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Perhaps
no image of the Middle Ages has greater iconic power than that
of the mounted knight. Covered from head to foot in burnished
steel, the warrior on horseback is the very embodiment of the
so-called age of chivalry. Yet contained in this potent image
are a number of misconceptions about the nature of medieval
warfare. These errors include the impression that from roughly
500 to 1500 armor was an unalterable constant. In reality, protective
metal evolved as much during the period as modern aircraft have
changed since Kittyhawk. Another fallacy is the belief that
knights constituted the majority of the medieval army. The truth
is that most armies in the Middle Ages were predominantly made
up of infantry, and the knights themselves often fought on foot.
Even amongst the mounted element, true knights were in the minority.
A related misconception is that the charge of heavily armored
cavalry was irresistible to any force not similarly constituted.
In fact, when foot soldiers held their ground, something
that occurred far more often than is traditionally realized, they
usually triumphed over their mounted counterparts unless the
latter were supported by infantry, and possibly archers of their
own.(1)
Tradition tells us
that Charles Martel’s epic victory over the Saracens at Poitiers (Tours)
in 732 effectively saved the Christian West from Islamic domination. Whether
or not this battle played the pivotal role so often ascribed to it is open
to debate. What is certain is that the triumph of the Frankish host reveals
much about the early development of medieval warfare. Recent work by Victor
Davis Hanson demonstrates that we have been laboring under a number of misconceptions
about the true nature of Charles "the Hammer’s" army. The
relevance of this research should not be underestimated, for the mounted
Frankish warrior is traditionally seen as the progenitor of the medieval
knight and the necessity of maintaining him the very basis of feudalism
itself. Simply put, Merovingian cavalry utilizing the technological advantage
provided by the recent arrival of the stirrup in the west (which allowed
the combined weight of horse and rider to be focused at the end of a couched
lance) were able to deliver a charge that was irresistible to those, like
the invading Moors, who were not similarly equipped.
The problem
posed by Poitiers for this traditional interpretation is the
fact that the Franks fought on foot, not on horseback. Wave
after wave of Muslim cavalry crashed against the Frankish
phalanx and were broken. Indeed, superior armor (both chain
mail and scale) and discipline were central in Martel’s
victory, yet the supposed dawn of the mounted knight must be
postponed.(2)
When then can we effectively
date the battlefield dominance of the mounted knight? In reality, the answer
is never. This is not to say that European cavalry did not come to play
a central role in medieval warfare; it certainly did. Armored horsemen
could indeed be devastating when encountering untrained levies of feudal
infantry, who often fled at their appearance, or when pursuing defeated
footmen that had been broken by attacks of combined arms (archers and
infantry as well as horse.) Moreover, knights served as officers in armies
comprised of sizable foot elements. Yet throughout the Middle Ages, unsupported
cavalry suffered severely when confronted by disciplined infantry.
This fact, in turn,
begs the question, Why? The answer is remarkably simple. Horses,
no matter how well-trained, will not charge head-long into an
unmoving wall of men, especially when this monolith is bristling
with sharpened steel. In fact, if the infantry hold their ground,
no collision as such occurs. Cavalry inevitably pull up short
of impact and the riders hack at the mass of men in front of
them from the saddle. The horsemen’s advantages in height
and reach are more than compensated by the foot soldier’s
density in numbers and ability to thrust up at the exposed stomachs
and limbs of the mounts. This truth is confirmed in example
after example, even after the stirrup was firmly established
in the west by about the year 1000.(3)
William the Conqueror’s
victory at Hastings in 1066 brought a series of dramatic transformations
to England, including advanced feudalism and the introduction
of Norman-French language and culture. This transitional battle
pitted the English King Harold Godwinson’s Anglo-Saxons
against William’s mixed army of Normans and assorted adventurers
and mercenaries drawn from across Europe. Although Hastings
is sometimes viewed as a triumph of horse over foot, in fact
William’s victory was the result of a well-integrated assault
by a force of combined arms comprising archers, infantry and cavalry.
Yet despite its inferiority
in numbers and technology, the Anglo-Saxon shieldwall (both
armies were similarly protected with coats of chain mail and
conical open-faced helmets) held out at Hastings for most of
a very long day against repeated attacks by William the Bastard’s
Normans.(4)
The 200-year period
between 1100 and 1300 is still characterized by an image of
the mounted knight in his role as undisputed master of the battlefield.
This image bears qualification. For both in the
east, where Europeans were participating in the Crusades, and
at home, most military activity of the time focused on the siege
of cities and castles.(5) In fact until the
advent of effective artillery (c.1420), the tremendous advantage
offered by defensive fortifications served to dramatically curtail
the willingness of combatants to gamble all in open battle.
The weaker, or more cautious side, simply retired behind stone
walls until disease, shortage of food or impatience drove off
the attacker ( of course the besieged
was also vulnerable to these forces ).
Throughout the Middle Ages, the great risks involved in
decisive open field battle were the exception rather than the
rule.
During
the course of the fourteenth century, disciplined infantry repeatedly
demonstrated its superiority to armored cavalry. At Courtrai
(1302) the well-armed and highly trained civic militias of the
Flemish cities administered a crushing defeat to the cavalry
of France. Fighting on foot with bow and, more importantly,
pike, the Burghers of Ghent and Bruges killed over a thousand
of the supposedly invincible French mounted knights.(6)
A short time later, the English aristocracy learned the cruel
price of class-based military arrogance at the hands of the
Scots. At the decisive battle of Bannockburn in 1314, King Robert
the Bruce's schiltrons, hedgehogs of well-trained pikemen drawn
from the ranks of Scotland’s commoners, administered the
greatest defeat English cavalry suffered in Middle Ages. Some
thirty-four English lords and hundreds of knights (all of whom
rode into combat) fell, while nearly one hundred others were
captured. This pivotal event insured the survival of Scotland
as an independent nation.(7) Further east,
Swiss halberdiers (using a halberd, a variation of the pike) destroyed an imperial
army consisting primarily of mounted men at arms at Morgarten
(1315).
Unlike the French,
the English learned from their defeats early in the fourteenth
century and radically altered the way in which they waged war. The
knights of England gave up their horses, or more accurately,
got off them prior to battle. Of greater import, the English
(via the Welsh) dramatically modified one of mankind’s
oldest weapons, the bow and arrow. Six foot "longbows"
in the hands of commoners (something the French would never
risk) for a time came to dominate the battlefields of Europe.
The centrality of infantry during the fourteenth century as
well as the decisive advantage offered by combined arms forces
is strikingly illustrated by a series of English victories over
the French during the Hundred Years War. At Crécy (1346),
a vastly outnumbered English army comprised of archers and dismounted
men at arms repelled some fifteen cavalry charges mounted by
the cream of French cavalry inflicting thousands of casualties
in the process. Ten years later at Poitiers, French knights
themselves fought on foot, but the English archers again proved
the determining factor. Similarly at Agincourt in 1415, Henry
V’s small English army of 5,000 long-bowmen and 1,000 dismounted
men at arms faced a French feudal host of 25,000. Despite their
overwhelming superiority in numbers, the French (again fighting
on foot) failed to modify their tactics and lost some 1,600
lords and knights as well as uncounted thousands of lower-ranking soldiers.(8)
By the end of the first quarter of the sixteenth century, gunpowder
insured that the century’s long process through which elite
European warriors had encased themselves in armor would reverse
itself.
A final
question remains: if the mounted knight was never the omnipotent
force that has been depicted, what are the origins of the myth?
Here the answer must by necessity involve some conjecture. But
in all likelihood, it has its basis in class. The literature
and art on which we base our popular perceptions of the Middle
Ages was sponsored by the only elements in society with the means
to support it- the nobility and clergy. When combined with the
fact that this class also monopolized political power and religious
authority it is hardly surprising that we are left with a skewed
view of their predominant role in combat. Moreover, the primary
justification of the entire feudal system, at least initially,
was the maintenance of heavily armored, mounted warriors. It
is therefore hardly surprising that the most enduring image
left us from the cultural flowering of the High Middle Ages
is the physical manifestation of its predominant classes' raison
d’être. By the fourteenth century when low-born archers
and pikemen had established their superiority over the noble
horsemen, realistic depictions of the nature of warfare would
have been psychologically devastating to the seigniorial class.
Notes
1. This
article is heavily influenced by Victor David Hanson’s
Carnage and Culture: Landmark Battles in the Rise of Western
Power, (New York: Doubleday, 2001), particularly chapter
5, 135-169.
2. Ibid.
3. For
the unwillingness of horses to attack an unmoving wall of infantry,
see John Keegan, The Face of Battle, (New York: Dorset
Press, 1976), 94-7, 153-159; idem, A History of Warfare,
(New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1993), 297; Hanson, Carnage,
135-7; John Gillingham, "An Age of Expansion, c. 1020-1204"
in Maurice Keen (ed.), Medieval Warfare: A History, (New
York: Oxford University Press, 1999), 76-8.
4. Gillingham,
"Age of Expansion," particularly 70-3, 76-78.
5. Ibid.,
78-81.
6. For
Courtrai, see Clifford J. Rogers, "The Age of the Hundred
Years War," in Medieval Warfare: A History, 136-142.
7. For
Bannockburn, see Andrew Ayton, "Arms Armour, and Horses"
in Medieval Warfare: A History, 202-3; Rogers, "Age,"
142.
8. For
the three major English victories in the Hundred Years War,
see Terence Wise, Medieval Warfare, (New York: Hastings
House, Publishers, Inc., 1976), 110-120 and Keegan, Face
of Battle, chapter 2.
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