[Lafayette C Curtis]

[Lafayette C Curtis]

[Timo Nieminen]

[William P]

[Lafayette C Curtis]

[Jean Henri Chandler]

I think the OP is actually somewhat correct, though it would be hard to prove - you'd have to make a whole long series of youtube videos, not that it might not be a worth-while thing to do if you had the time and the patience.

There are a couple of differences between warfare warfare, very generally, in the Medieval period, and in the early modern period.

But before I get into that it's important to make two points.

First it's very dangerous to generalize according to European history. The reality in Spain was different from the reality in England which was different from the reality in Poland and so on.

Second it's dangerous to generalize across such vast time scales, people debate the meaning of the term Medieval, some would take that back all the way to the 6th or 7th Century, others would start after Charlemagne, or the Battle of Hastings, or somewhere else more or less arbitrarily. I've noticed from talking to people in various countries each education system seems to have a different arbitrary cut-off point. Though you narrowed it down a bit, it's still a rather long period of time.

So with those two strong caveats, very generally speaking you do see some changes between these time periods. In the Medieval period, you have many more and much smaller and weaker states. The Kingdoms are unstable and incapable of fully controlling their territory, especially any major vassals or cities which were fortified. Defensive warfare was still dominant. Armies tended to be 'skilled labor' in the sense that they were mostly professional or semi-professional warriors. This was not by any means limited to knights, incidentally.

Because there were fewer very large States, there were fewer really large-scale invasions. War tended to be on a smaller scale, for the most part (though there were many exceptions to this, such as the various Crusades). This didn't mean it was all raiding or that the peasants suffered excessively compared to the Early Modern period. That depended greatly on the nature of the war, and on the terrain, and on the peasants. The war varied in what rules it had, and yes they did have rules, sometimes quite complex and strict ones. The terrain varied from accessible to inaccessible. War in the mountains, deep forests, forested hills and swamps was different from war in the open rolling open hills, large cultivated valleys or plains. And the peasants varied, most were pretty easy to prey upon, others, such as the Swiss, or the Dithmarshers in Saxony, or the Bohemians or Dalarna Swedes, or the Ukranian Cossacks, were dangerous to mess with.

There is a myth that only knights were ever ransomed or paroled, but this wasn't true. Anyone with money could be ransomed and quite often were. Quite often large numbers of ordinary soldiers, militia and mercenaries who didn't have money were pardoned or paroled. In other cases they may be sold into slavery. I can cite some examples from the Baltic region. As an example of the former case, after the Battle of Grunwald / Tannenburg in 1410, King Jogaila of Poland paroled 14,000 German, Czech, Scottish and Danish troops on the Teutonic Order's side of the battle, most of whom went home without paying a dime in ransom, under the condition that they would report later to Krakow and swear an oath not to attack the Poles. As an example of the latter, during the Northern Crusades 6,000 Samogitians were captured at the battle of Medewage in 1329. At the insistence of King John of Bohemia, who was on the Crusade with the Teutonic Knights, these people were spared and many of them were made into serfs.


Crusades, of which a large number were conducted within Europe (by Europeans against Europeans), tended to be much more vicious and cruel. Most of the wholesale city massacres that I know off which took place during the Medieval era were done during Crusades, such as Beziers during the Albigensian Crusade. Where as later during the Early Modern period sometimes troops just got out of hand and decided to 'kill' a city out of pent up frustration, such as when Spanish and German troops sacked Rome in 1527, killing most of the population. Or Magdeburg during the 30 Years War.

But on the flip-side, with smaller local conflicts, over time sometimes the violence became more controlled and limited. This wasn't always the case mind you - local conflicts could be very nasty. But just as we know that in the EM period Italian Condottieri companies could sometimes, among each other, reach an understanding not to make the fight 'too bloody' (though this type of rule did not typically extend to foreign invaders like the Spanish or French), this also happened between neighbors in the Medieval period. One specific reason for this which emerged in the second half of the 14th Century was plague. "Scorched earth" tactics led directly to famine, and famine, apparently, led to plague, or at any rate there was a perceived link in the Medieval mind. So for example during the Hunger War in 1414, in the aftermath of Grunwald, both the Poles and the Teutonic Knights engaged in scorched earth tactics. This led to six years of plague cost the Teutonic Knights 86 of their Ritterbruden, compared to a loss of 400 at Grunwald. Unacceptable situation for them. It led to the ouster of a Grand Master, and a truce with Poland which among other things, stipulated rules for warfare which continued between them intermittently throughout the 15th Century.

Local truces also happened frequently during temporary or permanent interregnums. Many Royal or Princely families in Central Europe simply died out, such as the Piast dynasty in Poland and the Přemyslid dynasty in Bohemia, or the Zähringen family in Switzerland. For that matter, much of the Holy Roman Empire and the rest of Central, Northern, and Southern Europe could be thought of as a 'failed state' at one time or another. When this happened, each estate within the area immediately sought to improve their station, reduce their obligations and increase their rights, often at the expense of each other. Because defense was generally stronger than offense, especially defense of fortified towns or castles, or occupation off difficult terrain such as mountains, forests and swamps... a stalemate was often reached between the most powerful estates. This could either lead to a permanent or long-lasting state of petty war and raiding, such as you sometimes saw on the border between Scotland and England, between English controlled and French controlled zones during the 100 year war, or on the European borders with the Turks and Tartars, or between the Teutonic Knights and the pagan Lithuanians and so on. But generally speaking this kind of thing was bad for business. Unless there were mighty princely powers keeping the war going, or there was an insurmountable religious / cultural / affinity network barrier, it often made more sense economically to make a permanent truce between the powers. After 1348 -1350 the added impetus of fear of plague also lent strength to the latter course. These permanent truces were called Landfrieden by the Germans or Landfryd by the Poles and the Czechs. They were councils between the powerful estates in a given region, the princes, the free cities, the untamed clans, the prelates (Bishops, Archbishops, Abbots and so on). There were very big ones like the diet (Reichstag) of the Holy Roman Empire, and dozens, or hundreds of smaller ones, like the Swiss Confederacy or the Lusatian League.

In German law there were two kinds of war, Fehde, and Krieg. Fehde is 'private war', ostensibly between equals. Under the landfrieden there were rules about private war. You were not supposed to attack people on the Royal or Imperial roads, you were not supposed to harm women or children, merchants, hunters, farmers or fishermen plying their trade, you were not supposed to destroy mills or bridges, and so on. Violating these rules put all hands against you, and 'justices of the peace of the roads' were empowered to hang offenders.

Even in areas without strong landfrieden, sometimes simple economics dictated a decrease in violence. A robber knight could either slaughter and kidnap a merchant caravan passing below his keep, gaining treasure once and then growing bored as the caravans found another route... or he could 'tax' the caravan with a fee, low enough to allow them to keep coming by, but guaranteeing a constant source of income.


In the Early modern period, gunpowder (corned powder mid-15th C) had become more reliable and manageable (you didn't have to mix it in the field). Pike tactics had been refined to the point that rather poorly trained troops could still be useful. Mercenaries no longer had to be well trained urban militia or dangerous clansmen, but could be trained fairly quickly. Armies got a lot bigger. Meanwhile the discoveries of the New World and the spice trade from the Pacific vastly enriched all the Atlantic powers, initially Portugal, Spain, France, and England, (and later Holland as well...) the fist four were all strong centralized monarchies. The ruling families of these nations prosecuted huge wars to gain control of the wealthy but still independent towns of Italy and the Low Countries. The scale of war got bigger thanks to Inca silver and Indonesian nutmeg. At the same time, new diseases hit Europe as well as the New World (Syphilis and Typhus arrived in the Early modern period) and the vast religious schism of the Reformation and Counter-Reformation started a whole new series of Crusades by Europeans against Europeans. War became nastier.

I think you could make a case that the 15th Century was, very generally speaking at least in the center of Europe, more prosperous, more free and less violent than the 17th. But it would take a lot of youtube videos! :P

J

[Timo Nieminen]

[Jean Henri Chandler]

It's worth noting that mercenary armies went back much further than the EM period. Most of the larger wars in the 14th and 15th Centuries in Central and Southern Europe involved mercenaries.

Castles and fortifications could be defeated by a well equipped Medieval army. The famous and intimidating Krak des Chevaliers



..was 'kracked' by Baibers in 1271 after only a 36 day siege, by tunneling. This was the normal way castles were taken, but it required having trained experts (sappers) and equipment.

Castles built on very hard rock could be more or less immune to this type of attack, but more commonly, any fortified position surrounded by a large natural water source was beyond the abilities of sappers engineering in that time, so you had to do it the hard way- over the walls. Not coincidentally, most of the major towns were positioned on rivers. This is why so many of them proved so difficult to capture through the Middle Ages - and into the EM period, like Strasburg here with the star-fort type fortications.



Cannons made some castles and towns suddenly vulnerable, but many others were not. Towns in particular were able to buy a lot of cannons quickly and had the expertise to make them and the best available powder. By 1380 many cities had heavy ordinance at their disposal, and they spent a fortune getting 'gunpowder ready'. In 1379 Cologne spent 82% of their budget on defense, mostly cannon, and Rostock spent between 76 and 80% in 1437.

Some forts which never got the star-fortification redesign treatment remained virtually invulnerable, mostly based on their canon and their un-excavatable substrate. The Teutonic Orders castle at Malbork endured numerous sieges, sometimes for years on end, and I don't think it was ever stormed (though it changed hands many times).



Many of these sites remained invulnerable for centuries after the advent of corned powder and cast cannon barrels. I think we tend to oversimplify the transformation from 'feudal levies' to cannon and gun warfare. It was far more complex than that.


J

[Daniel Staberg]

Jean,
Malbork/Marienburg is a poor example as it never resisted a "modern" attack in it's original medieval shape, indeed it faced little or no hostile action for 160 years after being taken over by the Poles in 1466.

In the summer of 1626 Gustavus Adolphus arrived with a small Swedish army which stormed the castle in a matter of hours. The neglected state of the obsolete defences and the small garrison made it indefensible even against an modern infantry assault conducted without artillery support. The Swedes reinforced the defences by adding massive earthworks in the Dutch style around the town & castle, without them it would have been impossible to hold the castle against any attacker with modern artillery.

in 1656 the Swedes were back as part of the "Swedish Deluge" of Poland 1655-1660, this time the castle had a proper garrison as well as a resolut commander in the shape of Jakub Weyher. Yet he could do little to prevent the Swedes from taking the town and establish batteries close to the castle, within days two gates had been shattered by the Swedish artillery and it was impossible for the defenders to keep the flanking towers manned due to the hail of round shot crashing through the walls. Mortar fire ravaged the interior of the castle and it was soon clear to Weyher than his only hope was for a relife force to break the Swedish siege. 21 days after the arrival of the Swedes Weyher surrendered on terms, the castle could have been take faster but the Swedish commander had been under orders not to waste his infantry in assaults. Again the Swedes construced massive modern earthworks around the town & castle and it was these which allowed the Swedes to hold out in Marienburg until the war ended in 1660

[William P]

jean, thats a really good pair of posts, to say how complex the period REALLY was how much variaion there was,

of course im gonna limit my video number for the sake of simplicity
as mentioned m mosly going o a first talk about how warfare in terms of bttlefield tactics and weaponry + fortress design changed, plus abit saying how the wars didnt really stop, etc,
its only gonna be a couple of videos ive got one made already talking about the term 'the dark ages' saying where the erm came from, and how the medieval period was compaed to how people think it was, particularly in the areas of

interesting you mention incan silver though'
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rjhIzemLdos&feature=g-all-u

[Jean Henri Chandler]

[Timo Nieminen]

[Jean Henri Chandler]

Whereas the Medieval period tends to be some what vague in it's beginning, I always thought that there was a consensus that the Early Modern period is designated as starting in 1500 or 1520...?

The 1410 siege may not have been the best equipped compared to the size of the army, but they certainly had cannon... and it was a big army. And the Teutonic Order had a very small garrison left at that point. The series of sieges during the 13 Years War in 1454-66 were much better equipped with more modern cannon (and firearms) including the use of corned powder and lead shot.

[Daniel Staberg]

[Jean Henri Chandler]

Daniel I'm not sure where you are getting your information, but it doesn't match my sources.

[Timo Nieminen]

[Jean Henri Chandler]

[T. Arndt]

This. A far cry from nobles capturing and ransoming eachother...

From Alatriste:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_d...1qHd4-xmlQ



Not to say medieval warfare wasn't brutal and bloody, but my gut reaction is this kind of warfare takes it to the next level. One step closer to the trenches of WWI.

[Robert Rytel]

When I was reading about Sir John Hawkwood and The White Company, I recall reading about pike warfare of that specific period in Italy being little more than crowded shoving matches with less casualties than in previous eras thanks to the tactics employed and the proliferation of decent armor even for lowly soldiers.

[Jean Henri Chandler]

I think what both of you said was true, simultaneously, at different specific times and places throughout the period.

Armor was probably most ubiquitous from roughly 1380-1520, so I don't know whether that qualifies as Medieval.

Hawkwood was involved in some nasty incidents himself...

J