When it comes to medieval torture devices, there’s always one particularly nasty tool that instantly comes to mind: the iron maiden. It’s brutal. It’s essentially a metal coffin with spikes on the inside. Once the door closes, the person…
Food matters, and no one knows that more than military personnel. No matter where they are or what flag is flying over their formations, the well-worn saying that “an army…
The surcoat, a textile garment placed over the armor to hide it from the sun’s rays, is where the word coat of arms comes from. In the Middle Ages, knights…
After reading the headline of this article, you might be thinking, “why?” We think it’s better to start with, “what?”
In this case, “what” is a replica of the “Roaring Meg,” a mortar used in the English Civil War in …
Everyone always remembers the sheer bad*ssery and battle prowess of the vikings, the samurai, and the Roman legionnaires — but the Winged Hussars of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth a rarely find a way into the conversation.
Don’t let th…
War is not junior varsity basketball. There are no participation trophies and no one fights a battle thinking it’s okay to lose as long as you have fun. In the…
Life in ancient Germany was rough, to put it lightly. You knew who your second cousins were, because you never knew when someone and his cousins were planning to kill…
According to Disney, princes are the most charming, handsome men in all the land. Historically, that’s far from the truth. Royal families were typically pretty obsessed with power. No matter how much they had, they wanted more, and they wanted to k…
For the centuries prior to the discovery of germ theory, the biggest battlefield concern for doctors and surgeons was infection. Wounded men could conceivably survive their most grievous injuries, but…
The legends of the mythical King Arthur’s court weren’t all round tables and holy grails. One of the king’s most able and seasoned knights, Sir Gawain, once had to fight…