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Cast_No_Shadow posted:See I know nothing! I know in CK2 there's some Viking guy kicking rear end toward Kiev but well that's CK2 and I have no idea. Short version; you had rivers and long boats and angry Scandinavians.
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Feb 7, 2014 11:07
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I've seen it mentioned a couple times in the thread that lords/kings/landowners/etc. would conscript or require subjects to be armed for the militia. I've always wondered how this was enforced, especially in a conscription system. Was there any sort of registry like selective service systems today or did the king's goons just go ride around the countryside twice a year to make sure everyone's armed/round up conscripts? I may be over-inflating the role of conscription in my head, but I am curious how laws were enforced among common people that may live far from the seat of power, especially in an age where information only traveled as fast as a horse.
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Feb 9, 2014 21:01
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TheCondor posted:I've seen it mentioned a couple times in the thread that lords/kings/landowners/etc. would conscript or require subjects to be armed for the militia. I've always wondered how this was enforced, especially in a conscription system. Was there any sort of registry like selective service systems today or did the king's goons just go ride around the countryside twice a year to make sure everyone's armed/round up conscripts? The short version is that they didn't. You decentralized power, so there was someone out there in charge of knocking heads and bringing enough soldiers to the fight. At least in a medieval context, you weren't drafting per say, just granting land (and, more or less, thus the labor of anyone living there) to a knight who was then responsible to show up himself, plus a few hangers on to fight. The transition to conscription stuff is more of an Early Modern phenomenon, you can ask Hegel about that. The ability to conscript broad swaths of the population sort of goes hand in hand with the rise of the Early Modern sort of state. Even then it takes the French Revolution for levee-en-masse to be a thing.
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Feb 9, 2014 22:12
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A medieval King probably doesn't even want a whole load of conscripted peasants hanging around, these are the people the whole medieval economy depends on. Better to spend that money on some professional mercenaries. I believe this is why scutage becomes a thing in place of personal service.
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Feb 9, 2014 22:33
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Also, it wasn't just knights. A lot of times non-nobility would be given some land and the obligation to show up when called. Mostly the Byzantine themes and the English yeoman-longbowman, who was also forbidden to play any other games on the weekend, other than practicing his archery. Even though troops were paid, they also expected to get a bonus in the form of pillage out of the deal, so there were incentives to serving. e: but yeah, you don't want peasants or artisan arming themselves. When that happens, they tend to get uppity, and then get crushed fairly quickly by the nobility. Pro-tip: If you're a peasant leading a rebellion, don't go to meet your king unarmed.
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Feb 9, 2014 23:02
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TheCondor posted:I've seen it mentioned a couple times in the thread that lords/kings/landowners/etc. would conscript or require subjects to be armed for the militia. I've always wondered how this was enforced, especially in a conscription system. Was there any sort of registry like selective service systems today or did the king's goons just go ride around the countryside twice a year to make sure everyone's armed/round up conscripts? Conscription is a fair question. I will start off by saying conscription was typically only a small part of medieval warfare, it was certainly not the method of choice, for reasons others have outlined: those peasants were your productivity, arming the population makes it difficult to enforce anything on them, and so on. Instead, you generally just gave the land to nobles and let providing the troops be their responsibility. The 1242 Assize of Arms in England tended to function by outlining who was supposed to raise and levy the troops, such as a chief constable for each hundred (a county division). In short, there was an official whose job it was to make sure the troops were ready. I will point out that this did not always work. German Kaisers often had trouble receiving the forces owed to them on parchment, and English lords would sometimes practise scutage or ‘shield money’ in place of troops. Philippe Contamine, War in the Middle Ages refers to there being ‘allusions to the arriere-ban’ under the rule of King John Lackland, but it comes across as suggesting people evaded the summons and King John’s demands were often a good indication of what was considered unacceptable at the time. The overall impression I get is that troops raised were paid or compensated. A levy by Duke Albrecht in the 1420s (I think) required one man from every ten households, with the other nine households supporting that man and his family (German Medieval Armies 1300-1500, Osprey). Ian Heath worked on Crusader armies and listed a regular wage for each (something like 2-3 bezants a month for an infantryman, 3-4 for crossbowman). In the Hundred Years War, the many archers recruited were paid soldiers instead of conscripts. Addressing law enforcement in a general sense, in feudalism if the local lord did not want to enforce the king’s decree then the decree did not get enforced. The king or other overlord might take action over it later, but how much it stopped anyone depended on how seriously they took that overlord: Alexander Grant contrasted Henry VII’s ability to get nobles to do as he commanded with the previous kings.
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Feb 10, 2014 06:46
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Cast_No_Shadow posted:I'd like to know about this too and perhaps the wider Kiev\Rus\Rutheranian area too. The Kievan Rus are my favorite historical subject. I'm no expert, but let me go through my books and I might be able to whip something up for you.
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Feb 10, 2014 09:38
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Speaking as someone who's played Assassin's Creed and CK2, what was up with the real life Assassins? Did they really use smoke bombs, throwing knives, parkour and all that ninja stuff? And did it work?
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Feb 11, 2014 06:55
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I don't see how clearing the house of her own stones was a good shot - although it seemed to be the plan. Ed: Duh, this is obviously the wrong thread. 
Deteriorata fucked around with this message at 07:30 on Feb 11, 2014 |
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Feb 11, 2014 06:58
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Deteriorata posted:I don't see how clearing the house of her own stones was a good shot - although it seemed to be the plan. Like curling, medieval military history involves a lot more thought than might be apparent at first glance. And like curling, about five people in the world are doing anything more than pretending to give a drat. Edit: So wrong it was really funny though! HEY GUNS fucked around with this message at 08:30 on Feb 11, 2014 |
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Feb 11, 2014 07:29
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Thanqol posted:Speaking as someone who's played Assassin's Creed and CK2, what was up with the real life Assassins? Did they really use smoke bombs, throwing knives, parkour and all that ninja stuff? And did it work? They're a romanticized mess, but the short version is, not really. Assassination was part of a tool set they used, but (~supposedly~) the scary bit was, because they were all fanatic/high on hash/hooked on hash and would only get more if they followed orders/whatever, they'd straight up walk up to a dude, stab him, and then wait for the bodyguards to take them in. Not needing an escape plan made them hard to plan around. Blahblahblah romanticism supposedly.
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Feb 11, 2014 09:16
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WEEDLORDBONERHEGEL posted:Like curling, medieval military history involves a lot more thought than might be apparent at first glance. And like curling, about five people in the world are doing anything more than pretending to give a drat. Why are you no longer allowed in Special Collections? the JJ posted:They're a romanticized mess, but the short version is, not really. Assassination was part of a tool set they used, but (~supposedly~) the scary bit was, because they were all fanatic/high on hash/hooked on hash and would only get more if they followed orders/whatever, they'd straight up walk up to a dude, stab him, and then wait for the bodyguards to take them in. Not needing an escape plan made them hard to plan around. There's a similar problem in Secret Service protection. It's possible to prepare for someone like Oswald who means to shoot the president and make an escape, but it's very hard to defend against someone like Booth or Hinckley who charges the president with a handgun and has no getaway plan.
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Feb 11, 2014 09:28
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the JJ posted:They're a romanticized mess, but the short version is, not really. Assassination was part of a tool set they used, but (~supposedly~) the scary bit was, because they were all fanatic/high on hash/hooked on hash and would only get more if they followed orders/whatever, they'd straight up walk up to a dude, stab him, and then wait for the bodyguards to take them in. Not needing an escape plan made them hard to plan around. The whole hashish thing is pretty widely considered to be a fabrication. IIRC our only source for that is Marco "I was born a hundred years later and also make poo poo up all the time" Polo. Good old-fashioned religious fanaticism was enough to make people lay down their lives anyway. And no, they wouldn't have had smoke bombs and ninja magic, because they didn't need that. Tall tales developed about the Hashashim and their supposed super-assassin skills because they were feared, but keep in mind that what they did was pretty new. While other people did employ assassination, it was probably pretty simple - you'd just hire some shady dude to cut a guy, or maybe try to bribe the other guy's cook. The Assassins were the only faction in the region who really developed the training and organizational structures needed to conduct regular espionage and assassination. In the 12th century this was genuinely innovative, and nobody had come up with countermeasures yet, so their enemies shat their pants. This training didn't have to be ~super amazing ninja poo poo~ by our standards. Plus those guys were pretty good at psychological warfare. Their position was actually pretty precarious, having little conventional military might and being hated both by the Crusaders (as dirty dishonorable heathens) and by their fellow Muslims (as dirty dishonorable heretics), but they were great at making themselves seem stronger than they were. The whole idea was that the order could survive through personal fear, as any ruler knew that while he could besiege Alamut and win handily, he'd be gambling with his life anyway. Trumping up stories about their supposed insane prowess, ability to infiltrate any place, having eyes and ears everywehre etc. was probably a matter of policy, so we can't really tell facts from propaganda/fearmongering.
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Feb 11, 2014 13:00
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Thanqol posted:Speaking as someone who's played Assassin's Creed and CK2, what was up with the real life Assassins? Did they really use smoke bombs, throwing knives, parkour and all that ninja stuff? And did it work? I basically know next to nothing about the assassins, despite the Crusades being a pet interest of mine. They just did not tend to come up in my studies. There is a book by James Wasserman called The Templars and the Assassins: The Militia of Heaven, but I am not sure how reliable it is. I am leaning towards calling it generally unreliable because it is not very clear in the writing where it gets its information from. The reason I point this out is because when I started looking up the Assassins briefly this seemed to be source for a lot of the suggestions that they were specialised or expert. What we do know about them is they were a sect, who were fairly isolated, and had a penchant for killing political figures. They seem like a popular breeding ground for urban legends. Generally any time a public figure was killed and the party not identified the Assassins would get the credit. I doubt the ‘highly trained killer’ interpretation, because the people sent out to kill seemed far too expendable for the image to be plausible. Highly skilled and suicide mission do not normally go together in my mind.
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Feb 11, 2014 14:28
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Apropos of nothing, because I'm bored on my lunch-break, I'm going to share some excerpts from a catalogue of the Court of Chivalry's papers that I'm digitising for online publication. I love how awkward and unwieldy their insults sound to modern ears. These specific petitions are largely undated, but probably a century or two too late to be considered medieval, though the institution of the Court of Chivalry goes back to the 14th century at least.quote:Petition of Marke Bellwood ' Doctor of Physicke '. Recites that petitioner cured a servant of Sir John Butlin and ' repaired to Sr John to certifie him as much: but insteade of payment Sr John did carie himselfe most insolently and threatened the petitioner wt many uncivill termes: as, fellon, by God you lie, base, Mountibancke, God's woundes Ile Kicke you, begon by God's harte Ile breake yor pate et cc.' quote:Petition of Owen Bray, esq., complaining that William Wenlowe, gent., said ' That yo[u]r pet[itione]r loved a whore well, and further said (speaking of the petr) pox on him, he was much indebted, when his Sonn married my kinswoman, & had little or noe stock uppon his ground '. quote:Petition of George Chambers, servant to Thomas Lord Windesor. Recites that in January last petitioner received from William Amphlett of Hadsworth [co. Worcs.] 'evill language and a very fowle and scandalous Taxac'on uttered publiquely'; petitioner 'was a base Fellowe, a base cowardly Rascall, and noe Gentleman '; other words were used which modesty forbids petitioner to express. He seeks leave to bring Amphlett before the Court. quote:Petition of Eneas Graye, ' prisoner in the lothsome prison of Newgate by yor honors Com'aunde', who ' by his longe travils and studies gott both languages and learninge' which he teaches to gentlemen, but is now in prison where ' the chefe kepers are every day redie to turne yor petitioner to the Com'on Gayle amongest fellons and Cutpurses where he shalbe utterly undon and leke to lose his life wth the most odious smels and sicknes of the place'. Submits himself to the Earl Marshal and prays for his discharge. quote:Petition of Mrs Eliz: Peirse, widow, that Walter Rowlestone called her ' base-slutt, and saying shee was an Whore, Baude, and that shee was brought upp in Turnball street, and all hir fine clothes were bought att ye Broakers '. Requests that' being a Gentlewoman of Quallity, and Good desent', her son-in-law Henry Hughes may become a petitioner in her behalf, 'by reason of hir Age, and the great distance of places'. On same sheet, draft of statement relating to buildings erected contrary to His Majesty's proclamation. All very  as insults go.
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Feb 11, 2014 14:54
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"begon by God's heart Ile break your pate" = "Fook off, or i'll smash your loving head in" All this stuff sounds pretty contemporary to me
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Feb 11, 2014 15:07
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"God's woundes Ile Kicke you" I like the sound of that. Very straight and to the point.
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Feb 11, 2014 15:09
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Oh the meaning is obviously the same as we'd express today, but the exact vocabulary they used makes me smile.
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Feb 11, 2014 15:10
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Hey folks. Sorry to barge in like that, but what's a "straight-back rapier"? I mean, I know what a rapier is, but I don't get the "straight-back" part. I assume it means the blade is single-edged or something, but I can't be sure and Google refuses to help and this is driving me crazy and and and  So huh, yeah. Can anyone help me, please?
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Feb 11, 2014 15:46
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Doctor Goon posted:Hey folks. Sorry to barge in like that, but what's a "straight-back rapier"? I mean, I know what a rapier is, but I don't get the "straight-back" part. I assume it means the blade is single-edged or something, but I can't be sure and Google refuses to help and this is driving me crazy and and and I wasn't familiar with the term either. From a quick Googling, they might be referring to the guard (i.e. a straight-guard "Torino" rapier), or they might be referring to how it rests when slung in the scabbard. What's the context?
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Feb 11, 2014 18:55
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Doctor Goon posted:Hey folks. Sorry to barge in like that, but what's a "straight-back rapier"? I mean, I know what a rapier is, but I don't get the "straight-back" part. I assume it means the blade is single-edged or something, but I can't be sure and Google refuses to help and this is driving me crazy and and and Never heard of one before. Where did you first hear the term from?
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Feb 11, 2014 19:44
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Kaal posted:I wasn't familiar with the term either. From a quick Googling, they might be referring to the guard (i.e. a straight-guard "Torino" rapier), or they might be referring to how it rests when slung in the scabbard. What's the context? The context is: there is no context. Seriously. I'm a freelance translator, and localization companies like to make us pass a short test before giving us work. Basically, I have a spreadsheet with 2 columns, one with the English text, one with my translation. So you can have one cell that's like "General Asshat invaded Stinkyfeet Valley this morning", and another cell with "Ancient Straight-Back Rapier"... Looks like they took bits of texts from a dozen lovely Chinese MMOs that were badly translated into English, and now I'm supposed to translate the whole thing into French, with no info or context whatsoever. Anyway, I won't derail the thread any further... That rapier is probably the result of a lovely Chinese to English translation. Thanks for trying to help, though!
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Feb 11, 2014 20:11
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Doctor Goon posted:The context is: there is no context. Seriously. No it was a good question since it led me to all sorts of interesting websites. I'd say that since the Chinese have such a variety of curved sword designs, they probably injected "straight-back" into the translation to help distinguish the rapier from other designs. Some swords have a straight-back and a curved edge, for example. But all rapiers are straight-backed and straight-edged. Or perhaps it was the Chinese attempt at differentiating a rapier from a foil, which looks similar but is much more flexible and not as "straight-backed". Apparently there was also some translation issues with the rapier because it's actually a German term for an Italian design, and the Italians never really used that specific term themselves, so perhaps it has something to do with the Chinese interpretation of that. I dunno. Rapière is probably a more than adequate translation.
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Feb 11, 2014 23:41
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I've run into references to 'spadroons' in various places. I've gotten conflicting information about it, some placing it around the time of Cromwell, others at the time of the American Revolution. Can anyone give any info?
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Feb 12, 2014 00:34
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Is there a good layman's source on medieval architecture? I'm interested in the construction and floor plans of those old castles and temples.
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Feb 12, 2014 06:15
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Doctor Goon posted:The context is: there is no context. Seriously. The word 'ancient' makes me think of this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BVCLhk-RGB4 I hope that helps. Obdicut posted:I've run into references to 'spadroons' in various places. I've gotten conflicting information about it, some placing it around the time of Cromwell, others at the time of the American Revolution. Can anyone give any info? Impression I get of spadroon is it is one of those wonderfully nebulous words that does not have a clear meaning. A bit like the way you can have double-edged straight sabres even though the word sabre usually refers to single-edged curved blades. Or the French word epee just generally refers to swords but the details are very context dependent. I think the word comes from 'espadon' which generally means sword, so there will be some confusion on the exact style of sword it describes. A bit like the word 'katana' could be used to mean a specific kind of sword or in a more general sense for Japanese swords in general. I have never heard it used in a Cromwell-era sword: those were typically basket-hilted swords or occasionally broadswords, or the tuck (in this context meaning rapier, earlier sources use the same word for an estoc). I am looking up Swords and Swordsmen by Mike Loades and generally the swords from that period are hangers, walloon swords, mortuary swords and so on. I am cross-referencing images of spadroons online with the photographs Swords And Swordsman, and despite Loades not using the word Spadroon, they match the swords in his chapter on George Washington - so I would say time of the American Revolution is a better bet.
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Feb 12, 2014 06:29
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Starting point stuff that I know of on Spadroons https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CuJtfji5reA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7P7GiZ08D5M
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Feb 12, 2014 06:43
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Railtus posted:
WoodrowSkillson posted:Starting point stuff that I know of on Spadroons I think the authors that I've read that have placed Spadroons in the Cromwell period were being sloppy, then. These were popular though generally-well-researched guys, so it's a bit annoying but no reason to really believe they're being other than mistaken here. Thanks to those that answered. To swerve into an entirely different tack, for those who are interested in the common culture in England in the Medieval period, there's a nice bit about parish church's wall-paintings in this book. http://books.google.com/books?id=mz...0benson&f=false I'm always fascinated by any cultural accounts that are more from the provincial or lower-class status, because they tend to be most lost to history.
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Feb 12, 2014 12:19
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Kaal posted:No it was a good question since it led me to all sorts of interesting websites. I'd say that since the Chinese have such a variety of curved sword designs, they probably injected "straight-back" into the translation to help distinguish the rapier from other designs. Some swords have a straight-back and a curved edge, for example. But all rapiers are straight-backed and straight-edged. Or perhaps it was the Chinese attempt at differentiating a rapier from a foil, which looks similar but is much more flexible and not as "straight-backed". Apparently there was also some translation issues with the rapier because it's actually a German term for an Italian design, and the Italians never really used that specific term themselves, so perhaps it has something to do with the Chinese interpretation of that. I dunno. Rapière is probably a more than adequate translation. Railtus posted:The word 'ancient' makes me think of this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BVCLhk-RGB4 Thanks, it does help, plus it's really interesting!
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Feb 12, 2014 13:13
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How were children raised in royal courts, and how much did they get to socialize with other children?
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Feb 12, 2014 15:43
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Not an actual source but I distinctly remember a bit in Neal Stephensons The Baroque Cycle where someone talks about how "The lore of the spadroon still circulated among the population" or some such, set @ a year +/- battle of the Boyne. Dude seems to have done his research so but eh. They were contrasting with the new fangled rapier/small sword.
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Feb 13, 2014 12:20
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Guildencrantz posted:The whole hashish thing is pretty widely considered to be a fabrication. IIRC our only source for that is Marco "I was born a hundred years later and also make poo poo up all the time" Polo. Good old-fashioned religious fanaticism was enough to make people lay down their lives anyway. They were pretty notorious that the mamelukes formed the futtuwa/fityan order (youth order). These counter-assassins where basically proto detectives and their only job was to fight them off, due to the assassins being esoteric the futtuwa had lax recruitment policies, their recruits included christians and buddhists eventually*. Also apparently crossbows were popular among them. Edit: *non-muslims held nominal positions and couldnt go up the heirarchy still kind of a cool thing regardless. Fizzil fucked around with this message at 12:41 on Feb 13, 2014 |
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Feb 13, 2014 12:34
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Thanqol posted:Speaking as someone who's played Assassin's Creed and CK2, what was up with the real life Assassins? Did they really use smoke bombs, throwing knives, parkour and all that ninja stuff? And did it work? Well, like always there's the legendary part and the reality part. Assassin's Creed games actually cover the legendary part pretty well: they were so loyal to their master they would throw themselves from the castle walls when he ordered; they had a seven-rank initiation system where at the final rank it would be explained there was no God, no Truth and no Law; the Old Man Of the Mountain had a garden full of beautiful women and he would convince the new initiates that they were in heaven and so on... Some of these legends were written by Sunni Muslim polemicists and in turn they were exaggerated and outright sensationalized in European accounts. The organization's secrecy did not help the matter either. In reality there was no Order of the Assassins. The people in question did not called themselves Hashashin; Sunni authors did. And the meaning of that term is nebulous and used as if it meant "rabble rousers" or "scum". It's unknown whether they specifically trained individuals to become assassins (who were called Feda'i by the way) but judging by their simple methods it was not really necessary. And they almost certainly did not get high before hits. Hassan-i Sabbah was pretty notorious in his harsh stance towards such things. Dude executed his son for drinking wine... What they did have was a series of mountain fortresses captured through coups, rebellions, conversions or other underhanded methods. They were almost a single but territorially non-continuous state stretching from Central Asia to Levant. They had a pretty sophisticated intelligence network covering an incredibly wide area, with cells and secret communities in important cities. This network was how the Fatimids got into power in North Africa and Egypt and the communities would be managed by elders called Dais and Hassan-i Sabbah was originally one of such elders. Sabbah's organization used assassination as a method to avoid open conflict and terrorize their enemies, though each assassination sparked new pogroms against Ismaili communities, driving them further to Sabbah's fortresses for protection. His was essentially a revolutionary organization. The goal was to overthrow the Abbasid Caliphate and bring in the Fatimids to take their place. Of course, the problem was Sabbah and his followers supported Nizar in his bid to Imamate against his brother al-Musta'li, and after Nizar was dead there was no apparent Imam for them to be around. Then poo poo got really weird after Sabbah died but explaining that story would require me to delve into Shi'a beliefs and other arcane poo poo, so... 
fspades fucked around with this message at 14:35 on Feb 13, 2014 |
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Feb 13, 2014 14:33
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fspades posted:Then poo poo got really weird after Sabbah died but explaining that story would require me to delve into Shi'a beliefs and other arcane poo poo, so... This is the Medieval History thread, arcane poo poo is pretty much par for the course. Delve and explain away.
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Feb 13, 2014 15:30
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ALL-PRO SEXMAN posted:This is the Medieval History thread, arcane poo poo is pretty much par for the course. Delve and explain away. I'm not up and up on the specific details of the Assassins, but I can give some background. After the death of the prophet, the Muslim community was left in a bit of a pickle. Mohammad was supposed to the last, best messenger from God, which is sort of a hard act to follow. The community had been organized in a sort of ad hoc way around the close friends and family of the prophet. The community soon began to fracture. At first, leadership gets passed to Abu Bakr and Omar, real hard core warriors and good friends of Mohammad, so there's not too much dispute. Eventually one group, the 'partisans' or Shia of Ali, Mohammad's son-in-law, argued that he should be in charge. A lot of this argument rested on the notion that, as a relative and through the bloodline, a certain... connection to divinity, called the Imamate had been transferred to him. Well, that and 'gently caress the Umayyads, those decadent city-dwelling fucks are going to set up inheritance by blood and not merit anyway so...' Sure enough, once most of the candidates for Muhammad's day are dead, it ends up coming down to Ali or Muawiyah, who was the relative of Uthman, the third caliph. So the backers of Ali and Muawiyah have a bit of a dust up Ali seems to be winning, and, not really wanting have the whole community slaughter each other, he agrees to an arbitration. At which point some nut jobs up and stab him for being too nice. People from his own side. Anyway, leadership now is down to either the Umayyad's or Ali's family. The Shia declare that Ali's sons have the same special connection, and promise to follow him into battle. They die and become great martyrs and some of the more dramatic Iraqi Shia traditions include punishing themselves on the anniversary of the martyrdom because they'd promised to show up and hadn't. The Shia persist in existing despite a number of other martyred Imams. The Abbasids rise to power by using the Shia, but then promptly also start martyring Imams. Now, this turmoil in the Shia community causes a problem, because while the Imamate stayed in the family, there wasn't really a set 'first son inherits the throne' sort of policy, so you ended up with brothers and uncles and what not disputing succession. Most, but not all, subdivisions within the overall Shia umbrella are demarcated by the Imamate succession that sect holds to be legitimate. Twelvers, the 'main' Shia group today, for instance, believe that the eleventh Imam went into hiding and then that the twelfth went into super hiding (well, it's actually called the Occultation, but I like 'super hiding') and either he or the Thirteenth (I'm sorta fuzzy on it and can't remember exactly) will return either a. when we've built a utopia worthy of Mohammad or b. when we've hosed up so badly that we need an Imam to guide us again. The Alwalites, in Syria, are also Twelvers, but they think that a different dude was the Imam's courier. Not, like, in a mystical sense, there's a dispute over which one of them actually knew where the Imam was hiding and what sorts of notes he was sending out to his followers. Anyway, the Ismaili's are another branch, one that still has an Imam today. He lives in Canada I think. Anyway, part of that line, tracing to Ismail, which the Twelvers don't. They also said that their Imam, Ismail, had Occultated, but stuck around through the Dai's, or sort of mystical missionary priestly types. Anyway,a while later they sort of go 'surprise! Our Imam wasn't mystically Occultated after all, he was just regular normal hiding and now we have one of his successor and also a bunch of pissed off Berber tribes!' As has happened before, arriving unexpectedly on a border with a bunch of motivated soldiers is generally a good way to start a conquest, and the Fatimid (so named after Mohammad's daughter and Ali's wife) dynasty begins. They set up in North Africa and cruise into Egypt and the Levant. The Assassins come around toward the end of the Fatimids, basically stay behind remnants of their penetration into the Levant, though, again, Ismaili's before during and after the Fatimids acquired temporal power existed under the radar in a lot of places in the Islamic world. It's that sort of network that the Assassins would draw on, and it also sort of explains their drive to take and hold good fortresses all around, since the Twelvers, Sunnis and Christians all kinda hated their guts.
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Feb 13, 2014 21:52
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ALL-PRO SEXMAN posted:This is the Medieval History thread, arcane poo poo is pretty much par for the course. Delve and explain away. Right. So, central to Ismaili beliefs is the distinction between the zahir (the exoteric) and the batin (the esoteric) parts of Quran. Zahir is the foundation of the practical, readily apparent and intelligible side of Islam; rituals, obligations, laws; basically what is called the Sharia... The Batin, however, is the special Quranic knowledge that gives insight to what it all really means and what was the essence and purpose of Islam. For Ismaili's, (and some other Shi'i sects) this knowledge can only be obtained by the guidance of an Imam, a spiritually perfect being that was specifically ordained by God for this job. In fact, it was thought to be impossible for an Imam to not exist at any given time; God would not leave the believers without a living guide and existence of an Imam was the living proof of God. Similar to this, Ismailis divided history into 7 epochs, each marked by a new prophet and his new Law. So we were living in the Age of Muhammad and previous to that was the Age of Jesus and then Moses and so on, each with its special lineage of Imams... Each new law abolished the previous one, so the Zahir of the religion was clearly subject to change but its supposed essence and central teaching was eternal and unchanging. The seventh age, the one that would mark the end times, would be the final one and its prophet, also the final Imam of Islam, would bring no new law and everyone would live the true religion as it was supposed to be: directly through the Imam with no laws or compulsion whatsoever and everything would be super-awesome. Now another recurring theme in Shia Islam is the above-mentioned "occultation" concept. There were times during many Shia movements history where their favored Imam was not available due to some political complications. The general practice was to conclude the Imam was in hiding but still communicating sporadically through his chosen intermediaries. The Twelver Shia solved this problem by claiming their Imam will hide (and still hiding and living somewhere since the year 941) until the coming of the end times. Sabbah and his followers in Alamut found themselves in this uncomfortable position when Nizar failed in his rebellion against al-Musta'li. Supposedly Nizar's son and successor secretly took refuge in Alamut but nobody was told who he was for security reasons. There were still Fatimid Caliphs for another 40 years or so but the Nizari's refused to recognize them as Imams and assassinated one of them for good measure. Regardless, Sabbah died in 1124 and leadership passed to a new Dai by the name Kiya Buzurg-Ummid and then to his son Muhammad and his son Hasan. This is the part where the above arcane poo poo becomes important. In 1164, Hasan called his followers to Alamut to make an important announcement. After some pomp and ceremony he would declare he was actually the descendant of Nizar and the Imam of the time and not only that he was Imam al-Qa'im aka. the Imam of end times. the day was the day of Resurrection and from now on the world was on the Seventh Age and all (Zahiri) provisions of Islam was null and void. Yes, all of them... Pointedly Hasan prayed with his back turned to Mecca and surprisingly the Nizaris went along with it.* For a time anyway... We don't know if the religious practices and morals of Nizaris actually changed but outside sources noticed nothing different than before. But it's certainly expectable that this would give absolute authority to Hasan's rule. He was killed two years later and even though his successor, Muhammad defended and elaborated the new doctrine, the next one after that, Jalal, just took a heel turn from the whole goddamn thing and proclaimed they were to be Sunni Muslims now and accepted the suzerainity of Abbassid Caliph. Of course, Jalal being the Imam and being infallible and all, some Nizaris believed all of this was just a clever ruse to fool the Sunnis and pretend to be one of them in order to survive; an old Shi'ite practice known as the Taqiyya... Then the loving Mongols came and that rear end in a top hat Juvayni burned most of the legendary collection of Alamut's library, so we will never know what really happened. All that Day of Resurrection thing is transmitted by Juvayni and he's just about the only source we have on Alamut.  *: Actually, Rashid al-Din Sinan aka. That Guy From Assassin's Creed, rejected the proclamation and continued to enforce Sharia in Masyaf and neighboring territories.
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Feb 14, 2014 01:22
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fspades posted:Right. So, central to Ismaili beliefs is the distinction between the zahir (the exoteric) and the batin (the esoteric) parts of Quran. Zahir is the foundation of the practical, readily apparent and intelligible side of Islam; rituals, obligations, laws; basically what is called the Sharia... The Batin, however, is the special Quranic knowledge that gives insight to what it all really means and what was the essence and purpose of Islam. For Ismaili's, (and some other Shi'i sects) this knowledge can only be obtained by the guidance of an Imam, a spiritually perfect being that was specifically ordained by God for this job. In fact, it was thought to be impossible for an Imam to not exist at any given time; God would not leave the believers without a living guide and existence of an Imam was the living proof of God. Similar to this, Ismailis divided history into 7 epochs, each marked by a new prophet and his new Law. So we were living in the Age of Muhammad and previous to that was the Age of Jesus and then Moses and so on, each with its special lineage of Imams... Each new law abolished the previous one, so the Zahir of the religion was clearly subject to change but its supposed essence and central teaching was eternal and unchanging. The seventh age, the one that would mark the end times, would be the final one and its prophet, also the final Imam of Islam, would bring no new law and everyone would live the true religion as it was supposed to be: directly through the Imam with no laws or compulsion whatsoever and everything would be super-awesome. Ah, so the Assasins are, er, mainline Ismaili? They're Nizari-Ismaili-Shia or something like that?
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Feb 14, 2014 05:37
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the JJ posted:Ah, so the Assasins are, er, mainline Ismaili? They're Nizari-Ismaili-Shia or something like that? Yes. The Nizari/Musta'li split among Ismaili's happened during this time and we call Sabbah's followers Nizari. Both communities still exist, though I believe Nizaris are more numerous.
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Feb 14, 2014 12:33
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This is a great video on several Italian Messer/Messer+Dagger/Longsword techniques. The channel has others like it, and they're all pretty awesome!
Verisimilidude fucked around with this message at 03:14 on Feb 17, 2014 |
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Feb 17, 2014 03:08
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Have some vids of tournament longsword-fights that contain a surprising amount of technique and dont just degenerate in wild flailing around: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5lP4szqcrik https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=strh2GBMlf8 Edit: Changed the order of the vids (this one has a kinda bad camera angle...) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y0BAbMs_bqE And this is how it looks in training (I really like that exchange and the next one): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mjT4JepA-Vc&t=92s Or this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ln94E9AGYTc Nektu fucked around with this message at 15:34 on Feb 17, 2014 |
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Feb 17, 2014 08:34
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