journal of medieval military history vol iv

THE JOURNAL OF

Medieval MilitaryHistory

Volume IV

THE JOURNAL OF MEDIEVAL MILITARY HISTORY

Editors

Clifford J. RogersKelly DeVriesJohn France

ISSN 1477–545X

THE JOURNAL OF

Medieval MilitaryHistory

Volume IV

Edited by

CLIFFORD J. ROGERS

KELLY DEVRIES

JOHN FRANCE

THE BOYDELL PRESS

© Contributors 2006

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without the prior permission of the copyright owner

First published 2006The Boydell Press, Woodbridge

ISBN 1 84383 267 4

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and of Boydell & Brewer Inc.668 Mt Hope Avenue, Rochester, NY 14620, USA

website: www.boydellandbrewer.com

A CIP catalogue record for this book is availablefrom the British Library

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Printed in Great Britain byBiddles Ltd, King’s Lynn

Contents

ARTICLES

1. The Sword of Justice: War and State Formation in Comparative 1Perspective

Stephen Morillo

2. Archery versus Mail: Experimental Archaeology and the Value 18of Historical Context

Russ Mitchell

3. “Cowardice” and Duty in Anglo-Saxon England 29Richard Abels

4. Cowardice and Fear Management: The 1173–74 Conf lict as 50a Case Study

Steven Isaac

5. Expecting Cowardice: Medieval Battle Tactics Reconsidered 65Stephen Morillo

6. Naval Tactics at the Battle of Zierikzee (1304) in the Light of 74Mediterranean Praxis

William Sayers

7. The Military Role of the Magistrates in Holland during the Guelders 91War

James P. Ward

8. Women in Medieval Armies 119J. F. Verbruggen

DEBATEVerbruggen’s “Cavalry” and the Lyon-Thesis 137

Bernard S. Bachrach

DOCUMENTDogs of War in Thirteenth-Century Valencian Garrisons 164

Robert I. Burns, S.J.

The Sword of Justice

1

The Sword of Justice: War and State Formationin Comparative Perspective*

Stephen Morillo

Introduction

At the International Medieval Congress in Kalamazoo in 2002, John France’sinterpretation of a vast corpus of early saints’ Lives showed that war in Christianwestern Europe was taken as a normal and acceptable activity in many circum-stances, and that this acceptance stemmed from warfare’s connection tocommon judicial procedures. Warrior saints – that is, the common sort of earlymedieval saint whose first career had been as a warrior, before a conversionexperience and entry into the priesthood – often played judicial roles, justifyingor forgiving offensive warfare versus other Christians and ameliorating thesinful effects of conducting war. And of course warfare versus pagans and infi-dels presented no problems whatsoever for a Christian view of the world. Inshort, Professor France showed that what the saints’ Lives present is not paci-fism but the evasion of criticism of war, motivated by the recognition of thenecessity of war in maintaining order. And maintaining order was a political andjudicial function requiring the exercise of force, or coercion.1

The conception of warfare Professor France outlined, based on a judicialmodel and aimed at maintenance of order, derived from the same multiple rootsthat gave birth to most features of the medieval European world: Roman,Christian, and Germanic. Roman notions of law as the framework of the stateand of the existence of a natural law superior to particular legal codes are part ofthe basic ideological framework behind this conception; in military terms in

* I would like to thank John France for sending me a copy of his talk in pre-publication form.Several people have read earlier versions of this paper and offered useful criticisms and comments.Cliff Rogers’s comments on the version I delivered at Kalamazoo in 2003 were especially valuable;I thank him for the care and thoughtfulness he devoted to them. Saundra Scwartz of Hawaii PacificUniversity and Jerry Bentley of The University of Hawaii, Manoa also offered useful comments.Whatever inadequacies remain in this version are entirely my own.1 John France, “Early Saints Lives as Sources for Military History,” featured De Re Militari

Address delivered at The 37th International Medieval Congress, Kalamazoo, MI, May 2002. Arevised version has been published in The Journal of Medieval Military History 3 (2005),14–22, as “War and Sanctity: Saints’ Lives as Sources for Early Medieval Warfare.”

particular, the archaic Roman ius fetiale, the religious-military law governingthe declaration of wars only for just causes, had created an intellectual traditionplacing warfare in a legal context with cosmic underpinnings.2 There is somequestion, however, about whether the ius fetiale and ideas of just war survivedRome’s transition to an imperial power as anything but a formality, and thephilosophical substance of just war theory derives from Christian thinkersconcerned with the question of whether a Christian could participate in warwithout committing a deadly sin.3 Christian notions of just war were fullyworked out by Augustine (answering the question in the affirmative) and wereeventually systematized by Aquinas in the Summa Theologica, Second Part ofthe Second Part, Question 40. There, Aquinas states that “three things arerequired for any war to be just”: “the authority of the sovereign on whosecommand war is waged,” a just cause, and right intention of those waging war.4

For my purposes, the crucial requirement is the first one, the authority of thesovereign. For this implies that Romano-Christian western European notions ofwarfare accepted the existence and authority of states, accepted that states mustexercise coercive power over society, and framed the coercive authority of stateswithin notions of law. The Germanic contribution was to add to the legalisticconception of the state the notion that free individuals (men) retained a right tobear arms and use violence to settle legal disputes outside the courts: “theappeal to arms – the phrase is very apt – remained a legitimate option.”5

This connection of states, warfare, and law form the analytic entryway formy excursion into a comparative examination of war and state formation. Thereis a vast literature on this topic, much of which orbits around Charles Tilly’sbook Capital, Coercion, and European States, AD 900–1992.6 It is part of myaim in this paper to re-examine Tilly’s model of state formation from a globaland comparative perspective, with a focus on the relationship between warriorelites and states.7 In particular, I want to focus on how these two actors, warriorelites and states, talked to each other, and more generally how states talked totheir societies. What ideological and cultural assumptions framed the discoursebetween states and social groups? What terms of debate mediated the some-times conflicting demands states and social groups made on each other and theresponses each side made to the other’s demands?

I hope to defend a series of propositions that go something like this. First,and most generally, that the ideological and cultural framework that mediated

2 Stephen Morillo

2 Alan Watson, International Law in Archaic Rome: War and Religion (Baltimore, 1993), chs. 2,3. Cliff Rogers suggested the role of Fetial Law to me.

3 Gábor Sulyok, “The Doctrine of Just War and its Applicability in Contemporary InternationalLaw,” Miskolc Journal of International Law 1 (2004), 88–103, at p. 89.

4 Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologica, Pars Secunda Secundae, Quaestio 40.5 The quotation is from Cliff Rogers’s written comments on my Kalamazoo talk; I am unable to

improve on his wording of an important idea.6 Charles Tilly, Capital, Coercion and European States, AD 900–1992 (Cambridge, 1992).7 Note that the free men with the right to bear arms of the Germanic tradition were the foundation

of a warrior elite.

the discourse between society and states played a crucial role in the form anddirection that state formation took in different societies, and that this is aneglected factor in models of state formation proposed by Tilly and others whohave followed and criticized him. Second, that the Romano-Christian westernEuropean view of warfare as a species of legal activity – the very connectionJohn France examined – is strong evidence that in western European civiliza-tion the framework of discourse between states and societies and thus for stateformation was based in law. This framework was therefore established wellbefore Tilly’s initial date of 900, and is thus hidden from analysis in studies ofstate formation that take western Europe as paradigmatic because the frame-work is already, in that world, universal and taken for granted. Third, however,that viewing war as a species of law is by no means universal or even commonin global terms; quite the contrary, it is an uncommon view, and so cannot anddoes not form the framework of society-state discourse in other civilizations.Rather, other cultural and ideological constructs create that framework, withvarying results for the form and direction of state formation around the world.One possible conclusion to be drawn from this set of propositions is that theview of warfare as a species of legal activity, the view that emerged so clearly inJohn France’s study of early saints lives, illuminates one of the central founda-tions of the emergence of the modern western state (not that this is anunproblematic construct itself). Considerations of space will prevent me fromdeveloping this last conclusion very far, but it does lurk behind this argumentsomewhere.

Terms and Concepts

My analysis will be based on a number of terms and concepts that I will tryto make clear at the outset. For starters, the roles of warfare and law in stateformation may be viewed in terms of the taxonomy of the uses of sanctionedviolence proposed by Mark Lewis.8 He suggests “at least four such uses: 1)violence as compelling force, as the decisive element of the political order; 2)violence as a definer and creator of social groupings; 3) violence as a marker ofsignificance; 4) violence as an element in myth or in metaphoric thinking.”Though we are most familiar in western political analysis with the first cate-gory, all four turn out to be significant in discovering the “locus and exercise ofauthority”9 in different societies, and therefore in giving nuance andsocial-cultural depth to analyses of the deployment of coercive power in stateformation. For coercion is one of the two axes along which resources are avail-

The Sword of Justice 3

8 Mark Edward Lewis, Sanctioned Violence in Early China (Albany, 1990), p. 1.9 Lewis, Sanctioned Violence, p. 5.

able for state building, according to Tilly’s model;10 and ultimately, in the formof war making, is the crucial axis.11

Tilly’s model of state formation may be summarized roughly as follows (seeFigure 1). Given competitive international environments, warfare, or the threatof warfare, put demands on states, primarily in terms of demands for human andeconomic resources. The relative availability of underlying accumulations andconcentrations either of capital or of coercive means pushed different statesalong somewhat different paths, but the underlying dynamic was the same:faced with the demands imposed by warfare, states in turn made demands ontheir societies. The societies responded to these demands in a process ofbargaining with the state over its powers; this bargaining was what graduallybuilt up the institutions of state and gave states greater control of the coercive

4 Stephen Morillo

Figure 1: Schematic summary of Charles Tilly’s model of war and state formation

Warfare Demands State

Society

Response

Demands

Negotiation over

Powers of the State

State formation

10 Tilly, Coercion, Capital, pp. 16–28.11 There is not room in this paper to deal in any detail with the capital axis of the Tilly model of

state formation. I will point out, however, that this paper’s focus on the legal framework ofwarrior-state discourse is also applicable to merchant-state discourse; indeed, the compatibilityof warrior law and merchant law at the level of how social networks were formed and mediatedis, I believe, one of the factors that made the city-to-state linkages crucial to Tilly’s model of thepath of “capitalized coercion” possible. In other words, a common legal framework ofdiscourse, sanctioned by violence in the social and metaphoric as well as political ways pointedout by Lewis, was the link that made capital and coercion two axes on the same graph ratherthan vectors of conflicting or incompatible modes of social organization. For more oncity-to-state links (or non-links) in a comparative context, see below, pp. 16–17.

and capital resources of their societies. In short, in Tilly’s famous and now prob-ably over-used aphorism, “states made war and war made states.”

Tilly’s formulation has received widespread criticism of many of its details,often focused on cultural factors to which Tilly’s original model gives shortshrift.12 Yet many of the critics still accept the basic outlines of the model, andthose who don’t have failed to provide a coherent alternate model.13 From myperspective the model, while useful, has two main weaknesses. First, it ignoresthe role of the Industrial Revolution in transforming the potential scale ofresources available for state building, and so misses the great watersheddividing the traditional and the modern state in favor of a focus on the develop-mental factors that bridge this great divide. Having noted this weakness, I shallnow ignore it as falling outside the scope of this investigation.

The second weakness, however, is that Tilly constructs on the basis of Euro-pean history a model that at least at times purports to be universal. Now it is notEurocentrism per se that is problematic here, but what that Eurocentrism hidesfrom view, which is the military-legal framework of discourse that cruciallyshaped the negotiations between state and society central to the process of statebuilding encoded in the model (see Figure 2). As I noted earlier, because that


Figure 2: Modified model: negotiation within a variable framework of discourse

Warfare Demands State

Society

Response

Demands

Negotiation over

Powers of the State

State formation?

Gray area:

Ideological framework

of discourse

12 See for example the collection State/Culture: State Formation after the Cultural Turn, ed.George Steinmetz (Ithaca, NY, 1999), including a reply by Tilly.

13 Admittedly, there may be a problem with models in general to describe complex historicalphenomena, but as a believer in models I will forge ahead undaunted.

framework was common to all the European case studies that informed Tilly’smodel, it became effectively invisible. It appears to view only when placed incomparative perspective with societies whose cultural and ideological frame-work of discourse was different and whose warfare and state-making trajecto-ries were therefore also different. Closer examination of frameworks ofdiscourse also reveal the possibly insufficient attention Tilly pays to differentgroups within society, as warrior elites emerge in comparative perspective asoften crucial to the sort of framework a culture adopts and so to the path of stateformation.

Finally, in order to make useful comparisons of paths of state formation, weneed at least a rough definition of states, or more precisely government, and away to measure the strength of the central authority within government. Ipropose the following. First, that government is the sum of the formal mecha-nisms whereby a society is organized through the use of sanctioned violence (orlegitimate coercion) and pays for those mechanisms. This definition is meant tobe inclusive of all levels of government from local and regional to polity-wide.Second, that the strength of the central authority in this totality of government –the usual focus of studies of state formation – may be roughly measured alongfour vectors:

� PENETRATION into the lives of the governed. That is, what are the centralauthority’s capabilities in terms of the collection and distribution ofresources and information, and in terms of monopolizing the legitimateuse of force?14

� INTEGRATION of the various levels and regions of government. Howuniform are the material and symbolic instantiations of government acrossthe polity, for example, law and the legal standing of different sets of thegoverned, coinage, liability to corvées and conscription? In what relationto regional, ethnic, class, and other axes of personal identity does identifi-cation of the governed with central authority stand?15

� COOPERATION of the governed with the potentially coercive functions ofgovernment such as tax collection, conscription, legal procedure, and soon. The level of cooperation a government can elicit is one measure of howlegitimate the government is in the eyes of the governed.16

6 Stephen Morillo

14 Collection and distribution of resources and information are the aspects of penetration directlyaffected by the resources, organizational systems, and technologies produced by (andproducing) the Industrial Revolution.

15 Governmental integration is broadly limited by the level of economic integration. This is there-fore another area affected by industrialization, which made possible much higher levels ofeconomic (and so political) integration across larger areas.

16 Given the limitations pre-industrial infrastructure placed on raising levels of penetration andintegration, and given that increases in scale (especially via geographic expansionism) entailedcountervailing costs in terms of corruption and central control (again a symptom of the limits ofpre-industrial infrastructure for integration), raising the level of cooperation was often the mostefficient way for pre-industrial states to increase their effectiveness.

� SCALE of government, including such measures as the effective geographicscope of the central authority, the absolute level of resources deployed, andthe number of functionaries government employs, all discounted by thelevel of corruption or venality.17

With this set of definitions and theoretical considerations in place, let’s nowexamine in more detail the military-legal framework of discourse in medievalEuropean states and then compare that to some case studies from other civiliza-tions.

War, Law, and State Formation in Europe

Examples of the operation of warfare as a species of legal activity, andconversely of legal actions carried on through military means, are not hard tofind in early and high medieval Europe. The late tenth century dispute thatproduced the Conventum, or Agreement, between Count William V ofAquitaine and Hugh IV of Lusignan18 is a paradigmatic case. The agreement,which is essentially a narrative of a series of small wars fought between theCount and Hugh, begins “The count of the Aquitanians called William had anagreement with Hugh the Chiliarch that when the end came for viscount Bosothe count would give Boso’s honor to Hugh in commendation. Bishop Roho sawand heard and kissed the count’s arm.”19 So we start with an agreement – notexactly what we would call a legal contract, but more than an informal under-standing, because it has been witnessed and visibly sealed by a bishop. Thecount fails to live up to the agreement, and Hugh receives ill treatment from thecount in a number of other ways we need not detail. Ultimately, Hugh went tothe count’s court (curtem comiti) “and put his case before him about his right,but it did him no good.”20 Hugh breaks faith with the count, who seizes thebenefices of Hugh’s men “pro nomen de guerra.”21 Hugh in turn seizes a castle,negotiations ensue, and the resulting agreement is recorded.

This is, then, essentially a legal dispute about landholding, though it is also adispute about the rightful or lawful powers of the “state,” if I can use this termto refer to the count and his superior position in this dispute.22 Among the tools


17 The scale of resources a government can deploy is a final area directly influenced, at leastpotentially, by industrialization.

18 “Conventum inter Willelmum Comitem Aquitanorum et Hugonem Chiliarchum,” ed.Jane Martindale, English Historical Review 84 (1969), 528–48, translation available atwww.fordham.edu/halsall/source/agreement.html.

19 “Conventum,” pp. 541–42.20 “Conventum,” p. 547, and Martindale’s introduction, p. 531, on the nature of legal procedure in

tenth-century Aquitaine.21 “Conventum,” p. 547.22 Martindale notes in the introduction to the text that William is clearly shown, even in a docu-

ment obviously written from Hugh’s perspective, as wielding (at least in theory) sovereign-likepowers, especially the authority to license subordinates’ building of castles: “Conventum,” pp.

used by both sides in prosecuting this legal dispute is warfare, and in the processof these varied military and legal negotiations the powers of the count receive asomewhat more precise practical definition. This is not state versus statewarfare, and though from one angle it conforms to a Clausewitzian definition ofwarfare as “politics with an admixture of other means,” such a purely politicallybased definition hardly does justice to the complexity of this dispute.23 InLewis’ terms, violence here does act as a compelling force, but given the negoti-ated outcome of the dispute it is doubtful if we can consider it as the decisiveelement in this particular political order. Indeed, the warfare in this disputeseems to operate more clearly in the other categories Lewis outlines. Violenceclearly creates and defines social groups in the Conventum, as both Hugh andthe count use warfare to protect, avenge, reward and generally solidify their owngroups of followers. Hugh sits in an ambiguous position in this respect, as hebegins as part of the count’s following and must press his case through hostileaction without fracturing the social bonds irrevocably. Thus the significance,when Hugh does publicly break faith with the count, of his “saving the count’scity and person” from the rupture.24 The count, too, has an interest in preventingan irrevocable break while asserting his authority as strongly as possible, forHugh and his followers constitute a potential part of the count’s own militaryforces. Violence then acts as a marker of significance: it is only after Hughpublicly breaks fealty with the count that the latter confronts Hugh “pro nomende guerra,” though less formally warfare consistently marks both the high pointsand the overall significance of the dispute for both sides. Finally, warfare as a

8 Stephen Morillo

533–34. On the proprietorial nature of European warfare generally in the period 1000–1300, seeJohn France, Western Warfare in the Age of the Crusades, 100–1300 (Ithaca, NY, 1999), ch. 1.

23 Cliff Rogers has argued to me that the appeal to arms at this point in the dispute isClausewitzian (with which point I agree), but that the dispute therefore departs the legal frame-work of discourse, with which I disagree. Hugh’s “appeal to arms” (Cliff’s apt phrase for theGermanic contribution to the roots of this legalistic view of warfare) occurs with a symbolicrejection of the count’s authority, but it takes him not outside the legal-military framework ofdiscourse, but simply outside the jurisdiction of the count’s court and into the jurisdiction of ahigher court. That this higher court is in this case largely theoretical (whether it be defined asthe jurisdiction of the court of diplomacy that included the count of Anjou, who in fact rejectsHugh’s appeal to him on jurisdictional grounds, of the French king, or of divine law) does notaffect this argument. The aims and methods of Hugh’s war with the count remained limited,constrained by both sides’ conception of what was “right” and what war was for. Frameworks ofdiscourse are, after all, not themselves legalistic procedures, but mental constructs pervasive ina culture, constructs that shape perceptions and actions in fundamental, virtually unspokenways, and so cannot easily be escaped. The implication is that the “politics” of Clausewitz’sformulation is not a value-neutral, transcultural activity, but is defined (along with the warfarethat enters politics as the admixture of other means) by the culturally specific frameworks ofdiscourse within which it occurs. The variations thus imposed on politics and warfare shapepaths of state formation, the point of this article. Consider that had the count been operatingunder the framework of discourse that came to dominate Warring States China (see below,p. 13), Hugh would not have long survived his conflict with the count, nor would his lands havesurvived as a discreet, definable honor.

24 “Conventum,” p. 547: “nisi de civitate sua et de corpore suo.”

means or common procedural gambit clearly influences a wider metaphoricconception of legal disputes as conflicts epitomized in individual trial by battle.Thus, all of this shows us law, and ideas of legal procedure, forming the frame-work of discourse mediating the negotiation of the mutual demands of state andsociety.

Another example of the military-legal framework of conceptions of publicorder is to be found in a small passage from Orderic Vitalis. Describing theAngevin invasion of Normandy in 1137, Orderic focuses on the indiscipline of alooting and plundering horde that shows no respect for human or divine order.Having already noted that “there were reckless looters in that mob who paid noattention to the commands of the magnates” (as Chibnall translates procerum),Orderic then criticizes those very Angevin leaders:25

The optimates [“magnates,” in Chibnall], however, who ought to have led separategatherings [coetus; Chibnall uses “squadrons”] in a lawfully led [legali ductu; Chibnallhas “properly levied”] army, were ignorant, unless I am mistaken, of the rigor ofRoman discipline in military matters, nor did they conduct their “knightly quarrels”[as Chibnall renders militares inimicicias] in the moderate manner of great men [liter-ally “heroes”: haeroum more modeste; Chibnall has “with restraint as lords should”].

I wish to concentrate here on the phrase legali ductu – lawfully led, which does,I think, include the notion of levying that Chibnall chooses to highlight in hertranslation. The phrase shows us that in Orderic’s view of the world, not only dooptimates – the powerful, the socially and military elite, the “heroes” of thisworld – raise and lead the units of military force deployed by a ruler such as thecount of Anjou, they do so legalis, according to the law. Orderic further empha-sizes the importance of law by connecting it to “Roman discipline in militarymatters.” Chibnall notes that “Orderic possibly had in mind the treatise ofVegetius, De re militari, which was well known in Norman monasteries.”26

Probably so, but I believe the significance of the reference lies not in terms ofthe practical use of Vegetius by military men, but in its symbolic use by anhistorian-monk, for the reference to a relevant piece of Romanitas invests thenotion of law with all the weight of idealized empire and socio-political orderthat the name “Rome” invoked. Thus, despite the fact that these optimates, these“heroes,” quarrel among themselves (and in the implied case of the Normans,Orderic’s heroes, settle their arguments in a moderate manner) and otherwiseact as private persons, they nevertheless constitute legally recognized interme-diaries between the demands of the “state” (however un-Roman that state looksin reality) and the resources of society for warmaking. In short, viewed throughthe lens of Orderic’s monastic mentalité, we see again a law-based framework ofdiscourse mediating the negotiation of the mutual demands of state and society,


25 Orderic Vitalis, The Ecclesiastical History (hereafter OV), ed. and trans. Marjorie Chibnall, 6vols. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1969–72), 6:472. My translation differs somewhat fromChibnall’s.

26 OV, 6:472, n. 1.

and that law and order is conceived of metaphorically as lying at the heart ofsanctioned violence in this society.

These two cases stand as examples of a wide range of evidence that coulddemonstrate the same principle. We may now move to an analysis of the conse-quences of a militarized legal framework of discourse for paths of state forma-tion in western Europe.

I will note first that, like many other such frameworks of discourse betweenstate and society, including the ones I will examine later, the military-legalframework of discourse did not simply mediate negotiations between entitiesthat we can characterize as state and society, they also formed a more generalframework or nexus of social relationships, a subject to which I shall return inmy conclusion. As expressed in the contractual nature of bonds between lordsand vassals, between landlords and peasants, as well as between the parties tobusiness and mercantile agreements, legal conceptions of order backed byforms of sanctioned violence mediated conflicts both within classes andbetween classes, whether or not a strong sovereign authority existed behind thecontractual relationships as enforcer or overseer. Indeed, as the militarizednegotiations between William of Aquitaine and Hugh show, a weak or non-existent central authority (taking the King of France as holding that position atleast in theory, and viewing this dispute as an intra-class conflict) tended tothrow the legal framework into higher relief. Nor is the militarization of thesenegotiations unique to the warrior class, though the aristocracy’s foundation inmilitary might may well have set the tone for – indeed legitimized – the backingof legal position with force by other social groups. Towns as entities and theguilds that often ran them provided for militia duty and the defense of walls intheir charters, armed peasant associations were not uncommon, and the Church,while attempting to limit the pervasive appeal to arms through the Peace andTruce of God, also had its military retainers and created in the Crusades theultimate resort to military force in support of cosmic order, and acknowledgedthe primacy of military-legal conceptions of order in the symbolism of the TwoSwords theory of rulership.

Negotiations between state and society were therefore simply a sub-set of alarger set of socio-political negotiations pervasively mediated by militarizedlegal procedure. It was through this framework that states, however nascent orpersonalized, related to social classes, above all the warrior aristocracy,socio-economic entities such as towns, with their charters of rights and corpo-rate existence, and the Church – giving the Investiture Dispute and similarChurch-State conflicts their heavily jurisdictional cast.

What, then, are the characteristics of a militarized legal framework ofdiscourse relevant to paths of state formation? I can see at least four key ones.First, it assumes the legitimacy of the state, whatever that state might look like.I’ve mentioned this already, in a way, as the legitimacy of the state is implicit inthe view of warfare as a species of maintaining order. State legitimacy wasgrounded, in fact, in its accepted roles of establishing order, maintaining acommon defense, and providing for the general welfare. State power, backed by

10 Stephen Morillo

religious sanction, was also therefore taken to be the proper enforcer ofcontracts and agreements made within the framework of law.

But what if the state itself were party to a contract, as it often was, given thelegal framework of discourse within which it operated? The second character-istic of this legal framework flows from the mutuality of legal-contractual rela-tionships: that state power (indeed any power except God’s) is conceived in sucha framework as neither absolute nor arbitrary.27 State powers were thus taken intheory to be limited by Christian principles of justice, as well as by customarynotions of right; the theory in turn helped maintain the semi-independent powerof the warrior aristocracy (as well as of towns) that provided the practical coun-terweight to potentially arbitrary exercises of authority. The balance of interestsimplied in this conception of law encouraged a rational approach to disputeresolution. Thus, so far, state action assumes a legitimate but limited andrational character.

A militarized legal framework of discourse also provided tools for stateformation along all four axes by which central authority can be measured. It is acommonplace that one of the ways in which royal power tended to expand after1100 or so was by taking on the role of appeals court over lower systems ofjustice. From my perspective, the linking of systems of law was a path forgreater state penetration into the lives of subjects. As such penetrationadvanced, it set up pressures for integration as well, as royal courts tried to stan-dardize laws and legal procedures over the many jurisdictions it came tooversee, though integration proceeded more slowly than penetration sinceregionalism in many kingdoms remained strong, with England as a significantexception. Furthermore, by simultaneously working within and appropriatingpre-existing legal mechanisms, states and rulers promoted higher levels ofcooperation, a tendency expressed in the English case in the phrase “selfgovernment at the king’s command.” Finally, law proves to be, to use a modern


27 Another way of putting this, which I owe again to Cliff Rogers’s excellent commentary on mypaper, is that medieval Europeans “tended not to see the law as the property or even the expres-sion of the state. Rather it was more like a fief, held by the state from the people, by a bond thatwas ultimately contractual, mutual, and even – and this is the key – revocable.”

This is an appropriate place to point out that the legal framework of discourse that pervadedwestern European politics and warfare during the middle ages was neither unchanging noressential. Its characteristics, outlined here, continued to underlie state formation in Europe after1500, giving European state formation the unity that makes Tilly’s analysis coherent. But thereligious division of Europe, fracturing the Christian heritage of legalism, and the developmentof absolutist theory, among other factors, tended to complexify frameworks of discourse bothwithin countries and across Europe by at least this date, leading to the different paths of stateformation within Europe examined by Tilly; see, e.g., Richard Bonney, The European DynasticStates 1494–1660 (Oxford, 1991), pp. 306–16, and in relation to military change Brian M.Downing, The Military Revolution and Political Change (Princeton, NJ, 1992). An excellentdetailed examination of what may be read as a very specific “Blue Water” framework ofdiscourse (in many respects the medieval legal-military framework as it had evolved in the polit-ical and strategic context of late seventeenth-century England) and its effects on the Englishpath of state formation in its most crucial period is John Brewer, The Sinews of Power: War,Money and the English State, 1688–1783 (Cambridge, MA, 1988).

term from computer science, a scalable information technology of authority.That is, it retains its effectiveness when expanded over space and case types –unlike, say, personal supervision and loyalty, which tend to lose force overgreater distance and be limited in its spheres of operation.

The final characteristic of a militarized legal framework of discourse forstate formation, and in part a result of its other characteristics, is that it allowedthe integration of society, especially its influential corporate groups, into a statestructure without those groups having to lose their corporate identity or char-acter. This was especially true of the warrior aristocracy, for the interests andactions of warrior elites can often be seen as opposed to the interests of a strongstate. The best example of the ability of states that relied on this legal frame-work of discourse effectively to incorporate corporate social interests intomechanisms of government is illustrated by the most impressive (and mostoverlooked) case of state formation in the Middle Ages, the development of theEnglish state under Edward III, a case explicated by Cliff Rogers.28 And Parlia-ment, the quintessential institutional instantiation of a legal framework ofdiscourse between state and society – especially those parts of society, the aris-tocracy and knights, who were so vital to Edward’s war effort – lies at the heartof that case.

Now all of this may seem familiar to European medievalists, even if thecontext I am framing it in is less so. It lies behind the paths of state formationexplored by Tilly and his followers. But the militarized legal framework ofdiscourse that undergirds all these characteristics of medieval European stateformation lies unexamined and therefore assumed as universal. My final claim,and the one that requires comparative data to test, is that oddity rather than typi-cality characterizes western Europe’s legal framework of discourse. Militarizedlaw was not inevitable – it was not even common – in the world’s civilizations,and its characteristics and consequences for state formation were thereforeneither common nor inevitable either. Alternate weavings of social fabrics,alternate and even non-existent frameworks of discourse, and so alternate pathsof warfare and state formation in fact dominate the landscape of world history,as I shall now attempt to sketch.

Other Frameworks of Discourse and Paths of State Formation

In the course of the Mytilenean Debate, Thucydides has Diodotus say of theAthenian’s military situation vis a vis the rebellious city of Mytilene, “We arenot at law with them, and so have no need to speak of justice.”29 This view of

12 Stephen Morillo

28 Clifford J. Rogers, “Edward III and State Formation,” lecture at Wabash College,Crawfordsville, Indiana, March 2002; also presented in a shorter version at the 38th Interna-tional Congress on Medieval Studies, Kalamazoo, Michigan, May 2003.

29 Thucydides, On Justice, Power and Human Nature. Selections from The History of thePeloponnesian War, trans. Paul Woodruff (Indianapolis, 1993), p. 72.

war, as unconnected to law and justice and instead tied purely to the advantageof the state, serves to introduce the dynamics of violence in Warring StatesChina, a period from roughly 480 to 221 BC that set the framework for thepatterns of war and state formation in that civilization at least through the tenthcentury and in many ways well beyond.30 In certain ways this period resemblesmedieval Europe: competitive warfare and a state system sharing a common setof cultural assumptions set the stage, and a strong warrior aristocracy domi-nated politics at least at the beginning of the period. But the states that began tosucceed in this environment were the ones that successfully reshaped the usesand symbolism of sanctioned violence, and so shaped a new framework ofstate-society discourse, in ways that emphasized the power of the state to theexclusion of any competition. Ritual and cultic elements that had legitimizedwarrior lineages were either appropriated by the state or suppressed; theideology of warfare was de-heroicized (compare Orderic’s “heroes”); leadershipin warfare was redefined towards an intellectual model in which “control ofmen and the manipulation of combat for higher ends . . . now constituted theessence of war”; and state power was legitimized by reference to a conceptionof nature emphasizing a top-down cosmic balance and order.31 Given this frame-work of discourse, epitomized in the Legalist theories of Han Fei Tzu in whichlaw implies neither mutual obligations, justice, nor rational dispute resolutionbut instead serves as a blunt instrument of state power, the “negotiation”between states and society under the pressure of war came to be dominated bythe state. The Qin empire that emerged victorious from the Warring Statesperiod had the unquestioned right to conscript and tax any and all of its subjects,and did so, and the warrior aristocracy had by then largely disappeared, havingbeen chewed up and digested by centralized power (compare the integration ofwarriors and state under Edward III). Ultimately the state even internalizedintellectual negotiations between state demands and society’s interests throughthe incorporation of Confucian scholars and ideology into the structure ofgovernment. Warrior elites henceforth existed in Chinese politics only asoutsiders, mostly of nomadic origin, as under the T’ang and Qing, or briefly andillegitimately as warlords during period of imperial disunion. The Chinese ideo-graph for emperor sums up the result: the Emperor holds the cosmos, and withinthe cosmos state and society, together. The price of the central government’sunquestioned power, however, came in terms of somewhat lower levels of localcooperation32 and, much later, certain limits on scalability.


30 Lewis, Sanctioned Violence, examines these developments in detail. David A. Graff, MedievalChinese Warfare, 300–900 (London, 2002), traces the variations on the Warring States themeplayed out from the fall of the Han to the fall of the T’ang. This section is based largely on thesetwo sources, as well as on readings of Sun Tzu, The Art of Warfare, trans. Roger Ames (NewYork, 1993), an edition that incorporates newly discovered parallel texts, and on standardeditions of Confucius’s Analects and Han Fei Tzu.

31 Lewis, Sanctioned Violence, pp. 10–13, quote on p. 11, and chs. 2–4.32 Epitomized by the peasant revolts that became a recurrent feature of Chinese history.

At the other end of the scale, and sketched more briefly, we may consider thecases of India and Latin America. In India, caste law came to mediate mostsocial relationships as well as the discourse between state and social groups.There were geographic factors in India that created a constant and problematic“inner frontier” between agricultural and pastoral lands and that rendered urbansites shifting and impermanent.33 These, combined with caste law as a frame-work of discourse, pushed Indian state formation down a path that, by contrastwith China, remained warrior dominated but that was much more limited interms of the strength of central authority. Caste came to define the limits ofboth state penetration into society and state integration of social and regionalgroupings. The geographically induced separation of sources of capital andcoercion and the transience of centers of capital accumulation simply exacer-bated limits to state formation built into the framework of state-societydiscourse. In oddly similar ways, geographic variation and social fragmentationdominated the political landscape of nineteenth-century Latin America. Thesocial fragmentation, however, having no unifying principle such as caste lawbehind it, prevented the creation of a coherent framework of discourse medi-ating state-society negotiations, European notions of law having failed to takeroot in the soil of the Iberian New World. The result was polities that conductedmuch destructive and socially motivated internal warfare but little externalwarfare. What external war it did conduct led not to the strengthening of thestate, as no productive demands could be placed on society, there being noagreed on way to negotiate such demands, but to foreign indebtedness andcontinued weakness.34

Closest to the European case in many ways, in both results and causes, ismedieval Japan.35 If we confine our view to the crucial period of the sixteenthcentury, then what appears to view is a context of many independent states atwar with each other but sharing common cultural assumptions, and politicsdominated by a powerful warrior aristocracy. There was already some heritageof Chinese influence in political thought, but the practical influence of thatheritage was minimal during this period, extending roughly from 1477 to 1615.Instead states, the domains headed by daimyos, built up their institutionalstrength in a process of the application of domain law to different segments ofsociety, especially the warriors of the bushi and the village communities of

14 Stephen Morillo

33 On the “inner frontier” see Jos Gommans, “Warhorse and Gunpowder in India c. 1000–1850,”in War in the Early Modern World 1450–1815, ed. Jeremy Black (London, 1999). For an anal-ysis of Indian political development in the context of geography see Andre Wink, Al-Hind, TheMaking of the Indo-Islamic World, 3 vols. (Leiden: Brill, 1990, 1997, and forthcoming).

34 See, e.g., Miguel Angel Centeno, “Blood and Debt: War and Taxation in Nineteenth-CenturyLatin America,” American Journal of Sociology 102 (1997), 1565–1605. Less useful for inter-pretation but raising interesting points of fact is Fernando Lopez-Alves, “The TransatlanticBridge: Mirrors, Charles Tilly, and State Formation in the River Plate,” in The Other Mirror, ed.Miguel Angel Centeno and Fernando Lopez-Alves (Princeton, 2001), pp. 153–76.

35 The details summarized here are presented at length in Stephen Morillo, “Guns and Govern-ment: A Comparative Study of Europe and Japan,” Journal of World History 6 (1995), 75–106.

peasants, but including the merchant communities in fortified towns oftenfounded by the daimyos. Significantly, each of these segments was militarized,so that negotiations over state demands for military manpower and taxationtook place between sides each of which was capable of fighting for its position.In short, militarized law formed the framework of discourse for negotiationsbetween state and society, especially the warrior elite of society. The result wasstates that incorporated their warriors into state structures, without eliminatingthem as had happened in China. The process was by no means identical to theEuropean path of state formation. Most significantly, law ended up playing aless formative role and military balance of power between social and statefactions a greater role, so that institutionalized expressions of law such asParliament were rarer to non-existent in Japanese state building. And it isimpossible to trace a long-term comparison because the Japanese contextchanged radically when de facto unification of the islands was achieved. Absentthe pressures of war, the dynamic of Japanese politics shifted to imposition ofelite control and the freezing of social mobility. Still, the similarities are salientenough to add to the comparative context for this study.

I will consider one further society and include with it a case study in war,frameworks of state-society discourse, and state formation. That society is Islam,and the case study will be the wars of the Reconquista. The historical develop-ment of Islamic political structures had created a framework of state-societydiscourse that was highly problematic in certain ways from the perspective ofcentral authorities. The result, in simplified terms, is that by the time of theAbbasid Revolution of the mid-ninth century, the Ummayad Caliphate had lost astruggle with the emergent ulema for the right to define Islam, or more specifi-cally sharia, Islamic law, a struggle whose results the Abbasids tried but failed toreverse. They tried because the definition of Islam that the rabbinical jurists of theulema constructed looked back to the tribal, nomadic past of the Arabs for idealmodels of social organization, a perspective apparently at odds with the urbanorigins of most ulema members but carefully constructed to create an Arab-Muslim cultural identity that could sail between the Scylla and Charybdis ofpre-existing Byzantine and Persian cultures and avoid assimilation. The result ofthis perspective was to render illegitimate any political order that resembled thegreat empires too closely – in other words, to delegitimize any functional state.States certainly, perforce, existed. But they employed inherited (and thereforehighly suspect) bureaucratic mechanisms, and so, nearly universally after theAbbasid Revolution, raised military forces in ways that reflected directly theillegitimacy of state demands upon society for manpower, resources, and co-operation: above all, slave soldiers in all their various instantiations; andsecondarily, frontier tribesmen who were marginal to the sedentary core of theIslamic world and who served states more in the way of allies than subjects. Inshort, in the terms I’ve been using elsewhere in this paper, the framework ofdiscourse mediating negotiations between the demands of the state and theresources of society in the Islamic world was sharia. Sharia denied, in theoryand in much practice, the legitimacy of the state, and as a framework of


discourse therefore acted as a wall rather than a conduit.36 And the impact of thisstructure on warrior elites was, in effect, to delegitimize them as well – slaves andsemi-barbarian frontiersmen can hardly have a normal claim on social primacy –and so to put such warrior elites as did exist in the position vis-à-vis the societiesthey ruled of occupying conquerors rather than social leaders.

The results for state formation are unusually clearly displayed by the wars ofthe Reconquista between the eleventh and fourteenth centuries. This is a nicecase study because both sides in these wars were fighting from within the samegeographic, climatic, and economic context, during the same time period, withroughly the same technology, and were in close enough contact culturally as toshare many fundamental intellectual technologies of social organization acrossa frontier of translation. Indeed, both economically and intellectually the initialadvantage lay on the Muslim side of the frontier, as the flow of both goods andmanuscripts northwards attests. So most of the variables surrounding a compar-ative study of state formation are automatically controlled for here.

Yet the consistent tide of military victory and changes in state strengthflowed to the Christians. Periods of Muslim success or resurgence were markedmostly by imported waves of North African tribesmen who gave Islamic Iberianstates no permanent institutional basis for continued success. The Christiankingdoms, on the other hand, steadily built up a structure of institutions thatdeveloped a sort of momentum for continued conquest and expansion that attimes required little state initiative, yet also contributed to the growing strengthof royal governments. Why? Because the framework for state-society negotia-tions over military and economic resources was framed in Christian Iberia interms of militarized law. This is especially clear in the case of towns, whichwere treated as legal corporate entities and codified the results of their negotia-tions with royal courts in urban legal codes. The law that became instantiated inthese urban legal codes specified the organization and economic implications ofmilitia service. The militias were designed in these codes for tactical and stra-tegic flexibility under royal direction. As James Powers notes, “This age ofincreasing rights and privileges for townsmen carried with it a growth of mili-tary responsibilities that was similar to the process at work in the early days ofthe French Revolution and the levee en masse.”37 A clearer case of Tilly’smaxim “states made war and war made states” is hard to find, and the centralrole of militarized law in mediating state-society discourse and thus in buildinginstitutions of central authority and shaping the path of Christian Iberian stateformation is crucial to understanding how the maxim worked in this case.

For it did not work in Muslim Iberia. There, state demands for resources andmanpower met the intransigence of Islamic law in terms of state legitimacy. Nowonder Muslim rulers turned to North African tribesmen for military force. The

16 Stephen Morillo

36 The above paragraph is based largely on the detailed analysis of early Islamic political historyin Patricia Crone, Slaves on Horses: The Evolution of the Islamic Polity (Cambridge, 1980).

37 James Powers, A Society Organized for War: The Iberian Municipal Militias in the CentralMiddle Ages, 1000–1284 (Berkeley, 1988), p. 97.

comparison of Islamic and Christian towns and their relationship to the state isparticularly telling. Islamic towns had no corporate or legal identity, they weremerely aggregations of people whose social cohesion was provided by pre-statestructures such as tribe and clan, making it nearly impossible for the state toimpose any sort of institutional control or structure on the urban societies itruled.38 Indeed, demands pushed too hard by the state produced not negotiationand legal structure but flight and disintegration. In short, the decisive differencebetween Muslim and Christian state formation (or deformation) under the pres-sure of war, and therefore in the long term success of each side’s war efforts, layin the ideological framework of discourse mediating negotiations between stateand society.

Conclusions

I hope by now that I have at least begun to illustrate my point, that, to use adifferent set of terms, the cultural context linking war, warrior elites, and stateswas important to paths of state formation. This same cultural context, or frame-work of discourse mediating state-society discourse, also mediated otherdiscourses: specifically, the state response to war in terms of strategic policyand the discourse that produced that policy, and the discourse about ideals ofwarfare that may be seen as the direct meeting point of the demands of war onsociety, outside of state mechanisms. Each of these discourses produced feed-back loops analogous to that which produced internal state formation as illus-trated in Figure 2, as well as influencing each other. I will be publishing the fullmodel generated by these concepts elsewhere, as it is beyond the scope of thisarticle.

Historiographically, by claiming a central place in the history of state forma-tion for the cultural assumptions and social formations surrounding early andhigh medieval European warfare, I hope to contribute to what I mightsemi-facetiously call the “Medieval Military Historians’ Intellectual Imperi-alism Project.” For the import of my argument, if it has any merit, is to reclaimsome more of the territory staked out, unfairly, by the early modernist historiansof the so-called Military Revolution. It was not the rise of the New Monarchiesand the Early Modern State forming under the pressures of gunpowder warfarethat mattered for the genesis of the modern state, in other words, it was theworld of early medieval saints, violence sanctioned through appeals to law, andland-holding knights in shining armor that really mattered. The rest was simplyepilogue – the exploration of courses already set in the medieval world. That theepilogue mattered so much for Europe and the world makes it all the moreimportant to understand its roots clearly, from a global and comparative context.


38 Powers, Society Organized for War, p. 111; Thomas F. Glick, Islamic and Christian Spain in theEarly Middle Ages: Comparative Perspectives on Social and Cultural Formation (Princeton,1979), pp. 135–64.

Archery versus Mail

2

Archery versus Mail: Experimental Archaeologyand the Value of Historical Context

Russ Mitchell

One of the real difficulties in answering high-level questions in medievalmilitary history – for example assessing leadership quality, determining truelogistic capacity, determining the effectiveness of any particular “arm” of amilitary force – is that we are frequently left with nothing but informed conjec-ture regarding physical realities on the ground. It is impossible to answer“bird’s-eye-view” questions without understanding the “worm’s-eye-view” real-ities that determine why one formation was used and not another, or why anevent in a chronicle might be perfectly straightforward, yet sound nonsensicalor else reeking of literary convention when read without contextual informationtaken for granted by the author. Without that context to provide illumination,one is left with Ouroboros-like, unfalsifiable arguments regarding the trustwor-thiness of any given source when compared to others with which it seems todisagree. It was at precisely such a point of ignorance that a Hungariancolleague1 and I decided that it was necessary to perform ballistic tests againstmail in order to solve an otherwise intractable problem concerning medievalarchery: how effective could bowmen be against armored men at arms,particularly in the case of mail?

In particular, working in the Hungarian context, correctly stereotyped assomething between East and West, we were curious as to why archers seem tohave been so effective in some contexts, and not others. For example, in October1096, at the battle on the road to Nicaea during which the “People’s Crusade”was destroyed, Walter the Penniless was killed by arrows that defeated his mailshirt, whereas Jan D¿ugosz’s account of the battle of Liegnitz (modern Legnica)directly implies that armor was, while not necessarily the deciding element,nevertheless an important factor for members of an isolated contingent insurviving Mongol archery: “These then waver and finally fall beneath the hailof arrows, like delicate heads of corn broken by hail-stones, for many of themare wearing no armour, and the survivors retreat.” Saxo, on the other hand, givesan entirely different impression: “For the skilled archers of the Gotlandersstrung their bows so hard that the shafts pierced through even the shields;

1 Professor Csaba Hidan, of the Karoly Gaspar Calvinist University in Budapest.

nothing proved more murderous; for the arrow-points made their way throughhauberk and helmet as if they were men’s defenseless bodies.”2

There seems to be no historiographical dispute over the effectiveness ofEnglish crusading bowmen in Prussia and Lithuania. But Gerald of Wales’accounts of horrifically effective Welsh archers are rarely taken at face value, inspite of the fact that the weapons and armor in both cases were much the same,and that we know that heavy self-bows were quite effective against similarlyarmored Scottish spearmen whose tactics, like those of the Welsh and Lithua-nians, centered around battle-avoidance.3 And, of course, vats of ink have beenspilled in assessing to what extent and in which ways hand bow archery waseffective during the Hundred Years War, which admittedly involved heavierarmors than the other two examples given – where the best-equipped of thecombatants are concerned. On the other hand, the range of body armor used inthe Hundred Years War does have significant overlap with those used in theNeapolitan Succession Wars, in which the Hungarians made extensive use ofCuman auxiliary archers, and, depending on how one weighs the effectivenessof a lamellar corselet in comparison to a coat-of-plates, also significant poten-tial to overlap with most of eastern and southeastern Europe throughout themedieval period.4 Clearly, physical tests were required, because a purely textualapproach required us to either take our sources uncritically, or else to build uponan ever-increasing foundation of assumption and conjecture.

Our target for the initial ballistic test was a post secured firmly in the groundby several of my colleague’s students, and covered with a thick layer of feltpadding (an antique Kazakh blanket), over which the mail was draped. The mailitself was riveted, with round links and rivets, and made of 16-gauge mild steel.The thickness of the metal and its virtual lack of slag made us confident that itwould provide results comparable to medieval mail.5 Our group fired on thetarget from forty meters away with composite recurve bows averaging fiftypounds draw weight. Given financial considerations governing the quality ofour equipment, our rationale was that an arrow defeated by mail at long rangemight have penetrated at shorter ranges, but, conversely, any success of the mail

Archery versus Mail 19

2 Albert of Aachen, Historia Hierosolymita in A. C. Krey, ed., The First Crusade: The Accountsof Eyewitnesses and Participants (Princeton, 1921), p. 75: “There Walter the Penniless fell,pierced by seven arrows which had penetrated his coat of mail.” Jan D¿ugosz, Annals, trans.M. Michael (Chichester, 1997), p. 179; Saxo, Gesta Danorum in O. Elton, ed. and trans., TheNine Books of the Danish History of Saxo Grammaticus (New York, 1905), ch. 8, paragraph 12.

3 Referring to the Scottish context: The Brut or Chronicle of England, ed. F. W. Brie (London,1906–8), p. 285, quoted by C. J. Rogers, War Cruel and Sharp (Woodbridge, 2000), p. 73;W. Urban, Teutonic Knights: A Military History (London, 2003).

4 This leaves aside, for the moment, the Neapolitan Angevin use of boiled leather over mail, aswell as leather armor worn as a primary defense in its own right. The relative protectionafforded by such armor is a study in its own right, but it is safe to say that the addition of a layerof boiled leather significantly enhances the protection enjoyed by an individual in mail.

5 These samples are based on average wire thicknesses of medieval mail, and thus not comparableto the much lighter and finer mail that often survives from the fifteenth to seventeenth centu-ries. The riveting method is slightly different, but of comparable strength when made correctly.

in turning arrows at short range would also obviously apply from further off aswell. Otherwise, the contest was weighted in favor of the mail, with the bowsbeing a little bit on the light side, and the arrowheads, while well-formed, beingmade of very low-carbon steel.6

Each of the five archers present took turns shooting in three cycles, shootingbetween three and five arrows apiece. Although we had been hitting a smallertarget from further away the day before, our shooting that afternoon was dismal,and we scored just over a dozen hits. As an aside, our many near misses, asarrow shafts continued to pass within a foot of the mail shirt, showed us quiteclearly why a military archer might practice by shooting at a post or spear,rather than a round target.7 The results of the hits, however, were rathersurprising, and took a little time to understand.

Of the fourteen hits on the armored target, only three arrows actually pene-trated the mail. Each of these three arrows used 45-degree broadheads – not oneof the “short bodkin” arrowheads succeeded in penetrating the mail. On furtherexamination, two of the broadheads penetrated only trivially, to about ahalf-inch into the padding, and one penetrated into the blanket to a depth ofabout an inch and a half. The penetrations into the mail were uniformly allowedby wire failures at the rivets in the link. There were more damaged and brokenlinks than there were penetrations: it is clear that the mail itself could sufferquite a bit of damage without its wearer necessarily being injured. It is alsoapparent, whether by accident or design, that the rivets serve as a predeterminedfailure point, which is important in assessing mail’s protective capacity.8 A mailshirt scavenged after battle was not necessarily a quality product. The postitself, although quite secure in the beginning of the test, had been battered sothoroughly that it could, even bearing the weight of the mail and padding, easilybe bounced about in its hole with a small push of my little fingers.

In order to contrast these results with butted mail and demonstrate the vastdifference in protection afforded by the two, Professor Hidan had fired at asimilar target in the week prior to my arrival in Budapest.9 The target in ques-

20 Russ Mitchell

6 The general consensus among Hungarian archaeologists is that the draw weight of a “typical”war bow was about seventy pounds. The arrowheads were sufficiently low-carbon that theycould not be made to take an appreciable edge, in stark contrast to medieval arrowheads in mypersonal collection, some of which obviously had very impressive edges.

7 G. Dennis, ed. and trans., Maurice’s Strategikon (Philadelphia, 1984), p. 11.8 It is interesting in this context that whereas a combination of welded and riveted links was occa-

sionally used through the end of the high middle ages, by the very late middle ages, welded maillinks seem to disappear. This flies in the face of the usual assumption of a progressivelyincreasing spiral of effectiveness between arms and armor, since a correctly welded link wouldhave to be cut through entirely, rather than simply being deformed enough for the rivet to fail.The only non-economic answer that seems to make sense would be the possibility for suchforge-welds to contain high amounts of slag, thus resulting in a relatively weak link.

9 Historically, mail seems to have been made with several different kinds of wire links. Theprimary method was to take a piece of coiled wire, and secure the ends together by overlappingand riveting them. Other options included overlapping the ends and forge-welding them, or evenusing solid links punched from a sheet of metal. “Butted” mail in this case refers to a sort of

tion was struck by his first shot, which blew through the links, through all thepadding, out the back of the mail shirt, to lodge solidly in a sapling some fifteenfeet behind the target. Even if one is able to account for differences in metal-lurgy, tests involving mail made with modern butted links are clearly inappro-priate.

Besides the surprising fact that none of the bodkin heads were successful indefeating the mail, the other surprise was that out of the arrows fired, those thatwere made and fletched in Hungary were sometimes successful against the mail– but not a single arrow fletched in the traditional western European “parallelo-gram” or “shield” style penetrated. The fletchings on the Hungarian arrowswere made with a three-inch parabolic cut, which here in America is generallyused only for children’s arrows (assuming that one is using traditional materialsfor the shaft). The other arrows were not “flu-flus,” or cut excessively large forthe shafts in question, yet, when we stumbled onto the difference in penetration,we did some very basic tests, and judged by eyeball that the western-stylearrows flew more slowly. This evidence begins to give us the tools to begin tounderstand how archery stacks up against medieval mail.

To begin with, we can determine that the arrows used in western andnorthern Europe were generally heavier than those used in eastern and south-eastern Europe. Although arrow finds for the period are very rare, we candeduce that the fletchings in use in the west were larger, because we actuallyknow quite a bit about the quivers used among the Hungarians, Cumans/Polovtsi, Byzantines, et cetera.

These quivers were slightly tapering tubes, either round or hexagonal, some-times with a door in the side to allow the arrows to be loaded into the quiver’sside, much like putting a shell into a pump shotgun. The important factor here isthat the arrows are stored in the quiver arrowhead up, and that they hold a verylarge quantity of arrows.10 Although we don’t have any hard numbers referred tofor the Hungarians, Pechenegs, or Cumans, the quivers referred to in Byzantinesources mention cavalry quivers holding forty arrows.11 It is utterly impossibleto carry even twenty large shield-cut or parallelogram-fletched arrows in one ofthese quivers – the fletchings catch on one another or else are damaged and putout of order, and one gets a tangled mess, rather than a quiver that will allow forhigh-speed shooting.12 In order to actually keep a score, let alone the recom-


mail whose actual existence in period is debated, consisting of links where the ends of the wireare merely pressed, or “butted” up against each other.

10 Note that this does not hold true for the Seljuks and Ottomans, whose quivers were usedfletchings-up.

11 Maurice’s Taktika, p. 12.12 Fletchings are described by their shape. Parallellogram, or “traditional,” fletchings are shaped

like a parallelogram on the side of the shaft. Shield fletchings project from the side of the arrowas if they were the right or left half of a heater shield, whereas “parabolic” fletchings areroughly in the shape of half a long, round-topped kite shield. One also finds long, low, ellipticalfletchings, particularly in eastern Europe and the Middle East, and these are referred to bymodern fletchers as “banana fletchings,” though most modern equivalents, intended to increase

mended forty, the fletchings may or may not be long, but must be narrow. Bycontrast, for example, quivers from the Mary Rose find actually use spacers tokeep the arrows apart and thus preserve the fletchings – a far cry from beingjostled on horseback for hours or even days on end.

Because of this, and because we know that infantry archers were expected tobe effective at a distance, if the fletchings were larger, the arrows must also havebeen heavier. If the fletchings are out of balance with the weight of an arrow, thearrow’s speed and maximum range will be severely limited.13 On the otherhand, if the fletchings are too small in total area for the weight of the arrow, itbecomes unstable and inaccurate past point-blank range.14 Since we mustassume the competence of the archers and fletchers in period, we must alsoassume that they used a spine weight and fletchings that were mutually compat-ible – a generally heavier and slightly slower arrow in western Europe, a gener-ally lighter and faster one in the east. The physics describing the behavior of asomewhat heavier versus a somewhat lighter arrow matches with the experi-mental data, and, as will be shown, also matches our written sources.

The two relevant equations involving the projectiles are those for kineticenergy and momentum. The equation for kinetic energy is: KE = ½ MV2. Sincethe KE at impact is based on movement, and is proportional to the velocitysquared, even a relatively light object can have tremendous energy if it ismoving quickly.15 The other relevant factor is momentum: m = MV. Momentumis directly proportional to mass and velocity. Double either the speed, or themass, and you double your momentum. On impact, KE and m create differenteffects in the target. KE is dissipated by being converted to heat or friction, orsimply vibration if blunt objects are involved. Momentum, however, transfersbetween objects, and gives the target a push. To exploit an apt metaphor, kineticenergy is what shatters your jaw: momentum is what knocks you off yourbarstool. If we take two arrows, for example, and assume that one is ¼ heavierbut flies 1

6 slower than the other, the heavy arrow will have about 11% moremomentum, but about 7.5% less kinetic energy, than the lighter arrow. The lightarrow will be more likely to rip a mail shirt’s ring apart, but is less likely tocause as deep a wound, whereas the heavier arrow will expend more of its ener-gies pushing against the mail links, rather than ripping them apart. On the other

22 Russ Mitchell

stability, and thus accuracy, rather than range, will be significantly wider than their historicalcounterparts.

13 “Flu-flus” are arrows are made with excessively large fletchings, which dramatically increasethe arrowhead’s “drag,” as a safety measure precisely in order to limit arrow speed and range.

14 There is a way of getting around this problem by using tapered shafts, which puts the balancepoint of the arrow so far forward that any instability of the fletching-end results in a rotationaround the central line of flight of the arrowhead. However, in order to use such an arrow, one’sbow must use a very thin string. Period bowstrings in western Europe, made of twisted hempand similar material, would be too thick to use such an arrow unless the original shaft were ofenormous thickness, in which case the mass and wind resistance of the arrow would, again,reduce range.

15 Or, put another way, on the acceleration of the arrow into the target.

hand, if the heavier arrow has sufficient energy to make it through the maillinks, it is more likely to cause a grave wound.16

Although specific variations in arrow form and weight existed in variousparts of medieval Europe, this does not mean that medieval archers were neces-sarily consciously engineering their fletchings to optimize speed versusstability: this could easily be a by-product of something as simple as a differ-ence in nock size, and thus the arrow shaft’s thickness. We are left with toomany chicken-and-egg problems to engage in any further conjecture aboutwhether form or function was the predominant factor in determining arrowdesign.

What is important here is that the distinction in the material culture of thearchers in question seems to be precisely corroborated by the surviving writtensources: shot by an identical bow, the faster, lighter arrow has greater kineticenergy, and should do a better job penetrating armor, but cause relatively shal-lower wounds than a heavier, higher-momentum arrow that does manage topenetrate armor. That is precisely what our sources show. Gerald of Wales’oft-dismissed tale of horrible wounds being inflicted by the Venta’s archers incombat are nevertheless entirely consistent with the performance of a massivearrow fired from a powerful bow: “William de Braose also testifies that one ofhis soldiers, in a conflict with the Welsh, was wounded by an arrow, whichpassed through his thigh and the armour with which it was cased on both sides,and through that part of the saddle which is called the alva, mortally woundedthe horse.”17 Galbert of Bruges similarly describes the very scary coterellusBenkin:

. . . among these was a fiery young fighter named Benkin, expert and swift in shootingarrows. He kept going around the walls in the fighting, running here and there, andthough he was only one he seemed like more because from inside the walls he inflictedso many wounds and never stopped. And when he was aiming at the besiegers, hisdrawing on the bow was identified by everyone because he would either cause graveinjury to the unarmed or put to flight those who were armed, whom his shots stupefiedand stunned, even if they did not wound.18

Joinville, on the other hand, was wounded through his harness in five places bySaracen fire darts: “By good luck, I found a Saracen’s oakum tunic; and I turnedthe split side towards me, and made a shield of the tunic, which served me in


16 And in either case, the simple bludgeoning effects will be noticeably greater than with theimpact of the lighter arrow. Since this paper’s original presentation to De Re Militari, a livinghistory group affiliated with the Higgins Museum has independently confirmed that the phys-ical impact of the arrow is a serious issue, even when one need not be worried about receiving apuncture wound in the process.

17 Giraldus Cambrensis, The Itinerary of Archbishop Baldwin Through Wales, ch. IV, “Thejourney by Coed Grono and Abergevenni”, obtained from Gutenberg Project online athttp://www.gutenberg.net/etext/1148.

18 Galbert of Bruges, The Murder of Charles the Good, ed. and trans. J. B. Ross (Toronto, 1982),p. 165.

good stead, for their fire-darts only wounded me in five places and my pony infifteen. It chanced too, that one of my burghers from Joinville brought me abanner with an iron spearhead; and every time that we saw them crowding onthe serjeants, we charged them, and they fled.”19

These are short arrows, fired with the aid of an arrow-guide, and according tothe Munyat’ul Ghuzat, all agree that these dart-like weapons fly faster thanregular long arrows.20 Yet they have relatively poor penetrating power, and thewounds inflicted by them are sufficiently minor that Joinville can fight in anemergency, even if on the following day he and his fellow wounded comradesare hurt too badly to don armor.21 Similarly, pseudo-Maurikios admonishes hisreader to use a bow that is a bit lighter than one can pull, in order to maximizeone’s possible rate of fire.22 If that tradition held, we would expect Byzantinearrow fire to be relatively ineffective against mail, and judging from their expe-riences with the Sicilian Normans, this appears to hold true:

[The Emperor] furnished them abundantly with arrows and exhorted them not to usethem sparingly, but to shoot at the horses rather than at the Franks. For he knew that theFranks were difficult to wound, or rather, practically invulnerable, thanks to theirbreastplates and coats of mail. Therefore he considered shooting at them useless andquite senseless . . . For this reason, as he was cognizant both of the Frankish armourand our archery, the Emperor advised our men to attack the horses chiefly . . .(emphasis mine)23

But this still leaves two significant issues with which one must deal. First,fourteen hits and three penetrations of a mail shirt generated a surprisingamount of data, but experimentally it is a dangerously small sample. In order todetermine whether the hypothesis has any merit, a more meaningful set of datahad to be obtained. Second, it was critical to develop some hypothesis to explainthe utter failure of the bodkins to penetrate. In order to do this, I performedthree additional tests.24

24 Russ Mitchell

19 Jean de Joinville, Memoirs, ed. and trans. E. Wedgwood (New York, 1906), ch. 10, p. 115.Available in full online via the University of Virginia Electronic Text Center.

20 Munyatu’l Ghuzat: A 14th-century Mamluk-Kipchack Military Treatise, trans. Kurtulu<Öztopçu (Harvard University, 1989), p. 76. It is likely that the familiar descriptions of archersbristling with Saracen arrows were referring to short arrows, rather than long, for the simplereason that long arrows would have been broken off or removed as an impediment to movement.

21 Joinville, p. 130.22 Maurice’s Taktika, pp. 11–12.23 Anna Comnena, Alexiad, ed. and trans. E. A. Dawes (London, 1928) Bk. 13, ch. 8. Cited from

Medieval Sourcebook online: http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/basis/AnnaComnena-Alexiad00.html#BOOK%20XIII.

24 In that process we also received a serendipitous opportunity to fire upon a replica of afifteenth-century German-style export harness. The results generally confirm the commonwisdom: plate armor is nigh immune to handbow arrows. After a session of firing on the target,one archer scored a lucky shot with a short bodkin, a clearly lethal hit directly through the“temple” of the sallet. The rest of the shots resulted in a creased and battered suit of armor, andat least a score of broken arrows.

The results of the second test were, in their own way, just as confusing as thefirst. At a range of thirty meters, recurve bows of 55, 58, and 68 pounds wereused to fire upon the mail shirt, which was supported by a 6–8-ounce leatherside hung onto a cardboard stand, itself supported by two posts, allowing themail to give under impact. When the shooting was finished and tallied, we wereleft wondering what possible use mail could have served against archery.Seven-eighths of everything hitting the mail shirt penetrated. The only notablefailures in penetration were the western-fletched arrows, and one fast-fletchedarrow fitted with a wide chisel-shaped arrowhead.25 So far as bodkin arrow-heads were concerned, it was the exact opposite of the first test. All hits withthe bodkins penetrated, sometimes dramatically so, as was the case when two ofthe five hits penetrated through both sides of the mail shirt and its leatherpadding, and partially exited the back of the target. We stopped the test out ofpity for the mail shirt, which was severely damaged, with gaping holes afteronly seventeen hits.26 Galbert notes the death of a squire, who was surelyarmed, with an arrow through the heart.27 Could this have been because ofdamage to the squire’s armor during the particularly fierce fighting at the gate,or was this an example of crossbow fire? The tales of Benkin and the squire donot necessarily have to be read as mutually contradictory if the highly ablativenature of mail defenses is taken into account. It must be noted that since thearrowheads were not capable of holding a real edge, the tests did not addresshow well the arrows handled the armor’s supporting garments/padding. Never-theless, the striking difference in results between the two tests indicates that thebacking material worn under the mail, if any, counts.

The third test was designed around the “not all backings are equal” theory,and involved 70- and 45-pound composite recurves fired from 30 yards, with agambeson made of multiple layers of quilted linen under the mail shirt, all ofwhich was placed on a dress mannequin and secured to the ground so as not tofall over on impact. We needn’t have worried. Though a problem with the spineweight of the arrows kept us from completing the shooting with theeastern-fletched broadheads using the heavier bow, thus necessitating a fourthtest, the results were sufficiently different from the second test that they wouldhave demanded one anyway. Whereas, taken in total, the arrows in the secondtest had an 88% penetration rate, in the third test, only 21% of the arrows thathit penetrated (19 hits, 4 penetrations). This time around, only bodkins pene-trated, and this was with the same relatively weak 45-pound bow used in the


25 Such an arrowhead would not be expected to penetrate mail in the first place, though it did cutan impressive hole in the mail links. By way of comparison, the first hit of the test came from anundisciplined student who let fly and defeated the mail shirt with an arrow tipped with a brasstarget point.

26 This is the weakest part of the series of experiments and one which allows for serious criticism:optimally, we would have continued each test until we had at least a hundred hits per session,but with test materials costing roughly a month and a half’s salary, truly destroying one of thetwo mail shirts at our disposal was simply not an option.

27 Galbert, p. 159.

original test, in which no bodkins penetrated at all. The gambeson itself doesn’tseem to have been an issue, since it was routinely holed by shots which missedthe mail but hit the target at the neck or sleeves. We became suspicious of themannequin, however, after one of the broadheads was not only defeated by themail, but was tossed backwards towards the archer. With mail going from fairlyineffective to nearly invulnerable to arrows, I gave the mannequin itself thehardest roundhouse kick I could deliver with the toe of my boot. Instead of theexpected result – the mannequin on the ground and the archaeologist appearingfor all the world to have thrown a tantrum – we were left with a mannequin thathardly moved at all, as the springiness of the foam absorbed the energy of thekick.

Between the strange properties of the mannequin and the question of bowpower being left wide open due to the aforementioned arrow failures, a longertest was performed solely with the heavier bow. The range had to be slightlycondensed (to 22 yards) for safety purposes, and the target was placed overrolled-up carpet supported by bags of cotton wool. The target as a whole stilldid not give as much as a person would have when pushed, but so far as the mailwas concerned, the resistance beneath it was roughly analogous to pushing on aman’s chest. A donation from a colleague also allowed me to mount up a swatchof flat-sectioned, wedge-riveted mail for comparative purposes.28 In both cases,roughly a quarter of the hits, 13 out of 48, penetrated, and as in the second test,this number included arrowheads not normally considered to be armor-piercing(in this case, triple-bladed and kite-shaped arrowheads). One hundred percent ofthe hits with bodkin-tipped arrows defeated the mail. Out of the seventeen hitson the mail with western-style shield-fletched arrows, only one hit defeated themail, and that one actually skittered off the gambeson, rather than sticking intoit.29 Among the fast-fletched arrows, the 55-degree broadhead and triple-edgedarrowheads were universally defeated by the mail, with the kite-shaped arrow-heads scoring one penetration in eight hits, a leaf-bladed arrowhead one inseven, and the 45-degree arrowheads two in three (compared to one in seventeenfor the identical arrowhead on more fully fletched arrows). This test eventuallyhad to be discontinued due to arrow failures, as the bow proved to be toopowerful for the arrows’ spine weight.

It is my belief, based on the data provided by these experiments, that themodel holds. With a hit-to-penetration ratio of 41/13 and 33/3, respectively,over the last three tests (not counting bodkins), there is a clear difference inpenetration between those arrows fletched appropriately for a horse-archer’squiver and those that are more fully fletched, even over what is essentially

26 Russ Mitchell

28 Preliminary results showed no perceptible difference in performance against arrows between thetwo types of mail.

29 The arrowheads’ cutting edges were dull. I can, unfortunately, vouch that the points were not, sothe arrow would have stuck into the gambeson had its energy not been totally dissipateddefeating the mail. This hit would have caused only the most trivial of wounds even withoutpadding underneath the mail.

point-blank range.30 I believe that much of this has to do with tactics. Thetwenty-two yards of the final test is probably the absolute minimum at which ahorse-archer can safely fire on his enemy, because he is coming into the effec-tive range of heavy javelins, hurlbats, cast maces, et cetera. So an arrow withsmall fletchings and a very low shear drag on the missile makes sense:horse-archers are expected to hit individual targets while moving at speed, and afaster arrow means one does not have to lead one’s target as much. On the otherhand, skirmishes and ambushes aside, if one is an infantry archer engaged inmass or volley fire at medium-to-long ranges, larger fletchings are a good thing,because they do a better job of counteracting form drag perpendicular to thearrow, thus keeping it stable in flight. This is important for long-range accuracy,and especially important for density of fire against a mass of men. As thehorrific slaughter at Halidon Hill suggests, whether or not the arrows in ques-tion could punch through armor may not even have been an issue, particularly incomparison to a contingent of archers’ ability to blanket a formation withincoming fire.

In regards to understanding the performance of the bodkin arrowheads, thebizarre behavior of the mannequin may actually have been of benefit. Bodkinarrowheads clearly have the capacity to punch right through mail. The point ofthe bodkin itself, assuming it doesn’t strike wire directly and deflect in, canpenetrate all the way through the armor before friction on the metal, let alonelink failure, becomes an issue. Even then, if the bodkin is poisoned, as wasoften the case with the Byzantines and Hungarians, the mail could successfullybounce the bodkin out, only to leave an “arrow snakebite” underneath it.31

Widukind’s description of the Saxons’ shields, rather than armor, being theirprotection from Magyar arrows at Lechfeld also implies the impotence of thearmor against bodkins itself.32 Thus, the nature of the backing itself, if any wasworn, is the critical factor for resisting bodkin-equipped arrow fire.

I believe that the very thick felt used in the first test resisted the bodkinsbetter than the broadheads precisely because felt doesn’t have a woven structureto be disrupted and then bypassed, and because it, like the mannequin, isspringy. In other words, unless it is cut, as was the case with the broadheads, the


30 These tests have been expressly designed in such a way as to factor out the material caveatsconcerning metallurgy. Therefore, these numbers cannot be used without interpretation. Giventhe distinctly inferior metallurgy of the arrowheads, it yet remains to be said that, if these ratiosturn out in future testing to have any general validity, they show the value of the mail shirt itselfquite clearly. Galbert’s description of the unfortunate squire being shot through the heart mayindeed have been cited as the exception that proves the rule. And, of course, the picture onlygets rosier for the target as his distance from the archer increases.

31 The Annals of Jan D¿ugosz, p. 40. Referring to Emperor Henry’s invasion of Hungary in 1051:“[The Hungarians] use poisoned arrows, which they shoot from ambushes. . . . No one struck bysuch an arrow will live.” For the Byzantines, see J. Birkenmeier, The Development of theKomnenian Army 1081–1180 (Boston, 2002), pp. 211–12.

32 Widukind Res gestae saxonicae sive annalium libri tres, in Monumenta Germania Historicae.ed. G. Waitz, III: 416–67.

felt simply deforms and pushes back on the entire surface of the incomingbodkin. This is consistent with Bahñ’al-D†n’s description of crusaders marchingwith numerous short arrows (which were always bodkin-headed) embedded intheir coat armor, and in the Taktika’s advice to adopt felt cloaks or mantles,which, though intended to protect mail against the weather, may have formedthe precursor for the kabadion, which was clearly intended as armor.33 Whetherthe Byzantines made much use of bodkin points and short-arrows is up todebate, but there is no doubt that their enemies did. Similarly, the extremelythick linen jacks worn towards the end of the Hundred Years War would haveperformed similarly, based on the simple compression required in actuallyputting a running stitch through 25–30 layers of cloth.34 Unfortunately, I havenot yet been able to put this to the test with a good kabadion reconstruction:modern sheep are bred to produce a uniform, very soft wool, which is muchdifferent from the coarser fur of their ancestors, and I have only recently secureda source for batts of wool from one of these ancient breeds of sheep.

Although there were unavoidable material caveats involved in these tests,they show quite clearly that it is perfectly appropriate for period sources todiffer dramatically on the importance and effectiveness of archery againstarmored targets: they are not contradicting each other so much as reflecting therealities of the material culture in which they were embedded. The answer to thequestion “Was handbow archery effective against mail?” is simply “It depends.”It is not just the poundage of the bow that counts, and not just the arrowheads,either, but also the fletchings and the complete nature of the target’s defenses,rather than just the mail itself. Unless one comes across the obvious use of aliterary convention in the text, one can take the vast majority of our writtensources regarding archery’s effectiveness at face value by carefully differenti-ating the performance characteristics of the equipment used in a given tacticalcontext.

28 Russ Mitchell

33 Bahñ’al-D†n Ibn Shaddñd, The Rare and Excellent History of Saladin, ed. D. S. Richards(Burlington, 2002), p. 170. The translation gives these jacks as “solid iron corselets.” I amassuming a translation error on Richards’ part, since such sergeants would have worn thickpadded defenses, rather than breastplates or coats-of-plates, which would not be seen, andcertainly not among infantry crossbowmen, until the middle of the fourteenth century. At anyrate, iron corselets would have deflected or broken incoming shafts, rather than caught them.Maurice’s Taktika, p. 12.

34 Philippe Contamine, Guerre, état et société à la fin du moyen âge. Etudes sur les armées desrois de France, 1337–1494 (Paris, 1972), p. 279, n. 11. My thanks to Clifford Rogers for thecitation.

“Cowardice” and Duty in Anglo-Saxon England

3

“Cowardice” and Duty in Anglo-Saxon England*

Richard Abels

Then a great English army was gathered from Wiltshire and fromHampshire and they were going very resolutely towards the enemy.The ealdorman Ælfric was to lead the army, but he was up to hisold tricks. As soon as they were so close that each army looked onthe other, he feigned him sick, and began retching to vomit, andsaid that he was taken ill, and thus betrayed the people whom heshould have led. As the saying goes: “When the leader gives way,the whole army will be much hindered.”1

(Anglo-Saxon Chronicle (C, D, E) s.a. 1003)

Colorado Springs, Colorado, Oct. 30, 2003 (AP). An Army inter-rogator has been charged with cowardice for allegedly refusing todo his work in Iraq. . . . An October 14 charge sheet accuses him of“cowardly conduct as a result of fear, in that he refused to performhis duties.” . . . In an interview . . . Sergeant [Georg Andreas]Pogany . . . said he was with a team of Green Berets near Samarra,north of Baghdad on Sept. 29 when he saw the mangled body of anIraqi. He said he began shaking and vomiting and he was terrifiedhe would be killed. Sergeant Pogany said he told his team sergeanthe was headed for a “nervous breakdown” and needed help. Afterthat, he said, he was not asked to go on missions. “I don’t knowhow asking for help qualified as misbehavior,” Sergeant Poganysaid. “You ask for help and they throw the book at you.”

(The New York Times, Friday, October 31, 2003, A8)

In 1984, Philippe Contamine included in what is still the best general studyof medieval warfare, War in the Middle Ages, a brief chapter he entitled“Towards a History of Courage.” Contamine posed the question whether

* An earlier version of this paper was given at the Annual Conference of the Charles HomerHaskins Society at Cornell University, 3 November 2003. I have greatly benefited from the insightsand suggestions made by my colleagues at the United States Naval Academy, in particular JohnHill and Timothy O?Brien, and from the critical discussion of this paper in the History Depart-ment?s Works-in-Progress seminar. I would also like to thank Thomas Hill, Paul Kershaw, StephenMorillo, Janet Nelson, Ruth Mazo Karras, Alice Sheppard, Richard Barton, Ellen Harrison, StevenIsaac, and Constantin Fasolt for their criticism, corrections, encouragement, and invaluable guid-ance. All the errors that remain, of course, are my own.1 The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, ed. and trans. Dorothy Whitelock with David C. Douglas and

Susie I. Tucker (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers U. Press, 1961), C, D, E, s.a. 1003, p. 86.

courage, defined as the strength of mind or moral character of one who mastersfear in the face of imminent danger, can on its own “constitute a subject ofhistorical enquiry.” He answered affirmatively, noting that “recent exampleshave shown that a history of sentiments or emotions can be attempted, espe-cially if approached from the exterior or periphery, that is to say by the study ofthe historical context in which they were formed and which, in a sense, condi-tioned them.”2 What Contamine offered, he conceded, was intended only “tomark out a trail in this little-explored historical domain.” Although the historyof sentiments or emotions has since been recognized as a proper, if problematic,field of study for medievalists,3 few historians of medieval warfare have takenup that trail. What was and still is needed is a full historical inquiry into howmedieval soldiers and those who wrote about them understood fear and courage.Contamine’s approach to the problem, moreover, was, to my mind, too limited.To understand fully the virtue of courage as a historical cultural construct onemust also understand the opposing vice of cowardice, and even fewer historiansof medieval warfare have dealt with this topic.4 J. F. Verbruggen, who pioneeredso many of the central topics of discussion in the modern historiography ofmedieval warfare, explored, all too briefly, the mentalité of the knight on thebattlefield, including the role played by fear. Verbruggen, however, was lessinterested in “cowardice” per se than he was in the mechanisms through whichsuch fear was overcome.5

This paper represents a preliminary investigation into the meanings ofmartial cowardice in Anglo-Saxon England. My presumption going into theresearch was that the Anglo-Saxons had a specific concept of “cowardice.”There is, of course, no one definition of cowardice in modern American society,and one would expect that the concept of cowardice in Anglo-Saxon Englandwould be equally multivalent. There are differences in emphasis, for example,between the philosophical definition of cowardice offered by Aristotle, whichemphasizes character, and the U.S. military’s Uniform Code of Military Justice(UCMJ), which focuses on action. For Aristotle, cowardice is a disposition ofcharacter marked by excessive fearfulness and deficiency in boldness resultingin shameful behavior.6 In the UCMJ it is misbehavior motivated by fear. The

30 Richard Abels

2 P. Contamine, War in the Middle Ages, trans. Michael Jones (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1984),pp. 250–59.

3 Anger’s Past, a splendid volume of essays edited by Barbara Rosenwein exploring the culturaland social meanings of anger in the middle ages, demonstrates the potential of such anapproach. Barbara Rosenwein, ed., Anger’s Past (Ithaca, NY, 1998). Cf. the interesting debateby C. Cubitt, B. Rosenwien, S. Airlie, M. Garrison, and C. Larrington over the problem of thehistory of emotions for the early middle ages in Early Medieval Europe 10 (2001), 225–27.

4 This is quite evident from perusing the bibliography of William Ian Miller’s essay on the mean-ings of courage, The Mystery of Courage (Cambridge, MA: Harvard U. Press, 2000).

5 J. F. Verbruggen, The Art of Warfare in Western Europe during the Middle Ages from the EighthCentury to 1340, rev. 2nd ed., trans. S. Willard and R. W. Southern (Woodbridge, 1997), pp.38–49.

6 Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics 2:7, 3:7–8. David Peers, “Courage as a Mean,” in Amélie O.Rorty, ed., Essays on Aristotle’s Ethics (Berkeley, CA, 1980), pp. 171–87.

“Manual for Court Martial” acknowledges that “fear is a natural feeling ofapprehension when going into battle” and that “the mere display of apprehen-sion does not constitute” the offense of cowardice. “The refusal or abandonmentof a performance of duty before or in the presence of the enemy as a result offear” does, and distinguishes the offense of cowardice from mere dereliction ofduty.7 What Aristotle and the U.S. military agree upon is that military cowardiceis a specific condition that involves a soldier’s failure to act as he ought becauseof excessive fear of danger. As understood in our society, cowardice arises fromfearfulness.

The evidence drawn from the Old English corpus, however, challenges theassumption that the Anglo-Saxons, at least before the mid eleventh century, hada distinct conception of martial cowardice in the sense of a specific moralfailing concerned with fearfulness in war. As presented in Old English vernac-ular texts, actions that one might term “cowardly” were presented as failures toperform military duties owed a lord due to insufficient love and loyalty. Ratherthan a personal and subjective response to the emotion of fear, “cowardice” soconceived was socially condemned behavior, structured by expectations arisingfrom the lordship bond and by cultural assumptions about manliness. There isless of a focus on lordship in the insular Latin texts by ecclesiastical writers,especially those heavily influenced by classical models. In the works of Bede,Aldhelm, Ælfric of Eynsham, and Archbishop Wulfstan of York the dispositiontoward ignauia and segnitia is unsurprisingly moralized and given religioussignificance. Nonetheless, even in these texts “cowardice” was understood as adisinclination to fulfill one’s obligations because of sloth and the effeminacyassociated with it rather than debilitating timidity.

Given the heroic rhetoric that suffuses so much of Old English poetry andprose, one might expect to find a clear binary opposition between bravery andboldness, on the one hand, and cowardice and timidity on the other. But thisseems not to be the case. The problem is more complicated. While Old Englishhas a rich vocabulary for fear and terror with adjectives such as as acol-mod,egesful, fyrht, forht, aforhten-mod, anforht, forhtlic, forhtmod, and forhtiendlicto connote timidity or fearfulness, the language lacks any specific word thatcorresponds precisely to the modern English words “coward,” “cowardly,” or“cowardice,” a situation one would not even begin to suspect based on the manytranslations that use these terms.8 For most, though not all,9 Anglo-Saxonauthors, actions that translators have characterized as “cowardly” had less to dowith a timorous disposition than with slackness and torpor. The shame lay in aman’s willful choice, when faced with danger, to turn his back on the duty he

“Cowardice” and Duty in Anglo-Saxon England 31

7 UCMJ (United States Uniform Code of Military Justice) art. 99; Manual for Court Martial,2002, Chapter 4, Paragraph 23.

8 Words related to fear: Jane Roberts and Christian Kay with Lynne Grundy, A Thesaurus of OldEnglish, 2 vols. (London, 1995), 1:384–86 (06.01.08.06–06.01.08.06.03.01). Words translatedas “cowardice”: 1:402 (06.02.07.07).

9 See discussions of Aldhelm’s Prosa De Virginitate and of the Durham Proverbs below.

owed his lord. The moral failure was the willful refusal to fulfill the duty owedto lords, kinsmen, and friends, to undertake on their behalf the hard work andrisk of battle.

According to the OED, the word “coward” only entered the English languagein the late thirteenth century and derived from Old French coart, meaning ananimal’s tail. The authors of the OED explain the etymology by suggesting thatit might refer either to “the habit in frightened animals of drawing the tailbetween the hinder legs” or an allusion to “turning tail” in flight from theenemy.10 What one might think ought to be the primary terms for cowardice inOld English, words such as acol-mod and aforhten-mod that literally connote afearful or timid spirit, are not. Oddly, Anglo-Saxon words that literally mean“fearful” are rarely found in military contexts. A search of Toronto’s OldEnglish Corpus produces over five hundred hits for the word forht and itsvarious compounds. Relatively few of these references to fear, however, areassociated with war, and even fewer imply moral judgments. That an army or itsleaders would feel fear when confronted by a larger host was accepted as naturaland carried no stigma. Cynewulf’s Constantine in Elene, for example, is fright-ened (cyning wæs afyrhted) at the sight of the massive army of Huns:

smitten of terror (egsan geaclad), as he surveyed those foreign hordes, the host of theHuns and Hrethgoths, that at the kingdom’s end, on the edge of the water, gatheredtheir force, a countless throng. Heart-sorrow smote the Roman ruler; of his kingdomhad he little hope, for his dearth of men. Too little strength of warriors, of trustyfighting men, had he to battle against that over-might of stalwart spoilers. (lines56–66)11

This sets the stage for Constantine’s vision in his slumber of an angelicmessenger who tells him not to “dread though foreign hordes threaten terroragainst you and hard war”12 assures him victory over the “loathsome host” if hefights under the sign of the cross. Constantine awakes relieved and now eagerfor the “terror of battle” (hildegesa) (line 113).

Typical also are the passages in the Old English Exodus describing the fearfelt by the men of the Hebrew “army” when they heard the sound of the Egyp-tian trumpets and of the Egyptian host when it was swallowed up by the sea:

There dread tidings of inland pursuit came unto the army. A great fear (egsan stoden)fell upon them, and dread of the hosts (wælgrye weroda). So the exiles awaited thecoming of the fierce pursuers, who long had crushed those homeless men and wroughtthem injury and woe. (lines 135–41)13

32 Richard Abels

10 Oxford English Dictionary, s.v. coward.11 Cynewulf, Elene, in The Vercelli Book, ed. George Philip Krapp, Anglo-Saxon Poetic Records 2

(New York, 1932), lines 56–66; trans. Charles W. Kennedy (In parentheses Publications, OldEnglish Series, Cambridge, Ontario, 2000), pp. 3–4, posted at yorku.ca/inpar/Elene_Kennedy.pdf).

12 The Anglo-Saxon reads: “ne ondræd þu ðe, ðeah þe elþeodige egesan hwopan, heardre hilde,”Elene, lines 81–3.

13 Charles W. Kennedy, trans., The Caedmon Poems (New York, 1916), posted at

And then all the folk was smitten with terror; fear of the flood fell on their wretchedhearts. The great sea threatened death. The sloping hills were soaked with blood; thesea spewed gore. In the deep, the waves were filled with weapons; a death-mist rose.Fearful the Egyptians fled (f lugon forhtigende), and, shunning battle (herebleaðe),they wished to seek their homes. Their boasting was humbled. (lines 446–55)

Since the poet had earlier emphasized the valor and strength of the Egyptianhost, it is unlikely that he now intended the reader to view those same warriorsas cowards; rather, the terror felt by the drowning Egyptians is presented as theproper response to God’s awful wrath visited upon them.

Most references to fear and fearfulness are found in homilies, devotionalpoems, and religious epics such as Andreas, Exodus, Genesis, and the usualcontext is the awe inspired by God or by some divine prodigy. In Andreas, forinstance, Andrew and his troop of thanes are tossed on a raging sea in a ship thatis captained, unknown to them, by God himself:

Then the whale mere was troubled and stirred; . . . the candle of the sky grew dark, thewinds rose, the waves dashed, the floods were fierce, the cordage creaked, the sailswere soaked. The terror of the tempest (wæteregsa) rose up with the might of hosts; thethanes were afraid; none looked to reach land alive, of those who with Andrew soughtthe ship on the ocean stream. (lines 369–77).14

The storm, of course, was a test, but, oddly enough, not of the thanes’ faith inthe Lord, but rather of their devotion to their sworn lord, Andrew. WhenAndrew tells the divine ship’s captain that “my thanes, the young warriors, arecast down; . . . the men are afflicted, the band of the brave ones mightilyoppressed” by the turbulent sea, God suggests that he land the ship and disem-bark the frightened thanes, who could await in safety Andrew’s return. But inwords reminiscent of the Wanderer,

the heroes straightway gave him answer, thanes strong to endure; they would not agreeto leave their loved teacher at the ship’s prow and seek land for themselves: “Whithershall we turn, lacking our lord, heavy at heart, bare of happiness, stricken with sins, ifwe desert thee? We shall be despised in every land, hateful to the peoples, when thesons of men in their valour hold debate as to which of them has always served his lordbest in war, when hand and shield hacked by swords, suffered distress on the field ofbattle in the deadly play.”15


www.sunsite.berkeley.edu/OMACL/Junius/Exodus. For the Old English text, see Peter J. Lucas,ed., Exodus, Exeter Medieval Texts and Studies (Exeter, 1977).

14 G. P. Krapp, ed., “Andreas,” in The Vercelli Book (New York, 1932), lines 369–80: “þa gedrefedwearð,/ onhrered hwælmere. Hornfisc plegode,/ glad geond garsecg, ond se græga mæw/wælgifre wand. edercandel swearc,/ windas weoxon, wægas grundon,/ streamasstyredon, strengas gurron,/ wædo gewætte. Wæteregsa stod/ þreata þryðum; þegnaswurdon/ acolmode; ænig ne wende/ þæt he lifgende land begete,/ þara þe mid Andreas oneagorstream/ ceol gesohte”; trans. R. K. Gordon, Anglo-Saxon Poetry (London, 1970), p. 189.

15 “Andreas,” lines 401–14: “Edre him þa eorlas agefan ondsware,/ þegnas þrohthearde, þafiganne woldon/ ðæt hie forleton æt lides stefnan/ leofne lareow ond him land curon:/ “Hwiderhweorfað we hlafordlease,/ geomormode, gode orfeorme,/ synnum wunde, gif we swicað þe?/We bioð laðe on landa gehwam,/ folcum fracoðe, þonne fira bearn,/ ellenrofe, æht besittaþ,/

The discourse of courage and cowardice as revealed in this and like texts is apublic one in which the audience, the warrior nobility, awards honor and shame.Although greatly frightened by the “water-terror,” Andrew’s followers chooseto face danger with their lord rather than abandon him; the shame of such anabandonment would be worse than death. Andrew, urged on by God, thenassures his thanes that the Creator protects them and that “through the King ofGlory the water terror, the tossing flood, shall be rebuked and vanquished, growmore calm,” and that “the living God never forsakes a hero on the earth if hiscourage fail not.” Heartened by their lord’s words, the thanes’ fear abated, somuch so that they gave into their weariness and slept.16 The fear felt byAndrew’s thanes, thus, is not a sign of their cowardice, but a necessary precon-dition for their demonstration of loyalty, love, and trust.

In Daniel it is the power of God and portents of disaster that inspire fear.Nebuchadnezzar awakens from his dream with “fear (egesa) of it upon him, andterror (grye) of the vision which God had sent him (lines 523–25),” while ofBelshazzar, we are told, “the chieftain (folctoga) became “fearful in mind, trem-bling with terror” (Ða wearð folctoga forht on mode, acul for þam egesan)(Dan. 5:5–6). Such fear is justified and even praiseworthy. It is not depicted as amoral failing.

The words most often translated as “cowardly” or “cowardice” are terms ofscorn. The most common of these are earg/earh, sæne, and wac; the mostexplicit in terms of warfare are the rare poetic compound words herebleað andhildlata. To translate earg as “cowardly” is reasonable in terms of the historicaldevelopment of the word. Certainly this is its meaning in a saying in the mideleventh-century Durham Proverbs: “A coward (earh) can do only one thing:fear.”17 Similarly, an early eleventh-century glossator of Aldhelm’s DeVirginitate explained the Latin phrase timidorum militum, “of the fearfulsoldiers,” with eargra cempana.18 The Middle English word derived from earg,arg, is glossed by pusillanimus in thirteenth-century texts, and the usualmeaning of arg in Middle English literature is “cowardly” in the sense ofshamefully fearful.19 In Old English, however, earg most often meant “slug-

34 Richard Abels

hwylc hira selost symle gelæste/ hlaforde æt hilde, þonne hand ond rond/ on beaduwangebillum forgrunden/ æt niðplegan nearu þrowedon.” Trans. Gordon, p. 188.

16 “Andreas,” lines 433–60: “Ic þæt sylfa wat, þæt us gescyldeð/ scyppend engla, weorudadryhten./ Wæteregesa sceal, geðyd ond geðreatod/ þurh þryðcining, lagu lacende,/ liðrawyrðan. . . . / Forþan ic eow to soðe secgan wille,/ þæt næfre forlæteð lifgende god/ eorl oneorðan, gif his ellen deah” (Trans. Gordon, pp. 188–89).

17 Olof Angart, “The Durham Proverbs,” Speculum 56 (1981), 288–300, at 293 (no. 22); RichardMarsden, The Cambridge Old English Reader (Cambridge, 2004), p. 306: “Earh mæg þæt anþæt he him ondræde.”

18 Louis Goosens, The Old English Glosses of MS. Brussels, Royal Library 1650, BrusselsVerhandelingen van de koninklijke Academie voor Wetenschappen, Letteren en schoneKunsten van Belgie, Klasse der Letteren 36 (Brussels, 1974): Aldhelm’s De laude virignitatis,line 805 (found through a search of the Old English Corpus). For the Latin text of the glossedpassage, see note 23 below.

19 See the electronic Middle English Dictionary, s.v. argh (http://ets.umdl.umich.edu/m/med/).

gish” or “slothful,” though it could also convey a more general sense of oppro-brium. The same is true for sæne, “slack,” “lazy,” or “dull,” and wac, “weak,”“soft,” “feeble,” “fainted-hearted,” “irresolute.” Herebleað, a hapax legomenonthat appears only in the Old English Exodus, and hildlata, literally mean,respectively, gentle or slothful in war and slow in combat. The complex ofmeanings of all these words relate to sluggishness/laziness or weakness/passivity/shirking, and arising from this is a connotation of worthlessness.20

There is a distinction, however, between this vocabulary of contempt and theterms most often used to denote physical lethargy and enervation such asslæwwð and sleac, which rarely appear in a military context. Earg impliedwillful dereliction, a shirking of duty, rather than simply a state of enervation.

To translate earg, sæne, wac as “cowardly” is merely inference from contextcolored by expectation. Consider, for instance, how the Alfredian author of theOld English Orosius used earg. The word appears three times in the work. Intwo of these, the best translation is probably “cowardly,” though in both theconnotation is passivity or sluggishness. Hearing of Hannibal’s approach, themen of Rome, we are told, were so “frightened and astonished” that theirwomen grabbed rocks and ran to the walls, declaring that if the men would notdefend the city, they would. This shamed the consuls, who “did not think them-selves so cowardly (swa earge), as the women had before spoken of them, thatthey dared not defend themselves within the burh; but they arrayed their troopsagainst Hannibal outside the walls.” (Or. IV.10). The author clearly used swaearge as an expression of contempt voiced by the Roman women, and in partic-ular for the consuls, for their men’s terrified paralysis. If they are unwilling toact like men, the women will. The consuls respond not only by defending thecity walls but by challenging Hannibal to battle in order to preserve their chal-lenged honor and masculinity.21 In this passage, which was expanded by thetranslator to add the women’s challenge and consuls’ response, the label earg isan accusation of cowardice. The same may also be true of a passage in Book VI,chapter 36, where the translator, again expanding upon Orosius’s text, explainsthat Theodosius was able to break through a mountain pass because the enemygeneral foolishly had entrusted its defense to a few vile men (lyþrum monnum)who were “yfele and earge.” Earlier in the narrative, however, the term earg


20 The same is true of the Latin terms ignauia, segnitia, and segnitas, which were sometimesglossed by earh, and which are also often translated as “cowardice” when encountered in earlymedieval Latin texts. The primary connotation of all these terms in classical Latin was sluggish-ness, torpor, and sloth. Oxford Latin Dictionary, ed. P. G. W. Glare (Oxford, 1982), s.v.ignauuia (p. 822), segnitas, and segnitia (p. 1727). As Dr. Myles McDonnell observed in apersonal communication, the Romans also had a less than precise concept of cowardice.

21 Janet Nelson has called my attention to a comparable incident in the Annals of Fulda, s.a. 872:“quidam comites in illa expeditione fugientes a mulierculis illius regionis verberati et de equisin terram fustibus deiecti referentur.” Annales Fuldenses sive Annales regni Francorumorientalis, ed. Friedrich Kurze, Monumenta Germaniae Historica, Scriptores rerumGermanicarum in usum scolarum separatim editi 7 (Hanover, 1891; repr. 1978), p. 76.

appears without any implication of timidity or cowardice. Thus the translatorcharacterizes the successors of Romulus as “more wicked, and more vile(eargran) than he was, and more hateful and troublesome to the people.” Ofthem Tarquin was “ægþer ge eargast, ge wrænast, ge oftermodgast,” “the mostvile, the most lustful and the most proud.” (Or. II.2). Since the narrative neitheremphasizes Romulus’s courage nor the timidity of his successors, the termseems to be used here with the more general meaning of vile or worthless.22

The Old English Orosius’s story of Roman consuls shamed into facingHannibal in battle by the scornful words of women may suggest that a failure ofwill in war was seen as emasculating or feminizing the warrior. This is also thesense of an interesting passage in Aldhelm’s prose De Virginitate written towardthe end of the seventh century. In chapter eleven, Aldhelm, loosely followingPrudentius’s Psychomachia, advances an elaborate martial metaphor in whichthe “virgins of Christ” protected by the corselet of virginity and the shield ofmodesty battle the eight principal vices with the weapons of virtue:

Virgins of Christ and raw recruits [tirunculis] of the Church must therefore fight withmuscular energy [lacertosis uiribus] against the horrendous monster of Pride and thesame time against those seven wild beasts of the virulent vices . . . and they muststruggle industriously [nauiter] with the arrows of spiritual armament and theiron-tipped spears of the virtues as if against the most ferocious armies of barbarians,who do not desist from battering repeatedly the shield-wall (?) [testudinem] of theyoung soldiers of Christ with the catapult of perverse deceit. In no way let us slackly[segniter] offer to these savage enemies the back of our shoulder-blades in place ofshield-bosses shields, after the fashion of timid soldiers effeminately [muliebriter]fearing the horror of war and the battle-calls of the trumpeter!23

In addition to supplying evidence of Aldhelm’s familiarity with classical textsdealing with war, the prose De Virginitate provides the clearest equation in theAnglo-Saxon corpus of military cowardice, in the classical sense of fleeing theenemy from fear, with effeminacy. The image that Aldhelm conjures of the

36 Richard Abels

22 The Old English Orosius, ed. Janet Bately, The Early English Text Society (Oxford, 1980),pp. 103 (IV.10), 40 (II.2), 154 (VI.36). An English Translation of King Alfred’s Anglo-SaxonVersion of the Historian Orosius, trans. Joseph Bosworth, in The Whole Works of King Alfredthe Great (London, 1858; repr. New York, 1969), pp. 147, 82, 196.

23 “Idcirco uirginibus Christi et tirunculis ecclesiae contra horrendam superbiae bestiam simulquecontra has uirulentorum septenas uitiorum biluas . . . lacertosis uiribus dimicandum est et quasiaduersus ferocissimas barbarorum legiones, quae manipulatim tironum Christi testudinemstrofosae fraudis ballista quatere non cessant, spiritalis armaturae spiculis et ferratis uirtutumuenabulis nauiter certandum, ac nullatenus timidorum more militum horrrorem belli et classicasalpictae muliebriter metuentium saeuissimis hostibus scapularum terga pro scutorumumbonibus segniter praebeamus!” Aldhelmi Malmesbirensis Prosa De Virginitate, ed. ScottGwara, Corpus Christianorum, Series Latina CXXIV A (Turnhout, 2001), 129–33. I havefollowed the translation of Michael Lapidge and Michael Herren, Aldhelm, The Prose Works(Cambridge, 1979), p. 68, with two significant changes, altering their translations of nauiterand segniter from, respectively, “zealously” and “sloppily” to the more usual “industriously”and “slackly.”

cowardly soldier turning his back and shield on the enemy because he fears the“horror of war and the battle-calls of the trumpeter” is couched in Roman mili-tary terminology and may indeed owe something to Aldhelm’s reading of clas-sical authors. For his audience of nuns, however, what would have been of moreinterest is the manner in which Aldhelm plays with sexual conventions andidentities: the virgins of Christ, the most perfect of women, are urged to fightagainst sin with manly courage and to shun the timidity associated with theirsex. Athough for Aldhem virgins, like angels, transcend gender, spiritualcourage, as Sinead O’Sullivan observes, “is equated with masculinity. Theyreject female activities and become male. . . . Aldhelm’s female heroes becomemale warriors.”24 There is more to this gender reversal than simply Aldhelm’sadmonition that the virgins overcome fear. Aldhelm’s language also opposes“masculine” forceful activity (lacertosis uiribus, nauiter) with “feminine” slug-gishness and passivity (segniter). The proposed dichotomy also underlies theOrosius-translator’s characterization of the inactivity of the Roman consuls as“womanly.” It seems to have struck a chord with later Anglo-Saxon readers ofAldhelm, as well. The connections between courage, gender, and theactive/passive binary implied by Aldhelm are brought out more explicitly by theeleventh-century glossators of this text. Thus nauiter, which is usually trans-lated as “industriously,” is glossed with uiriliter uel fortiter, that is, “manly orbravely,” and muliebriter, “womanlike,” with eneruiter and earhlice, niþlice,that is, respectively, “feebly” and “shamefully” or, in this context, “cowardly.”25

For Aldhelm and his eleventh-century readers, the virgins of Christ were notsimply desexed but, in terms of the energy and courage with which theyopposed sin, “manly” women. The tension between female and masculine traitsand virtues manifested in Aldhelm’s martial metaphor for virginity’s waragainst sin appears also in ninth- and tenth-century poetic portrayals of femaleheroism, most notably in the Old English Judith. Aldhelm included thewidowed Judith among his Virgins because she “kept the honor of her modestyintact,” despite her use of feminine wiles to ensnare Holofernes. Aldhelmexcuses and praises Judith because the motivation for her pretense was grief and“affection of compassion” for her threatened kinsfolk during the “close siege”of Bethulia.26 The metaphor of the war against vice is here made concrete, and


24 Sinead O’Sullivan, “Aldhelm’s De Virginitate: Patristic Pastiche or Innovative Exposition?”Peritia 12 (1998), 271–95.

25 Prosa De Virginitate, ed. Gwara, 130, 132.26 Prose De Virginitate, ed. Gwara, ch. 57, pp. 731, 733; trans. Lapidge and Herren, Aldhelm,

p. 127: “You see, it is not by my assertion but by the statement of Scripture [citing Jud. 10:3]that the adornment of women is called the depredation of men! But because she is known tohave done this during the close siege of Bethulia, grieving for her kinsmen and not through anydisaffection from chastity, for that reason, having kept the honour of her modesty intact, shebrought back a renowned trophy to her fearful fellow-citizens [meticulosis municipibus] and adistinguished triumph for (these) timid towns-folk [oppidanis trepidantibus] – in the form of thetyrant’s head and its canopy.” Aldhelm’s explanation of Judith’s motivation differs significantly

Judith’s extreme act is excused by military necessity and the fear and timidity ofher countrymen. Aldhelm contrasts Judith’s willingness to act with the passivityof the Hebrew males, to whom she “brought back a renowned trophy . . . and adistinguished triumph.” The contrast is underscored by Aldhelm’s omission ofany mention of the Hebrew army’s subsequent slaughter of the leaderlessAssyrians. Aldhelm’s Judith is simultaneously a masculine warrior hero and afeminine seductress. That Aldhelm was disturbed by the complexities of thisimage is suggested by his characterization of Judith’s motivation as arising fromwomanly compassion and affection. The Judith-poet faced the same problem ofreconciling the male and female qualities of his heroine.27 The challenge was topresent Judith as an exemplar of heroism while still maintaining her essentialfemininity. He accomplished the former, as Jane Chance has shown, through hischoice of imagery and diction.28 Thus the poet characterizes her as courageous(ellenrof: lines 109 and 146), proud (collenferhðe: line 134) and bold (modig:line 334; and ellenþriste: line 133), terms usually reserved for male heroes butjustified in Judith’s case by her heroic decapitation of a cruel and terrifying(egesful: line 21) warlord while in the midst of the enemy camp, an act that noman dared.29 Judith, however, remains a woman, though in some ways the poet’sJudith is less womanly than Aldhelm’s. The poet focuses on her chastity and

38 Richard Abels

from that in the Vulgate’s Liber Iudith 8:11–9:14, where Judith puts aside her mourning for herdead husband in order to defend God’s sanctuary and tabernacle. Aldhelm’s treatment of Judithis discussed in relationship to the Old English Judith by Jane Chance, Woman as Hero in OldEnglish Literature (Syracuse, New York, 1986), pp. 38–40.

27 Judith, ed. Mark Griffith, Exeter Medieval Texts and Studies (Exeter, 1997), pp. 55, 68–69.28 Chance, Woman as Hero, p. 40.29 R. E. Kaske observes that early in the poem Judith’s wisdom is contrasted with Holofernes’s

power. However, Judith “is inspired with strength” (line 95) when Holofernes lies before her ina drunken stupor. She is elevated to the status of hero in counterpoint to Holofernes’s reductionto the status of beast. The poet underscores this by characterizing Judith as brave and bold aswell as wise (e.g. lines 145–46). “Sapientia et fortitudo in the Old English Judith,” in TheWisdom of Poetry: Essays in Early English Literature in Honor of Morton W. Bloomfield, ed.L. D. Benson and S. Wenzel (Kalamazoo, 1982), pp. 13–29 and 264–8. Mark Griffith, “Intro-duction,” in Judith, ed. M. Griffith, pp. 87–88. Although the Vulgate’s Judith also remainsbehind, unlike her counterpart in the Old English poem, she acts as war leader by devising thestrategy that the Hebrew troops are to follow, ordering them to draw up their lines before theAssyrian camps as if to offer battle, but refrain from attacking until the enemy discovered thedecapitated corpse of their commander so that, terrified, they would flee rather than stand andfight (15:1–5). The poet’s Judith sends the warriors to battle with the simple admonition to “slaytheir leaders with gleaming (or blood-stained) swords, their doomed chiefs” (lines 194–95:“fyllan folctogan fagum sweordum,/ fæge frumgaras”). In seeing the poem’s Judith as inspiringthe troops rather than devising strategy, I agree with C. Fee, “Judith and the Rhetoric ofHeroism in Anglo-Saxon England,” English Studies 78 (1997), 401, 405. For an opposing inter-pretation, see Kelly Guenther, “The Old English Judith: Can a Woman be a Hero?” York Medi-eval Yearbook: MA Essays from the Centre of Medieval Studies 1 (2002), 9–10.(http://www.york.ac.uk/ teaching/history/pjpg/Judith.pdf), who interprets Judith’s exhortationto kill the Assyrian leaders as “specific instructions as to what they should do, rather like a mili-tary commander formulating a battle plan” (p. 9).

wisdom rather than her beauty. Thus it is Holofernes who orders that she beadorned with jewelry and brought to his bed so that he can pollute her puritywith his lust, rather than Judith who seeks to seduce him through her feminineallure.30 The poet also emphasizes, in typical heroic language, the valor of theHebrew army, inspired by Judith’s act, in confronting and slaughtering theAssyrians, while Judith remains at home awaiting the return of the victoriousmen.31 In this respect the poet’s Judith is more passive than Aldhelm’s andremains more womanly. As Hugh Magennis persuasively argues, the poetsuccessfully struggled to limit the transgression of traditional gender rolesthreatened by Judith’s heroism, and presented her actions “in such a way thatJudith may take on the heroic role without losing her femaleness, withoutbecoming either monstrous or some kind of honorary male.”32

If Judith’s active heroism posed problems of gender-role transgression, sodid the failure of men to act decisively and violently. The problem of definitionsof masculinity in the early middle ages has been tackled by Janet Nelson, whoposits that Carolingian monks promoted among the lay aristocracy a new,gentler ethos that rejected violence and sex and exalted compassion, humility,and chastity, qualities that had been previously associated with femininity. Theadoption of these values by certain pious laymen, notably Alfred the Great andSt. Gerald of Aurillac, created anxieties and inner conflict that manifested itselfin illness.33 The challenge to the “masculine” warrior ethos of honor andvengeance presented by Christian teaching is highlighted by Bede’s account ofthe murder of St. Sigiberht, king of the East, by his own kinsmen, who “wereangry with the king and hated him because he was too ready to pardon hisenemies, calmly forgiving them for the wrongs they had done him, as soon asthey asked his pardon.”34 A contemporary of this royal saint, King Sigiberht ofthe East Anglians, shared the martyr’s name and fate. This Sigiberht had retiredinto a monastery he himself had founded, where he “made it his business tofight instead for the heavenly kingdom.” But when the East Anglians were


30 Judith, ed. Griffith, lines 21–59. On the poet’s establishment of Judith’s chastity, see PatriciaA. Belanoff, “Judith: Sacred and Secular Heroine,” in Helen Damico and John Leyerle, eds.,Heroic Poetry in the Anglo-Saxon Period: Studies in Honor of Jess B. Bessinger, Jr.(Kalamazoo, 1993), pp. 247–64.

31 As is often the case with Old English biblical poems, the Judith-poet greatly elaborates uponthe Hebrews’ victory in battle (lines 199–320), depicting the heroic deeds of the Hebrewwarriors and the grisly nature of the slaughter in far greater detail than his source (Liber Iudith15:3–8).

32 Hugh Magennis, “Gender and Heroism in the Old English Judith,” in Elaine Treharne, ed.,Writing Gender and Genre in Medieval Literature: Approaches to Old and Middle English Texts(Cambridge, 2002), pp. 5–18. Cf. P. A. Belanoff, “Judith: Sacred and Secular Heroine,” inH. Damico and J. Leyerle, eds., Heroic Poetry in the Anglo-Saxon Period. Studies in Honor ofJess B. Bessinger, Jr. (Kalamazoo, 1993), p. 252.

33 Janet Nelson, “Monks, Secular Men, and Masculinity,” in D. Hadley, ed., Masculinity in Medi-eval Europe (London, 1998), pp. 121–42.

34 Bede, Ecclesiastical History of the English People, 3.22.

attacked by the pagan Mercian King Penda, they dragged an unwilling andprotesting Sigiberht to the battlefield to lead the troops, “in hope that thesoldiers would be less afraid and less ready to flee if they had with them onewho was once their most vigorous and distinguished leader.” Sigiberht, true tohis monastic profession, carried only a staff into combat. He was killed and hisarmy scattered.35 The fate of King Sigiberht and the criticisms that Bede offeredin his letter to Bishop Egbert of York about laymen who adopted monasticism,unlike Sigiberht, insincerely, and abandoned their duty to defend the kingdomwith arms, perhaps indicates a measure of ambivalence on Bede’s part. Itcertainly implies that many eighth-century aristocrats found the Christianmonastic values of forbearance, forgiveness, and restraint at odds with theirmilitary ethos.

Asser’s complex presentation of Alfred as “ever victorious warrior” andsaintly invalid perhaps ought to be read as an attempt to maintain his hero’smasculinity while insisting upon his embrace of a monastically influencedChristian ethos manifested by his divinely granted illness, love of learning anddesire to make peace with his enemies. Asser’s otherwise puzzling account ofAlfred’s behavior at the battle of Ashdown makes perfect sense if this was theauthor’s intention. The natural hero of this story should have been KingÆthelred, who, like St. Gerald of Aurillac, refuses to engage the heathen enemyuntil he has finished his prayers. Asser instead focuses upon the æthelingAlfred, who rather than awaiting his brother, instead rushes into battle at thehead of his contingent, “acting courageously, like a wild boar, supported bydivine counsel and strengthened by divine help.”36 Here prayers take secondplace to courage and audacity, although Asser’s emphasis upon Alfred’s divinefavor maintains the monk’s theme of Alfred’s piety. God’s favor and Alfred’sambivalence about his masculinity lie at the heart of Asser’s presentation ofAlfred’s mysterious adult affliction. As Asser tells it, this illness came as aresult of the “comely” young man’s prayer that God replace his earlier infirmity,piles, with a more suitable and bearable affliction that would not be outwardlyvisible and make him contemptible or useless, but would still restrain his libido.Asser’s Alfred here and elsewhere is a man fighting to restrain his strong sexualdrives.37 His illness gives him the means to do so without emasculating him orweakening him as a warrior.

While there is some evidence, then, that among the Anglo-Saxons cowardicewas associated with effeminacy, there is none that would link it withpassive-homosexuality.38 The Anglo-Saxon word earg does not appear to havehad the strong passive-homosexual connotation of its Norse cognate, argr.

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35 Bede, Ecclesiastical History of the English People, 3.18.36 Asser, Life of King Alfred, ch. 38. As Ruth Mazo Karras pointed out to me, Gerald of Aurillac’s

biographer, Odo of Cluny, uses the term “viriliter” to describe how his hero strove against thevices. Acta Sanctorum, October VI, De S. Geraldo, Comite Auriliacensi Confessore, p. 315.

37 Asser, Life of King Alfred, ch. 74.38 Allen J. Frantzen, Before the Closet (Chicago, 1998), p. 106.

Scandinavian saga and legal sources, however, repeatedly draw the connectionbetween cowardice and effeminacy. The terms associated in medieval Scandina-vian sources with cowardice or lack of prowess in war – nið, argr, and ragr –also connote willingness to be used sexually by other men. These labels were sooffensive that the Gulaþing Code and Gragas allowed the insulted party torefuse monetary compensation and redeem his honor by killing the slanderer.39

Although written by a Norman cleric in the early eleventh century, Warner ofRouen’s scatological Latin poem Moriuht may shed light on viking attitudestoward sexuality and shame. Warner depicts his monstrous protagonist, theinept Irish poet and grammarian Moriuht, as falling into the hands of Danishpirates while searching for his captive wife:

He is subjected to insults and then in place of a wife heis forced by the Vikings [Danes] to perform the sexualservices of a wife. Moriuht, dressed in furs like a bear,is stripped, and before the sailors, bear, you amorouslysport and strike. Yet not unwillingly does he play Ravolafor everyone with his arse. Struck by a penis, he groans,alas the unfortunate!40

The irony of Warner’s characterization of the hypersexual Moriuht as “unfortu-nate” is underscored by the grammarian’s willingness to be sodomized. Just asclearly, Warner believed that Danish vikings would “sport” with a captive, inparticular one so lacking in martial and masculine attributes as Moriuht, in thismanner, underscoring their contempt, as well as the shame that the poet ought tohave but did not feel. One wonders whether this fictional account reflects whatmay have occurred – or what Warner’s audience feared would occur – whenmonks and clerics fell into viking hands. Medieval Scandinavian law codes andsagas cannot be read as transparent windows on to the culture and ethos of theviking age, and Scandinavian mythology is more ambiguous in its attitudesabout gender than these sources might suggest.41 Nevertheless, the equation


39 Grágas, Staðarhólsbók (1879), p. 392, cited by Folke Ström, Nið, Ergi and Old Norse MoralAttitudes, The Dorothea Coke Memorial Lecture in Northern Studies delivered at UniversityCollege London, 10 May 1973 (London, 1974), p. 6. The relevant passages from the GulaþingCode are quoted in Carol J. Clover, “Regardless of Sex: Men, Women, and Power in EarlyNorthern Europe,” Speculum 68 (1993), 363–87, at pp. 373–74. See, especially, PrebenMeulengracht Sørensen’s discussion of sexual insults in the sagas, The Unmanly Man: Conceptsof Sexual Defamation in Early Northern Society, trans. Joan Turville-Petre (Odense UniversityPress, 1983). Christine Ward, who under the nom de plume Gunnora Hallakarva maintains thewebpage “Viking Answer Lady,” provides a good and balanced overview of the question ofhomosexuality in the Viking Age (http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/pwh/gayvik.html).

40 C. J. McDonough, ed. and trans., Warner of Rouen. Moriuht. A Norman Latin poem of the EarlyEleventh Century (Toronto, 1995), pp. 76–77. I owe this reference to Paul Kershaw.

41 Oðinn was accused of ergi, passive homosexuality, because of his practice of womanly seiðrmagic and divination. Loki in the guise of a mare, according to Grimnismál, stanza 44, gavebirth to the eight-legged stallion Sleipnir. This is alluded to in Lokesenna where he and hisblood-brother Oðinn swap charges of perversion. Even Thor cross-dresses in the Eddic poem

between cowardice and effeminacy raises an intriguing possibility, especiallygiven the Christian masculinity advocated by English churchmen and fosteredby Alfred in his court. If vikings regarded men who sought peace by payingtribute in coin rather than earn it in battle as shameful and “womanly” and theAnglo-Saxons did not, and if Anglo-Saxons regarded the breaking of Christianoaths securing truces and peace treaties as perfidy and pagan vikings did not,then the attempts by English and Frankish rulers to make peace with vikingswould have been undermined by the two parties’ profoundly different culturalconceptions of peace-making and cowardice.42

Earg/argr could imply unmanly/effeminate behavior and, in the case of theScandinavians, passive-homosexuality, because of the word’s secondarymeaning of sluggishness. The gendered-binaries active/passive and strong(resolute)/weak are crucial here. Orosius’s Roman consuls were earg and wif licbecause they were too intimidated even to order that the walls of Rome bedefended. They were “womanly” because they responded to danger and chal-lenge with passivity rather than “manly” resolution and action. To Aldhelm“raw recruits” in the army of Christ who turn their backs on the enemy and fleeare “womanly,” not only because they give into their fear of the horrors of war,but because they act slackly rather than with the muscular resolution expectedof a “warrior of Christ.” This returns to my point that what we would callcourage or bravery is often represented in Old English texts as resolution tomake good on one’s words and to fulfill duties and obligations to a lord, theproper behavior of a retainer – his side of the exchange of gifts for loyal service.

Anglo-Saxon authors most often labeled commanders and warriors as earg,sæne, or wac when they were perceived as failing to fulfill their duty to theirlord or showed unwarranted reluctance or sluggishness in battle. This is clearlythe case in the two most famous Anglo-Saxon heroic poems Beowulf and theBattle of Maldon. A climate of fear pervades Beowulf, though, as my colleagueJohn Hill pointed out to me, the only one who is said to flee out of fear isGrendel (lines 755–57). The essence of Beowulf’s heroism is that he boldlyseeks out the monsters rather than shrinks into passivity or shameful resigna-tion, in contrast to Unferð and Beowulf’s hearth-troop in his last battle with thedragon. When Unferð “lent his sword to a better warrior” rather than “risk hislife under the warring waves,” he forfeited his glory, his name for valor because

42 Richard Abels

Thrymskvida, although reluctantly and only to recover his hammer. See John Lindow, NorseMythology. A Guide to the Gods, Heroes, Rituals, and Beliefs (Oxford, 2001), pp. 219, 265,293–95; R. I. Page, Chronicles of the Vikings: Records, Memorials and Myths (Toronto, 1995),pp. 198, 203; Gunnora Hallakarva, “The Vikings and Homosexuality,” http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/pwh/gayvik.html.

42 This, of course, does not mean that pagan Scandinavians took native oaths lightly. I explorethese topics further in “Paying the Danegeld: Anglo-Saxon Peacemaking with Vikings,” inP. DeSouza and J. France, eds., War and Peace in Ancient and Medieval Europe (Cambrdige,forthcoming).

he failed to make good on the boasts he made when drunk.43 Unferð’s gesture isboth generous and shameful at the same time; it completes Beowulf’s earliervictory in verbal combat by conceding that the hero is the greater swordsman.The poet is more critical of the moral failure of Beowulf’s hearth-troop to cometo his aid in his fatal combat with the dragon, even though he had ordered themto remain in safety. Rather than “choosing battle (hilde-cystum), they fled to thewood to save their lives.”44 For the poet these men are battle-late (hild-latan),false to their oath (treow-logan), and weak (tydre).45 Even more than Unferð,Beowulf’s retainers, with the notable exception of Wiglaf, are shamed by theirsluggishness in fulfilling their duty to their lord. They fail to make good on thegreat promises of love and loyalty they had made to Beowulf in the great hallwhen they drank his mead and accepted his gifts.46 The ethos of reciprocity isviolated and the moral universe of the Geats shattered, as gift fails to call forththe expected loyalty and service owed the ring-giver. Wiglaf does not fear thedragon’s fire less than his companions do. Nonetheless, conscious of duty tolord and kin, mindful of the gifts he accepted, he chooses to push aside the fearand make good promises he earlier made in comfort and safety.

A similar binary opposition between fulfillment and dereliction of duty liesat the heart of the discourse on heroism and cowardice in Maldon.47 The themeis sounded from the beginning. The poet tells us that when Byrhtnoth orderedeach man to drive off his horse, depriving him of easy flight, and to advance onfoot, Offa realized that the earl would not suffer cowardice/shameful behavior(yrhðo, a variation on earg) in his troop.48 What this entailed is immediatelymade clear: “Edric intended to support his lord, his master in the battle; he setoff then to carry his spear to the fray; he maintained good spirit (god geþanc) aslong as he was able to wield with his hands his shield and broad sword; hefulfilled his vow [or boast, beot] when he had need to fight close by his lord.”49

Byrhtnoth then sets about

Drawing up the men there,/ he rode and instructed, he told the soldiers/ how theyshould form up and hold the position,/ and he asked that they should hold their shieldsproperly,/ firmly with their fists, and not be at all afraid (lines 17–21)


43 Beowulf, lines 1455–71, trans. Howell Chickering, Beowulf: A Dual-Language Edition (NewYork, 1966), pp. 132–33.

44 Beowulf, lines 2596–99, Chickering, pp. 204–05.45 Beowulf, lines 2846–49, Chickering, pp. 220–21.46 Beowulf, lines 2631–50, Chickering, pp. 206–08.47 John Hill, The Anglo-Saxon Warrior Ethic: Reconstructing Lordship in Early English Literature

(Gainesville, 2000), pp. 115–28, interprets the choice of Byrhtnoth’s loyal thanes to die on thebattlefield as different from and more demanding than traditional obligations arising from thereciprocal relationship between lord and man had been.

48 “The Battle of Maldon,” trans. Donald Scragg in The Battle of Maldon, AD 991, ed. DonaldScragg (Oxford, 1991), lines 11–16, pp. 18/19.

49 “Maldon,” trans. Scragg, line 207, pp. 26/27.

Byrhtnoth’s admonition that his men face the enemy without fear finds an echoin the poet’s characterization of the defenders of the causeway, Ælfhere andMaccus, as “fearless warriors” (wigan unforhte, line 79). The English underByrhtnoth’s leadership fight well and vigorously until the earl dies in combat.Then “the sons of Odda were the first in flight there, Godric turned from thebattle, and abandoned the brave man, who had often made him a gift of many ahorse.” Godric leaps upon the earl’s horse, the only steed on the battlefield, andflees the battlefield, followed by his two brothers. In typical Anglo-Saxonunderstatement, the poet adds: “they did not care for the battle and sought thewood, they fled into that place of safety and saved their lives.”50 Most of theEnglish troops flee, believing that Godric is Byrhtnoth and the battle is lost.What now follows is a series of speeches in which Byrhtnoth’s unearge men(line 206) announce that they will “either lose their life or avenge their friend.”(line 211) As in Wiglaf’s admonition of his companions, the theme of eachspeech is matching deeds to words and repaying the gifts that one has receivedfrom the lord’s love. The latter is underscored by the traitor Godric’s choice ofhorse upon which to f lee: the earl’s own steed (lines 238–41).

If Godric and his brothers are cowards, what makes them so? Not their flightin itself. Armies admitted defeat by abandoning the battlefield. In theAnglo-Saxon Chronicle defeated armies invariably flee (the expression is fyrdor here gef lymdon) without condemnation. The Judith-poet saw no contradic-tion in characterizing the fleeing Assyrian host as cynerofe, brave nobles (line311). His praise of the defeated enemy merely underscored the magnitude of theHebrew victory. Nor is it because the sons of Odda are fearful and the earl’sunearge men are not. Byrhtnoth’s loyal thegns make their speeches in order toovercome their fear, and it is for this reason they urge each other to think only ofrevenge and forget all else. As the old retainer Byrhtwold declares, “The spirit(hige) must be firmer, the heart the bolder, courage (mod) must be the greater asour strength diminishes.”51 The emphasis here is on choice and resolution. Thecore meanings of the vocabulary of courage in this passage, hige, heorte, and,mod, is “heart”/“mind”/“spirit”,52 and the implication is that toughness of spiritis a matter of conscious resolve. Godric, a member of the earl’s ownhearth-troop, has shown himself to be slothful and sluggish in fulfilling his obli-gations to his lord; Byrhtwold chooses to be resolute. The poet gives no indica-tion that Godric and his brothers had shrunk from battle while Byrhtnoth stilllived, but it is clear from the poet’s presentation that they abandoned the battlewhile its outcome was still in question. Indeed, it was the manner in whichGodric devised his flight, leaping upon Byrhtnoth’s own horse, that sealed the

44 Richard Abels

50 “Maldon,” trans. Donald Scragg, lines 186–195.51 “Maldon,” ed. Scragg, lines 313–14: “Hige sceal þe heardra, heorte þe cenre,/ mod sceal þe

mare þe ure mægen lytlað.”52 Janet Bately, “The Vocabulary of Bravery in Beowulf and the Battle of Maldon,” in Mack C,

Amodio and Katherine O’Brien O’Keeffe, Unlocking the Wordhord. Anglo-Saxon Studies inMemory of Edward B. Irving, Jr. (Toronto, 2003), pp. 274–301, at 292.

defeat, as many others followed him, believing that they were fleeing with theirlord. By doing so, Godric has not only forsworn himself but his lord as well,since Byrhtnoth’s own boasts are now made empty. As Offa concluded, “Godrichas betrayed (beswicene) us, one and all, the cowardly [the word is earh] son ofOdda” (lines 237–38). The poet does not simply draw a contrast between eargemen such as Godric and unearge men such as Offa, Edric, and Byrhtwold. Hemakes a finer distinction between those who abandoned their dead lord on thefield of battle and those who believed that they were following him in flight.The latter, like Unferð, may have forfeited their chance for glory, but the infer-ence is that they have not shamed themselves or betrayed their lord.

This distinction may explain the inclusion of the phrase for his yrhðe in IICnut 77, a law concerned with men who desert their lords on campaign,promulgated around 1020: “And the man who, for his yrhðe, deserts [the term isf leo, flees] his lord or his comrades on an expedition, either by sea or by land,shall lose all that he possesses and his own life, and the lord shall take back theproperty and the land which he had given him.”53 This clause is to be read inconjunction with the one that follows, which orders that “the heriots of a manwho falls before his lord during a campaign, whether within the country orabroad, shall be remitted, and the heirs shall succeed to his land and his prop-erty and make a very just division of the same.”54 Together they offer a “curseand a blessing” respectively upon those who, like Maldon’s Godric, shamefullybreak their vows of loyalty, thereby forfeiting their claim to life and property,and those who, like Byrhtnoth’s loyal thegns, die fulfilling their oaths, therebyconfirming their status as thegns and their right to hold their lands and passthem on to their children.55 Though usually translated as “on account of hiscowardice,” for his yrhðe in II Cnut 77 does not necessarily imply flight out offear. More probably, Archbishop Wulfstan, the author of Cnut’s as well as mostof his predecessor King Æthelred’s law codes, used yrhðo to characterize ascontemptible this abandonment of a lord or friends during a military expedition,much as he castigated his countrymen for earhlice laga and scandlice nydgyld,


53 A. J. Robertson, ed., The Laws of the Kings of England from Edmund to Henry I (Cambridge,1925; repr. 1974), pp. 214, 215.

54 Robertson, Laws, pp. 214, 215.55 II Cnut 77 derives from V Æthelred 28/VI Æthelred 35 in the Enham codes of 1008, which were

also drafted by Archbishop Wulfstan. Robertson, Laws, pp. 86, 87 and 102, 103. There are,however, a number of significant differences. Æthelred’s legislation is concerned specificallywith desertion of an army commanded personally by the king. The earlier codes differ on thepenalty incurred for desertion. In V Æthelred 28 the penalty is to be placed upon the mercy ofthe king. In VI Æthelred 35, perhaps a draft copy, the penalty is loss of property. The earliercodes also do not use the verb f leo, “flees,” to describe the proscribed action but the lessdramatic leafe, “leaves” or “departs.” The severity of the penalties relates to the final clause ofV Æthelred 35 and the first of VI Æthelred, in which all are enjoined (in the language of theformer): “And let us loyally support one royal lord, and all of us together defend our lives andour country, to the best of our ability, and from our inmost heart pray to God Almighty forhelp.” Robertson, Laws, pp. 90, 91.

“disgraceful laws [presumably not the ones he drafted] and shameful tributes,”in his jeremiad of 1014, the “Sermon of the Wolf.”56 II Cnut 77, unlike Article99 of the UCMJ, is not concerned with the motivation underlying “the refusal orabandonment of a performance of duty before or in the presence of the enemy.”Similarly, the Enham code Wulfstan drafted for King Æthelred in 1008prescribes penalties for anyone leaving an army without permission, withoutreference to the motivation of the deserter.57 This seems to be a characteristic ofAnglo-Saxon law in general, typified by the well known tariffs levied forcausing death or injury based only upon the status of the victim (or, in somecases, perpetrator) usually without consideration of intention.58 This disinterestin motivation may reflect an aspect of Anglo-Saxon culture profoundly alien toour own: its lack of a fully developed sense of interiority.59 Why one abandoneda lord in need was immaterial; that one did so knowingly and voluntarily wassufficient in itself to incur shame and punishment.

The flight of an army upon the death or withdrawal of its leader in an age inwhich personal allegiance bound warriors to the combat was to be expected, forthe death of the lord dissolved the bonds that held the troop together. As one ofthe sayings in the Durham Proverbs put it, “The whole army is bold when itsleader is bold” (Eall here bið hwæt þonne lateow byþ hwæt).60 And if acommander proved irresolute it was expected that his troops would as well. Thesaying quoted by the author of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle’s entry for 1003,

46 Richard Abels

56 Sermo Lupi ad Anglos, in Dorothy Bethurum, ed., The Homilies of Wulfstan (Oxford, 1957),p. 271 (lines 106–07). That Wulfstan here used the adjective earhlice to connote “base” or“dishonorable” is implied by the variant reading earmlice, “wretched,” “despicable,” thatappears in Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS Hatton 113. Cf. line 182: “lyðre yrhðe Godes bydela”where the yrhðe (sluggishness? cowardice?) of the preachers “who mumbled through theirjaws” is presented in apposition to the asolcennesse (sloth, laziness) of the bishops.

57 V Æthelred 28 and VI Æthelred 35.58 I owe this insight to Ellen Harrison. However, Archbishop Wulfstan in the secular law code he

drafted for Cnut does draw a distinction between voluntary and deliberate wrong-doing andsuch actions committed either unintentionally or under compulsion, which he saw ascompletely unlike cases. II Cnut 68 §§ 2–3.

59 There is some evidence, however, for increased awareness of spiritual interiority among lateAnglo-Saxon ecclesiastical writers, as evidenced by the rhetoric of Archbishop Wulfstan in IICnut 84: “I earnestly entreat all men and command them, in the name of God, to submit in theirinmost hearts (inweardre heortan) to their lord.” Wulfstan used this same evocative phrase,“inweardre heortan,” elsewhere in the law codes (VII Æthelred 2.1, I Cnut 4.3; 21), in his Insti-tutes of Polity, and in two of his homilies. It appears several times as well in homilies by Ælfricof Eynsham and in those by anonymous contemporaries. The Complete Corpus of Old Englishfrom the Dictionary of Old English Project, Centre for Medieval Studies, University of Toronto,ed. Antonette di Paolo Healey (http://ets.umdl.umich.edu/o/oec/). See also the Old EnglishHexateuch, Deut. 4:29: “Gif ge hine mid inweardre heortan seceaþ si toto corde quæsieris.”Joseph Bosworth and T. Northcote Toller, Anglo-Saxon Dictionary (Oxford, 1898), p. 597 (s.v.inweard).

60 Quoted by Thomas Hill, “ ‘When the Leader Is Brave . . .’: An Old English Proverb and itsVernacular Context,” Anglia: Zeitschrift für englische Philologie 119.2 (2001), 232–36. SeeArngart, 293 (proverb 22).

“When the leader gives way, the whole army will be much hindered” (ðonne seheretoga wacað þonne bið eall se here swiðe),61 is at least as old as Alcuin, whogave a variation on it in his letter to Archbishop Eanbald II: “If he who bears thestandard flees, what does the army do? . . . If the leader is fearful, how shall thesoldier be made safe?” (Si dux timidus erit, quommodo salvabitur miles?).62

Alfred in his translation of Gregory the Great’s Cura Pastoralis makes a similarobservation: “if the general (heretoga) goes astray, the army (here) is whollyidle, when it should be striving against other nations.”63 For the main chroniclerfor Æthelred II’s reign, the man responsible for the C,D,E recensions of theAnglo-Saxon Chronicle, the question was not, however, about weakness orwaywardness but disloyalty. This, along with the king’s irresolution and thefavoritism he showed to traitors, is the Chronicler’s – and Wulfstan’s – explana-tion for English defeat.64 (Perhaps this is why the Maldon-poet chose to charac-terize Godric’s flight as a betrayal.) Consider the passage from the annal for1003 quoted at the head of this paper: “The ealdorman Ælfric was to lead thearmy, but he was up to his old tricks. As soon as they were so close that eacharmy looked on the other, he feigned him sick, and began retching to vomit, andsaid that he was taken ill, and thus betrayed the people whom he should haveled.” The chronicler does not imply that Ælfric (or Eadric Streona) was acoward. The vomiting, rather than a sign of timidity or uncontrollable fear, ispassed off as one of his “old tricks,” an accusation of duplicity that starklycontrasts with the United States Army’s initial characterization of the similarreaction of the unfortunate Sergeant Pogany to the horrors of war: “cowardlyconduct as a result of fear, in that he refused to perform his duties.”65 The


61 ASC, s.a. 1003, trans. Whitelock, p. 86; G. P. Cubbin, ed., The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle: aCollaborative Edition, 6: MS D (Cambridge, 1996), s.a. 1003.

62 Alcuin, “Letter to Eanbald II,” in E. Dümmler, Monumenta Germaniae historica, Epistolae IV:Epistolae Karolini aevi, 2 (Berlin, 1895), Epistola no. 232. Letters of Alcuin, Patrologia Latinacursus completus 100, col. 345A; noted by Charles Plummer, Two of the Saxon ChroniclesParallel, 2 vols (Oxford, 1892), 2:183.

63 Alfred, King Alfred’s West-Saxon Version of Gregory’s Pastoral Care, ed. Henry Sweet, 2 vols.,Early English Text Society, Original Series (London, 1871–72), ch. 18, vol. 2, p. 129: “Sua eacðaet heaford bið unhall eall ða limu bið idelu, ðaeh hie hale sien, sua eac bið se here eal idel,ðonne he on oðer folc winnan sceal, gif se heretoga dwolað.” Thomas Hill, “ ‘When the Leaderis Brave,’ ” 233, discusses Alfred’s alteration of Gregory’s original text.

64 Achbishop Wulfstan’s “Sermon of the Wolf,” written in 1014, explains the military reverses ofthe English and the suffering of the realm as a consequence of the many treacheries committedby the English against their lords. For Wulfstan, these treacheries culminated in the murder ofone king, Edward the Martyr, and the exile of another, his brother Æthelred. Anglo-SaxonProse, ed. and trans. Michael Swanton (London, 1975), pp. 116–22, at 118–19. Alice Sheppardexplains the narrative strategy of the Æthelred-Cnut entries in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle as adiscourse on the failure of lordship. The disloyalty and treacheries of ealdormen Ælfric andEadric Streona and other English leaders mirror King Æthelred’s own bad lordship, so that “theking’s disloyal lordship breeds more disloyalty,” eventually leading to Æthelred’s loss of hiskingdom. Families of the King: Writing Identity in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle (Toronto, 2004),pp. 94–120.

65 The New York Times, Friday, October 31, 2003, A8. The charges were soon lessened to the more

Chronicler will not permit his villains the excuse of a timid nature. In this annaland others irresolution and weakness give way to a different and far moredamning source of shame, perfidy, oath-breaking. But as I have suggestedabove, the two were intimately connected, since the weakness or sloth that kepta man from performing his duty to his lord was willful and therefore was initself perfidious. The author of the entries for Æthelred II’s reign in the C,D,Estock of the Chronicle, because of his theme of treachery, made the connectionexplicit. Perhaps by pointing up the treacheries of Æthelred’s generals, theChronicler was critiquing the king’s own failure of courage and will in dele-gating the responsibility of defending the realm to others.66

Anglo-Saxon “cowardice,” if we may call it that, thus differed from Aristote-lian and modern conceptions of cowardice. Indeed, it might be more accurate tosay that the Anglo-Saxons did not possess a conception of cowardice as aspecific and unique failing of character or action. War leaders and warriors wereshamed not because they possessed timid or fearful temperaments but becausethey were seen to be sluggish or lazy in fulfilling their pledges and boasts toserve and protect their lord (or, in the case of a king, God). Their deeds, in short,failed to match their brave – and often drunken – words. Janet Bately concludedabout the vocabulary of bravery in Maldon, “what bravery words there are inthat part of the poem that has come down to us are linked to the hope/expectation/intention of brave behaviour (or braveness of mind), rather than tospecific actions of boldness or bravery. Not what people are, but what they needto be.”67 The vocabulary of cowardice, similarly, was linked to a lack of resolu-tion that manifested itself in a shameful failure to fulfill one’s vows in times ofdanger. What made it truly shameful was that this dereliction was seen as a

48 Richard Abels

common and far less serious charge of “dereliction of duty” and then dropped entirely when thephysician in charge of the Department of Defense Spatial Orientation Center in San Diegoagreed with Pogany’s lawyer that he suffered from a psychological disorder due to ananti-malaria drug he had taken: The New York Times, November 7, 2003, A 17; “Case droppedagainst American soldier initially accused of cowardice,” CNN.com, July 15, 2004, http:/www.cnn.com/2004/US/07/15/army.dropped.charges/. Even after the charges were dropped, Poganyclaims that he was treated like a pariah by some members of his unit. MSNBC.com, Dec. 30,2003, http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3840267/.

66 In the annal for 1013, the Chronicler comments that the people of London would not yield toKing Swein because King Ælthelred and his Danish mercenary captain Thorkell the Tall wereinside the borough. In contrast, three years later an army raised by the king’s son Edmunddissolved because Æthelred refused to lead it. Later in that year a second levy came to nothingwhen Æthelred suddenly left it because of rumors of a plot against him in the ranks. Cf. Ælfricof Eynsham’s homily, “Wyrdwriteras us secgað ða ðe awritan be cyningum,” in Homilies ofÆlfric: A Supplementary Collection, ed. John C. Pope, Early English Text Society, OriginalSeries 259–60 (London, 1967–68) 2:725–33, which justifies the practice of king’s deputizinggenerals to lead their armies, and seems to be replying to contemporary criticism of KingÆthelred. On Ælfric’s general attitude towards war and his concern that the lay nobility performits military duty, see John Edward Damon, Soldier Saints and Holy Warriors: Warfare andSanctity in the Literature of Early England (Aldershot, 2003), pp. 192–246.

67 Bately, “The Vocabulary of Bravery,” p. 294.

matter of choice. This is not to say that the Anglo-Saxons ignored the power offear. Fear was the proper and expected response to divine prodigies and to theterrors of the sea. Fear, it was acknowledged, was felt by soldiers when theyfaced a superior enemy in battle, and there was no shame in following one’s lordin flight from the battlefield. But the Anglo-Saxons did not credit inner fearwith the motive power to override a soldier’s rational will, as Aristotle andmodern conceptions of cowardice do. To give in to fear was a matter of choice;it was an unmanly sluggishness of will. To an Anglo-Saxon audience, Beowulf’shearth-troop hiding in the woods while their lord engaged in mortal combatwere shirkers. This was probably the view throughout the Anglo-Saxon period.But in the context of the military disasters that marked the reign of KingÆthelred II, behavior that would have earlier been viewed as a failure of nervewas now characterized as a species of perfidy, a willful betrayal of the lordshipbond. This was less dramatic a shift than one might think. To accuse a man oftreachery was certainly more damning than to dismiss him as lacking resolu-tion, but, in a sense, the two accusations inhabited the same moral sphere. Forthe shame of both arose from a man’s willful failure to fulfill his duty to hislord.


Cowardice and Fear Management

4

Cowardice and Fear Management:The 1173–74 Conflict as a Case Study1

Steven Isaac

“No athlete can fight tenaciously who has never received anyblows; he must see his blood flow and hear his teeth crack underthe fist of his adversary, and when he is thrown to the ground hemust fight on with all his might and not lose courage. The oftenerhe falls, the more determinedly he must spring to his feet again.Anyone who can do that can engage in battle confidently. Strengthgained by practice is invaluable: a soul subject to terror hasfleeting glory.” (Roger of Howden, Chronicle2)

A more shrewd historian than myself once reminded me that loyalty is thesort of thing usually more measurable in the breach than in the proof. The samelesson holds true for courage, which may well be more definable by its oftenunspoken counterpart, cowardice. An understanding of cowardice does not, ofcourse, yield an immediate counter-image of courage. As William Miller’srecent essay aptly demonstrates, combatants have long recognized that fearabounds even among those deemed courageous. A soldier of the American CivilWar demanded to know in words that might still apply today: “What is acoward, anyhow? Cravens, and dastards, and poltroons, we know at sight. Butwho are the cowards? And how do we distinguish them from heroes? How doesGod tell?”3 Obviously, Roger of Howden felt he had a piece of the answer (ormore correctly, he had found an answer in the Epistles of Seneca, whom he wasquoting).

His commentary above came as he praised Henry II’s sons for theirsuccessful apprenticeship in the rough politics of the Plantagenet dominions. Heset down these words at an interesting historiographical juncture: namely, whena growing number of authors were less likely to be secluded monks, but ratherclerics fully immersed (drowning, even?) in the life of the court, or wholly

1 A number of readers have helped in the gestation of this article, and the editors of the JMMHhave given invaluable comments and critiques. To them all, I extend my thanks for improvingthe argument. It goes (almost) without saying that any weaknesses and errors that remain arewholly my responsibility.

2 Roger of Howden, Chronica, vol. 1 (London, 1862), p. 166.3 William Miller, The Mystery of Courage (Cambridge, MA, 2000), p. 3.

secular authors writing as often in their vernacular language as in Latin.Western Europe thus had several literary streams converging at this point. Theliterary output of chivalric culture was reaching a first crest and, combined withthe already rich sources of classical writers and Christian scriptures that medi-eval historians mined, these writings provided no shortage of exemplars that, itwas hoped, would inspire medieval warriors. The sought-after inspiration had aparticular goal: to persuade the person facing combat that the impendingdiscomfort of minor wounds, mutilation, wounds which might lead to death,and, of course, the risk of immediate death itself, were better to face than theshame, the ignominy, of flight. Like their twenty-first-century counterparts, theshapers of twelfth-century military culture expected warriors to be frightened.Somehow, medieval combatants had to be convinced that Monty Python’sadvice to “run away” was not in their best interest. Even a cursory perusal oftwelfth-century sources, however, also demonstrates that retreat from battle,even a refusal to fight, might not carry with it some sort of inherent shame. Likethe nineteenth-century soldier above, his medieval predecessors understood theissue defied simple categories. It almost goes without saying, then, that onecannot look at courage without examining cowardice. And vice-versa.4

The conflict that swept through the Plantagenet dominions in 1173–74provides one of the earliest major arenas in which we may observe thesedynamics being played out and subsequently being recorded by knowledgeableparties, and my intent in this article is to use the 1173–74 conflict as a labora-tory in which to explore medieval assumptions about cowardice and fear. If weremain content with Antonia Gransden’s categories, at least four types of histo-rian – secular, romance, satirical, and religious – narrate these events, completewith assumptions about what constituted cowardly and courageous behavior.5

Nearly all were paragons of medieval historiography. Roger of Howden’s long

Cowardice and Fear Management 51

4 Philippe Contamine’s War in the Middle Ages, trans. Michael Jones (Oxford, 1984), p. 250,effectively pointed a generation of historians toward this topic when he answered affirmativelyhis own question of whether a history of something so intangible as courage could be, andshould be, attempted. The subject naturally appears in any study of chivalry, but the mostdirectly focused analysis is Miller’s The Mystery of Courage. Miller stresses that some under-standing of cowardice is the necessary corollary to any conclusions about courage. In addition,he points out the first step, especially of military historians, in any analysis: “All scholarlybooks require by convention a craven gesture right at the start, a desperate effort to plead thelimits of expertise and knowledge to ward off figurative beatings anticipated down the road.”Miller, pp. ix–x. Military historians have naturally focused on the courage/cowardicedichotomy, especially since it was the implicit theme of John Keegan’s The Face of Battle.Victor Davis Hanson, The Western Way of War (Berkeley, 1989), likewise dealt with the ques-tion in his study of hoplite warfare. Not surprisingly, J. F. Verbruggen, The Art of Warfare inWestern Europe during the Middle Ages, trans. Sumner Willard and R.W. Southern, 2nd Englished. (Woodbridge, 1997), pp. 36–49, 177–81, showed the link superbly in his analysis of howfear actually led to more effective formations. Also see Richard Kaueper, Chivalry and Violencein Medieval Europe (Oxford, 1999), pp. 165–66.

5 Antonia Gransden, Historical Writing in England, c.550–c.1307, vol. 2 (London, 1974), pp.222, 247.

career with Henry II’s court gave him a better understanding of the agendas, thefears, and the standards by which the laity were likely to be shaped. The sameholds true for the Gesta Regis attributed to Benedict of Peterborough, but whichstill remains likely to have come from Howden as well. Ralph of Diceto likewisespent time at Henry II’s court and on the continent, and his post at St. Paul’s inLondon hardly constrained his interests; in fact, his strong friendships withNorman ecclesiastics explain the details he could give about events there. Threeof the great vernacular histories of the twelfth century (Jordan Fantosme’sChronique, the Histoire de Guillaume le Maréchal and the Song of Dermot andthe Earl) also present us the opportunity to gain clearer insights into the laity’sassumptions about behavior that qualified as cowardly.6 The works of WalterMap and Gerald of Wales yield up similar information, although composed inLatin, thanks to the incisive social criticism that each was prone to deliver.Finally, even the monastic chroniclers of this epoch suffer little from any realseclusion. Robert of Torigni, as abbot of Mont-Saint-Michel, had occasion totravel around Normandy, even to England, and his interest in the quarrels ofHenry II and his sons led to in-depth coverage of the 1173–74 conflict. Williamof Newburgh, although he apparently may have never left his region of York-shire, has long held a premier place among medieval chroniclers thanks to hiscritical acumen, being one of the earliest critics of Geoffrey of Monmouth’sfanciful history. Even a recent suggestion by John Gillingham that William mayhave been a bit less objective than is normally allowed still admitted that hisjudgments were applied rather evenly.7

Unfortunately, there is one significant gap in the sources. Henry II’s foes arewholly under-represented in the surviving histories, chronicles and poems. Thegreat historical works of the French court date from much later, and not surpris-ingly, focus more on the achievements of Philip II than the setbacks of LouisVII. Geoffrey de Vigeois’ account, normally so full of detail and analysis, fallssurprisingly short in his coverage of the 1173–74 war.8 This is all the morelamentable since, of course, the events that might draw forth charges of

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6 I am referring here of course to the benefits pointed out by Verbruggen, The Art of Warfare inWestern Europe during the Middle Ages, that “among the best of the most reliable sources arethose written in the vernacular . . . They provide a clear and distinct terminology.” pp. 13–14.Admittedly, the clearest witness to secular ideals, the Histoire de Guillaume le Maréchal, wascomposed more than four decades later and with a convenient vagueness about these events.But the effort by the Marshal or his biographer to gloss over such a convoluted passage in hislife testifies again to the event’s importance in testing the boundaries of acceptable values. SeeDavid Crouch, William Marshal (New York, 1990), p. 38.

7 For most of the points above, see Gransden, Historical Writing, pp. 219–68. Also, JohnGillingham, “Two Yorkshire Historians Compared: Roger of Howden and William ofNewburgh,” Haskins Society Journal 12 (2002), 15–37.

8 Compare for instance, his coverage of the conflicts between Henry’s sons and, eventually, theking himself, in the early 1180s, which approaches almost the status of a journal in its detail.Geoffroi de Vigeois, Chronica, ed. Martin Bouquet, Recueil des Historiens des Gaules et de laFrance (Paris, 1879), 12:443, and the full version of Geoffroi de Vigeois in Philippe Labbe,Novae Bibliothecae Manuscript. Librorum, vol. 2 (Paris, 1657), p. 320.

cowardice are rarely seen in the same way by different eyes, especially thosewith different political sympathies.

Not only could chivalric culture boast by these years a growing body of liter-ature that promoted valor, but it had given birth to the almost regular circuit oftournaments where, because of the quite real potential for fatalities, the replica-tion of battlefield conditions came as close as one might reasonably expect.Actual combat, however, involved more than just knights: paid infantryappeared, even dominated, amid the battles and sieges, and townsfolk and peas-antry fought with distinction. Medieval chronicles gave repeated praise to allthree groups in the campaigns of the war for choosing to fight when otheroptions also existed. Most of all, though, Henry II himself garnered attention –primarily for not being overborne by the tide of familial and baronial defections,augmented as they were by the array of external foes planning to invade. Thetenor of the chroniclers (who all supported Henry over his sons) was that, hadhe chosen to capitulate in some fashion, it would have been understandable, notcowardly. Instead, he performed as a model of resolution, and by thwartingpersonal fear, triumphed against all odds and expectations.

The odds were indeed formidable. After two decades of nearly continuoussuccess against secular opponents, Henry had quite a list of aggrieved orworried neighbors: the most important was his nominal overlord on the conti-nent, King Louis VII of France, but there were also the strategically criticalcounties of Blois, Boulogne, and Flanders, who together ringed Henry’s territo-ries to the north and east. To the far north, Henry’s relations with William ofScotland were sufficiently bad that the mere mention of that king’s name couldtrigger one of Henry’s abusive paroxysms of rage. In the winter of 1172–73,however, Henry might have seemed just as unstoppable as ever when he securedhis long-standing claim to Toulouse. His new vassal demonstrated his loyalty,though, by revealing to Henry the existence of a plot against the king by hiswife and three eldest sons.9 All three sons had been given titles within the“Angevin Empire” but little else, and certainly nothing that might give them thewherewithal to pursue independent policies. The younger Henry, alreadyanointed as king of England and duke of Normandy in conjunction with hisfather, smouldered over this treatment, and such embers of resentment werequite skillfully fanned by his father-in-law, Louis VII. Raymond of Toulouse’srevelations apparently spurred whatever plans had been made into a set ofhigh-speed chases. The younger Henry fled from his father’s court at Chinon,and Henry II gave chase across most of Anjou and Normandy before the YoungKing obtained the safety of his father-in-law’s lands. The young Henry’s head-long flight excited no pejorative comment among the contemporary chroni-clers; indeed, one gets the sense that observers saw a bit of daring in the verydefiance of running beyond Henry II’s reach. Moreover, as Jacques Boussardpointed out some time ago, the combined distance and speed of the young


9 Geoffrey de Vigeois, Chronica, in Recueil des Historiens des Gaules et de la France, 12:443.

king’s escape testify to the fact that the whole business had been pre-arranged,with relays already in place along the route.10 Queen Eleanor meanwhileencouraged Richard and Geoffrey to join their brother in Paris, and sent themahead of herself. She was making her own way there more surreptitiously,disguised as a man, when Henry had the immeasurable good fortune to captureher. Once word spread that Henry II’s own family had turned against him, theaggrieved and the worried came together to cement an alliance. The tide againstHenry only seemed to grow stronger as major barons in Normandy and Englanddeclared their defections; and in ever-rebellious Poitou several leading familiesseized the chance to break free from Henry’s tightening control.11 By April of1173, seemingly out of nowhere, Henry II faced odds that staggered contempo-rary observers. Walter Map judged this Absalom-style rebellion far greater inscale than the original, and the History of William Marshal declared that thiswar of three kings “was such that never was its like seen before.12

The accounts of the next year or so of campaigning actually give fewinstances of clear-cut cowardice. The young king’s flight, noted above, was anecessary first step to inaugurating any campaign against Henry II, but none ofthe narratives suggest even a hint of cowardice in the cross-country chase. Themost likely example, instead, is Robert of Leicester, who bolted from his castleat Breteuil simply when Henry II passed nearby on his way to raise the siege ofVerneuil. On the whole, the war itself was marked by pragmatic (one might evensay scientific) decision-making, punctuated by occasional displays of overcon-fidence. But cowardice, particularly as it was perceived or even projected by theparticipants, still played a key role in both strategic and tactical decisions.

Indeed, the fear merely of appearing cowardly helped bring the king of Scot-land into the coalition of Henry’s foes. William the Lion prevaricated when firstapproached about joining the Young King’s cause, enquiring instead of the elderHenry whether his help might be worth the return of Northumberland to Scot-tish control. Henry saw more extortion than genuine aid in this offer, and hisresponse, although at first seemingly full of bluster, was more than braggadocio.“Tell the king of Scotland that I am in no anxiety about any war my son is nowwaging against me, nor about the king of France and his men, nor about thecount of Flanders, who is invading my lands not for the first time.” Henry wenton to stress through the envoys that “He was not a fugitive from his land, nor

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10 Jacques Boussard, Le Gouvernement d’Henri II Plantagenêt (Paris, 1956), p. 475. It is worthnoting, however, that he simply may have been able, as king himself, to “requisition” whateverhorses he came upon during his dash northward.

11 Gesta Regis Henrici Secundi, 1 (London, 1867), pp. 41–45; Roger of Howden, 2:46; William ofNewburgh, 170.

12 Walter Map, De Nugis Curialium, ed. and trans. M. R. James (Oxford, 1983), pp. 278–80;History of William Marshal, ed. A. J. Holden, trans. S. Gregory, vol. 1 (London, 2002), lines2223–4. One can also sense perhaps that the speed of events overtook the conspirators if, asrelated by Jordan Fantosme, Louis VII indeed had to be persuaded that this was the opportunityeveryone in the coalition had sought. Jordan Fantosme, Jordan Fantosme’s Chronicle, ed. andtrans. R. C. Johnston (Oxford, 1981), lines 31–60.

had he become an outcast.”13 Although usually happy to accept comparisonwith the David of scripture,14 Henry in this case wanted no one to hear anyechoes of David’s flight into the wilderness. His uncompromising stance wasthus a calculated risk, a threat that if successful would have prevented outrighthostilities. It failed, however, to keep his northern borders quiet becauseWilliam’s court had a climate different from what Henry anticipated. When the“young and untutored” knights of William’s court heard Henry’s snub, theyupbraided their own king, advising a like show of confidence. William wasswept along in the current and, when older members of his court let show theirreluctance for war with Henry, the Scottish king swore that their “cowardice”would not deter his plans. Earl Waltheof countered, “Do not think that I speakthus out of fear nor that, as long as life lasts, I shall let you down if war comes.”He stressed rather that the Scots were unprepared: “We are not well versed inwar and that is what frightens me.”15 There is a later indication in Fantosme’saccount that William may well have thought better of opening hostilities withHenry, but by then he could not withdraw. Once his defiance of Henry was clear,“he could not abandon [the project] except by great cowardice.”16

Herein lies one of the key dynamics of the 1173–74 war: the apprenticeshipof chivalry (i.e. tournaments) sought to instill a particular form of courage, anindividual valor most visibly demonstrated in the joust, but the complexity ofwarfare meant that even in the mêlée, victory belonged more and more to thosewho struggled not merely as individual warriors, but as part of a system. Atmore than a few of the tournaments attended by William Marshal and the youngking, victory went not to the daring individual, but to carefully utilized andhusbanded units. Contemporary with these developments, Guiot de Provinscomplained that knights were being displaced in combat by more prosaicelements: the sergeant, the archer, even the engineer.17 Earl Waltheof undoubt-edly foresaw that the coming warfare would pivot on how the latter typesperformed. The ability of Wark, Alnwick, Carlisle, and Prudhoe to withstandScottish attack testified to the earl’s prescience. With the campaigning seasonalready upon them, there was no time, of course, nor any feasible way, for theScots to become sufficiently versed in siegecraft. William understood this, evenif he publicly mocked Waltheof’s counsel. Before committing to the coalition,he asked Philip of Flanders for contingents of his men with skill in reducingfortresses.18 Perhaps some of the knights of William’s court had experienced the


13 Fantosme, lines 342–45, 372.14 Martin Aurell, L’Empire Plantagenêt 1154–1224 (Perrin, 2003), 35.15 Fantosme, lines 378–406.16 Fantosme, lines 679–80.17 Guiot de Provins, “Bible,” ed. John Orr, Les Oeuvres de Guiot de Provins (Manchester, 1915).18 The earl is, of course, right on the razor’s edge between cowardice and commendable caution.

Miller, in the introduction to his The Mystery of Courage, points out that good generals do seetheir weak points and guard them. The problem in the case of at least one general of the Amer-ican Civil War was that he expended so much effort on protecting these weak spots that he neverdeveloped the chance to go on the offense.

sort of training that Roger of Howden advised, the sort of conditioning that onecould acquire in tournaments. Certainly, their allies gathered in Paris had, notleast among them the Young King himself and Philip of Flanders. What, then,had that particular school of hard knocks taught them about cowardice?

This: that simple flight amid the vicissitudes of the mêlée did not suffice toearn shame. Throughout William Marshal’s biography, renowned warriors facedno opprobrium in fleeing overwhelming odds. William himself may have alwaysstood his ground, but if so, in several cases his opponents were in such expecta-tion of flight on his part that they had to pause and form new strategies againsthim. If flight then was common enough, even expected as Stephen Morillo hasamply pointed out in his article, some further factor was necessary to the equa-tion before charges of cowardice could be leveled and sustained. That otheringredient may have been simply a lack of zeal in rushing to battle; to be the“flower of chivalry” one had to “most readily obey the call of valour.” Thuspraise went also to Amaury of Meulan, who “was no sluggard on the field ofcombat.”19 In Jordan Fantosme’s account, he lauded the arrival of the aging earlof Arundel, “never one for dallying,” in time for the rout of the Flemings nearFornham.20 Even critics like Gerald of Wales admired the speed with whichHenry II flung himself into all his affairs. And Fantosme, taking some libertywith Henry’s actual tactics, would have us see the king riding out “against themwith all speed” as soon as his foes banded together.21 If by this phrase, Fantosmemeans that Henry struck quickly, he is wrong. Instead, the English monarchspent most of April 1173 waiting. Relying on the steadiness of his hiredBrabançons, Henry let the rashness of his enemies work to their own undoing.These professional soldiers, renowned for methodical and innovative techniquesin combat, were the king’s mainstay precisely because they were paid in coinrather than operating in the insecure economy of glory and prestige. They weredoubtless content to enjoy a bit of “Sitzkrieg.” In contrast, William the Lioncould scarcely be bothered to halt his invasion for more than four days at a timein order to besiege the garrisons of northern England. Instead, he diluted hisown forces by leaving the sieges behind and pushing further intoNorthumberland. This impetuous advance demonstrates another legacy of thetournament’s training: the world of tourneying endeavored to train its aficio-nados to opt reflexively in the moment of “fight or flight” for the combativeoption, particularly in the hope that the unhesitating assault would drive allbefore it.22 In many cases, of course, such a choice was, to put the best face on

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19 History of William Marshal, vol. 1, lines 1886–87, 4511–12.20 Fantosme, line 1012.21 Gerald of Wales, De Principis Instructione Liber, in Giraldi Cambrensis Opera, vol. 8, ed.

George Warner (London, 1891), p. 214. Fantosme, line 65: “Li reis Henri chevalche cuntre els aespuruns . . .”

22 Hesitation in battle is a problematic action, and how that action was “read” has a great deal todo with how soldiers viewed their commanders. Henry II was methodical, and it was respected.William the Lion, epithet notwithstanding, still had something to prove versus his opponents.

it, counter-productive. It certainly was for William’s cause. He had to keep upthe appearance of seeking the decisive battle, of chasing gloire, to satisfy anecessary portion of his army. The real talent, of course, was to be able tomeasure risks pragmatically; it was, after all, not expected that a warrior throwhimself uselessly against impossible odds.23

In the spring of 1173, once the two camps had clearly formed, one mightexpect Henry II to have judged himself up against just such odds. As notedabove, his contemporaries certainly did. Recalling these weeks several decadeslater, Gerald of Wales described the king’s state:

In this hopeless conflict the king began to be so deeply afflicted that neither hehimself, nor any one else, could ever suppose that his fortune would rise again. Forsince his domestics were his enemies, and since the enmity of those of the same familyis among the worst of human plagues, this added to the weight of his grief and despair.Those soldiers whom he had selected for his bed-chamber, men in whose hands he hadplaced both his death and life, were abandoning him in a hostile spirit almost everynight to join his sons, and were sought for in vain in the morning.24

This sort of despondency, medieval commanders well knew, could be a diseaseleading straight to collapse. On the other hand, “It’s very true that joy andhappiness enhance a man’s wisdom and thinking,” according to the History ofWilliam Marshal.25 In one of his “courtiers’ trifles,” Walter Map told of how onedesperate group of men were able to bring back their former leader from retire-ment at Cluny. By winning a succession of small victories, he enabled them to“convalesce,” and thereby to come out of their depression.26 For his owntherapy, Henry II turned to the hunt, apparently doing little else from Aprilthrough July. Thomas Jones’ monograph of the 1173–74 war proposes thatHenry was using his known love for the hunt as an excuse to escape prying eyes,that in fact as he daily roamed the countryside around Rouen, Henry wasactually meeting with his subordinates and issuing the orders which quietlymobilized his considerable resources. Jones admits that this is only supposi-tion.27 Up to a point, however, the chroniclers and Henry’s own Pipe Rolls dosupport this theory. The Gesta Regis describes Henry II as “fearing” the traps ofthe French, but this clearly refers to a strategic respect for his foes. The authorgoes on to describe Henry as restocking his frontier fortresses and bringingmany of them up to battle-readiness with new earthworks and hoardings. In


Stephen Jaeger, in an analysis of chivalric tales, has shown that knights could indeed feel fear;they just could not show it. The latter was the true transgression. “Notes Toward a Sociology ofFear in Courtly Society,” Journal of English and Germanic Philology 81 (1984), 49.

23 On such expectations, see Stephen Morillo, “Cultures of Death: Warrior Suicide in Europe andJapan”, The Medieval History Journal 4 (2001), 241–57.

24 Gerald of Wales, De Principis Instructione Liber, in Opera, 8:163–64.25 History of William Marshal, vol. 1, lines 1485–86. I have preferred here “wisdom” to Gregory’s

choice of “capacity” for sens in the original.26 Walter Map, p. 342.27 Thomas Jones, The War of the Generations: The Revolt of 1173–4 (Ann Arbor, 1980), p. 109.

addition, his chancery was busy sending admonitions to castellans across therealm to do likewise.28 The Pipe Rolls of 1173–74 show a great deal of militaryequipment being transferred across England by Henry’s order. In particular, thegarrisons along the Welsh border, which Henry regarded as apparently secureafter the 1171 treaty with Rhys ap Griffith, were thinned out; archers,crossbowmen, and engineers were moved, with several large contingents ofsergeants being sent directly to Normandy. Likewise, heavy machines such asmangonels were requisitioned. Given the numerous payments for locating andusing vessels all along the southern coast, it seems much of this material wastransferred to the continent. Vessels from the northeastern coasts were trans-ferred south to help in all the transport duties.29 Henry II’s own confidence, ifwe accept that it sank as low as Gerald of Wales thought, was clearly restoredonce he had given himself the technological, perhaps even the numerical, edgein this particular theater. To his barons he outlined his intentions: to take advan-tage of his enemies’ overconfidence. “A siege-engine is a better weapon againstfoes in the full flush of insolence than a half-hearted attack when they are not sofull of valor.”30 Perhaps Henry knew full well that his seeming inactivity helpedincubate his foes’ overconfidence. Could he have tried to have it both ways:while he played no David to William of Scotland, did he entice his son,Absalom-like, into thinking he would be easier to eliminate as soon as theYoung King had gathered enough forces?

Certainly, Henry’s well-earned reputation called for an impressive collectionof opponents to gather before they could feel brave enough to fight him withinhis own domains. Informed observers knew that a proven commander was aninestimable aid in preventing cowardice among the rank and file troops. “Mylords,” declaimed the Marshal’s biographer, “I can tell you for certain that onebrave man’s prowess puts heart into a whole great army; because of him, and hisskill at arms, they fought so bravely that they were worth twice the force theywere.”31 In this area, Henry was well-served, especially in the persons whocommanded his northern garrisons. Roger Stuteville was commended as “nocoward, nor wrong-headed about the art of war, nor less than chivalrous in hisconduct.” At the same time, however, “no wiser, more balanced, more noblewarrior was ever heard of.” Like Henry, he knew when to rein in the violentenergies of his troops. “Shoot your arrows only in cases of greatest need,” hecommanded. “We do not know what they propose to do or what they arethinking.” Even at the point of victory he retained the presence of mind tocounsel his rejoicing troops not to taunt the retreating Scots so much that they

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28 Gesta Regis Henrici Secundi, 1:42.29 Pipe Roll 19 Henry II and Pipe Roll 20 Henry II, passim, but see especially the entries under

Herefordshire, Yorkshire, Wiltshire, Sussex, and Devonshire.30 Fantosme, lines 147–48.31 History of William Marshal, vol. 1, lines 931–36.

might resume the siege. But once the Scots were well and gone, he joined hismen in the cries of victory.32

The commander who boosted his own troops’ morale naturally had a recip-rocal effect on the enemy’s emotional state. It was a dynamic simply of eachside estimating, through its leader, its own chances for triumph in a comingclash. Henry II came into the 1173–74 war with a carefully husbanded reputa-tion of near invincibility. When Henry finally moved into decisive action inAugust, Fantosme was sure that the Anglo-Norman barons (and by extension,everyone else) knew the tide was turning: “You are full of martial fervour,” theytold Henry. “Luck has turned against your enemies.” Indeed, even withoutHenry present in the subsequent Breton campaign, his lieutenants moved fromvictory to victory. Reeling from one defeat, the rebel Ralph of Fougères spokeplainly to his followers: “This is no occasion for foolishness, nor for boasting,nor for jesting, nor any outrageous silliness; but if anyone has a good plan, lethim step forward and tell us what it is! We are not afraid to lose life or limb.”Although it was to no avail, the Breton barons continued to launch attacks, eachsmaller than the previous, until Henry was summoned by his commanders tothat theater for the finishing touch. Faced by the king himself, the rebels capitu-lated or fled precipitously. Henry had done quite little himself except furtheraugment his reputation. Nonetheless, Fantosme knew where to place the credit:“But he who ever leads them all strengthens their resolution,”33 was hisjudgment.

It was that reputation and that effect which gave him an initiative that heworked to maintain. Earlier, he had made no move to defend Drincourt as thecounts of Flanders and Boulogne moved against Normandy there. His luck held,however, since Matthew of Boulogne died during the assault, causing hisbrother’s withdrawal back to Flanders. Even after Louis VII and the Young KingHenry opened their offensive by besieging Verneuil, Henry bided his time(likely in part for the preparations noted above) at the defenders’ expense. Onlyin August did Henry move, after the Flemish threat was blunted, and when thedefenders arranged a truce with Louis. The truce was quite typical: thedefenders sent a messenger to King Henry so as to learn if he would come totheir relief.34 If no help were forthcoming in three days, the defenders had obli-gated themselves to surrender. After months of seeming lethargy, Henry movedwith the speed that often confounded his opponents. He arrived within the envi-rons of Verneuil and “summoned” Louis to battle. The accounts of these eventscome only from the Anglo-Norman side, and they naturally stress the effect of


32 Fantosme, lines 1224–1306.33 Fantosme, lines 166–211, 242. Fantosme, of course, was putting praise where it was expected to

go, but the very fact of such an expectation does not invalidate the conclusion that he drew, andwith which he expected his audience to agree.

34 The Gesta Regis stresses that the proposed capitulation was a result of necessity (i.e. the lack ofnecessities) and not of fear, especially not a fear of the siege machinery Louis had brought tobear on the city. Gesta Regis Henrici Secundi 1:50.

Henry’s unexpected arrival. French aggressiveness and arrogance, whichHenry’s partisan historians read into all his foes’ actions, were transformed(instantaneously, as it were) into consternation and fear. Louis arranged quicklyfor negotiations on the following day, the feast of St. Lawrence. While Henry,some miles away, awaited Louis’ envoys, the French king bluffed his way intoVerneuil, saying Henry had failed to appear. The varied accounts do cometogether at this point, condemning Louis’ stratagem.35 Undoubtedly, part of thiswas resentment that their monarch had been bested, but there may be more atplay here. The History of William Marshal shows repeatedly that ambush anddeceit were considered legitimate tools of the warrior’s trade,36 but those trickswere often premeditated, not so much lazy or expedient as they were part ofpreparing well for combat. Louis, in his rush to enter Verneuil and then departwithout meeting Henry, was guilty not so much for using trickery to create anopportunity as for fearing (in the view of Henry’s supporters) even to risk anengagement with the English king.

The situation at Verneuil highlights another issue: the decision whether tosurrender or defend a fortified site. The month following Easter of 1173 sawthree different scenarios. In the first, at Verneuil, the constables and burghersput up a spirited defense which Roger of Howden details in clear approbation.No shame attached to them when, short of supplies and constrained to theirfinal lines of defense, they began to parley for a settlement. The second scenariowas mentioned earlier; when Henry advanced toward Verneuil to relieve it, hisvery presence in the region frightened Robert of Leicester into flight from hisstronghold without any attempt at combat. And slightly to the northeast in athird example, the lord of Aumale surrendered his fortresses at once intoFlemish hands as those forces advanced. In this last instance, William ofNewburgh immediately suspected collusion, and any charges of cowardice thatmight have applied were trumped by those of treason.37 The model of events atVerneuil, however, was the norm for most of the two years. In both of Williamthe Lion’s invasions, he offered terms to the castles he meant to besiege. Inevery case where the castle was properly garrisoned and victualed, the castellanchose to resist. In only a few cases, such as at Brough, were the Scots able toovercome the defenders. For all the other sieges, the castellan kept one eye onthe progress of the attackers, which was usually rather minimal, and the other on

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35 William of Newburgh, pp. 172–74; Roger of Howden, 2:48–50; Ralph of Diceto, OperaHistorica, ed. W. Stubbs, 2 vols. (London, 1876), 1:373–74; Robert of Torigni, Chronicle, inR. Howlett, ed., Chronicles of the Reigns of Stephen, Henry II and Richard I, 4 vols. (London,1884–90), 4:258. The Gesta Regis, 1:54, criticizes Louis for “running away ignominiously,without daring to await Henry’s army.”

36 For an elaboration of this point, John Gillingham, “War and Chivalry in the History of Williamthe Marshal,” reprinted in Anglo-Norman Warfare, ed. Matthew Strickland (Woodbridge,1992), pp. 251–63.

37 Another viewpoint worth consideration, however, is that cowardice and treason were actuallypart of the same phenomenon in medieval minds. Since one is “mastered” by cowardice, itbecomes almost a question of switching lords.

his supplies. When the food supply grew critical, negotiations began. Surrenderin these cases (which was actually rare since Henry and his lieutenants werecommitted to answering the calls for relief) was not a matter of fear, but ofpragmatism.

The English losses at Appleby and Brough deserve further attention, espe-cially the latter siege, as they draw more finely the distinctions and relationsbetween cowardice, courage, and acceptable choices. In 1174 William of Scot-land returned to the offensive, hoping this time to catch Henry’s supporters atCarlisle unready. Robert de Vaux, the castellan there, gave William explicitreasons why he had “no fear” of the Scottish forces: he had “plenty of wine andwheat” within the castle, and he also had his garrison’s unanimous support.William may have indeed scoffed at the castellan’s stance, but he did turn asidein search of an easier nut to crack. The picture at Appleby was completelydifferent, and it seems William had prior intelligence of the castle’s lack ofprovisions. In fact, the castellan there, Gospatric FitzHorm, did not even have agarrison and was himself well past his prime. He immediately surrendered thecastle to the attackers. Fantosme’s account is rather bare, but the description ofFitzHorm indicates that if he was guilty of anything, it was simply the inabilityto fulfill his duties. A lack of preparation38 had left him in a completely passiveposture, only able to react within a limited range of options. At the next siege,however, there was a garrison prepared to fight, even if they only numberedaround six men. Quite outnumbered, they lost the outer bailey of the castle onthe first day and withdrew into the keep, which the besiegers promptly set onfire. Fantosme interjects himself into the narrative at this point, declaring, “theywill act as knights should and will surrender to the king, for they see plainly thatno help is coming to them.” They were at “the end of their resistance” andregretfully surrendered without shame. One of the garrison, however, newlyarrived and also newly dubbed a knight, chose to resist a bit more. He naturallyearned praise for his decision, but his continued resistance apparently did notcast a bad light on the rest of the garrison. When finally the fire consumed thelast improvised defenses behind which he was sheltering, he also surrenderedwithout blame. Two levels of effort were displayed, but Fantosme apparentlysaw nothing notable in the choice of more seasoned soldiers to lay down theirarms ahead of the “rookie.” Since questions of cowardice and courage involvedquestions of masculinity and rites of passage as well, this seemingly over-dedi-cated defender may well have only been reaching for his own perceivedminimum standard, while the veterans knew they had already established theirbravery to friend and foe.39

The variety of combatants in a medieval army highlights another aspect ofthe expectations held of various combatants. Sidestepping, if I may, the debate


38 On whose part, though, was this failure? Were it only FitzHorm’s fault, then one might suspectto see more condemnation. The lack of a garrison, however, indicates perhaps an administrativebreakdown, or even the prior removal of others responsible for castle-guard.

39 Fantosme, lines 1440–1505.

on whether medieval commanders carried around their own copies of Vegetiusfor help in the conduct of a campaign, it is still worth noting the advice of hismanual on servants and baggage trains. He counseled that the baggage trainespecially be protected as much for tactical reasons as logistical ones. ForVegetius, the thing to avoid was the contagion of fear that came from theservants and, not least of all, the animals themselves if the tumult of battle wastoo close.40 At the close of the hostilities in 1174, Henry broke the siege ofRouen by Louis VII and the Young King when he sent his Welsh irregulars intothe woods beyond the city to harass Louis’ supply lines. The guerilla actions ofthe Welsh succeeded as much through actual ambushes as by the fear it instilledin the wagon-drovers who refused to risk supplying the army. Two decades later,Richard the Lionheart would use a similar tactic to drive Philip II fromVerneuil.41 In both cases, the French monarch was obviously pressured toabandon his positions through a lack of supplies, but one can wonder whether afurther pressure was at work. By attacking the softest parts of the French mili-tary, did Henry, and later, his son, purposefully seek to feed the fear that theyknew lurked in any army?

Finally, we should note the role of fatalism in heading off the decision toflee. The military culture of the twelfth century did on occasion shrug its shoul-ders in an admission of resignation to the possibility, or rather the probability, ofdeath. Walter Map reports that soldiers were wont to tell each other prover-bially: “You can go wherever you want, but you’ll die where you must.”42 Such asentiment, of course, was of a piece with the chivalric ethos that encouraged arush into combat (although in Map’s retelling this is nuanced by a sense that it isduty or a fickle fate that calls warriors here and there). We need to rememberthat medieval people were inured to a level of violence that was hardly the soleprovince of the professional combatant. The History of William Marshal, inalmost its opening lines describes the travails that came with war and lingeredwell after it:

Suffice it to say that in the conflict many a lance was shattered,Many a shield smashed in pieces,Many a hauberk drenched with blood;Many a soul was made to part from its body,Many a prized and valiant knightWas wounded, killed, or taken prisoner;Many a lady was left a hapless widow,Many a maiden orphaned,Who eventually went and sold their bodies,Failing to find husbands.

62 Steven Isaac

40 Vegetius, Epitoma Rei Militaris, ed. Charles Lang (Stuttgart, 1872; 1967 reprint), pp. 77–78.We should also remember, vis-à-vis the business of tournaments, that the riders were not theonly ones being conditioned to undergo the stresses of combat.

41 Gesta Regis, 1:74–75. John Gillingham, “Richard I and the Science of War,” reprinted inAnglo-Norman Warfare, p. 204.

42 Walter Map, p. 182.

And the poet’s judgment? “So it was, so it had to be.”43 This description givesus a glimpse into the realities faced by medieval communities when they nervedthemselves to fight. Quite simply, they were measuring their chances of survivalagainst the quality of survival after capitulation. At the siege of Dunwich,Robert of Leicester, already frustrated by resistance elsewhere, began the attackby erecting a gallows. Rather than being cowed by this threatened fate, men,women, and children all participated in a vigorous defense. The earl had, afterall, left his own defeat as the townspeople’s only way out of the crisis.

So what can we conclude about cowardice in northwest Europe in the latertwelfth century? Downstream from so many sources – classical, biblical, andchivalric, French, Latin, and Anglo-Norman – the culture within andsurrounding Henry II’s lands had both the concept and the word: cuardie. Theywere not as concerned, however, with delineating a clear model of cowardice aswith crafting practical antidotes for it. The events of 1173–74 show (as though itneeds any sort of proof) that medieval warriors knew that a fear of death was anexpected component of their métier. Multiple mechanisms evolved to coun-teract this fear, and it thus appears that medieval folk were just as concerned toisolate cowardice as a certain trio of academics. To “turn tail” was to evince athorough streak of selfishness. But attention to one’s own agenda was hardly avice for many notable figures of the 1100s, so something else must answer forthese discrepancies.

The crucial issue resides in the “economy of courage” suggested by WilliamMiller. He has built a strong argument (which is also the point of many ofKeegan’s analyses) that soldiers in modern warfare have an ever-lesseningamount of psychological energy for withstanding combat as the stress of thebattlefield keeps increasing. More time for rest and relaxation is requiredsimply to recharge the moral batteries.44 But this constant level of high stressdid not usually typify medieval combat of the twelfth century, which had greateramounts of “downtime” away from lethal passages,45 and which saw lesslethality than modern battlefields. Breakdowns (which must be differentiatedfrom being forced into a surrender) were not understandable to contemporariessave as inversion of the natural order; thus, the masculinity of the coward had tobe called into question. One of the more clear-cut examples of this dynamicoccurred during the wars in Ireland that just preceded the 1173–74 conflict.After a most unexpected victory near Waterford, the Anglo-Normans arranged


43 Histoire de Guillaume le Maréchal, lines 157–67. It is worth remembering that this metaphor-ical shrug of the shoulders occurs in one of the only sources to consider the price of war for theinnocent and unlucky. Catherine Hanley, War and Combat, 1150–1270: The Evidence from OldFrench Literature (Cambridge, 2003), pp. 43–44: “. . . it was unfortunate for the labourersthemselves that those with the power to wage war considered them more as an economicresource than as fellow human beings.”

44 Miller, Mystery of Courage, pp. 59–62; Keegan, Face of Battle, and idem, A History of Warfare.45 The obvious exception is, of course, the process of a siege, especially that of a city, where the

inhabitants have little of the training or expectations of a professional garrison. Thus one seesthere all sorts of interesting mechanisms utilized to bolster the communal courage.

the massacre of seventy captives, all of whom were beheaded by a woman, Aliceof Abervenny.46 The format of the penalty ratified the “conclusion” alreadyreached on the battlefield when purportedly thirty-to-one odds had not sufficedto give the Irish the victory.

All of this implied an almost Aristotelian sense of courage, a sense that thisvirtue had to be cultivated and nurtured. Here, Robert of Howden’s wordsshould come back to mind. The dramatic charge favored by tournament atten-dees was meant less as a spontaneous act than a programmed response.Cowardice overcame the sluggard, the one who had not made sufficient provi-sions, either in the practical business of war or in the disciplining of his ownemotions.47 The courageous man, indeed the loyal man, was the one who hadprepared as much against himself as against the actual foe.

64 Steven Isaac

46 G. H. Orpen and Morice Regan, eds., The Song of Dermot and the Earl (Oxford, 1892), lines1476–87. This deliberate effort to disgrace further an opponent obviously had also the goal ofterrorizing other potential foes. As Matthew Strickland has pointed out, War and Chivalry, pp.336–37, the cruelties committed by Anglo-Norman knighthood on their Celtic foes wereintended in part to deny their status as peers on the battlefield. Raymond le Gros’ speech inGerald of Wales is all the more indicative as he mentions a sort of passage for the prisonersfrom “enemy” status to that of “human.” Gerald of Wales, Expugnatio Hibernica (Dublin,1978), p. 56.

47 Compare the Oxford English Dictionary on “craven” with its etymological sense of beingcrushed or overcome, and not merely being of a particular disposition.

Expecting Cowardice

5

Expecting Cowardice:Medieval Battle Tactics Reconsidered

Stephen Morillo

For no man ever proves himself a good man in warunless he can endure to face the blood and the slaughter,go close against the enemy and fight with his hands.Here is courage, mankind’s finest possession,here is the finest prize that a young man can endeavor to win.

– Tyrtaeus, Praise of the Virtuosity of the Citizen Soldier1

Some barbarian is waving my shield, since I was obliged toLeave that perfectly good piece of equipment behind

under a bush. But I got away, so what does it matter?Let the shield go; I can buy another one equally good.

– Archilochus, Elegy2

Introduction

In 1116, the Welsh rebel Gruffudd ap Rhys marched on the Anglo-Normancastle of Ystrad Antarron, having sacked the castle at Ystrad Peithyll.According to our Welsh source for this episode, the Brut y Tywysogyon (theChronicle of the Princes),

Razo the steward, the man who was castellan of that castle and whose castle had beforethat been burnt and whose men had been killed, moved with grief for his men and forhis loss, and trembling with fear, sent messengers by night to the castle of YstradMeurig, which his lord Gilbert [de Clare] had built before that, to bid the garrison thatwas there to come swiftly to his aid. And the keepers of the castle sent him as many asthey could find. And they came to him by night.3

Gilbert sent 20 knights and 50 archers, who joined the 30 knights and 40 archersalready under Razo’s command; their nocturnal arrival remained unknown tothe Welsh, who were camped some distance away. The account continues:

1 Richmond Lattimore, Greek Lyrics, 2nd ed. (Chicago, 1960), pp. 14–15.2 Lattimore, Greek Lyrics, 2.3 Brut y Tywysogyon: The Chronicle of the Princes, Peniarth MS 20 Version, ed. and trans.

T. Jones (Cardiff, 1952), pp. 93–95. I would like to thank Rob Babcock for bringing my atten-tion to the account of this minor but interesting battle in the Brut.

The following day, Gruffudd ap Rhys and Rhydderch ap Tewdwr, his uncle, andMaredudd and Owain, his sons, arose incautiously from their camp without arrayingtheir forces and without placing ensigns in their van; but in raging fury, like a band ofthoughtless inhabitants without a ruler over them, they made their way towards thecastle . . .

When they came to the valley before the castle, they halted, apparentlyspending much of the day in somewhat haphazard preparations for assaultingthe castle. A river ran through the valley, crossed by a single bridge. The Brutgoes on:

And then, as it is the way with the French to do everything by guile, the keepers of thecastle sent archers to the bridge to skirmish with them . . . And when the Britons sawthe archers so boldly approaching the bridge, incautiously they ran to meet them,wondering why they should venture so confidently to approach the bridge.

A lone mailed horseman accompanied the archers to the bridge and charged theWelsh infantry on the bridge. His horse was killed under him, and only his coatof mail saved his own life. He and the archers who dragged him from the bridgethen fled up the side of the valley pursued by many of the Welsh, though someof the latter stayed on the far side of the bridge.

But waiting just over the ridge of the hill was the remainder of Razo’s force.These men counter-attacked the scattered Welsh, aided by the archers who nowturned to meet their pursuers, and “bore down upon the troop in front and killedas many as they found. And then the inhabitants were dispersed over the otherlands on every side, some with their animals with them, others having aban-doned everything but seeking only to protect their lives, so that the whole landwas left waste.”

This was a minor battle. The Anglo-Norman losses amounted to onemounted man and five archers; the Welsh lost somewhat more – over 400 menwith many more wounded – but still not a huge number. But with its feignedflight, its real flight, and its subplot of ethnic tension, the battle of YstradAntarron forms an interesting point of entry for a re-examination of medievaltactics with a focus on the role played by cowardice, both actual displays ofcowardly behavior and more importantly the multivalent expectations ofcowardice that permeated the psychology of battle.

Expectations of Cowardice in Action

We may start with a basic claim about the psychology of combat: for mostsoldiers and warriors, the experience of combat is permeated by the fear ofdeath. There are suicidal and fanatical exceptions to this rule, of course, but formost European combatants in this period, where we will confine our view fornow, suicide was rare and religion just as rarely led men actively to seek death.4

66 Stephen Morillo

4 On suicide, see S. Morillo, “Cultures of Death: Warrior Suicide in Europe and Japan,” TheMedieval History Journal 4, 2 (2001), 241–57. I shall deal with religion more below.

Thus, on hearing of the approach of the rebel forces and their slaughter of thegarrison at Ystrad Peithyll, Razo is said to be “trembling with fear.” Now fear ofdeath is not cowardice, of course. It is a rational response to a dangerous situa-tion. But it can lead to actions that the culture constructs as cowardly: runningfrom battle, failing to fight in support of friends and lords, and so on, actionscharacterizable in general as potentially beneficial to the individual but detri-mental to the group. For the rational response of an individual to imminentdanger, multiplied many times, can create a disastrous response for an army.5

Military leaders expect such fear and its potential for inducing cowardice.All armies therefore take countermeasures designed to mitigate the fear ofdeath or to stifle, redirect, or make impractical the natural “flight” response todanger among their soldiers.6 In fact, the construction of notions of cowardiceand the shame that inevitably attended it are one communal, cultural response tothis problem of mutual cooperation in war. But a variety of more specificmeasures ranging from the material to the moral regularly reinforce the generalIdea of Cowardice as safeguards against individual safety-seeking at theexpense of the group. Foremost among these are simple training and experience,which impart multiple benefits including letting soldiers calculate more ratio-nally the actual danger they face, teaching them effective responses to thosedangers other than flight, and perhaps above all bonding them into groupswhose mutual experience causes them to value their companions’ lives as highlyas their own.7 Closely related to training and experience is discipline, whichacts both to suppress emotional responses generally and to enhance the controla commander can exert over his troops.8 It is telling that the Brut’s description

Expecting Cowardice 67

5 A fascinating example of this came in the development of “Massive,” the computer programused to generate large-scale battle scenes in The Two Towers and The Return of the King, thesecond and third of the Lord of the Rings movies. It worked by programming “rational”responses into individual virtual fighters called agents, then massively replicating such fightersand letting them interact under their own initiative. “When Massive was first tested two armieswere pitted against each other to fight it out. Once the scene was rendered, a bug in the programwas found. Agents were actually seen running away from the battle field!” (Reported athttp://www.theonering.net/perl/newsview/8/1047582857, last accessed by this author on 2 June2004.) The reprogramming that then ensued to insert virtual “courage” into these digital armiescorresponds in effect, if not in technique, to the reprogramming of basic rational responses inindividual real men that converts them, more or less successfully, from people carrying weaponsinto soldiers.

6 Imminent danger can also cause an individual to prepare for combat, but triggering the “fight”half of the natural “fight or flight” response often requires that flight be removed as an optionfirst. See note 10 below.

7 The literature on small group cohesion is voluminous, especially for the modern period, whereS. L. A. Marshall’s Men Against Fire: The Problem of Battle Command (New York, 1947;paperback reprint Norman, OK, 2000) initiated an intense and often heated debate amonghistorians and military professionals. The bibliography for “Battlefield Stress, Combat Motiva-tion and Military Medicine” in John Keegan, The Face of Battle (New York, 1976) is a decententry point into some of that debate. More recently, see Lt. Col. Dave Grossman, On Killing(Boston, 1996) and the literature cited there.

8 Discipline is often best imposed in conjunction with (or through) drill. Though overstated,

of the rebel force emphasizes its indiscipline. They arise “incautiously,” fail toarray their forces in an orderly way with flags for groups to rally around,9 andproceed through the countryside “thoughtlessly.” This is an army setting itselfup for a breakdown of discipline, and therefore for excessive individualism andits potential for flight. This is, in other words, an army whose commanders havea rashly diminished expectation of cowardice for their own troops and have as aresult taken inadequate countermeasures against its appearance. Razo, bycontrast, though trembling with fear, uses his own fear productively in sendingfor reinforcements and (judging by the results) formulating a tactical plandesigned to take advantage of the rebels’ rashness. Reading more into theevidence than it might bear, he is also said to be full of grief for his lost men,which implies that he is close to his men, presumably understands them, andthat his expectation of their levels of bravery or cowardice will not be mistakenor misjudged in his tactical planning.

Some tactical planning entailed further countermeasures against theexpected cowardice of one’s own troops. Common tactical expedients includeforming an army up in deep, dense formations – depth and density, though theyincrease vulnerability to missile fire, impart some of the psychological andstatistical security that causes herding in animals, as well as making the most ofthe group bonds created by training – and putting the best, and best-equipped,warriors in the front line of such formations. Both techniques were used byHenry I and his brother Robert Curthose at Tinchebrai, for example.10

68 Stephen Morillo

William McNeill, Keeping Together in Time: Dance and Drill in Human History (Cambridge,MA, 1995) provides an interesting overview of the impact of drill on cohesion, discipline andgroup bonding in human societies generally and armies in particular. Of course as commandersfrom times and places as disparate as Warring States China and Ancien Régime Europe recog-nized, discipline, control, and “bravery” could also be induced by creating a greater fear in therank and file of their own officers than of the enemy.

9 Flags and standards from Roman legionary fasces to regimental flags have served throughoutmilitary history as symbols of group loyalty and as practical rallying points and counter-measures against cowardice.

10 Orderic Vitalis, The Ecclesiastical History (hereafter OV), ed. and trans. Marjorie Chibnall, 6vols. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1969–72), 6:88–90; Priest of Fécamp’s letter, EnglishHistorical Review 25 (1910), p. 296. A number of other countermeasures against the expectedcowardice of one’s own troops were common. The ultimate distillation of the principle behind afront line of elite warriors was the tradition of generals leading from the front line themselves,setting an example of bravery. This in turn led to the abstraction of models of bravery intoheroic ideals presented to soldiers in literature and immediately before battle in orationsdesigned to appeal to every possible reason for adhering to such ideals, including the shame thatwould attend men who show cowardice and the glory awaiting those who showed bravery (seeJ. R. E. Bliese, “Rhetoric and Morale: a Study of Battle Orations from the Central MiddleAges,” Journal of Medieval History 15 (1989), 201–26, and numerous other studies by the sameauthor). Among such reasons, defense of religion often figured prominently, but religion couldalso act to suppress the fear of death more directly by promising soldiers spiritual rewards ifthey did die, and could enhance group bonds and morale: see, e.g., David Bachrach, Religionand the Conduct of War, c.300–c.1215 (Woodbridge, 2003). Finally, a good stiff drink couldnumb the fear response, though at the risk of impairing combat ability: Keegan, Face of Battle,

Expectations of cowardice in the enemy force also influenced tactics. TheWelsh clearly expected cowardly behavior from the “French,” as the Brut callsthe Anglo-Normans: they are almost insulted at the bold advance of the castle’sarchers, “wondering why they should venture so confidently to approach thebridge.” And with the benefit of hindsight, the chronicle attributes this to theFrench propensity for “guile,” which we may read as “the trickery resorted to bycowardly troops who cannot win in a manly way.” Such aspersions cast onenemy troops, especially those separated from their foes by divisions ofculture, religion, class or ethnicity, are commonplaces in medieval sources.Commanders often did their best to reinforce the tendency among their troopsto think of themselves as braver than their “naturally” cowardly foes. Classicalgenerals sometimes intimidated opposing forces even before battle began byordering a series of precise, drilled formation changes in the enemy’s face: theyserved no tactical purpose, but demonstrated to their own troops and to theenemy their superior levels of training, experience, and by extension bravery.11

Medieval armies lacked the capacity for such displays, as they did not practicedrill in large formations, lacking the money and administrative infrastructure togather and train troops (usually infantry) in such maneuvers. But they some-times deployed the heroic equivalent in the form of an individual riding outbefore an army and performing flashy feats of arms.12 Conspicuous displaysclaimed, in effect, “our heroism is better than yours,” as conspicuous displays ofpiety before battle made a similar claim about religion. The attack by the singleNorman knight at the bridge at Ystrad Antarron may well have been motivatedby such considerations, though in the event he had the bad luck to have his horsekilled quickly under him, followed by the good luck that his discomfiture andrescue made the subsequent feigned flight of the archers, accompanied by hisreal flight, all the more convincing.

The feigned flight shows perhaps the most interesting intersection betweencowardice and tactics. For what a feigned flight shows, is that armies expectedtheir enemies to expect cowardice out of them. The verisimilitude of a feigned


pp. 114–16. Strategic manipulation of armies by their commanders in order to suppresscowardice is exemplified by the practice among commanders of armies in Warring States Chinaof maneuvering their own armies into situations where no retreat was possible before a battle inorder to make their men fight more desperately: Mark Edward Lewis, Sanctioned Violence inEarly China (Albany, 1990), p. 106. The political context of command in Warring States China,especially the creation of centralized, authoritarian territorial states from the remains of politiesbuilt around aristocratic lineages, encouraged the systematic devaluation of bravery, heroism,and individual initiative on the part of soldiers, who were supposed to act unthinkingly inresponse to the commander’s will. Clearly, if discourses of bravery and cowardice are put out ofbounds, training, discipline and manipulation such as this must assume a greater role in moreextreme forms in meeting the problem of fear of death.

11 On the fear Spartan phalanxes inspired with their drilled and dressed ranks, see Victor D.Hanson, The Western Way of War (New York, 1989), pp. 98–99. Alexander once intimidatedrebellious Illyrian tribesmen with a display of his phalanxes’ drill: Robin Lane Fox, Alexanderthe Great (London, 1974), p. 78.

flight depends, in other words, on the believability of the apparent cowardice ondisplay. Obviously, the circumstances at Ystrad Antarron were made for thisdeception. The Welsh, fresh off a victory and the slaughter of one garrison, wereoverconfident – rash, incautious, and inadequately prepared against the poten-tial cowardice of their own troops, as already noted. They also seemed to holdtheir enemies in contempt, wondering when they appeared bold and blamingFrench guile afterwards for the defeat.

Any successful feigned flight required this expectation of cowardice to be inplace. This has two implications for the patterns of its use. First, it could not beused by an army that had opened the battle with a convincing display throughdrilled maneuver of their own superior training and bravery, as the psycholog-ical signals the two techniques sent were mutually contradictory. Of course, ifthe display was truly convincing, there was no need to employ feigned flight orany other tactic, because the enemy army had already broken and run before thebattle even began. Second, and more commonly, feigned flight lost its effective-ness with repeated use against either the same troops or against a foe withenough institutional memory to build safeguards into its training of soldiers andeducation of commanders. Roman and Byzantine military manuals warnedagainst incautious pursuit of certain foes who were known to employ thefeigned flight, for example, and Crusaders learned to curb their impulse topursue fleeing Turks after they discovered, to their cost, that the apparentcowardice of their foe was likely to be a ruse designed to take advantage of theFranks’ own rashness.13 In both cases what armies had to unlearn or guardagainst was their expectation of cowardice in the enemy.

A few further comments regarding expectations of cowardice in battle can bemade. For one, the expectation seems reasonable given the common pattern ofbattles, for eventually, in most battles, one side ran. Cultural idealizations ofheroic or brave behavior might extol the principle of dying with one’s lord andfighting to the last man, as in the Song of Maldon,14 but actual examples of suchstands to the death are quite rare, especially if we exclude cases where trappeddefenders had no escape route. Ironically, given the self-protective rationalebuilt into the flight instinct, flight was the stage of battle when casualties werehighest, as it was far easier to kill someone who was not defending himself thansomeone armed and actively meeting attacks. Thus, when armies ran, they didso not, usually, because their casualties had already mounted to unbearableproportions of their force, but because the mass of the army came to think that

70 Stephen Morillo

12 One well-known example is the tale of Taillefer, a Norman who opened the Battle of Hastingswith songs of Roland and feats of arms, at least according to Wace, Roman de Rou, trans.E. Taylor (London, 1837), pp. 189–90.

13 For Romans, see, e.g., Arrian, Array against the Alans, sections 25–30, discussed inM. Pavkovic, “A note on Arrian’s Ektaxis kata Alanon,” Ancient History Bulletin 2.1 (1988),21–23. On Crusaders, see R. C. Smail, Crusading Warfare, 1097–1193 (Cambridge, 1956), pp.156–88.

14 The Battle of Maldon, ed. and trans. Bill Griffiths (Norfolk, 1991), pp. 48–52, lines 202–325.

they would.15 Battle crises were thus matters of perception as much as reality.The near flight of the Normans early in the day at Hastings and their rallying byWilliam, who had to remove his helmet and ride up and down the lines to haltthe flight, with subordinates beating on their own men to stop them in theirtracks, illustrates this nicely.16 Measured against cultural norms, psychologicalcrises in battle were episodes of mass cowardice.

Commanders knew this, and common tactics aimed at inducing panic andcowardice. Attacks on an enemy’s leader threatened to unhinge an army’spsychological composure at its lynchpin: the leader’s death or flight could bedecisive, as the Normans nearly demonstrated at Hastings, and as the Saxonsshowed later in the day after Harold’s death, though their flight at that point canhardly be called cowardly.17 Attacks on an army’s flank and rear aimed atdisrupting the psychological zone of security created by deep, dense formations.Helias of la Fleche’s flank attack on Robert Curthose’s army at Tinchebrai hadexactly this effect, and worked first not on Robert’s infantry column, but onRobert’s cavalry unit held in reserve behind the line, led by Robert of Bellême.18

Note that cavalry can flee more easily than infantry, one reason commanderssometimes dismounted troops whose bravery or commitment was in question.King Stephen’s dismounted knights fought to the end at Lincoln; those whoremained mounted fled early, contributing to the king’s defeat.19 The widelyrecognized lower resistance of mounted men to cowardice contributed, as muchas cavalry’s greater mobility, to the use of feigned flight mostly by cavalryunits. The feigned flight of the archers at Ystrad Antarron is a rare case offootsoldiers carrying out the tactic.20 Finally, many battle-avoiding orbattle-delaying tactics were effective in the war of nerves armies always played.Waiting itself was mentally tiring to the side without the initiative, but moreimportantly cutting an enemy off from food or water or harassing them withoutengaging directly could induce fatigue, lowering defenses against fear and soraising the likelihood of cowardly behavior when battle did ensue.

In short, expectations of cowardice – in one’s own troops, in enemy troops,and in enemy troops about one’s own troops – pervaded preparations for combat


15 Keegan, Face of Battle, pp. 104–5, discusses this as the threatened extension of the “killingzone.”

16 The Gesta Guillelmi of William of Poitiers (hereafter WP), ed. and trans. R. H. C. Davis andMarjorie Chibnall (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998), pp. 128–31.

17 WP, pp. 136–41.18 OV 6:88–90.19 OV 6:542; John of Hexham, in Symoneis Monachi Opera Omnia, ed. T. Arnold, 2 vols.

(London, 1882–85), 2:284–333, at 307–8.20 The equivalent tactic for infantry is more often the planned, fighting withdrawal, as for instance

at both Marathon and Cannae, where the center of the Greek and Carthaginian lines’ fightingretreat helped draw the Persian and Roman armies into double envelopments; see the introduc-tory accounts in R. E. and T. N. Dupuy, The Encyclopedia of Military History, 2nd rev. ed. (NewYork, 1986), pp. 23–25, 65–66.

and the tactical conduct of battles in medieval warfare. The prevalence of“Cultures of Bravery” is, in this light, an unsurprising response to a pervasiveproblem.

Cowardice and Culture

It is important to emphasize the plural in “Cultures of Bravery” (and there-fore of Cowardice), however, for different cultures constructed the central char-acteristics of bravery and cowardice differently. The acceptability of feignedflights, other sorts of ruses, ambushes, and so on, for example, varied widely.For some cultures, such tactics were indeed construed as unmanly, as signs ofcowardice, bravery having been constructed around notions of how one fought,with the “how” usually centered on the honor to be gained in face-to-facecombat with melee weapons. For others, such tactics were signs of cleverness –bravery and manliness having been constructed more around whether one won abattle than how one fought it. Similar divisions separated warrior classes whodisdained the use of long-range weapons, especially the bow, and those forwhom it was the weapon par excellence for demonstrating the skill that set awarrior apart from the common sort of soldier.21

Trans-cultural warfare, war that crossed lines of military culture so thatdifferent constructions of bravery and cowardice met in battle, may well haveraised the psychological stakes involved in expectations of cowardice in waysthat can account, at least in part, for the greater brutality and bloodiness usuallydisplayed in such warfare.22 An enemy known to share the same culture andexpectations of cowardice as oneself is more predictable than an unknown foe.In much of western Europe the shared culture of knightly bravery andcowardice included conventions of surrender and ransom that mitigated thepotentially fatal consequences of cowardice. But troops known to come from adifferent culture, especially one whose details were unknown, posed a morefrightening psychological challenge. Truly unknown enemies could appearimmune to the usual expectations of cowardice: the Mongols, not just in Europebut in most places that they invaded outside their steppe homeland, initiallyappeared invincible, which translated in terms of expectations of individualMongol soldiers that they would not feel fear as humans did. Their use of terror

72 Stephen Morillo

21 Medieval western Europeans (mêlée weapons, face-to-face), steppe nomads (missile weapons,hit-and-run tactics) and Kamakura-era Japanese bushi (missile and melee weapons, face-to-facecombat with either), illustrate just a small part of the possible range of combinations that couldbe constructed as brave.

22 I develop a general typology of trans-cultural warfare, with important distinctions drawnbetween inter-cultural war and what I call sub-cultural war, in “A General Typology ofTranscultural Wars – The Early Middle Ages and Beyond”, in Transcultural Wars from theMiddle Ages to the 21st Century, ed. Hans-Henning Kortüm (Berlin, 2006), 29–42; I developthe thoughts sketched in this paragraph, with sources, more fully there.

tactics – making examples of selected towns and cities they captured – simplyreinforced the aura of fearless, ruthless invincibility surrounding their earlycampaigns. This is one reason why the Mamluk victory at Ayn Jalut in 1260 wasso important beyond Egypt, for it dispersed that aura and brought the Mongolsback to the world of human expectations of cowardice.

Even better-known foes whose culture of cowardice differed from one’s ownposed problems, especially as conventions of surrender and ransom wereunlikely to cross cultural boundaries. The reality of a higher chance that combatwould prove deadly worked in combination with the misunderstandingspromoted by different cultures of cowardice in terms of what tactics wereacceptable or manly, to produce a volatile emotional mixture. In short, enemiesacross a cultural boundary would often be objects both of greater fear andgreater disdain than culturally similar enemies. Thus, if they broke and ran, asthe Welsh did at Ystrad Antarron, their foes’ release from fear and thirst forrevenge for having had that fear inflicted on them, plus cultural disdain, oftenequaled a very bloody pursuit. Or, as the Brut describes, the winner would “killas many as they found” until “the whole land was left waste.”

Conclusion

Conventions and cultures of bravery have received much attention in writingon medieval combat. In some ways, this paper simply examines the flip side ofthe coin of bravery. But I hope this examination of the reverse image has shownthat cowardice played a larger role than the simple absence of bravery mightimply. In particular, the expectations of cowardice that pervaded medievalbattlefields probably played a more positive and fundamental role in shapingtactics, army composition, and the patterns of trans-cultural warfare thanbravery ever did, reducing bravery to just one of the images on the obverse ofthe coin of cowardice.


Naval Tactics at the Battle of Zierikzee

6

Naval Tactics at the Battle of Zierikzee (1304)in the Light of Mediterranean Praxis

William Sayers

The French victory over the Flemings at the Battle of Zierikzee in Zeeland(1304) may have assuaged the bitterness of defeat at the Battle of Courtrai (theBattle of the Golden Spurs) two years earlier but seems not to have been conclu-sive, despite the peace treaty signed at Athis-sur-Orge in 1305, since the effortsby Philip IV of France to extend control over Flanders continued until at least1320.1 Perhaps because only two contemporary vernacular chronicles provideaccounts of the battle, it has been little studied since a single article by PierreJ.-B. Legrand D’Aussy in the late eighteenth century – a study which untilrecently had dictated subsequent understanding of the naval tactics deployed inthe encounter and of the course and outcome of the battle. The better known ofthe two vernacular authors is Guillaume Guiart, a former soldier who served inthe French army at Mons-en-Pévèle (1304). He composed his memoirs towardthe end of his life and thus at some distance from the events at Zierikzee, whichhe did not personally witness. Even less mined by historians than Guiart’srhymed chronicle, at least beyond Netherlandic studies, is that by the Utrechtauthor Melis Stoke, writing about these same events from an even more proxi-mate point in time.2

1 The best secondary source for the Battle of Zierikzee is “Het beleg van Zierikzee en dezeeslag,” chapter 12 in J. F. Verbruggen’s Vlaanderen na de Guldensporenslag: devrijheidsstrijd van het graafschap Vlaanderen 1303–1305 (Bruges, 1991), pp. 85–102, inparticular pp. 89–98. Verbruggen situates the conflict in the rebellion against France that beganin 1302. I am grateful to an anonymous reader of an earlier draft of this article for much perti-nent comment on the larger historical context of the battle.

2 Guiart’s chronicle in Middle French was published in two volumes as Branche des royauxlignages: chronique métrique de Guillaume Guiart, by J. A. Buchon (Paris, 1828). The first andonly full critical study is by Pierre Jean-Baptiste Legrand d’Aussy, “Notice sur l’état de laMarine en France au commencement du quatorzième siècle; et sur la tactique navale usitée alorsdans les combats de mer,” Mémoires de l’Institut de France, Classe des Sciences Morales etPolitiques 2 (Year VI [1785]), 302–75. Guillaume Guiart was earlier identified with the authorof an Art d’amour deriving from Ovid’s Remedia amoris but it is now held that the author isanonymous and that the Guiart referred to in the authorial comment is not the soldier-poet. SeeRichard P. Kincade, “A Thirteenth-Century Precursor to the Libro de buen amor: The artd’amors,” La Corónica: A Journal of Medieval Spanish Language and Literature 24 (1996),123–39. For the account in Middle Dutch, see De Rijmkroniek van Holland (366–1305), door

The battle and the received view of it have been returned to our attention inSusan Rose’s Medieval Naval Warfare 1000–1500 (2002).3 After a summarybased on Legrand d’Aussy, Rose pertinently asks of Guiart:

How much credence can be based on this account and what does it tell us about battletactics at this date? The account is very nearly contemporary but there is no evidencethat the writer had any direct experience of war at sea. An eighteenth century commen-tator [Legrand d’Aussy] on the poem pointed out that the tactic of ‘bridling’ warshipsor tying them together can be found in Livy and thus may be here no more than theconventional following of a classical model. (p. 63)

Rose returns to these reservations, specifically those associated with bridling, ina later chapter devoted to “Theory and Practice”:

The fact remains, however that especially in northern tidal waters ships deployed inthis fashion [‘bridled’ or lashed together in some way] could very easily find them-selves in difficulties, aground or trapped against the shore, and unable to manoeuvre.. . . The oars would be unusable or at the least very hard to use while the vessels werelashed together, and even in the calmest waters currents might cause the vessels to drifton to rocks or other hazards.4

Rose cites another witness to similar tactical maneuvers, with first-hand experi-ence of the sea, Ramon Muntaner. He was a military leader and administrator inthe service of the kingdom of Aragon, and he has left detailed accounts inCatalan of the naval dimension of the War of the Sicilian Vespers (1282–1302)in the Mediterranean. According to Muntaner, as interpreted by Rose, thebridling of galleys also entailed running the oars between adjacent vessels: “At

Naval Tactics at the Battle of Zierikzee 75

een anonieme auteur en Melis Stoke, ed. J. W. J. Burgers (The Hague, 2004), which supersedesRijmkroniek van Melis Stoke, ed. W. G. Brill, 2 vols., in Werken van het Historisch Genootschapte Utrecht, Nieuwe Serie, 40, 42 (Utrecht, 1885; repr. Utrecht, 1983). The authoritative criticalintroduction is J. W. J. Burgers, De Rijmkroniek van Holland en zijn auteurs: historiografie inHolland door de Anonymus (1280–1282) en de grafelijke klerk Melis Stoke (begin veertiendeeeuw) (Haarlem and Hilversum, 1999), now subsumed in Burgers’ new edition. Burgers reachesthe conclusion that an anonymous author started the chronicle c.1280–82 at the court of CountFloris V of Holland, and that Stoke began to write the last part in 1301 or 1302 and concludedin 1305, with the Battle of Zierikzee occupying Book 9 of a total of ten. On Stoke’s possiblepersonal experience of some of the siege of Zierikzee, see J. G. Smit, “De klerk Melis Stoke enZierikzee in 1304: Een nieuwe archiefvondst,” Kroniek van het land van de zeemeerin(Schouwen-Duiveland) 15 (1990), and for the battle itself, J. Sabbe, “De vijandelijkheden tussende Avesnes en de Dampierres in Zeeland, Holland en Utrecht van 1303 tot 1305,” Handelingender Maatschappij voor Geschiedenis en Oudheidkunde te Gent, new series 5 (1951), 226–304.See, too, on points of detail, Louis Th. Lehmann, “Galeeren in der Seeschlacht bei Zierikzee,”Skyllis: Zeitschrift für Unterwasserarchäologie 4 (2001), 60–64.

3 Susan Rose, Medieval Naval Warfare, 1000–1500 (London and New York, 2002), pp. 62f., forthe general historical events, p. 126 for a discussion of specific tactics.

4 Rose, p. 126; the author pursues this discussion in “Reportage, Representation and Reality. TheExtent to which Chronicle Accounts and Contemporary Illustrations can be relied on whendiscussing the Tactics used in Medieval Galley Warfare,” in Boats, Ships and Shipyards:Proceedings of the Ninth International Symposium on Boat and Ship Archaeology, Venice 2000,ed. Carlo Beltrame (Oxford, 2003), pp. 228–32.

Rosas Muntaner also states explicitly, ‘the galleys were poop by poop and theother ten were astern of them and no-one could enter between on account of theoars that were lashed together’.”5 This in turn prompts the question of whatreflection of ship-bridling and oar-lashing or of comparable practices might wefind in Guiart and Stoke on the North Sea coast.

Of the two chroniclers, Guiart is the more informative on naval matters andbegins his account of the Battle of Zierikzee (Ciricé in his French) with theassembly of the French forces, under the leadership of Rainier Grimaldi, theGenoese-born prince of Monaco, then serving as the admiral of French forces.6

Jean Pedrogue from Calais commanded a portion of the f leet being assembled.

Ce ne furent mie naceles,Mès trente-huit nés granz et beles,Riches et plaisanz et entières,A chastiaus devant et derrières,Selonc raison longues et lées,Et de touz costez creneléesPour miex deffendre c’on n’es praigne.Les huit en estoient d’EspaingnePour marchéandises venues;A gages furent retenuesDe par le roi, o la navieDe Calais et de NormendieDont el port furent là les trente.Onze galies, à m’entente,Rot là l’amiraut à séjour. (9082–96)

These were hardly small craft, but thirty-eight fine, great ships, richly outfitted,comfortable and seaworthy, with castles fore and aft. They were suitably long andbeamy, with battlements along the sides the better to defend them against being taken.Eight of them had come from Spain to pick up trade cargo. They were hired by theking, along with the fleet from Calais and Normandy, thirty vessels of which were inport. As I understand, the admiral also had eleven galleys at anchor.7

76 William Sayers

5 Rose, p. 126; the Battle of Rosas, a chief port on the northern Catalan coast, was fought in earlySeptember, 1285. This received view of bridling derives from the detailed study by John Pryor,“The Naval Battles of Roger of Lauria,” Journal of Medieval History 9 (1983), 179–216, andwas also recently reiterated in Lawrence V. Mott, “Iberian Naval Power, 1000–165,” in War atSea in the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, ed. John B. Hattendorf and Richard W. Unger(Woodbridge, 2003), pp. 105–35, as well as in Mott’s Sea Power in the Medieval Mediterra-nean: The Catalan-Aragonese Fleet in the War of the Sicilian Vespers (Gainesville, 2003).

6 On Grimaldi’s role, see Marinus Pieter de Bruin and Huib Uil, “La conquête de la Zélande parles Pays-Bas au XIVe siècle: Le rôle de Rainier Grimaldi, amiral de France, lors du combatnaval de Zierikzee (1304),” Annales monégasques 10 (1986), 65–80. The identification ofGuillaume Guiart as f lamand, “Flemish” (p. 70) is surely a typographical error for français. Thearticle reiterates observations also made in their “De strijd om Zeeland in de lage landen aan denoordzee van de 11e tot de 14e euw: De zeeslag bij Zierikzee in 1304 en het aandeel vanRainier Grimaldi, amiral de France,” Zeeuws tijdschrift 26 (1986), 24–32.

7 The very limited study of Guiart will justify both fairly extensive quotation and an English

The French fleet, totaling 38 great ships and 11 galleys, the latter likelyGenoese-built and -crewed, made its way to the mouth of the Scheldt and then,with considerable difficulty, after hauling the larger vessels with rowed boats, itcontinued upstream of a waterway called the Gouwe to the town of Zierikzee.8

The prosperous trading town had been besieged by Guy of Namur, then servingas leader of Flanders together with his brothers and nephews. Although thecampaign is judged to have been over disputed land in Zeeland, the youngWilliam of Holland, at that time allied with France, was aboard Grimaldi’s ship.Informed of the impending arrival, Guy readied his more numerous, but likelygenerally smaller, ships in the harbor.

Ains refait ses vessiaus hourder,Dont il ot là quoques et barges,Et granz nés parfondes et larges,Chascune fermée à chaable,Plus de cinq cents dedanz la hable. (9271–75)

Rather [than worry idly about the approaching French] he had the hoardings put backup on his vessels, of which he had both small craft and barges, and deep and wide greatships, each one secured with a cable, in all more than five hundred in the harbor.

This first reference to cables might be thought to mean that that they shipssimply lay at anchor, but a subsequent references makes clear that they wereinterconnected with cables. On 10 August the French forces formed into foursquadrons.

Cil du roi leur navie rengent,Dont aviséement chevissent.Quatre eschieles en establissent.L’amirat et li souverain,En cele du front premerain,A quinze nés ensemble jointes;Devant en sont les mestres pointesA chascun bout enchastelées,Et de touz costez crénelées. (9309–17)

The king’s men draw up their fleet and do so smartly. They form them into four squad-rons. The admiral and the leading men are in the first squadron, in front, made up offifteen ships joined together. To the fore are the reinforced prows, castles are at eachend, and battlements along both sides of the hull.

The galleys are incorporated in the second, reserve line. Guy’s ships are alsoorganized with care.

Les granz néz furent ès frontièresEt les petites derrenières,


translation. Here and in the following, translations are my own, unless otherwise noted,although earlier translations of comparable texts, chiefly Catalan, are noted.

8 See Verbruggen, pp. 89–90 on typical ship sizes and likely complements.

Qu’eles n’alassent meschevant.Gui de Namur se tint devantEmmi la route premeraine.Sa nef est la plus souveraine;Grant gent a là amoncelée;Ele est si bel enchasteléeE hourdée orgueilleusementDe serjanz plains de hardementEt de mesnie à guerre duite,Qu’ele ne craint assaut ne luiteD’aucuns qui envaïr la doient. (9430–42)

The great ships were to the fore and the smaller ones to the rear, so that they would notcause problems. Guy de Namur is in front, in the middle of the first row. His ship ispre-eminent and a great force has been assembled on it. It is so finely outfitted withcastles and proudly equipped with battlements [along the sides], with fighting menfilled with boldness and with troops versed in war, that it fears neither assault from, norbattle with, any who might attack it.

On the French side, from the squadron on the right under Pedrogue of Calais, agroup of four ships ran aground during the ebb tide just a crossbow-shot awayfrom the enemy.

Mès ele fiert sus un sablonOù les quatre ensemble serréesSont à fine force aterrées,Si qu’il n’a mie en cele placeDe profond de mer une brace. (9491–95)

But [the group] strikes a sandbar, where the four conjoined ships are forced to runaground and there was not a fathom’s depth of water at the spot.

The remainder of the French fleet then pulled up, a bit downriver.

La flote espandue s’aüne;De leur trois batailles font une.Les quarante-quatre qu’il guient,A chaables ensemble lient.Jointes sont si qu’en puet saillirDe l’une en l’autre sans faillir.Et est, pour péur de marée,Chascune aus deus bouts aancrée,Si que flo qui doie apleuvoirNe les a povoir de mouvoir,Ne vent autre-si qui i fière.Les galies sont au desrièreQui se raancrent vistement,Près à près ordenéement,Et qu’aucun à ce ne s’apuieQue sa nef guerpisse et s’enfuieSon dommage lessant à tel.

78 William Sayers

Environ les nés n’a batel,Tant soit bien fermé à loquet,Petite barge ne coquet,Où nus homs se puisse acoster,Que l’amiraut ne face oster,Et metre, c’on n’en ait riote,Loing du navie en une flote. (9502–25)

The dispersed fleet comes together and of their three [remaining] squadrons they nowform one. With cables they link together the forty-four ships that they steer. They arejoined together in such a way that one can pass from one to the other without mishap.And, for fear of the tide, each is anchored at both ends, so that any flood that mightcome raining down would have no force to move them, nor other gust of wind thatstruck them. The galleys are in the rear and again promptly drop their anchors in neat,close formation in such a way that there is no-one who does not take care that his shipnot break rank and move off, avoiding the disruption that this would cause. Around thegreat ships there is no pinnace, however well secured, small barge or boat againstwhich a ship could lay to, that the admiral does not have removed and organized into aformation of its own, far from the fleet, where it could lead to no trouble.

Everything in readiness, the French waited for the Flemings, who also had landforces on the banks of the river, to make the first move. This took the form offire-ships, filled with brush, animal fat, pitch and oil, sent downstream againstthe stranded Pedrogue. But the rising tide in the estuary and the wind forced thefire-ships back against the Flemings.

Then Guy went on the offensive with his ships, abandoning his defensivestance.

Li et li sien lachent les cordesui ès autres furent laciées;Se dévalent à granz braciéesVers les nés le roi premerainnes. (9605–8)

He and his crews release the cables that attached them to the other ships and they movedownstream in great lengths towards the first of the king’s ships.9

Pedrogue’s four ships were then freed by the rising tide and were the first toengage the Flemings, in particular Guy’s ship the Orgeuilleuse, whose top castlewas hit by a projectile. Disconcerted, the Flemings continued downstreamtoward the main French forces.

Se joingnent les nés descendentes,Où ore a poi déduiz ne joies,A celes qui se tiennent quoies,De les grever entalentées.Si serré les ont endentées,Sanz ce qu’aucune en fraigne et quasse,


9 Since the term galie, “galley,” is never used of Guy’s vessels, I have not interpreted braciées“armspans” semi-literally as “oar strokes” or “sweeps of the oars,” but figuratively asship-lengths.

Qu’eles sont comme en une tasse,L’un front l’autre que pris amort. (9663–70)

The ships moving downstream, on which there is now little joy or merriment, engagethose that are stationed in place with the intention of causing them damage. They meshso tightly with the enemy ships, without any ship being hulled or breached because ofit, that they are as if in a single bundle, one line of ships biting fast into the other.10

The ships exchanged missiles of all kinds and hand-to-hand f ighting ensued.

Devers destre a trois nés d’Espaingne,El front des François, dont les piautresSont un poi plus avant des autres.En celes n’a pas genz faillies,Mès aigrement sont assailiesD’autres sept nés beles et cointes,Ès costez et devers les pointes,Longues et larges et hautaines,De la gent Gui de Namur plaines (9705–13)

To the right are the three ships from Spain in the fore of the French, and their tillers area little farther forward than the others. On these are no slackers but they are fiercelyattacked along the sides and at the bows, which are long and wide and high, by sevenother fine and trim ships, filled with the forces of Guy de Namur.

On the other side of the river, Pedrogue and another Norman ship had pulled uphull to hull (bort à bort) with the Orgeuilleuse. Night fell and fire-pots werethen cast. But the three ships from Spain, perhaps initially less well outfitted forwar, had been badly damaged and were taken by the Flemings.

The Flemish vessels, which had been linked together in the first attack, nowseparated and moved downstream.11

Car joinz furent en aprochantEt or s’en vont désatrochant.Les uns avant, autres arrière,S’esparent aval la rivière.Il pert, quant leur flot se despueille,Que chascun d’eus fuir s’en veuille:Et aucuns font au retrenchier,Les chaables des nés trenchier. (9972–79)

For they were joined together when they drew up and now they are being disconnected.Some in front and others behind, they spread out downstream. It seems, when theirfleet breaks up, that each ship is trying to escape, as some now, in contrast, have thecables between them severed.

80 William Sayers

10 Battlements along the sides of ships, albeit not crenellated as in Guiart, are illustrated in aminiature accompanying Froissart’s description of the Battle of Sluys, Bibliothèque nationalede France, MS fr. 2643, fol. 72.

11 This detail is confirmed in the Annales Gandenses: Annals of Ghent, ed. and trans. Hilda John-stone (New York, 1961), p. 60, which states that they were later severed through treachery; seeVerbruggen, p. 96.

Guy got fresh reinforcements from shore before trying to engage the main bodyof the French, including the galleys, which had been held in readiness. As daybroke the French galleys rowed forward, the oars slapping the water(10,088–91). The Flemings moved among them.

La nef Gui de Namur premièreS’en va le cours aus escueillies,Et se fiert entre les galies,Comment qu’avenir li en doie.Cele où l’amiraut est, costoieDe tel aïr au trespasser,Qu’ele en esmie et fait quasserDu lonc de l’un costé les eles. (10,222–29)

First, the ship of Guy of Namur makes a rapid advance and strikes among the galleys,whatever may come of it. In passing through, it comes so forcibly aside the ship wherethe admiral is that it shatters and reduces to splinters the gunwale and hoardings allalong one side of the hull.

The French ships sought to maintain themselves together and were assistedby the smaller vessels that had been kept to the rear. The smaller Flemish craftfled but the larger ships stood fast. The battle was fiercer than ever and whenGuiart, at verse 10,373, recalls the French defeat at Courtrai, we know thatconclusion of the battle, a French victory in which galleys seem to haveperformed well, is near. Guy de Namur is captured by one of Pedrogue’s men.The French ships are then beached and the crews go ashore to join the relievedtownspeople.

These excerpts are not intended to provide a full picture of the confusedbattle, which like that at Sluys rather incredibly went on throughout the night,but rather to give some general sense of ship deployment and the debated tacticof bridling. Guiart, a native of Orléans, served as a soldier in the war against theFlemish. Thus, while we may expect familiarity with military matters, Guiart’svocabulary displays little, in the sense of specialist terminology, that is specificto the sea and ships. Some of his vocabulary even seems a bit eccentric. At thesame time, the metrical form of his account makes for a considerable amount ofuninformative filler. Aside from the near compulsory mention of ship types(great ships, galleys, smaller craft) and cables, anchors, hull planks, stem andstern, his interest, in terms of naval architecture, lies with the hoardings orbattlements along the sides of the hull, and the castles at stem, stern and atopthe masts, which were central to the actual fighting, both at a distance andhand-to-hand.12 In this context, we have a full repertory of projectiles: stones,


12 Guiart’s chronicle has not been the object of a modern edition and some readings of the manu-script may be defective; other difficulties arise from awkward syntax, apparently twisted in theinterest of rhyme. A few of his technical terms merit comment. He uses pointe for the prow ofships and mestres pointes (v. 9315) might be the prows of the leading or most important ships. Ibelieve, however, that reinforced prows are here meant. Eles (v. 10,229; Mod. Fr. ailes “wings”)seem to be some projecting part, either of the hoardings or of the stem and stern castles.

bricks, block of wood, crossbow bolts (or quarrels), fire-pots.13 As noted,fire-ships were also employed by the Flemings but the tactic backfired.

In terms of strictly discrete lexis, we do not find the Mediterranean image ofthe bridle but there can be little doubt that something very similar was practiced.Ships were joined at bow and stern with cables, which needed to be discon-nected when the ships attacked individually or fled. The chief objective ofbridling would appear to have been to create a situation where a maximumnumber of fighting men could be engaged in concerted fashion in hurlingstones, firing crossbows, and in hand-to-hand fighting, rather than allowingships to pursue one another individually, circumstances under which boardingwould have been difficult without the initial crippling effects of the cannon of asomewhat later age. Guiart’s statement that ships were joined together so thatone could pass from one to the other without slipping would lend some supportto the notion that oars might have been used to create impromptu gangways, buthe is not speaking exclusively of oared vessels, i.e. galleys, at this point. Thethree squadrons, one behind the other, formed a block rather than a single line,for which the waterway would not have been wide enough. Ships not relyingprimarily on oars could be brought quite close to one another and thus move-ment would have been possible not only over the sides but also from the prow ofone ship to the stern of another, always assuming that height differentials werenot too great. In all of this there is no mention of any special disposition of theoars on the galleys, which we know to have numbered far fewer than other typesof vessels. Oars are mentioned only in reference to propulsion (v. 10,040), as arethe sails on other ships (v. 10,210).

Stoke’s account of naval maneuvres is less detailed than Guiart’s, but heconfirms Jean Pedrogue’s stranding on a sandbar and it is explicitly stated thatthe ships are interconnected (“Met iiij scepen tsamen ghebonden”).14 Elsewherewe read of Grimaldi’s ships bound fast side by side (“Vaste ghecoppelt zide anzide,” v. 12,948).

The Battle of Sluys (1340) has also been cited as a possible instance ofbridled ships. A number of fourteenth-century chroniclers, English, French, andFlemish, mention the battle but there is little detail on naval tactics.15 Robert of

82 William Sayers

13 Two of the best of these mini-catalogues are at vv. 9827–31 and 9939–43 but they are otherwisefrequent. Springalds (espringales) are also mentioned.

14 Ende van caleys padroghe, . . .Met iiij scepen tsamen ghebonden,Bleef sitten ten seluen stondenOp enen sande vor de poert,Dat leghet vander hauen noert. (De Rijmkroniek van Holland, MS C, 12,578–82)

(And at the very same time Pedrogue from Calais, with four ships bound together, ran agroundbefore the port on a sandbar that lay to the north of the harbor.)

15 On the perception of these events by contemporaries and later historians, and in particular onJean Froissart’s shifting perspective as to the reasons for the outcome of the battle, see KellyDeVries, “God, Admirals, Archery, and Flemings: Perceptions of Victory and Defeat at theBattle of Sluys, 1340,” American Neptune 55 (1995), 223–42. For overviews of the battle see

Avesbury, in his history of the reign of Edward III, is the earliest to write of theFrench ships being chained together.16 Another account, a continuation of thechronicle once ascribed to Walter of Hemingford but now viewed as the work ofWalter of Guisborough, is more explicit as concerns the French formation:“velis depositis quatuor acies navales, colligatis magnis catenis ferreis et cordisinsimul navibus” (“with lowered sails, in four naval formations, the ships joinedtogether by great iron chains and ropes”).17

Jean Froissart states that King Edward had both barges and nefs and that theking of France had grosses naives. In the various recensions of his work,Froissart gives varying degrees of emphasis to the formation of the Frenchfleet.18 In the first he states:

Et affin que il peuissent mieux avoir les Englès à leur vollenté et que point ne leurescapaissent, il avoient grans hés, graves et haves de fier, et les lanchoient d’une nef àl’autre et les atachoeint à forche pour venir de l’un à l’autre et entroient d’un vaissielen aultre li plus légier et vigereux et li plus batilleur. (3.196)

In order better to have the English subject to their will and not escape, they had great,heavy hooks and iron grapnels that they cast from one ship to another and forciblyjoined them together in order to to be able to move from one to another, so that theycould board one vessel from another most nimbly, briskly, and full of fighting spirit.

In the second:

[E]t par quoi il peuissent mieus avenir li un à l’autre, il avoeint grans cros et haves defier tenans à chainnes: si les jettoient ens ès nefs li un de l’autre et les atachoientensamble, afin qu’il peuissent mieuls aherdre et plus fièrement combattre. (3.201)

And so that they might move from one to another, they had great iron hooks and grap-nels attached to chains; and they cast them into one ship from another and joined themtogether, so that they could better mount hoardings and fight more boldly.


Charles de la Roncière, Histoire de la marine française, 5 vols. (Paris, 1899–1932), 1:441–55,and J. F. C. Fuller, A Military History of the Western World, 2 vols. (New York, 1954–56),1:449–54.

16 “Tunc Anglici, perpendentes navigium Francigenarum fore cum catenis ferreis in una acie adeocolligatum quod non potuit penetrari, retro paululum navigarunt” (“Then the English judgingthe French ships to be chained together in one line with iron chains so that no one might pene-trate their line, they sailed a little to the rear”) in Adae Murimuth Continuatio chronicarum:Robertus de Avesbury, De gestis mirabilibus Edwardii tertii, ed. Edward Maunde Thompson(London, 1889), p. 312. DeVries, p. 227.

17 Chronicon domini Walteri de Hemingburgh, vulgo Hemingford nuncupati . . . de gestis regumAngliae, ed. Hans Claude Hamilton, 2 vols. (London, 1848–49), 2:356. The earlier part of thiswork, which, however, does not cover the reign of Edward III and thus not the passage in ques-tion, has been re-edited as The Chronicle of Walter of Guisborough, previously edited as thechronicle of Walter of Hemingford or Hemingburgh, ed. Harry Rothwell (London, 1957).

18 Jean Froissart, Oeuvres de Froissart, ed. M. le baron Kervyn de Lettenhove, 25 vols. (Brussels,1867–77; repr. Osnabrück, 1967), 17:94–96. For the relation between the various recensions,see the editor’s discussion in vol. 1, part 2.

The fourth recension provides less detail:

Les nefs estoient acroquies et atachies les unes as aultres et ne se pooient départir, et làavoit dure bataille et dedens les nefs fait apertise d’armes. (3.206)

The ships were hooked and fastened one to another and could not move off, and therefierce fighting and feats of arms were realized on board the ships.

Froissart similarly revises his opinion as to which factors were responsible forthe English victory.19 His most mature judgment was that the poor position ofthe French fleet was the cause of their defeat and, while it is not made explicit atthis point, the decreased mobility that resulted from chaining the ships togethermust have played a role.

Les Englois en venant les avoient enclos entre eus et l’Escluse. Se ne pooient requler,fors sus lors ennemis, ne aler avant, ne rompre la navie d’Engleterre qui avoit pourpiristout le passage de la mer. (3.206)

The English in moving forward had closed the French in between themselves andSluys. The latter could not withdraw, except to fall back on their enemies, nor advance,nor break through the English fleet, which had blocked all passage to the sea.

Another principal document for our understanding of the Battle of Sluys, andin particular for the number of ships involved, is King Edward III’s letter to hisson shortly after the encounter, in which Edward had led his own fleet. Of hisopponents, who deployed niefs, galeyes and grant barges, Edward states “nosditz enemys . . . avoyent assemble lours niefs en moult fort array et lesquelsfesoient mult noble defens tut cel jour et la noet apres.”20 “Moult fort array”certainly suggests a conscious formation in a confrontational situation, butmore cannot be extrapolated from the phrase; at a minimum it complements theinformation in the Latin chronicles and in Froissart. In all of this, it should benoted, there is no mention of any special deployment of the oars, even on thegalleys. In fact, the Genoese commander, “Barbavera” (Egidio Bocanegra), wholed a small fleet of galleys, initially suggested that the French attack, but wasoverruled in favor of the chaining of ships together.21 Later he makes his escapefrom the massed French fleet but is subsequently caught. This suggests that hisgalleys were not part of the interconnected French formation, which consistedlargely of round ships. As we shall see below, the French fleet may have beenmuch less mobile than galleys bridled in the Mediterranean fashion.

The sea battle between Haraldr hardráða Sigurðarson of Norway and KingSveinn of Denmark in 1062 has been cited in discussions of the bridling of shipsprior to combat. According to the account by Snorri Sturluson, their ships were

84 William Sayers

19 DeVries, 234–35.20 Nicholas Harris Nicolas, A History of the Royal Navy, from the earliest times to the wars of the

French Revolution, 2 vols. (London, 1847), 2:501–02, gives the French text; a translation isfound in British Naval Documents, ed. John B. Hattendorf et al. (Aldershot, 1993), p. 22, no.14. Nicolas offers the generally accepted view of the course of the battle.

21 DeVries, 232.

drawn up in two opposing lines, with the royal vessels in the center, and pickedcommanders directing the vessels on the wings. “Síðan tengðu hvárirtveggju sínskip allt um miðan flotann” (“[t]hen, on both sides, all the ships in the centre ofthe battle-lines were roped together”).22 On the wings of both lines a number ofother ships were left loose, which led to some unevenness in the lines. But thisarrangement still permitted the interconnected ships to be rowed forward,Haraldr’s next command. If the account is to be trusted, and surely it should be,if not as evidence for the events of 1062 then as evidence for what naval combatwas understood to be like in the thirteenth-century North Sea, either the massedships were moved forward by the banks of oars on the two sides of the block(which must have set limits on the number of ships so connected and moved) orthe ships were tied together so loosely that there was room in between for theplay of the oars. The purpose of bringing ships together, gunwale to gunwale,was to create the kind of multi-vessel fighting platform that others, rightly orwrongly, have projected for galley warfare in other parts of Europe. Here, too,the critical focus of the engagement would be in the prows, where the best menwere always placed. But this arrangement may also have permitted movementbetween allied ships as well as from prow to prow when boarding the enemy. Asthe saga indicates, the loose ships had to be engaged, grappled, and boardedindividually. Although we cannot be certain just how Haraldr’s and Sveinn’sfleets were intraconnected, there is no suggestion that the oars were involvedother than as a means of propulsion.

After this review of the northern European evidence, in which we findmention of interconnected ships of various kinds but not the image of the bridle,I turn to Muntaner and the Battle of Rosas, since it has been cited as keyevidence for our understanding of bridling galleys. It will be prudent to examineMuntaner’s account of the Battle of Rosas (1285) in his original Catalan and notthrough published translations that may put an unwarranted slant on thedescription, due to inadequate understanding of the original technical vocabu-lary. Events are initially seen from the perspective of the forces of the Frenchking, Charles of Anjou. To anticipate, two kinds of bridling may be clearlyrecognized.

E tantost En Guillem de Loderva féu tocar les trompes e les nàcares, e féu armartothom. E entretant lo jorn se féu, e les unes galees veeren les altres; e En Guillem deLoderva féu donar volta a les palomeres, e féu la via de les onze galees. E les onzegalees estaven ben fora, per ço que no fossen prés de terra. E En Guillem de Lodervavenc a les onze galees ab quinze de les sues, enfrenellades, davant; e hac ordonat que


22 Snorri Sturluson, Haralds saga Sigurðarson, in Heimskringla, ed. Bjarni Aðalbjarnarson, 3vols. (Reykjavik, 1979), pp. 3, 62, 147–48; King Harald’s Saga: Harald Hardradi of Norway,trans. Magnus Magnusson and Hermann Pálsson (Harmondsworth, 1970), pp. 62, 112. Compa-rable information in the histories of Haraldr contained in the manuscripts Fagrskinna andMorkinskinna; Fargrskinna: Nóregs konunga tal, in Ágrip af Nóregskonunga sögur, ed. BjarniEinarsson (Reykjavik, 1985), ch. 57; Morkinskinna, ed. Finnur Jónsson (Copenhagen, 1932),ch. 42.

les deu galees los venguessen per popa, e així que les tendrien enmig, en guisa que noen pogués neguna escapar; e segurament ordonà-ho sàviament. E En Ramon Marquet eEn Berenguer Maiol feeren [metre] en frenells llargs les galees, e metre tots los remsen frenells, per ço que los enemics no es poguessen entre ells metre. E con ells sevolguessen, que es donassen los rems de llarg, e que los ballesters en taula loscanscassen, e con veurien que els haurien ben canscats, que donassen los rems dellong, e que s’acostassen a manés; e així se féu. E per cert vull que cascuns sàpia, ediu-vos-ho aquell qui en moltes batalles ho ha vist, que els ballesters en taulas’emporten les batalles pus les galees meten rems en frenell. . . . E així les galeesestaven proa per proa, e les altres deu qui eren de popa, e no podien entre ells entrarper los rems qui estaven ben enfrenellats.23

And at once William of Lodève had the trumpets and kettledrums sounded, and hadeveryone arm. Meanwhile, day dawned and the one fleet of galleys saw the other. AndWilliam of Lodève had the anchor cables wound, and made for the eleven [Aragonese]galleys. And the eleven galleys stood well off shore, so that they should not be tooclose to land. And William of Lodève advanced on the eleven galleys with fifteen ofhis own, bridled together, in front, and had ordered the [remaining] ten galleys tofollow them astern, so that they could hold them [the Aragonese galleys] to the middle,in such a way that none of them could escape past. And surely this was a prudentcommand. And Ramon Marquet and Berenguer Maiol ordered their galleys linked bylong bridles, and had all the oars raised and blocked, so that the enemy vessels couldnot come between them. Then, when they wished, they would release the oars when thecrossbowmen on the foredeck had assaulted them, and when they saw that they hadthem well ground down, they would row in from the intervening distance, and wouldclose with them in hand-to-hand combat. And this was done. And I should certainlylike everyone to know (and the one telling you this has been in many battles) that it isthe crossbowmen on the foredeck who carry the battle once the galleys put their oars inbridles. . . . And so the galleys stood prow by prow, with the other ten astern, and theycould not penetrate between them because of the [extended] oars that were wellbridled.24

The metaphor of a bridle (Latin frenum, frenellum), as used of galleys and ofoars, seems to have originated in the maritime Italian city states, Genoa, Pisa,

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23 Ramon Muntaner, Crònica, in Les quatre grans cròniques, ed. Ferran Soldevila (Barcelona,1971), pp. 789–90. Cited here chiefly because of their erroneous representation of tacticalmaneuvers, versions of the Catalan chronicle in other languages include Chronique de RamonMuntaner, trans. J. A. Buchon (Paris, 1827); Chronik des edlen En Ramon Muntaner, trans.K. Fr. W. Lanz (Leipzig, 1842); Crónica catalana de Ramon Muntaner: texto original ytraduccion castellana, ed. and trans. Antonio de Bofarull (Barcelona, 1860); Cronache cata-lane del secolo XIII e XIV, trans. Filippo Moisè (Palermo, 1984). Most influential for historianswriting in English was doubtless The Chronicle of Muntaner, trans. Lady Goodenough, 2 vols.,The Hakluyt Society, second series 47 (London, 1920–21).

24 Between the two excerpts above, focused on bridling, Muntaner gives his celebrated account ofCatalan crossbowmen, their profound knowledge of their weapons and deadly efficiency inbattle. In a note to this passage (969, n. 6) the modern editor of Muntaner’s chronicle calls thisone of the most explicit passages for understanding the tactic of bridled galleys, but still fails torecognize what the bridling of oars entails, believing that short bridles were run from the oars ofone ship to those of another.

Venice. In a collection of poems by an anonymous Genoese writer of the earlyfourteenth century (l’anonimo genovese), a poem celebrating the victory of theGenoese over the Venetians at the battle of Curzola (1298) states:

e se missem tuti in scheraenter l’isora e terra ferma,de tuti cavi ormezia,enter lor afernelai:25

And the galleys all joined up in battle formation between the island and the mainland,moored by all their anchor cables between their bridles.

Marino Sanudo, the Venetian exponent of a new Crusade against Egypt, creditsthe Genoese victory over the Venetians at the battles of Lajazzo and Curzola notto superior vessels or greater numbers but to tactics, which included bridlingships and running gangplanks between them.26 In the case of galleys it entailedtheir being drawn up parallel to one another and cables being run from stem tostem and stern to stern to dissuade enemy ships from trying to run betweenthem. The cables, which may have been difficult to keep taut and might havebeen pressed down by a ship passing over them, cannot have been the trueobstacle. Rather, the uniform proximity of the vessels and the disposition of theraised oars discouraged opposing ships from trying to pass between. But even if“[c]ables, frenella, were passed from bow to bow and stern to stern of adjacentgalleys,” there is no evidence that “then the oars were reversed and the loomspassed across from one to the other and lashed fast.”27 What actually occurredwas that the oars were raised from the water to the horizontal and the loomswere temporarily locked in place, perhaps with a simple loop of rope, amid-ships, to the deck or corsia that ran the central length of the galley.28 This verydifferent bridling is what Muntaner means with “metre tots los rems en frenells”


25 Anonimo Genovese, Poesie, ed. Luciana Cocito (Rome, 1970), pp. Poem 49, vv. 244–47.26 “Galeae vero Ianuensium praedictorum, minores & debiliores galeis suorum hostium

existebant, quae propre terram morantes tenebant proras paratas vel armizatas in contrariumdicti venti; atque omnes una simul frenellatae inuicem & ligatae: habebantque pontes, quibusab una galearum in alteram ire poterant homines et redire,” Marino Sanudo, Liber secretorumfidelium crucis super Terrae Sanctae recuperatione et conservatione (Toronto, 1972), Book 2,Part 4, ch. 24, p. 83. A selection of passages from Sanudo in English translation by Peter Lockhas been announced by Ashgate for its Crusader Texts in Translations series.

27 Pryor, “Naval Battles,” p. 189.28 On the design of galleys, see Ulrich Alertz, “The Naval Architecture and Oar System of Medi-

eval and Later Galleys,” in The Age of the Galley: Mediterranean Oared Vessels since Pre-classical Times, ed. Robert Gardiner and John Morrison (London, 1995), pp. 142–62; John E.Dotson, “Galleys,” in Medieval Italy: An Encyclopedia, ed. Christopher Kleinhenz (New York,2004), pp. 1027–32; La flotta di Venezia: navi e barche della Serenissima – The Venetian Fleet:Ships and Boats of the Venetian Republic, ed. G. B. Rubin de Cervin (Milan, 1985);Marie-Pierre Jezegou, “Le gréement des navires catalans aux XIVe et XVe siècles d’après lestextes et l’iconographie,” in L’Homme méditerranéen et la mer, ed. Micheline Galley and LeïlaLadjimi Sebai (Tunis, 1985), pp. 223–32; William Ledyard Rodgers, Naval Warfare underOars, 4th to 16th Centuries: A Study of Strategy, Tactics and Ship Design (Annapolis, 1967).

– putting all the oars in bridles. This, too, is what is meant when the anonimogenovese writes of prudent sailors “paying attention to the the alarm whistle [ofthe bosun’s pipe] and holding the oars firmly checked in bridle (tegnendo benreme in frenelo) in order to be ready for every maneuver” (Poem 39, 245).Marino Sanudo, too, recommends that future rowers put their gyrones, thelooms of the oars, in frenella so that Muslim ships could not slip through thebattle line of Christian ships.29 When oared propulsion was again needed, theoars would be released as easily as the bridling cables dropped, a much morerapidly executed move than unfastening oars reversed and lashed to anadjoining ship.

Thus neither the dozens of oars, up to 30 feet in length, nor any portion ofthem needed to be drawn in, somehow reversed, then passed, loom-first, to thenext ship and lashed in place as part of the bridling of vessels. Instead we mayenvisage galleys at distances of roughly two oar lengths, with their oarsextended straight out, a perfectly normal position when not all rowers were atwork and when the ship was under sail. In Venetian nautical jargon the oarswere said to be a pettine, that is, like the straight teeth of a comb.30 Here weshould imagine a two-sided comb of an older model, with the body of the galleyrepresenting its central part. But with the oars so extended, two galleys couldnot be brought as close together as other kinds of vessels and the bridles may, inrelative terms, have been even more important for maintaining an idealdistance. If we abandon the notion of an impromptu platform composed of oarsbetween ships, and imagine the oars in the checked position, we must concludethat the hand-to-hand fighting, as opposed to crossbow volleys and othermissiles, would have been confined to the foredeck and perhaps stern, ratherthan amidships. Evidence in the Catalan chroniclers supports this conclusion.

Other passages in Muntaner and his Aragonese contemporary Bernat

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29 “Praetera est necessarium & utile dictae genti, quod dicte galeae sint tali modo & maniereFrenellatae, quod dum adversus hostiles processerint pugnaturae, de facilli stringant se invicem& conjungant. Ita tamen quod gyrones mittant in Frenella remiges praedictarum, ne aliqua exgaleis hostilibus, intra fidelium galearum aciem, se figere valeat ullo modo” (Sanudo, 84). Thegyrones of this passage were perhaps first correctly identified in the modern era (1848) byAugustin Jal in his monumental and long authoritative Glossaire nautique: répertoire polyglottede termes de marine anciens et modernes (Paris, 1848) as a Venetian term for the looms orhandles of the oars. In a long expansion on the passage from Sanudo, Jal introduced the notionof the oars being reversed, since the looms were stronger than the blades, returned to the tholepins, and extended and lashed to neighboring ships. But it is noteworthy that this interpretativeextrapolation has not been retained in the revised edition of Jal (Nouveau glossaire nautiqued’Augustin Jal, ed. Michel Mollat [Paris, 1988– ]), where the entries for frenellare andfrenellum simply quote Sanudo.

30 Bad weather could prevent the use of the oars on galleys. “In questi case i remi venivano alzatiin modo che le pale stessero fuori dall’acqua, ma saldamente bloccati col proprio girone infissoalla base dela corsia centrale, e si dicevano cosi aconnigliati o a pettine” (“In this case, the oarswere raised in such a way that the blades were out of the water but their collars [looms] werefirmly blocked at the base of the central passageway, thus said to be acconigliati or a pettine[like a comb]”); La f lotta di Venezia, p. 32.

Desclot, writing of these same events but with less understanding of nauticalmatters, support this reading of the account of the Battle of Rosas and, moregenerally, of galley bridling as practiced in the late thirteenth-century Mediter-ranean.31 In fact, recalling that Cervantes had first-hand experience of galleywarfare from the Battle of Lepanto, we find the very same image of checkedoars, frenillados los remos, in the Captive’s account of his time at sea, in DonQuijote.32 A better understanding of what was meant by the bridling of oarsrestores the integrity of the image of “bridle” as used of ships – not a massiveblock of vessels secured with cables and oars lashed between hulls but a loose,flexible arrangement that ensured a general spatial organization. Yet intercon-necting cogs and other round ships with cables, as we have seen at Zierikzee andSluys, where there would have been no bank of extended oars on each side,results in a very different formation, one which the historical record suggestswas considerably less flexible, although it did facilitate boarding andhand-to-hand fighting.

On balance, then, and without the complicating factor of some rather implau-sible oar handling, we have evidence in Guiart, Stoke, Muntaner, and others thatthe bridling of galleys and cabling of other vessels was an actual, fairly commonmedieval tactic to block a harbor mouth or estuary and force engagement, or topresent a concentrated defense, and not a reminiscence of classical authorsincorporated by medieval chroniclers to enhance an account with the trappingsof prestigious antiquity.33

Recalling that Philip of France had the support of Rainier Grimaldi ofMonaco and eleven galleys that were very likely of Genoese construction underhis command, and had hired or pressed ships normally engaged in the tradewith Spain, and that admiral Roger of Luria served a king who ruled bothAragon and Sicily, we will not find it hard to accept that innovations in nauticalarchitecture and naval tactics must have passed rapidly from one maritime


31 In “The Lexicon of Naval Tactics in Muntaner’s Crònica,” Catalan Review 17 (2003), 177–92(published in 2005), I provide detailed support for this interpretation, with a more strictly philo-logical consideration of Italian and Catalan naval terminology and additional excerpts inCatalan and in English translation.

32 Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra, Don Quijote, in Obras Completas, ed. Florencio Sevilla Arroyoand Antonio Rey Hazas, 3rd ed. (Madrid, 1999), pp. 41, 286.

33 Livy is often cited as a classical precedent. Concerning the ships laying siege to Syracuse, wenote: “iunctae aliae binae quinqueremes demptis interioribus remis, ut latus lateri adplicaretur,cum exteriore ordine remorum velut una navis agerentur” (“other five-bankers, paired together,with the inner oars removed, so that side was brought close to side, were propelled by the outerbank of oars like a single ship”); Titus-Livy, Ab urbe condita. Livy, with an English Translationin Thirteen Volumes, Books XXIII–XXV, ed. and trans. Frank Gardner Moore (Cambridge, MA,and London, 1940), pp. 23, 34. Vegetius, on the other hand, recommends impromptu gangwaysbetween ships but does not mention the use of oars for this purpose: Flavius Vegetius Renatus,Vegetius: Epitome of Military Science, trans. N. P. Milner (Liverpool, 1993), pp. 4, 44. A medi-eval successors to Vegetius, Giles of Rome (Egidio Colonna, Ægidius Romanus), bishop ofBourges in the thirteenth century, writing of secular governance and military matters in his Deregimine principum, deals with naval tactics but does not introduce bridling into this context.

community to another, as did expert shipbuilders and repairmen. The attendantterminology is often also part of this transfer, as when Italian frenello ‘bridle’ ismatched by the Catalan verb afrenellar, but not necessarily so, as the absence ofthe bridle metaphor – its two discrete applications, ships and oars – from Guiart,Stoke, Froissart, and others seems to indicate. Perhaps the image, with itssuggestion of both control and flexibility, was restricted to galleys. Thelanguage of ships and sailing has always had a particular fascination, no doubtin part because of the both willed and unwilled hermetic quality of this tech-nical vocabulary. The study of this specialist lexis must be an integral part ofour renewed efforts, always directed by a sense of the practical, to comprehendas fully as possible the realia of medieval life and medieval warfare at sea.

90 William Sayers

The Milit ary Role of the Magist rat es

7

The Military Role of the Magistrates in Hollandduring the Guelders War

James P. Ward

Sources in the city and state archives of Holland show that at the beginningof the sixteenth century the magistrates of Holland were proficient in militarymatters of defense. During the Guelders war, which lasted until 1543, they hiredand paid soldiers, arranged billets for them, confronted mutinies, controlledlocal military dispositions and costs, purchased and distributed weapons to theirburghers, had munitions manufactured for them locally, supervised drills,mustered men, and, within their cities, organized resistance to the Gueldersenemy. Two generations later, at the time of the Dutch Revolt, the same skillswere needed again to help defeat Philip II.

Introduction

The publication in 1956 of Michael Roberts’ essay, “The Military Revolu-tion,” inspired a spate of studies and monographs on the subject of warfare andof armies, their organization and weapons which continues to the present day.These studies augment older studies of warfare and relate them to newer disci-plines.1 With few exceptions, however, scholars have continued to give theirattention mostly to what may be called the “bigger picture,” to armies recruitedby emperors, princes, and generals. These reflect a bias in two directions. They

1 For example: Frontinus, The Stratagems and the Aqueducts of Rome, ed. and trans C. E. Bennet(London, 1925); Niccolò Machiavelli, Il Principe, Dell’Arte della Guerra ed altri Scriti Politici,ed. F. Costerò (Milan, 1875); Machiavelli, The Art of War, ed. and trans. P. Whitehorne andH. Cust (London, 1905), with a useful chronology of the period; F. H. W. Kuypers,Geschiedenis der Nederlandsche Artellerie van de Vroegste Tijden tot op Heden, 5 vols.(Nijmegen, 1869–74); Charles Oman, A History of the Art of War in the Middle Ages, 2 vols.(New York, 1898); Berhard Rathgen, Das Geschütz im Mittelalter; QuellenkritischeUntersuchungen (Berlin, 1928); Charles Oman, A History of the Art of War in the SixteenthCentury (London, 1937); and A. R. Hall, Ballistics in the Seventeenth Century: A Study in theRelations of Science and War with Reference Principally to England (Cambridge, 1952).

describe mainly professional armies, and their time-frames start mainly in thesecond half of the sixteenth century.2

In contrast to this, the level, scale and sophistication of military organizationwhich was in the hands of city magistrates and aldermen in Holland in the earlysixteenth century is less well known. The aim of this article is to show to whatextent and by what means the magistrates, aldermen and burghers of Hollandfought a daring and persistent foe, Charles, duke of Guelders. The Guelders Waris covered here in some detail from 1508 to 1517 from the perspective of thecities of Holland, with the emphasis not on armies, campaigns and battles, buton the efforts mainly of civilians to organize and defend themselves.3 Thetheater of war is limited by geography and time, but the sources reveal facts thatare general, repetitive and structural with respect to “guerrilla” wars. As a corol-lary, it will be argued briefly that the magistrates of early sixteenth-centuryHolland served as a model for their successors in the latter half of the century, atthe time of the Dutch Revolt against King Philip II.

92 James P. Ward

2 M. Roberts, “The Military Revolution 1560–1660” (London, 1956), reprinted in C. J. Rogers,ed., The Military Revolution Debate: Readings in the Military Transformation of Early ModernEurope (Boulder, 1995). Other references in chronological order include: C. G. Cruickshank,Army Royal: Henry VIII’s Invasion of France, 1513 (Oxford, 1969); M. H. Jackson and C. deBeer, Eighteenth Century Gunfounding: The Verbruggens at the Royal Brass Foundry. AChapter in the History of Technology (Newton Abbot, 1973); Geoffrey Parker, “The ‘MilitaryRevolution’, 1560–1660 – a Myth?,” Journal of Modern History 48 (1976), 195–214; D. Millerand G. A. Embleton, The Landsknechts (London, 1976); B. Roosens, “Het arsenaal vanMechelen en de wapenhandel (1551–1567),” Bijdragen tot de geschiedenis 60 (1977), 175–247;Michael E. Mallett and J. R. Hale, The Military Organization of a Renaissance State: Venice c.1400 to 1617 (Cambridge, 1984); A. N. Kennard, Gunfounding and Gunfounders (London,1986); Geoffrey Parker, The Military Revolution: Military Innovation and the Rise of the West,1500–1800 (Cambridge, 1988); J. R. Hale, “Armies, Navies and the Art of War,” in G. R. Elton,ed., The New Cambridge Modern History: The Reformation 1520–1559, 2nd ed. (Cambridge,1990), pp. 540–69; J. R. Hale, Artists and Warfare in the Renaissance (New Haven, 1990);Jeremy Black, A Military Revolution? Military Change and European Society, 1550–1800(London, 1991); Frank Tallet, War and Society in Early Modern Europe, 1495–1715 (Londonand New York, 1992); Brian M. Downing, The Military Revolution and Political Change:Origins of Democracy and Autocracy in Early Modern Europe (Princeton, 1992); C. J. Rogers,“The Military Revolutions of the Hundred Years War,” in C. J. Rogers, ed., The Military Revolu-tion Debate: Readings in the Military Transformation of Early Modern Europe (Boulder, 1995),pp. 55–93; Geoffrey Parker, ed., The Cambridge Illustrated History of Warfare: The Triumph ofthe West (Cambridge, 1995); Harald Kleinschmidt, “Disziplinierung zum Kampf: NeueForschungen zum Wandel militärischer Verhaltensweisen im 15., 16. und 17. Jahrhundert,”Blätter für deutsche Landesgeschichte 132 (1996), 173–200; Bert S. Hall, Weapons and Warfarein Renaissance Europe: Gunpowder, Technology and Tactics (Baltimore and London, 1997);G. Phillips, “In the Shadow of Flodden: Tactics, Technology and Scottish Military Effective-ness, 1513–1550,” Scottish Historical Review 77 (1998), 162–82.

3 Only the overt military activities of the magistrates are described. Espionage and counter-espionage are not included here. This is part of the author’s unpublished doctoral thesis: J. P.Ward, “The Cities and States of Holland (1506–1515). A Participative System of GovernmentUnder Strain” (University of Leiden, 2001). The caesura are the death of Philip I in 1506 andthe coming of age of his son, Charles V, in 1515. The material has been collected primarilyfrom the archives.

Sources

The sources used are the financial accounts of individual cities in Holland,mainly Haarlem and Leiden, but with some data from Gouda and Dordrecht;also used were accounts of the central government in The Hague kept bysuccessive Treasurers for North-Holland.4 In Leiden and Haarlem most of theaccount books, council minutes and resolutions, and records of publicannouncements survive for the years under review here.5 The most importantsources for charting the effects of the Guelders war on the lives of ordinarypeople in Holland are the minutes of private and confidential meetings held bythe local councils (vroedschappen) in Holland, and the public announcements,made by the magistrates, of local by-laws and government proclamations.

These public announcements, contained in the cities’ so-calledaf lezingboeken (proclamation books), governed such matters as law and order,regulation of markets, excise duties and taxation, public health and safety, mili-tary service, military defense, and other matters of importance in the daily livesof the citizens. In particular, the military matters included in the account booksand in the resolutions of the local councils must raise doubts about whether themagistrates of the early sixteenth century were “mere laymen” when it came tomilitary affairs.6

The Military Role of the Magistrates 93

4 P. A. Meilink, ed., Archieven van de Staten van Holland vóór 1572 (The Hague, 1929); P. A.Meilink and J. L. van der Gouw, Inventaris van het Archief van de Grafelijkheids-Rekenkamerof Rekenkamer der Domeinen van Holland. Tweede deel: Afgehoorde en gedeponeerderekeningen (The Hague, 1946); and P. A. Meilink, ed., Inventaris van de archieven van deStaten van Holland vóór 1572, revised by H. J. P. G. Kaajan (The Hague, 1993). For referencesto the city archives see the following footnote.

5 J. L. van Dalen, ed., Inventaris van het archief der gemeente Dordrecht I. De grafelijke tijd,1200–1572 (Dordrecht, 1909); J. L. van Dalen, ed., Regestenlijst behoorende bij den inventarisvan het archief der gemeente Dordrecht, 1200–1572 (Dordrecht, 1912); P. van den Brandeler,ed., Inventaris van het Archief der Gemeente Dordrecht (Dordrecht, 1869); P. van denBrandeler, ed., Suppletoire inventaris van het archief der gemeente Dordrecht (Dordrecht,1878); A. J. Enschedé, ed., Inventaris van het archief der gemeente Haarlem, 3 vols. (Haarlem,1866–67); J. C. Overvoorde and J. W. Verburgt, ed., Archief der secretarie van de stad Leiden1253–1575. Inventaris en regesten (Leiden, 1937); H. G. Hamaker, ed., De middeleeuwsekeurboeken van de stad Leiden (Leiden, 1873); J. E. J. Geselschap, ed., Inventaris van hetoud-archief van Gouda (Gouda, 1965); P. D. J. van Iterson and P. H. J. van der Laan, ed.,Resoluties van de vroedschap van Amsterdam 1490–1550 (Amsterdam, 1986); and H. TenBoom and B. Woelderink, Inventaris van het oud-archief van de stad Rotterdam 1340–1813, 2vols. (Rotterdam, 1976).

6 As expressed, for example, by J. D. Tracy, Holland under Habsburg Rule 1506–1566: TheFormation of a Body Politic (Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1990), p. 74: “. . . it was a measure ofthe government’s desperation that deputies to the states, mere laymen in military matters, wereinvited to play a role in important decisions.”

Holland in the Early Sixteenth Century

In financial terms the cities of Holland formed the strongest group in civicand political society. Documentary evidence shows major differences betweentwo groups of cities and towns. The six large cities – Dordrecht, Haarlem, Delft,Leiden, Gouda and Amsterdam – were referred to as such (grote steden). Thesmall towns (kleine steden) included Gorinchem, Rotterdam, Schiedam andVlaardingen, as well as many others. The status of the major cities was deter-mined partly by reasons of history, and partly by size and wealth. It has beenestimated that in 1514 more than half the population of Holland lived in townsor cities. The largest of these, Leiden and Amsterdam, had populations at thetime of around 12,000–14,000, Haarlem and Delft around 10,000–12,000, whileDordrecht and Gouda had around 7,000–10,000 each. When Antonio de Beatistraveled through the Low Countries in 1517, he wrote in his diary estimates ofthe sizes of the communities which he visited in Holland, using hearths as ameans of calculation: Dordrecht 3000 hearths, Rotterdam 1800, Delft 5000,The Hague 6000, and Gorinchem 3000. For Dordrecht and Delft these data arecommensurate with the other estimates given, assuming a multiplication of thenumber of hearths by a factor between 2.5 and 3 to arrive at the number ofpersons in each household. J. C. Naber in his statistical analysis of earlysixteenth-century Holland estimated 3 to 4 communicants per household.7

The cities and towns were administered by colleges of magistrates thatformed the local court (gerecht) and fulfilled a number of functions. At the topof their hierarchy was the sheriff (scout) responsible for keeping law and order.He was usually a nobleman, and his office was by royal appointment. Thenfollowed one or several burgomasters or mayors and several aldermen(scepenen) who took their places in the council by a process of co-option, forwhich government approval was required. For example, during this period, theday to day administrative affairs of Leiden were managed by the sheriff, fourburgomasters and eight aldermen. These thirteen men jointly formed themagistrature and were jointly responsible for keeping law and order locally, formatters pertaining to public health and safety, for the regulation and control of

94 James P. Ward

7 J. Hale and J. M. A. Lindon, ed. and trans., The Travel Journal of Antonio de Beatis, 1517–1518(London, 1979), pp. 90–91, and J. C. Naber, Een terugblik. Statistische bewerking van deresultaten van de informatie van 1514, facsimile of 1885 and 1890 editions (Haarlem, 1970).See also Tracy, Holland, Table I, p. 30; W. P. Blockmans, “The Economic Expansion of Hollandand Zeeland in the Fourteenth–Sixteenth Centuries,” in Studia Historica Oeconomica: Liberamicorum Herman van der Wee (Louvain, 1993), pp. 41–58, Table 1, p. 44; and M. ‘T Hart,“Intercity Rivalries and the Making of the Dutch State,” in Cities and the Rise of States inEurope, A.D. 1000 to 1800, ed. C. Tilly and W. P. Blockmans (Boulder, San Francisco, andLondon, 1994), pp. 196–217, especially pp. 197ff., and Table 10.1, p. 198.

trade, industry, commerce, and taxation within Leiden, and local defense andpublic security in times of war, among other local matters.8

A major difference between the large cities and the smaller towns was that atthe diets of the States of Holland only the six large cities had the right to vote.They did this together with the nobles of Holland, who jointly had a single vote.Decisions were made by a majority vote, notwithstanding objections bydissenters who appealed to older privileges, but there was a perception that thevotes of at least four of the large cities were required for a decision to beaccepted. Relationships between the large cities and their smaller, immediateneighboring towns in matters of defense were those of patron and client. Theserelationships become apparent when sources describing the diets of the citiesand States of Holland are studied in detail, and when the response of the largecities to threats of military attacks on the small towns is seen. Haarlem helped todefend Weesp, a nearby town on the Zuiderzee, and Leiden helped to defendWoerden, a town upstream on the Rhine. In the south, Gouda and Dordrechtheld a similar relationship with Oudewater and Nieuwpoort.

The Guelders War

Guelders, or Gelderland, was a large dukedom to the east of Holland whichcontrolled trade and access to Germany over the rivers Rhine and Waal.9 Forseveral decades in the second half of the fifteenth century and until 1543 in thesixteenth century, a struggle for power there went on between dukes of Guelders– Arnold, his son, Adolf, and Adolf’s son, Charles – against successive dukes ofBurgundy and their Habsburg heirs, Charles the Bold, Maximilian I, Philip I,


8 H. F. K. van Nierop, Van Ridders tot Regenten: De Hollandse adel in de zestiende en de eerstehelft van de zeventiende eeuw (Leiden, 1984); D. E. H. De Boer, “Die politische Elite Leidensam Ende des Mittelalters: eine Zwischenbilanz,” in Bürgerliche Eliten in den Niederlanden undin Nordwestdeutschland: Studien zur Sozialgeschichte des europäischen Bürgertums imMittelalter und in der Neuzeit, ed. H. Schilling and H. Diederiks (Cologne, 1985), pp. 85–109;F. J. W. van Kan, “Élite and Government in Medieval Leiden,” Journal of Medieval History 21(1995), 51–75; J. G. Smit, Vorst en onderdaan: Studies over Holland en Zeeland in de lateMiddeleeuwen (Louvain, 1995); A. J. Brand, Over macht en overwicht: Stedelijke elites inLeiden (1420–1510) (Leiden, 1996); and M. J. van Gent, “Pertijelike Saken”: Hoeken enKabeljauwen in het Bourgondisch-Oostenrijkse tijdperk (Leiden, 1994).

9 A. F. Mellink, “Territoriale afronding der Nederlanden,” in Algemene Geschiedenis derNederlanden, ed. D. P. Blok et al. (Haarlem, 1980), 5:492–506; P. J. Meij, “Gelderland van1492–1543,” in Geschiedenis van Gelderland 1492–1795, ed. P. J. Meij et al. (Zutphen, 1975),pp. 13–78, 481–91; J. Struik, Gelre en Habsburg 1492–1528 (Arnhem, 1960); I. A. Nijhoff,Gedenkwaardigheden van de Geschiedenis van Gelderland (Arnhem, 1859), vol. 6, part 1;M. van Driel, “Gelre voor 1543,” in Verdrag en tractaat van Venlo: Herdenkingsbundel1543–1993, ed. F. Keverling Buisman et al. (Hilversum, 1993), pp. 83ff.; and H. Wiesflecker,Kaiser Maximilian I: das Reich, Österreich und Europa an der Wende zur Neuzeit, 5 vols.(Munich, 1971–86), 4:320–29, 606–09.

and Charles V.10 The Burgundian-Habsburg claim to Guelders was based onarguments of legality, one of the results of which was a propaganda offensive inthe form of letters and remonstrances.11 Maximilian and Philip found allies inthe kings of England, Henry VII and Henry VIII. Duke Charles of Gueldersobtained material help from France and diplomatic assistance and advice fromhis kinsman in Scotland, King James IV, who was allied with France.12

This internationalization of the Guelders problem strengthened the hand ofCharles of Guelders by giving him a semblance of legality. Without financialand military assistance from France, he would otherwise have been unable toprolong the struggle for the several decades he did. The war with Guelders, theresult of which was incorporation of that duchy into the Habsburg Netherlandsfollowing the surrender of the stronghold city of Venlo in 1543, is an importantpart of the history of that realm as well. C. A. Rutgers has investigated the polit-ical consequences of the absorption of Guelders into the Habsburg dominions,and he concluded that the commercial interests of the urban elites in Guelders,and their links with the western Netherlands, were strong enough to make, forthem, the inclusion of Guelders into the Burgundian-Habsburg dominions adesirable outcome of the war at that time.13 However, sources at Haarlem andLeiden show unequivocally that the cities of Holland were opposed to theGuelders war in principle, viewing it as a dynastic war of the house of Habsburgand harmful to their own immediate welfare and trading interests in Hollandand abroad. Those two themes are found linked in the minutes of the local coun-cils: the personal interest of the ruling house in propagating the war; and thedangers which the war had for Holland’s trade. Examples of sentiments whichare expressed again and again in resolutions of the councils at Haarlem andLeiden are:

if her grace [the regent, Margaret of Austria] has any enemies then she should summona diet . . . since the war is our gracious lord’s business . . . so that we do not enter thewar and that the war of Guelders does not become the war of Holland . . . that his royal

96 James P. Ward

10 Arnold, duke of Guelders, died in 1473 and the States of Guelders recognized his son, Adolf, assuccessor. Charles the Bold, duke of Burgundy, then marched his forces into Guelders to claimhis rights to the dukedom which he claimed to have purchased from Arnold for 300,000 goldguilders. Philip I later inherited those rights through his mother, Mary, duchess of Burgundy,Charles the Bold’s only child. Phases and events in the war prior to the Treaty of Cambrai(1508) are not treated in this article.

11 Nijhoff, ed., Gedenkwaardigheden, passim; J. Gairdner, ed., Letters and Papers Illustrative ofthe Reigns of Richard III and Henry VII, 2 vols. (London, 1863; repr. Wiesbaden, 1965),passim; J. P. Ward, “A Selection of Letters, 1507–1516, from the Guelders War,” Lias: Sourcesand Documents relating to the Early Modern History of Ideas 29 (2002), 125–51.

12 J. P. Ward, “King James IV, Continental Diplomacy and the Guelders War,” Scottish HistoricalReview 83 (2004), 70–81.

13 C. A. Rutgers, “Gelre: een deel van ‘Nederland’?” Tijdschrift voor Geschiedenis 88 (1975),27–38, especially pp. 35–36. See also P. J. Meij, “Gelderland van 1492–1543,” in Geschiedenisvan Gelderland 1492–1795, ed. P. J. Meij et al. (Zutphen, 1975), especially ch. 1, pp. 13–78 and481–91.

highness may conclude a peace or truce so that this poor desolate country may pursueits trade and the commerce on which it is based.14

Yet, on occasion the local councils passed resolutions that, if the war was inevi-table, then it should be supported and paid for by all the Habsburg dominions.This was the so-called “general war,” a term which is also mentioned repeatedlyin sources at Haarlem and Leiden.15 Whatever might be asked of them, themagistrates of Haarlem and Leiden affirmed that they would conduct them-selves as loyal subjects of the prince.16

The frontiers of Holland were protected by a series of castles and fortressesat places which included Gouda, Naarden, Muiden, Oudewater, andSchoonhoven.17 Not only were these attacked repeatedly by Charles ofGuelders, but other towns and cities deeper in Holland were threatened andattacked, too. Haarlem and Leiden recognized how important it was forHolland’s commercial shipping to defend the Zuiderzee coast, and that Elburgon the shores of the Zuiderzee, which was occupied by Guelders’ forces, posed athreat to Holland’s overseas trade and commerce.18 In May 1508, two othertowns on the Zuiderzee Coast near Amsterdam, Weesp and Muiden, were alsocaptured by Guelders, but they were handed back shortly afterwards under theterms of the peace treaty signed at Cambrai in December 1508.

The Treaty of Cambrai between King Louis XII of France and Maximilian I,who was represented by his daughter, Margaret of Austria, regent in the Nether-lands, appeared to put an end to the war. Leiden’s delegate to the proceedings,Bruynink Spruyt, wrote an optimistic letter to his fellow magistrates andaldermen at home, describing the scene and expressing the hopes of the deputiesfor peace.19 The treaty’s provisions included cutting off French support forCharles of Guelders. Charles of Guelders accepted the treaty on 13 January1509, but within a few weeks of it being signed he revoked his promise. Early in1509 the government at The Hague warned towns in Holland that Charles of


14 GA Leiden, inv. no. 383, f. 187 (11 Aug. 1514); GA Haarlem, Vroedschapsres, 1501–1516, ff.97v–98 (16 Sept. 1512); GA Leiden, inv. no. 383, ff. 129–129v (16 Sept. 1512); GA Leiden,inv. no. 383, f. 239 (4 Sept. 1517). Abbreviations used here are GA: Gemeente Archief/Municipal Archives; and Vroedschapsres: Resolutions of the local council.

15 A point not discussed here but which should be emphasized is that the related Habsburg-Valoiswars on the borders with France were largely paid for by Flanders. See N. Maddens, “De bedenin het graafschap Vlaanderen tijdens de regering van Keizer Karel V (1515–1550),” AnciensPays et Assemblées d’Etats/Standen en Landen 72 (1978), 373.

16 GA Haarlem, Vroedschapsres, 1501–1516, ff. 43v–44 (30 March 1508); f. 69 (27 March 1511);ff. 101v–102v (26 Oct. 1512); GA Leiden, inv. no. 383, f. 96v (10 June 1511); ff. 106v–107 (30Dec. 1511); ff. 129–129v (16 Sept. 1512); etc.

17 For a letter (with an English translation) from an eyewitness describing an attack by Charles ofGuelders on Oudewater in 1512 see Ward, “Letters,” pp. 144–45.

18 For the important waterways and trade routes in sixteenth-century Holland, with a map, seeSmit, Vorst en onderdan, pp. 438–40. It may be remarked here that good military roads werefew and far between in Holland at that time.

19 GA Leiden, inv. no. 383, original unbound letter inserted loose (dated 5 Dec. 1508): “. . . dairzijluyden alle dat beste van hopende zijn dattet tot eenen pays gedeyen sal.”

Guelders had written to say that “he did not wish to maintain the peace treatymade at Cambrai.”20 Following diets held at The Hague and at Amsterdam at theend of August 1509 to discuss defense, a delegation was sent to the regent,Margaret of Austria, to ask for help. Haarlem took the warnings of attacks byGuelders forces seriously enough to send troops to defend Weesp.21

The following is a résumé of the war from then on. Cities and towns inHolland were at their most vulnerable when the waterways were frozen overbecause this allowed an enemy immediate access to their walls.22 In December1510, during a period of hard frost, Amsterdam convinced Haarlem of the needfor extra troops to defend Weesp, and it was resolved to send twenty-fivesoldiers there. However, the inhabitants of Weesp still felt insecure because, asthe resolutions of the Haarlem local council record:

Weesp is not well defended with the 25 soldiers who have been sent, and the inhabit-ants openly dare [to say], although they are forced to keep watch inside Weesp at night,if the enemy should come again they would open the gates and leave, saying that theydo not want to be taken prisoner.23

That winter Leiden had similar worries concerning the security of Woerden, andin diets at The Hague a larger plan was made to engage three hundred troops toguard the Zuiderzee and the area in Holland adjoining the frontier withUtrecht.24

In 1511, following the breakdown of negotiations for a marriage betweenCharles of Guelders and Elizabeth, a sister of Charles V, the cities of the northaccepted that the regent Margaret of Austria could not make peace if her“neighbor,” Charles of Guelders, remained intransigent. The failure of thelarge-scale campaign against Venlo with a professional army in the summer of1511, and the defeat of Count Jan van Wassenaar in battle, again with a profes-

98 James P. Ward

20 ARA, Rek.Rek. inv. no. 343, f. 209 (undated, but before 21 March 1509): “. . . dat heere Karelvan Gelre gescreven heeft dat hij den pays tot Camerijk gamaict niet onderhouden en wille . . .”Abbreviations used here are: ARA: National Archives, The Hague; Rek.Rek.: Rekeningen vande Rekenkamer/Accounts of the Chamber of Accounts.

21 GA Haarlem, Tres.rek. 1508–1509, f. 45 (27 Aug. 1509); GA Leiden, inv. no. 589, ff. 43–43v(27 Aug. 1509); GA Haarlem, Tres.rek. 1509–1510, f. 19 (4 Sept. 1509); ff. 20–20v (25 Sept.1509). Abbreviation used here is: Tres.rek.: Treasurers’ Accounts.

22 Bells were rung daily in winter to draw attention to the by-laws, enforced by sanctions,requiring burghers to break the ice adjoining their dwellings in towns and cities before a certainhour of the day; GA Leiden, inv. no. 387, ff. 19, 25, 32, 33v, 39v, 40v, 59, 108, etc., and GAHaarlem, inv. Rood 63, ff. 7, 8v where there are multiple entries.

23 GA Haarlem, Vroedschapsres, 1501–1516, ff. 64v–65 (13 Nov. 1510). See also ff. 65v–66(4 Dec. 1510): “. . . geopent is eenen brief comende van der stede van Aemsterdamme, datWeesp nyet wel bewaert en is mit de XXV knechten die zij daerinne gesonden hebben overmitsdat de lantsaten hem genouch opelick vermeten, howel zij gedwongen worden des nachtsbinnen Weesp te moeten waicken, dat zij nochtans indien datter vyanden quamen die poirtenopen doen souden ende gaen wech, zeggende dat zij daer nyet gevangen en willen zijn . . .”

24 GA Leiden, inv. no. 383, ff. 85v–86v and f. 85A (one of several unnumbered folio pagesinserted between f. 85v and f. 86).

sional army, in December 1512 impressed the cities of Holland of the need todefend their own quarters.

The two years which elapsed after he broke the truce of December 1508 weregood militarily for Charles of Guelders. In Guelders he retook the towns ofHarderwijk, Zaltbommel, and Hattem in 1511, despite the fact that magistratesfrom Dordrecht carried warnings of impending attacks to the emperor andrequested military reinforcements on the frontiers.25 In the summer of 1512Charles of Guelders massed his troops at Zaltbommel prior to making an attackon Tiel, which he recaptured in September.26 Weesp and Muiden in Hollandwere threatened once more as in 1508, and there were reports that soldiersostensibly in the service of Holland were raiding the countryside.27 To makethings worse, troops stationed at Delfshaven near Rotterdam mutinied becausethey had not been paid.

The soldiers who mutinied at Delfshaven, where the harbor of Delft was situ-ated, are referred to in the sources as the four “banners” (vier vaenkens). Anearly sign of the impending mutiny was a letter written in May 1512 by thetroops to the magistrates of Leiden about their grievances.28 Some time after thesoldiers had made their demands known, in September 1512, the delegates tothe diet of the States of Holland at The Hague, who were discussing defenseplans and costs, initially took the attitude that it was no longer their responsi-bility to pay them. They relied on the precedent of previous levies (omslagen)with which the government had taxed the cities in order to meet the arrears insoldiers’ pay. At the same time, Leiden’s magistrates rejected governmentalplans for the defense of frontiers in the coming winter in order, they said, toavoid becoming involved in the war. By agreeing to these plans, Holland wouldbe engaging in the war with Guelders.29

The mutineers wrote letters threatening to take what they thought was theirdue. If they were not paid by 21 September, at the latest, “that very day” they


25 GA Dordrecht, Old Archive inv. no. 443, ff. 61–61v (3 July 1512): “. . . den dorden in julio totTurnhout by die K.M. om die te verthoenen hoe tot Bommel grote vergaderinge van volck wasende alle dagen toecoemen mocht, daer cleyne defensie van volck tegens was, voersoeckendevolck van oirloge optie frontieren . . .”

26 GA Leiden, inv. no. 591, ff. 33v–34 (7 Sept. 1512): “Ende opte zelve dachvaert worde medegeopent hoedat doer tinnemen van Tyel tgehelle landt van Arckell ende Zuythollant open stondt,ende oeck daer toe Uuytrecht enige conspiracien gemaect soude wesen omme bij denGelreschen een aenslach te doen op Hollant, principalick op Wesip, wairomme van noode wasdie frontieren te besetten . . .”

27 GA Dordrecht, Old Archive I, inv. no. 443, f. 63v (8 Sept. 1512).28 GA Leiden, inv. no. 591, f. 65v: “. . . meester Phillips Vranckenz. van dat hij opten Heyligen

Assencioensdach [20 May 1512] te paerde gereden is bij den capiteynen van den vier vaenkensom op hem te begeeren dat zij bynnen Leyden souden wille comen, omme hemluyden antwordete zeggen opten brieff by hemluyden gescreven . . .”

29 GA Haarlem, Vroedschapsres, 1501–1516, ff. 97v–98 (16 Sept. 1512). See also GA Leiden,inv. no. 383, ff. 129–129v (16 Sept. 1512) : “. . . is gestemmet dat men sulke concepten off selslaen updat mitsdien wij niet en comen in den oirloge, ende dat tselve oirloge van Gelre toirlogevan Hollandt niet en wordt . . .”

would take their pay as best they thought fit. Faced with this choice, Leiden“chose the lesser evil” (dat men van veele quaden tminste quaet behoirt tekiesen), and provided money in order to pacify the mutineers and to get somerelief for their neighbors at Delft where the mutineers’ blockade of the harborhad already caused hardship.30 The defense of Weesp on the Zuiderzee,however, continued to be a source of anxiety, particularly to Haarlem andAmsterdam; it was feared that the garrison stationed on the frontiers in the northmight desert because they also had not been paid for many months.31

At such a moment Charles of Guelders proved how self-assured he was bysummoning the towns of Alphen and Arlanderveen to come to Wageningen inorder to discuss their “brandschatting,” the ransom money which he charged fornot burning them down. Leiden’s generous response, together with Delft, was tosend seventy-five more soldiers to defend Alphen and to stand by the town.32

But the council at Leiden reiterated that because no agreement had beenreached on finances, each quarter should be responsible for its own defense.33

From then onwards, defense predominated the agendas of the diets at TheHague.

The military uncertainty at this time is expressed in several motions in thecouncil resolutions. In the weeks that preceded Jan van Wassenaar’s defeat inDecember 1512, Leiden and Delft, noting that the quarters of Delfland andRijnland were undefended, had shown determination to act on their own behalf.They made an agreement to defend Woerden and Oudewater and to share thecosts equally.34

When the winter of 1512–13 had passed, unrest in Holland increased again,caused by the discontent of unemployed soldiers and the continuous rumors andthreat of attack from Guelders, which meant that defensive measures still had tobe taken. Early in 1513, following the defeat and capture of Jan van Wassenaar,the enemy invaded Holland on a large scale.

100 James P. Ward

30 GA Leiden, inv. no. 591, ff. 34–34v (11 Sept. 1512). See also GA Leiden, inv. no. 383, ff.130–130v (20 Sept. 1512): “. . . ende genouch ontseggebrieven gescreven an den stedehouder,Raidt ende Staten van den lande, inhoudende onder andere dat indien men hemluyden niet enbetailt tusschen dit ende dynsdach naistcomende [21 Sept. 1512], dien dach al, zij dencken hemselven te betalen ende soe doen als hem te sin staen sel . . .”

31 GA Haarlem, Vroedschapsres, 1501–1516, f. 100 (12 Oct. 1512) and GA Haarlem, Tres.rek.1512–1513, ff. 60–60v (13 Oct. 1512). See also GA Leiden, inv. no. 591, f. 35 (10 Oct. 1512):“. . . ende is mede versprocke dat van groote noode was dat men die capiteynen, liggende optefrontieren een zekere penning opte handt geven soude omme te scuwen inconvenienten, wantzij in VIII maenden gheen betalinge gehadt en hebben . . .”

32 GA Leiden, inv. no. 591, f. 35v (30 Oct. 1512): “. . . hoedat die van Alphen ende Arlanderveenbrieven ontfangen hadden dat zij tot Wageningen souden comen ende verdingen, of, indien zijbijnen IX dagen niet en quamen, die Geldresche zoude commen ende verbrande hemluyden. . .”

33 GA Leiden, inv. no. 383, f. 134 (7 Nov. 1512): “. . . wandt noch gheen accordt bij der stedegestellt en is . . . soe sel een ygelick sijn quartier bewaeren . . .”

34 GA Leiden, inv. no. 592, ff. 62–62v (5 Jan. 1513): “. . . anmerckende dat die quartieren vanDelflant ende Rijnlant, Woerden ende Oudewater niet beset en waeren mit knechten . . . dat zijdie scade malckander zouden helpen dragen half ende half . . .”

Leiden was warned in February that there might be an attack on Rijnland,and it asked the Council at The Hague “what measures had been taken to defendthe frontiers and the quarters of Rijnland against the enemy.”35 Delegates fromLeiden went to Alphen to discuss defensive measures, such as breaking downthe bridges and mobilizing the local inhabitants.36 Further measures wereformulated at a diet at The Hague in April 1513 when the deputies “of the threecities of Delft, Leiden, and Gouda finally deliberated together that they wouldeach defend their own quarter for the period of a month.” Deputies from Leidenthen went to a diet at Gouda in order to put the details of this agreement down inwriting.37 There remained little more for them to do after that but “to bite intothis sour apple and to consent for a period of one month to maintain 400–500troops.”38 In May 1513, Charles of Guelders attacked Schoonhoven, andmeasures were taken to prevent his incursion.39 Gouda, in helping to defendOudewater and Woerden in its quarter, played a role similar to the roles ofHaarlem with respect to Weesp and Muiden and Leiden with respect toAlphen.40 These measures taken by the magistrates reveal a mutually agreedstructure for the defense of the quarters of Holland, with individual but coordi-nated responsibilities for the cities.

In July 1513, the Treaty of Brussels was signed with Charles of Guelders,bringing once more a pause in the fighting in Holland. But before the peacecould be concluded, Leiden had to endure another severe test. This was the riotwhich occurred there on the public holiday called Omgangsdag (ProcessionDay), one of the great days in city life in the Middle Ages. At Leiden it fell thatyear on 8 May.

Armed, foreign mercenaries were not a welcome sight in cities and towns.Earlier that year, during the winter months, the government had offered tostation a regiment of landsknechts in Leiden for the defense of the city, and themagistrates “for many reasons” had politely but firmly refused the offer which


35 GA Leiden, inv. no. 592, f. 35 (13 Feb. 1513). The term “Council” (capitalized) refers to theruling council at The Hague, otherwise called the Council of Holland (Raad van Holland), thehighest governmental institution in Holland.

36 GA Leiden, inv. no. 592, f. 32 (4 April 1513); GA Leiden, inv. no. 592, ff. 36–36v (20 April1513); GA Leiden, inv. no. 592, f. 25 (7 May 1513); and GA Haarlem, Tres.rek. 1512–1513,f. 76v (8 May 1513).

37 GA Leiden, inv. no. 592, ff. 32–32v (16 April 1513) and f. 36v (23 April 1513).38 GA Leiden, inv. no. 383, ff. 147–147v (20 April 1513) “. . . ende men verducht dat zijluyden

[the enemy] int quartier van Rijnlant comen zullen, dat de stede van Leyden in eenen zuerenappel bijten moet ende consenteren voir den tijt van een maent int onderhout van vier ofvijfhondert knechten . . .”

39 GA Haarlem, Tres.rek. 1512–1513, f. 76v (8 May 1513): “. . . in wat manieren men zoudemoeghen beletten den inganck van den hertoge van Gelre in desen quartiere, dewelcke doe mitalle sijn macht voer Schoonhoven was etc. . . .” See also GA Gouda, Old Archive, inv. no. 1170,f. 21.

40 GA Gouda, Old Archive inv. no. 42, f. 29, printed in Bijdragen en Mededeelingen van hetHistorisch Genootschap 37 (1916), 73.

had been made at the suggestion of the stadholder.41 Now, however, they werewilling to accommodate the government by allowing the men to pass throughLeiden, and, probably recognizing the danger, the magistrates offered to providethe soldiers with food and drink once they had passed, on condition that theymarched through the city without delay.42

But the soldiers were obstructed and prevented from entering the city. Somemonths later, in the wake of the very lengthy legal proceedings which resultedfrom the riot, a phrase used in the council resolutions at Leiden was“concerning . . . the shutting out of the soldiers.”43 There is some evidence thatthe townsmen or members of the local shooters guilds (scutters), afoot early forthe procession in which they were to take part, taunted or insulted the soldiers.A prohibition on insulting behavior towards soldiers which was announced bythe city council on 23 May points in that direction.44

In March 1514 Charles of Guelders broke the treaty of July 1513. In an atmo-sphere already tainted by suspicions of treachery and betrayal on both sides, itcame as no great surprise. Charles of Guelders was the weaker party militarily,and Arnhem, the capital of Guelders, was at that moment the only major centerstill in Burgundian-Habsburg hands. Charles used cunning, and he occupied thecity in a lightning attack: Dolo pugnandum est dum quis par non est armis. AtWoerden, the Guelders attack was seen as another move in the conflict whichthe king of France, Charles of Guelders’ “master,” had with Holland and theBurgundian-Habsburg authorities and ruling house.45

The Guelders war in Holland has been likened to a guerrilla war.46 Attacks byCharles of Guelders up to that time had been on the scale of several hundreds ofinfantry and cavalrymen, reinforced with a few cannon. From 1515 onward,however, Holland was subjected to major invasions by her enemies. The firstlarge incursion was by the so-called “Black Band.” On the evidence of acontemporary, the monk and chronicle writer Paulus Rodolphi of Rixtel, these

102 James P. Ward

41 GA Leiden, inv. no. 383, f. 141 (14 Feb. 1513): “. . . dat men mijn heere van Cortgeen hierofbedancken sel . . . ende om veele redenen den knechten niet begheren . . .”

42 GA Leiden, inv. no. 383, ff. 150v–151 (8 May 1513): “Is voirt gestemmet ende gesloten datmen die voirs. knechten sel laeten passeren doir die stede sonder thoeven ende dat men hemvitalie scicken sal als sij doir die stede sijn . . .” Compare this with GA Leiden, inv. no. 383,f. 145 (11 April 1513) where troops were also to be given food and drink for their march.

43 GA Leiden, inv. no. 592, ff. 37v–38 (20 May 1513). Also GA Leiden, inv. no. 383, f. 167 (11Aug. 1513): “. . . aengaende die saicke van der stede van Leyden van den uuthoudinge van denknechten opten Ommegancxdach lestleden . . .”, and f. 170 (3 Sept. 1513). For the text of theroyal pardon or absolution, anno 1515: GA Leiden, inv. no. 874.

44 GA Leiden, inv. no. 387, f. 37v (23 May 1513): “Voirt gebieden tgerecht dat indient geboerdedat enige ruyteren off knechten quamen voer die poerten van der stede dat nyemandt denselvenknechten ende ruyteren vijsdet off qualick toe en sprecken, up correxie van der stede.” For“vijsten” meaning “to fart” (een wind laten, f latum ventris emittere) see MiddelnederlandschWoordenboek, vol. 9.

45 GA Woerden, Stadsrek. 1513–1514, f. 4v (undated): “. . . want dye heer van Gelre dat bestantnyt en dochte onderhouden in den dye koninck van Vranrijc, sijn meester, up ons oirlochde.”

46 Ward, “Letters,” pp. 135–36.

men took service in 1514 in the army of Duke George of Saxony who wasgovernor of Friesland and a Habsburg ally. On George’s departure, they changedsides and joined Charles of Guelders, who was allied to some of the Frisiansresisting Burgundian-Habsburg domination. Charles of Guelders then negoti-ated the transfer of the Black Band to the service of the king of France for acampaign in Italy.47

Early in 1515, on their way south, they appeared in Holland. In March, thegovernment in Holland negotiated with the men of the Black Band, whonumbered 4000 according to their own statement, and offered them 1000 guil-ders if they would leave the country. But they refused the offer, demanding 4000guilders instead, equivalent to a week’s pay for the soldiers.48 The question thenwas whether to pay or resist them. The magistrates at Leiden resolved not to letthem pass the city, and the government at The Hague ordered the cities to mobi-lize their local forces.49 By 2 March 1515, the mobilization was completed inHaarlem. Measures were also taken to open sluices and break down bridges,methods traditionally used to hinder an enemy in the Low Countries.50 But thecrisis passed. City archives in Holland contain little more information about themovements of the Black Band, although it is known that by April 1515 they hadtraveled to Italy and near destruction at the battle of Marignano.

The next major incursion, when the country was invaded from across theZuiderzee in 1517, was more destructive to Holland. News was received thatCharles of Guelders was planning “with the Frisians and all his forces to invadeWest-Friesland and to overrun some of the towns of Waterland such asEnkhuizen, Hoorn or others and then to invade Holland and despoil the wholecountryside.”51 On 25 June 1517, Alkmaar was attacked, taken by storm, andsacked. The destruction of Alkmaar gave rise at once to conspiracy theories that


47 J. G. Ottema, trans. and ed., Proeliarius of Strijdboek, bevattende de jongste oorlogen inFriesland, in het jaar 1518 etc. (Leeuwarden, 1855), pp. 64 and 71. Subsequently, the BlackBand fought for the king of France at the battle of Marignano in September 1515 where theysuffered heavy losses. See Hans Delbrück, Geschichte der Kriegskunst im Rahmen derpolitischen Geschichte (Berlin, 1920; repr. 1962), 4:94–101.

48 GA Haarlem, Vroedschapsres, 1501–1516, ff. 152–152v (2 March 1515): “. . . welckegedeputeerde van den Raidt himluyden boden duysent Rijns gulden ende dair en boven eengratuyteyt den hoofdluyden, dairmede zij niet tevreden en zijn, mer willen hebben 4.000gouden gulden upte hant, zoe zij vierduysent gemonsterden knechten zijn.” See also GAHaarlem, Tres.rek. 1514–1515, ff. 57–57v (2 March 1515).

49 GA Leiden, inv. no. 594, ff. 37–37v (1 March 1515) and ARA, Rek.Rek. inv. no. 349, ff.137–137v.

50 GA Haarlem, Tres.rek. 1514–1515, ff. 57–57v (2 March 1515); GA Haarlem, Vroedschapsres,1501–1516, ff. 152–152v (2 March 1515); and GA Leiden, inv. no. 594, f. 85 (16 March 1515).

51 GA Leiden, inv. no. 383, f. 223v (11 May 1517). See also GA Leiden, inv. no. 383, f. 226v (24May 1517): “. . . ende alsoe doen ter tijt zekere brieven gecomen waeren aen den Raedt vanHollant van mijn heere den stedehouder, inhoudende dat die heere van Gelre mit den Vriesenmitter ganser macht in meyninge waeren omme te comen int quartier van Westvrieslant om tebecrachtigen enige van den Watersteden alse Enchuysen, Hoeren ofte andere, ende voirt teslaen int lant van Hollant ende bederven tgehele platte lant . . .”, and f. 227v (28 May 1517).

the government of Holland had allowed it in order to make the population moreamenable to taxation for the war. Erasmus wrote to Beatus Rhenanus that “thestorm was deliberately unleashed upon them.”52 The Guelderlanders werechased out of Holland shortly afterwards, and a truce was arranged at Utrechton 17 September 1517. At Leiden there remained a strong sense of realism:“even if we have peace and a truce now, next year it can be war again.”53

Defense and Means at the Magistrates’ Disposal

Measures for defense taken at Leiden in 1516 and 1517 are indicative ofmeasures taken in other cities and towns in Holland at that period. District offi-cers (bonmeesteren) responsible for local defense in the different quarters of thecity of Leiden were required to prepare lists of the names of all able-bodied menbetween twenty and sixty years of age. In 1516 the magistrates at Leiden wereasked by the government to send 200 men to help defend Haarlem. At first theyclaimed that their resources were needed for their own defense, and theydeclined to help either Haarlem or The Hague. But they changed their minds forfear of displeasing (thoeren – “anger”) the king, Charles V. They resolved torecruit the 200 men, but, believing that there were not enough mercenarysoldiers (knechten) immediately available, the local militias had to be mobi-lized. This was done by choosing individual men of military age from the localpopulation by lot, “the 4th, 5th, 6th, 7th or 8th man, as many as will be neededto make up the 200.”54

Shortly afterwards, the court at The Hague asked for another 150 men armedwith handguns, two cannon, and a dozen harquebuses and “people who knowhow to use them,” together with supplies of gunpowder and lead shot to defendThe Hague. Leiden replied that in the meanwhile they had discharged the mentaken on earlier and could ill afford to send help, since Leiden was emptied oftroops and was now also in danger of attack. It was even suggested that the menwho had been discharged were a danger to Leiden since “many of them have leftthe city and several persons have warned that the soldiers had an eye on thiscity.”55

104 James P. Ward

52 R. A. B. Mynors, D. F. S. Thomson, and P. G. Bietenholz, ed. and trans., Collected Works ofErasmus (Toronto, 1974–2005), 5:73–74, and James D. Tracy, The Politics of Erasmus: A Paci-fist Intellectual and his Political Milieu (Toronto, 1978), pp. 83–87.

53 GA Leiden, inv. no. 383, ff. 243–243v (28 Sept. 1517): “. . . al ist nu pays ende bestant, tmachover een jair oirloge worden.”

54 GA Leiden, inv. no. 383, f. 210v (23 Sept. 1516): “. . . op aldat de voirs. van der stede denthoeren van de C.M. beduchtende zijn etc. . . . gesloten dat men looten sel den IIII/en, V/en,VI/en, VII/en ofte VIII/en man zoe veel als men behoven sel om tgetal van de voirs. twiehondert man te vervollen.”

55 GA Leiden, inv. no. 383, f. 211 (8 Oct. 1516): “. . . veel van hemluyden uuyt der stede vertogenzijn, ende dat de stede bij diversche persoenen gewaerschuwet is als dat de knechten toge updesen stede hebben . . .”

In 1517, immediately after the destruction of Alkmaar, the local militiaswere mobilized once more. Every fourth man was selected from the lists bydrawing lots, with the names read in public and the selected men preparing theirweapons and armor to be ready to march the following day to Haarlem, nearwhere the next attack was thought to be imminent.56 Under the date of 8 August1517, the magistrates of Leiden ordered the defense of the eighteen districts ofthe city to be reorganized. Sections of ten men were appointed, each sectionunder the leadership of a captain, and each district under that of acaptain-general. The officers were required to submit lists of their men’s namesto the magistrates, and they were responsible for the inspection of weapons andthe general alertness and readiness. The names of the captains-general weremade public “so that everyone may know under whose command he stands.”They included a knight (ridder), a university graduate (meester), and amerchant (coman).57 Others can be shown to have been members of the council(vroedschap) at that time or in other years.

A special place was reserved in the community for certain groups of menwho were experienced in the use of weapons, the members of the shooters’guilds for whom, for want of a better term, the word “militia” has been usedabove. Studies of the sources by Jacob Van Asch van Wijk and C. Te Lintum inthe nineteenth century and more recently by Theo Reintges in 1963 allow anumber of conclusions to be drawn on the origins and purposes of the medievalshooters’ guilds. Reintges’ two most important conclusions were that theshooters had their origin in the cities of Flanders around 1300 from where theyspread north and east throughout the Low Countries and Germany, and that theprimary purpose of the members, not to say their main goal, was to derive plea-sure in shooting.58


56 GA Leiden, inv. no. 387, ff. 63v–64 (27 June 1517): “. . . naevolgende tscrieven van den Hove,dat die bonmeesteeren elck in den hoeren van stonden an up gescrijfte stellen sullen alleweerachtige mannen boven XX jaeren ende beneden tzestich ende den gerechte overleverenvoir drie uren na de noene, om alsdan den vierden man uuyt te loten achtervolgende denselvenbrieff, ende dat elck zijn weer ende harnasch bereijt maect . . .”

57 GA Leiden, SA I inv. no. 387, f. 69 (8 August 1517): “Voirt updat eenen ygelicken weten machonder wye hij stae ende wye hoir capiteynen zijn, zoe sel een ygelick weten dat diezelvecapiteynen generael zijn deze naebescreven personen.” The names of the commanders and theirdistricts were as follows: Jan van Honthorst (T’Wanthuys); Gerijt van Lochorst, ridder (Overt’Hoff); Jan Paeds Claesz. (Niuwelant); Florijs van Bossch (Burchstrenge); Gerijt Roelofsz.(T’Wolhuys); Gerijt van Hoichtwoude (T’Vleyshuys); Meester Philipps van Henegouwen(T’Gasthuys vierendeel); Frans Gerijt Doenz. (Kerck vierendeel); Cornelis Jansz. die Wilde(Levendeel); Jan Claes Jansz.zoon (Rapenburch); Dirck Ottenz. (Hogewoert); Jan vanZonnevelt (Overmaren lantzijde); Coman Willem Woutersz. (Overmaren Rijnzijde); DirckFlorijsz. (Marendorp Rijnzijde); Dirck van der Boechorst (Sevenhuysen); Ghijsbrecht vanLodensteijn (Gansoirde); Jan Dircxz. Houtcoper (Sinter Niclaesgraft); and Pouwels Fransz.(Marendorp lantzijde).

58 C. Te Lintum, Das Haarlemer Schüzenwesen (De Haarlemsche Schutterij) in seinermilitärischen und politischen Stellung von alten Zeiten bis heute (Enschede, 1896), andT. Reintges, Ursprung und Wesen der spätmittelalterlichen Schüzengilden (Bonn, 1963).

But there were other occasions on which the shooters’ guilds had importantceremonial duties to perform. They provided escort during religious processionsand on other solemn occasions, and they formed a bodyguard during royal visitsto their towns. They also had a festive public function in organizing shootingcontests for their own pleasure and that of others, the best known of which wasthe popinjay shooting. They arranged public dinners, and raised funds for themutual support of members in times of distress, when for example they helpedwith funeral expenses and the like. But above all, it may be assumed from theirkeenness, they were primarily competent shooters. In the early stages of theirhistory their weapons were the crossbow and the longbow, but by the fifteenthcentury there were also shooters’ guilds using firearms of various kinds along-side the bowmen.59

From these facts there followed a number of corollaries to Reintges’ conclu-sions, chief among them that the shooters had specialists’ role to fill in wartime.But, equally, he emphasized that they were not a militia in the sense of a trainedreserve force of military men who could be called up to serve in wartime, norwere they (in modern terms) a para-military police force. Although they mightbe called “the strength and sinews of the city” (kracht en zenuwen van de stad),their military role was similar to that of all able-bodied men at the time. Anexpression in the sources at Haarlem which referred to defending Holland frominvaders contains an echo of the Roman ethos pro aris et focis. Similarly, atLeiden members of the shooters’ guilds were bound “for God’s sake and honor”to come fully armed to defend the city if the alarm bell sounded, as were otherable-bodied members of the public.60

At Leiden, Haarlem, and elsewhere in Holland, there were from earliest timestwo shooters’ guilds, the crossbowmen and the longbowmen. The differences intheir weapons reflected a social difference in the membership. Since thecrossbow was a considerably more expensive weapon than the longbow,crossbowmen of the guild of Saint George were frequently the better off andbetter organized men in society, like merchants and patricians, while thelongbowmen’s guild of Saint Sebastian was formed from artisans andworkmen.61

The numbers of shooters at Haarlem and Leiden in the fifteenth and earlysixteenth centuries are given as 120 crossbowmen at Haarlem in the year 1402,increasing to 200 by 1566, and, at Leiden, 120 crossbowmen and 75 longbow-

106 James P. Ward

59 M. Carasso-Kok and J. Levy-van Halm, eds., Schutters in Holland: Kracht en zenuwen van destad (Haarlem, 1988).

60 GA Haarlem, Vroedschapsres, 1501–1516, ff. 152–152v (2 March 1515): “. . . updat sij [i.e. theenemy] in tlant ende ymmers an tharde niet en comen . . .” (the word harde [aerde] is etymologi-cally related to “hard,” “earth” and “hearth” in English), and GA Leiden, inv. no. 383, loosepage numbered “133v” (30 July 1512): “. . . dat een ygelick zijn harnassch, weer ende wapenbij hem gereedt houdt . . . als van Goids weghen ende eeren wegen behoirdt . . .”

61 Te Lintum, pp. 2, 11ff., 25, and Reintges, pp. 53, 73.

men in 1450, increasing and changing to 400 members with firearms in 1516.62

But these figures fail to show the marked swings and changes of fortune of thelongbowmen’s guilds at Haarlem and Leiden in the early sixteenth century. InLeiden, the magistrates finally decreed in 1511 that the longbow was “of verylittle protection and defense.” They withdrew their subsidy to the guild and theuse of the city’s shooting butts on 20 January 1512.63

In local defense matters, the shooters were a small but important section ofthe population to help in defense. That could require them to fight or to keepwatch from the walls and towers when danger threatened. All able-bodied menwere required by law to have suitable weapons and armor, and there were sanc-tions against men coming on watch who were inadequately equipped. In orderto maintain standards the magistrates of Haarlem, Leiden, Gouda, andDordrecht bought weapons throughout the Low Countries and manufacturedgunpowder and arms in large amounts locally.64 These they then sold as aservice to their burghers at cost. The cheapest and most common weapons werethe pike and, before it became obsolete, the longbow. Crossbows and firearms,such as harquebuses and so-called “knip” guns, were favored by the magisterialclass, and they were considerably more expensive. Cannon in bronze andwrought-iron, bought by the communities and mounted on city and town walls,were even more expensive.

Soldiers Hired by Leiden

It was pointed out above that the members of the shooters’ guilds and otherscould be called on for military service. Men between the ages of twenty andsixty years were legally bound to be properly armed and to take part in thedefense of their city when required. But only in times of acute necessity at thediscretion of the magistrates could they be called on to go to other scenes offighting or to defend neighboring towns. The magistrates, therefore, usuallytried to find volunteers for those expeditions, or preferably professional, merce-nary soldiers, before resorting to other measures.

Reasons for this preference were first and foremost that the professionallandsknechts were, after all, the experts in fighting a war. Second, there werequestions of law concerning the privileges of province and city, limiting thedemands that the government and the magistrates could make on their ownburghers. A third, more practical reason for preferring professional troops was


62 Reintges, p. 281, Appendix IX, pp. 350–52, and Appendix X, pp. 352–53.63 GA Leiden, inv. no. 387, f. 29v (6 Dec. 1511): “. . . dat die hantboghen van zeer cleyne waer

ende defensie sijn . . .”, and GA Leiden, inv. no. 591, f. 59 (20 Jan. 1512). At Haarlem thedemise of the longbowmen’s guild took longer; they were forced to sell their meeting place in1531 (Te Lintum, p. 24).

64 J. P. Ward, “Prices of Weapons and Munitions in Early Sixteenth Century Holland during theGuelders War,” Journal of European Economic History 33 (2004), 585–619.

that, in order to get civilian volunteers during emergencies, the magistrates ofLeiden had to offer them more pay than the landsknechts earned. During thecrisis of May 1508, when Weesp and Muiden were occupied by Charles ofGuelders, the stadholder Floris van Ysselstein, ordered Leiden to mobilize itsmen of military age. Leiden said that it would pay volunteers with suitableweapons and armor 6 stuivers per day. In contrast to this, landsknechts receivedonly 4 stuivers per day. But if there were insufficient landsknechts to make upthe numbers required, then those burghers whose names had been drawn by lotto make up the first consignment (cavel) would have to serve as their officerscommanded them, without the option of substituting another person in theirplace.65 Privileged and wealthy persons normally could engage and pay a substi-tute to take their places in the squad.

The problems of getting civilian volunteers are highlighted by the following.During an emergency in September 1516, when Leiden was ordered by thegovernment to send 200 men to the relief of Haarlem, the vroedschap recog-nized that it would be difficult to get enough men to volunteer. But the councilmembers considered whether a number of delinquents (buitendrankers –“outside drinkers”) should be allowed to volunteer. These were men who wereundergoing punishment and restriction orders, some inside and some outsidethe city, for violating the excise laws which forbade drinking outside the city. Itis not clear on whose initiative the question was raised, but the decision (unre-corded) was left to the magistrates.66 Again, later, in 1522, at Leiden it becamenecessary to offer volunteers a monetary incentive for emergency missions ifthey would first register their names and list their weapons and armor. If theywere then required to mobilize, they would receive an immediate payment of 2Philips guilders (equal to 50 stuivers) in advance.67 A conclusion, therefore, is

108 James P. Ward

65 GA Leiden, inv. no. 387, ff. 11v–12 (20 May 1508): “Tgerecht laeten weten een ygelick dat zoewye zoudie winnen wil, dat die come van stonden aen . . . wel getuyghet ende mit een goethantweer, tsij bossen, boghen, lange piecken of helbaerden als dat behoirt, ende men sel eenygelick des dages gheven den tijt dat sij uut wesen sullen ses stuvers sdages. Voirt waerschuwentgerecht allen denghenen die zijn van den eerster cavele dat die denselven gereet houden, wandtindien die stede gheen suffisante knechten gecrigen en mach, zoe sullen die van den eerstercavele van stonden aen moeten uuytreysen, elcx selver in persone sonder yement in hoir stedete moegen stellen . . .”

66 GA Leiden, inv. no. 383, f. 210v (3 Sept. 1516): “Is voirt gevraecht alsoe enigen buyten-dranckers gebannen zijn binnen der stede een zekeren tijt ende tuuyt te bliven, of deselve medebegeerden soult te winnen of men die sel annemen ende uuyt der stede laten reysen, niettegenstaende den voirs. ban. Hierop is gestemmet ende gesloten dat zoe wes bij den gerechtedairin gedaen wordt dat sel van waerden gehouden worden . . .” This practice of recruitingoffenders continues at the present time. In Great Britain “The Herald” newspaper contained inits edition of 23 April 2004 an “exclusive” article by Lucy Adams entitled “Army recruits youngoffenders,” beginning with “The army has started recruiting young offenders in Scotland in anattempt to increase flagging numbers,” and quoting Major Andrew McLuckie of Armyrecruiting in Scotland; www.theherald.co.uk/news.

67 GA Leiden, inv. no. 387, a paper dated 5 Dec. 1522 inserted between ff. 112v and 113:“Naevolgende tscrijven van mijnen heeren van den Rade soe doen mijn heeren van den gerechte

that it was not easy at any time to find enough volunteers from the local popula-tion to serve as soldiers on emergency missions outside the city.

The cities specified in their accounts precisely the number of men and thenumber of “pays” for which they had made provision, and they hoped to havethe costs deducted or discounted against later payments in the subsidies (bede)or the levies (omslagen) imposed on them by the government. Haarlememployed thirteen cavalrymen for garrisoning Weesp during an emergency,probably in September 1509, at the infantryman’s rate of 2 gold guilders perman per fourteen days, and the magistrates hoped that it would be discounted inthe levy.68 The number of “pays” usually exceeded the number of men by about10 percent on average. This was because officers and other men with rank werepaid multiples of the standard. There are data allowing the number of multiplepays to be assessed exactly in some cases: where 600 men received 675 pays,and where 2000 men were calculated at 2184 pays. The multiple pays in thesetwo cases were 12.5 and 9.25 percent respectively.69

The Soldiers’ Identities

When Haarlem or Leiden hired soldiers to defend places like Weesp orOudewater, they usually sent around 25 men each. Those landsknechts weremeant to lead the civil population and to stiffen resistance offered mainly byburghers and members of the shooters’ guilds if attacks should occur. The totalnumber of men in garrisons at those places can seldom have been more thanabout one hundred. But what were the ethnic origins of the men and were theyrecruited from the local population in Holland or not?

In one instance the size of the garrison and the identities of the soldiers canbe established precisely, and the names provide insight into the ethnic origins ofthe men. A list comprising the roll call taken at Alphen on 30 May 1512contains seventy names of common soldiers receiving standard pay, besides thecaptain, Jan van Westwalinck, and six unnamed others indicated only by theirranks. The seventy names cover both sides of a long, narrow sheet of paper.They are written one below the other, which facilitated counting and reading


eenen ygelicken weten dat zoe wye zoudie willen winnen, dat die up naemiddage te twie urenende up morgen na de hoechmisse commen upte stede huys om hem te doen inscrijven endezeggen wat geweer dat zij hebben. Ende zoe wye ingescreven worden, die en zullen hoer soudieniet ingaen eer dat men hemluyden behoeft ende tselve doet weten, ende zoe wanneer menhemluyden behoeft ende uut reysen, zoe zel men hem elcx upte hant geven 2 Phillipus gulden.”

68 GA Haarlem, Tres.rek. 1509–1510, f. 51 (undated): “Voir de souldye van derthien ruyterengelegen binnen der stede van Weesp . . . betaelt . . . voir de tijt van XIIII dagen 26 goudengulden tot 28 stuvers tstuck . . .” In the margin there is a note: “[to be discounted] in the levy ofthe Common Land in so far as possible” (“In de ommeslach van den lande alsoe verre alstdoenlic es.”)

69 GA Leiden, inv. no. 591, f. 35 (10 Oct. 1512); GA Haarlem, Vroedschapsres, 1501–1516, ff.103–104 (16 Nov. 1512); and GA Leiden, inv. no. 383, f. 112 (25 Feb. 1512).

out aloud. The roll call was witnessed and certified by Lodewijk vanMoerkercken. Elsewhere in the accounts van Moerkercken was described aswarden (castelijn) of the castle at Schoonhoven and master of the roll call ormuster.70

Several remarks can be made about the derivations of these names. First, theycan be divided tentatively into categories including the following (with modernspellings):

1. Unattributed Christian names: Balthazar, Gerrit.2. Place names or toponymes:

a) in Holland: Amsterdam, Gorinchem, Gouda, Haarlem, Heusden,Leiden, Naarden, Schoonhoven, Wassenaar, Weesp, Woerden;b) elsewhere in the Low Countries: Bolsward, Kampen, Gennep,Hasselt, Liège, Utrecht(?), Maastricht(?),71 Mechelen, Flanders(“Wlaminck”);c) in Germany: Duisburg, Emden, Metz, Münster, Wesel, Westfalen,Xanten;d) in the Baltic area: Livland, Rostock.

3. Occupation/trade: Camerling (chamberlain), Bierman, Hekelaar (aflaxworker).

4. Possible nicknames or agnomina: Fax, Quast, Schelegen, Spronck, Wanck,Witte Bote, Wlaminck (“Fleming”), Jan Bol and Jan Witte Bol, Drinckuut,Hekelaer or Hakkelaar (stammerer), Sondergelt.72

For the early sixteenth century, proper names of geographic or regional deri-vation, toponyms, are a reliable indication that the bearers hailed from theplaces after which they are named, or from nearby.73 Assuming that at least 8 to

110 James P. Ward

70 ARA, Rek.Rek. inv. no. 3411, loose page at f. 18: “Ick Lodewyck van Moerkercken, ridder,certifieere bij mijnen eede dat ick den voirs. knechten gemonstert hebbe tot Alphen uptenXXX/en dach van meye XV/C ende twaelf . . .” See also ARA, Rek.Rek. inv. no. 2191, f. 6, andinv. no. 2193, f. 14.

71 For “Tricht” as a toponym derived from Tricht in Guelders, or Maastricht, or Utrecht, see R. E.Künzel, D. P. Blok and J. M. Verhoeff, Lexicon van nederlandse toponiemen tot 1200, 2nd ed.(Amsterdam, 1989), p. 350. For other literature on names: F. Debrabandere, Woordenboek vande familiennamen in Belgie en Noord-Frankrijk, 2 vols. (Brussels, 1993); and R. A. Ebeling,Voor en familie-namen in Nederland. Geschiedenis, verspreiding, vorm en gebruik (The Hague,1993), pp. 108ff.

72 The 1993 telephone directory for the region of Rotterdam (p. 951) lists one H. Zondergelt. Thename means literally “no money.” Willem and Lubbert Turck also belong to the category ofnicknames, since Turck is described as “a nickname for a soldier from the wars against theTurks.” See M. Gottschald, Deutsche Namenkunde: Unsere Familiennamen (Berlin, 1982), p.499.

73 See, for example, P. C. M. Hoppenbrouwers, Een middeleeuwse samenleving. Het land vanHeusden (ca.136–ca.1515), 2 vols. (Wageningen, 1992), 1: 128–38; 2: Appendix A, pp.696–747. There is a list of soldiers’ names dating from 1550 in P. Burschel, Söldner imNordwestdeutschland des 16. und 17. Jahrhunderts: Sozialgeschichtliche Studien (Göttingen,1994), pp. 68–69. The names, all with “von,” are toponyms, not indications of nobility. The menwere provided with pikes, on credit.

10 of the other names are characteristic of Netherlanders, then the garrison atAlphen in May 1512 was made up principally of men drawn from Holland, withthe surrounding Low Countries and Germany providing a significant part of therest. The larger numbers of men from Haarlem and Woerden may reflect theunsettled state of the economies there. But perhaps the most enigmatic name inthe list is that of Master Heinrick of Naarden. What was he Master of? Was he aschoolteacher, priest,74 university graduate in law, or artisan? He received onlysingle pay so his qualification did not lie in the military sphere.


Names of Men Forming the Garrison at Alphen in May 1512

Jan van Eijmstein Sinacht van Haerlem Jan van HaerlemWalck van Amsterdam Spronck Haerman van SchonhovenHeinrick van Munster Dallef van Woerden GerijtFax Dirck van Woerden Cclaes [sic] van VingPieter van Haerlem Hans van Woerden Hans van TrichtJan van Baerswelt Ewout van Woerden Engbrecht van GennepHarman van Rostock Wlaminck Joeriaen LyeflanderJan Hakelaer Pieter Drinckuut Heinrick DenanterHeinrick van Hasselt Jan Bol Dirck HolstinckGhijsken die Licht Kaerl van Ludick Frederick SpillesomerQuast Dirck van Boelswaert Hans DortmanBalthasaer Claes van Wassenaer Heinrick LuckenaerAernt Sondergelt Joest Houtinck Federick van MechelenHansken van der Goude Ariaen Wijtenbach Aelbrecht van CampenHeinrick van Wesel Pinitick Haerman van Dampen [sic]Frans van Haerlem Gerijt van Mechelen Zweer van LeydenJan van Eemden Aelbrecht van Onnerbercken Pieter van HoesdenPieter Wijt Matheus van Weesel Willem van GoircumWijtte Bote Gerijt van Goircum Haerman van DoetsburchSchelegen Joest Sondergelt Theus van LeydenWanck Jan van Metys Meester Heinrick van NaerdenWillem van Sancten Jan van Lichten Jan CamerlinckJan Witte Bol Cornelis van Haerlem Jan BiermanGerijt van Weesp

74 In Friesland in 1517 the monk Paulus Rodolfi described a soldier who called himself a priest.Other witnesses remarked on the soldier-priest’s unpriestly behaviour and appearance; Ottema,pp. 200–201.

Geographic Origins of Garrison Soldiers at Alphen

Minimum NumberLocation (from 70) Percentage

Holland 20 29Other Low Countries 11 16Germany 7 10Baltic area 2 3

In Holland (absolute):Amsterdam 1 Naarden 1Gorinchem 2 Schoonhoven 1Gouda 1 Wassenaar 1Haarlem 5 Weesp 1Heusden 1 Woerden 4Leiden 2

In the early sixteenth century, the highest officers in command of the armieswere noblemen, and personal or political friends of Emperor Maximilian andEmperor Charles V, drawn from the various regions of the empire: Floris vanYsselstein, Jan van Wassenaar, the dukes of Anhalt and of Brunswick.75 Thecaptains in command of “banners” of 400 men appear to have been of both localNetherlands and German origin, although mostly the latter. Their names areindicative: Hans Beck, Jan van Delft, Jan van den Eeren, Klein Enderlein,76

Pieter van Leeuwarden, Willem and Lubbert Turck, Casper van Ulms, Gillis vanWairt, Jan van Westfalen, Captain Zlucker. All are names which appear severaltimes in the accounts. In Hans Delbrück’s opinion, the predecessors to thelandsknechts were the Flemish troops whom Maximilian recruited in the LowCountries and with whom he defeated the French at Guinegate in 1479.77

In some instances the sources are specific in identifying the mercenarysoldiers organized in “banners.” Twice they are described as Germans and once,remarkably, at a diet in The Hague a plan to recruit 8000 men is mentioned, of

112 James P. Ward

75 Hans Cools, “Florent D’Egmond et Adrien de Croÿ, les Carrières Exemplaires de Deux Chefsde Guerre de Charles Quint,” in Jean-Marie Cauchies and Jacqueline Guiesset, eds., Du Métierdes Armes à la Vie de Cour, de la Fortresse au Château de Sejour XIVe–XVIe Siècles (Brepols,2005), pp. 205–16.

76 Klein Enderlein was one of the German officers who commanded the “four banners” in Hollandin 1512 and who took part in the siege of Venlo the year before: ARA, Rek.Rek. inv. no. 346,f. 139v (undated); ARA, Rek.Rek. inv. no. 3412, f. 16 (2 Oct. 1512) and f. 21 (undated).Edward Halle (c.1499–1547) describes him at the siege of Venlo: “. . . and all other EnglisheCapitaines, and petie Capitaines, dined with an Almain called Clene Anderline . . .” See EdwardHalle, The union of the Two Noble Families of Lancaster and York: the Triumphant Reigne ofKyng Henry the VIII (London, 1550; facsimile ed. 1970), p. 14v.

77 Delbrück, 4:8, and Oman, A History of the Art of War in the Sixteenth Century, pp. 75, 83.

whom 4000 were to be Swiss.78 The use of the term “German” is less surprising.When Reinier de Jonge traveled to Gouda in October 1512, it was to persuadethe magistrates to guarantee the interest on loans which the States of Hollandneeded to pay the men of “the four banners of German troops.”79 The adjectiveused in the accounts, “duytsch,” contrasts with other terms, like “ingelanden” or“hierlandsch,” used to describe locally born soldiers. The use of “German” inthis case suggests that differences in territorial origin were clearly felt, but,more to the point, that the ethnic identity of mercenary troops generally inHolland was not so obvious at that time as is assumed by modern historians.

A related question is whether or not native-born Hollanders served in profes-sional army units of the Habsburg forces in the early sixteenth century. Bert S.Hall states that, after the battle of Guinegate in 1479, Maximilian “would findto his dismay that Flemings and Netherlanders were rather disinclined tocampaign under Habsburg leadership.” Tracy, for a later period, presents theinverse of this statement with his opinion that “for reasons that have never beenfully understood, Habsburg rulers did not employ Dutch-speaking troops todefend their Dutch-speaking provinces.”80 Various reasons have been adducedfor the alleged antipathies. But who did not want whom?

There can be no doubt that, in the early part of the sixteenth century,Hollanders served as garrison soldiers in the frontier towns. Whatever the stateof affairs may have been later, in the first decades of the sixteenth century therewas also nothing in principle against the recruitment of army units of nativeHollanders. The other 4000 men who were to be recruited in 1506 along withthe 4000 Swiss, mentioned above, were described as ingelanden, meaningautochthon or native-born burghers or nationals. Furthermore, a resolution atone of the diets at The Hague in 1512 was to the effect that 1400 men, describedas hierlansch [sic], should be recruited to defend the frontiers during the winterof 1512–13.81 But there is no evidence that the 1400 men were indeed raised


78 GA Rotterdam, Old Archive inv. no. 14, p. 92 (12 Sept. 1506): “. . . dat men in den Hage tedachvaert reyssen ende senden sal upte begeerte van hertoch Karel VIII/M knechten, daeroffIIII/M Zwissen ende IIII/M ingelanden . . .”

79 ARA, Rek.Rek. inv. no. 3412, f. 16 (2 Oct. 1512): “. . . van den rentbrief van den duysentgulden bij den Staten van den landen vercoft tot betalinge van den vier vaenkens duytscheknechten . . .”

80 Hall, p. 122, and James D. Tracy, A Financial Revolution in the Habsburg Netherlands:“Renten” and “Renteniers” in the County of Holland, 1515–1565 (Berkeley, 1985), p. 37. Seealso Tracy, Erasmus, pp. 74, 76–77.

81 GA Leiden, inv. no. 383, ff. 131–131v (28 Sept. 1512): “. . . ende dat men voirt die frontierenvan desen landen besetten sel mit tgetal van XIIII/C hierlansche knechten of dair omtrent . . .”There has been some discussion about the word “hierlandsch” in connection with wool importsinto the Low Countries. Did it mean “Irish,” as some have said, or did it mean “native; or ofthese lands.” R. Van Uytven argued for the latter. His sources included accounts for woolbrought to Leiden where arguably the writers used “hierlandsch” meaning “pertaining toHolland”: R. Van Uytven, “ ‘Hierlandsche’ wol en lakens in Brabantse documenten(XIIIde–XVIde eeuw),” Bijdragen tot de Geschiedenis 53 (1970), 5–16.

locally. There were more than enough foreign mercenaries in Holland willingand happy to serve for 4 stuivers per day.

Controls Exercised by the Magistrates

Controls exercised by the States of Holland and by individual cities werefirst and foremost in financial affairs. Controls and audits were conducted intothe subsidies and levies (beden, omslagen) paid to the government and in themuster and payment of troops. On 3 April 1513, the Court of Holland agreed tothe request of the deputies of the six large cities “that they desired to know theaccounts of the Common Land and especially the monies levied until now in thewar with Guelders and to defend Holland.” Auditors were appointed to examinethe accounts of Willem Goudt, Treasurer for North-Holland, in the presence ofdeputies of the cities. Their task was “to examine closely and to inspect theaccounts, passing with the consent of the city deputies what was proper andcorrect, and to note where objections were and so forth and to proceed towardsremoval of those same objections and towards closure of the aforementionedaccounts, and when that was done to remove the objections and to close theaccounts.”82

The magistrates of Holland also conducted musters of the troops who wereunder contract to defend neighboring towns and villages. In 1507, Haarlem andLeiden with “the majority of the cities resolved that they themselves desired tohave the administration of payment and muster of the troops, or together withsome members of the Council, in order that there should be no fraud (bedroch)and that each of the captains should have the full number of men, and this wasagreed to by the members of the Council.”83 Thirty years earlier, Maximilianhad granted a similar right to Flanders, the only prerogative which they sharedwith Maximilian, and a measure for which Wim P. Blockmans used the term,coined by Herbert Marcuse, “repressive tolerance,” because at that time itdeprived the Four Members of the desire to press for more influence in highpolitics.84

However, in Holland after 1507 it was a right which the magistratescontinued to maintain in the years to come, and it had no moderating effect ontheir opposition to the government in financial matters. The sources containmostly only a statement that the roll call was made, for example at Weesp by

114 James P. Ward

82 ARA Rek.Rek. inv. no. 2192, f. 1, printed in Meilink, regest no. 295.83 GA Leiden, inv. no. 586, f. 30 (28 Sept. 1507): “Ende worde bij den steden ende tmeerdeel van

dien genoech gesloten dat zij begheerden die administracie van der betalinge ende van demonster van tvolck selver te hebben oft . . . mit eenige van den Raede updat daer geen bedrochin en geschiede ende elck van den capiteijnen sijn vol getal hebben soude, twelck den stedengenoech bij mijn heeren van den Raide geaccordeert worde.”

84 W. P. Blockmans, De volksvertegenwoordiging in Vlaanderen in de overgang van middeleeuwennaar nieuwe tijden (1384–1506) (Brussels, 1978), p. 449.

magistrates from Haarlem and at Alphen by magistrates from Leiden. The firstmuster observed was in July 1507 when magistrates from Haarlem went toNaarden to take the roll call of soldiers whom they had stationed there on theorders of the government. After that entries in the accounts recording mustersand payments made to garrison soldiers by magistrates of Haarlem arecommonplace.85

In the winter of 1512–13, troops at Alphen under the command of CaptainJan van Delft were mustered by magistrates from Leiden. One of the magis-trates’ related duties was to supervise accommodation for the soldiers in theoutlying towns where garrisons were placed. Willem van Boschuysen, a Leidenalderman (scepen), went to Alphen on the Rhine in November 1512 to arrangebillets for the 100 soldiers stationed there.86 Another example is the roll callwhich Heynrick van der Does, a magistrate of Leiden, carried out together withthe government’s master of the roll call, Lodewijk van Moerkerken, at Alphenon 12 January 1513. Jan van Scagen from Haarlem and deputies from Delft alsotook part. On another occasion, Ambrosius Colen, a Leiden treasurer, checkedthe military rolls and receipts at The Hague jointly with Willem Goudt, trea-surer for North Holland.87

Under the pressure of the costs of the Guelders War, aggravated by dikedisasters and floods in Holland in the early sixteenth century, financial pres-sures on the cities of Holland resulted in increased control by them on govern-ment officials, particularly in military matters. In discussions held in 1511 onthe continuation of the royal subsidy (bede), Haarlem and Leiden pointed out toMargaret of Austria that she received the money “in order to maintain anddefend Holland.”88

Soon afterwards, Floris van Ysselstein hired an extra force of one thousandmen without waiting for the consent of a majority of the large cities. They were


85 GA Haarlem, Tres.rek. 1506–1507, f. 31v (8 July 1507): “. . . omme monster te ontfangen vanden cappiteyn ende knechten bij deser stede aldair geleyt.” See also GA Haarlem, Tres.rek.1507–1508, f. 47v (1 June 1508); ff. 52–52v (30 Aug. 1508); GA Haarlem, Tres.rek.1509–1510, f. 51 (undated); GA Haarlem, Tres.rek. 1510–1511, ff. 32–32v (4 Jan. 1511); GAHaarlem, Tres.rek. 1510–1511, f. 41 (1 July 1511); GA Haarlem, Tres.rek. 1511–1512, f. 56(22 Sept. 1511); f. 56v (27 Sept. 1511), etc.

86 GA Leiden, inv. no. 592, f. 33 (3 Dec. 1512), and f. 34 (12 Jan. 1513). See also GA Leiden, inv.no. 591, f. 37v (4 Nov. 1512): “. . . van der stede wegen tot Alphen omme aldair te maeckenzekere biletten dair men die C knechten logeren soude, liggende onder Jan van Delft . . .”

87 GA Leiden, inv. no. 586, f. 30 (28 Sept. 1507), and GA Leiden, inv. no. 592, f. 34: “. . . van derstede wegen tot Alphen aen mijnen heeren Lodewijck van Moerkercken ende van Scagen endemit die gedeputeerde van Delf te ontfangen die monsteringhe van den knechten liggende totAlphen . . .”, and f. 43 (19 March 1513): “. . . om mit Willem Goudt, rentmeester generael, terekenen van den knechten onderhouden bij die van Leyden onder joncker Jan van den Eerenende Willem van Boshuijsen als cappiteijnen, ende hem te leveren die certificatien,monsterrollen ende quitancien daerop dienende . . . ”

88 GA Haarlem, Vroedschapsres, 1501–1516, f. 73 (9 June 1511). See also GA Leiden, inv. no.383, f. 96 (6 June 1511): “. . . ende dat mijn genadige vrouwe, zoe zij bede ontfangt van denlande . . . behoirt tlandt wel te bewaeren ende te bescutten . . .”

in addition to the 2184 “pays” who were at that moment already in the service ofHolland for defense during the winter. Those men were now also consideredunnecessary by the council at Leiden. The vroedschap thought that they shouldbe dismissed and that each quarter in Holland should arrange and be responsiblefor its own defense with the smallest number of men possible. They could berecruited, the council thought, either from the local population (ingelanden) orfrom the foreign mercenaries, if that proved to be necessary.89 Because theirintention was to save on costs, there is an apparent inconsistency in this attitudeof Leiden’s magistrates. As seen above, on the basis of their daily pay, local menwere not less but more expensive than foreign mercenaries. But the magistratesmay have thought that they could hire and fire local men on a daily basis, ascircumstances dictated, while mercenaries stipulated longer periods of service,usually not less than one month and frequently several months.

Conclusion

The reasons for the long drawn-out war, lasting more than fifty yearsbetween the Burgundian-Habsburgers and Charles of Guelders, were partlydynastic and partly a consequence of the strategic geographical position ofGelderland. Lying between Holland and the Rhineland of Germany, the territorycontrolled trade routes via the Rhine and Waal rivers to the east and via theZuiderzee to the north. One of the effects of the war was to make militaryexperts, nolens volens, of the magisterial elites of Holland. Some of thembecame proficient in hiring and paying soldiers, arranging billets for them,confronting mutinies, controlling military dispositions and costs, purchasingand distributing weapons to the burghers, manufacturing munitions for them,supervising drills, mustering men, and organizing resistance to the enemy.

The war affected all layers of society. In the summer of 1517, whichwitnessed the invasion of Holland and the destruction of Alkmaar, other groupsof would-be “soldiers” exercised at Leiden. They were gangs of local school-children and youths. Magistrates at Leiden reacted adversely when it becameknown that “many schoolboys and others were daily running through the streetswith flags, sticks and staves, imitating the soldiers and throwing stones, hittingeach other with sticks.” Parents were ordered under threat of sanctions by themagistrates to keep their children under control.90 The boys playing at soldiers

116 James P. Ward

89 GA Leiden, inv. no. 383, ff. 111v–112 (25 Feb. 1512): “. . . ende angaende die XXI/C/LXXXIIII payen is gestemmet ende gesloten dat men die niet al en behouft ende dat men tlandtvan Hollant elcx in sijn quartier besetten sel mit seker getal van volck van wapen als menminste mach, altijt tlandt bewairdt zijnde, ende dat tsij mitten steden ende ingelande van denquartieren ofte mit knechten indient noot zij . . .”

90 GA Leiden, inv. no. 387, f. 67 (31 July 1517): “. . . alsoe tot kennisse van den gerechte gecomenis dat veel schoelkinder ende andere dagelicx bij de straten loopen mit vaentgens, mit stockenende staven, ende contrefeyten de knechten ende worpen met stien ende slaen malkander mitstocken . . .”

in Leiden in 1517 were not alone. When the storm of war was released, Erasmuswrote, “youth was corrupted by all kinds of vices.”91 Writing on war as a gameand on some of the psychological causes and consequences of war, R. A. Hindeconsiders how war toys “help to create the impression that war is a normalactivity in which most adults indulge.”92 For inhabitants of the towns and citiesof Holland in the early sixteenth century, it was well-nigh impossible to ignoreit.

The sounds and reminders of war were everywhere. Church and town hallbells were rung during alarms and musters of the guard and daily in winter towarn burghers to break the ice near their dwellings. Joiners and bricklayers,thatchers and slaters with their ladders, noncombatants, like women and theclergy, who were fit to carry water, had to help as fire fighters when needed.93

Apart even from practice shoots by guild members, gunfire provided a frequentbackground noise. It was impossible to unload muzzle-loading firearms safely,and so men coming off watch in the morning were permitted to fire theirweapons before returning home.94

It can be asked whether the events of the early sixteenth century affectedlater generations in Holland. In the early sixteenth century, the magistrate andlocal artillery master, Hendrick van der Does, was one of the men who hadspecial responsibility for weaponry and other military matters in Leiden. ThisHendrick van der Does (died 12 April 1523) was a great-uncle of Johan van derDoes, better known as the sixteenth-century humanist, writer and poet, JanusDouza.95 At the time of the Dutch Revolt against Philip II, Johan van der Does(1545–1605) was one of the two military commanders who successfully resistedthe Spaniards at the siege of Leiden in 1573–74. Later, he fulfilled other impor-


91 Erasmus, Érasme: Dulce bellum inexpertis, ed. and trans. Y. Remy and R. Dunil-Marquebreucq, Collection Latomus Vol. VIII (Brussels, 1953), p. 46: “corrumpitur omni generevitiorum iuuentus.”

92 R. A. Hinde, “War: Some Psychological Causes and Consequences,” Interdisciplinary ScienceReviews 22 (1997), 229–45, especially pp. 234 and 236. See also G. L. Mosse, Fallen Soldiers:Reshaping the Memory of the World Wars (Oxford, 1990), pp. 136–44, especially p. 142.

93 GA Leiden, inv. no. 387, f. 13 (27 May 1508): “. . . dat alle geestelicke persoenen nut endebequam daertoe zijnde ende oick alle vrouwen . . . omme water te dragen . . .” Two womennamed in the sources were engaged in the war in another way. The wife of Master Martin ofLeeuwaarden conveyed gunpowder and munitions to Leiden for her husband, who was a mastergunpowder maker (GA Leiden, inv. no. 591, f. 68 [14 Oct. 1512]). And Alydt, the wife ofCornelis Gerrijtz, transported firearms several times from Rotterdam, where her husbandmanufactured them, to Leiden and received payment for them (GA Leiden, inv. no. 592, f. 73v[26 Jan. 1513]).

94 GA Leiden, inv. no. 387, a paper inserted between ff. 37v and 38 (undated but probably in May1513): “Item dat nyemant schieten en zal upter stede huys ofte der straeten, dan zullen diewakers tsavonts hueren bussen moghen vollen ende tsmorgens als zij van der waken gaendiezelve hoir bussen aen die vesten moghen afschieten . . .”

95 C. J. Polvliet, Genealogie van het Oud-adelijk geslacht van der Does (The Hague, 1892), pp.63–71, especially pp. 65 and 71; C. L. Heesakkers, Janus Dousa en zijn vrienden (Leiden,1973), p. 22; and C. Heesakkers and W. Reinders, Genoegelijk bovenal zijn mij de Muzen(Leiden, 1993), pp. 31–37.

tant functions, including that of official historian for the new Republic, andcurator and librarian for the University of Leiden.96 Douza’s experiences asmilitary commander in 1574 are reflected in a collection of poems and odeswhich he wrote, commemorating Dutch resistance to the Spaniards and forminga history of Holland which was dedicated to the members of the States ofHolland.97 The poems do not refer to Douza’s martial relative, Hendrick van derDoes, of two generations earlier, but it does not seem impossible that some ofthe unruly schoolboys who were born under Philip I and who incurred thedispleasure of Leiden’s magistrates in 1517 for playing at soldiers lived longenough to witness their sons and grandsons fight on Douza’s side in thestruggle against Philip II in 1574.

118 James P. Ward

96 H. Kampinga, De opvattingen over onze oudere vaderlandsche geschiedenis bij de Hollandschehistorici der XVIe en XVIIe eeuw (The Hague, 1917), pp. 25–37.

97 Johan van der Does, Iani Douzae Nordovicis nova poemata (Leiden, 1575).

Women in Medieval Armies

8

Women in Medieval Armies

J. F. Verbruggen

(Original: “Vrouwen in de middeleeuwse legers,”Revue Belge d’histoire militaire 24 (1982), 617–34)

Translated by Kelly DeVries

A number of women followed armies in the Middle Ages to supply thesoldiers, and to support them by washing their clothes and caring for theirwounds. Some women fought with the soldiers. Others accompanied theirspouse or a friend. The presence of women on the Crusades is very commonlycontrasted with their attendance in other wars, probably because they wereattracted to a long expedition to visit the famous holy places as a pilgrimagerather than a short journey in their own land. Girls chose to follow their friendsinto distant places to look after them, and wives to accompany their men. Somewomen on these expeditions traveled with the army out of a desire for adventureand certain of them became famous as commanders of military units or ofwhole armies. A queen could be required by the circumstances even to conducta war during the absence of her spouse on a Crusade or when he was impris-oned. A noblewoman could exercise her higher command by transferring theleadership of military operations to a more experienced commander. She couldput on her own armor and personally command her soldiers in the everydayactions of warfare. She could defend the fortress in which she dwelled at thetime of a siege. And there were many opportunities and much demand forwomen of loose morals during medieval hard times.

During the Crusades

During the First Crusade women fought as early as the battle of Dorylaeumon 1 July 1097. They greatly assisted the cavalry that day, by bringing water tothe warriors, and by emboldening them in the attack and the defense. Ecclesias-tics, women, and children were killed by the enemy during this battle. Duringthe siege of Antioch a woman was killed by an enemy arrow in the camp ofBohemond of Taranto.1 The Greek historian Nicetas wrote of queens and noble-

1 Histoire anonyme de la première croisade, ed. L. Bréhier, Les classiques de l’histoire de Franceau moyen âge (Paris, 1924), pp. 46, 70, 130.

women in the Crusade of 1147. They were clothed as men, rode on horseback,and carried a lance and a battle-axe. They were as brave as Amazons. At theirhead rode a proud queen, a noblewoman with golden spurs, Eleanor ofAquitaine, Queen of France. He compared her to Penthesilea, the Queen of theAmazons who raced to the aid of Troy.2 The countesses of Toulouse, Blois, andFlanders were also on this Crusade, together with other noblewomen.3 In theThird Crusade women also assisted soldiers. As in the First Crusade, theybrought water to the soldiers, cared for the wounded, washed the clothes, etc.And there were also prostitutes in the camp of the Crusaders. The Muslimsclaimed that a ship brought 300 very beautiful women, and that these womenhad come to provide the Crusaders with much pleasure. The Mamluks wouldvisit the Crusaders in order to make the acquaintance of the pretty women.During the march made from St. John’s in Acre to Jaffa, Richard the Lionheartordered that all the women be left behind, with the exception of thewasher-women, who would accompany the soldiers, so that they could cleansethem of lice.4 During the Fourth Crusade, the “foles femmes” [women of illrepute] were packed into a ship and temporarily removed from the army andthey were temporarily withdrawn until the assault on Constantinople in 1204.5

In the Crusade of St. Louis to Egypt, likewise, special measures had to be takenagainst some women.6 The priests usually declared that the trials of theCrusaders were a punishment for their sinful lives, and that if the women wereremoved then the situation would be better. King Louis IX was accompanied byhis wife, Margaret of Provence, on every expedition. She was staying in theconquered town of Damietta when an army of Crusaders under the leadership ofLouis IX was forced to capitulate. She was expecting a baby that could havebeen born any day. When the bad news of the surrender arrived, she feared thatthe Mamluks would also capture Damietta. She did not wish to fall into thehands of the enemy. Kneeling, she asked the eighty-year-old knight whoremained with her to cut off her head if the Saracens were to invade the town.The knight promised this, as he had already thought about it. The queen gave

120 J. F. Verbruggen

2 F. Heer, L’univers du moyen âge (Paris, 1970), p. 169.3 R. Grousset, Histoire des croisades et du royaume franc de Jérusalem, 3 vols. (Paris, 1934–36),

2:246.4 Grousset, 3:29, and Ambroise, L’estoire de la guerre sainte, ed. G. Paris, Collection de docu-

ments inédits sur l’histoire de France (Paris, 1897), p. 152, vv. 5691–98.5 Robert de Clari, La conquête de Constantinople, ed. Ph. Lauer, Classiques français du moyen

âge (Paris, 1924), p. 72. [Translator’s note: This was ordered by the Crusaders’ bishops in orderto ensure God’s favor for the coming attack. My thanks to Clifford Rogers for providing thisinformation.]

6 Jean de Joinville, Histoire de Saint Louis, ed. Natalis de Wailly, Société de l’histoire de France(Paris, 1868), p. 60. [Translator’s note: Joinville writes that after returning from captivity SaintLouis dismissed a number of his men because he was upset that they had maintained brothelswithin a short stone’s-throw of his own tent, even during the army’s difficult times. There is anindication within this passage, however, that these brothels were not known to Saint Louis.Thanks again to Clifford Rogers for this note.]

birth to a son who was named Jean Tristan because he was born in such sadcircumstances. The queen then learned that the sailors of Pisa and Genoa whowere to defend the town wanted to leave as the Crusaders had been taken pris-oner. She asked the leaders to come to her chamber the day after her deliveryand promised to pay for the necessary supplies and to maintain all of thedefenders at royal cost. The sailors agreed to this and Damietta remained in thehands of the queen, so that the town could serve as a center of exchange for theransom of the prisoners and the king.7

In Other Wars

Women also took part in non-Crusading warfare. During the famous “BrugesMatins,” during the night of 17–18 May 1302, Brugeois women threw benches,chairs, and supports from the attics of their houses down onto the Frenchknights and soldiers who fought in the streets of the town.8 After 17 September1302, when the militia had been mustered and all able-bodied men marched tothe border to defend the county of Flanders, the women replaced them assentries, if we are to believe Lodewijk van Velthem:

Die vrouwen daden die sciltwachte,Oft enich prinse met crachteDit edel lant had willen versoeken.Men vant noyt staende in boeken,Dat vrouwen scilt wachten daden,Sonder man, in mans gewaden,Dit was .i. wonder van vrouwen.

These women did the sentry-duty,If a powerful princeWished to attack the noble land.Men will never find in books,That women had done sentry-duty,But men, in men’s attire,This was one miracle of women.

This was obviously a miracle, discovered by the priest Lodewijk van Velthem.9

When Witte van Haamstede sparked the rebellion against the Flemings andtheir Zeelander allies in Holland in 1304, she provided a good example to thewomen of Schiedam:

Women in Medieval Armies 121

7 Joinville, pp. 141–42.8 Chronique Artésienne (1295–1304) et chronique Tournaisienne (1296–1314), ed. Frantz

Funck-Brentano, Collection de textes pour servir à l’étude et à l’enseignement de l’histoire(Paris, 1899), p. 42.

9 Lodewijk Van Velthem, Voortzetting van de Spiegel Historiael (1248–1316), ed. H. VanderLinden, W. de Vreese, P. de Keyser, and A. Van Loey, Commission royale d’histoire (Brussels,1906–38), II.4.51, p. 380.

Van Sciedamme alle de wiveLiepen uut, hier vier, hier vive,Ende deden de manne lopen mede.

In Schiedam all the women,went out, here four and there five,And the men all went out with them.10

They took part in the rebellion with the men. In the march to Westrozebekein 1382 Philip van Artevelde had his girlfriend brought with him, a young ladyfrom Ghent, who spent the night with him in his pavilion.11 During the battle, awoman clad in armor and called the Great Margot carried the Flemish standard.As with any standard-bearer, she had to set an example in battle and to sacrificeher life if necessary.12 During sieges of cities women could more easily help thesoldiers than in battle. At the siege of Toulouse from October 1217 to July 1218,Simon de Montfort, the leader of the Crusade against the Albigensians, waskilled on 25 June 1218 by a stone fired from a trebuchet that was operated bythe women and girls of the city.13 The women of Orléans distinguished them-selves during the siege of their city when, on 21 October 1428, the Englishmade a vigorous attack on the boulevard protecting the head of the bridgeacross the Loire. The battle lasted a long time, with many English soldiers killedor wounded. The French defenders pushed the attackers from their ladders intothe moats, where they ceased being a threat as the French harassed them therewith all kinds of projectiles and objects, smoldering coals, lime, burning andboiling oil and water. The women of Orléans brought stones to throw at theirattackers. They came to their own people with wine, meat, vinegar, fruit, whitecloth, and all that they needed. Some especially courageous women foughtbeside the soldiers on the ramparts and struck down the enemy with lances.14

The lengthy siege of Orléans from 12 October 1428 to 8 May 1429 introducedone of the most important women of the Middle Ages, Joan of Arc.

On 27 June 1472, Duke Charles the Bold marched with his army toNormandy. When he came to Beauvais, the captain of the vanguard, the Lord ofEsquerdes, pushed into the suburb and pillaged it. A very greedy Burgundian,the Lord Jacques de Montmartin, chamberlain of the Duke and captain of 100lances and 300 crossbows of the Ordonnance, pillaged the part of the suburbwhere the archbishop’s house was. Esquerdes attacked on the opposite side. Hehad two cannons that fired two shots at the gate making a large hole in the


10 Melis Stoke, Rijmkroniek (694–1305), ed. W. G. Brill, Werken van het Historisch Genootschapgevestigd te Utrecht, n.s. 40, 42 (Utrecht, 1885), 8.1198–1200, p. 251.

11 Jehan Froissart’s Cronyke van Vlaenderen, trans. (into Dutch) Gerijt Potter van der Loo, ed.N. de Pauw (Ghent: Vlaamse Academie, 1898), 1:311–12.

12 M. J. Lachauvelaye, Guerres des Français et des Anglais du XIe au XVe siècle (Paris, 1875),2:75, and Philippe Contamine, La guerre au moyen âge (Paris, 1980), p. 395.

13 P. Belperron, La croisade contre les Albigeois et l’union du Languedoc à la France(1209–1249) (Paris, 1942), p. 338.

14 Chronique de la Pucelle, ed. M. Vallet de Viriville (Paris, 1864), pp. 261–62.

wood. But there were no more cannonballs to fire, as an attack on Beauvais hadnot been planned. A battle was fought near the breach in the gate and its imme-diate surroundings.15 As soon as the attack had begun, the women and childrenstood next to the defenders of Beauvais, supplying the soldiers and burgherswith munitions and projectiles. Some women took part in the fighting, whileothers lit torches which they threw at the vanguard of the Burgundians. Theybrought many faggots, lit them on fire, and threw them next to the gate, so thatthese set the doors on fire and the attack was frustrated. Charles the Boldthought that the city would fall once the fire was extinguished. Therefore, hetook no special care to place a unit in front of the city in the direction of Paris,from where the defenders might receive reinforcements. Around eight o’clockin the evening 200 lances of the royal army came from Noyon to Beauvais, andthey rode in through the south gate. They left their horses with the women whoput them in their stalls and cared for the animals, while they reinforced thedefenders at the threatened places. Afterwards darkness fell and the fightingended for the day. The next day Charles the Bold mounted his artillery andbegan to fire it. But new reinforcements arrived to defend the city. Beauvais wasnot entered. King Louis XI rewarded the city for its energetic defense againstthe enemy and among other things exempted its citizens from taxes. He paidhomage to the effort of the women and children who put their lives on the lineand had spared themselves no pains. Jeanne Laisné was especially distinguishedand was then renamed Jeanne Hachette by her fellow citizens because shefought in the battle with a small axe in her hand. In remembrance of this exem-plary defense the women of Beauvais in the future were able to wear whateverclothes they wished, no matter what their rank was. In addition, they were tomarch in the forefront of the yearly procession that would commemorate theevent, preceding the men.16

Among Mercenaries, in the Great Companies,and in Professional Armies

In the years 1167 to 1177 mercenaries were extensively employed byEmperor Frederick Barbarossa, King Henry II of England, and various southernFrench princes. These mercenaries were called Brabanzonen, men of Brabant,although they often included men from other regions. These troops wereaccompanied by wives or girlfriends of the warriors. There were also someecclesiastics with them, although the mercenaries were sometimes identified asheretics.17 The Catalan mercenaries who in 1302 traveled to the Byzantine


15 Philippe de Commynes, Mémoires, ed. J. Calmette and G. Durville, Les classiques de l’histoirede France au moyen âge (Paris, 1924–25), 1:236ff., and Paul Murray Kendall, Louis XI (Paris,1974), pp. 284–85.

16 Kendall, pp. 285–86.17 J. F. Verbruggen, De krijg-kunst in West-Europa in de middeleeuwen (IXe tot XIVe eeuw),

Empire were accompanied by women or girlfriends and their children.18 In theyears after the battle of Maupertuis/Poitiers (1356) and around 1360 manycompanies of soldiers, nobles, and others had become used to waging war inFrance and did not wish to return any further to a normal life during peacetime.They lived off the land and exploited the area in which they were established.These Great Companies with their professional soldiers could oppose an armyof nobles. They had their knights, squires, and other heavy cavalry as fighters,and their attendants, farriers, saddlemakers, tanners, butchers, seamstresses andwasherwomen, surgeons and medics, auditors, and women and pages.19 In thefollowing century there were certain troops called “Écorcheurs.” In 1439 anarmy was assembled from certain soldiers or bandits estimated to havenumbered around 5,000 mounted men, among whom there were 3,000 who hadgood horses and 300 women on horse.20 After King Charles VII raised astanding army with 15 companies of soldiers, each 100 lances strong, the tradi-tion was established that women followed the army. Prostitutes accompanied thetroops and were more or less bound to certain units. They were under the super-vision of the provost of the marshals, who inspected them. Under the namesinners, ribalds, garses, bacelettes, they often served as chambermaids or asmaids for the soldiers. In the Ordnance of 1473, Charles the Bold limited thenumber of women in his army. There were not to be more than 30 women for acompany of 30 lances, which contained 810 soldiers and 106 male attendants.The duke forbade his soldiers from keeping a woman for their personal use.King Charles VIII issued a similar prohibition in 1484: the soldiers were to haveno girls with them and these girls were not to ride on horses. They could followthe army on foot; if they were found riding on horses, they were to dismount.21

Commanders of Troops

If circumstances warranted, princesses and noblewomen could be required tolead armies themselves. Concerning this, Christine de Pisan advised them toread Book IV of Vegetius to learn how to protect their lands well in the absenceof their husband.22 The medieval chivalric epic gave examples. One cycle ofepics describes the actions of the hero Aymer de Narbonne. Aymer fell into the


Verhandelingen van de Koninklijke Vlaamse Academie voor Wetenschappen, Letteren enSchone Kunsten van België, Klasse der Letteren, verhandeling 20 (Brussels, 1954), p. 237.

18 Ferdinand Lot, L’art militaire et les armées au moyen-âge en Europe et dans le proche orient(Paris, 1946), 1:373–74.

19 Lot, 1:398.20 Philippe Contamine, Guerre, état et société à la fin du moyen âge: Études sur les armées des

rois de France, 1337–1494 (Paris, 1972), p. 267.21 Contamine, Guerre, état et société, pp. 451–52. [Translators’ note: Charles actually gave owner-

ship of the horse to whoever dismounted the woman.]22 Philippe Contamine, La vie quotidienne pendant la guerre de Cent Ans: France et Angleterre

(XIVe–XVe siècle) (Paris, 1976), p. 188.

hands of the Saracens, was beaten, wounded, and a stake was erected on whichhe was to burn. From a tower on the town walls of Narbonne, his wife,Ermengardis, saw how her husband had been abused. Aymer called out to her:“Let me die, but do not surrender the town!” Narbonne held out and Aymer wasfreed by his sons.23 In the cycle of the romances of Guillaume d’Orange, hiswife, Guibrour, defended the town of Orange along with the noblewomen. Thewomen wore mail shirts and helmets, they had swords in their belts, shieldsaround their necks, and lances in their fists. They stood watch on the walls ofthe fortification until William of Orange returned with the army he hadmustered to be with the king and relieved the town after a siege of fivemonths.24

In the years 1090–91 or 1092 a dispute broke out in the province of Evreux inNormandy between two powerful brothers, Guillaume d’Evreux and Ralph deTosny, and the differences worsened through the envy of two proud noble-women, Helwisa de Nevers and Isabella de Conches. Helwisa, the daughter ofCount Guillaume de Nevers, was married to Count Guillaume d’Evreux. Shebecame angry at Isabella de Conches, a daughter of Simon de Montfort andwife of Ralph de Tosny, over some scornful remarks. In venting her anger, sheused all her means to try to get Count Guillaume de Nevers and his barons towage war against them. So were the hearts of brave men turned to anger throughthe suspicions and quarrels of women, and their husbands subsequently causeda great loss of blood and towns and villages were torched. Both women whocaused this war were eloquent, courageous, and beautiful; both ruled over theirhusbands, oppressed their vassals, and terrorized these in diverse ways. Therewas a big difference in their manners. Helwisa was intelligent and eloquent, butcruel and avaricious. Isabella was generous, bold, and merry, and because ofthat loveable and pleasing to those who knew her. In a campaign they rodeamong the knights, armed as soldiers, and, Orderic Vitalis claims, they showedas much daring among the armored knights and the spear-carrying arms bearersas Virgil’s virgin Camilla, who set the example for the Latin troops of Turnus.They deserved comparison with Lampeto and Marpesia, Hippolyta andPenthesilea, and other queens of the Amazons, warriors whose wars wererecounted by Pompeius Trogus, Maro Virgilius, and other historians, and whoheld the kings of Asia in check for fifteen years and using their weaponssubdued the Asian peoples. The supporters of the count of Evreux pillaged thelands of the men of Conches who had themselves entered their enemy’s land.Count Guillaume d’Evreux attacked the region of Conches, but could not gain adecisive victory. Hostilities lasted for a while, but for how long is unknown.25


23 J. Bédier, Les légendes épiques: Recherches sur la formation des chansons de geste, 3rd ed.(Paris, 1926–29), 1:63, and L. Gautier, La chevelerie, 3rd ed. (Paris, 1895), p. 46.

24 La légende de Guillaume d’Orange, renouvelée par Paul Truffau (Paris, 1920), pp. 130,162–64.

25 Orderic Vitalis, The Ecclesiastical History, ed. M. Chibnall, Oxford Medieval Texts (Oxford,1973), IV:212–16.

The Empress Mathilda was the widow of Henry V, Emperor of the HolyRoman Empire, and late wife of Count Geoffrey of Anjou, and the most directlegal heir of King Henry I of England. But Stephen of Blois, Count ofBoulogne, nephew of King Henry I, and grandson of William the Conqueror,had succeeded in being crowned as king of England. A rebellion broke outagainst the new king, whose wife also was named Mathilda. Stephen was takenprisoner fighting at the battle of Lincoln on 2 February 1141. AfterwardsEmpress Mathilda and her supporters laid siege to the castle in Winchester.Queen Mathilda and William of Ypres, the Flemish mercenary, advanced on thesupporters of Stephen of Blois near Winchester. They blockaded the townduring the months of August and September, while the troops of EmpressMathilda vainly tried to capture the castle of Winchester and to break theblockade. Finally, the Empress Mathilda was forced to abandon the siege on 14September 1141. This retreat was a difficult undertaking and was thereforecarefully prepared by her half-brother, Robert, earl of Gloucester. The Empressleft with her vanguard, the main force followed at a distance, and the retreat wasprotected by a rearguard of 200 horsemen under Earl Robert. The retreat wasmade along the road from Winchester to Stockbridge. But the army of QueenMathilda and William of Ypres marched against the retreating troops. Theyattacked the middle group, completely defeating it and sending the soldiers intopanic, while the rearguard stayed in good order and rode to Stockbridge. Theroyal army had very quickly reached the bridge over the River Test, and theFlemings surrounded the Empress’s rearguard there. Earl Robert of Gloucesterwas taken prisoner. The Empress Mathilda was with the vanguard and sat on herhorse in the manner of a noblewoman,26 so she could not really ride quickly andher army feared that she might be overtaken by those following them. Theyrecommended that she ride a horse like a man, and the Empress followed theiradvice. From Stockbridge they retreated to Ludgershall and from there toDevizes. By then the Empress Mathilda had ridden forty miles and she was veryfatigued. She could no longer ride a horse. A stretcher was placed between twohorses, the Empress was tied onto it, and so brought to the town of Gloucester.27

On 1 November 1141, King Stephen was exchanged for Earl Robert ofGloucester. The war lasted for several more years, but Stephen remained kinguntil his death in 1154.

Ermingardis, viscountess of Narbonne, played an important role in thehistory of France. She came to power in 1134 and governed her region for fiftyyears. Sometimes she commanded her army. She led supporters of the French


26 [Translator’s note: Undoubtedly this means that she was using a noblewoman’s saddle of which,unfortunately, there are no surviving exemplars or detailed illustrations. She may have beensitting sidesaddle, as later noblewomen did, but that is not clarified in the original text. In fact,that she was able to sit on her horse like a man may indicate no difference in the saddle, only inher manner of sitting on it.]

27 J. H. Round, Geoffrey de Mandeville: A Study of the Anarchy (London, 1892), pp. 123–35.

king in her region in their struggle against the king of England.28 The noble-woman, Nicola de la Hay, in 1191 defended the castle of Lincoln against theregent of that kingdom. Her husband, Gerard of Camville, had chosen the partyof John Lackland during the absence of King Richard the Lionheart, while hewas on Crusade. Nicola was a very proud person. According to chroniclers, shewas as brave as a man. After a certain amount of time, the regent of Englandwas required to raise his siege. Gerard of Camville was then with John Lacklandand could not personally lead the defense of Lincoln Castle. He knew that hiswife would be capable of doing so. After the death of Gerard, Nicola was still atthe head of the garrison of Lincoln Castle as a faithful adherent of JohnLackland when in 1215 an uprising against the king broke out. Lincoln Castlewas one of the most important strongholds of the kingdom, so he sentsiege-machines and a garrison to her assistance. The following year, in 1216,King John visited this widow, then perhaps sixty-five years old. In that summer,Nicola was besieged by opponents of the king. She convinced some of thebesiegers to leave by bribing them, and other besiegers left in August 1216because they could not defeat the castle. John Lackland visited her from 22September to 2 October 1216. In November 1216 the count of Artois went towar with Nicola de la Hay, taking possession of the town of Lincoln. Thefollowing March he was reinforced by other supporters of Louis, the son ofKing Philip Augustus of France, who wished to become king of England. AsNicola had shown that she was a very good castellan and had defended thefortress in an excellent way, the regent of England, William the Marshal,decided to help this brave woman, and he marched with the supporters of theking to Lincoln to fight the partisans of Louis of France. On 20 May 1217, hecrushed the supporters of the French prince in the streets of Lincoln. Nicola hadthus successfully defended one of the two most important strongholds of theking of England.29

Jeanne of Flanders was the daughter of Louis I of Nevers, a sister of Louis Iof Flanders, usually named Louis of Nevers. Jeanne married Jean IV ofMontfort in 1329. When Duke Jean III of Brittany died on 30 April 1341, JeanIV of Montfort, as brother of the deceased duke, had the rights to Brittany. JeanIII of Brittany had a niece, Jeanne of Penthièvre, daughter of Guy of Brittany,count of Penthièvre. He had himself made heir of the duchy. Jeanne ofPenthièvre had been married since 1337 to Charles, count of Blois, nephew ofthe king of France, Philip VI. The king of France chose to side with Charles ofBlois and named him to the duchy. But the count of Montfort had quickly takenpossession of Brittany and had to be first driven out. A war broke out betweenthe two rivals. Jean of Montfort was captured, surrendered to the king of France,


28 Heer, p. 331.29 Ch. Petit-Dutaillis, “Une femme de guerre au XIIIe siècle: Nicole de la Haie, gardienne du

château de Lincoln,” in Mélanges Julien Havet (Paris, 1895), pp. 369–80, especially pp.370–76, and T. F. Tout, “The Fair of Lincoln and the Histoire de Guillaume de Maréchal,” inThe Collected Papers of Thomas Frederick Tout, 2 vols. (Manchester, 1934), 2:191–220.

and locked up. The countess of Montfort was in Rennes when she heard that herhusband had been taken prisoner. She feared for his life and was deeply grieved.But she had the heart of a lion. She handled herself not like a woman, wroteJean le Bel, but as a man of great courage. She emboldened her friends andsoldiers, showed them her young son and said: “Lords be not discouraged by theloss of our lord; he was but one man; see here my young son who shall recovereverything if God wills it. And I have sufficient wealth, so I shall find acommander to lead you well and strengthen you.” She visited all the towns,fortifications, and castles with her little son, strengthening the garrisons andattending to their preparations. At Hennebont, a very strong fortification, shespent the winter. In the spring of 1342 Charles of Blois intended to conquer theduchy. Countess Jeanne sent Amaury de Clisson to the king of England, EdwardIII, to ask for help. She remained with her troops in the fortress of Hennebontwhich was next to the sea. Charles of Blois appeared with his army beforeHennebont in May 1342.30

The brave countess was armed and armored and rode on a large horse from street tostreet, rallying everyone and summoning them to join the defense. She had asked thewomen of the town, the nobles as well as the others, to bring stones to the walls and tothrow these on the attackers, as well as pots filled with lime. Listen now to the mostwonderful and bold feat that a woman has ever undertaken. The brave countess, whooften climbed the towers to see how her people defended themselves, observed that allthe besieging soldiers had left their lodgings and almost all were looking at the assault.She decided to perform an impressive feat of arms, remounted her horse, armored asshe had been before and ordered around 300 men-at-arms, who were guarding a gatethat was not being attacked, to mount their horses along with her. She rode out with hercompany and attacked her enemy’s tents and huts, where there were no soldiers, onlysome servants, who were all killed. Then she had the torch applied everywhere andimmediately flames engulfed everything. When the French lords saw that their hutswere burning and heard the hue and cry they ran in dismay back to their huts, allshouting, “Betrayed!” “Betrayed!”. And no one stayed with the assault. When thebrave countess saw that the enemy army had become so confused, and so manysoldiers, arriving from all sides, she gathered her soldiers together. As she realized thatshe could not return into the town without losses, she traveled by another route to thecastle at Brech, four miles from there.31

For five days an uncertainty prevailed as to the fate of the countess ofHennebont. Jeanne gathered 500 well armored and skilled men-at-arms, leftBrech in the middle of the night and, at the crack of dawn, came to the gate ofHennebont Castle, where she entered and was received with great fanfare, theblast of trumpets, the roll of drums, and music from other instruments.32 The


30 Jean le Bel, Chronique, ed. J. Viard and E. Déprez, Société de l’histoire de France (Paris,1904–05), 1:246–47, 270–72, 301–02, and Jean Froissart, Chroniques, ed. S. Luce, Société del’histoire de France (Paris, 1870), 2:87–88, 113–15, 139–40.

31 There has been some retranslation of the passage from the original source.32 Jean le Bel, 1:307–11, and Froissart, 2:142–46.

town had already been besieged for a long time. Negotiations were begunthrough Guy, bishop of Léon, who came as a liaison with his nephew, Hervé ofLéon, a partisan of Charles of Blois. It was at the moment that the negotiationswere almost completed and the countess was filled with fear and desperation asthe hour of surrender drew nigh, that she saw the approach of the English fleetthrough one of the castle windows. She began to cry out with joy: “I see the helpcoming that I have for so longed for!” Then all of the inhabitants of the town ranto the walls to look out towards the sea. The countess’s ambassador, LordAmaury de Clisson, had sailed to Hennebont with Walter de Mauny and anEnglish army. For forty days they were on the sea, hindered by a headwind. TheEnglish cavalry were lodged in the castle and the next day they received a largemidday meal. After the meal, Walter de Mauny, with his cavalry and 300English longbowmen, sallied out, other archers following him and setting them-selves up along the ditches of the fortification. During the sally a dangerousstone-thrower of the besiegers which had done much damage within the town,was destroyed. The attackers set fire to the huts of the besiegers. After theattack they returned to the town under the protection provided by the archers.The brave countess welcomed them, kissing the Lord of Mauny and hiscomrades two or three times. “She was indeed a courageous woman,” wrote theLiégeois chronicler, Jean le Bel, and Jean Froissart confirmed this: “she had theheart of a lion.” The following day the besiegers raised the siege and left. It wasthen the end of June.33

One of the supporters of Charles of Blois, the Breton nobleman Olivier deClisson, was suddenly stopped at a tournament by the command of the king ofFrance. He was accused of treason and beheaded on 2 August 1343. His widow,Jeanne, decided to avenge him. She gathered 400 men-at-arms and marched toBrech Castle, then being besieged by supporters of Charles of Blois. She posi-tioned most of the men-at-arms beyond the sight of the defenders of the castleand traveled to there with forty men whose weapons were hidden under theirclothes. She asked to be let into the castle. The captain of the garrison and hismen did not know that Olivier de Clisson had been beheaded, nor did theysuspect that his wife was angry. The captain let down the drawbridge andopened the gate to greet the noblewoman. She came into the castle with herretinue, and then she blew horns to signal the rest of her supporters to advance.The castle was sacked and the garrison was put under the command of the wifeof the dead Clisson. When Charles of Blois learned of this, he journeyed to thecastle with his army, but Jeanne and her supporters did not wait for his arrival.The noblewoman assembled a fleet, equipped it for naval warfare, and attackedFrench ships; she plundered a number of French merchant ships. When KingPhilip VI learned of this, he exiled the Lady de Clisson from France and seizedher possessions.34 Jeanne de Clisson traveled to England and there raised her


33 Jean le Bel, 1:314–19, and Froissart, 2:149–54.34 Istore et croniques de Flandres, ed. Kervyn de Lettenhove, Commission royale d’histoire, 2

vols. (Brussels, 1879–80), 2:10, and Chronique des Pays-Bas, de France, d’Angleterre et de

son, Olivier, together with John, the son of the duke of Brittany. Jeanne of Flan-ders, duchess of Brittany, later also settled in England, after her husband,released from prison, died in 1345. Jeanne was fatigued by the long conflict,took sick, and stayed in Tickhill Castle in England where she becamefeeble-minded and, in 1374, died after a lengthy illness. Her son became dukeof Brittany from 1365 until his death in 1399 and was succeeded by his ownson, so that the dynasty remained in power in Brittany. Jeanne’s fight was thusnot in vain.

The Maid, Jeanne Darc, the famous Jeanne d’Arc35

The courageous appearance of Jeanne Darc, who was later ennobled and thentook the name d’Arc, had a strong affect on her contemporaries. She wasspecial, a unique or original phenomenon in medieval wars. Jeanne claimed thatshe had been sent by God to drive the English away and to crown King CharlesVII in Reims. When as a sixteen-year-old girl she came before the castellan ofVaucouleurs, Robert of Baudricourt, she could not convince him to send her toCharles VII. The captain thought that the shapely maiden would be muchwelcomed by his soldiers, as a prostitute.36 After her second visit in 1429 heallowed the girl to travel to the king, because in the meantime the siege ofOrléans had intensified. He provided her with an armed escort, the inhabitantsof Vaucouleurs bought her a horse, and others gave her arms and armor. Aftereleven days, on 6 March 1429, she and her companions came to Chinon, andtwo days later Jeanne was received by the king.37 The general situation wasextraordinarily bad for Charles VII. He had lost almost half of the kingdom. Theyoung king of England, Henry VI, was simultaneously king of France, where hewas represented by a regent, the duke of Bedford. In the regions still held byCharles VII, the nobles did not show much desire to serve with the army. Anumber came out of fear of punishments that were expected if they did notfulfill their military service, such as the loss of noble status and their posses-sions. But they did not want any more of their lives to be lost on battlefields,because they had often been defeated by the English. The princes and uppernobles chose to remain at home to protect their own areas or to live at the royal


Tournai, in Corpus chronicorum Flandriae, ed. J. J. De Smet, Commission royale d’histoire, 4vols. (Brussels, 1837–65), 3:161–62.

35 There are many works written about Jeanne of Arc. See, for example: André Bossuat, Jeanned’Arc, Collection “Que sais-je?” (Paris, 1967); Pierre Champion, Jeanne d’Arc (Paris, 1933);and Regine Pernoud, Vie et mort de Jeanne d’Arc: Les témoignages du procès de réhabilitation,1450–1456 (Paris, 1953). [Note. The translator’s military biography of Jeanne of Arc did notappear until after the initial publication of this article: Kelly DeVries, Joan of Arc: A MilitaryLeader (Stroud, 1999).]

36 Chronique de la Pucelle, pp. 271–72.37 Chronique de la Pucelle, pp. 272–73.

court. The leaders of the fighting units stood at the head of small companies. Alarge number of such units were led by members of the lesser nobility who hadinherited no livelihoods and were forced to take part in war to make a living.These fighting nobles were paid little or nothing, but lived off the inhabitants ofthe region, which led to numerous abuses and violence. The king also had tohire foreigners and commoners to strengthen the noble fighters. The army ofCharles VII was small; the situation seemed hopeless. The king sometimesconsidered giving up the fight. Luckily for him the war was going even worsefor the English army. The king of England had even fewer men and less moneyto send to the Continent. The duke of Bedford had too few troops to gain avictory. He tried to make himself master of the town Orléans in order to makehis enemy lose still more territory. The siege was begun on 12 October 1428,but the English only had 3,500 soldiers. A short time before the appearance ofJeanne a number of citizens of Orléans had considered giving up the town. ThusJeanne arrived at a propitious moment, considering the weakness of the Englishsoldiers at Orléans.38

The king and his court were skeptical about this young girl who had no mili-tary experience. During the lengthy crisis in which the French were living,prophets and prophetesses continually appeared who had visions and made allkinds of predictions. But Jeanne wished to fight alongside them, and that wasnew. She was sent by the people of her village and region. She came as a repre-sentative of the people and of women, from the frontier, to save the land. On8 March 1429, Jeanne was received by the king and his court, numbering 300nobles. She succeeded in convincing the king after a meeting with him alone.Jeanne’s enthusiasm gave him great confidence. The court was more cautious.Jeanne had to travel to Poitiers so that she might appear before a group ofbishops, theologians, and lawyers, who for three weeks interrogated her abouther visions and ideas. An investigation of her life was also undertaken. Thequeen of Sicily, mother-in-law of Charles VII, and other noblewomen estab-lished that Jeanne was a virgin. Thus she had had no relations with the devil.The investigation showed that Jeanne was a simple, innocent peasant girl, whocould, however, ride a horse well, was prepared to fight alongside the soldiers,and was convinced that she was on a mission that had been given her by God.The royal attendants then immediately made the good news known throughoutFrance, that a maid had been sent from God to save the land and to drive theEnglish out.39 This happy news convinced a number of nobles to come to theroyal court and to fight with the army. Jeanne received the support of the groupof commanders who were to wage the war: La Hire, Poton de Xaintrailles, Jeande Bueil, Ambroise de Loré, Gilles de Rais. It was decided to let her take part ina small undertaking, which she could lead, in order to prove herself capable.


38 Contamine, Guerre, état et société, pp. 253–62, and A. R. Myers, England in the Late MiddleAges, The Pelican History of England 4 (London, 1952), pp. 107–08.

39 Chronique de la Pucelle, pp. 273–81.

Jeanne was given better horses and a splendid white armor made to hermeasurements. She had a sword brought to her from the Chapel of St. Catherineat Fierbois, because she believed that she sometimes heard the voice of thissaint. She had her standard made in white linen with fringes, on which theSavior was displayed with a globe in His hands between two kneeling angels;one of the angels carried a lily in its hand. The words “Jhesus Maria” werewritten on the standard as a motto. Jeanne ordered the soldiers whom she hadgathered to confess and to travel in a state of grace. She forbade them to swearor to play with dice. The soldiers also had to leave behind their women and theirbaggage. On 27 April 1429 Jeanne left with her army from Blois to Orléans.The soldiers first received pay, which was not always easy in the royal army.Priests began the march by singing Veni creator. The soldiers accompanied animportant convoy of wagons (600?) laden with provisions and munitions, and aherd of 400 animals was taken with them. The expedition was thus very wellprepared to efficiently supply Orléans with victuals and munitions. The armyspent the night in the field. The next day they began their march, and aroundmidday they approached Orléans, out of sight of the English, and continued tothe harbor of Chécy. In the evening there Jeanne met with the commander of thegarrison of Orléans, Jean de Dunois, named the Bastard of Orléans, whoprotected the town for his brother, the duke of Orléans, then imprisoned inEngland. Dunois had sent boats to Chécy and had laden them with the provi-sions and munitions in order to bring them along the river into the town. Heasked Jeanne to also come into the town so that she might make an entry andthus give courage to the garrison and the inhabitants. A number of the compa-nies which had accompanied Jeanne returned to Blois with the wagons to pickup new provisions and reinforcements. Jeanne saw that they were not happy toleave, but she believed that they would return quickly.40 In the evening of 29April the Bastard of Orléans brought Jeanne into the town. Jeanne wore herwhite armor, rode a white horse, and the Bastard rode to the left of her. Beforethem Jeanne’s white standard with Christ and the two angels was carried, as wasa pennon on which the message of Mary was written. The lords, the nobles, thecaptains, the men-at-arms of the garrison, the burghers, the burgesses, thecitizens and other inhabitants of the town came to meet them. The joy of thetownspeople was extraordinarily great. It was as if God Himself had entered.After such a lengthy siege, after all the misery, the angel of salvation rodethrough the town, with reinforcements, provisions, and munitions. She broughthope and confidence, and perhaps deliverance.41

By 22 March Jeanne had already dictated a letter to the English leaders toinsist that they leave France because she was sent from God to drive the Englishfrom France. No answer came. At Orléans Jeanne sent two heralds to the enemyto ask for an answer, and she went herself to the bridge to seek out one of the


40 Chronique de la Pucelle, pp. 283–84.41 Chronique de la Pucelle, p. 285.

English leaders to call for withdrawal. Still, she could not convince them toleave. The English were not influenced by this young woman; they counseledher to take care of her cows, scolded her for taking up the life of a soldier anda prostitute, and threatened her.42 On 3 May more French nobles came toreinforce the garrison of the town. On 4 May the men-at-arms returned with anew convoy of victuals, this time along the shortest route, through Beauce. TheBastard of Orléans and Jeanne met the convoy with a unit of soldiers in order toprevent an English attack. In the afternoon a strong assault was made on anEnglish base that was mostly secluded and was thus the weakest point in theEnglish boulevards. Since the English were not strong enough to completelyenclose Orléans with a circle of fortifications, they had constructed elevenboulevards, cutting off all entry-routes, but they remained separated by openspace. In the afternoon of 4 May an attack was made on the stronghold ofSaint-Loup that was the farthest removed from the other boulevards on the northof the Loire. Jeanne had not foreseen this attack, but when she heard the noiseof the archery, she rushed there and took part in the fighting. The Englishleader, Talbot, attempted to relieve it, but Dunois drew a French unit up betweenthem and Saint-Loup, while Jeanne gave the command to conduct the assault.Saint-Loup was conquered.43

5 May was Ascension, a holiday. However, Jeanne wanted to attack theprimary English boulevard. The leaders chose not to do so that day, but the nextday to attack the other boulevards to the south of the Loire, because these wereat a distance from the rest of the English army and could not be helped by them.On 6 May Jeanne led an attack on the boulevards on the south of the river. TheEnglish freely abandoned an isolated work and sought protection together in theboulevard of the Augustines and the Tourelles. The Augustines boulevard wasconquered by the French. On 7 May an attack followed on the Tourelles, astronghold on the bridge to Orléans, which was assaulted from all sides. Jeannewas wounded during the attack. An arrow was shot through her shoulder; sheworried that she would die and she cried. She was taken to the rear, the arrowwas removed from her shoulder, a bandage placed on the wound, and after somerest Jeanne again took her place in the ranks. She led the assault and the Englishstronghold was taken. The English had thus lost four boulevards. The followingday, 8 May, the English leaders decided to retreat. It was a Sunday. The Frenchleaders wanted to follow after them, Jeanne did not, perhaps influenced by thewound in her shoulder. Orléans had been freed in just a few days.44 For Jeanne itwas a triumph. But a pursuit of the English with continuous attacks during themarch would surely have brought better results. Jeanne did not have enoughexperience, but she learned quickly. On 10 May Charles VII was able toannounce throughout the realm the good news about the victory at Orléans, with


42 Chronique de la Pucelle, pp. 281–83, 285–87.43 Chronique de la Pucelle, pp. 287–90.44 Chronique de la Pucelle, pp. 290–96.

much praise for the Maid Jeanne. Everywhere prayers were to be made andprocessions organized. The news spread very quickly to Italy and the borders ofthe Rhine. Jeanne became the angel of the armies of God. But there was nomoney and no provisions for the army. On 10 May Jeanne traveled to the king,who welcomed her with great joy. A new army was provided for and it left underthe leadership of the duke of Alençon and Jeanne. It wanted to drive the Englishfarther out and marched to Jargeau and Beaugency. On 11 June it appearedbefore Jargeau which was attacked the whole day and conquered. AfterwardsBeaugency was captured. The English had to maneuver further in retreat, butthe French leaders used their heavy cavalry well to not allow them to take up avery strong position. They advanced so quickly that they were able to attack theEnglish at Patay before they were well organized. The French vanguard chargedthe English archers and crushed them. The English troops were dispersed orsurrounded. Some mounted men-at-arms were able to escape, but the infantryand the nobles who had dismounted were routed or taken prisoner. The leaders,Talbot, Scales, Rempston, and Hungerford, were captured (18 June).45 Jeanneand the French leaders had found a good strategic and tactical approach thatshould have been properly employed at the beginning of the war. On this occa-sion the English were defeated in a battle. They were no longer invincible. TheFrench royal propaganda loudly pronounced that God had sent a Maid, whowould always bring victory to their army. Jeanne was named an angel; she wassung about; stories glorified her deeds; she performed miracles; she wasportrayed on paintings and in drawings. But for the English and theBurgundians she was a witch, a heretic who had the devil on her side. After hervictory at Patay, Jeanne returned to Charles VII and wanted to convince him totravel to Reims with an army and there be crowned so that Charles would becrowned king of France and be better able to fight the uncrowned Henry VI.Some around the ruler wondered if it would not be better to continue with theconquest, while the English were so weak, and to recover Normandy or Paris.Jeanne predicted that the rest of France could be conquered afterwards. It wasconcluded that they should travel to Reims. On 29 June the journey began. Thesoldiers received a paltry pay of 3 francs, but many had come to follow Jeanneand did not immediately need pay. On 1 July they came to Auxerre, a townwhich was liberated on 5 July to Troyes, where Jeanne prepared to make anassault, which led to the surrender of the town after five days of siege. On10 July the king and Jeanne made a joyful entrance. On 14 July the army cameto Châlons, and on 17 July the ruler was crowned in Reims. Several townssurrendered themselves to the king after his coronation: Soissons, Laon,Château-Thierry, Provins, Compiègne, Senlis, and Beauvais. Saint-Denis wasoccupied; an attack of Paris was planned. But here Jeanne was too hasty and theattack failed. Jeanne was wounded there (8 September).46 Still, afterwards she


45 Chronique de la Pucelle, pp. 298–307.46 Chronique de la Pucelle, pp. 310–33.

undertook an expedition against La Charité-sur-Loire and Saint-Pierre-le-Moûtier. The latter place was conquered, but La Charité was not. In DecemberJeanne’s army was put to flight there, leaving its artillery behind. Charles VIIraised the family Darc to the nobility under the name d’Arc. Jeanne’s twobrothers had already fought for a time by her side. Other leaders of the royalarmy had in the meantime conquered Louviers, Château-Gaillard, and Laval.

Chroniclers wrote with complete admiration that Jeanne always rode a horsewith her armor on and with all her arms. She did it as well as the captains. Whenthe war was being discussed, or when the men-at-arms needed to be placed intheir order, it was enticing to hear her and to see the care that she took overeverything. When the alarm was sounded, she was the first, on foot or on horse.The captains of the men-at-arms wondered at her understanding of thesematters, since, as a simple peasant girl, she should have had no experience inthem. She was very pious, always confessing, often taking communion, andcourteous in her speech.47 She took to her new profession, the military life, thearmor, the men-at-arms, and the nobles. It was said that she could keep on herarmor for six days and six nights. The learned writers compared her with othernotable women from history: Deborah, Judith, Esther. She exceededPenthesilea. She was a new Sibyl, but Christian.48 In September 1429 she spentthree weeks in the house of Margareta la Touroulde. The housewife heard herhappily tell of the combats in which she fought. She asked Jeanne if she had anyfear in the fighting, although she was convinced that Jeanne would not be killed.Jeanne answered that it was not safer for her than any other soldier. But shefeared more the clergy than the soldiers.49 At her trial she said that she neverkilled an enemy in combat. She more happily carried her standard than herweapons. Many different great lords would have gladly seduced her, but sheremained unapproachable and always wore men’s clothing or her armor.50

On 7 August 1429 the duke of Bedford wrote that Charles VII gave hissuperstitious people a “troubled woman of low repute, who wore men’s clothingand carried herself licentiously.” In 1430 the king of England sent proclama-tions to his bailiffs in the town of Rochester indicating that “Captains andsoldiers had left their posts due to incantations of a young maid, instead of trav-eling to France.” During the attack of Paris the Bourgeois de Paris wrote in hisdiary: “a creature in the image of a woman was in the army and men called herthe Pucelle (or maid). Who it was only God knows.” A clerk of the University ofParis wrote to a partisan of Jeanne: it does not suffice to say that someone wassent by God; this must be proven by their works and by scripture. Jeanne wasrather sent by the devil, as she wore men’s clothing, forbidden to women, andstirred up the rulers and the Christian people to wage war. She fought a battle on


47 Chronique de la Pucelle, p. 312.48 Champion, pp. 56, 61.49 Champion, p. 82.50 Chronique de la Pucelle, p. 114.

the day of the birth of Our Lady. She should be sent to the bishop and the inquis-itor.”51

In the first half of 1430 Jeanne and her company defeated troops of aBurgundian plunderer, Franquet de Arras, who was taken prisoner andexecuted. On 23 May 1430 she came to Compiègne to help defend the town.She made a successful sally at 5 o’clock in the afternoon, but then her unit wascut off by the enemy and Jeanne was taken prisoner by Burgundian soldiers.Duke Philip the Good came to look at her and that same evening sent a messageto his towns to report that the dangerous opponent was imprisoned. An archer ofthe Bastard of Wandomme had taken her prisoner and had presented her to hismaster, who in turn later sent her to his lord, Jean of Luxembourg. He sold herto the duke of Bedford for the sum of 10,000 golden francs, a king’s ransom.The University of Paris and the bishop of Beauvais, Pierre Cauchon, wished tobring her before the court of the inquisition. This occurred at the command ofthe king of England, Henry VI. On 30 May 1431 Jeanne was burned in Rouenunder the pretext that she was a heretic and an apostate.


51 Champion, pp. 72, 79, 85.

Verbruggen ’s “Cavalry” and the Lyon-Thesis

Debate: Verbruggen’s “Cavalry” and the Lyon-Thesis

Bernard S. Bachrach*

When, in 1954, J.-F. Verbruggen, who studied under Professor F. L. Ganshofat the University of Ghent, published De Krijgskunst in West-Europa in deMiddeleeuwen, IXe tot Begin XIVe Eeuw, it was widely regarded as apathbreaking work. Ultimately, it received two English editions.1 In his 1956review of De Krijgskunst, Bryce D. Lyon, America’s leading specialist in medi-eval Flemish history for a half-century, was not uncritical of Verbruggen’s treat-ment of some topics. Nevertheless, he concluded very fairly, “Verbruggen haswritten military history as it should be written, and the reviewer, for one, looksforward to his next study.”2

Lyon has been, and remains, an important scholar in regard to Flemish andespecially Anglo-Flemish medieval history. He has maintained very close rela-tions with the Pirenne historical school at Ghent and collaborated with AdriaanVerhulst. Lyon’s teacher, Carl Stephenson, studied with Pirenne. Lyon, himself,not only has worked closely and collaborated in various scholarly endeavorswith Pirenne’s students, e.g. Ganshof, but also with Pirenne’s son, an importantintellectual figure in his own right.3 At least two of Lyon’s students, includingthe present author, like Verbruggen, studied with Professor Ganshof.4 In 1988, ayear after the publication of his seminal article, “The Role of Cavalry in

* [Volume 3 of this journal contained two articles to which the editors asked Professor Bachrach toreply. This article responds to one; his reply to the other, “A Lying Legacy? A Preliminary Discus-sion of Images of Antiquity and Altered Reality in Medieval Military History,” by Richard Abelsand Stephen Morillo, will appear in Volume 5. The Editors]1 The original Flemish text was published in Brussels. The first English translation by Sumner

Willard and Mrs. R.W. Southern, The Art of Warfare in Western Europe during the Middle Ages,from the Eighth Century to 1340 (Amsterdam and New York), expanded the chronologicalrange a bit, but all the scholarly apparatus was omitted. Bryce Lyon, as a member of the advi-sory board of the series in which The Art of Warfare appeared, played the key role in having DeKrijgskunst translated and published. A second revised and enlarged edition was publishedunder the same English title in 1997, by The Boydell Press (Woodbridge, UK, 1997), in theseries Warfare in History, edited by Matthew Bennett.

2 The review was published in Speculum 31 (1956), 725–29, at 729 for the quotation. Some ofLyon’s criticisms voiced in this review were expanded in his later publications.

3 With regard to Lyon’s collaborations, see, for example, Bryce Lyon and A. E. Verhulst, Medi-eval Finance. A Comparison of Financial Institutions in Northwestern Europe (Bruges, 1967);and Lyon’s translation of F. L. Ganshof, Frankish Institutions under Charlemagne (Providence,RI, 1970). Concerning his relations with Pirenne’s son as well as with other Ghent-historians,see Bryce Lyon, Henri Pirenne: A Biographical and Intellectual Study (Ghent, 1974), preface.

4 See the discussion of his work with F. L. Ganshof by Bernard S. Bachrach, Early Carolinglian

Medieval Warfare,” in one of Belgium’s most prestigious journals, the Univer-sity of Ghent awarded Bryce Lyon the degree “Doctor Honoris Causa in deLetteren en Wijsbegeerte” for the ensemble of his contributions to the study ofmedieval history, in general, and medieval Flemish history in particular.5

In light of Bryce Lyon’s exceptionally productive career and highly esteemedconnection with key figures of the famous Ghent school of medieval history, thead hominem attack launched by Verbruggen, not only on Lyon’s thesis regardingmounted warfare in Medieval Europe, but on his reputation as a scholar, wassurprising.6 Indeed, it is disappointing to someone such as myself, who has hadclose ties with Ghent historians, and has recognized, in print, Verbruggen’ssignal contribution to the study of medieval warfare, to have been accused(along with Lyon) of “impos[ing our] erroneous dogmas before [we] havestudied the art of medieval warfare from the sources” and “manipulating [thetexts] in an unscientific manner” – merely because we doubt the “hegemony” ofmounted troops on the battlefields of medieval Europe.7

However one may value Verbruggen’s contribution, it is self-evident thatscholars have learned a great deal during the past half-century concerning themilitary history of the Middle Ages, in general, and, particularly, in regard tothe role of mounted fighting men in medieval warfare.8 De Krijgskunst, whichhad not been significantly revised when Lyon wrote in 1987, can hardly beconsidered to have earned immunity to criticism, despite the stature of itsauthor. Certainly, it is legitimate to criticize the particular views of a scholar ona specific topic, e.g. the supposed overwhelming superiority of mounted troopsin war throughout the greater part of the history of medieval Europe. ThisVerbruggen characterizes as “the hegemony of the cavalry in medieval

138 Bernard S. Bachrach

Warfare: Prelude to Empire (Philadeplhia, 2001), p. xii, and the dedication of the volume to thememory of Professor Ganshof.

5 The full title of this study is “The Role of Cavalry in Medieval Warfare: Horses, Horses AllAround and Not a One to Use,” Academiae Analecta, Klasse der Letteren of the KoninklijkeAcademie voor Wetenschappen, Letteren en Schone Kunsten van België 19 (1987), 77–90.

6 “De rol van de ruiterij in de middeleeuwse oorlogvoering,” Belgisch Tijdschrift voor MilitaireGeschiedenis 30 (1994), 389–418. All references to this study are to the translation of thisarticle by Kelly DeVries, “The Role of the Cavalry in Medieval Warfare,” in The Journal ofMedieval Military History 3 (2005), 46–71.

7 Regarding my positive appreciation of Verbruggen’s work, see, for example, the review byBernard S. Bachrach of J.-F. Verbruggen, The Art of Warfare in Western Europe during theMiddle Ages from the Eighth Century to 1340, 2nd ed. in The Historian 61 (1999), 723. Forexample, Verbruggen “The Role of the Cavalry,” p. 53, makes claims such as “Bachrach did notknow . . . the difference between strategy and tactics.” On p. 64, Verbruggen claims that “Lyonand Bachrach set out towards a preconceived thesis that is worthless.”

8 See, for example, two articles which provide a general review of the literature: Bernard S.Bachrach, “Medieval Military Historiography,” Companion to History, ed. Michael Bentley(London, 1997), pp. 203–20; and Bernard S. Bachrach and Charles R. Bowlus, “Heerwesen,” inReallexikon der germanischen Altertumskunde, ed. Heinrich Beck, et al. (Berlin and New York,2000), pp. 14, 122–36. See, also, the broadly based survey by John France, “Recent Writing onMedieval Warfare: From the Fall of Rome to c. 1300,” The Journal of Military History 65(2001), 141–73.

warfare.”9 Indeed, Lyon drew the conclusion that Verbruggen has propagated aromantic idée fixe in this regard. Lyon believes that this romantic bias should beeliminated so that an in-depth understanding of the history of medieval warfaremay progress, and so that military history may be taken seriously bymedievalists who do not specialize in the f ield.10

In my opinion, Lyon has met the burden of proof in his article “The role ofcavalry.” This is not to say, however, that I agree with every word of Lyon’s argu-ment or that I would have written a critique of Verbruggen’s views concerningthe use of mounted troops in the Middle Ages in exactly the same way. Never-theless, in regard to Verbruggen’s arguments, which attack Lyon’s thesis, I thinkit is important to emphasize that there are norms to which one must adhere interms of method, evidence, and civil discourse. I believe that on all three counts,Verbruggen has failed. Thus, it is in response to a request by Kelly DeVries andClifford Rogers, co-editors of The Journal of Medieval Military History, that Ihave agreed to discuss Verbruggen’s attack on Lyon as a whole. In order toundertake this task, I will refer not only to Lyon’s original article andVerbruggen’s “response,” but to some of the other works published by bothscholars. Hopefully, this will help the reader to develop a more balanced appre-ciation of Lyon’s scholarship, as a whole, and specifically in regard to hiscontribution to medieval military history.

It is important to make clear that Lyon and Verbruggen are known forworking with very different types of sources. Verbruggen gained his justifiedrenown as a specialist in medieval military history by exhaustively searching thehigh- and late-medieval narrative sources, both in Latin and in the vernacular,for his De Krijgskunst.11 A half-century ago, however, scholars were far lessmethodologically sophisticated in the techniques of validating informationprovided in the narrative sources. Thus, it often happened that certain basicsregarding, for example, the parti pris of a particular author were not given suffi-cient consideration concerning the nature of the information that he provided.12

Verbruggen’s “Cavalry” and the Lyon-Thesis 139

9 “The Role of the Cavalry,” p. 1, for the quotation. Verbruggen accurately avers that it is Lyon’saim to undermine this thesis.

10 “The Role of the Cavalry,” p. 80. Regarding the unreasonable disdain in which medievalistshold specialists in medieval military history see Bernard S. Bachrach, “Editor’s Introduction,”Journal of Medieval Military History 1 (2002), vii–ix.

11 Simply reading the footnotes of The Art of Warfare, 2nd Eng. ed., makes this very clear. Anexamination of the bibliography indicates the overwhelming preponderance of published narra-tive sources. In fact, Verbruggen (p. 352), lists only seven archival fonds.

12 An important breakthrough in this area was engineered by Walter Goffart, The Narrators ofBarbarian History (550–800). Jordanes, Gregory of Tours, Bede, and Paul the Deacon(Princeton, 1988); see my very favorable review article in Francia l7.l (1990), 250–56. Onseveral occasions, I have discussed such matters in regard to military history. See, for example,four studies by Bernard S. Bachrach: “Gregory of Tours as a Military Historian,” in The Worldof Gregory of Tours, ed. Kathleen Mitchell and Ian Wood (Leiden, 2002), pp. 351–63; “Dudo ofSaint Quentin as a Military Historian,” The Haskins Society Journal: Studies in MedievalHistory 12 (2002), 155–85; “Dudo of Saint Quentin’s Views on Religion and Warfare, ca. 1000.A mise au point,” in Foi chrétienne et églises dans la société de l’Occident du Haut Moyen Âge

As a result, bits and pieces of information often were selected opportunisticallyfrom fundamentally untrustworthy sources and subsequently used as evidencethat conveniently supported the offending historian’s arguments. Indeed, somespecialists in medieval military history still fail to criticize, in a methodologi-cally sound manner, the information provided in the narrative sources theyuse.13

On the whole, Verbruggen did not, and still does not, vigorously engage,from an epistemological perspective, the biases of the authors of the sourcesthat he uses. This especially has been the case in terms of identifying the distor-tions inherent in works that tell stories which unwarrantedly and romanticallyglorified a medieval author’s “chivalric” patrons and their “knightly” way oflife.14 Propaganda “puff,” such as “100 noble cavalry could fight [successfully]


(IVe–XIIe siècle), ed. Jacqueline Hoareau-Dodinau and Pascal Texier (Limoges, 2004), pp.241–52; and “Dudo of Saint Quentin and Norman Military Strategy,” in Anglo-Norman Studies24 (2004), 21–36.

For Verbruggen’s views with regard to source criticism, see, for example, De krijgkunst,p. 43. These views encompass the very limited approach of so-called traditional scholarship, inthis context, as found in the handbooks of the later nineteenth and early twentieth century, andused by scholars such as Delbrück and Lot whose contributions in this area Verbruggen recog-nizes. See the discussion, which identifies the limits of Verbruggen’s critical methods, by KellyDeVries, “The Use of Chronicles in Recreating Medieval Military History,” The Journal ofMedieval Military History 2 (2004), 4.

13 See a series of recent book reviews by Bernard S. Bachrach: Matthew Stickland, War and Chiv-alry: The Conduct and Perception of War in England and Normandy, 1066–1217 (Cambridge,1996), reviewed in The Journal of Interdisciplinary History 28 (1998), 568–70; Maurice Keen,ed., Medieval Warfare: A History (New York, 1999), reviewed in Journal of InternationalHistory 22 (2000), 886–90; John M. Hill, The Anglo-Saxon Warrior Ethic: ReconstructingLordship in Early English Literature (Gainsville, FL, 2000), reviewed in The Medieval Review 3(2001), 1–3; John Peddie, Alfred, the Warrior King (Stroud, UK, 1999), reviewed in Albion 32(2000), 468–69; Richard Abels, Alfred the Great: War, Kingship and Culture in Anglo-SaxonEngland (Harlow, UK, 1998), reviewed in Albion 32 (2000), 620–21; Richard Kaeuper, Chiv-alry and Violence in Medieval Europe (Oxford, 1999), reviewed in The American HistoricalReview 104 (2001), 1436–37; Ann Hyland, The Horse in the Middle Ages with a foreword byJoan Thrisk (Stroud, UK, 1999), reviewed in Speculum (2001), 740–41; and Guy Hallsall,Warfare and Society in the Barbarian West, 450–900 (New York, 2003), reviewed in The Amer-ican Historical Review 109 (2004), 959. Many useful insights are to be found in DeVries, “TheUse of Chronicles,” pp. 1–17, and it can only be hoped that this tendency has a substantialfuture.

14 At the crux of Lyon’s critique (“The Role of Cavalry,” pp. 88–90), is the point, “Adulation of thechivalrous way of life made the aristocrat and the ruling class contemptuous of those whofought without a horse,” and many narrative sources, especially those in the vernacular, reflectthis prejudice in order to please their patrons. Carl von Clausewitz, On War, ed. and trans.Michael Howard and Peter Paret (Princeton, 1976), p. 286, made a key observation when henoted: “infantry is the most independent of the arms” and “cavalry is the most easily dispens-able arm.” Clausewitz’s particular observations (p. 289), regarding the supremacy of the cavalryduring the Middle Ages, rest upon scholarly views “researched” during the later eighteenth andearly nineteenth centuries, i.e. the period of high romanticism alluded to by Lyon (p. 78).Nevertheless, Clausewitz recognized that in terms of numbers, the foot soldiers were far morenumerous than the cavalry. Indeed, Clausewitz fails to see that his view, “foot soldiers were inlow esteem and hardly ever mentioned,” is a source problem engendered by the influence of

against 1000 foot soldiers,” is taken at face value.15 The idea that one horsemanis worth ten foot soldiers in romantic nonsense. Indeed, the English footsoldiersat Crécy and Poitiers proved themselves superior to the French cavalry. In addi-tion, Verbruggen fails to provide a sound critique of the so-called “reports” ofsupposed actors on the scene which credit small groups of horsemen withvictory over large groups of foot soldiers.16

By contrast with the work of Verbruggen, the core of Lyon’s research inmedieval history, in general, and in medieval military history in particular, hasbeen document-based. His studies, like those of Verbruggen, also focus on thehigh and later Middle Ages, but rest on the vast corpora of unpublished docu-ments available in the archives of Great Britain, France, and the Low Countries.In this regard, Lyon’s classic studies of the so-called “money fief ” still areregarded as basic to understanding various key aspects of medieval militaryrecruitment, organization, and finance.17 Indeed, Lyon also has made, andcontinues to make, significant contributions, usually based on archival docu-ments and sometime on the basis of acta from editions that he himself hasmade, to the study of the costs of war, logistics, and military communications.18


aristocratic patrons over the authors who wrote vernacular accounts. This prejudice, as Lyonpoints out (pp. 88–90), has continued into the twentieth century.

15 “The Role of the Cavalry,” p. 51, for the quotation.16 “The Role of the Cavalry,” p. 51 for the quotation, where other such claims are uncritically

repeated. Indeed, Verbruggen asserts that because Jean de Bueil commanded the successfulFrench mounted unit at Sankt Jacob an der Birs in 1444, which supposedly defeated a muchlarger formation of Swiss soldiers, he is to be believed regarding the relative sizes of bothforces. Verbruggen ignores the general principle, enunciated and defended with considerableenthusiasm by Delbrück, that victorious commanders traditionally exaggerate, on the high side,the order of magnitude of the enemy force while lowering the size of their own force in order toincrease their own glory. Conversely, defeated commanders follow this same pattern in theirreports in order to justify their defeats. See the discussion by Bernard S. Bachrach, “EarlyMedieval Military Demography: Some Observations on the Methods of Hans Delbrück,” in TheCircle of War, ed. Donald Kagay and L. J. Andrew Villalon (Woodbridge, UK, 1999), pp. 4–7.

17 See, for example, Bryce Lyon: “The Money Fief under the English Kings, 1066–1485,” TheEnglish Historical Review 66 (1951), 161–93; “Le fief-rente aux pays-Bas: sa terminologie etson aspect financier,” Revue du Nord 25 (1953), 221–32; “The Feudal Antecedent of the Inden-ture System,” Speculum 29 (1954), 503–11; “The Fief-Rente in the Low Countries: An Evalua-tion,” Revue Belge de Philologie et d’Histoire 32 (1954), 422–65; and From Fief to Indenture:The Transition from Feudal to non-Feudal Contract in Western Europe (Cambridge, MA, 1957).

18 See, for example, the following recent studies by Bryce Lyon: “The Dividends from War in theLow Countries (1338–1340),” in Peasants and Townsmen in Medieval Europe. Studia inHonorem Adriaan Verhulst (Ghent, 1995), pp. 693–705; “The Infrastructure and Purpose of anEnglish Medieval Fleet in the First Phase of the Hundred Years’ War (1338–1340),”Handelingen der Maatschappij voor Geschiedenis en Oudheidkunde te Gent 51 (1997), 61–76;“Communication during Medieval Warfare: The Campaign of Edward III of England in theLow Countries (1330–1340), Handelingen der Maatschappij voor Geschiedenis enOudheidkunde te Gent 53 (1999), 61–75; “An Account of the Provisions Received by Robert deSegre, Clerk of Edward I of England, in Flanders and Brabant in the Autumn of 1297,” Bullletinde la Commission Royale d’Histoire 169 (2003), 37–49; “What Were the Expenses of the KingsEdward I and Edward III when Absent from their Realms?” Journal of Medieval History 29(2003), 331–45.

It should be made clear, in this context, that two of Lyon’s major book-lengtheditions of medieval documents, which include significant commentaries onmilitary matters, were, in fact, published by the Commission Royale d’HistoireBelge.19

It is necessary to observe in regard to the different types of source basesexploited by both of these scholars, that today, no one of any epistemologicalsophistication argues that even financial accounts, various types of writs, andother documents produced by government agents to sustain military operationsare “objective” sources that do not require a scholarly critique. That is, no claimcan be sustained, ab initio on the basis of genre, that such sources have nobiases or flaws, and that in all circumstances, if read as plain text, they can notin any way be misleading. However, these acta, by and large, are impartial, anddo not succumb to the vast spectrum of biases inherent in all narrative sources.Thus, it is important to emphasize that the genre of the sources that a historiandeploys in his work does matter, and often, it matters a great deal. This is espe-cially the case in regard to narrative sources, upon which Verbruggen’s workfocuses, that represent, for example, the values and interests of an aristocratic ornoble patron, e.g. the military importance of “knights,” in an exaggeratedlypositive manner.20

Verbruggen asserts, “Lyon does not know enough military theory and prac-tice to make judgments or write about these problems.” He continues: “this lackof expertise shows in his [Lyon’s] erroneous conclusions.”21 Lyon’s publicationsin military history, several examples of which are cited above, make clear,however, that his work cannot be dismissed summarily for lack of expertise.Indeed, were Verbruggen ignorant of Lyon’s work, which has a substantial focuson Flemish history, he might be forgiven for these charges. However, it seemsfar more likely that Verbruggen suffers from the misapprehension that the onlylegitimate criterion by which to prove oneself to be a historian of warfare is todo “battle history.” Verbruggen seems to affirm his apparently doctrinaireattachment to this unfortunate position when he observes: “Bryce Lyon has notstudied the sources of even one battle in the Middle Ages.”22


19 The Wardrobe Book of William de Norwell, 12 July 1338 to 27 May 1340 (Brussels, 1983); andThe Wardrobe Book of 1296–1297: A Financial and Logistical Record of Edward I’s 1297Campaign in Flanders against Philip V of France (Brussels, 2004).

20 Lyon, “The Role of Cavalry,” pp. 88–90.21 Verbruggen, “The Role of the Cavalry,” p. 48, for the quotation.22 “The Role of the Cavalry,” p. 48. In his idea of source criticism, Verbruggen pretty much limits

his horizon (e.g. De krijgkunst, p. 43) to “battle history,” and matters such as the presence of thesource on the battlefield or his nationality. See, DeVries, “The Use of Chronicles,” p. 4,concerning the focus of Verbruggen’s interest in criticizing the sources.

Verbruggen’s Critique of Lyon

Lyon argued, in the context of early Carolingian warfare: “The most usefulfunction [my italics] of the mounted warrior was reconnoitering and raiding.”23

However, Verbruggen claims: “According to Lyon cavalry would only [myitalics] have been used for reconnaissance and raids.”24 This is a distortion ofLyon’s position. Other distortions aimed at winning rhetorical points are rifeeven in the first few pages of Verbruggen’s attack on Lyon’s thesis. For example,Verbruggen claims that Lyon refers to “ ‘the Frankish knight’ in the army ofCharlemagne.”25 Here Verbruggen fails, perhaps unintentionally, to understandLyon’s metaphoric use, for effect, of the term “knight” as a synonym for amounted fighting man trained to engage in combat while on horseback.26 Thus,Verbruggen caustically observes, “Knights did not exist yet, they werevassals.”27 It is true that it is simply wrong to apply the term “knight” as a tech-nical term to the Carolingian era, but Verbruggen is mistaken to take Lyon’susage literally in this context.28

In this same Carolingian context dealing with Charlemagne, Lyon claims“Not in a single signif icant battle or campaign did cavalry play a tactically


23 Lyon, “The Role of Cavalry,” p. 81.24 Verbruggen, “The Role of the Cavalry,” p. 47.25 Verbruggen, “The Role of the Cavalry,” p. 48.26 Lyon, “The Role of Cavalry,” p. 81.27 Verbruggen, “The Role of the Cavalry,” p. 48.28 This has not kept those of a romantic bent from trying to project the “knight” back into earlier

periods. See, for example, three recent studies: Karl Leyser, “Medieval Canon Law and theBeginnings of Knighthood,” Institutionen, Kultur und Gesellschaft im Mittelalter: Festschriftfür Josef Fleckenstein zu seinem 65. Geburtstag, ed. L. Fenske, W. Rösener and T. Zotz(Sigmaringen, 1984), pp. 549–66; Janet Nelson, “Ninth Century Knighthood: The Evidence ofNithard,” in Studies in Medieval History presented to R. Allen Brown, ed. C. Harper-Bill,C. Holdsworth, and J. Nelson (Woodbridge, UK, 1989), pp. 255–66; and Eric J. Goldberg,“ ‘More Devoted to the Equipment of Battle than the Splendor of Banquets’: Frontier Kingship,Martial Ritual, and Early Knighthood at the Court of Louis the German,” Viator 30 (1999),41–78.

I have treated these three studies as a group, not because the three scholars involved all workon the same types of material, but because they all are looking, in one way or another, for theorigins of chivalry. Note the valuable corrective by Joachim Bumke, The Concept of Knight-hood in the Middle Ages, 2nd trans. W. T. H. Jackson and Erika Jackson (New York, 1982), pp.22–45, and esp. p. 44, where he observes: “Knighthood did not originate from cavalry soldiers.”

It is important to make clear that the English word “knight” is ambiguous. On the one hand, itrefers to a member of the lowest rank of the nobility, and on the other hand to heavily armedmounted troops. All knights in a socio-legal sense were, when they were mobilized for militarypurposes, expected to possess the equipment needed for service as a heavily armed mountedsoldier. However, the overwhelming majority of heavily armed mounted soldiers in any medi-eval army were not knights in a socio-legal sense. See the discussion by Bachrach, “MedievalMilitary Historiography,” pp. 210–11; and the more pointed observations in the review byBernard S. Bachrach of Richard Kaeuper, Chivalry and Violence in Medieval Europe (Oxford,1999) in The American Historical Review 104 (2001), 1436–37.

decisive role [my italics].” Lyon then goes on to discuss one example in which amounted charge by a Carolingian force totally failed against a corps of Saxonfoot soldiers. This took place in a battle in the Süntal in 782. The Carolingianhorsemen who charged the Saxon foot not only were thoroughly defeated, butthey suffered immense losses.29 Indeed, it was this battle that evoked from Lyonthe rhetorical question: “Does this bespeak the superiority of the Frankishknight?”

After criticizing this misuse of the term “knight,” Verbruggen’s initial effortto refute Lyon’s argument also is, fundamentally, rhetorical. He writes, “Lyonhas not read my study on warfare in the Carolingian empire (714–1000), nor mytwo studies on the tactics of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries.” Hecontinues, “In total, he should have read ten of my works before he wrote hiscriticism.”30 But, of the nine articles cited in Verbruggen’s supporting footnote,only one, i.e. the title alluded to above, deals principally with the “Carolingianempire,” while six of the remaining eight concern solely the fourteenth andfifteenth centuries.31 Moreover, it is important to note that Lyon does cite one ofthe two Carolingian articles which Verbruggen has authored. This study,“L’armée et la stratégie de Charlemagne,” is not mentioned by Verbruggenthroughout his lament on Lyon’s failure to have read his work on theCarolingians.32 It may be noted also that three of the studies to whichVerbruggen alludes, in the above mentioned note, deal exclusively with theperiod after 1340. This post-1340 period is not treated in Verbruggen’s DeKrijgskunst, which is the focus of Lyon’s critique. Much of Verbruggen’s discus-sion of Lyon’s shortcomings, both as a researcher and as a consumer of the“appropriate” scholarly literature, e.g. Verbruggen’s numerous articles dealingwith the later Middle Ages, seems to be a rhetorical device aimed at divertingattention from the weaknesses of his own argument. Even the novice reader willnote that Verbruggen fails, in this context, to name even one signif icant battleduring the reign of Charlemagne, for that matter the entire period 714–875, inwhich he thinks the Frankish “cavalry played the decisive tactical role.”

Verbruggen tries to hide this failure to produce the overwhelming evidencethat he would like his readers to assume he already has published, but, in fact,which really does not exist (see below). Indeed, Verbruggen later admits explic-itly that he has no evidence to overturn Lyon’s argument concerning the early


29 “The Role of Cavalry,” p. 81.30 “The Role of the Cavalry,” p. 47, for the quotations.31 “The Role of the Cavalry,” note 5. The Carolingian article at issue is “L’art militaire dans

l’empire carolingien (714–1000),” Revue Belge d’histoire militaire 23 (1979–80), 289–310,393–412. Note that this article was written largely as an attack on a well reasoned and welldocumented study published by John France, “La guerre dans la France féodale à la fin du IXeet au Xe siècle, Revue Belge d’histoire militaire 23 (1979), 177–98, who, p. 188, n. 68, had thetemerity to put forth opinions “fort different” from those of Verbruggen.

32 This article appeared in Karl der Grosse, 5 vols. (Düsseldorf, 1965), 1:420–34; and is cited byLyon, “The Role of Cavalry,” p. 80, n. 12. The reader can decide for himself why Verbruggenfails to mention his contribution to this prestigious publication which Lyon does cite.

Carolingians, when he points out that the only real battle narrative which existsin the sources for the times of Charles Martel, Peppin III and Charlemagne isthe description of the battle in the Süntal in 782 – and there, far from theFrankish cavalry playing the decisive role, it was, as Lyon shows, decisivelydefeated by Saxon foot soldiers.33

Lyon, in fact, pinpointed Verbruggen’s methodological error in claiming thatCharlemagne’s mounted troops played the tactically decisive role in earlyCarolingian warfare. Lyon observed, “It seems that scholars inferred theprimacy of cavalry in battle from Carolingian efforts to assure the availability ofhorsemen . . .”34 The unnecessary assumption made by Verbruggen, and others,was that because Charlemagne maintained a strong interest in having availablecontingents of mounted troops in his armies, such contingents must, by defini-tion, have been the decisive tactical element in Carolingian warfare. Havingavailable mounted troops merely means that their commanders likely couldcommit them to combat in a significant battle. However, this does not prove thatthey were committed on horseback in a significant battle, and more importantly,it fails to demonstrate that they were the tactically decisive element in a signifi-cant battle. Verbruggen’s idée fixe regarding the supremacy of mounted troopsleads him to ride roughshod over the evidence provided in the relevantCarolingian sources in order to explain away the fact that they do not support hisposition.35

Verbruggen’s Mini-Military History of the West

After failing to provide evidence, much less compelling evidence, that Lyonwas wrong to claim that mounted troops were not the tactically decisive elementin Charlemagne’s armies or for that matter in the armies of the Carolingian eraas a whole, Verbruggen changes the subject. He produces a mini-history ofWestern warfare which has two purposes. First, it is an effort to demonstratethat in Western history prior to the Middle Ages, mounted troops were veryimportant. Secondly, Verbruggen apparently wants to obscure the essentialelements of Lyon’s thesis, which thus far he has failed to disprove, much in thesame way that in the first few pages he attacks Lyon’s legitimacy as a militaryhistorian because supposedly he never studied the sources for a single battle.

At the start of this mini-history, Verbruggen makes clear that he believesAristotle’s account of the development of mounted forces and foot soldiersamong the ancient Greeks. He gives special attention to Aristotle’s views on theimportance of “cavalry.” Indeed, it is well established that there was a deep


33 Cf. the effort by Verbruggen, “The Role of the Cavalry,” p. 59, to explain away the defeat ofCharlemagne’s cavalry in the Süntal.

34 “The Role of Cavalry,” p. 81.35 Concerning the numerous useful sources for the early Carolingian era, see Bachrach, Early

Carolingian Warfare.

interest during the early Middle Ages in ancient texts. However, Aristotle’sviews on Greek military organization are unlikely to have been available toCharlemagne or to any other Carolingian ruler. Nevertheless, after lavishingattention on Greek mounted troops, Verbruggen states, “When the Greek citiesbecame larger and richer, their foot soldiers became more important.”36 Indeed,any balanced treatment of the military of the Greek city states would certainlydiscuss the overwhelming importance of the hoplites, and accord them at leastas much attention as given to mounted troops. To leave his readers with themere acknowledgement that “foot soldiers became more important,” illustratesthe kind of bias regarding the centrality of “cavalry” inherent throughoutVerbruggen’s critique of Lyon’s thesis.37

According to Verbruggen, the “cavalry” also “played an important role” inthe armies of Alexander the Great, and particularly in his conquest of thePersian empire. Verbruggen does not, however, claim that these mounted troopswere the tactically decisive element of Alexander’s army.38 After this mentionof Alexander, Verbruggen then emphasizes that Hannibal was victorious overRome’s foot soldiers at Cannae in 216 BC because of his “cavalry.” Verbruggenclaims, as well, that the Romans failed to conquer the Persian empire becausethey lacked adequate “cavalry.” Verbruggen illustrates this point by callingattention to the defeat that Crassus suffered at the battle of Carrhae in 53 BC.Verbruggen follows up this insight with a list of defeats supposedly inflicted bybarbarian horsemen on Roman foot soldiers. The list culminates in the Gothicvictory at Adrianople in 378. Finally, Verbruggen discusses early seventh-century Byzantine history, which obviously can tell us nothing of Carolingianwarfare even if one is wont to date the beginning of the empire in 714.39 Appar-ently, this mini-history is aimed at proving the tactical importance of mountedtroops through the course of the history of Western Civilization. All of theseopportunistically selected examples, however, are irrelevant to Lyon’s thesisregarding the lack of hegemony enjoyed by mounted troops during the period714–1340 as the subject is treated misleadingly by Verbruggen in DeKrijgskunst.

Verbruggen omits from this mini-history of warfare the great successesenjoyed by hoplites, who generally are seen to have dominated much of ancientGreek military history, especially in some of its most successful phases. Thesetroops are commonly considered infantry by Anglophone scholars.40

Verbruggen, however, castigates Lyon for using the word “infantry” to describemedieval foot soldiers, and writes:


36 “The Role of the Cavalry,” p. 49.37 Concerning the great importance of hoplites see Victor Davis Hanson, The Western Way of War:

Infantry Battle in Classical Greece (New York, 1989).38 “The Role of the Cavalry,” p. 49, for the quotation.39 “The Role of the Cavalry,” pp. 49–53.40 Hanson, The Western Way of War, passim.

Lyon does not know enough concerning military theory and practice to make judg-ments or write about these problems. This lack of expertise shows in his erroneousconclusions. It shows also in the use of the word “infantry” for the footsoldiers of thetime [the Middle Ages]. Infantry was first introduced in the sixteenth or seventeenthcentury. The word “infantry” appears in English around 1579.41

Verbruggen concludes with the ex cathedra pronouncement “Lyon may not useit [the word “infantry”] for the Middle Ages.”42

Verbruggen certainly is correct in regard to the date of the introduction of theword “infantry” into English usage. However, he might well have noted that thesecond edition of the Oxford English Dictionary, which provides this informa-tion regarding “infantry,” also has an entry on “cavalry” with a variety of spell-ings. Thus, were Verbruggen to have been consistent in light of his ownexpertise and command of “military theory and practice” for the purpose ofmaking judgments or writing about these problems, he might have followed uphis research in the Oxford English Dictionary, and shared with his readers thatthe first use of “cavalry” in English usage appears, in this worthy compendium,to have been 1591.43 It might be kind, in this context, to draw a curtain ofcharity over Verbruggen’s delicts, as evidenced by his own willingness toapprove DeVries’ use of “cavalry” to translate ruiterij as a term of art for medi-eval mounted troops, despite the late entry of the word into English usage.However, it must be noted that Clausewitz, who is considered very much anauthority by Verbruggen, used the word “infantry” in regard to medieval footsoldiers when, for example, he observed, “It is the common view that in theMiddle Ages the proportion of cavalry to infantry was far higher than now, andhas gradually declined ever since.”44 Citing the English translation here isacceptable only because Verbruggen cites this same translation (even in theDutch original of the article), and in The Art of Warfare does not criticizeClausewitz for this putative anachronism.45 Indeed, Verbruggen castigates Lyonfor not having relied on Clausewitz’s writings.46

This diversion by Verbruggen into the history of English usage may havebeen successful, in so far as the reader may have been distracted from hisone-sided treatment of warfare in the ancient world. Thus, it must be reaffirmed


41 “The Role of the Cavalry,” p. 48, for the quotation.42 “De rol van de ruiterij,” p. 391. DeVries translates mag as “should.” “Role of the Cavalry,”

p. 48.43 Oxford, 1989. For “cavalry,” see 2:1007.44 On War, p. 289. Concerning the high esteem in which Clausewitz is held by Verbruggen, see

The Art of Warfare (2nd ed.), pp. 2, 276, 280, 325, 327, 329, 348, 349.45 Indeed, Verbruggen, “The Role of the Cavalry,” p. 48, n. 6 (= “Rol van de Ruiterij,” p. 391, n. 5)

quotes from the very page in the Howard/Paret translation on which Clausewitz refers to medi-eval “infantry.”

46 “The Role of the Cavalry,” p. 66, for failing to start with “the definitions of Clausewitz.”Indeed, Verbruggen attacks me for using “modern American definitions of strategy” rather thanthose of Clausewitz, as though it is to be assumed that early nineteenth-century definitions areinherently superior to late twentieth-century definitions.

that hoplite infantry defeated the armies of the Persian empire on more than oneoccasion, and the Roman infantry certainly played a key role in winning thePunic wars despite the loss at Cannae. With regard to the success of Romeagainst the barbarians during the later empire in the West, the views ofAmmianus Marcellinus, the last of the “greater Roman historians” and a profes-sional military officer, are informative.47 Ammianus observes that after thevictories of the emperor Aurelian (d. 275), the barbarians remained quiet for avery long time, i.e. until the time he was writing in the early 390s. Thus, withthe confidence of a well-informed soldier, he asserts that the only exceptionswere “single bands of robbers who made raids into nearby regions.” This,however, he reminds his contemporaries, occurred “very rarely and to their owndestruction.”48

The Merovingians

Verbruggen continues his skewed mini-history of Western warfare with listsof battles in which the Frankish King Clovis (481–511), and some laterMerovingians took part. These are as irrelevant to the Lyon-thesis as thecomments regarding Aristotle et al., and every bit as useless to our under-standing of the supposed decisive role played by “cavalry” in significant battlesduring the Middle Ages, 714–1340, to which Verbruggen is committed.49 As Imade clear more than thirty years ago, Clovis fought four important battles inthe field during a career of thirty years. These victories, along with the sieges ofseveral fortress cities helped Clovis to conquer three quarters of Gaul and makemuch of the fourth part tributary. In the first battle, he defeated Syagrius atSoissons (486), in the second he won against the Alamanni at Tolbiac (496), inthe third he defeated a Burgundian army in the environs of Avignon (c.501), andin the fourth he bested the Visigoths at Vouillé (507).50 Of these four engage-ments, the only one that provides any information regarding mounted troops is


47 In general, regarding Ammianus’s worth as a historian, see M. L. W. Laistner, The GreaterRoman Historians (Berkeley, 1947); and with particular attention to Ammianus as a militaryhistorian, see N. E. J. Austin, Ammianus on Warfare: An Investigation into Ammianus’ MilitaryKnowledge (Brussels, 1979).

48 Res Gestae, XXXI, 5, 11–17. The view of Ammianus and other later Roman sources have nowbecome the orthodoxy among specialists in later Roman military history. See Brent D. Shaw,“War and Violence,” Interpreting Late Antiquity: Essays in the Post Classical World, ed. G. W.Bowersock, Peter Brown, and Oleg Grabar (Cambrigde, MA, 2001), p. 153 (with the cited liter-ature), who observes: “set battles were not typical of the multifarious confrontations betweenbarbarian and Roman.”

49 “The Role of the Cavalry,” pp. 53–55.50 Bernard S. Bachrach, Merovingian Military Organization 481–751 (Minneapolis, 1972), pp.

3–17; see more recently Bernard S. Bachrach “Quelques observations sur la composition et lescaractéristiques des armées de Clovis,” in Clovis: Histoire et Mémoire, ed. Michel Rouche, 2vols. (Paris, 1997), pp. 689–703.

Vouillé, where Clovis’ foot soldiers soundly defeated the Visigoths’ mountedtroops.51 This victory by Frankish foot soldiers over the Visigothic horse mayraise, in some scholars’ minds, a question as to what, in fact, really happened atAndrianople in 378, when the Visigothic “cavalry” are supposed to havedefeated a huge force of Roman foot soldiers.52

The Early Carolingians

After numerous diversions, Verbruggen once again addresses the question ofthe Carolingian “cavalry,” where, as he has made clear, he has published a majorarticle (although we know that he published two studies and that Lyon cited oneof them, which Verbruggen never mentions) during an otherwise very produc-tive career of more than fifty years. In this context, Verbruggen follows thethesis put forth in 1897 by Heinrich Brunner. The latter argued that the Frankisharmy, whose forces were dominated by foot soldiers, was converted by CharlesMartel into a force in which “heavy cavalry” was the decisive arm. Brunnerargued that Charles’ experience at the battle of Poitiers in 732 was the stimulusfor this massive conversion in military organization. Verbruggen makes clearhis view that “The evolution of an army in which the heavy cavalry won domi-nance as vassals was explained by Heinrich Brunner and his account remainsstill the best.”53 Verbruggen obviously fails to agree with the broad consensus,now more than thirty years old, that the Brunner-thesis is without merit.54

Indeed, Verbruggen would seem to lead the reader to believe that he does notknow that Brunner’s argument rests, au fond, upon a mistranslation of the wordpedetemptim in the Annals of Fulda for the year 891. This mistranslation,


51 Bachrach, Merovingian Military Organization, p. 11. It is not clear that Verbruggen, “The Roleof the Cavalry,” p. 54, believes that the Visigothic “cavalry soldiers,” whom he extolled inregard to the Roman infantry at Adrianople (p. 50), in fact, fought at Vouillé.

52 In my reading of events, a combined force of Alans and Visigoths, which attacked the Romanflank by surprise and rolled it up, played a key role in the barbarian victory at Adrianople.However, there is no question of a frontal assault on a Roman phalanx by barbarian horsemen.See Bernard S. Bachrach, A History of the Alans in the West, from their first appearance in thesources of classical antiquity through the early Middle Ages (Minneapolis, 1973), p. 27. On thewhole now, however, the battle of Adrianople is seen primarily as an infantry battle. See, forexample, Thomas Burns, “The Battle of Adrianople: A Reconsideration,” Historia 22 (1973),336–44. According to France, “Recent Writing on Medieval Warfare,” p. 444, this view, whichwas already in the field almost twenty years before Verbruggen wrote “The Role of theCavalry,” represents the consensus of both ancient historians and medievalists.

53 See “The Role of the Cavalry,” p. 62, for the quotation.54 Kelly DeVries, Medieval Military Technology (Peterborough, Ontario, 1992), pp. 95–122,

provides an excellent discussion of the scholarly works that dismantle the Brunner thesis and itsstirrup appendage. See the very positive review of this work by Bernard S. Bachrach, in TheJournal of Military History 56 (1992), 687–88. In addition, France, “Recent Writing on Medi-eval Warfare,” p. 447, observes, “In 1970 the Brunner thesis was effectively demolished in twoarticles.”

however, was exposed in 1970, in an article that Verbruggen claims to haveread.55

Verbruggen begins his examination of the Carolingians with Charles Martel,and claims that by 734, the mayor of the palace was able to send “Childebrandwith an army to Avignon, in order to besiege this fortress, apparently with hiscavalry.”56 Thus, by this example, Verbruggen would seem to illustrate therapidity of the conversion of the Franks from an army of foot soldiers to one of“heavy cavalry.” Needless to say, the mounted troops in question were not themeans by which this great fortress city was captured. In fact, Verbruggen foundit necessary to recognize that Avignon was taken by assault “with battering ramsand ladders.”57 What is perhaps more interesting, however, is Verbruggen’streatment of the decisive victory won by Charles Martel’s massed Frankish footsoldiers over Abd al Rachman III’s Muslim horsemen at Poitiers in 732.Verbruggen writes: “In 732 Charles marched against the Saracens and foughtthem at Poiters.”58 Had Verbruggen examined this battle in proper detail, hemight have admitted to his readers that Charles was victorious.59 However, moreimportantly, any intelligent person might be just a little bit skeptical regardingBrunner’s thesis, mistranslations aside, when learning of Charles’ decisivevictory at Poitiers. Why, for example, would an experienced commander, suchas Charles Martel, whose outstanding military ability was proven in the courseof a quarter-century of regular campaigning, choose to undertake a massivereorganization of the armed forces of the regnum Francorum just after provingthe tactical superiority of his foot soldiers over the enemy’s mounted troops?60

After convincing himself, following Brunner, that Charles Martel engineereda military revolution, Verbruggen then lists numerous military operations


55 Bernard S. Bachrach, “Charles Martel, Mounted Shock Combat, the Stirrup and Feudalism,”Studies in Medieval and Renaissance History 7 (1970), 49–75 – and reprinted with the samepagination in Bernard S. Bachrach, Armies and Politics in the Early Medieval West (London,1993), pp. 51–53 – exposed Brunner’s mistranslation. Verbruggen, “The Role of the Cavalry,”p. 62, n. 50, cites this article. The article by Bachrach is one of the two cited by France, “RecentWriting on Medieval Warfare,” pp. 447–48, to have effectively demolished the Brunner thesis.The other study is Donald Bullough, “Europae Pater: Charlemagne and his Achievement inLight of Recent Scholarship,” English Historical Review 75 (1970), 84–90. For the convenienceof the reader, see The Annals of Fulda, ed. and trans. Timothy Reuter (Manchester and NewYork, 1992), s.a. 891 (p. 122), for the key text that Brunner mistranslated.

56 “The Role of the Cavalry,” p. 56.57 “The Role of the Cavalry,” p. 56.58 “The Role of the Cavalry,” p. 56.59 See Bachrach, Early Carolingian Warfare, pp. 26–32, with the literature cited there.60 For a detailed examination of Charles’ military campaigning see, Bachrach, Early Carolingian

Warfare, pp. 19–36, with the literature cited there; and compare the list provided byVerbruggen, “The Role of the Cavalry,” pp. 55–57. Paul Fouracre, The Age of Charles Martel(Harlow, UK, 2000), pp. 145–49, has nothing to add regarding Charles at war, and is more inter-ested, for example, in the stylistic influences of the Bible on the sources that treat Charles’activities. As suggested earlier, this type of analysis is an important prelude for anyone whowould use these sources to write military history. Fouracre, however, is satisfied simply with thestylistic analysis.

undertaken by Charles, Peppin (741–68), and the latter’s son Charlemagne(768–814). In this list, Verbruggen is unable to identify a single significant orfor that matter insignificant battle in which the Frankish “cavalry” played thetactically decisive role. Indeed, Verbruggen admits that he has no evidence forthe tactically decisive role of “cavalry” in any battle during this period, i.e.714–814. He explains: “Bryce Lyon takes a period in which the texts are soscarce and so brief that there are no narratives of battles for the time of CharlesMartel, Peppin III [I], and Charlemagne.”61 This admission that Lyon is, in fact,right regarding the fact that the early Carolingian sources fail to provideevidence for Verbruggen’s thesis, comes almost a dozen pages after he tried todiscredit Lyon for not having read a particular article which supposedly provedthe importance of “Carolingian cavalry” during the period.

Contrary to Verbruggen’s assertions regarding the sources, considerabledetail is recoverable concerning various battles fought during the earlyCarolingian era. Indeed, there is even a great deal of detailed informationconcerning numerous efforts to capture the great fortress cities and lesser forti-fications, largely of later Roman origin, that dominated the military topographyof the hexagon, northern Italy, and northeastern Spain during the century underconsideration. Early Carolingian warfare, that was intended to result in territo-rial conquest and the integration of the conquered regions into the Carolingianregnum, was dominated by sieges and assaults on the enemy’s massive fortresscities and lesser fortifications. Decisive victories won by heavily armedmounted troops in signficant battles in the open field were not a major featureof Carolingian warfare under Charlemagne and his predecessors.62

“Cavalry” Decisiveness 840–1000

Before treating Verbruggen’s views on “ ‘Cavalry’ Decisiveness 840–1000,”it should be emphasized that half way through his attack on Lyon, Verbruggengives up trying to prove that under Charles Martel, the supposed originator ofthe “heavy cavalry revolution,” his son Peppin III/I, and grandson Charlemagnethe “cavalry” played the tactically decisive role in any significant battles.Indeed, Verbruggen has explicitly recognized that he has no evidence to provehis case. As a result, he retreats to a fallback position, and asserts: “The periodfrom 840–1000 is indeed characterized by the dominance of the heavy cavalryin West Francia.”63 Following his usual methods, Verbruggen provides a list ofbattles: Andernach 876, the Dyle (891), Riade 933, Lechfeld 955, somewhere inwestern Francia in 943, Cap 82, Fiorenzuola 923, Spoleto 940, Nouey in 1044,


61 “The Role of the Cavalry,” p. 61.62 See Bachrach, Early Carolingian Warfare. Verbruggen simply does not have an in-depth knowl-

edge of the Carolingian sources, and paraphrases a few chronicles and annals.63 “The Role of the Cavalry,” p. 64, for the quotation.

and somewhere in Scandinavia in 1134, that supposedly prove the hegemony ofheavy cavalry in Western European warfare during this period.64

On the basis of the battles, listed above, which purport to provide conclusiveevidence for the dominance of “cavalry,” Verbruggen concludes sarcastically,“If we are to believe Bryce Lyon there were no battles before the eleventhcentury in which armored cavalry played the primary role [my italics]”.65 Lyon,however, does not speak of the “primary role” of “armored cavalry,” but of thedecisive tactical role of cavalry in signif icant battles during the earlyCarolingian era. Lyon does not comment upon the later ninth century or on thetenth century. Nor does he deploy lists of specific examples for this period.Rather, Lyon focuses his attention on the battle of Hastings (1066) in the elev-enth century, before moving on to the decisive victory won by the foot soldiersof Milan and its allies over Frederick Barbarossa’s heavily armed mountedtroops at Legnano in 1176.66

Lechfeld 955

Verbruggen’s assertion that the battles, listed above, sustain the view that“heavily armored cavalry” played the “primary role,” much less the decisiverole, cannot be sustained. For example, the only cavalry action taken by Otto I’sforces at the battle of the Lech (955), was the recapture of the royal baggagetrain by horsemen under the command of Count Conrad of Franconia. Thevictory in the field over the Magyar light horse was won by the mass of Saxonfoot soldiers and their supporters, who drove their adversaries into the riverLech by the force of their massed strength.67 It should be emphasized, in thiscontext, that Otto’s army was deployed from Saxony and other parts of Franciaorientalis to the south of the German kingdom for a specific purpose. His aimwas to relieve the investment of the fortress city of Augsburg that was beingpressed at this time by the Magyar army with a wide variety of siegemachines.68

Andernach 876

Concerning the battle of Andernach in 876, Verbruggen writes: “A firstexample [my italics] [of the primary role played by cavalry] is the battle of


64 “The Role of the Cavalry,” pp. 62–64. Note that only two of these battles took place in “WestFrancia,” and one of them occurred in 1044, i.e. forty-four years after Verbruggen’s self-imposed chronological terminus of 1000.

65 “The Role of the Cavalry,” p. 63, for the quotation.66 “The Role of Cavalry,” pp. 81–82.67 See, Charles Bowlus, The Battle of the Lechfeld, forthcoming. Also see Bernard S. Bachrach,

“Magyar-Ottonian Warfare: à-propos a new minimalist interpretation,” Francia 13.1 (2000),211–30.

68 This is the focus of the study by Bachrach, “Magyar-Ottonian Warfare,” pp. 211–30.

Andernach in 876.” He prefaces his observation with the by now tiresomerhetorical flourish “If [Bryce Lyon] had read my article on the art of war from714–1000, he would have found several [examples of battles before the eleventhcentury in which armored cavalry played the primary role.]”69 Since, as notedabove, Lyon did not treat the later ninth century, Verbruggen’s criticism ishardly merited. Concerning the battle itself, Verbruggen notes that it was“waged by Charles the Bald against his nephew, Louis the Younger. In botharmies the battle was fought by units of cavalry; there were no footsoldiersreported [my italics]”.70 This statement is problematic. While it is true that thesources fail to make it explicit that Louis employed footmen, they also do notmake it explicit that only cavalry were used, and careful consideration of thecourse of the battle makes it very probable that infantry actually played a prin-cipal role in the fighting. In addition, a careful treatment of the evidence illumi-nates Louis the Younger’s tactical sophistication in planning a battle that hardlysustains the traditional romantic notion, preferred by Verbruggen, that heavycavalry, at will, broke up masses of foot soldiers by an unsupported frontalassault.71

At the battle of Andernach, Louis the Younger, the East Frankish king,learned, through his intelligence gathering network of spies and scouts, thatCharles the Bald, toward dawn, was planning to make a surprise attack on hiscamp. Thus, Louis deployed his forces some distance forward of his encamp-ment. At the center, he projected forward a force of Saxon soldiers, most likelyfootmen, and stationed his mounted troops refused in line on either flank. Thehorsemen were screened, at least in part, by wooded land. The formation lookedsomething like a drawn bow. When Charles’ army came within sight of Louis’camp, the West Frankish ruler is reported to have been surprised that Louis’ footsoldiers already had been deployed. He did not see the screened enemyhorsemen, and immediately ordered his own mounted troops to charge theSaxon foot soldiers. After initial contact, the latter, following Louis’ plan, grad-ually gave ground until their backs were up against the walls of their fortifiedcamp. Then, like the Saxons in the Süntal, Louis’ foot soldiers held theirground. Charles’ horsemen pressed forward, but were unable to break up theSaxon formation, which now constituted a refused center with Louis’ horsemenon the enemy’s flanks. When the West Frankish mounted troops were in thetrap, Louis’ horsemen executed a double envelopment which resulted in theutter defeat of Charles army.72


69 “The Role of the Cavalry,” pp. 63–64.70 “The Role of the Cavalry,” p. 64, for the quotation.71 I take Verbruggen’s unqualified quotation of the observation by Malcolm Vale that “Heavy

cavalry could carry all before it through the momentum and impact of a properly-conductedcharge” to mean that he (Verbruggen) embraces this view. In his discussion of Lyon’s use ofVale, Verbruggen has completely misunderstood Lyon’s meaning. Lyon is citing Vale asevidence for the continued practice of unregenerate romanticism.

72 See Bernard S. Bachrach, “Caballus et Caballarius in Medieval Warfare,” in The Story ofChivalry, ed. H. Chickering and T. Seiler (Kalamazoo, 1988), pp. 173–211; and reprinted with

Surely, this was not merely a “cavalry battle,” as Verbruggen asserts. From atactical perspective, the Saxon foot soldiers must be acknowledged to haveplayed a key role. First, they attracted the full force of the enemy’s uninhibitedmounted attack. Then, as an indication of their sound training and tactical skill,the foot soldiers gradually withdrew, i.e. refused the center, while under attack,in order to make the envelopment of Charles’ mounted troops possible by Louis’horsemen deployed on the flanks. Moreover, it must be emphasized that in thelast phase of the battle, the Saxon foot held fast, and were unbroken. As a resultthey served effectively as the “anvil” upon which Charles’ horsemen werecrushed. Finally, it is not at all clear from the sources that Louis’ mounted forceswere dominated by heavily armed or light horse, or, for that matter, whether allof the West Frankish mounted troops were heavily armored.

The Dyle, 891

Despite Verbruggen’s claims, a detailed study of the battle of the Dyle (891)does not demonstrate the view that “armored cavalry played the primary role.”In this battle, King Arnulf, followed up a rapid pursuit of a force of Vikingraiders by reconnoitering the fortified camp into which they had fled. Arnulfconcluded that the vast majority of his troops, most or all of whom weremounted, would have to dismount, advance slowly, i.e. step by step(pedetemptim) against the Vikings’ position, and in the process endure anunnerving hail of enemy missiles. Arnulf maintained a small number of histroops on horseback to serve as a reserve. This force was to protect the rear ofthe East Frankish army that was advancing on foot against the Vikings, shouldany of the latter slip out of their fortified position in an attempt to attackArnulf’s men from the rear.73


the same pagination in Bernard S. Bachrach, Warfare and Military Organization inPre-Crusade Europe (London, 2002), p. 190, n. 78. Above, I considered the possibility that theSaxons at the center of Louis’ formation could possibly have been lightly armed horsemen.Upon further consideration, however, I later concluded that the Saxons were likely foot soldiers,because even lightly armed mounted troops would have had great difficulty in executing thetype of gradual withdrawal while under attack that, in fact, was effected. In addition, with theirbacks to the wall of the castra and no room for maneuver, a force of light horse could not hopeto hold fast against a hard charging and much larger force of heavily armed mounted troops. Inaddition, there is no sound source account that demonstrates the existence of Saxon light horseat this time in the development of Saxon military organization.

It should also be noted that the sources indicate that it was Charles’ plan to execute a surpriseattack, probably at dawn, on Louis’ castra. Such an attack on a properly built and defendedencampment could not be carried out through a mounted charge, as illustrated by the tacticsArnulf was required to use at the Dyle in 891 (see below). In short, in order for Charles to havecarried out his initial plan, his horsemen would have had to have dismounted, and attacked onfoot.

73 Bachrach, “Charles Martel, Mounted Shock Combat, the Stirrup and Feudalism,” pp. 51–53;and with additional detail, Bachrach, “Caballus et Caballarius,” p. 185.

Cap Colone, 982

With the exception of Riade, there are no compelling reasons to believe thatthe other battles named by Verbruggen, i.e. Fiorenzuola 923, Spoleto 940, andCap Colone 982, all fought in Italy, and Nouey 1044, fought in the west ofFrancia occidentalis, saw heavily armed cavalry play the tactically decisiverole. Cap Colone, in fact, provides a very good example of why it is necessary tosuspect Verbruggen’s treatment of the sources in regard to demonstrating thesupposed tactically decisive nature of heavily armed mounted troops. Indeed, asillustrated above, Verbruggen clearly failed to provide a convincing assessmentof the role played by heavily armed horsemen in the battles of Andernach, theDyle, and the Lechfeld.

At Cap Colone, Otto II commanded a large army that included several thou-sand heavily armed horsemen mustered in Germany. He was preparing to attacka Muslim army, under the command of Abdul Kasim, which was composed, inlarge part, of lightly armed mounted troops. As the armies came into position toface each other, the Muslims, on a signal from their commander, bolted beforeOtto’s army could engage, and began a very rapid retreat. Otto’s mounted forcesfollowed, as fast as their comparatively large and heavy war horses could, in thevain hope of overtaking the Muslims. The latter drew away from their pursuersrather easily. After several kilometers of hard riding, the war horses carrying theheavily armed Germans began to slow down, and to show the effects of theirlabor. In the meanwhile, the Muslims had stopped their “feigned retreat,” andconcealed themselves under cover along the sides of the road. When theGermans passed by their positions, the Muslims launched a vigorous attackfrom the flanks on the enemy, whose horses no longer were fit for battle. TheMuslim light horse won a decisive victory over Otto’s heavily armed mountedtroops, who suffered immense losses, and the emperor barely escaped with hislife.74

Riade, 933

It is only with the battle of Riade in 933 that Verbruggen even comes close todemonstrating the “superiority” of “heavy cavalry” which is essential to histhesis, that was respectfully criticized by Lyon. Henry I, the Saxon ruler ofFrancia orientalis, learned that a large force of Magyars had invaded hiskingdom, and he decided to set a trap for them. Having ascertained the enemy’sline of march, Henry placed his force of heavily armed mounted troops in ascreened position along the route, and sent out a force of lightly armed(inermes) Thuringian horse to lure the Magyars into a trap. When the Magyars


74 Bachrach, “Caballus et Caballarius,” p. 192. Note that Verbruggen, “L’art militaire dansl’empire carolingien,” p. 396, provides a description consistent with the above, but in “The Roleof the Cavalry,” pp. 63–64, he implies that Cap Colone illustrates the superiority of heavycavalry.

spotted the Thuringians, the latter fled, and the former gave chase. The carelessover-eagerness of the Magyar pursuit brought their forces into range of theconcealed German heavy horse. At the appropriate moment, the Germans, whoappear to have been under the direct command and disciplined control of KingHenry, struck and chased the Magyars from the field, although they could notwin a decisive victory against their f leet opponents.75

The supremacy of the German heavily armed mounted troops over theMagyar light horse in hand-to-hand combat at the battle of Riade is proven bythe recognition by the latter that they could not engage the former. King Henry,however, knew that it required a successful ruse de guerre for his heavily armedmounted forces to be able engage the enemy. By contrast, at Cap Colone in 982,the German heavily armed horsemen were crushed by lightly armed Muslimmounted troops after being decisively outmaneuvered. At the Lechfeld in 955,it was the mass of several legiones of German foot soldiers which defeated theMagyar light horse. Looking further ahead, it is clear that the heavily armedmounted troops commanded by William the Conqueror, reputed by somemodern scholars to have been the best of their day, were unable to break theEnglish shield wall at Hastings in 1066 by the force of several frontal assaults.As Lyon observes: “It cannot be argued that the mounted knight prevailedbecause of his superiority over the Saxon foot soldier.”76 At Legnano in 1176, asLyon observes, the German heavy horse failed to break the formation of Italianfoot soldiers, and were decisively defeated, when “After stopping the Germancharge, the Milanese foot soldiers counter-attacked, inflicting a crushing defeaton the Germans and capturing many knights.”77

Fulk Nerra

Medieval commanders, at least those who were successful, were well-schooled in battle tactics. Two battles won by Fulk Nerra, help to illustrate thesophistication of some commanders in the deployment of their mounted forces.Fulk, count of the Angevins from 987–1040, was one of Europe’s most


75 Bachrach, “Caballus et Caballarius,” pp. 188–89.76 Lyon, “The Role of Cavalry,” p. 81, for the quotation. Verbruggen, “The Role of the Cavalry,” p.

30, tries to convince his readers that William’s heavy cavalry actually won the battle ofHastings, but is not able to sustain the position that the Anglo-Saxons were defeated as a resultof a frontal assault by Norman heavily armed horsemen. In dealing with the order of magnitudeof the Anglo-Saxon population on the eve of the Norman invasion, and the sources for the sizeof both Harold’s and William’s armies, Verbruggen, “The Role of the Cavalry,” p. 65, n. 66,makes clear that he is ignorant of modern demographic methods, and equally ignorant of thecanons of Sachkritik as developed by Delbrück. With regard to the latter, see Bachrach, “EarlyMedieval Military Demography,” pp. 3–20.

77 See the discussion by Lyon, “The Role of Cavalry,” p. 82, for the quotation. Verbruggen, “TheRole of the Cavalry,” p. 30, tries to explain away the defeat of Frederick’s heavily armedhorsemen, by pointing out the military organization of the city of Milan included heavily armedmounted troops.

successful military men for more than a half-century. He owes his fame to thefact that he was a great builder of fortifications, which he used effectively tocreate an extensive principality in the West of France. As a result, he won fromposterity the sobriquet “le grand bâtisseur.” The principality that Fulk built ulti-mately served as the base from which King Henry II of England, his directdescendant, constructed what has come to be called the Angevin empire.78 Inaddition to all of his great building efforts, Fulk is said by his grandson, Fulk leRéchin, the chronicler of the fortunes of the Angevin counts until 1096, to havefought two battles in the field, “dua campestria prelia.”79 In Fulk le Réchin’sview, however, these battles were a minor theme in his grandfather’s very longand successful military career. Fulk emphasizes not the “dua campestria prelia”that his grandfather won, but the “plurima castella,” that he built.80

Conquereuil 992

The first of these battles was fought at Conquereuil in Brittany in 992. CountConan of Rennes was besieging the Angevin-controlled fortress city of Nanteswhen he learned that Fulk Nerra was on his way to relieve the beleagueredgarrison with a large army composed of not only of Angevins but also ofnumerous allies and including mercenaries. Immediately upon receiving intelli-gence of the approach of the enemy army, Conan raised the siege, and began along march back toward Rennes with Fulk in pursuit. Conan soon concludedthat he would not be able to outrun Fulk’s pursuit, and decided to make a standat Conquereuil. He had his troops build an earthwork of sorts across a field thathe knew Fulk would have to cross in order to attack, and had the area trappedwith pits covered up with sod and branches. Conan then deployed his troops,both foot and horse, with the latter dismounted, behind the barricade.81

When Fulk’s forces came into sight, Conan immediately ordered his men toleave the barricade and retreat. This was, in fact, a feigned retreat, executed toencourage Fulk to attack before having the field reconnoitered for traps. Theruse worked, as Fulk temporarily lost command and control, and his lead unitattacked without proper caution. Fulk managed to restrain his reserve, but hehimself charged along with the first unit in order to regain control as best as hecould. As the Angevin horsemen of this first unit began to flounder in the pits,Conan’s troops, both foot and horse, counter-attacked, and badly mauled Fulk’sforce. Indeed, Fulk’s horse went down in the traps, the standard bearer, ViscountAimo of Nantes, was killed, and the count’s banner fell to the ground. With thecommander unhorsed, and his standard lowered, this being the traditional signal


78 The basic work is Bernard S. Bachrach, Fulk Nerra – the Neo Roman Consul: A Political Biog-raphy of the Angevin Count (987–1040) (Berkeley–Los Angeles, 1993).

79 Fragmentum Historiae Andegavensis, in Chroniques des comtes d’Anjou et des seigneursd’Amboise, ed. Louis Halphen and René Poupardin (Paris, 1913), pp. 234–35.

80 Fragmentum Hist. Andegav., pp. 234–35.81 Bachrach, Fulk Nerra, pp. 41–45.

for retreat, Fulk’s forces withdrew from the field. The Bretons also disengaged,apparently deterred from a hot pursuit of the defeated and disorganizedAngevin attacking force by Fulk’s reserve, which held its position. Thus, whenFulk reached the safety of his own lines, he rapidly reassessed the situation.Almost immediately, he led his intact and alerted reserve against the now disor-ganized Bretons, who undoubtedly thought that the field of battle was theirs,and that the enemy had been beaten. The Angevin counterattack caught theBretons by surprise. They were driven from the field with great losses, andCount Conan was killed.82

Pontlevoy 1016

Fulk’s second battle in the field, also a great victory, took place in the courseof a campaign to interdict a large Blésois army of milites and pedites led byCount Odo II. This army was on its way to lay siege to the Angevin strongholdof Montrichard. When, late in the afternoon of 6 July, Odo’s forces arrived atPontlevoy, the Blésois count is reported to have been astonished see Fulk’s armydrawn up in front of him astride the route to Montrichard. Following a tradi-tional tactical regime, the Blésois forces immediately began the process ofdeploying from column to line, and drew their pedites into a tightly packedmass. The milites dismounted to strengthen the formation. Fulk attacked allalong the enemy front in the hope of catching the enemy in mid-deployment.However, Fulk miscalculated the ability of the enemy to execute the maneuver,and the rapidly forming Blésois “phalanx” held. When the Angevin mountedtroops smashed into the enemy formation, Fulk was unhorsed, and his standardbearer, Sigebrannus, the castellan of Chemillé, was either severely wounded orkilled. The count’s banner fell to the ground, the signal to withdraw, and Fulk’sforces severed contact with the enemy.83

At this point, seeing Fulk’s army retreat from the field, Odo’s troops stooddown. The Blésois milites, rather than remounting and executing a vigorouspursuit, are reported to have taken off their armor, which likely seemed unbear-able in the hot July sun. As this was happening, Fulk, obviously recovered fromhaving been repulsed in his initial attack on the Blésois formation of reinforcedfoot soldiers, sent a message to his second in command, Count Herbert ofMaine. The latter had been stationed with a large reserve of mounted troops inthe Angevin camp at Bourré less than five thousand meters to the west ofPontlevoy. Herbert was ordered to attack the Blésois immediately. The Angevinreserve came up from the west. It was largely unobserved because the late after-noon sun was in the eyes of the enemy. Just as the reserve struck the left flank ofthe surprised Blésois, Fulk’s main force, now reformed, attacked again alongthe enemy front. Odo’s army, unprepared for a second attack, especially on the


82 Bachrach, Fulk Nerra, pp. 43–45.83 Bachrach, Fulk Nerra, p. 149.

flank, was routed with great losses. The pedites, who, unlike the milites, foundit impossible to flee successfully from the battlefield, are reported to havesuffered immense casualties.84

These two victories by Fulk Nerra have much in common, both with eachother and also with several of the battles discussed above. The Angevin armywas in the field either to raise a siege or to stop one from being initiated. In bothcases, Fulk’s horsemen charged the enemy. Initially, they were bested withconsiderable losses inflicted by well prepared and apparently well disciplinedtroops fighting on foot because the Angevin count either lost command andcontrol of part of his force or miscalculated the effectiveness of the enemy’sability to deploy from column to line. The decisive factor in each victory wasFulk’s maintenance of a reserve, the knowledge or effectiveness of which wasunknown to his adversaries. However, Fulk’s victories occurred only after thediscipline and readiness for battle of the initially victorious enemy soldiers wererelaxed as a result of their commanders’ failure to appreciate the threat posed byFulk’s reserve. Fulk, in effect, was successful because of his superior planning.

Fulk did not win either battle because a frontal assault by his mounted troopsmade his tactics inherently superior to the men fighting on foot whom he ulti-mately defeated. Indeed, these two battles tend to illustrate just the opposite.Fulk’s generalship was much enhanced by the errors committed by Conan andOdo. Both men failed to secure their positions after an initial success, andfailed, in addition, to follow up the advantage that had been secured by theirfoot soldiers over Fulk’s hard-charging horsemen. Fulk’s mounted reserves,which ultimately were responsible for winning both battles, were victoriousbecause of the count’s sounder tactics, which enabled him to take advantage ofenemy mistakes.

Anglo-Norman “Cavalry”

Both Conqereuil and Pontlevoy illustrate the effectiveness of foot soldiersagainst a frontal assault by mounted troops. Both battles also illustrate that itwas prudent to strengthen a concentration of foot soldiers with high qualitymounted troops, who were deployed dismounted for just that purpose. Indeed,C. Warren Hollister made this point when he called attention to the fact that “inevery important battle of the Anglo-Norman age the bulk of the feudal cavalrydismounted to fight [my italics].” He makes clear that at Tinchebrai, in 1106,“an eyewitness account reports that 96 percent of King Henry’s army was onfoot, including the king himself and all his barons.” Regarding Brémule in 1119,Hollister avers that “a high percentage of King Henry’s forces . . . was made upof dismounted knights, and according to one contemporary, the battle was wonby a charge of closely packed infantry.” In addition, “At the battle of Bourg


84 Bachrach, Fulk Nerra, pp. 149–50.

Théroulde (1124),” Hollister continues, “most of the Anglo-Norman knightsagain fought on foot . . .” Further, at Northallerton (1138), Hollister makes clearthat the cavalry “dismounted to a man and fought behind a shield wall such ashad been employed earlier by Anglo-Saxon armies.” Finally, Hollister notes that“at Lincoln (1141), the king and his knights again dismounted and fought asinfantry.”85

Later Middle Ages

Obviously, a great deal more can be said regarding the role of mountedtroops on the field of battle during the period from the later Roman empirethrough the high Middle Ages in order to illustrate the methodologicallyunsound and rhetorically reckless nature of Verbruggen’s attack on Lyon and histhesis.86 In this context, the reader, will note, however, that I have not addressedthe question of the supposed tactically decisive role putatively played by heavycavalry in the later Middle Ages through the first half of the fourteenth century,which is covered in Verbruggen’s book, and against which Lyon argued. I haveleft this period aside because I subscribe to the thesis argued by Kelly DeVriesin his masterful study, Infantry Warfare in the Early Fourteenth Century: Disci-pline, Tactics, and Technology, which, as I read it, fully supports Lyon’s posi-tion, that there was no hegemony of the cavalry in later medieval warfare.87

Conclusions

Verbruggen’s method of making lists of battles that took place during thehigh Middle Ages in which mounted troops can be seen to participate, in oneway or another, is neither an adequate critique of Lyon’s thesis nor a fair assess-ment of the use of horsemen on the battlefield. Most importantly, such lists,


85 Anglo-Saxon Military Institutions on the Eve of the Norman Conquest (Oxford, 1962), pp.131–32, for the quotation. Although Verbruggen, The Art of Warfare, 2nd ed., p. 107, lists thesesame battles, he fails to note with Hollister, whose work is cited in the bibliography, that “inevery important battle of the Anglo-Norman age, the bulk of the feudal cavalry dismounted tofight.” In a similar vein, Strickland, War and Chivalry, p. 23, fails to do justice to Hollister’sviews, as quoted above, and speaks merely of the “propensity of knights to dismount to fight onfoot” in “most [my italics] Anglo-Norman armies.” Strickland holds, consistent with hisromantic-chivalric bias, that cavalry “remained an integral, if not the predominant arm in mostAnglo-Norman armies.”

86 Verbruggen, “The Role of the Cavalry,” p. 70, says of Lyon’s use of the work of Malcolm Valethat we must either conclude Lyon did not read the conclusion of the book he cites, or else “wemust presume a deception by Bryce Lyon.” As already indicated above (n. 74) this appears to bethe result of Verbruggen’s completely misunderstanding Lyon’s purpose in citing Vale’s work.

87 (Woodbridge, UK, 1996), and see the review by Bernard S. Bachrach in Technology andCulture 39 (1998), 362–63.

without detailed analysis, have no methodological validity. The discussion,above, all too brief, of several well-documented battles, makes it clear thatVerbruggen’s doctrinaire position that cavalry was the primary element ofarmies during the high Middle Ages cannot be sustained. It is far more accurateto affirm that during the early and high Middle Ages, military tacticsconcerning battles in the field did not depend on the doctrine of heavy cavalryhegemony peddled by Verbruggen.88

In fact, the deployment of mounted troops was much varied during the highMiddle Ages, and depended upon a complex of often interrelated factors. Forexample, competent commanders found it necessary to consider the overall stra-tegic aims, both long- and short-term, that were at issue in the decisions tofight, when to fight, where to fight, and how to fight. In considering howmounted troops were to be deployed, it is no less important to make clear thatthe tactics used by one side depended, in part, and sometimes in large part, on acommander’s perception of his enemy’s strategy and tactical capabilities. In allcases, the order of magnitude and composition of both armies were factors thathelped to condition how mounted troops were deployed by their commanders.In most cases, natural topography, military topography, weather, and the avail-ability of supplies, also were crucial to tactical decisions and to the subsequentdeployment of mounted troops.

Because of the nature of Verbruggen’s attack on Lyon’s thesis, this paper has,of necessity, focused on battles, and even more narrowly on the role played bymounted troops in battles during the high Middle Ages. No attempt could bemade in a work of this length to be exhaustive. Indeed, because the mission wasto examine the validity of Verbruggen’s attack on Lyon’s thesis, the discussionwas even more limited than I would have liked. For example, in neither Lyon’scritique of Verbruggen nor in Verbruggen’s critique of Lyon are the battles of theCrusades examined, and the role of mounted troops illuminated. An examina-tion of the use of mounted troops by Westerners in the Middle East wouldcertainly have amplified our understanding of the use of horsemen during theMiddle Ages.

The narrowness of the topic of this paper, limited to discussion of battles,must, however, not be allowed to mislead the reader into overestimating theimportance of such encounters in the field during the Middle Ages. It is gener-ally agreed that in medieval Western Europe, battles in the field, much lessdecisive battles in the field, whether or not mounted troops were tactically deci-


88 It is perhaps more amusing than sad to read Verbruggen’s efforts (“The Role of the Cavalry,” pp.61–63), to explain how the Vikings, who occasionally stole horses for riding about the country-side and hauling booty, became “heavy cavalry” as a result. Verbruggen seems unaware that astolen cart horse or plow horse is not a war horse. In order to create a war horse, the animalrequires extensive training. Indeed, the rider must have considerable training also in order toengage in mounted combat. See, the very important article by Carroll Gillmor, “Practical Chiv-alry: The Training of Horses for Tournaments and Warfare,” Studies in Medieval and Renais-sance History, n.s. 13 (1992), 7–29; and Bachrach, Early Carolingian Warfare, pp. 122, 128.

sive or even involved, were very rare.89 Medieval warfare, especially thosecampaigns that were intended to result in the conquest and holding of enemyterritory, was dominated by the capture of fortress cities and lesser strongholds.Hans Delbrück spoke for the pre-World War Two generation when he wrote:“Throughout the entire Middle Ages we find . . . the exploitation of the defen-sive in fortified places . . .”90 Charles Oman, Delbrück’s contemporary, tookmuch the same position.91 With regard to the state of the question in the latertwentieth century, Philippe Contamine noted: “In its most usual form medievalwarfare was made up of a succession of sieges accompanied by skirmishes anddevastation . . .” Indeed, Contamine goes so far as to suggest, correctly Ibelieve, that medieval warfare was dominated by “fear of the pitched battle” anda “siege mentality.”92

It is important to emphasize that the focus on siege warfare was a legacybequeathed to the Middle Ages by their Roman predecessors who built greatfortress cities and lesser fortifications throughout the west during the laterempire.93 One recent specialist in Roman military history has called attention tothe fact that in the conflicts between Rome and her Persian neighbor, real war,i.e. war of conquest, was focused on sieges.94 Thus, Shaw observes: “Siege


89 See, three basic studies by John Gillingham, “William the Bastard at War,” in Studies in Medi-eval Military History presented to R. Allen Brown, ed. C. Harper-Bill, C. Holdsworth, andJ. Nelson (Woodbridge, 1989), pp. 141–58; “Richard I and the Science of War in the MiddleAges,” in War and Government in the Middle Ages, ed. J. Gillingham and J. C. Holt (Wood-bridge, 1984), pp. 78–91; and “War and Chivalry in the History of William the Marshal,” inThirteenth Century England. Proceedings of the Newcastle upon Tyne Conference 2 (1987), pp.1–14. All three have been reprinted in Anglo-Norman Warfare: Studies in Late Anglo-Saxonand Anglo-Norman Military Organization and Warfare, ed. Matthew Strickland (Woodbridge,1993), pp. 143–60, 194–207, and 251–63, respectively. In a rejoinder entitled “Up with Ortho-doxy! In Defense of Vegetian Warfare,” Journal of Medieval Military History 2 (2003), 149–58,Gillingham effectively defends the modern consensus against the effort to overturn the critiqueby Clifford J. Rogers, published as “The Vegetian ‘Science of Warfare’ in the Middle Ages,”Journal of Medieval Military History 1 (2002), 1–19.

90 Hans Delbrück, Geschichte der Kriegskunst im Rahmen der politischen Geschichte, 2nd ed.(Berlin, 1923), vols. 2 and 3. For the convenience of the reader I have cited the English trans-lations, History of the Art of War within the Framework of Political History, vol. 2, TheGermans, and vol. 3, The Middle Ages, trans. Walter J. Renfroe (Westport, CT, 1980, 1982),3:324, for the quotations.

91 History of the Art of War in the Middle Ages, 2 vols. (2nd ed. 1924; repr. New York, 1964),2:52–54.

92 La Guerre au moyen âge (Paris, 1980) and translated by Michael Jones as War in the MiddleAges (Oxford, 1984), pp. 101, 219, for the quotations; pp. 102–06, 116, 193–207, 211–12,240–41, 247–48, 283, where the discussion is essentially focused on siege weapons. The fourthedition of Contamine’s standard work (1994), remains unchanged. Regarding the key roleplayed by sieges during the Crusades and in the Crusader states see R. Rogers, Latin SiegeWarfare in the Twelfth Century (Oxford, 1992). Ferdinand Lot, L’Art militaire et les armées aumoyen âge et dans le proche orient, 2 vols. (Paris, 1946), 1:17, observed, “la guerre de sièges. . . joué un . . . grand rôle dans les siècles qu’on a passés en revue.”

93 Stephen Johnson, Late Roman Fortifications (Totowa, NJ, 1983).94 See Bernard S. Bachrach, “Imperial Walled Cities in the West: an examination of their early

warfare arose when there was a clearly defined frontier between relativelybalanced opposing forces and when large and heavily fortified urban centerswere present in the frontier zone.” In the context of war between Rome andPersia, he makes clear: “the relative stability and balance of the forces on eitherside combined to produce a classic zone of siege warfare.” Shaw notes furtherwith regard to Western Europe: “a city like Aquileia that was located on theborderland between two halves of the empire was besieged (unsuccessfully)many times.”95


medieval Nachleben,” in City Walls: The Urban Enceinte in Global Perspective, ed. James T.Tracy (Cambridge, 2000), pp. 192–218.

95 “War and Violence,” p. 143, for the quotations.

Dogs of War

Document: Dogs of War inThirteenth-Century Valencian Garrisons1

Robert I. Burns, S.J.

In the mid-thirteenth century, King Jaume I of Arago-Catalonia began to usethe captured paper industry of Islamic Játiva to record his reconstruction ofconquered Valencia into a multi-ethnic Christian kingdom. His wandering chan-cery employed local notaries to scribble much abbreviated originals, fromwhich parchments might later be drafted as needed. Over two thousand suchregistered paper charters on Valencia survive from the last twenty years ofJaume’s reign. Their content is multifarious, a kaleidoscope of medieval life:military action, land distributions, personal affairs, religious institutions,pardons of crime, trial transcripts, and the parallel societies of the new king-dom’s Muslims and Jews. Hidden among the more amply documented topicsare glimpses of life once routine but now rarely encountered in such earlyrecords. Among these are passing notices about dogs of war.2

Dogs had seen service in the ancient and classical empires, and are deployedtoday by all the American military services as well as by the CIA, the FBI, andsome police departments. Boot camp for military dog recruits is at Lackland AirForce Base in Texas. There has even been a “dog-gate” scandal recently atCamp Pendleton in California where six Marines have been court-martialledand eleven more punished for fiddling with the dogs’ personnel files.3 In historydogs have been used to carry messages, for sentry duty and patrols, to flush outambushes, to detect explosives, as hunters, trackers, and food tasters, and tobreak up cavalry charges. Monastic solitaries used them to convey messages totheir fellow hermits – dogs of peace? The Gauls outfitted their dogs with metalarmor and spiked collars; modern war dogs suit up in Kevlar jackets. No otheranimal has so mingled into combat, though aggressive cavalry mounts may rivalthem and one hears of snakes flung onto decks of enemy ships, foxes let looseon crops with flaming brush attached to their tails, and of course the oddelephant. It is unlikely that cats of war ever caught on.

King Jaume’s paper registers conceal any number of war dogs. A survey of

1 An earlier version of this article was read at the 39th International Congress on MedievalStudies, at Western Michigan University, 7 May 2004.

2 For bibliography and general introduction see John Grier Varner and Jeannette Johnson Varner,Dogs of the Conquest (Norman, OK, 1983), and Mark A. Mastromarino, “Teaching Old DogsNew Tricks: The English Mastiff and the Anglo-American Experience,” The Historian 49(1986), 10–25.

Dogs of War 165

The Kingdom of Valencia, showing major natural divisions as groupedadministratively in the Tomás López map of 1788

five hundred of his Valencian paper charters during 1270 to 1273 for examplereveals no less than five items on war dogs individually budgeted in castle garri-sons. I have transcribed these below. A somewhat wider search through Jaume’sregisters easily turns up six more castles and nineteen more war dogs. Presum-ably others lie doggo in the fuller materials from later reigns. The first of thesefive episodes commits custody of Játiva castle in September 1270 to the head ofthe king’s household, the seneschal Peric de Montcada (Castilian Perico deMoncada).4 Játiva was a magnificent double castle in central Valencia, one ofthe most powerful defenses in the kingdom. The king assigns to Peric a largegarrison of thirty men-at-arms, with a budget of 120 Valencian sous as salaryfor each man to a total of 3,600 sous, as well as 1000 sous in salary for thecastellan, and one pack animal at 100 sous, “And for two dogs of war [together]100 sous.” These sums are to be paid out “every year,” to a grand total of 4,800sous, by the crown bailiff “from Our revenues and income” of the Játiva district.The allotment for the dogs came to 50 sous per dog per year, including handlerand maintenance. The garrison of thirty men represented units of several meneach; possibly they also supplement fighters already on the spot. The unusualsize of both castle and garrison might be thought to explain the small number ofdogs; but two dogs were a common ratio in a Valencian castle of any size.

The second transaction concerns the castle of Biar in March 1271.5 Strategi-cally located on a pedestal of land at the inside corner of the Valencian king-dom’s far southern border, Biar controlled defense and commercial customs onthat frontier. The king installs Pere [Pedro] de Segura as the castellan there forthe indefinite future. As garrison he is to receive “12 men and 1 woman and 1muleteer and 1 pack animal and 3 dogs.” The stipulation of a woman soundsodd in this bellicose context, but seems to have been normal in war dog assign-ments in those parts. Is there an echo from Roman times, when Caius Marius in101 BC had difficulty defeating the Cimbri because of that enemy’s fierce dogsof war “led by women?” Or were women more suitable to the canine temper? Inthis Biar arrangement the king promises “to give you for each aforesaid manand woman and muleteer 120 sous, and for the three dogs collectively 180Valencian souls in every year,” as well as two almuds or fourth bushels of fodderdaily for the pack animal and for “the necessities of the two animals.” Here eachdog gets individually 60 sous a year. To record the transaction more securely,the king agrees to incorporate this budget formally into the annual audits of thecastle’s revenues.6

166 Robert I. Burns, S.J.

3 On US military dogs and on the Marine scandal see “False K-9 Records Land Marines in theDoghouse,” Los Angeles Times, November 4, 2003, p. 10; and “Protection for a Marine’s BestFriend,” ibid., February, 21, 2004, p. 8.

4 Arxiu de la Corona d’Aragó (Arch. Crown), Reg. 16, fol. 212 (19 September 1270), inappendix below, Doc. I.

5 Arch. Crown, Reg. Canc. 16, fol. 235v (16 March [1270] 1271), in appendix below, Doc. II.The Cimbri battle is in Varner, Dogs of the Conquest, p. 34.

6 Arch. Crown, Reg. Canc. 14, fol. 116v (1 April 1271), in appendix below, Doc. III.

The third case concerns the king’s son, Pere Ferran (Pedro Fernández), whohas “come to Us now in Valencia for a total and legal reckoning” of all debts thecrown owes the prince “up to the present day, with and without charters,” espe-cially for the “castles of Alcalá and Gallinera” whose revenues “you wereholding in pledge for Us,” and for 10,000 sous Pere owed the king in connectionwith an interchange with the castle of Buñol. The upshot of the audit was thaton balance the king owed the prince 20,532 sous, to be paid to Pere from therevenues of the castles of Alcalá and Gallinera “for as many years namely andso long” as required. The two castles in question stood in adjoining districts atthe kingdom’s Mediterranean southeast. Gallinera dominated the Valle deGallinera; Alcalá de la Jovada or Alcalá de Gallinera dominated the Valle deAlcalá. “For the custody of Alcalá castle you ought to keep 6 men and 2 dogs(which equal 1 man), and for the tenure of Gallinera castle 15 men-at-arms and6 dogs (which equal 3 men).” That formula is standard in the king’s registers: inreckoning dogs’ salaries and maintenance, 2 dogs make 1 man, 4 dogs make 2men, and so on. “Every year for every man,” 100 sous were to be paid from therevenues of Alcalá and Gallinera castles; thus the total for 21 men would be2,100 sous. The 8 dogs for the two castles collected annually 400 sous, at theformula of 100 sous per man and 50 sous per dog. The woman handler is notexplicitly mentioned.

The penultimate charter centers on the same two castles.7 Pere Roiç (PedroRodriguez) de Corella had lent 15,453 Valencian sous to the king’s son, PereFerran (Pedro Fernández). In return Pere Roiç has received from the king tenureof Alcalá de la Jovada castle and Valle de Gallinera castle in July 1271, to keep“all their revenues, profits, income, and fees” until the loan was fully repaid.The resident castellan who would actually administer both places and collectthose revenues for Pere Roiç and the king is Pere de Roda [Rueda]. Roda is alsoto receive 100 sous per man-at-arms assigned, to a total of 1,200 sous each year.The arrangement includes an annual allotment of dogs. “We grant besides toyou Pere Roiç and to the said Pere de Roda in your place that you are to keep asgarrison for the castle of Alcalá 4 men and 2 dogs (which equal 1 man), and asgarrison for the castle of Gallinera 8 men and 4 dogs (which equal 2 men).” Inthe interval of four months since the previous charter concerning Alcalá andGallinera, does the new garrison supplant or supplement the first arrangement?8

The last in our series of dog assignments takes place at Penáguila castle inthe mountainous southern interior of the Valencian kingdom near Alcoy inDecember 1272. The king hands over to the knight Berenguer de Llacera thecrown castle of Penáguila at a castellan’s salary of 1,500 Valencian sous everyyear, to be collected from the revenues of that district. “But it must be noted thatyou ought to keep in the garrison of the said castle 8 men-at-arms with 1 packanimal, 1 man [as muleteer], and 2 dogs.” The contract arranges for the salaries

Dogs of War 167

7 Arch. Crown, Reg. Canc. 21, fol. 5v (29 July 1271), in appendix below, Doc. IV.8 Arch. Crown, Reg. Canc. 21, fol. 78 (11 December 1272), in appendix below, Doc. V.

of men and dogs to be taken from the 1,500 sous, with “the remainder” assignedto “castellanship.” Assuming that each of the nine men receives 100 sous apieceeach year, and that the 2 dogs get 50 each, the castellanship would haveamounted to 500 sous. The woman handler would have been included within thedogs’ stipend.

Such dogs were simply incorporated into each routine audit or business.Assuming there was no repetition between the various charters, 19 dogs areinvolved in the selected set of 500 randomly preserved items. The numberusually assigned in a given charter is 2 dogs, with one case of 3 dogs. The caseshere vary widely in the kingdom’s geography from north to south. The castlesthemselves vary in size and importance from mighty Játiva to smallishPenáguila. Combat salaries for individual dogs hover around 50 and 60 sous,though such specifics are not always given. Glancing elsewhere through KingJaume’s registers, again at random but with a wider field, we can find moredogs of war. Heavily fortified Murviedro (today Sagunto) in the late 1260sreceived 10 men, 4 dogs, and a pack animal. Castalla castle got a large contin-gent: 25 men, 6 dogs, and 2 pack animals. Játiva received the most: 40 men, 6dogs at 75 sous each, and a pack animal. Sumacárcel was given 4 men, 1woman, and 1 dog. Onda listed 6 men and 1 woman in the budget of 1261 butdid not specify the usual pack animal or dogs except by implication from thewoman’s presence in this military accounting.9 These 6 castles add 19 moredogs to the 19 we encountered above. Dogged research through Jaume’sarchives should reveal more.

Where did all these trained animals come from? Was there a depot to holdthem? How were they transported in those rocky parts? Was there an importarrangement to acquire ferocious dogs, like the English mastiff or the Irish wolf-hound? Indeed, what sorts of breeds were then available? Hunting dogs were anessential part of the Arago-Catalan royal court. Jaume’s son and successor, Pere,elevated the specialists in charge of his hunting dogs to be officials of his house-hold under a supervisor, but restricted the dogs themselves to a maximumnumber of four per hunter plus a bitch for breeding. Unlike the dogs of war,these more domestic units had no woman in attendance.10

In sixteenth-century Valencia, when dogs of war seem to have been morecommonly used and more decisive in battle, a singular encounter took place.Henry VIII of England had gifted his ally the Holy Roman Emperor with 400dogs of war; at the siege of Valencia their combined dogs swept the dogs of


9 Robert I. Burns S.J., Society and Documentation in Crusader Valencia, Diplomatarium of theCrusader Kingdom of Valencia 1 (Princeton, 1985), 216–17. Burns, Transition in CrusaderValencia: Years of Triumph, Years of War, 1264–1270, Diplomatarium 2 (Princeton, 2001), p.18, with transcriptions.

10 Marta Vanlandingham, Transforming the State: King, Court and Political Culture in the Realmsof Aragon (1213–1387) (Leiden, 2002), pp. 184–85, for hunters at court. A later example of wardogs in these parts is noted by M. T. Ferrer Mallol at the Catalan castle of Montgrí (28 February1298), as 10 men and 2 dogs, citing Arch. Crown, Reg. Canc. 196, fol. 128v.

Francis I of France from the field of combat. From that century too we have afamed training manual by the Italian Ulysses Aldrovandus, and extensivetactical information from the Spanish conquest in the New World. The beststudy of dogs in the Spanish conquests, by John and Jeannette Varner, quotes acaution from Johannes Caius in his Of English Dogges in 1576; such huge dogs“might give occasion of feare and terror by his bigge barking.”11 King Jaume’smany war dogs in his Valencian kingdom alone conjure up a spectacle of “biggebarking” from one end of Valencia to the other, a lively sound track or auditorysupplement to the Spanish Reconquest.

Dogs of War 169

11 Varner, Dogs of the Conquest, 12 (Caius), 34 (Henry VIII, Aldrovandus).

Appendix: Transcription

From the royal archives of the Catalan-Aragonese state, the Arxiu de laCorona d’Aragó, Conselleria, Jaume I. The MF number is the Martínez-Ferrando published catalog number. The Madrid Normas for historical editingare followed, with appropriate paragraphing, punctuation, and capitalization,and extension of abbreviations. Proper names are translated into Catalan formswith Castilian alternative; geographical names are in their modern Castilianform. For editorial sigla see Burns, Diplomatarium, I, xi.

I

Valencia 19 September 1270Reg. 16, fol. 212 MF: 1012

Nos Iacobus dei gracia promittimus vobis, Pericono de Montechatenosenescalco nostro, quod dabimus vobis dum castrum Xative pro nobis tenueritisad triginta homines custodes dicti castri, pro unoquoque videlicet homine CXXsolidos regalium Valencie, et pro alcaido ipsius castri M solidos, et pro duobuscanibus C solidos, et pro una azemila C solidos, in unoquoque anno.

Et sic est summa quod debemus vobis dare, quolibet anno dum dictumcastrum pro nobis tenueritis, quattor mille octingentos solidos regalium.

Mandantes baiulo Xative quod donet et solvat vobis quolibet anno, dereditibus et exitibus nostris Xative, quattuor mille octingentos supra dictos.

Datum Valencie, XIII kalendas Octobris, anno domini MCC septuagesimo.

II

Valencia 16 March (1270) 1271Reg. 16, fol. 235v MF: 1064

Volumus et concedimus tibi, Petro de Segura alcaido de Biar, quod incustodia seu retinencia dicti castri, dum cum [sic] ipsum tenueris, habeas etteneas duodecim homines et unam feminam et unum açemilarium et unamazemilam et tres canes.

Pro quibus promittimus tibi dare pro unoquoque homine et femina etaçemilario predictis centum et viginti solidos, et pro tribus canibus centum etoctuaginta solidos regalium in unoquoque anno, dum castrum tenueris supradicto, et duos almutos cibarie ad opus dict e açemile in unoquoque die.

Volumus eciam et concedimus tibi quod tu habeas et recipias singulis diebus,dum dictum castrum tenueris, porcionem ad duas bestias; et quod predicta


omnia recipias et tibi retinere possis singulis annis de reditibus castri predicti.Et nos promittimus ipsos recipere tibi in computum eorundem.

Datum Valencie, XVII kalendas Aprilis, anno domini MCC septuagesimo.

III

Valencia 1 April 1271Reg. 14, fol. 116v MF: 1082

Recognoscimus et confitemur vobis, Petro Ferrandi dilecto filio nostro, vosvenisse nobiscum modo in Valencia ad summam et compotum legitimum, superomnibus et singulis debitis que vobis debe[ba]mus usque in hunc presentemdiem cum cartis et si[ne] cartis, tam racione retinencie castrorum de Alcalano etda Gallinera quam qualibet alia racine; et super renditibus et exiti[bus] ac aliisiuribus nostris omnibus castrorum predictorum de Alcalano et de Gallinera, quea nobis in [pig]nore tenebatis per nos vel per [al]iu[m] loco nostri, inde habitiset receptis usque in hunc diem; et de decem milibus solidorum regaliumValencie quos nobis dare et solve[re] tenebamini racione revocacionisconcambii quod feceratis nobiscum de castro de Bunyol.

De quo computo vestri bene paccati su[mus] nostre voluntati, facientes indevobis et vestris bonum finem et pactum semper de non petendo; ita scilicetquod super predictis vel eorum aliquo vos vel vestri non teneamini nobiscumvel cum nostris de cetero computare nec ullam nobis vel nostris reddereracionem. Immo sitis vos et vestri quicii et penitus perpetuo apsoluti sicutmelius dici, scribi vel intelligi potest ad vestrum et vestrorum bonum etsincerum intellectum.

Et sic est sciendum quod, coequatis debitis cum recepcionibus et decemmilibus solidorum ante dictis remanet quod debemus vobis inter omnia vigintimille quingentos triginta et duos solidos regalium Valencie.

Pro quibus obligamus et inpignoramus vobis et vestris predicta castra nostrade Alcalano et de Gallinera, que sunt in regno Valencie, cum omnibus reditibus,exitibus, proventibus, ac aliis iuribus nostris predictorum castrorum etterminorum ac pertinenciarum eorundem; ita scilicet quod vos et vestri seuquos volueritis habeatis, teneatis, et possideatis dicta castra iure vestri pignoris,et recipiatis reditus, exitus, et proventus ac iura nostra omnia dictorumcastrorum in solucionem dicti debiti tot annis scilicet et tam diu donec sit vobisinde satisfactum in toto debito supra dicto et in missionibus omnibus et expensisquas in custodia in retinencia ipsorum castrorum facietis.

Promittentes vobis in bona fide quod predicta castra nostra de Alcalano et deGallinera vobis vel vestris non auferemus, nec de predictis que vobis obligamusaliquid tangemus seu percipiemus, nec tangi vel percipi faciemus autpermittemus. Immo faciemus vos et vestros seu quos volueritis habere, tenere,et possidere in pace et sine aliquo inpedimento dicta castra, cum omnibus supradictis que vobis obligamus, donec sitis paccatus de toto vestro debito ante dicto.

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Et est sciendum quod hoc computum factum est inter nos et vos de reditibuset exitibus ac aliis iuribus nostris dictorum castrorum, et de retinencia ipsorum,et de omnibus que dimisimus, dedimus, vel accepimus ibidem aliqua racione inquindecim mensibus transactis et usque in hunc diem, et de sexcentis solidisquos episcopus Valencie habuit de reditibus predictis racione decimi sui.

Est eciam sciendum quod in custodia seu retinencia castri de Alcalanodeberis tenere sex homines, et duos canes qui faciunt unum hominem; et inretienencia castri de Gallinera quindecim homines, et sex canes qui faciunt treshomines. Et debetis recipere, in unoquoque anno pro quolibet homine, centumsolidos regalium tantum de reditibus et exitibus ante dictis.

Datum Valencie, kalendas Aprilis, anno domini MCCLXX primo.

IV

Valencia 29 July 1271Reg. 21, fol. 5v MF: 1188.

Noverint universi quod nos Iacobus dei gracia rex Aragonum etc.recocnoscimus et confitemur debere vobis, Petro Roderici de Corella, et vestrisXV mille quadringentos quinquaginta et III solidos regalium Valencie, quosnunc nobis mutuastis ad quitanda castra de Alacalano [et] de Gallinera, quePetrus Ferrandi filius noster pro ipsis a nobis obligata tenebat, et ipsos denariosde mandato nostro dedistis et solvistis eidem Petro Ferrandi.

Pro quibus quidem XV mille quadringentis quinquaginta III solidis regaliumobligamus et impicnoramus vobis et vestris castra predicta de Alcalano et deGalinera, cum omnibus reditibus, exitibus, proventibus, et iuribus eorundem.

Ita videlicet quod Petrus de Roda loco nostri teneat castra predicta; et omnesreditus, exitus, et proventus eiusdem [=eorundem] percipiat et colligat libere etin pace; tam diu et tanto tempore donec in ipsis reditibus, exitibus, proventibus,et aliis iuribus ipsorum castrorum sitis vos dictis Petrus Roderici et vestriplenarie persoluti de omnibus denariis ante dictis.

Promittentes vobis et vestris quod dicta castra [v]el aliquod <ex ipsis> vobisvel dicto Petro de Roda non auferemus; nec reditus, exitus, et proventuseiusdem emparabimus [nec] nos accipiemus; nec auferri, emparari, vel accipi abaliquo vel aliquibus faciemus aut permittemus; immo faciemus dictum Petrumde Roda loco vestri ipsa castra tenere, et reditus et exitus et iura eorundempercipere et colligere libere et in pace, donec in eisdem ut dictum est sit vobis etvestris de omnibus dictis denariis satisfactum.

Volentes et concedentes quod dictus Petrus de Roda non teneatur ipsa castravel aliquid ex ipsis nobis reddere, nec de reditibus, exitibus, et iuribus eorundemaliquid dare, nec alicui pro nobis vel mandato nostro, donec in eisdem de dictisdenariis fueritis vos persoluti; nec nos vel nostri possimus inde dicere malumsibi, racione alicuius fori Ispanie vel aliqua alia racione.

Concedimus insuper vobis, et dicto Petro de Roda loco vestri, quod teneatis


in custodia castri de Alcalano IIII homines, et II canes qui faciunt unum[h]ominem; et in custodia castri de Gallinera <octo homines>, et IIII canes quifaciunt III homines. Pro quorum quolibet ipsorum hominum promittimus vobisdare, et <ipso Petro de [Roda] loco vestri C solidos> in anno.

Datum Valencie, IIII kalendas Augusti, anno domini MCCLXX primo.

V

Béziers 11 December 1272Reg. 21, fol. 78 MF: 1366

<Commendamus et concedimus vobis>, Berengario de Lacera militi,castrum nostrum de Penaguila quod pro nobis modo emparare debetis.

Damus et <concedimus eciam pro salario> et alcaidia vestra dicti castri milleet quingentos solidos regalium Valencie singulis annis, dum tenue<ritis dictumcastrum, ut dictum est>.

<Quos> mille et quingentos solidos assignamus vobis habendos etrecipiendos singulis annis in reditibus castri predicti, dum <teneatis ipsumcastrum>.

<Est tamen> sciendum quod vos debetis tenere in retinencia dicti castri octohomines et unam azemilam cum uno homine, <et duos canes>, et residuumdictorum mille et quingentorum solidorum damus vobis pro alcaidia vestra.

Datum Biterris, tercio idus Decembris, anno domini MCCLXX secundo.

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