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Murder Holes, Machicolations, and Other Medieval Warfare Facts

Khalid Elhassan March 6, 2020 34 min

Pike and shot - Pike and Shot : Campaigns — A pike and short formation, with pikemen protecting those wielding firearms while they reloaded. Pintrest

6. A Warrior Princess Meets Her Warrior Prince

Robert Guiscard being invested by the Pope as Duke of Apulia, Calabria, and Sicily, in 1059. Amazon

In 1058, Sichelgaita met the Normans’ leader, Robert Guiscard. It was love at first sight. Impressed by the six-foot Amazon who went into battle, armed and armored at his side, Guiscard divorced his wife and married Sichelgaita. For the next eighteen years, she was Guiscard’s constant companion, on and off the battlefield, helping consolidate his and her family’s hold on southern Italy. In addition to fighting at her husband’s side, Sichelgaita also led men on her own in independent commands.

In 1076, clad in shining armor and mounted astride a stallion, she rode up to the walls of Salerno, which was ruled by her brother, and demanded the city’s submission. When her brother refused, she besieged and starved him into surrender, seized the city, and sent him into exile. She and her husband then tried to take over the Byzantine Empire by marrying one of their children into the imperial household. A palace coup in Constantinople foiled those plans, however, so they decided to take over Byzantium the hard way, by conquering it.

Written by

Khalid Elhassan

A lifelong history buff, I developed a particular passion for WW2 history as a child, when I spent hours listening to my grandfather, enraptured, as he recounted his wartime experiences in the British East African Campaign and with the British 8th Army in North Africa.

I graduated with a history BA from George Mason University, then went on to get a JD from the University of Virginia School of Law. After lawyering for a decade, I moved to sunny Rio de Janeiro and a less demanding career, opening a tourism agency in Copacabana.

A big chunk of my free time is spent blogging (you can follow me on Quora https://www.quora.com/profile/Khalid-Elhassan ) or freelance writing, mostly about my favorite subject, history.