Medieval Military History

Si hubo un comienzo en la brecha entre Oriente y Occidente, fue este. En este audio libro, Juan Ignacio Cuesta nos propone una completísima guía para entender el fenómeno de las Cruzadas. La novedad de la obra es que introduce la visión de los musulmanes, invadidos y tratados con crueldad por los cruzados que, amparados en la defensa de la fe, escondían velados intereses económicos.

“The vultures will eat your corpses...” 1087 AD. After their victory in Thrace, the emperor Alexios and his trusted warlord, Thorkell Skaldsson, have returned to Constantinople. Their respite is only brief. Soon word reaches them of Chaka Bey, the feared Dragon Pirate, ravaging the coasts of Anatolia. At the same time the Turks are gathering in force to destroy the imperial garrisons in the east, weakened by decades of civil war. While Thorkell leads the Roman armies into Anatolia, Alexios sends fleet after fleet against Chaka Bey. Yet they are all destroyed. Then Chaka Bey forms an ...

"The Northmen had very great honour who went into service there..." 1076 AD. After the slaughter of his comrades in Iberia, Thorkell leads the few survivors to Constantinople, the Great City, capital of the Roman Empire. He finds the empire in a state of bloody confusion. The emperor is under siege, attacked by a mighty rebel host, while his realm is torn apart by civil war. To gain the emperor's favour, Thorkell leads his English warriors in a desperate attempt to break the siege of Constantinople. At the same time a young and ambitious Roman general, Alexios, raises a new army in the east...

In 1119, the people of the Near East came together in an epic clash of horses, swords, sand, and blood that would decide the fate of the city of the Aleppo - and the eastern Crusader states. Fought between tribal Turkish warriors on steppe ponies, Arab foot soldiers, Armenian bowmen, and European knights, the battlefield was the amphitheater into which the people of the Near East poured their full gladiatorial might. Carrying a piece of the true cross before them, the Frankish army advanced, anticipating a victory that would secure their dominance over the entire region.

After a long period of uneventful sieges and skirmishing, lasting from the death of Edward III in 1377 until the accession of Henry V in 1413, The Hundred Years War is suddenly and dramatically fanned into full fledged war in a third and final phase. Henry V is determined to end the conflict once and for all on the field of battle. After assembling an army, he crosses to Calais in 1415 and marches toward Paris.

“They called their new land England...” 1076 AD. William the Conqueror reigns supreme in England. After many years of bitter warfare, all his enemies are dead or defeated. The Norman king has imposed an iron grip on the land. His dreaded castles, filled with brutal foreign soldiers, cover the kingdom from sea to sea. Yet some of the English refuse to accept defeat. A band of nobles decide to leave England forever and go into exile. These men collect a fleet of three hundred ships and take an army of picked men, to find a new homeland where they can live in freedom. An epic voyage lies ...

La guerra ha estado presente desde la Prehistoria, descubrir la historia de la guerra desde una perspectiva científica, es descubrir una parte de la historia de la humanidad. La guerra, el enfrentamiento humano, está presente en las sociedades humanas, si bien habría que distinguir entre el enfrentamiento personal y el conflicto organizado entra varios individuos representativos de un pueblo.

The Vikings and sainthood are not concepts normally found side by side. But Norway’s King Olaf II Haraldsson (c. 995-1030) embodied both to an extraordinary degree. As a battle-eager teenager he almost single-handedly pulled down London Bridge (as in the nursery rhyme) and took part in many other Viking raids. Olaf lacked none of the traditional Viking qualities of toughness and audacity, yet his routine baptism grew into a burning missionary faith that was all the more remarkable for being combined with his typically Viking determination and energy—and sometimes ruthlessness as well.

The Hospitallers started out as caretakers of the Christian pilgrims in Jerusalem, but they soon emerged from their hospices and adopted a new military role that shaped the history of medieval Europe forever. This audiobook seeks to explore the curious rise of the Hospitallers from their humble origins to one of the most powerful institutions in medieval Europe.

“Why are you mixing the cup of death?” 1096 AD. Despite his many victories, the Emperor Alexios is unable to stem the relentless advance of the Turks. Anatolia, the imperial heartlands in the East, are almost completely overrun. Alexios is forced to seek help from the West, and the armies of the First Crusade. Led by the most famous Christian warriors of the age, the crusaders storm into Anatolia and the Holy Land, throwing back the Turks and conquering city after city. They are shadowed by Alexios and the armies of Rome, hoping to use the crusade to reconquer imperial lands. The ...

Although many have heard of the Crusades and some of the more famous orders like the Templars, few know about the Livonian Crusade or the Livonian Brothers of the Sword. This organization was one of many Catholic military orders that sprung up during the Middle Ages in response to the papacy’s call for holy war, and the Livonian Crusade is the term used to group together dozens of military actions undertaken by German knights in Eastern Europe. The order would go on to become one of the most influential of religious knighthoods by incorporating into the Teutonic Knights.

Why did the medieval Church bless William of Normandy's invasion of Christian England in 1066 and authorise cultural genocide in Provence? How could a Christian army sack Christian Constantinople in 1204? Why did thousands of ordinary men and women, led by knights and ladies, kings and queens, embark on campaigns of fanatical conquest in the world of Islam? The word 'Crusade' came later, but the concept of a 'war for the faith' is an ancient one.

The Sudkan Trilogy - a story of destiny, love and duty set in the Middle Ages of Utopia's history. Book Three: Deadly Revenge After assisting Iohn to bring about the downfall of Lady Inez and in consequence, the end of any threat to his power, Margarita is brought back from Castle Latoo, where she hovers between life and death, her heart permanently damaged by the poison she was forced to take. Still weak, Margarita has to face he arch enemy, Ruprecht, who arrives in Hexia as the new General. Forced to enter into a humiliating public accord prohibiting, on pain of death, the harming of the ...

The Sudkan Trilogy - a story of destiny,love and duty set in the Middle Ages of Utopia's history. Book Two – Blood Brothers For her services to him, Iohn has made Margarita his secret blood friend, and in public, the official Sudkan Ambassador. To further preserve her reputation, Iohn marries Margarita and at first all is well. But the arrival of Consort Cely changes everything and after a terrible row, Iohn sends Margarita into exile at Castle Roc until she is willing to give a public apology. Determined not to show her distress and to survive the privation of Castle Roc, Margarita ...

Harriet Harvey Woods fascinating and accessible book will change forever our view of the Norman conquest of England. Although the prevailing view is that the invaders brought culture and enlightenment to England, Harvey Wood argues that the Normans aggressive and illegal attack actually destroyed a highly developed civilization with long-established political institutions and sophisticated art forms.

The samurai are among the most iconic warriors in history. The fighting elite of feudal Japan, they have played a dominant role in the country's life for over 1,000 years. The Samurai: The History and Legacy of Japan’s Military Elite looks at who the samurai were, how they fought, and the historical wars in which they played a leading part. You will learn about the samurai like never before.

While the Moors have always been associated with Spain due to their lengthy stay on the Iberian Peninsula, the most famous battle they were involved in was actually fought in modern France. While the Franks were consolidating a kingdom there, Muslim forces were pushing out of North Africa and into the Iberian Peninsula in the early eighth century, and by the dawn of the 730s, the Umayyad dynasty had expanded its territory from the Atlantic to the Pyrenees, a series of seasonally snow-capped mountains in Europe that forms a border between the nations of Spain and France.

The religious wars of the crusades are renowned for their military engagements. But the period was witness to brutality beyond the battlefield. More so than any other medieval war zone, the Holy Land was rife with unprecedented levels of criminality and violence. In the first history of its kind, Steve Tibble explores the criminal underbelly of the crusades. From gangsters and bandits to muggers and pirates, Tibble presents extraordinary evidence of an illicit underworld. He shows how the real problem in the region stemmed not from religion but from young men.

The famous conqueror from the European continent came ashore with thousands of men, ready to set up a new kingdom in England. The Britons had resisted the amphibious invasion from the moment his forces landed, but he was able to push forward. In a large winter battle, the Britons’ large army attacked the invaders, but was eventually routed, and the conqueror was able to set up a new kingdom.

Sotto la definizione di Medioevo rientra un intero millennio, nel corso del quale le armi, le tecniche, le strategie militari subirono profondi cambiamenti. Altrettanto estesa è la varietà dei fronti, dalla penisola iberica al Medio Oriente, passando attraverso l'Italia, i territori anglofrancesi e l'Europa orientale. La guerra medievale, inoltre, è contrassegnata da conflitti la cui portata ha rivestito un ruolo cruciale nella storia dell'umanità.