Weapons and Warfare in Renaissance Europe

Weapons and Warfare in Renaissance Europe PDF Author: Bert S. Hall
Publisher: Johns Hopkins University Press
ISBN: 9780801869945
Category : Technology & Engineering
Languages : en
Pages : 0

Get Book

Book Description
Winner of the Wallace K. Ferguson Prize from the Canadian Historical Association Weapons and Warfare in Renaissance Europe explores the history of gunpowder in Europe from the thirteenth century, when it was first imported from China, to the sixteenth century, as firearms became central to the conduct of war. Bridging the fields of military history and the history of technology—and challenging past assumptions about Europe's "gunpowder revolution"—Hall discovers a complex and fascinating story. Military inventors faced a host of challenges, he finds, from Europe's lack of naturally occurring saltpeter—one of gunpowder's major components—to the limitations of smooth-bore firearms. Manufacturing cheap, reliable gunpowder proved a difficult feat, as did making firearms that had reasonably predictable performance characteristics. Hall details the efforts of armorers across Europe as they experimented with a variety of gunpowder recipes and gunsmithing techniques, and he examines the integration of new weapons into the existing structure of European warfare.

Weapons and Warfare in Renaissance Europe

Weapons and Warfare in Renaissance Europe PDF Author: Bert S. Hall
Publisher: Johns Hopkins University Press
ISBN: 9780801869945
Category : Technology & Engineering
Languages : en
Pages : 0

Get Book

Book Description
Winner of the Wallace K. Ferguson Prize from the Canadian Historical Association Weapons and Warfare in Renaissance Europe explores the history of gunpowder in Europe from the thirteenth century, when it was first imported from China, to the sixteenth century, as firearms became central to the conduct of war. Bridging the fields of military history and the history of technology—and challenging past assumptions about Europe's "gunpowder revolution"—Hall discovers a complex and fascinating story. Military inventors faced a host of challenges, he finds, from Europe's lack of naturally occurring saltpeter—one of gunpowder's major components—to the limitations of smooth-bore firearms. Manufacturing cheap, reliable gunpowder proved a difficult feat, as did making firearms that had reasonably predictable performance characteristics. Hall details the efforts of armorers across Europe as they experimented with a variety of gunpowder recipes and gunsmithing techniques, and he examines the integration of new weapons into the existing structure of European warfare.

Weapons and Warfare in Renaissance Europe

Weapons and Warfare in Renaissance Europe PDF Author: Bert S. Hall
Publisher: Baltimore, Md. : Johns Hopkins University Press
ISBN:
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 328

Get Book

Book Description
From the 13th century, when it was first imported from China, to the 16th century, as firearms became central to the conduct of war, Hall chronicles the remarkable history of gunpowder in Europe. In this complex--and fascinating--book, Hall details the efforts of armorers across Europe as they experimented with a variety of gunpowder recipes and gunsmithing techniques. 25 illustrations.

European Weapons and Armour

European Weapons and Armour PDF Author: Ewart Oakeshott
Publisher: Boydell Press
ISBN: 184383720X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 314

Get Book

Book Description
The story of arms in Western Europe from the Renaissance to the Industrial Revolution. A treasury of information based on solid scholarship, anyone seeking a factual and vivid account of the story of arms from the Renaissance period to the Industrial Revolution will welcome this book. The author chooses as his starting-point the invasion of Italy by France in 1494, which sowed the dragon's teeth of all the successive European wars; the French invasion was to accelerate the trend towards new armaments and new methods of warfare. The authordescribes the development of the handgun and the pike, the use and style of staff-weapons, mace and axe and war-hammer, dagger and dirk and bayonet. He shows how armour attained its full Renaissance splendour and then suffered itssorry and inevitable decline, culminating in the Industrial Revolution, with its far-reaching effects on military armaments. Above all, he follows the long history of the sword, queen of weapons, to the late eighteenth century, when it finally ceased to form a part of a gentleman's every-day wear. Lavishly illustrated. EWART OAKESHOTT was one of the world's leading authorities on the arms and armour of medieval Europe. His other works on the subject include Records of the Medieval Sword and The Sword in the Age of Chivalry.

Hafted Weapons in Medieval and Renaissance Europe

Hafted Weapons in Medieval and Renaissance Europe PDF Author: John Waldman
Publisher: BRILL
ISBN: 9047407571
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 251

Get Book

Book Description
This archival source document of the Middle Ages and Renaissance describes the development, manufacture and use of European staff weapons and provides new information using existing objects and archival material. Their effect on the modern map of Europe is discussed.

Mercenaries in Medieval and Renaissance Europe

Mercenaries in Medieval and Renaissance Europe PDF Author: Hunt Janin
Publisher: McFarland
ISBN: 1476612072
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 219

Get Book

Book Description
In medieval and Renaissance Europe, mercenaries--professional soldiers who fought for money or other rewards--played violent, colorful, international roles in warfare, but they have received relatively little scholarly attention. In this book a large number of vignettes portray their activities in Western Europe over a period of nearly 900 years, from the Merovingian mercenaries of 752 through the Thirty Years' War, which ended in 1648. Intended as an introduction to the subject and drawing heavily on contemporary first-person accounts, the book creates a vivid but balanced mosaic of the many thousands of mercenaries who were hired to fight for various employers.

Warfare in Early Modern Europe 1450–1660

Warfare in Early Modern Europe 1450–1660 PDF Author: Paul E.J. Hammer
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1351873768
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 542

Get Book

Book Description
The early modern period saw gunpowder weapons reach maturity and become a central feature of European warfare, on land and at sea. This exciting collection of essays brings together a distinguished and varied selection of modern scholarship on the transformation of war”often described as a ’military revolution’”during the period between 1450 and 1660.

Furies

Furies PDF Author: Lauro Martines
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA
ISBN: 1608196186
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 337

Get Book

Book Description
A forefront Italian Renaissance historian and author of Fire in the City evaluates darker aspects of the Renaissance including the military forces that ravaged Europe and shaped the transition from the Middle Ages to modernity, exploring how massive, mobile armies consumed resources, spread disease and innovated violent new weapons.

Medieval Weapons

Medieval Weapons PDF Author: Robert D. Smith
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA
ISBN: 1851095314
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 348

Get Book

Book Description
This fascinating reference covers the weapons and armor used by warriors from the 4th to the 15th century and discusses how and why they changed over time. In the Middle Ages, the lack of standardized weapons meant that one warrior's arms were often quite different from another's, even when they were fighting on the same side. And with few major technological advances in that period, the evolution of those weapons over the centuries was incremental. But evolve they ultimately did, bringing arms, armor, and siege weapons to the threshold of the modern era. From the fall of the Roman Empire to the beginnings of the Renaissance, Medieval Weapons: An Illustrated History of Their Impact covers the inexorable transformation from warrior in the mail shirt to fully armored knight, from the days of spears and swords to the large-scale adoption of the handgun. Medieval Weapons covers this fascinating expanse of centuries in chapters devoted to the early medieval, Carolingian, Crusade, and late medieval periods. Within each period, the book details how weapons and armor were developed, what weapons were used for different types of battles, and how weapons and armor both influenced, and were influenced by, changing tactics in battles and sieges.

War and Society in Renaissance Europe, 1450-1620

War and Society in Renaissance Europe, 1450-1620 PDF Author: John Rigby Hale
Publisher: McGill-Queen's Press - MQUP
ISBN: 9780773517653
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 292

Get Book

Book Description
"Covering the years between the end of the Hundred Years War and the beginning of the Thirty Years War, this book explains the part played by war in the lives of individuals in the early modern phase of European history."--BOOK JACKET.Title Summary field provided by Blackwell North America, Inc. All Rights Reserved

With a Bended Bow

With a Bended Bow PDF Author: Erik Roth
Publisher: The History Press
ISBN: 0752477978
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 365

Get Book

Book Description
In With a Bended Bow Erik Roth presents a comprehensive examination of the archer and his weapon in a time when archery was both economically and militarily vital to the security of England, based on the study of mediaeval writings and period artefacts. As an accomplished artist, his illustrations are an invaluable aid to understanding the manufacture and use of the bow. The book examines the types of weapons and kit produced by guildsmen, the materials used and the work of different specialists including bowyers, fletchers and stringers. It also details the life of the archer himself, how he cared for his equipment, learned to shoot and fought for his country on the battlefields of Scotland and France. With a Bended Bow gives an exceptional insight into the tools, training and fighting techniques of the soldier who defined mediaeval warfare.