Spenser's Art of War: Chivalric Allegory, Military Technology, and the Elizabethan Mock-Heroic Sensibility

1988 ◽  
Vol 41 (4) ◽  
pp. 654-704 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael West
Keyword(s):  
Sixteenth Century ◽  
Military Technology ◽  
Secondary Importance ◽  
Art Of War ◽  
Medieval Romances ◽  
Single Combat

In the medieval romances single combat was the knightly norm. The Italian chivalric epics sought to adapt this convention to the ideals of the Renaissance courtier. In Il Cortegiano, Frederico Fregoso explains “that where the Courtyer is at skirmishe, or assault, or battaile upon the land, or in such other places of enterprise, he ought to worke the matter wisely in seperating himself from the multitude, and undertake his notable and bould feates which he hath to doe, with as little company as he can.“’ But such displays of panache had little place in the massed infantry tactics that dominated the actual battlefields of the sixteenth century. It was disciplined self-restraint that made the Swiss and Spanish pike phalanxes so formidable, relegating cavalry to secondary importance. The Italian courtierknights had been rudely humbled, after all, when Charles XII invaded Italy in 1494 and deployed his excellent artillery.

Aventinus and the Defense of the Empire against the Turks

1963 ◽  
Vol 10 ◽  
pp. 60-67 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gunther E. Rothenberg
Keyword(s):  
Sixteenth Century ◽  
Theory And Practice ◽  
Distinct Effect ◽  
Art Of War ◽  
Long Line ◽  
Roman Military ◽  
Late Fifteenth ◽  
Military Theory ◽  
Classical Civilization ◽  
The Art Of War

In the late fifteenth and throughout the sixteenth century the revival of interest in classical civilization had a distinct effect on military theory and practice. The study of Roman military methods especially became a source of inspiration for reformers and Machiavelli's Arte della Guerra ranks only as the most famous in a long line of treatises which intended to revive the art of war as the ancients had understood it. During this era military theorists steeped themselves in classical lore, rediscovered the virtues of the Roman legion, became familiar once more with cohort and maniple.

A History of the Art of War in the Sixteenth Century

1938 ◽  
Vol 43 (3) ◽  
pp. 601
Author(s):  
J. M. Scammell ◽  
Charles Oman
Keyword(s):  
Sixteenth Century ◽  
Art Of War ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Art Of War

Chaplains to the English Regiment in Spanish Flanders, 1605-06

1971 ◽  
Vol 11 (3) ◽  
pp. 133-155
Author(s):  
Maurus Lunn
Keyword(s):  
Sixteenth Century ◽  
The Netherlands ◽  
Art Of War ◽  
Right Hand ◽  
Stray Grains ◽  
Full Body ◽  
Soldiers Of Fortune ◽  
The Art Of War

‘Now at the word Order your pikes, you place the butt end of your pike by the outside of your right foot, your right hand holding it even with your eye and your thumb right up; then your left arm being set akimbo by your side you shall stand with a full body in a comely posture’. In this manner English soldiers of fortune, serving as pikemen in the wars of the Netherlands, were instructed in the art of war in the late sixteenth century. Musketeers were told that stray grains of powder disappeared at the command Blow off your loose corns, sometimes with a puff or two, sometimes with a ‘sudden strong blast’, but always in accordance with regulation. In general soldiers who wished to learn their profession had to look elsewhere than in England. In England no one could take them very seriously, not FalstafF the fraudulent Captain, not swaggering Pistol, nor Nym the impostor who affected military brevity. But those who did go abroad were equal to the best foreign professionals in experience and courage. Most of these English soldiers fought for the Dutch, on account of sympathy for them on religious grounds. But Elizabeth's aid was half-hearted and late in coming, for she despised the Dutch as rebels against their rightful, Spanish sovereign. This, together with the Earl of Leicester's mismanagement of his campaigns, were reasons why the English constantly deserted the Dutch to fight for Alexander Farnese, Duke of Parma, the best commander in that very war-torn century. From about 1598, however, the situation improved for the Dutch, who, having thrown off their dependence on England, converted the English soldiers into mercenaries, bound by an oath of allegiance to their Dutch paymasters.

Mounted Archery and Firearms

Vulcan ◽  
2015 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 42-65
Author(s):  
Barton C. Hacker
Keyword(s):  
Sixteenth Century ◽  
Black Box ◽  
Social Technology ◽  
Military Technology ◽  
The Social ◽  
Late Fifteenth ◽  
Technical Basis

David Ayalon’s classic and highly influential 1956 study of Gunpowder and Firearms in the Mamluk Kingdom left some surprising questions unexamined. He attributed Ottoman victory primarily to Ottoman firearms, while Mamluks stubbornly clung to the arms of the mounted archer. But despite the technological underpinnings of his thesis, Ayalon discussed the technology of neither the traditional warfare of mounted archery nor the newfangled warfare of gunpowder weapons. Was Mamluk mounted archery actually inferior to Ottoman firearms? This essay addresses the technical basis both for the mounted archery central to Mamluk military prowess and the characteristics of late-fifteenth and early-sixteenth century firearms adopted by the Ottomans, both in the context of the social technology of Muslim military slavery. By opening the black box of Mamluk and Ottoman military technology, this essay seeks to show more precisely in what ways military technology did and did not shape the outcome of the struggle.

scholarly journals Hvem er forfatteren til Joachim Arentsehes “Krigsbog”?

2014 ◽  
Vol 45 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hans Blosen
Keyword(s):  
Sixteenth Century ◽  
Detailed Comparison ◽  
Systematic Investigation ◽  
German Language ◽  
Main Section ◽  
Late Medieval ◽  
Art Of War ◽  
Main Work ◽  
Secret Knowledge ◽  
Title Pages

One of the prized possessions of the Royal Library in Copenhagen, an expensively bound composite volume of seven different German-language writings on the art and legality of war printed in Copenhagen in 1578 by Lorentz Benedicht for Frederik II, is usually called Joachim Arentsehe’s “War Book”. However, the title pages assign only parts 2 and 4-7 to Arentsehe, while for parts 1 and 3 no author is named. The very extensive part 1, opening with woodcuts of the King’s portrait and the National Arms and containing numerous hand-coloured illustrations, is evidently the main work of the volume. Its author came to light in 2001 when German historian Rainer Leng, as part of a systematic investigation into the late medieval German “Büchsenmeisterbücher”, published Franz Helm’s “Buch von den probierten Künsten”, one of the most thorough and richly transmitted works on the art of war of the whole of the sixteenth century, which he wrote in around 1530. It is Helm’s book which comprises the main section of Frederik II’s “War Book”. Leng was unaware of Benedicht’s anonymous printed edition, and in Denmark the assumption of Arentsehe’s authorship continued to hold a veil over the true origins of the work, until a detailed comparison showed the two to be identical. While, in Germany, Helm’s work was transmitted only in manuscript for some 100 years, and was first printed in 1625, Benedicht’s Copenhagen printing dates from some 50 years earlier. The reason why transmittance was dominated by manuscripts is presumably both the desire to make the book’s content seem secret knowledge and the desire to give it an aura of exclusivity, such as more properly belongs to an illustrated manuscript than to a printed version. However, the same exclusivity was achieved by Benedicht’s printed work through the perfection of its craftsmanship, its illustrations and by the fact that it was produced in one copy only, for the use of the King.

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