[Pieter B.]

Hey there folks,

the period of 1450-1500 is one of my favorite parts of the medieval period because of the armor types seen then and the early standing armies that emerged. What puzzles me is the army composition of this period and the way in which it was used.

The main armies of this period of which I know were:
The Black army of Hungary
The army of Burgundy
The French army
The English army of the war of the roses.

Having read parts of the memoirs of Phillip de Commines in which the war of the public weal and subsequent events are described, it reads as if the French and Burgundian armies in those periods were made up solely out of Man-at-arms and (franc)archers and the artillery train. Battles are described as if dismounted man-at-arms advance together with archers with cavalry on the flanks doing nothing.

To my best knowledge the English armies during the war of the roses also consisted of archers and man-at-arms with archers (and billmen?) who fought on food.

Did man-at-arms in the period of 1450-1500 fight on foot out of tactical considerations or did I misinterpret things a little? If they did fight on foot for tactical reasons was it that the archers rendered their horses vulnerable or did they simply encounter terrain that wasn't conductive to cavalry?

The Black army of Hungary seems to be the opposite of Western European armies of the same period. Sadly I do not have many primary sources or books to rely on, but it seems the vast majority of the army was mounted and that man-at-arms were the primary striking arm of the army. Did those man-at-arms also fight on foot or were they employed in the more traditional role of cavalry?

PS, I left the Spanish, Italian and German armies out of this question since I do not know a thing about those.

[Lafayette C Curtis]

[Kyle Glover]

Keep in mind though that Bosworth is unique amongst Wars of the Roses battles because it features a cavalry on cavalry charge.

[Pieter B.]

[Pieter B.]

[Lafayette C Curtis]

[Pieter B.]

[Lafayette C Curtis]

[Pieter B.]

I also wonder how the "light" cavalry we see in the 15th century works into this. I've started reading Froissart recently and came across the description of 500 man-at-arms traveling 7 leagues from the main army to loot and burn the countryside and the occasional town. Now since we aren't the audience Froissart wrote for this leaves me with some questions. Were these 500 otherwise unsupported cavalrymen in armor or were they at all times attended by a mounted page/groom who did the actual dirty work?

No mention of any Skirmish is made but did the villagers or towns people put up any kind of resistance? And lastly, why didn't this kind of work get delegated to lightly armored/armed cavalry such as archers or coutilliers (who are of course only mentioned in the later 15th century)?

[Lafayette C Curtis]

[Pieter B.]

Oh how much history would have benefited from a single "modern" historian writing and giving detailed descriptions back then.

[Jean Henri Chandler]

You definitely can't generalize about late- Medieval armies (for example about what a 'lance' actually meant in practice) because they were all different and different regions of Europe warfare was conducted in different ways. A 'lance' in the army of the Teutonic Knights and a Lance in the Burgundian army or the army of Venice are all different.

Most medieval armies were called up at time of need and grew (and shrunk) rapidly by hiring mercenaries as well as call-up of militias and feudal levies. But there were a few standing armies which kept a substantial nucleus of troops, including the ones you mentioned.

The Black army of Hungary
The army of Burgundy
The French army
The English army of the war of the roses.

In addition to those, you can add

The Teutonic Order
The Livonian Order
The Republic of Venice
The Republic of Genoa
The Kingdom of Castile (later Spain)
The Byzantine Empire
The Kingdom of Bohemia
The Kingdom of Poland
The Kingdom of Lithuania
The Swiss Confederation
The Grand Duchy of Moscow
The Zaparhozian Cossacks

There were also some groups of semi-controllable mercenaries including

The Ecourcheurs or Armagnac mercenary groups in France
The "Brotherhood" of Northern Hungary

and there were also some powerful more or less permanent navies,

The Republic of Venice
The Knights Hospitaller of St John
The Hanseatic League

The army of the Teutonic Order controlled a very large territory centered on Prussia in what is now northern Poland and the now Russian Kalliningrad Oblast, the army of the similar though a bit smaller Livonian Order in what is now Latvia, Estonia and Lithuania. Both of these were well organized sophisticated military States, their numbers were heavily augmented by foreign Crusaders and urban militias, though the Order suffered a rebellion by her own towns in the mid 15th Century which resulted in them going over to Poland. The Teutonic Knights kept a lot of records and their military structure is pretty well documented. This is a good article which can kind of get your foot in the door.

Venice maintained strong permanent armies both at home and across the Adriatic on what is now the coast of Croatia through the end of the Medieval period (they were also instrumental in funding and helping to organize the Black Army). Their navy included 3,000 ships. Their military production facility the Venetian Arsenal was arguably the most formidable the world had ever seen up to that point, it was capable of building a ship per day. Their military organization is pretty well documented I think though I don't know all the details. They relied a lot on Dalmatian mercenaires but they also had a formidable militia.

Genoa was as powerful as Venice in the 12th-14th Centuries and was her major rival for a long time, though by the 15th Century they were starting to decline, they were sort of eaten alive by their own bank and eventually taken over by Spain.

The Byzantine Empire obviously had one of the most organized and sophisticated militaries in Europe though they were definitely in decline by the 15th Century, Constantinople was captured in 1453 (at the time mostly defended by Venetian and Genoese at that time. The Byzantine State held on a bit longer in Trebizond until 1461. Though they were in sharp decline in the late medieval era they are worth looking into because they were so influential.

Castile (later Spain) had a formidable army and navy which was expanding through Iberia and into Italy (and across the Atlantic and Pacific) they were military innovators and were the first to consistently defeat the Swiss and they were hitting a peak of military power toward the end of the 15th Century with their organization of the Tercio. This guy was one of their chief military innovators.

The Swiss Confederation didn't have a permanent army as such, but their various militias, especially the formidable urban militias of Bern and Zurich, came together in a moments notice and defeated everyone from the French to the Holy Roman Emperor when their territorial interests were threatened. They also of course smashed the Burgundian army and ended the reign of the Valois dukes of Burgundy for better or worse. Their military organization is well documented and you can actually read several of their chronicles online which have hundreds of images of specific battles, sieges, and other military incidents.

Bohemia was in political chaos in much of the 15th Century but remained militarily formidable throughout. During the initial eruption of the Hussite heresy they were led by such capable military leaders as Jan Ziska (a veteran of both Agincourt and Grunwald, he wisely fought on the winning side of both) and Prokop who led punitive raids (so called 'beautiful rides' - anything but beautiful) against Bohemia's neighbors when they refused to make peace. The Czechs are known for their innovations with artillery, including the first widespread use of truly mobile (light) field guns, war wagons, firearms (which they also seem to have been the first to widely deploy in the open field), military flails, and more subtle innovations in siege warfare, military scouting and communications. After the Hussite Wars petered out in the 1430's people tend to forget about them but they remained a thorn in the side of Europe due to their continued heresy (they had worked out an internal compromise which allowed both Catholics and Hussites to practice their religion freely) and foreigners continued to attack them. In the later 15th Century they were blessed with another very capable military leader in the person of King George of Podebrady, a member of the lower nobility who was elected on the basis of his military and diplomatic competence. Though he was an advocate of international peace, famously proposing what some have described as the first concept of a European Union, he was a very skilled military commander and he fought the Black army of Mathias Corvinus to a standstill, (among other dangerous opponents).

Poland and Lithuania had formidable armies in this period, though they tended to wax and wane in the usual Feudal manner. They proved capable of handling the Teutonic Order at Grunwald and in the 13 Years War, but they also held their own against the Mongol Horde and the Ottoman Empire. The Poles are pretty well documented (especially by Jan Dlugosz) and I believe there is an article on this site about their armies in the Early Modern era. The Lithuanians are more of a mystery to me and I wish I understood their military organization better especially in light of their spectacular successes against the Mongols in the late 14th and early 15th Centuries, for example in the Battle of Blue Waters in 1362. Anyway the closer unity and continued military victories of Poland and Lithuania particularly in the second half of the 15th Century led to the foundation of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth in the 16th, which was to prove one of the most powerful military entities in Europe for most of that century, and known for various military innovations such as the famous 'winged hussars'.

Their neighbor Muscovy was a nominal vassal of the Golden Horde but after the ghastly slaughter of the battle of Kulikovo Field in 1380, they exhibited increasing autonomy and independence, as they aggressively consolidated power at the exepense of the remaining independent Rus city-states like Veliky Novgorod, Tver and Pskov, and fighting with their Catholic neighbors in Sweden, Poland and Lithuania. Their armies were well organized and pretty well documented.

The "Brotherhood" army of Northern Hungary was another of the many contending for control of Hungary. They alternated between fighting the Hapsburgs and the Black Army of the Hunyadi / Corvinus family with fighting the Turks. They were made up mostly of Czech heretics and were led by a very capable Condottiere named Jan Jiskra or Jan Giskra. He defeated the Black Army several times and also defeated the Turks in the open field more than once. Eventually this army became the basis of the state of Slovakia. Though unknown to the lay public he is known in military history circles and there are two or three good academic articles about him. Here is one of them.

The Hanseatic League didn't really have a permanent navy but they kept warships to escort their merchant convoys and like the Swiss Confederation, when threatened they were capable of forming very powerful military forces (largely by converting their merchant fleets into privateers and hiring large numbers of mercenaries, augmented by their town militias.) They were strong enough to deal a stinging defeat to the Kingdom of Denmark by 1370 and defeating The Kingdom of England in the 1470s which resulted in the Hanse gaining a permanent base within the city of London called the Steelyard. Unfortunately the Hansa isn't well documented in English. The best source you can find on them in English is Philippe Dollinger's magisterial 1970 history which is out of print but is partly available on Google Books. Osprey recently came out with a book about their naval forces but it was very limited and (to me) disappointing.

The Zaporozhian Cossacks were made up of runaway serfs from Poland and Lithuania and runaway (or liberated) slaves from the Mongol and Ottoman States. Though known today for their superb cavalry but in the late medieval period they were mainly infantry, very good infantry apparently organized on the model of the Czech heretics with war-wagons and so on, and they also made heavy use of boats and ships, including on the Black Sea.


In addition to all of those there were dozens of smaller armies which came together into temporary coalitions on a more or less continuous basis, but the second tier would take too long to go through!


Jean

[Pieter B.]

Thanks for taking the time for such an extensive reply. I only read primary sources on three of those four armies I mentioned in my original post. Those three on the western part of the continent seemed to have rather similar armies but I realize now that only really is a small part of European warfare in the mid to late 15th century. The more I learn the more I realize there is so much more to learn. When I am done with Froissart I am certainly going to read some more on the Teutonic Order and the Hanseatic league, I am sure there are some English and German sources to be found.

[Jean Henri Chandler]

Yes, it is bewilderingly complex. I actually think the specific habits of the French (for example the heavy emphasis on heavy cavalry as opposed to infantry) are actually somewhat unusual by the late medieval period, and I think are partly as much about the politics of the region as anything else. Burgundy actually had a lot of good well developed infantry available to it but didn't use them much because it always caused political problems for the Duke. But you can really find examples of almost everything in medieval Europe. Look at how variegated the Holy Roman Empire was (this map is from 1400)

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/a0/HRR_1400.png

For the Burgundians, Richard Vaughan's biographies of the various Valois - Burgundian Dukes have a lot of interesting anecdotes (in English).

I posted a few links with sources in the post above on the various armies.

There are a few letters floating around somewhere that Matthias Corvinus wrote to relatives in Italy which describe the organization (and pay) of fekete sereg (The Black Army). I tried googling last night and couldn't find them but I know they are out there somewhere because I quoted them before in an academic article I wrote a couple of years ago.

Jean

[William P]

regarding the byzantines thoughm their hayday was during the 6th-7th centuries, the 9th-11th centiury, and the 12th century under the komnenian dynasty, after 1204, the byzantines VERY rapidly fell to decline

prior to that, in the periods i described, they were by a long way, THE most advanced army in europe, fielding ranks of pikemen clad in thich length , thick gambesons, and a series of constantly updated military manuals for generals to consult in their military operations. including one which relates purely to how to best deal with cross border raids and incursions in a variety of scenarios

i can give a more detailed description of troop types and roles and other aspects if you want, and i know where to show you more info and where to find those manuals

[Pieter B.]

[Lafayette C Curtis]

[William P]

[Pieter B.]

[Lafayette C Curtis]