Froissart
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Medieval hawking and falconry for the royals….
100 Years War, Battle of Hastings, Black Prince, Boke of St Albans, Chaucer, Conrad the Younger, Crecy Poitiers and Agincourt, Edward 2nd Duke of York, Edward I, Edward III, falconry, Frederik II.Holy roman emperor, Froissart, Gaston Phoebus, Harold Godwinson, hawking, Henry V, Henry VIII, James I, John Commins, John II of France, Parlement of Foules, Pero López de Ayala, Philip the Bold, Richard Almond, Richard II, Royal Mews Charing Cross, William I“….To authors on works on hunting, [men] such as Gaston III, compte de Foix (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaston_III%2C_Count_of_Foix) and Edward, Duke of York (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward%2C_2nd_Duke_of_York), hunting was not just a sport or pastime, it was the essence of life itself….” So writes Richard Almond in the Introduction to his book Medieval Hunting. And as you read this work,…
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Foix is in the south of France, occupying the eastern part of the modern département of Ariège, and you can read about its castle here. The former counts are listed here. But I am concerned presently with only one of them, Gaston Phoebus III de Foix, of whom my previous knowledge was mainly confined to…
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“Time-honour’d Lancaster” was given to pressing on at the expense of his men….
1475 invasion of France, Anthony Goodman, Anthony Steel, arnold, bayonne, Bordeaux, Calais, Castile, chevauchee, Constanza of Castile, david nicolle, Edinburgh, Edinburgh Castle, Edward the Black Prince, Elizabeth of Lancaster, France, Froissart, Gascony, Helen Carr, Henry IV, Hundred Years War, John of Gaunt, Jonathan Sumption, Navarre, Pedro I, Portugal, Scotland, Sir John Holland, Spain, tournaments, troyes, unofficial executions, usurpation, villalpandoIn late April 1388, John of Gaunt‘s son-in-law Sir John Holand returned to England from the Spanish peninsula, where he had been constable of Gaunt’s army. Gaunt had invaded the peninsula in pursuit of the Crown of Castile, to which he had a claim through his marriage to the Infanta Constanza. I am now going…
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Is there such a thing as coincidence? Happenstance? Fluke? Call it what you will, sometimes things happen that make us wonder. For instance, how often are you reading a word or phrase at the same time that someone on TV uses it? Well, if you’re buried in books as often as I am, then it’s…
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We have all heard of the Peasants’ Revolt of 1381, which in this article is called the English Rising, a name new to me. To me it’s a little like the morphing of the Wars of the Roses into the so-called Cousins’ War. Yet the actual heading of the article refers to the Peasants’ Revolt.…
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Otterburn Castle is in glorious Northumberland, see here, and dates back to the time of William the Bastard….er, Conqueror. All you need is £3 million. My quirky sense of humour had a turn when I read “The days of arrows shot from battlements and boiling oil poured over the walls are long gone, however….”…
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It would be true to say that Ireland often confounds this floundering English/Welsh writer. Because of the politics? No. Because of the weather? No. Because of the trouble past? No. Because of the religious complexities? No, although religion is at the heart of it. The point that is taxing my grey cells is to…
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The present Priory House at Earls Colne (judged Best Village in Essex in 2015) may be early 19th-century but has a great history because it’s “….built on the site of a Benedictine priory founded by the de Vere family, Earls of Oxford, in the early 12th century, the remains of which lie buried under…
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There are two instances (of which I know) involving a Duke of Gloucester and a king called Richard. The one that is best known to Ricardians is Richard, Duke of Gloucester, who became Richard III. But there was another instance in the previous century, when Thomas of Woodstock, Duke of Gloucester, made the life of…