By Sword and Fire
BY SWORD
AND FIRE
Cruelty and Atrocity in
Medieval Warfare
Sean McGlynn
PHOENIX
For my mother and
in memory of my father
CONTENTS
Cover
Title Page
Dedication
List of illustrations
Preface
Acknowledgements
A note on sources
Maps
Epigraph
1VIOLENCE
Introduction
Crime and Punishment
2WAR
The King as Judge and Executioner
The King as Warrior
The Church and Just War
Chivalry and the Laws of War
3BATTLES
Battles in Medieval Warfare
Massacres of Prisoners
Verden, 782
Waterford, 1170
Hattin, 1187 and Acre, 1191
Agincourt, 1415
Towton, 1461 and Tewkesbury, 1471
Conclusions
4SIEGES
Sieges in Medieval Warfare
Storm, Sack and Non-Combatants
Jerusalem, 1099
Château Gaillard, 1203–4
Béziers, 1209
Limoges, 1370
Conclusions
5CAMPAIGNS
Campaigns in Medieval Warfare
Ravaging
William the Conqueror’s Harrying of the North, 1069–70
King David’s Scottish Invasions, 1138
King John’s Winter Campaign, 1215–16
The Black Prince’s Grand Chevauchée, 1355
Conclusions
6MEDIEVAL SAVAGERY?
Notes
Select Bibliography
Index
Picture Section
About the Author
Copyright
ILLUSTRATIONS
Torture of captives (The Master and Fellows of Corpus Christi College, Cambridge)
Eating prisoners (The Master and Fellows of Corpus Christi College, Cambridge)
The execution of Hugh Despenser (Bibliotheque Nationale, Paris / Bridgeman Art Library)
The massacre of prisoners at Agincourt (British Museum, London / Bridgeman Art Library)
Crusaders bombard Nicaea with Muslim heads (Bibliotheque Nationale, Paris / Bridgeman Art Library)
Muslim prisoners beheaded at Acre (Erich Lessing / akg-images)
Scorched-earth policies, Bayeux Tapestry (Giraudon / Bridgeman Art Library)
Soldiers sacking a town (Musée Condé, Chantilly / Bridgeman Art Library)
Expulsion of inhabitants from Carcassonne (©British Library Board, London / Bridgeman Art Library)
Massacre of the Innocents (British Library, London / Bridgeman Art Library)
PREFACE
When the Armistice was declared at the end of the First World War, a conflict that had left over eight million dead, the poet Sir Henry Newbolt rather crassly exhorted his readers: ‘Think of chivalry victorious.’ The myth of chivalry has proven persistent. The allure of Chaucer’s ‘verray, parfit gentil knyght’ remains irresistible for its image of a powerful warrior devoted to the ideals of bravery, honour, loyalty and self-sacrifice, all in the service not just of his lord or lady, but also for his role as protector of the weak, the elderly, the young and the defenceless. That Chaucer could describe his knight in such terms appears initially to military historians as a contradiction in terms: a gentle knight was not much use on the battlefield. Chaucer was writing in the second half of the fourteenth century, at a time when the ravages of the Hundred Years War and violent peasant uprisings had racked England and France with breathtaking brutality, as we shall see. Chaucer, with his high connections and travels across Europe, was well aware of these brutalities. His ‘parfait, gentil knyght’ was a call to an idealized version of knighthood, prompted by the horrors of endemic warfare and social unrest.
Chaucer was following in the tradition of a long line of medieval writers who sought to mitigate the excesses of war in the Middle Ages through an appeal to the nobler instincts of knights. This literary genre is the subject of Richard W. Kaeuper’s book, Chivalry and Violence in Medieval Europe (1999), in which the author explores medieval writers’ attempts at reform in calling for a return to the true values of chivalry. However, at the same time, other writers were calmly accepting – or, indeed, were encouraging – the waging of war against non-combatants as the most practical way to achieve victory, even going so far as to justify these measures as being in accordance with chivalric values. The pragmatists retained their ascendancy over the idealists. This book examines what this meant for non-combatants in the wars of the Middle Ages and explains the rationale – the military imperative – that lay behind the atrocities committed.
I began studying medieval warfare in London just over twenty years ago, at a time when the revisionist school of medieval military historians there was making its important researches known. There are few who now believe that warfare in the Middle Ages was an amateurish and haphazard affair. However, the military atrocities of the age are still too frequently regarded as the natural outbursts of a violent age. The limitations of chivalry and the reality of medieval warfare have been the subject of exceptional scholarship by such medievalists as John Gillingham, Matthew Strickland and Christopher Allmand. This scholarship is deservedly acknowledged in academic circles, and at times I have drawn heavily on their work in their own particular fields. But the very nature of such research has perforce meant that it has been tightly focused in terms of period and region and that its audience has predominantly been a narrow, academic one. (Matthew Strickland’s outstanding War and Chivalry: The Conduct and Perception of War in England and Normandy, 1066–1217 (Cambridge University Press, 1996) is especially worthy of note here, not least because the research – originally in the shape of a PhD thesis – has taken the form of a book, albeit one designed for an academic readership.)
In this book I attempt to present the findings of recent research, including my own, in an accessible way to a broader readership that will demonstrate clearly that medieval atrocities were not simply the result of ill-disciplined soldiers sating their blood lust, or the abhorrent acts of aberrant knights acting out of character. I explain these atrocities in detail within their immediate and more general military context. In its geographical and chronological scope – ranging across the whole Middle Ages and the Latin world to encompass the crusading movement in the Middle East – I believe that this is the first book of its kind on this important subject.
The savagery of medieval warfare is widely acknowledged and understood; yet the idea of chivalry as an important and influential force in the conflicts of the Middle Ages somehow lives on in seemingly comfortable juxtaposition with this awareness. In By Sword and Fire I show that such notions of incongruent compatibility do not reflect the reality of the times. As far as the practicalities of war are concerned, chivalry has been showered with too much attention. It represented but one small facet of medieval warfare; for non-combatants, it was so small a part of warfare as to be inconsequential. Although, as Malcolm Vale has shown in his important study War and Chivalry: Warfare and Aristocratic Culture in England, France and Burgundy at the End of the Middle Ages (1981), chivalry remained (with notable exceptions, I would argue) practical and flexible for the nobility at war throughout the medieval period, for non-combatants it remained, as I hope to show, pretty much as irrelevant as it had always been. Chivalry was a cult and a code for a small elite; it was not designed for the masses in warfare, be they ordinary soldiers or non-combatants.
This book, then, concerns itself not with chivalry b
ut with warfare, with the realities of conflict and what it meant for non-belligerents. The chapters on atrocities are introduced with a brief explanation of how the central operations of warfare – battles, sieges and campaigns – were conducted and the role they played within overall strategy. In this way, the background to the atrocity can be understood in the light of the overriding military imperative.
No less importantly, I wish to emphasize that the atrocities described by medieval chroniclers were not merely the excitable outpourings of monkish hyperbole submerged in biblical and religious symbolism; rather, for all the undoubted exaggerations of many of these accounts, they reflect the reality and brutality of medieval warfare as the great figures of chivalry pursued their military objectives by whatever bloody means they deemed necessary.
When I had just finished writing this book, I began reading George Orwell’s essays. In his reflections on the Spanish Civil War of the 1930s, he comments on atrocity stories with his usual lucidity and perspicacity. These comments are reprinted at the beginning of this book; they summarize perfectly its conclusions.
Sean McGlynn
October 2007
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
A first book is traditionally the one most laden with acknowledgements. I shall not break with tradition. Academically, I obviously owe much to my teachers. In approximately reverse chronological order, I have been fortunate enough to study medieval history under Professors Peter Cross, John Gillingham, Janet Nelson, R. Allen Brown, David D’Avray and Christopher Harper-Bill. Fruitful and highly enjoyable sorties into the sixteenth century and the world of teaching have been made under the guidance of Dr Susan Doran, Dr Michael Ryan and, right at the very beginning, Mr Tom Moran, who will be very surprised if this book ever falls into his hands: it was his small sixthform library of Elton, Elliot, Hale and Parker that helped to start it all.
Over the years, while chiefly preoccupied with many other diversions, I have benefited greatly from the help and insights of many medievalists, whether through conversations and invitations to speak at seminars and conferences, or through correspondence and the provision of publications in advance. These include Andrew Ayton, Matthew Bennett, David Crouch, John France, Alexander Grant, Len Scales, Matthew Strickland and Bjorn Weiler.
I should like to take this opportunity to thank my editors for their patience with me over some difficult years that have caused unavoidable delays in the finishing of this book. I think it was Bismarck who said, ‘Events are stronger than the plans of men.’ I am also most grateful to George Moore for his study.
Many of the personal debts are greater still. My friends have long put up with avowals of near completion of projects offering either practical help or providing welcome opportunities to recharge my batteries: Stephen Forrow, not least for providing by far the most congenial accommodation in central London, complete with unlimited tea (thanks also to Kirsty); Robert Purves, a cheerful inspiration ever since the King’s College MA days, who cannot be recommended highly enough as a great host and historical guide for Canada and America (I’ll be back for the Buffalo wings you owe me); Dr Anthony Cross, one of Oxford’s most down-to-earth fellows, always ready with tea and sympathy served with a great deal of common sense and enlightened gnosis; and Stephen Rigby(ski), international pedagogue extraordinaire, a fellow contrarian and atrabilious Jeremiah with a disturbingly similar Weltanschauung.
I am most grateful of all for the opportunity to express acknowledgement of my family. Sam, Maddy and Jenny May (vide ‘many other diversions’ and ‘unavoidable delays’ above) really are as good as people say they are; and Marie has always endeavoured both to encourage my work and to ensure that I keep things in perspective. My family will always be my proudest and most fulfilling association. Thank you.
None of this would have been possible without the constant support and incredible generosity of my parents over the last two decades. Sadly, my father did not live to see this book finished. I hope that my mother will accept the book and its dedication as a token of my neverending gratitude.
A NOTE ON SOURCES
Wherever possible, I have used the most accessible translations available of the original medieval sources. Aware of the prohibitive costs of many academic translations, I have attempted to include affordability as a criterion of accessibility. This has occasionally meant citing some rather dated translation sources which I have frequently updated and modernized in the hope of improving them for a modern readership. Where no translations in any form exist – most specifically for Ralph of Coggeshall, William the Breton and Anonymous of Béthune – I have provided one in the text.
Names – toponymic or otherwise – have largely been anglicized, ‘de’ being rendered ‘of’. Many historical names are notoriously mutative (Sweyn, Swein, Svein, Sveinn, Sven); in such cases, I have settled as nearly as possible on the standard or most recognizable form in English.
MAP
Epigraph
‘But unfortunately the truth about atrocities is far worse than that they are lied about and made into propaganda. The truth is that they happen. The fact often adduced as a reason for scepticism – that the same horror stories come up in war after war – merely makes it rather more likely that these stories are true. Evidently they are widespread fantasies, and war provides an opportunity of putting them into practice … These things really happened, that is the thing to keep one’s eye on.’
GEORGE ORWELL, ‘Looking Back on the Spanish War’
1
VIOLENCE
INTRODUCTION
On 12 February 2002, Carla del Ponte, chief prosecutor at the war crimes tribunal at The Hague, accused Slobodan Milosevic, the exleader of Serbia, of ‘medieval savagery’ for his part in the sickening carnage that consumed former Yugoslavia in the 1990s. As I watched that war unfold on television during a decade that had also witnessed the genocide in Rwanda, I was struck by how little many aspects of warfare had changed over the course of world history. I have often questioned the accepted idea of a military revolution in Early Modern Europe, but was more willing to accept that perhaps the new technologically driven military revolution at the end of the twentieth century really did mark a turning point in warfare. Yet in former Yugoslavia I was witnessing scenes of warfare that had been described in the pages of medieval chronicles: sieges, as at Sarajevo, where Serbian troops used donkeys to supply their troops in the hills around the invested city, from which heights the besiegers lobbed missiles onto a predominantly non-combatant population; the ravaging of the countryside, with troops burning, killing, stealing and raping their way across the land, the columns of smoke from razed villages punctuating the process of driving generations of families from their homes in a deliberate policy of ethnic cleansing; and the massacres, most notoriously at Srebrenica, where Muslim men and boys were murdered in their thousands. The parallels were striking; it seemed that in warfare there was nothing new under a blood-red sun.
Some scholars of the Middle Ages tend to mitigate common assertions and accusations of ‘medieval savagery’. Their textual analysis of medieval chronicles raises objections of the contemporary sources’ motives. Most records and annals were produced by monks and ecclesiastics; surely these would exaggerate the lamentable state of affairs in their time in pursuit of their vested interests? These were men of God who prayed for peace in well-ordered kingdoms; anarchy and warfare were God’s punishment and judgement on a wicked people for deviating from the path of righteousness and holiness. More cynically, warfare was expensive to them: not only were they expected to supply men, money, food and transport for armies; they and their monasteries and churches were targeted by marauding troops in search of booty and supplies. What is more, as some medievalists have argued, what did these men of the cloth, secluded from the world in their rarefied cloisters, know about the business of warfare? (A good deal, actually, as we shall discover.) They spent their time chanting and producing beautiful illuminated manuscripts, full of woe and lamentation, the writi
ng done by timid, even hysterical, clerics given to hyperbole.
This perception is a rare form of inverted chronocentrism. If, at the end of the twentieth century and beginning of the twenty-first century we observe and write with moral indignation about horrors being perpetrated which shock us to the core, why should it be so very different for the people of the Middle Ages? Everyday society was more violent then, and plague, disease and famine made death an ever-present reality; but this did not render the population of Europe immune to suffering, or any less disturbed by random, arbitrary violence. To suggest otherwise is to adhere to a more prevalent chronocentrism: that modernism is always best, more compassionate and civilized, and always an improvement on the past. Such neophilia has led to a ludicrous notion that has long held sway in scholarly circles, but is at last being banished by rigorous research and common sense, that before the Early Modern period parents did not hold such a strong, emotional bond with their children. The rationale for such nonsense has been that poverty, disease, hunger and infant mortality compelled parents to loosen their attachments of feeling, as there was such a poor return on their emotional investment. In other words, children were loved less because parents could not afford the anguish of frequent loss. This flies in the face of human nature. Similarly, we should not let the stories of brutality in this study be blunted by the wearing-down of the centuries. Death does not follow the laws of supply and demand; it is not to be devalued even in a flooded market. When we discuss the fear of medieval soldiers in facing mortal danger, we shall see it was no less real then than now.
Why, then, was medieval society so violent? Why did ordinary people demand spectacles of mutilation and execution? Were they made sadistic by the nature of their environment and harsh conditioning? In this chapter we shall explore how these impulses were in themselves largely driven by fear of random violence, and how societal views were shaped by the desire for stability. The following chapters will then discuss and analyse how and why atrocities took place in medieval warfare, in the environment of maximum violence. The purpose is to explain why these atrocities took place; this is not to exonerate or justify them but rather to reveal the military thinking behind them. The book will also hope to show that warfare, despite its purported ‘revolutions’ and undisputed technological leaps and bounds, retains its constant of misery. The chaos of war never restricts itself to soldiers in the field of battle. Once the Mars juggernaut has been unleashed, all who fall in its path can expect to be crushed. As one authority on modern warfare has noted, ‘Organized violence creates its own momentum.’1