The Middle
Ages
The Middle
Ages was a very interesting time. Well, maybe not for everybody, but I find it
very interesting. I researched a lot about the middle ages. This is the
information that I collected.
In the
Middle Ages, there was a big problem with feudalism. Feudalism was when the lower ranking people
rebelled against the higher ranking people. Here are some of the rankings in
order: Emperor rules an empire, King, rules a country, prince/princess, son or
daughter of the ruler, peasant, anyone one not a noble, serf, bound to land,
virtually a slave to the land owner.
A knight is
someone who has been knighted by the king or queen. To be a knight, you had to
go through the knighthood ceremony. The knight has to kneel/stand at an alter
for ten hours in silent prayer. They were joined by others for mass and their
sponsor takes possession of the sword and shield. The knights had to take vows.
Some of them are: never traffic with traitors. Never give evil counsel to a
lady, married or not. Every day hear mass and make an effort to make an
offering in church.
Knights had
to go through knight school before they could become a knight. Here is some
information about knight school. Boys start at knight school at the age of seven.
They become a squire at the age of fourteen. After knight school, when the
squires became knights, they got horses. The rich knights got three horses. The
heaviest was used for tournaments. The quickest was for long journeys, and the
last carried the bags. A knight dressed for battle had a padded jacket under a
chainmail vest. Over the chainmail, they had a tunic with their coat of arms
embroided on it. They usually had a helmet and greaves on. They also metal
gloves called gauntlets.
In the
Middle Ages, there were a lot of castles. Castles were originally made of wood,
but later on were made of stone to protect the castle from fire. Inside the
castle there was a big courtyard and smaller buildings. There was also a keep.
A keep was a tall building that was very strong. The keep is the safest place in
the castle. That is why the Lord of the
castle and his family live in it. The walls of a castle were at least 3.5
metres thick.
In the Middle
Ages there are were a lot of competitions when they were not in the middle of a
war. One of the competitions was jousting.
Jousting is when two knights face each other on a different side of a
fence. They charge at each other and try to knock their opponent of their horse
while trying to keep themselves on their own horse. They also do practise wars.
In the practise wars, they separate into two groups. The two groups fought each
other until one group surrenders or they can’t fight any more.
The Middle Ages were from 1066-the reign of
King William the Conqueror, to 1485- the death of King Richard the third. There
were three different times during the middle ages. The first was from
1066-1154. The second was from 1154-1377. The third was from 1377-1485. Each of
the different times had a separate name. They were: timeline of the Norman
kings, timeline of the Plantagenet Kings of England, and timeline of the Royal
houses of Lancaster and York Kings.
There were
many famous/well known kings in the Middle Ages. One of them was King Richard
the third. King Richard the third was English and he lived from 1452- 1485. He
was killed in the middle of a battle and his army was defeated. He is the son
of Richard, Duke of York. He was succeeded to the throne 26th June,
1485. King Richard was found gashed, bleeding and stripped on the battle field,
and was thrown across a horse and carried into Leicester.
In the
Middle Ages, there were many crusades. A crusade is when an army goes to retake
a city/castle that has been taken off them. One of the crusades started from a
tribe taking over Jerusalem. They refused to let Jewish and Christian pilgrims
enter the city. 30000 knights and other fighting men left to retake Jerusalem,
and recaptured it. 50 years later, the Arabs came and conquered Jerusalem.
There were many more crusades, but none were successful. One of these crusades
was the children’s crusade. Thousands of children died of cold and sickness
before they even got to Jerusalem. When they arrived, the children could not
find a way in, and they went home in disappointment.
A lot of
wars in the Middle Ages were called sieges. A siege is when an army attacks a
castle, but cannot conquer it immediately. Many of the sieges took over a year
to be completed. There were many weapons used specially for sieges. Here are
some of them. The siege tower. The siege tower was a tall building with a
ladder up each side and a platform coming out of the other side. They were used
for getting into the castle over the walls. Scaling ladders did the same thing.
The battering ram. a battering ram was a big log that was attached to a
triangular cover. They were used for knocking down the walls of the castle.
Catapults. Catapults were a big machine that had a pole with a bucket on the
end to put stones in. they were used for throwing boulders at the walls of the
castle. The turtle. The turtle was a massive curved piece of wood that the
soldiers held over their head to protect them from arrows and boulders while
they were going towards the walls.
In the
Middle Ages, the women were dominated by the males. That means that the males
told the women what to do and they had to obey. The unruly girls were beaten
into submission, and disobedience was seen as a crime against religion. Some
women were lucky though. They got to marry rich or high ranking men.
So there is
the information that I could find. I hope you learnt something from it. I know
I did.
Timothy
Jorgensen