28
tl; dr
At least some of the archers who fought at the Battle of Agincourt almost were almost certainly suffering from dysentery contracted at Harfleur. However, most of the worst affected had been shipped home to England before Henry left Harfleur for Calais.
Is there any evidence in the chronicles of the time that some or most of the English & ...
11
Short answer
Although we don't have much detail on how this large animal was handled beyond "muzzled and chained" and "collar and a ‘stout cord’", it is likely that the white bear was relatively tame and that its keeper was experienced at handling the animal.
The experience of late 19th century / early 20th century circus keepers was that polar bears were ...
8
To "take the cross" is to take crusader vows and participate in a crusade to the Holy Land. It doesn't seem to have been a punishment exactly. It was intended as a form of penance so the wrongdoers could redeem themselves in the eyes of God (or, more accurately, the eyes of the Church) for their misdeeds.
7
It's a bit of both:
The first attestations of the word mail are in Old French and Anglo-Norman: maille, maile, or male or other variants, which became mailye, maille, maile, male, or meile in Middle English.
The modern usage of terms for mail armour is highly contested in popular and, to a lesser degree, academic culture. Medieval sources referred to ...
6
Question:
What was the place of a catapult in a formation
Short Answer:
Typically they weren't deployed along with infantry. Catapults were siege weapons which would be used against standing fortifications over hours or even days to attrit fortified towns and their defenses. The infantry didn't need to be standing by all that time, just at the end when ...
6
An accessible source for the story of the "White Bear", which is presumed to be a polar bear, is to be found in Thomas Maddox's The history and antiquities of the Exchequer of the kings of England. This also includes the instructions to the Sheriffs of London to build a house at the Tower of London for the King's elephant:
"The Sheriffs of London were ...
5
Until very recently people gave birth in their homes. I was born at home, so was my sister (early sixties). In most European countries many women still give birth in their homes. With proper hygiene, qualified midwives and medical care during the pregnancy, there's nothing wrong with that. In my family birth is given in hospital when complications are ...
4
The Court of Common Pleas
Wikipedia: Court of Common Pleas
This was created to hear "common pleas", that is cases between subject and subject which did not directly involve the king. It was also granted jurisdiction to review and amend the decisions of older courts. It was also known as the 'Common Bench'.
The Court of Common Pleas was headed by a Chief ...
3
Jaroslav Folda of the University of North Carolina described the gonfalons of several military orders as follows:
The Templar battle standard is well known to have been a long narrow vertical rectangle, argent with a chief sable, that is a white standard topped by a broad band of black. This is the famous gonfalon baucent, or the piebald standard. We ...
2
There is almost no evidence of a catapult used in battlefield. They were used in
the sieges. See Greek and Roman artillery in Wikipedia.
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