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Pedro Paulo Gaião
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 Posted: Thu 25 Jul, 2019 8:09 am Post subject: |
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| Dan Howard wrote: | | Pedro Paulo Gaião wrote: | | I forgot in Charlemagne's army and during the Viking Age it was normal for a soldier or high ranking housecarl to have both bows and martial weapons. |
Was it? We only have two Carolingian sources. Abbott Furad's letter mentions bows but the Capitulare missorum doesn't. It requires these men to possess horse, armour, shield, lance, sword, and shortsword. Nothing else. They were required to bring archers with them but not to have bows themselves. |
How should we reconcile both? In other stance: do you agree all the foot had to had bows alonside other weapons? An article suggests this:
| Quote: | | Ganshof proposed that the discrepancy between the late eight-century Capitulare misrorum, which did not list the bow among cavalry weapons,211 and the letter to Fulrad of 806, which did, indicates that archery was only widely adopted by the Franks as a result of experience gained fighting the Avars and Slavs in the late eighth century.212 However, arrows were common in Merovingian graves of the sixth and seventh centuries,213 and it seems unlikely that the omission from the capitulary is significant. The passage referring to armament appears to have been a sort of means test (“qui . . . caballos, arma et scuto et lancea spata et senespasio habere possunt”), so that bow and arrows may have been omitted simply because they were among the cheapest of Frankish weapons: wood was readily available and manufacture presumably inexpensive. The fact that bows and arrows were not listed in the Lex Ribuaria may similarly reflect their low value rather than their rarity. |
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| Michael P. Smith wrote: | | I certainly agree with that, Dan. But it does speak to their interest in the subject and practice. We know Richard I had an avid interest in the crossbow, and is alleged to have used one in combat at Joffa, which may, or may not, be true, but his interest and use of it as a sporting weapon is not in doubt, and we know he considered it an important battlefield weapon. |
According to the historians, he was unable to fight and was brought to the field in a litter with the crossbow. I guess this was an exception situation instead of a normal one. In another source I know he was fighting in normal conditions, but with a Dane Axe.
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| Jean Henri Chandler wrote: | | All medieval estates participated in hunting but the nobles tried to restrict hunting territories (sometimes called a 'chase') for their own private use. |
I thought medieval law actually forbade commoners to hunt, as the woods were feudal property of the local noblemen and only them, with their hunting parties, could hunt. I know there were exceptions in Scandinavia, but it was the case for France, England and Portugal, at least. There is even a Portuguese thesis proposing the estabilishment of royal woods being the an unconscious precedent to our modern preservation forests.
| Quote: | | And raiding, especially during feuds, was a kind of ritualized form of war heavily engaged in by nobles, in which the aim was usually to capture a rival and do certain types of property damage, but with limitations imposed by princely and later urban authorities. |
So raiding and feuding engagements were necessarily engaged by small parties of a lord's retainers and other professional and well armoured soldiers? I'm writting a French medieval adventure using the context of a local feud between barons and was searching for how knightly or feudal the activity was.
“Burn old wood, read old books, drink old wines, have old friends.”
Alfonso X, King of Castile (1221-84)
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Jean Henri Chandler
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| Posted: Thu 25 Jul, 2019 9:42 am Post subject: |
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| Pedro Paulo Gaião wrote: |
How should we reconcile both? In other stance: do you agree all the foot had to had bows alonside other weapons? An article suggests this: |
One possible thing to keep in mind is that most of the Migration era tribal confederations, including the Frankish military included people of different ethnic origins and martial traditions. The Franks for example included Taifals and Alans from Iran in their military. Some of them may have been archers though I gather at least some were Cataphract.
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| Quote: | | I thought medieval law actually forbade commoners to hunt, as the woods were feudal property of the local noblemen and only them, with their hunting parties, could hunt. I know there were exceptions in Scandinavia, but it was the case for France, England and Portugal, at least. There is even a Portuguese thesis proposing the estabilishment of royal woods being the an unconscious precedent to our modern preservation forests. |
I think this is one of the ways we tend to get in trouble when trying to understand medieval Europe. You read a regulation from France or Portugal in say 1290 or 1510 and assume it applied to all of Europe all the time. My area of expertise is more in Central Europe and I do believe that the monarchies were stronger in the three Kingdoms you mentioned by the 15th Century. Though admittedly out of my depth on the Western Kingdoms I believe even in England and the Iberian kingdoms the towns had some autonomy until the late 14th Century, some time in the 1390's the monarchs seem to have consolidated power in much of the West. But it never happened in a lot of the rest of Europe until after the Middle Ages. In the Holy Roman Empire it never happened until the French Revolution.
Anyway, in Central Europe, the concept that nobles could keep all land for themselves was definitely contested by all the other estates. Generally princes tried to control as much land as they could but this was frequently challenged by knights and towns, even strong peasant clans in some areas and also prelates of the Church, sometimes leading to wars.
Even very powerful princes could get in trouble when disrespecting the hunting rights of the towns and other estates. For example, Eric II - Griffin Duke of Pomerania lost his entire entourage and barely escaped when he tried to hunt in a forest owned by the town of Griefswald without permission. From the wiki:
"In August 1457, Eric was hunting in the forests near Horst, belonging not to his lands, but to the Hanseatic city of Greifswald. In further disrespect of the city's rights he ordered local peasants to aid him. Greifswald's mayor Heinrich Rubenow led the burghers of Greifswald and Stralsund in an attempt to arrest Eric. Although the burghers captured his guards, Eric managed to escape."
During the First Margrave War (also called the towns war), Albrecht Achilles of Brandenburg, one of the mightiest princes of the 15th Century, was defeated by the forces of Nuremberg in a dispute over fishing rights to a pond.
I suspect many princes fervently believed what you also assert, and the echo of their propaganda still resounds strongly today in quasi-medieval fantasy and placeholder tropes, but the reality of medieval Europe was quite complex, particularly in Central Europe. Surely you realize that in places like the Swiss Confederation, the nobles did not have exclusive hunting rights? This was also true in almost all of the urbanized zones of Europe as a general rule.
Again, no expert on the Western Kingdoms but given that they did have quite a few powerful towns, including, I think, Lisbon, I'd be very surprised if they didn't own some of their own 'chases' and other hunting territories that they defended by force. I know Barcelona did a few times in the 15th Century.
| Quote: | | So raiding and feuding engagements were necessarily engaged by small parties of a lord's retainers and other professional and well armoured soldiers? I'm writting a French medieval adventure using the context of a local feud between barons and was searching for how knightly or feudal the activity was. |
This is a big can of worms and a deep subject which fills up numerous books, but I'll make a couple of quick points.
In Central Europe, feuding and associated raids were very common among all estates but especially the nobility. Emperor Karl IV / Charles the IVth issued a series of rules in the 14th Century in an imperial bull stipulating some of the rules which nobles were supposed to follow when feuding. Among other things they were obligated to write a special kind of public letter called a "Fehdebrief". They were also not supposed to attack people in certain areas or to destroy certain types of property. The goal was usually to capture people for ransom and capture livestock etc., rather than to kill although this was not always the case, particularly during wars such as the 100 Years War.
Many so called robber knights were really ordinary "honorable" knights who from their own perspective, were pursuing legal feuds. It was a kind of violent extension of the lawsuit. Because the lower nobility in particular did not trust the princely courts they felt that the feud was one of their most important rights. That led to a lot of static between the nobles and towns because urban merchants were often captured during feuds even if the town was not a direct participant in it. Towns kept their own feud books and if sufficiently aggravated, would seek revenge. The towns in much of Central Europe managed through a lot of small wars and counter-raids to impose by force Landfrieden "peace of the roads" around their own district and along key trade routes. The knights right to feud began to be generally curtailed by the princes in the second quarter of the 16th Century.
If you want to dive into some of the details of feuding and associated paramilitary activity against it by the towns, this article gets into a lot of the details about nobles clashing with Nuremberg in the 15th and 16th Centuries. This reached a fairly large scale for example a Nuremberg town councilor had his hand cut off by a famous robber knight, and later Nuremberg burned down the castles of 31 "Robber Knights" in one year in the 16th Century. For a broader view I recommend this book by Hillay Zmora, which is probably the most current academic overview on the subject.
You can also read about the career of the famous Free Imperial knight Gottfried "Götz" von Berlichingen who spent most of his career engaged in feuds against both towns and princes.
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Michael Zimmermann
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| Posted: Fri 26 Jul, 2019 3:54 am Post subject: |
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Jean, forgive my tardy reply. I will resume briefly, since the thread seems to have moved on a little.
No objection from my side to your précis of the role of various kinds of (mounted) infantry in the later Middle Ages.
I guess, when discussing how any one prince approached warfare in this period, we should be mindful of the discrete objectives at stake in any one undertaking. This obviously influenced the method of assembling armed forces and conducting them in the field. Still, it’s more a matter of placing different emphases, than re-inventing the wheel, right?
Again, the development of gunpowder weaponry is not one of my main areas of interest, so many thanks for the summary.
There are, however, a few technical innovations, which seem to have occurred within the Burgundian artillery parcs:
Perhaps, you will be able to tell us, if it is generally accepted that the Burgundian artillery is the first to use trunnions as an integral part of the barrel? It seems the earliest surviving, precisely datable example is the gun from Malines, cast in 1474, now in Basel. There is another, very similar example depicted in Maximilian’s Zeugbuch (Cod. Vind. 10815).
Also, in the 40s there is reference to certain veuglaires, which were used both on land and at sea and which not only had the usual breech for the powder chamber, but apparently did not feature the reduction in barrel diameter so commonly seen on surviving guns either, so that the shot could be loaded from the rear as well.
Finally, and in response to your concluding paragraphs, I still think it is a distortion, at least in the case of the Valois dukes, to portray them as apart from the urban sphere, or simply trying to instrumentalize what they found useful therein.
Members of that family were born in cities and died there. They married and had children in cities. Connected to the topic of this thread, they joined shooting and devotional guilds. They built and maintained residences within their walls, gave to collegiate and parish churches to support civic religious life.
For example, Charles, who, it is true, placed significantly more emphasis on achieving his souveraineté, distinct from both France and the empire, was a member of the Lady of the Snow, one of the most ‚egalitarian‘ of the Bruges guilds, with a majority female membership at the time of his entry (not just wives & widows, too). It also was much less exclusive (simple craft guild members joined in large numbers) than others, especially the Dry Tree (of which Charles was also member). Yet as part of his involvement he not only gave money, but attended services (from the oratory or at the altar, one time bringing along all the ambassadors currently at his court) and feasts. All this is well presented in Andrew Brown’s article from 1999.
Arnade, in his book 'Realms of Ritual‘, argues that Philip the Good purposely encouraged inter-town shooting competitions with a view of strengthening the bonds between his subjects in various, previously more autonomous territories. This lasted well into the 1450s.
All this is not to say, that the dukes would not insist that they needed to be obeyed, that the towns were subject to them or the towns would not demand that they respect urban rights and customs. However, even it was a fundamentally antagonistic relationship, one could not do without the other.
Personally, I am drawn to Valois Burgundy precisely for the reason that this contentious relationship means 'Burgundy‘ developed "de l’union personelle à un régime que l’on peut qualifier de fédéral“, as Cauchies quotes Bonenfant in his Etat bourguignon ou états bourguignons? De la singularité d’un pluriel. If this could have been maintained, it would have been an interesting contrast to absolutist tendencies on the one hand and particularist on the other.
As coda, I recently read Depreter’s Moult cruauté et inhumanitéz y furent faictes. Stratégie, justice et propaganda de guerre sous Charles de Bourgogne and discovered, that, in the vein of this thread’s topic, the Confederates seemed to associate Charles’ military might very closely with his possession of a magnificent artillery. Tuesch goes so far as to call Charles’ guns his 'razor‘, which is blunted after Grandson:
Noch ist hie vor der groste Schatz
Den man die Zyt gewūnen het
Nimmer den grossen Widersetz
Mocht er hie tun Schlossen und Stet
Do er verlor die Bussen gar
Vierhundert subtzig funf ir worn
Jegliche broht uf Wag oder Karch dar
Do mit er vor scharpf het geschorn
Do diß beschach sin Schar sach ni
Wolt schniden als es het geton
- Michael
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Jean Henri Chandler
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| Posted: Fri 26 Jul, 2019 6:41 am Post subject: |
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Michael,
I don't disagree with most of that. Certainly important innovations with cannon were developed in Burgundy. My question would be, are those princely innovations or do they originate in the towns of Flanders? (and honestly I don't know).
However your basic points that the Burgundian Valois Dukes and their families and courtiers were closely integrated with urban life, which is indeed where this thread started - and specifically in Flanders and the Low Countries, and that they were unique among princes in many ways, is I think correct. I had read about that region starting with Henri Pirenne and then moving on to more modern analysis. My tendency when reading about towns was usually to gloss over the princely accounts because A) these tend to be already part of the better known history, compared to the towns, and B) they are usually the same somewhat dismal story of Hausmacht. But it was clear even at an early stage that the rulers of Late Medieval Burgundy were different.
My friend Fabrice Cognot, a fierce Burgundian patriot, provided me with some hints as to the unique qualities of this particular princely family, and I opened my filters since it was inevitable to learn about them due to the importance of the Flemish towns. I think the tipping point came when I learned about Hesdin, and all the automata. Today I have 6 biographies of the Valois Dukes on my bookshelves, and have come to admire these people, in particular Philip Le Bon and Margaret of Savoy. It is clear that they were masters of subtlety, wiser than most princes. They did understand urban life in particular far better than most... the closest analogue I could think of would be Charles IV, or Margaret I of Denmark / Sweden/ Norway.
As medieval life is full of contradictions, it is also true that Philip himself caused most of the friction he had with the towns by taxing them to the point of starvation and calamity more than once. State building is an expensive prospect, especially when you must maintain the kind of lifestyle that a medieval prince did at the same time, and fight off as powerful an enemy as the King of France and occasionally, the King of England. Philip liked the towns and admired their culture, their art, their literacy. Their military innovations. But what mattered most was his family and the endless struggle with the other princes, and he couldn't resist or avoid gouging the towns for money to the point that was dangerous for them and for him.
Cannon and gunpowder weapons too, are something I avoided learning about in my early research. Like many with interest in the medieval period, the notion that firearms and gunpowder were so much a part of late medieval life was so strange as to be almost inadmissible. And "popular -academic" writers and documentaries seemed to dismiss or gloss over them... so it was easy to go along with that.
But there they were in the records, again and again at key moments in history they kept popping up with the proverbial bang! The sulphurous reek of black powder is all over medieval sources. Ultimately if you want to understand the history you can't filter things out, so I held my nose and learned what I could. I can't say I'm an expert, it is fiendishly complex. at best I have a toe hold on it, but having now seen some medieval firearms demonstrated live, here too I am a fan. I'd love to get my own hand-culverin. Or a pintle-mounted veuglaire for my car.
I certainly agree the artillery was a major part of Charles' army, perhaps as you suggest, the most important of the many other elements which made up a truly formidable combined-arms force. Unfortunately for him, he led that army from above, with carrot and stick, and in the autocratic fashion almost like an Ottoman Sultan - or Louis XIV, rather than with the subtle balancing act his father pulled off. It might have worked out fine in the 1620s, but in the 1470s circumstances weren't ready for that yet.
Anyway that is my current interpretation of the data I'm aware of, though I admit, my point of view on it could certainly change. It's risky to hold too tightly to theories when dealing with history as complex as this era.
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Pedro Paulo Gaião
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| Posted: Fri 26 Jul, 2019 4:57 pm Post subject: |
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| Henry O. wrote: | | Montluc was a mounted "archer" under one of the French ordonnance gendarmes. They may have originally been meant to have been armed with bows or crossbows but by montluc's day they seem to most often be described fighting as light/medium lancers. Although as far as i can tell in england as well the "mounted longbowmen" seem to have also disappeared by the early 1500s and replaced by men at arms, demilancers, and the anglo-scottish "borders" armed with spears and shields. |
By no means I'm a specialist but according to this source in early 16th century there were still actual archers in the company. I guess artistic evidence of the Italian Wars also points for archers being in the army.
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| Jean Henri Chandler wrote: | | Schutzenfest were also used by the towns diplomatically against the princes, including specifically the Valois house of Burgundy. |
In Strasbourg the contests were just of crossbow and harquebus shooting, right? I don't know if French influence was strong enough to give the longbow some popularity (and as far as I know, the swiss were men of crossbow, with some firearm aderence at that time).
Also, I discovered recently that german colonies in south of Brazil still make traditional contests of Schutzenfest. I guess the tradition is still alive in Germany as well.
| Quote: | | Generally princes tried to control as much land as they could but this was frequently challenged by knights and towns, even strong peasant clans in some areas and also prelates of the Church, sometimes leading to wars. |
I know there was a war started in Early Modern Transylvania because local peasants were sending their pigs to eat at the border of another lord's woods, supposedly disrespecting his feudal rights over the area.
| Quote: | | Surely you realize that in places like the Swiss Confederation, the nobles did not have exclusive hunting rights? This was also true in almost all of the urbanized zones of Europe as a general rule. |
The most detailed knowledge I have from a Swiss City is from 16th c. Geneva, due to Binz's Short History of Geneva and Geneva in the times of Calvin and Beza. The latter gives details in the cities politics but I found it to be more likely a burgher town.
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| Quote: | | "By the 16th Century wheel-lock pistols and short carbine-like weapons began to become popular sidearms for cavalry. There is an article here on myArmoury which explains the history of use of firearms by armored cavalry. " |
That reminds me of an text written by David Pilling on the English Civil War regarding how puritan and parlamentarian soldiers viewed "chivalry" in arms; though they didn't dropped pistols, there are contemporary references of them viewing the pike as the propper chilvaric weapon, and cavalrymen and some officers described their pike training. I don't know how much of chivalric influenced Cromwell's army at Ireland, but in one of their infamous sieges (Waterford I guess), the cavalry dismounted and charged with pikes through a breach in the walls after a hot speech against the barbarians.
“Burn old wood, read old books, drink old wines, have old friends.”
Alfonso X, King of Castile (1221-84)
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