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Philip Dyer





Joined: 25 Jul 2013

Posts: 507

PostPosted: Wed 01 Apr, 2015 3:00 pm    Post subject: High Midaeval/early battle formations/ calvalry formations.         Reply with quote

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?
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Pieter B.





Joined: 16 Feb 2014
Reading list: 10 books

Posts: 645

PostPosted: Wed 01 Apr, 2015 3:24 pm    Post subject:         Reply with quote

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?
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Philip Dyer





Joined: 25 Jul 2013

Posts: 507

PostPosted: Wed 01 Apr, 2015 3:39 pm    Post subject:         Reply with quote

Pieter B. wrote:
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?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z0MZb1SBVfw Youtube
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Pedro Paulo Gaião




Location: Sioux City, IA
Joined: 14 Mar 2015
Likes: 1 page

Posts: 422

PostPosted: Wed 01 Apr, 2015 5:01 pm    Post subject:         Reply with quote

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 ...
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Pieter B.





Joined: 16 Feb 2014
Reading list: 10 books

Posts: 645

PostPosted: Wed 01 Apr, 2015 5:30 pm    Post subject:         Reply with quote

Philip Dyer wrote:
Pieter B. wrote:
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?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z0MZb1SBVfw Youtube


Someone in the comments? forget about him.
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Philip Dyer





Joined: 25 Jul 2013

Posts: 507

PostPosted: Wed 01 Apr, 2015 6:49 pm    Post subject:         Reply with quote

Pieter B. wrote:
Philip Dyer wrote:
Pieter B. wrote:
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?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z0MZb1SBVfw Youtube


Someone in the comments? forget about him.

Yeah, but I'm still interested in learning more about the sophistication of early medieval and high Medieval European armies.
I learned getting in a fight with another person in youtube asking ya'll for info and that thread is still going.
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Lafayette C Curtis




Location: Indonesia
Joined: 29 Nov 2006
Reading list: 7 books

Posts: 2,698

PostPosted: Thu 09 Apr, 2015 2:00 am    Post subject:         Reply with quote

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.
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