MEDIEVAL WARFARE

Development of Gunpowder Weaponry

Firearms
Gunpowder:  sulphur, saltpeter, charcoal
Other societies with advanced gunpowder technology (c. 1500)
1.  Mughals (India)
2.  Ottoman Turks (Near East)
Ottoman cannon at Constantinople (1453)
Janissary Corps (Janissaries)
Rockets
William Congreve
Napoleonic Wars
Roger Bacon, 13th century Franciscan friar
Berthold Schwarz ("Black Bart")
1326:  Florence and London
Two directions of evolution:
1.  Handguns
2.  Cannon (also called Bombards)
Guns and miniaturization (Compare to steam engines and computers)
Problems with early cannon
Stone vrs. Metal cannonballs
"Hoist with one's own petard."
James II of Scotland
Guns replace catapults and trebuchets
Casting of cannon
Crecy (1346)
Earliest successful battlefield use:
1.  Hussite Wars in Bohemia
2.  French victories at the end of the Hundred Years War
Jan Hus
Protestants
Jerome of Prague
Council of Constance (1414-1417)
Emperor Sigismund
Jan Zizka ("John the one-eyed")
Tannenberg (1410)
Teutonic Knights
"Defenestration"
Prague
Tabor
Hussite Tactics (emphasis on infantry)
Wagon forts (wagenburg)
Crusading bull of Martin V
Battles of Prague, Luditz, and Kuttenberg
Normandy and Gascony:  last English strongholds in France
Formigny (1450)
Castillon (1452)
John Talbot, earl of Shrewsbury
Mehmet the Conqueror (1453)
Granadan War (1481-1492)
The Catholic Monarchs, Ferdinand of Aragon and Isabel of Castile
Completion of the Reconquista
Granadan War (1481-1492)
The kingdom of Granada
Boabdil, last Moslem king of Granada