By Jacquie Rogers
When I wrote "Faery Much In Love," a short story in FAERY SPECIAL ROMANCES, I knew very little about 12th Century Europe, let alone about the specifics of armor. To lend authenticity, I had a lot of work to do. Here's what I learned about the nuances regarding armor and defense of this century.
Misconceptions
When most of us think of armor, we think of the full plate armor of the 16th Century, which soon became obsolete with the introduction of firearms. But armor took many hundreds of years before it finally evolved into such finely tuned equipment. One of the first things I learned was that my knight needed a bit more armor than was actually used in 1199 A.D., so my 12th Century knight wears late-13th Century armor. So far, no one has noticed (and now you know my secret). :)
But back to the 12th Century . . .
Before we get into the specifics, we need to know the weapons in use. Swords were the weapon of choice but very expensive. A warrior carried his sword in a sword belt worn around his waist, and sported a diamond-shaped shield held by a shoulder strap on his back. Crossbows came into popularity along about this time, as well as the Welsh longbows. Infantrymen used spears and whatever else they could afford and/or carry; and the cavalry, which became vitally important in this century, carried heavy maces as well as swords, and sometime battleaxes.
Well, then, what did they wear?
So the armor had to defend primarily against swords, arrows, spears, and maces. Let's take a look at some of the individual pieces of equipment.
Mail
Warriors used mail since the 4th or 5th Century, so it was nothing new. Skilled armorers created complicated hauberks, chausses, and even gauntlets out of mail. Under the mail, they wore heavy quilted garments to protect their skin from the rough mail, and also to cushion the blows from their enemies' weapons. Mail protected against slashing, but not piercing, nor did it protect against bone-crushing strikes.
We'll talk a little about most of the parts of armor.
Helm
In the picture to the right, we see he's wearing a steel helm (or bascinet) with mail to protect his throat and neck, with no facial protection other than a bar over his nose.
Hauberk
A hauberk is a mail shirt, usually long-sleeved and knee-length, with a slit up the front and back so the warrior could ride a horse. It's made of iron wire, was very expensive, required a lot of maintenance, and was quite heavy. (Remember, your knight will be wearing a heavy quilted shirt underneath the mail hauberk.)
Gauntlets
Gauntlets were worn over the hands. Gloves, if you will. They were sometimes made of mail but leather gauntlets were more common in the 12th Century.
Chausses
Chausses were leg protection made of mail, and very similar, although more form-fitting, to cowboy's chaps of today.
Sabaton
To protect their feet, warriors wore sabatons. These chain mail foot coverings extended past the toes and ended in a point. This grew longer and longer over the years, and toward the end of the armor era, some classes could wear sabatons with toes two and a half feet long!
Plate armor
Nope, not in the 12th Century. Sometimes plates of heavy leather were sown together and worn over the mail hauberk, and in the 13th Century, they started wearing plates of steel armor attached in much the same way, but the mail hauberk was still the main piece of equipment.
Pros and Cons
The advantage of 12th Century armor over later armor is that these knights were much more agile and mobile. The disadvantage is that they weren't nearly as well protected as the 15th and 16th Century warriors. In any century up until modern times, warriors had to buy their own armor, and a good suit cost more money than most common men would see in a lifetime.
Sources
European Historical Overview by David Kuijt
12th Century Arms and Armour
Jacquie
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By Evangeline Holland
In my quest to experience as much of what typical upper-class Edwardians experienced, I enrolled in a fencing class this past spring. The duel is a popular concept in fiction--it was symbolic of honor, masculinity and justice. From the 16th century and even into the 20th, the duel and its sportier sibling, fencing, were held in high esteem. Though dueling was outlawed in many countries by the mid-nineteenth century, in places like Germany, the American South and in France, the Code Duello was the handbook for the settlement of offenses. No turning the other cheek here; an eye for an eye was the style.
The cult of dueling was most prevalent amongst the officers and university students of Germany. One wasn't considered a man unless one had dueled and more importantly, suffered a wound (facial scars the most coveted). So revered was the duel, many German aristocrats opted to pay a doctor or surgeon to slice open his cheek or forehead, or create a wound on another part of the body, to impress both ladies and their contemporaries.
However, no where was the duel more popular than in belle époque France. Nearly everyone dueled: politicians, artists, authors, journalists, etc, and apparently, over 200 were fought annually. In 1870, Édouard Manet challenged the art critic Louis Edmond Duranty after Duranty had written only the briefest of commentary on two works of art that Manet had entered for exhibition.
The frustrated Manet collared Duranty at the Café Guerbois and slapped him. Duranty's demands for an apology were refused and so the men fought a duel with swords in the forest of Saint-Germain three days later on the 23rd. Émile Zola acted as Manet's second and Paul Alexis acted for Duranty. After Duranty received a wound above the right breast the seconds stepped in and declared that honor had been satisfied. The men remained friends despite the encounter.
In 1897, the frail, reclusive Marcel Proust challenged the effete gossip journalist Jean Lorrain to a duel when the latter, under the name "Raitiff de la Bretonne" insinuated that Proust and the young son of Alphonse Daudet were having an affair. For his seconds, Proust chose the painter Jean Beraud, and Gustave de Borda, whose dexterity and finesse in so many duels had earned him the nickname "Sword-Thrust Borda," while Lorrain chose painter Octave Uzanne and the novelist Paul Adam. When a meeting between seconds could not come to an agreement, the duel was arranged to be fought with pistols on Saturday, February 6, in the forest of Meudon, just ouside of Paris. Proust's primary worry was not the bullets, but having to rise, dress and go out in the morning. Thankfully, his seconds were able to arrange an afternoon confrontation. In the end, the pistols were discharged in the general vicinity of one another (though Proust apparently aimed at Lorrain, for the bullet hit the ground next Lorrain's right foot), and honor was satisfied.
The most explosive challenge ever was in 1911: Arria Ly versus Louis Casalé. Ly was an ardent feminist in a time where the movement hadn't taken to Continental Europe as it had Britain and America. She gained extensive controversy in the French national press with the publication of her article "Vive 'Mademoiselle!'" in THE FEMINIST JOURNALIST. In it, she stated:
...that a new class of single, professional women practice permanent sexual abstinence and adopt the title "Mademoiselle" as an exalted expression of the "purity, independence, and pride" attached to the state of virginity. Ly insisted that only by breaking the psycho-sexual chains that bound them to men could women hope to achieve sociopolitical and legal autonomy. Emphasizing the relevance of celibate singleness for the French women's movement, Ly affirmed that "more and more, we will recruit the elite of our adepts and militants from these noble freethinkers, these inspiring rebels" who were not legally "under their husbands' authority" or otherwise restricted by familial obligations.
The response was scathing, Casalé, a writer for the weekly radical-socialist newspaper the Toulouse Reporter, attributing Ly's proposal to her degenerate personality and to an:
...old maid's hatred for the man who never desired her, an anticipated disgust of men due to an overly-exclusive love of women (Lesbos stood in for Cythera many times), a morbid aversion felt by the de-sexed neurotic, cerebral over-excitation due to the abuse of anesthetics, or more simply, the affected attitude of the politicienne.
Ly's challenge was further ridiculed and Casale felt secure enough in his opinion, which was supported by the majority of people who wrote in to the newspaper, to ignore it and continue his abuse of Ly and other "voluntary virgins" who were depicted--naturally--as shriveled, wrinkled old women.
The duel is now generally seen as a romantic gesture, a relic from the Victorian era to be snickered at. But the practice was taken very seriously by all involved and even into the 20th and 21st centuries, the duel is considered a proper--in fact, the only manner for a gentleman-step towards solving insult.
By Vicki Gaia
Many of us were raised on James Bond movies, especially loving all those cool weapons he had in his arsenal. There is always some truth to fiction, and in World War II, secret agents needed secret weapons. Weapons that were imaginative, easy to carry, easy to hide and use. For the OSS alone, scientist and inventors enthusiastically invented over 25,000 items, many successful.
From The Secret War: World War II from Time/Life Books, I've listed 13 of my favorites:
1. Guns that were silent and flash less were favored by OSS agents. Scientists muffled 90% of the noise of a standard issued .22 caliber pistol simply by adding a baffle of wire mesh to the barrel. This slowed the escape of gas released in the firing.
2. The "Woolworth" .45 gun was dropped to partisans in Axis-occupied Europe. Costing $1.50 each, they were parachuted by the tens of thousands. Small and compact, they were 'a great gun to get another gun with.'
3. "William Tell" was a crossbow intended to eliminate Japanese sentries and watchdogs in the Pacific.
4. One concoction, used to ignite oil, was named "Paul Revere" because it worked well for oil tanks on land, as well as oil slicks at sea.
5. Another device, a firecracker that stimulated the noise of a bomb, was used for distracting soldiers in a crowd, allowing for agents to escape. The inventor named it "Hedy" for the movie star, Hedy Lamarr...since she created a panic whenever she went.
6. There was the "Bushmaster," an eight-and-a-half inch tube clipped to a tree branch, set to fire a bullet at a specific moment. The purpose: to provoke the enemy to fire back and reveal his position.
7. There were many types of sharp objects invented. The "Smatchet" combined a heavy solid metal pommel with a machete-like blade of high tempered steel.
8. Another sharp object was a spike that an agent could strap to the arm underneath his clothing. One thrust to the eye or ear could kill the enemy.
9. The British developed a specially designed dagger for their women agents. It combined a pick-like blade with a contoured hand grip to add more power to the thrust.
10. A cool fountain pen (no ball point pens in WWII) was redesigned to fire a dart no bigger than a record-player needle. The dart's range was forty feet.
11. The OSS had the "Matchbox camera", a camera disguised as a Japanese or Swedish matchbox.
12. Specially designed latchkeys carried microfilm messages between Britain and German-occupied Denmark. Microfilm was sealed inside a hole in the key's oval handle.
13. Not all inventions made the grade. One of the craziest projects that backfired was to employ bats as arsonist by attaching walnut-sized bombs to their wings! During the testing process, several buildings were burned down to the ground!
Happy Reading!
By Lisa Yarde
On November 27, 1095 at Clermont in France, Pope Urban II inaugurated the bloody period of history known as the Crusades, with the rousing cry, "Deus vult" meaning God wills it. Knights, nobles and ordinary citizens of France, Germany and Italy were first to respond, mobilizing to re-take the Holy Land from its Muslim rulers.
With each military campaign, stretching from the First Crusade of 1095-1099 until the thirteenth century, the European armies enhanced and perfected their use of siege weapons. Such devices had existed since ancient times, but with the development of stone castles and citadel walls, an attacking force needed powerful weapons to breach enemy fortifications.
Sieges could seem like never-ending contests of wills. At varying stages, the defenders of the Holy Land lost or held out against increasing attacks by the Crusaders. For both sides, morale as much as an adequate supply of food and water determined the outcome. Neither would have wanted a prolonged siege, risking desertion, disease and the loss of resources. Most sieges began after an unsuccessful attempt to take an area.
After negotiations for surrender failed, each side had ample time to prepare for a siege. For the Crusaders, it meant assessing the weakest section of a defensive wall, but it also allowed those behind the wall time to prepare. There were three methods to breach a site; to tunnel under its walls, climb over them or to knock them down. The sandy ditches around citadels in the Holy Land didn't always allow the attackers to undermine walls at their bases, so that often meant going over them or through them.
During the First Crusade, Christian armies relied on towers. At the seven-month Siege of Antioch (October 1097-June 1098), the Crusaders used three towers in their attacks against this Syrian city. Under the control of Byzantine Emperors for centuries, Antioch fell to the Muslims in 1085. Its capture would allow the Crusaders to move on to their ultimate prize--Jerusalem. Constructed of timber, and mobilized on wheels or rollers, the rectangular siege tower allowed attacking armies to advance on a defensive castle wall, under some protection from enemy arrow fire.
At the site, engineers built the towers to an equivalent height of the wall their army wanted to scale. Inside, there were several storeys, reachable by ladders. They covered the wood with animal hide to protect from flaming arrows. The army pushed the tower toward the wall and when it was judged close enough, they extended a platform to abut the wall, allowing them to rush across the top of it, or to scale ladders to its height. Archers inside kept the defenders from getting too close, but not always.
Antioch did not submit to the Crusaders because of their siege; it fell by treachery from inside the walls. The European armies recognized that siege towers were vulnerable to fire and determined defenders could quickly put an end to any intrusion by setting them ablaze. They needed another way to breach enemy walls while minimizing the casualties sustained in an attack. One method of doing so involved the refinement of the ancient catapult system to batter down walls.
Two types of artillery weapons were particularly important in Crusader assaults on the Holy Land; the mangonel, primarily a stone-throwing machine and the counterpoise trebuchet, which used gravity and a sling method to hurl any kind of projectile. Both siege machines had their origins in earlier history but were used to devastating effect in the medieval period. The mangonel had a bowl-shaped bucket at the end of its wooden throwing arm and maneuvered on wheels. Ropes attached to the arm were twisted to provide the torsion. An attacker placed projectiles, usually stones, into the bucket from which they were thrown up to a distance of over a thousand feet.
But the mangonel had its limits. The amount of weight used was limited by a person's strength and this in turn, reduced the damage that might be done . The counterpoise trebuchet eliminated this problem. While the mangonel's design allowed it to smash through masonry or rock, the trebuchet's projectiles were sent through walls or over them.
One of the most accurate developments of the catapult system, the trebuchet had a greater throwing distance and was more powerful than the mangonel. With its sling and arm swing mechanism, armies used the trebuchet to terrify their enemies, including hurling dead animals or people over the walls. At the Sieges of Acre and Jerusalem, the Crusader kings relied on these devastating machines of warfare, giving them nicknames, "Bad Neighbor" and "God's Own Catapult" as they sought to wrest further control of the Holy Land from the Muslims or keep the regions they captured in earlier warfare.
Siege weapons were costly and required skilled engineers for their design, a sizable force for their construction and dismantling, and the materials for building them. Their use shaped the balance of power in the Middle Ages for centuries until the introduction of more advanced methods of warfare.
