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Medieval Warfare in Manuscripts
From: The British Library
| By:
Pamela Porter |
EDITOR'S INTRODUCTION |
The art of medieval warfare exerts a strong hold on our imagination, with its knights and pageantry. Yet little would be known of the weapons and warriors of this era were it not for the miniatures and drawings accompanying medieval texts. Pamela Porter, curator of German and Scandinavian manuscripts at the British Library, guides us through several of these drawings, and explains the Graeco-Roman origins of medieval warfare. |
 he ways of war in the Middle Ages never cease to exert a fascination. The glamour associated with knights in shining armour, colourful tournaments and heroic deeds appeals strongly to the modern imagination, while the technical ingenuity of mighty war engines provides a constant source of wonder and admiration. |
Thanks to extensive exploitation of this image, medieval warfare has left something of a colourful impression, making it relatively easy to overlook the fact that war in the Middle Ages must have been no less harsh and repugnant a business than it is today. Attitudes have changed, however. Nowadays war is regarded as an exceptional and undesirable event in the course of daily life, but in the Middle Ages warfare played a prominent, if not dominant, role in the pattern of everyday existence. Brute force was considered the legitimate way of resolving almost any dispute, and military power was employed not only in major conflicts between countries but also to settle an endless succession of personal and local quarrels--so much so, in fact, that in medieval times warfare was a profession for the upper classes, and the divisions of society were reflected almost as much in the practice of war as they were in the possession of land. |
Over time, metal corrodes and wood decays, with the result that comparatively few pieces of military dress and equipment have survived to provide direct insight into the way that war was waged in the Middle Ages. For a comprehensive view of the nature of medieval warfare, we have to rely on written documentation and the information preserved in paintings, sculptures, carvings and other pictorial sources. Of these, the most numerous by far are the miniatures and drawings found in manuscript books, partly because books tended to survive better than other artefacts by virtue of their sheltered life on library shelves, away from the rigours of everyday exposure, and partly because many individual volumes contain multiple representations. |
The miniatures in medieval manuscripts, often extremely evocative, create the impression of giving a "snapshot" view of what it was actually like to engage in warfare in the Middle Ages. In so doing they offer a potentially rich source of information about military dress, equipment and practices, but it must be remembered that they should be treated with a certain amount of caution as sources of accurate information. Certainly they portray medieval warfare through contemporary eyes, but we must constantly bear in mind that medieval book illustrators did not set out to provide documentary evidence for future generations. Their representations may be recognisable, but in the absence of supporting documentary or other evidence it is frequently impossible to know whether the items depicted reflect a degree of accurate knowledge or simply the artist's powers of invention or skills as a copyist. Moreover, medieval illuminators do not show the same concern for historical accuracy that we might expect from a modern book illustrator, so well-documented events such as the Battle of Hastings are usually portrayed in contemporary rather than historical terms, which can be misleading. These points notwithstanding, the depictions in medieval miniatures, taken as a whole, are still an extremely important source for tracing the broad development of military equipment and practices throughout the Middle Ages. |
Rules for the preparation and conduct of warfare in medieval times were guided chiefly by theories inherited from Graeco-Roman antiquity. Classical manuals of military science, containing detailed technical instructions in matters of siegecraft, the construction of war machines, strategy, tactics and the training of troops, were full of theoretical concepts and applied mechanics which depended heavily on accompanying visual aids for a full understanding of the texts that they contained. We have no information about manuscripts written in the intervening years, but Byzantine manuscripts written in Greek in the early Middle Ages maintained a continuity with this classical tradition, providing examples of the interdependence of illustration and text. Comparatively few of these earlier Byzantine manuscripts have survived, but our knowledge of them is extended by sixteenth-century copies, made at a time when interest in military theory was enjoying a considerable revival. |
One such copy, produced in northern Italy, is known to be a faithful reproduction of an eleventh-century Greek manuscript which did survive and is now in the Vatican Library. It is a manual on poliorcetics, or siegecraft, by a tenth-century writer known as Hero of Byzantium, and is essentially a compilation of material derived from earlier Greek writers and modernised by the author with the aim of making it user-friendly for a nonspecialist public. In keeping with classical models, it contains a large number of extremely detailed "technical" illustrations to assist the reader's understanding of the complicated techniques and equipment of siegecraft described in the text. For example, a detailed account of a mobile siege tower which can be moved in any direction is accompanied by an illustration showing an eight-wheeled penthouse with a ram suspended by strong ropes from its structure. The battering end is equipped with a crossbeam bearing a net to be used for scaling walls, while an enclosed area above provides a shelter for observing the defensive measures of the enemy within the fortress. The entire structure is massive in proportion to the accompanying figures, and that is consistent with the textual comment that it requires 100 men to move it, on account of its weight. The number of illustrations and the scrupulous attention to detail in such books, of which many were produced in the eastern Mediterranean area during the early Middle Ages, give the impression that they were intended primarily for study rather than for immediate practical consultation. |
By contrast, the classical tradition of applied illustration seems to have died out completely in the West, perhaps all the more surprising because military thinking in Europe was dominated by the work of Flavius Vegetius Renatus, a high-ranking official of the fourth century CE. His De re militari was widely copied, translated and adapted, as witnessed by the fact that more than 300 medieval manuscripts of the work survive, without doubt a mere fraction of the total number actually made. Although the work was in many respects outdated by the Middle Ages, it included a chapter on siegecraft, a skill vital for the success of many medieval campaigns, and its presence in many royal and noble libraries indicates that it was probably required reading for military commanders. As well as luxury copies made for libraries, there are still in existence some manuscripts in a portable, compact format, so the work may also have been regarded as useful for reading or consultation while on campaigns. Whatever the format, however, manuscripts by Vegetius do not normally contain explanatory visual aids that relate to the text. Illustrations that do occur--and they are by no means universal--are typically presentation miniatures or appropriate, generalised subjects such as knights in combat or siege scenes. |
Vegetius cites as one of his sources a treatise on military science, later lost, compiled by another author popular in the Middle Ages, although one of considerably less importance, if the number of surviving manuscripts can be taken as evidence. Sextus Julius Frontinus, a Roman soldier and author who lived from about 40 to 103 CE, compiled a collection of military stratagems from Greek and Roman history, presumably as concrete examples to supplement his theoretical manual. The lasting value of specific situations to explain the finer points of military theory very probably accounts for continuing interest in this practical work of Frontinus beside the more abstract work of Vegetius. Surviving medieval copies of the Strategemata resemble those of the De re militari in that they may be decorated or illustrated with conventional miniatures but do not have technical illustrations. One exception is known, however. The British Library possesses nine leaves from a manuscript made in Italy sometime in the late fourteenth century, consisting of a remarkable series of detailed and lively coloured drawings which occupy about two-thirds of each page below the brief sections of text to which the illustrations relate. Very individual in style, the drawings supplement the text in exactly the same way as the technical illustrations of classical antiquity, suggesting that the volume was either modelled on an earlier manuscript or deliberately made to reproduce the antique style. The present location of the remainder of the volume is unknown, if indeed it still survives, and these nine leaves represent only a very small fraction of the whole text. Assuming that the entire manuscript was textually complete and conceived in the same format throughout, it would have been a large, grand and very expensive volume, undoubtedly made for a most important patron.  |
The knight, the professional soldier of the Middle Ages, is probably the medieval figure who more than any other has captured the popular imagination. A full-page miniature of Saint Maurice in a late-fourteenth-century French Book of Hours depicts just the type of image on which the popular knightly stereotype is based: a mounted warrior in full armour, equipped with sword and shield and carrying a lance with a pennon. Full military trappings are an essential feature of the knight's outward appearance, but they are less likely to account for his intrinsic appeal than the romantic image promoted by his association with the medieval world of chivalry and all its attendant pageantry. |
"Chivalry" was the word used to describe an elaborate code of conduct which determined knightly behaviour. The name came from the French word for mastery of the horse, perhaps the chief skill that a young knight acquired when he received his early training in the arts of war. Although the rules of chivalry were not always strictly followed, they represented the highest military, courtly and religious ideals. A knight was expected to be valiant in battle and magnanimous in victory, gentle in manners, generous, truthful and just. It was also his duty to protect women, and to show undying devotion to his lady. |
Knights came from a particular social class, and training for knighthood started at an early age, when a boy was sent to court to serve as a page. Here he began to acquire some of the skills essential for his later role, in particular, those involved in mastering horsemanship. Serious military training started at the age of 14, when as a squire he carried his knight's shield, accompanied him to battle, assisted him in putting on his armour and cared for his weapons and horses. A squire also received regular training for arms and combat. |
One illustration in a Vegetius manuscript, whose first chapter deals with the training of recruits, shows a young squire fighting at the "pile," or "pale," a device employed to teach the use of the sword and shield during combat on foot. The pile sometimes took the form of a Turk or Saracen, but here we find the more usual plain pole, about six feet high, firmly fixed in the ground and with notches placed to indicate the head, arms and other vulnerable parts of the opponent's body. Another figure in the same miniature is practising the difficult task of mounting a horse when fully armed, a skill that was of vital importance for a mounted warrior. |
Before leading an army into battle, the squire had to be knighted, a ceremony which for reasons of expediency might take place on campaign, as shown in a miniature illustrating an account of the life of Richard II. Normally, however, the ceremony occurred when the squire was 21, as long as he had demonstrated his worthiness to receive the two most potent symbols of knighthood, a sword and spurs. A simple ceremony of giving weapons to the new knight gradually became more elaborate and solemn under the influence of the church, involving a ritual bath to symbolise purification, a night of vigil and prayer, and the blessing of his sword before it was given to the sponsor to whom he made his knightly vow. Sometimes the presentation of weapons was accompanied by the accolade, a symbolic blow on the shoulder with the flat of the sponsor's sword. At last the knight was ready to play his full part in war and all its related activities. |
Much of the pageantry of medieval courtly life was associated with a pastime which gave the knight invaluable training and practice for the field of battle. The tournament was an entertaining spectator sport in which two teams of knights fought each other in friendly contest to win honour and renown. In the tournament proper, or melee, two teams of knights fought a mock battle according to an agreed set of rules, while a joust--frequently included as part of the programme--was an individual encounter which enabled two knights to display their military skills to their best advantage. Although the object of the sport was friendly, at least in theory, many early tournaments were rough affairs involving indiscriminate mass combat, often leading to death and injury. Later tournaments became more controlled, perhaps because the presence of ladies among the spectators exerted a civilising effect on the proceedings. Sometimes the rules allowed the victors to demand ransoms, arranged beforehand, or to capture horses, arms and armour from vanquished opponents, as might happen in reality on the battlefield. At the end of the day there was usually a prize, presented by a lady, for the knight who performed best. |
Gradually the reduction of physical risk to participants was emphasised to such a degree--with the development of specialised armour and the introduction of safety features like tilt barriers--that by the end of the fifteenth century the medieval tournament with all its skill and excitement had been transformed into little more than a theatrical spectacle. By then, however, the nature of warfare was changing so significantly with the introduction of new weapons and skills that the role of the knight on the battlefield was already in decline. |
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