Knights
The Knights were an important part of the feudal system during the Middle Ages. The knights were chosen, almost destined to do what they do from the time that they were young children. Was you are chosen to be a knight in training the serve as a page. After that they continue on as a squire and then into a full fledged knight. Throughout there life you can clearly see that even after all that service to someone in your higher class you still serve your lord once you become a knight. The role of a knight is to be the guardians of the kingdom. Through their training which consists of basic preparation knowledge (as a page and a squire), siege warfare, equestrian skills, and combat using a variety of weaponry. All knights learned the same teachings along with the Code of Chivalry. This basic guideline outlines the expectation of how a knight should act. It includes things such as keeping faith, to always speak the truth, and to obey those placed in authority. The common look of a knight is one that wears either chain mail, plate armor or a combination of both. This form of defense was extremely effective since plate armor is so difficult to pierce yet there was a down fall. The plate armor was extremely heavy and a knight can easily be exhausted by all the weight in the midst of battle. Some knight also rode war horses n they must be the ones who must be in the most pain. These domesticated animals carried men packed with armor n weapons and o the battle field the horses have to run nonstop while occasionally getting poked by enemy spears and swords. Really anything that has to do with a knight and his life is tough, until your on a brake from war.
Torture
The Medieval Times were known for many of their outrageous forms of torture. Tortures were used for many reasons. It was mostly for people who have committed crimes such as defying a ruler, murder, or theft. Captives from war have also been put to such a fate to find information. Torture was decided by looking at two categories: the crime and the social class. In the end though no matter how gruesome the torture may be it was like watching some sort of sporting event except that everyone there hated on one person. Here are some of the crazy forms of torture:
>Scavenger's Daughter-The ankles, hands, and neck is tied together with iron bars. The distance of the bars are shortened at the mercy of the executioner which in turn crushes and compresses the body. This causes bleeding from the nose and ears and can deeply damage the neck and spinal cord. Made in England.
>The Ducking Stool- This was a unique form of torture that was usually used upon women who were accused of witchcraft. Here the victim is strapped into a chair which is attached to a free moving arm. Once it's prepared the victim will be ducted into a nearby river or moat into freezing water. This can occur for a few seconds, hours, or the whole day depending on the crime.
>Impalement- This was the favored form of torture used by Vlad the Impaler aka Dracula. It consists of an oiled stake where a victim is forced into at the top. The victim then slowly slips down into the thick wooden stake which will soon pierce the entire body. The height of the stake is determined by the person's rank, so those with the higher rank has a long way down.
Castles
A huge aspect of the Dark Ages is actually not that dark The castles in the medieval ages were architectural marvels. The castles serve as homes, holy places, and a war fortress. Most castles were made of different kinds of stone. In the stone fortress were places that served many purposes. All castles of course contain the basic housing points. It includes bedrooms of high quality fit for the king and queen, a kitchen to prepare feasts, a courtyard for leisure, and a place of worship such as a cathedral. Besides housing very important monarchs castles also held riches and treasures that belong to the kingdom. When things of such value, such as the king, are in he castle it must have some sort of defense system. The first layer of defense is a moat, a deep trench filled up to the top with water. Unlike stereotypical scenarios moats weren't actually filled with hungry alligators instead they were filled with sharp stakes so that swimming or even an attempt to leap across would lead to a speared human. The next line of defense is the castle wall. Scaling a 45 foot high stone wall is no easy task. During a siege the enemy would use a system of ladders to reach the top. The archers perched at the top would either fight off the men or simply push the ladder down, which isn't as easy as it sounds. Sometimes things such as oil, boiling water, and even rotting corpses were tossed to the enemy and sometimes would be fired a the castle. The fortress is a great battle, one that ends up turning into art in the future.
The Plague
The infamous plague is a disaster that decimated Europe in 1347. I started off like a normal sickness which spread in a matter of days. The black infectious pores and people coughing up blood was as common as the sky at the time. It all started when some rats and other vermin decided to hitch a ride to the west along the Silk Road. Thanks to the Mongol Dynasty the trade transported the microbe that wiped out about half of Europe's population. The plague brought out a lot of ideas from people as well. For example many turned to religion in order to be safe. Many believed that god was punishing human kind for all the sins that they have committed. This is why one group of people came to be. The flagellants were people who believed that god was doing such a thing and so they turned to their own solution. They went out into the streets, sometimes partially dressed, and they inflicted pain upon themselves. They did things such as whip and beat themselves, bleed out, and roll around in
the mud. They believed that if they punished themselves then god will stop punishing others and end the bubonic plague. What the flagellants really ended up doing was cause even more chaos because of the amount of influence they had in the 30 days that they active. The plague really did change Europe in both population and the mental state of others.
Peasant Life
Normal peasant life was extremely difficult. Most peasants would start off their days at about 3 o’clock in the morning. Their usual breakfast would be a bowl of pottage. Most peasants had to work on fields or on land from the crack of dawn. During this time usually they had multiple duties that they had to fulfill. This included reaping which was to cut crops for harvest with a sickle, reaper, or scythe. They would also spend their day binding, thatching, hedging, haymaking, and ploughing. Most worked outside till dusk. This meant that during the Summer they worked much more because the days in Summer were
longer. Most peasants had to make their own tools and utensils from wood, leather, and horns from cattle. Most women ate after their husband and children had finished eating. Woman had little free time. Life for lower class women during the Middle Ages was very difficult. All women were expect to help out their peasant husbands in their daily chores as well as attend to the rest of the family and cook the daily meals. Men were expected to work on the fields and harvest crops most of the day. Peasants lived a hard life and once you were born a peasant it was hard to escape it. They lived as serfs always working on the land of the lord for long hours since they were the lowest of the social classes.
The Knights were an important part of the feudal system during the Middle Ages. The knights were chosen, almost destined to do what they do from the time that they were young children. Was you are chosen to be a knight in training the serve as a page. After that they continue on as a squire and then into a full fledged knight. Throughout there life you can clearly see that even after all that service to someone in your higher class you still serve your lord once you become a knight. The role of a knight is to be the guardians of the kingdom. Through their training which consists of basic preparation knowledge (as a page and a squire), siege warfare, equestrian skills, and combat using a variety of weaponry. All knights learned the same teachings along with the Code of Chivalry. This basic guideline outlines the expectation of how a knight should act. It includes things such as keeping faith, to always speak the truth, and to obey those placed in authority. The common look of a knight is one that wears either chain mail, plate armor or a combination of both. This form of defense was extremely effective since plate armor is so difficult to pierce yet there was a down fall. The plate armor was extremely heavy and a knight can easily be exhausted by all the weight in the midst of battle. Some knight also rode war horses n they must be the ones who must be in the most pain. These domesticated animals carried men packed with armor n weapons and o the battle field the horses have to run nonstop while occasionally getting poked by enemy spears and swords. Really anything that has to do with a knight and his life is tough, until your on a brake from war.
Torture
The Medieval Times were known for many of their outrageous forms of torture. Tortures were used for many reasons. It was mostly for people who have committed crimes such as defying a ruler, murder, or theft. Captives from war have also been put to such a fate to find information. Torture was decided by looking at two categories: the crime and the social class. In the end though no matter how gruesome the torture may be it was like watching some sort of sporting event except that everyone there hated on one person. Here are some of the crazy forms of torture:
>Scavenger's Daughter-The ankles, hands, and neck is tied together with iron bars. The distance of the bars are shortened at the mercy of the executioner which in turn crushes and compresses the body. This causes bleeding from the nose and ears and can deeply damage the neck and spinal cord. Made in England.
>The Ducking Stool- This was a unique form of torture that was usually used upon women who were accused of witchcraft. Here the victim is strapped into a chair which is attached to a free moving arm. Once it's prepared the victim will be ducted into a nearby river or moat into freezing water. This can occur for a few seconds, hours, or the whole day depending on the crime.
>Impalement- This was the favored form of torture used by Vlad the Impaler aka Dracula. It consists of an oiled stake where a victim is forced into at the top. The victim then slowly slips down into the thick wooden stake which will soon pierce the entire body. The height of the stake is determined by the person's rank, so those with the higher rank has a long way down.
Castles
A huge aspect of the Dark Ages is actually not that dark The castles in the medieval ages were architectural marvels. The castles serve as homes, holy places, and a war fortress. Most castles were made of different kinds of stone. In the stone fortress were places that served many purposes. All castles of course contain the basic housing points. It includes bedrooms of high quality fit for the king and queen, a kitchen to prepare feasts, a courtyard for leisure, and a place of worship such as a cathedral. Besides housing very important monarchs castles also held riches and treasures that belong to the kingdom. When things of such value, such as the king, are in he castle it must have some sort of defense system. The first layer of defense is a moat, a deep trench filled up to the top with water. Unlike stereotypical scenarios moats weren't actually filled with hungry alligators instead they were filled with sharp stakes so that swimming or even an attempt to leap across would lead to a speared human. The next line of defense is the castle wall. Scaling a 45 foot high stone wall is no easy task. During a siege the enemy would use a system of ladders to reach the top. The archers perched at the top would either fight off the men or simply push the ladder down, which isn't as easy as it sounds. Sometimes things such as oil, boiling water, and even rotting corpses were tossed to the enemy and sometimes would be fired a the castle. The fortress is a great battle, one that ends up turning into art in the future.
The Plague
The infamous plague is a disaster that decimated Europe in 1347. I started off like a normal sickness which spread in a matter of days. The black infectious pores and people coughing up blood was as common as the sky at the time. It all started when some rats and other vermin decided to hitch a ride to the west along the Silk Road. Thanks to the Mongol Dynasty the trade transported the microbe that wiped out about half of Europe's population. The plague brought out a lot of ideas from people as well. For example many turned to religion in order to be safe. Many believed that god was punishing human kind for all the sins that they have committed. This is why one group of people came to be. The flagellants were people who believed that god was doing such a thing and so they turned to their own solution. They went out into the streets, sometimes partially dressed, and they inflicted pain upon themselves. They did things such as whip and beat themselves, bleed out, and roll around in
the mud. They believed that if they punished themselves then god will stop punishing others and end the bubonic plague. What the flagellants really ended up doing was cause even more chaos because of the amount of influence they had in the 30 days that they active. The plague really did change Europe in both population and the mental state of others.
Peasant Life
Normal peasant life was extremely difficult. Most peasants would start off their days at about 3 o’clock in the morning. Their usual breakfast would be a bowl of pottage. Most peasants had to work on fields or on land from the crack of dawn. During this time usually they had multiple duties that they had to fulfill. This included reaping which was to cut crops for harvest with a sickle, reaper, or scythe. They would also spend their day binding, thatching, hedging, haymaking, and ploughing. Most worked outside till dusk. This meant that during the Summer they worked much more because the days in Summer were
longer. Most peasants had to make their own tools and utensils from wood, leather, and horns from cattle. Most women ate after their husband and children had finished eating. Woman had little free time. Life for lower class women during the Middle Ages was very difficult. All women were expect to help out their peasant husbands in their daily chores as well as attend to the rest of the family and cook the daily meals. Men were expected to work on the fields and harvest crops most of the day. Peasants lived a hard life and once you were born a peasant it was hard to escape it. They lived as serfs always working on the land of the lord for long hours since they were the lowest of the social classes.