• Fur Affinity Forums are governed by Fur Affinity's Rules and Policies. Links and additional information can be accessed in the Site Information Forum.

Medieval - Pre WW2 History Thread

pilgrimfromoblivion

UOHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!! :sob:
Banned
220px-Juan_de_Miranda_Carreno_002.jpg

This dude's family tree probably goes in a straight line good grief
 

The_biscuits_532

Eternally Confused Feline
There are also historians who argue that both world wars should count as one big 30 years war with times of relative calm in between, like the other 30 years war. So... yeah
Yeah the Hundred Years war was like that. In actuality:
1) The Edwardian War (1337-1353, English Victory)
2) The Caroline War (1369-1389, French Victory)
3) The Lancastrian War (1415-1453, French Victory)

And hell, some have argued that the 18th century was a second Hundred Years war, due to:
1) The Nine Years' War (1688-1697, Treaty of Ryswick)
2) The War of Spanish Succession (1701-1697, Treaties of Utrecht, Rastatt and Baden)
3) The War of Austrian Succession (1742-1748, Prussian-British Victory)
4) Father Le Loutre's War (1749-1755, British Victory)
5) The Second Carnatic War (1749-1754, British Victory)
6) The Seven Years' War (1756-1763, Prussian-British Victory)
7) The Anglo-French War (1778-1783, Including the American Revolution, French Victory)
8) The French Revolutionary Wars (1792-1802, French Victory)
9) The Napoleonic Wars (1803-1815, British-led Coalition Victory)
 

pilgrimfromoblivion

UOHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!! :sob:
Banned
Oh shit Charles II of Spain right? Didn't he have one ball, that was tiny and black like a peppercorn or something?
He only lived till about 35 if I can remember, and once he died they said he only had one shrivelled testicle that was black. He never had any kids, and a bunch of people were actually doing the ruling for him. Once he died, I think that's what started the war of the Spanish Sucession.
 

Rimna

Well-known Monkey
Since I'm a nerd, I would like to share a channel that is dedicated to stringed instruments, some of which fall in the era of Medieval - Pre-WW2:


From what I can tell, he really knows his stuff. Maybe also check out his video on the Baroque guitar:

The guitars were very different back then. I think they were gorgeous, and they sound beautiful.
 

Fallowfox

Are we moomin, or are we dancer?
Some aspects of history people may not know.

-The start of the medieval period saw the decline of 'Manicheanism', a religion that was briefly the main rival to Christianity in Europe and which may have hugely influenced European Christianity. Named after the Jewish Christian Mani, who was from what is now Iran, the religion combined influenced from Zoroastrianism, Christianity and Buddhism- spreading as far west as Britain and as far east as China.
Spread_of_Manicheanism.png

-The Umayyad Caliphate, an Islamic empire, conquered large parts of what is now France beginning in 719.
This means that there were Islamic armies marching into northern France before the generally accepted start of the Viking age- which is something I found surprising.
 

Yakamaru

Woof? Woof
Some aspects of history people may not know.

-The start of the medieval period saw the decline of 'Manicheanism', a religion that was briefly the main rival to Christianity in Europe and which may have hugely influenced European Christianity. Named after the Jewish Christian Mani, who was from what is now Iran, the religion combined influenced from Zoroastrianism, Christianity and Buddhism- spreading as far west as Britain and as far east as China.
Spread_of_Manicheanism.png

-The Umayyad Caliphate, an Islamic empire, conquered large parts of what is now France beginning in 719.
This means that there were Islamic armies marching into northern France before the generally accepted start of the Viking age- which is something I found surprising.
*Deus Vult intensifies*
 

Wodenofthegays

Fascist Dictator
-The Umayyad Caliphate, an Islamic empire, conquered large parts of what is now France beginning in 719.
This means that there were Islamic armies marching into northern France before the generally accepted start of the Viking age- which is something I found surprising.

Not just an Islamic empire, one of the largest, most diverse, and most important empires in history!

The Umayyad and Abbasid Caliphates are unbelievably important to modern history. They didn't just change Arabia, they changed the whole damn world. Add a dash of Sublime Porte on top vis-à-vis the Ottoman Sultans and you've got the basis for a lot of modern popular culture worldwide from law to architecture.

For example, modern music in the Americas and Europe is almost entirely derived from Umayyad, Abbasid, and Ottoman court culture and tools during the medieval and renaissance periods, and the influence this has alone on the modern world is almost unbelievable. They brought so much stuff that would become fundamental to our cultures today.

Purple Haze? That famous sound comes from Jimi Hendrix mastering an old Arabic instrument.
Ever dream of or see somebody walk down the aisle to a harp? They brought that one over too.
Superman's and the Avengers' themes? Just the modern American version of Turkish army music.

Speaking of, Turkish music is where popular music as an idea actually springs from. The Ottomans were marching around Europe doing what you do during the Renaissance when you see eastern Europe or the Balkans are in chaos, and the western and central Europeans absolutely loved the bands that marched with them even if they didn't love the armies.

People in the USA saw and loved marches so much from European composers and a little stint in Tripoli that they made them their whole identity for a good chunk of a century. We were so obsessed with them that we started army bands and university bands and primary school bands and formalized music education as a whole-life-affair. March and the big band and ragtime that came from them were pretty popular music, one might say.

And having a nation full of people that knew and loved instruments kind of resulted in the USA developing these Arabic, Turkish, and other near-east roots and spreading them across the whole world with a US twist.

I think its amazing in a small-world kind of way, and that's literally just one piece of the mountain of Arabic, Turkish, and general near-east influence on Europe.

*Deus Vult intensifies*

Spit it out in English, not Latin, and explain what god wills exactly.

Saying religious extremist shit in public is cringe, especially if its by a coward who's gonna say its a joke.
 

Nexus Cabler

\ ( :v ) /
Before around 1600, a game of chess could be won by capturing all of your opponent’s pieces, leaving just the king, a style of play known as “annihilation”. In the Medieval period, most players considered it nobler to win by checkmate instead, so annihilation became a half-win, for a while until it was no longer practiced.

1633897718226.jpeg
 
Last edited:

Yakamaru

Woof? Woof
Speaking of Medieval history.. This is a pretty good channel for watching Medieval weapons being made using modern tools.


Katanas, claymores, tridents.. This guy makes all kinds of cool stuff from the Middle Ages.

Then there's Tod's Workshop dealing with Medieval weapons and testing them with their modern counterparts.
 

Attaman

"Welcome to FurAffinity Forums, gentlemen."
Since I'm:
1) About to have dinner with family;
2) Mentioned the blog recently as well as the subject matter of WWI in Global History;
and
3) "Terrible people that predate WWII";
all came up at once, have ACOUP's article on Luigi Cadorna (with honorable mention of a couple other "Christ how horrifying" Generals from the same approximate era).
 

KimberVaile

Well-Known Member
Guys, guys. Let's relax. I don't want the thread to tank again.

Anyways. Alot of new subjects to brush up, I'd like to thank everybody for their recent contributions. They've been quiet interesting for me to look into further thus far.
 

KimberVaile

Well-Known Member
A historical debate I often see brought up is the Longbow vs Musket Debate. Being that I am a geek, I always found the debate quite interesting and have some of my own takes on it.

The longbow was generally considered an effective weapon in the middle ages for some time, some of the most famously effective uses of the bow included the Battle of Crecy in 1346 and Agincourt in 1415. Both battles had the English Longbows serving a decisive role in defeating the French army.

The draw weight of the longbows ranged from 90-180 lb. The draw weight of the bow largely depended on the physical prowess of the person behind the bow. Contrary to popular culture portrayals you needed to be in excellent physical shape to use a warbow with any sort of appreciable punch to it. It is known that becoming proficient in the longbow was a years long process. To train somebody to be accurate with a longbow was a years long process. The training was such an issue in fact, that it become law under Henry the 8th required that you practice archery once a week, and that bows be made affordable for common folk. Heck, the game of cricket was even banned because it interfered with archery practice!

Many historians debate why the Musket replaced the Longbow, though it's more accurate to say it simply replaced the crossbow's role by exceeding it. As the arquebus, then later musket, existed alongside the longbow for some time before it was phased out.

Commonly many who are perplexed by why the longbow fell out of favor in favor of the musket will remark that a longbow has at least four times the firing rate of the musket, and bring up that, the longbow was more than capable of matching the crossbow in raw power and range. So, if the musket simply took the role of the crossbow, why did it eventually supplant the Longbow?

A couple of factors. One of the most commonly cited factors, is that the amount of training required to use a musket is much less demanding. A few weeks and you're a fairly decent shot. So, you could essentially field a much larger and competent force in less time. However, muskets were complex pieces of equipment, so for the benefit of a less intensive training time, the up front cost for something as complex as a musket quickly eclipsed the cost of something like a longbow which, was in fact very cheap to make in comparison.

What people often overlook though, is that 1. Longbows were not standardized, the draw weight of a longbow depended on the physical training and conditioning of the person, different people, had different limits on what draw weight was tolerable for them.
Muskets comparably, were standardized, and more importantly, the act of firing your musket was not so physically exhausting. Pulling back a 180 lb war bow repeatedly will tire you out quite quickly, it's hardly a wonder why it took so long to train people to use warbows with such high draw weight.
Standardization was important with muskets, because eventually bayonets were added to the muskets.

It might seem like a minor point, but the addition of bayonets is a huge advantage, your ranged weapon as it were, could also function as a spear. Compare this to a longbow, you'd have to cumbersomely put away your bow and pull out a sword from your sheath. Which, as a weapon, a sword is much less effective than a spear. This is why charges were so common with musket weapons in fact. A musket easily can double as an effective melee weapon in a pinch.

Another important factor here, is that muskets were far more lethal than arrows. Arrows don't penetrate as deeply, it could often require multiple arrows to down somebody, especially if the enemy has a shield or good armor. Even with a high draw weight, you may be given some trouble. A musket, comparatively are much more lethal. A single shot is usually enough to keep somebody down or put them out of the fight. They were essentially mini cannons, after all. They also had an easier time penetrating armor, though, armor was still effective at stopping quite a few shots regardless of the weapon.

It's also worth considering, that being able to preload a shot is something a bow has a harder time of doing, this combined with how much easier it is to stage an ambush in the woods with a musket, make these weapons better for guerrilla attacks. Firing a 180 lb warbow behind cover is not very feasible, but firing a musket behind cover is quite feasible!

Anywho, I rambled about crap that people don't care about for long enough. Thanks for reading if you did!
 
Last edited:

Attaman

"Welcome to FurAffinity Forums, gentlemen."
I think two reasons a lot of people fail to understand why gunpowder surpassed longbows and crossbows are that:
1) The falloff in terms of penetration against armor increases significantly faster with the latter two than the former-most.
2) A comparison between 'maximum' ranges is better looked at in regards to 'effective' ranges.

Also, for clarification: To some degree, muskets (particularly early on) were not 'standardized' in regards to firing. You could get wildly different quality powder, as well as different amounts packed in the weapon (though decent training could at least reduce the latter). Otherwise fairly spot on there.

Back to 1 and 2, though...

Firearms retained decent armor penetration capabilities, depending on model, era, and so-on, from anywhere around 50m to 100m. Larger Tercio firearms prove quite lethal upward of 200m, but those things had stands for a reason and many people may want to discount them (and so I shall for this discussion). Looking at a 50m-100m sweet spot, may sound rather paltry when put in comparison to the English Longbow (in some cases as little as 1/7th the number floated around!)... but the longbow has two things working against it.

First, firing at the same target at 100m the longbow is probably losing about 10% of its energy. Which... okay, yeah. That doesn't sound like a lot. Even without taking into account the relative difference in projectile energy, a 10% loss in your shot's energy while still in the lower bounds of the sweet spot of your optimal range while at the edge of another weapon's effective maximum range seems a no-brainer. Particularly if you just kept relocating your archers to stay outside the effective range of the musketeers. Gradually, slowly, you'll whittle them down. Right?

But there's a second problem associated with weapon penetration. ...On top the third problem of "Drawing a longbow is fucking tiring", but Kimber already touched on that.

Specifically: You know how a musket is probably going to be make a clean, direct strike? As a basic principle of "Projectile shoot straight forward and hit's what's in its path"? Arrows are descending. Which almost always means they're going to be at an angle. Now, if anyone's familiar with the principles of tank (or other armored vehicle design), what is the absolute worst direction from which you can strike armor at? An angle. Direct fire often features less of an angle (significantly so!), but still has a noticeable one in comparison to the likes of crossbows and firearms.

Thus, while the English Longbow had an effective range against unarmored targets upward of 350m, its effectiveness against armored targets was significantly reduced. An effective range that was reduced even further as: Do know what the improvements to metallurgy that allowed for the proliferation of firearms also allowed? Cheap(er), more sophisticated metal armour.

To some degree, crossbows were better suited than longbows to counteract both these factors due to being more directly aimed and having an on-paper greater penetration capacity and requiring less training than a good longbow user. But a big "in practice" hang-up there is that a good crossbow (probably steel, if trying to get in a slugging match with a firearm) is going to still be expensive, and even moreso if you're intending for it to be used in field work versus exclusively for sieges.

And if you're going for an expensive piece of equipment that requires maintenance, has good armor penetration capabilities at a range, and requires comparatively little training... firearms are right there.

Which neatly ties into Point 2, that once you accounted for all the above a firearm had a surprisingly good 'effective' range. Particularly when you take into account the morale shock factor of the deafening sound of an entire line of muskets going off, a line (maybe even two) of people dropping, and that well-trained formations were quite proficient at keeping at loosing one wall of fire after another (indeed: Often times the sheer amount of smoke being produced by such tactics were what forced a slow in the firing).
 

Fallowfox

Are we moomin, or are we dancer?
Another aspect of the medieval world that is often not appreciated is the eastward expansion of Scandinavian influence during the Viking age.
Norse / Varangian migrants, known as the 'Rus', penetrated deep into what's now western Russia's rivers, reaching as far as the Black Sea, Byzantine Empire and what is now Iraq. Trade networks reached so far that Buddhist ornaments from the Indian subcontinent have been found in the central Baltic.

Another aspect of Norse history that is often not very emphasised was the scale of their slave trading. Procurement of slaves in Ireland operated at a scale that was in some ways comparable to the Atlantic slave trade. Slaves taken in Ireland were sold as far east as the Baltic and what is now Russia.
 

Fallowfox

Are we moomin, or are we dancer?
The richest man who ever likely lived was Mansa Musa, emperor of Mali.
Fourteenth century Mali was probably the world's largest producer of gold at the time, supplying most of North Africa and Europe.

Mansa Musa's famous travels and predilection for excessive spending on massive building projects, contributed to the rise of the famous city of Timbuktu.
 

The_biscuits_532

Eternally Confused Feline
The richest man who ever likely lived was Mansa Musa, emperor of Mali.
Fourteenth century Mali was probably the world's largest producer of gold at the time, supplying most of North Africa and Europe.

Mansa Musa's famous travels and predilection for excessive spending on massive building projects, contributed to the rise of the famous city of Timbuktu.
From what I remember, whilst on Hajj he gave away so much money he crashed the economies of Egypt and several other north African nations.
 

Nexus Cabler

\ ( :v ) /
Something interesting I've found was the trans-Saharan slave trade, ranging from the 16th to 19th century. It was a staple to the sustainability and rise of the Ottoman empire. While official figures on the exact number of slaves captured from Africa in the Trans Sahara trade are contested, most scholars put the estimate at about nine million. Unsurprisingly do to inhumane conditions, as well as castration of young male slaves over 50% of those taken from Africa died before arriving. They also acquired slaves from India, Netherlands, Italy, Ireland, and as far as Iceland, due to pirating.

This was not just for labor performing slaves, but also sexual, as women were a huge demand in the Ottaman market during the time.
Thankfully these practices declined around 1970 due to pressures from Britain and America, but it should be noted that slavery was a keystone to the Ottoman empires technological and economic accomplishments, much many other civilizations throughout history.

The takeaway being that ironically the romanticized Ottoman's influence to the worlds cultures that Westerners, as some say, allegedly are oblivious to was primarily possible from the benefits provided by the enslavement of these very Westerners and much of the world themselves.
 
Last edited:

pilgrimfromoblivion

UOHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!! :sob:
Banned
Something interesting I've found was the trans-Saharan slave trade, ranging from the 16th to 19th century. It was a staple to the sustainability and rise of the Ottoman empire. While official figures on the exact number of slaves captured from Africa in the Trans Sahara trade are contested, most scholars put the estimate at about nine million. Unsurprisingly do to inhumane conditions, as well as castration of young male slaves over 50% of those taken from Africa died before arriving.

They also acquired slaves from India, Netherlands, Italy, and as far as Iceland, due to pirating.

However, this stood out due to the preference not for just labor performing slaves, but also sexual.
Thankfully these practices declined around 1970 due to pressures from Britain, but it should be noted that slavery was a keystone to the Ottoman empires technological and economic accomplishments, much like other civilizations throughout history,

The takeaway being that ironically the romanticized Ottomans influence to culture that Westerners allegedly are oblivious to was possible from enslaving Westerners themselves.
this was a nice piece of info. i only ever knew the ottoman empire as the bad guys in battlefield 1.
 
Top