Excerpts from Knights (2001)
by Andrea Hopkins
Weapons of War
The main weapons of the medieval knight were the sword and the lance. In a cavalry charge, the long,
heavy lance would be the first weapon with which a knight would make
contact with the enemy. After the charge, fighting would be hand-to-hand in
a mêlée, rather similar to, but more deadly than, the tournament mêlée.
Knights sometimes used a mace, a heavy club often reinforced with metal
ribs at the head. This was a weapon favoured by military-minded clerics
(who were not allowed to carry weapons with blades or to shed blood) . . .
It was customary for knights to form about a quarter or a fifth of an army,
the rest being composed of various kinds of infantry: men-at-arms, and
archers or crossbowmen. Increasingly during the fourteenth century,
knights dismounted and fought on foot during battles, though the cavalry
charge was still an effective way or disrupting the enemy’s ranks. The
increased effectiveness of the longbow and the crossbow meant that even
plate armour could be pierced, and the importance of cavalry in battle
declined. Axes were another weapon favoured by knights and men-at-arms.
A short-handled battle-axe, especially if wielded from horseback, could
deliver fatal blows . . .
The short bow, the weapon of the archers at the Battle of Hastings in 1066, was not as powerful or longranging as the crossbows, a weapon which had been known in classical times but was not widely received
until the late eleventh century. The Italian city of Genoa specialized in its manufacture. Trained
mercenary Genoese crossbowmen featured in the armies of several medieval warlords. The crossbow
was able to deliver its bolt at great speed over a long range . . . Its disadvantages were that it took a
relatively long time to load the bolt, as the string had to be pulled back mechanically, using a lever or
ratchet, and the steel bolts called “quarrels”, were expensive.
The longbow, which had been in Wales
in the twelfth century, became more
widely known during the thirteenth and
was made a crucial weapon by the
English forces during their invasions of
France during the fourteenth century.
Properly used, it was deadly: a trained
longbowman could fire up to twelve
arrows a minute, and the bands of
archers so effectively deployed by the
English at the Battle of Crécy in 1346
could loose off tens of thousands of
arrows per minute, producing a deadly
rain. When used in battle against a
charging mass of enemy soldiers, it was
not important to aim at a particular
target, as it would be if the archer were
acting as a sniper shooting from the
walls of a besieged castle. Thousands
of arrows falling onto a host of men and horses were bound to hit something. Horses were particularly
vulnerable as they were not as heavily armoured as knights. Knights did not use bows of any kind, for
their ability to destroy an enemy anonymously from a safe distance was at odds with the knightly
ethos of individual combat and heroic achievement . . . .
Battles
Knights played an important part in most battles throughout the Middle Ages, but the importance of the
heavy cavalry charge as a battle-winning tactic, which had originally brought them to prominence,
steadily declined as the period progressed. Knights had never fought without the support of infantry,
and usually during the first half of the Middle Ages an army was composed of mixed cavalry and
infantry, with proportions ranging form one knight to four foot soldiers, up to one knight to eight foot
soldiers. But with time, the development of new weapons and new ways of fighting, the deployment of
specially trained infantry emerged as the decisive factor in pitched battles.
The role of the knight in
battle should be seen in
parallel with
developments in weapons
technology, and the
counter-developments in
the knight’s protective
armour against the
superior firepower of the
infantry. During the tenth,
eleventh, twelfth, and a
large part of the thirteenth
centuries, the knight
reigned supreme. He was
always supported by
infantry in battle. The
infantry was equipped with the despised bows, but they were intended to support the cavalry, to protect
their horses from enemy missiles, and to fend off enemy frontal attacks,
until the right moment came for the devastating cavalry charge that
would decide the outcome of the battle. This was the outstanding
battle strategy of the period: the cavalry charge, if delivered in a welltimed, well-organized way, broke the ranks of the enemy’s soldiers,
who would be overcome in the furious hand-to-hand fighting that
followed. However, it was essential for the knights to act in unison for
the charge to be effective. For every battle that was won by the cavalry
sweeping the enemy from the field, another was lost by hot-headed, illdisciplined knights charging under their own impulses rather than at the
command of their leaders. Outstanding examples of battles won by
mounted knights are those of Ascalon during the First Crusade
(1098), Arsouf during the Third Crusade (1191) and Bouvines (1216) .
...
These and other similar victories were achieved because
infantrymen had not yet developed any weaponry or strategy that
enabled them to withstand the onslaught of heavily-armed cavalry.
Correspondingly, there was little real change in a knight’s armour
during this period; it consisted of a suit of chain mail, which began as a
tunic and eventually stretched to cover the knight from head to toe and down to his finger ends, with a
shield and a helmet. From the second half of the thirteenth century, the protection afforded by chain mail
became inadequate and had to be supplemented by additional body armour. The “plate” armour of the
later medieval knight began to make its appearance; greaves for the shins, vambraces for the arms,
poleyns for the knees and cuisses for the thighs were strapped on over the chain mail, while the body was
protected by a “coat of plates”, a jerkin of padded cloth or leather on to which metal plates were sewn.
The reason for these additional defences was the emergence of two weapons which could be used
effectively against armoured, mounted knights: the pike and the longbow.
Although knights continued on the whole to prove a decisive
element in battle until well into the fourteenth century, the future
of warfare was shown by some grievous defeats suffered by
cavalry forces, all inflicted by infantry. One of these was the
Battle of Courtrai in 1302. The French army was opposed by a
force composed largely of infantry, levied by the burghers of
Flemish cities. These foot soldiers were armed with an early
forerunner of the halberd, a weapon which combined a long
bayonet-like blade at the top with a broad, axe-like blade at one
side and a short hook or spike at the other, on top of a long pole.
Knights could be hooked from their mounts with the spike, then
stabbed with the bayonet or sliced or chopped with the axe. The
long handle enabled the foot soldiers for the first time to inflict
deep wounds on a charging horse or a knight before they were
within range of his weapons. At the Battle of Courtrai, as often
happened during the fourteenth century, the French knights
underestimated their lower-class opponents and recklessly thrust aside their own infantry so as to charge,
as they thought, to victory. Experience had taught them that the usual result was a disorganized,
panicking rabble which could be cut down at will. This time it didn’t work. The Flemings dug a deep
ditch into which most of the knights in the front rank fell headlong, bringing the knights behind them
down also. The vicious slicing blades of the Flemish godendacs made short work of the chivalry of
France, flailing helplessly on the ground . . . .
At about the same time, the Scots pioneered a successful defensive technique using pikes, in which knots
of infantry stood together with their pikes bristling outwards, presenting a wall of dense points towards
the knights on horseback. Soldiers standing, kneeling and crouching presented three different levels and
angles of spikes, and these schiltrons successfully repelled cavalry attacks at the Battles of Falkirk
(1298) and Bannockburn (1314). The Swiss, in their struggles to be recognized as an emergent
independent state, became adept in the use of pikes and halberds, and eventually enjoyed the reputation
of being the finest, best-trained infantry in Europe, who could stand firm against any cavalry attack . . .
The potential of the longbow was first fully realized by the English. The long-range destructive
power of bows and crossbows had long been recognized, and the famed Genoese crossbowmen were
employed as auxiliaries by many medieval war-leaders, but not until the reign of Edward I were archers
actually deployed as a major destructive force in themselves. The longbow, originally a traditional Welsh
weapon, was adopted by the English army and a programme of intensive, compulsory training was
set up in villages and towns throughout the country. Edward III, in his campaigns against the Scots
during the 1330s, introduced the revolutionary tactic of having his knights dismount and provide
armoured support for the longbowmen, while they fired thousands of deadly arrows into the advancing
Scottish army.
During the Hundred Years War, the use of highly trained companies of English longbowmen enabled
the English repeatedly to gain victory against the cavalry of French armies, many times their number . . .
But the lessons of these experiences had still not been learned by the knights of France and Burgundy . . .
In the thirteenth century knights were protected by full plate armour, which consisted of a made-tomeasure iron suit, cunningly jointed to allow its wearer freedom of movement. The smooth, polished,
convex surfaces of the metal plates caused arrows or bolts striking it at any angle other than ninety
degrees to glance off, and were strong enough to withstand most missiles unless delivered at point blank
range. There can be no doubt that a fully armoured knight was well protected during battle; he was only
vulnerable if he was knocked to the ground, when his restricted mobility . . . might prevent his being able
to rise again . . . Accounts of battles such as Agincourt [in 1415] record the horrible sight of infantrymen
sitting astride fallen knights and driving daggers into the slits in their visors, or between the vulnerable
joints of their harness. For this reason it was important for knights to fight together . . .
During the fifteenth century, plate armour became even more elaborate but the advance in firearms—
handguns and cannon—made it largely obsolete. By the end of the fifteenth century the days of the
cavalry charge (at least as a successful battle strategy) were over. Though knights continued to take
part in battles no new ideas emerged to revive the role of the knight in active warfare after they had been
superseded by the infantry. [126-137]
1) How & why
did the role of
medieval
knights change
from the 11th
to the 15th
centuries?
2) What role did
changing
technology
play in altering
the medieval
battlefield?
Explain.
Further Reading:
Medieval Military
History