742 wedding
swords or other hand weapons. Mounted combat also
reflected higher social status and the possession of suffi-
cient wealth to maintain a horse and groom. The weapons
of the infantry evolved to enable them to fight the mounted
noble, who could, and frequently did, hold a distinct
advantage. Armor, always expensive, developed in response
to the type of weapon it was supposed to protect against.
ARCHERY AND FIREARMSBy 1100, archery became much more of a threat to every-
one with the development of the crossbow. The crossbow
was not quick to reload or cheap to produce but was not
difficult to learn to use by the inexperienced. Less than
noble archers were now able to kill mounted nobles at
safe ranges. After 1300 the English longbow, or a very
large self-bow, was even more deadly and far easier to
launch quickly against an enemy. Crude firearms began to
be used in the 14th century, and they, too, were effective
within a fairly short range. Backed up by the older system
of chain mail, armor plate grew thicker and expensive but
only marginally more effective against all these threats.
SWORDS AND LANCESSwords of one form or another were used throughout the
period by all combatants. They could be expensive, and
high-quality versions were difficult to produce. The qual-
ity swords available to foot soldiers therefore varied. They
were double-edged in the central Middle Ages to be effec-
tive in slashing attacks. In the later Middle Ages and
Renaissance, swords acquired sharp points for stabbing
into the small vulnerable areas left exposed by even the
best armor. Swords were used in and evolved in HUNTING.
They began to have magical or mystical qualities in litera-
ture and legend. Lances were used in cavalry charges but
usually had to be abandoned in the melées of actual com-
bat. Halberds with axe-shaped heads and bill hooks for
pulling people off horses were prominent in the battles of
the later period. The Swiss became famous and deadly
effective in the use of massed pike men from the 14th
century. The pike could be 18 feet long and when
deployed by close-order blocks of infantry was decisive in
combat until the 16th century.
CANNONRYCannons were used in combination with various instru-
ments using torsion energy or the power of a sprung
seesaw, the trebuchet. All were able to hurl stones or
objects a few hundred yards. As cannons using gunpow-
der became more reliable, powerful, and accurate in the
mid-15th century, they forced a complete change in for-
tifications. The defenses of towns could be battered
down and overcome in days rather than months. On the
battlefield itself, cannons and firearms were slower to
affect tactics and decisively influence the outcome of
battles between mobile forces.
See also CASTLES AND FORTIFICATION; FIREARMS;
GREEK FIRE; HORSES; WARFARE.
Further reading:Bért S. Hall, Weapons and Warfare in
Renaissance Europe: Gunpowder, Technology, and Tactics
(Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1997); Jim
Bradbury, The Medieval Archer(Woodbridge: St. Martin’s
Press, 1985); Anne Curry and Michael Hughes, eds.,
Arms, Armies and Fortifications in the Hundred Years’ W ar
(Woodbridge, England: Boydell Press, 1994); Anne Curry
and Michael Hughes, eds., Arms, Armies and Fortifications
in the Hundred Years’ War(Woodbridge, England: Boydell
Press, 1994); Arthur Norris Kennard, Gunfounding and
Gunfounders: A Directory of Cannon Founders from Earliest
Times to 1850(London: Arms and Armour Press, 1986);
J. R. Partington, A History of Greek Fire and Gunpowder
(Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1999).wedding SeeMARRIAGE.Wenceslas, Saint(Wenzel, Václav)(r. 921/922– 929/
935)Czech prince, duke of Bohemia
Wenceslas was the son of Vratislav I, a Premyslid prince
(r. 915–921), and his pagan mother Drahomíra of the
Stodorans. The principality of the Premyslids was then
situated around what became the city of PRAGUE; it was
preeminent and the most successful among the lordships
of BOHEMIA because of its effectiveness in collecting
taxes. In the late ninth century under rule of Bofhvoj I (r.
850–894) and under the influence of his grandmother
Saint Ludmilla, Wenceslas was baptized by Saint Method-
ios, the archbishop of Great Moravia, and later he
strongly supported MISSIONSand the efforts of missionar-
ies to convert his people. He became duke in 921 or 922.REIGN AND MURDER
After the invasions of the Hungarians in the early ninth
century, the German Holy Roman Empire was reestab-
lished under Henry I the Fowler (ca. 876–936) who con-
sidered Bohemia a fief of BAVARIAor part of his own
domain. After invading Bohemia, he made Wenceslas pay
an annual tribute in 929. Throughout his reign, Wenceslas
had concentrated on consolidating his lordship over many
surrounding principalities in order to make Bohemia a
unified Premyslid state able to oppose the Germans. This
political plan of refusal to submit to German domination
was also the attitude of Wenceslas’s younger brother and
successor, Boleslav I the Cruel (r. 929/935–967/972). They
quarreled over strategy to attain this end. Within the con-
text of this fraternal animosity and lingering pagan senti-
ments of the Bohemian nobles. Wenceslas was murdered
near his brother’s castle on his way to church, traditionally
on September 28 sometime between 929 and 935, a politi-
cal martyr not a religious one. Wenceslas was quickly per-
ceived to be a victim of fratricide and a martyr and gained
a reputation as a just prince and a saint. Even his brother,
Boleslav, who had been implicated in the assassination,
skillfully exploited this for himself and his dynasty and
exploited the murder to obtain from the pope a bishopric