Ieyasu (1542-1616) prevailed, and within a short time the mighty Tokugawa bakufu was established in Edo - now known as Tokyo. Centuries of strife were finally over; for the next 300 years, peace and order would rule the land.

Tennô (Emperor)

Symbolic ruler of Japan, descended from and representative of Shintô deities; during the feudal period, mostly a figurehead.

Shôgun (Generalissimo)

Head of bakufu military government, with the power to oversee national affairs; receives title from emperor; usually the strongest daimyô.

Daimyô (Lord of a domain)

Powerful warlord with control over territories of varying size; strength frequently determined by the domain's kokudaka (tax based upon rice production).

Kerai or Gokenin (Vassal)

Loyal to the daimyô; receives fiefs or rice stipends from the daimyô; some comparable in strength to lesser daimyô.

Bugyô (Magistrate)

Appointed by the shôgun to oversee a specific government post (e.g., finance, construction), a large city (e.g., Edo, Nagasaki), or a region.

Daikan (Intendant)

Appointed by the daimyô or the shôgun to collect taxes and oversee administration of local regions.

Shôya (Village headman)

Commoner appointed by the daimyô or the shôgun to represent the bakufu at the village level.

The Medieval European Knight vs. The Feudal Japanese Samurai
Who would win in a fight - a crusader or a samurai warrior? The world may never know, but we can hazard a guess. The Historical Armed Combat Association provides a comparison of the equipment and training of these two legendary figures. Make an educated guess as to who would win if they met on the field of battle.

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Samurai Archives
Be sure to bring your helmet and sword when you visit the Samurai Archives, a comprehensive megasite of samurai history. Get up-to-date with detailed chronologies and history articles, pore over maps and warrior family genealogies, and get to know some famous samurai through their biographies. Want to be a daimyô? Choose your favorite family crest and war banner and get ready to stake your claim to samurai tradition. An outstanding resource by a devoted pair of samurai history enthusiasts.

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Feudal Japan: The Age of the Warrior [ushistory.org]

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While most samurai warriors were men, some women were renowned for their skill in battle. A monument was erected to honor Nakano Takeko - a female warrior - at the Hokai temple in Fukushima prefecture because she asked her sister to behead her rather than die dishonorably from a gunshot wound in captivity.

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The word "crusade" normally evokes images of war in the Middle East, with European crusaders fighting Muslim Arabs. But crusades took place all over Europe and the Mediterranean, anywhere Christian Europeans found themselves in conflict with heretics or outsiders of other religions. The strategic importance of Egypt, once the grain basket of Rome and now on routes into the Holy Land, led many crusaders to turn their eyes towards Africa.

The Fifth Crusade

The Fifth Crusade was a disorderly affair, lacking a clear leader at the head. Starting in Syria in 1217, it proved ineffective there. The crusaders, including Austrians, Hungarians, and knights who had settled in Jerusalem, sailed south in hopes of taking Egypt instead.

The crusaders' goal was Cairo, but before advancing there they needed to take Damietta, to give them a base on the coast. They spent much of 1218 and 1219 besieging the town, using artillery bombardments, assaults from bridges, and even a siege tower built on two ships bound together to attack from the sea.

The winter of 1218-19 saw the besiegers ravaged by storms and scurvy. The Egyptian commander in the region, al-Kamil, launched counter-attacks in an attempt to relieve the siege. In August 1219, the Muslims feigned a retreat in the face of an attack, drawing the disorderly crusaders out into the desert and then forcing them into a retreat.

But the siege remained in place, even after a final attack by al-Kamil in November. On November 5 th, 1219, Damietta fell to a crusader assault. Inside, they found the defenders mostly dead or dying from starvation.

For the next year, the crusaders consolidated their position and waited for reinforcements, many of whom never came.

In July 1221 they advanced down the Nile towards Cairo, taking 1,200 knights, 4,000 archers, and support from 630 ships. Things looked bad for the locals, and al-Kamil sought peace terms.

Just as success seemed within sight for the crusaders, disaster struck. Trapped between the rising water of two branches of the Nile, they were surrounded when al-Kamil sank ships to block the Nile. As more Muslim forces circled in from the north-east, the crusaders tried to retreat but were unable to escape. They surrendered on August 29 th and handed over Damietta in return for their freedom.

St Louis's Crusade

When King Louis IX of France set sail for Egypt in August 1248, his was a better-organised expedition. Financed by the richest country in Europe, centrally led and well planned, it crossed the Mediterranean in a fleet of the finest modern ships. Wintering in Cyprus, Louis turned the island into a massive forward supply base.

Arriving at Damietta on June 4 th, 1249, Louis laid siege to the town with his 2,500 knights and 10,000-12,000 infantry. Within two days he achieved what took the previous crusade a year and a half, and Damietta fell.

Unlike his predecessors, Louis took the Nile floods into account. He waited for them to subside and for reinforcements led by his brother to arrive. Then, in October, he set out down the Nile.

Arriving near Mansurah, Louis found Muslim forces blocking his way across a canal to the town. He had his engineers try to build a causeway across, but the defenders dug out the far side ahead of them and bombarded the crusaders with Greek fire, causing horrible deaths and injuries. On February 8 th, 1250, a crusader attack made it across the canal via a pontoon bridge. But discipline broke down, crusaders led by Robert of Artois charged ahead into the town and were massacred, and the attack was halted.

On 28 February, Egyptian reinforcements arrived under the Sultan Turanshah. They cut off the crusaders' supply route, capturing 80 of their supply ships before Louis gave up and called a retreat.

By now, many of the crusaders were sick with typhus and dysentery. The sick and wounded were loaded into galleys to sail back up the Nile, but were captured and most of them put to death. Louis led the rest of his forces north overland but was also cut off and forced to surrender. Once again, Damietta was returned to its owners in exchange for the release of the crusading force.

The Tunis Crusade

The 1260s saw Christian territory in the Holy Land falling to relentless pressure from Muslim commanders. Jaffa, Arsuf, Caesarea and Antioch all fell. The apparently unbeatable Templar castle at Safad fell after a siege of only 18 days. The crusader states were in tatters, and help was desperately needed. Once again, the wealthy French were called upon for support, and once again, King Louis IX led the response.

After his failure in 1250, Louis had spent four years building coastal defences in the Holy Land and established a 100-strong French Regiment of knights there. It was, therefore, natural to expect that he would leap to the defence of that territory, and many assumed that was where his crusade was heading when he set out in 1270.

Instead, Louis launched an attack on Tunis, much further to the west. This could theoretically be justified as part of a wider anti-Islamic strategy, but really it was about supporting his brother, Charles of Anjou, who had recently seized control of nearby Sicily.

This was the most disastrous crusade into Africa yet. In the July heat, disease spread like wildfire through the French camp. Louis fell sick and died on August 25 th. His heir became King Philip III and took responsibility for making peace and withdrawing the army. Some troops from the expedition, including Prince Edward of England, sailed on to Acre and fought for the Holy Land, briefly holding back the tide.

By the end of the 14 th century, the crusader states would be all but wiped out. All Louis had achieved was his own untimely death.

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The word "crusade" normally evokes images of war in the Middle East, with European crusaders fighting Muslim Arabs. But crusades took place all over Europe and the Mediterranean, anywhere Christian Europeans found themselves in conflict with heretics or outsiders of other religions.

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MEDIEVAL CHINESE WARFARE

Patricia Buckley Ebrey of the University of Washington wrote: "The Song period is a good point to take stock of China's military technology. First, warfare was central to the history of the period. The confrontation between the Song and the three successive non-Chinese states to the north (Liao, Jin, and Yuan) made warfare not only a major preoccupation for those in government service, but also a stimulus to rethinking major intellectual issues. Second, we have illustrated sources for the military arts of the period, in particular, "The Essentials of the Military Arts," published in the eleventh century. Most of the illustrations in this section have been drawn from this book. Third, the military technology of the Song-Yuan era can be compared to that of Europe in the same period. In this era, although China did not win all the wars, it had surprisingly advanced military technology. [Source: Patricia Buckley Ebrey, University of Washington, depts.washington.edu/chinaciv /=\]

"Traditional weapons such as spears, axes, clubs and swords remained in use into the twentieth century, never fully supplanted by firearms. The handles of clubs, maces, and axes could be up to three or four meters long. "The Essentials of the Military Arts: pictured two-edged swords, "iron whips" and "wolf-tooth maces". In an illustrated version of "The Romance of the Three Kingdoms", a general holds a long-handled halberd with a long blade under his arm. "The Water Margin" shows various weapons in use in cavalry fighting and bombarding attackers. /=\

"From very early times, soldiers wore armor and used shields to protect themselves from arrows. Horses, which were more important than ever when the Song was coping with the Jin and Yuan, were also armored. Armor was often made from the hide of a rhinoceros and then lacquered. So many rhinoceros were slaughtered for this purpose that the animal was largely wiped out in China and rhinoceros hide had to be imported. /=\

"As in Medieval and Renaissance Europe, military equipment was often embellished in ways that served no utilitarian functions. Generals often wore elaborate armor and carried well-crafted shields and quivers. An armored officer probably had armor for his horse and made a shield depicting a demon king. /=\

Good Chinese History Websites: 1) Chaos Group of University of Maryland chaos.umd.edu/history/toc ; 2) WWW VL: History China vlib.iue.it/history/asia ; 3) Wikipedia article on the History of China Wikipedia 4) China Knowledge; 5) Gutenberg.org e-book gutenberg.org/files ; Links in this Website: Main China Page factsanddetails.com/china (Click History);

RELATED ARTICLES IN THIS WEBSITE: FIRSTS, ACHIEVEMENTS AND THEMES IN CHINESE HISTORY factsanddetails.com; THEMES IN CHINESE HISTORY: CIVILIZATION, FOREIGNERS AND THE DEFINITION OF CHINA factsanddetails.com; CHINESE HISTORICAL THEMES RELATED TO GEOGRAPHY, WEATHER AND THE ENVIRONMENT factsanddetails.com; CREATION OF CHINA AND DYNASTIC RULE factsanddetails.com; CHINESE HISTORICAL THEMES: POLITICS, VIEWS OF THE STATE AND THE MANDATE OF HEAVEN factsanddetails.com; CHINESE HISTORICAL THEMES: LANGUAGE, NAMES AND TIME factsanddetails.com; RELIGION AND HISTORY IN CHINA factsanddetails.com; FAMILY AND GENDER IN TRADITIONAL CHINA factsanddetails.com; SIMA QIAN AND THE HISTORY OF CHINESE HISTORY factsanddetails.com; AGRICULTURE IN ANCIENT CHINA factsanddetails.com; MONEY AND ECONOMICS IN ANCIENT CHINA factsanddetails.com; SUN TZU AND THE ART OF WAR factsanddetails.com; FIRST HALF OF THE ART OF WAR: PLANS, STRATEGIES AND TACTICS factsanddetails.com; SECOND HALF OF THE ART OF WAR: PRACTICAL MATTERS AND SPIES factsanddetails.com

Chinese Crossbows

Patricia Buckley Ebrey of the University of Washington wrote: "Crossbows were in use in China by the fifth century B.C. and quickly became an important element in the warfare of the Warring States period. Where other bows rely on the strength of the archer, the crossbow has a mechanical trigger, so that many releases could be made without tiring the crossbowman. The Chinese development of the crossbow depended on bronze technology advanced enough to allow manufacture of accurately machined trigger-mechanisms. Early crossbows were portable and mostly operated by one archer. They became popular for the defense of royal entourages and for hunting; the later multiple-firing crossbows were intended for military campaigns. [Source: Patricia Buckley Ebrey, University of Washington, depts.washington.edu/chinaciv /=\]

"Crossbows were also used in the West. They were known to the ancient Greeks and Romans, and by medieval times in Europe, the crossbow had evolved into a powerful weapon capable of penetrating armor. Chinese crossbows could pierce several layers of iron armor, but in China, where the defense and attack of walled cities was the primary focus of military campaigns, the crossbow was valued for its ability to deliver volleys of bolts even more than for its power to penetrate. /=\

"Crossbows remained one of the major weapons in Song times. In the eleventh century, Shen Gua argued that the crossbow is to the Chinese what the horse was to the Khitan -- the asset that gave them their advantage. In field battles against foreign cavalry, the Chinese infantry would have a row of pikemen with shields, rows of archers, and a row of crossbowmen. When the cavalry approached, the crossbowmen would shoot first above the crouching pikemen and bowmen. The pikemen and archers would shield the slower-firing crossbowmen, who, however, could inflict more damage." /=\

In a scene from shows a famous story from "The Romance of the Three Kingdoms", the Shu strategist, Zhuge Liang, successively "borrowed" 100,000 arrows from the rival state, Wu. With his arrows in short supply, he covered the Shu boats with hay, so that the arrows from Wu would stick and could be collected later. /=\

Although the crossbow was a very effective weapon, using one took training. Some crossbows had the loop hanging from the armed bow. By inserting his foot into the loop, the soldier could pull down the bow as he pulled up on the string until it caught in the trigger mechanism. Others had a "belt-claw," which hooked onto the bowstring so a soldier could pull it back into the trigger mechanism while pushing the bow away with his feet. A triple crossbow from the Song period would have taken as many as 20 men to operate and had an effective range up to 125 yards. The heaviest one was said to take 100 men to operate and had a range of 175 yards. /=\

Attacking Cities in Medieval China

Patricia Buckley Ebrey of the University of Washington wrote: ""Warfare in this period usually aimed to capture cities, which were the centers of both commerce and government. Therefore, this unit deals primarily with the type of weapons, implements, and strategies used in attacking and defending cities. Before firearms were invented, crossbows and catapults were the most important of these weapons. [Source: Patricia Buckley Ebrey, University of Washington, depts.washington.edu/chinaciv /=\]

"The Chinese have been building walls to defend cities since the Neolithic period. Walls were usually built with pounded earth, but often, in later periods, faced with brick. The small wall immediately behind the moat, known as a "sheep-horse" wall, it created a space in front of the main walls where animals could be corralled when the area around a city was evacuated. It was also another barrier to attacks. /=\

"Cities isolated on a plain were less vulnerable than ones in rougher terrain, where the enemy would have more places to hide and rocks offered ammunition for catapults. When an attack seemed likely, one defensive measure was to evacuate nearby residents, both to protect them and to protect the city against the possibility that they might reveal information to enemy forces." Defenders would also generally clear a space around the city to gain an open view of an approaching army's activities, and at the same time deny the enemy access to firewood, ammunition, or cover. This sometimes meant that the enemy would run out of food, firewood or fodder long before a well-stocked city would exhaust its supplies. /=\

"One of the ways to begin defending a city was to send out troops to attack an encroaching army before it got to the walls, as depicted in illustrations from the novel, "Romance of the Three Kingdoms." After a siege was well under way, garrisons often mounted sorties outside the walls to destroy enemy siege engines or supplies and raise morale within the city...When a city did fall, civilians were encouraged to flee, but soldiers were expected to stay and fight. The sack of a city was usually gruesome, with indiscriminate slaughter and desperate attempts to buy mercy." /=\

Medieval Chinese Sieges and Siegecraft

Patricia Buckley Ebrey of the University of Washington wrote: "After surrounding a city, attackers would begin by delivering leaflets via arrows to explain the consequences of resistance or the rewards to be given to those who surrendered. When that failed, as it usually did, the attackers would bombard the city with crossbows and catapults, then attempt to scale the walls. They would bring in equipment such as bridges, ladders, carts, and towers, many on wheels, to help in breaching the walls." [Source: Patricia Buckley Ebrey, University of Washington, depts.washington.edu/chinaciv /=\]

There is a picture of a "cloud-ladder" in "The Essentials of the Military Arts". "Scaling ladders were already being used in the Warring States period. The "hang-over-the-sky" ladder was another version of scaling implement. The "fork" cart, another movable seige tool, would have been used by the attackers to chop at the walls. The pivoting beam terminating in long claws would sometimes have been attached to a long ladder for extra height. When a wall's integrity was breached, other implements such as "buildings in the void," "flying ladders" and "cloud ladders" would be moved into the holes thus created to allow invaders access beyond the walls." A striking cart was used to attack watch towers. One pictured in ""The Essentials of the Military Arts" has three ropes on either side of a pole attached to either side of the cart, keeping the pole upright. /=\

When the attacking side was close to the moat and the walled city, folding bridges could be used by both the attackers and the defenders. A folding bridge is depicted in The Water Margin. Other types of bridges included a suspension bridge or "fishing" bridge. Revolving bridges were connected underground to a mechanism inside the gates. When the connecting pin was disengaged, the bridge would turn over and anyone on the bridge would fall into the moat. /=\

"An early version of the tank had a rigid spine and was covered like a tent with oxhide. It was designed to protect men as they were brought close to the wall. Incendiary arrows could be shot at the cart, but if the oxhide was fresh enough, it provided some protection." When an army approached a city's walls it was is bombarded by items dropped from above -- one of the major lines of defense. In the eventuality that the gates failed to hold, defenders would have implements such as the "knife cart for blocking up gates," to roll into place." /=\

"The enemy's approach to city walls was often severely restricted by the many items raining down on them from above. Underground warfare was therefore a significant part of siege warfare, and is one of several reasons for moats-one of the methods to push back invading miners was to set up fans, such as that shown at left, which would propel smoke (sometimes poisonous), fireballs, and various types of shrapnel forward into tunnels." /=\

Catapults

Patricia Buckley Ebrey of the University of Washington wrote: "By the Sui-Tang period, catapults were used by both attackers and defenders, in both siege warfare and field operations. A catapult is a device for hurling stones or other objects. The basic principle in a catapult's operation is a central lever mounted in counterpoise, like a see-saw. Song catapults could throw objects several hundred feet. Deploying catapults required a large number of soldiers, but could cause serious damage. "The Essentials of the Military Arts" lists 18 types of catapults, including both movable and fixed ones. [Source: Patricia Buckley Ebrey, University of Washington, depts.washington.edu/chinaciv /=\]

On a counterweighted catapult, the arm extends in front at the left, and the wide ring around the bottom of the arm is probably a sliding weight. The large box is the counterweight and could be removed from the rear supports. Among the variations of the fixed catapult were the "one-lever" catapult and the "seven-lever" catapult (seven lengths of wood tied together). The thicker lever is stronger, and so had a greater range. With "whirlwind" catapults projectiles could be hurled in any direction. /=\

Song-era warship with a rudder

Chinese Warships

Patricia Buckley Ebrey of the University of Washington wrote: " China has one of the longest histories of shipbuilding. The square ship in the Warring States era was already double-bodied and made up of two junks secured together side by side. Third century warships had eight compartments. Paddle-wheel boats were invented in the late Tang and widely used in the Song. [Source: Patricia Buckley Ebrey, University of Washington, depts.washington.edu/chinaciv /=\]

"The Song period saw major advances in shipbuilding with improvement in speed, security against foundering, adaptability to marine conditions, and steadiness. The Southern Song navy was much larger and comparatively stronger than that of the Northern Song, mainly because it needed to keep northern armies from crossing the Huai and Yangtze Rivers. The navy had both small ships and larger vessels. A strong navy of an attacking army could come right up to a riverside city. If a ship's deck was high enough, soldiers could step from it to the top of the city's wall. /=\

Small boats were used when approaching a walled river city. "Sea hawks" were invented in the Tang and had floating boards on each side to stabilize the ship. By the Song, sea hawks usually had four to six boards on each side. Song ships were also strengthened with iron in the hull. Some had several decks to keep the ship steady. /=\

Song battleships were equipped with fire-bomb catapults and incendiary arrows that used gunpowder (discussed in other sections). Sometimes protected stations on upper decks were created for crossbowmen who also played the role of watchmen. Warships depicted in "The Essentials of Military Arts" carried flags that read "commander" and had huge rudders and war drums. /=\

Gunpowder and Military Uses of Fire in Medieval China

Patricia Buckley Ebrey of the University of Washington wrote: "In China, military strategy focused on outsmarting the enemy, by whatever means possible. Fire was used as a weapon of war since it inspired great fear and confusion among the enemy. Those in charge of defense had to keep the danger of fire in mind and military guidebooks outline in detail the ways to prevent fires from spreading rapidly during attacks. [Source: Patricia Buckley Ebrey, University of Washington, depts.washington.edu/chinaciv /=\]

"As an offensive weapon, fire was delivered to enemy camps in a variety of ways. Animals with unpredictable behavior, such as birds, were frequently used. To the left are oxen stampeding with burning hemp lashed onto their tails, and below is a fire cart. When used in combination with ladder carts, hook carts, battering rams and tanks, fire could be a particularly useful weapon. Chinese military strategists sought ways to create effects from a distance. For example, by Song times they had sophisticated methods for producing smoke. Gunpowder's potential to move objects therefore made it attractive to military strategists designing weapons. /=\

"Gunpowder was first used by people seeking immortality (though this esoteric use of it was probably not known to most Chinese). The first textual evidence of a proto-gunpowder formula is contained in a work dated about 850. So far as we know, Essentials of the Military Arts records the first true gunpowder formula and describes how to produce it on a large scale. Its first use in warfare was as an incendiary, or fire-producing, compound. /=\

"Gunpowder was of many different types. Chinese texts identify blinding powder, flying powder, violent powder, poison powder, bruising and burning powder and smoke-screen powder. Starting from the Tang or the beginning of the Song, small packages of gunpowder wrapped in paper or bamboo were attached to arrows, which marked the first use of gunpowder in war. These would be lit with a fuse of some kind, so that the arrow became an incendiary, intended to set targets afire." There were different types of javelin-propulsion methods. Arrows were equipped with gunpowder chambers." /=\

"Evidence of the first bronze hand-held gun dates to the early Yuan dynasty, but metal barrels were used as early as the Tang dynasty for fire lances that propelled gunpowder bombs intended to burn targets." The earliest excavated gun, from the early Yuan dynasty (1332), was mounted on a wooden housing. A wooden tube would have been inserted in the wide mouth for extra range. /=\

Medieval Chinese Bombs and Flamethrowers

Patricia Buckley Ebrey of the University of Washington wrote: "Two crucial innovations were needed before the Chinese developed rockets propelled by gunpowder. First, the idea of a counter-balance had to be conceived. A counter-balance would allow the rocket to move on a straight trajectory. The second innovation was a hole bored into the exact center of the gunpowder in the missile tube. This would allow the gunpowder to burn evenly and provide efficient thrust. This process of boring into the gunpowder was extremely dangerous. Both of these developments occurred during the 12th and 13th centuries. [Source: Patricia Buckley Ebrey, University of Washington, depts.washington.edu/chinaciv /=\]

"During the Song, smoke bombs, incendiary bombs, gunpowder grenades, and the usual shrapnel objects such as rocks were used in siege warfare. Hemp or cotton would be soaked in oil, ignited, and catapulted outward. Bombs made of iron shells resembling gourds in shape could shatter a city wall. Gunpowder bombs were a mixture of gunpowder and shrapnel such as charcoal and iron scraps. The range of such "firing balls," or bombs, could be from ten to a hundred yards. "The Essentials of the Military Arts" also lists the formula of a gas bomb, which could contain poisonous elements. This would have been used in tunnel warfare, a significant aspect of siege activity. It was also in the 13th century that bombs started to be used as land mines./=\

Different types of bombs included raised "flower" and ball bombs. The "thunderbolt-ball" was a package of gunpowder and iron scraps attached to a bamboo core. A small amount of gunpowder left outside the ball would explode the contents inside. A whirlwind catapult could hurl such bombs. The "eruptor" fired cast-iron shelled gunpowder bombs, some of which would explode only on contact, hence its name, the "flying-cloud thunderclap eruptor." Non-explosive smoke bombs had been in use since antiquity. The "bamboo fire hawk," had gunpowder and small stones wrapped inside bamboo and hay. /=\

"While Europe, by 675, had a single-acting force-pump contraption that could spurt flames, much like a syringe shoots liquids, it was not a true flame-thrower. For a true flame-thrower a continuous streaming of flames has to be achieved. The Chinese were able to do this by the use of a double-action piston-bellow, which would force the kerosene out of the barrel on both the forward and backward strokes of the pump handle." An illustration of a flame-thrower from "The Essentials of the Military Arts" shows a tank, a pump, and an ejector. A continuous stream could be maintained because of the use of a double-acting piston-bellows. /=\

"Fire-spurting lances" were also invented in the Song. Bamboo was used as a barrel to hold the gunpowder, though by the Song, metal barrels were also used. Some had narrow barrels and could be held by one person. Others were mounted on wooden frames and can be understood to precede the modern cannon; these were called eruptors." /=\

Image Sources: Wikimedia Commons; Patricia Buckley Ebrey, University of Washington, depts.washington.edu/chinaciv /=\]

Text Sources: Asia for Educators, Columbia University afe.easia.columbia.edu ; University of Washington's Visual Sourcebook of Chinese Civilization, depts.washington.edu/chinaciv /=\; Library of Congress; New York Times; Washington Post; Los Angeles Times; China National Tourist Office (CNTO); Xinhua; China.org; China Daily; Japan News; Times of London; National Geographic; The New Yorker; Time; Newsweek; Reuters; Associated Press; Lonely Planet Guides; Compton's Encyclopedia; Smithsonian magazine; The Guardian; Yomiuri Shimbun; AFP; Wikipedia; BBC. Many sources are cited at the end of the facts for which they are used.

Last updated November 2016

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MEDIEVAL CHINESE WARFARE AND MILITARY TECHNOLOGY

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MEDIEVAL CHINESE WARFARE Patricia Buckley Ebrey of the University of Washington wrote: "The Song period is a good point to take stock of China's military technology. First, warfare was central to the history of the period.

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 keywords to search in the library catalog and databases

 synonyms and alternative words for your topic

 specific ideas or questions you may want to address , that you haven't yet considered

Questions to ask while brainstorming: Write in answers as short phrases or words

are the important / influential people (artists, designers, critics, writers, philosophers etc.) involved with my topic? This could also be a group or organization rather than an individual. Who is the audience or end user?

are some examples of this topic? A work of art, building, film, product, service, etc.? What is it made of, what does it look like, what style is it? What are the creator's aims, goals or concerns?

- what time period(s) are appropriate to this topic? Has it been around for a long time, or is it new? How did it originate? If it is historical, what are the important milestone dates in its history?

- is it tied to a specific country, state, city or geographic area? Has it been relocated to multiple places and if so, where? What is the importance of place to my topic?

has this topic/idea/work influenced others? How does it relate to the larger culture or context?

ONE additional question I have about my topic, or something I would like to learn more about:

Information sources to use: You may need to do some background reading to answer the questions above. It's ok to start with the basics! Bear in mind you will not END your search here you still need to use the library catalog and databases to complete your research.

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LibGuides: Concordian International School: Secondary Library: Research Tips & Tools

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 keywords to search in the library catalog and databases  synonyms and alternative words for your topic  specific ideas or questions you may want to address , that you haven't yet considered Questions to ask while brainstorming: Write in answers as short phrases or words are the important / influential people (artists, designers, critics, writers, philosophers etc.)

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Dragons are one of the most well known mythical beasts around, so why not follow our guide to make your own out of modelling clay? Or you could always throw out the rule book and make your own design.

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Films like Raiders of the Lost Ark, National Treasure, and The Da Vinci Code have helped further myths about the Knights Templar, a Christian military group that existed in medieval times. These soldiers worked to protect fellow Christians who were traveling through Western Europe, and in that time, they managed to amass massive amounts of money and treasure while making enemies of the French monarchy. Historical movies that twist stories about the Templars have created some fascinating myths about the Christian soldiers.

Many religious conspiracy theorists believe the Knights Templar used their vast amounts of wealth to escape France in the early 1300s in order to hide the Holy Grail, but the real story of this religious group is actually much simpler. When debunking myths about the Knights Templar, all one needs to do is simply look at the facts. The stories about the Templars are very cool and make for great fiction, but the actual history of the Knights Templar is just as interesting as anything Dan Brown could ever invent.

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Myths About The Knights Templar, Debunked

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Films like Raiders of the Lost Ark, National Treasure, and The Da Vinci Code have helped further myths about the Knights Templar, a Christian military group that existed in medieval times. These soldiers worked to protect fellow Christians who were traveling through Western Europe, ...

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Info on stories from the Middle Ages, links to items that will help make your video or presentation pop.

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Not all the stories from medieval times were religious. Some of the stories that were told were about great heroes and great adventures. Since most people could not read or write, they were told aloud. A few of these have survived down to our times. Two of these are Beowulf and The Song of Roland.

Beowulf is what is called an epic poem. It tells the story of a hero who fights and defeats a huge monster. Like most epic poems, it was told orally for hundreds of years before finally being written down. We can still read Beowulf today.

During medieval times, Charlemagne was a great and famous king. There were many stories and legends about Charlemagne and some of the knights who followed him. The knights who followed Charlemagne were called paladins. One of the most famous stories about Charlemagne and his Paladins was the Song of Roland. Roland was a Paladin who went to fight the Muslims. Roland and a few other knights and soldiers were quickly surrounded by a Muslim army. Roland had a magic horn that would call the other Paladins to help him. He blew and blew the horn, but there were no knights close enough to help. Roland and his band were wiped out. But the King and other warriors had heard the horn and were rushing to help. When they got there they found the bodies of Roland and his band. King Charlemagne was so upset that he asked the gods to help him. Then Charlemagne and the other knights and the rest of the army found the Muslim army and in a great battle defeated them.

This story became even more important during the Crusades. Knights going to help free Jerusalem took heart in the idea that Charlemagne defeated the Muslims. If he could do it, so could they.

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Medieval Literature - Middle Ages for Kids

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Not all the stories from medieval times were religious. Some of the stories that were told were about great heroes and great adventures. Since most people could not read or write, they were told aloud. A few of these have survived down to our times. Two of these are Beowulf and The Song of Roland.

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Check out life in a burgh/village

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BBC - Burgh Life in Mary's Time - Homepage

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An interactive journey through a 16th century burgh during the reign of Mary, Queen of Scots.

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People have been decorating eggs for thousands of years. Ancient Egyptians decorated ostrich eggs, and early Christians in Mesopotamia dyed eggs to mark Easter. In 1290 King Edward I paid for 450 eggs to be coloured or covered in gold leaf and given to his entourage, and Henry VIII received one in a silver case as a present from the pope.

From the 18th century children decorated their own eggs at Easter, or recieved them as presents. These were called 'pace eggs', and they're what we'll be making today.

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People have been decorating eggs for thousands of years. Ancient Egyptians decorated ostrich eggs, and early Christians in Mesopotamia dyed eggs to mark Easter. In 1290 King Edward I paid for 450 eggs to be coloured or covered in gold leaf and given to his entourage, and Henry VIII received one in a silver case as a present from the pope.

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English Heritage
Joust, Make Stew, Build a Sand Castle, Make Chain Mail, Get rich, Make a Spearhead the Norman Way,

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The ultimate 'How to...' guide through history, from making your own sword or Roman mosaic, to how you would defend or conquer a medieval castle.

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The Normans introduced the first proper castles, starting with the wooden Motte and Bailey castles, to England following their victory at the Battle of Hastings in 1066. They needed to protect their new kingdom, so as a result the early years of Norman occupation saw a frenzy of castle building.

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Medical innovation from ancient times through the Middle Ages.

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Ancient & Medieval Medicine: Crash Course History of Science #9

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The Medieval Islamicate World: Crash Course History of Science #7

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The Normans introduced the first proper castles, starting with the wooden Motte and Bailey castles, to England following their victory at the Battle of Hastings in 1066. They needed to protect their new kingdom, so as a result the early years of Norman occupation saw a frenzy of castle building.

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Gastronomy: the practice or art of choosing, cooking, and eating good food.

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Medieval Europe

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Our museums are temporarily closed

Following the recent advice from the government and Public Health England surrounding COVID-19, the Museum of London and the Museum of London Docklands will be closed to the public as of Thursday 19 March.

The health and wellbeing of our visitors, staff and community are of utmost importance to us and this decision is in response to increasing concerns surrounding COVID-19.

Whilst our sites are closed we will continue to have a presence online. To keep up to date with the museum check our website www.museumoflondon.org.uk or follow us @MuseumofLondon.

Our staff will continue to work remotely. Please email [email protected] for any general enquiries. For media enquiries please email [email protected] .

We will continue to closely review the advice from Public Health England and monitor the current situation of COVID-19 to keep people up to date on our plans.

Please check www.museumoflondon.org.uk for updates from the museum.

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Following the recent advice from the government and Public Health England surrounding COVID-19, the Museum of London and the Museum of London Docklands will be closed to the public as of Thursday 19 March. The health and wellbeing of our visitors, staff and community are of utmost importance to us and this decision is in response to increasing concerns surrounding COVID-19.

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London Museum

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Medieval London

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From the collapse of the Roman city to the accession of Queen Elizabeth I - what was life like in Medieval London?

Medieval London was destroyed by invaders, racked by famine, fire and disease, and torn apart by religious and political controversy. But it grew to become one of the wealthiest and most important cities in Europe.

Discover the story of London in the middle ages through the collections in our Medieval gallery.

Gallery access

The gallery is open during the museum's normal hours:

11.30am - 3.30pm (Mon-Fri) & 10am-6pm (Sat & Sun)

The gallery is on the entrance floor and can be accessed by lift.

Free entry, timed ticket

Medieval London also of interest

Thomas Becket: a life and death in badges

From his birth off Cheapside in 1120 to his dramatic death at the hands of King Henry II's knights fifty years later, Thomas Becket's life was an extraordinary one, deeply intertwined with London's story.

How did medieval Londoners celebrate Christmas?

Curator Meriel Jeater reveals the ways that medieval Londoners celebrated Christmas, some ancestors of current traditions, others very definitely not.

The man in the mud

Who was the mystery medieval Londoner and how did he die in the river Thames?

Update from the Museum of London

The Museum of London and the Museum of London Docklands will continue to be closed to the public for the time being, but we are hoping to reopen on Wednesday 19 May in line with the Government's roadmap for lifting lockdown restrictions.

The health and wellbeing of our visitors, staff and community is of utmost importance to us and we will continue to closely review the advice from the Government and Public Health England around the COVID-19 situation.

While the museum buildings may be closed, we're still open online with loads of content to keep you entertained. Check our website or follow us on Facebook, Instagram or Twitter @MuseumOfLondon for all the latest news on when the museum doors will be open once more.

Thank you for your continued support and we look forward to welcoming you back soon!

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Medieval London - free gallery | Museum of London

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From the collapse of the Roman city to the accession of Queen Elizabeth I - what was life like in Medieval London? Medieval London was destroyed by invaders, racked by famine, fire and disease, and torn apart by religious and political controversy. But it grew to become one of the wealthiest and most important cities in Europe.

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Museum of London

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Kate Sumnall
& Alwyn Collinson

Curator, Secret Rivers
& Digital Editor

17 April 2019

Our upcoming Secret Rivers exhibition showcases the hidden waterways running beneath London's streets, and the objects excavated from them over the centuries. The most unusual is a remarkable communal toilet seat from the 12th century.

An extraordinary survival, almost 700 years old, this toilet seat was found during archaeological excavations in the 1980s. Made of a single plank of oak, it was originally big enough for three people to share at the same time (presumably, three people who knew each other very well). It was dug out of waterlogged earth, above a cesspit where the now-buried River Fleet flows into the Thames. Despite centuries in the ground, it has rotted very little, providing a fascinating insight into the daily lives of Londoners in a very different city.

Luisa Duarte, the archaeological conservator who prepared the toilet seat for display, said: "We are very lucky in London that we tend to get really great preservation of a lot of things from the river." The wet conditions helped stop oxygen from reaching the wood, preventing it from rotting. "In the case of the metals we have very low corrosion, and in organics we have a very low biological activity. That's why in London we have so much wood and leather - sometimes we have more organic Roman material than in Rome."

Secret Rivers is filled with archaeological objects rescued from the forgotten waterways of London. There are nearly fifty smaller rivers that emptied into the Thames, and for thousands of years Londoners relied on them to provide drinking water and carry away effluent - unfortunately, often at the same time.

Most are now hidden from view, paved over and turned into drains, or dug out into canals. But these phantom tributaries shape the streets of London today - like the River Fleet, which gives its name to Fleet Street, and is the source of our medieval toilet seat.

Kate Sumnall, one of the curators of the Secret Rivers exhibition, explained what we know about the site: "Before the Roman settlement of London, the lower Fleet was a wide, open river with two eyots, or small islands. During the 11th century, the land around the southern eyot was reclaimed and the channel was infilled. This was also the site of a bridge over the Fleet which connected with an east-west road. The archaeological excavations which discovered the toilet seat also revealed a row of buildings that fronted onto this road.

"These buildings were a mix of commercial and residential, in what is now Ludgate Hill. Historic records from the 13th century show that one of the buildings was known as 'Helle' and was owned by John de Flete, a cap-maker, and his wife, Cassandra. The three-seater wooden toilet belonged to this building, meaning that we probably know the names of the people whose bottoms would have sat on it.

"The toilet seat was found over a wicker-lined cesspit, which would have captured the human waste dropped through the holes. The construction of the cesspit would allow liquids to drain out and be filtered by the ground, while the solids would be collected. This means it would fill up and periodically a new pit would have to be dug. This toilet would have been a private facility, probably reserved for the use of the de Flete family and household. There was a common privy, for public use, located nearby.

"There is no surviving evidence about the nature of the structure that would have enclosed the toilet, but it is likely to have been constructed from wattle and daub. The toilet seat itself was constructed from a single plank of oak and the three holes were cut using an axe."

The River Fleet is a very appropriate place to have found this toilet seat: it was known for centuries as one of the smelliest rivers in London. Human, animal and industrial waste all polluted its waters. The Jacobean poet Ben Jonson was so disgusted by the river that he wrote a satirical epic describing the Fleet, where "Arses were heard to croak, instead of frogs".

'...How dare
Your dainty nostrils (in so hot a season,
When every clerk eats artichokes, and peason,
Laxative lettuce, and such windy meat)
'Tempt such a passage? When each privy's seat
Is filled with buttock? And the walls do sweat
Urine, and plasters? When the noise doth beat
Upon your ears, of discords so unsweet?
And outcries of the damned in the Fleet?'

Ben Jonson, 1612

Attempts at dredging the river to keep it clear failed to deal with the smell. By the late 18th century, London authorities decided to pave over the river, hiding it beneath the city streets. It became one of the secret rivers of London - still flowing with human waste, as part of the city's sewer network.

As well as the original, a replica of the full toilet seat will be displayed in the Secret Rivers exhibition. You and your friends can sit side-by-side, just as John and Cassandra de Flete did, six and a half centuries ago. But please, keep your pants on.

Secret Rivers is a free exhibition at the Museum of London Docklands. It opens 24 May 2019.

Our museums are temporarily closed

Following the recent advice from the government and Public Health England surrounding COVID-19, the Museum of London and the Museum of London Docklands will be closed to the public as of Thursday 19 March.

The health and wellbeing of our visitors, staff and community are of utmost importance to us and this decision is in response to increasing concerns surrounding COVID-19.

Whilst our sites are closed we will continue to have a presence online. To keep up to date with the museum check our website www.museumoflondon.org.uk or follow us @MuseumofLondon.

Our staff will continue to work remotely. Please email [email protected] for any general enquiries. For media enquiries please email [email protected] .

We will continue to closely review the advice from Public Health England and monitor the current situation of COVID-19 to keep people up to date on our plans.

Please check www.museumoflondon.org.uk for updates from the museum.

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A medieval three-seated toilet seat | Museum of London

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Kate Sumnall& Alwyn Collinson Curator, Secret Rivers& Digital Editor 17 April 2019 Our upcoming Secret Rivers exhibition showcases the hidden waterways running beneath London's streets, and the objects excavated from them over the centuries. The most unusual is a remarkable communal toilet seat from the 12th century.

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Festive Treats and Sweets!

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What did Stuart or medieval Londoners eat at Christmas? Try a tasty biscuit inspired by the Great Fire of London, a horrible one following an authentic Stuart recipe, or a medieval Yule Doll.

Take a quart of honey, put it into a great skillet on the fire and when it begineth to seeth, put thereto a pint of strong ale, & scum it clear, then put soo much grated bread as will make it like unto dow and put thereto halfe a pound of Liquorish, as much Aniseeds, and a quarter of a pound of ginger being finely searced with two ounces of graines, then take it out of your skillet and worke it on a table as you doo flower to dough to make it stiffe, then make it in cakes, put powder of Liquorish and Aniseeds upon your moulds so it cleave not and so lay them upon a board till they be dry, then lay them up in boxes.

Lady Barbara Fleming's Manuscript Receipt Book (1673)

Curator Meriel Jeater writes:
We can take culinary inspiration from even earlier: the medieval period, when people marked the three weeks of Advent with religious fasting. When celebrations began on Christmas Day, one of the treats were Yule Dolls. These were biscuits a bit like gingerbread men, in the shape of people or animals. They were flavoured with honey, nutmeg, saffron, lemon and currants, and had raisin eyes and orange peel mouths.

I read about them in a very fun book, Medieval Holidays and Festivals by Madeleine Cosman, and thought they sounded delicious so I decided to make some. I adapted a modern gingerbread recipe, took out the sugar (not common in England until much later) and replaced it with honey, and substituted the ginger with nutmeg and saffron.

Whether you celebrate the holiday season with brandy snaps and mince pies, or Yule Dolls and fasting, have a very merry Christmas!

Our museums are temporarily closed

Following the recent advice from the government and Public Health England surrounding COVID-19, the Museum of London and the Museum of London Docklands will be closed to the public as of Thursday 19 March.

The health and wellbeing of our visitors, staff and community are of utmost importance to us and this decision is in response to increasing concerns surrounding COVID-19.

Whilst our sites are closed we will continue to have a presence online. To keep up to date with the museum check our website www.museumoflondon.org.uk or follow us @MuseumofLondon.

Our staff will continue to work remotely. Please email [email protected] for any general enquiries. For media enquiries please email [email protected] .

We will continue to closely review the advice from Public Health England and monitor the current situation of COVID-19 to keep people up to date on our plans.

Please check www.museumoflondon.org.uk for updates from the museum.

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Recipes for medieval festive sweets | Museum of London

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What did Stuart or medieval Londoners eat at Christmas? Try a tasty biscuit inspired by the Great Fire of London, a horrible one following an authentic Stuart recipe, or a medieval Yule Doll.

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Self Management is the most important part of Digital Learning

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Self Management is the most important part of Digital Learning

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Target Self Management Skill: ORGANIZATION

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Target Self Management Skill: ORGANIZATION

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What does it mean to be organized?

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Approaches to Learning

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Which attribute are you demonstrating today?

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Which attribute are you demonstrating today?