Flanders 1303-1304

Three Battles to Try

The Flemish Style of War and Bibliography

by Victor O. Schmidt

The dwellers of Flanders in the 13th century depended upon a communal militia led by a largely urbanized gentry for their defense. The towns of Ypres, Ghent, and Bruges had a long military history, and were prized for their expertise in war, especially sieges. The Lombard communes of Italy had a similar military system which they used with some success against the attempts of the German Emperors to exert influence over Northern Italy in the 11th and 12th centuries.

The Fleming's method of warfare was different from the Lombards, as was their equipment. The Flemings did not cluster around a Caraccio as did the Lombards, but deployed in a long oblong, most like the phalanxes's of Alexander the Great. They employed pikes about fifteen to eighteen feet long, like the Lombards, but did not, it seems, carry many shields, although opinions on this vary. A large proportion of their men carried a six-foot spiked club called "Goedendag". This was a fearsome weapon whose purpose was to bash an enemy, afoot or on horse, into pulp. It was remarkably effective against Knights. Men carrying the Goedendag were intermixed with the pikemen in various ways, sometimes forming a second line, or sometimes standing next to them. The objective of course was that once the enemy's charge was broken, the men with the goedendags would come out and close with the enemy. The Flemings had crossbowmen and light archers for missile protection and a handful of knights, but their chief reliance was on the long lines of pikemen.

The Goedendag, for all its seeming primitiveness, was a highly efficient weapon given the method of warfare of the Flemings. Unlike the sword, its best employment necessitated vertical movements, up and down, like a man using a maul or a sledge-hammer. It did not necessitate lateral movements as use of a sword and shield would. In short, it was an excellent though rudimentary "auxiliary" infantry weapon to the pike, and one which could be used against any enemy who got between the hedgehog. The use of the Goedendag would then not further disorganize the pikes. The crossbowmen seem to have used the shield as a "cover" against missile fire rather than in combat.

The Flemish style of warfare developed from its origins as a communal militia. This militia had arisen from two sources. The first was the achievement of independence from feudal control and the need to secure that which had been won. The burghers first had to overthrow the knights and secure that legal concessions had been bought or fought for. This had to be done with walls, and with arms and men to man and defend these walls. Yet within the world of feudal society, a world held together by homage, fealty, and bonds of personal loyalty, the towns were able to exist by adapting to this system.

They became military resources to their now not quite so lordly overlords. Governed by contracts and homage freely entered into, they agreed to provide quotas of troops and equipment for war. That they, experts in the defense of towns, should also be experts in the taking of them is of no surprise. Coupled with the feudal host of the traditional nobility, they were a formidable force.

Yet with the decline of the nobility, and its large-scale defection to the French when the latter invaded at the very beginning of the 14th century, the communal militia of the towns, once a highly useful and proficient auxiliary, had to stand on its own. It no longer had the feudal cavalry of the lords to form with it, a compact and proficient force. Under the press of events, new methods had to be developed, literally often in the heat of battle, and a confidence, a tradition of victory, had to be acquired to enable them to endure on the battlefield. This clearly was the case throughout the early wars of the Flemings. From Courtrai, where we see the Flemings hesitant and fearful, backing themselves into an unturnable position, to Arques, where they take the operational offensive into France itself, and to Mons-En-Pevele, where the refusal of the French to obligingly hurl themselves onto the Flemish pikes caused the latter to undertake a tactical offensive, we see a gradual increase in tactical expertise and martial confidence.

Arques in fact reminds one of the early campaigns of the Swiss against Charles the Bold and the French. The Flemings moved in several separated, but mutually supporting columns, and while they did not move as fast, or perhaps as expertly as the Swiss, nevertheless they were no long immobile blocks like the Lombards or Scots. At Mons-En-Pevele, the French tried to break up the Flemish squares with archer fire, and attack from the rear. The French moved their cavalry to a few yards of the Flemish line, forcing their archers back into the shelter of the pikes and goedendags. Then the French brought up their own archers to try to riddle the Flemish phalanx and break it up.

While the rear-attack was frustrated by a line of wagons, to deal with this combination of cavalry/archer fire, the Flemings simply attacked, just as the Swiss would later do to their assailants who had the temerity to try such foolishness. Only the inexpertise of the Flemings prevented the French from being completely overthrown.

Nor can one discount the effect of inspired leadership and popular sentiment. The Flemish common soldier bitterly hated the French and their Leliaert sympathizers. He was motivated by personal animus and a desire for bloody revenge not usually found in medieval armies. Defeat for the communard meant either death or enslavement. At the same time he benefited from some exemplary leadership from the sons of the Count of Flanders, and his grandson William of Julich. These popular leaders served as a further rallying point, and being experienced veterans themselves, had a good grasp of tactics that most common troops lacked. Indeed, once the valiant William of Julich and John of Renesse were killed the spirit seemed to go out of the revolt. In fact, one of the chief shortcomings of the Flemish revolt was that there seemed no way of replacing these inspired leaders once they had been killed, and especially, no way of developing leaders from the lower classes. A contrast of Courtrai, Arques, and Mons-en-Pevele with Cassel and Roosebeeke shows at once the deficiencies of poor leadership. What is important from these examples is that the infantry had come into its own, quite able, if it kept formation, to resist cavalry in the defense, and able to advance against its assailants when attacked by fire. Infantry had become mobile, and it was the mobility of infantry more than anything else that lead to its Renaissance.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Allmand, C.T., War Literature and Politics in the Late Middle Ages New York, Barnes & Noble, 1976.
Allmand, C.T. Society at War: The Experience of England and France During the Hundred Years War New York: Barnes & Noble, 1973.
Bisson, Thomas N. "The Military Origins of Medieval Representation" in American Historical Review Vol. 71 No.4 July 1966, 1199-1218.
Burns J.H. ed. The Cambridge History of Medieval Political Thought:c 350- c 1450 Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1991.
Cazel, Fred A Jr. ed., Feudalism and Liberty: Articles and Addresses of Sidney Painter The Johns Hopkins Press, Baltimore, 1961.
Contamine, Phillipe War in the Middle Ages Trans. Michael Jones.Oxford, Blackwell Press, 1980.
de Bueil, Jean. Le Jouvencel C. Favre and L. Lecestre ed., 2 Vols. Paris, 1887-89.
Delbruck, Hans A History of Warfare Vol 3. The Late Middle Ages Greenhill Books, New York, 1975.
DuPuy, R. Ernest and DuPuy, Trevor N. The Encyclopedia of Military History: From 3500 B.C. to the present New York: New York, Harper & Row, Publishers, 1970.
Gaier, Claude "Analysis of Military Forces in the Principality of Liege and the County of Looz from the Twelfth to the Fifteenth Century" in Studies in Medieval and Renaissance History, Vol II William M. Bowsky Ed., Lincoln Nebraska, University of Nebraska Press., 1965 205-261.
Gies, Frances: The Knight in History New York: Harper and Rowe, 1989.
Huizinga, J The Waning of the Middle Ages: A Study of the Forms of Life, Thought and Art in France and the Netherlands in the XIVth and XVth Centuries Garden City N.Y., Anchor Books, 1937. Kantorowicz, Ernst "Kingship under the Influence of Scientific Jurisprudence" in Marshall Clagett, ed., The Twelfth Century and the Foundations of Modern Society University of Wisconsin Press., Wisconsin, 1975.
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Ross, James Bruce trans. The Murder of Charles the Good: by Galbert of Bruges Toronto: University of Toronoto Press, 1982.
Tuchman, Barbara W. A Distant Mirror: The Calamitous 14th CenturyNew York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1978.
Vale, Malcom War and Chivalry: Warfare and Aristocratic Culture in England, France and Burgundy at the End of the Middle Ages Athens Georgia, University of Georgia Press, 1981.
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ENDNOTES

1. "In the twelfth century, the count of Looz or the bishop of Liege did not decide to begin long hostilities without the concurrence of their infantry, and , despite the individual superiority of the rider over the foot-soldier during the whole middle ages, the urban foot became, after the beginning of the thirteenth century, the main part of the national armed forces." Claude Gaier, "Analysis of Military Forces in the Principality of Liege and the County of Looz from the Twelfth to the Fifteenth Century" in Studies in Medieval and Renaissance History, Vol II William M. Bowsky Ed., Lincoln Nebraska, University of Nebraska Press., 1965,242. See Also J.F. Verbruggen, The Art of Warfare in Western Europe During the Middle Ages, Vol I: From the Eighth Century to 1340. Sumner Willard and S.C.M. Southern Trans. New York: North Holland Publishing Co., 1977, 129. "In this early period the communal army of Ghent was outstanding. The soldiers were well armed and had at their disposal a baggage train and siege equipment. They were battle-seasoned and enjoyed the reputation of being specialists in besieging fortresses. As well as heavy foot-soldiers, armed with lances, pikes, swords and shields, there were also archers. The men of Ghent had ladders which took ten men to carry them, and a sort of tower equipped with ladders which were intended for besieging and storming strongholds. They also had iron hammers and implements for boring through walls, and siege engines to shatter them. Their baggage was carried on wagons, of which they brought thirty to Bruges to besiege the murderers of Count Charles the Good. They also had a corps of experienced workmen who could set up or take down the siege engines and rebuild the wooden towers to make battering rams."

2. See John Keegan in Face of Battle for a similar account of the "tumbling effect" of the push of the rear ranks upon the front in a dense formation. Keegan shows how at Agincourt the pressure of the rear made it impossible for the dismounted French knights and men at arms to even defend themselves, and hampered by the bodies of the fallen, they must have tumbled over and were ignominiously slain, sometimes just trampled and crushed to death.

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