|
I was under the impression that the preoccupation with heresy was more a feature of like the early transitional to modern eras from the 15th century and beyond.
|
#
?
Sep 4, 2013 01:46
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 9, 2024 14:59 |
|
|
Cream_Filling posted:I was under the impression that the preoccupation with heresy was more a feature of like the early transitional to modern eras from the 15th century and beyond. Nah it was a big deal. Cathar heresy, Arian heresy, Gnostic heresys, hell, even Islam, kinda problematic to the church's claim to authority.
|
|
#
?
Sep 4, 2013 03:55
|
|
|
the JJ posted:Nah it was a big deal. Cathar heresy, Arian heresy, Gnostic heresys, hell, even Islam, kinda problematic to the church's claim to authority. You're right. I was thinking more of the relative response to the Arian heresy but forgot about the timing of the Cathar heresy (and the attendant crusades, persecution, etc.), which still falls pretty squarely in the medieval period.
|
|
#
?
Sep 4, 2013 04:21
|
|
|
the JJ posted:Nah it was a big deal. Cathar heresy, Arian heresy, Gnostic heresys, hell, even Islam, kinda problematic to the church's claim to authority. Was Catholicism or Orthodox larger throughout the medieval era? And was there any kind of religion-swap between Byzantine & the Catholic states similar to the 1923 Greek-Turk pop. exchange, or would they (followers of other religions) just be converted?
|
|
#
?
Sep 4, 2013 04:28
|
|
|
Cream_Filling posted:I was under the impression that the preoccupation with heresy was more a feature of like the early transitional to modern eras from the 15th century and beyond. Organized religion, and especially state religions never liked alternative approaches for political reasons, but it never really stopped being a thing until recently when people started caring less about religious differences and faith became less of a state tool of control. I recall even ancient Egypt had some problems with a kooky pharaoh declaring that his god was the boss of the pantheon now.
|
|
#
?
Sep 4, 2013 05:34
|
|
|
veekie posted:Organized religion, and especially state religions never liked alternative approaches for political reasons, but it never really stopped being a thing until recently when people started caring less about religious differences and faith became less of a state tool of control. I recall even ancient Egypt had some problems with a kooky pharaoh declaring that his god was the boss of the pantheon now. You're thinking of Akhenaten aka Amenhotep IV, which honestly isn't really a very good comparison. Many state religions in places like the pre-Christian Roman Empire were actually relatively open and pluralistic. In general, you could bring in whatever gods and theological beliefs you wanted so long as you fit then into the Roman system overall. The same goes for pre-roman Greece where, although atheism was a crime in most cities, experimentation in religious thought overall was well documented as evidenced in the wide variety of known Hellensitc schools of philosoph. The obsession with doctrinal orthodoxy was a gradual development even within Christianity. I was thinking more of the Arianism controversy as an example of it in early Roman Christianity, and even then it was driven by Constantine, who honestly had a pretty tenuous grip in terms of actually understanding Christianity in the first place. However, I did overlook the response to the Cathar heresy, which was quite violent but of course rolled up with other issues - namely that a papal legate was killed, supposedly by an angry lord, and eventually this led to a crusade and the papal decree that the lands owned by Cathars or their "sympathizers" in southern France could be confiscated and seized by the suddenly enthusiastic northerners. When I speak of the 15th century, I had in mind for instance the use of the Spanish inquisition to break and mold national identities and enact ideological and ethnic cleansing in the wake of the unification of Aragorn and Castille. This was definitely a known use of the inquisition and accusations of heresy. And it only stopped being a thing in that the duties of the Inquisition transitioned to the modern state security apparatus of secret police and the like. Basically, I'm saying that you're pushing an overtly simplistic interpretation. OXBALLS DOT COM fucked around with this message at 06:13 on Sep 4, 2013 |
|
#
?
Sep 4, 2013 06:09
|
|
|
Probably, I'm not really versed in the details of the matter. The root of heresy seem more political than theological though. It's more prominent when religious authority translates to political power.
|
|
#
?
Sep 4, 2013 06:27
|
|
|
Cream_Filling posted:in the wake of the unification of Aragorn and Castille You can read all about this in Dan Brown's The Frodo Code. (I just thought the typo was unintentionally funny and wanted it saved from edits.) So, I asked in the Military History thread and got run over by boat-chat, so I'll try here. How common, if at all, was celibacy as a practice among knightly orders (e.g. Knights of St John, Templars, etc.) in period*? How often was it actually carried out? Or well, not carried out, you know what I mean. *I'm being purposely vague because I'd love a diachronic answer.
|
|
#
?
Sep 4, 2013 06:35
|
|
|
Regarding the Ethiopian Christians, how would medieval Europeans have reacted to them if they encountered them? How racist would they have been, if at all?
|
|
#
?
Sep 4, 2013 08:19
|
|
|
Xiahou Dun posted:How common, if at all, was celibacy as a practice among knightly orders (e.g. Knights of St John, Templars, etc.) in period*? Don't confuse celibacy with "no sex". Celibacy means/meant "no heir", so not having legitimate children. It was a means of ensuring that church property was not passed father-to-son to become family owned property (instead it passed uncle-to-nephew and became family owned property). A vow of celibacy using modern terminology would go something like "I do solemnly swear by almighty _________ that I will never let some woman marry me, nor will I ever pay child support for any of my drunken accidents." Then, just as now, priests and monks had plenty of sex. Captain Postal fucked around with this message at 13:12 on Sep 4, 2013 |
|
#
?
Sep 4, 2013 13:06
|
|
|
Cream_Filling posted:The obsession with doctrinal orthodoxy was a gradual development even within Christianity. I was thinking more of the Arianism controversy as an example of it in early Roman Christianity, and even then it was driven by Constantine, who honestly had a pretty tenuous grip in terms of actually understanding Christianity in the first place. Just to further go into this point, even though its technically ancient history (it all overlaps  ). From my understanding, Constantine was himself driven by overarching political issues rather than any sort of dogmatic faith. To the point that he initially gathered up all the Bishops and other important members of the faith and basically told them to hash it out between yourselves and refused to participate because he wasn't a theologian and so couldn't contribute an expert opinion but was the Emperor and so his opinions carried a huge amount of weight.Predictably, the Bishops couldn't agree on much of anything and wider political issues meant Constantine couldn't allow a huge schism in the church this early in its Roman life, or the probable civil instability it would cause. Eventually he got mad and sided with against the Arian's with a strong hint of "Jesus H Christ guys, I converted the Empire for you, and then let you decide amongst yourselves what the orthodoxy would be and you are still dicking about over some bullshit is God 1 or 3 things rubbish. I got bigger things to deal with, its this way, God is this many things, deal with it". I'd ask in the actual Ancient history thread if you want a more scholarly write up from someone better educated than me, but its a cool period of history and has a lot of influence on the later medieval church.
|
|
#
?
Sep 4, 2013 15:44
|
|
|
Captain Postal posted:Then, just as now, priests and monks had plenty of sex. As a response to this I trotted off to read The Rule of St Benedict as I was certain that within one of the most exacting rulebooks of monkery there must be some hardcore rules on sex and lewdness. It was actually kind of hard to find anything at all about sex in there though, which surprised me somewhat. I found a line about how abbesses are supposed to be chaste but that was kind of lost amidst the bigger rule of 'no abbess is to teach, ever! No teaching you women! And no chattering at the menfolk!'. Under the heading of what sort of man a monk should be the general rule is 'don't be proud' and not a thing about laying off sex. Woe be to the monk who recites psalm 66 less than 'somewhat slowly' during Sunday morning office though! I love how they have rules for how quickly a particular psalm needs to be read at a particular time of day, but brush over the whole chastity thing.
|
|
#
?
Sep 4, 2013 16:14
|
|
|
Blue Star posted:Regarding the Ethiopian Christians, how would medieval Europeans have reacted to them if they encountered them? How racist would they have been, if at all? Some, probably, but much more of the 'wow you're so exotic' sort of thing. The white man uber alles thing really is a quite modern idea. Captain Postal posted:Don't confuse celibacy with "no sex". Celibacy means/meant "no heir", so not having legitimate children. It was a means of ensuring that church property was not passed father-to-son to become family owned property (instead it passed uncle-to-nephew and became family owned property). Yeah, the celibacy rules for priest is , I think, like 13th century or something. Really more modern than you'd expect. Even then, you get all these Popes trying to set their bastards up with cushy deals.
|
|
#
?
Sep 4, 2013 16:39
|
|
|
Cast_No_Shadow posted:Just to further go into this point, even though its technically ancient history (it all overlaps Yeah the Arianism issue is pretty distinct because at the time there was no real Christian orthodoxy at all - I've heard it described as a disagreement arising after the introduction of the newly popularized doctrine of creation ex nihilo in Alexandria. And in general, it was known and accepted (similar to contemporary judaism) that explanations of the faith would change over time based on the needs of the local populace. If anything, it seems like Constantine's fear of a schism might have been rather unfounded or paranoid. Hell, from my limited understanding the official findings of the Nicene Council weren't even widely accepted by most Christians until they were suitably reformulated centuries later. I suppose you could also interpret the event as the transformation of Christianity into a state religion, too. Though even then arguably previous Roman state religions didn't show this level of insistence on uniform belief. Though this may also reflect either contemporary political concerns and Constantine's own approach or ambitions, or else the expanding role of Greek-style rationalist philosophies and public debate versus the more ritual-focused practices of older religions. OXBALLS DOT COM fucked around with this message at 18:06 on Sep 4, 2013 |
|
#
?
Sep 4, 2013 18:01
|
|
|
Xiahou Dun posted:You can read all about this in Dan Brown's The Frodo Code. It was a requirement in the Hospitallers and the Templars. Don't know about the Teutonic knights but they were modeled on the others so presumably was part of their vows too. quote:How often was it actually carried out? Or well, not carried out, you know what I mean. There is no answer to this question. There is not enough information available to even approach anything statistically usable, and there was serious internal motivation to keep any indiscretions secret. Celibacy was a practice. It happened. The knightly orders were modeled, to a degree, on the rule of St. Benedict. The Rule of the Templars forbids taking a wife while a member of the Order, though it notes that men can leave the Order, marry, and return if they are no longer married. Captain Postal posted:Don't confuse celibacy with "no sex". Celibacy means/meant "no heir", so not having legitimate children. It was a means of ensuring that church property was not passed father-to-son to become family owned property (instead it passed uncle-to-nephew and became family owned property). Where did you hear this? The Rule of St. Benedict states that monks must "love chastity", so I have no idea how one could possibly come to this conclusion. Not only do the Church Fathers, but also St. Augustine (one of the most influential writers for the Latin church) treats sex outside the confines of marriage as sinful. By vowing to a celibate life you are vowing to a chaste one, because extramarital sex is already a sin. So while there were certainly monks who hosed, they were doing so illicitly. Even without the Rule of St. Benedict, which was never really adopted in the Orthodox world, it is plainly evident that by vowing to a monastic life you are vowed to one without sex. Monasticism grew out of ascetic and eremitic practices in the early 4th century, from the likes of St. Anthony the Great and other Desert Fathers, where religious individuals would do their best to detach themselves from the material world and live in religious contemplation. the JJ posted:Yeah, the celibacy rules for priest is , I think, like 13th century or something. Really more modern than you'd expect. Even then, you get all these Popes trying to set their bastards up with cushy deals. It became widespread in the West around the 10th and 11th centuries, in the time of the Gregorian Reform movement. The Western Church at this time was serious about uniformity, and thus you have the serious repression and reform of the English Church immediately following the Norman Conquest.
|
|
#
?
Sep 4, 2013 21:15
|
|
|
Cream_Filling posted:
Enough so that he was baptized by an Arian bishop and much of his court and family were Arians :constantine: But it isn't really accurate that obsession over orthodoxy was a gradual development in Christianity. A good chunk of our ante-Nicene Church Father works we have are particularly devoted to perceived orthodoxy and arguing against perceived heterodoxy, which during the Early Church was usually gnosticism of some sort. We even have a work from Irenaeus in the second century called Adversus Haereses which is just a long list of disputes with other early Christian groups of the time, most of it gnostic in nature (some of it presented a bit over the top, like the Cainites who viewed the Jewish God as evil, Cain as someone to emulate, Judas the best Apostle, and that to gain salvation you must experience everything including sinning  ) The figure of Simon Magnus during this time is portrayed as some arch-villain to early Christian orthodoxy, with apocrypha describing entertaining duels between him and Saint Peter with Magnus using magic and Peter relying on miracles. Even within the first century you could argue the first major doctrinal dispute was over the Hellenization of Christianity, with Paul on one side and Peter on the other. The sacking of Jerusalem kind of settled that one though.With the adoption of Christianity disputes begin to take a more strictly Christological nature, that's for sure. This is some part political, the other part being the dust settling and the Church no longer needing to worry about persecutions so they can really start hammering out a detailed theological structure using the finest Greek philosophical wordings of the time. So there was this constant issue of what orthodoxy was in Early Christianity, though we frame that by the group (who we now associate with the Catholic/Orthodox Churches) who ultimately "won" out in the end. edit: If one wanted to adopt a new religion to cover the whole Roman Empire, Christianity would be a pretty good choice. Prior to Constantine it had already managed to develop as a kind of shadow bureaucracy alongside the official Roman one, and every town worth anything already would have had at least a Bishop or Patriarch with a network of clergy for the region. Theological disputes have never been pretty in Christian history, but once it gets formalized as a Roman institution any disagreements suddenly become a threat to the security of the state. Berke Negri fucked around with this message at 03:19 on Sep 5, 2013 |
|
#
?
Sep 5, 2013 03:07
|
|
|
There's a big line between arguing and violent repression, though. The impression I've gotten, from even as late as the arianism controversy, was of active debate and argument rather than actual conflict or hatred - you hear about stuff like people singing popular songs by Arius, bakers and money changers arguing with their customers about the true distinction between Father and Son, etc. It seems more like an enthusiastic debate than some sort of acrimonious feud that could only end in one group destroying the other. Until imperial intervention, it seems no different from the long line of similar disputes in both greek philosophy and talmudic judaism. It's arguable that the fact that Arianism is synonymous with heresy is something that was only revised in far later in history. Similarly, I think it's misleading to interpret the end of jewish christianity and the survival of hellenic christianity to be the end result of some sort of conflict between the two. You could easily argue that jewish christianity just sort of petered out, especially when Jesus failed to return, whereas hellenic christians turned Christianity into a sort of quasi-greek school of philosophia and kept on building steam. Of course, Constantine was only baptized on his deathbed and even after his promotion of Christianity was nominally pontifex maximus of the Roman state cult, so there's that, too. It's possible that he basically overestimated how homogeneous Christianity really was when he was betting on a new force to try and pull his empire together. OXBALLS DOT COM fucked around with this message at 04:15 on Sep 5, 2013 |
|
#
?
Sep 5, 2013 04:09
|
|
|
veekie posted:Probably, I'm not really versed in the details of the matter. The root of heresy seem more political than theological though. It's more prominent when religious authority translates to political power. Religious authority equalling political power is a major theme of Crusader Kings 2, and a lot of games where the player isn't Catholic end up with the church collapsing and being replaced with Cathars, Fraticelli, and various other heresies because the pope keeps calling crusades on impossible targets, or the 12th century Spanish nobility would rather fight each other than the Muslims, or various other things that seem insignificant at first but end up starting a downward spiral.
|
|
#
?
Sep 5, 2013 04:46
|
|
|
Cream_Filling posted:There's a big line between arguing and violent repression, though. The impression I've gotten, from even as late as the arianism controversy, was of active debate and argument rather than actual conflict or hatred - you hear about stuff like people singing popular songs by Arius, bakers and money changers arguing with their customers about the true distinction between Father and Son, etc. It seems more like an enthusiastic debate than some sort of acrimonious feud that could only end in one group destroying the other. Until imperial intervention, it seems no different from the long line of similar disputes in both greek philosophy and talmudic judaism. It's arguable that the fact that Arianism is synonymous with heresy is something that was only revised in far later in history. There were riots on the streets during every Christological crises, the period of Arianism included. Brawls between bishops during Councils was fairly common too. You have to keep in mind while these people are Christians, they're still Romans. And what upstanding Roman doesn't like a good old fashioned riot? I'm kind of blanking but I can't think of state violence being used to repress any Christian group outside of banishment and exile until like the Iconoclasm crises a couple more centuries later. quote:Similarly, I think it's misleading to interpret the end of jewish christianity and the survival of hellenic christianity to be the end result of some sort of conflict between the two. You could easily argue that jewish christianity just sort of petered out, especially when Jesus failed to return, whereas hellenic christians turned Christianity into a sort of quasi-greek school of philosophia and kept on building steam. I was referring to the Jewish Wars the (pagan) Romans fought, not early Christians. The Council of Jerusalem basically was like "okay, Hellenized Christians can do their thing, and Jewish Christians can do theirs". With the destruction of the Temple hellenized Christianity just eventually overtakes Jewish Christianity by sheer numbers and over time Jewish conversion/practices are ruled heterodox. edit: quote:Of course, Constantine was only baptized on his deathbed and even after his promotion of Christianity was nominally pontifex maximus of the Roman state cult, so there's that, too. It's possible that he basically overestimated how homogeneous Christianity really was when he was betting on a new force to try and pull his empire together. Constantine definitely comes off as a guy trying to have it all, but deathbed baptisms were pretty common for practicing Christians at the time. The idea being that baptism confers a perfect state of grace people would pragmatically put it off until the very end so they wouldn't have to worry about sinning after being baptized. The Church eventually moves away from this but people trying to game the sacraments for maximum salvation is a thing that still pops up to this day. To get this back on track, how effective was Western heavy cavalry during the Crusades, or how was it viewed by Romans/Arabs? What was the general make up of (let's say) First Crusade armies? Berke Negri fucked around with this message at 04:59 on Sep 5, 2013 |
|
#
?
Sep 5, 2013 04:54
|
|
|
I mean in the early church, arguably theology in the modern sense didn't entirely exist. Doctrine and belief in the modern sense are inextricably linked with modern notions of rational and logical thought that just weren't as strong back then and were often directly contrasted with mystical or religious thought and practice. The very idea and definition of "belief" has changed from holding loyalty and engagement to a thing (i.e. a particular religious identity and ritual lifestyle) into the intellectual assent to a proposition, such as the credulous acceptance of various orthodox doctrines. The progressive Hellenization of the Christian church along with the rise of modernity is a big part of this, of course, along with the growing political role of the church. You can still see some remnants of this earlier form of belief in judaism and even, to some extent, modern islam far more than in Christianity, which especially in the contemporary US has more commonly gone full blown modern literalist. edit: missed your above post. It also actually seems like we're pretty much on the same page in terms of historical interpretation. Though obviously I'm not an expert so I'm only familiar with the mainstream historiography. edit 2: on the whole riot thing, I vaguely remember some historian comparing a lot of these early Christian theological arguments to people arguing about football. Maybe he meant more like English football fans. OXBALLS DOT COM fucked around with this message at 05:06 on Sep 5, 2013 |
|
#
?
Sep 5, 2013 05:01
|
|
|
Griz posted:Religious authority equalling political power is a major theme of Crusader Kings 2, and a lot of games where the player isn't Catholic end up with the church collapsing and being replaced with Cathars, Fraticelli, and various other heresies because the pope keeps calling crusades on impossible targets, or the 12th century Spanish nobility would rather fight each other than the Muslims, or various other things that seem insignificant at first but end up starting a downward spiral. I know this isn't a formally academic discussion and I do love CKII dearly, but it has its own thread and I think we should all remember that it has been abstracted to hell and back to make it into a game.
|
|
#
?
Sep 5, 2013 05:02
|
|
|
Cream_Filling posted:
It's basically like you were either Team Athanasius or Team Arius, and Theophilus down the street is Team Athanasius so by God I'm going to go over there and break his nose next time he comes by my stall with his low brow ideas about Christos. Strangely christological conflicts never really kick off in the West, but they were probably too busy mostly all being pagan and having malaria to get involved. Once the Arabs take over half the Roman empire it stops being such an issue in the East as iconoclasm becomes the big issue of the day under the idea of "well, the Muslims don't venerate sacred images, and they took over all of North Africa, so maybe if we do the same...".
|
|
#
?
Sep 5, 2013 05:30
|
|
|
Rodrigo Diaz posted:It became widespread in the West around the 10th and 11th centuries, in the time of the Gregorian Reform movement. The Western Church at this time was serious about uniformity, and thus you have the serious repression and reform of the English Church immediately following the Norman Conquest. One of the things worth mentioning though is that the church always had issues enforcing uniformity in peripheral regions. Some of the oldest text sources about Northern Europe are papal letters complaining about how lovely the priests are in the North and how pagan beliefs are getting integrated into the local catholic belief. The church was always just as strong as the state apparatus it could talk into supporting it and there's probably the reason protestantism got it's true start in Northern Europe and Britain.
|
|
#
?
Sep 5, 2013 09:32
|
|
|
Kemper Boyd posted:The church was always just as strong as the state apparatus it could talk into supporting it and there's probably the reason protestantism got it's true start in Northern Europe and Britain.  Protestantism got its start in the Holy Roman Empire, France, the Low Countries, and Switzerland. It owes a great deal more to Humanism, intellectual developments within early modern/medieval Catholicism, and the support of influential Central European political figures than to the weakness of any of these states. The Early Modern period is also a thousand years away from the early medieval quasi-paganism you're describing.
|
|
#
?
Sep 5, 2013 09:47
|
|
|
HEGEL CURES THESES posted:
It only became a significant political force later on, what with support from the northern German lords, the Danish and Swedish crowns and King Henry gettin mad about not getting a divorce. Switzerland is kind of a weird case but say Jan Hus was sort of a false start since he got owned by the HR emperor. Edit: This thing was more of a later symptom of the fact that the church couldn't really keep tabs on stuff far away from Rome. You could have the occasional monarch supporting the churches endeavors and the occasional bishop with a decent power base getting stuff done according to what Rome wanted, but in general, until the Modern period, administration and government were more or less haphazard everywhere. This of course led to the peripheral areas running themselves the best they could, since there was really no way for Rome to assert itself somewhere in Scotland or coastal Norway. Kemper Boyd fucked around with this message at 10:36 on Sep 5, 2013 |
|
#
?
Sep 5, 2013 10:26
|
|
|
First of all guys, not doing so many quotes. I find I am more comfortable grouping questions together and answering them by heading. Sorry about that. Also, having trouble digging up sources because my internet is unreliable, so checking references is becoming a bit of a chore. Thanks for bearing with me. How would a medieval person answer: “What are the roots of your civilisation?” By looking at you strangely. Most sources I am familiar with do not talk about it. I have never really come across anything of this nature, though in my experience, most of western Christendom did not draw attention to any of their pre-Roman history. Would a Turk or Arab rather flee than lose his horse? I have never heard anything to that effect. However, I think it depends a great deal on the individual warrior and his wealth such as whether or not he has horses spare. For instance, does losing his horse mean he is stranded and injured on the battlefield? Does losing his horse mean he is no longer a horseman? Generally speaking, before you have lost your horse is the best time to flee, since it will be much harder fleeing on foot. Turks & Arabs were militarily different though. There was some crossover, but generally the Turks made far more extensive use of horse archery and the Fatamids make more mention of using lances and (straight) swords. However, this is mostly second-hand info from an online friend, but his research and knowledge has always impressed me. My suspicion is, as others have mentioned, aiming for the horses was an effective tactic. Turks favoured hit-and-run tactics under favourable conditions. Generally they liked to shoot the enemy without risk of effective retaliation. So if their horses in danger they would probably pull back. So no more than anyone else. According to (not the most academic source, I know) – Horrible Histories, Dark Knights and Dingy Castles – some knights would make sure their horses had water before making sure they (the knight) had water. Counter-crusades? Not really. You get the occasional organisation, but generally the Muslim world was not very united against Christendom. This was a large part of the reason the Crusader States thrived early on. Basically, you get a caliphate making an organised push, but it always looks like the actions of a kingdom rather than a pan-Muslim united effort. In Muslim historiography, the Crusades were often viewed simply as the “Frankish wars” rather than a war between religions (at least no more than the general expansion of the caliphates). Celibacy among knightly orders? Meaning the religious military monastic-orders, yes, it was very common. Often there were mitigating circumstances, for instance temporary members (halbbruder or sariantbruders for the Teutonic Order, maybe Confrere for the others) could be married and only leave part of their estate to the order upon death. However, chastity was the overall requirement barring these special circumstances. How far it was carried out? My feeling is quite a bit. Nobody got rich by joining the Templars (or equivalent), the vow of poverty meant that they donated their personal property to the Order as part of joining. The Rule of these orders all tends to indicate very Spartan lifestyles, complete with kicking people down wells. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eN3bBCuhthc Sorry for the bad joke. Anyway, unless we assume the Rule was routinely ignored, the lifestyle of a knight in these religious orders was not very luxurious. Typically, knights were a relatively well-off portion of society; even landless knights in the household of another lord were likely to live more comfortable lives than in a religious order. In short, a knight who values the pleasures of the flesh would be unlikely to join these orders. That said, Poppo von Osterna was Hochmeister of the Teutonic Knights but is noted to have visited his wife at a nunnery – so I do not know his actual circumstances. Berke Negri & Crusader warfare: Western heavy cavalry was extremely effective during Crusader periods in general. Anna Comnene describes their charge as powerful enough to tear through the walls of Babylon. There are also major victories by Crusaders against larger Muslim armies (Arsuf, Montgisard, 1st Ramla, Jaffa) and quite a few battles mention the decisive role of the knights (Dorylaeum 1097, the 3 before, 3rd Ramla, possibly Hab, Yibneh). There were some Frankish losses as well. However, a quick search is finding very little information on the Muslim armies in the case of Muslim victories. Generally, the Seljuk armies did better than the less-mobile Fatamid armies. Generally, though, the Frankish cavalry was pretty fearsome and the main reasons the Crusaders eventually lost the Holy Land was their difficulty replacing their troops. The Crusader states could literally defeat tens of thousands of Muslim soldiers and face tens of thousands more in a few years. Meanwhile, the Crusader defeat at Hattin was smaller than Saladin’s defeat at Montgisard 10 years earlier, but it basically crippled Jerusalem. The Crusader kingdoms had a huge strategic/logistical disadvantage. On top of that, Frankish armour received lots of comments on its effectiveness. Anna Komnene praised it and Saladin’s biographer mentioned foot soldiers with mail combined with felt tunics that stopped 10+ arrows with no visible effect on the soldier. The First Crusade army is murky; the Peasants Crusade was, well, mostly non-combatants and got slaughtered. The Prince’s Crusade was surprisingly mostly infantry, but it seems to be around 5-6 foot soldiers to 1 knight. Their exact composition is something I am not quite sure of, but they are mentioned in “tight-knit defensive formations” that suggests they were a meaningful part of the army and not just fodder. I need to be careful and do more research if I am to avoid blurring the different Crusader periods together, however. My gut instinct wants me to talk about the use of spearmen and crossbowmen together; however, my examples are mostly from the 3rd Crusade. Railtus fucked around with this message at 06:38 on Sep 7, 2013 |
|
#
?
Sep 5, 2013 23:03
|
|
|
Railtus posted:First of all guys, not doing so many quotes. I find I am more comfortable grouping questions together and answering them by heading. Sorry about that. First of all, especially since the original question referred to scholars, this is nonsense. The fact that you haven't run across any sources dealing with the foundation of civilizations strikes me as odd, because I can easily name a half-dozen that do, though many refer to the Biblical Flood for their origins. As for the lack of pre-Roman history, this is because in many cases there is no pre-Roman history about a race (in the sense of "the race of the Normans" as Wace puts it), save the Bible. There were no written records to go by, and archaeology was basically nonexistant. Nevertheless there are many legends of the founding of civilizations, like the supposed Egyptian origin of the Scots. quote:Celibacy among knightly orders? The Templar Rule makes provisions for a man who is married to join the order if his wife joins a religious order herself and becomes a nun, so it was probably something along those lines. No annulment, but the marriage was basically over. quote:Berke Negri & Crusader warfare: Infantry almost always outnumbered cavalry in medieval armies of that size by at least 2 to 1, so I do not know how this is surprising. They almost never served as 'fodder'. Rodrigo Diaz fucked around with this message at 22:12 on Sep 7, 2013 |
|
#
?
Sep 7, 2013 19:14
|
|
|
This is a weird and nerdy question, but if there were ever a sci-fi world where people were in giant human-like mechs(and I know this probably won't happen), what melee weaponry do you think would be suitable for them to wield? Would it be all hammers of some kind, since there would be no such thing as an "unarmored" section of their bodies? Or could you design a specialty sword for putting dents in huge mechanized bodies? I'm assuming that laser swords and the like don't exist and we're just working with some analogue to medieval weaponry.
|
|
#
?
Sep 8, 2013 01:53
|
|
|
You've been watching Attack on Titan, haven't you? Put it this way, no answer will be satisfactory thanks to the magic of the cube square law: a giant (human or robot) won't support its own weight, nor will whatever they swing at each other.
|
|
#
?
Sep 8, 2013 02:19
|
|
|
Phobophilia posted:You've been watching Attack on Titan, haven't you? Put it this way, no answer will be satisfactory thanks to the magic of the cube square law: a giant (human or robot) won't support its own weight, nor will whatever they swing at each other. Well, okay, how about this instead then, how about humans with armored exoskeletons, and biologically engineered super strength. Same general idea of having fully armored bodies with no weak points, I'm curious as to how melee weaponry would evolve to meet that problem. edit: or if you want to go even wackier, how would you design a melee weapon for superman to wield agaisnt darkseid? ZaronYeras fucked around with this message at 02:30 on Sep 8, 2013 |
|
#
?
Sep 8, 2013 02:28
|
|
|
Rodrigo Diaz posted:First of all, especially since the original question referred to scholars, this is nonsense. The part about the origins of civilisation is admittedly outside my expertise, so I can accept that. I assumed that since the subject hasn’t come up for me that it had not come up in general, and as I mentioned in the post did not any way of checking for other sources at the time. Sorry to have confused you about the infantry part. To clarify, the People’s Crusade vs the Prince’s Crusade sometimes conjures up an image of the commoners (the foot-soldiers) going one way and the knights were going another. Since I had also heard it suggested (Maurice Keen, Medieval Warfare) that the Crusades showed a growing recognition of the need for infantry, implying that infantry was unappreciated before, I thought it important to establish that even in the most thoroughly knightly army, at the very beginning of the Crusades, the infantry component was significant and played an important role in the tactics of the armies. I hope that clears up any misunderstanding. ZaronYeras posted:This is a weird and nerdy question, but if there were ever a sci-fi world where people were in giant human-like mechs(and I know this probably won't happen), what melee weaponry do you think would be suitable for them to wield? Would it be all hammers of some kind, since there would be no such thing as an "unarmored" section of their bodies? Or could you design a specialty sword for putting dents in huge mechanized bodies? Well, first of all, I would design the mechs with as many guns of as large a calibre as I could possibly fit on its frame. However, my suspicion is that some kinds of rending claws or rending spikes would be the weapon of choice. I am not sure a sword would be as agile for a mecha as it would be for a man, or if the same advantage would be as meaningful at giant size (depends how nimble the mechas could be). With hammers, the thing to be careful of is not to make the hammer too large because that risks spreading out the force of the blow across too large an area. In short, I would say the focus would be something torsion-based that would pull gears out of place. This would also depend a lot on the materials you were working with. For instance, fighting such a thick-framed target, striking would be as likely to damage your weapon as much as the target, making melee weapons very unreliable. ZaronYeras posted:Well, okay, how about this instead then, how about humans with armored exoskeletons, and biologically engineered super strength. Same general idea of having fully armored bodies with no weak points, I'm curious as to how melee weaponry would evolve to meet that problem. With bio-engineered super strength and an armoured exoskeleton, I would go for something thick with structural strength, maybe drill like or like a pick. The basic thought is a weapon with a shape durable enough to survive the kind of impact that would destroy a target made of the same material. Another thought is how far super strength would affect how the weapon handles; again I love swords because they are agile, but is a pickaxe any harder to handle if you have super-strength? For Superman vs Darkseid, I wouldn't. :P Darkseid's skin would be harder than anything you can hit him with, except perhaps a Kryptonian fist. Anything else would just break, wasting energy from the strike. Railtus fucked around with this message at 18:35 on Sep 8, 2013 |
|
#
?
Sep 8, 2013 02:35
|
|
|
ZaronYeras posted:Well, okay, how about this instead then, how about humans with armored exoskeletons, and biologically engineered super strength. Same general idea of having fully armored bodies with no weak points, I'm curious as to how melee weaponry would evolve to meet that problem. Really the answer is still guns.
|
|
#
?
Sep 8, 2013 02:52
|
|
|
Pikes, shorter pikes, those combat axes with the picks on the back,war hammers, morningstars, cinquedeas. Everything that has armor also has joints, force something through the joints. Edit: A diamond tipped war pick would rule pretty hard. HEY GUNS fucked around with this message at 03:47 on Sep 8, 2013 |
|
#
?
Sep 8, 2013 03:20
|
|
|
HEGEL CURES THESES posted:Pikes, shorter pikes, those combat axes with the picks on the back,war hammers, morningstars, cinquedeas. Everything that has armor also has joints, force something through the joints. Wouldn't a gun shooting diamond tipped war picks still be better? 
|
|
#
?
Sep 8, 2013 04:20
|
|
|
Iseeyouseemeseeyou posted:Wouldn't a gun shooting diamond tipped war picks still be better?
|
|
#
?
Sep 8, 2013 04:46
|
|
|
HEGEL CURES THESES posted:Naah, they'd tumble in midair and it's be pretty much impossible to aim. It'd be hard to seat them in the tube, too. Then make it really long, add fins to it, and stick it in a sabot. Arglebargle III posted:Really the answer is still guns. Or take whatever magic power source is powering these thing and find a way to release it all at once in a giant explosion.
|
|
#
?
Sep 8, 2013 06:01
|
|
|
While we are on sci-fi ridiculousness, if I ever become Bill Gates rich, I am going to fund the design of the ultimate medieval panolpy. I want to see what completely modern design and materials could make. No guns or anything, but like carbon fiber, ceramics, Kevlar, carbon nanotubes, titanium, everything. I think it would be awesome to see a suit of armor that has kevlar on the armpits for example, or that diamond tipped and encrusted warhammer/pick. Ultra-strong plastic handles and such etc etc. My hypothesis would be that while modern materials would be awesome and lighter/stronger, the actual performance would not be all that different or worth it, especially in relation to the cost. I think it would be a cool example of just how good they were at using steel and wood to create extremely effective weapons and armor. Also I'm curious if we pretty much could make the equivalant of magical fantasy armor that is as strong as steel plate but weighs half as much or chainmail that cannot be penetrated by anything the bad guys of the middle ages would throw at it.
|
|
#
?
Sep 9, 2013 14:40
|
|
|
WoodrowSkillson posted:While we are on sci-fi ridiculousness, if I ever become Bill Gates rich, I am going to fund the design of the ultimate medieval panolpy. I want to see what completely modern design and materials could make. No guns or anything, but like carbon fiber, ceramics, Kevlar, carbon nanotubes, titanium, everything. I think it would be awesome to see a suit of armor that has kevlar on the armpits for example, or that diamond tipped and encrusted warhammer/pick. Ultra-strong plastic handles and such etc etc. I think you’re right. The Innsbruck armours from the Knight & The Blast Furnace show incredibly low slag content, and while I do not know how it compares to modern steel, there is only so much room for improvement. Also, some things, like Kevlar, are really more suited for some weapons more than others. The difference between stab vests and bulletproof vests could make that point. Titanium scuba diver shark mail would be cool as well, and lighter than iron or steel, but for the plates heat-treated steel can achieve similar hardness without being unbearably heavy. You might be able to save a little weight that way using similar thickness, but I am not sure the difference would be extremely notable – I have seen a lot of full armours from different time periods and places all weighing around 40-65 lbs. The reason I find this interesting is as armour improved, and you were able to get more protection for a given weight, the trend was not towards making armours lighter but towards making stronger armours that still fit within that weight range.
|
|
#
?
Sep 10, 2013 00:48
|
|
|
Speaking of swords, I've noticed that a lot of posters reference different "schools" of swordfighting. Did these all branch from a main source or did they just appear as some people got inordinately good at killing people?
|
|
#
?
Sep 10, 2013 02:20
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 9, 2024 14:59 |
|
|
I can't speak with any authority, but I'm under the impression that modern fencing originates from street-fighting tactics used during the Italian renaissance--how to fight with a good sword, no armor, and a cloak wrapped around your arm or a dagger for parrying with the off-hand. As the centuries wore on, fencing became focused more on dueling than on self-defense, so began to favor longer and lighter swords, some of which weren't sharpened along the blade. The idea was to skewer your opponent before he skewered you. I think tactics related to these rapiers were the French and Spanish schools. ARMA-style fighting-in-armor martial arts died out in the west as melee weapons gave way to the musket and wasn't really revived as a martial art until the... late 80s or so? I think they get a lot of their information from continental fechtbucher from c. 1400 to 1600AD/CE.
|
|
#
?
Sep 10, 2013 02:54
|
|
