Talk:Medieval warfare

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Medieval warfare was the collaboration of the week for the week starting on July 25, 2004. For details on improvements made to the article, see history of past collaborations.

Contents 1 Peasant uprisings 2 Collaboration 3 Honor system 4 Article scope: how early? 5 Important warrior peoples missing 6 Article organization 7 Terminology: Islam, Turks, or Moors 8 Article scope: general overview 9 Removed: potato 10 Gunpowder 11 Naval warfare 12 Series boxes 13 Organization 14 Knights/Heavy Cavalry 15 Expanding the concept? 16 The burger 17 GA Failed 18 Stirrup 19 Infantry 20 Is this article made for european? 21 "Deployment of forces" ambiguity 22 "Crossbow" - ambiguous sentence 23 English longbow 24 POWs

[edit] Peasant uprisings

In this text it says that all peasant revolts were supressed. Two border cases might be cited, both from a book by Barbara Tuchman about two successful uprisings. I shall try and get that book to read and confirm this, because the accounts that I have seen on the internet do not mention peasants, whereas I am sure Barabara Tuchman refers to these as peasant uprisings. In one account of the "The battle of the 400 golden spurs" Battle of the Golden Spurs, the peasants did away with the elite knights of France. It took several years before France could retaliate, as I recall it, under St Cyr. I seem to recall that some have described the some Swiss uprisings as being performed by peasants, leading eventually to a Switzerland without Habsburg interference. The peasants may not have been totally alone, but the term "peasant uprising" might still apply. Would anyone mind me citing these? DanielDemaret 22:23, 8 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Sure, go ahead...actually, I just had a class about peasant violence, I could send you the reading list if you want. It had some stuff about Swiss uprisings, the Hundred Years' War, and the 1381 revolt in England. Adam Bishop 17:40, 9 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Thank you, I did. And yes, I would love to see the readings list. My email is daniel@leuf.net. Perhaps even put the list in wikipedia somewhere? Perhaps there should be a "Peasant Uprisings" article? I am sure I would be interested in it. DanielDemaret 09:07, 16 Feb 2005 (UTC)

There is one - Popular revolt in late medieval Europe. Adam Bishop 17:25, 16 Feb 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Collaboration

Nice one Anders, look forward to collaborating with you on this. JHK and MichaelTinkler inter alia might be interested in this one. sjc

Just so long as you tiptoe around the F-word (shhhh - feudalism), Anders, you'll be o.k.! --MichaelTinkler

I know! :-) Then we just need to sink our teeth into all these concepts and hammer out a readable text. Ugh. --Anders Törlind

[edit] Honor system

Wondering what was meant by the Honor(s) system???? JHK

Ah, just all the "honor in battle", "knights honor", "family honor" and all that stuff going on. Terribly unscientific, so please change it if you have a handy term for those kind of things :-) Might just be me reading to many romantic novels as well, hehe. --Anders Törlind

Ok -- i suggest changing to Chivalry JHK

[edit] Article scope: how early?

Um...how early are we going with this? I ask because if we start adding in any old Germanic/Barbarian people, we're going to get a lot of folks who were allied with and trained by the Romans...which I would call late antique... Also, are we limiting this to Western Medieval? Someone is bound to want to throw in Japanese for comparison (eventually), I'm sure. Comments? Opinions? JHK

Hmmm. I think Europe is quite enough to deal with (the middle ages are hardly an era elswhere anyway). When to start? Pick a suitably early date. 700? What is the definition of medieval? --Anders Törlind

[edit] Important warrior peoples missing

Excellent question on the Medieval period. Many date it from the fall of the Roman Empire in the West, until the gunpowder age. The Mongols and Vikings for example fall within this general Medieval period. Indeed both these peoples clashed with the well known medieval armored knights and defeated them in numerous battles. I have added sections on both. More needs to be done on the Turks and other Asiatic forces. All of thse peoples clashed with Westerners during the Medieval period. Indeed one of the biggest issues of that period was precisely that- fighting against other non-Western forces, via the Crusades. No realistic history of Medieval warfare can credibly afford to leave out such important peoples, battles, and warfighting methods.

Also added a section on the rise of infantry ending th long dominance ot the cavalryman- a staple of any history of medieval warfare Enriquecardova 03:19, 24 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Article organization

On another note; how to organize the article? Into sections dealing with various parts of warfare (battlefield, siege, transportation, levying and so on) and cover the developments through time in those sectons, or instead divide the article into chronological parts, covering certain time intervals? --Anders Törlind

I'm in favor of a combination. I think it's important to have a general chronologically/geographically organized section that gives an overview, and then links to the specific topics that are mentioned. Or, try to create a huge, coherent essay -- more challenging, though. JHK

[edit] Terminology: Islam, Turks, or Moors

Re: Islam, Turks, and Moors -- which shall we use? And speaking of which, are Turkish influences Medieval or Early Modern (goes back to the where are we focusing question...)? JHK

---

Each one were seperate groups , even though they all followed Mohamet (Islam)

1. The ones that came frome the south west to Spain and France and were stopped by the Franks.

   Called Moors

2. The Golden Horde Ghengis Khan , Liegnitz Silesia stopped at the gates of Berlin

       Don't know how many  of these were Muslim

not many. The Mongols took up Islam over the next hundred years, and only the ones that had settled down to rule former Islamic territory. --MichaelTinkler

3. Several times Turks on Vienna etc

I think each group should be mentioned seperately and not lumped together user:H.J.

Agreed. I have added extra sections to discuss some peoples in more depth like the Vikings

Enriquecardova 21:05, 25 February 2006 (UTC)

---

Right -- I should have said which, if any, should we use. I'm fairly sure that we all know that the Muslims in Spain were called Moors. I think many of us also know that this term was also used to refer to Muslims elsewhere. My question concerns whether or not we should give an anachronistic name a special place, or to refer to the Moors within the greater topic of Islam.

As for Genghis Khan and the Turks, my question is still whether they should be considered medieval or early modern. Since historians tend to see a separation between the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, and much of the contact betwen these groups and Europe happened more during the Renaissance, it's a legitimate question. One of the difficulties in answering is that most of Eastern Europe was barely affected by the events in Italy. Personally, I'm not absolutely sure that there was a Renaissance(rather than just another of many renaissances), but since the article is defined as "between Ancient and Renaissance, it needs to be addressed. JHK

---

Usually the end of the medieval period is attributed to the siege and conquest of Byzanz (1453) by the Ottoman Turcs. In addition the conflict between the Turcs (or better Turcoman Tribes) and the Byzantine state dates back well to early medieval Times if not even earlier (Battle of Manzikert 1071).

Mem

................

The Renissance Period is generally considered between 1400 to 1600, well after the main Mongol explosion. Enriquecardova 21:05, 25 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Article scope: general overview

I think this article should stick to describing medieval warfare in a kind of low-level summary, then direct readers to particular battles or particular period or regional histories (Crusades, Byzantium, War of the Roses, Reconquista) and leave the methodological arguments to those entries!--MichaelTinkler

My initial thought with this article was to be a collection of facts about "the waging of war" and its methodologies and the factors defining it during the middle ages. Perhaps it is a bit too large a topic to fit in one article, but i do think we could squeeze in the general principles and overall evolution of it here. A nice transition to Renaissance warfare (and subsequently the highly interesting 17th century warfare) would be nice as well, although there would be some overlap. --Anders Törlind

This looks like a workable and useful outline to me, Anders - and it sticks to medieval warfare rather than trailing off in a debate about the personalities of the OUTSIDE opponents. Nice job. (momentarily later) on a second read, is 'Medieval fortification' going to be a separate article? I don't see any headers here for castles, castle-design, etc. It would make sense as a separate article (referred to frequently inside this one) --MichaelTinkler

Medieval fortification is certainly large enough to warrant an article of its own, I think. As castle and fortification construction had a great impact on warfare, frequent linking is probably in order, yes. I'll do a piece similar to this one on the subject unless you feel inclined :-) --Anders Törlind

[edit] Removed: potato

Removed the following :

One of the reason the potato became popular food in western europe was that the potato's were buried and unedible for most of the year, allowing them to survive a plundering army.

Potatoes were not introduced into Europe until the second half of the sixteenth century, whereas the Middle Ages is generally agreed to end sometime in the fifteenth century. Gandalf61 08:29, Jul 22, 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Gunpowder

The article gives the impression (to me, anyway) that mounted knights were dominant in Europe all through the medieval period until made obsolete by gunpowder, but I think mention should be made of how the mounted knight as the main force of the army was successfully countered late in the medieval period by infantry using pikes, rather than gunpowder - consider the Scottish schiltrons at the Battle of Bannockburn. Average Earthman 17:04, 27 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Agreed Earthman. More needs to be done on specific warrior peoples and their styles. The Swiss Pikemen for example, redressed the balance and helped restore infantry as a balance to the once dominant cavalry as did the English Long Bowman. Enriquecardova 03:18, 24 February 2006 (UTC)

Not just late medieval. The battle of Tours is regarded as a battle between masses of Heavy and Light Moorish cavalry against phalanx infantry, with the Franksih infantry winning the battle.

Tours is pre-stirrup on the Frankish side. You can't call it a medieval battle in a technological sense. Taking up stirrup technology then started a dominance of the mounted knight up to Morgarten (interestingly one year after this Scottish battle) and later Agincourt. That's more than 500 years of near invincibility. Hirsch.im.wald 02:20, 27 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Naval warfare

A lot of nice work is being done on this article, but I have an issue with some of the naval warfare bits - Lepanto, Henry VIII's fleet, and the Spanish Armada aren't medieval. I suppose they could be mentioned as examples of post-medieval developments. I didn't want to remove it entirely because it is pretty long, but as it is written right now it seems like it is saying the late 16th century is still the middle ages. Adam Bishop 15:42, 29 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Concur- these events aren't really medieval... I suppose they give some information about medieval warfare by saying what hadn't happenned yet. We do need more material on naval warfare in the actual medieval period. -FZ 16:27, 29 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Mostly my edits that you are complaining about :) I see what mean, although it does depend on how you define medieval (yes, I suppose the Mary Rose and the Spanish Armada are really examples of early modern naval warfare, but I'm not sure that there is another article where they would be more at home). Would it be clearer to explain that medieval naval warfare pre-dated the effective use of cannon on ships, and go on to explain the massive changes that came about soon thereafter? -- ALoan (Talk) 00:26, 31 Jul 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Series boxes

Is there some way to align the series boxes better? It doesn't look very good right now (at least on Netscape)...one should be below the other, or maybe directly beside each other, but I don't know how to do it. Adam Bishop 15:30, 28 Oct 2004 (UTC)

I agree - I've tried swapping their order, using a table, and putting the templates on the same line, but the preview never looks quite right, so I just left it as it was. There may be a format issue with one of the boxes that inserts an extra blank line. The other alternative it to put one lower down in the article. -- ALoan (Talk) 16:09, 28 Oct 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Organization

As someone has noted in the article, is there any reason why knights are singled out? I understood knighthood to be more of a feudal title than a battlefield command or a type of soldier. I suggest that the Organization section be broken up into "Nobility/Men-at-arms", "Peasant/serfs" then "Cavalry", "Infantry". Infantry and cavalry often consisted of both nobility and serfs, but nobles and serfs had very different roles in forming and organizing a medieval army. --kudz75 05:32, 21 Dec 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Knights/Heavy Cavalry

(How valuable is it to call out knights and heavy cavalry separately? There would appear to be a large overlap between the two, in that knights were generally heavy cavalry, even if it didn't always work the other way around.)

(knights were not allways heavy cavalry, some of them fought on foot and in some areas the people who perfomed the same task a knights were not heavy cavalry (note the siphi (might have spelt that wrong sorry) of the Ottoman empire who like knights were given land by their rulers in return for military service however they were light cavalry))

I cut this from the article and put it here, because it seems like discussion ought to be on the discussion page. Whoever wrote it can sign it if they'd like. Apol0gies 18:21, 20 Jan 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Expanding the concept?

I noticed that Japan is mentioned in the introduction, but I don't see anything about it in the actual article. The military history of feudal Japan should fit quite nicely within the time frame, considering that there was not much war actually being waged after the Tokugawa unification and that European medieval history goes way into the 16th century for som parts of Europe (like Sweden). And not a word about China either.

I know that proper articles on the military history of both China and Japan have been written, but why keep them seperated? I think this is a good opportunity to avoid the same old retelling of the same old eurocentric perspective of medieval history. - karmosin 06:06, Mar 2, 2005 (UTC)

.............. Without getting into any debate on eurocentrism, there is plenty of room for everybody if the focus is on warfare. If a broad "world history" timeline approach is taken yours is a reasonable view. After all Medieval European history was heavily involved with non-Western peoples like the Turks via the Crusades. It would be good if a section were added on feudal Japan, to compare and contrast the warfighting methods and weapons there to those in Europe. I have added just such a section on the Mongols. The Mongols clashed with the knights of Europe in the 13th century, liquidating several Polish and Hungarian armies sent against them. Enriquecardova 21:08, 25 February 2006 (UTC)

Technically, medieval means Europe. The term has been applied to other regions by analogy, but it is a western term, about western history. Most other cultures have their own historiographical periodization labels, usually along the lines of the name of a city or ruler that was dominate in that age. The west is unique in its 3-tier view of history (ancient/middle (medieval)/modern), created by (christian) humanists during the renaissance. -- Stbalbach 00:58, 26 February 2006 (UTC)

Fair enough. Where these other cultures had a definite impact on Western history during the time period in question then they need mention. The main focus could still be on the European context keeping what you say in mind. It should be noted that the Britannica mentions the Mongols in its article on warfare, during the Medieval period. Enriquecardova 08:14, 8 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] The burger

What is "the burger" in personal equipment? It's been listed there for 4 years now and no one has removed it, so I guess it's legitimate, but I don't know. Adam Bishop 16:11, 8 September 2005 (UTC)

• As I see it. The section is was really unclear anyways because just it said, "personal equipment" and then listed a bunch of classes of people that use personal equipment. I changed that. Added "... for".
• In Dutch "een burger" [1] is a civilian. In medieval times, I would imagine it should say "peasant" or "commoner" or ... ? --None-of-the-Above 16:35, 8 September 2005 (UTC)
  • Oh, that makes more sense, a burgher. Adam Bishop 17:36, 8 September 2005 (UTC)

=) --None-of-the-Above 18:06, 8 September 2005 (UTC)

You got me to thinking. There is something very wrong with that section. A nobleman/knight and burgher are social classes while infantryman/archer are ranks in military and engineer ... did they have engineers back then? I don't think there will ever be a link behind burgher because there weren't any typical weapons characteristically used by peasants except for maybe pitchforks, hammers, etc... (work tools). I don't think there is going to be an article in Wiki about work tools as weapons. I think that list needs to be re-thought. --None-of-the-Above 04:20, 9 September 2005 (UTC)

[edit] GA Failed

Reasons: perhaps not factually accurate or verifiable; the coverage is not broad, the Medieval Warfare should not be limited to knights, longbows, Mongols and Vikings; the space allocated to different topics in the article is so unbalanced that it amounts to POV; no images, and it is on a subject where appropriate images are easily available; there is a section header with no text below and "notes" appearing at the end of a section.

Well, that was negative, so I had better balance it with some constructive comments. Most importantly, balance the article content and fix the lack of breadth. Have a look at how Keen and Nicholson divide their space. It is nothing like the way this article does. Verbruggen's Art of Warfare in Western Europe gives a lot of weight to knights, but again the content of his work is nothing like this article. Contamine devotes a sixth or so of the main text to judicial, ethical and religious aspects of war, topics not exactly prominent here. For statements which may be controversial, add inline references using Cite.php or similar. For claims of revolutionary change and importance, i.e. knights, stirrups, gunpowder, explain why it was important or revolutionary, if indeed it was, and cite sources who say so. Don't rely too much on older works like Oman and, to a lesser extent, Contamine. Angus McLellan (Talk) 11:11, 15 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Stirrup

Please see the 'Great Stirrip Controversy' for information about the importance of the stirrup to the development of the Feudal Order and its significance as a Military Innovation. The thrust of the matter is that the stirrup was a refinement of, not a requirement for, the mounted use of the lance and other weapons and perhaps a slight refinement at that...--M.J.Stanham 16:08, 29 August 2006 (UTC)

FYI The article M.J. Stanham is referring to is referenced in the stirrup article. [User:Jerdwyer|Jerdwyer]] 01:00, 28 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Infantry

I think the article still puts the role of infantry short. According to my reading of the pertinent literature, there was no time in which a well-disciplined infantry could not repel a cavalry charge. More importantly, critical to the success of practically all campaigns is the seizing and keeping of key locations, a task for which infantry is critical. You won't see a destrier ride up a castle wall, but you will see an infantry man climb a ladder. A knight with a lance won't take down a gate, but a bunch of axemen will. The key point in the later middle-ages is that disciplined infantry becomes more and more common as A)the rise of the cities brings about city militia and B)the advent of mercenary companies brings the professional soldier out of the realm of nobility and thus creates well-trained and thus well-disciplined infantry. The key point, however, is that this training brings about the possibility of an infantry offense on the free field, where earlier, it was mostly capable of holding a position and letting the enemy attack break up. The "mass of pikes" has existed for quite a while and even a mass of shields is enough to break a cavalry charge. However, when the mass of pikes or the mass of shields gets moving, it usually had difficulties retaining formation. That's what changed with the return of drilled infantry. --OliverH 10:51, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

This is largely true and the role of infantry in medieval warfare is currently being redressed in academic discourse. It appears to be taking some time to filter through, though. Although Oman's thesis is now largely unsupported, it remains influential.--M.J.Stanham 16:22, 29 August 2006 (UTC)

Well, Verbruggen already had first notions that there might be more to infantry than was thought 50 years ago, though he didn't quite follow through on it. But Bachrach &Cie have been around for a while, too. Unfortunately, popular literature still serves to spread the notion that Hastings was the proof of the superiority of cavalry when it was, in fact, more like the opposite. Unfortunately, especially with laypeople, the "big" names like Oman and Delbrück are much more present than more current researchers. Then again, as far as history is concerned, I'm a layperson, too. :P --OliverH 19:53, 29 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Is this article made for european?

[edit] "Deployment of forces" ambiguity

In the fourth paragraph of the "Deployment of forces" section, there is the following sentence;

"When the wedge came into contact with the infantry line, more often than not it would cave in on itself"

What "it" refers to in this line is ambiguous, whether it's the wedge collapsing in on itself, or whether it is the infantry line itself. I would think that it is referring to the infantry line, but the wording gives the strong impression that it is referring to the wedge. I think a person who knows which formation is being referred to here should reword it to make it clearer.--Tabun1015 19:09, 3 February 2007 (UTC)

I agree that it meant the infantry formation collapsing. I'm more worried that the paragraph seems to imply a head-on attack, the pointlessness of which has already been discussed here. The wedge makes more sense when you picture it rushing into narrow gaps in the enemy line or hitting the flank of a formation and forcing their mutually-supporting ranks apart. If the defender's front ranks are preoccupied by a head-on infantry attack, they can't counter the charge and the scattered formation will probably lose the ensuing melee. EatYerGreens 20:04, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] "Crossbow" - ambiguous sentence

"The crossbow lacked the range of the longbow, but packed a bolt of greater penetrating power, and did not require the extended years of training and use demanded by the longbow. A cheap "low class" weapon, considered "unchivalrous" by those unlucky enough to face it, the longbow outperformed the crossbow in the hands of skilled archers, and was to transform several battlefields in Europe."

Structure and punctuation of the closing sentence can be read in such a way as to imply that it's the longbow being described as cheap, low class, unchivalrous. I would like to suggest either: - "...unlucky enough to face it FULL_STOP The longbow outperformed...." Or: - "...unlucky enough to face it but the longbow outperformed...." EatYerGreens 19:21, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] English longbow

The article says

Longbowmen were used to deadly effect on the continent of Europe, as assorted kings and leaders clashed with their enemies on the battlefields of France. The most famous of these battles were Crécy and Agincourt.

However, the longbow was already largley obsolete by the battle of Agincourt due to the development of steel armour that could not be penetrated by the soft iron tips on the longbow arrows. // Liftarn

I've seen the particular TV documentary where this issue was raised (and demonstrated by reconstruction) but seen it roundly criticised, in online discussion forums, for their failure to use the right material for the job. Soft iron! I would like to have seen them try a 'case-hardened' iron tip and also a steel tip, before drawing their conclusions. However, it can easily be argued that 'blister steel' manufacture was low-volume and that converting it into useful artefacts was quite awkward (the thing that made steel weapons and armour so expensive in the first place) such that the cost of producing 'disposable' steel arrow tips, by the thousands, would be considerable. Written records of this, amongst accounts of other military expenditure _ought_ to exist, somewhere - provided you assume that national treasuries ever had a hand in the matter. Or are we supposed to believe that 'commoner' archers could afford to buy their own (steel) arrow tips?

A more recent TV series, featuring Mike Loades' reconstructions demonstrated that armour penetration was possible but at a LOT LESS than the longbow's much-vaunted 'long range'. Under testing, it was only truly penetrative at around 80 yards - meaning that charging cavalry would reach them, from there, in less than 30 seconds, against a firing rate of (at best) 12 rounds per minute. (Hence it makes sense that the general idea was to hit the horse, so as to dismount the rider, putting him on level terms with defending footsoldiers).

As I see it, the effectiveness in the longbow (en masse) was in its ability to render inadequately armoured troops next to useless and thus force the most heavily armoured, elite, troops to make the initial assault. Doing this on foot (the whole point of cavalry is the rate of closure, minimising time of exposure to missile fire), in thick mud (posited), proved to be catastrophic, at Agincourt. The 'crowd dynamics' aspect of that battle is fascinating but would probably be classified as 'original research', under Wiki guidelines. EatYerGreens 18:43, 26 February 2007 (UTC)

The arrowheads found at the site of the battle was of soft iron. As for the crowd dynamics we have a source[2] so it's not original research. Online discussion forums are not a reliable source, but the TV documentary (probably) is. // Liftarn

Nice link, thanks. Whilst I'll not dispute the soft iron thing, I'm still of the opinion that the armour was not completely invincible. The latest Mike Loades series is called The Weapons that made Britain. I got my figures wrong though - in the episode about armour, he rated the archer's 'killing zone' as being as little as 20 meters, against a quality breastplate. I'll see if he has a website I can link to. EatYerGreens 23:20, 27 February 2007 (UTC)

Certainly. You could always get a lucky shot. Or aim for the horse for that matter. // Liftarn

I'm of the opinion that the word 'aim', in this context, is worthy of a discussion in itself. Popular culture has a habit of conjuring up an image of target archery (training or competition) or else some 'crack shot' character who can pick off individuals at will. Either way, the emphasis is placed on accuracy. Now, in a battle situation, archers would either need to be psychic or constantly calling to one another, in order to avoid sticking a dozen arrows in the same individual, leaving eleven others untouched. In other words, they fired en masse, with no particular aim (other than getting the elevation, for range, roughly right), hit on the basis of luck and, hence, bows should be regarded as an 'area weapon' - contrary to the popular image. Being larger, horses stood a statistically greater chance of being hit (and contemporary paintings do depict this happening) but I see that more as unavoidable consequence than a result of intent. Having said that, at close range, where deliberate aim would certainly be worthwhile, I agree that they would be aiming at the horses. EatYerGreens 20:16, 2 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] POWs

It would be interesting to see an exposition of pows, hostages, slavery and population decimations that were also standard military practice of the time added to this page.--Tigeroo 14:28, 10 September 2007 (UTC)