IN THIS ISSUE: JEAN DE BUEIL WRITES ABOUT HIS EXPERIENCES DURING THE HUNDRED YEARS’ WAR (1406-1478)

Medieval Warfare
VOLUME 11, ISSUE 5

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mag az ine

LEARNING HOW TO
DEC / JAN 2022
LEAD AN ARMY
The hidden history of Le Jouvencel
MEDIEVAL WARFARE 11-5

UK £6.99
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9 772211 512016

GIRL POWER SPANISH FURY DOGS OF WAR THE LAST DUEL

The story of the woman in How the construction of How canines became an in- The inside story of how a 14th-
grave BJ581 and the Norse a citadel led to Antwerp’s tegral part of castle garrisons century judicial combat be-
trading centre of Birka. downfall in the 16th century. and armies on campaign. came a major motion picture.
mw

CONTENTS
Medieval Warfare magazine
Editor-in-chief: Jasper Oorthuys
Editor: Peter Konieczny
Assistant editor: Alice Sullivan
Proofreader: Naomi Munts
Design & media: Christy Beall
Design © 2020 Karwansaray Publishers
THEME: LE JOUVENCEL
Contributors: Nancy Marie Brown, Ruth R. Brown,
Danièle Cybulski, John France, Eric Jager, Vicky McAl- In the 1460s Jean de Bueil wrote down the tale of a young soldier starting out
ister, Randall Moffett, Gervase Phillips, Michael Pye,
Kay Smith, James Turner
on a military career. What did he want to tell, and what was he hiding?

Illustrators: Zvonimir Grbasic, Illya Kudryashov, Julia

Lillo, Angel García Pinto, Marek Szysko 20 Le Jouvencel 58 Further reading
"For the betterment of the man of war" More on medieval military careers
Print: Grafi Advies

Editorial office 26 Le Jouvencel's hidden history

PO Box 4082, 7200 BB Zutphen, The Netherlands "And because I know the true story..."
Phone: +31-848-392256 (NL)
+1-740-994-0091 (US)
E-mail: editor@medieval-warfare.com
FEATURES
Customer service: service@karwansaraypublishers.com
Website: www.medieval-warfare.com 8 The Vikings of Birka 44 Let slip the dogs of war
A warrior woman in the tenth century Medieval canine military companions
Contributions in the form of articles, letters, reviews,
news and queries are welcomed. Please send to the
above address or use the contact form on www.me- 14 The history of The Last Duel 50 Fergus of Galloway
dieval-warfare.com. A tale about a noblewoman's truth The kingdom that never was

Subscriptions 34 A citadel against a city

Subscriptions can be purchased at www.kp-shop.com,
via phone or by email. For the address, see above. Antwerp falls to the Spanish Fury

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18 The Samurai 54 Colonization set in stone
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The equipment of Japan's elite warriors The Welsh castles of Edward I
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42 The spear
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THE STORY OF BJ581 SPANISH FURY

Learning about Vikings from a tenth- Antwerp was a wealthy city in the six-
century woman’s grave in Sweden. teenth century. It was also a big target.

Medieval Warfare XI-5 3

MarginaliaBY PETER KONIECZNY
Editorial
When I first got my hands on Jean de Bueil’s
Le Jouvencel, wonderfully translated by Craig
Taylor and Jane H.M. Taylor, I realized that
we would have to do an issue featuring this
fifteenth-century work. For fans of medieval
military history, this work has it all – first a
fictional story of knights at war, intermixed
with valuable advice on being a soldier. Hid-
ing underneath that is a secret history of the
later stages of the Hundred Years’ War.
To tell the first part of the story of Le
Jouvencel, we have brought in the skilled
storyteller, Danièle Cybulskie, for her eighth
The Norse in Newfoundland in 1021
The Norse presence in North America has
been attested to by written accounts and
archaeological evidence. Now, an interna-
tional team of scientists has been able to
precisely date their activity at a site in New-
foundland to the year 1021.
Sixteenth-century shield returned to the Czech Republic
A stunning decorative shield, made in the
sixteenth century, is returning to the Czech
Republic after being looted by the Nazis
nearly eighty years ago.
The Philadelphia Museum of Art
and the Czech Republic’s National
Heritage Institute have concluded
an agreement whereby the Ital-
ian pageant shield with deco-
ration attributed to Girolamo
di Tommaso da Treviso (1497–
1544) will be returned to the
Czech Republic from Philadel-
phia, where it has been on dis-
play in the Museum’s Galleries of
Arms and Armor since 1976.
The shield was made around 1535
and depicts on its exterior the storming of
Shield showing the
New Carthage (209 BC) in present-day Spain
Storming of New
Carthage, made in Italy – an important episode of the Second Punic
ca. 1535, attributed to War (218 to 201 BC) and a great victory of
Girolamo di Tommaso the Roman general Publius Cornelius Scipio
da Treviso. Made of (237–183 BC). Originally intended purely
wood, linen, gesso,
for ceremonial purposes, the decoration sug-
gold. Diameter: 24
inches (61 cm). gests a historical parallel between Scipio’s
© Philadelphia Museum of Art military achievements, many of which oc-
curred in Africa, and the victories of Holy
4 Medieval Warfare XI-5
article in the pages of Medieval Warfare. For
the second part, I somewhat selfishly wanted
to write it myself, and I hope you enjoy it.
The issue features some fine authors,
such as Nancy Marie Brown and Michael Pye,
who will take you from ninth-century Birka
to sixteenth-century Antwerp. We also have
some interesting articles that look at the role
of dogs in medieval warfare, and at a major
Hollywood movie that just got released.
Peter Konieczny
Editor, Medieval Warfare
With their iconic longships, the Norse
were able to establish settlements in Iceland,
Greenland, and eventually a base at L’Anse
aux Meadows, along the western coast of
Newfoundland. However, it has remained un-
clear when this first transatlantic activity took
Roman Emperor Charles V (1519–1556),
who was returning in 1535 from a successful
military campaign against pirates in northern
Africa. The shield was probably commis-
sioned for one of the ceremonies that were
being held throughout Italy to welcome Em-
peror Charles V in triumph.
The shield was in Czechoslovakia until
1943, when the German army confiscated it.
Adolf Hitler’s arms and armour curator, Leo-
pold Ruprecht, sent the item to Vienna, intend-
ing it to be part of a planned mega-museum
in Linz, Austria. When the Second World War
ended, the shield disappeared, and it has only
been in recent years that researchers were able
to confirm that this was the same piece found
in the Philadelphia Museum of Art.
“The Philadelphia Museum of Art de-
serves enormous credit for being so forth-
coming in returning this immensely valu-
able piece of art to the Czech Republic,”
says Hynek Kmoníček, Ambassador of the
Czech Republic to the United States. “This
case is a prime example of best practices in
restitution. Our fruitful collaboration can
serve as a model of international partner-
ship in restoring looted art.”
place. The new research, published in the jour-
nal Nature, focuses on wood chopped by Vi-
kings at L’Anse aux Meadows. The three pieces
of wood studied, from three different trees, all
came from contexts archaeologically attribut-
able to the Vikings. Each one also displayed
clear evidence of cutting and slicing by blades
made of metal – a material not produced by
the indigenous population. The exact year they
were cut down – 1021 – was determinable be-
Crusader sword discovered by scuba diver
A scuba diver has found a 900-year-old
sword while swimming off the coast of Israel.
The sword’s discovery suggests that the natu-
ral anchorage where it was found was also
used by ships in the crusader period.
Shlomi Katzin, a resident of Atlit, was scu-
ba diving last weekend when he was amazed
to discover historical artifacts on the seabed,
apparently uncovered by waves and undercur-
rents that had shifted the sand. He saw ancient
stone anchors, anchors made of metal, pottery
fragments, and an impressive sword with a
one-metre-long blade and a hilt measuring 30
cm in length. Fearing that the find would be
stolen or buried beneath subsequent shifting
cause a massive solar storm occurred in 992 L'Anse Aux Meadows in Newfound-
AD that produced a distinct radiocarbon signal land, Canada. This is the only known
in tree rings from the following year. Viking settlement in North America.
Today, a recreation of that settlement
The whole endeavour was somewhat
is a popular tourist site.
short-lived, and the cultural and ecological leg- © TravelingOtter / Flickr
acy of this first European activity in the Ameri-
cas is likely to have been small. Nonetheless,
botanical evidence from L’Anse aux Meadows
has confirmed that the Vikings did explore
lands further south than Newfoundland.
of the sands, Katzin took the sword ashore.
The find was reported to the Israel Antiqui-
ties Authority, and the sword was handed
over to the National Treasures Department.
“The sword, which has been preserved The sword discovered off the coast of
in perfect condition, is a beautiful and rare Israel by divers can be dated to the
find and evidently belonged to a Crusader Crusader era. Still heavily-encrusted
with marine life, the weapon is roughly
knight,” explains Nir Distelfeld, Inspector
a metre long and crafted from iron.
for the Israel Antiquities Authority’s Robbery © Israel Antiquities Authority
Prevention Unit. “It was found encrusted
with marine organisms but is apparently
made of iron. It is exciting to encounter such
a personal object, taking you 900 years back
in time to a different era, with knights,
armour, and swords.”
 Recently restored, the late-fifteenth
century tapestry showing a knight with
the arms of Jean de Daillon is returned
to its home in Montacute House.
© James Dobson / National Trust
π ON THE COVER
Le Jouvencel tells of many sce-
narios that a professional soldier
might find himself in, such as this
scene where attackers must break
through a door in a castle wall.
© Angel García Pinto
6 Medieval Warfare XI-5
Fifteenth-century tapestry restored
A rare medieval tapestry – the oldest owned
by the National Trust – is returning to display
at Montacute House in southwestern Eng-
land after undergoing 1,276 hours of clean-
ing and conservation to strengthen it and
bring out its vivid colours.
The tapestry depicts a knight in armour
parading his elegantly decorated horse
against a dark-blue background covered
with a highly detailed flower pattern, called
millefleurs, or a thousand flowers. The knight
is shown with the arms of nobleman Jean de
Daillon, friend of King Louis XI of France,
who trusted him with many important offices
and enriched him with land and titles. Dail-
lon commissioned the tapestry in 1477 from
weaver Guillaume Desremaulx in the town
of Tournai in what is now Belgium, but upon
completion it was presented to him as a gift
from the people of Tournai.
The Age of Armor
A major exhibition of European arms and
armour has begun at the Toledo Museum
of Art, one of four American museums that
will be hosting it over the next two years.
The Age of Armor: Treasures from the Hig-
gins Armory Collection, at the Worcester
Although large at nearly 12 foot (3.57
m) by 9.5 foot (2.82 m), the tapestry is known
to have been just one piece of a set, 20 times
larger at over 300 square metres. The edges
of the tapestry have been rewoven with a
border, indicating that this piece was prob-
ably once even larger.
“This is a really special tapestry of a very
fine quality made using wool and silk to a
high standard,” said Sonja Rogers, the Na-
tional Trust’s House and Collections Manager
at Montacute House. “It was labour intensive
to make and would have been a very expen-
sive and valuable gift. However, over its life-
time it had become weak and damaged from
exposure to smoke from domestic fires and
from crude, later repairs. “After cleaning and
conservation, the colours are now so much
brighter and fresher, and the whole tapestry
appears full of life and energy.”
Art Museum, showcases more than 80
works and will focus on the development
and history of the classic knightly suit of
plate armour, which was used from the
mid-1300s to the mid-1600s, as well as
how armour has been used in various
forms around the globe, from antiquity to The exhibition will be
the modern era. on display at the Toledo
Diane Wright, one of the co-curators of Museum of Art until 27 Feb-
the exhibition, explains, “With outstanding ruary 2022. From there, it
examples extending from the warriors of an- will go to the Denver Art Mu-
cient Greek legends to the knights of the Mid- seum from 15 May to 5 Sep-
dle Ages, this exhibition offers a tremendous tember, the Cummer Museum
opportunity for visitors to take a step back in of Art and Gardens from 4 Octo-
time and explore the expert craftsmanship ber to 8 January 2023, and finally
and many uses of some of the most significant the Saint Louis Art Museum, from 19
arms and armour still in existence.” February to 14 May 2023.

Marckalada
New research has revealed the earliest refer-
ence to North America in medieval Italy. It
comes from a chronicle written around 1345
by a Milanese friar named Galvaneus Flamma.
He describes how beyond Iceland and Green-
land there was another land:
Further westwards there is another land,
named Marckalada, where giants live; in
this land, there are buildings with such
huge slabs of stone that nobody could
build with them, except huge giants.
There are also green trees, animals and
a great quantity of birds. However, no
sailor was ever able to know anything for
sure about this land or about its features.
Professor Chiesa of the University of Milan, dis-
coverer of the text, believes Marckalada refers
to Markland, the Norse name for Labrador.
A steel and brass comb morion, dated
to 1556–1586. Made by the Austrian
Hans Hörburger the Elder.
© The John Woodman Higgins Armory Collection
The effigy of Edward the Black Prince.
He died in 1376 at the age of 45. The
tomb monument was probably commis-
sioned by his son, king Richard II and
can be found in Canterbury Cathedral.
© Dean and Chapter of Canterbury

The Black Prince’s tomb

A new analysis of the tomb of Edward the
Black Prince has shed new light on the inge-
nuity of royal artists in the fourteenth century.
A team of researchers, led by The Cour-
tauld Institute of Art, used the latest scientific
techniques and medical imaging technology
to discover how the effigy, one of only six
large-scale cast metal sculptures to survive
from medieval England, was made. This in-
cluded inserting a videoprobe inside the hol-
low figure through small existing openings.
This provided the first glimpse inside this
sculpture for more than 600 years.
Their analysis reveals evidence that the
tomb was very likely to have been ordered
by Richard II, the Black Prince’s son, as much
as a decade after his father’s death in 1376
as a way of buttressing the sovereignty of the
Crown and countering threats against him.
The team’s analysis also reveals that the
effigy is one of the most sophisticated castings
from the Middle Ages, cleverly constructed
with the collaboration of an armourer,
who both ensured the armour’s
accurate detail and helped to
disguise the ways the effigy’s
pieces were assembled.
The new research reveals that the figure is one
of a pair because of the striking similarities with
the effigy of Edward III, the Black Prince’s father,
at Westminster Abbey. The team believe the
Black Prince’s son, Richard II, commissioned
the effigies of both his father and grandfather at
the same time.
“There is something deeply affecting
about the way his armour is depicted on the
tomb,” said Dr Jessica Barker, a senior lec-
turer in Medieval Art at The Courtauld and
co-leader of the study. “This isn’t just any ar-
mour – it is his armour, the same armour that
hangs empty above the tomb, replicated with
complete fidelity even down to tiny details
like the position of rivets.
“Until now though, a lack of documents
about the Black Prince’s tomb and effigy has
limited our understanding of their construc-
tion, chronology and patronage, so our sci-
entific study of them offers a long-overdue
opportunity to reassess the effigy as one of
the country’s most precious medieval sculp-
tures. By using the latest scientific technolo-
gy and closely examining the effigy, we have
discovered so much more about how it was
cast, assembled, and finished.”

The Black Prince's tomb was originally

decorated with his heraldic achievements.
x

Items like a helmet, padded jacket,

shield, and gauntlets (left) survive as
extraordinarly well-preserved examples
of late fourteenth-century militaria.
© Jessica Barker
Medieval Warfare XI-5 7
SPECIAL

A WARRIOR WOMAN IN THE TENTH CENTURY By Nancy Marie Brown

THE VIKINGS OF BIRKA

In my book The Real Valkyrie, I reread medieval texts and re-examine archaeologi-
cal finds to recreate the world of one warrior in the Viking Age: the warrior buried
in grave BJ581 in Birka, Sweden, and determined by DNA testing to be female.

I
do not know her name, so I have giv- The chemistry of her teeth tells us Hervor
en her one: I call her Hervor. Other was not a native of Birka, where she was bur-
A silver pendant from
famous skeletons have names. Think ied, on an island in Lake Malaren, a short boat
Birka representing the
archetypal female war-
of Lucy the Australopithecus, named ride from present-day Stockholm. She came
rior of Norse mythology for a Beatles song, and Ötzi the Ice- from away. As teeth develop, they pick up
– the Valkyrie. man, named for the valley he was found in. isotopes of strontium (which mimics calcium)
© The Swedish History I could have named her Lagertha, after the from the local water. The strontium signature
Museum
shield-maid that Saxo Grammaticus, writing of a tooth will thus match that of the bedrock
A nineteenth-century his Gesta Danorum (History of the Danes), said where the child lived when the tooth’s enamel
archaeological drawing “would do battle in the forefront of the most formed. Hervor’s first molars (mineralized be-
of grave BJ581 in Birka,
valiant warriors”. But Lagertha has already fore she was three) reveal that she was born
Sweden. The individual
was initally assumed been brought to life by Katheryn Winnick in somewhere in the western part of the Viking
to be male, as the the History Channel series Vikings. I could call world, in what is now southern Sweden or
grave contained the her Brynhild, Geirvifa, Svava, Mist, Thogn, or Norway. Her second molars reveal that she
traditional equipment Sigrun, names of valkyries in sagas and poems, sailed from there, before she was eight, to
of a warrior. However,
names that mean Bright Battle, Spear Wife, somewhere else in the west. She did not ar-
modern DNA tests
have revealed that the Sleep Maker, Fog of War, Silence of Death, rive in Birka until she was over sixteen.
grave's occupant was or Victory Sign. But I call her Hervor, after the All I know is that she arrived sometime in
in fact a woman. warrior woman in the Old Norse poem, Her- the mid-900s and was buried there as a warrior
© Public domain vor’s Song. Her means ‘battle’. when she was between 30 and 40 years old.
Vör means ‘aware’. Hervor, She may have sailed there with well-known
then, means Aware of Battle, slave traders such as Gilli Gerzkr of Laxdaela
Warrior Woman. saga – regulars on the route past Birka to the
I do not know how or when royal Swedish city of Uppsala or, on the East
Hervor arrived in Birka. The Way, to the kingdom of Gardariki. It was hard
mature appearance of certain to reach the fortified town of Birka, in any case,
bones, and the level of wear without proving yourself a friend.
on her molars, reveal that Cruising north along the coast of Gaut-
she was at least 30 when she land, keeping the isle of Gotland to starboard,
died – she could have been Hervor left the Baltic Sea where Sweden’s
as old as 40. Her bones tell landmass bulged to the east. Threading through
us, too, that Hervor ate well a maze of islands, with side inlets blocked by
all her life, which means she pile barricades and other defences, her ship
came from a rich family, if was funnelled north into the narrow Himmer
not a royal one. At over five Fjord to the site of the modern town of Soder-
foot seven, she was taller talje. What is now a canal was, in the mid-
than most: King Gorm the 900s, a short but heavily defended portage
Old, who ruled Denmark into Lake Malaren, Sweden’s third-largest lake,
during Hervor’s lifetime, which stretches almost a hundred miles east to
was considered tall at five west. Once past the portage, the tiny island on
foot eight. which Birka sat lay dead ahead.

One of the objects revealing

connections between Birka and
x

the Islamic world - this silver

ring found in a grave bears a
8 Medieval Warfare XI-5
Kufic inscription of 'Allah'.
© Gabriel Hildebrand / Wikimedia Comm
ons
The female Viking warrior buried in
grave BJ581 – nicknamed ‘Hervor’ by
the author – as she walks through the
town of Birka in the tenth century.
© Julia Lillo

Medieval Warfare XI-5 9

 The Fortress Rock – which is located
just south of Birka. Today, one can
find a stone cross monument to Saint
Anskar on its peak.
© AlexStemmer / Shutterstock
This mixture of slag and burned clay
once lined the walls of a furnace
found in Birka. Plentiful archaeologi-
cal remains indicate that iron and
other metals were refined in Birka
and processed into everything from
weapons to jewellery.
© The Swedish History Museum
10
Found in one of the graves
A market town outside Birka, this gilded-
x
Approaching from the south, the first thing Her- bronze Borre-style brooch is
decorated with a ring braid
vor saw was Borgberget, the Fortress Rock, ris- and animal ornamentation.
ing sheer nearly a hundred feet from the water © The Swedish History Museum
and capped by a stone rampart and wooden
with pigs and chickens and reeking
palisade behind which archers lurked. As she
cesspits. Muddy lanes and wooden
rounded the western shore of the island, she
walkways leading up a slight slope to
passed below a steep hillside bounded by
where a few larger longhouses sat on stone
rocky cliffs and buttressed by more ramparts.
terraces. To Hervor, Birka was just another
Its five stone-built terraces held a great hall, its
smoky, noisy, damp market town like Dublin
high shingled roof shining in the sun, and some
or Kaupang – except for its magnificent defenc-
smaller buildings, four of which seemed, from
es. A barricade of pilings studded with sunken
the smoke and ringing of hammers on anvils,
boats blocked the harbour, leaving only a slen-
to be smithies. This, Birka’s garrison with its
der, twisting channel. An earth-and-stone ram-
Warriors’ Hall, would become Hervor’s home
part over twenty feet wide wrapped around the
– and here she would eventually be buried, on
town’s seventeen acres and linked it to the for-
the westernmost promontory. Above her grave
tress. Above the town’s ramparts rose wooden
a prominent stone would be raised as a land-
palisades, with archers’ walks and battlements
mark, to be the first thing the next generation of
and towers overlooking each gate. Outside the
warriors noticed as they approached the island.
walls lay vast graveyards. Nearly two thousand
The town itself lay to the north, under the
barrows and boat-shaped stone settings, along
shoulder of the Fortress Rock, in a shore-
with thousands of flat graves not so easily seen,
line depression shaped like a fan. Hervor
testified to the might of Birka’s ancestors.
noticed – and dismissed – its beach,
All in all, Birka’s defences proclaimed
bristling with jetties. Lines of reed-
the town’s power and strength, defying any-
roofed wooden houses and work-
one who saw it as prey. Combining control of
shops, gable ends to the wa-
the waterways with armed patrols on horse-
ter. Fenced plots crowded
back and archers on every wall, they were
designed to defeat the usual Viking strategy kill its occupants or burn it to the ground,
of surprise, siege, threat, and extortion. Nor as he had threatened. Instead, he chose
were the town’s fortifications merely defen- to govern it himself, as Birka’s enemies
sive. The walls and barricades were bases most likely would have done as well.
from which to launch an attack. They were Some of the enemies Birka’s
designed to provoke an enemy into making defences were aimed at, Hervor may
unwise moves. They were traps. have learned to her surprise, were the
royals in the manor across the strait, on
Hrolf’s attack the neighbouring island of Adelsö. When
“I’ll burn down this town and kill everyone in Hervor arrived, Birka was ruled not by the
it, or else die in the attempt,” swore the hero of king of Sweden but by companies of free trad-
This shield boss with surviving textile
The Saga of Hrolf Gautreksson, facing a forti- ers who paid professional warriors like Hervor fragments was discovered in the
fied town that could have been Birka itself. to protect them, both in the town and along grave of the female Birka warrior. The
The town’s king and war leader, the war- their major trade route, the East Way. wooden elements of the shield have
rior woman Thornbjorg, replied: “You’ll be long since rotted away.
© The Swedish History Museum
goat-herds in Gautland before you get con- A dangerous port
trol of this town.” Then she began beating her When Birka was founded in about 750, it
shield and drowned out the rest of his threats. was oriented toward the west; its trade part-
She had prepared for his coming by hiring ners were the towns of Ribe and Hedeby in
smiths to build a rampart around the town, as Denmark, Norway’s Kaupang, and Frisia’s
strong and sturdy as they could make it, and Dorestad. The king on Adelsö may have been
to equip it with devices “so that no one could the king of the Swedes, whose main seat was
breach it, either with fire or iron”. at Uppsala, north of Lake Malaren. On the way
Hrolf urged his warriors on, but their to Uppsala, wrote the monk Adam of Bremen The town of Birka is located near
every assault was repulsed. “They attacked in the 1070s, you pass Birka, “a desirable, but
present-day Stockholm in Sweden. Here
with fire, but water ran from pipes set into it is shown with other prominent Norse
to the unwary and those unacquainted with trading centres in the tenth century.
the walls. They attacked with weapons and
places of this kind a very dangerous, port”. © Illya Kudryashov
by digging under the walls, but the townsfolk
poured burning pitch and boiling water on
them, along with huge stones.” When they re-
treated, “some wounded, the others exhaust-
ed,” the townsfolk came out “onto the wall,
laughing and mocking them and questioning
their courage. They paraded around in silks
and furs and other treasures, showing them
off, and dared them to try and take them.”
Said Hrolf’s second-in-command, “It seems to
me this Swedish king pisses rather hot.”
When they finally broke in, by building
wooden platforms to shield the diggers bur-
rowing under the town’s walls, they found no
one there, though “food and drink was laid out
in every house; clothes and treasures were all
bundled up, ready to go.” Said Hrolf’s second-
in-command, “Let’s have a drink and some-
thing to eat, and then we can divvy up the loot.”
Answered Hrolf, “Now you’re taking the
bait, just as they wanted.” Quickly searching the
town, he found the escape tunnel and chased
King Thornbjorg into the woods, coming upon
her and her warriors before they could regroup
for the counterattack. So Hrolf took the town, in
spite of its traps and tricks – though he did not

The remains of a long knife and

x

scabbard that were discovered

in the grave of the Birka war-
rior, BJ581.
© ola myrin shm Medieval Warfare XI-5 11

A belt pouch made of bronze, paper
and squirrel fur, that was found in
a grave outside Birka. The town was
an important centre in the fur trade –
archaeologists have found thousands
of pine marten bones scattered around
the area. Their fur was known as 'sable',
a luxurious and highly-coveted material.
© The Swedish History Museum
The hemlanden gravefield just out-
side of Birka served as final resting
place for the town's inhabitants.
Containing hundreds of graves, it has
been a rich source of information on
life during the Viking age.
© Frida albinsson
12 Medieval Warfare XI-5
The danger came not only from the
Vikings cruising Lake Malaren, but
from Birka’s own defences against such
sea-raiders: “They have blocked that bight
of the restless sea for a hundred or more
stadia [at least twelve miles] by masses
of hidden rocks,” Adam claimed, mak-
ing the passage perilous but the harbour
“the most secure in the maritime re-
gions of Sweden”.
Birka was desirable to a cleric like
Adam for its trade in “strange furs, the
odor of which has inoculated our world
with the deadly poison of pride”. He
added, “We hanker after a martenskin
robe as much as for supreme happiness.”
Archaeologists have found thousands of pine
marten paw bones in Birka’s soil; the animal’s
fur was known as ‘sable’. These and other furs
came from the dense coniferous forests at the
far reaches of Lake Malaren and through the
town’s trade with Finn and Sami fur-trappers
further north and east.
But Adam did not mention Birka in his
History of the Archbishops of Hamburg-
Bremen solely for its trade goods: Birka was
the site of Sweden’s first church. In 829, the
Frankish emperor Louis the Pious sent a Chris-
tian missionary named Anskar there. Anskar
set off from Denmark in a convoy of merchant
ships, following much the same route as Her-
vor. He did not have a safe passage. As his stu-
dent Rimbert wrote in the Life of Saint Anskar,
“While they were in the midst of their journey
they fell into the hands of pirates. The mer-
chants with whom they were traveling defend-
ed themselves vigorously and for a time suc-
cessfully, but eventually they were conquered
and overcome.” The pirates – Vikings – took the
merchants’ ships and trade goods. They took
the royal gifts intended for Birka’s king and An-
skar’s “nearly forty books”. But the Vikings did
not, strangely, take the missionaries themselves
to hold for ransom or sell into slavery. Instead,
they put them ashore. “With great difficulty
they accomplished their long journey on foot,”
Rimbert wrote, “traversing also the intervening
seas, where it was possible, by ship.” A five-
day trip took an entire month.
At Birka they were “kindly received” by
the Swedish king. After he “had discussed the
matter with his friends” at an assembly and
received the townspeople’s consent, the king
permitted Anskar to preach. The Word of
God was especially welcomed by the
Christians held as slaves in Birka,
though there were Christian mer-
chants in the town as well. One, a
wealthy old woman named
Frideburg of Dorestad, was
known to keep a flask of
wine by her bedside, in case she
felt death approaching before a priest
came to Birka; dying with wine on her lips,
she could pretend she had received the sacra-
ments. Wishing to bequeath her wealth to the
needy, she told her daughter to take it back to
Dorestad because in Birka “there are here but
few poor,” Rimbert reports. Did she mean de-
serving Christian poor? Or were the people of
Birka really so well off?
Anskar was able to convert one important
pagan. Herigar, called the ‘prefect’ of Birka, built
a church on his estate outside the city walls, by
the sheltered bay he named Cross Haven. But
otherwise Anskar’s efforts had little effect. Of
Birka’s thousands of graves, only a few hundred
are simple enough to be Christian. A hundred
years after Anskar’s mission, when the Warriors’
Hall was built, Birka remained decidedly, even
aggressively, pagan. Spearheads were buried at
several sites in the hall’s foundation and under
its protective rampart. These dedicate the area
to Odin, god of war, whose weapon of choice
was the spear. Beneath the central roof-bearing
posts of the hall, along with more spearheads,
were buried an intriguing set of objects: 40
comb cases made of deer antler; a Thor’s ham-

A wooden
model of the Birka
Warrior's Hall. This
thoroughly Pagan structure
was constructed - and remained
use - during a period where Christi in
x
roof-bearing posts hark back to the chief-
tains’ halls of an earlier age. The cattle bones,
including skulls and jaws, found on its floor
speaks of animal sacrifices and ritual feasts.
The Warriors’ Hall, she says, was “a state-
ment of identity,” “a sign of defiance,” and “a
A 3-D CGI model of the Birka Warriors'
Hall, superimposed over the modern-
day site. This World Heritage site is
managed by Birka Vikingastaden,
which includes a museum and recon-
structed Viking village. For more, see:
www.birkavikingastaden.se

was increasingly becoming the domina anity
nt
religion in surrounding areas.
© Frida albinsson
mer amulet, also carved from antler; a bronze
sword-chape (the decorative metal tip on the
end of a sword’s sheath) bearing an image of
Christ; and two silver dirhams with their Islamic
inscriptions, “Mohammed is the messenger of
Allah”. The comb cases – personal objects of
no great worth – represent each warrior in the
garrison, archaeologist Charlotte Hedenstierna-
Jonson argues, imbuing the building with their
individual spirit and strength. The coins in the
mix help date the ritual and the building of the
hall: the later coin was struck sometime be-
tween 922 and 932.
Were the warriors dedicating the building
to Christ and Allah, through the sword-chape
and the coins, as well as to Odin and Thor?
Hedenstierna-Jonson, the archaeologist who
unearthed the deposits, thinks not. The number
of spearheads dwarfs the other religious offer-
ings. The design of the hall itself is demonstra-
bly pagan: its boat-shaped walls and pairs of
response to an external threat.” In the mid-900s, © Birka Vikingastaden
King Hakon of Norway, raised in England, was
A Celtic Cross of bronze and tin
preaching Christianity and refusing to take part that was found in one of the Birka
in pagan rituals. King Harald Bluetooth, who graves. Christianity was tolerated in
controlled the trade routes south and west of the community, though not widely
the Baltic Sea, bragged of making the Danes adopted – missionaries had little
Christian. The runestone he raised at Jelling success with most native residents,
though their preaching would have
on Jutland in 965 to mark his parents’ grave
likely appealed to Christian slaves
mounds bears the same image of the Christ as and foreign merchants.
that found on the Birka sword-chape – buried, © The Swedish History Museum
overwhelmed by Odin’s spears, in the founda-
tion of the Warriors’ Hall. The warriors of Birka
were taking sides, turning their backs on the
increasingly Christianized Viking West, and
reaffirming their ties to their pagan trading
partners to the east. MW
Nancy Marie Brown is a highly
praised author. Several of her
books deal with the Norse
world. Her latest book is The
Real Valkyrie: The Hidden His-
tory of Viking Warrior Women,
published by St. Martin’s Press.

A number of spearheads - along wit

ferings including comb cases, deer h other of-
religious objects were founded bur antlers, and
foundations of the Warriors' Hall inied under the
x

partiular spearhead however was fou Birka. This

BJ581, alongside our female warrior nd in grave
© The Swed
.
ish History Museum
MOVIE KNIGHTS

Matt Damon as Sir Jean de Carrouges, in The Last Duel. The unusual cutaway helmet (another version of which is also worn by his rival Jacques
Le Gris) is not historically accurate, but may have been used so that the actors could better show complex emotion during the pivotal duel scene.

A KNIGHT’S TALE ABOUT A NOBLEWOMAN’S TRUTH By Eric Jager

THE HISTORY BEHIND THE LAST DUEL

The Last Duel, now in worldwide release, is based on my book of the same title (Crown, 2004) about
the famous 1386 Carrouges–Le Gris duel to the death. I first encountered the story in Froissart’s
Chronicles in the early 1990s, and I spent five years researching and writing my book. It was op-
tioned for film three times, each option resulting in a screenplay. But it took fifteen years for a script
to be realized on the big screen. And it took no less than a knight – Sir Ridley Scott – to pull it off.

S
o when, two weeks before the film’s And we were not disappointed!
North American release on October 15, We were wowed and moved and over-
I sat down with my wife, Peg, to watch whelmed by what we saw: the powerful
a screening at a cinema on the Fox lot storytelling à la Rashomon, the stellar
in Los Angeles, we were understand- performances by leading and support-
ably excited and full of anticipation. Real people ing actors alike, the violent, immersive
living almost legendary lives had been resurrected battle scenes and disturbing courtroom
from history by the alchemy of Hollywood, and and bedroom dramas, and the gritty,
we felt as though we were about to travel back in palpable historical detail. Ridley Scott’s
time to meet them. We also were excited to relive film is an epic masterpiece, a tour de
our memorable journeys force that portrays life in the Middle
One of the movie post- on the trail of the story, Ages as an almost foreign land of bar-
ers created for The Last years earlier, through ar- barity and brutality, yet also a portrait of
Duel (2021).
© 20th Century Studios
chives and historical sites an age – in a famous phrase, “a distant
in Normandy and Paris. mirror” – that reflects back a troubling

14 Medi
Me diev
di eval
evall War
a faaree XI-
I5
 © British Library Royal MS 14 E IV fol. 267v
© 2021 20th Century Studios. All Rights Reserved

and unflattering image of ourselves, As I continued my research, I stud-

heirs as we are today to so many per-
sistent pathologies involving men,
women, and rape. "The truth does not
matter," says Marguerite’s bitter moth-
er-in-law. “There is only the power of
men.” Words that apply just as well to
recent history in Hollywood itself.
Soon after my first encounter with
the 1386 case in Froissart, I tracked
down and studied a published transcript
of Marguerite’s testimony detailing her
charges against the squire Jacques Le
Gris. I found her account, delivered un-
der oath before the
Eric Jager's 2004
Parlement of Paris,
ied not only the legal records and other
primary sources but also the many lay-
ers of commentary and analysis that
had accumulated over the centuries. In
addition, I delved into many areas of
knowledge that I had hardly explored
until then, areas familiar to medieval
historians but more rarely visited by liter-
ary scholars like myself, including arms
and armour, castles and fortifications,
the history of Normandy, the Hundred
Years’ War, the urban landscape of me- One fifteenth-century manuscript of Froissart shows
dieval Paris, the people and pageantry of Le Gris beheaded. This is not what Froissart described.
the French royal court, the difficult lives
of medieval women, the bizarre and

© Oxford, Douce MS. 195, fol. 61v

book of the same
title formed the very credible and prejudicial laws about rape in medieval
basis for Ridley
compelling. Even France, and of course the ancient rules
x

Scott's production.
© Crow n Books Le Gris’s lawyer, and rituals of judicial combat.
whose private note- The traditional ‘rules for duels’
book also survives, have survived in what the French call
was impressed by formulaires, including a 1306 decree
Marguerite’s un- by King Philip the Fair, still in force 80
swerving testimony. years later at the time of the Carroug-
Moreover, he clearly es–Le Gris combat. It contains what is
had doubts about virtually a script for the many elaborate
his own client’s ceremonies of trial by combat, from the
trustworthiness. The initial appeal to the king and the formal
Parlement must have challenge witnessed by the Parlement
found her case per- to the solemn oaths sworn by the com-
suasive, too, or they batants just prior to fighting. During my
would have favoured research, I also took some fencing les- A rape scene from The Romance of the Rose. Le Gris' al-
Le Gris’s story rather sons from a feisty Ukrainian émigré at leged assault on Carrouges' wife led to the men's duel.
than failing to reach the Beverly Hills Fencing Club to get a
a verdict and thus au- better sense of what it was like to ex-
© Bibliothèque nationale de France, Français 79, fol. 86v

thorizing a duel, by perience hand-to-hand combat with a

then a very rare thing.
During my early re-
search, I was therefore surprised to find
that many historians and legal scholars
had paid little attention to Marguerite’s
detailed account. Instead they had dis-
missed her charges as errors, or even
lies, often on the flimsy basis of two
brief and uncorroborated reports that
another man later confessed to the
crime. Convinced that Marguerite had
told the truth, and seeing that no full-
length account of the case had ever
been written, I embarked on writing
my own book. Marguerite had de-
served better justice in her own time, I
thought, as well as in the history books.
bladed weapon.
Another challenge I faced was
turning this mass of research mate-
rial, including what I found in the
French archives and during our vis-
its to historical sites, into a readable
popular book. I had already writ-
ten two scholarly books published
by university presses. I could read
French and Latin and decipher medi-
eval manuscripts. But I knew almost
nothing about the commercial pub-
lishing world, especially the big trade
houses in New York.
On the other hand, lecturing at
This image from a fifteenth-century copy of Jean Wavrin's
UCLA to large undergraduate classes of
Chronicles shows another inaccurate version of the duel.
150 to 250 students, I had honed a more

Medieval Warfare XI-5 15


Jean de Carrouges and Jacques Le Gris (played by Adam Driver) meet face to face before their famous duel.
accessible idiom that translated well to
writing a popular book. And aiming at
the trade market had liberated me from
the theory and jargon of the seminar
room or the conference paper.
Still, revision was time-consum-
ing work, and some chapters went
through eight or ten or even twelve
drafts. I wanted the narrative to be as
vivid and powerful as possible. I want-
ed it to take readers back in time, as
the story had transported me when I
Jodie Comer plays Marguerite de Carrouges. Her alleged assault by Jacques Le Gris drives the action.
16 Medieval Warfare XI-5
© 2021 20th Century Studios. All Rights Reserved
had first read it in Froissart. I wanted it along with two producers on the pro-
to put readers right at the scene of ac- ject (as recounted in a recent piece
tion, despite the distance of centuries, posted at Medievalists.net). As a script
and to see and feel what the charac- consultant, I did quite a bit of histori-
ters may have experienced. cal research for the writing team – Da-
I’ll leave readers to judge for mon, Affleck, and acclaimed writer
themselves whether I’ve succeeded. and director Nicole Holofcener. And
Many elements in the film are also I read two successive versions of the
drawn from the book. And as the film script, offering notes and suggestions.
was in development, I had a chance Having now seen the finished
to shape things further. Early on, I met film, I’m awed by the brilliance with
with Matt Damon and Ben Affleck, which the filmmakers have translated
the source material to the screen.
© 2021 20th Century Studios. All Rights Reserved
That’s a testament to the writers as
well as to the all-star cast, to the
stunning choice of locations and the
artful set design, to the brilliant cin-
ematography and the editing, and of
course to Sir Ridley’s masterful direc-
tion. The result, the story of a coura-
geous woman who defied society and
risked everything for the truth, might
be described as Gladiator meets The
Passion of Joan of Arc – a spectacu-
lar, powerful, moving, and disturbing
film about the Middle Ages as well as
about our own world today. MW
Eric Jager is a Professor of English at
UCLA, where his research focuses on
medieval literature, book history, and
the history of legal institutions.
THE WARRIOR

This seventeenth-century screen depicts a legendary twelfth-century battle. Earlier military history was a fashionable subject in Edo-period artwork.

THE SAMURAI B
THE ARMS AND ARMOUR OF JAPAN’S ELITE WARRIORS By Randall Moffett
y the sixteenth century, the
samurai were well established
when Japan entered into a pe-
riod of near-constant warfare
that would lead to its unification
Few warriors around the world are as well-known as the under the Tokugawa Shogunate in 1603.
samurai of feudal Japan. These elite soldiers developed over The samurai had developed into a very
effective military force. Victory in battle and
centuries, including their weapons, armour, fighting styles,
control of the land rested on the calibre and
and system of expected behaviour. The latter, known as number of such men. Samurai loyally served
Bushido, was a type of martial ethos unique to samurai. Japa- the lords of the realm, and had a code of be-
haviour tied to their status. The samurai were
nese Shintoism and Buddhist religious concepts were fused
expected to fight mounted or on foot and thus
into this structure in were armed and armoured accordingly.
order to reflect an en- Unlike most (but not all) European
knights, the samurai often fought as a mounted
compassing samurai
archer. The yumi (Japanese bow) was a very ef-
culture. The samurai fective weapon of war. It was over seven feet in
became essential to wielding length, made of laminated wood and bamboo,
and was made asymmetrically, with a shorter
power for the leaders of feudal Japan. lower arm (bow limb). This allowed the mount-
ed samurai to harm an opponent from a dis-
Known as a yoroi shitagi, tance while remaining very mobile.
was worn underneath ar Their swords originally had long
both padding and extra
particular example belo
blades with a single curved edge
famous sixteenth and called tachi. By the late sixteenth
century samurai, Tok century, the daisho (the katana and
© The Tokyo National Mu

This helmet comes from a suit of Doma-

x

ru-type armour, which was popular dur-

ing the Muromachi Period (the fifteenth
century). It was designed for ease of

18
movement, meaning it was particularly
M di
Me diev
eval
evall Warfa
arfa
arfare
re XI-
I-55 well suited to fighting on foot.
© The Tokyo National Museum
© The Tokyo National Museum
wakizashi ) became common. The katana was
the longer weapon, with the blade more than
two feet in length. Samurai also used various
pole weapons such as the yari (spear with
a narrower thrusting head) and naginata (a
spear with a more curved single-edged head).
The helmet of this era was called the
kabuto and came in many shapes and de-
signs. The key defence was a skull section
either rounded, conical, or funnel shaped. A
guard made of multiple
A late fifteenth-
century tsuba, or sword horizontal plates hung
guard. The various below this, covering the
elements of a Japanese back and sides of the
sword, including the
guard and pommel, are head. Masks could also
often works of art in be worn. Some included
their own right.
x
© The Metropolitan Museum of Art a neck defence as well.
The dō is the cui-
rass. Lamellar and scale, in use for
centuries, remained in produc-
tion into the sixteenth century.
Other, similar systems used for
torso defences utilized many
small square or rectangular
plates held together by mail.
Several other types of dōs
of this period evolved around
relatively wide horizontal plates.
Such larger plates allowed for more rigid
torso protection. These horizontal plates were
integrated into a single system via several at-
tachment methods, including a fauld and
shoulder protections. One such arrangement
had the plates attached to a leather or fabric
foundation layer; others were laced or riveted
together in order to create a solid breastplate
and backplate. As the sixteenth century pro-
gressed, the trend was to make a more de-
fined waist for a more desirable shape.
Limb armour was also a part of the samu-
rai ensemble. Leg and arm armour ranged in
size. The larger the plates, the more shaping to
fit would be required, so much so that several of
the limb defences bore strong resemblance to
fully enclosed European greaves and vambrac-
es. For the lower leg one would have a suneate.
Many seem to have been thin splints arranged
to shape the leg, laced together, or attached via
mail. Other well-shaped and fit greaves were
often made with only three plates with lit-
tle lacing and no mail. These
at times included a knee
defence.
The lower arm defence was
similar, ranging from several thin splints
shaped loosely to the forearm connected by A sixteenth-
century katana, with
lacing or mail to very well-shaped splints that
its typical long, curved blade
followed the contours of the arm and fully en- called a tachi. The sword is cautiously
closed it. These often included integral gaunt- attributed to the maker Kane Sada.
lets, the metacarpal plate often shaped to fit and © The Aukland Museum
resemble the back of the hand. Finger plates
attached by mail and/or lacing were at times
used. The rest of the arm was often defended by
mail, at times reinforced by plates of various
shapes (round, square, and rectangular),
especially over the elbow. With some of
these defences, the plates clearly became
the dominant defence and mail was
just used to connect them.
The shoulder was protected by
the sode. These were often made of
overlapping and laced horizontal
bands, as discussed above. Initially
these were large in size, almost
like a small shield, but as the six-
teenth century went on smaller
types emerged. The haidate was
a defence for the thighs. This
covered the lower abdomen,
groin, and upper legs. It was of-
ten made of small overlapping
square or rectangular plates
(basically scales) or some-
times wide horizontal plates,
likely sewn to a foundation
or laced together.
Although the arms
and armour of the samu-
rai evolved over time, by
the sixteenth century they
became relatively stand-
ardized, consisting of a wide
repertoire of weapons and
protective gear. MW
Randall Moffett is Assistant
Professor of History at South-
eastern Community College.
© Angel García Pinto
 By Danièle Cybulskie
THEME: Le Jouvencel

LE JOUVENCEL “For the betterment

of the man of war”
“My intention, with God’s help, is to write a little treatise, in the form of a story, to inspire all
men, and especially those who pursue the extraordinary adventures of a life of war, to seek
always to do good and to enhance their fortitude … For I myself can guarantee … [that] al-
though excellence and honour in the art of war remains a matter of chance, nevertheless a life
in war offers more assured and greater promise of advancements than does any other career.”

20 Medieval Warfare XI-5

 o writes Jean de Bueil, a renowned
fifteenth-century French warrior,
in his introduction to Le Jouven-
cel, a semi-autobiographical book
which, through its narrative story-
telling, imparts a lifetime of hard-
won wisdom to warriors young and old.
Le Jouvencel was evidently a highly popular
treatise in its own time, given that it is still extant
in sixteen manuscripts, more than half of which
are illustrated. There is good reason for its popular-
ity: through the vehicle of the inspiring romantic
story of a knight called Jouvencel (a nickname that
simply means ‘young man’), the book offers an as-
tounding range of important military information,
from detailed tactics, to legal arguments regarding
people and property, to general advice on wellbe-
ing. At the same time, it offers tantalizingly veiled
references to the battles and important figures of
the Hundred Years’ War.
The story: Part I
Part I outlines Jouvencel’s early roots at the cas-
tle of Luc, a fortification locked in conflict with
another castle close by, called Verset. Jouvencel’s
early exploits consist of small raids during which
he steals goats, clothing drying on a clothesline,
and even the enemy captain’s cow, which he gal-
lantly returns – for a fee – so that the captain might
continue to feed his child with the milk. Embold-
ened by these minor victories, Jouvencel enlists
a handful of men from Luc’s garrison to join him
on a midnight raid to steal some of the enemy’s
horses, winning himself a second-rate horse (“the
best of the bunch even though it wasn’t worth
much”) and a pair of cuirasses from the captain
of Luc as a tribute to his boldness and ability to
command. Rather than being
a detriment, Jouvencel’s pov-
erty, suggests De Bueil, is
what prompted him to take
risks and made him hungry
for advancement. Once Jou-
vencel’s abilities are brought
to the attention of the cap-
tain of Luc, his advancement
gains speed.
Jouvencel is ambitious
from the outset, as his daring
raids suggest, and after a few
successful endeavours, he even
considers joining the king’s
court as a way to climb the
ladder. His colleagues quickly
dissuade him, however, pontifi-
cating at length about the perils
The illustrations and illuminations in this article come from a
fifteenth-century edition (MS Francais 24380) of Le Jouvencel,
now housed in the French National Library. The coat of arms seen
throughout belonged to an individual named Jean du Mas.
© Bibliotheque nationale de France, Francais 24380
of court life for both body and soul, advising him “not
to make [him]self dependent on someone else’s good
will”, and warning him of how easy it is to fall prey
to the whims of kingly favour – a deadly mistake – or
the jealousy of other courtiers. Jouvencel is firmly con-
vinced and sticks to the world of warfare instead.
The story: Part II
In Part II, Jouvencel rises through the ranks, con-
ducting successful sieges and defending, but learn-
ing hard lessons along the way. De Bueil uses
Jouvencel to warn his readers not to fall into the
sin of pride that may follow material and martial
success: “It’s the reason why God willed that Jou-
vencel become a prisoner and experience failure:
his hot-headedness needed tempering and reining
in.” As the epitome of the good soldier, Jouvencel
does not waste time in his captivity in the city of
Crathor, however, instead using the vantage point
of his tower prison to plan the best way to besiege
the enemy city once he is set free. His position in
society and in the captain’s esteem at this point in
his career is made evident by his ransom: although
Jouvencel is only worth one horse, this time it’s not
second rate but his captain’s finely trained war-
horse that secures his release. The captain remarks
to his newly-freed charge, “I don’t complain – but
I’m hoping you’ll pay me back double.”
Jouvencel, of course, pays the captain back
manifold by outlining his careful and thorough
plan to take the city. The attack goes smoothly, and
Crathor falls, becoming the main base of operations
for Jouvencel and his companions to make further
efforts to free the region from their enemies.
After several military successes, Jouvencel in
turn finds himself besieged at Crathor and is forced
to send word to the French king for reinforcements.
21
x
Medieval Warfare XI-5
 The siege of Crathor and the ensuing rout of
Duke Baudouin gives De Bueil ample oppor-
tunity to outline for the reader many of the
moves and countermoves of medieval siege
warfare, such as using artillery, undermining,
and conducting sorties.
Impressed by Jouvencel’s apt military
leadership, the king entrusts him with more
responsibility, sending three wise counsel-
lors to advise him in military matters, jus-
tice, and the role of the fighter as a Christian.
These exceptionally long speeches of advice
contain much valuable wisdom, some of
which is familiar to those who have read oth-
er medieval military treatises, borrowed as it
is at length from Vegetius, author of De rei
militari , one of the most well-known books
used by medieval tacticians.
The story: Part III
In Part III, the French king, in a show of love
and esteem for Jouvencel, recommends him
to King Amydas of Amydoine to help him re-
take land that has been conquered by a local
enemy, a plot that seems a gesture towards
the real-life struggles of Christian Iberian
kings against Muslim conquest. King Amydas
offers Jouvencel his daughter’s hand in mar-
riage as well as regency of the kingdom in re-
22
turn for his military service, and Jouvencel is
only too happy to accept. In classic medieval
Medieval Warfare XI-5
romance tradition, the unnamed princess is both
beautiful and devout, and the two fall instantly in
love, spending only their wedding night together
before Jouvencel sets out with her father to recon-
quer some important local cities.
King Amydas is not as wise as the king of
France and has to be steered by his counsellors to
prevent him from rashly attacking when he is pro-
voked and his lodgings are ransacked. Fortunately,
his war council is wise, and they convince him to
only wage war from a strong position. Jouvencel
and the king are subsequently successful in wrest-
ing back some of the king’s most important cities.
Soon, having secured Amydoine at last, King
Amydas and Jouvencel return in triumph to the pal-
ace, when suddenly there is a plot twist:
There are always those who hate security and con-
tentment – so there were one or two good sons of
good mothers who tittle-tattled to Jouvencel, hop-
ing to provoke quarrel and strife between him and
King Amydas. They let him know that he’d been
deceived: King Amydas, they said, had a little son
who he’d pretended was dead; he’d had him hid-
den away and taken secretly to a faraway country,
so the king could make a good marriage for his
daughter with a man who’d bring military assis-
tance and win him back his throne.
They imply that Jouvencel should watch his back,
since people who can pull off such a decep-
tion can’t be trusted. Instead, they say, Jouvencel
should join forces with the enemy as a matter
of both revenge and self-defence. Jouvencel, of
course, rebukes the main source of this intel –
but also promises not to give him away. Then,
he confronts his wife with his new knowledge
(corroborated by other means) and tells her he
doesn’t blame her or her father – anyone would
have done the same. With the intercession of
his wife, as well as by giving back all the land
and soldiers he’d received from the king (techni-
cally now his mysterious brother-in-law’s inherit-
ance), Jouvencel manages to convince King Amy-
das that he is not a threat, and the two agree that
trust between men is more important than worldly
goods, anyway.
De Bueil ends the story with a tempered happi-
ly-ever-after, suggesting that Jouvencel’s life overall
is a good one, with many “advantages” and “hon-
ours”, but with a sprinkling of backstabbing from
time to time, which he takes philosophically. It’s
hard not to see this as a kind of pointed life lesson, a
secret you-know-who-you-are coda to a story which
is based on De Bueil’s own life.
Military wisdom at the heart
As De Bueil makes clear from the outset, enjoyable
as it is not only to watch Jouvencel rise through the
ranks to achieve the highest levels of prestige avail-
able to him, but also to see him content with his lot
in life despite losing an entire kingdom, Jouvencel’s
story is merely a frame for De Bueil to impart mili-
tary wisdom. While readers might cheer Jouvencel
on, it is De Bueil’s collected wisdom that makes this
book so compelling from a historical viewpoint.
Le Jouvencel is told from a first-person perspec-
tive, allowing the narrator to share his own point of
view; however, like many medieval books of advice,
the book also borrows heavily
from known sources. Vegetius
is referred to by name as the
source of a very long passage
that covers everything from
the tactics to the artillery re-
quired to break a siege. Giv-
en that Vegetius was writing
nearly a millennium before
cannons were used in Europe,
the extended list of gunpow-
der weapons and supplies
in Le Jouvencel doesn’t actu-
ally come directly from him;
rather it comes from a much
more contemporary and per-
haps surprising source: Chris-
tine de Pisan. It’s interesting to
note that while De Bueil evi-
dently must have read De Pisan’s Livre des faits
d’armes et de chevalerie (a very popular treatise
in its own right) and found it valuable enough to
repeat, he nowhere gives her credit for her mod-
ern, specifically French take on equipment and
tactics. Perhaps he imagined Vegetius would be
taken more seriously as a source.
Another source quoted extensively in Le
Jouvencel is the French king Philip IV’s rules
for trial by combat, dated February 1306.
By the time De Bueil was writing in the mid-
fifteenth century, trial by combat had long been
out of fashion (barring the legendary case between
Jean de Carrouges and Jacques Le Gris eighty years
before, the inspiration for Ridley Scott’s latest film
The Last Duel ) as an antiquated way of solving ju-
dicial problems, albeit an intensely chivalric one.
Why, then, does it appear at such great length in
this book of military advice?
Jouvencel’s rise to the top necessarily involves
becoming responsible not only for military strategy
as a commander, but for the needs of his men, in-
cluding the need for justice. Throughout the book,
De Bueil stresses the need for fairness in the way
that booty and land are parcelled out, ransoms and
tribute are decided, and people are treated over-
all. In Le Jouvencel , the king of France has sent
the rules for trial by combat to King Amydas and
Jouvencel, “thinking that for the moment they had
nothing better to do than to discuss such challeng-
es: it’s the sort of thing that often happens after a
successful enterprise”. It seems that the rules are
meant to be read and debated as a theoretical exer-
cise; however, Jouvencel has already presided over
an earlier trial by combat involving one of his men
and one of the enemy’s men earlier in the book.
Perhaps, then, De Bueil has included these intense-
23
Medieval Warfare XI-5
 ly specific rules to provide for the chance that
a military leader like Jouvencel or the reader
might be faced with such an antiquated chal-
lenge amongst the men under his command.
Though he might never need to use this infor-
mation, it might well be handy to know the
specific circumstances under which a trial by
combat might legally be conducted. Or per-
haps, like the quotation above suggests, it is
simply a thought experiment.
Other information along the lines of ‘just in
case’ is a long passage on naval warfare. Given
that most of the people reading Le Jouvencel
would be much more likely to fight on land than
on sea, it seems less relevant to have naval infor-
mation, but De Bueil is nothing if not thorough.
Borrowing again from De Pisan, De Bueil outlines
everything from when to cut down the trees nec-
essary for shipbuilding, to the possibility of corro-
sive poison (forbidden for Christians to use against
each other, so no recipes are provided), to the
usefulness of throwing soap to make the enemy’s
deck perilously slippery. While it’s unlikely that
knights or ordinary infantry would be in charge
of any shipbuilding, knowing how to use soap
against an adversary, or how to send divers under
an enemy ship to drill into it, are handy tricks that
are both memorable and practical.
A sprinkling of practical wisdom
This practical wisdom is where Le Jouvencel stands
out amongst other medieval military treatises. Be-
yond the borrowing of tactics from other sources,
De Bueil has infused his book with useful tricks that
are simple, cunning, and imbued with the weight
of actual experience, some of which can be traced
24
Medieval Warfare XI-5
back in the appended commentary to battles De
Bueil himself was known to be part of.
For instance, when Jouvencel raids the horses
of Verset, he accounts for the moonlight that
might give his position away, waiting for the
moon to set before he takes action. Similarly,
when he plans for the attack on Crathor, he
notes, “It has to be a night when there isn’t a
full moon, a night for riding two or three hours
without being detected – we’d be riding past a
number of villages.” When he joins King Amy-
das, Jouvencel once again takes the weather into
account, advising the king to position his archers
so they won’t “be firing into the sun”.
Beyond weather, Jouvencel is concerned with
using the local environment to give his soldiers the
advantage. On one reconnaissance mission, he
spreads manure over a drawbridge to muffle the
sound of the horses’ hooves, and on another occa-
sion he hides part of his army in an actual pile of
manure where the townspeople are unlikely to look
for them. When a gate is thought to be an obstacle to
attack, it is secretly sawn in half by Jouvencel’s men,
who camouflage their work with wax and mud,
rendering it invisible to the enemy until Jouvencel’s
forces burst through it during their attack.
De Bueil’s wisdom extends beyond the physi-
cal environment to encompass the wellbeing – both
mental and physical – of the soldiers, too. Jouvencel
is seen to be concerned with food several times, not-
ing the reluctance some towns might feel towards
feeding an army and the opportunities for soldiers to
be exploited. In Amydoine, he expressly asks King
Amydas to instruct a newly liberated town to ensure
his soldiers “be given a fair return for their money”.
Several times throughout the text, attention is also
paid to securing lodging for
the soldiers – in advance of
any military action – in order
to ensure that the soldiers all
have a place to rest, and to
forestall any squabbling by
tired men:
[the count of Parvanchières]
ensured that each com-
pany under his command
had a billeting officer …
When the billeting offic-
ers arrived at a billet – in
town, in a village, or out in
the fields – each of them
would display his standard
from a window on a pole
or rod, or from a branch if
the billet was in a wood.
Then, when the troops
 arrived, each man would look around and when
he saw the billeting officer’s standard he would
go straight there, and the billeting officer would
assign him to his quarters. That meant that there
were no disturbances or quarrels … everyone
would simply take up his billet in the designated
place, avoiding any shouting or bad temper.
The detail of this passage suggests De Bueil’s familiarity
with how to smoothly lodge an army, and how both
infighting and fatigue can negatively affect a war effort.
De Bueil’s concern with the mental state of
soldiers doesn’t just extend to a commander’s own
troops, however: he also recognizes how the psy-
che of an army informs when the best time to attack
should be. It’s best to attack, he says, when the en-
emy is retreating, or when they have almost reached
shelter, as these are the times when they are not
thinking clearly and therefore are most vulnerable.
An army always descends into confusion as they
approach safety. It’s impossible to maintain con-
trol: some men will be tired, or will have found
their heavy armour chafing; they’ll see safety
within reach; some of them will be scared, or feel-
ing nervous. Their commanders will be exhausted
from maintaining control all day, and they’ll barely
be able to shout orders – so the troops won’t be
able to hear them, and even if they can, they’ll
pretend they haven’t … once authority ebbs away,
once an army has an enemy at its back, then it will
rapidly descend into chaos.
Taking advantage of the chaos inherent in the
setting up and tearing down of an enemy army’s
camp is also said to be a wise course of action.
The art and artistry of war
Much as we may find De Bueil’s advice on at-
tacking a retreating army less than chivalrous, it
gets at the reality of war that underlies the many
long passages that glorify it. For De Bueil, war is
the most noble career, and participating in just
war is not only exciting, but also essential to the
proper functioning of society. That said, it’s also
about staying alive and keeping those in your
care – soldiers and civilians alike – alive by using
all means necessary. For De Bueil, then, the best
book for a knight to read is one that inspires him
to appreciate and respect his vocation, teaches
him both ancient and modern tactics, and gives
him a spoonful of sugar in the form of a heroic
story that will keep him riveted. In Le Jouvencel ,
De Bueil very cleverly weaves his military knowl-
edge with a fictionalized version of his own rise
to fame to create just such a book: a compelling
story that is as informative and entertaining now
as it was centuries ago. MW
Danièle Cybulskie is a writer, instructor, and
the host of The Medieval Podcast . Her latest
book is How to Live Like a Monk: Medieval
25
Wisdom for Modern Life. You can visit her
website at www.danielecybulskie.com.
Medieval Warfare XI-5
THEME: Le Jouvencel

The 1434 Siege of Saint-Céneri, as depicted in a copy of Le Jouvencel. This was just one of many real battles that were described in the tale under a
different name. However, after the author Jean de Bueil's death, one of his former squires published commentary that revealed the actual historical
battles, people, and places that had formed the basis for the story. As a result, the 'true history' was soon common knowledge.

“AND BECAUSE I KNOW THE TRUE STORY...” By Peter Konieczny

THE HIDDEN HISTORY IN LE JOUVENCEL

Jean de Bueil died in 1478, probably confident that his work about Tringant was that he was a squire in the
service of Jean de Bueil, and he wanted to make
Le Jouvencel would be an enduring and invaluable resource sure some things were known for posterity.
for future knights. A few years later, a commentary appeared He first notes that the work was not en-
tirely written by Jean de Bueil himself, but
that would change our understanding of this text.

F
was something of a collaboration involv-
ing three other men named Jean Tibergeau,
our of the sixteen surviving Martin Morin, and Nicole Riolay. As Tringant
manuscript copies of Le Jou- explains, “these three men wrote the things
vencel have a commentary
recorded in Le Jouvencel to the best of their
by Guillaume Tringant tacked
abilities and as truthfully as they could”.
onto its end. All that we know
They were also servants to Jean de Bueil, so
one can imagine that this text was a project
This sallet was reportedly found near the site under the direction of this lord, but with the
of the 1453 Battle of Castillon. This engagement
was a major milestone in Jean de Bueil's career.
three men doing most of the work.
© The Royal Armouries, Leeds.

26 Medi
Me d ev
di e al
a War
a fa
fare
re XI-
I5
© Bibliothèque nationale de France MS Français 192 f.68

Secondly, Tringant tells us that the story in
Le Jouvencel is based on de Bueil’s own life. In
fact, “most of the deeds recorded here in the
book of Le Jouvencel were planned and per-
formed by him.” A little later, he qualifies that
statement by noting that “everything he men-
tions was something done in his time, and in
general, when he was present”. The text was
created in such a way that everyone’s real
names were changed to fictional ones, and
many events were moved around from their
chronological order. Now, in this commentary,
Tringant aims to provide the truth and sets out
to give the reader a key to figuring out who was
who and what historical events are discussed.
Tringant spends the next several pages
of his commentary outlining the career of de
Bueil and how it was mirrored in Le Jouven-
cel. And what a career it was! Jean V de Bueil
was born in either 1405 or 1406, and hailed
from a prominent French military family. His
father even served as the ‘master of cross-
bowmen’ for the French king. However, the
famous Battle of Agincourt, fought on 25 Oc-
tober 1415, would deeply affect the de Bueil
family, as it did for many French nobles. His
father likely died in the battle (his body was
never found), and several of his brothers and
cousins were either killed or captured.
A few years later, Jean V began his military
career. Tringant writes about how “he would
hang around with the men-at-arms in open
spaces and corners; no-one could stop him ask-
ing questions; it wasn’t what he’d been destined
for, but he had a number of friends who en-
noir, which was being guarded by a
Burgundian contingent. The ambush
was carefully planned, with one
contingent of La Hire’s men luring
the Burgundians out of the town:
The Burgundians sallied out, full
of arrogance. La Hire and his men
came out from their ambush and
charged the gate, and their hors-
es barged it to the ground. And
the soldiers mounted behind the
men-at-arms jumped down, and
the men hidden in the manure
heap came running out, and in
that way the garrison of March-
enoir was destroyed and defeat-
ed; in the book of Le Jouvencel,
the place is called Escallon
Tringant also notes some of the less
glamorous events in Jean’s life, includ- Made in the early fifteenth century,
this finely-carved scene depicts Christ
ing various defeats and losses to the English,
rising from the dead as soldiers
and even two instances when he was taken guarding his tomb slumber nearby.
prisoner. There is even one time when “Bueil Nottingham, England was a production
had his thumb caught in the drawbridge chain centre for similar pieces throughout
and it required quite an enterprise to rescue the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries,
with craftsmen working the local ala-
him.” One wishes Tringant could have added a
baster into religious scenes that were
little more detail to that episode. exported all over Europe.
© The Los Angeles County Art Museum
The Battle of Castillon
De Bueil’s career continued to advance as he The Battle of Verneuil, as shown in the
Les Vigiles du roi Charles VII. This was
served under La Hire. In 1428, he was brought
probably the first time the young Jean
to Orléans, where he helped defend the city de Bueil saw serious combat.
against an English siege. The following year he © Bibliothèque nationale de France MS Fran-
fought in two battles – the Battle of the Herrings çais 5054 fol. 32v

couraged him. He knew a little about warfare,

because he’d been in the household of the vis-
count of Narbonne, who’d been responsible for
his training.” He was acting as a page to Guil-
laume II, viscount of Narbonne, when he expe-
rienced his first major battle, fought at Verneuil
on 17 August 1424. It was an English victory, a
disaster for the French, with the viscount and
several other leaders being killed in action.
Next, Jean took service under Étienne de
Vignolles, who was nicknamed ‘La Hire’. Sev-
eral of the most interesting stories that took
place in Le Jouvencel actually come from
Jean’s time with La Hire, including the scene
where soldiers hid in a manure heap in order
to make a surprise attack on a city gate. Trin-
gant reveals that this was a real event, which
took place in a small town called Marche-

This fifteenth-century
short, dagger-like sworbaselard (a
x

ably French, though it d) is prob-

could also be
Swiss (as this type of we
particularly popular in apon was
© The Art Institute
that region).

27
of Chicago

Medieval Warfare XI-5


The death of John Talbot at the 1453
Battle of Castillon, as depicted in
Les Vigiles de Charles VII. This action
represented the height of Jean de
Bueil's career.
© Bibliothèque nationale de France MS Fran-
çais 5054 fol. 229v
on 12 February 1429 and the Battle of Patay on
18 June. The tide turned in the Hundred Years’
War at this time, and de Bueil was one of those
French leaders who can be credited with de-
feating the English. He gained commands and
was even knighted in 1434. By 1450, he was
named the admiral of France and had gained
a string of titles, such as count of Sancerre, vis-
count of Carentan, and lord of Montrésor. He
even got his own nickname: ‘le Fléau des An-
glais’, which means “plague of the English”.
The height of Jean’s career would take
place on 17 July 1453, when he served as one
of the leaders of the French forces at the Battle
of Castillon. The English commander John Tal-
bot had led a force of up to 10,000 men from
Bordeaux to Castillon in order to relieve a siege
against that town. The English forces marched
right into the slightly smaller French side, and
after an hour-long battle they were routed
and Talbot dead. Historians have credited the
French victory to their use of gunpowder weap-
ons, which decimated the English ranks.
Both the main text of Le Jouvencel and
Tringant’s commentary address the Battle of
Castillon, but neither comments on the use
of guns. Instead, Jean de Bueil, in the voice
of the story’s narrator, simply states:
At Castillon in Périgord, the English were far
more numerous than the French and ad-
vanced on the position of the French who
were patiently awaiting them; that led to an
English defeat, and is an outcome that has
often happened in the Franco-English wars.

Who was really who

Guillaume Tringant’s commentary ends with a list of who
were the real people behind the characters in Le Jouvencel.
He seems to have been quite good at figuring out nearly all of
their true identities, although there are a few minor characters
who he did not know. In some instances, two or more fictional
characters were based on one person.
Tringant also notes how several places had their names
changed. For example, Luc stands for Château-L’Hermitage
while Meet was in reality Le Mans. The city of Crathor, one
of the main places in Le Jouvencel, represented three cities:
Orléans, Lagny-sur-Marne, and Sablé.
Here are some of the main characters in the story: Étienne de Vignolles, aka ‘La Hire,’ depicted in a dueling scene from a
fifteenth-century copy of the Vigiles de Charles VII.
• Duke Baudouin was John of Lancaster, Duke of Bedford
- the third son of King Henry IV, he became the regent to vanguard at the Battle of Patay. By the time of his death
Henry VI in 1422, with his main duties focused on France. in 1443, he had won several battles and captured Eng-
Bedford led several campaigns against the French, includ- lish strongholds.
ing at the Battle of Verneuil. He was also the person who
• The Count of Orte was John Fitzalan, Earl of Arundel
arranged the trial for Joan of Arc.
- this English nobleman began his military service in
• The great captain was Étienne de Vignoles (La Hire) France in 1430, and soon gained a reputation as an ex-
- although he was not part of the nobility when he cellent commander. Arundel would face off against La
joined the French army in 1418, La Hire soon gained a Hire at the Battle of Gerberoy in 1435. During the battle
reputation as a very capable military leader. He also Arundel was wounded in the foot and, despite having it
became a close supporter of Joan of Arc, and led the amputated, this led to his death.

28
 Dating to the fifteenth
century, this small bronze
x
figure of a knight on horse-
back may represent the
ever-popular Saint George.
© The Rijksmuseum
Meanwhile, Tringant writes that it was a tactical
failure on Talbot’s part that led to his downfall:
Lord Talbot came to the conclusion that
the smaller company was south of the
Garonne, consisted of infantry, and was
bringing a large baggage train and the ar-
tillery, while on the other side of the Ga-
ronne was a great force of mounted men
who would have been only too delighted
if they were attacked, whereas the infan-
try on this side of the Garonne would, he
thought, be unable to flee. For that reason
he headed straight for the infantry, which
turned out to be a bad decision, for he was
defeated near Castillon in the Périgord.
The Battle of Castillon is considered the end of
the Hundred Years’ War. A few months later,
Bordeaux was recaptured by the French, and
England’s possessions on the European conti-
nent shrank down to little more than Calais.
It was during the reign of Charles VII
(1403–1461) that Jean de Bueil made his ca-
reer and fame, but he had also made his en-
x
emies at the French court, one of which was the A view of the cathedral at Orléans. In
king’s son Louis. When he came to the throne Le Jouvencel the city of Orléans was
the inspiration for the fictional city
as Louis XI in 1461, Jean quickly lost his job as
of Crathors.
Admiral of France and was forced to go into a © staoist520 / Shutterstock
semi-retirement. It would be around this time
that work on Le Jouvencel began. Relations
between Jean de Bueil and his king only got
worse, and the count joined in the League of
the Public Weal, an alliance of French nobles A miniature depicting Jean de Bueil, the
that rebelled against Louis in 1465. Eventually, main author of Le Jouvencel.
© Bibliothèque nationale de France MS Fran-
Jean and Louis were reconciled, and he be-
çais 4985 fol. 33r
came a councillor to the royal court.
Questions about Le Jouvencel
There are three interesting questions
that remain to be answered. The first
is: why did de Bueil choose to write
a fictional story instead of an autobi-
ography? His three collaborators, ac-
cording to Tringant, wanted to have
everyone’s real names attached to the
work, “but the lord of Bueil, whom
I and they served, was adamant that
they should not do so lest he be given
more praise than was appropriate.”
The idea that de Bueil was just being
modest is further enforced when Trin-
gant comments, “He did not spend
money to write himself into history.”
This falchion is one of many swords
daggers found near the site of the and
1453
Battle of Castillon. Most of these wea
ons were recovered fron the nearby p-
River
Dordogne, perhaps lost after a supply
barge sunk during the fighting.
© The Royal Armouries Leeds Medieval Warfare XI-5 29
πDe THE CENTERFOLD
Bueil describes a scene where
soldiers emerge out of a manure heap
to make a surprise attack. This was
an actual event that took place at the
town of Marchenoir, and a testament
to the dedication of medieval soldiers
when it came to winning a battle.
© Marek Szyszko
The Battle of Marchenoir, as depicted
in a fifteenth-century copy of Le Jou-
vencel. In the story, the engagement
was instead referred to as the Battle
of Escallon. This particular interpreta-
tion also avoids showing the rather
creative use of manure by the attack-
ing army. For a modern illustration of
this rather interesting tactic, see the
centerfold on the previous pages.
© Bibliothèque nationale de France MS
Français 192 f.124
Dating to the fifteenth century, this
French ivory plaque is carved with the
image of two jousting knights.
© The Metropolitan Museum of Art
Although modesty could certainly serve
as the reason for creating Le Jouvencel, Craig
Taylor and Jane H.M. Taylor, who recently
translated the text, offer two other possibili-
ties. The first is that when Jean de Bueil was
writing Le Jouvencel he was very much an
adversary of Louis XI and the French court.
Writing a historical account would certainly
bring up events that could cause more strife
and reignite previous disputes Jean had with
other nobles. Perhaps an autobiography was
not worth the political trouble.
The second reason that Taylor and Taylor
found for hiding the real history was that Jean
de Bueil was more interested in teaching and
inspiring young knights. As the narrator of Le
Jouvencel, he explained that this was “a little
treatise in the form of a story to inspire all men,
and especially those who pursue the
A late fifteenth-century
x
French sculpture showing a
man on horseback, likely de-
picting Saint Martin of Tours.
© The Cleveland Museum of Art
extraordinary adventures of a life
of war, to seek always to do good
and to enhance their fortitude.”
By basing the story of Le Jouven-
cel around his life but making it
fictional, Jean could pick and
choose what was important to note and
leave out all the messy historical details.
A second question revolves around a big
omission from Le Jouvencel: Joan of Arc does
not appear in the story, not even as a fiction-
al character. As Tringant details, she was very
much a factor in several of the important events
in Jean de Bueil’s military career, including the
lifting of the Siege of Orléans and the Battle of
 A medallion depicting King Louis XI, created by Francesco Laurana around

x
of
the year 1465. Jean de Bueil fell out of favour with Louis for a period .
time, which may have influenced how he chose to write Le Jouvencel
© Saliko / Wikimedia Commons

Patay. Joan, who Tringant usually calls ‘La Pu-
celle’ (‘The Maiden’) in his commentary, is de-
scribed as someone who is far beyond a figure-
head – for instance, she is the one who decides
that the French should make their (successful)
attack on the English at Patay.
Perhaps Jean de Bueil believed that by
having Joan or even a fictional character based
on her, it would give away the historical un-
derpinnings of the work. Another possibility is
that Joan of Arc is such an anomaly in medieval
warfare that it would not serve a purpose in a
text that would teach young knights. Jean want-
ed to show how one could become a profes-
sional soldier and what it took to serve in war.I
Including the story of how a teenage girl with
visions from God could bring victory was not a
lesson that he wanted to impart.
And finally, why include the story of King
Amydas of Amydoine and the marriage of his
daughter to (the character) Jouvencel? It bears
no resemblance to anything historical. Here
Tringant comes to the rescue with this answer:
the system, winning battles and
gaining fame. He overcomes
obstacles and ultimately has his
own happily-ever-after ending.
Jean also gets to give his reader good
advice on military matters and is able
to reveal some of his own story, at least to
those who knew him. Guillaume Tringant (Top) Part of the Old Town of Le Mans
then comes along a few years later to make in western central France. The city
was fought over by French and English
sure that Jean de Bueil gets the fame he mod-
armies during the 1420s.
estly did not ask for, and to firmly entrench Le © David Merrett / Flickr
Jouvencel as one of the most important texts
about medieval military history. MW (Bottom) The church of Saint-Pierre and
the Collegiate church of Saint-Michel in
Bueil-en-Touraine, where Jean de Bueil
Peter Konieczny is editor of Medieval War- and some of his relatives are buried.
fare magazine. © Daniel Jolivet / Wikimedia Commons

It is true, of course, that the love affair be-

tween Jouvencel and the daughter of King
Amydas is a fiction; Jouvencel’s adherents
did not wish to portray Jouvencel as a ty-
rant or to have him become a great lord or
a prince simply through tyranny, for their
book is a paean to justice and equity; mar-
riage was the only way in which the
young man could become a lord
or a prince, for he was merely
a poor young knight. This mar-
riage is devised to show that
no-one should attain high rank
or lordship other than justly or by
pursuing a just cause.

Considering the politically tense

situation when Le Jouvencel was
written, it is wise that the writ-
ers avoided a scenario where
the main character takes over
a kingdom by force. King Louis
XI likely would not have enjoyed such a plot
twist. Instead, it ends with everyone happy, as
Jouvencel gets the girl and high honours.
One would think that Jean de Bueil
would have been particularly satisfied with
that ending, and with how Le Jouvencel was
written. Enclosed is a good little story of a
young knight working his way up through

Medieval Warfare XI-5 33

SPECIAL

ANTWERP FALLS TO THE THE SPANISH FURY

A CITADEL
AGAINST A CITY
There are two Antwerps in the Civitates Orbis Ter-
rarum, which is a glorious sixteenth-century col-
lection of city maps and the very first of its kind.
The two maps tell the story of how a city’s walls
and citadel, its defences, can end up ruining it.

By Michael Pye

B
oth show the broad and tidal river Scheldt, which
gave Antwerp access to the North Sea, and then to
the world: to the oceanic trade routes just open-
ing to Asia, Africa, and America. The docks are
crowded with ships waiting to unload spices from
the Indies, or wool from England, or silver from America, or gold
or copper or diamonds from Golconda. Even Antwerp’s rivals
acknowledged the town as the hub of the known world, where
anything and everything was traded, where deals were done in
ideas and secrets, as well as goods.
The magnificent but never quite finished cathedral is
there in both maps, the broad market streets, the walls, the
gates, and the moat. The caption says the city has “all the
vital necessities of life in abundance”: wines from France and
Spain and the Rhine; markets with every kind of fish, fresh or
salted. It looks like a rich and settled port.
But look again at the maps and they tell rather different stories.
Antwerp stood in the Spanish Netherlands, ruled from
Madrid; the distance was enough to make it possible
to choose, usually, when to ignore the emperor’s
wishes, and since he always needed the
money he could raise in Ant-
werp, he often left it alone.
He was busy fighting Turks and
German Lutherans, and the for-
eigners and heretics who made
Antwerp rich could wait.
Until 1566, that is, and the
moment when a handful of people

A burgonet made in 1583 by Adrian Collaert, a

prominent designer and engraver in Antwerp.
© Royal Armouries, Leeds
Anonymous contemporary
depiction of the "Spanish Fury"
at Antwerp, now on display at
Museum Aan de Stroom.
© Public domain

Medieval Warfare XI-5 35


A seventeenth-century portrait of
Chiappino Vitelli, the Italian marquis
and military leader who worked with
the Duke of Alba.
© Public domain
Antwerp’s city hall was built between
1561 and 1565, during a time when
this city was one of the most pros-
perous in Europe. It is now a UNESCO
World Heritage Site.
© Horia Bogdan / Shutterstock
36 Medieval Warfare XI-5
turned on the churches, broke up al-
tars, and ruined images and pictures.
The new ruler in Madrid, Philip II, had
had enough. To him, an attack on the
authority of the Church was an attack
on his own authority. He had to take
back control.
He sent the grumpy, brutal Duke
of Alba to work on the city. Alba was
horrified by all the unorthodox opin-
ions and beliefs and called the city
‘Babylon’ (but that did not stop him
using the Antwerp money markets just
as Madrid had done, and he saw his
fortune multiply). He imposed a bish-
op on a city that had always refused
the honour for fear a bishop would
bring the Inquisition, and he staged
raids for forbidden heretic books.
The first map of Antwerp was published
in 1572, in the middle of that campaign. The
view is from the south, looking the long way
downriver so all the houses, town hall, and ca-
thedral are reduced in scale. The one detail that
dominates, in the foreground because of the
viewpoint, is the great citadel that hangs on the
city like a wax seal, newly finished when the
first edition of the Civitates appeared. This city
was to be seen through the eyes in the fort.
The second version is in the fifth volume
of the Civitates, which appeared sometime
before 1598, when Antwerp had played its
part in the Dutch revolt against Spain, lived
Minted in 1576, this medal is one of many items
made to commemorate the so-called "Spanish
Fury" in Antwerp. The obverse depicts a por-
trait of George baron van Freundsberg, while the
reverse shows state troops fleeing Antwerp and
falling into the waters of the Schelde.
out the brief independence of its Calvin-
ist years, been broken under siege, lost
half of its population to the north, and
was recovering once again under Span-
ish rule. The later one has all the conven-
tions of a city pacified: a view from the
east looking out over the walls and moats
of the city to the busy river, trees planted
on the walls, crowds in the streets and
markets, even a parade.
The maps make it clear: the citadel,
the city’s defences, have a meaning al-
most as important as their practical uses.
“Hated by the people”
Cosimo de Medici kept a close eye on
Antwerp from his court in Florence. He
was told there were plans to build a
castle “although it seems some citizens
grumbled”. The citizens were told that
Philip’s mind was made up and they
were warned that soldiers would be bil-
leted in their houses and the city walls
broken and the moats and ditches filled
if there was no citadel; so they agreed.
The citadel had for years been
something to discuss, not build. It might
spoil the look of an ideal fortified city. It
would mean even higher taxes. It raised
questions from the fashionable Italian
books. Alberti in the De re aedificatoria
says that good rulers build their palaces
in the middle of the city, but only tyrants
build fortresses across the city walls; so the
position of the citadel was all-important. Any-
one with knowledge of the Greeks knew that
Sparta needed no walls because the city had
trusted warriors, that a city with walls was a
city of women, that Plato disapproved of the
walls that Aristotle defended. Fortifications
were not just an expensive strategy.
More than anything, as Machiavelli
pointed out, a citadel might be needed to
control the locals, to serve as “bridle and bit”,
but that would be a second choice. Indeed,
“The prince who is more afraid of his people
than of foreigners should build fortresses, but
one who is more afraid of foreigners than of
his people should do without them.” He add-
ed, “The best fortress that exists is not
to be hated by the people.”
Chiappino Vitelli, who had
once been the strategist of the
x
© The Rijksmuseum
Medici defence against the Barbary pirates,
came up from Florence at the side of the Duke
of Alba. He was asked to choose the site for
the new fortress and promised he would soon
send the plans that were being made to Co-
simo. Sharing plans between proper Italian no-
blemen was not treason at all.
Vitelli brought with him Francesco Paci-
otto, a man who made everyone’s skin crawl
because he did not bother to defer to the grand
and powerful, which horribly embarrassed the
men who did. Paciotto was a mathematician of
skill who had built the first of the new pentagon
forts in Turin, a city whose duke wanted simply
to intimidate. The fort was unusual and consid-
ered perfect in its way, much studied by mili-
tary architects from across Europe who knew
how tricky it could be to build what seemed
such a simple plan. Paciotto used much the
same design in Antwerp, and not being prop- The first view of Antwerp presented
in Braun and Hogenberg's Civitates
erly noble, he was accused of treason.
Orbis Terrarum was created in 1572.
In Turin, the fort was practical, capable © The Metropolitan Museum of Art
of defending the city. In Antwerp, the citadel
stood upriver from the city, which meant any
enemy fleet could sail past all Antwerp be-
fore its forces ran into defensive fire. The citi-
zens begged that the city walls should not be
torn down until the castle was finished, and
they told Alba that merchants had a habit of
running away from territory where they did
not feel free and safe. They did agree to pay
a special tax on meat, capons, and rent, “and
other similar things”.
Paciotto’s first failure of tact was to break
down a section of the walls the city had been
building laboriously for a decade. He rushed
to finish only two of the five bastions on his
fort – not the ones facing outward in the

Most likely either Flemish or French in

manufacture, this ornate powder flask
x

dates between 1560 and 1580. The cen-

tral figure probably represents Mars, or
another personification of war.
© The Metropolitan Museum of Art
Medieval Warfare XI-5 37

Made in 1577, this lead plaque is one
in a series showing some of the events
that happened after the Spanish Fury.
Here, citizens of Antwerp finally drive
the mutineers out of the citadel. After
taking control of the structure, they
tore down most of the fortifications.
© The Rijksmuseum
As a native of Antwerp, printmaker
Frans Hogenberg personally wit-
nessed the horror of the Spanish Fury
in 1576. He produced various engrav-
ings documenting the event, which
he published separately — or as in
this case — a compliation. The central
panel depicts an overview of the city
under attack, while surrounding im-
ages show Spanish troops assaulting
the city and carrying out atrocities.
© The Rijksmuseum
or arm
A Dutch-made ivory bracer
the late
guard for an archer, made in century.
sixteenth
© The Metropolitan Mus
city’s interests, but those that trained
cannon directly on the city streets.
Buonaiuto Lorini from Florence
was serving in Flanders while
all this was being built, and
he described how gun posi-
tions were built with timber
taken from houses that had
been dismantled. He saw the
way the high water table was
used to deepen the moat, and
how the piazzas without guns
allowed more flooding if need be.
It was all to protect the citadel from
the city, and “not by chance”.
At someone else’s suggestion, prob-
ably the scholar Montanus who designed
the thing, a monstrous bronze effigy of Alba
was made from the melted remains of enemy
guns. Alba was going to be present and ines-
capable. He towered over a two-headed fig-
ure on the floor whose arms carried a tangle
of symbols for everything he thought he had
defeated: a hammer for iconoclasm, a docu-
ment for attempts to soften religious policies,
a mask for the enemy’s hypocrisy. The statue
was on public show for only three years, but
it made its point.
For Alba had his own campaign against
the city’s past, its particular identity, and the
citadel was part of it. He was not only battling
heresy and the prospect that citizens might
not think and do as their imperial masters re-
x
eum of Art
quired; he was de-
termined on making
Antwerp conform to his
view of how the world worked, by weapons
and not by cargo. He was “making … townes
of warre of towns of merchandise”.
The ‘Spanish Fury’
The citadel was turned deliberately on the city.
Alba did not expect that its garrison would fi-
nally turn on the city with no control at all.
The troops were hungry, they had not
been paid, and they were furious. The Span-
ish authorities had no money and no way
to control their men, Spanish and German,
who now used the city’s own defences to
wreck it. A mutinous mob piled into the cita-
del through the back entrance in November
1576 and rushed forward to fight the city on
its ramparts. Their grievance was with the
Spanish and not the city, but the city was
rich and they were hungry.
Geeraest Janssen told a London col-
league that citizens fought very courageous-
ly with many killed on both sides, but even-
tually the Spanish broke through any weak
point, the empire’s army invading its own
territory. Carolus, the great bell of the cathe-
dral, sounded the alarm. The citizens put on
armour and picked up their guns, if they had
them, but the mutineers got to the great mar-
ket square by the cathedral and drove the
citizens along the narrow streets to the walls,
where some of them were
forced to jump to save them-
selves. Some were dredged
from the canals or the moat,
and others drowned. Some
boats sank under the weight
of all the desperate passen-
gers. Janssen says the streets
were filled with the dead.
The soldiers had only just
begun. Now they ran at the
houses in town and broke
down or shot through any
door that did not open at once
to them. They went after the
master of each house, beat-
ing, stabbing, menacing, and
killing. They demanded all the
money, then they demanded
more, then they either pillaged
the houses or tried to ransom them. Janssen
crammed a lifetime’s assets into a cellar for five
long days and waited to be found. When the
soldiers came, he was buried deep under a pile
of peat and squatting on his money.
He was sure the city could never again
be the same. As he said: “There were many
people in Antwerp who were rich and
mighty but are now poor.” Everything was
expensive. Getting out was difficult and
going because of debts or crimes, but “simply
in order to earn a living for himself and his
wife, seeing that his aforesaid craft and trade
had largely come to a halt”.
The printer Christopher Plantin had to
put out three fires threatening his presses
and pay off the soldiers at least nine times to
save his family and his property. The soldiers
helped themselves to his cash before mak-
ing their very high ransom demands,
Het Steen is a medieval fortress within
the city of Antwerp. In the sixteenth
century this fortress was rebuilt, and
it now serves as a museum.
© Anton_Ivanhov / Shutterstock
Portrait of Fernando Álvarez de Toledo,
Duke of Alba, made in 1557 by Antonis
Mor. Sent by the Spanish king to put
the Low Countries in order, he was a
deeply unpopular administrator.
© Public domain

there was no obvious refuge. Worse, the bal-
ance that had made the city so exceptional
had broken. Imperial powers now chased all
heretics instead of leaving a merchant class
alone. The Spanish troops spared only Span-
ish merchants and they spent five days trying
to ruin the English, Germans, Italians, Por-
tuguese, and Hanseatics on whom the city
also depended.
The mutineers set fires. They burned
down whole streets, some 500 houses, “be-
sides which many persons who are still be-
ing found daily”. Houses burned on some
of the bridges. The old art market, the pand
by the great marketplace, was in ashes.
Nobody was buying in any case, and
the painter Jacob Gheens said when
he moved out of town that he
was not a heretic, he was not
x
so he had quickly to find someone
else to pay them. Luis Perez, a Span-
ish merchant, obliged, and the debt
was carefully acknowledged in the
workshop accounts. Plantin was still
made to keep thirty soldiers and six-
teen horses in his house, and when
they left, much of his furniture and
goods went with them.
There was a sense of the city
being cleared. Soldiers torched the
new town hall and the attic stores
that held the city’s records. They did
Alba’s work unintentionally, spoiling
the paper trail back to the past. Alba
did more; he “pulled down the high-
est and strongest tower within the
towne, called Croneburge … the on-
lie monument of antiquity”. His cam-

This Flemish-made halberd

dates to ca. 1550.
© The Metropolitan Museum of Art
Medieval Warfare XI-5 39
 The second view of Antwerp in Braun paign “struck such a terror into everie man’s This finely-engraved
breastplate dates be-

and Hogenberg's Civitates Orbis Ter-
rarum was created just before 1598.
There have been some clear changes
since their first depiction.
© The Library of Congress
x
heart that an infinit number of merchants and tween 1525 and 1575
of the wealthiest citizens, departed foorth of and is now in the col-
lection of the Rijksmu-
Antwerp … leaving their lands and inherit- seum, Amsterdam.
ance to the wide world”. © The Rijksmuseum

Made in 1579, this engraving shows
the giant bronze statue of the Duke of
Alba that once stood in the Citadel of
Antwerp. A much-hated reminder of
Spanish rule, it was melted down once
the city came under Calvinist control.
© Public domain
The city had a brief revenge a year lat-
er when Alba and the Spanish troops were
gone. Citizens invaded the citadel as the
mutineers had invaded the city. They drained
the moat to its marshy bottom, tore down the
bastions facing the city and reduced them to
heaps of earth, and pushed over the watch-
towers. Brass Alba was melted down.
The citadel was brought back into the
city with its rather splendid houses intact
and its classical gateway and its useful, ex-
ternal walls. A new map of 1581 shows a
disorderly space between fort and city with
the outlines of the old walls just visible, but
it also shows new kinds of order.
The city became a Calvinist republic,
but that obliged the very Catholic Span-
ish to claim it back. In 1585, after a long
siege, the city fell. A third of its population
went north to help make the golden age of
Amsterdam. On the new map in Civitates,
the city is shown like any other city; the
Spanish Hapsburgs can
be sure they control it,
so there is no need to em-
phasize the point. The
citadel now stands on
maps as one more ge-
ographical feature and
there are trees planted
all along the top of the
walls. The trees did so well
their falling leaves tainted the
water for the city’s breweries.
Antwerp is just like any other town. The
citadel and the walls were not enough to
save it from no longer being perfectly ex-
traordinary. MW
Michael Pye writes for a living – as a novelist,
journalist, historian, and sometimes broad-
caster. His latest book is Europe’s Babylon:
The Rise and Fall of Antwerp’s Golden Age,
published by Pegasus Books.
 Spearheads changed little during the

x
THE WEAPON Middle Ages, making them hard to date:
this one is from anywhere between the
eleventh and fifteenth century.
© The Royal Armouries, Leeds

A WEAPON FOR SAINTS AND SOLDIERS ALIKE that it “may have been given to the

THE SPEAR
church by William Belet, who was re-
warded with the manor of Fordington
by William the Conqueror”. It goes
on to state that the central, mounted
figure is St George and that “it is re-
corded that St George came to the as-
sistance of crusaders on both the first
Many of the churches of England harbour unexpected and third crusades”. Although at first
treasures, and the otherwise rather unprepossessing this text seems fanciful, it may con-
tain a grain of truth.
church in Fordington dedicated to St George, on the out-
According to the Domesday
skirts of Dorchester in Dorset, is no exception. Over the out- Book of 1086, William Belet – ‘Wil-
er doorway is a magnificent carved tympanum – probably liam the Weasel’ – held lands in
Hampshire, Windsor, and Dorset. By
made around 1100 – depicting two groups of infantry sol- the 1090s the Belet family possessed
diers, one of which is being attacked by a mounted knight. the manor of Knighton House in Dor-
set. So there is a possible connection
between William and Fordington.
By Kay Smith and Ruth R. Brown

T
Establishing a connection between
William and the Crusades is less
he two soldiers on the left are on their knees with
easy. The battle in which St George
their hands raised, possibly in prayer. They are wear-
is claimed as coming to the rescue
ing conical helmets with nose guards and mail coifs
of the Christians is usually identi-
exactly like those depicted on the Bayeux Tapestry.
fied as the Battle of Dorylaeum in
They also appear to be wearing mail coats – hauber-
1097. Accounts of the battle are
geons – which come down to just below their knees and which
quite detailed, and it is clear that
have sleeves to the wrist. Behind them are two ‘kite-shaped’ shields
the crusaders were very close to be-
and two (or possibly three) spears.
ing overrun by the Seljuk Turks and
The three soldiers on the right being attacked have been thrown
it was the timely arrival of reinforce-
to the floor – one is lying on his back. They wear the same type
ments that saved the day.
of helmet with nose guards as those on the left, but it is not at all
However, soon a legend grew
clear what armour they are wearing. All three have oval shields with
up suggesting the victory was due
prominent bosses, which they have slung over their shoulders with
to the miraculous intervention of
leather straps. One of them appears to be holding a broken spear.
two warriors in shining armour,
The central mounted figure, riding an unarmoured horse, is
later identified as saints George
swathed in a voluminous cloak, which makes it hard to see if he is
and Demetrius, riding at the head
wearing a mail shirt. Around his unhelmeted head is a nimbus, sug-
of the knights with banners flying –
gesting a saint or angel. He is shown holding the reins in his left hand
and again this last detail connects us
and a spear in his right with which he is skewering the soldiers on
right back to Fordington with its de-
the right. A pennant, decorated with a cross and divided into three
piction of the banner attached to St
streamers, is attached what appears to be the head end of the spear –
George’s spear.
it looks as though he is attacking with the rear end of the spear.
What of the weapons depicted?
The modern label about
Apart from their shields, the infantry
the tympanum informs us
troops are all unarmed except
for the fallen warrior still clutch-
ing his short, broken spear. It is
the knight on horseback who
is armed with the ubiquitous

(Left)

shields with long lances.

© Zairon / Wikimedia Commons
 , depicting

weapon of the medieval period,

the spear. Although when
we think of crusaders, it is
the crusader sword that first
comes into our mind, in truth
the spear can be seen as the
real weapon of the crusades,
used on both sides.
The spear is one of the oldest
and most versatile of weapons and
has been used since earliest times for
war. It could be used on foot or on
horseback, with one hand or with
two, and could be used by a single
warrior fighting on his own or as
part of a company fighting to-
gether. It was relatively simple to make,
requiring just a long wooden shaft and
an iron head, though it might have an
iron shoe as well. Used on horseback it
was an effective ‘shock’ weapon, espe-
cially from an experienced warrior able
to direct it well. And of course, a spear
can also be thrown, as a dart or javelin.
But did William go on crusade?
And was he, or perhaps a close as-
sociate, present on the day? Or was
it just part of the rise of the devotion
to Saint George (to whom Fordington
parish church is dedicated), which
marked the early years of the Cru-
sades? We will probably never know,
but the tympanum at Fordington is a
fitting reminder of those far-off days,
when Dorset and Anatolia, although
far away in miles, might be linked in
experiences. MW
Kay Smith and Ruth R. Brown are lead-
ing experts in medieval weaponry.

tury, this
Dating to the early eleventh cen r London
Danish spearhead was found neathe scene
was
Bridge in the 1920s. The area this period.
x

me during
of heavy fighting someti Karwansaray Publishers
©

Medieval Warfare XI-5 43

SPECIAL

Though textual sources give us some support for the use of dogs in military applications, visual sources are far more rare. In contrast, dogs appear
frequently in medieval art as companions and particularly hunting animals, as in this early twelfth-century Spanish fresco.

CANINE COMPANIONS IN MILITARY ROLES DURING THE MIDDLE AGES By Gervase Phillips

LET SLIP THE DOGS OF WAR

In September 1270, King James I of Aragon granted custody of Játiva Castle, in central Valen-
cia, to his seneschal. A surviving charter of the time assigned a budget to provide for a gar-
rison of 30 men-at-arms, a pack animal, and “two dogs of war”. Here, therefore, we have clear
evidence for the employment of dogs in a military capacity during the medieval period. Yet
many questions remain unanswered about the nature, extent, and significance of this practice.

P
ost-conquest Valencia offers historians a particularly rich
documentary record. From these records, it is clear that
war dogs were a common component of the garrisons of
Valencia’s castles in the late thirteenth century. Usually
two, but sometimes as many as six, were often stipulat-
ed in charters, alongside provision for their maintenance and a handler.
What the records do not tell, however, is
what exactly was expected of the dogs,
nor whether this was an innovative
A spik
lea
sp
to
wh
animals, like
© The Leeds Castle
practice or one that had been long established.
Nor do they reveal what kind of dogs were be-
ing employed, where they were sourced, or
whether they received any specific training for
the duties expected of them.
We can draw some useful inferences from
the Valencian example and some fleeting refer-
ences in other sources. The allocation of dogs
as part of a garrison strongly suggests that their
principal role was as sentry dogs. Suitable dogs
could be easily sourced in an agrarian society
and would require little specialist training. It is
also worth considering the particular context of
garrisons, such as that at Játiva. Valencia was a
post-conquest society in which an uneasy mu-

44 M diev
Me diev
di eval
al War
al arfa
fare
fa r XI-
re I-55
 Dating to between 1240 and 1260, this enam-
© The Metropolitan Museum of Art

eled medallion depicts a dog attacking a boar

x
as it crosses a stream.
© The Metropolian Museum of Art

tual forbearance between Christians and Mus- so that he will not allow himself to be
lims sometimes gave way to riot and revolt. It is stroked even by those who know him
possible that the main concern of the garrisons best.” These dogs would be a menace
was not a formal siege but rather a surprise at- to friend and foe in the line of battle. We
tack, perhaps at night, launched by local insur- should thus exercise a degree of scepti-
gents. In such circumstances, a vigilant guard cism toward claims regarding canine com-
dog might well prove invaluable. batants, such as those made by the Swedish
A specific local context also seems to be ecclesiastic Olaf Magnus (1490–1557), who
of significance in another reliably attested in- wrote that Finnish cavalry rode into battle ac-
stance of the deployment of dogs in a military companied by well-disciplined hounds trained
A famous anecdote in medieval
role. In Brittany’s major ports, naval facilities to attack the muzzles of Russian horses.
bestiaries concerned a certain King
were guarded by dogs ‘worked loose’ in the Dogs were a presence with armies in Garamantes who was taken prisoner
A multi-harnessing streets. Here, the pur- the field, however, though most would not but then found and rescued by his
dog leash buckle and have had an explicitly military function. For
swivel from a medieval pose of the dog was not loyal dogs. Two different bestiaries,
dog harness. Based on merely to give warning. A example, England’s King Edward III brought the top from ca. 1300 and the bottom
similar examples, this 60 pairs of hunting dogs for his 1359–1360 from ca. 1230, depict the dogs attack-
piece can probably be Bohemian diplomat, Leo
ing Garamantes' kidnappers.
dated to the thirteenth of Rozmital, travelling campaign in France. By the sixteenth century, © Bodleian Library, MS. Douce 151, Folio 21v
or fourteenth century. across Europe in 1465– references to the employment of sentry dogs and British Library Royal MS 12 F.XIII fol. 30v
© The Portable Antiquities Sch
x eme
1467, recorded that in St.
Malo “they breed great
dogs which at night run about
the streets in place of watch-
men. When they are loosed
from their chains no one can
walk through the town, for the
dogs would immediately tear
him to pieces.”
While the use of watchdogs to protect
private property may have been widespread
over the same period, it is unlikely that
the dangerous Breton practice of hav-
ing dogs ‘worked loose’ in the streets
to protect installations was common
anywhere else. St. Malo’s guardians were
in no sense comparable to modern military
guard dogs. They were not patrolling in close
co-operation with a handler, to be unleashed
only as a final resort; they were not trained
simply to bring down and hold an intruder if
they were released. As far as we know, the only
training they received was to return to their ken-
nels at the sound of a horn in the morning.
By the sixteenth century at the latest,
some dogs were being especially trained for
guard duties and personal protection. The Bo-
lognese naturalist Ulisse Aldrovandi (1522–
1605) wrote of “dogs that defend mankind
in the course of private, and also public, con-
flicts …” Yet it is also clear that these dogs were
being trained only to defend individuals or
individual households, not for military ser-
vice, for such an animal was to be “an en-
emy to everybody but his master; so much

medieval dog collar,

A spiked stud from a een 1300 and 1500.
x

dated betw uities Scheme

tiq
© The Portable An

Medieval Warfare XI-5 45


(Top) The walls of the old fortress in
Saint Malo by night. During the Mid-
dle Ages and up until the eighteenth
century, packs of dogs were set
loose to patrol and guard the city's
naval facilities.
© kavalenkau / Shutterstock
(Bottom) Two armoured knights are
shown with a hound in this late thir-
teenth-century manuscript containing
the decretals of Gregory IX .
© The British Library, Royal 10 E IV fol. 104v
This fifteenth-century collar for hunt-
ing dogs is covered in nasty spikes.
The design for this type of collar has
changed little over the centuries, with
similar examples still in used in parts
46 Medieval Warfare XI-5
with field armies appear, such as the 400 dogs
and handlers that Olaf Magnus alleged were
given to Emperor Charles V by Henry VIII “to
provide a guard for the army”.
The ability of hunting dogs to track quar-
ry, human or animal, proved useful both in
border warfare and in the aftermath
of campaigns of conquest, when the
pursuit of raiders, thieves, or insurgents was
crucial. Anglo-Scottish war-
fare provides numerous ex-
amples. Two reliable sources,
The True Chronicles of Jean le Bel (ca.1360)
and John Barbour’s poem The Actes and Life
of the most Victorious Conqueror Robert Bruce
King of Scotland (1376), maintain that the
English king Edward I employed “sluth hund”
(sleuth hounds) to pursue the fugitive King Rob-
ert through “wilds and forests haunted by the
Scots” during the campaigns of 1306–1307.
This was an extemporised measure to counter
an elusive enemy; the dogs were not trained as
‘trackers’ are nowadays. Barbour tells us that
they were recruited locally with their handlers.
Yet, especially in the Anglo-Scots Marches, on-
going low-intensity conflict made the practice a
longstanding tradition. As late as August 1596,
during a spike in raiding, the Bishop of Durham
instructed the Earl of Huntingdon “to order the
justices strictly to revive the good orders for
watches of all kinds, slough houndes, follow-
x
of the world today.
© The Leeds Castle Museum
ing hue and cry, and putting themselves and
servants in better order for service under their
tenures and leases, in these remote partes”.
We find the clearest – and most disturb-
ing – evidence of war dogs being ‘weaponised’
in a similar context. Jean de Bethancourt, who
conquered the Canary Isles for Castile in 1402,
is alleged to have unleashed hunting dogs
against the indigenous people, the Guanches.
No match for the invaders in a set-piece battle,
the Guanches resorted to guerrilla warfare. Yet
Spanish hunting dogs could detect their pres-
ence before an ambush and could track them
as they fled. Combat thus took on the qualities
of the chase, and Bethancourt’s soldiers “took
dogs with them as if they were going sporting
down the island”. The peculiar horror associat-
ed with this campaign, though, is the develop-
ment of the montería infernal (infernal chase), in
which hunting dogs did not merely track their
victims but were deliberately set upon them.
Although its incidence was exaggerated by
polemicists such as the Dominican friar Barto-
lomé de Las Casas (1484–1566), this abhorrent
practise would soon travel to the New World in
the ships of the conquistadors. MW
Gervase Phillips is Principal Lecturer in His-
tory at Manchester Metropolitan University.
THE HISTORIANS
THE WORKS OF BRUNNER, DELBRÜCK, AND OMAN
THE ‘SCIENCE’ OF THE
HEAVY CAVALRYMAN
In the last of these columns, the emergence of the scientific study of history
was noted as something that changed the discipline radically. One of the
products of this was a huge output of medieval source material, far beyond
anything that had previously been available in both quantity and quality.
O
ne effect of this was to
produce an enormous in-
terest in the reign of Char-
lemagne (768–814), who
seemed to have restored order from
the chaos of the early medieval ages.
Even down to today there is only one
critical study of the great emperor, that
of Fichtenau, produced shortly after
the Second World War when, perhaps,
the vision of a dictator imposing peace
on Europe lacked appeal. But the
nineteenth century was also an age of
rampant nationalism, and much (more
or less) scholarly effort was spent on
deciding whether Charlemagne was
Charles le Grand or Karl der Grosse.
Happily, not all historical ef-
fort was wasted on this, but his era
did attract a great deal of attention.
And one of the results of this was a
desire to understand and explain his
The Carolingian Empire
By Heinrich Fichtenau
ISBN: 978-0802063670
University of Toronto Press (1978)
48 Medieval Warfare XI-5
extraordinary military success. Visibly
this had not been achieved by gentle
persuasion, so how had it happened?
The military of the Carolingian era,
therefore, commanded attention and
intensive research. It was noted that
our sources refer to Charlemagne’s
grandfather, Charles Martel (714–741),
giving church land to soldiers, many
of whom appear from other sources
to have been mounted. It is one of the
problems of writing history that we do
it not merely under the influence of the
present, but also of all sorts of events in
the intervening time. So the idea grew
that these mounted men were knights,
the sort of heavily armed cavalry we
see in the eleventh and twelfth centu-
ries and later. It was then believed that
their characteristic tactic was the mass
charge. This meant that knights gath-
ered in numbers and threw themselves
at the enemy – inflicting psychological
shock by appearance and mass, and
wreaking havoc by using the couched
lance tucked under the armpit, so that
the momentum of horse and man was
imparted to its point, which, thereby,
became unstoppable.
These ideas were the product
of a number of researchers, but they
were synthesized in a famous article
of 1887 by Heinrich Brunner, who
dismissed the armies of early medieval
states as poorly armed, disorganized,
and largely infantry. These, Brunner
suggested, were revolutionized by
Charles Martel who, in response to
Medieval Military Technology
By Kelly DeVries and Robert Douglas Smith
ISBN: 978-14442604971
University of Toronto Press (2012)
the challenge of the mounted war-
riors of Islam, developed the heavily
armoured cavalrymen who later gen-
erations called ‘the knights’, whose
characteristic tactic was the shock ef-
fect of the mass charge. The mention
of Islam needs some explanation. In
732/33 the governor of Islamic Spain
led an army into what is now France.
He was defeated and killed in battle
near Tours. This invasion was assumed
to be the start of an attempted Islamic
conquest of Europe, and as a result in
the nineteenth century Charles was
hailed as the saviour of Christendom
and the battle was seen as a major
event. It was also believed that the
Arabs were a mounted army. Thus, it
was to defeat the Arab menace that
Charles had invented a new kind of
soldier. This notion of the sudden ‘in-
vention’ was rejected by important
writers of what became classic works
of military history, Oman, Delbrück,
and Lot, who suggested that the heav-
ily armed cavalryman evolved through
late Merovingian times, but they did
not reject the main outline of what
is called the ‘Brunner thesis’, that the
emergence of the heavy cavalryman
was an important cause of the rise of
the Carolingian Empire.
It is no accident that these ideas
were developed in the late nineteenth
century. Europeans of this era were
very conscious of the great changes

that had come about in a very short
time, distinguishing their way of life
from that of the past. In fact, the Ger-
man state was the creation of Prussian
military power that had triumphed in
three wars in part due to the introduc-
tion of new technology. So, the belief
in the sudden development of a tech-
nical military instrument, the knight,
seemed a perfectly reasonable expla-
nation for Carolingian eminence. The
optimism of the developing Atlantic
world encouraged bold efforts at sci-
entific explanation. The wealth gen-
erated by the Industrial Revolution
underpinned and systematized the
professional study of the past. German
universities were recognized as cen-
tres of excellence and their scholars
were practitioners of the new scientif-
ic history. At the same time, Germany
was the leading military power in Eu-
rope. The army had enormous prestige
and attracted much scholarly interest.
Only three years later, in 1890, Alfred
Thayer Mahan published his famous
Influence of Sea Power upon History
1660–1783. Interestingly, this Ameri-
can historian wrote about sea powers,
for in the English-speaking world na-
vies were much more highly regarded.
The scope of the ‘Brunner thesis’
was enormous and in a sense defined
the study of military history for gener-
ations. This heavy cavalry enabled the
Carolingians not only to fight off the
History of the Art of War, Volume III:
Medieval Warfare
By Hans Delbrück
ISBN: 978-0803265851
University of Nebraska Press (1982)
Islamic challenge, but also to conquer
the peoples around them and so to es-
tablish a mighty ‘Empire’. This was all
the more convincing in that nobody
had worked out an alternative expla-
nation for his military success. In ad-
dition, the ‘Brunner thesis’ suggested
that that the foundation of this empire
was the ‘fief’, the land granted to en-
able a soldier to equip himself in the
new and dominant style of mounted
warfare. So, this construct explained
the growth of ‘feudalism’ as a response
to the Islamic threat and the extraordi-
nary success of Charlemagne. It also
suggested reasons for the fall of this
empire. The system by which men
were paid in fiefs in return for military
service had, it could be argued, inher-
ent centrifugal tendencies, notably a
tendency to become hereditary. This,
it was suggested, ultimately helped to
undermine the Carolingian ‘Empire’
and also provided the basis of the new
society of the period after 1000 which
was based on what used to be called
the ‘feudal system’. Therewith it gave
us a highly convincing explanation
for the origins of feudal monarchy and
for the emergence of the ‘knight’, who
was seen to dominate warfare until
the Hundred Years’ War.
The ‘Brunner thesis’ effectively
laid down the shape of European
military history. Hans Delbrück pro-
duced a highly authoritative History of
Warfare in the Framework of Political
History (1900–1908). He knew that
there had always been horsemen in
armies and he doubted the idea of a
sudden ‘invention’ of the knight. But in
his third volume, he saw the heavily
armoured cavalryman as “completely
different from the warrior of the earli-
est Germanic period”. The knight was
the key factor in the emergence of the
Carolingian Empire and, he suggest-
ed, remained dominant down to the
emergence of disciplined infantry after
1300. Sir Charles Oman wrote a his-
tory of warfare which, until recently,
dominated the subject in the English-
speaking world. He argued that at the
By John France
The Art of War in the
Middle Ages 378-1515
Edited by Nirmal Dass
ISBN: 978-0801490620
Cornell University Press (revised ed. 1960)
Battle of Hastings the ‘old-fashioned’
Saxon footmen were conquered by
the ‘modern’ knight imported from
Normandy. This view was undoubted-
ly amplified for many readers by study
of a single source, the Bayeux Tapestry.
In summary, the ‘Brunner thesis’
suggested that the cavalryman of the
eighth century could be identified
with the knight of the eleventh cen-
tury onwards and argued that this was
a new means of war which enabled
the Carolingians, who first recognised
its potential, to dominate Europe. The
equipment of a heavy cavalryman was
very expensive, and the Carolingians
provided for this cost by allocating
land grants to soldiers: ‘fiefs’, which
were used to support these expenses.
Delbrück, with some reason, calcu-
lated that the cost of such equipment
amounted to that of all ”the large do-
mestic animals of a whole village”.
This structure of reward after 1000
eventually underlay the structure of
the feudal states whose main armies
were dominated by knights. In the
fourteenth century a new infantry
emerged, which led to radical chang-
es. One can see why the ‘Brunner the-
sis’ was so popular, because it seemed
to explain almost everything! MW
John France is professor emeritus,
Department of History and Classics,
Swansea University.
Medieval Warfare XI-5 49
SPECIAL

Fergus of Galloway meets with his ally Óláfr

Guðrøðarson, King of Dublin and the Isles. These
two twelfth-century rulers were faced with similar
challenges in maintaining their independence
during a time when England and Scotland were
becoming more powerful kingdoms.
© Zvonimir Grbasic

50 Medieval Warfare XI-5

THE KINGDOM THAT NEVER WAS
FERGUS OF
GALLOWAY
The autonomous Galloway of the twelfth cen-
tury was precariously suspended between the
fraying seaward-facing world of the Norse–
Gaels, the waxing power of Scotland, and the
looming shadow of English overlordship. Un-
der Fergus’ energetic and capable rulership,
Galloway reached a zenith of status and
recognition, only to fall victim to a sudden
and precipitous campaign of subjugation.
L
ocated upon the coast of what is now
south-western Scotland, Galloway was,
prior to its annexation by Malcolm IV, an
independent and distinct marcher region
of plastic loyalties and a layered multifac-
eted cultural identity. The area marked a confluence
between the expanded and increasingly Normanized
Kingdom of Scotland and the Norse periphery focused
and organized upon the increasingly chaotic Kingdom
of the Isles. The extensive nature of Norse and later
Norse–Gael settlement to the region during the ninth
century effectively detached and distinguished the area
from surrounding political and cultural affinities.
That the name Galloway itself is derived from the
phrase “amongst the Stranger-Gael” demonstrates the
extent to which the hybrid culture created within the
area came to be regarded as distinct and separate from
its Scottish neighbours or former Northumbrian mas-
ters. Following the collapse of King Magnus Barefoot’s
Norwegian empire in 1103, the local Norse–Gaelic ar-
istocracy capitalized upon the resulting power vacuum,
quickly reasserting their independence and authority.
Throughout this period there is little evidence regarding
the political organization and coherency of Galloway,
which as we shall see makes it difficult to determine the
parameters and conditions of Fergus’ authority.
Prior to Fergus’ rise to power, it seems that the Gall-
ovidians had a relatively strong sense of cultural and
regional identity, created from the blending of Norse
By James Turner
and Gaelic groups, but that they were politically frag-
mented. Frustratingly, how Fergus styled himself within
his own charters and the title he used within Galloway
itself are unknown, perhaps because of circumstances
surrounding his deposition. Throughout his tenure as
ruler of Galloway, Fergus makes frequent appearances
within the witness lists of David I, the great reformer
of Scottish kingship. This does not necessarily amount
to an unqualified recognition of Scottish sovereignty,
although on balance it seems probable that Fergus rec-
ognized, whether implicitly or explicitly, some form of
Scottish overlordship. Fergus is described within these
Scottish royal charters by the simple identifier “of Gal-
loway”. While stopping short of assigning him the status
of a sub-king, it is a more elemental and inalienable
form of address than the styling of comparable aristo-
crats as earls. The Chronicle of Holyrood refers to Fer-
gus as princeps or prince, a clearly royal title tradition-
ally applied to independent rulers. The usage and exact
definition of such titles, however, are, like all languages,
inherently prone to mutation in response to the cultural
and political context. In mainland Britain, one of the
primary contextual factors that had taken place over the
last three or four centuries was the consolidation and
absorption of a plethora of minor regional kingdoms.
The absorption of regional powers and affinities by
England and Scotland was a prolonged process that was
by no means inevitable or straightforward. In 927, mul-
tiple kings within Scotland had aligned themselves with
Scandinavian settlers, precisely because they feared
how far north the English would push in their pursuit
of the Vikings. During Fergus’ rise to power in the early
twelfth century, the delineation between the two king-
doms had become still more complex; amongst their
numerous other titles, Henry I and David I ruled as King
of the English and King of the Scots, respectively.
Yet the writ of both men ran through territory inhab-
ited by multiple, often layered ethnolinguistic groups.
Henry I was a Norman, the ruler of a cross-channel
realm whose European domains came to encompass
formally distinctive and independent regions such as
Brittany and Maine. Henry attempted to cultivate a per-
ception of continuity between his own reign and that
of Edward the Confessor, adapting the traditional in-
stitutions and powers of Anglo-Saxon kingship. Mean-
while in Scotland, there was significant Norse–Gaelic
influence in Galloway, Argyll, and the Highlands, all
of which were politically oriented towards the Norse-
dominated Irish Sea and the Kingdom of the Isles. Al-
most paradoxical in reaction to these challenges, David
Medieval Warfare XI-5 51
 I and his immediate successors encouraged and facili-
tated first Norman and then Flemish settlement within
southern Scotland. The adoption of Norman cultural
trappings and institutions by the Scottish kings was part
of a rigorous programme to create a powerful and cen-
tralized monarchy. Foreign settlement within Scotland
further catalyzed this transition, promoted economic
growth, and provided the Scottish kings with a pool of
allies unaffiliated with existing factions or affinities.
We have a tendency to see the rise of England and
Scotland as inevitable, almost as if both were entities
that merely grew and settled into their preordained
shapes. This is obviously not the case. Rather than the
political or institutional manifestation of specific cul-
tures, the medieval incarnations of England and Scot-
land were the result of great tangles of interconnected
and reciprocal networks of personal, familial, and
regional affinities. The history of Galloway ably dem-
onstrates the dangers inherent in seeing the emergent
or newly reconstituted kingdoms of medieval Europe
as indivisible and natural political units. The rise and
fall of Fergus of Galloway, and his unenviable position
within the conflux of the growing power and ambition
of Scottish kings and the hegemonic machinations and
dynastic engineering of Anglo-Norman overlordship,
reminds us how the shape and orientation of the British
Isles remained balanced on a knife-edge.
Marriage connections
Scottish sources suggest that Fergus was relatively elder-
ly at the time of his death in 1161 and it seems probable
that he was born sometime in the 1090s and grew up
amidst the fallout of the collapse of Magnus Barefoot’s
authority over the Norse–Gael population of the British
Isles. Frustratingly, as with so much else concerning the
history of Galloway prior to its incorporation within the
Kingdom of Scotland, there is little to no information
about Fergus’ origins or family circumstances, beyond
the fact that he was almost certainly a Gallovidian of
Norse–Gaelic extraction. There is some evidence that
Fergus’ original holdings were concentrated within cen-
tral Galloway, and that his rise to prominence may have
come through the opportunistic westward expansion
into Norse–Gael affinities that had been thrown into
chaos by the internecine warfare that had engulfed the
Kingdom of the Isles. Fergus’ first appearance within the
historical record comes in 1134 when he can be found,
alongside his son Uhtred, in Glasgow witnessing a char-
ter of King David I of Scotland. Fergus is identified in
the witness lists with the toponym “of Galloway”, which
clearly demonstrates that Fergus has already established
himself in a position of pre-eminence within the region.
52 Medieval Warfare XI-5
It appears that Fergus was married to an unknown
illegitimate daughter of Henry I of England. The English
chronicler, Roger of Howden, explicitly describes Fer-
gus’ younger son Uhtred as a cousin of Henry II. Fergus’
two remaining children, Gille Brigte and Affraic, are not
explicitly mentioned as part of this dynastic connection,
but Robert of Torigni later describes Affraic’s son, King
Guðrøðr Óláfsson of Dublin, as a maternal relative of
Henry II. Repeated solicitations for protection and pa-
tronage to the Angevin kings of England by Gille Brigte
and his son also strongly suggest a shared familial bond.
The marriage between Fergus, a powerful regional
ruler strategically located on the Anglo-Norman periph-
ery, and one of the king’s numerous illegitimate daugh-
ters must be seen within the context of the advancement
and exertion of Anglo-Norman overlordship within the
British Isles. After all, Fergus’ neighbour, King Alexander
of Scotland, was married to another of Henry’s illegiti-
mate daughters, Sybill. While these strategic marriages
were undoubtedly an attempt to enhance Henry’s au-
thority and influence within Scotland, they were not
necessarily intended to facilitate conquest or direct
rule. Instead, Henry’s overlordship was exerted through
the induction of his neighbours as junior partners in a
shared dynastic enterprise. In northern France, Henry
had similarly arranged for his children to marry the rul-
ers of many of the autonomous or semi-autonomous ter-
ritories that surrounded his continental domains. These
marriages created buffer zones that secured Henry’s
borders and drew these lesser domains further into al-
liance and political alignment with the Anglo-Norman
realm. This strategy of exertion of overlordship and pro-
jection of influence through the creation of dynastic and
political alliances can also be seen in the conferring of
the lordship of an enlarged Cumbria upon the future
David I, as well as the sponsorship and support of Óláfr
Guðrøðarson as King of Dublin and the Isles.
Fergus’ marriage secured his pre-eminent position
amongst the aristocracy of Galloway, allowing him and
his sons to continue to consolidate their power within
the region. More importantly, it imposed an equilib-
rium between Galloway, England, and Scotland that
must have seemed at the time like a formidable barrier
to Scottish aggression. Fergus would later build upon
the associations cultivated by Henry I when he married
his daughter Affraic to Óláfr Guðrøðarson, a natural al-
liance between two Norse–Gaelic rulers who had both
been patronized by Henry I. If the efficacy of this ar-
rangement was compromised by the early death of Al-
exander in 1124, Fergus must surely have been placat-
ed by Henry I’s support for David’s bid to the throne and
the new Scottish king’s inclination towards cooperation.
 This state of affairs and the broad acknowledg-
ment of Anglo-Norman overlordship similarly suited
David I, securing his southern borders and allowing
him to concentrate on the reduction and incorpora-
tion of the truculent Scottish nobility into his fledg-
ing realm. The cultivation of a constructive relation-
ship with Henry I abetted David’s centralization and
reform of Scottish kingship through the importation
and adoption of Norman systems. Part of this pro-
gramme of emulation was his insinuation into paral-
lel ecclesiastical and monastic networks. Cultivating
the support of the Church within Scotland enhanced
David’s legitimacy and temporal power by acting as
a conduit for his authority and increasing his access
to Church lands and offices.
Likewise, the establishment and patronage of mon-
asteries fostered important European-wide connections
while also creating crucial repositories of spiritual and
financial resources. When viewed within this context,
Fergus’ own engagement with the Church and exten-
sive efforts as a monastic patron take on a greater politi-
cal significance. In 1128, Archbishop Thurstan of York
re-established the long-defunct Diocese of Whithorn,
which encompassed almost the entirety of Galloway.
This revival was a significant boon to Fergus, provid-
ing him with a powerful potential ally and advocate in
the form of the new bishop, while the newly enforced
administrative structure worked to reinforce Galloway’s
coherency and distinction as a region. Fergus and his
immediate successors also established numerous mon-
asteries from a variety of orders including Augustine,
Benedictine, and Cistercian houses within Galloway,
enhancing their status, spiritual capital, and the eco-
nomic prospects of the region.
The Scottish invasion of 1160
The death of Henry I in 1135 did not have an immedi-
ate detrimental effect on Fergus’ status or relationship
with the Scottish kings. A strong Gallovidian contin-
gent, perhaps led by either Fergus or one of his sons,
accompanied David I in his invasion of England in
1138. While this cooperation could be due to a rec-
ognition on Fergus’ part of David’s overlordship, it
probably also reflects the fact that both rulers had a
close familial relationship to King Stephen of England’s
primary dynastic rival, Matilda. In a way, Fergus, now
isolated within Scotland, was perhaps even more heav-
ily incentivized than David to see that Matilda was re-
stored to her father’s throne.
Fergus and his ally King Óláfr of the Isles enjoyed
a substantial degree of success, bringing the face-
tious kingdom some measure of stability. However,
Óláfr’s assassination by his nephews in 1153 led to
a spiralling cycle of violence, which seriously dam-
aged Gallovidian power. This process began with the
massacre of the Isle of Man’s substantial Gallovidian
population and was followed by a pre-emptive inva-
sion of western Galloway, which had to be bloodily
repulsed. While Fergus’ grandson Guðrøðr was able
to temporarily secure his father’s throne with Norwe-
gian support, this brought only a short reprieve. There
was blood in the water, and Guðrøðr’s increasingly
desperate and frantic wars continued to consume
Gallovidian lives and resources until his final ousting
from power in 1158. For Fergus, this situation was fur-
ther compounded by the death of David I in 1153 and
the political upheaval and wrangling that followed the
accession of his young grandson, Malcolm IV.
The reason for Malcolm IV’s sudden and decisive
invasion of Galloway in 1160 remains opaque. Fergus’
authority and power were certainly at a low ebb, and
there is some chronicler evidence suggesting signifi-
cant dissent and conflict within Galloway at this time
as the weakened Fergus vied with his own sons and
local rivals. In the immediate prelude to the invasion,
Malcolm was engaged heavily in quelling a rebellion
of Scottish lords led by Earl Ferteth of Strathearn. It is
possible that Fergus was attempting to rally his flagging
fortunes by either directly supporting the rebels or seiz-
ing upon the chance presented by the revolt to expand
his power beyond Galloway. Alternatively, Malcolm,
faced with continuing aristocratic discontent, may have
orchestrated the invasion of a weakened Galloway as a
means of increasing his personal prestige and of uniting
the divided Scottish nobility against a common enemy.
Whatever the exact reason, Malcolm subdued
Galloway over the course of three military expedi-
tions that scythed through Fergus’ powerbase and
eventually compelled him to submit. Galloway was
subsequently divided between Fergus’ sons, which
may suggest they had supported the Scottish king,
while the former ruler of Galloway was forced into
confinement at Holyrood Abbey where he died the
following year. While King Malcolm certainly took
the opportunity to reinforce and expand royal author-
ity over Galloway, the spectres of Gallovidian inde-
pendence and Anglo-Norman interventionism and
overlordship were far from banished. Both would be
summoned in turn with momentous results by Fergus’
sons and grandsons in their internecine struggle for
control over Galloway. MW
James Turner has recently completed his doctoral
studies at Durham University.
Medieval Warfare XI-5 53
© Moonchild69 / Shutterstock

Built on the site of an earlier town,

Rhuddlan Castle was completed in
1282. It has a unique 'diamond'
layout, with the gates built at the
corners of the square baileys, in-
stead of along the sides, which is a
more typical design.

THE WELSH CASTLES OF EDWARD I By Vicky McAlister

COLONIZATION SET IN STONE

“Whatever one’s views are of the Edwardian conquest of north and Beaumaris. They started to be
constructed between 1277 and 1295.
Wales, from the point of view of building history, the construction of
I use ‘started’ deliberately, for despite
the castles is one of the greatest achievements of the Middle Ages.” their infamy, the scheme Edward en-

S
o writes castle scholar John
Kenyon of the castles con-
structed in Wales by King
Edward I of England (1272–
© Bodleian Library, MS. Rawl. C. 292, fol. 9r
1307). A small cluster of stone castles
in the north of the country have seized
popular and scholarly attention, even
though there are many castles of
many types and appearances
across Wales. For many, their ap-
peal is their martial appearance,
which has led these castles to be
described as the high point of
castle architecture. But equally
as fascinating is their psycho-
visaged was never completed.
South Wales had a longstanding
Norman presence, but the north firm-
ly remained culturally Welsh by the
thirteenth century. There was little na-
tional unity in medieval Wales; it was
dominated by several lords and na-
tive kingdoms. By the mid-thirteenth
century, the principality of Gwynedd
was foremost among these. In 1267,
the English had been forced to recog-
nize Llywelyn ap Gruffydd as Prince

logical effect as tools of coloni-
zation. Some of these remark-
able castles even became World
Heritage Sites. In this Edwardian
group, seven were new builds:
Aberystwyth, Flint, Rhuddlan,
Conwy, Caernarfon, Harlech,
of Wales, and this put the English on
the defensive. Llywelyn was expected
to do homage to Edward I when he
succeeded the throne from his father
and was crowned king, but Llywelyn
did not attend the coronation, setting
the scene for the First Welsh War. Lly-

X An image of Edward I appears

in this initial from a collection
54 Medieval Warfare XI-5 of English writs and statutes
dated to ca. 1320.

© The National Library of Wales
welyn had to accept a treaty with the
English, and they claimed territory in
Wales at his expense. The conclusion
of this period of warfare heralded the
first phase of Welsh castle building
by Edward I, as few were convinced
that peace would last. Edward’s intent
was solidified by a Welsh rebellion in
1294–1295 led by Madog ap Llywe-
lyn. This revolt occurred in the midst
of Edward’s castle-building plans,
and the last castle, Beaumaris, was
begun in the wake of it.
The Welsh castles look differ-
ent from one another yet are often
heralded as having some of the best
examples of cutting-edge later medi-
eval military architecture. One of the
primary reasons why castle scholars
are attracted to the Welsh castles of
conquest is their symmetrical appear-
ance. The best known are concentric
in design; that is, circles of defences.
In concentric castles the outer curtain
walls are overlooked by the inner. This
inner wall should
therefore be both
higher and thicker
than the outer. These
features were known
long before Wales,
© AJ Marshalll / Wikime
but they were brought
together in a unique
way in thirteenth-cen-
tury northern Wales.
dia Commons
The most symmetrical and concentric
castle of them all, Beaumaris, was left
unfinished. Despite this, as a group,
they almost surround the Welsh king-
dom of Gwynedd, and Robert Liddi-
ard calls them a “ring of stone”.
Edward was supported in his
efforts by a master builder-architect
called Master James of St George,
who came from Savoy and had a
distinguished castle-building career
there before he arrived in Wales. It
is highly unusual to know who the
architect of even the grandest castles
was. We have knowledge of James of
St George because of the level of doc-
umentation surviving from Edward’s
castle-building campaign. Edward es-
tablished an office of works in London
with an outpost in Chester, which was
close to the march with Wales. These
offices were responsible for funding
and administering the construction
and restoration of castles
in Wales. Some of the
(Left) Detail of a window at Chillon
zerland. Edward I's master builder Jam
was probably French and got his star
on t
on
Chhhi
C
iinnng
(R The gatehouse of Harlech Castle. Com
it
THE CASTLE
X
This drawing from 1781
was made by Thomas
Pennant for his eight-
volume A tour in Wales.
It depicts Conwy Castle,
which was constructed
between 1283 and 1289.
surviving accounts from
these offices have been
published as The His-
tory of the King’s Works
in Wales from archival
materials held in the
National Archives, Kew.
These documents offer
insight into the huge sums
of money spent on build-
ing the castles, including
almost 3,000 workmen hired to work
on Flint and Rhuddlan Castles. But
even with these accounts, we do not
have a full idea of the costs involved
in this castle-building campaign. It
must have been eye-wateringly vast
sums of money though, even when
the king could rely on others to help
fund and supply his endeavours.
The Welsh castles would have
been influenced by both Edward I
and James of St George’s experiences,
including Edward’s military time in
Wales, France, Cyprus, and the Holy
Lands. Despite the commonalities in
origins, the Edwardian castles all look
very different from one another, as the
accompanying images clearly show.
This was probably at least partly in-
fluenced by topography as well as the
phases of warfare with the Welsh. In
1282, the Second Welsh War com-
© Tom Parnell / Wikimedia Common
Castle in Swit-
es of St George
t building fortresses
s
pleted 1289,
menced. During this war, Lly-
welyn ap Gruffydd was killed,

© Haydnrsdavies / Wikimedia Commons

which removed the focal indi-
vidual from the Welsh perspec-
tive. After the treaty established

© Ray Jones / Wikimedia Commons

by the Statute of Rhuddlan in
1284, the castle-building cam-
paign got underway.

Symbolism and comforts Flint Castle was built between 1277 and
Parallels can be drawn between Ed- 1284. Close to Chester, it could also be
resupplied by water via the nearby River
ward I’s north Wales castles and Dee. It was largely destroyed by Parlia- Constructed between 1277-1289, Ab-
mentarians in the seventeenth century. erystwyth Castle traded hands multiple
towns such as Carcassonne in the times during the Middle Ages, with
south of France. Both are concentric of Anglesey, often referred to as the the Welsh and English both holding it
but, in addition, both intended to for periods of time. It was also de-
grain basket of Wales, as well as be- stroyed in the seventeenth century.
‘plant’ people loyal to the king in the
ing strategically important for Irish Sea
landscape. This intent made Edward’s a Welsh prince and hero and potential
trade routes. No doubt the king hoped
Welsh castles tools of colonization. focal point for future Welsh rebellion.
his settlers would come to support
The best known of these planned Edward had a keen sense of
the castles more practically in time,
towns in association with castles are symbolism and how this could play
so their foundations were as much
Conwy and Caernarfon, but most of
economic as symbolic. Sites would a role in the subjugation of Wales.
the castles had settlements located
be simply moved if it was convenient Pity his wife who was sent to Wales
by them. These boroughs contained
for castle-building: at Conwy the ab- to give birth to the first English Prince
English people, who were protected
bey of Aberconwy was located in the of Wales at Caernarfon, at the time
and reassured by the presence of the
king’s castle. Documents attest to the place Edward had selected for his new still very much a building site! The
efforts to stock and provision the cas- castle and town. Consequently, the castle was built from 1283 until at
tles, which included ensuring water- monks were evicted and the abbey least 1330, but in spite of this it was
based access was protected. This was re-established eight miles away. This not finished. Caernarfon is the clear-
the motivation for building Beau- also conveniently removed the burial est display of Edward’s propaganda: it
maris, which is located on the island place of Llywelyn the Great (d. 1240), was tied to Christian Rome from the

© Bodleian Library MS. Bodl. Rolls 3

England to Edward I.

56 Medieval Warfare XI-5

 THE CASTLE

X
Despite being under construction be-
tween 1283 and 1330, Caernarfon Cas-
tle was never finished. Edward I's most
expensive Welsh castle, it projected
his power and authority. Eagle Tower
(shown here) also provided luxurious
accomodations for the castle's occupants.

ing the layout throughout, not just in

the mural towers. It is well supplied
with garderobes, always a sure sign
of a comfortable intent in a medieval
© S-F / Shutterstock

castle! Something we take for granted

today, but which was more unusual at
the time, is that Caernarfon Castle had
water piped into the kitchen. How-
ever, this was not the most impressive
outset. Its walls have variously been
have eleven separate households oc- water feature of Edward’s Welsh cas-
ascribed to influence from the Theo-
cupying it. Caernarfon’s best rooms tles. That accolade goes to Beaumaris,
dosian walls of Constantinople or the
are within the Eagle Tower – another which had two pairs of latrines in
Roman walls of York, and/or drawing
example of the efforts to visually tie each of the eastern and western cur-
on Master James’ namesake castle: the castle to imperial Rome, but also tain walls. These were fit with ventila-
Saint-Georges-d’Espéranche, which of luxurious standard for the first jus- tion shafts and seats. Best of all, the
like Caernarfon had polygonal tow- ticiar, Otto de Grandson, Edward’s latrine pit was flushed by the tide en-
ers. It was the penultimate castle Ed- main deputy in Wales. tering and exiting the castle moat. At
ward started in Wales and was prob- Despite being incomplete, Caer- Conwy Castle and Beaumaris Castle,
ably the most expensive. It is a good narfon was the administrative centre the royal apartments were linked to a
example, too, of how castles were for northern Wales. Caernarfon has private chapel, and at the former there
rarely built on greenfield sites, even been interpreted as reflecting Ed- was a garden next to them, too, for the
these ‘new’ Welsh castles. One bailey ward’s concept of chivalry and his queen’s use. The chapels and gardens
at Caernarfon made sure to enclose interest in Arthurian romance. By remind us that even these most mili-
the late eleventh-century motte built conveniently discovering the remains tary of castles were not solely about
by Earl Hugh of Chester, himself of of Magnus Maximus, in legend the fa- warfare and domination. MW
Norman background, and was near ther of the Roman emperor Constan-
the Roman remains of Segontium, tine and legendary great-grandfather Vicky McAlister is Associate Profes-
which appeared in the Welsh saga of King Arthur, Edward linked the his- sor of History at Southeast Missouri
the Mabinogion. In 1294, Caernarfon tory of the site to both imperial Rome State University. Her book The Irish
town was taken by the Welsh and and famous literature. Caernarfon Tower House: Society, Economy
the town walls and castle were badly Castle is also very geometric, with and Environment c.1350–1650 is
damaged. Upon recapture the follow- hexagons and octagons dominat- now available in paperback.
ing year, the priority was to repair the
© stocker1970 / Shutterstock

town’s walls. Considering this multi-

layered symbolism, it is strange that
a statue of Edward II, born Prince of
Wales, was not added to the front of
the King’s Gate until 1320.
The Welsh castles were very well
supplied in terms of accommodation,
which may have been Master James’
special purview. These were intended
to be comfortable palaces as well as
colonial fortresses. Rhuddlan Castle
has its royal apartments in the inner
curtain walls. Beaumaris Castle could
Completed in 1330, Beaumaris Castle
has the most concentric and symmetrical
layout of all the Welsh castles, which
becomes particularly apparent when the
structure is viewed from the air.
X
FURTHER READING Medieval Warfare readings
CAREER WARRIORS In the late Middle Ages, Le Jouvencel wasn't the only work written by or about
men with long military careers. Here are some books and articles on that topic.
Jean de Bueil: Le Jouvencel
Translated by Craig Taylor and Jane H M Taylor
Boydell Press, 2020
ISBN: 978-1783275403
The Book of Geoffroi de Charny
with the Livre Charny
By Ian Wilson and Nigel Bryant
Boydell Press, 2021
ISBN: 978-1783275854
The Chronicle of the Good
Duke Louis II Bourbon
Translated by Steven Muhlberger
Freelance Academy Press, 2021
ISBN: 978-1937439545
This issue would not have been possible without the work of
Craig Taylor and Jane H M Taylor. These two accomplished
medievalists combined their specialties - Craig works on
medieval military history, while Jane focuses on medieval
French literature - to grapple with the text of Le Jouvencel and
create an English translation. It is not their only collaboration
either, as they translated an early fifteenth-century biography
of Boucicaut, a leading French military commander.
Other articles and publications
• Allmand, Christopher, "Between honor and the com-
mon good: the testimony of Jouvencel the XVth cen-
tury," Historical Review, Vol.123: 3 (1999), 463-482.
• Blanchard, Joel, "Write the war in the XVth cen-
tury," The French Way, Vol. 24-25 (1989), 7-21.
• Chan Tsin, Mathieu, "Medieval Romances and Mil-
itary History: Marching Orders in Jean de Bueil's Le
Jouvencel introduit aux armes," Journal of Medieval
Military History, Vol.7 (2009), 127-134.
• Harari, Yuval Noah, “Military Memoirs: A Histori-
cal Overview of the Genre from the Middle Ages
to the Late Modern Era,” War in History, Vol.14:3
(2007), 289-309.
• Medeiros, Marie-Thérèse de, “Defense and illustra-
tion of war: The youth of Jean de Bueil”, Medieval
research papers, Vol. 5 (1998), 139-152.
• Michaud-Fréjaville, Françoise, "The companion
without memory: the siege of Orleans in the Jou-
vencel of Jean de Bueil", Medieval research papers,
Vol,.12 (2005), 101-111.
58 Medieval Warfare XI-5
The Chivalric Biography of
Boucicaut, Jean II le Meingre
Translated by Craig Taylor and Jane H M Taylor
Boydell Press, 2016
ISBN: 978-1783271665
The Song of Bertrand du Guesclin
Translated by Nigel Bryant
Boydell Press, 2019
ISBN: 978-1783272273
Sir Thomas Gray: Scalacronica, 1272-1363
Translated by Andy King
Surtees Society, 2005
ISBN: 978-0854440795
Another person who deserves a lot of credit in
researching Le Jouvencel is Matthieu Chan Tsin. As a
graduate student he worked on this text, and produced
a PhD dissertation entitled “Jean de Bueil: Reactionary
knight,” with Perdue University in 2005. It can be found
online. One hopes that with the recent translation of Le
Jouvencel, we will soon see much more interest and
research into this text.
• Pinto-Mathieu, Elisabeth, "Charles VII and the
royal figure in the Jouvencel of Jean de Bueil", in
The power of letters under the reign of Charles
VII (1422-1461), ed. Florence Bouchet, Sebast-
ien Cazalas and Philippe Maupeu (Champion,
2020), 151-164.
• Potter, David, “Chivalry and Professionalism in the
French Armies of the Renaissance,” in The Chivalric
Ethos and Military Professionalism, ed. D.J.B. Trim
(Brill, 2002), 149-182.
• Szkilnik, Michelle, “Displeasure of the court and joy
of the battlefield in the Jouvencel of Jean de Bueil”,
Le moyen français, Vol.62 (2008), 117-132.
• Szkilnik, Michelle, "The beautiful faiz of the good
king of France: Charles VII in the Jouvencel of Jean
de Bueil", in Myths at the court, myths for the court
(courtly mythologies). Proceedings of the XIIth
Congress of the International Society of courtly lit-
erature, July 29-August 4, 2007, ed. Alain Corbel-
lari et al. (Droz, 2010), 209-228.