Medieval Warfare: A History

179 Pages·1999·46 MB·English

by  Maurice Keen

MEDIEVAL
WARFARE
A HISTORY
M E D I E V A L
W A R F A R E
A HISTORY
Edited by
MAURICE KEEN
OXFOR
UNIVERSITY 1'11
OXFORD
CSI\EILCLl~Y PRFX\
Crrar Clrrmdon Srrrrr Oxtord 0x1 h n ~
Okford Ln~ocrslt! Press a a depdrrmenr ot the Unlrrr<n\ ui O\fi,rd EDITOR'S PREFACE
It furthers rhe Lrnveratx s ublectne of excellence In rescarch. sihularshlp.
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Publlshrd In he Un~redSrarcs
by Oxford Ilnlverrq Press Inc . Ncw York
Oxford Umvers~ryP rcss lYYs
Thr moral nghrs of rhc aurhur have becn asserted
Database rlghr Oxford Un~veri~Ptyrr ri \maker)
F~rapt ubhshed l9YY
.411 rrghrs reserved No parr of rhlr publlcanon mav he reproduced.
wstoitrheodu Itn tah ere prrnleovra pl esryrnstlessmlo, no rI ntr wannstmln,gtt eodf. Omx faonryd fUornmiv oerrs b~yt yaP nryes ms eans, WA RFARE was a formative influence on the civilization and the social
or as expressly permlrrcd by law or under terms agreed with the appropnate structures of the European middle ages. Its history in that period is in
reprographlcs rlghrs organlzat~onsE nqutrier concernlngreproducr~on
consequence of high significance alike for those who are interested in the mid-
outside the sropr of the above should be sent to the bghts Departmenr,
Oxford Unlverslry Press, at the address above dle ages for themselves and for their legacy, and for those whose interest is in
You must not clrculare rhis bookin any other b~nd~ngorcover war and its place in the story of human development. The twelve of us who
and "ou must lmposc the same cond~tlono n any acqulrer
have collaborated in the writing of this book have sought to bear both these
Bnnsh L~braryC atalogu~nglnP ubl~carionD ata
Data ava~lable parties in mind. We have also borne much in mind the richness of the material
Library of Congxss Cataloglng m Pubhcaoon Data that can illustrate visually the importance of warfare to lives and minds in the
Data available medieval age: castles which still stand; artefacts and archaeological remains;
ISBN~U-19~82U639-9
tombs and monumental brasses depicting warriors in their armour; vignettes
I3579108642
of battle and campaign in illuminated manuscripts. Our book has been con-
Typeset by Jayvee. Tnvandrum. Ind~a
Pnnred In C~eaBr nraln ceived and planned notjust as a history, but as an illustrated history.
on acid-free paperby The book is divided into two parts, the first chronological, the second the-
Bookcrait Ltd.
Midmmcr Norron. matic. In the first part a series of chapters explores the impact of wars and
Somerser
fighting over time, from the Carolingian period down to the end of the
Hundred Years War. There follow in the second part thematic discussions of
specific aspects of warfare and its conduct: castles and sieges; war-horses and
armour; mercenaries; war at sea; and the fortunes of the civilian in wartime.
In the process of putting the book together a great many obligations have
been incurred, which must be gratefully acknowledged. We are all of us in-
debted to the successive editors at the Oxford University Press who watched
Frontupteir bartlc scenes from the Courrral Chest, caned In the early four-
teenth century tn commemorate rhe vlcrury ot the Flemings over the French over our work, Tony Morris, Anne Gelling, Anna Iliingworth, and Dorothy
ar Courtral ~rJul! riar sccpp rlj-CJ 137-411 The chest was found m the early
rwent~erhc enrury at a farmhouse at Sranron SrJohn. Olfordshire. the property McLean. We owe a major debt of gratitude to Sandra Assersohn, for her wise
of New College. Oxtord, and e now m rhc Warden's Lodgmgs rhere 11s and patient help in the quest for apposite illustrations; and to Frank Pert who
preulous history 1s unknown.
compiled the index. Each of us has besides debts of personal gratitude to
friends and colleagues who read our contributions in draft and offered their
advice and criticism. My own debt as editor is above all to my fellow contribu-
CONTENTS
tors, who have worked together with such courtesy and despatch, from the
book's conception to its completion. We all hope the results may prove worth
the generosity of those who have done so much to help us.
List of Maps and Figures
List of Contributors
I. Introduction: Warfare and the Middle Ages
Maurice Keen
I. PHASES OF MEDIEVAL WARFARE
2. Carolingian and Ottonian Warfare
Timothy Reuter
3. The Vikings
H. B. Clarke
4. An Age of Expansion, c.1020-1204
John Gillingham
5. Warfare in the Latin East
Peter Edbury
6. European Warfare, c.1200-1320
Norman Housley
7. The Age of the Hundred Years War
Cliford]. Rogers
LIST OF MAPS AND FIGURES
11. THE ARTS OF WARFARE
p - x - = -
8. Fortifications and Sieges in Western Europe, c.800-1450
Richavd L. C.Jones
9. Arms, Armour, and Horses
Andrew Ayton
10. Mercenaries
Michael Mallett
11. Naval Warfare after the Viking Age, c.1100-1500
Felipe Fernandez-Armesto
The Wars of Charlemagne, 770-814
12. War and the Non-Combatant in the Middle Ages Warfare in the East Frankish Lands, 930-970
Christopher Allmand
The presumed site of the battle of Maldon, Essex, fought in ggr
13. The Changing Scene: Guns, Gunpowder, and Plan of the Danish winter camp at Repton, Derbyshire, built in 873
Permanent Armies The Western Mediterranean, from Spain to Italy, c.1oo~c.1200
Maurice Keen
The Saxon Wars of Henry IV and V, 1073-1115
The Latin East in the Age of the Crusades
Further Reading
Plan of the Red Tower (Burj al-Ahmar)
Chronology
Plan of Belvoir Castle
Illustration Sources
Plan of the battle of Courtrai, 1302
Index
LIST OF CONTRIBUTORS
ChristopherAllmand Emeritus Professor of Medieval History, University of Liver-
pool
Andrew Ayton Senior Lecturer in History, University of Hull
Howard B. Clarke Statutory Lecturer in Medieval History, University College,
Dublin
Peter Edbury Reader in History, University of Wales, Cardiff
Felipe Fernandez- Member of the Modern History Faculty, Oxford
Armesto
John Gillingham Emeritus Professor of History, London School of Economics
Norman Housley Professor of History, University of Leicester
Richard L. C.J ones Research Officer, Sussex Archaeological Society
Maurice Keen Tutorial Fellow in Medieval History, Balliol College, Oxford
Midtael Mallett Professor of History, University of Warwick
Timothy Reuter Professor of Medieval History, University of Southampton
aifordJ . Rogm Assistant Professor of History, United States Military Acad-
emy, West Point
INTRODUCTION:
WARFARE AND
&
THE MIDDLE AGES
i;rrli
. MAURICE KEEN
-W"
TH E philosophical tradition of what we call the Western world had its ori-
gins in ancient Greece, its jurisprudential tradition in classical Rome.
Christianity, the religion of the West, was nursed towards its future spiritual
world status in the shelter of Roman imperial domination. Yet the political
map of Europe, the heartland of Western civilization, bears little relation to
that of the classical Hellenistic and Roman world. Its outlines were shaped not
in classical times, but in the middle ages, largely in the course of warfare. That
warfare, brutal, chaotic, and at times seemingly universal, is historically
important not only for its significance in defining the boundaries and regions
of the European future. Fighting in the medieval period, in the course of
regional defence against incursions of non-Christian peoples with no back-
ground or connection with the former Roman world, and in the course of
wars of expansion into territories occupied by other peoples, both Christian
andnon-Christian, and their absorption, played a vital role in the preservation
for the future West of its cultural inheritance from antiquity. It also furthered
the development of technologies that the antique world had never known.
Because the notion of sovereign governments with an exclusive right to
war-making was in the early middle ages effectively absent and only developed
slowly during their course, medieval wars came in all shapes and sizes. To
HonorC Bouvet, writing on war in the later fourteenth century, the spectrum
seemed so wide that he placed at the one extreme its cosmic level-'I ask in
what place war was first found, and I disclose to you it was in Heaven, when
our Lord God drove out the wicked angels3- and at the other the confronta-
tion of two individuals in judicial duel by wager of battle. In between, he and
2 ' MAURICE KEEN INTRODUCTION - 3
his master John of Legnano placed a whole series of levels of human wars, against kings (as in England in King John's time and in the time of Simon de
graded according to the authority required to licence them and the circum- ~ontforta,n d later in the Wars of the Roses), of leagues of cities against their
stances which would render participation in them legitimate. For the his- (as of the Lombard League against the Emperor Frederick I), and
torian, it is easy to think of alternative approaches to categorization to this endless individual baronial rebellions against overlords who they claimed had
that Bouvet offered to his contemporaries: indeed the problem is that there are oppressed them or had infringed their rights. The resort to violence was a
almost too many possibilities to choose from. ready one in the middle ages, at every level of authority.
The middle ages witnessed great defensive wars, or series of wars, to resist The difficulty with this sort of classification is that it can be very difficult to
invasions, by Vikings and Magyars for instance in the ninth and tenth cen- keep the categories apart. In medieval political conditions, greater struggles
turies, or, later, against the Ottoman Turks in Eastern Europe. There were and lesser rivalries very easily blended into one another, though without, in
wars of expansion, the Norman conquests of England and Southern Italy, for most cases, one fully absorbing the other. This was a consequence of under-
example, and the German conquests of former Slav territories east of the lying conditions and the limitations of even the most effective and authorita-
Elbe. There were also, of course, the crusades. Under that head must be tive of medieval power structures. Between the time of Charlemagne and the
reckoned not only the crusades to Palestine, but the wars for the reconquest of later middle ages, virtually no royal, princely, or papal government had the
Spain from the Moors and for the attempted conquest of once Byzantine lands resources in terms of money, manpower, and supply to sustain on its own con-
in Greece, the Balkans, and Asia Minor. Crusades, indeed, offer a good illus- tinuous, large-scale hostilities over an extended period. The solution to the
tration of the difficulties of tidy categorization. Because the popes, in the problem was obvious, to find allies whose interests might induce them to join
course of their long struggle with the emperors for universal authority in in whatever cause was at stake at their own expense and for their own advan-
Christendom, came often to give the status of crusader (with its formal tage. Such a struggle as the Wars of Investiture between the popes and the
privileges and indulgences) to those who would serve them against their German Salian Emperors Henry IV and Henry V had an almost infinite cap-
imperial rivals (as also to those prepared to fight other excommunicates, acity to draw other parties and their quarrels into its orbit; Saxon and princely
heretics, or schismatics within the Christian homeland), crusading war can rebels against Salian kingship, Norman adventurers in South Italy seeking
blend easily into the history of the major internal confrontations of Europe, superior sanction for their conquests, Patarene anti-clericals at odds in Milan
which did so much to shape its future political map. with episcopal authority. The later, Hohenstaufen chapter of the papal-imperial
In looking at these confrontations, the kind of approach to categorization rivalry illustrates the same point in a different but comparable way. The party
adopted by Bouvet, with its emphasis on the authority required to make war labels Guelf and Ghibelline which loom so large in the story of the wars of
lawful and on the legitimacy of participation, does become useful. Looking at Italy in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries originally denoted theoreti-
it in his way, one can place at one extreme what I have called the great con- cally the allies and supporters of the church and the pope (Guelfs) and of the
frontations, wars waged on the authority of popes, kings, and princes. emperor (Ghibellines). In fact from the start they were collective labels for the
Notable among these were the struggles between popes and emperors of the rival lords, rival city governments, and rival family factions which the two
period 1077-1122 (the Wars of Investiture) and of the Hohenstaufen period great protagonists succeeded in enlisting to the aid of their respective causes
(between 1164 and 1250): the series of wars (which grew out of them) that we because they were at each other's throats anyway. Long after the main
call the War of the Sicilian Vespers, and their subsequent ramifications struggle had been decided against the Empire in the later thirteenth century,
(1282-1302, and beyond): the great Hundred Years War of England and France Guelfs and Ghibellines continued to league together and to fight one another
(1337-1453). At the other end of the scale stand endless petty confrontations, under the same old labels. Wars tended constantly to spread outwards from
often amounting to no more than family feuds between aggressive local lords their epicentres as well as inward towards them. This made it very hard to
or castellans, but potentially not much less devastating than great wars for the delimit and control their scale, impact, and duration, let alone to define their
welfare of local people. In between there were wars between protagonists at 'level' in terms of categorization.
every level of domination, between rival lords at comital, ducal, or princely
level in competition for land and inheritances, and between rival cities; and War is thus central to the narrative political story of the middle ages. It is also
between protagonists at different levels of dominance, of leagues of barons central to their cultural history. Indeed, their martial secular culture may
4 ' MAURICE KEEN
arguably be claimed to be, along with their Christian ideology, one of the two warrior's calling as a Christian vocation with a vital social function was
chief defining features of their civilization. The middle ages are often recalled however profoundly influential. It underpinned the secular aristocracy's self-
as the Age of Faith: they are often also recalled as the Age of Chivalry,o r as the image as a hereditary martial estate and gave a firm ideological grounding to
Feudal Age. its claims to status and privilege.
In a famous triad, the thirteenth-century author of the Chanson des Saisnes It is natural and appropriate to associate this threefold vision of society and
(the 'Song of the Saxon Wars') declared that there were three 'matters' of its view of the warrior's place in it, with what h~storiansc all feudalism. True.
which every man shouldknow something: the matter of Britain, the matter of the military model of feudalism, which has been widely used in order to
France, and the matter of Rome the Great. The matter of Britain meant the explain relations in the upper echelons of medieval society in terms of a hier-
stories of King Arthur, and of the adventures of his knights in battles and tour- archic structure of contracts, based on grants of land by superior lords to
naments. The matter of France meant the stories of Charlemagne and his pal- lesser men in return for military service, is now looked at askance by many
adins, and their part in wars against Saracens and in the internecine struggles scholars. Nonetheless it remains true that in the relations between a great (or
of the Carolingian nobility. The matter of Rome the Great meant the history even not so great) lord and his subordinates, whether as his bodyguards or
of Greece and Rome, of the wars of Alexander and Caesar and, most emphat- household servants or tenants or kinsmen, or as in later medieval England as
ically, the Trojan war. These three matters did indeed become the most staple retainers, military service throughout the middle ages was consistently pre-
themes of secular aristocratic literary creation from the twelfth century on. sented as a specially prized and dignified form of service. Whether we call
Lays and romances based on them inevitably focused around warfare, around them feudal or not, notions of lordship and clientage to which military service
accounts of wars, battles, tournaments, and single combats (in the medieval was central permeated medieval conceptions of social relationships at the
-
versions of the classical stories, their antique heroes appear as knights in con- aristocratic, landowning level, and to a considerable degree, at other levels as
temporary armour, with fine war horses and heraldic blazon on their shields). well.
Literature thus became a powerful influence in reinforcing and fostering for An acceptance, in some measure at least, of the aristocrat's right of resort
the secular aristocracy a martial value system whose bellicosity should not be to military violence was the natural obverse to this perception of obligations.
underestimated. Along with courage, loyalty, and liberality, it set a very high That is what lies behind the tone of moral confidence with which nobles ten-
price on physical strength, good horsemanship, and dexterity with weapons, aciously resisted (for instance in France in the time of Louis IX) attempts to
and on impetuous ferocity in combat. This value system was what we call the curb their customary seigneurial right to pursue their own claims by private
code of chivalry, and these military virtues and skills were the defining fea- wars on their own motion (in what is sometimes called 'feudal' war), notwith-
tures of its cult of honour. standing the adverse social consequences which could so obviously stem from
Alongside this literary triad of the author of the Chanson des Saisnes may be the privilege. The dignity associated with the warrior's functional status could
set another triad, the traditional medieval division of Christian society into serve as a reminder of his ethical and social duties: it could also promote more
three orders or estates. These were, first, the clergy, whose business was with wars.
prayer and with pastoral ministration to society's spiritual needs; secondly, the
warriors, whose business it was with their swords to uphold justice, protect Both feudalism and chivalry-or something rather like them-were features
the weak, and to defend church and homeland; and, third, the labourers, by of medieval civilization in its longue dttrie, There are variations in their specific
whose toil the land was tilled and whose work provided for the material needs modes of manifestation over time and from region to region, but they or
both of themselves and of the two other, more socially elevated estates. First something like them are always there. One reason for this was the very slow
clearly articulated by King Alfred in his translation of Boethius, this concep- rate of technological advance in the art of warfare during the middle ages.
tion of society in terms of three functionally related estates achieved over time There were developments, and important ones at that: the extended use of
such wide currency as to seem almost a truism: 'you know that there be three stone in fortification (especially in castle building): new techniques for manu-
estates of men', the poet Gower wrote in the fourteenth century. It was of facturing better armour for both fightingmen and horses: new sophistications
course at best an ideal formulation which never accurately reflected the facts in the design of crossbows and longbows. Yet there was nothing that altered
of life and of social gradation. The specific justification that it offered for the radically and rapidly what John Keegan has called 'the face of battle'-until