The renaissance was a historic age for the advancement of the technologies of weapons and warfare. Weapons were advancing rapidly and continuously. This increase in technology also led to the advancement of defense mechanisms, which were crucial to fighting off the opposing army. These advancements in technology led to increased warfare among cities. Battles with hand weapons were once dominant, however, the most common warfare during this time is the castle siegecraft and defense. The discovery of gunpowder is what started the revolution of siegecraft and defense. With gunpowder, the first cannon was made, which set the footing for all future siegecraft weapons. “The era commonly known as ‘Early Modern Warfare’ began during the middle of the fifteenth century and lasted until the end of the eighteenth century. The widespread use of gunpowder along with the weapons designed to use it, changed the methods of warfare dramatically.” (2)
The Middle Ages were extremely violent. The fight for control of natural resources, control over lands, and dominance ravaged the renaissance. “The quest for wealth and power was driven by the violent culture of the European countries.” (3) Castles were the central region of a cities power. There were many invasions and the need for weaponry and men to fight for the city grew. The weapons supplied to salaried knights were high. This led to a need of more income, and led lords to send knights out to invade others, fueling the war-circle. Lords were expected to provide soldiers who were trained in a variety of Middle Ages weapons. The Medieval era was a time of war and land disputes. This brought about many wars which could only be won with brute force and carnage by the use of deadly weapons. However horrible the killing of thousands in the name of war seems, the creation of the weapons renaissance knights had is very important to the weapons we have today. The Middle Ages have brought many of the weapons we see today to our society. Not only weapons have done this however. Other technological advances, including those for defense as well, have been rooted from the middle ages.
Some Medieval hand weapons included Axes, Maces, Partisans, military forks, and the flail. These weapons were usually created with sharp edges throughout the weapons so that if any part of the weapon made contact with the enemy it would cause severe damage, or even instant death. This was important because the army who could slay the other army more precisely, within a shorter period of time, would most likely win the battle. These weapons were generally used on head-to-head combat, however, there were other weapons, such as the spear, that would be thrown.
Siegecraft and defense is a offense/defense term. Siegecraft is the action of an armed force that surrounds a fortified place and isolates it while continuing to attack. Defense is the military action or resources protecting a country against potential enemies. The first use of siegecraft and defense came with the invention of a great renaissance weapon, the siege cannon. Siege cannons, a large artillery gun utilizing gunpowder, were first used in Europe to attack castles. These powerful machines were capable of blasting through castle’s walls, and thus, the use of great walls for primary defense halted. This later led to an advancement in the walls that were used in defense. Slopping walls were created. These walls were created at a slope, decreasing the force that would result from a head-on collision. “These slopping walls would deflect the cannon shots and allow the primary defense mechanism, the wall itself, to remain intact.” (1) The great slopping walls protected the defenders from attack by cannon. “The new design also included the building of “bastions”. A bastion projects out from the main wall of a fortification and is situated at the corners of straight walls. The bastion allows the defenders to cover different angles and to cover adjacent bastions with protective fire. Bastions provide covering fire, often from multiple angles. The need for cover fire at differing angles led to the design of the “star” shaped fortress.” (4) However, other common siege tactics were harder to combat. Several of these were mining, artillery bombardment, siege towers, and catapults. Mining involved building a passageway under the defense’s wall. The attackers usually could not successfully penetrate the defense by traveling through a small underground hole, so they dug until they were directly under the wall, and filled to tunnel with heavy explosives. They then proceeded to detonate the explosives and bring the wall down. Artillery bombardment is “Using everything thing imaginable to go over the wall of the fortress or castle and inflict harm.” (1) This was mostly used to inflict damage on the buildings and surroundings of the city, slowly dwindling it. The catapult was a weapon used to “hurl a projectile a long distance” (1) and usually used to project weapons over the wall. It was usually used with large boulders, which would easily smash what it hit upon landing. One of the most ingenious siege weapons was the siege tower. It was used to “protect the attackers as they approached the walls of the fortress or castle.” (1) They were built at the height or higher than the wall. Archers would then attack the city and lay a plank to trespass into the city. However, the siege tower could not be used if the castles walls had a surrounding moat, and entering the defending city was not always possible due to defending archers.
The defending castle also had special ways of defending itself. As mentioned, archers on top of the walls could target and shoot the opposing army much easier and at a much broader range. These archers were also more safe due to the cover the wall provided. Archers were the defense’s greatest defense against attempts to enter the city over the wall. Gatehouses, the entrance to the caste, was the castle’s weakest point. However, the gatehouse was heavily guarded, strongly fortified, and was usually set with traps that would kill intruders. The most common portrayal of a castles defense is a moat. “Moats surrounding castles protected them from siege towers and battering rams, war machines that were only effective when wheeled to the wall. It also made digging tunnels underneath the wall far more challenging. To get across a moat, the attacking army sometimes filled the moat with rocks and soil or built portable wooden bridges.” (2)
In the case that the defenders are able to successfully defend themselves from all intrusions, without a proper offense, the defending city would still fall. The attackers, if not able to penetrate the defenders defense, would blockade the city, forcing them to surrender due to a lack of the supplies needed. This method of defeating the defender was not greatly popular among attackers due to the time it took to force the defending city to surrender.
The advances in technology paired with the the constant rate of the same advances going obsolete led to a constant, infinite amount of new technologies replacing old ones. This then, over time, leads to an increase in knowledge about weapons and warfare which has contributed much to our history and knowledge.“In the Middle Ages their weapons were much different than the weapons we have today such as; battle axes, longbows, bows, crossbows, war hammers and swords.” (3) In our world today we have a myriad of weapons. They come in all shape and sizes; assault rifles, pistol, shotguns, missile and grenade launcher, and grenades. Each and every one of those weapons have helped in wars to save our country, but these would have never came about if it weren’t for the earlier inventions of the Medieval people. The warfare that was used in the Middle Ages was fought around power bases which were the great castles. In those times, the knights had different types of weapons including massive and deadly siege weapons. The advancement over time has led to the superior weaponry we have today, and they may have their pros and cons but overall they have altered the battlefields and helped set treaties, build relationships, and benefit resolution among nations. Weapons and warfare of the renaissance effectively changed our world, and many nations came to adopt these weapons and war tactics, as well as build on them and create new technologies based on them. This shared history, makes us all similar, and in many ways, citizens of the world.
SOURCES
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/lostempires/trebuchet/race.html (1)
http://www.all-about-renaissance-faires.com/warfare/siege_tactics.htm (2)
http://www.middle-ages.org.uk/middle-ages-weapons.htm (3)
http://www.all-about-renaissance-faires.com/warfare/siege_defense.htm (4)
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