The war between Teutonic Order and the Lithuanian pagans was one of the longest conflicts ever! There was some kind of fighting almost every year from 1283 to 1406, but very few big battles. It was basically a war of attrition, but with both sides getting stronger in the process.
The fighting revolved around raids into enemy territory where both sides pillaged enemy territory back and forth. However these raids had to be well organized and the logistics were very difficult. Campaigning was only possible for a limited time of the year!
This is primarily due to two things: geography and climate. These lands were covered by dense forests, bogs, lakes and rivers. There was a belt of uncleared land between the two enemies as a no man's land. This presented logistical challenges that were very difficult to overcome.
Furthermore campaigning was not possible for most of the year because of weather conditions. In fact, there were only two sets of weather conditions that allowed campaigning at all! And even in this case, sudden weather changes would be disastrous and could trap the army.
One weather condition was a very specific type of winter that was not too cold yet sharp enough to harden the ground and freeze over the rivers. The cold was devastating but a weak winter was even worse as it was impossible to move men and horses unless the ground froze.
The other weather condition for campaigning was hot sun combined with drying winds. This could happen any time from April to October, or not at all, and was unlikely to last for more than a month! When it did, they could combined both land and water transport for raids.
The both sides raided each other to no end while getting continuously strengthened and reinforced by their expanding economies in the hinterland away from the front. This caused this brutal endless war to last so long!
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During his long military career that spanned from 1476 to 1529, Nicholas of Salm fought against a "who's who" of legendary military units at the time. His experience was unmatched when he defended Vienna as a 70 year old veteran.
Let's take a look at his resume! (thread)
At 17 years of age he fought his first battle against the Burgundians at Morat in 1477 for Lower League alliance, facing the most powerful ruler in Europe at the time, Charles the Bold, the Duke of the West, and his feared knights of the Order of the Golden Fleece!
In 1483 he entered the service of Austrian Habsburgs and under their banner fought against the legendary Black Army of Hungary, the strongest army in Europe at the time. Ferocious mercenaries who fought for Matthias Corvinus of Hungary with a stellar record and brutal reputation.
Did all the Teutonic Knights follow their vows of chastity as warrior monks like this? Hard to generalize but many of them likely did and the vow of chastity was taken seriously as the historian Eric Christiansen notes in the book The Northern Crusades. However... (thread)
Christiansen also notes how "the knight-brother was exposed to strong temptations, because war and power continually put women at his mercy. They were booty, and the expectation of raping them was what kept his native auxiliaries up to the mark."
These native auxiliaries were the Old Prussian Baltic pagans, former enemies of the Order now serving as their mercenaries. Most of the Baltic crusades revolved around brutal raids into enemy territory and these natives acted as guides and irregulars for the Teutonic Knights.
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!
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!
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.
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.