Black powder series, Episode 1- Introduction of gunpowder into European Warfare, c. 15th-17th Centuries……. An Introduction

The expense of gunpowder weapons focussed the means of making effective warfare in the hands of fewer and fewer actors. The expense of manufacture and administration of the weapons could be borne only by the wealthiest of monarchs and magnates.

In this introduction we will be discussing a couple of the wider debates regarding the impact of gunpowder and cannon within wider political and economic currents of, primarily, the early Sixteenth-Century.