Tag: European Renaissance

The conduct of a siege [in the Renaissance period] was a hugely expensive undertaking in terms of supplies, consuming tons of food, gunpowder and shot. When an army was engaged upon a siege it was unable to threaten anywhere else, and also became vulnerable to outside attack. This situation is exemplified forever by the comical situation at the Siege of Turin in 1640 [C.E.]. The French in the citadel were besieged by the Spanish in the city who were in turn besieged by a French army outside the city walls who were also besieged by a Spanish army in siege lines!

— The Art of Renaissance Warfare, Chapter 8

…To illustrate just how tough knights had to be in [the early 16th Century (C.E.), Blaise de Monluc‘s] memoirs record vividly how the enemy:

…peppered me in the meantime with an infinite number of arquebus shot, one of which, pierced my target [shield] and shot my arm quite through…and another battered the bone at the joint of my arm and shoulder that I lost all manner of feeling….

De Monluc was so determined to continue his military career that he refused to have his arm amputated. This was, in any case, a surgical procedure that threatened either death or lifelong poverty, so he chose instead to lie on his back for two months, experiencing a physical pain that he regarded as nothing compared to the torment he was enduring by missing the subsequent campaigns….

— The Art of Renaissance Warfare, Chapter 9

Emphasis mine.

Right up to and through the Renaissance, magicians were classed among what we today would call intellectuals. They were learned men, familiar with ancient lore and languages, with the obscure symbolism of signs and numbers. They read the stars and dabbled in the mysticism that surrounded alchemy. They were respected. In the early centuries of Christianity, magic was not considered an evil thing. In a world thought to be inhabited by men and angels and devils, men also believed in spirits neither good or bad; spirits of the air, of fire, of the sea, of the mountains, of the woods, of the winds. It was believed that if a person was sufficiently learned in the art of magic, he could summon and control these powers; make them do his bidding. It was only at the very end of the Middle Ages, and particularly in the Renaissance enlightenment, that animism lost its hold on men’s minds.

— The Wonderful World of Magic and Witchcraft, p. 2