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sullat posted:And then it was all wiped out by barbarian rebels. So not fortified enough. There are two things wrong with that statement. First, it wasn't wiped out, it was sacked. How can you claim it was wiped out (I assume in the An Shi Rebellion) when the city remained the capital for 140 years after? The population was displaced but the city remained standing. How else could it have changed hands like 5 times in the aftermath?  Bad times for the Chinese.Second, it wasn't sacked by barbarian rebels, it was sacked by the Tang Dynasty's own military. Sure, they may have been constituted largely of barbarians and they were certainly rebels, but they were the Tang military raised and supported with imperial resources. The An Shi Rebellion saw fully half of the military rebel. These are hardly random barbarians. If anyone's interested, the An Shi Rebellion is one of the great, perhaps the greatest case of a ruler falling in love with the wrong woman. Their story is like a soap opera except in the end the bad-boy love interest burns down the set and massacres the audience.
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May 9, 2013 02:44
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This is too cute not to share. Domestic disputes   "I swear it's not what it looks like!"  Grrr    "You never bring me roses anymore!" "Yeah, yeah, quit your nagging." From this amazing blog: http://erikkwakkel.tumblr.com/
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May 9, 2013 13:39
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It seems so wrong that that beautiful calligraphy next to those childish scrawls.
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May 9, 2013 22:15
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So are there any open-source versions of these awesome old fighting manuals and training books available anywhere? If not, are there well-done publications? It would be awesome to see all the artwork and have translations of old combat training guides. It's very cool to see modern interpretations and understandings of everything, but I'd love to be able to read some of the primary sources as well. Please tell me I can get them someplace without having to learn Medieval German / French / whatever.
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May 10, 2013 05:23
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Honey Badger posted:So are there any open-source versions of these awesome old fighting manuals and training books available anywhere? If not, are there well-done publications? It would be awesome to see all the artwork and have translations of old combat training guides. It's very cool to see modern interpretations and understandings of everything, but I'd love to be able to read some of the primary sources as well. Please tell me I can get them someplace without having to learn Medieval German / French / whatever. http://wiktenauer.com/wiki/Main_Page should hook you up with exactly what you're looking for, translations and all.
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May 10, 2013 05:34
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Spoilers Below posted:http://wiktenauer.com/wiki/Main_Page should hook you up with exactly what you're looking for, translations and all. This is amazing, thank you!
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May 10, 2013 06:18
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Honey Badger posted:This is amazing, thank you! Agreed. I have a reproduction of one of Talhoffer's manuals and always lamented not being able to find other books like it. I'm going to enjoy looking through this.
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May 10, 2013 06:29
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Wiktenauer is one of the best thing going in the community. The guy that leads my club has bought most of the HEMA / WMA books to come out. Here is his reviews http://www.worksofrichardmarsden.com/wmabookreviews.htm Here is a translation of of Joachim Meyer's 1560 fight book from the Meyer Freyfechter Guild https://sites.google.com/site/jochimmeyer1560/ And finally a list of sources put together by the HEMA alliance http://hemaalliance.com/?page_id=310
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May 10, 2013 07:01
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SlothfulCobra posted:It seems so wrong that that beautiful calligraphy next to those childish scrawls. Doodling is really common in manuscripts. Books were rare and precious objects but that didn't stop bored monks from drawing a monkey sticking a finger up its butt right next to Jesus. Marginalia (doodles/scrawls/notes in the margins of a manuscript) can range from monks commenting on the work to complaining about their job and from scrawls like the above to beautiful elaborate side-illustrations. The more elaborate ones often weren't real doodles in the sense that they were planned along with the rest of the illuminations, apparently the people who commissioned the manuscript liked to have a touch of humour in there. Making manuscripts was really hard work and facebook was not yet invented, so they complained in the margins: "New parchment; bad ink. I say nothing more." "I am very cold." "The parchment is hairy" "The ink is thin." "Oh, my hand." "Thank God, it will soon be dark." "This page has not been written very slowly" "Now I've written the whole thing; for Christ's sake give me a drink." "Writing isterrible drudgery; it crooks your back, it dims your sight, it twists your stomach and sides." "This is sad! O little book! A day will come in truth when someone over your page will say, "The hand that wrote it is no more.""  Also I'm pretty sure that one of the first attestations of the word "gently caress" were in the margins of a Bible saying "loving abbot" or something to that effect. Marginalia are often wonderfully weird:  Nuns picking dicks  A demon firing arrows up the butt of a merman  Here the sribe accidentally omitted a bunch of text and found a creative solution.  A girl in a red cloak and her eggs  These monkeys are going to play a little prank!  And some daydreaming on the part of the monk, finally being able to proudly present the book he made:  Tell me if I'm spamming the thread too much with my pictures, I don't know much about fighting but I think it's really cool to be able to share a joke with a guy from centuries ago. 
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May 10, 2013 13:06
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When were the last battles that took place with the medieval notion of the knight? Any conflicts in the 1500s or 1600s still fought with armor, melee, and the like? I'd really like to know approximately when they stopped being used in combat.
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May 10, 2013 16:20
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PiratePing posted:Doodling This might be the most thing I've today. I love how, no matter the era, dicks and butts were always funny. Are there any records of customers getting angry about this sort of thing ie: "You drew monkeys making GBS threads in my copy of Virgil, I want my money back!"?
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May 10, 2013 16:23
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Hey I'm heading to Wales in a couple of weeks, what are some of the coolest castles to visit? I'm planning on checking out Harlech, Caernarfen, and Conwy..
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May 10, 2013 16:23
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You should check out Cardiff castle. It's a pretty interesting site because there are viewable areas that span basically the entire lifespan of the fortification - you can go in and view parts of the original Roman construction, for instance, and then check out the ruined keep which is from the 1100s, I think. You can also tour the main building, which was occupied and updated until the end of the 19th century - so obviously it isn't very medieval anymore, but it does give you a nice sense of how the buildings developed and changed over time. I don't know that I would make a special trip just to see it, but being as it's smack in the city with tons of other stuff, it's worth stopping in. They also do fairly regular living history stuff there, so you might get to see some dudes riding round in plate or whacking each other with swords. You should also try and fit in a visit to Caerfilly. It's the second largest castle in Britain, and I believe one of the first to feature some of it's defensive architecture. Also it has some really impressive moats and stuff around it. I think they have mock-ups of siege weapons that they fire into the moat on special tours? If you are interested in something more original than Cardiff, I would definitely make the effort to see it. I will also mention Castell Coch, which is just outside Cardiff. It isn't a 'real' castle, in that it was basically entirely built by the Marquis of Bute (same guy who owned Cardiff Castle) in the 1870s. While it was built on the ruins of an actual fortification, it's more like a Victorian fairy-tale than a strict reconstruction. Having said that, the architecture is amazing and it's basically like wandering through what you thought a castle was as a kid.
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May 10, 2013 17:29
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This will interest some people here: the Battle of the Nations, a yearly contest in fighting medieval style running May 9th - 12th. Their website is in moonspeak (French), but its all shown on youtube. edit: also an English site: http://battleofthenations.ua/ 9-Volt Assault fucked around with this message at 17:52 on May 10, 2013 |
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May 10, 2013 17:49
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Were there still armored knight as a military order in the Eighty Years War?
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May 10, 2013 18:02
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Firstborn posted:When were the last battles that took place with the medieval notion of the knight? Any conflicts in the 1500s or 1600s still fought with armor, melee, and the like? The War of the Roses was pretty much the end of knights on the battlefield. Last time an English king died on the battlefield, too. You could make an argument about 16th century noble cavalry which existed in some countries but they weren't really knights in the traditional meaning of the word. Gustav Vasa has a cavalry unit called Adelsfanan, or the Noble's Banner, and even later you had noblemen cavalry in Poland.
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May 10, 2013 18:29
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Ashcans posted:You should check out Cardiff castle. It's a pretty interesting site because there are viewable areas that span basically the entire lifespan of the fortification - you can go in and view parts of the original Roman construction, for instance, and then check out the ruined keep which is from the 1100s, I think. You can also tour the main building, which was occupied and updated until the end of the 19th century - so obviously it isn't very medieval anymore, but it does give you a nice sense of how the buildings developed and changed over time. I don't know that I would make a special trip just to see it, but being as it's smack in the city with tons of other stuff, it's worth stopping in. They also do fairly regular living history stuff there, so you might get to see some dudes riding round in plate or whacking each other with swords. I'll check these out, thanks! I'll be in Cardiff for a day or two so should be no problem. Most of the time I'll be up in the north though.
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May 10, 2013 18:41
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Firstborn posted:When were the last battles that took place with the medieval notion of the knight? Any conflicts in the 1500s or 1600s still fought with armor, melee, and the like? If you include the whole knights on horse part there I would put the real death of it even earlier then the War of The Roses. The Battle Of Hastings already proved the impracticality of the mounted knight, but media/popular opinion continued to portray them as being a major force for a long time. The whole thing is mostly a romantic myth. Didn't mean they didn't keep being used though, nobles sought for a long time, and failed to do so, to live up to the tales such as in the Battle of Poitiers. The ones who previously occupied the role of the knights slowly retreated to the role of leaders or skirmishing cavaliers. When and how exactly this all changed is something controversial though so keep in mind that what I type here is the opinion of both the Cambridge History of Warfare and Military Historian dr. Jan Hoffenaar whose courses I follow.
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May 10, 2013 19:21
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Davincie posted:If you include the whole knights on horse part there I would put the real death of it even earlier then the War of The Roses. The Battle Of Hastings already proved the impracticality of the mounted knight, In what sense? quote:but media/popular opinion continued to portray them as being a major force for a long time. The whole thing is mostly a romantic myth. Didn't mean they didn't keep being used though, nobles sought for a long time, and failed to do so, to live up to the tales such as in the Battle of Poitiers. So your assertion here would be that shock tactics with heavy cavalry were already obsolete in 1066, but that aristocrats continued trying to employ them for a further 400-500 years without success, out of pure stubbornness? Bearing in mind that we're talking about a military caste who dominant social position was predicated on their ability to fight, and who in any given place would have been engaged in fighting of one kind or another almost constantly throughout the period. quote:The ones who previously occupied the role of the knights slowly retreated to the role of leaders or skirmishing cavaliers. When and how exactly this all changed is something controversial though so keep in mind that what I type here is the opinion of both the Cambridge History of Warfare and Military Historian dr. Jan Hoffenaar whose courses I follow. It would be helpful if you would be more specific with your citations. Also, a search for Dr. Jan Hoffenaar indicates he has a dual specialization in the military of the Netherlands 1870-present as well as in Cold War military planning. Personally I wouldn't get up in arms about that since I'm hardly a medievalist myself, but if you're trying to support a pretty dubious argument like the above you might want a better authority to appeal to.
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May 10, 2013 20:11
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PiratePing posted:
This looks like something that came from a Monty Python skit.  Please continue, these are fantastic.
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May 10, 2013 21:11
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Uhh kind of embarrassing really, but I was thinking of Agincourt and not Hastings. Assume that all I said there was about that battle and not the waaaay earlier one at Hastings. As for the romantic myth part, pages 88-91 of the Cambridge Illustrated History of Warfare (revised and updated edition) in a chapter spanning 500-1300 after Christ refer to the myth. There it is written that there are 3 reasons for the fact that the classic image of supremely important knight existed. All 3 basically refer to the fact that the nobles left behind the largest paper trail and that entertainment such as the chansons de geste grossly overestimated the role of the knight.
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May 11, 2013 00:19
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Answers not in any particular order.pulphero posted:I have always been curious about the formation of the Papal states. I said I would get back to this, although I think EvanSchenck’s answer is excellent. Initially, the Papal States were not really states; they were just the church owning land similar to a landlord. Once the Roman/Byzantine Empire lost territory in the region, the resulting power vacuum meant that the church was the closest thing to a legitimate ruler in the area. With Rome as essentially an enclave outside the Empire, it became self-governing with the Pope as leader. The Pope made a great figurehead if you were opposed to being conquered by the long-beards. Popes began negotiating with kings more and more, which gave them an increased legitimacy. In the Pragmatic Sanction of 554, the Pope was given the authority to control currency. By this point, the Pope was controlling local finance, had the loyalty of the local militia, and owned most of the land. Once you control armed force and finance in a region, that makes you effectively a ruler. The rest EvanSchenck mentioned, concerning the Duchy of Rome making deals with the Frankish kings and later crowning Charlemagne King of the Romans. That is when you officially get the Papal States, although you got the Pope controlling the Duchy of Rome a little before that. Davincie posted:Uhh kind of embarrassing really, but I was thinking of Agincourt and not Hastings. Assume that all I said there was about that battle and not the waaaay earlier one at Hastings. As for the romantic myth part, pages 88-91 of the Cambridge Illustrated History of Warfare (revised and updated edition) in a chapter spanning 500-1300 after Christ refer to the myth. There it is written that there are 3 reasons for the fact that the classic image of supremely important knight existed. All 3 basically refer to the fact that the nobles left behind the largest paper trail and that entertainment such as the chansons de geste grossly overestimated the role of the knight. By Agincourt (1415) knights were already moving to primarily fighting on foot, and most of the French knights attacked on foot that day, although I should note that the French did have plenty of success with shock cavalry in later battles. Verneuil (1424) scattered the English archers and only lost because they stopped to loot the baggage train giving the English men-at-arms time to regroup. Battle of Patay (1429) was when a French cavalry force managed to crush a larger English army, because they caught the archers before they had time to prepare their field fortifications. Other battles like Formigney, were influenced by cannon. The cannons tempted the English from their defended position and then the French capitalised with repeated shock charges. The English victories in the Hundred Years War such as Crecy, Poitiers and Agincourt were not really contests of archer vs knight. They were more to do with combined arms tactics and discipline from the English forces while the French made crucial mistakes like charging their own crossbowmen. My point is there is never really any set point that knightly armoured cavalry becomes obsolete. They just gradually adjust over time. Firstborn posted:Were there still armored knight as a military order in the Eighty Years War? Depends what you are thinking of. The French gendarmes were essentially the same thing as the armoured knight. However, the Knights of Malta, though not part of the war, were still a military order and still tended to use armour, though they focused much more on naval warfare. They still existed, they were just less important than they used to be. Firstborn posted:When were the last battles that took place with the medieval notion of the knight? Any conflicts in the 1500s or 1600s still fought with armor, melee, and the like? Depends what you view as the knight. If you mean armour and swords and lances, Napoleon’s lancers or cuirasseurs were still doing that in the 1800s. There is a good article called From Lance to Pistol here - http://www.myarmoury.com/feature_lancepistol.html Essentially it covers the adjustments to heavy cavalry during the 16th century. The trend was for heavy cavalry to be a little more lightly armoured than before, maybe with half-armour and thicker breastplates to stop firearms and unarmoured horses. There was still a lot of debate whether lance or firearms were better for cavalry. What is noteworthy is the French were using Gendarmes which still fought in the traditional, old-school lance charges in the 1580s. Knighthood changed quite a lot in the medieval period. English men-at-arms fought primarily dismounted from the 1300s on as part of combined arms formations. Arguably the Doppelsoldners of the 1500s were doing the same thing, fighting as heavily armoured halberdiers or the occasional greatsword was still a very knightly thing to do. It is just that the role of social rank and the associations between knighthood and this method of war became less and less over time. PiratePing posted:Tell me if I'm spamming the thread too much with my pictures, I don't know much about fighting but I think it's really cool to be able to share a joke with a guy from centuries ago. I feel the same. I love seeing how historical people were people with personalities and senses of humour we can appreciate today. I am a big believer that people are people at any time period, and though culture may have been different human beings will find a lot in common across space and time. In short, keep posting pictures from the manuscripts. They are great.
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May 11, 2013 13:27
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Like many nerds I have recently become familiar with succession law through Crusader Kings 2. Are you familiar with the game and can you comment on the accuracy of its legal system at all? Why did rulers divide up their titles for their sons? It sounds so obviously stupid. Like "Hey sons, you want to get conquered 50 years down the line by some guy whose dad wasn't an idiot? Great, here's some duchies for each of you!"
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May 11, 2013 14:19
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Arglebargle III posted:Like many nerds I have recently become familiar with succession law through Crusader Kings 2. Are you familiar with the game and can you comment on the accuracy of its legal system at all? Why did rulers divide up their titles for their sons? It sounds so obviously stupid. Like "Hey sons, you want to get conquered 50 years down the line by some guy whose dad wasn't an idiot? Great, here's some duchies for each of you!" Nowadays people are accustomed to thinking in terms of states, but in CK2 you're actually playing as a dynasty, i.e. a family. A feudal realm wasn't a country in the same sense as a modern state, it was the king's property, in the form of private landholdings and a network of personal/legal relationships with vassals (and through them, their vassals lower on the chain). When somebody who has a lot of kids dies, he splits up his property among them, to make sure they're all provided for, and because an equitable division of the inheritance will hopefully prevent his family tearing itself apart. Same thing with a king. Another thing to keep in mind is that the way the game works encourages you to take a long view--centuries long--whereas an actual human being is unlikely to plan for that long a term. Finally, most players' treat the objective of CK2 as being to build up the largest and most powerful realm possible. Some kings probably had this ambition, but I would say that a more normal life goal would be to have a lot of kids and make sure they all had good marriages that advanced their social position and that they would be provided for after your death.
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May 11, 2013 19:18
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Gotta look around for it, but I swear I had an European history (as in, history from Europe) book lying around that mentioned the Pope was FORCED by Charlemagne to name him Emperor.  Whoops, I guess.Also: quote:While the French made crucial mistakes like charging their own crossbowmen.  As in - "they tried to charge with their Crossbowmen" or "an element of the French army attacked itself?"
Azran fucked around with this message at 22:02 on May 11, 2013 |
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May 11, 2013 22:00
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The crossbowmen were Genoese mercenaries hired by the French, and they were not in battle-ready condition when the French decided to attack. The French had ordered a forced march through a rainstorm to run the English down, which left the Genoese exhausted and their equipment in disarray. They preferred to fight from behind large pavise shields which protected them from enemy archers, but the shields were still packed up in the French baggage train and they weren't given time to retrieve them. Finally their bowstrings were wet and that sharply reduced the effectiveness of their crossbows, while the English had been waiting to receive them and had the opportunity to unstring their bows and keep them dry and ready for use. The Genoese officers clearly told the French that they were not in any condition to give battle and they needed time to dry out, rest, and assemble their kit, to which the French basically said "gently caress you, we're doing this right now" and forced them to go up and shoot at the English. With every possible advantage on their side the English archers slaughtered the Genoese and they broke and ran after a few volleys, and the French were so mad about this that they actually charged their own mercenaries and killed a bunch of them before proceeding towards the English. At which point, surprise, the exact same thing that happened to the Genoese happened to them. This is especially dumb because the Genoese were very likely the best troops the French had, and more importantly the only ones with the particular skills and equipment to have any chance of dislodging the English from their prepared position along the ridge.
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May 11, 2013 22:59
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The thing about Agincourt is that, despite British cultural myth, it did not demonstrate the intrinsic superiority of archers on foot to shock cavalry. All it showed was that a well-organized, well-disciplined force on favourable terrain can beat a poorly-organized, poorly-disciplined enemy even if said force is exhausted and outnumbered. This was hardly a new lesson even then. I'm pretty sure the Sumerians had already got that figured out.
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May 12, 2013 03:23
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NEED TOILET PAPER posted:This might be the most Not as far as I know. The more elaborately decorated manuscripts had all kinds of stuff in the margins, usually a scribe would first write the text and then hand off the manuscript to the illuminator for decoration. I don't know exactly how much creative freedom the illuminator would have had, sometimes free spaces were marked with an "insert Christ on cross here" but a lot of the decorations had little to do with the text itself and it seems to me that they were allowed to go relatively hog wild. Common decorations are plants, animals (often anthropomorphized), scenes from everyday life, dragons, weird creatures and so on. Sometimes they depicted little stories like the monkeys playing a prank or the nuns picking dicks, which I unfortunataly can't find the full page for (they put the dicks in a wheelbarrow and bring it to some monks at a monastery). Seeing as how difficult and time consuming the production of a fully decorated manuscript was I don't think they would do anything that would offend the commissioner of the manuscript, but putting all kinds of silly stuff in the margins of a serious text was pretty much normal back then. An example:  As to the more crude doodles, since books couldn't be mass-produced they were usually shared and used by generation upon generation of students and we all know what bored students do with the margins of their books. There were probably plenty who got a ruler to the fingers for it.  Agean90 posted:This looks like something that came from a Monty Python skit.         Once I get my internet back I can probably do a few themed posts. Glad you peeps like them, medieval art is pretty great and much more interesting than most museums would lead you to believe.
PiratePing fucked around with this message at 15:47 on May 12, 2013 |
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May 12, 2013 10:53
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I'm not much of an expert in medieval history or combat, but I do attend the School Of European Swordsmanship, taught by Guy Windsor. We focus on italian longsword stuff, mostly the Fiore material. We have a wiki site as well as a Youtube channel that demonstrate most of the techniques and drills that we do. For example: Some of Fiore's techniques against a dagger thrust to the midsection http://youtu.be/rb9HT4Y68HI The "first drill", which is a longsword sequence dealing with a downwards strike from the right http://youtu.be/1Dc9s21EDkI Techniques for the physical training of the forearms http://youtu.be/K266SijxUAQ Fiore's kicking techniques http://youtu.be/IzcrTHn9NaI And so on. If you have questions regarding Fiore, I might not be able to answer them directly, but I can forward them to mister Windsor!
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May 12, 2013 15:59
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I've always been kind of curious as to what parts of Liechtenauer's teachings Fiore considered more important and which he considered less important. We've had some dudes in our own school who have done a bit of Fiore and they have these weird guards and movements that seem to focus a lot on striking at an incoming sword rather than the guards we use which focus more on presenting the point as a threat (and as a result many techniques focus on efficiently clearing a point to close for a strike or bind). I'm not sure if this has something to do with Fiore's curriculum focusing more on this kind of thing or just an odd quirk of the way they're learning.
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May 12, 2013 16:18
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Makrond posted:I've always been kind of curious as to what parts of Liechtenauer's teachings Fiore considered more important and which he considered less important. We've had some dudes in our own school who have done a bit of Fiore and they have these weird guards and movements that seem to focus a lot on striking at an incoming sword rather than the guards we use which focus more on presenting the point as a threat (and as a result many techniques focus on efficiently clearing a point to close for a strike or bind). I'm not sure if this has something to do with Fiore's curriculum focusing more on this kind of thing or just an odd quirk of the way they're learning. I don't think that Fiore mentions Liechtenauer's teachings specifically. Our take on Fiore's system is that you are safer at the bind that when a sword is louse. So your first job is to constrain the sword and if in the same action hit the other guy all the better. Yesterday we filmed our 15 min intro to Fiore that covers all the guards, crossings and foot work. When it gets uploaded I'll post it. ##edit## loving the weird art.
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May 12, 2013 17:37
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Arglebargle III posted:Like many nerds I have recently become familiar with succession law through Crusader Kings 2. Are you familiar with the game and can you comment on the accuracy of its legal system at all? Why did rulers divide up their titles for their sons? It sounds so obviously stupid. Like "Hey sons, you want to get conquered 50 years down the line by some guy whose dad wasn't an idiot? Great, here's some duchies for each of you!" I am completely unfamiliar with Crusader Kings 2, so I cannot really comment on that. One reason rulers might divide titles or land among their sons is love. Often we think of historical people as doing the most expedient political thing or being guided by some kind of outdated superstition, but I would say it is important to remember that people back then loved their children much like people now, and did not want to leave a child out. Another reason is in some cases it could be a lot of land to govern. How much land is a lot depends on your perspective. Charlemagne’s empire was certainly a lot to govern at once, and it might have mitigated the power vacuum in his death if his children were all governing a smaller, more manageable area rather than trying to hold onto the whole empire at once. The idea of being conquered might have been mitigated with the potentially wishful thinking that the family would support each other. So I were to give four sons different parts of my estate, I might expect them to band together against an outside threat rather than feud with each other. Potentially unrealistic thinking, I know, but it is a mistake I would probably make in the same place. I am a bit of an idealist that way. However, I would point out that giving one son full inheritance ended up becoming the standard in medieval Europe – because otherwise each generation would result in the land getting divided further and further as each inheriting son had his own household. Azran posted:
An element of the French army attacked itself. EvanSchenck covered it extremely well. Yes, the French were really that reckless at Crecy. It really is impressive how comprehensively they managed to disadvantage themselves with poor tactics.
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May 17, 2013 00:27
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Any merit-based systems out there for governing/administrative roles other than the chinese imperial examinations(or for the matter, how well did those work)?
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May 17, 2013 08:41
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I'd like to know some stuff about the Norman invasion of England. I briefly scanned the wiki page but I'd rather hear a version from this thread. How exactly did William get hold of so many troops that the could rival the manpower of England? What did the French King at the time have to say about it, I gather he was involved but did he expect to keep William as a vassal?
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May 17, 2013 09:34
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Fellblade posted:What did the French King at the time have to say about it, I gather he was involved but did he expect to keep William as a vassal? It was on condition that William remain a vassal with all matters related to Normandy, but he was independent with all matters related to England. So the King of France could levy taxes and troops on William, but only on his Normandy holdings. Someone more informed can give a better description of the actual campaign
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May 17, 2013 10:36
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veekie posted:Any merit-based systems out there for governing/administrative roles other than the chinese imperial examinations(or for the matter, how well did those work)? I've never taken a post-Orientalism/Everything You Know is a Lie class on the subject but the reputation is that the tests soon led to an overemphasis on, e.g. poetry and Confucian theory and not, you know, the nitty gritty day to day management. Still, worldwide the whole European rights of vassals/inherited land wasn't a constant which meant that big empires often ran on bureaucracies where, at least in theory, merit mattered more than blood.
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May 17, 2013 10:40
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veekie posted:Any merit-based systems out there for governing/administrative roles other than the chinese imperial examinations(or for the matter, how well did those work)? It worked great, if you wanted to make sure every wealthy and powerful person memorized Confucius for 1000 years. For allowing the most capable to rise to the top, it worked okay. For creating equality of opportunity within society, it was pretty crappy. You know how family wealth is the greatest predictor of academic achievement in the United States? Same for medieval China.
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May 17, 2013 15:29
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veekie posted:Any merit-based systems out there for governing/administrative roles other than the chinese imperial examinations(or for the matter, how well did those work)? Nothing springs to mind, although people might get appointed to power based on usefulness. It is arbitrary in the sense that political connections might take precedence, but at other times merit mattered a great deal. Often it was the Constable or Marshal of France in the Hundred Years War advising the cautious sensible battle plan while the impetuous lords wanted to rush blindly on, so I get the impression there was some meritocracy going on with their promotion or appointment to their positions. So there was not really a merit-based system in place beyond “impress someone important” or “be useful.” The church was a possible avenue, but in general merit-based systems would only make sense after public schooling. Instead the medieval society picked the winners in advance, and it was the nobles who ended up with the appropriate skill set. Fellblade posted:I'd like to know some stuff about the Norman invasion of England. I briefly scanned the wiki page but I'd rather hear a version from this thread. Essentially William was already an extremely powerful Duke who had already fought the French king and won. In 1054 King Henry I of France had launched an invasion of Normandy, because Duke William’s power there was growing so great that the king felt he was losing influence, and another invasion in 1057 which was defeated at the Battle of Varaville. I am not sure how exactly he built up this level of power first, but Duke William already was able to defeat kings before 1066. This probably made recruiting easier. Another factor is William seemed to have more personal loyalty from his followers or companions than most. Walter Giffard seemed to be passionately supportive of Duke William, having refused the honour of carrying the battle standard at Hastings in favour of having both hands to fight, despite being into old age. William de Warenne was another lord who stood by William through a French royal invasion, and won back land confiscated from his uncle. In addition to Normandy, William had support from Flanders due to his marriage with Matilda. Exactly how much support, I don’t know, but Flanders was a powerful duchy with ties to both the French and Imperial crowns. Part of the succession crisis was that the King of England, Edward, had offered the crown of England to William when Godwin was in exile. I do not think there was significant English support for Duke William, however, what I think is more important is that after William was victorious he tried to appease the English nobility by confirming their titles – which failed, but tells me that quite a few English lords still had much of their power, meaning that they probably did not throw their full support behind Harold. Quite a few Breton nobles also supported William’s invasion, since the Bretons were the people ousted from Briton by the Anglo-Saxons. Another effect was Brittany was sufficiently divided in 1066 by the death of their Duke Conan that there was less risk of Brittany attacking Normandy while William was gone, allowing William to bring more troops. Short answer: Normandy was a powerful duchy, and he had support from Brittany and Flanders. I have not found much about what the French king had to say. However, Philip I of France was 13-14 at the time of the Norman Conquest, and only just replacing Anne of Kiev as regent. In a sense, William got very lucky in that all his nearby rivals were suffering internal problems when William invaded England.
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May 17, 2013 16:57
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I suppose it might weed out the total retards and lunatics then. What about on the training end? There's a lot about the education and training of nobility earlier in the thread, but are there any 'standard' expectations on teaching things like administration and warfare or any systematic attempt by the previous leaders to pass vital(well, whatever they thought were vital anyway) skills on? There's a lot of skills a leader would need to have, but what did their peers and other significant people consider vital? From what it seems, lots of decision makers regularly did spectacularly retarded things, like the earlier example of a complete misuse of forces, which brought the question to mind.
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May 17, 2013 18:18
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Man that was the best part of SMB3
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May 17, 2013 22:51
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