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.
As outnumbered as Constantinople’s defenders were by their Ottoman attackers at the siege of 1453, the city’s fall was not a foregone conclusion at the conflict’s outset. Even though the city possessed only a fraction of its former wealth and influence, its natural and man-made defences were still among the most formidable of the fifteenth century.
The medieval family bore very little resemblance to the modern nuclear family familiar to most westerners. Medieval society borrowed the word "family" and its meaning from classical antiquity. As such, the medieval family was much larger and more dynamic than the modern family.
While medieval warfare was dominated by the sustained siege of a fortified castle or city, armies also regularly met in direct combat on the battlefield.
The tenth to twelfth centuries saw almost continual, rapid innovation in the design and construction of fortifications in medieval Europe.
The foundation of Islam by the prophet Mohammed in the seventh century helped to unite the disparate Arabian tribes torn apart by petty infighting and struggles for power.
While it’s undeniably true that women had fewer opportunities than men and had more limits placed on their agency, women were nonetheless able to exert a considerable degree of influence on the domestic sphere- the household.
Medieval warriors in their own words.
Medieval diplomats, ambassadors and envoys attempted to avoid open conflict with their words. And though envoys were instructed to be polite and gracious while conducting business for the powers they represented, communications could on occasion break down.
Castles and fortified cities combined military and residential functions. When a besieging army breached a settlement’s defenses, combatants and civilians alike suffered the enemy’s wrath.
The Mamluk Sultan Baybars seized power in 1260 and united Egypt and Syria, a move that threatened the position of the remaining Western Christian political authority in the east.
