CHIGNON
A female hairstyle that can be traced back to antiquity, where the hair is swept back from a central parting and tied in a loosely folded bun at the back of the head.
CHRISM
Chrism is a Greek word literally meaning ‘an anointing’; it is also known as myrrh, holy anointing oil or consecrated oil. It is an oil used in the administration of certain sacraments and ecclesiastical functions in Christian churches.
CHRISTIAN HOLY LAND
Following defeat by Saladin’s forces in 1187 (after which most of Palestine was controlled by the Ayyubids), a rump crusader state in the northern coastal cities survived for another century. However, despite seven further crusades, the crusaders were no longer a significant power in the region.
CHURCHWRIGHT
A church builder or architect.
CILICIAN GATES
The Cilician Gates, or Gülek Pass, is a pass through the Taurus Mountains connecting the low plains of Cilicia to the Anatolian Plateau, by way of the narrow gorge of the Gökoluk River. The southern end of the Cilician Gates is about thirty miles north of Tarsus, and the northern end leads to Cappadocia.
CLOTH OF GOLD
Cloth of gold is a fabric woven with a gold-wrapped or spun weft. In most cases, the core yarn is silk wrapped with a band or strip of high-content gold. The Ancient Greek reference to the Golden Fleece is thought to be a reference to gold cloth. Cloth of gold has been popular for ecclesiastical use for many centuries.
COIF
See ‘hauberk’.
CONROI
A squadron, twenty-five strong, of cavalry.
CONSTABLE
Historically, the title comes from the Latin comes stabuli (count of the stables) and originated from the Eastern Roman Empire. Originally, the constable was the officer responsible for keeping the horses of a lord or monarch. The title was imported to the monarchies of medieval Europe, and in many countries developed into a high military rank and great officer of state, for example, the Constable of France.
CONVENTUAL PRIORESS
A conventual prioress, or prior, is the independent superior of a monastery that is not an abbey and is therefore called a priory.
CORDWAINER
A cordwainer is a shoemaker/cobbler who makes fine soft leather shoes and boots. The word is derived from cordwain, or cordovan, the leather produced in Cordoba, Spain. Historically, there was a distinction between a cordwainer, who made shoes and boots out of the finest leathers, and a cobbler, who repaired them.
CORSELET (CORSELETTE)
Now an item of female underwear, the corselet was originally a piece of armour, covering the torso, made of leather or mail – chain or lamellar. The origin of the English word comes from cors, an Old French word meaning ‘bodice’.
CRUMHORN
The crumhorn is a musical instrument of the woodwind family, most commonly used during the Renaissance period. The name derives from the German krumhorn meaning ‘bent horn’. This relates to the Old English crump meaning ‘curve’, surviving in modern English in ‘crumpled’ and ‘crumpet’ (a curved cake).
CUSPIDOR
A spittoon, from the Latin conspuere, from spuere (to spit).
DANEGELD
The Danegeld (or ‘Danish tax’, literally ‘Dane money’) was a tax raised to pay tribute to Viking raiders and save a land from being ravaged. It was called the ‘geld’ or ‘gafol’ in eleventh-century sources; the term Danegeld did not appear until the early twelfth century. It was characteristic of royal policy in England during the ninth to the eleventh centuries, collected both as tributary – to buy off the attackers – and as stipendiary, to pay the defensive forces.
DANELAW
The Danelaw is an historical name given to the part of England in which the laws of the Danes held sway and dominated those of the Anglo-Saxons (in contrast with ‘West Saxon law’ and ‘Mercian law’). The areas that comprised the Danelaw are in northern and eastern England. The origins of the Danelaw arose from the Viking expansion of the ninth century, although the term was not used to describe a geographic area until the eleventh century.
DESTRIER
A Norman warhorse, often called the Great Horse. Modern shire breeds like the Percheron and Suffolk Punch may descend from destriers, but they may not have been as large as today’s shire horses. In fact, a destrier was probably not a breed, just the name for a horse bred and trained for war.
DONJON
See ‘motte and bailey’.
DORYLAEUM, BATTLE OF
A major battle of the First Crusade (the Great Crusade) fought between the Christian army of the Latin Princes and the Seljuk Turks. It was fought on 1 July 1097, in the north-west of Anatolia, as the crusaders began their long march to Palestine.
DWALE
Dwale was a medieval anaesthetic. There were many versions, but most contained bile, opium, lettuce, bryony, mandrake and hemlock. There are records of dwale in numerous literary sources, including Shakespeare’s Hamlet, and John Keats’s poem ‘Ode to a Nightingale’.
ELY, SIEGE OF
The Siege of Ely was the last redoubt of the English Revolt against Norman rule, in 1069. By 1071 only a small number of survivors, led by Hereward of Bourne, who later became better known as Hereward the Wake, remained besieged by King William at Ely, at that time an island in the shallow waters of the fens. William’s siege was successful in the autumn of 1071. Most of the defenders were killed, while a few survivors are thought to have escaped into the fens or the wildwood; all became legends.
EUNUCH
A eunuch was a person who had been castrated early enough in life for it to have major hormonal consequences. Castration was carried out so that he might perform specific social functions. The practice was well established in Europe among the Greeks and Romans. In the late Roman Empire, the Emperors Diocletian and Constantine were surrounded by eunuchs for activities like bathing, hair cutting, dressing, and many bureaucratic functions. Eunuchs were thought to be loyal and indispensable and enjoyed great influence at court. At the Byzantine imperial court, there were a great number of eunuchs employed in domestic and administrative functions and they had their own hierarchy.
EUSKARA
The Basque name for the Basque language of south-western France and north-eastern Spain.
EXCALIBUR
Excalibur is the legendary sword of King Arthur, sometimes attributed with magical powers or associated with the rightful sovereignty of Great Britain. The sword has long been associated with the Arthurian legend. In Welsh, the sword is called Caledfwlch. In Geoffrey of Monmouth’s History of the Kings of Britain, he says the sword was forged in Avalon and Latinizes the name ‘Caledfwlch’ as Caliburnus. When Monmouth’s work was interpreted in Europe, writers altered the name further until it finally took on the popular form Excalibur.
In Perceval by Chrétien de Troyes (late twelfth century), Gawain carries Excalibur: ‘for at his belt hung Excalibur, the finest sword that there was, which sliced through iron as through wood’. If the story of Richard the Lionheart’s gift of Excalibur to King Tancred of Sicily is to be believed, its whereabouts remain a mystery. Tancred died in 1194. When the Holy Roman Emperor, Henry VI, invaded the island later that year, he ordered Tancred’s reliquary and tomb to be opened and their treasures removed. Twenty packhorses of gold and silver, jewels and silks, tapestries and carpets were found and sent to Trifels Castle, in Germany. The treasure included the Sicilian coronation robes, which were used in the ensuing centuries by the Holy Roman Emperors and are now on display in Vienna. Excalibur was not mentioned among the treasure, and to this day Sicilians still believe that it is buried in a secret location somewhere on the island.
EXTREME UNCTION
The anointing of the sick or dying carried out in extremis as part of the Last Rite of passage. The Last Rites traditionally include three elements: penance, unction (anointing) and receiving the Eucharist (Christ’s Sacrament) in order to prepare the dying person for the n
ext life.
FARIS
A Muslim/Arab cavalryman, usually carrying a status similar to the European knight.
FITZ
A prefix to patronymic surnames of Anglo-Norman origin. This usage derives from the Norman fiz or filz (son of) which was coupled with the name of the father (for example, FitzGilbert, meaning ‘son of Gilbert’), as in the Scandinavian tradition of adding -son behind the father’s name, and the Gaelic traditions ‘Mac’ and ‘O’.
FLETCHER
A fletcher is a maker of arrows. The word is, via Old French, related to the French word flèche, meaning ‘arrow’; the ultimate root is the Frankish fliukka.
FONTEVRAUD ABBEY
The abbey was originally the site of the graves of King Henry II of England, his wife Eleanor of Aquitaine, their son King Richard I of England, their daughter Joan, their grandson Raymond VII of Toulouse, and Isabella of Angoulême, wife of Henry and Eleanor’s son King John. However, it is thought that there is no longer a corporal presence of Henry, Eleanor, Richard or the others on the site. Their remains were probably destroyed during the French Revolution, but their tombs and effigies remain.
FUTUWWA
An Arabic term that has similarities with chivalry and virtue. It was also a name of ethical urban organizations or ‘guilds’ in medieval Muslim realms that emphasized honesty, peacefulness, gentleness, generosity, hospitality and avoidance of complaint in life. In modern-day dialects of Arabic (for example, in Egypt) the term is sometimes used for youths who do quasi-chivalrous acts such as helping others resist intimidation by rival groups.
GARDEROBE
The term garderobe describes a place where clothes and other items are stored, and also a medieval toilet. In European public places, a garderobe denotes the cloakroom, wardrobe, alcove or an armoire. In a medieval castle or other building, a garderobe was usually a simple hole discharging to the outside leading to a cesspit or into the moat, depending on the structure of the building. Such toilets were often placed inside a small chamber, leading by association to the use of the term garderobe to describe them.
GELD
Another word for money in Dutch and German (gelt in Yiddish), in medieval England it meant tax, tribute or a ransom – as in Danegeld.
GOLD AMPULLA
An ampulla was, in Ancient Rome, a ‘small nearly globular flask or bottle, with two handles’. The word is used in archaeology for flasks, often handle-less and much flatter, containing holy water or holy oil in the Middle Ages, often bought as souvenirs of pilgrimages. Materials include glass, ceramics and metal. The glass Holy Ampulla was part of the French coronation regalia and believed to have divine origins. Similar is the Gold Ampulla in the British Crown Jewels, a hollow, eagle-shaped gold vessel from which the anointing oil is poured by the Archbishop of Canterbury at the anointing of a new British sovereign during their coronation.
GOLDEN HORN
The Golden Horn is an inlet of the Bosphorus to the east of the city of Constantinople (Istanbul) forming a natural harbour that has sheltered ships for thousands of years. It is a scimitar-shaped estuary that joins the Bosphorus just at the point where that strait enters the Sea of Marmara, thus forming a peninsula, the tip of which is ‘Old Istanbul’ (ancient Constantinople).
GONFALON
A small tailed flag or banner, flown from the top of a lance or pole to indicate lordly status, common throughout Europe. It would carry the colours, crest or heraldry of its owner.
GRAND DOMESTIC
The title of Megas Domestikos, or the Grand Domestic in English, was given to the commander-in-chief of the Byzantine land army.
GREEK FIRE
The secret weapon of the Byzantine emperors. A sort of ancient napalm, it was invented by a Syrian engineer, a refugee from Baalbek, in the Egyptian city of Heliopolis in 673. The mix of ingredients, a closely guarded secret, was reputedly handed down from emperor to emperor. It has remained a secret to this day, but was thought to be a combination of pitch, sulphur, tree resin, quicklime and bitumen. The key ingredient may well have been magnesium, which would explain why the ‘fire’ would burn under water. Varieties of it began to be used by other navies, most using pitch. The ‘fire’ was often poured into wooden barrels or clay pots before being lit and hurled at the enemy.
GUIGE
A guige is a long strap, typically made of leather, used to hang a shield on the shoulder or neck. This technique was primarily employed when the shield was not in use. Nevertheless, soldiers also wore the strap in this fashion in combat: it allowed for two-armed combat, with the soldier handling a second weapon. The guige also allowed the shield to be worn on the back while using a two-handed sword, or enabled soldiers to work on siege machines without discarding the shield. It gave the shield extra support in intense hand-to-hand combat. Guiges usually had buckles to adjust their length. Most information about the use of guiges comes from various medieval works of art, such as the Bayeux Tapestry.
HATTIN, BATTLE OF
The Battle of Hattin took place on Saturday 4 July 1187, between the crusader Kingdom of Jerusalem and the forces of the Ayyubid dynasty under the command of the Sultan Saladin. The Muslim armies under Saladin captured or killed the vast majority of the crusader forces, removing their capability to wage war. As a direct result of the battle, Islamic forces once again became the major military power in the Holy Land, soon re-conquering Jerusalem and several other crusader-held cities. These Christian defeats prompted the Third Crusade, which began two years after the Battle of Hattin.
HAUBERK
A maille (chain-mail) ‘coat’, worn like a long pullover down below the groin. Hauberks for the infantry were slightly shorter so that the men could run in them, and were only split at the sides. Cavalry hauberks extended to the knee and were split front and back. Hauberks were often worn with ‘chausses’ (maille leggings, worn like trousers). The maille could extend into a hood (coif) like a balaclava, but had a flap (ventail), in front of the throat and chin that could be dropped for comfort when not in the midst of battle. Three kinds of maille were used and were progressively more expensive: ordinary ring maille, scale maille and lamellar maille (when overlapping individual plates were fastened together by leather thongs).
HEARTHTROOP
The elite bodyguard of kings, princes and lords of the ninth, tenth and eleventh centuries.
HERALDIC TERMS
Azure: blue
Bend: diagonal stripe like a sash
Field: background of a shield, usually consisting of colours or metals (tinctures) or symbolic vair
Gold (or): yellow
Gules: red
Passant: a ‘lion passant’ is walking, with the right forepaw raised and all others on the ground
Roundel: sphere
Sable: black
Tierce: a third part of a shield (background), usually a band down the left-hand side
Vair: variegated furs (ermine, squirrel, etc.)
HOUSECARL
The elite troops of the Anglo-Saxon kings, following their establishment by King Cnut in 1016, in the Danish tradition. Cnut brought his own personal troops to supplement the English fyrd (citizen army) when he succeeded to the throne following the death of Edmund Ironside.
JERUSALEM
After the city of Jerusalem fell to Saladin in 1187, a period of huge investment began in the construction of houses, markets, public baths and pilgrim hostels, as well as the establishment of religious endowments. However, for most of the thirteenth century, Jerusalem declined to the status of a village – a result of the city’s fall in strategic value and the Ayyubid internecine struggles. In 1244, Jerusalem was sacked by the Khwarezmian Tartars, who suppressed the city’s Christian population and drove out the Jews. The Khwarezmian Tartars were driven out by the Ayyubids, in 1247. From 1250 to 1517, Jerusalem was ruled by the Mamluks. During this period many clashes occurred between the Mamluks on one side and the crusaders and the Mongols on the other. In 1517, Jerusalem fell to the Ottoman Turk
s, who remained in control until 1917.
JIHAD
Jihad is a religious duty of Muslims. In Arabic, the word translates as a noun meaning ‘struggle’. A person engaged in jihad is called a mujahid; the plural is mujahideen. Jihad is an important religious duty for Muslims. A minority among the Sunni scholars sometimes refer to this duty as the sixth pillar of Islam, though it occupies no such official status. In Shi’a Islam, however, jihad is one of the Ten Practices of the Religion. In western societies the term jihad is often translated by non-Muslims as ‘holy war’. Muslim authors tend to reject such an approach, stressing non-militant connotations of the word.
KEEP
See ‘motte and bailey’.
KHANJAR
The khanjar is the traditional dagger of Oman. It is similar to the Yemeni jambiya. The khanjar is curved and sharpened on both edges. It is carried in a sheath decorated in silver, on a belt similarly decorated in silver filigree. A khanjar appears on the flag of Oman, as part of the national emblem of Oman. There are many uses of the khanjar. It is a symbolic weapon, worn by men after puberty. Nowadays, it is used as a type of formal dress item and for stylistic purposes. Drawing the khanjar from its sheath was a social taboo before the 1970s, and men would only do that if they sought revenge or for assassination.
KILIJ
A kilij, from the Turkish kiliç (a sword), is a type of one-handed, single-edged and moderately curved sabre used by the Turks and related to cultures throughout history.
KIPCHAK BOW
A recurve-style bow used throughout Asia Minor in the Middle Ages. Like a Turkish bow, it got its name from the Kipchak tribe who, as the Golden Horde, ruled the western part of the Mongol Empire until the thirteenth century.
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