"b

'^ A HISTORY OF

THE ART OF WAR

THE MIDDLE AGES

FROM THE FOURTH TO THE

FOURTEENTH CENTURY

BY

CHARLES OMAN, M.A., F.S.A.

FELLOW OF ALL SOULS COLLEGE, OXFORD

WITH MAPS, PLANS, AND ILLUSTRATIONS

METHUEN & CO.

36 ESSEX STREET, W.C

LONDON

1898

^^O Y5IOT8IH A

^r / ;io T>IA Jim

u

Ob

PREFACE

The present volume is intended to form the second of a series of four, in which I hope to give a general sketch of the history of the art of war from Greek and Roman times down to the begin- ning of the nineteenth century. The first volume will deal with classical antiquity ; this, the second, covers the period between the downfall of the Roman Empire and the fourteenth century. In the third volume will be included the fifteenth, sixteenth, and seventeenth centuries. The fourth will treat of the military history of the eighteenth century and of the Revolutionary and Napoleonic wars down to Waterloo.

These volumes are concerned with the history of the art of war, and do not purport to give the complete military annals of the civilised world. Each section deals with the characteristic tactics, strategy, and military organisation of a period, and illustrates them by detailed accounts of typical campaigns and battles. There are also chapters dealing with the siegecraft and fortification, the arms and armour of each age.

The present volume should in strict logic have included two more books, dealing the one with the military history of Central and Eastern Europe in the fourteenth century (especially with the first rise of the Swiss and the Ottoman Turks), and the other with the invention of gunpowder and firearms. But the exi- gencies of space — the volume is already more than six hundred and sixty pages long — have compelled me to relegate these topics to the opening chapters of the third volume. It is fortunate that the influence of the discovery of gunpowder on

vi PREFACE

the wars of Western Europe was so insignificant during the fourteenth century that no serious harm comes from deferring the discussion of the subject.

I have endeavoured to avoid overburdening the volume with too voluminous foot-notes, but at the same time have given references for all statements which might seem to require justification or defence. In citing English chronicles my references are, where possible, to the Rolls Series editions ; French chronicles are mainly quoted from Bouquet's magnificent Scriptores Rerum Gallicarum et Francicarum^ German and Italian from the collections of Pertz and Muratori respectively.

Much valuable aid given to the author requires grateful acknowledgment. Most especially must I express my thanks to two helpers : to the compiler of the index — the fourth and the largest which has been constructed for books of mine by the same kindly hands — and to my friend Mr. C. H. Turner, Fellow of Magdalen College, who read the whole of the proofs, and furnished me with a great number of corrections and improve- ments.

I have also to acknowledge my indebtedness to Mr. T. A. Archer, who was good enough to go through with me the whole of Book V. (the Crusades) and also chapter vii. of Book III., wherein certain topics much disputed of late years are dealt with. I also owe some valuable hints to Professor York Powell and to the Rev. H. B. George of New College. The former, with his usual omniscience, indicated to me several lines of inquiry, from which I obtained valuable results. The latter will notice that in chapter ii. of Book VIII. I have adopted his theory of the formation of the English army at Cre9y. Mr. F. Haverfield of Christ Church gave me some useful notes for the opening pages of the first chapter of Book I.

All the maps and plans have been constructed by myself from the best sources that I could procure. When possible, I walked over important battlefields, e.g. Cregy, Bouvines, Bannockburn, Evesham, in order to supplement the information

PREFACE vii

to be derived from maps by a personal acquaintance with the ground. The English plans are derived from the Ordnance Survey, the French from the maps of the Etat-Major, the Syrian from the admirable publications of the Palestine Exploration Society.

Of the seven plates illustrating armour, the first three are sketches taken from the original manuscripts ; the last four I owe to the kindness of Messrs. Parker of Oxford, who permitted me to reduce them from the blocks of one of their most valuable publications, Hewitt's Ancient Armour^ a book from which I derived much useful information when dealing with the later Middle Ages.

Oxford, March i, 1898.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

BOOK I

THE TRANSITION FROM ROMAN TO MEDIAEVAL FORMS IN WAR, a.d. 235-552

Chapter I.— The Last Days of the Legion,

A,D. 235-450

Pages

Collapse of the Frontier Defences of the Roman Empire — Disasters of the Third Century — Reorganisation of the Army by Diocletian and Con- stantine i. — Final Success of the Barbarians — Battle of Adrianople (378) — The Foederati — Vegetius and the Decay of Infantry — The Huns . 3-21

Chapter II. — Commencement of the Supremacy of Cavalry, a.d. 450-552

The Army of the Eastern Empire — The Isaurians — ^Justinian and his Wars — The Horse-Archer — Belisarius and his Tactics — Battle of Daras (530)— Battle of Tricameron (535)— Belisarius and the Goths— Battle of Taginae (552) — Battle of Casilinum (554) .... 22-37

BOOK II

THE EARLY MIDDLE AGES, a.d. 500-768 Chapter I.— The Visigoths, Lombards, and Franks

Cavalry and Infantry among the Teutonic Peoples — The Visigoths in Spain, their Military Institutions and their Decay — The Lombards, their Arms and Tactics — The Franks and their Early Methods of War — They finally adopt Armour and take to Horsemanship — Their Weakness as an Offen- sive Power ........ 41-62

Chapter II.— The Anglo-Saxons ,

The Conquest of Britain — Arms of the Old English — They remain a Nation of Foot-Soldiery — Evidence of the ^^(72fM//-— Indecisive Nature of the Old English Wars ........ 63-72

TABLE OF CONTENTS

BOOK III

FROM CHARLES THE GREAT TO THE BATTLE OF HASTINGS, a.d. 768-1066

Chapter I.— Charles the Great and the Early Carolingians

Pages

The Empire of Charles the Great— His Military Legislation — Growth of the Importance of Cavalry — Charles and his Burgs — Carolingian Armour — The Beginnings of Feudalism ...... 75"^^

Chapter II.— The Vikings

The Coming of the Vikings — Their Tactics — Fate of their Invasions in the Empire, England, and Ireland — Disruption of the Carolingian Empire — The later Carolingians and their Efforts to restrain the Vikings — Charles the Bald and the Edict of Pitres— Arnulf and the Battle of Louvain . . . . . . . . 89-100

Chapter III.— The Vikings turned back— The Feudal Horseman and the Feudal Castle— The Thegn

AND THE BURH

Importance of Cavalry in the Struggle with the Vikings — Development of Feudal Cavalry on the Continent — Systematic Fortification — Alfred and the Danes — Origin of the Thegnhood — The Burks of Edward the Elder — Origin of the English Fleet — The Housecarles . . 101-115

Chapter IV.— The Magyars

Appearance of the Magyars on the Danube — They ravage Germany, Italy, and France — Henry the Fowler and his Burgs — Battle on the Unstrut (933)— The Last Raids— Battle of the Lechfeld (955)— The Magyars turned back ........ i 16-125

Chapter V.— Arms and Armour (800-iioc)

Extension of the use of Armour — The Byrnie and the Helm with Nasal —

The Shield— The Danish Axe ...... 126-130

Chapter VI.— Siegecraft and Fortification

The Siegecraft of the Early Middle Ages — The Ram and the Bore — Mining — The Movable Tower — Military Engines : the Balista and the Mangon —The Crossbow— The Great Siege of Paris (885-886) and its Stages . 131-148

Chapter VII.— The Last Struggles of Infantry —Hastings and Dyrrhachium

Duke William invades England — His Army and its Tactics — The Senlac Position — Harold adopts the Defensive — Battle of Hastings (1066) — Victory of the Horseman and the Archer over the Old English Infantry — Dyrrhachium (1081): the Norman Horse and the Varangian Axemen 149-165

TABLE OF CONTENTS »

BOOK IV

THE BYZANTINES, a.d. 579-1204

Chapter I.— Historical Development of the Byzantine Army

Pages

Strong Points of Byzantine Army — Its Reorganisation by Maurice {circ. 579-580) — The Strategicon — Character and Composition of the East Roman Forces in the Early Middle Ages — Importance of Archery and Heavy Cavalry — The Struggle with the Saracens— Creation of the Themes', Strength of the System ..... 169-183

Chapter II. — Arms and Organisation of the Byzantine Army

Arms of the Heavy Cavalry — Their Tactics — Arms of the Infantry — The Auxiliary Services — The Army in Camp and on the March — The Line of Battle — Leo's Ideal Formation for Cavalry .... 184-197

Chapt;er III.— Strategy and Tactics of the Byzantine Army

Defensive Character of Byzantine Strategy — Its Weak Points — Methods of dealing with the Franks, the Slavs, the Turks — The long Saracen Wars — The Tactics by which the Moslems were turned back from Asia Minor — The Book of Nicephorus Phocas on Frontier Defence — Military Successes of the Tenth Century ..... 198-215

Chapter IV.— Decline of the Byzantine Army (1071-1204)

The Coming of the Seljouks — Battle of Manzikert (1071) — The Loss of Asia Minor — Disorganisation of the Army — Alexius L and the Battle of Calavryta (1079)— The Army under the Comneni . . . 216-226

BOOK V

THE CRUSADES, a.d. 1097-1291 Chapter I. — Introductory

The Western Nations take the Offensive — Conditions which rendered the

Crusades possible — Faults of the Crusading Armies . . . 229-232

xii TABLE OF CONTENTS

Chapter II.— The Grand Strategy of the Crusades

Pages

Lack of Geographical Knowledge among the Crusaders — Their Mistaken Choice of Itineraries — The Land- Routes of Asia Minor — The Lines selected by the Leaders of the First, Second, and Third Crusades — Strategy of the Conquest of Syria — The Crusading States and their Boundaries — The Causes of their Fall — Zengi and Saladin — The Attacks of the Crusaders on Egypt — King Amaury, John of Brienne, and Louis IX. 233-267

Chapter III.— The Tactics of the Crusades /. — The Earlier Battles (i 097-1 102)

The Turkish Horse- Archers and the Frankish Knights — Battle of Dorylseum (1097) — Siege of Antioch and Combat of Harenc (1097-98) — Battle of Antioch (1098) — Battle of Ascalon (1099) — Battles of Ramleh (iioi and 1102)— Battle of Jaffa ( 1 102) ...... 268-293

Chapter IV.— The Tactics of the C^vsAB^s—contijiued II. — The Later Battles (i 1 19-1 192)

Regular Combination of Infantry and Cavalry — Battle of Hab (1119) — Battle of Hazarth (1125) —Battle of Marj-es-Safar (1126) — King Richard i. and his Tactics — The March from Acre to Jaffa — The Triumph of Arsouf ( 1 191) — Combat of Jaffa (i 192) . . . 294-317

Chapter V.— The Great Defeats of the Crusaders

The Causes of Defeat— Battle of Carrhae (1104)— Battle of Tiberias (1187) — Battle in front of Acre (1192) — Battle of Mansourah (1250)- The Moral of such Disasters ....... 318-350

BOOK VI

WESTERN EUROPE— FROM THE BATTLE OF HASTINGS TO THE RISE OF THE LONGBOW

Chapter I. — Introductory

Complete Supremacy of Cavalry— Neglect of the use of Infantry— The

General Type of Battles in the Twelfth and Thirteenth Centuries . 353-356

Chapter II. — The Armies of the Twelfth and Thirteenth Centuries

A. — England. — The Fyrd and the Feudal Host — William the Conqueror and Knight-service — The Vehis Feoffamentuvi — The Cartae Baronum — Scutage— Status of the Knight, and its Changes— The Rise of Mercen- aries— The Braban9ons and Crossbowmen .... 357-369

B. — The Continent. — Different Fate of the term Miles in different Countries — The Clientes and Sergeants — The Military Caste — Importance of Mercenaries — The Flemish Pikemen— The Crossbowmen of Italy . 369-377

TABLE OF CONTENTS xiii

Chapter III.— English Battles and their Tactics (1100-1200)

Pages

attle of Tenchebrai (1106) — Battle of Bremule (1119) — Combat of Bourg Theroulde (i 124)— Battle of Northallerton (i 138)— First Battle of Lincoln (1141) — The Wars of Henry ii. : Alnwick and Fornham — The English in Ireland and their Enemies — Battle on the Dinin (1169) — Battle of Dublin ( 1 1 7 1 )— Surprise of Castle Knock ( 1 1 7 1 )— Characteristics of Irish War ........ 378-406

Chapter IV.— English Battles and their Tactics (1200-1272)

second Battle of Lincoln (121 7) — Combat of Taillebourg (1242) — Battle of Lewes (1264) — Campaign of 1265 and Battle of Evesham — Comparison of the Merits of Simon de Montfort and Edward i. . . . 407-435

Chapter V. — Continental Battles (1100-1300)

The Types of Battle and their Variety— Battle of Thielt (i 128)— Battle of Legnano (1176) — Battle of Steppes (1213) — Battle of Muret (1213), the Greatest Triumph of Unaided Cavalry in the Epoch — Campaign of 12 14 : King John's Strategy: Causes of its Failure — Battle of Bouvines (1214) — Battle of Benevento (1266) — Battle of Tagliacozro (1268)— Tactics of Charles of Anjou — Battle of the Marchfeld (1278) . . . 436-509

Chapter VI. — Arms and Armour (1100-1300)

The Hauberk and the Gambeson — Development of the "Great Helm" — Rise of Heraldry — The Beginnings of Plate Armour — Its Slow Develop- ment ......... 510-516

Chapter VII. — Fortification and Siegecraft (1100-1300)

Scarcity of Stone Fortifications before the Eleventh Century — The Early Stockaded Mounds, Burhs and Mottes — The Castles of William the Conqueror — The Rectangular Keep of Norman Times : the Tower of London — The Shell Keep — Influence of the Crusaders on Fortification : Byzantine Sources — The Fortifications of Constantinople and Antioch — The Earlier Syrian Castles : Kerak-in-Moab — Richard i. builds Chateau Gaillard— Its Siege by Philip Augustus ( 1 203-4) — The Thirteenth Century in East and W^est — Concentric Castles : Krak-des-Chevaliers and Caer- philly— The Castles of Edward i. — Siegecraft : Introduction of the Trebuchet : its four Varieties — The Balista, Mangon, and Springal — Greek Fire and its Use — Its Employment by Byzantines and Saracens — Mining: the Siege of Carcassonne (1204) — Use of the Mine in the Levant — General Ascendency of the Defensive over the Offensive in the Thirteenth Century, and its Political Consequences . . . 517-553

xiv TABLE OF CONTENTS

BOOK VII

ENGLAND AND SCOTLAND, a.d. 1296 -1333- DEVELOPMENT OF THE LONGBOW

Chapter I.— England and Scotland (1296-1328)

Pages

The History of the Longbow — Its probable Origin in South Wales — The Assize of Arms of 1252 — Use of the Bow in the Welsh Wars of Edward l. — Difference of Welsh and Scottish Campaigns — Wallace and the Battle of Cambuskenneth (1297) — The Longbow at Falkirk (1298) — Bruce at the Combat of Loudon Hill (1307) — Bruce victori- ous at Bannockburn (1314) — Mistaken Tactics of Edward ii. — "King Robert's Testament "......- 557-580

Chapter I L— England and Scotland (1328-1 333) — First Com- bination OF Archery and Dismounted Cavalry

The English change their Tactics — The Longbow at Dupplin Muir (1332) — Edward iii. victorious at Halidon (1333) — Complete Ascendency of the Bow over the Pike ....... 581-588

BOOK VIII

THE LONGBOW BEYOND THE SEAS Chapter L— The Armies of Edward iil

Comparison between the Military Strength of England and France — The Methods by which English Armies were raised : Commissions of Array and Indentures— Character and Composition of the Armies of Edward III. 591-596

Chapter II.— The Longbow in France: Creqy

Archers and Crossbowmen : Combat of Cadzand (1337) — King Edward in Flanders — The Great Invasion of France : Edward marches from La Hogue to Cre^y — Battle of Cre9y (1346)— Its Tactical Meaning . 597-615

Chapter III.— Poictiers, Cocherel, and Auray

The Effects of Cregy : Combats of La Roche Darien and Ardres — The Black Prince invades France — His March to Maupertuis — Battle of Poictiers (1356) : new Tactics of the French : their Complete Failure — Cocherel and Auray (1364) ....... 616-636

Chapter IV.— Navarette and Aljubarotta

Arms and Tactics of the Spaniards : "the Genetours" — The Black Prince invades Castile and outgenerals Don Henry of Trastamara — Triumph of the Archers at Navarette (1367) — The Spaniards fail to profit by the Lesson — Battle of Aljubarotta (1385) — The Portuguese apply the English System and win a great Victory over the Castilians . . . 637-653

TABLE OF MAPS, PLANS, AND ILLUSTRATIONS

I. Plans of Daras and Taginae	Tofacepage 28
II. Frankish Warriors	36
III. The "Themes" of the Eastern Empire in 68c
and 900 . . . . .	180
IV. Byzantine Soldiery . . . .	186
V. Byzantine Soldiery	188
VI. Byzantine Cavalry Formation, and Neighbour
hood of Antioch	196
VII. Siege and Battle of Antioch ..	282
VIII. Battles of Ascalon and Hab .	288
IX. Battle of Arsouf	310
X. Battles of Tiberias and Acre .	326
XI. Map of Lower Egypt : Plan of Mansourah	342
XII. Battles of Tenchebrai, Bremftle, Northallerton
and Lincoln ....	394
XIII. Battle of Lewes ; Campaign of Evesham	420
XIV. Battles of Muret and Bouvines .	450
XV. Battles of Benevento and Tagliacozzo .	• „ 484
XVI. The Marchfeld ....	, ., 504
XVII. Seals of William i. and William 11. .	510
XVIII. Seals of Richard i. and Henry III.	512
XIX. Thirteenth-century Armour	514
XX. Thirteenth-century Armour	S16
XXI. Typical Castles of the period 1100-1300	530
XXII. Battle of Bannockburn .	„ ^ 572
XXIII. Battles of Crecy and Poictiers .	606
XXIV. Battle of Navarette	644

BOOK I

THE TRANSITION FROM ROMAN TO MEDIEVAL FORMS IN WAR

THE ART OF WAR

THE MIDDLE AGES

CHAPTER I

THE LAST DAYS OF THE LEGION A.D. 235-450

BETWEEN the middle of the third and the middle of the fifth century lies a period of transition in military history, an epoch of transformations as strange and as complete as those contemporary changes which turned into a new channel the course of political history and of civilisation in Europe. In war, as in all else, the institutions of the ancient world are seen to pass away, and a new order of things develops itself.

The most characteristic symptom of the tendencies of this period is the gradual disappearance of the Roman legion, that time-honoured organisation whose name is so intimately bound up with the story of Roman greatness. In A.D. 250 it was still the heavy-armed infantry of the empire which formed the core of battle, and was the hope and stay of the general. By A.D. 450 the cavalry was all in all, the foot-soldiery had fallen into disrepute, and the very name of legion was almost forgotten. It represented a form of military efficiency which had now com- pletely vanished. That wonderful combination of strength and flexibility, so solid and yet so agile and easy to handle, had ceased to correspond to the needs of the time. The day of the sword and pilum had given place to that of the lance and bow. The typical Roman soldier was no longer the iron legionary, who, with shield fitted close to his left shoulder and

4 THE ART OF WAR IN THE MIDDLE AGES [200

sword-hilt sunk low, cut his way through the thickest hedge of pikes, turned back the onset of the mailed horsemen of the East, and stood unmoved before the wildest rush of Celt or German. The old military organisation of Augustus and Trajan begar. to fall to pieces in the third century ; in the fourth it was so weakened and transformed as to be hardly recognisable ; by the end of the fifth it had disappeared.

The change in the character of the Roman army which ultimately substituted cavalry and light infantry for the solid strength of the ancient legion was mainly caused by the exigencies of border-warfare. From the time of Hadrian to that of Severus, the system of frontier-defence which the Roman Government adopted was to fix the limit of the empire at a great natural boundary, such as the Rhine, Danube, or Euphrates, and to place behind the boundary at suitable points large permanent camps, in which one or more legions were quartered. These garrisons were placed many scores or even hundreds of miles apart, and the long intervals between them were only filled by minor posts occupied by small bodies of auxiliary troops. Where natural obstacles, such as rivers or mountain- chains, were wanting, the frontier was not unfrequently marked out by long lines of entrenchments, like our own Northumbrian Wall, or the similar structure which stretches across South Germany. The stations were connected with each other by good military roads, and the alarm could be passed from one to another at the shortest notice by a system of beacons and mounted messengers. If the barbarous enemy across the frontier, German, Sarmatian, or Parthian, essayed a raid on Roman territory, he must first cross the obstacles and then cope with the garrisons of the local posts. These would be able to beat back any small plundering parties ; but if they found the invaders too strong, they could at least endeavour to harass them, and to restrict the area of their ravages, till the nearest legion could march up from its great permanent camp.

This system worked well for more than a hundred years. But it had its weak points ; there was a great want of a central reserve, in case the legions of any frontier should be unable to hold their ground against an attack of unusual strength. For the middle provinces of the empire were kept entirely denuded of troops, and new legions could not be improvised in a hurry from the unwarlike subjects of the empire, as they had once

235] FAILURE OF ROMAN FRONTIER DEFENCES 5

been from the citizens of the early republic. Hence it came to pass that a disaster on one point of the border had to be repaired by drawing troops from another. This rather dangerous -device could only be employed so long as the enemies of Rome were so obliging as to present themselves one by one, and to refrain from simultaneous onslaughts on far distant tracts of frontier. For more than two centuries the empire was fortunate enough to escape this contingency ; its military system was never tried by the crucial test of an attack all along the line ; in the times of stress Germany could lend troops to Britain, or Moesia reinforce the legions of Syria. Disasters were suffered from time to time which threw a province for a moment into hostile hands, but because they came singly they could always be repaired. The rebellion of Civilis shook the Roman hold on the Rhine frontier for a space ; the defeat of Domitian's generals Sabinus and Fuscus let the Dacians into the interior of the Danube provinces ; Marcus Aurelius once saw the Quadi at the gates of Aquileia. But reinforcements were brought up from frontiers where no war was in progress, and the incoming flood of invasion was at length stemmed.

In the third century there was a complete change in the face of affairs : the system of defence broke down, and the empire well-nigh collapsed under the stress. From the day of the murder of Alexander Severus (235 A.D.) to the moment at which Diocletian put down the last surviving rebel Caesar in the remotest corner of the West (297) the empire was subjected with- out a moment's respite to the double scourge of civil war and foreign invasion. In the space of sixty years no less than sixteen emperors and more than thirty would-be emperors fell by sword or dagger. While the arms of the legions were turned against each other, the opportunity of the enemies of the empire had arrived. All its frontiers simultaneously were beset by the outer barbarians, and the fabric reeled before the shock. For Rome's neighbours were growing more powerful just when Rome herself was weak and divided. The new and vigorous Persian kingdom had just replaced the decrepit Parthian power in the East (a.d. 226). The Germans were already commencing to form the confederacies which made their scattered tribes for the first time really formidable. The names of the Franks, Alamanni and Goths begin to appear along the Rhine and Danube.

So long as the frontier defence of the legions held firm, the

6 THE ART OF WAR IN THE MIDDLE AGES [259

empire presented to its foes a hard shell and a soft kernel. The border was strongly held and difficult to pierce, but the rich provinciae inermes within were defenceless and ripe for plunder, if only the shell could be pierced. When the legions were with- drawn from the frontier to take part in civil war, and marched off time after time to enthrone some new usurper upon the Palatine, it was impossible to keep back any longer the pressure from without. The period 235-297 opens with a heavy and long-continued onslaught of the Quadi Carpi and Goths on the Middle and Lower Danube (236). It was beaten back by Maximinus I. and Philip for a few years ; but in 249, while a vigorous civil war was distracting the lUyrian regions, the line of resistance was at last broken through. The Goths crossed Danube and Balkans, overran Moesia and Thrace, and scattered the Imperial troops before them. The Emperor Decius, having put down his rivals, hastened to meet them ; but he, his son, and his whole army were cut to pieces in the disastrous battle of Forum Trebonii in the summer of 251. No Roman emperor had ever been slain before in battle with the barbarians ; no Roman host of such strength had suffered defeat since the da)^ of Cannae. It seemed for a moment as if the empire was fated to be cut in twain, or even as if some earlier i\laric were about to present himself before the gates of Rome.

For the next twenty years the Goths ranged almost unresisted over the middle provinces of the empire. The troops that should have been called in to resist them were occupied in civil wars in Italy, or were employed in defending other menaced frontiers. For, while the Gothic war was at its height, the Persian king Sapor overran Mesopotamia, defeated and took captive the Emperor Valerian, stormed Antioch, and ravaged Syria and Asia Minor (258-259). Favoured by these distractions, the Goths were able to carry all before them in the central provinces of the empire. Not only did they harry the whole Balkan peninsula as far as Athens and Dyrrachium, but daring bands of plunderers crossed the Hellespont and sacked Chalcedon, Alexandria Troas, Ephesus, and even the distant Trebizond. With a little more guidance and a single leader at their head, they might have made an end of the empire, for usurpers were rising in every province. Civil war had become endemic among the Romans ; the Germans of the Rhine frontier were battering at the defences of Gaul and Rhaetia ; and the

297] DIOCLETIAN REORGANISES THE ARMY 7

indolent and frivolous Gallienus, who still maintained his precarious seat on the Palatine, bade fair to be the Sardanapalus of Rome, and to see city and empire go down together in one universal conflagration of civil strife and foreign war. In the years 260-268 all seemed lost. But deliverers arose — the tough lUyrians, Claudius, Aurelian, and Probus, reconquered the West from rebel Caesars, cleared the Germans out of the Balkan peninsula, and won back the East from the Persians and the Palmyrenes. Soon after came Diocletian, the reorganiser and restorer, and with the reconquest of Britain (a.d. 297) the empire resumed its old external shape.

But the restoration was external only. In the sixty years of battle, murder, and plague which had elapsed since the extinction of the dynasty of Severus, the vital strength of the empire had been fatally sapped. Half the provinces lay waste ; the other half had been drained dry of their resources. By twenty years of incessant labour Diocletian restored a super- ficial semblance of strength and order; his grinding taxation enabled him to put an end to the chronic bankruptcy of the Imperial exchequer, and to restore and regarrison the lon^^ broken-down military frontier of the Roman world.

But the sixty years of anarchy and disaster had left indelible marks on the composition and organisation of the Roman army. Though few of the old legions of Trajan and Severus seem to have disappeared, — most of their names ar^ still found in the Notitia, a document a hundred years later than Diocletian, — yet they had apparently been much pulled about and disorganised, by being cut up and sent apart in detachments. Often the legionary eagle at headquarters must have been surrounded by a mere fraction of the corps, while detached cohorts were serving all about the world, drafted off under the pressure of necessity.^ All sorts of cohorts and alae with new and often strange names had been raised The old broad division of the army into legions and auxilia, the former filled with Roman citizens, the latter with subjects of the empire who did not possess the citizenship, could no longer exist, for Caracalla in 212 had bestowed the franchise on all provincials. Thus the ancient distinction between the legionary

^ So, at least, one would deduce from such facts as that the usurper Carausius in Britain strikes coins to celebrate the fidelity to himself of legions whose proper head- quarters were in Germany or Moesia, e.g. IV. Flavia and XXX. Ulpia.

8 THE ART OF WAR IN THE MIDDLE AGES [300

who was a Roman and the auxiliary who was not had vanished : the status of the one was now as good as that cf the other.

Yet if auxiliary and legionary were now Romans alike, the non-citizen element had not disappeared from the army. In the days of anarchy the emperors had not been able to reject any military resources that came to hand. They had enlisted thousands of warriors from across the frontier, who were not subjects of the empire at all, and only served for pay and plunder. Broken German clans, Sarmatians, Arabs, Armenians, Persian renegades, Moors from inner Africa, were all welcomed in the time of stress and need. Corps formed of these foreigners now stood to the Roman army in much the same relation that the auxiliaries had once borne to the legions. Individuals among the mercenaries rose to high rank in the army ; one of them, said to be the son of a Gothic father and an Alan mother, wore the purple for three short years under his adopted name of Gains Julius Verus Maximinus. But it is needful to note that down to the beginning of the fourth century these foreign elements in the Roman army, though growing perilously large, were still entirely subsidiary to the native legions and cohorts. In the words of a fourth-century writer, they were still praeliandi magis adminiculum quam principal e subsidium}

But a tendency to increase the proportion of cavalry and light infantry, and to trust less and less to the legionary of the old type, grows more and more apparent as the fourth century commences. This is best shown by the fact that the name of " legion " itself no longer commands its old prominence in the empire. Instead of being considered superior to all other corps, and taking precedence of them, the legionaries began to be treated as what we should now call " troops of the line," and saw many new bodies, which were in name, but not in fact, parts of the Imperial guard, preferred to them. It was considered high pro- motion when Diocletian took two Moesian legions out of their old numerical place in the army list, rechristened them the Jovians and Herculians, and gave them under their new titles pre- cedence over all their former comrades. By the end of the fourth century we learn from Vegetius that the legions had been so neglected and thrust back that it was difficult to keep their ranks filled : " the large majority of recruits insist on enlisting among the auxiliaries, where the discipline is less severe, where the work

^ Vegetius, i. § 2.

oo] INSTITUTION OF A CENTRAL RESERVE 9

3 lighter, and where the rewards of good service come quicker

md are bestowed with a more bountiful hand."^

In the Roman army as it was reorganised by Diocletian the

egionary infantry no longer formed, as of old, the wholly pre-

Donderant part of the foot-soldiery of the empire, in spite of :he fact that he and his colleagues raised a very considerable number of new legions. In the eastern half of the empire, where Diocletian himself presided, he seems to have added eleven new legions to the sixteen old ones which he found already existing. But the non-legionary part of the army was developed on an even larger scale. To the already existing auxiliary cohorts and numeri other bodies were added in huge numbers.^ But they do not mainly belong to the frontier line of defence where the legions lay. The institution of the Comitatenses or movable Imperial army, as opposed to the limitanei or ripenses, the fixed garrison troops of the frontier, belongs undoubtedly to Diocletian's time. In this category were placed the flower of the new regiments. They were mainly composed of provincials from the Illyrian, Gallic, and Germanic provinces, though there was a con- siderable number of corps raised from the barbarians beyond the Rhine and Danube. Quartered almost entirely in the interior of the empire, they were to be used as a central reserve, free to be transferred to any point of the border that chanced to be in peril. To the Comitatenses raised by Diocletian numerous additions were made by Constantine, who drafted off many cohorts and fragments of legions from the frontier forces and added them to the movable army. These were the corps which later genera- tions called the Pseudo-coniitatenses, a curious name intended to show that they ranked somewhat lower than the old comita- tensian troops, though they had been raised to a higher standing than the surviving limitary legions.

For some not fully known reason all the legions of the Comitatenses were kept at a strength of only a thousand strong, though those left on the border still retained their old comple- ment of six thousand men. Thus, though there were seventy such

^ Vegetius, ii. § 3.

- Of cohorts alone there were still fifteen existing when the Notitia was drawn up which bear the names of Diocletian or his colleagues Maximian and Constantius {i.e. Flavia, Valeria, Jovia, Herculea) in the regimental name. See Mommsen, HermeSy 1889. How many new cohorts were made which did not bear the Imperial name one cannot say. In the Notitia there were a hundred and five cohorts and forty-four auxilia in the frontier garrisons, over and above the legions.

lo THE ART OF WAR IN THE MIDDLE AGES [30c

legions at the end of the fourth century, they did not represent the enormous force which such a roll of names seems to imply.

But Diocletian not only raised the Comitatenses and gave them precedence over the old legions. He was the first to raise a huge Imperial guard, which stood as much above the Comita- tenses as the latter did above the limitary troops. These were the Palatini, who practically superseded the old Praetorians, a body which Diocletian rightly distrusted, as having for the last century been far too much given to the making and unmaking of emperors. He confined the Praetorians to Rome, a place which neither he nor his colleagues often visited, and formed his new Imperial guard out of picked men who did not inherit the evil traditions of the old corps. How numerous the Falatini were at their creation we cannot say ; but by the end of the century they appear in the Notitia as a very considerable body, comprising twenty-four " vexillations " of horse (regiments of five hundred each), and of foot twenty-five legions, each a thousand strong, with a hundred and eight auxilia, each probably five hundred strong. This was, no doubt, a very much stronger force than the original Palatine regiments raised by Diocletian. Each of his successors had added new units to it, as the names " Honorian," " Theodosian," etc., show. Constantine the Great is known to have raised the five scholae of horsemen who formed the actual life-guard of the prince, and followed his person whenever he went out to war. By the end of the century the Imperial guard mustered about twelve thousand horse and eighty thousand foot, all (or nearly all) cantoned round or within the eastern and western capitals of the empire.

Among the Palatini, as among the Comitatenses, there was a very strong barbarian element, and this element was on the increase all through the fourth century. As Mommsen remarks,^ " each corps seems to have been valued more highly in proportion as it differed the more in nationality, organisation, and spirit from the old normal Roman legions."

Great as was the increase made by Diocletian and his col- leagues in the number of the non-legionary infantry, the additions made to the cavalry were more striking still. An infinite number of new bodies of horsemen, cunei, alae, vexillationes, etc., were raised, alike for the limitary, the comitatensian, and the palatine armies. Germans, Moors, Persians are more numerous among

1 Hermes, 1889.

o] GROWING IMPORTANCE OF CAVALRY ii

hem than the born subjects of the empire. The old legionary

avalry wholly disappears/ and the commands of horse and

oot are entirely separated. Yet under Constantine and his

mmediate successors the infantry still remained the more impor-

;ant arm, though the cavalry was continually growing in relative

mportance. When we read the pages of Ammianus Marcellinus,

Are still feel that the Roman armies whose campaigns he relates

ire the legitimate successors of the legions of Tiberius and Trajan,

:hough the names of the corps and the titles of the officers are

50 greatly changed. In the last first-class victory which the

house of Constantine won over the barbarians — Julian's great

triumph over the South German tribes near Strassburg — :it was

the infantry which bore off the honours of the day. The cavalr}^

were routed and driven off the field, but the foot-soldiery, though

their flank was uncovered, formed the testiido^ beat off the

victorious German horse, and gained for their dispersed squadrons

the time to rally and retrieve the day. (357.)

Nevertheless, we find the cavalry continually growing in relative numbers and im_portance. This is well marked by the fact that when Constantine displaced the old Praefectus Praetorio from his post as war- minister and commander-in- chief under the emperor, he replaced him, not by a single official, but by two — a magister peditum and a magister equitwn. By the time of the drawing up of the Notitia^ the number of the cavalry seems to have risen to about a third of that of the infantry, whereas in the old Roman armies it had often been but a tenth or a twelfth, and seldom rose to a sixth. The figures of the Notitia show the results of the battle of Adrianople^ of whose military effects we have soon to speak. But long before 379 the horse were high in numbers and importance. The cause was twofold. The most obvious reason for the change was that there was an increasing need for rapidly moving troops. The Germans in the early fifth century generally aimed at plunder, not at conquest. Comparatively small bands of them slipped between the frontier posts, with the object of eluding pursuit, gathering booty, and then making their way homewards. It was as yet only occasionally that a whole tribe, or confederation of tribes, cut itself loose from its ancient seat, and marched with wife and child, flocks and herds and waggons, to win new lands within the Roman border. To

^ Apparently under Constantine, as tliere are faint traces of it under Diocletian.

12 THE ART OF WAR IN THE MIDDLE AGES [350

hunt down and cut to pieces flitting bands of wary plunderers, the fully-armed legion or cohort was not a very efficient tool. The men marched with heavy loads, and were accompanied by a considerable baggage train ; hence they could not, as a rule, catch the invaders. Cavalry, or very lightly-equipped infantry, alone were suitable for the task ; the mailed legionaries were as ill-suited for it as were our own line-regiments to hunt down the Pindaris of the Deccan in the present century.

But there was another reason for the increase in the numbers of the cavalry arm. The ascendency of the Roman infantry over its enemies was no longer so marked as in earlier ages, and it therefore required to be more strongly supported by cavalry than had been necessary in the first or second century. The Germans of the days of the dynasty of Constantine were no longer the half-armed savages of earlier times, who "without helm or mail, with weak shields of wicker-work, and armed only with the javelin,"^ tried to face the embattled front of the cohort. Three hundred years of close contact with the empire had taught them much. Thousands of their warriors had served as Roman mercenaries, and brought home the fruits of ex- perience. They had begun to employ defensive armour ; among the frontier tribes the chiefs and the chosen warriors of their comitatus were now well equipped with mail-shirt and helmet. The rank and file bore iron-bound bucklers, pikes, the short stabbing sword {scj^amasax), as well as the long cutting sword {spatha)^ and among some races the di^d^dXy francisca^ or battle- axe, which, whether thrown or wielded, would penetrate Roman armour and split the Roman shield. As weapons for hand-to- hand combat, these so far surpassed the old framea that the Imperial infantry found it no longer a light matter to defeat a German tribe. At the same time, there is no doubt that the inoj^ale of the Roman army was no longer what it had once been : the corps were less homogeneous ; the recruits bought by the composition - money of the landholding classes were often of bad material ; the proportion of auxiliaries drawn from beyond the frontier was too large. Nor can we doubt that the disasters of the third century had left their mark on the soldiery ; the ancient belief in the invincibility of the Roman Empire and the majesty of the Roman name could no longer be held so firmly. Though seldom wanting in courage, the troops of the fourth

^ See Tacitus, Annals, ii. 14.

J78] THE BATTLE OF ADRIANOPLE 13

:entury had lost the self-reliance and cohesion of the old Roman infantry, and required far more careful handling on the part of their generals.

The end of this transitional period was sudden and dreadful. The battle of Adrianople was the most crushing defeat suffered by a Roman army since Cannae — a slaughter to which it is most aptly compared by Ammianus Marcellinus. The Emperor Valens, all his chief officers,^ and forty thousand men were left upon the field ; indeed the army of the East was almost annihilated, and was never again its old self.

The military importance of Adrianople was unmistakable ; it was a victory of cavalry over infantry. The Imperial army had developed its attack on the great laager in which the Goths lay encamped, arrayed in the time-honoured formation of Roman hosts — with the legions and cohorts in the centre, and the squadrons on the wings. The fight was raging hotly all along the barricade of waggons, when suddenly a great body of horsemen charged in upon the Roman left. It was the main strength of the Gothic cavalry, which had been foraging at a distance ; receiving news of the fight, it had ridden straight for the battlefield, and fell upon the exposed flank of the Imperial host, " like a thunderbolt which strikes on a mountain top, and dashes away all that stands in its path." ^

There was a considerable number of squadrons guarding the Roman flank ; but they were caught unawares : some were ridden down and trampled under foot, the rest fled disgracefully. Then the Gothic horsemen swept down on the infantry of the left wing, rolled it up, and drove it in upon the centre and reserve. So tremendous was their impact, that the legions and cohorts were pushed together in helpless confusion. Every attempt to stand firm failed, and in a few minutes left, centre, and reserve were one undistinguishable mass. Imperial guards, light troops, lancers, auxiliaries and legions of the line were wedged together in a press that grew closer every moment, for the Gothic infantry burst out from its line of waggons, and attacked from the front, the moment that it saw the Romans dashed into confusion by the attack from the flank. The cavalry on Valens' right wing saw that the day was lost, and

^ The grand masters of the infantry and cavalry, the count of the palace, and thirty-five commanders of corps of horse or foot. ^ Ammianus, xxi. 12.

14 THE ART OF WAR IN THE MIDDLE AGES [378

rode off without another effort, followed in disorder by such oi the infantry corps on that side of the field as were not toe heavily engaged to be able to retire. Then the abandoned foot-soldiery of the main body realised the horror of their position : beset in flank and rear by the horsemen, and in front by the mass which had sallied forth from the Gothic laager^ they were equally unable to deploy or to fly, and had to stand to be cut down. It was a sight such as had been seen once before at Cannae, and was to be seen once again, on a smaller scale, at Roosbeke. Men could not raise their arms to strike a blow, so closely were they packed ; spears snapped right and left, their bearers being unable to lift them to a vertical position ; many soldiers w^ere stifled in the press. Into this quivering mass the Goths rode, plying lance and sword against the helpless enemy. It was not till two-thirds of the Roman army had fallen, that the thinning of the ranks and the approach of night enabled a few thousand men to break out, and follow the fugitives of the right wing in their flight southward. (378.)

Such was the battle of Adrianople, the first great victory won by that heavy cavalry which had now shown its ability to supplant the heavy infantry of Rome as the ruling power of war. During their sojourn on the steppes of South Russia, the Goths, first of all Teutonic races, had come to place their main reliance on their horsemen. Dwelling in the Ukraine, they had felt the influence of that land, ever the nurse of cavalry from the day of the Scythian to that of the Tartar and Cossack. They had come to consider it more honourable to fight on horse than on foot, and every chief was followed by his squadron of sworn companions. Driven against their will into conflict with the empire, whose protection they had originally sought as a shelter against the oncoming Huns, they found themselves face to face with the army that had so long held the barbarian world in check. The first fighting about Marcianopolis and Ad Salices in 377 was bloody, but inconclusive. Then, when Valens had gathered all the forces of the East for a decisive battle, the da}' of judgment arrived. The shock came, and, probably to his own surprise, the Goth found that his stout lance and his good steed would carry him through the serried ranks of the Imperial infantry. He had become the arbiter of war, the lineal ancestor of all the knights of the Middle Ages, the inaugurator of that ascendency of the horsemen which was to endure for a thousand years.

jSo] THEODOSIUS SUBSIDISES THE GOTHS 15

The battle of Adrianople had completely wrecked the army Df the Eastern Empire : Valens had stripped the Persian frontier and the whole of Asia to draw together the great host tvhich perished with him. His successor Theodosius, on whom devolved the task of reorganisation, had to restore the entire military system of his realm.^ He appears to have appreciated to its full extent the meaning of the fight of Adrianople. Abandoning entirely the old Roman methods of war, he saw that cavalry must in future compose the more important half of the Imperial army. To provide himself with a sufficient force of horsemen, he was driven to a measure destined to sever all continuity between the military system of the fourth and that c>( the fifth century. After concluding a peace with the Goths so soon as he could bring them to reasonable terms, he began to enlist wholesale every Teutonic chief whom he could bribe to enter his service. The Gothic princes and their war-bands were not incorporated with the Imperial troops or put under Roman discipline : ^ they served as the personal retainers of the emperor, whose " men " they became by making to him the oath of faith- ful service, such as they were wont to give to their own kings. In return the princes received from the Caesar the annonae foederaticae, which they distributed among their horsemen. Thus began the ruinous experiment of trusting the safety of the empire to the Foederati, as the Gothic war-bands were now called : ^ for in their hands there lay the fate of the realm of Theodosius, since they formed by far the most efficient division of his army. From this moment the emperors had to rely for their own safety and for the maintenance of order in the Roman world, merely on the amount of loyalty which a constant stream of titles and honours could win from the commanders of the Foederati. No sufficient force of native troops was raised to keep the Germans in check, and the remnants of the old national

^ I imagine that the enormous gaps in the numeration of the regiments of the Eastern army in the Notitia largely proceed from the extermination of whole corps at Adrianople. We find, for example, of Sarmatian horse only Ala vii. surviving, Ala I. Armeniorum is missing, and eqttites tertii Parthiz, and nearly all the regiments of the Zabdiceni and Cordueni. Of course other causes must have extinguished many corps, but the slaughter at Adrianople was probably the chief one.

2 See Jordanes, § 28.

^ Hence they do not appear in the Notitia, though a few cohorts and alae of Goths incorporated in the regular army are there to be found.

i6 THE ART OF WAR IN THE MIDDLE AGES [393

army felt that they were relegated to a secondary place in the scheme of military organisation.

Only six years after Adrianople there were already forty thousand Gothic and other Teutonic horsemen serving under their own chiefs in the army of the East. It was on them that Theodosius relied when a few years later he marched to reconquer Gaul and Italy from the usurper Magnus Maximus. In the two battles at Siscia and Aemona, which settled the campaign of 387, he saw his confidence justified. On each occasion the Roman army of the West, those Gallic legions which had always been considered the best footmen in the world, were finally ridden down and crushed by the Teutonic cavalry, which followed the standard of the legitimate emperor. But the West loved not to obey the East : there was a quasi-national spirit of rage and resentment deep sunk in the breasts of the Gallic legions : in 392 they rose again, murdered the young Valentinian II., whom Theodosius had set over them, and tried their luck once more against the Eastern emperor and his hordes of Foederati. Under the nominal leadership of the imbecile Eugenius, but really guided by a hardy soldier of fortune named Arbogast, the Western armies faced Theodosius at the battle of the Frigidus. They were beaten after a struggle far more fierce than that of 387,^ and again the chief part in their defeat was taken by the twenty thousand Gothic horsemen who formed the core of the host of Theodosius.

Henceforth the cavalry arm began to be as predominant in the West as in the East. If for a time the foot-soldiery of Gaul and Britain maintained some of their ancient importance, it was merely due to the fact that two Teutonic races which had not yet taken to horsemanship — the Franks and Saxons — were at once their most formidable adversaries and their favourite recruiting ground. For in the Western no less than in the Eastern realm the German mercenaries were for the future to be the preponderant element in the Imperial army : the native troops took a very secondary place. A glance down the lists of military ofificers of high rank during the fifth century shows an enormous numerical superiority of alien over Roman names. It is true that since Constantine's day there had always been a large

^ So much more fierce, that the fortune of war ultimately leaned to Theodosius, owing to the treachery of some of Eugenius' officers rather than to the actual fighting.

, 39o] VEGETIUS AND THE ROMAN ARMY 17

sprinkling of half- Romanized barbarians among the corps commanders — the names of many of the generals in Ammianus tell their own tale.^ But it is only from the time of Theodosius downwards that the alien names form the ever-increasing majority. For some three generations after his death it is hardly an exaggeration to say that the higher ranks in the army were almost entirely in the hands of the Germans — from the day of Stilicho to that of Aspar and Ricimer. Aetius and Marcellinus were the only first-class generals with Roman names that we meet in the time : the rest are all aliens. It was but natural, for the Foederati were the most important part of the army, and they would not obey any leaders save their own chosen chiefs and princes.

In the well-known treatise of Vegetius, De Re Mt/i/ari, is preserved a picture of the state of the Imperial army in the Western provinces, painted probably in the time of Valentinian U:, and during his second reign in the West (388-392).2 The book would be of far greater value to us, if only Vegetius had refrained from the attempt to describe things as they ought to be instead of things as they were. He is far more con- cerned with the ancient history of the Roman legion, and with its organisation, drill, and tactics in the days of its strength, than with the degenerate corps that bore the name in his own day. Instead of describing the army of A.D. 390, with its hordes of Foederati, and its small legions and numeri, each only a thousand strong, Vegetius persists in describing the army of the early empire, w^hen all the legions were five or six thousand strong, and still formed the most important element in the Imperial host. Apparently it was his wish to induce the young Emperor Valentinian, for whose instruction he wrote, to restore the ancient discipline and organisation. Accordingly we con- tinually find him describing the ideal and not the actual, as is proved by his frequent confessions that " this custom has long been extinct," or that "only part of these exercises are now wont to be used."

^ e.^. Daglaif, Rhoemetalces, Hormisdas, Fullofaudes, Vadomar, Merobaudes Nevitta, Immo, Agila, Malarich.

2 I am inclined to hold that the jDe Re Alilitari belongs to the time of Valentinian ii., and not, as many good authorities think, to that of Valentinian ill. In the days of the latter the whole military system had so far gone to pieces that it is incredible that even an archaeologist like Vegetius should have described it in the terms which he uses. But in 388-392 it was still holding together. 2

i8 THE ART OF WAR IN THE MIDDLE AGES [390

Vegetius was a theoretical admirer of the old legion, and wholly destitute of any insight into the meaning of the change in military science which had taken place during the last hundred years. His explanation of the decadence of the Roman infantry is founded on a story that we can prove to be untrue. " From the days of the Republic," he writes, " down to the reign of the sainted Gratian, the Roman foot-soldiery bore helm, cuirass, and shield ; but in Gratian s time regular drill and exercise were gradually abandoned through negligence and idleness. The soldier ceased to wear his armour habitually, and grew to find it heavy when the time came to assume it» Wherefore the men begged leave from the emperor first that they might abandon the use of the cuirass, and then that of the helm. So our soldiery went out with breast and head un- protected to meet the Goths, and perished beneath their missiles on countless battlefields. And after so many disasters, and the sack of so many great cities, no commander has yet been able to persuade them to resume the salutary protection of helmet and cuirass. So when our men, destitute of all defensive arms, are drawn up for battle, they think of flight more than of victory. For what can the footman armed with the bow, without helm or breastplate, and even unable to manage shield and bow at once, expect to do ? . . . Thus, since they will not endure the toil of wearing the ancient armour, they must expose their naked bodies to wounds or death, or — what is worse — surrender, or betray the State by disgraceful flight. And the result is, that, rather than bear a necessary toil, they resign themselves to the dishonourable alternative of being slaughtered like sheep." ^

Here Vegetius — always more of a rhetorician than a soldier — has inverted cause and effect in the strangest fashion. It was true that by his own day the Roman infantry had for the most part become light troops and abandoned their armour. It was true also that the change had begun about the time of Gratian, for that emperor was reigning in the West when the disaster of Adrianople destroyed the army of the East. But all else in the story is obviously absurd and untrue. The Imperial foot-soldiery were still wearing the full ancient panoply when it first met the Goths. Ammianus, a strictly contemporary writer, twice speaks of the defensive armour of the legions during his account of the

^ Vegetius, i. § 20.

4oo] GROWING IMPORTANCE OF ARCHERY 19

battle of Adrianople.^ More than ten years later the anonymous writer on military equipment who dedicated his little work to the three Augusti — Theodosius, Arcadius, and Honorius — takes the breastplate for granted, when he gives some advice as to thick underclothing to be worn beneath it for campaigning in the winter or in cold and damp regions.^ Ten years later, the Roman soldiery on the column of Arcadius were still repre- sented in helm and cuirass.

It is of course ludicrous to suppose that, at a time when the cavalry were clothing themselves in more complete armour, the infantry were discarding it from mere sloth and feebleness. The real fact was that the ancient army of mailed legionaries had been tried in the battlefield and found wanting. In despair of resisting the Gothic horsemen any longer by the solidity of a line of heavy infantry, Roman military men had turned their attention to the greater use of missile weapons for the foot- soldiery, and to developing the numbers and efficiency of their own cavalry. The scientific combination of bow and lance against brave but disorderly swarms of horse was a fair device enough — as was to be shown a thousand years later on the fields of Falkirk and Crecy.

If the new tactics failed first against the Goths of Alaric and then against the Huns of Attila, their want of success must not be attributed to their own intrinsic faultiness. The armies of Honorius and Arcadius and their successors were generally beaten because they were composed partly of untrustworthy and greedy Teutonic Foederati, fighting for pay and plunder, not for loyalty, and partly of native troops discouraged and demoralised by being slighted and taught to consider them- selves inferior to their barbarian comrades. In the hands of a Stilicho or an Aetius the Imperial army could still do some good fighting. But it was more usually under the command of self-seeking mercenaries or incapable court favourites, and gradually sank from bad to worse all through the fifth century. The deterioration was inevitable : as the Teutonic auxiliaries grew more and more convinced of the weakness and impotence.

^(i) The heat of the day, "Romanes attenuatos inedia sitique confectos, et armorum grava7ttibics sarcinis, exurebat." (2) The lines of infantry close, and '* nostri occursantes gladiis obtruncant : mutuis \c\\\)\v=. galeae perfringebantitr et loricae,'''

2 Being dedicated to Theodosius and his two sons as joint Auguni, the work ni; st have been written in the years 394-395.

20 THE ART OF WAR IN THE MIDDLE AGES [406

of their masters, they became progressively greedier and more treacherous. As the native troops saw the empire falling deeper into the slough, they lost all self-respect and all hope of victory, and — as Vegetius complained — came to battle with their minds fixed on discovering the safest and easiest line of retreat.

In the reigns of Honorius and Arcadius the Roman army finally ceased to be a regular and organised body. The Notitia Dignitatum^ a document drawn up during their joint reign, somewhere about 406, still shows us the old arrangements surviving. We find that many of the Flavian cohorts and numeri, and many even of the legions of the early empire are still surviving, though they are well-nigh swamped by the scores of new barbarian corps, with extraordinary, magniloquent, and sometimes grotesque ^ names, — Honoriani and Theodosiani and Valentiniani and Arcadiani, and so forth, — not to speak of regiments which more clearly betray their nationality — cohorts and alae of Chamavi or Juthungi, Franks, Alamanni, Taifalae, Goths, and Alans (406-409). But chaos may be said to have set in with the invasion of Alaric. and the contemporary civil wars caused by the subsequent rebellions of Constantine in Britain (407-41 1 ), Maximus in Spain (411), and Jovinus and Sebastianus on the Rhine frontier (41 1-4 12).

It was in these evil days, while the imbecile Honorius was skulking behind the walls and marshes of Ravenna, that the final disorganisation of the Imperial forces took place, and most of the old native corps disappeared. It was not till the day of Alaric that Italy came to know thoroughly the Gothic horsemen whose efficiency Constantinople had already comprehended and had contrived for the moment to subsidise. But now the Goth became the terror of Rome, as he had previously been of the East. His lance and steed once more asserted their supremacy : the generalship of Stilicho, the trained infantry of the old Western army, light and heavy, the native and Foederate cavalry whose array flanked the legions, were insufficient to arrest the Gothic charge. The last chance of salvation vanished when Stilicho was murdered by his ungrateful master, and then the conquerors rode at their will through Italy and sacked the Imperial city herself. When they quitted the peninsula, it was

^ e.g. Leones Seniores, Ursi Valentiniani, promoti braccati seniores, Mauri tonantes, etc.

45o] THE BATTLE OF CHALONS 21

by their own choice, for there were no troops left in the world who could have expelled them by force (a.d. 409).

The day of infantry indeed was now gone by in Southern Europe : they continued to exist, not as the core and strength of the army, but as a subsidiary force — used as light troops in the day of battle, or to garrison fortresses, or to penetrate woods or mountains where the horseman could not pierce his way. Roman and barbarian alike threw their vigour into the organisation of their cavalry.

This tendency was only emphasised by the appearance on the Imperial frontier of the Huns, a new race of horsemen, formidable by their numbers, their rapidity of movement, and the constant rain of arrows which they would pour in without allowing their enemy to close. In their tactics they were the prototypes of the hordes of Alp Arslan, of Genghiz, and of Tamerlane. The in- fluence of the Huns on the Roman army was very marked : profiting by their example, the Roman trooper added the bow to his equipment ; and in the fifth century the native force of the empire had come to resemble that of its old enemy the Parthian state of the first century, the choicer corps being composed of horsemen in mail armed with bow and lance. Mixed with these horse-archers fought squadrons of the Teutonic Foederati, armed with the lance alone. Such were the troops of Aetius and Ricimer, the army which faced the Huns on the plain of Chalons.

That decisive battle was pre-eminently a cavalry engagement. On each side horse-archer and lancer faced horse-archer and lancer — Aetius and his Romans leagued with Theodoric's Visi- gothic chivalry — Attila's hordes of Hunnish light horse backed by the steadier troops of his German subjects, the Ostrogoths, Gepidae, Heruli, Scyrri, and Rugians. The Frankish allies of Aetius must have been the largest body of foot-soldiery on the field, but we hear nothing of their exploits in the battle.^ The victory was won, not by superior tactics, but by sheer hard fight- ing, the decisive point having been the riding down of the native Huns by Theodoric's heavier Visigothic horsemen (A.D. 450). It was certainly not the troops of the empire who had the main credit of the day.

^ Jordanes tells us, however, that the Franks had a bloody engagement with Attila's Gepidae on the night before the battle, in which fifteen thousand men fell on the two sides. There were no doubt many infantry in the host of Aetius. In Attila's harangue before the battle Jordanes makes him bid the Huns despise the " testudines " of the Romans, i.e. their infantry formed in solid masses.

CHAPTER II

COMMENCEMENT OF THE SUPREMACY OF CAVALRY. BELTSARIUS AND THE GOTHS

A.D. 450-552

T'^O trace out in further detail the meaning of the wars of the fifth century is unnecessary. But it must be observed that, as the years of its middle course rolled on, a divergence began to be seen between the tendencies of the Eastern and the Western Empire. In the West the Foederati became the sole military force of any importance. One of their chiefs, the Suevian Ricimer, made and unmade emperors at his good pleasure for some twenty years. A little later, another, the Scyrrian adventurer Odoacer, broke through the old spell of the Roman name, dethroned the last emperor of the West, and ruled Italy as a Teutonic king, though he thought well to legalise his usurpation by begging the title of Patrician from Zeno, the emperor at Constantinople (476 A.D.).

In the East the decline of the native troops never reached the depth that it attained in the West, and the Foederati never became masters of the situation. That Byzantium did not fall a prey to a Ricimer or an Odoacer seems mainly to be due to the Emperor Leo I. (457-474), who took warning by contemporary events in Italy, and determined that — even at the cost of military efficiency — the native army must be kept up as a counterpoise to the Teutonic auxiliaries. He unscrupulously slew Aspar, the great German captain whose preponderance he dreaded, though he himself owed his throne to Aspar's services. At the same time he increased the proportion of Romans to Foederati in his hosts. His successor Zeno (474-491) continued this work, and made himself noteworthy as the first emperor who properly utilised the military virtues of the Isaurians — the rough and hardy pro-

22

489] ZENO AND THE ISAURIANS ''" 23

vincials of the southern mountains of Asia Minor.^ These wild highlanders had hitherto been looked upon as intractable and troublesome subjects. Zeno showed that their courage could be employed to defend instead of to plunder their more quiet neighbours. He dealt with them as William Pitt dealt with the Celts of the Scottish hills thirteen hundred years later — formed them into numerous regiments and taught them to become soldiers instead of mere cattle-lifters. Zeno also enlisted Armenians and other inhabitants of the Roman frontier of the East, and handed over to his successor an army in which the barbarian element was adequately counterpoised by the native troops. He had done another good service to the empire by inducing the Ostrogoths, the most formidable of his Teutonic auxiliaries, to migrate en masse to Italy. It would have been an evil day for the East if Theodoric, after routing so many of Zeno's generals and ravaging so many of his provinces, had determined to stay behind in the Balkan peninsula. But, moved by the emperor's suggestions and sent forth with his solemn sanction, the Ostrogoth led off his people to win a new home, and left Moesia and Macedonia ravaged and ruined indeed, but free of barbarian settlers (489).

Under the comparatively peaceful reigns of Zeno's successors, Anastasius and Justin (491-527), the Eastern Empire was able to recover a considerable measure of strength, both military and financial. A small pamphlet which has come down to us from this time shows us how entirely the strength of its army now lay in the cavalry arm. A certain Urbicius — a tactician of the closet, not a practical soldier — dedicates to the Emperor Anastasius " an original device to enable infantry to resist horse- men." Prefacing his remarks by a statement that a new theory of the defensive is needed to meet the conditions of the day, he proposes to resuscitate the ancient Macedonian phalanx. But the projecting barrier of pikes, which formed the essential feature of that body, is not to be composed of the weapons of the soldiery themselves. The men are to retain their equipment with the bow and javelin — for apparently the whole Roman infantry were by this time furnished with missile weapons. But each decury is to take with it a pack-horse loaded with short beams set with spear-blades. When the enemy comes in sight, the beams are to be hastily placed in line before the front of the corps, so as to

^ Diocletian, however, had raised two Isaurian legions, which appear in the Noiifia.

24 THE ART OF WAR IN THE MIDDLE AGES [500

form a continuous barrier of chevaux-de-frise. If the ground is open, and attack may be expected from all sides, the infantry- are to range themselves in a hollow square, covered on all sides by the spikes and beams. " The barbarians charging with their usual headlong impetuosity, the chevaux-de-frise will bring them to a sudden stop, then the constant rain of missiles from our men will strike down rank after rank before they can overturn the machines, and they will infallibly be routed, more especially if the corners of the square are strengthened with the balistae ^ which each corps carries with it."

The weak points of this rather childish device are at once obvious. It presupposes that the infantry will always have time to form square, and that every pack-horse's burden will be unloaded with equal celerity — for obviously a single break in the continuity of the line of obstacles would be fatal. Moreover, it condemns the troops using it to complete immobility; their square once formed, they cannot move, and must remain rooted to the spot as long as the enemy has a single unbroken squadron left. Moreover, if the barbarians under- cover of a charge send parties of dismounted men to pull away a few of the chevaux-de-frise, it is practically certain that they must succeed at some point or other. At the best the device only aspires to pre- serve the troops who use it from being cut to pieces — it cannot enable them to take the offensive, and an army condemned to an eternal defensive can never deal a decisive blow.

As a matter of fact, the experiment was never tried, and the army of the East continued to depend for victory on its horse- men, native and Foederate. By a fortunate chance, the wars of the generation which followed that of Urbicius and his master Anastasius are described to us in great detail by a capable and observant eye-witness, Procopius. From him wc learn all that we can wish to know about the East- Roman army — its disposi- tion, organisation, and tactics during the second and third quarters of the sixth century.

The victorious hosts of Justinian, which reconquered for the empire Italy, Africa, and Southern Spain, were composed in about equal proportions of foreign auxiliaries serving under their own chiefs and of regular native troops, The Foederati were

^ Large machines on the principle of the crossbow, each worked by several men and throwing a heavy bolt to three times the distance that a javelin carries, as Urbicius is careful to explain.

53o] THE ROMAN HORSE-ARCHER 'HT ^5

still mainly Teutonic — Gepidae, Heruli, and Lombards; but there was a not inconsiderable intermixture of Huns and a certain number of Armenians among them. The native corps were partly surviving numeri — ■xarocXoyoi is Procopius' name for them — of the old standing army ; ^ but to these were added many new bodies, raised for a particular service or emergency by officers to whom the emperor gave a grant of permission to gather men. This was something like the English mediaeval system of com- missions of array — still more like the seventeenth - century arrangement by which a Wallenstein or a Mansfeld gathered mercenaries under royal sanction, but by the attraction of his own name. ;b'jiq < iiiOBi ^^imiirj

Both among the Foederati and among the native corps' the cavalry were by far the more Important arm. The mailed cataphracti or cuirassiers of the Asiatic provinces win the special admiration of Procopius. The paragraph In which he indicates the superiority of the horse-archer of his own day over the ancient infantry is so characteristic that It is worth reproducing.

" Men there are who call our modern soldiery ' mere bow- men,' and can praise only the troops of old, ' the shielded legionaries who fought hand to hand with the foe.' They lament that our ancient warlike courage has disappeared In these days, and thereby show themselves to be mere ignorant civilians. They say that * bowman ' was from the earliest times a term of contempt, not remembering that the archers of Homer's day — for of them they are thinking — were light troops without horse, lance, shield, or defensive armour, who came on foot to the battle and skulked behind a comrade's shield or took cover behind a stone. Such archers of course could neither defend themselves adequately nor set upon the enemy with confidence : they were mere furtive hoverers on the edge of battle. Moreover, they were such weak and unskilled shooters that they only drew the bow- string to the breast, so that the arrow flew aimlessly and pro- bably did no harm. '\ 10 m'jir.v rjna:; aiii o:t

" Now our horse-archers 'are very different men. They come to the fight culrassed and greaved to the knee. They bear bow and sword, and for the most part a lance also, and a little shield slung on the left shoulder, worked with a strap, not a handle. They are splendid riders, can shoot while galloping at full speed, and keep up the arrow-flight with equal ease whether they are

^ We hear of numeri still, but no longer of legions — all of them had disappeared.

26 THE ART OF WAR IN THE MIDDLE AGES [530

advancing or retreating. They draw the bow-cord not to the breast, but to the face, or even to the right ear, so that the missile flies so strongly as always to inflict a deadly wound, piercing both shield and cuirass with ease. Yet there are men who in antique prejudice despise our horse-archers, out of mere ignor- ance and folly. For it is clear and obvious that the grandest military results in the wars of our own day have been attained by the use of this very arm." ^

The professional soldiers of the sixth century were, in fact, entirely satisfied with the system of cavalry tactics which they had adopted, and looked with a certain air of superiority on the infantry tactics of their Roman predecessors. They thought that a cavalry force could be almost self-sufficient, if to the native horse-archer were joined the heavier squadrons of the subsidised Foederati, Lombards, Heruli, or Gepidae, led by their own princes and armed with the lance. The one could act as light troops, the other as supports, so that the infantry would hardly be needed save for garrison duty or service in woods, mountains, or morasses where the horseman could not penetrate. There was a certain amount of justification for this belief; the hard-fought battle of Daras in the first Persian war was mainly won by the cavalry. The still more decisive victory of Tricameron, which made an end of the Vandal power in Africa, was fought and won by the horse alone ; the infantry were a march behind, and only arrived in the evening when the battle was over.

Justinian's army and its achievements were not unworthy of the praise which Procopius lavishes upon it: its victories were its own, while its defeats were generally due to the wretched policy of the emperor, who persisted in dividing up the command among many hands — a system which secured military obedience at the cost of military efficiency. Justinian might, however, plead in his defence that the organisation of the army had become such that it constituted a standing menace to the central power. The system of the Teutonic comitatus^ of the " war-band " surrounding a leader to whom the soldiers are bound by a personal tie, had become deeply ingrained in the Imperial forces. Always predominant among the Foederati, it had spread from them to the native army, owing to the system by which distinguished officers were now allowed to raise corps of their own for t he Imperial service, instead of being merely

^ De Bdlo Persico, I. i. 25-40.

I 530] BELISARIUS' VICTORY AT DARAS HI iiy

i promoted to the command of old existing units. In the sixth century the monarch had always to dread that the loyalty of the troops towards their immediate commanders, in whose name they had been levied, might prevail over their higher duties. For generals of note came to be surrounded by bands of retainers of a very dangerous size and temper, when they were allowed to take into their own bodyguard any soldier of the line who distinguished himself in action. Belisarius and even the eunuch Narses were surrounded by large bodies of these devoted com- panions.^ The personal followers of the former at the time of his Gothic triumphs amounted to no less than seven thousand veteran horsemen : it was no wonder that the Romans exclaimed that " the household of a single man has overthrow^n the kingdom of Theodoric." ^

The existence of such corps of retainers rendered every Successful commander a possible Wallenstein — to use a name of more modern significance. Thus the emperor, in his desire to avert the predominance of any single officer, would join several men of discordant views in the command of an army — usually with disastrous consequences. This organisation of the Imperial forces in " bands," ^ bodies attached by personal ties to their leaders, is the characteristic military form of the sixth century. Its normal prevalence is shown by the contemporary custom of speaking of each corps by the name of its command- ing officer, and not by any official title. Nothing could be more opposed than this usage to old Roman custom.*

How entirely the efficiency of Justinian's army depended on the combination of heavy cavalry with the bow, can best be shown by a short description of the three chief victories which it won in East and West over its most important foes.

Earliest in date is the battle of Daras (530), in which .Helisarius won his first decisive victory. Daras was an important frontier fortress which was threatened by a Persian army of forty thousand men. Belisarius had gathered about twenty-five thousand to prevent the siege being formed. He

^ Procopius, De Bella Goflhico, III. i. • , , r

^ Procopius calls them dopv(popol and viraairiaTai. The usual Latin word for' them was Bucce'larii, from Bnccelltini, the ration-biscuit, meaning retainers fed by tlieir lord.

2 ^dvbov is used by Procopius both for the standard of the regiment, and for the regiment itself.

* e.g., where Ammianus would still talk of the "cohors qtiarta Thracum,''*' Pro- copius would call them "that catalogue of Thracians which Bryes led." '' '''■

28 THE ART OF WAR IN THE MIDDLE AGES [53c

put them in array close outside the city, so as to get easy pro- tection if he were beaten. The centre, composed mainly of foot, was much drawn back and " refused " ; the wings, composed of horse in equal strength, were thrown forward. To prevent a breach of continuity between centre and wings, a reserve of six hundred chosen Foederate cavalry (Huns) was placed at each flank of the infantry, charged with the duty of supporting the cavalry wing to which it was nearest. Behind the infantry was the general and his personal bodyguard of cuirassiers. The whole front of the line was protected by a ditch, broken by many open passages left for the free exit or retreat of regiments moving forward and back. That it was not a very formidable obstacle is shown by the fact that both sides crossed it without difficulty more than once in the day. One flank of the whole line was covered by an isolated hill ; that the other had any such protection we are not told.

The Persians came on in two lines — apparently, like the Romans, with horse on the flanks and foot in the centre ; but this is not expressly stated, though we know that the hard fighting was all done by the former. The infantry were, as Belisarius remarked, " half-trained rustics, only good for trench work and long shooting." On the first day there was an indecisive skirmish, on the second a pitched battle.

When the Persians advanced, they came into contact with the Roman wings, but not with the " refused " centre, which was so far drawn back that only arrow-fire was here exchanged when the two cavalry divisions on the flanks were already heavily engaged. On the Roman left the Persians made some impression at first ; but when they had pushed forward beyond the trench, they were charged in flank by the reserve of Hunnish cavalry from the left of the line of infantry. At the same time a small body of Herule Foederati, which had lain hid on the isolated hill, charged them in the rear. They broke and retreated, but did not disperse or leave the field. The Romans re-formed in their first position.

On the right meanwhile the Persian attack had been far more formidable ; their commander had placed there the famous corps called the " Immortals" and the pick of his other horsemen. In the first charge they drove the Roman cavalry right back to the gates of Daras. But in so doing the victorious squadrons became separated from their own centre, which was now engaged

PLATE I.

Htuazes

Battle of PARAS

AD. 530.

Roman

Persian:

Foot r^

Horse p-^

Foot Horse

-Bar«smanes

.^*^'

Lombaixl^ & Heruli

%

.W

Himwl [lliiiirft>..l HiLj inij mtiwl

Gothic Horse

Gothic Foot

BATTLE OF TAGIN.g:.AD 552 .

Roman Horse 1^3 Foot \^

Gortiic Horse IH Foot C!ll

^

;55] THE BATTLE OF TRICAMERON 29

n a duel of missiles with the Roman infantry behind the trench, into the gap between the centre and the victorious wing Belisarius threw first the six hundred Huns who flanked his nfantry on the right, then the similar body from the left, which le recalled the moment that the danger on that flank was mded. He himself with his bodyguard followed. Charged in ilank and rear by these fresh troops, the Persian left wing fled away diagonally, in a direction which completely separated them from their own centre. Leaving the rallied right wing to pursue the fugitives, Belisarius now threw his Huns and body- guard against the exposed flank of the Persian centre. The infantry there stationed at once broke and fled, and suffered horrible slaughter. For the rest of the war the Persians never again would face the Roman host in the open for a pitched battle.

The main tactical point to be noticed in this fight is the deliberate purpose of Belisarius to keep his infantry out of the stress of the fight, and to throw all the burden of the day upon the horse. This was accomplished by " refusing " the centre and protecting it with the ditch, while the wings were thrown forward and so placed as to draw upon themselves the chief impact of the enemy. As the Persian had also strengthened his wings, all went as Belisarius desired, and the infantry in the centre hardly came to blows at all. If the hostile commander had adopted the opposite plan, that of reinforcing his centre and making his chief assault on the corresponding part of the Roman line, Belisarius would have been able to stop him by charging from the flank with his cavalry on to the Persians, when they had passed the level of his wings and had got into the hollow space in front of the " refused " line of infantry.

Of the two fights which settled the Vandal war we need say little; that of i\d Decimum was a mere "chance medley," fought without premeditation in a series of isolated combats. It is only noteworthy that the day was mainly won by the charge of the Hunnish light cavalry. The second and decisive battle, that of Tricameron, was a pure cavalry engagement. The infantry was a march to the rear when Belisarius found the Vandal host drawn out to oppose him. In spite of this, the great general resolved to fight at once ; he placed his Foederate horse on one wing, his regular native regiments on the other, and his own bodyguard, the pick of the army and now several

30 THE ART OF WAR IN THE MIDDLE AGES [535

thousand strong, in the centre. The front was covered by a small stream, which he hoped that the Vandals might be induced to cross, purposing to charge them just at the moment when they should be labouring through it. But King Geilamir would not take the offensive, and remained unmoved beyond the water. Belisarius sent several small detachments across the brook, to harass the hostile centre and induce it to charge and assault him. But the Vandals contented themselves with throwing out slightly larger bodies of horse, which drove the Romans back over the water, but refused to cross it in pursuit. Seeing the enemy grown so cautious, Belisarius concluded that they had lost their morale after their previous defeat at Ad Decimum, and might be dealt with summarily. Accordingly he bade his own centre cross the brook and advance for a serious attack. The Vandals thronged around it and gave the general's bodyguard very hard work for some minutes. But when all their attention was engrossed in the attempt to surround and destroy the Roman centre, Belisarius let loose his two wings and bade them cross the brook and do their best. Unprepared for a general assault all along the line, and apparently caught in flank while endeavouring to encompass the Imperial centre, the wings of the Vandal army broke at the first impact of the enemy. Their flight uncovered their comrades of the middle corps, who were nearly all cut to pieces, together with their commander Tzazo, the king's brother. Geilamir himself played a poor part, made no effort to rally his men, and escaped by the swiftness of his horse (535).

So ended the Vandal kingdom, wrecked in less than an hour of cavalry fighting The lesson of the fight was simply that in a duel between two bodies of horse, the one which adopts a passive defensive, and receives the enemy's charge at a halt, will be scattered, in spite of a decided superiority in numbers. Geilamir's obvious duty was to charge the Roman centre while it was hampered in crossing the brook. He refused, allowed himself to be attacked, and lost the day. A similar example on a small scale was seen in the English heavy cavalry charge at Balaclava, thirteen hundred years later. There, too, the stronger force of cavalry chose to stand still to receive an attack : it bore up for some time against the frontal assault of the Scots Greys and Inniskillings, but broke at once and fled in disastrous confusion when its flanks were charged a

^S] BEUSARIUS AND THE GOTHS 31

tw minutes later by the Royals and 4th and 5th Dragoon juards.

The Gothic war, the greatest of the three struggles waged by ustinian, was essentially a war of sieges and not of battles. In he first half of it, indeed, down to Belisarius' capture of Ravenna, here was no single general engagement between the Goths and he Imperialists. The decisive event of this part of the struggle vas the long beleaguering of Rome, from which the Goths retired oiled, partly because of their own unskilfulness in siegecraft, partly because of the deadly fever of the Campagna, which had :hinned their ranks. But if the sieges were the chief events n the struggle of A.D. 535-40, there were a good many skirmishes md minor engagements which served to display the qualities and lactics of the two armies. A glance cast round them shows that on both sides the cavalry did almost all the fighting, and would ^eem to have been the larger half of the host.^ Infantry were, in fact, so little used by Belisarius, that we read that during the third year of the war - many of them procured themselves horses, and learned to serve as light cavalry. On one occasion the com- manders of the Isaurian archers, who formed the choicest part of the foot-soldiery, came to the general complaining bitterly of being kept out of the best of the fighting. Belisarius therefore gave them a prominent part in his next sortie, more (we are told) to conciliate such gallant soldiers, than because he thought it wise to put them in the forefront of the battle. The result was not happy for the infantry : they were shaken by the headlong flight of a party of their own horse, w^ho rode through their ranks and put them into confusion. Then the Goths fell on them and routed them : the two officers, Principius and Tarmutus, who had counselled the sortie, were both slain while trying to rally their broken troops.^ The event of the fight only served to confirm Belisarius in his belief in the absolute superiority of cavalry.

The great general's own verdict on the military meaning of the war has fortunately been preserved to us. On one occasion during the siege of Rome,* some of his officers asked him how he had dared to attack the Gothic power with such a small army, and wished to know the causes of the confidence in his

^ On one occasion we find a force composed of 4500 horse, and only 3000 foot.

2 Procopius, Be Bell Gott. i. 28.

3 Ibid, i. 29. ^ Ibid. i. 27.

32 THE ART OF WAR IN THE MIDDLE AGES [552

final success which he had ahvays shown. Belisarius answered as reported by Procopius, who was himself present, in the follow- ing terms : — " In the first small skirmishes with the Goths, I was always on the look-out to discover what were the strong and weak points in their tactics, in order to accommodate my own to them, so as best to make up for my numerical inferiority. I found that the chief difference between them and us was that our own regular Roman horse and our Hunnish Foederati are all capital horse-bowmen, while the enemy has hardly any knowledge whatever of archery. For the Gothic knights use lance and sword alone, while their bowmen on foot are always drawn up to the rear under cover of the heavy squadrons. So their horse- men are no good till the battle comes to close quarters, and can easily be shot down while standing in battle array before the moment of contact arrives. Their foot-archers, on the other hand, will never dare to advance against cavalry, and so keep too far back." Hence there was no coherence between the two arms in the Gothic host ; the knights were always wanting to get to close quarters, while the bowmen preferred long shooting, and were nervously anxious not to be exposed to a cavalry charge. Thus it generally came to pass that the former, teased by the Roman arrows, were always making reckless and premature charges, while the latter, when they saw the horsemen beaten, absconded without thinking for a moment of retrieving the battle.

The clear-sightedness of Belisarius, and his complete apprecia- tion of the weak point of the Gothic host, is best shown by a short account of the one great pitched battle which distinguished the war, though in that engagement the great general himself was not present. The fight of Taginae (552), which finally brought the struggle to an end, was won by the eunuch Narses, who, in spite of his training as a mere court chamberlain, showed military talents not inferior to Belisarius' own. His triumph was all the more striking because the Goths were now headed, not by the slow and incapable Witiges, with whom Belisarius had to deal, but by King Baduila, a gallant and experienced soldier, who had beaten the East-Romans in a score of minor fights, and thoroughly knew the tactics and methods of his adversaries.

Taginae lies just below the central watershed of the Apennines, near the modern Gubbio. The Goth had wished

y^2] THE BATTLE OF TAGINAE 33

to defend the mountain-line, but while he guarded the main pass, Narses slipped over by a side path, and appeared on the lower spurs of the western side of the range, at the head of the narrow valley down which runs the Chiascio, one of the affluents of the Tiber. Baduila arrived in time to seize the outlets of the valley, and to draw up his army so as to force Narses to fight, or else to make a perilous retreat back over a difficult pass, and in the face of a daring enemy. The scene of the battle was a small upland plain pressed in between the hills, with a breadth of perhaps two miles of ground suitable for the movement of cavalry. The two armies seem to have stretched across the level ground on an equal front, though the Imperialists had a considerable superiority in numbers. In front of the extreme left of Narses' position there was a small steep isolated hill which would have given good cover for an attack on that flank of his army. This he occupied with a small body of infantry ; on the night before the battle the Gothic king tried to seize it, but the squadron of horse which he sent forward for that purpose could not make its way up the steep path which led to the summit of the mound, and was driven down with loss.

In accordance with Gothic custom, Baduila put all his con- fidence in his horsemen, who seem to have formed a good half of his host. They included all the flower of his nation, and were strengthened by many hundreds of German mercenaries who had, at one time and another, deserted the Imperial standards in order to serve under a leader in whom they recognised the last of the hero-kings of old. Baduila ranged his horsemen in the front line ; the whole of his infantry, mostly archers, formed a second line in his rear. It was his purpose to carry all before him by a single charge there was to be no skirmishing or slow advance, but by a sudden unexpected onslaught he hoped to break through the Roman centre, where, as he could see with his own eyes, there appeared to be only infantry opposed to him. It was his object to get at the enemy as quickly as possible, in order to avoid the showers of arrows which were the strongest defence of the Imperialist troops. Delaying his attack all the morning, he suddenly hurled his whole army forward at the time of the midday meal, when he hoped to find Narses off his guard.

To meet the Gothic attack, the eunuch-general had adopted an order of battle which seems to have been of his own invention ;

34 THE ART OF WAR IN THE MIDDLE AGES [552

at any rate it had not been hitherto employed by any general in the wars of that age. He had composed his centre of the pick of his Foederate troops, eight or ten thousand Lombards, Gepidae, and Heruli, whom he had ordered to dismount from their horses and use their lances on foot. This employment of mailed horsemen as infantry recalls King Edward IIl.'s device at Cre9y ; still more so does the rest of Narses' battle-array, for on each flank of the dismounted Foederati he had ranged his Roman foot-archers, four thousand on each wing ; they were slightly advanced in a curved half-moon, so that an enemy advancing against the centre would find himself in an empty space, half encircled by the bowmen and exposed to a rain of arrows from both sides. To protect the archers, the native Roman horse-soldiery, not dismounted, were arrayed immedi. ately in their rear. Finally, on the left wing, where the isolated hill already described projected in front of the line, two detached bodies of cavalry were stationed, thrown out at an angle from the main line. The object of these was to deliver a side attack on the Gothic infantry, if it should advance close in the rear of its horse, and so expose itself to being rolled up from the flank.

The peculiarity of this formation was the combination of heavy masses of dismounted cavalry, armed with the lance and arrayed in close phalanx, with flanking bodies of archers. In- fantry had so long given up any idea of resisting horse by a level front of spears, that Baduila seems to have had no idea of the strength of the tactics that were opposed to him. Even the historian who wrote the tale of the campaign ascribes a political and not a military purpose to Narses' order of battle. Procopius tells us that he distrusted the Lombards and Gepidae, thinking that they might retire, or even join the enemy, because of their sympathy and admiration for Baduila, and that he dismounted them to prevent their moving. But this very inadequate reason is evidently not the true one, for at Casilinum, the other great victory of the eunuch-general, a similar order was employed when there was no question of disloyalty among the Foederati.

At midday the Gothic king suddenly bade his horsemen charge ; they made for the hostile centre, leaving the wings of archers alone — a terrible mistake, much like that which the French knights committed at Cre^y. For when they reached the centre of the semicircle formed by the Roman army, they

J

00-

DEFEAT OF THE GOTHS 35

began to fall by hundreds beneath the converging fire from the flanks. So disordered were the Gothic knights by their heavy loss, and by the plunging and swerving of hundreds of wounded or riderless horses in their ranks, that their charge slackened to a very slow pace, and it was only after a long time, and with great difficulty,^ that they penetrated to the mass of dis- mounted Foederati in the Roman centre. Having lost all the advantage of a sudden impact, they did not break the line of spears, and the battle resolved itself into a hand-to-hand fight along a contracted front Here the horsemen surged up and down for several hours, vainly trying to make a gap, and being shot down all the time by the volleys of arrows from the flanks. Their own foot, who should have helped them by keeping the Roman archers engaged, did not advance far enough to the front, being apparently afraid to expose themselves to the risk of a side-stroke from Narses' detached body of horse on the left wing.

At last, at eventide, the Goths were thoroughly tired out, and after one final effort the great mass of wearied and dis- heartened horsemen gave back and began to retire. Narses at once charged them with his Roman cavalry, who had as yet done no work and were quite fresh. Then the Goths broke and fled, and in their disorderly flight rode over their own infantry, who in the confusion did not open their ranks to let the fugitives through, but stood helpless and amazed.

So ended in complete success the first experiment in the combination of pike and bow which modern history shows. It is an interesting point of speculation to decide what would have happened if Baduila had either commenced the battle with the advance of his foot-archers supported by part of his horse, or launched some of his cavalry at the Roman bowmen before charging the dismounted men in the hostile centre. The whole conduct of the battle on his side is so unworthy of his previous fame, that we are tempted to accept the story told by Procopius, that he was mortally wounded at the beginning of the great charge, and that his men fought all the afternoon without a leader. But the alternative tale which tells how he escaped unhurt from the field, fled through the night, and was slain in a chance medley by a small body of pursuing horsemen, has

^ iroWCov T€ dvr]K€<TT(i}u KaKwv ej ireipav iXdovres 6\pi re Kai fx6\ii is rCov woXe^iwy dipiKOVTo TT}v Trapdra^t-v (Proc, De BelL Gott, iv. 32).

36 THE ART OF WAR IN THE MIDDLE AGES [553

generally been accepted by historians — perhaps merely because it presents more picturesque details.^

Narses had barely stamped out the last embers of the Gothic war, and received the surrender of the few fortresses which held out after the battles of Taginae and the Sarno, when he was called upon to encounter a new and altogether different race of antagonists. A great Prankish host, under the brothers Lothar and Buccelin, the generals of Theudebert of Austrasia, came push- ing down into the peninsula, to prevent the Imperialists from enjoying the fruits of their victories. Unlike the Goths, the Franks were a nation of foot-soldiers armed with spear, sword, and axe : we shall deal with their methods of warfare in the next chapter. At Casilinum in Campania, not far from the battlefield of the Sarno where the Goths had made their last stand, Narses met and vanquished the eighty thousand men of Buccelin by a varied application of the same tactics which he had used against Baduila on the field of Taginae.

The Franks were wont to advance in a deep column or wedge, which was too solid to be easily broken by a flank attack : if assailed from the side during its advance, it halted, fronted to the exposed point, and beat off the assailants. Well acquainted with these tactics, Narses prepared a dread- ful snare for the Franks. He ranged his foot-archers and other infantry in the centre, placed a chosen band of dismounted Foederati behind them, and arrayed his native Roman cavalry, all horse-archers, in two long wings. The Frankish column came rushing down on the centre, and scattered the front line of regular infantry and the second line of archers behind them without any great difficulty. It then came into contact with the Heruli and other Foederati who lay behind the light troops, and began to push them back. But at this moment Narses wheeled inwards both his wings of horse and threatened to charge the flanks of the advancing mass. The Franks were at once forced to halt, and made ready to receive the attack of the cavalry. But instead of letting his horsemen close, Narses halted them a hundred yards from the enemy, and bade them empty their quivers into the easy target of the great weltering mass of spearmen. The Franks could move neither to front nor flank, for fear of breaking their array and letting the horsemen into the gaps, hence they stood helpless, exposed to a shower of missiles

^ Proc,, De Bell. Gott. iv. 35.

PLATE II.

^'

FKANKISH WARRIORS

553] THE BATTLE OF CASILINUM 37

to which they could make no reply. Their stubborn bravery kept them rooted to the spot for some hours, but at last they lost heart, and began to tail off to the rear, the one side on which they were not surrounded. Waiting till they were well shaken and lapsing into disorder, Narses ordered a general charge. His horsemen rode through and through the broken column, and made such a slaughter that it is said that only five of Buccelin's army got away from the field.

With this last victory of the Roman army of the East in Italy we may close the transition period in the history of the art of war. The old classical forms have long vanished, and with the appearance of the Franks on the field we feel that we have arrived at the beginning of the Middle Ages.

I

BOOK II

THE EARLY MIDDLE AGES A.D. 500-768

CHAPTER I

I THE VISIGOTHS, LOMBARDS, AND FRANKS

WHEN we leave the discussion of the mihtary art of the later Romans, and pass on to investigate that of he Teutonic kingdoms which were built upon the ruins of the .Vestern Empire, we are stepping from a region of comparative ight into one of doubt and obscurity. If, in spite of our possessing military manuals like that of Vegetius, official ;tatistics such as the Notitia Dignitatum, and histories written yy able soldiers like Ammianus and Procopius, we still find iifficult points in the Roman art of war, what can we expect ,vhen our sole literary material in Western Europe consists of garrulous or jejune chronicles written by Churchmen, a few "ragments of ancient poems, and a dozen codes of Teutonic aws ? To draw up from our fragmentary authorities an estimate 3f the strategical importance of the Persian campaigns of Heraclius is not easy ; but to discover what were the particular military causes which settled the event of the day at Testry or the Guadelete, at Deorham or the Heavenfield, is absolutely impossible. We can for some centuries do little more than give the history of military institutions, arms, and armour, with an occasional side - light on tactics. Often the contemporary chronicles will be of less use to us than stray notices in national codes or songs, the quaint drawings of illuminated manuscripts, or the mouldering fragments found in the warrior's barrow.

It is fortunate that the general characteristics of the period render its military history very simple. By the sixth century the last survivals of Roman military skill had disappeared in the West. No traces remained of it but the clumsily-patched walls of the great cities. Of strategy there could be little in an age when men strove to win their ends by hard fighting rather than by skilful operations or the utilising of extraneous

42 THE ART OF WAR IN THE MIDDLE AGES [50c

advantages. Tactics were stereotyped by the nationa organisations of the various peoples. The true interest of th( centuries of the early Middle Ages lies in the gradual evolutioi of new forms of military efficiency, which end in the establish ment of a military caste as the chief power in war, and in th( decay among most races of the old system which made th( tribe arrayed in arms the normal fighting force. Intimatelj connected with this change was an alteration in arms anc equipment, which transformed the outward appearance of wa in a manner not less complete. The period of transition ma} be considered to end in the eleventh century, when the feuda knight had established his superiority over all descriptions 0 troops pitted against him, from the Magyar horse-bowmen 0 the East to the Danish axemen of the North. The fight o Hastings, the last notable attempt of unaided infantry to with stand cavalry in Western Europe for two hundred years, serve: to mark the termination of the epoch.

The Teutonic kingdoms which were founded in the fifti century within the limits of the Western Empire were some o them established by races accustomed to fight on horseback some by races accustomed to fight on foot. All the tribe: which had their original habitat in the plains beyond the Danube and north of the Euxine seem to have learned horse- manship : such were the Goths, both Eastern and Western the Lombards, Gepidae, and Heruli. The races, on the othei hand, which had started from the marshes of the Lowei Rhine or the moors of North Germany and Scandinavia were essentially foot - soldiery ; the Franks, Saxons, Angles, anc Northmen were none of them accustomed to fight on horseback The sharp division between these two groups of peoples is al the more curious because many tribes in each group had beer in close contact with the Romans for several centuries, and ii might have been expected that all would have learned a similai lesson from the empire. Such, however, was not the case : the Franks of the fifth century, though their ancestors the Chamav and Chatti had been for four hundred years serving the Roman.' as auxiliaries when they were not fighting them as enemies seem singularly uninfluenced by their mighty neighbours ; while the Goths under similar conditions had profoundly modifiec their armament and customs. In the days of the breaking-up of the Western Empire the Franks seem no more advancec

oo] THE VISIGOTHS IN SPAIN 43

lian races like the Saxons and Angles, whose relations with vome had begun late and continued comparatively slight. To certain extent this must have come from the fact that the mperors had been wont to encourage each band of auxiliaries o keep to its own national arms and equipment. In the fourth nd fifth centuries, as Mommsen observes, each Teutonic corps )f mercenaries seems to have been valued more, in proportion LS it had assimilated itself less to the Roman model. In spite )f this, it is astonishing to find the Franks of Chlodovech still lestitute of all body-armour and wholly unaccustomed to fight )n horseback. Our surprise is only the greater when we find hat the Imperial host had actually included an ala or two of "rankish cavalry^ in the year 400. Evidently the Roman eaching had taken no hold on the bulk of the race, and its nethods of fighting had remained unaltered.

(I.) The Visigoths, 600-711.

We have already spoken of the Goths, and their pre- ponderant use of cavalry in war. We have seen the Visigoths 3f Theodoric charging the Huns on the Catalaunian plain, and the Ostrogoths of Baduila fretting away their strength against the horse-archers of Narses. The latter race disappear from the stage of history in 553, but their Western kindred survived and kept the same warlike customs down to the eighth century. Considered as a military power, the Visigoths were not strong ; they generally failed in their contests with the foot-soldiery of the Franks, and they were shattered with shameful ease by the Saracens of Tarik and Musa. It would seem, however, that we must ascribe their weakness to political rather than to purely military causes. From the first they were too few to hold firmly the enormous realm that they had conquered. The Suevi could brave them for several generations in the Galician hills : the weak chain of Imperial garrisons which Justinian had established along the southern coast of the Peninsula was able to hold out against them for seventy years. The Visigoths of the sixth and still more of the seventh century appear to have consisted of a not very numerous aristocracy of

^ e.g. one cantoned in Egypt and another in Mesopotamia occur in the Notitia, What is more curious still is that there occurs in the province of Phoenicia an "ala Saxonum " ; so that even the Saxons had been formed into cavalry. (Not. Or. Thebais. 31-53 ; Mesopotamia, 31-33 ; and Phoenicia, 32-37).

44 THE ART OF WAR IN THE MIDDLE AGES [531

nobles, surrounded by war-bands of their personal retainers buccellarii or clientes^ without any solid national body below them. The original army of Alaric and Ataulf had been small and the Gothic conquerors could not recruit their numbers by amalgamating frankly with the Spanish provincials, owing tc the fatal bar of religion. Reccared's conversion to orthodoxy (589) seems to have come too late to save the race from perishing for want of numbers. From the military point oi view, the masses of provincials counted for little or nothing though they seem from the first to have been made liable to service in the host, they were unwilling and inefficient auxiliaries.^ Amalgamation between them and their masters began so late that it was not quite complete even at the time of the Saracen conquest in 711. The ruin of the kingdom was the want of a solid middle class of free Goths. For lack of it the strength and core of the Visigothic armies consisted of the counts and the horsemen of their personal retinues, the oath-bound cliente^ or buccellarii who had made themselves the " men " of the nobles. This body showed all the faults of feudal armies of a later age, for the spirit of loyalty was wanting. The old royal house died out with the slaughter of Amalric in 531, and none of the later kings succeeded in founding a permanent dynasty. The throne passed rapidly from usurper to usurper, and each great man might covet it, and hope some day to snatch at it by the aid of his war-band. The provincials passed helplessly from hand to hand without asserting any will of their own : the later kings utterly failed in their effort to build up a strong royal power based on the friendship of the Church and the support of the masses. Towards the end of the seventh century there seems to survive no free middle class at all ; apparently a process like that which occurred in England after the Danish invasions had driven the small freemen to "commend themselves " to the local magnates and become their clients.

The Spanish nobles were at the first, like the English thegnhood, an aristocracy of service, not of blood. The original host of Ataulf which conquered Spain was Visigothic in name, but in reality a mixed multitude of Teutons of all sorts. The Visigothic nucleus which Alaric had originally commanded in Epirus was quite small ; it only swelled to a great army by the

^ We hear of the Arverni, all provincials without doubt, serving by themselves, and under a native leader, in the Visigoth host that fought at Vougle as early as 507.

;o] WEAKNESS OF THE VISIGOTHIC ARMIES 45

nction of adventurers of all sorts, especially that of the thirty lousand Foederati in Italy who joined the invader after the lurder of Stilicho. Hence in this heterogeneous mass there was 0 generally recognised noble blood, such as was to be found nong more compact nationalities, like the Lombards, Bavarians, r Saxons. The only original distinction came from being romoted to official command by the king. But the men who ad once been given the appointment of " count " or " duke " raw wealthy, acquired lands, and accumulated clients. Their escendants in a few generations formed a true nobility based n wealth and local influence. The majority of the provincial overnors were drawn from their ranks, and they resented in a ody the attempts of strong-handed kings to supersede their lass in office by the preferment of obscure but loyal members f the royal coinitatus. Chindaswinth (641-652) and Wamba 572-680) tamed them for a short time, but the moment that he sceptre passed to weaker hands, the aristocracy asserted tself again. At the moment when the monarchy fell in 711, it lad become wholly feudalised : the nobles and bishops were he real masters of the realm.

The stream of Spanish annals is such a scanty one that we earn very little about the details of the interminable civil wars )f the sixth and seventh centuries. Towards the end of the atter the chronicles fail altogether, and the Egicas and Rodericks of the last days of the realm are mere names to us. It is certain, however, that by the end of the seventh century ;he Visigothic kings were at their wits' end to keep up the lumbers of their army ; a notable law of Wamba gives the 3est proof of it. He orders that " every man who is to go forth n our host, duke or count or castellan, Goth or Roman, freeman Dr freedman, or holder on a servile tenure of royal domain-land, shall bring with him to the expedition a tenth part of his slaves armed with weapons of war." ^ Nothing but the utter want of a middle class of warlike small proprietors could account for this desperate expedient being tried. A similar deduction may be made from the fact that another law of Wamba orders even clerical landholders to come to the host with their armed slaves. Of the organisation of the army we know only that the counts led the levies of their own districts, each of which corresponded as a rule to an ancient Roman civitas. Under the counts were

^ Lex Visigothorum, ix. 2, 9.

46 THE ART OF WAR IN THE MIDDLE AGES [68.

thiufads or thousand-men, and centenarii or hundred-men, whos< duty was to collect the host each in his own locality. In tim< of peace the count and thousand-man were judges and governori: like an English ealdorman ; in time of war they took the fiel( at the head of the whole levy en masse, Gothic or Roman, o their district. Spanish armies, therefore, were often ven ''' numerous, but they were disorderly, undisciplined, and generally very half-hearted in their service. The masses of provincial cared nothing for their ephemeral kings, and thought mucl more of propitiating their local despots, the counts. Heno rebellious nobles could generally rely on the .service — slacl and unwilling though it might be — of the inhabitants of thei government. By the seventh century the majority of thes( inhabitants had become the " men " of their rulers, who thu reached such a pitch of greatness that we find them called even in state documents, tyrmini} as if they were independen princes.

The Gothic nobles and their war-bands fought on horseback " gaudent equorum praepeti cursu," as Isidore of Seville wrote ii 6i 5 ;2 though, when necessary, they would dismount. Their grea weapon was the lance ; their bodies were covered with harnes of ring-mail or scale-armour, and their heads by crested helms probably of the same shape as those worn by their neighbour the Franks. They bore round shields, swords, and dagger {semispatha, scraind). The mace and axe were not unknowi to them ; the use of the latter they had learned from the Franks and they therefore called it francisca. That defensive armou was fairly common may be deduced from the fact that Kin^ Erwig (68o) ordered that even of the slaves whom the bishop: and nobles led to the host, some should wear a mail-shirt though the majority were only expected to come with shield spear, sword, scrama^ or bow and sling.^ The word employee

^ e.g. in some of Wamba's rescripts.

^ The passages on weapons in Isidore of Seville's Etymologicon are so pedantic and so stuffed with quotations from Virgil and Lucan, that we might be tempted a first to dismiss them as wholly useless repetitions of Roman usage. But this would b unjust to the author, who shows that he is not wholly neglectful of the things of hi own day by making notes on the scrama-semispatha, and adding a mention of th' " secures quas et Hispani ab usu Francorum per derivationem franciscas vocant." It i to be noted also that he has no account of the old Roman breast and back harness o p'ate under lorica, and only catalogues the mail -shirt of rings and the lorica squatne<. of scales. See Etym. xviii. § ii, 13, 18.

^ Lex Visigothoritni, ix. § 9.

.o] SIEGECRAFT OF THE VISIGOTHS 47

r the mail-shirt is zaba, the same which Maurice and Leo use r the armour of the Byzantine cavalry-soldier, and not brunia yrnie)y the common term of the Franks, Saxons, and other eutonic tribes of the North.

The provincial levies, as opposed to the counts and their ientes, were great masses of unarmoured infantry, like the old nglish fyrd, armed with rude and miscellaneous weapons, and rving much against their will. There was little or no infusion ' Gothic blood amongst them, and their service was perfunctory iwilling, and inefficient.

The Visigoths seem to have had a greater skill in the poliorcetic "t than many of their Teutonic kinsmen. Probably it was icked up from the East-Romans during the long sieges of le haven-towns of South Spain during the reigns of Reccared, isibut, and Swinthila, when for a whole generation (580-620) le main political object of the kings was to recover the orts of Andalusia and Algarve, which the folly of Athanagild ad betrayed to the generals of Justinian. We find that the 'isigoths were acquainted with the funda and balista, which irew respectively stone balls and darts, that they used the ram iries)^ and aided its work with the pluteus (shelter-hurdle) and le musculus for digging into the foundations of walls. In the ne siege of which we have considerable details, that in which Vamba took Nismes in 673, the ram, the stone-throwing lachine, and fire-arrows are described as in use.i

The end of the Visigoths as a military power was sudden nd disgraceful. How far the immediate cause of the loss of ae battle of the Guadelete was disloyalty on the part of the ounts, or slackness on the part of their subjects in the provincial 3vies, or a deficiency of properly - equipped fighting men, we annot tell. The details of the fatal day are lost; nor have /e sufficient notices of any Spanish wars of the previous century o enable us to construct a full account of the tactics of the /isigothic army.

(II.) The Lombards, 568-774.

Concerning the Lombards, the last of the Teutonic races vhose strength lay in their horsemen, we have far more know- edge. They were in much more direct touch with the Eastern

1 See Archbishop Julian's Life of Wamba, the last really detailed piece of /'isigothic history which survives.

48 THE ART OF WAR IN THE MIDDLE AGES [65(

Empire than any of their brethren during the sixth, seventh and eighth centuries, so that we have a certain amount^ information bearing on them from Byzantine sources. TImP early legends have been preserved by the excellent Paul th( Deacon, who also furnishes us with a sketch of their late annals, abounding in those picturesque tales which, though the> may not be accurate history, are invaluable as giving th( manners and customs of the race. In addition we can draw oi the information contained in the code of laws drawn up h] Rothari (643) and the supplements appended by his successors. Like all the races that have ever dwelt by the Middle Danube they were essentially a race of horsemen. The primitive folk tales recorded by Paul show it very clearly ; on their first actua appearance on the stage of history it is equally manifest. Pro copius records how they sent to Narses two thousand five hundre< horsemen of noble birth, and three thousand of lesser race wh( were the attendants and squires of the others. If they dismounte( at Taginae to stand the Gothic charge, it was by Narses' order the old general had resolved to make his centre solid by placins there his steadiest auxiliaries.^ A little later, when they invad' Italy on their own account, we read of every king and duke an( hero fighting with lance and war-horse at the head of his mer One interesting passage in Paul gives us the armament of th Lombard knight — helm and mail-shirt, and even greaves, whicl last many Western races had not adopted even three centurie later.2 In another, we read of the great lance {contus\ s^ strong that a Lombard champion, who had pierced a Byzantin horseman through the body, actually lifted him from his saddl and bore him aloft wriggling on the weapon's point.^ Th other great Lombard weapon was the broadsword {spatha which seems to have been worn at all times,* not merely whe: the warrior was equipped for war. On one occasion only d' we hear of a hero fighting with a club, and then only because hi lance was not to hand.^ Though acquainted with the bow,^ the; do not seem to have used either it or the javelin to any exten

1 Not, we need hardly repeat, because he wished to prevent troops of doubtfi loyalty from leaving the field.

2 " Loricam suam, galeam, atque ocreas tradidit diacono, et caetera arma (Paul. V. 40).

3 Ibid. V. 10.

'» In Paul. vi. § 51 it is worn at the king's council board ; in vi. § 38 at a feast, 5 Ibid, vi. § 52. « Ibid. v. § 33.

55o] THE ARMS OF THE LOMBARDS 49

in war. It was always on lance and war-horse that they placed ■heir reliance, like the Goths, who had held the plains of iVorthern Italy before them. It was always on horseback that iheir plundering bands crossed the Alps to ravage Provence and Dauphine, faced the Bavarians on the Upper Adige, or pursued :he Slovenes of Carinthia when they dared to molest the borders 3f Friuli. From a passage in the Tactica of Leo the Wise we know :hat, when hard pressed and surrounded, the Lombard knights vvould turn their horses loose, and fight back to back in a solid mass, with spears levelled outwards.^ It must have been only in dire extremity that they would do so. Paul the Deacon tells in one characteristic passage relating to a Lombard defeat, how Argait the Schultheiss was slain with many of his men because he must needs spur his horse up an almost inaccessible slope to attack the plundering bands of the Carinthian Slavs. His duke Ferdulf had taunted him with the words, " Arga ^slothful] is your name and your nature too." To vindicate his :ourage, Argait and his horsemen charged up the steep slope and were destroyed by the great stones which the Slavs rolled down Dn them, whereas, if they had dismounted and turned the position, they were " men many and brave enough to have destroyed thousands of such foes." -

It is perhaps worth noting that the horse appears more fre- [juently in the Lombard laws than in those of any other Teutonic people. There are countless clauses relating to horse-stealing, to horse-breeding, to the valuation of horses, to assaults such as throwing a man off his horse {jneeriuorpJmi), to accidents caused by the kick of a horse, to the buying and selling of horses. A war-horse with its trapping was valued as high as one hundred solidi, twice the value of the life of a household slave, and two- thirds of that of a free Lombard of low degree.^ The king's breed of chargers was highly esteemed, and the gift of one of them to a retainer or a high official was a great mark of favour.

The Lombards, unlike the Franks, Visigoths, and Saxons, were not a collection of war-bands, nor a mixed multitude of diverse races,"* but a compact national body moving down en masse with wives and children, flocks and herds, to occupy the

^ Leo Sapiens, Tactica, xviii. § 8i. 2 p^ul. vi. § 24.

' See Laws of Rothari and Luitprand, passim.

•* Though there were many Saxons and broken men of small tribes with Alboin (Paul. ii. § 26, iii. § 5), yet the great majority were Lombards.

50 THE ART OF WAR IN THE MIDDLE AGES [712

well-nigh depopulated plain of Northern Italy. But there was a disintegrating force among them ; this was the want of a per- manent royal house. Even before the conquest of Italy by Alboin, their dynasty, according to their own legends, had changed several times. Alboin was only the second of his race who had reigned over them. When he died heirless, and his immediate successor, Cleph, was slain only a year later, the nation could not agree on the choice of a king, and lived for ten years without one. But they did not cease to advance and tc conquer, though they were only led by the " dukes " {heretoga:, or ealdonnen, as the Anglo-Saxons would have called them), who were the heads of the various faras or families which made up the nation. Under these princes the Lombards broke up into tribal groups : some entered Gaul to ravage Burgundy others pushed down the peninsula of Italy, and established the duchies of Spoleto and Benevento. It was only the pressure oi a Prankish invasion, aided by the Byzantines, that drove therr into combination again, and forced them to crown Authari cU' their king. The kingdom thus restored was never so strong as ii should have been ; the dukes of Spoleto were in practice, if no1 in name, independent of it, and those of Benevento hardlj acknowledged its supremacy at all. It was only Luitpranc (7 1 2—744), who reigned but shortly before the Prankish conquest of Italy, that welded the Lombards north of Benevento intc a compact state.

The warlike organisation of the race, as was the case in al the Teutonic kingdoms, was the same which served for civi government. The Lombard realm was divided up into duchies there are said to have been thirty-six, and the men of eacl district rode to war under their duke. These chiefs wen generally of the old noble blood of the race, eoi'l-kin^ as th( English would have called them. Chance has preserved th( names of some of these old noble families, the houses of Caupu; and Harodos, Beleo, Anawas, and Hildebohrt. As the realn grew stronger, the king sometimes replaced a rebellious dukt by an officer more directly dependent on himself, a gastaldns those who had borne this title at first seem to have been th( governors of cities in the royal domain,^ and the guardians of th( royal domains within the duchies. There appears to have been \ large middle class of Lombard race, the thing that was s(

^ Domus Nostrae Civitates, Codex Dipl. Long. ii. 334.

5o] THE LOMBARD HOST 51

,uch lacking among the Visigoths of Spain. All Lombards nail and great were exercitiales (or arimannt)^ bound to turn it at the monarch's call to war, like the English ^r^. Many, Dth noble and simple, had made themselves the king's " men," / the oath of personal devotion. They were called gaisindi} word corresponding of course to the Anglo-Saxon gesith, and, <e the gesith, rode in their lord's train, and had their place in s hall. The chief of these military retainers were the marpaJiis ■ constable, the scilpor or shield -bearer, and the banner-bearer " the king. The dukes in a similar way kept smaller bands of lisindi, but they were never able to make henchmen of the hole of the freemen resident in their duchies, as did the counts " Visigothic Spain. The number of the Lombards of middle rtune was too great to allow of such a usurpation taking place, id the king's gastaldus and scJiultheiss (reeve, as the English Duld have called him) were present in each duchy, to keep its ler in check, and afford protection to any freemen whom he ight strive to oppress.^

Having dealt with Goth and Lombard, we may now turn to e Teutonic kingdoms of the North, where infantry and not )rsemen were the main power in war.

(HI.) The Franks, 500-768.

The Prankish tribes whom Chlodovech had united by the 'Wer of his strong arm, and who under his guidance overran e valleys of the Seine and Loire, were among the least ^ilised of the Teutonic races. In spite of their long contact th the empire, they were (as we have already had occasion to sntion) still mere wild and savage heathen when they began z conquest of Northern Gaul. The Franks, as pictured to us

Sidonius Apollinaris, Procopius, Agathias, and Gregory of )urs, still bore a great resemblance to their Sigambrian or lamavian ancestors whom Tacitus described more than three ituries earlier. The words in which Sidonius paints them in D are practically identical with those which Agathias used )re than a century later, so that even the conquest of Southern .ul seems to have made little difference in their military

^ Paul translates gaisind by salelles, vi. 38.

-See the Law of Rothari, 23: "Si dux exercitialem suum molestavit injuste, :aldus eum solatiet, quousque veritatem suam inveniat," etc.

52 THE ART OF WAR IN THE xMIDDLE AGES [50c

customs. The poetical bishop of Auvergne speaks of their unarmoured bodies girt with a belt alone, their javelins, the shields which they ply with such adroitness, and the axes which unlike other nations, they use as missiles, not as weapons foi close combat. He mentions their dense array and their rapid rush, " for they close so swiftly with the foe, that they seem tc fly even faster than their own darts." Agathias is more detailed but he is evidently describing a race in exactly the same stage " The arms of the Franks," he says, " are very rude ; they wea neither mail-shirt nor greaves, and their legs are only protectee by strips of linen or leather. They have hardly any horsemen but their foot-soldiery are bold and well practised in war. Thej bear swords and shields, but never use the sling or bow. Thei missiles are axes and barbed javelins (ayywvss). These last ar not very long, they can be used either to cast or to stab. Th iron of the head runs so far down the stave that very little c the wood remains unprotected. In battle they hurl thes javelins, and if they strike an enemy the barbs are so firml fixed in his body that it is impossible for him to draw th weapon out. If it strikes a shield, it is impossible for th enemy to get rid of it by cutting off its head, for the iron run too far down the shaft. At this moment the Frank rushes ii places his foot on the butt as it trails on the ground, and S( pulling the shield downwards, cleaves his uncovered adversar through the head, or pierces his breast with a second spear." ^ The fi'aitcisca or casting axe was even more typically Frankish weapon than the barbed angon. Numerous specimer have been found in Merovingian graves ; ^ it was a single-blade axe with a heavy head, composed of a long blade curved on i outer face, and deeply hollowed in the interior. It was careful weighted, so that it could be used, like the American tomahaw . for casting purposes, even better than for close combat. Tl \ skill with which the Franks discharged the weapon just befo closing with the hostile line was extraordinary, and its effectiv ness made it the favourite national weapon. A shield, swor and dagger completed the arms of the warrior : the first-nam( was of a broad oval shape, and had a large iron boss and i iron rim ; the sword was a two-edged cut-and-thrust weapo

^ Agathias.

- One was in the first Frankish monument to which a definite date can be giv< i Childeric's tomb at Tournay (481).

oo] FRANKS AND GAULS 53

anging from thirty to thirty-six inches in length;, the dagger sci^amasax^ semispatha) was a broad thrusting blade of some ;ighteen inches.

For some two centuries on from the time of Chlodovech, hese were the arms of the Prankish foot-soldiery ; they seem to lave borrowed nothing from their Roman predecessors. It is :rue indeed that some of the Gaulish levies who served the Merovings continued for a space to wear the ancient equipment Df the troops of the empire. Such, at least, is the statement of Procopius, an author whose words are never to be lightly treated : he says that many of the Gaulish cities, having surrendered themselves on favourable terms to the Prankish conqueror, were still in his own day sending their contingents to the host under their ancient banners, and wearing the full Roman array, eren ^ down to the heavy-nailed militaiy sandals. There is nothing incredible in this statement ; it is certain that from a very early stage of the conquest of Gaul the Prankish kings strengthened their armies from the ranks of the provincials, an experiment which was far easier for them than for Lombard or Visigoth, because they were not divided from their subjects by the fatal bar of Arianism.^ But it is quite clear that the conquerors did not adopt the arms of the conquered, and that the survival of the Roman garb and weapons among the Gauls disappeared in the sixth century. Just as we find Gallo- Romans adopting Prankish names by the end of that age, so we find them assimilating Prankish military customs. The tendency among the masses is towards the barbarising of the provincial, not to- wards the civilising of the Teuton. All through the Merovingian times, and indeed down to the time of Charles the Great him- self, the Prankish armies w^ere mainly great disorderly masses of unarmoured infantry, fighting in dense column formation.

It is among the highest classes alone that the effect on the invaders of their contact with the lingering civilisation of Gaul is to be seen — in things military as in all other things. The epigram which the Gothic sage made concerning his own tribesmen and the conquered provincials was true of the Pranks

^ KoX crrjfiela rk atp^repa iTayofx^voi ovtu is fidxv Kadlffratrrai, Kal crx^A"* t'^^" "Poj/j-aLtop ^v T€ rots AWols &ira<rc Kal iv rots vToSrjfxaa-i 8ia(r(bj;'ovcnv {De Bell. Gott. i. 12).

lAs Fustel de Coulanges points out, even Chlodovech himself seems to have had Gauls in his army, especially a certain Aurelianus, whom he made ruler of Melun {M. F. 495).

54 THE ART OF WAR IN THE MIDDLE AGES [55c

also : " The poor Roman tends to assimilate himself to the German, and the wealthy German tends to assimilate himsel to the Roman." 1 While the masses in Gaul forgot the ok military habits of the empire, and degenerated into disorderl} tribal hordes, the kings and great nobles among the Franks borrowed something from the externals of the vanishing civilisation. Just as they appropriated relics of Roman state and show in things civil, so in certain military matters they die not remain entirely uninfluenced by the Roman practice. Ir the sixth and seventh centuries we find among them the feebk beginnings both of the use of cavalry and of the employment of armour, commencing around the person of the king, and gradually spreading downwards.

Of the employment of horsemen among them the first mentior is in Procopius,^ who says that King Theudebert, while invading Italy in 539 with a hundred thousand men at his back, had a few horsemen whom he kept about his person. They were armed with the lance, but nothing is said of their wearing armour probably it was still very rare among them, and only used by kings, dukes, and counts. It is remarkable that on the whole there is very little mention of defensive arms in Gregory oi Tours, though he describes countless battle scenes. Even chiefs engaging in single combat before their followers do not always seem to have been provided with them.^ But from the middle of the sixth century onwards armour seems gradually to grow usual among great men, and then among all the wealthier classes. Bishop Sagittarius in 574 is blamed for taking the field " armed not with the sign of the heavenly cross, but with the secular cuirass and helm."^ Count Leudastes shocks the good Bishop of Tours by entering his house in helm and breastplate, a quiver swinging at his* waist, and a lance in his hand.^ The henchman of Duke Guntram wears a breastplate, and is drowned by its weight in a ditch (a.d. 583).^ The usurper Gundovald Ballomer is saved by his body armour from the stroke of a javelin (A.D. 585).^ In the Saxon war of 626 we read of both Clothar II. and his son Dagobert wearing

^ " Romanus miser imitatur Gothum, et Gothus utilis imitatur Romanum." '- De Bell. Gott. ii. 25.

2 So I gather from the account of the single combat of Guntram and Dracolenus in Gregor>', v.

* Gregory, iv. § 18. ^ Ibid. v. § 48.

6 .Ibid. vi. § 26. • Ibid. vii. § ^Z.

;oo] PRANKISH ARMOUR 55

lelm and breastplate (A.D. 626).^ The brunia, which com- posed the body armour, was no doubt usually the mail-shirt of ings which we find among all Teutonic races in the Middle Ages. But scale armour sewn on to a leather foundation was iiso known ; it was sometimes of the fish-scale shape, sometimes jquare-scaled. In either case it was fixed so that each row of scales overhung the one below it, and protected the upper ends Df it, where the thread fastened it to the leather. There seems to have been no survival beyond the fifth century of the old Roman lorica of plate ; perhaps Western armourers were not capable of forging it ; but even at Byzantium, where the power to make it was not wanting, this form of cuirass disappeared : probably it was inconvenient for the horse-bowman, and was dropped when he became the chief factor in war in the East, that the more pliant mail-shirt might take its place.

The Prankish headpiece was of a peculiar form, very dis- similar both to the usual shapes of the Roman helmet and to the pointed Byzantine casque with its little tuft. The typical form among the Franks was a morion-shaped, round-topped head- piece, peaked and open in front, but rounded and falling low at the back, so as to cover the nape of the neck. It was furnished with a comb or crest, which may have been composed either of thin metal or of leather. This very peculiar helm bears more likeness to a sixteenth-century morion than to any shape among the numerous headpieces of the Middle Ages. Its prototype, howev^er, was undoubtedly one of the less common late Roman types, not the old classical helmet, which we see on the head of Honorius or Justinian, but one more like that worn by certain classes of gladiators, and occasionally represented on coins of the fifth and sixth centuries. [See Plate No. II.]

Some German writers have doubted the existence of "the crested Prankish helm, such as appears in hundreds of Carlovingian and pre-Carlovingian representations of military figures.^ They allege these drawings to be the mere slavish copies of old Roman pictures, taken from fourth or fifth century manuscripts. There was, no doubt, an immense amount of such copying done, but that the crested helm never existed is incredible. The Pranks brought no headpiece of their own into Gaul ; they had fought bareheaded when they dwelt

■^ Vita Dagobcrli, § 13.

- As, for example, those from the Utrecht Psalter on Plate li.

56 THE ART OF WAR IN THE MIDDLE AGES

>mH

on the moors of Toxandria. But they found the late Roi helm in full use in their new realm, and there can be no doubl that their kings and nobles borrowed it from their subjects From the first, as we have seen, the Franks used theii provincial vassals as auxiliaries in the field. The Roman con- dottieri, like Count Aurelianus, who served under Chlodovech I. no doubt wore the crested headpiece ; so did the Gallic contingents, whom Procopius describes as serving " with the old Roman uniform and standards," in the army of Theudebert i" 539-^ We cannot suppose that when the Gallo-Romar Bishop Sagittarius equipped himself in a helm in 574, to fighl the Lombards, he put on some newly-invented Frankish head- piece.'^ Undoubtedly the old crested helm of the late Roman period was perpetuated among the leading men of the Gallic provincials, and was taken directly from them by the Franks. It only gave way to simpler forms of a more pointed shape ir the ninth century. No doubt, however, this costly metal helm was always rare ; when headpieces became more common cheaper productions, such as the leather caps of a plain round shape, which the MSS. of the eighth and ninth centuries often display, were more usual. But the helm which the eighth- century Lex Ripuaria values at six solidi ^ — half the price of a mail-shirt — must have been no leather makeshift, but an elaborate piece of metal-work, to be worth such a great price.'^

The Frankish shield, it may be added, was usually round and very convex. It was made of wood bound at the edges with iron, and possessed a prominent boss, which was sometimes spiked. It was only when the use of the horse in war became common, that the round shield became kite -shaped. Before the ninth century the circular shape was almost universal.

The use of the horse in battle seems to extend itself in exactly the same proportion as that of body armour, spreading downward through the sixth and seventh centuries, till, by the close of the Merovingian age, it has become usual among the upper classes ; the counts and dukes with their immediate

1 See p. S3' ^ See p. 54.

^ The hrttnia is mentioned in the early Ripuarian law, and valued at twelve solidi, the helm at six, the sword at seven {Lex Rip. xxxvi. §11). It is more surprising to find hainbergae (greaves) mentioned, and valued at six solidi.

■* See illustration on Plate ir. : the Utrecht Psalter is late, but its drawings arc- copied from Merovingian originals.

)3o] THE FRANKS LEARN HORSEMANSHIP 57

etinues were habitually fighting on horseback by the end of the

seventh century, though when pressed or surrounded they

A'ould still dismount and fight on foot like their ancestors. The

irst single combat on horseback related to us is that of

Suntram and Dracolenus in 578. Early instances of the

ippearance of a considerable body of cavalry are found in the

irmy of Count Firminus in 567/ and that of Duke Leudigisl in

584;^ but the first mention of a regular cavalry charge which

settled a battle is in the Saxon war of Chlothar II. in 626. The

king, irritated by the cries of the enemy, who from the other

side of the Weser kept pelting him with taunts and insults,

' put spurs to his horse and crossed the stream, all the Franks

following him and swimming through the water, though it was

full of fierce whirlpools." Chlothar engaged Bertwald, the Saxon

leader, before his men could come up with him ; " then all the

Frankish horsemen, who were still far behind their lord, shouted,

" Stand firm, O king, against thy adversary ! " Chlothar's

hands were wearied, " for he wore a breastplate, and the water

which had soaked all his garments rendered them very heavy,"

but he slew Bertwald before his men reached him, and then

together they made a vast slaughter of the Saxons.^

That, as a rule, the proportion of horsemen in a Merovingian army, even in the seventh century, was very small, can be gathered from many pieces of evidence. The battle picture which Fredegarius gives of the victory of Zi^ilpich in 612, when Theuderich of Burgundy beat his brother of Austrasia, may serve as a fair example, because the writer specifies it as the most bloody and obstinate combat on a large scale which had been seen in human memory. It appears that the fighting was all on foot, for " so great was the press when the hostile masses [phalanges'] met and strove against each other, that the bodies of the slain could not fall to the ground, but the dead stood upright wedged among the living." * Obviously this could only

^ Gregory, iv. § 30. In this case the horses are only mentioned as lost by their riders after a defeat ; does this mean that they had dismounted to fight ? They are described as swimming the Rhone on their backs.

' Ibid. vii. § 35.

" Vtfa Dagoberti, § 13.

^ " Tanta strages ab utroque exercitu facta est, ubi phalangae ingressae certamine contra se praeliabant, ut cadavera occisorum undique non habuerint ubi inclines jacerint, sed stabant mortui inter ceterorum cadavera stricti, quasi viventes " (Fredegarius, 38).

58 THE ART OF WAR IN THE MIDDLE AGES [73

have happened in an infantry fight. Still more interesting i the account of the array of the Franks a hundred years later, a the all-important battle of Poictiers, where Charles Mart( turned back the advancing flood of Saracen horsemen who ha^ swept so easily over the debris of the Visigothic monarch} " The men of the North," says the chronicler, " stood a motionless as a wall ; ^ they were like a belt of ice frozei together, and not to be dissolved, as they slew the Arabs wit! the sword. The Austrasians, vast of limb, and iron of banc hewed on bravely in the thick of the fight ; it was they wh* found and cut down the Saracen king." Obviously, therefore, a Poictiers the Franks fought, as they had done two hundred year before, at Casilinum, in one solid mass,^ without breaking rani or attempting to manoeuvre. Their victory was won by th* purely defensive tactics of the infantry square ; the fanatica Arabs, dashing against them time after time, were shattered t( pieces, and at last fled under shelter of the night. But then was no pursuit, for Charles had determined not to allow hi: men to stir a step from the line to chase the broken foe Probably he was right, for an undisciplined army canno advance against cavalry without danger, and the Arabs, ever when repulsed, were too agile and brave to be allowed th( chance of penetrating into the mass. We must conclude therefore, that the Frankish chiefs and nobles had all dis mounted and fought on foot in the " wall of ice " which thej opposed to the fiery onslaught of the Moslem horsemen. SucI tactics were, no doubt, exceptional by the eighth century, anc adopted only against an enemy all - powerful in horsemen Against armies of Saxons, or Frisians, or Bavarians, composec wholly or almost wholly of foot - soldiery, the Franks woulc employ their proportion of mounted men to advantage. We have already seen King Chlothar, a hundred years before Poictiers lead a charge against a Saxon host at the head of his cavalry Perhaps a less able general than Charles Martel would have tried the experiment against the Arabs, and courted disaster thereby. For a few thousand Frankish knights could have

^ "Gentes septentrionales ut paries immobiles permanentes, et sicut zona rigori? glacialiter adstricti gladio Arabes enecant. Gens Austriae mole membrorum praevalida et ferrea manu per ardua pectorabiliter ferientes regem inventum cxanimant '' (Isidorus Pacensis).

2 See p. 63.

7oo] MILITARY ORGANISATION OF THE FRANKS 59

done nothing against the swarms of invaders, while the infantry, destitute of the backing of mailed men of high rank and practised skill, might have been ridden down.

Nothing could have been more primitive than the military organisation of the Merovingian era. The count or duke who was the civil governor of the civitas was also its military head. When he received the king's command, he ordered a levy e7i masse of the whole free population, Roman, it would appear, no less than Prankish. From this summons, it seems that no one had legal exemption save by the special favour of the king. In practice, however, we gather that it cannot have been usual to take more than one man from each free household.^ That the " ban " did not fall on full-blooded Franks alone, or on landholding men alone, is obvious from the enormous numbers put in the field. The levy of the county of Bourges alone was fifteen thousand men,2 and, as Fustel de Coulanges remarks, it is incredible that in such a district, at a time when large estates were common, there should have been fifteen thousand families holding their land straight from the king. The fine for failing to obey the ban was enormous : by the Ripuarian law it was sixty solidi for free Franks, thirty for Romans, freedmen, or vassals of the Church.^ At a time when a cow was worth only one, and a horse six solidi, such a sum was absolutely crushing for the poor man, and very serious even to the rich.

There is as yet no trace of anything feudal in the Merovingian armies. The Franks in Gaul appear, as far as can be ascer- tained from our sources, to have had no ancient nobility of blood, such as was to be found among the eorl-kin of England, the Edilings of continental Saxony, and the Lombard ducal families. The F>anks, like the Visigoths, seem to have known no other nobility than that of service. Chlodovech had made a systematic slaughter of all the ruling families of the small Frankish states which he annexed ; apparently he succeeded in exterminating them. Among all his subjects none seems to have had any claim to stand above the rest except by the royal favour. The court officials and provincial counts and dukes of the early Merovings were drawn from all classes, even from the

^ Such would be the deduction from the document quoted by Fustel de Coulanges, Monarchie Franque, p. 293, where a son is allowed to volunteer for a campaign in his father's place.

- Gregory of Tours, vi. § 31. ^ Lex Rip. Ixv. § 2.

6o THE ART OF WAR IN THE MIDDLE AGES [6oc

ranks of the Gaulish provincials. Great officers of state witt Roman names are found early in the sixth century ; by the enc of it, the highest places of all were open to them. One Gallo Roman, Eunius Mummolus, was King Guntram's commander-in chief ; a few years later, another, Protadius, was Mayor of Bur- gundy, and first subject of the crown. The Prankish king, like al Teutonic sovereigns, had his own " men " bound to him by oath they were called antrustions, and corresponded to the Englist gesithj the Lombard gaisind^ and the Gothic saio. But they dc not appear to have been a very numerous body, certainly nol one large enough to form the chief element of importance in the host, though there were enough of them, no doubt, to furnisl" the king with a bodyguard. The Prankish tariff of weregilds shows that the antrustions were drawn from all classes. In each rank of life their valuation was very much higher than that oj persons not included in the royal comitatus. Both the Salic and the Ripuarian laws value a free Prank at two hundred solidi, but a freeman " in the king's trust " at six hundred. That there were also Gauls and letes (freedmen) among the antrustions^ is shown b) two clauses of the Salic law, which fine " anyone who, at the head of an armed band, has broken into the house of a freeman in the king's trust and slain him, eighteen hundred solidi ; and anyone who has broken into the house of a Roman or a lete in the king's trust and slain him, nine hundred solidi." ^ Prom the ranks of the antrustions were drawn the counts and dukes whc headed the Prankish provincial levies in the field.

It seems clear that these officials had very imperfect control over the men whom they led out to war. Being mere royal nominees, without any necessary local connection with the district which they ruled, their personal influence was often small. When the counts, with their subordinates in the ad- ministrative government, the vicar ii 2LX\di centenariiy took the field, it was at the head of masses of untrained men. There was neither pay nor even food provided for the army, the men being supposed to bring their own rations with them — even down to the time of Charles the Great. Hence it was no marvel that bad discipline, and a tendency to plunder everywhere and any-

' Lex Sal. xlii. (ed. Hessels ) : "Si quis coUecto contubernio hominem ingenuum in domo sua occiderit, si in truste dominica fuit ille qui occisus est, solidos MDCCC culpabilis judicelur : solidos DCCCC si quis Romanum vel litum in truste dominica

occiderit."

yoo] MILITARY ORGANISATION OF THE FRANKS 6i

where, were the distinguishing features of a Merovingian army. Having exhausted its own scanty food supply, the host would turn to marauding even in friendly territory : the commanders were quite unable to keep their men from molesting their fellow-subjects, for hunger knows no laws. When in a hostile country, they lived by open rapine, eating up the land as they passed ; if therefore a long siege or a check in the field confined them for some time to the same spot, they soon harried it bare, and were then reduced to starvation. Gregory of Tours and Paul the Deacon show one great host in Lombardy reduced to such straits that the men sold their very clothes and arms to buy bread.^ Time after time large armies melted away, not because they had been defeated, but merely because the men would not stand to their colours when privations began. To this cause, more than to any other, is to be ascribed the fact that after the first rush of the Franks had carried them over Gaul, they failed to extend their frontiers to any appreciable extent for more than two hundred years.

The other great disease of Merovingian hosts was want of discipline. Unless the king himself were in the field, there was the gravest danger that the contingents of the various provinces would fail to obey their commander-in-chief One count thought himself as good as another, and the local levies might have some respect for their own magistrate, but cared nothing for the man who ruled a neighbouring province. The Merovings sometimes tried to secure obedience by creating dukes for the frontier regions, and giving them authority over several counts and their districts, so as to secure uniformity of action against the enemy. But there was no proper hierarchy either of civil or of military functionaries ever established, nor was subordination of man to man really understood. The generals of King Gun- tram answered to their master when he rebuked them for a disgraceful defeat at the hands of the Visigoths : ^ " What were we to do? no one fears his king, no one fears his duke, no one respects his count ; and if perchance any of us tries to improve this state of affairs, and to assert his authority, forthwith a sedition breaks out in the army, and mutiny swells up." This is almost the same language used by the Byzantine emperor, Leo the Wise, when, three hundred years later, he describes the Franks of his own day.

^ Gregory of Tours, x. § 3. ' Ibid. ix. § 31.

62 THE ART OF WAR IN THE MIDDLE AGES [6i.

Even the kings themselves often found that the hereditary respect of their people for the royal blood was insufficient tc secure obedience. Chlothar I. in 555 wished to make peace with the Saxons, when they offered him tribute and submission. But his army thought themselves sure of victory, and yearned after the plunder that had been promised them. They forced Chlothar to send away the Saxon envoys and to fight.^ As might have been expected, the disorderly host was well beaten. An example of the opposite form of indiscipline was seen in 612, when the armies of Theuderich II. and Theudebert II. — one of the numerous pairs of unnatural brothers who disgrace the annals of the Merovings — were in presence. When Theuderich bade his men advance, they broke their ranks, slew the Mayor Protadius in the king's very tent, because he tried to urge them on, and forced their unwilling master to make peace with the Austrasians. It is marvellous that this phenomenon did not take place more often ; so worthless were the Merovings, and so futile their pretexts for war with each other, that one can only wonder at the docility of the subjects who let themselves be butchered in such a cause.

^ Gregory, iv. § 8.

CHAPTER II

THE ANGLO-SAXONS

IN their weapons and their manner of fighting, the bands of Angles, Jutes, and Saxons who overran Britain were more learly similar to the Franks than to the German tribes who Nvandered south. In blood and language, however, they were more ikin to the Lombards than to the Franks ; but two or three iiundred years spent by the Danube had changed the Lombard warriors and their military customs, till they had grown very unlike their old neighbours on the Elbe from whom they had parted in the third or fourth century. The Angles and Saxons, even more than the Franks, were in the sixth century a nation of foot-soldiery, rarely provided with any defensive armour save a light shield. They had been in comparatively slight contact with the empire, though they had made occasional piratical descents on the east coast of Britain even before the year 300, and though one " ala Saxonum " appears among the barbarian auxiliaries of the Notitia}

The arms and appearance of the war- bands which followed Hengist or Cerdic across the North Sea can best be gathered from the evidence of the countless Anglo-Saxon graves which have been excavated of late years. We must trust the Fairford or Ossengal cemeteries rather than the literary evidence of Bede or the Beowulf, which are excellent for the seventh and eighth centuries, but cannot be relied upon for the fifth and sixth. Arms and armour had been profoundly modified in the interval. It is doubtful whether even the chiefs of the first English war-bands wore any defensive armour. Probably they, like their gesiths, used to go out to war in their tunics, with undefended head and breast, and bearing the broad shield of linden tree

^ It is most curious to find these Saxons acting as cavalry, and stationed so far east as Phoenicia. (See p. 43.)

64 THE ART OF WAR IN THE MIDDLE AGES [j

alone. This was a round convex target like that of the Frai bound with iron at the rim, and furnished with a large project iron boss. Often it seems to have been strengthened by a cove ing of stout leather.

Of the offensive arms of the old English the spear was th( most prominent: they were in this respect still in the stage which Tacitus had described four centuries back. The mos usual form of the weapon had a lozenge-shaped head, ranging from ten up to eighteen or even twenty inches in length. Barbed leaf-shaped, and triangular spear-heads are occasionally found but all of them are far less common than the lozenge-headec type. The shaft was usually ash, fastened to the head by rivets it seems to have averaged about six feet in length. The sword appears to have been a less universally employed weapon than the spear ; the usual form of it was broad, double-edged, and acutely pointed. It had very short cross-pieces, which only projected slightly beyond the blade, and a very small pommel. In length it varied from two and a half to three feet. As an alternative for the sword the old English often used in early times the broad two-edged dagger eighteen inches long, re- sembling the scramasax of the Franks, which they called seax, and associated with the Saxon name. The axe, the typical weapon of the Frank, was rare in England, but the few specimens that have been found are generally of the Frankish type, i.e. they are light missile weapons with a curved blade, more of the type of the tomahawk than of the heavy two-handed Danish axe of a later day.

The organisation of the English conquerors of Britain differed from that of the other Teutonic invaders of the empire in several ways. They were not a single race following its hereditary king like the Ostrogoths, nor were they, like the Franks, a mass of small, closely-related tribes welded together and dominated by the autocratic will of the chief who had united them. They were not of such heterogeneous race as the so- called Visigothic conquerors of Spain, nor, on the other hand, so homogeneous as the Lombards of Italy. The Ostrogoths and Lombards were nations on the march ; the Franks and Visigoths were at least the subjects of one king. But the old English were merely isolated war-bands who had cast themselves ashore at different spots on the long coast-line of Britain, and fought each for its own hand. They were but fragments of nations whose

5oo] THE CONQUEST OF BRITAIN 65

arger part still remained in their ancient seats.^ Their chiefs vere not the old heads of the entire race, but mere heretogas^ eaders in time of war, whose authority had no ancient sanction. Mo continental Teutonic State started under such beginnings : ;he nearest parallel that we can point out is the time when the Lombards, after the death of King Cleph, abode for ten years A^ithout a king, and pushed their fortunes under thirty inde- Dendent dukes. But this condition of things lasted but a few /ears in Lombardy, and was soon ended by the outward pres- sure from Frank and East- Roman. In Britain it was more than 'our hundred years before the Danish peril led to a similar result.

The old English kingdoms, therefore, were the small districts :arved out by isolated chiefs and their war-bands. They were won after desperate struggles with the Romano-Britons, who did not submit and stave off slaughter like their equals in Gaul or Spain, but fought valiantly against the scattered troops of the invaders. If a mighty host commanded by one great king like Alaric or Theodoric had thrown itself upon Britain in the fifth century, the provincials would certainly have submitted : they would have saved their lives, and probably have imposed their tongue and their religion upon the conquerors within a few generations. But instead of one Theodoric there came to Britain a dozen Hengists and Idas, each with a small following. The Romano-Britons were often able to hold the invaders back for a space, sometimes to entirely beat them off Even after the Saxons had gained a firm footing on the southern coast, they were unable to advance far inland for two generations. Hence it came to pass that in its early stages the conquest was not a matter of submission under terms, such as always happened on the Continent, but a slow hunting of the Romano-Britons towards the West and North.^ In the first stage of the conquest, there- fore, the English kingdoms were almost wholly Teutonic, and the survival of the Celtic element small ; yet it is certain that some men of the old race still remained on the soil as laets and many more as slaves. The realm of Kent or Sussex or Essex would be composed of a heretoga who had become permanent and adopted the title of king, of his personal oath-bound followers

^ At least this was the case with Jute and Saxon : the majority of the Angles did, in all probability, cross the seas.

2 This, one must certainly imply from Bede i. 15, and from Xennius.

5

66 THE ART OF WAR IN THE MIDDLE AGES [600

or gesiths, and of other freemen, some of noble blood {eorls)^ some of simple blood iceorls). Below them were the non-Teutonic element — a -few laets and many more slaves. The kingdom of Kent as it appears in the laws of King Aethelbert (a.D. 600) still preserves the character of the days of the first conquest. Having attained its full limits in a few years, and being cut off from further expansion into Celtic Britain, its condition has become stereotyped. In such a State the army consisted of the whole free population, and was a homogeneous Teutonic body, very unlike a contemporary Visigothic or Prankish host. The simple freemen (ceorls) have a very important position in the State : they possess slaves of their own (laws 16, 25) ; the fine for violating their domicile is half that paid for violating an " eorl's tun" in the same way^ (laws 13, 15); to put one of them in bonds is a high crime and misdemeanour (law 24). Laets of various standing exist, but evidently the free Teuton is the backbone of the community. The king's dependants are but slightly mentioned, nor does the word gesith occur in the code, though it is found in the additions made to the Kentish law by Wihtraed ^ ninety years later.

But the later and larger English kingdoms were of a some- what different cast. The picture of Wessex which we get in Ini's Code, a production of about the year 700, gives us a less simple and a less Teutonic realm than that of Aethelbert.^ Ev^n before the coming of Augustine and the introduction of Christianity, the English had begun to admit the Romano-Britons to terms.^ After a victorious campaign the cities were still sacked and burned, but the Celtic country-folk were no longei reduced to slavery or at the best to laethood, but were granted an independent, though an inferior, status as freemen. The laws of Ini speak of Welsh subjects of the king owning a half-hide or even a whole hide of land.^ They even serve in his retinue the horse-wealh who rides on his errands is specially mentioned,'

* So too for misdoings with a ceorl's slave the fine is half of that for meddling witl an eorl's (laws 14, 16).

2 Wihtraed's laws, § 5.

^ It has been lately suggested that Ini's Code is connected with the settlement o newly- won British land rather than with the ordering of the whole of Wessex.

** See, for example, Bede's account of the heathen Aethelfrith, "who conquered mor territory from the Britons, either making them payers of tribute, or driving them out than any other king or ' tribune ' of the English " (i. 34).

5 Law 32. ^ T^aw 33.

7oo] THE LAWS OF INI 67

and King Cynewulf had a Welshman among his gesiths.^ We are reminded at once of the Prankish king and his Gallo-Roman antnistions on the other sid6 of the Channel.^ But something more is to be noted in the Wessex of 700. Society seems to be growing more feudal, and the nobility of service is already assert- ing itself over the old eorl-blood. We find not merely slaves and Welshmen, but English ceorls under a hlaford or lord, to whom they owe suit and service. If they try to shirk their duty to him, heavy fines are imposed on them.^ ^Ve are tempted to infer that a large proportion of ceorls v/ere now either the vassals of lords or the tribute-paying tenants on royal demesne land.^ The king has geneats or landholding tenants, who are so rich that they are twelve-hynde and own estates even so large as sixty hides.^ But the most important thing to notice is that the king's comitatus seems to have superseded the old eorl-kin as the aristocracy of the land. The *' gesithcund man owning land " is the most important person of whom the code takes cognisance after king and ealdorman. Probably the greater part of the old noble families had already commended themselves to the sovereign, and entered the ranks of his sworn companions. The actual name of the thegn only once appears instead of that of gesith, but the thegnhood itself is evidently in existence. There still exist, however, certain members of the comitatus who have not yet become proprietors of the soil. The " gesithcund men not owning land " — inferior members of the war-band who got but bed and board and weed and war-horse from the king — are valued at double a ceorl's price.

Military service is required from ceorl as well as gesith. When the call to arms is heard, the landed gesith who neglects it is to forfeit his estate and pay fyrdwite to the extent of a hundred and twenty shillings. The landless gesith pays eighty for such disobedience, the " ceorlish man " thirty shillings.

One clause (law 54) in the code is very important as giving the first indication of the fact that armour is growing common. A man weighed down by a great fine, it says, may pay part of it by surrendering his byrnie [mail-shirt] and sword at a valuat^'on. Comparing this with the almost contemporary law of the

^ A.S. Chronicle, a.d. 755 ; but the event related occurred in 784.

^ See p. 60.

^ Law 39. * Laws 59, 67, "paying gafol," rent or tribute, to him.

^ Law 19.

68 THE ART OF WAR IN THE MIDDLE AGES [700

Ripuarian Franks, we note that Ini says nothing about the helm and the bainbergce, whose price is settled under similar circumstances by the continental 'code.^ Apparently, there- fore, the byrnie was much more common than the helm in A.D. 700.

From whence did the old English learn the use of their mail- shirt? Possibly it was already known to them ere they left Saxony and Jutland, though few but kings can have possessed it at that early time. Conceivably it may have been borrowed from the Welsh. If we can be sure that the Gododin poems are fair reproductions of early originals, and were not wholly rewritten, with new surroundings, five hundred years later, we must hold that the use of armour no less than that of the war- horse survived for some time in Britain as a legacy from the Romans. A poem that claims a sixth-century origin speaks of the " loricated legions " of the half-mythical Arthur : ^ another praises at length the battle-steeds of Geraint, " whose hoofs were red with the blood of those who fell in the thick of the battle." Helm and corslet are mentioned almost as regularly as shield and spear.^ There is no antecedent improbability in believing that such legacies from their old masters lingered on among the Celts of Britain, as they certainly did among the Celts of Gaul. Perhaps the Cymry taught the use of mail to the Englishmen, as the Gallo-Roman taught it to the Frank. If so, the use of these remnants of the old civilisation must have been mainly confined to Eastern Britain. The wilder tribes of Wales, as we find them in the later centuries, were neither wearers of armour nor com- batants on horseback. The loss of the plain-land of Loegria and the gradual decay of all culture among the mountains of the West, may account for the disappearance of the war-horse, and even for that of the mail.

But, on the whole, it is more probable that the byrnie came to England from the Franks rather than from the Celts. The invaders seemed to have borrowed nothing save half a dozen words of daily speech from the tribes whom they drove westward.

^ See p. 56. ^ Ancient Books of PVales, Taliessin, xv,

^ Take as examples Gododin, 14 (Battle of Cattraeth) : "With his blade he would in iron affliction pierce many a steel-clad commander." Or ih'd. 38 : " From Edyrn arrayed in golden armour, three loricated hosts, three kings wearing golden torques." 3id. 96 : " When Caranmael put on the corslet of Kyndylan and pushed forward his ashen spear." Or Taliessin, 14 : " Wrath and tribulation as the blades gleam on the glittering helms."

7oo] THE SAXON HELM 69

It is noticeable, too, that mail begins to grow common in England almost at the same moment when we saw it coming into ordinary- use on the other side of the Channel.

The Saxon helm, however, was certainly not borrowed from the Franks. Though the crested helm of late-Roman type, such as Merovingian warriors wore, is not unknown in English illustrated MSS., yet the national headpiece was the boar-helm mentioned so frequently in the Beowulf. A single specimen of it has l^een preserved — that dug up at Benty Grange in Derbyshire by Mr. Bateman. This headpiece was composed of an iron framework filled up with plates of horn secured by silver rivets. On its summit was an iron boar with bronze eyes.^ Another form of helm was destitute of the boar ornament, and consisted merely of a framework of bronze overlaid with leather and topped by a circular knob and ring. Such was the specimen dug up on Leckhampton Hill above Cheltenham in 1844. It is probable that the composite headpiece of iron blended with horn or leather is the early form of the Saxon helm, but that by the seventh or eighth century the whole structure was solid metal. This at least we should gather from the Beowulf^ where " the white helm with its decoration of silver forged by the metal-smith, surrounded by costly chains," ^ the " defence wrought with the image of the boar, furnished with cheek guards, decked with gold, bright and hardened in the fire," ^ must surely refer to polished metal, not to the less showy and less efficient helmet of composite material. Unfortunately, in Christian times burial in full armour ceased, so that the later helms are only preserved to us in literary descriptions or in illuminated manuscripts. Many seem to have been plain conical headpieces, quite unlike the classical shapes ; others, again, resemble the crested Prankish helm of which we have already spoken.

Both head armour and body armour appear so perpetually in the Beowulf that we should be tempted to believe that they must have been universal in eighth-century England. But in fact the writer of the epic is using the poet's licence in making his heroes so rich and splendid. Just as Homer paints Achilles wearing arms of impossible beauty and artistic decoration, so the author of the Beowulf lavishes on his warriors a wealth that the real monarchs of the eighth century were far from owning.

^ Collectanea Antiqua, vol. ii. " Beo. 1450.

^ Beo. 350.

70 THE ART OF WAR IN THE MIDDLE AGES [700

Helm and byrnie were still confined to princes and ealdormen and great thegns.

Unmolested for several centuries in their new island home, and waging war only on each other or on the constantly receding Celt, the English retained the old Teutonic war customs long after their continental neighbours had begun to modify them. They never learned, like the Franks, to fight on horseback ; though their chiefs rode as far as the battlefield, they dismounted for the battle. Even in the eleventh century they still were so unaccustomed to act as cavalry that they failed as lamentably when they essayed it^ as did Swiatoslafs Russians before Dorostolon. One isolated passage in the Beowulf s'pQd^is of a king's war-horse " which never failed in the front when the slain were falling." ^ But we have no other indication of the use of the charger in the actual battle ; perhaps the poet may have been taking the same licence as Homer when he makes Greek kings fight from the chariot, or perchance he is under some continental influence. It is at any rate certain that — in spite of some pictures in English MS. copied from foreign originals, — the horse was normally used for locomotion, but not for the charge.

Nor had the old English learned much of the art of fortifica- tion : they allowed even the mighty Roman walls of London and Chester to moulder away. At best they stockaded strong positions. The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle tells us that Bamborough, the Bernician capital, was first strengthened with a hedge,^ and later by a regular wall ; but the evidence is late, and Bede tells us that when in 65 1 Penda the Mercian beset it, he strove to burn his way in by heaping combustibles against the defences — a fact which seems to suggest that they were still wooden.* The plan, we read, must have succeeded but for the miraculous wind raised by the prayers of St. Aidan, which turned back the flames into the besiegers' faces. If an actual stone wall was built across the narrow isthmus of the rock of Bamborough, it was a very unusually solid piece of work for old English engineers to take in hand.

^ A.S. Chronicle, Year 1055.

- "Then Ilrothgar bade bring eight steeds within the enclosure with rich cheel; trappings, on one of them was girt a saddle wrought with gold and bright treasures- the war-seat of Ilalfdan's son when he would enter on the sword-play : never did ii fail in the front when the slain were falling " (Beo. 1036-42).

2 A.S. Chronicle under a.d. 547. ^ Bede, iii. 16.

;oo] THE OLD ENGLISH BATTLE 71

Hence it came that the wars of the English in the sixth, seventh, and eighth centuries were so spasmodic and inconse- quent. Edwin or Penda or Offa took the field at the head of a comparatively small force of well-armed gesiths, backed by the rude and half-armed levies of the countryside. The strength of their kingdoms could be mustered for a single battle or a short campaign ; but even if victory was won, there was no means of holding down the conquered foe. The king of the vanquished tribe might for the nonce own himself his conqueror's man and contract to pay him tribute, but there was nothing to prevent him from rebelling the moment that he felt strong enough. To make the conquest permanent, one of two things was needed — colonisation of the district that had been subdued, or the establishment of garrisons in fortified places within it. But the English were never wont to colonise the lands of their own kinsmen, though they would settle readily enough on Welsh soil. Fortifications they were not wont to build, and garrisons could not be found when there was no permanent military force. No great warrior king arose to modify the primitive warlike customs of the English till the days of Alfred and Edward the Elder. Hence all the battles and conquests of a Penda or an Offa were of little avail : when the conqueror died, his empire died with him, and each subject State resumed its autonomy.

The Anglo-Saxon battle was a simple thing enough. There is no mention of sleight or cunning in tactics : the armies faced each other on some convenient hillside, ranged in the " shield- wall," ^ i.e. in close line, but not so closely packed that spears could not be lightly hurled or swords swung. The king would take the centre, with his banner ^ flying above his head, and his well-armed gesiths around him. On each side the levies of the shires would stand. After hurling their spears at each other (the bow was little used in war), the hosts would close and "hack and hew at each other over the w^ar-linden," i.e. over the lines of shields, till one side or the other gave way. When victory was achieved, the conqueror thought rather of

^ The ' * Bord-weall "' is of course merely a poetical expression for the wall-like line of shielded men. It has nothing to do with locking shields after the manner of the Roman tesiudo, with which it has been compared. Warriors in Beoivulf 2980 hew each other's helms to pieces " over the shield-wall."

^ The banner is mentioned both in Bede (King Edwin's) and in Beowulf 2<^o6.

72 THE ART OF WAR IN THE MIDDLE AGES [700

plundering the richest valleys in his adversary's realm than of seizing the strategical points in it. Systematic conquest — as we have already observed — never came within the scope of the invader's thoughts : at the best he would make the vanquished his tributaries.

BOOK III

FROM CHARLES THE GREAT TO THE BATTLE OF HASTINGS

A.D. 768-1066

73

CHAPTER I

CHARLES THE GREAT AND THE EARLY CAROLINGIANS (A.D. 768-850)

rHE accession of Charles the Great serves to mark the commencement of a new epoch in the art of war, as in nost other spheres of human activity in Western Europe. In •ur second book we had to describe the military customs of ^>ank and Goth, Lombard and Saxon, in separate sections. The onquests of Charles combined all the kingdoms of the Teutonic Vest into a single State, with the exception of England and the )bscure Visigothic survival in the Asturias. Races which had litherto been in but slight contact with each other are for the uture subjected to the same influences, placed under the same nasters, and guided towards the same political ends. The escripts of Charles were received with the same obedience at ?avia and Paderborn, at Barcelona and Regensburg. For the irst time since the fall of the West-Roman Empire the same organisation was imposed on all the peoples from the Ebro to he Danube. The homogeneity which his long reign imposed apon all the provinces of Western Europe was never entirely ost, even when his dynasty had disappeared and his realm lad fallen asunder into half a dozen independent States. In the listory of the art of war this fact is as clear as in that of law, iterature, or art. In spite of all national divergences, there is or the future a certain obvious similarity in the development of all the Western peoples.

We have pointed out that under the later Merovings and the ^reat Mayors of the Palace the Franks were showing a decided ;endency towards the adoption of armour and the development 3f cavalry service. It is under Charles the Great that this :endency receives a definite sanction from the royal authority,

76 THE ART OF WAR IN THE MIDDLE AGES [^(

and, ceasing to be voluntary, becomes a matter of law and con pulsion. At the same time an endeavour is made to render tl old Prankish levy en masse more efficient, by making defini provision for its sustenance and by enforcing discipline. Mo important of all is the introduction of a system under which tl universal liability to service remains, but the individuals on who; the hereban falls are made to combine into small groups, eac bound to furnish one well-armed man to the host; so that single efficient warrior is substituted for two, three, or si ill-equipped peasants.

The reasons which led to the reforms of the great Charlt are not hard to seek. Under the later Merovings the Fran! were barely able to maintain their own borders : their usual foi were the Saxon, Frisian, and Bavarian: expeditions against Spa and Italy had almost ceased. This period of decay and unen( ing civil wars was brought to a sudden close by the onslaughts the Saracens in 725-732 : Charles Martel had fortunately con to the front just in time to save the State. The next forty yea were a period of aggressive wars against the Saracen, tl Lombard, and the Saxon. Both Saracens and Lombards we horse-soldiery, and we cannot doubt that in the wars with Kir Aistulf and the Emirs of Spain the Franks were led to devek their cavalry in order to cope with their enemies. They obtains such marked success against each of their adversaries, that v cannot doubt that their mounted men were growing mo numerous and more efficient than they had been in the seven' century.

But Charles the Great undertook offensive wars on a muc larger scale than Pepin and Charles Martel. His armies wei so far afield, and the regions which he subdued were so broa that the old Frankish levy en masse would have been far too slo and clumsy a weapon for him. An army of Neustrian ar Austrasian infantry could hardly have hunted the Avars on tl plains of the Theiss and the Middle Danube. The Franki.' realm had been so vastly enlarged that it extended, not as of o from Utrecht to Toulouse, but from Hamburg to Barcelon To keep this mighty empire in obedience a more quickly-movii force was required ; hence Charles did his best to increase tl number of his horse-soldiery. It was also incumbent on him 1 raise the proportion of mailed men in his host : against tl well-armoured Lombard and Saracen, and later against tl

CHARLES THE GREAT AND THE LOMBARDS 77

1 rse-bowmen of the Avars, troops serving without helm and lie were at a great disadvantage.

The first ordinance bearing on military matters in the Lpitularies of Charles the Great is one showing his anxiety to ep as much armour as possible within the realm. In 779 he ders that no merchant shall dare to export byrnies from the aim. This order was repeated again and again in later years, the Capitula Minora^ cap. ']^ and again in the Aachen ipitulary of 805 ; the trade in arms with the Wends and Avars especially denounced in the last-named document.^ Any erchant caught conveying a mail-shirt outside the realm is ntenced to the forfeiture of all his property.

In the first half of his reign Charles issued a good deal of

ilitary legislation for his newly-conquered Lombard subjects.

;e imposed upon them the Prankish regulations on military

irvice, which made the fine for neglecting the king's " ban "

xty solidi, — the old Ripuarian valuation of the offence, — and

le penalty for desertion in the field, " which the Franks call

^resliscs" death, or at least to be placed at the king's mercy

oth for life and property.^ It is interesting to find in the

.ombardic Capitulary of y^6 that the Lombards who are to

kvear obedience to the royal mandates are defined as cavalry

ne and all, being described as " those of the countryside, or men

f the counts, bishops, and abbots, or tenants on royal demesne,

r on Church property, all who hold fiefs, or serve as vassals

nder a lord, all those who come to the host with horse and arms,

hield, lance, sword, and dagger." * The possession of this mass

•f Lombard horsemen was of the greatest importance to Charles

n his wars with the Avars. Nearly all the fighting against

hese wild horse-bowmen was done by the Lombards, under

^epin, the king's son, whom he had made his vicegerent in

^taly. It was a Lombard host which in 790 pushed forward

nto the heart of Pannonia, beat the Avars in the open field, and

;tormed their camp. The slow-moving Austrasians meanwhile

lad only wasted the Avaric borders as far as the Raab. A few

y^ears later it was again the Lombard horsemen who practically

nade an end of the Avaric power : under Pepin and Eric Duke

3f Friuli they captured the great " Ring," or royal encampment

of the Chagan, hard by the Theiss, and sent its spoils, the

^ Cap. Mm. § 7 : " Ut bauga et bruniae non dentur negociatoribus. "

2 Cap. Aquisg. § 7. ^ Cap. Ticinense, § 3. ■* Cap. Langobardiae of 786, § 7.

78 THE ART OF WAR IN THE MIDDLE AGES [8c

accumulation of two centuries of plunder, to deck the halls ( Aachen. The Avars never raised their heads again, and fe into decrepitude. If he had led only Prankish infantry levie Charles would never have been able to subdue this race of noma horsemen : the numerous Lombard knights, however, could bot pursue them and ride them down when caught. It is interestin to note how the strong domineering spirit of the great kin inspired his new subjects to undertake and carry out an adver ture which their own kings had never been able to achieve, fc the Avar raids had been a scourge to Friuli and Lombard] " Austria " for two centuries, and no remedy had been foun against them.

The chief military ordinances of Charles the Great ai five rescripts dating from the later years of his reign — th Capitulare de Exercitu Proniovendo of 803, the Capitula-t Aquisgranense of 805, the later edicts issued from the same cit in 807 and 813, and the Capitulare Bononiense of 81 1. All thes deserve careful study.

The first of them, the edict of 803, is directed towards tb substitution of a smaller but better-armed force for the ol general levy. It ordains that the great vassals must take to th field as many as possible of the retainers whom they hav enfeoffed on their land {homines casati). A count may lea\ behind only two of his men to guard his wife, and two moi to discharge his official functions. A bishop may leave onl two altogether.^ Secondly, a new arrangement is made as t the field service of all Franks holding land. Everyone wh owns four mansV^ ox over, must march himself under his Ion if his lord is serving on the expedition, — under his local cour if the lord be busy elsewhere. To every man who owr three mansi there shall be added another who has but one, an these two shall settle between them for the service of one ma properly equipped : if the wealthier goes himself, the poorc shall pay one- fourth of his equipment ; if the poorer goes, th wealthier shall be responsible for three- fourths. Similarly, a men owning two mansi are to be arranged in pairs : one is t march, the other to provide half the equipment. And so, agair holders of one jnansus are to be arranged in groups of four : on will go forth, the other three will each be responsible for om

1 Cap. de Exercitu Proniovendo, § 4.

' Cf. the English enactment about the man with five hides or over, on p. 109.

I

5] THE CAPITULARIES OF CHARLES THE GREAT 79

iirth of his equipment.^ The local counts are charged to see at all men holding- a mansus or more are placed in one of these cups : those found unenrolled are to be heavily fined for irking the ban.^ Thus we see that the service of the ill- med poor is lightened, and that of the well-armed rich strictly iforced. The general result would be a decrease in numbers, it a rise in average personal efficiency, in the host of the aim.

The Capitulare Aquisgranense of 805 is intended to supple- ment the ordinance of 803. It orders that every man having velve mansi must come to the host in a mail-shirt : anyone ho has such armour and fails to bring it to the host is to forfeit oth the byrnie and any beneficimn that he may hold from ic king.^ The fine for neglecting the ban, or failing to be iiroUed in one of the contributary groups established in 803, is 3 be half a man's substance ; — three pounds of gold for anyone olding land or chattels to the value of six pounds, thirty Dlidi for a man owning three pounds, and so forth.* The rohibition against selling arms outside the realm is re-enforced, ncl it is enacted that no man shall carry weapons within his 'wn district in time of peace : " if a slave is found with a spear, t shall be broken over his back."^

The bulk of the army consisting of men owning less than welve mansi, it is obvious that the minority only were as yet urnished with armour. All the men of the contributory groups ire evidently infantry armed with shield and spear alone.

Much more notable than the Capitulary of 805 is that of 807. This carries the duty of providing warriors down to men holding jven less than the one mansus which was laid down as the base )f service in 803. For the future three owners of that limit, in- stead of four, are to furnish a man for the host, while six holders 3f half a mansus, or possessors of ten solidi in chattels, are to contribute to equip one of themselves.^ Two separate clauses deal with the service of the Saxons and Frisians. The former, all apparently treated as belonging to the poorest class, i.e. being all infantry, are to send one man in six for an expedition against the Saracens or Avars, one man in three against the Slavs of Bohemia ; but if the Wends and Sorbs, their immediate neigh- bours, are in arms, then the whole levy is to take the field.

^ Cap, de Exerc. Promov. § i . ^ /^^/^^ § 2. 3 Cap. Aquisg. 805, § 6.

■^ Ibid. § 19. 5 Ibid. § 5. 6 jjjid^ go7^ § 2.

8o THE ART OF WAR IN THE MIDDLE AGES [Sn

The ordinance for the Frisians is quite different. The counts all holders of a royal " beneficium," and all who serve on horse back (caballai'ii omnes), are to march out whenever the ban \\ proclaimed ; of the commons {pauperiores) every six men are tc join in equipping one warrior for the host. There is unfortunatel} no statement of the limits of the class which served as mountec men ; we should have been glad to learn its character. No improbably it may have consisted of the holders of twelve mansi, and the personal retainers of the great vassals anc officials.

For the inner discipline of the host the Capitulai^e Bononienst (8ii) is very important. We learn from it that those whc arrived late at the muster were punished by being compelled t( abstain from wine and flesh for just so many days as they hac fallen behind the appointed time.^ Anyone found drunk ir camp was to be deprived of wine till the campaign was ended. Every holder of a " beneficium " who deserted his comrades ii the hour of need, either from cowardice or from private feud was to forfeit his holding to the crown.^ The provision of fooc which each man was to bring to the host is defined as beinj three months' rations ; it consisted, as we learn from a late document, of flour, bacon, and wine.^ The three months were tc count from the border, with certain relaxations in favour o those coming from afar. Thus anyone coming from beyond th< Rhine may count his three months commencing at the Loire and anyone coming from beyond the Loire may count his three months from the Rhine. On the other hand, a dweller beyonc the Rhine going east may only count from the Elbe, anc a dweller beyond the Loire going south may only count fron the Pyrenees.^ The Capitulare Bononiense is very clear on the necessity for providing as many fully-armed men as possible : i enacts that if any bishop or abbot finds that he has more byrnie: in store than he has to contribute men to the host, he must no let them lie idle, but at once inform the king of their existence. It also lays great stress on the necessity of all retainers follow ing the host even when their lord is not present : if he neglect

1 Cap. Bon. § 3- ' Jbid. § 6. ^ //./^^ § ^_

* Cap. Aquisg. 813, § lo. Cf. also the curious story about Charles and th drunken guards in the Monk of St. Gall, book ii.

6 Cap. Bon. § 8.

* Ibid. cap. 10. I presume that the king would either buy them at a valuation or provide other men to wear them.

13] THE CAPITULARIES OF CHARLES THE GREAT 8i

3 forward them to the local count, he must pay the fine that bey have incurred by slighting the hereban}

The section on rations in the Capitulare Bononiense can be upplemented by a clause of the edict De Villis Dominicis, which lys down the rule that cars such as follow the host should each le able to contain twelve bushels of corn, or twelve small barrels •f wine, and that each car should be furnished with a leather cover •ierced with eyelet holes, and capable of being turned into a )ontoon by being sewed together and stuffed (with hay?). ^ach cart was to carry a lance, a shield, a bow and quiver — pre- umably to equip the driver in time of need.^

Last of the military decrees of Charles the Great comes the Zapittilare Aquisgra7tense of 813, which contains several im- )ortant notices. It provides that the count, when his men are nustered, must see that each has a lance, a shield, a bow, two )owstrings and twelve arrows. No one is for the future to ippear carrying a club alone ; the most poorly-armed men must it least have a bow. The stress laid on the bow in this document md in the Capitulare de Villis Dominicis is important. The veapon was practically new to the Franks, and the attempt to nake it universal was probably due to experience in war against he Avars,^ the only neighbours of the empire who made much ise of the weapon. Another clause provides that all the " men " obviously the household men) of counts, bishops, and abbots nust have both helm and mail-shirt. We get from section 10 )f this document a glimpse at the existence of a military train : )n the royal cars are to be pickaxes, hatchets, iron-shod stakes, Davises, rams, and slings (obviously machines, not merely hand- dings). The king's marshals are to provide stones suitable for :asting from th^-so^ fundibuli.

On all these documents the best commentary is the summons ,vhich calls Fulrad, Abbot of Altaich, to the royal host in 806. (t is worth quoting at length. " You shall come to Stasfurt by :he Weser on May 20," writes the king, " with your ' men ' Drepared to go on warlike service to any part of our realm that vve may point out ; that is, you shall come with arms and gear md all warlike equipment of clothing and victuals. Every Norseman shall have shield, lance, sword, dagger, a bow and a

1 Cap. Bon. caps. 7, 9. - Cap. de Villis Dominicis, § 64.

2 Rather the Avars than the Byzantines, I should imagine, as the contact with the latter had been comparatively small, while the Avar wars were very long.

6

82 THE ART OF WAR IN THE MIDDLE AGES [8o(

quiver. On your carts you shall have ready spades, axes, picks and iron-pointed stakes, and all other things needed for the host The rations shall be for three months, the clothing must be ab]( to hold out for six. On your way you shall do no damage t( our subjects, and touch nothing but water, wood, and grass Your men shall march along with the carts and the horses,^ anc not leave them till you reach the muster-place, so that they ma} not scatter to do mischief. See that there be no neglect, as yoi prize our good grace."

This is a summons to a tenant-in-chief (the phrase is already to be found in Carolingian documents) to come forth with hi retainers for general service. It is noteworthy that all Fulrad' followers are expected to appear on horseback ; there is n( mention of any foot-soldiery, or directions as to their equipment It is not definitely stated that all the abbot's horsemen are t< appear in mail ; the summons being dated before the laws o 807 and 813, it naturally contains no such order. Any o Fulrad's men who had twelve mansi would have been bound t( serve in a byrnie by the edict of 805, but compulsion is not ye put upon the rest. The command to bring the bow is to b compared with the contemporary attempt to make the infantr adopt the same weapon. In neither case did the experimen succeed. The very large quantity of provisions and the heav^ entrenching tools must have made the waggon train very cumber some. It was evidently contemplated that the camp migh have to be fortified, in order to protect the mass of baggage it is for this purpose that the iron-shod stakes and the spade are required. Charles is also, as the last clause of the summon shows, very anxious to avoid the cardinal vice of the old Mero vingian hosts — the plundering of the districts through which th« troops had to march before reaching the frontier. Hence th very heavy load of rations which Fulrad is directed to bring wit] him. If the train made the army slow to assemble and slow t( move, it at any rate enabled it to carry on operations even in ; hostile or a devastated district for several months, long after th date at which a Merovingian expedition would have commencec to starve and then to disband.

When all the royal commands were carried out under th

^ Reading caballis instead of caballariis, which last does not make good sense The only way of giving it a rational meaning would be to suppose that Fulrad ha other followers beside his horsemen, which does not appear.

;oo] THE BURGS OF CHARLES THE GREAT 83

oyal eye, — and Charles was ubiquitous, — it is obvious that the lost of the early ninth century must have been a very different veapon from the tumultuary hordes of the Merovings. Its efficiency is best shown by the great king's conquests, and the act that when made they were retained. Charles was untiring : f one campaign did not bring him to the desired end, he recom- nenced his work in the next spring. In a specially difficult •-onquest, such as that of Saxony, he even wintered in the hostile listricts, to prevent the rebels from having any opportunity of allying in his absence. In 785-786, for example, he not only milt forts and cut roads, but conducted repeated raids against he surviving insurgents even in the depth of mid-winter.

But perhaps the most important of all Charles' innovations is lis systematic use of fortified posts. When a district had done lomage and given hostages and tribute, he did not evacuate it as lis predecessors would have done, and leave it free to revolt Lgain at the first opportunity. He selected a suitable position, — L hill by a riverside was his favourite choice, — and there erected a )alisaded and ditched " burg," in which he left a garrison. Each )ost was connected with the next, and with its base on the old rontier, by a road. Charles and his officers at last acquired a 'Cry considerable skill in the laying out of entrenchments ; it vas unfortunate for the empire that his successors neglected the irt, till a long series of Danish invasions compelled them to learn t again. Probably the most ambitious work of entrenchment vhich was undertaken in his reign was the grea.t circumvallation ound Barcelona, which was constructed in 800 by the king's son _.ewis and the levies of Aquitaine and Septimania. The army ay around the town for the whole winter of 800-801, hutted and jirt by a double trench and palisade, to guard against sorties "rom within and diversions from without. The works were so efficient that the Moorish garrison, after a gallant resistance, was tarved out and forced to surrender. The bui^gs of Charles were ndeed a very successful expedient: it was seldom that they vere taken ; that of Eresburg only fell by treachery in ^^6^ hough that of Karlstadt seems to have been fairly stormed by he desperate assault of the Saxons (778). The use of these ortifications was a new lesson in the art of war for Western iurope ; the Teutonic nations hitherto had never even fortified heir own camps, much less had they thought of employing the ipade and iron stake for the holding down of conquered lands.

84 THE ART OF WAR IN THE MIDDLE AGES [782

Hence it came to pass that Charles made permanent conquests where his predecessors had merely executed raids and imposed tribute. So well chosen were the sites of his posts that many of them have remained the centres of political life in the districts where they were established down to our own day. Such were Magdeburg, Paderborn, Bremen.

There are many points in the Carolingian armies on which we crave information that Einhard and his fellows do not vouchsafe to afford us. Of the proportion of infantry to cavalry and of unarmed to mailed men in the hosts of Charles we are unfortun- ately unable to give any statistics. That, owing to his continuous legislation on the topic, the mailed riders must have been a much more numerous part of the army in 814 than in 770, is all that we can say. One interesting passage in a chronicle relating tc the Saxon war of 782 seems to show that at least in some ex- peditions a very considerable part of a Prankish host must have been composed of horsemen. The Counts Geilo and Adalgis marching against the rebels, find that Count Theuderich wit! another detachment is converging on the enemy from a dififereni base. Eager that they should have the sole credit of the victory which they supposed to be in their hands, they bade thei) men snatch up their arms, "and hastened on as if they were about to pursue a beaten army, not to fight an intact one, each a. fast as his horse zvould go} so that they came all in disorde; against the Saxons, who stood ranged in front of their camp. The reckless attack was beaten off, and four counts, two miss doininici, and more than twenty other persons of account, fel " with many of their men, who chose to follow them to the deatl rather than to survive them." If these words do not imply tha the whole of Geilo's and Adalgis' forces were cavalry, they mus at least mean that so large a proportion of them were horsed tha the counts hoped to win without the aid of their infantry, whicl in such a mad onslaught must have been left miles behind. The latter, in all probability, is the real meaning of the passage and the desperate courage of the Prankish horsemen is to b accounted for by the fact that they were the henchmen an( enfeoffed retainers (Jiomines casati) of the counts, whom the;

^ " Prout quemque velocitas equi sui tulerat, unus quisque eorum sumn festinatione contendit " {Ann. Einh. 782).

^ The army had been raised in Thuringia and among tlie Franconian district where we should expect to find more foot than horse.

ii

ij THE STRATEGY OF CHARLES THE GREAT 85

efused to desert even in the hour of certain death. Probably he infantry were left so far behind that they never came into he fight.

Of the order of Prankish hosts in battle, i.e. whether the horse

tood on the wings or in front of the foot-soldiery, we are equally

iiiable to speak with certainty. Whether there was any larger

mit in the assembled army than the count and his local follow-

ng we are never informed. That the host marched in divisions

vith a rearguard and vanguard may be deduced from the

iccount of the disaster of Roncesvalles, where the rear (" ii qui

lovissimi agminis incedentes, praecedentes subsidio tuebantur"^)

vere so far from the main body that they were cut to pieces

before their comrades could return to help them. A march in

)arallel columns over open country can probably be traced in one

)f the Avaric campaigns of 791 and the Saxon campaign of 804.

Perhaps the most scientific disposition of forces recorded in

ill the wars of Charles occurs in a campaign at which he was not

limself present — the invasion of Catalonia in 800-801. On this

occasion his son Lewis, who held the command, while under-

:aking the siege of Barcelona with one-third of his forces, placed

mother third, under William Count of Toulouse, some leagues

•vest of the town to act as a covering army, while he himself

A^ith the remainder took post nearer his base of operations in

R.oussillon, ready to aid either of the other fractions that might

'equire his help. The Caliph of Cordova advanced from

Saragossa, but found the covering army so strongly posted that

le turned aside, and invaded the Asturias instead of entering

Catalonia. When he had retired, the covering force joined the

besieging force in building the trenches and winter camp, which

we have already had occasion to describe.

The best description of the appearance of one of the hosts of Charles is unfortunately not that of a contemporary, though the writer is careful to state that he had been in communication with old men who remembered the emperor and had served in his campaigns. This author is the Monk of St. Gall, who wrote some sixty years after Charles' death, and dedicated his work to Charles the Fat, the unworthy great-grandson of the conqueror. He is describing the Prankish host as it approached Pavia in the Italian campaign of 773. Borrowing his words, as has been suggested, from some lost poem contemporary with Charles,

1 Einhard, § 9.

86 THE ART OF WAR IN THE MH^DLE AGES [8i/

he describes King Desiderius and his henchman Ogier the Dam watching the long column of the invading army draw near. A.' each body comes into sight, the king asks whether his rival anc the main host have not now appeared. Ogier replies again anc again that Charles is not yet at hand — the numerous warrior: that have passed by are but his vanguard. At last the plaii grows dark with a still migntier column than any that have ye drawn near. " Then appeared the iron king, crowned with hi; iron helm,^ with sleeves of iron mail on his arms, his broad breas protected by an iron byrnie, an iron lance in his left hand, hi. right free to grasp his unconquered sword. His thighs wer< guarded with iron mail, though other men are wont to leavi them unprotected that they may spring the more lightly on thei steeds. And his legs, like those of all his host, were protectee by iron greaves. His shield was plain iron, without device o colour. And round him and before and behind him rode all hi men, armed as nearly like him as they could fashion themselves so iron filled the fields and the ways, and the sun's rays were ii every quarter reflected from iron. ' Iron, iron everywhere,' crie( in their dismay the terrified citizens of Pavia." ^

The interest in this description of ninth-century armour i that we learn that the short byrnie, not reaching below the hip.' was usual not only in the day of the great emperor, but in that c his great-grandson, Charles the Fat, to whom the Chronicle of S1 Gall was dedicated. Greaves {ocreae, bainbergae) were evidentl; in full use when the description was written, but the thighs wer generally unprotected. That the sleeve is spoken of apart froE the byrnie as if it was a separate piece of armour is notable. Th description is borne out by a passage in the will of Coun Eberhard of Frejus, who in 837 leaves a helm with a hauberk a byrnie, one sleeve, and two greaves. Probably the sleev {manica) was only needed for the right arm, the left bein; guarded by the shield.

The reign of Lewis the Pious (814-40) is as poor in militar legislation as that of his father had been rich — a fact that migh perhaps have been expected when the character of the tW' emperors is taken into consideration. By far the larger part c Lewis' capitularies deal with matters ecclesiastical. That th

^ Does "ferrea cristatus galea " imply that the helmet was a crested one, like thos: in contemporary Frankish drawings in MSS. ' 2 Monachus Sangallensis, ii. § 26.

32] GROWTH OF FEUDALISM 87

rganisation introduced by Charles was to some extent kept up lay be deduced from an edict of Lewis and his son Lothar, ated 828, which orders the counts to inquire accurately whether 11 the smaller landholders are properly enrolled in contributary roups for service in the host, such as had been instituted in 803.^ vnother document issued by Lothar at Pavia in 832 for his sub- ingdom in Italy, recapitulates the prohibition against selling lail outside the kingdom, and restates the old regulation that the older of twelve mansi must come to the host wearing a byrnie.

The time of Lewis being one in which the central power was apidly growing weaker, and the independence of the local counts .rowing more marked, we cannot doubt that the mailed and lorsed retainers of these notables must have been continually •rowing in numbers and importance as compared with the narmoured infantry of the local levies. The perpetual civil wars /hich occupied the later years of Lewis' reign are so full of udden desertions and inexplicable changes from side to side on he part of large bodies of troops, that we see that the self- nterest of the counts has become of more importance than the general loyalty of their subjects. Docile obedience to the royal )an has been replaced by the most open treason. Owing to the :mperor's foolish liberality to his sons, the realm had four rulers .t once, and ambitious nobles could cloak their private schemes )y pretending to adhere to one or other of the rebellious young dngs. When the will of the local ruler became of more import- mce than that of the nominal head of the empire, the day of eudalism was beginning to draw nigh. Already in the time of Zharles the Great we find the counts accused of pressing hardly ipon the smaller freemen, exacting from them illegal impositions md services — misdemeanours against which the capitularies declaim again and again. Under weak rulers like Lewis and lis sons the evil was perpetually growing worse. At the same :ime, the other characteristic sign of feudalism, in its social as apposed to its political aspect — the commendation of an ever- -growing proportion of the smaller landholding classes to their greater neighbours — was steadily going forward. Probably the leavy burden of military service on distant frontiers, which Charles had imposed on his subjects, was not one of the least of the causes of the decay of the free peasantry. The duty which had been comparatively light in the lesser realm of the Mero-

^ See Cap, Papiense, 832, § 15.

88 THE ART OF WAR IN THE MIDDLE AGES [84c

vings was immeasurably increased by the vast extension towards the Elbe and Danube.

But the tendencies towards feudalism in the State, with th( corresponding tendency towards the depreciation of the nationa levies of foot-soldiery, would have been comparatively slow in it; progress if it had not been suddenly strengthened by new in fluences from without. The transformation of Western Europe from the military point of view was to a very large extent th( direct result of the incursions of the Northmen. The lesse: troubles caused by the Magyars on the eastern frontier and the Saracens in Italy were co-operating causes, but not to be compared in importance with the effect of the raids of th( Scandinavians.

CHAPTER II

THE VIKINGS (80O-9OO)

HOSTILE relations between the peoples of the North and the Prankish kingdom had begun three centuries efore, on the day when Theudebert of Ripuaria slew Hygelac le Dane, the brother of the hero Beowulf, on the Frisian shore ;i5). But it was seldom that Frank and Dane had met; the arrier of independent Saxons interposed between the two aces had always kept them apart. Down to the time of liarles the Great the Scandinavian peoples were mainly engaged 1 obscure wars with each other. They are seldom heard of in he North Sea. But at last the Frankish power, with its wealth, :s commerce, and its Christian propaganda, swept over Saxony nd moved on its boundaries to the Eider. It was within a very e\v years of Charles' first conquest of Saxony that the Vikings Wickings, men of the shallow fiords that face the Cattegat and :'kager Rack) made their first appearance on the scene as erious disturbers of the peace of Western Europe. Perhaps he first seeds of trouble were sown when Witikind the Saxon led before the sword of the Franks and took refuge in Jutland ; ve need not doubt that he told his Danish hosts terrible tales )f the relentless might, the systematic and irresistible advance )f the iron king of the Franks. The danger was now at their ioors — the fate of Saxony might soon be that of Denmark. The kings of the southern Danes gave shelter to Witikind, but they sent fair words to Charles and did their best to turn away his wrath. Yet, when Witikind yielded and was baptized in 785, they must have felt that their own turn to face the oncoming storm had now arrived. But for the next few years the great Avaric war, the repeated local risings in parts of Saxony, and the troubles of Italy kept the Franks employed elsewhere. The first offensive strokes in the long struggle of Frank and

90 THE ART OF WAR IN THE MIDDLE AGES

I

Norseman were struck by the latter. Strangely enough, earliest recorded Danish raids were not aimed against the realr of Charles the Great, but at more distant lands. The isolatet piracy of the " three ships from Herethaland " which burne* Wareham in Dorsetshire in 789 ^ is the first note of the appear ance of the Scandinavians on the offensive. Four and five year later two small fleets burned the rich abbeys of Lindisfarne an( Wearmouth on the Northumbrian coast. In 795 the Dane appeared so far west as Ireland, and destroyed the monasterie of Rechru on Dublin Bay. It was only in 799, ten years afte the descent on Wareham, that the first recorded raids of th Vikings on Prankish territory are noted. In that summer the; are said to have landed and made havoc both in Frisia and ii Aquitaine : the ever- watchful Charles was soon on the spot, an( ordered a fleet to be built to guard the narrow seas and th coast of Neustria. But the only serious trouble which th empire suffered from the Danes was a daring invasion of Frisi; by the warlike king Godfred in 810. With two hundred ships ii his train, Godfred overran the Frisian Isles and extorted fron their inhabitants a large tribute. He spoke in his hour o triumph of visiting the emperor at Aachen, but one of his owi men murdered him not long after, and his nephew and successo Hemming at once made peace with the Franks and sailec home ; the Danes were not destined to see Aachen till seventy six years later. The peace which Hemming promised was il kept, and several small raids on the northern coast of th< empire are recorded between 810 and 814. But these were al trifling matters. It was not till the reign of Lewis the Pious tha the Viking raids began to grow serious. During the later year of Charles, the favourite sphere of activity of the Vikings wa Ireland, where, from 807 onward, they were making sad havo« of the whole coast-line, and harrying one by one the ricl monasteries which lay along its bays and islands.

During their first tentative raids the Scandinavians had no yet learned their own strength, nor were they such practisec marauders as they afterwards became. It is strange enough however, to see how suddenly they asserted themselves as a nev military power. At first they were sailing in unknown seas

^ If that is the exact date : perchance the event was a few years later, for, thougl the A.S. Chronicle enters the fact under 789, it says merely that it was "in Kin; Beortric's days " that the Vikings came to Wareham.

o] THE SHIPS OF THE VIKINGS 91

id their ships were but long, light, undecked vessels, that ;emed unfitted to face the wild Atlantic. That such craft, less lan twenty years after their first appearance in the North Sea, lould be risking their slight frames in rounding the rocky lores of Donegal and Kerry, is the most astounding proof of le wonderful seamanship of the Vikings. The boats were ^sentially rowing, not sailing vessels ; their masts could be and ften were unshipped; they were only used when the wind set fair. or their propulsion the Viking ships relied on their oars, from m to sixteen a side, though a larger number was employed hen boat-building had become more scientific, in the tenth and leventh centuries : even a second tier of oars seems to have been ccasionally used in these later times. The prows and sterns were oth high and curved. The former were often fashioned into the ragon-shaped figure-heads which are so famous in the sagas. here was no helm, but the ship was steered by a long oar ashed near the stern, as is a Shetland sixern of to-day. The arly Viking vessels probably carried from sixty to a hundred nen — only the larger constructions of the tenth century could ontain as many as two hundred.

The Danes, Swedes, and Norsemen of the year 800 were in . state of society very much resembling that in which their \nglian and Saxon kinsmen had come to Britain three hundred ears before. The raiders were not compact tribal bodies, but var-bands of adventurers enlisted under the banner of some loted leader, who was, as often as not, a mere warrior of renown, lot a member of one of the old royal houses. There are few J examples in the early Viking age of hosts commanded by the lational king, though the first notable raid — that which King jodfred led to Frisia in 810 — was an exception to this rule. The so-called sea-king was a mere war-chief, who might relapse into obscurity when the expedition was over —

" Solo rex verbo, sociis tamen imperitabat,"

as Abbo wrote, describing the leader who beleaguered Paris in 886. The first Viking adventurers must have been no better armed than the English raiders of the fifth century. If their chiefs had a few helms and byrnies, spoils of war or merchandise of the south,^ the main body must have been wholly unmailed.

^ Finds in Sweden of the pre- Viking period have inchided fragments of byrnies and iron helms (Montelius).

92 THE ART OF WAR IN THE MUDDLE AGES [81

After gold and silver, helms and mail-shirts were the form ( plunder which the raiders most yearned for. This did n( endure for long: in less than two generations the Northmen ha armed themselves from the spoils of their enemies, and their ow smiths too had begun to essay the armourer's art. So essenti; was mail to the professional Viking, whose hand was again: every man, whose sole occupation was war, that by 850 or 9c it was the rule, and not the exception, in their hosts. Their bod armour seems to have been exactly of the Prankish model ; tY helm, however, was pointed and often furnished with a nasal, ui like the old semi-classical shape which had prevailed among tY Franks down to the ninth century.^ The shield was at fir: round, like those of most of the other Teutonic races ; it was onl in the tenth century that it took the kite-shape familiar to i in the Bayeux Tapestry and other contemporary works of ar Shields were often painted red or some other bright hue, and, hun on the bulwarks of the war-ship when the warriors were at se: produced lines of brilliant colouring along the gunwale.

The Danes used for offensive weapons spear, sword, and ax Their swords seem at first to have been of the comparativel short, leaf-shaped kind, without a cross-guard, and very small i the grip, which are habitually found in Northern excavation Later, they took to the longer and broader spatha of the Frank The axe was the more characteristic national weapon ; it We not the light missile tomahawk (francisca) which the Frant had been wont to employ in the sixth century, but a very heav weapon, with a single broad blade welded on a handle five fee long. For proper use it required both hands : wielded b muscular and practised arms, it would cleave shield and helm i the same blow, strike off heads and limbs, and fell a horse withoi difficulty. Both sword and axe-head were occasionally marke with runes, as the sagas tell ; and specimens so adorned are t be found in most of the Northern museums. The javelins c the Scandinavians do not seem to have differed in any essentia point from those of the Franks and Angles. The bow they wer accustomed to use more than any of the nations with whor they fought, for the English had never taken to it kindly, au' the edicts of Charles the Great had not succeeded in making i popular on the Continent. Even the most noted warriors of th

^ The helm with nasal, however, was probably known to the Franks in the nint century ; it was most likely the "helmum cian direct 0^^ of the Ripuaxian Code.

;ol EARLY RAIDS OF THE VIKINGS 93

orth were proud of their skill with the arrow ; it was held an )nourable weapon by them, while among their enemies it was e mark of the poorest military classes. Readers of the sagas ill remember the marksmanship of Olaf Tryggeveson and his :nchman Einar, and the celebrated shot with which King iagnus slew Earl Hugh the Proud on Menai Strait.

It was only some time after their appearance in western

aters that the Vikings acquired a complete ascendency over

le peoples of the older Teutonic realms. They were at first

uitious, attempting no ravage deep in the land, but absconding

tor the plunder of some one seaboard town or abbey. The

ranks, Irish, and English seem to have been more angered than

nrified by the first raids, and several times caught and destroyed

3nsiderable bodies of the invaders.^ But the fleets grew larger,

le raiders more daring and better armed, their knowledge of

le strong and weak spots of the line of defence more perfect.

vbout forty years after the first plunderings in England, and

lirty after the first assault on the Franks, Western Europe

egan to awake to the fact that the Northmen were beginning

D be no mere pest and nuisance, but a serious danger to Christ-

ndom. The landmarks of this period are the first serious inva-

ion of the interior of Ireland by a great host under Thorgils

832), the plunder of the rich haven of Dorstadt and the famous

athedral city of Utrecht among the Franks (834), and the

rection of the first fortified Viking camp in England on the isle

)f Thanet in 851. The invaders were beginning to grow so

iumerous and so daring that it was obvious that some new

neasures must be taken if their progress was to be checked.

Among the faction-ridden tribes of Ireland it was hopeless o look for union or skilfully-combined resistance. More might lave been hoped from the English and the Franks. But the :ontemporary political situation of neither of those peoples was "avourable. In England there was no central authority: King Egbert, to whom the other princes of the Heptarchy had done homage, was really supreme in Wessex alone. He had no power to protect Northumbria or even Mercia : if he kept the bounds of his own realm, it was all that he could accomplish. His victory at Hingston Down over the combined bands of the Vikings and the Corn- Welsh was a considerable success (S^S),

' e.^^. the Northumbrians destroyed in 794 the band that had sacked Wearmouth. In 811 the Irish defeated a host in Ulster, and in 812 another in Connaught.

94 THE ART OF WAR IN THE MIDDLE AGES [85

but it did not and could not save the north or the east fror plunder. When Egbert died and his weaker son Aethelwul succeeded him, the supremacy of Wessex became purel nominal : only once in his reign did Aethelwulf lead an arm beyond his boundary to help one of the other English State (853). He was, in fact, a worthy and a well-meaning king, bu there was no touch of genius in him. Though he fought con scientiously enough against the Vikings whenever they appearec aild was more than once victorious, yet the fortunes of Englan^ were steadily failing all through his reign. London and Cantei bury were both sacked in 850, and though Aethelwulf destroye at Ockley in Surrey the band that had wrought these ravage; yet three years later another host came down on Wessex, anc most ominous step of all, fortified themselves so strongly in th isle of Sheppey, behind the marshy channel of the Swale, that the could not be dislodged.^ This was the second wintering of th Danes in Britain. Meanwhile, if Wessex was faring ill, Merci and Northumbria were in a far worse case : both realms wer ravaged from end to end, and there remained hardly a town c a monastery unburnt within their borders. Yet this was but th beginning of evils : the period of settlement had not yet succeede to the period of sporadic ravages.

The Prankish Empire should have borne the brunt of th contest with the Northman. But its condition was in some way- even more unpromising than that of England. In the latte country the tendency was still towards union : Wessex had jus permanently absorbed Kent and Sussex ; Mercia had almos succeeded in doing the same to East Anglia, and had quit amalgamated with herself the former sub-kingdoms of th Hwiccas and Lindiswaras.- But in the realm of Lewis the Piou the spirit of the times was making for disintegration rather tha for union. The old separatist tendencies of Aquitaine an( Bavaria, and the dislike of the Lombards for the Prankish yoke had disguised themselves in new shapes, and taken the form c rebellions in favour of the ungrateful sons to whom Lewis ha( distributed the government of those provinces. However muc]

^ The first was the wintering in Thanet narrated in A.S. Chronicle sub anno 851

- From Offa's murder of King Ethelbert in 792, onward to 825, East Anglia seerr

to have been subject to Mercia : the defeat of the latter by the King of Wessex brougl

about that rising of the East Anglians in which two kings of Mercia, first Beornwul

then Ludica, perished.

;o

DECAY OF THE CAROLINGIAN EMPIRE 95

le foolish tenderness of the emperor and the unfihal ambition of s children may have supplied the formal cause of disruption, > essential cause was the desire for independence on the part of le subject nationalities. In all the realm the Austrasians were le only people who consistently stood up for the cause of union id imperialism. The civil wars of the sons of Lewis had begun . 830, and for some time the ever-thickening Viking raids ;emed to the statesmen of the empire tiresome diversions, istracting them for the moment from the all - important uestions whether Lewis should subdue his children or lose his irone, and whether his youngest son Charles should or should Dt obtain the kingly crown along with his brothers. Lewis ied in 840, after having seen the Danes cut deep into Frisia id push daring raids up the Meuse and the Loire. After his isappearance from the scene the civil wars only became more instant and more chaotic: the bloody battle of Fontenay (541) here the might of Austrasia was for ever broken, settled the ite of the empire. It was to split up permanently into inde- endent national kingdom.s, and never again was one sovereign ill to sway all the military force of the West, from Hamburg to Barcelona, for a common end.^

Now, from some points of view it might appear quite probable lat three or four compact national kingdoms would be better )le to cope with the Vikings than the vast but somewhat nwieldy empire of Charles the Great. But the dynastic iterests of the Carolingian house were still too strong to How real national States to develop themselves. Each king as snatching at his brother's or cousin's provinces, in a vague ope of reconstituting the empire for his own benefit. It was ot till the male line of the eldest son of Lewis the Pious died ut in Italy (875), and that of his second son in Germany (911), iiat those intermittent projects of reunion died out. As long s they lasted they were wholly evil : while Charles the Bald .as getting himself crowned at Metz or Rome, while Wido was verrunning Burgundy, or Carloman and Arnulf devastating the .ombard plain, the Dane and Saracen and Magyar were tearing heir realms to pieces behind their backs. Kings immersed in mperial politics could not find time to discharge the simple iuty of superintending the local defence of their own coast and

* ^ Charles the Fat, though king of Germany, West Francia, and Lombardy, never uled in the Burgundies, so the above statement is Hterally correct.

96 THE ART OF WAR IN THE MIDDLE AGES [85

border. It was not unnatural, therefore, that the years fron 840 to 900 were the very darkest that Christendom had knowi since the first formation of the Teutonic kingdoms in the fiftl century. No sign of better days is to be seen till Alfred's ex pulsion of the Danes from Wessex (878), Count Odo's successfu defence of Paris in 885-886, and King Arnulfs great victory a Louvain (891).

We must now investigate the tactics of the Northmen, an( the various expedients which their English and Frankisl adversaries employed against them. By the middle of th ninth century the invaders had increased into a formidabl multitude: their expeditions had been so fortunate that th whole manhood of Scandinavia had thrown itself into th Viking career. The Northmen were now members of old war bands contending with farmers fresh from the plough — vetera: soldiers pitted against raw militiamen. They were far bette provided with arms than their adversaries : the helm and byrni seem to have become universal among them, while the Englis /j/rd and the Prankish local levies were still mainly compose of unarmoured men. Only the thegnhood on this side of th Channel, and the counts and their retainers on the other, wer sufficiently well equipped to be able to face the invaders ma to man. With anything like equal numbers the Vikings wer always able to hold their own. But when the whole country side had been raised, and the men of many shires or countship came swarming up against the raiders, they had to beware les they might be crushed by numbers. It was only when a fleet c very exceptional strength had come together that the Northme could dare to disregard their opponents, and offer them battl in the open field. Fighting was, after all, not so much thei object as plunder, and, when the landsfolk mustered in ovei whelming force, the invaders took to their ships again and saile off to renew their ravages in some yet intact province. The soon learned, moreover, to secure for themselves the power c rapid locomotion on land : when they came to shore they wouL sweep together all the horses of the neighbourhood, and mov themselves and their plunder on horseback across the land. T fight as cavalry they did not intend : it was only for purpose of swift marching that they collected the horses. The firs mention of this practice in England comes in the year S6( when "a great heathen army came to the land of the Eas

I

66] THE FORTIFIED CAMPS OF THE VIKINGS 97

\ngles, and there was the army a-horsed." ^ Curiously enough, t is in the same year that we first hear of the Danes in the ^>ankish realm ^ trying the same device. Their base of opera- ions, however, was of course their fleet, and such excursions ilways ended in a swift return to the boats. It was only when L waterway was not available that the raiders dared to cut them- selves adrift from their vessels. As a rule, their method was to vork up some great stream, sacking the towns and abbeys on :ach shore of it ; when they got to the point where it was no onger navigable, or where a fortified city stretching across both 3anks made further progress impossible, they would moor their diips or draw them ashore. They would then protect them with 1 stockade, leave part of their force as a garrison to guard it, and undertake circular raids with the rest. On the approach of a superior force they were accustomed in their earlier days to hurry back to their vessels, drop down stream, and escape to sea. But as they grew more daring they began to fortify points of vantage, and hold out in them till the hostile army disbanded for lack of provisions, or was dispersed by the advent of winter. These strongholds were generally islands. The bands who afflicted Neustria made their habitual refuge the isle of Giselle [Oscellus] in the Seine, ten miles above Rouen. Here they stood sieges at the hands of Charles the Bald in 858 and 861. But on one occasion at least they dared to fortify themselves farther up the stream, at the place called Fossa Givaldi, near Bougival, which seems to have been a peninsula girt round with marsh rather than an island. In England they used Thanet, and also Sheppey, for the same purpose. On one famous occasion (871) they chose the tongue of land at Reading between the Thames and Kennet for their stronghold. At the Loire mouth they used the isle of Noirmoutier ; at the Rhone mouth the isle of La Camargue was their refuge. Walcheren was in a similar way their base for attacks on Flanders and Austrasia. The great host which pushed up the Rhine in 863 defied the combination of the Austrasians of Lothar II. and the Saxons of Lewis the German by holding an island in the river near Neuss, from which they only retired at their own good time. Against an enemy not provided with ships of war these island posts were almost impregnable.

1 A.S. Chronicle, 866.

^ Annales Bertinenses, p. 84: "Nortmanni circiter quadringenti de Ligeri nun caballis egressi, commixti Britonibus Cenomannis civitatem [Le Mans] adeunt."

7

I

98 THE ART OF WAR IN THE MIDDLE AGES [891

Even when the Danish fortifications were not pitched in an inaccessible island, it was but seldom that the landsfolk were able to break through the stakes and foss, manned by the line of well-armoured axemen. The failures of Charles the Bald at Givald's Foss (852), of Charles the Fat at Ashloh (882), of Ethelred of Wessex at Reading (871), are well-known examples of the danger of besetting a Danish camp. All the more credit, therefore, is due to the few Christian kings who succeeded in storming one of those formidable strongholds. King Arnulfs capture of the great camp of Louvain in 89 1 was probably the most brilliant achievement of this kind recorded in the ninth century. The host of Northmen had harried all Austrasia and routed the local levies at the battle of the Geule. At the news of this defeat the German king came flying from the eastern frontier, and found the enemy stockaded in a place where the Dyle forms a loop, with a ditch scooped in the marsh from bank to bank, and a high rampart behind it. Undeterred by the formidable barrier, Arnulf dismounted, bade all his counts and mounted warriors do the like, and with drawn sword waded through the marsh and began to hew down the palisade. His men pressed in so fiercely behind him that after a bitter struggle the shield-wall of the Danes gave way, and the whole mass of Vikings were driven pell-mell into the flooded Dyle. where they perished by thousands. Such a blow was worth many victories in the open field, for it made the Danes doubt their own power of resisting behind entrenchments in the inland. No really dangerous Viking host ever essayed to strike deep into the German kingdom after this defeat. For this reason the storming of the Louvain camp deserves perhaps an even higher place in military history than our own Alfred's victory at Ethandun thirteen years before. For the great king of Wessex, though he had beaten the Danes in the open, did not storm their camp at Chippenham The stronghold only yielded on terms, and terms that considering the relative positions of Alfred and Guthrum at the moment, must be considered very favourable to the Danes.

When the Danes were surprised at a distance from theii camp and forced to fight without protection, they would draw themselves up in the best position they could find, on a steef hillside, as at Ashdown (871) or Ethandun (SyS), or behind £

Ti] TACTICS OF THE VIKINGS 99

tream ; they formed their shield-wall/ and fought the matter out o the end. On many occasions, when broken in the open by the :harge of the Prankish horse, they would retire behind the learest cover, — a village, as at Saucourt (881) ; a church, as at orisarthe (866); a large building, as in the fight in Frisia in 873, —and there hold out till they either beat off the enemy, were hemselves cut to pieces, or at nightfall were able to abscond.

Nothing shows better the stubbornness of the Danes than he way in which they often by a desperate rally repaired a lost :)attle. At the great fight in front of York in 868 they were horoughly beaten by Osbert and Aella, and forced back on ;he town, but, rallying among the houses, they drove out the .Northumbrians, and finally slew both kings and won the day. So, too, at Wilton in 872 they had been seriously repulsed by Alfred, and had gone back for some distance, when at last, seeing the Wessex men losing their order in the excitement of victory, they rallied and redeemed the day.^ The same had ilmost happened at Saucourt, where nothing but the praiseworthy efforts of King Lewis in restoring order among his men prevented a success being turned into a disaster by the last desperate effort of the Vikings. At the battle by Chartres in )ii they had been thoroughly defeated, and had lost six thousand men, yet, when their beaten but undaunted host was assaulted by the newly-arrived horsemen of the Count of Poictiers, they turned on him, drove him off, and actually stormed his camp, ending a day of failure by a success at nightfall. It was iiard to say that a Viking host was really disposed of till its last banner had been cast down and its last man slain.

The Northmen seldom appeared as the assailants in the open field — like the English in the Hundred Years' War, they preferred to stand on the defensive. Indeed, foot-soldiery fighting an enemy whose force grew year by year to be more entirely composed of cavalry were almost compelled to adopt such tactics. If they did attack, it was generally by a surprise, as at the battle on the Geule (891). On this occasion the Austrasian levies, marching in disorder to find the Northmen, whom they believed to be

^ The shield-wall (testudo, as Asser pedantically calls it) is of course not a wedged mass like the Roman testudo, but only a line of shielded warriors.

- I cannot see in either of these battles, as related in Asser and the authorities who copied him, any trace of the " feigned flight " which some have detected. The Danes seem to have been honestly driven back, and then to have rallied.

loo THE ART OF WAR IN THE MIDDLE AGES [900

flying, were suddenly set upon by the invaders, who had advanced to meet them instead of waiting to be attacked. The Franks, being entirely out of array, were easily scattered.

We must now turn to a consideration of the methods bj which the Franks and English endeavoured to beat off the Vikings, at first with poor success. The one patent fact which the kings of the house of Charles the Great and the house o Egbert had to face was that the half-armed local levies of th( fyrd or the ban were insufficient to cope with the invaders. Th( Prankish counts and the English ealdormen made many i gallant attempt to beat off the raiders : sometimes they wen successful, but much more frequently they suffered a disastrou: defeat. The Vikings were too well - armed, too wary, toe experienced in every shift of war, to be adequately faced bj the raw militia opposed to them. Some more efficient bod} of troops had to be improvised to meet them, some system o defence devised to keep them from overrunning the opei country. Down to the ninth century the Frankish towns unless they had old Roman walls, were not provided with an^ systematic protection ; the English were even more exposed for such of them as had the Roman circumvallation had allowec it to moulder away ever since the first conquest,^ while thos which had arisen since Roman days had never been fortifiei at all.

1 Vork, for example, the greatest centre of Northern Britain in Roman days, vvj in 867, in the words of Asser {sub ann. 867) imperfectly protected, for "non enii tunc ilia civitas firmos et stabilitos muros eo tempore habebat " ; therefore tl Northumbrians were able "murum frangere" by a rush — to hew down a palisai suppose. Canterbury seems to have had walls rather early, however.

I

CHAPTER III

THE VIKINGS TURNED BACK (A.D. 9OO-IOOO) — THE FEUDAL HORSEMAN AND THE FEUDAL CASTLE — THE TIIEGN AND THE BURH

THE military history, therefore, of the ninth century shows two all-important movements directly caused by the need of repelling the Danes. The first is the substitution of a professional class of fighting men for the general local levies ; the second is the development of a system of regular and systematic fortification of the most important points in the realm. The combination of the two movements gives us the feudalism of the later Middle Ages. Though both are felt equally in the English and the Prankish kingdoms, they take somewhat different shapes on the two sides of the Channel. The English thegn of the tenth century is not quite the same as the Prankish vassal ; the English burh is by no means identical with the continental castle.

The primary need of the Christian realms of the West was a large body of courageous and well - armed fighting men, capable of meeting the Northman man to man. Portifications are good things in their way, but they need trustworthy garrisons. The most elaborate entrenchments serve no end — as King Lewis of West Prankland found in 881 — if those set to defend them have not their heart in the business. His great castle at Etrun was quite useless because none of his nobles would undertake to hold the post of danger.^

Now for the purpose of repelling the Vikings, the national levy with its great tardily-moving masses of foot-soldiery had been tried and found wanting. It was too slow, too ill-armed,

^ Annales Berlinenses, 881 : "Quod magis ad munimentum paganorum quam ad auxilium Christianorum factum fuit, quia ipse rex Hludovicus invenire non potuit cui illud castelluni ad custodiendum committere posset."

101

I

102 THE ART OF WAR IN THE MIDDLE AGES [831

too untrained. The Danes if in small numbers took to their boats or their horses and slipped away ; if in strong force they put the local levies to rout. The only other military body in the realm was the magnates and their retainers. We have already seen that by the year 800 both the Frankish and the English realms possessed an aristocracy, originally dependent on the kings, and wholly official in character — a "nobility oj service," to use the phrase that we have already had so many occasions to employ. On the Continent it now included no1 only actual holders of countships or great offices about the court, but large numbers of persons, both lay and clerical, whc held " beneficia," feudal grants of land, from the king. Each o: these counts and vassi of various sorts had his bands of persona' followers, landed or unlanded, homines casati^ or sub-tenant' with holdings of various size. The vassal-class was steadil) growing: a family which had once held office and receivec grants of " beneficia " did not drop back into the ranks of th( ordinary freemen. The class, too, was already tending tc encroach on its poorer neighbours ; the counts were using theii official position, the holders of " beneficia " their less legal bu equally efficient powers of bringing pressure to bear on tht smaller men. Above all, the Church was extending it; boundaries on every side so rapidly, that, as early as 831, Lothar the son of Lewis the Pious, began special legislation against th( handing over of land to the " dead hand." When the hideou: distress caused by the Danish invasions came to aid the alreadj existing tendency towards feudalisation, the result was easy t( foresee. By the end of the tenth century the vast majority o the smaller freemen had passed under the control of thei greater neighbours, either by voluntary commendation, or as th( result of deliberate encroachment.

Nor were the Danish invasions less powerful in hastening the development of the other side of feudalism, the establishmen of the counts and dukes as hereditary local potentates, wh( practically could no longer be displaced by the crown. Ther« was an obvious convenience during the time of trouble in lettinj the son succeed to the father's government ; none would knov so well as he the needs and capacities of the district in whicl he had been brought up. Moreover, there was danger, in thos« days of incessant dynastic war, in the attempt to remove \ powerful noble from his father's post ; he might at once transfe

36o] CREATION OF THE GREAT FIEFS 103

lis allegiance to some other member of the Carolingian house. Charles the Bald and his short-lived successors habitually oought respite from the peril of the moment by letting the son succeed to his progenitor's office. In the next generation, the jounties of West Francia had become hereditary fiefs, in which the right of succession was looked upon as fixed and absolute. In every one of the great vassal States of the later middle age, we find that the commencement of succession within the family starts from the years between the fatal battle of Fontenay and the deposition of Charles the Fat. The first ruler in the county of Toulouse who passed on his lands to his son, dates from 852; in Flanders, the date is 862; in Poitou, ^6j ; in Anjou, 870 ; in Gascony, 872 ; in Burgundy, 2)y'j ; in Auvergne, ^2)6, In East F>ancia, the development was not so rapid ; among the newly-conquered German tribes, the Saxons and Frisians, there still survived great masses of small freemen. But the tribal dukes, whom Charles the Great had such difficulty in clearing away, begin to reappear again before the end of the ninth century. They start with Liudolf (died 866), the first Dux Saxonum of the new kind, who passed on his government to his son Bruno, a great fighting man, who fell by the hands of the Danes in the disaster on the Liineburg Heath in 880. By forty years after his time, Bavaria, Lotharingia, Thuringia, Suabia, have once more got dukes, and there were hereditary counts in Hennegau, Rhaetia, and many other smaller districts. In Lombardy the same phenomenon crops up at about the same time, and Ivrea, Friuli, Modena, Spoleto, appear as hereditary States.

Now, as we have already seen, the Prankish counts and vassals were accustomed to serve on horseback, and were expected to bring their retainers to the host mounted like themselves, even before the death of Charles the Great. The development of feudalism, therefore, meant the development of cavalry ; we can place the dismissal of the infantry of the local levies into obscurity and contempt, and the entire supersession of them by the feudal horsemen, between the death of Charles the Great and the end of the century. Two short quotations from chroniclers, dating the one from 820, the other from 891, show how complete was the change. In the former year Bera Count of Barcelona was challenged to a judicial duel by Sanila, another noble of the Catalonian March. They

I04 THE ART OF WAR IN THE MIDDLE AGES [866

fought, as the chronicler remarks, " equestri praeHo quia uterque Gothus esset."^ Coming from the old Visigothic stock of Septimania, it was natural for them to fight on horseback ; but obviously this did not yet seem the most natural thing to a Frank. How different from this is the note of the Monk of Fulda, who states that Arnulf, when attacking the camp of Louvain in 891, doubted for a moment whether he should bid his knights dismount, "quia Francis pedetemptim certare inusitatum est," ^ because it is not usual for the Frankish nobles to fight on foot.

We may therefore conclude that, during the last seventy years of the ninth century, the infantry were always growing less and the cavalry more, just as the freemen were disappearing and the vassals growing ever more numerous. Already, by the middle of the century, the cavalry were the most important arm in Nithard's account of the manoeuvres of his patron Charles the Bald before and after Fontenay, the language used leads us to think that most of the young king's followers must have been mounted. Thirty years later, when this same king invaded Austrasia to snatch territory from his nephew Lewis, he is made to exclaim that "his army was so great that their horses woulc drink up the Rhine, so that he might go over dry-shod." ^

The definite date at which we may set the permanent depression of the infantry force in West Francia, is in S66 From this year dates the celebrated clause in the Edict of Pitres in which Charles orders that every Frank who has a horse, or ie rich enough to have one, must come mounted to the host. His words are that, " pagenses Franci qui caballos habent aut habere possunt cum suis comitibus in hostem pergant," ^ and no one ir future is to spoil a man liable to service of his horse under any pretence. The phrase pagenses Franci is evidently intended to cover the surviving freeholders due for service under the count. The " men " of the seniores were already obliged tc come horsed, by much older edicts.

After the recognition of the all-importance of cavalry in the Edict of Pitres, we are not surprised to find that, twenty-five years later, Kin^ Odo, calling out the forces of Aquitaine against his rival, Charles the Simple, found himself at the head of ter thousand horse and six thousand foot. The chronicler Richer

^ Vita Hhidovici, § 33. - Ann. Field. 891,

3 Ann. Fuld. 876. ■* Edict of Pitres, 2. 26.

i

8] THE ADVANTAGES OF FEUDALISM 105

ho tells of this levy, calls the cavalry milites, as opposed to the ot-soldiery,/^</^"/^j.^ This is the first indication of the use of e word miles, the warrior /^r excellence, for the mounted soldier, few years before, it would have been applied to all fighting en ; we now see it starting on its way to become the designa- 3n of the knight of the later Middle Ages. By the time that le tenth century has arrived, the infantry in West Francia ;em wholly to have disappeared ; in such battles as the bloody 3ld of Soissons, where King Robert was slain, both armies, ithout exception, seem to have been composed of mounted len.

It is easy to understand the military meaning of the change ; was not merely that the impetus of the mailed horseman alone ould break the Danish shield-wall. Almost more important ^as the fact that the cavalry only could keep up with the wiftly-moving Viking, when he had purveyed himself a horse, nd was ranging over the countryside at his wicked will. The Dcal count who could put a few hundred mailed horsemen of pproved valour in the field, men bound to him by every tie of iscipline and obedience, and practised in arms, was a far more ormidable foe to the invader than ten thousand men of the ban. Lven if he could not check the raiders in open fight, he could lang about their path, cut off their stragglers, fall upon them vhen they scattered to plunder village or manor, intercept them Lt every defensible ford or defile, where the few can block the )assage of the many, or circumvent them by cross roads which he native must know better than the stranger. The moment hat the Prankish cavalry had reached its full development, the :areer of the Viking was terribly circumscribed. At last, his )nly method of dealing with it was to learn to fight on horseback limself ; ^ the art was acquired too late to influence the general :ourse of history in Western Europe, but by the end of the :enth century the Norman horse was equal to any in Christen- dom. In the eleventh it was the flower of the chivalry of ;he first Crusade.

The other expedient which the Franks used against the

^ " Odo congregari praecepit milites peditesque : quibus collectis in decern millibus aquitum peditum vero sex millibus erat," etc. (Richer, § 81).

^ The first mention of Danes fighting on horseback seems to be at the battle of Montfaucon (888). Abbo distinctly mentions that their horse and foot were separated, and fought Odo apart. At Soissons (923) the Norman contingent in the army of Charles the Simple all fight on horseback.

io6 THE ART OF WAR IN THE MIDDLE AGES

Northmen was the systematic and elaborate fortification] points of vantage. The deHberate adoption of this policy laid down in the same Edict of Pitres (866), which we hav already had to quote for its importance in the development c cavalry. But the actual scheme had been begun as early as 86: It had occurred to Charles the Bald that the Danish fleets migh be kept from running up the rivers by erecting at favourable spot fortified bridges, through which they would be unable to fore their way up stream. Pitres, some miles higher up the Sein than the Viking stronghold on the isle of Giselle, was the chie point which he pitched upon. Here he began to build a grea bridge with tetes-du-pont at either end ; it took some years t complete, and the Danes still dashed through its unfinishe centre when they chose. He therefore constructed anothe less ambitious bridge higher up, at Trilbardou, and by means c it blocked the return of the raiders. After trying to brea through in vain, Weland, the Northmen's chief, gave up hi prisoners and plunder, on condition of being allowed to dro down stream under the bridge unmolested.^ The great structur at Pitres was finished in 866, and smaller ones at Auvers an Charenton-le-Pont were erected to guard the Oise and Marnc as additional precautions. Most important of all, Charles mad the island-city of Paris throw bridges across to the norther and southern banks of the Seine. These structures wer destined to have more influence on the future of the Vikin invasions than any of the new buildings down stream. For th weak point of the plan was that the new bridges require garrisons, and that a permanent force to hold them was hard t find. A city like Paris could find men to man its own defence: but isolated fortifications, like those at Pitres, required specie bodies of troops, which were not always at hand. Apparentl) they were broken through during the civil wars at the end c the reign of Charles. At any rate, we find the West Franks i 885 devoting all their attention to building, as a substitute fc them, a new fortification at Pontoise. When the Danes cam up the Seine for the great siege of Paris, they had first to destro this obstruction. It made a creditable resistance, but, gettin. no succour from without, was compelled to surrender.- Thei pushing up to Paris, the invaders began the eleven montb beleaguering of the place. Paris had been more than once i;

^ Annales Bertinenses, 862. - Annals of. St. Vedast, 885.

,oo] FORTIFIED BRIDGES 107

/iking hands before Charles the Bald fortified it,^ but now its lew defences enabled it to make a very different resistance. ts gallant defenders, Odo and Bishop Gozelin, held it against :very attack, though the Emperor Charles the Fat gave them ittle or no help. It is true that the Danes ultimately succeeded n getting up the river, by laboriously dragging their vessels icross the flat sl^ore round the southern bridge-head.^ But they :ould not take the place, and were at last glad enough to receive I bribe and depart, leaving Paris free [886]. This successful iefence was almost as great a landmark in the history of West ^Vancia as the victory of Ethandun in England, or that of .ouvain in Austrasia.

The Danish ravages in Germany are of little importance ifter the year 900 ; in the Western realm they con- inued much later, but were never so threatening again as ;hey had been in the years before 8S6. For the future, the Prankish victories are almost as numerous as those of the Northmen. The fights of Montfaucon (888), Montpensier (892), md Chartres (911), are all worthy of notice. They show that :he F>anks were now no longer wont to shirk the ordeal of Dattle, as they had been thirty years before, but fought ivhenever they had the chance. As often as not they beat back the invader, and kept the land free for a space from his ravages. But it was the new fortifications, even more than the battles, that saved France from utter ruin. When every town had surrounded itself with a ring-wall, and endeavoured to block its river with a fortified bridge-head, the Danes found their sphere of operations much limited. They wanted plunder, not year-long sieges with doubtful success at the end ; a gallant resistance like that of Paris in SS6, or Sens in S8y, not only saved the particular town that was holding out, but was of indirect benefit to every other place that might have to stand a siege hereafter, since it lessened the self-confidence of the Danes, and forced them to contemplate the possibilities of similar failures in the future. There was little gain in harrying the open country ; not only had it been plundered already by fifty previous raids, but now the peasantry flocked into fortified ])laces with all that was worth carrying away. The refuges and strongholds were now numerous enough to afford shelter to the

' It had been plundered in 845 and 856. Me^z Annals, 888, and Abbo. See pp. 14 1-6 for a detailed narrative of the siege.

io8 THE ART OF WAR IN THE MIDDLE AGES

I

whole countryside ; for during several generations, bishop counts, abbots, and great vassals were hard at work, fortifyin every point of vantage. Not only great towns but small wer soon wall-girt, and private castles supplemented them as point of resistance. A good deal of this work was only woodwork c palisading,^ not solid stone ; but if properly held, it yet serve its purpose.

It was the increasing difficulty and barren results of the raids in France which led the Danes of Rolf in 911 to come t the same bargain with Charles the Simple which the Danes c Guthrum had made with Alfred of Wessex in 878. When th king offered them a great Danelagh (as the English woul have called it), reaching from the river of Epte to the Wester Sea, Rolf and his followers accepted the bargain, and agreed t draw together, settle down, and make a peace with the Frank; Contrary to what might have been expected, the settlement wa on the whole a success from the point of view of Charles th Simple. Gradually all the other Danish bands, leaving th Loire and the Garonne mouths, gathered in to settle along wit Rolfs men. Like Guthrum in England, Rolf in Normandy wa a more faithful vassal than might have been expected, and eve sent his bands on several occasions to help the king againe native rebels. It was only when Charles had fallen into th deadly snare of Count Herebert of Vermandois that th Normans were turned loose again on the land (928). Th Franks proved now well able to defend themselves, and Kin Rodolf cut to pieces at the battle of Limoges (929) the ho.^ that tried to open once again the old route of the raiders int Aquitaine. From the time of William Longsword onward, th Normans appear no longer as heathen invaders from withou but as unruly vassals within. By the year 1000 they may fc most purposes be regarded as assimilated to their neighbour and Normandy is but the most important fief of the Frenc crown.

We must now turn back to the Danish invaders of Englan and see how Alfred and his descendants faced the probler which Charles the Bald endeavoured to solve by the aid c cavalry, walled towns, and fortified bridge-heads. England ha

^ For some account of the palisaded mounds of the continental nobles see Boo VI. chapter vii. The famous tower at the bridge-head round which so much fightir raged during the great siege of Paris was only woodwork (see Abbo, i).

do] the ENGLISH THEGNHOOD 109

J force of horsemen when the Viking raids began ; Ecgbert's

my was in this respect wholly unlike that of Charles the

reat. There was no question of reinforcing the cavalry arm

1 England, for no such force existed. But in other respects

e find the Prankish methods reflected, with some variations,

n this side of the Channel. If Wessex had no mailed horse-

len to serve as models for the reorganisation of the whole host,

le had heavily-armed foot-soldiery. The "gesithcund man

olding land," as Ini would have called him, the "thegn," as

le laws of Alfred name him, was practically equivalent to the

assiis or holder of a beneficium of the Continent. As among

le Franks the tendency of the ninth century was to drive all

len into the feudal hierarchy, — the more important freeholders

ecoming vassals, the less important serfs, — so in England the

middle classes tend to be divided in a similar way. The richer

eorls are absorbed into the thegnhood, the poorer sink into

abjection to their greater neighbours. In the laws of Alfred

: is easy to detect the fact that the free middle class is far less

)rominent than it had been even in the time of the laws of Ini.^

There were already "hlafords" and dependants in the day of

he elder code ; by the day of the later they must have been

he most important part of the population. How the change

ame about may be gathered from the two important but

I monymous documents of the early tenth century, the one

lealing with Weregelds, the other with " The People's Ranks

md Laws," printed on pp. 79-8 1 of Thorpe's Early English Laws.

■ n the Weregeld document the first draft states that " if a ceorl

:hrive so that he have a helm and a coat-of-mail and a sword

ornamented with gold, but have not five hides of land to the

king's utware, he is nevertheless a ceorl. But if his son and

ion's son so thrive that they have so much land afterwards,

;he offspring shall be of ' gesithcund ' race, and the weregeld

2000 thrymsas."'^ The second draft, however, alters this into

' if the ceorl acquire so much that he have a coat-of-mail and a

helm and an overgilded sword, though he have not that land

[five hides] he is sit/tcund, etc. etc." ^ These two passages are

to be compared with the third in the " Ranks and Laws "

document, which states that " the ceorl who throve so that he

^ See Alfred's Laws, i and 37, particularly the latter.

^Weregeld Document, 9, 10, 11.

'Weregeld Document, 2nd version, 9, 10, 11.

no THE ART OF WAR IN TPIE MIDDLE AGES [9.

had fully five hides of his own land, church and kitchen, be house and burhgeat, place and duty in the king's hall, w henceforth of thegn-right worthy." ^ So was, it will be r membered, " the merchant who fared thrice over sea at his ov expense." ^

The obvious meaning of these passages is that all holders five hides and upwards who were not already in the thegnho( were now absorbed into it, and became charged with its duti as well as its privileges. Nay, even more, the ceorl who is ful armed, though he have not the full five hides, is apparent allowed to come into the gesithcund class, if the second versi( of the Weregeld document is to be trusted. This is obvious an endeavour to increase the thegnhood by encouraging ; ceorls to arm themselves as well as possible, and so obtain t" right to enter it. A similar object is served by allowing t merchant to qualify for the same promotion.

The chief charge of the thegnhood was, of course, the du of following the host in full mail whenever the king took t field. At all costs it was intended to raise the proportion well-armed men in the army to a maximum. It is worth notii that we find, in the " Ranks and Laws " document, sub-tenar holding under a " hlaford " who have reached the assessment wealth necessary to qualify for gesithcund rank : though n directly sworn to the king, they are yet reckoned part of t thegnhood, being called " medial thegns." ^

This new military force, therefore, which was produced I incorporating all men of wealth and energy among the ceorls the enlarged thegnhood, was the main weapon with which Alfp and his descendants faced the Danes. The great national Ic of the fyrd, though it still retained its miscellaneous armame and its comparative inefficiency, was made somewhat mo useful by being divided into two halves, each of which was take the field in turn while the other tilled the countrysid- It served but as the shaft of the weapon of which the thegnho( formed the iron barb.

Alfred did not neglect to follow the example of Charles tl Bald in the matter of building strongholds. Though the Engli: fortifications were as a rule mere palisades, — the art of buildii

1 Ranks and Laws, § 2. ^ Ranks and Laws, § 6.

^ A phrase to be found in Canute's Heriot-law, Leges C. § 72. ^A.S. Chronicle, 894.

)7] THE VIKINGS TURNED BACK in

England being far behind tliat of the Continent, — they seem . have been very effective in checking ravages. In a few cases )lid masonry seems to have been used — for example, in patching D the Roman wall of London, which Alfred " Aonorifice restaur- vit^ in 887. Alfred's warlike daughter Ethelflaed followed his sample in this respect at Chester in 907, where her rude repairs m still be discerned among the Roman masonry. Canterbury, )0, had walls very early. But it was mainly by stake and foss [ concentric rings, enclosing water-girt mounds, that Alfred and is children protected their frontier. Edward the Elder worked gainst the Danelagh with such strongholds in a most systematic ay. His first line of burhs was to guard his own border, but radually he and his sister Ethelflaed pushed forward a second ne of forts of offensive purpose. These ii:i7nyj6ij.ara^ as a Greek ould have called them, were built opposite every Danish town, nd furnished with garrisons to contain the sallies of the inhabit- ats and hold down the neighbourhood. Hardly one fell in venty years of war, so ineffectual were the siege operations of le Danes.

It would seem that the system by which the burhs were laintained was somewhat like that which Henry the Fowler ^ stablished in Germany a few years after Edward had begun, his y^stem of fortification. To each burh was allotted a certain umber of hides of the surrounding region, and all the thegns isident in that district were responsible for the defence of the tronghold. Each of them was bound to keep within the palisade f the burh a house, which he must either inhabit himself, or fill ath a trustworthy representative able to bear arms in his stead, .^hus the original inhabitants of the burhs were a race of warriors, hough in later years, when the land settled down into quiet, and Dwn houses grew to be valuable property, the thegn might let lis tenement to a merchant or craftsman whose primary occupa- ions were not warlike. But in the early ninth century the burh- aen were essentially military in their pursuits. It would seem hat the cnihten-gilds, as we find them at Cambridge, London, nd elsewhere, were the original association of the settlers, who, oming in from all sides to hold reconquered land, had no ommon local tradition, and had to start new bonds of unity imong themselves.^

^Asser, 887. 2 See p. 120.

^ All these suggestions I get from Professor Maitland's invaluable Doiiiesday Book

112 THE ART OF WAR IN THE MIDDLE AGES [89

One of Alfred's devices of fortification deserves a specia note, as being exactly copied from a feat of Charles the Bale In 896 a great Viking host had ascended the river Lea with all thei vessels. The king, choosing a place near the point where the Le runs into the Thames, rapidly erected two burhs on each side of th river, and then joined them so effectually — whether by floatin booms or bridgework, we are not told — that the Danes wer sealed up in the river, and, being unable to return to the Thame had ultimately to abandon their fleet, and retire overland, leavin the Londoners to bring the ships in triumph back to their city This is perfect reproduction of the doings of the Prankish kin on the Marne in 862,^ and it cannot be doubted that Alfred ha remembered the device, and deliberately copied it when th opportunity came to him.

Far better, however, than any mere fortification of th inland was the third great plan which Alfred adopted for brin^ ing his Danish wars to a successful conclusion. He began t build a strong fleet, able to contend at sea with the Vikings. I the very first years of his reign he had seen that this was th one really effective way of keeping the coast secure. As earl as ^j6, long before the peace of Wedmore, he gathered a fe ships and chased off a small raiding squadron.^ After he ha gained some leisure by the peace with Guthrum, he kept coi tinually enlarging this force ; by 885 he had apparently son- dozens of ships afloat, though not enough to cope with the mai Viking fleets.* Later, as the Chronicle tells us, he built " lor ships that were full nigh twice as long as others ; some had sixt oars, some more ; they were both swifter and steadier, and ah higher than others, and they were shaped neither as the Frisia nor as the Danish vessels, but as it seemed to himself that the might be most useful." The first successful doings of the ne squadron are recorded under the year 897. The nucleus of well-built fleet was perhaps the most precious legacy of all th; Alfred left to England ; his son steadily increased it. In 91

and Beyond. The " Burgal Hidage " which he gives in full, seems to belong tc period early in Edward's reign, when the reconquest of Mercia and Essex was ji commencing. It has very full details of the division of all the shires south of Tham into districts depending upon burhs, but becomes incomplete as we advance into t regions which were beginning to be reconquered from the old enemy. There the syste was but just being built up.

^ A.S. Chronicle, 896. ^ gee p. 106.

3 A.S. Chronicle, 876. "* A.S. Chronicle, 885.

)05] CAMPAIGNS OF EDWARD THE ELDE:R 113

Edward was able to send out some hundred ships to guard he coast of Kent ; twenty years later the navy was so large and ;o well practised, that ^thelstan, Alfred's grandson, was able to :oast up the whole eastern shore of Britain unresisted, to invade :he domains of Constantine, King of the Scots.^ The Danes of N^orthumbria were in rebellion at the time, but they were evidently unable to launch any squadron large enough to molest lis armament.

Among the Franks, then, mailed cavalry and systematic fortification, among the English, mailed infantry, well-built ourhs, and a fleet, ultimately succeeded in curbing the raids of :he Northmen. It must not be forgotten, however, that to a :ertain extent this triumph of the defensive over the offensive uas due to a change of conditions among the invaders themselves. The success of the first Vikings was very largely due to the fact that they were a mere army, with no hcTmes or treasures of their own to defend ; their wives and children and stored property were all over seas in inaccessible Scandinavia, and they had no base to defend save their fleet. Their sons, however, who had rooted themselves down to a greater or less extent on the Seine or the Humber, were in a very different case. The moment that they began to make permanent encampments on this side of the North Sea, they commenced to lose some of their advantages. When they brought over their families, and began to till the land in an English or a Prankish Danelagh, they completely forfeited their strategical superiority. A Dane of Normandy or the " Five Boroughs " had to protect his own homestead as well as to endeavour to harry Neustria or Wessex. An enemy who has towns to be burned, and cattle to be lifted, is much more easily to be dealt with than a mere marauder who has nothing to lose, and whose base of operations is the sea. In the tenth century the tables were completely turned between Englishman and Dane. Contrast with the dismal records of the years 840-880 the following extract from the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, covering the fifth year of Edward the Elder : —

" A.D. DCCCCV.— In this year the "army" in East Anglia [i.e. the Danes of Eoric, Guthrum's son] harried Mercia till they came to Cricklade, and then went over Thames, and took about Braden forest all that they could carry off, and then went home. Then went after them King Edward, as speedily as he could

^ A.S. Chronicle, 933.

114 THE ART OF WAR IN THE MIDDLE AGES [924

gather his men, and harried all their lands between the Dikes and Ouse, as far north as the Fens."

The retaliatory raid now followed an invasion as surely as effect follows cause, and Eoric and hundreds of his warriors were slain in the mere attempt to cut off Edward's last retreating column, when the English wheeled round to return to Wessex after burning out every Danish farm in the East Midlands It is easy to understand the kind of reasoning that nineteen yean later caused all the English Northmen to take King Edward " tc father and lord," after he had gradually subdued East Anglic and the " Five Boroughs " [924].

The later Danish wars in the time of Ethelred the Redeless anc Sweyn Forkbeard are no true continuation of the struggles o Alfred and Edward a hundred years before. The later invader came for political conquest, not for plunder or land ; they wen in their ends mofe akin to William the Bastard than to Ingwa and Guthrum. If Cnut conquered England, it was not th( individual superiority of his warriors that made him king. Dan( and Englishman were now armed alike, and fought with th< same weapons and in the same array. Ethelred fell because hi realm was in an advanced stage of feudal decomposition, due t( the mistaken policy of Edgar in cutting up England into grea Ealdormanries, whose rulers had grown too independent, anc failed to help each other in the hour of need. Instead of th( king heading the united thegnhood of England, backed by th( fyrd, we find great provincial satraps each at the head of hi local levy, maintaining a spasmodic resistance without mutua aid. The fall of the Saxon house was due to the repudiation o Ethelred by his own subjects, who disowned him and took Sweyi and Cnut as their masters.

The rule of Cnut was notable in England not merely for hi temporary suppression of the danger of feudal disintegration, h] the rough method of summarily slaying the turbulent earl Uhtred and Eadric, but for the introduction of a new militan element into the kingdom. He retained with him, when h< dismissed the rest of his host to their Danish homes, a smal standing army of picked mercenaries, his " huscarles," or militan household. To the number of several thousands, they constantly followed the king, and formed the nucleus of any force that hi had to raise. They had a considerable advantage over th< thegnhood, as they had not to be called in from distant estatf

1054] THE HUSCARLES 115

but were always ready under the king's hand for any sudden need. The institution survived the extinction of Cnut's house ; Edward the Confessor and Harold Godwineson maintained under arms this body of picked men. They were the core of the hosts which smote Griffith the Welshman and Macbeth the Scot.^ Their glorious end was to fall to the last man fighting round the Dragon banner of VVessex, on the fatal field of Senlac.

The influence of the Danes had marked itself in English warfare not only by causing the reorganisation of the military force of the realm, and by precipitating the growth of feudalism, but by certain novelties of equipment. It seems to have been from the Vikings that the English got the kite-shaped shield which superseded the round buckler in the tenth century. Still more notable was the adoption of the Danish axe, a heavy two-handed weapon utterly different from the light casting-axes of the early English. By the time of Edward the Confessor it seems to have been as common as the sword among the English thegnhood. At Hastings it was the characteristic weapon of Harold's host. In the far East it was so peculiar to the English and Danes of the Byzantine Caesar's Varangian Guard, that they are habitually described by their employers as the nsXs-/.v(,

^ In the battle against Macbeth there were slain " Osbern and Siward the Younger, and some of Earl Siward's huscarles, and also many of the king's, on the day of the Seven Sleepers" (A,S. Chronicle, 1054).

CHAPTER IV

THE MAGYARS (A.D. 896-973)

THOUGH the most formidable, the Vikings were by no means the only dangerous enemies of Christendom in the evil days of the ninth and tenth centuries. While the raids of the Scandinavians were still terrifying the Franks and the English, other enemies were thundering at the gates of the southern and the eastern realms. With the Saracens who so afflicted Italy in the days of Lewis II. and Berengar we need not much concern ourselves. They are the same Cretan and African Moslems with whom the Byzantine fought, and their methods of war are described in the chapters in which we deal with the wars of the Eastern Empire. The more formidable invaders of Germany require a longer notice.

The Magyars first came upon the horizon of the Western Empire in 862, when the first of their bands which pushed across Hungary made a transient irruption into the Bavarian Ostmark. But they did not make a permanent appearance on the Imperial frontier till 896, just when the worst of the Danish inroads were ended in East Francia. King Arnulf had asked their aid in 892 against his enemies, the Slavs of Moravia,^ and apparently the easy success which they won over these tribes tempted the Magyars to move westward. They had just been defeated by their neighbours the Patzinaks, and, being driven out of theii previous homes on the Bug and Dnieper, came flooding through the passes of the Carpathians into the valleys of the Theise and Danube. The Avars had long sunk into nothingness, anc the Slavs who had succeeded them on the Middle Danube seerr to have been perfectly helpless before the invaders. So thf kingdom of " Hungary " came into existence in a single year with little fighting or opposition.

^ Ann. Fuld. 892. 116

896] THE COMING OF THE MAGYARS 117

The new neighbours of the East Franks were a people of horse-bowmen, ever in the saddle, and entirely given up to war and plunder. They were formidable on account of their swift movements, their proneness to stratagems and surprises, their wariness on the march, and their horrible greed and cruelty. As the chronicler Regino observed, " no man could stand against them if their strength and their perseverance were as great as their audacity." ^ But they were incapable of besieging a walled town, or of standing firm in the shock of hand-to-hand fighting. Their tactics in the West, as in the East, were to hover round the enemy in successive swarms and overwhelm him with flights of missiles. When charged by the heavy Frankish horse, they fled, still pouring their arrows behind them.

The Magyars had been established for no more than three years in their new abode, when they turned to plunder their Christian neighbours. The poor spoil to be won from the Slavs did not content them, and they were well acquainted with the comparative wealth of the Franks and Lombards. The ambassadors whom they sent to King Arnulf are said, indeed, to have been mere spies, whose real object was to learn the routes into the empire." But their great irruption into Venetia in 899, followed by an almost equally destructive raid into Bavaria in 900, was a complete surprise to the Christians, who had never suffered a serious invasion from the East since Charles the Great had crushed the Avars ninety years back.

The moment which the Magyars chose for their invasion was an unhappy one for Italy and Germany. In the former country King Berengar was but lately freed from his first rival, Lambert of Spoleto, and was just about to start on his contest With a second pretender, Lewis of Provence (900-901). He was also much distracted by Saracen raids on Latium and Tuscany. In the German kingdom Lewis the Child wore the crown — he was a boy of no more than seven years old, the first minor who had worn the Carolingian crown. No strong regent governed for him, and the great vassals who had of late established themselves in the new duchies were about to plunge into a series of bloody and useless civil wars.

The extraordinary successes which the Magyars obtained

^ Regino, 889, i. 600.

2 " Missos illorum sub dolo ad Baioarias pacem optando, region em illam ad explo- randum transmiserunt " [Ajtn. Fttld. 900).

ii8 THE ART OF WAR IN THE MIDDLE AGES [910

during the first thirty years of the tenth century were far more the result of their enemies' divisions and ill-governance than of their own strength. The marvellous swiftness of their incursions made it hard to catch them ; but if the eastern frontier of Germany and the passes of the Venetian Alps had been properly guarded by the systematic fortification of the chief strategical points, and if the mounted levies of all the frontier districts had been taught to act in unison, they could have been held back. Neither in Italy nor in Germany were these measures taken : the perpetual civil wars of the period 900-918 prevented any common action against the enemy. The fortification of Ennsburg (901) to protect the eastern frontier of Bavaria w^as an isolated and a w^hoUy insufficient precaution, but the only one w^hich the reign of Lewis the Child can show. Only once was a general levy of all Germany called out against the Magyars (910), and then it fought in three separate divisions many miles apart. The main body, wath which was the young king himself, was routed near Augsburg by one of the usual "Turkish stratagems" so well known to the Byzantines. While half the Magyars offered battle, and turned to fly after a trifling resistance, the rest of their horde lay hid in ambush till the German horse swept by them in the disorder of victory. Then, pouring out on the flank and rear of King Lewis's men, while their comrades wheeled and charged the front, they won a great victory.^

Pitched battles, however, were rare in the Hungarian wars, for the raiders were more set on plunder than fighting. Nor had they any bases (like the Danish ship-camps) to which they were accustomed to return with their booty, and in which they could be brought to bay. Carrying off only what could be borne on pack-horses, they swept across the open country like a whirl- wind, and were often gone before the ban had time to assemble. Ekkehard, describing the devastation of the lands by the Lake of Constanz in 926, gives us a good picture of a Magyar raid. " They went," he writes, " not in one mass, but in small bands, because there was no Christian army in the field, spoiling the farms and villages and setting fire to them when they had spoiled them : they always caught the inhabitants unprepared by the swiftness of their appearance. Often a hundred of them or less

^ A fair description of this fight is in Luitprand, Antapodosis, ii. §§ 3, 4, much loaded unfortunately with Virgilian quotations.

)54] THE GREAT RAIDS OF THE MAGYARS 119

vould come suddenly galloping out of a wood on to the prey : )nly the smoke and the nightly sky red with flames showed vhere each of their troops had been." ^

It was their rapid movement, far swifter even than that of he Danes, which alone made the Magyars formidable. The vide sweeps which some of their expeditions made far exceed n length any Viking raid. The most formidable of all were hose of 924, 926, and 954. In the former they swept through Bavaria and Swabia, crossed the Rhine, ravaged Elsass and Lorraine, penetrated into Champagne, turned eastward again rom the Ardennes, and returned across Franconia to the Danube. [n the second raid — a still more astonishing feat of horseman- ship— they passed the Venetian Alps, swept over Lombardy taking Pavia on their way), and then endeavoured to cross the Pennine Alps into Burgundy. Checked in the passes by Rodolf of Little Burgundy and Hugh Count of Vienne, they turned south, md, taking a more unguarded route, burst into Provence and Septimania. On their return journey Rodolf and Hugh cut off many of them, but the bulk seem to have got safely back to the Danube.^ But the expedition of 954 was the most dreadful, as it was the last, of all the great Magyar raids. In that year the invaders wasted first Bavaria, then Franconia : they crossed the Rhine near Worms. Then the rebel Duke Conrad wickedly niade a pact with them, and sent them guides to lead them to the lands of his private enemy, Reginald Duke of Lower Lorraine. After harrying that duchy as far as Maestricht, they turned south, and suddenly descended the Meuse into France, where no one was expecting them. After burning every open village in the territories of Laon, Rheims, and Chalons, they swooped down on Burgundy. Here they met considerable resistance, but, forcing their way through the Burgundians, they dropped down into Italy, apparently by the Great St. Bernard, and finally hurried across Lombardy and over the Carnic Alps back to their own land. It was fortunate for Christian Europe that the Lechfeld victory was to fall into the next year, and that the wings of the Magyar vultures were to be for ever clipped by Otto the Great (955).^

The remedies against the Hungarian raids were obviously the same that were required against the Danish, — swift cavalry to chase the raider, and fortified places to afford shelter for the

^ Ekkehard, c. 52. ^ Flodoard Amt. 924.

^ For this raid see Witikind, iii. § 30, and Cont. Regino, 954.

I20

THE ART OF WAR IN THE MIDDLE AGES

[92

population of the countryside, and place their wealth out of th raiders' reach. Unfortunately for Germany, its eastern frontie was almost destitute of strong towns, and the Saxons an Thuringians (as also the Bavarians to a lesser degree) were, c all the Teutonic races, the least educated in cavalry tactic The Saxons, indeed, were still for the most part foot-soldiery.

It was not till the advent of Henry the Fowler (or Henry th Builder, as contemporaries more wisely called him) that an check was set to the Magyars by either of the necessar expedients. Henry from his first accession showed himself far more powerful prince than his unfortunate predecessor Conrad of Franconia and Lewis the Child ; but it was not ti he had been five years on the throne that he found leisure t devise a system of defence against the invaders. Having i 924 concluded a truce with them, on the ignominious terms c paying a large " Magyargeld " (if we may coin the word b analogy from " Danegeld " ), he set to work to garnish th frontier with new fortresses. In Saxony and Thuringia h made every ninth man of the agrarii milites — i.e. all men i the countryside liable to the ban in time of need — remove int a walled place. He set the whole population to work da and night to build these strongholds, and to construct house inside them : these being finished, he settled that each nint man should dwell therein, and take care of the eight neighboui ing houses which his companions were to occupy in time of wa while the eight were to pay the indweller in return one-third c the net products of their lands.^ All the legal and festal mee* ings of the district were to take place inside these new fortifie places, so as to induce the population to haunt them as much a possible. Among these foundations were Merseburg, Quedlir burg, Goslar, Nordhausen, Grona, and Pohlde. Henry als compelled the abbeys to wall themselves in, and repaired th fortifications of the older centres of population which date back to the burgs of Charles the Great. At first the ne^ strongholds were little more than thinly-inhabited places c refuge, but ere long most of them became real towns. Th founding of Merseburg, the easternmost and the most expose bulwark of Saxony, deserves a special notice. Henry peopled by sparing the life of every " strong thief" that he caught, o condition that he should go to dwell at Merseburg and receive ^ All this is told very elaborately in Witikind, i. 35.

^Ss] THE BATTLE ON THE UNSTRUT 121

rrant of land in its environs. Strangely enough, this " legio :ollecta a latronibus," as the chronicler calls them,^ did very well n their new settlement, and, like Romulus' robber band, made :heir city the centre of a strong community in a very few years. Henry also devoted his years of peace to inducing the Saxons and Thuringians to learn the art of fighting on horse- Dack. We are unfortunately without information as to the neans he employed — whether he compelled the royal vassals alone to serve mounted, or whether he also put pressure on the freeholders who still abounded between the Elbe and Weser. We only know that when the next Magyar raid came, in 933, it found North Germany for the first time possessed of " milites squestri praelio probatos," 2 as well as of a formidable range of new fortresses.

The result was most satisfactory. When the invaders threw themselves on Thuringia, their smaller bands were cut to pieces by the local forces, who were now able to follow them at equal speed. Their main army was attacked by Henry himself, who had called up the cavalry of the neighbouring Franconian and Bavarian lands to join the Saxons and Thuringians. By show- ing only a small force, the levy of Thuringia alone, " cum raro milite armato," i.e. with few mail-clad men, he enticed them to attack him. But when the whole German host suddenly displayed itself and charged, the Magyars broke and fled with- out staying to fight. A few were caught and slain, a good many were drowned in the Unstrut (which lay behind them), but the majority got off in safety and returned to Hungary. Such was the battle at Riade, which modern historians have generally called the battle of Merseburg, though it seems really to have been fought nearer to Erfurt than to the other city.

Three years later Henry the Builder died, and was succeeded by his still more famous son. Otto the Great. It may seem strange that under such an able ruler the Magyar raids should still have continued for more than twenty years after the day on which his father had shown the true way of salvation. A closer consideration of the facts shows that they are not so surprising as they appear. The inroads after 933 are, with two exceptions, by no means so formidable as those of the earlier years of the century. These two really important invasions were carried out, the one before Otto was firmly seated upon his throne, the

^ Witikind, ii. 3. 2 /^^-^^ n 33.

122 THE ART OF WAR IN THE MIDDLE AGES

other in the midst of a great civil war, and with the traiton co-operation of the rebels. For the greater part of the ec years of his reign (936-955) the realm was fairly free from raids^ we except a continual bickering along the Bavarian frontier, in which the Germans were more often victorious than unsuccessful The change in the spirit of the times since the battle of Riade is sufficiently shown by the fact that the Bavarians are found entering Hungary and wasting it as far as the Theiss in 950 instead of waiting helplessly to see their own lands plundered, as they had been wont to do thirty years before.^ Saxony, safe behind its new line of fortresses, seems to have held its owr without difficulty .-

The great Magyar invasions of 954 and 955 were a lasl rally of the plundering hordes, conscious that their prey was escaping them, and determined to try one more bold stroke before it was too late. The chroniclers record the fact that they had put every available horseman into the field, and that no such host had ever been seen before.^ We may compare the Hungarian army that marched on Augsburg in 955 to the Turkish army that marched on Vienna in 1683 — it was the last desperate effort of a power conscious that its superiority was slipping from it.

Nevertheless, King Otto had every right to be proud of his victory on the Lechfeld on St. Lawrence's Day. His realm was still disturbed with the last throes of the great rebellion which he had put down in the previous year, and, as there were dangerous movements still working among the Slavs of the Lower Elbe and on the Lotharingian frontier, he had not been able tc call out the full levy of his kingdom. There were hardly any Saxons, Thuringians, or Lotharingians, and very few Franconians with him. His army was composed of the cavalry of Bavaria and Swabia, with a thousand Franconians, and the same number oi his Slavonic vassals the Bohemians, under their prince Boleslav Hearing that Augsburg was besieged, and that its garrison was in great danger, Otto marched rapidly to its rescue, without waiting for further reinforcements. He divided his army intc eight corps, legioncs as Witikind calls them, each entirely com-

1 Witikind, ii. § 36.

- The Magyars' raid into Saxony in 938 was most disastrous to themselve.' (Witikind, ii. § 14).

^Gerh. V. Oudalr. §12.

5] THE BATTLE OF THE LECHFELD 123

sed of cavalry, and each mustering about one thousand men. iree " legions " were Bavarian, two Swabian, one Franconian, iC Bohemian ; the eighth was composed of the king's personal llowing and of picked men from the other divisions ; it was mewhat larger than the rest. The army was small compared ;th that which had accompanied Otto on his invasion of France 946, when (as he boasted) " thirty-two legions had followed m, every man wearing a straw hat," — for in the summer heat e Germans had marched unopposed through Champagne with eir helms at their saddlebows, and the peaceful headgear of raw shading their brows.^

On hearing of the king's approach, the Hungarians hastily

ised the siege of Augsburg, and drew themselves up on the

'oad and level Lechfeld, a region very well adapted for the

-actice of their usual Parthian tactics. Otto, however, moved

) meet them through broken ground which was unsuitable for

leir manoeuvres, and then camped by the side of the Lech.

[e drew up his army in a single line of corps, his own chosen

and in the centre, on its right the three Bavarian " legions " and

lat of the Franconians, on his left the two Swabian divisions.

^he Bohemians, whether because their loyalty was doubted or

ecause they were considered less solid troops, were placed behind,

1 charge of the baggage. They were a camp-guard, not a reserve.

The Magyars soon came in sight — a confused weltering mass

f hundreds of small troops ; the German chronicles say that they

'ere a hundred thousand strong, and, however exaggerated the

gure may be, they no doubt many times outnumbered Otto's

ost. They had crossed the Lech far sooner than had been

xpected. Their first manoeuvre was characteristic : while some

'f them threatened the German front, a great body slipped off

o the left, apparently unseen, and suddenly fell upon Otto's

amp. The Bohemians left there on guard were routed after a

hort struggle. The Magyars then suddenly changed their

lirection, and charged in upon the rear of the two Swabian

:orps of the king's left wing. Taken by surprise by this attack

"rom an unexpected quarter, the Swabians were defeated, and

Iriven towards the German centre : Otto then sent the Franconian

:orps from his right wing to aid them. Led by Duke Conrad, a

^ Witikind, iii. § 2. The straw hat was a specially Saxon head-dress for summer -ear. See the passage from Rather of Verona, quoted in Pertz's edition of Witikind, '• 451-

24 THE ART OF WAR IN THE MIDDLE AGES

lately pardoned rebel who had to win back his reputation f( loyalty, the Franconian horse charged with such a fierce shoe that the Magyars were completely routed, and fled in disord to join their main body. Otto meanwhile, with his own divisic and the Bavarians, had been watching and containing the rest the Magyars. When he saw the horde which had turned his flar crushed by Conrad, he hastily rearranged the disordered le wing, and ordered a general charge of his whole line.^

The Magyars, dismayed by the disaster which had befalk their detached corps, made a poor resistance. They we indeed wholly incapable of standing up to the Germans man ' man : their horses were smaller, and very few of them wore ar defensive armour.- After letting fly a few volleys of arrows, the wheeled off and fled. Many were overtaken and slain, for the horses were fatigued by the first fight ; more were drowned the Lech, for its farther bank was steep, and they could n' readily climb the slippery slope ; they had easily descended it ; they attacked, but found it almost impossible to mount c their retreat.

Otto's host had suffered severely in the first fight, but lo few men in the second ; Duke Conrad, however, who hz loosened his hauberk to take the air, received a Parthian shaft his throat at the very moment of victory, and was left dead c the field. On the same evening the Magyar camp was take and plundered. For the next two days the army pursued tl flying foe, many of whom were cut off as they fled by tl Bavarian peasantry. Three great chiefs who fell into Ottc hands were incontinently hung.

So ended, as Witikind remarks, the greatest victory whic Christendom had won over the heathen for two hundred year he was thinking, no doubt, of Poictiers [723] as the last fight th. could fairly be compared with the Lechfeld.^ It is only fa however, to remember that Henry the Builder's success ; Riade, though less showy and less complete, was far more tru" the turning-point of the history of the Magyar invasions ths the battle of the Lechfeld. Since 933 Germany had found tl raiders much less formidable than before, and the invasion of gi

^ Thietmar is apparently wrong in making the battle last two days ; in Witikind t whole of the fighting takes place on St. Lawrence's Day, August 10.

^ " Maxima enim ex parte nudes illos armis omnibus cognovimus," says Otto in t speech which Witikind puts into his mouth (iii. § 46).

3 Wit. iii. 49.

, 5] THE MAGYARS TURNED BACK 125

ls a desperate final rally. Just as in the history of the Otto- m assaults on Christian Europe we place the real moment of jatest danger during the siege of Vienna in 1529, not during at in 1683, so the most threatening time of the Magyar attack IS undoubtedly in 933, when they had never yet received a eck of importance, and not in 955, when they had already been it and turned back many times by Otto and Otto's generals.

The danger, at any rate, was now wholly past. That it ever .d grown great was owing to the anarchy of the reigns of .wis the Child and Conrad the Franconian. In less than a meration after the Lechfeld the roles of German and Magyar ^re wholly changed : the Christian is always advancing and the igan recoiling. Otto, too, was able to cut a new " march " out ' the Pannonian lands which the Magyars had devastated and :cupied in his grandfather's time. This was the new Bavarian stmark (973), destined to be famous under the name of Austria )r many a future generation.

CHAPTER V

ARMS AND ARMOUR (80O-I lOO)

WE have seen that down to the time of Charles the Grei there had been comparatively little alteration in tt character of arms and armour since the days of the first found; tion of the Teutonic kingdoms in the fifth century. In the nint century, however, we find a gradual change coming over the out( appearance of the warriors of Christendom. Not only do much greater proportion of them wear defensive arms, but t\ arms themselves begin to change in appearance. All the alter.- tions are in the direction of securing greater protection for tt wearer. The short byrnie reaching to the hips and the ope Prankish helm seem to have been regarded as insufficient again; the Danish axe and the Magyar arrow.

One of the first changes consists in the adoption of th hauberk (" hals-berge," or neck-protection) for the defence of tl' throat, neck, and sides of the face. The earliest form of it Wt simply a thick leather covering hiding the ears and neck, an probably was fastened to the rim of the helm, like the camail ( modern Sikh or Persian headpieces. In this primitive shape is merely an appendage of the helm ; and when Count Eberhar of Frejus records in his will (837) a helmum cum halsbet'gi we must think of it as meaning no more than this. Represent' tions of such hauberks may be seen in the St. Denis chessme figured by Viollet-le-Duc in his Mobilier Francais} or th warriors in the Stuttgart Psalter. The next form was moi complete : the material of the hauberk was changed to fine chair mail, and it was fitted more tightly to the head and brougl forward to cover the chin and neck. In this shape it Wc probably formed into a coif or hood, the part covered by tb helmet being now leather, and the mail beginning where th

^ Vol. V. p. 67. But their date is much later than Viollet supposed.

126

)oo] THE HAUBERK 127

leadplece no longer protected the skull. The lower edge of .he hauberk was sometimes tucked under the upper edge of the )yrnie and sometimes hung above it, for the two had not yet become one garment.

This was the universal wear of well-armed warriors in the .enth and eleventh centuries. The poorer men had only the

I ihort mail-shirt, the richer supplemented it by the hauberk. We ind clear traces of its use in incidents such as that at the battle )f Soissons in 923, where King Robert, to make himself known, ' pulled out his long beard from under its covering," ^ that the memy might see it. So, too, Duke Conrad at the Lechfeld •eceived a mortal arrow-wound in the throat, because, overcome

, oy the heat, he had loosened his hauberk to take the air in

: :he moment of victory.^

The next step in the development of this piece of armour

hvas that it was joined to the mail-shirt so as to form a single garment, like an Esquimaux skin-coat. But this did not occur :ill the end of the eleventh or beginning of the twelfth century. Most of the warriors of the Bayeux Tapestry wear mail-shirts not oined to their hauberks, for in several representations of byrnies lot in actual use we see that they have no hoods. When in the

I :welfth century hauberk and byrnie became one, the name of the

! brmer was often used to cover the whole suit — a fact which has

I :aused much confusion to those who, knowing the term in this ate use, have not seen that it was at first a mere cheek-guard langing from the helm.

The helm itself changed entirely in shape in the ninth century. The open crested Prankish helmet with its peak disappears, and s superseded by a crestless conical headpiece. The latter shape s better for turning off sword or axe blows, but it is probable :hat it came in not merely for that reason, but because it could 3e worn more easily with the hauberk. The older crested helm stood out too far from the face and was too open to go well with the new appendage. Probably, too, it did not fit so tightly to the head, so that if worn above a hauberk of the later shape it would be more likely to be knocked off than the new conical helm. After the ninth century we never find the old crested Prankish

^ " Barbam obvelatam detegii, seseque esse monstrat " (Richer, i. 46). The other, reading " barbam lorica extraxit^'' presupposes a lorica covering the chin, i.e. furnished with a complete mail coif, which does not seem to have yet existed in 923.

2 Witikind, iii. 47.

128 THE ART OF WAR IN THE MIDDLE AGES

shape in real use, though it still occurs occasionally in illustrate manuscripts, copied from originals of an earlier time with too grea fidelity.

In the tenth century the conical helm receives a new additio in the shape of the nasal, a projecting iron bar to guard the nos from down-cuts which had been turned by the headpiece. Th device had been known earlier,^ but only became really commo after 950. It prevailed from that date till the second half of th twelfth century, when it was superseded by the " pot-helm " covei ing the whole face, such as that seen on the great seal of Richard

Not only headgear and throatgear began to change in th ninth century, but also the mail-shirt itself It had hithert reached to the hips alone, but now began to lengthen itse towards the knees. Horsemen fighting foot-soldiery armed wit heavy striking weapons (like the Vikings), are specially liable t receive cuts at and just above the knee. It was no doubt t guard against this danger that the byrnie grew longer and longf till it touched the calves. To make riding possible, it had to t split at back and front, for a space of some thirty inches or tw feet from its lower edge. This divided shirt when drawn by a incapable artist gives the impression of a pair of mail breeche but such garments were not common till much later.

The sleeves of the byrnie were still wide and short in th tenth century, and far into the eleventh, so that the lower an had no protection. How wide they were about 923 may h gathered from the fact that King Robert was killed at Soissor by a lance which went up his sleeve, and then bore downwarc into his side and through his liver.^

From this short sketch it can easily be seen that the warric of 1050, with conical helm and nasal, hauberk covering his eai and throat, and long mail-shirt reaching below the knee, Wc entirely different in appearance from the Carolingian fightin man, who still preserved a certain resemblance to the late-Roma soldier. He was also, it must be owned, more effectively arme( if less sightly to look upon. The covering of ring-mail was nc yet growing so heavy as to incommode or fatigue the wearer.

To complete the contrast, we must add that by 1050 th kite-shaped shield had wholly superseded the round shield fc cavalry, though the latter was still often used by the despise foot-soldiery. A large round shield is a great encumbrance to

^ Helmum cum directo occurs in the Ripuarian Laws. " Richer, i. 46.

looo] AXE AND SWORD 129

rider,^ who can only wield it with his upper arm, since his hand is busy with the reins : while a small round shield gives poor protection against arrows and javelins, though when used by a skilled warrior it is effective enough against sword or lance. The kite-shaped shield, on the other hand, has the advantage of covering the greater part of the body without swelling to the unnecessary breadth of the round shield, or hindering the outlook Dn the left side to the same extent. Thus its advantages were just those which led the Romans, twelve hundred years earlier, to substitute the oblong scutum for the round Argolic shield. The last people to preserve the circular targe were those of the Scandinavians who did not settle in the South. As late as 1 171 the Danes who fought Strongbow's Normans at Dublin had the round red shield which their ancestors had carried three hundred y^ears before.^

Offensive arms did not alter their shape nearly so much as defensive during the years 800-1 100. The double-handed axe, IS we have already seen, was introduced by the Danes, and idopted by the English and in a lesser degree by other races. The missile taper-axe did not, however, entirely disappear : it is mentioned in a charter of Cnut's, and appears again in William Df Poictiers' description of the battle of Hastings, as hurled by the English at the oncoming Normans.^ The sword grew decidedly longer, and had by 1050 received a rounded point nstead of a sharp one, so that it was wholly a cutting weapon. The horseman's lance was not yet of any great length ; at Hastings the Norman knights used it to cast as well as to thrust. In some countries the bow was in fairly common use, though it vvas always the short-bow, not the formidable six-foot weapon of the fourteenth century. The Scandinavian peoples, the South- Welsh, and the races in touch with Byzantium seem to have used t most. The Danish blood of the Normans accounts for the arge proportion of archers whom they employed at Hastings. Neither the Germans, the English, nor the French seem to have :aken to it kindly. Abbot Ebolus, the defender of Paris in 886, is the only notable archer among these peoples who occurs to my

^ Unless it is made of very light stuff, wicker or cane, for example, such as those if the Turks of the eleventh and twelfth centuries. But the Western shield was a leavy solid affair of wood and leather.

" Giraldus Camb., Exp, Hib. i. § 2i: '* Clipeis quoque rotundis et rubris, ferro nrculariter munitis."

3 W. P. 201.

I30 THE ART OF WAR IN THE MIDDLE AGES [hoc

memory.^ At the end of the period which we are now discussing the crossbow had already been added to the longbow as ar infantry arm. But by iioo it was only just beginning to asserl the ascendency which it was to enjoy in the twelfth and still more in the thirteenth century.

^ See Abbo, Bell. Par. ii. 405, for his lucky shot at a Danish pilot. He was also : good marksman with a balista {ibid. i. no).

CHAPTER VI

SIEGECRAFT — A.D. 80O-IIOO

THERE is on the whole a greater continuity in the history of siegecraft and siege-machines through the whole Middle Ages down to the invention of gunpowder, than in the listory of any other province of the military art. When we read the account of Witiges' siege of Rome in 537, of the beleaguering Df Gundovald Ballomer in Comminges in 585, of Wamba's :apture of Nismes in 673, of the Northman Siegfried's siege of Paris in 885-886, of the operations of the Crusaders against Jerusalem in 1099, we are struck with the astonishing similarity Df the proceedings of men so far apart in age and in nationality. To take, for example, the first and the last of these five sieges — vve find Witiges and Godfrey of Bouillon relying on exactly the iame methods. When the rude expedients of striving to fill the iown-ditch and swarm up the wall on ladders do not avail, the besieger in each case falls back on two main resources. The Dne is that of breaching the fortress with rams, the other that of :learing the ramparts of their defenders not only by the missiles discharged by engines placed close at the foot of the wall, but by the concentrated volleys of men posted in high movable towers brought up close to the fortifications, so as to overtop them and to allow them to be swept by arrows from above. If Witiges failed and Godfrey succeeded, it was mainly because the Goth never succeeded in getting his towers right up to the walls, while the Crusader gradually filled the ditch with debris, and finally pushed his engines into such close contact with the town that he could throw his bridges down on the rampart, and cross them at the head of his knights.

All through the Dark Ages there were two great weapons of offence in siegecraft, the ram and the bore. The former worked by gradually battering to pieces the point of the wall on which

131

132 THE ART OF WAR IN THE MIDDLE AGES [

it was set to play : it shook the whole structure till the mortar gave way and the ramparts crumbled into a breach. The bore {terebrus), on the other hand, consisted of a massive pole furnished with a sharp iron point: it was intended to work piecemeal, picking out or breaking up the individual stones till it produced a round hole in the tower or the front of curtain which it assailed.

The ram was often a vast bulk, the largest tree of the countryside, fitted with an enormous head, and requiring forty or sixty men to swing it. It was slung by ropes or chains from two solid perpendicular beams, drawn back by the workers as far as the chains allowed, and then released to dash itself against the wall. As the besiegers could not hope to live close under the ramparts, beneath the deadly hail of stones and shafts which the defenders poured upon them, it was necessary to cover the ram with a shelter. Accordingly it was provided with a large pent- house which usually ran upon wheels or rollers, though sometimes it seems to have been carried forward by main force, and set down again and again as the ram moved on. The sides of the penthouse were usually made of hides, or of hurdles covered with hides, to make the structure as light and portable as could be managed. The roof, however, had to be more solid, as the defenders were wont to pour on it liquid combustibles, such as pitch or boiling oil. If the assailant made it very strong, with solid beams covered by raw hides, tiles, or earth to keep off the burning liquid, the only resource of the defenders was to drop heavy stones upon it or to destroy it by a sortie.

But even if the penthouse could not be harmed, the ram itself might be disabled : a favourite device — descending, like the engine to which it was opposed, from Roman times — was to let fall on its head, while it struck the wall, heavy forked beams, which caught it, held it firm, and prevented it from being drawn back. We shall see this plan tried in the Viking siege of Paris. A less effective palliative was to hang from the wall, over the point on which the ram was playing, thick mattress-like sheets of sacking filled with straw, or broad and thick beams. The ram spent its strength on these without progressing in its attempt to make a breach. Both beams and sacking are heard of in the great siege of Jerusalem in 1099, and both ultimately proved more harmful to the besieged than to the assailant.

It is confusing to find the ram and its penthouse spoken of in chronicles under names which hide the true nature of their

8oo] THE BORE AND THE MINE 133

work. Such are cancer and testudo, both employed as synonyms for this machine, but both referring properly not to the ram but to the penthouse, whose rounded upper surface suggested the comparison to the two creatures.

The bore (teretriis^ terebrus^ terebrd) worked less ostentatiously and less effectively than the ram ; it required an immense amount of labour before it could make its hole, and was exposed no less than the ram to the dangers from above. It had, how- ever, the not inconsiderable advantage of being much lighter and easier to transport. Moreover, it did not require the enormous number of men to work it which the ram demanded. It was, of course, always covered with a penthouse on a smaller scale than that required for the battering engine, but constructed on the same lines.

The bore and its shelter appear under many names in the chronicles. It is sometimes called musculus, the mouse,^ because its object was to gnaw a round hole in the lower courses of the rampart. At other times it is called a "cat," because it clawed its way into walls. A third and very usual name was the " hog " or '* sow " {scrofa, sus)-- applied either because of the resemblance of the round-topped penthouse to a hog's back, or because it worked with its tusks like a boar. The word vulpes is less commonly used for it : ^ in this case, as in that of musculuSy the allusion is to the capacity of the engine for making neat round holes in the surface that it attacked.

Like the later Romans, the men of the Dark Ages sometimes supplemented the ram and the bore by the device of mines. Before the invention of gunpowder these were invariably worked on a single plan. The besieger removed as much earth as he could carry away from beneath some exposed corner of the fortifications, and shored up the hole with beams. He then filled the space between the beams with straw and brushwood, and set fire to it. When the supports were consumed, the wall crumbled downwards into the hole, and a breach was produced. Early writers often call the mine a " furnace," the general effect of the lighted mine breathing out smoke and sparks from its orifice

^ As in Abbo, i. 99.

- Many readers will remember the joke of Black Agnes of Dunbar when she had smashed the penthouse and saw its occupants scampering away from beneath: " Behold, the English sow has farrowed."

^ Albert of Aix uses it in his account of the siege of NicKa, 1097.

I

134 THE ART OF WAR IN THE MIDDLE AGES [80c

reminding them of the oven of everyday life. Mines were o: course very effective against places built on soft soil : the diggen could work undisturbed by the storm of stones and darts froir above, which made the use of the ram and bore so dangerous On the other hand, they were entirely useless against fortresses built on high ground or upon a foundation of solid rock. The best device which the besieged could employ against mining was to countermine, and then attack the diggers below ground drive them back, and fill up the hole they had excavated. If however, the besieger had commenced his mine at a consider able distance from the wall, and carefully hidden the mouth o it, so that its exact locality and direction could not be easil} discerned, he had a very fair chance of success. For an earl} example of the mine in use on this side of the Channel we ma} turn to William the Norman's capture of Exeter in 1067.^

The ram, the bore, and the mine were the main resources o the poliorcetic art during our period, but we must mention one or two engines of lesser importance. Scaling ladders are th( simplest of all the besieger's tools, and the most useless agains a competent defence ; nevertheless a town not unfrequently fel before an unexpected coup-de-main or a night attack in whicl the assailant had no more than ladders to help him. A stil more primitive method was that of heaping up earth fascines o rubbish of any kind against the lowest part of a hostile wall, anc endeavouring to clamber in over them. Rome itself fell befon this rude expedient in 896, when King Arnulf bade his German: lay against the foot of the ramparts their heavy saddles and th( packs of their beasts of burden, and actually succeeded ii entering the Eternal City by scrambling up the heap.-

The movable tower, as distinguished from the mere pent house destined to shelter a ram, appears at the end and the be ginning of our period, but seems to be absent during its centra years. Witiges, as we have already had occasion to mention, employed it in vain against Rome in 537. But we do not fine it emerging again till the eleventh centur}\ Probably it passec out of use during the days when fortification was neglected, anc had to be revived when the feudal castle had been produced b} the influence of the Viking and Magyar. It was, at any rate, ii

^ See Orderic, iv. p. 510 : '* Per plurimos dies obnixe satagit . . . murum subtu suffodere."

^ Luitprand, Antapodosis^ § 27. ^ See p. 131.

looo] THE MOVABLE TOWER 135

full employment before the beginning of the Crusades, being known to William the Conqueror and other competent generals of his age.^ The most famous examples of its success, however, are to be found in the great campaigns of the East, starting from the capture of Jerusalem in 1099. The tower had a double use: men posted on its top and armed with missiles overlooked the defenders of a rampart and shot them down from above, so as •to clear the way for an assault. But it was also quite usual to fit the tower with a drawbridge, which at a propitious moment was let down on to the walls and served as a path for a column of stormers. The tower had all the disadvantages which we have already seen to be inherent to the penthouse. It was even heavier to move than that machine : it was equally combustible, and it was stopped by the slightest ditch, since it could not advance over uneven ground. Even if the besiegers filled the ditch with debris, and produced a level at the foot of the walls, the great weight of the tower often made it sink into the newly- turned earth, and when once stuck fast it could not be moved again. We may add that its size and height made it the easiest of marks for mangonels and petraries. Not unfrequently we hear of towers battered to pieces by the mere missiles of the besieged. William of Tyre remarks that those from which the Crusaders stormed Jerusalem only just served their purpose : they were so damaged at the moment of the assault that the chiefs were on the point of ordering them to be rolled back, and of abandoning the attempt to use them.-

Among the minor tools of early siegecraft the many devices of twisted hurdle-work deserve mention. These mantlets {plutei, crates, hotcrdis) were mainly used to shelter the advancing assailants. They were composed of stakes wattled together with osiers or other branches, and were generally covered with a coating of hide. Sometimes a whole storming party would advance against the walls carrying the mantlets over their heads.^ At other times they were used to protect the smaller siege engines, which had not penthouses of their own. Sometimes they were arranged in rows, so as to form a covered way to enable men to enter the penthouses with safety, or to get close

^ See Guy of Amiens, 1. 699. Ansgar the Staller explains to the Londoners that ' ' Cernitis oppressos vaHdo certamine muros, Molis et erectae transcendit machina turres."

2 Wilham of Tyre, viii, s ggg Abbo, i. 220.

136 THE ART OF WAR IN THE MIDDLE AGES [looo

to the foot of the walls. When set in this fashion, they are often called by the old Roman names of testudo or vinea. War-bands who had been long in the field, like the Vikings or the Crusaders, came to have a great confidence in these light defences, and grew skilled in the rapid making of them. When the Crusading armies sat down in front of a Syrian town, we often find the whole force turning to the construction of a large stock of mantlets before beginning any serious attack on the place. They made the leaguer so much less wasteful of life that the time spent on making them was not thrown away.

The engines for throwing missiles employed in sieges were the same for assailant and defender. They may be divided according to the method which they employed for propulsion, and the missiles which they threw.

There were in the Middle Ages three chief methods of pro- ducing the propelling power required to launch a stone or javelin. Only two of them, however, seem to have been used in the earlier centuries with which we are now dealing. These were torsion and tension. The third and later device was the employment of the counterpoise. By torsion is meant the twisting of ropes and cords whose sudden release discharged the missile. By ten- sion we mean the mere stretching of the cord, in the same fashion used to draw the ordinary bow. Both classes were directly bor- rowed from the later Romans. The elaborate details for the construction of machines given by Vitruvius, and later writers like Vegetius, Procopius, and Ammianus, explain to us the originals of most of the machines which were at a later time employed in the Teutonic kingdoms of Western Europe. At Constantinople they continued to be made with the old perfection all through the Dark Ages : in the lands west of the Adriatic they were small and rude copies of the Roman originals.

Of the machines working by torsion the best type was the mangon, which played the part of heavy siege-artillery. It consisted of two stout posts joined by a double or quadruple set of ropes. If a beam is placed between the two sets of ropes, and drawn back so as to twist them in opposite directions, a very considerable force is generated. It is utilised either by making a spoon-shaped hole in the end of the beam or by attaching a sling to it ; the engineer then places a missile, e.g. a rock or a ball of lead or stone, in the spoon or sling, and then suddenly releases the beam.

ooo] THE MANGON AND BALISTA 137

lie ropes, untwisting themselves in a moment, cast the Dck or ball with a high elliptic trajectory. The machine is ifficult to aim, as everything depends on the exact amount of orsion applied. A wet or dry day, for example, considerably ffects the ropes. But for shooting at large easy marks the aangon was effective ; it was specially good for what we may all " bombarding" work, i.e. the casting of missiles at large into . walled city or an entrenched position. The machine is called )y the name " mangon " as early as 886, where Abbo uses the /ord in his account of the siege of Paris.^ But it is probably dentical with the machine called by the simpler name of sling fundus^ fundibuld)^ which (as we have already had occasion to nention) was in use at a much earlier date. Such no doubt vere the '' slings " which were carried by the military train of Zharles the Great.^ The mangon is the legitimate descendant )f the Roman onager or scorpio described by Ammianus ^ and r*rocopius.*

The second class of machines throwing missiles were those vorked by tension, of which we may take the balista as the ype. The balista is a magnified crossbow, as will be seen from he very clear description of it given by Procopius, when he is iescribing the engines used by Belisarius to defend the walls of ^ome in 537. "These machines," he says, "have the general ;hape of a bow ; but in the middle there is a hollow piece of lorn loosely fixed to the bow, and lying over a straight iron ;tock. When wishing to let fly at the enemy, you pull back the >hort strong cord which joins the arms of the bow, and place in :he horn a bolt, four times as thick as an ordinary arrow, but only lalf its length.^ The bolt is not feathered like an arrow, but 'urnished with wooden projections exactly reproducing the shape Df the feathers. Men standing on each side of the balista draw Dack the cord with little devices \i.e. winches] ; when they let it ^o, the horn rushes forward and discharges the bolt, which strikes .vith a force equal to at least two arrows, for it breaks stone and pierces trees."

In this description Procopius omits only two points : he neglects to specify what were the " devices " for pulling back

1 Abbo, i. 364. 2 See p. 81.

^ Ammianus, xix. § 7, and xxiii. § 4. ^ Procopius, De Bell. Gott. i. 21.

^ But it threw javelins as well as bolts, and these evidently of great length. See the passage below from Abbo, about Abbot Ebolus.

138 THE ART OF WAR IN THE MIDDLE AGES [88

the cord, calling them merely [Mrr/avai ; we know, however, fror Ammianus, that they were little winches or windlasses whic were wound round and round in order to bring back the core He also omits to state that the cord was usually of twisted gu and that when tightened it was caught in grooves or notche cut in the iron or wooden stock to which the two arms c the balista were fixed. The machine was then aimed, b directing the point of the stock at the object which th engineer wished to strike, and, when good aim had been takei the cord was loosed, and sped the missile on its way.^ Vegetiu who is far shorter on the subject than Procopius, remarks the the longer the arms of the balista, the harder was the stroke ( the missile which it projected.^ The bolts thrown by it mu.' have been formidable things : at the siege of Rome by Witige Procopius saw a mailed Gothic chief, who was struck by balista-bolt while mounted in a tree, hang for a long time o the missile, which, after piercing him, had stuck deep into th wood. But it cast not only bolts, but long javelins. At tli siege of Paris, Abbo tells us how Abbot Ebolus launched froi a balista a lucky shaft which went through several Danes, wh fell dead pierced by the same missile. The abbot, thinking ( fowls broached on a spit, bade their friends " pick them u and take them to the kitchen." ^

The balista was, of course, a weapon capable of much moi accurate shooting than the mangon, for its javelins could I propelled point-blank, and were not hurled with a great cur\ like the rocks thrown from the other machine ; it migh perhaps, be aimed like a modern gun. Hence it was valuab for accurate shooting at small marks, while the mangon w; more fitted for battering at large ones. The special use of it t besiegers was to pick off the defenders on the front of wa which was being attacked. The besieged, on the other han would employ it to play on those of their assailants who we exposing themselves, especially at men who were out of range ordinary arrows or javelins. We shall see that in Abbe description of the siege of Paris, the engineers who we

^ Procopius must be read closely with Ammianus here : each supplements t other. Ammianus does not speak clearly of the horns of the bow. Procopius om the winches and notches.

^ Vegetius, iv. § 22: " Quanto prolixiora brachiola habet, tanto spicula longi mittit."

^ Abbo, i. 1 10.

io66] THE CROSSBOW 139

li reeling the construction of the Danish rams were slain by a ^ong shot from a baHsta while their machines were still very far from the walls.

The machines of the ninth century, it must also be remembered, were of very inferior workmanship to their proto- t\pes of the fourth^ It is probable that much which was iron in Ammianus' day was wooden in that of Abbo. We doubt whether the Prankish smiths could make arms for the balista from iron ; most probably both the arms and the stock were wooden in the days of the siege of Paris.

There is no doubt that the balista was the parent of the crossbow of later centuries. The Romans had possessed some sort of weapon of this kind, but it had so passed out of memory that the Byzantines of the eleventh century, who preserved so many other Roman engines, had no knowledge of it.^ In the West, on the other hand, it was known and in full use before the time of the Crusades. William the Norman had " balistantes " no less than "sagittarii" at Hastings, as Guy of Amiens is careful to inform us. Nor were the earliest crusaders without crossbowmen, though they did not at first understand how to employ them properly against the Turks. The description of the crusader's arbalest by Anna Comnena is well worth giving, as it shows an exact correspondence in miniature to the great balista described by Procopius, with the exception that, owing to the smallness of the weapon, it can be bent by the force of the body, and does not need a windlass at the side. " That hitherto unknown engine, the Tzaggra," she says, " is not a bow held in the left hand and bent by the right, but can only be spanned by the bearer stooping and placing both feet against it, while he strains at the cord with the full force of both arms. In the middle it has a semicircular groove of the length of a long arrow, which reaches down to the middle of its stock ; the missiles, which are of many and various kinds, are placed in the groove, and propelled through it by the released cord. They pierce wood and metal easily, and sometimes wholly imbed themselves in a wall, or any such obstacle, when they have struck it." " Who was the genius who first conceived the idea of making a small hand-balista which could be carried and worked by a single soldier, we are unable to say, nor can we be sure of

^ It was, says Anna Comnena, rots "EWrjai TraureXQs dyvoovfievov (x. 8). - /hW. X. 8.

I

140 THE ART OF WAR IN THE MIDDLE AGES [88

the exact date of its appearance — probably this revival of th old Roman manubalista dates back to that darkest of dark age; the end of the tenth century.

Of the Trebuchet and other engines working by the use c heavy counterpoises we shall delay to speak till we reach th twelfth century. It is by no means clear when they were firs introduced, but apparently they were still unknown in th centuries (800-1100) with which we are now dealing.

Much confusion is caused to the readers of chronicle by the fact that the writers of the early centuries of the Middl Ages use many names for describing the same weapons. A] siege-artillery was either of the type of the mangon, u relying on torsion, or on that of the balista, i.e. relying o tension. But they are called indifferently " slings," " catapults, " petraries," " machines," " engines," " tormenta," with the mos exasperating vagueness and inaccuracy, by authors who, bein: for the most part clergy and not military men, did not full; understand the principles of the devices which they wer describing. Moreover, confusion is often caused by the fac that by slight adaptations or changes of shape, the " mangon. whose proper work was the casting of rocks, might be mad to hurl javelins, and the balista, whose speciality lay in th accurate propelling of shafts, might be induced to hurl stones.

The best way to gain some idea of the characteristics of siege during the Dark Ages, is to investigate the details of . typical case. Unfortunately, there are very few chroniclers wh< give us really good descriptions of such operations. On th whole, we have a better account of the great siege of Paris ii 885-886 than of any other leaguer between the days of Justiniai and the Crusades. Abbo's long poem on the subject is couchec in the vilest Latin, and abounds in the most excruciating fals quantities, but it is very detailed, and on the whole very cleai As every device of siegecraft known to the Dark Ages wa employed by assailants and defenders, it is well worth while t< give a short sketch of the incidents of those eventful elevei months.

We have already mentioned that Paris in the autumn o 885 consisted of the old island-city, with the new fortification added by Charles the Bald, namely, two bridges crossing th two branches of the Seine, which encircled old Paris, an( furnished with two bridge-heads. The northern one lay some

585] THE GREAT SIEGE OF PARIS 141

vhere about the spot where the tower of the Chatelet afterwards tood. The southern one must have been somewhere near the nodern Place St. Michel. The bridges were wooden structures, vhose central supports were laid on great piles of stones cast nto the Seine. The bridge-heads were stone towers, but the lorthern one was not completed at the moment when the Janes appeared, having only attained a half or a third of its lestined height. The town was in charge of Odo, count of he surrounding district, and of its bishop Gozelin. It was garrisoned by picked men from neighbouring parts of Neustria IS well as by its own citizens ; among the chief defenders were Hount Ragenar, Robert (afterwards king) the brother of Count Ddo, and Ebolus, Abbot of St. Germain des Pres.

After capturing Pontoise, the Danes appeared in front of Paris on November 25, 885. They wished to proceed up the Seine, which was blocked by the two bridges, and sent to offer :erms to Odo and Gozelin, promising to do the city no harm if :heir vessels were allowed to pass under the bridges without Tiolestation. The count and bishop replied in very proper lerms : the Emperor Charles, they said, had placed Paris in :heir hands to serve as a bulwark for the rest of Neustria, and they would be betraying their master if they saved the town out handed over the bulk of the kingdom to fire and sword. Siegfried, the Viking commander, returned them the answer that, as they refused terms, he would take their city by force, or, if force failed, at least reduce it by famine.

The Vikings at once landed, and made a vigorous attempt to storm the unfinished northern bridge-head. It failed, but the defenders were so struck by the weakness of the tower, that they spent the night in raising it to the full size which it had been intended to attain, by a hasty superstructure of beams and planks. Next morning the Danes found it built up to more than twice the height which it had shown on the previous day.

Seeing that the bridge-head could no longer be stormed, the besiegers resolved to have recourse to the old Roman device of sapping its foundation by means of the " bore " or " pick." ^ Preparing mantlets (inusculi), they laid them against the foot of the tower, and commenced to pull out stone by stone under cover of these protections. The defenders replied by pouring boiling oil and burning pitch upon the mantlets, which set them

^ " Qui (Daci) vero cupiunt miirum succidere musclis" (Abbo, i. 99).

142 THE ART OF WAR IN THE MIDDLE AGES [88

on fire, and so scorched the men working under cover of then that they were fain to jump into the river.

The next device of the Danes was an attempt to turn th use of fire against the defenders. They made a mine under th tower, probably filling it with combustibles and setting th mass on fire according to the usual practice.^ When the min fell in, a breach appeared in the base of the bridge-head. Th Vikings tried to enter it, but failed, being overwhelmed by di sorts of heavy projectiles dropped on them from above. The then laid combustibles against the door of the tower, to burn : open ; but a high wind blew the smoke and flame backward, s that the gate stood firm. Meanwhile the defenders brought u to the tower, and to the parts of the wall of the island-cit which looked out on the tower, many " catapults," ie. machine of the balista type casting bolts and darts. These made sue havoc among the Vikings that they finally retired to their ship with the loss of three hundred men (November 27).

Convinced that the place was not to be taken by a coup-dt main, the besiegers sent out their bands to ravage the neighboui hood, and collect a vast store of corn and cattle. They fortifie a camp near the church of St. Germain TAuxerrois, with foss and stakes, and settled down to beleaguer the city in fu form. Their artificers took some time in preparing three grcc rams, each covered by a penthouse of solid wood furnished wit sixteen wheels. The penthouses could hold sixty men apiec for the working of the rams. When, however, the machine were wheeled towards the walls, the besieged overwhelmed thei with a hail of missiles, and the two artificers who had designe them are said to have been both slain by one javelin from balista. This disaster to their engineers seems to hav delayed the bringing of the rams into action for some days.^

January was now far advanced, and the siege had lasted tw months. The Vikings, by no means at the end of the resources, resolved to try new methods. They prepared a gree number of very heavy mantlets {plutei, or crates, as Abbo cal them), made of wicker-work, covered with thick coatings c newly-flayed hides. The main body of the besiegers attempte to approach the tower under cover of these mantlets, each c which was capable of concealing from four to six men. Mear while two smaller parties embarked on their ships and rowe

1 Abbo, i. 133-137. ^ !bid. i. 213-215.

,] ASSAULTS ON THE BRIDGE-HEAD 143

p to the bridge, which they tried to climb by mooring their essels against its supports.

The assailants on land, having reached the bridge-head under lelter oi Xkv^ plutei, began to fill up the ditch which surrounded :. They cast into it clods of earth, boughs, straw, brushwood, ubbish of all sorts, and (when they grew excited at their lilure) their store-cattle, and even the bodies of the nfortunate prisoners whom they had captured in their raids Dund the neighbourhood. Meanwhile the besiegers poured a onstant hail of missiles upon them, and slew great numbers ; Lit while their attention was thus occupied, the Danes repaired nd brought up the three rams which they had been unable to itilise at their last assault. The rams were set to batter at hree points of the bridge-head, and began to work considerable lamage among the stones and mortar.

The besieged now put in use a very ancient device, which lad been regularly employed against the ram in Roman times, etting down large beams with forked teeth, which caught the amheads and gripped them, so that they could no longer be )ulled backwards to deliver their stroke. They had also con- tracted a number of mangons.^ The heavy rocks which these nachines cast broke down the thick mantlets whenever they itruck them, and crushed all those sheltered beneath. After hree days of assault, the Danes had lost so heavily that they vithdrew from the walls under cover of the darkness, taking uvay such of their mantlets as were intact, but leaving two of ;heir three rams abandoned and disabled as prizes for the Franks.

While these unsuccessful attempts were being made upon ^he bridge-head, a very exciting struggle had been carried on around the bridge. The Vikings first tried to take it by assault ; when beaten off, they had recourse to other measures. Filling three ships with straw and firewood, they set them alight, and towed them up - stream by ropes from the northern bank, intending to get them under the bridge, and so set it on fire and break the connection between the island and the bridge- head. Luckily for the besieged, the three vessels all went aground upon the heaps of stones on which the wooden pillars of the bridge were laid, and there burned themselves out, or

^ Abbo, 364 : " Machina conficiunt longis lignis geminatis, mangana quae proprio vulgi libitu vocitantur."

144 THE ART OF WAR IN THE MIDDLE AGES

I

[88'

were sunk by rocks hurled on them from above. The bridg suffered no harm, and the double assault by land and watf had completely failed. (January 29- February i, 886.)

Four days later, however, an unfortunate accident did fc the Danes what they had been unable to accomplish by the own hands. Heavy rains swelled the Seine and Marne, an the furious current which they engendered carried away part ( the northern bridge on the night of the 5th-6th of Februar To add to the misfortune, there were at the moment only tweh warriors keeping guard in the tower at the bridge-head. Seein that the garrison could not be succoured from the city till tb bridge was restored, the Vikings made a sudden and violer attack on the now isolated tower. They rolled up a cart c straw against its gate, and set fire to it ; the defenders were tc few to keep them off, while the discharges which the catapul: on the city walls directed against the stormers were distant an not effective — the smoke, we are told, lay about the tower, an the citizens could not see what was going on. The timbe superstructure of the bridge-head soon caught fire, and th handful of defenders were forced to evacuate it and take refug on the fragment of broken bridge which adhered to the towe The Danes offered to spare their lives, professing admiratio for their gallant defence, but no sooner had they laid down the: arms than the treacherous barbarians massacred them one an all, and flung their bodies into the river. They then proceede to throw down the stone foundation of the unfortunate bridge head. After this success, we should have expected that th Vikings would have made every effort to get some of thei vessels up-stream through the broken bridge, and then woul have attempted general assaults on the island-city. But the did nothing of the kind : whether it was that provisions wer running short and required replenishing, or that they wer simply tired of siege operations, they sent the greater part c their forces off to ravage the land towards the Loire. Thei entrenchments looked so deserted that the defenders though that all had departed, and Abbot Ebolus led a sortie to seiz and burn the camp. The vigour with which it was repellei showed that there were still several thousand Danes lying i: front of the city.

While the siege was thus languishing, Henry Duke c Saxony appeared on the heights above Montmartre with rein

386] HENRY OF SAXONY SLAIN 145

"orcements sent by the emperor. The Danes retired into their :amp and took up the defensive, so that the duke was able to :ommunicate without hindrance with the city, and to throw into t a large convoy of provisions. The besieged took advantage )f the respite to restore the bridge, and apparently also to ■oughly reconstruct the ruined bridge-head.^ But the siege was lot yet raised : after an unsuccessful attempt to storm the en- renchments of the Vikings, Henry drew off again, and left Paris .0 its own resources (March 886). The besiegers were, however, sufficiently impressed by the appearance of the relieving force :o transfer their camp from the northern to the southern bank of :he Seine, so as to put the river between themselves and any brce coming from the north. Siegfried, the most important of :he Danish leaders, recommended the raising of the siege, as it vas known that the Emperor Charles was calling together a arge army to carry out the enterprise in which Duke Henry lad failed. The majority refused, however, to follow his advice, md resolved instead to deliver a general assault on the city oefore the emperor should arrive. Early in April they simul- :aneously attacked the two bridge-heads, the bridges, and the sland itself, running their boats aground on the narrow shore it the foot of its fortifications and trying to scale them. They lad no success at any point, and a few days later Siegfried, bllowed by a considerable part of the host, took his departure, ifter receiving sixty pounds of silver — quite a moderate sum — rom the besieged, who hoped that he would induce the whole lorde to follow him.

The majority, however, headed by a chief named Sinric, itterly refused to abandon the siege. They were perhaps encouraged to persist by the fact that pestilence had broken )Ut in the crowded city with the return of the warm weather ; imong its victims was Bishop Gozelin, one of the two chief leroes of the defence. The siege, however, had assumed a ^ery curious aspect : the Danes being now mainly concentrated m the south bank of the river, — though they kept a corps of )bservation opposite the northern bridge-head, — the besieged :ould communicate in an intermittent way with the open

^ This is nowhere stated by Abbo, but how could Henry have sent the flocks and lerds into Paris without a bridge? Moreover, the "tower," i.e. the bridge-head, >egins again to appear early in the second book of Abbo's poem, and is securely held )y the besieged. x

146 THE ART OF WAR IN THE MIDDLE AGES [88

country. Sometimes they sent out boats up-stream, sometime they ran the blockade in and out of the northern bridge-heac The fighting died down into skirmishes for egress and ingres by this route, till in May the Danes tried, without warning o ostentatious preparations, an attempt at escalade. Thre hundred of them suddenly ran their boats ashore at the foot c the island wall, and swarmed up it with ladders. The head c the column got within the enceinte at the first rush, but th defenders, running together from all quarters, were able t repulse them before their main body could come to their aid.

In the end of June or the beginning of July, Count Od( who had slipped out of the city to communicate with the emperc and gather reinforcements, appeared on Montmartre with thre thousand men. The Danish corps of observation on the norther bank tried to intercept him, but he cut his way through thei and re-entered the city with his followers. Soon after the va of the great army which the emperor had collected from all tl Austrasian and West-German lands came in sight of the cit Charles the Fat tarried behind at Rheims himself, but sei Henry of Saxony forward to clear the way to Paris. Le fortunate than at his first attempt to communicate with the cit the duke fell into a hidden ditch which the Danes had co structed in front of their camp, and there perished. Tl emperor still holding aloof, the Danes tried one more gener assault. This time they brought up many more engines thj before, and tried to clear the walls of their defenders by incessa volleys of stones, javelins, and leaden balls cast from a thousai machines. They then attempted at one and the same mome to escalade the bridges and the island-wall from boats, and burn the northern bridge-head by heaping combustibles agair it. At every point they were repelled after a desperate strugg though it seemed at one instant as if they would destroy t rough wooden fort which had been reconstructed to cover t ; northern bridge. At the last moment, when the garrison h actually been driven out by the smoke, the fire suddenly di down before the enemy had entered, and the Franks were al to rush bacK and reoccupy the much-disputed work.

This assault was the last crisis of the siege, which ended ve shortly after, not by the driving away of the Danes by the lai army which had now been gathered against them, but by a c graceful treaty. Charles the Fat, instead of attempting to sto

886] THE SIEGE OF PARIS RAISED 147

the Danish camp, offered the Vikings a ransom of seven hundred pounds of silver and free permission to pass over into Burgundy, if they would but raise the siege. They accepted his pusillani- mous offer, received the money, and passed southward till they came to Sens, which city they beleaguered in vain for six months. Thus, Paris was not relieved by the valour of its garrison, but by the cowardice of its monarch. Nevertheless, its gallant defence had no small effect on men's minds. Seeing the Danes foiled, and the city untaken after so many desperate attacks, all the people of Neustria were encouraged to resist for the future.

Two main points of interest strike the reader who studies the details of this great leaguer. The first is the extraordinary skill in the technique of siegecraft which the Danes had attained after sixty years of raiding in the empire. The second, contrasting strangely with the first, is the fact that they completely failed to appreciate the necessity of cutting off the communication of the city with the outer world. A much shorter term of months must have reduced Paris to surrender if only the assailants had properly taken in hand the isolation of the fortress.

Turning to the first point, we are amazed to see most of the tools and engines known to Vegetius and Procopius in full employment among the wild seamen of the North. The ram, the machines for hurling missiles, the penthouse, the plutei and crates, the mine, the use of fire, are all thoroughly understood by the Vikings. Obviously, they must have picked them up from their enemies during the interminable series of raids and sieges which had begun in the later years of Lewis the Pious. The Franks are by 885 not a whit more skilled in poliorcetics than their adversaries.

On the other hand, the general strategy of the siege was wholly faulty. No proper arrangement of a permanent covering force was made : any considerable body of relieving troops which presented itself was able to force its way into Paris. The succours under Henry of Saxony and Count Odo had to face some severe fighting in order to pass through the Danish blockade, but they were neither compelled to engage in a pitched battle, nor to force lines of circumvallation. During the first half of the siege the Vikings seem to have neglected the southern bank of the Seine ; during the second half — when they had moved their camp to St. Germain des Pres — the

148 THE ART OF WAR IN THE MIDDLE AGES [886

northern bank seems to have been left without sufficient guard. All through the long months of the leaguer the defenders were able to communicate with their kinsmen of the outer world, either by boat on the Upper Seine or by running the gauntlet between the outposts of the besiegers. Reinforcements and food were thrown into the fortress again and again. The Danes should have blocked the river above the city by a boom, or built boats upon it to keep the water-way closed. They should also have been prepared to risk a general engagement with any relieving force, and not have sent mere detachments against it. Theii position, to compare modern things with ancient, much remind.' us of that of the English and French before Sebastopol in 1855 A siege may drag on for ever if the assailant only attacks one side of a fortress, and leaves the other in free communicatior with the open country. The Vikings had the additiona difficulty of having only very narrow fronts — the two bridge- heads— to attack. The river prevented them from making anj really dangerous assaults on the island, whose walls they coulc not properly breach by siege-artillery placed on the mainland Hence we may fairly say that only famine could have beer relied upon as a certain method of reducing the place, and thai the new methods of fortification introduced by Charles the Bald thoroughly justified themselves, and proved impregnable against any mere attack by main force, even when it used the best siegecraft of the day.

CHAPTER VII

THE LAST STRUGGLES OF INFANTRY — THE BATTLES OF HASTINGS (A.D. I066) AND DYRRHACHIUM (A.D. I08i)

AS the last great example of the endeavour to use the old in- fantry tactics of the Teutonic races against the now fully- developed cavalry of feudalism, we have to describe the battle of Hastings, a field which has been fought over by modern critics almost as fiercely as by the armies of Harold and William.

About the political and military antecedents of the engage- ment we have no occasion to speak. Suffice it to say that on September 25, 1066, Harold Godwineson had defeated and slain Harold Hardrada and Tostig at Stamford Bridge, after a bloody struggle, whose details are entirely lost, though we know that both hosts had fought the matter out to the end in the old fashion of Dane and Englishman, all meeting face to face on foot, and " hewing at each other across the war-linden," till the invaders were well-nigh annihilated. On September 28, William of Normandy and his army came ashore at Pevensey, unhindered by the English fleet, which after long waiting had finally been driven from the Channel by want of provisions,^ and had sailed back to London three weeks before. The Normans began at once to waste the land, and, since the king and the field army were far away in the north, they met with little resistance. Only at Romney, as we are told, did the lands- folk stand to their arms and beat off the raiders.-

Meanwhile, the news of William's landing was rapidly brought to Harold at York, and reached him — if we may trust Henry of Huntingdon — at the very moment when he was celebrating by a banquet his great victory over the Northmen.^

^ Florence of Worcester. A.S. Chronicle, 1066. - William of Poictiers, 139. ^ But, according to Guy of Amiens (156), he was returning with his trophies from the north when the messenger met him.

T50 THE ART OF WAR IN THE Mn)DLE AGES [1066

The king received the message on October i or October 2 : he immediately hurried southward to London with all the speed that he could make. The victorious army of Stamford Bridge was with him, and the Northumbrian levies of Eadwine and Morcar were directed to follow as fast as they were able. Harold reached London on the 7th or 8th of October, and stayed there a few days to gather in the fyrd of the neighbouring shires of the South Midlands. On the nth he marched forth from the city to face Duke William, though his army was still incomplete. The slack or treacherous earls of the North had not yet brought up their contingents, and the men of the Western shires had not been granted time enough to reach the mustering place. But Harold's heart had been stirred by the reports of the cruel ravaging of Kent and Sussex by the Normans,^ and he was resolved to put his cause to the arbitra- ment of battle as quickly as possible, though the delay of a few days would perhaps have doubled his army.^ A rapid march o two days brought him to the outskirts of the Andredsweald within touch of the district on which William had for the lasi fortnight been exercising his cruelty.

Harold took up his position at the point where the roac from London to Hastings first leaves the woods, and come.' forth into the open land of the coast. The chosen grounc was the lonely hill above the marshy bottom of Senlac,^ c place far from all human habitations, and marked to th( chronicler only by " the hoar apple tree " on its ridge, jus as Ashdown had been marked two centuries before by it: aged thorn.*

The Senlac position consists of a hill about a mile long anc 150 yards broad, joined to the main bulk of the Wealden Hill; by a sort of narrow isthmus with steep descents on either side

^ William of Poictiers, 201.

^ Or even tripled it, says Florence of Worcester. The A.S. Chronicle is mor vague, but to the same effect.

^ This name is only used by Orderic Vitalis (501 a), among the many chronicler who describe the battle. But it is substantiated by local documents of a late date ; and since Sanilache occurs as the name of a tract of abbey land in the Chronicl of the Foundation of Battle Abbey, there is no reason to doubt that it was the genuin name of the valley. It is easy to understand that the majority of the writers wh' narrate the fight had not heard of this local name, and followed the popular voice ii naming the fight after the town of Hastings, which, though eight miles away, was th nearest place of importance.

* Asser, p. 23.

o66] THE POSITION OF SENLAC 151

^he road from London to Hastings crosses the isthmus, bisects he hill at its highest point, and then sinks down into the alley, to climb again the opposite ridge of Telham Hill. The atter is considerably the higher of the two, reaching 441 feet bove the sea level, while Harold's hill is but 260 at its ummit. The English hill has a fairly gentle slope towards he south, the side which looked towards the enemy, but on the lorth the fall on either side of the isthmus is so steep as to be ilmost precipitous. The summit of the position, where it is li'ossed by the road, is the highest point. Here it was that -ling Harold fixed his two banners, the Dragon of Wessex, and lis own standard of the Fighting Man.

The position was very probably one that had serv^ed before or some army of an older century, for we learn from the best uithorities that there lay about it, especially on its rear, ancient 3anks and ditches,^ in some places scarped to a precipitous slope. Perhaps it may have been the camp of some part of Alfred's irmy in 893-894, when, posted in the east end of the Andreds- weald, between the Danish fleet which had come ashore at Lymne and the other host which had camped at Middleton, he endeavoured from his central position to restrain their ravages in Kent and Sussex.^ No place indeed could have been more suited for a force observing newly-landed foes. It covers the only road from London which then pierced the Aridredsweald, and was so close to its edge that the defenders could seek shelter in the impenetrable woods if they wished to avoid a battle.-^

The hill above the Senlac bottom, therefore, being the obvious

^ " Crescentes herbae antiqmtm aggerem tegebant" (Orderic Vitalis, 501 d).

" Praerupti vallis et frequentzim fossarum opportunitas " ("William of Poictiers, 203 d).

Of these f)ne agger was in the rear of the English position^ and was used against the

Normans in the last moments of the battle. But there was a fovea magna in front of

i the English line, according to Henry of Huntingdon, 763 c : " Fugientes [Normanii]

I ad quandam magnam foveam dolose tectam devenerunt, ubi multus eorum numerus

i oppressus est. " This fovea was well down the slope, and outside the English position.

' I think these "frequent ditches" and "ancient earthworks" in an uninhabited place

can mean nothing but the remains of an ancient camp. Both Mr. Archer and Mr.

George pointed this out to me when we were talking over the details of the battle.

^ A.S. Chronicle, 893-894, copied in Ethelweard, Florence, and Henry of Hunting- don. Alfred "encamped as near to them as he might for the wood-fastnesses and the water-fastnesses, so that he might reach either army, in case it should seek to ravage the open land."

* " Mons silvae vicinus erat, vicinaque vallis, et non cultus ager asperitate sui " (Guy of Amiens, 365, 366).

152 THE ART OF WAR IN THE MIDDLE AGES [io6

position to take for an army whose tactics compelled it to stan upon the defensive, Harold determined to offer battle then We need not believe the authorities who tell us that the kin had been thinking of delivering a night attack upon th Normans, if he should chance to find them scattered abroad o their plundering, or keeping an inefficient look-out.^ It wa most unlikely that he should dream of groping in the dar through eight miles of rolling downs, to assault a camp whos position and arrangements must have been unknown to hin His army had marched hard from London, had apparently onl reached Senlac at nightfall, and must have been tired out. More over, Harold knew William's capacities as a general, and coul not have thought it likely that he would be caught unpreparec It must have seemed to him a much more possible event tha the Norman might refuse to attack the strong Senlac positior and offer battle in the open and nearer the sea. It wa probably in anticipation of some such chance that Harol ordered his fleet, which had run back into the mouth of th Thames in very poor order some four weeks back, to refi itself and sail round the North Foreland, to threaten the Norma vessels now drawn ashore under the cover of a wooden castl at Hastings.2 He can scarcely have thought it likely tha William would retire over seas on the news of his approach,^ s the bringing up of the fleet must have been intended either t cut off the Norman retreat in the event of a great Englis! victory on land, or to so molest the invader's stranded vessel that he would be forced to return to the shore in order t' defend them.

Harold took one further precaution. He had served campaign in the Norman ranks a few years before, on th occasion of his involuntary visit to Ponthieu, and he thoroughl; knew the Norman tactics. The danger to the English lay, firs1 in the rush of the duke's horse ; secondly, in the long shooting c the duke's archers. To guard against both these perils Harol(

^ William of Poictiers, 201 B.

2 Ibid. 201 A. I cannot see why Professor Freeman and other writers have doubte this statement. The fleet, or some large part of it, must still have been at London i October.

^ Yet a good authority, William of Poictiers, says that Robert Fitz-Wymara, Norman resident in England, sent messengers to the duke to warn him that Hard was approaching with such a large army that he had better put to sea and retur to Normandy. William, we are told, scornfully declined the advice.

o66] HAROLD STOCKADES HIS POSITION 153

irected his men to build a fence of crossed woodwork ^ from the rushwood in the forest which lay close at their backs. It was n old Danish device, used two hundred years before, to

^ Here we come to the most vexed point in this most interesting fight. Neither N'illiam of Poictiers, Guy of Amiens, Baldric, Henry of Huntingdon, nor any of the irly minor sources of information, distinctly mention this wicker-work. Can we list Wace, who gives an elaborate description of it before the battle and alludes to it uring the course of the engagement ? Wace is an authority of later date than the ihers, and wrote some ninety years after the battle. He occasionally makes strange rrors in his narrative (though the earlier writers, it must be remembered, do the same) ad sometimes is guilty of anachronisms, though on the whole he comparatively seldom 'a^hes with earlier writers in such a way as to show himself absolutely wrong.

Is it likely that Wace, in describing the struggle which was to his audience ^/le battle ■xcellence of the last age, would make such a strange error as to describe what was jally a fight on an open hill as an attack on a position which had been entrenched, ven though the entrenching was but slight ? On the whole, Wace's general narrative ■ -SO fairly consistent with the earlier sources, that I cannot believe that he made this reat blunder. If it had been the common and ordinary thing for armies to stockade lemselves about 1150-60, though an uncommon thing in 1066, we might have thought iiai Wace was committing a mere anachronism. But it was no more unusual at one ate than at the other, and I do not see what should have induced him to bring :ie wattled barrier into his narrative, unless it existed in the tale of the fight as ; had been told him by his father and others who had talked with the victors of the reat battle. In our own day popular tradition is a comparatively feeble thing : the written word has everywhere supplanted the oral tale : but in the twelfth century the )eople's memory was a far more trustworthy thing. I cannot think that Wace, writing '. or the grandchildren of the men of Senlac, would have ventured to change so entirely f he character of the engagement.

We can trace in the Roman de Ron the author's knowledge of several of our exist-

ng authorities, e.g. of William of Poictiers, Guy of Amiens, and William of Jumieges.

! f he had thought the existence of the breastworks inconsistent with their tale, it seems

■ inlikely that he would have inserted it, for he does not give us the idea of an irrespon-

ible inventor of facts, but of one who conscientiously uses the data that come to him,

, hough he may have to adapt them a little to make them assume a fitting place in his

tory.

I conclude, then, that Wace, possibly from some lost chronicle or poem, possibly mly from popular oral tradition, knew of the existence of Harold's wattled breast- vorks, and mentioned them. His words must imply some kind of wooden barricade — ' ' Fait orent devant els escuz De fenestres et d'altres fuz Devant els les orent levez Comme cleies joinz e serrez Fait en orent devant closture,

Ni laissierent nule jointure." (7815-20.)

The ttdiding fenestres is, as Professor York Powell pointed out to me, possibly a icribe's blunder iox fresne: tresses : if so, the passage translates thus —

"They made in front of them shields of wattled ash and of other woods, they aised them in front of themselves like hurdles joined and set close : they left no open- ng in them but made them into an enclosure. " The other main passages referring to he breastwork are, " d'escuz et d'ais s'avironoent," and " ne doterent pel ne fosse," in ine 8499.

154 THE ART OF WAR IN THE MIDDLE AGES [1066

stockade a force against an overwhelming onset of cavalry by means of breastworks and a ditch. The material for the wattled hurdles, abates or phitei, as the writers of the time called them, was plentiful and close at hand. They were intended perhaps more as a cover against missiles than as a solid protection against the horsemen, for they can have been but hastily-constructed things, put together in a few hours by wearied men. In all pro- bability they were no more than four feet high. They were set along a slight ditch, perhaps a remnant of the ancient camp which probably lay on the Senlac hill, perhaps a work of the army itself. The ditch, and the mound made of the earth cast up from it and crowned by the breastworks, constituted no im- pregnable fortress, but a slight earthwork, not wholly impassable to horsemen. We must not think either of a six-foot trench or of massive palisading behind it: such a structure would have required far more time and exertion than the English had tc spare. The entrenchment, according to Wace, was triple, i,e, consisted of a centre and two wings, with intervals left between them.^

Close behind the breastwork, and ready to hurl javelins or strike with hand-weapons across it, was ranged the English host in one great solid mass.^ Although the Northumbrian and West -country levies were still missing, the army must have numbered many thousands, for the fyrd of south and centra] England was present in full force, and stirred to great wrath by the ravages of the Normans. It is impossible to guess at the strength of the host: the figures of the chroniclers, which sometimes swell up to hundreds of thousands, are wholly useless As the position was about a mile long, and the space required by a single warrior swinging his axe or hurling his javelin was some three feet, the front rank must have been some seventeer hundred or two thousand strong. The hill was completely covered by the English, whose spear-shafts appeared to the Normans like a wood,^ so that they cannot have been a mere thin line : if they were ten or twelve deep, the total must have

^ '* Closre le fist de boen fosse, de treis parz laissa treis entrees " {R. de R. 12106). Fossi is the technical word for a military trench, and quite distinct hcmx fosse (feminine). a ditch.

^ Cuneus, which here, as in most other places, means merely a body in deep ordei or column as opposed to line, and does not in the least imply a wedge-shaped array.

^ Guy of Amiens : *' Spissum nemus Angligenarum," 421, "silvaque densa priu- rarior efficitur," 428.

o66] THE ARRAY OF THE ENGLISH 155

cached some twenty - five thousand men. Of these the mailer part must have been composed of the fully -armed arriors, the king's housecarles, the thegnhood, and the heavily- quipped soldiery, of whom one had to be furnished by every ive hides of land. The rudely-armed levies of the fyrd must lave constituted the great bulk of the army : they bore, as the ^ayeux Tapestry shows, the most miscellaneous arms — swords, avelins, clubs, axes, a few bows, and probably even rude instru- nents of husbandry turned to warlike uses. Their only defensive Limour was the round or kite-shaped shield : body and head vere clothed only in the tunic and cap of everyday wear.

In their battle array we know that the well-armed house- arles — perhaps two thousand or three thousand strong — were grouped in the centre around the king and the royal standard. The fyrd, divided no doubt according to its shires, was ranged 3n either flank. Presumably the thegns and other fully-armed nen formed its front ranks, while the peasantry stood behind and racked them up, though at first only able to hurl their weapons it the advancing foe over the heads of their more fully-equipped ellows.

We must now turn to the Normans. Duke William had undertaken his expedition not as the mere feudal head of the oarons of Normandy, but rather as the managing director of a ^reat joint-stock company for the conquest of England, in which not only his own subjects, but hundreds of adventurers, poor and rich, from all parts of Western Europe had taken shares. At the assembly of Lillebonne the Norman baronage had refused in their corporate capacity to undertake the vindication of their I duke's claims on England. But all, or nearly all, of them had I consented to serve under him as volunteers, bringing not merely : their usual feudal contingent, but as many men as they could get together. In return they were to receive the spoils of the island kingdom if the enterprise went well. On similar terms William had accepted offers of help from all quarters : knights and sergeants flocked in, ready, " some for land and some for pence," to back his claim. It seems that, though the native Normans were the core of the invading army, yet the strangers considerably outnumbered them on the muster-rolls. Great nobles like Eustace Count of Boulogne, the Breton Count Alan Fergant,^ and Haimer of Thouars were ready to risk their lives

^ Cousin of the reigning sovereign in Brittany.

156 THE ART OF WAR IN THE MIDDLE AGES [106

and resources on the chance of an ample profit. Frencl Bretons, Flemings, Angevins, knights from the more distar regions of Aquitaine and Lotharingia, even — if Guy of Amien speaks truly — stray fighting men from among the Norma conquerors of Naples and Sicily, joined the host.^

Many months had been spent in the building of a fleet i the mouth of the Dive. Its numbers, exaggerated to absur figures by many chroniclers, may probably have reached th six hundred and ninety-six vessels given to the duke by th most moderate estimate.^ What was the total of the warrioi which it carried is as uncertain as its own numbers. If an analogies may be drawn from contemporary hosts, the cavalr must have formed a very heavy proportion of the whole. I continental armies the foot-soldiery were so despised that a experienced general devoted all his attention to increasing th numbers of his horse. If we guess that there may have bee ten thousand or twelve thousand mounted men, and fiftee thousand or twenty thousand foot-soldiers, we are going as f? as probability carries us, and must confess that our estimat is wholly arbitrary. The most modest figure given by th chroniclers is sixty thousand fighting men ; ^ but, considerin their utter inability to realise the meaning of high numbers, w are dealing liberally with them if we allow half that estimate.

After landing at Pevensey on September 28, William ha moved to Hastings and built a wooden castle there for th protection of his fleet. It was then in his power to have marche on London unopposed, for Harold was only starting on his marc from York. But the duke had resolved to fight near his base, an spent the fortnight which was at his disposal in the systemati harrying of Kent and Sussex. When his scouts told him ths Harold was at hand, and had pitched his camp by Senlac hil he saw that his purpose was attained : he would be able to figh at his own chosen moment, and at only a few miles' distance fror his ships. At daybreak on the morning of October 14, Williar

^ Guy of Amiens, line 259.

2 Wace, the latest authority, gives the most reasonable figures. If the vessels ha carried as many men as Viking boats, they might have had sixty thousand men 0 board ; but the horses must have taken up half the room, if there were, say, te thousand of them.

^ William of Poictiers, 199, where the duke says that he would **go on even if h had only ten thousand men as good as the sixty thousand whom he actual] commanded. "

o66] THE ARRAY OF THE NORMANS 157

)ade his host get in array, and marched over the eight miles of oiling ground which separate Hastings and Senlac. When hey reached the summit of the hill at Telham, the English )osition came in sight, on the opposite hill, not much more than . mile away.

On seeing the hour of conflict at hand, the duke and his alights drew on their mail-shirts, which, to avoid fatigue, they lad not yet assumed, and the host was arrayed in battle order. The form which William had chosen was that of three parallel orps, each containing infantry and cavalry. The centre was omposed of the native contingents of Normandy ; the left nainly of Bretons and men from Maine and Anjou ; the right )f French and Flemings.^ But there seem to have been some \^ormans in the flanking divisions also.- The duke himself, as vas natural, took command in the centre, the wings fell espectively to the Breton Count Alan Fergant and to Eustace jf Boulogne : with the latter was associated Roger of Mont- gomery, a great Norman baron.

In each division there were three lines : the first was com- posed of bowmen mixed with arbalesters : the second was :omposed of foot-soldiery armed not with missile weapons but vith pike and sword. Most of them seem to have worn mail- ihirts,^ unlike the infantry of the English fyrd. In the rear was ;he really important section of the army, the mailed knights. We may presume that William intended to harass and thin the English masses with his archery, to seriously attack them with lis heavy infantry, who might perhaps succeed in breaking the breastworks and engaging the enemy hand to hand ; but evidently the crushing blow was to be given by the great force )f horsemen who formed the third line of each division.

The Normans deployed on the slopes of Telham, and then 3egan their advance over the rough valley which separated them rom the English position.

When they came within range, the archery opened upon the

^ Guy of Amiens, 413 :

" Sed laevam Galli, dextram petiere Britanni, Dux cum Normannis dimicat in medio." This means that the French attacked Harold's left, not that they formed William's eft.

^ Robert of Beaumont, a Norman, led a thousand men in the right wing (William ->f Poictiers, 202 c).

^ " Pedites firmiores et loricati," as William of Poictiers expresses it.

158 THE ART OF WAR IN THE MIDDLE AGES [io(

English, and not without effect ; ^ at first there must have be( little reply to the showers of arrows, since Harold had but vei few bowmen in his ranks. The breastworks, moreover, can ha^ given but a partial protection, though they no doubt serve their purpose to some extent. When, however, the Normai advanced farther up the slope, they were received with a furioi discharge of missiles of every kind, javelins, lances, taper-axe and even — if William of Poictiers is to be trusted — rude weapoi more appropriate to the neolithic age than to the elevem century, great stones bound to wooden handles and launche in the same manner that was used for the casting-axe.^ Tl archers were apparently swept back by the storm of missile but the heavy armed foot pushed up to the front of the Englij line and got to hand-to-hand fighting with Harold's men.^ The could, however, make not the least impression on the defendei and were perhaps already recoiling when William ordered i his cavalry.* The horsemen rode up the slope already stre\\ with corpses, and dashed into the fight. Foremost among the was a minstrel named Taillefer, who galloped forward cheerir on his comrades, and playing like a jongleur with his swor which he kept casting into the air and then catching again. Y burst right through the breastwork and into the English lin where he was slain after cutting down several opponent; Behind him came the whole Norman knighthood, chanting the battle-song, and pressing their horses up the slope as hard ; they could ride. The foot-soldiery dropped back — through tl

i

^ Baldric, v. 407 : " Spicula torquentur, multi stantes moriuntur." 2 *' Lignis imposiia saxa" (W. P. 201 d). They seem to be represented \i\ club-like weapons thrown by some of the English in the Bayeux Tapestry.

^ *' Festinant parmis galeati jungere parmas, erectis hastis hostis uterque (Guy of Amiens, 383) ; i.e. the heavy -armed men {galeati) met shield to shic with the English, and both sides fought furiously with their lances.

^ " Interea, dubio dum pendent proelia marte," Taillefer and the cavalry cai forward.

^ One would have doubted the romantic episode of Taillefer if it did not occur such a good authority as Guy of Amiens. Several later writers give details als Guy writes (390-400) —

" Interea dubio dum pendent proelia marte Eminet et telis mortis amara lues- Histrio, cor audax nimium quern nobilitavit,

Agmina praecedens innumerosa ducis Hortatur Gallos verbis et territat Anglos

Alte projiciens ludit et ense suo, Incisor — Ferri mimus cognomine dictus," etc.

io66] HASTINGS : THE FIRST ATTACK 159

intervals between the three divisions, as we may suppose — and the duke's cavalry dashed against the long front of the breastworks, which in many places they must have swept down by their mere impetus.^ Into the English mass, however, they could not break : there was a fearful crash, and a wild interchange of blows, but the line did not yield at any point. Nay, more, the assailants were ere long abashed by the fierce resistance that they met ; the English axes cut through shield and mail, lopping off limbs and felling even horses to the ground.^ Never had the continental horsemen met such infantry before. After a space the Bretons and Angevins of the left wing felt their hearts fail, and recoiled down the hill in wild disorder, the horsemen sweeping away the foot-soldiery who had rallied behind them. All along the line the onset wavered, and the greater part of the host gave back,^ though the centre and right did not fly in wild disorder like the Bretons. A rumour ran along the front that the duke had fallen, and V/illiam had to bare his head and to ride down the ranks, crying that he lived, and would yet win the day, before he could check the retreat of his warriors. His brother Odo aided him to rally the waverers, and the greater part of the host was soon restored to order.

As it chanced, the rout of the Norman left wing was destined to bring nothing but profit to William. A great mass of the shire-levies on the English right, when they saw the Bretons flying, came pouring after them down the hill. They had forgotten that their sole chance of victory lay in keeping their front firm till the whole strength of the assailants should be exhausted. It was mad to pursue when two-thirds of the hostile army was intact, and its spirit still unbroken. Seeing the tumultuous crowd rushing after the flying Bretons, William wheeled his centre and threw it upon the flank of the pursuers. Caught in disorder, with their ranks broken and scattered, the rash peasantry were ridden down in a few moments. Their light shields, swords, and javelins availed them nothing against the rush of the Norman horse, and the whole horde, to the

^ For a description of the effect of a furious rush of cavalry on a stout abattis see Kincaid's description of Waterloo. He and his battalion had erected a breastwork across the road by La Ilaye Sainte. It was completely sivepi away by two squadrons of horse who charged through it. (Kincaid's Rijle Brigade^ chap. xx. )

^ " Pugnae instrumenta facile per scuta et alia tegmina viam inveniunt " (W, P.

^ " Fere cuncta dacis acies cedit " (William of Poictiers, 133).

i6o THE ART OF WAR IN THE MIDDLE AGES [io6

number of several thousands, were cut to pieces.^ The grea bulk of the English host, however, had not followed the route Bretons, and the duke saw that his day's work was but begui Forming up his disordered squadrons, he ordered a secon general attack on the line. Then followed an encounter eve more fierce than the first. The breastworks were probabl swept away from end to end, and the ditch filled with d^bri and the bodies of men and horses ere it slackened. The fortun of the Normans was somewhat better in this than in the earlie struggle : one or two temporary breaches were made in th English mass,2 probably in the places where it had bee weakened by the rash onset of the shire-levies an hour before Gyrth and Leofwine, Harold's two brothers, fell in the forefror of the fight, the former by William's own hand, if we may truj one good contemporary authority.^ Yet, on the whole, the duk had got little profit by his assault: the English had suffere severe loss, but their long line of shields and axes still crowne the slope, and their cries of " Out ! out ! " and " Holy Cross ! still rang forth in undaunted tones.

A sudden inspiration then came to William, suggested b the disaster which had befallen the English right in the firs conflict. He determined to try the expedient of a feigned fligh' a stratagem not unknown to Bretons and Normans of earlie ages. By his orders a considerable portion of the assailants suddenly wheeled about and retired in seeming disorder. Th' English thought, with more excuse on this occasion than on th- last, that the enemy was indeed routed, and for the second tim a great body of them broke the line and rushed after the retreat ing squadrons. When they were well on their way down th slope, William repeated his former procedure. The intact portioi of his host fell upon the flank of the pursuers, while those wh< had simulated flight faced about and attacked them in froni The result was again a foregone conclusion : the disordered mei of the fyrd were hewn to pieces, and few or none of then

^ " Exardentes Normanni et circumvenientes, millia aliquot insecuta s momento deleverunt, ut ne unus quidem superesset" (William of Poictiers, 133).

2 William of Poictiers, 202 : " Patuerunt tamen in eos viae incisae per diversa partes fortissimorvmi militum ferro." This is before the feigned flight.

^ Guy of Amiens.

* We cannot say what portion, or what proportion. The Brevis Relatio say that it was a "cuneus Normannorum fere usque ad mille equites," and that they wer " ex altera parte " from the duke. But does this mean the right or the left wing ?

o66] HASTINGS: THE GREAT STRUGGLE i6i

scaped back to their comrades on the height. But the slaughter ;i this period of the fight did not fall wholly on the English ; part of the Norman troops who had carried out the false light suffered some loss by falling into a deep ditch, — perhaps he remains of old entrenchments, perhaps the " rhine " which [rained the Senlac bottom, — and were there smothered or trodden lown by the comrades who rode over them.^ But the loss at his point must have been insignificant compared with that of he English.

Harold's host was now much thinned and somewhat shaken, )ut, in spite of the disasters which had befallen them, they drew ogether their thinned ranks, and continued the fight The ;truggle was still destined to endure for many hours, for the nost daring onsets of the Norman chivalry could not yet burst nto the serried mass around the standards. The bands which lad been cut to pieces were mere shire-levies, and the well- irmed housecarles had refused to break their ranks, and still "ormed a solid core for the remainder of the host.

The fourth act of the battle consisted of a series of vigorous issaults by the duke's horsemen, alternating with volleys of irrows poured in during the intervals between the charges. The Saxon mass was subjected to exactly the same trial which befell ;he British squares in the battle of Waterloo — incessant charges Dy a gallant cavalry mixed with a destructive hail of missiles. Nothing could be more maddening than such an ordeal to the infantry-soldier, rooted to the spot by the necessities of his formation. The situation was frightful : the ranks were filled with wounded men unable to retire to the rear through the dense mass of their comrades,- unable even to sink to the ground for the hideous press. The breastworks had been swept away : shields and mail had been riven : the supply of missile spears had given out : the English could but stand passive, waiting for the night or for the utter exhaustion of the enemy. The cavalry onsets must have been almost a relief compared with the desperate waiting between the acts, while the arrow-shower kept beating in on the thinning host. We have indications that, in spite of

^ William oi Malmesbury says that it was a jossatum (i.e. a trench) which the English avoided because they knew it. It is perhaps the same as Henry of Huntingdon's "lovea magna " (762 c).

^ " Leviter sauciatos non permittit evadere sed comprimendo necat sociorum densitas " (William of Poictiers, 202 d).

i62 THE ART OF WAR IN THE MIDDLE AGES [io6f

the disasters of the noon, some of the English made yet a thirc sally to beat off the archery .^ Individuals, worked to frenzy b} the weary standing still, seem to have occasionally burst out o the line to swing axe or sword freely in the open and meet i certain death.^ But the mass held firm — " a strange manner o battle," says William of Poictiers,^ "where the one side works b} constant motion and ceaseless charges, while the other can bu endure passively as it stands fixed to the sod. The Normal arrow and sword worked on : in the English ranks the onh movement was the dropping of the dead : * the living stoo( motionless." Desperate as was their plight, the English still hek out till evening ; though William himself led charge after charg against them, and had three horses killed beneath him, the] could not be scattered while their king still survived and thei standards still stood upright. It was finally the arrow rathe than the sword that settled the day : ^ the duke is said to hav bade his archers shoot not point-blank, but with a high tra jectory, so that the shafts fell all over the English host, am not merely on its front ranks.*^ One of these chance shaft struck Harold in the eye and gave him a mortal wound. Th arrow-shower, combined with the news of the king's fall, at las broke up the English host : after a hundred ineffective charge.' a band of Norman knights burst into the midst of the masi hewed Harold to pieces as he lay wounded at the foot of hi banners, and cut down both the Dragon of Wessex and th Fighting Man.

The remnant of the English were now at last constrained t give ground : the few thousands — it may rather have been th few hundreds — who still clung to the crest of the bloodstaine

^ William of Poictiers, 202 D, says that there were ^zco sallies of the Engli.' provoked by Norman feigned flights, in addition to that which followed the first re flight of the Bretons. *' Bis eo dolo simili eventu usi sunt Normanni."

^ This is indicated only by Wace, but is eminently probable in itself.

^ William of Poictiers, 202 D : "Fit deindi insoliti generis pugna," etc.

^ " Mortui plus, dum cadunt, quam vivi movere videntur " [ibid.).

^ That the arrow-shower alternated with the charges is obvious. The arche could not shoot while the knights blocked the way. That the arrow was largely us( is proved by William of Poictiers: '■^ Sagittant et perfodiunt Normanni." Th must have been done alternately and not simultaneously. Wace well describes tl dismay caused by the rain of shafts falling from above ( 1 3287).

^ Henry of Huntingdon, 763 c. I see no reason to doubt his statement of HaroU end, corroborated by Wace and William of Malmesbury. The narrative of tl slaughter and mangling of Harold by the four Norman knights, described by Guy Amiens, does not really conflict with it.

io66] HASTINGS: FLIGHT OF THE ENGLISH 163

lill turned their backs to the foe and sought shelter in the riendly forest in their rear. Some fled on foot through the rees, some seized the horses of the thegns and housecarles from he camp and rode off upon them. But even in their retreat hey took some vengeance on the conquerors. The Normans, bllowing in disorder, swept down the steep slope at the back of he hill, scarped like a glacis and impassable for horsemen, — the Dack defence, as we have conjectured, of some ancient camp of 3ther days.i Many of the knights, in the confused evening light, blunged down this trap, lost their footing, and lay floundering, nan and horse, in the ravine at the bottom. Turning back, the ast of the English swept down on them and cut them to pieces Defore resuming their flight. The Normans thought for a moment that succours had arrived to join the English — and, in- ieed, Edwin and Morcar's Northern levies were long overdue. The duke himself had to rally them, and to silence the faint- hearted counsels of Eustace of Boulogne, who bade him draw back when the victory was won. When the Normans came on more cautiously, following^ no doubt, the line of the isthmus and not plunging down the slopes, the last of the English melted away into the forest and disappeared. The hard day's work was done.

The stationary tactics of the phalanx of axemen had failed decisively before William's combination of archers and cavalry, in spite of the fact that the ground had been favourable to the defensive. The exhibition of desperate courage on the part of the English had only served to increase the number of the slain. Of all the chiefs of the army, only Ansgar the Staller and Leofric, Abbot of Bourne, are recorded to have escaped, and both of them were dangerously wounded. The king and his brothers, the stubborn housecarles, and the whole thegnhood of Southern England had perished on the field. The English loss was never calculated ; practically it amounted to the entire army. Nor is it possible to guess that of the Normans : one chronicle gives twelve thousand,^ — the figure is possible, but the authority is not a good or a trustworthy one tor English history. But whatever was the relative slaughter on the two sides, the lesson of the battle was unmistakable. The best of infantry, armed only with weapons

MVilliam of Poictiers, 203 d: " Frequentes fossae et praeruptus vallis." " Antiquus agger" (Ord. 501 d).

^ Annales Altahenses majoresy sub anno 1066.

i64 THE ART OF WAR IN THE MIDDLE AGES [io8

for close fight and destitute of cavalry support, were absolutel helpless before a capable general who knew how to combine th horseman and the archer. The knights, if unsupported by th bowmen, might have surged for ever against the impregnabl breastworks. The archers, unsupported by the knights, coul easily have been driven off the field by a general charge. Unite by the skilful hand of William, they were invincible.

Yet once more — on a field far away from its native land- did the weapon of the Anglo-Danes dispute the victory with th Norman lance and bow. Fifteen years after Harold's defea another body of English axemen — some of them may well ha\ fought at Senlac — were advancing against the army of a Norma prince. They were the Varangian Guard — the famous n?Xsx <popot — of the Emperor Alexius Comnenus. That prince wi engaged in an attempt to raise the siege of Dyrrhachium, the invested by Robert Guiscard. The Norman army was alread drawn out in front of its lines while the troops of Alexius wei only slowly arriving on the field. Among the foremost of i\ emperor's corps were the Varangians, who rode to the battl< spot, like the thegns of the West, but sent their horses to \\ rear when they drew near the enemy. Alexius had entrusted 1 their commander a body of light horse armed with the bo^ bidding him to send these first against the enemy, and only ■ charge when the cavalry should have harassed and disturbc Robert's ranks. But Nampites, the Varangian leader, neglecte these orders. When they approached the Norman line, tl English were carried away by their reckless ardour. Befo the Greek army was fully arrayed,^ and long before the er peror had designed to attack, they moved forward in a sol column against the left wing of the Normans. They fell up( the division commanded by the Count of Bari, and drove horse and foot, into the sea. But their success disordered the ranks, and Guiscard was enabled, since the main body of tl Byzantine host had not yet approached, to send fresh fore against them. A vigorous cavalry charge cut off the greater pa of the English: the remainder collected on a little mound by tl seashore, surmounted by a deserted chapel. Here they we surrounded by the Normans, and a scene much like that Senlac, but on a smaller scale, was enacted. After the hors

^ They, 'Uavov dir^aTrjaav 5c atrupiav d^vrepov ^e^adiKdres, were a considera distance from the rest of the army (Anna Comnena, book iv. § 6).

o8i] BATTLE OF DYRRHACHIUM 165

nen and the archers had combined to destroy the majority of he Varangians, the survivors held out obstinately within the hapel. At last Robert sent for fascines and other woodwork rom his camp, heaped them round the building, and set fire to he mass. The English sallied out, to be slain one by one, )r perished in the flames. Not a man escaped : the whole corps offered destruction as a consequence of their misplaced eager- less to open the fight.^ Such was the fate of the last important ittempt made by infantry to face the feudal array of the eleventh ;entury. We shall find, it is true, some instances in the twelfth entury of cavalry being withstood by dismounted troops. But hese were not true infantry, but knights who had sent their lorses to the rear in a supreme moment of peril, and stood firm o fight out the battle to the end. Well-nigh three centuries vere to elapse before real foot-soldiery, unaided by the cavalry irm, made another serious attempt to stand up in the open igainst the mailed horseman.^ The supremacy of the feudal lorseman was finally established.

^ Anna Comnena calls the leader of the Varangians " Nampites." This does not eem to be a true Teutonic name. A military correspondent suggests to me that it nay possibly represent a nickname — *'Niemecz" or * * Nemety " = the German — )estowed on the English chief by Slavonic fellow-soldiers in the Imperial host.

- I except, of course, attempts such as that of the Danish Ostmen at the battle of Dublin to withstand Miles Cogan's men (see p. 403). This was a fight on a small cale in an obscure corner of Europe ; the Scandinavians neglected the cavalry arm ;ven later than the English. Other cases could be quoted.

BOOK IV

THE BYZANTINES A.D. 579-1204

167

I

CHAPTER I

HISTORICAL DEVELOPMENT OF THE BYZANTINE ARMY

IN our first chapter we traced the miHtary history of the Eastern Empire down to the reign of Justinian, the last date at which it is possible to discern any continuity of character between the ancient Roman army and the troops which had replaced it. For, less than thirty years after the death of the conqueror of the Goths and Vandals, a complete reorganisation was carried out, and the last remnants of the old system dis- appeared. It was replaced by a new one whose nomenclature, tactical units, and methods were as unlike those of Justinian's day, as the " Palatine " and " Limitary " mimeri of Constantine were to the legions of Trajan or Augustus Caesar. This new system was destined to survive the shocks of five hundred years with small change : for all practical purposes the arrangements of the end of the sixth century lasted down to the end of the eleventh. Then only did they vanish, dashed to pieces by the great disaster of Manzikert (lO/i) even as the old Roman army had been dashed to pieces by that of Adrianople seven hundred years before.

Alike in composition and in organisation, the army which for those five hundred years held back the Slav and the Saracen from the frontier of the Eastern Empire differed from the troops whose traditions it inherited. Yet in one respect at least it resembled the old Roman host: it was in its day the most efficient military body in the world. The men of the lower empire have received scant justice at the hands of modern historians: their manifest faults have thrown the stronger points of their character into the shade, and " Byzantinism " is accepted as a synonym for effete incapacity both in peace and in war. Much might be written in general vindication of their age, but never is it easier to produce a strong defence than when their military skill and prowess are called in question.

169

lyo THE ART OF WAR IN THE MIDDLE AGES [580

" The vices of Byzantine armies," says Gibbon, " were in- herent, their victories accidental."^ So far is this sweeping condemnation from the truth, that it would be far more correct to call their defeats accidental, their successes normal. Bad generalship, insufficient numbers, the unforeseen chances oi war, not the worthlessness of the troops, were the usual sources oi disaster in the campaigns of the Eastern emperors. The causes of the excellence and efficiency of the Byzantine armies are not hard to discover. In courage they were equal to theii enemies ; in discipline, organisation, and armament far superior Above all, they possessed not only the traditions of Romar strategy, but a complete system of tactics, carefully elaboratec to suit the requirements of the age.

For centuries war was studied as an art in the East, while in the West it remained merely a matter of hard fighting. Tht young Prankish noble deemed his military education complete when he could sit his charger firmly and handle lance and shiek with skill. The Byzantine patrician, while no less exercised ir arms,2 added theory to empiric knowledge, by the study of th( works of Maurice, of Leo, of Nicephorus Phocas, and of othe authors whose books survive in name alone. The results of th( opposite views taken by the two divisions of Europe are wha might have been expected. The men of the West, thougl they regarded war as the most important occupation of life invariably found themselves at a loss when opposed by ai enemy with whose tactics they were not acquainted. Th' generals of the East, on the other hand, made it their boas that they knew how to face and conquer Slav or Turk, Fran] or Saracen, by employing in each case the tactical means bes adapted to meet their opponents' method of warfare.

The Byzantine army of the seventh and following centurie may be said to owe its peculiar form to a reorganisation which i went through in the last quarter of the sixth century, som twenty-five years after the death of Justinian. The details c that reorganisation are preserved for us in the Strategiconf a invaluable work, which shows us precisely when and by whor

1 Vol. ii. p. 382.

2 Nothing better attests the miUtary spirit of the Eastern aristocracy than the duels ; cf. the cases of Prusianus and others.

^ A work difficult to procure, for its MSS. are very rare, and its only printed editic is that of Upsala, dated 1664, a book only to be found in a few public libraries.

i

So] MAURICE'S " STRATEGICON » 171

le change was carried out. East - Roman writers of a later

ge often erroneously attributed these alterations to the

elebrated warrior-prince Heraclius, the conqueror of Persia

nd the recoverer of the True Cross. In reality, the army

,'ith which Heraclius won his battles had already been re-

rganised by his worthy but unfortunate predecessor, the

Lmperor Maurice, whose troubled reign filled the years 582-

02. It is under his name that the Strategicon appears, and by

is hands that it was compiled. There seems no reason what-

\er to doubt the attribution of the Strategicon to the Emperor

Jaurice. A careful inspection of the chronological data which

re supplied by the book itself shows that it cannot have been

vTitten before 570 or after 600. The Persian king is alluded

o as the chief enemy of the empire, but he is not represented

.8 a masterful and oppressive neighbour, as would have been

he case in any book written after the Persian invasions of 605-

y-'j-Z. On the other hand, the Slavs and Avars are declared to

)e the hostile powers on the Danube, no mention being made

)f Gepidae or Lombards : therefore the latter tribes must have

dready vanished from its banks ; i.e. the writer is dealing with a

oeriod after 568. But from the fact that all the fighting with

Slavs and Antae is supposed to take place in the close neighbour-

lood of the Danube, and for the most part not on Roman soil,

3Ut beyond the river, we can fairly decide that the great Slavonic

aids of 581-585, which reached as far as Thessalonica and

Thermopylae, cannot yet have begun. The date 570-580 is

'endered still more likely by the fact that the writer does not

speak with the tone and authority of an emperor. He merely

' wishes to turn to the public use the certain amount of military

experience which has come in his way," ^ and gives advice rather

than commands. A comparison of the preamble of Maurice's book

with that of Leo's Tactica, a work written by a reigning prince,

shows such a complete difference of tone that we feel sure that

Maurice was as yet only a rising general when he penned his

work. He ascended the throne in 582, so the Strategicon

may fairly be placed a year or two earlier. We should imagine

that the work was written nearer to 580 than to 570, from the

fact that an appreciable space of years seems to separate the

writer from the times of Justinian, who only died in 565. For

he alludes to the army as having been for some time in a con-

^ Strategicon^ i.

172 THE ART OF WAR IN THE MIDDLE AGES [58c

dition of decay, and as forgetting its old triumphs; such i complaint could hardly have been made when the victories o: Taginae and Casilinum (553-555) were still fresh in men'j memories. The decline began in the last few years of Justinian'.' time, when (as Agathias tells us) " the emperor having enterec on the last stage of his life seemed to weary of his labours, anc preferred to create discord among his foes or to mollify then with gifts, instead of trusting to arms and facing the danger: of war. So he allowed his troops to decline in number: because he did not expect to require their services, and th( ministers who collected his taxes and maintained his armie: were affected with the same indifference."^ The decay whicl began under Justinian spread deeper during the thirteen years reign of his successor the haughty and incapable Justin II. (565- 578), and may well have reached the disastrous stage describee by Maurice in the latter days of that prince.

But we may venture to determine even more exactly the dat< of the Strategicon. When the Emperor Tiberius Constantinu succeeded Justin II. (578) he carried out a thorough reorganisa tion of the army, deputing the care of details to two distinguishec officers, Justinian, the son of Germanus, and Maurice himselt These two colleagues "set right that which was wrong, an( made orderly that which was chaotic, and, in short, reducec everything to a state of efficiency." ^ We may therefore con elude with reasonable certainty that the Strategicon was thei issued by Maurice to serve as the official handbook of th reorganised host of the Eastern Empire. In that case it may b ascribed to the year 579, a date which exactly suits all th internal indications of time of which we have already spoken.

It would seem that the commissioners made many sweepin changes in the army, for the troops which Maurice describe are arrayed and named very differently from those of whic' Procopius had drawn a picture thirty years before. It is tru that the mailed horse-archer, the '/.a.[3aXXdpiog or -/.ovrdrog,^ as he i now called, still remains the great power in war, and the sta; and hope of the Imperial host. But a completely new syster of organisation has been introduced both among cavalry an infantry. Under Justinian there was no permanent unit in th army larger than the single regiment, the corps which Procopiu

^ Agathias, book v. 14. - Theophanes, sud anno 6074.

^ i.e. lancer, from k6»'tos, the long cavalry spear.

So] THE EAST-ROMAN ARMY IN 580 173

alls a ■/.araXoyog, SO translating the word numerus, which was till its official title. Maurice recognises this body, which he alls an dpid,a6g {i.e. numerus), or more frequently a rdy/Ma or rhdov, as the base of military organisation ; but he speaks of he numeri as being formed into larger bodies, — brigades and ivisions as we should call them. Six, seven, or eight numeri are o form a fioTpa of two thousand to three thousand men, the quivalent of a brigade, and three >j.oTpai are to be united into . .agpoc,^ or division of six thousand or eight thousand men. He dds that the numerus should be not less than three hundred ir more than four hundred strong, and that moirai should be ormed of an irregular number of numeri, in order that the nemy should not be able to calculate the exact force opposed o them by merely counting the number of standards in the line )f battle. Napoleon, it will be remembered, laid down a similar ule as to his army corps, always taking care that they should lot be of exactly similar force.

A numerus, or "band," or ray/xa of three to four hundred

trong, is now commanded by an officer called comes or tribinms.

t is interesting to see how the importance of these names has

! ;hrunk — in the fourth century there were only about a dozen

I 'counts" in the whole empire, and each had ruled a whole

: rontier and commanded many cohorts. A tribune in a similar

nanner had once been the commander of a whole legion of six

:housand men. Now, however, the two words are used as

lomonyms, and applied to a simple colonel. The brigadier in

:ommand of seven or eight bands is now called a iMoipap-xjag, or, as

a Latin equivalent, a dux (3oSg), though the duces of the fourth

:entury had in precedence and power taken rank below comites.

There is no sign yet in Maurice that the brigading together

of the numeri or " bands " was permanently fixed. He rather

implies that the commander of an army will make it his first

duty to so combine them when war is declared. In this the

army of 580 differs from that of the next century, in which, as

we shall see, a permanent localisation of the regiments and the

constitution of what may be called fixed army corps comes into

being.

The most important change which we trace in the general organisation of the army by Maurice is the elimination of that system, somewhat resembling the Teutonic comitatus^ which

^ Also called a 5P01J770S, a Teutonic name connected with our own word throng.

174 THE ART OF WAR IN THE MIDDLE AGES [58

had crept from among the Foederati into the ranks of th regular Roman army. The loyalty of the soldier was secure to the emperor rather than to his immediate superior, b making the appointment of all officers above the rank c centurion the care of the central government. The commande of an army or division had thus no longer in his hands th power and patronage which had made him dangerous. Th men found themselves under the orders of delegates of th emperor, not of quasi-independent authorities surrounded b enormous bands of personal retainers. Thus the soldier n longer regarded himself as the follower of his immediat commander, but merely as a unit in the military establishmer of the empire.

This reform was rendered all the more easy by the fact the the barbarian element in the Imperial army was decidedly 0 the decrease. The rapid fall in the revenues of the State whic had set in towards the end of Justinian's reign, and which cor tinned to make itself felt more and more under his successor had apparently resulted in a great diminution in the numb( of Teutonic mercenaries serving in the Roman army. It Wc a case, to quote a modern proverb, of ^'- Point d' argent^ point i Suisse!' For the foreigner was a more expensive and a mo] independent personage than the native soldier, and vanishe when his pay ceased to appear. To the same end contribute the fact that of the Lombards, Heruli, and Gepidae, the natioi who had formed the majority of Justinian's Foederati, one natic had removed to other seats, while the others had vanished fro the scene. At last the number of the foreign corps had sur to such a low ebb that there was no military danger incurred assimilating their organisation to that of the rest of the arm The barbarian element, as we find it in Maurice's book, appea under the names of Foederati, Optimati, and Buccellarii. Tl former seem to represent the old bands of Teutonic auxiliari' serving under their own chiefs ; they are apparently spoken as invariably consisting of heavy-armed horse. A casual notice Theophanes informs us that the Emperor Tiberius Constantin found it so hard to keep up their numbers, that he bought < the Teutonic slaves he could find for sale in and outside tl empire, freed them, and enrolled them as soldiers. The tot number of Foederati was thus brought up to fifteen thousan and it was precisely Maurice who was put in command of thei

8o] THE EAST-ROMAN AUXILIARY TROOPS 175

7ith the title of " Count of the Foederati." The " Optimati " sem to have been the pick of the Foederati : they were chosen lands of Teutonic volunteers of such personal importance that ach was attended by one or more military retainers, called Irmati^ just as a mediaeval knight was- followed by his squires.^ ^he Buccellarii, whose name and status has caused much needless rouble to commentators both in Byzantine and modern times, /ere another select portion of the Foederati, who were regarded s the emperor's personal following — they had no doubt done im homage and regarded themselves as part of his " comitatus " ; tractically they were the barbarian element in the Imperial juard, the body which corresponded to the old " Batavian ohorts " of the first century. The institution, as we have already lad occasion to mention, was of German origin : we find in the aws of the Visigoths saio and buccellarius used as synonyms for he oath-bound military dependant whom the Angle or Saxon v^ould have called a gesith. But it had early been adopted by he Romans : great captains like Aetius and Belisarius had their )uccellarii just like a Gothic king.

The Teutonic element had thus become comparatively small n the Imperial army: such as it was, it consisted of the scanty emains of broken tribes such as the Heruli, Ostrogoths, and jepidae, and of stray Lombards who had fled from their king —like the Droctulf of whom we have considerable notice in Vlaurice's time. There were also a few " Scythians," i.e. remnants )f the Huns, and Avar refugees who had deserted their lord the jreat Chagan, a habit to which, as we learn from the Strategicon, hey were very prone.

Nothing can be more characteristic of the transitional state )f the organisation of the East -Roman army in the day of Maurice than the extraordinary mixture of Roman, Greek, and Teutonic words in its terminology. Latin was still the official anguage of the empire, and all the drill commands in the Strategicon are still couched in it ; but we may note that the Latin is already in a very debased stage, showing signs of osing or confusing its case endings.^ Upon the substratum of

^ Procopius mentions a custom which throws light on this. Audoin, the Lombard dng, lent Justinian in 551 for the Gothic war "two thousand noble horsemen and hree thousand five hundred more of meaner rank, who acted as the followers and ittendants of the others " {De Bell. Gott. iv.).

2 Compare the story of the " Torna fratre " cry, passed down the line of march in ihe Slavonic campaign of 587, preserved by Theophanes.

176 THE ART OF WAR IN THE MIDDLE AGES [58c

old Roman survivals we find a layer of Teutonic words intro duced by the Foederati of the fourth and fifth centuries — sucl as bandon for a company of soldiers, drimgus (cf. throng) for ? larger body : ^ burgus, coccoiira^ betza^ and phulcus, and similai words. Finally, we meet with many Greek words, some 0 them literal translations of Roman terms — for example, api^i^o for numerus, — some of them borrowed from the old Macedoniar military system by officers of classical tastes,^ some newl) invented.^

The whole official language of the empire was, in fact, still ii a state of flux ; the same thing had often two or three names one drawn from each tongue. Maurice calls the regiment in differently (Sdvdov, rdyfia, or apt&fMoc^ and the brigadier ixoipapyji., bpoxjyyaptog^ ov dux. On the whole, however, the Latin holds it own ; we still find it used for scores of things which in Leo' Tactica, a work of three hundred years later, have onl Greek names. A very large proportion of the native troops wer still Latin-speaking, all those, in fact, raised in Thrace, Moesi; and the inner parts of the Balkan peninsula. It was not ti these provinces were overrun by the Slavs, a few years after th Stj-ategicon was written, that the ancient Roman tongue becam practically a dead language in the Eastern realm. Mauric seldom or never thinks it worth while to give the Gree rendering of a Latin technical phrase, while his successor Le invariably translates such terms.

One very important military reform which Maurice advocat* deserves especial notice, and serves as a notable sign of tl times. It appears that he was most anxious to break down tl barrier which had been imposed in the fourth century betwec the class which paid taxes and that which filled the ranks the army. The foreign auxiliaries who had formed such a Ian proportion of the army of Justinian were no longer so easily be procured, and the tendency to raise more and more nati corps being so strong, Maurice wished to make the empire se supporting in military matters, and to recruit the army entire from within. " We wish," he writes, " that every young Romj of free condition should learn the use of the bow, and be co

^ This curious word is first found in Vegetius, who employs it only for confused throngs of a barbarian host.

^ e.g. 8i.(pa\ayyla, vTaaTriaTTjs, ovpaydi, X6xct70S.

^ £.£-. fioipa and fjJfios as technical military expressions.

Qo] LOCAL MILITARY ORGANISATION 177

:antly provided with that weapon and with two javelins." )nce accustomed to arms, he thought that the provincial would lore easily be induced to enlist. If, however, this was intended ) be the first step towards the introduction of universal military .n'vice, the design was not carried out. Three hundred years iter we find Leo echoing the same words : 1 " The bow is the asiest of weapons to make, and one of the most effective. We lerefore wish that those who dwell in castle, countryside, or 3wn, in short, every one of our subjects, should have a bow f his own. Or if this be impossible, let every household keep a ow and forty arrows, and let practice be made with them in hooting both in the open and in broken ground and in defiles nd woods. For if there come a sudden incursion of enemies ito the bowels of the land, men using archery from rocky round or in defiles or in forest paths can do the invader much larm ; for the enemy dislikes having to keep sending out letachments to drive them off, and will dread to scatter far .broad after plunder, so that much territory can thus be kept inharmed, since the enemy will not desire to be engaging in a )erpetual archery-skirmish."

It is unfortunate that we have no definite information as to

he extent to which this plan for creating a kind of landsturm

Lpt for guerilla warfare was carried out. That in many districts

)f the empire little or nothing came of it we know only too

veil. We hear continually of provinces that failed to defend

hemselves when they were not furnished with a regular garrison.

3n the other hand, there seems to have been some obligation

; o provide men for military service incumbent on the themes.

I iVe learn, for example, from a casual reference in Const antine

I ?*orphyrogenitus' De Administi-ando Imperio that in the time

■ )f his own father-in-law Romanus, " when the emperor wished

I :o raise Peloponnesian troops for an expedition against the

I Lombards, in the days when John the Protospathiarius ruled that

;heme, the Peloponnesians offered to give a thousand saddled and

Dridled horses and a contribution of one centenar of gold instead

i )f the levy, and, the offer being accepted, paid it with alacrity.

The x^rchbishop of Corinth was assessed at four horses, the

Archbishop of Patras at four, the bishops at two horses each,

ill protospathiarii resident in the theme at three horses each,

spathiarii at one horse, the richer monasteries at two each, the

1 Tact. XX, § 84. 12

178 THE ART OF WAR IN THE MIDDLE AGES [90c

poorer at a horse for each pair ; while each man liable to serve personally gave five gold bezants, save very poor men, who were allowed to give two and a half each ; so the composition waj easily raised." ^ The unwarlike Greek themes might make such offers, and pay what the Western Europeans of a later age would have called a " scutage," but the more martial Asiatic and Northern themes certainly did not. In many of these border districts, especially in the later centuries of Byzantine history we frequently find the local population turning out in arms.- The men of the Armeno - Cappadocian frontier evidently relied very largely upon themselves for defence. Indeed there seem to be traces of a semi-feudal military tenure ol land in the districts in that region, especially in those recon- quered from the Saracen in the tenth and eleventh centuries, Here military settlers were allowed to establish themselves on condition of holding their land by the sword.^ The very curious and interesting poem of Digenes Akritas^^ which gives the life oi a border baron on the Cappadocian frontier in the tenth century shows us a population of warlike castle-dwelling chiefs sur- rounded by subject villages of their retainers, and waging a continual war of raids with their Saracen neighbours of Cilicia and Mesopotamia. They depended on their own strong arms, and not on the regular garrisons of the themes v/hose border they inhabited. In Leo's Tactica we learn from the chapter that deals with sieges that the government relied on the services oi the citizens whenever a frontier town was besieged, and that they were distributed to definite posts in the defence. Only if any oi them were suspected of disaffection does the emperor recommend that they should be refused leave to serve by themselves, and distributed among the regular companies forming part of the garrison. The most definite mentions of a generally established militia in the Asiatic themes are the statements in Cedrenus and Zonaras that Constantine IX. in 1044 was so unwise as to relieve the provinces of the eastern border of their obligation to keef up local levies to supplement the Imperial garrison. They had hitherto been exempted from certain taxes in consideration oi

^ Const. Porph. , De Adm. Imp. cap. 51.

" There seems to have been miHtia even in the theme of Hellas in 1040, when wc read of the people of Thebes taking arms against the Slav rebels (Cedrenus, 747).

' The holdings were called KTrj/nara o-TpaTiuTLKa : they were hereditary, as long at the military service was paid duly.

^ Edited by Sathas and Legrand, Paris, 1875.

54o] DISASTERS OF THE SEVENTH CEJNTURY 179

:his service. Now they were ordered to disband the militia and n future send money to the central treasury .^

If universal military service never came into use in the Eastern Empire, yet Maurice had at least a portion of his iesire fulfilled. From his time onward the rank and file of the imperial forces were raised almost entirely within the realm, and nost of the nations contained within its limits, the Greeks alone excepted, furnished a considerable number of soldiers. The Armenians, Cappadocians, and Isaurians of Asia Minor, and the rhracians in Europe, were considered the best material by the ecruiting officer.

The next great landmark in the military history of the iinpire after the issue of the Strategicon is the fearful storm \ hich passed over it in the Persian and Saracen invasions of the .ears 604-656. Tiberius Constantinus and Maurice were fairly ucky in their campaigns, beat back the Persians, and carried ncursions into the land of the Transdanubian Slavs. But Maurice was unpopular with the army — perhaps his cutting down )f the power and importance of the great officers, no less than lis strict discipline and economy, irritated them. He perished he victim of a mutiny, and the brutal and imbecile Phocas, who succeeded him, involved the empire in the last and the most lisastrous of its Persian wars. The whole East, from the ^^uphrates to the Hellespont, was overrun by King Chosroes, vhile at the same time the Slavs and the Chagan of the Avars noved forward into the European provinces. The empire eemed on the brink of destruction, and was only saved by the leroic six years' campaign of Heraclius (622-628). But hardly lad the Persian war ended, and the old frontier of the empire been estored, when the still more fatal Saracen invasion began (633). n his old age Heraclius saw Egypt and Syria permanently evered from the empire, and had to reorganise a new military rentier for his diminished realm along the line of the Taurus.

There was no peace with the Saracen till 659, and for twenty- ix years the whole force of Eastern Rome was concentrated ilong its Asiatic border, struggling desperately with the oncom- ng flood of Saracen fanaticism. Either during this long war, or nore probably at its end, when Constans II.^ sat on the throne, a lew military organisation of the highest importance was imposed

^ Cedrenus, 790 ; Zonaras, ii. 260.

' Or Constantine iv., as he should more properly be named.

i8o THE ART OF WAR IN THE MIDDLE AGES [66c

on the army and the empire. The old boundaries of the provinces had been wiped out during the Persian and Saracen invasions, and all the civil administration was out of gear The burden of administration in a time of perpetual martial law had fallen upon the shoulders of the generals. Recognising this fact, Constans II. or his son Constantine made a new division of the lands which still remained unconquered on both sides of the Bosphorus, using the military organisation of the moment as the basis of civil as well as of military districts. The force.^ serving in Asia Minor at this time consisted — (i) of the troops o the old "diocese" of Oi^iejiSy i.e. Syria, now called in Greet 'AvaroX/;to/; (2) of the troops of the borders of Mesopotamia anc Armenia, who were generally known as 'A^/A^i//a%o/; (3) of th( soldiers of Thrace, brought over into Asia during the stress o the struggle, and known as Thracesians ; (4) of the surviving Foederati, now known as the Optimati\ (5) of the native anc foreign halves of the Imperial Guard, known respectively aj the Obsequmm and the Buccellarii. During or at the enc of the war these troops were cantoned in various parts of Asii Minor in separate bodies or army corps, for the long-continuec struggle had rendered permanent their brigading.^

The new provincial arrangement of the middle of the seventl century consisted in making these army-corps districts, adoptee first of all only for convenience in the subsistence or mobilisa tion of the troops, into permanent civil divisions. The com mander of the army corps became also the governor of th( district and the head of the administration; the "bands" anc " moirai " were permanently fixed down to the posts where the} found themselves. The new geographical divisions and th« army corps both received the appellation of Themes, ^g.aaTct Their proper names were drawn from the titles of the troop quartered in each, and were therefore Anatolicon, Armeniacon Thracesion, Optimaton, Buccellarion, Obsequium {h-^r/.m^ These were the original " themes " of Asia ; shortly afterward there was added to them one whose character was similar, bu whose origin was probably naval rather than military ; this wa: the Cibyrrha^ot theme, a narrow district reaching along th( southern coast of Asia Minor from Caria to Isauria, and com prising only the land between the mountains and the sea

^ I owe the original hint for these paragraphs to Professor Bury's excelleD chapters on the Themes in his History of the Later Roman Empire.

PLATE III.

Probable Limits of THE THEMES AD. 650.

'V^. 7^,9. "<Sebaste

ikion n ■ ^-C,-- -^■"^-. -'t?.

Ops

> *■■''.-^^Vana'

^«C0> v^r^'j^ ^? o JSeleucil

THE " THEMES " OF THE EASTERN EMPIRE IN 650 AND 95O

56o] THE THEMES i8i

Cibyra was a small place, and why it gave its name to the :heme was a constant puzzle to later Byzantine authorities. Constantine Porphyrogenitus, in his work on the Themes, says -hat the name was bestowed in mockery. This is of course ibsurd : it is perhaps lawful to conjecture that at the moment vvhen the new provincial divisions were made, Cibyra was the :hief station of the Imperial fleet which guarded the southern ^hore of Asia Minor and the passage into the Aegean. The district to which it gave its name was purely maritime, and the solated coast-plains of which it was composed only com- municated with each other by sea. It was probably, therefore, uhe special domain of the fleet, and if there was any regular :avalry army corps allotted to it, the " bands " told off to protect t from incursions of the Saracen were probably at the dis- position of the admiral of the Cibyrrhaeot squadron. This, at least, is made likely by the evidence of a passage in Leo's Tacticay which bids the general of the Anatolic theme, when lis own theme is attacked by land, to send word to the com- mander of the Cibyrrhaeot fleet, that the latter may land forces n the rear of the Saracens and devastate Cilicia.^ By the time 3f Constantine Porphyrogenitus, Optimaton, probably on account Df its vicinity to the capital, had no longer any military estab- ishment, and was ruled by a Domesticus, not a general.

Such being the "themes" of Asia, we find that those of Europe were inferior in number — the provinces of the Balkan peninsula had been so entirely devastated and overrun by the Slavs in the time of Heraclius, that the whole inland had massed out of Roman hands. There were probably only three "hemes south of the Danube — Thrace, Thessalonica, and Hellas ; :o these the other Western possessions of the empire add three iTiore — Sicily, Africa, and the surviving dominions in the empire in Italy. These last, however, were always called not a theme, 3ut the Exarchate of Ravenna. Later emperors in the eighth md ninth centuries subdivided the provinces both of East and West, till the whole number of themes finally rose to more than thirty.

Maurice's Strategicon is, of course, too early to give the themes and the complement of garrison allowed to each. But if

5rav 5^ 5id r^s 7^75 e'/ccrr/jareuetJ' ^AXwci o\ KiXiKes ^dp^apoi, /xrjv6r}S t^ Ki^vpaidTrj rod TrXuitfiov crrpar7;7y, /cat fiera tu)v utt' avTov dpofjubpwv elcnrnrT^rit} Kara tCjp Tapdwv Kol 'Adaveluv x^ptwi/ (Leo, Tactica, cap. xviii. § 139).

!

i82 THE ART OF WAR IN THE MIDDLE AGES [900

we may follow the Tactica of Leo the Wise, written some two hundred and fifty years after the theme-system was invented, the strategos of a theme might usually expect to find himself at the head of some eight thousand, or ten thousand, or twelve thousand men, as he is spoken of as commanding two or three " turmarchs " (or " merarchs," as Maurice would have called them at an earlier date), the turma running from three thousand up tc five thousand strong. It does not seem, however, to have been possible for the strategos of a province to mobilise and move outside of his own district the whole of the troops at his disposition. Most of the infantry, it seems, were left behind for garrison duty, and Leo calculates that the average theme should furnish about four thousand or six thousand picked cavalry, and not more, when called upon for aid by its neighbours. Nicephorus Phocas, in his handbook for commanders of frontier themes gives five thousand as the total. But this mobilised division was to consist of troops of the best quality only ; all recruits, weak and disabled men, and untrained or weakly horses being left behind at the depots, so that each " turma " would take the field rather short in numbers, but very compact and fit for hard service. In one passage, Leo says that the "bands" of the turma would not muster more than about two hundred and fifty- six men for this active service.

Just as " theme " meant both the district and its garrison, sc was it with the smaller divisions, each theme being divided up into districts garrisoned by a " meros " or " turma." So we find such expressions as that " Cappadocia was a turma of the Anatolic theme," or that " Cephallenia was a turma of the theme of Langobardia." Some casual notices in Constantine Porphyrogenitus's De Administrando Imperio show us how the districts were occasionally revised and made into new units We read, for example, that, owing to the creation of the new theme of Charsiana in the days of Constantine's father, Leo, the author of the Tactica^ a large rearrangement was made on the eastern border. " Charsiana," he says, " was once a ' turma of Armeniacon, but when the religious Emperor Leo made it a theme, then the bands forming the garrisons of Bareta, Balbadon Aspona, and Acarcus were transferred from the Buccellariarj theme into the theme of Cappadocia ; and at the same time the garrisons of Eudocias, St. Agapetus, and Aphrazia were trans- ferred from the Anatolic theme into the Cappadocian theme

i

9oo] ADDITION OF LATER THEMES 183

These seven bands, four originally Buccellarian and three Ana- tolic, made a new Cappadocian turma, called Commata. At the same time the Buccellarian theme gave up the bands stationed at Myriocephalon, Hagios Stauros, and Verinopolis to the theme of Charsiana, these, with other two from the Armeniac theme, namely the garrisons of Talbia and Connodromus, forming a new Charsianian ' turma,' called Saniana. The theme of Cappadocia also gave over to the Charsianian theme the whole turmarchy of Casa, and the garrisons of Caesarea and Nyssa." ^ Thus the Charsianian theme was composed of fragments from the Buccellarian, Armeniac, and Cappadocian army corps, while Cappadocia was compensated for the large slice taken out of it by acquiring seven bands from Buccellarion and Anatolicon. The net result was probably to leave the Buccellarian theme composed of two turmae instead of three, and Armeniacon and Anatolicon slightly weakened. All these being now interior themes, separated from the Saracen frontier by Cappadocia and Charsiana, they could afford to suffer a reduction of their garrisons.

By the time that Leo's Tactica and his son Constantine's work on the governance of the empire were written, there were some new units of frontier administration in existence which were smaller than themes, and were purely military in character, not including any large district, or conferring on their governors any civil jurisdiction over an extensive region. Such a district was called a " Clissura," a corruption of the Roman clausura. It consisted of an important mountain pass with a fortress and garrison, and was entrusted to a " clissurarch," whose duties one may compare to those of the " comes littoris Saxonici " of the fourth century. Some of these " clissuras " comprehended several passes and a considerable number of garrisons, so that Constantine doubts in one or two cases whether they ought not to be raised to the dignity of themes. The command of a clissura was a splendid opportunity for a young and rising military officer, as he had an excellent chance of making a name by repelling the raids of Slav or Saracen, and thus might ultimately rise to the command of a theme.

^ Constantine Porph., De Adm. Imp. 50.

CHAPTER II

ARMS AND ORGANISATION OF THE BYZANTINE ARMY

THE extraordinary permanence of all Byzantine institutions is well illustrated by the fact that the arms and organisa- tion which Maurice sets forth in his Strategicon in 578 are repeated almost unchanged in the Tactica of his successor Leo the Wise, written somewhere about the year 900. In particular, the chapters of Leo which deal with armour, discipline, and the rules of marching and camping are little more than a reedition of the similar parts of his predecessor's book. It would not be fair, however, to the author of the Tactica to let it be supposed that he was a slavish copyist. Though a mere amateur in military matters, — he reigned for more than twenty years without going out in person to a single campaign, — Leo was an intelligent compiler and observer. In many chapters of his work the Strategicon is largely rewritten and brought up to date. The reader is dis- tinctly prepossessed in favour of Leo by the frank and handsome acknowledgment which he makes of the merits and services oi his general, Nicephorus Phocas, whose successful tactics and new military devices are cited again and again with admiration, The best parts of his book are the chapters on organisation recruiting, the services of transport and supply, and the methods required for dealing with the various barbarian neighbours ol the empire. These are the points on which an intelligent war- minister in the capital could attain full knowledge. The weakest chapter, on the other hand, — as is perhaps natural, — is that which deals with strategy ; its sections are arranged in rather a chaotic manner, and form rather a bundle of precepti- than a logical system. Characteristic, too, of the author's want of aggressive energy, and of the defensive system which he made his policy, is the lack of direction for campaigns of invasion in an enemy's country. Leo contemplates raids on hostile soil, but

oo] THE BYZANTINE CAVALRY 185

ot permanent conquests ; his main end is the preservation of is own territory rather than the conquest of his neighbour's. \.fter reading the book, it is easy to see why the frontiers of the mpire stood still during his reign, though the times were very ivourable for aggression both to East and West. Another eak point is his neglect to support precept by example ; his irections would be much the clearer if he would supplement hem by definite historical cases in which they had led to uccess. But this he does very rarely ; half a dozen instances rawn from the campaigns of Phocas, two from the campaign f Basil I. round Germanicia, a misquoted incident of the Vvaric wars of Justin II. drawn from Maurice's Stratcgicon} nd a few notes from ancient Greek and Roman history, are 11 that can be cited. The reader is forced to collect for him- elf the data which must have led Leo to arrive at his various onclusions.

The strength of the East- Roman army in the time of Leo

\ 10 less than in the time of Maurice lay in its divisions of heavy

! avalry. The infantry is altogether a subsidiary force, and the

i -uthor contemplates whole campaigns taking place without its

' >eing brought into action. It seems, in fact, destine'd rather for

: he defence of frontier fortresses and defiles, for the garrisoning

'f important centres, and for expeditions on a small scale in

aountainous regions, than for taking the field along with the

lorse.

i The xa/3aAXaf>;og or heavy trooper wore, both in the time of

\ d^aurice and that of Leo, a steel cap surmounted with a small

uft, and a long mail-shirt reaching from the neck to the thighs.^

: ^e was also protected with gauntlets and steel shoes. The horses

f )f the officers and of the men in the front rank were furnished

; dth steel frontlets and poitrails ; all had solid well-stuffed

\ addles and large iron stirrups — an invention which had cropped

\ ip since the fifth century without our being able to say from ^ \^

I vhom it had its origin. The trooper was furnished with a light

! ^ Maurice speaks of a surprise in the campaign near Heraclea which Leo i tupidly misrenders into a campaign of the Emperor Heraclius ! He might have

emembered that Maurice could not possibly have quoted campaigns which took place

wenty years after his death.

^ Leo concedes that if mail-shirts are not always procurable in sufficient numbers,

t may sometimes be necessary to make shift with scale armour of horn (such as the

.ncient Sarmatians wear on Trajan's Column), or even with buff-coats of strong leather

trengthened with thin steel plates.

1 86 THE ART OF WAR IN THE MIDDLE AGES [900

linen surcoat to wear over his armour in hot weather, and with a large woollen cloak for cold or rainy weather, which was strapped to his saddle when not in use. His arms were a broad- sword ((frddiov), a dagger {'Trapafj.rjpiov), a horseman's bow and quiver, and a long lance (xovTupm) fitted with a thong towards its butt, and ornamented with a little bannerole. Some men seem to have carried an axe at the saddle-bow in addition to the sword. The tuft of the helmet, the lance-pennon, and the surcoat were all of a fixed colour for each band, so that the army may be said to have worn a regular uniform, like its predecessors of Roman times, and unlike any Western army that took the field before the sixteenth century.

Byzantine military pictures of a really satisfactory kind, in which the armour is not affected by the artist having copied older classical drawings, are not common. It is therefore worth while to insert here two plates from an eleventh-century MS., the Psalter of Theodore of Caesarea, in the British Museum, where the warriors portrayed are evidently armed exactly as was the contemporary East-Roman soldier. The MS. being dated 1066, the soldiery represented in it must wear the same dress and equipment as the unfortunate army that perished at Manzikert in 107 1. It will be noted that the horsemen do not in all ways correspond to Leo's description of the cavalry of the year 900. Their mail-shirts are shorter than we should have expected, and the tuft on the helms is wanting, unless indeed the very small ball on the top of the headpiece of the front horseman in IV. A and of the right-hand foot-soldier in V. C represents it. These balls, however, look more like small metal knobs. It will be noted that all the mounted men wear mail-shirts with tunics below them, and high boots. Their lower arms are unprotected, but the upper arm of most of them is guarded by the character- istic brassard of narrow metal plates which is seen in most Byzantine military figures. The horse-archer in IV. B does not wear this defence, but apparently a sleeveless mail-shirt : the brassards would have been a hindrance in drawing the bow. Most of the helms are pointed ; only the horseman in V. C has a plain round-topped steel cap. The shields are all round and of moderate size. Several of the cavaliers show their military cloaks flying behind them. The arms used are lance, bow, axe, and mace. The last two are to be seen in the group of horsemen besieging the castle in IV. B. The horses seem to have light

PLATE IV.

BYZANTINE AKMOL'R A.U. I066

\Vrom thfl Psalter of Theodore of Caesarea\

,oo] PERSONNEL OF THE CAVALRY 187

rappings : there is no trace of the frontlets or poitrails of which ^eo speaks in his Tactica.

In some of the provinces, where the use of the bow was not generally popular, Leo recommends that recruits should be riven two light darts and a shield, until they have been trained o the practice of archery. This was to be done by giving them ;mall and weak bows, which were to be progressively changed or larger and stronger ones as the young soldier grew more idroit. When skilled in his new weapon, he would have to ibandon the shield, whose employment was incompatible with :he free use of both hands required in shooting.

The Byzantine cavalry-soldier was, like the Roman of the 3ld republic, a person of some substance and standing. In his :hapter on the raising of troops, Leo writes : " The strategos must pick from the inhabitants of his theme men who are neither too young nor too old, but are robust, courageous, and provided with means, so that, whether they are in garrison or on an expedition, they may be free from care as to their homes, having those left behind who may till their fields for them. And in order that the household may not suffer from the master being on service, we decree that the farms of soldiers shall be free from all exactions except the land-tax. For we are determined that our comrades (for so we call every man who serves bravely in behalf of our own Imperial authority and the Holy Roman Empire) shall never be ruined by fiscal oppression in their absence." ^

The rank and file were recruited partly from military settlers holding GTpaTiurixa ytrrKMaroL^ but mainly from the ranks of the small free farmers. Their officers, especially those of the higher ranks, were drawn from the best families of the Byzantine aristocracy. "Nothing prevents us," says Leo, "from finding a sufficient supply of men of wealth and also of courage and high birth to officer our army. Their nobility makes them respected by the soldiery, while their wealth enables them to win the greatest popularity among their troops by the occasional and judicious gift of small creature-comforts." ^ A true military spirit existed among the noble families of the Eastern Empire ; houses like those of Skleros and Phocas,^ of Bryennius, Kerkuas, and Comnenus, are

1 Tactica, iv. § i. 2 Tactica, iv. § 3.

' The family of Phocas is the most distinguished of the whole Byzantine aristocracy. It supplied two centuries of notable soldiers, starting from Nicephorus

1 88 THE ART OF AVAR IN THE MIDDLE AGES [900

found furnishing generation after generation of officers to the Imperial army. The patrician left luxury and intrigue behind him when he passed through the gates of Constantinople, and became in the field a keen professional soldier.

The whole of the officers and many of the troopers being men of substance, they brought with them to the campaign a considerable number of servants and boys — some bondsmen, others free hired attendants. Leo highly approves of this custom, remarking that when the corps had no camp-followers many soldiers had to be told off to menial duties and the care of baggage animals, thus thinning the ranks of the fighting men. He recommends that the poorer troopers be encouraged to keep one attendant for every four or five of them, and if possible a pack-horse to carry such of their baggage as they could not easily strap to their own saddles. These non-combatants and baggage animals formed a considerable impediment to the rapid movement of a cavalry corps, but it was believed that in the end they justified their existence by keeping the men in good physical condition. For when moving in the desert countries on the frontier, where food for men and fodder for horses were hard to gather, the troops had largely to depend for subsistence on their camp-followers, just as an English army in India does at the present day.

Leo does not give such complete details about the arming and organisation of the infantry " bands " as about those of the cavalry. The foot-soldiery were divided into light and heavy armed. The former, as in the times of Justinian and Belisarius, were nearly all archers ; a few provinces where archery was not practised supplied javelin-men instead. The typical bowman is described by the Tactica as wearing a tunic reaching to the knees, and large broad-toed nailed boots. He carried a quiver with forty arrows, and a small round buckler slung at his back, and an axe at his belt for hand-to-hand fighting. As many as possible were to be provided with a light mail-shirt : there is no mention made of helmets, which apparently were not worn by the archers. Leo only recommends that they shall cut their hair short, and makes no suggestion about a covering for it.

The heavy-armed foot - soldier, still called scutatus as in

Phocas, who drove the Saracens from Calabria in 884-887, inchiding the victorious emperor of the same name, 963-969, and the famous rebel Bardas Phocas, who died in 989.

PLATE V.

BYZANTINE ARMOUR A.D. 1066 {From, the Psalter of Theodore of Caesarea]

oo] THE BYZANTINE INFANTRY 189

le clays of Justinian, wore a pointed steel helmet with a tuft, a lail-shirt, and sometimes gauntlets and greaves. He carried a irge round shield, a lance, a sword, and an axe with a cutting lade at one side and a spike at the other. The shield and eimet-tuft were of a uniform colour for each band.

In Plate V. will be seen three characteristic figures of foot- oldiers of the year 1066, taken (like the horsemen described n p. 186) from the Psalter of Theodore of Caesarea. They /ear short mail-shirts above their tunics, and two of the three Iso show the characteristic Byzantine brassard on their upper rms. The third (the left-hand sleeper in V. c) has a short mail leeve to his mail-shirt and no brassard. The headdress differs n each figure : one wears a pointed helm, one a round-topped lelm of classical appearance with a knob at its summit ; the hird has no headpiece at all. It will be noted that the helmless nan wears mail breeches, unlike any of the other soldiers, horse )r foot, on our plates. One of the two sleepers evidently wears eather breeches : both have high boots. The spears are long, he sword short and broad. Two of the shields are circular, in Lccordance with Leo's description ; the third is oval, and bears a levice of two coloured bars. Two of the men wear short cloaks "astened round their necks ; the third is apparently without this garment.

The infantry, like the cavalry, were followed by a consider- ible train of baggage and camp-followers. For every sixteen nen ^ there was to be provided a cart to carry biscuit, etc., and I supply of arrows, as well as a second cart carrying a hand- nill, an axe, a saw, a chopper, a sieve, a mallet, two spades, two 3ickaxes, a large wicker basket, a cooking-pot, and other tools md utensils for camp use. In addition to the carts there was ;o be a pack-horse, so that when the infantry were forced to eave the waggon-train behind, for forced marches or other 3uch purposes, the horses might be able to carry eight or ten iays' biscuit with them for immediate use. The two carts and :he pack-horse required at least two camp-followers to drive :hem, so that every " band " was followed by a considerable oody of non - combatants. It will be noted that the contents of the second cart gave every "century" twenty spades and

^ The " decury," in spite of its name, was sixteen men strong, and not ten. Thus I century would be about a hundred and sixty men, and three centuries would go to he "band," making it about four hundred and eighty strong.

I90 THE ART OF WAR IN THE MIDDLE AGES [gST

twenty picks for entrenching purposes ; for the Byzantine camp like the ancient Roman, was carefully fortified to guard agains surprises.

A corps of engineers (Mivoupsg (sic) or even Miv^opuropsg always marched with the vanguard, and, when the evening halting-place was settled, marked out with stakes and ropes, no only the general outline of the camp, but the station of eacl corps. When the main body had come up, the carts and pack horses, called en masse " Tuldum " (ro 7(yo\h(iv)^ were placed in th( centre of the enclosure, while the infantry bands drew a ditcl and bank along the line of the Mensores' ropes, each regimen doing a fixed amount of the digging. Meanwhile, a thick chair of pickets was kept far out from the camp, and the men no engaged in entrenching were kept close to their arms, so that \ surprise was almost impossible, unless the pickets displayec gross negligence. The carts were often ranged laager-fash ioi within the ditch, so as to make a second line of defence. If the army was not close to the enemy, the majority of the infantr) bands camped outside the fosse, and only the cavalry within it But when close to the hostile forces, the whole of the corps botl of horse and foot were placed inside, the infantry taking th< outer posts and the cavalry the inner ones. The object of thi arrangement was, of course, to prevent the cavalry from beini harassed by night attacks, against which they are far mon helpless than infantry, as they have to saddle their horse before they are of any use.

So perfect was the organisation of the Byzantine army tha it contained not only engineers and military train, but even ai ambulance corps.^ To each " band " was attached a doctor an( surgeon [pipa^Kvorai^ iarpoi), and six or eight bearers [deputati o aKpi(3uvi;), whose duty it was to pick up and attend to th< wounded. The deputati were provided with horses furnishet with a sort of side-saddle with two stirrups on the same side for carrying the wounded, as well as with a large flask of water. The value attached to the lives of the soldiery is well shown b} the fact that the deputati were entitled to receive a nomisma, or bezant, for every dangerously wounded man whom the\ brought off the field.*

VVe may now pass on to the tactics of the Byzantine army

^ Leo, Tactica Const, iv. § 6. - Tactica Const, xii. § 53.

^ About Lwelve shillings, or a trifle more. ^ Tactica Const, xii. g 51.

o] BYZANTIxNE TACTICS 191

iie first point to observe is that normally the heavy cavalry rm the most important part of the army. Infantry only take e first place in expeditions among hills and passes where valry are obviously useless. In the ordinary operations of war )th arms may frequently be found acting together, but it is St as usual for cavalry to be working alone, without any fantry supports. This partly comes from the inferior reputa- m of the infantry, but still more from the fact that both in urope and in Asia the Byzantines had very frequently to ^al with enemies like the Turks (Magyars), Patzinaks, and iracens, whose whole force consisted of horsemen. When ich tribes made an incursion into the empire, the infantry )uld not hope to keep up with them. It was quite a normal ing, when the news of a Turkish or Saracen raid arrived, for e strategos of the invaded theme to send off all his infantry ' occupy passes in the hills, or fords on great rivers, so as to ock the enemy's retreat ; he would then start with his cavalry one to hunt down the raiders. This fact is deducible from eo's Tactica, but is still more explicitly stated in the excellent imphlet on the defence of the Asiatic border which stands ider the name of the Emperor Nicephorus Phocas.^

When infantry and cavalry acted together, as would be the ise against an enemy mainly composed of foot-soldiery, e.g. le Slavs or the Franks, or against a regular invasion of aracens as opposed to a mere raid, the usual tactical arrange- lent of the Byzantines was to place the infantry in the centre, ith cavalry on the wings and in reserve behind the line. The ifantry " band " was drawn up sixteen, eight, or occasionally )ur deep, with the scutati in the centre and the archers and ivelin-men on the flanks. If expecting to be charged by ivalry, or to be assailed by a heavy column of hostile foot, the ght troops retired to the rear of the scutati and took refuge ehind them, just as a thousand years later the musketeers of the cxteenth and seventeenth centuries used to take cover behind leir pikemen. The " band " was taught to fight either in single r in double line {bicpakayyia) : to take this latter formation the

^ Niceph. Phoc. iii. § i. The strategos is at once, on receiving news of a raid, to )llect his horse and t6 ire^iKhv airav iinffvvayeLV irrl ttjv 68ov KaO' fjv bpfi-qcrovaiv oi oX^fjLLOL e^eXdeiv. The retreating enemy, heavy with plunder, could be intercepted isily in the passes by the foot-soldiery, and could be crushed between them and the ur suing cavalry.

192 THE ART OF WAR IN THE MIDDLE AGES [900

rear ranks (four or eight, according as the band was eight or sixteen deep in its previous formation) stood still, while the front ranks moved forward and then halted.^ In a defensive battle, the infantry centre of the host was usually drawn up close to the camp, and protected in the rear by the ditch and waggon- laager manned by the camp-guard.^ When, however, the army had moved out far from its camp to take the offensive, tht infantry were formed in two lines. This formation might be made either by drawing up a certain number of the battalions of each brigade {i.e. bands of each drungus) in second line, 01 by forming each band into the above-mentioned h<pa.'hayyia with an interval of three hundred yards between its front anc its rear half-band. The army was never drawn out in a singk line without reserves ; that order of battle was discouraged b} all Byzantine writers on matters tactical. It was only used a.' a last resort when there was a desperate need to produce at al costs a line equal in length to the enemy's.

Byzantine infantry were accustomed to charge in columi sixteen deep ; the bowmen and javelin - men having retiree behind the scutati, the latter received the command to close uj the ranks (clnvusov), and drew close together, the front rani locking their shields together, while the second and rear rank; held their shields aloft over their heads, after the manner of th( ancient Roman testudo. The bowmen in the rear kept up sucl a discharge as they best could over their comrades' heads. Oi getting within a few paces of the enemy, the scutati hurled thei spears, as did the ancient Romans their pila^ and then fell tc work with sword and axe. It was with these short weapons not with the spear, that they were expected to win the day Thus a Byzantine infantiy division (turma) when charging would be composed of a number of small columns, witl moderate intervals between them, each composed of from som< two hundred and fifty to four hundred men.^ The strength o the division might be anything between two thousand"* an( six thousand strong, and the number of battalions (bands) in i

1 Tadica, vii. § 76. 2 Tactica, vii. § 73, 4.

^ An interesting but casual notice in one of the doubtful chapters of th Tactica (No. xxxiv. ) says that in the Thrakesian theme the bandon was supposed t be three hundred and twenty strong ; in the theme of Charsiana it was three hundre and eighty ; in some of the Western themes as much as four hundred.

•* Constantine Porphyrogenitus, quoted above on pp. 182, 183, mentions th turma of Saniana as only five bands strong.

9oo] BYZANTINE INFANTRY TACTICS 193

might vary from five to twenty. It was a standing principle that the divisions should be of unequal sizes, that the enemy might not be able to calculate the exact force opposed to him by merely counting the number of divisional standards in the line. Whether strong or weak, the division advanced in two lines, of which the first was called the cursores ^ or fighting line, the second the defensor^es ^ or reserve line.^

Byzantine infantry would always be covered on the wings by cavalry when offering battle on any ground where horsemen could be used. They were not, therefore, obliged to take any care of their flanks. On the other hand, their rear might possibly be threatened by hostile cavalry sweeping completely round the wings of the army. In this case the bands forming the line of defensores would front to the rear. Or if there was need to keep watch both before and behind, the individual band would take the formation we have described above under the name of bi(pa\ayyia^ and the rear half-band, eight deep, would receive the order "right about face" {l'no6Tpi-^ari) and front to the rear, while the other half-band still kept its original position.

When fighting in hilly country, or in passes and other ground where cavalry could not be used, the infantry band drew itself up with the scutati in the middle, and the light troops thrown forward on either flank, so as to form a kind of crtscent-shaped array. This was especially used for the defence of defiles, when the heavy-armed men posted themselves across the path, and the archers and javelin-men endeavoured to line the approaches to the spot where their comrades were posted, so as to secure a flanking fire on any enemy endeavouring to force the road. In forest defiles Leo advises that more reliance should be placed on the javelin-men, who work best at short ranges: in rocky defiles, where there was a longer view and a better aim, the archers would have the preference.^

Cavalry tactics had been carried to a far greater degree of elaboration than infantry tactics by the East- Roman army. The horsemen were, as we have already seen, the preponderant

^ KOiLfpa-upes. 2 5i<f>ivaop€i.

^ I infer, though it is nowhere explicitly stated, that the reserve line in a division or brigade was formed, as a rule, from complete bands, and not from the rear half- bands of the battalions in the front line, because Leo says, in lactica, vii, § 45, that a brigadier or divisional general is to tell off his bands into defensores and cursores, and to be careful that each band gets a fair share of each sort of work.

^ Leo, Tactica, ix. § 78.

13

194 THE ART OF WAR IN THE MIDDLE AGES [900

arm, and they often in a mixed force equalled or even exceeded the foot in numbers.^ When they were in a large majority, Leo advises that the whole front line should be formed from them, and the infantry placed in the rear in reserve. This was the order adopted by Nicephorus Phocas in his celebrated victory in front of the walls of Tarsus (a.d. 965).^ Often infantry were altogether wanting, and the whole army was composed of cavalry. Both Leo's Tactica and the Ua,padpoiui.rj UoXs/xov ascribed to Nicephorus Phocas are very full of directions for this case, and the most elaborate instructions for the marshalling of a cavalry host are given by both. They are well worth recording, as representing the most characteristic development of the Byzantine art of war.

The main principle of the battle-tactics of the Imperial cavalry was that the whole force must be divided into (i) a fighting line, (2) a supporting line, (3) [d. small reserve behind the second line, (4) detachments out on the wings, destined some to turn the enemy's flank, some to protect that of their own main body. As to the numerical proportions of these four parts of the host, the front line should average somewhat more than a third — say three-eighths — of the whole ; the supporting line about a third of the whole ; ^ the reserve about a tenth : the flanking detachments about a fifth.

As an illustration of such an array Leo gives a practical example. He supposes that the strategos of an easterr frontier theme has pursued a large Saracen raiding force anc brought it to bay. Having left behind all weak men and horses all recruits, and certain necessary detachments, the general ha5 with him two weak divisions {tiirmae), each composed of twc brigades (drungi) of five regiments {bandcx) each. The individua band has been weeded down to two hundred or two hundrec and fifty men, but contains only picked troopers. The total o the host is only about four thousand six hundred men, thougl

^ John Zimisces in his expedition against the Russians had thirteen thousand hors> and fifteen thousand foot (Leo Diaconus, viii. 4).

^ The centre was formed of TravaLd-^poi 'nnroTai, behind whom were the infantry the wings of cavalry also (Leo Diaconus, iv. 3).

^ 16 rplrov iroabv, says Leo, when laying down his general rule in Const, xii. § 29 But in the practical example which he gives, the supporting line is only thirteei hundred strong out of four thousand six hundred. In a small army, apparently the flanking detachments would be a trifle stronger in proportion than in a hug one.

9oo] THE ARRAY OF A CAVALRY FORCE 195

the two turmae, if present with their whole effective, would amount to at least six thousand five hundred or seven thousand.

1. The front rank is to be composed of three bodies each five hundred strong, i.e. each composed of two bands of two hundred and fifty men. It is drawn up with the smallest possible intervals between the bands, so as to present a practically continuous front. The senior divisional general \turma7'cJi), the second in command of the whole force, leads the line : ^ he takes his post in its centre, surrounded by his standard- bearer, orderlies, and trumpeters. Each of the six bands sends out to skirmish one-third of its men, all archers : the remainder are halted till the time for charging comes.

2. The second line is composed of four bands, i.e. one thousand men. They are not drawn up in continuous line, as are their comrades in the front, but in four separate bodies a bowshot apart. The three intervals between the bands are to serve for the passage of the fighting line to the rear in case it should be routed. The commander-in-chief, with a bodyguard of a hundred men and the great battle-flag, takes his position in the middle of the second line, but is not fixed there ; he may transfer himself to any point where he is needed.^ To give an appearance of solidity to the line, a few horsemen — three hundred are enough — are drawn up two deep in each of the intervals between the four bands ^ (g G G in plan).

3. Behind the second line, not to its rear, but on its flanks,* are placed two bands of two hundred and fifty men each as a last reserve.

4. On the flank of the fighting line, thrown somewhat forward, (d) to the right is placed a weak band (two hundred men), destined to endeavour to turn the enemy's left flank when the clash of battle comes ; they are called the vTspjispasTai. On the left (e) lies a corresponding band of two hundred men, who are charged with the duty of preventing any such attempt on the part of the enemy ; they are called the ^Xay/o^uXaxgc. It will be noted that armies are expected to make the outflanking movement from their own right : this comes from the wish to get in on the enemy's left side, against his weaponless left arm.

^ xii. 77. - xii. 90. ^ xviii. § 147.

■* xii, § 30. This point, noted in the general directions for drawing up a cavalry array, is not repeated in Const, xviii. , where the above-named plan for ordering four thousand men is to be found.

196 THE ART OF WAR IN THE MIDDLE AGES [900

5. Far out from the whole line of battle, to right and left, are to be placed two bodies, each of two small bands (or four hundred men) called the hsdpot or liers-in-wait (f f). They are intended to make a long circular march, hide themselves in woods and hollows or behind hills, and come in suddenly and unexpectedly upon the flank or rear of the enemy.

Thus the whole battle order works out into

Frontline . . . . .6 "bands" = 1500 men.

Second line . . . . .4 "bands" = icxx> men. Third line . . . . .2 "bands" = 500 men.

'TirepKepdaTaL ..... I "band" = 200 men. IIXa7to0i^XaAre? ..... I "band" = 200 men.

'Ev^dpoL 4 "bands" = 800 men.

General's escort. .... ^"band" = 100 men. To fill the intervals in the second line ij "bands" = 300 men.

20 "bands" = 4600 men.

I presume that the first turma or division supplied the ten bands of the front line and the hsdpoi, while the second turma furnished the second and third lines and the other small detach- ments. But this is not definitely stated.

The bands are drawn up eight or ten deep, though Leo grants that this formation is too heavy. With an ideally perfect body of men he thinks that four deep would be the best forma- tion ; 1 but for practical work with an ordinary regiment he regards eight deep as the least that a general should allow, and ten deep as the safest and most solid array.

This order of battle is deserving of all praise. It provides for that succession of shocks which is the key to victory in a cavalry combat : as many as five different attacks would be made on the enemy before all the impetus of the Byzantine force had been exhausted. The intervals of the second line give full opportunity for the first line to retire when beaten, without causing disorder behind. Finally, the charge of the reserve and the detached troops would be made, not on the enemy's centre, which would be covered by the second line even if the first were broken, but on his flank, his most exposed and vulnerable point. Modern experience has led to the adoption of very similar arrangements in our own day.

The only point which seems of doubtful value is the arrange- ment of the small detached bodies of men two deep in the

^ xii. § 40,

PLATE VI

A BYZANTINE CAVALRY FORCE OF TWO 'TURMAE' IN LINE OF BATTLE .

Enemy's Line of Battle

* HB SSJ ISJy '^

I

,oo] CRITICISM OF BYZANTINE TACTICS 197

ntervals of the second line. Leo intends them to deceive the memy's eye, and to give an impression of continuity and ;olidity to the array.^ If the front line is broken, they are to etire, leave the intervals open, and draw up in the rear of thig ;econd line, and between the two bands of the third line. There hey are to serve as a rallying point for the broken troops from he front, who will form up on each side of them. But in )ractical work this retiring to the rear at the moment when the emnants of the shattered first line were tumbling in upon them vould be a very hazardous experiment. There would be a great hance that, instead of the fugitives rallying upon the support, he support would be carried away by the fugitives, and all go )ff the field in disorder. Only the steadiest and coolest troops :ould be trusted to carry out the manoeuvre. Still, as we shall ;ee from the battles which we are about to describe as instances )f Byzantine cavalry tactics, the troops of the empire were quite :apable of rallying and returning to the charge.

i

CHAPTER III

STRATEGY AND TACTICS OF THE BYZANTINE ARMY

WE have already had occasion to observe that the chapters on organisation, arms, and tactics in the mihtary writen of the East-Roman Empire are always more satisfactory thar those which deal with strategy. Gibbon, with his usual sweep ing contempt, remarks that such works seem to aim at teaching how to avoid defeat rather than how to achieve victory. Then is a certain amount of truth in the sneer, for the main lines o Byzantine strategy during the greater part of the history of th( empire are somewhat one-sided. They are almost entireh defensive in their scope, and pay little attention to the offensive In this respect they do but reflect the general condition anc needs of those who used them. From 600 to 800, and agaii from 1050 to 1453, the rulers of Constantinople were making strenuous fight for existence, and not aiming at offensive opera tions beyond their own borders. Between Heraclius' Persia campaigns (622-28) and Nicephorus Phocas' conquest of Cilici (964), the East- Roman generals never were able to contemplat an invasion on a large scale into hostile territory. The tacticc offensive they might often take, but it was always with th object of preserving or recovering their own lands, not with the of annexing those of their neighbours. Summed up shortly, th whole military history of these centuries consists in a strugg] to preserve Asia Minor from the Saracen, the Balkan peninsul from Slav, Bulgarian, and Turk,^ and the Italian themes fror Lombard and Frank. Of these struggles the first was far the mo.' engrossing : when once the pressure was taken off the Easter

^ i.e. Avar, Magyar, Patzinak : perhaps one ought to include the Bulgarian al under this name. At least the Byzantine writers often place him in that categor See Leo, Tactica^ xviii.

198

9oo] BYZANTINE STRATEGY MAINLY DEFENSIVE 199

frontier, owing to the incipient decay of the Abbasside Caliphate in the middle of the ninth century, the East-Romans suddenly appear once more as a conquering and aggressive power. Cilicia, North Syria, and Armenia are overrun, the Balkan peninsula is reconquered up to the Danube, a vigorous attempt is made to win back Sicily. Our military text-books, however, belong almost entirely to the defensive period : ^ an edition of Leo's Tactica brought up to date by Basil II. would be invaluable ; but unfortunately it does not exist.

The fact that the main aim of Byzantine strategy was to protect the empire rather than to attack its enemies accounts for its main limitations. But it does not explain the whole of the differences between the military feeling of East and West during the early Middle Ages. Of the spirit of chivalry there was not a spark in the Byzantine, though there was a great deal of professional pride, and a not inconsiderable infusion of religious enthusiasm. The East-Roman officer was proud of his courage, strength, and skill ; he looked upon himself as charged with the high task of saving Christendom from pagan and Saracen, and of preserving the old civilisation of the empire from the barbarian. But he was equally remote from the haughty contempt for sleights and tricks which had inspired the ancient Romans, and from the chivalrous ideals which grew to be at once the strength and the weakness of the Teutonic West.2 Courage was considered at Constantinople as one of the requisites necessary for obtaining success, not as the sole and paramount virtue of the warrior. The generals of the East considered a campaign brought to a successful issue without a great battle as the cheapest and most satisfactory consummation in war.^ They considered it absurd to expend stores, money, and the valuable lives of veteran soldiers in achieving by force an end that could equally well be obtained by skill. They would have felt far higher admiration for such feats as Marl-

^ The UapaopofXT] UoX^nov, which bears Nicephorus Phocas' name, is written by an officer who had seen the rise of the new offensive tactics, but does not know whither they are about to lead. He is one of the old school, though privileged to see the turning of the tide, and proud to recognise the changed conditions of war in his own old age.

2 I suppose that Baduila the Ostrogoth, that loyal Christian knight, merciful to foes, true to his word, guided in all things by his conscience and his love of justice, is the first chivalrous figure in modern history. Yet he failed before Byzantine fraud and courage combined.

3 Leo, Const, xx. § 12.

200 THE ART OF WAR IN THE MIDDLE AGES [900

borough's forcing of the lines of Brabant in 1706, with the loss of only sixty men, or for Wellington's manoeuvring the French out of the Douro valley in 18 13, than for bloody fights of the type of Malplaquet or Talavera. They had no respect for the warlike ardour which makes men eager to plunge into the fray : it was to them rather the characteristic of the brainless barbarian, and an attribute fatal to anyone who made any pretensions to generalship. They had a strong predilection for stratagems, ambushes, and simulated retreats. For the officer who fought without having first secured all the advan- tages for his own side they had the greatest contempt. Nor must we blame them too much for such views : fighting with comparatively small and highly-trained armies against enormous hordes of fanatical Saracens or savage Turks and Slavs, they were bound to make skill supply the want of numbers. A succession of emperors or generalissimos of the headstrong, reck- less type that was common in the West would have wrecked the Eastern realm in fifty years. The two men who more than any others brought ruin on the empire were two gallant swash- bucklers who never could keep out of a fray, whether it were opportune or inopportune, — Romanus Diogenes, the vanquished of Manzikert and the loser of all Asia Minor, and Manuel Comnenus, the crowned knight-errant who wasted the last resources of his realm on unnecessary victories in Hungary and Armenia.

But it must be confessed that there often appear in Byzantine military history incidents that show something more than a mere contempt for rashness and blundering courage. Modern general; have not always been straightforward and honourable in theii observance of the customs of war.^ But they do not as a rule proceed to glory in their ingenuity and commit it to paper as < precedent for the future. There is ample evidence, not only fron the records of chroniclers, but from the chapters of Leo's Tactica that the East-Romans felt no proper sense of shame for some o their over-ingenious stratagems in war. It is with a kind of intel lectual pride in his own cleverness that the Imperial autho advises that if negotiations with a neighbour are going on, anc

^ Napoleon certainly committed breaches of the laws of war as odious as any c which the Byzantines ever were guilty. None of them ever surpassed those mastei pieces of treachery and lying, — the seizure of the Vienna bridges in 1805 under pretenc of an armistice, and the occupation of the Spanish fortresses in 1S08.

)o] FRAUD AND FORCE 201

is intended to break them off, the softest words should be re- eved to the last day but one, and then a sudden expedition be unched against the enemy, who has been lulled into a belief in le certainty of peace. He is quite ready to send bribes into the Dstile camp. He recommends two ancient tricks that were ready a thousand years old in his own day. The first is that .' addressing treasonable letters to officers in the enemy's camp, id contriving that they shall fall into the hands of the com- lander-in-chief, in order that he may be made suspicious of his ^utenants. The second is that of letting intelligence ooze out ) the effect that some important person in the hostile country is icretly friendly, and adding plausibility to the rumour by spar- ig his houses and estates when raids are going on.^ Leo is not Dove raising the spirits of his own soldiers before a battle by iventing and publishing accounts of imaginary victories in nother corner of the seat of war. A trick too well known in iter as well as in Byzantine times is that of sending parle- lentaires to the enemy on some trivial excuse, without any real bject except that of spying out the numbers and intentions of le hostile forces. These and similar things have been tried in lodern times, but they are not now reconlmended in official aides to the art of war published under Imperial sanction.^ It i only fair to say that the same chapter which contains most of lem {Const, xx.) is full of excellent matter, to the effect that no lighted treaty or armistice must be broken, no ambassador or arlementaire harmed, no female captive mishandled, no slaughter f non-combatants allowed, no cruel or ignominious terms im- osed on a brave enemy. A few precepts of the rather futile nmorality of those which we have instanced above must not be llowed to blind us to the real merits of the strategical system ito which they have been inserted. The art of war as it was nderstood at Constantinople in the tenth century was the only ystem of real merit existing in the world ; no Western nation ould have afforded such a training to its officers till the sixteenth, r we may even say the seventeenth century. If some of its

^ A device as old as the Punic Wars ! Hannibal tried it against Fabius.

^ The most " Byzantine" piece of writing that I can recall in a modern campaign is utusofif's cynical despatch to the Emperor of Russia, avowing the trick which he had layed off on Murat a few days before Austerlitz. " In alleging the conclusion of an rmistice," he wrote, " I had nothing in view but to gain time, and thereby obtain the leans of removing to a distance from the enemy, and so saving my corps." Many len might have carried out the fraud : few would have openly boasted of it.

202 THE ART OF WAR IN THE MIDDLE AGES [90

precepts leaned a little too much towards the side of fraud, i may be pleaded that at any rate its methods were more human than those prevailing in any other part of the world at th time.

But we are at present engaged in investigating the efficac and not the morality of the military customs of the Byzantine A survey of the main lines of the strategy and tactics of the armies must be our next task.

The generals of the new Rome made it their boast that the knew how to face and conquer the various enemies of the empi] in East and West, by employing against each the tactical meai best adapted to meet their opponents' method of warfare. Tl Strategicon of Maurice gives an account of the Persian, Avc and Lombard and the methods to be used against them : Le three hundred years later, substitutes for these earlier foes tl Frank and Saracen, the Slav and Turk. His chapter dealir with them {Const, xviii.) is more detailed and more interesting th? the corresponding passage in his predecessor's work, and deserv reproduction, alike as showing the diversity of the tasks set b fore a Byzantine general, and the practical manner in which the were taken in hand. They serve, indeed, as a key to the whc art of war as it was understood at Constantinople.

" The Franks and Lombards," says Leo, "are bold and dari] to excess, though the latter are no longer all that they once wei they regard the smallest movement to the rear as a disgrace, a; they will fight whenever you offer them battle. When th< knights are hard put to it in a cavalry fight, they will tu their horses loose, dismount, and stand back to back against ve superior numbers rather than fly. So formidable is the char of the Frankish chivalry with their broadsword, lance, and shie that it is best to decline a pitched battle with them till you ha put all the chances on your own side. You should take advanta of their indiscipline and disorder ; whether fighting on foot or horseback, they charge in dense, unwieldy masses, which cam manoeuvre, because they have neither organisation nor di Tribes and families stand together, or the sworn war-bands chiefs, but there is nothing to compare to our own orde division into battalions and brigades. Hence they readily 1 into confusion if suddenly attacked in flank and rear — a thing Ci to accomplish, as they are utterly careless and neglect the use pickets and vedettes and the proper surveying of the countrysi

oo] TACTICS USED AGAINST THE FRANKS 203

'hey encamp, too, confusedly and without fortifying themselves, D that they can be easily cut up by a night attack. Nothing acceeds better against them than a feigned flight, which draws lem into an ambush; for they follow hastily, and invariably fall ito the snare. But perhaps the best tactics of all are to protract he campaign, and lead them into hills and desolate tracts, for hey take no care about their commissariat, and when their stores un low their vigour melts away. They are impatient of hunger nd thirst, and after a few days of privation desert their tandards and steal away home as best they can. For they are lestitute of all respect for their commanders, — one noble thinks limself as good as another, — and they will deliberately disobey )rders when they grow discontented. Nor are their chiefs hove the temptation of taking bribes ; a moderate sum of noney will frustrate one of their expeditions. On the whole, herefore, it is easier and less costly to wear out a Prankish irmy by skirmishes, protracted operations in desolate districts, md the cutting off of its supplies, than to attempt to destroy t at a single blow."

The chapters (xviii. 80-101) of which these directions are an ibstract have two points of interest. They present us with a picture of a Western army of the ninth or tenth century, the ixact period of the development of feudal cavalry, drawn by the :ritical hand of an enemy. They also show the characteristic strength and weakness of Byzantine military science. On the )ne hand, we see that Leo's precepts are practical and efficacious ; 3n the other, we see that they are based upon the supposition :hat the Imperial troops will normally act upon the defensive, a imitation which must materially impair their efficiency. Byzan- tine statesmen had long given up any idea of attempting the re- conquest of Italy; they aimed at nothing more than retaining their hold on the " Calabrian " and " Langobardic " themes. Hence come the caution and want of enterprise, the proneness to sleights and stratagems, displayed'in Leo's chapters, characteristics which lead the Prankish writers into stigmatising the East-Romans as treacherous and cowardly. To win by ambushes, night attacks, and surprises, seemed despicable to the Prankish mind. These, nevertheless, were the tactics by which the Eastern emperors suc- ceeded in maintaining their Italian provinces for four hundred years against every attack of Lombard duke or Prankish emperor.

204 THE ART OF WAR IN THE MIDDLE AGES [900

The method which is recommended by Leo for resisting the '* Turks " (by which name he denotes the Magyars and the Patzinaks who dwelt north of the Euxine ^) is different in every respect from that directed against the nations of the West. The Turkish hordes consisted of innumerable bands of light horse- men who carried javelin and scimitar, but relied most of all on their arrows for victory. They were " given to ambushes and stratagems of every sort," and were noted for the care with which they conducted their scouting and posted their vedettes In battle they advanced not in one mass, but in small scatterec bands, which swept along the enemy's front and around hi^ flanks, pouring in flights of arrows, and executing partial charge.' if they saw a good opportunity. On a fair open field, however they could be ridden down by the Byzantine heavy cavalry, wh( are therefore recommended to close with them at once, and no to exchange arrows from a distance. Steady infantry also the} could not break, and foot-archers were their special dread, sinc( the bow of the infantry-soldier is larger and carries farther thai that of the horseman ; thus they were liable to have their horse shot under them, and when dismounted were almost helpless, th' nomad of the steppes having never been accustomed to fight oi foot. The general who had to contend with the Turks, therefore should endeavour to get to close quarters at once, and fight then at the earliest opportunity. But he should be careful about hi flanks, and cover his rear if possible by a river, marsh, or defile He should place his infantry in the front line, with cavalry o the flanks, and never let the two arms be separated. Heedles pursuit by the cavalry was especially to be avoided,^ for th Turks were prompt at rallying, and would turn and ren pursuers who followed in disorder. But a proper mixture ( energy and caution would certainly suffice to defeat a Turkis host, because in the actual clash of battle they were man fc man inferior to the Imperial Cataphracti. These chapters woul have been the salvation of four generations of Western Crusadei if their chiefs had but been able to read them. Well-nigh ever disaster which the Crusaders suffered came from disobeying son"

^ Apparently also the Bulgarians (xviii. §§ 42-44), as he speaks of them as Scythian race very like the Turks, and again, of their " differing little or not at : from each other in their way of life and their methods of war."

2 Never let the cur sores get more than three or four bowshots from the defen.^i is Leo's general rule.

o] TACTICS USED AGAINST THE TURKS 205

le of Leo's precepts — from falling into ambushes, or pursuing o heedlessly, or allowing the infantry and cavalry to become parated, or fighting in a position with no cover for rear or inks. The Byzantines, on the other hand, made on the whole very successful fight against the horse-archers who overwhelmed » many Western armies. It is true that one huge disaster, the ifeat of Manzikert, brought on by the rashness of Romanus iv., as perhaps the most fatal blow that the empire ever received. ut, with this and a few other exceptions, the East-Roman armies ive a good account of themselves when dealing with the Turk, lexius Comnenus, though not a genius, was always able to ifeat the Patzinaks ; his son and grandson reconquered from e Seljouks half Asia Minor, and, even after the Latin conquest ' 1204, Lascaris and Vatatzes held them back. It was not the )rse-archers of the older Turkish tribes, but the disciplined nissaries of the Ottomans that were destined to give the up de grace to the Eastern Empire.

The third group of nations with which Leo deals are the avonic tribes — Servians, Slovenes, and Croatians, who inhabited e north-western parts of the Balkan peninsula. The space ivoted to them is much less than that spent on each of the her categories of the enemies of the empire. Leo remarks tat since their conversion to Christianity in the reign of his ther Basil, and the treaty in 869 which had made the Dalmatian id Bosnian Slavs, in name at least, vassals of the empire, they id given no trouble. They were a nation of foot-soldiers, and ily formidable when they kept to the mountains, where their chers and javelin-men, posted in inaccessible positions, could inoy the invader from a distance, or their spearmen make idden assaults on the flank or rear of his marching columns, uch attacks could be frustrated by proper vigilance, while, if irprised in the plains when engaged in a plundering expedition, ley could be easily ridden down and cut to pieces by the nperial cavalry, since they had no idea of discipline and no sfensive arms save their large round shields. Leo gives no ascription of the Russians, though they were already beginning ) plague the themes along the Euxine coast.^ Had he devoted chapter to them, we should be the richer by some interesting 2tails of their early military customs. Sixty years later, when

^ Their first expedition had been in 865, and there was one in Leo's own reign 907.

2o6 THE ART OF WAR IN THE MIDDLE AGES [qoc

they fought John Zimisces, they had adopted the armour an( tactics of their Varangian chiefs, and resembled the Northmei rather than the Slavs of the South, fighting with shirts of mai long kite-shaped shields, and battle-axes, and arraying themselve in well-ordered columns, which could often beat off cavalry. I took the most strenuous efforts of the gallant Zimisces and hi chosen horse-guards to break into these stubborn masses, an the battle of Dorostolon was one of the hardest fought an perhaps the most creditable of all the victories of the Byzantir armies (971).

The longest and most interesting paragraphs in Leo Eighteenth " Constitution " are reserved for the Saracens, ar his description of them can be amplified by details from the vei interesting Uspl Uapadpo/nrig UoXs/iov, a work written about 980 by trusted officer of Nicephorus Phocas, who desired to preser his late master's precepts and practice in a literary shape. Tl little book is practically a manual for the governors of them on the eastern border, giving all the methods to be employ( in repelling Saracen raids, and all the precautions necessary f the execution of retaliatory invasions of Saracen territory. It especially valuable because, unlike the Tactica of Leo, it giv lavish historical illustrations and examples, and does not confi itself to precept.

To deal with the Saracen, the most formidable enemy of t empire, the greatest care and skill were required. " Of barbarous nations," says Leo, " they are the best advised and mc prudent in their military operations." The commander who \ to meet with them will need all his tactical and strategic ability, the troops must be well disciplined and courageous the " barbarous and blaspheming Saracen " is to be driven back rout through the " clissuras " of Taurus.

The Arabs whom Khaled and Amru had led in the sevei century to the conquest of Syria and Egypt had owed th victory neither to the superiority of their arms nor to excellence of their organisation. The fanatical courage of fatalist had enabled them to face better-armed and betl disciplined troops, as it nerved the Soudanese ten years ago face the breechloaders of our own infantry. We, who remem ' the furious rush that once broke a British square, cannot won ' that the troops of Heraclius, armed only with pike and sw( , were swept away before the wild hordes of the early Calij •

)o] TACTICS USED AGAINST THE SARACENS 207

is greatly to the credit of the East-Roman troops and the 3use of Heraclius that Asia Minor did not suffer the same fate s Persia and Spain. But when the first flush of fanaticism had assed by, and the Saracens had settled down in their new Dmes, they did not disdain to learn a lesson from the nations ley had defeated. Accordingly, the Byzantine army served as model for the forces of the Caliphs. " They have copied the .omans," says Leo, " in most of their military practices,^ both in rms and in strategy." Like the Imperial generals, they placed leir confidence in their mailed lancers : they were no longer le naked hordes of the sixth century, but wore helms, shirts of lain - mail, and greaves. But the Saracen and his charger ere alike at a disadvantage in the onset : horse for horse and lan for man the Byzantines were heavier, and could ride the )rientals down when the final shock came.

By the tenth century the Saracens had an art of war of their wn. Some of their military works have survived, though one, it appears, date back to the times contemporary with Leo. 'hey had advanced very considerably in poliorcetics and forti- cation ; they had learned how to lay out and entrench their amps, and how to place pickets and vedettes. But they never lised a large standing army, or fully learned the merits of drill nd organisation. The royal bodyguards were their only regular roops ; the rest of the army consisted of the war-bands of chiefs, liscellaneous bands of mercenary adventurers, or the general ^vies of tribes and districts.

Two things rendered the Saracens of the tenth century angerous foes, — their numbers and their extraordinary powers of Dcomotion. When an inroad into Asia Minor was on foot, the )Owers of fanaticism and greed united to draw together every nquiet spirit from Egypt to Khorassan. The wild horsemen >f the East poured out in myriads from the gates of Tarsus and Vdana to harry the rich uplands of the Anatolic, Armeniac, nd Cappadocian themes. " They are no regular host, but a nixed multitude of volunteers ; the rich man serves from pride )f race, the poor man from hope of plunder. They say that jrod, ' who scattereth the armies of those that delight in war,' is )leased by their expeditions, and has promised victory to them. Those who stay at home, both men and women, aid in arming heir poorer neighbours, and think that they are performing a

^ Tactica, xviii. § 120.

2o8 THE ART OF WAR IN THE MIDDLE AGES [900

good work thereby. So mere untrained plunderers and ex- perienced warriors ride side by side in their hosts." ^

Once clear of the passes of Taurus, the great horde oi Saracen horsemen cut itself loose from its communications, and rode far and wide through Cappadocia and Phrygia, burning the open towns, harrying the countryside, and lading their beasts of burden with the plunder of a region which was in those day^ one of the richest in the world. It was only exceptionally thai the invaders were aiming at serious conquests and halted tc besiege a fortified town. The memory of the awful failures 0 the two great hosts that perished before Constantinople in 6^^^ and 718 seems to have been deep impressed in the minds of the Mohammedan rulers and generals. The two last attempts a getting a footing beyond the Taurus were those of Haroun-al Raschid in 806, and of Al-Motassem in 838. Each, after taking one considerable town, found such a long and difficult tasl before him that he gave up his project and retired. The armie of their successors, even when counted by scores of thousands were aiming at nothing more than vast plundering raids.

When the Saracens had passed the defiles of Taurus, the; pushed on for some days at an almost incredible speed, for thei baggage was all laid on camels or sumpter beasts, and their foot soldiery were either provided with horses of some sort or take; up on the cruppers of the cavalry.^ They made for the distric that they had marked out for plunder, and trusted to arrive i such haste that the natives would not have had time to gathe in their property and take shelter within walled towns.

Now was the time for the Byzantine general to show hi mettle. If he was a competent commander, he would have ha regular outposts, relieved every ten or fifteen days, to watch th passes. The moment that these were driven in, they would tak

^ Leo here adds, xviii. § 129: "And would that we Christians did the sam For if all of us, both soldiers and those who have not yet borne arms, could agree strengthen our hearts and go forth together, if every man armed himself, and t) people gave their money to equip such a host, and their prayers to help it, th< marching against that race which blasphemes our Lord and God, Christ, the King all, we should obtain victory. For the Roman armies being increased manifold, ai furnished liberally with all weapons of war, and abounding in military skill, ai having heaven as their aid, could not fail to crush the barbarous and blasphemii Saracen." This surely is the spirit of the Crusader, appearing two hundred yeo before its time.

2 Toi>s 5^ Tre^oyj aindv (pipovaiv ■^ ^0' lttitcov Idiuv oxov/x^vovs, t) Siriadep tQiv ,Ka^a \apiu)P Kadrjimevovs (xviii. § 1 15).

)oo] HOW TO DEAL WITH SARACEN RAIDS 209

;he tidings to the chief town of the theme, and to the nearest com- nanders of bands and turmae. While the main body of the cavalry j( the theme concentrated under the strategos at a central point, t would be the duty of the turmarch into whose district the -aid had come, to collect the nearest two or three bands in haste, md to hang on to the skirts of the invading force at all costs. For even a small observing force compels the invaders to move :autiously, and to abstain from letting their men straggle for jlunder. Meanwhile, all the disposable foot - soldiery of the :heme would be hurried off to seize the mouths of the passes Dv which the enemy would probably return. These were not io numerous but that a competent officer might make some provision for obstructing them all.^

To ascertain the enemy's route and probable designs, the :ommander of the theme must spare no pains. The turmarch :harged with following the raiders ought to be sending him con- tinual messages ; but in addition, says Leo, " never turn away freeman or slave, by day or night, though you be sleeping or sating or bathing, if he says that he has news for you." Success is almost certain if continual touch with the enemy is kept up ; the most disastrous consequences may follow if he is lost. When the strategos has concentrated all or most of his regiments, he makes with all speed for the district which the raiders are reported to have reached. If they are in comparatively small numbers, he must endeavour to fight them at once. If they are too strong for him, he must obstruct their way by all means which do not expose him to an open defeat. If there are fords or defiles on their path, he must defend them as long as possible ; he must block up wells and obstruct the roads with trenches. Above all, he must endeavour either to cut off all raiding parties that leave the enemy's camp, or — if these are too strong — to adopt the opposite course, and storm the camp in their absence. By such devices he may either worry them into returning, or else detain them long enough to allow of the arrival of the mobilised troops of two or three neighbouring themes. When a sufficient force has accumulated, open battle can be tried. But these Saracen invasions in force ("Warden-Raids," if we may borrow a phrase from the similar expeditions of our own

1 All this is from Nicephorus' Uepl Uapa8po/xijs llo\4fiov, cap. i. § i. The chapter is really excellent ; it might be used on the Indian north-west frontier to-day, so practical is it.

THE ART OF WAR IN THE MIDDLE AGES

I

Borderers) were of comparatively unfrequent occurrence, and was not often necessary to " set all the rest of the themes of tl East marching," each with its picked corps of four thousand ( four thousand five hundred cavalry. If needed, however, Le states that thirty thousand cavalry of the best quality could I collected in a moderate space of time. A most perfect instanc of such a concentration had taken place in A.D. 863 (though Le does not mention it ^), when a great Saracen army under Oma the Emir of Malatia, had been completely surrounded an absolutely exterminated by the skilful and simultaneous appea ance of no less than ten contingents, each representing a theme The more typical Saracen inroad, however, was on a smalk scale, and only included the warriors of Cilicia and Northei Syria, assisted by casual adventurers from the inner Mohan medan regions. To meet them the Byzantine commands would have no more than the four or five thousand horseme of his own theme. When he came up with them, they woul probably turn and offer him battle : nor was their onset to t despised. Though unequal, man for man, to their adversarie the Saracens were usually in superior numbers, and alwa} came on with great confidence. " They are very bold whe they expect to win : they keep firm in their ranks, and stan up gallantly against the most impetuous attacks. When the think that the enemy's vigour is relaxing, they all charge togeth( in a desperate effort." If this, however, failed, a rout generall followed, " for they say that all misfortunes come from God, an if they are once well beaten, they take it as a sign of divir wrath, and altogether lose heart." Their line once broken, the have not discipline enough to restore it, and a general sauve qi peut follows. Hence a Mussulman army, when routed, could t pursued a Voutrance^ and the old military maxim, Vince sed 1 niniis vincas, was a caution which the Byzantine officers coul disregard.

In the actual engagement with the Saracen foe, the tactic

^ Perhaps because the reigning emperor was Michael ill., whom Basil i. (Lee father) had murdered.

- Having sacked Amisus and ravaged Paphlagonia and Galatia, Omar found h way home blocked by the contingents of the Anatolic, Obsequian, and CappadociE themes ; at the same time those of the Buccellarian, Paphlagonian, Armeniac, ar Colonean themes encompassed him on the north ; and that of the Thracesian them' strengthened by European troops of the Macedonian and Thracian themes, closed ; on the west. The Saracens were absolutely exterminated.

^ Nic. Phoc. xxiv. § 10.

)oo] SARACEN METHODS OF WAR 211

•ecommended were those of the double Hne, with flank-guards, eserve, and outlying detachments to turn the enemy, which we lave described in the section dealing with the organisation )f the Byzantine army. The Saracens were accustomed to irray themselves in one very deep line, which Leo calls a ;olid oblong (^rsrpdyuvov xa/ s'jn/j^riKr} 'Trapdra^iv). Their cavalry were practically the sole force that gave trouble, the foot being a nere rabble of plunderers, which would never stand. Their )nly useful infantry were composed of Ethiopian archers, but hese, being wholly destitute of defensive armour, could never ace the Byzantine footmen. In battle the single heavy line )f the Orientals must under ordinary circumstances ■ give way Defore the successive charges of the three Byzantine lines. The generals of the East had already discovered the great precept vhich modern military science has claimed as its own, that " in I cavalry combat the side which holds back the last reserve nust win." They were equally masters of the fact that this ast reserve should be thrown in on the flank rather than on the Vont of the enemy. It was not, therefore, without reason that ;he author of the Uapadpo,<M7i exclaims that " the commander ,vho has five or six thousand of our heavy cavalry and the help )f God needs nothing more." ^

It would sometimes, however, happen that the Saracens were lot caught on their outward way, and that the forces of the Byzantine general only closed in on them as they were retreating.^ Loaded with booty, the raiders would be constrained to move "ar more slowly than on their advance ; their camps, too, would 3e filled with captured herds and flocks, laden waggons, and :roops of prisoners. In this case Nicephorus Phocas recom- mended a night attack, to be delivered by infantry or dismounted :avalry. " Send three infantry bands, ranged a bowshot apart, ;o charge into each flank of their camp," says the emperor, ' assail the front a little later with your main body of foot, and eave the rear, where lies the road to their own land, unattacked. In all probability the enemy will instinctively get to horse, and fly by the only way that seems to lead to safety, leaving their plunder behind them." ^

^ Nic. Phoc. Preface, § 15. - Nic. Phoc, xvii. § 15.

^ ei 8e (rufi^rj Xvdijvai. tt]v irapaTa^iu, 5t' eavrwv d<n'crraTot Kaidi/eirlarpocpoL yevdfievoi ti6vip T(p (T(j}driva(. i\a{ivov<Tiv (xviii. 116).

2 12 THE ART OF WAR IN THE MIDDLE AGES [96.

But success was most certain of all if the invaders could b" caught while retreating through the passes of Taurus. If th infantry of the theme had succeeded in reaching the defiles an( posting themselves there before the retreating enemy arrivec while at the same time the pursuing cavalry pressed them i the rear, the Saracens were lost. Wedged in the narrow roac with their line of march mixed with countless waggons an- sumpter-beasts laden with spoil, they were quite helples They could be shot down by the archers, and would not stan for a moment when they saw their horses, "the Pharii whor they esteem above all other things," struck by arrows from distance; for the Saracen, when not actually engaged in clos combat, would do anything to save his horse from harm.^^

The most noted instance of a victory of this kind was the won in 963 by Leo Phocas, brother of Nicephorus, over tt hosts of Seif-ed-dauleh ben Hamdan, Emir of Aleppo. Thoug he had with him only the forces of his own theme of Charsian? Leo captured or slew the whole of the Saracen army, recovere much plunder, liberated many thousands of Christian prisoner and bore off in triumph the standard and the silver carr equipment of the emir. Mohammedan historians confess tl greatness of the disaster, though they reduce the number their slain to three or four thousand.^ Seif-ed-dauleh himse escaped with three hundred men only, by climbing an almo impracticable precipice. His ruin is ascribed by Abulfeda the fact that he had dared to return to Cilicia by the same pa; that of Maghar-Alcohl, by which he had entered into the Romi territory. It is interesting to find the very methods which L< describes in 900 used sixty years after with perfect success- sufficient proof that the emperor was not altogether undeservii of his name of " the Wise."

Many other points of interest may be gathered from t chapters of Leo and of Nicephorus Phocas. Cold and rail weather, we learn, was distasteful to the Oriental invader : times when it prevailed he did not display his ordinary firmnt and daring, and could be attacked with great advantage. Mu might also be done to check his progress by delivering a vigoro : counter-attack into Cilicia or Northern Syria, the moment th the Saracen was reported to have passed north ?hto Cappado(

1 Leo, xviii. § 135. ^ Nic. Phoc. Preface, § 15.

^Jemaleddin, p. 134; Abulfeda, ii. 469.

^o] SUCCESSFUL ADVANCE AGAINST THE SARACENS 213

- Charsiana. On hearing of such a retaliatory expedition, the [oslems would often return home to defend their own borders.^ his destructive practice was very frequently adopted, and the ght of two enemies each ravaging the other's territory with- At attempting to defend his own was only too familiar to le inhabitants of the borderlands of Christianity and Islam, icursions by sea supplemented the forays by land. " When le Saracens of Cilicia have gone off by the passes, to harry the :)unty north of Taurus," says Leo, "the commander of the ibyrrhaeot theme should immediately go on shipboard with all v'ailable forces, and ravage their coast. If, on the other hand, le Cilicians have sailed off to attempt the shore districts of the nperial provinces, the clissurarchs of Taurus can lay waste the irritories of Tarsus and Adana without danger."

All through the tenth century the Saracens were growing less ad less formidable foes, owing to the gradual dropping off of le outlying provinces of the empire of the Abbassides, who by le end of the period were masters of little more than the Euphrates valley, and were dominated even in their own palace y their Turkish guards. The Byzantine realm, on the other and, under the steady and careful ministers who served le Macedonian dynasty, was at its very strongest. For a undred and fifty years after the accession of Basil I., the empire 'as always advancing eastward, and new themes were continu- ity being formed from the reconquered territory. There is a reat difference of tone between the language which Leo, writing bout 900, and the author of the UapudpofMTj, writing about 980, se concerning the Saracen enemy. To the former they are till the most formidable foes of the empire ; the latter opens is preface with the words : " To write a treatise on frontier perations may seem at the present day no longer very ecessary, at least for the East, since Christ, the one true God, as in our day broken and blunted the power of the sons of shmael, and cut short their raiding. . . . But I write neverthe- iss, thinking that my experience may be useful, because I was n eye-witness of the commencement of our successes and of lie application of the principles which led to them. Through he use of these principles I have seen small armies accomplish

^ The author of the HapaSpofxifi speaks of this device, quoting it as a good piece f counsel given by Leo, and gives as example an occasion when the siege of Misthea as raised by means of a retaliatory raid against Adana (xx.).

214 THE ART OF WAR IN THE MIDDLE AGES [98

great feats. What once, when the Saracens of the border wer strong, seemed impossible to a whole Roman army, has been c late carried out by a single good general with the forces of single theme. By the use of these principles I have seen a force though too small to face the enemy in open fight, yet defea his purpose, and preserve our borders unravaged. The syster was first, as far as I know, utilised in modern times by Barda Caesar,^ who foiled the Saracens of the Tarsiot border not one but ten thousand times, and erected countless trophies over then Constantine Melei'nos, strategos for many years in Cappadoci? won magnificent successes by using these principles.^ Bu Nicephorus Phocas, that prince of immortal memory, accorr plished by their use feats that defy description and enumeratioi He it was who bade me write down the system, for the use c future generations. And this I do with the more readines because it can be applied not only to the eastern border, but t the western, as I (who have served most of my time on th latter) can state from my own experience."

By the end of the tenth century the Byzantines were habiti ally taking the offensive against the Saracens, and, instead c seeing Cappadocia or Phrygia ravaged, were themselves pushin their incursions almost to the gates of Damascus and Bagda( The conquest of Cilicia by Nicephorus Phocas was but the fin of a series of advances which promised ultimately to restore t the empire the frontier that it had held in the days of Justiniai Antioch was conquered, the Emirs of Aleppo and Tripoli wer made tributary, and kept in that position for sixty years. Eve after the death of Basil II., the greatest soldier of the Easter realm, the Imperial borders continued to advance eastward Edessa was captured in 1032, and a new theme was establishe in Mesopotamia. The whole of Armenia was annexed in 104 and Constantine IX. might have boasted that his provinces ej tended farther to the East than those of any of his predecessoi since Trajan.

^ This, I suppose, was the unfortunate Bardas Caesar who was murdered by h nephew Michael iii. in 866. There had been some great victories in his da notably that over Omar (see p. 210), and he is said to have devoted much attentic to military affairs, but it is surprising to find him given such a marked place by tl author of the Uapadpofx.-r}. Did his exploits inspire the sections on border warfare Leo's Tactica'i

^ There were several good generals of this name. I suppose this to be the 01 who ruled Cappadocia about 960 a.d.

37 1] THE COMING OF THE SELJOUKS 215

But at the moment when the East - Roman boundaries ached their largest extent, the new foe was at hand who was

► deal the fatal blow from which the empire was never wholly

> recover. The disastrous day of Manzikert (1071) is really le turning-point in the history of the great East - Roman :alm.

CHAPTER IV

DECLINE OF THE BYZANTINE ARMY — IO71-1204

THOUGH the internal condition and administration of tt empire had been steadily deteriorating since the death ( Basil II. (1024), it cannot be said that its army showed any declir till the very day of Manzikert. Indeed, as we have already see the Imperial frontier continued to advance down to the momei of that disaster, and the first advance of the Seljouks was mt without wavering. For some years the Turks had no high( aim than to win booty by sudden inroads into Asia Minor. C their raiding bands some were turned back, and some cut 1 pieces ; but their numbers were so great that the line of defenc could not be held everywhere, and on different occasions Caesare Iconium, and Chonae fell into their hands. No lodgment, hov ever, was made in the empire, and the fact that the decisi\ battle was fought so far east as Manzikert, in farther Armeni hard by the Lake of Van, shows that the hold of the governmei on its frontier provinces was not yet shaken.

The Seljouks of Alp Arslan were in tactics just like the Turl whom Leo the Wise had described a century and a half befor They only differed from the Patzinaks and other Western trib( of the same blood by their enormously superior numbers. N such formidable invasion had befallen the empire since the da} of Leo the I saurian, and to meet it there sat on the Byzantir throne a gallant hot-headed soldier with a doubtful title an many secret enemies. Romanus Diogenes had been lately raise to the purple by his marriage with Eudocia, the widow ( Constantine XL, and reigned as colleague and guardian of h( young son Michael. He knew that he was envied and hate by many of his equals, who had aspired to fill the same place hence he was nervously anxious to justify his elevation b military success, as his great predecessors, Nicephorus Phocr

07 1] BATTLE OF MANZIKERT 217

nd John Zimisces, had done. He was in the field for almost he whole of the three uneasy years for which he reigned (1068- ' I ) ; and if energy and ceaseless movement could have driven off he Seljouks, he must have been successful. But he was a bad ;eneral, easily distracted from his aims, and too quick and rash n all his actions.

In the spring of 107 1 Romanus collected a very large army, it least sixty thousand strong, and betook himself to the extreme eastern corner of his dominions, with the intention of meeting :he Turks at the very frontier, and recovering the fortresses of ^khlat and Manzikert, which had fallen into their hands. He' lad retaken the latter place, and the former was being besieged 3y a detached division of his army, when the main host of the Seljouks came upon the scene. It was a great horde of horse- irchers, more than a hundred thousand strong, and full of confid- ence in its victorious Sultan. The tactics which Romanus should have employed were those laid down in Leo's manual — to beware of ambushes and surprises, never to fight with uncovered flanks or rear, to use infantry as much as possible, and never to allow the army to get separated or broken up. Romanus violated all these precepts. His first brush with the enemy was a disaster on a small scale, caused by pure heedlessness. When a small body of Turkish cavalry came forward to reconnoitre the Imperial camp, it was furiously charged by a rash officer named Basilakes, who commanded the theme of Theodosiopolis : he drove it before him till he lost sight of his master, and fell into an ambush, where he and all his men were killed or captured. A division which Romanus sent to support them found nothing but the bodies of the slain.

With this warning before him, the emperor should have acted with all caution : perhaps, indeed, he intended to do so till his rashness ran away with him. He drew up his host in front of his camp with great care. The right wing was composed of the cavalry from the easternmost themes — Cappadocia, Armeniacon, Charsiana, and the rest, under Alyattes, strategos of the Cap- padocian theme. The left wing, under Nicephorus Bryennius, was formed of the drafts of the European themes. In the centre was the emperor, with his guards and the regiments of the metropolitan provinces. A very strong rear line, composed of the mercenary cavalry (which included a regiment of Germans and also some Normans from Italy) and the levies of the nobles of

2i8 THE ART OF WAR IN THE MIDDLE AGES [1071

the eastern frontier,^ was placed under Andronicus Ducas, a kinsman of the late Emperor Constantine. He was unfortunately, though a good officer, a secret enemy of Romanus.

Alp Arslan had been so moved by the news of the size and splendour of the army which was moving against him, that on the morning after the skirmish in which Basilakes had been captured, he sent an embassy offering peace on the terms of uti possidetis. He would withdraw and undertake to make no further invasions of the empire. Romanus was probably right in refusing to negotiate, for Turkish promises could not be trusted. He told the ambassadors that the first condition of peace must be that the Sultan should evacuate his camp, retire, and allow it to be occupied by the Imperial forces. Alp Arslan would not consent to sacrifice his prestige, and the armies were soon in collision. The Turks, after their usual manner, made no attempt to close, or to deliver a general attack on the Imperial host. Large bodies of horse-archers hovered about and plied their bows against various points of the line. The Byzantine cavalry made such reply as they could, but, their skirmishers being out- numbered, suffered severely in the interchange of arrows, and many horses were disabled. Both the emperor and his troops grew angry at the protraction of this long random fight, and in the afternoon Romanus gave orders for the whole line to advance. He was, however, sufficiently master of himself to see that the distances were observed, and that the reserve division kept its place accurately, so as to prevent any attack from the rear. For some hours the host drove the Turks before them, inflicting, how- ever, little loss, as the enemy refused to make a stand anywhere they even passed over the site of the Sultan's camp, which had been evacuated and emptied of all its contents some hours before As the dusk came on, Romanus halted: his men were tired anc thirsty, and he had left his camp insufficiently garrisoned, so thai he was anxious to return to it, lest it might be surprised in hi.' absence. Accordingly, he gave orders to face about and retire Then began the disasters of the day : the order to retreat wa.' not executed with the same precision in all the divisions of the host ; those on the flanks received it late, did not understanc its cause, and, when they wheeled about, did not keep theii dressing with the centre. Gaps began to appear between severa

^ These are, I suppose, the eraipoL and rb apxovTCKov of which Bryennius speak in his account of the battle.

oyi] BATTLE OF MANZIKERT 219

»f the corps. The Turks, according to their custom, commenced

o close in again when the army commenced its retreat. They

nolested the retiring columns so much that Romanus at last

;ave orders to face about again and beat them off. The whole

ront line carried out this order, but the reserve under Andronicus

lid not : out of deliberate malice, as most of the authorities allege,

his treacherous commander refused to halt, and marched back

apidly to the camp, observing that the day was lost, and the

;mperor should fight out his own battle. To lose the rear line,

md to be left without any protection against circling move-

nents on the flanks, was fatal. The Turks began to steal round

he wings and to molest the fighting line from behind : they

)articularly concentrated attention on the right wing, which,

rying to face both ways, fell into disorder in the twilight, and

it last broke up and fled. The victors at once fell on the flank

md rear of the centre, where the emperor made a gallant defence,

:harged repeatedly both to flank and rear, and held his own.

3ut the European troops in the left wing had got divided from

he centre, and, after fighting a separate battle of their own, gave

vay, and were driven off the field. Thus left isolated, Romanus

encouraged his men to stand their ground, and held out till

lark, when the Turks broke into his column and made a dread-

ul slaughter. The emperor's own horse was killed beneath him ;

le was wounded and taken prisoner, with many of his chief

)flicers : the whole centre was cut to pieces, and not a man of it

escaped.

Thus Romanus Diogenes, like Crassusof old, paid the penalty 'or attacking a swarm of horse-archers in a open rolling country, .vhere he had cover neither for his flanks nor for his rear. It is ^nly fair to say that he would have in all probability brought lome his army without any overwhelming loss but for the abomin- able misconduct of Andronicus Ducas. When encompassed by 'he Turks on the open plain, he was not nearly so helpless as the Romans had been at Carrhae : his force, being all cavalry, was capable of fairly rapid movement, and a sufficiently large propor- tion of the men were armed with the bow to enable him to make some reply to the Turkish arrows. Still, by his inconsiderate pursuit of the enemy he had placed himself in a radically false position : it is useless for heavy troops to pursue swarms of light horse, unless they are able to drive them against some obstacle — a river or a defile, which prevents farther flight. In this case the

220 THE ART OF WAR IN THE MIDDLE AGES [1071

Turks could retire ad infinitum^ while the Byzantines, continually moving farther from their camp and their stores, were at last brought to a standstill by mere fatigue. Their retreat was bound to be dangerous ; that it was disastrous was the fault of Ducas, not of his master. We shall see in our chapter on the Crusades that the details of Manzikert show a striking similarity to those of several later battles in which the chivalry of the West had to face the same Turkish tactics.

The empire had suffered other defeats as bloody as that of Manzikert, but none had such disastrous results. The captivity of Romanus Diogenes threw the nominal control of the realm into the hands of his ward, Michael Ducas, who, though he was only just reaching manhood, displayed the character of a pedant and a miser. His reign of seven years was one chaotic series of civil wars : half a dozen generals in corners of the empire assumed the purple ; and Romanus, after his delivery from prison, tried to reclaim his crown. Meanwhile, the Seljouks flooded the plateau of Asia Minor, almost unopposed by the remnants of the Imperial army, who were wholly taken up in the civil strife. No man of commanding talents arose to stem the tide, and ere long the horse-bowmen of Malekshah, the son of Alp Arslan, were seen by the ^gean and even by the Propontis. The Turkish invasion was a scourge far heavier than that of the Saracens. While the latter, when bent on permanent conquest, offered the tribute a« alternative to the " Koran or the sword," the Seljouks were mere savages who slew for the pleasure of slaying. They were bar- barous nomads, who had no use for towns or vineyards or arable land. They preferred a desert in which they could wander at large with their flocks and herds. Never, probably, even in the thick of the Teutonic invasions of the fifth century, was so much harm done in ten short years as in Asia Minor during the period 107 1 -108 1. By the end of the latter year the flourishing themes which had been for so long the core of the East-Roman realm had been reduced to mere wastes. Thirty years after Manzikert when the armies of the Crusaders marched from Nicsea tc Tarsus, right across the ancient heart of the empire, they nearly perished of starvation in a land of briars and ruins.

It seemed for a time quite probable that the fall of Constan- tinople might put the crown to the misfortunes of the empire, foi the would-be Caesars who were contending for the throne lefl the Seljouks alone. Both Michael Vll. and his foe, the usurpei

1079] DISAPPEARANCE OF THE ARMY OF THE EAST 221

Xicephorus Botaniates, actually bought the aid of Turkish luxiliaries by formally surrendering whole provinces. In 1080 ;he barbarians even seized Nicasa, thus obtaining a footing on the Propontis, and almost within sight of the gates of the capital.

In this chaos the old Byzantine army practically disappeared. The regiments which had fallen at Manzikert might in time [lave been replaced, had the Asiatic themes still remained in the hands of the empire. But within ten years after the fall of Romanus IV. those provinces had become desolate wastes : the jreat recruiting-ground of the Imperial army had been destroyed, and the damage done was irreparable. So wholly had the army of the East been cut off, that in 1078 Michael Ducas, by collecting all the scattered and disbanded survivors of the old corps from the Asiatic side of the Bosphorus, and supplementing them with recruits, only obtained a division of ten thousand men, the so- called " Immortals," with whom the future emperor, Alexius Comnenus, made his first great campaign.^ Yet, only ten years before, the Asiatic provinces had shown twenty-one themes, or a standing army of at least a hundred and twenty thousand men.

The European themes were, no doubt, not so thoroughly dis- organised ; we find some of their old corps surviving into the time of the Comneni. But even here great havoc was made by the ten years of endemic civil war, from 1071-1081, and by the revolts of the Servians and Bulgarians.

After Manzikert, indeed, we find foreign mercenaries always forming both a larger and a more important part of the Imperial host than in the flourishing days of the Macedonian dynasty. Franks, Lombards, Russians, Patzinaks, Turks, were enlisted in permanent corps, or hired from their princes as temporary auxiliaries. It is no longer the old Byzantine army which we find serving under Alexius Comnenus and his successors, but a mass of barbarian adventurers, such as the army of Justinian had been five hundred years before. The old tactics, however, still survived : the generals were the same if the troops were changed. A concrete example may be quoted to show the old methods still prevailing.

In A.D. 1079 Nicephorus Botaniates, who sat on a most

^ '0 ^aaiXevs Mtxa^jX i8(jt}v to tt]S '"Eipas crpdrevfia dirav T)8ri iKkekonrbs, W5 virox^ipcov tQv TovpKwv yevdi-ievov, ^(ppdvTLcre tDs otou re crTpdrev/jia KaracrTTJaai vedXcKTOv, Kai 5?^ Ttvas Tuu €K TTJs 'A(Tlas BiaaTap4vTU}v Kai erl pnadi^ SovXevSvruv crvW^yuv, dcjpaKds re iv^dve Kai dvpeovi ididoVy etc. etc. (Nic. Bry. iv. § 4).

222 THE ART OF WAR IN THE MIDDLE AGES [107,

uneasy throne at Constantinople, sent against the rebel Nicephoru Bryennius his general Alexius Comnenus, whom he had lateh made " Domestic of the Scholae," i.e. commander of the Imperia Guard. Nearly all the European provinces had fallen away t( Bryennius, and as Asia had been overrun by the Turks as far a Nicaea and the Propontis, the ruler of Constantinople was no able to put into the field so large an army as the insurgents.

The armieSjboth wholly composed of cavalry, met at Calavrytc hard by the river Halmyrus. Comnenus, as the weaker of the twc waited to be attacked, and chose a position with a comparativel; narrow front, apparently where a road crossed the slope of a hill on the left of his position were some hollows, screened from th eyes of those approaching from the plain by a rise in the grounc Comnenus drew up his main body, composed of the " Immortals whom Michael Ducas had organised, and a body of Frankis! mercenaries, across the road. He hid his left wing in the hollow; ordering them to keep wholly out of sight till the enemy shouL have passed them, and then to charge in upon Bryennius' righ flank. His right wing, composed of garrison troops strengthenc' by a considerable force of Turkish mercenaries — all horse-archer — was placed under the command of Catacalon ; it was i military terminology " refused," and ordered to devote its who) attention to preventing the enemy from turning the flank of th main body. Thus, to use the technical terms of Leo's Tactia Comnenus had Wihf>ui or b'rrspzspdffTai on his left wing, an crXay/o^oAaxej on his right.

Bryennius, on the other hand, came on with his host divide into three parallel columns. The right wing, five thousan strong, was led by his brother John, and contained the cavalr of the theme of Thessaly and the veteran remnants of the ol army of Italy, which had long served under John Maniake against the Normans and Saracens. The left wing, unde Tarchaniotes, three thousand strong, was composed of Mace donian and Thracian regiments. The centre, led by the usurpt himself, was also formed from Macedonian and Thracian corp strengthened by a picked body of ap^ovng — local nobles and the followers. But Bryennius intended to strike his chief blow wit a body of Scythian (Patzinak) horse detached from his mai army and moving a quarter of a mile to its left, with orders 1 turn the right of Alexius' line, — serving in fact, as Leo woul have said, as I'Tripxipdera/.

079] BATTLE OF CALAVRYTA 223

When the rebel army came level with the hollows where the mperialist left was concealed, the hidden troops suddenly issued orth and charged John Bryennius in flank, while Comnenus md his main body rode down upon the usurper's own central iivision. Both these attacks failed : John Bryennius wheeled to lis right in time, and beat off the attack of the troops in ambush. N'icephorus Bryennius defeated the squadrons of the Immortals, md drove them off the field, while the Prankish mercenaries vho formed the remainder of Comnenus' centre were wholly nicompassed by the rebels,^ and cut off from the possibility of etreat. Meanwhile, on the extreme right of the Imperialist irmy, the garrison troops under Catacalon had been charged md routed by Bryennius' flanking force of Patzinak horse. The victorious barbarians went off in wild pursuit of the ugitives, and seem to have overlooked the other corps on the [mperialist right, the Turkish auxiliaries, who found themselves eft without an enemy in sight.^ When the Patzinaks returned, ;hey began plundering their own employer's camp, instead of form- ng up to aid him in an engagement as yet by no means ended.

Alexius Comnenus had extricated himself with difficulty "rom the melee in the centre, and retired over the brow of the lill, where he at once halted and began endeavouring to rally lis broken troops. During the combat he had charged into the personal escort of the usurper, and had chanced to come upon :he squires who led the second charger of Bryennius, adorned mth purple housings and a gold frontlet, and carried the two swords of state which were always borne on each side of an emperor. Alexius and those with him had the fortune not only to capture these insignia, but to cut their way out of the tumult without losing them. Displaying the horse and the swords to his routed troopers, Alexius proclaimed that he had slain Bryennius. Encouraged by this fiction, a considerable body formed up around him, and at the same time the Turks from the left wing came up and placed themselves at his disposition.

Without delay Comnenus determined to attempt a second

^ I suppose by the wheeling in of Tarchaniotes' men, who must have outflanked Comnenus' line considerably to the right, as the army of Bryennius was stronger by far than that of the Imperialists.

2 Probably the Patzinaks charged the extreme right corps, and so did not come into contact with the one which lay nearer the Imperialist centre. Or possibly, as one account of the fight might imply, the Turks were only just arriving on the field when Catacalon was routed.

224 THE ART OF WAR IN THE MIDDLE AGES [1079

attack. He placed two bodies of the rallied troopers under cover to right and left, and with part of the Turks and the " Immortals" came down the hill again towards the site of the first engagement. The victorious rebels were in some disorder : many had dismounted to plunder the slain, and with them were mixed their camp-followers, now^ fleeing from the Patzinak marauders, who were beginning to plunder the tents. Bryenniue himself and the centre division were surrounding the Franks o the Imperialist army, who, when they had been cut off, hac dismounted, and offered to surrender. The commanders o these mercenaries were standing on foot before Bryennius anc doing homage to him just as Alexius came down the hill for hi: second charge.

Though much surprised by the return of the enemy to th fight, Bryennius and his men came boldly forward. Alexiu set his Turks to skirmish, and bade them empty their arrow into the disordered rebels before he made any endeavour ti close ; he wished to fight a cautious battle, avoiding any genera charge. As the enemy advanced, he retired before them slowl; till he had reached the point far up the hill where he had left hi ambush. When he saw the flanks of Bryennius exposed to th lateral attack, he halted, faced to the front, and charged. At th same time the concealed troops, dashing out " like a swarm ( wasps," attacked the rebels on both flanks. Already muc disordered, and with hundreds of horses disabled by the Turkis arrows, the squadrons of Bryennius could not face the charg but broke and fled. The rebel chief himself, with a small bod of devoted followers, refused to give ground, fought to the las and was finally dragged from his charger and taken prisoner.^

The battle of Calavryta was fought in the time of tl Byzantine decadence which set in after Manzikert : there we many raw troops in both armies,^ and a large proportion < foreign auxiliaries not drilled or disciplined after the tradition methods of the Imperial army. Nevertheless, the incidents the fight show the main characteristics of the system whii

^ Most of the details of this interesting fight came from Anna Comnena, who h: for a lady, a very fair grasp of things military. No doubt she accurately put down 1 father's account of his doings, and we are really reading Alexius' versions of his fig Deducting the Homeric diction and the far too hairbreadth 'scapes of the narrat they are very favourable specimens of Byzantine military annals.

2 Alexius complained that the majority of the Immortals were recruits x^f's re irp(brjv ^icpovs Tjix/iiuoi. Kai dopara.

ii5o] THE ARMY UNDER THE COMNENI 225

prevailed during the better days of the empire. Both generals endeavour to win by flank attacks, Bryennius by an open one, Comnenus by a sudden sally from an ambush. The horse- bowmen — Turks on one side, Patzinaks on the other — are used to prepare the way for the general charge. The troops have enough discipline to rally around their unbroken reserve and return to the charge within a very short time. Anna Comnena most unfortunately forgets to tell us whether the corps fought, according to the old rule, in a double line, with cursores and defensores properly divided, and with a reserve. Nor does her spouse, Nicephorus Bryennius, whose account tallies almost exactly with hers, give us any more help on this point, though he is careful to compliment his grandfather and namesake, the usurper, on his military reputation.

The numerous contemporary chronicles which describe the reigns of the three able Comneni, Alexius, John, and Manuel (1071-1 180), show us that the old military organisation based on the themes was never again restored. For the future the Imperial army was a very haphazard and heterogeneous body. When the western third of Asia Minor was reconquered by Alexius and John, it was not divided up again into army-corps districts. The Comneni, indeed, were centralisers, and preferred to manage affairs from headquarters rather than to trust their forces to the strategi of the themes. They preferred to raise bodies of troops for general service rather than to localise the corps. A dangerous proportion of the army was for the future composed of foreign mercenaries : the earlier emperors had enlisted Franks, Russians, and other aliens in considerable numbers, but they had never made them the most important part of the host. They had always been outweighed by the regular cavalry of the themes. The Comneni, however, found native troops hard to raise, now that the old Asiatic recruiting- ground was gone, and they had also learned, from their contact with the Normans of Robert Guiscard and with the knights of the first Crusade, a great respect for Western valour. Frankish adventurers were easy to enlist, they were less likely to rebel in favour of pretenders than the native soldiery, and they had proved at Dyrrhachium and many other fields that, man for man, they could ride down the East-Roman troopers. Hence Alexius I. and his descendants enlisted as many Western mercenaries as they could get together. Nor was this all : the 15

226 THE ART OF WAR IN THE MIDDLE AGES [1204

Franks were not suited for light cavalry service, but the Turks Patzinaks, and Cumans excelled in it. To supplement the Western spear the Comneni called in the Eastern bow Thousands of horse-archers hired from the nomad tribes rode in their hosts. The native corps began to take quite a secondary place : ^ they felt it, and resented it. In proportion as they were despised, they grew less confident in themselves, less efficient and less daring.

The Comneni achieved many splendid feats of arms at the head of their mercenary bands. They reconquered half Asi^ Minor from the Seljouks, subdued the Franks of Antioch, anc routed the Magyars beyond the Danube. But they never buil up a real national army. When the strong hand of Manuel wa: removed, and the wretched A^ngeli sat upon the Imperial throm (i 185— 1204), the military machinery of the empire went t( wrack and ruin. The weak and thriftless emperors Isaac II and Alexius in. were neither able to find money to pay thei troops nor to maintain their discipline. A state which relies fo its defence on foreign mercenaries is ruined when it allows then to grow disorderly and inefficient : in times of stress they mutiny instead of fighting. Such was the fate of the empire in 1204 when the Franks were actually breaking into the city, th< defenders struck for higher pay and refused to charge. Th( city fell, and the old Byzantine military organisation passee away.

^ There seems to have been some revival of local native forces during th existence of the empire of Nicsea (1204-61). We hear of militia in Bithynia unde Lascaris and Vatatzes, and their disbandment by Michael Palaeologus is said t have been one of the causes of the successful advance of the Ottoman Turk (Pachy meres, i. 129).

BOOK V

THE CRUSADES IO97-I29I.

227

CHAPTER I

INTRODUCTORY

BY the end of the eleventh century the supremacy of the mailed horseman was firmly established all over Western and Central Europe. In many countries infantry had practically disappeared as a force that counted for anything in the day of battle; in all it had ceased to be the more important arm. Only in nations of the remoter North and East — the Irish, Scandinavians, and Slavs — did it still preserve its ancient importance.

The three enemies who had threatened Christendom in the ninth and tenth centuries had now been beaten off. The Magyars had been pushed back to the line of the Leitha ; they were now converted, and had become members of the common- wealth of Christian Europe. Instead of forming an impassable barrier between Germany and Constantinople, they now offered a free line of communication down the Danube. The Moors had been driven out of Sicily and Sardinia — instead of plaguing Italy with their inroads, they were now busy in defending their own African shore from the raids of the Genoese, Pisans, and Normans. It seemed for a time as if the last-named of these three maritime powers would actually effect a lodgment south of the Mediterranean.^ In Spain, too, the balance had turned definitely in favour of the Christians ; Toledo had fallen in 1085, and with its fall had ended the Moorish domination in the central parts of the Iberian peninsula.

' Lastly, the third and most formidable of the enemies of Christendom had at last begun to slacken in their assaults.

^ The landmarks in the history of the struggle of the ItaHans and the Moors are the expulsion of the latter from Sardinia in 1016 and from Sicily in 1060-91, the raids on Bona and El-Mahadieh in 1064 and 1087. The last Moorish attacks on Italy had only ceased early in the century, Pisa having been sacked in lOil.

230 THE ART OF WAR IN THE MIDDLE AGES [1096

Scandinavia was now converted ; the fiercest of its Viking hordes had found new homes for themselves in England, Normandy, and Ireland, and were no longer seeking whom they might devour. Harold Hardrada's raid of 1066, the last of the great assaults of the Norsemen on their neighbours of the South, had ended in utter defeat and disaster. Sweyn the Dane, a few years later, had failed to make the least impression on the new Norman kingdom of England. The peoples of the North were just about to sink into the comparative obscurity which covers them during the later half of the Middle Ages.

Free from external dangers for the first time since the days of Charles the Great, the European nations were themselves able to think of taking the offensive. The two all-important data which governed their enterprises, were, firstly, that a free land route down the Danube to the borders of the Byzantine Empire had become available since the conversion of the Magyars; secondly, that the Italian states of Venice, Genoa, and Pisa had lately developed war-navies strong enough to guarantee a free passage for expeditions aiming at the Levant Down to the year 1000 the only naval powers in the Medi- terranean had been the Byzantines and the Moslems. The whole face of affairs was changed by the appearance of the Italian republics as a third party in the strife for supremacy at sea.

Even before the preaching of the first Crusade there were signs that Western Christendom was about to bestir itself and take the offensive. The steady advance of the Germans against the Slavs of the East, the attacks of the Genoese and the Sicilian Normans on Africa, were signs of the coming movement But no one could have foreseen the shape which the advance of the European nations was to take. Swayed by a sudden religious impulse, they threw themselves upon the Levant, and began the long struggle for the dominion of the Eastern Mediterranean which was not to end till the fall of Acre ir 1 291.1

With the causes of the Crusades we are not concerned ; nor are their religious, social, or commercial aspects our province. It is with their military side alone that we have to deal — a

^ In a way we might say that the last effects of the Crusades were not over ti the Turks evicted the Venetians from Cyprus (1571), Crete (1669), and the Moret (1715).

096] STATE OF THE LEVANT IN 1096 231

ubject sufficiently vast and varied to fill many volumes if ve had space to descend into detail.

Stated broadly, the problem which was started in 1096, and asted till 1291, was whether feudal Europe, with the military ;ustoms and organisation whose development we have been racing, would prove strong enough to make a permanent odgment in the East, or perchance to make good the whole of he ancient losses which Christendom had suffered at the hands )f the Saracen and Turk from the days of Heraclius to those of rlomanus Diogenes.

The state of the Moslem powers of the Levant in 1096 was )n the whole favourable for the assailants who were about to hrow themselves upon Syria and Asia Minor. It had seemed n the early days of the Turkish invasion, and soon after the atal day of Manzikert, that a single great empire might establish tself in Western Asia under the house of Alp Arslan. But no 5uch result had followed the conquests of the Seljouks. At the noment when the first Crusaders crossed the Bosphorus, the Sultanate of Roum had separated itself from the main body of :he Turkish Empire, petty princes governed Aleppo, Antioch, Damascus, and Mesopotamia, and the Fatimite sovereigns of Egypt were still clinging to the southern parts of Palestine. The political situation was most favourable for the assailants ; 1 few years earlier they would have foutid their task far harder, md the heroic courage which habitually saved them from the :onsequences of their incredible lack of strategy and discipline might have failed to accomplish the conquest of Western Syria. Fighting against jealous and divided enemies, they only just succeeded in conquering Jerusalem and Antioch. Opposed by a single monarch wielding all the resources of Asia Minor and the Levant, they would probably have failed on the threshold, and never have seen the Taurus or the Orontes.

The first crusading armies displayed all the faults of the feudal host in their highest development. They were led by no single chief of a rank sufficient to command the obedience of his com- panions. Neither emperor nor king took the cross, and the crowd of counts and dukes, vassals of different suzerains, had no single , leader to whom obedience was due. If a mediaeval king found it a hard matter to rule his own feudal levies, and could never count on unquestioning obedience from his barons, what sort of discipline or subordination could be expected from a host drawn

232 THE ART OF WAR IN THE MIDDLE AGES [10915

together from all the ends of Europe? It is perhaps more astonishing that the Crusaders accomplished anything, than that they did not accomplish more than their actual achieve- ments. When we realise the nature of the numerous and unruly council of war which directed the army that took Jerusalem, we are only surprised that it did not meet with more disasters and fewer successes. Yet this host was superior to most of the other crusading expeditions in the efificiency of its fighting men, the high character of its leaders, and the care that had been devoted to its organisation. To understand the general aspect of the crusading armies, we must remember all the unfortunate hordes that perished obscurely in the uplands of Asia Minor and left no trace behind.

1

CHAPTER II

THE GRAND STRATEGY OF THE CRUSADES

^ OOKED at from the most general point of view, the I V Crusades, as a whole, may be said to have had two main ejects. The first was to relieve the pressure of the Turks on onstantinople, which had been so dangerous ever since the day :' Manzikert. The second was to conquer the Holy Land and istore its shrines to the custody of Christendom. Both of these urposes were to a certain extent accomplished : the Turkish ontier in Asia Minor was thrust back many scores of miles, and early two centuries elapsed before the Seljouk Sultans were ble to recover their lost ground. Jerusalem was stormed, and )r ninety years remained in the hands of the Franks. But lese ends were achieved in the most wasteful manner, by the lost blundering methods, and at the maximum cost of life and laterial.

One of the main causes of the disasters of all the crusading rmies was a complete lack of geographical knowledge. A ursor}^ glance at the itineraries of the various expeditions hows that the majority of them were chosen on the most inhappy principles, and were bound to lead those who adopted hem into grave peril, if not to utter destruction. We must not )lame the men of the eleventh and twelfth centuries overmuch or their errors : to a great extent they were inevitable in face )f their utter want of geographical information concerning the :ountries of the Levant. Any misdirection was possible in days vhen the whole available stock of information in the West con- sisted of garbled fragments of the ancient Roman geographers, einforced by a certain amount of oral information gathered rom merchants and pilgrims. The Franks could hardly be expected to have any knowledge concerning the Eastern waters : the Byzantines and Saracens had for many centuries divided

234 THE ART OF WAR IN THE MIDDLE AGES [109

the control of the seas beyond Sicily, and the navies of thi Italian republics were but just beginning to trespass on them beyond Constantinople there was no accurate knowledge avail able. The land routes were even more uncertain than those o the sea. The road to the Bosphorus across Hungary anc Servia had only become practicable after the conversion of the Magyars to Christianity (1000-61).^ It had not yet been adoptee as a channel for commerce or a route for pilgrimages. Beyonc Constantinople there was only such information to be obtainec as the Greeks could give. This information was not always honestly purveyed : the Byzantine emperors had purposes o. their own to serve, and often sent the pilgrim hosts on itinerario* which suited themselves rather than those which were be$1 adapted for the purposes which the Franks had in view. Wc need not believe the constant complaints of the Western chroniclers that the Comneni deliberately guided the pilgrims tf destruction, out of jealousy and treachery. But Alexius and Manuel, if not John, were quite capable of serving their own ends by despatching the invaders of Asia Minor on routes which were not the best available. When the Crusaders had gone on their way and beaten off the Turks, the emperor followed behind., somewhat after the manner of the jackal, and seized v/hat he could. The recovery of Lydia and Mysia was tindoubtedly due to the first Crusade, and that of Northern Phrygia and Galatia to the Crusade of i loi.

It is only fair, however, to notice that in the case where de- liberate misdirection by the Greeks seems on the face of things most probable, a deeper inquiry shows that the Crusaders them- selves were to blame. When, in iioi, Raymond of Toulouse and the Lombards marched by the incredibly round-about way of Ancyra-Gangra-Amasia, we might have suspected that Alexius had recommended it to them in order that he might follow in their rear and reoccupy Galatia, as indeed he did. But both Raymond dAgiles on the side of the Franks, and Anna Comnena on that of the Byzantines, assert that the un- happy choice was made by the Crusaders themselves. Anna adds that her father pointed out to them the madness of their attempt to march on Bagdad through the mountains of Armenia, and that they utterly refused to listen to him. It was not his

' King Stephen placed Hungary under the papal supremacy in 1000. But the last pagan rising was not put down till 1061, in the reign of King Bela i.

;oo] THE CRUSADERS' IGNORANCE OF GEOGRAPHY 235

ult if, after recovering Ancyra for the empire, they were starved id harassed in the trackless lands beyond the Halys, so lat only a few thousands of them finally struggled back to inope. It must also be remembered that the Byzantines them- ;lves, though they had all the old Roman road-books, and aborate data for the distances in their own lost " themes " in sia Minor, were not able to give accurate information concern- [g the present condition of the land. The Turks had wrought ) much damage in the last twenty years, burning towns, filling 3 cisterns, and extirpating the population of whole districts, lat the old information concerning the interior had no longer s full value. Routes easy and practicable before 1070 were roken and desolate by 1097. The many perils which the omneni suffered in their own campaigns in inner Asia Minor -e sufficient proof that their information as to the land was no mger reliable.

It would be unfair, therefore, to attribute to wilful misdirection a the part of the Greeks the whole of the misadventures of the rusaders in Asia Minor. The larger part of their troubles were f their own creation, and came from carelessness, presumption, nprovidence, and selfishness. Even when put upon the right md, they were apt to go astray from blind conceit or want of iscipline. This comes out most clearly from the fact that lany crusading expeditions miscarried in Hungary or the lavonic lands just to the south of the Danube, before they ever cached Constantinople. For an elaborate example of a wrong- eaded choice of route, nothing can be more striking than that ^hich Raymond of Toulouse and the Provencals selected in 096. In all South-Eastern Europe there is no district more estitute of roads and more inhospitable than the Illyrian coast- ne. But Raymond chose to march from Istria to Durazzo hrough the stony valleys and pathless hills of Dalmatia, VFontenegro, and Northern Albania, among the wild Croats and ' ^orlachians. It is surprising that he was able to bring half his ollowing to Durazzo : he must have failed altogether had not his xpedition been by far the best equipped and the most carefully )rovisioned of all those which set out for the first Crusade.

For the pilgrimage to Syria there were two great alternatives >pen — the land voyage by Constantinople and the sea voyage lirect to the Levant. The latter was in every way preferable vhen once the sea routes had been surveyed. But at the time

236 THE ART OF WAR IN THE MIDDLE AGES [lo

of the first Crusade it was practically unknown : only t adventurous sailors of Venice, Pisa, and Genoa attempted : the French, Burgundians, Provencals, Germans, and Lombar all preferred the longer road by Constantinople. Even in lat times the landsmen's horror of the water drove a majority oft Crusaders to shun the voyage by sea : all the greater chiefs the second Crusade, and Frederic Barbarossa among the leade of the third, persisted in taking the land route. The first gre expeditions made by sea by any save the Italian powers we those of Philip Augustus and Richard of England in 1190. B from that time onward the advantages of the direct voyage Palestine seem to have been recognised, and all the lat Crusaders preferred it. It was obviously better to arrive fre: and unwearied at Acre or Tyre, rather than to run the thousar risks from Hungarian, Greek, and Turk which threatened c who marched by land.

(A) The Land Routes through Asia Minor.

Since, however, the majority of the early Crusaders we unaware of the superiority of the sea route, and chose to mal Constantinople their basis for the march on Jerusalem, we mu begin by pointing out the strategical aspects of their unde taking. In 1097 almost the whole of Asia Minor was in tl hands of the Seljouks : the Emperor Alexius held little moj than Chalcedon, Nicomedia, the Mysian coast-region, and a fe isolated towns on the Black Sea, like Sinope and Trebizon- The Turks were established on the Sea of Marmora : they ha chosen Nicaea, only twenty-five miles from its shore, as the capital. All the inland plateau of Asia Minor was in the hands, and all the coast-line also, save the few Byzantine sec ports and a patch or two in Cilicia, where Armenian mountair chiefs maintained a precarious independence.

If Alexius Comnenus had been able to direct the crusadin army at his own good pleasure, he would have used it to cleg Bithynia, Lydia, and Phrygia of the Seljouks. If the Frank on the other hand, had been entirely their own masters, the would have marched straight across Asia Minor to the Cilicia gates, and made Antioch their first halting-place. But sine neither party could disregard the wishes of the other, a kind c compromise was concluded : the Crusaders took Nicaea fc Alexius, and then went on their way. The reduction of th

,97j THE ROUTES OF ASIA MINOR 237

urkish capital was of inestimable advantage to the emperor : onstantinople could breathe freely when the Seljouks were dis- dged from the stronghold almost in sight of its walls which ley had been holding for the last fifteen years. With this lexius had to be content for the present Murmuring bitterly lat they had been restrained from plundering and occupying the ty, the Crusaders moved forward into Phrygia. The route :ross Asia Minor which they adopted was, except in some small stalls, the right one. Their successors in later years would have jen wise if they had always adhered to it.

The great peninsula consists of a high central plateau sur- mnded by a number of small coast-plains. For those who wish ) march from west to east there is no good road either along le Euxine shore or the shore of the Sea of Cyprus. On the 3rth the mountains of Paphlagonia and Pontus, on the south lose of Lycia and Isauria, come down to the water's edge at lany points, and cut the practicable route in so many places,, lat it is for all intents and purposes impassable for an army, [o traveller in his senses would attempt to use the coast-roads, 'he inland roads, one of which he must choose, are practically iree in number. Two of them suit those who start from Nicaea,. le third those whose base is Sardis, Miletus, or Ephesus. This ist was not available for the Crusaders of 1097; they had no 'ish to make the long detour along the ^gean, through Mysia nd Lydia, which would have brought them to Sardis or any of le other suitable starting-points for the march to Philadelphia- 'hilomelium-Iconium-Tarsus. There remained for their choice le two other routes, one of which passes north, one south, of the reat Salt Lake of Tatta (the Tuz Gol of the Turks) and the little- nown region of the Axylon ^ which lies around it. The southern DUte is that which they chose : it runs by Dorylaeum, Philo- lelium, Iconium, and Heraclea-Cybistra to the Cilician gates.^ The northern and the longer way leads to the same pass by

^ Mr. Hogarth informs me that the Axylon does not deserve its well-known 2putation for barrenness and desolation.

2 Why Godfrey of Bouillon and the larger half of the crusading host diverged from le obvious route by Heraclea, the Cilician gates, and Tarsus, and only sent Baldwin nd Tancred upon it, it is hard to discover. But they undoubtedly took the extra- rdinary and circuitous road by Nigdeh, Csesarea-Mazaca, Coxon (Cucusus-Goeksun), nd Marash, and suffered severely from privations in the Anti-Taurus while crossing tie Doloman Dagh, between Coxon and Marash. Probably they were attracted by the riendly Armenian population of Eastern Cappadocia.

238 THE ART OF WAR IN THE MIDDLE AGES [k

Tatiaeum, Ancyra, Caesarea-Mazaca, and Tyana. Both w< good Roman roads, and had been kept in order by the Byzantii down to the disastrous year 1071. Now, however, the land '. desolate : bridges were broken, cisterns empty, and for ma stages the whole population had been slain or driven off by t Seljouks. There were no insuperable natural obstacles on eitl road : the two perils to the Crusaders were starvation and 1 chance of being wearied out and brought to a stand from e haustion by the incessant attacks of the Turkish horse-arche More fortunate than any of their successors, the hosts of Godfi and Bohemund opened their march by inflicting a crushing def on the enemy, who was so utterly awed that he held off, and c not venture to harass the marching columns for many wee They moved by Philomelium, Antioch-in-Pisidia, and Iconiu with no let or hindrance. It was not till they reached Herack Cybistra that they again met the Turks in arms, and then they< feated them with ease. Though unmolested by the Seljouks, t Franks suffered dreadfully from want of stores and forage. TJ was unavoidable in a desolate land, for the Western armies of t\ age had no proper conception of commissariat arrangemen they depended mainly on the districts they passed through ; a if the countryside was barren, they were bound to suffer. T trouble was made far worse by the long and useless train non-combatants of both sexes which the crusading host dragg behind it. If they had endured many privations in Christi regions like Hungary and Bulgaria, it was obvious that t passage through Asia Minor was bound to be accompanied terrible loss of life. Nevertheless, the greater part of the he struggled through, some to Marash, others to Tarsus, where th could rest and recruit themselves for a space among the friend Armenian population of Cilicia.

On the whole, therefore, the passage of the first Crusade through Asia Minor may be described as fairly successful wh their difficulties are taken into consideration. Far otherwise w it with their successors of iioi. The miscellaneous bands und Sweyn the Norseman, Archbishop Anselm of Milan, William Poictiers, Stephen of Blois, and Eudes of Burgundy, all fared f worse. Some were wholly destroyed, others were turned ba( with the loss of nine-tenths of their numbers ; of the remainder few stragglers only succeeded in pushing their way to Tarsus ar Antioch. The causes of their disasters are sufficiently obviou.

.loi] THE CRUSADE OF iioi 239

hey showed even less discipline than their predecessors, and hey had formed a wholly erroneous conception of the easiness of heir task from the comparative immunity enjoyed by Godfrey i;nd Bohemund's army during its passage. They were so puffed rp with the idea of their own invincibility that they declared heir intention of " crossing the mountains of Paphlagonia and brcing their way into Khorassan, in order to besiege and take 3agdad." ^ It was in pursuit of this mad design that the majority )f their host started off on the route Ancyra-Gangra- Amasia, vhich, if they had been able to pursue it to the end, could only lave stranded them in the mountains of Armenia. After a errible march among the highlands of Pontus,^ where the foot- oldiery died by thousands of weariness and starvation, and the avalry were almost entirely dismounted, the Lombards and Pro- encals were brought to a standstill by the army of Mohammed bn Danishmend, Emir of Cappadocia, whose light troops hovered .round them day after day, cutting off their stragglers and for- -ging parties. When the Turks thought the Crusaders sufficiently xhausted to fall an easy prey, they offered them battle at a )lace named Maresh (or Marsivan), somewhere in the neighbour- lood of Amasia. The combat was indecisive, but on the follow- iig night Raymond of Toulouse, the man of greatest note in the lost, fled away by stealth and deserted his comrades. Others lasted to follow his example, and, in the disorderly retreat which hen set in, Danishmend cut the whole army to pieces, with the xception of a few thousands who succeeded in distancing tbear ^ursuers and finding shelter in the Greek fortress of Sinope.

Meanwhile, the smaller division of this band of Crusaders, /ho had refused to take the unwise route along the northern dge of the plateau of Asia Minor, had been reinforced by Villiam Count of Nevers and a large band of French pilgrims. They then marched fifteen thousand strong^ by the long but not (rational line of Ancyra-Iconium-Heraclea. All the way rom Iconium to Heraclea they were encompassed by the hordes •f Danishmend and Kilidj-Arslan, fresh from their victory over he Lombards at Maresh. Harassed incessantly, day and night,

^ Albert of Aix, viii. p. 7. Cf. the identical statement in Anna Comnena, 00k xi. § 8.

'■^ We get from Anna only the fact that they had crossed the Halys ; the Frankish iironiclers thought they were still in " Flagania," i.e. Paphlagonia.

^ Albert of Aix, viii. p. 29.

240 THE ART OF WAR IN THE MIDDLE AGES [no

by the enemy, and suffering horribly from thirst, they wer reduced to the most pitiable condition when they reached Heracle and had the passes of the Taurus in sight. Then the Turk.^ fearing that their prey was about to escape them, closed in an( offered battle. In a long straggling fight between the city am the foot of the Taurus the Christian army was gradually brokei up and shot down in detail. Seven hundred knights, who at las abandoned their unhappy foot-soldiery ^ and took to the hill.^ got off in safety over one of the minor passes of the Taurus, an( reached Germanicopolis in Cilicia, where they took shelter witl the Byzantine garrison. William of Nevers himself finally reache( the same spot with only six companions. The rest of the fifteei thousand Franks had been slain ; the Parthian tactics of tb Turks had not been frustrated by any such happy chance as tha which saved Bohemund and Robert of Normandy at Dorylaeum. A very similar fate befell a large body of Aquitaniai Crusaders, led by their duke, William of Poictiers, who had startec shortly after the departure of the Count of Nevers from Constanti nople. This host, a much larger one than either of those whicl preceded it, followed the same route as Godfrey and Bohemunc had taken four years before. They had little trouble from tht Turks till they reached Iconium, and were successful in taking and pillaging the towns of Philomelium and Salabria.^ But a Iconium their provisions gave out, and they learned of th( destruction of the army of the Count of Nevers. Nevertheless they resolved to press forward, and soon found themselves bese by Kilidj-Arslan and Danishmend. Their immunity from attacl hitherto had only been secured by the fact that the division o Nevers was eight days ahead of them, and had attracted all the at tention of the Seljouks. The fifty-five miles between Iconium anc Heraclea proved as fatal to the Aquitanians as it had been tc their predecessors. The want of water was their ruin,* and wher they approached the river near Heraclea they broke their ordei and pushed forward without any thought save that of slaking their thirst. Some were across the stream, some on its banks some still straggling up from the rear, when the Turks closed in

^ Albert of Aix, viii. 30.

2 See the account of this battle on pp. 271-274.

^ This place, not far from the great Tuz Gol lake, must have been taken by an expedition sent out from Iconium. as it does not lie on the itinerary Nicaea-Iconium.

^ Robert the Monk, book iii., tells us how Godfrey of Bouillon avoided this danger by taking water with him.

iioi] DISASTERS IN ASIA MINOR 241

from all sides and began pouring in their arrows. The Crusaders were too scattered to form a line of battle or oppose any regular resistance. After a certain amount of fighting, those who were not utterly surrounded, or who could cut their way through the enemy, turned their faces towards the Taurus, and fled as best they might. Most of the leaders and a certain number of the mounted men were able to reach the hills, and straggled into Tarsus in small parties. The wretched infantry, as was always the case in these unhappy battles of i lOi, were wholly destroyed.

When the wrecks of the hosts of the Lombards, the Count of Nevers, and William of Poictiers, had finally gathered themselves together at Antioch in the spring of 1102, they only amounted to ten thousand men. This small force marched along the Syrian coast and took Tortosa. No other profit came to Christendom from the waste of three armies, which are said to have amounted at their setting forth to more than two hundred thousand men. Their failure, as it is easy to see, came from three causes: in the case of the Lombards from an impossible itinerary ; in that of the Counts of Nevers and Poictiers from their absolute ignorance of Turkish methods of warfare and their insufficient supply of provisions and water. The route taken by the two counts was the best available, and no blame can be laid upon the chiefs for adopting it. But they were almost doomed to failure from the first by the number of useless mouths which they took with them. A heavy train and a multitude of non- combatants made the army slow, when speed was necessary to prevent the food running out and to cross the many waterless ■ tracts. Even, however, if the provisions had held out, and the irmies had been in fair fighting trim, it is doubtful whether they A^ould have succeeded in discomfiting the Seljouks. None of the leaders had the least notion of the proper method of resisting the Turkish tactics. They had no idea of using infantry and :avalry in combination, and wished to do all the work with their mounted men alone. Hence they were bound to fail : only 1 steady infantry largely armed with missile weapons could have saved them, and such a force they did not possess.

We have still to consider three more great expeditions across Asia Minor — those of Louis of France and the Emperor Conrad in 1 148-49, and that of Frederic Barbarossa in 1 190.

Between the opening of the twelfth century and the second Crusade the political geography of Asia Minor had been pro- 16

242 THE ART OF WAR IN THE MIDDLE AGES [1148

foiindly modified by the conquests of the Comneni. Profiting by the blows which the Crusaders had dealt the Seljouks, Alexius and John II. had thrust forward their frontier far inland, and reoccupied the western third of Asia Minor. Their line of posts ran far into Phrygia, passing by Dorylaeum, Philadelphia, and Laodicea. They had also recovered the whole southern coast oi the peninsula, as far as Cilicia. The Sultans of Roum, thus pressed back into the interior, had made Iconium their capital instead of the lost Nicaea. It was just possible to march frorr Constantinople to Tarsus without leaving Christian soil, though to use such a route entailed an intolerably long itinerary. A chronicler of the second Crusade thus describes the situation showing a geographical knowledge very unusual in his class : - " From the Bosphorus [or the Arm of St. George, as it was ther called] there are three roads to Antioch, unequal in length and dis- similar in their merit. The left-hand road is the shortest : if there were no obstacles in the way, it would take no more than three weeks. After twelve marches it passes by Iconium, the Sultan'.' residence, and five days after that it enters Cilicia, a Christiar land. A strong army, fortified by the faith and confident in iti numbers, might despise its obstacles ; but in winter the snowj which cover the mountains are very terrible." This is the ok route of the first Crusaders by Dorylaeum, Iconium, Heraclea, anc the Cilician gates. " Secondly, there is the road most to the right, which is better in some ways, as supplies are to be hac all along it. But those who use it are delayed by two things — the long gulfs cutting up into the coast-line, and the innumerable rivers and torrents to be crossed, all dangerous in winter, and a: bad as the Turks and the snows on the first route." By this roac Odo means the long, circuitous passage by Pergamus to Ephesus and thence along the Carian, Lycian, Pamphylian, and Isauriai coasts to Seleucia. " The middle road," continues our chronicler " has less advantages and also less drawbacks than either of the other two. It is longer and safer than the first, and shorter bu poorer and less safe than the second." The middle route o Odo is the line by Pergamus, Philadelphia, Laodicea, Cibyra Attalia, and thence by the Cilician coast, to which Louis VII and the French Crusaders committed themselves in the winte of 1 148-49. The Emperor Conrad and the Germans took the " left-hand road," i.e. the short and dangerous line through the ^ Odo of Deuil, book v.

1 148] DEFEAT OF THE EMPEROR CONRAD 243

midst of the Turkish territory, which passes by the gates of Iconium.

The fates of the two expeditions were not wholly dissimilar, though the Germans fared much worse than the French. Both failed more by their own mistakes than by the difficulties which lay in their way. Conrad started from Nicaea, with guides lent him by the Emperor Manuel Comnenus. He only took with him supplies for eight days, a wholly inadequate provision when we reflect that he had much more than two hundred miles to cover, and that he was forced to accommodate his pace to that of his baggage train. The Turks allowed him to advance into the heart of Phrygia without resistance ; but when he was somewhere near Philomelium, and was still some seventy or eighty miles from Iconium, his food-stores were completely exhausted. His army was involved in the spurs of the Sultan Dagh, which cut across the road at this point : seeing themselves starving and in a desolate and difficult country, the Germans accused their guides of treachery. When threatened, the Greeks absconded, and apparently fled to the Turkish Sultan. Hearing of the bad state of Conrad's army, Masoud at once determined to close in and attack them. Then began one of those long running fights such as had ruined the pilgrim hosts of iioi a stage or two farther to the east. The Germans, in spite of all the warnings of previous Crusades, had no provision of crossbowmen ^ to keep off the Turks, while their cavalry had so suffered for want of forage that those knights who still bestrode horses could hardly spur them to a trot. Conrad determined to turn back, and was pursued for many scores of miles by the Seljouks, who regularly cut off the devoted rearguards which he detached to cover his retreat, and gleaned thousands of starving stragglers every day. At last the harassed Germans reached Nicaea, and could once more obtain provisions ; but their past sufferings had been so great that thirty thousand men are said to have died of dysentery, cold, and exhaustion after reaching the shores of the Propontis.^ As a military machine the army was ruined ; the greater part of the survivors drifted back to Germany, and the emperor took only a few thousand men by sea to Palestine out of the seventy thousand who had set out with him.

Louis of France, seeing that the greater part of Conrad's

^ This is especially remarked upon by Odo of Deuil, book v. p. 343. 2 Odo of Deuil, book v, p. 347.

244 THE ART OF WAR IN THE MIDDLE AGES [1149

disasters had come from want of food and forage, was confirmed in his design of keeping as far as possible within the borders of the Byzantine Empire, where supplies would be procurable. Accordingly, he marched through Mysia and Lydia by Prusias (Broussa), Pergamus, Smyrna, and Ephesus. He kept his Christmas feast in the valley of the Cayster, a few miles from Ephesus, and then proceeded to move up the Maeander towards Laodicea. His cautious route had hitherto kept his army free from all trouble, and, as he was still within Byzantine territory he reckoned on a quiet march. But the Turks, hearing of his advance, had resolved to cross the border and attack him. Neat Antioch-on-Maeander they opposed the advance of the French as they were fording the river, and at the same time attacked them in flank and rear. But Louis' troops were fresh and ir good order, and a vigorous charge of the French knights swept the Seljouks away ; they gave no trouble for some days, so thai the army arrived safely at Laodicea, the border town of tht Byzantine Empire, Here their troubles began. Louis had pro posed to fill up his stores at Laodicea before beginning the difficult march through the mountains of Pisidia to Attalia This region, full of small towns in the old Roman days, bac been harried bare by the Seljouks. There was hardly ar inhabited village on the route, which turned out to be no les.' than fifteen days in length, though the French had calculatec on taking a much shorter time to traverse it. But the governo of Laodicea refused to sell any provisions to the Crusaders— from treachery, according to the French chroniclers, but mon probably because he dared not exhaust his stores when th( Turks were known to be in the immediate neighbourhood.

It was accordingly with a very insufficient stock of food tha the French marched past Laodicea and started on their way b^ the pass between the Baba Dagh and the Khonas Dagh whicl leads up into the highlands. On the second day after leavinj Laodicea their disasters began. The army was marching with ; proper advance guard and rearguard, the baggage and non-com batants in the centre. The whole occupied many miles of route At the difficult pass of Kazik-Bel (three thousand eight hundret feet above the sea level), the van, under Geoffrey de Rancogne an( Amadeus Count of Maurienne, the king's uncle, was ordered t< seize and hold the exits of the defile till the whole army ha( passed. But, preferring to spend the day comfortably in the plaii

1 149] LOUIS VII. IN ASIA MINOR 245

of Themisonium (Kara - Eyuk - Bazar), the commanders of the advance guard descended from the heights and pushed on several miles to encamp in the valley. The Turks had been hiding near the mouth of the defile, and, when Geoffrey and Amadeus had passed on, burst out upon the unprotected train of beasts of burden and unarmed pilgrims who were struggling through the pass. Shooting down from the more elevated points on the helpless crowd, they wrought great slaughter, and pre- cipitated many into the ravine which winds at the bottom of the pass. The king hurried up from the rear with a small body of his retainers, but, since he had not his crossbowmen with him,i j^g could make no reply to the arrow-shower from above. Presently the Turks came down upon the confused mass and attacked them at close quarters. Louis himself had to fight for some time alone, with his back against a rock, and owed his life to his swordsmanship. At last the tardy return of the advance guard took off some of the pressure, and when night fell the Turks drew off, and the whole of the French armament struggled down into the plain. They had lost most of their stores, thousands of horses, a great part of the unfortunate non-combatant pilgrims, and not a few knights of note.

It was generally agreed that the blame of the disaster rested upon the careless commanders of the van, and Geoffrey of Rancogne would have been hung but for the fact that Count Amadeus, who shared his responsibility, was the king's uncle. When the host was reassembled, Louis, with a prudence and self-restraint seldom shown by the crusading chiefs, declared that he would hand over the future conduct of the march to experienced hands. The Grand Master of the Templars, Everard des Barres, accompanied the host, and many veteran knights of the Order with him. The king consigned to them the regulation of the army, and a certain Templar named Gilbert marshalled it for the rest of the way to Attalia. They moved for the remaining twelve days of the march with a vanguard of mounted men, and rearguard of bowmen, strengthened by all the knights who had lost their horses. So successful was the new commander that four attacks of the Turks were beaten off with ease and considerable slaughter of the infidels. Even at the difficult passage of the two branches of the Indus (near ^Cibyra) the army suffered no harm, for Gilbert had the Turks

^ Odo of Deuil, book vi. p. 363.

246 THE ART OF WAR IN THE MIDDLE AGES [n^

driven away from the strong positions flanking the ford before he would allow the army to cross.

But if the enemy did little harm with his arrows, the want of forage for the horses, and the gradual exhaustion of the in- sufficient stores which remained for the men, ruined the efficiency of the army. For the last week of their march the French were living almost entirely on horseflesh, and a few days more would have reduced them to absolute starvation. On arriving at Attalia, the king held a council of war and abandoned his intention of proceeding any farther by land. It was, as men said, forty days' march to Antioch if they followed the Cilician shore, and all through difficult roads like those they had already passed over. On the other hand, it was but three days by sea to Syria if the wind was fair. So, hiring ships from the Greeks, the king and his knights and nobles passed over to Antioch. The winds, as it chanced, were contrary, and the voyage took three weeks instead of three days, but all reached their goal in safety. It was otherwise with the unhappy infantry; there had not been 'ships enough to take more than a small proportion of them, and they remained behind for months under the walls of Attalia, starving after they had spent their last deniers in buying food from the Greeks at very exorbitant rates. At last some eight thousand of them, headed by a few knights, resolved that anything was better than longer waiting, and started off by the coast road to cut their way to Tarsus. They forced the passage of the Oestrus, but the Eurymedon, the next river along the coast, proved unfordable, and on its banks they were attacked and cut to pieces by the Turks. Of the survivors som.e entered the Greek service, others turned Moslems in despair, "for the Turks, cruel in their kindness, gave them bread and took from them the true faith "; the majority, however, died of disease or famine in the neighbourhood of Attalia.

It might have been thought that the fate of the armies of Conrad and Louis would have finally demonstrated that the land route to Syria was inferior to that by sea. Yet one more great expedition passed over the central plateau of Asia Minor, and (unlike its predecessors ever since iioi) succeeded in reaching its goal. This army, however, was commanded by an experi- enced soldier, and adopted all the precautions which had been neglected by the ordinary crusading hosts ; yet even Frederic Barbarossa nearly failed from the force of hunger, though he

iiQi] FREDERIC BARBAROSSA'S CRUSADE 247

Deat the Turkish hosts in every encounter. The great emperor lOok in the first half of his march (March-April 1190) a route lot very unlike that which had been followed by Louis VII., keeping well inside the Byzantine border in Mysia and Lydia. He passed by Philadelphia and Tripolis into the valley of the IVIaeander, and reached Laodicea. But from this point he did not turn south like the French king, but set his face due east, md moved by the great Roman road which passed by Apamea ind the Pisidian Antioch to Iconium. This was the main artery 3f the communications of the central plateau, and it is curious to find that no other crusading army had tried it. The Turks :losed round Frederic and attacked him at the sources of the Maeander, near Apamea, but were beaten off with great loss ^April 30). They returned to the charge in the passes of the Borlu Dagh, near Sozopolis, but only to receive a second check ^May 2). By this time, however, famine, the most trusty ally of the Turks, was beginning to make itself felt in the German host, and the horses were dying in large numbers from lack of forage — the enemy having burned the grass in all directions. On reaching the lake of Egirdir the stores were running so low that Frederic resolved to quit the direct but desolate route to Iconium by Carallis, " the royal road on which the Emperor Manuel Comnenus had been wont to march." ^ Swerving from it, he crossed the Sultan Dagh by a difficult bridle path, and came down into the fertile plain of Philomelium — thus falling into the route which the first Crusaders under Godfrey and Bohemund had taken. The Germans found some resources here, but had at once to fight for their lives — the Turkish armies, no longer pent up in the hills, were operating in one of the great rolling plains, which best suited their tactics of circumventing the enemy. For twelve days, from the 4th to the 1 6th of May, the army was slowly forcing its way over the seventy-five miles which separate Philomelium from Iconium. They had to march in order of battle, with a front in every direction and the impedimenta in the centre. The rear, the point of greatest danger, was brought on by the Dukes of Suabia and Meran and the Margrave of Baden, with a great force of archers and a bod}^ of dismounted knights. There was always danger lest the rear, facing about to defend itself from an attack, should get separated from the main body, and so the Turks

^ See the Epistola de Morte Fy-ederici, p. 346.

248 THE ART OF WAR IN THE MIDDLE AGES [1191

might slip in between. On one occasion this did occur, and a vast amount of baggage was lost. The knights themselves suffered little ; " many were wounded, but few slain," for theii coats of mail effectively kept out the Turkish arrows. But theii horses, not yet armed in steel like those of later times, suffered terribly. By the 13th of May there were only six hundred effective chargers left, and the majority of the knights were serving on foot. Nevertheless, the Seljouks were always beaten off. Twice they ventured to close in, on May 6 and May 13 and on each occasion they were well punished for their audacity in the first fight three hundred and seventy -four chiefs and emirs and six thousand horsemen fell before the weapons of the Germans. On May 16 the army reached Iconium, wearied and almost starving ; there it got food and plunder from the summer palaces of the Sultan outside the walls. After resting them- selves for a day, part of the host made a front against the Turks, while the remainder stormed the town with unexpected ease, and obtained such an ample store of food that the danger of starvation was at an end. " The place was as big as Cologne," and full of all manner of riches, which the Germans plundered at their leisure for five days. The Sultan Kilidj- Arslan^ was now brought to such a depth of discouragement that he began to treat with the emperor. He promised the Germans a free road to Cilicia if they would depart at once, and gave twenty of his chief emirs as hostages. This was better fortune than any crusading army had experienced before, and the emperor accepted the terms. He marched, not by the usual route of Heraclea and the Cilician Gates, but by Laranda, Karaman and the pass which leads to Seleucia-by-the-sea. Here the army arrived, without having suffered any further molestation, save from an earthquake which inspired it with great fear. On the very day of his arrival at Seleucia, Frederic Barbarossa was, by the most unlucky of chances, drowned while bathing in the Calycadnus (June 10, 1190). His army, deprived of its leader, but now safe, " after six weeks of constant march- ing and starving," ^ took its way through Christian territory to Antioch, where it arrived in safety.

Having now surveyed all the Christian invasions of Asia Minor, we can legitimately draw our general conclusions as to their characteristics.

^ Not Malek Shah. See Boha-ed-din, p. 272. ^ £p^ ^g j^gj^te Frederici, 350.

iQi] THE CAUSES OF DISASTER 249

Our first deduction must be couched in the form of a testi- nonial to the very efficacious nature of the Seljouk methods of varfare. The Turks had deliberately established a broad belt )f wasted and uninhabited territory between themselves and the Byzantine border. Moreover, when a Christian army passed hrough their dominions, they did not hesitate to destroy their )wn crops and sacrifice their villages. The cattle were driven nto the hills, the corn burned, the very grass in the valleys fired. Consequently, every crusading host which crossed Asia Minor suffered horribly from famine. Of all the causes of failure this vas the most obvious.

A thoroughly disciplined regular army, with an organised vaggon-train, could no doubt have triumphed over this system jy bearing its own food with it. But the Franks were a mixed nultitude, with little or no organisation, always clogged in their Drogress by the hordes of non-combatants, largely paupers, whom :hey dragged with them. Against such foes the Turkish system A^as most efficacious. We may, indeed, express our wonder that Grodfrey and Frederic Barbarossa struggled through in spite of ill opposition. That the Crusaders of iioi and 1148 failed is less a matter of surprise.

The second among the main causes of the disasters of the :rusading armies was that ignorance of geography on which we have already had to dilate. When men could dream of finding their way to Bagdad and Khorassan through Paphlagonia and Pontus, or deliberately consider the advisability of adopting the route from Constantinople to Tarsus by the Carian, Lycian, and Ciiician coast-line, they might meet with any kind of disappoint- ment. Concerning this topic we need not enlarge — the history of the individual expeditions forms a sufficient commentary on it. We need only add that over and above mere want of geographical knowledge we must allow for the effect of minor ignorances — that, for example, of climate. The extreme heat and cold of the plateau of Asia Minor in summer and winter respect- ively was a fact for which the Crusaders made no allowance. What could have been more mad than for Louis Vll. to choose the months of January and February for his excursion through, the Pisidian mountains? The torrents were at their full, the winter rains were destructive of stores and tents, and the snow was lying on the higher slopes of the hills.

Third among the causes of the failures of the Crusaders we

250 THE ART OF WAR IN THE MIDDLE AGES [109

must place their own want of providence, discipline, and sel: control. Even the best-behaved of their armies were, by the cor fession of their own chroniclers, terribly addicted to riot an plunder. Their interminable quarrels with the Greeks mostl arose from their own fault. That there existed a very considerabl jealousy and ill-will on the part of Byzantines no one can dispute but the conduct of the pilgrims was so bad that we cannot wonde at the resentment they provoked. Their want of discipline was a well marked as their proneness to plunder : deliberate disobedienc on the part of officers was as common as carelessness an recklessness on the part of the rank and file. This was alway the case in feudal armies : in the East the fault was seen eve more clearly than elsewhere. Most notable of all is the eviden inability of the Franks to learn from the unhappy experience of their predecessors. The thousands of veterans who driftet back from the East did not succeed in teaching their successor to observe the precautions appropriate to Turkish warfare. Fift; years after the first Crusade, Conrad III. and Louis VII. com mitted exactly the same mistakes as the contemporaries c Godfrey and Bohemund. They marched without caution ; the; did not properly combine infantry and cavalry ; they had no provided themselves with the necessary proportion of men arme< with missile weapons such as the bow and arbalest ; their stocl of food was always running short. It seemed that the art c learning by experience hardly existed in the military circles c the West. The description of the faults of the Frank as a soldie which Maurice wrote in 580, and Leo the Wise repeated in 90c might still be utilised almost word for word in describing th' Crusaders of 11 50.

(B) Tpie Strategy of the Conquest of Syria.

The primary impulse of the men of the first Crusade wa religious, not strategic. Their end was to recover Jerusalem, no to establish a sound military base for the ultimate conquest o the whole of Syria. There were those among the Frankisl leaders who saw that it was dangerous to march from Antioch t* Jerusalem, leaving hostile towns to right and left, and sacrificing the connection with their only base ; but they were overruled b} the majority, whose ruling desire was to get possession of th( Holy Places. We must not, therefore, criticise the campaign o 1099 as if it had been carried out on logical military lines.

)99] THE GEOGRAPHY OF SYRIA 251

It was only when Jerusalem had fallen, and the Crusaders had ^termined to establish a permanent feudal state in Palestine, lat strategical considerations came to the front

When Godfrey was crowned, the new kingdom consisted of Dthing more than the towns of Jerusalem and Jaffa. Whether ohemund, isolated at Antioch, and Baldwin in his distant county :' Edessa, would ever truly become the vassals of their theo- itical suzerain was most uncertain. The future of the Franks I Syria was not settled for many years : indeed it was not till Dout 1 125 that any general conclusions as to the new states Duld be formulated.

Before passing on to consider the military history of the Dnquest, it is necessary to understand the general strategical 5pect of Syria. It may be divided into four narrow zones inning from south to north, one behind the other. The first of lese — the shore — consists of a series of coast-plains of very arying size and width ; they are cut off from each other by mountains running down to the water's edge, like Carmel, the purs of Lebanon, and the " Black Mountains " by Antioch. lost of these level coast-tracts are narrow, but the southmost of lem, the celebrated plain of Sharon, is larger than the rest, and verages fifteen miles in breadth. Occasionally, too, the coast- lain runs inland up a river valley, as in the plain of Esdraelon ast north of Carmel, and in the valley of the Orontes near intioch. In the central districts of the Syrian shore, however, bout Tripoli and Beyrout, it is exceptionally narrow and much •roken up.

The second zone of territory comprises the mountainous ipland overhanging the coast-plain. This region consists of the purs of three main chains — the mountains of the Ansariyeh (the ]asius of the ancients) in the north, Lebanon in the centre, and he mountains of Itphraim and Judaea in the south. The two orm.er are lofty ranges rising at some points to eleven thousand eet above the sea level ; the last has a broader and less well- lefined crest, and seldom rises to a greater height than three :housand feet. The spurs and shoulders of all these chains con- :ain many fertile and populous tracts.

The third zone consists of the deep-sunk valleys of three jreat rivers — the Orontes, Leontes (Litany), and Jordan. The two former find their way to the sea — the first by a gap between the mountains of the Ansariyeh and the Black Mountains (Ahmar

252 THE ART OF WAR IN THE MIDDLE AGES [SI

Dagh), the second by a much narrower defile just north of Tyj But the Jordan, whose course is mostly below the level of tl Mediterranean, falls into the Dead Sea, a sheet of water wath i exit. The Orontes and Leontes have broad and fertile vallej while that of the Jordan is a narrow, precipitous, and marsl defile, only to be crossed at a limited number of points. Tl deep depression through Central Syria formed by these thr streams and by the Dead Sea is continued yet farther south I the gorge of the Wady-el-Arabah, which runs down to the easte head of the Red Sea, and to the port of Elath or Akabah.

Beyond the valley — " hollow Syria," as the ancients called it- is the high-lying eastern plateau, — in some places flat, in othe mountainous. It runs into the Great Desert, and is its€ barren in many parts. But it contains many fruitful and we' watered districts, such as those around the great cities Aleppo and Damascus.

Syria as a whole is eminently defensible : the sea and dese cover it on three sides — the west, east, and south ; on the nor the Amanus and the Euphrates give an excellent and we] marked frontier. But the Crusaders never got possession of tl whole country : they only held the coast, the greater part of tl mountain, and certain regions of the central valley. The largi half of the latter and the whole of the eastern plateau remainc unconquered. It was for this reason that the kingdom < Jerusalem was always in a precarious position. A chain • Mohammedan states always shut it out from expanding to tl^ eastward and reaching its natural boundary.

The cause of this anomaly is not hard to find. The crusac ing states were never really strong enough to complete the coi quest of Syria : they would not even have succeeded in subduir the whole of the coast if they had been forced to rely on the own resources and could have counted on no external aid. Bi the great Italian republics were deeply interested in the conque of the Syrian shore. It was of high importance to the commerce that the whole of the ports of the Levant should 1: in Christian hands. Hence they co-operated with the greate zeal in the sieges of the coast-cities : they and not the kings ( Jerusalem were really the conquerors of the whole coast-plaii The Venetians were the real captors of Sidon (iiio)^ and Tyi (1124). The Pisans gave assistance to the Prince of Antioch <

^ Largely aided by King Sigurd of Norway on this occasion.

125] WEAKNESS OF THE CRUSADING STATES 253

.aodicea (1103) and to Count Bertram at Tripoli (1109); they v^ere also present at the siege of Beyrout (mo). The Genoese /ere still more energetic : to them were due the falls of Caesarea iioi), Tortosa (1102), Acre (1104), Giblet (1109), Beyrout 1 1 10). Casual aid was often given to the kings of Jerusalem by ither crusading fleets, such as those of the Englishmen Harding .nd Godric, and the Norse king, Sigurd the Jerusalem-farer 1 109-10). But it was mainly by the aid of the Italians that he Syrian coast became Christian.

Inland, the aid of these all-powerful allies was not available, [heir interests did not bid them equip armies to conquer Damascus or Aleppo. Hence it was with their own weak feudal evies alone, aided by occasional hosts of Western pilgrims, that he kings of Jerusalem and princes of Antioch carried on their vars with the emirs of the inland. The military resources of he Prankish states were more than modest : the largest army hat they ever put into the field was one of thirteen hundred cnights and fifteen thousand foot,^ a number only obtained by :ollecting every available man and leaving the towns and castles dmost ungarrisoned. Larger numbers were of course assembled when a crusading host from the West was present ; but the help )f the pilgrims was transient : they always returned home after I short sojourn in the Holy Land. As a rule, the domestic brces of the Syrian Franks seldom took the field more than six Dr seven thousand strong. Often, when the fate of the kingdom vvas at stake, the numbers of the royal host were still smaller. Baldwin I. had only two hundred and forty knights and nine hundred footmen at Jaffa in i loi to face the whole force of Egypt. At Ramleh, when he had unwisely left his infantry behind, he actually gave battle with no more than three hundred knights as his whole army, and was utterly defeated. Some years later he considered seven hundred horse and four thousand foot enough to face the united forces of the emirs of Syria. But perhaps the most extraordinary of all the expeditions of the Syrian Franks was a raid into Egypt in 11 18, in which no more than two hundred and sixteen knights and four hundred infantry took part. They advanced within three days' march of Cairo, and actually returned safely to Palestine.^

^ To withstand Saladin's invasion of 1 183. William of Tyre calls it the largest host he had ever heard of among the Franks of Syria (xxii. p. 448). ^ Albert of Aix, xii. p. 205.

254 THE ART OF WAR IN THE MIDDLE AGES

Want of numbers, then, was the real cause of the failure the Franks to conquer inner Syria. That they ever succeed* in establishing themselves firmly on the coast, and in holdii many districts of the mountain zone, must be attributed to t divisions of the Moslems. As long as the interior lands we divided between three or four independent emirs, the Crusade not only held their own, but actually advanced their frontie Down to the rise of Zengi, the first prince who began to uni the emirates, the Franks were slowly but surely occupying t' cities of the Infidel.^ Nothing, indeed, could have been mo opportune than the fact that, in the early years of the twelf century, Damascus, Aleppo, Kayfa, Mosul, Mardin, were in t] hands of different families, all bitterly jealous of each other, ai sometimes even ready to ally themselves with the Christian thereby they might do their neighbours an ill turn.^ This fact was which enabled a few hundred Frankish knights to ric roughshod over Syria for some twenty years, till in 1 1 27 Zen took up the governorship of Mosul. The interesting picture the state of the land in this year given by the Moslem chronicl who wrote the history of the Atabegs ^ is well worth quoting.

"At the moment when Zengi appeared, the power of tl Franks extended from Mardin and Scheikstan in Mesopotam as far as El-Arish on the frontier of Egypt, and of all tl provinces of Syria only Aleppo, Emesa, Hamah, and Damasc were still unconquered. Their bands raided as far as Amida

^ The dates of the changes of dynasty in the emirates are all-important i \mderstanding the history of the Crusades. They are as follows : —

Aleppo. Held by the house of Tutush-ibn- Alp- Arslan, 1094-1117.

Held by Il-Ghazi of Mardin and his nephew Soliman, 1117-112 Held by Balak-ibn-Bahram, 1123-II25. By Il-Borsoki and his son Massoud, 1125-1128. Surrendered to Zengi, 11 28. Damascus. Held by Dukak the Seljouk, 1095-1103.

Held by Toktagin and his house, 1103-1154. Surrendered to Nur-ed-din, son of Zengi, 1 154. Mosul. Held by Kerboga, 1096-1102; by Jekermish, 1102-1107 ; Javaly, 1107-1108 ; by Maudud and his nephew Massoud, no; 1113; by Il-Borsoki, 1113-1127. Taken over by Zengi, 112; - The strange battle of Tel-basher in 1108 is worth notice. Tancred of Antioi and Joscelin, Lord of Tel-basher, had quarrelled. So had Ridwan of Aleppo ai Javaly of Mosul. Each allied himself with a stranger against his own co-religioni^ and in the fight Frank fought with Frank, and Turk with Turk. Tancred and Ridwi were victorious. Albert of Aix and William of Tyre both allude to the story.

^ The Turkish deputies or generals of the great Seljouk Sultan, who ruled practically independent princes in Syria and Mesopotamia.

ri27] WIDEST EXTENSION OF THE FRANKS 255

;he province of Diarbekir, and in that of El-Jezireh [Upper Mesopotamia] as far as Nisibis and Ras-Ain. The Mussul- mans of Rakkah and Haran [Carrhae] were exposed to their oppression and the victims of their barbarous violence. All :he roads to Damascus except that which passes by Rahaba Rehoboth] and the desert were infested by their plundering parties. Merchants and travellers had to hide among the rocks and the wilderness, or to trust themselves and their goods to the mercy of the Bedouins. Things were growing worse and worse — and the Christians had begun to impose a fixed blackmail on ihe surviving Moslem towns, which the latter paid to be quit of their devastations. . . . They took a regular tribute from all the territory of Aleppo as far as the mill outside the garden-gate — only twenty paces from the city itself. Then Almighty God, casting his eyes on the Mussulman emirs and noting the contempt into which the true faith had fallen, saw that these princes were too weak to undertake the defence of the true religion, and resolved to raise up against the Christians a man capable of punishing them and exacting a due vengeance for their crimes." ^ At this moment, when the progress of the Franks was abruptly stopped by the rise of Zengi, we may pause to define the limits of their conquests. The kingdom of Jerusalem held all the coast from Beyrout to Ascalon; The latter town was still in the hands of the Fatimite princes of Egypt, and gave them a good base for invasions of the Holy Land by the route of El-Arish and Gaza. But the Egyptian dynasty was in a decaying condition, and its armies seldom crossed the desert. Indeed, Frankish raids on the Delta were more common than attacks pushed by the Moslems into Palestine. Eastward, the boundary of the Latin kingdom was the Jordan, save that the strong castle of Faneas (Banias), placed beyond the head waters of that river, gave it a watch-tower to observe Damascus. The realm had also another outpost towards the East and South. In 1 1 16 Baldwin I. had resolved to push his frontier towards the Red Sea, so as to cut the great caravan route from Damascus to Egypt through the desert. He had executed the fatiguing march to the head of the Gulf of Akabah, and there had established the castle of Ailath (Elim-Elath) at its northernmost point (11 17). This stronghold communicated with Palestine by means of two other castles, Montreal (Schobek) near Petra in

^ Quoted in Michaud's Bihliotheque des Croisades, vol. iv. p. 61.

256 THE ART OF WAR IN THE MIDDLE AGES [Ml

the centre of the Edomite desert, and Kerak in the land ( Moab. The fief of Montreal-Kerak or of " the land beyon Jordan " was one of the four great baronies of the Latin kingdon It formed such a dangerous outpost, and its position was s forbidding, lost as it was in the desert, that we are surprise to find that the Franks held it from 11 16 till 11 87, the year ( the fall of Jerusalem.^ As long as it survived, it made th -communication between Damascus and Egypt very precarious Moslem caravans had to pay blackmail to its lords, or suffe untold danger of starvation and misdirection in passing b stealth between the three fortresses in the wilderness. Militar communication between the Fatimites and the rulers of Damasci was equally hard ; armies marching through the sands and rocls of Idumea were always exposed to sudden attacks from thes garrisons. They were such thorns in the side of Islam tha repeated attempts were made to capture them, all of whic failed — even when Saladin himself took the matter in banc They only fell with the fall of the Latin kingdom, and Kera actually held out longer than Jerusalem.

North of Kerak the frontier of the Franks was guarded by -chain of castles watching the defiles which lead down to th fords of the Jordan. The line was composed of Paneas, Beai fort, Chateau-Neuf, Safed, Castellet, and Beauvoir. South of th last-named, where the valley of the Jordan is most deep an rugged, there seems to have been a gap left, the natural defence being apparently too formidable to require strengthening.

Stretching along the coast from Beyrout northward lay th county of Tripoli, the weakest of the four crusading states. It rulers never succeeded in pushing inland through the passe of Lebanon or getting a lodgment in Coele-Syria. They onl; possessed the series of narrow coast -plains round the stron: <:ities of Markab, Tortosa, Tripoli, and Giblet, together with th •spurs of the mountains above and between them. The grea -chain of Lebanon, however, gave a strong frontier for defence In commanding positions, watching the few practicable passe through the range, were the inland castles of Montferrand, Krat and Akkar. Weak for offence, but strong for resistance, th county of Tripoli preserved its mountain boundary far into th thirteenth century.

^ Kerak fell in ii88 only, but Elath had been recovered by the Moslems in 117c and Reginald of Kerak had failed to retake it in 1183-84.

1 1 27] PRINCIPALITIES OF ANTIOCH AND EDESSA 257

The principality of Antioch, on the other hand, had not such advantageous frontiers. Extending far up the valley of the Orontes, it had no natural obstacles to divide it from the Moham- medans of Aleppo. Hence the boundaries of Frank and Turk were always fluctuating. Sometimes the Christians held Athareb, a fortress close up to the walls of Aleppo : sometimes the Infidels were at the gates of Antioch. The strongly-fortified capital was the one solid centre of resistance which the Franks possessed in Northern Syria : Athareb, Harrenc, and the other fortresses to the east were always changing hands. But the splendid Byzantine walls of Antioch, which had held Godfrey and Bohemund at bay for so many months, were impregnable when held by a Christian garrison, and the city was never taken till 1268. All its Eastern dependencies had fallen many years before.

The county of Edessa may almost be called an Armenian rather than a Frankish state. The number of Crusaders who settled in it was small, and its sovereigns, unlike their neighbours farther south, depended mainly on their Armenian subjects to fill the ranks of their armies. It would have been a fortunate thing for the rulers of Antioch and Jerusalem if they too could have recruited their infantry from among the native Christian population. But the Syrians were a far less warlike race than the Armenians, and gave little or no military aid to their masters. From a strategical point of view it was no doubt a mistake for the Franks to push into Mesopotamia when North Syria was still unsubdued. Surrounded on three sides by the emirs of Mosul and Aleppo and the Danishmend princes of Eastern Cappadocia, Edessa was always in danger. The county con- sisted of a few strongly-fortified places — the capital, Turbessel, Ravendal, and Hazart, with an indeterminate and ever- varying territory around them. It had no natural boundaries, and, being so weak in military resources, was bound to fall whenever a strong prince should arise and unite against it the resources of the neighbouring Mohammedan districts. The rise of Zengi implied the disaj^^pearance of the county : it vanished after main- taining a precarious existence for less than fifty years.

It had survived so long merely because the rival dynasties

at Aleppo, Mosul, Mardin, and Kayfa had never united to crush

it. At best it was no more than a useful outwork to protect the

flank of the principality of Antioch, an outwork so distant, so

17

i

258 THE ART OF WAR IN THE MIDDLE AGES [112:

weak, and so exposed that there was no hope of permanentl} retaining it. Edessa would have fallen long before if it had no been repeatedly saved by the intervention of its neighbours t( the south. Tancred and King Baldwin T. led armies fron Antioch and Jerusalem to save it : without their aid it mus have succumbed in mo, or perhaps even in 1104. It wouk undoubtedly have been better for the general defence o Syria if the first conquerors of the land had seated themselve at Turbessel rather than at Edessa, and contented themselve with holding only the districts west of Euphrates : the^ might then have made the great river their boundary, an( served as efficient guardians of the marches of North-Easteri Syria.

The extension of the Prankish dominion ceased immediately on the appearance of Zengi. The only important conques made after the year 11 27 was that of Ascalon, taken from th' Fatimite Sultan of Egypt by Baldwin III. in 1153. Before th< end of the long reign of the great Atabeg, the balance had begui to turn definitely in favour of the Moslems. The great mark c the change was the destruction of the northernmost crusadinj state, the county of Edessa, by Zengi's hand, in 1144. Th union of Mesopotamia and Northern Syria under Zengi's rul completely checked the expansion of the Prankish dominioi inland. There remained the three surviving Christian states— the kingdom of Jerusalem, the principality of Antioch, th county of Tripoli, forming a long straggling strip of territor along the coast, much cut up by mountains, and nowhere muc more than fifty miles broad. They had no good land communi cations with each other, and depended for their union solely o the maritime predominance of the Italian republics.

One chance only of triumph remained to the Franks — th possibility of the arrival of a new crusading host from the Wes sufficient to enable them once more to take the offensive. I was obvious that the strength of the Latin states of Syri unassisted would not even suffice to preserve themselves. Fc one moment in 11 49 it appeared as if this chance might com into realisation. Deeply stirred by the news of the fall c Edessa, the nations of the West sent out the great hosts c Conrad III. and Louis Vll. on the second Crusade. Only th broken wrecks of these expeditions ever reached Palestine, bu even these were numerous enough to encourage the King c

1 149] LAST ATTEMPTS AT CONQUEST IN SYRIA 259

Jerusalem to make a bold push forward. The great campaign of 1 149 was made upon the right lines, and a systematic attempt was made to break the long belt of Mussulman territory in its centre by the capture of Damascus. All other Christian attacks on that great city were mere raids : this was a deliberate advance, intended to bring about its permanent subjection.

If the great city had now fallen, the line of Mohammedan states would have been cut in two, Egypt would have been definitely severed from Aleppo and Mesopotamia, and the fatal combination of the northern and southern Moslems under Saladin could never have taken place. At all costs the Crusaders should have endeavoured to break the line which links Mosul, Aleppo, Emesa, Hamah, Damascus, and Bozrah with the road to Egypt. But so far were the Syrian Franks from appreciating the fact, that there is good authority, both Christian and Mohammedan, for stating that the king and barons of Jerusalem were very slack in pushing the attack on Damascus, just because it seemed more likely to profit their French and German auxiliaries than themselves. Anar, the Vizier of Damascus, is said to have sent secret letters to King Baldwin III. to point out to him that the capture of the place would perhaps benefit some of his fellow-Christians, but would do himself no good ; on the other hand, the strong fortress of Paneas by the sources of the Jordan should be restored to him if the siege was raised. Anar sw^ore also that if Baldwin would not consent to depart, he would deliver Damascus to their common enemy, Nur-ed-din of Aleppo, the son of Zengi, rather than let it cease :o be part of Islam.^ It is certain that the King of Jerusalem tressed the leaguer slackly, and at last departed homeward, to :he great disgust of the emperor and the other pilgrim princes rom the West. Thus ended the one serious attempt of the Franks to establish themselves in inner Syria and carry their Vontier up to the desert.

The fact that Zengi's dominions were divided up among his ons (Nur-ed-din taking Syria and Seyf-ed-din Mesopotamia), — o that for a time the unity of command was lost, and the Franks )btained a respite, — did not lead to any permanent change in the ortunes of the crusading states. The King of Jerusalem turned

^ See Ibn-Alathir on p. 96, vol. iv. of the Bibl. des Croisades. Cf. also William f Tyre, book xvii. pp. 14, 15, who says that the Count of Flanders was to be made 'rince of Damascus by the Westerns, which the Syrian Franks would not endure.

26o THE ART OF WAR IN THE MIDDLE AGES [1163

aside to make a series of attempts to conquer Egypt, when his eyes should have been fixed on Damascus and Aleppo. The danger at his gates should have engrossed his attention, and nc distant enterprise should have been undertaken till the frontiers of the kingdom of Jerusalem were safe. Four great invasions of Egypt took place between 1163 and 1168, and more thar once King Amaury seemed on the point of succeeding. B) adroitly taking part in the war between the Egyptian viziei Shawir and Shirkuh, the general of the Syrian prince Nur-ed din, he obtained a free entry into Egypt, and occupied man\ towns as the ally of Shawir. For a short time a Frankist garrison actually held Cairo in the name of the Fatimite caliph and defended it against the Turks and Syrians of Shirkuh But Amaury's position in Egypt was always precarious, because he had continually to be keeping an eye on his own realm ii Palestine, exposed in his absence to the raids of Nur-ed-din': governors in Damascus and Coele-Syria. It was bad strateg) to strike at the Nile while Jerusalem and Antioch still had ai enemy encamped only a few score miles from their gates. I was the consciousness of the danger of his own realm tha always kept Arriaury anxious and preoccupied during hi Egyptian campaign. He had always, so to speak, to " keep on' eye behind him " : a demonstration on Jerusalem by Nur-ed din might bring him back from Cairo at any moment. This i the true reason why he lost the fruits of successful campaigns, b; allowing himself to be bought off by great sums of money Hence it came that he levied great fines from Egypt, and fo several years received a regular tribute from Shawir, but neve made a firm lodgment in the land. At last, the most unhapp; contingency for the Franks came to pass. Shirkuh murderc' Shawir, and seized Egypt for his master Nur-ed-din (1169 Syria and Egypt were at last united in the hands of a singl prince, for the Fatimite caliph did not long survive his vizie meeting, like him, a bloody end at the hands of Nur-ed-din lieutenants (1171).^ Amaury made one last invasion of Egyf after the fall of his ally Shawir, leaguing himself with th Byzantine emperor, Manuel Comnenus. But the Greek flet and the Frankish army lay long before Damietta, and failed t

^ So at least say the Frankish historians. Saladin's biographers either pass ovt the event without details, or say that El-Adid died a natural death. See tf Mohammedan authorities quoted in the Bibliothcqvc des Croisades, iv. 147.

ii87] THE RISE OF SALADIN 261

take it. Presently came the news that Nur-ed-din was in the field, and harrying the borders of the kingdom of Jerusalem. At once Amaury raised the siege and hurried home to protect his own dominions. For the future the Franks were never able to make another offensive move.

The union of Syria, Mesopotamia, and Egypt ought to have brought about the instant ruin of the kingdom of Jerusalem. That the state survived for nearly twenty years more was due to a lucky chance. Yussuf Salah-ed-din (Saladin), who succeeded his uncle Shirkuh as the lieutenant of Nur-ed-din in Egypt, proved a disloyal vassal, and did not combine his power effectively with that of his master. He did not openly break with the Syrian prince, but played his own game, and not that of his suzerain. Hence it was only when Nur-ed-din had died (1172) and Saladin had overrun and annexed the dominions of his late master's sons (1179-83), that all the Moslem states from the Tigris to the Nile were really united under a single ruler.

The day of doom for the kingdom of Jerusalem was now at hand. Saladin's realm surrounded the crusading states on all sides, and when he threw himself upon them their fall was sudden and disastrous. At the great battle of Tiberias (Hattin) in 1 187, the Frankish host was exterminated ; Jerusalem fell in a few months, and after its fall fortress after fortress dropped into Saladin's hands, till little remained to the Crusaders save Tyre, Tripoli, and Antioch. That these small remnants of the Christian states escaped him was due to the third Crusade. Richard of England and Philip of France failed to retake Jerusalem, but they recovered Acre and most of the coast-towns of Palestine. Richard inflicted a crushing blow on Saladin at the battle of Arsouf (1191), and shortly after the Franks and Moslems came to an agreement, which saved for Christendom a wreck of the kingdom of Jerusalem. The inland was lost, but the long narrow coast-slip from Antioch to Jaffa was preserved. Saladin died shortly afterwards (1192), and his dominions broke up ; his sons and his brother El-Adel each kept a portion. This disruption of the Ayubite realm was the salvation of the Syrian Franks ; their hold on the coast-region of the Levant was to endure for yet another hundred years. But the kingdom of Jerusalem (it might more appropriately have been called the kingdom of Acre) was now a mere survival without strength to recover itself. It might have been stamped out at any moment,

262 THE ART OF WAR IN THE MIDDLE AGES [1291

if a leader of genius had arisen among the Mohammedans and united again all the resources which had been in Saladin's hands. But the unending civil wars of the Ayubites gave a long lease of life to the decrepit Prankish realm. Strange as it may appear, the Christians were even able to recover the Holy City itself for a moment. Jerusalem was twice in their hands for a short space — once in 1229, when the Emperor Frederick ii. got possession of it — once in 1244. On each occasion the reconquest was ephemeral — it marked the weakness of the Saracen, not the recovered strength of the Frank. But along the coast the thin line of ports was firmly held ; strengthened by all the resources of the scientific combination of Eastern and Western fortification, they long proved impregnable. The sea was always open to bring them food and reinforcements ; the Italian maritime powers were keenly interested in their survival for commercial reasons. Hence it was that the banner of the Cross still waved on every headland from Laodicea to Jaffa till the thirteenth century was far spent and the house of the Ayubites had vanished. The end of the kingdom of Jerusalem only drew near when the new and vigorous dynasty of the Bahri Mamelukes had once more united Egypt and Syria. Then at last came the doom of the Frankish realm, and one after another the ports of the Levant yielded before the arms of the great Sultans, Bibars, Kelaun, and Malik-el-Ashraf. Acre — the last surviving strong- hold— fell after a two months' siege in May 1291. The only wonder is that it had survived so long ; had Saladin's life been protracted for ten years, the .end would have come nearly a century earlier. But in the thirteenth as in the twelfth century the dissensions of the Mohammedans were the salvation of the Franks.

As an example of the importance of the sea-power in the Middle Ages, we may note that the long survival of the coast fortresses of Syria would have been wholly impossible if any of the Eastern powers had possessed a competent navy. But the Genoese and Venetians completely dominated the waters of the Levant, and the Frankish ports could only be attacked on the land side. Even when they had fallen, the Mamelukes made no attempt to use them as the base for the creation of a war- navy. They sank to mere fishing villages when they fell back into Mohammedan hands, and never appeared again as military ports. Hence it came to pass that the insular kingdom of

I2i8] JOHN DE BRIENNE IN EGYPT 263

Cyprus, the last foothold of the Franks in the Levant, endured for more than two centuries after the fall of Acre. It was only lost to Christendom when there arose at last a Moslem power which built a great fleet and determined to expel the Italian galleys from the Levant. The Ottoman Turks overran the island in 1 571, and then only did the maritime domination of the Franks in Eastern waters come to an end.

(C) The Attacks on Egypt.

Before dismissing the subject of the grand strategy of the Crusades, we have still to deal with two^ considerable diversions executed by the Franks outside the limits of Syria during the thirteenth century — diversions rendered possible by their complete possession of the command of the sea. We refer to the two invasions of Egypt in 1218-20 and 1249-50 — those of John de Brienne and St. Louis. There was more to be said in favour of these expeditions than for those which King Amaury carried out in 1163-69. At the earlier date there was still a kingdom of Jerusalem which needed protection, and to take away its garrison for a campaign on the Nile was dangerous. Things were much changed in the thirteenth century : the kingdom had shrunk to a few coast-fortresses, which were, for the most part, self-sufficing, and could take care of themselves. Its defence, therefore, had become much more easy : if during the Egyptian expedition the governors of Damascus or Jerusalem should march on Acre or Tyre, the cities could be trusted to hold out for many months. They had the sea at their backs and could count on the aid of Venice and Genoa. Moreover, the attack on Egypt was to be made, not by the home levies of the barons of Palestine, but by great crusading forces from the West. Nothing, therefore, was risked in Palestine over and above the ordinary danger from the inland.

Egypt was a tempting prey — rich above other lands, peopled by an unwarlike race, and ruled by a monarch depending for his military resources not on his born subjects, but on mercenary bands of Turks, Kurds, Syrians, and Arabs. Egypt and Syria, too, were divided between different branches of the Ayubite

^ The expedition of St. Louis to Tunis has no bearing on the general history of the Crusades, and was inspired by a rehgious, not a military object — it being supposed that the riiler of Tunis might be converted to Christianity !

264 THE ART OF WAR IN THE MIDDLE AGES

n

house in 12 19: El-Kamil reigned at Cairo, El-Muazzam at Damascus ; and though they were not unfriendly to each other yet two rulers can seldom combine their efforts to act like one. The conquest of Egypt, regarded as an enterprise wholly independent of the defence of Palestine, presented both in 1 2 19 and in 1249 many attractions. A commander of genius might probably have accomplished it with the forces led by either John or Louis. It is more doubtful whether the land could have been held when once subdued ; but, at least, the experiment was worth making.

But if the problem was not an impossible one, it was one which required to be solved according to the general rules oi strategy. Egypt must always be " grasped by the throat " by a bold march on Cairo, and for a march on Cairo there are only two practicable routes. It is absolutely necessary to avoid getting entangled in the countless canals and waterways of the Delta. The first of the two alternative routes is to land near Alexandria, to keep west of the westernmost branch of the Nile, as did Bonaparte in 1798, and to march by Damanhour and Gizeh. The drawbacks of this route are that its first two or three stages are through desert, and that it brings the invader opposite to Cairo, with the Nile still interposed between him and his goal. The crossing of the main stream in face of the enemy, when the army has pushed so far inland, might prove very perilous. The second and far preferable route is to start near the ancient Pelusium and march by Salahieh and Belbeis on Cairo, keeping east of the easternmost branch of the Nile. This brings the invader directly on to the capital ; he has no canals or water- ways to cross, and the distance he has to cover is no more than a hundred miles. Here also the main difficulty to be faced is that the first two stages are through desert country. Egypt has always been invaded by this line ; it was followed by Cambyses, Alexander the Great, Antiochus Epiphanes, Amru, and Selim I. Lord Wolseley only diverged from it in 1882 because he was able to utilise the Suez Canal, and so shorten his land march by forty miles. This route was well known to the Franks ; Amaury had used it in 1168, taking Belbeis, and actually laying siege to Cairo, which he might have captured if he had not allowed himself to be bought off by an enormous war-indemnity. It is therefore most astonishing that both John de Brienne and St. Louis neglected this obvious and easy line, and chose instead to land at Damietta.

22o] FAILURE OF JOHN DE BRIENNE 265

The road from that place to Cairo leads through the very midst f the Delta, over countless canals and four considerable branches f the Nile. Across it lie a dozen strong positions for the defend- ig army. It is not too much to say that the invasion of Egypt y this line is bound to fail, if the masters of the country show rdinary vigour and intelligence. The fates of the two Prankish xpeditions are a sufficient commentary on the wisdom of their jaders. John de Brienne only took Damietta after a siege of ight months ; his troops were already much exhausted when he dvanced into the Delta ; they were brought to a stand by the ne of the Ashmoun Canal, behind which lay the army of the >ultan El-Kamil. They made several unsuccessful attempts to Teak through, and were already despairing of success when hey learned that the land between them and their base at )amietta had been inundated ; the Nile was rising, and the Egyptians had cut the dikes. They hastily retreated towards )amietta; but the waters were out everywhere, the Sultan Dllowed hard behind them, and, to save themselves from starva- ion or drowning, the Crusaders had to come to terms. El- Camil granted them a free departure, on condition that they hould evacuate Damietta (August 1221).

Far worse was the fate of St. Louis when he tried the same oute in 1249. Considering how John de Brienne had fared, we an only marvel that he ventured to choose the same road. He tarted with somewhat better fortune than his predecessor, for )amietta fell into his hands after a very slight engagement with he Moslems. But he then wasted no less than six months in ■aiting for stores and reinforcements ; all this time was employed y the Sultan in increasing his army and in preparing obstacles 3r the march of the French. When, in November 1249^ Cing Louis did at last begin his advance, he was promptly hecked by the same bar which had ruined John de Brienne, he impassable Ashmoun Canal, defended by the Egyptian rmy. Time after time the bridges and causeways which he trove to construct were swept away by the military machines f the enemy. At last Louis got across by night with his cavalry t a deep ford practicable only for horsemen ; the infantry could ;0t follow. The Egyptians were for a moment surprised, but he king's brother, Robert of Artois, threw away all chance of a ictory by charging rashly into the streets of Mansourah with he van long ere the king and the main body had come upon

266 THE ART OF WAR IN THE MIDDLE AGES [i2f

the field. He and the whole of his division were cut to piece and when Louis arrived he only succeeded in forcing his way 1 the neighbourhood of Mansourah at the cost of half his knight At last, however, he worked his way to the bank opposite h own camp, and his infantry^ were able to finish the causeway ; which they had long been labouring, and so to join him. TI French thus obtained a lodgment beyond the Ashmoun, bi the success had cost them so dear that they could advance r farther. They lingered near Mansourah for some months, unab to move forward and unwilling to turn back, till at last famir and pestilence broke out, and compelled them to abandon tl: invasion. But the Egyptians had broken the road between thai and Damietta, and as they straggled northward they were c\ to pieces in detail in a long running fight extending over sever; days. At last the king was surrounded and taken prisoner, ar soon after the few surviving wrecks of the army laid down the arms. They could not even make terms for themselves, as Jot de Brienne had done in 1221, and the greater part of the captiv< were put to death in cold blood by the Egyptians.^

As a comment on King Louis' strategy we need only poii out that, even if he had successfully forced the passage of tl Ashmoun when he first reached it, he would yet have had 1 pass three broad branches of the Nile and numerous canals, all su ceptible of easy defence, before reaching Cairo ! Nothing but tl entire want of geographical knowledge in those mapless da} can explain the madness of the Crusaders in twice selectir the utterly impracticable route Damietta-Mansourah-Benhc Cairo, when it was open to them to use the easy and obvioi road by Salahieh and Belbeis. Apparently they were attracte by the port and fortress of Damietta, which seemed to offer a excellent base and storehouse, while there was no town at a in the tract east of the ancient Pelusium, the proper startim place for the descent. There was nothing else to account ft the preference : one landing-place was as open as another to a armament in full command of the sea, and the coast east < Pelusium, though shallow inshore, does not present any re obstacle to the approach of vessels of such light draught as wei those of the thirteenth century. A careful examination of tl Government Survey maps of the Delta seems to show that east ( Pelusium and its marshes there is a sandy shore, with sufificiei

^ For a more detailed account of Mansourah, see pp. 340-347.

5o] FAILURE OF ST. LOUIS IN EGYPT 267

; ;pth of water for light vessels to get close in. The region is s remote from the military centres of Egypt that no local i sistance need have been feared.

,' We may fairly say, therefore, that the two great invasions of

i ^ypt in the thirteenth century failed mainly because they were

> idertaken with insufficient geographical knowledge, and con-

j icted along an impossible route. That they would have had

\ fair chance of success if they had been more wisely directed,

j best shown by the fact that the Moslem historians one and all

i sure us that their compatriots had completely lost heart after

I e first successes of the Christians. In 1220 El-Kamil actually

j fered to surrender Jerusalem, Tiberias, Giblet, Ascalon,

( azareth, and Laodicea, if the Crusaders would but restore

i amietta and return home. In 1249 Damietta was evacuated

most without the striking of a blow, and the army which

ustered behind the Ashmoun was in great disorder and deep

;pression. If forced to fight not covered by a broad water-

•urse, but in the open country about Salahieh or Belbeis, it

>uld certainly not have held its ground.

It was the same utter want of geographical knowledge which id ruined the Provencal Crusaders of iioi, and the French )st of Louis VIL in 1248, that brought to such disastrous ends e two formidable expeditions which endeavoured to subdue

gypt.

CHAPTER III

THE TACTICS OF THE CRUSADERS

Section I. — The Early Battles and their Tactics : Dorylcsum Antioch, Ascalon, Rafiileh.

THE Western countries which contributed the largest prop tion of warriors to the first Crusade were precisely th( in which cavalry were at the time most predominant — Frar and Aquitaine, Lotharingia, Western Germany, and Italy b( Lombard and Norman. In each of the contingents wh; marched out in 1096 to join the great host which mustered Constantinople, the horsemen were considered the main comb ant force. If foot-soldiery followed by tens of thousands, it v not because their lords considered them an important part the line of battle, but because the same religious enthusiasm h descended upon the poor as upon the rich, and all were equa bent on seeking the path to the Holy Sepulchre. It was evide too, that infantry would be required for sieges, the service of 1 camp, and the more onerous and less attractive labours of w So little, however, were they esteemed, that in the first gene engagement in which the grand army of the first Crusade engag — the battle of Dorylaeum — the foot-soldiery were left behind the tents, and the horsemen alone drew up in the line of batt Nor did the infantry even prove competent to keep the cai safe — they did not prevent the flanking parties of the Tui from entering it and massacring hundreds of the non-combatai committed to their care.

The Crusaders then were accustomed only to one developmt of tactics — the shock-tactics of heavily-armed cavalry. Tfc regarded infantry as fit — at best — to open a battle with a d

^ See p. 271.

D97] THE CRUSADERS AND THE TURKS 269

large of missiles, before the serious fighting began, or to serve ^ a camp-guard.

Ranged to oppose them, however, they found enemies of whom le most formidable were the Turks, a race long accustomed to efeat by their Parthian tactics the most powerful and the best isciplined heavy cavalry of the day — that of the East- Roman ;mpire. The other Moslem powers who still employed the Ider methods of Saracen war, such as the Egyptian Fatimites, ere far less dangerous to the Crusaders. They — like their rcdecessors described by Leo and Nicephorus Phocas — still epended on the impact of their mailed horsemen, who were idividually inferior to the Byzantine trooper, and still more so to le Prankish knight. But the Turkish horse-archers were the )e who were destined to prove the main danger to the Crusaders, s they had long been to the emperors of Constantinople. It was tiey who were to teach not only the first invaders of the East, ut every army that followed them, many a bitter lesson.

We have already recapitulated in an earlier chapter the anons which the masters of military science in the Byzantine empire had drawn up for use in campaigns against the Turks. They were, put shortly, (i) always to take a steady and sufficient »ody of infantry into the field ; ^ (2) to maintain an elaborate creen of vedettes and pickets round the army, so as to guard .gainst surprises; 2 (3) to avoid fighting in broken ground ^here the enemy's dispositions could not be descried ; ^ (4) to :eep large reserves and flank-guards ;^ (5) to fight with the rear and if possible the wings also) covered by natural obstacles, uch as rivers, marshes, or cliffs, so as to foil the usual Turkish levice of circular attacks on the wings or the camp-guard ; ^ 6) always to fortify the camp ; (7) never to pursue rashly md allow the infantry and cavalry to get separated after a irst success.^ With the necessity of all these precautions well anderstood, the Byzantines had yet suffered many disasters it the hands of the Turks. How was it to be expected that :he Crusaders would fare, to whom some of these precau- :ions would have seemed impossible, some ignominious, all infamiliar ? As a matter of fact, they knew nothing of them, >ince they utterly despised the Greeks and their methods of .varfare, disdained to learn anything from them, and took

1 Leo, Tactica, xviii. 63. 2 j^^^ 58. 3 j^^^ 5^^

^ Ibid. Ti, ^Ibid.'Jl. ^Ibid.'j/^.

2 70 THE ART OF WAR IN THE MIDDLE AGES

I

nothing but guides and money from the emperor.^ In first campaign they were as successful in violating every T of these rules as if they had committed them to memory the express purpose of not carrying them out.

The hordes under Peter the Hermit and Walter the Pennih which first crossed the Bosphorus can hardly be called an arn Even in the eyes of their own countrymen they scarcely count as a military force, since they comprised but a very few mount men. When they were destroyed by the Seljouks near Nics they are said to have numbered only five hundred horse twenty-five thousand foot : ^ they had lost many thousands on t way by the hands of the Greeks and Bulgarians, but it is certc that in these earlier disasters the infantry had suffered infinite more than the cavalry, so that the original force must ha shown a still larger preponderance of men on foot.

The great army which started from Constantinople in M 1097 was a very different host. According to Western ideas, was a most formidable instrument of war. Many rich cour and dukes and their well-equipped retainers served in its rani Its numbers are given as high as a hundred thousand horse ai six hundred thousand foot — figures impossible in themselves, b showing a proportion between the two arms which was infinite more suited to the practice of the day than that which had pr vailed in the unfortunate horde of Walter the Penniless.

Yet this great host came very near to suffering a comple disaster in its first serious conflict with the Turks. After layii siege to Nicaea and repelling with success the attempts of Sulti Kilidj-Arslan-ibn-Soliman to relieve it, they forced the place surrender. On June 27 they started forth to march into tl interior of Asia Minor, following the great Roman road whic leads by Dorylaeum, Philomelium, and Iconium to Tarsus. Tl countryside was wholly desolate : " Romania, a land once ric and excellent in all the fruits of the earth, had been so cruel] ravaged by the Turks, that there were only small patches < cultivation to be seen at long intervals." ^ Food for man an horse was difficult to procure, and it was perhaps to cover

^ Save, indeed, Raymond of Toulouse, who borrowed some " Turcopoles," /. cavalry taught to act as horse-archers after the Turkish fashion, for his secor expedition. But he got no use out of them, except to escort his flight (Albert Aix, viii. p. 19).

2 William of Tyre, book i.

^ Fulcher of Chartres, chap. v.

097] BATTLE OF DORYL.^UM 271

reater space for foraging, and not out of mere carelessness,^ that he army split into two columns, marching parallel to each other t a distance of some seven miles. The right-hand corps was omposed of the followers of Godfrey of Bouillon, Raymond of ^oulouse, Hugh Count of Vermandois, and most of the French nd Lotharingian contingents. The left column included )ohemund and Tancred with the Sicilian Normans, Robert of landers, Robert of Normandy, and Stephen of Blois. They eem to have been fairly equal in size and composition.

Battle of Dorylcuitm, July i, 1097.

After debouching from the Bithynian mountains, the Crusaders ound themselves in a broad upland plain, watered by the rhymbres, a tributary of the Sangarius. It was a rolling ountry, destitute of strong positions, and very well suited to the jeculiar tactics of the Turks. Flj^ing parties of their light horse oon began to hover around the advancing columns, but the rusading leaders did not take the obvious precaution of draw- '(\g together, or at least arranging to keep in close touch. On ighting the enemy they merely contracted their straggling line >f march and kept vedettes out to prevent a surprise. On June ;o they camped some miles on the north side of the Thymbres, .nd not very far from the ancient and ruined town of Dorylaeum. )n the 1st of July the left division, with which we are most con- erned, moved forward to resume its route, and had marched for ibout an hour when its scouts reported the approach of the Turks in huge numbers. Bohemund, to whom the other chiefs lad committed the general charge of the host, ordered the tents o be pitched and the baggage unladed by the side of a reedy narsh ^ which gave a certain amount of cover, and deployed his nen in front of it. The infantry were left to guard the impedi- nenta,^ the cavalry alone drew up in line of battle. The camp vas not fully pitched, nor the squadrons completely ranged in )rder, when swarms of Turks suddenly appeared from all iirections, pressing in on the flanks and rear of the army as well

^ Fulcher (chap, v) says that the parting was accidental, owing to the divergence )f one column at a cross-road, and the failure to get into touch again. Albert of Aix .ays that it was deliberate, and ordered for the reason stated above. William of Tyre 'ays that it was uncertain whether it was accidental or not.

2 "Juxta quoddam arudinetum " (Fulcher, v.).

^ Gesta Francorum, 6 : " Pedites prudenter et citius extendunt tentoria, milites eunt /iriliter obviam iis [Turcis]."

272 THE ART OF WAR IN THE MIDDLE AGES [ic

as upon its front. The Sultan had gathered all his availal forces, and, though too late to relieve Nicaea, trusted to aven himself on its conquerors by a battle in the open field. The mc distant Seljouk hordes of Asia Minor had now had time to jc him, and his host was enormous — the Crusaders estimate it from a hundred and fifty thousand to three hundred and fii thousand strong. What struck the Franks with the great( surprise was that every man was mounted : the whole horde \\ composed of horse-archers, and not a foot-soldier was visible. In a few minutes the Crusaders found themselves envelope The Turks pressed in from all quarters at once ; some appear in the rear and cut to pieces many belated parties who had r reached the camp at the moment when the fight began ; ^ oth< threatened the flanks ; the majority advanced against t Prankish line of battle. But they were not drawn up in a regular array or order : in loose swarms they kept riding alo the crusading line and discharging their flights of arrows ir the masses of heavy-armed cavalry. There was no main bo which the Franks could charge, and Bohemund, lest his m should fall into disorder, refrained from ordering a gene advance, hoping that the enemy might ere long close with hi But they showed no intention of doing so, and fresh horc were continually pressing up, emptying their quivers, and th sweeping off to the flanks. At last the Crusaders grew restlt and angry : many bands from various parts of the line bro out and dashed to the front. But they could not reach t Turks, who rode off at their approach, overwhelming them w: showers of arrows and slaying their horses by scores — t mail-clad men suffered much less than might have been expectt But when they turned to make their way back to the line, t enemy closed around them, cut off" the stragglers, and destroy many of the parties wholesale. Seeing the little profit that t sallies brought them, the Crusaders soon desisted from attempti to drive off" the enemy, and contented themselves with closi their ranks and standing firm. But this passive policy or made them a more helpless prey to the Turks, whose arro fell so thickly among the crowd that the line began to grow loc and disordered. This unequal combat, in which the Fran suffered heavy loss and the Turks little or none, went on i several hours. At last the host grew more and more unsteac

^ Raymond d'Agiles, i.

1097] DORYLvEUM: THE HOUR OF PERIL 273

and instinctively began to fall back towards the camp, the flanks especially giving ground and closing in towards the centre, so that the whole tended to become a clubbed mass instead of an orderly line of battle. But there was no help in the camp ; while the main battle was going on, many bands of Turks had assailed it from the rear, and had broken in among the disorderly infantry who had been charged with its defence. They were already pillaging the tents and slaying the non-combatants, — priests, servants, and women, — whose screams rose loud above the tumult as the cavalry fell back towards the encampment. At the approach of the horsemen the Turks in the rear stopped their plundering and drew off, thinking that the Crusaders were re- turning to drive them away. " But," as an eye-witness remarks, " what they thought was a deliberate move on our part was really involuntary, and the result of despair. For, crushed one against another like sheep penned up in a fold, helpless and panic-stricken, we were shut in by the Turks on every side, and had not the courage to break out at any point. The air was filled with shouts and screams, partly from the combatants, partly from the multi- tude in the camp. Already we had lost all hope of saving our- selves, and were owning our sins and commending ourselves to God's mercy. Believing themselves at the point to die, many men left the ranks and asked for absolution from the nearest priest. It was to little purpose that our chiefs, Robert of Normandy, Stephen of Blois, and Bohemund kept striving to beat back the Infidels, and sometimes charged out against them. The Turks had closed in, and were attacking us with the greatest audacity." ^

Everything portended an instant and terrible disaster, when suddenly the face of the battle was changed in a moment. Messengers had been sent off earlier in the day to seek the right- hand column, whose exact position seems to have been unknown to the leaders of the left-hand corps. They had at last found it, encamped some six or seven miles away.- On receiving the news, Duke Godfrey, Raymond of Toulouse, and the other chiefs armed and mounted, and spurred off for the battlefield, with all the horsemen of their host. They sent before them some swift riders to warn Bohemund of their approach. The infantry remained be- hind to guard the tents.

The Turkish Sultan seems to have altogether neglected to

^ Fulcher, i. 5. 2 Albert of Aix.

18

274 THE ART OF WAR IN THE MIDDLE AGES [1097

reconnoitre the march of Godfrey's division, or, at any rate, had forgotten to pay any heed to its possible arrival on the field. The Crusaders, as they pushed on towards the fight, found no one in their way, and at last, topping the ridge which bounded the valley where the conflict was raging, saw the whole battle at their feet. They had, in the most fortunate manner, come in upon the left flank and rear of the Turkish host, which had now closed in upon Bohemund's camp and was contracted into a small space.

Godfrey saw that the most splendid opportunity for a sudden attack on the flank and rear of the Turks was in his hands, if he struck hard at once, before his arrival had been seen and provided against. Sending back orders to those behind to gallop in at full speed, he himself dashed at the Turks with the head of his column, fifty knights of his own following. The Sultan and his bodyguard were visible, stationed on a hillock behind the centre of the Turkish semicircle. Godfrey charged straight at them, and his impetuous assault from the rear seems to have been the first notice of the change in the battle that reached the enemy. The rest of the Crusaders of the right column came riding in at full speed behind him, each band crossing the ridge by the shortest cut it could find — Raymond of Toulouse on the left next the camp of Bohemund, the Count of Flanders to the centre behind Godfrey, the Bishop of Puy by a distant hillside and through a gap in the ridge which brought him to the rear of the Turkish centre.

The Infidels had no time to form a front, before they realised that a new army was in the field. Thousands of Christian horse- men were dashing in upon them, rolling up their left flank, and striking their centre from the rear. They hardly attempted tc rally, though the Franks in their hasty deployment and hurried advance must have come in upon them in considerable disorder.^ Struck by a simultaneous impulse of panic, the whole Turkish host swept off the field in wild rout : only the Sultan's bodyguard

^ The ground over which the right cohimn reached the field was mountainous (Baldric of Dol; Guibert of Nogent. See Delpech, ii. 153). I conclude, therefore, thai they cannot have marched in line : they had started off in haste, and no doubt the reai must have straggled far behind the head of the column. As a sudden blow was ab- solutely necessary, there cannot have been any time for them to deploy into a regulai order of battle. If Godfrey had waited to do so, the Turks would have got off. It seems certain, therefore, that each contingent came over the ridge at the point nearest and most convenient to itself, the Count of Toulouse far to the left, so as to joic Bohemund and the left column in their final attack.

I097] DORYL^UM: VICTORY OF THE CRUSADERS 275

held out for a few minutes to allow their master to get a fair start in the flight. The victory was made more crushing by the fact that Bohemund's tired troops delivered a desperate charge

I the moment that their friends appeared in the rear of the enemy. Thus the Turkish left wing was caught between the two Christian hosts, and suffered severely ere it could get off.

I The victorious Crusaders pursued the defeated foe with the

' greatest energy, prevented them from rallying, seized their richly stored camp, and finally scattered them to the winds. Kilidj-

1 Arslan did not dare to offer battle again during the many weeks occupied in the march through the interior plateau of Asia Minor. The panic among his followers had been so great that they continued flying at full speed long after the victors had stayed their pursuit. When the Crusaders resumed their march, they found the roadside, for three days' journey from the field, strewn with the horses which the Turks had ridden to death in the wild flight, "although the Lord alone was now pursuing them." 1

The losses on both sides had been less than might have been expected. The Turks had only suffered in the last ten minutes of the battle, when their left wing was caught between the two Christian divisions. The Franks of Godfrey's host had not suffered at all: those of Bohemund's column had been under the arrow-flight for five hours, but their armour helped them, and more horses than men had been slain. We need not be surprised to hear that the victors had lost only four thousand and the vanquished only three thousand men. Much the largest share of the Christian loss fell upon the wretched foot-soldiery, wrho had been massacred among the tents.^

Doryla^um can only be called a victory of chance. The Crusaders had deserved defeat by their careless march in two disconnected columns. How utterly unknown the locality of the two divisions was to each other is best shown by the fact that it took five hours ^ for Godfrey's succours to reach Bohemund, though there were only six or seven miles between them. Evidently the greater part of this time must have been wasted while Bo^hemund's messengers, sent off when the Turks

^ Fulcher, i. 5. Raymond d'Agiles, 239.

2 Figures taken from William of Tyre — a late authority, though a very capable one. ^ Fulcher gives five or six hours as the duration of the engagement, and also retealrks that the messengers reached Godfrey very late : (chap. v.).

276 THE ART OF WAR IN THE MIDDLE AGES [1097

first threatened an attack, were vainly searching for the right column. A body of men numbered by tens of thousands, and carrying with it an enormous train of baggage, is not a hard thing to find, if only its general direction is known. We can but con- clude, therefore, that the two divisions must have completely lost touch with each other, and have marched quite at haphazard.

The left column would obviously have suffered a terrible disaster if the succours had not appeared at the right time and in the most effective position. The Franks were wholly unable to cope with the unexpected form of the Turkish attack. They made no attempt to use their infantry in conjunction with theii cavalry, either by setting those armed with missile weapons tc return the hostile showers of arrows, or by employing those armed with long weapons — spears and the like — to serve as a refuge and shield for the cavalry in the intervals between itJ charges. Probably in their untrained state the foot-soldien would have been unable to discharge either function very effectively — we have seen that they were not even able to defenc the camp. But for want of them Bohemund and his colleagues condemned themselves to fight that most hopeless form of battle in which cavalry endeavour to act on the defensive and to hole a position. This course was almost as dangerous as the om which they avoided — that of making a general charge witi unprotected flanks into the midst of the great circle of Turkisl horsemen. To wait and receive the enemy's shafts withou being able to reply to them could only retard disaster, and no avert it. As a matter of fact, after five hours of endurance th< Franks had recoiled to their tents in a disorderly mass, am were about to break up and suffer massacre when their comrade: came to their aid.

Undeserved as the victory had been, it yet gave the Crusader: a free passage through Asia Minor. They were not agaii obliged to fight a pitched battle till they had arrived at Antiocb By the time that the siege of that place had been formed, th< condition of the army had greatly changed. The privation which it had been forced to endure on its long march had fear fully thinned its ranks. The infantry had fallen by the way ii tens of thousands : the cavalry had lost the greater part of it. horses. For the Western chargers could not stand the heat and the forage provided for them was both insufficient ii quantity and different in form from that to which they wen

1097] THE SIEGE OF ANTIOCH BEGUN 277

accustomed. In the winter of 1097-98 there are said to have been less than a thousand left in the Christian camp fit for service. The whole army would have been dismounted if it had not been for one or two lucky captures which furnished them with a quantity of Syrian horses won from the enemy.

With the long siege — or rather blockade — of Antioch we have not much to do. The military machines of the Franks proved wholly unable to deal with the splendid walls of the city — a legacy from Justinian. For many months the Crusaders lay encamped in a secure triangular position between the Orontes and the city wall, blocking three of the gates on the east and north-east, but leaving free ingress and egress to the enemy through those which led to the north-west and north. At this rate the leaguer might have gone on for ever — the besieged only began to be inconvenienced when, five months after they had arrived before the place,^ the Franks built a tower to command the western gate,^ and a sort of tete-du-pont (if we may use the term in an unusual sense) to block the exit from the Bridge-Gate, where the city ran down to the bank of the Orontes. After this the Turks were straitened for supplies of food, and especially for forage for their horses, but they were not thoroughly enclosed, as they could still get in and out at nights by posterns, and never lost their communications with their friends without. Meanwhile, the Christians were suffering quite as much as their adversaries : they had drained the immediate neighbourhood of supplies, the parties which they sent out to plunder at a distance were repeatedly cut off by the Turks, and though they succeeded in getting in touch with i the sea at the port of St. Simeon, where a Genoese flotilla had I come to anchor, their communication with it was often inter- rupted and always hazardous. Famine reigned in the camp all " through the winter and early spring, and men and horses died off like flies.

It was fortunate for the Franks that the two most serious I engagements during the siege were fought in places where the I Turkish methods of fighting could not easily be employed.

The first fight was the more important one. The emirs of Syria had gathered an army, variously estimated at from twelve thousand to twenty-eight thousand strong, to raise the siege, or

^ The siege began October 21st. The new works were not begun till February. ' The gate of St. George.

278 THE ART OF WAR IN THE MIDDLE AGES [109^

at least to harass the besiegers. Hearing of its approach, thf crusading chiefs determined to make a bold stroke at it befort it closed in upon them. The Turkish force had met at th^ town of Harenc (Harim), sixteen miles east of Antioch. Theii best way of communicating with the place was by advancing through the open ground north of the Orontes and the Crusaders camp, and so coming in upon the Bridge-Gate. But this routt had one dangerous defile upon it. About seven miles east o Antioch, there is a place where the great lake of Begras at it: southern end approaches within a mile of the Orontes : ^ th< road passes through this narrow neck of land. This was th< point at which the Crusaders resolved to intercept the relievin| army : the neighbourhood of their camp was now well known U them, and Bohemund had noted this spot not only as giving i narrow front where superior numbers would not avail, but als( as affording opportunities for a surprise, for the approach wa: hilly, and there were many dips in the ground where a consider able force could lie hid.

The Franks could only put into the field seven hundrec well-mounted men: their horses had fallen into such bad con dition that only that number could be found fit to face a shor night march and a battle to follow. With this small bam Bohemund, to whom the command had been given for the day marched out under cover of the darkness, and, " passing ove seven valleys and seven ridges," ^ took post close to the narrov neck between the lake and the river. At dawn the Turks wer seen advancing, with a swarm of horse-archers thrown out ii front to cover their main body. When the whole were in tfe defile, the Crusaders, having formed a line of five small squadrons with a sixth in reserve, galloped in upon this vanguard. Th Turks yielded after a smart skirmish, and fell back in disorde on their main body. If there had been room and time for th Infidels to deploy,^ the Crusaders must have been crushed, bu

^ The distance was apparently much shorter in 1098 than now ; probably th marshy southern end of the lake is drying up and receding.

- Raymond d'Agiles, p. 253.

^ Raymond d'Agiles and William of Tyre agree on this. The latter says : " Con^ primentibus eos locorum angustiis, hinc lacu inde fluvio licentiam evagandi inhibent ad consuetas discurrendi artes et sagittandi habilitatem discurrere non dabatur. William of Tyre, however, does not seem fully to have grasped the topograph when he speaks of the Turks as having "crossed the river during the night at th upper bridge." There is no river between Harenc and the battle-spot. The onl stream between the Bridge-Gate and Harenc is the Iferin (Labotas), the river whic

1

1098] COMBAT OF HARENC 279

the Turks were caught still massed, and with the lake and river close on each flank. The van was thrown in upon the rest of the host in helpless rout, the main body was so crushed and cramped in the confined ground that they could not scatter or outflank the Crusaders, and though they made some attempt to bear up against the charge, yet, when Bohemund and his reserve were thrown into the fight, they slackened in their resistance and strove to fly. But flight was not easy, with the waters so close on each side, and no less than two thousand horsemen were slain or drowned. The Franks pursued vigorously, and captured the town of Harenc and the whole of the enemy's baggage before nightfall (Feb. 8, 1098).

The second fight was of a still simpler description. The garrison made a sally in force from the Bridge - Gate, and crossed the Orontes to operate in the plain beyond it. Promptly attacked, with the river at their backs, they could neither deploy into their usual crescent - shaped formation, nor practise the alternate advances and retreats which formed the basis of their system of tactics. Crushed back against the water by vigorous charges, they were badly beaten, and in struggling back to the gate, which had been shut behind them by a foolish inspiration of the Emir Baghi-Sagan, they suffered heavily, and many hundreds were drowned or slain (March 1098).

Antioch fell by treachery on June 4, 1098.^ It obviously could not have been taken by force, and that it could have been reduced by starvation is very improbable, as its communications with the open country were straitened rather than cut off. The very day of its fall the vanguard of a great relieving army appeared in the vicinity. Not only the nearer princes of Syria, but the more distant powers of Mesopotamia and Persia, had combined to rescue Baghi-Sagan from his assailants ; their host was headed by Kerboga, the Emir of Mosul, and was reckoned at one hundred and fifty thousand or two hundred thousand strong. In a few days the newly-arrived army overran the

drains the lake, and this lies considerably to the Orontes west of the defile between the lake and the Orontes. Therefore the Crusaders passed it, but not the Turks. If the narrow neck had been west of where the Iferin falls into the main river, we might suppose that this was the stream which the Turks crossed. But the fact being the reverse, William must be wrong. Apparently he was making some confusion with the Iron Bridge over the Orontes six or seven miles east of the camp.

^ For a description of the walls of Antioch, their topography, and ihe Crusaders' entry, see chap. vii. of Book vi.

28o THE ART OF WAR IN THE MIDDLE AGES [1098

plain of Antioch, and forced the Crusaders to keep within theii old camp and the newly-captured city. The position of the Franks was dangerous, as the citadel was still holding out Shems-ed-Dowleh, the son of Baghi-Sagan, and the wrecks oi the garrison had sought refuge in it when the place fell. They had to be watched, and their sallies were only restrained by the erection of forts on the precipitous heights leading up to theii place of vantage.

Battle of Antioch^ June 28, 1098.

The position of the Crusaders, therefore, was hardly alterec for the better. Though they had taken Antioch, they were themselves practically besieged by Kerboga. After waiting foi more than three weeks, during which things went from bad tc worse, and the famine which had made the winter so miserable broke out for a second time, the Prankish chiefs saw that they must fight or perish. They accordingly resolved to sally out from the city by the Bridge-Gate and attack the Turks, whose main body lay encamped in the plain to the north of the Orontes On this occasion they resolved to combine horse and foot in their line of battle. It was absolutely necessary to make the experiment : when the mounted men had dwindled to a very few thousands,^ they could no longer suffice to cope with the vast army of Kerboga. There were many hundreds of knights oi approved valour who had lost their chargers, and it would have been absurd to leave them out of the fight. If they marched on foot, they would serve to give confidence and steadiness to the untrained and untrustworthy infantry.'^ The infusion ol mailed men of approved courage and high rank would naturally diminish the tendency to panic and disorder which made the Western foot-soldiery of that day so helpless before the enemy. Accordingly, the greatest care was taken to bring the infantry into fighting trim : it was divided into small bodies placed under competent leaders, and in all probability sorted according to the character of the arms it bore. We hear most about the archers and arbalesters, though there must have been thousands who were not armed with these missile weapons. But for fighting

^ William of Tyre's number of one thousand and fifty is incredibly small. We know that on one occasion and another the Crusaders had captured more than two thousand chargers from the enemy.

^ Albert of Aix, iv.

098] ANTIOCH: SORTIE OF THE CRUSADERS 281

nemies like the Turks, who placed their whole confidence in leir arrows, troops armed with long-range weapons would be specially valuable. We have already had occasion to remark lore than once that the foot-archer is the most efficient check n the horse-archer, because he can carry a larger weapon with longer range. Probably Western archery, save in some few istricts, was not very efficient, yet it would still be of much vail against the Turk. Of course, however, it was not by the rrow that the crusading chiefs intended to win. The infantry -ere to be mere auxiliaries in the fight, and the charge of the lailed horsemen was to deal the decisive blow. The battle rder was to consist of lines of infantry with small bodies of avalry in the rear of each, the former to open the fight, the Ltter to end it.

On Monday, June 2S, the army was drawn up in the streets f Antioch, corps by corps, with the van lying just inside the iridge-Gate, and ready to sally out when the signal should be iven. It is most difficult to make out the exact disposition of le various divisions ; various chroniclers give almost every umber between four and thirteen for them. Of the two really ood authorities, Raymond d'Agiles and the Gesta Francorum, le first gives eight, the second six.^ But Raymond adds the arious statement that "the princes had arranged eight 3rps, but when we had got outside the city, with every man ble to bear arms put into the ranks, we found there were ve more corps, so that we fought with thirteen instead of the riginal eight." ^ Comparing the elaborate list of names in each ivision which two or three of the chroniclers give, we find that lere is little or no dispute about the first four and the last two r the corps, but that in the middle of the line we have a difficulty 1 reckoning the bodies formed by the Burgundian, South-French, nd Provencal contingents. In these parts of the army, which ere led by Godfrey of Bouillon and Adhemar, Bishop of Puy, )me reckon only two large masses, some four, some as many as , iven smaller ones. The general result of our investigation I iems to be that though the original intention had been to com- ose the centre of two corps of Lorrainers and Burgundians, and

^ Fulcher of Chartres gives four, the Gesta six (as also many chroniclers who I tpy the Gesta), Anselm of Ribeaumont and Orderic Vitalis seven, Raymond eight, I r thirteen), Gilo nine, Albert of Aix and William of Tyre twelve, f ' Raymond d'Agiles, p. 287.

282 THE ART OF WAR IN THE MIDDLE AGES [lo

the left of two corps of Aquitanians and Provengals, yet on gettii into the plain these two grand divisions were re-formed respective into three and four brigades. If we can trust Raymond d'Agil( it was an inspiration of the moment, caused by the fact that t numbers of these contingents had been underrated in the coun of war which drew up the order of battle.^

Summing up our authorities, we may conclude that t probable order was as follows: — (i) North- French, under Hug brother of the King of France ; (2) Flemings, under their Cou Robert; (3) Normans, under Robert, son of William the Conquer These three divisions formed the right wing, and headed t column. The next to issue from the gate were the contingei (4) (5) (6), three corps of Lorrainers, Burgundians, and Mi French, under the general command of Duke Godfrey — the otl two bodies in this division seem to have been under Reginc Count of Toul, and Hugh Count of St. Pol. The whole w destined to form the centre in the fight. Next were (7) (8) (9) (] four corps of Provencals, Aquitanians, and West-French, unc the general command of Bishop Adhemar, the three other lead< in this wing (the left) being Raimbaud Count of Orange, Isoc Count of Die, and Count Conan the Breton.^ Finally, (: Tancred and Gaston de Beam, with Apulians and Gascons ; a (12) Bohemund, with the main body of the Normans of Italy a Sicily. The last-named corps was to form a reserve divisi behind the others, and to guard the rear when all should he defiled over the bridge and into the plain.^

The only useful notice which we have concerning the numl of men in each division is Albert of Aix's statement that Di Godfrey's own corps consisted of no more than two thousa men, horse and foot all told. Albert grossly exaggerates ' weakness of the Franks in all his account. But Godfrey's co may have been smaller than the rest — we are told at least ti

^ The original design, according to Raymond, was to make four grand divis — (i) North-French, Plemings, and Normans ; (2) Lorrainers and Burgundians; Aquitanians and Proven5als ; (4) Sicilian and Apulian Normans (Raymond, p. 2 Each grand division was composed of "duo orpines duplices," i.e. two corp two lines, one of foot and one of horsemen. So there were to be eight c< in all.

2 Raymond of Toulouse should have shared the command of this wing ^ the bishop, but was left behind in Antioch to observe the citadel with two hunc knights. He was too sick to ride that day.

^ All this array is given wit/i resei'vaiions ; there may be, and probably are, ff in it. But the divergences of the chroniclers only allow us to give probabilities.

PLATE VIT

Siege AND Battle

of

A\NiTrHQ)€:Hl.

•^Oct I097-Junel098.

lone Foot

,098] ANTIOCH: ADVANCE OF THE CRUSADERS 283

Boheriiund's corps was much larger,^ Yet it would be hazardous to put the full force of the army which marched out at more than from twenty-five thousand to thirty thousand men, of which one tenth, perhaps, may have been mounted. We know that the divisions in the front line covered, when deployed, a front of over two miles. Allowing for intervals between the corps, this would require twenty-one thousand foot-soldiers six deep ; the formation is not likely to have been thinner than that depth, as the infantry were known to be unsteady, and could not have been trusted to stand firm if arrayed only in three or four ranks. Adding a few thousands more for Bohemund's corps and the cavalry, we may reach thirty thousand altogether.

Kerboga's camp lay to the north-east of Antioch, under the hills which rise abruptly two miles beyond the Orontes. The Crusaders were resolved to march straight upon it, after crossing the bridge and deploying into line. Thus their front would lie east-north-east, with the Orontes close to their right flank and the hills close to their left. It was arranged that as each corps passed the bridge it should deploy in order on the plain beyond, the van halting immediately that it had crossed and forming close to the river, the centre prolonging the line northward, and the left (which would have far the longest space to march) reaching to the foot of the hills. The danger of this plan lay in the possibility that Kerboga might let one or two corps pass, and then fall upon them while the rest were struggling out of the gate and on to the bridge. If he had done so, the fate of the Crusaders might have been like that of Earl Warrenne's army at Cambuskenneth,^ — the van might have been battered to pieces before the main body could force its way to the front. But the Emir preferred to let the whole Christian army march out into the plain, where he hoped to have room to outfliank and surround them in the usual Turkish fashion.^ " The farther they come out the more they will be in our power " are said to have been his words.^

^ Albert of Aix, iv. 47. But Albert much overstates the misery of the Crusaders, says that many knights rode to battle on asses, and that there were only two hundred horses in the army. He was not an eye-witness, and his informants exaggerated grossly.

^ See chap. i. of Book vir.

^ Albert of Aix, not an eye-witness, and William of Tyre, writing a centurj' later, say that Kerboga sent out a corps of archers to hold the ground just across the bridge, and prevent the Franks deploying. No good authority mentions such a move.

•* Gesta Francorum, xxix. 3.

284 THE ART OF WAR IN THE MIDDLE AGES [io<

It was only when corps after corps came pouring over tl bridge, and it became evident that the Christians were far mo numerous than he had supposed, and might when drawn up f the whole breadth of the plain, and prevent any turning mov ment, that Kerboga roused himself and put his army in motio Apparently, the divisions of Hugh, the two Roberts, and Godfn were already in line, and that of Bishop Adhemar was beginnit to take ground to their left, when the Emir endeavoured to thrc his right wing across the level ground at the foot of the hill whe the remaining Christian corps were intending to draw up. Fiftec thousand horse, filing along the foot of the hills, succeeded getting round the flank of the Crusaders and placing themselv perpendicularly to the still incomplete left wing. These a said to have been the Turks of Kilidj-Arslan of Roum, ar Ridwan of Aleppo.^ The corps of Bishop Adhemar and tl three which followed it had the greatest difficulty in fightii their way into line with the centre and right.^ But tht succeeded in doing so, and thereby cut the army of Kerboga two, the detached corps under the Sultan of Roum becomii completely separated from the main force.^ Hence the batt consisted of two independent fights — one between the ma Christian army and the Turkish centre and left, the oth between the detached right wing of the Infidels and the Christie reserve under Bohemund. For the latter prince, seeing tl fatal consequences which might ensue if Kilidj-Arslan attack( Godfrey and Adhemar in the rear, hurried forward and deploye( his corps facing westward, with their backs to the main bod His position must have been parallel with the divisions Adhemar and Godfrey, i.e. behind the left centre of the ma army. Godfrey, according to some of our sources, hastily se the corps of Reginald of Toul to assist in keeping off the attac from the rear.

In the main battle the Crusaders won a complete victo:

^ But this we have only from two secondary chroniclers, William of Tyre and authority, Albert of Aix.

^ Raymond d' Agiles, p. 286 : ' * We had to strive hard in the space at the foot the hills, as the enemy was trying to envelop us, and had their largest corps in frc of us."

' '* Denique divisi sunt Turci : una pars ivit contra mare ; alii steterunt contra no;

* Ralph of Caen compares the Christian army so arrayed to the snake of the fal which had a head at each end, or to a monster with two faces, and specially mentic that Bohemund "turned his back to his friends, and his face to his enemie (pp. 169, 170).

t

398] ANTIOCH : VICTORY OF THE CRUSADERS 285

ith astonishing ease. Kerboga was a bad general, and his ^lleagues, the Emirs of Damascus and Aleppo, were mistrustful f him and of each other. Moslem historians tell us that at the loment of action a great body of Turcoman auxiliaries, with hom Ridwan of Aleppo had been tampering, treacherously took ) flight and threw the whole line into confusion. It is certain, t any rate, that when the Christian armies advanced in steady ne, with archers in front and knights behind, the Turks retired cm their first station towards their camp. There they again lade a front, but there was no further chance of putting their sual tactics into play, since the Franks filled the whole plain from le river to the hills, and could not be outflanked. Their first itreat had some semblance of order, but when pressed again the afidels broke up more and more, and finally fled at full speed, the Dwardly Kerboga at their head. They made off by the road etween the Orontes and the lake of Antioch, abandoning their imp and the masses of unfortunate camp-followers to the sword f the Franks. " No man of rank fell," says Kemal-ed-din, " but lere was a horrid slaughter of our foot auxiliaries, grooms, and irvants." ^

The combat in the rear had been much more serious. The urks of Roum and Aleppo fell with fury upon Bohemund's Drps, where the infantry threw themselves into a dense circle nd did their best to hold firm. They were in great danger,, xposed to the Turkish arrows and attacked at intervals by arties who abandoned their usual tactics and charged in with le sword. The corps of Reginald of Toul when it came up was Iso assailed with great vigour, and suffered heavy loss : accord- ig to some authorities, nearly the whole of its infantry was cut ) pieces. But presently the Turks saw their own main army ying, and knew that the battle was lost. Apparently, too, the ictorious Crusaders detached more troops to help Bohemund. 'iring the grass to cover their retreat,^ the Infidels made off west- wards towards the sea, and left the corps of Bohemund and Reginald maltreated, but still holding firm. The diversion had tterly failed because of the cowardly conduct of Kerboga and lie main army.

^ See the quotations from Kemal-ed-din, Abulfeda, and Abulfarag in Michaud's. Hblioth^que des Croisades, iv. 9.

^ We need not believe the unlikely story about the smoke signals concerted etween Kerboga and his lieutenants.

286 THE ART OF WAR IN THE MIDDLE AGES [lo^

The battle of Antioch filled both Frank and Turk wi wonder. The Christians marvelled at their own victory : wi inferior numbers and men debilitated by famine and the heat the Eastern sun, they had swept the Infidels before therh in single desperate charge. They attributed their success who] to supernatural causes : the Holy Lance borne before Bish( Adhemar, they said, had turned the enemy to flight, and tj hosts of heaven, headed by St. George and St. Demetrius, h; been seen co-operating in the victory, " clothed in white, ridii on white horses, and bearing white banners before them." TJ Moslems attributed the victory of the few over the many, tl famished over the well-nurtured, to the inscrutable will of Heave desiring to chastise the emirs for their sins.

To those in search of more earthly explanations the meanii of the fight is obvious enough. The Turks had fought on more in a space too confined for their usual tactics : the rig wing of the Franks rested on the river, and could not be turne Their left wing, the point in real danger, broke through the hord sent to surround it and got in touch with the hills. When bo flanks were protected, they had only to execute a straightforwa charge, and the Turks must choose between the hand-to-har combat, which they always disliked, and flight. They chose tl latter alternative, and the day was won. If the rear had not bet guarded by Bohemund and Reginald of Toul, a disaster mig well have occurred ; but while the attack on the rear was held check, the main Turkish army could do nothing.

The lessons of Dorylaeum and Antioch should have remaint fixed deep in the minds of both Christian and Moslem, but v shall see that only the keenest minds on each side suspected tJ meaning. Both parties for the next hundred years frequent repeated their original blunders — the Turks that of fighting cramped ground, the Franks that of failing to combine hor and foot in due proportions.

Battle of As caloUy August 14, 1099.

There was no general engagement of importance beside tl battle of Antioch during the conquest of Syria. The rest of tl history of the year 1098-99 consists of a series of sieges, wil which we shall have to deal when treating of the siegecraft of tl early Crusaders. It was not till August 1099 that another batt in the open field was fought, and this time the enemy was not tl^

I

BATTLE OF ASCALON 287

irk, but the Fatimite ruler of Egypt, El-Mustali Abul-Kasim

timed. The Egyptians had been in possession of Palestine at the

iment of the arrival of the Crusaders, and it was from them that

-^alem had been wrested. Shortly after it had fallen (August

.j], El-Mustali sent his general, El-Afdal, with a large army

drive off the Crusaders and recover the Holy City. The rces of El-Afdal were unlike those with which the Crusaders

cl hitherto had to contend. They resembled the old Saracen

mies with which the Byzantines had so often fought: there

many thousand infantry, all black Soudanese, armed with

- and iron maces (or flails) ; while the cavalry consisted partly

]\Ioorish and Bedouin light horse, partly of mailed troopers of e Caliph's regular army. All of these were spearmen, and not chers like the Turks. Having long been at war with the jrkish princes of Syria, El-Mustali had no help to expect from em. But there seem to have been a few mercenaries of irkish blood in his ranks. The whole army is estimated at usual vague figure of three hundred thousand by the crus- j writers. It may possibly have reached in reality some fifty ousand or sixty thousand in all.^

The Franks marched out from Jerusalem on August 13, ith five thousand horse and fifteen thousand foot.^ The knights,

will be observed, were all remounted since their victorious arch through Syria, having found Arab horses for themselves

replace their lost chargers. Hence the proportion of cavalry

infantry is far larger than it had been at Antioch. When ey arrived in the neighbourhood of the enemy, they feared to ; surprised and surrounded on the march, and formed the army

nine small corps, each composed of foot and horse. These >rps marched three abreast, so that whether attacked in front, ar, or flank there would always be three divisions to face the .ock, three to sustain them, and three more in reserve.^ So far, )wever, were they from suffering from any such danger, that ey themselves surprised and captured the flocks and herds of l-Afdal's army, which were grazing, under the guard of three mdred men, in a valley some miles north of Ascalon.

i ^ The Moslem Ibn-Giouzi says no more than twenty thousand. This is probably \ understatement. Perhaps it only includes the Caliph's regular troops.

* So say the Princes in their letter to the Pope. The usually trustworthy Raymond ^es the number as twelve hundred knights and nine thousand foot only.

^ Raymond of Agiles, p. 388.

288 THE ART OF WAR IN THE MIDDLE AGES [la

The fugitives soon brought the news to the Egyptian vizit who prepared to fight next morning. He took up his positi( on the shore north of the town of Ascalon, with his left wii resting on the sea and his right on the hills, which here run son two miles inland from the water. In his rear was the town wi its orchards and plantations, and the camp pitched outside t Jerusalem gate. He placed his Soudanese archers in the fro line, his regular cavalry behind them. On the right a corps Bedouins were to endeavour to encircle the enemy's flank : i the left the sea rendered any such attempt impossible.

On August 14 the Crusaders came in sight, marching dov the sandy plain between the water and the hills, which gradual broadens as it approaches Ascalon. When they came into t neighbourhood of the Egyptians, they proceeded to deploy in line from the order of march in nine columns which they h hitherto kept. Apparently the front three columns, unc Robert of Normandy, halted, while the second line, unc Raymond of Toulouse, took ground to their right next the S( and the rear line, under Godfrey of Bouillon, filed off to the I and took post towards the hills.^ The whole nine corps th came up into a single line, and no reserve was left behind : each corps the infantry were formed in front, the cavalry the rear.

When the two armies were within bowshot, the Soudanc opened fire on the Crusaders, " falling on one knee to sho according to the custom." ^ At the same time the whole Sarac army struck up a horrible din of trumpets and nakers to dai the Christians, and the Bedouin squadrons rode out to the rig to encircle the left flank of the enemy. The opening of t fight by the Infidels is described by one good authority resembling " a stag lowering his head and extending his hoi so as to encircle the aggressor with them ; " ^ but there can ha been no attempt to do this on the western flank, where the s was too close to allow of any such manoeuvre.

The turning movement was easily stopped by Duke Godfr who charged with his knights and easily rode down the lig]

^ This deployment seems certain from the words of the Ces^a Francomm, xxx which say that Raymond fought on the right, Godfrey on the left, and all the otl between them : it names Robert of Normandy, Tancred, and Robert of Flanders among those who commanded in the centre, but says that ' ' alii omnes " were there a

2 Albert of Aix, vi. ^ Fulcher of Chartres, xix.

PLATE VIII.

ASCALON,

Au^.14.1009.

Crusaders ci J^M Egyptians ^ c±]

Q 9

6 ^*

^^ o

<?--^<?:<?.<? p'- p

Q Q

'^o^'^Qo^Q-' ' ' '^ ^

q n .'^ Q Q "^

Robert Fulcoy

Battle qtHab,

Aiig.19,1119.

Christians ^ p?^ 7i/rA.s 6 6 6 6

Infai-itry

The King

AritiocKeiae Buroiia

P p P o P ^

O XD D o

^ ^ D O ^ O o

Pons of Tripoli

I

1099] BATTLE OF ASCALON Hi 9§$

armed Arabs. At the same time, a general advance was made all along the line, the Christian cavalry charging before the Soudanese had time to discharge their bows more than once.^ [n every quarter the Egyptian foot were rolled back on to their lorse, and the whole army fell at once into complete confusion. Ihey seem to have made a very poor resistance, and the Drusaders penetrated everywhere through their line. Robert )f Normandy slew the vizier's banner-bearer, Tancred charged ■ight into the Moslem camp, Raymond of Toulouse hurled the lostile left wing into the sea. Some of the Egyptians got into :he town, others fled away to the south, some even swam out to ;heir fleet, which lay moored off the shore. But thousands were ilain on the field, many more crushed to death as they tried to brce their way in at the crowded gates, and a considerable lumber were drowned. For some hours after the fight ended, the 3rusaders were hunting down fugitives who had concealed them- lelves in the orchards or even climbed up trees to hide in their ops.^ They captured the hostile camp with vast spoils, and larrowly escaped slaying or taking the Emir El-Afdal. The dttory was a far more crushing one than either Antioch or Dorylaeum, for the enemy had not so good an opportunity of jetting ofl', and suffered much more severely. His wretched nfantry were completely cut to pieces. jij; ;.^j

Obviously the Egyptians were an enemy to be treated far nore unceremoniously than the Turks. They tried to face he heavy cavalry of the Crusaders with less efficient horsemen, irmed only with the spear, and their infantry were in no wise uperlor to that of the Franks. Hence in an open field they v^ere sure to be beaten, even though their numbers were largely uperlor, as undisciplined Asiatic armies have usually been when hey meet Europeans under competent leaders. The Crusaders ame to hold the Egyptians in such contempt that they neglected he most common precautions against them, and would attack hem if they were but one to ten, and even in most unfavourable ;i!Ound. This rashness was chastised a few years later at the •a^ttle of Ramleh, where King Baldwin suffered heavily at the ^nds of the despised foe.

^.^ .^ Albert of Aix, who was not an eye-witness, gives an unintelligible account of the ^t : I follow the Ges^a, checked by Fulcher and Ra}Tnond.

• ^This is mentioned by the Arab chronicler Ibn-Ghiouzi as well as by several of le Christian writers, <?.^. Albert of Aix.

19

296 THE ART OF WAR IN THE MIDDLE AGES [no

Battles of Ramleh^ September 7, i loi, and May 1 102. It had taken the Vizier El-Afdal two years to recover fron the shock which the defeat of Ascalon had imprinted on hi mind. But in the autumn of iioi he sent out a new army t( invade Palestine : Ascalon, still in Egyptian hands, served a a base for the operation of the host. Baldwin I. had nov succeeded his brother Godfrey, who had only worn the crowi of Jerusalem for a year. His little kingdom consisted c nothing more than his capital and the three seaports of Jaffc Arsouf, and Caesarea : the last two he had only just subdued b the aid of a Genoese fleet in the summer of iioi. Baldwin a his life through was a rash and reckless leader, one of th typical Prankish generals on whom the Byzantine authors poi: so much scorn. The Egyptian troops were not so strong a they had been at Ascalon, but still very numerous : Fulcher c Chartres estimates them at eleven thousand horse and twent} one thousand foot;^ the Moslem chroniclers state that the were led by the Emir Saad - ed - Dowleh. Baldwin, howeve resolved to march against them with the scanty force that h could collect in Jerusalem at a few days' notice. He would nc wait for outlying parties of his own followers, much less sit sti for weeks while reinforcements should be summoned froi Antioch or Edessa. The Egyptians having moved out froi Ascalon, Baldwin left Jerusalem and marched down to Jaffa c September 5. The Egyptians did not come to meet him ther but pushed in between the king and his capital, marching 1 Ramleh — a point equidistant from Jerusalem and Jaffa. Thith Baldwin followed them with two hundred knights, sixty sergeani hastily mounted on borrowed horses to swell the number of h cavalry, and nine hundred infantry. He divided this little arn into six corps, each containing both horse and foot, and march( recklessly into the midst of the Egyptian host, who had bee warned of his approach, and had formed up with a front far ot flanking the Crusaders on both wings. Baldwin and his litt band plunged in among them " like fowlers into the midst of covey of birds." Of the exact order of the Franks we have i further particulars than the vague statement of Fulcher, th they were "arrayed according to the rules of military ar Even the simple critics of the twelfth century, however,

^ Fulcher, chap. xxvi.

iioi] FIRST BATTLE OF RAMLEH 291

ready to grant that Baldwin's attack was made with a rash disregard of possible dangers.^

It seems that when the lines were a thousand paces apart ^ the knights put spurs to their horses and, leaving the foot-soldiery behind, dashed at the Egyptians. Only Baldwin himself, with one of the six corps of cavalry, — forty or fifty riders at the most, — remained in the rear with the infantry. When the Christians charged, the Egyptian host folded in its wings and fell upon the Crusaders on all sides, attacking the infantry no less than the horse. The two right squadrons of the knights were taken in flank,^ and completely rolled up, so that hardly a man escaped. The other three were swallowed up among the multitude of the Infidels, and seemed likely to succumb also, when Baldwin and his small reserve of horsemen dashed into the thickest of the fight and gave the necessary impulse to the surging mass. The Egyptian centre broke and fled, and presently their victorious left wing also quitted the field. While the battle was being settled by the cavalry fighting, the infantry in rear had been beset on all sides by the horsemen at the extreme wings of the Egyptian host. They were very roughly handled, so that Fulcher acknow- ledges that " while the Christians were victors in front, they :ame off the worst in the rear." If Baldwin's victory had been delayed a few minutes, the infantry would probably have been entirely broken up and cut to pieces. As it was, the success had been so dubious that a body of five hundred Arabs from the victorious left wing of the Egyptians had ridden up to the walls of Jaffa, displaying the shields and helms of the crusading knights w^hom they had slain, and had shouted to the garrison that Baldwin and all his host had perished. These troops were returning, ignorant of the rout of their main body, when they rode by accident into the midst of the Christians and were mostly cut down.

The losses in Baldwin's army were very heavy. Eighty knights had fallen — a third of the whole cavalry: no doubt they nearly all belonged to the two squadrons which had perished at ihe opening of the battle.^ A much larger number of the

^ " Minus caute," says Ekkehard in his /lie ro so /f mi/a. - Ekkehard.

^ Ekkehard says that one squadron only was cut to pieces by a fiank attack ;: Fulcher (a better witness) that two were destroyed. Albert of Aix, exaggerating earfully, makes four perish, and says that the king won the battle with his own forty lifrigbts alone.

* Fulcher, p. 125.

J9« THE ART OF WAR IN THE MIDDLE x\GES [iioi

infantry had also been cut down. The loss of the Egyptians i< put as high as fifteen thousand men — an impossible figure ; the} probably did not suffer much more than their adversaries. The Moslem historians give no details, but allow that their chief Saad ed-Dowleh was left on the field — killed by a fall from his horse as had been prophesied to him long before by an astrologer. The whole fight had only occupied a short hour.^

After having been within an ace of destruction in Septembei IIOI, it is astonishing to find that Baldwin repeated his reckless tactics in an aggravated form on the very same battlefield, onl} eight months after.^ In May 1 102 the Egyptians once more brokt forth from Ascalon and marched on Ramleh, where they pitchec their camp. Baldwin set out against them with his militar) household, without waiting for any reinforcements from the out lying towns of his little kingdom. He picked up at Jaffa a banc of pilgrim knights, survivors of the unfortunate Crusade of iioi who were just embarking to return to France : they were led b^ Stephen of Blois and Stephen Count Palatine of Burgundy. Thi gave him no more than two hundred lances ; nevertheless, h< marched straight on Ramleh, believing (it is said) that the enem; w^ere only a raiding party some eight hundred or a thousan( strong : ^ as a matter of fact they were a whole army, . about a large as that which had been beaten on the same spot in th previous year.^ " It was pride and presumption that led th king,'' says Fulcher, " not to w^ait for more troops, not to mov to the battle in proper military order, not to listen to any warn ing, not to wait for his foot-soldiery, and not to stop in his marc until he saw before him, and far closer than he wished, such huge multitude of the enemy." With no more than his tw , hundred knights Baldwin rode straight at the hostile centn hoping to repeat his exploit of the previous year. But the odd were too great, and this time he had no infantry with him t protect his rear and take off some of the pressure. The Frank j were engulfed in the hostile mass, and slain off almost to a maj j Baldwin and a few more cut their way out of the melee, but tlr

^ See the chronicle quoted on p. 1 7 of vol. iv. of the Bibliothcque dcs Croisades.

- Fulcher.

^ In all that follows I have taken Fulcher as guide, not Albert of Aix, who vari hopelessly from Fulcher's tale, and was not, like the former, on the spot.

^ Fulcher, chap, xxvii. p. 135.

° Ibid. : ' ' Twenty thousand horse and ten thousand foot, the latter all Soudanes< — numbers grossly exaggerated, we need not doubt.

1 102] FINAL DEFEAT OF THE EGYPTIANS 293

Counts of Blols, Burgundy, and Vendome, and more than a hundred and fifty knights, were left dead on the field. It was possible to despise too much even an Egyptian army, and the king had to learn that headlong courage of the most desperate kind is not enough to compensate for a disparity of numbers in the proportion of a hundred to one.

After several narrow escapes, Baldwin reached Arsouf, and from thence sailed to Jaffa in the galley of Godric, an English adventurer. There he received reinforcements which would have reached him in time for the battle if he had only consented to wait a few days — eighty knights from Galilee under Hugh of St. Omer, ninety from Jerusalem, and a considerable body of infantry. Some weeks later there arrived a great pilgrim fleet of two hundred sail from England and Germany, under Harding the Englishman, and the Westphalians Otto and Hademuth. The crews landed armed, and with their aid Baldwin felt strong enough to march out of Jaffa to face the Egyptians once more in the open field. This time he had learned his lesson, and combined his cavalry and his infantry. The foot-soldiery, no less than seven thousand strong, owing to the reinforcements from the fleet, were armed mainly with bow and arbalest, and kept the enemy's horse at bay, while the knights, a thousand strong, charged out again and again whenever the Egyptians tried to close, and beat back every attack. At last the Infidels, finding they could make no impression on the Franks, rode off, abandoning their camp to the spoiler. They do not seem, how- ever, to have lost any very great number of slain : the estimate of the crusading chroniclers is only three thousand — a very modest number compared with their usual figures. The victory was indecisive, but it saved Palestine, while a defeat would have made ^^ii immediate end of the Latin kingdom.

■■'"/ We should have been glad to have had more particulars as to; the service of the English in this fight. They must have been present in considerable numbers, but none of our native chroniclers tell of Godric and Harding— unless, indeed, the former is the Godric of Finchale who afterwards became a hermit and a saint.

oi oiii li .xili:

■ ■ - ' — di obnn: :>»o odi ih

CHAPTER IV

THE TACTICS OF THE CV^USA.'D'E.VsS—COntmucd

Section II. — Tactics of the Later Battles : Victories at Hob, Hazarth, Marj-es-Safar, Arsoiif, Jaffa.

A S our task is not to write a history of the kingdom o: jfjL Jerusalem and its wars, but to indicate the main militarv tendencies of the crusading age, w^e must not attempt to give ir detail each of the numberless fights of Frank and Moslem, bui only to comment on such of them as show features of import- ance. Speaking in general, we may say that the same point.' of interest which we have observed at Dorylaeum, Antioch Harenc, Ascalon, Ramleh, and Jaffa, are to be found repeatec in all the fights of the twelfth century.

Against the Turk the Crusaders were generally successful i they took care (i) to combine their cavalry with a solid body o infantry armed with missile weapons ; (2) to fight on grounc where the Infidel could not employ his usual Parthian tactics o surrounding and harassing his enemy ; and (3) to avert the danger of starvation by carrying a sufficient store of food Against the non-Turkish Moslems, such as the Egyptians, tin Crusader was far more certain of success ; he had only to ust the common military precautions, and he might fairly count 01 victoiy. The battles of the Franks with these less formidabli foes sometimes remind us of the early English battles in India where the few striking boldly at the many were so oftei victorious in spite of ever)'- disadvantage. The one all-importan canon which had to be observed was that there must b< infantry on the field to serve as a support and rallying point fo the cavalry. If the foot-soldiery seldom won the battle, the; always made the winning of it by the knights possible.

If, on the other hand, the Frank chose to advance recklessb

S34

1 1 19] BALDWIN II. IN NORTH SYRIA 295

into unknown ground in desolate regions, where he could be surrounded, harassed, and finally worn out, or if he allowed his :lass-pnde to lead him astray, and left his infantry behind, he .vas liable to suffer terrible disasters.

We have selected as examples of typical victories of the Crusaders the battles of Hab (i 1 19), Hazarth (1125), Marj-es- Safar (i 126), Arsouf (i 191), Jaffa (i 192). As instances of defeat wrought about by neglect of first principles, we may take the nghts of Carrhae (1104), Tiberias (1187), Acre (1189), and i\Iansourah (1250).

Battle of Hab, August 14, 1 1 19.

On the 27th of June 11 19, Roger, Prince of Antioch, had [alien with many of his knights in the disastrous fight of Cerep. The victor, Il-Ghazi, Emir of Mardin, began to overrun the whole principality of Antioch. To rescue it from the Infidels, Baldwin II. of Jerusalem, with his vassal Pons Count of Tripoli, hastened up from the south. The troops of Edessa also made their way to join their suzerain, and when the wrecks of the Antiochene army had united themselves to the host it counted seven hundred knights and several thousand foot. Baldwin advanced to relieve Zerdana, a castle to which Il-Ghazi had laid siege. It fell before his arrival, but he was unaware of the fact on the day of the battle. Il-Ghazi had also been joined by reinforcements : his rival, Toktagin of Damascus, had agreed to sink his private enmity, and had brought up a large contingent of his own riders, and some more levies from Emesa. The Infidels mustered in all some twenty thousand horse : of foot there is no mention ; the Turkish emirs generally depended on their horse-archers alone.^

Advancing by Hab towards Zerdana, Baldwin drew up his army before daybreak in a less simple order of battle than was usual among the Crusaders. The front line was formed by three corps, each consisting of a body of cavalry supported by a body of infantry, " that each arm might protect the other." Behind the centre of this line was Baldwin himself, with the knights of his household drawn up in three corps ; on his right was the Count of Tripoli with his vassals ; on his left Robert Fulcoy, lord of Zerdana, with the barons and knights of

^ All this comes from Gautier the Chancellor. William of Tyre, Fulcher, and the rest are vague, and speak at second-hand.

296. THE ART OF WAR IN THE MIDDLE AGES [11 19

Antioch ; another party of Antiochenes seems to have beer detailed as a rearguard, if our chief source, Gautier the Chancellor, can be trusted.^ The squadrons of Pons anc Robert were placed not parallel to, but somewhat to the reai of, the front line, in order that they might defeat attempts tc turn its flanks, while the king could strengthen it if the mair pressure of the enemy was thrown upon its centre. Whethei by chance or design, this order bears a striking resemblance tc that which the Byzantine Leo the Wise advocates for ust against the Moslem. A comparison of the plan on p. 195, wit! the sketch of the battle of Hab on p. 290, makes this clear in c moment. The only difference is that Baldwin had infantry perhaps two thousand or three thousand strong, behind his firsi line of horse, while Leo is describing the order of a division o cavalry unassisted by any foot-soldiery. The nine squadrons each about eighty strong, were three in the first rank, three ir the second, one on each flank, and one behind. Il-Ghazi anc Toktagin seem to have hoped that they might be able to surprise the Franks at daybreak, but when the sun rose Baldwin'.' little host was already advancing in good order, and all the war-cries and din of trumpets and nakers with which the Infidels burst in upon it were completely throvv^n away Il-Ghazi resolved, therefore, to use the ordinary Turkish tactics and advanced in a half-moon, lapping round both flanks of the Christian army. He himself, with the Mesopotamians, was or the right, while Toktagin, with the men of Damascus anc Emesa, held the left. The Turks, were well aware that the greatest danger to themselves lay in the combination of infantrj and cavalry by the Christians. Il-Ghazi had therefore resolvec to do his best to overwhelm the front line of the enemy, anc prepared a desperate assault on Baldwin's centre, where all the foot-soldiery were collected. They and the three squadrons o knights in front of them were very fiercely assailed ; ^ the

^ This is the only way ©f construing "acie comitis Tripolitani a dexteris posita aciebus baromim a sinistris et post : jussu regis quibusque sno loco positis " (Gautier p. 460). If the Antiochenes had all been on the left of Baldwin in one body, >vi should have had acie, not acichtts. Bongars prints the colon before et, but evidenti; it should be before y^jx?/, making no good sense if introduced after sinistris.

2 That the knights were in front of the infantry and not behind, is shown b^ Gautier's wording: "Turci, ambitiosi manum pedestrem prosternere, qua gravio. refrenabantur, cum banc praccedentibtis aciebus, et acies hac protegi videbant, v maxima . . . arcubus brachiis immissis, strictis ensibus, nostros percutiunt," etc The \sox^ praecedcntibus is conclusive (p. 461).

119] BATTLE OF HAB 297

orsemen were driven back on the foot, and the latter attacked, ot with the usual arrow-shower of the Turks, but by vigorous larges home with lance and sword. The Prankish footmen, hen the knights were driven off, proved unable to bear up gainst the Mesopotamians. Armed with missile weapons to ithstand the Turkish bow, they were less fitted for close Dmbat. They fought well, but began to fall into disorder, and )st heavily.

Meanwhile, the fortune of battle on the wings had been /enly divided ; on the right Il-Ghazi's men had assailed and eaten back the Count of Tripoli, whose whole corps was nally driven in and thrown on to the flank of Baldwin's own ivision in the second line. On the left, however, Robert Fulcoy nd the Antiochenes had charged the men of Damascus with ich vigour that they had completely scattered them, and riven them off in confusion. Robert might have won the day y promptly charging the hostile centre from the flank. But o such idea entered into his head ; his main desire was to ilieve his ov/n castle of Zerdana, whose fall had not yet reached is ears.^ Accordingly he pursued the Damascenes for a space, nd then rode straight for Zerdana without making any further ttempt to join in the battle. He and his corps were absent cm the field during the remainder of the engagement.

Il-Ghazi's men on the other flank made no such mistake, but osed in on Baldwin's second line. The fight now became 2ry confused ; the van and right wing of the Franks were riven in on their centre in a disorderly mass, and it remained ) be seen whether the king would be able to save the day with is reserve. Time after time he charged out with his knights nd drove off each swarm of Turks as it pressed in to complete lie victory. Whether the attack threatened front or flank or iar, he and his chivalry were always at the point of danger, igain and again the cry of " Holy Cross ! " and the impact of the eavy squadron of men-at-arms drove back the Infidels from leir prey.'^ Towards evening Il-Ghazi gave up the struggle nd rode off, leaving Baldwin in possession of the field. .<;(>>[

^ So Keraal-ed-din, who seems very well informed. Gautier the Chancellor lagines that the news had already reached the Christians, which is improbable. obert would not have acted so if he had been aware of it (p. 460).

- "Rex, virili audacia fretus, qua parte hostium turmas magis vigere comperuit, ic exclamando Sanctae Crucis protectionem et auxilium, velocissime irruit, irfidos prostravit et in dispersionem impulit," etc. (Gautier, p. 461).

298 THE ART OF WAR IN THE MH:)DLE AGES [in

As he retired, the lord of Mardin came into coliision wit the corps of Robert Fulcoy, returning tardily to join the kir after they had discovered that Zerdana was already in the hanc of the Infidels. The Antiochene knights, marching in disordi and without proper precautions, were easily dispersed by tl Turks, and Robert himself, falling from his horse in the fligl- was made prisoner. He was put to death by Toktagin in co blood some days after the battle : it is impossible to s^ that his fate was undeserved, as his selfish abandonment his comrades at the outset of the battle merited the heavie punishment.

Baldwin, unaware of this disaster, held the field till nig and then retired to Hab. He returned next morning to bu his own dead and strip those of the enemy. As the Turks h', entirely disappeared, he with justification regarded himself victor. The battle had in truth been indecisive ; but as t' enemy made no further advance against Antioch, the end f which it had been fought was achieved. The losses had bc< very heavy : Baldwin counted a hundred knights and sevi hundred footmen among the slain, and many more were d persed and did not rejoin for several days. The Turks had Ic from two thousand to three thousand horse.

The incidents of this battle, in which the fortune of the d was for a long time so equally divided, remind us of those MontThery, and Gautier's account of the flight of each si may w^ell stand beside the well-known passage in Commin " Our fugitives," he wTites, *' fled to Hab, to Antioch, and ev as far as Tripoli, reporting that the king and the whole arr had been exterminated. On the other hand, those of the Tur who had been driven off the field (by our left wing) pour into Aleppo, swearing that Il-Ghazi and Toktagin and all i Turkomans had been slain to the last man."^ If Baldw could claim that he had held the field at sunset, Il-Ghazi coi display as trophies one of the royal banners of the La' kingdom, torn from the king's squire who bore it, a Robert Fulcoy and many other noble prisoners. That, af massacring thirty of them, he then returned to Mardin to ra

^ In face of Gautier's explicit statements, it is impossible to believe Kemal-cd-d allegation that at nightfall the Turks pursued the Christians to the gates of Hab. any of them did follow, it must have been at a safe distance, and as scouts rat than pursuers.

:25] BATTLE OF HAZARTFI 299

ore troops instead of pursuing his campaign, is a sufficient oof that the claim of victory which he made was a very npty one. But it seems to have deceived his chronicler, emal-ed-din, from whose pages we should never gather lat Baldwin also could declare himself the conqueror in [G Strife. The events of the succeeding months plainly lowed who was the real victor. Il-Ghazi returned home ; aldwin kept the field, and retook in the autumn Zerdana id most of the other castles and cities which the Infidels id captured after the death of Prince Roger.

This battle of Hab or Danit has many points of interest. It lows us the Crusaders adopting for the first time a much more )mplex order of battle than the simple line of infantry sup- 3rted by cavalry which they had displayed at Antioch, Ascalon, id Ramleh. Baldwin, instructed by his many battles with le Turk while he was but Count of Edessa, had employed ; king the fruits of his experience. The Turks, too, have learned uch : they no longer trust entirely to the bow, but charge 3me vigorously with sword and lance. They have come to ^e that the Prankish foot-soldiery with their missile weapons *e even more dangerous to them than the knights, and devote lost of their energy to clearing away the infantry, not en- savouring to shoot them down, — an attempt in which Turks ildom succeeded, owing to the inferiority of the horseman's 3\v to the arbalest, — but to ride over them with the lance, hat they succeeded on this occasion was apparently due to aldwin's mistake in drawing up his three squadrons of knights I front of and not behind the infantry of the centre.

For a further development of the tactics of both sides, we lUst advance a few years, to the battles of Marj-es-Safar and [azarth.

Battle of H azarth^ Jmic 1 1 , 1 1 2 5 .

At Hazarth, which was fought on June 11, 1125, Baldwin iejTis to have returned to the simple order of battle of the ays of Antioch and Ascalon. He drew up his army in lirteen small corps, each consisting of infantry and cavalry, s there were eleven hundred knights and two thousand foot, le squadrons must each have been about eighty strong (much le same as at Hab), and the infantry divisions have mustered )mevvhat over a hundred and fifty. These thirteen bodies were

300 THE ART OF WAR IN THE MIDDLE AGES [ii:

divided into a centre and two wings : the right was compose of the troops of Antioch, the left of those of Edessa ar TripoH ; the centre,^ the strongest of the three divisions, w. formed of the king's own vassals from Palestine. Presumab the wings contained each four and the centre five corps, b neither Fulcher nor William of Tyre, our two authoritit definitely state the fact.

Il-Borsoki, the opponent of Baldwin, arrayed his fifte< thousand horse in twenty-one corps, and pressed forward attack the Frankish infantry — we have no mention of t attempting any encircling movement after the usual Turki fashion. The interchange of missiles had gone on for son short time, and close fighting had begun, when Baldw^in ga orders for a general charge of the cavalry.^ The Infidels stO( firm for a moment, but, when the knights burst in among thei lost heart, broke, and fled. Two thousand of them fell, wh the Christians only lost twenty-four. The proper combinati< of infantry and cavalry had secured an almost bloodless victoi

Battle of Mar j-es-S afar, January 25, 11 26.

In the following year the Turks for the first time put foe soldiery in the field. They had evidently realised at last th the combination of the two arms was more effective than th< own horse-archery. In January 11 26 King Baldwin had cross the Jordan and advanced toward Damascus, harrying the lai far and wide, in revenge for a similar raid which Toktagin h directed against Palestine in the preceding autumn. Agair him came forth the Atabeg chief and his son, bringing wi them not only their riders, but " chosen youths trained to spri up armed behind the horsemen, who, when the enemy dn near, descended and fought on foot : for so they hoped disorder the Franks by attacking them with infantry on o side and cavalry on another."^ The Jehad had been preach

^ I do not think we are justified in concluding from Fulcher's (chap. Ixii. ) call Baldwin's own corps " densior et posterior" that he was in a second line. Proba only *' last and largest " is meant. William of Tyre evidently read it so wl he wrote "iVz medio dominum regem," and woi pone or post. Fulcher says t "Baldwin charged, bidding the rest follow, for they dared not commence the f before he gave the word."- 'If he' was^^in- a second line, this would have bi impossible. '> ]{;'■ 'cfxi .: >od :

- "The bows had been bent and.-i|^e di[»wn sword was being used at cl

quarters," says Fulcher (chap. Ixii.).

Fulcher, last words of chap. Ixxi;

:.vAr

r2 6] BATTLE OF TvlARJ-ES-SAFAR 301

I Damascus and its subject towns, and many thousands of un-

ained citizens went out on foot to fight for Islam.

The armies met at Marj-es-Safar, not far from Damascus,

• 1 the 25th of January, the day of the conversion of St. Paul.

; aldwin drew up his men in twelve corps, each containing

: 3th infantry and cavalry, "that the two arms might give each

;her the proper support." ^ The Damascenes were not in any

j iry great numerical superiority, save in the number of their

\ regular foot-soldiery ; the Christian clironiclers confess that

1 le two armies were not very unequal, and do not ascribe

I le usual vast preponderance to the enemy. But whether it

as that they were fighting close to their capital to protect

leir own homes and families, or whether it was the unwonted

ssistance of infantry which helped them, it is certain that they

lade a much fiercer stand than usual. It was one of the

;iffest, though not the most bloody, fights in which the Franks

ad engaged for many years.^ Fulcher allows that for a space

le battle seemed going against Baldwin ; the arrow-shower

as too bitter, and " no part of body or limb seemed safe against

le shafts, so thickly did they fly." The host recoiled for a long

Dace, and it was only by a desperate rally in the afternoon that

saved itself and resumed its advance. "But our king bore

imself w^ell that day, as did all his knights and vassals, and

Jmighty God was with them."^ At dusk the Turks fled, and

le day was won. Two thousand Damascene horse and an

inumerable number of the Infidel foot had fallen ; of the

'.hristians twenty-four knights and eighty infantry only were

.ain. William of Tyre, in his rather unsatisfactory narrative

f this battle, says that the Christian foot, fired by the example

f the king and his knights, charged the enemy at the supreme

loment along with the cavalry, and that they did most damage

3 the Turks by shooting their horses, so that the dismounted

I .

V 1 " Ordinatae sunt tarn militum quam peditum acies duodecim, ut ab alterutra i )rroboretur caterva, si necessitas admoneret" (Fulcher, cap. Ixx.). This can only mean I lat foot might help horse and horse foot, not that each of the twelve corps might '; elp the other. It is hardly necessary to point out that altertiter can only be used r f two, not of many ; bat I have seen several accounts of the battle by modern i alhors where this simple rule of Latinity is neglected.

■^ William of Tyre is of course wholly in error when he calls it the most ^ angerous and doubtful fight since the foundation of the realm (xiii. § 18). At lab, only seven years before, the Christian losses were eight times as great and the asult far more uncertain,

^ Fulcher, cap. Ixx.

302 THE ART OF WAR IN THE MIDDLE AGES [u

Infidels fell easy victims to the pursuer.^ But it is not easy make out whether the infantry, as he conceived the fight, we behind or in front of the knights. For, on the one hand, makes the foot-soldiers " pick up and carry back to the bagga their wounded comrades, and set on their feet again those w had been overthrown ; " w^hile, on the other, they are said to she the Turkish horses, so that the riders "fall into the han of their companions who follow behind." The first statcmc seems to indicate that the knights had already charged o\ the ground which the Infantry were crossing; the second th they were following behind them. But William is not alwa happy in following his authorities for battles that took pla before his own day, and his picture here is decidedly confust In all probability the action began with the infantry in the fi line, and the cavalry in support. When it grew hot, the cava! must have charged out to the front, and in the final advar the foot-soldiery must have been following in the wake of t knights to complete the victor}^ rather than preceding the It is a pity that we have not any detailed account of t battle from Moslem sources ; if it existed, we might clear its difficulties, as we can those of the fight at Hazarth, by t comparison of the two hostile chroniclers.

There are many Christian successes worth recording the years between Marj-es-Safar and the fall of Jerusalem 1 187. But as they are not of any special tactical importan presenting merely the same features that we have alrea noted, they may be passed over wn'lhout any detailed nar tion. The defeats of this period are more interesting than t victories : notes on several of them will be found in t succeeding chapter, where we treat of the causes of the ma failures of the Franks.

The battle which must next arrest our attention is the 1; of the great triumphs of the Christians, and the most notable, it was won over the finest general whom the Infidels ever own' the great Saladin himself, commanding the most powerful a most formidable — if not the largest — host which the Mosle: ever put into the field. The Christians, too, were in far lar^ force than ever before in any battle of the Holy Land. It

^ " Equis hostium sauciandis omnem dabant operam, eorunique sesFores i sequentibus sociis parabant ad victimam " (W. T. xiii. §, i8). This, I presu: means shooting rather than stalbing the horses.

I

i9i] RICHARD I. AT ACRE 303

)rtunate that we have excellent accounts of the fight from both des, and that its topography can be easily ascertained. Every ctail of it is well worth study.

Battle of Arsoiif, September 7, 1 191.

i. After a siege of nearly two years, Acre had been recovered ythe Franks on July 12, 1191. The garrison had laid down s arms and surrendered to the kings of France and England, fter having protracted its defence to the last possible moment, aladin had done his best to succour the place, and delivered erpetual assaults on the camp of the besiegers, but all to no urpose. Seeing that there was no hope of relief, and that Acre lUst fall by assault in a few days, the Emirs Karakush and lashtoub opened the gates, after promising that they would iduce the Sultan to pay two hundred thousand bezants as insom for the garrison, and also to restore the True Cross and fteen hundred Christian prisoners, the survivors of the disaster f Tiberias, who were in chains at Damascus and elsewhere.

For some weeks after the fall of the great fortress, the 'hristians remained encamped in and around Acre, while >aladin still observed them from his camp on the mountain to he east. The delay was caused partly by the exhaustion of lie victors, partly by the necessity for repairing the shattered ^alls of the city, partly by the protracted negotiations concern- ig the ransom of the garrison. Meanwhile, Philip of France Dok his way homeward amidst the curses of the whole arm\*, wearing that on his return he would be a quiet and peaceful eighbour to the dominions of the King of England. " How lithfuUy he kept that oath is sufficiently notorious to all men, for he moment that he got back he stirred up the land, and set Nor- aandy in an uproar." ^ He left the bulk of his army in the camp nder the Duke of Burgundy and Henry Count of Champagne.

The attempts to come to an agreement with Saladin failed lopelessly. Into the ugly story of the massacre of the Turkish .arrison, when their ransom was not forthcoming, we need not :nter. On Tuesday, August 20, Richard and the Duke of burgundy beheaded the two thousand six hundred unfortunate aptives, and all chance of peace was gone. Two days after, the rusading army set out upon its march.

^ Iliiierarium Regis Ricardi, iii. § 22 : ** Quam vero fideliter hoc steterit jura- tiento satis innotuit universis," etc.

304 THE ART OF WAR IN THE MIDDLE AGES [ii

Richard had as his objective Jerusalem, whose recovery \v the main end of the Crusade. But to move directly from Ac on the Holy City is impossible. The mountains of Ephrai interpose a barrier too difficult to be attempted when ; alternative route is possible. For a march on Jerusalem t' best base is Jaffa, and to that place Richard resolved to trar fer himself and his army. He accordingly arranged that t host should march along the great Roman road beside the s by Haifa, Athlit, Caesarea, and Arsouf, while the fleet shou advance parallel with it, and communicate with it at eve point where it is possible to get vessels close to the shore. Tl co-operation was all-important, for the army was lamentat deficient in means of transport, and depended on the ships 1 its food. So few were the beasts of burden, that a great pe of the impedimenta had to be borne on the backs of t infantry, who loaded themselves with tents, flour-bags, ai miscellaneous necessaries of all kinds. Nearly half of the were employed in porter's work, and thereby taken out oft ranks when the host began to move forward. No food was be found on the way, for Saladin had already ravaged the sho and dismantled Haifa, Caesarea, and Arsouf.

It was obvious that the Crusaders would be harassed 1 Saladin the moment that they started on their march. T temptation to assail a host strung out in one thin column alo] many miles of road would certainly draw the Turks down frc their strongholds in the hills. Richard had therefore to provi an order of march which should be convertible at a momen notice into an order of battle. His front, rear, and left flai were all equally liable to assault. Only the right would alwa be covered by the proximity of the sea.

In view of this danger the king made the best dispositr possible. Next the sea moved the beasts of burden and t infantry employed to carry loads. Inland from them were t cavalry, distributed into compact bands and spaced out at eqi intervals all along the line of march. Inland again from t cavalry were the main body of infantry, marching in a co tinuous column, and so covering the whole eastern flank of t army. Though the contingents were placed so close that gaps were left between them, they were for purposes of organic tion divided into twelve bodies, to each of which there w attached one of the cavalry corps, which marched level with

i9i] RICHARD MARSHALS HIS ARMY 305

i Thus there were twelve divisions of foot and twelve of horse ; ' hese smaller units were united into five main corps, of which he exact composition is not easy to ascertain. The Templars i nd the Hospitallers, who knew the country well, and had in I heir ranks many '' Turcopoles," i.e. horse-bowmen armed like i he Turks and specially fit to cope with them, took the van and he rear, the two points of greatest danger, on alternate days. Vith the centre division of the army moved the royal standard 'f England fixed on a covered waggon drawn by four horses, ike the carrocJiio which the Milanese had used at Legnano a 2VV }-ears before. The order of the various corps was, as v/e ;ather, somewhat varied on different days. On one occasion lichard and his own military household took the van, but :sually he reserved for himself no fixed station, but rode •ackward and forward along the line of march with his house- ■old knights, carefully supervising the movement of the whole .nd lending aid wherever it was required. The heat was great, September being not yet come, and the king was determined lot to harass the army by long stages. Accordingly he moved ery slowly, using only the early morning for the march, and eldom covering more than eight or ten miles in the day. iloreover, he habitually halted on each alternate day, and gave lis men a full twenty-four hours (or even more) of rest. Thus he host took as much as nineteen days to cover the distance f eighty miles betv/een Acre and Jaffa. It is well worth •hile to give Richard's itinerary, in order to show the care ^hich he took of his troops.

Thursday ^ August 22. — From the neighbourhood of Acre to the river Bekis [2 miles].

Friday^ Atr^nst 23. — The army crosses the Belus [2 miles].

Saturday, Aztpist 24. — Rest in camp and preparations for march.

Sunday, August 25. — To Haifa [ii miles].

Monday, August 26. — Rest at Haifa.

Tuesday, August 27. — From Haifa to Athlit, round the shoulder of Mount

Carmel [12 miles]. Wednesday, August 28, — Rest in camp.

Thursday, August 29. — Rest in camp. The fleet arriv-es and lands stores. Friday, August 30. — From Athlit to EI-Melat [Merla] [13 miles]. Saturday, August 31. — From El-Melat to Caesarea [3 miles]. The fleet lands

stores and reinforcements. Sunday, Septeviber i. — From Caesarea to the "Dead River" [Nahr Akhdar]

[3 miles]. Monday, Septeinber 2. — Rest in camp. Tuesday, September 1. — From the Dead River to the "Salt Kiver'' [Nahr Isken-

deruneh] [7 miles].

3o6 THE ART OF WAR IN THE MIDDLE AGES [119

Wednesday, September 4. — Rest in camp.

Thursday, September 5. — From the Salt River through the Forest of Arsouf t

Rochetaille [Nahr Falaik] [10 miles]. Friday, Septeviber 6. — Rest in camp.

Saturday, September 7. — From Rochetaille to Arsouf — Battle [6 miles], Sunday, September 8. — Rest in camp at Arsouf. Monday, September 9, — From Arsouf to the Nahr-el-Aujeh [6 miles]. Tuesday, September lO. — Nahr-el-Aujeh to Jaffa [5 miles]. The fleet lands fres

stores.

Throughout the march the army was incessantly worried b the attacks of the Turks, especially on the 25th and 30th c August and the ist and 3rd of September. The respite on th 26-yS-gih was due to the fact, that while Richard had hugge the coast from Haifa and gone round the shoulder of Mour Carmel, Saladin had struck across country, passed the hil.' farther east, and come down on to the neighbourhood c Caesarea, before the Crusaders, moving slowly and on a long( road, had drawn near the place. From August 30 to Sej tember 7, on the other hand, he was always within a fe miles of them, waiting for his opportunity to dash down froi the hills if they exposed themselves. The author of tl Itinerarium gives an interesting description of the Turkish tactii during these days: — •

" The Infidels, not weighed down with heavy armour lit our knights, but always able to outstrip them in pace, were constant trouble. When charged they are wont to fly, ar their horses are more nimble than any others in the world ; 01 may liken them to swallows for swiftness. When they see th you have ceased to pursue them, they no longer fly but retu upon you ; they are like tiresome flies which you can flap awi . for a moment, but which^come back the instant you have stopp< hitting at them: as long as you beat about they keep off: t] moment you cease, they are on you again. So the Turk, whi you wheel about after driving him off, follows you home witho a second's delay, but will fly again if you turn on him. Wh the king rode at them, they always retreated, but they hu: about our rear, and sometimes did us mischief, not un frequent ! disabling some of our men " {Itift. iv. § 8).^

1 Note on the Battle of Arsouf.

In my account of this fight I have followed the Itinerarium, Boha-ed-din, : KinfT Richard's letter to the Abbot of Clairvaux in Hoveden. All these* t? accounts fit into each other admirably. On the other hand, the narrative of Bene

ii9t] RICHARD'S MARCH TO ARSOUF 307

Saladin, in keeping up this incessant skirmish along the flank of the crusading host, was not merely endeavouring to weary it out. Though he only showed small bands hovering about in all directions, often but thirty or fifty strong, he was always waiting close at hand with his main army. He kept it hidden in the hills, hoping that the Franks would some day be goaded into making a reckless charge upon his skirmishers. If they would only break their line by a disorderly advance, he would pounce down, penetrate into the gap, and sweep all before him. King Richard, however, kept his men in such good order that in the whole three weeks of the march they never gave the Sultan the opportunity that he longed for. The king himself and his meinie would occasionally swoop out upon bands that came too close, but the main order of march was never broken. Only on one occasion, on the first day of the march from the Belus 'August 25), did the Turks get a chance of slipping in while the rearguard was passing a defile, and then the Crusaders closed up so quickly that the assailants had to fly, after accomplishing nothing more than the plunder of a little baggage. Boha-ed- din's account of the Crusaders' march is as well worth quoting as the note on the Turkish attack which we have cited from ^ :he Itmerarhun. He is describing the events of Saturday, August 31.

" The enemy moved in order of battle : their infantry narched between us and their cavalry, keeping as level and irm as a wall. Each foot-soldier had a thick cassock of felt, md under it a mail-shirt so strong that our arrows made no im- Dression on them. They, meanwhile, shot at us with crossbows, ,vhich struck down horse and man among the Moslems. I noted imong them men who had from one to ten shafts sticking in :heir backs, yet trudged on at their ordinary' pace and did not fall DUt of their ranks. The infantry were divided into two halves : Dne marched so as to cover the cavalry, the other moved along

)f Peterborough is absolutely irreconcilable with them. He makes much of the

ighting turn on the crossing of a river by the Christian army, and puts the engage-

nent on the i6th instead of the 7th of September. It is satisfactory to know that

i lis story is rendered wholly impossible by the topography of the place. For a mile

y lorth of the Nahr-el-Falaik the road is bordered by the impassable swamp of the

i iirket-el-Hamadan. North of this again it runs over flat sand dotted with salt-water

•ends, and with the forest running down into it. This will not do for the battlefield

' s described by the Itinerarhun and Boha-ed-din. On the other hand, the country

outh of the Nahr-el-Falaik suits the narrative excellently. See my map, carefully

educed from the i-inch-to-the-mile Ordnance Survey of Palestine.

5o8 THE ART OF WAR IN THE MIDDLE AGES [1191

the beach and took no part in the fighting, but rested itself When the first half was wearied, it changed places with the second and got its turn of repose. The cavalry marched betweer the two halves of the infantry, and only came out when i wished to charge. It was formed in three main corps : in th( van was Guy,^ formerly King of Jerusalem, with all the Syriai Franks who adhered to him ; in the second were the Englisl and French ; in the rear the sons of the Lady of Tiberias and other troops. In the centre of their army there was visibl a waggon carrying a tower as high as one of our minarets, o; which was planted the king's banner. The Franks continued t advance in this order, fighting vigorously all the time : th Moslems sent in volleys of arrows from all sides, endeavourin to irritate the knights and to worry them into leaving the: rampart of infantry. But it was all in vain : they kept the; temper admirably and went on their way without hurryin themselves in the least, while their fleet sailed along the coaf parallel with them till they arrived at their camping-place ft the night. They never marched a long stage, because they ha to spare the foot-soldiery, of whom the half not activel engaged was carrying the baggage and tents, so great was the want of beasts of burden. It was impossible not to admire tl patience which these people showed : they bore crushing fatigu though they had no proper military administration, and we: getting no personal advantage. And so they finally pitchc their camp on the farther side of the river of Caesarea." ^

From the 29th August to the 6th September, Saladin hz been perpetually seeking an opportunity for delivering a serio' attack. But the caution and discipline which Richard had ir posed upon his army foiled all the hopes of the Infidel. It b came evident that, if the Christians were to be stopped befo •they reached Jaffa, a desperate attempt must be made i)reak in upon them, in spite of their orderly march and fir , array. Saladin resolved, therefore, to try the ordeal of battle I the ground between the Nahr-el-Falaik (the river of Rochetail' .and Arsouf There was every opportunity for hiding his he

^ This account of the distribution of the Christians does not tally with Jtiuerariumy and is probably wrong. Boha-ed-din calls Guy " Geoffrey" by a ci •error.

- Barons of the party among the Syrian Franks who opposed King Gu) wished to recognise Conrad.

•^ Boha-ed-din, p. 252, in the Chroniqueurs Orientaux.

ii9i] ARSOUF: PREPARATIONS FOR BATTLE 309

till the moment of conflict, for in this district one of the few forests of Palestine, the " Wood of Arsouf," runs parallel to the sea for more than twelve miles. It is a thick oak wood covering all the lower spurs of the mountains, and reaching in some places to within three thousand yards of the beach. Two days of Richard's itinerary (the 5 th and 7th of September) ran between this forest and the sea. He was not less conscious than Salad in of the advantage which the cover would give to an enemy plotting a sudden attack. Accordingly he warned the army on the 5th that they might have to fight a general engagement on that day, and took every precaution to prevent disorder.^ But the Turks held back, and the first half of the forest was passed in safety. On the 6th September the Crusaders rested, protecting their camp by the large marsh which lies inland from the mouth of the Nahr-el-Falaik ; this im- passable ground, the modern Birket-el-Ramadan, extending for two miles north and south, and three miles east and west, covers completely a camp placed by the river mouth.

On the 7th the English king gave orders to move on : the day's march was to cover the six miles from the Nahr-Falaik to the dismantled town of Arsouf The road lies about three-quarters of a mile inland from the beach, generally passing along the slope of a slight hill : between it and the foot of the wooded mountains there was an open valley varying from a mile to two miles in breadth. The forest on the rising ground was known to conceal the v/hole of Salad in's host, whose scouts were visible in all directions.

On this day Richard divided his army into twelve divisions, each consisting of a large body of infantry and a small squadron of knights.^ The foot-soldiery formed a continuous line, with the crossbowmen in the outermost rank. The impedimenta and the infantry told off to guard them moved as usual close to the sea. The order of the march of the twelve divisions is not clearly given to us ; we know that the first consisted on this day of the Templars, with their knights, Turcopoles, and foot- sergeants. The next three consisted mainly of Richard's own subjects — Bretons and Angevins forming the second, Poitevins (under Guy, the titular King of Jerusalem) the third, and Normans and English the fourth : the last-named corps had charge of the waggon bearing the great standard. Seven corps

^ Itinerarittm, iv. § 16. ^ Ibid. iv. § i7.

5IO THE ART OF WAR IN THE MIDDLE AGES [1191

were made up from the French, the barons of Syria, and tht miscellaneous small contingents from other lands. Lastly, tht Hospitallers brought up the rear. Probably the French con tingents were divided into four " battles," under (i) Jamc; d'Avesnes, (2) the Count of Dreux and his brother the Bishoj of Beauvais, (3) William des Barres and William de Garlande (4) Drogo Count of Merle. Henry Count of Champagne wa charged with the duty of keeping out on the left flank to watcl for the breaking forth of the Turks from the woods. The Dukt of Burgundy, the commander of the French host, rode b; Richard's side up and down the line, keeping order and read; to give aid wherever it was wanted. The whole twelve corp were divided into five divisions, but it is not stated how the; were thus distributed. Some of the five must have include< three, some only two, of the. brigaded bodies of horse and foot.

Saladin allowed the whole Christian host to emerge fror the camp and proceed some little way along the road before h launched his army upon them. While threatening the whol of the long line of march, he had resolved to throw the mai weight of his attack upon the rearguard. Evidently he hope to produce a gap, by allowing the van and centre to proceec while delaying the rear by incessant assaults. If the Hospita lers and the divisions next them could be so harassed that the were forced to halt or even to charge, while the van still wer on its way, it was obvious that a break in the continuous wa of infantry would occur. Into this opening Saladin would hav thrown his reserves, and then have trusted to fighting the battj out with an enemy split into at least two fractions and probabl more. He had, as we shall see, wholly underrated the prudenc and generalship of King Richard, and was preparing for himse a bloody repulse.

The Crusaders were well upon their way when the Moslen suddenly burst out from the woods. In front were swarms < skirmishers both horse and foot — black Soudanese archers, wi] Bedouins, and the terrible Turkish horse-bowmen. Behind we: visible deep squadrons of supports — the Sultan's mailed Mam< lukes and the contingents of all the princes and emirs of Egyf Syria, and Mesopotamia. The whole space, two miles broa between the road and the forest, was suddenly filled with the. imposing masses. " All over the face of the land you could sc the well-ordered bands of the Turks, myriads of parti-coloui

PLATE IX.

Battle of

ARSOUF,

Sept. 7. 1191.

B ■!■ Crusaders r~7^ Baggage Train. 'c^ Turkish Horse 6 6 Skirmishei's.

AA. Crusaders' Infantry

and Baggage B.Templers C Angovins D Poitevjus

E. English *Nonnnns

with the Standard

F. Hospitallers. CO Infantry. // ti.H Turkisli Skirmishers I.I Saladin's Main Army

;i9i] ARSOUF: SALADIN ATTACKS RICHARD 311

mnners, marshalled in troops and squadrons ; of mailed men ilone there appeared to be more than twenty thousand. With inswerving course, swifter than eagles, they swept down upon )ur line of march. The air was turned black by the dust that heir hoofs cast up. Before the face of each emir went his nusicians, making a horrid din with horns, trumpets, drums, ;ymbals, and all manner of brazen instruments, while the troops )ehind pressed on with howls and cries of war. For the Infidels hink that the louder the noise, the bolder grows the spirit of the varrior. So did the cursed Turks beset us before, behind, and )!! the flank, and they pressed in so close that for two miles u-Qund there was not a spot of the bare earth visible ; all was :Qvered by the thick array of the enemy." ^

• I While some of the Turks rode in between the head of the irmy and its goal at Arsouf, and others followed the rearguard ibng the road, the majority closed in upon the left flank and DHed their bows against the wall of infantry and the clumps of ' lorsemen slowly pacing behind it. The pressure seems to have ; )een hardest upon the rear, where the right wing of the Turks I lelivered a most desperate attack upon the squadron of the I Sospitallers and the infantry corps which covered them. The \ French divisions opposite the Turkish centre were less hardly i tressed; the English, Poitevins, and Templars in the van, though :onstantly engaged, were never seriously incommoded. '1: In spite of the fury of the attack, the Crusaders for some ;ime pursued their way without the least wavering or hesitation. The crossbowmen gave the Turks back bolt for bolt, and vrought more harm than they suffered, since their missiles were leavier and possessed more penetrating power than those of the memy. The cavalry in the centre of the column rode slowly )n, though their horses soon began to suffer from the incessant •ain of arrows. Many knights had to dismount from mortally vounded chargers, and to march lance in hand among the foot. Dthers picked up crossbows, stepped into the front rank of the nfantry, and revenged themselves by shooting down the Turkish iorses.2

The slow march southward went on for some time; the nfantry held firm as a wall, and no opportunity was given for he enemy to break in. Saladin, seeing that he was making no progress, flung himself among the skirmishers, followed only by

^ Itinerarium^ iv. § 18. - Ibid,

312 THE ART OF WAR IN THE MIDDLE AGES [119

two pages leading spare horses, and continued to urge his mei on and to press them closer in upon the Prankish foot. Th' stress soon became very severe in the rear division of Kin$ Richard's host, which was exposed to a double fire from flan) and rear. Some of the crossbowmen began to waver, but th majority held firm, forced though they were to walk backward with their faces to the pursuing encmy,^ for, when they turne( for a moment to move on, the Turks rushed in so fiercely tha there was grave danger that the corps of the Hospitallers migh be broken up. " They had laid their bows aside, and were no^ thundering upon the rearguard with their scimitars and mace like smiths upon anvils."

The Grand Master of the Hospitallers repeatedly ser forward to the king, asking leave to charge. The horses wer being shot down one by one, he complained, and the knight could no longer endure this passive kind of battle, in which the were struck themselves, but not allowed to strike back. Richar returned the reply that the rear was on no account to brea their order : he had settled that there should be a general charg of the whole line when he bade six trumpets blow ; before th signal no one must move. His design was evidently to get th whole Turkish army committed to close combat before he roc out upon it. At present the rear alone was seriously engagec the van and centre were only being harassed from a distanc Moreover, there would be great advantage in waiting till ll van had reached Arsouf, whose gardens and houses would gi\ good cover for its flank when the moment for the decish charge came.

In obedience to these orders, the Hospitallers endured f some time longer, but they were growing restive and angry ; horse after horse fell, and man after man was disabled b arrows in the parts of his body which the armour did not ful protect. Presently the whole rear division lurched forward disorder and joined the French corps which was marchu immediately in front of it. At last, just when the head of tl army had reached the outskirts of Arsouf, the patience of tl rear was wholly exhausted. Ere the king had bade the s trumpets sound, but (as it would seem) only just before tl moment that he would have chosen, the Hospitallers bui forth. The ringleaders in this piece of indiscipline were two

^ Itineiariiivi, iv. § 10, p. 264.

iQi] ARSOUP^ THE CRUSADERS CHARGE 313

heir leaders, their marshal and a notable knight named Uldwin de Carron, who suddenly wheeled their horses, raised he war-cry of St. George, and dashed out through the infantry pon the Infidels. Those immediately about them followed ; hen the French divisions ranged next them took up the novement. It spread all down the line, and Richard himself, eeing the die cast, was constrained 'to allow the cavalry of the an and centre to follow up the attack. To the Saracens it )ore the appearance of a preconcerted movement. " On a udden," says Boha-ed-din, " we saw the cavalry of the enemy, v'ho were now drawn together in three main masses, brandish heir lances, raise their war-cry, and dash out at us. The nfantry suddenly opened up gaps in their line to let them pass lirough." 1 Thus the attack of the Crusaders was delivered in •chelon, the left {i.e. the rear) leading, the centre starting a noment after, and the right {i.e. the van) a little later than the :cntre.

The Turks did not endure for a moment tlie onset of the Ireaded knights of the West. The sudden change of the nusading army from a passive defence to a vigorous offensive :ame so unexpectedly upon them, that they broke and fled with iisgraceful promptness. Nothing can be more frank than i3oha-ed-din's account of the behaviour of his master's host.^ '' On our side," he says, " the rout was complete. I was myself n the centre: that corps having fled in confusion, I thought to ake refuge with the left wing, which was the nearest to me ; xit when I reached it, I found it also in full retreat, and making jff no less quickly than the centre. Then I rode to the right vving, but this had been routed even mere thoroughly than the eft. I turned accordingly to the spot where the Sultan's body- :^uard should have served as a rallying-point for the rest. The oanners were still upright and the drum beating, but only seventeen horsemen were round them."'

In the northern end of the battle, where the Hospitallers and the PVench corps immediately in front of them were already in close contact with the foe at the moment of the charge, a dreadful slaughter of the Infidels took place. The rush of the Crusaders dashed horse and foot together into a solid mass, which could not easily escape, and the knights were able to take a bloody revenge for the long trial of endurance to which

^ Boha-ed-din, p. 258, in Chroniqueurs Orieutaux. 2 j^:^^ p 259.

314 THE ART OF WAR IN THE MIDDLE AGES [119

they had been exposed since daybreak. Before the Moslerr could scatter and disperse to the rear, they had been mow down by thousands. In the centre and the southern end of th battle the Turks had an easier flight, since their pursuers wei not so close. Here the contact and the slaughter must ha\ been much less. We know from the author of the Itinerariu, that the English and Norman knights who formed the fourt division, counting from the van, never reached the flying enem; though they follow^ed in echelon the movement of the rear an centre corps.^ The same was probably the case with the oth( three corps of the van, for King Richard, in his letter to tl Abbot of Clairvaux, states that only four. of his twelve divisior were seriously engaged, and that these four alone really d< feated the whole host of Saladin.^

Having pursued the Turks more than a mile, the Crusade halted and began to re-form — there w^as no rash pursuit like th; which had so often ruined the Franks in earlier fields. Thoi of the Infidels who still kept their heads, ceased to fly wIk they were no longer pursued, and turned to cut off the scatterc knights, who had pushed far to the front, and were now ridir back to fall into line with their comrades. Of these some fe were cut off and slain — among them James d'Avesnes, notable knight, who had commanded one of the rear divisioi of the line of march. Among those of the Turks who rallic most quickly and came back first to the fight was Taki-ed-di Saladin's nephew^ with the seven hundred horsemen wl followed, his yellow banner.

When the Christian line was once more in order, Richai led it on to a second charge ; the Turks broke again and mac no stand. Yet when the king cautiously halted his men, aft sweeping the enemy backward for another mile, there was st a considerable body which turned back and once more showf fight. A third and final charge sent them flying into the foref which was now ciose at their backs. Here they dispersed in t directions, and made no further attempt to resist. Richar however, would not pursue them among the thickets, and Ic back his horsemen at leisure to Arsouf, where the infantry he now pitched their camp.

That evening many of the foot-soldiery and camp-followe went out to the field of battle, where they stripped the de^

* Itinerariiim, p. 272. ^ Letter printed in Iloveden, Rolls Series, iii. 131.

igi] ARSOUF: RICHARD VICTORIOUS 315

id found much valuable plunder, since the Turks, like the lamelukes in later days, were wont to carry their money sewed p in their waist-belts or under their clothing. They reported lat they had counted thirty-two emirs among the slain, and lore than seven thousand of the rank and file> Boha-ed-din ames as the most prominent of the Moslems who had fallen lousec, the prince of the Kurds, and two emirs named Kaimaz- , - Adeli and Ligoush.^ Among the Christians, James of .vesnes was the only man of distinction who was slain : their )tal loss was under seven hundred men.

So ended this important and interesting fight, the most jmplete and typical of all the victories of the Franks over leir enemies. The old morals of the earlier encragfements are nee more repeated in it. With a judicious combination of orse and foot, and a proper exercise of caution, the Crusader light be certain of victory. But we note that Richard, though ew to the wars of the East, shows far more self-restraint, isdom, and generalship than any of his predecessors. He 3uld have driven off Saladin at any time during the day, but is object was not merely to chase away the Turks for a loment, but to inflict on them a blow which should disable lem for a long period. This could only be done by luring lem to close combat ; hence came the passive tactics of the rst half of the day. The victory would have been still more ffective, as the author of the Itinerarium remarks,^ if the charge ad been delivered a little later. But the precipitate action of le marshal of the Hospitallers caused it to be made a moment arlier than the king had intended. Nevertheless, the results of le fight were very well marked. Saladin reassembled his army, ut he never dared close in upon his enemy again : he resumed is old policy of demonstrations and skirmishes. As Boha-ed- in remarks, the spirit of the Moslem army was completely roken. Recognising that he could not hold the open country gainst the Franks, the Sultan at once dismantled all the Drtresses of Southern Palestine -^ Ascalon, Gaza, Blanche- larde, Lydda, Ramleh, and the rest. He dared not leave arrisons in them, for he was fully aware that his men would

'^ liiiieyariumy -p. 2'j $, p[^-j;,>i fj^r v-,/;JBoha-ed-din, p. 260. ,;^

^ ^ iv. 19: "Quodsi [mandatum regis] fuisset observatum, universi illi Turdi lissent intercept! et confusi : praedictorum vero militum nimia properatio cedebat 1 detrimentum universi negotii " (p. 258).

3r6 THE ART OF WAR IN THE MIDDLE AGES [ii(

not hold firm : the fate of the defenders of Acre and the resu of the fight of Arsouf were always before their eyes, and th( would not have maintained themselves for long. How wc founded was this fear, became sufficiently evident from the oi exception which Saladin made to his rule. He left a force Darum, the last fortress of Palestine on the way to Egyj Richard made a dash against it with the knights of his ov household alone, a force inferior to the garrison in numb( Yet so half-hearted had the Moslems grown, that the kii stormed the place in four days. The Turks surrendered t] citadel on the bare promise of life, though, if they had shown tithe of the courage of the garrison of Acre, they would certain have been able to hold out for weeks, if not for months.^

Arsouf therefore gave the Franks the whole coast-land Southern Palestine. After repairing the walls of Jaffa, serve them as a basis for the attack on Jerusalem, they we free to resume the offensive. But the jealousies and divisio in the host ruined the campaign which had begun so brilliant and, though there were several gallant feats of arms perform during the stay of Richard in Palestine, the Holy City w never recovered, and the war ended in a treaty which c no more than confirm the Syrian Franks in the possession the coast-region which the English king had reconquered i them.

One fight, little more than a skirmish in itself, dcser\ mention as illustrating Richard's methods of war. This w the engagement of August 5, 1192. While the king h returned to Acre with his army, Saladin had descended to t coast and endeavoured to retake the newly-fortified town Jaffa. The garrison had been driven into the castle, and w on the point of surrendering, when Richard hastily returned sea with eight vessels only and saved them (August i). T Turks were driven off for the moment, but, learning that th enemies were very few in number, came down at daybreak the 5 th of August to surprise the Christian camp. Rich^ had with him only fifty-five knights and two thousand infant the latter largely Genoese and Pisan crossbowmen drawn fn the ships which had brought him. Warned in time that sev thousand horse, all Mamelukes and Kurds, were swooping do upon the sleeping camp, he promptly proceeded to get his nn

^ Tiitterarium, p. 356.

192] COMBAT OF JAFFA 317

1 order. He composed his front line of infantry armed with pears, who knelt down with one knee fixed in the sand, and ith the points of their weapons levelled at the height of a orsc's breast. Behind stood the crossbowmen, one in each Ucrval between two spearmen : it was this soldier's duty to ischarge as fast as possible the arbalests handed to him by nother, who stood behind him, bending and loading each as : was handed back. Thus there was no intermission in the ischarge. The Turks swept down, band rapidly following band, gainst the front of the Christian line, but never dared to close. Lach squadron swerved and passed away without daring to iish on the spears ; they did little harm with their arrows, but uffcred far more from the constant rain of arbalest bolts which cat upon them. When they were all in disorder, Richard boldly barged out upon them, though no more than fifteen of his nights were horsed. He cut right into their midst, and then icwed his way back again, saving by his personal valour the '^.arl of Leicester and Ralph of Maulcon, who had been sur- oimded and were nearly made prisoners. The fight lingered m for some hours after the surprise had failed, but when the :ing brought up some small reserves from the fleet (he left only ive men on each galley) the enemy fled, leaving seven hundred nen and fifteen hundred horses dead upon the field. Of the Crusaders only two men had fallen, so secure had their order )f battle kept them l^

^ All this from the excellent account in Itinerarium, vi. g§ 21-24.

i Offi 1i, b^llo'/ol ?.

di 'jidi? CHAPTER V

THE GREAT DEFEATS OF THE CRUSADERS — CARRHAE, HARENC, TIBERIAS, ACRE, MANSOURAH

HAVING now given fair typical instances of the metho by which the Franks won success in the interminat campaigns which followed the establishment of the Latin Stat in Syria, it remains that we should show in the same fashi( the manner and causes of their defeat. With those which we the inevitable consequences of strategical blunders we have de.' in our chapter on Strategy. It is with tactical errors that \ are now concerned. As illustration we have chosen four battl( Carrhae (1104) will show the result of careless pursuit and t neglect of the proper precautions required in Turkish warfai Tiberias (11 87) displays a complicated series of blunders — t neglect of commissariat arrangements, the choice of unsuitah ground, the imperfect reconnoitring of the enemy, and (mc important of all) the fatal results of dividing the infantry ai cavalry. The battle in front of Acre (i 190) proves that a victo practically won might be turned into a defeat by the want of guiding hand and neglect of the most rudimentary disciplir Mansourah (1250) points out that a fault originating in be strategy may logically lead to bad tactics, and illustrates as w( the normal want of discipline in all Western hosts.

The battle of Carrhae may be taken as an example of tl manner in which even the most practised veterans of the fir Crusade could fail when they neglected obvious precautio- and fought on unfavourable ground. In the spring of iic Bohemund, now for the last six years Prince of Antioch, ar Baldwin of Bourg, Count of Edessa, resolved to make a bo push into Mesopotamia. The Turks had lately threatenc Edessa ; in retaliation the princes formed a project for seizii and garrisoning the strong town of Harran (Carrhae), the fronti

318

104] BATTLE OF CARRHAE 319

lost of the Moslems. It was close enough to Edessa to be a roublesome neighbour, — only twenty-five miles separated the wo places, — while at the same time it was a favourable point 0 serve as a base for further progress eastward. Baldwin :alled in to his aid his cousin Joscelin, to whom he had granted . great lordship west of the Euphrates, round the town of furbesel. Bohemund brought with him his kinsman Tancred, he hero of so many exploits in the first Crusade. The oppor- unity seemed fair, for by systematic ravagings Baldwin had iiined the countryside round Carrhae, and knew that the place vas straitened for provisions. Moreover, the two Turkish )rinces who ruled in Mesopotamia, the Atabeg Sokman ibn- Jrtuk of Kayfa, and Jekermisch the successor of Kerboga in he emirate of Mosul, were engaged in bitter strife with each )ther.

At the head of what passed for a considerable army among he Syrian Franks, the allied princes marched on Carrhae and brmed the siege. The place, as Baldwin had known, was ill stored, and ere long the famished citizens began to treat for a iurrender. But while the terms were being disputed, a relieving irmy came in sight : Sokman and Jekermisch had come to erms in face of the common danger, and had combined their brces to save Carrhae. The former brought to the field seven housand Turkish horse-archers ; the latter, three thousand Kurds, bedouins, and Turks.- They had resolved to threaten an attack )n the Christian camp, and to throw a convoy into the city vhile the besiegers' attention was distracted. Their success vas far greater than they could have hoped : when the Franks )aw them, they formed in three "battles," each composed of lorse and foot, and marched out to attack them. Bohemund leld the right, Tancred the centre, Baldwin and Joscelin the eft, in the Christian host. When the Franks advanced, the Turkish princes applied the ordinary stratagems of their race : :hey retreated into the broad plain eastward of the city, harassing the advancing enemy with their arrows. Old ioldiers Hke Bohemund and Baldwin should have known better iiow to deal with such tactics, but with inexcusable rashness they pursued the Turks into the rolling sandy plain till they had got twelve miles east of Carrhae. The Turks, still falling back, crossed the river Chobar, and the Crusaders rapidly followed them. Men and horses were growing fatigued, the

320 THE ART OF WAR IN THE MIDDLE AGES [no

infantry were tired to death, and, when the afternoon was h spent, Bohemund at last gav^e the signal to halt, and orderc his host to encamp for the night, not dreaming that the encm was likely to suddenly take the offensive. This was the momer for which the Turks had been waiting. When they saw tt Franks falling out of line, dism^ounting, and taking off the arms, they suddenly came charging in with loud shouts an dashed among their enemies, using the sword as well as tl arrow. Baldwin's division was caught wholly unprepared, an ridden down before it had time to re-form ; both he and h cousin Joscelin were taken prisoners, and with them Bencdic Archbishop of Edessa. The camp and all its stores fell in1 the hands of the Turks. Tancred, more cautious than tl Count of Edessa, had not allowed his men to disperse, and wj able to rally them and form up on a hill a mile or two behir the camp ; here Bohemund joined him with the main body > the Christian right wing, which had been disordered, but ni wholly destroyed.^ The two princes waited to be attacked, b' the Turks only demonstrated against them ; they had no inte; tion of closing, and were well satisfied with their partial victor and eager to share the plunder they had taken. When nig! fell, the Franks found themselves in evil plight : they had lo not only their camp, but all their provisions ; horses and mc alike were famished and exhausted after the long day's m.an in the sandy plain. Nevertheless, the princes resolved to rcne the combat next morning, and bade the starving army prepa for a second battle. But the Franks were demoralised : und cover of the darkness their foot-soldiery melted away towan the fords of the Chobar, drove off the guard which had be( placed there to stop desertion, and made off towards Edess When the flight of the greater part of the infantry was observe many knights stole away after them, and Bohemund ar Tancred ultimately found themselves deserted by all save tl men of their own military household. It was impossible await the dawn and the Turkish advance, so the princes followc their panic-stricken host towards the ford. It was fortuna that the enemy kept a bad watch, or the whole Christian arn might have been destroyed in detail. But the Turks we

^ So Ralph of Caen ; the Arab Ibn-Ghiouzl says' that Tancred was at soi distance from Baldwin, on the other side of a hill, and that the Count of Edcs?a v routed before his ally could come up to help him.

104] BATTLE OF CARRHAE 321

! pending the night in a hot dispute ; Sokman's men had been lundering the Prankish camp while Jekermisch's troops had een observing Tancred's rallied division. On their return at usk, the Mosulite horsemen demanded their share of the prey, nd Jekermisch seized the person of Baldwin, the chief of the aptives, who had been placed in Sokman's tent. The Turks o layfa drew their swords to resent this insult to their master, nd a general combat would have followed had not Sokman ucceeded in appeasing his men, and at the same time bought ff Jekermisch by a promise to divide the spoil fairly.^

Meanwhile, the Christians got a long start, and were all over le river and straggling back towards Edessa before the day awned. They were, of course, pursued the moment that their eparture was ascertained, and many stragglers were cut off; le main body, however, reached the city in safety.^ But the low had been a heavy one : more than half the army was lissing,^ and the Christians were thrown upon the defensive Dr some years. It is astonishing that the Turks did not lake more profit from their victory, but, after besieging Edessa 1 vain for fifteen days, they dispersed and returned to their omes.

It is strange to find that the Crusaders were routed on the ame field where the younger Crassus and his fifteen hundred rallic horsemen were cut to pieces by the Parthian archers be- Dre the eyes of his father the Triumvir nearly eleven centuries ■efore. That cavalry from the far West armed with the lance hould strive again on that sandy plain with the Turanian horse- owmen, and should succumb again, was one of the most curious oincidences of history. The march of the Triumvir and his igions among the evasive Parthian s suggests somewhat the dvance of Baldwin and Bohemund, but the Roman was worse

1 Ibn-Alathir says (see Michaud, Bibliotheque des Croisades, iv. 19) that Sokman Kclaimed, "Islam will have no joy from this victory if we quarrel after it. I will ither lose my spoil than let the Christians taunt us with folly."

^ See in Ralph of Caen, 281, 282, the story of the flight, especially the comic tale f Archbishop Bernard, who, " when no one was pressing, thought he had behind him osts of Turks with bended bows and drawn swords," and cut off his palfrey's tail to ee the faster.

^ Ibn-Alathir no doubt exaggerates when he says that twelve thousand Franks ■ere slain or taken, and that Tancred got away with six knights only. But the nportance of the disaster is vouched for by William of Tyre's statement that "in o battle of the East down to our own day were so many strong and valiant men slain, ^d never did a Christian army fly so shamefully" (x. 110).

322 THE ART OF WAR IN THE MIDDLE AGES [ii8

off than the Franks. He was fighting, as it were, blindfok against a foe whose tactics were wholly unknown to him : whil the veterans of Dorylaeum and Antioch were experienced i Turkish wiles, and ought never to have been caught unpreparec Their failure to observe common precautions was all the mor inexcusable, and if their host got off more cheaply than th unfortunate followers of the two Crassi, it was by good luck an not by their deserts.^

Battle of Tiberias^ July 4, 1 187.

Disastrous as was the battle of Carrhae, it cannot compai either in its scale or in consequences with the great fight eight years later which gave Jerusalem to the Infidel. The battle ( 1 104 did not even destroy the single principality of Edessf that of 1 187 was the great turning-point in the whole history < the Crusades, since it entirely deprived the Crusaders of the hold on inner Syria, and left them for the future masters < nothing more than a narrow strip of coast-land.

In 1 187 Saladin, after having cut short the borders of tl Christians in many quarters, resolved to risk an attack on tl centre of their strength, by a direct invasion of the kingdom ( Jerusalem. He first despatched a considerable force to execui a raid into its northern parts : it was put in charge of Modhaffe ed-din. Prince of Edessa and Haran, who crossed the Jorda harried the hill-country of Galilee, and cut to pieces at the blood encounter of Saffaria (May i) the knights of the Temple an the Hospital, who had come forth against him with more ze than discretion, before any succours could reach them. His sa return emboldened the Sultan to ride forth in person.

In June he gathered all his disposable forces from Egyp Syria, and Mesopotamia at Ashtera in the Hauran. There we ten thousand mailed Mamelukes of his regular army, beside tl innumerable contingents of his provinces : the total may ha^ amounted to some sixty or seventy thousand men. On Jui 26 he led them down to the vicinity of the Jordan, ar encamped at Sennabra, close to the bridge of El-Kantara, whic \ crosses the river a mile south of the point where it issues fro

^ We find that there were men in Latin Syria learned enough to observe t coincidence. William of Tyre remarks that ' ' this was that same Carrhae wht Crassus the Dictator (!) had his celebrated mouthful of the Parthian gold for wbi he had been so greedy" (W. T. Ijook x.).

fi87] SALADIN INVADES GALILEE 323

he Sea of Galilee. Three days later he passed the stream and idvanced into Christian territory. His first aim was to capture he town of Tiberias, the capital of the principality of Galilee. Posting his main army on the hills east of that place, he sent a :orps to lay siege to it. The town yielded with unexpected ease, )ut the garrison and their mistress, the Countess of Tripoli, with- Irew into the castle, a strong fort overhanging the water, which vas capable of holding out for many weeks.

Meanwhile, the Christians were assembling in great strength. Vlodhaffer-ed-din's raid had seriously disturbed them, and, when hey heard that Saladin was concentrating his army in the :Iauran, they had resolved to draw together in full force. King juy summoned in all his barons and knights ; the military Orders )ut all their available men into the field, thinned though their anks had been by the disaster at Saffaria. The towns sent :ontingents even larger than they were bound to furnish. The Tount of Tripoli, who had onl}' lately reconciled himself to his uzerain, did his best to atone for past disloyalty by bringing he full levy of his county to the muster. The True Cross was etched out from the Church of the Holy Sepulchre and sent to he front, in charge of the Bishop of Lydda. The castles and ities of Southern Palestine were left with garrisons of danger- )usly small numbers. By this concentration, the Franks were .ble to assemble twelve hundred knights, many hundred furcopoles or mounted bowmen equipped in the Turkish fashion, ind eighteen thousand foot,^ the largest force that they had ever )ut into the field save that which had been mustered for the ibortive campaign of 1184.^ Their meeting-place was the village )f Saffaria — the spot where the disaster to the Templars had )ccurred seven weeks before. It lies in a well-watered upland alley, three miles north of Nazareth and seventeen east of Acre. ^rom thence to Tiberias is sixteen miles, by a road passing Lcross one of the most desolate and thinly-peopled districts in he Galilean hills.^ The time was the hottest month of the ummer, and Saladin's raiders had burned the villages and lestroyed the wells all around. They had even defiled the Zhurch of the Transfiguration on the summit of Mount Tabor.

^ So Ralph of Coggeshall, the best authority for the campaign, p. 218. 2 On that occasion they had raised what WilHani of Tyre calls the largest host ever een in the kingdom (xxii. p. 448),

' There are only two small villages, Toron ajid Lubieh, on the road.

324 THE ART OF WAR IN THE MIDDLE AGES [ii8

There was long talk and hot disputing at Saffaria as t whether the army should march to the relief of the castle c Tiberias. The Franks had mustered in such full force that the could never hope to raise a larger army. Saladin had place himself in a position where defeat would mean ruin, since h had the broad Sea of Galilee at his back, and his retreat eithe north or south would be through difficult and dangerous defile; On the other hand, it was hazardous to risk the whole resource of the kingdom in a single fight. If the army at Saffaria ws beaten, there were no reserves left on which it could fall back.

The Count of Tripoli, the most experienced warrior in th Christian host, took the side of caution. He pointed out that they did not march against Saladin, the Sultan would be force to march against them, since he could not long abide in th desolate country round Tiberias. His only other alternativ would be to return to Damascus, a course which he certainl would not consent to take when his pride had risen so hig and when his army was so strong. It would suit the policy ( the Christians to be attacked at Saffaria, where they had a goo position, plenty of food, and an ample supply of water. Saladii on the other hand, would arrive with an army tired out by fatiguing march and discouraged by the distance from its base for the Turks must fight, knowing that they had no shelte nearer than Damascus, and with the lake and the Jordan i their backs. Raymond added that he, if anyone, should fei interested in the preservation of Tiberias, since his own wil and children were being beleaguered in the citadel ; nevertheles he advised that a waiting policy should be adopted, and tl responsibility of the initiative thrown on the enemy. If tl . Christian army marched over the mountains, it would have 1 fight when worn out by thirst and heat ; it was far better th< the Infidels should have these disadvantages on the day < battle.i

Unfortunately the advice of Raymond was ill receive His enemies whispered that he was the king's enemy, and thi his cowardly counsel was that of a deliberate traitor. TI majority of the barons voted that it would be shameful t abandon the garrison of Tiberias. The king assented, and c Thursday, July 3, the army marched out from Saffaria light!

^ Ralph of Coggeshall, p. 222, here agrees wonderfully well with the Mosle chronicler, Ibn-Alathir.

FiSy] THE FRANKS MARCH ON TIBERIAS 325

equipped, and leaving all its impedimenta behind in the camp. The order of march is not very clearly stated ; but we know hat the Count of Tripoli, as the chief vassal of the Crown ^resent, led the van, while the Templars brought up the rear. The king, with his military household, and with another corps old off to the defence of the True Cross, was in the middle. rlow many divisions the whole army contained we are not old, nor is it explicitly stated that each consisted of horse and bot combined, though this must almost certainly have been he case.

The Franks had marched about nine or ten miles, when hey began to be surrounded by swarms of Turkish skirmishers. Saladin did not display his main force, but enveloped their army vith a cloud of horse-bowmen, whose orders were to make the narch slow and painful. By the time that the host drew near he deserted village of Marescalcia,^ it was terribly weary and larassed. Only some six miles now separated it from the own of Tiberias and the lake.^ The van, which had pushed lown into the lower ground and was still advancing, was within hree miles of the water. But between the weary Crusaders md their goal lay the hills of Tiberias, a range rising to about )ne thousand feet above sea level : the northern point, Kurn- ^^attin, is eleven hundred and ninety-one feet high. Behind the :rest of these hills the ground falls suddenly towards the deep- unk hollow of the Sea of Galilee. Tiberias itself is no less than ix hundred and fifty-three feet below the level of the Mediter- anean. All along the range the Turks were arrayed, and it vas necessary for the army to cut its way through them by )ne of the two passes which cross at its lowest points — the lepressions called the Wady-el-Muallakah and the Wady-el- iammam.

Tired as the army was, there was an absolute necessity that t should push on, for there was no water available for three niles around, and men and horses were already perishing of hirst. The Count of Tripoli sent back to King Guy, begging lim to hasten the advance at all costs, as the day was drawing )n, and the lake must be reached ere nightfall if the army was

^ Probably the modern Lubieh.

- The distance is grossly understated in Coggeshall, who says that there were ■nly three miles between Marescalcia and the lake, and that the van under the 'cunt of Tripoli was actually only one mile from Tiberias (p. 223).

326 THE ART OF WAR IN THE MIDDLE AGES [1187

to be preserved. But the king and his counsellors were dis- heartened, and no longer possessed the courage to order a final assault upon the heights where the Turks clustered so thick. Moreover, the Templars in the rear were sending messages to say that they were so hard pressed that they had been forced to halt, and could not keep up with the advance of the column in front of them. Harassed and tired out, the king ordered the whole army to halt and encamp where it stood, on the hillside near Lubieh. The command was a fatal mistake; it would have been wise to push on at all costs to Tiberias : if this was not done, a lateral movement of only three miles northward would have brought the host to the perennial stream in the Wady-el-Hammam, where the whole army could easily slake its thirst, and four miles more would take them to the lake. Fearing, however, that the Templars would be cut off if any further advance was made, and shirking the attack on the formidable bodies of Turks holding the hilltops, Guy bade the trumpets sound for halt and encampment. Raymond rode back to join the main body, exclaiming, " Alas, alas, Lord God the war is ended ; we are all delivered over to death, and the realm is ruined."^

That night the Franks camped, huddled together arounc the royal standard on the hillside. There was little food anc hardly a drop of water in the host : even sleep was impossible for the Turks came close in under cover of the darkness, anc kept up a constant shower of arrows into the camp. They alsc fired the dry grass to windward of the Crusaders, so thai stifling clouds of smoke were drifting over it all night. *' Goc fed the Christians with the bread of tears, and gave them t( drink without stint of the cup of repentance, till the dawn o tribulation came again." ^ The Saracens were not much more easy in their minds than their enemies : with the lake at thei; back and the formidable Christian army still intact, they hac many qualms of spirit when the fight was renewed on th( morning of Friday, June 4.^

King Guy had once more ranged his army in order, with the same divisions as he had drawn up on the previous day — th( Count of Tripoli in front, the military Orders in the rear Swerving from his original route, he now ordered the march tf

^ Ralph of Coggeshall, p. 223. * /l>u/. p. 224.

^ Boha-ed-din, p. 94.

PLATE X.

OF

LI LEE

650 ft below Sea Level.)

BATTLE OF ACRE. Oct. 4^." 1 1 89.

Christians:

A. I&i^ Guy B. Conrad of Montferrat.

C. Lewis of Thurin^ia. D Master of the Templars .

[iSy] TIBERIAS: DESTRUCTION OF THE INFANTRY 327

)e directed towards the Wady-el-Hammam and the village of iiattin, aiming at the nearest water, and no longer taking the hortest way to Tiberias. Saladin had now brought up his vhole host, which encircled the Christians on all sides, though he thickest mass lay across the road to the lake. The Jrusaders moved forward for some distance, and were about to oin in close combat, when the king detected great unsteadiness n his infantry. They had been told off to the various corps of :avalry, and were directed to form line in front of them, " that he two arms might give each other the proper support, the ^-nights protected by the arrows of the foot, and the foot by the ances of the knights." ^ At the moment of close combat, lowever, the greater part of the infantry, after wavering for a noment, shrank together into one great mass, and, swerving off :he road to the right, climbed a hill (probably Kurn-Hattin) \vhich lay to that flank, and formed in a dense clump on its summit, deserting the horsemen on the road below.^ The king sent messenger after messenger to them, imploring them to :ome down and play their part in the battle. The only answer \vhich they returned was that they were dying of thirst, and had neither will nor strength to fight. Already despairing of the event of the day, but determined to push on as long as it was possible, Guy ordered the knights to advance towards the lake. But ere long the Templars and Hospitallers in the rear sent to him to say that they were so hard beset that they could not move forward any more, and must succumb if not strongly reinforced. "Then the king, seeing that the infantry would not return, and that without them he could not prevail against the arrows of the Turks, ordered his men to halt and pitch their tenis. So the battles broke up, and all huddled together in a confused mass around the True Cross." ^

It was not, however, the whole of the Christian knighthood which gave way to this impulse of despair and fell into a passive defensive which was bound to prove fatal in the long- run. The Count of Tripoli and the van division, seeing the ruin behind them, and finding the Turks already stealing in between them and the king's corps, resolved not to return, but to cut

^ Ralph of Coggeshall, p. 224.

^ " Conglobati sunt in unutn cuneum, et veloci cursu cacumen excelsi montes, relinquentes exercitum, malo suo ascenderunt" {ibid. p. 225). ^ Ibid. p. 225.

328 THE ART OF WAR IN THE MIDDLE AGES [iH

their way through the Moslems and seek refuge in flight. " Th battle is hopelessly lost ; let every man save himself if he can," cried Raymond, and, forming his corps in a close body, h charged the Turks immediately in front of him, aiming n longer at the lake, but at the hills to the north-west. Hi desperate assault burst right through the circle of horse-archer: and he, with his comrades, Balian of Nablous and Reginald c Sidon, and the whole of their retainers, got safely away to th north. The Moslem chroniclers say that Saladin's nephev Taki-ed-din, who commanded in this part of the field, made n serious effort to check or pursue them, because he judged tha it would be more profitable to let them go, — for their departur enfeebled the Christian army by a third, and left the remainde a more certain prey to Saladin. It is permissible to suspec that the plea was an afterthought, and that the Turks were i truth cowed by the sudden charge of these desperate men.

Meanwhile, all had gone to ruin in the rear. While on swarm of Moslem horse beset the confused mass of knight huddled together around the king's banner and the True Cros the rest turned to assault the infantry. The wretched fugitive on the hill were too exhausted to offer any real resistance. Th first charge of the enemy split up their ill-compacted ranks some were ridden down, some were cast by the impact ovc the cliff at the back of the hill, and met their death in the fal The majority threw down lance and arbalest and held out the hands to the conquerors. The Turks slew many, and accepte the rest as captives.

The fate of the king and his knights was no less disma They held out for a long time, though neither victory nc retreat was any longer possible. Encompassed on all sides b the dense swarm of Turks, they could only stand to be she down. At last, though their horses were reduced to the la pitch of fatigue, and though they themselves had drunk the last drops of water on the previous night, the whole or part ( the host resolved to make one more push for liberty. The might perhaps cut their way through to safety, as the Coui of Tripoli had done a few hours before. A Mohammeda chronicler^ has preserved a good account of this last charg

^ "Qui potest transire transeat, quoniam non est nobis praelium." A perfe mediaeval rendering of " Sauve qui peut." (Ralph of Coggeshall, p. 225.) 2 Ibn-Alathir.

1187] TIBERIAS: THE FRANKS SURRENDER 329

vhich he drew from the memory of an eye-witness, Saladin's ;on, Malek-el-Afdal, who first drew sword at the battle of Tiberias. The prince rode by his father's side at the head of the sultan's reserve, behind the circle of skirmishers which was resetting the Crusaders.

" When the king of the Franks and his knights," said Malek- -Afdal, " found themselves pressed together on a hillock on he side of the hill of Kurn-Hattin, I was with my father. I aw the Franks make a gallant charge at those of the Moslems vho were nearest them, and drive them back close to the spot vhere we stood. I looked at my father and saw that he was leeply moved ; he changed colour, grasped his beard in his land, and moved forward crying, * Let us prove the devil a iar ! ' ^ At these words our men precipitated themselves upon he Franks, and drove them back up the hillside. I began nyself to be overjoyed, and to cry, * They fly ! they fly ! ' But he enemy presently came back to the charge, and for a second ime cut their way to the foot of the hill ; when they were .gain driven back, I began to cry afresh, ' They fly ! they fly ! ' Then my father looked at me and said, ' Hold your tongue, and lo not say that they are really routed till you see the king's ent fall.' Shortly after we saw the tent come down ; then my ather dismounted, prostrated himself to the earth in thanks to Tod, and wept tears of joy."

When the second attempt to pierce the Moslem circle had liled, and all hope was gone, we are told that in their despair [le Franks dropped from their exhausted horses, cast down lieir lances, and threw themselves sullenly upon the ground. 'he Turks ran in upon them and took them captives without nother blow being struck. To their great surprise, they found hat very few of the knights were seriously hurt ; their mail- hirts had protected them so well from the arrow-shower that ;w were badly wounded and hardly any slain. Thirst and xhaustion had brought them down, rather than the shafts or -imitars of the conquerors. On the other hand, there was ardly a horse that was not sorely hurt, and not one that could ;ave carried his rider out of the battle. The poor beasts were 'tterly worn out by two days' deprivation of water and forage.

In the corps which thus surrendered with the king were all

^ Meaning, I suppose, that as God had promised victory to the True Believers, iy thought of defeat must b^ an inspiration from Satan.

330 THE ART OF WAR IN THE MIDDLE AGES [ir8

the great barons of Palestine save those who had got off ii company with the Count of Tripoh*. They included the king' brother Amaury, Constable of Jerusalem, the Marquis o Montferrat/ Joscelin, titular Count of Edessa, Reginald o Chatillon, lord of Kerak and Montreal^ Humphrey of Toror Hugh of Tiberias,^ Hugh of Giblet, the Bishop of Lydda, th Master of the Hospitallers, and many scores of knights o wealth and name. Few persons of any note had fallen — th Bishop of Acre, who had borne the Holy Cross throughout th battle, is the only magnate reckoned among the dead.

That evening Saladin held a review of the prisoners. H kindly entreated King Guy and most of the barons, but h called out and slew with his own hand Reginald of Chatilloi who had earned his hate by breakir^g a truce and by plunderin some pilgrims to Mecca who had passed by his castle f Montreal. He also bade his bodyguard slay off-hand all th knights of the Temple and Hospital who had fallen into h hands. Not content with this, he proclaimed throughout h host that any private soldier who had captured any member ( the military Orders must give him up. For each knight s surrendered he paid the captor fifty dinars, and then sent tl prisoner to join his cpmrades in death. More than two hundrc Templars and Hospitallers were thus slain in cold bloo Saladin looked upon them as the professed and profession enemies of his faith, and never gave them quarter. When v remember that he had committed such atrocities, we need n blame too bitterly misdeeds on the other side such as Coeur ( Lion's massacre of the garrison of Acre.

Few victories have brought in their train mere importa results than that of Tiberias : within a few months the whole the kingdom of Jerusalem save a few coast-fortresses was in t hands of Saladin. The realm had been drained dry of men supply the army which perished on the hillside of Hattin, ai its towns and castles fell helplessly before the Moslem for she lack of defenders. Places that had braved the assaults oft Infidel for eighty years opened their gates at the first summoi

^ Boniface, father of the more celebrated Conrad of Montferrat, who figure.' the third Crusade.

2 I suppose that the "son of the Lady of Tiberias," named by Boha-ed-dir this Hugh, eldest son of the lady, who had by now married as second husb; , Raymond of Tripoli.

i88] THE SIEGE OF ACRE BEGUN 331

)ecause there were none but clerks and women left within them, erusalem itself surrendered after a siege of only twelve days. \ few remote castles like Kerak and Montreal had been left >etter garrisoned, because they lay in the extreme limit of the :ingdom, and some of these held out till 1 188. Montreal, endur- ng the extremities of famine, did not surrender till May 1 1 89. ]ut in the main body of the realm. Tyre, whither the sad urvivors of Tiberias had retired, was the only stronghold of :rst-rate importance which remained in Christian hands.

Such were the consequences of the overhaste of King Guy, .nd of his determination to cut his way to the relief of Tiberias v'ithout having taken account of the character of the country- ide in which he was to fight. We may safely say that if he had aken more care about supplies, and especially about his provision f water, and had carefully planned out his itinerary, he might lave reached his goal. The Saracens were in a very uncomfort- ble position, with the lake at their backs and no place of refuge lear ; one more such push as the Count of Tripoli had advised n the evening of the first day would probably have led to heir withdrawal. But a much more easy alternative would ave been to have encamped in some well-watered spot, such as ^affaria, and awaited the retreat of Saladin. The Sultan must ave soon retired for want of provender (and especially of odder) in the wasted country about Tiberias, and he could not ave dared to disperse his army for foraging purposes in the ice of the Christian host, while it remained intact and con- entrated in front of him. The whole battle, therefore, was nnecessary, and the details of Guy's bad generalship are omparatively small blunders when compared with the enormous litial mistake of fighting at all.

Battle of Acre, October 4, 1 189.

When, only two years after the fatal day of Tiberias, we once

^':^re find the Christians capable of contending on equal terms

!i Saladin, it is of course due to the arrival of reinforcements

;n the West. The exhausted remnant of the Syrian Franks

ould have done nothing. When King Guy was freed from

aptivity in 1188, and set himself to gather forces for the

ecovery of some foothold in his lost realm, it took him a year

3 collect seven hundred knights and nine thousand foot, and

hese were not for the most part his own vassals (though Tripoli

332 THE ART OF WAR IN THE MIDDLE AGES [ii8<

and Antioch lent him some succour), but early arrivals fron among the men of the West who had taken the Cross when th news of the capture of Jerusalem reached Europe. Guy wa not even in possession of Tyre, the one important city of hi realm which still remained in Christian hands. His rival an< brother-in-law, Conrad of Montferrat, shut its gates and refuse^ to admit him.

It was, therefore, an act of no small daring when, on Augus 28, 1 1 89, Guy and his little army boldly challenged the powe of Saladin by marching on Acre and encamping before i1 walls. The siege began as a blockade and nothing more, fc the Turks were able to pass in and out of the place at wil But gradually the crusading contingents began to drop in on by one from the West, and, less than a month after the sieg began, nearly forty thousand men were assembled around Acr On September 14 they engaged in a bloody and indecisi\ fight with a relieving army which Saladin in person had led t the succour of the garrison ; the Sultan succeeded in throwin a large convoy into the city, but failed in his design of drivir off the besiegers. This encouraged the Crusaders, who; numbers were still growing every day, to attempt a counte stroke. They first completed the investment of Acre by extent ing their pickets from sea to sea across the neck of land ( which the city stands. Then, after having shut off the garrisc from the army without, they resolved to offer battle in the op( by marching upon the Sultan's camp.

The crusading host lay in a semicircle round Acre, wi the king's pavilion pitched on " Mount Turon " (Tel-el-Fokha a low hill ninety feet high, which lies about fourteen hundn yards from the walls. The Turkish army formed a much larg semicircle, separated from the Franks by an interval of abo two miles. Its central rallying-point was the hill of Ayadie rising two hundred and fifty feet above the plain : here Salad himself lay. His subordinates stretched out to right and le watching the whole of the plain from the river Belus (Nahr-e Namein) on the south to the sea on the north. That the armi engaged were really very large, and that the chroniclers for on cannot be very far mistaken in the numbers that they give, best shown by the fact that the length of the Prankish lir must have been more than two miles, and the front covered the Sultan's host no less than three miles.

189] ACRE : THE FRANKS ADVANCE 333

Descending from Mount Turon into the plain of Arab-el- ihawarneh, which stretches away to the foot of the hill of Vyadieh, the Crusaders formed themselves in four corps. The rst (counting from the right) was commanded by King Guy, nd consisted of the Hospitallers, the king's own following, and he French Crusaders under the Count of Dreux and the Bishop f Beauvais. In the second corps were the Archbishop of vavenna and Conrad of Montferrat, with the greater part of the talian Crusaders and such of the barons of Palestine as adhered 3 Conrad ^ in his feud with King Guy. In the third was Lewis, .andgrave of Thuringia, with the greater part of the German ontingents and the Pisans under their archbishop. In the )urth marched the Templars, under their Master, Gerard of Lideford, the Counts of Bar and Brienne with the Crusaders om Champagne ^ and the smaller part of the Germans.

Geoffrey of Lusignan, the king's brother, and James of u'esnes remained behind in the camp with a reserve.^ They ad to watch the city, whose investment had to be relaxed when le army took the field. Apparently the space from Mount uron northward to the sea was no longer observed, nearly a lile being left open ; only the eastern face of the wall was Dvered by the camp, the northern face was free.

In each of the four marching divisions of the Christian host le proper disposition of horse and foot was carried out. The owmen and arbalesters formed a long continuous first line : ehind them marched the knights in close order. The whole est fronted north-east, and set its face towards the Sultan's tent, lainly visible on the hill of Ayadieh. The line looked very )rmidable and strong : the chroniclers give its numbers at )ur thousand horse and a hundred thousand foot — figures om which some deductions may be made.

On seeing the Christians moving forth from their camp, ialadin had promptly drawn up his host in front of them. The rmy reached from the sea to the Belus, with a semicircular ont of more than three miles : the centre was somewhat refused, le wings somewhat thrown forward. The array of the various

^ Conrad had been temporarily reconciled to King Guy, and had lately come to ;lp him in the siege : with him had arrived the Archbishop of Ravenna.

- "Catalauni," as the letter of Theobald given in Ralph de Diceto calls them, enry of Champagne himself came later to Acre, but the Counts of Bar and Brienne, >th Champenois, were already in the field.

^ Probably Syrian Franks and Netherlanders.

i

334 THE ART QF WAR IN THE MIDDLE AGES [iic

contingents is elaborately set forth by Boha-ed-din : to the sout next the river, were the garrison of Egypt, the old troops Shirkuh ; next to them were the followers of Modhaffer-ed-di lord of Edessa and Haran ; beyond these the contingent Sinjar in Mesopotamia ; next were the whole of the tribes Kurdistan, under their great emir, Mashtoub. These fo corps formed the left wing. The centre consisted of the Sultar bodyguard and the Mesopotamian troops from Diarbekr, Mosi and Hisn-Kayfa. The Sultan himself, his son Malek-el-Afd and his nephew Malek-ed-Dafer, were here in commar The right wing, which lay towards the sea, was composed of t Syrian contingents, headed by Saladin's nephew Taki-ed-d Prince of Emesa.

When the Christians began to advance into the plain, th soon found that the intervals between the four corps in their li of battle were growing greater. This was necessarily the Cc when they marched out from a comparatively narrow positi into a wide plain whose whole breadth was held by the enen When they began to extend their front to make it equal to tl of the Turks, each step farther forward brought about a wic separation between the centre and the wings. This was disastrous fact for the Franks, whose main chance of victory ] in their being able to keep a well closed-up line. In the act" fighting, as we shall see, this was so far from being the case tl three separate engagements were fought by the left wing, i right wing, and the two centre divisions.

The first contact occurred in the northern part of the fit where the Master of the Templars faced the Syrian continge of Taki-ed-din. After a few minutes the Infidels began give ground : Boha-ed-din assures us that the movement \ voluntary, and that the Frince of Emesa was desirous of draw away the Christian left wing from the main body by his retr( Whether this was so or not, it is at any rate certain that Salac seeing his right wing retiring, sent to its aid heavy reinforceme from his centre. These succours enabled the Syrians to reti the offensive, and the Templars had to re-form their line on a lying toward the sea (probably the rising ground now known Kisr-el-Hammar). Here the battle stood still for some ti without marked success on one side or the other.

Meanwhile, Saladin's despatch of troops from his cer towards his right had been observed by the Franks, and

1189] ACRE: THE FRANKS ROUTED 335

wo central divisions of the Christian host, led by Conrad of Montferrat and Lewis of Thuringia, delivered a fierce assault )n the Sultan's main body. They marched at a moderate pace vith the infantry in front shooting hard, till they came in :ontact with the Mesopotamian troops from Diarbekr and Mosul. iVhen the lines closed, the knights passed through intervals )pened out for them by the foot-soldiery, and crashed into the Turkish ranks. The Infidels could not stand the shock : their ine was broken, and they fled in wild confusion toward their amp on the hill of Ayadieh. Saladin could not rally them, and riany of the fugitives were so panic-stricken that they rode without drawing rein as far as Tiberias, or even Damascus, 'ollowing the routed Turks, the two divisions of the Prankish entre stormed up the hill and plunged into the camp. It would lave been hard to keep them in order among the tents and ther obstacles which broke their line ; but, as a matter of fact, 10 one made any attempt to restrain them. Horse and foot cattered themselves through the encampment and turned, some 0 slaughter and some to plunder. The Sultan's own pavilion ras sacked and cast down, three of his body servants being slain herein. Some of the Franks turned to cutting down the camp- oUowers, others burst into the sutlers' quarter and plundered he market. No one made any attempt to prevent the routed Turks from rallying, or to take in flank the still intact wings of Paladin's army.

Meanwhile, King Guy and the right wing of the Franks eem not to have come to a decisive engagement with the vurds and Mamelukes of Saladin's left. Neither Western nor Eastern writers give any clear account of the movements in this lart of the field. It seems likely, however, from a passage in br-Alathir, that the Moslems were somewhat outflanking the Christians, since the latter had partly followed the advance of heir centre. Lest the enemy might use the opportunity and et between him and the camp, the king may probably have leld back.

By the most untiring personal exertions Saladin at last ucceeded in gathering together a great part of his routed centre omewhere at the western foot of the Ayadieh hill. His officers )esought him to lead them to storm their lost camp, but he efused, and bade them wait till the Franks should leave it, and hen to charge them when their backs were turned to the

336 THE ART OF WAR IN THE MIDDLE AGES [ii8f

Moslems. Before long the Germans and Lombards began t( evacuate the hill, some burdened with plunder, others wishing t( re-form on the open ground and then to go to the help of th( king or the Templars. The retreat was executed in great dis order, and not without panic : many thought that some disaste had happened in the rear to account for the fact that thei comrades were tramping down hill. The author of the Itmerariuf. tells us that in one part of the field a knot of Germans, runnim to catch an Arab horse which had broken loose, were suppose- by the rest to be flying, and caused a senseless rush to the rear

When the Christians were trooping in disorderly masses bac to the plain, Saladin suddenly let loose his rallied Mesopotamia horsemen upon them. The results of this charge were decisive the scattered bands of Crusaders were caught wholly unprepared they had no time to form up and defend themselves, but wei hurried back across the plain by the shock of the Turkis horsemen. In utter rout some fled toward King Guy's corp some straight to the camp. Saladin followed, slaying the hinc most and easily driving all before him. The crusading rigl wing seems to have made some attempt to rescue the fugitive and Guy himself is said to have saved the life of his old enem Conrad of Montferrat, by hewing out a passage for him when 1 had been surrounded by the pursuers.^ But the king and tl Hospitallers could not restore the battle, and were themselv' thrust back towards the camp by the rushing mass of pursue and pursued. Apparently the Turkish left wing tried to puf itself between the Franks and their place of refuge,^ and, thou^ it failed to cut ofl" their main body, its movements must ha' hastened the retreat. The flight only ceased when James Avesnes and Geoffrey de Lusignan led the reserve out of t: camp and covered the flight of the disorderly crowd of horse ai foot to their tents. Saladin halted below Mount Turon, ai would not allow any attempt to be made to storm it : he dreads the strength of the Franks when acting on the defensive.

Meanwhile, a separate battle had been fought on the hillsi to the north by Taki-ed-din and the Master of the Templa We have already mentioned that, after the first shock, the fig had come to a standstill in this quarter, owing to the reinforc TTients which Saladin had sent to his nephew. A second acct ■sion of forces to the Moslems settled the fate of the comb

^ Itinerarium^ ?• 7I» cap. xxx. * Ibn-Alathir.

iSg] ACRE: THE CAUSES OF DEFEAT 337

Seeing the Christians engaged in the battle and paying no heed o the town, the garrison of Acre sallied out five thousand strong, rom the northern gate, that most remote from Mount Turon.^ Then, taking a circuitous route, they came out upon the rear of he Prankish left, and fell upon the Templars and the Champenois /hile the latter were hotly engaged with Taki-ed-din. The ntervention of this new corps broke the spirit of the Crusaders. They gave up all for lost, and merely strove to cut their way •ack to their camp. Being beset in front and rear, it was only portion of them who succeeded. Eighteen knights of the emple fell, and their Grand Master, Gerard, was captured, and eheaded by Saladin's orders. Andrew of Brienne, the brother of he Champenois count, was also slain, and forty knights more. io great was the slaughter in this part of the field that the numbers f the fallen in the Christian left wing far exceeded those lost y the right and the centre.^ Thus ended in defeat a battle ^hich might under proper guidance have led to the complete iscomfiture of the relieving host. The Franks had risked much y engaging in the vast plain of El-Ghawarneh, where their orps were certain to get separated the one from the other. [evertheless, the misbehaviour of the Sultan's centre put the ictory into their hands. If, instead of falling on the camp, and lere wasting a precious hour, Conrad and the Landgrave had arned to take the Turkish wing-divisions in the flank, the nfidels could not possibly have escaped a dreadful disaster, aki-ed-din's corps might have been hurled into the sea, and the lords and Egyptians thrust into the marshes of the Belus, if ther of them had delayed a moment too long before taking to ight. But when the battle was really won, the leaders and the :d were equally incapable of using their advantage. The men irned to pillage, and we have no proof that any of their fficers thought of calling them off or conducting them to aother part of the field. Hence the Sultan, with his usual bility, was able to rally his men, and snatch a victory out of le jaws of defeat.

^ Itinerarium, p. 70, and letter of Theobald and Peter Leo in Ralph de Diceto, ^ Boha-ed-din (p. 145) took great pains to make out the sum of the Christian sses. He considered the number of seven thousand, that which was generally xepted in the Sultan's camp, as exaggerated. But having questioned the officer who id been charged to make away with the Christian corpses on the northern part of e field, he was told that four thousand one hundred had been carted off. He erefore estimated the losses of the right and centre at less than three thousand. 22

338 THE ART OF WAR IN THE MIDDLE AGES [ii

Our only wonder is that he did not utilise his success for further assault on the Franks. But he had a wholesome drej of the enemy when acting on the defensive, and (as we are tol his own army was in the greatest disorder. Not only tl Crusaders, but the Turkish camp-followers had turned to pilla ing the tents on the hill of Ayadieh, and for the whole day aft the fight, as we read, the troopers were occupied in seeking the lost goods and extracting them from the plunderers. When few hours were past, the Christians, whose losses had been f less than might have been expected, — only the left wing h; really suffered much slaughter, — were safe in their camp, and mc angry than afraid. When the Sultan held back, they were so i from being cowed that their next move was to run a line circumvallation from sea to sea, and actually seal up the garris^ of Acre within its walls.

As to losses, we have no good account of those suffered 1 the Moslems. The contemporary letter of Theobald and Pet Leo to the Pope estimates them at fifteen hundred horsemen not improbable figure. Boha-ed-din names as slain the Kurdi Emir Modjelli and a few more chiefs, together with about hundred and fifty persons of no importance. Considering t rout of the centre, these numbers are wholly improbable, a cannot be accepted. On the other hand, the Christian soun give the loss of the Crusaders at fifteen hundred only,i nami Andrew of Brienne and Gerard the Grand Master as the or notable men among the slain. These figures are equally incre ible, especially in face of Boha-ed-din's statement as to t counting of the corpses.^ On the whole, we may perhaps gu( that each side made a better estimate of its enemy's losses th its own, and put them at fifteen hundred Turks to seven thousa Franks.

Battle of Mansotirah, Febnimy 8, 1250.

In our chapter on the Strategy of the Crusades we he already had occasion to mention the battle of Mansourah as 1 ill-fought end of an ill-planned advance into Egypt, We poin1 out the madness of a march across the canals and waterways the Delta, and showed how the campaign was certain to end a check, owing to the numerous and strong defensive positit which were in the hands of the Egyptian army.

* Itineran'iim, p. 72. 2 gee p. 337.

249] ST. LOUIS IN EGYPT 339

St. Louis started on his adventure under much more favour- .ble circumstances than his predecessor King John of Jerusalem lad met .thirty years before. The Crusaders of 1219 had only ecured themselves a basis of operations by the capture of )amietta after besieging the place for a year. Their strength ;as exhausted before they even started on their march up-country. ly an extraordinary chance St. Louis in 1249 took the town without striking a blow. All Egypt was in disorder owing to the aortal sickness of Sultan Malek-Saleh/ and there was no single trong hand at the helm. When the troops who had been told ]{ to oppose the landing of the French were beaten back, and etired towards the interior, the corps which had been selected D garrison Damietta evacuated the place in a panic and fled fter the rest.^ It was to no purpose that the Sultan roused imself from his sick-bed to order fifty of their officers to be anged : the strong city had passed into the hands of the 'rusaders, and gave them a secure starting-point and place of rms : it was full of stores and in perfect order, since there had een no occasion to batter its walls with siege engines (June ,1249).

Having begun so well, it was incumbent on the French king iP^utilise his first success and push forward while the enemy /fcre still panic-stricken. It is therefore with nothing less than stonishment that we hear that King Louis waited nearly six lonths at Damietta before he began his march on Cairo. The ircumstances explain, but do not excuse, this halt : a large part f'the armament had been blown into the Syrian ports by a 'OAtrary wind, and it was thought necessary to await its ppearance : the summer was at its height, and the Nile flood ^as rising over Lower Egypt, so that the face of the land was -ell-nigh covered with water. These would have been good masons for delaying the attack on Damietta till the approach of le cold weather and the sinking of the flood : it was obviously le worst possible month for an advance when the heat was at ;s greatest and the country most water-logged. Undoubtedly une was a bad season for the invasion, but, having once begun, le French were bound to go on : their delay merely enabled

^ The Sultan was dying of a malignant ulcer in his thigh, which contemporary imour ascribed to his having lain on a poisoned mat spread for him by one of his aves.

^ Makrizi in the Biblioth^ue des Croisades, iv. 42.

340 THE ART OF WAR IN THE MIDDLE AGES [12

the Sultan to organise his resistance with a clear knowledge the route which his enemies must take. There had been a fee ful panic at Cairo when the news of the fall of Damietta arrivt but the long quiescence of the Franks enabled the Egyptians recover their self-possession and bethink them of the best mea of defence.^

It was not till October that the last contingents of the Fren army straggled in from Syria : they had brought with them number of the barons of the Holy Land, who placed themseh under the Count of Jaffa.^ There was some discussion when t whole host was mustered as to whether it should not be trai ferred to Alexandria,^ and attack Egypt from that side. Tl plan was supported by Peter of Brittany and many other baro and had its advantages, for the march into Egypt from Alexand presents far less difficulties than that from Damietta. But must have begun with a second disembarkment and a toilsoi siege. When the king's brother, Robert Count of Arte explained that those who wish to kill the snake strike at head,* and voted for an immediate advance on Cairo along t Damietta branch of the Nile, he carried the king and the coun with him, and the hopeless march began.

On the 20th of November^ the army commenced its mar moving slowly forward past Fareskour, Scharemsah, and Fa moun, while the flotilla advanced parallel with it on the N A few miles after Faramoun was passed, the advance came a standstill (19th December), when four weeks had been occup: in advancing fifty miles. The check was caused by the, that the king found in front of him the first formidable course which cuts the way from Damietta to Cairo. Al town of Mansourah the Damietta branch of the Nile di itself into two parts: the one flows down to Damietta, the otl turns east and falls into the swamps of Lake Menzaleh. It v in front of the latter that the Christian army found itself stopp( this second waterway, which the natives call the Ashmc Canal, lay across its path. Behind it the whole levy of Eg\ was massed ; the Sultan had taken post there when Damie

^ Jemal-el-din in the Bib. des Croisades, iv. 451, 452.

^ John of Ibelin. He had himself been with the king at the first landing (J ville, p. 215).

^ By sea, I presume : not even the French barons can have dreamed of marcl over three branches of the Nile and the whole breadth of the Delta.

^ Joinville, p. 219. ^ William of Nangis, p. 374.

cup:

i

249] THE FRENCH REACH MANSOURAH 341

ell, knowing that it was the first strong defensive position which he French must attack. Just as the critical moment was ipproaching, his old malady carried him off in the last week of N^ovember, and he had been dead some time when St. Louis cached Mansourah. His widow and his ministers, however, kept lis death secret, and orders were still issued in his name. The eal charge of the defence of Egypt fell to the Emir Fakr-ed- iin, the commander of the army, on whom it was agreed to :onfer dictatorial powers. Meanwhile, swift messengers were jcnt to seek Malek-Saleh's son and heir, Turan Shah, who was ar away at Hisn-Kayfa in Mesopotamia. Till he should arrive :he Sultan's death was concealed from his subjects.

The French army now found itself at the point of a narrow ;ongue of land, an " island " as Joinville calls it, between the Tiain branch of the Damietta Nile and the Ashmoun Canal. [t was necessary to force the passage of one or the other of ihese waterways ; and, both because it was smaller and because t covered the direct road to Cairo, the king chose the Ashmoun IS his objective.

Opposite him lay the tents of the Egyptian army, stretching ■or two or three miles along the farther bank. In their midst 'ose the walls of Mansourah, and outside its western gate the palace of the Sultan. The place was but thirty years old ; in 1220, after he had beaten John of Brienne on this same ground, -he Sultan El-Kamil had built a new city to commemorate his /ictory. The strategical exigencies of the roads of the Delta lad placed St. Louis and Malek-Saleh in exactly the same position as was occupied by their predecessors during the fifth C^rusade.

The Egyptian army was now composed of better stuff than lad been the case in 1220. It was Malek-Saleh who had first organised the celebrated corps of the Circassian Mamelukes vvhich was to dominate Egypt for the next six centuries. The mercenary troops of his predecessors had been mainly Kurds md Syrians, but he had learned the military worth of the men of the Caucasus, and had been steadily buying Circassian slaves for many years and incorporating them in his guard. The eight or ten thousand Mamelukes formed the core of his host: to support them were arrayed the horsemen of the Bedouin tribes and the general levy of Egypt, who had marched out at the exhortation of their mollahs and imams to save Islam. These

342 THE ART OF WAR IN THE MIDDLE AGES [i

I

formed a great mass of troops, both horse and foot, but wer little military value. The whole brunt of the war fell upon heavily-armed and well-mounted Mameluke horsemen.

Seeing the Egyptians clustering so thick around Mansourah St. Louis resolved not to make any attempt to throw his army across the canal by means of his boats, but to build a solid causeway and so dam up the channel and cross on foot. Accord- ingly he set his foot-soldiery to cast earth into the Ashmoun or a broad front ; the causeway advanced a few yards, but soor the discharge of missiles from the opposite bank became s( deadly that the work was stopped ; the king saw that the earth bearers must be protected, and therefore built along th( incomplete dam two " cats," i.e. covered-ways or penthouses under shelter of which he trusted that the workers might complete their task. The "cats" were protected by two high woodei towers called " belfreys " placed at the water's edge. To batte down these protections the Egyptians soon set their military machines to work, and sixteen perrieres and mangonels hurlec large stones or barrels of combustible matter at the covered ways and wooden towers. The French replied by setting U] against them eighteen similar engines, and the two parties sho at each other across the river for some days.

As long as the " cats " were safe the causeway could advance and the labourers succeeded in filling up the bed of the canal fo more than half its breadth. But on the other side the Egyptian began cutting away the bank, and, the force of the curren aiding them, they succeeded in keeping the Ashmoun oper " In one day they undid what it had taken us three weeks t accomplish," says Joinville, "for all our work in stopping th channel was useless when they enlarged it on the other side." ^ i-^t' Meanwhile, Fakr-ed-din threw a detachment across the cam lo\Ver down its course, and sent them to fall on the rear of th French camp : they were, however, beaten off with some loss b the king's brothers, the Counts of Anjou and Poictiers (Decembe 25, 1249). This was but a diversion : the real centre of th fighting was the causeway ; here the matter finally went ill wit the French. By hurling barrels of Greek fire at the belfreys an " cats," the Infidels finally succeeded in setting them in flame Nothing could be done till they were rebuilt with ship-timb( which the king bought for the purpose. But only a few da}

^ Joinville, p. 221.

PLATE XI.

Scbennvtic

To Illustrate the Crusades

Jila.ni; of the Joiner Ccuuils and/WcUevcourses chre omitted.. GizeK

j\. Place of S*^Louis DyKe & Engines. B. Place of the Egyptian Engines.

Neighbourhood

OP

Mansoukah,

124-9-50

I

1^6] MANSOURAH: THE FRENCH AT THE FORD 343

after the new engines had been erected, they were again burned by the same means as before.

A deep discouragement now pervaded the French host : it seemed that they had been brought to a complete standstill. But a few days later the Constable Humbert of Beaujeu dis- covered a Copt or a renegade Mussulman ^ who told him that four miles to the east of Mansourah therq was a ford over the Ashmoun, deep and difficult indeed, but quite practicable for cavalry (Feb. 7, 1250).

The army had now been stranded for nearly two months in front of Mansourah, and Louis felt that he must leave no device untried, even though it were as dangerous as that of crossing a deep ford in face of the enemy and without any possibility of aid from his infantry. He accordingly resolved to attempt the passage on the next morning.

During the night of the 7th - 8th February his disposi- tions were made. The Duke of Burgundy and the barons of Palestine with their knights were to remain behind in the camp, and take charge of the great mass of foot-soldiery. When the king should have reached and captured the Egyptian machines which commanded the half-built causeway, they were to complete it in all haste and cross over to join their leader.

Meanwhile, Louis himself, with his three brothers, Charles of Anjou, Robert of Artois, and Alphonso of Poictiers, and the main body of the horsemen, was to march to the ford and pass it at daybreak. When they were on the southern bank they were to push along it to the Egyptian camp, burst into it, and capture or destroy the engines at the causeway before the enemy should recover from his surprise.

We have no complete account of the array of the cavalry corps which marched to the ford. We know, however, that the Templars, under their Grand Master, William de Sonnac, rode first, and that the van division included also the followers of Robert of Artois, Peter Duke of Brittany, John Count of Soissons, Raoul lord of Coucy, and the small English con- tingent which William Longsword, the titular Earl of Salisbury,^

^ Joinville, p. 220, calls him a Bedouin, so does William of Nangis. But some of the^Mohammedan writers call him a Copt.

^ Henry iii. had refused to give him his father's earldom, and conferred a pension on him instead. But William was nevertheless called earl by most of his contempor- aries.

344 THE ART OF WAR IN THE MIDDLE AGES [125c

had brought to the Crusade. They had with them all the king's mounted crossbowmen. In the second battle among th( Champenois was John of Joinville, who has left us our besi account of the campaign ; unfortunately he has omitted to give us the complete list of those who marched with him. Charles o Anjou was probably commander of the corps.^ The king anc his household knights, with his brother Alphonso of Poictier and Henry Count of Flanders, rode in the third division. Loui had issued strict orders that no knight should straggle from hi: corps, and that the three battles should keep close together the van was not to advance till all three had passed the ford.^

The Egyptians kept a careless watch along the canal, anc though the ford was only four miles from their camp, at th( village of Sahnar, the French reached it unobserved. The vai division crossed, not without some difficulty, for the bottom wa muddy and the opposite bank scarped and slippery : a fev knights lost their footing and were drowned. When they wer< already over, a body of three hundred Arab horse appeared, bu promptly took to flight when the Count of Artois charged them they saw that the passage was lost,^ and rode off to warn thei comrades.

Flushed with this trifling success, Robert of Artois forgo his brother's orders, and began to move off in pursuit. Th Master of the Temple rode up to him and besought him to stof but the hot-headed count would not listen to his remonstrance' and spurred off towards the Egyptian camp. Thinking that h would be shamed if he abandoned his place in the van, th Master unwillingly followed, and after him all the other con tingents of the van battle.*

Count Robert rode so hard and so recklessly that he cam hurtling into the eastern end of the Egyptian camp almost a soon as the flying Bedouin whom he was chasing. He fouu' the Infidels in a state of disarray and unpreparedness, whic reflects little credit on their commander. The horses were nc

^ So I gather from the fact that he rescued Joinville before the king and the thir corps had reached the field (Joinville, p. 226).

- Rothelin MS., p. 602.

^ Joinville, p. 224. They appeared when Joinville himself was crossing, i.e. aft, the van had passed.

* Joinville tells a curious tale of a deaf knight who was pulling the count's brid and shouting " Forward and at them ! " at the top of his voice all the time that tl Master was pleading for delay.

z5o] MANSOURAH : COUNT ROBERT'S CHARGE 345

iddled nor the men armed. The French rode through the imp, slashing right and left and driving all before them, till ley came to the place where were the perrieres and mangonels hich commanded the unfinished causeway. They wrought reat slaughter, and killed the Emir Fakr-ed-din himself, fresh cm his bath and without his coat-of-mail, as he rode up and Dwn trying to rally his men. Hitherto Robert's haste had not Dne any irreparable harm : if he had halted and taken post Tiong the machines to guard the spot till the infantry should )mplete the work, he would almost have justified his reckless large. For if he had waited till the second and third battles id crossed the narrow ford, the enemy would have had ample me of warning, and would not have been surprised in their imp.

But the fiery count was now to take the fatal step which lined the whole enterprise. Seeing the Egyptians in hopeless sarray, he imagined that he had gained the day with his own vision alone, and thought of nothing but pursuit and slaughter, iter a very short breathing space, he ordered a second advance •wards the town of Mansourah, into which many of the fugitives ere pouring. The Master of the Temple again besought him ' pause and await his brother's coming, and William of Salis- ary added his remonstrances to those of William of Sonnac. ount Robert replied with inexcusable discourtesy, telling the emplar that the military Orders loved to protract the war for eir own ends, and did not really wish Christendom to triumph, St their own occupation should be gone.^ Then, turning to the arl of Salisbury, he flung in his face the old taunt about Englishmen with tails " and the curse of cowardice that rested 1 them. " I shall go this day where you will not dare to keep vel with the tail of my horse," replied Salisbury, and, replacing s helmet and lowering his lance, he rushed forward with the St to meet his fate.^

^ Artois' language to the Templar, as reported by Matthew Paris (v. 149), deserves -ord as showing the suspicion which the Crusaders entertained of the military Orders. ) antiqua Templi proditio ! Hoc est quod diu praecinimus augurio, quod terra tota ientalis jamdiu fuisset adquisita nisi Templi et Hospitalis fraudibus nos seculares pediremur. Timent autem Templarii et eorum complices quod si terra juribus subdatur iristianis, ipsorum expirabit (qui amplis reditibus saginantur), dominatio. Hinc est od fideles ad negotium crucis accinctos variis inficiunt potionibus, et Saracenis con :derati proditionibus interficiunt."

^ Matthew Paris makes a bad error in placing this altercation after instead of fore the irruption into the town of Mansourah.

346 THE ART OF WAR IN THE MIDDLE AGES [125

The Egyptians were still so discouraged that Artois and h followers were able to penetrate within the walls of Mansoura and to ride through the town, cutting down the fugitives ; son of the knights even emerged at its western gate, and almo reached the Sultan's suburban palace. But they were scattere in the streets and separated one from another, so that tl impetus of their charge and the advantage of combined acti( were lost. The Egyptians fled into the houses and flung dar and tiles upon the knights as they galloped up and down tl narrow lanes. Presently the troops from the camps west of tl town, who had not shared in the panic of the rest of the Mosle army, began to pour into Mansourah. They found the Fren scattered in small bands, some intent on plunder and some < slaughter, but all unprepared to receive a fresh attack. Hen the new-comers won an easy success over the Christians : ma? were slain in the streets, others hunted out of the town a cut down in the open. The only route which the fugitix could take lay through the eastern camp of the Egyptia where the Mamelukes were now rallying and getting into bat order. Hence it is not surprising to find that nearly the wh( of Artois' corps was annihilated. He himself was slain in t town, and his surcoat with the royal French lilies was exhibit to the Moslems as a proof that the King of the Franks h fallen. With Robert there died William Longsword, the Mas of the Temple, the lord of Coucy, and many barons mc Joinville tells us that three hundred knights perished, besi< the sergeants and horse-arbalesters who accompanied the The Temple alone lost two hundred and eighty horsemen various ranks. The Moslems say that fifteen hundred Frei were cut off in all,^ and the figure is very probably corn Only a few scattered bands escaped, among whom were Duke of Brittany and the Count of Soissons.

Meanwhile, during the hour which Artois had wasted by mad charge, the remainder of the French cavalry had b gradually crossing the Ashmoun. Joinville, who was in front of the middle corps, seems to have followed Count Rol '■ at a distance, before the king was well over the ford. At rate, he saw, when he reached the Egyptian camp, that son: the enemy were already rallying, having retired from the tt into the open fields where they were drawing up in line of bai •

^ Joinville, p. 224. ^ Makrizi.

250] MANSOURAH: THE MAIN BATTLE 347

;^he seneschal charged the nearest squadron, but was soon swept .ack to the edge of the canal by the advance of the mass of the nfidels, whom he estimated at about six thousand horse. He nd his followers only saved their lives by retiring into a ruined iouse, where they maintained themselves, fighting on foot in the Gorway, till Charles of Anjou and the main body of the second orps came up and delivered them by driving off their assailants.

Soon after. King Louis himself and the rear division came pen the scene of battle. They were at once assailed by the rlamelukes, who were now rallied and in good order. A fierce truggle began in the outskirts of the camp, and was maintained JT many hours. The Mamelukes poured a constant rain of rrows into the ranks of the French, and Louis was compelled 0 charge them again and again before he could resume his dvance towards the all-important spot where the half-finished lam lay. It was absolutely necessary to reach it, in order that he infantry might have their chance of joining the horse. But >eing continually attacked on their left flank, the French could lot advance as they wished, but were always having to face outhward to beat off the Mamelukes. Seeing their enemy .rowing weary, and noting that hundreds of the knights were lismounted owing to the loss of horses under the rain of arrows, he Mamelukes at last threw their bows over their backs and harged down with mace and scimitar upon the king. Louis /as hard pressed, and some of his followers lost heart and >lunged into the Ashmoun to swim back to the Christian camp, ^ut he persisted in his original plan of advancing to the cause- v-ay, and at last came level with it.

Then the French infantry, throwing earth, planks, fascines, >roken military engines, and all manner of miscellaneous rubbish nto the unbridged half of the canal, succeeded in making a rough »ut sufficient bridge over the gap. The arbalesters and pikemen •egan to pour across the crazy structure by thousands. Humbert f Beaujeu, the constable, at once drew up the first crossbowmen hat arrived so as to cover the harassed cavalry. They opened destructive fire upon the Mamelukes, and the battle took a lew turn.

The moment that the Egyptian leaders — Bibars, who twenty ears later became Sultan, is chiefly named among them — saw hat the French infantry were entering on the scene, they ordered heir horsemen to draw back. Retiring out of bowshot, they still

h

348 THE ART OF WAR IN THE MIDDLE AGES [125

maintained a threatening- attitude. The king might now hav advanced, but his knights were so thoroughly tired out an harassed that he refrained from doing so. He contented hin: self with ordering the infantry to construct a large circular tete du-pont covering a considerable space of ground on the farthe bank of the canal. The work was easily and rapidly finishe by using as materials the woodwork of the captured Egyptia machines.

Thus King Louis had acquired a solid lodgment on tl: southern side of the watercourse which had so long held hii in check. But he had failed to defeat the Egyptian army, whic still watched him at the distance of no more than a few hundre yards, and was rather encouraged than abashed by the resul of the day's fighting. The losses of the French had been .< much greater than those of their adversaries that the Moslen regarded themselves as the successful party. Louis had lost, ; far as can be calculated, nearly half his cavalry and a still great proportion of his horses. The real meaning of the battle w sufficiently shown by the fact that three days later ^ tl Egyptians assumed the offensive, and vigorously attacked t tete-du-pont, while the French stood entirely upon the defensi^ and even after beating off the assault made no further attem to advance. The invaders had lost their impetus and th( desire to push on : not long after we find them thinking retreat. The battle, though it had ended in the crossing of t Ashmoun Canal, had so exhausted the Crusaders that th' despaired of the result of the campaign. We cannot call anything but a check and a disaster.^

Such were the main features of the fight of Mansoural

'%

^ The battle had been fought on Shrove-Tuesday, and the Moslem attack on French lines followed on the first Friday in Lent.

^ Joinville's interesting personal adventures after the king had come upon field are well worth reading, but evidently had no important influence on the forti of the day. He had been employed to ride on to Mansourah to look for the Count Artois, who was said to be yet alive, but got involved in a long skirmishing encour with a body of Egyptians on and about a little bridge which crossed a brook runn into the Ashmoun from the south. He succeeded in detaining opposite him a bod} the enemy who would otherwise have gone to aid in the attack on the king, their arrival would not have turned the event of the day — indeed, these were Egyp: rabble, not Mamelukes, as many of them were on foot, and they pelted Joinville ; his men with clods and shot at them with fire-arrows instead of charging in. His 227-228 are of great interest, but we could wish that they contained more details al the king's main fight with the Mamelukes.

25o] MANSOURAH : THE CAUSES OF FAILURE 349

ist of the great pitched battles of the Crusades. It displays, ven more clearly than the other engagements with which we ave dealt, the absolute interdependence of cavalry and infantry 1 the Christian hosts when dealing with the formidable horse- rchers of the East. For want of men armed with missile weapons (all the mounted crossbowmen had been slain along 'ith Robert of Artois) the king and his chivalry were on the ery verge of destruction. They were saved the moment that leir infantry succeeded in getting across the canal and joining lem. Without that succour they would probably have been estroyed to the last man, for they had been cut off from their 2treat to the ford, and the watercourse at their back proved npassable to such fugitives as attempted to cross it.

It is curious to note that the Mohammedan writers grasped luch more clearly than the Christian the fact that the tardy rrival of the French infantry turned the engagement into a rawn battle, and that their earlier appearance would have made a decisive victory for St. Louis. Joinville^ and William of langis 2 mention the coming up of the crossbowmen indeed, but eep all their interest and admiration for the king's feats of ersonal valour. It is left for Jemal-ed-din and Makrizi to bserve that " if the first division of the Christian cavalry had eld out " {i.e. if Artois had remained by the engines instead of lunging into Mansourah), "and if the whole of the Christian ifantry had been engaged, Islam would have been ruined,"^ and lat " if the French infantry could have joined their cavalry, the efeat of the Egyptians and the loss of the town of Mansourah ould have been inevitable." * Blinded by chivalrous enthusiasm id class-pride, the French chroniclers omit to draw the moral hich to the Moslem writers was obvious.

The separation of horse and foot while St. Louis was making s turning movement was unfortunate, but absolutely necessary. /e cannot blame the king for it, as he had no other alternative ^fore him. All the more must the gravest censure fall on

^ " It happened that towards evening the king's constable, Humbert de Beaujeu, ought us the foot-arbalesters, who drew up in front, while we dismounted, Incon- lently the Saracens went off and left us in peace," says Joinville — a very inadequate count of the crisis of the day, when whole pages have been devoted to individual ploits.

^ "Nostri usque ad horam nonam graves sustinuerunt impetus. Tandem balistariorum bsidio multis Saracenorum vulneratis . . . nostri campum obtinuerunt " (p. 374).

^ Jemal-ed-din, p. 459. ■* Makrizi, p. 548.

350

THE ART OF WAR IN THE MIDDLE AGES

Robert of Artois for his mad charge into Mansourah in direc disobedience to his brother's orders. If he had only halte( among the Egyptian engines opposite the French camp, an( held his ground there till the infantry could complete the cause way, and till his brother could arrive with the main body c the horse, the day would have gone well for Christendom. Th king did his best to detain him, sending ten knights to bid hir halt and wait,^ but Robert, in deliberate defiance of his chie chose to make the second mad charge, which lost the day ani ended his own rash career. Even the leader of a feudal arm could not have rationally expected to see his plans wrecked b such a piece of wanton and wicked indiscipline.

1 Joinville, p. 224.

I

BOOK VI

WESTERN EUROPE

FROM THE BATTLE OF HASTINGS TO THE

RISE OF THE LONGBOW

Ih

CHAPTER I

INTRODUCTORY

[N studying the Crusades we have seen the miHtary art of the nations of Western Europe at its best and its worst- owhere are more reckless displays of blind courage, or more upid neglect of the elementary rules of strategy and tactics ) be found, than in the great expeditions to the Levant. On le other hand, we have also had to observe among the more ipable leaders of the crusading armies a far higher degree of telligent generalship than was usual among their contem- jraries in the West. If the Crusades of iioi and 1147 are 3cidedly more distressing to the critic than the average wars of rance,England,or Germany, there are also battles and campaigns -such as that of Arsouf — which show very favourably beside lose of the lands nearer home. Many of the Crusaders seem to ive been at their best when facing the new problems of the ast. Richard Coeur de Lion at Acre, Arsouf, and Jaffa rises r above his ordinary level : we find ourselves wondering how le very capable general of 1190-91 can on his return waste so uch energy and ability to no purpose in the wretched peddling rench wars of 1 194-99. We may add that the great Frederic T. Germany never shows to such good effect in his home cam- ligns as in the conduct of his expedition through Asia Minor, any of the lesser figures of the Crusades, including the good odfrey of Bouillon himself, are obscure and undistinguished in e wars of their native lands, and only show the stuff that is in em when they have crossed the high seas. The worst military errors of the Christians in the East came, we have seen, from their gross ignorance of the conditions of arfare in Syria or Asia Minor, and of the tactics of the enemies ith whom they had to deal. At home leaders and led alike 2re safe from such dangers, since they knew the military 23

354 THE ART OF WAR IN THE MIDDLE AGES [hoc

character and usages of their neighbours, and had some rougl idea of the geography, climate, and productions of their neigh hours' territory. But if this knowledge preserved them fron certain dangers, it seems, on the other hand, that in the familia border wars of the West the best qualities of a commander wer often not developed. It is new and unforeseen dangers an( difficulties that test most adequately the stuff that is in a man.

When we turn from the history of the Crusades to conside the contemporary history of the Art of War in Western Europ( the first thing that strikes us is the comparatively small influenc which the great campaigns in the Levant seem to have had upo the development of strategy and tactics at home. Tens c thousands of barons, knights, and sergeants came back s veterans from the East, and one would expect to see th lessons which they had learned in fighting the Turk and Syria perpetually applied to the wars of their native countries. Y( it is by no means easy to point out obvious instances of sue application of new principles of war, save in the provinces ( fortification and of arms and armour. In strategy and tacti< it is difficult to detect from a broad survey much direct influenc flowing from the Crusades.

W^e may take as the clearest example of this the enti neglect by the Western nations of the most important tactic lesson of the Crusades. We have shown by a score of exampl that the one great principle which settled the fate of wars wi the Turk was that generals who properly combined infantry ai cavalry in their line of battle were successful, and that genera ■ who tried to dispense with the support of foot-soldiery alwa i failed disastrously. The fact that the combination of the tv j arms is better than simple reliance on one had been shown Hastings long ere the Crusades began, but the lesson was ev' more clearly visible in the details of such fights as Antioch Ascalon as compared with the disasters of iioi or the narrc escape from destruction at Dorylaeum.

We should expect, therefore, to find that the return home the warriors of the first Crusade would be followed by t development of a rational use of infantry and cavalry in ck alliance and interdependence. But we find little of the kin over the greater part of Western and Central Europe t cavalry arm still maintains its exclusive predominance, a infantry is still despised and distrusted. In Italy, it is true, t

2oo] THE PREPONDERANCE OF CAVALRY 355

'orkings of the experience of the Crusades are to be recognised 1 the sudden growth of the popularity of the crossbow, and robably also in the increased importance of the civic infantry, lut in the only other parts of Europe where foot- soldiery show D any effect — England and the Netherlands — we are dealing ith an old Teutonic survival, not with any new development.

In many of the twelfth-century battles of Western Europe, hen by some rare exception we do find combatants on foot ntrusted with a principal part in the fight, we discover on oser inquiry that they are not ordinary foot - soldiery, but nights who have dismounted in order to carry out some esperate duty. We are, in short, merely witnessing a recurrence ) that ancient habit of the Teutonic races which Leo the Wise ad described two hundred years before.^ Such instances are ) be found on the part of the English and the Normans at enchebrai^ (1106), and again at the first battle of Lincoln^ 146), where both King Stephen and the rebel earls dis- lounted the pick of their knights to form a solid reserve. The ime is the case in the English army at Bremule (1119), and at le battle of the Standard * (i 138), where the Yorkshire knights ft their horses and joined the yeomanry of the fy rd in order to iffen the mass when it was about to be assailed by the wild ish of the Scots. The Emperor Conrad's German chivalry shaved in a similar way at the chief combat during the siege ■ Damascus in 1 148.

Such expedients, however, are exceptional. On the other

md, we not unfrequently find battles in which neither side

'ought any foot-soldiery to the field, such as Thielt (1128),

agliacozzo (1268), and the Marchfeld (1278). Cases where one

de had no infantry whatever in the battle line are still more

jmerous. Such are Bremide (11 19), Legnano (1176), Muret

274).

When true infantry are engaged on both sides, it is rare

find them actually settling the fate of the day. Generally

icy are only used as a very subsidiary force, employed merely

r skirmishing and not for the decisive charge. The main

cceptions to this rule are to be found, as we shall have to show

ter on, in Italy and the Netherlands. But if the infantry

most battles had no great part in the winning of the day,

ey were often the chief sufferers in a defeat. As a rule, those

1 See p. 202. 2 See p. 379. 3 See p. 392. * See p. 386.

356 THE ART OF WAR IN THE MIDDLE AGES [125

of the beaten army were fearfully mishandled by the knights c the victorious side. When the day was won, the infantry of th vanquished party were nearly always cut to pieces in the mo5 ruthless manner, while their countrymen of the knightly classe were not slaughtered, but reserved for ransom.

The mailed horseman, then, maintains his place as the chi( factor in battle down to the end of the thirteenth century, an the main features of the two hundred years from Hasting onward are the feudal knight and the feudal castle. We sha have to note that while tactics and strategy make comparative] small and slow progress in these two centuries, the art of fort fication grows very rapidly. Between the simple castle of tl time of William I. and the splendid and complicated fortress* of the end of the thirteenth century there is an enormous ga The methods of attack made no corresponding advance, and I 1300 the defensive had obtained an almost complete mastei over the offensive, so that famine was the only certain weap( in siegecraft. It is not till the introduction of cannon and gu powder in the fourteenth century that the tables begin to 1^ turned.

In chapter iii. of Book III. we dealt with the origin ai evolution of the feudal knight and the feudal castle. We ha now to treat of their further developments.

CHAPTER II

THE ARMIES OF THE TWELFTH AND THIRTEENTH CENTURIES

Sectioji A. — England.

[ ^ TE have first to concern ourselves with the knighthood of VV Western Europe and its tactics. Fortress- building nd siegecraft, though equally important in their influence on he general history of the period, must take the second place, ^n English writer is inevitably forced to illustrate the period lainly from English military history, but we shall conscien- iously endeavour to point out all the details in which continental ■ractice differed from that in use in our own island.

The Norman Conquest brought about a complete change in tie military organisation of England : under William the Jastard the system of raising the armed force of the realm, the ictics that it employed, and the weapons that it used, were all like transformed. For the next two hundred years the I'orman castle and the Norman horseman were to be the main matures in the military history of England.

The kings continued to call out the fyrd on occasion, but ley never treated it as the chief part of their host : it was ideed mainly employed when the feudal levy of the realm was, 3r some reason or another, not to be wholly trusted. William lufus summoned the fyrd once for real active service, and once s a mere means of getting money. It was employed in the rst year of his reign for the sieges of the castles of the barons 'ho had rebelled against him under the pretence of supporting is brother Robert. Infantry were always required for siege- •ork — the knights would have resented the hewing and digging, nd a large force of pioneers was needed. The second occasion n which we hear of the mustering of the old national host was

357

358 THE ART OF WAR IN THE MIDDLE AGES [iiJ

when Ralph Flambard taught the king to turn a dishone. penny by a new device. Rufus called the shire-levies t Hastings, nominally for a campaign in Normandy (1094). The came to the number of twenty thousand, each bearing the te shillings which the shire was bound to provide for hir William took the money from them and then told them th; they might disperse, as they were not needed.^ Henry I. alj used the fyrd early in his reign, in circumstances much lit those which had forced his brother to employ it. Robert < Belesme and his fellows were in rebellion, and had manned an stored their castles. Large forces were needed for siegewor and Henry called upon the English, who came gladly, and, .- Orderic tells us, greeted him, after the surrender of tl enemy's great stronghold at Bridgenorth, with the joyful cr " Rejoice now, King Henry, and say that you are truly lord ' England, since you have put down Robert of Belesme ar driven him out of the bounds of your kingdom." ^ Still later tl shire-levies were raised by Stephen for the battle of tl Standard,^ and by Henry II. to put down the great feudal risii of II 74. The Assize of Arms of 1181 shows us how miscc laneous and heterogeneous was their armament : even wh( providing for the improvement and reorganisation of the fore the king does not dream of enforcing uniformity, and the poor classes are allowed to come to the muster armed with nothii better than swords, knives, and darts. There is evidently a wi to assimilate the wealthier men to the armament of i. mercenary Brabangon pikemen whom Henry was employing large numbers at the time, as the sheriffs are directed to see th persons owning sixteen marks of chattels are to bear mail-shi steel cap, shield, and spear.

But alike for foreign expeditions and domestic wars, t Norman and Angevin kings relied mainly on the masses mailed horsemen provided by their feudal vassals. Still armt like their fathers at Hastings, with the long mail-shirt, the peak helmet with its nasal, and the kite-shaped Danish shield, t Norman knights were the flower of the chivalry of Euroj whether they served in their own land, in the conquered rea^ of England, in the new kingdom which they had built up Apulia and Sicily, or in the Crusades of the far East.

^ Florence of Worcester, sud antto 1094. " Ord. Vit. xi. 3.

^ Richard of Hexham, c. 321.

iioo] THE "OLD ENFEOFFMENT" 359

William I. had divided up the greater part of the soil of England among new holders. Only about a fifth stayed with the old Saxon owners, and such of them as survived were compelled to surrender their land to the king, and receive it back from him saddled with the duties of the continental vassal. We have seen ^ that " knight-service " and " castle-ward " were deas not altogether unfamiliar before the Conquest, and that ::he obligation of every five hides of land to send a mailed warrior to the host was generally acknowledged. Theoreti- cally, it would seem, the old notion that the five hides must provide a fully-armed man was remembered : the man- however, for the future was to be a horseman instead of a foot-soldier. But William, in distributing the burdens of military service imong his tenants, seems often to have dealt loosely and iberally with the old system, frequently letting off his vassals A'ith less men than their acreage should have called for. ' Beneficial hidation," the counting by favour of four or five lundred acres as if they were but a mere hundred and :wenty, was as prevalent in military arrangements as in Taxation. It was specially frequent when Church lands were Deing dealt with ; e.g: we know that the Abbey of Ramsey had seventy hides, and should therefore have provided fourteen <nights, but it was let off with an assessment of four only Nor was this favour confined to ecclesiastical estates alone : some lay tenants-in-chief got off very easily, though the Tiajority were obliged to supply their proper contingent.

It has been clearly shown of late, by an eminent inquirer nto early English antiquities, that the hidage of the townships .vas very roughly assessed, and that the compilers of Domesday Book incline towards round numbers.^ Five-hide, ten-hide, Dr twenty-hide townships are so common that there was little difficulty in apportioning the military service due from the :enants-in-chief who owned them. Hence there was not so Tiuch difficulty from fractions as might have been expected. If 2states had been assessed with absolute accuracy in acres and /ards, nearly every landholder would have been responsible for acentric fractions of a knight, over and above the units which lis manors gave when their extent was divided by the normal ive hides. But estates were not accurately measured and

^ See pp. Ill, 112.

' See Professor Maitland's Domesday Book, eic.,passifn.

I

360 THE ART OF WAR IN THE MIDDLE AGES [M

assessed, and so the knights of " the old enfeoffment," ^ William's arrangement was entitled, are generally foun( round numbers : the fractions which occur are for the most quite simple ones.

The landholder, knowing his servitium debittini accordinj the assessment of the vetus feoffamentum of the Conqueror, he to provide the due amount of knights. This he could do in tv ways : he might distribute the bulk of his estate in lots rough averaging five hides to sub-tenants, who would discharge tl knight-service for him, or he might keep about him a househo of domestic knights, like the housecarles of old, and mainta them without giving them land. Some landholders prefern the former plan, but some adhered, at least for a time, to tl latter. But generally an intermediate arrangement prevaile< the tenant-in-chief gave out most of his soil to knights who he enfeoffed on five-hide patches, but kept the balance dominio as his private demesne, contributing to the king for t ground so retained the personal service of himself, his sons, ai his immediate domestic retainers.

An interesting series of documents, just a century later th; the Conquest, survives, and can be used to show what t barons had been doing with their land during the three genei tions which had elapsed since the first assessment. These a the Cartae Baronujn of 1166,^ a series of answers given by t tenants-in-chief to Henry II. in response to certain inquiri which he made from them. The king demanded a stateii^i as to the number of knights whom each tenant-in-chief oMJ^I as sub-tenants, how many were under the "old enfeoffmen of William I. and how many of more recent establishment,, also whether the lord provided his due contingent whollj means of sub-tenants, or was accustomed to contribute personal service of himself and his household for land held demesne. It is interesting to find that the answers show th the majority of the baronage had given away the larger sha of their estates, but still kept a certain amount in demesne 1

^ I think that there is no doubt that Mr. Round in his Feudal England 1 proved that we may be reasonably certain that the vetus feoffamentum really r back to the Conqueror, and was a formal distribution. The other view, that it \ irregularly and gradually established under Rufus and Henry i., seems less probal On the other hand, Mr, Round's "Constabularies of Knights" are not convincing.

^ The Cartae Baronum are printed in extenso in Hearne's Liber Niger Scacca^ They are unfortunately incomplete, and do not cover nearly the whole of England.

i

i66] THE ''CARTAE BARONUM" 361

^'hich their own personal service was due. The smaller men, esponsible only for the service of one or two knights, had iot usually enfeoffed sub-tenants, but served themselves. At irst a few great landholders, mostly abbeys, had refrained as ar as possible from cutting up their estates into sub-tenancies, n account of the financial advantages of keeping land in emesne. But this plan had the corresponding disadvantage f compelling the abbot to keep up a household of idle knights, ;ho drank and roistered about the abbey precincts, and made hemselves an intolerable nuisance.^ Thus the house was usually riven, even if unwilling, to give the knights their fiefs in order 0 get them away from headquarters. Where, as in the case f Ramsey, the abbey was very lightly assessed for knight- ervice, the proportion of its land which it would have to istribute to fulfil its servitmm debituni would not necessarily e a large one. But though economy dictated the enfeoffing f as i^w^ knights as possible, nepotism, the curse of the lediseval monastery, often drove abbots to give land to their vvn needy kinsmen, so that not un frequently it was found that house had created far more sub-tenants than it required. In ach cases the "due service" was sometimes obtained by laking the body of enfeoffed knights undertake to send as lany of themselves to the host as was necessary ; - a private rrangement settled who was to go on each individual expedi- on.

In the twelfth century the hard-and-fast rule that five hides ught to make a knight's fee came gradually to be disregarded, n some cases a liberal lord gave his sub-tenant a good deal more lan the normal holding ; in other cases knights were enfeoffed n a good deal less — occasionally on patches no larger than two ides. Thus we can find a tenant describing his holding as pauperrimum," and grumbling at its counting as a fee at all. ut such cases, in spite of their numbers, were theoretically bnormal, and the notion which connected five hides with the night survived down to the time of Henry il. In the Cartae

^ Liber Eliensis, 275.

'At Ramsey "Homines faciunt quattuor milites in communi in servitium )mini regis, ita quod tota terra abbatiae communicata est cum iis per hidas ad aedictum servitium faciendum ; " i.e.y though only four knights are required (a very lall contingent from seventy hides), the abbey has not designated four particular itches to discharge its knight-service, but all the tenants, as well as the abbey :mesne land, club together to *' make " four knights for the host.

362 THE ART OF WAR IN THE MIDDLE AGES [in

Baronum we get a good example of this : Roger de Berkeh owed two knights and a half on the " old enfeoffment " : givii more details than his fellows generally supply, he explains follows : ^ —

" The first knight is thus made up —

Michael holds one hide ^

William Fitz-Baldwin, two hides I. — fi h* 1

Helyas de Boivill, one and a half hides / "~ *

Hugh de Planta, half a hide

)

I

and from these you have an entire knight. " For making up the half knight —

Ralph de Yweley holds half a hide

The wife of Ralph Cantilene, half a hide

The wife of Richard Gansell, three virgates (f hide) \ = two and a

Roger de Albamara, one virgate {\ hide) / half hides,

Simon de Coverley, one virgate ,,

The Prior of Stanley, one virgate ,, / ^Hj

and here you have half a knight.

" For making up another knight, Walter de Holecom] Gerard, and Reginald de Albamara hold between them t hides, but deny their full obligation and say that they do i service only for one virgate each. From them you can ma up a knight, and so you have two and a half knights enfeoffec

Roger's argument in the third paragraph is hard to folio either the figures in the text have got corrupted, or he thir his disputed claim to ten hides will be compounded for haMl value, and that Walter, Gerard, and Reginald will do^BI knight's service between them. However this may be, t first two paragraphs of his answer amply show that he conceiv five hides to be the proper and normal allowance of la which should provide a knight. He concludes his " Cart with a list of his demesne land, which shows that (unlike m of his fellows) he had let to sub-tenants only the smaller p of his ancestral estates.

As a rule, no one except a very great baron with plenty house-room in his castle cared to have many domestic knig dwelling with him throughout the year. Most of the holders middle-sized estates had carved the greater portion of th into knights* fees, and only kept in demesne as much as tJ themselves and their sons could do service for.

^ Hearne, Liber Niger Scaccarii, p. 165.

ri66] THE DANGERS OF SUBINFEUDATION 363

There was always a great deal of trouble in keeping the mb-tenants up to their work. In times of civil strife, a tenant- n-chief might rebel, or might remain loyal. If he rebelled, ;ome of his vassals would try to save themselves from confisca- ion at the king's hands by refusing to join in the rising. Such indeed was the bounden duty of the English sub-tenant, ever iince the Conqueror at the great moot of Salisbury had impressed jpon the English knighthood the fact that their allegiance was Drimarily due to the Crown, and not to their immediate lords. 3n the other hand, when the tenant-in-chief adhered to the cing, it was not unusual for some of his knights to slip into the ebel camp : if the rising succeeded, they would have every :hance of shaking off their lord and freeing themselves for he future from the service that they owed him. In Stephen's eign, when anarchy prevailed for well-nigh a score of years, he relations of countless lords and vassals had been confused : lisputed claims to overlordship were found on every side. \lany of the answers of the barons of 11 66 show that they vere not quite certain as to all their own rights and possessions. They qualify their statements with clauses to the effect that hey have replied to the best of their knowledge and belief, or lote (like Roger of Berkeley quoted above) that some of their ub-tenants deny their obligations. The clerical tenants are pecially bitter against spoilers who have robbed them of lomage, or compelled them to enfeoff knights contrary to their /ill. We are surprised to find such a respectable person as the Teat Chancellor Roger of Salisbury reported as an oppressor •y the Abbey of Abbotsbury in Dorset.^

The importance of King Henry's inquest of 1166 was wofold. It not only gave him the information that he equired as to the proper maintenance of the debitum ervitium due under the "old enfeoffment" of the Conqueror, 'Ut showed him how many more knights had been planted out ince that assessment. Having possession of this valuable iformation, he was able to demand for the future, when raising ids and scutages from his tenants-in-chief, payment not :ierely for the theoretical number of knights whom they owed, lut for the real number which they actually possessed. This

^ Liber Niger ^ p. 76 : "Cum Rogerus episcopus habuit custodiam abbatiae, duas idas apud Atrum, ad maritandam quandam neptem suam dedit Nicolao de Meriet, Dntradicente conventu."

364 THE ART OF WAR IN THE MIDDLE AGES [116

gave a welcome relief to the Treasury, as in many instances th "old enfeoffment" had been — as we have already mentioned - very lax and liberal, and did not adequately represent the r< sources of the land.

The Cartae Baronum are unfortunately incomplete: if the had all been preserved, we should have been able to say bot what was the number of knights due from the whole of Englan under the " old enfeoffment " of the eleventh century, an what was the number of knights' fees actually existing in 116 A careful and ingenious calculation has been worked out b supplementing the Cartae from other sources, which makes clear that the full feudal force of England was well over foi thousand five hundred knights, but little, if at all, over fi^ thousand. Of these the Church fiefs supplied about eight hundre the lay tenants-in-chief between four thousand and four thousar two hundred.^ These modest figures contrast most strange with the vague numbers given by contemporary chroniclci who were so far from appreciating the actual size and resourc of the land that they often state that England could supp thirty thousand or even sixty thousand ^ knights for the king service. The whole fyrd of foot-soldiery added to the knigb hood would probably not have reached the latter figure.

We must be careful, when dealing with the knight of' eleventh and twelfth centuries, to clear away from our minds chivalrous connotation of the same word in the fourteen! fifteenth century. The knight of William the Conqueror's was not necessarily nobly born, nor had he gone through^ elaborate ceremonial of admission to the knightly order prevailed three centuries later. He was simply a soldier fought on horseback, and who received from the king, or one of the king's tenants-in-chief, a patch of land on condition th he should do mounted service in return for it. The origir knights of the "old enfeoffment" were a mixed multitude many races drawn from many different stations in life : sor were the kinsmen of great Norman barons, others were milita

^ Mr. Round's calculations on this point in his Feudal England, pp. 289-293, most valuable and convincing. The result is certainly surprising, and shows -a clearly the extraordinary want of appreciation of large figures in the thirteer century chroniclers, and even in Government officials who ought to have knc better.

^ Swereford in the Liber Ruletis says thirty-two thousand ; Ordericus Vitali responsible for the still more monstrous sixty thousand.

i66] THE EARLY KNIGHTS 365

dventurers who had drifted in from all parts of the Continent, nto this heterogeneous body were incorporated the remains f the old English thegnhood, all the lucky survivors who had leen permitted to " buy back their land " from the king by aying him a fine and doing him homage on feudal conditions fter his coronation. English-speaking men applied to this evvly-formed and miscellaneous class of military tenants and ub-tenants the word " cniht," which had been used before the 'onquest for the military dependants of the great landholders.^ t was really equivalent to the clieits, serviens, or famulus of the Continent, and has the same original meaning .of subordination nd subservience. But names chance on different histories in ifferent countries ; and while " knight " became in England the quivalent of miles, the name servietis came across the Channel 3me generations later, in the form of " sergeant," to express a lass of men distinctly below the knightly rank. It is curious 1 note that in Germany knecht^ starting with much the same leaning as " knight " in the eleventh century, gradually came 3 denote persons of a more and more inferior status, sinking 3 mean combatants who were not of noble blood,^ and finally enoting mere servants and attendants of the army.

It will help us to realise the modest status of many of these knights " of the Norman period, if we remember that a sub-tenant ith a fewhundred acres of land would probably have been called by chronicler of the time of Henry I. a " miles," by a chronicler of ic time of John or Henry ill. a " sergeant," ^ and by a chronicler

^ For a picture of pre-Conquest "knights" in England, see the interesting -scription of the rights and duties of the "radknights" of Bishop Oswald of 'orcester, which Professor Maitland has worked out in his Domesday Book and eyond," pp. 305-3 1 1.

* The word Edelknecht was invented to denote the non-knightly combatants of :)od birth ( = English esquire), and then knecht without the prefix came to distinctly iply want of birth.

^ That "sergeant" originally means not a professional soldier, nor a knight's tendant, but a landed military dependant who is not a knight, is well shown by le letter of Geoffrey Ferland, Sheriff of Leicester and Rutland in 1216, giving the names of all the knights and sergeants domiciled in his district who have ihered to Louis of France " (Rymer, 144). Another good example is John's writ • 12 1 3, to call out the full feudal levy : " Rex vicecomiti de X. salutera, etc. ummone comites barones milites et omnes liberos homines et servietties, de quocumque :neant,ut sint apud Doveram cum armis et equis," etc. (Rymer, I. 1 10). The "armis equis" clause shows that we are dealing with mounted men, and the *'de quo- imque teneant " that we are dealing with sub-tenants and not merely small tencnts* i-chief.

366- THE ART OF WAR IN THE MIDDLE AGES [115c

of the time of Edward III. a " squire " {armiger or scutifer). The condition of the three men would have been much the same, but the name changed thrice. By 1350 the title of knight had come to be restricted to persons of some importance, and we often fine large bodies of men commanded by mere esquires in the wars o Edward III. The reigns in which the change first made itsel felt were those of Henry III. and Edward I., whose repeatec attempts to make holders of knightly fees take up the knighth title by the writs of " distraint " are well known.^ But thi attempt did not succeed, and ere long we find the king conceding that even the parliamentary knights of the shire may be person who have not actually received knighthood, because that ii many counties there cannot be found sufficient competen persons who have taken up the required status.

Before proceeding to investigate the character of the battle of the twelfth and early thirteenth centuries, we must tak note of one marked feature of the early Plantagenet reigns- the prominent place taken in their military affairs by mercenar troops. From the time of Stephen onward, we perpetually fin the feudal levies of the realm supplemented by great bodies c professional soldiers, nearly all foreigners. There had for long time existed a large floating body of adventurers i Western Europe : from them William the Conqueror had draw no small proportion of the host that fought at Hastings. Th original Norman conquerors of Apulia had belonged to th class no less than the Varangian Guards of the Eastern emperor During the early Norman reigns we not unfrequently fin mention of stipendiarii milites in England,^ but it is not ti the time of Stephen that we begin to find them appearing great force and forming a prominent feature in the Stephen, deserted by the greater part of the baronage, supi the place of the missing contingents by bringing over greT bodies of Flemings and Brabangons, under leaders such ; William of Ypres and Alan of Dinan. Henry II. and Richard kept up the system : without the aid of a permanent arn they could not have maintained their long wars over sea. F sieges in Normandy and Aquitaine the service of the Engli feudal levy would have been almost useless to them. 1 forty days would have ended almost before it could arrive

1 Especially in xix. Henry in. and in vi. Edward I.

2 See Florence of Worcester, stib attno 1085.

t tl .

1

173] THE ORIGIN GF SCUT AGE 367

le distant seat of war. Moreover, a feudal host was untrained, ndisciplined, disorderly, and sometimes disloyal. The mer- ^naries, on the other hand, were trained professional soldiers, ho served with fidelity as long as they were regularly paid, nd had no wish to cut the war short by an intempestive ^turn to their homes. Hence for foreign service Henry id Richard preferred the steady squadrons of mercenaries ho kept the field all the year round, to the short and uncertain d of the knighthood of England. To repel a Scottish foray ■ to carry out an expedition into Wales, on the other hand, le servitium debituin of the English tenant-in-chief was still <acted. Such campaigns were short, and cost less if carried at by the levies of the border shires. Henry II., therefore, very ^Idom brought over his mercenary bands to England : the ily occasion when they appeared in force on this side of le Channel was to aid in suppressing the feudal rebellion of 173-74- Ii^ this campaign they met their likes in battle, for le rebel Earl of Leicester had enlisted a great body of Flemish nitiei'Sy and was fighting at their head when he was taken risoner at Fornham.

When the king did not wish to call out the feudal levy of ngland, he was accustomed to exact from all the exempted eights a scutage. By this arrangement the holder of a fief )mpounded for his personal service by paying a fixed sum for -ery shield {scutunt) that he should have brought to the host. he usual sum raised was 26s. 8d. — two marks — which seems ) represent forty days' service at 8d. a day, the normal pay of knight in the twelfth century. The individuals from whom le servitium' debitum was due seem to have been allowed the loice of attending in person or paying the scutage.^ If the impaign was near at hand, the majority would appear in arms ; it was distant, only a few — mainly the larger tenants — would >llow the host.

^ The whole body of feudal tenants do not seem to have been so prone to accept e alternative of composition as might be inferred from the chroniclers. For example,

Mr. Round has shown, Robert de Monte tells us that in 1159 King Henry took ith him "capitales barones suos cum paucis, solidarios vero milites innumeros" ; but the utage figures show that the sum received was ^{^17 14, i.e. the money representing 1280 lights, not more than a third of the number liable to serve from the lay fiefs, so that )t only the great barons must have followed the king, but some two-thirds of the smaller en also {Feudal England, p. 280). The reason advanced for the king's preference

a scutage is obviously not the right one. In reality he wanted the money to pay ercenaries. .

368 THE ART OF WAR IN THE MIDDLE AGES [121

Scutage appears as a recognised institution under Henry i. but it was his greater grandson who made it normal an customary. By the end of his reign the bulk of the ruri knights had grown into the habit of compounding instead c going on wearisome expeditions to Poitou or Aquitaine, ove the stormy seas so hateful to the mediaeval mind. The pa} ment of scutage became the rule, and the hiring of mercenar horsemen with the proceeds of this imposition gave th king a more permanent and trustworthy army than he coul otherwise have kept together. It was mainly at the head ( these 'professional soldiers that Henry II. and Richard Coei de Lion fought out their weary and uninteresting Frenc campaigns.

John, because he was more hated by his subjects than h father and brother had been, was still more prone than the to employ mercenary troops. No small part of his unpopularil in England came from the fact that after he had been driven 01 of Normandy in 1204 he brought back with him the horde foreign adventurers who had followed his unlucky standai on the Continent. They were, as] might have been expecte very undesirable guests : the barons resented the favour whi( the king showed to the leaders — unscrupulous ruffians, for tl most part, like Fawkes de Brdaute. The common peep suffered from the plundering propensities which the mercenari had picked up on the Continent. To the hatred they won fro rich and poor alike, the adventurers owe their dishonourat mention in the Great Charter. The king is forced to promi to dismiss all the " alienigenos milites et balistarios et servient stipendiarios " who " venerunt cum armis et equis ad nocumentu regni." ^ A special clause names several of the leaders who \^J condemned to banishment — Gerard of Athies, Philip of jH Mark, Englehard de Cigognes, Guy de Cancelles, and other'' As everyone knows, John slipped easily out of the obligati( — the mercenaries were not expelled, and formed the be part of the army with which the king fought his unfortuna campaign of 1215. The troopers of Fawkes de Breaute, ai also his crossbowmen, are specially mentioned as having do good service, early in the reign of Henry ill., at the secoi battle of Lincoln. It is not till the reign of Edward i. th

^ See the proofs in Mr. Round's Knight-service, pp. 268, 269. * Magna Carta, clause 51. ^ Ibid. 50.

loo] CONTINENTAL ARMIES 369

)reign mercenaries cease to form a prominent part in the armies f the Plan tagenets.

Section B. — The Conlment.

During the twelfth and thirteenth centuries the armies of le English kings differed less from those of the sovereigns of le Continent than at any other period in history. The Norman ifluence had assimilated the military forces of our island to lose of the rest of Western Europe. Tlie chief points of ifference worth noticing are, firstly, that in England there was iver such a clear line of division between the various classes " feudal tenants as elsewhere ; and, secondly, that shire-levies foot-soldiery, the lineal descendants of the fyrd, though xupying a very secondary place in war, are yet much more im- )rtant than the infantry of most continental districts. Only in e Netherlands and to a certain extent in Italy do foot-soldiery )me prominently to the front. In other regions the mercenary ossbowmen are the only dismounted men who receive much ention, till we come to the attempt of Philip Augustus to rn the levies of the French communes to account.

The normal army of an emperor or a French king was com- )sed of the same elements as those with which our Norman or ngevin monarchs took the field — a mass of mounted feudal nants and sub-tenants, often supplemented by a certain propor- )n of mercenary horsemen and crossbowmen. Occasionally we d civic militia in the field — it develops in Italy and the Low ' )untries long before it is found elsewhere. Very rare is the ; pearance for any practical purpose of the foot-levies of the

< untryside, which the feudal lords could as a last extremity <ag out to battle.

In the eleventh century the important part of a continental

< ny consists of all the warriors holding fiefs, either directly i m the Crown or as sub-tenants, on condition of doing service

< horseback. The chroniclers often speak of the whole mass c them as " viilites" whether they be small men or great, but a c eful inquiry into the character of the body shows that it is r t homogeneous. When we find phrases like " miles pi'imi chnis" or ''miles gjrgarius" we see that within the body c milites there are class distinctions. The highest rank is c nposed of free vassals of noble blood holding considerable » s: this is the only class which retains the knightly style in

24

370 THE ART OF WAR IN THE MIDDLE AGES [ii.

subsequent ages, but the name miles in 1080 (abroad as England ^) is far more vague, and covers far more persons th^ it does in 1 180 or 1280.

Below these milites p7'imi ordinis are a number of oth horsemen, some of noble but more of non-noble blood. Son are the king's personal retainers, serving him as minor officials guardsmen : a twelfth-century German chronicler would probab call them " miiiisterialesl' an English or a French chronic) " servientes regis" Much more numerous are the persor retainers of the barons, bishops, and abbots, whether enfeoff or not enfeoffed on land. These " men " of the king or the tenants- in-chief are sometimes styled milites gregai milites ignobiles, milites plebei, or milites mediocris nobilita, They are also found with names which differentiate them m( clearly from the knights of higher rank, and point to their si servient and dependent condition — e.g. satellites^ servien. clientes, famuli. As a rule, they served on lighter horses, a wore less complete armour than the knightly vassals. Down the thirteenth century they much exceeded in numbers nobler and more heavily-armed horsemen.^

When in the later twelfth century the title miles becor strictly confined to the upper ranks of the military class, j-^;^ (sergeant) is the most usual term for the horsemen of fl status. In France it grew to be the only recognised name them. In Germany it was not so common, i-^r/<^;// (the Ge| form of the word) being used indifferently along with appellations, such as scutifer^ armiger, strator. These t) and thirteenth-century servteittes or scutiferi are not to be confi i with the squires of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries ' 1 were the personal attendants of a knight. In the earlier age X knight had no mounted follower. His armour-bearer ace i panied him on foot, and was not necessarily a combatant a1 j The " sergeants " were often formed into separate corps, a ] from the knights, and used for the purposes for which 1 i cavalry are required ; or, again, they were placed in the important parts of the battle-array. Not unfrequently we sergeants placed in the front line to open the combat, while kniehthood is held in reserve to deal the decisive blow.

1

;we "

^ See p. 440.

2 e.g. we shall see that at Legnano the emperor's host comprised five hi knights to fifteen hundred sergeants. See p. 442,

J

[2oo] KNIGHT AND SERGEANT 371

jhall find Philip Augustus employing this arrangement in his ight wing at Bouvines (1214)} Frederic il. did the same at rortenuova in 1237. But it was by no means the regular rule o separate the lighter and the heavier horsemen. It was more :ommon to compose each of the divisions of an army of ergeants, " stiffened " by the admixture of a certain proportion •f knights, as did, e.g:, the elder Montfort at Muret (i2i3).2

A further complication is- introduced into the nomenclature

f the military class when, in the twelfth century, the word

'tiles has its meaning still further changed by the spread of

he new idea of chivalry. When the notion is introduced that a

night must be solemnly invested with the arms and insignia of

le knightly rank by his feudal superior or some other personage

f importance, and must not call himself miles till he has

; een so honoured, there necessarily comes into existence a class

, f holders of knightly fiefs who have not yet received the

» nightly name. A young baron with very large estates may

[ irve for some time before earning the title. On the other

* and, a warrior of approved courage, whether of noble or non-

Dble blood, may receive knighthood from king or duke for

)me notable feat of arms. Thus a baron not yet knighted

as often followed to war by vassals who had attained the rank

' which he was still aspiring.

Hence, in the later twelfth or in the thirteenth century, when I examine the composition of that part of the personnel of a udal host which does not consist of knights, we find quite a ':g^ variety of classes represented in it. We may notice — (i) )ung holders of knightly fiefs who have not yet received the lightly title ; (2) men of knightly blood, holding small fiefs, 10, on account of poverty (or some such other reason) do not i :end to take up the honour ; (3) younger sons of barons and 1 ights, who have no land and therefore cannot afford to aspire to i ighthood (this was a class out of which the mercenary cavalry ^ re very largely'recruited) ; (4) various degrees of persons of 1 n-knightly blood enfeoffed on land by their lords. The first t -ee sections are men of the knightly class, but not knights : t ) last is the one to which the title of sergeant properly belongs. i cross-division is made by the fact that a wealthy sergeant r y sometimes succeed in providing himself with a heavy war- trse and the full panoply of mail, while poor members of

1 See p. 471. 2 See p. 453.

372 THE ART OF WAR IN THE MIDDLE AGES [125

classes 2 and 3 may be serving in incomplete armour and o inferior chargers.

In the later thirteenth century we find the three latter classe tending to melt together, and to be considered as all equall forming part of the military aristocracy, so that most of th sergeants ultimately became " noble." Though not knights, the form the lower ranks of the knightly caste. It is easy to undei stand that when the knightly title became restricted to a com paratively few individuals of the knightly houses, and when th poorer members of them were continually serving along wit the richer sergeants, the latter should ascend a step on th social ladder. It was more natural that the sergeants shoul advance to a better status, than that the brothers and young( sons of the holders of knightly fiefs should descend to a low( one. So by the fourteenth century the French noblesse ar the German Add have extended their ranks so as to incluc classes which two hundred years earlier would not have been co sidered to belong to the nobly-born. The term sergeant pass out of use as meaning a feudal horseman of the lower rank,^ ai armies are reckoned not as containing inilites and servient but by the number of " helms " or " barded horses " that th muster. No one now stops to inquire whether the warrior w wears the full panoply and rides a heavy charger has or has r received the knightly spurs and girdle. He is an equa efficient member of the host, whether he bears the knigh name or not. The general body of the feudal horsemen w have not won their spurs are now called squires {eaiyei's^knea armigeri)^ or men-at-arms.

It is, of course, impossible for an army to dispense altoget' with light cavalry ; they are needed for purposes of foraging ; reconnoitring. In this capacity the place once held by servientes is occupied in the fourteenth century mainly mercenaries, but partly also by the incompletely armed serva of the knights and squires, who brought with them to the I: a certain number of mounted attendants {valets arm^s, Dieri There were, however, to be found light horse who were neit mercenaries nor mere dependants of the men-at-arms. S Iroops certainly existed in England ; we recognise them in

^ Remaining in use, however, as we shall see later on, for certain individual? tlie king's personal retinue of " sergeants-at-arms," employed by him for va small official duties. It also survives in occasional use for foot-soldiery.

[250] CONTINENTAL MERCENARIES 373

)auncenars and hobilars of the Calais muster-roll of Edward II. (1347).^ On the Continent, too, they appear as panzer ati )r remier in Germany, as hmibergeons in France.

No account of the armies of the twelfth and thirteenth ;enturies would be complete without mention of the mercenary ;avalry. We have already seen that in England they occupy a ^ery prominent place in military history, and the same is the ase on the Continent. From the days of the Norman adven- urers who ousted their unfortunate employers from Apulia and 3enevento, the mercenary is always intermittently in evidence. Robert Guiscard and William the Conqueror were able to ecruit them by the thousand, and in most continental wars we ind them serving side by side with the emperor's or king's iege vassals. Their bands would include a much smaller pro- )ortion of knights and a much larger proportion of combatants >f lesser status than did the normal feudal host. The knights v-ho left their fiefs to follow the career of adventure were laturally not so numerous as the smaller men. The bulk of a mercenary band would be composed of the landless younger ons of sub-tenants, mixed with adventurers of lower birth who .ad taken to the profession of arms from love of fighting or rem the wish to escape from villeinage. Whatever the origin f these mercenary horsemen, all who were not knights were ommonly known as " sergeants," the escaped villein no less than is better-born companion. At first it was more common to uy the service of mercenaries by the gift of land, but by the ivelfth century there was enough money in circulation to enable ings and emperors to retain the hired horsemen in service by le regular payment of a daily, monthly, or yearly salary, 'his was in every way better for the employer : the enfeoffed lercenary was generally a bad and turbulent subject (we need nly recall to the English reader such instances as Fawkes de Ireaute), while the adventurer hired for a fixed term could be uly discharged when he was no longer needed.

The mercenary bands were increasing in importance all irough the period with which we are now dealing. Only local ars could be conducted by the regular feudal levy ; all long ad distant campaigns and all large schemes of conquest squired the co-operation of hired soldiery. Kings with a wide id scattered empire, like Henry II. of England, were necessarily

^ See p. 366. Brady, vol. iii., Appendix.

|t4 THE ART OF WAR IN THE MIDDLE AGES [130^

driven to employ them. Adventurers in search of a realm, lik( Charles of Anjou in the succeeding century, naturally reliec upon them. Long-continued wars hardened them into compac masses, till by the end of the thirteenth century we find th( condottiere system coming into existence — noted mercenary chiefs have collected huge bodies of men numbered by th< thousand, and hawk their services about from court to court The first ^ of these hosts of free-companions which comes intc prominence is the " great company " of Roger de Flor, formec from the discharged mercenary bands of the King of Aragor turned loose when Peter ended his long struggle for Sicily wit! Charles n. of Anjou. Roger's horde was strong enough t< shake the whole Levant, to bring the Byzantine Empero Andronicus to his knees (1308), and to carve out for itself a ne\ home in the duchy of Athens.

Turning to the continental foot-soldiery, we find that w need not in the twelfth century concern ourselves greatly wit] France or Germany ; the Netherlands and Italy are the two dis tricts which demand our attention. Closely akin to the Englisl the inhabitants of Flanders, Brabant, and the neighbouring region had, like their kinsmen on this side of the water, taken late t horsemanship. Unlike England, the Netherlands had neve been conquered and divided up by any invader, and it seem likely that their steady infantry descends directly and withoi a break from the times of the Carolingians. The growth of a indigenous feudal cavalry in the duchies and counties of th Low Countries did not entirely extinguish the foot-soldiery, a was the case in most other regions. As early as 1 100 we hav notices of Netherlandish infantry armed with the pike whic enjoyed a reputation far above that of the foot-levies of oth( countries.2 In the earliest cases they are called geldons — th same word, it will be remembered, which Wace uses for th English axemen at Hastings.^ We may guess that the maile

1 We can perhaps hardly count Stephen's Flemish captain William of Ypres Richard Coeur de Lion's follower Mercadier as real condottieri, as it does not see that they hawked about already formed bands for service, but rather that they gather and kept together new corps at the king's expense.

2 In 1 106 the Annals of Hildesheim, 3. 1 10, mention that the Duke of Brabant se to aid the Archbishop of Cologne ** quoddam genus hominum qui vocantur Gehiuv viri bellatores et strenui, et nimis docti ad praelia."

2 Wace, 12927 :

" Geldons Engleiz haches portoient E gisarmes ki bien trancheoient."

1 2 14] THE INFANTRY OF THE NETHERLANDS 375

mercenary infantry armed with the pike which the Conqueror employed in that same fight were largely Flemings.

Later in the twelfth century we find these pikemen serving in all the wars of the Low Countries along with the feudal cavalry of their lords, and, ere long, pushing abroad as mer- cenaries. They generally appear under the name of Brabangons, which becomes a technical term for mailed mercenary foot- soldiery : English and French kings and Roman emperors are all found employing them ; they appear in the Italian wars of Frederic Barbarossa, the French expeditions of Henry Planta- genet, and the victorious campaigns of Philip Augustus. The last fight in which we note them taking a prominent part is Bouvines, where a small body of them ^ in the service of the Count of Boulogne did far the best service performed by any foot-soldiery in the allied army. In the thirteenth century the Flemings and Brabangons do not keep their place as mercenaries, — the crossbowman, rather than the pikeman, is the typical hired foot-soldier of that age ; but in their native land they continue to serve as before, and the mailed militia of pikemen is still reckoned a notable part of the host. We may see their usual tactics at Steppes (1212),- and read of their greatest triumph at Courtray (1302). In the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, the civic levies of the F'lemish cities are the most prominent exponents of such methods of combat.

The Netherlandish infantry had little mobility or initiative. They fought in heavy masses, and could not manoeuvre. But for purely defensive tactics they were formidable : the weapons of the pikemen were much longer than the knightly lance, and if onlv the mass held firm it was extremely difficult to break into it. But since it could not easily advance or change its front, it could not unaided win a battle: at the most it could only repulse its enemy. To be actively successful it must be helped by mounted men : when the pikes have checked the foe, the onset of horsemen is required to break him and pursue him. For use in combination with cavalry the pikeman is inferior to the man armed with missile weapons : he can only harm his adversary at the moment of contact, while the archer or cross- bowman can keep up a continuous discharge as long as the

^ " Homines de Braibanto, pedites quidem, sed in scientia et virtute bellandi equitibus non inferiores" {Gen. Com. Fland. in Bouquet, xvii. 567 c). 2 See p. 444.

376 THE ART OF WAR IN THE MIDDLE AGES [1200

enemy is within a hundred or a hundred and fifty yards of him.

Roughly speaking, we may say that these early pikemen could give valuable assistance in w^inning a battle, but could not gain it by themselves. They could supply a rallying-point for the cavalry, or bear the brunt of the fight while the latter were re-forming ; they could oppose a long passive resistance, but had little or no active power. If we ever find them taking the main part in a victory, peculiar local circumstances must be the explanation ; e.g., at Courtray the fearful slaughter of the French chivalry was caused by the fact that they fought with a deep marshy ditch in their immediate rear, so that they could not easily retreat. Usually attempts of the Netherlanders to fight without the aid of horsemen only brought them disasters like Cassel and Roosebeke.

In Italy, where foot-soldiery had never been prominent since the old Roman days, their reappearance is intimately connected with the rise of the great towns. Just before the age of the Crusades, the cities of Northern Italy were beginning to start on their career of municipal independence, and had practically freed themselves from their counts and bishops. We have already noted the vigour with which they flung themselves first into the struggle to expel the Moorish pirates from the central Mediterranean, and then into the more distant Crusade* of the Levant.^ Seafarers like the Venetians, Genoese, anc Pisans naturally developed into foot-soldiery. It is as cross- bowmen that they appear at every siege and battle in Syric during the twelfth century. Of all the peoples of Europe, non( had such skill in the use of the arbalest : after winning a hig^ reputation as marksmen in the battles of the East, we find thes( Italian foot-soldiers, and especially the Genoese, passing north o the Alps as mercenaries, and fighting in the French service a' Courtray, Sluys, and Cregy.

While the inhabitants of the seafaring towns were mainl) skilled in the use of the crossbow, the civic militia of the inlant cities was chiefly composed of pikemen. The army of ar important municipality like Milan or Verona consisted of i mass of infantry, backed by a certain proportion of horse. Foi the Lombard states owned a not inconsiderable amount o cavalry, provided partly by the nobles of the countryside, whc

1 See pp. 252, 253.

1200] ITALIAN FOOT-SOLDIERY 377

liad been more or less willingly incorporated in the civic body, partly by the richer burgesses of the city, the local patrician families. Every town of importance could put in the field some hundreds of mailed horsemen, while Milan mustered more than two thousand. But the bulk of the hosts of the Italian munici- palities consisted of the infantry serving under the banners of their quarters or parishes. (At Milan the division of the city was into " gates.") They were well equipped with pike, steel cap, and mail-shirt, and, when properly led, showed great solidity in the field.

The Italian infantry never attempted, as did the Flemish more than once, to dispense with the assistance of cavalry. They always worked in company with the horsemen of their cities, and made no pretensions to be self-sufficient. When pitted against an enemy who used mounted men alone, or only brought inefficient and ill-armed foot-soldiery to the field, they often turned the scale in favour of their own side. As a typical fight of this description, we shall narrate the battle of Legnano,^ where the steadiness of the Milanese foot saved the day, by allowing the routed Lombard horse time to rally and resume the charge.

^ See p. 442.

CHAPTER III

ENGLISH BATTLES AND THEIR TACTICS, II00-I200

Tejzckebrai {iio6) — Bremiile (i 1 19) — Northallerton (i 1 38) L incoln ( 1 1 4 1 ) — Battles in h^eland ( 1 1 69-7 1 ).

%

1

IT has been often observed that the period of the completes supremacy of cavalry in the West, the twelfth century, wa not a period of great battles. There are more important fights i England in the open field during the sixteen years of the War of the Roses, or the six years of the Great Rebellion, than i the whole century between iioo and 1200. The same is th case on the Continent, though in not quite such a notice able degree. The main reason of this was, that the develof ment of fortification during the century was so enormous, that : was more profitable for the weaker side to take the defensiv behind strong walls than to fight in the open. Hence th century is pre-eminently one of sieges rather than of pitche battles. Henry l.'s victories of Tenchebrai and Bremule wer very small affairs, in which only a few hundred knights too part. The long civil wars of Stephen and Matilda abound wit sieges, but only supply the two battles of Northallerton an Lincoln. All the long French wars of Henry II. do not give v a single first-rate engagement in the open ; the skirmish c Fornham and the surprise of Alnwick arc the only fights in h reign that we need notice. The same is the case with the Ion bickering of Richard L and Philip Augustus along the Norma and Poitevin borders. It is hardly too much to say that betwee Lincoln (1141) and Bouvines (12 14) no English troops wei present at an engagement of first-rate importance in Wester Europe, If it had not been for the distant crusading battle ( Arsouf (1191), we might have said that there was no really gre; battle in the whole period in which they were engaged.

378

ic6] BATTLE OF TENCHEBRAI 379

For the most part, these unimportant conflicts of the vvelfth century were both simple and short. Another lotable point about them was, that they were accompanied )y very little effusion of blood, save when some luckless nfantry had been dragged into the field by one side or the )ther : in that case there was often cruel butchery in the xirsuit ; otherwise the knights gave each other quarter, and he main loss of the defeated side consisted of prisoners and lot of slain.

Battle of Tenchebraiy September 28, 1 106.

Henry I. of England had invaded the lands of his brother R-obert and overrun most of the duchy of Normandy. He was beleaguering Tenchebrai, a castle of the Count of Mortain, when :he duke resolved to make a desperate attempt to raise the >iege. Gathering all the forces that he could muster, he ;narched on Henry's camp and offered battle ; he was very inferior in the number of his knights, but had brought a mass of ill-armed peasantry and citizens with him. Possibly his experience in the Crusades had given him the idea that the knight and foot-soldier should be combined in the line of battle ; but he evidently did not know how to turn his notion to profit- able account. Finding himself outnumbered and outflanked, he dismounted his knights and put them at the head of the unsteady infantry. The army formed three corps ; the right was led by William of Mortain, the centre by the duke, the left wing by Robert of Belesme, the rebel whom Henry had expelled from England six years before.

The king's army consisted wholly of mounted feudal levies ; but, seeing that his brother had ordered his knights to fight on foot, Henry also bade a great portion of his host to send away their horses, in order that he might oppose a mass of equal solidity to the duke's columns.^ The whole of the English and Normans were dismounted and formed Into three corps, placed under Ralph of Bayeux, Robert of Mellent, and William of Warenne. The first -named faced William of Mortain, the second the duke, the third Robert of Belesme. But Henry commanded his vassals from Maine, under their count, Helie of la Fleche, and his auxiliaries from Brittany, to keep their horses

^ "Rex namque et dux et acies caeterae pedites erant ut constantius pugnarent" (Henry of Huntingdon, 235).

38o THE ART OF WAR IN THE MIDDLE AGES [uo6

and to ride off and to take position on his right wing, at some distance from the main body.

The battles of the king and the duke clashed together with equal courage, and stood locked for a short time in close conflict. Then William of Mortain drove back Ralph of Bayeux and Henry's left wing for some space,^ while the centre and right of the king's army held their ground. But immediately after, Helie of Maine led his horsemen against the flank and rear of the Norman left wing. At the first shock Robert of Belesme's corps broke up, then that of the duke, then that of Count William. The horsemen rode in among the fugitives and cut down two or three hundred of the unmailed Norman infantry. But the knights were mostly admitted to quarter: only a few escaped,^ the rest, four hundred in all, were taken prisoners. Waldric, one of Henry's chaplains, was the captor of Duke Robert, for which unclerical feat he was soon after made bishop of Llandaff. With Robert were taken William of Mortain, Robert d'Estouteville, William de Ferrers, William Crispin, and all the chief nobles of Normandy. We are somewhat surprised to find in their company Eadgar the Atheling, who had broken his old friendship with Duke Robert some time before, but had returned to his side to share his day of misfortune.^ Robert of Belesm^, who fled too early for his own good fame,* was the only man'^Hl note in the duke's army who got away.

The whole fight had not occupied an hour, and not a sin^ knight on Henry's side had been slain. We have to turn:' Italian chronicles of the fifteenth century to find such a blo^ less fight followed by such great results — for the victory Tenchebrai gave King Henry the whole duchy of Norman( He had used horse and foot combined, against isolated infantry and had been properly rewarded for his adherence to his father'.' example at Hastings.^ It is curious to see that it was the

^ ** Consul Willelmus aciem Anglorum de loco in locum turbans promovit " {ibid.)

2 William of Jumieges, p. 573.

' Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, sub anno 1 106. The king shortly released him, thougV he condemned the others to perpetual bonds.

* Orderic Vitalis, 701.

° Matthew Paris (writing a hundred and fifty years after the fight) thinks tha Henry's ** English and Normans on foot" are a different body from the three corp; under Ralph of Bayeux, Robert of Melient, and William de Warenne. This is ar error, produced by misunderstanding Orderic's ** Primam aciem, etc. . . . Rex auten Normannos et Anglos pedites secum detinuit, Cenomannos et Britones longius in campc posuit." The three corps are the pedites.

igk idv

1 1 19] LOUIS VII. INVADES NORMANDY 381

orother who had stayed at home, and not the brother who had Deen to the far East, that had best reahsed the military meaning d{ the experience of the first Crusade.

Battle of Bremiile {Brenville) August 20, 1 1 19.

King Henry's second battle in Normandy was an even shorter and simpler affair than the battle of Tenchebrai ; it hardly deserves, indeed, to be called anything more than a skirmish. It only lasted a few minutes, and the total number of men engaged on both sides was less than a thousand in all.

Louis VI. of France had invaded Normandy, to endeavour to place on its throne his young protege, William Clito, the son of Robert, who had now been languishing for many years in Cardiff Castle, and was well-nigh forgotten. William, a clever and bright lad of eighteen, was now old enough to take the field in person along with his champion. They had crossed the frontier, and a few trusty old adherents of Robert had joined their standard, but the great bulk of the barons of the duchy stood firm in their allegiance to King Henry.

Since castles and cities kept their gates closed, the invasion dwindled down into a series of mere plundering raids. Based on the town of Les Andelys, Louis and his knights rode out, harrying the countryside, and pushing useless forays as far as the neighbourhood of Rouen and Evreux. Meanwhile, King Henry came upon the scene with a small army : he had a few English with him, but the bulk of his force was composed of the native feudal levies of Normandy ; he took post at Noyon- sur-Andelle, intending to cover the duchy from the destructive inroads of the French. On the 20th of August, the smoke rising from the burning barns of the monks of Bucheron ^ showed clearly to Henry that the French were out upon one of their habitual forays. He marched for the scene of destruction, with the five hundred knights who were around him, and soon came into sight of the scattered outriders of Louis. When the French king heard that his enemy was at hand, he swerved aside to meet him, in spite of the advice of his wiser counsellors, who pointed out to him that he had but four hundred horsemen with him, and that the force of the Normans was unknown. Without taking any military precautions, or even drawing up a definite plan of battle, Louis galloped off to attack Henr}^

^ The name of the place on which the abbey of Noyon-sur-Andelle was built.

382 THE ART OF WAR IN THE MIDDLE AGES [11 19

Meanwhile, the English king had seen the foe approaching, and found ample time to draw up his host. He followed the same general arrangement that had served him so well at Tenchebrai. The majority of his knights were directed to dis- mount, and to send their horses to the rear. Only one hundred kept their saddles. The exact details of the marshalling of their host are not certain : of our three primary authorities — Suger on the French side, and Henry of Huntingdon and Orderic Vitalis on the Norman — no two agree. Suger tells us that the host was drawn up with the horse in front and the dismounted knights in a second line.^ Henry of Huntingdon says that the king made three battles — the first of mounted Norman knights, the second consisting of his private military household, headed by himself, also mounted, the third on foot under his sons, Robert ^ and Richard, which was strongest of the three.^ Orderic states that there were a hundred knights under the king's son Richard on horseback, while the rest of the Normans fought on foot around the king, who was himself dismounted.^ He does not mention whether the horse were in front line or reserve, and might be understood rather to imply the latter, as in his account the first attack of the French seems to be directed against the dismounted knights.^ But since Suger and Huntingdon agree in putting the horsemen in front, and Orderic does not actually contradict them, we must not press his wording, and may con- clude that Henry placed his infantry (if one may call them such) behind his cavalry. Apparently he drew out the small body of horse to allure the French to attack, and kept his strong force of dismounted knights somewhat out of sight.^ The one fact

^ Suger, p. 45: "(Henricus) milites armatos, ut fortius committant, pedites deponit." Then the French charge, and "primam Normannorum aciem fortissima manu caedentes a campo fugaverunt, et priores equitum acies super armatos pedites repulerunt."

2 The famous Earl of Gloucester of the civil wars of Stephen's day.

2 "Rex Henricus in prima acie proceres suos constituerat : in secunda cum propria familia eques ipse residebat : in tertia vero filios suos cum summis viribus pedites collocaverat " (Henry of Huntingdon, p. 241).

* Orderic says that ' ' Ricardus filius regis et c milites equis insidentes ad belluqa parati erant : reliqui vero pedites cum rege in campo dimicabant " (p. 722).

^ There were no more than the five hundred knights present on Henry's side. The "grand pleinte de sergeants" whom the Grands Croniqties de France introduce are an invention, as can be seen by carefully comparing them with Suger.

^ This, I fancy, is what Suger means when he says that Henry "speculatus regis Francorum improvidam audaciam militum acies in eum dirigit : incentiva ut in etfifl extraordinarie insiliat, ponit : milites armatos pedites deponit."

;ii9] BATTLE OF BREMOLE 383

)n which our authorities are hopelessly at issue, is that Orderic ;ays that the horse were commanded by the king's sons, while Henry of Huntingdon says that they were led by the " proceres Normannorum," ie. the Counts of Eu and Warrenne, and that the -oyal bastards led the infantry reserve. We cannot hope to reconcile them on this point. The French can hardly be said ;o have had any battle-array at all:^ they rode up in disorder in three troops, of which the first was headed by the Norman rebel William Crispin, and contained only eighty horsemen ; the second (mainly composed of the knights of the Vexin) was headed by Godfrey of Serranz, Bouchard of Montmorenci, Ottomond of Chaumont, and Guy of Clermont; the third was led by the king and his seneschal, William de Garlande. Henry of Huntingdon, however, speaks of the first two squadrons as if they formed a single corps, and says that they had been placed by King Louis under the orders of the young duke, William Clito — which is likely enough in itself, but conflicts with the other authorities.

Orderic and Henry of Huntingdon agree in stating that William Crispin charged first, and won a certain amount of success : this success was, as we learn from Suger and Henry, that he scattered and drove off the hundred horsemen whom the English king had placed in front of his line. But then, plung- ing recklessly in among the serried ranks of the column of dismounted knights, his men were surrounded, torn from their horses, and made prisoners. He himself cut his way to Henry and dealt him a severe blow, which was only prevented from being fatal by the strength of the king's mail coif. But his horse was killed under him, and Roger de Bienfaite threw him down and captured him, saving him with difficulty from being slain by the angry knights of the king's household.^ When the first French squadron was already practically disposed of, the second charged in with equal courage, made the Norman phalanx reel for a moment, but soon shared the fate of Crispin's men, nearly all being surrounded, pulled down, and taken prisoners.^

^ Rex autem, nullum praelii constituere dignatus apparatum, in eos indiscrete evolat" (Suger, 45).

- Cf. Orderic and Henry of Huntingdon : the latter says that William got two fair cuts at the king's head, the former speaks of only one.

^ Suger speaks of the Vexin knights as being in the first charge : " Priores qui manum applicuerunt Velcassinenses primam Normannorum aciem ... a campo fugaverunt."

384 THE ART OF WAR IN THE MIDDLE AGES [1119

Seeing this disaster, the knights about King Louis advised him to retreat: he turned his rein, and then his whole corps broke up and fled in hopeless panic. The victorious Anglo- Normans called for their horses, mounted, and pursued the fugitives as far as the gates of Andelys. King Louis was so closely chased that he had to spring from his charger and plunge into a wood on foot. Thence he escaped by devious paths, and was led to Andelys by a friendly peasant. His horse and his banner fell into the hands of the conqueror. A hundred and forty knights were captured, but only three slain in the battle : " for they were clothed from head to foot in mail, and because of the fear of God and the fact that they were known to each other as old comrades, there was no slaughter." ^ Of the leaders of the two front squadrons of the French no one escaped captivity save William Clito. All the rest were made prisoners.

The conflict of authorities on minor points does not prevent us from having a very clear idea of the military significance of Bremule. Disorderly charges of cavalry, unaided by either infantry or archers, avail nothing against a solid mass of well-armed knights on foot. Louis, seeing the Anglo-Norman host in such good order, could only have had a chance of success by dismounting some of his own knights, or by bringing men armed with missile weapons into the field, to harass the column of his adversaries. But he thought of nothing but of sweeping them from the ground by a desperate charge, and received the reward of his rashness in a crushing defeat.

The records of an insignificant skirmish, which occurred a J few years after Bremule and would have escaped notice but foi i its tactical interest,^ suffice to show that the combination oJ I archery with the mounted arm was not wholly forgotten in the Norman school of war. The memory of Hastings must always [ have kept it alive. In 1 124 Waleran Count of Mellent was in rebellion against King Henry, and had drawn his kinsmen Amaury Count of Evreux, and Hugh of Neuchatel, intc his plot. But the royal forces were too much for him ; most of his castles fell, and he and his knights became wanderen on the face of the land. He had been raiding near Bouri

. .^Orderic, p. 722.

2 M. Delpech must have the credit of bringing it into notice.

II24] COMBAT OF BOURG TH^ROULDE ■'' 3^5

Th^roulde, and committing horrid atrocities on the peasantry ,1 when he found himself intercepted by a body of three hundred of the king's mercenary troops who had drawn together from the neighbouring garrisons. They were headed by the chamber- lain William of Tankerville, and Ralph of Bayeux.^ The pursuers were superior in numbers, but they knew that Count Waleran was in a desperate state of mind, and that his followers were the best knights in Normandy. Instead of attacking, they resolved to place themselves across the road and offer battle in a defensive posture. Of the horsemen, part dismounted and formed a solid mass, the rest remained on their steeds ; but Ralph and William had with them not only knights, but also bowmen, and, what is more surprising, mounted bowmen. We should not have known of their existence but for the explicit mention of them in William of Jumieges, for Orderic Vitalis, the other narrator of the fight, does not mention the fact that they were horsed.^ Probably they were mercenaries, who had been furnished with a mount in order that they might be able to move rapidly along Avith the knights when pursuit was aeeded. There were forty of them in the party; these men Ralph and William placed on the left of their force, but thrown forward en potence, so that they would take in flank any body of i:ien which charged up the road.* They w^ere posted on the eft, in order that they might shoot at the unshielded right sides 3f the rebels. Probably they dismounted in order that they night use their bows to better effect. Waleran of Mellent night have turned back and escaped by the way that he had :ome. But, as his adversaries had calculated, the desperate: :ount had no such intention. He harangued his companions and* :)ade them ride down the pack of "mercenaries and rustics"^ who lared to block the way. He himself, with forty knights of his neinie, headed the charge ; the rest, under the Count of Evreux,^

^ His pleasing habit was to cut ofF one foot of the peasants who fell into his. lands (Orderic, p. 740).

^ Orderic and William of Jumieges speak as if Ralph had been in command, but- lenry of Huntingdon and William of INIalmesbury mention Tankerville only.

^William, p. 576: *'Denique catervis more pugnantium, necnon et equitibus, agittariis (quorum inibi exercitus regis maximam multitudinem habebat) in dextra- •arte hostium praemissis . . . clamor utrinque attollitur." W^illiam is a tiresome and onfused author, but can hardly have gone wrong on a point like this.

* "In prima enim fronte quadraginta architenentes caballos occiderunt, et ante- uam ferire possunt sunt dejecti " (Orderic, p. 740).

^ " Gregarios et pagenses milites." 25

386 THE ART OF WAR IN THE MIDDLE AGES [1138

followed. But when they came level with the archers, the latter let fly at their horses, and brought down nearly the whole of them by a few well-directed volleys. The second squadron suffered the same fate, and then the king's troops advanced and took prisoners the whole party, for some were pinned to the ground under their slain horses, and the others were too heavily weighted by their mail, and too bruised and shaken to get off rapidly. Eighty knights in all were captured, including Waleran himself, and his nephews, Hugh of Neuchatel and Hugh of Montfort. The Count of Evreux would have suffered the same fate had he not fallen into the hands of an old friend, who collusively allowed him to escape.

This skirmish, exceptional in so "many of its details distinctly reminds us of the tactics which Edward III. was tc employ at Creqy two hundred years later. To receive a cavalry charge by a body of dismounted men-at-arms flanked by archers, while a mounted reserve remains behind to gather tht fruits of the day, argues a high degree of soldierly skill on the part of the victorious commanders. Horsed archers are rarel} found in Western Europe in the twelfth century : they were nc doubt the predecessors of the mounted crossbowmen of the time of John and Henry III. Such troops were called intc existence by the need of having men armed with missiles,- wh( could keep up with the cavalry in their rapid marches agains raiders. Foot-bowmen could not have intercepted Waleran' raid : but if provided with mounts of some sort, they migh reach the field ; they w^ould then leave their horses an< join the knights, who had also sent their chargers to th rear.

Battle of Northallerton^ August 22, 1 138.

The celebrated " Battle of the Standard " differs in characte from the other fights which we have been investigating, in th? the enemy was not the mailed and mounted chivalry of Franci but the wild hordes of Celtic tribesmen from beyond the Tweec We might have expected that the commanders of the Yorkshii levies would have endeavoured to turn their superiority i horse to good effect against the disorderly masses of Highlandei and Galwegians ; but as a matter of fact they dismounted ever rider, as Robert of Normandy had done at Tenchebrai, an the sole cavalry charge of the day was delivered by the sma

1 138] NORTHALLERTON : ARRAY OF THE ENGLISH 387

body of knights of English and Norman descent who served in the Scottish host.

A short account of the battle will suffice, since neither side showed any tactical insight or attempted any new device. King David of Scotland had crossed the Tweed with a great horde of Highlanders and Galloway men arrayed in their clans. He led also the more orderly levies of the English-speaking Eastern Lowlands, and many mailed knights of the exiled English families who had removed to Scotland with Eadgar Atheling, or of the Norman settlers who had drifted in somewhat later. The Scots harried Northumberland and Durham with ^reat ferocity, slaying the priest at the altar, and the babe at its mother's breast. Hence the Yorkshiremen looked upon the war as a crusade against savages, and marched out under the Danners of their saints, St. Peter of York, St. John of Beverley, ind St. Wilfrid of Ripon, all of which, together with that of St. Cuthbert of Durham, were placed on a chariot and borne in '.he midst of their host. The large majority of the English :onsisted of the feudal levy and the fyrd of Yorkshire ; but Stephen had sent some small succours from the south under Bernard Baliol, and among the barons present we detect a few ^ho had brought their contingents from shires south of the Humber, such as Derby and Nottingham.^ The chief person Dresent was the young William of Albemarle, but Walter I'Espec, Sheriff of Yorkshire, seems to have shared the command with lim. They drew up their whole force in one deep line along a lillside on Cowton Moor near Northallerton, with the chariot rearing the standards in the rear of their centre. The knights ill dismounted and served on foot with the shire - levies, ipparently forming a mailed front line behind which the lalf-armed country-folk arrayed themselves. There were a :onsiderable number of archers among the Yorkshiremen, who ire said to have been " mixed " with the spearmen. Presumably hey stood in the mass and shot over their friends* heads, down he slope, for there is no statement that they ^took position either on the flank or in front of the main body. Some of he elder knights formed a sacred band in reserve around the standard: among them stood the commanders of the host, \lbemarle and L'Espec.^

* See John of Hexham, p. 262, for the men from Derby and Notts.

* Richard of Hexham, p. 322 ; Aelred of Rivaulx, p. 343.

388 THE ART OF WAR IN THE MIDDLE AGES [1138

The King of Scots had a far larger army than his adversaries : the total of twenty-six thousand men ascribed to him is probably not very much over the real figure. But in mailed knights and in archers he was comparatively weak : the vast majority of his host were "Highland kerne" and Picts of Gallov/ay armed with nothing more than a dart, a target, and broad- sword. Seeing the solid mass of the English awaiting him or foot, David resolved to assail them with their own tactics, anc ordered his knights to dismount and form the head of the attacking column, while his archers were to advance along witl them. The rest of the host was to follow, and to try to break ii when the knights made a gap in the English front.^

But David had forgotten to reckon with the pride anc headlong courage of his Celtic subjects : they refused to let th( Lowland knights strike the first blow. The leaders of tb Galloway Picts claimed that they had an ancient right to taki the front place, and the Highlanders refused to give precedence to the Norman and English strangers.^ When the kin; persisted in his design, Malise Earl of Strathern, one of th chiefs from beyond the Forth, angrily exclaimed, " Why trus so much, my king, to the goodwill of these Frenchmen ? Non of them, for all his mail, will go so far to the front as I, wh 1 fight unarmoured in to-day's battle." At this the Norman, Ala Percy, cried, " That is a big word, and for your life you coul not make it good." The earl turned on him in wrath, and s hot an altercation burst out between the Highlanders and th Southern knights, that the king in despair withdrew his fin order of battle, and granted the Galloway men the forema place.

In the second scheme the Scots were drawn out in foi masses : as far as we can follow Aelred of Rivaulx's descriptic of the array, the Galwegians were in the centre of the froi line, somewhat in advance. The two wings were formed, tl right by the king's son, Henry, with the greater part of tl knights of the Lowlands and the levies of Strathclyde ar Teviotdale, the left by the English of Lothian combined wi- the West Highland clans of Lorn, Argyle, and the Hebridt

1 " Placuit ut quotquot aderat militum armatorum et sagittarii cunctum praeiw exercitum, quatenus armati armatos impeterent, milites congrederentur mililib' sagittae sagittis obviarent" (Aelred, p. 342).

a Ibid, 342.

[138] NORTHALLERTON: THE GALWEGIANS CHARGE 389

^Cing David was in reserve, with the men of Moray and the Eastern Highlands: he also kept about him as a bodyguard a ew of his modest contingent of mailed knights.^

When the Scots drew near the hillside where the English vere arrayed, Robert Bruce, a Yorkshire baron, who held also he lordship of Annandale in Scotland, rode down to the lostile army and tried to induce the king to consent to terms )f peace. But the young knights about David's person taunted lobert as a traitor, so that he had to withdraw, solemnly Usavowing his feudal allegiance for Annandale ere he went.

A moment later the Galloway men dashed at the English :entre, raising a terrible shout of " Albanach, Albanach ! " Their vild rush made the fyrd waver for a moment, but the knights allied and sustained the common folks, and restored the line without a moment's delay .^ The Galwegians soon came back

0 the charge: they shivered their light darts on the serried ine of shields which the Yorkshire men opposed to them, and hen laid on with their claymores. But they could not break n a second time, and in the intervals between their charges he archery galled them sorely. Yet they furiously returned,

many of them looking like hedgehogs with the shafts still sticking in their bodies,"^ to make one last bid for victory.

At this moment Prince Henry and his corps moved in :ipon the English left wing. He and his few scores of knights ed the charge on horseback, the mass of Strathclyde men •allowing on foot. The charge was fairly delivered, and the . gallant prince with his horsemen hewed their way right through he line of the Yorkshire men till they came out at the back of he mass, scattering disorder all around them. Henry then aw the horses of the enemy, held by the grooms of the English :nighthood, a short way to the rear. He rode on to seize hem, thinking that the infantry of his corps would penetrate into he entry that he had made, and reckoning the battle as won.

^ Richard of Hexham, whose account of the Scottish array is incomplete, only lys that the Galwegians were in front, the king and a bodyguard of English knights

1 the mid-battle, while the clans were around him, " cetera barbaries circumfusa rat " (p. 322).

* " Galwegensium cuneus tanto impetu irruit in australes, ut primes lancearios :ationem deserere compelleret, sed vi militum iterum repulsi in hostes animum et igorem resumunt " ( Aelred, p. 345).

' Videres ut ericium spinis, sic Galwegensem sagittis undique circumseptum ihilominus vibrare gladium, et caeca amentia proruentem nunc hostem caedere, nunc nanem aerem cassis ictibus verberare" (Aelred, p. 345).

390 THE ART OF WAR IN THE MIDDLE AGES [1138

Herein he was sadly mistaken : he wasted but a few minutes in dashing at the horses, but those few minutes were the crisis of the day. The English closed up the gap through which he had cut his way, and drove back the Strathclyde men whc strove to thrust themselves into it. Meanwhile, in the centre the fire and fury of the Galwegians was used up : leaving theii chiefs Donald and Ulgerich dead on the field, they dispersed and fled. On the Scottish left wing the men of Lothian anc Lorn behaved far worse : their leader (his name is not given" being slain by an arrow in the first clash of spears, they made no second charge, and retired tamely to the rear. King Davie now ordered his reserve of Highlanders to advance, and spranj off his horse to lead it forward. But, seeing the disasters ii the front line, the fickle Celts began to melt off to right ant left, and David soon found himself alone with his small body guard of English and Norman knights. It was hopeless t< proceed, so he bade his standard - bearer turn back, and with drew to a neighbouring eminence, where there presentl; assembled round him the wrecks of his host. The mass lookec - so formidable that the Yorkshiremen dared not attack it, bu waited till it began to retreat. Then they followed at distance, slaying stragglers and taking many knights prisoners.

Prince Henry, having (as we have seen) worked his way t | the very rear of the English line, was left in a position c desperate danger when the Scottish host broke and retiree He saved himself by a ready stratagem : he wheeled and face to the north, then, bidding the few knights around him thro^ off their badges^ and mingle with the advancing line of th enemy, he pushed on unobserved along with the English, an gradually passed through them. When safely in advance < their foremost ranks, he moved off at a moderate pace, so as nc to awaken suspicion, and finally got clear away, rejoining h; father by a circuitous route on the third day. The Sc61 suffered very heavily in the fight, though the ten thousand c eleven thousand dead of which the chroniclers speak are onl one more instance of the usual mediaeval inability to deal wit high figures. It is more credible that of two hundred knighl

^ " Projectis itaque signis quibus a caeteris dividimur, ipsis nos hostibus inferariSfW quasi insequentes cum iis." What were the signal Probably not coats-of-ann ' \vhich were only just coming into use, but some common token which the Scots sit all wearing to distinguish them from the English. ^'^

II38] NORTHALLERTON: THE SCOTS RETREAT 391

whom Henry led to the charge fifty were captured, and so many slain and wounded that only nineteen came back un- touched with horse and arms. The prince himself had cast off his mail - shirt when the battle was over,^ refusing to be burdened with it in the long ride across the moors which lay before him ere he could rejoin his father. The slaughter among the chiefs had been very heavy in all the front divisions of the Scottish host : only the king's corps, which behaved so tamely, had got off fairly unscathed.

Of the English, only one knight, the brother of Ilbert de Lacy, had fallen ; but a considerable number of the half-armed fyrd had been trampled down in the first rush of the Galwegians and in the desperate charge of Prince Henry.

Thus ended the Battle of the Standard, a fight of a very abnormal type for the twelfth century, since the side which had the advantage in cavalry made no attempt to use it, while that which was weak in the all-important arm made a creditable attempt to turn it to account by breaking into the hostile flank. The tactics of the Yorkshiremen remind us of Harold's arrange- ments at Hastings, even to the detail of the central standards planted on the hill ; but they had this advantage over the Saxon king, that they were well provided with the archery in which he had been deficient. David's plan of attack was not unwise, but he was ruined by the Celtic pride and Celtic fickle- ness of his followers. If his two hundred knights could have opened a gap, and the fierce Galwegians could have thrown themselves into it, the fortune of the day might have been changed. But wild rushes of unmailed clansmen against a steady front of spears and bows never succeeded : in this respect Northallerton is the forerunner of Dupplin, Halidon Hill, Flodden, and Pinkie. The most surprising incident of the fight is the misconduct of the English - speaking spearmen of Lothian on the Scottish left wing : it was not usually the wont of the men of the Lowlands to retire after a single onset and when there was no pursuit. Possibly they had no great heart in the Celtic crusade against England, and were discontented at the king's subservience to the Highlanders. It is certain that during the retreat the Lowlanders and Highlanders fell out and came to blows, each accusing the other of cowardice

^ Aelred, p. 346. He gave it to a peasant by the way, saying, "Accipe quod mihi est oneri, tuae consulat necessitate "

392 THE ART OF WAR IN THE MIDDLE AGES [1141

and treachery,^ " so that they came home not like comra( but like very bitter enemies."

First Battle of Li7tcoln, February 2, 1 141.

When we turn to the battle of Lincoln, we find ourselves more familiar ground, and recognise the old tactics of Tenchebrai and other Anglo-Norman fields. Unfortunately we have for this important fight no account of such merit as Aelred of Rivaulx's excellent narrative of the Battle of the Standard.

In the winter of 1 140-41 the barons of the West and the Welsh border were up in arms against King Stephen, and had sworn allegiance to his rival, the Empress Matilda. Among the many strongholds which they had taken was the very important castle of Lincoln. The king marched against it in the depth of the winter, and seized the city (whose inhabitants were friendly to him), while the rebels retired into the castle. He lay before its walls for a month, during which space the Earls Ralph of Chester and Robert of Gloucester were collecting an army with which they purposed to raise the siege. On the first of February ^ their approach was reported to the king ; his counsellors advised him to refuse a battle, and to call in his adherents from the south, since he had but a small force with him. But Stephen despised his enemy, and announced his intention of fighting at once. To get at him the earls had to cross the flooded Fossdike,^ and a guard had been set upon the fords to keep them at bay. But on the morning of February 2 Ralph and Robert forced the passage, though the water was deep and the marshes dangerou, the corps which Stephen had set to observe them was eas^ brushed away.

Hearing of their approach, the king drew up his army in fr of the walls of Lincoln. In the absence of any precise indica-

tne

J

•^ " Rex, recollectis suis qui sparsim de pugna, non ut consortes, sed potius sicut hostes inimicissimi fugerant, obsidionem apud Carham corroboravit. Nam Angli et Scoti et Picti, quocunque casu se inveniebant, alios mutuo vel trucidabant vel vulnerabant vel saltern spoliabant, et ita a suis sicut ab alienis opprimebantur " (Richard of Hexham, p. 323). Angli of course means the Lowlanders, Scoti the Highlanders, and Picti the Galloway men.

2 Stephen took the town "circa natale domini" (December 25), and was still before the castle on February i, when the enemy appeared.

^ A channel cut from the Trent to the Witham in the time of Henry i., which protected the south - west front of the city. This must be the stream, not the Trent, as some chroniclers put it. I am glad to find that on this point I agree with Miss Norgate's Angevin Kings.

i4i] LINCOLN: KING STEPHEN'S ARRAY 393

ion of the battle spot, we have to put the following facts ogether in order to identify it (i) The earls forded the ''ossdike somewhere west of Lincoln. (2) They fought with it t their backs, so that defeat meant disaster ; i.e. they faced orth or north-west. (3) The routed cavalry of Stephen's host scaped into the open country, not into the town ; i.e. they were rawn up so as to give a free flight to the north. (4) The infantry ed into the town, which was therefore quite close. Probably he battlefield lay due west of the city, and the Royalists pparently faced south or south - west. Stephen used the ictics which his uncle Henry I. had employed at Bremdle: lie greater part of his knights were ordered to dismount nd fight on foot around the royal standard ; with them 'ere incorporated some infantry of the shire-levy, mainly omposed of the citizens of Lincoln.^ In front of this mass f dismounted men were drawn up two small " battles " of orsemen ; that on the left was headed by William of Albe- larle, whom the king had made an earl for his services t Northallerton, and by William of Ypres, a mercenary captain, 'hat on the right was under a multitude of chiefs — Hugh Bigot ^arl of Norfolk, William Earl of Warrenne, Simon of Senlis Earl f Northampton, Waleran Earl of Mellent,^ and the mercenary dan of Dinan, whom the king had created Earl of Richmond, lut these great names represented no great following ; several f them were pseudo-coinites, men whom the king had made arls in title, though their power and estates did not justify le promotion \^ it was said that they had no more connection ith the counties whose names they bore than that of receiving le third penny of the shire-fines. The rest had come to Lincoln ithout their full servitiiim debitum of knights, "as if to a olloquy, and not to a battle.""* The two squadrons between them rily mustered a very few hundred knights.

The rebel earls likewise drew up their host in three main Drps. One was headed by Ralph of Chester, the second division y Robert of Gloucester, the third was composed of the numerous

^ We get this fact from the speech of Earl Ralph in Henry of Huntingdon, ecapitulating the king's forces, he says: "Gives Lincolnienses, qui stant suae urbi oximi, in impetus gravedine ad domos suas transfugere videbitis " (p. 269).

^ The vanquished rebel of the skirmish of Bourg Theroulde (see p. 384).

^ "Paucosenimmilitessecum;f<r/2^/_^f<r/w«comitesadduxerant"(Gervase, p. 1354).

* " Persuaserunt Seniores regi congregare exercitum, sese enim inermes ad regis Hoquium occurrisse, non ad praelii precinctum profitentes."

394' THE ART OF WAR IN THE MIDDLE AGES [i

I

Midland knights and barons whose estates Stephen had decla confiscated for rebellion ; the chroniclers call this corps the " array of the disinherited." Robert had also brought with hin: from the marches a body of Welsh light infantry under two brother.' named Meredith and Cadwallader ; these wild levies, " courageou: rather than formidable," ^ as the chronicler calls them, were throwr out on the flank of the front line. Ralph of Chester and hi; knights dismounted and formed the reserve, incorporating witl themselves (just as Stephen had done) the remaining infantry of their host.^ In the front line the " disinherited " faced Bigot Mellent, Alan, and the other earls, while Robert and the Welsl were opposite Albemarle and William of Ypres. The numbe of horsemen on the two sides was about equal ; ^ the king ha( the advantage in foot-soldiery.

The first clash came when the cavalry divisions of the fron line charged. On the one wing the " disinherited " completel; broke and scattered the five earls, whose whole squadron was h a moment either slain, captured, or in wild flight* On the othe flank William of Albemarle and William of Ypres came int collision with Gloucester's knights and the Welsh light infantrj The Royalists rode down the Welsh and drove them to tak shelter with the Earl of Chester and the barons' .reserve. But whe: they were assailed at once by Gloucester's horse and Chester mailed foot, they gave way, and the two Williams fled in rou as prompt and complete as that of the earls in the other win^ None of the beaten Royalist horse made any attempt to rally looking back on the field, William of Ypres observed that " th battle was lost, and that they must help the king some othe day," and continued his flight.

Then the whole army of the rebel earls concentrated the efforts on the king's column of infantry ; apparently Chester an his dismounted knights charged it in front, while the " disir herited " and Gloucester beset it on the flanks and rear. Th Royalists made a gallant resistance, but at last the mass ws broken up ; those who could sought refuge within the gates (

^ "Audacia magis quam armis instruct!" (Huntingdon, 268).

2 '* Animosam legionem Cestrensium peditum " (Orderic, 769).

^ See Baldwin's speech in p. 272 of Henry of Huntingdon : " Nobis numerus equitibus non inferior, in peditibus confertior." This is more probable than Orderic '* hostes nimia multitudine peditum et Wallensium praevaluerunt " (769).

* ** In ictu oculi dispersi sunt, et divisio eorum in tria devenit : alii namque occ sunt : alii capti ; alii aufugerunt" (Henry of Huntingdon, 273).

PLATE XII.

Tenchebrai

Sept. 28. //06.

Normans Cb ^ English .

Vllliam Duke Robert gfMottaiM Robert ofBelesm

cb cb cb

Ralph Robert WUiam if B^WJJtofJWlenl. deVftname.

Bremule

Aug. 20.11 19

King Louis ^^^ G.de Serranzl^J WXrispin W^

Robert & r&\ r-^ Richard ^^^ ^'^

Fbench ^ | )

En^bah cf] CfH *^"^^ Henry

Northallerton

AUG.22.//38.

KlniPpaxid ^^]^^ Lothian

Scots ^ cS English (±1

English

is^Batde of JLIWCOLN

Royalists [^ Cb Rebels 1^ ^

2"^ Battle of LlWCOLW

MAY 19.1217,

Pooll

Place of Fawkcs de Breaute'».Sortie

Die Blocked Gate.

Place of lastfi^ht. and death of tlie Count of Perche

Castle Bostem. .

The loyalist Army.

i4i] LINCOLN: THE KING CAPTURED 39.5.

^incoln, where the foe promptly pursued them and cut them up n the streets. But Stephen and his truest followers stood firm )y the standard, and held out long after the rest of the fighting vas over. The king fought till his sword was broken, and then ised a Danish two-handed axe which a citizen of Lincoln lipped into his hand.^ His terrible strokes long held the rebels t bay, but at last a final rush swept down his faithful band, and le himself was thrown to the ground by William de Caimes, a )owerful knight, who caught him by the helmet and dragged lim over. With him were captured Bernard Baliol, Roger de viowbray, William Fossart, William Peverel, William de Clerfait, Baldwin Fitz-Gilbert, Richard Fitz-Urse, and many other gallant mights and barons.^

The first battle of Lincoln is a perfectly normal and typical hirteenth-century engagement. Each side used the same tactics )f a front line of horse and a reserve of dismounted knights : he Welsh light infantry on the rebel flank are the only unusual "eature, and they had no influence whatever on the event of the lay. Probably they were South Welsh archers, intended to gall he flank of the Royalist horse by a cross-fire, like the bowmen, it Bourg Theroulde in 11 24. Putting them aside, we see that he battle was lost because Stephen's cavalry were so dis- :omfited that they could not rally behind the reserve and •eturn to the fight. When they had left the field, the king's ate was sealed : like his uncle Robert at Tenchebrai, he found ;hat infantry unsupported must fail before horse and foot :ombined.

Of the reign of Henry II. even more than of the rest of the :welfth century is the statement true that the age was one of jieges rather than of battles. All through his reign the king was ighting hard, yet he was never present at an engagement of irst or even second-rate importance in the open field. Only twice .vas he even on the edge of a great battle — once at the raising 3f the leaguer of Rouen in 1174, and once when, in 1187, he lay 3y Ch^teauroux with a great host, while Philip of France on the 3ther side of the Indre was drawing out his army day after day, md offering to fight if the Anglo-Normans should endeavour to

^ John of Hexham, p. 269.

* For the list see John of Hexham, p. 269. He is by far the most full in snumeration.

39^ THE ART OF WAR IN THE MIDDLE AGES [1173

pass the river. Both kings were prudent, and would not risl< the passage, and finally they made a truce instead of settling their quarrel with the sword.

In the troublous years 1173-74, when Henry's enemie; were in arms on all sides, and half England was overrun by the rebels, there were two engagements of high political importance but neither takes rank as a real battle or gives us any interest ing tactical features. The disaster of William the Lion a Alnwick was a curious instance of a great invasion stopped h] the chance encounter of a few hundred knights. The King o Scots had invaded Northumberland with an army not less thai that which his grandfather led to the Battle of the Standard He lay before Alnwick with part of his force, while the rest wer< raiding far and wide in the valleys of the Tyne and Tees. Mean while, Robert d'EstoutevilIe,the Sheriff of Yorkshire,had musterei the shire-levies of the great county, and the loyal barons of th north had gathered to his aid. They resolved to march toward Alnwick, but cautiously, since they knew that the Scots out numbered them fourfold. In the long march from Newcastl to Alnwick the knights outrode the weary infantry. On th morning of June 13, 11 74, they found themselves close to th beleaguered castle, but a heavy fog lay over the face of the lane and it seemed reckless for four hundred knights to try to pic their way between the besiegers' camps in the darkness. The attempted the dangerous feat, and were rewarded by an unex pected prize. When they had ridden some miles, the fog clearec and Alnwick was seen close at hand ; but closer still was a sma body of mailed men riding at leisure round the castle. It wa King William and a party of his knights : the rest were ou raiding or scattered in distant camps. The king at firj thought the English were some of his own host, and cantere unsuspiciously toward them. Only when he was too close t flee did he recognise the hostile banners : seeing his danger, h cried, " Now shall we see who is a true knight," ^ and, levelling hi lance, rode at the Yorkshiremen. This foolish feat of chivalrou daring had the natural result : his horse was slain, and h himself and all his companions were captured. His host brok up and retired in confusion into Scotland the moment that th disastrous news got abroad. Thus a great invasion was foile

^ " Modo apparebit quis miles esse invenit" (William of Newbury, 185).

173] BATTLE OF FORNHAM 397

)y a trifling skirmish, in which less than five hundred knights 00k part.

Of the fight of Fornham (October 17, 1173), the other blow vhich crushed King Henry's enemies, we could wish that we had )etter details. The rebel Earl of Leicester was marching across Suffolk from Framlingham towards his own county with eighty cnights and three thousand Flemish mercenaries, horse and foot, vhom he had imported to strengthen his rebellion. To inter- :ept him, the Constable Humphrey de Bohun and the Earls of \rundel and Cornwall marched to Bury St. Edmunds with a few oyal knights and three hundred of King Henry's stipendiary lorsemen. The shire-levy of Suffolk and Cambridge joined hem in great force, for the Flemings had made themselves lated by their cruel ravages in Norfolk. They were reported to lave sung to each other,

*'Hop, hop, Willeken, hop ! England is mine and lliine,"

md the fyrd came out readily against them, though many were irmed with nothing better than flails and pitchforks.^ The lost of the Constable outnumbered the rebels fourfold, but, as R.alph de Diceto remarks, if only properly armed men counted, :he earl had far the more formidable following.^ De Bohun, bllowing, caught him as he was passing a marsh near Fornham, md, falling upon him suddenly, discomfited the rebels in a few Tioments. Apparently the whole fight was a surprise, for the Flemings seem to have found themselves in a helpless plight, md Leicester and his knights fled early.^ The infuriated oeasantry gave no quarter, and thrust the foreigners into bog md ditch till more were drowned than slain with stroke of sword.* Only a very few survived to share the captivity of the :arl and his high-spirited countess, who had gone through the :ampaign at her husband's side. Such a rout of trained soldiers by raw levies led by a few hundred horsemen, can hardly be accounted for save by the hypothesis that the rebels were surprised in a place where cavalry could not act freely : they

^ Matthew Paris, Hist. Angl. 381.

2 Ralph de Diceto, 377 : **Si milites regis militibus comitis conferantur regalium numerus militiam comitis excedet in quadruplum. Si vero capita capitibus, si armatorum copiam aequa lance quis colligat, multo plures erant cum comite quam ex adverse."

^ " In ictu cculi victus est comes et captus " (Hoveden, 307).

* Jordan Fantosme, p. 294, line 109 1.

398 THE ART OF WAR IN THE MIDDLE AGES [ii6

allowed themselves to be attacked by the Royalists, made n attempt to take the offensive, and hardly stood for a momen If the ground had been firm and open, they must surely have ha the better of the fyrd.

The English in Ireland, 1169-75.

We have, as it chances, a far better knowledge of anothc set of Anglo-Norman fights than of those of the great rebellio of 1 173-74. The Expiignatio Hiberniae and the invaluable Son of Dermot and the Earl^ enable us to form a very clear notio of the tactics and strategy by which a few hundred knights c the Marches of Wales subdued within the space of five yeai the better half of Ireland. Of all the many conquests of tb Normans in East and West, this was perhaps the most astonisl ing, for the resources of the invaders were weaker even tha those of the conquerors of Naples and Sicily, and the Iris dwelt in one of the most difficult and inaccessible regions < Europe.

Ireland in 1169 was one vast expanse of wood, bog, an mountain, in which the tracts of open land were few and fc between. Between every tribal settlement lay difficult pass( over marshes or between woods and rocks. The natives, fickle and ill compacted, were not wanting in wild courage, an had in their long wars with the Danes evolved a system < defensive warfare which was well adapted to the character ( their country. On every trackway which led from district 1 district there were well - known positions which the tribesme were wont to fortify with considerable skill. In the bogs the dug trenches across the road and erected stockades on the farth< side, so that the passage was almost impassable for horseme In the forest tracts they " plashed the woods," i.e. cut down tl ; underwood and wattled it together in abattis across and alonj | side of the roads, so that those who tried to force their wa through found themselves beset on flank and front by unsee enemies, who could only be reached by hewing down tl screen of thick boughs. The Song of Detmot and the Ea is full of descriptions of barriers of these two kinds : tl account of the pass of Achadh-Ur (Freshford in Kilkenny may serve as an example. This was a passage between tl

^ I have of course used Mr. Orpen's excellent edition of 1892.

169] THE ENGLISH IN IRELAND 399

iver Nuenna and steep wooded hills. Mac-Donnchadh, king f Ossory —

"Un fosse fist jeter aitant Haut e large roist e grant. Puis par afin ficher E par devant ben herdeler, Pur defendre le passage Al rei Dermod al fer corage."

He bade his men throw up a trench high and wide, steep nd large, and to strengthen it at the back with stakes and in rent with hurdles, in order to dispute the passage of King )ermot the stout-hearted" (lines 1013-19).

Whenever the English marched out, the Irish "plashed the 'oods and dug across the roads" (line 1 595), and it was hard to get rom place to place " on the hard field and by the open ground." >uch tactics were most distressing to jnvaders accustomed to win y the ponderous charge of mailed cavalry across the unenclosed .elds and hillsides of England or Normandy. Yet, as we shall ee, they succeeded in triumphing over these difficulties, and •:rmly estabHshed themselves in the conquered land.

The weak point of the Irish was their want of defensive .rmour and their inability to stand firm in the open. If once -he enemy could close with them, and catch them far from the helter of stockade and trench, they were easy to deal with, for hey dreaded above all things the impact of the mailed horse- nan, and had never learned to stand fast, shoulder to shoulder, .nd beat off the charge of cavalry. Neither they themselves lor their old enemies the Danes were accustomed to fight on lorseback, and they were utterly cowed by the Norman knight .nd his reckless onset. Their arms, indeed, were very unsuited o resist cavalry : only the Scandinavian settlers of the coast- owns and a few of the chiefs of the inland wore mail ; the rest :ame out " naked " to war. As one of their own bards sang —

" Unequal they engaged in the battle, The foreigners and the Gaedhil of Teamhair; Fine linen shirts on the race of Conn, And the foreigners in a mass of iron."^

Nor were the offensive arms of the Celts very suitable for epelling cavalry ; they carried two darts, a short spear, and

^ Poem of Gilla Bhrighde M'Conmidhe, quoted by Mr. Orpen in Dermot at: d the ^arl, p. 268.

400 THE ART OF WAR IN THE MIDDLE AGES [116

large-headed axes wielded by one hand, but had no long pike nor any skill in archery.^ They hurled darts and stones 2 close quarters from behind their stockades and fosses, but coul not keep off their enemy by the distant rain of arrows. In shor they were formidable while skirmishing in woods and bogs, bi easily to be routed in the open.

The Anglo-Norman leaders soon learned to adapt the: tactics to those of the enemy. They had to avoid, as far a possible, fights in woods or bogs, and to lure the enemy into th clear ground. If this was impossible, and if the Irish stood fin behind their defences, the only courses open were either to essa surprises and night attacks — the Celts habitually kept a ver poor watch — or to gall the defenders with arrows from a di: tance. Fortunately for themselves, the knights of the Wels March had close to their hand the very associates most suited t aid them in such difficulties. The men of South Wales were tl" most skilled of all the inhabitants of Britain in archery, and dre the longest and the strongest bows. It was by their aid that tl invaders were accustomed to triumph over the Irish horde None of the barons who won Ireland ever marched forth withoi a large provision of bowmen, and after a time they habitual mounted them, in order that they might be able to keep up wil the knights in every chance of war, and might not be left behir in rapid advances or pursuits. Giraldus Cambrensis in h Expugnatio devotes the best part of a chapter to explaining tl advantage which the Welsh archers gave to the invaders, ar urges the leaders of his own day to enlarge the proportion Welsh in their bands,^ on account of their lightness and swii ness, which enabled them to follow the Irish into heavy or mou tainous ground, where the mailed men could pursue only slow or not at all. A few descriptions of battles will show how tl Anglo-Normans contrived to deal with their adversaries.

Battle on the Dining 1 169.

Dermot of Leinster, with his allies, Robert Fitz-Stephen ai Maurice de Prendergast, had executed a successful raid in the lands of his enemy MacDonnchadh, King of Ossory. Thi had with them three hundred knights and archers of Wales, ai

^ Topographia Hiherniae of Giraldus Camb. p. 151.

-See his Expugnatio^ book ii. chapter xxxviii. : "Qualiter gens Hibern expugnanda sit."

1169] BATTLE OF THE DININ 401

a thousand of Dermot's followers from Hy-Kinselagh (County Wexford). On their return they had to cross a defile between wood and water, in the valley of the Dinin. The Irish were march- ing first, under Donnell Kavanagh, King Dermot's son ; behind were the king himself and his Anglo-Norman allies. When the pass was reached, the men of Ossory were found stationed there in great force, under their king. The spot was dreaded by the men of Kinselagh, for three times had the army of Leinster been routed there within King Dermot's reign. When they found themselves attacked, they lost heart at once, and fled into the woods : Donnell Kavanagh only brought forty-three of his followers back to his father's side. The English were at the bottom of the marshy valley, in a place where they could not easily resist an attack, md a move onward to seize the well-manned pass seemed equally hopeless.

Maurice de Prendergast at once proposed a retreat from the /alley and the woods up to the high open ground from which :he army had descended in order to attempt the pass. If the nen of Ossory should follow them, as was likely, it would be Dossible to turn upon them where neither trees nor marsh pre- lected them from the charge of the Norman horse. His advice .vas promptly carried out ; the Anglo-Normans retired up the lillside with every sign of hurry and dismay. When they began :o approach the end of the wood, they dropped forty archers jnder a certain Robert Smiche (Smithe ?) by the wayside, with orders to hide in a thicket till the Irish should have passed :)y, and to fall on their rear when the opportunity came.

The precipitate retreat of the invaders had the effect that Prendergast had hoped. MacDonnchadh and " all the pride of Dssory " came out in haste from their impregnable position, and bllowed them across the valley and up the hill. They passed :he ambush without noticing it, and swept out into the open ground. When they had left the wood some way behind, they vere surprised to see the Normans turn and form line of battle. Before the meaning of the movement was realised, the knights :harged in among them, the archers and sergeants following :lose behind. The Ossory men were six or seven to one, — their lumbers are given at from seventeen hundred to two thousand ^

^ In line 659 the author of Dermot and the ^ar/ calls them "mil e set scent," )ut in7i8 "par aime erent ii millers." Neither figure seems too high, considering he usual exaggeration of the mediaeval poet, 26

Ih

402 THE ART OF WAR IN THE MIDDLE AGES [1169

strong, — but they could not stand for a moment against the impact of the mailed horsemen. They were broken and scattered in all directions with great slaughter : whether the ambush o archers fell upon the fugitives with much effect we are not told but the cowardly men of Hy-Kinselagh emerged from thewood.^ where they had been skulking, and hunted the fugitives for somt distance. They brought back two hundred and twenty heads- no quarter was given in Irish war — and laid them at Kinj Dermot's feet. To the horror of his auxiliaries, the brutal kin^ was seen ^ to pick out the head of one of his special enemies and to tear with his teeth the nose of the fallen chief

The feigned retreat which won the battle of the Dinin was ai old Norman device, whose most famous example was seen a Hastings. Without its use the army of Dermot and Fitz-Stephei must have been crushed in the valley between the marsh an< the wood, where no cavalry charge would have been possible.

The next two engagements which we must notice were bot fought close to the walls of Dublin,^ which had fallen into th hands of the English in the autumn of 1 170, its Danish lore Haskulf Thorgilson, having been expelled and driven to see refuge in the Western Isles. Richard de Clare, the famou " Strongbow," was now at the head of the invaders, and had lai claim to the whole kingdom of Leinster, since the death of hi father-in-law, King Dermot, in May 1171. It was only a fori night after his accession that a Viking fleet cast anchor in Dubli Bay. Haskulf had sought aid from the Scandinavian settlei in Man, Orkney, and the Hebrides, and had gathered a fleet ( sixty sail to restore him to his lost possessions. His auxiliarie were led by an adventurer named John " the Madman " or "JJB Furious,"^ a famous "Baresark," who had won much glorj^B the wars of the North. The Norsemen landed, ten thousan strong, or even more, according to the estimate of their enemie which must be wholly futile : Orkney and Man could not ha\ supplied half that number of warriors. They formed up on tl

^ Giraldus, Expvgnatio, \. 4. The author of Dermot and the Earl does not g\ this discreditable trait of his hero's conduct.

2 It is strange to find that Giraldus and the author of Dermot differ as to t .order of the two sieges : Giraldus puts the Danish siege in May and the Irish sie in June, while the poet makes the Danish siege so late as September, three mont ;9.fter Roderick's.

'Joannes "Insanus" or "Vehemens" or " Le Wode" in Giraldus (p. 26^ The Song of Dermot calls him Jean le Deve (from desver, to go mad).

ii7i] BATILE OF DUBLIN 403

shore and marched toward the city in a solid column, all clad n mail-shirts and bearing their Danish axes on their shoulders. This was a host very different from the hordes of naked Irish .vith whom the invaders had hitherto had to cope, and far more 'ormidable.

Battle of Dublin, May 1171.

Miles Cogan was in command of Dublin in the absence of lis master. Earl Richard. He had with him about three lundred mounted men,^ besides archers and sergeants on foot, probably fifteen hundred men in all, if the infantry bore to the ;avalry the proportion that was usual in the bands with which ;he Anglo-Normans overran Ireland. Miles came out at first nto the open, with his archers and spearmen in front and his •cnights in second line. But he was unable to break into the V^iking ranks, and was forced back against the eastern gate of Dublin (St. Mary's Gate or Dame's Gate). Foreseeing that this ■night occur, he had previously detached his brother, Richard 3ogan, with thirty knights, to issue from the town by its western jate (Newgate), fetch a compass around the walls, and fall on :he rear of the enemy. The main body of the English was rarely holding its own about the east gate when a shout from ;he back of the Viking host told them that the diversion had 3egun. Richard and his knights had made a desperate charge nto the rear ranks of the Norsemen. " When John the Wode jcented the noise of those behind and the shouting, he departed rom the city, he wished to succour his friends who were left )ehind ; John and his meinie, ten thousand strong or nine (I mow not which), departed from the city to succour their com- panions in the rear."^

The diversion, trifling as it was, had checked the Norse attack, md in the confused movement towards the rear the solid column lad been broken up, and gaps showed in it. Miles and the main )ody of the English, horse and foot, threw themselves upon the nass. The knights succeeded in penetrating into the heart of he column, and wrought so much damage among the Vikings hat they began to retire in disorder towards their ships. John he Wode refused to fly, and fought with astonishing strength md courage ; he struck one knight such a fearful blow with his wo-handed axe that he hewed off his thigh in spite of hauberk

^ Songof Dermot, line 2384. " Song of Dermot^ lines 2375-80.

;4tSH THE ART OF WAR IN THE MIDDLE AGES [1171

and mail breeches, and slew some nine or ten English before he was himself cut down. Haskulf Thorgilson was taken prisoner • at the same time, and the Vikings ere long fled in complete rout. Some Irish levies of uncertain loyalty under one Domnah Macgille Moholmog- had been watching the fight from afar ready to turn against whichever side had the worst of the encounter. When they saw the Norsemen break up, they rushec down and aided in the slaughter of the fugitives. Two thousanc were slain and five hundred drowned on the beach before th( survivors succeeded in thrusting their galleys out to sea anc getting into the offing.^

Surprise of Castle Knocks July 1 171.

Only a month after the Vikings had been beaten, anothe army appeared under the walls of Dublin. This time it wa Roderic O'Connor, the high-kjng of all Ireland, with sixt,^ thousand men levied from all the clans of the island. The^ encamped around Dublin in four separate bodies — the high-kinj and his men of Connaught at Castle Knock ; Macdunlevy anc the clans of Ulster at Clontarf — the site of Brian Boroihme' old victory ; O'Brien of Thomond at Kilmainham ; and Murtoug' M'Murrough with the men of Leinster at Dalkey. Earl Richar had by this time returned to his capital and taken over th command from Miles Cogan, but he was in despair at the ovei whelming strength of the array which O'Connor had brougl: out against him, and did not dare to stir from the walls. Aftc a siege of six weeks, famine began to threaten the garrisoi "The measure of wheat was sold for a silver mark, and th measure of barley for half a mark."* Nor was there any hop

* He was beheaded after the fight. He had been reserved for ransor but so angered his captors by his haughty answers that they slew him (Girald p. 265).

2 The Song of Derinot tells us that Miles Cogan, knowing Domnahl's ficklene^ had bade him stand afar off and strike in against the losers. " If these men be d: comfited, then you shall aid us with your force to overthrow them. But if we recreant, then you shall aid these men to cut us to pieces and slay us." To tl the Irishman readily consented (lines 2300-2310).

2 The 5<?;/^ ^ Z^^r;;/^/ says that two thousand Norsemen escaped, two thousai were slain, and five hundred drowned. This would give a total of four thousand fi hundred for their army — a far more probable figure than the nine thousand or t thousand given above, or the impossible twenty thousand which is also attributed the Vikings.

* Song ofDermot^ lines l82S-3a

i7i] STRONGBOW'S SORTIE FROM DUBLHTOli' .^

)f bringing in provisions by water, for Guthred, King of Man, vas lying in the bay with a Viking fleet — the relics, no doubt, of he armament of John the Wode.

Richard endeavoured, therefore, to make peace with King :^oderic, offering to hold Leinster as his vassal and do fealty to lim. But O'Connor replied that he might hold the three towns )f the Ostmen, Dublin, Waterford, and Wexford, but not a foot nore. These terms appeared so hard to Earl Richard that he esolved to hazard a sortie, in spite of the desperate odds against lim. On the very afternoon of the abortive negotiations he narshalled the forces which could be spared from garrisoning he ramparts, and marched out against the camp at Castle vnock (five miles from Dublin) in three small columns. Each vas composed of forty knights, sixty mounted archers,^ and a lundred sergeants on foot.^ Miles led the first, Raymond Le jros the second, and the earl himself the third. They hurried it full speed from the west gate and reached the camp of the nen of Connaught before the alarm was given. The Irish were :aught entirely unprepared ; they were lounging about their •abins and huts, and the king himself was in his bath. They lad surrounded their encampment with a stockade, but no one vas in arms to guard it. The invaders broke in easily at three )oints, and rode through the lanes between the huts, hacking md hewing at every band that strove to concentrate against hem. In a few minutes the fight was over, for the Irish broke ip and ran off with disgraceful alacrity, the king, all naked rom his bath, leading the flight. Fifteen hundred were slain, vhile the English only lost one single sergeant. On hearing )f Roderic's defeat, the Irish in the other three camps dispersed .nd went homeward, and the siege was raised (July 1171).

Thus ended a fight which bears a strong similarity to .nother sortie made by an English garrison from Dublin, five lundred years later. Colonel Michael Jones in 1649 was be- eaguered like Earl Richard by a vastly superior host dispersed n several distant camps. Like the earl, he hazarded a sortie .gainst one of the hostile corps, and was successful in surprising .nd dispersing it. And when Ormond's men had been routed

^ That the archers were mounted seems to follow from the correction of * * satellites questres" for "arcarii" in the later texts of Giraldus, i. xxiv.

' Giraldus makes the first two columns led by only twenty and thirty knights espectively, and says that Raymond rode before instead of after Miles Cogan,

4o6 THE ART OF WAR IN THE MIDDLE AGES [1180

at Bagotsrath, the other Irish divisions dispersed and retired without fighting.^ The rebels of 1649 were as divided in their counsels and as chary of giving each other prompt aid as the levies of 117 1.

The three battles which we have thus set forth give us the thre( main tactical devices by which the Normans won their victories— the feigned retreat, the flank attack by horsemen, and the sudder surprise. After three years of fighting, the Irish were so cowec that they habitually retired to wood or bog when the invader advanced, and never fought save in night surprises or behind im pregnable stockades and ditches. These defensive tactics hande( over the open country to the conquerors, who forthwith secure* it by erecting castles everywhere, structures against which th Irish could seldom prevail — indeed, a castle, when once completec never fell save by treachery. On the other hand, the Angle Normans were almost equally incapable of mastering the wood and bogs in which their enemies took refuge. Hence cam that unhappy division of the island, destined to last for foi centuries and more, in which the natives held out in the fastnesses, while the invaders dominated the open land — eac levying unending war on the other, yet neither able to get the ac vantage. The land could make no progress, and in the sixteent century the natives were as barbarous as in the eleventh, whi the invaders had almost sunk to their level, instead of advancir in civilisation parallel to the English and the other nations < Western Europe. The wars of Elizabeth's day in Irelar exhibit the " mere Irish " absolutely unchanged from the ancestors of the twelfth century : their primitive tactics, the arms, their plashed woods and wattled stockades are absolute the same as those of the days of Strongbow. Except that son of their chiefs had learned to ride ^ to battle, we see no change

^ Ormond was caught in bed — just as Roderic O'Connor was caught in his Ix by the sortie party.

2 And that as early as the fourteenth century, as is shown by the description the Irish by the captive squire in Froissart, p^. p. 429.

• hrtfv ,?<^

CHAPTER IV

ENGLISH BATTLES OF THE THIRTEENTH CENTURY

Second Battle of L incoln (121 7) — Taillebourg (1242) — Leives (1264) — Evesham (1265)

AS we have already had occasion to remark, the wars of Richard I. and John with Philip Augustus were singularly- unfruitful in battles. Bouvines is the one first-class engagement in the whole generation ; and though there were English troops — mainly mercenaries — fighting at that most decisive field, it cannot be called an English battle. Salisbury and Hugh de Boves were only present as the emperor's auxiliaries, and had little to do with the conduct of the campaign or the marshal- ling of the host for combat. We have therefore dealt with Bouvines among continental and not among English battles.

It is not till the second battle of Lincoln (May 19, 12 17) that we come upon another field well worthy of notice, were it only for the strange fact that it was a cavalry fight fought in the narrow streets of a town — perhaps the most abnormal and curious form of engagement which it is possible to conceive. The Whitsuntide of 12 17 found the barons who had espoused the cause of Louis of France engaged in the siege of the castle of Lincoln. They were in possession of the town, but the castle was denied to them by Nicola de Camville, the castellan's widow, who maintained the stronghold by the help of a small garrison under a knight named Geoffrey de Serland.

Lincoln lies on a hill sloping down southward towards the river Witham. On the high ground lie the castle, at the north- west angle of the town, and the minster, more to the east. The streets run down to the water, which is crossed by a bridge (then known as Wigford Bridge) leading to the suburb of St. Peter's-

407

4o8 THE ART OF WAR IN THE MIDDLE AGES [121;

at-Gowts, beyond the Witham. The besiegers lay within the walls, and pressed the siege by battering the south and eas sides of the castle with perrieres. They had shaken part of th( curtain, and hoped to see the battlements crumble within a fev days.

The Royalist army mustered at Newark under Willian Marshall, the Earl of Pembroke: he had with him the Earl of Chester, Salisbury, and Derby, and the greater part of thi barons who had remained loyal, as also Fawkes de Breaut and the remnant of King John's mercenaries, horse and foot Altogether they mustered four hundred and six knights, witl three hundred and seventeen crossbowmen and a considerabl number of foot-sergeants.^ They marched from Newark north westward when they heard of the straits to which the castl was reduced, and slept on the night of the i8th at Torksey an( the neighbouring village of Stow, some nine miles fron Lincoln. From thence they ascended the high ground alonj which the Roman road (Ermine Street) runs, and move< cautiously toward the north front of the city. This route gav them a chance of communicating with the castle, unless th enemy should choose to fight at a considerable distance from th walls. The host was marshalled in four - " battles," — the first le( by the Earl of Chester, the second by the Marshal, the thin by the Earl of Salisbury, the fourth by Peter des Roches, Bisho] of Winchester, the most unpopular but the most able of the lat king's foreign favourites. The crossbowmen under Fawkes d Breaut^ moved a mile in front of the knights. The baggag with a guard of infantry followed, the same distance in the rea of the four corps of cavalry.^

Second Battle of Lincoln^ June 19, 1 2 1 7.

The besiegers of Lincoln received timely warning of the ap

proach of the relieving army, and sent out Saher de Quincey, Ear

of Winchester, and Robert Fitzwalter to reconnoitre the advancin:

columns. They soon returned with the report that the Royalist

^ So the Song of William *the Marshal, 16264-8. Matthew Paris (p. i 8) says foi hundred knights and two hundred and fifty crossbowmen, as also " multi servientt qui vices militum possent pro necessitate implere."

2 Matthew Paris (p. 19) says seven "battles," but the Song of William th Marshal is so clear and full that it would be dangerous to refuse to follow it and'^t choose the later authority, r-r'n > <-.» iivi/j '« ,ijji>f4 ^ii.

3 Matthew Paris, p. I^g ^rfj qJ TjnibBOl (ejjbilH

TO*

I? J 7] THE ROYALISTS APPROACH LINCOLN 409

•.eemed somewhat weaker than themselves, and that it would be idvisable to attack them in the open, far from the city, in order :hat they might not be able to communicate with the garrison )f the castle. The estimate was not far wrong, as the besieging irmy counted six hundred and eleven knights and a thousand bot-sergeants,^ a force decidedly superior to the Marshal's host. 3ut the Count of Perche, who commanded the French contingent n the rebel army,^ insisted on going forth in person to take a econd view of the enemy, before committing himself to a battle. Vlistaking the distant baggage-guard and its column of sumpter- )easts and waggons for an integral part of the Royalist army, he :ame back with a firm belief that he was largely outnumbered, md insisted on keeping his men within the walls of the city, and aking the defensive.^ This line of tactics seemed to promise ibsolute security, since it appeared impossible that the very nodest host of the Earl Marshal would be able to do serious larm to the rebels, when the latter were covered by the strong brtifications of Lincoln. The storming of a city or castle by nain force and without a long preparatory leaguer was an almost mknown thing in thirteenth - century warfare. Accordingly he barons continued their operations against the castle, and set heir machines to play upon its walls with redoubled energy. The only precaution which they took against the relieving army vas to tell off detachments to guard the four gates by which he Marshal might attempt to enter the city, — the north gate vhich lay immediately opposite him, the east gate and Potter's jate on the right flank, and the Ncwland gate on the extreme eft between the castle and the river Witham. It cannot have :scaped the notice of the commanders of the baronial army hat their tactics allowed free communication between the castle .nd the Royalists, and that it was possible for the Marshal to :nter the castle and sally forth into the town by the great gate n its eastern curtain. But this exit was well guarded by the letachment told off to operate against the castle, and such a

* William the Marshal, 16336-9.

^ The chroniclers only preserve the names of three of the French chiefs in the ost, though the French contingent seems to have been strong. These are the bant of Perche, the Marshal Walter of Nismes (Matt. Paris, p. 20), and the Chatelain f Arras {Song of William the Marshal, 16607).

^ Matthew Paris, p. 19. He says that the barons had left many standards with le baggage-guard, and that their appearance misled the count into taking it for a eserve corps in the rear of the Royalist line of battle.

4r6 THE ART OF WAR IN THE MIDDLE AGES [i2t:

sally on a narrow front appeared to present no very grea danger. Any transference of troops from the relieving arm} into the castle must take place under the very eyes of th< defenders, and could be easily provided against by a corre sponding shifting of their own forces.

When William the Marshal and his host approached Lincolr they were somewhat surprised to find that the enemy woul not come out to meet them in the open. Drawing up at cautious distance from the city, they proceeded to communicat with the castle. John Marshall, the earl's nephew, swept roun^ the north-west corner of the place with a small party, an entered the castle by its postern gate. He learned that th garrison were reduced to great straits, and bore back th message to his uncle. On leaving the postern he was pursue by a party of rebel knights who issued from the Newland gat to chase him, but outrode them and reached the main army i safety.^

The Marshal then resolved to send into the castle Bisho Peter, who was renowned for his good military eye, that h might decide whether the proper course of action would be t throw troops into the castle and sally forth from it, or to attac the gates and the city. The bishop made a rapid survey ( the place, and fixed his main attention on the point where t\ castle joined the north-west front of the town wall. Here thei lay, quite unguarded, and close under the castle, so as to t swept by its fire, an old blocked-up gate, on which tl barons had set no guard.^ Pie bade a party of the garrisc steal out and tear down the stones which closed the gate, i as to make an opening in this unguarded front. Meanwhile, 1

^ Song of William the Marshal, 16438-40. ^ *' Une vielle porte choisi

Qui ert de grand antiqnite

Et qui les murs de la cite

Joigniet avec eels del chastel,

Mes el fut anciennement

Close de piere e de ciment.

Quand. li evesques ont veiie,

La fist abbatre et trebuchier E que Tost veist et seiist Que seiire entree i eiist " (16509-17). This gate must have been that generally known as Westgate ; it must have be rendered comparatively useless when the castle-building destroyed the north w houses of the town, and was temporarily blocked up.

21

7] DE BRfiAUTE'S SORTIE 411

apidly returned to the Marshal, and advised him to throw part )f his men into the castle and make a sally from it, but to direct lis real attack on the blocked postern, — which would soon be opened again, — and on the north gate of the city.

The Marshal therefore sent into the castle Fawkes do Breaute and all his crossbowmen, who ran to the walls and opened a fierce fire on the party of the enemy which was observing the castle gate. Many of the horses of the rebels >vere slain, and the whole body thrown into confusion. Fawkes :hen sallied out with his troops and made a vigorous attack on :he besiegers, but they were too many for him, and he was jeaten back into the castle with loss.^ He himself was for a moment a prisoner in the enemy's hands, but was rescued by a party which turned back to save him.

While this assault was being delivered from the castle, the ?vlarshal and the main body of his host had drawn near to the northern wall of the city, probably somewhat masked from the rebels' view by the houses of the suburb of Newport.^ Apparently the attention of the defenders had been so distracted by the sally of Fawkes de Breaute, that they had not noticed that the postern in the north-west wall had been broken open. At any rate, when the Royalists made a simultaneous dash at this entry and at the north gate, they succeeded in penetrating within the city at the breach, though not at first at the more obvious and better-guarded point.^ A party headed by John Marshall, the earl's nephew, broke right into the streets, and assailed the detachment of the rebels who were busied with repulsing the sally from the castle. They took the enemy's engines in flank and killed their chief engineer, just as he was placing a stone in his perriere to cast at Fawkes de Breaute's men.^ Having thus

^ Matthew Paris, p. 21.

^ That they were among houses seems to follow from line 1 6600 of the Song of William the Marshal^ where the earl before charging says — " Attendez niei a cest ostal Tant que j'ai mon helme pris." ^ The assailants (line 16657)

*' Entra sis filz en la cite Par la breque o plante des suens." But from Matthew Paris we gather that they succeeded in forcing the north gate later on, as he says, "Januis tandem civitatis licet cum difficultate confractis, villam ingrediens," etc. (p. 21). Probably this was done after the attention of the rebels was distracted by the successful entry at the blocked gate. * Line 16633.

4Ii^ THE ART OF WAR IN THE MIDDLE AGES [121.7

won an entry into the place, the earl pushed his men through the breach into the streets as fast as he was able. They coulc not advance with ease, for the barons had rallied and massec their forces against the assailants, who were obliged to advance on a narrow front down the tortuous lanes of the town, anc could not deploy. A fierce jousting took place in all the north western streets of Lincoln, and it was only by very vigorous fighting that the Royalists were able to win their way forward Their foot-soldiery slipped in among them, shooting or ham stringing the horses of the French and the rebels.

At last the whole of that part of the city which lay nea the castle was occupied. The enemy fell back, part along th< high ground towards the cathedral and the north-east quarte of the place, part down the broad street leading to the bridge a Wigford and the south gate. In the open space before tb minster the Count of Perche rallied the best knights of th baronial army, and made head for some time against th" Marshal and the main column of the Royalists. At last his mei gave way, and he himself was surrounded ; he was offeree quarter, but " would not yield to any traitor Englishmen," ^ am was slain by a thrust which pierced the eyehole of his helnr After his fall the rebels lost heart and rapidly gave ground some flying by the east gate, others southward towards th- river and the bridge. At both exits there was soon a cro\v( massed in hopeless confusion, the passages being too narrow tt allow so many fugitives to pass out at once. The south gat' had a swing door, which closed automatically after each passer by pushed it open ;2 the east gate is said to have been jamme( on a frantic cow which got mixed with the horsemen.^ HenC' the pursuers were able to make prisoners of an enormou proportion of the rebel knights and barons. About four hundrec in all out of the six hundred and eleven who had engaged in th battle were captured. They included three earls, Saher de Quince; of Winchester, Henry de Bohun of Hereford, and Gilbert d' Gand of Lincoln. Among the other captives were several of th twenty-five signatories of the Great Charter. The slaughter, 01

^ "Juramento horribili affirmavit quod se Anglico alicui nequaquam reddert qui propri regis proditores fuerunt" (Matt, Paris, pp. 21, 22). ,*:«).<■« Matt. Paris, p. 22.

'jdt « This was the east gate ; the poem of William the Marshal describes it as "th one that leads" " dreit a I'Hospital," i.e. St. Giles' Hospital, founded by Remigim outside the east gale (line 16943).

I

1217] THE MARSHAL VICTORIOUS 413

the other hand, had been small, though the wounds were many. The victors lost but one knight, a certain Reginald le Croc ; 3f the vanquished, only the Count of Perche and one other knight are recorded as slain, though many of the foot-soldiery DU both sides perished.

It must be confessed that the details of the "Fair of

Lincoln," as the battle was called in jest, do not give us a

irery high idea of the tactical accomplishments of either side.

; The arrangements made by the rebels were ill conceived and

:arelessly carried out. Their neglect to watch the blocked

7ate is most extraordinary, and, even when it was forced, they

\ night have had a good chance of victory if they had barricaded

I ;he streets and fought on foot, instead of endeavouring to

j :xpel the Royalists by cavalry charges. vd

\ To the victors the only praise that we can give is that they

\ ^new how to utilise a false attack in order to distract attention

Vom the real one. Bishop Peter must apparently take more

:redit for the plan adopted than the Marshal ; the poem written

n praise of the latter ascribes the idea to the Churchman, and

)nly the execution of it to the earl — a piece of evidence

:onclusive as to the attribution of the design, for William's

[encomiast would certainly have claimed the glory for his lero had he been able to do so. The details of the fisrhtingf \ ifter the breach was once forced show nothing but hard blows ; ^ .ve have no evidence that the crossbowmen were used in the street fighting, as they well might have been, or that the enemy .vere evicted by flanking movements by side streets. AH ipparently was done by vigorous jousting down the main :horoughfares and in the open space by the minster.

Nearly fifty years elapsed before Englishmen fought another Dattle on English soil, and we shall see, when we pass on to nvestigate Lewes and Evesham, that the art of war had moved :>n considerably in the interval. But there is no material for us ;o use in filling up the gap save the insignificant battle of laillebourg, where the imbecile Henry III. allowed himself to DC defeated by Louis IX., a general whose strategy we have earned not to admire in studying the campaign of Mansourah.^ On Taillebourg we need not waste much attention. Stated shortly, the gist of the battle was as follows : —

Henry, with sixteen hundred knights, seven hundred picked

'- See p. 339.

414 THE ART OF WAR IN THE MIDDLE AGES [124

crossbovvmen, and the general levy of the towns of Guicnne, la; on one bank of the Charente near Taillebourg. The army wa almost wholly composed of his continental vassals ; only eight; English knights were present. Louis, with a much larger force appeared on the other side : the river was broad and swift, an' there appeared to be no means of crossing save the bridge, wher Henry set a strong guard. Relying on the safety of his positioi he kept no proper watch on the enemy. St. Louis determine to risk an attempt to force the passage, and prepared for tha purpose a number of large boats. He then vigorously attacke the bridge, and at the same time threw across a body c crossbowmen, dismounted knights, and sergeants by means of hi vessels. The guards of the bridge, fearing to be attacked behin by the newcomers, gave ground, and so allowed the main body ( the French to evict them from the passage they were sent to guan When King Henry saw the bridge lost, he did not make an attempt to fall on the small part of the French army which ha crossed, but drew off and sent his brother Richard to ask for truce. It was granted, and under cover of it he withdrew at nigh fall with shameful haste, abandoning his camp and baggage.

A capable commander would have had his army in orde would not have been caught off his guard, and would have falle on the French van when it had passed the bridge, and ove whelmed it before the main body could come to its aid. Sue were the tactics employed in a similar case by Wallace at tl battle of Stirling Bridge.^ But Henry was the most helple. and imbecile of leaders, and threw away his chances in the mo faint-hearted manner. At the moment that he sent to ask for truce, the number of French who were over the river did n^ amount to a tithe of his own army, yet he parleyed instead charging.2 If Louis had not listened to his demand, he wou probably have given the signal for flight at once, and wou have got off in even worse plight than was actually the case.

Lewes and Evesham show a distinct advance in the art war, which we may fairly set down to the influence of Simc de Montfort, who, though not a general of the first class, had

1 See p. 563.

2 Joinville says that there were " not one hundred part as many" French tree over the bridge as Henry mustered. Matthew Paris conceals the facts of the d graceful skirmish in a way not creditable to his veracity, when we consider what capable writer he was and how fully he tells the rest of the campaign.

264] KING HENRY TAKES NORTHAMPTON 415

east a quick eye and a wide experience. He had been brought ip on the traditions of Muret and the rest of his father's victories, ie had himself seen several campaigns both on the Continent md in the East. Though not an innovator, he was a capable exponent of the best methods of his own generation. But it is mly as a tactician that he shines : strategy is nowhere apparent n his campaigning, and in 1265 he was hopelessly outgeneralled )y the young Prince Edward. We shall see that he relied, like ill his predecessors, on the force of cavalry ; the infantry count for lothing in his battles. He triumphed, when opposed by the ncapable Henry IIL, because he possessed decision, rapidity of novement, and a cool head. But it was only in the fight of ^ewes that his abilities shone out : in the preceding campaign le does not show to much more advantage than his incompetent )pponent.

Far otherwise is it with the victor in the campaign of Evesham, lere we shall see Edward showing a real mastery of strategy as )pposed to mere tactics. When we study his operations in 1265, ve shall be quite prepared to find him, thirty years later, presid- ng at the inauguration of a new epoch in war at the bloody ield of Falkirk. But in his youth he was still, as regards actics, employing the old methods which he had learned from viontfort as his teacher.

Battle of Lewes, May 14, 1264.

Down to the day of battle the operations which led up to the ight of Lewes show all the characteristic incoherence and in- onsequence of a mediaeval campaign, and do no credit to either )f the parties concerned. King Henry had raised a considerable a-my in the Midlands, while the baronial party had made itself trong in London, but had also seized and garrisoned the im- )ortant towns of Northampton, Leicester, and Nottingham. The king resolved to subdue the three midland centres of revolt )efore undertaking any further operations. Northampton fell vith unexpected ease, owing to the treachery of the monks of 3t Andrew's Priory, who admitted the royal troops through a massage into their garden. This was a severe blow to the )arons, for some of their chief leaders were made prisoners, ncluding Simon the Younger, the second son of the great Earl Simon, his kinsman Peter de Montfort, and fifteen barons and :)annerets more (April 5, 1264).

4i6 THE ART OF WAR IN THE MIDDLE AGES [126.

A few days later (April 11) Leicester was sacked, anc Nottingham, the spirit of whose defenders was shaken by th( disaster at Northampton, surrendered at the king's summon (April 13). Having thus cleared the eastern Midlands 0 enemies, Henry should at once have marched on London witl his victorious army. The fall of the capital would have settlec the fate of the war, and, in spite of all the efforts of D Montfort, the spirits of his followers were sinking low. Simoi himself had started to relieve Northampton, and had reached S' Albans when the news of disaster reached him. He immediatel fell back and prepared to defend the city. Finding, howeve: that the king showed no signs of striking at London, and ha^ marched northward, the earl resolved to make a rapid stroke a Rochester, the one Royalist stronghold in the neighbourhood c the capital. He stormed the bridge, penetrated into the towi and drove the garrison within the walls of the castle (April 18 He captured its outworks, but the massive strength of Gundulf Norman keep was too much for such siege appliances as the eai could employ. The garrison, under John de Warrenne, the Ea of Surrey, held their own without difficulty.

Meanwhile, the king had received news of the siege, an left the Midlands. He should undoubtedly have risked all oth( objects, and thrown himself upon London. The mere news c his having turned southward was enough to draw Simon an his host back from Rochester to defend the capital (April 26 The earl merely^ left a few hundred men stockaded in front c the gate of the keep to hold the garrison in check — a thing easil done, because the narrowness of the exits of a Norman cast' rendered sallies very difficult.

But, instead of striking at London, King Henry merely ser forward his son, Prince Edward, with a small cavalry force, to se if the city was in a state of defence,^ and then committed th extraordinary error of coasting round it by a vast circular mard Returning down the Watling Street, he struck off it by St. Alban passed the Thames at Kingston, hastily rushed across Surre by way of Croydon, and arrived at Rochester on April 2 The blockading force was easily driven off, and the few prisone: made were cruelly mutilated.

This huge flank march had no merit but its swiftnes Prince Edward and the mounted part of the royal arm

^ See Annals of Dunstable.

1264] HENRY III. MARCHES ON LEWES 417

marched from Nottingham to Rochester — a hundred and fifty miles — in five days,^ and the infantry were not very far behind. The pace, however, had told heavily on the Royalists : many of the horses were ruined when the prince arrived at Rochester, and the foot-soldiery had left thousands of stragglers on the way.

As it turned out, the king's hurried movement had no adequate object. Having relieved Rochester, he might again have turned towards London, though with less advantage, since he was now separated from it by the broad reaches of the Lower Thames. But this did not enter into his plan of operations : he marched instead against Tunbridge, a great castle of the Earl of Gloucester, and when it fell with unexpected ease (May i) moved still farther from London, with the object of over- awing the coast-towns.- But the barons of the Cinque Ports had sent their fleet and their armed force to sea, and Henry obtained nothing but a few hostages from Winchelsea and Romney. His next move was still more inexplicable — he pushed westward between the Weald and the sea, and marched by Battle and Hurstmonceaux to Lewes. No object seems to have been served by this turn, save that of placing himself in the midst of the estates of his brother-in-law and firm supporter, De VVarrenne. It had the disadvantage of putting the almost trackless forest of the Weald between himself and London, and of causing his army much discomfort as they threaded their \say through the wood-tracks — for the men of Kent and Sussex :ut off his stragglers and plundered his baggage, and a detach- ment of Welsh archers, whom Montfort had sent forward from London, are said to have molested the rear of the host' The king's object is impossible to fathom, more especially as we are told that he feared that his enemies would strike at Tunbridge when he had marched off, and therefore garrisoned that castle with a very large force ; no less than twenty bannerets and many of his foreign men-at-arms are said to have been left there.

De Montfort and the barons, however, had no intention of wasting their time in sieges when they could strike at the main objective, the king's army. Having collected every available man, and armed a great body of the citizens of London, they marched across Surrey, plunged into the paths of the Weald, ind did not halt till they had reached Fletching, a village and

^ Wykes. 1264, § 4. 2 Knighton. ^ Wykes. 1264, § 5.

27

4i8 THE ART OF WAR IN THE MIDDLE AGES [126.

clearing nine miles north of Lewes (May 6th-ioth). Fron thence they addressed proposals for peace to the king, datec with prudent vagueness "in bosco ju5cta Lewes." They mus have known well enough that Henry would refuse them, afte his late successes at Northampton and Tunbridge, and on re ceiving his angry reply prepared for instant action. Althoug] he had the smaller force, Simon was resolved to take th initiative, trusting to his own skill, the greater enthusiasm c his supporters, and the king's well-tried incapacity in war.

The town and castle of Lewes lie at a point where the lin of the South Downs is cut through by the river Ouse. To th east of the place the steep sides of Mount Caburn rise directl above the water, hardly leaving room for the suburb of Clifi along the river-bank. To the west of the Ouse there lies mile and a half of gently-undulating ground before the ascer of the Downs begins. In this comparatively level spot lies th town of Lewes, flanked to the north by De Warrenne's cast) on its lofty mound, to the south by the great Cluniac Priory ( St. Pancras, including within its precinct-wall some twenty acre of ground. The Ouse in the thirteenth century was still tidal river as far north as Lewes, and at high water the sout wall of the priory and the southern houses of the town looke out on a stretch of mingled pools and mud-banks which forme an impassable obstacle.

North and east, therefore, Lewes is protected by the rive and on the south by this tidal marsh, but to the west it ha no protection but the castle and the town wall. If an enem approached from that side, the king's army would have eith< to stand a siege, or to retire behind the Ouse, or to come 01 and fight at the foot of the hills.

On this side the main range of the Downs descends rath( gently towards the river, not with a uniform slope, but in thn spurs separated by slight valleys. The road from Fletching 1 Lewes passes over the easternmost of these spurs by the hamL of Offham, and by this path would have been the shorte approach from the barons' camp. But Simon had wisely r solved not to come down a road cramped between the hil and the river. Marching at early dawn on May 14, 1 turned off the road north of the Downs, and ascended them a hollow slope called the Combe, four miles from Lewes.^ Th

^ Blaaw and Prothero seem undoubtedly right on this p(»nt ©f tiepography.

1264] LEWES: SIMON'S ARRAY 419

he was able to do quite unmolested, as King Henry had made

no proper arrangements for keeping an eye on his adversaries.

He had not sent out any reconnaissance towards Fletching, and

the sole precaution that he had taken was to place on the

■ pfevious day a small party on a high point of the Dowms

' to keep watch. No measures had been taken to relieve the

' .vatchers on the 13th, and, being tired and hungry, they

, slipped back into Lewes to rest themselves, leaving a single

1 nan on guard. This individual lay down under a gofse-bush,

' md was caught sound asleep by the first of De Montfort's men

; A^ho climbed the slope. Thus the earl was able to put his whole

I *orce in array On the ridge of the Downs before the Royalists

lad the least idea that he was within two miles of them. Simon

md spent the previous day and night in distributing his men into

[ :orps, and assigning the position of each on the march and m

j )attle-line — a task which, as the chroniclers tell us, no other

I nan in his raw army was competent to discharge.^ Now he

• lad full leisure to see that his exact intentions were carried

)ut, and to settle the smallest details of the marshalling.

i Owing to the disasters at Northampton and Nottingham,

I he barons' army was much smaller than might have been

[ aised by the full levy of the party, for many of their most

\ mportant leaders were prisoners in the king's hands.^ The

Estimate of forty thousand men given by several chroniclers

t IS Simon's force is one of the hopeless and habitual exaggera-

i ions of the mediaeval scribe. But, small though the army was,

, t was divided not into the usual three battles, but into four.

I There is no doubt that the fourth, which was led by the earl

> u'mself, was a reserve corps placed behind the others, but none

^ »f the chroniclers expressly state this fact. It can be inferred,

i without any danger of doubt, from the circumstance that the

hree first-named battles of Simon's army each engaged with

•ne of the three bodies which formed the king's left, right, and

eritre, and that the earl's division came later into the fight

han the other three.

As arrayed on the Downs before descending to battle, the

* Rishanger, p. 31.

^ Including Simon de Montfort the Younger, Peter de Montfort and his sons eter and William, Adam of Newmarch, one of the greatest of the barons of the Velsh border, Baldwin Wake, William de Furnival, all captured at Northampton, VilHam Eardolf, captured at Nottingham, and the young Earl of Derby who had een taken in his own castle of Tutbnrv.

420 THE ART OF WAR IN THE MIDDLE AGES [1264

baronial army was drawn up as follows : — On the right or southernmost wing were Humphrey de Bohun, the eldest son of the Earl of Hereford, John de Burgh (the grandson of the great Justiciar, Hubert de Burgh), and De Montfort's two sons. Henry and Guy. In the centre was Gilbert de Clare, the young Earl of Gloucester, with John Fitz-John and William de Montchensy, two of the most vigorous members of the baronial party. The third or northern wing was composed oi the numerous infantry of the Londoners, and of a body o: knights commanded by Nicholas de Segrave, Henry dc Hastings, John Giffard, and Hervey of Borham. The earl'j reserve corps lay behind the centre ; the horsemen in it con sisted of his own personal retainers, the foot were probabl) Londoners, as they were commanded by Thomas of Pevelsdon an alderman of the city, who had always been one of Simon' most sturdy adherents.

Deployed in this order, and probably with the knights o each division in front and the infantry behind, Simon's force halted just as the bell-tower of Lewes Priory came in sight, t< engage for a moment in prayer, after a short address from thei leaders. Scattered over the slope of the Downs were sma! parties of the grooms of the Royalists, grazing their lord; horses, for forage had failed in Lewes. They caught sight c the baronial host as it came down the hill, and fled back to th town to rouse their masters. Simon's host followed close s their heels, leaving on the upper ridge of the hill such sma impedimenta as they had brought with them, the chief of whic was the earl's chariot,^ to which he had bound his great banne after the manner of the Milanese at Legnano or the Yorkshin men at our own Battle of the Standard. Inside the carriag were three (or four) citizens of London whom Simon ha arrested for opposing him, and was determined to keep in sa custody. The banner and baggage were left in charge of guard of infantry under William le Blound, one of the signatorl of the agreement for arbitration which had ended so unhappi at Amiens.^

^ Simon had broken his leg in the previous year, and was forced to use t carriage for many months.

2 Of the twenty-four laymen who signed for the barons' party in 1263, 1 following were at Lewes : — Earl Simon, Ralph Basset, William le Blound, Humph: de Bohun, John de Burgh, Hugh Despenser, John Fitz-John, Henry de Hastin Henry de Montfort, WiUiam de Montchensy, Nicholas de Segrave, Robert de K

J

PLATE XIII.

Earl Simons Army. , King Henrys Army.

B Horse ^BFoot ^^Horse f~^Foot

A.Covand Henry D.Earl Simon. F. Kine Henry " de Mont fort -. °

B. Gloucester. E.TheChanot O. Richard of ^ „ Cornwall

C Segrave and the Londoners n. Pnnce Edward

The EVESHAM CAMPAIGN

1265.

I

1264] LEWES: THE KING'S ARRAY 421

The king and his followers had barely mounted and armed and issued from the town of Lewes, when they saw the baronial army coming down upon them. But they had just time to form up in three " battles " before the conflict began. Knighton informs us that the king had originally organised his troops into four corps (like Earl Simon), but that the whole of the fourth division had been left behind to garrison Tunbridge, so that the Royalists had no reserve.^ Perhaps Henry might hcLve told off other troops to play that part had he been granted time to think. But he was completely taken by surprise, and considered himself lucky to be able to form any battle-order at all. His right division was led by his heir, Prince Edward, who was accompanied by his foreign half-uncles, William de Valence and Guy de Lusignan, as also by the Earl of Warrenne and Hugh Bigot the Justiciar. The centre was under the command of Richard of Cornwall, King of the Romans, brother to King Henry ; with him was his son Edmund, and three great Anglo- Scottish barons, Robert de Bruce, John Baliol, and John Comyn, who had come to join the Royalists with a large body of light-armed infantry from north of Tweed. In this division also were John Fitz-Alan and Henry de Percy. The left or southern wing was commanded by the King of England himself under his dragon-standard : ^ in his company was the Earl of Hereford, whose eldest son was serving in the very division of the baronial host which was about to bear down upon his father. All accounts agree that the Royalists outnumbered the forces of Simon, especially in their array of fully-armed knights, though we cannot believe the exaggerated statement that the king had fifteen hundred men - at - arms on barded horses {dextrarii coperti) and the barons only six hundred.

Geoffrey de Lucy, John de Vesey, Richard de Vipont — fourteen in all. Simon junior de Montfort, Peter de Montfort, Adam of Newmarch, Baldwin Wake, William Marshall, had been captured at Northampton ; William Bardolf at Nottingham. Richard de Grey was holding; Dover Castle. Nothing is known as to the whereabouts of Walter de Colville and Robert de Toeny.

1 H. Knighton, p. 247 of Rolls Series edition.

2 There are some difficulties in the array of the Royalists, as in that of the baronial host. On the whole I am compelled to conclude that Earl Richard led the centre, and the king the southern wing. I imagine that the position of the king on the left must have been due merely to the hurry and haste of the muster. Being encamped in the priory, he drew up in front of it. For by all mediaeval military etiquette he should have led the right or centre, and not taken the post of least honour. But there was no time to rearrange the host, and each body fell into line as best it could.

422 THE ART OF WAR IN THE MIDDLE AGES [1264

When the Royalists had got into order, the castle lay behind Prince Edward, the exit from the town of Lewes behind Richard of Cornwall, and the priory at the back of the king's own wing. Before they had advanced rnore than a few hundred yards from the town, the baronial army charged down upon them. There seems to have been little or no preliminary skirmishing, the battle commencing with a sharp shock all along the line, starting from the northern wings of each host, who met the first. This came from the fact that tlie Londoners on the baronial left had a shorter space to cover before contact took place : some of the chroniclers observe that they were s^ much in advance that the Royahsts supposed that they were trying to outflank the castle and the division of Prince Edward, There is at any rate no doubt that the first clash of arms started on this wing. It was unfavourable to the baronial party : the knights who followed Segrave, Hastings, and Giffard were broken by the furious charge of the prince. Giffard was takeil prisoner ; Hastings turned his rein too soon for his own good repute ; ^ their horsemen were flung back on the Londoners, and threw them into woeful disorder even before Edward's knights dashed into the wavering mass. A moment later the w^iole left wing of Simon's host broke up and dispersed, the knights flying northward between the river and the Downs, the infantry northwestward up the steep slope, where they thought that the Royalist horsemen would find it hard to follow. Prince Edward had an old grievance to settle against the Londoners, for tfee insults which they had heaped on his mother in the preceding year. He urged the pursuit furiously, and forgot entirely the battle that was raging behind him in the centre and left of his father's army. The fugitives suffered fearfully from his fierce chase : sixty horsemen are said to have perished in striving to ford the Ouse ; hundreds of the men of London w^ere cut down as they fled along the slopes and then towards Offham and the woods behind. The prince did not stay his hand till he was three miles from the battlefield, and quite out of sight of Lewes, which was hidden from him by the corner of the Downs. Then, at last rallying his men, he remounted the slope to return to his father ; but on his way he caught sight of Earl Simon's chariot and its great banner, standing isolated at the head of the slope,

1 " Paene primus H. de Hastings, audaciae formidinem anteponens, e proelic fugit" (Wykes. 1264, § 6),

1264] LEWES: SIMON VICTORIOUS 423.

under the protection of Le Blound and the baggage-guard. The Royalists jumped to the conclusion that Simon was still in his chariot, not knowing that his broken leg was long since healed, and that he was fighting hard on his horse in the valley below. They therefore wheeled aside and furiously attacked the baggage- guard. Le Blound and his men made a gallant resistance, but were at last overwhelmed and cut down. Then shouting, " Come out, Simon, thou devil," ^ the prince's knights broke open the chariot and hewed to pieces the unhappy hostages who were confined in it, before they could explain that they were the earl's foes and not his friends.^ Disappointed of their prey. Prince Edward and his men at last set forth to return to their main body. But meanwhile complete victory had crowned the arms of Earl Simon in the southern part of the field. The Earl of Gloucester in the baronial centre had after severe fighting broken the line of Richard of Cornwall's division, captured most of its leaders, — including Percy, Baliol, Comyn, and Bruce, — and forced Richard himself to take refuge with a few followers in a windmill, where he defended himself for a space while the tide of battle rolled past him towards the town. It is pjobable that Earl Simon threw his reserve into action against the northern flank of the king's own corps, when he saw that the line was giving way : at any rate, the Royalist left broke up soon after the centre had failed. The king's horse was killed under him, but he was dragged off by his household and carried into the priory, where all who could followed him. But the greater part of his centre and left wing had been thrust southward by the successful advance of the barons, and found themselves with the marshy ground, half covered by water at the full tide, behind them. Some tried to escape by swimming over, but the mud sucked them in, and next day scores were found at the ebb, drowned in their saddles, with their drowned horses still between their legs, lodged fast in the slime.^ Others slipped

^ Chron. de Mailros, 1264, § i.

^ Some of the Royalist chroniclers call the chariot a *' vas dolositatis," and say that Simon hung his banner on it and placed it on the height specially to distract the enemy from the main battle. This is most improbable : he would certainly not have ei:posed to certain death Le Blound, one of his most trusted followers, and the whole affair was (no doubt) a mere chance.

^ Chronicle of Lanercost. This authority has some graphic touches given on the authority of an eye-witness, but is mostly vague and erroneous ; e.g. it says that the barons formed only three battles and that one of them was led by Hugh Ic Despenser,

424 THE ART OF WAR IN THE MIDDLE AGES

41

through the streets of Lewes and got over the bridge ; a good many took refuge with the king in the priory ; a certain number were slain, but the majority laid down their arms and were granted quarter by the victorious barons. These prisoners were soon joined by King Richard, who, after being blockaded in his mill for some time, and much scoffed at by his besiegers, had to come out and surrender himself to a young knight named Sir John Beavs.

While the barons were battering at the castle gate, and shooting arrows tipped with burning tow against the priory to set it on fire. Prince Edward and the victorious Royalist right wing came into sight on the slopes of the Downs. They rode hastily on to the field at about two o'clock in the afternoon, and the prince resolved to recommence the fight. But when the baronial host came swarming out of the town against them, the large majority of Edward's followers lost heart: the two Lusignans, Earl Warrenne, and Bigot the Justiciar, with five hundred knights at their back, turned their reins and rode off. The prince himself, with a few faithful followers, charged and cut his way as far as the priory, which he entered and so was able to join his father. But it was clear by nightfall that they would be unable to make a long defence, and with great wisdom Henry and his son sent to ask for peace from the barons. Thus came about the celebrated " Mise of Lewes," by which the king laid down his arms, gave up his son as hostage, and agreed to abide by terms to be settled by arbitration.

The battle had not been so bloody as many mediaeval fights : the estimate of the losses runs from twenty-seven hundred to four thousand, the better authorities inclining to the smaller figure. The captives were far more numerous than the slain : among the latter are named only two men of importance on each side ; on that of the king, William de Wilton was slain, and Fulk Fitzwarren drowned in the marsh : the barons had to lament a Kentish banneret named Ralph Heringot, and William le Blound, the commander of the baggage-guard. ''X il.t will be observed from the above narration that Lewes was essentially a cavalry battle : the infantry seem to have had little or no influence on its fate ; we only hear of them as suffering, not as inflicting losses. It is especially curious that we have no mention whatever of the employment of archery on either side. One chronicler praises the slingers in the baronial

264] LEWES : A CAVALRY BATTLE 425

rmy, another mentions crossbowmen, but of archery there is 0 word, though the Assize of Arms of 1252 had named the bow 5 the yeoman's special weapon. In the whole campaign we 1 nly once hear of the use of that arm — when the king on is march to Lewes was molested in the woods by Simon's /elsh bowmen, and drove them off with some loss. It is Dvious that the supremacy of cavalry was still well-nigh un- lecked, and that the proper use of infantry armed with missile capons was not yet understood.

The main interest of the fight is tactical : Simon won because 3 chose his ground well, because he surprised his enemy and Tced him to fight in disorder before he could get his host com- etely arrayed, and still more, because he kept his victorious oops in hand, and employed his reserve at the proper moment id in the proper place. Henry lost, partly because he was sur- •ised,and forced to fight in an unfavourable position, but far more icause the victorious part of his army threw away its advantage, id was absent from the field during the critical hour that ttled its fortune. Rash adventure and hot-headed eagerness pursuit cost the Royalists the day. But neither discipline •)r self-restraint were likely to be prominent in any army over lich the imbecile Henry Plantagenet bore rule.

Battle of Evesham^ August 4, 1265.

We have already had occasion to remark that while at Lewes e tactics are all-important, in the campaign of Evesham we •ve to deal primarily with strategy : the actual battle was mparatively insignificant.

In May 1265 all England seemed at De Montfort's disposal: ere were only a few small storm-clouds on the edge of the rizon. Certain barons of the Welsh March, headed by )ger Mortimer, were in arms beyond the Severn ; a small rty of Royalists had been holding for many months the >lated castle of Pevensey. The Earl of Gloucester was own to be discontented, but it was not supposed that he mid lightly betray the cause for which he had fought so well

Lewes.

To hunt down the insurgents in the March, Earl Simon left ducester in the middle of May, accompanied by several of 5 firmest adherents — his eldest son Henry, Despenser the Sliciar, John Fitz-John, Ralph Basset, and Humphrey de

I

4:z6 THE ART OF WAR IN THE MIDDLE AGES [1265

Bohun. He took with him King Henry and Prince Edward who, though nominally free, were never allowed to stir far froir his side, except under safe custody. At Hereford on May 2<: the prince escaped from his guardians by a swift horse anc an easy stratagem. He fled to Mortimer at Wigmore Castle and soon met Gloucester at Ludlow. There De Clare die homage to him, and concluded a formal alliance with him They at once raised their banners, and summoned all faithfu subjects of the king to join them. Shropshire and Cheshir rose at once at their call.

Simon, still lying at Hereford, had now the choice w4iethe he would strike at once at the earl and the prince, whether 1) would continue his campaign against the Marchers, or whethe he would promptly fall back into England by Worcester c Gloucester, and take up a central position. He chose th second alternative, underrating, it would seem, the importanc of the earl's rebellion. But as a matter of precaution he ser a detachment of three hundred men-at-arms under Robert fi Ros to hold Gloucester, and so to provide him with a safe bridg over the Severn and good communication with London. H also bade the sheriffs of the western counties raise their levk against the insurgents, and made the king set his seal t documents outlawing both the prince and De Clare.

Montfort stayed at Hereford till June 10, thus giving tin for his enemies to draw together in dangerous strength. The seized Bridgenorth and Worcester, broke their bridges, destro}'* or removed all the boats on the Severn, and spoiled the neig] bouring fords by dredging them deeper. Then, on June 13-^1 they passed down the river-bank to Gloucester and laid siej to it. The town fell, but De Ros held out gallantly in tJ castle for fifteen days, in spite of the fact that he had b« caught almost destitute of provisions.

Simon had not given his enemies credit for any suchstratc^ as they had displayed. He had moved out from Hereford < June 10, to confer with Llewellyn Prince of Wales, and enlist his services against the enemy — a task which he kvi^ would not be hard, on account of the Welshman's an< quarrels with the Royalist barons of the Marches. They m( conference at Pyperton, where Llewellyn, in -return for restoration of many lands and castles which had been tak from his predecessors, promised his aid. He undertook to s^

1265] EVESHAM: PRELIMINARY MOVEMENTS 427

five thousand spearmen to join the earl, and to start himself at the same time on a raid into the Mortimer and De Clare estates. The treaty was concluded on June 19 ; on the 22nd the king solemnly signed it at Hereford, to which place Simon had led him back. They then marched southward to Monmouth, probably intending by this move to place themselves between the prince's army and the great De Clare estates in Gwent and Glamorgan ; at the same time, they were in a good position for moving to relieve Gloucester, the all-important avenue for communication with the Midlands and London. But the fates were against Earl Simon : he stormed the great castle of Monmouth, — one of De Clare's chief strongholds, — but when he prepared to move eastward, a large division of the Royalist army, detached to cover the siege of Gloucester against any attempt at a relief, showed itself on the other side of the Wye. It was headed by John Giffard, a baron who had fought for Simon at Lewes, but had now deserted his cause on account of a private quarrel. Giffard fortified himself in a good position com- manding Monmouth bridge, and defied the earl to come over and attack him. Simon saw that Giffard was unassailable, and that he must find some other way of continuing his movement eastward. The best course seemed to be an attempt to cross the Bristol Channel; accordingly, he sent a message to the citizens Df Bristol, who were his good friends, though their castle had 3een for some time held by a Royalist garrison, bidding them to jend ships over to Newport, at the mouth of the Usk, and thence erry him and his host over the Channel. Another message was »ent at the same time (June 28) to the earl's son Simon, who vas occupied far to the east, in the siege of the castle of Pevensey, ■Q warn him that the rebellion was spreading so rapidly that he nust at once raise the leaguer, collect his friends, and march igainst Prince Edward.

Meanwhile, De Montfort left Monmouth and marched on Jsk, a strong De Clare castle, which he successfully stormed uid took, as it had been left with an inadequate garrison. He lext seized Newport and ^Abergavenny, and (being now joined )y Llewellyn's promised succours) spread his troops abroad, and iercely harried the Earl of Gloucester's lands in the neighbour- lood. Probably he designed by this move to draw De Clare into South Wales, and so to secure an undisturbed march for his own einforcements from the east. His intention was to abscond by

I

428 THE ART OF WAR IN THE MIDDLE AGES [1265

sea, by means of the Bristol ships, when the prince and De Clare should come upon him.

Gloucester Castle had fallen on June 29, and the Royalists, having now all the bridges over the Severn in their hands, marched to join the corps of observation under Gift'ard which had already been watching Simon. Prince Edward and De Clare retook Usk only three days after it had yielded to the enemy, and then marched to seek Simon at Newport. Before leaving Gloucester, they had heard of the fleet of transports which was being fitted out at Bristol, and sent against it three galleys which they had found at Gloucester, filled with a chosen band of men- at-arms. These vessels came upon the Bristol ships just as they had reached Newport harbour, and were being laden with De Montfort's baggage. They dashed into the river-mouth, and took or sunk eleven of them — practically the whole flotilla. At the same time, the Royalist army fell upon Simon's troops near Newport, and routed them by dint of very superior numbers. Their advance was only stopped when the bridge and town were fired in their faces by the retreating enemy, who took refuge behind the Usk (about July 8).

Simon was thus deprived of his chance of crossing the ; Bristol Channel, and thrown back into Wales ; his prospect oi reaching England and rejoining his partisans seemed more remote than ever. The only course that remained open to him was to strike northward again, keeping the Usk between him anc the enemy, and regain Hereford by a toilsome march. In the wile and thinly-peopled country between Abergavenny, Crickhowell Brecon, and Hay, his army suft'*ered dreadful privations, the English troops complaining that they could not live on a Welsl diet of mutton and milk, and were lost without their daily ratior of bread. Simon reached Hereford somewhere about July 20, with a half-starved and dispirited army, and was obliged to pause for some days to allow his men to recover their strength. The onlj cheering feature in the situation was that news reached him fron the east that his son and his friends were marching at last to his aid

But meanwhile Prince Edward and Gloucester, after pursuing De Montfort in vain up the Usk, and capturing Brecon,^ ha(

^ The exact chronology of De Montfort's movements in July is (most unfortv nately) not to be made out. But the dates given cannot be far wrong.

^ Battle Chronicle. Prince Edwnrd captured Brecon, while Gloucester retoo Monmouth.

1265] EVESHAM: THE BARONS AT KENILWORTH 429

hastened back to Worcester, and prepared once more to hold the passages of the Severn. The last ten days of July were spent by Earl Simon in two unavailing attempts to force his way over the river. He was foiled, and got little profit by his single success — the capture of the Royalist garrison at Leominster. But the old chief w^as not yet disheartened, in spite of the unexpected skill and strategy which his enemies had displayed. He knew that his son and the army of succour were now closing in on the prince's rear, and encouraged his men by promising that they would catch the enemy in a trap between their two divisions. Having at last procured some large boats, he secretly brought them down to the water's edge, and determined to make a third attempt to cross, at a spot opposite Kempsey,^ which he thought might be the more carelessly guarded, because it was so very close to the prince's main camp at Worcester.

Meanwhile, Simon de Montfort the Younger had wasted much time by marching to his father's aid by a most extra- ordinary and circuitous route. He moved from Pevensey to London, from London to Winchester (July 14), from Winchester to Oxford, and from Oxford to Kenilworth, where he arrived on July 31. Speed should have been his main object, but he had preferred instead to gather as large an army as possible by calling in all his father's partisans. Hence he came on the field far too late, but with an imposing force, quite capable of facing the Royalists. With him were most of the leaders of the baronial party — the young Earl of Oxford, William of Montchensy, Richard de Grey, Baldwin Wake, Adam of Newmarch, Walter Colville, Hugh Neville, and some fifteen other bannerets. They reached Earl Simon's castle of Kenilworth on July 31, and encamped below its walls, for the castle enclosure was not nearly spacious enough to hold such a large force.

All the combatants were now gathered in a space of thirty miles, and the campaign came to a sudden end with a short sharp shock. Prince Edward and Gloucester took the offensive; it was all-important to them that the two Simons should not meet, but should be dealt with separately. The old earl was still behind the Severn : his exact whereabouts was not known, but it was obvious that he could not cross the river and join his son in less than two days : he had also the less formidable of the two forces with which the Royalists had to contend. The prince,

^ It is only four miles south of Worcester, the enemy's base of operations.

430 THE ART OF WAR IN THE MIDDLE AGES [1265

therefore, resolved to leave the earl Unwatched for a moment, while he dealt a rapid, vigorous stroke at Kenilworth. He learned from a traitor in the baronial camp that Simon the Younger was keeping a careless watch, trusting to the thirty miles which separated him from Wofcester. Accordingly he determined to copy the tactics of Earl Simon at Lewes, and to make his stroke in the early morning, so as to get a chance of surprising the enemy in his camp.

Starting on the evening of August i, the prince made a forced march throughout the night, and reached Kenilworth in the early dawn. As he neared the place he heard the sound of a moving multitude, and imagined that young Simon had got wind of his approach, and was ready to meet him. Btit, pushing on, he found nothing but a train of waggons, bearing food and forage to the enemy. They were seized in an instant, and not a single man got away to warn the careless barons. A few minutes later the Royalists rushed into the streets of the sleeping town, cutting down the half-roused enemy as they poured out of tents and houses, and sweeping right up to the walls of the castle without a check. Well-nigh the whole of the barons fell into their hands, without giving or receiving a stroke. The young De ]\Iontfort escaped into the castle half- naked, but Oxford, IMontchensy, and all the rest were captured in their beds. The baronial army was practically annihilated ; only those who had slept in the castle escaped. Edward tarried no longer than he could help in the place ; the moment that the prisoners and the booty w^ere secured, he hurried back to Worcester, to look after Earl Simon.

While the wearied Royalists were pouring back towards Worcester, a busy scene was in progress at Kempsey. The earl had launched his boats, and was throwing load after load of his men across the river, rejoicing greatly that no interrtiptior came from the direction of Worcester. By the evening all w^re across, and Simon, on learning that his son was at Kenilworth prepared to start on his way thither next morning. He darec not march past Worcester, and therefore chose the southefr road by Pershore and Evesham. On x'\ugU3t 3 he started, aric covered the fifteen miles from Kempsey to Evesham. Mean while, the prince had returned to Worcester and learned that hi5 enemy had crossed the long-guarded river in his abseiVce. Bui Simon was not too far advanced to make it impossible to heac

1265] EVESHAM: MOxNTFORT PASSES THE SEVERN 431

him off and intercept his path eastward. Though his men must have been even more fatigued than the earl's travel-worn host, the prince struck out from Worcester once more, and marched eastward on the evening of August 3.^

There are two roads from Evesham to Kenilworth — one by Alcester, the other by Stratford-on-Avon. It was Edward's object to throw himself across both these paths. His exact route is not specified by any chronicler, but we know that, having marched all night and an hour or 'two after dawn, he lay across the Evesham-Stratford road with his own " battle." He had divided his army into three corps, giving the second to De Clare, and the third to Mortimer and the Marcher barons. It appears that each body marched by a different road, with orders to :onverge on Evesham. The prince approached from the aorth, Gloucester from the north-west, on Edward's right, Mortimer from the west, and in the rear of the town. The routes of the three corps were probably therefore, (i) VVorcester- Flyford-Dunington-Norton ; (2) Worcester- Wyre-Craycombe ; 3) Worcester-Pershore-Hampton.^

:: The town of Evesham, where Montfort's little army was •esting on the morning of August 4, lies at the southern end Off a deep loop of the Avon. The roads from Alcester, Worcester, and Stratford join at the base of the loop, and, after jniting, descend into the place by the gentle slope called Green ^ill. At the southern end of the town lies the abbey, where , Simon and the king were lodged, overlooking the bridge and :he suburb of Bengeworth. Beyond the bridge the other roads

' ^ He is said to have suspected that there were traitors in his ranks, and therefore

L o have marched to Claines, three miles north of Worcester, as if about to move on ■ ^ridgenorth, and then to have suddenly swerved east, and hurried off to get between I >iiWon and Kenilworth.

^ I cannot agree with Professor Prothero's view (in his Simon de Montfort) that

ulward marched with his whole army by Alcester, crossed the Avon at Cleeve Prior,

nd recrossed it at Offenham, sending Mortimer by the south bank of the river to

3engeworth. The double crossing seems unnecessary, and has no justification but

Changer's statement that Edward crossed a river unnamed, " juxta Clive," no second

1 rossing being spoken of. That a whole army, twenty thousand strong, should pass at

; )ffenham in full daylight, without being seen by anyone from Evesham — less than

: wo miles away — is a sheer impossibility. We know that Edward came in sight of

' 5imon on the Norton road, and was descried at some distance. We also know that

Viortimer approached from the west {i.e. from Pershore), by Hemingford's statement

hat the earl's look-out saw "vexilla Rogeri de Mortimer ab occidente et a tergo."

therefore agree with Mr. New of Evesham, whose view Professor Prothero

efuses to accept.

432 THE ART OF WAR IN THE MIDDLE AGES [126

diverge in the directions of Pershore, Tewkesbury, and Broadway Evesham is a good position to defend against an attack fron the south, being well covered by the river, and approachabl only by a single bridge. But if attacked from the north it i far less defensible, as the advancing enemy has the advantag of the slope, and the defenders must fight with a single narrow bridge at their backs. But if assailed at once on north an south by superior forces it is a fatal trap, for no escape i possible, owing to the loop of the river, which encircles it o three sides.

Simon's men took their morning meal and heard mass ; bu just as they were mounting to commence their march, new came in that a large force was approaching by the Duningtor Norton road.^ The earl hoped that this was the army of h son Simon, marching in from Kenilworth, for he was still whol) ignorant of the disaster that had befallen his friends on tV 2nd. He was at first encouraged in this delusion, for Princ Edward had ordered that the banners taken at Kenilwort the White Lion of Montfort, the silver star of De Vere, ar the three escutcheons of Montchensy, should be borne in h van to disarm suspicion. But to gain certainty Earl Simc rode to the crest of Green Hill,^ according to one account, < sent a keen-sighted attendant up the abbey tower,^ accordir to another. Very shortly the royal banner was seen wavir over the main body, and the earl recognised his mistake, ar saw that he must either fight or fly. Shortly afterwards tl red chevrons of De Clare were descried pressing on at tl head of a new column, which was only just coming into sig] to the prince's right. Only a few minutes later the blue ar white banner of Mortimer was descried on the Pershore roa coming from the west, and in the rear of the baronial hoi " Now may God have mercy on our souls, for our bodies are the power of our enemies," cried the earl when the full horr of the situation dawned upon him. There w^as still a chan- for well-mounted horsemen to escape over Evesham bridge ar dash eastward ; but the army was evidently doomed, unless

^ The Chronicle of Mailros says that Prince Edward was sighted whflJP I much as two leagues away by the earl's scouts. If this is correct, the whole stc of his having crossed the Avon at Cleeve and Offenham fails.

2 Hemingford calls it Mount Elyn.

' Chronicle of Mailros and Hemingford.

1265] EVESHAM : EARL SIMON SLAIN 433

could cut its way through Edward's host. Henry de Montfort hastily bade his father fly, and swore that he would hold the enemy at bay long enough to get him a good start. But the old earl laughed the proposal to scorn. He had brought them there, he said, and must take the consequent responsibility. He had never fled from battle before, and would not begin in bis old age. He besought Despenser, Basset, and the other barons about him to save themselves, but no one would flinch "rom him, and all made ready for battle. There was still some :wenty or thirty minutes to spare before Mortimer would be able :o close in on their rear. Simon employed the time in forming lis host in a deep column, the knights at its head, the foot Dehind, and steadily marched up the Green Hill, making directly or the centre of Prince Edward's division. The front came on ;teadily enough, but the Welsh infantry in the rear began to ■nelt away before a blow had been struck, slipping off into the ields and gardens on each side of the road, and then plunging nto the Avon and swimming over as best they might, so as to ilude Mortimer's approaching corps.

The earl himself, meanwhile, dashed into the middle of the Drince's corps with such a desperate shock that the Royalists vavered for a moment, and had to be rallied by Warren of 3asingburn, who taunted them with memories of Lewes, and ;tung them into steadiness. They had indeed nothing to fear, laving a superiority in numbers of about seven to two,^ and ;very other advantage. When the baronial host was hotly :ngaged with the prince, Gloucester came up and threw himself ipon their flank and rear. Though surrounded, Simon's men — he Welsh excepted — showed no signs of flinching. They kept ip the fight for more than an hour, dashing themselves again .nd again at one or another point of the narrowing circle iround them. At last Henry de Montfort fell mortally wounded, .nd Earl Simon's horse was killed beneath him. " Is my son lain ? " cried the old man ; " then indeed it is time for me to lie!" and, grasping his sword with both hands, he flung himself »n foot into the thickest of the fight, and was pierced by a nortal wound in the back while hewing at half a dozen knights, vho disputed the glory of encountering him. All his com- )anions fell within a few yards of his corpse — his cousin Peter le Montfort, Despenser the Justiciar, Ralph Basset, John de

^ Chronicle of Mailros. 28

434 THE ART OF WAR IN THE MIDDLE AGES [126

Beauchamp, William de Mandeville, Guy Baliol, Robert d Tregoz, Roger de Rivle — well-nigh every man of name in th host. A very few were so lucky as to obtain quarter, and thes were mostly wounded men who had been left for dead in th first heat of the slaughter : among them were Humphrey d Bohun, John Fitz-John, Henry of Hastings, and Guy de Montfor the earl's third son. The whole army was cut to pieces ; eve: the Welsh- who had fled before the battle began were huntei down among the houses of Evesham and along the Avon ban! as far as Tewkesbury by Mortimer's men, so that hardly a tith of them escaped. A chronicle which gives the losses of th vanquished with some detail and considerable show of pre bability, says that the slain included one hundred and eight knights, two hundred and twenty squires, two thousand c Montfort's own foot-soldiery, and five thousand Welsh.^ O the other hand, the Royalists lost only two knights, thougl according to one source, nearly two thousand of their infantr were killed or wounded. It is probable that this number : much exaggerated, for the end of the battle was a massacr rather than a fair fight. As Robert of Gloucester sang —

"Such was the murder of Evesham, for battle it was none."

The reader will have noticed that at Evesham ended the fin example of a real strategical campaign with which we have ha to deal in England. The whole gist of the struggle was tt maintenance by the Royalists of the line of the Severn, an their successful warding off of De Montfort's successive attemp to pass. It must be confessed that the old earl's reputation i a master of the art of war does not gain from a study of h ■ operations. Luck was, it is true, against him ; but there w« , much to blame in his slowness of movement at the commeno ment of the campaign, and his resolves to escape, first b Gloucester, and then by sea from Newport, were made too lat and executed too tardily. Evesham was a wretched position take when an active enemy was known to be near. Of tl imbecile leadership of Simon the Younger, his slow and circuitoi march to Kenilworth, and his culpable carelessness when & camped there, it is impossible to speak without contempt.

AH the more brightly, therefore, does the generalship < Prince Edward shine out. In the single year since Lewes, I

^ Chronicle of Lanercost, sul> anno 1265.

1265] EVESHAM: EDWARD'S STRATEGY 435

had developed from a mere headstrong knight into a com- mander of the first class. If this campaign alone had been recorded of all his wars, it would be enough to stamp him as a good officer. His prompt blows at Worcester and Gloucester gave from the first a waft of success to his rising. To maintain a river-line fifty miles long against an active and determined enemy is no small achievement. His march to Newport and his chase of Simon into Wales were bold and well planned. But the last three days of the campaign are the real test of his ability. History contains few such splendid examples of two successive strokes at two converging hostile forces as the victories of August 2 and August 4. And the details of Evesham, the neat irrangement of the encircling columns, and the full advantage :aken of Simon's unhappy position in the loop of the Avon, are enough to prove that Edward had not only the brain of the strategist, but the eye of the tactician. On the whole, the :ampaign is the most brilliant piece of mediaeval generalship iwhich we have yet had to record.

CHAPTER V

CONTINENTAL BATTLES, IIOO-I3OO -;^

Thieit — Legnano — Steppes — Muret — Bouvines — Benevento — Tagliacozzo — The Marchfeld.

THE characteristics which we have noted in the Englis wars of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries are to b found reproduced in the contemporary wars of the Continen with certain small variations. The chief feature of the epocl abroad as well as at home, is that the main blow in each batti is entrusted to the cavalry, while the infantry, if present at al almost invariably plays a subsidiary part. In the English fighl which we have considered, Bremule and Northallerton are tb only ones in which men on foot really settle the fate of the da; and even in these instances we are dealing with dismounte knights rather than with real infantry. On the Continent w shall not find any example of similar kind between Legnan (1176) and Courtray (1302). It would of course be impossib to follow out the whole of the wars of Europe in the detaile fashion in which we have dealt with English campaigns. '\^ . can but select six or eight typical fields, from each of which v can gather one or more of the leading characteristics of tl military art of the age.

We have put together the following types of battles, followir chronological order in the narrative rather than arranging tl fights according to the tactical points which they illustrate :—

1. Fights of cavalry with cavalry, neither side bringir infantry into the field. Thielt-Hackespol (1128), Tagliacoz: (1268), the Marchfeld (1278). The former is a simple, the tw later are complicated examples of their class.

2. Fights of cavalry with infantry and cavalry combine Legnano (1178) gives us a typical defeat, and Muret (1213)

436

128] BATTLE OF THIELT 437

ypical victory for the employers of this very hazardous experi- nent. (Compare Bremule in the chapter on English battles.)

3. Fights in which both sides bring infantry into the field, )ut neither uses it for more than mere skirmishing, the fate of he day being settled by the use of a cavalry reserve. A good example is Benevento (1266). (Compare Lewes in the English ;hapter.)

4. Fights in which each side employs solid masses of nfantry as part of its fighting line, and uses them as central allying-points for the support of its cavalry. Steppes (12 12) s a simple example of this class, Bouvines (12 14) a very :omplicated one. (Compare the first battle of Lincoln in the English chapter.)

A cross-division is made by noticing whether the troops vere drawn up in one single line of corps, — with or without a eserve, — or in several lines one behind the other. Of the first md simpler class are Legnano, Steppes, and Bouvines. Of the ;econd typical instances are the Marchfeld, Muret, and Benevento. The latter class is much worse represented in English military listory than the former, all the leading fights on this side of the Channel having been fought with a broad front ; the first instance vhere we find an English commander massing corps behind :orps on a narrow front is Bannockburn (13 14).

Battle of Thielt {or Hackespol)^ June 21, 1 128.

After the murder of Charles Count of Flanders (1127), the ;uccession to his wealthy fiefs was disputed between Dietrich 3ount of Elsass and William the Clito, son of Duke Robert of Mormandy. The former claimed as son of the late count's lunt Gertrude, the latter as descending from Charles' great- lunt Matilda of Flanders, the wife of William the Conqueror. The Clito received the energetic support of Louis VI. of France, he suzerain of Flanders : having failed to recover for his protege he duchy of Normandy, owing to the disaster of Bremule, he vas anxious to compensate him in another quarter. The inajority of the Flemings adhered to Count Dietrich, though a considerable number took the side of William.

After much indecisive fighting, the two pretenders met at HackespoP near Thielt on the 21st of June 1128. Dietrich

^ The Genealogia comitum Flandriae and John of Ypres, p. 466, give the locality as Hackespol ; Galbert only names Thielt.

438 THE ART OF WAR IN THE MIDDLE AGES [1128

had been besieging the manor of a certain knight named Fulk,who was a partisan of the Clito/ and the latter had hastily marched to his vassal's relief. He had brought only horsemen with him, and if Dietrich had any infantry he must have left them to observe the beleaguered place, since he displayed none in the battle.

Each army was arrayed in three corps, apparently placed one behind the other, as the French had been at Bremule nine years before. But there was this cardinal difference in their order, that William placed his third corps out of sight of the enemy, while the whole of Dietrich's squadrons were drawn up in the open. The Clito headed the van-battle of his host, where his banner must have been conspicuous, handing over the conduct of the all- important reserve to an unnamed knight. Count Dietrich had entrusted the marshalling of his men to his seneschal, Daniel ol Dendermonde, and undertaken for himself only the command of one of his three divisions, apparently the reserve; anothei was headed by his brother Count Frederic, the third by Daniel.'

The front squadrons of the two hosts met in close combat and soon afterwards the second corps on each side was brought up. Then Dietrich, believing that all the Clito's troops were already engaged, threw in his reserve, with the result thai William's men were broken and forced to retire. It appeared thai the victory was in Dietrich's hands, but, just as his foes seemec crushed, the hidden reserve corps of William's army came storming into the fight, to the great surprise of the victors. Thus the battk was restored. Then, while all the horsemen of Dietrich were con- centrating their efforts on the newly-arrived enemy, the Clito suC' ceeded in rallying a compact body of his own scattered van-battle and threw it into the melee. This charge decided the equall} balanced fray, and Dietrich's host, who had no reserve to savt them, burst asunder and fled in all directions. William bade his knights cast off their mail-shirts, that they might be lightei for the pursuit, and hunted the broken partisans of Dietrich tc such good effect that they were either captured or hopelessly

^ "Applicuit cum graviexercitu ad Tiled et obsedit domum Folketmilitis" (Galbert. p, 388). As Thielt was from early times an important place, it cannot be th< "domus Folket," which I presume was merely a fortified manor, near Thielt, bui not in it.

^ It is impossible to make out from Galbert's narrative which of the three corpi of Dietrich's army was in front ; probably it was that of Daniel of Dendermonde, foi " In ingressu primo Daniel, qui caput erat militiae Theoderici, volebat se inferrt cuneis V^iUelmi " (Galbert, p. 388, B).

£176] BARBAROSSA IN LOMBARD Y 439

scattered in all directions. Most of the disputed county fell nto William's hands in consequence of his victory, and he might have established a line of Norman counts of Flanders if le had not died, less than two months after the victory of Thielt, from blood-poisoning. He received a scratch in the hand from :he spear of a foot-soldier while beleaguering A lost, which he leglected till the wound turned malignant and carried him off Dcfore he had reached the age of thirty.^ As he was unmarried, ind his father a prisoner in Cardiff, there was no one left to maintain the Norman claim, and Dietrich of Elsass entered into peaceable possession of Flanders (August 11 28).

This very simple fight, where the whole fortune of the day depended on the fact that William concealed while Dietrich displayed his reserve corps, should be compared with Taglia- :ozzo, where Charles of Anjou was victorious by exactly the same expedient. But we have no evidence that William took such elaborate pains to deceive his adversary as did Charles. The Clito headed his own first line in person ; while the Angevin sent his royal banner to his second corps, and made its com- mander disguise himself in the royal arms in order to convince the generals of Conradin that they had his whole host in sight.

Battle of Lcgnano^ May 29, 1176.

It is most unfortunate that no really adequate and detailed account of this fight, perhaps the most epoch-making engagement of the twelfth century, has been preserved. But though it is impossible from our sources to reconstruct the battle-array of the two hosts, or to arrange the incidents of the battle in their exact order, we have enough information to enable us to divine the general character and the military moral of the struggle. It was one of those battles of the type which we have seen at Bremule, where an army which used a solid infantry reserve to support its front line of horsemen triumphed over one which employed cavalry alone for the shock. With Bremule it has another similarity, for in both the victors considerably outnumbered the vanquished, and the defeated general ought never to have allowed himself to get involved in an attack on an enemy so much his superior. Barbarossa showed just the same im- petuous arrogance as Louis VI., and suffered the same fate.

^ Galbert, p. 390. He only survived four days after his wound Qohn of Ypres, p. 466).

440 -THE ART OF WAR IN THE MIDDLE AGES [1176

In the winter of 1175-76, Frederic I. had been in Western Lombardy, making head with no great success against the league of the Guelf cities. Seeing that he could do nothing without large reinforcements, he sent messengers to the nobles of South Germany, bidding them cross the Alps to bring him aid as soon as the melting of the snows made the passes practicable for an army. In obedience to this behest, the forces of Suabia and the Rhineland marched to his aid in April 11 76. They followed the Vorder-Rheinthal up to Dissentis,^ and, crossing the Luck- maneier pass, came down the Val Blegno on to Bellinzona. The army was not very large ; according to the emperor's chancellor. Godfrey of Viterbo, it mustered five hundred knights and many mounted sergeants.^ The Milan Chronicle says that the total force was two thousand. There was apparently no infantry other than mere camp - followers with it. The commanders were Philip, Archbishop of Cologne,^ Conrad, Bishop-elect of Worms,^ and Duke Berthold of Zahringen, the nephew of the empress. About the middle of May, the Germans, much fatigued by the passage of the Alps, but wholly unopposed by the enemy, safely arrived at the loyal town of Como. The emperor on hearing of their arrival hastily left Pavia, where he had been lying, and rode to Como with a small escort, carefully skirting round the dangerous neighbourhood of Milan. His plan was to lead back the host to Pavia, where it was to be joined by the forces of the Ghibelline towns of Lombardy before it undertook any serious operations. Unfortunately Milan lay directly between Come and Pavia : a straight line drawn from the one to the other 0I the Imperialist towns passes through the great Guelf stronghold Frederic was therefore bound to make a circular march round Milan; it only depended on himself whether the turning move- ment should be at a short or a long distance from the hostile city. The route which he selected was that by Cairate, Legnano and Abbiategrasso, which in its central stages passes at no more than twenty miles from Milan. The host marched with proper military precautions, three hundred horsemen preceding the

^ "Quos venire fecerat per Desertinam tarn privatissime quod a nemine Lombard- orum potuit sciri. Immo cum dicebatur quod apud Birizonam essent, fabulosum videbatur" {Ann. Mediolanenses, sub anno 1176).

' "Vix ibi quingentos equites ad bella retentos

Noveris inventos, reliquos designo clientes" (G. V., lines 997, 998).

3 Chronicle of Romuald of Salerno, sub anno 1 1 76.

•* Cant. Sattblasiana, § 23.

1 1 76] LEGNANO: THE MILANESE MARCH OUT 441

main body at a considerable distance. The emperor had taken the militia of Como with him ; the foot-soldiery of the city, the only infantry in the army, were probably escorting the baggage in the rear ; there is no mention of them in the battle.

Meanwhile, the Milanese had received news of the arrival of the Transalpine host at Como: up to the moment when it reached that place they had disbelieved the rumours of its approach. They were accordingly somewhat late in assembling their allies, but by May 27 the contingents of the nearer Guelf towns had come in, — fifty horsemen from Lodi, three hundred from Novara and Vercelli, two hundred from Piacenza, and arge succours from Brescia, Verona, and the Veronese March.^ The levies from the towns south of the Po had not had time to irrive, but even without them the confederates largely out- aumbered the army of Frederic. Godfrey of Viterbo gives :hem twelve thousand cavalry — an absurdly exaggerated figure ;2 Dut Milan by itself could put two thousand horse in the field, and there were probably as many more from the allied towns. The foot-soldiery of Verona and Brescia were left to guard the :ity, while those of Milan, under the banners of their " gates," joined the field army ; they formed the whole or the greater part of its infantry.

Hearing of the emperor's circular march, the Lombards struck out from the centre to reach a point on the circumference vvhere they were sure of anticipating the arrival of the enemy. On May 29 they attained their purpose. Between Busto Arsizio and Borsano their advanced guard, composed of seven lundred horsemen, came into collision with the head of the [mperialist line of march, the three hundred knights who preceded the host of the Germans. Owing to an intervening wood, the meeting was sudden and unexpected : the Germans showed fight, but were repulsed by the superior numbers of the Lombards, and fell back on their main body, which gained by their resistance time to deploy into line of battle. The pursuing cavalry were sharply driven off when they came into touch with the emperor.^

^ All these details are from the Milanese Chronicle, p. 378, sud anno 1176.

- "Millia bis sena I.ombardus miles habebat,

Et peditum numerosa manus vexilla ferebat " (G. V., lines 991, 992).

'Chronicle of Romuald of Salerno: " Exeuntes quoddam nemus ex insperato [mperatori, qui militares acies jam ad bella paraverat, subito occurrunt " (p. 215). From the Vita Alexandri Papae IV. we have the preceding skirmish.

44a THE ART OF WAR IN THE MIDDLE AGES [1176

Meanwhile, the Lombards emerged from the wood and drew up opposite the Germans ; they were apparently formed in four corps of cavalry with an infantry reserve : presumably the horse lay in two lines, each composed of two " battles." In the midst of the infantry lay the carroccio of Milan, the sacred car with the city banners hoisted on its mast, just as those ol the Yorkshire saints had been at Northallerton forty yearf before.

In spite of his inferior numbers, Frederic at once took the offensive, and charged the Lombards. He was set on fighting and had refused to order a retreat when the first approach o the rebels was reported, "counting it unworthy of his Imperia Majesty to show his back to them."^ His horsemen, charging with desperate resolve, broke one after another ail the fou: corps of the Lombard cavalry ,2 and then pressed on to attacl the mass of infantry around the can-occio. No attempt seem; to have been made to pursue or to keep in check the beatei horse, and the whole of the German knights devoted themselve. to the task of breaking up the infantry. The Milanese foo held out with undaunted courage, " with shields set close anc pikes held firm," and succeeded in holding the enemy at baj for a long space.^ But they would probably have succumbe( at last had not their comrades of the cavalry come to their aid. Though many of the Lombard horse had dispersed in flight an( sought their homes, a considerable body rallied when it saw tha it was not pursued. This corps, largely composed of the knight of Brescia,^ formed up again, and, apparently aided by som- reinforcements which had just arrived, charged the Imperialist in the flank. The Germans v/ere already somewhat wearied b; their fight with the infantry : the emperor's banner-bearer ha< fallen, and Frederic himself, after leading repeated charge.'

^ Annals of Cologne, sub anno 1 176 : " Quum a quihusdam suaderetur ut tanta mukitudini ad tempus cederet, et bello abstineret, indignum judicans imperatori? majestati terga dare, hostibus viriliter occurrit."

" "Hostibus infestus cuneos binos penetravit, Tercius atteritur, quartum virtute fugavit : Quintus erat validus terribilisque magis"(G. V,, lines 995-997).

^ " Imperator videns Lombardorum equites aufugisse, pedestrem multitudinei facile superari credidit. Illi oppositis clypeis et porrectis hastis coeperunt illii furori resistere, et ad se venientes viriliter repellere" (Romuald, p. 215).

■* The Annales Mediolanenses show that a small body of cavalry stood firm alor with the foot.

^ Contimiatio Sanblasiana^ § 23.

[176] LEGNANO: THE LOMBARDS VICTORIOUS 443

lad his horse slain under him and was thrown down among he pikes. When the fierce flank charge of the Brescians was Dressed home, at the very moment that the emperor had disappeared, the hitherto victorious Germans broke up and ;ought refuge in flight. Many were captured, many slain, and till more drowned in the Ticino, which lay across their line of etreat towards their left rear. Nearly the whole civic militia )f Como^ was cut down or captured, and it was only in cattered bands that the survivors of the vanquished host cached the friendly walls of Como and Pavia. It was iniversally believed that Frederic himself had fallen, but he rppeared at Pavia three days after, after having passed through L series of dangerous adventures. His relative Berthold of ^ahringen and the brother of the Archbishop of Cologne were aken captive, with many scores of knights.^ No personage of irst-rate importance fell on either side, but the losses were onsiderable among the rank and file both of the victorious and he vanquished armies.

The causes of the victory are obvious enough : Frederic had lot enough men to face the leaguers. If he could have spared L corps to disperse and pursue the beaten cavalry, he might lave succeeded in breaking up the mass of infantry, in spite of ts bold defence. But he could not spare a man, and the ^ombards were able to rally at their leisure. Frederic would Iso have done better if he had employed more infantry: a omparatively small force of cavalry would have been able to )reak into the square round the carroccio if it had been aided )y footmen armed with the crossbow, or even with the pike, ^ut the Germans had no foot-soldiery save the militia of Como, vhich was probably not more than a thousand strong, and we lear nothing of their employing even this body. It w^as ipparently in the rear guarding the baggage. To sum up, nfantry is not yet self-sufficient, but it can save a lost battle by ts solidity, if only the cavalry combined with it can rally and :eep the field. But cavalry is still the arm which gives the lecisive blow.

^ Annales Mediolaneiises, 378.

^ A fact to be found (curiously enough) only in the English chronicler Ralph )iceto, who gives in exteiiso a letter of the consuls of Milan to their allies of Jologna : it is bombastic and very unpractical ; it has no account of the battle that is f any use, but waxes eloquent on the booty and the captives.

444 THE ART OF WAR IN THE MIDDLE AGES [1213

Battle of Steppes, October 13, 12 13.

In the early years of the thirteenth century anarchy reigned all over the Holy Roman Empire, and the princes, under cover of the names of Philip, Otto, or Frederic, settled their old feuds with the sword, just as in England during the Wars of the Roses every baron used the claims of Lancaster or York to hide his private grudges. Duke Henry I. of Brabant had an old- standing quarrel with the bishops of Liege, part of whose broad dominions he claimed as wrongfully withheld from him. Thinking the time suitable for making good his pretensions, he marched into the bishopric in October 121 3, and harried it as far as the Meuse. Hugh of Pierrepoint, who then sat on the episcopal chair of Liege, was a courageous prelate, who would not endure such wrongs from his powerful neighbour. He summoned in his feudal vassals, gathered together the civic militia of his towns of Liege, Huy, Dinant, and Fosses, and sent for aid to the Count of Loos, whose territories lay in the same danger from the duke's covetousness as did the bishopric.^ Lewis of Loos was perfectly willing to join him, gathered the forces of his little county, and joined the Liegeois on the 12th of October near Glons. The united army then marched in search of the duke, whom they found retiring homeward with his plunder. He had been warned of their approach, and was found with his host arrayed in an advantageous situation on a hillside near the village of Steppes.^ The count and bishop drew up opposite him at the foot of the slope and offered battle

The two armies, as it chanced, were arrayed in exactly the same formation : each had the bulk of its infantry massed ir its centre, while the horsemen were drawn out on the wings But the Liegeois wings had some infantry supports, anc it is possible that there was also a small reserve of knight; behind the bishop's centre.^ Our account of the array of the Brabangons is not so full and satisfactory.

^ Lewis of Loos was vassal for some, but not all, of his county to the Bishop 0 Liege. He was an old enemy of Henry of Brabant, who had opposed him when afev . years before he had tried to make himself Count of Holland in right of his wife Ada. |

^ Between Hutain and Montegnies, according to Alberic of Trois- Fontaine? i.e. between Houtain I'Eveque and Montenaken (not Montegnee). \

^This may follow from the statement of Reiner that the centre containe \ " Leodienses et Hoyenses et quotquot venerant ab episcopatu bellatores" ; when coir | pared with Aegidius Aureae-Vallis, p. 659, who says that the central infantry were t I

1213] STEPPES: ARRAY OF THE LI^GEOIS 445

In the army of Liege the Count of Loos, who assumed command of the combined host, took the right wing with his own retainers, horse and foot. The left was composed of the greater part of the feudal levy of the bishop's vassals, supported by the infantry of the citizens of Dinant;^ it was headed by Thierry of Rochefort. In the centre were the civic levies of Liege, Huy, and the rest of the bishop's towns, under the orders of a veteran knight named Thierry of Walcourt. For the duke's army we are not given any details, but are merely told that his infantry formed the great central mass of his line, and his cavalry the wings. He himself had put on a plain suit of mail and handed over his banner and his armorial surcoat to a trusty follower named Henry of Holdenberg.

It is to be noted that in each host the foot-soldiery were the solid civic levies of the Netherlands, armed with spear, mail- shirt, and steel cap, and not the miserable and ill-equipped horde that generally constituted the infantry of a feudal army. When the Liegeois advanced, the duke ordered his army to descend the slope, and came rushing down on his adversaries. The bishop's men received the charge at a standstill: Thierry of Walcourt ordered the front ranks of the central mass of infantry to kneel and fix the butt ends of their lances in the ground ; he warned them not to open their order on any account, and bade them push off even their own cavalry if they should be driven in upon them.^ Nevertheless the first assault of the Brabangons, who had the impetus of the slope in their favour, was so violent that it rolled back the Liegeois and nearly broke their line in two. It says much for the solidity of the bishop's men, that they held up under the pressure and did not disperse.

Meanwhile the Count of Loos, dashing forward somewhat in advance of the infantry, had made such a vigorous charge upon the cavalry of the duke's left wing, that it sent for succour to its

be "pro muro militibus retro sequentibus" this looks as if Walcourt had a cavalry reserve behind him. Are these Reiner's beilatores, or is the latter using the word merely in a general sense, and meaning infantry only ?

^ Reiner in Bouquet, xviii. p. 626.

^ Aegidius Aureae-Vallis in M. F., vol. xviii. p. 659 : "Fecitque (Theodericus) suarum hastas lancearum acui et in terram figi, et in directum contra milites teneri cuspides lancearum. . . . Sed et si quis militum nostrorum metu mortis super vos redierit, et nostrum ordinem transilire voluerit, equum ejus figite, et ipsum in praelium revertere compellite."

446 THE ART OF WAR IN THE MIDDLE AGES [121^

chief. Henry was obliged to come to its aid, supporting it, verj probably (though the chroniclers do not definitely say so), witi a detachment which he brought round from his right wing.

Crushed by these overwhelming reinforcements, the Coun' of Loos and his knights, though fighting hard, were borne bacl- in disorder.^ But meanwhile the left wing of the Liegeois unde Thierry of Rochefort made a desperate attack upon the enfeeblec right wing of the Brabangon host. They soon thrust it back ii disorder upon the infantry of the duke's centre. If Henry hac possessed any reserve, he could now have used it to re-establisl the day, but all his horse had been called off to his left wing t( crush Lewis of Loos, and he had no men to spare. Hence i came to pass that the success of the horsemen of Rochefort wa, decisive. The infantry of the Liegeois main body plucked uj courage when they saw their left wing victorious, and threv themselves so vigorously upon the Brabangon foot-soldiery tha they broke and routed them. The duke's hitherto successfu left wing, terrified by the disaster in their centre, hardly oppose( any resistance to the horsemen of Rochefort,^ and the whole 0 his army fled in confusion from the field. The men of Lieg followed them up with relentless cruelty, for they were set upoi revenging the harrying of their countryside during the las ten days, and slew more than three thousand of the flyinj enemy.

So hastily did both armies move from the field, that whei the routed horsemen of the Count of Loos reassembled an( came forward again, they were surprised to find the scene c combat occupied by the dead and wounded alone.^ Uncertaii as to the fate of the battle, they stripped the slain and plundere* the Brabancon camp before their victorious comrades returne* to the spot. If the triumph had been less crushing, the bishop' men would have resented such conduct, but with four thousan< prisoners to hold to ransom, including many wealthy Braban^oi knights, they could afford to overlook the incident. The count' men, too, as we have seen, had done their full share in the fighting

^ And driven right off the field, so that they returned only after the battle wc over (Aegidius Aur., p. 660). "Gens comitis in fugam conversa est, perseverantibi in proelio Leodiensibus."

2 " Dux autem et complices sui, videntes belli eventum, et tantum impetum fen non valentes, in fugam se verterunt qui erant equites, et passim capiebantur vt interficiebantur pedites" (Reiner in Bouquet, xviii. p. 627).

2 Aegidius Aur. , p. 660.

12 13] STEPPES: VICTORY OF THE LIEGEOIS 447

if they had not drawn on to themselves the main force of the duke's cavalry, the Liegeois could not have won the fight.

Nothing could be simpler than the tactics of Steppes : they give us a fair sample of the manner in which cavalry and infantry were combined in those parts of Europe where a solid civic militia armed with the pike was in existence. The main duty of the foot-soldiery is to form a steady reserve which may allow their knights to rally and re-form. Such a mass ^ can hold out for some time against cavalry, but cannot stand against horse and foot combined, as we have seen was the case w^ith the Brabancons when assailed by Rochefort and Walcourt simultaneously. It is of course the cavalry — in this case that of the bishop's left wing — which gives the decisive blow and settles the day. If we seek for the source of the duke's defeat, we find it in the fact that he had been compelled to mass so many horsemen against Lewis of Loos, and to spend so long in driving him from the field that he had not time enough to turn against the infantry of the Liegeois before his own foot- soldiers were attacked and scattered by Rochefort.

Battle of Mure t, September 12, 121 3.

The battle of Muret was the most remarkable triumph ever won by a force entirely composed of cavalry over an enemy who used both horse and foot. At the first glance it seems to contradict the general military teaching of experience, and to justify that blind belief in the omnipotence of the mailed knight which we have pointed out as the cause of so many disasters alike in East and West. It is only when we examine its details that we recognise its abnormal character. The victorious squadrons were conducted by a general of exceptional ability, and practically surprised the enemy before he was in proper battle-array. The vanquished fought in separate divisions, which gave each other no aid, and utterly failed to secure any proper combination between horse and foot. The battle had two episodes — a hard cavalry fight, and a subsequent massacre of foot-soldiery by the victors. In this respect it may perhaps

^ The Liegeois infantry were " conglobati pro muro militibus"" (Aeg. Aur., p. 659). This does not mean actually ranged in a circle (for a circle cannot charge), but merely massed in close order, I presume. But Reginald of Boulogne at Bouvines seems actually to have put his men in a hollow circle when thrown on the defensive at the end of the battle.

448 THE ART OF WAR IN THE MIDDLE AGES [12 13

be compared to Tiberias ^ rather than to any field of Western Europe. It would never have been fought unless the quick eye of the successful general had caught a moment when his adver- saries were widely dispersed and wholly unprepared for an attack. It was pre-eminently not a pitched battle, but a sudden rout.

In 12 1 3 the wicked and bloody Albigensian Crusade seemed drawing toward its end. The victorious Crusaders had reduced their chief enemy, the Count of Toulouse, and his allien the Counts of Foix and Comminges, to the lowest depths oi despair : there hardly remained anything to conquer save the towns of Toulouse and Montauban, and the majority of the victors were already turning homeward, leaving Simon de Montfort and the knights whom he had enfeoffed on the conquered land to deal the last blow at the exhausted enemy.

At this moment a new actor suddenly appeared upon the scene. The King of Aragon had long possessed a broad domain in Languedoc, and looked with jealousy upon the establishment of a new North-French power upon his borders Carcassonne and other smaller places which owed him homage had been stormed and plundered by the Crusaders : they sheltered themselves under the plea of religion, and King Peter had long been loth to intervene, lest he should be accused 0I taking the side of the heretics. But as it grew more and more obvious that the war was being waged to build up a kingdom for Simon de Montfort rather than to extirpate the Albigenses he determined at last to interfere. His vassals had been slain his towns harried, and he had every excuse for taking arms against the Crusaders. Accordingly he concluded a forma" alliance with the Counts of Toulouse and Foix, and promisee to cross the Pyrenees to their aid with a thousand men-at-arms He spent some months in preparing his host, mortgaged roya' estates and pawned his jewels to raise money, and finally appeared near Toulouse in the month of September with the promised contingent. Most of his followers were drawn from Catalonia ; his Aragonese subjects showed little liking for the expedition, fearing that they might be sinning against Christen- dom by lending aid to heretics. At the news of Peter's approach the men of Languedoc took arms on all sides, and the Counts ol Toulouse and Foix were soon able to assemble a large army

1 See pp. 327, 328.

I2I3] MURET: KING PETER IN LANGUEDOC 449

beneath their banners. They stormed Pujols, the nearest hostile garrison, and slew sixty of De Montfort's followers. The whole countryside was with them, and Simon's newly-won realm seemed likely to disappear in a moment.

The king and his allies next moved against Muret, a small fortified town at the junction of the Garonne and the Louge, which lies about twenty miles south-west of Toulouse. It was held for De Montfort by a small garrison, which, when briskly attacked, was forced to evacuate the suburbs and to shut itself up in the old town and the castle.

The unexpected irruption of Peter of Aragon into Languedoc had caught Simon unprepared. He lay at Fanjaux with the knights of his household ; the rest of the army which had served him was far on the way to France. His pressing messages only succeeded in catching and bringing back a few hundred men-at- arms under the Vicomte de Corbeil and William des Barres, one of the heroes of the third Crusade.^ When Simon had gathered in all the men that he could assemble, there were less than a thousand horsemen in all ready to accompany him. The chroniclers are fairly agreed among themselves that he had about two hundred and forty knights and five hundred mounted sergeants. With this small force he did not hesitate to march on Muret : he felt that it was absolutely necessary for him to be at the point of danger, even though he might not for the moment be able to face the foe in the open field. He could at least make Muret too strong to fall into the king's hands, and hold him in check till there should be time to summon succours from Northern France. Perhaps, too, the enemy might commit some fault which would make it possible to deal a sudden blow at him.

The news of the coming^ Count Simon filled the King of Aragon with joy. " Let him but enter into Muret," he said, " and then we will surround the city on all sides, and take him and all his French Crusaders, so will we cause the enemy a harm that can never be repaired." ^ Accordingly he bade the

^ We have seen him commanding a division at Arsouf. See p. 310. ^ ** Quen Simos de Montfort vindra dems armatz

E can sera lains vengutz ni enserratz Assetiarem la villa per totz latz E prendrem los Frances e trastoz los Crosatz Que jamais los dampnos no sira restoratz."

Canso de la Crozada^ lines 2958-62. 29

45P THE ART OF WAR IN THE MIDDLE AGES [1213

militia of Toulouse evacuate the lower town, so as to leave a free entry on every side for the approaching host. That evening the relieving army appeared, and crossed the Garonne bridge in full view of the besiegers, who counted every man, and noted with joy and surprise the small number of De Montfort's following. (September 11.)

The position of Muret is one of considerable strength. It lies on a narrow tongue of rising land between the Garonne and the Louge ; the castle at its northern end occupies the extreme angle where the two rivers meet. The Garonne is broad and unfordable ; the Louge, quite a small stream, can be passed at many points above the town, but its northern banks are in many places marshy, and it constitutes a serious military obstacle. Two bridges gave exit from Muret : the great bridge over the Garonne started from the market-place in the centre of the town : the lesser bridge across the Louge is at its north-western angle; over it passes the road to Toulouse. Besides the two bridges there is only one other way out of the place — that by the gate of Sales, looking south-westward, along the narrow space between the two rivers.^

The Aragonese king and the Count of Toulouse had fixed their camp along the northern front of the city, on the farther bank of the Louge ; it extended as far as the Garonne, on whose banks the tents of the contingent of Toulouse were pitched. The count had sent to his capital for a supply of battering machines — perrieres and others — which had arrived, and were already placed in front of the walls. The place was not sufficiently provisioned, nor were the defences of the southern suburb very strong, so that the besiegers were in high spirits and full of confidence. After Simon's arrival, the Count of Toulouse proposed to fortify the camp with a palisade,^ in order to provide against any sudden sortie of the garrison. His previous experience had taught him to fear Montfort, and he had seen at Castelnaudary in 1211 that nothing short oi entrenchments would stop the French cavalry.^ But the

^ Here we are much indebted to the late M. Delpech's careful topographies sketch in his Tactique au -xmrne siecle.

2 " Fassam entorn las tendas las barrieras dressar,

Que nuls hom a caval non puesca intrar, E nos ab las balestas los farem totz navrar."

Canso, lines 3009-11. 2 See the Canso, § 105.

PLATE XIV.

BATTLE OF

Septic. 1213.

Montfort's Anay 12 Km^ Peter's „ #3 [

k Bouchard deNar/y.

B. WJIifimBIncoTrtre.

C. Count Simon

D. Count oFFoi'x. l.Kin^Perev.

1 1^- ^^¥i

JAl. .ZiV c»Camp of M^- p e,

Battle of BQIJyiyES.

:^# Gruaon „ „,,, ,1 ,v JuIy27.I2|4-.

Jca/ff o/ tGlomhtres Impenal Army S

^ C ha r,b 6*n I ^ re

I2I3] MURET: MONTFORT ARRIVES 451

Aragonese laughed him to scorn. *' It is by such pieces of cowardice, Sir Count," cried Michael de Luzian, "that you have already allowed yourself to be disinherited of your vast domains." " After that word," replied Raymond, " I can say no more," and his proposal dropped.

King Peter, who allowed his barons to use such discourteous language to his ally, was no fit leader for a host that had to cope with the fierce and wily Simon. He was a mere knight- errant, the hero of many tourneys and many raids against the Moor, but wholly unable to match himself with the accomplished professional soldier who was watching him from behind the walls of Muret. What Montfort thought of his adversary we know from a characteristic anecdote preserved by William of Puy - Laurent. One of Peter's couriers was surprised on his route by the French : he bore a letter to the king's mistress, the wife of a baron of Languedoc, telling her that he had under- taken his great enterprise for her sweet sake. " We need not fear," said Simon, " to get the better of this light king, who has declared war on God's cause to please one sinful woman." ^

The Count of Toulouse had shown his wisdom when he

proposed to fortify the camp against Montfort's possible sorties.

It was just such a sally as he had feared that his foe was

\ [neditating. Simon's only hope lay in striking some deadly

md unexpected blow: if the siege were allowed to proceed, the

;own must fall ere long, for the stock of provisions within its

^alls was insufficient for the garrison, much more therefore for

:he army of relief. After reconnoitring the enemy's position

rom the battlements of the castle, Montfort resolved to try a

desperate expedient : he would allure the King of Aragon to

ittempt the storm of the town, and fall on him from the flank

vhile the storm was in progress. Accordingly he bade his

bllowers throw open the Toulouse gate — that which lay nearest

.0 the Aragonese camp : such a challenge could not fail to stir

he besiegers to activity, yet nothing very serious was risked,

;ince the narrow entry across the bridge over the Louge was

iasy to defend. The count sent all his foot-soldiery, of whom

le had about seven hundred, to hold the passage ; his knights he

eserved for the counter-stroke. The crusading infantry were

^ *' Regem non vereor, qui pro una venit contra Dei negotium meretrice " G. de Puy- Laurent, p. 208).

452 THE ART OF WAR IN THE MIDDLE AGES [12 13

neither well armed nor much esteemed by their commander,^ but they might stop the gap long enough to allow him to carry out his great scheme.

Montfort's knights had sufficient confidence in the holiness of their cause and the wisdom of their leader to make them obey his orders with alacrity. It was not so, however, with the troop of bishops and clergy who accompanied his host. They besought him to hold back, and to treat with the enemy for terms. It was only when the war-cry was heard at the Toulouse gate, and the bolts from the enemy's siege-machines came hurtling across the Louge into the castle, where they had met in council,^ that the Churchmen withdrew their opposition, and bade Simon go forth and conquer.

There had been for a short time a sharp fight about the Toulouse gate ; there the Count of Foix (who, with his own knights and some of the Catalan barons, formed the van of the king's army) had striven to force his way into the town. A few horsemen had actually penetrated for a moment within the walls,^ but they were slain or driven out, and the count had bade his men rest and take a meal before trying a second assault.* They withdrew from the walls, broke their ranks, anc kept no watch, for they had apparently no thought that Simor might burst out on them.

When the bickering at the Toulouse gate died down, the count quickly assembled his knights and led them out of the town by the Sales gate, on the road which starts south-westwarc along the Garonne. Emerging in this direction, they seemec for a moment to be evacuating Muret and retiring, rather thar preparing for a battle. But after riding a few hundred yard

^ William the Breton calls them * * Pedites peregrinos fere septingentos inermes (p. 92). Peter of Vaux de Cernay says, ** Paucissimos, et quasi nuUos, pedite habebat " (p. 86).

2 The bishops were Fulk of Toulouse, Arnold of Nismes, Raymond of Uzes Peter of Lodeve, Bernard of Beziers, Raymond of Agde, and Peter of Commingej See Peter of Vaux de Cernay, p. 89.

^ Peter of Vaux de Cernay, p. 86 : " Ecce plures de hostibus, armati in equi.' intraverunt burgum ; erant enim fores apertae, quia nobilis comes non permittebat i clauderentur."

^ " Lodit Conte de Montfort et sasditas gens se son ben et valentamen deffendut; sans estre en res esbatits : et talemen an fait que los an fait recular d'eldit assaul et retirar en lor sety. Et quand son estats retirats, se sont metuts a manjar et beurre, sans far degun gait et sans doubtar del re " (Anonymous Chronicle of tl Albigensian War, p. 153 c).

12 1 3] MURET: MONTFORT'S SORTIE 453

down the Sales road, Simon fronted his men northward and formed them in battle-array. He made the usual three "battles," in honour of the Holy Trinity, as several of his encomiasts assert.^ They were not on a level front, but eri echelon^ apparently with the right battle advanced and the left battle "refused." Each of the corps counted between two hundred and fifty and three hundred knights and sergeants : the first was commanded by Bouchard lord of Marly, the second by William d'Encontre, the third by Simon himself. The crusading hero William des Barres rode in front of the first squadron, and with him Montfort had sent on all the banners of the host, apparently to concentrate the enemy's attention on the front corps and to distract it from the third, which practically acted as a reserve.^

Having wheeled so as to face northward from the Sales road, Simon rapidly covered the short space of ground interven- ing between the Garonne and the Louge, crossed the latter at a point where the passage of the marsh was feasible, and came hurtling into the midst of the incautious enemy, taking the tents of the camp as his point of direction.^

It is impossible to get any satisfactory estimate of the host which Simon was about to assault: the crusading chroniclers give for it all manner of wild figures, ascending as high as a hundred thousand men. There may possibly have been fifteen or twenty thousand foot, of which the burgess militia of Toulouse must have formed the most solid portion. For the cavalry we can only make our estimate by guess-work ; but Peter of Aragon had raised a thousand knights, of whom all were not yet arrived,* and his troops formed in the three horse-battles of the allied host the whole of the second corps and part of the first. If, therefore, he had eight hundred or

^ e.g. Peter of Vaux de Cernay, p. 87.

^ " Guilheumes de la Barra los prez a capdelar

Et fels en tres partidas totz essems escalar Et tolas las senheiras el primer capanar."

Cansoy lines 3052-54. ' " Tuit sen van a las tendas per meias las palutz,

Senheiras displegadas els penons destendutz."

Canso, lines 3056-57, * Peter only intended to fight when "Nunos mos cozis sera sai aribatz " {Canso, 2958), and we know from the chronicle of Jayme of Aragon that this Sancho Nunez, together with another baron named William de Mon9ada, had not arrived when the battle was fought, i.e. the thousand knights of the Aragonese contingent are not quite complete.

454 THE ART OF WAR IN THE MIDDLE AGES [1213

eight hundred and fifty knights with him, of whom some hundred and fifty or two hundred rode in the van under the Count of Foix, his own corps may have been six hundred and fifty to seven hundred and fifty strong. Tripling this for the whole effective of the allied cavalry, we obtain some nineteen hundred or two thousand one hundred horsemen. They can hardly have mustered less, for the chroniclers speak of two of Count Simon's corps {i.e. five hundred and fifty to six hundred riders) as being outflanked and outnumbered by one single battle of the King of Aragon's host.^

It was apparently at the broad ford of the Louge, not far from the bridge and the Toulouse gate, that Montfort's men passed the water. The moment that they had crossed it they were in the midst of the enemy. The confederates were, as it seems entirely taken by surprise — certainly they were in disarray when the Crusaders charged them. " When the King of Aragon,' says one of our chronicles,^ " saw his enemies working such mischief, he straightway armed himself, and bade all his folks get to horse, crying Aragon ! and the rest cried Toulouse ! oi Foix ! or Comminges ! And, observing neither order noi array, all who could make their way to the melee betook them selves thither." The first corps on which Montfort's assault fel was that of the Count of Foix and the Catalans, who formec the van-battle of the combined host. In a very few minute: it was scattered " like dust before the wind " ^ by the impact o the two front squadrons of Montfort's little army. The knight of Foix and Catalonia dispersed, some taking refuge with the rea divisions of their own host, some flying from the field. Th< foot-soldiery poured back into the camp, which they began t< barricade with waggons and carts. But the Crusaders mad' no attempt to follow them : they had still to defeat the mail body of the king's knights.

King Peter with his household knights and the barons 0 Aragon were now assembled under the royal banner. Shor

^ When the squadrons of Bouchard and William d'Encontre charged Kin Peter's own corps, they were '* swallowed up " in it, says Peter of Vaux d Cerna)', p. 87: "Videns comes noster duas acies suas in ??iedios hostes immerse quasi non comJ>arere, irruit," etc. Even if the Aragonese were in loose and th French in compact order, this still presupposes a superiority in numbers.

2 The Anonymous History in the dialect of Languedoc in Bouquet, vol. xi>.

P- 153-

^ William de Puy-Laurent, p. 209.

12 13] MURET: KING PETER SLAIN 455

as was the stand which the vaward battle had made, it seems to have been long enough to allow the second corps to get into some sort of array. Probably a considerable number of the less panic-stricken knights of the first division had also rallied on it. At any rate, the force around the Aragonese banner out- numbered that of the two crusading squadrons which had hitherto been engaged. But without any delay D'Encontre and Bouchard of Marly led their men against the king, and charged him full in front. To the eyes of a spectator their small solid masses of men seemed for a moment swallowed up in the less orderly and less closely-arrayed ranks of the Aragonese.^ The latter, accustomed to battles with the Moor, were probably drawn up in much looser formation, and relied on the tilting powers of the individual rather than the impact of the mass. The French, however, were easily holding their own even before help came to them. The melee was swaying backwards and forwards, and the din " as of countless woodmen hewing down a forest " '^ was heard as far as the camp of the Toulousans and the walls of Muret

But the combat had not lasted for long when Simon him- self, with the third corps of the crusading host, came upon the scene. He had not been engaged in the first charge, as the third Echelon had not been required to complete the rout of the Count of Foix and his men. Now, coming up on the left of his two other divisions, he did not strike in at the front of the fray, but wheeled westward and came in upon the right flank of the Aragonese. He himself, riding at the head of his knights, received a shower of blows as he closed with the enemy, and was nearly beaten from his saddle.^ But he held his own, cleared a space around him, and cut deep into the melee. In a few moments the fight was over : King Peter was recognised * and slain by a band of Crusaders, who had sworn before the fight to mark him down and stoop at no meaner prey. The most faithful of the knights of his household fell around

^ See the remarks on p. 454.

- We owe this graphic touch to the narrative of a spectator, the young son of Raymond of Toulouse, then a mere boy, who witnessed the fight from the front of the camp, and related his experiences many years later to his confessor, William of Puy-Laurent, one of the historians of the Crusade (W. of P.-L., p. 209).

' Peter of Vaux de Cernay, p. 87.

^ He had given his royal trappings to one of his knights, and was fighting in plain armour, so that he was not at first identified.

456 THE ART OF WAR IN THE MIDDLE AGES [1213

him, the rest dispersed and fled in all directions. The slaughter was great, for the victors gave little quarter to heretics,^ and the prisoners were much less numerous than the dead.

After the Aragonese were beaten, we hear nothing more of resistance on the part of the allied troops. What the Counts of Toulouse and Comminges were doing during the critical moment of the combat we cannot say. If they had formed up a third corps in rear of the king, they certainly made no attempt to use it. But we have no direct statement that they had even got into battle-array. They are only mentioned as flying from the field ; some of our authorities ^ even hint that they fled before the final melee, at the same time as the routed troops of the Count of Foix.

It is at any rate certain that when King Peter was slain the Crusaders found no other enemy remaining but the foot-soldiery of Toulouse barricaded in their camp. While the cavalry fight was going on, Bishop Fulk had sent a messenger to them, tc offer them quarter and pardon. But, confident in the success of the Aragonese, they drove the emissary away with hoots and blows. When, however, they saw Count Simon turning back towards them, and recognised that their friends were defeated panic seized them ; they made no attempt to defend theii extemporised entrenchments, and thought only of flight. One o: their leaders, Dalmace d'Entoisel, started the panic by crying " Evil has come upon us ! The good King of Aragon and thf barons are slain," and plunged into the river, for the flight b> land was barred by the approaching Crusaders.^ The multitude followed him as best they could, some crossing by boats,^ other,' swimming the broad stream. But the victors were upon then long ere they could all escape, and many thousands were cu down among the tents. A considerable number more perishec in the water. The slaughter both in the fight and the rout hac been heavy, but can certainly not have amounted to the fifteei or twenty thousand men of the chroniclers. It is surprising t( read that in Simon's host only one knight and three (or eight

1 The Anonymous Chronicle of Languedoc (p. 153) says that they were "mor like tigers or bears than reasonable beings," and slew the wounded.

' Both the Anonymous Chronicle of Languedoc and William of Puy-Laureri expressly make it after Peter's death. The Spanish Chronicle De Gestis Regui Aragoniae naturally makes it occur first.

' Canso, lines 3080-85. * William of Puy-Laurent mentions the boats, p. 20c

I2I3] PHILIP AUGUSTUS 457

sergeants were slain. But the knightly armour was already in 12 1 3 such a protection to its wearers that scores were hurt for one who received a mortal stroke. The carnage was always among the dismounted or wounded knights of the losing side, and still more among the wretched unarmoured infantry.

Battle of Bouvines^July 27, 12 14.

No engagement offers a greater contrast to the short, sharp

ravalry combat of Muret than the great pitched battle of

. Bouvines, the most important from the political point of view

I 3f all the fights which lay between Legnano and the March-

"eld. To that victory modern France owes its existence : if the

brtune of the day had been different, the consolidation of the

i French monarchy might have been delayed for centuries. The

, Plantagenets might have won back their lost Norman and

A.ngevin dominions, the counts of Flanders might have cut

■ :hemselves free from their suzerain, and the emperor might

I lave excluded the French influence from the Lotharingian

\ Dorder-lands. Never again till the time of Charles V. and

Francis I. did France see such a formidable array of enemies

:^athered against her. That Philip Augustus was able to beat

hem off with the forces of his newly-constituted realm is a

lause for wonder, and the best testimony to his personal abilities

ind courage. Without Bouvines he would go down in the

ecords of history as an intriguer of the type of Louis XI.

ather than a warrior. Assuredly no one would have

guessed from his conduct in the Holy Land, or from the

letails of his weary war with Richard Coeur de Lion, that

ic would have the firmness and the nerve to put everything

It stake, and deliver and win the greatest pitched battle of

lis age.

Freed from his long quarrel with the Pope by the homage lone at Dover on May 15, 12 1 3, John of England had set his :onsiderable diplomatic talents to work, in order to build up a > jreat coalition against the King of P>ance. He was determined f :o win back the lost lands of his ancestors on the Seine and Loire, and, since his own discontented realm could not furnish lim with sufficient forces for carrying out the scheme, it was lecessary to seek foreign aid. England was chafing against lis misrule so bitterly that he could only aid the confederacy

458 THE ART OF WAR IN THE MIDDLE AGES [1214

with his purse and his hordes of mercenaries. The most im- portant of John's allies was his nephew, the Emperor Otto IV., who had his own grievance against Philip, because the latter was supporting against him the young Frederic of Swabia, who claimed the Imperial throne. Otto was losing ground in Germany, and hoped to recover his reputation by a suc- cessful campaign in the West, where he could count on the aid of the majority of the princes of the Netherlands. Next ir importance to the emperor, though not next in rank in the coalition, was Ferdinand ^ Count of Flanders, who had faller out with his suzerain owing to Philip's grasping behaviour ir taking from him his towns of Aire and St. Omer. Anothei discontented French vassal, Reginald Count of Boulogne, hac the same grievances and the same intentions as Ferdinand and joined the allies in his company. All the princes of th( Netherlands, with the exception of the Duke of Luxemburg the Count of Guelders, the Bishop of Liege, and the latter' firm ally, Lewis Count of Loos,^ followed the lead of th< emperor, not merely because they were Otto's partisans in th^ German civil war, but because they dreaded the advance of th< cunning and unscrupulous King of France. We find in th' ranks of the coalition Henry Duke of Brabant (the vanquishec of Steppes),^ Henry Duke of Limburg, Theobald Duke 0 Lorraine, William Count of Holland,^ and Philip Count c Namur.

It would have been easy for King John to have shipper himself over to Flanders with all his mercenaries, and there t have joined his allies. But his plan of campaign was mor ambitious and more complicated : we seem to detect in it th project of a great strategical combination. It would appes that he had resolved to take upon himself the conduct of great diversion on the Loire, which was intended to dra^ the King of France southward and distract his attentioi Meanwhile, the emperor and the princes of the Netherlanc were to collect on the Flemish frontier, and, when all wei assembled, to march on Paris. If the French should alread

^ A Portuguese prince who had married Joanna Countess of Flanders, the eld daughter and co-heiress of Baldwin of Flanders, the ephemeral Emperor of tl Latins at Constantinople in 1204-5.

2 See p. 444.

^ An old enemy of Lewis of Loos, since they had disputed the inheritance Holland between them.

I2I4] KING JOHN INVADES POITOU 459

be involved in a campaign in Poitou or Anjou, the allies would find comparatively little resistance, and might overrun the whole of Northern France.^ This was a very broad and far-reaching plan for a mediaeval strategist ; unfortunately it required accurate timing, a thing impossible to secure when the distances were so great and communications so difficult.

In accordance with this project, John crossed to Aquitaine at a very unusual season. Sailing from Portsmouth, he landed at La Rochelle on the 15th of February 12 14, with a force almost entirely composed of his mercenaries : the English baronage could not be trusted.^ He called the feudal levies of Guienne to his aid, and marched into Poitou, where he was joined by Hugh of La Marche, who now consented to aid him in spite of his old grievance about his lost bride,^ and by Herve Count of Nevers. Making a great display of his troops, John overran Poitou in March, and then crossed the Loire and invaded Anjou, the ancient patrimony of his house. As he had expected, the King of France was profoundly moved by this invasion : he marched to check it, taking with him his son. Prince Louis, and the pick of the feudal levies of his realm. Moving by Saumur ^ and Chinon, he endeavoured to cut off John's line of retreat towards Aquitaine. But, abandoning Anjou, the King of England hastened rapidly southward, and, evading the enemy, reached Limoges (April 3).

By these operations John had drawn Philip far to the south, and if only the emperor and his allies had been ready to move, they might have forced their way to Paris with small difficulty. They were, however, far too late. Philip refused to pursue John any farther, and, after ravaging the revolted districts of Poitou, marched homewards. At Chateauroux he handed over to his

^ The chroniclers seem to recognise that this was John's plan, e.g. Chron. St. Victor (Bouquet, xvii. 427): "[Johannes] mandasse dicitur Othoni, dicto Imperatori, i It congrederetur cum Philippo rege Francorum, quia Ludavicus totam Galliae t •uventictem secutn habebat, quam occupatam detinebat : et rex Philippus non habebat , lisi inertes milites et emeritos." Matthew Paris says: "Ipse quoque rex apud i Portesmuthe exercitum congregavit immensum, ut ad Pictaviam transfretaret, j" iispomns a pai'te Occidentali, siact illi qui erant in Flandria a parte Orientalt, ■ 'egnuf/i Frajiciae inquietare.'''' 2 See Matt. Paris, ii. 252.

^ John, it will be remembered, had carried off and married Hugh's affianced wife, -sabella of Angouleme. After his death she married her old lover, and became Tiother of the Lusignans.

I

46o THE ART OF WAR IN THE MIDDLE AGES [12 14

son eight hundred knights,^ two thousand sergeants, and seven thousand infantry, and returned with the rest to the north.

John, however, was determined to detain in front of himself as large a force as possible. When he heard that the King of France had departed, he at once faced about and re-entered Poitou in May. Rapidly passing the Loire, he again invaded Anjou, and, after subduing many towns, laid siege to the strong castle of La Roche-au-Moine (June 19). He had lain in front of it for fifteen days when Prince Louis marched to its reliei with his own army, reinforced by four thousand Angevin levies under William des Roches, seneschal of Anjou, and Amaury de Craon.2 The English king was not prepared to fight, as he knew that his Poitevin allies were untrustworthy : ^ destroying his siege implements, he hastily recrossed the Loire (July 3) His rearguard suffered severely at the hands of the French The prince pursued him as far as Thouars, and then halted anc turned back to Anjou.'*

Meanwhile, a natural but very fatal mistake had been mad( in carrying out the great combination. John had done hi. share most effectually, but the emperor's intervention came tO( late. Otto moved towards the Netherlands in March ; h reached Aachen on the 23rd of that month, and should hav pressed forward at once towards the French frontier. But h lost time in striving to collect German troops to add to his owi i personal following, and in negotiating with the princes of the ho\ Countries. From the military point of view it was fatal — thoug. from the political point of view it was pardonable — to linger i Aachen in order to celebrate his marriage with the daughter c

1 Philippeis^ x. 130:

"Tu nate manebis Hie cum militibus demptis de mille ducentis, Ast ego cum reliquis Othonem visere vado ; " and ibid. x. 202 :

"Interea Ludovicus adest cum praenominato Militiae numero, septies quem mille sequuntur Armati pedites, et equis duo millia vecti Gnaviter edocti bellum instaurare clientes." Aegidius Aureae-Vallis stupidly supposed that the four hundred knights whom Phil took home were his only force at Bouvines three months later (Bouquet, p. 662).

2 Philippeis, x. 241 :

"His sibi Guillelmus et Amalricus sociatis Quattuor auxerunt Ludovici millibus agmen." ' Matthew Paris, ii. 577. * Philippeis, x. 322.

I2I4] BOUVINES: KING PHILIP'S PLANS 461

his powerful ally, Henry of Brabant (May 19).^ Only in June did he move forward again, bringing with him a very small contingent from the empire : of all the great vassals of the Crown, only the Counts of Tecklenburg, Katzenellenbogen, and Dortmund were with him. The war was not popular in Germany, and the three counts, together with Otto's own Saxon followers, formed but a small nucleus for the army of invasion. But on the 12th of July he had reached Nivelles in Brabant, where he held counsel with the Dukes of Brabant, Limburg, and Lorraine, and many more of his vassals. Dis- posing at last of a large army, he marched into Hainault, and named Valenciennes as the final mustering-place of his forces. He arrived there about the 20th of July, but it was now far too late for him to carry out his uncle's plan effectively. If he had been there three or even two months earlier, matters would have been very different, but by the end of July all

': France was in arms, and Philip had full information of the oncoming storm, and was prepared to beat off the attack from

i the north.

The army of Otto was nevertheless very formidable. The

I Count of Flanders had joined him with a very large contingent of horsemen, and William Longsword, Earl of Salisbury,

■ brought a great band of mercenaries to the Imperial standard.

I King John had sent his half-brother over to Flanders with

I forty thousand marks,^ and bade him take into his pay every

|i soldier of fortune that could be found. The documents in

\. Rymer's Foeder a ^ show us that Longsword had hired twenty- five knights from the Count of Holland. He had also taken

; into his pay the French exiles Reginald of Boulogne and Hugh of Boves, with all their followers. The contingent maintained by English money was large enough to form one whole wing of the allied army. It included great numbers of Brabancons

\ and other foot-soldiery, as well as the hired knights and

' sergeants of the cavalry arm.

[ When the campaign commenced, the allies had not fully

J concentrated their host. King Philip was in contact with them

I ^ This did not prevent Henry from playing a double-faced part, and giving secret

\ information to the French king of his rival's plans. See Philippeis^ p. 253, v. 671.

^ There must have been very few native English in Salisbury's band. Ralph Bigot ' is the only English knight named among the hundred and forty captives of Bouvines t (Bouquet, xvii. loi). ' ' Rymer, vol. i. p. Iio.

11

462 THE ART OF WAR IN THE MIDDLE AGES [1214

while five hundred knights and " an infinite multitude of infantry " ^ were still wanting. Otto had with him at Valen- ciennes, as the better contemporary chroniclers agree, fifteen hundred knights.^ This figure of course represents only a small proportion of his cavalry ; of light horse and mercenary sergeants there must have been a very much larger number — perhaps as many as five thousand or even more, for John's hired bands always contained a very small proportion of knights, and the Flemish towns sent many of their richer citizens to war on horseback. Of foot-soldiery there was a huge array. Salisbury had enlisted thousands of Brabangons, and the Netherlandish princes could always put into the field enormous levies of pikemen.^ All the writers of the day were impressed with the vast multitude of Otto's infantry, " which covered the whole face of the earth " ; ^ but we can get no acceptable figures for it. Richer of Sens,^ who estimates it at eighty thousand men, shows his own untrustworthiness by adding that the horse reached the impossible figure of twenty- five thousand. Even allowing for the absolute want of sense as to numbers which reigned among the writers of the age we must still suppose that the allied host was very large — perhaps fifteen hundred knights, five thousand mounted sergeants, and forty thousand foot may have been present under the Imperial standard, but it is impossible to give any satisfactory figures.

Meanwhile, King Philip had been watching the northern frontier since May, and, when he saw that the invasion wa^ really impending, had summoned all the available levies O! France. He could not call away men from his son, whc needed every lance that had been left him to make heac

^ Chronicon Turonense in Bouquet, xviii. 299.

' Chronicon Turonense in Bouquet, xviii. 299: '^ Nttmerus militum erat mill quingentoruju.'^'' Andreas Marchianensis : '* Cum viille quingeiiiis niUUibus." Th' Chronicle of William of Nangis gives the same number, perhaps copying ; while th< Chron. S. Columbae says, '^ Ad stimfnavi milk trecentorum militum."

3 Hainault alone had put into the field in 11 83 ten thousand men. The Duk- of Brabant lost at Steppes three thousand slain and four thousand prisoners ; an( yet his foot, though sorely mishandled, had not been entirely annihilated.

•* " More locustarum legionibus occulit agros " {Fh. x. 712).

5 Rich. Senonensis in Bouquet, xviii. p. 689. Richer is v^^ildly wrong in all hi tale of Bouvines. He makes the battle open with a tilt between Ferdinand 0 Flanders and Walo of Montigny, in which the latter pierced the former with th' oriflamme, which came out all bloody at his back ! (p. 692).

214] BOUVINES: STRENGTH OF THE FRENCH 463

igainst John. From the southern army the king had only vithdrawn the four hundred knights whom he had taken home rom Chateauroux in April. No help could be expected from Brittany and Anjou, all of whose levies were with the prince, lor very much from Normandy. But in Eastern, Central, and s^orthern France the ban was proclaimed, and every possible ffort made to concentrate all the forces of the countryside. Ve have, as in the case of Otto's army, no trustworthy esti- aate of the whole host. In cavalry, especially in mounted ergeants, it must have been very strong, as the figures of such ontingents as have been preserved clearly indicate. The :nights of the Count of Champagne (he himself was a minor nd not present) amounted to one hundred and eighty.^ The dIIs of service due to the king (drawn up about 121 1) show hat the Viscount of Melun owed the king eighteen knights, 'hile the Counts of Beaumont and Montmorency each were ound to serve with twenty, and the Count of St. Pol with lirty.^ Eudes ill. of Burgundy, successor of the duke whom 'e have met at Acre and Arsouf, must have brought a much irger following even than Champagne. Now, the contingents f these nobles, with certain other smaller ones,^ composed the ght wing of the French army at Bouvines. It must therefore ave counted at least five hundred knights : allowing as much )r the left wing and for the centre, we should conclude that hilip had at least fifteen hundred knights with him.* If we rant him for sergeants the same proportion as prevailed in le army on the Loire under his son (8 to 20), he must have

* Fhilippeis, x. 467 :

"Cum pene ducentis Militibus quales Campanicus educat axis." ■'All these from the service rolls in Bouquet, xxiii. 686, 693. See M. Delpech, I'itCttque ail xxiime Steele^ 127.

' e.g. those of the Count of Sancerre and Michael of Harmes.

* The right wing, as we shall presently see, contained at least four corps. (l) he Champenois — one hundred and eighty knights. (2) Montmorency, Beaumont, incerre, Hugh of Malaunay, and Michael of Harmes, who "post Campanenses acie oinerantur in una" {Fh. x. 475). Montmorency and Beaumont had twenty lights each, Sancerre probably as many ; of the others we cannot speak, but the •rps may well have mustered one hundred knights. (3) Burgundy, which must .ve given at least two hundred. (4) St. Pol and the Viscount of ]\Ielun, probably small corps; they were only bound to bring forty-eight knights between them, but her small contingents may have been added to bring their squadron up to a higher ^ure. Looking at these figures, it seems that the whole right wing must have had all over five hundred knights.

I

464 THE ART OF WAR IN THE MIDDLE AGES [12 14

had at least four thousand of the lighter sort of horse. But that this figure is too small is shown by the facts that one single great feudatory, the Abbot of St. Medard, could senc three hundred,^ and that at the end of the fight Philip wai able to mass in one part of his line, to make a final onslaugh' on the Count of Boulogne, no less than three thousanc sergeants.^ When we remember that every possible combatan had been collected to repel the great Teutonic invasion, w< may perhaps believe that the total may have reached even th two thousand knights given to Philip by one German chronicle a number which would presuppose at least five thousanc sergeants. There is nothing incredible in the figures, and the help to explain the victory of the French army, which in tha case must have outnumbered the allied host in horse, though : is quite clear that it must have been much inferior to it in th number of its foot-soldiery.

It is certain, nevertheless, that Philip had collected a ver considerable force of infantry. All the militia of the commum which he had done so much to foster were called out, and i addition the baronage had brought the much less valuable ba of their vassals.* If we may draw any conclusions from sue an instance as that Thomas of St. Valery, lord of Gamache had brought no less than two thousand foot-soldiery from h not very extensive fief,^ we must believe that this levy appears in great strength. We may guess that the king had son twenty-five or thirty thousand infantry with him, but tl smaller part must have consisted of the well-armed civic levi' and the mercenary Brabangons, of whom he maintained mar bands ; the greater proportion must have been composed the worthless feudal troops.

Philip had concentrated his army at Peronne about tl 20th of July. Finding that the long-threatened invasion st hung fire, he resolved to take the offensive himself, and cross*

1 Fhilippeis, xi. 58.

2 Philippeisy xi. 613.

3 The Magdebiirger Schoppenkronik {Stddteckroniketty vii. 140). I get t reference from General Kohler's Kriegsgeschichte, etc., i. 126.

^ M. Delpech shows that the number of the militia owed by the communes 1 2 12 was about ten thousand men, and some of these must have been with Prii Louis in Poitou.

^ " Hinc sancti Thomas Galerici nobilis haeres

Quinquaginta parat equites in bella, clientes Mille bis, audaces animis et robore fortes" {Ph. x. 494).

I2I4] BOUVINES: PHILIP AT TOURNAY 465

the Flemish frontier (July 23). He had seized Tournay (July 26) and pushed his scouts through it to Mortagne, when he learned that the emperor was not in Flanders, but in Hainault. Otto, as a matter of fact, had reached Valenciennes about the same time that Philip marched from Peronne. The news that the enemy lay so far to the south of him that they could by a rapid march cut in between him and Paris, disturbed the king. He must, he thought, either attack Otto at once, or retreat, and i by a flank march regain secure communication with his base. i The first alternative was rendered dangerous by the fact that I the ground between Tournay and Valenciennes was marshy ! and wooded, and therefore very unsuited for the powerful French cavalry.^ It only remained, therefore, to withdraw from Tournay and place the army, if possible, between Otto and Paris. After holding the city for only a day, Philip evacuated it and marched west, intending to cross the river Marque at the bridge of Bouvines, to sleep at Lille, and then probably to turn south by Lens and Arras. His ultimate destination was the plain of the Cambresis, where the level and open country was suitable for cavalry .^

It remained, however, to be seen what Otto would do on receiving the news of the advance of the French on Tournay. He might turn aside to meet them, or else make use of the strategical advantage which Philip's march so far to the north had put in his hands, and strike at Paris. Confiding in the superiority of his numbers,^ as we are told, he resolved to take the former course. Turning north-westward, he marched past the woods of the Foret Charbonniere to Mortagne on the Scheldt, some nine miles south of Tournay. On the 26th, the day he arrived there, his spies brought him the news that Philip was about to evacuate Tournay next morning and retire towards Bouvines. After taking counsel with his allies, he resolved to start in haste and pursue the King, hoping to come

^ '* Ista nimis via perniciosa quadrigis

Esse potest et equis : sed eis sine quis velit ire, Aut pugnare pedes?" {Ph. x. 685).

^ "Retro vertamus signa, Bovinas

Praetereamus, item Cameraci plana petamus Hostes unde gradu facili possimus adire " {Fk. x. 688, 689).

Et licet illorum numerus qui bajulat arma

Militiae vix esse queat pars tertia nostrae," etc. {Ph. x. 657).

30

4'66 THE ART OF WAR IN THE MIDDLE AGES [121^

up with him when part of his host had crossed the bridge o: Bouvines and part was still on the east side of the Marque Unfortunately there was a traitor in his camp : his own father- in-law, the Duke of Brabant, sent secret intelligence of the plan to King Philip, by the hands of a confidential chaplain 0 his suite.^

Next morning (July 27), at break of day, the Frencl abandoned Tournay and retreated by the old Roman roac leading to Bouvines. The king had caused the bridge to b( hastily widened by his engineers,^ so that it would take twelv men or eight carts abreast. Thus he trusted to get the whoL army across it, and to shelter them by the marshes of th' Marque before the enemy came up. There are only nine mile between Tournay and the Marque, but an army retreating wit] all its impedimenta by a single road trails out to an immens length. Hence it came to pass that when the baggage and th infantry and many of the horse were safely across the river, bu the main body of the cavalry was still far to the east of it, th heads of the Imperialist columns came in sight, marching hastil up from the south-east. For a moment the French hoped the Otto might be aiming at Tournay,^ but on reaching the Roma way his vanguard turned off and began to follow the road t Bouvines.

Philip had detached to cover his march a body of mounte sergeants, under Adam Viscount of Melun, who was accompanie by the warlike Garin, Bishop-elect of Senlis, an old Knigh Hospitaller, on whose military talents his master placed gre. reliance. After surveying the approaching host, Garin hasti rode back to inform the king that the enemy intended to figh for he could see that the knights' horses wore their barding and that infantry columns were advancing at the head of tl line of march.^

Meanwhile, the Imperialists came on so fast that they dro^ in the viscount and came into contact with the rear of tl

1 Philippeis, x. 672.

2 ** Continue pontem rex fecit amplificari

Corpora quod bis sex lateraliter ire per ipsum Cumque suis possent tractoribus octo quadrigae" {Ph. x. 810). 2 " Exiit ergo sermo inter milites nostros quod hostes declinabant Tornacur (G. le Breton, 269). The Imperialists were here passing the brook of the Barge, n Villemaux and Le Marais. 4 G. le Breton, p. 268.

I2I4] BOUVINES: PRELIMINARY SKIRMISHING 467

French army. First the king's horse-arbalesters, and then a body of sergeants belonging to the county of Champagne, lastly the Duke of Burgundy and his knights, faced about to bold back the Flemish cavalry which formed Otto's vanguard.^ But in five successive skirmishes they were perpetually driven back.

Garin had found Philip lunching under an ash not far to the ^ast of the Marque, and watching his columns slowly trailing icross the bridge. Hearing that the enemy was so close that t would be impossible to get the rearguard over the water vithout a disaster, the king determined on the bold step of )rdering his whole army to face about and take up a position )n the low rolling ground which lies above the east bank of the narshy river-bottom.^ Leaving the space about the Roman vay clear, that the Duke of Burgundy and the rearguard night draw up upon it, Philip began to extend his army, as :ach division came up, in a north-westerly direction from the oad, and tending towards the modern village of Gruson. The eason for arraying the line in this aspect, and not perpendicular o the road, would seem to have been that bodies of the Imperial- 5ts were already visible far to the north, evidently intending to ush past the French rearguard and outflank it as it approached he bridge.

Thus it came to pass that when the Duke of Burgundy, still ickering with the Flemings of the Imperialist vanguard, came sight of the bridge, he found the greater part of his suzerain's rmy already drawn up and ready to help him. When he ■heeled about and fell into line with them, the Flemings halted : was obviously impossible for them to attack the main body f the French before their own reserves came up. Soon the uperor arrived upon the field, and, seeing the enemy in array, rdered each of his corps as it came up to extend itself north- estward from the Flemings on the main road, so as to assume

^ Philippeis, x. 820. G. le Breton, p. 270. Chroniqtu et Istorie de Fla^idres^ 117.

2 I walked carefully over the battlefield in October 1897, It is now almost tif-cly under the plough. There is room for an army of any size on the low rolling )pes above Bouvines, and there is no ground over which a horseman could not ^^y pass. The Marque has shrunk to a mere rivulet, and its marshes have almost sap^ared. It is a pity that the column commemorating the victory has been set «k)se to the bridge of Bouvines on the outskirts of the village, and not on the tual field of battle.

468 THE ART OF WAR IN THE MIDDLE AGES [121.

a front parallel with that of King Philip's host^ The long tim< which it required for such a large force to come up and deplo} gave ample leisure to the belated parts of the French army t( recross the Marque and join the king. The infantry, which ha( gone farthest, only came up just in time to take part in th battle. The Duke of Burgundy and the rearguard meantime ob tained a grateful hour of rest, after their exertions of the morning We must now endeavour to reconstruct the battle-array c the two hosts. Among the Imperialists the south-eastern win was composed of Count Ferdinand's knights of Flanders an Hainault, who lay on and about the Roman way. Next t them was the centre, composed mainly of infantry, for Ott had massed there all his immense contingents of Flemish an Netherlandish infantry, as also, it would seem, the bulk of tl mercenary Braban^ons, whom the gold of King John had hire In the rear of them he himself was stationed with his ow comparatively small force of Saxon and Rhenish knight strengthened by the cavalry of the Dukes of Brabant ar Limburg and the Counts of Namur and Holland. The 4€ wing was composed entirely of the troops in English pay, tl knights and sergeants of the Earls of Salisbury and Boulog and of Hugh of Boves. The whole front of the Imperialist he was two thousand yards from end to end.^ In the centre of t

^ G. le Breton, p. 270: " Hostes itaque videntes regem praeter spem su reversum . . . diverterunt ad dexteram partem itineris quo gradiebantur, et prot derunt se quasi ad occidentem et occupaverunt eminentiorem partem campi. I etiam alas suas extendit e regione contra illos, et stetit a parte australi cum exer< sue." In the Philippeis, xi. 12, Otto

'* A laeva paulum retrahit vestigia parte

Componensque acies gressus obliquat ad Arcton."

2 " Occupet ut prima armatorum fronte virorum

Directe extensa passus duo millia terrae" {Ph. xi. 17). We have above (p. 462) estimated the Imperialists roughly at fifteen hunc knights, five thousand mounted sergeants, and forty thousand foot. The infan unable to afford intervals on account of the danger of being pierced, would in one great mass. So forty thousand men, twenty deep, with two feet of f for each pikeman, gives us a line of (roughly) thirteen hundred and fifty ya We have now to account for the cavalry : if we allow the emperor and the cer reserve to have counted four hundred knights and fifteen hundred sergeants, have left eleven hundred knights and three thousand five hundred serge for the wings, to occupy the six hundred and fifty yards remaining out of our thousand. At three feet front per horse, this would give us a depth of some% over seven horsemen, which is hardly sufficient : if there were some small intei (large ones were not possible in hosts whose chief danger was that of b broken through), the depth may have been eight or nine ranks.

I2I4] BOUVINES: THE ARMIES IN PRESENCE 469

line, behind the infantry and guarded by the cavalry reserve, was the Imperial banner, a silken dragon hoisted on a pole whose summit was crowned by a golden eagle. It was fixed on a car drawn by four horses, as the Milanese standard had been at Legnano, or Richard Coeur de Lion's at Arsouf

The French army which stood opposite the Imperialists had at first occupied only about 1040 yards in length,^ the infantry had not yet come up, and the mounted men, when ranged in the usual deep formation, were not numerous enough to face the whole line of the enemy. But Bishop Garin, who on this day seems to have acted almost as a chief of the staff for King Philip, hastily rode along the front, bidding the horsemen take ground to the flank, and make their files less dense. " The field is broad enough," he said ; " extend yourselves along it, lest the :nemy outflank you. One knight should not make another tiis shield ; draw up, so that all the knights may be in the front line." 2 In this way he made the French cavalry face the whole [mperialist army : if there were enough knights to form a con- :inuous front rank, the king must have had some two thousand of :hem. The five thousand sergeants with which we have credited aim in our estimate would only suffice to make the line three, or It the most four deep. But, just as the fight was beginning, the French infantry came marching hastily up from the rear, and, passing through the horsemen of the centre, who made intervals br them, ranged themselves in the midst of the host, and in front of the king and his personal retinue. The civic militia of "orbey, Amiens, Beauvais, Compiegne, and Arras are especially Tientioned.^ They had with them the oriflamme, the red 3anner of St. Denis ; the king's personal ensign, the blue flag X)wdered with golden lilies, was borne at Philip's side in the :entral division of horse, by a gallant knight named Walo of VIontigny.

^ " Prima frons pugnatorum protensa erat et occupabat campi spatium mille luadraginta passuum " (G. le Breton, p. 275).

^ "Campus amplus est ; extendite vos per campum directe, ne hostes vos inter- ;ludant. Non decet ut unus miles scutum sibi de alio tnilite faciat ; sed sic stetis It omnes quasi una fronte possitis pugnare " (G. le Breton, p. 277). " Sic etiam rex ipse suae protendere frontis Cornua curvavit, ne forte praeanticipari Aut intercludi tarn multo possit ab hoste" {Ph. xi. 17). ^ " Supervenientes communiae, et specialiter Corbeii, Ambianenses, Belvaci, Ilompendii, et Atrabate, penetraverunt cuneos militum et posuerunt se ante regem " G. le Breton, 282).

470 THE ART OF WAR IN THE MIDDLE AGES [12 14

In the line of French cavalry, the south-eastern wing was mainly composed of the old rearguard which had been engaged with the Flemings in the morning. It consisted of the horsemer of the county of Champagne, of Eudes of Burgundy, of the Counts of St. Pol, Beaumont, Montmorency, and Sancerre, anc certain smaller feudal contingents. We gather from Willian: le Breton that the Champenois were nearest the centre, tha' next them was a corps composed of the retainers o Beaumont, Montmorency, Sancerre, and two less importan vassals, Michael de Harmes and Hugh de Malaunay.^ Farthe down the line were the Burgundians, and also the Coun of St. Pol and the Viscount of Melun. But whether tb former or the latter formed the extreme right wing, we canno determine.

In the French centre, round the banner of the lilies, rod the king's personal retinue, strengthened by seventy knights c Normandy, the only contingent which that rich duchy coul spare, the greater part of its forces being on the Loin Here also were the smaller noblesse of the Isle de Franc< and also the young Count of Bar and his retainers. Amon the immediate following of the king we hear of hi chamberlain, Walter de Nemours, of William de Garland< Barthelemy de Roye, Peter Mauvoisin, Gerard la Trui< Stephen de Longchamp, William de Mortemer, John d Rouvray, and William des Barres, the old crusading hero wh came fresh from the triumph of Muret to win new laurels i the North.

The left wing of Philip's host contained the contingents Robert Count of Dreux (who lay nearest the centre), Williai Count of Ponthieu, Peter Count of Auxerre, the Bishop ( Beauvais, and Thomas of St. Valery, lord of Gamaches an Vimeux ; it is probable that in this part of the field lay ah many other troops from Picardy, Vermandois, and the oth( regions of Northern France. We know, for example, that tl Counts of Grandpre, Guisnes, and Soissons were with the hos but are not informed of their places in the line; it would I

^ '* Praeclarique viri tecum de Montemorenci, Quos eduxisti Matthee, comesque Johannes Bellimontensis, et Sacrocaesaris ortum Et cognomen habens Stephanus — vir nomine clarus — Et dominans Harmis Michael, Hugoque Malaunus Post Campanenses acie glomerantur in una " {Ph. x. 470-476}.

I2I4] BOUVINES : THE FRENCH ATTACK 471

natural that they should be ranged near their neighbours of Beauvais, Ponthieu, and St. Valery.^

The battle was opened by the French, in spite of the fact that their array was only just being completed by the arrival of the infantry at the moment of contact. The intention of the Imperialists had been to make a converging attack on the French centre: while Otto charged it in front, Reginald of Boulogne and Ferdinand of Flanders, with the right centre and left centre of the allied host, were to have closed in upon it from the sides.- But before they had advanced a step, the warlike Bishop of Senlis had made the first move. He sent out from the right wing — where he seems to have taken charge of the general conduct of affairs — three hundred mounted sergeants belonging to the Abbey of St. Medard by Soissons, bidding them ride at the Flemish knights in front of them, and endeavour to provoke

^ General Kohler, who has devoted much attention to Bouvine?, and from whom I have taken one or two useful points, thinks that both hosts were ranged in three lines, one behind the other. I confess that I cannot find any evidence of weight in favour of the idea. It certainly cannot be constructed from William le Breton's long and minute accounts of the battle in the Philippeis and the continuation of Ricord. If some other chroniclers seem to allude to such an order, they are writers who from their whole account show that they have no grasp or intelligent knowledge of the fight {e.g. Aegidius Aureae-Vallis and Wendover). It is incredible that William should have written so many pages on the battle and not told us of the three ranks if they had existed. Moreover, to get enough mounted men to make three whole lines, each of fair depth, extending over two thousand yards of front in the French army, is impossible. If the lines were six deep (and we know from G. le Breton, 286, that the array was valde densa), each must have contained twelve thousand men, and the whole army therefore thirty-six thousand horse, or, allowing for intervals 'which probably did not exist to any appreciable extent), more than twenty-five -housand. To get his three lines in the right French wing. General Kohler has to iirectly contradict W^illiam, who was actually present. The Philippeis, x. 470-476, says that Montmorency, Beaumont, Sancerre, Harmes, and INIalaunay "acie glomer- mtur in una post Campanenses." The general, however, puts Sancerre and Beaumont in his first line, and Montmorency in his second {Kriegsgeschichte, i. 140). Moreover, the whole tactics of the field are against his idea. How could individual -cnights like St. Pol and Melun (see p. 472) have cut their wa)'- through the front Flemish line, taken a turn around its rear, and cut their way back at another point, f a second line had been waiting behind the first to catch them ? It is quite true that :here were three-line battles in the thirteenth century, e.g. Benevento, but Bouvines .vas not one of them. Curiously enough, of the two arrays from \Villiam of Tyre, A'hich the general quotes as parallel to Bouvines in i. 137, one (Ascalon) was a narch order, not a battle order, and the other W^illiam has entirely muddled.

- " Iste comes [Reginald of Boulogne] et Ferrandus et imperator ipse, sicut postea iidicimus a captivis, juraverunt quod ad aciem regis Philippi aliis omnibus neglectis orogrederentur ; et quousque ad ilium pervenirent non retorquerent habenas. . . . Ferrandus voluit et incepit ire ad ilium, sed non potuit, quia interclusa fuit via a 3ampanensibus " (G. le Breton, p. 286).

472 THE ART OF WAR IN THE MIDDLE AGES [12 14

them into an encounter which would break the uniformity of the Imperialist line and prepare the way for a general movement of the French right. The Flemings, indignant at being charged by mere sergeants, would not spur to meet them, but received them at a standstill. Stabbing at the horses of their assailants, they dismounted most of them in a few minutes and drove them off. Then they began to advance, their leaders, Walter of Ghistelles and Baldwin Buridan of Furnes, shouting to them " to think upon their ladies " as if they were in a tournament^ The knights of Champagne who had followed in support of the three hundred sergeants were the first to come into collision with the Flemings, but soon the fight spread down the line, and all the other divisions of the French right wing became engaged with the adversaries in their immediate front. For a long time a confused cavalry fight raged all along this part of the line ol battle. The main bodies on each side kept their relative posi- tions, but individual knights at the head of small bodies of theii retainers sometimes pierced through the hostile line, came oul at its rear, and then cut their way back to their friends. Ar infinite number of single combats took place, with which we need not concern ourselves, though they form a large part o William the Breton's tale of the battle. The whole encounte: must have borne a great resemblance to a vast tourney — individual knights fought till they were tired, fell back awhile to take breath, and then returned to the melee.^ It was i long time before either side obtained a marked advantage | and meanwhile more decisive fighting was in progress in th( centre.

The infantry of the French communes had only just hac time to get into line in front of the king and the cavalry of hi centre, when the emperor moved forward with his enormou force of Flemish and German foot-soldiery. The two grea masses clashed against each other, but very soon the French less numerous and less noted as combatants on foot, gave wa; and scattered to the rear. The victorious Flemings, pushini the routed enemy before them, then came pressing forwar* against King Philip and his horsemen, the flower of the FrencJ

^ " Galterus et Buridanus . . . reducebant militibus suarum memoriam amicaruir non aliter quam si tirocinio luderetur " (G. le Breton, p. 277).

2 " Comes Sti. Pauli ab ilia caede paululum digressus, ut qui ictibus innumeris tai sibi quam a se illatis fatigatur, aliquantulum repausavit " {ibid. p. 280).

I2I4] BOUVINES: PHILIP IN DANGER 473

loblesse. Philip met them with a desperate charge : he and his anights at once broke into the now disorderly multitude, and vvere practically engulfed in it. Though inflicting a dreadful slaughter on the Netherland foot-soldiery, they were borne apart md almost submerged in the weltering mass. While William des Barres and the greater part of the French knights cut :heir way deep among the enemy,^ the king was caught some vvay behind and surrounded by a band of furious Flemings, who ilmost made an end of him. Though he hewed about to right ind left, he was struck by a dozen pikes, and finally dragged from his horse by a soldier who caught the hook of a halberd n the chain-mail about his throat and pulled him down to the ground. Philip would have been slain but for the agility with .vhich he regained his feet and the prompt and loyal aid brought lim by the few knights who were in his immediate neighbour- lood. Peter Tristan sprang from his horse and mounted his Tiaster on it ; while Walo of Montigny signalled for assistance oy alternately raising and lowering the banner which he bore, ;ill a compact band of horsemen had collected round him. The French were now rending the mass of infantry in all directions, ind many of the Flemings began to melt away to the rear, the men of Bruges,^ who had been in the front line of the host, and ,vho had therefore suffered most, taking the lead in this back- .vard movement. The French centre, however, had still to cope ,vith the emperor himself and the knights of Saxony, Brabant, ind Limburg, who had hitherto been hidden from them by the ntervening hordes of foot-soldiery.

Meanwhile, a separate combat had been taking place on the eft. When Otto had advanced, the Imperialist right wing had 'ollowed suit, and Reginald of Boulogne had tried to converge jpon the French centre in accordance with the original plan of 3attle.^ But the Count of Dreux, who stood nearest to the :entre among the various corps of the French left, closed in and

^ " Quo viso [the defeat of the communes] milites praenominati qui erant in acie egis processerunt, rege aliquantulum post se relicto, et opposuerunt se Othoni et iuis. Eis itaque praecedentibus, pedites Teutonici circumvallerunt regem et ab equo incinis et lanceis gracilibus in terram provolvunt" (G. le Breton, p. 202 ; cf. Philippeis^ ci. 270-280).

^ This we get from the Flemish Chronicle Gen. Comitum Flandriae in Bouquet, cviii. 567.

^ We need not pay much heed to G. le Breton's notion that Reginald turned off because at the last moment he shrank from attacking his feudal superior (p. 286) ; Dreux no doubt pushed in and blocked his way.

474 THE ART OF WAR IN THE MIDDLE AGES [1214

intercepted him. The fight then spread north-westward along the front of both armies, and Salisbury and Hugh de Boves, with John's mercenaries, engaged in a hot struggle with the Counts of Ponthieu and Auxerre, the Bishop of Beauvais, and Thomas o St. Valery. It was on this wing, curiously enough, that the Frencl" met both the weakest and the most desperate resistance tha" they encountered in the whole battle. On the one hand, th( Count of Boulogne made the toughest and longest stand of an) of the allied princes : as a rebel and a traitor he had more a stake than the rest. On the other hand, the mercenary horde of King John made a poorer show than any other troops on thi field — with the exception of the French infantry. They closec boldly enough at first, and made head against the enemy,^ bu when their leader, William Longsword, was felled from his hors« by the club of the Bishop of Beauvais and taken prisoner, the^ lost heart. Headed by Hugh de Boves, Longsword's second ii command, they began to give ground, and finally rode off tb field. Thus, though the left centre under Count Reginald hel( its ground, the extreme left was beaten and in flight before an; - other part of the Imperialist host was definitely crushed. Th corps of Ponthieu, St. Valery, and their neighbours in the lin of battle, thus became disposable for operations in other region of the field : we shall find them coming up in time to take par 1 in the rout of the emperor's centre.

About the time that the allied left wing broke up, thei right wing was beginning to show signs of distress, Thoug' they had been more than once broken through, notably b charges led by the Count of St. Pol and Adam of Melun, th Flemings clung together, closed their ranks, and fought on ti most of their leaders were struck down. Count Ferdinand v/a severely wounded in three places, cast from his horse, an captured. Walter of Ghistelles and Baldwin Buridan share his fate. Eustace of Mechlin was slain. Seeing no hope c victory, the stubborn Netherlanders at last gave way and sea tered themselves in flight. The hour was now too late to allo^ the French right wing to intervene in the centre ; the day ha already been settled in that part of the field. Moreover, c

^ G. le Breton tells that Salisbury was pressing the Count of Dreux hard (fro the flank, I suppose, as Boulogne had engaged him in front) when the Bishop Beauvais came in to his brother's help, cast the earl down, and broke up his squad ro {Ph. xi. 540).

I2I4] BOUVINES: THE EMPEROR FLIES 475

we should suppose, the victors were too fatigued for any further fighting.

We left the French centre moving forward to engage the emperor after it had cut through the mass of infantry in the allied centre. King Philip's squadrons were probably superior in number to their adversaries, but their order was broken and they themselves fatigued, while the knights of Germany and Brabant were fresh. The odds, therefore, were not unequal, and both sides fought with the most undaunted courage. The first advantage gained by the French was that the emperor himself left the field. Otto was fighting gallantly in the midst of his retinue, armed with an axe,^ when a band of French knights headed by William des Barres threw themselves upon him, resolved to capture or slay him at all costs. Peter Mauvoisin seized his bridle, Gerard la Truie dealt him two blows, the second of w^hich fell upon his charger and mortally wounded it. The maddened horse plunged off and fell dead a few paces to the rear. The French knights followed fast, and tried to seize the emperor, but the Saxons thronged round to defend him. Bernard of Horstmar leaped down and gave his master his own steed, on which he began to draw off to the rear. William des Barres, however, followed hotly after him, and was again grasping at his helm when a knot of Saxons closed upon him, stabbed his horse, and forced him to give up the pursuit. Sorely bruised, and dazed by the imminent peril he had gone through. Otto did not turn back when he was safe, but rode off the field accompanied by three knights only;^ he took no further thought of the Imperial standard which he was deserting nor of the brave vassals whom he left behind, but did not draw rein till he reached Valenciennes.

Otto's flight sorely discouraged his knights. The Saxons and Westphalians fought gallantly to cover his retreat, but the Netherlanders soon began to melt off to the rear. The Duke of Brabant, whose heart was not whole in his suzerain's cause (we have seen him sending treacherous messages to King Philip ^), was one of the first to fly. The battle indeed was now obviously lost, for troops from the French left wing were coming in to the aid of the centre. W^illiam des Barres, whom we have

^ Philippeis, xi. 354.

^ Andreas Marchianensis in Bouquet, xviii. 558.

^ See p. 466.

476 THE ART OF WAR IN THE MIDDLE AGES [12 14

left pressing far in among the Germans in pursuit of the emperor, was saved from imminent capture by the arrival of Thomas of St. Valery/ who had pushed in with his fifty knights to aid the king, after taking his part in the rout of Boves and Salisbury. We cannot doubt that other corps from the victorious left must have come up at the same time. It u probably their arrival which accounts for the fact that almost all the German knights of Otto's corps, who fought on after th( Netherlandish dukes had fled, were taken prisoners. St Valer} and his companions no doubt arrived upon the right rear o the Imperialists, and so cut them off from their retreat. Coun Otto of Tecklenburg, Count Conrad of Dortmund, a third nobk in whose odd name we seem to recognise a Raugraf from th( middle Rhine,^ Bernard of Horstmar, Gerard of Randerode, and al the leaders of the emperor's personal following, were taken captive Thus the battle ended in the centre, but there was on» point at which it was still raging. Reginald of Boulogne hac not fled when Hugh of Boves and the rest of the Imperialis right wing gave way, but, cursing Hugh as a coward, ha( determined to fight on to the last. He formed a corps of sevei hundred Brabangon mercenary foot-soldiers into a circle,^ an< took refuge in it with a small body of knights of his ow] personal following. Repeatedly charging out from his strong hold, he kept in check the Counts of Dreux and Auxerre an^ the other corps in the French line which were opposite to hinr Their repeated onslaughts could not break the circle of pike in which he took refuge when he wished for a breathing-spac( for the Brabangons stabbed the horses of the French and kep them at bay by the length of their weapons.

^ G. le Breton, p. 285, and Philippeis, xi. 510.

2 " Comes Pilosus," the hairy count, probably a mistranslation of Raugraf. H is mentioned repeatedly by the Philippeis^ but the author says (x. 400) that he caa from the land where Meuse and Rhine join, and dwelt near Trajectum (Utrecht There were no Raugraves there, so possibly G. le Breton had confused Utrecl with Trier, and the Meuse with the Moselle.

^ Were these Braban9ons part of Reginald's original command? If so, the were infantry in the Imperialist right wing, of which we get no other sign. Tl way in which they are spoken of certainly seems to imply that they were und Reginald's command. Nevertheless, I am inclined to suspect that they were real part of the right flank of the Imperialist centre, and that the count called them to him when the rest of the centre and of the left broke up and fled. Being part John's mercenaries, they would know him, and would have been previously und his orders.

I2I4] BOUVINES: PHILIP VICTORIOUS 477

It was only after the whole of the rest of Otto's army had been dispersed that the chivalric feats of Count Reginald were brought to an end. King Philip concentrated against him the overwhelming force of three thousand mounted sergeants, giving charge of the operation to the Count of Ponthieu and Thomas of Valery. They, charging the circle on all sides simultaneously, at last succeeded in breaking it up. The Brabangons were cut to pieces, and the Count of Boulogne dragged from his horse and taken prisoner, fighting to the last.^

So ended this great pitched battle, "durissima pugna sed non longa," as one chronicler calls it.^ The whole of the fighting had probably been comprised in a space of not more than three hours. The loss of life among the infantry of both sides had been heavy, but the knights had suffered little : their impenetrable armour had saved them —

*' Tot ferri sua membra plicis, tot quisque patenis Pectora, tot coriis tot gambesonibus armant — Sic magis attenti sunt se munire moderni ! " ^

It would seem that about a hundred and seventy knights had fallen on the emperor's side — a very moderate figure considering the crushing nature of the defeat.* The really important feature of the victory was the number of the prisoners of importance — five counts^ (Flanders, Boulogne, Salisbury, Dortmund, and Tecklenburg) and a hundred and thirty-one knights, of whom twenty-five were barons bearing a banner.^ The French loss in cavalry was very small, though we can hardly believe that it amounted to no more than three knights, as some chroniclers allege. The most important personage who had fallen on their side was Stephen de Longchamp, a gallant baron who had fought in the central corps under the king's own eye. He was slain by a thrust which entered the eye - slit of his helm and pierced his brain. '

^ Cf. Philippeis, xi. 614, with Aeg. de Roya in Bouquet, xix. 258.

^ John of Ypres in Bouquet, xviii. 606.

' Philippeis, xi. 127.

^ See M. Delpech's remarks in p. 169 of Tactique, vol. i. The Chronicle of Mailros, which goes into figures, is, like other chronicles on this side of the water, not to be trusted for the account of Bouvines.

° Six if the " Comes Pilosus " be counted, but we cannot satisfactorily identify him.

" The official list of the prisoners is in Bouquet, xvii. loi, etc.

478 THE ART OF WAR IN THE MIDDLE AGES [12 14

Bouvines is a very typical battle for the display of thirteenth- century tactics. We note that there was little manoeuvring on either side when the fight had once begun : each corps fought its own enemy and concerned itself little with its neighbours, The three engagements of the centre and the two wings went on quite separately, and the only influence of one of them or another that we can trace is the participation, late in the day of Thomas of St. Valery and his fellows of the French left in tht attack on the allied centre. Upon the wings the engagement seems to have resembled a colossal tilting-match, where the combatants closed, fought, withdrew, and after a rest camt back to the charge. On neither side did the infantry mud distinguish itself. The French foot were broken irretrievably anc left the field. The Imperialist foot, disordered by their firs success, allowed themselves to be pierced and ridden down. Onh Reginald of Boulogne showed that he knew how to handle th( two arms in unison : his charges out from his circle of pikemei remind us of Richard Coeur de Lion's^ exploits at Jaffa. It i. to be noted, too, that his tactics, while effective enough, were onh suited for a leader taking the defensive : by adopting them h« sacrificed the power to advance or retreat, and did no mor than detain in front of him a certain amount of hostile troops Such action could have only an indirect effect on the fate of th' battle.

If we seek the ultimate causes of the French victory, w must cite, firstly, the misconduct of the mercenary cavalry ii the allied right wing ; secondly, the numerical superiority of th French in knights, which far more than compensated th^i weakness in sergeants and infantry ; thirdly, the accident whicl removed the emperor from the field ; fourthly, the slacknes and perhaps treachery of the Duke of Brabant.

We cannot ascribe much influence on the fate of the da; to the French king. Philip showed courage and decision ii offering battle ; a further retreat would inevitably have led t< the destruction of his rearguard, and the chances of ai engagement were far preferable to such a disaster. But during the fighting we look in vain for proof that he exercised an; sort of command over his host. He did nothing more thai conduct into battle the cavalry of the centre : he bore himself a a good knight, not as a general. Bishop Garin was the onl;

iSee p. 317.

I2I4] BOUVINES: OTTO'S TACTICAL ERRORS 479

Frenchman on the field who seems to have possessed a military eye.

On the side of the allies the conduct of the battle was even worse. They started with a general plan for overwhelming the French centre, but, when it was frustrated, each division settled down to fight its own battle in complete disregard of its neighbours. The emperor exercised no general control what- ever. It is evident that during the opening moments of the battle, while his infantry were engrossing the whole attention of the French centre, he and his knights satldle, and paid no attention to the fight on the wings. If they were not required on the left, they certainly might have done something to repair Salisbury's disaster on the right. But apparently Otto thought of nothing but staying by his banner and keeping his central post : of the true uses of a cavalry reserve he showed no appreciation whatever.

It is curious, indeed, to note that neither side fought with any real reserve whatever, though the numbers on the field were 30 great that it would have been easy to provide one. Otto should have told off some of his solid Flemish infantry for the purpose ; properly placed, that would have enabled the knights to rally. But he chose to array the whole of his foot-soldiery in :he front line and to endeavour to execute an offensive move- ment with them — a task which the heavy mass was incapable of :arrying out without losing its formation. Philip, on the other aand, might have spared some of his numerous cavalry to form 1 reserve ; even a small body of fresh knights could have settled :he encounter on the right between the Flemings and the Z^hampenois and Burgundians, for the combatants there were 50 equally balanced that they fought on for nearly three hours before any definite result was reached. As a matter of fact, the only troops in Philip's host which did more than dispose of the enemy in their immediate front were the contingents of Ponthieu and St. Valery on the left wing, who very wisely turned to aid their comrades when they had disposed of Salisbury's mercenaries.

That the thirteenth century could show far better general- ship than either side displayed at Bouvines we have already seen, when observing the elder Montfort at Muret and his son at Lewes.

The next two fights with which we have to deal, both victories

48o THE ART OF WAR IN THE MIDDLE AGES [126

won by a grandson of Philip Augustus, will give us a muc higher notion of the development of mediaeval cavalry tactic

Battle of Benevento, February 26, 1266.

The interminable struggle between the Papacy and th house of Hohenstaufen was still dragging on in the third quarte of the thirteenth century. Frederic II. was dead, as was als his heir Conrad, but his policy was continued and his line sti represented by his bastard son. King Manfred, who after twelv years of constant struggle still held the kingdom of the Tw Sicilies (1254-65). The Papacy had raised up against him succession of enemies, but he had hitherto beaten them all o In 1265 the newly-elected Pope Clement IV. enlisted in h cause Charles of Anjou, the able and unscrupulous brother St. Louis. Not contented with his own Angevin county, n^ with the wealthy Provencal dominions which had come to hi with his wife, Charles accepted the offer of the Sicilian crow and undertook to drive out the bastard. His own resourc would not have sufficed for the task, but the Pope offered hi ample grants of money, and with it he hired mercenaries fro all parts of France and the Low Countries. Pursuing the sar methods as William the Conqueror had adopted just t\ hundred years earlier, he promised high pay and grants fiefs in Italy to every adventurer, gentle or simple, w would follow him. Clement aided him by declaring t expedition a crusade, and authorising all who took part it to wear a red and white cross as a symbol of their p; fession.

In May 1265 Charles arrived in Rome with about thousand knights of his personal following. He came hims by sea, but the great bulk of the adventurers had resolved march by land. They mustered at Lyons under the conduct Giles le Brun, the Constable of France, and Robert the son the Count of Flanders. The army was much belated : wl Charles lay waiting for it in Rome through the months of summer, and there exhausted all the Pope's money, his C' federates started late in the autumn, and crossed the A only just in time to avoid being stopped by the snows. Tl passed through Lombardy in November, numbering, accord ; to the best accounts, about six thousand mounted combata six hundred horse-arbalesters, and twenty thousand foot of v

1266] CHARLES OF ANJOU MARCHES ON CAPUA 481

varying quality, about half of which was composed of cross- bowmen.^

Manfred had hoped to hinder or perhaps to wreck the crusade by arming against it the Ghibellines of Northern Italy. But the French brushed them aside with ease, and, passing by Mantua, Bologna, and Ancona, crossed the Apennines, descended the valley of the Tiber, and joined their employer at Rome on January 12, 1266.

Charles had long exhausted the Pope's gratuities, and was at such a pitch of destitution that he was compelled to hurry on his army at once, in the depth of the winter, that he might at all costs get them into hostile territory, where they could live at free quarters. He only allowed them eight days to recruit themselves, and then marched straight on Naples by the Latin way.

King Manfred had taken his post at Capua behind the Volturno with the bulk of his troops, but till he was certain of his adversary's route he was obliged to keep detachments watching various roads into his kingdom. One of these, pushed forward to the strong position of San Germano on the Garig- iiano, — the same ground on which Gonsalvo de Cordova and the Marquis of Saluzzo fought in 1504, — came into contact with the invaders the moment they left the Papal States, and was badly beaten on the 9th of February. The result of this skirmish was appalling, from Manfred's point of view; he knew that many of his subjects were disloyal, but he was not prepared to see the whole countryside from San Germano to the gates of his own camp instantly pass over to the enemy.^ This treachery must have filled him with dark thoughts as to the probable result of the oncoming battle.

Charles, meanwhile, learning that his adversary lay in great force behind the Volturno, and that the bridge by Capua was strongly fortified, resolved not to assault him in front, but to turn his position by a flank march. Striking off into the Samnite Apennines, he took the difficult road which passes by Telesia and Vitolano into the valley of the Calore near Benevento. From the last-named city he would be in a

^ Annales Januenses in Pertz. Mon. Germ, xviii.

' Letter of the Proven9al knight Hugues de Baux in Andreas Ungarus in Bouquet, xxi. : "Non paucis comitibus militibus et baronibus Manfrido relicto, ad iundem illustrem regem adfluentibus." 31

4^i^ THE ART OF WAR IN THE MIDDLE AGES [1266

position to reach Naples without having to force the line of the Volturno. Charles had, however, utterly miscalculated the dangers of the rough defiles which he had to pass. In February they were almost impassable on account of the mountain torrents, and the army had to abandon all its vehicles, and take forward only such food as the horses could carry. Many beasts of burden arid a considerable number of the chargers perished ; at the end of the march flour ran short, and the French were compelled to begin eating the flesh of their foundered pack-animals.^ Nor was this all : on descending from the passes and nearing Benevento, they found the army oi Manfred waiting for them in good order on the other side of the Galore. The King of Sicily had received early news of th< invaders' flank march, and, having a good high road to follow arrived at the point of danger before Gharles had been able tc extricate himself from the mountains.

The French were now in a most dangerous position : th( road was barred by the swollen river, which could be passec only by the well-guarded bridge of Benevento. Men and horse: were exhausted, and there were hardly any provisions left ir the camp. If Manfred had been content to wait a few days the invaders must have surrendered or died of hunger.^ Bu the king was not in a mood to wait ; he had just received th last reinforcements of trustworthy troops that he could recko upon — a body of eight hundred German mercenary horse. He knew that every day that he delayed would give time fo more of the Neapolitan barons to desert him. He believed th condition of the enemy to be even more desperate than : actually was.* Perhaps, in the spirit of the mediaeval knight, h preferred to beat his adversary by the sword rather than b hunger. Whatever were the reasons that weighed most wit him, it is at any rate certain that, on February 26, he bac his army cross the Galore and advance into the plain on tl

1 " Per necessita molt! convenia vivere di came di cavalli, e loro cavalli di tor senza biada" (Ricordano Malaspina in Muratori, viii. 1003).

2 *« Si fosse solamente atteso uno di, o due, lo Re Carlo e sua gente erano morti presi, senza colpo di spada, per disetto di vivande di loro e di loro cavalli " (Ricorda Malaspina in Muratori, viii. 1002).

' Letter of Hugues de Baux in Andreas Ungarus.

* The Italian chronicler Saba Malaspina makes Manlred in his oration to 1 army say that the French chargers "extenuati prae labore nimio parum valent" ( Muratori, viii. 824).

1266] BENEVENTO : MANFRED ADVANCES 483

farther side, toward the French camp, which lay on the opposite hillside. J v/3tD oiiiq aijw baiincM

Manfred's army wa$ 'composed of very heterb^eneoits^ ele-i ments. The best part of it consisted of his German mercenary horse, twelve hundred strong : these troops, as the chroniclers note, were armed with the plate armour which was just beginning to come into fashion, and not with the usual mail- shirt and gambeson of the thirteenth century. As trustworthy as the Germans, but not so formidable in the hour of battle, were his Saracen horse and foot ; the Sicilian Moslems, whom Frederic II. had transplanted to Luceria and Nocera, had always served him and his son with great fidelity. Their infantry were composed of archers not provided with any defensive arms ; of cavalry there were three hundred or four hundred light horse. Manfred had also a considerable body of mercenary horsemen, Lombards and Tuscans for the most part : they are estimated at a thousand strong. Lastly, there were his born subjects, the barons of the Two Sicilies — perhaps a thousand knights and squires in sum. Their ranks were full of traitors, and their master was aware of the fact.^

Manfred sent his Saracen foot-archers forward to begin the battle. After them followed his cavalry in three divisions, one behind the other. The first was composed of the twelve lundred Germans, under the king's cousin, Giordano Lancia, Count of San Severino. In the second were the thousand Italian mercenaries under Galvano Lancia, Prince of Salerno, :he king's uncle. In the third Manfred himself led the faithful Saracens, combined with untrustworthy barons of the Regno. \bout his person were his two treacherous brothers-in-law, R-ichard Count of Caserta, and Thomas Count of Acerra, he Count Malecta his High Chamberlain, as also a Roman )atrician, Tibaldo dei Annibali. To the last named, one of lis most trusted friends, Manfred gave his royal armour and urcoat — preferring, like Henry of Brabant at Steppes and ^enry of England at Shrewsbury, not to attract too much lotice in the melee.

On seeing the enemy preparing to cross the bridge, Charles

^ The numbers from Ricordano Malaspina, M. viii. 1003, and Saba Malaspina, 826. The French views on the force of their adversaries are of course less aluable ; they exaggerate the three thousand six hundred horse into five thousand Hugues de Baux).

Ik

484 THE ART OF WAR IN THE MIDDLE AGES [1266

of Anjou, overjoyed at the unexpected advantage which Manfred was placing in his hands, drew up his army outside his camp and prepared to descend into the plain. Like his adversary, he drew up three successive corps of cavalry.^ The first was mainly composed of knights and sergeants from hi.^ own Proven9al dominions : they numbered nine hundred, anc were led by Hugh Count of Mirepoix, Marshal of France, anc Philip Count of Montfort. In the second, which Charles tool under his personal orders, were a thousand knights and men at-arms from Southern and Central France. Their chiefs wer< the Count of Vendome, the Bishop of Auxerre, Guy d^ Montfort, Peter de Beaumont, and Guy de Mello. The thin corps was composed of seven hundred Flemings and Norther; French ; it was commanded by the Constable Giles le Bru and Robert of Flanders. In addition, the invaders numbere four hundred Italian men-at-arms of the Guelf faction, led by th Florentine Guido Guerra : it is not easy to make out exactl where they stood ; apparently they were not with the reserve, bi struck in with the second line at the moment of.contact.

Charles ordered each of his men-at-arms to have behin him a couple of foot-soldiers, whose duty it would be to ai those of the horsemen who were dismounted, and to slay tho; of the enemy who were overthrown. The r^st of the infantr among whom the arbalesters were very numerous, were throw ; out in front of the line to skirfl:iish with the Saracen foo soldiery of Manfred's host. UO i^.

It will be noted that Charles had the enormous advanta] of leading an army which was practically homogeneous ; sa the few Italians, all were vassals of the French or Proven^ crowns, and fairly equal to each other in military worth. We a somewhat surprised to see the smallness of the whole arra six thousand French horse had crossed the Alps, a thousn had been at Rome with Charles, and the Italian allies had sl a contingent Yet we only find three thousand men-at-arms the battle line : even remembering that garrisons had been 1 behind in the conquered places on the Garigliano, we must s .conclude that the army had suffered severely from the wint weather in its march down Italy, and especially in the defi .between San Germano and Benevento.

^ This order is arriwd at by comparing Andreas Ungarus, Primatus, and Ricord ^alaspina, who does not quite agree with the others.

PLATE XV.

1^66] BENEVENTO : THE GERMANS CHARGE 485

The battle opened with a futile infantry skirmish which had no effect on the fortune of the day, and only serves to show the low esteem in which both sides held their foot-soldiery. It is characteristic to find that only one of the chroniclers who describe the fight, Saba Malaspina, thinks it worth while to narrate it.

The Saracen archers, as he tells the tale, ran out in front of Manfred's army before the command had been given them, intending to harass the front line of French horse, and so to prepare the way for the charge of the Germans. Charles of Anjou threw out against them his ribaulds, the half- armed irregular infantry of his host, and also no doubt his arbalesters. The Saracens had the best of the skirmish ; the French were shot down by hundreds, and gave way. To save them, Mirepoix and De Montfort directed a body of sergeants from the first line of horse to charge the Saracens.^ This they did with great effect, and sent the whole rout of Infidels flying; meanwhile, the German horse moved up to attack the sergeants, and the real battle began. There is no mention of the infantry on either side during the rest of the fighting ; apparently they had done all that was expected of them, and were relegated to the rear.

When the Germans met the Provencal knights and sergeants of Anjou's first line, they had at first the advantage over them. They were heavier men on heavier horses, and their armour of plate was quite impenetrable to the strokes of their opponents. Advancing at a slow trot,^ and keeping their order so close that no one was able to force his way into their ranks, they slowly but effectively pushed the Provencals before them.

Seeing his front corps about to break up, Charles thought it time to bring on his second line to its aid. Accordingly he charged with all his French chivalry ; apparently also his four hundred Italian knights joined in the attack. Assailed now by double their own force, the Germans still held out gallantly, and

^ Saba Malaspina says that these sergeants were a thousand strong, p. 826 : " Irruunt igitur in Saracenos praedictos servientes equites, numero forte mille." This is impossible, as the whole of Mirepoix's corps was only nine hundred strong, and it must of course have contained many knights beside these sergeants.

^ " Moverunt se aliquantulum. planis tamen passibus, adversus nos" (Andreas Ungarus, 575). " Les anemis, par malice, s'estoient si estroitement joins ensamble, que ils ne pouvaient estre percies si n'estoit par fine force" (Primatus in Bouquet, XX. 28.

^ THE ART OF WAR IN THE MIDDLE AGES [i26(

it appeared at first as if they were about to drive the foe back They seemed invulnerable in their double harness to the Frencl swords. But the enemy ere long noted the weak point of thei equipment ; plate armour was still in its infancy, and the piece were not yet protected by the scientific superposition of part t part, which was perfected in the next century. Some sharp eyed French knight noted that as the Germans lifted thei great swords to strike, an undefended opening was visible a their armpits. A cry ran down the Crusaders' ranks to " giv point" {a I'estoc), and stab under the arm.^ Closing in, an wedging themselves between the somewhat shaken ranks c Manfred's men-at-arms, they grappled with them, and thrus their blades, which were shorter and more acutely pointed tha those of their enemies, into the undefended gaps. A consider able number of the Germans were mortally wounded in a fe^ minutes, their close order was broken, and, when once the were thrust apart, the superior numbers of the French ove: whelmed them ; the whole corps was practically annihilated.

We are at a loss to know why Manfred's second line did nc come up to aid the Germans at the same moment that Chark of Anjou threw himself into the fight to assist the failin Provengals. It is possible that the long time spent in passin the bridge of Benevento on a narrow front had retarde Manfred's men, and caused a very wide space to arise betwee each of his corps. Of intentional slackness we cannot suspe« Galvano Lancia, the king's uncle and faithful adherent, who wi in command of the Lombard and Tuscan mercenaries whic formed this second division.

His late arrival, however, was fatal to his nephew's caus The Germans had been cut to pieces before he came up, ar the French first and second corps outnumbered him by mo than two to one. While some charged the Lombards in fror others swept round their flanks and beset them from the re^ Shaken in spirit by the sight of the fate of the Germans, " wl were to have been to them as a wall of defence," ^ Galvanc

^ Primatus in Bouquet, xx. 28: "Les Fran9ois boutoient les espees grelles agues sous les esselles d'iceulx, ou ils apparoient touz desarmes, et les transper^oii si tost comme il levoient les bras pour ferir, et leur boutoient les espees parmi entrailles." Clericus Parisiensis in Mon. Germ. xxvi. 582 : " Clamatum est a pa nostra quod in hoste de ensibus percuterent destoc."

' " Esquels [Alemans] Mainfroy se lioit moult, et avoit fait aussi comme ungn pardevant son ost " (William de Nangis in Bouquet, xx. 425),

1266] BENEVENTO: MANFRED SLAIN 487

riders made a very poor resistance. Seeing themselves about to be surrounded, they broke, and those who could galloped off the field ; the majority were slain or taken prisoners. f>{f King Manfred was now left alone on the plain with his ^ird line, a force formidable in numbers, but not in spirit. Apparently he was as far behind his uncle as the latter had been behind the Germans — at any rate, we are not told that he made any attempt to help Galvano. Charles even found time to bring up his fresh third corps of Flemings and Picards, and to array it in front before the clash with Manfred's troops came on.^ In the moment before the final charge, the latent treachery among the Neapolitan nobles broke out ; the king's two brothers- in-law, the Counts of Caserta and Acerra, suddenly swerved off and left the field with their retainers. Many other barons followed them ; their master had to choose between death or instant flight. His undaunted spirit led him to take the first alternative : closing up the trusty few who were left with him, knights of his personal retinue and Saracen horsemen, he rode straight into the midst of the enemy, and found the death that he sought.2 At his side, there fell his friend, Tibaldo dei Annibali, to whom the royal surcoat proved fatal, and other faithful retainers. The French gave little quarter : it will be remembered that Charles had placed ribaulds behind his cavalry, with orders to slay the wounded and dismounted knights of the enemy. Hence it is quite possible that the frightful loss of three thousand men out of three thousand six hundred, which trustworthy chroniclers ascribe to Manfred's army, may be not much exaggerated. The river was at the backs of the fugitives, and only the bridge was safe ; those who tried to swim the -hooded Calore in their heavy mail were mostly drowned.^ Of :he few prisoners taken, the most notable were Giordano Lancia md his cousin, Count Bartolommeo. We need not pay much attention to the assertion of the best chronicles on the French side that only one knight among the victors perished ; the loss n the Provencal corps must have been very heavy, even if the second and third lines came off with light damage.

^ Primatus in Bouquet, xx. 29.

^ "Sed cum nonnulli de Regno proditorie abscessissent, Manfredus cum reliquis Tiori potius eligens, ruit in medium, pugnat, percutit, percutitur et expugnatur, )roh dolor ! a suis sic perditus " (Saba Malaspina in Muratori, viii. 827).

3 Ibid. 828.

4S8 THE ART OF WAR IN THE MIDDLE AGES [1266

The main point worthy of notice in this interesting fight h that Charles of Anjou showed himself perfectly able to manage his cavalry, supporting one corps by another at the critica moment whenever it was needed. Manfred's divisions, on th( other hand, gave each other absolutely no assistance ; the onl} explanation for the extraordinary want of co-operation showr in his host is the time which the defile over the bridge o Benevento must have taken. This throws us back on to th< king's original fault — that of crossing the Calore at all. Nothing could be more unwise than to pass a narrow defile and place ; river behind him when he had to deal with a formidable anc desperate enemy. But, granting that the battle must b delivered, it was necessary at all costs to keep the infantry an( the Germans close to the bridge, and not to allow them t advance heedlessly into the plain, while the rear divisions wer still threading their way over the passage. If it be true tha the Saracens advanced without orders,^ and the German followed, equally without orders, to support them, we mu5 deduct somewhat from Manfred's faults as a tactician, b adding to those which he showed as a disciplinarian.

Battle of Tagltacozzo, August 23, 1268.

Charles of Anjou had worn for eighteen uneasy months th crown which he had won at Benevento, when he was calle upon to defend it from the last male heir of the house ( Hohenstaufen. Conradin, the young grandson of Frederic I and the nephew of Manfred, crossed the Alps in October i Vv^th a considerable German army, and was received by Ghibelline town of Verona. About the same time, Don Henf " brother of the King of Castile, and Galvano Lancia, whom v have already heard of at Benevento, seized Rome at the head < the Ghibellines of Central Ital}'.

Charles had advanced into Tuscany, prepared to fall upc Rome, or to defend the passage of the Apennines again Conradin, when he was called southward by the imminei danger of losing his own realm. He had made himself detest€ by all the nobles of the Two Sicilies, who now bitterly regrettc their treachery to Manfred. An alien king, who placed a power and authority in the hands of his Provencal and Frenc satellites, was unbearable to them. Sicily rose in arms in tl

^ As Saba Malaspina says.

■

T268] CONRADIN MARCHES SOUTHWARD 489

autumn of 1267, and the royal governors were constrained to seek refuge in Messina and other strongholds ; during the winter the Saracens of the mainland followed the example of Sicily, and fortified themselves in their stronghold of Luceria. The danger of a general insurrection in all the provinces of the Regno was so great that Charles was constrained to quit Tuscany and hurry home. His departure was hastened by the defeat of part of his host which had been sent to make a dash at Rome ; it was badly beaten by Henry of Castile, with the loss of a thousand men.

While Charles lay in Apulia beleaguering Luceria, the young heir of the Hohenstaufens pushed down Italy, and on the 24th of July 1268 entered Rome and joined his ally, the Castilian prince. The Ghibelline party seemed to have triumphed all along the line, and the exiled nobles of that faction from all parts of the peninsula flocked into Rome to ioin the army which was first to make an end of Charles of Anjou, and then to destroy the minor champions of the Guelf cause. Some six thousand knights were soon arrayed round Conradin's eagle banner : the nucleus consisted of the Germans who had crossed the Alps with him, but the large majority of the host was composed of Italian contingents ; Henry of Castile had also with him several hundred Spanish men-at-arms.

Two main lines present themselves for the invasion of the Regno to an army lying in Rome. The obvious route to choose

that along the Latin way, which Charles of Anjou had viewed during the first part of the campaign of 1266. It runs iirect to Naples through Latium over the passages of the rivers jarigliano and Volturno. This was the road which the King jf Sicily expected his adversary to take ; he therefore hurried lack from Apulia and concentrated his forces north of the bridge of Ceprano on the Garigliano, just beyond the frontiers jf his realm.

The leaders of Conradin's host, however, were resolved to idopt the other route. The prince himself was a boy of fifteen, :nd the leading of his army was really in the hands of Don Henry of Castile and the veteran Galvano Lancia. Being issured of the presence of the enemy on the direct route to N'aples, they determined to elude him by marching up the A.nio along the Via Valeria and entering the Abruzzi. From hence it was their intention to pass southward by Solmona

4^0 THE ART OF WAR IN THE MIDDLE AGES [126^

into Apulia, and join their friends the Saracen insurgents. There can be no doubt that the plan was faulty in ever} respect ; it can only have proceeded from an insufficien geographical knowledge : the difficulties of the route across th( side-spurs of the Apennines which cover the whole province o the Abruzzi are enormous. Moreover, an adversary starting from Ceprano or its neighbourhood, and using reasonabl diligence, can employ interior lines of communication, and b certain of intercepting somewhere in the Abruzzi, where th roads are few, any army marching from Rome in the directio] of Apulia. It would seem, however, that Conradin's adviser were unwise enough to dream that they would get many day* start of King Charles : they should have remembered tha the whole Guelf party in Rome were acting as his'spies, and tha information as to their march was bound to reach him wit short delay. As a matter of fact, the Ghibelline army starte from Rome on August 18, and, making good speed (for it wa entirely composed of horse) passed up the valley of the Anio b Tivoli and Vicovaro. It crossed the frontier of the kingdor of the Two Sicilies near Carseoli, and, passing the town c Tagliacozzo, which has given its name to the subsequent battl emerged from the passes into the upland plains of the ancier Marsian territory, the Campi Palentini. On the night of th ; 2ist the Ghibellines encamped at Scurcola ; starting nej morning to pursue their march, their vanguard suddenj came full tilt against the advanced troops of the army of Charles.

Conradin's men had not lingered on the way ; they covered over sixty miles in four days ; but Charles of Anjc had been even more prompt. Breaking up his position on tl: road covering Campania, he had struck across the Apennine probably by Sora, moving parallel with his enemy's line ' advance ^ (it is about forty-five miles from Ceprano to Avezzanc As he had a somewhat shorter distance to cover, and mac

^ Contemporary letter of Charles of Anjou to the Pavians : "Dicti hostes j Sculculae partes ingressi sperabant libere transit! via recta descendere et perven Solmonam et exinde ire Luceriam."

^ Charles in his letter to the Pope describes his movements thus: "Ego ij de passu in passum per tres dies totidemque noctes sequens et prosequens . . . pratis Ovinuli secus lacum Fucini et villa Aneceni aciebus instructis, divina gratia comitante, demum ad quemdam collem prope Albam perveni." Here came in sight of the enemy.

denj \

12 68] TAGLIACOZZO: PASSAGE OF THE SALTO 491

even greater speed, he had succeeded in getting across Conradin's line of advance. It was now as necessary for the invader to fight as if he had taken the straight and easy road by Campania. All the exertions of the long and hasty flank march had been purely lost pains.

When the two vanguards clashed together, that of the Ghibellines gave ground and retired on its main body. Charles did not pursue, and left the river Salto between him and the enemy. His army was utterly tired out by its forced march, and he did not intend to fight till next day.

The respective positions of Conradin and Charles w^ere now jxactly the same as those of Charles and Manfred on the day oefore the battle of Benevento. In each case the invader had executed a flank march, but, having completed his movement, lad found the enemy still in his front and covered by a river. Conradin, however, had several advantages which his rival had lot enjoyed in 1266. The weather was better, — August being ;he month, not February, — his army was not suffering from the ack of supplies which afflicted the French at Benevento, the Salto is not such a broad and unfordable stream as the Calore, md (most important of all) the Ghibelline army outnumbered hat of the new king, while on the previous occasion the forces )f Manfred had been somewhat superior in mere numbers to hose of the invaders. It is fair to set on the other scale the act that Charles had on both occasions the more homogeneous ind loyal army, but there were no traitors like the Counts of Jaserta and Acerra in Conradin's ranks.

Charles had taken warning by Manfred's disaster: he was letermined not to cross the Salto in order to attack his enemy. The disadvantage of having to pass the river he left to the -jhibellines ; he was resolved to wait on the other side, to take he defensive, and to fall on the adversary when he should be lisordered by the passage — if, indeed, Conradin should succeed n passing the obstacle at all.

It being reasonably certain that an engagement would take >lace on the 24th, the King of the Two Sicilies set to work to nray his forces. He formed the usual three " battles," and ►laced them one behind another, as he had done at Benevento. 5ut there was one essential change made upon this occasion : le resolved to conceal his reserve and only to display two corps 0 the enemy. In so doing he is said to have acted on the

i^ THE ART OF WAR IN THE MIDDLE AGES [126,'

advice of a veteran knight, Alard of St. Valery, who had jus joined him on his return from Syria. The device was no unknown in Europe, — we have seen it practised at Thielt a early as 1128, — but it is probable that Alard had learned i from the Turks and Mamelukes.

Of the three corps which Charles arrayed, the first- composed mainly of Italian Guelfs, with a sprinkling c Provencals — was drawn up close to the bridge of the Saltc It was commanded by the Marshal Henry of Cusances, wh wore that day the king's surcoat, and had the royal banne borne before him. The second, composed of French, unde John de Clary and William I'Estendard, lay some distance t their rear in the plain. Probably it was intended to be take by the enemy for the reserve. But the flower of the army- eight hundred (or a thousand) chosen knights — were conceale in a lateral hollow of the hills which border the plain, very fi to the rear, and even behind the king's camp. The whole arm \ is variously stated as from three thousand to five thousan r strong ; if we estimate it at four thousand we shall probably I j not far from the mark. In this case each of the first two cor| n must have been more than fifteen hundred strong.

Conradin also formed his army in three divisions, one behir the other.^ The first was comprised of Don Henry's Spani.' men-at-arms and the Roman Ghibellines, led by the prince hir self. In the second were Galvano Lancia and Count Gerai of Pisa, with the Lombard and Tuscan Ghibellines and tl Neapolitan exiles ; a few Germans were arrayed among thei But the bulk of the Transalpine contingents under Freder Duke of Austria formed the third or reserve corps, whi( rode around Conradin's person, under the two banners of t' 1 Imperial Eagle and the Cross. The whole army was decided \ more numerous than that of King Charles ; it is estimated between five and six thousand strong, so that each of the thr i corps must have counted between fifteen hundred and t\ thousand men-at-arms.

Advancing from their camp by Scurcola in orderly array, t Ghibellines rode along the road towards the bridge over t Salto, behind which the two first " battles " of the enemy Wi

^ Saba Malaspina alone says that there were only two, reckoning apparer Lancia and Henry of Castile as forming only one battle ; he has the excuse that tl fought simultaneously and had a different fortune from the third corps. ■ \

J

1268] TAGLIACOZZO : DON HENRY'S SUCCESS 493

visible. Henry of Castile then attempted a feint : he sent his camp-followers forward to pitch the tents of the army close (ibove the river, as if he had no intention of crossing that morning. His horsemen dismounted, but did not break their ranks. Charles ordered a similar movement on his own side, but was equally cautious not to allow his men - at - arms to disperse.^

Suddenly, about nine o'clock, the Ghibellines sprang simultaneously into the saddle and rode towards the river, hoping to find the enemy less ready than themselves. But the trick had no success whatever ; the king's army was perfectly prepared to receive them.

The front corps of Conradin's army, or at least some part of it, made for the bridge and attempted to cross ; they were, of course, easily held in check by the first division of the king's [lorsemen, and utterly failed to win the narrow pass.^ But meanwhile the rest of Henry of Castile's " battle," followed, it would seem, by the whole of Galvano Lancia's, moved up the stream from the bridge, and rapidly made their way to a spot where a broad reach of water spreading out between gently iloping banks seemed to indicate that the river was fordable. Their expectation was not deceived ; they were able to cross ;he Salto without losing a man, and thus found themselves on :he enemy's bank unharmed.^ Nor was this all : distracted by :he contest at the bridge, the king's knights had apparently paid no attention to the turning movement. The Ghibellines »vere able to come in suddenly upon their flank before either of

1 This we get from the king's own letter to the Pope.

^ " Et quant les anemis furent assembles outre le fleuve, au chief du pont et environ, et s'effor^oient de tout leur povoir venir a force parmi le pont as nos, les los qui esioient a I'autre rive de I'eaue au bout du pont, si gardoient I'entree et les x)utoient forciblement el cours du fleuve " (Primatus in Bouquet, xxiii. 32).

2 " II descendirent au plus bas du fleuve, la ou I'eau estoit et plus plate et plus lee, it la ou les rives estoient rompues, et estoit la le pas accoustume pas ou les chevaus doient qui passoient a gue. Et tant comme aucunz d'iceulx se combatoient encore as 10s por passer le pont et I'entente encore de nos estoit de garder le passage du pont, out le nombre a bien pou de celle bataille estoit passee outre parmi le gue" ibid.). I imagine that the Ghibellines passed the Salto above and not below the jridge, for the Italian maps of the Government Survey show the only indications of ow banks and marshy ground south of the spot where the vanguard was fighting. Moreover, the general direction of the flight of the routed French was towards Alba md Aquila, which is only consistent with their southern flank being .turned. If Mjtflanked on the north, they must have retired towards Avezzano or on the king's eserve.

^^ THE ART OF WAR IN THE MIDDLE AGES [126J

the Angevin "battles" had been able to change its front so as tc meet them face to face, ^j '^'^^ ^^'^-^'H ^'^ b7i;vnoi

The natural result was' th^it 'th^' Gtiefc fared very badly while Galvano Lancia was attacking the second corps in flanl and rear, Henry of Castile succeeded in forcing the bridge anc breaking up the Provencals and Italians of the first corps, wh( were naturally shaken by the arrival of a new enemy in thei rear.^ Presently Conradin's third corps came up in good ordei and, thrusting itself into the press, swept all before it. Th< king's men broke and fled in all directions ; many of them die not draw bridle till they reached the city of Aquila, twenty mile from the field. The slaughter was terrible, for many of the Guelf were caught between two hostile corps and could not easil; escape. The Marshal Henry of Cusances was caught an< promptly slain : the royal armour was fatal to him ; if he ha< not been taken for Charles, he might have been put to ransorr De Clary and L'Estendard cut their way out of the press an^ succeeded in escaping to the king. Imagining that the battl • was over, Henry of Castile and his men set themselves t pursue the fugitives along the road which leads to Aquila. C the other corps, the majority dispersed to plunder the enemy I camp. Conradin was left under his banner, with the greate '' barons and a comparatively small following.

At this moment Charles of Anjou at last put himself motion. He had been watching the battle from the brow v the hill behind which his reserve lay hid, and had been sorel vexed when he saw the sudden turning movement by which th enemy had passed the river. He had for a moment entertaine the idea of moving forward at all costs to rescue his main bod But Alard of St. Valery bade him pause, pointing out thj he was too far off to avert defeat by striking in promptl with his own reserve. He therefore took the hard but prudei decision of allowing the Ghibellines to exhaust their strengi upon his two front corps before he should intervene. Fe generals in ancient or modern times would have found tl heart to allow the greater part of their army to be cut to piecf without striking in to aid them, for the reserve could certain

^ The tactics of the Ghibellines were not at all unlike those of Marshal So at Albuera : there, too, the assailant distracted the enemy by pressing an attack on t bridge with a fourth of his host, and then suddenly crossed the river lower do^ with the rest, and came unexpectedly against the hostile flank. ^'

1268] TAGLIACOZZO: CHARLES APPEARS 495

have disengaged them and covered their retreat. But Charles was aiming, not at an honourable retreat, but at a victory: his callous soul would have sacrificed every man of his following without scruple, if a final triumph could be thereby secured.

i When, therefore, he saw Don Henry sweep off the field, and tlie Germans disperse, he at last gave orders to his knights to advance from the fold in the hills which had so long screened ;hem. Trotting down the slope in close order, they made for Z^onradin's banners and the troops which were still gathered ound them. At first the Ghibellines did not recognise them is enemies, but thought that they were part of their own men eturning from the pursuit. They had just time to recognise heir mistake, and to draw up in some sort of a line, when the zing charged in upon them. The fight was sharp but short, for he Germans, though not lacking in courage, were fatigued by heir previous exertions and imperfectly arrayed. The fresh md compact body of French knights soon broke them asunder tnd drove them from the field in disorder. Conradin and a arge body of knights escorting his person took the road to lome ; his eagle banner fell into the hands of the enemy after ts bearer had been slain. His uncle, Conrad of Antioch, was aptured.

Of the many small bodies of Ghibelline horsemen who had ispersed to plunder, we have no further account ; probably they X)k to flight when they saw Conradin's banner fall. But Charles ad still to deal with the main body of the enemy's front corps, nder Henry of Castile, which had gone off in pursuit of the 'rovencals. Some time after Charles had won his first success, he Infant and his men came in sight, returning along the hills bove Alba ; they were fatigued, but not in disorder. Don lenry must have been a good and cautious captain, so to collect nd array his men before setting out on his return march. The Vench, therefore, had not before them the comparatively easy isk of dispersing isolated bands dropping back from the ursuit, but had to face a solid mass of combatants ready for attle. If King Charles had permitted his own men to scatter Cter their first success, he would have been ruined, but, knowing lat some of the Ghibellines were still unaccounted for, he had rudently kept his eight hundred knights in close order, and lerely allowed them to dismount and take off their helms for space.

4^ THE ART OF WAR IN THE MIDDLE AGES [126S

When Don Henry discovered that the troops below him ir the plain were under a hostile banner, he closed up his men anc advanced to the attack. So formidable was his solid front tha' Alard of St. Valery is said to have remarked to King Charle.' that he must use cunning as well as force or the battle migh still be lost.^ At all costs the Ghibellines must be induced tc break their firm array, or their impetus would be too heavy tc be withstood. In accordance with this advice, Alard proposec that the French should make a semblance of retreat, so as t( allure Don Henry to charge. Receiving the king's leave, h took thirty or forty knights with him, and rode to the rear, as i intending to leave the field. The enemy took this movemen for the commencement of a general dispersion and disbandmen of the Guelfs, and, shouting, " They fly, they fly," loosed thei ranks and charged in upon the king. Charles met them full i front, and his force was still so inferior in numbers to the enem \ that his knights seemed to be engulfed in them and lost to sight But they were individually so superior to the wearied men an horses of the Infant's "battle" that they easily held their owi Presently, when Alard and his small following swerved bac and charged the Spaniards in flank with good effect, the figl commenced to turn to the king's advantage. The French foun the enemy so exhausted under their double armour of mail ar plate that they could hardly raise their sword arms. The ci " Aux bras, seigneurs ! " ran along the ranks, and the king's knigh began to seize the Ghibellines by their shoulders and cast the from their saddles ^ — a far more effective way of dealing wii them than to use the sword, which rebounded without effe from their thick panoplies. Don Henry soon saw his m( failing and faltering: some turned to fly, but he rallied a co siderable body for one last charge at the enemy. It was useles the horses could hardly be spurred to a trot, and the men-c arms were utterly exhausted : after one short final struggle t.

^ "Sire roy, ceus ci vienent tres forment et sagement a bataille, et sont si jo a destroit ensemble en leur bataille que en nulle maniere, si comme il m'est avis, w ne les pourrions despartir ne trespercier. Et pour ce convient-il ouvrer contre e par aucun engine de subtilete, par quoi il puissent estre aucun pou espartiz, si ( I'entree soit aucunement ouverte, et puissent soi combattre avec eulz main a mai (Primatus in Bouquet, xxiii. 35),

2 "Tunc rex movens cum acie sua in eos viergitur" {Latin version of Priraatu the French only has "se plunga entre euls " (Bouquet, xxiii. 35).

' " Et quant ceste chose fu aperceue des Fran9ois, crioient, * A bras, seigneur? bras ! * et done les prenoient par espaules et tiroient et trebuchoient a terre " {ibid.

268] TAGLIACOZZO : KING CHARLES TRIUMPHS 497

Ghibellines were broken, and those whose chargers could still bear them fled from the field.

Thus did Charles of Anjou obtain a complete but a most

costly triumph : " never was victory so bloody, for nearly his

ivhole army had fallen."^ His two front corps had been encom-

oassed and mostly cut to pieces : his reserve had not won the

lay without loss. It is probable that the sum-total of killed

md wounded in his ranks was far higher than that of the

Shibellines : the defeated party had been scattered rather than

.laughtered. It was, no doubt, owing to his irritation at his

earful losses that Charles beheaded his prisoners as traitors,

eserving only Conrad of Antioch in bonds.^ It will be

emembered that he also slew the young Conradin and his

:insman Frederic of Austria when they fell into his hands, a

ew weeks later, after an unsuccessful attempt to escape by sea.

Few battles have commenced so disastrously for the victor,

nd ended so favourably owing to the judicious employment of

reserve. Charles was thoroughly outmanoeuvred in the open-

ig engagement — he evidently had intended to hold the line of

he Salto, yet had not discovered and guarded the ford. When

nee the enemy was across the river, and the two front divisions

f the royal army attacked in flank and rear, it looked as if the

ay were lost : by bringing up his hidden reserve Charles might

ave disengaged and covered the retreat of the survivors of his

an, but could have done no more. To stand by and allow the

ictors to disperse was therefore the only course remaining, if he

as still determined to make a stroke for victory. From the

olitical point of view a complete success was necessary — a defeat

;ven if it were not a crushing one) would have effectually ruined

is cause : the whole of the Regno would have been up in arms

ten days if Conradin had brushed the royal army aside and

reed his way deep into the country. Charles therefore took

e one chance which still lay open to him, and was completely

iumphant. It is right, however, to point out that there was but

fair chance, and no more, left him : he would have been utterly

^ *' Carolus cruentam victoriam habuit, nam pene omnis exercitus proelio occidit " icobaldi of Ferrara in Muratori, vol. viii.).

" "Capti sunt insuper C. de Antiochia et T. de Aquino et plures alii proditores ^tri, qui excepto Conrado, propter detestabilem proditionem quam contra majes- -m nostram commiserunt, jam capitali sententia sunt damnati " (Letter of Charles

; Paduans, dated the day after the battle). Conrad was spared in order that he , ii be exchanged for some Guelf prisoners who were in his wife's hands. 32

I*

498 THE ART OF WAR IN THE MIDDLE AGES [126

ruined if some of the pursuing Ghibellines had happened to dis cover him before their main body had dispersed. This was very possible contingency ; and it was equally within the limit of fortune that some traitor or prisoner from among the first tw corps of his host might have betrayed his position to the enemj It so fell out that neither of these possibilities were realised : th Ghibelline army broke up in utter heedlessness to plunder c pursue, and Charles was thus able to snatch victory out of th very jaws of defeat.

In all the operations which followed his sudden appearanc on the field, his tactical management of his troops appears t have been admirable. His strokes were strong and rapid, y( he lost nothing by haste and rashness. It required the coole of brains to refrain altogether from chasing the Germans, on tl chance that new enemies might yet come upon the field. B it was only by allowing his young rival to ride off unpursu( that Charles was able to meet the corps of Henry of Casti with his horsemen in good order and refreshed by a short re If he had pushed on to endeavour to capture Conradin, as mc mediaeval generals would have done in his place, he wou inevitably have been caught and crushed by Don Henry's retur ing troops. That he avoided this danger is the best proof his military capacity.^ It is curious to find that, in spite Charles' long and successful career, Italian writers attribut his crowning victory to St. Valery's inspiration, and not own. To Dante Tagliacozzo was the place —

**Ove senz' arme vinse il vecchio Alardo." ^

. J ^; . ^ Battle of the MarcJifeld, August 26, 1 278.

Of all the cavalry fights of the thirteenth century, the battle on the Marchfeld, which settled the future destinies

^ It is perhaps worth while to develop further the curious similarity betweei details of Albuera and Tagliacozzo. In each case the party acting on the defei took position behind a river crossed by a bridge, and neglected the fords. In case the assailant threatened the bridge, but crossed the ford with the greater pa his army, and took the defenders in flank. He scattered the two nearest corps Spaniards and the second division at Albuera ; Cusances and De Clary at Tagliacc but when he seemed certain of victory, he was suddenly attacked and routed b defenders' last reserve (Myers' and Abercrombie's brigades at Albuera, the I thousand knights at Tagliacozzo). The essential difference in the cases is of c that Soult had not allowed his men to get out of hand, and was not surpris* Conradin was. Nor does Beresford shine when compared with Charles of Anjo

2 Inf^rnoy xxviii. 18.

1278] KAISER RUDOLF AND KING OTTOKAR 499

Austria, was that in which the greatest number of mounted combatants took part. There were more troops on the field at Bouvines, but there the numbers of the French and Imperialist armies had been swelled by large masses of infantry : at the Marchfeld, on the other hand, cavalry alone were employed by each side. Though King Ottokar and Kaiser Rudolf had both brought a certain amount of foot-soldiery with them, they did not array them in the battle line, but apparently relegated them to the position of a mere camp-guard.

The political significance of the fight was very great — even greater than its military importance. It settled the question whether the eastern regions of the empire should be occupied by a compact Slavonic realm, or whether the Hapsburgs were to preserve the heritage of the extinct house of Babenberg as a Teutonic state. Ottokar of Bohemia, the most striking figure in the history of the great Interregnum (1254-73), had set him- self to the task of extending his kingdom down to the borders of Italy, and for a time had succeeded in laying hands on both Austria and Carinthia. Beaten back from them by the newly- slected Emperor Rudolf, and forced to consent to a dis- advantageous peace in 1276, he returned to the charge two years later, and invaded Austria at the head of an army in which his native subjects of Bohemia and Moravia were backed by a considerable contingent of North German mercenaries md a great mass of Polish allies : even the distant Russian prince Leo of Ruthenia came to his aid. His renewal of the war was lot unjustifiable. The emperor had shown himself prone to interfere in the internal affairs of Bohemia in a manner which :ould not be tolerated — he had, indeed, striven to treat Ottokar nuch as Edward I. of England treated John Baliol twenty /ears later. Moreover, many of the Austrians, and notably the :itizens of Vienna, were discontented with their new ruler, and lad let it be known that they would not be indisposed to •eturn to the allegiance of their former master.

The Emperor Rudolf was not at this moment able to count )n the co-operation of the whole, or even the majority, of the mnces of the empire. Many of them regretted the end of he anarchy of the Interregnum, and nearly all had been dis- igreeably surprised by the cunning and force which the new ioaperor had displayed during the first five years of his reign. To resist the Bohemian invasion Rudolf had practically to count

i^dd THE ART OF WAR IN THE MIDDLE AGES [1278

only on the resources of his new dominion in Austria, Styria, and Carinthia, aided by his old neighbours and vassals of Swabia. From North Germany he did not draw a man — such Saxons and Brandenburgers as appeared on the field came there as the mercenaries of Ottokar. Bavaria, too, whose dukes were ill pleased to find themselves shut in between the Swabian and the Austrian territories of the Hapsburgs, was inclined to side with the king: many mercenaries from the duchy were in the Bohemian ranks. 'i.iri-qnnij oiam

On the other hand, Rudolf was able \b swell his army to a formidable size by the addition of a great mass of auxiliaries from the East. King Ottokar had been a bad neighbour to Hungary: he had invaded her borders again and again,^ and had won her permanent ill-will by the great victory of Cressenbrunn (1260), when he had cut to pieces the whole of her royal host, and left every noble family of the realm in mourning. The young King Ladislas came forth gladly to avenge the defeat of his father, and brought a great host of horsemen to the emperor's aid. The lowest figure at which they are estimated is fourteen thousand:^ some chronicles give thirty thousand, or even forty thousand. They were mainly horse-bowmen very lightly equipped, though a certain proportion of the nobles wore the ordinary mail of the Western world, and were as heavily armed as their German neighbours. The Hungarian contingent included several thousand wild Cumans, heathen savages frorr the Steppes, who had recently been driven over the Carpathians and had obtained permission to settle among the Magyars. Thei: ferocious appearance and manners shocked even their allies— they gave no quarter in. war, and habitually mutilated the deac and wounded. br^ihoU bn

After advancing a short distance into Austrian territory Ottokar displayed an inexplicable sluggishness : he besiegec

1 "Ouch rachen si daz herzenleit

Den schaden und die schande Daz si in ir lande Uf Ungerischen acker Von Beheim Kunic Ottacker Mit brande und niit roup So dicke het gemachet toup."

Rcimchronik, 16252-58. * Given by the not very important Colmar .Chronicle. Probably the real figui was higher, as the realm was enormously strong in light horse, and this was popular national campaign against an old enemy.

1278] THE MARCHFELD: RUDOLF ADVANCES 501

and took one or two small fortresses, but did no more : thus his enemies found time to cross the Danube, to concentrate, and to march to meet him.^ The Hungarian light horse swept away several of his foraging parties, and brought back to the emperor an accurate account of the Bohemian position. The army was encamped on a hillside just west of the river March, eight miles north of the little town of Stillfried, after which the ensuing battle is often named.

Kaiser Rudolf, after mature deliberation, — he waited three days, August 23-25, before attacking, — resolved to march forward against the enemy, who showed no signs of taking the initiative against him. According to the Bohemian chronicles, Ottokar's army was so scattered abroad in search of plunder that the king could not concentrate them for the battle, and the Germans and Hungarians beset him before he had drawn all his men together.^

Between the two armies lay a marshy bottom, the bed of the Weidenbach : this the assailing party would be compelled to cross. Rudolf sent forward bodies of Hungarian horse to try if it were easily passable, and, when they reported that they had ridden over almost dry-shod, resolved to follow with his whole force. Accordingly the Austro- Hungarian army passed the stream and advanced towards the enemy, who were clearly visible drawn up outside their camp in six (or seven) corps, and ready for battle.

It is a strange fact that, although we possess something like a dozen narratives — short and long — of the battle, we are not able lO determine accurately the formation of either army. Though we know what divisions were comprised in each of the hosts, we cannot fix with certainty the juxtaposition of each to the next.

King Ottokar had formed his host in six corps ^ and a reserve. The first corps was composed of the bulk of the Bohemian horse ; the second of Moravians strengthened by the Bohemians

1 The Austrians concentrated at Vienna ; the Magyars at Stuhlweissenberg. They crossed the Danube separately and met at Marcheck.

2 Annales Ottokariarii, p. 92 : " [Rudolphus] comperiens quod rex cum exercitibus 5uis nullam spem haberet de adventu inimicorum, et essent dispersi hue atque illuc, dcut consuetude Boemorum est, causa predae rapiendae, et rege cum paucis com- norante, repente irruit cum exercitibus suis super improvisos et in modum semicirculi per ordinatas acies circumcingit eos multitudine innumerosa."

^ This we have bo.th from John of Victring (in Bohmer, i. 309) and the Styrian Rhyming Chronicle, with some variations. The order I give above is that of the alter, which is more detailed. The Kloster-Neuburg Annals say seven corps.

502 THE ART OF WAR IN THE MIDDLE AGES [1278

of the district of Pilsen ; the third consisted of German auxiliaries from Misnia and Thuringia, the fourth and fifth of Poles, the sixth of Bavarians and North Germans, mainly Brandenburgers sent by " Otto with the Arrow," the Ascanian Margrave, who was a determined enemy of the Church, and therefore a sympathiser with Ottokar.^ The Bohemian king had taken his post with the last-named corps, a formidable body of nine hundred horsemen on barded horses, the pick of the whole army.^ There was also a separate reserve, probably of native Bohemians, under Milita of Diedicz, chamberlain of Moravia.^ The whole army were furnished with green crosses as a badge to distinguish them from the enemy : their war-cry was " Praha ! " (Prague), the name of their capital.^

So far we are able to make our various authorities fit together. But to say with certainty how the six corps and the reserve were ranged with reference to each other seems almost impossible. It is of course conceivable — (i) that the six divisions were drawn up in single line, with the reserve behind the centre ; (2) that they were drawn up in two lines of three corps each, with the reserve making a third line ; (3) that they formed three lines of two corps each, the reserve making a fourth line. The first order of battle directly contradicts a statement of our best authority, the Salzburg Chronicle, to the effect that the Bohemians came on in three lines, since it only gives two lines ; similarly the third of our alternatives gives four lines, and is therefore faulty from this point of view. If, therefore, we elect to stand by the Salzburg annalist. No. 2 seems the most likely choice. In this case the first rank in Ottokar's host (counting from right to left) would be the Bohemian, Moravian, and Thuringian corps ; the second would be composed of the two Polish divisions and the Bavarians and Brandenburgers ; the third would consist of Milita of Diedicz and the reserve. The chief anomaly in such an array would be to find the king posting

^ The Rhyming Chronicle calls them "Saxons," 16395. " Dise der Markgraf mit der Pfeile Braht dem Kunic von Beheim." Otto of Brandenburg is often called ' ' Otto with the Arrow," from the curious fact tha he lived many years with one sticking in his head.

' " In der selben schar sie niht vermisten, gezalt und us gesundert, Verdacter Ro niunhalp hundert " (S. R. C. 16175).

^ This reserve was, according to the Rhyming Chronicle itself, line 16044, com posed of two corps {zwain Rotten).

* Or " Budewezze Praha ! " (Rhyming Chronicle, 16075).

1278] THE MARCHF£LD:.QTTOKAR'S ARRAY 503

himself on the left of the second line. But we know that he was reserving himself for an onslaught on the emperor in person, and, as we shall see, Rudolf was in the right rear of the Austro- Hungarian host, i.e. just opposite the place which we have assigned to Ottokar.^

It is impossible to get any clear idea of the total numbers of the Bohemian host. Some German chroniclers rate it very high, saying that Ottokar had four men to every one of Rudolf's.' In this comparison they very unfairly omit all mention of the Magyars, who formed three-fourths of the allied army. But no doubt Ottokar had a large superiority in fully-armed knights and barded horses, of whom the Hungarians had a low propor- tion in their ranks. If there were about nine hundred barded horses (besides lighter horsemen) in one of the king's six or seven corps, we cannot rate the whole at less than ten thousand horse. Wild estimates giving the Bohemians at thirty thousand ^ men may be disregarded, or taken as including the foot, which never appeared on the battlefield.

In endeavouring to ascertain the array of the Imperial army, we are confronted by even greater difficulties, mainly owing to the fact that the majority of the German chroniclers entirely, or almost entirely, ignore the part taken in the battle by the Hungarians, who must nevertheless have constituted at least three-fourths of the combined army. It is only fair to say that the one contemporary Magyar annalist who has described the fight, Simon Keza, is equally unjust to the Germans, whom he describes as merely looking on while the Hungarians did all the fighting.*

The combined army is described as drawn up in three or

^ Chion. Salz. in Pez. i. 379 : " Ipse vero rex Boemiae in ultima sua acie [does this mean in the corps at end of his line, or in his rear line?] . . . insignis emicuit, seipsum et aciem illam conservans pro Romani regis cuneo conterendo."

^ As does the Rhyming Chronicle.

^ e.g. John of Victring in Bohmer, i. 309, and Thomas Tuscus.

^ Simon Keza in Pertz, vol. xxix. 545, says: " Sed quoniam gens Rudolphi in motu gravis erat propter arma graviora, nimisque timorata ad resistendum tarn validae mnltitudini . . . moveri dubitabat. Hoc autem rege Ladislao percepto, Otacaro ad praelium properanti, juxta castrum Stilfrid prope fluvium Morowe adpropinquabat, Boemicum exercitum convallando circumquaque. Quorum quidem equos et etiam semetipsos sagittis Hungari et Cumani sic infestant vulnerando quod Milot militiae princeps, in quo exercitus praesertim confidebat, sustinere non valens Hungarorum impelum cum suis fugam dedit. . . . Rudolphus rex Teutoniae stabat cum suis inspici- ei\do quae fiebant."

504 THE ART OF WAR IN THE MIDDLE AGES [1278

sometimes four divisions ; but, on closer investigation of the sources, we find that some of the chroniclers who speak of only- three corps are describing the Germans alone, and leaving the Magyars quite out of sight. Referring once more to the Salzburg Chronicle, our best source, we find it stated that the King of Hungary drew up his army in three acies^ with the Cuman horse- bowmen loosely hovering on the flank, while Rudolf had also three turmae, the first arrayed under the Imperial banner with the black eagle, the second carrying the Austrian flag, " gules a fess argent," and the third (in which rode the emperor himself) carrying a red flag with a white cross.^ This third or reserve corps must have been very strong : it consisted of the Styrians, Carinthians, Carniolans, Salzburgers, and Swabians. The last- named alone counted more than two hundred " barded horses." Frederick of HohenzoUern, burgrave of Nuremberg (who also served here, and bore the white-cross banner), had brought a hundred more with him. The Bishop of Salzburg had sent three hundred horsemen. The heavy cavalry of Styria, Carniola, and Carinthia must also have been numerous, so that the reserve line was very formidable. Chroniclers who rate it at only three hundred " barded horses " must evidently be understating it grossly.

The two corps which bore the banners with the eagle and the Austrian shield were composed of the knights of the two Austrias. Since the Salzburg Chronicle calls them acies^ we should naturally suppose that they formed two lines, one behind the other. But it seems strange to suppose that the archduchy could have supplied enough men to form two-thirds of Rudolfs army, when Styria, Carniola, Carinthia, Salzburg, and the Swabian and other auxiliaries, only made up one-third between them. Possibly the two Austrian corps were formed in a single line, as we should gather from the Styrian Rhyming Chronicle and several other authorities. It is inconceivable that either the eagle or the Austrian flag should have been borne by the Hungarians, whom the Rhyming Chronicle places as the first two divisions of the host.

^ Chron. Salz. in Pez. i. 379: "Verum exercitus regis Romanorum tribus dis- tinguitur aciebus et signis totidem. Nobiles Austriae dividebantur in duas turmas : una portavit vexillum Romanae aquilae ; altera sub vexillo Austriae militavit. Alia turba victoriosissimae S. Crucis insignia juxta morem Imperii sequebatur : sub hoc signo rex Romanorum militat. . . . Rex etiam Hungariae suum exercitum tribuS divisit aciebus. Cumani vero sine ordine cursitabant," etc.

tLATE XVI.

MARCHPEID

6.J278.

Lddmnil Austrians. A A.TwoAiistriaji CorpsJB.TheETnperor >vilh the Syrians and Swabians.

Ltfi^ Hungarians C.C. Cumans and other light horse. B.Matthias of Trenczin.E. Count of Scluldherg

1^--^ Ottokars Army E Bohemians. G. Moravians. H. Misnians and Thuringians. I.J.Poles. K.TlieKing with the Bavarians and Saxons. L . Milita of Diedics and the Reserve.

1278] THE xMARCHFELD : RUDOLFS ARRAY 505

As to the array of the Hung-arian army, the Salzburg Chronicle gives three acies, while the Styrian Rhyming Chronicle 5ays that there were only two corps — one under the Palatine Mathias of Trenczin, the other under the Count of Schildberg. We may possibly reconcile them by supposing that the swarm Df Cuman and other bowmen thrown out in the front formed the :hird line of which the first-named authority speaks. It is not ibsolutely certain that we are to press acies into its proper Tieaning of line of battle, and say that Schildberg's corps lay behind Trenczin's. Acies is used so vaguely by mediaeval writers ;hat it is possible that the two divisions were in a single line. [n drawing the plan of the battle, however, the first and natural neaning of the word has been taken, and three lines represented, ^ing Ladislas, a youth of eighteen, did not take part in the )attle, but watched it from the hills to the west. Some say hat Rudolf induced him not to risk his person ; others, that it vas a Hungarian custom not to expose the king.^

We now come to the question how the Magyars and Germans tood in relation to each other. Some of our sources, but not he best, speak of the former being drawn out iri front of the atter.2 On the other hand, the most detailed account on the mperialist side, the Styrian Rhyming Chronicle of RitterOttokar, peaks of the Austrians as being in the front of the Imperial rmy and engaging with the first line of the Bohemians.^ This 5 impossible if the Hungarians composed the first rank of the ■'hole allied host. Moreover, the same authority speaks of everal newly-knighted horsemen in Rudolfs front division as iding out and challenging the enemy to joust.* This would be sheer impossibility if a thick line of horse-bowmen supported y two corps of Magyar heavy cavalry were already engaged ^ith the Bohemians. We must therefore hold, with Herr Busson,^

^ Rhyming Chronicle, lines 16125-26.

* e.g. the unintelligent Chronicle of Colmar in Bohmer, ii. 72. The author akes the Magyars refuse to close, whereupon Rudolf orders up his second corps, e Austrians. \ \ .,

"Din voderiste schar /-V/

Din der Teutschen holp kom dar ^

Daz waren die von Osterrich " (^S*. R, C, 161 70-71).

* " Vor den scharn ward groz, ; ;>;.';i:;?fU'vc

Von den newen swertslegen ?f!on<'»1'>!','

Das tiostire under Wegen " {S. R. C. 16714-17). ' See his admirable article in the Zeitschrift filr Oesterreichische Gesc/iichte, vol. u. 1-145, which has helped me greatly in working out this fight.

So6 THE ART OF WAR IN THE MIDDLE AGES [1278

that the two allied armies were drawn up side by side, each in three corps, the Austrians on the right (the emperor taking the place of honour) and the Magyars on the left. But the latter were at least four or five times as numerous as their allies, and, moreover, the open method of fighting to which they were accustomed would cause them to take up a much broader front than the solid squadrons of the Imperial horse. Probably, there- fore, they faced two-thirds of the Bohemian front, and also outflanked it on the left. If this was so, the Austrians must have faced only the Misnian-Thuringian division in Ottokar's first line, while the Magyars were opposed to the two corps 0I the Bohemians and Moravians. This fits in well with the fad that in none of the German accounts of the battle is there mention made of any conflict between the Austrians and th( Bohemians and Moravians. Rudolfs men are found fighting only Ottokar's German auxiliaries and (to some slight extent the Poles.^

When the Imperialists drew near the Bohemian camp, thi fight was opened by the Cumans, who rode round the righ flank of the enemy, and, ranging themselves in a semicircle, begai shooting into the mass of men and horses. The Hungariai light cavalry followed their example, and ere long the right win of Ottokar's host was hardly pressed : they had with thei neither horse nor foot bowmen to oppose to the masses of ligl cavalry who were thus infesting them. Perhaps only when th Bohemian and Polish corps in this part of the field were ahead in disorder, perhaps somewhat earlier, the heavier squadrons ( the Magyar nobility rode in to support their skirmishers an engaged in hand-to-hand fighting with the enemy. We ha^ no details of the fighting, except the notice of individual fea of arms done by Hungarian champions, which are wholly usele 1 for any tactical comprehension of the combat. It is certai j however, that, after a prolonged struggle, Ottokar's men fie I and were pursued for many miles by the victorious Hungaria and Cumans, who slew many and took still more prisone We may be reasonably certain that the Magyars fought ai routed all or most of the four divisions which formed t Bohemian right and centre ; it is probable, too, that it was th( victorious advance which caused the reserve under Milita

^ The Carinthian and Salzburg knights of the emperor's third division in Rhyming Chronicle, line 16378, are found fighting with Poles.

1278] THE MARCHFELD: RUDOLF IN DANGER 507

Diedicz to leave the field ;^ on this point we must speak later. Apparently the moment of the definite victory of the Hungarians Tiust nearly have coincided with the final success of their allies on the right wing.

Meanwhile, the battle had been taking a very different shape ipon the Bohemian left, where King Ottokar rode with his two German corps next to the river. Here the king's knights had 10 horse-archery to vex them, and were able to close lance to ance with the enemy. The left corps of the front line (Misnians md Thuringians) broke the Austrian corps which marched in :he van, and drove it back with loss.^ Ottokar lost his head, md, when he saw the enemy give way, followed his front line nto the fight. Scattering the whole of the Austrians before :hem, the victorious troops pushed straight along the river-bank, lever looking round to see how their centre and right were aring in the struggle with the Hungarians. Driving ever southward, Ottokar at last came in front of Rudolf's own corps, he third division in the Imperial host — the Swabians, Styrians, Salzburgcrs, and Carinthians. This struggle took place a long vay behind the main battle, and perhaps even as far south as the ine of the Weidenbach morasses.^

The engagement between the two bodies of German knights vas prolonged and obstinate. P'or a moment the Imperialists ;eemed likely to be beaten : a stalwart Thuringian knight slew :vudolf's charger, and cast him down among the horses' hoofs, vhere he was in danger of perishing, and only escaped by )utting his shield over his head and lying still. But when a "aithful friend^ dragged him out from the press and gave him mother horse, he was found to be so little hurt that he was ible to fight on to the end of the struggle.

^ So says Simon Keza, the Hungarian narrator of the battle. He names the iloliemians and Poles as the two nationalities against whom the Magyars and Cumans jught, and specially notes that " Miiot, who had the chief confidence of the hostile nny," was turned to flight by the arrows of his countrymen. See Pertz, xxix. 546.

^ The rout of the Austrians is vouched for by the Salzburg Chronicle (Pez. i. 77) : " Et tamen cum videret primam nostrae partis aciem a suorum facie improbe leclinantem, de victoria adeo confidebat ut velocem suorum militum impetum morosum rederet, et festinos nimium se judice desides censeret." John of Victring and the 'olmar Chronicle (less good authorities) are equally clear on the defeat of the Austrians.

' This seems to be suggested by the fact that Kaiser Rudolf, in his letter of ommendation to the knight who saved his life, says that he had been overthrown in brook ; the Ober Weidenbach is the only brook on the field.

* Walter of Ramswag, a Swabian knight from the Thurgau.

§68 THE ART OF WAR IN THE MIDDLE AGES [127^

In spite of Rudolfs mishap, the battle went decidedly in favou] of the Imperialists. Ottokar and his knights were gradual!} beaten back towards the main body of their host, which must a' this moment have been just on the point of yielding before tht Hungarians. The final stroke was given by a knight namec Ulrich von Kapellen, whom Rudolf had told off with some sixt} men-at-arms to make a flank attack on the last body of th( Bohemian host which was still standing firm. When his mei were breaking up and turning to fly. King Ottokar sent to bi( Milita of Diedicz bring up the reserve corps, which was stil intact. But the chamberlain, either because he feared being out flanked and surrounded by the Magyars, or out of pure treachery, rode off the field with his men and fled away to the north.

While the Bohemian army was melting away from th battle, their king kept fighting to the last, till he was left almos alone. As he strove to cut his way through the press, he wa unhorsed and taken prisoner. While his captors were leadin; him to the emperor, two knights who were his personal enemie fell upon him and slew him in cold blood .^ With him fell man thousands of his followers : the encircling movement of th Hungarians had cut off from their line of retreat those wh were slow to fly, and many knights who would not surrende strove to swim the March, in which the greater part of ther were drowned. The camp was easily seized, and many of th infantry who had been left to guard it must no doubt hav shared the fate of their lords. The greater part of the plundf and the prisoners fell to the Magyars and Cumans, who wet home heavily laden with spoil, and elated at the prospect ■( the ransoms which they would be able to squeeze from Dulv Nicholas of Troppau and other captives of high rank. The took no further part in the campaign, and the invasion ( Moravia which followed the battle was carried out by tl emperor and his German forces alone.

Two main points of tactical importance are to be noted the battle of the Marchfeld. The first is the helplessness

^ The Rhyming Chronicle and John of Victring both say that Milita had old grievance against his master, who had put to death his brother in prison twel years before (1266), and now took the opportunity of revenging himself. On t other hand, the Hungarian Simon Keza claims that he was fairly driven from t field by the Magyar arrows.

* Apparently one of these knights was Berchthold von Emberwerch (Emerber and the other Rudolf's cupbearer (Rhyming Chronicle, 16720).

127S] THE MARCHFELD: RUDOLF VICTORIOUS 509

Drdinary feudal cavalry against an army such as that of the Hungarians, which combined horse-bowmen with heavy mailed supports, quite in the style of the ancient Byzantine hosts. If the Bohemians had been beset by the Cumans alone, their task would have been not unlike that of the Crusaders when attacked by the Turkish horse-archery. But to back the Cumans were heavy squadrons of Hungarian nobles and knights armed in the Western fashion. Ottokar's men seem from the first to have been unable to make head against them. They were outflanked and ap- parently more than half surrounded by the light troops, and had to protect themselves from assaults on all sides without the aid of any infantry on which they could rally. Hence came utter disaster. The second notable point is that on the right of the allied host, where Rudolfs Austrians and Swabians met Ottokar's Saxons and Thuringians, the battle was lost by the side which engaged its reserve recklessly and too early in the fight. Ottokar's front line having won an initial success, he should not have pushed it so hastily forward, nor thrown his second line into the melee before his adversary's reserve had struck a blow. Rudolfs tactics in keeping his third carps far to the rear, . and apparently out of sight of the enemy, remind us of those } of Charles of Anjou at Tagliacozzo. He cannot, however, be r accused of sacrificing his front corps with the cold-hearted calculation which the Angevin king showed in the last-named fight. He did not hang back, but rallied the beaten troops on his reserve and took up the fight without any delay. Having to deal with an enemy wearied out by previous fighting and disordered by a hasty advance, he was naturally successful. In all probability we may add to the causes of his -victory the fact that he outnumbered the two hostile divisions immediately opposed to him. It is hardly credible that Ottokar's Thuringian, Saxon, and Bavarian mercenaries can have approached the strength of the full feudal levy of Austria, Styria, Carniola, and Carinthia, backed by a large contingent from Swabia and Salzburg. Rudolf seems personally to have shown considerable military virtue, but his task was made easy for him, first by the co-operation of his powerful Hungarian allies, and secondly by Ottokar's recklessness. That he knew how to use a small reserve of cavalry at the last moment is shown by his timely despatch of Von Kapellen and the sixty knights, who struck the . last and decisive blow of the day.

Or. Jl^fi '.

CHAPTER VI

ARMS AND ARMOUR (lI00-I300)l

IN the fifth chapter of our Third Book we described th( development of knightly armour down to the end o the eleventh century, when it consisted of the conical helme furnished with a nasal, of a long mail-shirt with or without i coif to cover the head and neck, and occasionally of guard; for the legs (ocreae, bainbergae)?' We must now make clea the stages by which this comparatively^ simple equipmen gradually passed into the heavy and complicated plate armou of the fourteenth century.

For some time after the Norman Conquest the improvemen of armour progressed very slowly. Before the end of th* eleventh century the short broad sleeves of the mail-shirt hac been lengthened so as to reach the wrist, and made mor* closely-fitting. The Great Seal of William II. displays th' change very clearly when compared with that of his father. But, with the exception of this single alteration, there i practically no variation in armour till the third quarter of th twelfth century. In the time of Henry ii. the fully-equippec knight was armed exactly as had been his great-grand fathe who served under the Red King. It is astonishing to find tha i sixty years of contact with the East had affected Europeai arms so little, but it is not till the end of the century tha modifications in equipment to which we can ascribe a crusading origin make much progress. The long warfare with the Turk and Byzantines did, as we have shown on an earlier page

to Mr. ji

^ In this chapter I must acknowledge that I am deeply indebted Hewitt's admirable Ancient Arniou?- (Oxford, i860).

2 Only a very few of the personages in the Bayeux Tapestry wear leg armom Duke William, however, generally shows it : probably only chiefs and wealth barons were so equipped.

' Cf. the two Great Seals of the two Williams in Plate xvil.

610

PLATE XV I i.

AKMOUK OK IHE llTH CKKTUKV

(0 c;reat seal of wii.liam the conqueror (2) great seal of william ii.

fioo] THE GAMBESON AND ACTON n: 511

have some effect in inducing Europe to esteem the horse- bowman ; ^ that he could be used effectively in war we have seen when dealing- with the combat of Bourg Theroulde;* but we never find him assuming such importance in the West as the " Turcopoles " of the military orders and the Kingdom of Jerusalem had in the Levant. It is probable that the surcoat was borrowed from the Byzantines, whose cavalry had been wont to wear it as early as the ninth century.^ But it is only at the very end of the twelfth century that we find this light over-garment growing common : of the English monarchs John is the first who is represented as regularly wearing it.

It is also probable that the great development of the use of quilted protections for the body came from the East, where the Saracens had long been acquainted with them. The zvambais or gambeson, which grows common in Europe in the twelfth century, was a defence of this sort, composed of layers of cloth, tow, rags, or suchlike substances,* quilted on to a foundation of canvas or leather, and then covered with an outer coat of linen, cloth, or silk. The knightly class took to wearing gambesons under their mail-shirts as an additional protection for the body, while infantry and the poorer sort of horsemen wore them as their sole defence. They are well known to Wace, who men- tions them repeatedly as worn by Normans at Hastings.^ The great Assize of Arms of Henry II. orders that " burgenses et tota communa liberorum hominum " are to wear " wambais et capellet ferri," as opposed to the knights who bear " loricas, cassides, et clypeos." ^ One of the forms of the gambeson, the acton (hacqueton), shows its Oriental origin by its name, derived from the Arabic al-qutun. It w-as so called because the quilting was stuffed with cotton. Students of the third Crusade will remember that Saladin gave to Richard Coeur de Lion " unum alcottonem satis levem, nullo spiculo penetrabilem " as a specimen of the best Eastern armour. The perpunctuvi

^ It must be remembered that Europe was acquainted with the Magyar horse- archer long before the Crusades. There is a horse-archer in the Bayeux Tapestry among the three Normans who in its last group are represented as pursuing the flying English. So the idea was not absolutely new.

2 See p. 385. 3 See pp. 185, 186.

* The gambeson (wambasia) is defined in a thirteenth - century document (Hewitt, i. 127) as " tunica spissa ex lino et stuppa, vel e veteribus pannis, consuta."

° " Plusors orent vestu gambais" {R, de RoUy 12811).

^ Assize of Arms in Stubbs' Charters^ p. 154.

$19 THE ART OF WAR IN THE MIDDLE AGES [hoc

{pourpoinf) was another name for one of the many varieties oi the gambeson.

■' ; .By the middle of the twelfth century it would seem that a distinction had been established between lorica and albergelliis the two forms of the mail-shirt — the former being the newer and more complete form with the coif, the latter the old byrnie without that extra protection. Hence, in the Assize of Arms of Henry II. mentioned above, while the knights and all having chattels to the value of more than sixteen marks wear the lorica and cassis^ persons owning between sixteen and ten marks are only expected to provide themselves with a hauberk and steel cap (" albergel et capellet ferri ").^

It is only at the end of the twelfth century that serious changes in the character of the knightly equipment begin. The helm is the first part of the panoply to be affected : abandoning the conical shape, it begins sometimes to be flattened at the top, though it still retains the nasal and leaves the face exposed. Such a shape may be seen in the figures of knights in the well-known Life of St Guthlac in the British Museum.^ Very shortly after this modification in headgear began, a more com- plete one follows, — the nasal expands into a covering for the whole of the face, leaving only the eyes exposed. Thus is produced the pot-helmet or casque, whose earliest form we see on the second Great Seal of Richard I.^ This is the first headpiece concealing the whole head which had been used since classical times. It was enormously heavy, so much so that it was often made to come down on to the shoulders, so as to relieve the neck from as much weight as possible. In the figure of King Richard the casque is filled with a movable vizor with two long slits for the eyes, which can be lifted at need. But the pre- vailing form in the thirteenth century was a helm without vizor, but having eyeholes, and below them a group of circular or square openings for breathing, such as is displayed on the Great Seal of Henry III.* This very heavy and cumbrous headpiece lasted throughout the thirteenth century, retaining generally its original flat-topped shape ; but it is occasionally found with a conical summit like a sugar loaf.^ Owing to its weight, it was assumed only the moment before the battle : at the Marchfeld we are told how the cry, " Helms on ! " ran down

^ Assize of Arms in Stubbs' Charters, p. 154. 2 Harleian Roll, x.

' See Plate xviii. Fig. A. •* See Plate xvin. Fig. B. * See Plate xix. Fig. C.

PLATE XVI IL

AKMOUR OF ITQO-1250

(l) GREAT SEAL OF RICHARD T. I2) GREAT SEAL OF HENRY III.

V

25o] THE HELM IN THE THIRTEENTH CENTURY 513

ludolfs ranks when the Bohemians came in sight. At Tagh'a- ozzo the knights of Charles of Anjou removed their helms uring the short interval between the discomfiture of Conradin's orps and the reappearance of Henry of Castile upon the field. V knight whose helm had been knocked awry so that the eye- lits no longer came opposite the eyes was in a most helpless ondition. We are told of Guy of Montfort at Tagliacozzo that e got his helmet battered aside, and consequently laid about im like a blind man, and wounded his friend Alard of St. ^alery, who came to set it straight for him.^ It must be emembered that this head-dress was by no means universally ;orn. Many knights disliked it on account of its weight, and referred to wear the older and simpler mail coif. This we see n the effigy of William Longsword [1227], as also in the much iter battle scene on Plate XX.

The pot-helm of the thirteenth century was not unfrequently domed with various sorts of ornaments, a thing which had not een seen since the crested Prankish helm was superseded by le plain helm with nasal three centuries before. Richard I. n his second Great Seal wears a large fan-shaped ornament, 'he Count of Boulogne at Bouvines had crowned his helm with xo large horns of whalebone : ^ even more complicated addi- ons to the headpiece are sometimes seen.

These were probably assumed not only for decorative pur- oses, but to identify their wearers, who, since the face was Dmpletely covered by the pot - helm, could no longer be icognised by their friends. For the same reason, the surcoat, istead of being left plain, was now embroidered with the coat- f-arms of the bearer. Heraldry had begun to come in about le middle of the twelfth century,^ but it was not till its end lat all members of the knightly class assumed regular armorial earings. Richard I. is the first king who displays the three olden -lions on a red ground, which have become the arms of ngland.

About the same time that the pot-helm and the armorial

^ Primatus in Bouquet, xxiii. 35. * Philippeis, xi. 232 : '' "Cornua conus agit superasque eduxit in auras

E costis assumpta nigris quas faucis in antro Branchia balenae Britici colit incola ponti." ' The Great Seal of Philip of Flanders (i 161) is one of the first on which definitely raldic bearings as opposed to mere ornamental designs are to be found displayed. 33

514 THE ART OF WAR IN THE MIDDLE AGES [125c

surcoat came into fashion, the shield was very considerabh reduced in its dimensions. The knight was now so well pro tected by his body armour that it had become less necessary t< him. In the thirteenth century it was no longer kite-shapec but triangular: all through that age it steadily diminished i; size, till by 1 300 it was comparatively insignificant, and could t\ longer be used (as it had been for many ages) to carry a wounde knight, or to convey a corpse.

It will be easily seen that the knights who fought at Bouvine or Mansourah were very different in outward appearance fror their ancestors of the early twelfth century. The closed po helmet and the surcoat, together with the small shield, presente a totally different appearance from the nasal-helmet, the ui covered hauberk, and the long kite-shaped shield. But beneat these outward trappings the main body armour was not vei much altered. The mail-shirt and its coif were still the univers wear, though they had been rendered more effective for defent by improved gambesons or actons worn beneath. All accoun agree that the armour of 1200 discharged its purpose ve: well : it will be remembered how thoroughly the Franks Tiberias were protected by their mail against the Turkish arrow and how even the gambesons of the foot-soldiery proved ir penetrable at Arsouf.^ Guillaume le Breton remarks in \ account of Bouvines how much the battles of his own day differ from those of antiquity. Formerly men fell by the ten thousar. now the slaughter was comparatively slight-rHJiavc*:.

"Corpora tot coriis, tot gambesonibus armant.'*

The same author shows us that already a further form o tection for the breast was coming into use: under the gam some knights were beginning to wear a thin plate of iron, William des Barres and Richard Coeur de Lion tilted agaii each other- -.i^lw J^mo^r, f.^-. «. n^ ,

' Utraque per clipeos ad corpora fraxmus ibat, Gambesumque audax forat, et thoraca trilicem Disjicit : ardenti nimiura prorumpere tandem Vtx obstat ferro fabricata patena recocto Qua bene munierat pectus sibi cautus uterque." '

This first hint of plate armour differs entirely from its la development, in that it was worn beneath and not above the i of the panoply.

1 See p. 329. 2 See p. 307. ^ PhilippeiSy iii.

25o] BEGINNINGS OF PLATE ARMOUR 515

As the manufacture of chain mail was perfected, it was found ossible to use it in more delicate sizes for the protection of the ands and feet. Mail mittens consisting of a thumb and a single Dvering for the other four fingers came in with the thirteenth ^ntury: the effigy of William Longsword in the nave of alisbury Cathedral displays them very well.^ They were fixed ) the sleeves of the mail-shirt, but there was left in the palm of le hand an opening like that of a modern glove, but larger, irough which the wearer could draw out his hand, leaving the litten dangling at his wrist. It was only at the end of the ^ntury that the art of the smith advanced so far as to provide iparate openings for each finger, and so to turn the mitten ito a glove.

Leg coverings were much improved at the same time : in the velfth century they had generally guarded the outer side of the :g, being laced together and leaving the inner part, which )uched the saddle, unprotected. In the thirteenth century they scame continuous and complete coverings for the limb, which ime up to the hips and were joined there to the inner side of le mail-shirt, which overlapped them. At Bouvines, when eginald of Boulogne had been thrown from his horse, one of le French sergeants endeavoured to thrust him through under le skirts of his hauberk, but failed because the leg mail and the lirt were firmly secured together.

The beginnings of plate armour applied above the rest of the inoply appear about the middle of the thirteenth century. At ) rst they were used only for exposed parts, such as the elbows, aee-caps, and shins, small plates being here fixed over the lail. Somewhat later the cuirass of plate commences to appear. : was no more than an iron covering for the breast, not warding the armpit or the neck, and, though it weighed down le wearer considerably, gave him no very complete protection, he reader will remember how ill the German knights at enevento (1266) fared, in spite of their breastplates, when con- nding with the French knights, who still wore mail-shirts alone, he development of plate armour is really a matter of the urteenth century — the thirteenth saw no more than its )mmencement.

Typical figures from the end of the thirteenth century may rve to show the modest nature of these first beginnings of

1 See Fig. A of Plate xix.

5i6 THE ART OF WAR IN THE MIDDLE AGES [123

plate armour. In the battle-piece from the celebrated Lives 0 the tiio Offas^ in the British Museum (Plate XX.), Kin; Offa himself wears defences for his knees and greaves of plat strapped above his chain-mail hose. One of the defeate enemies, who is receiving a spear-thrust in the throat, has vizor of plate curiously fitted on to the front of his chain-ma coif — a composite head-dress much less common than eithe the plain coif or the massive pot-helm. The Q!i^gY of Williar de Balneis, from the cloisters of the Annunziata at Florenc (1289) (Plate XIX. B), gives decidedly more plate than th representation of King Offa. He is protected to the thigh, an not merely to the knee, by highly-ornamented plates girt 0 above his mail. It will be noticed that his mail gloves hav fingers, and not merely the mitten-like divisions betwee thumb and fingers shown by Offa and his knights as well i by the figures of the early part of the thirteenth century.

1 Nero. D. i.

CHAPTER VII

FORTIFICATION AND SIEGECRAFT (110O-I300)

IN the third, fourth, and sixth chapters of our Third Book we indicated the causes which led to the rehabilitation )f military architecture in the West after nearly five centuries )f neglect. Under the stress of the concentric attack from V"iking, Magyar, and Saracen, which was at its worst between 550 and 950, all the peoples of Latin Christendom had been :ompeUed to avail themselves, to the best of their power, of the esources of fortification. Hence came the patching up of :ountless Roman walls in every region between England and Apulia ; hence, too, the erection of the palisaded burhs and mrgs of Edward the Elder and Henry the Fowler, and the 'encing in of the innumerable private strongholds of the feudal iristocracy of Europe.

Down to the eleventh century it is not too much to say hat stonework was the exception, and palisaded earthworks he general rule, in all places where Roman works were lot already in existence. Where the ancient enceinte was susceptible of repair, it was of course utilised by the tenth- ;entury builder, e.g. at London or Chester. On the Continent though not on this side of the Channel) there were a certain number of great towns which had preserved a continuous existence as fortresses since the fall of the Western Empire, whose walls needed only to be kept in good order, not to be rebuilt : such were Rome, Verona, Narbonne, and Carcassonne. But such cases were exceptional. Even of the old Roman towns many had been so repeatedly destroyed that their original walls were too far gone for repair, and the tenth - century builder had practicall}^ to start afresh in the task of fortification. Often we find mere ditches and palisades surrounding what had once been a city, possessing a regular Roman enceinte. The

517

^'

518 THE ART OF WAR IN THE MIDDLE AGES [iio(

new works might coincide with the lines of the old, or the} might enclose a greater or a lesser space. At Lincoln, fo example, the^Anglo-Danish city stretched much farther down th^ hillside towards the Witham than the Roman walls had done At York, on the other hand, the tenth - century city occupiec less ground than the ancient Eboracum. But both were alik in that they were now defended only by earthworks and stake.' not by solid masonry.

Of the centres of urban life in Western Christendoir therefore, some were guarded with stone walls, many more b; ditch and palisade, while perhaps most numerous of all wer those which were dominated by a royal, episcopal, or baronia castle, but were not themselves girt with any complete ring b defence. On the Continent especially, counts and bishops wer often jealous of allowing the townsmen to fortify themselves and preferred to make them rely on a place of refuge whicl was in the hands of their feudal lord. In time of war th population were able to retire into their master's palisade( mound or walled castle. In time of peace the fortress dom: nated the town and kept the burghers in obedience. Durinj the tenth and the first half of the eleventh century thes seigneurial fortresses were, as a rule, mere moated mounds the stone castle was a rarity. Castle-building was not, indeec unknown in much earlier ages. In the second half of the sixt century, Venantius Fortunatus describes Nicetius, Bishop c Trier, as building a real stone fortress to dominate the ancien city below him.^ But the art of building had actually retrograde between 550 and 800, and it was long before stone castles cam into general use. They were both too expensive for th ninth- or tenth-century count or bishop's purse, and too hard c construction for his master-builder. Instead, rocky fortressc were strengthened with banks, or, where rocks did not aboun naturally, hillocks or artificial mounds were trenched an palisaded. Motte (mound) seems to have been the genetc name for these structures among the Romance-speaking race

^ " Hie vir apostolicus Nicetius, arva peragrans Condidit optatum pastor ovile gregi. Turribus incinxit terdenis undique collem, Praebuit banc fabricam, quo nemus ante fuit.

Turris ab adverso quae constitit obvia clivo Sanctorum locus est, arma tenenda viris."

iioo] THE PALISADED MOUND 519

The English called them burhs^ a word which was very early- extended in meaning, so as to apply to the town which clustered round the mound. Among the continental Teutons they were known as burgs in exactly the same way: the term was applied both to strongholds and to palisaded cities.

The character of the seigneurial " motte " is well expressed in a passage from the Acta Sanctorum^ describing the life of St. John, Bishop of Terouanne in Flanders, who died in 11 30. ft is worth quoting at full length.^

" Bishop John had in the town of Merchem a mansion where he could abide with his retinue, while perambulating his diocese. Beside the court of the church there was a stronghold, which \ve might call a castle or a numicipium?' It was a lofty structure, built, according to the local custom, by the lord of that town many years before. For the rich and noble of that region, being much given to feuds and bloodshed, fortify them- selves in order to protect themselves from their foes, and by these strongholds subdue their equals and oppress their inferiors. They heap up a mound as high as they are able, and dig round it as broad a ditch as they can excavate, hollowing it out to a very considerable depth. Round the summit of the mound they construct a palisade of timber, to act as a wall ; it is most firmly compacted together, with towers set in it at intervals in a circle as best can be arranged. Inside the palisade they erect a house, or rather a citadel,^ which looks down on the whole neighbourhood. No one can enter the place save by a bridge, which starts from the outer edge of the ditch and is carried on piers, built two or three together gradually rising in height, so that it reaches the flat space on top of the mound and comes in opposite the gate of the palisade. . . . The bishop returned to the stronghold with his . retinue after holding a confirmation, in order to change his i vestments, for he was next proposing to consecrate a cemetery. As he was coming down again from his abode, with no small crowd before and behind him, and had reached the middle of

^ I owe my knowledge of this most interesting description to Mr. G. T. Clark {MedicEval Military Architecture^ London, 1884), as I do many other notes in this chapter.

^ What did the author, John of Colmieu, intend by a niunicipium ? Certainly not a "corporate town"; but probably a "burg," taking the word tfiunicipium straight from munirey to fortify.

^ Arx,

520 THE ART OF WAR IN THE MIDDLE AGES [i

I

the bridge, some thirty-five feet or more above the level of ditch, the structure gave way — no doubt owing to the illwill^ our Old Enemy [Satan]. The bridge fell, and all the cr upon it: beams, planks, and supports came down with fearful crash. So great was the cloud of dust which rose up above the ruin, that no one could see exactly what hac happened."

The description of this Flemish mound-fortress might serv< for that of countless tenth- and eleventh - century strongholdf in England, France, and Germany. Such undoubtedly were the burhs of the English thegnhood which William the Conqueror found in existence when England submitted to him His own barons in Normandy were, as a rule, provided with nc better fortresses, for it is a mistake to suppose that the stone castle was prevalent everywhere on the Continent, while the olc palisaded mound lingered on upon this side of the Channel William himself, though a great builder, was only able to erecl a very limited number of castles of the type of the Tower o

yLondon. Domesday Book mentions forty -nine castles ai ^existing in 1086 ; and of these, thirty-three at least were on site: which had been previously occupied by Saxon strongholds Twenty-eight of these thirty-three are built on artificial mound: of the burh type. When the buildings of those which stil survive are investigated, the large majority of them are founc

. to be of Norman work, but of a date distinctly later than the Conqueror — of the time of Henry I. and Stephen. As it i: incredible that one Norman keep should have been removec merely to make way for another of the same type, slightl} modified, we are driven to the conclusion that the greater par of William's castles were merely adaptations and additions tc the old English strongholds. The masonry was added half i century later.^

Historical evidence bears out this conclusion, for we knov that many of William's "castles" were constructed in a fev months — a time wholly insufficient for the building of stem works. The castle of York, for example, he ordered to b( built during the summer of 1068. It was finished anc garrisoned by 500 men. But in March 1069 the Northum brians rose in revolt and besieged it. William returned t(

^ I must again acknowledge my deep indebtedness to Mr. Clark's third chapter where so much information on the Norman castles is collected.

loo] THE TOWER OF LONDON 521

elieve it, and supplemented it by the erection of a second astle on the opposite bank of the river. This structure was ompleted m eight days} But in September 1069 the natives Dse again, aided by the Danes, stormed the castles, and emolished them by burning them with fire. Obviously such astily - constructed works, capable of being burned down, annot possibly have been composed of masonry, and must ave been palisaded burhs in the old English style. Such ndoubtedly were the large majority of William's strong- olds.

But there were also a certain amount of true stone castles rected by the Conqueror, either in places where no earHer\ )rtifications existed, or where an important town or region eeded to be held down by a citadel of exceptional strength." he Tower of London may serve for an example : it rises to a eight of ninety feet, and consists of an enormous quadrangular eep (a hundred and seven feet by a hundred and eighteen), uilt of rubble rudely coursed, and with a very large proportion f mortar to the stone. Only the windows, quoins, and pilaster rips were of ashlar. The individual stones are not very large, D that the loss of a certain amount of them by the attacks f an enemy using the bore {terebrus)'^ would not have been ixy dangerous to the stability of the fabric. The walls are 'teen feet thick in the basement storey, thirteen in the first, ^tween ten and eleven in the second and third. The entrance as probably on the south side on the first floor level ; there as also a small postern on the same stage. These entries ere at a considerable distance above the ground, and could nly be reached through some sort of a fore-building, which isappeared when the original keep was surrounded by outer alls, on which the main stress of the defence fell. A vertical all within the tower divides it into a smaller eastern and

larger western half ; each of these halves, again, is sub- vided into chambers. The gloomy basement served as a orehouse ; the first floor, hardly less gloomy, must have been tended for habitation, perhaps as guardrooms for the garrison, i It is fitted with chimney flues. The second floor contains the

^ Orderic Vitalis, 512 D: "Rex antem dies octo in urbe morans, alteram lesidium condidit, at Gulielmum comitem Osberni filium ad custodiendum iquit."

'Seep. 133.

522 THE ART OF WAR IN THE MIDDLE AGES [iio<

large Chapel of St. > John and the banquet! ngrchamber ; th( third, of " state floor," comprises the council-room and th( king's apartments. There are^ of course, other smaller room in each stage. The largest individual spaces of the chamber (excluding the vast storeroom in the basement, which measure ninety-one feet by thirty-five) are those in the western hall of which several are ninety feet long : the chapel is forty fee by thirty-one. The main access from floor to floor is given b' a spiral staircase, eleven feet in diameter, contained in th north-eastern angle of the keep, which is curved out into turret for the purpose ; there are also smaller spiral staircase contrived in the thickness of the wall.

In the Conqueror's time this vast quadrangular building stoo by its own strength : any outer defences which existed mu^ have been unimportant; they amounted to no more than th usual ditch, mound, and palisade. It was not till William ha been dead some years that his son the Red King set to wor to surround the keep with a wall of masonry : it was an extei sive and expensive undertaking, so that " the shires which wit . their work belonged to London suffered great detriment it reason of the wall, and of the king's hall work which was bein wrought at Westminster."^

91- The strength of such a structure ias the Tower of Londc fey in the extraordinary solidity of its construction. Again walls fifteen or twenty feet thick the feeble siege-artillery ' the day beat without perceptible effect. W^ith no woodwork be set on fire, and no openings near the ground to be batten in, it had an almost endless capacity for passive resistanc Even a small garrison could hold out as long as its provisio lasted. Mining was perhaps the device which had most ho of success against such a stronghold ; ^ but if the castle w | provided with a deep ditch, or if it stood on rocky grour mining even was of no avail. There remained the laborio I expedient of demolishing the lower parts of the walls by t bore, worked under the shelter of a penthouse. If the dit was shallow enough to be filled, and a " cat " could be broug close to the foot of the tower, this method might have soi

^ A.S. Chronicle, sub anno 1097.

2 The classical instance of the success of a mine against a Norroan keep is capture of Rochester by King John in 121 5. He succeeded in bringing dow corner of the building.

iioo] THE SHELL-KEEP 523

faint hope of success. Before brattices ^ or bastions were invented, there was no means by which the missiles of the besieged could adequately command the ground immediately below the wall. The loopholes were very small, and did not permit of vertical fire, so that the only way by which the garrison could get at the engineers of the besieger was by leaning over the battlements It the top of the tower. Here they would be exposed to the ire of the military engines and archers of the enemy, who were Drought up to protect the men working under the shelter of :he "cat." Hence something might be done by the method of demolishing the lower stages of the walls ; but the process was ilways slow, laborious, and exceedingly costly in the matter of luman lives. Unless pressed for time, a good commander vould generally prefer to work by starvation, the one form )f attack which the keep was wholly unable to withstand. It vill be noted that the defenders had no facilities for annoying he besiegers by sorties ; the entrance of their stronghold was larrow, visible, and high above the ground. A force could only ssue from it slowly, and when checked would have the greatest iifBculty in returning to their fastness. Hence the defender ;eldom wasted his men in endeavouring to attack the assailant : .he only occasion on which he would be likely to essay it vould be when military machines were doing such damage :hat they must be at all costs destroyed.

The square stone-keep, however, was comparatively rare n King William's own day : his son's reign saw the erection of Tiore ; but the great castle-building age of the Normans was the . .welfth century.

1-^ It must not be supposed that the prevalent type of stronghold -rf the twelfth century was one in which a square solid keep was he really important part of the fortress, and the rest merely mbsidiary. Far more usual was another^type, on which the name )f shell-keep has been bestowed. It consists of a ring of fortifi- :ation surrounding an open court, and assuming many different ;hapes of a circular or polygonal sort. The shell-keep was the brm of work invariably selected by the Norman architect when le was dealing with one of the old palisaded mounds which he lad inherited from his English predecessors. It was formed by

^ The brattice was a hoarding of woodwork projecting outside the stonework of ' he tower, being supported on beams fixed in the wall, or on corbels built into it. "rom holes in its floor it commanded the ground at the foot of the tower.

584 THE ART OF WAR IN THE MIDDLE AGES [1150

substituting a ring of masonry for the earlier structure of earth and stakes round the crown of the hillock. Unlike the square and solid keep of the other type, it is a regular evolution from the stage of fortification which had gone before it. When architects grew more competent and masons more numerous, it was an obvious improvement to substitute stone and mortar for earth and beams. Hence almost invariably the Anglo-Saxon burh was followed by a Norman shell-keep. It seems also tc be true that in many cases the loose artificially-made soil of the mound was not strong enough to bear a solid structure, anc could only support a ring-wall.^ Within the circle of masonrj were erected the buildings which sheltered the owner and hi< garrison ; they were built with the ring-wall for their back, anc faced inwards into the little court ; often they seem to hav( been mere slight timber structures, for even in Norman day* the lord did not always live in his stronghold, but only repairec thither in time of war, spending most of his time in riding fron manor to manor, with his large and miscellaneous househok and retinue. Only in exposed frontier fortresses like Alnwicl did the master find it necessary to make his keep his perman ent abode.

Berkeley and Arundel may be taken as showing good speci mens of the shell-keep built on old English mounds. A plai of the former, with its later additions, is annexed on Plate XX] Abroad the same type is very common : such was the old bun at Leyden, where the ring-wall circles the crown of an earl; Frisian mound. The castle of Boves in Picardy, besieged an« taken by Philip Augustus in 11 85, shows a similar character ; bu the shell-keep on its steep mound was strengthened by a squar tower, which acted as a last refuge for the garrison when th miners 6f the French king broke the ring-wall. There are ruin of structures of the same sort both in Eastern and in Wester Germany. Wherever the old mound - fortresses existed, th shell-keep was the first and most natural stage in their evolutio into regular mediaeval castles.

Both the square solid keep and the shell-keep were normall

^Myfi-iend Mn Doyle, of AH Souls College, pointed out to mean interestn |

phenomenon in the little castle of Tretower, near Crickhowell, where a Normr ■•

shell-keep had been utilised by a later owner as the outer wall of his fortress, a ve |

narrow tower being erected in the centre of the shell-keep, so as to make a litt |

"inner watd " of the ground between the new building and the old shell. \

dSo] TWELFTH-CENTURY IMPROVEMENTS 525

mpplemented by outer defences, either at their first construction 3r at a later date. It is rare to find examples of them without my additional walls outside — though Bowes Castle in North Yorkshire seems to be such an exception. The original English 3r continental mound-fortress was of small extent, but round t grew up the dwellings of the owner's retainers, and presently >ome light defences of ditch and hedge were drawn round them, 50 that the burh or motte became only the citadel. The name Durh, as we know, soon came to be applied to the settlement -ound the palisaded mound as well as to the structure itself When the defences of the suburb were made stronger, and walls supplanted ditch and hedge, we have arrived at a very common eleventh- and twelfth-century type of fortress — the keep sur- rounded by a curtain-wall containing a considerable space of ground. The enclosed area may be large, and a whole town Tiay be built within it. On the other hand, it may be quite small, only affording room for the few buildings and store- louses needed by the garrison of the keep. As a general rule :he keep lies not in the middle of the space, but at one end of it, or set in the wall. This was often due to the fact that the mound was the end of the spur of a hill or rising ground, cut off from it by the excavation of its ditch. The extension of the fortress was along the top of the spur, not below that front of the mound which looked towards the plain. So we often find a castle with its original keep on the end of the spur, its first extension just beyond the original ditch, and then a second extension, or " outer ward," still farther remote from the early citadel. When a castle was not on a spur, but upon an isolated mound in the plain, it must of course have been more or less a matter of chance on which side the outgrowth began. But as a general rule the keep stands at one end of the enclosed space, not in its midst. The same is true of towns and their citadels — the normal type has the castle at one end of the place, like London, Winchester, or Oxford. It is rare to find it set right in the midst of the inhabited space, though Ferrara and Evreux may serve as examples. Obviously there was danger in the close juxtaposition of houses to the citadel : they gave too much cover to an enemy, and if set on fire might stifle the defenders of the stronghold which they surrounded.

Such was the stage at which fortification had arrived in Western and Central Europe, when a new influence was brought

5z6 THE ART OF WAR IN THE MIDDLE AGES [1150

to bear upon it. The Crusades put the men of the twelfth century in touch with the Levant, where they had the opportunity of studying the splendid fortresses which the Eastern emperors had built, and of which so many were now in the hands of the Turks and Saracens. To have to undertake the sieges of great fenced cities like Nicaea, Antioch, or Jerusalem was almost an education in itself to the engineers of the West. Their feeble engines and their primitive methods of attack were utterly unable to cope with such strongholds, and as a rule famine or treachery alone enabled them to win the place?; which they beleaguered. The essential features of Byzantine military architecture were the erection of double and triple defences round the core of the fortress, and the careful provision of towers set at intervals in the " curtain " of the walls. Both were new ideas to the Crusaders, whose notion of a fortress was nothing more than a keep surrounded by a plain outer curtain not strengthened with towers.

Constantinople, the most perfect of all the Eastern fortresses, struck the Franks as absolutely impregnable : it had a triple enceinte, with a deep ditch in front of the outermost face. The first wall was commanded by the second, and the second by the third, each overtopping the line below it, and all three furnished with military machines capable of playing on the siege-works of the beleaguering army. Moreover, the two firsi walls were loopholed at a stage below the battlements, so thai the garrison could fire not merely from the parapets, but from i well-protected second line of openings. The siege-artillery 0 the enemy would therefore have before it at any point five separat( lines of engines, each rising above the other, and all command ing the ground beyond the ditch where the investing arm} must necessarily begin to erect its works. As a matter of fact no hostile force ever dared to attempt a regular attack on thi tremendous front till the days of the invention of gunpowdei The Avars, Persians, and Saracens in the seventh and eight) centuries only blockaded the place and tried to starve it oul i The Crusaders of 1204 studied the tremendous triple enceinte found that it was impregnable, and then turned all their energie against the sea face of the city, where there was only a singl wall to oppose them. Previous besiegers had never possesse that complete command of the water approaches which mad such an attack possible. In the days of Heraclius, Constantin

204] THE SIEGE OF CONSTANTINOPLE 527

'ogonatus, and Leo the Isaurian, the Byzantine fleet had always •een strong enough to render regular assaults on the sea wall 00 hazardous. Even when not in complete command of the traits (as, for example, during the Saracen siege of 673), the mperial navy had invariably been present in strong force ;ithin the Golden Horn, and any attempt to assail the water ront would have caused it to sally out and fall upon the )esiegers while their ships, crowded with land troops, were rying to haul in under the wall. Hence such attempts were lever made : the " navy in being " of the besieged rendered them 00 hazardous. But in 1204 the wretched emperors of the lOUse of Angelus had so neglected the fleet that the Venetians rere able to draw under the sea wall and assail it without any ear of interruption. Thus it was that Constantinople, for the irst time in history, fell before an attack by open force : before, t had never been captured save by treachery from within.^

Constantinople was of course quite exceptional in showing a riple line of defence extending over several miles of front : as a ule, it was only citadels and not cities which displayed such a ormidable series of walls. Even the wealthy Byzantine Goverrt-r nent could not afford to surround places of large size with nore than a single enceinte. For castles and fortresses, however, vhere the space was moderate, the concentric lines were possible, ind often were erected : the citadel of Antioch, for example, lad a double wall on the north and west sides, though not on he more precipitous southern and eastern fronts.^ The vast town vhich lay below it, on the other hand, had but a single wall, but his was made very strong by-its splendid diadem of towers.

The fortifications of Antioch may serve as an example of he Byzantine methods of guarding a city of first-rate import- mce. The place had been retaken from the Saracens by Nicephorus Phocas in 968: in 976 both walls and city were ;erribly injured by an earthquake, and the whole enceinte had 0 be repaired. It then remained in the hands of the Eastern emperors till 1086, when the Seljoulc Sultan Suleiman cap- :ured it by treachery. Thus we see that the Turks had only 3een in possession of the place for a trifle more than ten years »vhen the Crusaders came against it. The barbarian conquerors lad of course added nothing to the Byzantine walls, and the

^ e.g. As when Alexius Comnenus took it in 1081.

' See the Plan in Key's Architecture Militaire des Croises en Syrie, Paris, iSifiV^^

528 THE ART OF WAR IN THE MIDDLE AGES [109J

fortifications erected by Justinian, and remodelled in the tent! century by the engineers of John Zimisces and Basil ii., were those with which the Franks had to deal in 1098. Wher Antioch fell, and became the capital of Bohemund's principality the old walls needed no repair — the siege operations had don( no harm to them. The Byzantine enceinte protected the Latii princes for nearly two hundred years : its remains are stil sufficient to enable us to reconstruct the whole system o defence. It consisted of a line of curtain, in which towers wer placed at frequent but irregular intervals : in the more expose( parts of the wall the towers were no more than fifty yards apart in the more inaccessible parts they were some eighty or hundred yards from each other. Where the walls lie along th river Orontes to the. north-east, and along precipices on th southern, south-eastern, and south-western fronts (see Ma facing p. 250), they are not furnished with a ditch, but on th north-western' and northern fronts the channel of the Oronte had been diverted along their foot, so as to form a large moat, c rather a broad marshy depression. The curtain was solid, an not pierced with loopholes ; its main protection came from th projecting towers set in it at such close intervals. Thei formidable structures were about twenty yards square; half( their bulk stood out beyond the curtain wall, and commanded side view of the ditch, or of the ground at the foot of the wal where no ditch existed. They were about sixty feet hig and had three storeys ; each storey was loopholed both to tt front and to the sides, so as to furnish a flanking fire along t\ ditch as well as a direct fire towards the open country. Beir set in the curtain for half their bulk, the towers blocked tl road round the walls at frequent intervals. No one could wa' for a quarter of a mile along the enceinte without passing throu§ six or seven towers, and, as each tower had strong doors whe its second storey opened on to the ramparts, each section •curtain could be isolated by the closing of these doors. So by chance the besieger mastered a part of the curtain, the tv towers oh each side prevented him from making his way right or left along the walls, and, as there was no way of gettii down from the ramparts to the interior of the town (all stai being within the towers), the assailant would have gain( nothing but some sixty or eighty yards of narrow ramp? w^lk. The Crusaders in 1098 were admitted into one of t

1098] EARLY CASTLES IN SYRIA 529

towers (that of the " Two Sisters " ) by th3 treachery of the renegade Firouz,^ and by means of the gate on the ground floor of the tower got into the town. If they had merely scaled the curtain they would have gained nothing ; but, emerging from the tower, they were able to break open first a blocked postern- i^ate and then the great bridge-gate (see Map of Antioch facing p. 250) ; through these two entries the main body of the Franks poured in, and the place was won.

Once established in Syria, the Franks not only repaired the castles and city walls which the Moslems had left behind them, but erected an infinite number of new strongholds, varying in size from small isolated watch-towers to the most formidable fortresses of the first class, capable of holding garrisons of two or three thousand men. To trace the exact stages by which they perfected their military architecture is not easy, as most of the castles were being perpetually strengthened, and present now the appearance which they showed in the thirteenth century, when they finally fell back into Moslem hands and were dismantled or left to decay. The most perfect ruins, such as those of Markab and Krak-des-Chevaliers, do not therefore give us so much information as to the twelfth century as could be wished. To ascertain the earlier developments of Frankish architecture in the Holy Land, places must be studied which were surrendered to Saladin after the battle of Tiberias and never again were in possession of the Crusaders, such as Saona and Blanche-Garde (captured in 1 1 87) and Kerak-in-Moab (surrendered in 1188).

An examination of such castles shows that in the twelfth century the two great principles of Byzantine military archi- tecture— the defence of the curtain by towers and the construc- tion of concentric lines of fortification — were thoroughly well understood and practised by the Frankish builders. The early strongholds differ from the later mainly by their want of finish, and greater simplicity of detail. In the thirteenth century castles^ were built not only with more elaborate and ingenious defences,

^ The first sixty combatants mounted by a rope ladder on to the curtain adjoin- ing the tower which Firouz commanded. He led them from thence into the tower.. Next some descended to break open the postern, while others pushed right and left along the curtain. They were so swift and silent that they were able to penetrate into the towers, whose doors were not closed, and to massacre their sleeping garrisons before the alarm was given. Masters of five hundred or six hundred yards of the enceinte, they could not be withstood. 34

530 THE ART OF WAR IN THE MIDDLE AGES [1150

but also with a certain regard to decoration and ornament. They show carvings, shields of arms, and occasional inscriptions, of which the buildings of the preceding age are destitute. But the general principles of construction are the same throughout the two centuries during which the Franks held their footing in Syria.

It was probably quite early in the time of the existence of the kingdom of Jerusalem that the crusading architects adopted and improved on the Byzantine models. The shell-keeps or square donjons with a plain towerless curtain- wall, which they had left behind them in the West, were so obviously inferior tc the military architecture of the Levant that there was no temp- tation to reproduce them without an improvement. Thus a great change in the fundamental conception of the castle took place early in the twelfth century : instead of being considered as 2 keep provided with an outer wall, it becomes an enceinte with or without a keep as final place of refuge. Formerly the greal donjon was the more and the outer wall the less important par- in the scheme of defence. But now the main resistance was to bf opposed by the enceinte with towers set in it at intervals, anc the donjon was a last resort, to which the garrison only retiree in desperate extremity. It might even be merely the greatesi of the several towers of the enceinte. When King Amaury aboui 1 165 erected the small but strong fortress of Darum on th( borders of Egypt, he merely built a square enceinte with fouj large towers at its angles, of which one was larger than the others. Though this served as a donjon, it only differed in size from I^B other three. Sj

Another deviation from the old practice of the West wa.' that the strongest tower was sometimes built not in the mos secure and well-defended part of the castle, as a place of fina refuge, but at the fore-front of the most exposed side of the fort ress, so as to bear the brunt of the attack. In this case the keep if keep we may call it, would be the first part of the place whicl would be assaulted by the besieger, and the first, perhaps, to fal into his hands. As an example of this kind of castle we ma\ quote Athlit (Chateau Pelerin), a castle built on a promontory

^ William of Tyre, xx. 19, describes it as '* castrum modicae quantitatis, vix tanr spatium inter se continens quantum est jactum lapidis, formae quadrae, turres habci. quatiuor in angulis, quarum una grossior et munitior erat aliis." See Key's A nAi tec/iire Militaire, etc., p. 125, for its present state.

PLATE XXL

mwW\wm^

CAERPHILLY CASTLE

i2ro

ii5o] THE CASTLE OF KERAK-IN-MOAB 531

where the main defensive structure consisted of two massive towers connected by a short curtain and placed across the neck of the promontory. Behind them, seaward, the rest of the castle was only protected by an ordinary enceinte with a few small towers. All the strength of the place lay in the two splendid towers at the isthmus. But Athlit was built late (12 1 8), and must not be quoted as an example of twelfth-century archi- tecture.i

As a fair example of the strongholds which the Franks

erected after they had been seated for a generation in the Holy

Land, we may describe Kerak-in-Moab, the eastern bulwark of

the kingdom of Jerusalem, built about 1 140 by Payn of Nablous,

the high-butler of King Fulk. It was only forty years in

Christian hands, and seems never to have been much altered

from its original shape. It stands on one of the two narrow

crests which connect the hill of Kerak with the mountains of

Moab. To east and west the slope of the crest is too steep to

be accessible : to north and south, where the danger is greater,

two enormous ditches have been hewn in the rock, so as to isolate

the castle from the rest of the ridge of which it forms part ; they

were only to be crossed by narrow bridges removable in time of

war. The fortress consisted of a donjon in the south-east angle

of the oblong enceinte, and of an upper and a lower ward,

separated from each other by a strong wall. The northern front

af the castle was the most exposed : it consisted of a curtain

flanked by two large towers, which gave a lateral fire into the

ditch : the curtain contained at least two stages pierced with

oopholes. The only opening in it was by a gate close under the

vvestern flanking tower: it was closed by a portcullis, and opened

lot directly into the court of the castle, but into a long passage

oetween the curtain and a wall built at its back. Two more port-

:ulli5es were placed at intervals in this passage, and it was only

ifter passing them that the court was reached. (See Plan facing 3age 530.)

Kerak-in-Moab proved utterly impregnable to all the attacks )f Saladin. Though repeatedly assailed, it was never harmed, nor iid the assailants even enter its lower ward. It held out for nany months after the battle of Tiberias, and only surrendered vhen provisions had failed and all hopes of relief were ibsolutely at an end (1188).

^ All this comes from M. Key's admirable and oft-quoted work.

532 THE ART OF WAR IN THE MIDDLE AGES [1150

It is safe to say that such a fine example of a fortress with a double line of defence could not have been built anywhere save in the East so early as 1 140. Nothing approaching it for com- pleteness of design was reared in England, France, or Germany till fifty years later, when Richard Coeur de Lion planned his famous Chateau Gaillard on the bluff above Les Andelys. Richard, we cannot doubt, was utilising his Eastern experience when he erected this splendid and complicated structure, whose arrangements pleased him so well that he boasted that " it might be held even if its walls were made of butter."

Nevertheless, the influence of Eastern military architecture began to be felt in the West not long after the first Crusade though the Western builders worked on a smaller scale, and were for many years timid copyists of the crusading architects. The old type of the keep standing in a base-court girt by a plair curtain begins about 11 30 or 1140 to develop into a more com plicated structure. The enceinte wall becomes more important towers are presently set in it, and the outer line of defence be comes less wholly subordinate to the keep. At the same tim( the keep itself ceases to depend entirely on its passiv< strength, and requires a gate-house, and a larger provision o loopholes.

In a few important castles, instead of building a mere shell keep or rectangular keep, the architects of the wealthier baron began about 1 140-50 to erect a more complicated central pile a the main feature of a new castle. At Alnwick, for example, th powerful Eustace de Vesey set on the ancient mound which h found there existing, not a shell-keep (such as his father woul have built), but a circular cluster of towers, enclosing an ope court. His outer enceinte was also probably furnished with few small towers, though these have been so reconstructed b thirteenth- and fourteenth-century holders of the place that it difficult to be certain on the point.^ The Tower of Londo round which Rufus had drawn a plain curtain-wall,^ began to I strengthened with towers under Henry ll.^ The Wakefiel tower, oldest of those of its inner ward, seems to belong to th; time ; the others have been so pulled about by later kings, th; it is impossible to attribute any of them with certainty to ; early a date.

^ See Clark's Mili/ary Architecture, etc., 1. 176-185. ^ See p. 522. 3 Clark, ii. 224.

-J

1 196] EASTERN INFLUENCES IN THE WEST 533

It must not be supposed that the " adulterine " castles erected in Stephen's reign showed any such improvements. Built hastily by men of precarious fortunes, they were often mere walled enclosures, or at best rough shell-keeps. Hence it comes that they were so easily destroyed by Henry if., and that the majority of their sites exhibit very slight traces of masonry. Perhaps some may have been mere palisaded mounds of the ancient type. If they had been fitted with massive rectangular keeps of the tirst Norman model, or with the more complicated defences introduced from the East, they would undoubtedly have left far more solid ruins behind them.

By the end of the twelfth century the military architects of the West had learned their lesson, and were utilising everywhere the notions which had originally been borrowed from the Byzantines. Outer wards and fore-works begin to appear beyond the original curtain-walls ; towers grow numerous and strong, and flanking fire is always provided to cover exposed fronts. It may be worth while to give a sketch of the strongest fortress of the day, in order to show the enormous advance which had been made since the first Crusade. Chateau Gaillard, as we have already had occasion to mention, was considered the masterpiece of the time. The reputation of its builder, Coeur de Lion, as a great military engineer might stand firm on this single structure. He was no mere copyist of the models which he had seen in the East, but introduced many original details of his own invention into the stronghold. It is therefore not exactly a typical castle of the last years of the thirteenth century, but rather an abnor- mally superior specimen of its best work.

Chateau Gaillard was placed in a splendid strategical position, covering Rouen from all attacks along the line of the Seine. By the aid of its outworks and the fortified bridge below, it completely blocked the main avenue of invasion from France. But it is with the castle itself, not with its dependencies, that we have to deal. Like so many mediaeval strongholds, it lies on the end of a long spur of steep ground, connected only by a narrow neck with the hills behind. The slopes below it are so steep and lofty that it can only be attacked with advantage along the cramped front of the isthmus which joins it to the main block of the upland. Its fortifications are intended to oppose four successive lines of defence to an enemy advancinor agrainst the single accessible side. Thus it cannot be

534 THE ART OF WAR IN THE MIDDLE AGES [1196

called a " concentric " castle, though each of its wards dominates and commands that below it. The first of its defences is a lower ward or outwork at the narrowest point of the isthmus. This outwork forms an isosceles triangle, with its point facing toward the enemy. The acute angle at its apex is occupied by a great circular tower, which is flanked and supported by two other towers placed a little distance down the curtain. The brunt of the attack must therefore fall on these three towers and the short front of curtain between them. If the apex oi the triangle was beaten in, the outer ward was lost, and the defenders could retire to the middle ward. This was separated from the outwork by a ditch thirty feet deep, crossed only by s single narrow causeway. Across the ditch lies the middle ward which exposes to the enemy, when he has gained the outer ward two massive towers joined by a curtain. Here lay the chape and many other buildings, whose cellars only now remain Placed within the northern half of the middle ward was the inner ward, to which King Richard had devoted special attention Instead of composing it of towers connected by curtains, he constructed the whole wall in segments of circles, so that on i ground plan its outer defences present a scalloped shape. Hi: idea was to give the enceinte all the advantages of tower; without their heaviness, for the centre part of each scallop s( advances as to command the space between it and the nex segment. The general effect is as if he had cut towers int( slices, and then placed the slices side by side along the steej edge of the hillside.

The donjon forms part of the western wall of the inner ward it is not completely round, but has a broad spur projecting int< the open court of the inner ward. It splays out towards th- bottom — a device adopted both to give greater thickness to it base and to throw outward missiles dropped from its parape" Moreover,itis furnished withmachicolations,intended to comman< the foot of the wall ; i.e. a series of corbels carry round it narrow gallery with holes pierced in its floor, from which th defenders could shoot downwards, pour liquid combustibles o: the enemy, or drop stones on him. This is a very early exampl of stone machicolation : the majority of builders at the time wer only employing wooden galleries {brattices)^ projecting so as t overlook the ground below the wall. It seems that ston machicolation was invented in the Holy Land, where larg

;f.204] SIEGE OF CHATEAU GAILLARD 535

timber was so scarce that the architects of the Crusaders were forced to replace it by solid masonry.

It is interesting to note the methods by which Chateau Gaillard was taken by Philip Augustus in 1204. King John neglected it, and allowed it to stand or fall on its own resources without making any vigorous attempt to raise the siege. The French, therefore, were able to beleaguer it at leisure, and employed six months in reducing it by formal siege-operations ^ (September 1203-March 1204). The gallant governor, Roger de Lacy, Constable of Chester, made an obstinate defence, but, getting no help from outside, was bound to succumb in time. King Philip appeared in front of the place in August 1203, and captured the isolated defences in the neighbourhood lying out- side the castle. He spent the autumn in erecting works of circumvallation and contravallation round it, and in levelling a platform opposite the apex of the outwork, from which he intended to begin his attack. The French army lay within its lines all the winter, fearing that, if it did not remain before the place in force. King John would appear with a relieving army and raise the blockade.

In February King Philip began the attack by erecting military machines on the isthmus, and battering the great tower at the apex of the outwork and the short curtains on each side of it. He filled the ditch with rubbish, and then set miners to burrow their way beneath the foundations of the masonry. They finally succeeded in undermining part of the defences, which fell in, leaving a breach : ^ through this the outer ward was stormed. The garrison, m.uch reduced by famine, were unable to hold their ground, and retired to the middle ward. This line of defence did not protect them very long: it fell, if Guillaume le Breton is to be believed, by a kind of escalade. In the south- western angle of the ward lay the chapel, whose outer wall formed part of the western front of the enceinte. Where the chapel looked out on the cliff, which lies immediately below it, there were some small windows not very far above the foot of the wall. A little party of French crept along the cliff, and

^ Elaborately described in the Philippeis of Guillaume le Breton, book vii.

^ From G. le Breton, vii. 705-10, we should conclude that they got in by throw- ing down the great angle tower ; but Mr. Clark suggests that as that building shows no signs of having been breached and repaired, it must have been the curtain next it which fell in (Clark, i. 384).

536 THE ART OF WAR IN THE MIDDLE AGES [1204

succeeded in clambering into one of these windows, the first to mount pulling up his comrades. They found themselves in a crypt below the chapel : when they had entered they raised their war-cry, and at the same time the main body made a demonstra- tion along the causeway against the gate of the middle ward.

The garrison, seeing enemies within the walls, and not realising their small numbers, did not exterminate the few men who had got in below the chapel, but hastily evacuated the middle ward and took refuge in the inner ward, the strongest of all the enceintes of the castle. The small party in the chapel then came out and admitted their friends. PhiHp now set to work to erect opposite the gate a perriere of unwonted size, which, as Guillaume le Breton says, was called a Cahulus) While thus distracting the attention of the garrison, he advanced miners under cover of a large " cat," to sap the foot of the walls This was successfully done, and then the perriere was set tc work on the shaken masonry. Its discharges brought dowr a considerable mass of stone, and Philip bade his knights attem.pt to storm the breach. They would not in all pro bability have succeeded had not the defenders been reducec to great extremities by hunger. There only remained twent) knights and a hundred and twenty men to guard the breach they failed to hold it, and then (if Matthew Paris may b; trusted), instead of retiring into the donjon, tried to cut thei way out by the postern-gate and to escape into the open. Ii this they failed, and were all taken prisoners. (March 6, 1204.)

The real work in this siege, it will be seen, was done by th' miners : it was they who broke two of the lines of defence while the third was taken only by the unlikely chance of ai escalade. The siege-engines only contributed an inconsiderabl part to the main result: the " Cabulus" might have battered fc ever at the scalloped walls of the inner ward if the way had nc been prepared for it by the pick of the engineers.

Rounded keeps like that of Chateau Gaillard were ju.^ commencing to supersede the old square Norman shape whe Richard built his great castle. The probable reason for the adoption was that such a shape is better adapted to resist th battering-ram, and even the miner's pick, than a rectanguh

^ Guillaume le Breton, vii. 805. Is this strange word short for Catabulus, a: equivalent to Catapult (catapulta)? Or is Viollet-le-Duc's derivation from ca correct ?

f25o] THIRTEENTH-CENTURY CASTLES 537

;tructure, where the corners are the vulnerable point. The last ;quare keep built in England was that of Helmsley in Yorkshire, eared about the year ii8o.^ In the next century the circular lonjon is universal. The best specimen on this side of the Channel is Coningsborough, but on the Continent there were far arger and loftier structures. Not unfrequently these thirteenth- :entury donjons are not exactly round, but have a projecting pur on one face, looking towards the direction from which ittack was most probable. The great towers of Chateau jaillard and Coucy both show this feature.

While gaining in solidity by ceasing to be square, the lonjon did not profit in all respects. When the outer defences lad fallen and the garrison had taken refuge in their last tronghold, they had an even smaller power of concentrating heir fire from the loopholes of a round structure than from hose of a rectangular one, and there was a greater difficulty in :ommanding any given spot at the actual foot of the wall. The )assive strength of the building was still, it would seem, its hief protection, not the rain of missiles which it could direct m the besieger. But by this time the main line of resistance vas far outside the donjon : when the defenders had retired to t they were drawing to the end of their hopes, and, unless elief arrived from friends outside, were unlikely to hold out for nuch longer. There were many sieges in which the garrison ,^ave in when the inner ward fell to the enemy, and did not care o protect the game by defending the donjon when all chance jf success was over. It is noticeable that in the great series of ;ieges 1268-91, which ended the domination of the Christians )n the Syrian coast, nearly all the castles surrendered very shortly after their second line of defence was pierced, without my serious attempt being made to hold out in the donjon or where no donjon existed) in the innermost ward. Such was he case at Beaufort (126S), Krak-des-Chevaliers (1271), Mont- brt (1271), and Margat (1285). Even the tremendous tower vhich forms the core of the complicated fortification of Chateau jaillard fell, as we have already seen, at the same time that the nner ward was stormed by the knights of Philip Augustus. By the thirteenth century the feature of the castle which was :>riginally all-important had sunk to a secondary place in the scheme of defence. In some of the Syrian castles, as we have

^ See Clark's Military Architectwe, i. 138.

538 THE ART OF WAR IN THE MIDDLE AGES [12 =

already seen,^ the architect had so far ceased to think of it as secure place of final refuge, that he placed it in the forefront < the structure to break the first vigour of the besieger's assault.

It was reserved for the thirteenth century to bring perfection the development of castle-building by the inventic of the concentric type of fortress. The places which we ha- hitherto been considering, such as Kerak-in-Moab or Chatej Gaillard, are not rigidly and logically concentric, although th< oppose a series of barriers to the assailant. Each enceinte them is not wholly surrounded by that lying below it ; tl outer ward does not entirely encompass the inner, nor the inn the donjon. The latter may be set in one of the exterior wa of the stronghold, and the inner ward may be placed against i. side of the outer, and not within it. The only idea of t architect was to fit his buildings upon the ground that lay befc him in such a way that it was reasonably probable that t assailant would have to deal with the lower lines of defence befc he could get at the core of the castle. It was conceivable th an enemy who attacked on an unlikely front and in an unexpect manner might gain possession of the donjon or the inner wa without having first to deal with the front line of defences.^ such a case the latter would of course prove useless.

To guard against such chances as this, the only possil resource was to make the castle absolutely concentric, i.e. place each ward so completely within the next that the besie^ could not conceivably reach the centre point of the defen( without having worked through every one of the exterior lin A system of fortification embodying this principle appears the Levant very early in the thirteenth century : there is soi reason to think that it was first put in practice after the terril earthquake of May 20, 1202, which threw down great portic of nearly all the fortresses occupied by the Syrian Franks.^

^Seep. 531.

2 To take a modern example : Wellington in 181 2 failed in his main attemp storm the breaches in the enceinte of Badajoz, but succeeded in escalading castle by a secondary attack. The castle commanded the town wall, which therefore to be abandoned, though it had been maintained against all the despe onsets of the main storming columns.

^ Tortosa alone is said to have escaped unharmed. But even Tortosa sh much thirteenth-century work, and is planned on the concentric style, and man the details of its architecture show distinct thirteenth-century features. No doubt Templars rebuilt it on the newest lines during the early thirteenth century, rectangular keep, however, belongs to the previous age.

27o] THE "CONCENTRIC" CASTLE 539

ny rate, the majority of the thirteenth-century castles of the East how an attempt to reach this ideal which we do not find so i learly visible in those which belong to the previous age. Most f the strongholds which show, by their well-developed pointed rchitecture, their display of architectural ornament, and their Lone machicolation, that they belong to the later half of the rusading period, are distinctly of the concentric type. Krak- es-Chevaliers,Chastel-Blanc (Safita),andthe castle of Tortosaare ood examples — the last only differing from the other two in lat one of its sides rests on the sea. At the first-named fortress le outer ward is so thoroughly separated from the inner that a et ditch divides them for a great part of their extent. (See Ian facing p. 530.) At the last-named the outer ward, the liddle ward, and the donjon each has a ditch of its own, wholly itting It off from the line of defence immediately beyond it.

It was not till much later in the century that the concentric

istle became common in Western Europe. English writers on

rchitecture have often styled the type " Edwardian," because

; )me of the best specimens of it in this island were built by the

greatest of the Plantagenets. But the name is inappropriate,

the earlier examples of the system go back to the reign

Henry III. : the Tower of London became a very perfect

:stance of a concentric castle when that monarch added to it

3 outer ward, between the years 1240 and 1258. Caerphilly,

)0, the largest and most imposing example of its class, was

)mpleted a year before King Edward came to the throne. To

ly, therefore, that he brought the design back from the East

ter his crusading tour in 1270 is obviously absurd. It was used

England, and still more on the Continent, long before that

ite. The Emperor Frederic II., a great builder of castles in

s unruly Italian dominions, sometimes employed it in the

tter half of his reign (1230-50). Carcassonne, as remodelled

Jv St. Louis about 1257-65, is practically concentric, the outer

i iceinte completely surrounding the inner; only, the fact that

>: e castle forms part of the outer wall of the Inner enceinte

1I 'events it from being a perfect example of the type.

■i Among the castles on our own side of the Channel, Beau-

aris, Caerphilly, and the Tower of London are absolutely

>mplete examples of the style. Harlech and Kidwelly are for

1 intents and purposes concentric, though in each of them for

'me short fronts of wall the defences of two of the wards are

540 THE ART OF WAR IN THE MIDDLE AGES [12

blended, and only two lines of resistance presented to t assailant. It is to be noted that in all these strongholds sa the Tower of London there is no longer any donjon. The fir refuge of the garrison is not a massive keep standing alone, b a quadrangular enclosure guarded by several towers, whi forms the inner ward of the castle. If the Tower of Lond forms an exception, it is only because Henry III. found the c Norman keep already existing: if he had been building on n ground, he would have made the inner ward the last core of '. fortress.

Caerphilly is worth describing as the grandest specimen its class. It has failed to meet with the fame which its splenc architecture should command, because no great histori memories cluster around it. The Marches of South Wales w completely reduced to order just after it was built, and so never endured a siege in the Middle Ages,^ and was only 01 assailed in the whole of its history — when wrecked by Parliamentarians in 1648.

The castle was erected by Gilbert de Clare, Earl of Glouce.' and lord of Glamorgan, and was finished about 1271. It sta on a mound of gravel, in an artificial lake formed by damming two watercourses and turning a marsh into a sheet of wa The inner ward consists of a quadrangular enclosure flanked four large round towers at its corners, and with massive g; houses risincr above the curtain in the midst of its east ; west fronts. Completely encircling the inner ward is middle ward, a narrow space bounded by a curtain-wall m lower than that of the inner ward, and commanded by it at e\ point. Its corners are low semicircular bastions, into which towers of the inner ward look down. The middle ward is compassed by the lake on every side : the only access to it f i the shore is given by two causeways in its eastern and wesi j fronts : each of these passages is broken in the middle t I wooden drawbridge, which could be removed at will. A cur I spit of gravel (see the plan facing p. 530) separated the n from the main lake on the northern side of the middle ward, does not seem to have been properly connected at either with the outer ward.

^ Unless some obscure allusions to '-William de la Zouche and his accom who are molesting the castle of Caerphilly" in 1329 (Rymer, FocJera, iii. ^i taken to imply that there was an actual siege under Edward in.

27i] CAERPHILLY CASTLE 541

Beyond the bridges we come to the outer ward, which is imposed of two separate works of very unequal size, each 2stined to play the part of a tete-du-pont. The eastern and nailer defence is a hornwork forming an irregular pentagon ith a curtain fifteen feet high. It is completely surrounded by moat of its own, and the only approach to it is through two rong gatehouses. Its sides run back to the lake, so that it )rms an island, joined to the inner ward at one side and the oen country at the other by well-guarded bridges.

The western outer ward is a much more important and aposing structure. It partakes, like the hornwork to the east, • the nature of a tete-du-pont, both of its ends touching the ater of the lake, while its middle portion projects towards the Den country. This central and salient section of the work )nsists of a great gatehouse-tower, forming the main approach ) the castle : from each side of it curtains run north and south 11 they touch the brink of the lake. The northern curtain, hich is absolutely straight, terminates in two strong square )\vers set side by side at the water's edge. The southern irtain, on the other hand, curves back considerably at its end, id terminates in a group of three towers where it reaches the ater. The outer ward has a moat of its own, communicating

ith the lake at each end. It is cut in two by a dividing wall, ) that, if its northern end fell, the southern could still be main- lined, and vice versa.

Thus an enemy attacking Caerphilly either by the eastern ' the western face (the northern and southern are rendered accessible by the lake) would have had to cross two moats and iree lines of wall before he could make an end of the garrison's Dwer of resistance. It is small wonder that the place was 2ver assailed — much less taken — in the days before gunpowder 2came the ruling power in war.

It is obvious that concentric castles could only be built in tuations where there was room to develop their special form

strength. On the open ground, on islands, or on plateaux considerable breadth they might well be erected. But it was ^possible to place them upon long narrow sites, such as the •ests of hills or the ends of rocky spurs. Where breadth was 3t obtainable, it was only feasible to set ward behind ward, le outermost facing the normal approach, the innermost :ceding as far as possible from it. Edward I. showed at

542 THE ART OF WAR IN THE MIDDLE AGES [130

Harlech and Beaumaris that he fully appreciated the merits c the concentric system, but, when he had to build castles 0 sites which were not of sufficient lateral extent, he merel placed his wards one behind the other, each covering the fu breadth of the crest which they crowned. Caernarvon, fc example, resembles an hour-glass or a figure-of-eight in shap' The lower ward and the upper are connected only by a broa and lofty gatehouse- tower. Conway, built at the steep end ( a promontory, is a parallelogram divided by a cross wall into lower and larger and an upper and smaller section. It has als it must be mentioned, a very elaborate system of gate defence projecting from the lower ward towards the town, which dominates. Where cliff or water sufficiently protect three sid< of a castle, the advantages of the concentric system we practically secured by wards placed one behind the other, eac commanding that below it, and all facing towards the one poi] whence attack is to be feared. It is obviously unnecessary pile wall on wall upon fronts where the enemy cannot possib appear. Conway and Caernarvon, therefore, resemble Chate< Gaillard rather than Beaumaris or Harlech, merely because tht are set in positions similar to that of the great Norman fortrei where only one front needs serious defence and the restjl protected by the strength of their sites. ^"i

With the concentric castle we have reached the fin development of the military architecture of the Middle Ag< There was to be no further change of importance, till the intr duction of gunpowder in the first half of the fourteenth centu introduced an entirely new factor into the art of war, and beg; to turn in favour of the offensive the advantage which t defensive had hitherto enjoyed. In 1300 we leave the balan still inclined to the defender: the art of building stronghol had improved during the last two centuries far faster than th of destroying them. Siegecraft had made notable advanc since the simple days of the first Crusade, but its developmer always lagged behind those of military architecture. The was a limit to the mechanical application of the three powers torsion, tension, and the counterpoise, on which the engineer h to rely when constructing his siege-artillery. If he tried gain increased force by enlarging the size of his machines, th not only grew too costly, but became hopelessly unwieldy a slow in their action. If, on the other hand, he tried to prev

>8o] THE TREBUCHET 543

^ increasing their number, it was impossible, on account of eir short range and great bulk, to concentrate the fire of a rge quantity of them on a single piece of wall.

The artillery and siege engines of the twelfth and thirteenth

nturies were, with one important exception, the same in gene-

I character as those of the previous age, with which we have

;alt in the sixth chapter of our Third Book. Many improve-

ents in detail were made, but only one notable introduction

a new principle. This was the invention of machines worked

' counterpoises, the chief of which was the Trebuchet. This

gine did not depend for its power on either torsion or tension,

; it on the sudden releasing of heavy weights. It consisted of

! ^ong pole, balanced on a pivot supported by two uprights at

I out one quarter of the distance between its butt end and its

int. The longer part was pulled down to the ground, and

e missile was placed either in a spoon-shaped cavity in its end

in a sling attached to it : it was held down till the moment

discharge by ropes or wooden catches worked by a winch.

:anwhile, the shorter part of the pole at its butt end was

ided with heavy weights of iron or stone, attached to it in a

:t of box or basket or permanently bound to it with cords.

le heavy weights would have dragged down the butt of the

le to the ground if the small end had not been already fixed

ck by its catches. When these were suddenly released, the

anterpoise at the other end of the pole was able to act : it

Dpped suddenly, and tossed the thin end and the missile

ached to it into the air. The stone flew off in a great parabolic

rve, like that of a bomb from a modern mortar.

By the end of the thirteenth century several kinds of trebuchets

re in use, all built on the same principle, but differing

jhtly in the way in which the weights were worked. Egidio

lonna, who wrote his treatise De Regimine Pi^incipunt for the

ang Philip the Fair of France somewhere about the year

3o, gives four varieties. The first has a fixed counterpoise,

nposed of boxes filled with earth, sand, stones, or iron.

t.e second, which he calls biffa, has a movable counterpoise, ich is shifted closer to or farther from the butt of the pole, :ording as the engineer wishes to lengthen or shorten the tance to which he intends to discharge his missile. The t rd has one fixed counterpoise at the butt, and another r vable one which can be made to slide up and down the

544 THE ART OF WAR IN THE MIDDLE AGES [12^

beam : this gave a greater power of exact shooting than eith' of the first two forms of the machine. It was called tl tripantiim. In the fourth (which is not properly a trebuchet all) the place of the counterpoise was taken by a number ropes destined to be pulled down by the main force of mer arms. This device was inferior in accuracy and force to t' other three, but had the one advantage of being easily trar portable : it was the counterpoises which made the other shap so heavy and so difficult to move. The light machine could moved about from place to place, and set to batter a new poi of the wall before the enemy could make any provision agair it by erecting counter-machines or strengthening the fortificati of the assailed point. The trebuchets generally discharg stones, but not unfrequently they were used to throw pots barrels of combustible material, destined to set fire to 1 brattices or roofs of towers, or to start a conflagration in 1 town which they were employed to bombard.^

Egidio Colonna calls all these shapes of the trebuchet the general name of petrariae (perrieres), but that word is unfrequently used in the thirteenth century for other machi working by the older principles of tension or torsion rat • than by counterpoises. Many chroniclers call every mach that casts stones a perriere, whether it was of the older man^ type or the newer trebuchet type. Where we find the nai «■ of mangonel and perriere mentioned together after 1200, :^ latter generally means the trebuchet : it was obviously a rr ^^ powerful engine than the mangon. Guillaume le Breton, desc -j ing the missiles discharged at the siege of Chateau Gaill; r writes —

'• Interea grosses petraria mittit ab intus Assidue lapides, mangonellusque minores " {Ph. iii. 673, 674).

But when petraria occurs in writers of the twelfth cent *, before the trebuchet and its counterpoise had been inven . we must evidently look for another meaning to the word, s petrariae and mangana are sometimes found mentioned togeti } it is evidently not the same as the latter. Not improbab t was the machine with beam and pivot, but without counterp' -» worked with ropes and the force of men's arms, which Eg ^

^ De Re^imine Prtncipum, iii. 2 See General Kohler's Kriegsgeschichte^ etc., iii. 164-166.

r2oo] MILITARY MACHINES 545

Colonna describes (somewhat illogically) as the fourth kind of rebuchet in the passage which we have just been quoting from lis work.

As another example of the hopeless way in which the lomenclature of military engines was confused by the chroniclers, ve may mention the passage in Otto of Freising, where he calls he mangon a kind of balista. The balista, as will be remem- )ered, was properly the machine working by tension and hrowing darts, while the mangon worked by torsion and cast tones. But Otto chooses to use balista in the widest sense for 'military engine" at large. He says that a stone cast "vi ormenti e balista quam modo mangam vulgo dicere solent " fell nto the midst of the beleaguered town of Tortona, and, splitting nto fragments against a wall, killed three knights, who were aking part in a council of war before the cathedral door^

II55)-

A careful examination of the confused terms of the writers i>f the twelfth and thirteenth centuries shows that under the •p^eat variety of words which they employ only three or four dnds of machines are really concealed. In the twelfth century he balista or catapult of the original sort, working by tension md throwing shafts rather than balls, is known, but not so fre- juently employed as engines working by tension and casting leavy stones. In the thirteenth, on the other hand, the mangon 3 no longer so prominent, but is largely superseded by the more )Owerful trebuchet. At the same time the original balista- atapult of the crossbow type comes to the front again,; it was argely used by the Emperor Frederic II. in his Italian wars. Vbout the end of the century it receives the new name of pringal {espringale)^ and is found mounted on wheels and used 1 battle as a sort of light movable artillery.^ It was nothing acre than a large arbalest whose cord was pulled back by -inches, and hence it is sometimes called merely a balista de turno.

Before leaving the subject of military engines, we must make

ome mention of Greek fire, an appliance which the nations of

Vestern Europe never seem to have thoroughly understood, but

hich was not unfrequently used against them by the Byzantines

^ Otto of Freising, Gesta Friderici, ii. § 16, p. 123.

2 As, for example, in the battle of Mons-en-Pevele, where Philip the Fair used vo in the open field against the Flemings. See General Kohler's Kriegsgeschichte, i. 189.

35

546 THE ART OF WAR IN THE MIDDLE AGES [9c

and the Moslems. It was invented, we are told, by a Syric architect named Callinicus of Heliopolis about the time of tl great siege of Constantinople by the Saracens in 673. Callinic' fled to Constantine Pogonatus, and put his device at the dispof tion of the emperor. It was a semi-liquid substance, compose of sulphur, pitch, dissolved nitre, and petroleum boiled togeth and mixed with certain less important and more obscure su stances. Constantine fitted fast-sailing galleys ^ with projectii tubes, from which this mixture was squirted into hostile vesse When ejected, it caught the woodwork on which it fell and s it so thoroughly on fire that there was no possibility of e tinguishing the conflagration. It could only be put out, it said, by pouring vinegar, wine, or sand upon it. The combustit was successfully used against Saracen fleets by Constantine 673 and by Leo the Isaurian in 718.

Leo the Wise directs that every war-vessel should have brazen tube at its prow, protected by a solid scantling of boar< \ from which " prepared fire with thunder and smoke " is to shot at the enemy.^ But he does not give any account of ingredients — the composition was a great State secret, not to committed to paper. He also suggests that jars of the substar should be cast into the enemy's ships from above, " so that th may break out into flames," and adds that his officers " may a use the other device of little tubes discharged by hand ff( behind iron shields, which are called 'hand-tubes,' and hi lately been manufactured in our dominions. For these can c the * prepared fire ' into the faces of the hostile crews." ^ ^ could wish for a better description of these small weapons, wh were presumably some kind of blow-pipe easily worked by a sin man. They are probably constructed on the same principle the devices used by the Byzantine garrison of Dyrrhachi against the Normans in 1108, which Anna Comnena descri as having been long hollow tubes'* filled with a powder compo

^ They are called by Theophanes 5p6,awj'es (XKpcovocpopoi.

- Leo calls it (xix. 51) t6 iaKevacfXivov irvp fiera ^poprijs /cai KairvoO.

^ XpT^aaffdai 5e /cat ry dWr] fMedodcp tCiv dia x^'P^s ^aWo^^vuv fiLKpOiv cn(}> tiriadev tQiv aKOvraplup cndrip&v Kparovix^vuv, direp xeipoc/^wi'a \iy€Tai. 'Pr- yap Kal aira rov ecrKevacrfxivov Trvpbs /card tQv TrpoawTTuv tQv TroXefiioju (Leo, xix.

** 'Air6 T^s ire^KTjs . . . avvdyerai doLKpvov eHKavcTTOv. ToDro fierd delov rpi^o: ifM^aWeraL is avXlaKOVt KoXd/xuv /cat ificpvaaTaL irapd, rov Trai^ovros \d^p(i) Kai ai Trveij/iiaTi, Kad^ oCtcjs d/j,L\e? r<^ irpbs &Kpav Tvpl Kal i^dirTiraL Kal wairep irpr, ifiirLiTTei Tttis avTiTTpdauTTOv drj/ecn (A. C. xii. § 3, p. 1 89).

I too] greek fire 547

Df resin mixed with sulphur, which shot out in long jets of flame ivhen a strong continuous blast was blown down the tube, and scorched the enemies' faces like a lightning flash.

The Greek fire was of course a much more complicated and

"ormidable substance than the simple mixture employed by the

defenders of Dyrrhachium. How it was used may be gathered

rom a description of a sea-fight with the Pisans given by Anna

n her eleventh book. She says that her father, knowing that

he enemy were skilled and courageous warriors, resolved to rely

)ft the use of the device of fire against them. He had fixed to

he prow of each of his galleys a tube ending in the head of a

ion or other beast wrought in brass or iron, " so that the animals

night seem to vomit, flames." The fleet came up with the

^isans between Rhodes and Patara, and, pursuing with too great

eal, did not attack in a body. The first to reach the enemy

/as the Byzantine admiral Landulph, who shot off his fire too

lastily, missed his mark, and accomplished nothing. But Count

: Cleemon, who was the next to close, had better fortune : he

ammed the stern of a Pisan vessel, so that his prow stuck in its

udder chains. Then, shooting fire, he set it in flames, after

^hich he pushed off" and successfully discharged his tube into

hree other vessels, all of which were soon in a blaze. The

'isans then fled in disorder, " having no previous knowledge of

le device, and wondering that fire, which usually burns upwards,

3uld be directed downwards or to either hand at the will of the

ngineer who discharges it." ^ That the Greek fire was a liquid,

nd not merely an inflammable substance attached to ordinary

lissiles, after the manner used with fire arrows, is quite clear

om the fact that Leo proposes to cast it on the enemy in fragile

I irthen vessels which may break and allow the material to run

I Dout, as also from the name 'jrvp hvypov, " liquid fire," which

* nna uses for it.^

The Moslems are found in possession of Greek fire in the end

the twelfth century. The story of the Damascene engineer

' : the siege of Acre who burnt all the siege-machines of the

i rusaders in 1190 is well known. He flung jars of the fluid on

i le " beffrois " and other structures which the Franks had reared

gainst the walls, and wherever the vessels broke there arose an

extinguishable conflagration. The author of the Itinerarium

egis Ricardi describes the substance as " oleum incendiarium,

^ Anna, xi. § ic. ^ Anna, xiii. § 3, p. 192.

I

548 THE ART OF WAR IN THE MIDDLE AGES [120

quod vulgo Ignem Graecum nominant," ^ and says that it coul« only be put out by sand or vinegar. He adds that it stank abomin ably, burned with a livid flame, and did not go out even if it fe on stone or iron, but continued to blaze up till it was consumec Joinville, who saw St. Louis' machines and "cat-castles" d( stroyed by it at Mansourah, says that it was discharged by th Saracens both from perrieres and from great arbalests. "It Wc like a big tun, and had a tail of the length of a large speai the noise which it made resembled thunder, and it appeared lit a great fiery dragon flying through the air, giving such a ligl that we could see in our camp as clearly as in broad day When it fell it burst (presumably the fragile vessel containir it was shattered), and the liquid ran along the ground, burnir in a trail of flame, and setting fire to all that it touched. I progress could only be stopped by smothering it with sane All this description applies only to the fire cast from the perriere that discharged from arbalests cannot, of course, have be thrown in the same way. Apparently tow or some such su a stance must have been soaked in the oil and then fixed to t arbalest bolt The latter would lodge itself in the wood of t French machines, and then the flaming substance attached to would lick up the boards. Such a device must have been mu inferior in effect (owing to the small quantity of the blazi material which a bolt could carry) to the large jars hurled fr< the sling of the perriere.

Having dealt with the artillery of the twelfth and thirteei centuries, we must turn to the other siege-appliances of the a For the most part they are only perfected types of the machii of the previous age. The movable tower and the pentho are still the most notable of the structures employed. 1 latter, under the name of cat (less frequently sus or vined), is invariable concomitant of every siege of the time ; it was s in its essential form, nothing more than the wooden framew of the earlier centuries, but as carpenters grew more skilfu became a stouter and stronger building. Its front parts w even faced with iron plates to keep off combustibles, and timbers of its roof were made more and more solid as projectiles of the improved machines grew heavier. A vari of it was the " cat-castle," such as St. Louis used in Egyp 1249, where the penthouse was combined with a tower b-

^ Itin. \. 81. 2 Joinville, ii. 407.

24o] THE USE OF MINES 549

bove it. The latter was filled with archers or arbalest men, who ried to keep down the fire of the enemy, while the men below n the penthouse continued to work at filling- the ditch or )reaking' down the wall which was opposed to them.

The movable tower (generally called beffroi, berefredumy

elfragiuvi) is more prominent in the twelfth than in the

hirteenth century. It is unnecessary to give lists of the in-

lumerable sieges at which it was employed in West and East,

rom Bohemund's siege of Dyrrhachium in 1108 to the great

eaguers of Acre in 1189-90 and Chateau Gaillard in 1204. In

he succeeding age it was less used than the mine : apparently

he improvement in combustibles had made the towers more

iable than ever to the danger of fire ; Coeur de Lion before

\cre had even been driven to the costly expedient of coating

lis beffrois with iron plates. At any rate, the device does not

)lay any great part in the later sieges of the thirteenth century.

The art of mining, on the other hand, which, though always

cnown,^ had not been very much practised before the twelfth

:entury, was at its prime in the thirteenth. There is hardly a

;iege in which it does not appear ; only when a castle was built

)n solid rock was it difficult to use. Even then the assailants

vould advance their " cats " to the foot of the wall and endeavour

;o pick out stones, if they could not actually undermine the

brtifications. The garrison, if they ascertained that the enemy

vas mining, would try the effect of counter-mines, and, when the

ine of approach had been discovered, would break into it, slay

;he miners or smoke them out, and break down their works.

The counter-mine is found as early as the mine, e.g. at the

>ieges of Dyrrhachium (1108) and Tortona (1155). For an

elaborate instance of the employment of the device both by

Desiegers and besieged, the often-quoted document relating to

:he siege of Carcassonne (17th September to nth October 1240)

.■nay be cited.^ William des Ormes, the seneschal of the city,

'eports to the regent, Queen Blanche, that the rebels under

Reginald Trencaval, Viscount of B^ziers, after finding that their

^ We have seen it used by the Danes at Paris (p. 142), and by William the Conqueror at Exeter (p. 134). Bohemund employed it largely in 1 108, at his siege 3f Dyrrhachium. Yet that it was not very frequently tried seems to be shown by che passage in Otto of Freising, where in 1155, at Tortona, Frederic Barbarossa "in- iisitato satis utens artificio, cuniculos versus turrim Rubeam per subterraneos meatus fieri jubet" (O. F. ii. § 16, p. 124).

* From the document in the Bibliotheque de V Ecole des CharteSy ii. 2. p. 372.

559 THE ART OF WAR IN THE MIDDLE AGES [i^

siege-artillery availed them little, set to work to mine. Car- cassonne was then only defended by the ancient Roman oi Visigothic works and an outer enceinte of palisading {lice^) Its elaborate later works had not been added.

" The rebels," writes the seneschal, " began a mine agains the barbican of the gate of Narbonne. And forthwith, we having heard the noise of their work underground, made i counter-mine, and constructed in the inside of the barbican ; great and strong wall of stones laid without mortar, so that W( thereby retained full half of the barbican, when they set fire t( the hole in such wise that the wood having burnt out, a portioi of the front of the barbican fell down.

" They then began to mine against another turret of the lias we counter-mined, and got possession of the hole which they ha< excavated. They began therefore to run a mine between us ant a certain wall and destroyed two embrasures of the lices. Bu we set up there a good and strong palisade between us an them.

" They also started a mine at the angle of the town wal near the bishop's palace, and by dint of digging from a grct way off they arrived at a certain Saracen ^ wall, by the wall ( the lias ; but at once, when we detected it, we made a good an strong palisade between us and them, higher up the lices, an counter-mined. Thereupon they fired their mine and flung dow some ten fathoms of our embrasured front. But we made hasti) ; another good palisade with a brattice upon it and loopholes ; s none among them dared to come near us in that quarter.

" They began also a mine against the barbican of the Rode gate, and kept below ground, wishing to arrive at our wal' making a marvellous great tunnel. But when we perceived we forthwith made a palisade on one side and the other of We counter-mined also, and, having fallen in with them, carrii the chamber of their mine."

After this, abandoning mining, the assailants tried to stor the barbican below the castle. The assault failed, and a we< later, news arriving that an army of relief was close at hand, t rebels abandoned their lines and retreated.

We have already had occasion to mention the use of t

^ i.e. Ancient Roman or Visigothic. All walls in the south of France were of ascribed to the short-lived occupation by the Saracens in the eighth century, this case it must have been an outwork rather than the main wall of the city.

285] MINING IN THE LEVANT 551

line in English sieges of the thirteenth century — as at Rochester y King John in 12 14, and at Bedford against the adherents of 16 turbulent Fawkes de Breaute in 1 224. There is in our history, owever, no such example of complicated mining and counter- lining as that of the siege of Carcassonne. In the Levant, on le other hand, mines come prominently to the front, during the eges of the last crusading strongholds by the great Mameluke altans of Egypt. How thoroughly their power was recognised lay be shown by the incidents of the fall of Markab in 1285.^ ultan Kelaun having taken the outer defences, the knights of t. John, to whom the fortress belonged, retired into the inner iceinte. The Egyptians next set to work and mined a section f the curtain ; they brought down part of a tower and made a racticable breach, which they then attempted to storm. The nights repulsed the assailants with great loss and barricaded le breach. Kelaun then set the miners to work again, and in ght days succeeded in driving a gallery right under the great )wer. He then summoned the garrison to surrender, offering ) allow them to send engineers to survey his mine before making leir answer. The knights accepted the proposal, and their ivoys inspected the works and reported to the governor that le firing of the mine must certainly be fatal. Thereupon the [ospitallers surrendered on terms, quitting Markab with their arses, baggage, and treasure, and retiring to Acre.

'eneral Considerations on Fortification and Siege f raft y 1 100-1300.

We have already had occasion to remark (p. 378) that the 5cendency of the defensive over the offensive in the matter of egecraft is the main reason for the fact that the twelfth and lirteenth centuries show comparatively few engagements in the Den field when compared with other ages. The weaker side as always tempted to take shelter behind its walls rather than ) offer battle. With modern standing armies such strategy ould be faulty, since the combatant who renounces all attempts ) take the offensive must almost inevitably fail in the long-run. ut in the Middle Ages a feudal host could only be kept together )r a few weeks, and a mercenary host was so costly that many dnces could not afford to purchase its services. Hence a city • castle might hope to tire out the patience or the resources of

^ See the Arabic authors (Ibn-Ferat, etc.) quoted in Key's Architecture Militaire s Crotst's, pp. 36, 37.

552 THE ART OF WAR IN THE MIDDLE AGES [12c

its besiegers, long before its own inevitable fall by famine can about. A ruler who was both obstinate and wealthy, and d not disband his men at the approach of winter, might be certa of attaining his end — Hke Philip Augustus at Chateau Gaillar But men of Philip's type and provided with Philip's resoii|fc were rare. (j

It is the number and strength of the fortified places of Euro] which explains the futility of so many campaigns of the peric A land could not be conquered with ease when every district w guarded by three or four castles and walled towns, which wou each need several months' siege before they could be reduce Campaigns tended either to become plundering raids which h the strongholds alone, or to resolve themselves into the prolong blockade of a single fortified place. A narrow line of cast might maintain its existence for scores of years against a pow ful enemy, as did the crusading fortresses of the Levant duri the whole course of the thirteenth century. This is the mc notable instance of such a resistance during the whole of the a: for the Mameluke sultans were formidable foes, furnished w ^. inexhaustible resources and utilising the best engineering methc i of the day. After three generations of incessant strife th ' ultimately achieved their end when crusading energy ran k and after a long series of leaguers had broken the Christian 1 of defence at many points. At last the final departure of Franks was the result of despair ; they resigned the game becai they were certain that no more help was to be expected fr the West. It will be remembered that even after Acre fell 1 29 1, there were still isolated strongholds of formidable strenj in the hands of the Crusaders ; but they evacuated the tri concentric enceintes of Tortosa and the sea-girt castles of Ai and Sidon because their hearts failed them, and they judge< useless to protract the inevitable end.

Similar chains of castles, when used against more barbar foes destitute of perseverance and unprovided with the resour of engineering, almost always achieved their purpose, and h firm. We need only mention the line of forts which held English Pale in Ireland, and the " burgs " by which the Teutc knights first subdued and then held down the warlike sava of Prussia.

It is of course possible to overstate the superiority of defensive in the days before the invention of gunpoW'

I

3oo] THE ADVANTAGES OF THE OFFENSIVE 553

Towns and castles often fell, not only by treachery or faint- leartedness, but before open force. Weak situations or ill- lesigned and ill-built walls might prove fatal. A garrison too veak to hold a long front might be crushed by the easy expedient )f simultaneous escalades directed against many points at once. \ very large and well-provided besieging army might by the nere multitude of its crossbowmen and the incessant use of its nilitary^engines wear down the defenders of a post. There is a imit to the power of fortification, and a commander reckless )f the loss of life and possessing a measureless superiority of lumbers might often win his desire. Such was the explanation )f many of the successes of the Mameluke sultans over the lastles of the Levant. A hundred men, unless placed in a strong- lold of exceptional natural strength, cannot resist ten thousand. 3ut if they are crushed, their failure does not in the least vitiate )ur general statement that the defensive had an enormous idvantage over the offensive in the age with which we have had 0 deal. Otherwise, we should have to acknowledge that the ictory of Zulus over a British battalion at Isandhlwana proved hat the Martini-Henry rifle had no advantage over the assegai. The thesis which we have asserted merely lays down the rule, hat with any reasonable proportion of resources between the )esiegers and the besieged, it was the latter who during the early Middle Ages had the best chance of success. Hence come two )f the main characteristics of these centuries — the long survival )f small States placed among greedy and powerful neighbours, md the extraordinary power of resistance shown by rebellious lobles or cities of very moderate strength in dealing with their suzerains. These features persist till the invention and improve- ment of artillery made the fall of strongholds a matter of days nstead of months. In the fourteenth century the change begins, n the fifteenth it is fully developed, in the sixteenth the feudal astness has become an anachronism. The great Earl of vVarwick battering Bamborough to flinders in a week (July [464), and Philip of Hesse beating down Sickingen's eyrie of Landstiihl, the strongest feudal castle of the Rhineland, in a single day (April 30, 1523), give us the landmarks of the end 3f the ancient predominance of the defensive on this side of the Channel and beyond it.

BOOK VII

ENGLAND AND SCOTLAND, 1 296- 1 333- DEVELOPxMENT OF THE LONGBOW

565

CHAPTER I

ENGLAND AND SCOTLAND, 1 296- 1 328 — DEVELOPMENT OF THE LONGBOW.

DOWN to the time of Edward L we may roughly say that all the fighting in which English armies had been engaged lad fallen into one of two categories. The larger part of the vars had conformed to the ordinary continental type of the lay, and had been waged mainly by mailed horsemen, the nfantry only appearing as an auxiliary arm of no very great efficiency. Such had been all the English wars with France, and ill the civil wars from Lincoln to Evesham. The other class of var had been waged against irregular enemies such as the kVelsh and Irish, who lurked in hills or bogs, generally refused )attle, and were only formidable when they were executing a lurprise or an ambuscade. Campaigns against them had been numerous, but had affected the English art of war no more than Soudanese or Ashantee expeditions affect the military science )f to-day.

The reign of Edward I. forms a landmark in the history of he English army, as showing the first signs of the development )f a new system of tactics on this side of the Channel, differing Vom continental custom by the much greater importance assigned :o infantry equipped with missile arms. It is, in short, the period n which the longbow first comes to the front as the national vveapon.

The bow had of course always been known in England. In

:he armies of our Norman and Angevin kings archers were to

36 found, but they formed neither the most numerous nor the

most effective part of the host. On this side of the Channel,

just as beyond it, the supremacy of the mailed horseman was

atill unquestioned. It is indeed noteworthy that the th,eory

which attributes to the Normans the introduction of the long-

557

558 THE ART OF WAR IN THE MIDDLE AGES [iiS

bow cannot be substantiated. If we are to trust the Bayeu Tapestry, the weapon of WiUiam's archers was in no ws different from that already known in England, and used by few of the English in the fight of Senlac.^ It was the shortbo drawn to the breast, not to the ear. The archers who a occasionally mentioned during the succeeding century — thos for example, who took part in the Battle of the Standard — c not appear to have formed any very important part of tl national host Nothing can be more conclusive as to tl insignificance of the bow than the fact that it is not mention< at all in the "Assize of Arms " of i i8i. In the reign of Henry i therefore, we may fairly conclude that it was not the prop weapon of any class of English society. A similar deduction suggested by Richard Coeur de Lion's predilection for the arb lest : it is impossible that he should have so much admired and taken such pains to secure mercenaries skilled in its u^ if he had been acquainted with the splendid longbow of t fourteenth century. It is evident that the bow must always ha a great advantage in rapidity of discharge over the arbale.' the latter must therefore have been considered by Richard surpass in range and penetrating power. But nothing is mc certain than that the English longbow at its best was able beat the crossbow on both these points. The conclusion inevitable that the weapon superseded by the arbalest was men the old shortbow, which had been in constant use since Sax times.

However this may be, the crossbowman continued to occu the place of importance among infantry till the middle of t thirteenth century. Richard I., as we have said before, vain the arbalest highly ; John maintained great numbers both horse and foot arbalesters among those mercenaries who w( such a curse to England. Their evil memory is enshrined the clause of Magna Carta which binds the king to banish t " alienigenas milites, balistarios, et servientes, qui venerunt ci equis et armis ad nocumentum regni."^ Fawkes de Breau the captain of John's mercenary crossbowmen, is one of 1 most prominent and the most forbidding of the figures of l civil war of 12 15-17. Even in the reign of Henry IIL, t

1 e.o-. by the diminutive archer who crouches under a mailed thegn's shield, Teucer protected by Ajax.

2 Magna Carta, § 51.

2oo] THE WELSH BOW 559

ipoch in which the longbow was beginning to come into )rominence, the arbalest was still considered the superior veapon. At the battle of Taillebourg, a corps of seven hundred nen armed with it were considered the flower of the English nfantry. Though Simon de Montfort must have had both cross- )0wmen and archers at Lewes, the former receive most of the mall notice which the chroniclers take of the infantry in that ight. The archers in the actual battle receive less mention than he men armed with the archaic and very inefficient sling.

To trace the true origin of the longbow is not easy : there re reasons for believing that its use may have originally been earned from the South Welsh, who seem to have been provided ;ith it as early as the reign of Henry II. Giraldus Cambrensis peaks repeatedly^ of the men of Gwent and Morganwg as xcelling all other districts in archery. For the strength of neir shooting he gives some curious evidence. At the siege

Abergavenny in 11 82 the Welsh arrows penetrated an oak oor four inches thick. They were allowed to remain there as curiosity, and Gerald himself saw them six years later, in 11 88, hen he passed by the castle, with the iron points just showing n the inner side of the door. A knight of William de Braose ^ceived an arrow, which went first through the skirts of his lail-shirt, then through his mail breeches, then through his ligh, then through the wood of his saddle, and finally penetrated ir into his horse's flank. "What more could a bolt from a alista have done ? " asks Gerald. He describes the bows of Gwent s "neither made of horn, ash, nor yew, but of elm: ugly nfinished-looking weapons, but astonishingly stiff, large, and :rong, and equally capable of use for long or short shooting."

It is noticeable that on the first occasion when an English ing made really efficient use of archery in a great pitched attle,^ we are told that his infantry were largely composed of V' elshmen. But the first mention of the bow as much used by le English is, curiously enough, not from any district near the outh Welsh border, but from Sussex, where in 12 16 more lan a thousand bowmen under one Wilkin are said to have lolested the army of the Dauphin Lewis and the rebel barons

^ Pp. 54, 123, 127 of the Rolls Series edition of the Itinerarium Cambriae.

2 At Falkirk, according to Walter Hemingford, who giv-es far the best account of e battle : "Numerati sunt pedestres qui aderant, et quasi omnes erant Hibernici et "allenses" (p. 159).

56o THE ART OF WAR IN THE MIDDLE AGES [126;

as they marched through the Weald. But the great landmarl in the history of archery is undoubtedly the " Assize of Arms" 0 1252. After ordering that the richer yeomanry who own ; hundred shillings in land should come to the host with stee cap, buff-coat, lance, and sword, that document proceeds t command "that all who own more than forty and less than hundred shillings in land come bearing a sword and a bow wit arrows and a dagger." Similarly, citizens with chattels wort more than nine marks and less than twenty are to be arraye with bow, arrows, and sword. There is a special clause at th end of the paragraph providing that even poor men with le^ than forty shillings in land or nine marks in chattels shoul bring bow and arrows if they have them, instead of the " fake gisarmas et alia arma minuta" which are spoken of as the usual weapons.

In face of the provisions of the Assize of Arms, mac twelve years before the battle of Lewes, it is most curious 1 find that in the campaigns of 1264 and 1265 the crossbow — f essentially foreign weapon, and one not prescribed for the u of any class of subjects of the realm — should still keep tl upper hand. It is, as we have already remarked, named f more frequently than the bow by the chroniclers of the baror war. The only notable mention of archery is — characteristical enough — that which describes the attack made on King Henrj ■ marching columns in the Weald by De Montfort's Wei auxiliaries.^

The longbow comes to the front only in the wars of Edward and its predominance in later English wars is directly due tot king's own action. Edward had come to realise that more a vantage might be got from a judicious combination of cava! and of infantry armed with missile weapons, than from the i of horsemen alone. We have no signs that he had learned tl ; at the time of Lewes and Evesham, but it appears clearly enou | during his Welsh wars. In expeditions among the hills I Gwynedd the horseman was often useless : he could not sto crags or scramble down ravines. Welsh fighting was mail work for infantry, and the king — as his conduct in the Evesh; campaign had shown — was quick to learn in the school of w<

1 Wykes. 1264, § 5.

2 It is well to remember that Edward had served in several Welsh wars 1 before he came to the throne, and was no novice in such fighting in 1280.

r282] EDWARD I. AND THE LONGBOW 561

riaving come to know the strength and the weakness of infantry

IS well as of mailed knighthood, he was quite capable of com-

)ining his lessons. The deliberate use of foot-soldiery armed

vith missile weapons to prepare the way for the horseman's

;harge seems first to appear at the engagement with Llewellyn

.t Orevvin Bridge in 1282.^ But no account that we have of this

ight is so detailed as that of a battle fought against the Welsh

'f Madoc-ap-Llewellyn in 1295 by Edward's lieutenant, the Earl

f Warwick. The insurgents were encamped on a bare hillside

etween two woods, into which they intended to retire when

ttacked. But Warwick, by marching all night, was able to

ome suddenly upon them at dawn, so that they had no time

D fly. " Then," says Nicholas Trivet,^ " seeing themselves

urrounded, they fixed the butts of their spears in the earth,

ith the heads pointing outward, to keep off the rush of the

orsemen. But the earl placed an archer or a crossbowman

etween each two knights, and when by their shooting many of

le spearmen were slain, he burst among them with his horse

nd made such a slaughter as no Welsh army ever suffered

5fore." It is to be observed that Warwick had both bowmen

id arbalesters with him, the crossbow still being in full repute

Tiong the English. Indeed, the crossbow seems distinctly to

ive been considered the better weapon at the time, for in the

ly-roU of the garrison of Rhuddlan Castle for 1281 we find,

nade over to Geoffrey the Chamberlain for the wages of twelve

balesters and thirteen archers for twenty-four days, ;^7, 8s.,

.ch arbalester receiving by the day 46., and each archer 2d."

In Edward l's inglorious French wars in Aquitaine we find

tie sign of the proper combination of horse and foot. The

nglish armies in those campaigns were largely composed of the

ng's Gascon vassals, whose military ideas were wholly con-

iiental; but it is curious to find that their English leaders seem

1 have taught them nothing. Take, for example, the battle at

^yrehorade (near Bayonne) in 1295. The Earl of Lincoln

^ th six hundred men-at-arms and ten thousand foot set out to

i ieve the town of Belgarde, then threatened by the Count of

^ '* Steterunt Wallenses per turmas in supercilio mentis : ascendentibus nostris I sagittarios nostros (qui inter equestres mixti erant) corruerunt multi, eo quod a Mose steterunt. Tandem nostri ascenderunt equestres et caesis aliquibus reliquos ii'elocem fugam compulerunt" (Hemingford, vol. i. p, ii)«

- Nic. Triv. 1 295, p. 282. 36

56? THE ART OF WAR IN THE MIDDLE AGES [1295

Artois. Issuing from a wood, his vanguard was suddenly charged by the French, who were waiting for them with fifteen hundred horse ranged in four " battles." The English cavalry came up successively, forcing their way out of the forest-road, and engaged - — not very advantageously — with the French. But the footmen " hung back in the wood without advancing, and did no good whatever," ^ though the knights were in grievous need of infantry "qui projectos armatos hostium spoliarent vel interimerent' The last clause shows the very modest task which Lincolr expected his foot-soldiery to discharge.

It must have been from the experience of his Welsh expedi tions that King Edward learned how to combine horse anc foot with such effect in his great Scottish war. The in terest of that struggle, from the military point of view, lies ii the alternate success and failure of the English according to th manner in which they were handled by their leaders. Th Scottish tactics were uniform, and were dictated by the fact tha the northern realm was hopelessly inferior to England in th number and quality of its men-at-arms. Not only were th Scottish nobility and knighthood too few to cope with th English, but throughout the war a large proportion of thei adhered to King Edward's cause, and were often found fightin beneath his banner. The Scots therefore were forced to rel almost entirely on their sturdy yeomen, whose hearts wei firmly set against the Southron. On no occasion did Wallac or Bruce bring to the field much over a thousand mounted mei ] and no good feat of arms can be set to the credit of their hors< • men save a single charge at Bannockburn, which we shall haA to describe in its proper place.

From the English point of view the Scottish war had mar resemblances to a Welsh campaign. It was fought in a hil and thinly-peopled country, where roads were few and provisioi hard to find, and against a foe whose whole reliance lay in h infantry. But there were many points of difference: the fie: and unstable Welsh loved rapid and disorderly attacks in pass ; or ravines, and seldom or never fought in the open of their ov free will. The Scots, on the other hand, partook more of tl nature of a disciplined army, put their confidence in their clo array and steady resistance, and were often ready to accept pitched battle. The Welsh — as Giraldus Cambrensis h

^ Hemingford, vol. i. p. 74.

4

1297] CAMBUSKENNETH BRIDGE 563

observed a hundred years before — risked everything on the result of one tempestuous charge/ — in five minutes they were either victorious, or routed and in full flight for their hilltops. The Scot came on less wildly to the fray, or even waited to be attacked, but he grew sterner and harder as the day wore on, and was capable of any amount of dogged resistance. Between these two nations of spearmen there lay all the difference Dctween the Celtic and the Teutonic temperament, — for the Scottish war was waged by the Teutonic Lowlands, not by the jael from beyond the Grampians, who took small part in the struggle.

In Edward's first invasion of Scotland, which terminated vith the rout of Dunbar and Baliol's resignation of the crown, here was no serious fighting. The struggle did not begin in arnest till the rebellion of Wallace — a purely popular rising in he interest of national independence, which was viewed with ery scant sympathy by the greater part of the Scottish baronage, ^or half the nobles of the land held manors south as well as orth of Tweed, and were almost English in blood and in ympathies. The insurgents found no leader but an obscure utlawed knight of Galloway, who was treated with small ourtesy by such of the baronage as chose to dally with the ause of independence.

Battle of Cambiiskenneth Bridge^ September 11, 1 297.

The first important engagement of the war gave a fine object-

;sson as to the way in which a Scottish army ought not to be

eait with. Edward had left, as his representative beyond

weed, John Earl of Warrenne, the hero of the well-known

icident of the rusty sword during the Quo Warranto inquest.

he earl had served at Lewes - and Evesham, — though with no

articular credit, — and was now nearing his sixtieth year. He

3pears to have been a type of the ordinary stupid and arrogant

udal chief, who had learned nothing of the art of war though he

id gone out on many campaigns. The insurgents had been

aking head beyond the Forth, and had just captured Perth.

arrenne therefore concentrated his army at Stirling, where he

ew together a thousand men-at-arms and a great body of

^ Itinerarhtvi Ca/nbriae, p. 209.

- He was one of those who had deserted Prince Edward and fled away at the end the first-named battle. See p. 424.

564 THE ART OF WAR IN THE MIDDLE AGES [1297

foot-soldiery raised in the six northern counties and in North Wales. Wallace and the Scots at once set out to meet him at the Forth, camping on the wooded hills which overlook the sinuous course of that river as it passes Stirling. Their host counted no more than a hundred and eighty mounted knights and squires, but many thousands of sturdy spearmen. The sole bridge over the stream was that which takes its name from the adjacent abbey of Cambuskenneth. It was a long narrow structure, on which no more than two horsemen could ride abreast. Towering above it only a few hundred yards away was the Abbey Craig, the steep wooded height which forms the end oftheOchil Hills: on it Wallace lay encamped. Finding that the Scots treated his summons to lay down their arms with derision, Warrenne determined to cross the bridge and storm their position. The wiser heads in his camp were filled with dismay at a resolve inspired by a foolish and overweening contempt for the enemy. Sir Richard Lundy, a Scottish knighi of the English party, pointed out to the earl that it would tak( eleven hours for his whole host to defile over the bridge in fac( - of an active enemy less than a mile away. He pointed out i ford not far off at which men could cross sixty abreast, anc begged that the army might pass there, or that at least he migh be permitted to take a few hundred horsemen and create diversion on that point. Warrenne refused to listen to hiir and bade his troops begin to defile across the narrow bridge Wallace was observing every movement of the English fron his lofty post on the Abbey Craig, and his men were lurking a solid mass behind its woods. He allowed the enemy's van battle, commanded by Sir Marmaduke Twenge and Hug Cressingham the Treasurer, to cross the water and to begin t form up on the northern bank. Then, when the main-battl was still on the farther side, he flung his whole army down th hill, against the troops who had crossed. A picked body ( spearmen charged for the bridge-head and reached it in the fin rush, while the mass of the Scots fell upon Twenge and Cressin^ ham's men. The bridge-head once seized and firmly hel< Warrenne could not push forward, nor the van-battle retrace i steps. After a short struggle the whole body that had crosse was either trampled down or flung into the river. Twenge b prodigies of valour cut his way back across the bridge almo alone. But Cressingham and more than a hundred knight

1298] ' WALLACE AND EDWARD L 565

with at least five thousand English and Welsh foot, were slain or drowned (Sept. 11, 1297).

Warrenne, whose whole conduct contrasts most shamefully with Wallace's splendid action, was so cowed by the encounter, that, instead of preparing to defend the line of the Forth, he threw a garrison into Stirling and retired to Berwick, abandon- ing the whole of the Lowlands to the enemy.

Wallace followed up the victory of Cambuskenneth Bridge by a fierce inroad into Northumberland and Durham. His ravages drew King Edward in person into Scotland in the next year, with the whole feudal levy of England at his back. He brought three thousand knights on barded horses, and four thousand other men-at-arms, mustered under the colours of more than a hundred barons and bannerets. For foot-soldiery he had not summoned the full shire-levies under the sheriffs, but only called for volunteers. The Welsh and Irish came in large numbers, for they were always ready to serve for plunder,^ but the English foot were comparatively few. The enormous figures given by the chroniclers for the array of infantry — fifty or even eighty thousand — are of course absurd ; they probably did not greatly exceed the horsemen in number.

Battle of Falkirk, July 22, 1298.

When Edward marched from Berwick into Lothian and began to waste the land and storm the few castles which were defended against him, Wallace did not make any attempt to protect the plain. He had summoned all Scotland to his banner, and may perhaps have had the thirty thousand foot and the thousand men-at-arms ^ with which the more sober of the English chroniclers credit him. But he had withdrawn them into the Torwood, the great forest which lay between Falkirk and Stirling, and there kept quiet. He was resolved to take the defensive in a favourable position, and not to meet the king's overwhelming force of cavalry in the open.

It seemed for a moment possible that no battle might take place, for Edward spent so much time in Lothian that his provisions began to run low, and no more could be procured

^ Hemingford, i. p. 259.

2 The wilder guesses of others make the Scots at a hundred thousand or even ;hree hundred thousand strong. Even the usually sensible Hemingford gives the

latter figure (i. p. 165).

566 THE ART OF WAR IN THE MIDDLE AGES [1298

from the wasted countryside. He could not hear of any hostile army in the field, and was beginning to think of returning to England. But presently there came to him the PZarls of March and Angus, two Scottish lords of the English faction, with news that Wallace lay only eighteen miles away at Falkirk, and that, hearing of the approaching retreat of the royal army, he was preparing to fall upon its rear and harass its march. " He shall not come to me, for I will go to him," exclaimed Edward, and straightway set his army — famine-stricken though it was — to march on Falkirk. He slept at Linlithgow on the night of July 21 ; that night he had two ribs broken by a kick from his horse, but, though suffering much pain, he pushed on next morning to seek for Wallace. A Scottish reconnoitring party was sighted early in the day, but promptly retired. Following it up, and moving past the town to the south, by the hillside called Slamannan Muir, the English at last came in sight of the enemy. Wallace had selected a very strong position on a hill- side about two miles south of Falkirk, not very far from the edge of the forest which covered all the face of the country to the west. His front was protected by a broad morass — now called Darnrig Moss. His pikemen were arrayed in four great masses — schiltrons, as the Scots called them ; behind them were the body of a thousand mounted men-at-arms which composed his cavalry. On each flank and also between the schiltrom were a few thousand archers — mainly from Ettrick and Selkirk The whole hope of Wallace lay in the solidity of his impene trable masses of spears ; he was resolved to fight a thoroughl) defensive battle, and knew that all depended on the steadinesi of his followers. " I have brought you to the ring," he i: reported to have said ; " now hop (dance) if ye may." ^

Edward at once formed up his men on the opposite side o the Moss, in the three "battles" dear to the mediaeval genera] The vaward or right wing was led by Roger Bigot Earl c Norfolk, the Marshal, and by Humphrey Bohun Earl of Herefon — the pair whose constitutional opposition to the king had le( to the Confirmatio Cartariim in the preceding year. The malti battle was headed by Edward himself; the left wing Wa entrusted to Antony Beck, the warlike bishop of Durham. Eacl column contained from thirty to thirty-five banners of baron

^ The elaborate story of Falkirk in Blind Harry's Wallace is hopelessly garble and useless. Bruce does all the fighting on the English side !

1298] BATTLE OF FALKIRK 567

and bannerets. The vaward first started to the charge, but rode into the Moss, and found it wholly impassable. The Earl Marshal, therefore, drew back his men, and started to turn the obstacle by a long march round its flank. The left wing had observed the morass more clearly, and the bishop, without making any attempt to pass it, wheeled off and rode round its flank. Arriving at a point at right angles to the line of the Scots, he halted his battle and waited for the king, whose division was following him. This delay maddened the rash barons of whom he held command. " Stick to your mass, bishop, and don't teach us the art of war," cried Ralph Basset of Drayton. " Sing your mass here to-day, and we will do the fighting." 1 So saying, he led his horsemen against the flank schiltron of the Scots, and all the other banners streamed after him, in despite of their commander. A few minutes later the Earl Marshal's battle completed its detour round the Moss, and executed an equally headlong charge against the other flank of the Scottish host.

The result of the onset of the two English cavalry corps was indecisive. Wallace's archers were ridden down and scattered ; the thousand men-at-arms in his rear rode ofl" the field in disgraceful flight without striking a blow for Scotland. But the great schiltrons of pikemen easily flung back the onset of the horsemen. The front ranks knelt with their spear-butts fixed in the earth ; the rear ranks levelled their lances over their comrades' heads ; the thick-set grove of twelve-foot spears was far too dense for the cavalry to penetrate. Many English riders fell ; the rest wheeled round and began to re-form for a second charge. Now came the decisive moment of the day : if the onsets had been repeated with a similar fury, the English cavalry would undoubtedly have failed, and Falkirk would have been even as Bannockburn.

King Edward and the main-battle had now arrived on the ground. His quick eye at once grasped the situation ; instantly he applied the tactics which had been so successful in his Welsh wars. The knights were ordered to halt for a moment, and the bowmen were brought to the front. They were bidden to concentrate their fire on fixed points in the hostile masses. Loosing their arrows at point-blank range into the easy target

^ "Non est tuum, episcope, docere nos de militia: vade missam celebrate si velis," etc. (Hemingford, p. 164).

568 THE ART OF WAR IN THE MIDDLE AGES [1298

of the great schiltrons, they soon began to make a fearful slaughter. Nor could there be any retaliation ; the Scottish archers had been ridden down and driven away, while the pikemen dared not break their ranks to chase off their enemies while the English cavalry were waiting to push into the gaps. Accordingly, the result of a few minutes of the deadly arrow- shower was that many points of the masses had been riddled, and the whole had been rendered unsteady. Then Edward bade his knights charge for the second time, aiming at the shaken sections of the enemy's front. Bursting in at points where the killed and wounded were thicker than the unstricken men, the English men-at-arms broke all the schiltrons in quick succession.

The rest of the fight was little more than a massacre. One- third of the Scottish host was left on the field : the survivors, among whom Wallace was numbered, only saved themselves by a prompt flight into the woods. Those who were at the eastern end of the line, and too far from the friendly shelter of the trees, had to rush down the rear slope of the hill and save themselves by swimming the river Carron. Many thousands were cut down, and a considerable number more were drowned in the stream. Of the Scottish chiefs there were slain Sir John Stuart of Bonkill, the leader of the Selkirk archery, Sir John Graham, Macduff, the uncle of the Earl of Fife, and about twenty knights more. The English loss was small, consisting only of the horsemen who perished on the pikes in the first charge : among them were, curiously enough, the two chiefs of the Order of the Temple in the two British kingdoms — both the Master oi the English Templars, and Brian de Jaye,who bore the corre- sponding office in Scotland.

The lesson which Falkirk taught to those who could read its true importance was much the same as the lesson of Hastings, — that even the best of infantry, if unsupported by cavalry and placed in a position that might be turned on the flanks, could not hope to withstand a judicious combination of archers and horsemen. Such, without doubt, would have been the moral which King Edward would have drawn from it had he left us a written record of his military experience. Such was the way ir which it was viewed by Robert Bruce, who saw the fight fronc the English side, for he served in the left-hand battle undei Bishop Beck. We shall note that at Bannockburn, when it fel to him to face the selfsame problem that Wallace had vainly

1307] COMBAT OF LOUDON HILL 569

tried to solve, he took special care that his flanks should be covered and that his cavalry should be turned to good use. But it is clear that less capable men on both sides overlooked :he real meaning of the fight. Many of the English forgot that ;he archers had prepared the way, and only remembered the vic- ;orious charge of the knights at the end of the day. Many of the Scots, equally misreading the facts, attributed their defeat to the reachery of their runaway horsemen, or to the jealousy which he other leaders felt for Wallace, instead of imputing it to the nherent weakness of pikemen unsupported by any other arm.

There was much fighting of the minor kind between Falkirk md the day of Bannockburn. For the greater part of the :ighteen years which intervened between them, hostilities on a arger or a smaller scale were going on in some part of Scotland* )n the whole, the English had the advantage, owing to the iisunion of the Scots and their inability to find any leader v'hom his equals would obey. On half a dozen occasions ^Idward's armies marched up and down the land without neeting open opposition : the Scots meanwhile retired to the lills, and only came down when their enemies had turned lomewards. Such fighting as there was mainly consisted in. mbuscades and surprises: such, for example, was the rout of voslin in 1302, when John de Segrave's army was surprised by he Scots in three separate cantonments six miles apart, egrave's own division was cut to pieces at dawn ; the other ivisions under Robert Neville came up only in time to save a 2\v of the fugitives, and then retired from the field. A similar istance on the other side was the rout of Methven, when Vymer de Valence, Earl of Pembroke, scattered Robert Bruce's ost by just such another assault at daybreak. A much reater interest attaches to a fight on a far smaller scale,, iiat of Loudon Hill in 1307, if we can trust the details — ufficiently probable in themselves — which Barbour gives of it n its own way it was a forecast of Bannockburn. Bruce, with his ix hundred followers, was lying on Loudon Hill, when De ^alence, with a force which the Scottish chroniclers give at iree thousand men, came to hunt him down. Bruce had found

position about two bow-shots broad, through which a road an. On each side of it was a broad moss. He narrowed the

ont of the position by cutting three lines of ditch from the dges of the morasses on each side, so as to leave open only the

570 THE ART OF WAR IN THE MIDDLE AGES [131.

road and about fifty yards more on each side of it. On thi short front he drew up his men, all on foot and with pike levelled. De Valence should of course have sent his archer to the front, and, as Bruce could not have advanced, might hav mishandled him dreadfully. But, instead, he committed th usual fault of feudal commanders : he sent his cavalry to charg down the road, expecting to ride easily over the pikemei Two furious onsets were promptly turned back .by the line c spears; then, seeing more than a hundred men-at-arms lyin dead in front of the Scottish line, De Valence tamely withdrev though his infantry and his rear-battle had not struck a blow.

Without any pitched battle, but by a long series of siege, raids, and adventurous assaults on castles, Bruce had by 131 cleared the English out of the whole land. Nothing but th strongholds of Stirling, Dunbar, and Berwick remained in th power of Edward II. It was to relieve the first-named plac< the most important strategic point in the whole of Scotlan( that the imbecile son of Edward Longshanks at last bestirre himself. The governor of Stirling, Sir Philip Mowbray, ha promised to yield unless he was relieved before St. John's Da} June 24, 1 3 14. And not even Edward of Caernarvon could vie^ unmoved the loss of the last of his father's conquests.

Battle of Bannockburn^ June 24, 13 14.

When once Bruce knew that the King of England ha sworn to raise the siege of Stirling, and was spending the sprin in summoning up contingents not only from England and Wale but from Ireland and Gascony, he had ample time to devote t the choice of a good position for standing on the defensiv against the great host which was arming against him. H determined to make no opposition in Lothian, but to let th English army push well into the bowels of the land. Tw reasons led him to this conclusion : the enemy would be muc harassed by want of food in passing through the devastate lands between Tweed and Forth, and the nearer he fought 1 Stirling the more certain would he be of intercepting the enem who, if the battle was offered to him at a greater distance froi the place, might easily slip off to right or left and turn tl Scottish host without an engagement.

Bruce mustered his men in the forest of Torwood, the satr tr>''sting-place which Wallace had chosen before the battle <

I3I4] TOPOGRAPHY OF BANNOCKBURN 571

Falkirk. But it was not his intention to fight on the banks of the Carron, but much nearer to Stirling-. The position which he had selected was no more than two and a half miles south ^ of the beleaguered castle, on the rolling hillsides which overlook the Bannock Burn.

Passing southward out of Stirling, a gentle ascent leads to the village and church of St. Ninians ; half a mile farther on, the crest of the ascent is reached, and a new valley comes in view, Down this depression, which is less than a mile bro&d, runs the Bannock Burn, now an insignificant brook, which flows to join the Forth not far from its mouth. In 13 14 the burn was a much more formidable obstacle; its course ran through bogs and mosses, and towards the eastern end of the field was connected with some broad shallow pools, which covered a considerable expanse.^ In most of its course the Bannock could be crossed, though with some difficulty, both by horse and foot : the only thoroughly good passage was in the middle of the field, where an old Roman road, running out from the wall of Antoninus, cuts across the battle-ground from north-west to south-east. The advantage of the position from the point of view of Bruce lay, not so much in the difficult passage of the Bannock, as in the fact that the front to be defended was Comparatively short. For at the west end of the field the New Park, a wooded tract which King Alexander ill. had afforested, ran down to the stream ; while at its east end the Carse, or low land falling away towards the Forth, was then one vast morass. The front between the wood and the marsh was not much more than a mile broad, a space not too great to be defended by the forty thousand men whom Bruce had brought together for the defence of the land.

When the English army advanced from Edinburgh and Falkirk, Robert fell back from the Torwood into his chosen ! position. His intention was to hold the northern brow of the valley of the Bannock, leaving the enemy to force their way

1 At the Borestone, the centre of the Scottish position, the ridge is one hundred and eighty-six feet high ; it is lower towards its eastern end, but at its western rises to two hundred and forty feet. The corresponding slope on the English side of the Bannock varies from two hundred and twenty to two hundred and eighty feet in height.

2 I was delighted to find these pools, of which no trace now exists, in old Scottish maps of the eighteenth century. Barbour distinctly mentions them in his lines 62-64, p. 255 of the Edinburgh edition of 1758.

572 THE ART OF WAR IN THE MIDDLE AGES [i^

across moss and brook and over the gentle slope which led up from them. He had taken the additional precaution of digging a great quantity of " pottes," or small circular holes three feet deep, in front of his line. They were covered with branches and grass, so that they could not be seen by the advancing foe and were intended as traps for Edward's horsemen. This defence extended a long way on each side of the Roman roac which cut across the field, and practically covered the whok assailable front of the Scottish host.^

The Scottish army had been told off into four " battles " anc a small cavalry reserve. Only five hundred picked men-at-arm.* were kept on horseback, under Sir Robert Keith, the Marsha of Scotland ; the rest of the knights and barons descended t( fight on foot among their retainers. The main line was com posed of three solid " battles " of pikemen of approximate!} equal strength ; they were commanded (counting from righ to left) by Thomas Randolph Earl of Murray, who had th< " vaward," Sir Edward Bruce, the king's brother, who had th( " mid-battle," and Sir James Douglas and Walter the Lon Steward of Scotland, who had the " rearward." Behind, as ; reserve, lay the king with the fourth " battle " of spearmen an< the small body of horsemen under Keith.

This array having been settled, the Scots encamped, out o

^ The *' Pottes " have given some trouble to the narrators of the battle. Som of the English chroniclers do not mention them. Others, e.g. Baker of Swinbrool speak not of a number of small holes, but of one long ditch : " Scoti locum nac opportunum, subfodiebant ad mensurum trium pedum in profundo, et ad ejusdei mensurae latitudinem fossas protensas in longum a dextro in sinistrum cornu exercitu: operientes illas cum plexis et viminibus." But an even better authority than the vei sensible Baker is Robert Baston, the unfortunate prisoner whom Bruce compelled 1 celebrate the victory in Latin verse. He says that

"Plebs foveas fodit, ut per eas labantur equestres. • Machina plena malis pedibus formatur equinis Concava, cum palis, ne pergant absque ruinis."

This certainly means a series of holes, not a ditch, and fully bears out Barbour account of the " Pottes." As to their position, Barbour says that

" On either side the way wele brad It was pottit, as I have tald. Gef that their faes on horse will hald Furth in that way, I trow they shall Not well escape withouten fall."

And in another passage he speaks of the ** Pottes "as " in ane plane field by the way. I suppose that ' ' the way " means the Roman road, and that the pits lay on each side ' it for many hundred yards, probably reaching to the very flanks of the army.

SIS .-5

IS>=c£WC

2^ i^y^fe

314] BANNOCKBURN: THE ENGLISH ARMY 573

ight of the enemy approaching from the south, behind the helter of Gillies' Hill, a wooded eminence at the right rear of heir position, leaving only small detachments out to watch the idvance of the English — one at the " entry," i.e. the place where he Roman road crossed the burn and marsh, the other at St. S'inian's Kirk, to guard against any attempt of the enemy to urn the position by its eastern end through the mosses of the larse. The king watched at the former place, the Earl of Murray at the latter.

Presently the English army came in sight on the low line of lills which form the southern horizon. Edward II. had brought I vast host with him : the estimate of a hundred thousand men vhich the Scottish chroniclers give is no doubt exaggerated, but hat the force was very large is shown by the genuine details )f the mustering which have come down to us. There have )een preserved of the orders which Edward sent out for the aising of this army only those addressed to the sheriffs of welve English counties, seven Marcher barons, and the justices )f North and South Wales. Yet these account for twenty-one ;housand five hundred men, though they do not include the igures of any of the more populous shires, such as Norfolk, Suffolk, Kent, or Middlesex. The whole must have amounted :o more than fifty thousand men.^ The barons, too, were n full force. Only the self-seeking Thomas of Lancaster md his adherents did not come to the muster — on the poor Dretence that the king, according to the ordinances of 1 3 11, ought to have consulted Parliament before levying his host. But,

^ Rymer, Foedera, May 27, 13 14. The figures are perhaps worth giving. They run as follows : —

Men Leicestershire and Warwickshire . 500 Justices of S. Wales ; i.e. counties

of Cardigan and Caermarthen . 1000 Certain Marcher lords . . . 1850 Justices of N. Wales ; i.e. counties of Anglesea, Caernarvon, and ,, Merioneth .... 2000

Comparing this with military assessments of England at a later time, we find that the twelve counties and Wales used to give on an average about one-third of the whole host. I presume, therefore, that at Bannockburn the shire-levies in all should have amounted to some sixty thousand, if all the shires were represented. But we may doubt if the extreme South sent its full contingents for so distant a campaign.

	Men
Yorkshire	. 4000
Northumberland .	. 2500
Bishopric of Durham .	• 1500
Lancashire .	. 500
Lincolnshire	. 3000
Notts and Derby .	. 2000
Salop and Stafford	. 2000
Cheshire	. 500

574 THE ART OF WAR IN THE MIDDLE AGES [131.

though absent themselves, the Lancastrians seem to have sen^ their retainers.

The host was told off into ten battles, probably (like th( French at Crecy) in three lines of three battles each, with th( tenth as a reserve under the king. We have no proper detaib of the marshalling, knowing only that the Earls of Gloucestei and Hereford led the " vaward " line, and that the king with th( Earl of Pembroke headed the rear-battle. But details as to th( array are of little importance, because (as all accounts agree) thf host was so cramped and crushed together on the battlefielc that to the enemy it appeared all one vast " schiltron," specklec from front to rear with the flags of barons and bannerets. Onh the '' vaward " was distinguishable, the rest was one huge welter ing mass.

The English advance guard arrived on the field on the after noon of the 23rd June, and proceeded at once to reconnoitre the position. Two bodies of cavalry pushed forward on two points- one crossing the burn at the Roman road, the other making : detour through the Carse to endeavour to communicate with the castle by riding round the marshy ground on the left of th( Scottish line. The first body halted and retired when it founc Bruce in force at the head of the slope. Its advance was onl) noticeable for the chivalric incident of Sir Henry Bohun's death Bohun was in the van of the party which came up the slope, anc caught sight of King Robert riding up and down some distance in front of his pikemen. Setting spurs to his horse, the daring knight charged at the Bruce, hoping to end the war with hi; single lance. Robert, though he was not horsed on his bardec destrier, but only on a little hackney, and though he had nc lance in his hand, but only the axe at his saddlebow, did no- shrink from the single combat. Warily awaiting his adversary'; charge, he turned Bohun's lance aside with his axe, and as the knight passed him, brained him with a tremendous blow on the back of his helmet.

The other attempt of the English to feel the eastern flanls of the Scottish position led to more serious fighting. Eighl hundred men-at-arms, under Sir Robert Clifford and Wlllian- Deyncourt, made such a wide sweep through the Carse that they were close below St. Ninian's Kirk before the Earl of Murray sighted them. Burning to repair this neglect, Randolph rushec down the hill with five hundred pikemen and threw himseli

314] BANNOCKBURN : RANDOLPH'S SKIRMISH 575

xross their path. Clifford bade his knights ride over the Scots, ind delivered a furious charge which utterly failed to break the ;ompact mass of spears. For many minutes the English horse- nen rode round and round the Scots, trying to burst in, and ingrily casting maces and lances into their ranks, in the hope of naking a gap. Some scores perished among the pikes, includ* ng Deyncourt, the second in command. The rest, finding their iffoits all in vain, and seeing succour coming down the hill to Randolph, at last rode off foiled, and made no further attempt o communicate with the castle.

While this petty action was going on, the English army was lowly reaching the field, and by nightfall had crowned the leights above the Bannock and formed its encampment. There idward's host rested, spending the night, as all the chroniclers )oth Scots and English agree, in wassail and vain boasting, ^ext morn the king got his unwieldy force into such array as le might. The assailable ground of the Scottish position was nuch too narrow to suit his numbers : there was only something lightly more than a mile of slope between the wood and the narshes, and, to make even this space available, the English right ving had to throw rough bridges of hurdles and beams across he great pools on the lower Bannock. Two thousand yards )f frontage only affords comfortable space for fifteen hundred lorsemen or three thousand foot-soldiers abreast. This was veil enough for the main line of the Scottish host, formed in :hree battles of perhaps twenty-five thousand men in all, ix. eight )r nine deep in continuous line. But, allowing for the greater ;pace required for the cavalry, the English were far too many or such a front, with the ten thousand horse ^ and fifty thousand )r sixty thousand foot which they may have mustered.

The result of this fact was that from the very beginning of the oattle the English were crowded and crushed together, and vholly unable to manoeuvre. The worst point of all was that in iach corps the archers had been placed behind the horsemen, not )n their flanks or in the intervals between the separate squadrons.^

^ Trustworthy details of the English host, as we said before, are missing. But if hey had, as is said, three thousand "equites coperti," men-at-arms on barded horses, he whole cavalry was probably ten thousand, Barbour makes it forty thousand * armed on horse both head and hand."

' "Nonnullosdetraxitin cladem phalanx sagittariorum, non habentium destinatum ocum aptum, sed prius armatorum a tergo st^ntium, qui nunc a lateribus sclent :onstare" (Baker of Swinbrook, p. 9).

576 THE ART OF WAR IN THE MIDDLE AGES [131.

Thus a magnificent body of perhaps thirty thousand bowmen, abl( to have settled the whole matter if granted a judicious support o cavalry, was condemned from the first to almost entire uselessness There was some little skirmishing before the main engage ment commenced. Bruce had scattered a few archers along hi side of the burn : they were, as a preliminary measure, driven of by a detachment of English bowmen from the " vaward " battle. But the moment that this affray was over, the whole front lin( of the English horsemen set themselves in motion, swept dowi their own slope, scrambled through the brook and bog anc dashed up hill against the Scottish host. At the same momen the three battles of Bruce's front line, which had been held bad hitherto, to keep them out of range of the English arrows, move( forward in perfect order to the top of the slope and the positioi marked out for them by the line of " pottes." Many of th' English men-at-arms were caught in these traps,^ but the majority sweeping onward, rushed headlong against the Scottish battles " And when the two hosts so came together and the great steed of the knights dashed into the Scottish pikes as into a thick wood there rose a great and horrible crash from rending lances an( dying horses, and there they stood locked together for a space." But if the English, with all the impetus of their first charge, hac failed to break the hostile line at any point, much less were the] able to do so when they had been brought to a standstill, an* could only cut and thrust away the pikes, or endeavour to wedg themselves into some weak spot. They died by hundreds, with out accomplishing anything, but were far too courageous to fal back and acknowledge themselves beaten. A retreat woul( have been their best move, and it would not have been too lat to bring forward the archery after the horsemen had retiree Yet, since the vaward refused to draw off, the second and thin lines in their turn poured down the English slope, through boj and brook, and up the farther bank. But they could not get a the Scots, with whom the first line was desperately engagec and were forced to stand idle on the slope while the conflict wa going on above their heads. Individuals of course got a chanc of pushing forward to take the place of those in the vawan battle who had fallen, but the mass stood helpless and utterb unable to help their fellows.

^ Chronicle of Lanercost, p. 225. * Baker of Swinbrook, p. 8.

' Chronicle of Lanercost, p. 225.

1314] BANNOCKBURN: KEITH'S CHARGE 577

Somewhere about this stage of the battle it seems to have xcurred to some of the English leaders that the archery must )e used at all costs if the day was to be won. It was impossible ;o deploy the infantry, so the bowmen were bidden to let fly into he air, with a high trajectory, and try to reach the Scots over he heads of their own horsemen in front : the result was not encouraging ; the arrows " hit some few Scots in the breast, but truck many more of the English in the back."^ At one point )nly, at the western end of the battle, some of the archers seem o have succeeded in struggling out from the melee towards the ;dge of the wood, and opened a lateral fire on to the flank of idward Bruce's division. King Robert had foreseen that some uch thing might happen, and had kept Keith and his five lundred men-at-arms on horseback in reserve, to provide against uch a chance. The Marshal ^ swept round Edward Bruce's flank, •harged the archers from the side, and threw them back against heir own mid-battle, into which they fled in disorder. Keith hen wheeled back to his old post, and had no further occasion o move, as the English made no second attempt to establish a lank fire of archery.

The whole of both hosts were now locked in one great melee, or King Robert had brought up his infantry reserve, the fourth Scottish battle, to strengthen his front line. The advantage was lefinitely on the side of the Scots : the English vaward was fought out," and only kept from recoiling by the masses )ehind ; Gloucester and the majority of the other barons who ad it had fallen, and in front of the Scottish line was a great >ank of slain and wounded horses and men, which no one could low pierce. Meanwhile, the English rearward had stood for lOurs vainly trying to get to the front, and losing heart when he impossibility of doing so was fully realised. It only needed ome impulse from outside to turn the whole host backward ; .nd this was soon supplied.

^ Baker of Swinbrook, p. 10. Was this suggested by William i.'s action at lastings?

2 Barbour, p. 263

But King Robert that well can ken

That their archers were perilous,

And their shot right hard and grievous,

Ordained forouth the assembly

His marshal with a great meinie,

Five hundred armed into steel

That on light horse were horsed well," etc.

37

578 THE ART OF WAR IN THE MIDDLE AGES [131.

The Scottish camp-followers, of whom there were severa thousands, had been watching the fight from behind the screei of trees on the slope of Gillies' Hill. Seeing that their enem^ seemed faltering, they were seized with the happy inspiration c making a demonstration against the English flank. Snatchin; up such irregular weapons as the camp afforded, and raisin; coloured cloths on spears to simulate banners, they came dow: the wooded slope of the hill, blowing horns and shouting " Sla} slay ! "

Imagining that a new Scottish reserve was about to operat against their flank, the English lost heart, and began to me] away to the rear long before the emptiness of the demonstratio could be perceived. The king himself hastily left the field wit five hundred knights, and when he was gone his followci thought it no shame to flee after him. The Scottish line pushe down the slope after the fugitives, taking many prisoners, an thrusting their enemies by heaps into the burn, where man hundreds were drowned or smothered.^ Those who got o made at once for the English border, and considered themselvc fortunate if they reached Berwick or Carlisle without bein intercepted and butchered by the peasantry.

Never in all history was there such a frightful slaughter ( the English baronage as took place at Bannockburn : even t\ red field of Towton was far less fatal. There fell one eai Gilbert of Gloucester, forty-two barons and bannerets, and mar scores of knights.^ Humphrey Earl of Hereford, twenty-t\\ barons and bannerets, and sixty-eight knights, were take : prisoners either on the field or in the pursuit. Of men-at-arn ] and foot-soldiery the numbers slain were enormous, but r I safe guess can be made at the exact figures: the Scots ga^ j thirty thousand as their estimate, but this would be (no doub i far too high. The victors are said to have lost only two knigh j and some four thousand of their pikemen — figures which a \ not at all improbable. ■

So ended the most lamentable defeat which an English arn 1 ever suffered. Its lessons were obvious. With the experien i of Falkirk and Loudon Hill before him, Edward II. was culpab I

^ Chronicle of Lanercost : " Quum ante transissent unam foveam magnam, in qu: ^ intrat fiuxus maris, nomine Bannockburne, et cum confusi vellent redire, multi nobi »• ceciderunt . . . et nunquam se explicare de fovea potuerunt " (p. 225).

^ Barbour says two hundred, and seven hundred esquires.

1314] THE BRUCE'S "TESTAMENT" 579

mad when he endeavoured to ride down the Scots by mere

:avalry charges. At all costs he should have used his archery,

5upporting them properly with bodies of horsemen kept close

enough to the front to give instant aid against any attack by

:he Scots. The second fatal error was the crowding such a vast

irmy on to a front of no more than two thousand yards. For

f he had kept back his rear divisions, and refused to thrust them

, "orward on to the already overcrowded battlefield, his over-

\ rreat numbers need not in themselves have prevented success.

I For the conduct of the fight on Bruce's part no praise can

)e too great. It was the culminating point of that whole

nethod of war which he left as a legacy to his subjects. The

ines in which his " testament " was committed to memory by

fter-generations are well worth quoting —

"On fut suld be all Scottis weire,

By hyll and mosse themselff to reare.

Lat woods for wallis be bow and speire,

That innymeis do them na deire.

In strait placis gar keip all store,

And byrnen ye planeland thaim before.

Thane sail thai pass away in haist

When that thai find na thing but waist.

With wyles and waykings of the nyght

And mekill noyis maid on hytht,

Thaim sail ye turnen with gret affrai, I As thai ware chassit with swerd away.

I This is the consall and intent

I Of gud King Robert's testiment."

I

The fourteen lines contain all the principles on which the cots, when well advised, acted for the next two hundred and fty years. They were to maintain the defensive, only to fight in rong positions among hills and morasses, to trust to retirement ito the woods rather than to the fortifying of castles, to ravage I le open country before the advancing enemy, and to confine 3. leir offensive action to night surprises and ambushes.

4 The fifteen years which followed Bannockburn differed from j| ost of the periods of war between England and Scotland in :| lat for the greater part of the time the southern realm was on

5 le defensive. It is not till the battle of Dupplin Muir in 1332 ": lat the balance turned again in favour of the English. The : iriod is of no very great interest from the military" point of "' ew, being mainly covered by a series of skilful raids of the

:ots into the northern counties, which reached sometimes well-

58o THE ART OF WAR IN THE MIDDLE AGES [1322

nigh to the gates of York. They came not to conquer, but merely to ravage, and were as a rule more set on carrying their plunder safely home than on meeting the enemy in battle. So great was Bruce's caution in risking a general engagement that even in 1321 he allowed an English army to march as far as Edinburgh unfought with, and turned it back only by a carefu' cutting off of its commissariat. There were, however, two con siderable collisions between English and Scottish hosts durin^: the time, in both of which the latter had the advantage. A Mytton in 1320 the Yorkshire levy, under the leading of it: archbishop, was easily scattered by the Earl of Murray an( James of Douglas. This was a rout rather than a battle, th' Yorkshiremen having retired as the Scots drew near without an; serious attempt at a fight. At Byland in 1322 Bruce himself woi his last victory, beating up the English quarters by a sudde attack at dawn, both in front and in flank. There was no regula fighting, as the English were surprised, and those of them wh rallied only strove to defend a narrow pass long enough to k ; their master King Edward escape, which he did with gre^ i difficulty, leaving his kinsman, John of Bretagne, Earl ( | Richmond, in the hands of the Scots.^

^ Cf. Barbour with Baker of Swinbrook, p. 14.

•i

CHAPTER II

CONTINUATION OF THE SCOTTISH WAR : FIRST COMBINATION OF ARCHERY AND DISMOUNTED CAVALRY — DUPPLIN AND HALIDON HILL

WITH the disasters of Mytton and Byland the second period of the Scottish war comes to an end. King Robert died on June 7, 1329, and with his death the ascendency of the Scottish arms passed away. Taught by their misfortunes, the English were about to try a new tactical combination. •They had failed in many disastrous attempts to cut off Scot- tish raiders, and had suffered many checks when they still attempted to take the offensive. The first campaigns of the young Edward III. had been perfectly fruitless. When at the head of a vast levy of all the strength of England he tried to hunt down Douglas and his plundering bands in 1328, he had been obliged to return to Newcastle wearied out and utterly foiled.^ The " Shameful Peace " of Northampton had followed (May 4, 1328). Four years of uncertain truce intervened, and then the English and Scots met again with changed fortune.

In 1332 an invasion of Scotland was prepared. The dis- inherited nobles of the English party, who had adhered too long to the cause of the Plantagenets, backed by the many English barons and knights who had been granted, and had since lost, Scottish estates, were determined to attempt the recovery of their fiefs. The peace of Northampton had provided that they should receive back their holdings on doing homage for them to the Scottish king, but Bruce had distributed most of the land in question to his own partisans, and the reger.ts who ruled after his death made no attempt to carry out the terms of the treaty.

^ Froissart's account of this chase on the Northumbrian moors may be incorrect in detail, but well deserves reading as a picture of Scottish tactics.

581

582 THE ART OF WAR IN THE MIDDLE AGES [133

The leaders of the " Disinherited " were the young Edwarc Baliol, son of the unfortunate King John, Gilbert Umphravilh Earl of Angus, David Earl of Athole, Henry de Beaumont, whc had married the heiress of Buchan, and Walter Comyn. Th< rank and file of their little host was almost entirely composec of Englishmen, with a few Scots and still fewer foreign mercen aries, among whom the Netherlander Walter Manny (destinec to be one of the prominent figures of the Anglo-French wars) i the only name of note. Their number was no more than fivf hundred knights and men-at-arms, with between one thousanc and two thousand archers.^ King Edward had refused t( afford them help, holding himself bound by the Treaty o Northampton. He had even prohibited them from crossing the Tweed, and given his Wardens of the Marches orders t( use force to prevent any such attempt. The Disinherited there fore collected at Ravenspur near the Humber mouth, hirec ships, and passed into Scotland by sea.

They landed near Kinghorn in Fife, drove off the Scots wh( tried to hinder their disembarkation, and then moved 01 Dunfermline. From thence they marched on Perth, but sooi found a large army under the regent, Donald Earl of Mai lying across their path on the other side of the river Earn. Al Central Scotland had been roused, and the least estimate givei of the regent's army encamped on Dupplin Muir is that i comprised two thousand men-at-arms and twenty thousanc foot.2 It might have been expected that the Scots would cros the river at once to attack the small body of invaders ; but th Earl of Mar was cautious : either he feared treachery in his owi host, or he grossly over-estimated the number of Baliol's mer He contented himself with placing the flower of his army at th bridge which crosses the Earn, intending perhaps to force th passage next morning.^

1 The Bridlington Chronicle, p. 106, says five hundred men-at-arms and or thousand foot. Knighton, i. p. 462, gives three hundred men-at-arms and thrt thousand foot — not such a likely proportion, for the archers were never ten times tl number of the cavalry in English armies of this time. The Lanercost Chronici gives fifteen hundred, but says that some gave two thousand eight hundred.

* Forty thousand is the figure of Knighton, vol. i. p. 462, and the BridlingtG Chronicle, p. 106.

3 " Omnes equites et armati pontem pariter obsidebant, aestimantes advenas vad ignorare " (End. Chron. 106).

-^y.] DUPPLIN MUIR: THE NIGHT ATTACK 583

. • ■ Battle of Dupplin, A ugiist 9, 1332.

The Disinherited were quite conscious that their attempt was I mere forlorn hope, and that their only chance of success lay n extreme audacity. When the dusk had fallen, they set forth o make a night attack on the regent's camp, crossing the river )y a ford pointed out to them by some of the Scottish exiles.^ rhey fell on to the rear of the Scottish bivouac and made a Ireadful slaughter of the foot-soldiery who lay on its outskirts. 3ut when day dawned they found the regent and all his men-at- irms marching against them in good order : being at the other ide of the camp, near the bridge, they had escaped the surprise, md had gained time to arm and array themselves.^ The Scots idvanced in solid columns, two in number according to the Chronicle of Lanercost,^ while the Bridlington Chronicle's clearer larrative gives the more probable statement that there was one arge central column flanked by two smaller ones.* All were on Oct, according to the ancient custom of the Scots.

Seeing the enemy approaching in such force, the invaders ;l^ew back from the Scottish camp and ranged themselves on he slope above it.^ The knights and men-at-arms dismounted md stood in a single mass in the centre ; the archers were Irawn out in a thin line on either flank, scattered among he heather of the hillside, and presenting no formed body at vhich an enemy could strike. Forty men-at-arms, all con- inental mercenaries, were alone told off to remain on horse- )ack and form a reserve,^ destined to deliver a last desperate :harge, or, in the event of victory, to strike in as pursuers. It

^ "Instruct! per quosdam patrias et vada fluminis cognoscentes " (Brid. Chron. 05)k Scottish tradition said that Andrew Murray of Tullibardine guided them.

• -^ I must here make my acknowledgments to Mr. J. E. Morris, whose article iLthe battle of Dupplin in the English Historical Review^ 1897, pt. iii., first set me ttldying the details of the fight. He undoubtedly is the discoverer of the true leaning of it.

' » «« Fuerunt duae magnae acies, in quibus erant vexilla duodecim " (Chron. Laner. '. 268).

■* ** Dispositis itaque turmis et sagittariis suis, ut collaterales cuneos hostium in- aderent, ipsi armati [the barons and their men-at-arms] magnum exercitum [the cottish main body] expugnabant" (Brid. Chron. 106).

' '* Festinaverunt ascendere montem, ubi Scoti hospitati sunt, in sinistra parte " Knighton, p. 463).

•"Praeliari coeperunt, exceptis xl armatis qui venerant de Alemannia in uxilium Anglorum, qui se a latere continebant ascensis equis suis '\ (Knighton, • 463).

584 THE ART OF WAR IN THE MIDDLE AGES

seems clear that the archers were arrayed not in the si straight line as the men-at-arms, but with their flanks thrc forward so that the whole army resembled a half-moon.

The English can hardly have been in array for more tha a moment when the Scottish columns, with twelve banners c earls and great barons waving over them, rolled up the hillsid* Utterly neglecting the archers on the wings, the regent mad for the central clump of men-at-arms, and dashed into it wit lances levelled. The first onset was so heavy that the " Di; inherited " were borne back some paces. It was with th greatest difficulty that they held together and preserved then selves from being trampled down. But the impetus of th Scots being deadened by the first shock, and the slope bein against them, they were for a moment checked, and the tv^ hosts stood pressed together, with their spears locked, and hard! room to swing a sword.^ Ralph Lord Stafford, seeing that tl fight had now become a matter of pushing rather than of had ing and hewing, called to his men to turn sideways and thru with their shoulders instead of opposing their breasts to t\ enemy. Using this device, and struggling desperately, tJ invaders succeeded in holding their line unbroken for son time,- and brought the Scots to a stand.

Meanwhile, the archers on the wings had closed in upon tl enemy, and were pouring a blinding shower of arrows upon tl smaller flanking columns which protected the sides of the main body. At first the Scots seem to have paid no heed ' them, but to have set all their attention on pushing forward ' the centre. But the shafts fell like hail, and so deadly we they that the advancing masses involuntarily swerved inwar< and refused to face the incessant shower.^ They thus fell upon the centre column and became blended with it. Tl enormous lateral pressure produced by their junction with tl " main-battle," which was already so hotly engaged with Balio men-at-arms, had the most disastrous results. The whole ma

^ "Facto congressu Scotorum impetum primo non feientts aliquantulum reti cedere compelluntur : sed de superius animati resistunt" (Knighton, p. io6).

-"Clamabat Baro de Stafford, * Vos, Anglici, vertatis contra lanceas vesU humeros et non pectus,' et ipsi hoc facientes Scottos protinus repulerunt " (Chrt Lanercost, 268).

' " Hostium vero minores turmae per sagittarios plurimum lacerati adhaer« magno exercitui compelluntur, et in breve conglobati alius ab alio premebato: <Chron. Brid. p. 106).

1332] DUPPLIN MUIR : THE SLAUGHTER 585

was hustled together and wedged in hopeless confusion, which only became worse when the archers again closed in on the flanks and continued to pour their arrows into the heaving mass. * In a short space they were thrust so close that they were crushed to death one by another, so that more fell by suffocation :han by the sword." ^ They were soon piled into a great heap, which grew higher as the inward pressure continued, and " a marvel never seen or heard of before in any battle of the past was observed, for the heap of dead stood as high from the 3^round as the full length of a spear." ^

Unable to break through to the front, and horribly galled on the flanks, the Scottish host at last broke up, and all who could escape from the press made their way to the rear. Henry de Beaumont and some of the " Disinherited " then sprang on their horses and chased the fugitives for several miles. The Scots were not merely beaten, but well-nigh exterminated. Only fourteen knights are said to have escaped.^ Among the slain were the regent, Donald, Earl of Mar, the Earls of Menteilh and Murray, Robert Bruce Earl of Carrick, the young king's bastard cousin, Alexander Eraser the High Chamberlain, eighteen bannerets, fifty-eight knights, eight hundred squires, twelve hundred men-at-arms, and an innumerable multitude of foot-soldiery.^ Not one single living man was found in the frightful heap in the centre of the host. Among the "Dis- inherited" there fell thirty-three knights and men-at-arms, of whom the chief were John Gordon and Reginald de la Beche : not a single archer is said to have been slain ; the Scots had never come to handstrokes with them.*'^

The battle of Dupplin formed the turning - point in the history of the Scottish wars. Eor the future the English always adopted the order of battle which Baliol and Beaumont had discovered, dismounting their heavily-armed men and forming the centre from them, while the archers were thrown forward on the flanks. This was the array which King Edward III. used at Halidon Hill in 1333: it is to be noted that Edward Baliol,

^ "Ita a suis suffocati et magis quam gladiorum ictibus verberati, acervum valde miiabile composuerunt : sicque condensati ac si fuissent funibus colligati miserabiliter «cpirabant " {idid. 106). .'. 2 Chron. Lanercost, p. 268. ^ Knighton, p. 107.

* Chron. Brid. p. 107. Knighton gives (p. 463) twelve bannerets and more than a hundred knights.

" Knighton, p. 463,

586 THE ART OF WAR IN THE MIDDLE AGES [13

Gilbert Umphraville, Beaumont, and David of Athole, t victors of Dupplin, were all serving under him in that engag ment ; it must have been from them that he learned the mc effective way of dealing with the Scottish masses.

Battle of Halidon Hill, July 19, 1333.

The main facts of Halidon Hill are very clear, though ^ are not so well furnished with its details as might be wishc Edward was besieging Berwick when a great Scottish he appeared to deliver it. Leaving a considerable portion of \ troops in the trenches, to keep up the blockade, the king march( with the rest to beat off the army of succour. He took up position such as Bruce would have loved, on a hillside with marshy bottom below it and a wood on its brow. Edwa made all his knights and men-at-arms dismount, and formt them in line with the archers. The host was divided into thr " battles," each furnished with small wings. The right divisi( was headed by the Earl Marshal, Thomas Earl of Norfolk, t king's half-uncle ; he had with him Edward's young brothc John of Eltham, and Henry de Beaumont. The wings of th( corps were composed of troops under the Earl of Athole on t' right and the Earl of Angus on the left. In the centre was t! king himself, on the left wing Edward Baliol ; each of the divisions was furnished, like the right-hand '' battle," with smi wings. All the knights fought on foot.^

The Scots were forced to attack, as Berwick could not 1 relieved unless the English were beaten in the open field ; the old defensive tactics of Falkirk and Bannockburn could not 1 used. But they, nevertheless, arrayed themselves in the gre masses which formed their habitual order of battle, and can lumbering down the opposite hillside in four columns.^ Tl marsh at the bottom forced them to slacken their pace, bi pushing through it, they began to climb Halidon Hill. The

^ This is expressly stated by Baker of Swinbrook : "Hie didicit a Scotis Angloh generositas dextrarios reservare venationi hostium, et contra morem suorum patri pedes pugnare " (p. 51). He had evidently not appreciated thejimportance of Dupp^ in the military history of England. Herein all historians have followed him, wherefc Mr. Morris deserves the more credit for calling attention to that much-neglected fi«]

^ Hemingford gives for their army the very moderate and probable figures twelve hundred men-at-arms and thirteen thousand five hundred pikemen. At t same time he says that the available force of Edward was smaller. Many of t English authorities give absurd figures for the Scottish losses, running up to SB thousand !

333] HALIDON HILL 587

3uld not, however, win far up its side, for such a terrible storm f arrows began to beat upon them the moment that they )mmenced to mount the slope, that all the front ranks went Dwn together. The masses strove to push forward, but each arty as it emerged from the weltering crowd and tried to imb higher up the slope was promptly shot down, and it seems lat very few of the Scots struggled up so far as the line of nglish men-at-arms on the brow. When at last the mass avered and began to tail off to the rear. King Edward bade s knights mount, charged the fugitives, and pursued them fiercely T five miles. There fell of the Scots Archibald Douglas, the :gent of the realm, Hugh Earl of Ross, Kenneth Earl of utherland, Alexander Bruce Earl of Carrick, three other earls,^ id such a multitude of barons and bannerets, that Bannockburn as well repaid. As the English ballad-maker sang —

"Scottes out of Berwick and out of Aberdeen, At the Burn of Bannock ye were far too keen, King Edward has avenged it now, and fully too, I ween."

Halidon Hill is the second, as Dupplin is the first, of a long ries of defensive battles fought against the Scots, and won by ic skilful combination of archery and dismounted men-at-arms, eville's Cross, Homildon, Flodden, Pinkie, are all variations )on the same theme. At the first-named fight the archers so idled the Scots left wing that it broke up when attacked by .e English men-at-arms, and left the centre bare to flank tack. At Homildon they so teased the Scottish masses by a ireful long-range fire, that they came storming down from a rong position (like Harold's axemen at Hastings), and were lught in disorder and utterly dispersed by the English main 3dy as they strove to pursue their lightly-moving assailants. f Flodden and Pinkie we shall speak in a later volume ; in their ain features they belong to the same class as Dupplin, Halidon, omildon, and Neville's Cross. The moral of all is the same : valuable against cavalry, the Scottish pikemen were helpless hen opposed by a judicious combination of lance and bow. was in vain that enlightened men in the northern realm, like •ing James i., tried to encourage archery: for want of old adition and hereditary aptitude, Scotland never bred a race ' archers such as flourished south of Tweed. When she got

* Apparently Lennox, Strathearn, and Athole, the last-named being the Scottish umant who disputed that title with David of Strathbogie.

588 THE ART OF WAR IN THE MIDDLE AGES [13^

the better of England in war, it was always through a caref adherence to "good King Robert's Testament," by the avoidanc of general engagements, the harrying of the land before t\ advancing foe, and the confining of offensive action to ambush< and night surprises, — "the wyles and wakenyngs of the night which that wise and cautious soldier had prescribed.

BOOK VIII

THE LONGBOW IN FRANCE AND SPAIN

I 337- I 370

5.S9

CHAPTER I

HE HUNDRED YEARS' WAR — THE ARMIES OF EDWARD HI

"X TE have seen that the result of the thirty years of almost /V uninterrupted war between England and Scotland, lich began at Dunbar and lasted down to Halidon Hill, had ofoundly modified the habitual tactics of English armies, lught by the events of Falkirk and Bannockburn, they had •andoned the old idea that battles were won solely by the arge of armed horsemen. Success, it had been found, de- rided far more upon the judicious use of archery. But archers 3ne would not be sufficient to decide the day ; they could be iven off (as at Bannockburn) by a charge of horse, unless they ire properly supported. For an offensive battle the support ight consist of mounted men (as at Falkirk). For a defensive ttle dismounted men would be more useful, for all history has own that cavalry cannot easily defend a position : once tied a fixed spot, they lose the impetus which is their strength.

Edward III., as we shall see, was a very competent tactician, t a very unskilful strategist. It fell to him to apply the lesson

the Scottish wars to a new struggle fought on a larger scale d under very different conditions. The use that he made of em was excellent, and led to such successful results that it ireotyped the tactics of English armies for the next century d a half.

England was now about to engage in war with a power lich excelled her in military strength much in the same pro- »rtion in which she herself excelled Scotland. Just as England rpassed the realm beyond Tweed in the size of her hosts, and pecially in the number of heavy cavalry that she could put to the field, so did France surpass England in those points. ) hope to meet the French, lance for lance, in the open field IS just as impossible for Edward III. as it had been impossible

592 THE ART OF WAR IN THE MIDDLE AGES [133

for Wallace or Bruce to set knight against knight at Falkirk c Bannockburn. Hopelessly outmatched in the numbers of hi mounted men, Edward had to bethink him of some way in whic the superiority of the French in that respect might be neutralisec His resolve was to adapt to English needs the tactics whic Bruce had made famous — to fight defensive battles in goo positions, and keep off the horsemen by a steady and unbreakab line of infantry. But he had an advantage which Bruce ha never possessed — that of being able to command the servicf of a very numerous and efficient archery, far surpassing ar continental troops armed with missile weapons that then existe The strength and adaptability of this arm was now known ' every English commander, but it was wholly unsuspected beyor seas, for its development had taken place since the la continental campaigns of the Plantagenets in the thirteen century.

Edward's great experiment, therefore, first worked out Crecy, was to apply the tactics of Dupplin and Halidon Hill- which had told so well against masses of spearmen on fo — against masses of cavalry. In France those absurd perversio of the art of war which covered themselves under the name Chivalry were more omnipotent than in any other country Europe. The strength of the armies of Philip and John of Vale was composed of a fiery and undisciplined noblesse^ whi imagined itself to be the most efficient military force in t world, but was in reality little removed from an armed mob. system which reproduced on the battlefield the distinctions feudal society was considered by the French aristocracy represent the ideal form of warlike organisation. The Fren knight believed that, since he was infinitely superior to a peasant in the social scale, he must consequently excel him the same extent in military value. He was therefore prone 1 only to despise all descriptions of infantry, but to regard th appearance on the field against him as a species of insult to '. class-pride. A few years before, the self-confidence of the Frer nobility had been shaken for a moment by the result of 1 battle of Courtray ( 1 302). But they had soon learned to thinl< that startling and perplexing event as a mere accident, brou| about by the folly of the Count of Artois in leading his chiva into a broad ditch and marsh through which they could i penetrate to the enemy. Comforting themselves with \

138]

STRENGTH OF ENGLISH ARMIES

593

reflection that it was the morass and not the Flemish infantry which won the battle, they were confirmed in their views by the event of the two bloody fights of Mons-en-Pevele (1304) and Cassel (1328). The fate which had on those days befallen the c^allant but ill-trained burghers of Flanders was believed to be only typical of that which awaited any foot-soldier who dared to match himself against the chivalry of the most warlike aristocracy in Christendom. Pride goes before a fall, and the French nobles were now to meet infantry of a quality such as they had never supposed to exist.

Against these presumptuous cavaliers, the wretched band of half-armed villeins whom they dragged with them to the field, :he king's mercenaries, and the disorderly militia of the French :ommunes, the English archer was now to be matched. The nen whom Edward III. led over-seas were not hasty and miscellaneous shire-levies such as had fought at Bannockburn. In the beginning of the war the English armies were entirely aised by Commissions of Array, under which designated com- nissioners selected from each county a definite number, usually I very moderate one, of picked men-at-arms, archers, and other soldiers. Comparing the orders for the levying of the host which vent to Scotland in 13 14 under Edward ii. with those of the lost which his son caused to be arrayed in 1339,^ we note that

^ The muster-rolls of the arrays of Feb, 1339, given in Rymer, ii. vol. ii. p. 1070, re so characteristic that they are worth giving in full. The archers, it will be noted, nm exactly half the foot. In later years they were a much larger proportion.

'orkshire .

iloiicestershire

Vorcestershire

•Uifford shire

•hropshire .

lerefordshire

)>:fordshire

Berkshire .

Viltshire ,

Devonshire

ornwall .

lampshire

omersetshire

)orsetshire

ussex

utrey

■ ent .

^ssex .

lertfordshire

Middlesex .

38

Men-at-			! Men-at-
arms.	Armati.	Archers.	arms.	Armati.	Archers.
. 200	500	500	Cambridgesliire . 18	70	70
. 63	250	250	Huntingdonshire 18	70	70
• 50	120	120	Buckinghamshire 20	80	80
. 55	220	220	Bedfordshire . 20	90	90
• 55	220	220	Lancashire . . 50	300	300
• 30	120	120	Norfolk . . 40	160	160
. 20	80	80	Suffolk . . 25	100	100
• 15	60	60	Northumberland 70	250	25a
. 35	140	140	Westmoreland . 25	150	150
• 35	160	160	. Cumberland . 50	200	200
. 25	100	100	Lincolnshire . 80	350	350
. 30	120	120	Nottinghamshire 35	150	150
. 35	160	160	Derbyshire . . 35	150	15a
• 25	100	100	Leicestershire . 25	120	12a
• 50	200	200	Warwickshire . 30	120	120
. 20	80	80	Northamptonshire 35	160	160
• 35	140	140	Rutland . . 10	40	40
. 35	160	160
. 18	70	70	1407	5600	5600
. 10	40	40		-rm —	sisasi

594 THE ART OF WAR IN THE MIDDLE AGES [i

I

to

itP

the Commissions of Array in the latter year were directed to levy only from about one-third to one-fifth of the numbers whi the sheriffs had been told to provide in the former year.^ T were, of course, individually better in proportion to the great care which could be taken in selecting them. A considerable number, no doubt, would be willing men who volunteered to serve Provision was made for allowing those who were unfit or reluctani to provide themselves with substitutes, on the principle o; scutage, by paying a reasonable sum of money in compensation.' The commissioners themselves were responsible for seeing thai the deputy should not be a waif or a wastrel, but a competen' and proper representative of the man who stayed at home. Sii John Falstaff's methods, it is clear, were not prevalent in th( fourteenth century, for we seldom get any complaint as t( the kind of recruit that was provided, and the achievements o the English hosts are the best testimonials to the character o the men who served in them.

As the long struggle with France wore on year after yeai another method was often used for the raising of men. It wa probably suggested by the treaties of subsidy which the kinj had often concluded with German princes during his earlie campaigns. If a Duke of Gueldres or Count of Loos couh engage to bring the king so many hundred lances or crossbow for a given payment, the same thing might be done with nativ English peers or knights. Instead of calling on a baron merel; to carry out his feudal obligations, and paying him for the tim that he spent over-seas " at the king's wages," it might be possibl to get more use out of him by offering him more advantageou terms. Thus came into existence the system of " Indenture," b which the king made a bargain with his subject — whether th latter chanced to be earl, baron, or simple veteran knigh The acceptor of the indenture contracted to bring a fixe number of followers to the war, or to maintain a certain fort c

^ e.g. Lincoln seven hundred instead of four thousand, York one thousai instead of six thousand, Derby three hundred instead of one thousand, Nottingha three hundred instead of one thousand, Warwick two hundred and forty instead five hundred, Leicester two hundred and forty instead of five hundred.

" e.g. in the year of the levying of the Cre9y army the arrayers of arms a allowed to make agreement "ad tractandum et concordandum cum omnib hominibus ad arma et hobellariis qui fines, pro progressu suo, facere voluerint, habi consideratione ad bona et catalla sua : ita quod loco eorum de denariis illis provenientib alios homines conducere valeamus," etc. (Rymer, 1346, p. 78).

i3€o] THE SYSTEM OF INDENTURES 595

garrison at his own risk, in return for certain payments and allowances to be made him by the sovereign. The contract was wholly outside and unconnected with feudal obligations ; it was a pure matter of bargaining. The contractor might not even be a vassal of the king's : Sir Walter Manny, Wolfhard of Ghistelles, and other well-known captains were aliens born. A simple knight with only a few acres of his own might contract for hundreds of men if he was a popular and capable leader whose name would attract numerous volunteers.

The use of the " Indenture " system saved the king the friction and show of compulsion caused by the use of the conscription carried out by Commissioners of Array. The men brought in by the contractors were all freely enlisted and willing soldiers, serving under the leader of their own choice. They would also be, on the average, more efficient than the pressed men from the shires. The long continuance of the wars had created a large class of adventurers who had seen one or two campaigns on compulsion, but had then stuck to the trade of war from choice. These professional soldiers were as ready to make their bargain with the holder of an indenture as the latter was to make his bargain with the king. Thus came into being the mercenary armies of the second stage of the war, composed of hardy unscrupulous veterans, terrible to the enemy's host, but still more terrible, from their habit of scientific plunder, to the peaceable inhabitants of any district through which they chanced ;o pass. The best of soldiers while the war lasted, they were 1 most dangerous and unruly race in time of truce or peace, for :hey had no wish to return to their homes and fall back into :ivil life.

As an early example of the forms used in the system of ndenture, the agreement signed by the king and Thomas Holland Earl of Kent, on September 30, 1 360, may be noted.^ The earl contracts to serve the king " at the accustomed wages of war " or a quarter of a year : the sum due is to be paid him before- land, in order that he may have sufficient ready money for the equipment of his contingent. He is to provide sixty men-at- irms, of whom ten are to be knights and one a banneret, and a lundred and twenty archers, all of whom are to be provided with lorses. The high proportion of " spears " to " bows " deserves lotice, and also the fact that all the archers are to be mounted ;

^ Rymer, Foedera, iii, p. 510.

^96 THE ART OF WAR IN THE MIDDLE AGES [i36(

it was by this provision of horses for even the infantry that th( English armies were enabled to move so fast in the later Frei^ campaigns. -^^

In the case of indentures providing for the custody o fortresses on French soil, we may note some curious provision for the protection of the contractor. When Sir John Chando undertakes to garrison a castle, it is stipulated that if the kini or any of his sons pays him a visit, the castellan shall have ai extra allowance for entertaining them : again, if any Englisl forces pass by and consume the stores of the garrison, the kinj undertakes to pay an additional sum to make up the value c the food which Chandos supplies to them. But the ordinar; expenses of war must be defrayed by the governor from th regular allowance guaranteed in his indenture.

jti oj

eSVTDiiOb

''■"'. ■ / Jl!., I !J '..'His

lAl ill

CHAPTER II ^'-jriH . ,.. . .,

lb Bnr// lalJr. --?: THE LONGBOW IN FRANCE— CRECY "I ni

FROM the very first moment of the Hundred Years' War we find the English archery exercising a preponderant 'nfluence in battle. The first clash of arms came when the Earl Df Derby landed in Flanders on St. Martin's Eve 1337. The English had to force their way on shore, which they did under :over of a rain of arrows which completely drove off the Flemish crossbowmen who had lined the quays of Cadzand laven,^ Then, when the expedition had landed, there was a ^harp fight on shore : the earl posted his archers on his flank, a ittle in advance of his men-at-arms.^ The Bastard of Flanders, vvho commanded the enemy, charged the English when they ,vere formed, but was completely routed, mainly owing to the rresistible flank fire of arrows, and taken prisoner with most of lis chief followers.^

When King Edward himself came over to Flanders in 1339 and called in to his aid the German princes that he lad subsidised — the Margrave of Brandenburg, the Dukes of Brabant, Gueldres, and Juliers, and the rest — he had under his land the largest army that any English king ever set in battle- irray on continental soil. Of men-at-arms alone there were :\velve thousand,^ and the Flemish and Brabangon infantry Tvvclied, the host to enormous proportions. With such forces at

^ Froissart, K. de Lettenhove's edition, p. 436: "Traioient arbalestier a leur )ooir, mais Englais n'en faisoient compte, car archier sont trop plus isniel au traire iue ne sont arbalestier."

^ MSS. de r Arsenal, 148, p. 187 : " Luy et ses gens descendirent a terre et les irchiers a I'un des les ung peu devant eulx, et commencherent a traire moult Iruement."

^Froissart, p. 436: " Au vrai dire li archier ensonnoient trop grandement les tssallants et deftendants Flamens, . . . et finablement li Flament Qe.pfiurent..pprter le soustenire le faix," etc. un-'i ^dT ".23ai7"'f

* Baker of Swinbrook, p. 64. Cf. also Knighton and others.'.- <^,\-,s*\ j>, •\ivn^\::vn

5^7

598 THE ART OF WAR IN THE MIDDLE AGES [13]

his command, we might have expected that Edward would ha planned an offensive battle, in spite of the fact that Philip France had brought out against him an even greater multitude. He was resolved, however, to fight a defensive engagement, and to employ the very tactics that had served him so well at Halidon Hill. The army was formed up in front of La Flamengerie in three lines. The front line was composed entirely of English, and was divided into a centre with twc smaller wing divisions, or echelles as the king himself calls them in his account of the campaign. In each division the whole of the men-at-arms were dismounted and formed in line, with the archers ranged on each flank of them. The Margrave oi Brandenburg and the German princes composed the second line, the Duke of Brabant's contingent the third. In these lines it would seem that, according to the custom of the Continent the knights were on their steeds, for it is recorded that the Margrave and the Duke of Brabant, riding forward to view the king's order of battle, were much surprised to see the array thai he had adopted, though they concluded, after inspection, tha^ it was admirably arranged.^

If King Philip had advanced from Buironfosse and attackec the confederate army, there would have resulted a battle on th( same lines as that which took place seven years later at Cregy but on a much larger scale. But the English tactics were no yet to be put to the test : the French king ranged his host ir order at a prudent distance and refused to move forward. He no less than Edward, wished to be attacked. Thus it came t( pass that no general engagement took place, and that th enemies retired each toward his own base when they ha( exhausted the provisions of the countryside.

The seven years that followed were singularly deficient \\ events of any tactical or strategical interest. The bickerins of the French and English alike in Flanders, Brittany, anc Aquitaine led to no single engagement of first-class importance The war was carried on by a series of forays, sieges, an< chivalrous but unscientific exploits of arms, which led to n<

^ The French original of the " Ordonnance des Anglois a la Flamengerie " clearl enough states that the archers were on each side of the knights : " Le roy fist tou' ses gents descendre a pie, et mis ses gents en arraie, les archiers a I'encoste des gent< d'armes." The English chroniclers who translated the document, e.g. Hemingforc rendering d Vencosie hy juxta, make the arrangement obscure and vague.

,; 1346] OPENING OF THE CREgV CAMPAIGN 599

^ decisive result. The one really striking event of the time, i: the battle of Sluys, was b fight on sea, not on land. Such 1 encounters as did take place ashore were for the most part »i surprises, ambuscades, or night attacks- — like the Earl of i» Derby's brilliant surprise of the Gascons at Auberoche,^ or Sir Walter Manny's victory at Quimperle.^^* t-'^^^t.^

All the more startling and important, therefore, was the event of the battle of Crecy, when the new English tactics were first put to the proof on a large scale. It was not till it had been fought that the importance of this new development of the art of war was realised on the Continent.

King Edward, as we have already had occasion to observe, was not a great strategist, and the details of the campaign which led up to the battle of Cregy are as discreditable to his generalship as those of the actual engagement are favourable. Disgusted at the repeated failure of his attempts to invade France with the aid of an army of German or Breton auxiliaries, he had sailed from Portsmouth on July 5, 1346, at the head of a host composed entirely of his own subjects. It seems to have numbered about four thousand men-at-arms, twelve thousand English archers, and six thousand Welsh ligh^ infantry. But, most unfortunately, the complete muster-rolls of the army have not been preserved, though those of several of the hosts which went out on less important expeditions exist in full. We only know that the corporate towns (as opposed to the shires) of England sent a hundred men-at-arms and seventeen hundred archers, and that the Principality of Wales was assessed at three thousand five hundred and fifty men, half archers, half spearmen, while the Welsh Marcher lords were responsible for three thousand two hundred and fifty.^ The best means of guessing at the whole is to consult the figures which have been preserved, giving the state of the army before Calais eight months later, as those troops were virtually the same who had fought through the Crecy campaign. Re- inforcements received since the siege began had probably made up for the losses suffered in battle.

^ Adam Murimuth gives all the credit of the fight of Auberoche to the archers (p. 190 of the Rolls Series edition).

2 sif Walter surprised the camp of Louis of Spain in his absence, routed the Iroops left there, and then encountered the enemy as he hastily returned homeward, aiid beat him in a running fight, not a pitched battle.

' Rymer, Foedera, 1346, pp. 80, 81.

§9P THE ART OF WAR IN THE MIDDLE AGES [ijfl

.omiAt the moment of sailing, the general impression on board the fleet had been that the expedition was destined for Guienne, where the Earl of Derby had been calling for succour But, much to the surprise of the army, the king, when well oul of sight of land, sent orders round the squadron to steer foi Cape La Hogue, as he was about to invade Normandy Strategical reasons might conceivably have dictated such ar invasion. Edward might have purposed to land as near a; possible to Paris, and to make a dash at the capital with th( object of doing something to justify his claim to the FrencI crown. On the other hand, he might have aimed at a conques of Normandy or some part of it — the projecting peninsula o the Cotentin, perhaps — in order to secure a firm basis o operations for future attacks on France. Or, again, he migh have aimed merely at causing such a diversion in the north a should compel the French to abandon their pressure upoi the Earl of Derby in Aquitaine.^ But Edward's conduct o the campaign shows that none of these rational schemes wa definitely formulated in his mind, and that the expeditioi partook rather of the character of a chivalrous adventure, or c a great raid of defiance pushed deep into France to provok its king.

Edward landed at La Hogue on July 22, and marched a a leisurely pace^ through Normandy for twenty-eight day. wasting the countryside, spoiling open towns, and accumulatin much plunder, but making no attempt to secure any hold o the land by seizing and garrisoning its fortresses. The onl important place which fell into his hands was Caen, a rich bt unwalled town, which was captured on the 26th of July, aft^ a severe engagement, in which the militia of Normandy Wc scattered, and the Counts of Eu and Tancarville, the Constabl and Chamberlain of France, were taken prisoners, with moi than a hundred knights of their following. Pushing eastwan

^ This is the version given by Froissart (4th redaction in Kervyn de Lettenhpvt edition) : he makes the Norman exile, Godfrey of Harcourt, persuade the king attack Normandy merely because of its wealth and defencelessness. Edwa: perseveres in his plan of sailing to Gascony, till Harcourt points out that a foray in Northern France will probably cause the French to raise the siege of Aiguillon ar evacuate Guienne (pp. 384, 385).

, 2 e.^. on July 26 he marched only three miles, on July 24 only five : he haltt five days after taking Caen, July 26-31, and three more at Lisieux. For the itinera and its dates, carefully worked out, see the excellent notes in Maunde Thompsf^F edition of Baker of Swir.brook, pp. 255, 256.

546] EDWARD III. IN NORMANDY 6oi

le king made a movement on Rouen, but he found all the

ridges of the Lower Seine broken, and could not harm the ty. Philip of France, on receiving news of the English vasion, had called out the whole ban and arriere-ban of his ;alm. He had sent for aid to the army of his son John, who as facing the Earl of Derby in Guienne, and had ordered a rge body of Genoese crossbowmen, who lay on board his fleet ; Harfleur, to come to his assistance. Breaking all the bridges

the Seine, he hoped to confine the ravages of Edward to

astern Normandy until he should be able to muster a force rge enough to justify him in advancing against the English.

L Finding the Lower Seine impassable, and knowing that a reat army was gathering at Rouen, King Edward had now to lake up his mind what course to pursue. He could either :turn to his ships and cross the Channel homeward with his lunder, — a safe but not very glorious course, — or he might send ome his fleet and make the hazardous experiment of striking seper into France. The latter course offered few attractions ) a prudent general, but many to an adventurous knight; it ivolved cutting the army loose from the fleet, — its sole base of Derations, — and rendered it necessary to retire, when the raid lould be over, on one of two very distant points — Flanders or ruienne. Meanwhile, King Philip's host was growing larger lay by day, and ere long he would be able to take the offensive ith a vast superiority of numbers. Nor was there now any lance of catching Paris inadequately garrisoned, as there might ave been if Edward had hurried on after bi&. landing without :opping to plunder Normandy, -ijiv/ bflmi^c? barhii,

The English king, therefore, could plead no rational justifica- • on for the line that he took after failing to capture Rouen, le plunged headlong into a hazardous adventure, by sending fif;his fleet and moving inland up the left bank of the Seine owards Paris. He was able to burn several open towns, and to ly waste the countryside up to the very gates of the French apital ; but when he found it well guarded, and learned that King hilip with a hundred thousand men lay at St. Denis watching im, he must have begun to feel that "his bolt was shot." He ad now only to decide whether he would retire towards

ordeaux, or force his way over the Seine towards Flanders, le chose the latter, the more hazardous, alternative, probably ecause he had received information that his allies the

6o2J THE ART OF WAR IN THE MIDDLE AGES [9

Flemings had just crossed the frontier and laid siege Bethune.

King Philip meanwhile had grown so strong that he s( message of defiance to the English, and bade them meet hii the open field if they dared, offering to fight on whichever of the Seine they might prefer. Such a proposal must h&^ been a sore temptation to the chivalrous spirit of Edward, bi the risk was too great to allow him to accept it. Putting aside, he hastily repaired the broken bridge of Poissy (near £ Germain-en-Laye) and crossed to the northern bank of the Seir A great body of the communal militia of Amiens and oth northern French towns came up while he was completing h bridge, but they were beaten off with loss, and the English we able to start on their march northward before King Philip ai his main army could reach them (Aug. 13-14). The time f leisurely movement was now past, and in four days Edwa pushed on nearly sixty miles, with the French not far behii him. He was now nearing the first obstacle that lay in 1: path — the broad river Somme and the long line of peat-bo which border its banks. Edward sent on his two marshals, t Earl of Warwick and Godfrey of Harcourt, to find a suital place for his crossing. A disagreeable surprise awaited hir the marshals made four separate attempts to force a passage at Pont-a-Remy, Fontaine-sur-Somme, Loucq, and Picquigr They were foiled at every point : the bridges were broken, a the fords held by the levies of Picardy in such strength that was impossible to cross. Nor was this all : King Philip and 1 host had marched parallel with the English, and their van h reached Amiens. Thus Edward found himself shut into triangle, whose three sides were closed by the Somme, the S' and the French army. The position was most hazardous : seemed that Edward must turn and fight in a position fm_^ which there was no retreat. •▼

^i^- But, just as he was beginning to despair, he learned that thf was one more chance to be tried. The lowest ford on t Somme was that of Blanchetaque below Abbeville, where t river grows tidal. Twice a day the ford was passable for a f hours, but it was guarded by two thousand Picard men-at-ak"] under Godemar <le Fay and a large body of crossbowftt Under the guidance of a peasant who was tempted by the bait a hundred gold nobles, P3dward marched down to the passa

,46] aUA a. TOPOGRAPHY OF CREgy 603

is knights entered the water and made for the farther bank, lile the archers kept up a long-distance flight of arrows over eir heads. The Picards made a stout defence, but were ;aten off after a hard struggle, and the English poured over e ford in such haste that King Philip only came up in time capture a little of their baggage. The tide then rose, the 'ench could not follow, and Edward was saved (Aug. 24).Ijio.j4

Battle of Crecy, August 26, 1346.

He had now secured a clear retreat on Flanders, and made '0 short marches which took him to Cregy-en-Ponthieu, where \ halted. No longer solicitous about being surrounded, he id resolved to face about and strike a blow at the French if ey should pursue him too rashly. At Cregy he had found a )sition which pleased his eye, and he announced to his host at "being now in Ponthieu, his own inheritance,^ he should v-ait his enemies there, and take such fortune as God might nd him."

Ponthieu is a country of rolling downs, which slope down to e course of two small streams, the Maye and Authie. The )wns are for the most part low and gentle elevations of not ore than a hundred and fifty or two hundred feet in height. he district is, except at one point, rather bare of trees, though Lch village is set in the midst of its own elms and orchards. at one great wood, the forest of Crecy, stretches across the strict and forms its most prominent natural feature. The rest of Cregy lies due north of Abbeville, and has a length of •me ten miles and a breadth of four or five. It forms an ipassable military obstacle, and the two great roads which run Drthward from Abbeville to Hesdin and Montreuil turn aside * avoid it. A single narrow path, however, cuts through the ;art of the wood, and this line Edward had taken, conscious lat his adversary would hardly dare to pursue him along it. aving reached the northern side of the wood, the English lay 1 the banks of the Maye, above the little town of Cregy, mbter forestam de Cregy," as the chronicler puts it. The

^ The county of Ponthieu had been the dowry of Eleanor of Castile, the wife Edward i., whose mother Joanna had been Countess of Aumale and Ponthieu in r own right. But Edward iil.'s own mother Isabella had also a charge of two ousand crowns a year upon it in her marriage settlement, so that the king's itement was doubly true. . . . '

i^o4 THE ART OF WAR IN THE MIDDLE AGES^ [13

French king could pursue only by two roads ; and one these, that through the wood, was practically barred to him the impossibility of deploying from the single narrow path the face of the enemy. It was probable that he would, as inde he ultimately did, take the Abbeville-Hesdin road, which tur the eastern end of the forest, and comes in sight of the Engli position when it reaches the village of Fontaine-sur-Maye.

Edward had therefore to face south-eastward to await t "approach of his enemy, and just outside Cre9y town there 1 a position eminently suited for a defensive battle. The rolli hills between the Maye and the Authie are here cut by a late depression or cross-valley, running from south-west to nori east. It is the best defined break in the line of downs whi forms the watershed between the two little rivers: for this reas the engineers of to-day have utilised it when they built t Abbeville - Dompierre railway. At no other point could t rolling slopes be crossed at such an easy gradient. The lit valley is about one and a quarter mile long: on each side of a gentle ascent rises to the main level of the downs. When t ascent is climbed, to right or left, the pedestrian finds hims on an undulating plateau. On that to the right (or east) 1 the village of Estrees ; on that to the left (or west) lies t village of Wadicourt. Each of these little places is set in.1 midst of its belt of trees, and barely shows a few roofs a chimneys through the greenery. Estrees is the centre of 1 ground where the French army formed up for battle ; Wadico the northern end of the English position. Cregy, which gc its name to the fight, lies low, pinched in between the south< descent of the Wadicourt downs and the little river Maye quarter of a mile behind the English line. A bowshot beye the town, and on the very edge of the water, commences 1 forest of Cregy, a fine well-grown wood, covering the wh southern horizon.

The Cre^y- Wadicourt position is bounded to the south,] by the Maye, — an insignificant thread of .water, fordable ai where, — but by the thick, impenetrable forest ; for there is sufficient space for an enemy to thrust himself along the riv bank between the downs and the wood so as to turn the south( flank of the English line. At the northern end, at VVadicoi the protection is not so strong : the village and its straggii orchards are sufficient to prevent any attempt to atta,ck iij<

546] CREgY: EDWARD'S ORDER OF BATTLE 605

'. t€4rnmediate3ank; but there is nothing to hinder an enemy Dproaching from the south-east from making a wide sweep . ong the summit of the plateau in the direction of Ligescourt. is possible that in 1346 the country north of Wadicourt was , ore wooded than it is now, but there is only the vaguest ; idence to prove it.^ As things actually went, the French

i rived and attacked in such disorder that they made no attempt ther to properly reconnoitre or to turn the position. Edward's army had seen some fighting since it landed at La ogue, and had suffered, as all armies must, from the wear and ar of two months' active campaigning.^ But it cannot have iei\ very greatly diminished in numbers, and the figures given ^ Froissart^ are probably not far from the truth, viz. three ousand nine hundred men-at-arms, eleven thousand archers, id perhaps five thousand Welshmen.

The host was divided into the usual three " battles." Two » rmed the front line, the third a reserve. On the right wing '•'' y the Prince of Wales, with twelve hundred men-at-arms, four ousand archers, and the Welsh contingent from his own Princi- ility,* probably three thousand strong. The men-at-arms, all

I foot, were formed in a solid line — perhaps six or eight deep, -in the centre of the '' battle." The archers stood in two equaL visions to the right and left of the men-at-arms : Baker of vinbrook, the best authority for the battle on the English side, marks that " they had their post given them not in front of e men-at-arms, but on each flank of them, as wings, so

I at they should not get in their way, nor have to face the ' ntral charge of the French, but might shoot them down from

^ The Valenciennes Chronicle, which seems to have no good topographical owledge, says that Edward was encamped on the edge of the wood which lies :ween Cre9y and La Broie. This is probably a mistake for the wood which lies iween Cre9y and Abbeville. No other chronicler mentions a great wood to the north.

' Michael of Northburgh says in his contemporary letter, written from Calais t after the fight, that from Caen to Cregy the army lived by foraging, "a grand nage de nos gens."

^ In the first edition these are the figures : those of the second are lower, or two )usand men-at-arms, four thousand two hundred archers, and a thousand Welsh. That :se are wrong we may pretty certainly conclude from the fact that in the muster- Is in Rymer we learn that the king started with six thousand Welsh. They may

II have been reduced to five thousand by now, but certainly not to one thousand.

* The contingent of the Principality as opposed to that of the Marches {i.e. North ^posed to South Wales) had started three, thousand five hundred and fifty ^ " ', '•- ,""" "*' "^"^

0od THE ART OF WAR IN THE MIDDLE AGES [134

the side.^ He adds that while waiting for the French the archer dug many small holes, a foot square and a foot deep, — like th Scottish " pottes " at Bannockburn, — to cause the French cavalr to stumble if they chanced to charge them — which, as he add the French did not do. Those of the Welsh infantry who bor spears were placed behind the archers, not in the front line.

The prince's division occupied the hillside from the poh where it sinks down to the banks of the Maye as far as half-wa to Wadicourt. North of him, but somewhat drawn back, so i to form an echelon rather than a parallel line with him, lay t\ Earls of Arundel and Northampton with the second " battle This was somewhat smaller than the first, consisting of tweh hundred men-at-arms and three thousand archers: we do n< hear that any Welshmen were attached to it. It was drawn i: in the same array as the prince's division, with the dismounte men-at-arms in the centre and the archers on the wings. Fro the left rear of the first battle it reached as far as the enclosur of the village of Wadicourt.-

The king himself with the reserve lay on the plateau abo^ the slope, in front of the wood of La Grange : he seems to ha^ stationed himself in the rear of his son's battle, nearer to Cre< than to Wadicourt. His corps consisted of fifteen hundred me at-arms, four thousand archers, and those of the Welsh who we not with the prince, perhaps two thousand five hundred stron Edward himself took post on the windmill at the southern edj of the plateau, the spot from which the whole battlefield can 1 best embraced with a single glance.^

Behind the English line, on each side of the road to Lige court, the whole baggage of the army had been parked in

^ Baker of Swinbrook, pp. 83, 84: " Effodiebant foramina .... ut si, qt abficit^ equites Gallorum nimis fuissent insecuti, equi ad foramina titubassent."

- What are we to make of Froissart's puzzling statement that the English arch were drawn up "in the fashion of a herse with the men-at-arms au fond de bataille " ? On the whole I am inclined to agree with Mr. H. B. George's theo stated in his Bi'itish Battles, that the English line was compared to a harrow, archers making the projecting points, and the knights lying a little to their re Certainly, the point where Prince Edward's archers touched Warwick's must h: presented an angle to the approaching French. My plan of the battle will make array clear. The line would have three projections, and two retiring spaces wh the men-at-arms stood.

^ Walking carefully over the field, I found no spot commanding such a gc general view as that where lie the foundations of the ruined mill, now no more tl a ring mound and a few stones. Local tradition still calls it the Moulin d'Edouard

PLATE XXI 1 1.

English Army. CJ^ECTT. AlICT. 26 1346. French Amiv

ita MenatAniis.:-:-:Archws \\ ^>, >\ ^MeiifirAn

B. -Eail iif Northani

EE. Genoese FFOtmitotUeiuon CC .Ihike of Lm-i-aiiie . ■ ■ " ■ ufAi-ULy

foflierroiit

46] CREgY: KING PHILIP PURSUES 607

uare enclosure, with the horses tethered inside. 'A^very mder guard was told off for its protection.^ ii: ;.

The better part of the baronage of England had followed dward over-seas : we read that in the right-hand battle the ince had under him Thomas Beauchamp Earl of Warwick, hn de Vere Earl of Oxford, Thomas Holland Earl of Kent, d the Lords Stafford, Cobham, Latimer, Audley, Clifford, irghersh, Bourchier. In the second corps lay Richard Fitzalan irl of Arundel, William Bohun Earl of Northampton, Robert ; Ufford Earl of Suffolk, and the Lords de la Warre, 'iiloughby, Roos, Basset, Multon. In the king's reserve were e Bishop of Durham, Roger Mortimer Earl of March, William ontacute Earl of Salisbury, and the rest of the barons esent. .bnfid ;.'

On the same morning that King Edward drew up his host I the hillside of Cre9y, his adversary had started from Abbe- lle to continue the pursuit. He had no knowledge whether e English intended to fight or to continue their retreat ; deed he had lost touch of them since they crossed the Somme

Blanchetaque. Hence it came to pass that he started forth \ the Abbeville-Montreuil road, to go round the western side of le forest of Cre9y. It was only after the head of the army id reached Braye, some eight miles north of Abbeville, that le news arrived that the English had crossed the forest and rown themselves on to a more easterly and inland road, hilip on receiving this intelligence sent off in haste four knights, ho were charged to gallop round the eastern end of the forest id search for the enemy. Meanwhile, the army was wheeled ' the right, and set to march by a cross-path on to the Abbe- Ue-Hesdin road. The French had no conception that King dward was waiting for them only a few miles away; they larched in great disorder, and straggled over the whole face of le country. The rear, indeed, had not yet left Abbeville when le van was at Braye.

The four knights who had been sent out to seek for the -nglish had no sooner reached the village of Fontaine than they Jddenly came in sight of the whole English army, not retreating IS they had expected) along the Hesdin road, but drawn up

^ It is certain that the two or three distant chroniclers who speak of the waggon irk as a part of the English line (e.g. Villani) are wholly wrong. None of the good ithorities place it anywhere save in the rear.

^o8 THE ART OF WAR IN THE MIDDLE AGES [13.

in its three battles on the hillside by Wadicourt Hasti returning to King Philip, they informed him of what they he discovered. Their spokesman, Alard de Baseilles, a knight Luxemburg, who followed the King of Bohemia, besought hi at once to halt his host and defer the battle till the morro^ For the head of the vanguard was now but a mile or two fro the English position, and would soon come in sight of it, thoug the host was in disorder, neither arrayed for battle nor at e expecting it. The French king fully saw the danger of runnir blindfold upon the English position, with his host strung 01 for miles upon the roads behind. He sent orders for the van • retire, and for the troops in the rear to advance no farther, b to halt for the night. For the afternoon was now far advance and vespers were at hand.

'Philip, however, had failed to take into account the rashne and insubordination of a feudal host. " The king's orders we: soon passed round among his lords, but none of them v/oa turn back, for 'each wished to be first in the field. The va would not retire because they had got so far to the front, h\ they halted. But those behind them kept riding forward, ar would not stop, saying that they would get as far to the front i their fellows, and that from mere pride and jealousy. And whe the vaward saw the others pushing on, they would not be le behind, and without order or array they pressed forward till the came in sight of the English. Great shame was it to see sue disobedience, and better would it have been for all if they ha taken the counsel of that good knight who advised the king 1 stay his march. For when the van came suddenly in face < the enemy, they stopped, and then drew back a space in sue disarray that they rushed in upon those in their rear, so that a behind thought that the battle was begun, and the vawar already routed. And the foot-soldiery of the cities and con munes, who covered the roads behind as far as Abbeville, an were more than twenty thousand strong, drew their swords, an began to cry, ' Death to those English traitors ! Not one ( them shall ever get back to England.' " ^

In consequence of the utter confusion in which the Frenc : arrived in the presence of their enemy, it resulted that the never succeeded in forming any orderly and definite line (

1 I have here put together passages from the fijrstajod the four thjeditions of Froissa iii Kervyn de Lettenhove's text. ; ^di n\ 3vr?. aiaifw^oa )i s

1346] CREfY: THE FRENCH ARMY 609

battle. The host had been told off, before leaving Abbeville, into a number of battles — nine or ten according to some authorities, five according to others. But these divisions were not repro- duced on the field, for each contingent scrambled to the front as best it might, and took post where it found a gap. The only- vestige of order which remained was that the picked infantry who had marched with the " vaward " battle — the Genoese crossbowmen disembarked from the fleet — had got forw^ard to their proper place, and had time to deploy in front of the village of Estrees on the slope that faced the English position. Behind them was nothing but a seething mass of feudal contin- gents jostling each other and seeking to thrust themselves forward as best they might, while the communal militia in the rear was still crowed ing up to join the horse.

What the exact strength of the French army was it will never be possible to ascertain. That it was at least thrice that of the Endish is clear ; the lowest estimate for its cavalry given by any chronicler of repute is twelve thousand men-at- arms.^ Froissart and other writers of fair authority raise this figure to twenty thousand. The crossbowmen were at least six thousand strong — though the fifteen thousand given by some writers is of course a "ridiculous overstatement of their force. The communal militia was certainly not less than twenty thousand, and the total muster of the foot was swollen by a number of mercenaries other than the Genoese, the " bidets " of whom Jean le Bel, Froissart, and the rest make mention, as well as by those of the retainers of the feudal chiefs who did not serve on horseback. We can hardly state the whole host at less than sixty thousand strong ; it included not only the whole levy of Northern France, but a great part of the army which had been jerving in the south. The names of many chiefs who had been Dperating against the Earl of Derby in Guienne, two months before, are to be found among the list of the slain or the captives 3f Crecy. Nor was it French forces only which had taken the leld ; there had come to Philip's aid John King of Bohemia, and lis son Charles, afterwards emperor, who already styled himself King of the Romans. They had brought not only a contingent of Bohemian and German knights, but a large body of men-at- irms from their ancestral duchy of Luxemburg. Other subjects )f the Holy Roman Empire were present in great numbers

^ Villani's figure, and that of Northburgh in the letter from Calais.

39

6io THE ART OF WAR IN THE MIDDLE AGES [1346

under the Duke of Lorraine and the Counts of Namur and Hainault, of Salm, Montbeliard, Blamont, and Saarbriicken. James, the exiled King of Majorca, had also come to fight for his host, King Philip. Of the vassals of the French crown there were present the Counts of Flanders, Blois, Alengon, Aum^le, Auxerre, Sancerre, Harcourt, St-Pol, Roussy, Dampierre. Beaujeu, Forez, the Dauphin of Auvergne, and many scores oi barons of more or less note — all the nobility, in fact, of Northern and Central France.

When King Philip struggled to the front, he found his army so close to the English line that it was impossible to draw i1 back with safety. The whole face of the earth between Estree.' and Fontaine was covered by the weltering mass, but the more advanced troops were forming up in some semblance of array or the hillside in front of Estrees. Despairing of his power to ge the chaos into order, or carried away by his anger and vexatioi at seeing the English army sitting quietly on the slope bj Wadicourt, Philip gave orders for the vaward to move on. Th( six thousand crossbowmen under the two Genoese condottieri Odone Doria and Carlo Grimaldi, prepared to open th< fight, and a deep line of men-at-arms under the Counts o Alengon and Flanders formed up in their rear. The res of the host was still in utter disarray, presenting no sem blance of any division between foot and horse, main-battle o rearward.

The hour of vespers was now past, and the French wer moving towards the edge of the Estrees plateau, when a suddei thunderstorm swept up from the sea and burst just over the battle field. The combatants on both sides were drenched to the skir and the darkness caused the advancing columns to halt. But i: a few minutes the clouds rolled by, and the evening sun burs forth with great brilliance, shining brightly in the eyes of th French army.^

At once the crossbowmen began to descend the valle which lies between Estrdes and Wadicourt. Twice they haltec uttered a shout of defiance, and saw to the alignment of thei advance. Then they moved on for the third time, cheered one more, and began to let fly their bolts at the enemy. It was a

^ Only one chronicler, and he not one of the best, the second continuer « William de Nangis, mentions the often-repeated allegation that the shooting of tf Genoese was spoiled by the wetting of the crossbow cords in the storm.

[346] CRECY: THE ARCHERS AT WORK 611

ong range, and English accounts say that they slew hardly a nan, their missiles falling short a few yards in front of the mark. ?ar otherwise was it with the answering volley. The English irchers took one pace forward, drew their arrows to the head, md shot so fast and close that it looked as if a snowstorm were )eating upon the line of Genoese. Their shafts nailed the lelmet to the head, pierced brigandine and breast, and laid low veil - nigh the whole front line of the assailants in the first noment of the conflict. The crossbowmen only stood their ground for a few minutes ; their losses were so fearful that some lung away their weapons, others cut their bowstrings, and 11 reeled backwards up the slope which they had just iescended.^

The Count of Alengon and his horsemen failed to perceive he plight in which the Genoese had been placed ; they imagined hat treason or cowardice was driving them back. Instead of 'pening intervals in their line to let the routed infantry pass to he rear, they came pricking hastily down the slope, crying, Away with these faint-hearted rabble ! they do but block our dvance," and crashed into the panic-stricken mob which was scoiling towards them. Then, finding themselves caught in the ress and unable to advance, they drew their swords and began slash right and left among the miserable Genoese, to force leir way to the front. This mad attempt to ride down their wn infantry was fatal to the front line of the French chivalry. n spite of themselves they were brought to a stand at the foot f the slope, where the whole mass of horse and foot rocked elplessly to and fro under a constant hail of arrows from the English archery. " For the bowmen let fly among them at large, nd did not lose a single shaft, for every arrow told on horse or lan, piercing head, or arm, or leg among the riders and sending le horses mad. For some stood stock-still, and others rushed ideways, and most of all began backing in spite of their lasters, and some were rearing or tossing their heads at the rrows, and others when they felt the bit threw themselves own. So the knights in the first French battle fell, slain or

^ We need not pay much heed to the statements of Villani and the Grmtdes hroniques de France that the English had two or three small cannon in their front le, which scared the Genoese and the horses of the men-at-arms. It is most un- kely that cannon could have been brought across France with the field army at such 1 early date : we do not find them used in the field for many years later. Moreover English chronicler mentions them.

6ii THE ART OF WAR IN THE MIDDLE AGES [134

sore stricken, almost without seeing the men who sle^ them."

Only a few of the men-at-arms of the Counts of Alenco and Flanders succeeded in piercing through the press an drawing near the English line. It is doubtful whether a sing] rider reached it and got to handstrokes with the enemy. Th battle, however, was but commencing; the main body of tt French host made no attempt to allow the vaward to draw c and clear .the way, but pushed down the slope to rescue ther In the second charge fell King John of Bohemia, who, thoug blind, or nearly so, had refused to hold back. He bade tl knights at his bridle-rein " lead him so far forward that 1 should have one fair blow at the English." He had his desin his followers succeeded in piercing through the press and read ing the line of the Prince of Wales' men-at-arms, by " coastir : along the archers," so that they were able to ride in upon tl English spears. But their charge was but an isolated effort, ai the whole party fell dead around the king, save two squires wl cut their way home to tell of his fate. Charles of Luxembui who had been separated from his father early in the battle, le the field unharmed, and survived to wear the Imperial crov for thirty years.

The battle of Crecy was but a long series of reckless and i ordered charges, such as that which John of Bohemia k After the first onset there was no attempt to set the main-bat and rearward in array, or to arrange for a simultaneous on.' all along the English line. As each body of French knigl worked its way to the front, it launched itself at the English, a soon fell back discomfited into the seething mass behind, far the greater part of the loss was due to the arrows of t English archery, who succeeded in maintaining their position through the fight, and kept up a deadly flank discharge on es wave of assailants that surged forward. The main assault the French seems in every case to have been directed against 1 English men-at-arms : as they advanced, the arrows beat up the outer riders and slew or dismounted them, but the cent section of each squadron, protected by their fellows' bodies fn the flanking fire, often reached the front of the prince's Arundel's dismounted knights and pressed hard upon the The main stress seems to have fallen on the southern " batt probably because the enemy emerging from the Fontai:

346] CREfY: THE FRENCH CLOSE 613

Vbbeville road made haste to strike at the nearest foe. On one -ccasion ^ at least an attack was pushed home with such angerous vigour that those about the prince sent a hasty equest for succour to the king. Edward, commanding the v'hole battlefield from his post at the windmill, was better able 0 judge of the general aspect of the fight, and refused to move is reserve, though he consented to send down thirty knights nder the Bishop of Durham- to strengthen his son's division.

The prince's battle, though hard pressed at this time, did ot yield a foot, and the stress which lay upon them was pparently drawn off when the Earls of Arundel and North- mpton pushed forward their corps, which had hitherto lain omewhat farther up the hillside, and aligned it with the first attle on a level front. As the dusk advanced, the assaults of he French grew more and more haphazard and partial ; but he barons of the rear divisions still persisted in pushing to the rent and trying their fortune. A few seem to have ridden in mong the archers, and Froissart records the fate of a Hainault night who pierced their line at one point, rode unharmed long their rear, and galloped back through a gap towards the ^Vench, before he was shot down and disabled.^ But the late- omers, as well as those who opened the battle, seem to have pent themselves in trying to ride down the men-at-arms rather han in the more rational attempt to dispose of the bowmen.

From first to last the English counted that fifteen * or ixteen ^ separate and successive attacks were delivered against hem, all with equal ill success. The fighting lasted long after usk — indeed it was not till midnight, according to one trust- • orthy authority, that the last broken bands of the French eased to dash themselves against the impenetrable line. But ince the sun set the more faint-hearted of the enemy had radually begun to withdraw themselves from the field, and as he night wore on the host melted away, and Philip of France t last found himself with no more than seventy lances beside lim as he rode up and down the slope below Estrees and tried

^ This is the time when the prince, according to Baker, was actually beaten to his nees, and to which the celebrated saying in Froissart about **the boy must win his purs " belongs.

- Baker of Swinbrook, p. 84, and the Valenciennes Chronicler, p. 232.

' Froissart in K. de Lettenhove's edition, v. p. 61.

^ Baker of Swinbrook, p. 84.

° Northburgh's letter from Calais in Avesliury.

6i4 THE ART OF WAR IN THE MIDDLE AGES [134

to organise one more hopeless assault on the hostile positioi Then John Count of Hainault laid his hand on the king bridle and led him to the rear, to take shelter for the night i the castle of La Broye, six miles behind the battlefield. Phili had had a horse killed beneath him by one arrow, and ha received a slight wound in the neck from another.

The English, well content to have beaten off their enemie and not fully conscious of the fearful damage they had wrough lay down in their ranks to snatch a few hours of repose befoi the dawn. The morning of the 27th was foggy, and it wj impossible to see what had become of the French arm though the piles of corpses in the valley at the foot of tl English slope and on the hillside below Estr^es showe clearly enough that the enemy had suffered tremendoi losses. Accordingly the king bade the Earls of Suffolk ar Northampton take five hundred men-at-arms and two thousar bowmen, and push forward on to the French position ar beyond it. This reconnaissance led to a sharp skirmish : tl earls found still lingering about the field many of the bodies communal militia, who had come up too late to take part yesterday's battle, as well as a force of men-at-arms und the Archbishop of Rouen and the Grand Prior of the Hospitallei who had only just arrived from Normandy. Both these cor; were scattered with much slaughter : it is said that as many three thousand of them fell.^

When the last of the French had been driven away, Kii Edward allowed his army to break their ranks and strip t slain. The heralds went round to identify the nobler dead, ai found that one thousand five hundred and forty-two lords ai knights had fallen : ^ the number of those not of gentle blot who had perished was never clearly ascertained ; the estimat given vary from ten thousand up to thirty thousand. On t other hand, the English had lost no m.ore than two knights, o squire, some forty men-at-arms and archers, and a few doz Welsh, who, as one eye-witness ^ says, " fatue se exposuerun by running out from the line between two charges to slay plunder the disabled knights who were lying about at the k of the English slope.

^ Baker of Swinbrook, p. 85.

2 Northburgh's letter in Avesbury, p. 369 of Rolls Series edition.

^ Wynkeley's letter, Avesbury, p. 216.

1346] CRECY: THE SLAIN 615

The most notable among the slain in the defeated army- were the King of Bohemia, the Duke of Lorraine, the Counts of Flanders, Alencon, Auxerre, Harcourt, Sancerre, Blois, Grandpre, Salm, Blamont, and Forez. Among the few- prisoners were the Bishop of Noyon and the Archdeacon of Paris, who had unwisely thrust themselves among the fighting men. The Counts of Aumale, Montbeliard, and Rosenberg were borne wounded from the field : the last-named died of his wounds two months later.

The fight of Cregy was a revelation to the Western world. The English but a few years before had no special fame in war : ^ their victories over the Welsh and Scots were hardly known on the Continent ; their French wars under Henry IIL and Edward I. had brought them no glory. It was contrary to all expectation and likelihood that with odds of three to one against them they should easily discomfit the most formidable chivalry of Europe. But the moral of their victory was not fully grasped at first. It was obvious that they had won parti}' by their splendid archery, partly by the steadiness of their dismounted men - at - arms. The real secret was that King- Edward had known how to combine the two forms of military efficiency. But that it was the combination which had been his stroke of genius, was not altogether understood by his enemies. They dreaded the English arrow for the future ; they copied the English practice of sending the horses to the rear. But they did not show, by any improvement in their tactics, that they had grasped the meaning of the English victory.

^ See Jean le Bel, Chroniques, i. p. 154.

CHAPTER III

POICTIERS, COCKEREL, AND AURAY, 1 356-64

AVERY interesting piece of evidence as to the terror whici the EngHsh archery inspired after the day of Crecy i given in Sir Thomas Dagworth's letter describing his victory a La Roche Darien on June 20, 1347. He says that Charles o Blois, expecting to be attacked in his camp, had taken th( l)ains to cut down every hedge and fill up every ditch for i full mile around it, in order that the English bowmen might no" be able to find any cover or secure any advantageous positior which might protect them from a charge, but be obliged to figh- in the open field.^ Dagworth made these precautions of nc effect by attacking before dawn ; but in the confused night struggle which followed it cannot be said that his archery were o any greater use than billmen or spearmen would have been, sinct they were fighting hand to hand all through the engagement It is curious to find how little resemblance there appean between Dagworth's succinct narration of the fight and tht long and picturesque description in Froissart. But there car be no doubt which of the two versions must go to the wall the contemporary despatch must take precedence over th( chronicler's tale.

There was no fight of first-rate importance between the day of Cregy and that of Poictiers, and little military instructior is to be found by investigating the details of such disorderly skirmishes as those which took place near Taillebourg in Apri and near Ardres in June 1351. At the former engagement botl sides kept to their horses — the English men-at-arms, indeed, were

^ "Lequel Monsieur Charles hors de sa forteresse avoit fait plenir et enracer i demi-leage du pais tout maneres de fosses et de haies, par quei mes archiers m puissent trover leur avantages sur lui, mais convient a fyn force de combatte er plains champs " (Robert of Avesbury, p. 159).

616

357] COMBAT OF ARDRES 617

ghting merely to delay the P>ench while their infantry were making off in charge of the great convoy of plunder which they ad collected in Saintonge. Taillebourg was simply " a good )ust": the two bodies of horsemen, not very different in umbers, charged each other front to front, and, having passed irough each other's lines, wheeled and came back to the shock. ,11 was then a confused melee, in which the English finally had le better.

At the fiercer combat of Ardres, on the other hand, the nglish tried their new method of dismounting and sending leir horses to the rear, but with disastrous results, because ley had too few of the necessary archers with them. Sir John iauchamp had pushed out from Calais with three hundred )rsemen and two hundred mounted archers.^ He swept the )untryside as far as Boulogne and St. Omer, and collected any hundred head of cattle and a considerable mass of booty other kinds. There was a large French garrison in St. Omer, -•aded by Edward lord of Beaujeu, the Marshal of France, lich promptly turned out to pursue the raiders. The lord of jaujeu himself, with a hundred men-at-arms, outstripped the St of his force, and soon came in sight of the English : the St of his followers, horse and foot, were straggling along the ad for miles to the rear. Seeing the enemy near at hand, iauchamp sent off his convoy in charge of twenty men-at-arms d eighty archers, and stopped behind himself to cover its treat. He got off the road and ranged his force behind the tch of a large field, sending the horses to the rear. Edward Beaujeu came rushing blindfold against the English line, and, rtling against ditch and lances, was overthrown and slain. :auchamp might then have marched upon Calais, but, over-con- ent with success, he lingered till the rest of the French were ming up, and it was no longer possible to withdraw without a :ond fight. Guichard of Beaujeu,brotherof the fallen marshal, led •econd charge against the English, but was wounded, and only cceeded in crossing the ditch and coming to handstrokes with auchamp's men. But shortly afterwards the remainder of the ench men-at-arms, under the Count of Chateau-Porcien, came crying up, and, passing round the flanks of the English, beset Jin on both sides. Finally, the infantry of the garrison of

^ These are the numbers of Knighton and Baker of Swinbrook. Froissart says r hundred men-at-arms and three hundred archers.

6i8 THE ART OF WAR IN THE MIDDLE AGES [135

St. Omer, " five hundred brigans armed with spear and shield reached the field, and, wheeling round the mass of the combatant charged the English in the rear. The blow was decisive, f( the invaders were tired out, and already giving way before tl superior numbers assailing them. Beauchamp gave up his swor and the survivors of his party were captured to a man. Bea champ's error is easily seen : he had too few archers with him,- only one hundred and twenty after the plunder had been sent c — and these had used up their arrows before the third Fren- division came on the field. He had taken a position which h. some cover in front, but none on the flanks, and could easily turned by superior numbers. Lastly, he might have retir after checking the first French onslaught and slaying the lo of Beaujeu, but stayed to fight again, " animose sed non sapiente out of mere chivalrous enterprise.

I

Battle of Poictiers, September 19, 1356.

Such secondary combats are of no great interest or impc ance. The next military lesson of real moment is only fou \ when we reach 1356, and investigate the details of the celebrai battle of Poictiers. In the autumn of 1355 the Black Prince \ sallied forth from Bordeaux and pushed a destructive but rat! objectless raid as far as Toulouse and Narbonne. The Frei had not dared to meet him in the open field, and he had retun to Bordeaux loaded with spoil. In the summer of 1356 resolved to conduct a similar foray into the heart of Cen France — the districts along the upper and middle course of Loire. Like his father, the younger Edward does not shine the sphere of strategy. Though he seems to have had some va idea of ultimately pushing northward to join the force under brother John of Gaunt, which was operating on the border Normandy, his route and his whole conduct of the campc shows that his primary object was merely to harry as mucl France as he could, to defy King John, and to bring bad Bordeaux as large a store of plunder as his men could con His army, indeed, was too weak to do much more than exc' a destructive raid, mustering only between three thousand four thousand men-at-arms, two thousand five hundred or t thousand archers, and a thousand light troops of other ki " sergeants," " brigans," and Gascon " bidowers." Apparent!} bowmen were all mounted, that they might be able to 1

1356] THE BLACK PRINCE INVADES FRANCE 619

ip with the knights if hard marching became necessary. This *act accounts for the small proportion in which they appear in ;he host ; ordinarily the archers outnumbered the men-at-arms bur or fivefold in an English expedition. But on this occasion I very large part of the prince's army was composed of the loblesse of Guienne, who brought with them hardly any followers >ave their contingent of mailed horsemen.

The prince started from Bergerac on August 4; he swept hrough Limousin and Berry as far as Chateauroux and Vierzon ; hen, turning somewhat westward, he wasted the valley of the ^oire, confining himself to its southern bank because all the )ridges had been broken by the French. He made no attempt o seize on garrison towns, — indeed the castle of Romorantin in Serry was the only fortified place which he assailed, — but pushed teadily on, not tiring his men by long marches, but covering )nly three or four leagues a day, and gathering in a vast quantity )f plunder.

Meanwhile, John of France had begun to collect his army at "hartres, to repel the invasion with which the Duke of Lancaster lad threatened Normandy. But when the duke's expedition ad failed, he was able to turn his attention to the far more langerous attack from the south. Accordingly he marched gainst Prince Edward, who was now feeling his way westward long the southern bank of the Loire. When the English had cached Tours and were battering away at its suburbs, they learned hat King John, with an army of some forty thousand men, had rossed the Loire at Blois, thirty miles east of them, and was lastening to throw himself between them and their base in / \quitaine. The great road southward from Tours to Bordeaux I an through Poictiers, and John was marching on that town, where le would be in a good position for intercepting the invaders' retreat. )n hearing that his enemy had moved southward, Prince Edward lastily abandoned his demonstration against Tours, and made off n the very direction which the king had expected him to take.

The intelligence department of both armies seems to have een conducted with even more than the usual slackness of the Jiddle Ages, for, though each was looking out for the other, they inally collided in the most casual way and by the merest chance, .'hough they were converging on the same place, they remained ntirely ignorant of each other's exact position, with the result hat on September 17 the prince, marching from Chatelherault

620 THE ART OF WAR IN THE MIDDLE AGES [135^

on Poictiers, suddenly came on the rear of the French army which had been marching across his front all the morning as i' moved from La Haye on Poictiers. The English vanguarc pounced on the straggling corps at the tail of the French host routed them, and took prisoners the Counts of Auxerre an( Joigny. If John had been a little slower in moving, or Edwan a little quicker, the result would have been that the Englis] would have struck into the very midst of the French host. A it was, they not only avoided this danger, but found that, mos providentially, the enemy had overshot his mark, and left th way to Bordeaux open to them.

Accordingly the prince, now certain of his rival's positioi avoided Poictiers, pushed southward by a cross-road, and halte for the night at the little village of Maupertuis, seven miles soutl east of the ancient city.

To halt even for a few hours was to risk a battle, but ^1: English were now fatigued with several days of forced marchin ; and no doubt their beasts of burden were tired out. The hu^ j mass of booty heaped on waggons or piled on the backs < sumpter-horses must have brought down their speed to a me three miles an hour, and rendered rapid motion wholly impossibl Edward had now to choose whether he would sacrifice his plund and execute a hasty retreat on Bordeaux, or whether he vvou risk a fight rather than abandon his baggage. The first altern tiv^e would have been safe but wholly ignominious to one wh with all his military virtues, was, after all, a typical knight of t fourteenth century. He resolved to take his chance, and stand his ground on the next morning, ready to receive t French if they should move against him, but ready also to nvo off and avoid a conflict if the enemy should hang back lo; enough to allow him to start off his train on the Bordeaux roa

So far our chronicles are fairly unanimous ; but as to t circumstances which led up to the actual opening of the bat .■ there are two divergent accounts, between which we have choose. They turn on the topography of the field, concern! v/hich it is necessary to say a few words.

The prince's position lay close to the village of Mauperti a place which has now entirely disappeared, and is represent only by the isolated farm of La Cardinerie. The whole fi of the country was much covered with trees and thickets, a

^ See his own letter, printed in Sir H. Nicholas' Loftdon Chronicle.

1356] THE POSITION OF MAUPERTUIS 621

behind lay the dense wood of Nouaille. The ground was fairly evel all around ; there is only some twenty or thirty feet of difference between the highest and the lowest level of the rolling olateau. But to the south the field was bounded by the river Miausson, a stream with a deep muddy bottom, running along 1 marshy valley some hundred feet below the level of the Dlateau. It was crossed to the left rear of the English position 3y a ford named the Gue de THomme, over which lay the line )f retreat on Bordeaux. If the prince could have been certain )f getting his enormous train over the Miausson without being ittacked, he might have gone on his way with a light heart. 3ut it was obvious that, while baggage and army were defiling I icross the ford, there would be great danger of a disaster if the i "rench made a brisk assault on the rear of the long line of \ Tiarch. For King John and his army were too close to the English to be easily eluded : their watchfires were in sight of Maupertuis, and both sides were watering their horses at the iame stream.

It seemed inevitable that a collision would take place when he morning of the i8th dawned, and the prince made hasty efforts to strengthen his position. He seems to have lain acing north-west, with his right placed in the thickets which an out from the north end of the wood of Nouaille, and his eft somewhat beyond La Cardinerie (Maupertuis). Behind his ght centre was a low hill, if a rise of twenty feet deserves that lame, which has still preserved the name of " La Masse aux \nglais." His horses were parked so as to be hidden from the rench by this rolling ground. The whole position was so nasked by hedges and thickets that it was difficult to reconnoitre t,or even to ascertain its limits. On one or both flanks waggons isd been hastily drawn together, to cover gaps in the line of crub and bush. This is said to have been specially the case »n the flank farthest from the river.^ The front of. the position /Sis formed by a thick thorn hedge with a ditch in front of it, •ierced only on one point by a country road wide enough for Dur horses abreast : this was probably the path that led down a the Gue de I'Homme, the prince's line of retreat.

* I conclude that when the French scouts on September 19 reported that they ad reconnoitred the English line, and found fhe left so barricaded, that they meant Tear own left, and did not put themselves in the prince's position and think of his ft.

«622 THE ART OF WAR IN THE MIDDLE AGES [i35(

To hold this position Edward had divided his army into th< usual three " battles " of the mediaeval host. The vaward wa led by the Earls of Warwick ^ and Oxford,^ but consisted to ; very large extent of the prince's Gascon vassals under th seigneurs of Pommiers, Albret, L'Esparre, Montferrand, an( Mucident, and the Captal de Buch. The main-battle, under th prince himself, included the English barons Audley, Cobhan De la Warre, Despenser, Burghersh, and the pick of the pre fessional soldiers who followed the English banner — Sir|Joh Chandos, Sir William Felton, and Sir Nigel Loring. Th rearward was given to the Earls of Salisbury ^ and Suffolk who had with them the Lords Willoughby, Multon, and Basse Sir Maurice Berkeley, and some of the prince's mercenaric from the Netherlands, under Daniel Pasele and Denis of Mo beke. Each battle contained somewhat over a thousand mei at-arms, about the same number of English archers, and a fe hundreds of Gascon light troops.

In the original drawing up of the host Warwick must ha\ \ held the northern and Salisbury the southern end of the positio i But, as w^e shall see, the array of the host was wholly change before the battle, and it was the rearward which ultimate" opened the fight, the vaward taking post south of it, and not . its proper place.

The prince's position, however, was not destined to 1 -assailed on the i8th. That the fighting did not occur till tl next day was due to the well-intentioned but hopeless interve tion of the Cardinal of Perigord.^ The good prelate had be< hovering about the two armies for some days, in the hope prevailing on the princes to spare the effusion of Christian blo( by concluding a treaty of peace. He now begged John to allc him to visit the English camp and offer his services as int( mediary : the invaders, indeed, were in a position sufficient hazardous to justify Edward in thinking twice before refusii reasonable terms. The French king very unwisely granted t

^ Thomas Beauchamp, then a man of forty-three, a veteran of Cre9y.

2 John de Vere, aged forty-three, like Warwick, and also, like him, a Cre9y m

^ William Montacute, aged twenty-eight, had served as a youth at Cre9y, i been knighted by the Prince of Wales.

* Robert de Ufford, then aged fifty-eight, had served in Flanders, and Cre9y.

^ Bearing the name, destined to be famous four hundred and fifty years later Talleyrand de Perigord,

356] POICTIERS: ABORTIVE NEGOTIATIONS 623

ardinal's request : he should undoubtedly have spent the morn- ig in endeavouring to march round the English flank, either n the left or the right bank of the Miausson : such a movement ould have forced the enemy either to abandon his baggage nd decamp at once, or to risk being surrounded.

The negotiations, as was to be expected, came to nought, .ccording to Froissart's account, the prince offered to dismiss his risoners without ransom, give up any castles or towns he had .ken during the expedition, and make a seven years' truce, he French demanded that he and a hundred chosen knights lould give themselves up as hostages, and on this point the 'scussion was broken off. Chandos Herald gives the more 'obable statement that Edward replied that he was not ithorised to make any treaty or truce without his father's lowledge and permission. It is at any rate certain that nglish and French commissioners met between the two mies, discussed terms, and parted without any satisfactory suit. The cardinal's futile diversion had wasted the greater part the 1 8th of September: while the negotiations were going on, dward might probably have absconded, for the French army id not properly reconnoitred his position nor taken any easures to watch the exits from it. But knightly honour imanded that no movement should take place during time of ace, and the prince deferred all action till the 19th.

Of his plan for the next morning we have two distinct counts. Chandos Herald, a first-rate authority with a good ilitary eye, tells us that he had determined to draw off from s position and quietly march for Bordeaux. " The prince," : says, "put his men in order, and willingly would he have oided an action, if he could have managed it. But he saw ill what he had to do : . . . accordingly he summoned the Earl Warwick, gave him charge of the van, and said to him, * You all first go over the passage and take our baggage in charge : ivill ride after you with all my knights, that if you meet with y mischance we may reinforce you : and the Earl of Salisbury all follow behind and lead our rear-battle. Let us each be on our guard, and, in case the French fall upon us, let every in dismount as quickly as he can, to fight on foot' " So they :tled the matter over-night, and in the morning " the prince left ; quarters and set out to ride away, for on this day he did not

624 THE ART OF WAR IN THE MIDDLE AGES [13

think to fight, but thought rather that he could avoid an actioi Warwick had already passed the Miausson with the convoy, ai the prince himself had marched off, when the French hasti moved forward and assailed Salisbury and the rear-battle, w] were still holding the position of the previous day, to cover th( comrades' retreat. To save Salisbury, the prince had to whf back and take up his old line of defence. But ere he h returned, the covering force had beaten off the first Fren assault, "long before the van-battle could be turned and pc back to them, for it was already beyond the river."

This account of the circumstances which brought about t battle is eminently probable and rational, but unfortunately does not coincide with any other narrative, English or Fren- Froissart, the majority of the chroniclers who wrote fn English sources, and also the French historians, speak Edward as having made no movement to the rear, but as havi deliberately waited for the assault of the enemy in his position. Only one of the English writers. Baker of Swinbroc speaks of the prince as having been occupied in drawing off ■ field at the moment when Salisbury was attacked, and account differs in its details from that of Chandos. *' 1 prince," he says, "saw that away on his flank there was a ' girt round with hedges and ditches, with its top occupied par by scrubb}^ pasture-ground, partly by ploughed fields and vi yards ; he thought it probable that a body of French might hidden in these fields.^ Between us and the hill was a consid able valley with steep banks, and a marsh with a stream flow through it. The prince's battle and the convoy of bagg; passed the stream at a narrow ford, and, having crossed valley, made its way through the hedges and ditches c occupied the hill, where he was hidden from view by the thicl and yet himself commanded a view of the enemy. The Frer seeing the prince's banner clearly in sight at first, then gradu. moving off, and finally concealed from their sight by interv^ening ridge, thought that he was retreating." Accordin they fell hastily upon the English position, and became engaj with Salisbury and the rear-battle.

^ But Baker, it is to be remembered, gives far the best and longest accoui the fight after Froissart and Chandos. The other chronicles are short and poor.

^ I imagine myself that it was the hill partly covered by the Bois de St. Pieri :the south side of the Miausson. (See Map.)

356] POICTIERS: PRELIMINARY MOVEMENTS 625

So far this account might pass for a variant of the tale told

y Chandos. What the latter considers to have been the

ommencement of a general retreat, Baker may have chosen to

^present as a lateral movement destined to occupy the hill

eyond the Miausson, and so to prevent the main position from

eing turned by any French corps detached to the south of that

.ream. But the difficulties of Baker's version only commence

hen the prince has reached the outlying hill, for he never gives

ny account of Edward's return from that position, and presently

)eaks of him as joining in the resistance to the later attacks of

le French. Either, therefore, he has forgotten to describe

Award's recrossing of the Miausson, or he conceives of the

anking hill as on the north side of that stream, and not out of

)uch with the rest of the English army. Sir Edward Maunde

hompson in his learned exposition of Baker's story leans to the

iter view, and holds that the stream and " marsh " which the

rince crossed on his way to the hill were the little runlet

hich flows, or rather once flowed, from a long- vanished pool ^

lar La Cardinerie, down to the Miausson. I must confess that

cannot recognise in the " ampla profundaque vallis et mariscus,

•rrente quodam irriguus " of which Baker speaks, the fifteen

■ twenty feet dip in the hillside with a mere trickle of water

nning down it, which lies south-west of Maupertuis. Allowing

r all possible exaggeration in the description, I fail to see that

iker can be speaking of any stream except the Miausson. When

s narrative is read along with that of Chandos, the identifica-

)n of his torrens with the Herald's riviere seems absolutely

:cessary. The only alternative, therefore, which remains to us,

to believe that Baker, in his hurry to get on to the picturesque

'tails of the fighting, forgets to say that the prince, when he

w Salisbury beset by the French, reversed his lateral move-

ent and came back to join his rear-battle on the original

isition. I shall adopt this hypothesis in my account of the

gagement.

The French king had drawn up his army early on the th for a general assault on the English line, but was still very [perfectly informed as to the strength and exact position of J enemy. The countryside was so masked with woods and dges that he had not been able to learn much from the

^ The "Abreuvoir aux Anglais " of Colonel Babinet, the local antiquary, who has le much to fix the sites of the battle. 40

/

626 THE ART OF WAR IN THE MIDDLE AGES [135

knights whom he had sent out to reconnoitre the hostile front They could only report that the English were " strongly poste along a road with a hedge and a ditch beside it, with the hedg lined with archers, and the men-at-arms drawn up behind amon the vines and thorn bushes, all on foot ; the hedge had but or gap in it, where four knights might ride abreast ; save at th point there was no way of getting at the English except h breaking through the archers, who were never easy to dislodge.'

In preparing his assault on the English position. King Jol adopted a method of fighting which had never before be( practised by the French. At the suggestion of Eustace ( Ribeaumont (according to Froissart) or of William Dougl (as Baker tells the tale), he resolved to make the greater pc of his men-at-arms dismount and assail the English on fo' Only a small body of picked horsemen, a kind of forlorn ho] i was to precede the main army and endeavour to break throu the archers by a sudden charge, so as to prepare the way their comrades.

The reasons which led John to adopt this order of bat were much disputed at the time, and have caused mi discussion in after-ages. The approach to the English posit' was difficult for horsemen, and the ground all about it was so thick with bushes and trees, which might have thrown a gr body of cavalry into disorder.^ The deadly accuracy of arrows of the English archers, who had made such havoc amc the horses at Cregy that the French knights had never b' able to push their charge home, was a second reason. If on bare downs of Cregy the horsemen had been completely checl they would fare far worse on the plateau of Maupertuis with scrubby thickets, hedgerows, and vineyards.^ Something, doubt, was due to the king's unskilful argument by analog the English of late had always been successful by dismount

^ They were sent out before the Cardinal's intervention ; John does not sec have made any second reconnaissance on the 19th.

2 This account in Froissart agrees very well with Baker's statement that the upper end of the hedge, where it was farthest from the slope down towar marsh, was a gap or opening, made by carters, and our third (or rear) battl diawn up a stone's throw in rear of this gap, under the Earl of Salisbury."

^ This is the only reason given in the speech which Froissart puts into the t < of Eustace de Ribeaumont: "Car il y a tant de vignes que cheval ne s'i poi avoir. "

* This is John le Bel's view : ' ' Tous se combattoient a pye, pour doubtanc archers, qui tuoient leurs chevaulx, comma a h bataille de Crejy" (vol. ii. 197).

^56] POICTIERS: TACTICS OF KING JOHN 627

hy should he not turn their own tactics against them ? He

)rgot, unfortunately, that the English victories had all been

on by acting on the defensive, and that tactics which might be

Imirable for a small army defending a position against superior

ambers might be absurd for a large army striving to evict a

sser one from its chosen ground. Baker of Swinbrook may

irhaps be right in attributing this unhappy suggestion to

^illiam Douglas, who — as he says — told John that " since the

•esent king came to the throne the English have generally

ught on foot, imitating the Scots ever since their disaster at

mnockburn. Wherefore he advised that the French should

py the Scots manner, and attack the enemy on foot rather

an on horseback." Whether Douglas or the king first

nceived the idea, it was a hopeless misapplication of the facts

at lay before them. The French men-at-arms of 1356 were

w far too heavily armed to make it easy for them to march a

lie on foot, scramble through bush and brier, and assault a

ill-guarded position : like the Austrians at Sempach, they were

find that the knightly armour was grown too cumbrous to

ow of operations which would have been quite feasible eighty

ars before, when chain mail had not yet been superseded by

ite. All through the day they were fighting against fatigue

d over-exhaustion as much as against the enemy. Very

ferent was the case of the English, who, as at Halidon and

e^y, had only to hold their ground and keep their line, and

1 not move to the assault till the last phase of the battle.

lally, we should remember that King John forgot, in his

sapplied endeavour to iearn the secret of victory from his

tmy, that the essential part of the English tactics was not

: mere dismounting of the men-at-arms, but the proper

nbination of them with the archery : Cre^y and Halidon were

n by the bowmen even more than by the knighthood. The

ter would in each case have been surrounded and over-

elmed but for their auxiliaries on the wings. At Poictiers

m had a considerable body of troops armed with missile

ipons, — two thousand arbalest men besides many other light

3ps, — but he did not attempt to combine them with his men-

irms after the English fashion. He sent the crossbowmen,

eed, forward with his first battle, but did not dispose them so

:o endeavour to check the English archery ; in this respect

seems to have acted even more unreasonably than his father

628 THE ART OF WAR IN THE MIDDLE AGES [1356

at Creqy ; Philip had at any rate given the Genoese some opportunity of trying their mettle in 1346. John so mixed them up with his men-at-arms that they never had a fair chance of using their weapons.

His disposition of his forces must be shortly stated. The first battle, which was smaller than the other three, was giver to the two Marshals D'Audrehem and Clermont Unde them were arrayed the three hundred picked horsemen whon we have already mentioned ; their orders were to ride in rapidl- upon the English, and at all costs close with them and cu up the archers. Next behind the forlorn hope came the mai body of the first battle, which included a considerable body c German auxiliaries under the Counts of Saarbrijcken, Nidai and Nassau. These, like the marshals' three hundred, kept t their horses : with them marched the two thousand crossbov men of whom we have spoken above, and two thousar "sergeans a pied," armed with darts and javelins.

The second battle was led by the king's eldest son, Charl Duke of Normandy, and the Duke of Bourbon : it is said have mustered four thousand men-at-arms. The third was und the king's brother, Philip Duke of Orleans, and is reckoned three thousand men-at-arms. The fourth and far the large battle marched under the command of John himself, who h at his side his youngest son, Philip, a mere boy of fourteen, his company were the Counts of Eu, Longueville, Sancerre, a Dammartin, and twenty-three banners in all of great counts a lords. The division was at least six thousand strong.

In all, the French army appears to have counted about s teen thousand cavalry, of whom half were fully-equipped ni< at-arms, and some four thousand or five thousand foot-soldie these latter all trained mercenaries. The infantry of communal militia were not on the field to swell the numb and decrease the efficiency of the host. Froissart is undoubte stating the numbers of the French too high when he reck- them at forty thousand or fifty thousand strong. A g( corrective to his exaggerated figures is to be found in the 1^' written from the field by Bartholomew Lord Burghersh, \ estimated the beaten army at no more than eight thous horsemen and three thousand footmen.^ But Burghersh

^ Baker of Swinbrook also speaks of "eight thousand men-at-anns, to tal account of sergeants, under eighty-seven banners." He makes no mention of

356] POICTIERS: THE MARSHALS' CHARGE 629

ust as far out in underrating as Froissart in overrating the :nemy.

It was apparently the half- descried withdrawal of the English van and main body which led King John to order the idvance. At once the marshals and their battles pricked brward at full speed, leaving the three great bodies of dis- nounted men-at-arms to follow as best they could. They cached the English line long before their fellows were on the ield, for their only care was to close in haste before the enemy ;hould have withdrawn. Clermont is said to have wished to lold back and allow the main body to come up, but D'Audrehem aunted him with sloth and over-caution, and, after a sharp exchange of words, both dashed forward towards the hedge, "lermont made for the gap in it, towards the north end of the English position ; D'Audrehem attacked lower down.

The result of this hasty and inconsiderate charge was as iisastrous as might have been expected. The English archers ined the hedge and shot down the horses of the greater part of he three hundred knights of the forlorn hope ; the survivors ind the German men-at-arms who followed them were only ible to close slowly and in small parties. A fierce combat raged lU along the hedge, but Salisbury held his own without difficulty, md he was presently relieved by the hasty return of Warwick ind the Prince of Wales, who had left the convoy to take care )f itself when they saw the French approaching, and had lurried back to fall into line with the rearward. The rout of he battle of the marshals and the Germans was completed by I device of the Earl of Oxford, who hastily led out part of the irchers of the vaward into the marshy low ground by the VEiausson, at right angles to the English line, and bade them ;hoot up the valley at the flank of the French.^ Harassed Deyond endurance by this side attack, the hostile van broke up ind retired in disorder. The Marshal Clermont had been cilled, his colleague D'Audrehem and the German Counts of Saarbriicken and Nassau had all been taken prisoners — cast lown, no doubt, by their slain or wounded horses, and left It the mercy of the English.

oldiery, but we know from Chandos Herald, Burghersh, and Froissart that they were )resent to the number of some thousands.

^ This they could do with safety, because the ground where they stood was too narshy to allow the French cavalry to make a dash at them.

630 THE ART OF WAR IN THE MIDDLE AGES

"i

The defeat of the French van had been completed before th^ three great bodies of dismounted men-at-arms which forme( the bulk of their host could reach the field. The first of them the Dauphin's battle, just arrived in time to be somewha incommoded by the fugitives sweeping past its flank. It is sajc that some cowardly spirits took advantage of the disorder to cai for their horses and make off in company with the wreck of t\\ marshals' division. But the main bulk of the Dauphin's rqej came steadily to the front and attacked the whole length of t\\ hedge. So vehement was their onslaught that the Prince c Wales had to put into line against them not only Salisbury's an< Warwick's troops,^ but all his own battle, save four hundrei picked men-at-arms whom he retained as a last reserve. Th struggle was long and hard ; but the line of the hedge wa sternly held, the French could never pierce it, and at last th Dauphin's knights, after suffering a dreadful slaughter, gav back, and repassed the little valley across which they ha< advanced to assault the hedge.^ They were not pursued sav by a few hot-headed young knights like Sir Maurice Berkeley for the prince knew that half the French army had not ye come into action, and refused to allow his men to break the! line.

Meanwhile, a wholly unlooked-for piece of good fortune hai befallen the English : at the sight of the rout of the Dauphin' battle, the division under the Duke of Orleans, which ought t have delivered the next assault on the English line, was con: pletely demoralised. Without having struck a blow or suffere any loss, the duke's whole corps followed the defeated battle i hasty flight, and made off north-eastward in the direction c La Chaboterie. Only a few scores of knights and squires, wh

^ To meet this nttack, says Baker, the battles of Salisbury and Warwick had 1 get together and re-form in close line, " nostra prima secundaque custodia pariter 5 glomerarunt." The place taken by the prince's own battle is not given ; but at th end of the attack everyone had been engaged, " demptis solis cccc qui vexillo principa subservierunt reservati," etc.

2 Baker and Chandos Herald agree that the fighting with the Dauphin's divisic raged all along the hedge. They differ, however, in that Baker says that Warwic was back in position before the marshals' battle was entirely beaten, and that b archers took part in routing it ; while Chandos says that Warwick arrived muc later, after the marshals had been wholly discomfited, and only just in time I prevent the Dauphin from forcing the hedge (line 1220).

•* Both Froissart and Baker tell with some differences of detail the story < Berkeley's foolish pursuitof the French, and of his capture.

356] POICTIERS: THE MAJN STRUGGLE 631

:orned to copy their leader's example, stayed behind and joined le king's still intact reserve.

King John himself was in a very different frame of mind om his cowardly brother. Furious at the disgraceful repulse f the leading divisions, he urged on his own corps, and pushed ) the front to resume the combat. Nor v/as he without reason- Die hope of success. In numbers he was still almost or quite ]ual to the English, whose ranks had been fearfully thinned y the two desperate melees in which they had been engaged. [is troops were fresh, while the prince's were utterly exhausted. he English line presented a by no means cheering spectacle as escribed by Baker. " Some were carrying the wounded to the .^ar and laying them under the shelter of trees and thickets, thers were replacing their broken swords and lances from the 3oils of the slain ; the archers were trying to replenish their ;ock of arrows, even pulling them out of the bodies of the dead nd wounded. There was in the whole host no one who was ot either hurt or utterly worn out with the battle, save only the iserve of four hundred men whom Edward still kept about his ;andard." As the king's battle rolled up the hill, a knight of ell-tried courage remarked to the prince that all was over and efeat inevitable. But the English leader's spirit was still high ; e threw an angry rebuke at the doubter,^ and gave his orders )r the new combat with an undaunted bearing.

Seeing the French sending their last reserve into action, and onscious that there was nothing more to be feared if it could e beaten off, Edward had now resolved to take the offensive, 'utting his four hundred fresh men into the front of the battle, nd hastily forming all the exhausted host into a single mass, e bade his standard-bearer, Walter of Wodeland, bear his nsign straight against that of King John, and charged down the entle slope.- One last precaution he had taken : before the loment of the shock, he had directed the Captal de Buch, the est trusted of his Gascon vassals, to take sixty men-at-arms nd a hundred archers — all that he could spare — and to fall on tie flank or rear of the French battle, after fetching a compass nseen behind the slight rising ground, the Masse aux Anglais, /here his baggage had been stacked on the preceding night,

^ " Mentiris pessime vecors, si me vivum posse vinci blasphemeris " (Baker, 150). - Froissart says that he bade his knights mount for the final charge, which is itional enough, but Chandos and Baker do not mention it.

632 THE ART OF WAR IN THE MIDDLE AGES [i^

and through the thickets which bounded the field of battle 01 the north.

Meanwhile, the two main bodies had met on equal fronts a the foot of the slope below the English hedge, with a clash which as one chronicler tells us, could be heard as far as the walls 0 Poictiers, seven miles away. Both sides were desperate, and fo many minutes the two hosts stood locked together, neithe winning nor losing ground. The English archers, having ex hausted their last few arrows, threw themselves into the meldf and fought hand to hand among the men-at-arms. Fierce a had been the fighting during the two preceding encounters, i was as nothing compared to this final shock. The victory wa still hanging in the balance, when the Captal de Buch and hi small detachment suddenly appeared in the left rear of th French. He had gone round the Masse aux Anglais, taken turn to the north-west, which brought him on to the grouU' from which King John had originally started, and then followe< the enemy's track on to the scene of the combat.^

Ignorant of the small numbers of the force which had charge( them from behind, the French wavered, and the more faint-hearte began to melt away to the right rear, in the direction of Poictier; where the way of retreat was still open. King John himsel however, utterly refused to fly, and held his ground, surrounde by his personal retinue and the most loyal of hisvvassals. 1 took the English some time to crush the resistance of this faith ful band, but at last the mass was broken up, and the king, wit his young son Philip, who had stuck to his side to the last, wer made prisoners. All those who had stayed by them were eithe captured or slain : the routed main body of the French reai battle reached Poictiers, though many were taken by the way the English made no great slaughter of the fugitives, being fa more intent on taking prisoners with good ransoms than o shedding blood.

Thus ended a battle far more hazardous and far better fough than that of Cregy. From first to last it had filled some seve: hours : " the first attack had commenced at prime, and the last c

^ " Graditur iter obliquum, sub declivo recedens a monte quem cum principe nupt dimisit, et occulte girans campum venit ad locum submissum primae stacion coronati. Exinde conscendit altiora campi per viam Gallicis ultimo tritam, et subit prorumpens ab occulto, per veneranda sigr^a Georgica significavit se nobis amicum (Baker of Swinbrook, p, 151).

356] POICTIERS: THE CAPTIVES AND THE SLAIN 633

he English had not returned from the pursuit till vespers." ^Considering the long struggle, the French loss in killed was not o large as might have been expected, though several of the Teatest lords of France had fallen. On the other hand, the lumber of prisoners of the highest rank was almost unparalleled. The slain amounted to about two thousand five hundred, of t^hom just two thousand were knights and men-at-arms.^ The chief of them were the Marshal Clermont, who had led he first division ; Gautier de Brienne Duke of Athens,^ the Nonstable of France ; Peter Duke of Bourbon ; Guichard ord of Beaujeu, younger brother of the Edward of Beaujeu v'ho had fallen at Ardres in 1351 ^ ; Robert of Durazzo, a cousin )f the King of Naples ; Geoffrey de Charny, who bore he oriflamme that day ; Renaud Bishop of Chalons ; .nd the Viscounts of Brosses and Rochechouart. Far more triking is the list of the prisoners : they included King John limself and his son Philip ; James Count of La Marche, John * [Count of Eu, Charles Count of Longueville, John Count of rancarville, Bernard Count of Ventadour, John Count of \uxerre, Henry Count of Vaudemont, John Count of Sancerre, [Charles Count of Dammartin, John Count of Vendome, John "ount of Nassau, John Count of Saarbriicken, John Count of oigny, Robert Count of Roussy, William Archbishop of Sens, \rnold d'Audrehem, the marshal whose inconsiderate advance lad opened the battle, ten more great lords bearing banners, lUd two thousand five hundred others, of whom nineteen lund red and thirty-three were men-at-arms and knights.^ The English loss must have been considerable : unfortunately, no rustworthy chronicler has stated it : only Lord Burghersh's etter gives figures — the impossibly small total of four men-at- .rms and sixty others.

The political results of Poictiers were, owing to the king's aptivity, very considerable, but the immediate strategical results

^ The Black Prince in his letter to the Bishop of Worcester gives two thousand four andred and six men-at-arms, besides the princes and barons whose names he cites. !'he letter of Burghersh speaks of two thousand men-at-arms and five hundred others.

^ Only titular duke, as his father, Gautier I., had been deprived of the duchy nd his life by the Catalans at the battle of the Cephissus in 13 10.

3 See p. 618.

■* It is curious to notice the preponderance of the name John among the prisoners ; ine out of sixteen bore it.

^ The figures of the Prince of Wales and Lord Burghersh, agreeing closely together, nd both sent from the actual field, can no doubt be trusted.

634 THE ART OF WAR IN THE MIDDLE AGES [i35(

were nil, as the prince retired to Bordeaux with his plunder anc his more important prisoners, dismissing the rest under a pledge to surrender themselves again, or to bring in their ransom on i fixed day. He made no attempt to hold Poitou or any of tl:|( neighbouring districts. Evidently his intention was to attaii his political ends by bringing pressure to bear on his prisoner and not by the series of lengthy sieges which would have beei required to secure the results of his victory.

Experience proved that this was the right policy : th< attempts of the English during the next four years to complet' the conquest of France came to nothing. Though King Edwan marched to and fro through the heart of the land, ravaging Champagne, Burgundy, and Isle de France, and encamping a the very gates of Paris, he could make no permanent lodgment Cowed by the results of Cregy and Poictiers, the French refusec to meet him in the open field, and shut themselves up in thei towns and castles. To take one by one these innumerable strong holds would have been an interminable process ; it did not suit hi temper, nor were his resources adequate for such an enterprise But he obtained some considerable part of what he had desire^ by playing on King John's dislike of captivity, and on the desir of the French estates to put an end to the anarchy which ha resulted from the removal of their sovereign. • Hence came th Treaty of Bretigny, signed on the 8th of May 1360, which gav up to the English Poitou, Angoumois, Limousin, Rouergue, an many districts more, so as almost to reconstitute the old duch of Aquitaine as it had been held by Henry II. two hundred yeai before. Nor was this all : the English got back Ponthieu at tt^ Somme mouth, and retained the all-important harbour of Calai the open gate of Northern France.

Thus ended the first act of the Hundred Years' War ; y( fighting was by no means at an end in France. There were t\v quarrels still on foot which were fated to cost much blood. Tt long war of succession in Brittany between Charles of Blois an the younger John de Montfort was not yet settled, and Charl( the Bad, the intriguing king of Navarre, was still trying to fis in troubled waters and get some private profit from the misfo tunes of his cousin John of Valois. The disbanded mercenarie French and English, who had been fighting in the main wj gladly hired themselves to serve in the minor struggles. It wj not till the battles of Cocherel (May 16, 1364) and Aura

364] COCHEREL AND AURAY 635

September 29, 1364) had taken place that France could sally be said to be at peace. Both these combats were practically 3ught out entirely by the free companies ; at Cocherei two- hirds of the French army and five-sixths of the Navarrese army /ere veteran mercenaries, At Auray half the army of Charles f Blois was composed of French free companies, and four-fifths f that of John de Montfort of English auxiliaries of the same :md. Neither fight is of any permanent importance in the art f war; they are only interesting as showing the way in which tie lessons of Crecy and Poictiers had impressed themselves on he minds of the professional soldiers of the day. Both sides in ach of the fights descended and fought on foot ; the only xception to this rule being that Duguesclin at Cocherei kept a m9.ll reserve of thirty horsemen, who were ordered to wait till oth sides were locked in close combat, and then dash in at the erson of the hostile leader, the famous John de Grailly Captal e Buch, who had struck the decisive blow at Poictiers. It is oteworthy that the Captal at Cocherei and Sir John Chandos t Auray both adopted the tactics they had learned under the wo Edwards, and took a defensive position on a slope, on which bey waited to be attacked by the superior forces of the enemy, 'he Captal was prevented from carrying out his plan by the ashness of one of his wing-commanders, the condottiere John owel, who was lured down into the plain by a feigned flight of iie wily Duguesclin. At Auray Chandos was more lucky, and sceived on his chosen ground the attack of the French and iretons, who crossed the river and ascended the slope to assail im. Both the Captal and Chandos, though commanding mercenaries who had long fought under the English flag, were ery short of archers. It was only in a national levy that these ould be found in proper proportion to the other arm. At 'ocherel there were only three hundred archers to twelve hun- red men-at-arms, a number insufficient to have any influ- nce on the event of the battle. At Auray Chandos had about thousand archers to eighteen hundred men-at-arms, a larger ut still an insuflicient proportion. It was not they who decided le fate of the day ; the four battles of dismounted horsemen, 'hom Charles of Blois led, all succeeded in closing with the '.nglish in spite of the arrow-flight. That they succeeded in oing so was due to the greatly increased heaviness of the nightly panoply, which had been growing thicker and more

636 THE ART OF WAR IN THE MIDDLE AGES [1364

complicated year by year for the very purpose of keeping out the arrow. Only a lucky shot disabled a man in the new plate armour ; a large proportion of the shafts glanced off the surfaa obliquely. In serried ranks, and carrying shields before them the French succeeded in closing without suffering any over whelming loss. When the melee commenced, the archers cas down their bows and joined in the hand-to-hand combat witl axe and sword, as they had done at Poictiers. They are said t< have done good and efficient service, fighting side by side witl the knights, just as their grandsons did at Agincourt fifty year after. Tactically the victory at Auray was decided by the fac that Chandos used his reserve — two hundred lances under Si Hugh Calverley — to strengthen weak points in his line one afte another, never allowing it to become so entangled that it couL not be withdrawn for service in another part of the field. Th far larger reserve-battle which Duguesclin had set aside for similar purpose got mixed with the fighting line, and ceased t be a tactical unit, so that the first break in the French arra proved fatal, there being no organised body of fresh men wh could be thrust into the gap. It is perhaps worth noting the Calverley made his two hundred men-at-arms strip off the cuissarts (thigh-pieces) to allow them to move about mor easily — a proof that the full knightly armour had now grow heavy enough to make all motion difficult when the wearer ha been wearied by long fighting. Without this expedient his reserv would not have been movable enough for use at each point ( the line, as it was successively in danger of being broke through.

CHAPTER IV

NAVARETTE AND ALJUBAROTTA

THE details of the tactics of Cocherel and Auray serve to show that the day of the horsemen was now considered ;o be at an end. After Cre9y and Poictiers cavalry ceased to 3e the preponderant arm in Western Europe for some century md a half. For the future French and Netherlanders, as well is English and Scots, dismount as a general rule for battle. But :he new tactics had still to be learned by the nations of the Iberian peninsula ; the lessons which taught the Spaniards and Portuguese the importance of the dismounted man-at-arms were both given by English teachers. In the first, the battle of Navarette (1367), the Black Prince himself showed the Spaniards the same tactics which his father had used against the French at Cre9y. In the second, the battle of Aljubarotta (1385), the Portuguese king Joao (John i.) was directed by English officers of experience, and assisted by a considerable English contingent, so that we may fairly look upon his victory as another of the great series which commenced at Dupplin and Halidon Hill.

It was Navarette which first brought Spain into contact with Western military science. The Castilians, unlike their neigh- bours of Aragon, had since the first foundation of their State had very little to do with the general politics of Europe. Their history touches that of Portugal, Aragon, and Navarre, but had hitherto been seldom connected to any important extent with that of France. Indeed Castile was not conterminous with any part of the royal domain of France, and only touched at one single point the English duchy in Aquitaine. On the other hand, she was in constant contact with the Andalusian Moors, and the most important part of her history is concerned with their gradual conquest. One hundred and twenty years before, St. Ferdinand had finally penned up the Mohammedans in the

637

638 THE ART OF WAR IN THE MIDDLE AGES [i

I

risT'

kingdom of Granada.^ But there they still survived, and Moons campaigns were still frequent. Hence it was natural enough tha Castile had shared little in the later developments of the art c war in the fourteenth century, and that the military custom and organisation of her people bore strong marks of their lonj contact with the Moslem.

When, in February 1367, the Black Prince crossed th Pyrenees to restore Pedro the Cruel to the throne from whicl he had been driven by his bastard brother Henry of Trasta mara, the strength of the Castilian army was considered t( reside wholly in its cavalry. And among these mounted mei the light horse bore a more important part than they had eve occupied in any other European kingdom save Poland am Hungary. The "Genetes,"^ or "Genetours" as the Englisl called them, took their name from the jennets or light courser, which they rode. They were equipped in a semi - Moorisl fashion, with a round steel cap, a large shield, a quiltec gambeson, and two long javelins, which they launched at th( enemy with good aim, even when galloping at full speed Their tactics were not to close, but to hover round thei opponents, continually harassing them, till they should givt ground or break their formation, when a chance would occu of pushing a charge home. Such troops would have beei formidable foes to infantry not armed with missile weapons or to dismounted men-at-arms; but against the combinatioi of archers and knights they were helpless. At Navarette, a we shall see, they were shot down helplessly by the archer: long before they could get near enough to use their javelins The Spanish heavy cavalry, supplied by the baronage and th( great military Orders of Santiago and Calatrava, were in 136; much in the condition in which English and French feuda horsemen had been fifty years before. They were late ii adopting the heavier armour which had been coming intc vogue farther north, and their horses were not for the mos part " barded," but unprotected by armour. They knev nothing of the new device of fighting on foot, but still chargdc in mass like their ancestors. Thfey do not seem to have beer

1 Cordova fell in 1236; Seville in 124S.

2 The word was used" down to the present century for the cavalryman in thf Spanish army ; a Spanish '* morning state " shows the heads Infantes, ginetes. and ariilleros as late as the Peninsular War.

367] PRINCE EDWARD INVADES SPAIN 639

,-ery highly esteemed by their opponents in this campaign, md are accused of being too prone to fall into the skirmishing actics of their compatriots the " genetours " when their first :harge failed.^

The Spanish infantry appeared in considerable numbers m the field, the chartered towns contributing spearmen and ;rossbowmen, while considerable numbers of slingers w^ere also .ised. But they played a very poor part in the campaign of 1367, and were of no practical use at Navarette.

The army with which Prince Edward crossed the Pyrenees, though English in name and led by many English leaders, was far less national than that which had fought at Cregy or even at Poictiers. The large majority of the troops were supplied either by the Gascon vassals of the duchy of Aquitaine, or by the huge bands of mercenaries, the celebrated " great com- panies " whom the prince had raised for this campaign. There were, no doubt, many thousand Englishmen in the ranks of the " free companions," but they were swallowed up in the general mass of cosmopolitan adventurers. Beyond the prince's personal retinue, and those of the English peers and knights .who accompanied him, the only contingent from this side of the Channel was composed of the four hundred men-at-arms and six hundred bowmen whom John of Gaunt had brought over.

The army which fought at Navarette was larger than most of those which served under the English banner in the Middle Ages, though much smaller than Edward Il.'s host at Bannock- burn. It mustered, according to the new phraseology which was just beginning to come into use in military circles, more than ten thousand "lances." The lance meant a man-at-arms, an archer, and an unarmed groom, who took care of the horses of the other two when they descended, as usual, to fight on foot. Hence ten thousand lances meant ten thousand men-at-arms and ten thousand archers for use in the field. The grooms were tnounted, so that, as Chandos Herald observes, the prince's train comprised no less than thirty-two thousand horses. The van marched under the Duke of Lancaster, the main-battle under the prince himself, the rear under James the exiled King of Majorca, who, driven out of his realm by the Aragonese, hoped ultimately to re-establish himself there by the prince's aid.

1 So Froissart, xi. 182.

I

640 THE ART OF WAR IN THE MIDDLE AGES [i

Edward would have been able, had he chosen, to put an eve: larger force in the field, for the free companies had flocke( in to his call in such numbers that he was obliged to dismis many of them because of the enormous financial strain on th resources of his duchy. He could not afford to take into hi pay all who presented themselves. It was the need of finishini the matter quickly, before his money should run out, whic induced him to start so early as February, when the Pyrenea: defiles are barely passable. As it was, both his van divisio and his main-battle suffered terribly from cold and piercin winds, while threading on successive days the lofty pass c Roncesvalles.

The beginning of the campaign was much complicated b the double-dealing of Charles of Navarre, in whose hands th passes lay. He first was bribed by Henry of Trastamara t shut them against the English ; then, rather than fight th prince, he made a convention with him, received English golc and fed the army of invasion while it passed through his realn Lastly, to avoid committing himself too much against th Castilians, he got himself taken prisoner by Oliver de Maun a French knight in the service of the King of Aragon, wh seized his person and put him in custody. Under cover* c this compulsion, he pretended to be unable to aid either part} But three hundred of his men-at-arms, under his chief confidan Martin Henriquez de Lacarra, joined the prince's banner.

Charles the Bad having thus sold the passes to the Englisl the King of Castile had the choice either of defending the lin of the Ebro, a fierce and broad river in early spring, or of ac vancing beyond that river and endeavouring to block the exit from Navarre — the defiles which lead out of the plains c Vittoria and Pampeluna, through the mountains of Alav; He chose the latter alternative, broke up his camp at Sa Domingo de la Calzada, crossed the Ebro, and posted himse' at Anastro, so as to block the difficult road which leads fror Vittoria to Miranda, the main line of communication betwee Navarre and Burgos, the capital of Castile. From his ne^ position he sent forward his brother Don Tello with six thov sand horse to reconnoitre the English camps round Vittoria Don Tello carried out his orders with considerable enterpris and cleverness : he beat up the camp of the Duke of Lancaste and the English vaward, did considerable damage before th

367] THE PRINCE CROSSES THE EBRO 641

nvaders could get into array, and galloped off before they :ould harm him. On his homeward way he surrounded and ut to pieces an English scouting party under Sir Thomas and jir William Felton on the hill of Arinez. This skirmish had ome interest as throwing light on the value of the tactics of he two armies. The two Feltons had little more than a lundred lances with them ; ^ encompassed by the Spaniards, they et their horses loose, and ranged themselves in a solid clump »n the hill. They stood firm under the shower of javelins ^hich the genetours of Don Tello cast at them, beat off several harges of the Spanish heavy horsemen, and were only taken >r slain when some hundreds of French knights in the Spanish ervice dismounted, attacked them hand to hand, and over- whelmed them by force of numbers.

For about a week the English and Castilian armies lay 'pposite each other (March 20-26), the former in the plain 'f Vittoria, the latter on the hills to the south, each waiting for he other to advance, and both suffering from bad weather and /ant of food. Don Henry, warned by his French auxiliaries hat it would be easier to starve the prince than to beat him, efused to come down into the plain ; Edward, on his part, bought the pass too difficult to force, and matters seemedat a deadlock.

The only exit from this situation was to endeavour to turn

^ he Bastard's position by a sweeping flank march. This the

i rince at last resolved to undertake : secretly breaking up from

S /'ittoria by night, he left the main road, took a by-path, and

f hen turned southward and crossed the Sierra de Cantabria

I t the pass of La Guardia. He reached the Ebro near Viana

I fter a forced march of two days, and shortly afterwards crossed

I he great river at the bridge of Logrono — a place which, unlike

\ he other towns of Northern Castile, had adhered to Don Pedro.

I it Logrono the prince was upon the high road from Pampeluna

f D Burgos, and had completely turned Don Henry's position,

locking the Burgos-Miranda- Vittoria route. The Castilians,

'ho seem to have entirely lost touch of the English army

etween the 26th and the 30th of March, were forced to break

p hastily from their camp on the heights of Banares and

mastro, and to recross the Ebro in order to throw themselves

^ So Froissart. Ayala says (p. 446) two hundred men-at-arms and two hundred

chers. 41

$4^ THE ART OF WAR IN THE MIDDLE AGES [136

between Edward and their capital. Passing by the bridge c San Vincente near Haro, the Bastard marched for Najera, th nearest point on the Logrono-Burgos road that he could read Here he halted on April i, his front covered by the Najarilh a considerable stream which falls into the Ebro from the soutl On the same night the prince lay at Navarette, six miles to th eastward of him.

The change in the scene of operations was all in the prince favour: he had got down into the fertile valley of the Ebro, an between him and the Castilians there was now nothing but th Najarilla and " a fine plain where there was no bush or tree fc a good league around." ^ Don Henry was practically under a obligation to fight in the open, unless he should choose t sacrifice Castile and retire into the interior. This course ha been urged on him by the French some weeks before, but h had replied that if he retired without fighting, half Spain woul go over to Don Pedro : indeed, desertions from his ranks ha already begun.^ He had now only to choose whether he woul fight east or west of the Najarilla, and, as he placed his mai confidence in his cavalry, he resolved to advance into the broa plain beyond the river, instead of staying on his own bank an waiting for the prince to attack him. Horsemen, as he perhaj reflected, are not suited to defend a position.

iUlJj OJ •IIJO-,

odi eiffT r Battle of Navarette, April i, 1367. mc/To the great joy of the prince, his scouts brought him new it- the dawn of April 3, that the Castilians had crossed tl Najarilla and were advancing upon him in battle-array. Tl tactics which the Bastard had adopted for the drawing out his host were precisely the reverse of those which the Frenc had tried at Poictiers. King John in 1356 had sent a forloi hope of cavalry in front of his army, and dismounted the rest his men-at-arms. King Henry in 1367 sent out in front picked body of dismounted knights, and kept the rest of h army on their horses.

This vanguard was mainly composed of the Bastard's Fren( auxiliaries under the great Breton condottiere Bertrand c Guesclin and the Marshal d'Audrehem, who after his experieno

^ Chandos Herald, lines 3450, 3451.

^Ayala, p. 454: "Antes que las batallas se ayuntasen algunos genetes e pendon de Sant Esteban del Puerto pasaronse a la parte del rey Don Pedro."

1367] NAVARETTE: ARRAY OF THE CASTILIANS 643

at Poictiers was, we doubt not, glad enough not to have to fight

on horseback. To the French, who were some seven hundred

lances strong {i.e. fifteen hundred combatants), the king added a

picked body of several hundred Castilian men-at-arms under

his brother Don Sancho and the Grand Master of Santiago.

Included among them were the Knights of the Scarf, an order

of chivalry founded in 1332, which corresponded somewhat to

i Edward Ill.'s better-known order of the Garter. Pedro Lopez

j de Ayala, the chronicler of the fight on the Castilian side, bore

! that day the pennon of the Knights of the Scarf. The whole

body of dismounted men was probably about two thousand

strong (Ayala says only one thousand) : to them the king had

joined some crossbowmen, who no doubt were drawn up on the

flanks of the men-at-arms.

Don Henry's second line was formed of the bulk of his horsemen. It was composed of three bodies, not drawn on a level front, but with the side divisions somewhat advanced, so as to cover the flanks of the vaward "battle" of dismounted knights. On the left wing was the king's brother Don Tello ■and the Grand Prior of the Hospitallers, with one thousand men-at-arms and a great body of "genetours," probably two thousand strong;^ in the centre was the king with fifteen hundred chosen knights; on the right Gomez Carillo de Quintana, High Chamberlain of Castile, Alfonso Count of Denia, a nephew of the King of Aragon, and the Grand Master of Calatrava, with one thousand men-at-arms and a like Dumber of genetours to the left wing. Some crossbowmen seem to have been attached to the cavalry of the second line, but the great bulk of the Spanish infantry, at least twenty thousand strong, were formed behind the king's battle as a third or reserve line. Little confidence was evidently placed in them, and they did no more than had been expected of them ^ when they fled from the field,

^ Chandos Herald, lines 3015-20, says that Henry had six thousand men-at-armS md four thousand genetours. Ayala, stating the Castilian numbers at the lowest, no doubt, says four thousand five hundred men-at-arms, and gives no figures for the ;;enetours. Chandos Herald says that the Spanish foot were fifty thousand strong, with six thousand crossbowmen. Ayala states that they were very numerous, but ^ives no definite number.

- la this account I fellow Ayala. Chandos Herald gives the same divisions, but very different numbers. He says that Bertrand's battle on foot was four thousand Tien-at-arms, that Don Tello had twelve thousand genetours (no men-at-arms ipparently), and Gomez Carillo four thousand one hundred men-at-arms (but no genetours apparently). The king, according to him, had fifteen thousand " hommes

644 THE ART OF WAR IN THE MIDDLE AGES [13

The Black Prince's host was, like the Spanish, formed in three lines, but each of them consisted of men-at-arms and archers in about equal proportions : it is not explicitly stated that in each case the bowmen were drawn up on the flanks of the knights, but we can have no doubt that this was the case. The vaward, led by the Duke of Lancaster, is said to have consisted of about three thousand lances {i.e. three thousand men-at-arms and three thousand archers). It contained the personal following of the duke, those of the two marshals of the host, Sir Stephen Cossington and Guichard D'Angle, with those of Hugh Lord Hastings, and of Thomas Ufford, William Beauchamp, and John Neville — the sons respectively of the Earls of Suffolk and Warwick and the Lord Neville. But the core of the division was composed of the twelve hundred veteran lances of the free companies who served under Sir John Chandos' banner, the pick of the mercenary troops of Western Europe.

The prince's own main-battle, like that of Don Henry, was drawn up in a centre and two wings : Edward himself, with Pedro of Spain, governed the centre ; the right wing division was led by the Captal de Buch, the Count of Albret, and Martin Henriquez the Navarrese. The left wing division marched under Sir Thomas Percy,^ the Breton Oliver de Clisson, and Sir Walter Hewett^ Each of the three corps must have contained about two thousand lances.

Finally, the rearward, under the King of Majorca, consisted oi Gascons under the Count of Armagnac, and a great body o] free companions led by Sir Hugh Calverley and Perducaf d'Albret. They were apparently about three thousand lances strong, like the vaward - battle. The whole amount of the English host should have been about twelve thousand lances but they had suffered much during the last two months fronn cold, rain, forced marches, and insufficient feeding, so that theii

nrmes " in his division, besides a vast multitude of arbalesters, sergeant?, and othei footmen. This makes twenty-three thousand men-at-arms, but a few pages befon Chandos had made Henry say that he had but six thousand men-at-arms and foa: thousand genetours. Obviously these are much more like the real figures. One can but follow Ayala, who served in the Castilian host, and must have knowr all about it.

^ Afterwards Earl of Worcester. He was in 1367 a young man of twenty-five Beheaded after Shrewsbury fight by Henry iv.

2 Chandos puts Sir Thomas Felton here also.

i

PLATE XXIV.

Localities

OF THE Battle OF

Navarette

EnglisK; J)ismoutitedMeii-3t-AnnsU^ . . Archers Mtnil

\?^ Battle

NAVARETTE

April 3.1367.

i

1367] NAVARETTE: THE FIRST CHARGE 645

opponent Ayala is probably near the truth when he states that the prince's army contained ten thousand men-at-arms. Among the corresponding number of infantry who accompanied the men-at-arms the term '* archer " must cover many Gascon 'bidowers" and foreign crossbowmen and javehnmen of all sorts, for there were certainly not ten thousand native English archers on the field.

The prince drew up his host close to Navarette, and then marched forward, not by the high road to Najera, but over the open plain, screening his advance by a rolling hill to the right of the road. It was only on descending this rising ground that he came in sight of the Castilians. He then halted, bade his men send their horses to the rear, and marched down to meet the enemy. Their fronts seem to have exactly corresponded, as we do not hear of any outflanking. In numbers (as we have already seen) the prince had a large superiority in men-at-arms — probably about ten thousand to five thousand five hundred ; on the other hand, the Spaniards had their four thousand light horse and perhaps thirty thousand foot to oppose to the prince's ten thousand archers.

The course of the battle was very simple : the two vawards first met; the English archers of Lancaster's division seem to have driven off the crossbowmen, but the two bodies of dis- mounted knights met and remained locked together fighting desperately. At the first clash the English are said to have been , borne back a spear's length,^ and Chandos was cast to the ground ! and nearly slain.^ But neither side gained any further advan- i tage, and the fate of the battle was decided elsewhere. ! The next bodies which came into collision were the Spanish knights and genetours of Don Tello and Gomez Carillo, and the flank divisions of the English main-battle, under the Captal de Buch on the right and Percy and Clisson on the left. In these two combats the Castilians were disgracefully beaten ; they never closed with their opponents or came to handsti-okes ; apparently they tried their usual skirmishing tactics, intending to hover around the English and cast javelins at them. But the English archery shot down horse and man while the Castilians were still far away, and, instead of closing, the whole horde, genetours and men-at-arms together, turned their bridles and fled off the field. Several prisoners of importance fell into the

* Ayala, p. 457. ' Chandos Herald,

646 THE ART OF WAR IN THE MIDDLE AGES [1367

i

hands of the English from these divisions, including Gomez Carillo and the Count of Denia ; probably their horses had bee, shot and they were cast to the earth and unable to get away. After driving off the Spanish horse, both the Captal Buch and Percy wheeled their divisions inward, to attack the flanks of the Castilian vaward, which was still hotly engaged with Lancaster's battle. At the same moment Prince Edward came up in the centre to reinforce his brother. To succour his advanced guard, now wholly encompassed wiih foes, Don Henry hurried up in person with his fifteen hundred chosen knights and the great mass of his infantry. The Bastard, as all the chroniclers agree in stating, showed the greatest courage. He charged three times at the head of his personal following, endeavouring to cut his way to join the vaward-battle ; but he could not break the lines of the English dismounted knights, and was thrice forced to recoil. Meanwhile, the English arrows were making fearful slaughter among the great masses of his infantry, who were already beginning to fall into disorder. ' o?.oq({K> 0] ioul buBt^uoi

At last the King of Majorca and the English rear-battle came upon the scene, striking in on the left of the combat. The Castilians could stand no longer, " for arrows flew thicker than rain in winter-time ; they pierced through horse and man, and the Spaniards soon saw that they could no longer endure. They turned their steeds and commenced to flee away. Then wher Henry the Bastard saw them fly he was sore enraged, and three times he tried to turn them back, crying, ' Sirs, for God'i sake give me aid, for you have made me king and sworn mc your oath to help me loyally.' But his word availed nothing for the attack grew stronger every moment, and the Spaniards turned backward, and every man loosed his rein. Sore grievec and wroth was the Bastard, but it behoved them to fly, or the> would all have been slain or taken. Therefore he fled down th( valley, though^the-^Fre^ch in his vawjard^were still standing thei: ground."^ ''i-' ^^m^ly'iai:':^ '.;,•:-: -.■■■,: ?j

Du Guesclin and his band of dismounted knights, lon| surrounded by the English, and growing fewer every moment did not yield till the whole of the Spanish army had been drivei off the field. It is impossible to praise their determined courage too highly. But, seeing themselves abandoned, they were A

. i-II sor*i©ij^ndos Herald, line 3385 <?/.r<J7.

1367] NAVARETTE: DU GUESCLIN CAPTURED ^47'

last forced to surrender. More than four hundred of them had fallen, including the Begue de Villiers, one of the captains of the French mercenaries, and of the Spaniards Garcilasso de la Vega, Sancho de Rojas, Juan Rodrigo Sarmiento, and Juan de Mendoza. Bertrand du Guesclin gave up his sword to Sir Thomas Cheney ; Audrehem and Don Sancho, the king's brother, were also taken.

The rest of the Castilian chivalry had suffered comparative!^ little : as the total number of corpses of men-at-arms, counted by the heralds after the fight, was only five hundred and sixty, the divisions headed by Don Henry, Don Tello, and Gomez Carillo must only have lost a hundred and sixty all told. The un- fortunate foot-soldiery, who could not flee so fast, suffered more. Their masses blocked the bridge of Najera, towards which they all fled, and the English cut down great numbers of them. A freshet from the mountains had swelled the Najarilla during the morning, so that it was not fordable, and many whcf strove to escape by swimming were drowned. Altogether the Spaniards are said to have lost over seven thousand men. In the pursuit several important prisoners were taken : the Grand Master of Calatrava was caught hiding in a cellar at Najera; the Master of Santiago and the Grand Prior of the Hospitallers were trapped in a blind entry between high walls into v/hich they had incautiously ridden, and forced to surrender.

The total loss in the prince's host was absurdly small : four knights had fallen — two Gascons, a German, and Sir John Ferrers, son of the English baron of that name ; in addition, forty men-at-arms and twenty archers had perished. Almost the whole loss must have fallen on the vaward, who had fought so desperately with Du Guesclin's men.

■' Thus ended in disaster the last attempt of continental cavalry to pit itself against the combination of archers and dismounted men-at-arms, which Edward III. and his son had perfected. Nothing could have been more miserable than the show made by the Castilian light-horse and crossbowmen when they came under the deadly rain of English arrows, or that of the Bastard's chivalry when they strove ta >Ti(i€ii<d6wni the English men-at-arms. f't* n'> 1ik\ /ri^.^hiv^ni

The battle, however, was won, but not the campaign. As long as Henry of Trastamara lived, Pedro the Gruel's throne was insecure. It was in vain that the tyrant strove to massacre

648 THE ART OF WAR IN THE MIDDLE AGES [1367

all the Castilian prisoners, and actually, in spite of Prince Edward's opposition, beheaded Gomez Carillo, the Commander of Santiago, and two other knights.^ No amount of cruelty could secure him the throne that the English had given him back. Less than two years after Edward had retired in dis- appointment to Gascony, Spain was up in arms again, and Don Pedro had fallen into his brother's hands, and been murdered by his brother's own dagger (1369).

Battle of Aljubarotta, August 14, 1385.

To end the chapter in the history of the art of war which began with Cre9y, it only remains that we should make some mention of the battle of Aljubarotta, the last fight in Western Europe in which mounted men were to take a prominent part during the fourteenth century. In 1385 John King of Castile the son of Henry of Trastamara, was making a great effort tc put down his namesake John, the Master of Avis, who claimed the throne of Portugal. In right of his wife, the only daughtei of Ferdinand, the last of the male line of the Portuguese house the Castilian had a better hereditary claim than the Master o Avis, who was but the late king's bastard brother. But the national spirit of the Portuguese revolted against a union wit! Spain, and the large majority of the people, both gentle anc simple, adhered to the Master, who took the crown under th( name of Joao I. To crush him, the King of Castile called ou the full levy of his realm, strengthened by a large corps o mercenary men-at-arms, led by certain lords of France, such a: Regnault de Solier, Jean de Rye, and Geoffrey de Partenay. Sc large a proportion of these auxiliaries were drawn from tb county of Beam that Froissart sometimes calls the whole bod} of them " the barons of France and Beam." John of Avis, 01 the other hand, was assisted by a much smaller band of Englisl adventurers who had come in three great ships from Bordeau: under two squires, veterans of the French war, named Joh Northberry and Hugh Hartsell. They numbered in all about fiv hundred men.^

The Portuguese army was far less numerous than that of tb invaders, but, on the advice of his English allies, John of Avi

hundred

1 Ayala, p. 458.

^ Lorenzo Fogafa in Froissart (K. de L.), vol. xi. p. 305, says only tw

85] THE POSITION OF AIJUBAROTTA 649

solved to ofter battle. He marched out from Lisbon to homar, and looked for a good position. The chosen spot was ird by the abbey of Aljubarotta, where the hills of the Sierra da strella sink into the plain. On one of the spurs lie the onastic buildings, thickly surrounded by orchards and planta- ins. Half-way down the slope the Portuguese took their post ; ey felled trees so as to cover both their flanks, but left a fairly oad open space opposite their centre.^ Behind the two inking abattis were placed the English archers and such native ossbowmen as could be got together, forming two projecting :ngs. The men-at-arms, all on foot, were formed in one solid ittle in the middle, opposite the gap in the barricades. This der of battle was obviously a direct copy of that of the Black

ince at Poictiers : the army was masked by the trees, and the itural gap in the hedge, which figured in the former battle as c sole point of entry into the English position, was deliberately produced in 1385 by the extemporised barricades with the )en space in their centre. A few yards in front of the line ere was a shallow ravine with a thread of water running rough it,2 which reproduced the dip in the ground which lay

front of the farm of Maupertuis. Some way to the side were

0 other ravines, which guarded the flanks of the army.^

The King of Castile had marched from Ciudad Rodrigo by ilorico and Leiria to Santarem : his army consisted of at ast two thousand lances of his French auxiliaries, about enty thousand Spanish cavalry of the same character as that lich fought at Navarette, and a large contingent of crossbow- en on foot. Thus he much outnumbered the Portuguese, lose whole force was estimated at two thousand five hundred lights and men-at-arms * and twelve thousand infantry.

On a hot and bright Saturday noon — it was the Vigil of the ssumption (August 14) — in the heart of the summer, King John

Castile received news of the determination of the Portuguese

?^ " Adont firent-ils au coste devers les champs abatre les arbres et couchier a vers, a celle fin que de plain Ton ne peust chevauchier, et laissierent ung chemin vert qui n'estoit pas d'entree trop large " (Froissart (K. de L.), vol. ii. p. 164).

^ "Ung fosse, et non pas grant que ung cheval ne peust bien saillir oultre" orenzo Foga9a in Froissart (K. de L.), vol. xi. p. 314).

^ Ayala, p. 231 : "Los dos alas de los nuestros tienen delante dos valles, que n pueden paser pera acometar a nuestros enemigos."

^ Froissart, xi. p. 308. Ayala says two thousand two hundred men-at-arms

1 ten thousand foot (p. 227).

6so THE ART OF WAR IN THE MIDDLE AGES [138

to offer him battle. He was three leagues from Aljubarotta, an( doubted whether he should fight that day, or advance to ; Gonvenient distance from the enemy and put off the battle til the morrow. Regnault de Solier, whom he had made marsha of his host, hotly urged the propriety of an instant attack, an- was supported by nearly all the French knights and many c theyounger Spaniards, who had never been present at a stricke field. On the other hand, certain of the Spanish barons spok in favour of deferring the attack : it would be late in the da} they said, before the host could be properly drawn up in fror of the hostile position, and battles begun in the evening seldoi lead to a decisive result. Jean de Rye, an aged knight ( Burgundy,^ lent his support to their arguments, but the Frenc talked down the advocates of delay, and the king gave orders 1 advance. He gave his command to draw up the host in tw lines : the vaward was to be composed of the auxiliaries, w\ were to dismount (like Du Guesclin's knights at Navarette) ar to endeavour to force the Portuguese centre. Behind the were to come the mass of the Spanish horsemen, arrayed in centre and two wings.^ The crossbowmen and other infant followed in the rear, guarding the baggage ; it would have be( more prudent to allot them to the front division.

Marching through the afternoon, the Castilian army reach* Aljubarotta about vespers. When the enemy's line was ma< out, the French of the vaward pushed forward with unwise has and proceeded to attack before taking the precaution of ascf taining that their own main body was sufficiently far forward co-operate in the advance. As a matter of fact, the king w several miles to the rear, and none of his corps were near enoui to act in unison with the French. Nevertheless the marshal a: his countrymen rode briskly forward till they drew near to t enemy, and then turned their horses loose and dismounted fight on foot.^

They advanced just in the way that the Portuguese ki had hoped : neglecting the archers and javelinmen on t wings, they pushed on in one solid mass for the gap in the 11

* This we get from Ayala's Chronicle, p. 232, not from Froissart.

2 The wings are only named by Ayala ; Froissart speaks as if they had been al one mass. It is he also who mentions that the crossbowmen were in the rear (p. 2

' The account of Lorenzo Foga9a makes the French dismount, as does Ayala-; Froissart's first version says that they kept their horses (p. 174).

85] ALJUBAROTTA: THE SECOND ATTACK 651

■^^battis, behind which they saw the men-at-arms arrayed, rossing the little ravine, they flung themselves upon the hostile ntre. Here they were received with a steady line of glaives id lances, while from both flanks a fierce discharge of arrows, ossbow bolts, and javelins was poured in upon them. No pport came up from the main body : the French were out- imbered, and surrounded on three sides. Hence it is not sur- ising that after half an hour of desperate hand-to-hand fighting ey gave way: nearly half of the division were slain, and a ousand were captured ; only a few hundreds escaped to bear ;e evil tidings to the King of Castile.

The whole encounter was over before King John had arrayed s line and proceeded to advance towards the hill of Alju- .rotta. He himself was soon apprised of what had happened ; s army, seeing no great back - rush of fugitives, but only elated French knights making their way to the rear, failed to alise that the vaward-battle had been annihilated.

It was long past vespers and close to sunset when the great asses of horsemen drew near to the Portuguese position. All ong the line the Castilians were protesting against the folly of jhting at such a late hour ; but when their king ordered a meral advance, they did not shrink from the assault. The ntre dashed partly against the barricades, partly through the Lp in them ; the wings, which by the conformation of the ground id no good view of the enemy, got confused among ravines, chards, and enclosures, and failed to outflank and turn the ^rtuguese.^ In no part of the field did the Spaniards gain any Ivantage : in the centre, the only point where they were able to Dse, they suffered very severely from the flanking fire of arrows, )lts, and javelins. So many horses were shot down that " in rty places the ravine was passable over their heaped - up rcases." It was calculated that about five hundred Castilian lights crossed this obstacle,^ and that the ground beyond it IS such a death-trap that not one who had passed came back ive. As the dusk closed, the whole Spanish army reeled to the ar and fled in disorder ; the king and the greater part of the

1 '»*Fr<Ah'l:oren«o-F[4a9a''S version in FiroissarfJ^^.-'yi^^.^^I'dhe^^i"^ Henry's wings dear Gonzalo de Guzman got right round to the rear of the enemy, but could not

ich them (Ayala, p. 233).

^ Ayala : "Los dos alas de la batalha del rey non pudieron pelear que cada una las fallo un valle que non pudo passar " (p. 233).

65^. THE ART OF WAR IN THE MIDDLE AGES [i

fugitives reached Santarem, but the rest fled devious over countryside and reached Estremadura by cross-roads.

The loss at Aljubarotta was very heavy : the whole va> division perished en masse, for before the second combat Joa( Portugal ordered all his prisoners to be cut down (like Henry \ at Agincourt), fearing lest such a numerous body might attad him from the rear, or might at least distract too many of his rne from the combat. " So perished four hundred thousand francs c ransom-money." The marshal, Regnault de Solier, the barons c Longnac, Espres, Berneque, les Bordes, and Moriane, were th chief among the two thousand French slain. The Spaniard also suffered severely, though not in such a great proportion t their numbers : sixty barons and bannerets and twelve hundre squires and men-at-arms are said to have fallen, among whoi were the Grand Masters of Santiago and Calatrava and th Count of Mayorga. Ayala names also Don Pedro, son of tt Infante of Aragon, Juan lord of Aguilar, the king's cousin (sc of his father's brother, Don Tello), Diego Gomez, Adelantac Mayor of Castile, Juan de Tovar, the High Admiral, Diego Gom< Sarmiento and Pero Gonsalvez Carillo, the two marshals > Castile, Pedro de Mendoza, the High Chamberlain, and mar other barons of note.^ The victors, as usual in these defensi^ battles, lost but a few scores : the only man of note among the who died was Martin Vaz de Mello, who was pierced rig" through his body by a dart cast by a Spanish genetour.

Though not discreditable to the courage of the French ar Spanish knights, Aljubarotta gives us a very poor idea of th( skill in war. All the blunders of Poictiers and Navarette we repeated : the vaward and main body did not co-operate ; t enemy's position was not properly reconnoitred. Both cor fell blindfold into the trap which the King of Portugal had la for them, attacking in a headlong manner the fatal gap whi he had left open to allure them between the two wings of infant armed with missiles. Instead of charging furiously down tl entry, John of Castile should have employed his superi numbers in outflanking and surrounding the whole Portugne position, and should only have closed when he had thorough made out the disposition of the enemy. Blind assaults i almost inevitably bound to lead to defeat — most of all bli assaults of cavalry on a front securely hedged in with abati

^ Ayala, pp. 235, 236.

385] ALJUBAROTTA: KING JOHN'S ERRORS 653

om behind which infantry can strike at their assailants without 3ing themselves exposed to the danger of being ridden down.

Such was the result of the last attempt made in Western urope to defeat the English tactics by unsupported charges of Drsemen. We shall see, when we investigate the course of the :cond act of the Hundred Years' War, that John of Castile was Dpelessly behind the times in his conception of the military -t. Many years before Aljubarotta was fought, leaders of ■eater wisdom had discovered more effective means of meetinp; le system by which Edward III. and the Black Prince had won leir great victories. In 1373 John of Gaunt had made his lopposed but most disastrous march through Central France, id by the end of 1374 all Aquitaine save the immediate neigh- )urhood of Bordeaux and Bayonne had been won back by the rench. When once the generals of Charles v. had resolved no nger to attack the English in the open field, the defensive ctics of their enemies became of no avail, and a succession of itty sieges and inglorious counter-marches had put an end to e English ascendency in Southern France. All this must ive been well known to the Castilian king and his auxiliaries om beyond the Pyrenees, but they showed themselves utterly lable to profit by the lesson. Their antiquated tactics and eir blind plunge into the snare brought upon them a well- irned defeat.

FINIS

INDEX

)TE. — Emperors, Kings, Sultans, etc., are catalogued under their personal names, not under those of their family or their realm. Dukes, Counts, and other nobles are catalogued under their personal names till the eleventh century, afterwards under the name of their chief territorial possession : e.g. Robert Bruce, King of Scotland, is indexed under Robert ; Bera, Count of Barcelona, under Bern ; but Humphrey Bohun, Earl of Hereford, under Hereford.

The figures in square brackets following the names of battles and sieges give the dates at which they took place.

BO, his description of the siege of Paris,

[40, 147.

re, taken by Saracens, 262 ; taken by

-iichard i., 303; battle of [1189], 332-335 ;

ncidents of siege of [1190], 547.

ton [hacqueton), use of the, 511.

algis. Prankish count, defeated by Saxons,

H-

Decimum, battle of [535], 29. hemar Bishop of Puy, present at Dory- aeum, 274 ; present at Antioch, 281, 282. rianople, battle of [378], 13. thelstan, his fleet, 113. ihehvulf, his wars with the Danes, 94. lius, Roman general, 19, 21. athias, his description of the Franks, 52. ath, castle of, its importance, 255. ui of Brittany, Count, present at Hastings,

57-

iric, campaigns of, 19, 20, 44.

jemarle, William Earl of, present at

v'orthallerton, 387 ; present at Lincoln,

!93-

jigensian wars, 448. )oin, Lombard king, 50. )ret, Bernard Lord of, '^present at Poictiers, )22 ; present at Navarette, 644. )uera, compared to Tagliacozzo, 494, 498. ■n9on, Charles Count of, his rashness at Jrefy, 610, 611. ppo, the Emirs of, 254. xius I., Comnenus, Emperor, defeated at )yrrhachium, 164 ; Turkish campaigns of, :05 ; his victory at Calavryta, 222, 223 ; lis mercenaries, 225 ; his dealings with the Jrusaders, 234, 235. . red, King, his victory at Ethandune, 98 ; is military legislation, 109, no; fortifies >ondon, in ; his victory on the Lea, 112 ; is fleet, 112 ; his campaign of 893, 151.

Aljubarotta, battle of [1385], 648-652.

Alnwick, combat of Lii74J. 39^; castle of, 532.

Alp Arslan, Sultan, his victory at Manzikert, 217.

Amadeus Count of Maurienne, his mis- conduct at Kazik-Bel, 244.

Amaury King of Jerusalem, his invasions of Egypt, 260.

Ammianus Marcellinus, ir, 13, 17, 18 ; his description of the balista, 138.

Anar, defends Damascus, 259.

Anglo-Saxons, their invasion of Britain, 6^ ; arms and armour of the, 63, 64 ; military organisation of the, 64-66 ; their relations with the Welsh, 66, 68 ; use of the horse by the, 69, 70 ; tactics of the, 71 ; their resistance to the Vikings, 108-112.

Angon (Prankish spear), 52.

Angus, Gilbert Umfraville Earl of, present at Dupplin, 582, 583 ; at Halidon Hill, 586.

Anjou, Charles Count of, present at Man- sourah, 343 ; invades Naples, 480, 481 ; victorious at Beneveato, 484-486; victorious at Tagliacozzo, 492-497.

Anna Comnena, her account of Dyrrhachium, 164, 165 ; describes the use of Greek fire,

547. Annibali, Tibaldo del, present at Benevento,

483. 486. Ansgar the Staller, at siege of London, 135 ;

at Hastings, 163. Antioch, Latin principality of, 257 ; siege of,

by the Crusaders, 277, 280 ; battle of

[1098], 280-285 ; fortifications of, 527, 529. Antioch, Bohemund Prince of. See under

Bohemund. Antioch, Conrad of, captured at Tagliacozzo,

495-

656

INDEX

Antrustions, retainers of Prankish kings, 60.

Apamea, battle of [i 190], 247.

Arbalest. See Crossbow.

Arcadius, Emperor, column of, 19.

Archery of the East Roman horse, 25 ; of the Vikings, 93 ; in Western Europe, 129 ; of the Normans at Hastings, 157, 161 ; at combat of Bourg Th^roulde, 385 ; of the South Welsh, 400 ; growth of, in England, 558, 561 ; its employment at Falkirk, 567, 568 ; at Dupplin Muir, 584, 585 ; at Halidon Hill, 587 ; at Cre9y, 610, 612,

Ardres, combat of [1351], 617.

Argait, Lombard officer, slain in battle, 49.

Armenians in Justinian's army, 25.

Armour, abandoned by Roman infantry, 18 ; of the Visigoths, 46 ; of the Lombards, 48 ; adopted by the Franks, 53, 54, 55 ; of the Anglo-Saxons, 63, 64, 68, 69 ; use of, enforced by Charles the Great, 79 ; cha- racter of the Carolingian, 85, 86 ; character of the Danish, 91, 92 ; the hauberk, 126, 127 ; changes of, in ninth and tenth centuries, 126, 130 ; introduction of plate, 483 ; in twelfth and thirteenth centuries, 510-516,

Arnulf, Emperor, his victory at Louvain, 98, 104 ; his alliance with the Magyars, 116 ; storms Rome, 134.

Arsouf, battle of [1191], 310-315.

Arthur, King, 68.

Artois, Robert Count of, advises march on Cairo, 340; slain at Mansourah, 344-346.

Arundel, Richard Fitz-Alan Earl of, present at Cre9y, 607, 613, 614.

Ascalon, battle of [1099], 286 ; taken by Crusaders, 259.

Ashdown, battle of [871], 98.

Ashmoun Canal, its strategical importance, 265, 266, 340.

Asia Minor, overrun by the Turks, 220, 221 ; the Crusaders in, 234 ; main roads of, 236- 246 ; state of, under the Seljouks, 238,

Assize of Arms of n8i, 358, 511, 512; of 1252, 560.

Athlit, castle of, 530, 531.

Athole, David Earl of, present at Dupplin, 582 ; at Halidon Hill, 583.

Attalia, the French at, 246.

Attila, campaigns of, 21.

Audley, James Touchet Lord, present at Crepy, 607 ; present at Poictiers, 622.

Audrehem, Arnold de. Marshal of France, present at Poictiers, 628, 629 ; present at Navarette, 642.

Auray, battle of [1364], 635.

Austria, conquered from the Magyars, 125 ; disputed between Ottokar and Rudolf i., 499.

Austria, Frederic Duke of, present at Taglia- cozzo, 492, 493 ; beheaded, 497.

Authari, Lombard king, 50.

Avars, wars of, with the Franks, 76, 77 ; wars of, with the Byzantines, 179.

Avesnes, James of, present at Acre, 333 ; slain at Arsouf, 3x4.

Axe, the Prankish, 52 ; the Anglo-Saxon, 6 the Danish, 92, 115, 129.

Ayala, Pedro Lopez, historian, present Navarette, 643 ; his narrative of Navaret 643-646 ; of Aljubarotta, 650-652.

Baduila (Totila), Gothic king, defeated

Narses, 33, 34. Baggage-train, the Byzantine, 189, 190. Baghi-Sagan Emir of Antioch, 279, Baldwin I. of Jerusalem, his wars, 253 ; fig

the battle of Ramleh, 290, 292. Baldwin il. of Jerusalem, victorious at H;

296, 297 ; victorious at Hazarth, 2c

victorious at Marj-es-Safar, 300 ; pres

at Carrhae, 319, 320. Baldwin ill. of Jerusalem, besieges Damasc

259. Baliol, Edward, present at Dupplin, -

585 ; at Halidon Hill, 586. Balista (military machine), used by Visigot

47 ; its construction, 137, 138 ; later i

of the name, 545. Bamborough, fortifications of, 70 ; destro

by the Earl of Warwick, 553. Ban (obligation to military service among

Franks), jj, 79. Bandon (tactical unit in late Roman arn

27, 173- Bannockbum, battle of [1314], S70-578. Barcelona, siege of [800], 83, 85. Bardas, Caesar, victories of, 214. Barres, Everard des, Grand Master of

Templars, 245. Barres, William des, present at Arsouf, ;

present at Muret, 449-453 ; present at I

vines, 470-475 ; his combat with Ricl

I-, 514. Baseilles, Alard de, present at Cre9y, 608 Basset, Ralph, present at Falkirk, 567. Bavaria, overrun by the Magyars, 117, 11 Bavarians, the, at the Lechfeld, 123 ; at

Marchfeld, 500, 502. Bayeux, Ralph of, present at Tenchebrai, ;

present at Bourg Th^roulde, 385. Beauchamp, Sir John, defeated at Ardres, Beaujeu, Edward of. Marshal, slain at Ar(

617. Beaujeu, Guichard Lord of, victoriou:

Ardres, 617 ; slain at Poictiers, 633. Beaumont, Henry Lord, present at Dup

582-585 ; at Halidon Hill, 586. Beauvais, Philip Bishop of, present at Ar:

310 ; present at Acre, 335. Beck, Anthony, Bishop of Durham, pr

at Falkirk, 566, 567. Belesme, Robert of, expelled from Eng]

358 ; present at Tenchebrai, 380. Belisarius, his victory at Daras, 27 ; hisvict

over the Vandals, 29, 30 ; his victories

the Goths, 31 ; opinions of, on tactics, Beneficial hidation, 359. Benevento, battle of [1266], 483-486. Benevento, Lombard duchy of, 50. Beowulf, the, evidence of, on military mat

69, 70.

INDEX

657

a, Count, his duel, 103.

engar I., King of Italy, attacked by

lagyars, 117.

keley Castle, 524.

keley, Sir Maurice, captured at Poictiers,

>30.

keley, Roger de, his reply to Henry ri.,

;62.

thold of Zahringen, crosses the Alps, 440 ;

aptured at Legnano, 443.

wick, siege of [1333]. 586.

lars, Emir, present at Mansourah, 347,

nchetaque, ford of, combat at [1346], 602.

dS; Charles Count of, defeated at Roche

)arien, 616 ; defeated and slain at Auray,

35-

•und, William le, present at Lewes, 420 ;

lain, 423.

la-ed-din, present at Arsouf, 313.

lemund of Tarentum, commands at Dory-

tum, 271 ; victorious at Harenc, 278 ;

nesent at battle of Antioch, 284 ; defeated

t Carrhae, 319, 320.

aun, Sir Henry, slain at Bannockburn, 574.

lun, Humphrey de, Constable of Henry ii. ,

97-

:e ( = terebrus) the, its use, 133.

soki. Emir, defeated at Hazarth, 300.

ilogne, Eustace Count of, present at

Hastings, 157, 163.

alogne, Reginald Count of, opposes Philip

Augustus, 458 ; present at Bouvines, 468 ;

aptured, 477 ; his armour, 513, 515.

iig Tht^roulde, combat of [i 124], 284, 285.

u ines, battle of [1214], 461-477.

\es, castle of, 524.

-es, Hugh of, present at Bouvines, 461-474.

in the Byzantine army, 176, 177. See r Archery.

, castle of, 525. .bant, Henry Duke of, defeated at Steppes, 44-446 ; joins the Emperor Otto, 458 ; jresent at Bouvines, 465-468. Lttice, introduction of the, 523 ; use of, 534. ■mule, battle of [11 19], 381. ;tigny, treaty of [1360], 634. dges, fortification of, 105, 106. ttany, Peter Duke of, present at Man- ourah, 343-346. '

ice, Alexander, Earl of Carrick, slain at lalidon Hill, 587. ice, Edward, present at Bannockburn, 572,

n-

ice, Robert, King of Scotland. See iobert.

, Robert i., Lord of Annandale, present >orthallerton, 389.

; Robert ii., Lord of Annandale, '1 esent at Lewes, 421 ; captured, 423. ice, Robert, Earl of Carrick, slain at )upplin, 585.

;nia (mail-shirt), used by the Franks, 55. t' Byrnie. Hn, Prankish general, defeated by ses, 36. '-cUarii, personal retainers of generals in 42

late Roman army, 27 ; among the Visi- goths, 44 ; in Byzantine army, 175.

Buch, Jean de Grailly Captal de, present at Poictiers, 622 ; leads the decisive charge, 631 ; defeated at Cocherel, 635 ; present at Navarette, 644.

Burgal hidage, 112.

Burghersh, Bartholomew Lord, his account of Poictiei-s, 628.

Burgundy, Eudes Duke of, present at Bou- vines, 463-490.

Burgundy, Hugh Duke of, commands French army in Palestine, 303-315.

Burgundy, Philip le Hardi Duke of, present at Poictiers, 628, 632.

Burgundy, Stephen Count Palatine of, slain at Ramleh, 292, 293.

Burgs (forts) of Charles the Great, 83 ; of Henry the Fowler, 120.

Burh, the Anglo-Saxon, iii, 112.

Byrnie (= bruttia), mail-shirt in Carolingian armies, 77, 79, 82 ; changed shape of, in tenth century, 128. See Mail-shirt.

Byzantine army, development of the, 169-173 ; arms and organisation of, 184-197 ; strategy and tactics of, 198-215 ; decay of the, 216- 227 ; military architecture of, 526, 527.

Caballarius, armour of the Byzantine, 186. Cadzand, combat of [1337], 597. Caen, combat of [1346], 600. Caernarvon, castle of, 542. Caerphilly, castle of, 540, 541. Calavryta, battle of [1079], 222, 223. Callinicus, invents Greek fire, 546. Calverley, Sir Hugh, present at Auray, 636 ;

present at Navarette, 644. Calycadnus, the, Frederic I. drowned in, 248. Cambuskenneth, battle of [1297], 563, 564. Camville, Nicola de, defends Lincoln, 407. Capitularies, Carolingian :

Cap. Langobardiae [786], 77.

Cap. de Extrcitu Promovendo [803], 78.

Cap. Aquisgranense "

Cap. Bononiense [811], 80.

Cap. de Villis Dominicis, 81. Carausius, Roman usurper, his legions, 7. Carcassonne, fortification of, 539 ; siege of,

549- 550-

Carillo, Gomez, present at Navarette, 643 ; beheaded, 648.

Carrhae, battle of [1104], 319, 320.

Carroccio, the Milanese, at Legnano, 442.

Carron, Baldwin de, present at Arsouf, 313.

Cartae Baronum, the, of 1166, 360, 363.

Casilinum, battle of [554], 36.

Castile, Henry ot, seizes Rome, 488 ; his ex- ploits at Tagliacozzo, 493-495.

Castle Knock, combat of [1171], 404, 405.

Castles, early instances of, 518 ; the mound castle, 519 ; the donjon keep, 521-523 ; the shell keep, 524, 525 ; the Prankish castles in Syria, 530, 531 ; the concentric castle, 539-542.

658

INDEX

"Cat," the, its use in sieges, 133 ; employed

by St. Louis at Mansourah, 342, 548, 549.

Catalogi ( = numeri), late Roman regiments,

25-

Cataphracti, Byzantine heavy cavalry, 25,

Cavalry, growing preponderance of, among the Romans, 8, 9, 10 ; supreme under Justinian, 25 ; development of, among the Franks, 57, 58 ; unknown to the Anglo- Saxons, 70 ; development of, in ninth centui7,io3, 104 ; use of, adopted by Danes, 105 ; Byzantine organisation of, 185, 188 ; the period of its supremacy in Western Europe, 354-56 ; first checks of, by infantry, see Falkirk, Bannockburn, Cre9y ; tempor- ary decadence of, 626, 627, 635, 637.

Centenarius, Visigothic officer, 46 ; Frankish officer, 60.

Ceorl, the, his rise to thegnhood, 109, no.

Chalons, battle of [450], 21.

Champagne, Henry Count, of, present at Arsouf, 310.

Chandos, Sir John, makes indenture with Edward in., 596 ; present at Poictiers, 622 ; victorious at Auray, 635 ; present at Navar- ette, 644.

Chandos Herald, his account of Poictiers, 622-631.

Charles Martel, wars of, 58.

Charles the Great, his influence on Europe, 75 ; his military legislation, 78-81 ; his Lombard and Avar wars, 76, jj ; composi- tion of his army, 81, 82 ; his methods of fortification, 83 ; strategy of, 85 ; armour worn by, 86.

Charles the Bald, 95 ; his German war, 104 ; issues edict of Pitres, 104 ; his fortified bridges, 106, 107.

Charles the Fat, attempts to relieve Paris, 145, 146 ; treats with the Danes, 147.

Charles iv., Emperor, present at Crepy, 609, 612.

Charles III., the Simple, of France, grants Normandy to the Danes, 108.

Charles v. of France, present at Poictiers, 628, 630.

Charles the Bad, King of Navarre, in French civil wars, 634, 635 ; his double dealing in Spain, 640.

Charles of Anjou, King of Naples, present at Mansourah, 343 ; invades Naples,48o, 481 ; victorious at Benevento, 484-486 ; victorious at Tagliacozzo, 492-497.

Charsiana, theme of, 182.

Chartres, battle of [911] 99.

Chiteau Gaillard, built by Richard i. , 533 ; captured by Philip Augustus, 536.

Chester, fortified by Ethelflaed, in.

Chester, Ralph Earl of, victorious at Lincoln,

392, 395- Chlothar I. , Frankish king, his wars, 62. Chlothar 11., Frankish king, his Saxon war,

54. 57. Cibyrrhasot theme, the, 180, 181. Clare, Richard and Gilbert de. See

Gloucester and Pembroke.

Roi j

i

Clement iv. , Pope, his struggle with Manft

480, 481. Clermont, John Count of, slain at Poicti'

628, 629. Clifford, Sir Robert, slain at Bannockbi

574- Clissura, the Byzantine, 183. Cnut, institutes the housecarles, 114, Cocherel, battle of [1364], 634, 635. Cogan, Miles, his victory at DubHn, 4

present at Castle Knock, 404, 405. Cologne, Philip Archbishop of, present

Legnano, 440. Colonna, Egidio, his remarks on si(

engines, 543, 544. Comes. See Count.

Comitatenses, the, organised by Diocletiai Comitatus, the Teutonic, in the Roi

army, 26. Commissions of array, use of, 593, Como, aids Frederic Barbarossa, 440. Concentric castle, the, 539, 540. Coningsborough, castle of, 537. Conrad I., King of Germany, 120, 12 Conrad in.. Emperor, his Crusade

Minor, 243. Conrad the Red, Duke, allied to the Magy

119 ; reconciled to the emperor, 123 ; s

in battle, 124. Conrad of Antioch, captured at Tagliaco

495.

Conradin, invades Italy, 488 ; defeatec Tagliacozzo, 494-496 ; beheaded, 497.

Constans ii., Emperor, reorganises Byzac Empire, 179.

Constantine I., Roman emperor, mill changes introduced by, 9, 10, n,

Constantine iv. , Pogonatus, defends ( stantinople, 526, 546.

Constantine vii., Porphyrogenitus, his Administrando Imperio, 177 ; 182.

Constantinople, fortifications of, 526, 527

Conway, castle of, 542.

Count {= comes), importance of, air Visigoths, 44, 45 ; among the Franks, military duties of, under Charles the Gi 78, 79 ; the Byzantine, 173.

Courtray, battle of [1302]. 592.

Cre9y, battle of [1346], 603-614.

Crossbow, early use of the, 139 ; emplc in Italy, 376 ; employed in England, 559 ; employed by Genoese at Cre9y, t

Crusades, the, 228-350. First Crusade, : 238, 270-290 ; second Crusade, 244-: third Crusade, 246-248, 303-317 ; fo Crusade, 527 ; fifth Crusade, 264-: Crusade of St. Louis, 265, 266, 338 34<

Cumans, the, present at the Marchfeld, j

504- Cusances, Henry of, present at Tagliacc 492 ; slain, 494.

Dagworth, Sir Thomas, his victory

Roche Darien, 616. Damascus, the Emirs of, 254 ; besieget

the Crusaders, 259.

INDEX

659

)ainietta, taken by John de Brienne, 265 ;

taken by St. Louis, 266 ; 339. )aniel of Dendermonde, present at Thielt,

438.

)aras, battle of [530], 27-29. »arum, taken by Richard I., 316 ; castle of,

530-

'avid I. of Scotland, defeated at Northaller- ton, 387-390.

ecius, Trajanus, Roman emperor, slain by the Goths, 6.

lerby, Henry Earl of, victorious at Cadzand, 597 ; victorious at Auberoche, 599. erby, Robert Earl of, captured at Tutbury, 419.

ermot King of Leinster, brings the Eng- lish to Ireland, 398 ; his brutality, 402. espenser, Hugh, present at Lewes, 420 ; slain at Evesham, 433. iedicz, Milita of, present at the Marchfeld, 502, 506.

letrich of Elsass, claims county of Flanders, 437 ; defeated at Thielt, 438. igenes Akritas, romance of, 178. inin, battle of the [1169], 400, 401. iocletian, reorganises the Roman army, 7, 8,9-

istraint of knighthood, writ of, 366. omnahl Macgille Moholmog, at battle of Dublin, 404.

oryioeum, battle of [1097], 271-275. ouglas, Archibald Lord, slain at Halidon Hill, 587.

ouglas, James Lord, invades England, 580, 581.

ouglas. Sir William, present at Poictiers, 626, 627.

'eux, Robert, Count of, present at Arsouf, 310 ; present at Acre, 333 ; present at Bouvines, 470.

iblin, captured by the English, 402 ; besieged by the Norsemen, 403 ; besieged by Roderick O'Connor, 404. -icas, Andronicus, his treachery at Manzi- kert, 218, 219.

iguesclin, Bertrand, victorious at Cocherel, 635 ; beaten at Auray, 635 ; present at Navarette, 645 ; captured, 646. !

ikes, among the Lombards, 50 ; the | Byzantine, 173, 176. ipplin Muir, battle of [1332]. 583-585. irham, Antony Beck Bishop of, present at P'alkirk, 566, 567.

irham, Thomas Hatfield Bishop of, pre- sent at Crefy, 605, 613. rrhachium, battle of [1081], 164; siege of 1108], 546, 549.

vDGAR Atheling, captured at Tenchebrai, 380.

erhard Count of Frejus, his will, 86. 'Olus, Abbot, his marksmanship, 129 ; de- ends Paris, 141, 144.

essa, besieged by the Turks, 321 ; captured ^y Zengi, 257, 258. essa, county of, 257, 258.

Edward the Elder, his wars with the Danes, 111-113.

Edward 1., present at Lewes, 420, 421 ; captured, 424 ; escapes, 426 ; victorious at Kenilworth, 429 ; victorious at Evesham, 432, 433 ; castles of, 539 , victorious at Falkirk, 565, 568.

Edward 11., defeated at Bannockburn, 570- 577 ; at Byland, 580.

Edward iii., pursues Douglas, 581 ; makes peace with Scotland, 581, 582; besieges Berwick, 586 ; victorious at HaUdon Hill, 587, 588 ; his war with France, 591, 592 ; character of his armies, 593, 594 ; introduces system of indenture, 595 ; invades Flanders, 598 ; his march to Cre9y, 599-602 ; vic- torious at Cre9y, 603-614.

Edward the Black Prince, present at Cre9y, 605, 611 ; invades Central France, 618 ; victorious at Poictiers, 622-632 ; his in- vasion of Spain, 638; victoriousat Navarette, 642-646.

Egbert King of Wessex, his struggle with the Danes, 93.

Egypt, military geography of, 263, 265 ; invaded by Amaury I. , 260 ; by John de Brienne, 265 ; by St. Louis, 266.

Ekkehard, his description of the Magyars, 118.

El-Afdal Vizier of Egypt, defeated at Ascalon, 287, 289.

Eleemon, Count, exploits of, 547.

El-Kamil, Sultan, his wars with the Franks, 264, 265.

Enfeoffment, the old, 359, 360.

Engineers, the Byzantine, 190.

Ennsburg, building of, 118.

Entoisel, Dalmace, present at Muret, 456.

Eoric, Danish king, 113, 114.

Eresburg, fall of [776], 83.

Espec, Walter, present at Northallerton, 387.

Estouteville, Robert, victorious at Alnwick, 396.

Ethandune, battle of [878], 98.

Ethelbert, laws of, 66.

Ethelflaed, her fortifications, in.

Ethelred the Redeless, his Danish wars, 114.

Etrun, castle of, loi.

Eudes Count of Burgundy, his unfortunate Crusade, 238, 240.

Eurymedon, the, French defeated at, 246.

Evesham, battle of [X265], 429-432.

Exeter, taken by William the Conqueror, 134-

Fakk-ed-din, Emir, resists St. Louis, 341 :

slain, 345. Falkirk, battle of [1298], 565-568. Fawkes de Brt^aut^, 368 ; his exploits ai

Lincoln, 411. Felton, Sir William, present at Poictiers, 622 ;

slain at Arinez, 641, Feudal states, origin of the, 103. Firouz, betrays Antioch to the Crusaders, 529. Fitz-Stephen , Robert, his victory on the

Dinin, 400, 401.

Ik

66o

INDEX

Flanders, Dietrich Count of, defeated at

Thielt, 438. Flanders, Ferdinand Count of, opposes

Philip Augustus, 458 ; present at Bouvines,

468 ; captured, 474. Flanders, Henry Count of, present at Man- so urah, 344. Flanders, Louis Count of, present at Cre9y,

610 ; slain, 615. Flanders, Robert Count of, present at Bene-

vento, 484. Flemish infantry, its character, 374, 376. Flemish mercenaries, employed by Stephen,

366 ; employed by the Earl of Leicester,

397-

Flor, Roger de, mercenary captain, 374.

Foederati, the, 15, 16, 20, 22, 24, 25 ; in the sixth century, 174.

Foix, Raymond Count of, present at Muret, 452.

Fontenay, battle of [841], 95.

Fornham, battle of [1173], 396,

Fortification, early, in England, 70 ; in the ninth century on the Continent, 106, 107 ; in England, 110, 112; development of, in twelfth century, 517-520 ; the Norman castle, 520-524 ; the shell keep, 524, 525 ; characteristics of Byzantine, 526, 527 ; de- velopment of, during Crusades, 529-533 ; Eastern influences in Western Europe, 533 ; the concentric castle, 538-541.

Forum Trebonii. battle of [251], 6.

Francisca (Frankish axe), 52 ; used by the Visigoths, 46.

Franks, first appearance of the, 5, 16; de- feated at Casilinum, 36 ; their arms and armour, 52, 53 ; rise of cavalry among the, 54, 56 ; wars of the, 57, 58 ; mihtary organi- sation of the, 59, 60 ; military defects of the, 61, 62 ; the Emperor Leo's account of their tactics, 202.

Frederic i., Emperor (Barbarossa), his cam- paign in Asia Minor, 246, 248 ; his Lombard campaign, 440; defeated at Legnano, 441.

Frederic ll., his wars, 371, 545.

Frigidus, battle of the [392], 16.

Frisians in the army of Charles the Great, 79. 80.

Frontier defence, Roman system of, 2.

Fulcoy, Robert, present and slain at Hab, 295, 297.

Fulrad, Abbot, summoned by Charles the Great, 81, 82.

Funda (military machine), used by Visigoths,

4- Fustel de Coulanges, views of, on Frankish

military methods, 53, 59. Fyrd, the, under Alfred, no ; employed by

William I. and II,, 357, 358. Fyrdwite (Anglo-Saxon fine for desertion), 67.

Gaisindi, retainers of Lombard kings, 51. Gambeson (wambais), use of the, 511, Garin Bishop of Senlis, present at Bouvines,

466-469. Gastaldus, Lombard officer, 50, 51.

Geilamir, Vandal king, 29, 30.

Geilo, Frankish count, defeated by Saxons, Si

Geneats, Saxon tenants, 67.

Genetours, the Spanish, 638.

Genoese, naval power of the, 230 ; conquj;

Syrian seaports, 253 ; their crossbowmen,

376 ; present at Crepy, 610. Geoffrey of Rancogne, his incompetence, 244. Gepidae, the, at battle of Chalons, 21 ; ir

Justinian's army, 25, 34. Germans, Roman wars with the, 5, 6, 7, 12. Gesiths, military retainers of Anglo-Saxor

kings, 63, 66, 67. Geule, battle of the [891], 99. Gibbon, Edward, his contempt for Byzan

tines, 198. Giffard, John, present at Lewes, 420 ; oppose:

de Montfort, 427. Gilbert the Templar, commands French array

245. Giraldus Cambrensis, praises Welsh archery

400, 559- Givald's Foss, the D;ine3 at, 97, 98. Gloucester, captured by Prince Edward, 426. Gloucester, Gilbert de Clare i. Earl of

present at Lewes, 420 ; deserts De Mont

fort, 426 ; present at Evesham, 432 ; build

Caerphilly Castle, 540. Gloucester, Gilbert de Clare 11. E^rl of, pre

sent at Bannockburn, 574 ; slain, 577. Gloucester, Robert Earl of, present

Bremflle, 382 ; present at Lincoln, 392. Godfred, Danish king, invades Frisia, 90. Godfrey of Bouillon, Duke, victorious fs

Dorylaeum, 274, 275 ; victorious at Antiocb

281, 284 ; victorious at Ascalon, 286, 288. Godric, English Crusader, 293. Goths, first attacks of, on the Roman Empire

6 ; defeat Valens at Adrianople, 13 ; er

listed by Theodosius, 15 ; victorious a ■

Chalons, 21. See also Ostrogoths an

Visigoths. Gozelin, Bishop, defends Paris, 141; dies, 14; Gratian, Emperor, Roman army under, 18. Greaves, used by the Lombards, 48 ; used b

Charles the Great, 86. Greek fire, its composition and employmen

545. 547- Gregory of Tours, his account of FraJ

military customs, 54, 57, 59, 61, 62. Grimaldi, Carlo, present at Cre9y, 610. Guy King of Jerusalem, present at Arsou

308 ; defeated and captured at Tiberia

323-327 ; defeated at Acre, 332, 335. Gyrth, Earl, slain at Hastings, 160.

Hab, battle of [11 19], 295-297.

Hackespol. See Thielt.

Halidon Hill, battle of [1333], 586.

Harcourt, Godfrey of, serves Edward ill 600, 602.

Harding, English Crusader, 293.

Harenc, battle of [1098], 278.

Harold 11., King of England, victorious Stamford Bridge, 149 ; his tactics Hastings, 150, 156 ; his death, 162.

%

INDEX

66i

iarold Hardrada, slain at Stamford Bridge,

149, 230. I:;roun-al-Raschid, invades Asia Minor, 208. laskulf Thorgilson, expelled from Dublin,

402 ; slain, 404. Hastings, battle of [1066], 150-162. lastings, Henry de, present at Lewes, 420, 422. lattin. See Tiberias, battle of. lauberk, origin of the, 126, 127 ; later use of

the, 512. lazarth, battle of [1125]. 299, 300. leadpiece, shape of the Frankish, 55 ; shape

of the Anglo - Sa.xon, 69 ; shape of

the Danish, 92 ; changes of, in ninth

century, 127 ; in twelfth century, 512 ; in

thirteenth century, 513. l€[\Q Count of Maine, present at Tenchebrai,

379. 380. lei met. See Headpiece. ienry I. of England, employs the fyrd, 358 ;

besieges Bridgenorth, 358 ; raises scutage.

368 ; wins battle of Tenchebrai, 379, 380 ;

wins battle of Bremiile, 381, 383. lenry 11. of England, revises knight-service,

360, 361 ; military events of his reign,

395-399- ienry III, of England, defeated at Taillebourg,

413, 414; captures Northampton, 415;

defeated at Lewes, 418, 420 ; in the power

of De Montfort, 425, 426 ; liberated at

Evesham, 434, ienry I. the Fowler, King of Germany,

builds fortresses in Eastern Germany, 120 ;

defeats the Magyars, 121. ienry ii., King of Castile, expels his brother

Pedro, 638 ; his campaign against the

Black Prince, 641 ; defeated at Navarette,

643, 645 : slays his brother, 648. ienry of Castile, Prince, seizes Rome, 488 ;

his exploits at Tagliacozzo, 493-495. ienry, son of David i. of Scotland, present

at Northallerton, 388, 390. ienry Duke of Saxony, relieves Paris, 145 ;

slain by the Danes, 146. ieraclea, battle of [iioi], 239, 240. ieraclius. Emperor, wars of, 179. ieraldry, introduction of, 513. i^ereford, Henry de Bohun Earl of,

captured at Lincoln, 412. iereford, Humphrey I. de Bohun Earl of,

victorious at Fornham, 396. iiereford, Humphrey ill. de Bohun Earl of,

captured at Bannockburn, 578. iieresliscs (= desertion), punishment of, 77. rieretoga (Saxon war-chief), 65. fieruli, the, at battle of Chalons, 21 ; at

battle of Daras, 28 ; at battle of Taginae,

34 ; at battle of Casilinum, 36. Hobilars, in army of Edward ill., 373, 594. Hohenzollern, Frederic of, present at the

Marchfeld, 504. Homines casati (feudal dependants among

the Franks), 78, 84. Horse-archers, in Justinian's army, 25 ; among

the Turks, 204, 218, 269 ; in Western

Europe, 385, 511.

Housecarles, the, instituted by Cnut, 114. Hugh of Vermandois, present at Antioch,

282. Humbert of Beaujeu, present at Mansourah,

343. 347- Hungarians. See Magyars. Huns, invasions of the, 21 ; in army of

Justinian, 25, 28, 29.

ICONIUM, taken by Frederic Barl^arossa, 248.

Il-Ghazi Emir of Mardin, invades Syria, 295 ; defeated at Hab, 296.

Indentures, system of, 594.

Infantry, Byzantine, 188, 189 ; decay of, in Western Europe, 103, 104 ; despised by Crusaders, 268, 269 ; employed against the Turks, 280, 291, 293, 296 ; employed in the Netherlands, 374, 375 ; employed in Italy, 376, 377, 442 ; combination of with cavalry in twelfth century, 436, 437 ; the Welsh, 400, 562 ; the Scottish, 563 ; the English, in the great French wars. See also Archery a>jd Crossbow.

Ini, laws of, 66, 67.

Ireland, invaded by the Danes, 90 ; conquered by the English, 398-406 ; military features of, 398.

Irish, arms of the, 399, 400.

Isaurians, in the Byzantine army, 23 ; at siege of Rome, 31.

Isidore of Seville, his account of Visigothic weapons, 46.

Jaffa, battle of [i 102], 293; Richard i. vic- torious at [1192], 316.

James King of Majorca, present at Cre9y, 610 ; joins the Black Prince, 639 ; present at Navarette, 644.

Javaly Emir of Mosul, 254.

Jekermish Emir of Mosul, victorious at Carrhae, 320, 321.

Jerusalem, taken by the Crusaders, 131, 135.

Jerusalem, the Latin kingdom of, 255, 256 ; cut short bySaladin, 261 ; last days of the, 262.

Jolm Zimisces, Eastern emperor, his cam- paigns, 194 ; his Russian victories, 206.

John King of England, employs foreign mercenaries, 368 ; his French campaign of 1214, 459, 460.

John King of France, his campaign in Aqui- taine in 1346, 601 ; pursues the Black Prince, 619 ; defeated and captured at Poictiers, 625, 633.

John King of Castile, lays claim to Portugal, 648 ; defeated at Aljubarotta, 650, 652.

John I. of Portugal (Joao), seizes the crown, 648 ; victorious at Aljubarotta, 652.

John King of Bohemia, present at Crecy, 609 ; slain, 612.

John de Brienne King of Jerusalem, his in- vasion of Egypt, 263.

John the Madman, Viking chief, besieges Dublin, 402, 403.

John Bishop of Terouanne, his castle of Merchem, 519.

662

INDEX

Justin II., disorganisation of the East Roman

army under, 173. Justinian I., Roman army under, 26, 27;

neglect of his later years, 172.

Kapellen, Ulrich von, present at the

Marchfeld, 508. Karlstadt, storm of [778], 83. Kavanagh, Donnell, present at the Dinin, 401. Kazik-Bel, battle of [1149], 244, 245. Keith, Sir Robert, Marshal of Scotland, present

at Bannockburn, 572, 577. Kelaun, Sultan, takes Markab, 551. Kenilworth, victory of Edward I. at [1265],

430-

Kent, early organisation of, 66.

Kent, Thomas Holland Earl of, makes in- denture with Edward iii., 595 ; present at Cre9y, 607.

Kerak-in-Moab, castle of, its importance, 256 ; taken by Saladin, 331 ; description of, 531.

Kerboga Emir of Mosul, defeated at Antioch, 280, 285.

Kez'a, Simon, describes the Marchfeld, 504,

507.

KiHdj-Arslan i., Sultan of Roum, defeats the Crusaders, 239, 240 ; beaten at Dory- lasum, 270-275 ; present at Antioch, 284.

Kilidj - Arslan 11., treats with Frederic Barbarossa, 248.

Knighthood, English, in the twelfth century, 364, 365 ; Continental, in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, 369, 370.

Kutusoff, Marshal, stratagem of, 201.

Lacarra, Martin Henriquez, joins the

Black Prince, 640, 644. Lacy, Roger de, defends Chateau Gaillard, 535. Ladislas King of Hungary, aids Rudolf i.,

500-508. Lancaster, John of Gaunt Duke of, invades

Normandy, 619 ; present at Navarette, 644,

645 ; his march through France, 653. Lancaster, Thomas Earl of, his disloyalty,

573-

Lancia, Galvano, present at Benevento, 483 ; present at Tagliacozzo, 492.

Lancia, Giordano, present at Benevento, 483.

Laodicea, Louis vii. at, 244.

Le Brun, Giles, Constable, aids Charles of Anjou, 480, 484.

Lechfeld, victory of the [955], 123.

Legions, decay of the, 7 ; new, raised by Diocletian, 9 ; described by Vegetius, 17 ; disappearance of the, 25.

Legnano, battle of [1176], 440-442.

Leicester, Robert in. Earl of, defeated at Fornham, 397.

Leicester, Robert iv. Earl of, at combat at Jaffa, 316.

Leicester, Simon de Montfort Earl of, victori- ous at Lewes, 415-418 ; his campaign in Wales, 427-429 ; defeated and slain at Eves- ham, 431-434-

Leo I., Emperor, reorganises the Imperial army, 22.

i

Leo III. the Isaurian, Emperor, defends (3:

stantinople, 527. Leo VI. the Wise, Emperor, his Tactii

181, 184-190 ; strategy recommended \

201. Leo Phocas, Byzantine general, his vict

212. Lewes, battle of [1264], 418-420. Lewes, the Mise of, 424. Lewis the Pious, Emperor, besieges Bar

lona, 85 ; reign of, 86, 87 ; his Dan

troubles, 95. Lewis the Child, King of Germany, defeai

by the Magyars, 117, 118. Lewis Margrave of Thuringia, present

Acre, 333. Li^ge, Hugh Bishop of, victorious at Stepp

445. 446. Lincoln, first battle of [1141], 392 ; seco

battle of [1217], 408-412, Lincoln, Henry de Lacy Earl of, at coml

of Peyrehorade, 561. Liudolf Duke of Saxony, 103. Llewellyn Prince of Wales, allied with

Montfort, 426, 427. Lombards, in the army of Justinian, 34 ; i

portance of cavalry among the, 48 ; ar

of the, 49 ; militar}' organisation of the, c

wars of, with the Franks, 76, 'jt, in 1

army of Charles the Great, 'jj ; the Emp>ei

Leo's account of their tactics, 202. London, fortified by Alfred, 11 1 ; Tower

built by William the Conqueror, 520, 52

strengthened by William Rufus, 522 ;

Henry 11., 532 ; by Henry III., 539. Loos, Lewis Count of, victorious at Stepp

444-446. Lothar i.. Emperor, military legislation

87. Loudon Hill, combat of [1307], 569, 570. Louis III. of France, his campaigns agaii

the Vikings, 99, loi. Louis VI. of France, defeated at Bremu

381, 382. Louis VII. of France, his campaign in A

Minor, 242, 245. Louis VIII. of France, his invasion of Er

land, 407 ; his campaign against King Job

459, 460. Louis IX. of France (St. Louis), his invasi

of Egypt, 339 ; his advance to Mansour^

340 ; fights battle of Mansourah, 343-34

taken prisoner, 266 ; victorious at Tail

bourg, 414. Louvain, battle of [891J, 98. Lundy, Sir Richard, at Cambuskenneth, 5^ Lusignan, Guy de. See Guy King

Jerusalem. Lusignan, Geoffrey de, present at .\c\

333-335- Lusignan, Geoffrey {2) de, present at Lew( 420.

Macbeth, his death, 115. Macdonnchadh King of Ossory, his figl with the English, 399-401.

INDEX

663

fachicolation, use of, 534. hizister equitum, office of the, 11.

i ter ped itum , office of the, 11.

.ars, the, their appearance in Europe, 7 TO ; their invasions of Italy and Germany, 117, 119; checked by Henry i., 120, 121 ; defeated by Otto the Great, 123 ; converted to Christianity, 234 ; described by the Emperor Leo, 204, 205 ; their wars with Bohemia, 500; victorious at the Marchfeld, 503-508.

lail-shirt, shape of, in eleventh and twelfth centuries, 510, 511. See Byrnieand Hauberk. lalek-Saleh, Sultan, opposes St. Louis, 339 ; dies, 341.

[alek-el-Afdal, present at Tiberias, 329 ; present at Acre, 334.

lamelukes, the, origin of, 341 ; their exploits at Mansourah, 346, 347. ameluke Sultans, the, expel the Crusaders from Syria, 262, 551.

anfred King of Naples, his contest with the Papacy, 480 ; opposes Charles of Anjou, 481, 482 ; defeated and slain at Benevento, 484, 486.

angon, the, its use in sieges, 136, 137, 544. ansourah, battle of [1250], 343-347. antlet, the, used in sieges, 135. anuel Comnenus, Emperor, his campaigns, 200, 226.

anzikert, battle of [1071], 217. ar, Donald Earl of. Regent of Scotland, 582 ; slain at Dupplin, 585, archfeld, battle of the [1278], 498-508. aresh, battle of [iioi], 239. arkab, siege of, 551. arj-es-Safar, battle of [1126], 300. arlborough, John Churchill Duke of, his strategy, 200.

arly, Bouchard of, present at Muret, 452, 454-

arshall, John, his exploits at Lincoln, 410, 411.

arshall, William, Earl of Pembroke. See Pembroke,

aupertuis, position of, 620, 621. See Poictiers.

aurice, Byzantine emperor, his Strategicon, 17(^174.

ellent, Robert Count of, present at Tenchebrai, 379.

ellent, Waleran Count of. defeated at Bourg Th^roulde, 385 ; present at Lincoln, 393-

ercenary troops, employed in England, 366, 367 ; employed on the Continent, 373» 374-

^rchem, castle of, 519. -"rseburg, fortified by Henry the Fowler, 120. chael VII., Ducas, Emperor, oppressed by the Turks, 220, 221.

■chael VIII. , Palaeologus, Emperor, disbands Bithynian militia, 226. Ian, opposes Frederic Barbarossa, 440, 442. litia, in Byzantine Empire, 178 ; disbanded iy Michael Palaeologus, 226.

Militia, the English. See Fyrd.

Mines, early use of, in sieges, 133, 522, 523 ;

used in thirteenth century, 549, 550. Modhaffer-ed-din Emir of Edessa, invades

Galilee, 322 ; present at Acre, 334. Mohammed - ibn - Danishmend, defeats the

Crusaders, 239, 240. Moirarchos, Byzantine officer, 173. Monmouth, captured by De Montfort, 427. Mons-en-Pevele, battle of [1304], 545, 593. Montchensy, William of, present at Lewes,

420 ; captured at Kenilworth, 430. Montfaucon, battle of [898], 105, 107. Montferrat, Boniface Marquis of, captured

at Tiberias, 330. Montferrat, Conrad Marquis of, present at

Acre, 333. Montfort, Guy de, present at Lewes, 420 ;

captured at Evesham, 434 ; present at

Benevento, 484 ; at Tagliacozzo, 513. Montfort, Henry de, present at Lewes, 420 ;

slain at Evesham, 433. Montfort, John de, Duke of Brittany, 635. Montfort, Peter de, captured at Northampton,

415 ; slain at Evesham, 433. Montfort, Simon Count of, conquers Lan-

guedoc, 448 ; his victory at Muret, 450-455. Montfort, Simon de, Earl of Leicester,

victorious at Lewes, 415-418 ; his campaign

in Wales, 427-429 ; defeated and slain at

Evesham, 431, 434. Montfort, Simon, the Younger, captured at

Northampton, 415 ; defeatedat Kenilworth,

429, 430. Montreal, castle of, 255 ; taken by Saladin,

331.

Moors, wars of Charles the Great with, 83, 85 ; their attacks on Italy foiled, 229.

Mortimer, Roger, opposes De Montfort, 425 ; present at Evesham, 432.

Mosul, the emirs of, 254.

Muret, battle of [1213], 449-455.

Murray, Thomas Randolph Earl of, at combat of St. Ninians, 574 ; at Bannock- burn, 578.

Musculus, the, used in siegecraft, 133.

Mytton, combat of [1320], 580.

Nasal helm, the, 128, 512.

Navarette, battle of [1367], 642-646.

Navarre, the Black Prince in, 640.

Navarre, Charles King of. See Charles.

Neville's Cross, battle of [1346], 587.

Newport, combat of [1265], 428.

Nicaea, captured by Crusaders, 236 ; battle near [1096], 270.

Nicephorus il., Phocas, Emperor, his cam- paigns, 194 ; his U»fxipof/.yi UoXiuov, 199, 200.

Nicephorus iiL, Botaniates, Emperor, civil wars of, 221, 222.

Nicephorus Bryennius, at Manzikert, 217 ; rebellion of, 222; defeated by Alexius I., 223.

Nicetius, Bishop of Trier, his castle, 518.

Norfolk, Hugh Bigot Earl of, present at first battle of Lincoln, 393.

€64

INDEX

Norfolk, Roger Bigot Earl of, present at

Falkirk, 566. Norfolk, Thomas Plantagenet Exirl of, present

at Halidon Hill, 586. Normandy, settlement of the Danes in, 108. Northallerton, battle of [i 138], 386-390. Northampton, captured by Henry in., 415 ;

peace of [1328], 581. Northampton, William Bohun Earl of,

present at Crefy, 607, 614. Northberry, John, present at Aljubarotta, 648. Notitia Dignitatum, the, 7, 20. Numeri, in the late Roman army, 9. -Nur-ed-din, his wars with the Crusaders,

259, 260.

O'Connor, Roderick, King of Connaught,

defeated by the English, 405. Odo Bishop of Bayeux, present at Hastings,

159- Odo of Deuil, his description of Asia Minor,

242. Odo King of West Franks, 104 ; defends

Paris, 141, 147. Oiselle, Danish fortress at, 97. Omar of Malatia, defeat of, 210, Onager. See Mangon. Optimati, in Byzantine army, 175. Orewin Bridge^ combat of [1282], 561. Orleans, Philip Duke of, present at Poictiers,

628, 630. Ormond, James Butler Marquis of, defeated

at Dublin, 405. Ostrogoths, tactics of the, 32, 33 ; subdued

by Narses, 34. Otto I, the Great, Emperor, his wars with the

Magyars, 121, 125; victorious at the Lech-

feld, 123. Otto IV., Emperor, allied with King John,

458 ; enters the Netherlands, 460 ; de- feated at Bouvines, 468-478. Ottokar of Bohemia, his wars with Rudolf

I., 499; defeated and slain at the March-

feld, 500-50S. ■Oxford, Robert de Vere Earl of, captured at

Kenilworth, 429, 430. Oxford, John de Vere Earl of, present at

Cre9y, 607 ; present at Poictiers, 622.

Palatini, Imperial Guard, raised by Dio- cletian, 10.

Paneas, castle of, 255.

Paphlagonia, the Crusaders in, 238.

Paris, fortified by Charles the Bald, 106 ; besieged by the Vikings, 140, 147 ; Edward iil.'s march on, 6ot.

Pavia, besieged by Charles the Great, 85 ; sacked by the Magyars, 119 ; Frederick I. at, 440.

Peloponnesus , m il itary organisation of the, 1 77.

Pembroke, Richard de Clare Earl of (Strong- bow), his Irish victories, 402, 404.

Pembroke, William Marshall Earl of, vic- torious at Lincoln, 408-412.

Pembroke, Aymer de Valence Earl of, his campaign against Bruce, 569.

Penthouse {vinea), the, its use, 132, 133. Perche, Thomas Earl of, commands tl

French at Lincoln, 409 ; slain, 412. Percy, Alan, present at Northallerton, 388. Percy, Thomas, Earl of Worcester, present ;

Navarette, 644. Perigord, the Cardinal of, at Poictier

622, 623. Perriere, the, 544, 545. Persians(Sassanians), defeat Valerian, 6; the

wars with Justinian, 27, 28 ; their wa

with Heraclius, 179. Peter i. the Cruel, King of Castile, expelk

by his brother, 638 ; present at Navarett

644 ; his cruelty to prisoners, 647, 648. I'eter ll. of Aragon, invades Languedo

448 ; defeated and slain at Muret, 455. Peter the Hermit, disasters of, 270. Pevensey, William i. builds a castle at, i5<

besieged b}'' Simon de Montfort t

Younger, 425, 429. Peyrehorade, combat of [1295], 561. PhiHp II., Augustus, of France, present

Acre, 303 ; his campaign against Kii

John, 457-459 ; takes Chateau Gaillar

535 ; invades Flanders, 464, 465 ; victo

ous at Bouvines, 469-478. Philip VI. of France, his campaign of 13

in Flanders, 598 ; in the campaign of 13.^

601-605 ; defeated at Cre^y, 610-614. Philomelium, the Crusaders at, 238, 2^

247. Pikemen of the Netherlands, 376. Pitres, the Edict of, 104. Pitres, fortification of, 106. Plate-armour, worn by Germans at Beneven

483 ; early use of, 515, 516. Poictiers, battle of [632], 58 ; battle of [135*

619-633- Poictiers, Alfonso Count of, present at Mf

sourah, 342, 343. Poictiers, William Count of, his disastrc

Crusade, 240-241. Pons Count of Tripoli, present at

296, 297. Pontoise, taken by Danes, 141. Praetorian Guard, decay of the, 10. Prendergast, Maurice, present at the

401. Procopius, his preference for horse-arche

25 ; his description of the Roman arr

25, 26 ; remarks of, on Belisarius, 32 ;

description of the balista, 137. Protadius, Frankisli mayor, 60, 62. Pseudo-Comitatenses, organised by Const;

tine, 9. Puy, Adhemar Bishop of. See Adhemar.

Ralph of Bayeux, present at Tenchebi 379 ; present at Bourg Thdroulde, 385.

Ram, the, its use, 131, 132.

Ramleh, first battle of [iioi], 290; secc battle of [i 102], 292.

Ramsey, Abbey of, its military service, 359, 3

Rancogne, Geoffrey of, his incompetence Kazik-Bel, 244.

astrc

I

INDEX

66?

Uymond iv. of Toulouse, Count, his inarch through lUyria, 235 ; his misfortunes in Pontus, 239 ; present at Dorylaeum, 274 ; at Ascalon, 288,

Laymond vi. of Toulouse, Count, his wars with De Montfort, 448 ; present at Muret,

450-455- iaymond 11. Count of Tripoli, present at

Tiberias, 326, 328. leading, Danish camp at, 97. leginaid Count of Toul, present at Antioch,

282, 284. Reginald of Chatillon, beheaded by Saladin,

330. Uade, battle of [933], 121. lichard i., captures Acre, 303 ; his march to

Arsouf, 304, 305 ; victorious at Arsouf, 309-

314 ; his exploits at Jaffa, 316 ; his combat

with William des Barres, 514 ; builds

Chateau Gaillard, 533, 534. lichard of Cornwall, King of the Romans,

present at Lewes, 421 ; captured, 423. Richmond, Alan Earl of, present at Lincoln,

393- Udwan Emir of Aleppo, present at Antioch,

285.

tipuarian laws, quoted, 56, 59.

iobert I. King of Scotland, his early com- bats, 568, 569 ; victorious at Bannockburn, 570-578 ; his system of warfare, 579 ; in- vades England, 580 ; dies, 581.

t-Obert King of France, slain at the battle of Soissons, 127, 128.

lobert I. of Artois, advises march on Cairo, 340 ; slain at Mansourah, 344-347.

lobert II. of Artois, victorious at Peyrehorade, 561.

lobert of Belesme, expelled from England, 358 ; present at Tenchebrai, 380.

lobert Guiscard, victorious at Dyrrhachium, 164.

lobert Earl of Gloucester, present at Brem- iile, 382 ; present at Lincoln, 392.

lobert Duke of Normandy, at Doryla?um, 271, 273 ; at Antioch, 282 ; at Ascalon, 288, 289 ; captured at Tenchebrai, 380.

loche au Moine, siege of, 460.

loche Darien, combat of [1346], 616.

toches, Peter des, Bishop of Winchester, present at Lincoln, 408, 410.

lochester, besieged by King John, 522 ; by De Montfort, 416.

iochefort, Thierry of, present at Steppes, 445, 446.

lodolf 11. King of Burgundy, defeats the Magyars, 119.

loman Empire, frontier defence system of, 2 ; military decay of the, 2-20.

lomanus iv. , Diogenes, Emperor, his cam- paigns, 200 ; defeated by the Turks at Manzikert, 217.

lome, besieged by Goths [536], 31 ; taken by the Emperor Amulf, 134.

vomorantin, taken by Edward the Black Prince, 619.

ioncesvalles, Pass of, Prankish disaster at.

85 ; crossed by Edward the Black Prince,

640. Roslin, combat of [1302], 569. Roum, origin of Sultanate of, 231 ; contests

of the Crusaders with, 236-250. Rudolf I., Emperor, his wars with Ottokar,

499 ; victorious at the Marchfeld, 501, 508. Russians, their wars with the Byzantines, 205,

206 ; present at the Marchfeld, 499. Rye, jean de, present at Aljubarotta, 648,

650.

Saad-ed-Dowleh. Emir, defeated at Ram- leh, 290.

Saffaria, combat of [1187], 323.

Sagittarius, Prankish bishop, 54, 56.

Saladin, his rise to power, 261 ; victorious at Tiberias, 323-327 ; defeats King Guy be- fore Acre, 330-337 ; his campaign against Richard i., 308-315.

Salic laws, the, quoted, 60.

Salisbury, the great moot of, 363.

Salisbury, Roger Bishop of, 363.

Salisbury, WiUiam i., Longsword, Earl of, present at Lincoln, 408 ; present at Bou- vines, 461 ; captured, 474.

Sahsbury, William il., Longsword, second Earl of, present at Mansourah, 343 ; slain,

345-

Salisbury, William Montacute Earl of, present at Cre9y, 607 ; present at Poictiers, 622, 627.

San Germano, combat of [1266], 481.

Saracens, wars of, with the Franks, 58, 76 ; invade the Eastern Empire, 179 ; the Emperor Leo's description of their tactics, 206, 209 ; described by Nicephorus Phocas, 209, 211 ; decHning power of the, 213.

Saucourt, battle of [881], 99.

Saxons, in the Roman army, 16, 43, 63 ; their wars with the Franks, 57, 62 ; invade Britain, 63 ; wars of Charles the Great with, 83, 85 ; military service imposed on the, 79. See also Anglo-Saxons.

Scarf, Knights of the, at Navarette, 643.

Schultheiss, Lombard officer, 49, 50.

Scorpio. See Mangon.

Scots, the, at Battle of the Standard, 388-392 ; character of their warfare, 561, 562 ; their wars with England, 563-588.

Scramasax (Prankish dagger), 53.

Scutage, 367, 368.

Scutati (Byzantine heavy infantry), 191.

Seif-ed-Dauleh, defeated by Byzantines, 212,

Seljouks, invade Byzantine Empire, 215, 216.

Semispatha (short sword), used by Visigoths, 46.

Senlac. See Hastings.

Sens, besieged by Vikings, 147.

Sergeant, origin of the, 365, 370.

Shawir Vizier of Egypt, 260.

Shell keep, origin of the, 523, 524.

Sheppey, isle of, fortified by the Danes, 93.

Shield, of the Anglo-Saxons, 64 ; of the Vi- kings, 92 ; the kite-shaped, 128, 129 ; of the thirteenth century, 514.

666

INDEX

Shield-wall, the, Saxon military formatior.,

71- Shirkuh, his campaigns in Egypt, 260. Sidonius ApoUinaris, his description of the

Franks, 52. Siegecraft in the Dark Ages, 131-148 ; in the

eleventh and thirteenth centuries, 540-553. Siege-engines, the, of the Dark Ages, 136,

138 ; ot the eleventh and thirteenth centuries,

542-545. Siegfried, Viking chief, his siege of Paris,

141, 145. Sinric, Viking chief, besieges Paris, 145. Slavs, the, invade the Balkan peninsula, 171 ;

the Emperor Leo's account of their tactics,

205, 206. Slovenes, wars of the Lombards with, 49. Soissons, battle of [923], 105, 127, 128. Sokman-ibn-Urtuk, Emir, victorious at Carr-

hae, 320, 321. Solier, Regnault de, present at Aljubarotta,

648, 650 ; slain, 652. Sonnac, William de, Grand Master of the

Templars, slain at Mansourah, 344-346. " Sow," the, its use in sieges, 133. Spain, Visigoths in, 43, 47 ; military customs

of, 637, 639 ; invaded by the Black Prince,

639-642. Spatha (broadsword), used by the Lombards,

48. Spear, the Prankish, 52 ; the Anglo-Saxon, 64. Springal, use of the, 545. St. Gall, Monk of, his description of Charles

the Great, 85. St. Valery, Alard of, aids Charles of Anjou,

492-495 ; at Tagliacozzo, 513. St. Valery, Thomas of, present at Bouvines,

470-477. Stafford, Ralph Lord, present at Dupplin,

584 ; present at Cre9y, 607. Stamford Bridge, battle of [1066], 149. Standard, Battle of the [11 38], 387-390. Stephen, King, employs foreign mercenaries,

366 ; defeated at Lincoln, 392, 395. Stephen of Blois, Count, his unfortunate

Crusade, 238 ; present at Dorylaeum, 273 ;

slain at Ramleh, 292. Stephen Count Palatine of Burgundy, slain

at Ramleh, 293. Steppes, battle of [1213], 444-446. Stilicho, Roman general, 19, 20. Strassburg, victory of Julian at [357], 11. Straiegicon, the, of Emperor Maurice, 170-

174. Stratherne, Malise Earl of, at Northallerton,

388. Suffolk, Robert de Ufford ELarl of, present at

Crepy, 607, 614 ; present at Poictiers, 622. Surgeons, Byzantine military, 190. Sword, the Frankish, 52 ; the Anglo-Saxon,

64. See Spatha. Syria, military geography of, 251-253. See

Crusades.

Tactica, the, of Leo the Wise, 181, 184-190. Taginae, battle of [552], 32, 33.

Ma:

Tagliacozzo, battle of [1268], 488-496. Taillebourg, battle of [1246], 413, 41.

combat of [1351], 617. Taillefer, his exploits at Hastings, 158. Taki-ed-din, Emir, present at Arsouf, 31^

present at Tiberias, 328 ; present at Acr

334- Tancred, present at Dorylaeum, 271 ; ;

Antioch, 282 ; present at Ascalon, 28

289 ; present at Carrhae, 319, 320. Tanker ville, William of, victorious at Boui

Thdroulde, 385. Tel-Basher, battle of [iio3], 254. Tello, Don, brother of Henry of Trastamar

surprises English camp, 640 ; present

Navarette, 643, 645. Templars, Grand Masters of the : Everard des Barres, 245. Gerard de Rideford, 333 ; slain, 337. William de Sonnac, present at Ma sourah, 343 ; slain, 346. ^

Tenchebrai, battle of [i 106], 379, 380. Thegn, first mention of the, 67 ; u

Alfred, 109. Themes, the Byzantine, 180-183. Theodore of Caesarea, his militaiy drawing

186. Theodoric, Visigothic king. 21. Theodosius i. , Emperor, subsidises the Goth

15 ; his victories, 16. Theudebert i. , Frankish king, 54 ; defea

the Danes, 89 ; invades Italy, 36, 54. Theudebert II. , Frankish king, civil warsof, 6 Thielt (or Hackespol), battle of [1128], 43

438. Thiufad, Visigothic officer, 46. Thuringia, Lewis Margrave of, present ;

Acre, 333. Tiberias, battle of [1187], 323-327. Tiberius Constantinus, Emperor, reorganis-

Imperial army, 172. Toktagin Emir of Damascus, "defeat

Hab, 296 ; defeated at Marj-es-Safar, lortona, siege of, 543. Tortosa, taken by Crusaders, 241 ; casi

538, 539. Totila. See Baduila. Toulouse, Raymond iv. Count of, his marc

through Iliyria, 235 ; his misfortunes ;

Pontus, 239 ; present at Dorylaeum, 27^

at Ascalon, 288. Toulouse, Raymond vi. Count of, his wa

with De Montfort, 448 ; present at Mure

450-455- Tournay, taken by Philip Augustus, 465. Tower, movable, the (= beffroi), 134, 135, 54 Trebuchet, the, and its varieties, 543, 545. Trenczin, Mathias of, present at Marchfelf

505- Tribune, officer in Byzantine army, 173. Tricameron. battle of [535], 29. Tripoli, county of, 256. Tripoli, Pons Count of, present at Hal

295, 296. Tripoli, Raymond Count of, present ;

Tiberias, 326, 328.

aniS'

I

INDEX

667

Tuldum (= Byzantine baggage), 190.

Turcopoles (light cavalry), 270, 305.

Turks (Magyars), tactics of the, described by

Leo, 204, 205 ; Seljouks, invade Byzantine

Empire, 215, 216 ; their wars with the

Crusaders, 238-250, 268-280. lurma, Byzantine military unit, 182. Turmarch, Byzantine officer, 182, 209. Fwenge, Sir Marmaduke, at Cambuskenneth,

514.

L'FFORD, Sir Thomas, present at Navarette,

644. See also Suffolk. Dnstrut, battle on the, 121. Jrbicius, tactical suggestions of, 23. L^z^s, Raymond Bishop of, 452.

v'alens, Emperor, slain at Adrianople, 13. v'alerian, Emperor, defeated by the Persians,

6. /alery, St. See St. Valery. /alois, Philip of. See Philip vi. of France. /andals, conquered by Belisarius, 29, 30. v'arangians, the, at battle of Dyrrhachium,

164. Vassi, the Prankish, 102. v'egetius, his description of the Roman army,

17, 18. Venetians, naval power of, 230 ; conquer

Syrian seaports, 252. /ictring, John of, his Chronicle, 501, 503. /ikings, the, their origin and character, 89-

91 ; their war-vessels, 91 ; their armour, 92 ;

their tactics, 96, 97 ; checked by the Franks,

106, 107 ; checked by Alfred and Edward,

III, 112. .'isigoths, political and military weakness of

the, 44, 45 ; their military customs, 45 ;

their arms, 46. 'ittoria, the Black Prince at, 640, 641.

Vace, his account of Hastings, 153 et seq. Valcourt, Thierry of, present at Steppes, 445,

446.

Valdric, captures Robert of Normandy, 380. \'ales, Prince of. See Llewellyn and Ed- ward. See also under Welsh. V^allace, William, his insurrection, 563 ;

victorious at Cambuskenneth, 564 ; defeated

at Falkirk, 567. Vamba, Visigothic king, military legislation

of, 45. Vareham, sacked by the Danes, 90. Varrenne, John Earl of, present at Lewes,

417, 421 ; defeated at Cambuskenneth

Bridge, 563, 564. Varrenne, William il. Earl of, present at

Tenchebrai, 379 ; present at Bremtile, 583. Varrenne, William ill. Earl of, at Lincoln,

394-

I Warwick, Thomas Beauchamp Earl of^ marshal of Edward in., 602; present at Cre9y, 607.

Warwick, William Beauchamp Earl of,, defeats the Welsh, 561.

Wearmouth, sacked by the Danes, 90.

Wedmore, the Peace of, 112.

Weland, Viking king, 106.

Welsh, strife of the Anglo-Saxons with, 65, 66; early arms of the, 68 ; present at Lincoln, 394 ; archery of the, 400, 559 ; present at Lewes, 417 ; at Evesham, 433 ; at Falkirk, 565 ; at Crefy, 599, 606.

" Weregeld Document," the, importance of, 109, no.

Wessex, early organisation of, 67 ; the "Burgal Hidage" of, in, 112.

William i. the Conqueror, captures Exeter, 134 ; employs movable towers, 135 ; his invasion of England, 149 ; wins battle of Hastings, 150-162; institutes knight- service, 359 ; his castle at York, 520, 521 ;. builds the Tower of London, 521.

William ir. , Rufus, employs the fyrd, 357, 358 ; enlarges the Tower of London, 522.

William the Lion, King of Scotland, captured at Alnwick, 396.

William Clito, present at Brenitile, 381 ; victorious at Thielt, 437 ; dies, 439.

William of Poictiers, Duke of Aquitaine, his unfortunate Crusade, 231.

William of Nevers, Count, his unfortunate Crusade, 239, 240.

William Longsword. See Salisbury.

William Crispin, his exploits at Brem61e,

383. Winchester, Saber de Quincey Earl of, present

at Lincoln, 408-412. Winchester, Peter des Roches Bishop oL

See under Roches. Witiges, Gothic king, besieges Rome, 131,-

134- Witikind, takes refuge with the Danes, 89. Worcester, Edward i. at, 426, 429.

York, battle of [868], 99; fortification of, 100 ; WilUam the Conqueror's castle at,. 520, 521.

Ypres, William of, leader of mercenaries,. 366 ; present at Lincoln, 393.

Zaba (mail-shirt), employed by the Visigoths,

47- Zahringen, Berthold of, present at Legnano,

440, 445. , , ,,

Zengi, his wars with the Crusaders, 253, 255 ;

captures Edessa, 257, 258. Zeno, Emperor, raises Isaurian troops, 23. Zerdana, captured by Il-Ghazi, 297. Ziilpich, battle of [612], 57.

PRINTED BY MORRISON AND GIBB LIMITED, EDINBURGH.

A CATALOGUE OF BOOKS
AND ANNOUNCEMENTS OF
METHUEN AND COMPANY
PUBLISHERS : LONDON
36 ESSEX STREET
W.C.
CONTENTS
PACK FORTHCOMING BOOKS, .... 2
POETRY, ....		8
BELLES LETTRES,		9
ILLUSTRATED BOOKS, .		II
HISTORY, .....		12
BIOGRAPHY, ....		14
TRAVEL, ADVENTURE AND TOl'GGRAPHY,		15
NAVAL AND MILITARY,		17
GENERAL LITERATURE,		18
SCIENCE, ....		19
TECHNOLOGY, ....		20
PHILOSOPHY, ....		20
THEOLOGY, .....		21
FICTION, ....		23
BOOKS FOR BOYS AND GIRLS, .		34
THE PEACOCK LIBRARY,		34
UNIVERSITY EXTENSION SERIES,		35
SOCIAL QUESTIONS OF TO-DAY		36
CLASSICAL TRANSLATIONS		37
EDUCATIONAL BOOKS, .... 37
FEBRUARY 1898

February 1898.

Messrs. Methuen's

ANNOUNCEMENTS

Poetry

THE POEMS OF WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE. Edited with an Introduction and Notes by George Wyndham, M.P. Demy 8vo. Buckram ^ gilt top. \os. 6d.

This edition contains the 'Venus,' 'Lucrece' and Sonnets, and is prefaced with an elaborate introduction of over 140 pp. The text is founded on the first quartos, with an endeavour to retain the original reading. A set of notes deals with the problems of Date, The Rival Poets, Typography, and Punctuation ; and the editor has commented on obscure passages in the light of contemporary works. The publishers believe that no such complete edition has ever been published.

Travel and Adventure

THREE YEARS IN SAVAGE AFRICA. By Lionel Decle, With an Introduction by H. M. Stanley, M.P. With 100 Illus- trations and 5 Maps. DemyZvo. i\s.

Few Europeans have had the same opportunity of studying the barbarous parts of Africa as Mr. Decle. Starting from the Cape, he visited in succession Bechuana- land, the Zambesi, Matabeleland and Mashonaland, the Portuguese settlement on the Zambesi, Nyasaland, Ujiji, the headquarters of the Arabs, German East Africa, Uganda (where he saw fighting in company with the late Major ' Roddy' Owen), and British East Africa. In his book he relates his experiences, his minute observations of native habits and customs, and his views as to the work done in Africa by the various European Governments, whose operations he was able to study. The whole journey extended over 7000 miles, and occupied exactly three years.

EXPLORATION AND HUNTING IN CENTRAL AFRICA. By Major A. St. H. Gibbons, F.R.G.S. With 8 full- page Illustrations by C. Whymper, photographs and Map. Detriy Zvo. I $3. This is an account of travel and adventure among the INIarotse and contiguous tribes, with a description of their customs, characteristics, and history, together with the author's experiences in hunting big game. The illustrations are by Mr. Charles Whymper, and from photographs. There is a map by the author of the hitherto unexplored regions lying between the Zambezi and Kafukwi rivers and from i8° to 15° S. lat.

WITH THE MASHONALAND FIELD FORCE, 1896. By Lieut. -Colonel Alderson. With numerous Illustrations and Plans. Demy 8vo. 12s. 6d. This is an account of the military operations in Mashonaland by the officer who commanded the Iroops in that district during the late rebellion. Besides its interest as a story of warfare, it will have a peculiar value as an account of the services of mounted infantry by one of the chief authorities on the subject.

Messrs. Methuen's Announcements 3

CAMPAIGNING ON THE UPPER NILE AND NIGER.

By Lieut. Seymour Vandeleur. With an Introduction by Sir G. GoLDiE. With two Maps, Illustrations and Plans. Large Cr. %vo. 10s. 6d. A narrative of service (i) in the Equatorial Lakes and on the Upper Nile in 1895 and 1896 ; and (2) under Sir George Goldic in the Niger campaign of January 1897, describing the capture of Bida and Ilorin, and the French occupation of Boussa. The book thus deals with the two districts of Africa where now the French and English stand face to face.

THE NIGER SOURCES. By Colonel J. Trotter, R.A.

With a Map and Illustrations. Crown %vo. ^s. A book which at the present time should be of considerable interest, being an account of a Commission appointed for frontier delimitation.

LIFE AND PROGRESS IN AUSTRALASIA. By Michael Davitt, M.P. With two Maps. Crown 2>vo. 6s. 500 pp.

This book, the outcome of a recent journey through the seven Australasian colonies, is an attempt to give to English readers a more intimate knowledge of a continent colonised by their own race. The author sketches the general life, resources, politics, parties, progress, prospects, and scenery of each colony. He made_ a careful examination of the West Australian goldfields, and he has paid special attention to the development of practical politics in the colonies. The book is full of anecdotes and_ picturesque description.

History and Biography

A HISTORY OF THE ART OF WAR. By C. W. Oman,

M.A., Fellow of All Souls', Oxford. Vol. II. Medieval War- fare. Demy %vo Illustrated, i\s.

Mr. Oman is engaged on a History of the Art of War, of which the above, though covering the middle period from the fall of the Roman Empire to the general use of gunpowder in Western Europe, is the first instalment. The first battle dealt with will be Adrianople (378) and the last Navarette (1367). _ There will appear later a volume dealing with the Art of War among the Ancients, and another covering the 15th, i6th, and 17th centuries.

The book will deal mainly with tactics and strategy, fortifications and siegecraft, but subsidiary chapters will give some account of the development of arms and armour, and of the various forms of military organization known to the Middle Ages.

RELIGION AND CONSCIENCE IN ANCIENT EGYPT. By W. M. Flinders Petrie, D.C.L., LL.D. Fully Illustrated. CrownZvo. 2s. 6d. This volume deals mainly with the historical growth of the Egyptian religion, and the arrangement of all the moral sayings into something like a handbook. But far larger interests are also discussed as the origin of intolerance, the fusion of religions, the nature of conscience, and the experimental illustration of British conscience.

SYRIA AND EGYPT FROM THE TELL EL AMARNA TABLETS. By W. M. Flinders Petrie, D. C. L. , LL.D. Crozun Svo. 2s. 6d. This book describes the results of recent researches and discoveries and the light thereby thrown on Egyptian history.

4 Messrs. Methuen's Announcements the decline and fall of the roman empire.

By Edward Gibbon. A New Edition, edited with Notes, Appendices, and Maps by J. B. Bury, M.A., Fellow of Trinity College, Dublin. /;/. Seven Volumes. Demy 8vo, gilt top. %s. 6d. each. Crown 2)Vo. 6s. each. Vol. V.

THE EASTERN QUESTION IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. By Albert Sorel of the French Academy. Trans- lated by F. C. Bramwell, M.A., with an Introduction by R. C. L. Fletcher, Fellow of Magdalen College, Oxford. With a Map. Crown 8vo. 4s. 6d. This book is a study of the political conditions which led up to and governed the first partition of Poland, and the Russo-Turkish war of 1768-1774. It is probably the best existing examination of Eastern European politics in the eighteenth century, and is an early work of one of the ablest of living historians.

THE LETTERS OF VICTOR HUGO. Translated from the French by F. Clarke, M.A. In Two Volumes. Demy %vo. \Q)s. 6d. each. Vol. II. 1815-35.

A HISTORY OF THE GREAT NORTHERN RAILWAY,

1845-95. By C. H. Grinling. With Maps and many Illustrations. Det7iy Svo. los. 6d. A record of Railway enterprise and development in Northern England, containing much matter hitherto unpublished. It appeals both to the general reader and to those specially interested in railway construction and management.

ANARCHISM. By E. V. Zenker. DemyZvo. -js.pd.

A critical study and history, as well as trenchant criticism of the Anarchist movement in Europe. The book has aroused considerable attention on the Continent.

THOMAS CRANMER. By A. J. Mason, D.D., Canon of Can- terbury. With a Portrait. Crown 8vo. 3^-. 6d.

S^Leaders of Religion.

Theology

THE MINISTRY OF DEACONESSES. By Cecilia Robin- son, Deaconess. With an Introduction by the Lord Bishop of Winchester, and an Appendix by Professor Armitage Robinson. Crown Svo. 3^". 6d. This book is a review of the history and theory of the office and work of a Deaconess and it may be regarded as authoritative.

DISCIPLINE AND LAW. By H. Hensley Henson, B.D.,

Fellow of All Soul's, Oxford ; Incumbent of St. Mary's Hospital,

Ilford ; Chaplain to the Bishop of St. Albans. I^cap. Svo. 2s. 6d.

This volume of devotional addresses, suitable for Lent, is concerned with the value,

method, and reward of Discipline ; and with Law — family, social and individual.

REASONABLE CHRISTIANITY. By Hastings Rashdall, M. A. , Fellow and Tutor of New College, Oxford. Crown Svo. 6s This volume consists of twenty sermons, preached chiefly before the University of Oxford. They are an attempt to translate into the language of modern thought some of the leading ideas of Christian theology and ethics.

Messrs. Methuen's Announcements 5

THE HOLY SACRIFICE. By F. Weston, M.A., Curate of St. Matthew's, Westminster. Pott %vo. \s. A small volume of devotions at the Holy Communion, especially adapted to the needs of servers and of those who do not communicate.

Hbe Cburcbman'0 Xtbrar^,

Edited by J. H. Burn, B.D.

A series of books by competent scholars on Church History, Institu- tions, and Doctrine, for the use of clerical and lay readers.

THE BEGINNINGS OF ENGLISH CHRISTIANITY. By W. E. Collins, M.A., Professor of Ecclesiastical History at King's College, London. With Map. Crow?i Svo. 3^-, 6d. An investigation in detail, based upon original authorities, of the beginnings of the English Church, with a careful account of earlier Celtic Christianity. The larger aspects of the continental movement are described, and some very full appendices treat of a number of special subjects.

SOME NEW TESTAMENT PROBLEMS. By Arthur Wright, Fellow and Tutor of Queen's College, Cambridge. Crown Svo. 6s. This book deals with a number of important problems from the standpoint of the ' Higher Criticism,' and is written in the hope of advancing the historico-critical study of the Synoptic Gospels and of the Acts.

Zbc XibracB of Bevotiom

Messrs. Methuen have arranged to publish under the above title a number of the older masterpieces of devotional literature. It is their intention to entrust each volume of the series to an editor who will not only attempt to bring out the spiritual importance of the book, but who will lavish such scholarly care upon it as is generally expended only on editions of the ancient classics.

The books will be furnished with such Introductions and Notes as may be necessary to explain the standpoint of the author, and to comment on such difficulties as the ordinary reader may find, without unnecessary intrusion between the author and reader.

Mr. Laurence Housman has designed a title-page and a cover design. Fott Svo. 2s. ; leather 3J.

THE CONFESSIONS OF ST. AUGUSTINE. Newly Trans- lated, with an Introduction and Notes, by C. BiGG, D.D., late Student of Christ Church. This volume contains the nine books of the 'Confessions' which 'are suitable for devotional purposes.

THE CHRISTIAN YEAR. By John Keble. With Intro- duction and Notes, by Walter Lock, D.D., Warden of Keble College, Ireland Professor at Oxford.

6 Messrs. Methuen's Announcements

THE IMITATION OF CHRIST. A Revised Translation with an Introduction, by C. Bigg, D.D., late Student of Christ Church. Dr. Bigg has made a practically new translation of this book, which the reader will have, almost for the first time, exactly in the shape in which it left the hands of the author.

A BOOK OF DEVOTIONS. By J. W. Stanbridge, M.A., Rector of Bainton, Canon of York, and sometime Fellow of St. John's College, Oxford. Pott 8vo. This book contains devotions, Eucharistic, daily and occasional, for the use of members of the English Church, sufficiently diversified for those who possess other works of the kind. It is intended to be a companion in private and public worship, and is in harmony with the thoughts of the best Devotional writers. ,

General Literature

THE GOLFING PILGRIM. By Horace G. Hutchinson.

Crown Svo. 6s. This book, by a famous golfer, contains the following sketches lightly and humorously written : — The Prologue — The Pilgrim at the Shrine — Mecca out of Season — The Pilgrim at Home— The Pilgrim Abroad— The Life of the Links— A Tragedy by the Way — Scraps from the Scrip — The Golfer in Art — Early Pilgrims in the West — An Interesting Relic.

WORKHOUSES AND PAUPERISM. By Louisa Twining.

Crown Svo. 2s. 6d. [Social Questions Series.

Educational

THE ODES AND EPODES OF HORACE. Translated by A. D. GODLEY, M.A., Fellow of Magdalen College, Oxford. Crown Svo. 2s. [Classical Translations.

PASSAGES FOR UNSEEN TRANSLATION. By E. C. Marchant, M.A., Fellow of Peterhouse, Cambridge; and A. M. Cook, M.A., late Scholar of Wadham College, Oxford: Assistant Masters at St. Paul's School. Crown Svo. 3^. 6d. This book contains Two Hundred Latin and Two Hundred Greek Passages, and has been very carefully compiled to meet the wants of V. and VI. Form Boys at Public Schools. It is also well adapted for the use of Honour men at the Universities.

EASY LATIN EXERCISES ON THE SYNTAX OF THE SHORTER AND REVISED LATIN PRIMER. By A. M. M. Stedman, M.A. With Vocabulary. Seventh and Cheaper Edition. Crown Svo. \s. 6d. Issued with the consent of Dr. Kennedy. A new and cheaper edition, thoroughly revised by Mr. C. G. Botting, of St. Paul's School.

TEST CARDS IN EUCLID AND ALGEBRA. By D. S. Calderwood, Headmaster of the Normal School, Edinburgh. In a Packet of 40, with Answers, is. A set of cards for advanced pupils in elementary schools.

Messrs. Methuen's Announcements 7

Byzantine Texts

Edited by J. B. Bury, M.A., Professor of Modern History at Trinity College, Dublin.

EVAGRIUS. Edited by Professor Leon Parmentier of

Liege and M. Bidez of Gand. Demy Svo. PSELLUS (HISTORIA). Edited by C. Sathas. Demy Zvo.

Fiction

SIMON DALE. By Anthony Hope. Illustrated by W. St. J. Harper. Crown Svo. 6s.

A romance of the reign of Charles II., and Mr. Anthony Hope's first historical novel.

TRAITS AND CONFIDENCES. By The Hon. Emily Law- less, Author of ' Hurrish,' ' Maelcho,' etc. Crown %vo. 6s.

THE VINTAGE. By E. F. Benson, Author of ' Dodo.' Illus- trated by G. P. Jacomb-Hood. Crown Svo. 6s.

A romance of the Greek War of Independence.

A VOYAGE OF CONSOLATION. By Sara Jeanette Duncan. Author of 'An American Girl in London.' Crown Svo. 6s. The adventures of an American girl in Europe.

A NEW NOVEL. By B. M. Croker, Author of 'Proper Pride.'

Crown %vo. 6s.

ACROSS THE SALT SEAS. By J. Bloundelle-Burton.

Crown Svo. 6s.

MISS ERIN. By M. E. FRANCIS, Author of ' In a Northern Village.' Crown Svo. 6s.

WILLOWBRAKE. By R. MURRAY Gilchrist. CroiunSvo. 6s.

THE KLOOF BRIDE. By Ernest Glanville, Author of ' The Fossicker. ' Illustrated. Crown Svo. y. 6d.

A story of South African Adventure.

BIJLI, THE DANCER. By James Blythe Patton. Illus- trated. Crown Svo. 6s.

A Romance of India.

JOSIAH'S WIFE. By NORMA LORIMER. Crown Svo. 6s.

BETWEEN SUN AND SAND. By W. C. ScULLY, Author of ' The White Hecatomb.' Crown Svo. 6s.

CROSS TRAILS. By VICTOR Waite. Illustrated. Crown Svo. 6s. A romance of adventure in America and Australia.

THE PHILANTHROPIST. By LuCY Maynard. Crown Svo. 6s.

VAUSSORE. By FRANCIS Brune. Crown Svo. 6s.

A LIST OF

Messrs. Methuen^s

PUBLICATIONS

Poetry

RUDYARD KIPLING'S NEW POEMS

Rudyard Kipling. THE SEVEN SEAS. By Rudyard Kipling. Third Edition. Crown 2>vo. Buckram^ gilt top. 6s. ' The new poems of Mr. Rudyard Kipling have all the spirit and swing of their pre- decessors. Patriotism is the solid concrete foundation on which Mr. Kipling has built the whole of his work.' — Times.

* The Empire has found a singer ; it is no depreciation of the songs to say that states-

men may have, one way or other, to take account of them.' — Manchester

Guardian. ' Animated through and through with indubitable genius." — Daily Telegraph. 'Packed with inspiration, with humour, with pathos.' — Daily Chronicle.

• All the pride of empire, all the intoxication of power, all the ardour, the energy,

the masterful strength and the wonderful endurance and death-scorning pluck which are the very bone and fibre and marrow of the British character are here. ' — Daily Mail.

Rudyard Kipling. BARRACK-ROOM BALLADS. By Rudyard Kipling. Twelfth Edition. Crown Svo. 6s. ' Mr. Kipling's verse is strong, vivid, full of character. . . . Unmistakable genius

rings in every line.' — Times. 'The ballads teem with imagination, they palpitate with emotion. We read them with laughter and tears ; the metres throb in our pulses, the cunningly ordered words tingle with life ; and if this be not poetry, what is?' — Pall Mall Gazette.

'Q." POEMS AND BALLADS. By "Q." CrownZvo. ^s. 6d.

' This work has just the faint, ineffable touch and glow that make poetrj'.' — Speaker.

" Q." GREEN BAYS : Verses and Parodies. By « Q.,» Author of ' Dead Man's Rock,' etc. Second Edition. Crown 2>vo. 3^. 6d.

E. Mackay. A SONG OF THE SEA. By Eric Mackay.

Second Edition. Fcap. 2>vo. ^s. ' Everywhere Mr. Mackay displays himself the master of a style marked by all the characteristics of the best rhetoric' — Globe.

Ibsen. BRAND. A Drama by Henrik Ibsen. Translated by William Wilson. Second Edition. Crown Svo. 3^. 6d. 'The greatest world-poem of the nineteenth century next to "Faust." It is in the same set with "Agamemnon," with " Lear," with the literature that we now instinctively regard as high and holy.' — Daily Chronicle.

Messrs. Methuen's List 9

"A.G." VERSES TO ORDER. By«A. G.» Cr. 8vo. 2s. 6d.

net.

' A capital specimen of light academic poetry. These verses are very bright and engaging, easy and sufficiently witty.' — St. James's Gazette.

Cordery. THE ODYSSEY OF HOMER. A Translation by J. G. Cordery. Crown %vo. ^s. 6d. ' This new version of the Odyssey fairly deserves a place of honour among its many rivals. Perhaps there is none from which a more accurate knowledge of the original can be gathered with greater pleasure, at least of those that are in metre. ' — Manchester Guardian.

Belles Lettres, Anthologies, etc.

R. L. Stevenson. VAILIMA LETTERS. By Robert Louis

Stevenson. With an Etched Portrait by William Strang, and

other Illustrations. Second Edition. Crown Svo. Buckram. *js. 6d.

* Few publications have in our time been more eagerly awaited than these " Vailima Letters," giving the first fruits of the correspondence of Robert Louis Stevenson. But, high as the tide of expectation has run, no reader can possibly be disappointed in the result.' — St. James's Gazette.

Henley. ENGLISH LYRICS. Selected and Edited by W. E. Henley. Crown Zvo. Buckram gilt top. ds.

' It is a body of choice and lovely poetry.' — Birmingham Gazette. ' Mr. Henley's notes, in their brevity and their fulness, their information and their sug- gestiveness, seem to us a model of what notes should be.' — Manchester Guardian.

Henley and Whibley. A BOOK OF ENGLISH PROSE.

Collected by W. E. Henley and Charles Whibley. Crown Svo. Buckram gilt top. 65.

'A unique volume of extracts — an art gallery of early prose.' — Bitminghavt Post. ' An admirable companion to Mr. Henley's " Lyra YLcTOica.."'— Saturday Review. ' Quite delightful. A greater treat for those not well acquainted with pre-Restoration prose could not be imagined.'— .<4^A^«^?«w.

H. C. Beeching. LYRA SACRA : An Anthology of Sacred Verse.

Edited by H. C. Beeching, M.A. Crown Svo. Buckram. 6s. ' A charming selection, which maintains a lofty standard of excellence.' — Times.

"Q." THE GOLDEN POMP : A Procession of English Lyrics from Surrey to Shirley, arranged by A. T. Quiller Couch. Crown Svo. Buckram. 6j. ' A delightful volume : a really golden " Pomp." '—Spectatffr.

W. B. Yeats. AN ANTHOLOGY OF IRISH VERSE.

Edited by W. B. Yeats. Crown Svo. 3s. 6d.

' An attractive and catholic selection.'— Z/w^j.

A 2

10 Messrs. Methuen's List

G. W. Steevens. MONOLOGUES OF THE DEAD. By

G. W. Steevens. Foolscap Svo. 3s. 6d. A series of Soliloquies in which famous men of antiquity — Julius Caesar, Nero, Alcibiades, etc., attempt to express themselves in the modes of thought and language of to-day. ' The effect is sometimes splendid, sometimes bizarre, but always amazingly clever.' —Pail Mall Gazette.

Victor Hugo. THE LETTERS OF VICTOR HUGO.

Translated from the French by F. Clarke, M.A. In Two Volumes. Dei7iy Svo. 10s. 6d. each. Vol. I. 1815-35.

0. H. Pearson. ESSAYS AND CRITICAL REVIEWS. By C. H. Pearson, M.A., Author of 'National Life and Character.' With a Portrait. Demy Svo. los. 6d.

W. M. Dixon. A PRIMER OF TENNYSON. By W. M.

Dixon, M.A., Professor of English Literature at Mason College. Crown Svo. 2s. 6d. ' Much sound and well-expressed criticism and acute literary judgments. The biblio- graphy is a boon.' — Speaker.

W. A. Oraigie. A PRIMER OF BURNS. By W. A. Craigie.

Crown Svo. 2s. dd. ' A valuable addition to the literature of the poet. ' — Times. ' An admirable introduction. ' — Globe.

Magnus. A PRIMER OF WORDSWORTH. By Laurie

Magnus. Crown Svo. is. 6d.

'A valuable contribution to Wordsworthian literature.' — Literature.

'A well-made primer, thoughtful and informing.' — Manchester Guardian.

Sterne. THE LIFE AND OPINIONS OF TRISTRAM

SHANDY. By Lawrence Sterne. With an Introduction by Charles Whibley, and a Portrait. 2 vols. ys.

' Very dainty volumes are these ; the paper, type, and light-green binding are all very agreeable to the eye. Si7nplex munditiis is the phrase that might be applied to them.' — Globe.

Congreve. THE COMEDIES OF WILLIAM CONGREVE.

With an Introduction by G. S. Street, and a Portrait. 2 vols. ys.

Morier. THE ADVENTURES OF HAJJI BABA OF ISPAHAN. By James Morier. With an Introduction by E. G. Browne, M. A., and a Portrait. 2 vols. ys.

Walton. THE LIVES OF DONNE, WOTTON, HOOKER, HERBERT, and SANDERSON. By Izaak Walton. With an Introduction by Vernon Blackburn, and a Portrait. 3i-. 6d.

Johnson. THE LIVES OF THE ENGLISH POETS. By Samuel Johnson, LL.D, With an Introduction by J. H. Millar, and a Portrait. 3 vols. los. 6d.

II

Messrs. Methuen's List ii

Bums. THE POEMS OF ROBERT BURNS. Edited by Andrew Lang and W. A. Craigie. With Portrait. Demy Svoy gilt top. 6j. This edition contains a carefully collated Text, numerous Notes, critical and textual,

a critical and biographical Introduction, and a Glossary. 'Among the editions in one volume, Mr. Andrew Lang's will take the place of authority.' — Times.

F. Langbridge. BALLADS OF THE BRAVE: Poems of Chivalry, Enterprise, Courage, and Constancy. Edited by Rev. F. Langbridge. Crown %vo. 35. 6d. School Edition, is. 6d. ' A very happy conception happily carried out. These "Ballads of the Brave" are intended to suit the real tastes of boys, and will suit the taste of the great majority.' —Spectator. ' The book is full of splendid things.' — World.

Illustrated Books

Bedford. NURSERY RHYMES. With many Coloured Pictures.

By F. D. Bedford. Super Royal Svo. 55-. ' An excellent selection of the best known rhymes, with beautifully coloured pictures

exquisitely printed.' — Fatt Mall Gazette. ' The art is of the newest, with well harmonised colouring.' — Spectator.

S. Baring Gould. A BOOK OF FAIRY TALES retold by S. Baring Gould. With numerous illustrations and initial letters by Arthur J. Gaskin. Second Edition. Crown 2>vo. Buckra7n. ds. 'Mr. Baring Gould is deserving of gratitude, in re-writing in honest, simple style the old stories that delighted the childhood of "oiu: fathers and grandfathers."' — Saturday Review.

S. Baring Gould. OLD ENGLISH FAIRY TALES. Col- lected and edited by S. Baring Gould. With Numerous Illustra- tions by F. D. Bedford. Secottd Edition, Cr'own^vo. Buckram. 6j. 'A charming volume. The stories have been selected with great ingenuity from various old ballads and folk-tales, and now stand forth, clothed in Mr. Baring Gould's delightful English, to enchant youthful readers.' — Guardian.

S. Baring Gould. A BOOK OF NURSERY SONGS AND

RHYMES. Edited by S. Baring Gould, and Illustrated by the Birmingham Art School. Buckram., gilt top. Crown 2>vo. 6s. ' The volume is very complete in its way, as it contains nursery songs to the number of 77, game-rhymes, and jingles. To the student we commend the sensible intro- duction, and the explanatory not^s.'— Birmingham Gazette.

H. 0. Beeching. A BOOK OF CHRISTMAS VERSE. Edited by H. C. Beeching, M.A., and Illustrated by Walter Crane. Crown Svo, gilt top. ^s. A collection of the best verse inspired by the birth of Christ from the Middle Ages

to the present day. An anthology which, from its unity of aim and high poetic excellence, has a better right to exist than most of its {&\\o^%.'— Guardian.

12 Messrs. Methuen's List

History

Gibbon. THE DECLINE AND FALL OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE. By Edward Gibbon. A New Edition, Edited with Notes, Appendices, and Maps, by J. B. Bury, M.A., Fellow of Trinity College, Dublin. In Seven Volufnes. Dejny Svo. Gilt top. 8i-. ^d. each. Also crown Zvo. 6s. each. Vols. I., II., III. ^ and IV.

' The time has certainly arrived for a new edition of Gibbon's great work. . . . Pro- fessor Bury is the right man to undertake this task. His learning is amazing, both in extent and accuracy. The book is issued in a handy form, and at a moderate price, and it is admirably printed. ' — Times.

'This edition, so far as one may judge from the first instalment, is a marvel of erudition and critical skill, and it is the very minimum of praise to predict that the seven volumes of it will supersede Dean Milman's as the standard edition of our great historical classic' — Glasgow Herald.

' The beau-ideal Gibbon has arrived at last.' — Sketch.

' At last there is an adequate modern edition of Gibbon. . . . The best edition the nineteenth century could produce.' — Manchester Guardian.

Flinders Petrie. A HISTORY OF EGYPT, fromthe Earliest

Times to the Present Day. Edited by W. M. Flinders

Petrie, D.C.L., LL.D., Professor of Egyptology at University

College. Fully Illustrated. In Six Volumes. Crown Svo. 6s. each.

Vol. I. Prehistoric Times to XVIth. Dynasty. W. F. M.

Petrie. Third Edition. Vol. II. The XVIIth and XVIIIth Dynasties. W. M. F. Petrie. Second Edition. ' A history written in the spirit of scientific precision so worthily represented by Dr. Petrie and his school cannot but promote sound and accurate study, and supply a vacant place in the English literature of Egyptology.'— T'zw^.r.

Flinders Petrie. EGYPTIAN TALES. Edited by W. M.

Flinders Petrie. Illustrated by Tristram Ellis. In Two

Volumes. Crown Zvo. 3^. 6d. each. ' A valuable addition to the literature of comparative folk-lore. The drawings are

really illustrations in the literal sense of the word.' — Globe. ' It has a scientific value to the student of history and archaeology.' — Scotsman. ' Invaluable as a picture of life in Palestine and 'Egypt.'— Daitj> News.

FUnders Petrie. EGYPTIAN DECORATIVE ART. By

W. M. Flinders Petrie. With 120 Illustrations. Cr. Svo. 3^. 6d. ' Professor Flinders Petrie is not only a profound Egyptologist, but an accomplished student of comparative archaeology. In these lectures he displays both quali- fications with rare skill in elucidating the development of decorative art in Egypt, and in tracing its influence on the art of other countries.'— Times.

S. Baring Gould. THE TRAGEDY OF THE C^SARS.

With numerous Illustrations from Busts, Gems, Cameos, etc. By S. Baring Gould. Fourth Edition. Royal Svo. 15^.

' A most splendid and fascinating book on a subject of undying interest. "The great feature of the book is the use the author has made of the existing portraits of the Caesars, and the admirable critical subtlety he has exhibited in dealing with this line of research. It is brilliantly written, and the illustrations are supplied on a scale of profuse magnificence. ' — Daily Chronicle.

Messrs. Methuen's List 13

H. de B. aibbins. INDUSTRY IN ENGLAND : HISTORI- CAL OUTLINES. By H. de B. Gibbins, M.A., D.Litt. With 5 Maps. Second Editio7i. Demy 2>vo. \os. 6d. This book is written with the view of affording a clear view of the main facts of English Social and Industrial History placed in due perspective.

H. E. Egerton. A HISTORY OF BRITISH COLONIAL POLICY. By H. E. Egerton, M.A. Demy Svo. 12s. 6d.

This book deals with British Colonial policy historically from the beginnings of English colonisation down to the present day. The subject has been treated by itself, and it has thus been possible within a reasonable compass to deal with a mass of authority which must otherwise be sought in the State papers. The volume is divided into five parts : — (i) The Period of Beginnings, 1497-1650 ; (2) Trade Ascendancy, 1651-1830 ; (3) The Granting of Responsible Government, 1831-1860; (4) Laissez Aller, 1861-1885 ; (5) Greater Britain.

' The whole story of the growth and administration of our colonial empire is compre- hensive and well arranged, and is set forth with marked ability.' — Daily Mail.

' It is a good book, distinguished by accuracy in detail, clear arrangement of facts, and a broad grasp of principles.' — Manchester Guardian.

' Able, impartial, clear. . . . A most valuable volume.' — AtheJiceuin.

A. Clark. THE COLLEGES OF OXFORD : Their History and their Traditions. By Members of the University. Edited by A. Clark, M.A., Fellow and Tutor of Lincoln College. Zvo. 12s. 6d.

' A work which will certainly be appealed to for many years as the standard book on the Colleges of Oxford.' — Athenceum.

Perrens. THE HISTORY OF FLORENCE FROM 1434 TO 1492. By F. T. Perrens. 8w. 125. M.

A history of Florence under the domination of Cosimo, Piero, and Lorenzo de Medicis.

J.Wells. A SHORT HISTORY OF ROME. By J. Wells, M.A., Fellow and Tutor of Wadham Coll., Oxford. With 4 Maps. Crown 8vo. 3^. 6d. This book is intended for the Middle and Upper Forms of Public Schools and for

Pass Students at the Universities. It contains copious Tables, etc. ' An original work written on an original plan, and with uncommon freshness and vigour. ' — Speaker,

0. Browning. A SHORT HISTORY OF MEDIAEVAL ITALY, A.D. 1 250- 1 530. By Oscar Browning, Fellow and Tutor of King's College, Cambridge. Second Edition. In Two Volumes. Crown 8vo. ^s. each.

Vol. I. 1250- 1409. — Guelphs and Ghibellines. Vol. II. 1409-1530. — The Age of the Condottieri. ' Mr. Browning is to be congratulated on the production of a work of immense labour and learning.' — Westminster Gazette.

O'Grady. THE STORY OF IRELAND. By Standish O'Grady, Author of ' Finn and his Companions.' Cr. 8vo. 2s. 6d. ' Most delightful, most stimulating. Its racy humour, its original imaginings, make it one of the freshest, breeziest volnmes.''— Methodist Times.

14 Messrs. Methuen's List

Biography

S. Baring Gould. THE LIFE OF NAPOLEON BONA- PARTE. By S. Baring Gould. With over 450 Illustrations in the Text and 12 Photogravure Plates. Large quarto. Gilt top. 36^.

' The best biography of Napole in our tongue, nor have the French as good a biographer of their hero. A book very nearly as good as Southey's " Life of Nelson." ' — Manchester Guardian.

'The main feature of this gorgeous volume is its great wealth of beautiful photo- gravures and finely-executed wood engravings, constituting a complete pictorial chronicle of Napoleon I.'s personal history from the days of his early childhood at Ajaccio to the date of his second interment under the dome of the Invalides in Paris.' — Daily Telegraph.

'Particular notice is due to the vast collection of contemporary illustrations.'— Guardian.

* Nearly all the illustrations are real contributions to history.' — Westminster Gazette.

Morris Fuller. THE LIFE AND WRITINGS OF JOHN DAVENANT, D.D. (1571-1641), Bishop of Salisbury. By Morris Fuller, B.D. Demy Svo. 10s. 6d. ' A valuable contribution to ecclesiastical history.' — Birtninghain Gazette.

J. M. Rigg. ST. ANSELM OF CANTERBURY : A Chapter IN THE History of Religion. By J. M. Rigg. Demy%vo. *]s. 6d.

'Mr. Rigg has told the story_ of the great Primate's life with scholarly ability, and has thereby contributed an interestingchapter to the history of the Norman period.' — Daily Chronicle.

F. W. Joyce. THE LIFE OF SIR FREDERICK GORE

OUSELEY. By F. W. Joyce, M.A. With Portraits and Illustra- tions. Crown 2)V0. ys, 6d.

' This book has been undertaken in quite the right spirit, and written with sympathy, insight, and considerable literary skill.' — Times.

W. a. Collingwood. THE LIFE OF JOHN RUSKIN. By

W. G. Collingwood, M.A. With Portraits, and 13 Dravirings by

Mr. Ruskin. Second Edition. 2 vols. Svo. 32i'.

' No more magnificent volumes have been published for a long time.' — Times. ' It is long since we had a biography with such delights of substance and of form. Such a book is a pleasure for the day, and a joy for ever.' — Daily Chronicle.

C. Waldstein. JOHN RUSKIN : a Study. By Charles Waldstein, M.A., Fellow of King's College, Cambridge. With a Photogravure Portrait after Professor Herkomer. Post Svo. 5^.

'A thoughtful, impartial, well-written criticism of Ruskin's teaching, intended to separate what the author regards as valuable and permanent from what is transient and erroneous in the great master's writing.' — Daily Chronicle.

Messrs. Methuen's List 15

Darmesteter. THE LIFE OF ERNEST RENAN, By

Madame DaRxMESTETER. With Portrait. Second Edition. Cr. Svo. 6s. A biography of Renan by one of his most intimate friends. ' A polished gem of biography, superior in its kind to any attempt that has been made

of recent years in England. Madame Darmesteter has indeed written for English

readers " T/ie Life of Ernest Renan."' — Aikenceum. 'It is a fascinating and biographical and critical study, and an admirablj' finished

work of literary art.' — Scotsman. ' It is interpenetrated with the dignity and charm, the mild, bright, classical grace of

form and treatment that Renan himself so loved ; and it fulfils to the uttermost

the delicate and difficult achievement it sets out to accomplish.' — Academy.

W. H. Hutton. THE LIFE OF SIR THOMAS MORE. By W. H. HuTTON, M.A. With Portraits. Crown Zvo. ^s. ' The book lays good claim to high rank among our biographies. It is excellently, even lovingly, written.' — Scotsman. ' An excellent monograph.' — Times.

Travel, Adventure and Topography

Johnston. BRITISH CENTRAL AFRICA. By Sir H. H. Johnston, K.C.B. With nearly Two Hundred Illustrations, and Six Maps. Second Edition. Crown /\to. 30^-. net.

* A fascinating book, written with equal skill and charm — the work at once of a literary artist and of a man of action who is singularly wise, brave, and experi- enced. It abounds in admirable sketches from pencil.' — Westminster Gazette.

' A delightful book . . . collecting within the covers of a single volume all that is known of this part of our African domains. The voluminous appendices are of extreme value.' — Manchester Guardian.

' The book takes front rank as a standard work by the one man competent to write it.' — Daily Chronicle.

' The book is crowded with important information, and written in a most attractive style ; it is worthy, in short, of the author's established reputation.' — Standard.

Prince Henri of Orleans. FROM TONKIN TO INDIA. By

Prince Henri of Orleans. Translated by Hamley Bent, M.A.

With 100 Illustrations and a Map. Second Edition. Crown ^to,

gilt top. z^s. The travels of Prince Henri in 1895 from China to the valley of the Bramaputra

covered a distance of 2100 miles, of which 1600 was through absolutely unexplored

country. No fewer than seventeen ranges of mountains were crossed at altitudes

of from 11,000 to 13,000 feet. The journey was made memorable by the discovery

of the sources of the Irrawaddy. 'A welcome contribution to our knowledge. The narrative is full and interesting,

and the appendices give the work a substantial value.' — Times. ' The Prince's travels are of real importance ... his services to geography have been

considerable. The volume is beautifully illustrated.' — Athenceum. ' The story is instructive and fascinating, and will certainly make one of the books

of 1898. The book attracts by its delightful print and fine illustrations. A nearly

model book of travel.' — Pall Mall Gazette. 'An entertaining record of pluck and travel in important regions.' — Daily Chronicle. ' The illustra ions are admirable and quite beyond praise.' — Glasgow Herald. 'The Prince's story is charmingly told, and presented with an attractiveness which

will make it, in more than one sense, an outstanding book of the season.' —

Birmingham Post. 'An attractive book which will prove of considerable interest and no little value. A

narrative of a remarkable journey.' — Literature. *

' China is the country of the hour. All eyes are turned towards her, and Messrs.

Methuen have opportunely selected the moment to launch Prince Henri's work.'—

Liverpool Daily Post.

i6 Messrs. Methuens List

R. S. S. Baden-Powell. THE DOWNFALL OF PREMPEH A Diary of Life in Ashanti, 1895. By Colonel Baden-Powell. With 21 Illustrations and a Map. Demy Zvo. \os. 6d. ' A compact, faithful, most readable record of the campaign.' — Daily News.

R. S. S. Baden-PoweU. THE MATEBELE CAMPAIGN 1896. By Colonel Baden-Powell. With nearly 100 Illustrations. Secotid Edition. De?ny 8vo. I^s. ' As a straightforward account of a great deal of plucky work unpretentiously done, this book is well worth reading. The simplicity of the narrative is all in its ° favour, and accords in a peculiarly English fashion with the nature of the subject.' Times.

Captain Hinde. THE FALL OF THE CONGO ARABS. By L. Hinde. With Plans, etc. £>emy 8z)o. 12s. 6d.

' The book is full of good things, and of sustained interest.' — St. James's Gazette.

'A graphic sketch of one of the most exciting and important episodes in the struggle for supremacy in Central Africa between the Arabs and their_ Europeon rivals. TApart from the story of the campaign. Captain Hinde's book is mainly remark- able for the fulness with which he discusses the question of cannibalism. It is, indeed, the only connected narrative — in English, at any rate — which has been published of this particular episode in African history.' — Times.

W. Crooke. THE NORTH-WESTERN PROVINCES OF INDIA : Their Ethnology and Administration. By W. Crooke. With Maps and Illustrations. Demy Svo. los. 6d. ' A carefully and well-written account of one of the most important provinces of the Empire. In seven chapters Mr. Crooke deals successively with the land in its physical aspect, the province under Hindoo and Mussulman rule, the province under British rule, the ethnology and sociology of the province, the religious and social life of the people, the land and its settlement, and the native peasant in his relation to the land. The illustrations are good and well selected, and the map is excellent.' — Manchester Guardian.

A. Boisragon. THE BENIN MASSACRE. By Captain BoiSRAGON. With Portrait and Map. Second Edition. Crown 2>vo. y. 6d.

' If the story had been written four hundred years ago it would be read to-day as an English classic' — Scotsman.

'If anything could enhance the horror and the pathos of this remarkable book it is the simple style of the author, who writes as he would talk, unconscious of his own heroism, with an artlessness which is the highest art.' — Pall Mall Gazette.

H. S. Cowper. THE HILL OF THE GRACES : or, the Great Stone Temples of Tripoli. By H. S. Cowper, F.S.A. With Maps, Plans, and 75 Illustrations. Demy Svo. los. 6d. 'The book has the interest of all first-hand work, directed by an intelligent man towards a worthy object, and it forms a valuable chapter of what has now become quite a large and important branch of antiquarian research.' — Titnes.

Kinnaird Rose. WITH THE GREEKS IN THESSALY. By W. Kinnaird Rose, Reuter's Correspondent. With Plans and 23 Illustrations. Crown Svo. 6s.

W. B. Worsfold. SOUTH AFRICA. By W. B. Worsfold, M.A. PFitk a Map. Second Edition. Crown Svo. 6j. ' A monumental work compressed into a very moderate compass.'— W^<?r/</.

Messrs. Methuen's List 17

Naval and Military

G. W. Steevens. NAVAL POLICY : By. G. W. Steevens.

Demy Svo. 6s. This book is a description of the British and other more important navies of the world, with a sketch of the lines on which our naval policy might possibly be developed. 'An extremely able and interesting work.' — Daily Chronicle.

D. Hannay. A SHORT HISTORY OF THE ROYAL NAVY,

From Early Times to the Present Day. By David Hannay. Illustrated. 2 Vols. DemyZvo. Js. 6d. each. Vol. L, 1200- 1688.

' We read it from cover to cover at a sitting, and those who go to it for a lively and

brisk picture of the past, with all its faults and its grandeur, will not be disappointed.

The historian is competent, and he is endowed with literary skill and style.' —

Standard. ' We can warmly recommend Mr. Hannay 's volume to any intelligent student of

naval history. Great as is the merit of Mr. Hannay's historical narrative, the

merit of his strategic exposition is even greater.' — Times. ' His book is brisk and pleasant reading, for he is gifted with a most agreeable

style. His reflections are philosophical, and he has seized and emphasised just

those points which are oiini&vQSt.'— Graphic.

Cooper King. THE STORY OF THE BRITISH ARMY. By Lieut. -Colonel Cooper King, of the Staff College, Camberley. Illus- trated. Dejtiy Svo. Js. 6d.

' An authoritative and accurate story of England's military progress.' — Daily Mail.

* This handy volume contains, in a compendious form, a brief but adequate sketch of the story of the British army.' — Daily News.

R. Southey. ENGLISH SEAMEN (Howard, Clifford, Hawkins, Drake, Cavendish). By Robert Southey. Edited, with an Introduction, by David Hannay. Second Edition. CrownSvo. 6s.

'Admirable and well-told stories of our naval history.'— ^rwy and Navy Gazette. 'A brave, inspiriting \iOo\i'— Black and White.

W. Clark Russell. THE LIFE OF ADMIRAL LORD COL-

LINGWOOD. By W. Clark Russell, With Illustrations by F. Brangwyn. Third Edition. Crown Svo. 6s. ' A book which we should like to see in the hands of every boy in the country.' — St. James's Gazette. ' A really good hoo^.' —Saturday Review.

E. L. S. Horsburgh. THE CAMPAIGN OF V^ATERLOO.

By E. L. S. Horsburgh, B.A. With Plans. Crown Svo. $s.

' a brilliant essay— simple, sound, and ihorough.'— Daily Chronicle.

H.B. George. BATTLES OF ENGLISH HISTORY. ByH.B.

George, M.A., Fellow of New College, Oxford. With numerous Plans. Third Edition. Crown Svo. 6s. ' Mr. George has undertaken a very useful task— that of making military affairs in- telligible and instructive to non-military readers— and has executed it with laud- able intelligence and industry, and with a large measure of success.'— T'/w^j.

A3

i8 Messrs. Methuen's List

General Literature

S. Baxing Gould. OLD COUNTRY LIFE. By S. Baring Gould. With Sixty- seven Illustrations. Large Crown Svo. Fifth Edition. (>s. ' " Old Country Life," as healthy wholesome reading, full of breezy life and move- ment, full of quaint stories vigorously told, will not be excelled by any book to be published throughout the year. Sound, hearty, and English to the core.' — World.

S. Baring Gould. HISTORIC ODDITIES AND STRANGE EVENTS. By S. Baring Gould. Foiirth Edition. Crown%vo. 6s.

' A collection of exciting and entertaining chapters. The whole volume is delightful reading. ' — Times.

S. Baring Gould. FREAKS OF FANATICISM. By S. Baring Gould. Third Edition. Crown Svo. 6s. ' Mr. Baring Gould has a keen eye for colour and effect, and the subjects he has chosen give ample scope to his descriptive and analytic faculties. A perfectly fascinating book.' — Scottish Leader.

S. Baring Gould. A GARLAND OF COUNTRY SONG :

English Folk Songs with their Traditional Melodies. Collected and arranged by S. Baring Gould and H. F. Sheppard. Demy ^o. 6s.

S. Baring Gould. SONGS OF THE WEST: Traditional Ballads and Songs of the West of England, with their Traditional Melodies. Collected by S. Baring Gould, M.A., and H. F. Sheppard, M.A. Arranged for Voice and Piano. In 4 Parts. Parts /., //., ///., 3^. each. Part /F., 5^. In one Vol., French morocco, \<^s. ' A rich collection of humour, pathos, grace, and poetic iz.x\.zy.'— Saturday Review.

S. Baring Gould. YORKSHIRE ODDITIES AND STRANGE

EVENTS. Fourth Edition. Crown Svo. 6s.

S. Baring Gould. STRANGE SURVIVALS AND SUPER- STITIONS. With Illustrations. By S. Baring Gould. Crown Svo. Second Edition. 6s.

S. Baring Gould. THE DESERTS OF SOUTHERN FRANCE. By S. Baring. Gould. 2 vols. Demy Svo. 325.

Cotton Minchin. OLD HARROW DAYS. By J. G. Cotton

Minchin. Crown Svo. Second Edition. 5^-.

' This book is an admirable record.' — Daily Chronicle.

' Mr. Cotton Minchin 's bright and breezy reminiscences of ' Old Harrow Days' will delight all Harrovians, old and young, and may go far to explain the abiding enthusiasm of old Harrovians for their school to readers who have not been privi- leged to be their schoolfellows.' — Times.

W. E. Gladstone. THE SPEECHES OF THE RT. HON. W. E. GLADSTONE, M.P. Edited by A. W. Hutton, M.A., and H. J. Cohen, M.A. With Portraits. Svo. Vols. IX. and X. \2s. 6d. each.

Messrs. Methuen's List 19

J. Wells. OXFORD AND OXFORD LIFE. By Members of

the University. Edited by J. Wells, M.A., Fellow and Tutor of Wadham College. Crown 2>vo. 3^. 6d. * We congratulate Mr. Wells on the production of a readable and intelligent account of Oxford as it is at the present time, written by persons who are possessed of a close acquaintance with the system and life of the University.' — AthencEum.

J.Wells. OXFORD AND ITS COLLEGES. By J. Wells, M. A., Fellow and Tutor of Wadham College. Illustrated by E. H. New. Second Edition. Fcap. Svo. ^s. Leather. 4^.

This is a guide — chiefly historical — to the Colleges of Oxford. It contains numerous illustrations.

'An admirable and accurate little treatise, attractively illustrated.' — World.

'A luminous and tasteful little volume.' — Daily Chronicle.

' Exactly what the intelligent visitor wants.' — Glasgow Herald.

C. G. Robertson. VOCES ACADEMICS. By C. Grant Robertson, M.A., Fellow of All Souls', Oxford. With a Frontis- piece. Pott. Svo. 3x. 6d. ' Decidedly clever and amusing.' — AthencEum.

' The dialogues are abundantly smart and amusing.' — Glasgow Herald. ' A clever and entertaining little hook.'— Pall Mall Gazette.

L. Whibley. GREEK OLIGARCHIES : THEIR ORGANISA- TION AND CHARACTER. By L. Whibley, M.A., Fellow of Pembroke College, Cambridge. Crown Svo. 6s. ' An exceedingly useful handbook : a careful and well-arranged study.' — Times.

L. L. Price. ECONOMIC SCIENCE AND PRACTICE.

By L. L. Price, M.A., Fellow of Oriel College, Oxford. Crown Svo. 6s. ' The book is well written, giving evidence of considerable literary ability, and clear mental grasp of the subject und&r consid&czXXon.' —Western Morning News.

J. S. Shedlock. THE PIANOFORTE SONATA : Its Origin and Development. By J. S. Shedlock. Crown Svo. 5j. ' This work should be in the possession of every musician and amateur. A concise and lucid history of the origin of one of the most important forms of musical composition. A very valuable work for reference.' — Athenaunt.

E. M. Bowden. THE EXAMPLE OF BUDDHA : Being Quota- tions from Buddhist Literature for each Day in the Year. Compiled by E. M. BoWDEN. Third Edition. l6mo. is. 6d.

Morgan-Browne. SPORTING AND ATHLETIC RECORDS.

By H. Morgan-Browne. Crown Svo. \s. paper ; \s. 6d. cloth.

' Should meet a very wide demand.' — Daily Mail.

' A very careful collection, and the first one of its Mm^:— Manchester Guardian.

' Certainly the most valuable of all books of its kind. ' — Birmingham Gazette.

Science

Freudenreich. DAIRY BACTERIOLOGY. A Short Manual for the Use of Students. By Dr. Ed. von Freudenreich. Translated by J. R. Ainsworth Davis, B. A. Crown Svo. 2s.6d.

20 Messrs. Methuen's List

Chalmers Mitchell. OUTLINES OF BIOLOGY. By P. Chalmers Mitchell, M.A., Illustrated. Crown Zvo. 6s.

A text-book designed to cover the new Schedule issued by the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons.

G.Massee. A MONOGRAPH OF THE MYXOGASTRES. By George Massee. With 12 Coloured Plates. J^oj/al Svo. iSs. net. ' A work much in advance of any book in the language treating of this group of organisms. Indispensable to every student of the Myxogastres. '— iVa/«r(f.

Technology

Stephenson and Suddards. ORNAMENTAL DESIGN FOR WOVEN FABRICS. By C. Stephenson, of The Technical College, Bradford, and F. Suddards, of The Yorkshire College, Leeds. With 65 full-page plates, and numerous designs and diagrams in the text. Deniy Svo. ys. 6d. ' The book is very ably done, displaying an intimate knowledge of principles, good taste, and the faculty of clear exposition.' — Yorkshire Post.

HANDBOOKS OF TECHNOLOGY. Edited by Professors GARNETT and WERTHEIMER.

HOW TO MAKE A DRESS. By J. A. E. Wood.

Illustrated. Crown Svo. is. 6d. A text-book for students preparing for the City and Guilds examination, based on

the syllabus. The diagrams are numerous. ' Though primarily intended for students, Miss Wood's dainty little manual may be

consulted with advantage by any girls who want to make their own frocks. The

directions are simple and clear, and the diagrams very helpful.' — Literature. 'A splendid little book.' — Evening News.

Philosophy

L. T. Hobhouse. THE THEORY OF KNOWLEDGE. By

L. T. Hobhouse, Fellow of C.C.C, Oxford. Demy Svo. 21s.

* The most important contribution to English philosophy sincethe publication of Mr. Bradley's " Appearance and Reality." Full of brilliant criticism and of positive theories which are models of lucid statement.' — Glasgow Herald.

' A brilliantly written volume.' — Times.

W. H. Fairbrother. THE PHILOSOPHY OF T. H. GREEN.

By W. H. Fairbrother, M.A. Crown Svo. y. 6d.

' In every way an admirable book.' — Glasgow Herald.

F. W. Bussell. THE SCHOOL OF PLATO : its Origin and

its Revival under the Roman Empire. By F. W. Bussell, D.D.,

Fellow and Tutor of Brasenose College, Oxford. Demy Svo. \os. 6d.

' A highly valuable contribution to the history of ancient thought.'— Glasgow Herald.^

' A clever and stimulating book, provocative of thought and deserving careful reading."

—Manchester Guardian.

Messrs. Methuen's List 21

F. S. Granger. THE WORSHIP OF THE ROMANS. By

F. S. Granger, M.A., Litt.D., Professor of Philosophy at Univer- sity College, Nottingham. Crown %vo. ds. 'A scholarly analysis of the religious ceremonies,beliefs, and superstitions of ancient Rome, conducted in the new light of comparative anthropology.'— Z'^'w/fj.

Theology

HANDBOOKS OF THEOLOGY.

General Editor, A. Robertson, D.D., Principal of King's College, London. THE XXXIX. ARTICLES OF THE CHURCH OF ENG- LAND. Edited with an Introduction by E. C. S. Gibson, D.D., Vicar of Leeds, late Principal of Wells Theological College. Secojid and Cheaper Edition in One Voh<me. Demy Svo. 12s. 6d.

' Dr. Gibson is a master of clear and orderly exposition, and he has enlisted in his service all the mechanism of variety of type which so greatly helps to elucidate a complicated subject. And he has in a high degree a quality very necessary, but rarely found, in commentators on this topic, that of absolute fairness. His book is pre-eminently honest.' — Times.

'After a survey of the whole book, we can bear witness to the transparent honesty of purpose, evident industry, and clearness of style which mark its contents. They maintain throughout a verj' high level of doctrine and tone.' — Guardian.

'An elaborate and learned book, excellently adapted to its purpose.' — Speaker.

' The most convenient and most acceptable commentary.' — Expository Times.

AN INTRODUCTION TO THE HISTORY OF RELIGION.

By F. B. Jevons, M.A., Litt.D., Principal of Bishop Hatfield's

Hall. De7}ty Svo. los. 6d. ' Dr. Jevons has written a notable work, which we can strongly recommend to the

serious attention of theologians and anthropologists.' — Manchester Guardiafi. ' The merit of this book lies in the penetration, the singular acuteness and force of the

author's judgment. He is at once critical and luminous, at once just and suggestive.

A comprehensive and thorough book.' — Birmingham Post.

THE DOCTRINE OF THE INCARNATION. By R. L.

Ottley, M. a., late fellow of Magdalen College, Oxon., and Principal

of Pusey House, hi Two Volumes. Def?iySvo. i<^s. ' Learned and reverent : lucid and well arranged.' — Record. ' Accurate, well ordered, and judicious.' — National Observer. 'A clear and remarkably full account of the main currents of speculation. Scholarly

precision . . . genuine tolerance . . . intense interest in his subject — are Mr.

Ottley's merits. —(7«ari?'?a«.

C. F. Andrews. CHRISTIANITY AND THE LABOUR QUESTION. By C. F. Andrews, B.A. Crown Svo. 2s. 6d.

S. R. Driver. SERMONS ON SUBJECTS CONNECTED WITH THE OLD TESTAMENT. By S. R. Driver, D.D., Canon of Christ Church, Regius Professor of Hebrew in the Uni- versity of Oxford. Crowti Svo. 6s. ' A welcome companion to the author's famous ' Introduction.' No man can read these discourses without feeling that Dr. Driver is fully alive to the deeper teaching of the Old Testament.' — Guardian.

22 Messrs. Methuen's List

T. K. Cheyne. FOUNDERS OF OLD TESTAMENT CRITI- CISM. By T. K. Cheyne, D.D., Oriel Professor at Oxford. Large crown Svo. ys. 6d. This book is a historical sketch of O. T. Criticism in the form of biographical studies

from the days of Eichhorn to those of Driver and Robertson Smith. 'A very learned and instructive work.' — Times.

H. H. Henson. LIGHT AND LEAVEN : Historical and Social Sermons. By the Rev. H. Hensley Henson, M.A., Fellow of All Souls', Incumbent of St. Mary's Hospital, Ilford. Crown Svo. 6s. ' They are always reasonable as well as rigorous, and they are none the less impres- sive because they regard the needs of a life on this side of a hereafter.' — Scotsman.

W. H. Bennett. A PRIMER OF THE BIBLE. By Prof.

W. H. Bennett. Second Editio7i. Crown %vo. 2s. 6d. ' The work of an honest, fearless, and sound critic, and an excellent guide in a small

compass to the books of the Bible.' — Manchester Guardian, ' A unique primer. Mr. Bennett has collected and condensed a very extensive and

diversified amount of material, and no one can consult his pages and fail to

acknowledge indebtedness to his undertaking.' — English Churchman.

CKPrior. CAMBRIDGE SERMONS. Edited by C.H. Prior, M.A., Fellow and Tutor of Pembroke College. Crown ?>vo. 6s. A volume of sermons preached before the University of Cambridge by various preachers, including the late Archbishop of Canterbury and Bishop Westcott.

E. B. Layard. RELIGION IN BOYHOOD. Notes on the Religious Training of Boys. By E. B. Layard, M.A. iZmo. is.

W. Yorke Faussett. THE DE CATECHIZANDIS RUDIBUS OF ST. AUGUSTINE. Edited, with Introduction, Notes, etc., by W. Yorke Faussett, M.A., late Scholar of Balliol Coll. Crown 8vo. 3^. 6d. An editipn of a Treatise on the Essentials of Christian Doctrine, and the best methods of impressing them on candidates for baptism.

A Kempis. THE IMITATION OF CHRIST. By Thomas a Kempis. With an Introduction by Dean Farrar. Illustrated by C. M. Gere, and printed in black and red. Second Edition. Fcap. Zvo. Buckram, y. 6d. Padded morocco^ ^s, 'Amongst all the innumerable English editions of the " Imitation," there can have been few which were prettier than this one, printed in strong and handsome type, with all the glory of red initials.' — Glasgow Herald.

J. Keble. THE CHRISTIAN YEAR. By John Keble. With an Introduction and Notes by W. Lock, D. D. , Warden of Keble College, Ireland Professor at Oxford. Illustrated by R. Anning Bell. Second Edition. Fcap. Svo. Buckram. 3^. 6d. Padded morocco, $s. ' The present edition is annotated with all the care and insight to be expected from Mr. Lock. The progress and circumstances of its composition are detailed in the Introduction. There is an interesting Appendix on the mss. of the "Christian Year," and another giving the order in which the poems were written. A "Short Analysis of the Thought" is prefixed to each, and any difficulty in the text is ex- plained in a note. ' — Guardian.

Messrs. Methuen's List 23

3leatier0 oC IBlelfgion

Edited by H. C. BEECHING, M.A. With Portraits, crown 8vo. A series of short biographies of the most prominent leaders of religious life and thought of all ages and countries. The following are ready—

CARDINAL NEWMAN. By R. H. HUTTON.

JOHN WESLEY. By J. H. Overton, M.A.

BISHOP WILBERFORCE. By G. W. Daniel, M.A.

CARDINAL MANNING. By A. W. HuTTON, M.A.

CHARLES SIMEON. By H. C. G. MOULE, M.A.

JOHN KEBLE. By Walter Lock, D.D.

THOMAS CHALMERS. By Mrs. Oliphant.

LANCELOT ANDREWES. By R. L. Ottley, M.A.

AUGUSTINE OF CANTERBURY. By E. L. CUTTS, D.D.

WILLIAM LAUD. By W. H. HuTTON, B.D.

JOHN KNOX. By F. M'CUNN.

JOHN HOWE. By R. F. HoRTON, D.D.

BISHOP KEN. By F. A. Clarke, M.A.

GEORGE FOX, THE QUAKER. By T. Hodgkin, D.C.L.

JOHN DONNE. By AUGUSTUS Jessopp, D.D.

Other volumes will be announced in due course.

Fiction

SIX SHILLING NOVELS

Marie Corelli's Novels

Crown Svo. 6s. each.

A ROMANCE OF TWO WORLDS. Seventeenth Edition. VE N D ETT A. Thirteenth Edition. THELMA. Seventeenth Edition. ARDATH. Eleventh Edition. THE SOUL OF LILITH Ninth Edition. WORMWOOD. Eighth Edition.

BARABBAS : A DREAM OF THE WORLD'S TRAGEDY. Thirty-first Edition.

' The tender reverence of the treatment and the imaginative beauty; of the writing have reconciled us to the daring of the conception, and the conviction is forced on us that even so exalted a subject cannot be made too familiar to us, provided it be presented in the true spirit of Christian faith. The amplifications of the Scripture narrative are often conceived with high poetic insight, and this "Dream of the World's Tragedy " is, despite some trifling incongruities, a lofty and not inade- quate paraphrase of the supreme climax of the inspired narrative.'— I>u6lin Review.

24 Messrs. Methuen's List

THE SORROWS OF SATAN. Thirty-sixth Edition.

' A very powerful piece of work. . . . The conception is magnificent, and is likely to win an abiding place within the memory of man. . • . The author has immense command of language, and a limitless audacity. . . . This interesting and re- markable romance will live long after much of the ephemeral literature of the day is forgotten. ... A literary phenomenon . . . novel, and even sublime.' — W. T. Stead in the Review of Reviews.

Anthony Hope's Novels

Crown Svo. 6s. each. THE GOD IN THE CAR. Seventh Edition.

' A very remarkable book, deserving of critical analysis impossible within our limit ; brilliant, but not superficial ; well considered, but not elaborated ; constructed with the proverbial art that conceals, but yet allows itself to be enjoyed by readers to whom fine literary method is a keen pleasure.'— The World.

A CHANGE OF AIR. Fourth Edition.

'A graceful, vivacious comedy, true to human nature. The characters are traced with a masterly hand.' — Times.

A MAN OF MARK. Fourth Edition.

' Of all Mr. Hope's books, " A Man of Mark " is the one which best compares with ' ' The Prisoner of Zenda." ' — National Observer.

THE CHRONICLES OF COUNT ANTONIO. Third Edition.

'It is a perfectly enchanting story of love and chivalry, and pure romance. The Count is the most constant, desperate, and modest and tender of lovers, a peerless gentleman, an intrepid fighter, a faithful friend, and a magnanimous foe.' — Guardian.

PHROSO. Illustrated by H. R. Millar. Third Edition.

' The tale is thoroughly fresh, quick with vitality, stirring the blood, and humorously,

dashingly told.'— 6"/. James's Gazette. ' A story of adventure, every page of which is palpitating with zc\Aon.' — Speaker. ' From cover to cover " Phroso " not only engages the attention, but carries the reader

in little whirls of delight from adventure to adventure.' — Academy.

S. Baring Gould's Novels

Crown Svo. 6s. each.

'To say that a book is by the author of " Mehalah" is to imply that it contains a story cast on strong lines, containing dramatic possibilities, vivid and sympathetic descriptions of Nature, and a wealth of ingenious imagery.' — Speaker. ' That whatever Mr. Baring Gould writes is well worth reading, is a conclusion that may be very generally accepted. His views of life are fresh and vigorous, his language pointed and characteristic, the incidents of which he makes use are striking and original, his characters are life-like, and though somewhat excep- tional people, are drawn and coloured with artistic force. Add to this that his descriptions of scenes and scenery are painted with the loving eyes and skilled hands of a master of his art, that he is always fresh and never dull, and under such conditions it is no wonder that readers have gained confidence both in his power of amusing and satisfying them, and that year by year his popularity widens.' — Court Circular.

ARM I NELL : A Social Romance. Fourth Edition. URITH : A Story of Dartmoor. Fifth Edition.

' The author is at his best.' — Times.

;^jl

■■^s

Messrs. Methuen's List 25

IN THE ROAR OF THE SEA Sixth Edition.

'One of the best imagined and most enthralling stories the author has produced.' — Saturday Review.

MRS. CURGENVEN OF CURGENVEN. Fourth Edition.

' The swing of the narrative is splendid.'— 6'««^;i: Daily News.

CHEAP JACK ZITA. Fourth Edition.

' A powerful drama of human Tpa.ssion.'—lVestminster Gazette. 'A story worthy the znthox.'— National Observer.

THE QUEEN OF LOVE. Fourth Edition.

' Can be heartily recommended to all who care for cleanly, energetic, and interesting fiction.'— Sussex Daily News.

KITTY ALONE. Fourth Edition.

'A strong and original story, teeming with graphic description, stirring incident, and, above all, with vivid and enthralling human interest.' — Daily Telegraph.

NOEMI : A Romance of the Cave-Dwellers. Illustrated by R. Caton Woodville. Third Edition. 'A powerful story, full of strong lights and ^z.^ov^s.'' —Standard.

THE BROOM-SQUIRE. Illustrated by Frank Dadd.

Fourth Edition. ' A strain of tenderness is woven through the web of his tragic tale, and its atmosphere is sweetened by the nobility and sweetness of the heroine's character.' — Daily News.

THE PENNYCOMEQUICKS. Third Edition. DARTMOOR IDYLLS.

'A book to read, and keep and read again ; for the genuine fun and pathos of it will not early lose their effect.' — Vanity Fair.

GUAVAS THE TINNER. Illustrated by Frank Dadd.

Second Edition. ' There is a kind of flavour about this book which alone elevates it above the ordinary novel. The story itself has a grandeur in harmony with the wild and rugged scenery which is its setting.' — Athenaeum.

B LAD YS. Seco7td Edition.

* A story of thrilling interest.' — Scotsman. ' A sombre but powerful story.' — Daily Mail.

Gilbert Parker's Novels

Crown 8vo. 6s. each. PIERRE AND HIS PEOPLE. Fourth Edition.

' Stories happily conceived and finely executed. There is strength and genius in Mr. Parker's style.' — Daily Telegraph.

MRS. FALCHION. Fourth Edition.

' A splendid study of character.' — Athencsuin.

' But little behind anything that has been done by any writer of our time. ' — Pall Mall Gazette. ' A very striking and admirable novel.' — St. James's Gazette.

THE TRANSLATION OF A SAVAGE.

' The plot is original and one difficult to work out ; but Mr. Parker has done it with great skill and delicacy. The reader who is not interested in this original, fresh, and well-told tale must be a dull person indeed.' — Daily Chronicle.

26 Messrs. Methuen's List

THE TRAIL OF THE SWORD. Fifth Edition.

' A rousing and dramatic tale. A book like this, in which swords flash, great sur- prises are undertaken, and daring deeds done, in which men and women live and love in the old passionate way, is a joy inexpressible .' — Daily Chronicle.

WHEN VALMOND CAME TO PONTIAC : The Story of a Lost Napoleon. Fourth Edition. ' Here we find romance — real, breathing, living romance. The character of Valmond is drawn unerringly. The book must be read, we may say re-read, for any one thoroughly to appreciate Mr. Parker's delicate touch and innate sympathy with humanity.' — Pall Mall Gazette.

AN ADVENTURER OF THE NORTH: The Last Adven- tures of ' Pretty Pierre. ' Second Edition. ' The present book is full of fine and moving stories of the great North, and it will add to Mr. Parker's already high reputation.' — Glasgcnv Herald.

THE SEATS OF THE MIGHTY. Illustrated. Ninth Edition.

' The best thing he has done ; one of the best things that any one has done lately.'—

St. James's Gazette. ' Mr. Parker seems to become stronger and easier with every serious novel that he

attempts. He shows the matured power which his former novels have led us to

expect, and has produced a really fine historical novel. The finest novel he has

yet written.' — Athetueum. ' A great hook.'— Black and White. ' One of the strongest stories of historical interest and adventure that we have read

for many a day. ... A notable and successful book.' — Speaker.

THE POMP OF THE LAVILETTES. Second Edition. 3s. 6d.

' Living, breathing romance, genuine and unforced pathos, and a deeper and more subtle knowledge of human nature than Mr. Parker has ever displayed before. It is, in a word, the work of a true artist.' — Pall Mall Gazette.

Conan Doyle. ROUND THE RED LAMP. By A. Conan Doyle, Author of 'The White Company,' 'The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes,' etc. Fifth Edition. Crown Svo. 6s. ' The book is, indeed, composed of leaves from life, and is far and away the best view that has been vouchsafed us behind the scenes of the consulting-room. It is very superior to " The Diary of a late Physician."' — Illustrated London News.

Stanley Wejrman. UNDER THE RED ROBE. By Stanley Weyman, Author of ' A Gentleman of France.' With Twelve Illus- trations by R. Cat on Woodville. Tzvelfth Edition. Crown Svo. 6s. 'A book of which we have read every word for the sheer pleasure of reading, and which we put down with a pang that we cannot forget it all and start again.' — JVestf/tinster Gazette. ' Every one who reads books at all must read this thrilling romance, from_ the first page of which to the last the breathless reader is haled along. An inspiration of manliness and courage.' — Daily Chronicle.

Lucas Malet. THE WAGES OF SIN. By Lucas

Malet. Thirteenth Edition. Crown Svo. 6s.

Lucas Malet. THE CARISSIMA. By Lucas Malet, Author of ' The Wages of Sin,' etc. Third Edition. Crown Svo. 6s.

Messrs. Methuen's List 27

S. R. Crockett. LOCHINVAR. By S. R. Crockett, Author of * The Raiders, ' etc. Illustrated. Second Edition. Crown Svo. 6s. ' Full of gallantry and pathos, of the clash of arms, and brightened by episodes of humour and love. . . . Mr. Crockett has never written a stronger or better book. An engrossing and fascinating story. The love story alone is enough to make the book delight(a\.'—lVesttmnsfer Gazette.

Arthur Morrison. TALES OF MEAN STREETS. By Arthur Morrison. Fourth Edition. Crown 2>vo, 6s.

' Told with consummate art and extraordinary detail. In the true humanity of the book lies its justification, the permanence of its interest, and its indubitable triumph.' — Athenautn.

' A great book. The author's method is amazingly effective, and produces a thrilling sense of reality. The writer lays upon us a master hand. The book is simply appalling and irresistible in its interest. It is humorous also ; without humour it would not make the mark it is certain to m.i!vi^.^ —World.

Arthur Morrison. A CHILD OF THE JAGO. By Arthur Morrison. Third Edition. Crown Svo. 6s.

' The book is a masterpiece.' — Patt Mall Gazette.

* Told with great vigour and powerful simplicity.' — Athenetum.

Mrs. Clifford. A FLASH OF SUMMER. By Mrs. W. K. Clif- ford, Author of ' Aunt Anne,' etc. Second Edition. Crown Svo. 6s.

' The story is a very sad and a very beautiful one, exquisitely told, and enriched with many subtle touches of wise and tender insight.'— Speaier.

Emily Lawless. HURRISH. By the Honble. Emily Law- less, Author of * Maelcho,' etc. Fifth Edition. Crown Svo. 6s. A reissue of Miss Lawless' most popular novel, uniform with ' Maelcho.'

Emily Lawless. MAELCHO : a Sixteenth Century Romance. By the Honble. Emily Lawless. Second Editioji. Crown Svo. 6s.

' A really great hooV.' —Spectator.

'There is no keener pleasure in life than the recognition of genius. A piece of work of the first order, which we do not hesitate to describe as one of the most remarkable literary achievements of this gcn^riition.'— Manchester Guardian.

Jane Barlow. A CREEL OF IRISH STORIES. By Jane Barlow, Author of * Irish Idylls. ' Second Editio?t. Crown Svo. 6s.

' Vivid and singularly real.' — Scotsman.

' Genuinely and naturally Irish.' — Scotsman.

'The sincerity of her sentiments, the distinction of her style, and the freshness of her themes, combine to lift her work far above the average level of contemporary fiction.' — Manchester Guardian.

J. H. Findlater. THE GREEN GRAVES OF BALGOWRIE. By Jane H. Findlater. Fourth Edition. Croxvn Svo. 6s. ' A powerful and vivid story.' — Standard.

' A beautiful story, sad and strange as truth itself.' — Vanity Fair. ' A work of remarkable interest and originality.' — National Observer. 'A very charming and pathetic tale.' — Pall Mall Gazette. ' A singularly original, clever, and beautiful story.'— Guardian. ' Reveals to us a new writer of undoubted faculty and reserve force.' — Spectator.

• An exquisite idyll, delicate, aflfecting, and h&z.Mtii\i\.'— Black and White.

28 Messrs. Methuen's List

J. H. Findlater. A DAUGHTER OF STRIFE. By Jane Helen Findlater, Author of ' The Green Graves of Balgowrie.' Crown Svo. 6s. 'A story of strong human interest.' — Scotsman.

' It has a sweet flavour of olden days delicately conveyed.' — Manchester Guardian. ' Her thought has solidity and maturity.' — Daily Mail.

Mary Findlater. OVER THE HILLS. By Mary Findlater.

Crown Svo. 6s. ' A strong and fascinating piece of work.' — Scotsman.

' A charming romance, and full of incident. The book is fresh and strong.' — Speaker. ' There is quiet force and beautiful simplicitj' in this book which will make the

author's name loved in many a household.' — Literary World. 'Admirably fresh and broad in treatment. The novel is markedly original and

excellently written.' — Daily Chronicle. 'A strong and wise book of deep insight and unflinching truth.' — Birniinghavi Post. ' Miss Mary Findlater combines originality with strength.' — Daily Mail.

H. G. Wells. THE STOLEN BACILLUS, and other Stories. By H. G. Wells. Second Edition. Crown ?>vo. 6s. ' The ordinary reader of fiction may be glad to know that these stories are eminently readable from one cover to the other, but they are more than that ; they are the impressions of a very striking imagination, which, it would seem, has a great deal within its reach.' — Saturday Review.

H. G. Wells. THE PLATTNER STORY and Others. By H.

G. Wells. Second Edition. Crown Svo. 6s. ' Weird and mysterious, they seem to hold the reader as by a magic spell.' — Scotsman. ' No volume has appeared for a long time so likely to give equal pleasure to the

simplest reader and to the most fastidious critic' — Academy.

E. F. Benson. DODO : A DETAIL OF THE DAY. By E. F.

Benson. Sixteenth Edition. Crown Svo. 6s. ' A delightfully witty sketch of society.' — Spectator. ' A perpetual feast of epigram and paradox.' — Speaker.

E. F. Benson. THE RUBICON. By E. F. Benson, Author of

' Dodo.' Fifth Edition. Crown Svo. 6s.

Mrs. Oliphant. SIR ROBERT'S FORTUNE. By Mrs. Oliphant. Crown Svo. 6s. ' Full of her own peculiar charm of style and simple, subtle character-painting comes her new gift, the delightful story. ' — Pall Mall Gazette.

Mrs. Oliphant. THE TWO MARYS. By Mrs. Oliphant. Second Edition. Crown Svo. 6s.

Mrs. Oliphant. THE LADY'S WALK. By Mrs. Oliphant. Second Edition. Crozvn Svo. 6s. 'A story of exquisite tenderness, of most delicate fancy.' — Pall Mall Gazette. ' It contains many of the finer characteristics of her best work.' — Scotstnan. ' It is little short of sacrilege on the part of a reviewer to attempt to sketch its out- lines or analyse its peculiar charm.' — Spectator.

Messrs. Methuen's List 29

W.E.Norris. MATTHEW AUSTIN. By W. E. Norris, Author

of * Mademoiselle de Mersac,' etc. Fourth Editio7i. Crown Zvo. 6s. "An intellectually satisfactory and morally bracing novel.' — Daily Telegraph.

W. E. Norris. HIS GRACE. By W. E. Norris. Third

Edition. Crown Svo. 6s.

' Mr. Norris has drawn a really fine character in the Duke of Hurstbourne, at once unconventional and very true to the conventionalities of life.'— A iltefueum.

W. E. Norris. THE DESPOTIC LADY AND OTHERS. By W. E. Norris. Crown Svo. 6s.

' A budget of good fiction of which no one will tire.' — Scotsman.

W. E. Norris. CLARISSA FURIOSA. By W. E. Norris,

Crown Svo. 6s. ' As a story it is admirable, as a jeu d esprit it is capital, as a lay sermon studded with gems of wit and wisdom it is a model.' — The IVorld.

W. Clark RusseU. MY DANISH SWEETHEART. By W.

Clark Russell, Author of 'The Wreck of the Grosvenor,' etc. Illustrated. Fourth Edition. Crown Svo. 6s.

Robert Barr. THE MUTABLE MANY. By Robert Barr, Author of ' In the Midst of Alarms,' ' A Woman Intervenes,' etc. Second Edition. Crown Svo. 6s.

' Very much the best novel that Mr. Barr has yet given us. There is much insight in it, much acute and delicate appreciation of the finer shades of character and much excellent humour.' — Daily Chronicle.

' An excellent story. It contains several excellently studied characters, and is filled with lifelike pictures of modern \\ie.' —Glasgow Herald.

Robert Barr. IN THE MIDST OF ALARMS. By Robert

Barr. Third Edition. Crown Svo. 6s.

' A book which has abundantly satisfied us by its capital humour.'— Z>«z7>' Chronicle. ' Mr. Barr has achieved a triumph whereof he has every reason to be proud.' — Pall Mall Gazette.

J. Maclaren Cobban. THE KING OF ANDAMAN : A Saviour of Society. By J. Maclaren Cobban. Crown Svo. 6s.

' An unquestionably interesting book. It contains one character, at least, who has in him the root of immortality, and the book itself is ever exhaling the sweet savour of the wn.&x'pectfid.'— Pall Mall Gazette.

J. Maclaren Cobban. WILT THOU HAVE THIS WOMAN ? By J. M. Cobban, Author of ' The King of Andaman.' CrownSvo. 6s.

30 Messrs, Methuen's List

Robert Hichens. BYEWAYS. By Robert Hichens. Author

of * Flames,' etc. Crown 8vo. 6s.

' A very high artistic instinct and striking command of language raise Mr. Hichens'

work far above the ruck. ' — Pail Mall Gazette. ' The work is undeniably that of a man of striking imagination and no less striking

powers of expression.' — Daily Ne%vs.

Percy White. A PASSIONATE PILGRIM. By Percy White,

Author of ' Mr. Bailey-Martin. ' Crown Zvo. ds.

' A work which it is not hyperbole to describe as of rare excellence.' — Pall Mall Gazette. ' The clever book of a shrewd and clever author.' — Athenceuvi.

' Mr. Percy White's strong point is analysis, and he has shown himself, before now, capable of building up a good book upon that foundation. ' — Standard.

W. Pett Ridge. SECRETARY TO BAYNE, M.P. By W. Pett Ridge. Crown Zvo. ds.

' Sparkling, vivacious, adventurous. — St. James's Gazette.

' Ingenious, amusing, and especially smart.' — World.

' The dialogue is invariably alert and highly diverting.' — Spectator.

J. S. Fletcher. THE BUILDERS. By J. S. Fletcher, Author of ' When Charles i. was King.' Second Edition. Crown 8vo. 6s.

' Replete with delightful descriptions.' — Vanity Fair.

• The background of country life has never, perhaps, been sketched more realistically.' — World.

Andrew Balfour. BY STROKE OF SWORD. By Andrew Balfour. Illustrated by W.Cubitt Cooke. Fourth Edition. Crown Svo. 6s.

' A banquet of good things.' — Academy.

' A recital of thrilling interest, told with unflagging vigour.' — Globe ' An unusually excellent example of a semi-historic romance.' — World. ' Manly, healthy, and patriotic.'— G/a^^fw Herald.

I. Hooper. THE SINGER OF MARLY. By I. Hooper.

Illustrated by W. Cubitt Cooke. Crown Svo. 6s. ' Its scenes are drawn in vivid colours, and the characters are all picturesque.'—

Scotsman. ' A novel as vigorous as it is charming.' — Literary World.

M. C. Balfour. THE FALL OF THE SPARROW. By

M. C. Balfour. Crown %vo. 6s.

' A powerful novel.' — Daily Telegraph.

' It is unusually powerful, and the characterization is uncommonly good.' — World.

' It is a well-knit, carefully-wrought story.'— Academy.

H. Morrah. A SERIOUS COMEDY. By Herbert Morrah. Crown Svo. 6s.

H. Morrah. THE FAITHFUL CITY. By Herbert Morrah, Author of 'A Serious Comedy.' Crown Svo. 6s.

L. B. Walford. SUCCESSORS TO THE TITLE. By Mrs. Walford, Author of ' Mr. Smith, ' etc. Second Edition. Crown Svo. 6s.

Messrs. Methuen's List 31

Mary Gaunt. KIRKHAM'S FIND. By Mary Gaunt,

Author of ' The Moving Finger. ' Crow^i Svo. 6s.

' A really charming novel.' — Standard.

' A capital book, in which will be found lively humour, penetrating insight, and the sweet savour of a thoroughly healthy moral.' — Speaker.

M. M. Dowie. GALLIA. By M]£nie Muriel Dowie, Author of * A Girl in the Carpathians. ' Thii'd Edition. Crown ^vo. ds. ' The style is generally admirable, the dialogue not seldom brilliant, the situations surprising in their freshness and originality, while the characters live and move, and the story itself is readable from title-page to colophon.' — Saturday Review.

J. A. Barry. IN THE GREAT DEEP. By J. A. Barry. Author of 'Steve Brown's Bunyip.' Crown Svo. 6s. ' A collection of really admirable short stories of the sea, very simply told, and placed before the reader in pithy and telling English.'— IVestminster Gazette.

J. B. Burton. IN THE DAY OF ADVERSITY. ByJ. Bloun- DELLE-BuRTON.' Second Edition. CrownSvo. 6s. • Unusually interesting and full of highly dramatic situations. —Guardian.

J, B. Bui-ton. DENOUNCED. By J. Bloundelle-Burton. Second Edition. Crown Svo. Qs. 'The plot is an original one, and the*local colouring is laid on with a delicacy and an accuracy of detail which denote the true artist.' — Broad Arrow.

J. B. Burton. THE CLASH OF ARMS. By J. Bloundelle- Burton, Author of 'In the Day of Adversity.' Second Edition. Crown Svo. 6s.

' A brave story — brave in deed, brave in* word, brave in thought.' — St. James's Gazette.

'A fine, manly, spirited piece of work.' — World.

W. C. Scully. THE WHITE HECATOMB. By W. C.

Scully, Author of ' Kafir Stories.' Crown Svo. 6s. ' It reveals a marvellously intimate understanding of the Kaffir mind, allied with literary gifts of no mean order.' — African Critic.

Julian Corbett. A BUSINESS IN GREAT WATERS. By

Julian Corbett. Second Edition. Cro%vn Svo. 6s.

'Mr. Corbett writes with immense spirit. The salt of the ocean is in it, and the right heroic ring resounds through its gallant zAvt.n\.\i.x&s.'— Speaker.

L. Cope Comford. CAPTAIN JACOBUS : A ROMANCE OF THE ROAD. By L. Cope CoRNFORD. Illustrated. CrownSvo. 6s. ' An exceptionally good story of adventure and character.' — World.

L. Daintrey. THE KING OF ALBERIA. A Romance of

the Balkans. By Laura Daintrey. Crown Svo. 6s.

M. A. Owen. THE DAUGHTER OF ALOUETTE. By Mary A. Owen. Crown Svo. 6s.

32 Messrs. Methuen's List

Mrs. Pinsent. CHILDREN OF THIS WORLD. By Ellen F. Pinsent, Author of 'Jenny's Case.' Crown 8vo. 6s.

G. Manville Fenn. AN ELECTRIC SPARK. By G. Manville Fenn, Author of ' The Vicar's Wife,' 'A Double Knot,' etc. Second Edition. Crown Svo. 6s.

L. S. McChesney. UNDER SHADOW OF THE MISSION.

By L. S. McChesney. Crown Svo. 6s.

' Those whose minds are open to the finer issues of life, who can appreciate graceful thought and refined expression of it, from them this volume will receive a welcome as enthusiastic as it will be based on critical knowledge.' — Church Times.

J. F. Brewer. THE SPECULATORS. By J. F. Brewer.

Second Edition. Crow?i Svo. 6s.

Ronald Ross. THE SPIRIT OF STORM. By Ronald

Ross, Author of ' The Child of Ocean. ' Crown Svo. 6s.

C. p. WoUey. THE OUEENSBERRY CUP. A Tale of Adventure. By Clive P. JiLEY. Illustrated. Crown Svo. 6s.

T. L. Paton. A HOME IN INVERESK. By T. L. Paton. Crown Svo. 6s.

John Davidson. MISS ARMSTRONG'S AND OTHER CIR- CUMSTANCES. By John Davidson. Crown Svo. 6s.

H. Johnston. DR. CONGALTON'S LEGACY. By Henry Johnston. Crozvn Svo. 6s.

R. Pryce. TIME AND THE WOMAN. By Richard Pryce.

Second Edition. Crown Svo. 6s.

Mrs. Watson. THIS MAN'S DOMINION. By the Author of * A High Little World. ' Second Edition. Crown Svo. 6s.

Marriott Watson. DIOGENES OF LONDON. By H. B. Marriott Watson. Crown Svo. Buckram. 6s.

M. Gilchrist. THE STONE DRAGON. By Murray Gil- christ. Crown Svo. Buckram. 6s.

E. Dickinson. A VICAR'S WIFE. By Evelyn Dickinson. Crown Svo. 6s.

E. M. Gray. ELS A. By E. M 'Queen Gray. C^own Svo. 6s.

i

Messrs. Methuen's List 33

THREE-AND-SIXPENNY NOVELS

Crown Hvo.

DERRICK VAUGHAN, NOVELIST. By Edna Lyall.

MARGERY OF QUETHER. By S. Baring Gould.

JACQUETTA. By S. Baring Gould.

SUBJECT TO VANITY. By Margaret Benson.

THE SIGN OF THE SPIDER. By Bertram Mitford.

THE MOVING FINGER. By Mary Gaunt.

JACO TRELOAR. By J. H. Pearce.

THE DANCE OF THE HOURS. By 'Vera.'

A WOMAN OF FORTY. By EsM^ Stuart.

A CUMBERER OF THE GROUND. By Constance

Smith. THE SIN OF ANGELS. By Evelyn Dickinson. AUT DIAfiOLUS AUT NIHIL. By X. L. THE COMING OF CUCULAIN. By Standish O'Grady. THE GODS GIVE MY DONKEY WINGS. By Angus

Evan Abbott. THE STAR GAZERS. By G. Manville Fenn. THE POISON OF ASPS. By R. Orton Prowse. THE QUIET MRS. FLEMING. By R. Pryce. DISENCHANTMENT. By F. Mabel Robinson. THE SQUIRE OF WANDALES. By A. Shield. A REVEREND GENTLEMAN. By J. M. Cobban. A DEPLORABLE AFFAIR. By W. E. NoRRis. A CAVALIER'S LADYE. By Mrs. Dicker. THE PRODIGALS. By Mrs. Oliphant. THE SUPPLANTER. By P. Neumann. A MAN WITH BLACK EYELASHES. By H. A. Kennedy. A HANDFUL OF EXOTICS. By S. Gordon. AN ODD EXPERIMENT. By Hannah Lynch. SCOTTISH BORDER LIFE. By James C. Dibdin.

HALF-CROWN NOVELS

A Series 0/ Novels by popular Authors,

HOVENDEN, V.C. By F. Mabel Robinson. THE PLAN OF CAMPAIGN. By F. Mabel Robinson. MR. BUTLER'S WARD. By F. Mabel Robinson. ELI'S CHILDREN. By G. Manville Fenn. A DOUBLE KNOT. By G. Manville Fenn. DISARMED. By M. Betham Edwards. A MARRIAGE AT SEA. By W. Clark Russell. IN TENT AND BUNGALOW. By the Author of ' Indian Idylls.'

34 Messrs. Methuen's List

MY STEWARDSHIP. By E. M'Queen Gray.

JACK'S FATHER. By W. E. NoRRis.

JIM B.

A LOST ILLUSION. By Leslie I^eith.

Lynn Linton. THE TRUE HISTORY OF JOSHUA DAVID- SON, Christian and Communist. By E. Lynn Linton. Eleventh Edition. Post 8vo. is.

Books for Boys and Girls

A Series of Books by well-known Authors, well illustrated. THREE-AND-SIXPENCE EACH

THE ICELANDER'S SWORD. By S. Baring Gould. TWO LITTLE CHILDREN AND CHING. By Edith

"F* ("'tJ'TT-IF'LL

TODDLEBEN'SHERO. By M. M. Blake.

ONLY A GUARD-ROOM DOG. By Edith E. Cuthell.

THE DOCTOR OF THE JULIET. By Harry Colling-

WOOD.

MASTER ROCKAFELLAR'S VOYAGE. By W. Clark

Russell. SYD BELTON : Or, The Boy who would not go to Sea.

By G. Manville Fenn. THE WALLYPUG IN LONDON. By G. E. Farrow.

The Peacock Library

A Series of Boohs for Girls by well-known Authors, handsomely bound in blue and silver, and well illustrated.

THREE-AND-SIXPENCE EACH

A PINCH OF EXPERIENCE. By L. B. Walford.

THE RED GRANGE. By Mrs. MOLESWORTH.

THE SECRET OF MADAME DE MONLUC. By the

Author of ' Mdle Mori. ' DUMPS. By Mrs. Parr, Author of Adam and Eve.' OUT OF THE FASHION. By L. T. Meade. A GIRL OF THE PEOPLE. By L. T. Meade. HEPSY GIPSY. By L. T. Meade. 2s. 6d. THE HONOURABLE MISS. By L. T. Meade. MY LAND OF BEULAH. By Mrs. Leith Adams.

li

Messrs. Methuen's List 35

University Extension Series

A series of books on historical, literary, and scientific subjects, suitable for extension students and home-reading circles. Each volume is com- plete in itself, and the subjects are treated by competent writers in a broad and philosophic spirit.

Edited by J. E. SYMES, M.A., Principal of University College, Nottingham. Crown 2>vo. Price {with some exceptions) 2s. 6d. The following volumes are ready : — THE INDUSTRIAL HISTORY OF ENGLAND. By H. de B. Gibbins. D.Litt. , M.A., late Scholar of Wadham College, Oxon., Cobden Prizeman. Fifth Edition, Revised. With Maps and Plans. 3^, 'A compact and clear story of our industrial development. A study of this concise but luminous book cannot fail to give the reader a clear insight into the principal phenomena of our industrial history. The editor and publishers are to be congrat- ulated on this first volume of their venture, and we shall look with expectant interest for the succeeding volumes of the series.' — University Extension Journal.

A HISTORY OF ENGLISH POLITICAL ECONOMY. By L. L. Price, M.A., Fellow of Oriel College, Oxon. Second Edition.

PROBLEMS OF POVERTY : An Inquiry into the Industrial Conditions of the Poor. By J. A. Hobson, M.A. Third Edition.

VICTORIAN POETS. By A. Sharp.

THE FRENCH REVOLUTION. By J. E. Symes, M.A.

PSYCHOLOGY. By F. S. Granger, M.A. Second Edition.

THE EVOLUTION OF PLANT LIFE : Lower Forms. By G. Massee.

With Illustrations. AIR AND WATER. By V. B. Lewes, M.A. Illustrated.

THE CHEMISTRY OF LIFE AND HEALTH. By C. W. KiMMiNS, M.A. Illustrated.

THE MECHANICS OF DAILY LIFE. By V. P. Sells. M.A. Illustrated.

ENGLISH SOCIAL REFORMERS. By H. DE B. Gibbins, D.Litt.. M.A.

ENGLISH TRADE AND FINANCE IN THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY. By W. A. S. Hewins, B.A.

THE CHEMISTRY OF FIRE. The Elementary Principles of Chemistry. By M. M. Pattison Muir, M.A. Illustrated.

A TEXT-BOOK OF AGRICULTURAL BOTANY. By M. C. Potter, M.A, F.L.S. Illustrated. 3^. 6^.

THE VAULT OF HEAVEN. A Popular Introduction to Astronomy. By R. A. Gregory. With numerous Illustrations,

METEOROLOGY. The Elements of Weather and Climate. By H. N. Dickson, F.R.S.E., F.R. Met. Soc. Illustrated.

A MANUAL OF ELECTRICAL SCIENCE. By GEORGE J. BuRCH, M.A. With numerous Illustrations, y.

36 Messrs. Methuen's List

THE EARTH. An Introduction to Physiography. By Evan Small, M.A. Illustrated.

INSECT LIFE. By F. W. Theobald, M.A. Illustrated.

ENGLISH POETRY FROM BLAKE TO BROWNING. By W. M. Dixon, M.A.

ENGLISH LOCAL GOVERNMENT. By E. Jenks, M.A., Professor of Law at University College, Liverpool.

THE GREEK VIEW OF LIFE. By G. L. Dickinson. Fellow of King's College, Cambridge. Second Edition.

Social Questions of To-day

Edited by H. de B. GIBBINS, D.Litt., M.A. Crown 8vo. 2s. 6d. A series of volumes upon those topics of social, economic, and industrial interest that are at the present moment foremost in the public mind. Each volume of the series is written by an author who is an acknow- ledged authority upon the subject with which he deals.

The following Volumes of the Series are ready : —

TRADE UNIONISM— NEW AND OLD. By G. Howell. Second Edition.

THE CO-OPERATIVE MOVEMENT TO-DAY. By G. J. Holyoake.

Second Edition.

MUTUAL THRIFT. By Rev. J. Frome Wilkinson, M.A.

PROBLEMS OF POVERTY. By J. A. HOBSON, M.A. Third Edition.

THE COMMERCE OF NATIONS. By C. F. Bastable, M.A,, Professor of Economics at Trinity College, Dublin.

THE ALIEN INVASION. By W. H. WiLKiNS, B.A.

THE RURAL EXODUS. By P. Anderson Graham.

LAND NATIONALIZATION. By Harold Cox, B.A.

A SHORTER WORKING DAY. By H. de B. Gibbins, D.Litt., M.A., and R. A. Hadfield, of the Hecla Works, Sheffield.

BACK TO THE LAND : An Inquiry into the Cure for Rural Depopulation By H. E. Moore.

TRUSTS, POOLS AND CORNERS. By J. Stephen Jeans.

THE FACTORY SYSTEM. By R. W. Cooke-Taylor.

THE STATE AND ITS CHILDREN. By Gertrude Tuckwell.

Messrs. Methuen's List 37

WOMEN'S WORK. By Lady Dilke, Miss Bulley, and Miss Whitley.

MUNICIPALITIES AT WORK. The Municipal Policy of Six Great Towns, and its Influence on their Social Welfare. By Frederick Dolman.

SOCIALISM AND MODERN THOUGHT. By M. Kaufmann.

THE HOUSING OF THE WORKING CLASSES. By E. Bowmaker. .

MODERN CIVILIZATION IN. SOME OF ITS ECONOMIC ASPECTS. By W. Cunningham, D.D., Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge.

THE PROBLEM OF THE UNEMPLOYED. By J. A. Hobson. B.A.,

LIFE IN WEST LONDON. ByARTHURSHERWELL.M.A. Second Edition.

RAILWAY NATIONALIZATION. By Clement Edwards.

Classical Translations

EditedbyH. F. FOX, M. A., Fellow and Tutor of Brasenose College, Oxford.

/ESCHYLUS — Agamemnon, Choephoroe, Eumenides. Translated by Lewis Campbell, LL.D., late Professor of Greek at St. Andrews, 55.

CICERO— De Oratore I. Translated by E. N. P. MoOR, M.A. 3J. 6a.

CICERO — Select Orations (Pro Milone, Pro Murena, Philippic ii., In Catilinam). Translated by H. E. D. Blakiston, M.A., Fellow and Tutor of Trinity College, Oxford, y.

CICERO— De Natura Deorum. Translated by F. Brooks, M.A., late Scholar of Balliol College, Oxford. 3^. 6d.

LUCIAN— Six Dialogues (Nigrinus, Icaro-Menippus, The Cock, TheShip, The Parasite, The Lover of Falsehood). Translated by S. T. Irwin, M. A. , Assis- tant Master at Clifton ; late Scholar of Exeter College, Oxford. 35. 6d.

SOPHOCLES— Electra and Ajax. Translated by E. D. A. MORSHEAD, M.A., Assistant Master at Winchester. 2J. 6d.

TACITUS— Agricola and Germania. Translated by R. B. Townshend, late Scholar of Trinity College, Cambridge. 2s. 6d.

Educational Books

CLASSICAL

PLAUTI BACCHIDES. Edited with Introduction, Commentary, and Critical Notes by J. M'Cosh, M.A. Fcap. ^io. 12s. 6d. ' The notes are copious, and contain a great deal of information that is good and useful. ' — Classical Review.

TACITI AGRICOLI. With Introduction, Notes, Map, etc. By R. F. Davis, M.A., Assistant Master at Weymouth College. Crown 8vo. zs.

TACITI GERMANIA. By the same Editor. Crown Bvo. 2s.

HERODOTUS: EASY SELECTIONS. With Vocabulary, By A. C. LiDDELL, M.A. Fcap. 8vo. is. 6d.

38 Messrs. Methuen's List

SELECTIONS FROM THE ODYSSEY. By E. D. Stone, M. A., late Assistant Master at Eton. Fcap. 8vo. is. 6d.

PLAUTUS : THE CAPTIVI. Adapted for Lower Forms by J. H. Fresse. M.A., late Fellow of St. John's, Cambridge, is. 6d.

DEMOSTHENES AGAINST CONON AND CALLICLES. Edited with Notes and Vocabulary, by F. Darwin Swift, M.A., formerly Scholar of Queen's College, Oxford. Fcap. Svo. 2s.

EXERCISES ON LATIN ACCIDENCE. By S. E. WiNBOLT, Assistant Master at Christ's Hospital. Crown Bvo. u. 6d.

An elementary book adapted for Lower Forms to accompany the shorter Latin primer. ' Skilfully arranged.' — Glasgoiv Herald. ' Accurate and well arranged.' — Athenceuni.

NOTES ON GREEK AND LATIN SYNTAX. By G. Buckland Green, M.A., Assistant Master at Edinburgh Academy, late Fellow of St. John's College, Oxon. Crown 8vo. zs. 6d.

Notes and explanations on the chief difficulties of Greek and Latin Syntax, with

numerous passages for exercise. ' Supplies a gap in educational literature.' — Glasgoiu JFferald.

GERMAN

A COMPANION GERMAN GRAMMAR. By H. de B. Gibbins, D.Litt., M.A., Assistant Master at Nottingham High School. Crown 8vo. is. 6d.

GERMAN PASSAGES FOR UNSEEN TRANSLATION. By E. M 'Queen Gray. Crown Svo. is. 6d.

SCIENCE

THE WORLD OF SCIENCE. Including Chemistry, Heat, Light, Sound, Magnetism, Electricity, Botany, Zoology, Physiology, Astronomy, and Geology. By R. Elliott Steel, M.A,, F.C.S. 147 Illustrations. Second Edition. Crown Svo. 2s. 6d.

ELEMENTARY LIGHT. By R. E. Steel. With numerous Illustrations. Crown 8vo. 4s 6d.

ENGLISH

ENGLISH RECORDS. A Companion to the History of England. By H. E. Malden, M.A. Crown 8vo. 3^. 6d.

A book which aims at concentrating information upon dates, genealogy, officials, con- stitutional documents, etc., which is usually found scattered in different volumes.

THE ENGLISH CITIZEN : HIS RIGHTS AND DUTIES. By H. E. Malden, M.A. is. 6d.

A DIGEST OF DEDUCTIVE LOGIC. By Johnson Barker, B.A. Crown 8vo. zs. 6d.

BINDING SECT. A^K ^i « lyou

PLEASE DO NOT REMOVE CARDS OR SLIPS FROM THIS POCKET

UNIVERSITY OF TORONTO LIBRARY

r

U Oman, (Sir) Charles William 37 Chadwick

06 A history of the art of

war

4S.

i