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Pike And Shot
Pike and shot was a historical infantry tactical formation that first appeared during the late 15th and early 16th centuries, and was used until the development of the bayonet in the late 17th century. This type of formation combined soldiers armed with pikes and soldiers armed with arquebuses and/or muskets. Other weapons such as swords, halberds, and crossbows were also sometimes used. The formation was initially developed by the Holy Roman ('' Landsknechte'') and Spanish ('' Tercios'') infantries, and later by the Dutch and Swedish armies in the 17th century. Origin By the 16th century, late-medieval troop types that had proven most successful in the Hundred Years' War, Burgundian Wars and the late phase of the Reconquista, dominated European warfare, especially the heavily armoured '' gendarme'' (a professional version of the medieval knight), the Swiss, the Spanish Tercio and the Landsknecht mercenary pikemen. The emerging artillery corps of heavy cannons was ...
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Pamphlet
A pamphlet is an unbound book (that is, without a Hardcover, hard cover or Bookbinding, binding). Pamphlets may consist of a single sheet of paper that is printed on both sides and folded in half, in thirds, or in fourths, called a ''leaflet'' or it may consist of a few pages that are folded in half and Saddle stitch stapler, saddle stapled at the crease to make a simple book. In the "International Standardization of Statistics Relating to Book Production and Periodicals", UNESCO defines a pamphlet as "a non-periodical printed publication of 5 to 48 pages, excluding covers, published in a specific country and available to the public," while a book is "a non-periodical printed publication of at least 49 pages, excluding covers." These definitions are intended solely for UNESCO's book production statistics. Etymology The word ''pamphlet'' for a small work (''opuscule'') issued by itself without covers came into Middle English as or , generalized from a twelfth-century Elegiac c ...
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Knight
A knight is a person granted an honorary title of a knighthood by a head of state (including the pope) or representative for service to the monarch, the church, or the country, especially in a military capacity. The concept of a knighthood may have been inspired by the ancient Greek '' hippeis'' (ἱππεῖς) and Roman ''equites''. In the Early Middle Ages in Western Christian Europe, knighthoods were conferred upon mounted warriors. During the High Middle Ages, a knighthood was considered a class of petty nobility. By the Late Middle Ages, the rank had become associated with the ideals of chivalry, a code of conduct for the perfect courtly Christian warrior. Often, a knight was a vassal who served as an elite fighter or a bodyguard for a lord, with payment in the form of land holdings. The lords trusted the knights, who were skilled in battle on horseback. In the Middle Ages, a knighthood was closely linked with horsemanship (and especially the joust) from its orig ...
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Black Army Of Hungary
The Black Army (, pronounced , Latin: Legio Nigra), also called the Black Legion/Regiment – were the military forces serving under the reign of King Matthias Corvinus of Hungary. The ancestor and core of this early standing mercenary army appeared in the era of his father John Hunyadi in the early 1440s. The idea of the professional standing mercenary army came from Matthias' juvenile readings about the life of Julius Caesar. The army and its soldiers were among the most renowned and feared military forces of the early Renaissance for their combat abilities and ferocity, and helped pioneer the concept of a standing mercenary army that would soon be adopted across Europe. Hungary's Black Army traditionally encompasses the years from 1458 to 1494. The men of the Black Army fought as well-paid, full-time mercenaries and were purely devoted to the arts of warfare. It was a standing mercenary army that conquered large parts of Austria (including the capital Vienna in 1485) and more ...
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Burgundian State
The Burgundian StateB. Schnerb, ''L'État bourguignon'', 1999 ( ; ) was a composite monarchy ruled by the Dukes of Burgundy from the late 14th to the late 15th centuries, and which ultimately comprised not only the Duchy of Burgundy, Duchy and Free County of Burgundy, County of Burgundy but also the Burgundian Netherlands. The latter, acquired piecemeal over time and largely through inheritance, was, in fact, their principal source of wealth and prestige. The Dukes were members of the House of Valois-Burgundy, a cadet branch of the French royal House of Valois, and the List of territories of the Valois dukes of Burgundy, complex of territories they ruled is sometimes referred to as Valois Burgundy. The term "Burgundian State" was coined by historians and was not in contemporary use; the polity remained a collection of separate duchies and counties in personal union under the Duke of Burgundy. It is regarded as one of the major powers in Europe of the 15th century. The Dukes of ...
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Battle Of Cerignola
The Battle of Cerignola was fought on 28 April 1503 between Spanish and French armies outside the town of Cerignola, Apulia, Kingdom of Naples (now in modern-day Italy), approximately west of Bari. The Spanish force under the command of Gonzalo Fernández de Córdoba (''El Gran Capitán'') comprising around 9,000 men, including 2,000 ''Landsknecht'' pikemen, 1,000 arquebusiers and 20 cannons, defeated the French force of 9,000 men, mainly gendarme heavy cavalry and Swiss mercenary pikemen, with about 40 cannons, led by Louis d'Armagnac, Duke of Nemours, who was killed during the battle. Cerignola was probably the first European battle to be won by small firearms, as the attacks by the French cavalry and Swiss pikemen were shattered by the fire of Spanish arquebusiers. It also demonstrated the renewed value of fortifications, with Córdoba employing a defensive ditch to maximize the effect of his battleplan. Military historian and British Field Marshal Bernard Montgomer ...
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Granada War
The Granada War was a series of military campaigns between 1482 and 1492 during the reign of the Catholic Monarchs, Isabella I of Castile and Ferdinand II of Aragon, against the Nasrid dynasty's Emirate of Granada. It ended with the defeat of Granada and its annexation by Castile, ending the last remnant of Islamic rule on the Iberian peninsula. The ten-year war was not a continuous effort but a series of seasonal campaigns launched in spring and broken off in winter. The Granadans were crippled by internal conflict and civil war, while the Christians were generally unified. The Granadans were also bled economically by the tribute they had to pay Castile to avoid being attacked and conquered. The war saw the effective use of artillery by the Christians to rapidly conquer towns that would otherwise have required long sieges. On January 2, 1492, Muhammad XII of Granada (King Boabdil) surrendered the Emirate of Granada, the city of Granada, and the Alhambra palace to the Cast ...
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Colonel
Colonel ( ; abbreviated as Col., Col, or COL) is a senior military Officer (armed forces), officer rank used in many countries. It is also used in some police forces and paramilitary organizations. In the 17th, 18th, and 19th centuries, a colonel was typically in charge of a regiment in an army. Modern usage varies greatly, and in some cases, the term is used as an Colonel (title), honorific title that may have no direct relationship to military. In some smaller military forces, such as those of Monaco or the Holy See, Vatican, colonel is the highest Military rank, rank. Equivalent naval ranks may be called Captain (naval), captain or ship-of-the-line captain. In the Commonwealth of Nations, Commonwealth's air force ranking system, the equivalent rank is group captain. History and origins By the end of the late medieval period, a group of "companies" was referred to as a "column" of an army. According to Raymond Oliver, , the Spanish began explicitly reorganizing part of thei ...
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Gonzalo Fernández De Córdoba
Gonzalo Fernández de Córdoba (1 September 1453 – 2 December 1515) was a Spanish general and statesman. He led military campaigns during the Conquest of Granada and the Italian Wars, after which he served as Viceroy of Naples. For his extensive political and military success, he was made Duke of Santángelo (1497), Duke of Terranova, Terranova (1502), Duke of Andría, Andría, Duke of Montalto (title), Montalto and Duke of Sessa, Sessa (1507), and earned the nickname ''El Gran Capitán'' ("The Great Captain"). Held as one of the greatest generals in history, he became the first European to decisively employ firearms on the battlefield, and among the first to reorganize the infantry with Pike and shot, pikes and firearms in effective defensive and offensive formations. He developed them as part of a combined arms doctrine including fields as disparate as cavalry, artillery, fortifications, Guerrilla warfare, guerrilla, Siege, siegecraft and diplomacy. The changes implemen ...
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Kingdom Of Naples
The Kingdom of Naples (; ; ), officially the Kingdom of Sicily, was a state that ruled the part of the Italian Peninsula south of the Papal States between 1282 and 1816. It was established by the War of the Sicilian Vespers (1282–1302). Until then, the island of Sicily and southern Italy had constituted the "Kingdom of Sicily". When the island of Sicily revolted and was conquered by the Crown of Aragon, it become a separate kingdom also called the Kingdom of Sicily. This left the Neapolitan mainland in the possession of Charles of Anjou who continued to use the name "Kingdom of Sicily". Later, two competing lines of the Angevin family competed for the Kingdom of Naples in the late 14th century, which resulted in the murder of Joanna I at the hands of her successor, Charles III of Naples. Charles' daughter Joanna II adopted King Alfonso V of Aragon as heir, who would then unite Naples into his Aragonese dominions in 1442. As part of the Italian Wars, France briefly r ...
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Battle Of Seminara
The Battle of Seminara, part of the First Italian War, was fought in Calabria on 28 June 1495 between a French garrison in recently conquered Southern Italy and the allied forces of Spain and Naples which were attempting to reconquer these territories. Against the redoubtable combination of gendarme (historical), gendarmes and Swiss mercenary pike (weapon), pikemen in the French force, the allies had only Neapolitan troops of indifferent quality and a small corps of lightly-armed Spanish soldiers, accustomed to fighting the Moors of Spain. The result was a rout, and much of the fighting centered on delaying actions to permit the fleeing allied force to escape. The battle is notable primarily because it is often cited as the prime reason for the reorganization of the Spanish army, which brought about widespread adoption of firearms in pike and shot formations, one of the milestones of the "Military Revolution." Antecedents French king Charles VIII of France, Charles VIII h ...
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Italian Wars
The Italian Wars were a series of conflicts fought between 1494 and 1559, mostly in the Italian Peninsula, but later expanding into Flanders, the Rhineland and Mediterranean Sea. The primary belligerents were the House of Valois, Valois kings of Kingdom of France, France, on one side, and their opponents in the Holy Roman Empire and Habsburg Spain, Spain on the other. At different points, various Italian states participated in the war, some on both sides, with limited involvement from Kingdom of England, England, Switzerland, and the Ottoman Empire. The Italic League established in 1454 achieved a Balance of power (international relations), balance of power in Italy, but fell apart after the death of its chief architect, Lorenzo de' Medici, in 1492. Combined with the ambition of Ludovico Sforza, its collapse allowed Charles VIII of France to invade Kingdom of Naples, Naples in 1494, which drew in Spain and the Holy Roman Empire. Although Charles was forced to withdraw in 1495, o ...
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War Of The Burgundian Succession
The War of the Burgundian Succession took place from 1477 to 1482 (or 1493 according to some historians), immediately following the Burgundian Wars. At stake was the partition of the Burgundian hereditary lands between the Kingdom of France and the House of Habsburg, after Duke Charles the Bold had perished in the Battle of Nancy on 5 January 1477. Inheritance of Charles the Bold Duke Charles the Bold of Burgundy died at the Battle of Nancy (January 5, 1477), leaving no sons. His only child and potential successor was Mary of Burgundy, while the closest male cousin of the late Duke was John II, Count of Nevers, the last scion of the House of Valois-Burgundy. In order to ensure her inheritance, Mary decided to claim all of her fathers lands, and was supported and accepted by nobles and regional assemblies in several provinces. That was opposed by king Louis XI of France, who hoped that Mary would accept to marry his son and heir Charles, that would secure French control o ...
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