The last several issues of the Courier have included an ongoing discussion in the DISPATCH section concerning Dr. Robert Bunker's assertion that it is mutually exclusive to have realism and playability in a gaming system involving the 'Feudal Era' circa 1066-1346 AD Although the exchange has heightened awareness about the period, it has done little to help correctly analyze and understand the nature of medieval warfare. Specifically, the role of medieval leadership and the tactical reality of the mounted knight on the battlefield will be addressed in this article.
I continue to be amazed that Sir Charles Oman's Art of War in the Middle Ages continues to be taken as the final word in military medieval studies by many of our contemporary writers. Though more recent scholarship by Philippe Contamine, J.F. Verbruggen, John Beeler, Christopher Marshall, R.C. Smail and John Keegan take issue with many of Oman's (as well as Hans Delbruck's) conclusions, they are nowhere near as often mentioned, quoted or discussed--if at all.
Granted, Oman's work is an indispensable study, many of his battle descriptions continue to be the definitive work on their subjects, but when it comes to his observations of leadership and the tactical capabilities of mounted feudal cavalry, his study needs to be augmented by newer, fresher research.
The assumption which must be dismissed is that medieval leaders simply brought their available human resources to the field of battle, formed them into tactical units, gave them a pep talk, issued rudimentary orders and then left them to their own devices; i.e. from that point on, relinquishing command control! Certainly, history has examples of many commanders who were incapable of even this, but there were many others who could not only ably determine the course of a battle, but actually control the units under their command as well. Shocking? Too much to believe?
Let us look at the historical records of two such leaders and then decide.
William the Conqueror
William the Conqueror's actions at the Battle of Hastings (1066) are well documented by several sources, notably Master Wace, William of Malmsbury, Orderic Vitalis, William of Jumieges and the visual evidence of the Bayeau Tapestry, among others. Though the battle was fought with less than 8,000 men per side, it lasted the whole of October 14.
During the early phases of the battle, the Breton mounted contingent, close to a thousand strong and located on the left flank of the Norman army, had been forced to retire before the stalwart English defenders on Senlac Hill. The confused retirement quickly developed into a full fledged rout. Seeing the Bretons fleeing in panic before them, many of the English foot foolishly left their hilltop positions in futile pursuit of the rapidly retiring Breton horse.
William, seeing the debacle occurring on his left, rode to the fleeing troops and, the chroniclers tell us, shouted them back into order. He then exchanged his initial weapon, a club, for a lance and personally led his followers in a devastating attack on the pursuing English foot, killing many and chasing the rest back to their comrades, who had not left their initial positions. Does this sound like a commander who has little to do with controlling or influencing his troops in battle? It gets better.
Here, at the height of battle, with William reaching the English lines at least three times (as he had three horses killed under him), is when the determining strategies of the battle were developed. William first ordered his cavalry to once again appear to run away and, sure enough, the tired but defiant English left their ranks to follow the enemy horsemen.
Again, the Normans turned and slaughtered the stunned foot. William had by now destroyed a large part of the English army, but the core of hardy household troops remained, gathered around their battle standards awaiting nightfall and a chance escape to fight again later with large numbers of reinforcements.
William had no reinforcements coming so he ordered his archers to fire in a high arc so that the arrows fell on the heads of the English. The battle ended shortly thereafter with the death of Harold and most of his household warriors.
The chroniclers certainly do not depict William as a laissez faire battlefield commander. He had the ability to change orders, rally troops, conduct a charge and develop new tactics, all while in the midst of battle!
Robert Guiscard
Another even more interesting study can be made of Robert Guiscard, another Norman though not as famous as William, living at the same time, but in two widely separated locales. Robert's exploits gained him an empire consisting of Southern Italy, Sicily and for a short time, part of mainland Greece. Robert Guiscard's life was also well documented, with the Byzantine studies of Anna Comnena and Michael Psellus as well as the Latin works of William of Apulia, Geoffrey Malaterra, Leo of Ostia, Adhemar, Amatus of Monte Cassino and the Vatican archives as source material.
Robert Guiscard possessed a persona of extreme dimensions. His voice reportedly could be heard by 10,000 men at a time--during battle! His use of stealth and guile became legendary. Stories such as his use of a fake cadaver to gain entrance to an Italian fortress and utilizing an available imposter to the Byzantine throne as a pretext for invading Greece are just two documented examples of his opportunistic intelligence. Guiscard also was a brave and powerful fighter. At the Battle of Civitate, the Norman was unhorsed three times and reportedly fought with a sword in one hand and a lance in the other. Made up stories? Possibly, but his enemies often were the chroniclers! They had little to gain by enhancing Robert Guiscard's stature at the expense of their own leadership.
During the battle for Sicily in the late 11th century, Guiscard's chronicled adventures show us a shrewd general, unafraid to take a risk and whose orders were obeyed by his followers. At the siege of Palermo in 1072, Robert, instead of staging a bloody frontal assault or, equally as futile, trying to besiege the fortress, instead took a complete tour around the city, noting defenders numbers and placement. He then took 300 men, attacked a virtually undefended portion of the wall as his main army demonstrated against the main garrison defenders, and in this way easily took the most important city of the realm.
"Guiscard he came to be called; for not cunning Cicero even could match him in craft; nor yet the wily Ulysses", noted William of Apulia. The Cambridge Medieval History under the editorship of the esteemed J.B. Bury, described his as "A fair, blue-eyed giant, who was perhaps the most gifted soldier and statesman of his age." Hardly the description of the 'archetypal' un-influential military commander many writers would have us believe led virtually all knight armies.
Durazzo
Robert Guiscard's most famous battle, fought in Greece against the Byzantine Emperor Alexius Comnena, was at Durazzo in 1081. Here again we find a battlefield commander, along with his wife, the extraordinary Lombard princess Sichelgaita, armed and armored as a Norman knight, racing back and forth across the battlefield, rallying troops, changing orders, and leading charges. Initially, Robert, knowing the quality of his thousands of Italian levy foot (he was still outnumbered 2 to 1), had his transport ships burned, forcing the conscripts to fight fiercely or die. To the rear of the Norman army was a bridge across a river. In order to deny the more numerous Byzantines a chance to get around him and hit his army from the rear, Robert had the bridge destroyed. He then placed his Norman and Apulian knights amongst the foot to bolster their courage and discourage their flight.
The opening moves of the battle were of a chess-like intensity, with the Byzantines thwarting the Norman feigned retreats with bodies of horse archers who shot up the slower knights. As the famed Varangian Guards (made up of Anglo-Saxon survivors of Hastings and mad with thoughts of revenge) tore into the Italo-Norman left flank, the conscripts fell apart and ran. Only Sichelgaita's brave exhortations and courage (she had been wounded by a Byzantine arrow) shamed the conscripts into rallying and turning on the exhausted, heavily armored Varangians who were in turn destroyed.
The main body of Norman cavalry, fully 800 knights and retainers, led by Robert, then attacked the faltering Byzantines and put the entire army to flight. Victory had been won by judicious use of reserves and personal command decisions. The troops listened and obeyed. These are chronicled occurrences. No amount of postulating, revisionist theorizing or psychological models changes them. These were just two of the leaders of the period who were not simply spectators to battle. There were many more.
What this illustrates is that the existing rules systems for Medieval wargaming--most of which contain sections governing the use of generals to change orders (or determine who gets to move, in the case of DBA and DBM), influence hand-to-hand combat (by added combat factors or otherwise) and devastating penalties for loss of leaders--are quite adequate in their current portrayal of the realities of leadership in war.
Of the Knights
What about the knights themselves? Were they too individualistically motivated by "the ethical and ideological structure which was built upon the material culture of the knight", as described by Dr. Bunker, to preclude our ability to adequately utilize them in wargames?
Robert O'Connell in his excellent study Of Arms and Men states that Medieval knights did not so much smash together as "jostle each other" to victory or defeat. As most of us have seen over and over again in 'historical' epic movies, when lines of opposing cavalry meet, there is a universal slowing of the change just before contact and an intermingling of swinging swords, axes and shields, all accompanied by a massive amount of dust and noise. Is this an accurate portrayal of war or Hollywood's version of reality based upon what you can or cannot get thousands of extras to do?
The historical record, to the contrary, is heartily filled with examples of knights hitting with such force that "The clash of armed might was heard for miles" (Battle of Tannenberg 1410) and knights spitting two or more enemy on their lances (the Crusades). Add to these examples of the Western knights charging full tilt into their opponents again and again in Sicily and the Levant, causing their Moslem adversaries to break and run. These charges were described by contemporary chroniclers; William of Tyre, Robert of Clari, Fulcher of Chartres, Anna Comnena, William of Malmsbury, as well as The Song of Roland and The Poem of the Cid. There is no reason to revise history and unilaterally decide these writers were wrong in their descriptions.
From these books and chronicles it is readily apparent that the Western knights could maintain their order in a mounted charge and keep it as they hit home. Even the Moslem writers make note of the cohesion of the Western knights. Kilij Arslan, the Seljuq Turk commander opposing the Crusaders in the First Crusade wrote that "When they draw close to their adversaries...they charge with great force like lions".
Fair Play?
What about the assertion that ransom and fair play precluded anything but a ritualized form of warfare? The battles of Thielt (1128), Muret (1213), Stirling Bridge (1297) and Wakefield (1460) are but a handful of the many Western European battles which bely that assertion. William Clito had no qualms about hiding a good portion of his army behind a hill and 'tempting' the more numerous army of Thierry of Alsace to attack the heavily outnumbered visible troops at Thielt.
As the Alsatians attacked, William's visible knights feigned a panicked flight which overjoyed the entire enemy army and they greedily charged in broken pursuit. As the tiring attackers crested the hill, William's Flemish knights hidden behind tore into the Alsatians destroying them in the process. So much for only fair and open battles.
The French commander, Simon de Montfort, another extraordinary Medieval commander, besieged in the walled city of Muret and outnumbered 10-1, knew that a desperate stratagem would be needed to relieve the siege. The Albigensian Crusade, with Christians vs. Christians, had proven to be as brutal and cruel as any against the Moslems. Simon could expect little quarter if he lost. So it happened that Simon took his 700 French and allied knights and rode through the gates heading south, giving the impression to the enemy that he was deserting the city with his cavalry, leaving the garrison and inhabitants to their fate. The besiegers, made up of Spanish and Toulousian foot, immediately attacked the city while the French knights turned and smashed into a squadron of surprised knights before them who were intent on joining the foot in an orgy of looting.
After routing this body of enemy cavalry, Simon split his command into three parts and headed toward the main Spanish camp, where King Peter of Spain and thousands of Spanish and Toulousian knights milled about, contemptuous of the badly outnumbered French moving uphill towards them.
Unfortunately for the Spanish, Simon had taken his personal division of 200 knights and rode around their flank, crossed a small stream, beat a way through a covering force of Spanish cavalry and finally struck the Spanish army in the flank as the other French knights hit them frontally, maintaining their order all the way. The tired, outnumbered and battle scarred French destroyed the enemy army, one casualty being Peter of Spain, not ransomed, but cut down in the heat of battle.
The French knights not only kept their order, but they made an elaborate battlefield deployment, obeying and following through on orders issued by their commander, in the midst of an attack.
William "Braveheart" Wallace
William Wallace, in command of the Scottish army defying the invaders of King Edward I in 1297, had watched as the English army under the Earl of Surrey split in two. The Earl sent his troops across Stirling Bridge in order to attack the Scots on the other side of the river, foolishly ignoring advice to send a flanking force to find a local fording place so as to get behind the Scots.
As the English army became strung out and fragmented, Wallace attacked. At first the Earl of Surrey tried to reinforce his men on the far side of the river but could not pour enough troops over the narrow bridge, so instead he ordered it destroyed, stranding his knights and foot who had already obeyed him! The Scots killed or captured 100 knights and slaughtered over a thousand foot.
Obviously, William Wallace could have allowed the English to all cross before attacking...the chivalrous thing to do, but he didn't...and he won.
Finally, at the Battle of Wakefield in 1460, the Lancastrian army besieging Sandel Castle and commanded by Lord Clifford and Somerset decided to tempt the 5000 strong Yorkist garrison under Richard of York to sortie out. The Lancastrians hid the majority of their 18,000 men in the woods to either side of the open field before the castle and positioned the rest in the open. Foolishly, the Yorkists took the challenge, were surrounded and destroyed. Revenge and hatred resulted in the murders of the captured Yorkists. So much for ransom and chivalry as the determining factors for battlefield behavior in this period.
The chronicles have given us the evidence to realize that our rules systems are not outmoded and unrealistic. The knights could and did charge home, with enough force to decide the issue and maintained enough unit integrity to cut through an enemy force. he feudal predilection to engage in blood feuds and wars of revenge as well as religious intolerance, among Christian sects as well, meant that the passions allowed free rein in battle were instrumental in obliterating most chivalrous conduct on the battlefield.
The codes of chivalry were useful in the tavern, around the campfire, at court and in the bedchamber, but were not illustrative of the actual situation when involving combat. We have only to read the original sources to see this and to understand that human nature has not changed. The feudal knights, unfortunately in many ways, did not really belong to an alien, exotic culture with a very different view of the world than our own. We have only to look at the racial and religious intolerance so brutally evidenced in our own century, then read the contemporary Medieval accounts of war to realize this fact.
SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY
THE ANGLO-SAXON CHRONICLE. St. Martin's, 1978.
Beeler, John. WARFARE IN ENGLAND 1066-1189. Cornell UP, 1966.
WARFARE IN FEUDAL EUROPE 750-1200.
Robert of Clari. THE CONQUEST OF CONSTANTINOPE. Octogon, 1986.
Anna Comnena. THE ALEXIAD. Penguin, 1985.
Contamine, Philippe. WAR IN THE MIDDLE AGES. Blackwell, 1984.
Davies, R. Trevor. DOCUMENTS OF MEDIEVAL ENGLAND. Barnes & Noble, 1926.
Douglas, D.C. ENGLISH HISTORICAL DOCUMENTS 1042-1189. Oxford UP, 1953.
Finucane, R.C. SOLDIERS OF THE FAITH. St. Martin's, 1983.
Froissart, CHRONICLES. Penguin, 1981.
THE CHRONICLE OF HENRY OF HUNTINGDON. AMS Press, 1968.
Freeman, E.A. A HISTORY OF THE NORMAN CONQUEST. Oxford UP, 1875.
Fulcher of Chartres. CHRONICLE OF THE FIRST CRUSADE. U of PA P, 1941.
Gabrieli, Francesca. ARAB HISTORIANS OF THE CRUSADES. U of CA P, 1984.
Gillingham, John. THE WARS OF THE ROSES. LA U P, 1981.
Joinville and Villehardouin. CHRONICLES OF THE CRUSADES. Penguin, 1980.
Jurgela, Constantine. TANNENBERG 15 JULY 1410. Lithuanian Vet. Assn., 1961.
Keegan, John. A HISTORY OF WARFARE. Knopf, 1993.
KING HARALD'S SAGA. Grossman, 1987.
Krey, A.C. THE FIRST CRUSADE-THE ACCOUNTS OF THE EYEWITNESSES AND PARTICIPANTS. Peter-Smith, 1958.
Maalouf, Amin. THE CRUSADES THROUGH ARAB EYES. Schocken, 1989.
Marshall, Christopher. WARFARE IN THE LATIN EAST 1192-1291. Cambridge UP, 1992.
O'Connell, Robert. OF ARMS AND MEN. Oxford U P, 1989.
Oman, C.W.C. THE ART OF WAR IN THE MIDDLE AGES. Presidio P, 1991.
Orderic Vitalis. THE ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY. Clarenden P, 1969.
Osborne, J. Van Wyck. THE GREATEST NORMAN CONQUEST. Dutton, 1937.
Psellus, Michael. FOURTEEN BYZANTINE RULERS. Penguin, 1987.
THE POEM OF THE CID. Penguin, 1984.
Ross, Charles. THE WARS OF THE ROSES. Thames and Hudson, 1989.
Runciman, Steven. A HISTORY OF THE CRUSADES. Cambridge UP, 1990.
Scott, R.M. ROBERT BRUCE. Peter Bodrich, 1989.
Smail, R.C. CRUSADING WARFARE. Cambridge U P, 1967.
THE SONG OF ROLAND. Penguin, 1986.
Sumption, Jonathan. THE ALBIGENSIAN CRUSADE. Faber & Faber, 1978.
Verbruggen, J.F. THE ART OF WAR IN THE WESTERN WORLD DURING THE MIDDLE AGES. North-Holland, 1977.
Wace, Master. HIS CHRONICLES OF THE NORMAN CONQUEST. William Pick, 1837.
William of Tyre. GODEFFROY OF BOLOYNE. Kegan-Paul, 1993.
Wilson, David. THE BAYEAU TAPESTRY. Knopf, 1985.
Back to Table of Contents -- Courier #67
To Courier List of Issues
To MagWeb Master Magazine List
© Copyright 1995 by The Courier Publishing Company.
This article appears in MagWeb (Magazine Web) on the Internet World Wide Web.
Other military history articles and gaming articles are available at http://www.magweb.com