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Siege Of Rhodes (1522)
The siege of Rhodes of 1522 was the second and ultimately successful attempt by the Ottoman Empire to expel the Knights of Rhodes from their island stronghold and thereby secure Ottoman control of the Eastern Mediterranean. The first siege in 1480 had been unsuccessful. Despite very strong defenses, the walls were demolished over the course of six months by Turkish artillery and mines. Setting The Knights of St. John, or Knights Hospitallers, had captured Rhodes in the early 14th century after the loss in 1291 of Acre, the last Crusader stronghold in Palestine. From Rhodes, they became an active part of the trade in the Aegean Sea, and at times harassed Turkish shipping in the Levant to secure control over the eastern Mediterranean. A first effort by the Ottomans to capture the island was repulsed by the order in 1480, but the continuing presence of the knights just off the southern coast of Anatolia was a major obstacle to Ottoman expansion. An earthquake shook the island ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Janissaries
A janissary (, , ) was a member of the elite infantry units that formed the Ottoman sultan's household troops. They were the first modern standing army, and perhaps the first infantry force in the world to be equipped with firearms, adopted during the reign of Murad II (r. 1421–1444, 1446–1451). The corps was established under either Orhan or Murad I, and dismantled by Mahmud II in 1826. Janissaries began as elite corps made up through the '' devşirme'' system of child levy enslavement, by which indigenous European Christian boys, chiefly from the Balkans, were taken, levied, subjected to forced circumcision and forced conversion to Islam, and incorporated into the Ottoman army. They became famed for internal cohesion cemented by strict discipline and order. Unlike typical slaves, they were paid regular salaries. Forbidden to marry before the age of 40 or engage in trade, their complete loyalty to the Ottoman sultan was expected. By the 17th century, due to a drama ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Anatolia
Anatolia (), also known as Asia Minor, is a peninsula in West Asia that makes up the majority of the land area of Turkey. It is the westernmost protrusion of Asia and is geographically bounded by the Mediterranean Sea to the south, the Aegean Sea to the west, the Turkish Straits to the northwest, and the Black Sea to the north. The eastern and southeastern limits have been expanded either to the entirety of Asiatic Turkey or to an imprecise line from the Black Sea to the Gulf of Alexandretta. Topographically, the Sea of Marmara connects the Black Sea with the Aegean Sea through the Bosporus and the Dardanelles, and separates Anatolia from Thrace in Southeast Europe. During the Neolithic, Anatolia was an early centre for the development of farming after it originated in the adjacent Fertile Crescent. Beginning around 9,000 years ago, there was a major migration of Anatolian Neolithic Farmers into Neolithic Europe, Europe, with their descendants coming to dominate the continent a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Piri Mehmed Pasha
Piri Mehmed Pasha (1465 – 1532 Silivri) was an Ottoman statesman, and grand vizier of the Ottoman Empire from 1518 to 1523.İsmail Hâmi Danişmend, Osmanlı Devlet Erkânı, Türkiye Yayınevi, İstanbul, 1971, p. 15. (Turkish) Biography Early life Piri Mehmed Pasha was a grandchild of Cemaleddin Manastirli, one of the professors of Zinciriye Medrese in Manastir. He was born to Sheikh Cemâl-i Halvetî, also known as the Çelebi Khalifa. His father was the sheikh of Halvetiyye in Amasya and the founder of the Cemâliyya branch of the sect.Yılmaz, Mehmed, "Mehmed Paşa (Piri)", (1999) ''Yaşamları ve Yapıtlarıyla Osmanlılar Ansiklopedisi'', İstanbul:Yapı Kredi Kültür Sanat Yayıncılık A.Ş. C.2 s.164 ISBN 975-08-0072-9 Matrilineally, he descended from Mevlana Hamazatuddin, buried in Larende (Karaman). Piri was educated in the madrasa of Amasya. He completed his studies in Constantinople. In 1491 he was employed as a clerk at the Amasya Court. He was then promoted ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Boom (navigational Barrier)
A boom or a chain (also boom defence, harbour chain, river chain, chain boom, boom chain or variants) is an obstacle strung across a navigable stretch of water to control or block navigation. They are sometimes mixed with pile barrages. In modern times they usually have civil uses, such as to prevent access to a dangerous river channel. But, especially historically, they have been used militarily, with the goal of denying access to an enemy's ships: a modern example is the anti-submarine net. Booms have also been used to force passing vessels to pay a toll. Description A boom generally floats on the surface, while a chain can be on the surface or below the water. A chain could be made to float with rafts, logs, ships or other wood, making the chain a boom as well. Historical uses Especially in medieval times, the end of a chain could be attached to a chain tower or boom tower. This allowed safe raising or lowering of the chain, as they were often heavily fortified. By raising o ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Tongue (Knights Hospitaller)
A langue or tongue () was an administrative division of the Knights Hospitaller (also known as the Order of St. John of Jerusalem) between 1319 and 1798. The term referred to a rough ethno-linguistic division of the geographical distribution of the Order's members and possessions. Each langue was subdivided into Priories or Grand Priories, Bailiwicks and Commanderies. Each langue had an ''auberge'' as its headquarters, some of which still survive in Rhodes, Birgu and Valletta. History The Knights Hospitaller began to take the features of a state following its acquisition of Rhodes and nearby islands in the early 14th century. The subdivision of the Order into ''langues'' began in 1319 during a meeting of the Chapter General in Montpellier. For the purposes of administration of the Order's possessions in Europe, the langues were divided into ''grand priories'', some of which were further divided into ''priories'' or ''bailiwicks'', and at the lowest level into '' commandrie ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
John Rawson, Viscount Clontarf
John Rawson, 1st and only Viscount Clontarf (–1547) was an English-born statesman in sixteenth-century Ireland, and was regarded as one of the mainstays of English rule in the Kingdom of Ireland. He was the last Prior of the Kilmainham house of the Order of St John of Jerusalem. The Knights Hospitaller, as they were usually known, were a fighting order of monks, and Rawson himself was an experienced soldier who took part in the Siege of Rhodes (1522). Despite taking holy orders, he was not celibate, and he fathered several illegitimate children. At the Reformation, with no apparent reluctance, he surrendered all his Order's properties to the English Crown in return for a pension and the title of viscount. Background He came from a family which had long been settled at New Fryston in the West Riding of Yorkshire. His father, Richard Rawson, moved to London, where he became an alderman and a warden of the Mercers' Company.Cokayne, G. E. ''The Complete Peerage'' Reprinted Glouce ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Grand Master (order)
Grand Master (; ; ; ; ) is a title of the supreme head of various orders, including chivalric orders such as military orders and dynastic orders of knighthood. The title also occurs in modern civil fraternal orders such as the Freemasons, the Odd Fellows, and various other fraternities. Additionally, numerous modern self-styled orders attempt to imitate habits of the former bodies. History Medieval era In medieval military orders such as the Knights Templar or the Livonian Brothers of the Sword, the Grand Master was the formal and executive head of a military and feudal hierarchy, which can be considered a "state within the state", especially in the crusader context ''sensu lato'', notably aimed at the Holy Land or pagan territories in Eastern Europe, as well as the reconquista in the Iberian Peninsula. If an order is granted statehood and thus widely considered sovereign, the Grand Master is also its Head of State. If within the Holy Roman Empire, a Reichsfürst an ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Osprey Publishing
Osprey Publishing is a British publishing company specializing in military history formerly based in Oxford. Predominantly an illustrated publisher, many of their books contain full-colour artwork plates, maps and photographs, and the company produces over a dozen ongoing series, each focusing on a specific aspect of the history of warfare. Their publications include the ''Men-at-Arms'' series, running to over 500 titles, with each book dedicated to a specific historical army or military unit. Osprey is an imprint (trade name), imprint of Bloomsbury Publishing. History In the 1960s, the Brooke Bond Tea Company began including a series of military aircraft cards with packages of their tea. The cards proved popular, and the artist Dick Ward proposed the idea of publishing illustrated books about military aircraft. The idea was approved and a small subsidiary company called Osprey was formed in 1968. The company’s first book, ''North American P-51D Mustang in USAAF-USAF Service'' ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Battlement
A battlement, in defensive architecture, such as that of city walls or castles, comprises a parapet (a defensive low wall between chest-height and head-height), in which gaps or indentations, which are often rectangular, occur at intervals to allow for the launch of arrows or other projectiles from within the defences. These gaps are termed embrasures, also called crenels or crenelles, and a wall or building with them is described as ; alternative older terms are and . The act of adding crenels to a previously unbroken parapet is termed crenellation. The function of battlements in war is to protect the defenders by giving them part of the parapet to hide behind, from which they can quickly expose themselves to launch projectiles, then retreat behind the parapet. A defensive building might be designed and built with battlements, or a manor house might be fortified by adding battlements, where no parapet previously existed, or cutting crenellations into its existing parape ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Caponier
A caponier is a type of defensive structure in a fortification. Fire from this point could cover the ditch beyond the curtain wall (fortification), curtain wall to deter any attempt to storm the wall. The word originates from the French ', meaning "chicken coop" (a ''capon'' is a castrated male chicken). In some types of bastioned fortifications, the caponier served as a means of access to the outworks, protecting troops from direct fire; they were often roofless. Although they could be used for firing along the ditch, the flanks of the bastions were the main defence of the ditch by fire. In later polygonal forts, caponiers were often roofed and were not intended as a type of ''covered way'', but as the main way of keeping the ditch clear of a besieger. History Originally the term referred to a covered passageway that traversed the ditch (fortification), ditch outside the curtain of a fortress. Fire from this point could cover the ditch beyond the curtain wall (fortification), cu ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Bastion
A bastion is a structure projecting outward from the curtain wall of a fortification, most commonly angular in shape and positioned at the corners of the fort. The fully developed bastion consists of two faces and two flanks, with fire from the flanks being able to protect the curtain wall and the adjacent bastions. Compared with the medieval fortified towers they replaced, bastion fortifications offered a greater degree of passive resistance and more scope for ranged defence in the age of gunpowder artillery. As military architecture, the bastion is one element in the style of fortification dominant from the mid 16th to mid 19th centuries. Evolution By the middle of the 15th century, artillery pieces had become powerful enough to make the traditional medieval round tower and curtain wall obsolete. This was exemplified by the campaigns of Charles VII of France who reduced the towns and castles held by the English during the latter stages of the Hundred Years War, and by th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Tenaille
A tenaille (archaic tenalia) is an advanced defensive-work, in front of the main defences of a fortress, which takes its name from resemblance to the lip of a pair of pincers. It is "from French, literally: tongs, from Late Latin tenācula, pl of tenaculum". ''American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language'', Fourth Edition. Houghton Mifflin Company. In a letter to John Bradshaw, President of the in London, writing from Dublin o ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
