Contrary to the image of the katana duel, wars in medieval Japan were first and foremost matters of projectiles. Serial analysis of battle reports ( kassen chūmon ) and reward petitions (...
Did you know that the most famous sword in the stone could have a very real cousin in Tuscany? At the Montesiepi hermitage, San Galgano's "spada nella roccia" is a genuine medieval sword, studied in...
Long before the katana, Japan adopted Chinese-inspired chokutō straight blades, attested in the imperial deposits of the Shōsōin in the VIᵉ-VIIIᵉ centuries. In the Heian period, mounted warfare favored tachi...
In 1307, the arrest ordered by Philippe le Bel quickly fed the idea that a Templar fleet had disappeared from La Rochelle. However, the historical investigation revealed only an isolated testimony evoking ships, with no accounting trace...
When the hamon revealed a sleeping dragon
In certain ancient schools of Japanese blacksmithing, it was said that the hamon was not only the result of controlled tempering... but the visible trace of a spirit...
Far from a "regulation of war", the Rule of the Temple was born in the XIIᵉ century as a monastic rule: 72 so-called "primitive" Latin articles, then numerous withdrawals in Old French detailing silence, prayers,...
💡 Did you know? When neutrons unlock the secret of katanas In the XXIᵉ century, katanas are still delivering secrets thanks... to neutrons. At J-PARC, the RADEN instrument performs Bragg-edge imaging resolved in...
From Friday September 19 to Sunday September 21, 2025, the 42ᵉ European Heritage Days invite you to (re)discover architectural heritage. Thousands of sites will be opening their doors all over France, often...
Perched high above a meander in the Ebro river, Miravet castle (Tarragona province) embodies a major episode in Templar history: between 1307 and 1308, 63 brothers resisted the king's troops for fourteen months...
In 1312, the Council of Vienna suppressed the Temple with the bull Vox in excelso; a few weeks later, Ad providam entrusted its property to the Hospital... except in Castile, Aragon, Portugal and Majorca, reserved for a...
In the archipelago, many tachi from the XIIIᵉ-XIVᵉ centuries were given a "second life" as katana . In the Edo period, belt-wearing, upward-edged weapons and closer combat favored...
In the forest of Lothlórien, Galadriel offers Aragorn more than just a prophetic word... She gives him an elven scabbard fashioned for Andúril. Its virtue is clear in the story, the blade that rests in it does not tarnish,...
In medieval Japan, the dragon wasn't just a mythical creature; it symbolized rain, protection and authority. Master silversmiths of the Gotō school, active in the XVIᵉ, chiseled ornate sword mounts...
Contrary to chivalric clichés, the primitive Rule of the Temple describes a regulated life closer to the cloister than to the court. Clothes of a single color, a white coat for the brother knights; clothes without...
In feudal Japan, the famous curvature of the katana did not come from the anvil... it was born in water. Before tempering, the blacksmith coats the blade with a clay that is thicker on the back and thinner along the future edge. During the...
In January 1129, the Council of Troyes established the primitive Rule of the Temple, a Latin text appended to the minutes which organized the common life, vows and discipline of a brotherhood of repentant knights, more monastic than...
Before radio, identity and orders were conveyed through highly coded wartime signage. The family mon was displayed on armor and banners; dorsal sashimono identified companies and platoons; huge...
Château de Cramirat, located in Sergeac in the Dordogne, is a former Templar commandery founded in the XIIᵉ century. Selected by Mission Patrimoine 2025 (Loto du Patrimoine), it is one of 102 prize-winning sites in...
In 1312, at the Council of Vienna, the bull Vox in excelso suppressed the Order of the Temple. But in Portugal, King Dinis pleaded for continuity; in 1319, in Avignon, Pope John XXII erected the Order of Christ with the bull Ad ea ex quibus...
Paid in koku, the samurai of the XVIIIᵉ century lived on a rice salary that had to be "monetized" to pay rents, debts and purchases. Hence the need to visit the brokers of Osaka, where Dōjima Square...
August 1308, Chinon. Mandated by Pope Clement V, cardinals Bérenger Frédol, Étienne de Suisy and Landolfo Brancaccio question Jacques de Molay and the main Templar dignitaries. At the end of the hearings, they...
Contrary to popular belief, the samurai katana is not a thousand-year-old weapon in its current form. Before its famous curvature, Japanese warriors used straight blades called chokutō ,...
Dating from the early XIVᵉ century, manuscript I.33 is the oldest surviving European fechtbuch. It shows a priest teaching a pupil the art of the sword and the bocle in a highly structured progression: seven "guards"...
Contrary to the myth of the "treasure", the Templars' strength lay in their network of farms, vineyards, mills, sheepfolds and stables run by brothers and employees. The commanderies collected...
The de facto capital of the kingdom after 1191, Acre was home to ports, markets and the houses of the orders. The vast hospital quarter, which has been excavated and can now be visited, welcomed the sick and pilgrims; the Order employed...
Beyond the image of the sword duel, many battles opened with the bow. The kabura-ya (lit. "shuttle-arrow") bears an openwork bulb at the head which, in flight, emits a piercing whistle. This sound heralded engagement,...
Beneath the shiny lacquer, the armor speaks through its laces. Kebiki-odoshi (tight lacing) denotes expensive workmanship, typical of small-slat armor ( kozane ) and prestige equipment; sugake-odoshi...
A major figure of the Meiji Restoration, Saigō Takamori (1828-1877) paradoxically became the symbol of a fading world. In 1876, the Haitōrei decree banned the wearing of swords in public, the final step in the...
No, the Middle Ages were not gray. Workshops painted with ultramarine (Asian lapis lazuli), vermilion (cinnabar), minium, azurite, verdigris or orpiment, and highlighted with gold in...
In Edo Japan, you didn't just admire a blade: you tested it. The results, tameshigiri , on straw bales, bamboo, or even the corpses of condemned men, could be inscribed on silk: tameshi-mei...
The Haitōrei of March 28, 1876 (Dajōkan, procl. no. 38) prohibits the public carrying of swords, except by the military, police and wearers of large uniforms. Entitled "大礼服並軍人警察官吏等制服着用ノ外帯刀禁止ノ件", the edict was part of the policy of...
In Edo Japan, wearing "two swords" ( daishō ) was not just a habit: it was a statutory right. After 1629 (two swords required on duty), a 1683 regulation reserved the daishō for samurai and...
The Middle Ages didn't like grey stone: facades were frequently rendered and whitewashed. Lime, which was breathable, fungicidal and inexpensive, protected the masonry, brightened up the volumes and sometimes served as a coloured background...
The image of the "knight-canet" is tenacious, but misleading. War armor from the end of the XVᵉ century weighs an average of 20 to 25 kg , the equivalent of a modern sack, evenly distributed over the torso, the...
Before the XVᵉ century, the tachi sword was carried suspended, cutting downwards: a legacy of horseback combat. By the Muromachi period, the uchigatana/katana had become the norm: it was slipped sharp upwards into the obi,...
October 1868. As the imperial army encircles Tsuruga-jō castle, some thirty young women from the warrior nobility of Aizu organize themselves around the spirited 21-year-old Nakano Takeko. Named Joshitai ("...
Around 1550, Portuguese caravels sailing from Goa to Nagasaki landed ovoid ingots of Indian wootz. The Japanese dubbed them nanban-tetsu - "steel of the Southern Barbarians". Richer in phosphorus than...
In 17thᵉ century Edo, protecting the shōgun was more important than saving houses: buke hikeshi , brigades made up of low-ranking samurai, climbed onto roofs in squads to... demolish them! Armed...
On April 13, 1612, on the island of Ganryu, two giants of feudal Japan clash: Miyamoto Musashi, the master of the wandering duel, against Sasaki Kojirō, nicknamed "The Demon of the West". Musashi arrives voluntarily in...
In the heart of the 12th century, the Knights Templar defied Romanesque canons: in 1185, they consecrated London's Temple Church, a circular nave copied from the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem. This rotunda, one of the very first...
Before joining the hordes of walkers, each The Walking Dead extra had to graduate from the dreaded "Zombie School". Two to three days of auditions held in Senoia, Georgia, allowed...
There was more to the chivalric diet than rare roasts. Isotope signatures from the skeletons of medieval warriors and noblemen show a high intake of marine proteins: salted herring,...
In the XIIIᵉ century, the Knights Templar of Bologna managed 83 hectares of vineyards. Recent cores have yielded preserved vine pollen; its DNA, amplified by NGS sequencing, matches Albana , a white grape variety from...
Did you know that a simple vacuum can change practice? The "Teikō" molded polypropylene bokken is hollow: it embeds only a thin grooved wall that encloses... air! The result: just 490 g, or almost...
The hi ( bō-hi ) makes a groove on the blade where stresses are lowest: it removes metal without weakening the cutting edge. Inertia measurements show that a katana can lose 10 to 20% of its mass...
PLA (polylactic acid) is obtained by fermenting corn or cane sugar; its synthesis consumes up to 65% less energy than an equivalent petrochemical plastic, and emits no toxic fumes...
The longitudinal groove seen on many Gothic swords is called a fuller. Forged with a hammer, it transforms the blade into a veritable I-beam, saving 20 to 35% in weight...
In the spring of 1218, at the height of the Fifth Crusade, the engineers of the Temple settled on the narrow peninsula of Atlit to build Château Pèlerin . The sea rock is cut like a quarry: the stone is...
In the spring of 1964, the episode Zatoichi and the Chest of Gold offered viewers a discreet shock: the fearsome ronin Jushirō who challenges Zatoichi is played by Tomisaburō Wakayama... the older brother of Shintarō Katsu . The...
In the heart of Essex (England), the barley barn at Cressing Temple is intriguing archaeologists: its beams were felled around 1220, as revealed by dendrochronological analysis (reading of wood rings)....
In the XVᵉ century, the transition from the tachi to the katana marked a turning point in Japanese warrior weaponry. Worn sharp downwards and attached to a silk belt ( sashigawa ), the tachi, more curved and...
A katana is only held to its handle (tsuka) by a tiny bamboo mekugi. This peg, carved from smoked bamboo for greater density, compresses slightly and provides a perfect hold, but must be...
In all, over 150 New Zealand sites were used as backdrops for the trilogy, from the green hills of Matamata (Hobbiton), to the Ngauruhoe volcano in Tongariro National Park, now known as Mount Doom in Mordor. On the...
When Quentin Tarantino wanted to bring together Japanese swordplay and spaghetti westerns, he literally took his team on a journey! Tokyo: the silhouette of the Bride glides over the Rainbow Bridge before the...
In 1125, Hugues, the powerful Count of Champagne, renounced his lands and donned the white chlamydia: this spectacular gesture elevated the Order of the Temple to the rank of a veritable "badge of honor" for the aristocracy....
The famous "two riders on one horse" seal is just one of the official faces of the Order: it symbolizes both the humility of the brothers, who are supposed to share their mounts and fortunes, and their solidarity in battle....
In the heart of the chapel at Montesiepi, Tuscany, lies a real sword carved into the rock, a striking echo of the Excalibur myth. In 2001, chemist Luigi Garlaschelli (University of Pavia) took...
In battle, the Knights Templar advanced behind a two-tone standard: white at the top, black at the bottom, sometimes adorned with a red cross pattee. Called Beaucéant , it symbolized the Templar duality: "gentle to the...
According to tradition, the young samurai Hayashizaki Jinsuke Minamoto no Shigenobu (1542-1621) prayed and meditated for a hundred days at the Hayashizaki Myōjin shrine to avenge his murdered father. At the end of this retreat, he...
In 2021, off the coast of the Templar fortress of Atlit (Israel), divers unearthed a medieval sword measuring almost a metre long, which had been trapped in the sand for over eight centuries. Rather than remove the limestone gangue, the...
In Japan, engraving a dragon ( ryū ) on the blade or mount of a katana has never been a simple ornament. According to Shinto tradition, it is an invocation to Ryūjin (龍神), the dragon-god of seas and storms,...
In 1867, Belfort artilleryman Jules Brunet (1838-1911) arrived in Japan with the French military mission. When the Boshin War broke out (1868-1869) between shogun supporters and imperial forces, Brunet...
At the heart of the Hundred Years' War, knights no longer swore by sharpness alone. To neutralize the new plate armors, blacksmiths designed the type XV chivalric sword (typology...
In Japan, the tomoe, that coiled comma, becomes a true emblem when it multiplies by three to form the mitsudomoe. Associated as early as the Xᵉ century with the god Hachiman, protector of warriors, the triple swirl...
Ab insomni non custodita dracone ("unguarded by the sleepless dragon") is the mysterious motto of the powerful House of Este, which ruled Ferrara and Modena between the XIIᵉ and XIXᵉ centuries. It refers to the myth...
In 1635, under the reign of the Tokugawa Iemitsu shogun, Japan entered an era of extreme isolation known as sakoku, literally "closed country". This policy prohibited the Japanese from leaving the...
Unlike the fire-breathing dragons of the European Middle Ages, the Asian dragon is a celestial creature, wingless but capable of flight, often linked to water and weather. In imperial China, dragons were...
On the morning of April 13, 1612, legendary swordsman Miyamoto Musashi landed on the island of Ganryū-jima to face his formidable rival Sasaki Kojiro . On the boat leading up to the duel, Musashi hastily fashioned a long...
At the heart of the Crusades, every knight wore a fine dagger on his belt, called "misericorde", from the Latin misericordia, meaning "act of mercy". Its triangular blade, as long and narrow as a needle, slid...
In Japan, the master blacksmith repeats up to 16 bends to transform tamahagane (65,536 layers), a high-carbon steel, into the supple, sharp blade of a katana. Each bend removes impurities,...
For centuries, the figures of the Western knight and the Japanese samurai have been erected as symbols of honor and moral rectitude, embodying supposedly unshakeable ethical codes. However, a...
