A Breefe Discourse on Warre

This one will be a short one; I will be discussing infantry close-order tactics of the High Medieval (1000-1300 AD), with emphasis on the relationship with the shield-bearers and the archers (or crossbowmen). There will be some Islamic world sources to compare with the Christian European ones, so buckle up! Las Huelgas Apocalypse , ~1220 "Our people arranged themselves as best as they could to receive their terrible assaults. So that they could hold together more firmly and remain steady they each placed their right knee on the ground and fixed the toes of their right foot in the soil and held the left foot forward with the left knee bent. They held a buckler in front of them in their left hand, or a targe or some other type of shield. In their right hand they held a lance, with the blunt end fixed into the ground, and the sharp end with its iron head pointing forward threateningly towards the attacking enemy.   The king, who was very skilled in warfare, placed a crossbowman betwe

The miles wields the lance and shield in hand, and the sword and dagger girt at the waist. However, his person is not the only place he can keep his arms, for he is a horseman first and foremost, and, therefore, has a saddle. Saddle weapons, particularly hand weapons at the saddle, is not the most common knowledge (I've even seen it argued that it wasn't done!), and it is rarely depicted; however, there are plenty of primary sources that explicitly prove that hand weapons were  carried at the saddle, and across a broad period of time. The focus on this article will be on the saddle weapons of the knight (and man at arms); though light horsemen likewise carried weapons at their saddles as well (especially in the 16th century), for the sake of brevity and my sanity, I will be limiting the scope of said article to the armed cavalryman. Depiction of Louis XII with a sword at his saddle,  Le Voyage de Gênes , ~1510 The Thirteenth Century The earliest source I've seen for saddle

Hello and welcome to my first post! This will be a big one, so get comfortable. Often it is said "We don't know how zweihanders/montantes/spadoni were used in war," but frankly, this is far from the truth. There is plenty of information as to their purpose and role in battle, but there is some piecing together to do. Before I continue, it must be noted zweihander, schlachtschwert, slaugh sword, slaughter sword, montante, spadone, espadon, two handed sword, and sometimes longsword are one and the same. Even though some of these names are more common today, and perhaps more clear, I will use the term "two handed sword," as it is the most common term in period English texts. Matthäus Schwarz in 1521,  Klaidungsbüchlein Why the Two Handed sword? Why a two handed sword and not a halberd or partisan? The two handed sword has a couple of advantages: it's mean, and it's (for the most part) all blade. This naturally lends itself towards being great at area denia