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Medieval name for an order of warrior monks, custodians of a body of martial arts lore extending back to the Hellenic period.

Other Names used during the group's long history

The Promachoe

The Syskenion

The Enomatia of Athena Promachos

The Band of the Shieldmaiden (skjalddis)

Shield Brethren (Skjaldbræður)

The Knights of the Virgin Defender/Saint Mary of the Shield (vindex intacta/Sancta Maria scuti)

Ordo Militum Vindicis Intactae is a latter-day, Christianized Latin equivalent of an older Greek name that has been found on inscriptions and documentation as an acronym consisting of the three Greek letters standing for "[the] Enomatia [of] Athena Promachos" (Epsilon Alpha Pi).

Bases of Operations

Petraathen: Mountain Temple in the Carpathians, 380 BC - ?? AD

The name in this case is a slightly altered variant of "Petra Athena." [see Petraathen for more information]

Týrshammar: Island Fortress in the North Sea, 335 AD - 1100 AD

Means "Crag/Cliff/Mountain of Tyr." [ see Týrshammar for more information]

Medieval-era history of the Order

The North Sea outpost lost its overtly martial-arts character as it was expanded and diluted by an influx of conventional non-warrior monks. As a result, being posted to Týrshammar was to be exiled from the main body of the Order, and those members of the Brethren found solace in some of the more pagan elements of the incoming peoples.

Petraathen, the original fortress in the Carpathians, retained its martial character. So did a vibrant new outpost at Kiev, which attracted a significant number of shieldmaidens who fought as a unit in the army of Sviatoslav I.

Members of the European nobility sent their sons to Petraathen for rigorous training in the martial arts and induction into the fraternity of the Syskenion. A particularly wealthy or powerful noble might make arrangements for a tutor to be sent out by the OMVI to live in a church or monastery nearby and supply personal training to a young nobleman. In this manner the OMVI established a network of connections in monasteries all over Europe.

OMVI supplied the inner core of the Crusading army that made the First Crusade a military success. They were dismayed by the faith-based military incompetence of certain First Crusade leaders, and disgusted by the pogroms and massacres attending their march to Jerusalem. Conflicts arose between them and a faction loyal to the Roman church hierarchy. The military arm of the latter was a core group within The Order of Teutonic Knights of St. Mary's Hospital in Jerusalem. A consequence of the OMVI's distancing from the Roman Catholic Church was the formal suppression of Celtic-style Christianity as exemplified by the 12th-Century Synods of Cashel.

Era of the Mongol invasions

After the departure of the Crusaders from the Holy Land, the Teutonic Knights launched a Northern Crusade into the pagan lands northeast of the Holy Roman Empire. This was part of a deeper, extremely long-range plan by the Theophylacti to supress a number of heretical and pagan ideologies using the Papal Inquisition (circa 1230) and crusading orders such as the Teutonic Knights. Around the time of the Mongol invasions, their hostility to the OMVI was tempered by awareness that the latter's martial skills were essential for fighting off the Mongol hordes.

Jargon

Without knowing where the words come from, the 13th-Century Shield-Brothers use a jargon derived from ancient military Greek.

• Oplo: a martial arts instructor, equivalent to sensei or sifu. Derived from Hoplomachos which means roughly the same thing.

• Oplomach: martial art taught by an Oplo. Derived from Hoplomachia which means roughly the same thing.

• Fobo: Irrational fear that can sneak up on a fighter and suddenly seize control of his actions, often with fatal consequences. Derived from phobologia, the Spartan science of fear control.

• Skyras: hand-to-hand combat. Derived from Es cheiras which means roughly the same thing.

• Kinyen: the shared mess of fully initiated Shield-Brothers. More broadly, their community/fraternity. Derived from Syskenion, the Spartan mess.