Salvete Omnes,
The Walters Art Museum has a late (XIX century) Ottoman manuscript on the training and care of warhorses (Tuhfat ül-farisin fi ahval-i huyul il-mucahidin), in the tradition of the Islamic furusiyya manuals.
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Valete
Salvete Omnes,
October has begun.. hopefully it will be a better month than September,
Ad rem,
today I finished listening to dr Goldsworthy addressing the battle of the Granicus River 334BC topic in his Yt podcast. The great cavalry battle of the war.
In the ancient primary sources this first battle won by Alexander of Macedon in his Achaemenid Persian wars survived, to some extend, in five major ancient works - Diodorus Siculus, Justin, Plutarch, Qvitus Curtius Rufus and Flavius Arrianus.
N.G.L. Hammond went to Turkiye and did in situ study of the Granicus river valley, and in 1980 his findings he published in an article (Journal of Hellenic Studies) available on JSTOR or on Cambridge Univ. site.. In 1986 A.M. Devine wrote his article, Demythologizing the battle of the Granicus - available on JSTOR.
Kathleen Toohey made he study of Alexander's tactics available on Academia - Chapter 2: The Battle of the Granicus.
D.B. Campbell wrote his article "Alexander's great cavalry battle: What Really happened at the River Granics" (Ancient Warfare Magazine VI-2) - available on Academia.edu. The article contains illustration by great Spanish illustrator Pablo Outeiral, showing Alexander with his Companion Macedonian horsemen. There is also a map of the battle.
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| Baroque horses of Cornelis Troost |
In 2022 Philip Register wrote his senior thesis (Univ of North Carolina at Chapel Hill) - Fresh Evidence: Reevaluating Alexander's Battle at the Granicus (pdf link).
The military history of Alexander's generalship is treated by Major-general J.F.C Fuller in his work: The Generalship of Alexander the Great (London 1958), pp.147- 154, General Fuller is critical of the Persian satraps' plan and performance in this engagement with the Young Macedonian king and his fine cavalry.
Waldemar Heckel in The Conquests of Alexander wrote a brief accout of the sources and some critique of the official narrative, as history usually is written as some narrative (pp. 47-51).
Also, Polish historian Krzysztof Nawotka wrote the analysis of the battle in his book Aleksander Wielki (2004) - pages 172-181. Another Polish historian Eddward Dabrowa narrates, based on Diodorus, Plutarch and Arrian, the event of the battle in hs book Gaugamela 331p.n.e.
And another battle of the Granicus - Charles Le Brun painting and tapestry by Louis Licherie (Academia link to the article about this Baroque artwork).
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| Chalres Le Brun Baroque horses |
Valete
Salvete Omnes,
today is the 420 anniversary of the momentous battle of Kircholm (1605). I have written about Kircholm many times (please, be so kind and check labels).
Today a word or two about the war hat found to have been used by the winged hussars(companions and retainers). Typically we associate the winged hussars lancers, especially the companions, with a helmet known as a szyszak (shishak, shishaq). Naturally during the period of late XVI and early XVII century the lancers wore a variety of helmets, and a kapalin war hat was one of them.
Note that war hats or kettle hats were in use since the early Middle Ages, and even as late as 1630s Swedish modern army had kapalin war hats in their panoply, especially the cavalry, albeit their were often blackened.
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| winged hussar carrying a lance and a kapalin war hat |
Polish museums, eg Krakow National Museum, have a collection of these helmets, also in Belarus too, perhaps in Lithuanian and Ukraine as well.
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| a 'kaapalin' from a Belarusian museum, placed on a chain mail shirt |
So perhaps some of the boys who charged the Karl IX's Swedish army wore the kapalin war hats, a popular helmet with some companions and many retainers through 1650s.
Valete
Salvete Omnes,
long time ago I wrote posts about Dom Duarte (Edward) and his book of horsemanship written circa 1430AD.
Three hundred years later another Portuguese horseman, D. Pedro José de Alcântara de Menezes Noronha Coutinho (1713-1799), 6th Count of Cantanhede and 4th Marquis of Marialva, wrote a book on horsemanship -Luz da Liberal e Nobre Arte da Cavallaria, representing the Portuguese School of Equestrian Art in Sintra, Portugal.
here I 'roped' or 'corralled' some plates illustrating the grand work.
Valete
