Late Medieval Warfare
Evolution of Armor, c.1075-1300
Bayeux Tapestry, ca. 1075
Brass of Sir Robert de Trumpington, d. 1289
Evolution of Armor in the 14th Century
Sir William fitzRalf (d.1323)
Sir John de St. Quentin (d. 1397)
Evolution of Armor, 15th Century
Sir John Segrave (c.1425)
Armor for field and tournament, 1527 (Metropolitan Museum)
Hundred Years War
• The Hundred Years War is a name given (in the 1860s) to a series
of dynastic wars between the ruling families of England and France.
The causes of the wars were dynastic (King Edward III of England
and his heirs claimed to be the rightful kings of France), territorial
(King Edward III held Gascony from the French Crown as a French
duke), and economic (the English Crown depended on custom taxes
on wine from Gascony and the wool exported to Flanders).
• Between 1337 and 1453 there were only nine years of ratified peace
(1360-1369), although there were also extended periods with little or
no military activity (e.g. 1380-1415).
• The Hundred Years War spawned side conflicts: Scotland (as an ally
of the French) vs England, Flanders (as an ally of the English) vs
France, the Burgundians vs the Armagnacs (a civil war between
noble factions within France, 1407 to 1435, with the Burgundians
allying with England), civil wars in Spain over succession to the
throne and in Brittany over succession to the duchy in which the
English and French supported different claimants.
Hundred Years War
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The war can be divided into five phases:
1337-1360: the early phase of the war was dominated by a series of English chevauchées
(mounted raids designed to devastate regions economically, destroy the morale of the enemy, and
provide plunder for the raiders), two of which culminated in battles won by the English, Crecy in
1346 and Poitiers in 1356. The latter battle resulted in the capture of King John II of France,
which led a revolt of the Parisian bourgeois under Etienne Marcel, a feudal revolt by Charles the
Bad of Navarre, and a peasant revolt known as the Jacquerie. All of this, tempered by a few
French victories, led to the peace of Bretigny in 1360. Bretigny restored an enlarged Duchy of
Aquitaine to Edward III and set John II’s ransom at 3 million gold crowns. An omitted clause would
have granted Edward III sovereignty over Aquitaine in return for giving up his claim to the French
throne. This period also witnessed innovations in taxation by dauphin Charles (the future Charles
V)—the creation of the taille—as a mechanism for paying his father’s ransom.
•
1364-1380: reign of Charles V. This phase of the war was characterized by the French adopting
Fabian tactics under the constable Bertrand du Guesclin. The result was that Charles V
recovered everything his father had lost. During this period the French and the English fought a
proxy war in Spain, as each side supported a different claimant to the Spanish throne.
•
1380-1413: England and France both suffered internal political turmoil. 1392 Charles VI went
mad, which led to civil war. In 1399 Richard II of England was deposed by John of Gaunt's son
Henry Bolingbroke, who secured the throne as Henry IV (1399-1413).
•
1413-1429: high point for English under Henry V (1413-1422). 1415: Henry V’s victory at
Agincourt. 1417-1419: Henry V conquers Normandy by besieging towns with artillery and through
diplomacy. 1419: Burgundians ally with English. 1420: Treaty of Troyes names Henry V as heir to
French throne.
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1429-1453: French win the war. 1429: Joan of Arc lifts the siege of Orleans, leading to Charles VI
being crowned king of France. 1430: Joan of Arc captured and burnt as a witch. 1435:
Burgundians abandon allegiance with English. 1436: Charles VII recaptures Paris. 1449-1450:
Charles VII retakes Normandy through the use of artillery. 1449-1450: Charles VII retakes
Normandy through the use of artillery. 1451-1453: English lose Guyenne.
Phases of the Hundred Years’ War
Military Developments during the Hundred Years
War
• Effective use of English long bow (massed fire)
• Mounted infantry: men at arms (heavy infantry), hobelars
(light infantry), mounted archers
• Increase in ratio of archers to men at arms,
• Contract armies (indenture system)
• Reemergence of standing armies: French “Companies of
Ordonnance” in 1445
• Development of full plate armor and full barding of horses in
1400s (result of metallurgical technological innovations)
• Gun powder artillery in 1400s.
Hundred Years War: Military Activities
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Contracts in the form of
“indentures of service” was
a new form of military
recruitment that arose in the
late thirteenth century and
became the dominant form of
recruitment by the third quarter
of the fourteenth century.
Indentures arose from a sociopolitical system in which
retainers were bound to their
lords through the acceptance
of wages. An indenture was a
specific form of document in
which a contract was written in
duplicate and the copies were
then divided with a scraggletoothed cut, one copy being
retained by the lord and the
other by the contracted
retainer.
Indentures served two
functions. 1. They created
relationships of loyalty and
service between a magnate
and a noble retainer. 2. They
were the mechanism by which
kings and magnates raised
military forces.
Indenture of 1439 recording an agreement between John Kereforth of
Barnesley and John Cothewath of Estfeld, from a private collection.
http://medievalwriting.50megs.com/word/chirograph.htm
An Indenture of War, 1347.
from Clifford J. Rogers (ed.), The Wars of Edward III: Sources and Interpretations (Woodbridge:
Boydell Press, 1999), by permission of the editor.
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This indenture, made between the noble men Sir Ralph, Baron Stafford, on the one hand, and Sir
Hugh fitz Simon on the other hand, bears witness that the aforesaid Sir Hugh is to remain as a
banneret with the aforesaid Sir Ralph, along with four knights and eight esquires, for one
year following the date of this document, to go with the said Sir Ralph wherever he wishes to
make war, receiving from the said Sir Ralph the customary wages, or else direct support at
court, at the choice of Sir Ralph, which is to say for himself 4s., for each knight 2s., and for
each esquire 12 d. per day, and for his fee for the entire year, 100 marks. And the aforesaid
Sir Ralph promises that he will pay to the aforesaid Sir Hugh, before his departure across
the sea, half of his fee, which is to say 50 marks, and his wages, as specified above, for a
quarter of a year in advance. And in case the said Sir Ralph wishes that he shall have direct
support at court, he, his knights, and his esquires and their chamberlains, as is specified
above, shall get hay and oats and stabling for forty-five horses, and eight horses for
baggage, and wages for their grooms. And Sir Ralph shall provide a mount for Sir Hugh,
for his own person.
And in addition to the aforesaid, Sir Ralph promises that the great horses of the said Sir
Hugh shall be appraised in the same fashion as his own great horses are by the King and
his Council. And that the said Sir Ralph shall be bound to restore to the said Sir Hugh the
loss of his said horses, thus appraised, if they should be lost in the service of the said Sir
Ralph. And concerning the prisoners which may be taken by the aforesaid Hugh, or by his
men, the aforesaid Sir Ralph shall have half the profits of their ransom, etc. In testimony
whereof, etc. Written at London, the 16th of March, the year 21 Edward III [1347].
from http://www.the-orb.net/encyclop/late/england/rogers01.html
14th century horse breeding revolution: warhorses c.1250 (Morgan Picture
Bible) and the “great horse” of the late Middle Ages (Ucello’s funerary
monument for the condottiere Sir John Hawkwood, 1436)
•
Costs of warhorses c.1350
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Earl or king’s:
£20- £100
Knight’s:
£7- £30+
Squire’s
£5- £10+
(High grade riding horse £5 or
less)
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Comparisons
Cow
Sheep
Pig
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Annual wages/revenues
Earl or baron
£200- £1100
Knight
£40+
Squires/gentry £20-40
Master carpenter £5
Laborer
£2 (max)
6s= £0.3
1s5d= £0.07
3s= £0.15
Evolution of infantry: eleventh through fifteenth centuries
Swiss mercenaries (late 15th and early 16th
centuries)
Battle of Pavia 1525 (French vs. Spanish)
yew longbow (110 lb draw weight) vs. hand-spanned
crossbow (14th century stirrup and belt hook, 130 lb draw
weight)
Siege Warfare: late 11th Century, mid 13th Century,
late 15th Century
medieval guns: 14th and 15th
centuries
Earliest picture of a European cannon (“pot de
fer”), "De Nobilitatibus Sapientii Et Prudentiis
Regum," Walter de Milemete, 1326
hand culverin between two small cannons, 15th
century
Great Turkish Bombard used in the siege of
Constantinople 1453
Late 14th and early 15th century “handgonnes”
Konrad Kyeser, “Belli Fortis” (military engineering
manual, c.1400)
From top to bottom:
i) hackbut with iron tiller, early 1400s
ii) bronze hackbut with socket for stock, early 1400s
iii) Regensburg hackbut, about 1400
iv) bronze handgonne from Tannenburg, pre 1399
v) hackbut of forged iron with beam-shaped stock,
with fitted ramrod about 1400.
Barrel length 297 mm, cal. 32mm.
Figures grinding powder, priming and firing
handgonnes, from a manuscript of 1410 (Codex 34,
Imperial Library, Vienna)
First illustration of a serpentine lock. The other figure
is casting bullets. From a manuscript of 1411 (Codex
Vindobana 3069, Austrian National Library, Vienna)
Hussite wagon-fort 1437
Handgonners assaulting a castle, from a manuscript of
1468 (Burney MS 169, British Museum)
German ms from 1440 on uses of gunpowder: soldiers shooting incendiary arrows (above) ;
cannons, bombs, and handguns at a siege (bottom)
Naval Warfare