The legends and romances of the High Middle Ages are filled with glorious mounted charges, extraordinary bravery, and feats of individual prowess and heroism giving the casual reader a feeling of awe and wonder. Warfare as we know it in the twentieth century is of maneuver and interdiction, supply lines and strategic control of resources, disciplined units following explicit orders coordinating with other units to achieve a given objective or goal and immense destruction or lives and property.

Our scholars of the early Medieval period, as Charles Bowlus writes "...are beginning to realize that military science is a social science in that it requires a high degree of social organization to wage war." (124)

How can we reconcile that statement with what the chroniclers tell us? Was there an actual art of war in the Middle Ages? If so, what did it consist of? Tactical battlefield planning, strategic use of reserves, generalship, discipline, psychology?

I have chosen to read and discuss five books purporting to report to us on the art of war. Each of the authors is a well known and respected expert in the field. Hans Delbruck, the famous German military hietorian whose History of the Art of War within the Framework of Political History was, until the last few years, not readily available in an English translation to American students. Yet, it is to Delbruck that we owe a debt of gratitude for destroying the myths of massive hordes of armed men marching and dying throughout history. By studiously looking at agriculture, arable lands, size of towns, landscapes of battlefields and so on, Delbruck brought the huge numbers of the early chronioclers down to a believable level.

The Englishman, Charles Oman, whose Art of War in the Middle Ages was published in the 1920's, has served as the standard of reference for study of the actual battles during the Middle Ages. No matter what article or book you pick up on warfare of this period, Oman's name will be quoted again and again. More recently, John Beeler's book Warfare in Feudal Europe 700-1200 has been extensively referred to as well. Professor Beeler, an American, also has edited a revised edition of Oman's two volume set.

The Dutch historian J.P. Verbruggen's in-depth study The Art of War In Western Europe During the Middle Ages details the historiographical problems of dealing with the period as well as critically evaluating Delbruck's and Oman's works.

Finally, a recently published work by the Frenchman Philippe Contamine was studied to round out the group. Contamine's War in the Middle Ages is not only an enjoyable book to read, but his scholarship is exemplary.

These five books taken as a whole agree in places, but the amazing thing is that the areas of disagreement are far more marked in importance than those of agreement! The whole basic premise of the survey has pitted the three more recent writers in direct opposition to the earlier ones.

Setting the Scene

The scene that comes to mind when envisioning a Melieval battle is one of masses of armored horsemen crashing into each other and drawing sword, battleaxe, morningstar or mace and individually dueling, one against another. Neither Hollywood nor earlier historians have differed in this assessment of the undisciplined mobs led by heroes or villains. Oman wrote "when the enemy came into eight, nothing could restrain the Western knights; the shield was shifted into position, the lance dropped into rest, the spur touched charger, and the mailclad line thundered on, regardless of what might be before it. As often its not it ended in being dashed against a stone wall or tumbled into a canal, in painful flounderings in a bog or futile surgings around a palisade." (59)

Yet Verbraggen maintains that the tactics of Medieval cavalry was not much different in the 1800's as "...there was merely a higher degree of automatic discipline in the later cavalry ... an artificial sense of military honor.." replacing the chivalrous bravery of the Medieval knights (94). The lines are clearly drawn in this aspect of Medieval warfare.

Hans Delbruck, while not quite so denigrating to the Medieval warrior as Oman, notes that "From the start of the battle on, knights were moved only by the instincts of the war itself." (15) Yet just four pages before, he states that "...housecarls and thegns were brave men ... but they formed no tactical body that was trained to move out an a unit on command (while the Norman knight was superior) in his professional training..." (my emphasis) (153-4)

The lower classes of the times were readily referred to by Delbruck as unreliable, only the royal household troops or retinues could with certainty be counted upon to appear for battle (149). He further goes on to say that there was no general levy of troops, ignoring the fact that in England the trained warrior thanes and houaecarle could not have numbered in the thousands at the Battle of Hastings in 1066...and therefore who were those thousands of Saxon defnders if not the levy of fyrd?

The knights were warriors trained for combat. They were brought up with weapons, horses, mock combat and a code, though loosely, if at all, adhered to. There were no real military academies, except possibly in the strict Christian military orders and tournaments were used to train the young men for war (Contamine 216). Oman's admiration for the Byzantine war machine is evidenced by his statement that "While a Western army went on its blundering way arranged in two or three enormous 'battles', each mustering many thousand men, a Byzantine army of equal strength would be divided into many scores of factions" (50). Delbruck, contradicting himself, states that only the Byzantinee had trained, skilled mercenaries, but no infantry (197). Yet at the Battle of Dyrrachium in 1181, the Varangians (Anglo-Danish mercenaries) who fought on foot in Byzantine service, upon seeing the enemy Norman cavalry, immediately formed a German wedge and attacked "like the ancient Germans," unconcerned for flank, rear supports or reserves (186). They were totally destroyed. These men were not only undisciplined but foolish as well.

The Germanic courage, or love of battle for its own sake, is chronicled again and again (Verbruggen 39). The admired sword stroke, lance thrust, axe blow of the Viking sagas, in the Song of Roland, El Cid, Beowulf and other contemporary tales is abundant. To say, however, that all combat was simply one brute strength against another is to do a disservice to the comradeship and abilities of the warriors of our study.

Delbruck argues that "Knighthood had no tradition of a system of discipline." (243) He states that discipline starts at the top and works its way down, thus insubordinate vassals brought this out in their retainers as well (243). Yet he later writes that a knight charge would break all but foot. He goes on to say that Roman foot in close order with spears (265) would have repulsed a cavalry charge and gone over to the offensive, not accounting for the legion's destruction at Adrianople in 378 by Gothic cavalry who possessed neither stirrups, couched lance or heavy body armor as the Medieval knights did! Medieval combat decisions, Delbruck believed, were brought about by individual skill and bravery reinforced by good welponry ard armor, not tactical units coordinating together (233).

Anna Comnena wrote that the Franks had a great initial impact but fell apart after that if not successful (Verbruggen 40). By use of references from chronicles and thoroughly researched accounts of the battles of Acre, Arsuf, Bouvines, Worringen and Monsen-Pevelle, Verbruggen states that fear motivated the mounted knights and their retainers to pack as closely together as possible so that a glove thrown into their midst would not fall to the ground (73-4).

This, he writes, destroys the belief that Medieval combat was by individual duels and is supported in this by Contamine (219). Only by close, disciplined ranks could a successful and effective mounted charge be delivered. When pushed uphill, as at Hastings or piecemeal, as at El Mansura in 1250, the attacks were unsuccessful (Oman 59). However, in battle "Both chroniclers and knights...condemned reckless attacks and individual feats of arms of a knight who left his formation to make an attack," (Verbruggen 81). But rules were broken and honor as well as bonds of loyalty would often prevail over discipline. "Sometimes all that was needed was for one knight to charge to make the whole army follow, as happened at Arsuf ..." (82)

The Byzantine sources, when comparing Latins and Greeks, say that knights would obey commands as trained Byzantines would (Verbruggen 83-4). However, Verbruggen's attempt to connomate the Western use of a cantator or jongleur with the Byzantine use of trumpets for signalling falls short of being proven. The Western jongleur, such as Tailefer at Hastings, was used simply to inspire the men to charge, while the Byzantine signals were used to change unit orders as well as alignments, formations and facings.

Disciplined troops are usually able to perform maneuvers in the face of the enemy before coming to grips. Delbruck does not go into any battles in extreme detail, thus little in the way of disciplined maneuvers are in evidence in his examples. He does give credit to the Templars, stating that those men ordered to guard the banner were disciplined enough to hold their ranks while the others went free to kill who they wished of the enemy (Delbruck 286)!

Verbruggen goes quite a bit further and states that knights fought ... in units... (and) had to advance and charge in (an) orderly manner." (37) As with Delbruck, Verbruggen writes that the "Templars, had their Rule of behavior and order; camps, rules of march, and so forth." (75). Taking this much further, however, the Dutch historian states that other knight armies were not as strict an this, but still had marshals to organize order of-march and camp set up (75).

Contamine believes that the knights were further capable of breaking off from combat, regrouping and trying again to break the enemy formation (230). Reportedly at Hastings such things did occur. Oman, of course, simply states that the knights were insubordinate, hard to maneuver and ready to leave when their time of sarvice was up, "...utterly unadapted to take the offensive" and good only to defend fron Vikings, Moslems and Magyars. (58)

Some of the most brutal and warlike fanatics in human history, Oman further describes the battles of Bouvines and Benevenuto as "...nothing more than a huge scuffle and scramble of horaes and men over a convenient heath or hills." (60) Curiously enough, Beeler writes that while the Normane could maintain disciplined ranks, they did not have the capability of utilizing the famous feigned breakoff at Hastings, "...on no other occasion is it alleged to have thought of and put into execution on the spur of the moment.* (95)

Yet he maintains that the Magyars certainly used the maneuver against Henry the Fowler and he later turned it against them at the Battle of Raids in 933, thus showing the tactic was not new (Beeler 228). In fact, it was a favored tactic in tournaments and much later atBattle of Thielt (1128), it wan used to lure knights into an ambush. Delbruck certainly notes the Hungarian use of the tactic as well but says of the Westerners "...in a battle between knights, it is almost impossible to stop knights, once they have started to flee." (134)

Verbruggen disagrees with Delbruck, stating that feigned flight was actually easy to use against foot soldiers who could not catch the knights anyway (90)!

Foot soldiers were easily panicked unless they had beaten an enemy and been encouraged by thia.(Verbruggen 155). The English longbowmen, for instance, built up their confidence fighting against and destroying the Scots at Dupplin Moor in 1332 and Halidon Hill in 1333 before going to France and doing the same on the continent (Verbruggen 157). Infantry formations were usually of line, circle or wedge (Contamine 237). Oman believed that infantry were insignificant in the 12th and 13th centuries, only good for skirmishing, siege work and cleaning up the camps (63). He uses examples such as Crecy where the French had so much contempt for the foot soldiers that they rode them down, yet he turns around and says that foot formed into schiltron or circle at Bouvines which the cavalry retired into to rest (63).

But this back and forth argument with himself was not over yet. Oman then writes that some troops i.e. Brabancon mercenaries, Scots lowland infantry and the Saracen foot auxiliaries of Frederick II, were uniformly armed and could be depended on! He passed over the Crusades as having no importance in the development of any European art of war except as a way to improve and design the castles of the West (71). Delbruck has the Crusaders leaving their foot support 1-2 miles behind them so that the mounted knights could fall back and rally behind them (271). He then goes on to say that foot units on their own in the open had no chance if attacked by mounted knights (290). Verbruggen points out, though, that knights feared for the safety of their mounts as well as themselves and were wary of attacking foot armed with long spears (50).