The Age of Chivalry

by Hywel Williams

  St. Thomas Aquinas is flanked by Aristotle and Plato in this 14th-century tempera on wood, while Averroes reclines below him. Christ looks down from above, along with Saints Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, Moses and Saint Paul. In this hierarchy of knowledge, philosophy is subordinated to theology. (Triumph of St. Thomas Aquinas by Francesco Traini, c.1340, Church of Santa Caterina, Pisa.)

  MEDIEVAL WARFARE

  c.796–1450

  Warfare was a near-constant preoccupation for medieval Europe’s governing élites. Chroniclers then, and subsequently, drew a distinction between “public” wars fought by rulers and “private” wars, which were contests between individuals. In reality, however, both these kinds of medieval conflict overlapped. “Public” wars between kings may seem to be par excellence the arena in which established political authority and the assertion of legal rights really came into operation by sanctioning violence. But the many powerful individuals who fought each other with armies—barons, counts, margraves and dukes—enjoyed a quasi-monarchical authority in the regions they dominated. They, too, appealed to ancestral political and legal rights when fighting their own internecine battles, and the medieval evolution toward territorial monarchies whose rulers enjoyed a monopoly of force was a very long-term development.

  Medieval European society tolerated very high levels of violence as a fact of everyday life. Men (and some women) resorted to force without much compunction in order to achieve their goals, and highly personal motivations could lead to war. In the later Middle Ages monarchs still used the language of honor to justify war after they or their dynasty had been slighted. And at all stages in its evolution, medieval European warfare found it easy to accommodate the very personal reasons that lead human beings to inflict pain on each other. Medieval warfare therefore includes the blood lust of the vendetta and the revenge sought by feuding families as well as the honor code of knights and the ambitions of Christian princes. The key to all these forms of conflict was the warrior code. Its dominance and persistence meant that violent motivations could be institutionalized and expressed in warfare’s varied forms.

  The Germanic warriors who took over the former Western empire and divided it into kingdoms set the medieval military pattern. Ties of loyalty to the leader and a strongly personal code of honor established a resilient esprit de corps. Fighting was the proper occupation of an able-bodied, early medieval European male. Death in battle was glorious—although the shock recorded by chroniclers and writers of annals when great leaders fell in battle suggests that nobles were rarely exposed to high levels of personal danger. Social status mattered, and the humbly born were not supposed to engage their superiors in combat. The physical suffering and material losses inflicted on non-combatants were regrettable but unavoidable by-products of war. These mental attitudes were established as warrior kingship became the standard form of European leadership, and their authoritative appeal persisted throughout the medieval period.

  RIGHT Knights engage in hand-to-hand combat in defense of an English-held castle in this detail from a 14th-century manuscript.

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  MEDIEVAL WARFARE

  796 Charlemagne’s commanders discover the central European Avar confederation’s treasure, some of which is then redistributed by the king as largesse.

  955 Battle of Lechfeld: Otto the Great’s defeat of the nomadic Magyars is a victory for physically bigger warriors sustained by protein-enriched diets made possible by north European agricultural advances.

  1066–1141 Battles fought in England and Normandy show infantry’s continuing relevance despite the novelty of cavalry’s major role.

  c.1180 German conflicts have spilled over into north Italy where local factions acquire the Guelph and Ghibelline labels as a consequence. The alliances linking originally separate theaters of war makes medieval warfare hard to contain.

  c.1200 Europe’s mercenary market is expanding. Italian city states use mercenaries rather than local militias in their internecine wars.

  1272–1307 The reign of Edward I of England who deploys his military household, a permanent and professional fighting unit, in his wars against the Welsh and Scots.

  1346–47 English forces besiege Calais for 11 months. Sieges, often lengthy, are basic to medieval warfare until the 15th-century spread of efficient cannonry.

  c.1400 Knights sometimes dismount to deal with the threat posed by archers whose longbows shoot arrows rapidly. Cavalry is losing its former dominance.

  1420s The Hussite wars waged by the followers of Jan Huss (c.1372–1415) against the nobility of Bohemia show how fighting men of lower social rank can outmaneuver and defeat aristocratic warriors.

  c.1450 Decline of the galley, powered by oarsmen. It is replaced by bulkier, sail-powered ships mounted with cannon.

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  THE CONTAGION OF WAR

  Medieval kings gained their authority by winning wars, and a sovereign who was consistently unsuccessful in warfare did not keep his throne for long. Early medieval monarchs in particular needed to gain land and booty that they could then redistribute to their retinue. As boundary zones became more established from the ninth century onward there were less opportunities for raiding in Western Europe, but the frontiers of Christendom still provided opportunities for plundering in the high Middle Ages. The same is true of lands where territorial rights were disputed, such as France during the Hundred Years’ War. Well into the central Middle Ages, therefore, kings embarked on annual campaigns partly in order to plunder, and they took care to reward their retinue.

  Some wars were clearly defensive. Anglo-Saxon and West Frankish leaders were forced to respond to Viking attacks in the ninth and tenth centuries, and East Francia’s campaigns against the Magyars in the 950s were wars of retaliation. The Norman thrust into England and southern Italy during the 11th century was straightforwardly aggressive. The same is true of the German kingdom’s expansion at the same time into Slavic territories beyond the River Elbe. Islamic societies in Syria and Palestine saw the crusades as a series of offensive campaigns. But European rulers justified them as wars of liberation, since their aim was to re-occupy territories that had been Christian-held before being conquered by Islamic armies. The reconquista adopted a similar liberationist motivation, though its leaders in northern Spain frequently maneuvered against each other in a shifting pattern of alliances before uniting in an anti-Islamic coalition.

  Modern warfare has entailed major battlefield confrontations between armies paid for by sovereign states whose declared military aims are mutually incompatible. The more spectacular medieval conflicts have something in common with these later wars. Papal-imperial hostilities waged during the Investiture crisis—and renewed subsequently during the age of the Staufen rulers from Barbarossa to Frederick II; the Franco-Spanish wars that developed after the Sicilian Vespers of 1282; the century of intermittent campaigning between England and France from 1337 onward: these were all international conflicts between sovereign princes whose war aims were clearly defined. They were, however, extremely expensive to sustain, and the obvious solution was to turn to allies who could help bear the cost. Such allies tended to be already engaged in the types of conflict that were in fact much more characteristic of medieval warfare. Individuals of similar social standing—counts, dukes, royal princes and leaders of opposing cities—usually fought each other over titles and territories, as the Welf dynasty of Bavaria did in its contest against the Staufen. Rebellious groupings moreover attacked their superiors: nobles raised their standards against kings (as witnessed during the English baronage’s reaction against King John), and leagues of cities fought their nominal imperial suzerain (as occurred in northern Italy when the Staufen tried to enforce their rights).

  More regional conflicts therefore spread out into the international arena once local dynasts had formed alliances with kings, emperors and popes. Normans on the make in southern Italy were operating a long way from their domestic bases in northern France, and so they turned to
the papacy, which was happy to have them as allies. And since the papacy hated the German empire these Norman princelings were an occasionally reliable source of papal support in the anti-imperial cause. Italian city-state conflicts illustrate a similar story of war’s contagion, with local factions acquiring the labels “Guelph” and “Ghibelline” once they became the partisans of, respectively, the papacy and the empire. But the Italian combatants were, and remained, people who wanted to kill each other in any event—and quite regardless of the larger conflict to the north. The Guelphs and Ghibellines were therefore still engaging in Italian warfare long after the empire had been forced to concede defeat to the papacy in late 13th-century Germany.

  THE CALL TO ARMS

  Most men went to war on the command either of their superior lord or of an employer who paid them to fight. Those destined to be élite soldiers were habituated to bloodshed: literature listened to and read from a young age was an important de-sensitizing element since lays, poems, romances and epics laid such stress on exemplary ferocity in battle. If the “age of chivalry” meant the honor code of courage, modesty and loyalty, it also involved the ability to be an expeditious killer. The tournaments that were such an entertaining chivalric spectacle were also an important form of training in combat techniques.

  Rulers refined methods of raising money from their own resources and kingdoms in order to pay for war. From the 12th century onward bureaucratic systems run by professional clerks enabled royal households to tax and plan ahead. Courts acquired permanent headquarters, and kings could also start to borrow against anticipated revenue—a very radical innovation. Kings and their officials could now intervene in local conflicts of interest and mediate (or enforce) a resolution. Armies were provisioned more effectively, and campaigns could be planned in greater detail. All of this should have brought greater order to the art of war from c.1200 onward. But for at least another two centuries notions of containment within agreed limits remained irrelevant to European military campaigning. The search for greater resources in terms of men and materials made medieval warfare almost uncontainable, and the formation of alliances linked up the separate theaters of war in a pattern of interlocking disputes.

  ABOVE Charles of Blois is here seen being captured by the English at the Battle of La Roche-Derrien (1347) fought during the Hundred Years’ War in this copy of an illustration from the 1468 edition of the Chronicles written by Jean Froissart (c.1337–c.1405). In medieval warfare capturing nobles was considered preferable to killing them since huge ransoms might be claimed.

  Warfare’s incidence was reflected in the Church’s ambiguous stance. Warriors who had killed their enemies, even in a cause supported by the Church, still had to do penance well into the high Middle Ages, since a sin had been committed. But even while it treated successful warriors as murderers, the Church was still blessing certain campaigns. “Holy war” existed long before the “just war” theories being advanced in the 13th century. The reconquista and the various crusades—those fought against the Prussians in the Baltic and the Cathars in southern France as well the Middle Eastern campaigns—were all regarded as holy wars. Penitential exercises, such as the prayers and fasting observed by crusading warriors while on campaign, recognized warfare’s sacred nature and the need to prolong it until the day was won.

  Although medieval warfare was endemic, most of it consisted of short-term raids whose aim was the capture of booty, especially livestock, slaves and prisoners. Raids of this kind could also yield tribute payments. The English monarchy introduced a tax later known as Danegeld, in the 990s, and some of the revenue raised was sent to Scandinavian rulers in order to keep Viking marauders away from England. Even serious long-term offensives often amounted to a series of raids rather than continuous campaigning. The Teutonic Knights structured their campaigns against the Lithuanians and the Baltic Prussians in the 13th to the 15th centuries around twice-yearly military interventions in February and August. Having set up base inside hostile territory the knights would send out daily raiding parties, and then withdraw and move on to a new area before the enemy’s army could engage them in battle.

  Earlier medieval armies had a heterogeneous composition, with every noble being obliged to respond to the military summons by providing troops, equipment, archers and infantry. Few of these serving lower ranks were trained soldiers. Nonetheless, such armies often incorporated mercenaries, and the medieval role of the professional standing army pre-dates the later Middle Ages. The military household of Edward I for example supplied his army with the permanent and professional element that made his Welsh and Scottish campaigning extremely effective. The same household component served in earlier Anglo-Norman royal campaigns in Wales and Scotland. Central levies of the free peasantry were certainly a major source of amateur recruitment for medieval armies in the high Middle Ages, and in England all free men had an obligation to serve 40 days a year. But Englishmen could avoid military service on payment of the tax called scutage, and the money thereby raised allowed English kings to pay professional soldiers, including mercenaries. By the 12th century there was a large mercenary market throughout Europe, and medieval Italian city-states in particular relied on mercenaries rather than the citizen militias of the past. Money provided warfare with its sinews, and those who could pay acquired the destructive capacity they wanted. Such people tended to be kings, and the history of medieval warfare in Europe is the story of their continuous, and increasing, influence in determining the aims of war.

  ABOVE Ludovico il Moro, duke of Milan, is handed over to French forces (right) by his band of Swiss mercenaries (left) at Novara in April 1500. French forces laid siege to the city of Novara after Ludovico attempted to recapture Milan, following his expulsion in 1498 (from the Luzernerchronik of 1513, written and partly illustrated by Diebold Schilling the Younger).

  WEAPONS AND BATTLE STRATEGIES

  By the 15th century the medieval army’s dominant element was once again the infantry, just as it had been in the early Middle Ages. The cavalry and the institution of knighthood—central to war in the high Middle Ages—both lost pre-eminence. But infantry had consistently played an important element in battle: the series of campaigns in England and Normandy between 1066 and 1141 show a typical combination of cavalry, infantry and archery. The pike and the longbow played a decisive role in the infantry warfare of the central and late Middle Ages. Long pikes deployed in flexible formations and complex maneuvers were a particular feature of the Swiss mercenaries who were employed by most European princes by that stage. Although the longbow is particularly associated with the English and Welsh soldiers who used it to dramatic effect at the battles of Crécy and Agincourt, archers had a long warrior history and were present, for example, at Hastings in 1066. Enemy archers inflicted serious casualties on Edward I’s armies of conquest in late-13th-century Wales, and their presence en masse in the armies subsequently led by the king against the Scots signifies the start of a new emphasis on archery’s destructive power. Arrows shot from the longbow—used in a defensive configuration with rows of bowmen being protected by pits and trenches dug before them—could penetrate plate armor and mail. And a rapid rate of shots (possibly 12 arrows a minute for a highly skilled archer) gave the weapon its edge over the more clumsy crossbow. In the later Middle Ages even knights were beginning to dismount in order to deal with this new form of warfare, especially since advances in plate armor construction were giving a greater protection against arrows.

  Some features of military strategy were constant. Maintaining sieges and inflicting famine, for example, were more effective ways of attacking the enemy than pitched battles—forms of military engagement that medieval commanders tended to avoid if possible. Communication systems in battle relied on flags, messengers and musical signals, and their inefficiency contributed to the battlefield mêlée. It was the capture of fortified locations that mattered rather than the unconditional surrender of the defeated. Capturing an opposing knight was preferable to killing
him, since the prisoner could then be ransomed for booty. Command of territory came through occupying strongholds, and the definitive conquest of a disputed region could only be achieved by the occupation or destruction of its castles. The balance of power lay with the besieged if they were well provided with supplies, although some battles of note resulted in a besieging army’s defeat of a relief force, as happened at Tinchebrai, Normandy, in 1106. Major fortifications needed lengthy sieges: that of Rouen in 1418–19 lasted six months and Calais took 11 months to fall in 1346–47. Warfare therefore was not just concentrated in the “campaigning season” from spring to autumn, though foraging (living off the enemy’s land) was easier during the summer months when crops were readily available. Supply trains were a vital resource in extending the (invariably brief) period when a medieval army could maintain a real front, but their slow speed of travel inevitably impeded the force’s rate of advance. Ravaging and plundering provided an army with additional resources, but their chief objective was the reduction of the enemy’s fighting capacity and the infliction of famine was a conscious strategy rather than an opportunistic diversion.

  ABOVE The Siege of Orléans in 1428, shown here in a 15th-century illustration from Les Vigiles de Charles VII, was a major turning point in France’s favor during the Hundred Years’ War. The cannon used by the English were ineffective against the walls of Orléans.

  THE NEW ARTILLERY