Warfare was commonplace in the Middle Ages. No wonder that during this period, there were the greatest warriors and armies in history. This list consists of the best, most impressive soldiers of the Middle Ages.
Spearmen (Pikemen)
A medieval spear soldier or pikeman is a man with a spear who was used as infantry in Europe during the Viking and Anglo-Saxon times, as well as in the 14th, 15th and 16th centuries. The spear was the national weapon of England, but it was also used in other countries, especially in Italy.
Boyars
In the narrow sense of the word, the upper stratum of feudal society in X -XVII centuries in Kievan Rus, the Principality of Galicia-Volyn, the Principality of Moscow, the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, Bulgaria, Serbia, Croatia, Slovenia, the Principality of Moldavia, Wallachia, from the XIV century in Romania.
Commonly known as the Knights Templar or the Order of the Temple were one of the most celebrated Western Christian military orders. The organization existed for approximately two centuries during the medieval era. Founded in the period after the First Crusade in 1096 to ensure the safety of Christians who made pilgrimages to Jerusalem after its conquest. The Templars were distinguished by white robes with a red cross, they were one of the most experienced fighting units of the Crusades.
A crossbow is a weapon based on a bow that shoots projectiles, the projectiles are often referred to as a bolt. The crossbow was created in China. Weapons played a significant role in the war in North Africa, Europe and Asia.
They were personal warriors and were equated with the bodyguards of the Scandinavian lords and kings. The military organization of the huskerls, differed the highest level, united loyalty to the king and a special code of honor.
A group of residents in Ancient Russia who wore ethnic, professional or social character causing a lot of controversy and debate. Traditional versions identify the Varangians with immigrants from the Varangian region - Scandinavian Vikings, hired warriors or merchants in Old Russian state(IX-XII centuries) and Byzantium (XI-XIII centuries). Beginning with Vladimir the Baptist, the Varangians were actively used Russian princes in the struggle for power.
These were Swiss soldiers and officers who were recruited for military service in the armies of foreign countries, especially in the army of the kings of France, from the 14th to the 19th century.
Cataphracts were not just cavalry, with a rider clad in heavy armor, but a detachment that used special strategies, formations and techniques on the battlefield. The birthplace of this kind of cavalry is called Scythia (II-I centuries BC).
A medieval soldier who used a halberd in battle. The halberd is a polearm with a combined tip, consisting of a needle-shaped (round or faceted) spear point and a battle ax blade with a sharp butt. The halberd was in service with the infantry of many European states from the 13th to the 17th centuries. It was most widely used in the 15th-16th centuries as an effective weapon against well-protected cavalry.
To XIX century the only regions where people would not yet be familiar with weapons such as bows and arrows were only Australia and Oceania. A Welsh or English military archer in the 14th and 15th century had to shoot at least ten "aimed shots" per minute.
Chapter from the book of the Belgian historian Verbruggen " Military art West in the Middle Ages" (J.F. Verbruggen. The Art of Warfare in Western Europe During the Middle Ages). The book was first published in 1954.
Thanks to the work of Delbrück and Lot, we can get an idea of the size of medieval armies. They were small, as they existed in relatively small states. These were professional armies, made up of people coming from the same class; the number of such people was accordingly limited. On the other hand, the economy was underdeveloped, the cities were just emerging or were still small. First of all, the limited financial resources of the princes did not allow them to field large professional armies, consisting of mercenaries or their vassals. Raising such an army would take a long time, supplies would become a severe problem, there would be insufficient transport to bring supplies, and Agriculture was not developed enough to provide large armies.
For military history the problem of the size of armies is key. It is rather unusual for an outnumbered army to defeat a superior enemy: therefore, it is necessary to find out who had a large army. Medieval sources constantly report the victories of inferior armies, while speaking about the help of God or at least a patron saint. God's help is constantly mentioned in connection with the Crusades, as are references to the Maccabees. St. Bernard of Clairvaux surpasses all. Agitating to join the Order of the Temple, he wrote about the Templars: "They want to win by the power of God ... And they have already experienced it, so that one and only threw a thousand, and two put 10,000 enemies to flight."
Based on the reports of some chroniclers who saw the Judgment of God in the outcome of the battle, they believed for a long time that the Flemish and Swiss defeated their strong enemies with inferior armies. These ideas appeal to the national pride of the winners, and therefore are readily accepted. From a critical point of view, the ratio of the number of fighters tends to be diametrically opposite: the infantry was more numerous than the knights, which was the reason for these significant victories. A revolution was taking place in the art of war, a revolution preceded by another, in the manner in which an army was recruited, social structure. To the greatest extent, this was the result of the rise of a new class, which had an awareness of its own strength, capable of improving its situation.
It is generally accepted that medieval man did not attach importance to numbers, and that even commanders were rarely interested in accurate statistics. Fantastic huge numbers accepted and repeated on their behalf in chronicles. The case of the chronicler Riecher is typical: where he follows the Annals of Flodoard, Riecher arbitrarily changes the numbers, almost always upwards. However, there were clerics who gave accurate figures, which provide valuable information about the small number of cavalry. This was true of the First Crusade and the Kingdom of Jerusalem that followed. Heermann, based on a comparison of all sources, obtained the following results:
Completely - I have
To fight so to fight, write down in the convoy!
Thinking about the number of armies, one cannot fail to mention such a supply component, and here, too, inconsistencies with what the author writes turned out to be.
Robb Stark Army: in 298 A.D.;
Robb Stark: 20,000 foot and horse
Freya: 3,000 infantry and 1,000 cavalry
Edmure Tully: 16,000 foot and horse
Lord Vance, Clement Piper: 4,000 foot and horse
Moat Kailin: 400 infantry
Howland Reid: Several Thousands of Infantry and Archers (Guarding the Isthmus) 2000
Total: 46400 people on foot and horseback
Medieval armies did not care much about the supply of food and medicine. They lived mainly by plundering and taking supplies from the local population. Usually, for civilians, the passage of a friendly army was as devastating as the raids of enemies. Medieval armies did not stay in one place for long, as local supplies of food and fodder quickly ran out. This was a real problem in sieges. If the besieging army did not take care of organizing a constant supply of food in advance, then the besiegers, as a rule, began to starve even earlier than the besieged. If the army remained in one place, then there was also a problem of hygiene. Medieval armies brought with them a large number of animals in addition to horses and were not distinguished by cleanliness, so there were often problems with dysentery. Disease and exhaustion greatly reduced the size of the feudal armies. While campaigning in France, Henry V of England lost about 15 percent of his army to disease at the siege of Harflo and more on the march to Agnikort. In the battle itself, he lost only 5 percent of the soldiers. Henry V himself also died of an illness related to unsanitary conditions.
The basis of the army's diet was bread, and it was required for one soldier per day about 2.5 kg. and sugar and butter were not available in the Middle Ages. Yes, and with meat, things were much poorer, so 2.5 kg of bread per person per day is a necessary minimum for a medieval army on a campaign.
Let's do simple calculations. For example, let's take Stark's army, in 298 A.D. Whispering Forest. Martin writes about 46.4 thousand soldiers. Great, multiply 46400 by 2.5 kg and get = 116,000 kg per day. So, the carrying capacity of an ordinary single-horse peasant cart is about 200 kg. We get that the daily ration of the army brings 580 carts. For a month of campaign (30 days), 17,400 carts will be required, respectively. To visualize, if these wagon carts are put in increments of 10 meters, then they will stand almost 170 km away,
from King's Landing to Winterfell (distance - approx. 1200 km)
According to the charters of the 18-19 centuries, the normal daily march was about 25 km at the speed of movement of a foot army. In reality, the army usually moved at a speed of 15-20 km per day. During a forced march, they could walk up to 50 km per day, but they could not go at that pace for a long time.
To illustrate, let's calculate what kind of convoy an army of 10 thousand people needs for a month of campaign. We multiply 10,000 by 2.5 kg and multiply by 30 days and we get = 750,000 kg. Accordingly, 3,750 convoy carts. That's not all. Now we take into account that the guards (one per cart) also need to be fed. And the horses need to be fed. Let's say the horses themselves can graze on the opposite meadows. However, where to find ahead of time pastures for horses on a hike?.. To simplify the calculations, let's digress from this problem. Taking into account the fact that the wagon trains consume no less than soldiers, we get 6,000 wagon workers and, accordingly, a wagon train of 6,000 wagons loaded with food for a month of campaign for 10,000 soldiers. By the way, moving in one column, such a convoy will stretch for 60 km.
Of course, our calculation is approximate, in practice there are factors both reducing the size of the convoy and increasing it. But in any case, the overall scale of the disaster can be imagined.
Of course, the army could be fed at the expense of the local population. However, in the Middle Ages, the population density was low (for example, in the 17th century, a village of 2-3 courtyards was typical) and the immediate vicinity could not feed an army of several thousand people. That is, in principle, it was probably possible to feed oneself by robbing the local population, but then it was necessary to stop the campaign and search the surroundings for food for people and horses.
In connection with the above, the size of the armies must be reduced by 10 times.
"Amateurs do tactics. Professionals study logistics" (c)
What is your opinion on this matter?
Medieval battles slowly moved from skirmishes of poorly organized military units to battles using tactics and maneuvering. In part, this evolution was a response to the development different types troops and weapons and the ability to use them. The first armies of the Dark Middle Ages were crowds of foot soldiers. With the development of heavy cavalry, the best armies became hordes of knights. Foot soldiers were used to ravage agricultural land and do hard work during sieges. In battle, however, the infantry was under threat from both sides, as the knights sought to face the enemy in duels. Infantry in this early period consisted of feudal recruits and untrained peasants. Archers were also useful in sieges, but they also risked being trampled on the battlefield.
By the end of the 15th century, the military leaders had made great strides in disciplining the knights and building armies that acted as one team. In the English army, the knights grudgingly recognized archers after they had shown their worth in so many battles. Discipline also increased as more and more knights began to fight for money and less and less for honor and glory. Mercenary soldiers in Italy became famous for long campaigns with relatively little bloodshed. By this time, soldiers of all branches of the military had become property that should not be easily parted with. Feudal armies looking for glory have become professional armies, more interested in surviving in order to spend the money they earn.
Cavalry tactics
The cavalry was usually divided into three groups, or divisions, which were sent into battle one after the other. The first wave was supposed to break through the ranks of the enemy or break them so that a second or third wave could break through. If the enemy fled, a real massacre began.
In practice, the knights acted in their own way to the detriment of any plans of the commander. The knights were chiefly interested in honors and glory and were not shy about funds in the front rank of the first division. Complete victory in battle was secondary to personal glory. Battle after battle, the knights attacked as soon as they saw the enemy, destroying any plans.
Sometimes the warlords dismounted the knights in order to better control them. This was a common course of action in a small army that had little chance of countering attacks. The dismounted knights supported the fighting power and morale of the regular infantry. Dismounted knights and other foot soldiers fought over stakes or other military installations designed to weaken the power of cavalry attacks.
An example of the undisciplined behavior of the knights was the Battle of Crécy in 1346. The French army outnumbered the English by several times (forty thousand and ten thousand), having significantly more mounted knights. The English divided into three groups of archers, protected by stakes driven into the ground. Between these three groups were two groups of dismounted knights. A third group of dismounted knights was held in reserve. Genoese mercenary crossbowmen were sent by the French king to fire on the English infantry, while he tried to organize his knights into three divisions. However, the crossbows got wet and were ineffective. The French knights ignored their king's efforts to organize as soon as they saw the enemy and went berserk with shouts of "Kill! Kill it! Having lost patience with the Genoese, the French king ordered his knights to attack, and they trampled crossbowmen on their way. Although the battle went on all day, the English knights on foot and archers (who had kept their bowstrings dry) prevailed over the mounted French, who fought in a disorderly crowd.
By the end of the Middle Ages, the importance of heavy cavalry on the battlefield declined and became approximately equal to the value of rifle troops and infantry. By this time, the futility of an attack against a properly placed and disciplined infantry had become clear. The rules have changed. Palisades, pits against horses and ditches became the usual defense of armies against cavalry attacks. Attacks against numerous formations of spearmen and archers or shooters from firearms left only a pile of crushed horses and people. The knights were forced to fight on foot or wait for a suitable opportunity to attack. Devastating attacks were still possible, but only if the enemy fled disorganized or was outside the protection of temporary field structures.
Infantry Tactics
For most of this era rifle troops consisted of archers using several types of bows. First it was a shortbow, then a crossbow and a longbow. The advantage of archers was the ability to kill or injure enemies from a distance without engaging in hand-to-hand combat. The significance of these troops was well known in ancient times, but this experience was temporarily lost in the era of the dark Middle Ages. During the early Middle Ages, the warrior-knights who controlled the territory were the main ones, and their code required a duel with a worthy enemy. Killing with arrows from a distance was shameful from the point of view of the knights, so the ruling class did little to develop this type of weapon and use it effectively.
However, it gradually became clear that archers are effective in the highest degree useful both in sieges and in battle. Though reluctant, more and more armies gave way to them. William I's decisive victory at Hastings in 1066 may have been won by archers, although his knights traditionally received the highest honors. The Anglo-Saxons held the slope of the hill and were so protected by closed shields that it was very difficult for the Norman knights to break through them. The battle went on all day. The Anglo-Saxons ventured out from behind the shield wall, in part to get at the Norman archers. And when they came out, the knights knocked them down easily. For a while it seemed that the Normans should lose, but many believe that the battle was won by the Norman archers. Harold, king of the Anglo-Saxons, was mortally wounded by a well-placed shot, and shortly thereafter the battle was over.
Foot archers fought in numerous battle formations of hundreds or even thousands of people. At a hundred yards from the enemy, a shot from both a crossbow and a longbow could pierce armor. At this distance, the archers fired at individual targets. The enemy was furious from such losses, especially if he could not answer. In an ideal situation, the archers would break up enemy formations by shooting at them for some time. The enemy could hide from cavalry attacks behind the palisade, but could not stop all the arrows flying at him. If the enemy came out from behind the barricade and attacked the archers, friendly heavy cavalry would step in, well in time to save the archers. If the enemy formations simply stood still, they could gradually move so that the cavalry had an opportunity for a successful attack.
Archers were actively supported and subsidized in England, as the British were outnumbered when waging war on the mainland. When the British learned to use a large contingent of archers, they began to win battles, even though the enemy usually outnumbered them. The British developed the "arrow shaft" method, taking advantage of the range of the longbow. Instead of shooting at individual targets, archers with longbows fired at areas occupied by the enemy. Shooting up to six shots per minute, 3,000 archers with longbows could fire 18,000 arrows at numerous enemy formations. The impact of this boom shaft on horses and people was devastating. French knights during the Hundred Years' War spoke of the sky being blackened by arrows and the noise these projectiles made as they flew.
Crossbowmen became a prominent force in the mainland armies, especially in the militia and professional troops formed by the cities. The crossbowman became a soldier ready for action with minimal training.
By the fourteenth century, the first primitive hand-held firearms, the handguns, appeared on the battlefields. Subsequently, it became even more effective than bows.
The difficulty in using archers was to ensure their protection while shooting. In order for the shooting to be effective, they had to be very close to the enemy. English archers brought stakes to the battlefield and hammered them into the ground with mallets in front of the place from which they wanted to fire. These stakes gave them some protection from enemy cavalry. And in the matter of protection against enemy archers, they relied on their weapons. They were at a disadvantage when attacking enemy infantry. Crossbowmen took into battle huge shields equipped with supports. These shields formed the walls from behind which people could shoot.
By the end of the era, archers and spearmen acted together in mixed formations. The spears held the enemy hand-to-hand troops, while the rifle troops (crossbowmen or shooters from firearms) fired at the enemy. These mixed formations have learned to move and attack. The enemy cavalry was forced to retreat in the face of a disciplined mixed force of spearmen and crossbowmen or gunners. If the enemy could not strike back with their own arrows and spears, the battle was most likely lost.
Infantry tactics
The tactics of the infantry during the dark Middle Ages was simple - to approach the enemy and engage in battle. The Franks threw their axes just before approaching to cut the enemy. Warriors counted on victory through strength and ferocity.
The development of chivalry temporarily overshadowed the infantry on the battlefield, mainly because disciplined and well-trained infantry did not exist then. The foot soldiers of the armies of the early Middle Ages were mostly poorly armed and poorly trained peasants.
The Saxons and Vikings developed a defensive tactic called the shield wall. The warriors stood close to each other, moving long shields that formed a barrier. This helped them protect themselves from archers and cavalry, which were not in their armies.
The resurgence of the infantry took place in areas that did not have the resources to support heavy cavalry, in hilly countries like Scotland and Switzerland, and in growing cities. Out of necessity, these two sectors found ways to bring effective armies to the battlefield with little or no cavalry. Both groups found that horses would not attack a barrage of sharp stakes or spearheads. A disciplined troop of spearmen could stop the elite heavy cavalry units of wealthier nations and lords for a fraction of the cost of a heavy cavalry troop.
The battle formation of the shiltron, which was a circle of spearmen, began to be used by the Scots during the wars of independence at the end of the thirteenth century (reflected in the movie "Braveheart"). They realized that the shiltron was an effective defensive formation. Robert the Bruce suggested that the English knights fight only on swampy terrain, which made it very difficult for heavy cavalry to attack.
The Swiss spearmen were widely known. They essentially revived the Greek phalanxes and made great strides fighting with long polearms. They created a square of spearmen. The four outer ranks held their spears almost horizontally, tilted slightly downwards. This was an effective barrier against cavalry. The rear ranks used bladed poles to attack the enemy as they approached the formation. The Swiss were so well trained that their unit could move relatively quickly, thanks to which they were able to turn the defensive formation into an effective offensive battle formation.
The response to the appearance of the battle formations of the spearmen was artillery, which punched holes in the dense ranks of the troops. The Spaniards were the first to use it effectively. The Spanish shield-bearers armed with swords also successfully fought with the spearmen. They were light armored soldiers who could easily move among spears and fight effectively with short swords. Their shields were small and handy. At the end of the Middle Ages, the Spaniards were also the first to experiment, combining spearmen, swordsmen and firearms in one battle formation. It was an effective army that could use any weapon on any terrain for both defense and attack. At the end of this era, the Spaniards were the most efficient military force in Europe.
War is the normal state of the Middle Ages, but the weak development of the economy, and therefore the small number of heavily armed combatants (full knightly weapons were very expensive) led to the fact that the wars were protracted and boiled down for the most part to the destruction of enemy areas or to long sieges. Wars in general, as a rule, they did not give a solution to those controversial issues because of which they began, and military force served as only one of the arguments in the negotiations.
Big battles were very rare. During the wars of Charlemagne with the Saxons, which lasted more than 30 years (772-804), there were only two battles, his campaigns in Italy (773 and 774) and on the Duke of Tassilon of Bavaria (778) cost no battles at all .Major battles were considered as "God's judgment", and therefore the defeat was understood as a condemnation of the wrong and led to the end of the war. The lack of a developed communication technology led to the fact that troop movements were often chaotic, fronts in the modern sense did not exist, the space of military operations (detachments on a marching march, convoy, reconnaissance groups, gangs of marauders, more or less secretly accompanying the army, etc.) n.) covered a width of no more than 20 km. The commander was required to more or less successfully find a place for the battle and determine the time of its beginning. This was the end of his strategic and tactical possibilities. However, the desire to observe knightly honor, the desire to give the enemy equal opportunities with themselves had a lot of influence on the choice of time and place of the battle and its conditions. A fully armed knight does not have the right to retreat, having met with any number of enemies, therefore they went for reconnaissance without armor in order to be able to flee without damaging honor. It was considered very noble to agree with the enemy on the time and place of the battle, preferably on an open field, so that the conditions of the terrain would not give anyone an advantage, and only strength and courage would decide the outcome of the battle. The pretender to the Castilian throne, Henry (Enrique) of Trastamarsky, in 1367, in the fight against his rival, King Peter (Pedro,) the Cruel, deliberately sacrificed an advantageous position in the mountains, descended into the valley and lost the battle of Najere (Navaretta).
Conscious strategy and tactics did not exist in the Middle Ages. The writings on organization and tactics had little to do with reality. The authors either accurately retell Vegetius, or state something that has absolutely nothing to do with reality at all. In the “Treatise on War” compiled around 1260 by order of the King of Castile Alphonse X the Wise, without any irony, it is stated that the foot soldiers should have their legs tied before the battle so that they cannot flee from the battlefield; then they, however, will not be able to pursue the enemy, but this will only demonstrate contempt for him. The teacher of the King of France Philip IV the Handsome, a student of Thomas Aquinas, a prominent church leader Egidio Colonna, in his treatise “On the Principles of Government” addressed to his royal student (late 13th century), seriously describes the “round” and “triangular” construction of the legions. Typical for the Roman army construction in dense groups was revived again only in modern times. Barbarian detachments fought not in formation, but in gangs. The formation of a “wedge”, repeatedly mentioned in medieval sources, also called “boar's head”, “pig”, dates back to barbarian times and does not carry any tactical plan: the leader goes ahead of the detachment, a little behind him - close associates, then - the rest of the warriors. The appearance of heavy cavalry does not change the tactical principles in the least. The description of the wedge-shaped formation of knights riding so tightly that, as one poem said, "a glove thrown into the air could not fall to the ground" refers only to the marching formation.
Since the battle is "God's judgment" between 2 overlords, it was they who, ideally, should have fought in front of the formation, and the outcome of the duel decided the matter. In reality, fights, often proclaimed, almost never took place. Fights between warriors were not uncommon. Sometimes the battle itself was replaced by something like a tournament: in 1351, near the city of Ploermel in Brittany, French and English detachments converged and elected 30 people from their midst, whose fight, which took place according to tough tournament rules, was supposed to replace the battle; the battle was called the “Battle of the Thirty.” With the transition from knightly wars to state wars, the value of such a tradition is questioned, although it itself persisted until the beginning of the 17th century. If you believe the text of the 12th century, the last Anglo-Saxon king of England Harold on the eve of the battle of Hastings (1066) refused his opponent the Duke of Normandy Guillaume the Illegitimate (soon to become King of England William the Conqueror) in a decisive duel, saying that the fate of the country cannot be made dependent on the chances of a fight between 2 people. In ХУв. the French leader rejected the proposal of the English commander-in-chief to allocate 12 people from each army, so that their fight would solve the issue of supremacy, saying: “We have come to drive you out of here, and it’s enough for us.” Then the French commander Jean de Buey banned one of his subordinates to participate in a duel before the battle, adding that the combatant “desires to inflict damage on the enemy, namely, to take away his honor, in order to ascribe to himself empty glory, which costs little, but in fact neglects the service of the king and the public good (been public).
The battle began with an attack by heavily armed horsemen, during which the marching formation fell apart, turning into a disorderly chain of cavalry, galloping at a not very fast gait; the battle ended with the same attack. The rarely used reserve was used to send to the most dangerous battlefields, where the enemy pressed especially hard, and almost never - for a surprise attack from the flanks or, even more so, for an ambush, because all this was considered a military trick unworthy of a knight.
Controlling the battle was practically impossible. Knightly armor included a deaf helmet, a slot in which (or in its visor) gave a very small view, its design did not allow turning the head, so the knight saw only the one in front of him, and the battle turned into a series of fights. A deaf helmet made it impossible to hear commands, cavalry vaulting, i.e. the training of horses and riders to keep the formation during an attack arose only in modern times. In addition, it is more than difficult to manage a barbarian warrior, in a fighting ecstasy, or a knight fighting for personal glory. The only command that Roland gives in "The Song of Roland" is "Lord, barons, slow down!".
Each sought to be the first to fight the enemy, not paying attention to the fact that, exposing himself, as befits a knight, to increased danger, he weakened the chain of riders as far as it could exist. The right to start a battle was a privilege first attested in Germany in 1075, where was assigned to a certain family, and in the Holy Land during the era of the Crusades in 1119, under which the chronicler mentions a special detachment of St. Peter, who had such a right.
The knight's army is a collection of individuals, where everyone gave a personal oath of allegiance to the commander, and not a structure welded together by discipline. The goal of the knight is an individual fight for the sake of honor and glory and for ransom, and not the victory of his army. The knight fights without looking back at his comrades and commander. At the battle of Poitiers (1356), two French commanders argued about the right to start a battle and rushed to the attack without waiting for the royal order, without agreement with others and interfering with each other. The British counter-attack led to their retreat, and they faced the continuing advance of their troops, which caused confusion and panic, which turned into a swift flight, including those who did not even join the battle. Sometimes the victors were so carried away by robbing the enemy convoy that they let the enemy leave or regroup and attack again, often successfully. Attempts to impose at least some kind of discipline were unproductive and consisted only of punishments for individual violations. During the First crusade its leaders ordered to cut off the noses and ears of those who would engage in robbery until the end of the battle; before the mentioned battle of Buvin, Philip Augustus ordered to erect gallows for those who would grab prey from the enemy convoy before the end of the battle. Even in the spiritual and chivalric orders, whose members should were to follow monastic discipline, one of the few military prohibitions was the prohibition at the beginning of the battle to let the horses gallop without an order.
The battle ended with a flight, which marked the defeat of the enemy; long pursuit was very rare, and the symbol of victory was spending the night at the battlefield. As a rule, there were few killed. Heavy weapons protected the knight well, and the purpose of the fight was, as noted, to capture the enemy, and not to kill him. Only two knights died in the Battle of Buvin, but either 130 or 300 noble prisoners were captured.
In the bloody battle of Crecy (1346), about 2000 knights and about 30 thousand infantry fell from the side of the French who lost this battle. However, the latest figures should not be unconditionally trusted, because the authors were prone to exaggeration. One of the chroniclers claimed that the British put up 1 million 200 thousand people in the battle of Hastings (in reality, this is slightly less than the population of England at that time), another stated that in the Battle of Grunwald (1410) the combined Polish-Lithuanian army numbered 5 million 100 thousand people, and only 630 thousand fell in this battle on both sides. In fact, medieval armies were very small because there was a small number knightly fiefs due to the low productivity of agriculture. About 5 thousand people participated in the battle of Hastings from the Norman side, including about 2 thousand knights, Harold's army was smaller. In the Battle of Buvin, the French had about 1300 knights, the same number of lightly armed horsemen and 4-6 thousand infantrymen on the side of the French. In the battle of Crecy, the British had 4 thousand knights, 10 thousand archers AND 18 thousand infantrymen, the French had about 10 thousand knights, but the infantry is most likely smaller than the British, and therefore the above figures of French losses look doubtful.
The descriptions of the battles spoke most of the knights, although, as can be seen from the calculations, other combatants participated in them. However, until the end of the Middle Ages, it was the heavily armed horsemen that formed the basis of the army, it was they who determined the nature of the battle, and only the knighthood was considered a "fighting" estate (bellatores). Among the fighters were also lightly armed horsemen of ignoble origin, servants of knights or ignoble fetters (in France they were called sergeants). It was believed that war was an occupation of exclusively noble people, therefore the opportunity to engage in battle with a commoner was rejected with contempt. When the fief sergeants of the abbey of Saint-Denis began the Battle of Bouvines, their opponents - the Flemish knights - considered this an insult and mercilessly killed horses and riders. Heavy weapons, as noted, were expensive, so fighting non-knights, who did not have sufficient income, were easily vulnerable in battle. Their main weapon was a weapon that struck from afar - a bow and (from the 12th century) a crossbow. The use of such weapons was contrary to the traditions of martial arts and was not used by knights. In 1139, the bow and crossbow were generally banned by the Church in battles between Christians - another example of the combination of Christian and knightly ethics. However, by the end of the 13th c. this weapon became widely used, especially by the British, who initially used it in the wars in Wales and Scotland, where the hilly or mountainous terrain did not leave room for large horse battles. The dispute between the combat qualities of the bow and crossbow went on throughout the Middle Ages (bow was faster, the crossbow was long-range) and did not come to a resolution. In any case, in the battles of Crecy and Agincourt (1415), the English archers proved their superiority over the French crossbowmen, and it was the powerful flow of English arrows that made the attacks of the French knights choke in both battles and made it possible for the British to successfully counterattack.
The archers fought on foot, their horses were a vehicle. Horse archers, borrowed from the East in the era Crusades, in Europe did not take root. Infantrymen, i.e. foot soldiers armed with non-small weapons made up the bulk of the army until the advent of heavy cavalry in the 8th century.
The foot soldiers were the servants of the knights, they helped them get on the horse if they were knocked down to the ground, they guarded the camp and the convoy. One of the forms of participation of the infantry was that the infantrymen pulled the knights off the horses with pointed hooks and killed or captured them. For the first time, this was recorded in 1126 in Palestine, but soon appeared in Europe. The chronicler who tells about the battle of Buvin, a witness to this battle, considers the weapon used in this - the hook - as "unworthy" and says that it can only be used by supporters of evil , adherents of the devil, for it violates the hierarchy and allows the commoner to drop - down! - a noble horseman. The main function of foot soldiers was to create bristling with spears, tightly closed, from the ranks of a relatively wide formation, sometimes in the form of a square, behind which or inside which the retreating knights could hide from prosecution. In the battle of Legnano in 1176 between the army of the emperor Frederick I Barbarossa, on the one hand, and the Italian knights and the militia of the northern Italian cities, on the other, the Milanese infantrymen, after the flight of their riders, held the attack of the German knights until the fugitives regrouped, again attacked the German knights and defeated them. Until the XIV century. yet the infantry performed only defensive functions.
On June 11, 1302, the first battle in the Middle Ages took place, where the main role was played by the attacking infantry. The foot militia of the Flemish cities - 13 thousand people won the battle of Courtrai against 5-7 thousand French knights, swiftly attacking them when they crossed the stream and climbed onto the clay bank - i.e. in violation of all the rules of knightly combat. However, the Flemings' two-time attempt to repeat such a success - in 1328 at Kassel and in 1382 at Roosebek - was unsuccessful, and the knights defeated the foot soldiers. The spread of infantry in the XIV-XV centuries. is explained by the above-mentioned transition from knightly wars to national-state wars. The centralized state needed significant military establishment, not overly expensive and more or less manageable. The infantry demanded less expense than the cavalry, the common people were more accustomed to submission than the nobles, less obsessed with the thirst for glory. The foot army could huddle in tight ranks, it was easier to control the mass of people in it, and this gave an advantage over better armed, but uncontrollable cavalry, Knightly combat (not tournament) weapons were, contrary to popular belief, not so heavy (12-16 kg; for comparison: the full calculation of a fighter of modern special forces - 24 kg), so that it was impossible to fight on foot. For the first time the knights fought dismounted in the battle of the English with the Scots at Northallerton in 1.138; the English knights repulsed the attack of their northern neighbors, but did not go on the counteroffensive. At the battle of Crécy, the English king Edward III forced his knights to dismount and distributed them among the archers. This measure had not so much tactical as psychological significance. The infantrymen were afraid to let the enemy cavalry close to them, because, having collided with it, they could neither defend nor run; the defeated knights relied on the speed of their horses, that is, the noble ones left commoners to their fate. By placing the knights between the footmen, Edward III strengthened the moral factor: it was believed that a sense of honor would not allow the knights to escape and they would help the foot soldiers to the end; the nobles supported the courage of the common people, sharing with them all the dangers. Thus, the English king for the first time demonstrated the unity of the army, not divided into privileged and unprivileged, but united by the single task of victory and the single will of the monarch.
The army consisted of detachments brought by the direct vassals of the monarch - such an army was called a "ban"; in exceptional cases, an arrier ban was convened, including vassals (arrier vassals). In some places, especially in England, the principle of general militia was preserved, by virtue of which every free man, however ignoble, was required, in accordance with his income, to have certain weapons and to go to war at the call of the king. But in reality, such a militia was practically not used, and participation in it was replaced by contributions to the treasury. From the 8th c. the basis of the army was vassals, but already at the end of the 11th - beginning of the 12th century. mercenaries appear. In accordance with the vassal agreement, the liens were supposed to serve the overlord on campaigns only a certain number of days a year, and if the 80 time of hostilities expired, then the overlord had to support the vassal and pay for his military services. Here the germ of mercenarism was already concluded, although the fighting vassal , unlike the later mercenary, bound by a contract, he might not have agreed to such an extension of service. In the 12th century, mercenary units formed by their commanders appeared. Creation military force, directly subordinate to the sovereign, caused dissatisfaction with influential social groups, and, for example, the English Magna Carta (1215) prohibited mercenarism, but in general such opposition was unsuccessful. Early (XII-XIII centuries) mercenarism was not considered shameful if the mercenary was a person of noble birth. It was quite within the norms of knightly honor, moreover, it was considered quite honorable such a situation in which a poor knight, in search of glory and food, entered the service of a large seigneur. where the reward is clearly specified. The trade of a mercenary becomes condemned only in the late Middle Ages, when the number of ignoble among the mercenaries increases, when in general the border between the noble and the ignoble in the troops is erased. People who lived exclusively in war were condemned, because it was believed that their morals were very different from truly knightly ones. The Battle of the Thirty was a clash of mercenary detachments, but it was carried out according to all knightly rules (the leaders of the detachments said that they would fight in the name of glory). The best warrior of the losing English side (selecting the most valiant separately among the winners and the vanquished was typical for tournaments) was declared the commoner Crokar ( this, perhaps, is not even a name, but a nickname), a former domestic servant, and the king of France offered him the nobility and a noble bride if he left the service of England.
The spread of mercenaries in the late Middle Ages is explained by their independence from the feudal structure. As for non-knightly morals, this is generally characteristic of the transition from knightly wars to national state wars, from feudal civil strife to civil conflicts, for a period of changing values and priorities. However, only a professional regular army could become a reliable military support of the monarchs, which did not provide for an agreement of equals, like a vassal union, or a mercenary contract (in Italy, mercenaries were called condottieri, from it. condotta “agreement”) and submission to the commander was assumed by the very fact of receipt to the service. For the first time, such an army arose in France after, in 1439, the General States established a permanent tax intended for the maintenance of such an army. This TROOP, created in 1445, was a heavily armed cavalry, mainly from the nobility, but it was no longer a knightly army. The soldiers of this army were called "gendarmes" (French homme d "armes - "armed man", plural gens d armes - "armed people"). Ban and arrier-ban were not formally canceled, but they lost all meaning. In In 1448, Dauphin Louis first tried to organize in his inheritance something like a recruiting system, and after becoming King Louis XI of France in 1461, he extended this principle to the whole country. At first, their obligatory weapons were bows and arrows, then it became more diverse - pikes, halberds, firearms. Recruits retained the name "free arrows" due to their original weapons and due to the fact that the state exempted their families from paying taxes. Thus, it was not possible to create them, and in 1480 the king dismissed them.
In modern times, the modern division of the army into formations, units and subunits was also carried out - detachments of soldiers, led by officers, equal in number, and into branches of service. In the Middle Ages, the branches of the armed forces - horsemen, arrows - turned out to be such not organizationally, but according to the functional principle of division during the campaign. among mercenaries. The composition of these initial "spears" is unknown, but it can be assumed that it did not differ much from the composition of the later "copies" created in the standing troops. The French "gendarmes" were divided into companies, or "companies", of approximately 60 people each, and those into 10 "spears" of 6 people each. The "spear" included: 1 heavily armed horseman, 1 lightly armed, 3 riflemen equipped with transport horses, page .sometimes, instead of one of the shooters, a servant. In 1471, the Duke of Burgundy Charles the Bold, like his overlord and main opponent, King Louis XI of France, but less successfully than that, attempted to create a permanent army. It was very small, only 1000 people, divided the axis into 4 "squadrons", "squadron" into 4 "chambers", "chamber" into 6 "copies" of 10 people; in addition, each “squadron” had one additional “spear” of its commander. The “spear” included: 1 heavily armed horseman, 1 lightly armed, page, servant, 3 archers, crossbowman, arquebusier and pikeman. It should be noted, however, that "spear" was not military unit in the modern sense, and the heavily armed horseman was not his commander, like a modern officer. Nomme d arme is the main fighter, and the remaining members of the "spear" are auxiliary.
Separate parts in the late Middle Ages were only gun servants. Until the New Age, the importance of artillery was not too great. The first mention of the use of cannons dates back to the beginning of the 14th century: cannons served as siege weapons during the siege of Gibraltar by the Castilians in 1308.
There is evidence that at the battle of Crécy the British used 6 cannons for a volley, which caused panic among the French. If this is true, then the impact was purely psychological, nothing is reported about the dead. it became widespread, however, despite its relative range - 230-250 steps versus 110-135 for a crossbow, it was used mainly by the besieged in the defense of fortresses, because this weapon was inferior to the crossbow in rate of fire and ease of handling.
The effect of the use of firearms was not so much tactical or strategic as socio-cultural: as already noted, in order to hit the enemy, neither courage, nor strength, nor nobility was required, but only certain professional skills. Losses from the use of artillery were small: in Orleans, besieged for more than six months, in 1428-1429. there were no more than 50 people killed and wounded by cannonballs out of 5-6 thousand, the garrison and about 30 thousand of the population of the city. The situation changed only at the turn of the 15-16 centuries. with the advent of field artillery. As for handguns, they completely replaced the cold ones - the pike, the bayonet. sword, saber - only in the twentieth century.
D.E.Kharitonovich "War in the Middle Ages" // MAN AND WAR: War as a phenomenon of culture