[Philip Dyer]

So I got into the dicussion with guy that insists that knights were undisciplined and were incapable o doing complex manuevers on horseback prior to the 14th century and that disciplined infranty cavalry formations were a huge expections to a rule and that most medieval battles quickly devovled into small group fights or individual duels. His quote was this. "He nature of medieval battles which often were broken down to series of duels or small groupfights where individual skill mattered the most" As a refutations, I brought up battles listed in this article http://deremilitari.org/2013/06/the-myths-of-medieval-warfare/ Anyone else know more of the top of your head of pre 14th century battles in which western European employed manuever comparable to early modern armies?

[Pieter B.]

Hastings
Most of what Charlemagne did
Dyrrhachium

Perhaps it might help if you send this person a copy of Verbruggen and the standing orders of the Knights Templars.


How did you end up discussing with him anyways?

[Philip Dyer]

[Pedro Paulo Gaião]

Knights were so undisciplined and incapable that, from the Komnenoi Restoration until the very end of Roman Empire, the Byzantines employed various contingents of mercenaries knights and even introduced them as regular troops of knights (Latinikoi) paid in gold or Pronoia. Ana Komnene, princess of Byzantium and daughter of Alexius Komnene (father of Komnenoi Restoration) said, in her military book:
"A mounted Kelt [an archaism for a Norman or Frank] is irresistible; he would bore his way through the walls of Babylon."


Couched Lance, Shield that could be employed on horseback, Saddles, Spurs, Western Lances and so on were the revolution of heavy cavalry that buried Viking Infantry and turn ultra-heavy Cataphracts and Light Arab Horsemen out of favor ...

[Pieter B.]

[Philip Dyer]

[Lafayette C Curtis]

Then perhaps you need to reexamine your motivations. Are you trying to get answers to really learn more about warfare in medieval Europe, or just to win an argument on the Internet? If the former, I suggest that you stop participating in the Youtube comment thread and start reading books like J.F. Verbruggen's The Art of War in Western Europe During the Middle Ages and R.C. Smail's Crusading Warfare. And digging into the De Re Militari site ( http://deremilitari.org/ ).

Mind, too, that medieval European warfare covered an entire continent (plus, arguably, parts of Western Asia and North Africa) and several hundred years. It's really hard to make any useful broad generalisations about it. Sure, many medieval men-at-arms were highly professional and disciplined (look at German mercenaries in 14th-century Italy). But there were also many others who marched and fought "in such evil order that they did trouble one another" (to borrow the words of an English translation of Froissart's acount of Crecy). And some were just plain rubbish. And then the ones who had excellent discipline in battle could be horribly undisciplined in the camp and on the march, especially in their treatment of civilians. It's a big and complicated subject -- and that's just exactly what it should be.