Did you know? There is an old legend documented by chroniclers that one of the Teutonic Knights decided to test his commitment to chastity by ordering the prettiest virgin girl they could find to sleep next to him naked for entire year and he didn't touch her.
This Teutonic Knight was Bertold Brühaven hailing from Duchy of Austria. He served the Order in the Baltic crusades and was Komtur (commander) of Königsberg from 1289 to 1302. The chronicles praise him as a great warrior who conducted many successful raids deep in pagan lands!
For example Nikolaus von Jeroschin writes that in 1291 "that ever reliable warrior for God" Brother Bertold Brühaven attacked ferociously the area called Junigeda, burning and looting it and also killing or taking prisoner approximately 700 local Baltic heathen men and women!
The same year he also attacked the pagan fortress of Medraba and "stormed it relentlessly until he captured it from the control of the enemy, killing or taking prisoner everyone he found there. Having achieved this he burned down the castle and returned home."
He also fought against other Christians during the tensions between Archbishopric of Riga and Livonian branch of the Order. Grand Master Gottfried von Hohenlohe sent Brühaven with a big force of Teutonic Knights to help fellow brethren against "arrogant Rigans"!
The brothers under Brühaven's leadership successfully defeated the Rigans at Neuermühlen and "created many widows in the town of Riga"! Nikolaus von Jeroschin further describes how Teutonic Knights "hacked at and killed... more than 4000." No mercy was shown to their enemies!
The legend of Berthold Brühaven choosing the ordeal of chastity is documented by both Peter von Dusburg and Nikolaus von Jeroschin. Here is what Peter von Dusburg wrote about it in Latin with a tone full of admiration and amazement for this deed. Ecce mira res et stupenda!

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More from @LandsknechtPike

Jan 18
Italian noblewoman Simonetta Vespucci (1453 - 1476) was so famous for her beauty that she earned the nickname La Sans Pareille, "The Unparalleled One"!
Born in Genoa as Simonetta Cattaneo, she moved to Florence after marrying important nobleman Marco Vespucci.

She was allegedly the model for many paintings by Sandro Botticelli, Piero di Cosimo, and other Florentine painters!
When she died at only 22 years of age she was carried through the city of Florence in an open coffin "so that all might see her beauty, which was even greater in death than it had been in life." Many poets wrote poems grieving over the young beauty's tragic demise!
Read 4 tweets
Jan 16
Yes and medieval universities were important because they set foundations for independent self-regulating institutions of higher learning, and for giving a lot of rights to students. That does not mean they were necessarily superior to non-Western institutions at the time.
No one denies that the likes of Byzantines and Arabs had superior institutions for a long time in the "middle ages", but the Western universities set up foundations for modern universities in terms of institutional concept, and over time became more and more important.
This is why the (Western) middle ages should be understood as a period of creativity, innovation and learning. They started from a very low position as a civilization but expressed a great desire to learn and implement a lot of new ideas that benefited over time.
Read 4 tweets
Jan 16
A lot of people bringing up "university" of Constantinople "missing" on this map. The term university comes from Latin universitas and applied strictly to Western medieval corporations of students and teachers. Non-Western centers of higher learning were not called 'universitas'.
To use the term university outside of Latin Europe in the middle ages is misleading. That does not mean of course that centers of higher learning did not exist elsewhere, but the term university describes a very specific type of corporate and legal organization in the West.
Of course I won't even comment on the ridiculous notion of "University" of Constantinople missing on a map which doesn't even include the city of Constantinople, but I've had a lot of people bringing it up so I decided to comment on it.
Read 4 tweets
Jan 12
Many peaceful looking towns in Europe have had very violent medieval past! One of such is the beautiful town of Fermo in Italy. The city was sacked, besieged and conquered many times in history and in renaissance it witnessed violent struggles among important local noblemen! Image
This town of Fermo was very important already in the Roman era. In the 5th century it suffered numerous barbaric invasions including by raids Attila. In the 6th century it witnessed the Gothic War, fell under Byzantine rule and then conquered by Lombards! ImageImage
From the late 10th century on it became a frontier march of the Holy Roman Empire, the March of Fermo! In the 11th century these lands were under attack by the Normans. The men from Fermo fought against them for the Pope and lost at the famous battle of Civitate in 1055. Image
Read 7 tweets
Dec 30, 2021
The story of Nicholas of Salm and his defense of Vienna against the Ottomans in 1529 is one of the most epic stories of European history yet totally forgotten and untold. Therefore It deserves the most epic battle thread from me so far to present this truly heroic and noble tale!
The First Siege of Vienna in 1529 is unjustly in the shadow of the more famous Second Siege of Vienna in 1683 due the spectacular hussar charge, even though the first one was even more heroic and even more crucial for the future of Europe and required a display of epic bravery.
Nicholas of Salm represented the best of European warrior aristocracy and of chivalry. His entire life was marked with war. He first fought at age of 17 during the Burgundian wars in 1476 and until the 1529 Siege of Vienna there was hardly a year of peace in his life in between.
Read 40 tweets
Dec 30, 2021
The Sack of Rome in 1527 is just another disastrous result of machiavellian thinking of Italian leaders during the Italian Wars. Pope Clement VII thought he could play some clever political games and picked a fight with Emperor Charles V without having an army to back it up.
The war that led to the Sack of Rome was started by Pope when he formed the League of Cognac of Papal States, France, England and some other Italian states against the Emperor Charles V. The Empire responded by raising a big mercenary force and sending it to Italy.
The Pope's idea was that France and England combined would force Charles V out of Italy and that he would be able to play the big powers against each other and reap all the benefits. Of course it failed miserably, like these machiavellian tactics always do.
Read 12 tweets

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