Post 5 - Summary

Medieval Warfare - Summary

    Medieval Warfare was one of the largest research projects I have done. Medieval Warfare is something I really enjoy, which is why I chose it.

I though studying Medieval Warfare was interesting, fun, and challenging.

     I though Medieval Warfare was interesting for lots of reasons. First of all, it was interesting learning about all the causes of war. The reasons they fought didn’t really seem worth fighting for. These days, we fight for all these political purposes, which I don’t really get. If you go way back in time, during the Greek times and look at the Trojan War, you almost laugh. That huge war was all about a girl who was prettier then others, and a huge war was fought on deciding if Sparta or Troy would get her. Then you go forward in time to the Medieval Times. These wars are fought for girls, thrones, and insults. For example, the Hundred Year’s War lasted for about a century, and the only reason they were fighting was because England wanted the throne of France. It has a bit more reason then a girl, and if England won Europe might have been different these days, but I don’t think it’s a good reason to fight for a century. Then, you go forward in time to the Civil War. This war was worth fighting, it was fought for slavery, power, and other reasons that made sense. Then you go to the wars now, and I don’t even know what they are for, for I don’t really keep track of what is going on these days. This is one reason I thought that Medieval Warfare was interesting. Another reason I though it was interesting was to see how the castles, weapons, and tactics evolved through the ages. For example, the trebuchet is a type of catapult. It evolved from the staff sling, which is a staff with a sling tied on the end, which was used to hurl stones. Then you go to the trebuchet, which destroyed castles. There is such a big difference between these two weapons, but they are both in the same family. You could also look at the cannon, which was not very powerful at first. It could hardly be transported, it took a long time to reload, and it didn’t destroy much. Then they started discovering how to make it more powerful. They changed the stone cannon balls to iron, and they made the gun power more powerful. It became a very powerful weapon, and destroyed castles just as well as the trebuchet. Another reason I though Medieval Warfare was interesting, was because of the really exciting events that happened in it. For example, Joan of Arc was not in a very powerful rank. She was a French girl, and had visions that she was leading the French armies. She told this to the French prince, but to test her he dressed as a noble and stood with the nobles when she came in. A noble dressed as the prince and sat on his throne. When she came through the doors she didn’t even glance at the fake prince and walked straight to the nobles, where she said to the prince that she had come to lead the French armies in battle. I can imagine the prince had been very surprised by this, because he gave her a suit of armor immediately. She ended up leading the French armies, until she was burnt on the stake as a witch by the English. She helped France a lot, and she is one of the reasons they beat England in the Hundred Year’s War. Another example is Medieval Warfare it’s self. It’s when electricity wasn’t known yet, and people battled with sharp swords instead of machine guns. People dressed in metal armor instead of padded clothing, and they charged armies instead of using stealth and hiding in ditches. There were knights instead of marines, and castles instead of bunkers. People fought for reasons I understood, even if they weren’t worth fighting for. It was a really interesting topic, and I enjoyed learning about it.

     I thought Medieval Warfare was fun to study for several reasons; most of them are up above. First of all I have always loved the Medieval Ages. This is a reason I love The Lord of The Rings, Robin Hood, and other medieval movies. Another reason I thought it was fun to study, was because of some facts I can correct people with. For example, if someone tells me “Robin Hood is a legend,” I would say “Nope! Robin Hood was real!” and leave them in dismay for the rest of the day.  Or if someone told me “Castles were always made of stone,” I would say “Nope! Castles were made of other things then stone at first,” Anyway, you get the picture. I also thought Medieval Warfare was fun to learn about was because of the exciting events, which I explain in the Interesting paragraph.

     I thought Medieval Warfare was a challenging subject because of many reasons. First of all, some of the information was pretty boring to read. For example, when my information source hit the Feudal System, I got pretty bored. Then my brother explained it to me in a simple fashion, and I understood it. Another example is when the warfare hit the politics. In other words, when I was reading about the Hundred Year’s War, I got really bored when they started talking about the kings, while I wanted to learn about the Warfare, not how nice a king was. Now, if the king was evil, that was a different story. Secondly, I thought Medieval Warfare was challenging because of how hard the information would be to read. The authors wrote like college professors, who had a vocabulary that I just didn’t get. For example, on my information source the author explained the Feudal System with words that just didn’t make any sense in my mind. Another reason the information was hard to read was when the author would write in a very boring fashion. This is what it is like to some of my resources: “Joan of Arc ………….. Burned on a stake …………….. Captured castles……….” And you get the picture. Of course, I am exaggerating there. It was easier to read then that, but still a bit challenging. Another reason I thought Medieval Warfare was a challenging subject was trying to not use plagiarism. Some of my information had important facts that were very hard to rewrite, especially when they had vocabulary words which didn’t have synonyms that would work. Those sentences in my history post might not make much sense, but you might get the right idea. As you see from the information above, the dictionary and thesaurus helped a lot through this! Another reason I thought Medieval Warfare was a challenging subject was because of how broad it was. I was cramming hundreds of years into one blog, and I had NO idea what to do. I managed to cram it all in somehow, but this blog should be much longer. Europe is an old continent. It was civilized much longer before America was, and warfare was very common. This is one of the main reasons this topic was challenging.

     I experienced lots of fun, stress, and interest researching this topic. I am very glad I chose Medieval Warfare as my topic, and I have learnt a lot through this research project. This project had made past research projects seem so easy, and it is a bit scary thinking abut how hard the research projects will be in the future. I am very excited that I am about done with my blog, and I hope everyone else feels the same way.