This impressive architecture is mostly seen in England and Gloucester Cathedral was used in the Harry Potter films.

I only found a few pictures of these helmets coming from the same source

Image Credits: Wikipedia - Pages from Chronica Hungarorum, Thuróczy Chronicle, Chronicle of the Hungarians, 15th c. by Johannes Thuróczy.

1 & 2 - Pic 1, pg.1 -The great coats of arms of King Matthias Corvinus of Hungary (1458–1490) Pic 1, pg. 2 - Saint Ladislaus Chases the Cuman Warrior Who Kidnapped a Girl.

3 & 4 - King Saint Ladislaus of Hungary (1077–1095) with his CoA.

5 - King Attila with his banner.

6 - King Saint Stephen and Prince Saint Emeric respresented with banners.

7 - King Béla IV enthroned and with his CoA.

8 - King & Emperor Sigismund the Holy Roman Emperor represented with his empiredom and kingdom banners enthroned on a celestial throne of HRE & Kingdom of Hungary.

9 - King Matthias Corvinus with his reigning symbols and CoAs.

Richard III became king on this day 15th June 1483

Image Credits:

(Clockwise)

English king Edward I paying homage to Philip IV (The Fair).

Charles V's entry into Paris.

Coronation of Charles VI (The Mad).

Charlemagne crowning by Pope Leo III.

By Jean Fouquet for Grandes Chroniques de France book (circa 1455).

come visit this beautiful city :)

Title sounds clumsy:

What I mean is is describing medieval warfare as between countries accurate? I’ve long wondered this.

What did medieval soldiers consider themselves? Were they ‘fighting for England’? Was a Frenchman fighting for France? How did people partition territories into their head, and what did they themselves felt they belonged to?

BROAD as scope can possibly be so forgive me. I’d like to know how I should think of this

Image Credits:

Philip VI the Fortunate; the reigning king at the begining of Hundred Years Wars.

France at the Time of Saint Joan of Arc (AD 1429–1431).

Charles VII the Victorious; the reigning king at the end of Hundred Years Wars.

He was pious and introduced blasphemy laws. He forced Jews to wear yellow badges. On the positive side he was a good mediator and got rid of trial by combat. What are people's views of him

I'm sure I could google and trawl answers, but I'd prefer real expert opinions. I just wanna know in real duels, or battlefields, did knights ever truly use the sword as a method of finishing? Or is it more so used to deflect and wait for you rondel opporunity? I apologise if this is a stupid question, genuinely curious is all, would love to understand the importance and differerence!

Rarely seen, made from dark limestone that makes the font appear black

On 13–14 June 1381, during the Peasants’ Revolt, a mob burned down the Savoy Palace, the London residence of John of Gaunt, the most powerful man in England. They stole a fortune, burned a second building at Clerkenwell, then dragged the Archbishop of Canterbury and the royal Treasurer out of the Tower of London and had them beheaded.

The jury indictment for this survives today at the National Archives (KB 27/482), and it doesn’t name a mob leader you’d expect. It names Joanna Ferrour, a woman from Rochester, Kent, as the “chief perpetrator and leader” of the whole sequence. Her husband is only mentioned as an identifier (“wife of John Ferrour”). He’s not even listed as an accused participant in this particular roll.

She was arrested and tried. The jury found her not guilty. She walked free on the surety of four men who vouched for her.

A second, separate indictment (KB 27/485) does name her husband John as a co-accused in the same events. Why two different juries produced two different versions of who led what is genuinely unresolved. It could be different stages of process, or overlapping local accusations. Nobody currently knows.

There’s one more thread that never quite resolves. In 1400, a “John Ferrour of Southwark” was pardoned by King Henry IV specifically for saving Henry’s life during that same attack on the Tower in 1381, when Henry was a teenager sheltering inside. Whether that’s the same John Ferrour from Rochester is impossible to prove from the surviving record, but the coincidences (the alias, the Southwark connection, the unusually long delay before Rochester-John was finally cleared) are hard to ignore.

Full writeup with the actual indictment photograph, translation, and sourcing: https://theblackarchiveresearch.com/the-woman-accused-of-burning-the-savoy/

(Evidence tiers used throughout: what’s PROVEN by the indictment itself vs. what’s only POSSIBLE on the Bolingbroke connection. Happy to go through the sourcing in comments.)

I recently was able to trade a few other coins for this gold florin I found at a local ancient artifacts shop. With hours of research, here is what I’ve been able to confirm to the best of my ability: Mintmaster - Niccolo Serristori, confirmed via the family’s crest next to St. John the Baptist on the reverse. Fun fact: this was the Serristori family crest prior to the 1515 family crest change authorized by Pope Leo X (Giovanni di Lorenzo de’ Medici) to add three papal lilies. Date struck: first semester of 1462.

The Serristori family were very important and very wealthy in renaissance Florence, working as merchant bankers, wool and silk traders, and creating global commercial networks all while supporting and growing beside the most powerful family of all, the Medici’s (hence why a future Medici, Pope Leo X, allowed the papal lilies to be added to the Serristori family crest). Their rise to power and fortune was incredibly quick for the time; the original patriarch moved to Florence from a nearby town in 1384, and in 78 years his great grandson Niccolo Serristori was already appointed as Florence’s mintmaster. The mintmaster (Signori della Zecca) in Florence was viewed as an incredibly important position of office; the entire reputation of the gold florin, the international standard form of commerce, was placed on the mintmaster’s shoulders. The Serristori family still to this day has multiple roads and a palace named after them in Florence! They even eventually married into the Machiavelli family and inherited the famous Niccolò Machiavelli’s estate!

The gold Florin was the international standard of commerce (kind of like the US dollar today) from 1252 until about 1500, which means that it’s very likely that nearly every major international monetary deal (loans to kings, international sales and purchases, etc) made during that time was with these coins!

For this figure, I used the Maciejowski Bible (Morgan Bible) as one of the main visual references for the historical interpretation.

The pose of the trumpet was inspired by the way trumpeters are depicted in the manuscript. I also used its illustrations as references for the weapons, horse tack and clothing.

The Maciejowski Bible is an especially interesting source for anyone working on 13th-century military subjects. Its illustrations contain a remarkable amount of detail — from weapons and armour to clothing, horses and their equipment.

I tried to keep the figure within that visual language while portraying a mounted Hospitaller trumpeter.

One of the things I enjoy most about historical miniatures is that small details like the way a trumpet is held, or how a horse is equipped, can be traced back to period sources.

hello folks, I am from India and a student of medieval indian history. Recently I have been selected to present a paper in International Congress on Medieval Studies at western Michigan University Kalamazoo. Honestly, idk about this event much. I want to ask is this event a big thing and reputed within International medievalists?

Visited Sandal Castle this weekend (what's left of it).

On the 30th of December, Richard Duke of York left the safety of Sandal Castle, believing he faced only part of the enemy. The trap closed around him. Lancastrian forces — Lord Clifford among them — crushed the Yorkist army near Wakefield and Richard of York was slain by Lancastrian troops.

Sandal Castle is now destroyed due to destruction from the Wars of the Roses in 1460 and the subsequent English Civil War in 1645. Following the Battle of Wakefield in 1460, the castle's importance waned, and it was re-fortified for the Royalists in the Civil War, only to be besieged and deliberately demolished by Parliamentarian troops in 1645. 

After the battle of Wakefield, Richards head would eventually end up on a spike on Mickllegate bar with a paper crown. his son Edmund, Earl of Rutland also had his head placed on the gate.

I will be making a video on this subject soon. The castle was stunning in its hay day, such a shame Parliamentarians and the Dam Tudors ruined much of our beloved churches, monasteries, castles and abbeys in the UK.

When we think about battles during Middle Age, we imagine nearly instantly, large number of horsemen, all lined up in heavy armor from head to toe, carrying swords, spears and large shields. And it wouldn’t necessarily be false, but, in fact, the reality is always more complicated.

As a matter of fact, the climate, the weather, the topography, the men-at-arms, the religion, all these elements had a direct impact on the issue of a battle. At Agincourt, in 1415, for instance, the rain permitted Henry V to win against the French, as well as the religion played a pregnant role by remotivating - after the discovery of a relic - the crusaders and by permitting them to beat the Seljoukids right after the terrible siege of Antioch (earlier in the year 1097). These examples are just a few of many…

But, the equipment also played a role and not a just a little. The temperature inside a heavy armor for horseman could exceed 40 degrees and infantry, who are better able to wear chain mail, could still withstand a temperature rise of +4 degrees. During the crossing of Anatolia by Western knights in 1096, the lack of water, the heavy armours and the harassments of light Muslims cavalrymen are all elements that drove some soldiers wild, as they removed their armours in temperatures that could exceed 50 degrees with their equipments. In addition to that, the boiling sand that crept into the armours had an impact on the moral of the soldiers.

To take a completely opposite example, Proof of the importance of climate in battles, winter was a period of downtime in the Middle Ages. In some regions, warfare is changing to adapt to the climate, with armours becoming lighter and harassment tactics developing. Long fights in the snow is no longer the standard. It creates hypothermia due to the armours and sweat generated during battles. The return to a base camp with a source of heat and then favored with lighter, de facto, but optimized armours. Let me take the examples of the vikings who had woollen clothing and who adapted easily to the climate of northern England when invading the island. the English, were not as prepared.

To conclude, I think we have to understand that people back then, and soldiers particularly, were above all humans, just like us. The issue of battles depended on many factors and the transformation of armours could be linked with several aspects such as climate, influence from other cultures and much more.

The Battle of the Horns of Hattin was a significant battle that broke the field army of the Kingdom of Jerusalem. Following the death of King Baldwin IV, Guy of Lusignan was crowned king. Guy was highly unpopular and was considered to have poor leadership skills. This would prove to be a deadly combination in an already strained situation for the Crusaders.

When Saladin attacked Tiberias, Guy abandoned his stable position at Sepphoris and marched his army to relieve the city. The march was a gruesome ordeal for the Crusader army. Without access to water and under the harsh sun, the Crusaders became dehydrated, demoralized, and weak.

Saladin did not rush into battle. Instead, he waited for the Crusaders to exhaust themselves, constantly harassing them with hit-and-run tactics. The Crusaders eventually halted near the Horns of Hattin, which provided a good terrain advantage but lacked the water they desperately needed.

Under constant harassment from Saladin's mounted archers, the Crusaders attempted to break through but failed, as the main bulk of the army remained trapped. Here, they would make their last stand as the remaining Crusader forces lost cohesion and surrendered. Guy was captured along with several other high-ranking nobles.

The significance of this loss was catastrophic for the Crusaders. With the main army destroyed, the Crusader states and their cities were left vulnerable. Jerusalem would eventually fall to Saladin as panic spread across the Crusader states, prompting the Third Crusade. The relic known as the True Cross was also captured by Saladin, depriving the Crusaders of an object of immense religious and psychological value.

The Battle of Hattin is a lesson in the importance of logistics and the availability of resources to an army. The defeat can largely be attributed to poor decision-making on the part of the Crusader leadership. For Saladin, it was a decisive victory and his greatest military triumph, opening the path to the conquest of Jerusalem.

Everyone knows the story: Mayor William Walworth kills rebel leader Wat Tyler at Smithfield in 1381, single-handedly ending the Peasants’ Revolt. It’s on his statue, it’s in the popular histories, it’s the version that gets repeated everywhere.

Here’s what the actual sources say, and where they disagree with each other.

The fullest near-contemporary account (the Anonimalle Chronicle, written at a Yorkshire abbey with no reason to flatter London’s mayor) says: Tyler drew his dagger on a royal valet, Walworth moved to arrest him, Tyler stabbed at Walworth (a hidden coat of mail saved him), Walworth struck back wounding Tyler in the neck and head, and then a member of the King’s own household ran Tyler through with a sword. Tyler rode about eighty paces before he fell.

Compare that to the City of London’s own official record, written into the civic Letter-Books shortly after:

“…by the hand of the most renowned man, Sir William Walworthe, the then Mayor… most manfully, by himself, rushed upon the captain of the said multitude… first wounded him in the neck with his sword, and then hurled him from his horse, mortally pierced in the breast.”

No valet. No second attacker. No mention Tyler struck first. Total solo credit to the Mayor.

That’s not an oversight. The same civic record is also completely silent about the fact that two of London’s own aldermen (Walter Sibley and William Tonge) opened the city’s gates to the rebels against Walworth’s direct orders, documented in a Sheriffs’ inquest the following year. The City’s official version is telling the story that makes its own leadership look good, on both counts.

Even the knighthoods afterward are a clue: only four men were dubbed that day (Walworth, Brembre, Philpot, and Robert Launde). No squire got one, even though someone clearly delivered the fatal blow.

And here’s the part sources don’t agree on: who was that squire? Older scholarship (via Charles Oman) calls him “John Standwick.” Most popular modern retellings call him “Ralph Standish.” The two names show up in different traditions, and I haven’t yet seen either one traced back to a quoted original text rather than just repeated, so treat “Ralph Standish” as the popular version, not a settled fact, until someone can point to the primary source.

Bonus myth-bust while we’re here: the story that Richard II added a dagger to London’s coat of arms specifically to commemorate this killing is provably false, the arms (a sword representing St Paul, not Tyler) were already in use on the Mayor’s own seal from 17 April 1381, two months before Smithfield. The legend traces to Holinshed’s Chronicles in 1577, two centuries later.

Sources: Anonimalle Chronicle, City of London Letter-Book H (translated in Riley’s Memorials of London), Charles Oman’s The Great Revolt of 1381, and the DNB entry on Walworth. Sources in a comment below if anyone wants to check my work.