"How did medieval soldiers fight?" Topic

This short clip shows a small reconstruction encounter between foot soldiers.

Is this how battles of yesterday took place? Little groups (retinues) against similar opponents, circling, probing, separating, grouping together to attack lone adversaries – a bit like street fights I've seen but with pointy weapons.

Interesting.

‌link

I suspect that the real thing looked a lot less "probey and pokey" and more "bash 'em and kill 'em".

I doubt it … medieval manuscripts show much denser bodies of troops.

Big topic.

Phil

This shows the importance for formation very well.

My take is that battles were a kind of exercise in crowd management and to have a way to keep your soldiers fighting as long as possible. All this knowing that the situation will degrade as troops slowly move towards one another and get locked into combat until one side gives way.

The trick was to keep your own men from doing stupid things, avoid them bunch up or spread out too much or start to back up into the ranks behind them and cause chaos. If people start to panic you would get a crush as troops down the ranks would not react fast enough to allow the ranks before them to move, while the enemy might get an opportunity to attack.

Also you need to know that a person will only last a few minutes at best of high intensity combat.

So you can try to win the battle through initial shock and go from there or you can try to manage your army so that your men have a chance not only to do some fighting, but also have a chance to catch their breath and rest for a moment.

Also one huge difference with ancient battles is that people don't just go down when poked. The horrible truth is that we do find the skeletons of people who were killed in battle and while some would have died instantly many were knocked to the ground and suffered quite a few injuries as others tried to make sure they were no longer any threat, so you will not only see multiple injuries that would make your blood curdle, but also injuries to the hands, arms, legs etc as people tried to ward off blows.

Also during a fight there is plenty of battlefield "litter" in the form of discarded equipment, the dead and the wounded and it's likely that battles might have shifted because some soldiers found that they didn't have a spot to stand on without hurting themselves or stepping on your best buddy.

My guess is that battles were paced affairs, you had soldiers standing at some distance from one another, trading missiles and insults until one side (or part of it) would surge forward fight for a few minutes and then try to fall back.

Maybe at some point the rear ranks in their eagerness to join the action before the fun was over pushed men forwards until they were too close to the enemy and the fighting would continue until one side fell away or routed.

I have just finished reading about the Battle of Bouvines in 1214 which was a decisive battle at that time. I noted the following points
• Only 2 knights were killed at Bouvines. All other casualties were from the lower ranks so did not count.
• Knights fought only knights.
• There was only one duel fought at Bouvines and that was between King Philip's banner versus Emperor Otto's banner.
• Capturing knights was the objective as they later paid ransoms to be freed. Sometimes a deal was negotiated on the battlefield and the captured knight released to rejoin his own side and continue the fight. (He might capture another knight which would help with the financial negotiations). Negotiations could also mean releasing family members instead.
• Knights operated within their own mesnie around their leader. A mesnie (pronounced 'may-nee')was the retinue of a Lord or senior knight.
• Once Emperor Otto fled the battle was over. The battles lasted only one hour.
• The winner is always God through his instrument and all events, happenings, deaths, wounds or captures are a manifestation of God's will. E.g. Otto was caught three times and escaped three times so obviously it was God's will that he was able to get away.
• Most of the King's nobles were related to him in some way.

Battles were very few and far between certainly in the early medieval period.

Regards

It should be more like the full contact Battle of the Nations events -- just search on You Tube for Battle of the Nations:

YouTube link

hmb-usa.org

I use Graham Turner's artwork to illustrate the banners of several nobles.

Assuming that not all served the same Lord, is it not likely that close combat was by a small retinue primarily against an opposing retinue – with as mentioned, soldiers going hard at it for a short period then falling back, recover, and present forward again? Popular artistic representations simply not showing the many little battles taking place instead depicting one solid line. No particular loyalty to engage outside your own mesnie.

I do like the clip for what I see as mini-actions taking place within a bigger battle.

I'll view the Battle of Nations later – the link didn't work for me.

Thanks for your replies.

Battle of the Nations is a particularly poor example. There are many theories about how men fought in the middle ages, but BotN demonstrates none of them.

Agreed. Battle of the Nations is not an example of medieval fighting. Broglie's comments are probably closer. But keep in mind that command and control today are not what they were in medieval times. Getting the troops to line up and advance was one hurdle; once engaged it was probably chaos and giving any orders beyond 'keep going' or 'run away' was probably not happening. Banners were critical for troops to sort out where they were on the field.

Anthropicus has the right of it: There are many theories.

Battle of the Nations is a particularly poor example. There are many theories about how men fought in the middle ages, but BotN demonstrates none of them.

In the context of the original video and question, it is a better example of what the actual melee would be like.

You're talking now about medieval command and control, how an army maneuvered, what pennons did they fly and all that, which is fine. But once they get stuck in, what then? Does it look more like the "small reconstruction encounter" or BoN?

In the "small reconstruction encounter between foot soldiers" the participants are fearful of committing, and when they "fight" they just poke at each other. In the BoN the participants commit full out with shield slams, trips, throws, low blows and everything you can think of. Seems much more like how the fighting would have gone down.

For the large scale stuff, outside of a video game like Medieval Total War or Mount & Blade I can think of the SCA's large "Pennsic" battle that may show command and control on some representative level.

YouTube link

YouTube link

That's a great Turner piece, Cellar. Is it from an Osprey? Another source?

Here's how it worked, as far as I can tell, and it's pretty much guesswork anyway. Medieval armies came in all sizes. Therefore resulting battles came in all sizes. But no army was put together except by leaders of troops bringing them. That may sound like a no brainer, but it isn't. Whether the leader was a knight, or yeoman, or sheriff, or earl, or bannerette, or king, the lord had personal followers. The retinue owing personal service was never very large. Even a king did not have around his person a large number of troops owing service directly to him. In order to get more, he had to call upon one or more of his vassals, and each of them brought their personal troops, and vassals with their personal troops. At some point this muster was organized into "battles", usually three but sometimes more. Within each of these "battles" (usually called van, main and rearguard, which lined up as right, center and left, but not necessarily in a single line, sometimes one would be refused, e.g. Crecy, the king had his battle behind the other two), each retinue or company got into the formation according to either tradition, in relation to its neighbors, or was assigned a place. The standards kept everything orderly. Troops kept their eyes on their own standards, and their leaders kept their eyes on the standards of their commanders. The battle commanders kept their eyes on each battle standard. Everyone kept where they were ordered to, and moved only when and where they were told. Yeah, right. That was the ideal, the theory, of maneuver. Reality caused infinite occurrences of confusion. Insubordination caused deliberate departure from issued commands, etc. and etc. and etc.

All the fighting was done by troops, which the leaders tended to be part of, as it was expected of them. Standard bearers were not typically involved in fighting. If the standard went down, all orientation up and down the line was lost within the "unit". A company might not notice at once when the battle standard went down. But you can bet that the company leaders watching it would know right away. And the other battle commanders would know when a battle standard had ceased to be visible. Nothing could be done without standards.

Meanwhile, the fighting was going forward. And once the word got around that so and so's standard was down, the dynamic of the fighting would change. The first side to lose important standard communication was likely the side that would lose the fight.

None of this applies to a simple skirmish between retinues, such as is seen in the first OP video. All the fighting is within earshot of the participants. No standards are needed. Company level fighting is all by voice.

The interesting feature of an individual exchange or arms is that it remains individual no matter how big the fight is. One can only concentrate on the enemy immediately within range of the melee weapons. Even two places down the line, nothing is seen directly, and for most fighters nothing whatsoever is seen beyond the immediate problem of defending and looking for a chance to attack. Someone coming in on a flank or rear will almost inevitably get a free attack in. That is why fighting always concentrated directly ahead, in dense formation, so that no enemy could slip through and get in the rear. That is also why in virtually all battle descriptions of attack on flanks and rear, the result is victory for that side………….

As for the formal nature of high middle ages "battles", it was so organized with collusion on all sides. What ruined it was professional armies. Once knights stopped being fighters in preference for landlords and "businessmen", the fighting was done by "men at arms", led by knights or other nobles, who favored a military life. This post-dated Bouvines by quite a few years, really only getting to be common everywhere by the 15th century. England was a blatant exception to medieval warfare. It was a "heresy" to the chivalric "code" (formalized battle) to bring commoners AS the army. Knights were supposed to be the army. Common troops could garrison and guard camps, etc. They were not supposed to be involved in "real" fighting. But that conceit was actually a dead letter by the HYW in England. It took most of that hundred years for the French nobility to accept that their world no longer existed outside of France.

There were a few exceptions, e.g. the "combat of thirty", a deliberate challenge of noble "champions" on the English side and French side, to meet and fight it out equally. This impressed the noble class only. Commoners would have treated such a "fight" as entertainment only, rather like watching favorite teams in today's professional sports. The fun film "A Knight's Tale" captures and pans this very well. What that movie does not show is the larger sort of combat beyond jousting individuals, called usually the "grand melee". This would usually involve infantry as well as cavalry. "Infantry" was usually dismounted men at arms. Archery was not included, so it was never "real" combat in the sense of a "total war" approach, as the English pursued in the HYW.

So am I right in saying that French chivalric armies of the era at Agincourt were made up almost exclusively of men-at-arms who did *not* bring common footsoldiers with them when they joined the retinues of their lord?

And if so, the French battles at Agincourt, for example, would have been composed *exclusively* of plate-armour-clad men-at-arms, with no common footsoldiers at all? (Excluding the Genoese crossbowmen, of course, who were contracted mercenaries, and who formed their own formation, separate from the main battles.)

And if that is a correct assumption, how much room would a man-at-arms have needed to wield his weapons effectively? Surely more than the two or three feet allotted to a musketeer in the Horse and Musket era?

No, it would be bizarre to think of only 'knights' fighting.
There were always gradations of mounted warriors, Knights wvould be the top guys socially, with, as someone said, the higher nobility bringing their retinue which would include knights and non knightly warriors. Sergeants would be less well kitted out and might either fight w ithin retinues or as separate units. In one of the battles against the Cumans the knights are too well armoured against the arrows so the Cumans shoot into the air, dropping shots down on the less well protected sergeants and breaking up the formation. On foot there are plenty of instances of non knightly infantry. They could be mercenaries as were theFlemings in England in the reign of Matilda, or town militias such as the Flemish at Cor trai or the Paris Militia in their parti coloured red and blue in the hundred years war, or the men raised by the assize of arms that the Edwards took to Wales, Scotland and France. In Palestine the infantry played a key part, protecting the cavalry at Hattin and at Arsuf, for example. At Hattin the Crusader army fell apart when the infantry became exhausted. So don't believe that knights only fought knights, theymight prefer to go after the ransoms, but all too often, as at Bouvines, the opposing knights would use their infantry as a shield to enable them to recuperate and charge out again.

1415-2015 – 600th Anniversary of the Battle of Agincourt

link

@Lewis: Bouvines is a fun example of both kinds of fighting. Knights vs knights, i.e. nobles fighting only other nobles. And sergeants grouped separately fighting away from the nobility. And pikemen being used as a shield; but this latter happened, only after the battle was lost, by a remnant still holding out.

Agincourt is a clear example of noble snobbery at work. It was a battle where the French side tried at every point to deny common foot soldiers any part. It started out with virtually all of the commanders grouping into the first "battle" of dismounted men at arms. All of the cap-a-pie plate guys were there. Most of them were nobility, but many would have also been men at arms with the same equipment. The social distinctions had been blurring for over a century, as I've already point out. The two cavalry charges by the mounted wings failed on the arrow storm and stakes. Except for a handful of cases, no cavalry crossed lances and swords with anyone on the English side. These two attacks were originally supposed to have been conducted by masses of horsemen, over a thousand on each wing. But by the time the French started to advance, the wings were down to a paltry few hundred total: the bulk of these wings had disobeyed "orders" and dismounted to join the first "battle". And when that formation advanced, it avoided all contact with the archers and funneled into columns to reach where the English standards were placed; i.e. where their social equals were standing.

In the Levant, things were different. Manpower was so slight throughout the entire history of Frankish Outremer that European conventions had to adapt or perish. Sergeants always made up rear ranks with knights (or the better armed at a knightly level) in front. Infantry was essential because it made up the bulk of any army larger than a few scores or hundreds of men. Anything larger than a raiding force contained up to ninety percent infantry.

@redcoat: As I said to Lewis, Agincourt is a perfect example of French snobbery. They had archers and crossbowmen (not Genoese, as at Crecy, but their own commoners drawn from garrisons and towns), originally supposed to advance ahead of the first "battle" of dismounted men at arms. But in forming up these thousands (roughly equal in numbers to the total of English yeomen) were stuck behind the first "battle" and did no more than fecklessly launch a few rounds over the heads of their "betters" before scampering off to the flanks and rear. No more was seen or heard of them, which was exactly what was wanted and expected of them by their "betters".

The French cut down the length of their lances when dismounted, to c. six feet. The English kept their lances full length. (I don't remember where I've read this at the moment.) In either case, the main weapon when closing bodies of men at arms engaged was the lance. Frontage would have definitely been three feet or even less. Swiss of this same period and later would form up stationary with less than 15" per man! This was with pikes and presented polearms as spears. Of course, the rear ranks were formed in such a way as to allow them to move out on the flanks and wield their two-handed weapons effectively, i.e. three feet and more per man. Once a melee had been going on for a few seconds or minutes, the front ranks of an English or French "battle" would loosen up, as men dropped or fell back to rest or nurse wounds, etc. The front rank would have plenty of room to wield swords and such, as the illustration provided by Cellar clearly depicts…………….

Many thanks for the link, Cellar!

Not very nicely…

Chaps, if we are going to use the term 'men-at-arms' we might want to get a better understanding of what it meant to medieval people. A MAA was anybody who fought in full armour and who had a suitable mount. Mostly these would be drawn from the parish gentry and – to a variable degree – more prosperous burgesses, but all of the armoured cavalry, from minor landholders to the king are men-at-arms.

Ugly, I thought that was understood.

Sadly not. It's the same with 'squire'. It becomes a fairly moveable term , but in the 13/14th C. it just meant a landholder who is not a knight (which is most of them of course)- the root is 'equites' rather than 'miles' but we should not expect a 'squire' to have a poorer mount or poorer armour than his knightly comrades.
We should also be wary of the notion that landholders brought tiny individual armies to battle. In Scotland and in England (at least) infantry were largely raised by the the local sheriff on instructions from the crown.

How much did "lances" appear in the British Isles? Because a MAA would have mounted troops who fought on foot, including, usually, himself. It was all about money. If you had the wealth your retinue would show it. Of course, money spent on military stuff was increasingly disagreeable to an increasing number of nobility or gentry: which is why professional, national armies replaced medieval ones.

Most MAA in the 13/14th C (in England or Scotland – I don't know about Irish practice)including the majority of knights served as individuals either in return for landholding or for wages, or for pardons for crimes. A small proportion might serve with a 'socius' (MAA) – or very rarely two – who they recruited and possibly in some cases paid for their upkeep, though that's not so clear. All in all MAA did not provide hobilars or infantry, who were mostly recruited/conscripted by sheriffs. I've never come across a medieval reference to a 'lance' unit, but then again I don't really look much beyond 1250 to 1400 or so and it may have become a practice for English wars in France…I would n't know about that. OTH I've come across several descriptions of them from Victorian antiquarians, but really I prefer record evidence and narrative evidence supported by record – or sometimes archaeology.
MAA seldom fight on foot, just in those very rare big battles. As you know the daily stuff was largely the biz of rather small parties of mounted MAA.
Increasing professionalisation was a real feature and you are right to bring it up. By the 1330s a fair number of garrison hobilars were making the investment in mount and armour that made them the battlefield equals of the MAA . Likewise we see the sons of prosperous burgesses and non-noble landholders (rentier-types) appearing among the MAA as part of their campaign to rise in society. Piers Lubaud is a good example…rises from hobilar to baron in the course of 20 years of service to Edward I and Edward II before defecting to Robert I.
Another aspect of professionalisation can be seen in minor gentry types pursuing a military career to supplement their land income or – because they are younger sons – just to keep s roof over their heads.