History Forum / General / Medieval Period / July 2009

1.Merovingian warfare

Very few things are definitely known about the Franks:

They had been named after slightly misspelled currency unit. It is not
totally clear, which exactly because there used to be numerous
candidates within BT (Luxemburg and Liechtenstein being the most
probable ones).

Initially, they were ruled by the Merovingian dynasty named after its
founder, Clovis. Later, this dynasty had been replaced by the
Carolingian dynasty named after its founder, Pepin [1]. Later, in a
total break-up with a historical tradition, they switched to a
Capetian dynasty founded by a person nicknamed ‘Capet’. Why brother of
a Capetian king founded Valouis dynasty and why this name was later
extended to the remote relatives is anybody’s guess.

Initial Frankish military successes had been attributed to a
revolutionary tactics: unlike many other Germanic nations with their
traditional attachment to a fist-fighting, they were defeating their
opponents by throwing various items at them. After a short period of
experimentation [2], they came to an obvious conclusion that the most
effective way to win is to throw a book at your opponent [3]. Of
course, to throw the book, you should have one. Initially, this posed
a problem (books had been in a rather short supply in a Lower Rhine
area and the Franks had to limit themselves to throwing the axes) but
after Clovis converted to Catholic Christianity the book supply ceased
to be a problem and his successors kept extending their initial
domain.

Unfortunately, while being quite effective against the infantry, this
tactics proved to be of a limited usefulness against the invading
mounted Muslims [4]. Under the leadership of Charles Martel some
important developments took place: (a) cognac of his name had been
marketed [5] and (b) the Franks figured out how to ride horses [6]. Of
course, a traditional description of the Frankish army at Tour
describes them as a frozen wall but it was recently proven by Bernard
Bachrach [7] that this was just a misleading metaphor [8], an opinion
with which we are in a complete agreement.

During the Pepinish- and post-Pepinish times, Frankish warfare passed
through a truly revolutionary change: if it was close to impossible to
put Merovingian Frank on a horseback, it became almost as impossible
to take Carolingian one off the horse. Of course, there was a
transitional period when the people had been somewhat confused by the
ever-evolving regulations and sometimes, instead of coming at the
assembly point on a horseback wearing chain mail and carrying sword,
shield and helmet, a landowner would come on foot with the herd of 50
– 60 cows [9]. Or, as a result of taking regulations regarding raising
infantry from the small holders literarily, the local count would end
up with a cart filled up with the parts of a human anatomy [10]. Or,
due to a presumably unintentional [11] misspelling in the instruction,
person would find himself entitled to take not simply water and wood
but also unspecified “loot” from the villages on his way. Even the
seemingly clear regulations like forbidding to toast each other under
the pain of enforced sobriety, did not always produce the intended
result because the inventive Franks simply switched to toasting
themselves or drinking the health of the ladies present and absent or,
even better, drinking the royal health [12].
All of the above used to keep the opponents in a state of a permanent
confusion [13] and, as a result, the Franks ended up with having a
huge empire on their hands.

2. Post-Frankish (knightly) Warfare

As was wisely remarked by Verbruggen, one of the most important
developments in the medieval warfare was creation of a comfortable
saddle. Being supported by such a saddle both in front and back, a
properly armored knight could feel himself quite safe from anything
except the annoying gnats and mosquitoes [14]. Of  course, there was
still an issue of falling sidewise but, as was time and again pointed
by the same author, a solution was found in packing knightly
formations so densely that the knights simply had nowhere to fell
[15].

In addition to these basic skills, the knights had been taught to
follow various commands, like “Heel”, “Sit”, “Stay”, “Come”, “Stand”,
“Go Ahead” and, in the most disciplined bodies, like the Templars
[16], even “Fetch”, “Roll Over!” and “Leave it”. Of course, there were
reasonable limits to such training and even the Knights Templar had
regulations saying that a knight may leave formation without
permission if he sees (a) a fellow Christian attacked by a Muslim, or
(b) some nice looking wench, or (c) some unattended (or inadequately
guarded) piece of property [17].

Signals by the standards and trumpets also played an important role in
the knightly warfare. To start with, a knight was supposed to fight
only as long as (a) he can see a standard of his superior and (b) can
hear his side’s trumpets. These rules were, of course, of a great
practical importance for the most talented medieval strategists and
tacticians: with a proper bribe discretely passed to the opponent’s
standard bearer and trumpeter, an outstanding victory could be easily
won without unnecessary bloodshed and with a minimal risk. The main
obstacle to a full-scaled implementation of this strategy was a
notorious shortage of coin during the Middle Ages [18]. On an
individual level, a knight could easily pledge confusion due to a
short slightness or inability to recognize friendly trumpeters from
those of the enemy and discretely leave the field with a good chance
to avoid the law suit from his feudal superior.

One of the big battle-field problems was to keep the knightly
formations from loosing their tight order: unless propped on the sides
(by the sticks, varlets, some natural obstacle, etc.) the outermost
riders could fell to the right or left (depending on the flank), with
the others following. Also, any uneven ground could potentially lead
to the same result. This is why most of the scores had been settled by
the tournaments: a leveled jousting ground was ideally suited for the
knightly warfare. The rare cases when the knights broke this rule [19]
tended to end in a total disaster.

Then, there was an issue of a discipline. While the knights could
reasonably well retreat, get together and attack again, providing the
enemy was totally static [20], doing so with the moving enemy posed
the whole number of problems, especially outside the jousting area.
And, when the enemy was fleeing, things could turn into a total
disaster for a victorious side due to a disorganized pursuit: riding
alone left knight totally free to fall (sidewise) from the horse, to
damage himself with his own weaponry [21], or even worse, to get his
horse damaged. In this area, things deteriorated noticeably comparing
to the Viking times [22].

Short of the problems with discipline, formations like those described
above were only marginally efficient against each other but had been a
seemingly winning formula against unarmored and, preferably, unarmed
infantry. Unfortunately, the knights as a class suffered from the
numerous phobias and subconscious fears which eventually lead to their
extinction.

Historically, they started with a fear _for_ their horses but, due to
a low level of a medieval medical science and general scarcity of the
shrinks [23], this unattended problem gradually evolved into the fear
_of_ the elephants, camels, hyenas, mice and, finally, infantrymen.

3. Medieval Foot

Things were more or less under control as long as the foot soldiers
remained unarmed and preferably remained out of sight [24].
Unfortunately, they started appearing on the battlefields, 1st just
due to a plain oversight and then being intentionally placed there by
exceptionally weird-thinking leaders.

As species, they started with being classified as those who will run
away if they have enough brains [25]. However, due to a pure
statistics, on few occasions they had been placed in a situation where
(a) they could not run away but (b) their opponent was either too weak
or too drunk or too scatterbrained to arrange for their proper
slaughter and was, as a result, slaughtered himself. Out of these few
lucky occasions, the foot soldiers got their reputation and eventually
were considered worthy of a more explicit classification and
eventually they were subdivided into 2 broad categories (a) those
holding the long sticks and (b) those who would throw sticks at you.
Both categories proved to be equally repulsive from the knightly point
of view.

Unfortunately, Verbruggen’s book more or less ends up on this sad
stage and, without an alternative source of wisdom, one has to assume
that there is nothing else to say about the Medieval warfare……

_____________________________________________________
Notes:

[1] Frankish naming rules always had been a little bit confusing for
outsiders.
[2] Including throwing stones, axes, small-sized animals (dead and
alive), and simply throwing up.
[3] By definition, this is the worst thing you can do to anyone.
[4] Not only could they ride out of the book-throwing range but they
also refused to pay attention to any book not written on Arabic.
[5] As far as the Franks had been concerned, high-quality booze was a
cornerstone of any successful warfare.
[6] Traditionally, they had been only riding chariots carried by the
cows so cavalry experience simply was not there.
[7] See, “Merovingian Military Organization, 481 – 751”
[8] One that he seemingly favors is close to: “fell upon the enemies
like a crumbling brick shithouse”, which clearly indicates presence of
a powerful cavalry on the Frankish side.
[9] Cost of the said equipment in the contemporary currency.
[10] If 3 small holders are supposed to raise 1 soldier and you have,
say, 25 of them in one village and 19 in another, you’ll inevitably
end up with 8 and 1/3 and 6 and 1/3. And even you somehow manage to
combine them (fat chance, with them being from the different
villages), you will still end up 1/3 short of a full soldier. Add to
this, requests for the troops annual rotation and you end up with a
total mess in the terms of unattached bodily parts.
[11] Perhaps related to receiving some tangible gratitude.
[12] Of course the famous telegram, “Drinking for the 3rd week Your
Majesty’s health” belongs to a different period and geography but the
idea is the same: you can’t expect to be punished for _this_.
[13] Sight of an army taking an after lunch nap with an opponent in a
plain view should make the said opponent understandingly suspicious
about this being a clever ambush or something even worse. As a result,
many of the Frankish opponents, like Bavarians or Langobards, had been
routinely capitulating or at least fleeing at the sound of the
Frankish snoring.
[14] This specific problem was successfully addressed later by
introduction of full plate armor and the visors with the very small
holes.
[15] Density of these formations had been measured by the size of the
object that could fall throw. With no solid theory of a warfare being
in circulation, these measurements had been done by throwing object of
ever-decreasing size on the top of the knightly formations. Usually,
it was started from something reasonably big (for example, a cow or a
varlet), then going down to a sheep, a Smart car, watermelon, apple,
ipod, and all the way down to a facial tissue. After each experiment,
the knights were moved closer and closer together until necessary
degree of cohesion had been achieved.
[16] Before they had been burned.
[17] In the case (a) taking into an account a practical difficulty of
figuring out a religious affiliations of the people involved, it was
OK to kill everybody in sight; in the case (b) upon return the knight
was not allowed to tell the details unless ordered by a marshal and in
case (c) he should contribute at least half of a property into the
Order’s treasury.
[18] Quite obviously, sight of the herd of sheep being moved to the
trumpeter’s tent by somebody wearing enemy’s uniform would make
commander of an army reasonably suspicious and tempted to play the
same trick on an opponent. However, with an increasing coinage
circulation during the Renaissance and, especially, after the
anonymous bank accounts had been introduced by the Florentines and
later by the Swiss, situation changed dramatically.
[19] Described in some details in Verbruggen’s book on a medieval
warfare.
[20] Ditto
[21] In the close-packed order, the only thing he could do was to keep
his lance horizontally. When left to his own devices, he could easily
damage himself with one of the sharp thingies he was supposed to
‘wield’.
[22] As was correctly noticed not long ago, there was not a single
recorded case of the Viking fleet rowing wildly in a disorderly
pursuit of a fleeing enemy after sunset and in the middle of an
unfamiliar forest.
[23] No, there is no _direct_ proof that state of the Medieval Europe
had a nationalized healthcare.
[24] Making themselves useful by providing women and booze to their
social superiors.
[25] The most publicized occasion when they did not, happened in 1066
in England.