This short article (https://www.academia.edu/4152525/THE_PAVISE_INFANTRY_SHIELD_OF_MATTHIAS_CORVINUS_ARMY_LATE_MEDIEVAL_INFANTRYS_TACTICS_IN_CENTRAL_EUROPE_) turned up while I was looking for something else. Very short but perhaps interesting to those interested in Eastern European armies.
Quote from: Erpingham on July 15, 2017, 03:53:19 PM
This short article (https://www.academia.edu/4152525/THE_PAVISE_INFANTRY_SHIELD_OF_MATTHIAS_CORVINUS_ARMY_LATE_MEDIEVAL_INFANTRYS_TACTICS_IN_CENTRAL_EUROPE_) turned up while I was looking for something else. Very short but perhaps interesting to those interested in Eastern European armies.
Somewhat disturbed to read that the crossbow had been technology transferred from the Middle East following the Crusades. It does tend to make you question the rest of the article.
Since versions of the crossbow - with the composite prod - do indeed seem to have been introduced from the East during the Crusades (see for instance here (https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=s2_EDQAAQBAJ&pg=PT92&lpg=PT92&dq=crossbow+%22composite+bow%22&source=bl&ots=-d0OY7Znqc&sig=bPHZlp_F5jTyVcVtn-WIq8h-_cc&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwj0leaYgJDVAhXLBcAKHbf8BHYQ6AEIYTAJ#v=onepage&q=crossbow%20%22composite%20bow%22&f=false)) I see this as very much a venial sin, which does not cast serious doubt on the author's knowledge of his 15th-century subject.