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MEDIEVAL WARFARE Stephen Morillo
Military historians have long viewed the Middle Ages in Europe as an "age of cavalry." The limits of this characterization are much more significant than has often been recognized, and the ways in which the Middle Ages were an age of cavalry must be carefully defined. But once this is done, a core of truth remains to the characterization. What accounts for the dominance, within limits, of cavalry in medieval Europe? The most common explanation has been technological: the introduction of the stirrup into European warfare. I contend in this paper that technology played little role in the changing patterns of medieval European warfare. Rather, I see governmental factors as more important in shaping the tactical practices of armies. I shall examine some aspects of Anglo‑Norman warfare in the context of these competing theories. No comprehensive survey of the evidence is possible in a paper this length, but I do propose a theory which may be useful in explaining aspects not only of Anglo‑Norman and medieval European warfare, but also of pre‑modem warfare generally. For the military historian, the Middle Ages as an age of cavalry received its most influential expression from Sir Charles Oman in his monumental Art of War in the Middle Ages. (1) For Oman, the age of cavalry began, with Victorian precision if not accuracy, in 378 at the battle of Adrianople, "the first great victory won by that heavy cavalry which had now shown its ability to supplant the heavy infantry of Rome as the ruling power of war." The Goth "had become the arbiter of war, the lineal ancestor of all the knights of the Middle Ages, the inaugurator of that ascendancy of the horsemen which was to endure for a thousand years." (2) It has long been recognized that Oman’s picture of an age of cavalry needs modification. In the first place, it must be made clear that the picture Oman and those who have followed him draw applies strictly to battle tactics and battle tactics alone. The heavily armored horseman who was "the ruling power in war" is always described as ruling the battlefield, a battlefield from which infantry rarely fully disappeared, though they are portrayed as playing a distinctly secondary role. (3) Even so, infantry could be useful in certain roles on the battlefield (4), and at times could even defeat cavalry. (5) Limiting our view to the battlefield creates a very distorted picture of medieval warfare, as recent research has tended to show. (6) Battles were rare, and infantry never disappeared from campaigns, for good reason. They were essential in siege warfare, garrison duty, and engineering, activities which were far more common than battles in medieval war. The usefulness of infantry in siege warfare points out that field forces operated in conjunction with castles in projecting military force onto the countryside; the prominence of castles ensured that infantry would remain vital to medieval warfare. (7) Geography also placed limits on the dominance of cavalry. It was difficult for cavalry to operate in rough terrain ‑ heavily wooded areas, broken or hilly ground ‑ or in areas lacking sufficient forage. (8) Thus, regions such as Wales, the highlands of Scotland, and the Swiss cantons, were never dominated by mounted elites in the same way that neighboring areas with more hospitable terrain were. Finally, the temporal limits of the dominance of cavalry are subject to question. Lynn White, unlike Oman, dated the initial superiority of cavalry to the Frankish kingdom of the mid‑eighth century. (9) So the term "age of cavalry" refers not to absolute dominance of horsemen, or the disappearance of infantry, but to a relative increase in the importance of cavalry in deciding battles within the geographical and temporal limits discussed above. The elite warriors of the Middle Ages, in short, tended to be mounted ‑ the "knight in shining armor." The implicit comparison is to the warfare of Greece and Rome, when heavy infantry decided most battles, and to European warfare from the mid‑fifteenth century onward, when infantry again tended to dominate. Medieval Europe is again, in this view, a "Middle age" between classical and early modern. Given this definition and these restriction there does seem to be a core of truth to the characterization of the Middle Ages as an age of cavalry. Why was this so? Answering this question requires a careful definition of terms. What do we mean by "cavalry" and "infantry"? I use for this paper a tactical, functional definition of cavalry and infantry: cavalry are soldiers fighting on horseback on the battlefield; infantry are soldiers fighting on foot on the battlefield. In this view, it does not matter how the soldiers got to the battlefield. There were a number of reasons for a soldier to use a horse, and fighting on the battlefield was only one of them. Mobility on campaign favored the use of horses, for example, as did display of social status. My definitions maintain the important but much neglected distinction between horses as strategic transport and horses as battlefield "weapons," and in fact follows the common medieval usage. (10) Thus, soldiers who rode to battle but fought on foot fought as infantry, not as "dismounted cavalry" or as "mounted infantry," anachronistic terms which can only confuse our picture of medieval warfare. (11) These definitions allow a further distinction. To ask why the Middle Ages was tactically an age of cavalry is to ask why soldiers on horseback had a relative advantage on the battlefield in medieval warfare. It is not the same as asking why medieval Europe was dominated by a rural warrior elite who happened, most of the time, to ride horses. (12) The two questions are connected, and I shall return to the connection later. But the questions are not the same, and it is with the former that we are concerned here. What gave mounted soldiers their advantage on the battlefield? The usual explanation for cavalry's relative advantage in the Middle Ages is simple and technological: the introduction of the stirrup into European warfare. The basic idea is that the stirrup made the horse a much more stable fighting platform, thereby unifying horse and rider into one massive attacking force directed through the rider's couched lance. This made cavalry so much more efficient that infantry could no longer stand a chance against it. Lynn White, drawing on nineteenth century German histories of the stirrup, stated the case most completely in the first chapter of his Medieval Technology and Social Change, a chapter called "Stirrup, Mounted Shock Combat, Feudalism, and Chivalry." (13) This work has become the fountainhead for the spread of the "stirrup theory." Though much criticized in detail, particularly on the dating of the introduction of the stirrup and the conversion of Frankish armies to mounted combat (14), White's account in broad outline seems to have passed into the realm of accepted textbook canon. It is in the major studies of medieval warfare which have succeeded Oman: I.F. Verbruggen places the stirrup at the heart of knightly dominance; Philippe Contamine notes some of the problems associated with dating the stirrup, but accepts its eventual impact. (15) The stirrup has been used to explain aspects of Anglo‑Norman warfare; in particular, it has been cited to explain the result of Hastings and thus the Norman conquest, though this interpretation is disputed. (16) McKay, Hill and Buckler's History of World Societies is but one example of the theory's spread to introductory textbooks, while the first chapter of Michael Howard's War in European History, entitled "The Wars of the Knights," demonstrates the acceptance of the theory in a scholarly synthesis of European military history. (17) Martin van Creveld, in his recent survey Technology and War from 2000 A C. to the Present sums up the case: "Modrn authors, however much they may differ in detail, are united in their opinion that, sometime between 500 and 1000 A.D., the stirrup and the high saddle ... spread to Europe. Add the horseshoe, the origin of which is simply unknown, and the ascent of cavalry over ancient infantry becomes at least understandable." (18) By contrast, it is my contention that while the stirrup may indeed have appeared in Europe sometime between 500 and 1000, it explains almost nothing about the ascent of cavalry over infantry. There is, to begin with, a purely logical problem with this theory: it leaves no room for infantry to return to dominance as it did in the fifteenth century. If the combination of horse and rider was so irresistible in 1100, how was it so well resisted in 1500? The usual answer has been to extend the technological argument. In this view, new weapons for the infantry ‑ the longbow and, more importantly, gunpowder ‑ turned the tide again. (19) But such a response must ignore the fact that the Swiss pikemen, with weapons and tactics essentially identical with those of a Macedonian phalanx, could beat any stirrup‑wearing cavalry in Europe. (20) Indeed, it was not until the invention of the bayonet that missile troops, whether they carried bows or guns, could stand against cavalry without the support of pikemen. The bayonet, of course, made every musketeer his own pikeman. The "stirrup theory" must also ignore or dismiss as anomalous those victories that medieval infantry did win over stirruped cavalry. The Anglo‑Norman experience of battles discussed below indicates that such victories were not anomalies. But the more fundamental problem with the technological argument is that it is based on a misunderstanding of the mechanics of infantry and cavalry combat. A reexamination of these will provide the basis for a new general theory of the patterns of infantry and cavalry dominance. The basic difference between infantry and cavalry on the battlefield was the superior mobility of the horseman. Mobility made cavalry the natural arm of attack and pursuit and also made its retreat easier. Cavalry was not good in static defense. Low mobility made infantry the natural arm of defense, though infantry, if it were experienced and well led, was capable of attack. (21) It should be noted that these strengths are complementary, and tactics which combine the arms are in fact historically the most successful. The classic cavalry attack, and the maneuver where the stirrup was supposed to have made such a difference, was the charge in line. A charge could be launched against either cavalry or infantry. We are concerned here with the latter. (22) The key point is that against a solid infantry formation, a cavalry charge was a psychological weapon, not a physical one. Its success had to depend on frightening at least some of the foot‑soldiers into breaking ranks or fleeing. Otherwise, cavalry horses would balk in the face of an obstacle they could neither jump over nor go around ‑ the solid wall of foot‑soldiers. Individual horses and riders might accidentally crash into an unfortunate foot‑soldier in rank, but on the whole the charge would be brought up short of a mass collision. (23) Clearly, the presence or absence of stirrups would have had little effect on the psychological impact of a charge. If a charge failed to break a line of infantry, the cavalry could then either retreat and renew its charge, or advance the last few yards to engage in single combat. When cavalryman and infantryman met in single combat, the superior height of the horseman could give him an advantage, but this height advantage existed with or without stirrups, and the added stability stirrups conveyed was not decisive in the context of individual combat along the front of an infantry formation. Given some familiarity with the usual close range tactics of horsemen and given similar armor, professional infantry could more than hold its own against professional cavalry. Henry I's instructions to his English infantry in 1101 are revealing on this point: William of Malmesbury tells how Henry, preparing his troops for his brother Robert's invasion, "frequently circulating through the ranks, . . . taught them how to elude the ferocity of the milites, to obstruct with their shields and return strokes." (24) We should remember in this context William of Poitiers' comments about the effectiveness of Saxon axes at Hastings, said to be able "easily to cut a way through shields or other armor." (25) Instructive too is the dismounting of knights in the first rank of infantry: as experienced cavalrymen, the knights would have had a good idea how to counter a mounted attacker. (26) On the other hand, if cavalry caught infantry scattered in the open field, or got in among infantry in a broken or disordered formation, the superior mobility and attacking height of the horseman could be put to full use. The success of the Norman counter‑attacks against those Saxons who left the shield wall at Hastings testifies to this. (27) A similar though less decisive advantage fell to cavalry which attacked infantry formations on the flank or rear before they had time to reface. The decisive blow in Henry I's victory at Tinchebrai in 1106 ‑ a battle for the most part between two infantry forces ‑ came from a hidden flanking force of cavalry under Helias of La Fleche, who swept onto Duke Robert's army from the rear after the battle had been joined. (28) The important point here is that the stirrup made little or no difference to this type of encounter, either: height and mobility were the keys to the cavalryman's advantage in such situations, as they had been since long before the stirrup. In any case, this is not the sort of encounter envisioned by the "stirrup theory." Opening up the infantry formation was thus the psychological goal of a frontal charge. For infantry to stand up to a cavalry charge its formation had to be sufficiently deep and dense to force horses to refuse, and it had to have the morale and courage to stand in the face of the terrifying sight of charging cavalry. For infantry to attack cavalry required even greater cohesion, because it was difficult for troops not trained in formation marching to keep close order in an advance; if close order were lost, the infantry were open to counter‑attack by the cavalry. There were very few medieval infantry forces which even had the confidence, discipline and cohesion to stand in defense, much less the cohesion to attack. Why was this so? What does it take to produce good infantry? The answer is deceptively simple: trust. Each man in the formation must trust his neighbor not to run away. How is trust achieved? It may be a result of the social origins of the formation: neighbors, either from a polis, a canton, or some other small polity, may know and trust each other from long association on and off the battlefield. But practice and experience is crucial even for such naturally cohesive groups; it is far more necessary for formations drawn from more heterogeneous backgrounds. Normally, an infantry unit gains cohesion through drill, and through experience. We may now come back to the social and institutional setting of good infantry. Drill may only be instituted where there is a central authority strong enough to gather sufficient numbers of men together, and rich enough to maintain them while they are trained. Administrative and financial capacity will also keep a formation together long enough to gain joint experience, which can substitute for drill to some extent in creating cohesion. In effect, strong infantry depends on strong government. The same is not true of cavalry, because the bases of cavalry effectiveness are not quite the same as infantry's. As I have noted, mobility is cavalry's great advantage, and mobility makes cavalry the natural arm of attack, pursuit, and flight. Cavalry may be effective in smaller numbers than infantry, and so may require less training in large groups. On the other hand, making a horseman requires much more individual training from an earlier age (29), and an individual horseman is much more expensive to maintain than an individual footsoldier. As a result, cavalry in the traditional world was very often the product ‑ the natural arm ‑ of social elites. (30) Rural warrior elites were in fact a common feature of many traditional civilizations. Sons of such classes were raised to the military lifestyle, trained in small groups built from the social connections among the class, and exercised military force in the interest of maintaining their own position in the hierarchy of power. While a central authority could often harness the skills and energies of this elite to its own military and policy ends, it could just as easily find itself at odds with the same class, especially over the form and distribution of power. Consequently, such an elite (and the effective cavalry which it formed) could easily exist outside the context of a strong central authority. Here we have the key to the problem of the dominance of cavalry Cavalry was not better from the fourth to the fourteenth centuries: infantry was worse. Why? Because medieval governments did not have the capacity, in general, to create good infantry. The breakdown of the western Roman empire left no central authority in Europe capable of maintaining and training infantry forces in peacetime. The decline of infantry standards comes well before the final collapse of the Roman state: it is one of the things Vegetius frequently complains about. (31) With less training, infantry lost the ability to attack, which it surrendered to cavalry; with no training, it became unreliable even for standing in defense. (32) Only in areas where drill and training were partially replaced by institutionalized experience, that is group continuity and either professionalism (i.e. money) or regular community service, did effective infantry forces appear between the fourth and fourteenth centuries. The independent and rich city‑states of Italy and to a lesser extent those of Flanders were virtually the only governments capable of putting battle‑worthy infantry in the field in the Middle Ages. Cavalry, therefore, gained its battlefield dominance almost by default. Government strength also connects the question of battlefield dominance by mounted soldiers to the larger question of social structure and dominance by a mounted warrior elite. The decline of central, public authorities left governance, such as it was, to rural warrior chieftains and their followers. This class virtually monopolized society's surplus resources (33) ‑ including the wealth to buy the best arms, armor, and horses, and the leisure to make military training a lifestyle. That such a class then dominated warfare should not be surprising; they dominated virtually every aspect of society. But they did so because they were elite, trained warriors, not because they were mounted; they dominated battlefields whether they fought on horseback or on foot. (34) A peasant levy was no more likely to defeat a force of Anglo‑Saxon housecarls than one of Norman knights. Returning to the battlefield, this theory also explains the eventual reemergence of infantry. In this view, it was the rise of stronger governments in late medieval Europe (35) that caused the reappearance of effective infantry formations such as had not been seen since the decline of the imperial Roman government and its legions. Stronger governments built infantry initially on the use of weapons like the pike that had always been available. As gunpowder technology spread, it could then be taken up by armies already developing along organizational lines compatible with its use. It is no coincidence that the First infantry forces to attack and defeat horsemen in the open field since the Roman legions, the pikemen of the Swiss cantons, were the first since the Romans to march in time to music. (36) Drill had returned to European warfare, and with it the dominance of infantry. The resurgence of central authority, the rise of the early modern state, made that dominance permanent. An examination of some important aspects of Anglo‑Norman warfare provides partial evidence for the contention that institutional factors were more important than technological ones in shaping patterns of dominance on the battlefield. There is little argument that the Anglo‑Norman government was one of the richest and most centralized in medieval Europe. (37) This is reflected in its military system. The familia regis of the Anglo‑Norman kings, a professional permanent force of soldiers who were the heart of the Anglo‑Norman military system, provided the essential prerequisites for sustaining a tradition of infantry tactics. (38) Crafted onto the strong infantry tradition of Anglo‑Saxon England, especially the select fyrd, of which the Norman kings made regular use, the familia supported by the Anglo‑Norman administration made for a military system which outperformed continental rivals. Specifically, Anglo‑Norman knights consistently dismounted to fight their battles. At Tinchebrai in 1106, the Battle of the Standard in 1138, and Lincoln in 1141, dismounted knights joined other infantry forces to defeat armies which were also of mixed cavalry and infantry. At Brémule in 1119 and Bourgethérolde in 1124, infantry forces made up exclusively of dismounted knights defeated forces of heavy stirruped cavalry. (39) Why did Anglo‑Norman knights fight as infantry? The theory I am proposing suggests that the strength of central authority played an important role. I believe the Anglo‑Norman practice of dismounting shows the influence of strong central authority in two ways. First, the Anglo‑Norman kings could raise fairly large numbers of infantry of enough quality that casting the knights in with them was both possible and beneficial. A front line of elite soldiers stiffened the morale of the less experienced masses behind them, making the whole formation more effective. But this does not fully explain the dismounting of knights, for at Brémule and Bourgthérolde there was no infantry to stiffen. Nor does it explain how the knights were convinced to dismount, for there were conflicting group and individual motives at work in this process. It was to the advantage of the force as a whole that at least some of the knights dismount. But it was to the advantage of any individual knight to fight mounted: it was more prestigious and glorious, there was a greater possibility of successful pursuit with the chance of prisoners and ransoms, and perhaps above all it was easier to run away safely. Only a leader with enough authority to impose dismounting on his troops could overcome this individual tendency and reap the benefits of this tactic. Dismounting made the army as a whole more effective and stiffened the resolve of the knights themselves, for it effectively removed flight as a safe alternative for them. As Amaury of Montfort told his fellow rebels before Bourgthérolde:
Cavalry employed by King Stephen proved the point in a less glorious way at Lincoln: those who dismounted fought to the end and were captured with the king; those who remained mounted fled at the first enemy charge, contributing mightily to the defeat. Tellingly, the cavalry who fled prepared to fight the battle with lances, as if for a joust, but fled at the sight of cavalry wielding swords, the real killing weapon. 41 So much for the stirrup and the lance as a military revolution. Given that dismounting regularly performed such important functions in Anglo‑Norman battles, it does not seem to me that it has been over‑stressed, as R.A. Brown has claimed. (42) In fact the change in Norman attitudes between 1066, when a knight dismounting was a matter for laughter and ridicule (43) and Bourgthérolde, where the king's men dismounted on their own, indicates a minor revolution in the Norman approach to battle. The importance of infantry tactics in part probably reflects the influence of the Anglo‑Saxon tradition on Anglo‑Norman combat. (44) Crucially, an infantry tradition resulted from this effectiveness on the part of the familia regis. In fact, the infantry tradition survived in English forces until English infantry took up the longbow, stood beside dismounted knights, and heralded the end of the age of cavalry at Crécy. (45) The tactical expression of this tradition is most clearly visible in a comparison of the English tactics at Crécy with the tactics of the familia at Bourgthérolde. In both cases an army made up of soldiers all of whom were mounted for strategic mobility dismounted when faced by a hostile cavalry force. In both cases, knights formed a shield and lance wall in the center of the line, and archers covered the flanks of the knights. The combination of firepower and defensive impenetrability based on cohesion and trust proved as effective in 1346 as it had in 1124. With or without stirrups, a cavalry charge against such a force stood little chance of success; all it took to create such a force was a military administration strong enough to produce good infantry. I have suggested the connection between strong central authority and good infantry as an explanation of some of the features of Anglo‑Norman warfare specifically and medieval warfare generally. I would now further suggest that this connection can explain patterns of infantry and cavalry battlefield dominance throughout the pre‑modem world. To cite only two revealing examples, let me turn to the Far East. China under the Western Chou (c.770 to 480 B.C.) saw the decline of unified central authority; the country was divided into many small provinces (essentially independent states) whose political and military spheres were dominated by an aristocratic warrior elite who used horses and chariots in their battles. China's "age of cavalry" therefore preceded the invention of the stirrup, but came in an age of political weakness. New developments in government would radically alter this political and military pattern. In the warring states period of Chinese history, from about 480 to 220 B.C., competing governments were transformed from "something resembling a large household" into "an autocratic state run on behalf of a despotic prince by a salaried bureaucracy" The armies raised by these states grew tremendously in size and were transformed from forces of aristocratic charioteers and horsemen into masses of spear‑bearing conscript infantry. (46) The basic framework of this military system lasted well into the eighteenth century. The stirrup did not create the dominance of horse‑owning Chinese aristocrats, nor did gunpowder (or other new technologies) bring about the supremacy of Chinese infantry. Medieval Japan provides a comparative case study even closer to the European experience. (47) The Japan of the Kamakura and Ashikaga shogunates was increasingly dominated by a provincial warrior elite, (48) the bushi, whose similar. ties to medieval European warriors politically and militarily have prompted numerous comparative studies of "feudalism." (49) The use of the term indicate that weakness of the central political structures was a prominent feature of Japan during its age of cavalry. In the Onin War (1467‑77), all vestiges of central control broke down. But in the Sengoku (Warring States) period, from 1477 to around 160( regional leaders built new political structures, and the dominance of the horse riding class of bushi came to an end. The daimyo, rulers of the effectively independent states into which Japan had split, established firm control over their military followers. They also erected effective systems of local administration, law, and taxation and harnessed forces of social mobility emerging from village militancy. (50) On these foundations daimyo began to build larger, more organized armies whose tactics shifted from "hand to hand combat in which the armored [and mounted] samurai predominated" to "large bodies of men ... [deployed as] lines of pike‑wielding footsoldiers.” (51) These developments are all visible, well before the introduction of gunpowder into Japan in 1543. Although gunpowder has sometimes been seen as the force behind the changes, in fact a close examination of the evidence shows that administrative improvements precede military change, and that military change preceded the introduction of any new military technology. (52) In Europe between 1450 and 1800, a period which is not usually called a "Warring States period" but clearly was one, governments improved their financial and administrative abilities, armies got bigger, and infantry came to predominate, bringing the European age of cavalry to an end. The Japanese case, offering as it does a close parallel with the European experience, but with one critical variable ‑ the introduction of gunpowder weapons ‑ is further evidence that interpretations of the military revolution in Europe and of the age of cavalry that preceded it should probably look more to administrative and governmental factors than to technological ones for explanations of changing military practices.
In sum, I do not think there is much role
for the stirrup, gunpowder, or other technologies, in explaining any of
these patterns. The age of cavalry was really the age of bad infantry,
and was a political, not a technological, phenomenon. Endnotes: 1 Charles Oman, A History of the Art of War in the Middle Ages, 2 vols. (Franklin NY, 1924). 2 Ibid., 1:14. 3 This reflects the older tradition of military history as the history of "Decisive Battles"; see not only Oman for this emphasis, but, for example, J.F.C. Fuller, A Military History of the Western World, 3 vols. (New York, 1954‑56). Oman describes the battle of Muret in 1213 as "the most remarkable triumph ever won by a force entirely composed of cavalry over an enemy who used both horse and foot" (Art of War, 1:453), emphasizing the anomaly of an all cavalry force. 4 See below, 5‑7, for further discussion of infantry and cavalry roles on the battlefield. 5 For example at the battles of Brémule and Bourgethérolde. See note 42 below. 6 See S. Morillo, Warfare under the Anglo‑Norman Kings, 1066‑1135 (Woodbridge, Suffolk, 1994) for a full discussion of warfare in this period, including usual patterns of warfare. See also John Gillingham, "Richard I and the Science of War in the Middle Ages," War and Government in the Middle Ages: Essays in Honour of J.O. Prestwich, ed. John Gillingham and J.C. Holt (Totowa NJ, 1984), 78‑91, for an excellent discussion of patterns of medieval warfare, including the roles of infantry and battles. He builds on the fundamental work of R.C. Smail, Crusading Warfare 1097‑1193 (Cambridge, 1956). Gillingham's article can also be found in the useful collection Anglo‑Norman Warfare, ed. Matthew Strickland (Woodbridge, Suffolk, 1992). 7 See Robert Bartlett, "Technique Militaire et Pouvoir Politique, 900‑1300," Annales 41 (1986): 1135‑59, on the combination of heavy cavalry, archers and castles that contributed to western European political expansion, though Bartlett does not distinguish adequately between "knights" as elite warriors and as mounted soldiers in battle: see esp. 1136, 1150. 8 The necessity for forage also accounts for the tendency for medieval warfare to be concentrated in summer months, when forage was available and when weather was less likely to reduce mobility. 9 Lynn White, Medieval Technology and Social Change (Oxford, 1962), chap. 1. 10 For example, Orderic Vitalis, Ecclesiastical History [OV], ed. and trans. M. Chibnall (Oxford, 1969‑72), 6:350; see note 43 below. 11 Anglo‑Saxon and Norman soldiers frequently rode to battle and fought on foot. There seems no reason to refer to the former as mounted infantry and the latter as dismounted cavalry, as some authorities have done. Functionally, they were identical. 12 It is this distinction, I believe, that Bartlett's otherwise insightful article does not make sufficiently clear. 13 White, chap. 1; the title of the chapter shows that for White, social dominance for a mounted warrior elite flowed from military advantage. Oman, interestingly, did not really explain the rise of cavalry except by vague references to "changes in military science" and the reliance of Rome on "untrustworthy and greedy Teutonic Foederati": Oman, 18‑19. 14 For example Bernard Bachrach, "Charles Martel, Shock Combat, the Stirrup and Feudalism," Studies in Medieval and Renaissance History 7 (1970): 47‑75; see K. DeVries, Medieval Military Technology (Lewiston NY, 1992), 95‑110, for a good summary of the historiography of the stirrup debate. 15 Verbruggen, 5; Philippe Contamine, War in the Middle Ages, trans. M. Jones (Oxford, 1984),179‑84. 16 On the supposed impact of the stirrup, especially at Hastings, see R. Allen Brown, The Normans and the Norman Conquest (London, 1969), 95‑99, 166; F.M. Stenton, Anglo‑Saxon England (Oxford, 1971), 585‑8; 1042‑1189, vol. 2 of English Historical Documents, ed. D.C. Douglas and G.W. Greenaway (London, 1981), 2:19 (editors' introduction). For a different view of Hastings, arguing that the stirrup had little or no effect on its outcome, see S. Morillo, "Hastings: An Unusual Battle," The Haskins Society Journal 2 (1990): 95‑104. 17 John P, McKay, Bennett D. Hill and John Buckler, A History of World Societies, 2 vols. (Boston, 1988),1:335; Michael Howard, War in European History (Oxford, 1976), chap. 1. 18 Martin van Creveld, Technology and War from 2000 BC to the Present (New York, 1989), 18. 19 Especially with respect to gunpowder weapons, this line of argument is one explanation for the so‑called "military revolution": see Geoffrey Parker, The Military Revolution. Military Innovation and the Rise of the West, 1500‑1800 (Cambridge, 1988), for the clearest statement of this technological determinist argument. See Bert Hall and Kelly DeVries, "Essay Review ‑ the 'Military Revolution' Revisited," Technology and Culture 31 (1990): 500‑7, for a critique of Parker's book that raises many of the issues discussed below. See John Lynn, ed., Tools of War: Instruments, Ideas, and Institutions of Warfare, 1445‑1871 (Urbana Illinois, 1990), for a set of essays which "challenge the concept of technological determinism in military history" (vii) from a number of angles. And see below for further discussion of the end of the age of cavalry. 20 As Oman himself recognized: Art of War, 2:233‑80, on the Swiss pike armies. 21 Infantry could also often make better use of missile weapons than cavalry, due to their greater concentration of fire from denser formations and their ability to wield longer range weapons. 22 Against opposing cavalry, a charge could result in the two lines meeting head on, in the style of a mass joust or tournament. At the moment of impact in such a collision, some riders were thrown from their horses by enemy lances; many lances undoubtedly shattered under the stress of blows. But the crashing together of two lines of cavalry can be overdramatized. Depending on the density and depth of the formations, many of the horsemen were likely to pass through each other's lines. If the lines were too deep or tightly packed to allow this result, the charging lines had to slow before impact, and the soldiers then came together into a series of single combats (John Keegan, The Face of Battle [London, 1976], 148‑50). It was in cavalry against cavalry combat that the introduction of the stirrup may have made some difference in combat techniques. The stirrup allowed (but did not require) the lance to be carried couched, or underarm, with the weight of man and horse behind it. Stirruped cavalry would have had some advantage over cavalry without stirrups. But even in the general history of warfare, the effect of the stirrup on cavalry technique may be exaggerated. Alexander's Companion Cavalry, who did not have stirrups, formed a superb heavy cavalry force. Robin Lane Fox's claim that "What writing has done to the memory, stirrups have done to riding; without them, men simply had to grip harder and ride better than they mostly do nowadays" (Robin Lane Fox, Alexander the Great [New York, 1974], 75), may be exaggerated, but the effectiveness of Macedonian cavalry shock tactics is widely accepted: see A. Jones, The Art of War in the Western World (Oxford, 1987), 21. And see Fox, 72‑80 generally for an excellent discussion of the Macedonian army of Philip and Alexander; many of the points of tactics presented there bear directly on this argument. Finally, the lance was not always (or even often?) the preferred weapon for serious combat; the sword was the killing weapon. See below, for the cavalry action at Lincoln in 114 1. 23 Keegan, 954,156. 24 William of Malmesbury, Gesta Regum Anglorum, ed. W. Stubbs, 2:472. The term miles may mean either "soldier" in its classical sense, and especially with the overtones of "well armed, elite soldier," or may mean "cavalryman," as in the phrase milites peditesque. The latter meaning followed and derived from the former. The meaning in 1100 is by no means set, but assuming cavalry in this case seems safe, given the context of Norman baronial disloyalty. 25 William of Poitiers, Histoire de Guillaume le Conquerant, ed. R. Foreville (Paris, 1952), 188. And see Frank Barlow, The Feudal Kingdom of England 1042‑1216 (London, 1972), 79, on Harold's familiarity with continental tactics. 26 1 shall discuss dismounting further below. 27 William of Poitiers, 190. But those Saxons who maintained their formation in their advance fared much better: The Carmen de Hastingae Proelio of Bishop Guy of Amiens, ed. C. Morton and H. Muntz (Oxford, 1972), lines 429‑35. 28 OV, 6:88‑90. 29 "He who has stayed at school till the age of twelve and never ridden a horse, is fit only to be a priest" claims the old Carolingian proverb: cited in Marc Bloch, Feudal Society, trans. L.A. Manyon, 2 vols. (Chicago, 1961), 2:293‑94; cf. the similar Japanese injunction to practice riding in Hojo Soun's Articles: Carl Steenstrup, "Hojo Soun's Twenty‑One Articles. The Code of Conduct of the Odawara Hojo," Monumenta Nipponica 29 (1974): 297, no. XVI. 30 Horses, expensive to raise and maintain, were thus often seen as "noble" animals, and display of social status was another reason for warrior elites to adopt riding as a mode of transport, fighting, and lifestyle. Roman armies initially drew their cavalry from the upper classes. 31 Flavius Vegetius Renatus, Epitome Rei Militaris, ed. C. Lang (Stuttgart 1967), passim. 32 Cf. Jones, 93‑95, 144. 33 1 am intentionally excluding the religious elite from this military discussion, admittedly something of an oversimplification. 34 Cf. Jones, 119. 35 JR Strayer, On the Medieval Origins of the Modern State (Princeton, 1970), is a classic account of this process, emphasizing developments in justice and finance in the context of warfare that was present throughout the medieval period. 36 R.E. Dupuy and TN. Dupuy, The Encyclopedia of Military History from 3500 B.C. to the Present (New York, 1986), 407; cf, Jones, 176‑77. 37 See for example Marjorie Chibnall, Anglo‑Norman England 1066‑1166 (Oxford, 1986), 105ff.; William of Poitiers, 156; J.0. Prestwich, "War and Finance in the Anglo‑Norman State," TRHS, 5th series, 4 (1954): 35‑36; D.J.A. Matthew, The Norman Conquest (London, 1966),18‑20; Barlow, 192. 38 On the familia Regis, see J.0. Prestwich, "The Military Household of the Norman Kings," EHR 96 (1981):1‑35. 39 Tinchebrai: OV, 6:88‑90; Priest of Fécamp's letter, EHR 25 (1910): 296; Henry of Huntingdon, Historia Anglorum, ed. T Arnold, 235; Eadmer, Historia Novorum in Anglia, ed. M. Rule, 184. The Standard: Henry of Huntingdon, 263‑64; John of Hexham, in Symeonis Monachi Opera Omnia, ed. T Arnold, 2:293‑95; Florence of Worcester, Chronicon ex Chronicis, ed. B. Thorpe (London, 1848‑49), 2:111‑12. Lincoln: Henry of Huntingdon, 271‑74; William of Malmesbury, 47‑49; John of Hexham, 2:307‑10. Brémule: OV, 6:236‑42; Henry of Huntingdon, 241‑42; Suger, Vita Ludovici grossi regis, ed. H. Waquet (Paris, 1929), xxvi, 196‑98; Liber Monasterii de Hyda, ed. E. Edwards (London, 1886), 317‑18. Bourgethérolde: OV, 6:348. It is interesting to note that in actions at Dol in 1076, Gerberoy in 1079 and Alençon in 1118, where Anglo‑Norman troops seem not to have dismounted, the Anglo‑Norman army was defeated. Dol: ASC (E) 1076; OV, 2:352. Gerberoy: ASC (E) 1079; OV, 3:110. Alençon: OV, 6:206‑8. 40 OV, 6:350: "Ecce Odo Borlengus cum suis descendit, scitote quia superare pertinaciter contendit. Bellicosus eques iam cum suis pedes factus non fugiet, sed morietur aut vincet." 41 William of Malmesbury, Historia Novella, ed. K.R. Potter (London, 1955), 47‑49. 42 R. Allen Brown, Origins of English Feudalism (New York, 1973), p. 35, n. 10. 1 believe Brown tended to conflate knightly dominance with cavalry dominance; the two were not necessarily the same. 43 William of Poitiers, 168. 44 The influence of effective infantry tactics on the Anglo‑Norman knights may be guessed at as early as 1075, when royal forces under William of Warenne defeated Earl Ralph's rebel army at Fagaduna: "obstantes", they won the field: OV, 2:316. Is it pushing the term obstantes too far to suggest that the familia knights and their fyrd support formed a shield wall at this engagement? The term certainly could not describe a cavalry charge. 45 See M. Police, Military Obligation in Medieval England (Oxford, 1962) for the administrative arrangements behind medieval English armies. 46 Parker, 2‑3; see also Hsu Cho‑yun, Ancient China in Transition: An Analysis of Social Mobility 722‑222 B.C. (Stanford, 1965). The governmental reforms followed a path that came to be formulated in the Legalist political philosophy of Han Fei Tzu; Confucian principles later dressed this Legalist political structure in more humane clothing. 47 1 have explored this Japanese case in detail elsewhere: see S. Morillo, "Guns and Government: A Comparative Study of Europe and Japan," The Journal of World History 6 (1995) 75‑106. 48 Jeffrey P. Mass, Warrior Government in Early Medieval Japan. A Study of the Kamakura Bakufu, Shugo, and Jito (New Haven CT, 1974); Karl Friday, Hired Swords. The Rise of Private Warrior Power in Early Japan (Stanford, 1992). 49 See, e.g., Archibald Lewis, Knights and Samurai. Feudalism in Northern France ant Japan (London, 1974); also J.R. Strayer, "The Tokugawa Period and Japanese Feudalism,' and John W, Hall, "Feudalism in Japan ‑ a Reassessment," both in Hall and Jansen, Studies it the Institutional History of Early Modern Japan (Princeton, 1968); and Peter Duus, Feudalism in Japan (New York, 1993). On the question of "feudalism" generally, I tend to follow Elizabeth A.R. Brown, "The Tyranny of a Construct: Feudalism and Historians of Medieval Europe," AHR 79 (1974): 1063‑88 ‑ that is I tend to think the term obscures more than it reveals unless defined very carefully. 50 See the fundamental account of the province of Bizen during this age in John W Hall Government and Local Power in Japan 500 to 1700 (Princeton NJ, 1966), 238‑70, and the important article by Michael P. Birt, "Samurai in Passage: Transformation of the Sixteenth Century Kanto," Journal of Japanese Studies 11 (1985): 369‑400. 51 John W Hall, Japan from Prehistory to Modern Times (New York, 1970), 131. 52 See Delmer M. Brown, "The Impact of Firearms on Japanese Warfare, 1543‑98," Far Eastern Quarterly 7 (1947): 236‑53, for the argument that gunpowder changed Japanese warfare; cf. Morillo, "Guns and Government."
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