The following posts are part of Battle Castle’s interactive fiction game set against the history of the fall of the great city of Constantinople. Do you want to be part of the story and experience the world of siegecraft, castle engineering and medieval warfare in a deeper way? Become an initiate at the Akademia Gnosi and learn from the Masters of Constantinople. Then choose to fight for the city and all it represents or preserve the knowledge protected within. Join us at www.mastersofconstantinople.com.
The first major naval battle of the Middle Ages occurred in 1285 during the Aragonese Crusade.
As both castles and cities constituted fortifications that combined military functions with residential spaces, sieges necessarily involved the noncombatant residents, including women and children.
Since sieges, whether of castles or cities, featured assaults on places that were both military and residential centers, women were inevitably caught up in this type of warfare.
The Black Death, which began to ravage the populations of Europe in the fourteenth century, was an important factor in the invention of the printing press.
Richard the Lionheart, son of King Henry II of England and Eleanor of Aquitaine, was King of England from 1189 until his death in 1199.
The debate over the perfect lifestyle has been a constant thread throughout Western philosophy from its ancient origins. Usually the debate centered on the relative merits of two opposing ideals: the vita activa, or active life, and the vita contemplativa, or the contemplative life.
The siege engines of medieval warfare were adopted and adapted from Roman military practices, which itself included was comprised of the accumulation of innovations dating as far back as the time of the Assyrians, who utilized battering rams in the 23rd century BC/BCE.
A knowledge of the lay of the land was as vital to castle construction defense and siege tactics as architecture and engineering. Military surveys provided essential information that guided every facet of warfare.
The Great Schism of 1054 resulted in the formal division of the Roman Church of the west and the Greek Orthodox Church of the east.
Though formal schooling remained largely unavailable to the vast majority of the population, cultural and economic developments in the European High Middle Ages allowed for significant advancements in education.
