Weapons and armor of the Crusades. Crusaders: saints or robbers? Trebuchet - "scales with a yoke"

November 27, 1095 Pope Urban II at Clermont Cathedral proclaims the First Crusade. The Crusades were bloody pursuits and required effective weapons. Today we will talk about the most popular military weapon of the crusaders.

SWORD
The most noble and common weapon of the knights was, as you know, the sword. In battle, the life of a knight often depended on the strength and flexibility of the sword. At the same time, the length of the blade or the mass of the sword were not the main characteristics that determine the force of the blow. The main parameter is the location of the center of gravity and balancing.
The average length of the blade was about a meter, and a wide groove ran along almost the entire length, disappearing about 2.5 cm from the rather sharp tip of the blade. Many blades bear large iron capital letters, often of a religious nature; for example, HOMO DIE, or NOMINE DOMINI, or corrupted versions of these words.
Around the year 1000, a new type of sword appeared - a long, thinner one, with a narrow and shallow groove, disappearing about 20 cm from the tip of the blade. The average length of such swords is about 13 cm longer than the swords of the previous type.
The sword was placed on the altar during the vigil before the knighting, the blade was applied to the shoulder of the knight during the ceremony of initiation, the sword hung from the tomb when the knight died. In The Song of Roland, the dying hero desperately tries to break Durendal's blade against a stone in order to prevent any unworthy person from using this sword after the death of its master. If any knight threw a shadow on the order of chivalry, his sword was broken in front of him by a servant.

Photo: Global Look Press

BATTLE AX

It was always difficult to hit a warrior protected by armor with a sword, so for close combat the knight used a Norman battle ax and a war hammer, which could pierce armor and knock weapons out of the hands of the enemy. In addition, a powerful blow from a battle ax could literally cut the enemy in half, to the very saddle.
After the First Crusade, the knightly militias were armed with battle axes, which differed in blade configuration from the Norman ones. It is assumed that the new form of the blade was borrowed from the Eastern peoples.

WAR HAMMER

Crusaders often used hammers of various shapes as weapons. Turning into foot soldiers, the knights armed themselves with hammers instead of spears. The length of the hammer handle was approximately 90 cm. The hammer, like an ax, could pierce the enemy's armor.

The bow is the most ancient weapon for ranged combat. Immediately after the Tatar-Mongol invasion in Europe, detachments of archers armed with bows began to be created. In the drawings in old books you can see knights with short bows. In order to successfully resist the Muslims in the crusades, the knights had to line up a line of archer warriors in front of their vanguard.

Photo: swordmaster.org

CROSSBOW

The mechanical principle of throwing weapons was known in the ancient world and was used by the Romans in special throwing machines used in the siege of fortresses. In the XI century, hand-held throwing devices appeared - crossbows, and in 1139 this weapon in the Christian army was banned by the pope for use in Europe. Crossbows could only be used in battles with Muslims.
Although the use of crossbows was anathematized by Pope Innocent II at the Second Lateran Council in 1139, as well as by many decrees of later times, these easel bows became one of the most important weapons of the Middle Ages, especially in the hands of well-trained mercenaries.
The English king Richard I created entire units of foot and horse crossbowmen who successfully fought in the ranks of the crusaders. It is widely believed that Richard I received the retribution of fate by dying from a wound inflicted by an arrow from a crossbow, since Richard himself actively used this weapon in the troops.

Photo: Wikimedia Commons

A SPEAR

The spear remained the main weapon of the mounted warriors. In the 11th century, it was usually held at arm's length and quite often raised above the shoulder, as can be seen in the Bayeux tapestry. When there was a great need for this, the spear could be thrown, as at Hastings, when it was necessary to make gaps in the wall of Anglo-Saxon shields so that the cavalry could break into these gaps. Little by little a new method became popular - to hold the spear under the arm, that is, pressed against the right side with the right hand gripping directly in front of the shoulder. This gave the grip a lot more rigidity, now it was not the power of the right hand that was invested in the blow of the spear, but the inertia of the movement of the rider and horse. It can be seen from the poetic descriptions that before the battle the spear was held more or less upright, with the back of the spear resting on the front of the saddle. The spear was taken at the ready only immediately before the blow. In order to make it easier to keep balance while holding the spear, and also, perhaps, to direct the shield towards the enemy, the rivals, where possible, approached each other with their left side; while the spear passed over the neck of the horse. The cavalry spear now invariably had a simple and very sharp leaf-shaped tip. The old spear, with wings, was now used only by infantry and hunters.

Mounted warriors in the background Photo: Wikimedia Commons

POLEX

The Polex was one of the most popular weapons for foot combat. From period illustrations, written descriptions, and a small number of surviving specimens, we can see that the poleax appears in various forms, sometimes with heavy axe-blades like those of a halberd, and sometimes with hammer-like heads, often with a curved spike behind them.
All poleaxes seem to have had a spike on the top of the weapon, and many also had a spike on the lower end of the shaft. In addition, the shaft was often equipped with metal strips, called langets, descending from the head of the weapon down the sides of the shaft and designed to protect it from cutting. Some samples also had rondels to protect the hands. The essential difference was that the "heads" of the poleks were assembled on pins or bolts, while the halberds were solid forged.

Gottfried of Bouillon with poleax Photo: Wikimedia Commons

A. Marey

This work briefly highlights the main points in the development of the army in the Middle Ages in Western Europe: changes in the principles of its recruitment, organizational structure, basic principles of tactics and strategy, and social status.

1. Dark Ages (V-IX centuries)

The collapse of the army of the Western Roman Empire is traditionally associated with two battles: the battle of Adrianople in 378, and the battle of Frigidus in 394. Of course, it cannot be argued that after these two defeats the Roman army ceased to exist, but it must be admitted that in the 5th century the process of barbarization of the Roman army acquired unprecedented proportions. The fading Roman Empire withstood another, the last battle for itself, in which, however, in the ranks of the Roman army there were already mainly detachments of barbarians. We are talking about the battle on the Catalaunian fields, in which the combined army of Romans and barbarians under the command of the “last Roman” Aetius stopped the advance of the Huns, led by their previously invincible leader, Attila.

A detailed description of this battle has come down to us in the account of Jordanes. Of greatest interest to us is Jordan's description of the battle formations of the Roman troops: the army of Aetius had a center and two wings, and on the flanks Aetius placed the most experienced and proven troops, leaving the weakest allies in the center. Jordanes motivates this decision of Aetius by taking care that these allies do not leave him during the battle.

Shortly after this battle, the Western Roman Empire, unable to withstand the military, social and economic cataclysms, collapsed. From that moment, the period of the history of the barbarian kingdoms began in Western Europe, and in the East the history of the Eastern Roman Empire continued, which received the name of Byzantium from the historians of modern times.

Western Europe: From the Barbarian Kingdoms to the Carolingian Empire.

In the V-VI centuries. on the territory of Western Europe, a number of barbarian kingdoms are formed: in Italy - the kingdom of the Ostrogoths, ruled by Theodoric, on the Iberian Peninsula - the kingdom of the Visigoths, and on the territory of Roman Gaul - the kingdom of the Franks.

At that time, complete chaos reigned in the military sphere, since three forces were simultaneously present in the same space: on the one hand, the forces of the barbarian kings, which were still poorly organized armed formations, consisting of almost all the free men of the tribe; on the other hand, the remnants of the Roman legions, led by the Roman governors of the provinces (a classic example of this kind is the Roman contingent in Northern Gaul, led by the governor of this province, Syagrius, and defeated in 487 by the Franks under the leadership of Clovis); finally, on the third side, there were private detachments of secular and ecclesiastical magnates, consisting of armed slaves (antrustions), or of warriors who received land and gold from the magnate for service (buccellarii).

Under these conditions, armies of a new type began to form, which included the three components mentioned above. A classic example of a European army VI-VII centuries. can be considered an army of the Franks. Initially, the army was recruited from all the free men of the tribe who were able to handle weapons. For their service, they received from the king land allotments from the newly conquered lands. Every year in the spring, the army gathered in the capital of the kingdom for a general military review - the “March fields”. At this meeting, the leader, and then the king, announced new decrees, announced campaigns and their dates, and checked the quality of the weapons of their soldiers. The Franks fought on foot, using horses only to get to the battlefield. The battle formations of the Frankish infantry "...copied the shape of the ancient phalanx, gradually increasing the depth of its construction ...". Their armament consisted of short spears, battle axes (francisca), long double-edged swords (spata) and scramasaxes (a short sword with a long handle and with a single-edged leaf-shaped blade 6.5 cm wide and 45-80 cm long). Weapons (especially swords) were usually richly decorated, and the appearance of the weapon often testified to the nobility of its owner.

However, in the eighth century significant changes were taking place in the structure of the Frankish army, which led to changes in other armies in Europe. In 718, the Arabs, who had previously captured the Iberian Peninsula and conquered the kingdom of the Visigoths, crossed the Pyrenees and invaded Gaul. The actual ruler of the Frankish kingdom at that time, Major Karl Martell, was forced to find ways to stop them. He faced two problems at once: firstly, the land reserve of the royal fiscal was depleted, and there was nowhere else to take land to reward warriors, and secondly, as several battles showed, the Frankish infantry was unable to effectively resist the Arab cavalry. To solve them, he carried out the secularization of church lands, thus obtaining a sufficient land fund to reward his soldiers, and announced that from now on, not the militia of all free Franks was going to war, but only people who were able to purchase a complete set of horseman weapons: a war horse , spear, shield, sword and armor, which included leggings, armor and a helmet. Such a set, according to Ripuarskaya Pravda, was very, very expensive: its full cost was equal to the cost of 45 cows. Very, very few could afford to spend such an amount on weapons, and people who could not afford such expenses were obliged to equip one warrior from five yards. In addition, the poor were called to serve, armed with bows, axes and spears. Karl Martell distributed allotments to horsemen for service, but not in full ownership, as it was before, but only for a lifetime, which created an incentive for the nobility to serve further. This reform of Charles Martel was called beneficial(benefices - i.e. beneficence - the so-called piece of land given for service). At the Battle of Poitiers (10/25/732), a new army of the Franks under the leadership of Charles Martel stopped the Arabs.

Many historians consider this battle a turning point in the military history of the Middle Ages, arguing that from that moment the infantry lost its decisive importance, passing it on to heavy cavalry. However, this is not entirely true, both militarily and socially. Although it is from this moment that the separation of the layer of horsemen begins, not only as an elite combat unit, but also as a social elite - the future of medieval chivalry - but still it must be borne in mind that this was a long process, and for quite a long time the cavalry played only a supporting role with the infantry, which took on the main blow of the enemy and exhausted him. The change in the situation in favor of the cavalry, both in Western Europe and in Byzantium, was facilitated by the fact that in the 7th century. Europeans borrowed from the nomadic people of the Avars a previously unknown stirrup, which the Avars, in turn, brought from China.

The Carolingian army took its finished form under Charlemagne. The army was still convened for the spring review, however, postponed from March to May, when there is a lot of grass that served as food for the horses. The entire size of the army, according to historians, did not exceed ten thousand soldiers, and more than 5-6 thousand soldiers never went on campaigns, since already such an army “... was stretched along with the convoy for a distance of a day’s march of 3 miles” . Scars were located in the border zone and in large cities - permanent detachments created from professional warriors, similar scars accompanied the emperor and counts. The grandson of Charlemagne, Emperor Charles the Bald, issued an edict in 847, obliging every free person to elect a lord and not change him. This consolidated the vassal-seigneurial system of relations already established in society, and in the field of manning and commanding the army led to the fact that now each seigneur brought his detachment to the battlefield, recruited from his vassals, trained and equipped by him. The united army was formally commanded by the king, in fact, each seigneur himself could give orders to his people, which often led to complete confusion on the battlefield. Such a system reached its apogee later, in the era of developed feudalism.

2. Armies of the High Middle Ages (X-XIII centuries)

A) Western Europe in the X-XI centuries.

After the division of the Frankish Empire under the terms of the Verdun Treaty of 843, signed between the grandchildren of Charlemagne, the political development of the French lands was determined by two main factors: the constantly growing external threat from the Norman pirates and the decline in the importance of royal power, unable to organize the defense of the country, which directly entailed an increase in the influence of local authorities - counts and dukes and their separation from the central government. The transformation of counts and dukes into sovereign hereditary rulers resulted in the progressive feudal fragmentation of the French lands, an increase in the number of granted land holdings, proportional to the decrease in the area of ​​\u200b\u200beach specific allotment, and the transformation of the beneficiary, complained for service, into hereditary landed property. In the conditions of the extreme weakening of royal power, the old custom of electing the king on the council of the nobility is resurrecting. Counts from the family of Robertins of Paris became kings, famous for their struggle with the Normans.

These political changes are closely related to the changes in military affairs of that era. The decrease in the importance of the common infantry and the coming to the fore of the heavily armed knightly cavalry led to a sharp social stratification of Frankish society; it was during this period that the idea of ​​dividing society into three classes was finally formed and gained particular popularity: “prayers” (oratores), “warriors” (bellatores) and “workers” (laboratores). In turn, the progressive feudal fragmentation could not but affect the reduction in the size of the army, which now rarely exceeded two thousand people. A detachment of one and a half thousand people was already considered a large army: “Thus, nine hundred knights were recruited. And [Cid] recruited five hundred hidalgo foot squires, not counting the rest of the pupils of his house.<…>Sid ordered to leave his tents and went to settle in San Servan and around it in the hills; and every person who saw the camp that Sid set up said later that it was a large army ... ".

The battle tactics have also changed. Now the battle began with a well-coordinated blow with the spears of the heavy cavalry, which split the enemy's line. After this first attack, the battle broke up into single duels between knight and knight. In addition to the spear, the obligatory weapon of each knight is a long double-edged sword. The defensive equipment of the Frankish knight consisted of a long shield, a heavy shell and a helmet worn over a neck cover. The infantry, which played an auxiliary role in battle, was usually armed with clubs, axes, and short spears. Archers in the West Frankish lands were for the most part their own, while those in the East Frankish were hired. In Spain, instead of a shell, chain mail borrowed from the Moors with long sleeves and a chain mail hood was often used, over which a helmet was worn: a helmet and a chainmail hood, and half a skull…” .

A distinctive feature of the weapons of the Italian chivalry was its lightness - short stabbing swords, light flexible spears with narrow tips equipped with additional hooks, daggers were in use here. Of the protective weapons in Italy, light, usually scaly shells, small round shields and helmets that fit the head were used. These features of the weapons also determined the differences in the tactics of the Italian knights from their French and German counterparts: the Italians traditionally acted in close contact with the infantry and archers, often performing not only the attacking function, traditional for knights, but also the infantry support function.

It is impossible not to say about the main opponents of the Western Franks in the period under review - the Normans (Vikings, Varangians). It was the Normans who were one of the most daring and knowledgeable sailors of medieval Europe. Unlike most continental countries, they used the fleet not only for the transport of goods and people, but for military operations on the water. The main type of the Norman ship was the drakkar (several such ships were found, the first of them was found in Oseberg in 1904 and exhibited in the museum in Oslo) - a sailing and rowing ship 20-23 m long, 4-5 m wide in the middle part. It is very stable due to a well-developed keel, thanks to a small draft it can approach the shore in shallow water and penetrate into rivers, thanks to the elasticity of the structure it is resistant to ocean waves.

The pirate raids of the Normans instilled such horror in the hearts of Europeans that at the end of the 10th century, a request to God for deliverance “from the fury of the Normans” (“De furore Normannorum libera nos, Domine”) was included in the church prayer for deliverance from disasters. In the land army of the Normans, the main role was played by the “mounted infantry”, i.e. infantry, making transitions on horseback, which gave them a significant gain in mobility. A distinctive feature of the weapons of the Normans was a helmet pointed upwards with a nosepiece, a tight-fitting shell and a long shield elongated downwards. The heavy infantry of the Normans was armed with heavy long spears, axes and the same long shields. Of the throwing weapons, the Normans preferred the sling.

If mainly squads of the Scandinavian nobility (the so-called “sea kings”) went on campaigns to Western Europe, then at home a distinctive feature of the Scandinavian social structure and military affairs was the preservation of the free peasantry (bonds) and the significant role of the peasant militia (especially in Norway ). The Norwegian king Hakon the Good (d. c. 960), according to the saga, streamlined the collection of the naval militia: the country was divided into ship districts as far from the sea “as salmon rises” and it was established how many ships each district should put up during the invasion to the country. For notification, a system of signal lights was created, which made it possible to transmit a message throughout Norway in a week.

Another distinguishing feature of military affairs in the 10th-11th centuries is the flourishing of castle fortifications. In the French lands, the construction initiative belonged to local lords who sought to strengthen their power in their possessions, in the German regions, where royal power was still strong, the king was actively building fortifications during the period under review German lands built a whole series of fortified towns - burgs). However, it cannot be said that during this period there was a flourishing and take-off of the siege skills of the Western European armies - siege weapons increase quantitatively, but practically do not change qualitatively. Cities were taken either by starvation or by digging under the walls. Frontal assaults were rare, as they were associated with heavy losses for the attackers and were crowned with success only in a small number of cases.

Summing up the development of the army and military affairs in the countries of Western Europe during this period, one more important feature of this process can be noted: at the time under consideration, tactical and strategic techniques, parts of armor or weapons from the military art of other peoples began to be actively borrowed into Western military art, more often of all - the peoples of the East. This process will take on a much greater scope in the next period of European history - the period of the Crusades.

B) Western Europe in the XII-XIII centuries: the Crusades.

End of the 11th century in Western Europe was marked by the beginning of the Crusades, i.e. campaigns for the liberation of the Holy Sepulcher in Jerusalem. It is generally accepted that the crusades began in 1096, when the first campaign of Christian knights began in Palestine, which led to the conquest of Jerusalem, and ended in 1291 with the loss of the city of Acre, the last fortress of the crusaders in Palestine. The crusades had a huge impact on the entire history of Christian medieval Europe, but their influence was especially noticeable in the military sphere.

Firstly, in the East, Christian knights encountered an enemy previously unknown to them: the lightly armed Turkish cavalry calmly evaded the attack of the armored knightly armada and showered Europeans with arrows from bows from a safe distance, and the Turkish infantry, who used crossbows still unknown to Europeans in battle, the cores of which pierced knightly armor, produced significant damage in the ranks of the Christian cavalry. Moreover, the Turks, who were inferior to the knights in single combat, outnumbered the Christians and attacked all at once, and not one by one. Much more mobile, since their movements were not constrained by armor, they circled around the knights, striking from different directions, and quite often succeeded. It was obvious that it was necessary to somehow adapt to the new methods of warfare. The evolution of the Christian army in the East, its structure, weapons, and, hence, the tactics of warfare followed two main paths.

On the one hand, the role of infantry and archers in military operations is increasing (the bow was undoubtedly known in Europe long before the Crusades, but Europeans encountered such a massive use of this weapon for the first time in Palestine), the crossbow is borrowed. The massive use of archers and infantry by the Turks makes such an impression that the English king Henry II even carries out a military reform in England, replacing the military service of many feudal lords with a tax collection (the so-called “shield money”) and creating a military militia from all free people who are obliged to be in the army at the first call of the king. Many knights, trying to catch up with the Turks in mobility, borrow light weapons from them: chain mail, a light helmet, a round cavalry shield, a light spear and a curved sword. Naturally, the knights armed in this way were no longer self-sufficient, and were forced to act in active cooperation with the infantry and rifle units.

On the other hand, the armament of the vast majority of knights is evolving towards weighting: the size and thickness of the spear increases so that it becomes impossible to control it with a free hand - now, in order to strike, it had to be rested against the recess of the shoulder pad, the weight of the sword increases. A helmet-pot appears in the armor, covering the entire head and leaving only a narrow slit for the eyes, the shell becomes noticeably heavier, and even more than before, it hinders the movements of the knight. With great difficulty, a horse could carry such a rider, which led to the fact that, on the one hand, the Turk with his light weapons could not cause any harm to the iron-clad knight, and on the other hand, the knight loaded with armor could not catch up with the Turk. With this type of weaponry, the famous knightly spear strike was impossible - each individual knight, firstly, took up too much space, and secondly, was too clumsy - and, thus, the battle immediately broke up into many fights in which each the knight chose his opponent and sought to grapple with him. This direction in the development of weapons became the main one for European military affairs throughout the 13th century.

Secondly, the crusades had a strong influence on increasing the group solidarity of the European chivalry, which suddenly realized itself as a single army of Christ. This awareness manifested itself in several main forms, among which we can mention the formation and wide distribution of military monastic orders and the appearance of tournaments.

Military monastic orders were organizations of the monastic type, which had their own charter and residence. The orders were headed by Grand Masters. Members of the orders took monastic vows, but at the same time they lived in the world and, moreover, fought. The order of the Knights Templar arose first in 1118, at about the same time the order of the Johnites or Hospitallers appeared, in Spain in 1158 the Order of Calatrava appeared, and in 1170 the Order of Santiago de Compostela, in 1199 the Teutonic Order of the Sword was founded. The main tasks of the orders in the Holy Land were the protection of pilgrims, the protection of most of the Christian fortresses, and the war against Muslims. In fact, the orders became the first regular professional armies of Christian Europe.

So, summing up the development of military affairs in Europe in the 12th-13th centuries, several main trends can be noted: an increase in the role of infantry and rifle formations and, at the same time, the closure of the knightly class, which was expressed, on the one hand, in the further weighting armor, which turned a single knight into a fighting fortress, both in terms of formidability and mobility, and on the other hand, in the self-organization of chivalry into military-monastic orders, in the appearance of a developed system of coats of arms, the meaning of which was clear only to the initiated, etc. This growing controversy eventually led to several major defeats inflicted on the knights by commoners (for example, at Courtrai in 1302, at Morgarten in 1315) and to a further decline in the military role of chivalry.

3. Europe in the XIV-XV centuries: autumn of the Middle Ages.

The value of the XIV-XV centuries. for European military history comparable, perhaps, only with the VIII-X centuries. Then we watched the birth of chivalry, now - its decline. This was due to several factors, the most significant of which are the following: firstly, during this period in most European states, single centralized monarchies were formed, replacing feudal fragmentation, which, in turn, entailed a gradual but inexorable transformation vassals into subjects, secondly, ordinary people returning from the crusades understood that chivalry was not as invincible as it seemed, they understood that a lot could be achieved by coordinated actions of the infantry, and, finally, thirdly, it was during this the period includes firearms and, above all, artillery, from which even the best knightly armor was no longer saved.

All these and some other factors were fully manifested during the longest military conflict in the history of Europe, which took place between England and France. We are talking about the Hundred Years War of 1337-1453. The war began because of the claims of the English king Edward III to the French throne.

Literally in the very first years of the war, France suffered a series of serious defeats: in the naval battle of Sluys (1346), the entire French fleet was killed, and already on land, in the Battle of Crecy (1346), the French chivalry, faced with English archers, suffered a terrible defeat. In fact, in this battle, the French were defeated by their own belief in the invincibility of the knightly cavalry and the inability of the infantry to effectively resist it. When the field for battle was chosen, the English commander placed his archers and dismounted knights on the hill. The dismounted knights could not move, but they stood, covering their archers with a steel wall. The French, on the contrary, threw their knights into the attack on the hill right from the march, not allowing them to rest or line up. This led to very sad consequences for them - the arrows of the English archers could not penetrate the knight's armor itself, but they found a path in horse armor or in the visor of the helmet. As a result, only about a third of the French knights reached the top of the hill, wounded and exhausted. There they were met by rested English knights with swords and battle axes. The destruction was complete.

Ten years later, at the Battle of Poitiers (1356), the French suffered another defeat. This time the victory of the British was striking in its results - the king of France, John II the Good, himself was captured by them. In the midst of the battle, the vassals of the French king, seeing that military luck had betrayed them, preferred to withdraw their troops from the battlefield, leaving the king to fight almost completely alone - only his son remained with him. This defeat once again showed that the feudal army had outlived its usefulness, and could not more adequately resist the recruited militia from ordinary people.

The situation worsened with the beginning of the active use of firearms, first as a siege weapon, and then as field artillery. The critical situation that developed in France both in politics and in the field of military affairs by the beginning of the 15th century forced King Charles VII to carry out a military reform that radically changed the face of the French, and then the European army. According to the royal ordinance issued in 1445, a regular military contingent was created in France. He was recruited from the nobility and was a heavily armed cavalry. This cavalry was divided into detachments or companies, which consisted of "spears". The “spear” usually included 6 people: one cavalryman armed with a spear and five auxiliary horse warriors. In addition to this cavalry, which bore the name "ban" (i.e. "banner") and recruited from the direct vassals of the king, the contingent also included artillery units, archery units and infantry. In case of emergency, the king could convene an arjerban, i.e. a militia of vassals of their vassals.

According to changes in the structure of the army, the algorithm of military operations also changed: now, when two warring troops met, shelling began first of all, accompanied by digging fortifications for their guns and shelters from enemy nuclei: “Count Charolais set up camp along the river, surrounding him with wagons and artillery…”; “The king's people began to dig a trench and build a rampart out of earth and wood. Behind her they put powerful artillery<…>Many of ours dug trenches near their houses…” . Patrols were sent out in all directions from the camp, sometimes reaching fifty spears, that is, three hundred people in number. In battle, the warring parties sought to get to each other's artillery positions in order to capture guns. In general, we can note that the classic war of the New Age began, the review of which is already beyond the scope of this work.

Annotated bibliography

I. Publications of sources (in Russian).

As well as for the previous article in this edition, the selection of sources for this work was difficult for several reasons. Firstly, it is extremely difficult to find at least one source on the history of the Middle Ages, which would not touch on the topic of war; secondly, in contrast to antiquity, in the Middle Ages there were practically no works devoted specifically to military affairs, or the history of any particular war (the exception is the Byzantine tradition, within which the “Wars” of Procopius of Caesarea were created, as well as works on tactics and strategy of pseudo-Mauritius, Kekavmen and others); finally, thirdly, the situation with sources on the history of the Middle Ages, translated into Russian, leaves much to be desired. All this together leads to the fact that below is only a small selection of sources that we can recommend for reading on the topic of the article. The characteristics of the sources are given only from the point of view of military history. For more details see: Lyublinskaya A.D. Source study of the history of the Middle Ages. - L., 1955; Bibikov M.V. Historical Literature of Byzantium. - St. Petersburg, 1998. - (Byzantine library).

1. Agathius of Mirine. On the reign of Justinian / Per. M.V. Levchenko. - M., 1996. The work of the successor of Procopius of Caesarea is devoted to the description of the wars of the commander Narses against the Goths, Vandals, Franks and Persians and contains rich information about the Byzantine military art of the second half of the 6th century. However, Agathius was not a military man and his presentation of military events sometimes suffers from inaccuracy.

2. Anna Komnena. Alexiad / Per. from Greek Ya.N. Lyubarsky. - St. Petersburg, 1996. - (Byzantine library). Despite the rhetorical style and the author's own lack of any experience in military affairs, this work remains an important source on the military history of Byzantium in the era of the Komnenos.

3. Widukind of Corvey. The deeds of the Saxons. - M., 1975. The spring was created in the 10th century by a monk of the Novokorveysky monastery. Information of a predominantly political nature is given, wars are described briefly (in the style Veni,vidi,vici), however, there are descriptions of weapons and military clothing of the Saxons, there is information about the principle of manning the Saxon army, about the presence of a navy, cavalry and siege weapons among the Saxons.

4. Villardouin, Geoffrey de. Conquest of Constantinople / Transl., Art., Comment. M.A. Zaborova. - M., 1993. - (Monuments of historical thought). Memoirs of one of the leaders of the IV Crusade. Contains data on the organization, number and armament of the crusader army.

5. Greek polyorketics. Flavius ​​Vegetius Renat / Foreword. A.V. Mishulin; comments A.A. Novikov. - St. Petersburg, 1996. - (Antique library). For a detailed commentary on this source, see above in the bibliography to the article on the ancient army. One can only add that the work of Vegetius was the most authoritative treatise on the structure of the army for medieval thinkers - in the ideal legion of Vegetius they saw an ideal model for building a medieval knightly army.

6. Digests of Justinian. Book XLIX. Titus XVI. About military affairs / Per. I.I. Yakovkina // Monuments of Roman law: Laws of the XII tables. Guyanese Institutions. Digests of Justinian. - M., 1997. - S.591-598. For a commentary on this source, see the bibliography for the article on the ancient army. It can be added that the military law "Digest" not only retained its relevance by the time of Justinian, but was also perceived and used later by many European legislators of the Middle Ages (for example, the king of Castile and Leon Alfonso X the Wise) in drawing up their laws.

7. Jordan. On the origin and deeds of the Getae. “Getica” / Transl., intro. Art., comment. E.Ch. Skrzhinskaya. - St. Petersburg, 1997. - (Byzantine library). – S. 98-102. From this work, we can only recommend Jordan's description of the famous battle in the Catalaunian fields, which became a role model for many medieval chroniclers in describing battles.

8. Clary, Robert de. Conquest of Constantinople / Transl., Art., Comment. M.A. Zaborova. - M., 1986. - (Monuments of historical thought). The author is one of the simple knights who were in the army of the crusaders who stormed Constantinople in 1204, which explains some of the incompleteness and subjectivity of the source's information. Nevertheless, the text of the chronicle contains information about the number of knightly detachments, the cost of hiring ships to transport troops, and the structure of the knightly army.

9. Commin, Philippe de. Memoirs / Trans., Art., Note. Yu.P. Malinin. - M., 1986. - (Monuments of historical thought). The author, a professional military man and diplomat, first served under the Duke of Burgundy Charles the Bold, then went over to the side of King Louis XI and became his adviser on the war with Burgundy. His work contains a lot of information necessary for the study of the French army, Ser. - 2nd floor. XV century, its structures, weapons, tactics and strategies.

10.Konstantin Porphyrogenitus. On the management of the empire / Per. G.G. Timpani. - M., 1991. - (The oldest sources on the history of Eastern Europe). The writing of the Byzantine emperor in 913-959. Contains numerous information on Byzantine diplomacy, military organization, relations with neighboring peoples, as well as on military equipment (description of Greek fire).

11.Kulakovsky Yu.A. Byzantine camp at the end of the 10th century // Byzantine civilization in the coverage of Russian scientists, 1894-1927. - M., 1999. - S.189-216. Annotated publication of a very carefully written little Byzantine treatise from the 10th century. "De castrametatione" ("On the setting up of camp"). Equipped with diagrams of the Byzantine camp. First published: Byzantine Vremennik. - T.10. - M., 1903. - S.63-90.

12.Mauritius. Tactics and Strategy: The Primary Source Op. about the military art imp. Leo the Philosopher and N. Machiavelli / Per. from lat. Tsybyshev; foreword ON THE. Geisman. - SPb., 1903. The fundamental Byzantine essay on the strategy of the turn of the 5th-6th centuries. Its attribution to Emperor Mauritius (582-602) is disputed by modern scholars. Of particular interest are the first mention of stirrups in European military literature, as well as information on the military affairs of the ancient Slavs. There is a more accessible abridged edition: Pseudo-Mauritius. Stategekon / Per. Tsybyshev, ed. R.V. Svetlova // The Art of War: An Anthology of Military Thought. - St. Petersburg, 2000. - T.1. - P.285-378.

13.Peter from Doesburg. Chronicle of the Prussian Land / Ed. prepared IN AND. Matuzova. - M., 1997. An essay telling about the wars of the Teutonic Order in Prussia from the point of view of the crusaders. An extremely valuable source on spiritual knightly orders, superbly translated and commented.

14. Song of the Nibelungs: epic / Per. Yu. Korneeva; intro. Art., comment. AND I. Gurevich. - St. Petersburg, 2000. The famous old German epic. From here you can get both information about weapons and about the strategy of the medieval army (in particular, regarding the use of intelligence).

15. Song of Roland: according to the Oxford text / Per. B.I. Yarkho. - M. - L.: "Academia", 1934. From this text one can take information about the armament of the knights, about the tactics of battle (arranging ambushes, etc.), as well as about the structure of the army. No need to pay attention to the number of troops indicated in the "Songs ...".

16.Song of Side: Old Spanish heroic epic / Per. B.I. Yarkho, Yu.B. Korneeva; ed. prepared A.A. Smirnov. - M.-L., 1959. - (Lit. monuments). The text of the source dates back to the middle of the 12th century and contains valuable information about the military art of the 11th-12th centuries, about the methods of conducting a siege, about the number of troops (unlike the Song of Roland, this monument provides reliable information on this subject, confirmed by data from other sources), about the weapons and equipment of the knights.

17.Procopius of Caesarea. War with the Goths: In 2 volumes / Per. S.P. Kondratiev. - M., 1996. - T.1-2.

18.Procopius of Caesarea. War with the Persians. War with vandals. Secret History / Trans., Art., Comment. A.A. Chekalova. - St. Petersburg, 1998. - (Byzantine library). Procopius of Caesarea is a professional historian of the time of Emperor Justinian, who created the cycle of historical works “History of Wars”, dedicated to the wars of the Byzantine Empire under this emperor. This cycle includes the above-mentioned works “War with the Goths”, “War with the Persians” and “War with the Vandals”. A characteristic feature of these works is Procopius' deep knowledge of the subject described - for many years he was the personal secretary of the largest commander Justinian, Belisarius, and accompanied him on campaigns, and therefore had a direct opportunity to observe the course of hostilities. Particularly successful are Procopius' descriptions of the sieges of cities (both from the point of view of the besieger and from the point of view of the besieged). The author's information about the size and structure of the Byzantine army is confirmed by other sources, and therefore can be considered reliable.

19.Procopius of Caesarea. About buildings / Per. S.P. Kondratiev // He. War with the Goths: In 2 volumes - M., 1996. - V.2. - P.138-288. This work by Procopius contains rich information about the construction policy of Emperor Justinian, in particular, about the military construction of that era. The principles of Byzantine fortification are covered in detail, almost all the fortresses built under Justinian are named.

20.Richer of Reims. History / Transl., comment., Art. A.V. Tarasova. - M., 1997. From this work you can get information about the armament of the troops and the methods of warfare in the X-XI centuries, about the use of intelligence in military operations. In turn, information about the structure of the Frankish army from Rycher cannot be called trustworthy - Rycher clearly borrowed the division of the army into legions and cohorts from Roman authors, and more specifically, from his beloved Sallust.

21. The saga of Sverrier / Ed. prepared M.I. Steblin-Kamensky and others - M., 1988. - (Lit. monuments). History of internecine wars in Norway in the XII-XIII centuries. Continues the “Circle of the Earth” by Snorri Sturluson (see below), contains detailed information on military affairs, which, even after the end of the Viking Age, continued to be very different in Norway from the rest of Western Europe.

22. Saxon mirror / Resp. ed. V.M. Koretsky. - M., 1985.

23. Salic Truth / Per. N.P. Gratsiansky. - M., 1950. These two monuments of the written customary law of the German peoples are included in the list of sources as typical representatives of the "barbaric Pravda". From them, as a rule, it is impossible to draw real information about military affairs, but on the other hand, they contain information about the cost of armor and weapons, which creates an idea of ​​the social position of a warrior in German barbarian society.

24.Snorri Sturluson. Circle of the Earth / Ed. prepared AND I. Gurevich and others - M., 1980. - (Lit. monuments). The classic collection of sagas about “rulers who were in the Nordic countries and spoke Danish”, created in Iceland in the 1st half. 13th century The presentation has been brought from ancient times to 1177. In relation to military history, it contains information about the military affairs of the Vikings, about their campaigns of conquest, military tricks and weapons, about the mechanism for recruiting the Norman army.

25. Tips and stories of Kekavmen. The work of the Byzantine commander of the XI century. / Prep. text, introduction, translation, comments. G.G. Timpani. - M., 1972. - (Monuments of the medieval history of the peoples of Central and Eastern Europe). The source was written in the 1070s. It contains advice on the leadership of the army (about a quarter of the volume), as well as everyday instructions that give an idea of ​​the Byzantine military aristocracy and, moreover, is often illustrated with examples from the field of military affairs. One of the main sources on Byzantine military history. The only manuscript is kept in the Manuscript Department of the State Historical Museum in Moscow.

II. Literature.

Below is the literature on the history of the medieval army, recommended for reading. We have selected only general works, which is explained by two main factors: the extraordinary abundance of works devoted to particular issues of the military art of medieval Europe, published in the West, on the one hand, and the low accessibility of works on national military histories of Western European countries to the domestic reader, on the other. . Almost all of the works presented below have a good bibliography, allowing the reader to easily carry out further literature searches.

26.Winkler P. fon. Weapons: A guide to the history, description and depiction of hand weapons from ancient times to the beginning of the 19th century. - M., 1992. A good reference book on medieval weapons, a well-chosen illustrative series, accompanied by a professional commentary.

27.Gurevich A.Ya. Viking expeditions. - M., 1966. - (Popular science series of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR). Although this book was not written by a military historian, it contains a lot of information about military affairs and the military organization of the Vikings, as well as photographs of ships and weapons. The author is one of the largest domestic Scandinavians.

28.Delbruck G. History of military art within the framework of political history: In 4 volumes - St. Petersburg, 1994-1996. - V.2-3. For this edition, see the annotation to it given in the previous article.

29.Dupuy R.E., Dupuy T.N. World War History: Harper's Encyclopedia of Military History. - St. Petersburg; M., 1997. - Books 1-2. This publication can only be used to obtain the initial minimum information on the subject of interest. The information collected here concerns, first of all, the tactics of medieval armies on the example of famous battles. The publication contains battle diagrams and other illustrative material.

30. History of the Crusades / Ed. D. Riley-Smith. - M., 1998. The publication is a translation into Russian of one of the best works on the history of the Crusades, prepared at Oxford University. Separately, it is necessary to note the chapters devoted to the military monastic orders, in which not only the military art of the orders is analyzed in detail, but also their internal organization, place in society and politics. It should also be said that the book separately touches upon the issues of supply and transportation of armies during the Crusades, which were previously studied quite a bit. A distinctive feature of the book is the rich illustrative material.

31.Cardini F. Origins of medieval chivalry. - Sretensk, 2000. In this work, it seems possible to recommend for reading the second and third parts, dedicated to the formation of the ideology of medieval Christian chivalry and the military art of Europeans (mainly the Franks, Byzantines and their allies) of the VI-IX centuries, because the author's point of view on the prehistory of chivalry and, in particular, his military art, set out in the first part of the book, is highly controversial and ambiguous. Unfortunately, it should also be noted that the Russian translation of this book removes all historiographical material, scientific controversy and references to sources, which, of course, deprives many of the author's statements of a fair amount of evidence.

32.Litavrin G.G. Byzantine society and state in the X-XI centuries. - M., 1977. - S.236-259.

33.He is. How did the Byzantines live? - St. Petersburg, 1997. - (Byzantine library). - P.120-143. Essays on military affairs in Byzantium of the central period of its history (IX-XII centuries), written by one of the largest domestic Byzantinists (the second of these two books is popular science).

34.Melville M. History of the Knights Templar / Per. from fr. G.F. Tsybulko. - St. Petersburg, 1999. - (Clio). A solid study of the history of one of the most famous spiritual and chivalric orders.

35.Razin E.A. History of military art. - SPb., 1999. - V.2. - (Military Historical Library). The work was done quite thoroughly, and if you do not pay attention to the numerous Soviet stamps, then you can call it one of the most complete works on the military history of the Middle Ages in Russian. The book contains rich illustrative material, of which the schemes of the main battles of the Middle Ages are most interesting.

36.Flory J. The ideology of the sword: the prehistory of chivalry. - St. Petersburg, 1999. - (Clio). As the title implies, this work is devoted to the formation of the ideology of Christian chivalry and the formation of its social structure. One of the best works on the ideology of chivalry, accompanied, moreover, by a fairly complete bibliography on the military history of the Middle Ages.

37.Yakovlev V.V. The history of fortresses: The evolution of long-term fortification. - St. Petersburg, 1995. - Ch. IV-XII. This edition is best handled with care - a professional study of fortifications of the 9th-17th centuries. accompanied by more than dubious historical commentary.

38.Beeler J. Warfare in the feudal Europe: 730 - 1200. - Ithaca (N.Y.), 1971. The work of a well-known English researcher examines the military affairs of Western Europe from the Carolingian era to the heyday of military feudalism. Separate chapters are devoted to the development and characteristics of military art in Norman Italy, southern France and Christian Spain. A distinctive feature of the work is the availability of the presentation of the material, which, however, does not affect its completeness.

39.Contamine Ph. La guerre au Moyen Age. – P., 1980; 1999. - (Nouvelle Clio: L'histoire et ses problems). For many years this work has been rightfully considered a classic in the study of the military history of the Middle Ages. The book highlights the development of the army and military art in the countries of Western Europe and in the states of the Latin East in the period of the 5th - to the 15th centuries. Special attention is paid to the evolution of weapons, the emergence and development of artillery, as well as the connection of war with various aspects of the life of medieval society. An excellent scientific and reference apparatus, the most important place in which is occupied by a list of sources and literature with a total volume of more than one hundred pages, gives reason to recommend this work to everyone who wants to get acquainted with the history of the military affairs of the Middle Ages.

40.Lot F. L'art militaire et les armées au Moyen Age en Europe et dans le Proche Orient: 2 vols. - P., 1946. A classic work on the history of military art, which has already gone through several editions and still has not lost its relevance. A special place in the book is given to the comparison of the military art of Christian armies and Muslims during the Crusades.

41. Medieval warfare: A history / Ed. by Maurice Keen. – Oxford, 1999. The book is divided into two main parts, the first of which examines in chronological order the history of the military affairs of Europe and the Latin East, from the Carolingians to the Hundred Years War, and the second contains several chapters devoted to the consideration of individual issues: the art of siege in The Middle Ages, the armament of medieval armies, mercenaries, the navy in the Middle Ages and the emergence of gunpowder artillery and regular armies. The book is richly illustrated, provided with chronological tables and an excellent bibliographic index.

42.Menendez Pidal R. La España del Cid: 2 vols. – Madrid, 1929. An excellent work by a Spanish philologist dedicated to Spain in the period of the 11th – 13th centuries. The army is considered as an integral part of the Spanish medieval society, its structure, the foundations of its military art, its weapons are shown. Contrary to the name, the work is based not only on the material of the Song of Sid, but also on other sources.

43.Nicole D. Medieval warfare: Sourcebook: In 2 vols. – L., 1995-1996. – Vol.1-2. A generalizing summary work devoted to the military affairs of Medieval Europe, from the era of the Great Migration of Nations to the beginning of the Great Geographical Discoveries. The first volume describes military affairs within Europe, the second deals with the military activities of Europeans in other countries. The characteristic features of the work are, firstly, its clear structure, and secondly, the richest illustrative material (each volume has 200 illustrations per 320 pages of text), which makes the book almost indispensable for studying the military history of the Middle Ages.

44.Oman C.W.C. The art of war in the Middle Ages: A.D. 378 - 1515 / Rev. ed. by J.H. Beeler. – Ithaca (N.Y.), 1963. The fifth edition of one of the most popular military history books in Europe. Created at the end of the 19th century, it still attracts readers with its accessibility and, in the good sense of the word, the popularity of its presentation. The book focuses on the military side of the collapse of the Roman Empire, the Great Migration of Nations, separate chapters are devoted to the military development of Byzantium in the VI-XI centuries, Switzerland in 1315-1515 and England in the XIII-XV centuries. In conclusion, the author writes about the military affairs of the states of Eastern Europe in the 15th century, including the Ottoman Porte. The book is provided with chronological tables.

45.Prestwich M. Armies and warfare in the Middle Ages: The English experience. – New Haven; L., 1996. The book is interesting in that the author separately focuses on the role of the infantry in the Middle Ages, considers in detail the problem of military communications, the problems of strategy (in particular, the use of intelligence in the Middle Ages). One of the main conclusions of the author is also interesting - he doubts the reality of the so-called “medieval military revolution”, which led to an increase in the role of cavalry in battle, and believes that the role of infantry in the medieval army was greatly underestimated by previous historians. The book is richly illustrated.

Jordan. On the origin and deeds of the Getae. Getica. - St. Petersburg, 1997. - S. 98-102.

Razin E.A. History of military art. - SPb., 1999. - V.2. - (Military Historical Library). – P.137.

Winkler P. fon. Weapons: a guide to the history, description and depiction of hand weapons from ancient times to the beginning of the 19th century. - M., 1992. - S. 73-74.

For more on Martell's reform, see the chapter on the strength and weakness of the Carolingian armies in: ContaminePh. La guerre au Moyen Age. – P., 1999.

Lex Ripuaria, XXXVI, 11 // MGH LL. – T.V. – P.231. Cit. on: Delbruck G. The history of military art within the framework of political history. - SPb., 1994. - V.2. - p.7.

For the question of the size of the Carolingian armies, see the relevant chapters in: Delbruck G. The history of military art ... - V.2. - St. Petersburg, 1994; ContaminePh. La guerre au Moyen Age. – P., 1999; Oman C.W.C. The art of war in the Middle Ages: A.D. 378 - 1515 / Rev. ed. by J.H. Beeler. – Ithaca (N.Y.), 1963.

For more information on the development of artillery, see the relevant chapters in: ContaminePh. La guerre au Moyen Age. – P., 1999; Medieval warfare: A history / Ed. by Maurice Keen. – Oxford, 1999.

While any of these books may have influenced the tactics of the period, it is now impossible to say with certainty that any of the books had any influence on the course of the war. Even when an eyewitness account of the battle seems to indicate that tactics taken from the Romans were used, this may simply be the result not of observation, but of the author's desire to show his learning. For example, the author of Gesta Fredrici I, who apparently was present at the siege of Cremona in 1160, based his description of the battle on the "Jewish War" of Josephus Flavius, a writer of the 1st century AD. e. .

Similarly, we cannot even be sure how much the tactics developed by the crusaders in Asia Minor influenced subsequent military operations in Europe. The idea that the infantry of the early Middle Ages was almost useless and that the tactics of combining infantry and cavalry gradually developed in the Holy Land has recently been subjected to reasoned criticism by R.S. Smith in his book "Techniques of Crusader Warfare". The order of battle, in which the cavalry lined up behind the infantry, which was characteristic of many battles of the crusaders, was already used at Hastings and by the Normans in southern Italy. Even the use of mounted archers in battles such as at Burg Teruld in 1124 does not necessarily show the experience of the crusaders, as horse archers existed on the Hungarian plains long before the start of the Crusades.

The armor worn by the knights of the First Crusade, apparently, was in many ways similar to those worn by the Normans and French under Hastings and which can be seen on the Bayeux tapestry (). Here they are shown wearing knee-length mail shirts; in front from below the chain mail bifurcates so that you can sit on a horse. The sleeves of chainmail reach only to the elbows. Artists used a large number of conditional patterns to convey the material of chain mail. Most often these are contiguous circles, sometimes a lattice, sometimes rings inside the lattice. Since in some cases different patterns were used for the same chain mail, it is believed that there was not much difference between chain mail and that perhaps all the patterns should have represented chain mail. At one point, however, Duke William's half-brother, Bishop Odo of Bayeux, is shown wearing what might be mistaken for armor made of stacked plates. Although most chain mail had a tight-fitting hood that was integral with the rest of the chain mail, it can be inferred from the images that sometimes the hood was made from a different material than chain mail, possibly leather or fabric. On several occasions, horsemen are shown wearing hoods without any kind of helmet, and this was a common practice until the middle of the 14th century. On the tapestry from Bayeux, many chain mail are depicted with a rectangle below the neck; rectangles have stripes of different colors around the edges. In one depiction of Duke Wilhelm, this rectangle appears to have loosely hanging tie-like plates at the top corners. Another warrior has these plates in the lower corners. It is not clear what these rectangles represent. This, perhaps, is some kind of armor reinforcement - perhaps an additional piece of chain mail tied to the neck, covering the throat.

The first assumption is confirmed by a miniature from the Italian encyclopedia of 1023 from Monte Cassino. The thumbnail shows a solid green rectangle on blue chain mail, which is clearly made in one piece with the hood. On the other hand, a Spanish Bible from the monastery of Roda from the early 11th century, now in the National Library in Paris, and a closely related Bible from the Vatican Library show a rectangle on the chest without a top stripe, as if it were an extension of the hood hanging over the chest. The lower part of the face is clearly not covered. Something of this kind is shown more clearly on the capitals of the Cathedral of Notre-Dame-du-Port, Clermont-Ferrand, France, which depicts "Psychomachy" (). With the exception of one figure, the faces are not covered, it is clear that the hoods are made in one piece with chain mail, and a large rectangle (apparently chain mail) hangs down below the throat. If this part of the chain mail were not often depicted hanging down during the battle, one could assume that the image on the tapestry from Bayeux represents this particular part of the armor (or precoat), covering the face. Apart from this case, a similar rectangle is shown completely without a hood on the same figure in the Bible of Rod and on the image in the English psalter from Oxford of the early 11th century (Bodleian Library). On the Bayeux Tapestry, in several cases, there is only one band across the base of the neck, which can be interpreted as the lower edge of the hood if made separately from the mail. So far, no clear illustration of a separate hood has been found before the 11th century.

That part of the tapestry, where the bodies of the fallen under Hastings are stripped and naked bodies are visible under the chain mail, is the result of the restoration work of the 19th century. It was hardly possible to wear chain mail in this way, since it would damage the skin (especially when struck during the battle). In any case, the undergarment protruding from the sleeves of most of the living characters in the tapestry. Robert Weiss, who wrote much later, in his Roman de Rou specifically stipulates that Bishop Odo wore chain mail over a white shirt of cloth. Most of the other images show long shirts made of some kind of soft material that is visible from under the hem of the mail. It is possible that the colored ribbons on the edges of the chain mail on the Bayeux tapestry represent some kind of strings. They can also be seen, for example, in the Spanish manuscript of the Commentaries on the Epistles of Paul, which was formerly in the Chester-Beatty collection. The Saracen writer of the 12th century, Usama, writes that the chain mail was lined with rabbit fur.

The typical helmet of this period is conical with a nose-guard, sometimes wide enough to recognize the owner of the helmet, as Weiss describes how, under Hastings, Duke William had to raise his helmet in order to dispel rumors that he had fallen. This case can also be seen on the tapestry. A helmet of this type, found in the Priory of Olomouc, Moravia (Czech Republic), is now in the Waffensamlung (Military Museum) in Vienna. Both the helmet and the nose band are made from the same piece of iron. On the other hand, some of the helmets depicted on the tapestry seem to be made of many segments attached to a ring base, as on the already mentioned Frankish helmet. This design, with particularly wide supporting strips, is quite visible in the Heisterbach Bible around 1240 (Berlin State Library). A helmet made from several steel segments riveted together but without a ring base can be seen in the New York Metropolitan Museum of Art. Where the Bayeux tapestry shows helmets being transported on a wagon for subsequent transportation on ships, it is clear that they are not made with pieces of chain mail hanging from the helmet, as on Frankish helmets, but, apparently, they have a balaclava. Helmets with a nose guard and chin rest are clearly visible, for example, on a manuscript in Piacenza, Italy, in the 12th century. Several Norwegian ivory chess pieces from about 1200 found at Wig Church on the Isle of Lewis (Hebrides) have conical helmets with a hanging plate on the back of the neck, as well as a plate covering the cheeks (). Duke Wilhelm's helmet on the Bayeux tapestry has two short hanging plates at the back, similar to the infulae on the bishop's miter. It is not very clear what these plates are for, but many images from the next century show a long veil or scarf running from the bottom of the helmet to the back, or, as on the first seal of Stephen of Blois of England (1135), two thick belts.

The "Song of Roland", which is believed to have appeared around the same time as the Bayeux Tapestry, frequently mentions decorated helmets. A stone capital at the Musée Granet in Aix-en-Provence shows brow-banded helmets, apparently set with precious stones. The Song of Roland mentions the Saracens tying their good helmets from Zaragoza. Although the Bayeux tapestry does not show anything that attaches the helmet to the head, the statue of Roland near the walls of the cathedral in Verona shows a chinstrap extending up to the hood of the chain mail. The same can be seen on a mid-twelfth-century capital from Notre-Dame-en-Vaux at Châlons-sur-Marne, now in the Louvre, Paris, as well as on another dating from 1170 in the Musée Rivets, Pavia, and on many other carvings.

In Le Mans, the English manuscript of the Roman scholar Pliny, Natural History, shows Pliny's helmet hanging from a chinstrap behind his sword, spear, and shield. Most of the images show the belt tied to the helmet on both sides, which prevents the helmet from moving out when the wearer is riding.

A large number of the knights in the Bayeux Tapestry are shown with their forearms protected by individual arm-length sleeves. These sleeves, apparently, were made of chain mail and worn under the sleeves of chain mail; some knights had similarly protected legs. Since the knights are wearing shoes, it is impossible to say for sure whether the lower parts of the legs were also covered with chain mail. Shoes with chainmail leg protection can be seen in the 13th century Book of Alexander from Trinity College, Cambridge.

Although the Saxons at Hastings are sometimes shown with old-fashioned round shields, most of the shields on the Bayeux tapestry are oblong, pointed downwards, with a semicircular top end. Such a shield made it possible to cover the body from the shoulder to the knee. This type of shield was apparently introduced around the last quarter of the 10th century for use by cavalry. One of the earliest illustrations of such a shield is in a manuscript created in Ettern between 983 and 991 (Gotha, Land Library). The elongated pointed part was supposed to cover the vulnerable left side of the warrior's body and leg much better than the old round shield. Let's take into account that the left hand with a shield also held a bridle. The shield was held with a variety of straps located approximately in the center of gravity. Although this shield still had an umbon - and it appears from time to time even in 13th-century depictions - it no longer covered the arm-brace, since it was now off-center. Most often, the shield was held by hand for the St. Andrew's Cross from belts, which were compressed at the point of intersection. The Bayeux Tapestry, however, shows many more intricate ways. In one case, the St. Andrew's Cross was supplemented with two short straps below, through which the forearm passed, preventing the shield from dangling. A single additional strap of the same type is shown in the image of Goliath on the west facade of the Abbey of Saint-Gilles-du-Gard, France, built at the beginning of the 12th century. Other shields have straps arranged in the form of a square or hexagon, with one side serving to grab the hand, and the forearm passing through the opposite side. These bands were called brases. Straps with variable tension were called guige, gaij, and they were attached to the shield near the brases. Straps could be used to hang the shield on the wall, throw it on the back in case the weapon required the use of both hands (for example, an ax or a two-handed sword), and also hang the shield around the wearer's neck on his left shoulder during the battle, whence came the famous phrase "Escu al col" ("Écu à col"), used to describe a knight ready for action. The surface of these shields was painted with a wide variety of images, of which crosses and winged dragons were the most common, but no signs of organized heraldry are yet visible on the shields.

It is possible that even during the Third Crusade (1189–1191) some crusaders were still dressed in the same way as Duke William's Normans. For example, the figure in the English Bible of Puise (Durham Cathedral) of the late 12th century wears no other armor than a conical helmet with a nose plate and chain mail with elbow-length sleeves, very similar to those chain mail that can be seen on the Bayeux tapestry. The people of this knight and all the opponents, with the exception of one, have no other protection than the shields and helmets of a few people. The shields are of the same shape as the shields used under Hastings.

Until about 1400, conical helmets with a nose-guard and a slightly forward top are still encountered from time to time, most often in the 12th century. However, during the first three Crusades, the shape of the helmet changed significantly. Round-topped helmets, with or without a nosepiece, are found from time to time in the twelfth century, as in the Gospel of Pembroke College (Pembroke College, Cambridge). The Winchester Bible (c. 1160–1170) also shows a conical helmet without nose plate (Winchester Cathedral) (). In order to protect the back of the neck, the back of the helmet was sometimes made a few centimeters longer, as on the knights carved on the facade of the cathedral at Angouleme around 1128, and on another knight around 1100 on the tomb in the Cathedral of Modena (). By the end of the 12th century, more or less cylindrical helmets with flat and slightly domed tops, often with a nose plate, became common, as on the scroll of Saint Guthlac in the British Museum or on the seal of Philip of Flanders and Vermandois from 1162.

The German manuscript Roulantes Liet, kept at the University of Heidelberg (circa 1170), shows a short transverse band at the end of a long helmet nosepiece. This band covers the mouth. In the mentioned manuscript, the visor of the helmet covers the neck, the foreface, which runs from the back of the helmet, goes down almost to the eyes; this arrangement became widespread in the next century, as can be seen from the carvings on the western facade of the cathedral in Wales. A 12th-century Bible from Ávila, now in the National Library of Madrid, shows conical helmets with a cross-shaped plate at the end of the nasal band. The ends of the plate are rounded to cover the lower part of the face not protected by a helmet. In a badly damaged manuscript of Hortus Deliciarum by Abbess Herrad of Landsberg, illustrated in the last quarter of the 12th century, the ends of this plate cover almost the entire face, with the exception of the eyes. This plate has many holes on it to make breathing easier. By the beginning of the 13th century, the front plate sometimes covered the entire face and was bent under the chin. There were only two rectangular slits for the eyes, as in a stained-glass window from about 1210 depicting Charlemagne in Chartres Cathedral. Similar helmets are shown on the shrine of Charlemagne (made in 1200-1207) in the cathedral of Aachen and on the seal of Louis, son of Philip II Augustus (made in 1214). In both cases, the helmets also have a short chin rest ().

Two statues on the west facade of Wales Cathedral, created in 1230-1240, are wearing cylindrical helmets with a flat top (). Although the helmets are taller at the front than at the back, there is no clear separation between the face-protecting plate and the neck-covering plate. The flat plate at the top appears to have been made with a flange, which was attached to the cylinder with rivets all around. There is one hole left on one helmet for the eyes. Another helmet has a vertical reinforcement plate running down the front center, a design that was more common. On helmets of this type, the ability to see is improved by the fact that a raised rib or strip runs around the circumference of the helmet; the only surviving example is in the Zeuchhaus in Berlin (). The vertical reinforcing helmet strip has two wide branches at right angles in it; a rectangular hole is cut in each branch. The helmet is pierced with numerous holes, possibly for attaching laces to which the quilted lining was held. The helmet from Wales may have had the same lining, but the rather curious caps worn on some of the figures - we will discuss this later - suggest that this is not the case.

The time of manufacture of the helmet from Berlin has not been precisely established. Very similar helmets were in circulation until 1270, as seen in the Saint Louis Psalter (Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale).

As soon as the face began to be covered with a helmet, the question arose of developing some methods for identifying a warrior. The organization, classification and description of the developed forms and symbols later developed into a science called heraldry.

Several Norwegian chess pieces found at Uig (Lewis Island) have on their heads a new kind of protective headgear, an open-faced helmet called the kettle-hat, perhaps because of its resemblance to an upside-down bowler hat. Later, such a helmet was simply called a “bowler hat” (). It appears to be a vida stelhufa, a wide steel hat from the sagas. A restored page of a southern German manuscript (circa 1150), now in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, shows chinstraps tied at the ends to a helmet. By the middle of the 13th century, such a helmet (“bowler hat”) was definitely considered a headdress quite suitable for a knight. One such helmet can be seen on the seal of Arnoul III, Count of Guines, created in 1248. Although the helmets appear to have been made in one piece, many manuscripts, such as Maciejowski's Bible dating from around 1250, show a helmet apparently made in separate pieces in the manner of earlier Frankish helmets, but with a rim attached to them (Library Pierpont Morgan, New York) ( and ).

The bowler hat remained popular for as long as armor was worn, and was a typical 17th century pike helmet when armor was no longer used. These headgear reappeared in the British Army in 1915 to protect against shrapnel and shrapnel.

On the shrine of Charlemagne, one knight is shown with a chain mail cap thrown back over his shoulder, which makes it possible to see a tight-fitting quilted cap worn under the hood (it was supposed to soften the blow to the chain mail (). This cap is very common in 13th-century illustrations, as in the Maciejovsky Bible Since - especially in the 13th century - the hood was very often worn without a helmet, this lining must have played an important role.The flat-topped mail hoods, typical of the middle of the 13th century, seem to have been supported by specially shaped caps and a thick roll of padding. around the top, as on the figures at Wales Cathedral circa 1230-1240. A similar cap is shown on another figure from Wales, worn over mail, presumably as a support for a helmet ( , right) Of course, maybe sometimes for additional protection under a chain mail cap was put on a steel cap.It is very difficult to verify, but the image in the church of Ebergevenny, throughout Disti, Lord John Hastings (d. 1313), clearly shows the outlines of a hard headdress worn under a chain mail cap.

It is difficult to find illustrations of how the preface was kept closed, although the painting and sculpture of the 12th century depict many prefaces of various shapes. However, a fairly recent depiction at Pershore Abbey, Worcestershire, has a long fore-front hanging down the right side of the neck, while a drawing of Matthew of Paris showing a kneeling knight from around 1250 from the British Museum shows a similar fore-front hanging tightly around the throat. and tied with laces to a chain mail hood over the left ear (). Depictions at Shepton Mallet, as well as that of William Longspee the Elder, Earl of Salisbury in Salisbury Cathedral, show a fore-front with a wide rectangular end, which is held on to the brow-band of a mail hood with drawstrings.

In some cases, the large fore-front went down so that the chin and neck remained open until the time of hostilities, as in the Codex Calixtinus in the archives of St. James of Campostel. Later prefaces of this type are shown either with lining, as in a figure around 1300 from the Cathedral of Strasbourg (Strasbourg) (now in the museum of the cathedral), or without lining, as in the image of Landgrave Johann, who died in 1311 in Marburg. A number of somewhat later English depictions, such as that of Sir Peter de Saltmarsh (d. 1338) at Howden, Yorkshire, show knotted lace on either side of the face, possibly to be attached to a forearm of this type.

In the twelfth century, long-sleeved chainmail became common, and by 1200 the hands were often protected by chainmail gauntlets, consisting of one compartment for the thumb and another for the rest of the fingers. These mittens were made as a single piece with the sleeve, as seen on the shrine of Charlemagne (). A rope or strip around the wrist kept the weight of the sleeve from pressing down on the mitten, causing it to slide off the wrist. When hostilities were not foreseen, the hand could be put out into the hole located in the mitten opposite the palm. The earliest illustrations of mittens with cuffs made separately from chain mail sleeves can be found in a drawing in the Small Chronicle of Matthew of Paris, dating from about 1250 (Cambridge, Corpus Christi College). The word haubergeon, a diminutive of hauberk, "mail", which appears in manuscripts of the time, presumably refers to the short mail shirts, sometimes with short sleeves, often seen in paintings and sculptures.

Unique is the depiction of a warrior in the York Psalter (circa 1170–1175), which shows a row of white stripes with red ends. These bands form a net over the mail; through this network, chain mail is visible, covering the body and hands. The net does not cover the chainmail hood (University of Glasgow). So far, no explanation for this network () has been offered.

The hood is from time to time depicted as made separately from the chain mail - for example, in Glossar von Salomon von Konstanz (c. 1150) (Munich, Bavarian State Library) the chain mail hood is clearly made of metal scales, while the chain mail is clearly not made of them. .

Scale armor at that time was clearly a popular substitute for chain mail. For example, armor made entirely of small scales is shown in Porta Romana, Milan, in an image from the end of the 12th century (). A Moravian manuscript in the Pierpont Morgan Bibliothèque, apparently created between 1213 and 1220, shows armor made from fairly large scales, as in the early 12th-century Goliath carving on the west façade of the Abbey of Saint-Gilles. The late 12th-century German poem "Vigalua" mentions that scales were sometimes made from cow horn, a light but hard material that is very difficult to cut.

Robert Weiss in his Roman de Rou mentions a new form of body armor, the curie. Perhaps the word comes from the word cuir, "skin". There are no illustrations from this time, but the Guillaume le Breton manuscript suggests that it was chest armor, while the Gaidon chivalric novel (circa 1230) shows that this armor was definitely made of leather (at least in this case) and sometimes reinforced with iron. This armor was worn over chain mail, but under a knight's cloak. Although no illustration of such armor is known, several manuscripts from the mid-13th century show sleeveless, waist-length jackets made of some kind of durable material. For example, a single figure in the Maciejian Bible wears a similar vest worn over a normal tunic without any armor other than a military cap and a small hemispherical headdress (cervelliere) ( , top right). This robe appears to have a downward cut starting under the armpits; apparently, this garment was pulled over the head, like a poncho. The English Apocalypse () located in Lisbon shows a similar piece of clothing worn over chain mail. In both manuscripts, lace is clearly visible in two places under the arm. In the Apocalypse, the surface is possibly reinforced by a number of round metal plates. If we take the earliest images, the time of which the records have been preserved, then this kind of body armor can be found on a wall painting (circa 1227) in the baptistery of St. Gereon in Cologne. A similar attire is shown in more detail in the portrait of Hugh II, Chatelian of Ghent (d. 1232), which is now in the abbey of Niven-Bosche, Heusden, near Ghent.

In the second half of the 13th century, cloaks are sometimes depicted with sewn plates, like a sleeping guard on a tomb in Wienhausen, Germany (). The position of the plates is shown by the heads of the rivets that secure the plates to the fabric, and often by the contours of the plates that are visible through the fabric. Nothing of the kind has been found for the early thirteenth century, but very often the cloaks, obviously made of soft, tight-fitting material, seem to bulge from the shoulder, as, for example, on the statues in front of Wales Cathedral (1230-1240). The above drawing by Matthew of Paris, depicting a kneeling knight, shows that this bulge may be from a solid plate protection on the shoulder, which in this case is clearly visible under the cloak and is a separate part from it (). However, one of the figures in Wells Cathedral has a hard, upright collar that starts from the cloak, so the possibility that the cloak itself had shoulder reinforcements () is not ruled out.

Body armor, characteristic of the first three quarters of the 14th century, was called coat of plates, “plate dress”, sometimes it was called more simply - plates, “plates”. Usually this robe is depicted as a short, usually sleeveless, jacket, with small circles or flowers applied to it, which are actually large rivet heads holding the overlapping plates together and attaching them to the fabric covering the plates on top. This type of dress is characteristic of Northern Italian paintings, such as the series of illustrations of the life of St. George by Altichiero in the Chapel of St. George (San Giorgio), Padua (c. 1380–1390). It is not clear when the plate dress first appeared, but jackets studded with dots and circles, very similar to those seen in Altichiero's paintings, are found in the work of Matthew of Paris and his colleagues around 1250, as well as in the Spanish Commentaries on the Apocalypse. Beatus about the same time or even a little earlier (Paris, National Library). In the Beatus manuscript, what appear to be nail heads are clearly arranged in horizontal rows on the surface of the jacket; the vertical seams of the covering material are also clearly visible.

At this time, another type of body armor begins to come into use. Guillaume le Breton, describing the first battle between William des Barres and the future King Richard I of England, reports that the spears pierced the shield, chain mail and quilted jacket and stopped on the hardened steel plate that covered the chest.

The quilted jacket is first mentioned by Weiss as an alternative to chain mail. Later remarks suggest that this was a suit, usually made of two layers of linen, stuffed with wool, cotton, etc., and quilted like a duvet to keep the stuffing in place (). Quilting was usually carried out in parallel lines, sometimes intersecting like a lattice. The quilted jacket protected quite well from chopping blows and softened their force. The Armament Assize of 1181 of the English King Henry II decrees that the minimum requirement for all city dwellers and freemen with an income, goods or rent of more than 10 marks a year is a quilted jacket. A similar attire—worn under chain mail to prevent the rings from cutting into the skin—has been in use since the early 13th century. By this time, there are references to the fact that the spear pierced the shield, chain mail and quilted jacket. However, there does not appear to be a single illustration of a quilted garment worn under chain mail. An alternative name for this type of clothing was aketon, from the Arabic word al-qutun, "cotton", with which the jacket was stuffed. In later references, aketons and quilted jackets are distinguished, but what this difference was is not clear.

The manuscript of the novel "Parzival" of the late 12th - early 13th century describes a warrior dressed in a quilted silk jacket, over which he put on a quilted aketon. The Maciejian Bible, which shows many figures wearing sleeveless quilted robes over sleeved garments, may show just such jackets ( , upper left corner). The Saracen writer Beha ed-Din ibn Shedad, describing the Christian infantry at Arsuf, says: “Each infantryman has a thick “cassock” made of felt, and under it is a chain mail shirt, so strong that our arrows have no effect on them ... I noticed among they were people who had from one to ten pierced arrows sticking out of their backs; however, these people could move at a normal pace and did not lag behind the detachment.

Although many knights still fought without leg armor, two types of boots were used to protect them. One type was long mail stockings attached to the waist belt under the mail and tied under the knee so that the weight of the stockings would not cause them to move out. Another variety was a strip of mail; this band covered the front of the leg and ankle. The strip was tied with straps tied at the back. This type of protection was also kept on straps that were tied to the waist belt. An example of the first type of protection can be seen on the cancer of Charlemagne, and the second - in the English psalter (about 1200), which is kept at the University of Leiden. In the second case, it is quite clear that cloth stockings were worn under the mail stockings - these stockings are visible in the images - and in the first case, they were probably also, although they are not visible. In the manuscript of the poem "Aeneid" of the beginning of the 13th century, which is kept at the University

Tübingen, two people are shown wearing their mail stockings. It is clear that they have some kind of stockings made of fabric under the mail stockings. The drawing of Matthew of Paris with a kneeling knight (circa 1250) shows quite clearly that, at least in this case, the chain mail stockings do not reach the knight's chain mail diverging below ().

The 13th-century manuscript of the poem "Aeneid" shows for the first time some kind of thick padding worn on the hips, over chainmail stockings (). An illustration in the Maciejian Bible shows a man crouching down to put on a similar thigh guard. This protection consists of two separate tapering "tubes" of some kind of thick material, possibly stitched. Presumably, these "pipes" were attached to the waist belt.

In the German states, quilted thigh protection (stockings) is often shown in illustrations of a mid-calf leg. Higher on the leg, the stockings seem to have been pulled together by vertical stripes, the ends of which, apparently, were tied together - perhaps in order to better compress the leg, as, for example, in the psalter of the first half of the 13th century in the British Museum.

The knight engraved on the shrine of Saint Maurice (225) in the Treasury of the Abbey of Saint Maurice, Switzerland, has a plate shaped like a gravy boat and attached to his thigh guard above his kneecap. The Trinity College Apocalypse, which has an illustration of a similar small plate worn directly over chain mail, is still dated around 1230, but is now thought to date to around 1245-1250 (Trinity College , Cambridge). The Icelandic author of The King's Mirror, which is believed to date from about 1240-1250, states that this knee guard was made of iron. In this case, the knee plate is bowl-shaped but has a triangular extension to protect the sides of the knee. In both compositions, in addition, there are narrow plates in front of the lower leg, tapering towards the knee. It is not clear how the plates were attached, but numerous later illustrations show that the plates were held by straps that. walked around the leg over the chain mail fabric. In the Maciejowski Bible, Goliath wears rather wide shin guards (shynbalds) fastened with straps around the calf. Possibly the second strap above is hidden by a quilted thigh guard that covers his hips and knees and appears to cover the top edge of the shin guards.

Once the faces of the warriors were covered by helmets, some method of identification was required to distinguish between friendly and foe. The second seal of King Richard I of England, apparently from 1194, shows a fan-like object attached to the top of his helmet, which bears the image of a lion - the same as that on the shield. Liber ad honorem augusti by Pietro de Eboli (circa 1200) (Bern) shows the images that were painted on the shields of knights and repeated on the sides of their helmets with conical or round tops. Usually these designs were abstract, with diagonal sashes, chevrons, crosses and circles, but the emperor had an eagle and Margrave Diopold von Schweinspoint had a wild bear. In this essay, for the first time, the favorite invention of the heraldists is found - the coat of arms-rebus, in which the drawing contains some kind of connection with the name of the owner of the coat of arms ().

The Aeneid manuscript from Tübingen shows fantastic helmet crests, birds and animals, clearly voluminous and with small flags on the sides (). In some cases, the design was applied to the helmet; it seems that this was very common, especially in Spain, where the designs were on both closed and open helmets. Some of the helmets in this manuscript have what look like long scarves with ends that go to the sides of the helmets, but these are possibly the veils of the Amazon warriors, as they are found only on them and these scarves are not on the male figures.

In the second half of the 12th century, the sons of the original owners of the coats of arms began to change the designs used on the shields. The golden lions on the blue shield of Geoffrey, Count of Anjou, which can be seen on his tombstone (about 1150) at Le Mans, are transformed by the heirs into lions from the English royal coat of arms, which his Plantagenet descendants placed on the red coat of arms. Meanwhile, his illegitimate heir, William Longspee the Elder, Earl of Salisbury, had the same coat of arms as Geoffrey, as shown in his portrait and in the description of the coat of arms in an early heraldic work called the Glover Roll.

Beginning about the middle of the twelfth century, a loose cloak was sometimes worn over the coat of mail, as can be seen in the seal of Valeran de Bellomonte, Earl of Worcester, made before 1250. This copy had long sleeves with long dragging cuffs, but more often, as in the Winchester Bible (circa 1160-1170), they had no sleeves at all (). The cloak is rare until the beginning of the 13th century, when in manuscripts such as the Aeneid almost all knights did not wear it, and this cloak had no sleeves, and the cloak itself reached mid-calf. Usually the cloak had cuts in the middle, front and back, so that you could ride a horse without interference. The cloak had a belt or cord at the waist, separate from the sword belt. Perhaps the cloak appeared to protect mail from the sun during the Crusades, or, as the poem King Arthur's Confession and the Buke of Knychthede are led to believe, protected from rain. However, it is more likely that the cloak was an imitation of the robes of the Saracens. Armies throughout history have tended to copy the clothing or uniforms of their opponents. Early examples of these robes are almost always white or natural in color, and only later on the cloak begin to be painted - the same as on the shield.

A loose covering, called a blanket, also appeared at the end of the 12th century, as can be seen from the two seals of Alfonso II of Aragon (1186 and 1193). The second one clearly shows the vertical stripes from the coat of arms of the owner. The blanket was usually divided into two parts: one covered the head and withers of the horse, the other - the croup behind the saddle. In the manuscript Liber ad honorem augusti, the serrated edges of the blanket with the image of the horseman's coat of arms go down and do not reach just some 30 cm from the ground. In several cases, only the front of the blanket was worn, as on the seal of Louis II, Count of Looz (1216). A seal-making matrix by Robert Fitzwalter (1198–1234) in the British Museum shows a horse's head covered in a material different from the rest of the blanket; perhaps this material served for protection. At a later time, in documents of the 13th century, there are many references to testiers and chanfreins, protection of the horse's head. Illustrations of hoods similar to those shown on this seal, but which were made completely separate from any blanket, have been found in manuscripts of the late thirteenth century. Horse armor of iron (fer) is mentioned in a work by Weiss between 1160 and 1174, but presumably only because of the need to find a rhyme with the name Osber. The first mention of what was definitely horse armor, in one case from chain mail, in the other from fabric (apparently, in both cases, chain mail armor was worn over fabric), is found in the inventory of Falk de Brote, made in 1224.

Although shields with rounded tops and lower ends extended downwards continued to be used until about 1200, and the spearmen of Italy carried them until the 15th century, these shields from about 1150 began to quickly give way to shields of a new type, with a flat top edge. Such a shield can be seen on the seal of Robert de Vitre (1158-1161). Removing the curved portion may have allowed better vision over the shield without diminishing its protective properties. Umbons continue to be encountered from time to time even in the 13th century. The manuscript Liber ad honorem augusti shows the old form of the shield, but the shield itself becomes smaller than before. In the Aeneid manuscript, the shield is only two-thirds the size of the Bayeux tapestry shields, although it continues to be large enough to carry the wounded from the battlefield. Many illustrations - for example, in the Aeneid manuscript - show shields curved forward, the ends of which go to the shoulders.

A single shield from about 1230–1250 survives from that time, although it was later given a more modern look by removing the upwardly curved edge. The shield bears the coat of arms of the von Brienz family and may have belonged to Arnold von Brienz, who in 1197 founded the monastery where the shield was found. Arnold von Brienz died in 1225. The shield is 15 mm thick and is made of wood covered with brocade on both sides. The front features a highly stylized silver lion on a blue background. The original length of the shield (before it was changed) appears to have been between 95 and 100 cm, which meant that it extended from the shoulder to the knee. This is about the same proportion as that of the shield owned by a knight in the earliest depiction of a temple church in London, believed to be William Marshal, Earl of Pembroke (d. 1219). On later images in the same church, two large shields can be seen. On the back side of the von Brienz shield there are traces of gaij, straps and a soft pad that protects the clenched hand in front; such a pillow is also in the manuscript of the Aeneid.

The older round shield has not completely disappeared. It can often be seen in Spanish art and in the illustrations of the Saracens. A very small round shield, called a buckler, was held by a handle in the center, usually located behind the cone. It was used throughout the Middle Ages; it was usually used by infantry, but occasionally by knights, as can be seen from images at Malvern Abbey, Worcestershire (circa 1240). A small round shield, held by one handle, is shown on a portable altar (circa 1160) in Augsburg.

At this time, a new method of using a shield by a mounted warrior, who took a spear at the ready, appeared. In the Bayeux Tapestry and other images from this period, the shield is held by the straps with the left hand, which is located at shoulder level and also holds the reins with knots on them. This method can still be seen in a 13th century manuscript of the Lives of Two Offs in the British Museum. On the other hand, an illustration of Matthew of Paris from the Great Chronicle, also dating back to about 1250, shows a hand holding the reins in the way that is customary in our time - right above the pommel of the saddle, while the shield hangs from the neck on the gait (Corpus Christi College, Cambridge). It may be that only a single strap was used, which was held by the hand, as in the "Book of Alexander" from Trinity College, Cambridge. In Le Tournois de Chauvenci of 1285 it is written: "L" escu au col fort embracié ", and this indicates that the hand was threaded through the belts. This method can be seen in a 14th-century drawing from Lombardy, which is now stored in the Morgan Library , New York By the end of the thirteenth century, however, the shield seems to have been hung on the gaij without any other support, when the spear was wielded, and only when the spear was broken and the sword was in use was the hand moved to the straps of the shield.

Weiss writes that the Norman archers under Hastings wore a short tunic. This is how the Bayeux Tapestry shows them, with the exception of one archer in full armor, who was supposedly the commander. Quivers were hung either on the right side of the waist belt or behind the right shoulder. The archers shown in the manuscript Liber ad honorem augusti, written around 1200, are still unarmoured, although some crossbowmen have conical helmets with nose guards (). Although it is not represented in any way on the tapestry, the unknown author of the poem Carmen de Hastingae Proelio writes that there were many crossbowmen in the ranks of the Normans.

The crossbow was known even in the last days of the Roman Empire, since Vegetius mentions it in an essay written around 385. In addition, the crossbow can be seen in a Roman carving in bas-relief at the Musée Crosatier, Le Puy, where the crossbow consists of a short, heavy bow mounted horizontally at one end of a straight stock. The bowstring, when cocked, snapped a barrel-shaped "nut" on a spring-loaded trigger. An ordinary arrow or a special arrow for a crossbow was placed in the groove with the back end to the trigger. After that, aiming was carried out (pressing the bed to the cheek), after which a shot was made by pressing the back of the trigger. Because strong steel crossbow arrowheads often had a square cross section, they were called quarrels, from the French carrè. The Aeneid manuscript shows a quiver with a D-shaped cross-section and a narrow neck, perhaps to keep the arrows from being drawn together. A similar type of quiver can also be seen in the Pembroke College Gospels from the early 12th century.

Anna Komnenos, daughter of the Byzantine emperor Alexios I Komnenos, describes this weapon in the hands of the crusaders: to draw the string using the strength of the legs with all their might in the opposite direction... The arrows used for this bow are very short in length, but very thick, with very heavy iron tips.”

By at least the beginning of the 13th century, due to the increasing power of bows on the crossbow machine, they began to be pulled with a hook attached to the center of the crossbowman's waist belt. The bowstring was hooked on this hook, the bow was bent by placing the legs in a stirrup attached to the front of the box, after which the crossbowman's legs were straightened, and the hook on the belt pulled the bowstring. A stirrup of this type is shown in the Trinity College Apocalypse ().

Although the use of crossbows was anathematized by Pope Innocent II at the Second Lateran Council in 1139, as well as by many decrees of later times, these easel bows became one of the most important weapons of the Middle Ages, especially in the hands of well-trained mercenaries. It is widely believed that Richard I received the retribution of fate by dying from a wound inflicted by an arrow from a crossbow, since Richard himself actively used this weapon in the troops.

The spear remained the main weapon of the mounted warriors. In the 11th century, it was usually held at arm's length and very often raised above the shoulder, as can be seen on the Bayeux tapestry. When there was a great need for this, the spear could be thrown, as at Hastings, when it was necessary to make gaps in the wall of Anglo-Saxon shields so that the cavalry could break into these gaps. Little by little a new method became popular - to hold the spear under the arm, that is, pressed against the right side with the right hand gripping directly in front of the shoulder. This gave the grip a lot more rigidity, now it was not the power of the right hand that was invested in the blow of the spear, but the inertia of the movement of the rider and horse. It can be seen from the poetic descriptions that before the battle the spear was held more or less upright, with the back of the spear resting on the front of the saddle. The spear was taken at the ready only immediately before the blow. In order to make it easier to keep balance while holding the spear, and also, perhaps, to direct the shield towards the enemy, the rivals, where possible, approached each other with their left side; with the spear passing over the neck of the horse, as shown in the carving in the Cathedral of Modena (c. 1099–1106).

At the beginning of the 12th century, in the Châsse de Saint Hadelin, a spear is shown with a small ring attached to the handle approximately in the place where the spear was taken. The ring may have been used to better grip the spear and weaken the blow when, after a collision, the hand is thrown back. Apparently, the ring was rarely used at that time, and it became widespread much later.

The cavalry spear now invariably had a simple and very sharp leaf-shaped tip. The old spear, with wings, was now used only by infantry and hunters.

The flags on the spears of mounted warriors from the Bayeux tapestry are almost always square in shape with three small triangular ribbons at the outer end. One flag is semicircular with nine small triangles attached to its edge. The dragon standard of Saxon England, on the other hand, is not an ordinary flag, but something like a circle or plane with cut edges. Robert Weiss makes a distinction between the gonfalons carried by the barons and the penons of the knights. The Winchester Bible (circa 1160–1170) shows exactly the same flags as those depicted in the Bayeux tapestry, but the figures on the pediment of the Basilica of San Zeno Maggiore in Verona, carved in about 1139, carry square flags tied in three places to the spear, with three long rectangular narrow ribbons running from the outer edge. A large number of 13th-century flags of this type have been preserved at Köningsfelden Abbey; nowadays they are in the Museum of Bern, Switzerland. Liber ad honorem augusti shows the long triangular penons used throughout much of the Middle Ages. Another type of flag was also popular, having the shape of a long triangle, the short side of which adjoined the pole, and the second short side went below at right angles to the pole. This type of flag can be found in the Spanish Bible in Amiens, created in the 12th century.

When the knights began to hold the spear at the ready, the question arose of how to make the landing in the saddle more stable. The saddles on the tapestry at Bayeux are helmed and slightly raised at the front and back, but by 1200 the back of the saddle was much higher, partly encircling the rider's thighs, as was the front, although it was considerably narrower at the back. These ledges were called arsons (areon). Sometimes the saddles were decorated with the owner's heraldic coat of arms, perhaps to make it easier for infantrymen, who had difficulty seeing the design on the helmet.

To give greater stability to the saddle at the moment of impact, the harness in the harness was sometimes - as shown in the Maciej Bible - tied around the rear ledge of the saddle, and the number of girths was often doubled, with one of them sometimes passing through the top of the saddle. Despite this, the girths did occasionally break, as described in The Song of Roland, where both contestants collapsed to the ground at the same time. The knight did not so much sit in the saddle as he stood on stirrups with almost straight legs, supported by the front and rear ledges of the saddle. The Song of Roland describes how Roland, although having lost a lot of blood, managed to stay in the saddle thanks to the stirrups. In the 12th century, a deep saddlecloth with a long holed lower end was put on the saddle, while there were two holes in the saddlecloth for the front and rear protrusions of the saddle. Sometimes the images show that the girth passes over the saddle.

The bridle was usually fitted with a mouthpiece with long cheek levers to the lower ends of which were attached reins, and it is presumed that some kind of mouthpiece bit existed, although the earliest accurately dated example is from a bit found in the ruins of Tannenberg Castle, East Prussia, destroyed in 1399. However, the mouthpiece bit is clearly visible in the "Astrological Treatise" of about the second half of the XIV century (British Museum). The Romans used mouthpiece bits, but the barbarian cavalry used only bridles. Mouthpiece bits found in barbarian cemeteries from Lombardy to Scandinavia have mouthpieces usually connected to side rings rather than cheek levers.

When the spear broke during a collision, the rider took out the sword from the scabbard and, if necessary, took the shield and attacked the enemy, inflicting powerful blows on him. According to the poets, at the same time, a jeweled helmet was cut, and at the same time the skull, and sometimes the sword, after a particularly powerful blow, reached, cutting the bones of the body and armor, right up to the saddle.

Many of the swords used by the Normans had blades as wide and grooved as those used by the Vikings. In some cases, the blades bore the same name, Ingelrii, and may have come from the same source. The average length of the blade was about a meter, and a wide groove ran along almost the entire length, disappearing about 2.5 cm from the rather sharp tip of the blade. Many blades bear large iron capital letters, often of a religious nature; for example, HOMO DIE, or NOMINE DOMINI, or corrupted versions of these words.

Around the year 1000, a new type of sword appeared - a long, thinner one, with a narrow and shallow groove, disappearing about 20 cm from the tip of the blade. The average length of such swords is about 13 cm longer than the swords of the previous type. The earliest known example of such a blade has runes in English. The runes are of a type common in the 10th century and are carved on the tang of the blade. The blade of this type has the sword of Saint Maurice (Treasury of Vienna), the sword of state of the Holy Roman Emperors, which appears to have been updated for Emperor Otto IV (b. c. 1182–1218; reigned 1209–1218), as it bears his personal coat of arms on the pommel of the hilt. Some of the sword blades are inscribed with smaller iron letters in order to fit on the narrower chute. A large number of inscriptions include the phrase GICELIN ME FECIT ("Giselin made me"). However, most inscribed swords have wide-spaced, beautifully depicted letters made of thin copper or white metal wire - as on the sword now in the Bury St Edmunds Museum. This sword was found at the site of the Battle of Fornham (Suffolk), which took place in 1173. The sword has +SESBENEDICA+AS on one side and +IN OMINEDOMINI+ on the other. Blades with inscriptions can often be seen in illustrations in manuscripts and on reliefs and sculptures. The statue of Roland near the walls of the cathedral in Verona has a sword with the name Durendal carved on the blade, while in the Maciejian Bible there is a shield with the inscription GOLIAS.

At the end of this period, a new type of blade began to appear - wide, evenly tapering and with a sharp tip. It has a pronounced groove running through about four-fifths of the blade's length. The tapering of the blade towards the end meant that the blade was not as heavy at the point and that the center of gravity of the striking sword was closer to the hand, making the sword more comfortable to handle than earlier designs for both cutting and stabbing.

Although a vast number of illustrations of swords from this period show straight blades, curved long and thin blades are already found in the mural "The Martyrdom of St. Thomas", dating from about 1200, in the church of St. Mary, Egara, Spain, in an early 11th century Spanish Bible in the Vatican library and in the Salzburg manuscript "Antiphonar" of the late 12th century (Salzburg, St. Peter's Abbey).

The scabbard also changed significantly during this time. The most common forms of hilt pommel were "Brazil walnut" and "quilted teapot case". We have already dealt with these forms in the chapter on the Saxons. An intermediate form between the two mentioned was also used. These pommel no longer had a dividing strip, as was the case on later Saxon swords. The disk pommel, first mentioned in Ælfric's Retelling of the Pentateuch, was rare in the 11th century, but became more common in the next century, and largely replaced other varieties in the 13th century. For example, a sword from Fornham, presumably made before 1173, had a simple pommel in the form of a disc. Other disc-shaped finials can be seen in illustrations in the Psalter of Saint Swithun before 1161 (British Museum). The Bible of St. Etienne Harding, completed before 1109, shows a trefoil pommel, a type particularly popular in the 13th century (Dijon, Public Library).

The cross was longer than on Viking swords. Usually it was square in cross section and straight, but sometimes its ends were tapered. A few later Viking hilts had this type of sword cross, but these were quite rare. An excellent illustration from the first quarter of the 11th century shows one new type of handle, with brazil nut pommels and long, straight crosses of a sword, found in the Sacramentary of the Bamberg Cathedral (Munich State Library). The Vienna sword of Saint Maurice has a massive brazil nut pommel and a long straight cross. Although straight crosses remain the most common type, in the 12th century their ends sometimes turn sharply towards the blade, as can be seen in a mid-century illustration in the Lambeth Bible (Lambeth Palace); and sometimes the cross is slowly bent towards the blade, as in the Munich Psalter of the late 12th century (Munich State Library). A cross with strongly bent ends is shown in an illustration in the York Psalter (c. 1170–1175) in the Hunterian Museum, Glasgow. On the surviving sword of the 12th century, with the second type of blade and pommel in the form of a “quilted teapot case”, the ends of the crosspiece are sharply turned towards the blade and are decorated with carvings depicting small animal heads.

Since most of the surviving swords of that time were found in the ground or raised from the bottom of the rivers, their hilts were almost not preserved. The depictions of hilts from this period in art are not always clear enough to tell us the style of wrapping, but they consistently show that the hilt was wrapped straight towards the pommel. In the "Commentary on the Psalms" (early 12th century) of Saint Scholasticus of Subiaco in Italy, a hilt is depicted, apparently wrapped with intersecting straps or ribbons, which created a kind of lattice on the surface of the hilt; apparently, thanks to this, it was easier to hold the sword in a sweaty hand. Such a hilt is depicted in the 12th-century Etymology manuscript of Isodorus (St John's College, Cambridge) and in the image of St. Theodore on the facade of the cathedral at Chartres (ca. 1225-1230). This hilt can also be found on surviving swords from a later period (Fig. 10).

The only scabbard of this time that has survived to this day is on the second sword of St. Mauritius in the Royal Arsenal in Turin. This scabbard is made of thin wood covered with brocade. At their top is an openwork metal protection, consisting of a U-shaped strip protecting the edge with the upper ends connected with a chevron-shaped strip. The sword in the depiction of King Henry II of England (d. 1189) at the Abbey of Fontevraud in Anjou has a simple high U-shaped scabbard-top guard. On the sword of St. Maurice in Turin, the open part of the scabbard does not have a metal frame, but near its upper end there are remains of a belt and a hole with which the belt was tied to the scabbard. The part of the belt closest to the upper end of the scabbard ran along the front of the body of the wearer. The other part of the belt was attached to the scabbard below, it ran along the back, shoulder and connected to the first one on the chest. Since the straps were attached to the scabbard at different heights, the scabbard hung diagonally and their top moved back, where the sheath less interfered with the owner of the sword. The upper part of the belt was tightly tied to the scabbard, and with the help of laces - to the lower part of the belt, so that both parts held firmly on the body.

Although the Bayeux tapestry shows sword belts with buckles, a large number of illustrations show the ends of the belts tied together, as, for example, in the figures of guards of the tomb on capitals (c. 1140–1150) in the parish of Saint-Nectaire, Puy-de-Dome . A belt of this type has been preserved in the Bamberg Cathedral. One end of the belt has two parallel longitudinal slots near the end, the other end is cut into two long narrow strips. Each of the strips passes through the corresponding slot, after which the strips are tied in front. Quite often, presumably so that it would not be cut off, a sword belt was worn under chain mail. The hilt of the sword was shown through a gap in the thigh part of the chain mail, while the lower end of the scabbard was under the chain mail. This can be seen, for example, in the Bayeux Tapestry, in the Psalter of Saint Swithun (illustrated before 1161) and the Winchester Bible (1160-1170).

The advent of Christianity seems to have stripped the sword of some of its magic, but it has given it its own religious significance. As before, oaths were taken on the hilt of the sword, their holiness, perhaps, was enhanced by the symbolism of the cross, which resembled a Christian cross. Apparently, sometimes relics were hidden in the top of the handle to give its owner divine protection, like Joyeuse Charlemagne. The inscriptions on the blade probably served the same purpose. Although the sword was worn by warriors in all types of troops, it was considered especially characteristic of the cavalry. It was placed on the altar during the vigil before the knighting, the blade was applied to the shoulder of the knight during the ceremony of initiation, the sword hung from the tomb when the knight died. In The Song of Roland, the dying hero desperately tries to break Durendal's blade against a stone in order to prevent any unworthy person from using this sword after the death of its master. If any knight threw a shadow on the order of chivalry, his sword was broken in front of him by a servant.

The sword was also a symbol of justice. It was carried with the sharp end up, in a scabbard wrapped in a belt, during ceremonies at the appearance of a king or a noble lord. The scabbard of the sword of St. Maurice of Vienna is covered with gold plates, decorated with figures that hold the sword in this way. In early times, kings sitting on a throne were especially often depicted with a sword in a sheath on their knees. In other times, the sword was carried by a servant of the court, a marshal or constable, who, in the case of a king or emperor, was one of the most noble nobles. The coat of arms of the Hereditary Marshal of the Holy Roman Emperor featured crossed swords, while the coat of arms of the Hereditary High Constable (Constable) of Scotland included a hand holding a sword.

The Bayeux Tapestry shows Duke Wilhelm and his half-brother Odo with clubs, which may have been a symbol of the commander's baton. The lightly armed English troops had clubs with square heads, one of which is depicted flying through the air. Weiss mentions a weapon called gibet, which also had the shape of a club. The clubs shown in the illustrations of the 12th century manuscript had heads of various shapes, which often had numerous long sharp spikes ().

Weiss wrote that the troops carried axes and gisarmes. The latter appears to have been an ax with a very large sickle-shaped blade. The butt was fixed on the ax handle. Such an ax is depicted in the only surviving manuscript of "Sir Gawain and the Green Knight" and is referred to in it as an ax and giserne. This connection of the back of the butt to the ax handle—either by using a hole in the ax at that point or by wrapping it through a lip on the butt around the ax handle—eliminates undue stress in the ax below the ax butt when the blow is struck. Another method was used - the butt of the ax was made in such a way that instead of the usual hole there was an additional pipe that was mounted on the ax a few centimeters below the butt itself. Such axes can be seen in late 12th-century illustrations in the Bestiary in the Bodleian Library, Oxford, and in the Trinity College Apocalypse, Cambridge. Around 1190 Normans are described in the Chronicle of the Dukes of Normandy as carrying Haches danesches, Viking axes, as they came to be known in the Middle Ages. Sickle-bladed axes of Norwegian origin are found, for example, in the Bible of St. Etienne Harding before 1109, in the Pembroke Gospels of the early 12th century, and in the Trinity College Apocalypse. The image at Malvern Abbey mentioned above shows a man with a small, pike-like war hammer, and many 13th-century manuscripts show small, tomahawk-like axes with a sharp spike on the opposite side of the butt.

Many peasants and residents of small towns who went on the First Crusade with Peter of Amiens usually did not have their own weapons, they did not have the means to acquire them. Apparently, these people took with them everything that could be used as a weapon. Manuscripts from the middle of the 12th century, like those from the school of Matthew of Paris, show infantry armed with pitchforks, flails, large wooden hammers for breaking clods in the field, and blades of cleavers and scythes attached to long shafts. No doubt the hunters took their spears and the woodcutters and carpenters their axes. These simple types of weapons were the ancestors of entire families of weapons used by the infantry of a later time. In the 16th century, weapons with a lot of decorations were made for the guard only for ceremonies.

The Pembroke College Gospels of the early 12th century show a straight, parallel-sided blade - apparently with one sharpened side - and with a narrow, finger-like tip. The blade is mounted on a shaft about 1 m long. Similar weapons can be seen in the Codex Calixtine. This weapon appears to be the occasional reference in English and French documents dating back to the 12th century as fauchard, a word believed to be derived from the French faus, meaning scythe. A 12th-century Spanish Bible from Amiens shows a man armed with a pruning knife on a long shaft.

Those of the northern crusaders who sailed to the Mediterranean used ships with overlapped boards that could move in both directions. These ships were the descendants of the long Viking ships, but now the ships were usually driven by the wind and only in some cases were equipped with oars. Count Harold's ship is depicted in the Bayeux tapestry leaving the harbor at oars. This (or another English ship) is set in motion by rowers when the ship is preparing to drop anchor. The row of holes in the top row of the plating of many of the vessels in the tapestry may represent oar ports, as were the ships from Gokstad. I.G.G. Archibald has recently suggested that the gap in the middle of the English ships at gunwale level, which can be seen on the tapestry, and the absence of ports for oars here, indicate the presence of a deck in this place, which may have been used as a fighting platform. Although later illustrations of ships with oars are rare in the Nordic countries, it is known, for example, that King Henry II of England kept a galley, called the esnessa (snake), in Southampton, presumably for crossing the English Channel. The crew of this galley consisted of 60 people, three times more than the crew of a conventional merchant ship. This ship, apparently, was propelled by oars. There is a reference from 1295 to a ship from London that had 70 pairs of oars. Round oar ports can be seen on two ships in the mid-13th century Life of Saint Thomas of Canterbury (now in a private collection in Belgium). In this case, the ports are exactly the same shape as the ports on the ship from Gokstad, with slots on the sides that allowed the blades of the oars to pass through the ports. The illustrated Holkham Bible from the early 14th century, now in the British Museum, shows a ship very similar in shape to Viking longships. The ship has a lion's head carved on the top of the stem and stern, has a stern rudder, and is still long oars in round ports in the upper plating belt. The smaller ship in the manuscript has oarlocks made of two pegs protruding forward from a block mounted on the gunwale.

13th-century seals from the ports of Winchelsea and Sandwich show ships of this type with almost the same bow and stern, but without oars, and with a small turret or wheelhouse standing on arches created within the hull at each end. Both of these seals show what appear to be the ends of deck beams running through planks on the sides of the ship. Two groups of three shrouds holding the mast in front and behind are shown in the 12th century Dialogues of St. Gregory from Mosan (Brussels, Royal Library). The shrouds are attached to the upper cladding chord on the outer side. There are no vyblenok (rope braces on shrouds that serve as steps), they do not occur until the 14th century, as on a seal from San Sebastian (Spain) in 1335. In the Dialogues, ropes, known as sheets, can also be seen tied to the lower corners of the sail and attached to a horizontal cross strut mounted between two vertical posts directly in front of the helmsman. Perhaps this is some kind of windlass. Also attached to this strip is a halyard with which the sail is raised and lowered. The halyard has no braces, but the sail of this apparently small vessel can perhaps be steered by sheets alone.

An early seal from La La Rochelle shows several rows of reef-taking points on the underside of a square sail. They were used to turn the lower end of the canvas into a bundle and thereby reduce the area of ​​the sail that is affected by the wind. This is shown very clearly in an astrological manuscript from the second quarter of the 14th century in the British Museum, which actually shows how the reefs are taken. A seal from Sandwich shows the so-called "crow's nest" at the top of the mast, which serves both as a lookout post and as a place from which to throw arrows onto the deck of an enemy ship.

The seal of the port of Dover from 1284 shows a ship with deckhouses supported by two arches and standing on the stem and sternpost, making the deckhouses an integral part of the ship, and not something just attached to it. As time went on, the tank was made smaller than the sternpost, and it was given a triangular shape to match the shape of the bow of the ship. The seal from Dover also shows a bowsprit passing through the forecastle. This is a spar tree that slopes forward upwards from the bow of the ship; it was fastened with bowlini, which kept the ends of the sail stretched forward when the ship sailed at an acute angle to the wind.

In smaller ships without deckhouses, the sternpost was sometimes split at the top to form a stanchion or fork called a mike, as shown in the Dialogues of St. Gregory mentioned above. This fork may have acted as a support for the spar and mast when they were not in place. In the Canterbury Psalter of the late 12th century, a coil of rope (rope) is shown hanging from one side of a fork (Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale).

The manuscript La Estoire de Seint Aedward le Rei (circa 1250) shows a small sailing ship with a fork at the stern; long oars are folded on this fork, and an anchor hangs from it. The head of the monster on the stem supports the bowsprit. The entire forward part of this ship has a bulwark mounted above the upper strake and supported by braces where the ship tapers towards the bow (Cambridge, University Library).

The steering oar, as on previous Viking vessels, still has a tiller mounted at right angles to the top to give it greater mobility. Judging by an illustration from the 12th century Life of Saint Cuthbert from Oxford (Bodleian Library), the lower part of the oar was sometimes upholstered in metal. An early 13th-century drawing scrawled on the wall of the Fide church in Gotland shows the earliest depiction of a real rudder descending from the port at the stern. The same is shown on the seal of the city of Elbing (1242), while in 1252 Damm's port books make a distinction between ships "with a rudder on the side" and "with a rudder on the stern". Holkham's Illustrated Bible shows a tiller mounted on the top of the rudder and detachable when required to pass to the right or left side of the sternpost. The need to hang the stern rudder on two or three loops may have led to the appearance of a straight stern instead of a curved one. The planks on the sides are still curved to connect with the sternpost - like on Viking ships; ending in a square stern, apparently, appeared no earlier than the 15th century. The advantage of the stern rudder is that, as with the steering oar, it does not need to be removed from the water when the ship lists.

The drawing of the ship in the manuscript of the poem "Aeneid" from the beginning of the 13th century for the first time shows the loading door in the side of the hull. The seal from Sandwich shows the ship's boat, which is located on the deck in the middle of the ship.

The ships hired from the Mediterranean ports by the Crusaders to take them to the Holy Land belong to a completely different shipbuilding tradition than that which existed in the North. Liber ad honorem augusti (late 12th century) shows ships similar to those painted on Greek vases (). Apparently having a straight sail, they also have one row of oars and handrails running along one side. The high nose curves back and looks like a fish tail. The ship also has a long ram protruding from the bow directly above the water level. The curved stern line continues upward with two tall, tapering beams, one on each side, curving forward over a small aft cabin. The purpose of these two beams is unknown, but it is speculated that they were meant to support the yards as they were lowered, as they were often longer than the ship itself. Other ships in this manuscript did not have sails, but they did have a second row of oars emerging from a row of ports below the gunwale on which another row of oars rests. These oared galleys almost always carry two or three large flags on a short pole. Both types of ship, which is typical for all ships of the Mediterranean, have a steering oar on each side of the stern, which guarantees that at the largest heel of the keel one of the steering oars touches the water. The southern ships were built "smoothly sheathed"; this means that the hull boards were butted edge-to-edge to give a smooth outer surface, rather than overlapping as on northern ships.

The triangular sail, suspended from a yardarm at the front and back of the ship, was called the latin sail and was typical of Mediterranean ships. This sail can be seen on early mosaics in St. Mark's Cathedral, Venice. It seems to have developed over a very long time from a square sail by gradually turning one of the ends of the latter forward and down. The other end of the yard eventually rose high above the mast. Over time, the square sail was modified into a triangular sail to accommodate this setting. Since the forestay usually interfered with the handling of this type of sail, it was freed from it and the mast was tilted forward. The fact that the shrouds went behind the masts and thus pulled them back made the stern stays unnecessary. Latin Sail Hoisted from a point which was substantially higher than where the shrouds joined the mast and when the sail was set it was without shrouds on the lee side. The shrouds could be loosened with blocks when the voyage was made on different tacks. Mosaics in St. Mark's show ships already with two masts; and in 1191, the English king Richard I the Lionheart, on his way to the Holy Land, met a ship with three masts.

The specification for a ship built for the Crusade of Louis IX in 1268 has survived. The ship ordered in Venice had a keel length of 17.7 m, between the stern and bow was 26 m. The ship had a width of 6.5 m, and from the keel to the bulwark in the middle of the ship it was 6.7 m. 8.8 m above the keel. The ship was supposed to have, in addition to the main deck, another half of the deck, which began above the middle of the main deck and went to the bow. Two or three additional decks at the stern were placed for the arrangement of cabins on them. On the other hand, ships built in Genoa had to be smaller, only 23 m long. For them, among other things, specifications for masts and yards have been preserved. The foremast was to be 23.3 m and the aft mast 18.4 m. The yards were to be 29.3 m and 25.6 m respectively; yards were made of two beams. In this case, the main yard was 6.4 m longer than the hull.

The mosaic in St. Mark's shows a ship with a stern, on which there is a stern cabin, built according to the type characteristic of the time of Louis IX. The ships clearly have an above-deck cabin, but no tanks. A small tank is shown on the tomb of St. Peter the Great Martyr in Milan, XIV century. This carving also shows the ends of two rows of deck beams protruding through the planks on the sides, a relatively high aft deckhouse, perhaps two decks above the main deckhouse, and - for the first time - a hawse for an anchor cable, it was fastened to the arm of the anchor, which hung in this way, that its spindle was parallel to the bulwark. The rope ladder at the top of the mast looks like there is a gate for pulling the cables. The bottom of the steering oar is also supported by ropes and gates.

Notes:

The smallest title of nobility, below a baronet. - Per.

The so-called river - Per.

Solidus - a 4.55 gram (1/72 Roman pound) gold Roman coin issued by Emperor Constantine in 309; the solidus was borrowed from Rome by the Germanic peoples and became the main monetary unit of the early Middle Ages in Western Europe. - Ed.

more precisely, the leader; The first king of the Franks was Childeric's son and Merovee's grandson Clovis. - Ed.

Davidson H.R.E. The Sword in Anglo-Saxon England. Oxford, 1962, pp. 105–109.

In the first centuries of our era, in the same place, in the lower reaches of the Elbe, the Lombards also lived - on the left bank, and the Varins on the right bank. - Ed.

Even more from the battles with the Byzantines that the Normans had been fighting for more than twenty years before. And the Normans themselves are not born with a bast. - Ed.

Dehaisnes S.S. Documents et extraits divers concernant l "histoire de Part dans la Flandre. Lille, 1836. P. 11.

Typical armchair scientist's thoughts about the times when war was a way of life. - Ed.

"The Acts of Frederick I". - Per.

Flavius ​​Josephus, 37 - after 100, former commander of the Jewish rebels in Galilee, surrendered to the Romans and went over to their side, for treason he was brought near by the emperor Vespasian Flavius, thus received the addition of Flavius ​​\u200b\u200bto the name, became a historian, describing the Jewish war of 66–73 from pro-Roman positions (with an element of sympathy for fellow tribesmen). - Ed.

They have always existed - among the Turks, before that among the Slavs, Iranians (Sarmatians, Scythians, Persians, Medes, etc.), and before them - among the Cimmerians (VII century BC). - Ed.

"The Romance of Roux (Rollon)". - Per.(lat.). Per. Izbornik. Worldwide lit. T. 15. S. 353.) - Ed.

gay. Op. cit. P. 59.

Headstay - tackle that holds the sail in a vertical position, the forehead is attached to the foremast. - Per.

The ship's course relative to the wind. - Per.

Viewed: 2 745

The battles that marked the period of the Crusades were extremely bloody and more than brutal. The problem of cruelty was aggravated by the practical absence of medicine, as well as the lack of sanitation methods, as well as undeveloped tactics. When it comes to the Middle Ages, it means knights and crusades...

The weapons used in the battles of the Crusades were almost as infernal as any military tool that was then available.

Think about it - it is not surprising that the expression " get into the middle ages» still strikes some people with fear.

The warriors of the crusades, for 200 years - from the end of 1000 to the middle of 1200 - were a mixed composition of peasants, mercenary soldiers and knights, and their combinations of weapons reflected the ways in which each could master his own weapons.

Peasants often had simple weapons - mostly tools used in agriculture (usually axes and clubs, as well as some derivatives based on them) - because they could not afford such a luxury as a sword. Knights had more expensive swords as well as armor, while other knights used bows and arrows and spears.

So what were the deadliest weapons found during the Crusades during the Middle Ages?

1. Mace or club

A mace is a type of club with a ball-shaped formation at its top. When it comes to length, it fluctuates between two or three feet (60 to 91 cm). The handle was made of wood, while the spherical pommel was usually made of iron.

The pommel could be smooth and round, or have flanges. Although the mace was an infantry weapon, it was used by some of the cavalry. However, the mace of the cavalryman had a slightly longer handle, such that the rider could reach his enemy.

The purpose of using the mace was to crush the bone of the enemy with a strong blow from the heavy mace. A single blow from a mace could easily shatter the base of a person's skull. Many maces also had flanges to inflict additional damage when hitting the shoulders or body.

While the pommel of the mace shattered the bone, the flanged mace could be used to penetrate flimsy armour, crushing the bones underneath and causing the victim to bleed profusely.

2. Dart (or spade)

Darts and pikes may be simple in design, but they have proven to be effective close combat weapons for thousands of years.

The length of the dart is from six feet (1800 mm), while the length of the pike was somewhat longer - up to 9 feet (up to 2430 mm). The purpose of using the javelin in combat was to keep the enemy at bay by piercing them, or if the infantryman in question had extra javelins or a free arm with a shield, he could throw it at the enemy.

Throwing spears were used not only against infantry, but also against cavalry units - and very effectively.

The purpose of using lances for cavalry and infantry is to pierce, not tickle. A good pike in the hands of a trained person could pierce flesh and shatter bone, killing with one blow.

3. Arrows for a bow

An arrow fired from a bow provided an unpleasant blow to the enemy. Arrows used against cavalry were made with arrowheads to penetrate armor, while arrows used against poorly protected infantry were serrated to make removing them from the body the most difficult task.

The people who fought at the Battle of Dorylaeum in 1097 during the First Crusade learned of this when they fought the Seljuk Turks, who fired volley after volley of arrows, in their confrontation.

Although the Crusaders won the battle, the victory came at a heavy price and they learned a valuable lesson about enemy tactics.

The purpose of using archery arrows is to hit the enemy from afar. However, many crusaders will soon learn to place mail as additional protection under their main armour. In this case, the arrows, as most historians say, did not pass through the chain mail and did not harm the warrior.

Although killing is the main goal, many forget that maiming in those days was quite enough to defeat the enemy. However, if the archer could not kill or maim his enemy, he could be a significant nuisance, and could also simply mock the opponent by firing his arrows at him.

4. Trebuchet - " scales with yoke»

Trebuchet (or " oar with yoke”) is a siege machine, first developed and used in Ancient Rome and preserved in Western armies, which took their continuity from Ancient Rome.

The Trebuchet was used in all of the early European wars, as well as during the First Crusade. Some historians claim that the Trebuchet was developed in China and adopted from there by the Islamic armies, but at present, the validity of this theory is in serious doubt.

The Trebuchet was a catapult of sorts, requiring many men to operate due to its sheer size and weight.

The amount of power required to send projectiles to the appropriate range required each vehicle to have a team of over 100 men pull on a dozen ropes that would generate enough force to send a 130-pound (59 kg) projectile up to 500 feet ( up to 152 meters).

The purpose of the Trebuchet was to weaken and destroy the fortress walls. This machine could not only fire stone projectiles, but also incendiary ones. While stone was meant to crush and destroy walls, incendiary projectiles were thrown over castle walls or city walls to set buildings on fire.

Of course, if one wanted to inflict special suffering on the defenders, one could start a plague, for this they simply loaded the bodies of plague victims and sent them through the walls, as the Mongols did at Caffa in 1347.

5. Battle ax

The medieval battle ax was used to great effect during the Crusades. What made the battleaxe a favorite among some Crusader era fighters was that, being close to the size of a sword, the battleaxe was cheap to use and required limited skill - much like the use of a mace.

The battle ax was either light, when it could be used with one hand, or two-handed. The length of the battle ax blade was approximately 10 inches (24.5 cm) from the top and bottom points. In addition, battle axes, in the Middle Ages, evolved into battle axes. Where two axes were located on one handle.

This made the battle ax so destructive that not only could it crush the bones of a man in armor, but it could also be wielded with one hand. In addition to cutting off enemy limbs, it has also been used by physicians to amputate patients (albeit with no guarantee of success).

6. Sword

Of all the variety of weapons, for causing significant damage to the human body during the Middle Ages, the sword was considered the most prestigious. At that time, many men could not afford a knight's sword, first of all, it was used by the noble and rich.

For example, the most famous sword is Excalibur - the sword of King Arthur. Viking swords are also famous, such as the Ulfberht. Of course, over time, many more men appeared, especially those who were equipped with swords; however, over time, the sword was also considered to be the royal weapon.

However, the problem with swords during this period was the number of different designs. The average crusader sword (or European sword) for a long period was 30 inches (76 cm) long and about 2 inches (5 cm) wide at the hilt.

What made the sword so popular was that it was a symbol of power. While his design suggests power and great significance, the judgment he could inflict on an enemy was the most devastating.

The sword was designed to do three different things, smash, penetrate and slice. Of course, it depended on the blade of the sword. In any case, the three functions of the sword gave it a greater advantage over other weapons of the time.

If he could not crush his enemy with a single blow (knocking him down or breaking his arm or leg), they could try to cripple the enemy where there was no armor. If this failed, they knocked him down, and also beat him in vulnerable places of the body, such as: armpits, groin and knee joint.

Although the sword probably killed the least during the Crusades, it had the greatest impact as it was a symbol of conquest.

7. Knight's spear

I take my hat off to whoever can withstand a knight's spear. Yes, all of the listed weapons can kill if used correctly, but of all the weapons mentioned, they either crush, or chop, or cut, or pierce. In many cases, the victim survives or dies shortly thereafter, within a few days.

The name of the word " a spear" comes from the word lancea - " dart» Roman auxiliary or throwing percussion weapons. Although according to the Oxford English Dictionary (OED), the word " a spear may be of Iberian origin. Also the entomology of the word λόγχη (lónkhē or " a spear”), has Greek roots for the terms “ dart" or " a spear».

The spear in the original sense was a light throwing weapon, or javelin. English verb for actuation: " toss, toss, toss" comes from the term (Old French) and also from the rarer or poetic lance ‒ " a spear».

The 17th century term means that this weapon is definitely a spear, not as a thrown weapon, but as used as a blow by heavy cavalry, and especially in knightly tournaments. A thrusting spear used by infantry is commonly referred to as " spear».

During the periods of classical and medieval warfare, the spear became the leading weapon in cavalry units, and was unsuitable for throwing or for repeated blows, unlike the similar weapon of the pike family commonly used by infantry.

Spears were often fitted with a plate, a small round plate, to prevent the hand from sliding up the base of the spear during impact. Although the spear was known as a military and sporting weapon used by European knights, it also spread widely in Asia, the Middle East and North Africa, wherever suitable mounts were available.

As a secondary weapon, the lancers of the medieval period also carried swords or maces for hand-to-hand combat, as the spear was often a disposable weapon. Assuming that the spear remained intact after the initial impact, it (unlike the pike) was too long, 9 to 14 feet (2740 mm to 4267 mm), heavy and clumsy to be effective against the enemy in close combat.

On November 27, 1095, Pope Urban II delivers such an incendiary sermon at the Clermont Cathedral that all knightly Europe unites in a single impulse - to win back the Holy Sepulcher from the damned Saracens. Thus began the First Crusade, which, among other things, had a significant impact on the development of weapons and technology of that time. But what the real crusaders preferred to smash the enemy.

roman sword

A spear

battle ax

Morgenstern

Crossbow