Medieval Warfare Research Articles

Medieval Warfare in Manuscripts

The glamour associated with knights in shining armour, colourful tournaments and heroic deeds appeal strongly to the modern imagination. However, few pieces of military dress and equipment have survived to provide direct insight into the way that war was waged in the Middle Ages. For a comprehensive view of the nature of medieval warfare we rely on written documentation and the information preserved in paintings, sculptures, carvings, and other pictorial sources. The most numerous by far of these are the miniatures and drawings found in manuscript books, partly because books tend to survive better that other artefacts and partly because many individual volumes contain multiple representations. Pamela Porter presents and describes a variety of evocative manuscript illuminations in an effort to reveal them as a source of information about military dress, equipment, and practices.

Recent Writing on Medieval Warfare: From the Fall of Rome to c. 1300

Recent Writing on Medieval Warfare: From the Fall of Rome to c. 1300

Medieval Warfare: A History

1: Maurice Keen: Introduction. Part I: Phases of Medieval Warfare. 2: Timothy Reuter: Carolingian and Ottonian Warfare. 3: H. B. Clark: The Vikings. 4: John Gillingham: An Age of Expansion ic./i1020-1204. 5: Peter Edbury: Warfare in the Latin East. 6: Norman Housely: European Warfare, ic./i1200-1320. 7: Clifford J. Rogers: The Age of the Hundred Years War. Part II: The Arts of Warfare. 8: Richard L. C. Jones: Fortifications and Sieges in Western Europe, 800-1450. 9: Andrew Ayton: Arms, Armour and Horses. 10: Michael Mallett: Mercenaries. 11: Felipe Fernandez-Armesto: Naval Warfare in the Viking Age, c.1100-1500. 12: Christopher Allmand: War and the Non-Combatant in the Middle Ages. 13: Maurice Keen: The Changing Scene: Guns, Gunpowder, and Permanent Armies. Further Reading, Chronology, Index

The Circle of War in the Middle Ages: Essays on Medieval Military and Naval History

Part 1 Aspects of medieval warfare reconsidered: early-medieval military demography - some observations on the methods of Hans Delbruck, Bernard S. Bachrach 12th-century frontier strategies in the Iberian reconquest, Theresa M. Vann Crusader Warfare revisited - a revisionist look at R.C. Smail's thesis - fortifications and development of defensive planning, Paul E. Chevedden the age of cavalry reconsidered, Stephen Morillo freedom and military reform in 10th-century Saxony, Edward G. Schoenfeld. Part 2 Medieval warfare as a divine tool: caelestia militantes - apparitions and war in Anglo-Saxon England, Kent G. Hare God and defeat in medieval warfare, Kelly Devries. Part 3 The orders of society at war: the problem with mercenaries, Steven Isaac Anglo-Norman women at war - valiant soldiers, prudent strategists or charismatic leaders?, Jean A. Truax rural populations and the experience of warfare in medieval Lombardy - the case of Pavia, Steven G. Lane. Part 4 War at sea: the fire-ship of Al-Salih Ayyub and Muslim use of Greek fire, Douglas C. Haldane the Battle of Malta, 1283 - prelude to a disaster, Lawrence V. Mott.

The Book of Deeds of Arms and of Chivalry

It is unexpected in any era to find a woman writing a book on the art of warfare, but in the fifteenth century it was unbelievable. Not surprisingly, therefore, Christine de Pizan's The Book of Deeds of Arms and of Chivalry, written around 1410, has often been regarded with disdain. Many have assumed that Christine was simply copying or pilfering earlier military manuals. But, as Sumner Willard and Charity Cannon Willard show in this faithful English translation, The Book of Deeds of Arms and of Chivalry contains much that is original to Christine. As a military manual it tells us a great deal about the strategy, tactics, and technology of medieval warfare and is one of our most important sources for early gunpowder weapon technology. It also includes a fascinating discussion of Just War. Since the end of the fifteenth century, The Book of Deeds of Arms and of Chivalry has been available primarily through Antoine Verard's imprint of 1488 or William Caxton's 1489 translation, The Book of the Order of Chivalry. Verard even suggested that the work was his own translation of the Roman writer Vegetius, making no mention of Christine 's name. Caxton attributed the work to Christine, but it is impossible to identify the manuscript he used for his translation. Moreoever, both translations are inaccurate. The Willards correct these inaccuracies in a clear and easy-to-read translation, which they supplement with notes and an introduction that will greatly benefit students, scholars, and enthusiasts alike. Publication of this work should change our perception both of medieval warfare and of Christine de Pizan.

Communication during medieval warfare: the campaign of Edward III of England in the Low Countries (1338-1340).

Communication during medieval warfare: the campaign of Edward III of England in the Low Countries (1338-1340).

The Art of Warfare in Western Europe During the Middle Ages from the Eighth Century to 1340 by J.F. Verbruggen (review)

REVIEWS155 In sum, this book strikes one as a possible response to the editors' realization that their series lacked a medieval volume. Its texts ultimately isolated from currents they might have created or in which they may have shared, To the Glory ofHer Sexwill be useful primarily as a reference of first instance. JOHN CARMI PARSONS University ofToronto j.F. verbruggen, The Art ofWarfare in Western Europe During the Middle Agesfrom the Eighth Century to 1340. 2nd ed., revised and enlarged. Woodbridge, Suffolk: The Boydell Press, 1997. Pp. x, 388. 6 leaves of plates, isbn: 0-85115-630. $71. In 1954, the eminent Belgian histotian J.F. Vetbruggen published De Krijgskunst in West-Europa in deMiddeleeuwen I)C tot begin XlV'eeuw. This work was subsequently ttanslated into English by Sumner Willard and Mrs. R.W. Southern, published in a somewhat abridged form twenty years ago by North Holland, and immediately recognized as the best survey ofmedieval warfare then available in English, although priced too high for much ofits potential audience. Now we have what is described as a revised and enlarged edition, published in Britain as part of the series Warfare in History under the general editorship ofMatthew Bennett. Actually, this edition appeats to be the same translation of the original work, with the inclusion of footnotes and restotation ofthose sections omitted from the eatlier English edition. What made Verbruggen's work so important was his insistence that eatlier military historians, including those best known to readers of English, had failed to give the narrative sources a sufficiently careful and critical reading. As a consequence, they tended to exaggerate the size of medieval armies and to treat medieval battles as disorganized brawls consisting mainly ofindividual combats and lacking any tactical coherence. Verbruggen's reading of the sources led him to conclude that military forces were much smaller than fotmerly claimed, that mounted warriors regulatly fought in groups as small tactical units, and that commanders showed considerable tactical skill in the maneuvering and ordering ofthese units. In the decades since his book originally appeared, Verbruggen's arguments have generally prevailed, and his influence can be seen in many more recent wotks on medieval military history. Aside from its important central thesis, the great sttength ofthe book isVerbruggen's careful reconstruction of vatious famous battles, occupying large parts of the third and fourth chapters (on 'Footsoldiers' and 'General Tactics,' respectively). These chapters are preceded by a short but important one on 'Historiographical Problems' and a long one on 'The Knights.' Despite his attention to othet kinds of fighting men, Verbruggen has limited his study to the centuries in which European warfare was dominated by heavy cavalry, and these knights necessarily dominate the entire work. Geographical coverage ofmedieval warfare is very uneven. Most ofthe evidence is drawn from the Middle East during the century of the first three crusades or from campaigns fought in or near the Low Countries. Britain, France, Italy, Germany, and Slavic Europe are not neglected, but Spain and Scandinavia are virtually ignoted, as 156arthuriana is Byzantium except in connection with the crusades. Battles receive vastly more treatment than sieges despite the importance ofthe latter in medieval warfare. Castles are mentioned almost in passing and in connection with defensive warfare, with no attention to their role in an offensive strategy or in the evolution ofmilitary society. These aspects of uneven coverage are the most notable teminder that we are reading a fortyyear-old book. The editor dealswith the problem ofout-datedness by furnishing a full and up-to-date bibliography and supplying, in brackets, occasional addenda to footnotes, indicating when a more recent work has provided an important new perspective. Surprisingly, however, there are no maps, not even the very helpful battle plans that appeared in the previous English edition. Verbruggen's topical arrangement, while effective in making his basic point, does not leave the teader with any consciousness of chronological development. We get little sense ofthe evolution ofarmor, weapons, fortifications, and tactics over a period of several centuries, or whether, and to what extent, medieval commanders learned from the successes and failutes oftheir predecessors. Verbruggen's decision not to go beyond the early fourteenth century may have been...

The Anatomy of a Little War: A Diplomatic and Military History of the Gundoυald Affair, 568–586 by Bernard S. Bachrach

TECHNOLOGY AND CULTURE Book Reviews 135 design or testing business. Instead, both labs have reinvented them­ selves to maintain their funding and staffing levels, more successfully than other defense-based laboratories and agencies. This is a book with great ambitions: it is both a historical anthro­ pology of the American nuclear weapons complex and an “empiri­ cal postmodernist case study of international relations” (p. 10). Clearly, it cannot do all these things in one 235-page volume. How­ ever, it provides the reader with a powerful and articulate analysis of a nuclear weapons laboratory at the end of the cold war. Gusterson writes about his experiences and findings with a lucidity not of­ ten found in postmodern writings. At the end ofthe book, Gusterson presents responses to his manu­ script from a variety of interview subjects. These “reviews” give the reader different perspectives on the work and are valuable when they include personal testimony about the subject of the book. Unfortu­ nately, some reviews lack any introspection or engagement with the book and might profitably have been omitted. Russell Olwell Dr. Olwell teaches at the University of Michigan’s Residential College and at Emerson Middle School in Ann Arbor. The Anatomy of a Little War: A Diplomatic and Military History of the Gundovald Affair, 568-586. By Bernard S. Bachrach. Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press, 1995. Pp. xxiv+283; maps, figures, appendi­ ces, notes, bibliography, index. $49.85 (cloth). In the late 6th century, a Frankish prince named Gundovald re­ turned from a lengthy exile in Byzantium and, aided by his former hosts, sought to establish a kingdom of his own in southwestern Gaul. Such ambitions were not uncommon among the fractious princelings of the Merovingian period, all of whom normally ex­ pected to inherit at least a portion of their father’s domain. Gundo­ vald had once been considered a legitimate son of King Clothar I, which would have given him inheritance rights. But after he was dis­ owned and declared no royal heir, he was exiled to Byzantium. His return following Clothar’s death represented an attempt to reclaim by force a patrimony he thought had been unjustly snatched away from him by his half-siblings. Gundovald’s half-brother, Guntram, the somewhat insecure ruler of Burgundy, saw the whole affair in a very different light—as a Byzantine plot to regain a toehold in Frankish Gaul. On these terms a “little war” broke out that came to its climax in 586 with the siege of an old Roman fortress city, Convenae, in the foothills of the Pyrenees. Gregory of Tours, the indefatigably moralistic chronicler of the House of Meroveus, gives the “little 136 Book Reviews TECHNOLOGY AND CULTURE war” unusually full treatment, treating it as yet another example of the folly of his age. In the hands of a sensitive interpreter, Bernard S. Bachrach, Gregory’s narrative serves as a firm foundation on which to reconstruct the history of the Gundovald Affair. Bachrach is a familiar figure to readers of Technology and Culture. His well-ar­ gued case for revising common views of early medieval warfare has appeared in these pages in several incisive articles going back to 1969. What makes The Anatomy ofa Little War useful reading for histori­ ans oftechnology is Bachrach’s treatment of the material and techni­ cal details of a 6th-century military operation. In a held where gener­ alization is more common than concrete fact, it is refreshing to have precise and well-grounded information on such matters as army size, food requirements, rates of movement over mountainous terrain, walls and fortifications, and siege equipment. As usual in Bachrach’s work, the results contradict received opinion at almost every turn. Merovingian armies were not particularly small: Gundovald’s forces seem to have numbered between eight thousand and ten thousand effectives, while those of his enemies were perhaps twice as large, meaning that the “little war” saw between twenty-four thousand and thirty thousand men mobilized for combat, and perhaps as many more serving in ancillary roles (pp. 161-67). The besieged insur­ gents at Convenae seem to have numbered about four or five thou­ sand, and they managed to hold out for...

Edward III and the Dialectics of Strategy, 1327–1360 (The Alexander Prize Essay)

He that will fraunce wynne, must with Scotland first beginne.WHEN I tell people that I'm studying English strategy in the Hundred Years War, the response is very often something to the effect of ‘did they really have “strategy” in the middle ages?’ This idea, that strategy was absent from the medieval period, remains deeply embedded in the historiography of the subject. Sir Charles Oman, probably still the best-known historian of medieval warfare, wrote of the middle ages that ‘the minor operations of war were badly understood, [and] strategy— the higher branch of the military art—was absolutely nonexistent. Professor Ferdinand Lot said much the same. Other scholars have argued that the medieval commander ‘had not the slightest notion of strategy’, or that ‘never was the art of war so imperfect or so primitive.’ But the truth is that most medieval commanders did not show ‘a total scorn for die intellectual side of war’ nor ignore ‘the most elementary principles of strategy’; nor is it fair to say that ‘“generalship” and “planning” are concepts one can doubtfully apply to medieval warfare.’

Medieval Military Technology by Kelly DeVries

TECHNOLOGY AND CULTURE Book Reviews 183 in 1543; there are, among others, three 16th-century and two 17th-century editions of Plictho de larte de tentori by Gioanventura Rosetti, the “first printed book exclusively devoted to professional dyeing in Italy.” Less exotic but important to dyeing in the United States is Asa Ellis’s The Country Dyer’s Assistant, the first edition of the first book on dyeing published in America. The weakest part of this otherwise well-documented, potentially useful research tool is the subject index. Its limitations make crossreferencing difficult; its most glaring omission, however, is that of geographic listings of the works in the collection, which are fairly standard features of most bibliographies. It would be interesting to know what criteria were used in selecting books for the library. Surprisingly few—no more than three or fourtrade sample books issued by dye manufacturers are found in the collection. Even this meager selection, however, includes a gem: a German dye manufacturer’s book containing eighty-eight samples of aniline-dyed wool, cotton, and silk yarns, produced in 1864, only eight years after the introduction of Perkin’s mauve, the first coal-tar dye. Rita J. Adrosko Ms. Adrosko is curator of textiles at the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of American History. Medieval Military Technology. By Kelly DeVries. Peterborough, Ont., and Lewiston, N.Y.: Broadview Press, 1992. Pp. xi + 340; illustra­ tions, notes, bibliography, index. C$15.95; U.S.$14.95 (paper). At last someone has dared to write a survey of post-World War II scholarship on medieval European military technology! Kelly DeVries has done a service for those who will never sit down to read methodically the wide-ranging studies that have appeared in English and French (he pays less attention to works in German). A compari­ son with the appropriate sections of Charles Singer’s venerable History of Technology (1956) reveals how significantly the history of medieval military technology has been transformed in the postwar period and shows clearly the need for the type of book DeVries has written. Giving his book a straightforward structure, DeVries devotes sepa­ rate sections to arms and armor, artillery, fortifications, and warships. He consistently provides the reader with background on the technol­ ogy of the late Roman Empire and covers each area of technology up to the end of the 15th century. The inclusion of a section on warships enhances the book, particularly because studies of medieval military technology, and of medieval warfare in general, have tended to offer scant portrayals of naval topics. DeVries is at his best when presenting a debate or dispute. He summarizes superbly the controversy engendered by Lynn White’s 184 Book Reviews TECHNOLOGY AND CULTURE thesis on the stirrup and feudalism, carefully showing how historians have damaged White’s contentions irreparably. Debates scattered throughout the book include whether Charlemagne built fortifica­ tions, whether Fulk Nerra originated stone castles, and whether William the Conqueror used Viking-style transport ships to take his horses to England or whether Byzantine shipwrights designed special horse transports for him. Any author assembling diverse sources from various specialties such as art history, archaeology, and curatorial studies of arms and armor has to decide what terminology to use. Different authors employ different terms, especially in the field of armor, where terminology has changed noticeably in the 20th century. For example, DeVries draws heavily on the classic study European Armour (London, 1958) by Claude Blair. His terminology is essentially the same as Blair’s, yet, curiously, he parts company with Blair when discussing mail; DeVries uses “chain-mail,” a term that curators and historians of arms and armor in the English-speaking world have abandoned. And despite his emulation of Blair, he includes an illustration of plate armor from the 15th century (p. 80) taken from an English work by Charles Ashdown (1925) with accompanying terms, some of which are no longer used in writings on armor. An explanation that Ashdown’s terminology is no longer current and that DeVries himself does not use it would have prevented the confusion that some readers will experience here. Like many historians, DeVries often remains one step removed from the material artifacts he...

The Concept of "Military Economies of Scale"

Military economies of scale exist if an increase of x% in all inputs increases an army′s destructive capability by more than x%. Economies of scale did not exist in ancient and medieval warfare. Perceived instances of military scale economies are actually the expected outcome of the application of a superior weapon system. With the development of firearms, combat came to involve more than the front ranks alone. When every soldier is able to fire on every other soldier, an army′s capability increases by the square of its size. By 1700, scale economies were available to all modern armies.

King John's military reputation reconsidered

A measure that medieval chroniclers used for judging kings was success in battle. King John obviously failed this test with his loss of Normandy, 1202–04, and the failure of his 1214 continental campaign. Modern scholars prefer to depict the king as an able administrator, downplaying his military activity; they continue to follow medieval writers in labelling John an incompetent general, lacking boldness, even cowardly. In fact, John's poor military reputation is based on only a few comments in chronicles and verse narratives. While his defense of Normandy from the French was a disaster, partly because of his own failings, factors beyond his control contributed heavily to his loss of the duchy, such as the superior wealth of Philip Augustus. Critics neglect the link between the English king's warfare and his administrative activity, which aimed at raising men, money and other resources for wars. John conducted campaigns capably before and after the loss of Normandy. Some moderns accept traditional condemnation of his military skill, because of a misunderstanding of the nature of medieval warfare. Pitched battles were rare, and war consisted of seemingly aimless plundering raids and sieges of castles. John's supposed lack of boldness merely reflects a medieval commander's caution. His plans for the relief of Château Gaillard in 1203 and his 1214 two-pronged attack on Philip illustrate skill in strategy. Unlike many medieval generals John was skilled at siegecraft, seen at Rochester Castle in 1215. While King John's two greatest campaigns failed, costing him most of his continental lands, his failures in warfare are due neither to incompetence nor to cowardice.

The Patterns of War Through the Eighteenth Century.

PREFACE ONE. Ancient Warfare before the Age of Rome Pre-civilzed Warfare, 200,000-3200 B.C. Warfare in the Near East, 3200-500 B.C. Early Western Warfare: The Greek Way, 499-362 B.C. The Macedonian Art of War and Alexander the Great Ancient Warfare in India and China TWO. War in the Age of Rome The Roman Army, 509-146 B.C. Roman Expansion, Reforms, and Civil Wars to 29 B.C. The Army of Imperial Rome War in India, China, and Japan THREE. War in the Middle Ages The Byzantine Struggle to Survive Frankish Dominance and Charlemagne From Charlemagne to the Norman Conquest The Age of the Crusades Medieval Warfare at Zenith The Mongol Conquests and Medieval Russia The Hundred Years War, 1337-1453 FOUR. Early Modern Land Warfare, 1494-1721 The Wars for Italy, 1494-1559 The Dutch Revolt, 1568-1648 The Thirty Years War, 1618-1648 The Early Modern Army in England to 1661 The Age of Louis XIV and Peter the Great The patterns of Land Warfare, 1494-1721 FIVE. War under Sail and European Overseas Expansion to 1725 The Early Sailing Navies and the Armada Campaign of 1588 Navies of the 17th and 18th Centuries EnglandOs Rise to Naval Supremacy European Overseas Expansion and Conquest SIX. The Patterns of Neoclassical War, 1725-1789 Land Warfare in the Neoclassical Age The European Navies in the Neoclassical Age European Wars of the Neoclassical Age The Neoclassical Wars Overseas The Legacies of the Neoclassical Age EPILOGUE BIBLIOGRAPHY INDEX

Rhetoric and morale: a study of battle orations from the central middle ages

Courage and morale are often overlooked factors in medieval warfare. Nevertheless, they were as important in the middle ages as they are today. Although there is no psychological evidence of the type compiled in recent wars, the chroniclers of the central middle ages do provide a considerable amount of information about the different factors that stimulated the fighting spirit of medieval armies. They wrote hundreds of battle orations, harangues to the knights before or during combat, that show in detail the kinds of motive appeals the chroniclers believed would be most effective in building morale. This article analyzes battle orations as a rhetorical genre for the psychological insights they provide into the mentality of the medieval man at arms.

Medieval English Religious and Ethical Literature: Essays in Honour of G. H. Russell ed. by Gregory Kratzmann, James Simpson

STUDIES IN THE AGE OF CHAUCER theinfluence of factualorhistorical battles.It cannot be denied that a great many literary texts are, from a cultural point of view, oriented toward the past.The introduction of cannons and firearms was generally regarded as an obvious sign of the decline of chivalry.But complaints of this kind refer to the decay of chivalric virtues in general and are not, therefore, time specific.Similar examples could be adduced from classical authors.Even they deplore the use of catapults, which put an end to hand-to-hand combat and thus led to the downfall of bravery of the individual warrior. Complaints of this kind prove that certain basic cultural norms were barely changed, if at all. It has been demonstrated that some of them endured into the twentieth century.They can be found in fictional liter­ ature which has preserved ideas, motives and terms of medieval warfare over the centuries.Terms stemming from the vocabulary of fortresses and sieges are still used today to express antagonisms. Critiques of this kind do not invalidate the essential result of Kohl's work, which is an important contribution towards solving the problem of defininghistoricalperiods.It is of particularvalue to a keener, more precise reassessment of the fifteenth century in England.In terms of the aforemen­ tioned 1982conference, one could say that Kohl demonstrates that all four plenary speakers at the Regensburg Symposium were right, even if their theses seemed mutually exclusive. KARL HEINZ GollER Universitat Regensburg GREGORY KRATZMANN and JAMES SIMPSON, eds. Medieval English Re­ ligious and Ethical Literature: Essays in Honour of G. H. Russell. Cambridge: D.S.Brewer, 1986. Pp.vi, 250.$37.50. This volume in honor ofGeorge Russell comprises nineteen essays: Vincent Buckley, "George Russell as a Topic in His Own Right"; Clive James, "George Russell: A Reminiscence"; Alison Finlay, "The Warrior Christ and the Unarmed Hero"; E. Talbot Donaldson, "Long Will's Apology: A Translation"; A. I. Doyle, "Remarks on Surviving Manuscripts of Piers Plowman";James Simpson, "The Role of Scientia in Piers Plowman"; R.A. Waldron, "Langland's Originality: The Christ-Knight and the Harrowing of Hell"; George Kane, "Some Fourteenth-Century 'Political' Poems"; 162 REVIEWS H.A.Kelly, "The Non-Tragedy of Arthur"; Stephanie Trigg, "Israel Goll­ ancz's 'Wynnere and Wastoure': Political Satire or Editorial Politics?"; Penelope Curtis, "Some Discarnational Impulses in the Canterbury Tales"; Ralph W V. Elliott, "Chaucer's Clerical Voices"; Stephen Knight, "Chau­ cer's Religious Canterbury Tales"; Andrew Lynch, "'Taking Keep' of the 'Book of the Duchess' "; John Wall, "Penance as Poetry in the Late Four­ teenth Century"; Jocelyn Price, '"Inner' and 'Outer': Conceptualizing the Body in Ancrene Wisse and Aelred's De Institutione Inclusarum"; Douglas Gray, "Books of Comfort"; Gregory Kratzmann, "'The Dialogues ofCrea­ tures Moralysed': A Sixteenth-Century Medieval Book ofEthics"; and].B. Trapp, "An English Late Medieval Cleric and Italian Thought: The Case of John Colet, Dean of St. Paul's ( 1467-1519 )." The order is well chosen. Essays related by subject or approach are grouped together to give the collection a fair degree of coherence. Two groups ofessays are particularly noteworthy. The first group focuses on the poem with which George Russell's own career is most closely identified: Piers Plowman. Donaldson's verse translation of C 5.1-104, modestly described as "like offering a prosperous coal merchant of New­ castle a little lump of coal," is in fact a masterful performance; it retains, within the formal constraints of the alliterative long line, much of the energy and colloquial style of the original.Doyle's essay-an attempt "to relate [the Piers manuscripts] to each other and to the wider problems of what sorts of people produced vernacular manuscripts, for whom, where and when" (p. 35)-offers many stimulating observations, including pal­ eographical reasons for keeping open the question ofthe authorial status of the unique passages in MS Bodley 851 (the so-called Z text). Simpson usefully elaborates on the distinction in Piers between acquired knowledge (scientia)and "kynde"ornatural knowledge (sapientia). Ifit was traditional in monastic texts to elevate sapientia "by ironically deflating the terms of human, academic education..., it is nonetheless true that Langland does recognize a place for...

Aelred of Rievaulx's Rhetoric and Morale at the Battle of the Standard, 1138

The morale or fighting spirit of an army has always been a most important if intangible factor in military success. Clausewitz believed that “the moral [psychological] elements are among the most important in war.” Field-Marshal Montgomery went so far as to claim that “the morale of the soldier is the greatest single factor in war.” And Napoleon's dictum has often been quoted: in war “the moral is to the physical as three is to one.” Since morale is such an elusive quality, however, its role in military history can be nearly lost in the study of battles of long ago. Indeed, the historians of medieval warfare have been little concerned with it. Philippe Contamine, in hisWar in the Middle Ages, includes a short chapter on courage, which focuses on theological definitions of courage as a virtue and risk assessment in the wars of the later middle ages. J. F. Verbruggen makes a number of valuable comments on the psychology of war. But these two are notable exceptions. Of course, the evidence for mental states in medieval battles is severely limited, but even what little there is has been largely overlooked.For at least one significant battle, the Battle of the Standard, there is evidence which shows the psychology of one of the two armies which faced one another on a foggy August morning in 1138. We can see in considerable detail the low morale of the northern English forces as they tried in desperation to stop a devastating invasion by the king of Scotland. We can see their concerns and fears, and some of the attempts by the leaders to overcome them and rouse their spirits. We indeed get a remarkable glimpse of “the face of battle”—or at least the pre-battle. Military historians of the middle ages have neglected this building of battle morale entirely; although other historians have made passing reference to it. Since the evidence for the morale of the English army at the Battle of the Standard is so unusual and full, it deserves greater attention. The developments leading up to the battle will be considered briefly, and then evidence that reveals the psychology of a medieval army will be considered in detail.

Love and Hate in Medieval Warfare: The Contribution of Saint Augustine.

Love and Hate in Medieval Warfare: The Contribution of Saint Augustine.

Atlas of Ancient and Medieval Warfare.

Atlas of Ancient and Medieval Warfare.

The naval battles of Roger of Lauria

Roger of Lauria's family was exiled from the kingdom of Sicily by Charles I of Anjou for its support of the Hohenstaufen cause but in the service of Aragon he became the most feared and renowned warrior of his generation. His six great naval victories during the War of the Sicilian Vespers closely determined the outcome of that struggle. Lauria's fame has been diminished by the minor place awarded to the War of the Vespers by modern medievalists and by its overshadowing by the Hundred Years War. But in fact it was an extremely important war in medieval history, witnessing the decline of the papacy and the kingdom of Sicily and the rise for a brief time of a new power in the Mediterranean: Aragon. Moreover, it was in this war that medieval warfare first began to acquire attributes characteristics of the later middle ages: supremacy of archers and infantry over mounted and mailed knights, appearance of disciplined and professional companies of mercenaries led by professional war leaders, and decline from chivalric warfare into nationalistic hatred and ferocity. Lauria's success lay in the superior qualities of his crews and in his own genius. Handling galley fleets successfully required mastery of the difficult nexus between land and sea for Mediterranean galley warfare was more amphibious than naval in the modern sense of the word. Lauria proved to be the greatest master of the science in the middle ages; a war leader deserving to be ranked with Richard Coeur de Lion, the Black Prince, and Nelson.

Nationalism in Eastern Europe in the Middle Ages

The divergent views held by historians and sociologists as to what does and does not constitute nationalism will, I hope, provide me with some excuse for not attempting here a general definition of this phenomenon. Nor will I presume to adjudicate between the opinions of scholars like Hans Kohn who, confining their attention to Western Europe, will not hear of nationalism before the rise of modern states between the sixteenth and the eighteenth century, and of historians like G. G. Coulton who, after surveying the policy of the Papacy, the life of the Universities, the internal frictions in the monasteries and the history of medieval warfare, concluded that nationalism, which had been developing in Western Europe since the eleventh century, became a basic factor in European politics by the fourteenth. My paper is concerned with the medieval history of Eastern Europe: an area which I propose to define, by combining a geographical with a cultural criterion, as the group of countries which lay within the political or cultural orbit of Byzantium. The subject is vast and complex, and I can do no more than select a few topics for discussion. These I would like to present as arguments in support of three theses.