Medieval
Battles, 1047 to 1295, Volume 1
This is an
introduction to a series of
books looking in
detail at the original accounts of medieval battles within the
Anglo-Norman realm between 1047 and 1295.
The books are primarily based upon first hand translations
of Exchequer documents and chronicle accounts.
For the first time all the major sources are brought
together for the reader to experience what was known of battle in this
period. This first
volume includes a detailed look at what it was actually like to be a
knight or common soldier with first-hand accounts of the life of
medieval soldiering. The
training, armaments and ethos of medieval soldiers are examined in
individual chapters before taking a more detailed look at the planning
and events for eleven campaigns along the Plantagenet frontier.
Contents
Introduction
The
Sources
An Overview of a
Medieval Army
The Mentality of
Soldiering in the Middle Ages
The Accoutrements of
Armour
Changing
Fashion
Royal and Baronial
Seals
Cavalry, Knights and
Serjeants
Knightly
Effigies
Crossbowmen
Archers and
Foot
Siege Engines and
Engineers
Mercenaries
Trade
Tactics and
Pay
Raising
Troops
Numbers
Naval Transport and
Fleets
Casualties and Battle
Cairns
Supply and
Logistics
Transport, Movement,
Speed and Distance
Income
Wounds
Campaigns
The March towards
Corwen, April to September 1165
The Welsh in the French
Wars of Richard the Lionheart
The Ceri Campaign of
1228
The Painscastle Campaign
of 1231
The Wars of Prince
Dafydd
The Degannwy Campaign,
26 August to 26 October 1245
The Welsh Campaign of
1257
Cefnllys, December
1262
The Welsh Campaign of
1276 to 1277
The Welsh War of 1282 to
1283
The Regent's Campaign of
1287
Appendixes
A List of Early Effigies
containing Heraldry
The Cost of Troops from
the Twelfth to the Fourteenth Centuries
Index of
Names
General
Index
Introduction
This series
of books is
intended to give the reader a good grounding in the battles that took
place within the Anglo-Norman realm during the Middle
Ages. For such an understanding it is first necessary to
place yourself in the age when these events occurred. It is
of little value to look at ancient battles with the eyes of a modern
specialist. Our medieval counterparts had no electronic
communications and to them the only weapon of mass destruction was
famine and resultant plague - and all sides were happy to use this when
it was deemed necessary. It is therefore necessary to attempt
to understand how medieval man saw his world.
Life held different values in the Middle Ages and death, especially
early death, was seen as a part of life, rather than an aberration as
it is today. At the head of local society was the feudal
knight, holding his land by service to his lord. His lord in
turn might hold of another lord and eventually you would reach the
tenant-in-chief who held his land directly from the king. The
king held all the land. These knights and lords made up the
heavy cavalry shock troops that formed the core of medieval armies in
this period. At the other end of the feudal scale was the
yeoman who held his land from the lord or knight. He might
also employ farm labourers or serfs who were legally tied to a piece of
land. These men provided the infantry, otherwise known as
archers, spearmen, knifemen or simply, the foot. This is a
simplistic view of medieval armies and as we shall see there was much
overlapping in what was an uncertain and constantly changing world,
even if today we tend to think of the Middle Ages as a time of
stagnation and fixed ideas.
Of particular importance to the study of medieval battles is the size
and components of an army. Contemporary chroniclers are often
said to have ‘exaggerated their figures'. Is this
true? There is a human tendency, and historians are certainly
not immune to this, that allows us to cherry-pick figures and somewhat
ignore the caliber and credibility of the sources. A small
figure is often accepted, but a large one rejected. In
reality the scribes who wrote these figures might have had no clear
idea at all of what was a ‘rational figure'.
In some modern works the Crusaders of the eleventh and twelfth
centuries are allowed armies up to 100,000 men strong, yet when various
sources state that a combination of Sultans put 330,000 men in the
field it is an exaggeration. The best answer would appear to
be based on an assessment of what is possible and to this end much of
the early section of this work will deal with the numbers armies
consisted of and the consequent problems of supply.
This book is designed to set the stage for later books which will
concentrate on the battles of
Wales, England, Normandy, Scotland and
Ireland.
Available now through PayPal for £39.95. Consists
of 398 A4 pages and 147 illustrations and maps.
Released March 2017, Medieval Battles: Wales: Volume 2, part 1: 1055 to 1216