Glass of Burgundy wine
Louis Jadot "Volnay", I will drink slowly to the bottom
It is to my taste.
Ah, aroma, ah, astringency; Colour, Like a blazing ruby
Will reveal the secret of antiquity
From the depths of centuries.
("A glass of Burgundy wine". Prilepskaya Svetlana)
It just so happens in the history of mankind that there are states in it that either appear in its horizon, like a comet, or disappear forever and ever. In ancient times there was such a state of Assyria - "the den of lions". The kings of Assyria not on papyrus, on stone immortalized their victories over their neighbors, the hooves of their horses trampled even the banks of the Nile … And what, how did it all end? Yes, only because all the neighboring peoples were indignant at her, gathered and "slammed" this Assyria, like a "god of a turtle", so that from it only the bas-reliefs of the destroyed palaces, and the clay tablets of the Ashurbanipal library remained. Yes … and a few thousand more Assyrians scattered all over the earth, and the Assyrian Great Dane dog breed!
The Battle of Courtraus in 1302 as imagined by a 15th-century artist Miniature from the Great French Chronicles. (British Library, London) Note that many of the participants in the miniature battle are armed with Lucerne hammers.
In the Middle Ages, fate was just as harsh for many states and, in particular, for the kingdom of Arles, which we began to talk about in our past material. By the Latin name of its capital - Arles, the Burgundian kingdom also became known under the name of Arelat or Arelate state.
Cathedral of St. Trofim in Arles - the coronation site of the kings of Burgundy.
Independence at that time, as well as now, strongly depended on natural and geographical conditions. And in this regard, Arlu was lucky. In the south, its shores were washed by the sea. And the sea is trade. And first of all with Genoa, Venice and Outrimer. There in the south was the port of Marseille - ancient Marsala, convenient for this in all respects. In the north lay mountainous Switzerland, and this is wool and meat. And, finally, the south of France is Arles and Avignon - the places where beautiful vineyards grew, giving the famous Burgundy, without which not a single feast could do at that time. All this gave the local feudal lords a lot of money, which they spent not only on all sorts of whims, but also on the best armor and weapons for that time, which came to Arles both from Italy and from southern Germany, the same Augsburg.
Miniature depicting Germanic knights in helmets with helmet decorations. OK. 1210-1220 Thuringia, Germany (State Library of Berlin)
During the 11th and up to the 12th century inclusive, the basis of Arles' army was a typical feudal military squad, assembled on the basis of a vassalage system and a fief oath. The custom demanded that the vassal of the suzerain fought for him free of charge for 40 days. Or - and this happened, until he ran out of provisions. And so it happened that a certain valiant baron came on call with a ham and a barrel of wine. In three days he ate and drank all this and, with a clear conscience, announced to his lord that he was leaving back to his castle. And he began to coax him, offering … some benefits, money, land, a profitable marriage, in a word, something that might interest him. As in other western parts of the Empire and in Italy, such feudal troops also had to be paid if they were sent outside their own locality.
Today we will again turn to our "good old friends" - the effigies, and we will see how the surviving French effigies, as well as the German ones, and most importantly, the Swiss ones. Because in Switzerland there were not only peasants, but also knights. Here, we have before us the effigy of the French knight Chaurs de Sourchet in the church of Saint-Gemmi in Neuvillette-en-Charn, dating from the XIII century.
And this is another French effigy belonging to the knight Jean de Chateau, buried in the cathedral in Chaumont in 1350.
Close-up of his effigy. And although we say that it has been well preserved, it is precisely “not bad”, not “good”. All the same, they beat off his nose and spoiled his face. Notice how fine the thread is on the pillow under his head. But note that his chain mail hood is clearly resting on his surcoat. Consequently, under him is either a chain mail (hauberk) without a hood, or he has a double hood and, therefore, double head protection. And that's not counting, of course, the helmet.
But the effigy of Robert II d'Artois in the Cathedral of Saint-Denis in Paris can be said to be lucky. Although it is possible that it was restored this way …
And just like in other parts of the Empire, this feudal army fell into decay already in the 12th century, when they began to rely more and more on mercenaries, although a significant part of the army was still a typical feudal militia. Horse crossbowmen, who appeared in the 13th century, were, apparently, the highest paid professionals, not counting, of course, "florists" - people of a despised, creepy, but very necessary military profession. They were engaged in scattering iron spikes on the enemy's path against cavalry and infantry. The first were larger, the second a little smaller. Like a minefield, the places where thorns were scattered were carefully marked (and marked with secret marks), and the battle itself tried to be conducted in such a way as to lure the enemy into them. The hoof of a horse stepping on such a thorn received such injuries, and he himself experienced such terrible pain that he could no longer ride, and usually immediately reared up and threw the rider off himself. The same thing happened with the infantry, since the leather shoes of that time had thin soles and could not protect them from such thorns. In the conditions of the then unsanitary conditions, such wounds almost always led to infection of the affected limbs, and the loss of a war horse for a knight was a real disaster. Therefore, it is not surprising that the florists were not taken prisoner, but executed in the most barbaric way - they were hung on a tree with a rope over the genitals.
And here, finally, the "Germans": Eberhard I von der Mark, 1308, Germany. A feature of this effigy is the breast depictions of his coat of arms.
Archbishop of the city of Mainz, d. in 1340. (Mainz Museum, Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany) This one is all in the coats of arms. His coat of arms is on his helmet, on the surcoat, and on the shield.
And a knight in a "helmet with horns": a drawing of the effigy of Ludwig der Bayer, mind. in 1347. (Mainz Museum, Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany)
Again, it was thanks to the influence of Italy and Byzantium that crossbows began to spread in Arles. The popes banned this weapon as an unworthy use against Christians. However, the sea was close, and there Christian ships were trapped by Arab Muslim pirates. Therefore, crossbows were a vital weapon in the ships of Provence, but at the same time, they were not common among the Swiss until the beginning of the 13th century.
There were effigies in Switzerland too, and they came down to our lives. Effigia Konrad Schaler, d. in 1316, and was the mayor of the city of Basel.
Effigia Othon de Grandson, d. in 1382. Lausanne Cathedral. Attention is drawn to the strange decorations on his shoulders, most of all similar to … down or feather balls, chain mail "mittens" and his coat of arms on the shield depicting the shells of St. Jacob of Compostels.
At the same time, it was the mountain peasants of modern Switzerland who were destined to become one of the most effective and famous foot soldiers of the Middle Ages. True, not in the time under study, but about a hundred years later. And if at the beginning of the XIV century they relied mainly on a halberd on a long shaft, then in the middle or at the end of the XIV century a long peak was added to it, so that mixed units of pikemen and halberdists appeared in their troops.
Where is the best place to experience Swiss crossbows? Well, of course, in the museum in the Castle of Morges, located 16 kilometers from Lausanne, right on the shores of Lake Geneva.
Another effective weapon of the Swiss was the so-called Lucerne hammer - another type of war hammer that appeared in Switzerland at the end of the 14th century and was in service with infantrymen until the 17th century inclusive. This name comes from the Swiss canton of Lucerne. And it was a shaft bound with metal stripes (up to 2 meters long) with an original warhead in the form of a peak about 0.5 m long with a double-sided hammer at the base. On the one hand, the hammer had a tip in the form of a beak (pick), but the second had the form of a toothed hammer (like the crown tip of a tournament spear) to stun the enemy and, if possible, inflict wounds on him through chain mail.
Halberd XIII century The total length is 2 meters. Exhibited in the military museum in the castle Morges.
One of the earliest halberds from the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York dates back to c. 1375-1400 Comes from the city of Freiburg. Length 213, 9 cm, warhead length 45 cm, weight 2409, 7 g. The shaft is oak.
Swiss halberd 1380-1430 Length 194.9 cm, warhead length 31.8 cm, weight 2040g. The shaft is oak. (Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York)
The first halberds were not too pretentious, as we know the halberds of the papal guards and court guards. It was a crude and purely military weapon in the form of a flat ax on a long shaft, which had a process in the form of a point directed forward. The name of this weapon comes from the German Halm, "long pole," meaning the hilt, and Barte, the ax. Many halberds on the opposite side also had a special hook to pull the riders off their horses. Later, he began to forge at the same time with an ax blade and a spear point. Such a weapon was designed just for the fight against riders dressed in chain mail armor, but you had to be able to handle it, and for this to constantly practice, that is, to do military affairs properly.
Pollax was a lightweight version of the halberd and was intended to fight knights dressed in armor. Often they were armed with the city guards, who were on duty at the gates and guarded the lifting lattices. In critical situations, if there was no time to lower such a lattice, they could simply cut the ropes on which it was held, so that it fell down and blocked the road to the city.
Thus, by the middle of the XIV century. Burgundy had just declared itself as a powerful military power and, in alliance with the British, during the Hundred Years War, fought against the kings of France. And this was her main mistake, one hundred years later, which led the state of Arelat to ruin.
References:
1. Nicolle, D. Arms and Armor of the Crusading Era, 1050-1350. UK. L.: Greenhill Books. Vol. 1.
2. Oakeshott, E. The Archeology of Weapons. Arms and Armor from Prehistory to the Age of Chivalry. L.: The Boydell Press, 1999.
3. Edge, D., Paddock, J. M. Arms and armor of the medieval knight. An illustrated history of Weaponry in middle ages. Avenel, New Jersey, 1996 The Swiss at War 1300-1500.
4. Miller, D., Embleton, G. The Swiss at War 1300-1500. London: Osprey (Men-at-Arms No. 94), 1979.
5. Nicolle, D. Italian Medieval Armies 1000-1300. Oxford: Osprey (Men-at-Arms # 376), 2002.
