Hey guys!

I was wondering if there are any sources detailing what a medieval armys camp would have looked like? Specifically what the layout would have been, would there be any defences thrown up and would they keep the same set up each night?

I'm referring to regular camps an army might make while going from point A to point B, not a siege camp.

I know of the wolfegg hausbuch and its depiction of the wagon circle and of machiavelli's proposed camp set up, copying the romans, from the art of war.

I guess I'm looking for stuff from earlier. Maybe hundred years war era, but any info you guys can give is appreciated!

Thanks! :)

The Unconquered Knight by Gutierre Diaz de Gamez is worth reading. It doesn't tell us how a military camp was laid out but it tells us what it was like to live in one. They weren't very pleasant.

This is the camp of a late 15th Century army, probably an urban militia force

https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hausbuch_(Schloss_Wolfegg)

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Higher resolution

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/c7/Hausbuch_Wolfegg_53r_53r1_Heerlager.jpg

Plenty more in the various Kriegsbuch and many different types of period artwork

Thanks for the replies, guys!

I'll have to check out that book...

Vegetius' "De Re Militari" remained pretty widely read and influential during the middle ages so the idea of a fortified encampment wasn't exactly new. The main difference you start to see with machiavelli and later authors tends to be more angular designs, pronounced bastions, and more complex trenchworks inspired by the developing trace italienne designs.

You might also try looking through some of the Swiss Illustrated chronicles.

Are there any extant examples of this type of wheeled wall? Are they stylized mantlets or moreso "war wagons"?
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I'm not sure what you mean by extant, a wagon fort still standing with all the wagons in a circle? One of the wagons still intact? The answer in the first case would be no, in the second case 'probably not' though I'm not sure, there might be one somewhere. They were still using war-wagons in the East as late as the 17th Century.

There are many replicas in museums, some of them may possibly include some parts from the originals I don't know

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War wagons and gun-wagons were a steady part of medieval and Early Modern warfare which have been kind of hiding in plain sight, (along with guns more generally for the medieval context) and it's something a lot of folks miss. This is a brief overview:

The seeming invulnerability of the Czech armies in the original Hussite Wars in the 1420's-1430's (and then again later in the 1470's-1480's) led to their wide use as mercenaries both in Central Europe and further East, and the rapid emulation of their tactics and weapon systems, most importantly the firearm and light field gun, but also the war wagon.

What you see in that image was a common type of wagon laager used especially by urban militia in German speaking areas mainly in the second and third quarter of the 15th Century. The Czechs had kind of pioneered the use of cannons and firearms with such wagons in the Hussite Wars but the concept was already documented in books such as the (Czech) Bellifortis from ~ 1405 and in some other MSs as old as the 1390's. I suspect it goes a generation or two before that but the surge in popularity coincided with the Hussite Wars. Wagon laagers - sometimes known in late medieval context as 'Tabors' after the Czech term, go back all the way to Adrianople (5th Century BC) and before. The form in the Wolfegg image is typical - you'll notice the armed wagons form an outer circle while the lighter (wicker) supply wagons form the inner circle.

This is an image from the Wolfegg housebook of the same army on the march. Again you'll notice the armed wagons are on the outside of the column with the lighter supply wagons on the inside, per doctrine of the times.

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German war-wagons could be just basically mantlets with one gun. Some Russian ones were just mantlets without a gun, (with the gun wagons separate). Those ones in the wolfegg image I posted were of the mantlet with doors that could be opened or closed concealing a single medium caliber pintle-mounted gun - probably a breach loading gun. There are also two handgun or crossbow ports on each wagon.

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If you look closely in the map image I linked earlier, (I recommend using the high res image I linked in a url) you'll see one of them is in the open position. You'll also notice other interesting details like dead horses outside the camp, people gambling (and in one case about to murder one another), prisoners being brought in, beggars with children at the gate, and so on.

You also saw the Swiss using very similar type of war wagons as you see depicted here in the 1478 chronicle from Diebold Schilling

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I should add though, these should not be confused with siege mantlets even though they also sometimes had wheels even guns mounted on them and look kind of similar. The difference is war wagons and gun wagons were for the open battlefield and could be used on the march, whereas siege mantlets were usually made on-site and used only during sieges.

Gun wagons and war wagons came in many variations though. This is another from the von Wolfegg housebook

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It was a common tactic to have them pushed from behind like that. You see it in many war-books from the era.

Gun wagons of various types were eclipsed in Western and most of Central Europe by around 1500 but remained popular in Eastern Europe due to their effectiveness against horse archers and Western cavalry alike. This Polish film fairly accurately depicts cossacks using Czech style tactics with light war wagons in the 17th Century (starting at about 04:40). Note the medium caliber pintle-mounted cannon mounted on the wagons.

https://youtu.be/c74uh5XoI2Q?t=286




The use of gun wagons continued in use in that part of the world all the way into the 1920's when the Ukranians reinvented them with maxim machine guns.

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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tachanka



Hope that helps,

Jean

Some images I have never seen before:

Meister WA (östliche Niederlande, tätig 1465 - 1490) , Das Waffenzelt mit dem Burgundischen Wappen

http://sammlungenonline.albertina.at/?query=I...ype=record


Meister WA (östliche Niederlande, tätig 1465 - 1490), Der Pferdestall,
Kriegs- und Lagerszenen aus den Burgunderkriegen

http://sammlungenonline.albertina.at/?query=I...ype=record


Israhel van Meckenem (um 1440/1445 - 1503 Bocholt), Judith mit dem Haupt des Holofernes

http://sammlungenonline.albertina.at/?query=I...ype=record

http://www.tforum.info/forum//index.php?showtopic=23679