ATHELING
The Anglo-Saxon name for the heir to the throne.
BACULUS
A huge wooden war club, believed to have been carried by the Duke of Normandy as a sort of mace signifying his authority. It may well have been a weapon used in earnest by his Viking ancestors.
BASTIDE
A fortified settlement of several buildings, or even a small town, often on a commanding hilltop position.
BEZANT
A gold coin from the Byzantine Empire.
BRUNESWALD
The great ancient forest of middle England.
BURGH
The Saxon name for a town or city.
BUTESCARL
A naval-based elite warrior, the seaborne equivalent of a housecarl and a forerunner of a modern-day marine.
CATAPULT
Castles, fortresses and fortified walled cities were the main form of defence in the Middle Ages and a variety of catapult devices were used against them. As well as attempting to breach the walls, missiles and incendiaries could be hurled inside, or early forms of biological warfare deployed, such as diseased carcases, putrid garbage or excrement. The most widely used catapults were the following:
Ballista
Similar to a giant crossbow and designed to work through torsion. Giant arrows were used as ammunition, made from wood and with an iron tip.
Mangonel
Designed to throw heavy projectiles from a bowl-shaped bucket at the end of an arm. With a range of up to 1,300 feet they were relatively simple to construct, and wheels were added to increase mobility. Mangonels are sometimes referred to as ‘onagers’. Onager catapults initially launched projectiles from a sling, which was later changed to a bowl-shaped bucket.
Springald
The springald’s design was similar to that of the ballista, effectively a crossbow propelled by tension. The springald’s frame was more compact, allowing for use inside tighter confines, such as the inside of a castle or tower.
Trebuchet
Trebuchets were probably the most powerful catapult employed in the Middle Ages. The most commonly used ammunition was stones, but the most effective involved fire, such as firebrands and the infamous ‘Greek fire’. Trebuchets came in two different designs: traction, which were powered by people; and counterpoise, powered by a weight on the short end of an arm. A simplified trebuchet was known as a ‘couillard’, where the trebuchet’s single counterweight was split, swinging on either side of a central support post.
CERDIC/CERDICIAN
The dynastic name of the Kings of Wessex, who ultimately became Kings of England, from Egbert, King of Wessex in 820, to Edward the Confessor’s death in 1066. The only exceptions were the three Danish kings, Cnut and his sons Harold Harefoot and Harthcnut, between 1016 and 1042. The name reputedly derives from Cerdic, a prince of the West Saxons from circa 600, who was an ancestor of Egbert, the first King of England, but he is a figure who may be more myth than reality.
CHAIN MAIL
Armour made from linked iron rings (see hauberk).
CHURCHWRIGHT
A church builder or architect.
CLITO
William, son of Robert, Duke of Normandy, was given the suffix ‘Clito’. It is the Latinized equivalent to ‘Atheling’ – heir to the throne.
CONROI
A squadron, twenty-five strong, of Norman cavalry.
DANEGELD
A tribute paid by the Saxons of England to persuade Viking raiders to return to Scandinavia and leave the people unharmed and their goods intact. The first Danegeld was paid in 856 (10,000 pounds of silver) and more was handed over in 991, 994, 1002 and 1007 when King Athelred bought two years of peace for 36,000 pounds of silver. Two more payments were made in 1012 and in 1016 when Cnut the Great became King of England and paid for his invasion fleet with a geld of over 80,000 pounds of silver.
DENIER
The denier was a Frankish coin created by Charlemagne in the Early Middle Ages. It was introduced together with an accounting system in which twelve deniers equalled one sou and twenty sous equalled one livre. This system, and the denier itself, served as the model for many of Europe’s currencies, including the British pound, Italian lira, Spanish peseta and the Portuguese dinheiro. The British equivalent of the denier was the penny, 240 of which made up one British pound, or 20 shillings. The symbol for both the old denier and the penny used in the United Kingdom and elsewhere was ‘d’. The name ‘denier’ was derived from the name of the Roman coin the denarius.
DESTRIER
A Norman war horse. The Normans had four designations of horse: a destrier (for use in battle); a palfrey (a good riding horse); a rouney (an ordinary riding horse); and a sumpter (a packhorse).
FARIS
An Arab cavalryman, usually carrying a status similar to the European knight.
FIGHTING MAN
The personal war banner of Harold Godwinson, bearing the woven image of an ancient warrior wielding a war club.
FUTUWWA
A Sufic (mystical Islamic) term that has some similarities to ‘chivalry’ and ‘virtue’. It was also a name of an ethical urban organization or ‘guild’ in medieval Muslim realms that emphasized honesty, peacefulness, gentleness, generosity, hospitality and avoidance of complaint in life.
FYRD
The massed ‘citizen army’ of the Anglo-Saxon kings before the Norman invasion. Each local leader held a retinue of chosen companions whose duty it was to protect his lord’s life. In return, the lord was expected to share the booty of war with his loyal supporters. The collective of these lords’ men formed the king’s fyrd (see also housecarls).
GARROTTE
Strangulation by a ligature around the neck, usually applied from behind. The Byzantines used bow strings. There are examples from antiquity and from many different cultures, the most infamous being the official execution method used in Spain as late as the 1970s. The victim was bound in a chair and a metal band placed around the throat, which was then tightened by a screw mechanism from behind. Sometimes a spike was attached to the screw to hasten death by penetrating the spinal cord.
GELD
Another word for money in Dutch and German (‘gelt’ in Yiddish), in medieval England it meant tax, or tribute or a ransom – as in Danegeld.
GONFALON
A small tailed flag or banner, flown from the top of a lance or pole to indicate lordly status, common throughout Europe. It would carry the colours, crest or heraldry of its owner.
GREEK FIRE
The secret weapon of the Byzantine emperors. A sort of ancient napalm, it was invented by a Syrian engineer, a refugee from Baalbek, in the Egyptian city of Heliopolis in 673 AD. The mix of ingredients, a closely guarded secret, was reputedly handed down from emperor to emperor. It has remained a secret to this day, but is thought to be a combination of pitch, sulphur, tree resin, quicklime and bitumen. The key ingredient may well have been magnesium, which would explain why the ‘fire’ would burn under water.
HAMMER-BEAM ROOF
A hammer-beam roof allows a span greater than the length of any individual piece of timber. In place of a normal tie beam spanning the entire width of the roof, short beams – the hammer beams – are supported by curved braces from the wall, and further structure is built on top of the hammer beams. The earliest hammer-beamed building still standing in England (built in 1308) is located in Winchester, in Winchester Cathedral Close, next to the dean’s garden, and is known as the Pilgrims’ Hall, now part of the Pilgrims’ School. The roof of Westminster Hall (1395–9) is a fine example of a hammer-beam roof. The span of the hall is 68 feet 4 inches, and the opening between the ends of the hammer beams 25 feet 6 inches. The height from the paving of the hall to the hammer beam is 40 feet, and to the underside of the collar beam 63 feet 6 inches, so an additional height in the centre of 23 feet 6 inches has been gained by the use of hammer beams.
HAUBERK
A chain-mail ‘coat’ worn like a long pullover do
wn below the groin. Hauberks for the infantry were slightly shorter so that the men could run in them, and were split only at the sides. Cavalry hauberks extended almost to the knee and were split front and back. The mail could extend into a hood (ventail), like a balaclava, but had a flap in front of the throat and chin that could be dropped for comfort when not in the midst of battle. Three kinds of mail were used and were progressively more expensive: ordinary ring mail, scale mail and lamellar mail (in which overlapping individual plates were fastened together by leather thongs).
HEARTHTROOP
The elite bodyguard of kings, princes and lords of the ninth, tenth and eleventh centuries.
HIDE
Not a fixed area but an amount of land sufficient to support a family, which became a unit subject to a ‘geld’ tax. The geld would be collected at a stated rate per hide. After the Norman Conquest, hidage was recorded in the Domesday Book of 1086 and stayed in use until the end of the twelfth century.
HOUSECARLS
The elite troops of the Anglo-Saxon kings, following their establishment by King Cnut in 1016, in the Danish tradition. Cnut brought his own personal troops to supplement the English fyrd (citizen army) when he succeeded to the throne following the death of Edmund Ironside.
KNAAR
A traditional Norse ship, a modified form of the Viking longship, but used as a cargo vessel.
LAMELLAR
Armour made from small iron plates tied together with leather (see hauberk).
LATT
A heavy bronze-headed mace favoured by Saracen (Muslim) warriors.
LEVUNIUM, BATTLE OF
The most decisive victory of the reign of Alexius I, Emperor of Byzantium. On 29 April 1091, an invading force of Pechenegs was defeated by the combined forces of the Byzantine Empire and its Cuman allies (nomadic warriors of the Eurasian Steppe, related to the Pechenegs). The outcome was a massacre on a terrible scale. The Pechenegs went into battle with their entire families. Few survived; those who did were taken into slavery by the Byzantines.
MAMLUK
An Arab soldier, usually an infantryman. Born a slave, he would make his way in life as a professional soldier.
MANCEAUX
Plural of Manceau, an inhabitant of Le Mans or Maine, the province of France between Anjou and Normandy.
MANZIKERT, BATTLE OF
Fought between the Byzantine Empire and the Seljuk Turks led by Alp Arslan on 26 August 1071 near Manzikert (modern Malazgirt in eastern Turkey). The devastating defeat of the Byzantine army and the humiliating capture of the Emperor Romanos IV Diogenes brought the empire to the brink of annihilation, destroyed Byzantine authority in Anatolia and Armenia, and allowed the Turks to populate Anatolia.
MEAD
An ancient drink, common to many lands. It was a potent and popular concoction in Britain for hundreds of years. It is made from honey, water and yeast. Fruit or spices can be added for alternative flavours. It can be very alcoholic, was thought to be a powerful aphrodisiac and was often given to newlyweds to boost fertility.
MIDDEN
A domestic waste dump for a village or burgh. A word of Scandinavian origin, it is still in use in Scotland and the English Pennines.
MOS MILITUM
A code of knightly ethics, loosely based on the ancient noble tradition of the Roman aristocracy and the influence of Islamic ethics, such as those of the Futuwwa, which appeared in the late eleventh century and formed the basis of the values of the Age of Chivalry.
MOTTE AND BAILEY
A motte (a large mound of earth topped by a wooden and then, later, by a stone castle) surrounded by a bailey (an enclosed courtyard, encircled by a fortified wall) was the archetypal Norman fortification, used to subdue and intimidate the defeated Saxons. Most of the medieval castles of England, such as Windsor and the Tower of London, started life as motte and bailey constructions in the 1070s and 1080s.
MUSLIM
In a historical context, the words ‘Muslim’ (a follower of the religion of Islam), ‘Saracen’ (usually applied to the Muslim armies that opposed the Crusades) and ‘Moor’ (usually applied to the Arab peoples of North Africa and Spain) are often used interchangeably. The word ‘Arab’ defines the Semitic peoples who originated in Arabia and whose influence spread across the Middle East and North Africa in the seventh and eighth centuries. Sunni and Shia Islam are the two major denominations of Islam. Approximately 80–90 per cent of the world’s Muslims are Sunni and 10–20 per cent are Shia, with most Shias belonging to the ‘Twelver’ tradition (derived from their belief in twelve divinely ordained leaders, known as the Twelve Imams) and the rest divided between several other groups. Sunnis are a majority in most Muslim communities in South-east Asia, China, South Asia, Africa and most of the Arab World. Shias make up the majority of the population in Iran, Iraq, Azerbaijan and Bahrain, and they are the largest religious group in Lebanon (collectively called the Shia Crescent), while Pakistan has the second largest Shia Muslim population in the world. The historic background of the Sunni–Shia split lies in the schism that occurred when the Islamic prophet Muhammad died in the year 632 AD, leading to a dispute over succession that culminated in the Battle of Siffin. Sectarian violence persists to this day from Pakistan to Yemen and is a major element of friction throughout the Middle East. Over the years Sunni–Shia relations have been marked by both cooperation and conflict, often with deadly violence. A period of relative harmony during most of the twentieth century has recently been replaced by conflict. Today there are differences in religious practice, traditions and customs as well as religious beliefs.
PENNON
A small streamer-like flag flown at the top of a knight’s lance to signify his status. It would have a combination of one, two or three colours to identify him, his origins or the lord he served.
PLAINCHANT
Otherwise known as ‘plainsong’, the monophonic melody sung by monks from as early as the eighth century is more popularly known as ‘Gregorian chant’.
PURPLE, THE
A term that came to describe the office of Emperor of Byzantium, derived from the imperial purple cloak worn by Byzantine emperors and their Roman predecessors.
PUTRID FEVER
One of the many names – others include slow/camp/ship/jail fever (it flourishes in overcrowded human environments) – for epidemic typhus. The name comes from the Greek ‘typhos’, meaning hazy, describing the state of mind of those affected. Symptoms include severe headache, a sustained high fever, cough, rash, severe muscle pain, chills, falling blood pressure, stupor, sensitivity to light, as well as delirium. During the second year of the Peloponnesian War (430 BC) Athens suffered a devastating epidemic, known as the ‘Plague of Athens’, which killed, among others, Pericles. The plague returned twice more, in 429 BC and in the winter of 427/6 BC. Epidemic typhus is thought to have been the cause in each case.
QUARREL
The missile of a crossbow, sometimes referred to as a bolt. Generally shorter and sturdier than an arrow, its name derives from the old French for ‘square’, arising from the fact that the tip of the quarrel was often made square in order to maximize its killing power. More cumbersome, slower and more difficult to load than a longbow and only effective at short range, it was nevertheless a much more powerful weapon and could penetrate even the thickest medieval armour.
QURAN
The Quran, literally ‘a recitation’, is also transliterated as Qur’an, Koran, Qur’ãn, Coran, Kuran and al-Qur’ãn. It is the central religious text of Islam, which Muslims consider the verbatim word of God (Allah) and the Final Testament, following the Old and New Testaments. It is regarded as the finest piece of literature in the Arabic language. The Quran is divided into 114 suras of unequal length which are classified either as Meccan or Medinan depending upon their place and time of revelation. Muslims believe the Quran to be verbally revealed through angel Jibrı-l (Gabriel) from God to Muhammad gradually over a period of approximately twenty-three years beginning in 61
0 AD, when Muhammad was forty, and concluding in 632 AD, the year of his death. Muslims further believe that the Quran was precisely memorized, recited and exactly written down by Muhammad’s companions (Sahaba) after each revelation was dictated by him.
RUM, SULTANATE OF
The Seljuk Turk Islamic Sultanate of Rum held sway over most of Anatolia in the years after the disaster of the Battle of Manzikert and the end of Byzantine control of the area. The name ‘Rum’ was chosen by the Seljuks to signify their inheritance of the legacy of Ancient Rome.
SEAX
A short, stabbing sword.
SENLAC RIDGE, BATTLE OF
Now known as the Battle of Hastings, the decisive battle of William the Conqueror’s Norman Conquest of England was fought on Senlac Ridge, also called Senlac Hill, at a place now known as Battle, seven miles north of Hastings, on England’s south coast. Known in Old English as ‘Santlache’ (Sandy Stream), in Norman French it was adapted to ‘Sanguelac’ (Blood Lake), which was then shortened to Senlac. The ridge was probably higher than it is today, the very top of it being levelled in the building of Battle Abbey.
SHIA MUSLIM
See Muslim.
SOUS
‘Sous’ evolved as a French word from the Roman coin ‘solidus’, which mutated to ‘soldus’, then ‘solt’, then ‘sol’ and finally ‘sou’. No gold solidi were minted after the Carolingians adopted the silver standard; thenceforward, the solidus or sol was a paper accounting unit equivalent to one-twentieth of a pound (librum or livre) of silver and divided into 12 denarii or deniers. The monetary unit disappeared with decimalization and the introduction of the franc during the French Revolution (First Republic) in 1795, but five centimes, the twentieth part of the franc, inherited the name as a nickname.
STRATEGOI
A commander (general) of a theme (division) in the army of Byzantium (see also ‘theme’ below).
SUB-REGULUS
Second in the land; only a king would take precedence over him.
SUNNI MUSLIM
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