"Caste, Skill, and Training: The Evolution of Cohesion..." Topic

… in European Armies from the Middle Ages to the Sixteenth Century.

"The Middle Ages were characterized by growing institutional sophistication, and nowhere was this more apparent than the craft of war. The image made familiar by Ferdinand Lot and Sir Charles Oman, of medieval warfare as featuring limited discipline, simple tactics, and no strategy at all, has given way to a growing appreciation of the complexity of military operations between the eighth and the sixteenth centuries.1 More and more medieval leaders are emerging from the shadows of romance as solid, competent captains. Even Richard the Lion-Hearted is now presented as a strategist comparable to Bernard Law Montgomery-a juxtaposition not necessarily favoring the latter! 2 The parallel reflects the high cost of medieval armies relative to a given political system's mobilizable resources. Like the twentieth-century British marshal, no medieval commander could afford to lose men heedlessly. Large-scale battles were exceptional because of their risk-a risk enhanced by the high development of the science of fortification. An enemy defeated in the field was likely to escape decisive consequences by withdrawing behind defenses whose reduction involved massive expenses of time and effort.

Medieval warfare therefore tended towards a process of small-scale maneuvers, raids, and skirmishes based on regional networks of forti–fications. This attritional model in turn highlighted the familiar limita–tions of feudal levies: short service and organizational entropy. Warfare had become too complex, too sophisticated, and too low-key to be sustained effectively by temporarily assembled bands of agonistic heroes. High levels of patience, cunning, and discipline were required to achieve even limited ends-not least to prevent operations from degenerating into mutual self-destruction through mutual plundering…"
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