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Battle Of Visby
The Battle of Visby was fought in 1361 near the town of Visby on the island of Gotland, between the forces of the Danish king and the Gutnish country yeomen. The Danish force was victorious. Background On 22July 1361, King Valdemar IV of Denmark (''Valdemar Atterdag'') sent an army ashore on Gotland's west coast. The Gutes of Gotland paid taxes to and was a semi-independent part of Sweden under King Magnus IV of Sweden, though the population of Visby was diverse and included people of Ruthenian descent, Danes, and Germans. In 1280 the city of Visby had joined the Wendish City-alliance along with Riga, Lübeck, Tallinn, and other large population centers from northern Europe, further separating Visby from the Gutnish countryside. Antagonism between the city dwellers and the Gutnish country yeomen heightened; the latter were defeated in battle in 1288, despite the aid of knights from Estonia. Forces The Danish force was led by Valdemar IV of Denmark, and composed of Danish and ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Second Danish-Hanseatic War
The Hanseatic League (; gml, Hanse, , ; german: label= Modern German, Deutsche Hanse) was a medieval commercial and defensive confederation of merchant guilds and market towns in Central and Northern Europe. Growing from a few North German towns in the late 12th century, the League ultimately encompassed nearly 200 settlements across seven modern-day countries; at its height between the 13th and 15th centuries, it stretched from the Netherlands in the west to Russia in the east, and from Estonia in the north to Kraków, Poland in the south. The League originated from various loose associations of German traders and towns formed to advance mutual commercial interests, such as protection against piracy and banditry. These arrangements gradually coalesced into the Hanseatic League, whose traders enjoyed duty-free treatment, protection, and diplomatic privileges in affiliated communities and their trade routes. Hanseatic Cities gradually developed a common legal system governing ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Transitional Armour
{{Unreferenced stub, auto=yes, date=April 2016 Transitional armour describes the armour used in Europe around the 14th century, as body armour moved from simple mail hauberks to full plate armour. The couter was added to the hauberk to better protect the elbows, and splinted armour and the coat of plates provided increased protection for other areas. Armourers in general began experimenting with various forms of rigid defense. They worked in a variety of materials, including wrought iron, latten, leather, cloth and even bone to substitute rigid materials for mail as the knight's harness progressed. Toward the end of the century and into the following one, updates to armour took place at an accelerated rate. The use of multiple materials is the key stylistic element of the period. For instance, a set of transitional style arm defenses could employ steel pauldrons, leather rerebraces, steel elbow cops and leather vambraces. These items would be strapped with leather and might h ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Visby Wall
Visby () is an urban area in Sweden and the seat of Gotland Municipality in Gotland County on the island of Gotland with 24,330 inhabitants . Visby is also the episcopal see for the Diocese of Visby. The Hanseatic city of Visby is arguably the best-preserved medieval city in Scandinavia, and, since 1995, it has been on the UNESCO World Heritage Site list. Among the most notable historical remains are the long town wall that encircles the town center, and a number of church ruins. The decline as a Hanseatic city in the Late Middle Ages was the cause why many stone houses were preserved in their original medieval style. Visby is a popular vacation destination for Scandinavians during the summer and receives thousands of tourists every year. It is by far the most populous Swedish locality outside the Swedish mainland. The Gotland University is in Visby, and, since 1July 2013, it is a department of Uppsala University under the name Uppsala University–Campus Gotland. Visby is ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mace (bludgeon)
A mace is a blunt weapon, a type of club or virge that uses a heavy head on the end of a handle to deliver powerful strikes. A mace typically consists of a strong, heavy, wooden or metal shaft, often reinforced with metal, featuring a head made of stone, bone, copper, bronze, iron, or steel. The head of a military mace can be shaped with flanges or knobs to allow greater penetration of plate armour. The length of maces can vary considerably. The maces of foot soldiers were usually quite short (two or three feet, or sixty to ninety centimetres). The maces of cavalrymen were longer and thus better suited for blows delivered from horseback. Two-handed maces could be even larger. Maces are rarely used today for actual combat, but many government bodies (for instance, the British House of Commons and the U.S. Congress), universities and other institutions have ceremonial maces and continue to display them as symbols of authority. They are often paraded in academic, parliamentary ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
War Hammer
A war hammer (French: ''martel-de-fer'', "iron hammer") is a weapon that was used by both foot soldiers and cavalry. It is a very old weapon and gave its name, owing to its constant use, to Judah Maccabee, a 2nd-century BC Jewish rebel, and to Charles Martel, one of the rulers of France. In the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries the war hammer became an elaborately decorated and handsome weapon. The war hammer was a popular weapon in the late medieval period. It became somewhat of a necessity in combat when armor became so strong that swords and axes were no longer able to pierce and ricocheted upon impact. The war hammer could inflict significant damage on the enemy through their heavy impact, without the need to pierce the armor. Design A war hammer consists of a handle and a head. The length of the handle may vary, the longest being roughly equivalent to that of a halberd (5 to 6 feet or 1.5 to 1.8 meters), and the shortest about the same as that of a mace (2 to 3 feet or 60 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Poleaxe
The poleaxe (also pollaxe, pole-axe, pole axe, poleax, polax) is a European polearm that was widely used by medieval infantry. Etymology Most etymological authorities consider the ''poll''- prefix historically unrelated to "pole", instead meaning "head". However, some etymologists, including Eric Partridge, believe that the word is derived from "pole". Types of poleaxe The poleaxe design arose from the need to breach the plate armour of men at arms during the 14th and 15th centuries. Generally, the form consisted of a wooden haft some long, mounted with a steel head. It seems most schools of combat suggested a haft length comparable to the height of the wielder, but in some cases hafts appear to have been created up to in length. The design of the head varied greatly with a variety of interchangeable parts and rivets. Generally, the head bore an axe blade or hammer head upon the damaging 'face', with a spike, hammer, or fluke on the reverse. In addition, there was a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Pike (weapon)
A pike is a very long thrusting spear formerly used in European warfare from the Late Middle Ages and most of the Early Modern Period, and were wielded by foot soldiers deployed in pike square formation, until it was largely replaced by bayonet-equipped muskets. The pike was particularly well-known as the primary weapon of Swiss mercenary and German Landsknecht units. A similar weapon, the sarissa, had been used in antiquity by Alexander the Great's Macedonian phalanx infantry. Design The pike was a long weapon, varying considerably in size, from long. Generally, a spear becomes a pike when it is too long to be wielded with one hand in combat. It was approximately in weight, with the 16th century military writer Sir John Smythe recommending lighter rather than heavier pikes. It had a wooden shaft with an iron or steel spearhead affixed. The shaft near the head was often reinforced with metal strips called "cheeks" or langets. When the troops of opposing armies bo ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Billhook
A billhook or bill hook, also called a pruning knife or spar hook, is a versatile cutting tool used widely in agriculture and forestry for cutting woody material such as shrubs, small trees and branches. It is distinct from the sickle. It was commonly used in Europe with an important variety of traditional local patterns. Elsewhere, it was also developed locally such as in the Indian subcontinent, or introduced regionally as in the Americas, South Africa and Oceania by European settlers. Design The blade is usually made from a medium-carbon steel in varying weights and lengths, but typically long. Blades are straight near the handle but have an increasingly strong curve towards the end. The blade is generally sharpened only on the inside of the curve, but double-edged billhooks, or "broom hooks", also have a straight secondary edge on the back. The blade is fixed to a wooden handle, in Europe usually made from ash due to its strength and ability to deal with repeated im ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Spear
A spear is a pole weapon consisting of a shaft, usually of wood, with a pointed head. The head may be simply the sharpened end of the shaft itself, as is the case with fire hardened spears, or it may be made of a more durable material fastened to the shaft, such as bone, flint, obsidian, iron, steel, or bronze. The most common design for hunting or combat spears since ancient times has incorporated a metal spearhead shaped like a triangle, lozenge, or leaf. The heads of fishing spears usually feature barbs or serrated edges. The word '' spear'' comes from the Old English '' spere'', from the Proto-Germanic ''speri'', from a Proto-Indo-European root ''*sper-'' "spear, pole". Spears can be divided into two broad categories: those designed for thrusting as a melee weapon and those designed for throwing as a ranged weapon (usually referred to as javelins or darts). The spear has been used throughout human history both as a hunting and fishing tool and as a weapon. Along wi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Heater Shield
The heater shield or heater-shaped shield is a form of European medieval shield, developing from the early medieval kite shield in the late 12th century in response to the declining importance of the shield in combat thanks to improvements in leg armour. The term is a neologism, created by Victorian antiquarians due to the shape's resemblance to a clothes iron. Examples are depicted in the great seal of Richard I and John. Details Smaller than the kite shield, it was more manageable and could be used either mounted or on foot.''Medieval Swordsmanship'', p. 102 From the 15th century, it evolved into highly specialized jousting shields, often containing a ''bouche'', a notch or "mouth" for the lance to pass through. As plate armour began to cover more and more of the body, the shield grew correspondingly smaller. By the mid 14th century it was hardly seen outside of tournaments. Heater shields were typically made from thin wood overlaid with leather. They were often ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Round Shield
A round shield can refer to any type of hand-held shield that has a round shape. They come in highly varying sizes, and have, in different forms, been very popular in Europe, the Asia and the Americas, throughout the Bronze Age, the Classical period, the Post-classical period, and the Early Modern period. During the Bronze Age they were generally large and designed for bashing and shield wall tactics (such as Spartan bronze shields), while since the late post-classical they were mostly designed for parrying and riposte (such as the small buckler, supplanted by the heater shield). Although offering less protection, especially to the legs than the kite shield, the round shield was sometimes used as an offensive weapon. The word "swashbuckler" came from this, as soldiers beat their weapon against the buckler. List of round shields Historical *A buckler is a very small round shield popular in the Late Middle Ages and Renaissance. * Scandinavian seafaring warriors of the early ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Jerkin
A jerkin is a man's short close-fitting jacket, made usually of light-coloured leather, and often without sleeves, worn over the doublet in the 16th and 17th centuries. The term is also applied to a similar sleeveless garment worn by the British Army in the 20th century. A buff jerkin is an oiled oxhide jerkin, as worn by soldiers. The origin of the word is unknown. The Dutch word ''jurk'', a dress, often taken as the source, is modern, and represents neither the sound nor the sense of the English word. Sixteenth and seventeenth centuries Leather jerkins of the 16th century were often slashed and punched, both for decoration and to improve the fit. Jerkins were worn closed at the neck and hanging open over the ''peascod-bellied'' fashion of the doublet. At the turn of the 17th century, the fashion was to wear the jerkin buttoned at the waist and open above to reflect the fashionable narrow-waisted silhouette. By the mid-17th century, jerkins were high-waisted and long-skir ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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