Journal of Medieval Military History. Volume V [5] 1843833395, 9781843833390, 9781846155604

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THE JOURNAL OF

Medieval Military History Volume V

THE JOURNAL OF MEDIEVAL MILITARY HISTORY

Editors Clifford J. Rogers Kelly DeVries John France

ISSN 1477–545X

The Journal, an annual publication of De re militari: The Society for Medieval Military History, covers medieval warfare in the broadest possible terms, both chronologically and thematically. It aims to encompass topics ranging from traditional studies of the strategic and tactical conduct of war, to explorations of the martial aspects of chivalric culture and mentalité, examinations of the development of military technology, and prosopographical treatments of the composition of medieval armies. Editions of previously unpublished documents of significance to the field are included. The Journal also seeks to foster debate on key disputed aspects of medieval military history. The editors welcome submissions to the Journal, which should be formatted in accordance with the style-sheet provided on De re militari’s website (www.deremilitari.org), and sent electronically to the editor specified there.

THE JOURNAL OF

Medieval Military History Volume V Edited by CLIFFORD J. ROGERS KELLY D EVRIES JOHN FRANCE

THE BOYDELL PRESS

© Contributors 2007 All Rights Reserved. Except as permitted under current legislation no part of this work may be photocopied, stored in a retrieval system, published, performed in public, adapted, broadcast, transmitted, recorded or reproduced in any form or by any means, without the prior permission of the copyright owner

First published 2007 The Boydell Press, Woodbridge

ISBN 978–1–84383–339–0

The Boydell Press is an imprint of Boydell & Brewer Ltd PO Box 9, Woodbridge, Suffolk IP12 3DF, UK and of Boydell & Brewer Inc. 668 Mt Hope Avenue, Rochester, NY 14620, USA website: www.boydellandbrewer.com

A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

This publication is printed on acid-free paper Typeset by Frances Hackeson Freelance Publishing Services, Brinscall, Lancs Printed in Great Britain by

Antony Rowe Ltd, Chippenham, Wiltshire

Contents

ARTICLES

1. Literature as Essential Evidence for Understanding Chivalry Richard W. Kaeuper

1

2. The Battle of Hattin: A Chronicle of a Defeat Foretold? Michael Ehrlich

16

3. Hybrid or Counterpoise? A Study of Transitional Trebuchets Michael Basista

33

4. The Struggle between the Nicean Empire and the Bulgarian State (1254–1256):Towards a Revival of Byzantine Military Tactics under Theodore II Laskaris Nicholas S. Kanellopoulos and Joanne K. Lekea

56

5. A “Clock-and-Bow” Story: Late Medieval Technology from Monastic Evidence Mark Dupuy

70

6. The Strength of Lancastrian Loyalism during the Readeption: Gentry Participation at the Battle of Tewkesbury Malcolm Mercer

84

7. Soldiers and Gentlemen: The Rise of the Duel in Renaissance Italy Steven C. Hughes

99

DEBATE

“A Lying Legacy” Revisited: The Abels–Morillo Defense of Discontinuity Bernard S. Bachrach

153

1 Literature as Essential Evidence for Understanding Chivalry Richard W. Kaeuper

A former colleague used to insist that there are really only two questions we need to ask: “says who?” and “so what?” Were we to refine these admittedly rough questions into “what are our legitimate sources?” and “how do they help us understand the past?” we might secure more general agreement. But rough or smooth, we are stuck with them and they continue to generate useful debate. These are the questions I want to address in relationship to chivalry, a topic of great interest to all medievalists and certainly to the members of De Re Militari. I expect to generate debate. In the process I will likely have to draw on evidence I have tapped before, but who can doubt in the twenty-first century that recycling is a virtue? My general position will be known to any who have read books and articles I have written,1 but just for clarity let me announce a thesis, that sine qua non that is so often merely sine in student essays – and, yes, in the occasional professional paper. I am convinced of the legitimacy of reading chivalric literature as historical evidence; I believe that use of these sources is, in fact, necessary to an understanding of chivalry; and I take chivalry to be the basic organizing code of the lay elite of Europe for perhaps half a millennium. The issues at hand are not trivial. Of course the validity as historical evidence of some chivalric literature is not at all under serious debate. Chronicles, of crusade or otherwise, will not likely be denounced as a useless class of documents, nor will chivalric biography, certainly not (say) l’Histoire de Guillaume le Marechal. Perhaps even the vernacular manuals would find supporters among most historians. I sincerely hope that this is true, just to take an example at random, of the Livre de chevalerie of Geoffroi de Charny. As with all evidence, these sources must be used with critical caution and matched for fit against other pieces of evidence, rather like redeeming medieval English exchequer tallies. Or, to draw an image from surveying

1

War, Justice and Public Order (Oxford, 1988), pp. 184–269; with Elspeth Kennedy, The Book of Chivalry of Geoffroi de Charny: Text, Context and Translation (Philadelphia, 1996); Chivalry and Violence (Oxford, 1999); “Chivalry and the Civilizing Process,” in Richard Kaeuper, ed., Violence in Medieval Society (Woodbridge, Suffolk, 2000); “The Social Meaning of Chivalry in Romance,” in Roberta L. Krueger, ed., Cambridge Companion to Medieval Romance (Cambridge, 2000); “Chivalric Violence and Religious Valorization” (in Japanese and English) in Courtiers and Warriors: Comparative Historical Perspectives (Kyoto, 2004).

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rather than finance, the process is rather like establishing points by triangulation: we are more certain when we take several lines of sight. What I am sure causes some furrowed brows and head shaking is the imaginative literature, all those chansons de geste, that towering, misty mountain of romance. The adjective, of course, gives the key to the objection: these texts are imaginative. Don’t historians, like that venerable cop, Joe Friday, just want the facts? Can historians, indeed should historians use these texts that might be discounted as fantasies or escapist dreams? At this point the evidentiary question and the interpretive question – the “says who?” and the “so what?” – begin to converge, as surely they must always converge. Sources are licit if they enhance our understanding of the past – that is, if they add to what we know without flatly contradicting much else we are fairly sure that we know. These sources, in short, should add new dimensions to our understanding of the past. They will not simply reproduce what historians still consider the reality of past occurrences, but they surely should open new vantage points from which to view, and reconstruct, that past, legitimately considered as ideas and values no less than actions. We might first usefully perform the coup de grace on some old notions that stand in the way. Surely the entire genre of chanson de geste is of significance to an investigation of chivalry. We are not limited to what is generally considered the more refined literary form – i.e. romance – alone. These epics were written as chivalry came into being and continued to be written – and read, or heard – as it became the dominant set of ideas and practices for the lay elite. It would likewise be hard to continue arguing that knights listened to chansons de geste, pounding the table and slopping alcoholic fluid from waving goblets, while their ladies read romance chastely in their secluded chambers. We know that knights read or heard romance; they mention romance themes and characters in their own writings; they both inserted their practices and ideas into romance and drew them from romance; they patronized the writing of romance; some of them wrote romance themselves. Both chanson and romance stand valorized to be read as evidence by historians of chivalry. Of course our sense of the legitimacy and utility of any set of sources will naturally be shaped by the questions for which we are seeking answers. The venerated Marc Bloch noted that “It would be sheer fantasy to imagine that for each historical problem there is a unique type of document with a specific sort of use.”2 Yet some documents provide rich veins of ore going off in one direction rather than another. One type of text may tell us the route of an army, the nature of command decisions, or the course of a fight. Others, however, allow us to get inside the warrior’s heads, to learn their formative assumptions, their framework for interpreting the world. After all, chivalric ideas provided the lens through which the lay elite understood violence and honor, status, piety, material possessions, gender relationships – not a list of topics likely to be shunted aside by any

2

The Historian’s Craft, trans. Peter Putnam (New York, 1965), p. 67.

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3

historian. Imaginative literature (joined by some chronicles and vernacular treatises) tells us about what Marc Bloch and his fellows valued as mentalité provided we read with skill and caution. A text, after all, may present a more or less glowing ideal for knighthood, rather than reveal common practice; and the ideals in any case may emanate more from a clerical or a knightly perspective. Reform is a constant goal, if advanced from various perspectives, both knightly and clerical. We must avoid what in Biblical studies is termed literalism or fundamentalism. Scholars read all texts critically and analytically. Or rather they should. Have not many scholars read Ramon Lull’s late thirteenth-century text on chivalry3 as a straight-forward eulogy of the knightly role in society, never noticing the evidence of subterranean fears that tormented him and led him (in other works) to ask, “Who in the world does more harm than knights?” and to assert flatly “they are the devil’s servants”?4 It should be evident (and I have argued this elsewhere) that we must read these texts both prescriptively and descriptively, as statements of what an author wants chivalry to be no less than what he or she recognizes it is. Each reading brings benefits. Knowing the difference is crucial. The structure of the work, even in small details, can provide what may not appear anywhere else. I first encountered “the French mode of turning” as a jousting technique from literature – apparently after a first pass with lances, skilled French knights pulled the horse up short, turned, and got momentum to hit the opponent hard as he was just recovering speed from a gradual turn. Of course the larger insights, about mentalité, bring larger rewards. Yet this goal may sound more difficult and idiosyncratic than its actual practice proves to be. Repeatedly I have taken classes of graduates and – more often – undergraduates through a series of chansons and romances. With only a few classes under their belts, they acquire the technique and begin to analyze, distinguishing the prescriptive from the descriptive, and interpreting especially the former, in historical context. What they are learning is hardly the death of the author, but rather the birth of the author. They learn that texts do not write themselves. They come to see points of view, programs, valorizations. In the Couronnement de Louis the imagined (and unnamed) pope offers the imagined hero Guillaume d’Orange the following religious benefits to encourage his fight with the dread pagan champion, Corsolt: … you may eat meat every single day for the rest of your life and take as many wives as you have a mind to. You will never commit any sin however wicked (so long as you avoid any act of treason) that will not be discounted, all the days of your life, and you shall have your lodging in paradise … Saint Gabriel himself will show you the way.5

Students hardly need to be told that this is not an interaction between pope and knight wie es eigentlich gewesen. Not one has ever suspected that polygamy

3 4 5

Libre del ordre de cavalleria, trans. Brian R. Price (Union City, California, 2001). Quoted in Jocelyn N. Hillgarth, The Spanish Kingdoms (Oxford, 1976), p. 60. Ernest Langlois, ed., Le Couronnement de Louis (Paris, 1924–5); David Hoggan, trans., in Glanville-Price, ed., William of Orange: Four Old French Epics; see laisse 18.

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received papal approval. Yet the scene is not impossibly far from reality, either. When, in a chronicle of the Albigensian crusade, Count Raymond of Toulouse meets with Pope Innocent III they get along so well that the pontiff allows him to touch the face of Christ imprinted on the Veronica and “absolved him of all the sins he had committed until that moment.”6 The sharper students note that telltale inclusion of treason as the only unforgivable sin: this is not, they recognize, the actual clerical view. The sharpest readers go on to realize that this passage presents a cleric as created by knightly fantasy. We might compare the famous passage of William of Newburg in which Roger of Salisbury, who could apparently rattle off a mass at top speed, was declared the best chaplain for knights.7 And it is the fantasy that counts. We can almost hear knightly minds at work: “Would it not be splendid if all clerics were like this, understanding of our hard lives, generous, forgiving, hard only on those detestable traitors?” Hearing the list of proffered benefits, the imagined William of the epic can only gasp, “Ah! God help us! … never was there a more generous-hearted cleric!”8 The very language of chivalric literature can open vistas, both through close attention to meanings of particular words and phrases and through its exuberant valorizations. Here, from the vast Vulgate or Lancelot-Grail Cycle of prose romances, is a knight who has first seen Lancelot at his characteristic work in a tournament. The stunned witness tells his wife, [I]t takes a lot more to be a worthy man than I thought it did this morning. I’ve learned so much today that I believe there’s only one truly worthy man in the whole world. I saw the one I’m talking about prove himself so well against knights today that I don’t believe any mortal man since chivalry was first established has done such marvelous deeds as he did today.9

What were these deeds? He elaborates: I could recount more than a thousand fine blows, for I followed that knight every step to witness the marvelous deeds he did. I saw him kill five knights and five men-at-arms with five blows so swift that he nearly cut horses and knights in two. As for my own experience, I can tell you he split my shield in two, cleaved my saddle and my horse in half at the shoulders, all with a single blow … I saw him kill four knights with one thrust of his lance … If it were up to me, he’d never leave me. I’d keep him with me always, because I couldn’t hold a richer treasure.10

I believe this qualifies as exuberant valorization. Though a strong example, it is in no way uncharacteristic. No reader of thousands of pages of chivalric literature could deny, I submit, that prowess was the central element in the complex compound that formed chivalry. 6 7 8 9 10

Janet Shirley, The Song of the Cathar Wars (Aldershot, 2000), p. 31. William of Newburgh, The History of English Affairs, vol. 1, ed. and trans. P. G. Walsh and M. J. Kennedy (Warminster, Wiltshire, 1988), pp. 56–7. See note 5. Alexandre Micha, Lancelot, 9 vols. (Geneva, 1978–83), 4:198, trans. William Kibler in Norris Lacy, gen. ed., Lancelot-Grail, 5 vols. (New York, 1993–96), 3:161. Micha, Lancelot, 4:198–9, trans. Kibler in Lacy, gen. ed., Lancelot-Grail, 3:161–2.

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Why, then, the skeptic might reasonably ask, does this hyperbolic language – four knights skewered like chunks of lamb on a shishkabob – not appear in “real” historical sources such as reliable chronicles? Why are sword strokes not followed anatomically in a serious work such as the Histoire de Guillaume le Maréchal? Imaginative literature is merely fantastic, some might conclude. In answer, first, I would insist again that the literary works are indeed significant because they are, in part, fantastic, or at least imagined. They show us fantasies that knights obviously appreciated. We know knights listened to, patronized and enjoyed a literature in which they appeared larger than life, in which their life and death issues were explored and debated as crucially significant, in which they could fight all day, magnificently hacking their way through body parts and even whole bodies – human and equine – and then be revived by magic potions. This is, indeed, not realistic, but what is at issue is more than the technical capacity of muscle-driven swords to cut armor and bodies as described. Secondly, we must be cautious in asserting that such scenes are absolutely missing from what some might consider more safely “historical” sources. Even in Marshal’s Histoire some skulls are split, brains spill, entrails drag on the ground as in chansons. Yet if these details do not fill scores of descriptive lines of fighting, it is surely because the author of the Histoire (Jean the Anonymous, as Duby would name him) thinks of himself as an historian. He regularly declares that he cannot repeat what he does not know.11 We can add that only the all-knowing authors of romance can follow each lance through the body to the spleen and specify that some fine sword blow split the skull all the way to the chin rather than merely to the eyes or the teeth. The historian or chronicler must be content to say who fought well on a crowded, confused and dusty field, and how the fight finally went. His historian assures us that William “hammered like a blacksmith on iron,” that others “hack like carpenters” on enemies, that opponents are “battered and badly mauled” by “fine blows.”12 Yet as the author cautions in recounting one fight, “it would take more than this day’s length for me to tell one by one of all the fine blows dealt.”13 That there was a knightly audience for works that could follow blows anatomically – in chanson and romance, where it could be satisfyingly imagined – is significant information about the ethos of chivalry. For specific language, we should turn from violence straight up to that timeless classic mixture, sex and violence. The medieval version was shaken, not stirred. In the Histoire outlining his career, his enemies accuse William Marshal of fornicating with the queen, the wife of the Young King, son of Henry II. The sentence describing this is (and you must pardon the author’s French no less than mine) “il le fait a la reïne.”14 Literally, he makes it with, or does it to the queen.

11 12 13 14

A. J. Holden and S. Gregory, ed. and trans., Histoire de Guillaume le Maréchal. History of William Marshal (London, 2002), 1:54–5, 180–83, 226–7, 252–3, 334–5. For this and similar language, see ibid., 18–19, 22–3, 50–3, 196–7, 257. Ibid., 54–5. Ibid., 266, line 5244.

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The verb is that multi-purpose term, faire. What strikes me as highly interesting is that this same verb is used in another passage when royalist knights daily sally forth from Winchester castle besieged by the Empress Matilda. The Old French phrase tells us they rushed out “por faire chevalerie.”15 Literally read, again, this means to make or do chivalry. Both fighting and making love are described by the same verb, faire. A knight can do chivalry and make love using the same verb. This is still true in Sir Thomas Malory’s day. In late fifteenth-century English the phrase is “have adoo.” To “have adoo” with a knight means to fight him. To “have adoo” with a woman means to copulate with her.16 Modern vulgar phrases unfortunately come to mind, but there is nothing new under the sun, or on television screen, stage, or the pages of some magazines. That this mentality is at work in the Middle Ages significantly reduces temptations to idealize chivalry or reduce it to an abstracted and idealized courtly love. Such insights have been randomly chosen, though their ranks could be stiffened with enough fresh recruits to fill the space available here. Instead, I would like to focus attention on how chivalric literature helps advance our understanding of knighthood in relation to the two major governing and legislating institutions of the medieval world, the realms of clergie and royauté (what we in our haste often call church and state). What insights can chivalric literature give us about the relationship of knighthood with the ideals promulgated by learned clerics and by royalist clerks and administrators? One of my favorite romances, the mid-fourteenth-century Middle English Tale of Gamelyn, speaks informatively to the tension between chivalerie and royauté and this even in England where royal power was more securely established than across the Channel.17 We touch here on a large and contentious historical question, the role of the knights and gentry in governance and law. My point is simply to argue – against what seems to be emerging as orthodoxy – that there is a genuine historical issue to be considered here. The knights and gentry, I submit, were not simply loyal and stalwart agents of public order and royal authority who manfully shouldered the burdens of local governance, and did so fairly and equitably. Of course Gamelyn is not finally an anti-royal hero; the king’s ultimate legitimizing authority is accepted. Yet the chivalric sense of relative independence from the constraints of royal justice informs the very structure and many a statement made within this popular romance (and many others). The hero takes justice into his own hands at the end of the tale, hanging the sheriff and jury, corrupt of course, and hurling the bribed judge symbolically over the bar of justice, breaking his arm (having already smashed his cheekbone) as a preliminary to hanging the bastard. All have been “convicted” by a jury of Gamelyn’s own followers who overawe everyone else present. An appreciative

15 16 17

Ibid.,10, line 176. Vinaver, Malory. Works (2nd ed., Oxford, 1971), passim. Stephen Knight and Thomas Olgren, eds., Robin Hood and Other Outlaw Tales (Kalamazoo, Michigan, 1997), pp. 184–227; cf. Kaeuper, “An Historian’s Reading of the Tale of Gamelyn,” Medium Aevum 52 (1983), 51–62.

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and understanding king approves of this violent self-help. The tales of Robin Hood hover on the horizon. Other English texts speak to the need for royal justice and explicitly buttress the royal role, even against those of knightly rank. The Middle English Havelock the Dane (written in the late thirteenth century) will come readily to mind. At the very outset of the poem the idealized king has produced Edenic peace by being not only tough and regal, but a super knight: He was the beste knight at nede That evere mighte ridden on stede Or wepne wagge or folk ut lede; Of knight ne havede he nevere drede That he ne sprong forth so sparke of glede, And lete him knawe of hise hand-dede – Hu he couthe with wepne spede: And other he refte him hors or wede, Or made him sone handes sprede And “Loverd, merci! Loude grede.”18

Parallels from chronicles, administrative and legal records abound. Meetings of most royal courts ran as smoothly as such occasions can, though a minority report might be written by Reynard the Fox.19 Occasionally some thoroughly historical courts were surrounded and overawed or even overwhelmed by bands composed of knights and gentry or groups led by them.20 It is important that chivalric romance provides some sense of the touchy knightly feeling for jurisdictional independence. Clearly such feelings persisted as an undercurrent only to erupt now and then like an artesian spring. In other words, romance shows us a debate, tensions. Not only do knights serve kings, they maintain a sense that their own licit role, their rights, overlap with aspects of royal power, and cannot be infringed. On some days they simply enjoy exercising power, often swords in hand. Imaginative literature – even animal fable in the case of Reynard the Fox – shows us an important historical reality. To ignore it is to deprive ourselves of useful evidence. The knight Bertelay in the early thirteenth-century Old French Vulgate Cycle could sympathize with Gamelyn – or Reynard.21 This imagined knight killed an

18 19

20

21

Ronald Herzman, Graham Drake, and Eve Salisbury, eds., Four Romances of England (Kalamazoo, Michigan, 1999), 87. Interpretation and a full range of texts cited in Kaeuper, “The King and the Fox: Tales of Reynard the Fox and French Kingship in the Twelfth Century,” in Anthony Musson, ed., Expectations of the Law in the Middle Ages (Woodbridge, 2001). Telling examples and good commentary are given by G. O. Sayles in Select Cases in the Court of King’s Bench (1272–1422), 7 vols., Selden Society 55 (1936), 57 (1938), 58 (1939), 74 (1955), 76 (1957) 82 (1965) 88 (1971). The following discussion draws on “The Story of Merlin,” trans. Rupert T. Pickens in Lacy, gen. ed., Lancelot-Grail, 1:339–41; for the Old French see H. Oskar Sommer, ed., Vulgate Version of the Arthurian Romances, 7 vols. (Washington, D.C., 1909), 2:310–13.

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imagined enemy without first approaching his imagined king to obtain justice. King Leodagan assures his knight that he would not have ruled against him, had he sought justice. His offense lay in taking justice into his own hands. Bertelay, in response, asserts personal loyalty, but also his right to personal independent action: “Sir, say what you will,” he tells the king, “but I have never done you any wrong, nor will I ever, God willing.” The king’s court thinks otherwise and convicts him of treason: for “justice was not his to mete out.” Even the reluctant judges who condemned Ganelon in the Chanson de Roland might be called upon for confirmation: Ganelon’s defense matches Bertelay’s, after all.22 Imagined figures and dialogue, indeed, yet I could also cite the very historical French lord who shouted out in fury to the court trying him that the jurisdiction of the bailli, the count and the king did not matter to him so much as one large turd (unam magnam stercus).23 Some literary sources portray stout attitudes of independence to both clerical and royalist claims simultaneously. In the twelfth-century Old French Chanson d’Aspremont the wonderfully combative character Duke Girart of Burgundy snarls against both the Gregorian claims of the Church and the monarchical claims of the Capetians (projected here onto the Carolingian monarchy of Charlemagne). In response to Archbishop Turpin’s request for military aid against pagan invaders, he trumpets his own independence: Across my own realm I have my own priests: Never for baptisms or any Christian service Do we need the pope’s authority; I’ll make a pope myself, should I so please! In all my possessions whatsoever I hold not the value of one shelled egg From any earthly man, but from the Lord God alone. Your king will never be loved by me Unless he is kneeling down at my feet.24

The relationship of the chivalric to governance is not simple. Knighthood was scarcely hostile to every act of governance on the part of kings or clerics. Medieval governing institutions, it must be said plainly, could not have emerged without cooperation from the knights. Yet sensing the powerful surge of old currents of independence is useful. Raoul de Cambrai, another twelfth-century epic, decries the destruction of churches and the burning of nuns; yet it cannot restrain the voice of celebration recounting great deeds carried out heroically with edged weaponry, whatever carping criticisms clerics might make.25

22 23 24 25

Gerald J. Brault, ed. and trans., Chanson de Roland, laisses 270–91. Actes du Parlement de Paris 1st ser., ed. E. Boutaric, 2 vols. (Paris, 1863–7), vol. 2, number 7916 (1327). Louis Brandin, ed., La Chanson d’Aspremont (Paris, 1970), lines 1164–74, my translation. Sara Kay, ed., tr., Raoul de Cambrai (Oxford, 1992).

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Chivalry lived in a world of conflicting ideals, as its literature showed. I confess that the informatively imperfect fit of medieval Christianity and medieval chivalry fascinates me most of all. This is – and herewith another confession – the subject of a book I have been dragging toward conclusion for a number of years. All that I can do here is to suggest a few of the ways in which reading imaginative chivalric literature alongside the more prescriptive clerical treatises reveals tensions and complications. If such readings show the significant distance between these two realms of thought, they likewise emphasize the selective chivalric appropriation of clerical ideals. These texts, that is, expand our sense of the sheer power and unshakeable sense of rectitude embedded in chivalry as the elite lay ethos. Chivalry indeed borrowed chapter and verse from clerical thought, but the knights and those who wrote for them adapted what they took and took it, finally, on their own terms. Thus I think R. W. Southern made one of his rare errors of interpretation when he declared that “there was no such thing as a lay esprit de corps.”26 I submit that a close reading of chivalric literature helps us to see that chivalry was precisely the lay elite’s esprit de corps. It is declared “the highest order God has formed and made” by Chretien de Troyes in his twelfth-century Conte du Graal, for example.27 Geoffroi de Charny in his vernacular manual of the mid-fourteenth century edges as close to that position as a prudent man can come without open offense.28 The mythology of chivalry – the Nine Worthies, all the genealogies of knights, even, so to speak, of tables – emerges from literary sources. Maurice Keen’s fine chapter on this subject underscores the point. His footnotes cite one literary source after another. And he likewise reminds us that our understanding of chivalry must be “tonal.”29 Chivalric literature, I submit, gives us the tonality. Consider for a moment human hands, the work they do, what they accomplish and symbolize. In the passage from Havelock the Dane quoted above, the king was said to be so mighty of his hands that he could force even obstreperous knights to bow low and spread their hands in supplication of mercy. Hand symbolism is surely revealing. The hands of the priest bless; they even perform the central miracle of the faith at the altar, transforming earthly elements into God’s body and blood. Consider, then, the hands of the knight. They are enfolded by those of his lord in the classic act of homage; they grip sword and lance and perform the great deeds and fine blows so tirelessly praised in so many lines of literature. Can these rough warrior hands be joined with the softer hands of clerics under the aegis of medieval religion? The comments of Abbot Suger, written into his Deeds of Louis the Fat, are informative. He links sacerdotal hands with the mass, knightly hands with the pollution of blood: “If hands made holy by the

26 27 28 29

Western Society and the Church (Harmondsworth, Middlesex, 1970), p. 39. Nigel Bryant, ed. and trans., Perceval: The Story of the Grail (Cambridge, 1988), p. 19. R. Kaeuper and E. Kennedy, The Book of Chivalry of Geoffroi de Charny (Philadelphia, 1996), pp. 162–7. Maurice Keen, Chivalry (New Haven, 1984), pp. 102–24.

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body and blood of the Lord are placed in homage beneath a layman’s hands which reek with blood from a sword, then the holy orders and sacred anointing are degraded.”30 At the coronation of Louis le Gros, Suger speaks specifically of the sword the lay hands hold. He relates that the Archbishop of Sens and his suffragan bishops … annointed him with the oil of the most sacred unction and said the mass of thanksgiving. He took from him the sword of secular knighthood, and girded him with the ecclesiastical sword for the punishment of evildoers, and joyfully crowned him with the diadem of the kingdom.31

Suger will later assert that in his warring against the peace breakers and local tyrants Louis “piously slaughtered the impious.”32 He uses the same phrase for men a busy Louis has authorized to kill a band of traitors, even adding, “No one could doubt that the hand of God sped so swift a revenge.”33 Here God’s hand works through the king’s hand, even through his knights’ hands. Knights may have needed little encouragement to believe the virtue of their handiwork as attested by the constant references to killing “avec mes mains” (with their own hands) throughout the pages of the Vulgate Cycle or “ with myne owne handes” in the Morte Darthur of Thomas Malory. Yet the complications and tensions cannot be kept at bay when these works are compared to worried and critical clerical views. When twelfth-century scholars (recalling some lines from Lucan) said Richard Lion-Heart was only happy when his achievements were marked by the blood of his enemies, were they only showing off latinate classicism?34 The fear of blood pollution – more broadly, of disorder – looms like a dark cloud. Straightforward fears about knightly handiwork and public order can bring on thunder and lightning, in chivalric romance. In the vast romance Lancelot within the Vulgate Cycle, Bors is taken – along with other knights – into a castle chamber to be shown a marvel.35 A knight is lying abed with his two hands covered by a rich cloth. When it is removed, the select audience see that his sword is firmly stuck in one hand – he cannot release it – and that the blade is firmly rammed through the palm of the other hand. Since only the best knight in the world (the standard formula in romance) can pull the sword free, all present ambitiously try and all fail, only causing increased pain and misery to the knight in the bed. The gathered knights fall to arguing about which knight in the world is, in fact, the best, and so is needed for the release of the poor fellow in bed. Of course their quarrel spills over into the field outside where they settle the question 30 31 32 33 34 35

Richard Cusimano and John Moorhead, ed. and trans., Suger. The Deeds of Louis the Fat (Washington, D.C., 1992), p. 50. Cusimano and Moorhead, Suger. The Deeds of Louis the Fat, p. 63. Ibid. Ibid. See the famous words of Gerald of Wales: Thomas Wright, ed. and trans., The Historical Works of Geraldus Cambrensis (London, 1887), p. 160. For what follows, see Micha, ed., Lancelot, 2:177–82; Krueger, trans., “Lancelot,” in Lacy, gen. ed., Lancelot-Grail, 4:50–52.

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of best fighter, by fighting. Bors (championing the cause of Lancelot as tops) squares off against a knight unrecognized by him (but who actually is his fellow Round Table knight Sagramore), who has championed Sir Gawain. Beaten to a bloody pulp, Sagramore concedes the strength of the case for Lancelot. The wounded knight in the chamber deplores their fighting, but is pointedly admonished that the combat is over the issue of his own relief. I submit to you that this is a marvelously complex piece of symbolism, but that it is not suggestive of an ideology simply conducive to public order. King Bors’ sword, as you will recall, is significantly named “Wrathful” in the Story of Merlin in the Vulgate Cycle.36 This small detail could pass unnoticed or be thought insignificant until we reflect for a moment that wrath is one of the Seven Deadly Sins and is routinely denounced in sermon and treatise; priests were instructed to question sinners about feelings of wrath in the process leading to confession. How did a later medieval knight react to each sense of the word? The query could be repeated with many other actions carried out by a knight’s hands. One of the proofs of the great Lancelot’s prowess is the fate of those who feel the stunning blows he delivers with lance or sword either in battle or in the tournaments so little removed from battle. Authors admiringly report that those who do not die outright (a consequence of Lancelot’s sword cleaving them to the chin or into the chest) are at least maimed for life. In Malory’s colorful language, “the moste party of them never throoft thereafter.”37 By contrast, Middle English clerical denunciations of tournaments specify as one aspect of their utter sinfulness that many men are maimed so that they never thrive afterwards.38 It would be just barely possible that one or two readers still consider the So What question slighted in my discussion. Let me convince them beyond cavil with a brief approach to two concluding questions. First, did knights – even if we accept that they heard or read romance – really recognize or care about tensions between the practice of their profession and the religion that animated so much in their society? I think they did. It is helpful to remember that we are not simply dealing with the timeless issue of soldiers and war in relationship with religion. Unlike modern soldiers who may be conscripted from peacetime occupations for temporary service in military or naval forces, knights were professional warriors who defined their status and place in the world by their right to bear and use arms. At the end of a lifetime of fighting, as is well known, many knights decided that it would be prudent to die in the rough garb of some religious order; many more who did not take that dramatic step at least endowed or enriched monastic houses in order to gain salvific prayers. It is likewise helpful to remember in an age in which hell has receded markedly how

36 37 38

Sommer, ed., Vulgate Version, 2:234; Rupert T. Pickens, trans., in Lacy, gen. ed., LancelotGrail, 1:296 (the name of the sword is mentioned twice). Vinaver, Malory. Works, p. 156. See e.g. the comments of Richard Rolle: Paul F. Theiner, ed. and trans., The Contra Amatores Mundi of Richard Rolle, (Berkeley, CA, 1968), pp. 96, 181.

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vivid its presence was to all medieval folk. They knew what potentially awaited them as sinners, that the slightest pain in purgatory (as a Middle English sermon stated) was worse than a year of the most excruciating torment in this world; they knew when they thought of hell that, as another Middle English sermon stated sweetly, “soul may never for pain die.”39 They walked into churches beneath carved portals with the messages clear; they sat beneath vivid wall paintings that could occupy even a mind that wandered during a sermon. Can chivalric literature add to the impression gained from these well-known sources? By its very nature the evidence is scattered and must be culled, but it is convincing. Knights sometimes seem to be whistling past the graveyard, trying not to think about their role in widespread destruction and the shedding of human blood, about retribution and final justice. Medieval men who proudly and selfconsciously proclaimed that they lived by the sword might well have felt some mental caution and agitation – if they were at all thoughtful – upon reading or hearing a homily on the fifth commandment, precepts from the Sermon on the Mount, or Christ’s stern and famous words to Peter in the Garden of Gethsemane about the fate of those who live by the sword. The message of sermons and homilies was buttressed, of course, by the continual admonitions to practice selfexamination and confession. Though they worked steadily to repress any compunctions generated by their own genuine piety or by clerical admonition, a species of spiritual fear nevertheless comes to the surface with surprising clarity. At a crucial point during the crusading expedition that captured Lisbon in the mid twelfth century – as part of what we simplify and call the second crusade – “a portent appeared among the Flemings.” It was the practice for a priest, after the completion of mass, to distribute blessed bread to the warriors. But on this Sunday, the blessed bread was bloody, and when [the priest] directed that it be purged with a knife, it was found to be as permeated with blood as flesh which can never be cut without bleeding.40

To a modern historian what is more remarkable is the moral drawn from the incident by the writer of this chronicle, a cleric who appears to have been quite close to the men at arms he served and, in fact, a spokesman for their views: And some, interpreting it, said that this fierce and indomitable people, covetous of the goods of others, although at the moment under the guise of a pilgrimage and religion, had not yet put away the thirst for human blood.41

Issues involving looting are significant throughout this chronicle. Sensitivity to the issue may have been heightened by Muslim taunts hurled at the crusaders

39 40 41

Robert Mannyng of Brunne, Handlyng Synne, ed. Idelle Sullens (Binghamton, NY, 1983), line 3284. Charles Wendell David, trans., The Conquest of Lisbon, with foreword by Jonathan Phillips (New York, 2001), pp. 134–5. Ibid.

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in debate. “Labeling your ambition zeal for righteousness,” they charge, “you misrepresent vices as virtues.”42 Are the Muslims being allowed to speak in this chronicle some of the inner fears that troubled the crusaders themselves – fears about bloodlust and looting? Such critiques can easily be given to outsiders, raising issues without the inconvenience or even danger of endorsing them. A link comes in the sermon preached by the priest who seems to have written the chronicle. Though with more caution, he probed similar issues. His sermon reminded the warriors that since they have followed Christ and accepted poverty, they must not trust in oppression or become vain in robbery.43 The priest saw a beam in their eyes; did they perhaps feel a mote, even after an agreement with the Portuguese king that he would possess the city only after they had looted it to their satisfaction?44 Did they think about this in church, or while lying awake late at night, or in confession? Worrying deathbed speeches are put into the mouths of historical knights by chroniclers and were likewise attributed to the imagined ideal knightly figures in romance. Galehaut, one of the dominant and most admired figures early in the thirteenth-century Lancelot, tries to convince a wise man to reveal to him the moment of his death. He wants to be prepared, he says, “since I have committed many wrongs in my life, destroying cities, killing people, dispossessing and banishing people.”45 Master Elias, the wise man, agrees that this must be true, “for any man who has conquered as much as you have must have a heavy burden of sins, and it’s no wonder.”46 Bernier, a major figure in the long Old French chanson Raoul de Cambrai expresses similar worries about sin, killing, and atonement. He, too, seeks wise advice – in this case from a select group of his courtiers: Advise me, barons … for God’s sake. I am frightened at the thought of the sins I have committed, and alarmed at the number of people I have killed. Raoul [his lord] was among them, and that weighs on me indeed. I intend to go to Saint-Gilles at once and pray to the saint to intercede on my behalf with God our lord and king.47

In the late medieval Middle English Awntyrs of Arthur a ghostly apparition (who is, we learn, the Queen’s mother come from the other world) rises dramatically from a northern tarn to warn Gawain and Queen Guenevere (who have strayed from their hunting party) of the yawning gap that separates the practices of the Round Table from fundamental precepts of Christianity. Gawain takes advantage of this visitor from the beyond to ask a revealing question. He says to this ghost:

42 43 44 45 46 47

Ibid., pp. 120–21. Ibid, pp. 152–3. Ibid., pp. 110–11. Micha, Lancelot, 1:61, trans. Samuel N. Rosenberg in Lacy, gen. ed., Lancelot-Grail, 2:254. Ibid. Kay, ed. and trans., Raoul de Cambrai, pp. 386–7.

14

Richard W. Kaeuper How shal we fare, quod the freke, that fonden to fight, And thus defoulen the folke on fele kinges londes, And riches over reymes withouten eny right, Wynen worship in were thorgh wightnesse of hondes?”48

What he hears in response from the fearsome spirit is a prediction of the fall of the Round Table. Occasionally chronicles report incidents in which knights speak to a particular unease over killing their fellow-Christians. Josserand de Brancion, as Joinville tells, came away with the prize for valor in each of thirty-six battles and skirmishes in which he had taken part. Yet after one Franco-German fight that took place on a Good Friday, he entered a church he had saved from destruction, fell dramatically upon his knees before the altar and prayed aloud in Joinville’s presence: “Lord … I pray Thee to have mercy on me, and take me out of these wars among Christians in which I have spent a great part of my life; and grant that I may die in Thy service, and so come to enjoy Thy kingdom in paradise.”49 The scene is real and immediate. One can almost hear the armor clank as the knight falls to his knees in anguished prayer. A fourteenth-century miracle story praising Saint Martial makes a similar point. In the campaigning of the Hundred Years War, an English squire went out plundering with his men in the region of Limoges, but was unexpectedly thrown into the raging Dordogne River when his horse harness suddenly snapped. Sinking to certain death beneath the rushing water, he made two quick promises: first, he would offer a certain weight of wax for himself and his horse when Saint Martial’s head was displayed in its sanctuary; second, he would never take up arms again against any Christian. At once, he sensed that a man led him, followed by his fortunate horse, safely out of the water. (The story is told, by the way, in a collection of St Martial’s miracles, not in some text with a particular bias against war or killing.)50 And we are led to our last point by returning to our basic opening issue. Does this approach to the So What question on literary sources broadly enrich our historical understanding? I would emphasize that we gain a crucial sense of the sheer power of chivalric ideas functioning indeed as the lay elite’s esprit de corps. These ideas intersect creatively with those of Church and State; they also sometimes contest ideas of Church and State. But what we see is how vital the ideas are, how independent the knights could be wherever ideas and practices that form structural members of chivalry fall under criticism. Knights can come to terms with the emerging state, though on some lines they remain touchy and

48 49 50

Lines 261–312: Thomas Hahn, Sir Gawain: Eleven Romances and Tales (Kalamazoo, MI, 1995), pp. 186–7. Natallis de Wailly, ed., Joinville. Histoire de Saint Louis (Paris, n.d.), 152; M. R. B. Shaw, ed. and trans., Joinville and Villehardouin, Chronicles of the Crusades (Baltimore, 1963), p. 235. Jean-Loup Lemaitre, “Les miracles de saint Martial accomplis lors de l’ostention de 1388,” Bulletin de la Société archéologique et historique du Limousin 102 (1975) 67–139, at 106–7. Discussed in Michael Goodich, Violence and Miracles, 135–6.

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dangerous. Formally pious – undoubtedly in some instances genuinely and deeply pious – they can co-opt religious ideals to valorize their profession, twisting the borrowed ideas almost beyond recognition in the process. And they can worry late at night, late in life. Thus our literary sources, far from beguiling us with mere fantasy, show the direction and complexity of thought among those who functioned as the necessary armed force within a religious society busily seeking right order through clerical and kingly leadership. But we need to remember that the knights thought they were leaders, too. If their world was increasingly ordered by governing institutions of church and state, they were not simple supporters or opponents. Or perhaps they were both simultaneously, animated as they were by the worship of prowess as well as the worship of God.

2 The Battle of Hattin: A Chronicle of a Defeat Foretold? Michael Ehrlich

“In the end Hattin was won because Saladin got his enemies to fight where he wanted, when he wanted and how he wanted.” This is how David Nicolle summarizes the battle of Hattin fought on 3–4 July 1187.1 This view is opposed to previous studies in which the dramatic results of the encounter are explained by three principal reasons: 1. The climatic conditions that prevailed during the battle. 2. Difficulties within the Frankish leadership which might have influenced the king’s decision-making process. 3. The numerical superiority of the Muslim army.2 Apparently, these three factors played an important role in the events during the battle, but how is unclear. The first two reasons imply that events developed due to Frankish negligence and not because of the tactics of the Muslim’s army leadership and imply that heat and the thirst affected the Franks, but did not have a significant influence on the Muslims. The decisions of the Franks were wrong, but the way the Muslims took advantage of them remains unclear. Even the gathering of a huge Muslim army is often described as a given deed and not as an outcome of a well-executed policy. The working hypothesis of this study assumes that although each of the above reasons played an important role in the events that took place during the battle, The author would Like to thank Prof. Michel Balard from the Centre d’Études d’Histoire et Civilisation Byzantines et du Proche Orient Médiéval, Université de Paris I – Panthéon Sorbonne, Prof. Ya’acov Lev from the department of Middle Eastern History, Bar-Ilan University, Israel, and Prof. Yvonne Friedman from the Martin (Szusz) Department of the Land of Israel Studies and Archaeology of Bar-Ilan University, who read this paper and made many valuable comments on it. 1 2

D. Nicolle, Hattin 1187: Saladin’s Greatest Victory (London, 1993), p. 88. J. Prawer, Crusader Institutions (Oxford, 1980), pp. 484–500; P. Herde, “Die Kämpfe bei den Hörnen von Hittin und der Untergang des Kreuzritterheers,” Römische Quartalschrift für christliche und Altertumskunde und Kirchengeschichte 61 (1966), 1–50; B. Z. Kedar, “The Battle of Hattin Revisited, ” in The Horns of Hattin, ed. B. Z. Kedar (Jerusalem, 1992), pp. 190–207; M. C. Lyons and D. E. P. Jackson, Saladin: the Politics of the Holy War (Cambridge, 1982), pp. 243–266.

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none tipped the scales. All through the twelfth century the Franks either won or endured different battles in spite of problems of the sort that supposedly decided the battle of Hattin. In 1113 a Muslim troop confined a Frankish army to an arid hilltop for nearly a month.3 Leadership crises and mutual mistrust were frequent within Frankish armies during the twelfth century. A peculiar aspect of the battle of Hattin is that all these factors joined and the Muslim leadership shrewdly used them to defeat the enemy. The view of Nicolle that Saladin dictated the course of the battle is supported by nearly all descriptions. Yet, he did not explain how Saladin succeeded in this. Most studies focus on the tactical aspects of the armed encounter and not on the preceding events. The main purpose of this essay is to examine the strategic measures, the goals and plans of both sides, and how they prepared for the “DDay.” In particular it seeks to establish how each side acquired information about its opponent before and during the battle. Saladin confronted the Franks in the same region twice before the battle of Hattin. In 1182 he achieved nothing but was more successful in 1183. Thus it might be instructive to compare these campaigns to each other and to the battle of Hattin. Some modern scholars have attempted this, comparing the events of the campaign of 1183 to those of 1187. I would like to reassess their views and to include in the discussion the campaign of 1182. A thorough comparison between these campaigns might provide a better understanding of the events that took place in July 1187.

The Campaign of July 1182 In July 1182, five years before the battle of Hattin, Saladin invaded the Latin kingdom of Jerusalem. He assembled an army of unprecedented size and encamped just near the southern end of the Sea of Galilee. According to William of Tyre, Frankish scouts detected the movement of the Muslim army and reported it to the headquarters. The main castles of the region, Saphet and Belvoir, were then alerted. Baldwin IV and Raymond of Tripoli were severely ill, but the Frankish leadership acted vigorously. The Christian army left its camp near Sepphoris and moved to the edge of the ridge that overlooks the Sea of Galilee and the Jordan River valley. Thus, they controlled the steep ascent to the Galilee highlands and the road to Tyberias (illustration 1). As a result, Saladin turned to the south to try to penetrate the kingdom’s core via Baisan and the Jezreel valley, an action which did not take the Franks by surprise. They climbed to the area between Belvoir and Forbelet (illustration 2). This brilliant move created an imminent threat on Saladin’s flank and forced him to climb to the arid plateau between the two Frankish castles. This campaign did not result in a battle. 4 The 3 4

Fulcher of Chartres, Historia Hierosolymitana, ed. H. Hagenmeyer (Heidelberg, 1913), II, 49, pp. 565–74; Ibn al-Qalanisi, History of Damascus, ed. H. F. Amedroz (Leiden, 1908), pp. 184–6. Willelmus Tyrensis, Chronicon, XXII 17 (16), ed. R. B. C. Huygens (Turnholt, 1986), p. 1030. Hereafter WT.

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East–West schematic section from the Sea of Galilee to the Horns of Hattin.

The Battle of July 1182.

19

The Battle of Hattin.

The Battle of Hattin

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Michael Ehrlich

chroniclers of Saladin claimed that heat and thirst denied him the victory.5 The Frankish success was achieved due to two main factors: 1. Accurate and timely intelligence. 2. Swift initiative based on a thorough knowledge of the region. The Franks neutralized the effectiveness of the huge army of Saladin and survived the severe climate conditions. Apparently, the Frankish army operated in July 1182 according to certain well-known guidelines; namely, the Frankish leadership did not leave much room for improvisations during the campaign. A pre-condition for selecting the correct reaction was to know what the battle-plan of the rival army was. Therefore, the Franks employed different methods in order to collect and to diffuse information. They engaged scouts who provided information about the Muslims’ movements, and sent turcopoles on reconnaissance missions.6 Turcopoles also acted as messengers who transferred information from remote outposts back to Frankish commanders.7 In July 1182 these data provoked two reactions: alerting castles in the expected battlefield area, and advancing the main body of the Frankish army to the edge of the steep mountain that overlooks the Jordan valley. The Frankish army’s operations, in the absence of the king and the most important local lord, displayed a high state of readiness and skillful strategic planning.

The Campaign of September–October 1183 On August 1183, Baldwin IV appointed Guy de Lusignan to be the regent of the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem.8 This was done in Nazareth, when the Frankish army was already mobilized. At the end of September, Saladin attacked the principality of Galilee. There is no indication that the Frankish army was dismissed between the two occurrences. Thus, Guy had all the necessary time he needed to prepare his army for future encounters and did not have to act under Saladin’s pressure. As winter was approaching, Saladin did not have enough time to profit from a possible success on the battlefield. He probably assumed that the Franks would react as forcefully as in 1182 and therefore restricted the goals of the operation. This view is corroborated by his operations throughout the campaign. He refrained from crossing the Jordan River near the southern end of the Sea of Galilee, probably to avoid a premature full-scale encounter with the Frankish army.9 Instead, he traversed the river to the north

5 6 7 8 9

Abu Shama, Kitab al-Rawdatayn fi Ahbar al-Dawlatayn, ed. M. H. M Ahamad, vol. 2/1 (Cairo, 1998), pp. 91–2. Y. Harari, “The Military Role of the Frankish Turcopoles: a Reassessment,” Mediterranean Historical Review 12 (1997), 88–89. Harari, “Turcopoles,” p. 88. WT, XXII 26 (25), pp. 1048–1050. WT, XXII 27 (26), p. 1050.

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of Baisan.10 To his surprise, the Frankish army did not leave its base at the springs of Sepphoris. The Muslim move and the fact that the Frankish army remained in its base created a new situation. Saladin was free to operate in the eastern regions of the principality of Galilee, although the Franks could have blocked his access to the kingdom’s core in the La Fève – Zir’in line. Saladin seized the opportunity and devastated the Frankish areas left to his mercy. He also sent forces to more distant regions. They attacked the monastery of Mount Thabor and one of his units provoked panic in Nazareth as it arrived at the outskirts of the city. 11 Guy’s passivity surprised not only Saladin, but also the Frankish leadership.12 They remembered how they had acted in 1182. This time, the conditions seemed to be much more favourable for the Franks because their army was mustered and they could respond swiftly and vigorously. This tactic provoked discontent in the Frankish army, which eventually forced Guy to act. On 30 September he decided to leave the springs of Sepphoris in direction of ´Ain Jalud. Nevertheless, when this move was taken it was too late and useless. It seems that the actions of Guy did not cause a major crisis on this occasion because Saladin did not seek a full-scale encounter. The Muslims could easily have initiated an attack while the Franks were crossing the valley of Jezreel, from Nazareth to ´Ain Jalud, but they preferred only to harass them.13 Accordingly, they refrained from taking Nazareth which apparently was not guarded. It is easy to imagine the turmoil in the kingdom and throughout the whole Christian world if Saladin had conquered the city. The fact that he did not proves that his aim was neither to destroy the kingdom nor even to conquer a part of it. I suggest that the main aim of Saladin in the 1183 campaign was to acquire knowledge about the new ruler of the Frankish kingdom, Guy de Lusignan. Therefore, he initiated hostilities despite the approaching winter and did not do much more than devastate marginal estates and instigate skirmishes. The way Guy de Lusignan responded to the Muslim challenge created discontent in the Frankish army. Theoretically, it gave him the option to decide when and where to intervene and forced Saladin to operate under a high level of uncertainty. He sacrificed marginal areas in order to protect the kingdom’s vital interests. Such a tactic could be useful when an enemy seeks a full-scale confrontation. It implies a patience and tolerance to damage which was not characteristic of the Frankish kingdom. Since the results of the new tactic were less impressive than the one used previously, people failed to understand it. Guy appeared hesitant and indecisive.

10

11 12 13

Abu Shama, Kitab al-Rawdatayn fi Ahbar al-Dawlatayn, p. 163. Prawer’s suggestion that the Muslims crossed the Jordan by the ford on the site of the modern Shaikh Hussein Bridge, near Baisan, seems to be solid. J. Prawer, Histoire du royaume latin de Jérusalem, 1 (Paris, 1969), p. 622. WT, XXII 27 (26), p. 1052. R. C. Smail, Crusading Warfare, 2nd ed. (Cambridge, 1995), pp. 155–156. WT, XXII 27 (26), pp. 1051–2; Smail, Crusading Warfare, pp. 153–154.

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Moreover, Guy’s tactic proved unsuccessful, since Saladin did not plan a fullscale encounter. Therefore, the marginal estates were sacrificed in vain. If this analysis is correct, the situation on 30th September should have satisfied both sides. At this stage, Saladin camped to the west of Baisan and the Frankish army was near Sepphoris. If this was the state of affairs, why did the Franks move from Sepphoris to ´Ain Jalud? By now, the damage to the Frankish regions where Saladin passed or encamped was done or inevitable. Moreover, Saladin did not indicate that he was about to try to penetrate the center of the kingdom. Why did Guy decide to leave Sepphoris? Either the damage Saladin caused was too hard to bear, or perhaps Guy’s soldiers became bitter and lost their patience? It is impossible to assess whether the damage fitted Guy’s predictions or exceeded them. Yet, if he decided to sacrifice fringe estates in order to protect the core of the kingdom, perhaps it was not too high a price to pay. He probably left Sepphoris due to domestic pressure and not because of Saladin’s military actions. The maneuver itself was rather risky. Saladin’s troops could obviously see the descent from the ridge of Nazareth into a valley, which they overlooked. A more vigorous action by Saladin at this stage could have destroyed the Frankish army. The campaigns of 1182 and 1183 differed in many ways. Saladin’s plan in 1182 was to first engage the Frankish army and then to destroy it. The Frankish success was the result of their active defence that enabled them to dictate the place of the encounter. In 1183 he limited his goals. He knew that the road to the core of the kingdom was blocked, and therefore decided to bypass it and to attack via Baisan; this indicates that he made efforts to avoid an encounter the Frankish army. Even afterwards, he restricted his actions to destroying and to looting the area. His success apparently surpassed his expectations. His chroniclers did not spare adjectives to magnify a rather small victory.14 In spite of the above analysis, many historians suggest that Guy de Lusignan was right not to leave his position near the springs during this encounter.15 However, Baldwin IV and many nobles who participated in the campaign thought differently. They considered the result to be a defeat. Subsequently, Baldwin dismissed Guy from the regency, and took measures to ensure that he would never become a king.16 Modern historians suggest that the displacement of Guy was either erroneous or vindictive. One of their main arguments is that in 1183, Guy did not leave the springs and saved his army, while in 1187 he did leave and lost the battle and the kingdom fell.17 In 1183 Baldwin IV was probably influenced by earlier encounters. In 1177 the Frankish army, under his own leadership,

14 15

16 17

Abu Shama, Kitab al-Rawdatayn fi Ahbar al-Dawlatayn, pp. 163–165. R. C. Smail, “The Predicaments of Guy of Lusignan,” in Outremer, ed. B. Z. Kedar et al. (Jerusalem, 1982), pp. 168–169; Prawer, Histoire, 1:623; for another opinion see: P. W. Edbury, “Propaganda and Faction in the Kingdom of Jerusalem: The Background to Hattin,” in Crusaders and Muslims in Twelfth-Century Syria, ed. M. Shatzmiller (Leiden, 1993), pp. 173–189. WT, XXII 30 (29), pp. 1057–1059. Prawer, Histoire, 1:624; Edbury, “Propaganda,” p. 182.

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defeated Saladin near Ramla.18 In 1182 the Frankish army under lesser commanders forced Saladin to withdraw from their dominions. On these two occasions conditions were unfavourable for the Franks. No wonder the king and many nobles were hardly impressed by the results of the campaign of 1183. In 1183 Saladin proved that not only was he a determined rival, but also a competent battlefield leader. He was certainly surprised by the Frankish tactics but responded skilfully to the opportunities and achieved more than in previous clashes. Thus, he made his domestic position stronger and became the ultimate enemy of the Frankish kingdom. Raymond of Tripoli, who replaced Guy as regent, had a long history of encounters with the Muslim leader.19 It seems that Saladin considered the count, unlike Guy de Lusignan, as a capable leader. The fact that Raymond became regent might also explain the low profile of Saladin’s activity in the following years. In 1186 Guy de Lusignan became king and caused a major domestic crisis in the Frankish kingdom by failing to win the trust of the high nobility. The new conditions stimulated Saladin to seek an opportunity to attack the Frankish kingdom. This appeared rather soon. In 1183 Saladin had tested Guy’s tolerance of casualties and damage by attacking remote and minuscule Frankish settlements. In 1187 he assaulted the capital of Galilee, Tyberias, one of the greatest cities of the Latin kingdom.20

Before the Battle of Hattin Nicolle claims that dictating the conditions of the battle was the main reason for Saladin’s victory. This is of course evident. A precondition for wining a battle is for the attacking side to preserve its initiative. If it does not, it seems impossible to achieve anything. The battle of Hattin commenced in very unfavourable conditions for the Muslim army. It took place inside the Frankish kingdom, in a region which was superficially known by some troops and terra incognita for most of the Muslim army, and far from the Muslim bases. These factors should have been advantageous for the Frankish side. The Franks were more familiar with the terrain than their opponents. The decisive encounter took place no more than fifteen kilometres away from their base. However, they did not take advantage of these facts. Saladin himself was sufficiently well acquainted with the 18 19 20

Prawer, Histoire, 1:550–553. M. W. Baldwin, Raymond III of Tripolis and the Fall of Jerusalem (Princeton, 1936), pp. 59–61. The history and the topography of Crusader Tyberias have until now been poorly studied. An available study in English has been included in Pringle’s monumental research on the churches of the Latin kingdom of Jerusalem. D. Pringle, The Churches of the Crusader Kingdom of Jerusalem, vol. 2 (Cambridge, 1998), pp. 351–366. Further works are due to be published shortly: M. Ehrlich, “L’organisation de l’espace et la hiérarchie des villes dans le royaume latin de Jérusalem,” Cahiers de Civilisation Médiévale (forthcoming); idem, Towns in the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem (1099–1187) (forthcoming). The last is based on: idem, “The Inland towns in Twelfth-Century Palestine” (Ramat-Gan, 1999), pp. 53–69 (Unpublished Ph.D. thesis in Hebrew).

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region to choose a favourable battlefield. He knew where the Franks were located, where was best to cross the Jordan, and where he might enjoy strategic superiority. He also acquired information about where water sources were to be found at that time of year. He then encamped with his army near the springs of Wadi Fedjas, a few kilometres to the south of the fighting area. Evidently, the battlefield was not totally unfamiliar to the Muslim leadership. Saladin’s army had often raided the Galilee during the decade that preceded the battle of Hattin. In 1179 he attacked the Templar fortress at Vadum Jacob.21 As we have already noted, in 1182 he arrived at the area of Baisan and in 1183 he raided the highlands to the west of this Frankish settlement. In 1183 some Muslim forces reached as far as Nazareth and Mount Thabor.22 In 1184 he left the kingdom via Baisan.23 In 1187, on the first day of May, a Muslim troop defeated the Templars near Nazareth.24 This last Muslim victory contributed to their later success in Hattin. The Templars were weakened and certainly were not able to recover during the short time between these two encounters. The decisions made by Saladin before and during the encounter imply that he knew the area very well. This level of knowledge may not been achieved simply by his brief invasions of the region. There were residents of Muslim states who lived for a long time in the Latin kingdom, pilgrims, traders, or even spies. A prototype of the last is the writer and pilgrim ´Ali al-Harawi, who was also one of Saladin’s court advisors.25 He wrote a book which describes Muslim holy sites in Palestine. This includes a detailed chapter about the Muslim shrines in the area of Tyberias: e.g. Arbad, Hattin, Sagara, Kafar Kanna, Ruma, and also more remote places as Bayt al-Akhzan, Nazareth and various villages along the road to Acre.26 Most of these were rather marginal and neglected shrines. Other Muslim pilgrims, throughout the Middle Ages, rarely mentioned them. It is

21

22 23 24

25

26

WT, XXI 29 (30), pp. 1003–1004; M. Barber, “Frontier Warfare in the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem. The Campaign of Jacob’s Ford, 1178–79,” in The Crusades and their Sources. Essays presented to Bernard Hamilton, ed. J. France and W. G. Zajac (Aldershot, 1998), pp. 9–22. WT, XXII 15 (14), pp. 1026–1028; 16 (15), pp. 1028–1030; 17 (16), pp. 1030–1032; 27 (26), pp. 1050–1055. Lyons and Jackson, Saladin, p. 219. M. R. Morgan, La Continuation de Guillame de Tyr (Paris, 1982), pp. 38–40. On the precise location of this battle see: D. Pringle, “The Spring of Cresson in Crusading History,” in Gesta Dei per Francos. Etudes sur les croisades dédiées à Jean Richard, eds. M. Balard, B. Z. Kedar, J. Riley-Smith (Aldershot, 2001), pp. 231–240. J. Sourdel-Thomine, “Les conseils du Shaikh al-Harawi à un Prince Ayyubide,” Bulletin d’études orientales 17 (1961–1962), 205–266; W. J. Hamblin, “Saladin and Muslim Military Theory,” in The Horns of Hattin, ed. B. Z. Kedar (Jerusalem and London, 1992), pp. 228–238. ´Ali al-Harawi, Guide des lieux de Pèlerinage, ed. J. Sourdel-Thomine (Damascus, 1953), p. 20. This village is identified with Khirbat Irbid or Arbel (Grid Reference 195.246) by G. Beyer, “Die Kreutzfahrergebiete Akko und Galilaea,” Zeitschrift des Deutschen PalästinaVereins 67 (1945), p. 209; Hattin (GR 192.245); Sagara (GR 188.240); Kafar Kanna (GR 182.239); Ruma (GR 177.243); Bayt al-Akhzan is identical with Frankish Vadum Jacob (GR 209.267). See also: R. Ellenblum, “Frontier Activities: The Transformation of a Muslim Sacred Site into the Frankish Castle of Vadum Jacob,” Crusades 2 (2003), pp. 83–98.

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possible that the pilgrimage of al-Harawi was also a military survey.27 There were of course other sources information about the terrain and the Frankish army. Pilgrims, merchants, vagabonds and indigenous residents of the Frankish kingdom could have shared their information with the Saladin’s men. However, these were not qualified spies, and therefore their information was likely to be limited. Frankish prisoners were interrogated and certainly were forced to tell their captors everything they knew.28 In this case, the level of information which could have been obtained depended on the knowledge that the specific prisoner had. Some of them should have known a lot. Others would have been useless as far as the Muslims’ intelligence-gathering was concerned. In any case, the knowledge held by Frankish prisoners would have been partial, and frequently out of date. It is not unlikely that Saladin had an inside source within the Frankish leadership. A more enigmatic issue is the information Saladin received during the campaign itself. When he was near Tyberias he got a word that the Frankish army was moving from Sepphoris eastwards. Kedar suggests that that this piece of information was received from Muslim scouts who arrived at the vicinity of the Frankish camp and transferred messages.29 The intelligence that Saladin obtained before and during the battle of Hattin was a crucial factor in the Muslim victory. It enabled him to develop an accurate picture of the region and to use his army efficiently in a hostile territory. The huge Muslim army would have required an efficient logistic system.30 Its size and the fact that it was composed from troops who came from everywhere in the Muslim Middle East certainly did not make its operations easy. Its greatest advantage was the potential to defeat its opponents in open battle. Saladin wanted to collide with the Frankish army as early as possible. Thus he could to maximize his army’s advantages and minimize risks. Accordingly, he planned to enter the Galilee highlands and to position the army in a good strategic place near a big source of water. The Franks accepted his challenge and mustered their army in Sepphoris.31 On June 26, while Saladin was in ´Ashtara, he learned that the Franks were gathering in Sepphoris. He left immediately after Friday’s noon prayers. The following day he crossed the Jordan River and encamped near its eastern bank.32 This description implies that the Muslim army made the distance between ´Ashtara and al-´Uqhuwana (about sixty kilometres) in one day. This is

27

28 29 30 31 32

Many centuries later British researchers combined historical and military research of the Holy Land. See J. J. Moscrop, Measuring Jerusalem – The Palestine Exploration Fund and British Interests in the Holy Land (London 2000). Y. Friedman, Encounter between Enemies: Captivity and Ransom in the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem (Leiden, 2002), p. 126. Kedar, “The Battle of Hattin,” p. 195. Prawer, Institutions, p. 487. C. P. Melville and M. C. Lyons, “Saladin’s Hattin Letter,” in The Horns of Hattin, ed. B. Z. Kedar (Jerusalem and London, 1992), p. 208. Baha al-Din Ibn Shadad, Sirat Salakh al-Din al-Ayyubi, ed. M. Kh. Mastaf (Aleppo, 2001), p. 85; Prawer, Institutions, p. 48.

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an impossible pace. I suggest that on 27 June a small force crossed the Jordan to the western bank to ensure a bridgehead and was joined by the rest of the army on 29 June. They then climbed undisturbed to the Galilee highlands.33 Meanwhile, the Franks did not initiate any move against the Muslim army which, therefore, enjoyed freedom of action. According to Saladin, he rode to the vicinity of the Frankish camp on 1 July.34 At this stage the fact that the Franks remained in Sepphoris did not serve his aims any more. His problem was to make them leave their camp. To achieve this goal he besieged Tyberias, which was a very clever move. His cardinal aim was to confront and destroy the Frankish army. However, the alternative, to seize one of the most important Frankish cities, was still a worthy prize for his efforts. What did the Franks do in order to challenge Saladin’s efforts? They certainly accepted the challenge and mustered their army near the springs of Sepphoris. The vigorous resistance of Saphet and Belvoir following the battle might imply that these castles were alerted, as they were five years earlier. This suggests that during the preliminary stages the Franks used the same plans as in previous encounters. Yet, unlike in 1182, it seems that they did nothing beyond these actions until the early hours of 3 July. In summer 1187 the Franks had several good options, as they did in 1182. They were aware, of course, of the size of Saladin’s army,35 for their scouts would have seen it, at least from the moment of its arrival to the Jordan valley. The small size of the force that arrived on 27 June should certainly have provoked a vigorous reaction, such as to engage it before reinforcements could arrive, or to isolate it in the western bank of the river. However, nothing indicates that the Franks did anything to deny the Muslim army access to the Jordan’s western bank or to destroy it following the river crossing. They also did not prevent their opponents from climbing to the Galilee’s highlands. Frankish scouts traced Saladin’s move westwards to Kafr Sabt and definitely saw that a good part of his army remained there and did not join the attack against Tyberias. Even a more modest action, such as dominating the region of Kafr Sabt when Saladin arrived at Sinnabra, could have achieved much. Such actions would have confined the Muslims to the Jordan’s valley for two reasons: 1. It would have denied the Muslim army the access to the water source of the springs of Wadi Fedjas which was crucial for the success of the Muslim plan. Since the Muslim force was huge it would be impossible to find an alternative water source between Sepphoris and the Jordan. 2. It would also have enabled the Franks to dominate the steep ascent towards the Galilee highlands, creating severe difficulties in the Muslim army. It would have had to choose either to fight in extremely unfavourable conditions or to abandon his initial plan to confront the Frankish army. In the second case, it still could cause significant damage to Frankish territories. 33 34 35

Lyons and Jackson, Saladin, p. 256. Ibid., p. 257. Kedar opined that the Frankish ignorance of the size of the Muslim army was a key factor in their defeat. Kedar, “The Battle of Hattin,” p. 195.

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Nevertheless, this was not the aim of Saladin in this encounter. It also would deprive him the freedom of action he strove to achieve, not to mention that it would have been difficult for him to dictate the conditions of the battle, as eventually happened in Hattin. It has to be emphasized that in 1182 Saladin did not attack Tyberias because it was as dangerous as to climb the highlands. Since the Frankish army was on the dominant ridge, it could easily attack his army’s flank while marching, or trap the Muslims between the ridge’s slope and the walls of Tyberias. This analysis highlights the crucial importance of the Frankish move to the ridge’s edge in 1182. The fact that the Franks remained in Sepphoris in 1187 left the area to Saladin who skilfully took advantage of it. The Franks could also have taken other action against the Muslim army. They could have destroyed water sources and pasturing meadows, or protected their own camp zone. However, it seems that the Franks did not adopt any of these options.36 This analysis reveals the campaign plan of the Muslim army. Its fundamental advantage was the huge size of the army. It had to arrive safe in the Galilee highlands, to dominate an important water source, and then to confront the Franks. As clever as it was, there was a built-in risk in this plan. Its success greatly depended on the Frankish reactions. It is not clear whether Saladin guessed, gambled or correctly evaluated the reaction of Guy de Lusignan. In any case his success or defeat was in the hands of the Frankish king, who did not let him down. Saladin swiftly took advantage of the passive Frankish reaction and installed his army in a place where it could maximize its advantages and minimize risks. The Frankish army had three alternatives: to avoid the encounter; to initiate it; or to wait to Saladin’s action and to act accordingly. If the Franks considered the challenge presented by Saladin was beyond their possibilities, they could remain in their towns and castles and avoid a pitched battle at any cost. A glance at the aftermath of the battle of Hattin clearly indicates that wherever the Franks left a significant garrison it caused severe problems to the Muslim army.37 Hence, the assembling of the Frankish army was a clear signal that they accepted the challenge and that according to their evaluation battle was not beyond their possibilities. They could try to act as they had in 1182, and initiate the encounter. However, Guy de Lusignan preferred a third option: to wait by the springs of Sepphoris until Saladin’s army completed its operations in the Frankish territories. This was just how Guy had behaved in 1183.

36

37

Unless the interrogation of the old Saracen woman, on the morning of 3 July near Nazareth, indicates that there were Frankish activities that were aimed to guard their camp. Nevertheless, if all they succeeded in catching was an old woman, while Saladin himself arrived to their camp’s vicinity and returned without any significant problems, something did not function properly in the Frankish army. Morgan, La Continuation, pp. 47–8. Thus, Karak resisted until November 1188, Saphet until December 1188, Belvoir until January 1189, and Shaubak until the spring of 1189. H. Kennedy, Crusader Castles (Cambridge, 1993), p. 52 (Karak), pp. 100–1 (Saphet and Belvoir), p. 102 (Shaubak).

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This action plan was, in a way, very logical in the circumstances. Since Guy was aware of the size of the Muslim army, he preferred to avoid direct confrontation. Moving to the edge of the ridge meant, inter alia, to leave a safe haven while Saladin still could operate inside his realm. It has to be noted that it was only the beginning of the summer. Therefore, Saladin had plenty of time to act and to generate severe losses to the Frankish kingdom, even if the scope of its operations would have been rather limited. Such a campaign plan explains the strange passivity of the Frankish army. Therefore, one may speculate that up to the stage at which Saladin arrived to the springs of Wadi Fedjas, there was no confrontation between the armies since their actions matched the expectations of both sides. The crucial point of Guy de Lusignan’s supposed plan was to avoid, almost at any cost, a confrontation with the Muslim army, or at least to postpone it as much as he could. This supposed program throws a much more logical light upon later events than the usual narrative. According to the accepted reconstruction, there were three reasons why Guy de Lusignan agreed to Raymond’s view at the council of the night of 2 July that they should not leave the springs of Sepphoris. In the first place it fitted exactly what he had done in 1183 and, secondly, by this time he was the king and hence it would be far more difficult to displace him. Finally, Raymond’s suggestion was made in public, and therefore possible future claims of the sort which had led to Guy’s dismissal in 1183 – that the king acted as a coward or refrained from attacking the enemy – would be groundless.38 The events that took place during the council illustrate another aspect of Guy’s passive personality. The Frankish leaders should have been consulted before 2 July. Evidently, most of the Frankish army was already in Sepphoris when the Muslim force arrived at the foothills of the Galilee highlands (27 June). There is no reason to doubt that Saladin decided to attack only when he realized on 26 June that the Franks were gathered in their camp.39 Certainly, during these days the Franks should have evaluated the situation, maybe more than once. These discussions were not mentioned by contemporary chroniclers, but clearly the Franks did not leave Sepphoris before the early hours of the 3 July, indicating that the initial plan was to stay there. The purpose of the council of the 2 July was to assess to what extent the Muslim offensive against Tyberias should affect their campaign plan. Guy de Lusignan acted during this council as an arbiter rather than as a ruler who had his own agenda. He was persuaded, first by Raymond who suggested that they not leave the camp, then by Gerard who managed to convince him to reverse the decision. If the king did have an independent view, the chroniclers preferred to ignore it and to portray him as a hesitant person who had neither his own plan, nor the authority to impose it. Yet, it seems that this 38

39

The events that took place during the council were narrated in several sources: Morgan, La Continuation, pp. 46–7; “De expugnatione Terrae Sanctae libellus,” ed. J. Stevenson, in Rolls Series 66 (London, 1875), pp. 221–222; “L’estoire de Eracles Empereur,” Recuiel des Historiéns des Croisades, Historiens Occidentaux (1859), 2:52–3; Chronique d’Ernoul et de Bernard le trésoirer, ed. M. L. de Mas Latrie (Paris, 1871), pp. 158–62. Baha al-Din Ibn Shadad, Sirat Salakh al-Din al-Ayyubi, ed. M. Kh. Mastaf (Aleppo, 2001), p. 85.

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was not a case of poor public relations work. His conduct during the council perfectly fits the way he acted during the campaign of 1183. Why did the king alter his opinion following his late night conversation with the Templar master Gerard de Ridefort? It is impossible for modern historians to know what was said inside the king’s tent. Yet, the result of the conversation is clear. The king reversed his previous decision and decided to leave Sepphoris in the direction of Tyberias. The reasons that led Guy to this change are irrelevant. It is possible but unlikely that Gerard provided him with new information. It is much more likely that he changed his mind because he was unable to resist pressure from Gerard and others. This conclusion implies that the circumstances that led Guy to change his decision were identical to those that prevailed in 1183. In both cases he could not resist domestic pressure. Saladin prepared his army exactly for this scenario, thus the sudden change of the Frankish campaign plan was well expected by the Muslim leadership. The Frankish army advanced into a classic ambush, just a few kilometres from its camp.

Between 1183 and 1187 Two armies that frequently fought against each other certainly knew one another rather well. It was therefore a difficult task for the Muslim leadership to surprise the Franks. Saladin could not have been encouraged by the results of previous encounters. For roughly seventeen years he had striven unsuccessfully to destroy the Franks. Sometimes battles were won by one side or the other, but never in a decisive manner. Saladin’s problem was, therefore, to introduce tactics which could help him win the war conclusively. Saladin certainly knew that in 1183 he had missed an opportunity to destroy the Franks. His task, therefore, was to imitate as much as he could the conditions of the campaign of 1183. This was of course difficult. As already indicated, in 1187 the Franks had several ways to respond the challenge, and it was uncertain that they would choose exactly the one that Saladin had prepared for. Why did he think that the Franks would let him penetrate the kingdom as they had done in 1183? Was it just an action that derived from wishful thinking? It seems that this attitude misjudges events. Saladin certainly was aware of the vicissitudes which occurred in the Latin kingdom during the year that preceded the battle. He certainly knew that Guy lacked authority. Therefore, his evaluation that the Frankish leadership would perform as it eventually did was well grounded. The meaning of this understanding was that the Frankish army was likely to give him a free hand to repeat the actions of 1183, namely to devastate the whole region. It was Guy’s misfortune that this was not Saladin’s intention. In this occasion the scope of his operations was much broader. To achieve it he needed to engage the Frankish army. Therefore, he advanced directly, crossing the Jordan valley and ascending the Galilee highlands, taking advantage of Guy’s passivity. He did not delay and located his army in optimal positions. Since the Franks remained in Sepphoris, he attacked Tyberias. The fact that the Franks

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reacted as they did implies that this was an unexpected innovation. It was intended to make the Franks leave Sepphoris, as eventually happened. Yet, if they had declined the challenge, Saladin would have ensured himself a worthy prize, the city of Tyberias. Thus, it created a no-loss situation for the Muslim army. Guy de Lusignan understood too late the potential consequences of Saladin’s move. He realised that this time he would not escape with plundered fringe estates. The price that he would have pay for leaving Tyberias to the enemy’s mercy would have been unbearable for him. Therefore he left his safe haven, despite recognizing, presumably, the dangers of his situation.

The Battle of Hattin (3–4 July 1187) The Frankish move on 3 July was expected by the Muslim leadership. As a matter of fact, nothing but a miracle could have saved the Frankish army after it left the springs of Sepphoris. The Muslim army outnumbered the Franks and held the initiative, was well supplied and also dominated all the key positions on the battle-field. This time Saladin did not want to let the victory slip away. In order to yield the best results, the Muslim army acted in a very sophisticated way. During 3 July, in the early stages of the battle, the Muslims harassed the marching Frankish army. This move had been taken in order to slow down the pace of the Frankish army and to cause it to encamp in the field. It is likely that the Muslims wanted the Franks to arrive at Khirbat Maskana (Grid Reference 188.243) just bellow the Muslims’ main force’s camp. This analysis provides an explanation for Saladin’s remark that the Franks made a blatant mistake as they “left the waters and set towards Tyberias.”40 As Kedar suggested, the mistake was not that they left the water.41 Assuming that the spring that appears in this text was in Tur´an, it could not supply the big Frankish army with enough water. Nevertheless, staying there would have enabled the Franks to clash with the Muslims in better conditions than happened in practice. In Tur´an the Franks could operate in better conditions than in Maskana. They could defend themselves more efficiently and the Muslims would have to invest much more effort in order to attack them. Moreover, if the Franks remained in Tur´an overnight they still could avoid battle. Therefore, the Frankish advance to Maskana was considered by Saladin as the crossing of the point of no return. This was indeed the last and the critical error of the Frankish leadership during this fateful encounter. The events of 4 July are unclear. The chronicles differ significantly from each other and therefore it is difficult to understand the occurrences.42 Yet, there are two sources of information which make possible a general reconstruction: the

40 41 42

Melville and Lyons, “Saladin’s Letter,” p. 209. Kedar, “The Battle of Hattin,” p. 197. Kedar, “The Battle of Hattin,” p. 204.

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survivors of the battle and the topography. A well known fact is that in the Frankish vanguard, Raymond of Tripoli, prince of Galilee, and some of his companions survived the battle.43 Some Frankish chronicles alleged that this event indicates that there was a pre-battle agreement between the prince and Saladin.44 This might have been the case, but Raymond was not the only survivor. Raymond of Tripoli, who was the local lord, led the Frankish column. The main body was composed from the king, the Hospitallers and the Templars who were in the end of it. The rearguard was commanded by Balian of Ibelin, who also survived the battle.45 It would seem that most of the Frankish causalities were in the main body of the army. Another clear phenomenon is that the Frankish army hardly advanced during the second day of the battle. Given the topographic data of the battlefield, it seems possible to reconstruct the events of the clash between the two armies. The Muslim army was concentrated in the hills of Lubiyah, to the south of the battlefield. The Frankish army was trapped in a basin from which it tried with very little success to escape. It advanced during the whole day no more than four kilometres. In these conditions it became a sitting duck. Shapira highlighted the fact that during the battle the Franks succeeded in crossing the main watershed of Israel, which is a dominant line in the area, and therefore they should have been than in an advantageous position.46 This point is of course correct, yet it did not have significant impact on the battle’s development (illustration 5). The fact that elements of both the van and the rearguard survived the battle indicates that the Muslims exploited wisely the advantages that the ground and their numerical superiority granted them. It seems likely that they attacked the southern flank of the advancing army at two crucial points: between the van and the main body and between the main body and the rear. Acting in this way, they were able to maximize their advantages. They focused on the main objectives of the battle and seized the king, the military orders and many members of the secular and religious elite of the kingdom. This reconstruction is consonant with the information that elements of both the vanguard and the rearguard managed to escape.47 The fact that some nobles were able to flee did not influence the course of the battle.48 The Frankish army was annihilated. Subsequently the kingdom fell to Muslim hands, almost without resistance.

Summary The result of the battle of Hattin was likely long before the first drop of water had been consumed during those hot days of July 1187. The above analysis 43 44 45 46 47 48

Morgan, La Continuation, p. 54. Prawer, Institutions, pp. 498–499; Nicolle, Hattin, p. 73. Ibid. Kedar, “The Battle of Hattin,” p. 202, no. 44. Libellus, pp. 222–223. Herde, “Kämpfe,” pp. 43–45.

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indicates that it would be very difficult to attribute the Frankish defeat to one isolated tactical move which either side made during the two days of the battle. As a matter of fact, the reason for the decisive result was strategic rather than tactical. The pre-battle stage focused on one crucial point: the timing of the collision between the two armies. An early encounter was vital for Saladin, whereas Guy had to avoid it, or, at least, to postpone it as much as possible. The fact that Saladin caused Guy to act much earlier than he planned dictated the battle’s result. Almost all further events derived directly from Guy’s decision to leave his safe haven and confront Saladin in conditions dictated by the latter. In fact, Saladin could not have expected better. In spite of the fact that the battle took place within the Frankish realm, Saladin enjoyed a significant water source near the battlefield, whereas the Franks did not. It seems likely that the unprecedented results of this battle derived from the difference between the skills of the two leaders. Guy de Lusignan may have been a clever politician, but it seems that military leadership was not one of his best qualities. On the other hand, it is not clear at all that Saladin was a brilliant general. He lost, or at least did not win, many other campaigns against the Franks during the seventeen years that preceded the battle of Hattin, and also later during the Third Crusade. Nevertheless, since in this case his opponent displayed very poor generalship, a mediocre leader was more than enough in order to destroy the Frankish army.

3 Hybrid or Counterpoise? A Study of Transitional Trebuchets Michael Basista

The traction trebuchet by itself was not overwhelmingly powerful; its use was limited largely to a supporting role in most sieges. What was needed to make the trebuchet a truly important piece of siegecraft was a way to make it more powerful. The traction trebuchet was restricted to smaller projectiles, generally under fifty pounds. During the twelfth century the counterweight trebuchet with its massive weights had become the new weapon of choice in most sieges led by western Europeans. The transitional step up, however, from the smaller humanpowered engines to the enormous counterweight devices was not the application of ancient technology to newer ends but rather somehow a quantum leap in design. The supposed transition between the traction and the counterweight trebuchet was called a hybrid trebuchet and is depicted as having both a partial counterweight and a pulling crew to launch the projectile. An alternate interpretation of the evidence raises the possibility of an improvement on the simple traction trebuchet by counterpoising the weight of the projectile and the throwing arm. The traction trebuchet was severely limited by its smaller supporting pole frame. The Frankish trebuchet was developed in western Europe with a much larger and more robust trestle-framed support structures, although still human powered. A more structurally sound frame allowed for the components of the throwing arm and axle to increase in size. The increase in size would also imply an increase in weight of the throwing arm itself and allow for an increase in the weight of the projectile in the sling. Yet it was necessary to keep the weight of both the arm and the missile light enough to be launched efficiently by a humanpowered crew. The solution seems to have been a small counterpoise on the short side of the throwing arm that offset this increased arm weight and still enabled the human crew to pull with an effective amount of force to fire a missile. There are numerous representations of human-powered trebuchets from the Middle Ages. Many of these representations show engines that could be interpreted as hybrid machines. Frequently these images show what looks to be a large block of wood or some other sizable piece of material attached to the short end of the throwing arm.1 Other descriptions indicate large pieces of wood were 1

For example see the Crusader Bible and the Maciejowski Bible.

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used in the construction of the trebuchet, but without any indication as to their place in the machine.2 These same depictions of the hybrid machine have led some to incorrectly interpret the design as a conscious attempt to add mass to the short end and therefore use the force of gravity on the counterweight to augment the downward pull of the crew. This theory has several problems with it that will be explained in detail below. Rather than an attempt to add the falling weight to increase the speed of the throwing arm, these weights were more likely a new application of an ancient technique. Technologists used the same technology used in irrigation equipment, cranes, and even swords to offset the weight of the throwing arm rather than to augment the weight of the pulling force, which allowed trebuchets to be easily operated by a complement of soldiers during a siege. The difference in interpretation is in understanding the logic of the change in design rather than radically reinterpreting the existence or the behavior of the hybrid trebuchet. The transition from traction to counterweight happened physically the way it has been previously described; what is offered here is an explanation of how it happened intellectually. The traction trebuchet was effective as a support piece of artillery during a siege; it was not, however, effective for inflicting serious damage to any fortifications. As the arms race of castles and sieges escalated, fortifications developed thicker walls and more complicated architecture.3 As the walls grew thicker the small missiles fired by the traction trebuchet had little effect. This did not preclude their use in sieges; rather, as has been shown in various sources,4 they were useful in keeping the archers in check while towers and ladders were advanced to the walls or moats were filled in so that the foot soldiers could assault the stronghold. Siege commanders and engineers, however, could see that this particular engine had much more potential in sieges than as an anti-personnel weapon. We assume that these commanders realized that if the projectiles could be made larger they could have a devastating effect on the very walls of the fortifications themselves; rather than shooting small rocks, they could be used to hurl boulders to wreak devastation and havoc on the defenses. Before the machines were stepped up to this size, however, they went through a period of growth and transition from human-powered to gravity-powered. The primary proponent in the secondary literature for the idea of a hybrid trebuchet is Paul Chevedden who first lays out the details of this particular machine in an article in a festschrift for Joseph O’Callaghan. In this article Chevedden

2

3 4

Abbo of Saint-Germain-des-Prés, De Bello Parisiaco, Le Siege de Paris par les Normands, ed. and trans. H. Waquet (Paris, 1942), also much of Paul Chevedden’s evidence in “The Hybrid Trebuchet: The Halfway Step to the Counterweight Trebuchet,” in On the Social Origins of Medieval Institutions: Essays in Honor of Joseph O’Callaghan, ed. Donald J. Kagay and Theresa M. Vann (Leiden, 1998), pp. 179–222. Paul Chevedden, “The Invention of the Counterweight Trebuchet: A Study in Cultural Diffusion,” Dumbarton Oaks Papers 54 (2000), 73. For example see Randall Rogers, Latin Siege Warfare in the Twelfth Century (Oxford, 1992.)

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cites many various, primarily Arabic, sources. In a later article, “The Invention of the Counterweight Trebuchet: a Study in Cultural Diffusion,” Chevedden once again describes hybrid trebuchets, placing them as early as at the Viking siege of Paris in 885.5 Chevedden explains the hybrid trebuchet through Arabic sources and several medieval illustrations. He argues that it used a combination of both human and gravity power. What is perhaps most important is his description of its development. Chevedden states that “it does not appear to require great inventiveness” to add weight to the traction trebuchet to add power to its throwing arm.6 He then goes on to explain that it was probably through experiments that artillerists learned that by adding weights to the butt end of a traction trebuchet’s throwing arm they could increase its power. The approximately four hundred years between the advent of the traction trebuchet in the West and the development of the counterweight trebuchet is blamed largely on the technological innovation that was required to shift from the demonstrably successful traction trebuchet to the more risky (and more expensive) counterweight device. Chevedden even says that the success of the traction version was itself enough to stymie the development of any improvements on it. What would likely be more of an issue would be the professionalization of the soldiers. Soldiers prior to the twelfth century were largely conscripts who served as part of their feudal commitments, not full time soldiers. It is entirely possible that the feudal troops had little or no previous experience in war or combat.7 Those professional soldiers who were in the armies were nobles who had little training in the fields of engineering or construction that might lead to serious developmental changes in siege engines. Thus it was probably neither success nor any particular fear of making changes that stalled the shift from human to gravity power but rather a lack of training towards engineering. It was not until a more professional army was employed that serious attempts to improve on the trebuchet would have begun. Also, in a pre-professionalized army, those soldiers who had built trebuchets for previous sieges would not necessarily be present at the next siege to offer their advice. The lack of a professional engineer building the trebuchets would have had more impact than most anything else. Chevedden goes on to detail machines that he interprets as having both a counterweight and a pulling crew. Chevedden’s sources and descriptions of the hybrid trebuchet stretch from the Mediterranean and the Middle East to the Latin West and even range into the Scandinavian regions. The earliest of these hybrid machines that he describes is at the siege of Paris by Norsemen in 885–886.8

5 6 7

8

Chevedden, “Counterweight,” p. 99. Chevedden, “Hybrid Trebuchet,” p. 183. The issue of professionalization of feudal soldiers is largely undecided, though for an analysis of the issues involved with feudal levies, see Bernard Bachrach and R. Aris, “Military Technology and Garrison Organization: Some Observations on Anglo-Saxon Military Thinking in Light of the Burghal Hidage,” Technology and Culture 31 (1990), 1–17. Chevedden, “Hybrid Trebuchet,” p. 196, and also “Counterweight Trebuchet,” p. 99.

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Another is described at the siege of Manzikert in 1054. The most detailed description, however, comes from the siege of Damietta in 1218. This hybrid trebuchet is described as having a 370 kg weight and a 185 kg projectile. A two to one weight ratio of counterweight to projectile would not be sufficient to fire the projectile by itself so a pulling crew would be necessary to operate the machine. A study of the circumstances of the siege of Damietta shows, however, that the actions of the besieging Christians are not consistent with having a powerful trebuchet capable of leveling the walls of the city. Oliver of Paderborn was a German cleric who had preached the Fifth Crusade in his native lands and then went on the crusade himself where he provides a first-hand account of the siege of Damietta and the surrounding events.9 His account provides detailed information about the events of this siege, as well as other actions following the siege. Chevedden has stated that the hybrid trebuchet was a more powerful version of the trebuchet that was now able to inflict damage on fortified walls. A 185kg projectile should, according to Chevedden, damage the walls severely and serve as a siege-ending piece of artillery.10 This, however, was not the case at Damietta. When beginning the siege the Crusaders found themselves facing a port city with a defended harbour. The mouth of the harbour was protected by a chain that prevented the access of ships into the city. To take the city, the crusaders had to first remove this impediment to their progress, and this particularly meant removing the fortified tower that held the chain. Initially the Crusaders tried to destroy the tower through bombardment by siege engines. Oliver plainly states that “the tower could not be captured by the blows of petraries or of trebuchets (for this was attempted for many days).”11 The first approach to taking this tower suggests that at least in this phase, the trebuchets in place against Damietta were perhaps not throwing projectiles as heavy as Oliver indicated. Instead of taking the tower with trebuchets, another approach had to be tried. This approach involved building a siege tower across two ships that were joined together and sailing it close to the tower. Once they sailed the ships to the tower a terrible fight broke out between the defenders of the river tower and the Crusaders. Eventually the Crusaders managed to take control of the river tower and were able to continue the siege.12 Interestingly enough, artillery did play a part during the attack involving the ships, both by the Egyptians in defense and by the Crusaders in support of the attack. The ship-borne siege tower included netting and hides to defend the tower from fire and artillery fire. As the tower moved into position the defenders in the city moved at least six machines to the city

9 10

11 12

Oliver of Paderborn, Capture of Damietta, ed. and trans. John J Gavigan (Philadelphia, 1948), introduction, pp. 1–9. Chevedden, “Hybrid Trebuchet,” pp. 203–204. Here Chevedden describes the hybrid trebuchet causing breaches in the walls at the siege of Manzikert . Chevedden also makes frequent reference throughout this article to the power of the hybrid trebuchet. Oliver, Damietta, 25. Oliver, Damietta, 25–28.

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walls to bombard the tower. The Crusaders made use of their own machines which, while ineffective against the fortified tower, were able to destroy at least one of the Egyptian machines.13 Also of note is that the shot of the Egyptian machines was compared to hail falling from the sky, suggesting a rapid rate of fire not available with large counterweight machines as well as perhaps relatively small projectiles (suggesting the Egyptians may have been using their engines as anti-personnel weapons).14 The siege of Damietta continued for 19 months, ending in surrender of the Muslim defenders. This, along with the way in which the trebuchets were used in the siege, is inconsistent with the Crusaders having an overwhelmingly powerful type of trebuchet. If the projectiles stated to have weighed 185kg failed to have any significant effect of the walls of Damietta, then other accounts of the hybrid machine destroying walls with lighter projectiles can also be questioned (although obviously not all walls are created equally).15 Perhaps the most difficult issue when dealing with arms and armour of any kind in the Middle Ages is the difficulties in naming practices. Specific weapons rarely had set names. The trebuchet is no exception: many of the Arabic names for trebuchets are based on the design of their support structure, following the Chinese naming practices.16 The earliest trebuchets were pole-framed devices that were clearly based on and influenced by the Chinese engines. The Arabic term ´arradah refers to these earliest pole-framed designs while the term manjaniq then refers to a larger and sturdier trestle-framed device. Arabic technical literature specifies three different names for trestle framed engines based solely on the design of the support: first is the Arab trebuchet with a trapezoidal frame, next is the Persian or Turkish trebuchet which had a triangular frame based upon the Greek letter lambda (λ), and last is the Christian or Frankish trebuchet with a trestle in the shape of an isosceles triangle.17 These differentiations in the naming of trebuchets based on the shape of their support structures continue in the European languages as well. However, the variety of languages makes it harder to name specifically types of trebuchets beyond noting that the structure of a trebuchet gave it its name. The most general naming conventions in Latin that can be applied to trebuchets are the manganellus for the lighter pole-framed engines and the petraria for the larger trestle-framed versions.18 Perhaps the greatest issue here is not in terms of actual construction of the machines but simply in naming conventions, both in the Middle Ages and today. The trouble of trying to synthesize a standard terminology incorporating hundreds of years and many different languages is an issue that all studies of medieval history must face, though the problem seems to be particularly difficult

13 14 15 16 17 18

Oliver, Damietta, 26. Oliver, Damietta, 26. Chevedden, “Hybrid Trebuchet,” Chevedden, “Hybrid Trebuchet,” Chevedden, “Hybrid Trebuchet,” Chevedden, “Hybrid Trebuchet,”

pp. 203–206. p. 199. p. 199. p. 201.

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when it comes to weapons. The trebuchet as a generic term refers to a series of machines that were referred to in their original sources as mangonel, manjaniq, perrier, petraria, and even ballista. These are issues that have plagued the serious researcher of ancient and medieval artillery almost since the start. One need only examine the classics of the field, such as Huuri, Fino, Marsden, Schneider and others to see that the debate has never been properly settled.19 Chevedden’s sources also fail to clarify what type of weapon was firing on Damietta, as the naming practices for trebuchets that had already been established have no necessary correlation to the trebuchets’ propulsion systems, size of the projectile, or even size of the machine. Because the names had already been established, a hybrid version of the trebuchet did not get a separate name for the new type of machine. Chevedden interprets sources describing “big” trebuchets as attempts to describe a hybrid trebuchet using the existing naming conventions. However these sources offer little or no description of the “big” trebuchets. In addition, there are only two references to “big” trebuchets prior to the twelfth century, after which point the term most likely refers to counterweight trebuchets.20 Western sources present a similar terminology problem. Many of the terms that Chevedden interprets as meaning hybrid trebuchets literally only refer to the trebuchets’ size, such as magna petraria, or are terms, such as “Balearic,” that are also applied to counterweight machines. Balearic, for example, was used as a term for the most powerful weapon in the siege arsenal, including the counterweight trebuchet, and refers only to the power, not the construction or propulsion method. The Old French term chaable or calabre is also applied by Chevedden to the hybrid trebuchet. His rationale for this interpretation is the basis of those terms in the word chable, which can mean both rope and hoisting tackle. According to Chevedden, this suggests that the name stems from the cables attached to the main beam for a pulling crew to use. However, the alternate meaning of “hoisting tackle” can easily suggest that a block and tackle system was used to draw back the arm as is shown and described in accounts of a counterweight machine.21 Perhaps most damaging for Chevedden, however, are the descriptions in Spanish sources. Once again, there are no specific terms coined or applied to hybrid trebuchets. And the most detailed descriptions in the Siete Partidas, a law code of Alfonso X compiled in 1265, offer two genres of trebuchet: those powered by a counterweight and those powered by human traction power. There are no descriptions of a genre-breaking hybrid machine.22 At the very 19

20 21 22

K. Huuri, “Zur Geschichte des mittelalterlichen Geschutzwesens aus orientalischen Quellen,” (Helsinski, 1941); J.-F. Finó, “Machines de jet médiévales,” Gladius 10 (1972); idem, Forteresses de la France medievale: construction, attaque, défense, 3d ed. (Paris, 1977); E. W. Marsden, Greek and Roman Artillery: Historical Development (Oxford, 1969); idem, Greek and Roman Artillery: Technical Treatises (Oxford, 1971); R. Schneider, Die Artilleri des Mittelalters (Berlin, 1910). Chevedden, “Hybrid Trebuchet,” p. 201. Chevedden, “Hybrid Trebuchet,” pp. 208–211. Chevedden, “Hybrid Trebuchet,” pp. 211–212.

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least, this demonstrates that contemporaries did not conceive of an intermediate type between the traction and counterweight trebuchets. Other medieval sources also fail to provide any evidence of the existence of a European hybrid machine. Aegidio de Colonna in his De Regimine Principum offers up advice to young Philip IV (1285–1314) of France prior to his taking the throne. Some of the advice included here is on warfare and in particular siege warfare. Aegidio describes four styles of trebuchet and their respective benefits and faults. First is the trebuchet with a fixed counterweight attached to the butt end of the arm. According to Aegidio this type was the most accurate although it did not have the longest range. The second type had a hanging counterweight that was allowed to swing freely. This type had a longer range but was less accurate than the fixed counterweight design. The third type had both a fixed and hanging counterweight. This type was to combine the best attributes of both the first two types. The fourth type of trebuchet is that which is pulled by human power. This trebuchet could throw stones at a much faster rate than the other types of machines, but the stones were much smaller. That Aegidio did not include a type of machine that has both a weight and humans pulling on it at the same time suggests that this type either did not exist or at the very least was not very successful as a weapon. If this type of trebuchet had been known to Aegidio then surely he would have included it in his descriptions. Likewise, it is unlikely that he took for granted that these human-powered machines would have weights on the throwing arms, as he does include the description of the seemingly strange third type of machine as having both hanging and fixed counterweights. Also, the hybrid machines as described by Chevedden fire substantial stones that have a devastating effect on fortification walls. Aegidio says clearly that these traction machines were less powerful than the first three types of trebuchets described above. There are several fundamental problems with a siege engine that is powered by both human and gravity power. There would almost certainly be issues with coordinating a pulling crew and a trigger man to release the sling holding the projectile. On top of that, the pulling crews described by Chevedden would be prime targets for archers and cavalry attacks. Finally the sources that Chevedden bases his interpretations on are not overwhelmingly convincing. Assuming that these machines were fired in the same manner as the traction trebuchet upon which they were based, the sling would be released at the proper moment by a shooter holding the sling. In order to fire effectively a hybrid trebuchet of any size, a large pulling crew and one or more soldiers holding the sling would be required. Chevedden’s sources often indicate pulling crews of well over a hundred men, and in some cases upwards of 600 men were used as a pulling crew.23 While the arm would actually rest in the cocked position when no one is pulling on it; it has been shown with traction trebuchets that pre-tensioning the sling by pulling the ropes taut improves the coordination of the crews and

23

Chevedden, “Hybrid Trebuchet,” p. 187.

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thereby improves the accuracy and distance of the shot. Pre-tensioning a machine with additional weights attached, not to mention a large pulling crew, would consequently require more than one person to hold the projectile in the sling if they could do so at all. Needham’s research on Chinese trebuchets has some valuable information to add here. According to his research, traction devices with 157 and 250 haulers both required two commanders for use; this makes it easy to believe that more than one holder would be required for launching artillery shots.24 To do this all day for several hours at a time would most certainly fatigue even the hardiest firing crew. As unlikely as 600 men pulling on one machine at once may be, we must examine this as a possibility. In addition to the issues just in holding down the throwing arm for it to be loaded and fired, a high level of coordination would be required to fire the trebuchet most effectively. Any soldier pulling late on the ropes would have virtually no effect on the already moving throwing arm, therefore everyone on the pulling crew would have to pull simultaneously or else the rotational speed of the arm–and more importantly the sling holding the projectile–would be adversely affected. As well as getting everyone to pull at the same time it would be of the utmost importance to make sure that the sling is released at the right time. With a crew of 600 men all pulling at once the timing to release the sling would be of importance not only for the performance of the engine but also for the safety of the soldiers holding the sling. A late release of the sling could easily cause the holder to end up being flung himself at least some height into the air. While the sling should not be free as the throwing arm begins moving, the timing of the release is still important. Holding onto the sling once the arm is in movement would cause the arm to bend slightly and create a flex in the wood. This flexing would create a spring effect in the wood, adding the force of the wood straightening itself out to the centrifugal force, thereby imparting extra force to the throw. Peter Vemming Hansen, as a researcher with the Falsters Minder Museum in Nykobing, Denmark, has supervised and written on the experimental reconstruction of several trebuchets of various types. According to his research one of the hardest issues to address is how much flex to impart on the arm. Hanging too long on the relatively weak machines built for demonstration purposes slowed the arm to such a point that it impaired the throwing power. An early release did not impart enough flex on the throwing arm. It was difficult to coordinate properly the release of the sling with one holder and twenty pullers, taking several tries to begin to achieve satisfactory performance. It could therefore be extrapolated from this data to a machine having 600 pullers and at least two holders that it would take multiple tries, even with a seasoned crew, to begin to achieve results

24

Joseph Needham, “China’s Trebuchets, Manned and Counterweighted,” in On Pre-Modern Technology and Science: Studies in Honor of Lynn White, Jr., ed. B. S. Hall and D. C. West (Malibu, CA, 1976), p. 113.

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that would be militarily useful.25 After the problems with coordination of the pulling crew and the holders, the unlucky crews’ situation would hardly improve. A group of more than 600 soldiers manning one machine with little or no defensive capability would be an easy target for archers, artillerists, and quick moving cavalry forces. Several secondary sources suggest that this more than anything else necessitated and provoked the shift from traction to counterweight machines.26 W. T. S. Tarver’s work with a traction trebuchet reconstruction has suggested that a smaller crew makes it possible to build a defensive structure around the crew to protect it from incoming archery fire.27 The possibility of building a structure large enough to successfully shield 600 men pulling on the ropes would require a large amount of resources, manpower, and time. Likewise, it would be difficult for the holders to properly aim the projectile with their view obscured by the defensive structure. It would also be a very large support structure that could enable a pulling crew of over a hundred men to effectively pull at once on the end of the throwing arm. Tarver’s reconstruction, though clearly not a large machine, operated with at most twenty members on the crew. According to his experiments it was most effective with the crew pulling directly on the butt end of the throwing arm straight down rather than at an angle. This positioning also enables the defensive structure mentioned above. To be able to crowd over a hundred men directly under the butt of the throwing arm would require a very wide stance for the support structure and a wide end on the throwing arm for the necessary ropes to attach to. This need for a wide end may account for the descriptions and depictions of large traction trebuchets that caused Chevedden to believe that these machines had counterweights.28 The final problem is the size of medieval armies themselves. An army of 10,000 men with four of the large traction trebuchets using crews of even 500 men would have over one fifth of the army manning the trebuchets. Even during the rather static action of a siege having one fifth of an army in a relatively defenseless position is not a sound military tactic. The rapid fire rate of the traction trebuchet is not enough to provide the crews with an amount of safety against the presence of siege engines in the defending castle revealed in many sources.29 The defenders would see the attackers’ trebuchets being constructed and have plenty of time to adjust the placement of their own engines in order to bombard the artillery of the attackers.30 All but the large counterweight trebuchets were in 25 26 27 28 29 30

W. T. S. Tarver, “The Traction Trebuchet: A Reconstruction of an Early Medieval Siege Engine,” Technology and Culture 36 (1995), p. 158. Carrol Gillmor, “The Introduction of the Traction Trebuchet into the Latin West,” Viator 12 (1981), p. 2. Tarver, “Traction Trebuchet,” p. 158. Tarver, “Traction Trebuchet,” p. 157. Paul Chevedden, Les Eigenbrod, Vernard Foley, and Werner Soedel, “The Trebuchet,” Scientific American 273 (1995), 70. Tabari, Victory of Islam, ed. and trans. Michael Fishbein (Albany, 1997), p. 172.

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at least the accepted long distance of archers.31 Unexpected sallies made by the defenders’ cavalry could pose a serious danger to the crews manning a traction trebuchet. A serious attack made by defenders on the large pulling crews could easily lead to a substantial number of casualties. With a fifth of an army committed to working the siege engines, a successful attack on the trebuchets could drastically reduce the number of fit men for fighting, thereby making it more difficult to maintain a siege. As mentioned above, Chevedden’s sources are not overwhelmingly convincing. Many of the sources that Chevedden interprets as referring to the hybrid trebuchet are ambiguous. Sources that are most often interpreted as referring to either traction or counterweight engines, Chevedden reads as referring to hybrid machines. Many of Chevedden’s sources referring to traction trebuchets are clear and accepted as human-powered engines. The route described by Chevedden for the introduction and spread of the traction trebuchet from its invention in China to the Latin West is not questioned, but the sources that are introduced as evidence for the hybrid machine are questionable. Chevedden addresses the evidence raised by Randall Rogers’, Latin Siege Warfare in the Twelfth Century, claiming that the pictorial evidence that Rogers cites is inconclusive,32 yet later on he makes use of similar sources himself. Chevedden will often refer to illustrations of what he perceives to be hybrid trebuchets. Often these illustrations show a larger butt end of the throwing arm. Some depictions show what appears to be a large beam oriented either horizontally or vertically across the end of the throwing arm. Attached to this beam are the rings for the pulling crews’ ropes to anchor to the beam. Chevedden interprets these beams as large blocks of wood or some other heavy material positioned there in a deliberate attempt to serve as a counterweight. Other illustrations show the throwing arm being thicker at the base end. Once again this is interpreted as a proto-counterweight mechanism. There are more mundane reasons for both of these features in the illustrations. The beams across the butt end serve two purposes: the first is to serve as an anchor point for the support braces such as those shown on the trebuchet in the Crusader Bible. The second function of these beams is to spread the force of the crews pulling more evenly as well as spreading out the positioning of the pullers themselves to give them more room to pull. The thicker base shown on some trebuchets need not be a conscious effort to increase the weight at that end of the throwing arm, but rather a way of showing that the arm tapers. Additionally this base for the pulling ropes by necessity had to be robust and so would often have the effect of neutralizing much of the weight of the throwing arm. Chevedden first offers evidence in the form of primary accounts of trebuchets in use at various sieges. While describing the power that traction engines achieved in China Chevedden offers up a machine that had a crew of 250 men pulling the

31 32

Jim Bradbury, The Medieval Archer (New York, 1985), p. 5. Chevedden, “Hybrid Trebuchet,” p. 186.

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ropes and this machine fired stone shot weighing between 53.7 and 59.7kg a distance of 77 meters.33 When two Armenian descriptions of trebuchets, there known as babans, are entered into evidence for the hybrid version, the descriptions of what could be large traction trebuchets are interpreted as hybrid machines. The machines described by Chevedden weighed from 1,875 to 2,250kg, had a pulling crew of 400 men and launched stone shot weighing from 111 to 200kg.34 These descriptions, however, lack any specific indication of the presence of a large counterweight used to provide the energy for the throw. What are described are simply large machines, and the information (or lack thereof) given here does not rule out the possibility of large traction trebuchets built on Frankish style trestles. Looking more closely at the two previous machines described by Chevedden reveals a rather predictable event. The size of the pulling crew for his hybrid machine was approximately twice the size of the large traction trebuchet, and, correspondingly, the weight of its shot, if the lower weight of 111kg is used, is also approximately twice the size of the earlier traction machine. A simple doubling of the pulling crew corresponds to a shot weight that is twice that of the earlier engine. And since we do not know the length of the arm, the larger shot might also have simply been accommodated by the larger crew using a typical traction engine. Even this 111kg weight for projectiles is not so easily proven. According to the Armenian source the baban fired a shot weighing 60 litras. An Armenian litra weighed approximately one third of a kilogram, so 60 litras would weigh just about 20kg. Chevedden deems this size projectile far too small for this size machine. Either, he suggests, litra was being used here as an equivalent to the Syrian ratl (producing the more acceptable weight of 111kg) or by ascribing the issue to a scribal error where 60 litras instead should be 600 litras.35 Chevedden also presents descriptions of trebuchets being used to hurl various projectiles besides their normal stone shot. Accounts of trebuchets being used to throw earth-filled sheep skins to attempt to fill in ditches built around city walls are used as evidence for the presence of hybrid machines in Arabic sources in 838. By ascribing a weight of 100 to 150kg to these sheep skins Chevedden places these objects outside what he deems the capability of traction trebuchets. However, he offers no evidence for how he came by these weights, and they seem heavy, as a typical medieval ewe weighed only around 25kg.36 Chevedden also offers the size of the pulling crews as evidence for a hybrid trebuchet: crews up to 250 men are still categorized as traction trebuchets, once the machines require pulling crews of more than 400 men he arbitrarily deems them hybrid machines.37 For example, the Arabic account of the conquest of 33 34 35 36 37

Chevedden, “Hybrid Trebuchet,” p. 183. Chevedden, “Hybrid Trebuchet,” p. 187. Chevedden, “Hybrid Trebuchet,” p. 187, n. 14. A. J. S. Gibson, “The Size and Weight of Cattle and Sheep in Early Modern Scotland,” Agricultural History Review 36 (1988), 169. For instance compare pp. 213–14 with the machines described on pp. 186–188.

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Sind has a trebuchet referred to as “The Bride,” and this machine, with a crew of 500 men, is thus labeled as suggestive evidence for a hybrid trebuchet.38 Chevedden thereby ignores both the naming practices and possibility that rather than being a new type of artillery they are instead large traction trebuchets built to a size to accommodate large numbers of men on a pulling crew in order to throw larger projectiles. Another issue with Chevedden’s sources is the rather imprecise use of the term “pullers.” Chevedden uses the number of pullers described for a trebuchet to mean solely those men pulling on the ropes of a traction or hybrid trebuchet. Yet in his own examination of sources he describes soldiers in other positions as pulling a trebuchet. There can be several possible needs for men to pull trebuchets. There is the obvious position of pulling the ropes on the butt end of the throwing arm and this is largely how Chevedden uses the term pullers. However, some of his sources offer other possible interpretations of the term. In describing a very large trebuchet used in the battle of Manzikert in 1071 his sources describe the trebuchet as being so large as to be transported in 100 carts pulled by 1,200 men.39 The crew of men that were tapped to move the trebuchet to the battle could thus also be called pullers. By this reasoning a trebuchet that was moved by 600 pullers could easily be mistaken as a machine that had a crew of 600 men pulling the ropes and it would certainly take more men to move a machine than to fire it. There is another possible meaning for pullers that need not apply to the men pulling on the ropes of a traction or hybrid machine. A counterweighted machine requires some form of force to draw back and prepare the arm to fire. Even with the treadmills shown in several medieval illustrations a substantial number of men would be required to pull back the throwing arm. On machines without a treadmill most likely a block and tackle system could be used to draw the arm back. This system of drawing back the arm would require a substantial crew pulling on the ropes in unison, and these men could also be described as a pulling crew. This interpretation would agree with the already mentioned term chaable as referring not to the cables and ropes of the men pulling on the butt end of the throwing arm but instead to the tackle used by the men to pull back the throwing arm. Other possible pullers would be those who pull the rocks up to load the machine. The prevalence of the sources examined by Chevedden should not be ignored. There were clearly at least a few traction trebuchets built with some characteristics of both traction and counterweight trebuchets. The issue here is that a “hybrid” trebuchet with a counterweight and a team of pullers does not work as described by Chevedden. Other interpretations of his sources as well as the findings of other researchers suggest other possible models of how the larger traction trebuchets worked.

38 39

Chevedden, “Hybrid Trebuchet,” p. 190. Chevedden, “Hybrid Trebuchet,” p. 188.

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There are a number of possibilities for how the sources can be read. One possibility is that the trebuchets known in their native tongues as “big” or “large” trebuchets were just that; traction trebuchets built to a much larger size. The sources that Chevedden cites sometimes offer credence to that interpretation. For example the account of the Siege of Paris in 885–886 by Abbo refers to mangana being prepared with “beams with great weight” (magno cum pondere … tigna).40 The conventional reading of this source is “beams of great weight” or heavy beams for the main throwing arm. Chevedden, however, reads this phrase differently, as beams being prepared with great weights attached to them.41 Based on this evidence Chevedden says that the siege engines used in the siege of Paris were hybrid trebuchets. If one were to extrapolate on the conventional reading it is easy to interpret the accounts not of hybrid trebuchets but of larger traction machines. Larger designs would require larger and therefore heavier pieces of wood, and the largest single pieces of wood, the throwing arms, would be the heaviest pieces. This simply shows that there is additional room for interpretation of an already imprecise source. As discussed above there is also evidence that the traction trebuchet became larger and heavier in construction once it entered into the arsenal of sieges in the West. There are numerous accounts and descriptions, particularly during the Crusades, that make mention of “Frankish trebuchets.”42 These trebuchets are generally described in such a way as to suggest that they are built of a trestleframe design which offered more substantial support than the previous simpler pole-framed trebuchets. These Frankish trebuchets would allow for more force to be applied to the throwing arm. By building the Frankish traction trebuchets to a larger size – to a size rivaling that of the later counterweight designs, for example – it would be possible to have larger pulling crews and larger projectiles as well. The largest of these traction machines could likely accommodate over 100 men on the pulling crew easily. Taking into account the issues with large pulling crews described above, these pulling crews even with one fifth of the men pulling out of sync would still be able to fire projectiles considerably larger than those fired with pole-framed trebuchets with their smaller pulling crews. In a more recent article Chevedden attempts to address some of his critics and clarify his position regarding the hybrid trebuchet.43 In this article Chevedden offers little new evidence for the existence of a hybrid machine; instead he attempts to offer an explanation of its mechanics and demonstrate the viability of his descriptions. One of the first areas addressed in this article is that of the size of the pulling crews. The article attempts to show that a crew of 600 men will fit under a reasonably sized support structure; however, it disregards the safety or efficacy of the crew

40 41 42 43

Chevedden, “Hybrid Trebuchet,” p. 196. Chevedden, “Hybrid Trebuchet,” p. 196. Chevedden, “Hybrid Trebuchet,” p. 199. Paul Chevedden, Zvi Shiller, Samuel R. Gilbert, Donald J. Kagay, “The Traction Trebuchet: A Triumph of Four Civilizations,” Viator 31 (2000), 433–486.

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during conflict. At the density he suggests, namely five people per square meter, and trapped behind the wooden shield also described, a dangerous situation in warfare would be created. Should a fast moving cavalry force attack the trebuchet’s crew, or if the machine itself be set on fire, the crew would be effectively trapped by both the defensive structure and more importantly by the crush of the crowd under the machine. With the defensive wall and the trestle structure the avenues for escape would be narrowed significantly. So when a crew of 600 men packed at a density of five men per square meter attempted to run through these openings the possibility of men being trampled would be increased; additionally, the bottlenecks would drastically slow the men trying to escape. The other attempt to explain the 600 pullers at Damietta is to suggest that these pullers need not have worked all at once, but this also weakens Chevedden’s argument for the existence of hybrid trebuchets. Instead he suggests that these 600 pullers worked in shifts.44 If this were the case then this crew need not indicate a hybrid machine. If the 600 men worked in three shifts of 200 men each, then the pulling crew would be roughly the same size as large traction trebuchets.45 The article then tries to explain the hybrid trebuchet as a system where the weight is used as a counterbalance. While there is some merit for this interpretation the method and data used in the article are inaccurate. First addressed is the issue of the distribution of the weights. Using the hybrid trebuchet from the Siege of Damietta the engineering analysis attempts to show the balance effect of the weights and projectiles. This particular engine had a projectile of 185kg and an overall weight of 370kg. The analysis now supposes a 2:1 beam ratio, where the long arm is twice the length of the short arm. This ratio is incorrect to be applied to this trebuchet. The hybrid trebuchet would work fundamentally as a traction trebuchet, so the same reasons to have a long ratio on a traction trebuchet are the same reasons to have a long arm ratio on a hybrid.46 The short ratio of 2:1 is convenient for balancing the two weights; however there are still problems that are created by these numbers. With a 2:1 arm the weight would find equilibrium (rest) with the short end hanging down when unloaded; this would require the arm to be drawn back and cocked before each shot; meaning that if the machine retained the traction firing sequence of a soldier holding the projectile the pullers would first have to hold up the short end, making pretensioning harder. Simply, the arm would be unbalanced when unloaded, and would stay unbalanced until the projectile was loaded. The other mistake made in the engineering analysis is the assumption of no inertia for the beam. The inertia of the beam fundamentally influences the dynamics of the beam’s movement. Ignoring the moment of inertia simplifies the calculations but does not accurately create a mathematical model for the trebuchet.

44 45 46

Chevedden et al., “Traction Trebuchet,” p. 457. Cf. the tables of Chinese trebuchets in both the 1998 and 2000 articles. Chevedden et al., “Traction Trebuchet,” p. 454.

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A more plausible series of calculations is available in Donald R. Hill’s earlier article “Trebuchets” in Viator.47 These calculations, are not as complex as the engineering analysis in Chevedden’s article; instead they are more exhaustive and detailed. Hill takes into account the weight and inertia of the wooden beam and also adds the force of friction into the equations to determine a level of mechanical efficiency. Most importantly for this case is the range of beam ratios that Hill uses. He works the calculations with several different beam ratios to show the impact of the ratio on the performance of the trebuchet. What is shown is that the lighter trebuchet, essentially a traction trebuchet, works best with the higher beam ratios and the counterweight has the greatest range with the lower ratios. With the 2:1 ratio of Chevedden’s article the hybrid trebuchet would have a shorter range. More likely, to work properly, this trebuchet had an arm ratio of closer to 4:1 or higher. When taking into account the inertia of the beam itself the weight on the short arm would likely be able to achieve equilibrium with the unloaded long arm.48 One issue raised by increasing the size of the traction trebuchets is reflected partially in the account of the siege of Paris. The heavy beams mentioned by Abbo would be of a weight that would be substantial enough to affect the performance and perhaps even viability of the large traction trebuchets. This is where Chevedden’s interpretations may offer some valuable insight. Rather than applying counterweights to the throwing arms to add their weight to the force being used to fire the machines it is more viable to believe that a weight could be added to the end of the throwing arm as a counterpoise. The effect would be to negate the actual weight of the throwing arm as much as possible. The distinction between counterweight and counterpoise may sound trifling, but if we take into consideration the development of the trebuchet within the intellectual and the mechanical framework of the Middle Ages, this important distinction offers a more compelling way to understand the development of this siege machine. By balancing the weight of the throwing arm on both sides of the fulcrum any force applied to the short side would act only on the weight of the projectile and not the combined weight of the throwing arm and the projectile. The effect would be that a pulling crew on a large counterpoised trebuchet could throw a projectile of a greater weight than an identical crew on a smaller traction trebuchet. Also a larger crew, given the additional room of the larger frame, could throw substantially larger projectiles than those thrown with smaller pole-framed trebuchets. The concept of using a counterpoise to lift and move heavy weight would not be unknown to medieval engineers, or even to many civilians. Machines and devices at that time made use of a counterbalance to increase lifting capacities. Cranes and wells would both have used a counterbalance design to counteract the weights of the raising arms and their loads. The oldest counterpoised device was the shaduf, or water sweep, an irrigation device employed by the ancient

47 48

Donald R. Hill, “Trebuchets,” Viator 4 (1973) 114. See Fig. 5 (Center of gravity loaded vs. unloaded counterpoised trebuchet).

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Egyptians. The shaduf was used to raise water out of wells and rivers. Essentially a counterpoised lever, the shaduf had a single arm supported by a pole frame. The frame divided the arm into two unequal lengths on a pivot. The shorter arm would have a weight of various materials attached to it. The longer arm had a bucket on the end which was dunked into the water. When empty the long arm is lighter than the short arm; however, when the bucket is full the arm is balanced more evenly. By balancing the weight between the two ends evenly the average power input is evened out. The amount of effort that went into moving the water from one place to the next was minimized because the “counterweight” lifted the full bucket from the water and then the operator made use of the lever advantage by pulling on the long arm to raise what should properly be called a counterpoise and dip the bucket again.49 The shaduf originated in the Middle East and was used there continuously up to the present day in some rural areas. It would be a simple step for Islamic armies to adapt this technology to military ends. Indeed, Donald Hill points to it as a likely source of inspiration for the counterweighted machines. The basic idea behind a counterpoised trebuchet is there; some modifications, however, are necessary to transform the shaduf into a weapon of war. The counterpoise’s weight ratio is not the same for a trebuchet as for a shaduf. In the shaduf the weight should be overbalanced when the weight is applied to the long arm so that the water is lifted from the well; on a trebuchet the counterpoise would serve to balance the long arm when empty. When loaded the long arm of a trebuchet would be heavier than the short arm and the counterpoise. Also, the force input for a shaduf ideally should be low, to make it easier to move large amounts of water over long periods of time. Because a trebuchet works on an unequal application of force and needs to do so with great rapidity, the force applied to the short arm will be sudden and high in order to very rapidly accelerate the long arm and launch the projectile. What the shaduf attempts to do is to minimize the work by making each portion of the process equal to each other, meaning that the amount of power used to raise the full bucket of water is not significantly different than the amount needed to lower the empty bucket. Additionally a shaduf is moved slowly by only one or two men at a time, whereas the counterpoised trebuchet employs a puling crew of dozens of men and moves with great velocity and violence. Another possible genesis for a counterpoised trebuchet comes from quayside cranes used in loading and unloading ships. The operation and construction of these types of cranes are very similar to the shadufs described above. The quayside cranes of this type are not well documented in the medieval period. I suspect that there are several reasons for the lack of documentation of these types of cranes. These counterpoised cranes were not as commonly employed throughout Europe as the larger and more mechanically powerful treadwheel cranes. It is also possible that they were so common as to not be interesting or noteworthy to the

49

R. J. Forbes, Studies in Ancient Technology, II (Leiden, 1965), pp. 34–5.

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medieval artists (although they appear quite regularly in paintings of waterside scenes with the arrival of Netherlandish realism). The treadwheel cranes were used to hoist large loads and were often used in construction of cathedrals and other large buildings as well as for loading and unloading ships as well.50 The more common use and impressive sight of treadwheel cranes over most of Europe would make them more prevalent in artists’ depictions and manuscript descriptions than a counterpoised quayside crane or dipping bucket. Also, the majority of cranes depicted in painting and illuminations are shown in constructing cathedrals and also a number of them are shown in biblical illustrations of the building of the tower of Babel.51 This does not preclude the possible existence of counterpoised quayside cranes, but rather shows just how common the treadwheel crane was during the later Middle Ages. There are at least two illustrations of counterpoised cranes or lifting devices from the Middle Ages. One is a crane shown in Kyeser’s Bellifortis, the other is from Robert Valturio’s De Re Militari, showing a counterpoised device for lifting soldiers over a castle wall.52 These devices may only be fanciful and may never actually have been built but it does still illustrate that the idea behind a counterpoised crane was known, and it is instructive to note that both appear in the context of military treatises. The problems with the counterpoised crane being the inspiration for a counterpoised trebuchet are also the same as those noted with reference to the shaduf. Once again, the quayside crane is used slowly and with a fairly constant work input so as to make it easer to move cargos over several hours at a time. There are, however, some possibilities that make the quayside crane more viable than the shaduf as inspiration for the trebuchet. The cranes would likely have been operated by larger crews than the shaduf and been built larger with a studier frame than the rather lightweight shaduf. The quayside crane might bolster an argument for a northern European invention of a counterpoised trebuchet. There is a final possible source of inspiration for the counterpoised trebuchet that would be familiar to every soldier of the Middle Ages and indeed to most of the populace itself. A sword pommel serves largely the same function as a counterpoise on a trebuchet throwing arm. The pommel at the bottom of a sword serves to balance the blade’s weight and make it a more effective weapon. The pommel is attached on to the sword beneath the grip of the sword and counteracts most, but not all of the weight of the blade itself. Thus, the balance point – in physics terms, the “center of gravity” (Cg)–is therefore located near or just in front of the guard. While a sword lacks the axle by which the trebuchet throwing arm swings, it does move in similar arcs while being used by a soldier in battle. Also the force applied to a sword is exclusively on one end of the weapon and it moves with great speed. 50 51 52

Andrea Matthies, “Medieval Treadwheels: Artists’ Views of Building Construction,” Technology and Culture 33 (1992), 542–543. Matthies, “Medieval Treadwheel,” pp. 519–520, 528, 530, 532. Conrad Kyeser, Bellifortis (facsimile reproduction, Düsseldorf, 1967, with notes and commentary by Götz Quarg), fol. 32v; Valturio in Giovanni Canestrini, Arte militare meccanica medievale (Milan, 1946), p. 170.

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Despite lacking an axle, a sword does have a balance point where the weight of the sword is evenly distributed between the blade and the hilt (the Cg). The sword functions almost as a lever around this balance point; when properly swung the tip moves forward, the pommel moves backward and the balance point stays almost still. The location of this balance point in relation to the grip of the sword affects the performance of the sword in its user’s hand. A balance point closer to the hilt makes the sword effectively lighter and faster; it hits, however, with less force. Conversely, a balance point farther down the blade and closer to the tip would make the sword feel heavier and thereby slower for the user to recover from blows. However, it would hit with significantly greater force than a more evenly balanced weapon. Ideally a sword balances two to four inches in front of its hilt. While the pommel of a sword adds a significant amount of weight to the weapon, sometimes as much as one quarter the total weight, its placement affects the rotational inertia of the weapon drastically.53 Elaborating on the previous examples can illustrate this point better. The sword with the weight at the pommel end (that is, in this case it would have a larger than normal pommel) would bring the center of gravity closer to the hilt. If the sword had a weight of three pounds and the pommel weighed two of those three pounds there would be less than a pound of weight that was more than a hand’s span from the hilt. The sword, as it was swung and moved about, would require less torque to move about its axis, but it would also have less effective mass at the working end meaning it would be more maneuverable but deliver a weaker blow. Likewise, the sword with all the weight at the tip, having a smaller than normal pommel, would have greater rotational inertia. If this sword were also to weigh three pounds but the pommel was only about one half of a pound then over two pounds of weight would be outside a hand span of the of the hilt. This sword would feel to the user much more like an axe or a hammer than a sword, and would act accordingly: poorly maneuverable but delivering a sturdy blow. Similarly, a small counterpoise attached to the short end of a trebuchet throwing arm would increase the overall weight of the arm, but the perceived weight of the throwing arm would decrease and, in fact, if properly balanced would negate most of the perceived weight of the throwing arm. With the weight negated when the firing crew pulled on the ropes they would only seem to be pulling against the relatively light weight of the projectile, with lever advantage, instead of the weight of the projectile and the throwing arm, and most of their energy would be going into the projectile, not wasted by lifting an unbalanced arm. The additional mass of the counterpoise may have moved the center of gravity to the pivot point, but it also had the additional effect of increasing the moment of inertia of the beam. The moment of inertia is a measure of the rotational “mass” of an object: an object with a higher moment takes more energy to get going, but then also has more inertia to keep rotating once moving. Thus,

53

Sir Richard F. Burton, The Book of the Sword (New York, 1987), 124.

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imagine the difference in tendency to rotate of a bicycle wheel as compared to a large tire from a tractor. Assuming both were mounted on similar axles, it would be much easier to get the bicycle wheel spinning, but the tractor tire, once spinning would spin for a much longer time. There is a problem, however, if the traction trebuchet grew so large that its arm required a large mass as a counterpoise to balance properly, the moment of inertia could have become so large that it would have taken a very large force input (i.e., crew) to get the arm moving fast enough to fling the projectile. Thus the engineers must have realized that there was a law of diminishing returns for building counterpoise trebuchets too large, or else they would need mammoth pulling crews – interestingly this is exactly the sort of situation that Chevedden sees in what he calls his hybrid trebuchets. There is reconstructive evidence for the viability of a counterpoised trebuchet. Tarver describes adding a small weight to counteract the weight of the throwing arm. The weight added to the throwing arm was not intended, as Chevedden describes, to add gravitational downforce, but as a balance mechanism. The ranges and projectiles listed in Tarver’s writings reflect the use of a counterpoised traction-powered trebuchet rather than a hybrid. Likewise the counterpoised trebuchet allows smaller pulling crews to be used with some efficiency; he lists a skeleton crew of eight pullers firing a medium sized projectile (2–3kg) approximately sixty meters consistently. This reflects an increased efficiency of force versus manpower as opposed to Chevedden’s descriptions, which instead show a system of diminishing returns.54 This is not to say that all trebuchets reconstructed in this manner work with the same effectiveness. In fact a hybrid trebuchet designed by Peter Hansen Vemming for the Middelaldercentret in Nykøbing, Denmark worked so poorly as to be retired from demonstration purposes to serve instead as a piece of advertising sculpture for the Centre itself. The failure of the Middlealdercentret’s hybrid trebuchet can perhaps be attributed to its design being based not on the idea of a counterpoised trebuchet, but of a hybrid trebuchet as described by Chevedden. Rather that specifically weighting and balancing the base of the arm based on the corresponding weight of the longer section of the throwing arm, the additional weight was intended to impart gravitational downforce to the pull of the crew. This type of setup would, in point of fact, not be a traction trebuchet but instead be a very light counterweighted trebuchet. Had special attention been paid to the placement of weight as a counterpoise the results may well have been much more effective.55 The two major physics concepts at work on a trebuchet are the balance of torques – the weight of the projectile on the long arm and the throwing force, either from weight or pulling crew, on the short arm – and the moment of the

54 55

Tarver, “Traction Trebuchet,” p. 156. Middelaldercentret, “Traction and Hybrid Trebuchets,” online at http://members.iinet.net.au/ ~rmine/middel4.html.

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inertia. The latter is important in trebuchets because it is a measure of how much effort is required to accelerate the throwing arm around in an arc to launch the projectile effectively (In addition it is also a measure of the mass of the machine and therefore is related to how stout the frame needs to be built to withstand the motions.) In a traction trebuchet the crew pulling on the short end of the throwing arm provides this torque; in a counterweighted version this is provided by the counterweight falling when the trigger mechanism is released. In the hybrid model described by Chevedden the torque is supposed to come from both the weight falling and the crew pulling their ropes. If instead of trying to add the torque generated by the falling weight to the torque generated by a pulling crew the weight served to counterpoise the throwing arm, the issue of rotational inertia would be addressed more directly. Inertia is described by Newton’s First Law of Motion. It states that an object at rest tends to stay at rest unless acted upon by an outside force; likewise an object in motion tends to stay in motion unless acted upon by an outside force. Rotational inertia functions much the same way, although it describes motion around a central axis as opposed to in a straight line. The higher the inertia the more force required to set in motion and also the more force to stop its motion once it has begun to move.

Fig. 1. Seesaw in equilibrium showing equal forces on both sides. Any amount of force in either direction will move the seesaw quite easily. In this case, the center of gravity (the crossed circle) is directly on the fulcrum.

A child’s seesaw is a lever similar in construction to a trebuchet in its basic principle. It is easiest however to move a seesaw up and down when the two children are of approximately the same weight, that is, when the forces acting on the lever arm of the seesaw are equal. (Fig. 1) Similarly, if two children of unequal weight are playing on the seesaw, seating the heavier child closer to the fulcrum in proportion to his or her weight provides the same balance. In effect, either case is a situation where the center of gravity (Cg) is at the fulcrum. In this case the seesaw is in equilibrium and it takes only a small amount of additional

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Fig. 2. Seesaw, still with equal arms, with twice the weight to the left. The force pushing down on the left is therefore also doubled, moving the center of gravity to the left, so the seesaw would rest with the left side down unless an additional force of 75 newtons or more is applied to the right side.

Fig. 3. Seesaw has doubled the length on the right which places the center of gravity back on the fulcrum and it will therefore be in equilibrium

force to move the seesaw up or down. It would take only a small amount of torque to move the children; if however a large amount of torque were applied to one end, either by increasing the weight (Fig. 2), or by some external force, then the acceleration of the beam would be high and, if high enough, the child on the other side would go flying. Although this may not be what is wanted on a seesaw, it is exactly what is wanted in a trebuchet. If the seesaw were unbalanced (i.e., the Cg off center) and the forces acting on either side of the arm were not equal, then the force required to move it in would be larger in one direction and smaller in the other. For example if one child were

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Fig. 4. Center of gravity for a traction trebuchet shown unloaded (left) and loaded (right).

Fig. 5. Center of gravity for a counterpoise trebuchet shown unloaded (left) and ideally loaded (right).

Fig. 6. Center of gravity for a counterweight trebuchet shown unloaded (left) and loaded (right).

heavier than the other the weight on the heavier child would make it easier to move that side of the arm down and the opposite side would be easier to move up. (Fig. 3) Or, to think in terms more applicable to trebuchets, the side with the heavier child would require more force to move up and the lighter side would require more force to move it down (i.e., the situation of cocking the trebuchet). In fact, the heavier side would require the difference in the weights to move it higher and the same amount of force would be required to move the lighter side down. The centers of gravity on the various types of trebuchets illustrate how the counterpoise affects the effectiveness of the pulling crew. The center of gravity on a traction trebuchet is relatively far down the throwing arm because of the higher arm ratio. (Fig. 4) This means that, just as with the blade-heavy sword mentioned above, it takes more force to overcome the moment of inertia to begin the arm rotating (but in the case of a sword, it will deliver a stronger chopping blow, which would be acceptable). In the case of a traction trebuchet, however, it

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takes energy – effectively energy wasted – to lift the center of gravity and get the beam rotating. The center of gravity on a counterpoised trebuchet is moved closer to the axle – and in fact may have ideally been at the axle – than it is with the traction trebuchet. (Fig. 5) This roughly equates to the properly balanced sword; the counterpoise lessens the amount of force required to overcome the moment of inertia. This means that the same pulling crew from the traction trebuchet operating a counterpoised trebuchet that is otherwise identical would throw the projectile a greater distance because more of the energy applied is imparted to the projectile rather than lost in just raising the throwing arm. The center of gravity on a counterweighted trebuchet is actually on the short side of the arm, meaning that the device would rest with the short arm in the down position, but now we finally have a trebuchet where the force of gravity alone imparts the energy to the arm, and thus, the projectile. (Fig. 6) Consequently, we should not see the hybrid or counterpoise trebuchet as a development towards the counterweight trebuchet. Instead it is an improvement on the existing technology. There is no evidence that the engineers building trebuchets (or the Scholastic natural philosophers of the time, for that matter) conceived as a falling weight as providing energy to a mechanical system.56 Rather, the incremental changes that we see in trebuchets from the ninth to the twelfth century reflect a mindset of getting the existing machines to work more effectively. The engineers drew on the mechanical analogies of unequal lever arms with weights attached to affect their performance and applied them to improving their siege machinery. Consequently, the shift from a traction to a counterweight machine does not signal a simple progression of science whereby the weight on the short arm grew incrementally, but rather it would appear that the counterpoise trebuchet is not really a step towards the counterweight trebuchet at all. Instead, the counterweight trebuchet of the European high Middle Ages should be considered a quantum leap in design as engineers completely reconceived of how one launches a projectile from a large trebuchet.

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This realization would come with the development of the mechanical clock, whose escapement was driven by falling weights. Intriguingly, this advancement came in the late twelfth century, almost exactly when counterweight trebuchets began to appear. On the clock, see Gerhard Dohrn-van Rossum, History of the Hour: Clocks and Modern Temporal Orders (Chicago, 1996). Many thanks to Steven A. Walton for this thought and help on the physics of trebuchets.

4 The Struggle between the Nicaean Empire and the Bulgarian State (1254–1256): Towards a Revival of Byzantine Military Tactics under Theodore II Laskaris1 Nicholas S. Kanellopoulos and Joanne K. Lekea

1. Introduction In 1254, following the death of the emperor John III Vatatzes (1222–54), his successor, his son Theodore II Laskaris (1254–58), had to confront a Bulgarian penetration into Thrace and Macedonia. These areas had been recently restored to Byzantine rule and King Michael Asen (1246–56) of Bulgaria anticipated that Vatatzes’ death was an opportunity to regain control over them. The Bulgarians were able to seize many towns and strongholds because they had inadequate garrisons. To maintain the prestige of his empire, Laskaris needed to expel the Bulgarians. The main Byzantine historian of this confrontation is George Akropolites whose work is reproduced with the addition of interesting details by Theodore Skoutariotes. Nikephoros Gregoras mentions the war briefly without adding any more information and George Pachymeres does not mention it at all.2 Fortunately, we have enough information to understand the campaigns. The outcome of the war confirmed that the Nicaean Empire was, in a military as well as an ideological and political sense, the heir to the pre–1204 Byzantine Empire. As for the new emperor, we would suggest that he was not only a theologian and philosopher, but also a capable, although sometimes an overkeen and impetuous, general.

1

2

We would like to acknowledge the contribution of the two anonymous referees whose valuable comments helped us improve the paper. Many thanks, also, go to Professor J. France for the great help he offered with the editing of the paper. Finally, we would like to thank Professor M. Wellas (University of Athens) for his useful and insightful comments. Nicephorus Gregoras, Byzantina Historia 3.1, eds. L. Schopen and I. Bekker, 3 vols. (Bonn, 1829–55), 1:55–56, claims that the Bulgarians came to terms with the emperor, before any battle took place, due to the fear caused by the large and powerful imperial army.

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2. Course of the War3 In this section, we are looking into the course of events of this war, as recorded by the two Byzantine historians. The Bulgarians had profited from the weakness of the town garrisons which lacked enough supplies and war machines to stand siege. Moreover, the inhabitants of these towns were not at all faithful to the emperor. This is why the Nicaean garrisons did not resist and came to terms with the invaders.4 The emperor held a war council when the news of extensive Bulgarian penetration broke. Two of his counselors, the brothers of his grandfather and first Nicaean emperor Theodore I Laskaris (1204–22), argued that the winter would make it difficult to assemble soldiers and that, therefore, they would not be able to organize the military operations properly so as to achieve a victory in a manner appropriate to the emperor’s prestige and standing. They argued that if the war was lost, further losses would follow, strengthening the will of the Bulgarians. Akropolites suggests they advised the emperor in this way because Theodore I had displaced them in the line of imperial succession in favor of John III. The majority of the council, and the emperor himself, believed that the situation called for rapid action. Skoutariotes suggests that Theodore II was influenced by a dream of St. Tryphon leading the army and urging him to start the campaign5 . As a result, Laskaris assembled his army (possibly the imperial tagmata) and collected the men who had a military obligation from the places he passed on his way to Adrianople6 . The emperor demonstrated prudence and knew in advance the position of the Bulgarian camp. The Bulgarians were also aware of the movements of the Byzantine army. Theodore II was eager to confront the Bulgarians as soon as possible in a decisive battle, until an advanced Byzantine army unit clashed with a Bulgarian detachment. The Bulgarians lost the battle, but these who fled reported that the Byzantines were closer than they originally thought. As a result, the Bulgarian army fled and the Byzantines found only an abandoned Bulgarian camp. The emperor was able to recapture Beroe and reprovision his army without great effort, as the Bulgarians had already demolished the walls. The harsh winter forced them to evacuate the city and turn back to Adrianople.7 Theodore 3

4

5 6

7

Detailed surveys of this war can be found in J. B. Pappadopoulos, Théodore II Lascaris, Empereur de Nicée (Paris, 1908), pp. 69–78 and 90–92; and A. Gardner, The Lascarids of Nicaea, the Story of an Empire in Exile (London, 1912), pp. 211–219. See also a brief account in J. S. Langdon, “Twilight of the Byzantine Lascarid Basileia in Anatolian Exile, 1254–58: Continuity and Change in Imperial Geopolitical Strategy,” Viator 34 (2003), 195–98. Georgius Acropolites, Opera 54, ed. A. Heisenberg, 2 vols. (Leipzig, 1903), 1:107–109; and Mesaivyik¸ Bibliouhkh (Biblioteca Graeca Medii Aevi), ed. C. N. Sathas, 7 vols. (Venice, 1872–1894), 7:512–513 (hereafter Sathas, MB). Acropolites, Opera 55, 1:109–111; Sathas, MB, 7:513–514. On the synthesis of the Nicaean army, imperial tagmata and thematic troops, see M. C. Bartusis, The Late Byzantine Army, Arms and Society, 1204–1453 (Philadelphia, 1992; repr. 1997), pp. 26–35, and M. Angold, A Byzantine Government in Exile: Government and Society under the Lascarids of Nicaea (1204–1260) (London, 1975), pp. 187–189. Acropolites, Opera 56, 1:111–113; Sathas, MB, 7:514–515.

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II then sent the best portion of his army, equipped with siege machines, and recaptured many towns in the Rodopi region, except for Tzepaina8 (1255). In spring 1255 a Byzantine army, led by Alexios Strategopoulos and Constantine Tornikes, moved from Serres to Tzepaina. A Bulgarian ambush caused disorder among the Byzantine troops and the majority of their horses and equipment was lost. Thus, they were unable to repeat their earlier successful expedition, despite the emperor’s anger.9 The situation became more difficult when Dragotas, the leader of the Byzantine army around the town of Melenikon, rebelled against Byzantine rule and besieged the town, probably with Bulgarian assistance. Dragotas was Bulgarian in origin and had fought in the 1246 Nicaean-Bulgarian war.10 The garrison was short of water but they fought bravely and drove out the enemy. The emperor responded by moving a well-equipped army from Adrianople to Serres but he could not reach Melenikon, as the Bulgarians had fortified the Roupel pass.11 The pass was guarded by a number of horsemen and a larger group of foot soldiers. Laskaris ordered the army to rest for the night at Serres and the next morning prepared to attack the Bulgarians, moving the foot soldiers and archers to the front ahead of the cavalry. The Byzantines then skillfully outflanked the enemy’s position. The infantry marched through the forest on the mountain above the pass while the archers engaged the Bulgarians who were behind fortifications. At the same time, the Byzantine cavalry attacked. The Bulgarians panicked under the double attack and were chased by the Byzantines.12 The soldiers who escaped panicked the rest of the Bulgarian army, which was besieging Melenikon, into flight. Many were killed by the Byzantines or perished as they fled through the mountains and ravines of the area, including the treacherous Dragotas.13 The emperor took severe measures to eliminate the possibility of a future betrayal; the families of traitors were expelled from the city and their possessions were confiscated.14

9 10 11

12 13

14

ˆ

8

On the fortress of Tzepaina, see D. Concev, “La Forteresse ΤΖΕΠΑΙΝΑ – Cepina,” Byzantinoslavica 20 (1959), 285–305. Acropolites, Opera 57, 1:113–114; Sathas, MB, 7:515–516. See below, Section 3, pp. 60–62. Sathas, MB, 7:516. The Roupel pass is a narrow passage which is located in the Strymon river valley. According to Akropolites it was so narrow that just a cart was able to pass at a time; Acropolites, Opera 58, 1:115–116. See Appendix A below. Acropolites, Opera 58, 1:114–117; Sathas, MB, 7:516–517; and N. Nikoloudes, “To Byzantinø Mel™niko [The Byzantine City of Melenikon],” Byzantiniaka′ 18 (1998), 112. A legend survived about this battle. The emperor prayed to two warrior saints, Theodore Tyron and Theodore Stratelates, to help the army relieve Melenikon. During the march, two unknown handsome young men accompanied the army. Laskaris realized they were the saints whom he had asked for help. See C. Walter, “Theodore, Archetype of the Warrior Saint,” Revue des Études Byzantines 57 (1999), 176–177. Acropolites, Opera 59, 1:117; Sathas, MB, 7:517.

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The next city besieged by the Byzantines was Veleso. After a time of preparation in Prilepo, the Byzantines, armed with siege machines and helepolis15 carried dismantled in carts, began the siege. They did not have to assemble and use their war machines, because the Bulgarians came to terms with the emperor. He received the surrender of the town, the garrison of which was free to leave with their arms. When Laskaris saw that the garrison comprised five hundred stout men he changed his mind about letting them go, but finally allowed them to leave because he was bound by oath. 16 Next, the army marched through Neustapoles to Stroumnitza and back to Serres where the news reached them that the Mongols had invaded the Seljuk’s territory. The emperor feared that Nicaea would be the next target of the Mongols and forced the army to return to the eastern provinces as soon as possible. The situation was not as dangerous as was thought initially and the army diverted to Adrianople.17 The only major town under Bulgarian rule remained Tzepaina. The emperor mustered a strong army in Adrianople that consisted of Byzantine troops, Latin mercenaries, Cumans with military obligation and a large siege train. The harsh winter prevented military operations, so the emperor decided neither to return to Adrianople nor to go to Tzepaina. Instead, he led his army to Stenimachos and then to Vatkounio where they encamped and received new supplies. He sent a reconnaissance group to verify the road to Tzepaina was clear, but they failed to recognize the problems. As a result, it seems that the army fell into a kind of disorder -the soldiers lost contact with their retainers- and the emperor was forced to return to Adrianople and then to Didymoteichon. It is characteristic of the bad conditions that they could not use their horses due to the slippery ice. Laskaris, cautious as he was, used his personal guard as a rearguard until the bulk of the army was safely down to the valley. An army detachment remained at Didymoteichon with orders not to fight against the Bulgarians, especially if they were strengthened by Cuman troops, but to stay safe inside the town walls; the rest of the imperial army moved to Nymphaion.18 When the main part of the imperial army left, the Bulgarians sent four thousand Cumans to plunder the Didymoteichon area.19 The Byzantine cavalry, despite the emperor’s orders, rushed out of the town to confront the enemy. The Cuman horse archers, faster than the heavy Byzantine cavalrymen, killed their horses from a safe distance by using their usual tactics of feigned retreats and sudden attacks; the Byzantines were an easy target for them without their horses and the Byzantine army fled. Many soldiers were made prisoner, among them one of the army leaders, and were sold to the Bulgarians.20 In the spring of 1256

15 16 17 18 19 20

Sathas, MB, 7:518. Acropolites, Opera 59, 1:117–118; Sathas, MB, 7:518–519. Acropolites, Opera 59, 1:118–119; Sathas, MB, 7:518. Acropolites, Opera 59–60, 1:119–124; Sathas, MB, 7:518–522. These Cumans were probably deserters to the Bulgarians, see Angold, Byzantine Government, pp. 188–189. Acropolites, Opera 61, 1:125–126; Sathas, MB, 7:523.

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a new, larger army was assembled and the emperor returned to Didymoteichon. The town’s garrison was destroyed and the Cumans plundering the area fled when the news of the emperor’s expedition reached them. The fleeing Cumans and the imperial troops fought on two occasions. The first clash took place in the area of Vizye and the second, described only by Skoutariotes, happened by a riverside, where many Cumans drowned into the river’s waters. The Cumans were deprived of their spoil and the Byzantine prisoners were released.21 This was the last fight of a lengthy war. The Bulgarian king, driven to recognize that he could not succeed against his enemy, sent his father-in-law Rus Uros to negotiate with the emperor. Byzantine rule was restored to Tzepaina and the former borderline restored. The two states ended the hostilities and Uros received generous gifts from the emperor as remuneration for his services.22 The Byzantine army, the “moving city that takes care of all the towns of Byzantium,”23 as Theodore II Laskaris liked to call it, managed to establish the rule of the growing Nicaean empire.

3. The Nicaean Army during John III Vatatzes’ Reign Before analyzing further the Nicaean–Bulgarian war of 1254–1256, it would be useful to consider the state of the Nicaean army during the reign of John III Vatatzes. This will facilitate a better understand of his son’s innovations. In particular, the campaign against the Bulgarian state in 1246 that ended with the occupation of the area that the Bulgarians fought to regain in 1254 will be examined. It has been suggested that John III Vatatzes initiated major reforms that enhanced the Nicaean army’s capabilities for many years to come, including:

· · ·

The settlement of Cuman troops in the eastern provinces; The transformation of a number of Latin mercenaries into pronoia soldiers; The restoration of the provincial administration and the thematic troops, attested by the establishment of a peaceful frontier in the east.24

His son took advantage of these changes and assembled an army consisting of the best possible components available. This resulted in the heavy Latin cavalrymen and the fast moving Cuman horse archers teaming up with native troops. Furthermore, the mix of good generalship and a bigger army proved successful enough to defeat the Bulgarians.

21 22

23 24

Acropolites, Opera 61, 1:125–126; Sathas, MB, 7:523–524. Acropolites, Opera 62, 1:126–127; Sathas, MB, 7:524–525. It is worth mentioning that Laskaris sent a letter to the Nicaean authorities to inform them about the peace treaty and the surrender of the strategically positioned Tzepaina; see Theodorus Ducas Lascaris, Epistulae CCXVII, ed. Nicolaus Festa (Florence, 1898), pp. 279–282. Acropolites, Opera 63, 1:128; Sathas, MB, 7:525. Bartusis, Late Byzantine Army, pp. 24–31.

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The Vatatzes’ campaign of 1246 resembles that of Laskaris in many ways, though there were important differences.25 Most importantly, the Bulgarians had partially recovered during the re-launching of the military operations and were a much more dangerous and determined enemy than before, so the fighting was sharper. Vatatzes’ campaign started not as an emergency one, although it looked like one, but as an opportunity to exploit the death of the Bulgarian king Kaloman Asen (1241–46) and the resultant unrest in the Bulgarian state.26 This was the reverse of the situation in 1256 when the Bulgarians tried to take advantage of the death of Vatatzes. It seems that the original intention of the emperor was to lead a small force into the western provinces in order to overawe them. When the news of Asen’s death and the subsequent succession problems reached Vatatzes, he followed the advice of Andronikos Palaiologos (father of future emperor Michael VIII [1259–82]) to seize the cities of Thrace and Macedonia, particularly the fortified town of Serres, although the Bulgarians had not in any way been hostile. Moreover, he did not have enough men to encircle Serres, the location of the town did not favor the use of siege machines and it was late autumn, which was hardly the best time to start a campaign.27 John III, like his son about ten years later, followed what seemed to be risky advice.28 Because of the shortage of men and in order to penetrate into Serres from the side where the wall was low, Vatatzes used the soldiers’ retainers, called tzouloukonas, as soldiers.29 When the Bulgarian commander, the same Dragotas we encountered in 1255, realized that the city was at their mercy, he capitulated to the Nicaeans; in fact, he changed sides and played a prominent role in the surrender of the town of Melenikon. After the fall of Serres the other cities changed from Byzantine to Bulgarian rule. A treaty was agreed, recognizing Byzantine rule, including a promise by the emperor not to launch any further attacks.30 The Vatatzes campaign can be compared to that of Theodore II. There was no battle and Vatatzes used diplomacy to exploit uncertainties amongst the elite in the cities. Laskaris had to deal with a more determined enemy and had to fight “real” battles. The ambivalences of the townspeople worked against the Byzantines, and some leaders, like Dragotas, proved to be disloyal. The Bulgarians developed an improved army and had the assistance of the Cumans. They

25 26 27

28 29 30

A description of the campaign can be found in Gardner, Lascarids of Nicaea, pp. 182–185. On emergency campaigns, see Bartusis, Late Byzantine Army, p. 235. The Bulgarians had been an ally of Nicaea against the Latin empire of Constantinople, even though not trustworthy enough, see Acropolites, Opera 33–37, 1:50–58. See also J. S. Langdon, “The Forgotten Byzantino-Bulgarian Assault and Siege of Constantinople, 1235–36, and the Break up of the Entente Cordiale between John III Ducas and John Asen II in 1236 as Background to the Genesis of the Hohenstaufen–Vatatzes Alliance of 1242,” in Byzantine Studies in Honor of Milton V. Anastos, ed. S. Vryonis Jr. [Byzantina kai Metabyzantina 4 (1985)], pp. 105–35. Acropolites, Opera 43, 1:72–74; Sathas, MB, 7:491–492. On tzouloukonas see Angold, Byzantine Government, pp. 192–193. Acropolites, Opera 43–44, 1:74–79; Sathas, MB, 7:492–494.

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were more eager to fight than before but not eager for pitched battle against the numerous and well-organized army of the Nicaeans. They preferred to exploit the mountainous areas, the safety of the town walls and the tactics of the fastmoving Cuman archers. During the ten years interval, the Byzantines also had created an improved army and this managed to win the war. The inhabitants of Thrace and Macedonia played a prominent role in the course of events by forming alliances either with the Bulgarians or the Byzantines; this is indicative of the uncertainty of the period.

4. The Emperor Theodore II Laskaris as a Military Leader Theodore II Laskaris is a well known figure of Byzantine letters. He was a student of Nikephoros Blemmydes and himself a renowned writer. He was also a distinctive theologian and hymnographer. His best-known composition is the Great Supplicatory Canon to Our Lady that is still sung in the Orthodox Church.31 He attracted many scholars to Nicaea and transformed the empire into a centre of culture.32 Theodore II Laskaris has been described as “a scholar and a theologian but not a general or statesman.”33 But G. Ostrogorsky, comparing Laskaris with Constantine Porphyrogenitus (913–59), suggests that their main difference is that the former was a man of action.34 The campaign discussed here suggests that Ostrogorksy was right and that Laskaris was also a capable general. Perhaps he did not enlarge the territory of the Nicaean empire, but he certainly defeated a dangerous enemy. He led the army himself and whenever he was present the army was victorious.35 In a letter to Blemmydes, he confirmed his concern for the training and supply mechanisms of the army, as well as preparation for

31

32

33 34

35

′ A. Meliarakes, Istorºa toy Basileºoy ths Nikaºs kai toy Deshotatoy ths Hpeºroy [History of the Empire of Nicaea and the Despotate of Epiros] (Athens/Leipzig, 1898; repr. Athens, 1994), pp. 487–490. On Laskaris’s education and the transformation of Nicaea into a center of culture see Pappadopoulos, Théodore II Lascaris, pp. 17–21 and 83–89; and Angold, Byzantine Government, pp. 178–180. D. M. Nicol, The Last Centuries of Byzantium, 1261–1453, 2nd ed. (Cambridge, Eng., 1993; repr. 2002), p. 27. G. Ostrogorsky, Geschichte des byzantinischen Staates (Munich, 1952), pp. 354–356. An account of Theodore II Laskaris’s generalship can be found in Sathas, MB, 7:535, though it is probably more a rhetorical appraisal than an unprejudiced judgment. John Langdon, “Twilight of the Byzantine Lascarid Basileia,” 205–06, supports the view that Theodore II was not a warrior like his father, but was more interested in philosophy than war, although he does recognize him as “a tenacious military strategist in the Balkans.” Pappadopoulos, Théodore II Lascaris, pp. 138–139. This is true not only for the Bulgarian war, but also for the war against the Despotate of Epiros. The emperor was absent and except for the troops of Michael Palaiologos, the rest of Nicaean generals were defeated. A further reason for this failure was that Laskaris mistrusted his generals and as a result he offered them limited military help. Acropolites, Opera 70–72, 1:144–150. Further analysis can be found in Langdon, “Twilight of the Byzantine Lascarid Basileia,” pp. 198–200.

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campaigns.36 He was prudent and knew when his forces had the advantage. One such case is when he gave orders to his generals not to engage the Cumans outside Adrianople; their disobedience led to disaster. In the absence of the emperor, the generals Alexios Strategopoulos and Constantine Tornikes were ambushed by the Bulgarians and their soldiers fled; Laskaris was so angry that he gave the unrealistic order to repeat the campaign (despite his generals having lost their horses and supplies). He was also prepared to take risks; contrary to the advice of some of his councilors, he started his campaign in the winter to surprise the enemy and impress upon him the military strength of the empire. The usual campaigning season ran from March to December, but Laskaris faced an emergency situation. The rapid assembly of the army did not have a negative effect on its quality, a proof of the emperor’s grasp and the organization of the Nicaean army. Laskaris was the heir to his father’s successful reform of the army, but without his ability and inspired leadership his forces would not have been successful. Theodore II Laskaris was a quite experienced and capable general. However, perhaps by temperament he was not deeply interested in warfare and he seems to have suffered from epilepsy which must have limited his activities.37 It is worth mentioning that Laskaris’ tutor, Nikephoros Blemmydes, worried about his student’s over-vigorous spirit in taking decisions due to his young age and implacability.38 It was perhaps this instability which underlay the unrealistic order to his generals to repeat the unsuccessful campaign to Tzepaina. Also, especially after the Bulgarian war, he lost the support of his generals due to his internal policies and lack of confidence in them. All these factors lead the son of Vatatzes to be remembered as a scholar rather than a military leader.

5. The Nicaean Army on Campaign It is not known if any military treatises were written during the Nicaean empire, but it is possible that this war, as described by Akropolites and Skoutariotes, reflected realistically the post-1204 Byzantine style of war. Their descriptions give us brief information about army mustering, the army provisioning system, the army on march and the army in battle. The Byzantine–Bulgarian war of 1254– 1256 involved: 36 37

38

Lascaris, Epistulae 44, pp. 56–59. A very interesting account on Theodore II’s illness from a medical perspective can be found in J. Lascaratos and P. V. Zis, “The Epilepsy of the Emperor Theodore II Lascaris (1254–1258),” Journal of Epilepsy 11 (1998), 296–300. It is argued that his unstable character was related to epilepsy; it was a symptom before the final collapse. See also Langdon, “Twilight of the Byzantine Lascarid Basileia,” p. 201. Laskaris’s illness and mistreatment of many noblemen are described in Georgius Pachymeres, Relations historiques 1.12, ed. A. Failler, 4 vols. (Paris, 1984–1999), 1:53–57. Nicephorus Blemmydes, Curriculum vitae et carmina 43, ed. A. Heisenberg (Leipzig, 1896), pp. 41–42.

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· · ·

Sieges of fortified towns; Skirmishing between quite large contingents of the two armies; A form of “pitched” battle at the Roupel pass and perhaps during the conflict with the Cumans, though our information about the latter is sketchy.

When the Bulgarians opened the war, Theodore II Laskaris assembled the army he had with him, the imperial tagmata and the men having a military obligation. Later, we are told that his army consisted of native troops, Latin mercenaries and the Cumans that his father had settled to Asia Minor.39 This provides us with enough evidence to claim that the empire had a reliable system of mustering an army.40 The army seems to have marched in an effective and organized way. There were advanced guards and probably a system of spies that informed the army leaders about the enemy’s movements. Such an advance guard clashed with a Bulgarian army detachment and alerted the Bulgarians to the approach of the Nicaean army. Another case is that of some soldiers who were sent to confirm that the road to Tzepaina was good enough for the army to pass (though that the reported information proved to be wrong). The formation of the rearguard was of equal importance; we hear of the rearguard that the emperor set up using his personal retinue to cover the army’s retreat to Adrianople after the failed attempt to reach Tzepaina. There is also reference to Theodore choosing “to stop in the usual imperial stations” where, presumably, the army could rest, reorganize and resupply.41 Provisions were also taken from captured cities, perhaps in the form of plunder. The sources refer to a siege train and the ability of the army to build siege equipment. These machines were probably disassembled and carried on carts. From these descriptions, we can deduce that the machines were either trebuchets (traction or counterweight) or siege towers, most probably the former.42 Akropolites writes that these were not the only kinds of machine available to the

39 40 41 42

Bartusis, Late Byzantine Army, pp. 26–27; and Angold, Byzantine Government, pp. 188–189. Angold, Byzantine Government, p. 185, suggests that the hasty mustering produced poorly trained soldiers, but the army subsequently operated well. Acropolites, Opera 59, 1:119. We are inclined to think that the machines were counterweight trebuchets, the main and most effective siege weapon in this period. On counterweight trebuchets and their use by Byzantines, see P. E. Chevedden, “The Invention of the Counterweight Trebuchet: A Study in Cultural Diffusion,” Dumbarton Oaks Papers 54 (2000), 71–116; G. T. Dennis, “Byzantine Heavy Artillery: The Helepolis,” Greek, Roman and Byzantine Studies 39 (1998), 99–115; and H. Nicholson, Medieval Warfare: Theory and Practice of War in Europe, 300–1500 (Basingstoke, 2004), p. 95. The capture of a fortified place by storm assumes the use of siege towers, ladders and other climbing devices by the attacker. The two historians do not describe such action exercised by the Byzantines; it is, thus, reasonable to conclude that the term helepolis is identified with a stone throwing engine. Furthermore, we have an account in the Chronicle of Ephraim that during the siege of Veleso the siege machines used – the “helepolis” of Akropolites – were of the wall-destroyer type; Ephraem, Imperatorum et Patriarcharum Recensus, line 9028, ed. I. Bekker (Bonn, 1840), p. 361: “using wall destroyer machines.” So the siege engines most probably used were of the stone throwing type.

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army.43 In general, two methods of siege warfare are described: blockade, and bombardment using siege engines. It is characteristic that the Bulgarians did not have the means or the experience to resist sieges and the majority of cities were regained easily by the Byzantines, except for Tzepaina which had strong natural defenses. The Byzantines faced the same problems initially, as the Bulgarians did, but when Dragotas blockaded Melenikon, the experienced Byzantine commanders had the means (stone- and arrow-throwing machines) to repel the attack. Another event of this war is closely connected to the siege warfare. We have already described the surrender on terms of the Bulgarian garrison of Veleso. Theodore regretted this decision was wrong, but he did not change it. This was in accordance with contemporary military ethics, and such an honorable action can be connected to Theodore II Laskaris’s education and culture. In medieval warfare it was not unknown for such promises to be broken.44 Of course an alternative explanation is that if Laskaris had reneged, other Bulgarian garrisons (notably Tzepaina) might have been unwilling to surrender. This war was characterized by a constant effort of the Bulgarians to avoid a pitched battle. It took the form of guerilla and skirmish warfare in the mountains and passes of this area. These tactics are further confirmed by two letters of the emperor to George Mouzalon; in these, he wrote that the Bulgarians took advantage of the rocky landscape to hide and ambush his forces.45 Moreover, movement was restricted, especially under heavy winter conditions. The Nicaean army coped with these problems and achieved an extraordinary victory at the Roupel pass. Another interesting aspect of the Nicaean army is its numbers. Neither Akropolites nor Skoutariotes makes any direct reference to army numbers. But we know that the five hundred men of the Bulgarian garrison of Veleso were seen by Theodore as a major force. The Cumans in the Bulgarian army were numbered at 4000, but the main Nicaean army managed to cope with them. From these numbers, we can guess that when the campaign started the Nicaean army consisted of no more than 3000 to 4000 men. When the emperor extended recruiting to include men of other professions such as hunters, the army perhaps

43 44

45

Acropolites, Opera 57 and 59, 1:113, 117–118, 120. Usually, the medieval army commanders respected the terms of surrender. A case of a garrison being deceived and annihilated outside the walls – during the siege of Saphet – in spite of a mutual agreement is described in C. Marshall, Warfare in the Latin East, 1192–1291 (Cambridge, Eng., 1992; repr. 1996), pp. 235 and 249. Another similar case occurred in the course of the war between the Latin Empire of Constantinople and the Bulgarians at the siege of Serres: Joinville and Villehardouin, Chronicles of the Crusades, trans. M. R. B. Shaw (London, 1963), pp. 130–131. Lascaris, Epistulae 199, p. 246: “ … we occupy [the western regions] with courage and stoutness, my dearest and brave friend, searching for the Bulgarian who was hiding … and now, with God’s omnipotent help, [we will search for him] into the canyons and precipices where he is skulking around … into the slopes of the rocks and the dug outs”; Lascaris, Epistulae 202, p. 249: “and the barbarians, motivated by their rage, assembled at the Aimos mountain, where they occupied the hollow canyons, acting in their usual cowardly manner.”

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increased to more than 5000 men.46 Furthermore, Gregoras confirms that Laskaris assembled an army larger than his father’s47 . This points to a considerable military potential in the empire of Nicaea during the reign of Laskaris.

6. Military Tactics in the Later Nicaean Empire These campaigns appear to demonstrate a partial revival of Byzantine military tactics and abilities. The use of mercenary and non-Byzantine units (Latins and Cumans) demonstrates the change to a multiethnic army in which every element fought in its own distinct way.48 Historians of this period have particularly noted the heavily armed Byzantine cavalry and the problems it had when confronting fast moving Cuman horse-archers: this points to the adoption of Western methods of warfare by the Byzantines. However, closer examination of this war suggests that the Nicaean army had inherited Byzantine military traditions. The decisive battle of this war seems to be that of the Roupel pass. This battle was fought in a rather similar manner, though on a smaller scale, to the famous battle of Kleidion in 1014, also between Byzantines and Bulgarians. In 1014, the Bulgarian tsar Samouel (976–1014) tried to check the regular Byzantine raids by erecting a strong fence in the Kleidion pass (also into the Strymon valley). The Byzantine emperor Basil II (976–1025) repeatedly tried to break into the barrier in vain. Finally, his general Nikephoros Xiphias took his forces through a difficult mountainous defile behind the Bulgarian host while the emperor kept attacking the pass. The encircled Bulgarians gave up and the majority were taken prisoners; the tsar escaped only to die a few days later after seeing his men had been blinded by the Byzantines.49 Additionally, a tenth-century manual on skirmishing attributed to Nikephoros Phocas (963–69) suggests: “Since the infantry is more suited for fighting on narrow and difficult ground, it is necessary to make use of it to occupy the mountain heights in advance and to hold on to them. If the terrain permits, infantry units should be stationed on both sides.”50 The historical paradigm and the military manual both suggest that the Byzantine military tactics of the past had not disappeared entirely after 1204.51 As far as the case under

47 48 49 50

51

Acropolites, Opera 61, 1:124–126. On army numbers in late Byzantium see Bartusis, Late Byzantine Army, pp. 258–269; and Angold, Byzantine Government, p. 191–192. Gregoras, Byzantina Historia 3.1, 1:56. J. Haldon, Warfare, State and Society in the Byzantine World, 565–1204 (London, 1999; repr. 2003), pp. 225–228. Joannes Skylitzes, Synopsis Historiarum, ed. J. Thurn (Berlin and New York, 1973), pp. 348– 349; and J. Haldon, The Byzantine Wars (Stroud, Gloucestershire, 2001), pp. 107–108. G. T. Dennis, Three Byzantine Military Treatises (Washington, D.C., 1985; repr. 2000), pp. 154–155; G. Dagron and H. Mihaescu, Le Traité sur la guérilla (De velitatione) de l’empereur Nicephore Phocas (963–969) (Paris, 1986), pp. 40–41. On guerilla tactics in Byzantium, see Haldon, Warfare, State and Society, pp. 176–181.

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consideration is concerned, the Byzantines made successful use of the different parts of the army (foot soldiers, archers and cavalry), which cooperated properly and exploited the fact that the Bulgarians had not positioned adequate flank guards on the mountain. Other episodes confirm that the Nicaean army could sustain lengthy and successful military operations. We have noted that siege warfare was systematically pursued and that the army could be rapidly mustered and supplied at regular bases. Moreover, a system of spies and advanced guards seems to have been in use. These are striking resemblances to “traditional” Byzantine methods, well known in the armies of the tenth and eleventh centuries.52 An indication of the improved performance of the Nicaean army was the Bulgarians’ constant efforts to avoid pitched battle, especially when they had to confront the bulk of Byzantine army under the emperor’s personal command. A very important characteristic of the overall Byzantine tactical disposition was the knowledge of enemy army capabilities, such as the danger that the Cumans’ horse archers’ tactics presented to their heavy cavalry. As noted above, Skoutariotes mentions a battle between the Nicaean army and the Cumans that took place by a river. This may have been a skirmish, but the incident of Cumans being thrown into the river demonstrates the ability of Byzantine generals to maneuver well. The fast running horse-archers were trapped between the advancing Byzantine army and the riverside, so they could not fully develop their “hit and run” tactics.53 They probably panicked as they realized there was no escape and many drowned in the river. Thus tactical adaptation could neutralize the advantages of horse-archers, while the armor of Byzantine and Latin heavy cavalrymen protected them from Cuman arrows. The defeat by the Cumans outside Didymoteichon was the result of the general’s disobedience combined with inadequate tactics against a lighter, fast-moving enemy. The late Nicaean army faced a variety of problems. Desertion, common in all medieval armies, afflicted the Byzantines also.54 The flight of the army detachment under Strategopoulos and Tornikes has been noted. It is a characteristic case of indiscipline and low morale, perhaps in combination with bad leadership and cowardice, as the emperor informed Muzalon.55 Probably, they had not set 52

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On siege warfare in Byzantium, see Haldon, Byzantine Wars, pp. 47–51. Also E. McGeer, “Byzantine Siege Warfare in Theory and Practice,” in The Medieval City under Siege, eds. I. A. Corfis and M. Wolfe (Woodbridge, Suffolk, 1999), pp.123–129. The practice of appropriate points of support along the route of army march was typical after the seventh century. For a discussion see Haldon, Warfare, State and Society, pp. 143–148. Also, Bartusis, Late Byzantine Army, p. 248. For a detailed account of these characteristics in the Byzantine armies, as described in the military manuals and in practice, see E. McGeer, Sowing the Dragon’s Teeth: Byzantine Warfare in the Tenth Century (Washington, D.C., 1995), pp. 331–332 and 342–347. On the tactics of horse archers, see H. Delbrück, History of the Art of War III: Medieval Warfare, trans. W. J. Renfoe Jr. (London, 1982; repr. Lincoln and London, 1990), pp. 282–283: “The mounted archer can develop his full capabilities only where broad plain allows him the freedom to withdraw at will and then move forward again as soon as the enemy is tired and gives up the pursuit.” Bartusis, Late Byzantine Army, pp. 255–256. Letter to George Muzalon; Lascaris, Epistulae 204, pp. 251–255.

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up an advanced guard, so they were ambushed by the Bulgarians. As in many medieval armies, there was a shortage of well trained men and Laskaris was indeed preoccupied with the training of the army, as we can deduce from the letter to Blemmydes mentioned above.56 Also, his tutor sent an advisory word to Laskaris (entitled Imperial Statue57 ) that included an excerpt on military training. Blemmydes asked himself whether it was of any use for the soldiers to play unhelpful games; instead, he advised his student to motivate them by playing “games” that can serve as forms of military training. We can guess that Blemmydes had in mind a form of the western-like tournaments.58 Finally, many problems arose due to the heavy winter and extreme weather conditions, as when the road to Tzepaina was incorrectly said to be open: in fact it was not due to bad weather and the army had to withdraw. In conclusion, fifty years after the loss of Constantinople (1204) the Nicaean army thanks to the combined efforts of Theodore I Laskaris and especially John Vatatzes had regained many of its previous operational abilities59 . Theodore II Laskaris commanded this army in person and confronted the empire’s enemies effectively. An interesting aspect of this reformation and revival is the indication that Laskaris planned a further reform of the army. He wanted an army consisting exclusively of native (mainly Greek) troops from which the mercenaries and foreign elements would have been expelled.60 Thus, the careful studying of the Byzantine-Bulgarian war of 1254–1256 reveals the progress of Nicaean army’s reformation and explains in part the successful years to come during the reign of Michael Palaiologos.

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Lascaris, Epistulae 44, pp. 56–59. H. Hunger and I. Ševcenco, eds., Des Nikephoros Blemmydes BasilikØs Aydria′s und dessen Metaphrase von Georgios Galesiotes und Georgios Oinaiotes (Vienna, 1986); see also J. A. Munitiz, S.J., “War and Peace Reflected in Some Byzantine Mirrors of Princes,” in Peace and War in Byzantium, Essays in Honor of George T. Dennis, S.J., eds. T. S. Miller and J. Nesbit (Washington, D.C., 1995), pp. 55–56. Hunger and Ševèenco, Imperial Statue, pp. 84, 135. On tournaments as a form of military training, see J. F. Verbruggen, The Art of Warfare in Western Europe during the Middle Ages from the Eighth Century to 1340, trans. S. Willard and R. W. Southern, 2nd ed. (Woodbridge, 1997; repr. 2002), pp. 30–36; and Nicholson, Warfare, pp. 117–118. A general, though brief, assessment of Nicaean army performance can be found in Angold, Byzantine Government, p. 182. Laskaris expressed his views in a letter to Blemmydes; Lascaris, Epistulae 44, p. 58; D. J. Geanakoplos, Emperor Michael Palaeologus and the West, 1258–128: A Study in ByzantinoLatin Relations (Cambridge, Mass., 1959), pp. 35–36; Bartusis, Late Byzantine Army, p. 36; Angold, Byzantine Government, p. 185; and Pappadopoulos, Théodore II Lascaris, pp. 83–85.

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Appendix A The Course of the Roupel Pass Battle

Fig. 1. The Byzantines advance. B1: Bulgarian cavalry B2: Bulgarian infantry By1: Byzantine infantry By2: Byzantine cavalry

Fig 2. The Byzantine infantry assembles on the mountain above the Bulgarian position.

Fig. 3. The Bulgarians under the combined pressure of archers firing and the Byzantine cavalry charge flee.

5 A “Clock-and-Bow” Story: Late Medieval Technology from Monastic Evidence Mark Dupuy

That our descriptions of some forms of medieval military technology suffer from a frustrating lack of specificity is well-known to historians of the period. This modern thirst for precision is frustrated in most other areas of medieval research as well, and distinctions most of us believe to be clear and natural are not always so; even basic terms like monachus and canonicus, Templarius and Hospitalarius, oblatus and donatus,1 were sometimes used in pairs or in ways that seem to presume a degree of interchangeability. Military history is not immune from such difficulties, and perhaps the most well-known example is the term ballista, which is used in ways that can mean anything from a personal crossbow to a larger siege weapon.2 This brief communication employs a unique source in an effort to explore further our vocabulary associated with ballistae and their accouterments, touching as they do in this instance upon the broader interplay of late medieval military and orological technologies, and to consider the implications of sometimes contradictory evidence which emerges from nontechnical texts and image-laden treatises of a more technical origin. The source in question originated at San Lorenzo in Campo, a Benedictine house in the northern portions of the modern Marche, approximately twenty-five kilometers northwest of Ancona and twenty-five kilometers southeast of Urbino. Its origins before the eleventh century are unclear, and the exact means by which the monastery became integrated into the defense system of the city of San Lorenzo remains a mystery, although one local and likely apocryphal tradition

1

2

On the first instance see Giles Constable, The Reformation of the Twelfth Century (New York, 1996), pp. 9–14, and for the second and third see respectively Francesco Tommasi, “‘Templarii’ e ‘Templarii S. Joannis’: una precisazione metodologica,” Studi Medievali no. 3, series XXIV (1983), 380–1, and Elizabeth Magnou, “Oblature, classe chevalresque et servage dans les maisons meridionales du Temple au XIIme siècle,” Annales du Midi 84 (1972), 377. Most major secondary sources and the lexica they employ agree upon this, if nothing else; see for instance, Kelly DeVries, Medieval Military Technology (Peterborough, Ontario, 1992), pp. 130–2, and Paul E. Chevedden, Zvi Shiller, Samuel R. Gilbert, and Donald J. Kagay, “The Traction Trebuchet: A Triumph of Four Civilizations,” Viator 31 (2000), 433- 486, especially pp. 436–7. See also Jim Bradbury, The Medieval Archer (Woodbridge, 1985), p. 143, and Jean Liebel, Springalds and Great Crossbows, trans. Juliet Vale (Leeds, 1998), pp. 57–60.

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places the event within the reign of Theodoric the Ostrogoth.3 As was common for many large monastic houses in Europe, the strategic interests of city and monastery became even more interrelated in the troubled fourteenth century. The dangers posed by internecine strife in the March of Ancona led the monks to prefer the support of strong signori who essentially served as advocates for the house’s military obligations, and these relationships allowed the monks of San Lorenzo “to attend without preoccupation to their pacific life.”4 Although Medici has difficulty reconstructing the narrative of abbacies at San Lorenzo for the middle third of the fourteenth century, we nonetheless find amongst its extant documents a revealing inventory of 1374, which notes quite unspectacularly the presence of a significant amount of military technology.5 The San Lorenzo inventory can more generally be understood as part of Gregory XI’s broader blueprint to secure the Papal States for his eventual return to Rome, and to rationalize ecclesiastical properties in hopes of subsidizing a new crusade.6 Although neither the published correspondence of Gregory’s reign nor the inventory itself contain any specific promulgation about San Lorenzo,7 the process was led by Severino Baldi, a notary of the city of San Lorenzo, and dated according to the regnal year of Gregory XI, the nominal lord of the city of San Lorenzo.8 Given his then-current conflict with the Visconti in the Romagna, 3

4 5

6

7

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Asclepiade Zangolini, Saggio di notizie storiche della terra di San Lorenzo in Campo (Fossombrone, 1857), p. 13, as cited in Franceso Medici, San Lorenzo in Campo: nella sua storia antica e nella vita di oggi (Ancona, 1965), p. 85, n. 5. The castello in question is itself mentioned for the first time only in 1202. Medici, San Lorenzo, p. 94, n. 27, citing an investiture of 1303. The provenance of this document at the Archivio di Stato di Pesaro (hereafter as AdS Pesaro) remains unclear. It is one of only a few pieces of the house’s patrimony held there, as the rest of its documents came to reside in the Archivio Segreto Vaticano, the Biblioteca Vaticana, the Archivio di Stato of Florence (carte Urbino), and various communal archives and libraries in Fano and Senigallia; see Medici, pp. 8–10, which provides the best synopsis of its documentary history. While the restructuring of Italian archives and the regular absorption of papers held in familial and library collections usually leaves a paper trail, none of the documents surveyed in 1965 from other institutions match the document from the state archives in Pesaro. Gregory’s penchant for surveys and inventories is well-documented, and this one seems to have been tied to his four-year campaign against the Visconti in the Romagna and the March (1371–1374). In 1371 Gregory’s legate in the Papal States drafted a synopsis of the problems in the Romagna which was accompanied by an account of its castles, routes, revenues, and garrisons; on Anglic Grimoard’s Descriptio Romandiole, see John Larner, The Lords of Romagna: Romagnol Society and the Origins of the Signorie (London and New York, 1965), pp. 209–211. In the same period the Hospitallers were also subject to an enormous inquest of their goods at Gregory’s behest, which Anthony Luttrell notes was more about economic reform than moral reform; see the introduction to Anne Marie LeGras, L’Enquête Pontificale de 1373 sur L’Ordre des Hospitalier de Saint-Jean de Jérusalem (Paris, 1987), p. 44. The effort to publish the complete correspondence of Gregory’s pontificate has stalled, having reached only the second year of his reign, and having encompassed only the common letters, rather than the curial ones. See P. N. R. Zutshi, “The Registers of Common Letters of Pope Urban V (1362–1370) and Gregory XI (1370–1378),” in The Journal of Ecclesiastical History 51 (2000), 497–508. Pesaro, Archivio di Stato, Fondo Corporazioni Religiosi Soppresse, Abbazia San Lorenzo in Campo, Instrumentali Notarili, no. 1 (hereafter as AdS Pesaro, no. 1), fol. 141r: “anno eiusdem

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Gregory’s own penchant for economic rationalization, and the fact that an inhouse inquest would not have required the legal force of a public notary, we are safe in presuming that the document originated with the Holy See and was carried out through Baldi. Along with the house’s psalters, candelabras, and dalmatics, the inventory lists several types of ballistae, of which the monks possessed no fewer than fifteen, and several items associated with their use and maintenance, and it is with these items that our interests rest. The terminology used to refer to the devices is often less precise than we might expect from some military manuals, and the vexing nature of the term ballista, notorious for designating either a hand weapon or a larger siege machine is a commonplace among historians of military technology.9 Some of the machines are described individually as magna balista.10 Some also seem to have been of composite construction, including the use of bone, attested to as common practice by Nicolle, Chevedden, Bradbury, and others.11 Given the description of some of the devices as “large,” it should come as no surprise that some were stationary, although the terminology used to designate them as such requires a degree of speculation. At one juncture the inventory refers to Item una magna ballista ossi dicta stapilgla †donam† disligata,12 meaning, it seems, a large, composite (including bone) bow. Stapilgla is the difficult term here. Gay notes that an estaplier was a lectern used at choir to hold the Gospel or the hours. Whether or not the term referred exclusively to the book holder – an etymology clearly derived from the Old French meaning for etaplier (table)13 – or to any part of the entire structure remains unclear, although Gay notes that several etaplier are still extant, and have generally been topped by candelabras or figurines. Another possible rendering is from staffolus, referring to a “dais topped by a pole or cross.”14 The reference is followed by a note about quamquem alie ballistae

9 10 11 12 13 14

domini millo ccc lxxiiii indictione xii temporis domini Gregori papa xi die prima mensis Octobre in Avinione Sancte Laurentii in Campo in locis singularibus [ ] ad notatis presentibus domino Dantonio yconomo Monasteri Sancti Laurentii predicti / Domino Nigris Rectorie sanctio Petri de Castro Leone/ Johane †Nonello † domini Petri Galasino Francisci de Sancto Laurentii predicte/ ac Johanne de Persauro Hoc est inventarium factam de rebus et massarentiis existentibus in terra [ ] Monasterii Sancti Laurentii in Campo predicti/.” Note that brackets denote lacunae and daggers denote conjectural readings. It is essentially the only part of the house’s administrative and documentary patrimony to be found there. See above, note 2. See below, note 12. AdS Pesaro, no. 1, fol. 142r. “Item quemquem alie baliste ossi”; on the use of bone as a composite material see Bradbury, Medieval Archer, pp. 146–147. AdS Pesaro, no. 1, fol. 142v. Viktor Gay, Glossaire arche´ologique du moyen âge et de la Renaissance 2 vols. (1887 ; repr. Nendeln, Liechtenstein, 1971–1974) 1:669. Niermeyer lists several variants including stapul-, stappl-, stapl-, which refer to a dais or pedestal; see Mediae Latinitatis Lexicon Minus (Leiden, 1993), p. 987. While the transcription is correct, the sense of dicta stapilgla is difficult to render. The Old French estaplier is the closest rendering to be made in any vernacular. The Italian estapul, referring to any sort of shop for selling goods, is itself derived from French and possibly German roots for “staple”; see N. Zingarelli, Vocabolario della Lingua Italiana (Italy, 1983, 11th ed.), entry for Stàpula,

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ossi.15 That some of these were larger devices seems certain; one is explicitly referred to as such. We have little chance to get any sense of scale for magna, but given that most of these devices seem to have been housed in chambers within the castello, they were probably not the larger siege devices. Others are described in terms which imply that they loaded by means of a foothold attached to the firing end of the bow. The inventory lists at one stage Item una ballista †astaffa†, which I have taken to mean some form of stirrup-drawn bow.16 These bows might have been drawn by hand or by means of a special belt-and-loop device common enough in the period, and in any case they seem to have been smaller than the others.17 Other aspects of the list afford tantalizing possibilities, but the condition of the document limits their utility. The inventory counts Item due baliste duple ligni.18 Although we might be inclined to claim that this is merely a composite bow made of “double wood,” the grammar does not lend itself to such an interpretation, as duple seems to have been constructed to agree with the nominative plural of baliste. The history of the “double-crossbow” is often associated with various flights of design fancy more akin to Hollywood than academia. Nicolle refers to Chinese illustrations of such devices,19 and Liebel provides a twelfth century Arabic illustration of one as well,20 but it seems doubtful that they were ever constructed or disseminated widely in the West in the fourteenth century. Even Payne-Gallwey, the well-known and sometimes fanciful nineteenth century toxophilist, recognized the absurdity of the “Ramelli six-armed crossbow”

15 16

17 18 19 20

p. 1896, which is itself noted as an archaic usage. The closely related Latin stabulum, for “shop, stall,” and by extended usage, “brothel,” was in use at least as early as the fifth century CE; see Olivia Remi-Constable, Housing the Stranger in the Mediterranean World: Lodging, Trade, and Travel in Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages (Cambridge, 2004), p. 13. In either case, given the rather generic, non-technical nature of the word, the term as it appears in the manuscript was likely known to the scribe through its Latin usage, although this itself may have been derived from Old French. Dicto can have a sense of “fixed” or “settled,” but this generally has connotations of a contract or transaction. If we accept a more literal sense not linked to legal or business transactions, the phrase might mean “pedestal-fixed.” While corrupted later on, the same entry ends with the word disligata, which could mean that the device was currently disconnected or removed from its dais or table. Contemporary Ragusan sources (1361) mention “fortress crossbows” as magna ballista which were “put on a base (pedestal) – scagno”; see Durdica Petroviæ, Dubrovaèko Oru•je u XIV veku (Weapons of Duborivnik in the Fourteenth Century), (Beograd, 1976), p. 265. Many thanks to David Nicolle for helping to track down this reference. AdS Pesaro, no. 1, fol. 142v. AdS Pesaro, no. 1, fol. 142r, “Item una ballista astaffa” and fol. 142v, and three entries down, “Item sex balliste ligni astaffa”. Astaffa seems to be a variant of stapha, stapha, staphium, stapes, all offered as variants by Niermeyer for “horseshoe,” and all expressed as well in the French derivative estafe, which for Gay denoted a buckle of stirrup-leather, citing two sixteenth century usages; Gay, Glossaire, p. 667. See DeVries, Technology, p. 41. AdS Pesaro, no. 1, fol. 142r. David Nicolle, Medieval Warfare Sourcebook, 2 (New York and London, 1996), p. 174. Liebel, Springalds, p. 27, figure 12.

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sometimes associated with the idea of double-bows.21 The first hint of the presence of the devices at San Lorenzo – and perhaps the most fascinating – comes after a reference to a penitential and a law book, which are listed in a single entry cum una chronola ligni feratum ad caricandi balistas.22 Elsewhere the devices designated for loading some of the machines – turni – are relatively orthodox and easily-attested.23 Historians generally accept the final third of the trecento as marking the first appearances of rack-and-pinion spanning devices,24 and although the term used to describe such systems – cranequin – bears some superficial etymological resemblance to the word used in the manuscript, the likelihood that they are related is quite slim. Beyond the effort to relate chronola to a cranequin, or some other form of crank, the term defies all decryption. The scribe was doubtless searching for a word to describe a device with which he had little familiarity. The word chronola appears in no lexicon, and may represent an adaptation by the scribe of a word he had used in other contexts and experiences. Its appearance in a list of books in the inventory hints that its strange name might be related to some sort of operating manual or treatise. Yet the device, whatever it was, is explicitly assigned the draw phase of activating the ballistae, with the exact verb form – caricandi – used to describe the function of turni elsewhere in the document.25 Moreover, if it were some sort of treatise it would easily have been described as librum. The word might have pertained to some form of device associated with the workings of an early clock. The initial impulse for this comes merely from the word itself, derived possibly from an association of clocks and their machinery with the greek god Kronos. This in itself is an unusual usage, as orologium would more likely have been used to refer to clocks or clock towers at the time. But Baldi and his accomplice might have been trying to refer not to a clock, but to an instrument associated with a clock. Lacking a technical vocabulary appropriate to what he saw before him, perhaps the scribe – rather than employing a more

21

22 23

24

25

Sir Ralph Payne-Gallwey, The Crossbow, Mediaeval and Modern, Military and Sporting: Its Construction, History, and Management, with a Treatise on the Ballista and Catapult of the Ancients, and an Appendix on the Catapult, Ballista, and the Turkish Bow (1903; repr. New York, 1963), pp. 301–303. AdS Pesaro, no. 1, fol. 141v. The word may easily be translated as “winch,” and appears in most lexicons as such. Sources more closely allied to military affairs employ it in this manner; see for instance the arsenal inventory in G. J. Mot, “L’Arsenal et le parc de matériel à la Cité de Carcassonne en 1298,” Annales du Midi 68 (1956), 411, which refers to “winches for engines” (turnos pro ingeniis), most of which seem to have been windlasses. In the AdS Pesaro document, see fol. 144r, “duo turni ad caricandi balistas and Item tres turni ad caricandi balistas”. See Bradbury, Medieval Archer, p. 149. Although it was “effective and required very little strength,” the cranequin took relatively more time than the windlass to load. Because it could be engaged with a single arm, it remained more popular as a hunting tool than as a military accouterment. Most inventories and technical treatises employ the more common gerundive of trahere. Caricandi derives from carricare, which generally has the sense of either loading or pulling a cart.

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generic term like instrumentum, artificium, or even res – devised to relate the spanning tool more precisely to another device he had seen elsewhere, and perhaps that elsewhere was in the machinery of some northern Italian municipal clock.26 By the fourteenth century clocks had developed relatively sophisticated technologies, notably the first mechanical escapements. The relationship of these technologies to military devices is plausible, even if the vector of transmission is not always clear. In that regard, for instance, we can consider a little-known device called a fusee. According to Lynn White, the fusee started as a piece of military technology, the first appearance of which he claims is an illustration in Konrad Kyeser’s Bellifortis, which depicts “a conical axle in apparatus [sic] for spanning a heavy cross-bow.” White claims that clockmakers borrowed the idea from military engineers, for the fusee can be found in the earliest surviving spring clock (c.1430) and in a diagram of 1477.27

Fig. 1. Source: G. H. Baillie, plate 15, p. 84

26

27

By the 1340s, Modena, Padua, and Monza all possessed mechanically-geared clocks; see amongst others, G. H. Baillie, Watches: Their History, Decoration, and Mechanism (London, 1929, facsimile reprint 1971) , p. 41, and Gerhard Dohrn-Van Rossum, History of the Hour, trans. Thomas Dunlap (Chicago, 1996), especially his list on pp. 129–34. The Dominican house at Vicentia also seems to have acquired a Pisan-made clock for itself in 1378- see Conforto da Costoza, Frammenti di Storia Vicentina (Rerum Italicarum, Series Scriptores, ed. Ludovico Muratori – hereafter as RIS – vol. 13, part 1, p. 15, lines 11–12): “Die 28 Aprilis [1378] post ortum solis, in claustro interiori fratrum Predicatorum, deiecta fuit campana magna pro relogio quod per novo per magistrum Facium Pisanum fabricator”. E. Zinner, Die altesten Räderuhren (Bamberg, 1939), p. 19, figure 3, and Singer, History of Technology, iii, figure 392, both as cited in Lynn White, Medieval Technology and Social Change (Oxford, 1962), p. 128.

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Although many of the illustrations in Kyeser’s Bellifortis clearly involved a good deal of his own imagination, both the crossbow device in question and the devices associated with early clocks would have had accouterments – in both cases some form of cord, and in the case of the Bellifortis device, a stand with a simple hand crank – which cannot be found in Baldi’s account. As commonly understood, the clock fusee was a conical-shaped drum with a spooled cord (replaced in later centuries by a light chain) which was attached to the clock’s mainspring and served to equalize its variant force as it unwound. 28 Although White seems to have crafted his analysis of the relationship between orological and military technology by trying to relate in principle the device he saw in Bellifortis to what he knew of the functioning of a fusee, we would be hard pressed to argue that the San Lorenzo device was the same as the device pictured in Kyeser’s manuscript.

Fig. 2. Kyeser, Bellifortis, Quarg, fol. 76

28

Confusingly, Dohrn-Van Rossum uses fusee and snail interchangeably – “The solution [to the problem of variant force in a mainspring] was the ‘snail’ (fusee wheel), a conical drum … ” History of the Hour, p. 121. Clockmakers employ the term “snail” more specifically, using it todescribe a rounded but not perfectly circular cam on the hour wheel of striking clocks, as well as a similar device found on the mainspring of early stackfreed clocks; for the former see Peter Hood, How Time is Measured (London, 1955), pp. 9, 23, and 24, diagrams 1 and 2, and for the latter see Baillie, Watches, p. 78, and White, Technology, p. 128.

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Where Kyeser noted of the crossbow device that “This instrument is called virgo for drawing, because there is nothing better with which to draw a ballista,”29 White embellished upon the significance of virgo, which he believes was used “with very medieval humor,” “presumably because it offered least resistance when the bow was slack, and most when it was taut.”30 Götz Quarg’s notes on the same text, though, suggest that in other manuscript versions of Bellifortis, the text reads virga, and that the well-known association of Virgil with virga (as “magic wand” in this sense) could mean that the device might just as easily be thought of as a Zauberspanner; for Quarg such a usage allowed Kyeser to showcase his humanistic repertoire.31 This virga as “magic spanner” interpretation also makes sense in light of White’s own assertion of the possibility (ignored, in White’s mind, by Quarg) that Kyeser was “a practicing sorcerer” who “considered magic to be a branch of technology.”32 Nonetheless, both Quarg and White’s explanations are difficult to comprehend when one looks at Kyeser’s illustration. Given his diagram, the critical mechanism on the device seems to be the system of four pulleys which, if they functioned at all, did so as a variation of a block-and-tackle system in much the fashion of a traditional windlass; exactly how the pulleys would have been anchored is impossible to discern from the image, and the conical axle – White’s precursor to the fusee – seems to have been little more than a take-up spool, whose shape is far less relevant than the pulleys to the redistribution of force.33 29

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32

33

Conrad Kyeser, Bellifortis (facsimile reproduction, Düsseldorf, 1967, with notes and commentary by Götz Quarg), fol. 76b, “Est hoc instrumentum virgo trahendi vocatum Hinc quo nichil melius baliste sortitur huius”. The use of sortior, usually associated with the drawing of lots in games of chance, is a bit unusual and perhaps best explained by Kyeser’s unwillingness to employ the same verb form twice in the same description. White, Medieval Technology and Social Change (London, 1962), p. 128. White’s analysis of Kyeser in this volume was drawn from the Göttingen version of Bellifortis, the same codex used for Quarg’s facsimile, and thus did not have to account for the variant readings frequently mentioned in the Quarg facsimile; see ibid., p. 111, n. 3. Quarg, in Bellifortis, p. 49: “Hier, in der Pergamenthandschrift, wird das Gerät ‘virgo trahendi’ genannt, also ‘Spannjungfer.’ In der etwas früheren Papierhandschrift heißt es bei sonst gleichem Text ‘virga trahendi,’ sinngerecht am besten wohl mit ‘Zauberspanner’ zu übersetzen. – Jedes der beiden Worte konnte auf seine Weise passen. ‘Virgo’ = Jungfrau und die davon abgeleiteten Begriffe wurden damals, wie auch heute noch, für ‘Neuerwachendes’ gebraucht. ‘Virga’ war den frühhumanistisch Gebildeten – und Kyeser hatte wohl mehrere Jahre an lombardischen Fürstenhöfen gelebt – aus Vergils Aeneis als Zaubersta der Kirke wohlbekannt und wurde viel zitiert. Dies wäre nichte der einzige Fall, in dem Kyeser mit seinen in Italien erworbenen humanistischen Kenntnissen geprunkt hätte.” The Quarg facsimile reproduces a single codex of Bellifortis, and the other versions have variations in wording (as stated in Quarg’s note above) and often in the illustrations as well – see Pamela O. Long, “Power, Patronage, and the Authorship of Ars,” Isis 88 (1997), pp. 7–8. Lynn White, “Kyeser’s ‘Bellifortis’: The First Technological Treatise of the Fifteenth Century,” Technology and Culture 10 (1969), 438. In White’s assessment the Quarg edition has established some very useful points, not the least of which is Kyeser’s primary occupation as a physician, which runs counter to earlier pieces on Kyeser; see for instance, Bertrand Gille, Les Ingénieurs de la Renaissance (Paris, 1964), p. 53: “Kyeser est, avant tout, un ingénieur militaire …” The narrowing spool, like a thread skein, would have diminished some of the force required at the end of the drawing process, since a smaller circumference was required to complete a turn.

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Figs. 3A and 3B Kyeser, Bellifortis, and pre-fusee stackfreed clock, from Baillie, Watches, plate 14, p. 74.

That the device the San Lorenzo scribe saw was unusual is beyond doubt, otherwise he would have employed the general term – turno – used elsewhere in his own list to describe crossbow cranks. While the San Lorenzo device was most assuredly not a spanner of the style depicted in Kyeser and associated by White with the fusee, it may still have been a technology employed in both worlds and depicted in Bellifortis. The mainspring sprocket of early stackfreed clocks, as well as the gear wheel of early fusees, employed circular stop-ratchets of exactly the kind seen in another diagram of a spanner in Kyeser’s volume.34 The use of linear ratchets to draw missile throwers was not without precedent. The so-called “belly-shooter” associated with fifth century Greece, for instance,

34

White’s alleged precursor to the fusee is on the left-hand side of Kyeser, Bellifortis, fol. 76v, and the ratcheting device is on the right.

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seems to have employed just such a system.35 Kyeser notes that the ratchet wheel device he depicted was used for loading ballistae, but was uncommon.36 Exactly how the mechanics of the operation as described by Kyeser would work remains a bit of a mystery, and he seems not to have understood it very clearly. The illustration is of greater use in discerning how the device would have functioned, and we can speculate that it involved some form of ratchet-and-pawl. Kyeser’s illustration provides an overview of the bow, with a detailed drawing of the interior of a small ratchet wheel located approximately half the length of the bow’s stock, just after the top protrusion of the trigger, and attached by an axle to a similar wheel on the other side of the stock. The wheels also seem to be attached to a longer arm that extends back towards the butt-end, ostensibly used to gain the necessary leverage to turn the wheel. The axle also served as a take-up spool, having a hooked cord which secured the bow’s string so it could be drawn back. As one drew the arm back to the butt end of the stock, the hooked cord spooled around the wheel axle. Since each draw of the lever could only spin the ratcheted gearwheel to approximately forty percent of its full rotation, the pawl held the ratchet (and with it the progress of the bowstring) while the arm slipped forward to grab the last available teeth on the gearwheels, preparing for another half-turn. Although the force required to draw the arm back would invariably increase with each successive half-stop, the unit as a whole allowed for a recuperation period, and unlike most bowpulling devices depicted or described in medieval sources, did not require the

35

36

One of the major vehicles of transmission for Hellenistic machinery is Hero of Alexandria, from whose verbal descriptions we can surmise the use of a ratchet-and-pawl system in the loading of the gastraphretes. See J. G. Landels, Engineering in the Ancient World (London, 1978), p. 101, figure 34, which is actually a modern diagram from Hero’s description. On the early development of the system in Greece, see Landels, p. 11. Kyeser, fol. 76v: “Est hic rarus modus nempe balistam trahendi cum rotulis istis que verguntur cum rotulari”. See Fig. 1 for a line drawing from the facsimile. The wheel which is turned is depicted in a cross-section by Kyeser, and is clearly a ratchet-wheel. Quarg’s modern translation and commentary renders rotulari as “disk” (Scheibe), and even claims Kyeser chose vergere to describe its action because he did not have a more appropriate word to approximate Drehen at his disposal – “Kyeser, dem ein einfaches Wort fur unser ‘Drehen’ nicht zur Verfugung steht, behilft sich hier mit dem Verbum ‘vergere,’ das eigentlich ein ‘Sich-neigen’ in bestimmter Richtung bedeutete, dann aber auch den Sinn unseres ‘Wringens’ (Auswringens Nasser Wasche) angenommen hatte,” Bellifortis, p. 49. Quarg’s Scheibe is meaningful only if we accept that Kyeser meant rotularia rather than rotulari, the term which even Quarg’s transcription accepts. Perhaps an equally valid translation of rotulari renders it as a “roll” in the sense of a Liber rotularis. The rotulari would thus have been the axle which connected the two ratchet wheels, and to which the cable connected to the bowstring was attached.

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attainment of full tension in an uninterrupted step.37 Most windlasses, for instance, seem to have been little more than compound cranks attached to pulleys whose purpose was solely to reduce the necessary force involved in drawing the bow.38 While cranequins are often hailed as early examples of heavy reduction gearing, the sealed gear boxes make it difficult to discern if early models employed pawls to hold the sliding ratchet bar during the draw phase. The addition of a pawl would have been an elementary step in the refinement of cranequin operations. The modern device most analogous to the Kyeser mechanism, and therefore to the Pesaro device as well, is the ubiquitous ratcheting tie-down cargo strap. The great structural advantage of most other devices is that the force transferred from the bow is generally exerted on sturdy areas of the stock, either by means of a reinforced leather strap which fitted on its underside, or by means of a metal arm which reached back to and around its butt end. On a ratcheting device, all of the force, in both drawing and stopping phases, is exerted on the arm, two relatively small wheels, the pawls, and the area of the stock which secured the wheel axle. All must have been very prone to breaking or splitting, and thus limited the utility of the tool. In fact, the various components of the device likely required frequent replacing, which might explain why this piece is so isolated from the other winches and bows; all on its own its must simply have appeared as little more than a small wheel. [Fig. 3A] The manuscript description of this chronola as being of iron-clad wood (ligni feratum) makes sense, though, when one considers that any form of purely wooden ratcheting wheel would almost necessarily have split under the forces involved with most such ballistae. If forced to employ more commonly attested terms, the San Lorenzo device was likely a form of cranequin rather than a windlass, whose system of pulleys would not likely have gone undescribed, or would likely have been described merely as a turno. Nonetheless, it was not necessarily a cranequin per se, and may represent a singular type of loading device similar to the one depicted in Kyeser. In this case, while it might have represented an exceedingly skilled application of technological principles, it was nonetheless ill-fated because of its relative unsuitability for its ends. That utility rather than complexity determines a technology’s benefit to society is a well-known adage.

37

38

Drawing 50 millimeters of unattached line (the approximate distance from the at-rest position of the bowstring to the cocked position) with a 4 millimeter wheel mounted to a 1.5 millimeter take-up spool requires approximately thirty cranks (with each crank turning the wheel approximately forty per cent of its total circumference). The wheel and spool on these devices would likely have been at least twice those dimensions. Nonetheless, accounting for the increased expenditure of force when the line is attached, the time required to draw the string fully would still likely be about 30 to 45 seconds, which is roughly consonant with the estimated times required for windlasses and cranequins. Bradbury, Archer, p. 148, estimates that a windlass might displace as much as 1200 pounds of force on the draw. Some illustrations, such as Kyeser, 76r, lack even the pulleys, and if such machines existed they must have offered little enough assistance in displacing the force necessary to draw the bow.

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The possible similarity between a ratchet-and-pawl loading device and the gearing on a mechanical clock is easy enough to discern. That Baldi or his attendant would not have had the technical vocabulary to describe either should surprise few readers. Even Kyeser used fairly simplified terms like “wheel” to describe what he clearly illustrates as a ratcheted wheel. Living in the early days of the advent of such technologies, which were more likely to have been seen by laymen than to have been studied by them, their verbal gropings make more sense. The scribe, though, was perhaps conscientious enough to try to go one step further, and to describe what he saw by relating it to other devices he had seen in other contexts, but for which he also lacked a technical vocabulary. All of this actually underscores the veracity of White’s principle concerning “the interdependence of all aspects of technology.” We must be cautious about his own application of that principle; in the analysis of one historian, White “characteristically reversed” trajectories of influence.39 His assumption that the fusee, or a device based on its principles, had to originate in military endeavors, and not in orological ones, is the result of an extraordinary devotion to extant datable evidence and to the most fundamental forms of post hoc ergo propter hoc argumentation. This is not to say that the vector of transmission could not have gone from military affairs to clocks. Indeed, some historians have seen an earlier relationship between the physics of counter-weight trebuchets and the principles of clock pendula.40 In the fourteenth century clock-making was an area in which intensive, practical experimentation was clearly taking place, and under such conditions assertions that advances in one field of technology necessarily preceded or predated similar advances in other fields are precarious. We might do well to recall White’s own principle of the inter-relatedness of allied technologies, and to posit that the main vector of transmission between them was likely the body of engineers whose services were often plied in a number of different applications, with clockmaking and siegecraft at the top of the list. That Fabriano, the renowned paper-mill not far from San Lorenzo, was associated with a number of men hired and paid to perform work and maintenance on local clocks further fleshes out this picture of the interrelatedness of technologies and engineers in the period. For Dohrn-van Rossum, although “there were no regional centers of gravity in the Late Middle Ages” for producing clockmakers, “only Fabriano, a city known for its paper manufacturing, stands out in Italy for being frequently mentioned as

39

40

Randall Rogers, Latin Siege Warfare in the Twelfth Century (Oxford and New York, 1993) pp. 7, 9–10, speaking of White’s belief, expressed in “The Crusades and the Technological Thrust of the West” in War, Technology and Society in the Middle East (London and New York, 1957), that initial crusader successes stemmed from a superiority in military technology. For a brief bibliography see Chevedden et al., “Trebuchet,” p. 434, n. 2. Other writers implicitly see such developments as having worked in the other direction; see for instance, Singer, Holmyard, Hall and Williams, A History of Technology (Oxford, 1956), p. 723: “[the] cranequin is indeed an example of heavy reduction gearing only a little later than the wheel work of the mechanical clock … ”

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a town from which clockmakers came,” implying a link between technologies which are sometimes seen as distinct and unrelated.41 Similarly, Francisco Pessono could be found in the service of the Dukes of Milan, first applying his knowledge of clockmaking to a theoretical weight-driven stone saw in 1402, and again as master of cannons in 1420.42 That our scribe saw in this ballista-loading device shades of machinery he had witnessed previously in a clock should come as little surprise; to the untrained eye, splitting open a cranequin would not have been that different from peering into the mechanisms of a late medieval clock, and few of us would have the technical vocabulary to describe what we saw. In a brief report on a similar process of monastic fortification in Marseille, Paul Amargier noted fancifully that as some monks walked the grounds of their house and witnessed the process of fortification in progress, some must have reminded themselves of the Ciceronian proverb that “if you want peace, prepare for war,” while others likely shook their heads and recalled either Matthew’s exhortation that “those who live by the sword, die by the sword,” or the greeting of their own order – Peace!43 Yet in fiercely contested territories throughout Europe, the process of integrating monastic properties into municipal defenses was quite common. And neither the theoretical use of a monastic house for communal defense nor the shedding of blood in the same cause would have been horribly unfamiliar to the regular religious. In 1349, during the siege of Bormi in Italy, the besieging army decided upon a scheme to enter the city at a Franciscan house which abutted the city walls; arriving there they nonetheless found that the friars had climbed the walls to defend the gates and prevent their entry.44 Many properties of regular religious orders were bound by their strategic positions relative to their cities. Most monastic inventories contain no reference to such devices at all, while others seem not to have possessed the devices, but nonetheless bear the traces of individuals and advocates who accounted for their

41

42 43

44

Dohrn-Van Rossum, History of the Hour, pp. 193 and 400, n. 61, citing mainly fifteenth- and sixteenth-century examples: Giovanni de Fabriano (in Orvieto, 1373), Onofrio de Fabriano (in Iesi, 1433), Nicolo di Bonandrea de Fabriano (in La Spezia, 1443), Jacobus de Fabriano (in Rome, between 1460 and 1480), Tebaldus Persiani from Fabriano (in Todi, 1523). Dohrn-Van Rossum, History of the Hour, pp. 186–187. For a short treatment of the document in question, see Paul Amargier, Un Âge d’or du monachisme: Saint-Victor de Marseille, 990–1090 (Marseilles, 1990), pp. 179–181. I am currently treating the full scope and effect of the long and better-documented process of militarization on the house at Marseille elsewhere. Domenico da Gravina, Chronicon de Rebus in Apulia Gestis, RIS, 1903, XII, part 3, p. 130: “Videns autem Pallatinus se vana gloria sperata deceptum, credidit se intrare locum Sancti Francisci astantem muro civitatis ipsius; sed defensores invenit ibidem Fratres Minores qui super ecclesiam ascenderunt, defensuri portae ingressum.”

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defence.45 Nonetheless, monastic records, particularly unpublished materials, can provide occasional glimpses into the realms of technology and military history in ways that have remained unappreciated for some time.

45

See, for instance the Tuscan and Romagnol Clarissan houses inventoried in Serafino Gaddoni, “Inventaria Clarissarum,” Archivum Franciscanum Historicum 9 (1916), 294–296. For payment made to outsiders for maintenance of ballista, stones and the like, see Cesaro Cenci, Documentazione di vita Assisana, 1300–1530 (Rome, 1978), p. 454, citing payments made to one Polo de Venetiis, magistro balistrarum (from the notarial registers of Assisi, C9bis [1426], folio 268r).

6 The Strength of Lancastrian Loyalism during the Readeption: Gentry Participation at the Battle of Tewkesbury* Malcolm Mercer

The reasons why men choose to support one side or the other in any civil war are usually complex and difficult to determine. In seventeenth-century England and nineteenth-century America choice between king and parliament or Union and Confederacy was often personal rather than ideological and based on longstanding loyalties as much as on current politics. This was equally true of the gentry who fought for the house of Lancaster in the successive crises between 1469 and 1471. There were those who were Lancastrian because their fathers had been and they had been brought up to support the good old cause, as Jacobite sons of Jacobite fathers did in 1715 and 1745. There were those who had suffered directly from Edward IV’s governance, or the lack of it, between 1461 and 1469 and, it must be acknowledged, there were those, perhaps the majority, who, as in any civil war and to use the words of the Arrivall, were prepared to sit still and do nothing.1 For most of them this seems to have been a quite deliberate decision although there must have been some too old or too timid to fight. Consequently, it now seems generally accepted that the Wars of the Roses were fought primarily by lords, their retainers and above all by the tenants of both lords and retainers. Pragmatism is seen as the defining characteristic in 1459–61 and again in 1469–71.2 Evidence of this behavior has already been identified in some county and regional studies. In Warwickshire Carpenter has argued that neither the Lancastrian government nor Richard Neville, earl of Warwick could persuade the gentry to provide military assistance and a similar response, or rather a lack

*

1 2

I am very grateful to Professor Jim Bolton, Professorial Research Fellow in the Department of History at Queen Mary and Westfield College, University of London, for all his help, encouragement, and practical suggestions as I gradually formulated my ideas on this subject. I would also like to thank Dr Peter Fleming of the University of the West of England and Dr Shelagh Mitchell, an independent scholar, for their perceptive comments on earlier drafts of this article. Historie of the Arrivall of King Edward IV (hereafter cited as Arrivall), ed. J. Bruce, Camden Society o.s. 1 (1838), pp. 20–21. A. J. Pollard, The Wars of the Roses (London, 1988), pp. 77, 85; see C. Carpenter, The Wars of the Roses: Politics and the Constitution in England, c. 1437–1509 (Cambridge, 1997), pp. 151–52, 179.

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of it, has also been found in other Midland counties where the duchy of Lancaster was the major landlord, in Derbyshire, Staffordshire and Leicestershire. Queen Margaret’s attempts to exploit the duchy’s resources in the late 1450s and Clarence’s efforts to do the same in 1470–71 both met with failure.3 Even the Kentish gentry, regarded as particularly pro-Yorkist in 1460–61, were remarkably cautious in 1469–71. Although key Yorkist supporters left for exile with Edward IV in October 1470, the majority adopted a pragmatic attitude and kept their heads down. Very few were prepared to support the Readeption regime, and even fewer to offer it military assistance in April and May 1471.4 Sometimes, although rarely, the decision to take up arms or change sides on the battlefield could have a decisive impact on the outcome. The behavior of the minor Kentish gentleman, Richard Lovelace, is a case in point. Lovelace’s withdrawal of his Kentish contingent from the Yorkist vanguard at St. Albans in February 1461 was regarded as one of the principal reasons for their defeat. This decision was supposedly the result of a promise Lovelace had made to the Lancastrians after being captured by them at the battle of Wakefield in December 1460. But only very occasionally is it possible to discover direct evidence of why men did or did not fight.5 This article will therefore take the indirect approach and focus instead on the extent and survival of Lancastrian loyalism and on assessing how dangerous to Edward IV it proved to be in the spring of 1471. Lancastrian loyalism could result from a variety of causes, not least personal circumstances, political developments and deep personal loyalties. It has been argued that the only men willing to fight were the failures, those who had committed themselves too far in one direction, and the utterly loyal. This proposition will be tested against a detailed analysis of the participants at the battle of Tewkesbury in May 1471. Details of those who fought with Queen Margaret and Prince Edward at Tewkesbury will be examined first. We will then consider those who did not and suggest some reasons which could account for their behavior – perhaps because they had already fought for Warwick at Barnet or wisely chose to remain at home. From this

3

4

5

C. Carpenter, Locality and Polity: A Study of Warwickshire Landed Society, 1401–1499 (Cambridge, 1992), pp. 481–516; Carpenter, The Wars of the Roses, pp. 153–54; H. Castor, The King, the Crown, and the Duchy of Lancaster: Public Authority and Private Power 1399–1461 (Oxford, 2000), pp. 300–305; E. Acheson, A Gentry Community: Leicestershire in the Fifteenth Century c. 1422-c. 1485 (Cambridge, 1992), pp. 105–106; C. Carpenter, “The Duke of Clarence and the Midlands: A Study in the Interplay of Local and National Politics,” Midland History 11 (1986), 31–2. M. Mercer, “Kent and National Politics, 1437–1534: The Royal Affinity and a County Elite” (unpublished Ph.D. thesis, University of London, 1995), pp. 80–87, 107–117; M. Mercer, “A Forgotten Kentish Rebellion, September–October 1470,” Archaeologia Cantiana 122 (2002), 143–51; M. Mercer, “Lancastrian Loyalism in Kent during the Wars of the Roses,” Archaeologia Cantiana 119 (1999), 221–43. An English Chronicle of the Reigns of Richard II, Henry IV, Henry V and Henry VI, ed. J. S. Davies, Camden Society o.s. 64 (1856), pp. 107–108.

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analysis some conclusions will then be drawn about the overall effectiveness of Lancastrian recruitment efforts, the success of their attempts to reactivate loyalty in certain regions and the general appeal of a restored “Lancastrian” monarchy to the gentry.6 Between March and May 1471 the gentry were once again faced with the choice of fighting for the Lancastrians, Yorkists, or remaining quietly on the sidelines doing nothing. The privy seal warrants sent to those suspected of harboring Yorkist sympathies no doubt served to put many on their guard at a time when the Readeption regime needed to broaden its support.7 Limited evidence for the army commanded by Warwick at Barnet in April 1471 suggests that it consisted of the Neville affinity brought by Warwick and his brother, Montagu; the Lancastrians led by the earl of Oxford, the duke of Exeter, Viscount Beaumont, and possibly Lord Bardolf, along with elements of their affinities drawn primarily from East Anglia; and the remnants of Henry VI’s meagre household establishment.8 Despite a sustained recruitment campaign in the Midlands few prominent Neville retainers were prepared to risk fighting for the Kingmaker. The indictment of Warwick’s councillor, Sir Edward Grey, in the wake of Barnet could indicate some involvement but is by no means conclusive proof. Sir James Lee of Aston by Stone in Staffordshire, Richard Ulveston from Staffordshire, and Richard Pereson of Brailes in Warwickshire were probably recruited by Warwick but were hardly significant Neville retainers.9 The presence of John Hayward, Richard Coke and John Sampson from the Neville manor of Ware in Hertfordshire, however, suggests that Warwick was able to raise men from his estates there at short notice.10 A more substantial Neville contingent was perhaps

6

7 8

9

10

Existing accounts of the battles of Tewkesbury and Barnet have consistently failed to explore the different groups that were present: J. D. Blyth, “The Battle of Tewkesbury,” Transactions of the Bristol and Gloucestershire Archaeological Society 70 (1961), 99–120; A. H. Burne, The Battlefields of England (Classic Penguin edition, 2002), pp. 266–85; J. Gillingham, The Wars of the Roses: Peace and Conflict in Fifteenth Century England (London, 1981), pp. 202– 7; A. Goodman, The Wars of the Roses: Military Activity and English Society, 1452–97 (London, Boston and Henley, 1981), pp. 172–3; P. Hammond, The Battles of Barnet and Tewkesbury (Stroud, 1992), pp. 81–102; P. A. Haigh, The Military Campaigns of the Wars of the Roses (Stroud, 1997), pp. 125–38; C. Gravett, Tewkesbury 1471: The Last Yorkist Victory (Oxford, 2003), pp. 58–83. Arrivall, p. 2. Information on the principal participants is scarce. However, see Arrivall, pp. 8, 20; John Stow, Annales, or, a Generall Chronicle of England, continued Edmund Howes (London, 1631), p. 422; L. Visser-Fuchs, “Edward IV’s Memoir on Paper to Charles, Duke of Burgundy,” Nottingham Medieval Studies 36 (1972), 221–2; J. Adair, “The Newsletter of Gerhard Von Wesel, 17 April 1471,” Journal of the Society for Army Historical Research 46 (1968), 65–9. For a further re-evaluation of this remarkable document, see H. Kleineke, “Gerhard von Wesel’s Newsletter from England, 17 April 1471,” forthcoming in The Ricardian (2006). London, The National Archives: Public Record Office (hereafter cited as TNA: PRO), KB 9/41 no. 49; KB 29/103 rots. 14r–14v; Calendar of Patent Rolls (hereafter cited as CPR), 1467–77, 304. For Warwick’s connections to Grey, see Hicks, Warwick the Kingmaker, pp. 224, 252, 286. A more considered analysis of Barnet combatants will appear in M. Mercer, The Battles of the Wars of the Roses (Hambledon Press, forthcoming).

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brought by Warwick’s brother, John Neville, marquess of Montagu, who raised the tenantry from the family’s Middleham lands and the former Percy manor of Wressle in Yorkshire, including the gentleman, Robert Tygott. The Lancastrian contingent was drawn mostly from the affinities of two loyalist magnates, Henry Holland, duke of Exeter and John de Vere, earl of Oxford, and Henry VI’s small circle of committed household servants. This second group included Henry’s chamberlain, Sir Richard Tunstall, the only long-standing opponent of Edward IV to have remained in the British Isles rather than go into exile, and Sir Henry FitzLewis, the Master of Henry VI’s Readeption household. Indictments taken in the wake of Barnet suggest that the Readeption government was able to draw some support from some royal and magnate estates in the Home Counties and East Anglia. Henry Hammes, senior and junior, and John Hammes, from the royal manor of Havering-atte-Bower might have been recruited by Sir Henry FitzLewis or Sir William Tyrell.11 The principal East Anglian contingent was supplied by Oxford, including the maverick Sir John Paston, although two other names also appear in the list of indictments. Sir William Finderne was the son of the Calais veteran, Sir Thomas Finderne of Carlton in Cambridgeshire, who had been executed after the battle of Hexham in 1464 for supporting the Lancastrians. Roger Flore of Oakham in Rutland, on the other hand, came from a family with strong service ties to the Lancastrian dynasty in the Midlands earlier in the century.12 Setting aside the limitations of the surviving evidence, it is clear that the basis of support for the Lancastrian forces was confined to the major players within the Readeption regime, although it was noted by a number of contemporary commentators that Lancastrian forces outnumbered Edward IV’s army.13 Was this phenomenon repeated at Tewkesbury, however? By 4 May the outcome of Barnet was already widely known in the West Country. Nevertheless, the Lancastrian army assembled on the battlefield has been estimated at between 5,000 and 7,000 men.14 There are four contemporary battle sources which name

11

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13 14

Montagu’s apparent ability to recruit tenantry from Wressle suggests that recently established loyalties to the Nevilles were exerting a stronger influence on an individual’s behavior than long-standing connections to the Percies. For the influence in Havering of the active Readeption supporter, Sir Thomas Cook, see The Politics of Fifteenth Century England: John Vale’s Book, eds., M. L. Kekewich, C. Richmond, A. F. Sutton, L. Visser-Fuchs, J. Watts (Stroud, 1995), pp. 86–8. TNA: PRO, KB 9/41 no. 49; KB 29/103 rots. 14r–14v; J. C. Wedgwood, History of Parliament: Biographies of the Members of the Commons House, 1439–1509 (London, 1936), pp. 326–7, 666. J. S. Roskell, L. Clark and C. Rawcliffe, The History of Parliament, The House of Commons, 1386–1421, 4 vols. (Stroud, 1992), 3:91–4. Goodman, The Wars of the Roses, p. 79. Gravett estimates the Yorkist army at Tewkesbury to be 5–6,000 men, a figure based on payments subsequently made to 3,436 archers after the battle and information supplied in the Arrivall which states Edward IV had about 3,000 footmen. Gravett claims, without offering any evidence, that the Lancastrian army was probably slightly larger “by a few hundred men”: Gravett, Tewkesbury, p. 28; Arrivall, p. 28. For the speed at which news of Barnet reached the West Country, see C. A. J. Armstrong, England, France and Burgundy in the Fifteenth Century (London, 1983), p. 117.

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participants: Warkworth’s Chronicle, “John Benet’s Chronicle,” the Chronicle of Tewkesbury Abbey and the Paston Letters.15 Between them they provide the names of 57 Lancastrian combatants. Although this is not a large number it does provide a cross-section of the forces gathered.16 Despite the dangers in placing them into different categories, detailed scrutiny of the battle lists suggest that they fall into one of five broad groupings: the exiles who had fled with Queen Margaret and the Prince in 1461 and remained with them in exile until 1471; those who had joined the exiles because they had fallen foul of the Yorkist regime between 1461 and 1470; those who had fallen out of favour but remained in England during the same period; those who had kept quiet and done little but who had strong Lancastrian sympathies and now showed them by fighting at Tewkesbury; and finally, those who were swept along with the tide, reluctantly, half-heartedly, or simply by the mistaken idea of acquiring glory. The first group of “Lancastrians” has attracted most attention from historians. This group of committed loyalists had been prepared to risk all in defence of the Lancastrian monarchy and were bound by long-standing service connections to Queen Margaret and Prince Edward. Sir Robert Whittingham and Sir Edmund Hampden were perhaps the two most significant examples. Whittingham had married one of Queen Margaret’s gentlewomen and served in both the king’s household as a king’s serjeant and king’s esquire. He then moved into the service of the queen and young prince. By 1456 he had become receiver-general to Prince Edward and by 1458 he was the keeper of the great wardrobe of the queen. Hampden, likewise, was a key player within the queen’s circle. Beginning his career as an usher of her chamber in 1445 he subsequently became the queen’s carver by 1449, and the young prince’s chamberlain by 1458. Other members of this group also enjoyed strong ties with the queen. Sir William Vaux, for example, had married one of the queen’s ladies-in-waiting, Katherine Penistone.17 15

16

17

Warkworth’s Chronicle of the First Thirteen Years of the Reign of King Edward the Fourth, ed. J. O. Halliwell, Camden Society o.s. 6 (1839), p. 19; “John Benet’s Chronicle for the Years 1400 to 1462”, eds. G. L. Harriss and M. A. Harriss, Camden Miscellany 24, Camden Society 4th ser. 9 (1972), 153–74; C. L. Kingsford, English Historical Literature in the Fifteenth Century (Oxford, 1912), p. 376; Paston Letters and Papers in the Fifteenth Century, ed. N. Davis, 2 vols. (Oxford, 1971–6), 2: 592–3. However, if one Tewkesbury participant, Humphrey Audley, was able to tap into the private sources of Luttrell manpower (having married the widow of his cousin, Sir James Luttrell) he could easily have brought 40 or more men with him. Between 1405 and 1426 the Luttrell household alone contained 14–20 male household servants. When combined with locally raised tenants this could easily have risen to 40 men, the numbers brought by the Luttrells on occasion when pursuing local disputes: Taunton, Somerset Record Office, DD/L P37/7, part 1, m. 12r; P 37/10 B, m. 3r; P 37/10 C, m. 2r; H. C. Maxwell Lyte, A History of Dunster and of the Families of Mohun & Luttrell, 2 vols. (London, 1909), 1:120–1. I am grateful to Dr. Chris Woolgar of the University of Southampton for advising me on the nature and structure of the Luttrell household accounts. Wedgwood, Biographies, pp. 943–4; C. J. M. McGovern, “Lancastrian Diplomacy and Queen Margaret’s Court in Exile 1461–1472” (unpublished BA dissertation, Keele University, 1973), pp. 31, 35. Sir William Vaux’s kinsman, Thomas Vaux, had served as a yeoman of the king and queen’s households during the 1450s: A. R. Myers, Crown, Household and Parliament in Fifteenth-Century England (London, 1985), p. 186.

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In addition to the “ultra-loyalists,” there were others who had managed to fall foul of the Yorkist regime during the 1460s and had joined the exiles in France. Sir William Cary, John Gower, John Florey, John Yates, and Thomas Philip were all described in the Parliament Roll of 1465 as having “by secrete subtill and private meanes with drawen them out of this lond adhering unto Margaret late called Quene of Englond.”18 The connections of Sir William Cary of Cockington in Devon tied him intimately to those who had died in the cause of the Lancastrians. He had married Anne, daughter of Sir Baldwin Fulford who had been executed by the Yorkists in September 1461. He was also a distant kinsman of the Beauforts, his son Thomas having married Eleanor, grand-daughter of Edmund Beaufort, second duke of Somerset. Moreover, Cary’s own brother-in-law, Sir Thomas Fulford, had been identified as one of the leading Lancastrian adherents soon after Queen Margaret’s forces had landed at Weymouth in April 1471. It was possibly Cary who first contacted his close neighbor Sir Sinclair Pomeroy and persuaded him to join the Lancastrian cause. Pomeroy then apparently made his way to Exeter and fought at Tewkesbury.19 John Florey also enjoyed strong Beaufort links. A John Florey, possibly the same man, had sat as one of the jurors at the inquisition post mortem of John, duke of Somerset, back in 1443. Florey was undoubtedly one of their loyal West Country servants and had forfeited his manor of Cloford as a result of traitorous activities in January 1464. This, and a parliamentary censure, confirm that he was actively engaged in Lancastrian plotting and particularly in Henry Beaufort, duke of Somerset’s secret negotiations with the Lancastrian court at Bamburgh Castle. Following Somerset’s execution after the defeat at Hexham in May 1464, Florey seems to have followed the remaining Lancastrians into Scotland and then into France and Burgundy. This is borne out by the Paston Letters where he is referred to as “Forey of Fraunce.” Once there he probably entered the service of Edmund, Henry Beaufort’s younger brother and now titular duke of Somerset, perhaps even serving under him in the Burgundian campaigns.20 To these exiles it was the House of Lancaster which mattered above all else. In fact, the long-term survival of the dynasty rested with the young Prince Edward rather than the sad and pathetic Henry VI. It was the very real prospect of a Lancastrian revival under his son which probably stiffened the resolve of the

18 19

20

Rotuli Parliamentorum ut et Peticiones, et Placita in Parliamento, 6 vols. (London, 1767–77), 5: 511, 512; TNA: PRO, KB 9/310, no. 2. J. L. Vivian, The Visitations of the County of Devon (Exeter, 1895), p. 150. The figure simply known as “Knoyll,” referred to in the Paston Letters list, was possibly part of this Exeter contingent. There was a Knoll family resident at Denbury in Devon, one of whom, John Knoll, sat as MP for Liskeard in 1455–6. Denbury was a few miles from Berry Pomeroy and Cockington, the homes of Sinclair Pomeroy and Sir William Cary. There were also Knoylls at Sampford in Somerset, two of whom, John and William, received pardons in December 1471: Wedgwood, Biographies, p. 519; Paston Letters and Papers, 2:593; TNA: PRO, C 67/48, mm. 23, 25. Paston Letters and Papers, 2:593; TNA: PRO, C 139/114/19; CPR, 1461–67, pp. 293–4; Somerset Medieval Wills, 1501–1530, ed. F. W. Weaver, Somerset Record Society 19 (1903), p. 345.

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exiles. Like the “brothers-in-arms” discussed by Keen, these individuals had shared and suffered much together. Having sacrificed their own positions in England they were, on a practical level, also seeking the restoration of their own fortunes by tying them to those of the prince. It is unsurprising that the highly charged political environment of the Lancastrian court-in-exile produced a firebrand described by the Milanese ambassador in France in 1467 as a thirteen year-old adolescent who spoke of little else except “cutting off heads or making war.”21 However, the prince did not bring back his own circle of intimates he had formed in exile. The Lancastrian court at Koeur in France was a minute establishment bereft of resources. In fact, only one companion of the same age is known to have been with him in Scotland and France: Henry Ogard, son of Sir Andrew Ogard, Bedford’s chamberlain and long-time Lancastrian soldier in France. Henry had been in Queen Margaret’s care since the death of his father in 1454 and had been taken into exile with them. It is probable that he was knighted along with many others on the eve of the battle of Tewkesbury.22 Prince Edward’s sword-bearer at the battle was probably John Gower of Clapham in Surrey who had joined the exiles during the mid–1460s. Despite kinship connections to the Passhleys and Pympes of Kent, Gower’s source of patronage remains uncertain. It is possible that he was connected to the Holland dukes of Exeter since his kinsmen, Thomas and Richard Gower, had supported Exeter’s attempts to secure Ampthill from Lord Cromwell during the 1450s. Exeter subsequently joined Queen Margaret and the other exiles at Koeur before moving onto the Burgundian court like the duke of Somerset. If Gower, like Florey, had re-established contact with his former Lancastrian patron then that might account for his appointment as the prince’s sword-bearer.23 21

22

23

M. Keen, “Brotherhood in Arms,” in Nobles, Knights and Men-at-Arms in the Middle Ages (London, 1996), pp. 43–62; L. A. Coote, Prophecy and Public Affairs in Later Medieval England (York, 2000), pp. 211–13; Calendar of State Papers and Manuscripts Existing in the Archives and Collections of Milan, 1385–1618, ed. A. B. Hinds (London, 1913), p. 117. McGovern, “Lancastrian Diplomacy,” pp. 13–15. Ogard’s experiences after the battle demonstrate the uncertain future he now faced. Although pardoned, almost immediately upon his return to East Anglia he became embroiled in a land dispute with the Knyvets, was fined and subsequently outlawed. It is only with the accession of Henry VII that his fortunes revived: CPR, 1452–61, p. 583; Calendar of Documents Relating to Scotland, 1357–1509, ed. J. Bain (Edinburgh, 1888), no. 1320; TNA: PRO, C 1/433/39, 40; C 67/48, m. 32; 49 m. 32; KB 27/ 850, rot. 35r; KB 29/104, rot. 23r; J. R. Lander, English Justices of the Peace (Gloucester, 1989), pp. 99–100; M. Hicks, False, Fleeting, Perjur’d Clarence (Gloucester, 1980), pp. 170, 202–3. Kingsford, English Historical Literature, p. 377; The Victoria History of the Counties of England: Surrey, 4 (1905; repr. London, 1967), pp. 38–9; N. H. MacMichael, “The Descent of the Manor of Evegate in Smeeth with Some Account of its Lords,” Archaeologia Cantiana 74 (1960), 38–9; Calendar of Close Rolls, 1454–61 (London, 1939), pp. 43–4: S. J. Payling, “The Ampthill Dispute: A Study in Aristocratic Lawlessness and the Breakdown of Lancastrian Government,” English Historical Review 104 (1989), 891 n. 4. The outlawries of Thomas and Richard were still being recorded in 1461–2: TNA: PRO, KB 29/113 (outlawries in Michaelmas term, 2 Edward IV). However, for an alternative tradition within the Delves family that their ancestor had also been sword-bearer, see Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS Ashmole 854, fol. 344.

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In addition to the loyalists, the battle lists include Lancastrians who had not gone into exile. After the battle of Towton in March 1461 they had returned to their homes and submitted to the Yorkist regime. Within this group some appear to have fallen out of favor with the Yorkist regime during the course of the 1460s, whilst others remained quietly at home doing little to attract official attention. Both groups, however, seemed to retain an underlying sense of Lancastrian loyalty which resurfaced during the Readeption. Nevertheless, they were still faced with three choices in May 1471: neutrality, joining Edward IV to demonstrate a newly-discovered loyalty to the Yorkists, or joining Queen Margaret and Prince Edward at Tewkesbury. It was not a foregone conclusion that these men would take up arms. For some, like Sir Thomas Tresham, it perhaps appeared that fighting for the Lancastrians was the best of these options. Tresham had experienced a troubled decade under the Yorkists. Unable to secure the help of Sir William Pecche, his prominent Yorkist stepfather, to become reconciled to the Yorkist regime he had had to wait until 1464 to receive a general pardon. He had then set about trying to recover his lands and purchase them back from the new grantees. If his 1467 parliamentary petition is to be believed he spent over 2,000 marks buying them back. Nevertheless, in 1468 the escheator for Norfolk entered his lands and took away various goods and chattels. Word went around that Tresham’s “livelihood … is given away by the King.” Tresham would have undoubtedly continued his efforts to recover his possessions had Henry VI not been restored in October 1470, but in May 1471 he seemed to decide that supporting the Readeption offered the best chance of securing a permanent restoration.24 Sir Gervase Clifton may have felt the same as Tresham. He had made his peace with the Yorkists after Towton and had initially benefited from the intervention of a well-wisher, his stepson, Sir John Scott, now one of Edward IV’s closest supporters. However, during the course of the 1460s he too had fallen foul of entrenched Yorkist interests. His marriage to Maud, Lady Willoughby, widow of Sir Thomas Neville and co-heiress of Ralph, Lord Cromwell, brought him into conflict with Anthony Woodville, Lord Scales and Humphrey Bourchier, husband of another Cromwell heiress. Accused by Scales of treason in November 1465, Clifton drifted towards the Lancastrian opposition in exile. By 1468 he was in contact with Sir Robert Whittingham. Suspected of treason, a commission of oyer and terminer could not find any evidence against him and his name was subsequently dropped from indictments. Nevertheless, on 1 December 1468 he was excluded from a general pardon. Curiously he was again pardoned in January 1470 but the Yorkist gesture came too late. He became a prominent supporter of the Readeption government in 1470. His activities during 1470–1 remain obscure although there is every chance he was in London before the battle of Barnet and departed with Somerset to meet Queen Margaret in the West Country.25 24

25

J. S. Roskell, “Sir Thomas Tresham, Knight, Speaker for the Commons under Henry VI,” Northamptonshire Past and Present 2 (1959), 313–23. I am also grateful to the History of Parliament Trust for access to their unpublished biography of Tresham. I am grateful to the History of Parliament Trust for access to their unpublished biography of Clifton. This adds to the analysis originally provided in Mercer, “Kent and National Politics,” passim.

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Tresham and Clifton had both become victims of the Yorkist regime after 1461: Tresham perhaps through misfortune; Clifton through a combination of bad luck, Yorkist persecution, and deliberate choice. Other participants in the events of 1460–1, however, had returned to their homes and had sunk into obscurity until the Readeption. One example is Sir William Fielding of Lutterworth in Leicestershire. He had gravitated towards the Lancastrian establishment in the Midlands during the later 1450s. There is some limited evidence to support an attachment to the Beauforts, although the precise depth of Fielding’s loyalty to the House of Lancaster cannot be stated with absolute certainty. Nevertheless, his general pardon secured in March 1461 implies that he had fought for them at Wakefield or Towton. Little is known about Fielding during the 1460s but his underlying loyalties apparently remained Lancastrian. He served as Readeption sheriff of Cambridgeshire and Huntingdonshire as well as a justice of the peace in Leicestershire.26 It has been suggested that Fielding was paying careful heed to events at this time. His concern about what might happen apparently led him to sit down before the battle of Tewkesbury where he drew up his will and evidence of his family’s illustrious descent in case he did not survive.27 Another example of an individual re-discovering his Lancastrianism is Sir John Lewknor of West Grinstead in Sussex. Lewknor’s reasons for fighting at Tewkesbury are unknown. He would certainly have been known to Clifton through royal service as well as through the network of families associated with the Scotts of Brabourne in Kent. Lewknor had maintained a low profile throughout the wars and there is no evidence for his presence in previous battles. A number of factors including former Lancastrian loyalties and difficult personal circumstances could have contributed towards his decision to support the Readeption. Pressure might conceivably have been exerted on him to serve the Lancastrians because of the Lewknors’ strong ties of service to Queen Margaret and the duchy of Lancaster. Equally, though, he was involved in a series of long-running disputes over the inheritance of his wife, Joan Halsham, and had engaged in some questionable financial dealings with his unreliable half-brother, the lawyer Thomas Hoo. His financial position had become acute during the 1460s and he was twice outlawed for debt. Lewknor obviously had options in 1471, yet for reasons best known to him he chose to join the Lancastrians.28 26

27

28

I am grateful to the History of Parliament Trust for allowing me access to the unpublished biographies of Sir William Fielding and Everard Digby. After Tewkesbury a precautionary pardon was secured by Fielding’s son, Everard: Rotuli Parliamentorum, 5:22; TNA: PRO, C 237/48, no. 183. See also Carpenter, Locality and Polity, p. 258. I am grateful to Professor Carpenter for providing me with details from her original notes about Fielding’s will from Warwick Record Office, C. R. 2017/F. 102 (inset between pp. 16 and 17), F. 105/31. The wills of Sir William Tyrell and Sir Thomas Cobham who fought at Barnet on the Lancastrian and Yorkist sides respectively display an underlying anxiety about events too: TNA: PRO, PROB 11/5 fols. 253v–255v; PROB 11/6, fols. 13v–15r. M. Mercer, “Driven to Rebellion? Sir John Lewknor, Dynastic Loyalty and Debt,” Sussex Archaeological Collections 107 (1999), 153–160. I am also grateful to the History of Parliament Trust for allowing me access to their account of Lewknor’s career.

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Apart from the Lancastrian exiles and those with previous Lancastrian loyalties who decided for a variety of reasons to support the Readeption, it is difficult to find evidence of a successful recruitment campaign in areas other than on the kingdom’s peripheries. In March 1471 it is possible that “Lancastrians” made a decision based as much on geographical factors as much as personal or political considerations. Those in the south-west and Wales decided to wait for the arrival of Queen Margaret and Prince Edward; others in East Anglia preferred to support Warwick, Clarence and the Readeption regime. The Arrivall remarks that the West Country had been thoroughly prepared by Somerset and Courtenay who “bestyrd them right greatly to make an assemblye of asmoche people for to receyve theyr comynge, them to accompany, fortyfy, and assyst.” They were regarded as “old enheritors of the contrie.” The Arrivall also remarked that messengers were dispatched across the West Country, “sent alabout in Somersetshere, Dorsetshire, and part of Wiltshere, for to arredy and arays the people by a certeyne day, suche, algats, as the sayde lords, and theyr partakers, afore that had greatly laboryd to that entent.” Numerous letters were dispatched seeking support in these regions. One such letter to John Daunt of Wotton-under-Edge in Gloucestershire from Prince Edward has survived dated 14 April, the very day Queen Margaret and Prince landed at Weymouth.29 Loyalists were prominent in this recruitment effort. Sir John Arundell and Sir Hugh Courtenay “arraysed the houle myghte of Cornwall and Devonshire.” In addition, the pro-Yorkist Crowland Chronicle admitted that there was considerable support for the Lancastrians in the West Country.30 Yet as the lists of participants demonstrate, even in the south-west a willingness to defend the restored Lancastrian monarchy was restricted to Duchy of Cornwall, Courtenay, Beaufort, Hungerford and Tudor connections. The resources of the duchy of Cornwall, for example, were gathered together by Sir John Arundell. Arundell had started to make a career in the duchy under the Yorkists during the 1460s but his family’s tradition of service to the Lancastrians appeared to take precedence over links to the Yorkist establishment when he made the conscious decision to join Queen Margaret at Exeter. Four of his associates were almost certainly at the battle: William Carnsyvyowe, late of Bokelly, the “errant Captain of Cornwall”; Henry Cavell, late of Lanherne; John Borlas of Borlasfrank; and John Rosogan, late of Rosogan, were all pardoned in September 1471.31 Alongside Arundell recruiting in the extreme south-west was Sir 29 30 31

Arrivall, pp. 15, 22–3; P. W. Fleming and Michael Wood, Gloucestershire’s Forgotten Battle, Nibley Green 1470 (Stroud, 2003), pp. 82–3; Gloucestershire Notes & Queries 1 (1885), 280. The Crowland Chronicle Continuations 1459–1486, eds. N. Pronay and J. Cox (London, 1986), p. 127. CPR, 1461–67, pp. 123, 233, 389, 488, 561; CPR, 1467–77, pp. 57, 169, 197, 200, 220; J. S. Vivian, The Visitations of the County of Cornwall 2 vols. (Exeter, 1887), 2:3; H. S. A. Fox and O. J. Padel, eds., The Cornish Lands of the Arundells of Lanherne, Fourteenth to Sixteenth Centuries (Exeter, 2000), pp. 68, 71, 102, 112, 123, 138, 141, 162, 211; CPR, 1467–77, p. 280. Carnsyvyowe had been described as “the great errant Captain of Cornwall” and identified as an active Lancastrian supporter in a Chancery suit during the 1460s: TNA: PRO, C 1/27/209.

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Hugh Courtenay, kinsman of the Courtenay earls of Devon. The traditional authority of the senior Courtenay line had collapsed during the 1460s. Nevertheless, the return of John Courtenay, youngest brother of Thomas, earl of Devon who had been executed after Towton in 1461, and the subsequent public appeal to previous loyalties, appeared to have had an effect. Walter Courtenay, probably the son of Sir Hugh Courtenay, features amongst the dead along with his father, as do other traditional Courtenay connections. Courtenay connections could possibly account for the participation of Sir Humphrey Audeley as well. Warkworth also identified a John Waleys at the battle who was pardoned for fighting on the Lancastrian side. He was undoubtedly John Waleys of Tiverton, a center of Courtenay influence in Devon. Waleys had probably fought for the Lancastrians at Towton and had been identified as a Lancastrian rebel in the first Yorkist parliament of 1461.32 Beaufort connections were undoubtedly re-activated once again during the Readeption, having remained dormant since the mid–1460s. The Roll of Parliament for 1465 seems to suggest that there had been some earlier Beaufort resistance organized by Sir William Cary. Its precise nature remains unclear however.33 And after the death of Henry Beaufort, duke of Somerset, at Hexham and the exile of Edmund and John Beaufort, it had faltered. Now, as Edmund Beaufort moved across the West Country, recruits were gathered once again. John Florey, named in the Chronicle of Tewkesbury Abbey as Somerset’s banner-bearer, played a crucial role in this process. He had been active in the resistance movement in the West Country until his departure into exile in the mid–1460s. The importance of the banner-bearer must not be understated. It was a position of great personal prestige and indicated close contact and even intimacy with his lord.34 Before Tewkesbury, Florey would have acted as a focal point for the Beaufort affinity in their recruiting efforts. It is perhaps as a result of his canvassing that he was able to recruit Sir William Newburgh of Corfe Castle, Readeption justice of the peace for Dorset and former knight of the shire for the same county, Thomas Warman and William Benet of Milborne Port in Somerset, and William Gilbery of Queen Camel in Somerset. All these places were traditional strongholds of Beaufort support.35

32

33 34

35

J. A. F. Thomson, “The Courtenay Family in the Yorkist Period,” Bulletin of the Institute of Historical Research 45 (1972), 230–46; Rushforth, “The Burials of Lancastrian Notables,” pp. 133–4; Vivian, Visitations of Devon, p. 245; Warkworth’s Chronicle, p. 18; TNA: PRO, C 67/48 m. 9; Rotuli Parliamentorum, 5:483. Rotuli Parliamentorum, 5:511, 512. The size of a duke’s banner, according to one seventeenth century source, was 7 yards in length, a particularly strong and potent visual symbol. Accepted practice was for the bearer to be knighted before battle was joined: Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS Ashmole, 763 fols. 150r– 151v. M. Mercer, “Lancastrian Loyalism in the South-West: The Case of the Beauforts,” Southern History 19 (1997), 51; TNA: PRO, C 67/48, m. 10.

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A group that has received surprisingly little consideration at Tewkesbury is the Hungerford affinity. The process of reconciliation between Edward IV and the Hungerfords had begun in 1462 despite the continuing opposition of Robert, Lord Hungerford in the north of England. Hungerford was executed after the battle of Hexham in May 1464, whereupon his son and heir, Thomas, who had been pardoned in November 1462, began to petition for the restoration of his lands. The rehabilitation was short-lived. In 1468 Thomas was executed for treason along with Henry Courtenay, near Salisbury.36 Nevertheless, long-standing Hungerford connections could account for the presence of Walter Barrow, one of their known associates at the battle. He had been outlawed for participating in Lord Hungerford’s attack on the manor of Gresham in Norfolk as far back as 1449.37 Hungerford, or possibly Beaufort connections, could also explain the presence of Richard Baynton of Falstone in Wiltshire. His father, Sir John Baynton had participated in several Hungerford transactions and had married Katherine Carent, daughter of the Beaufort associate, William Carent.38 Outside the south-west responses to Lancastrian appeals for support were mixed. In Wales there was some success. Lancastrian resistance had survived there until very recently. Moreover, Jasper Tudor, earl of Pembroke had worked hard to restore Lancastrian authority in South Wales and the Marches during the Readeption. It is well known that Tudor’s main forces were no further than Chepstow when news of the defeat at Tewkesbury reached him. It seems, however, that an advance guard did reach the battlefield. At its head was Thomas FitzHarry of Monnington on Wye in Herefordshire.39 He had close links with another Tudor connection, Sir John Scudamore of Bredwardine in Herefordshire and may well have gathered this group of Pembroke’s adherents together from his base in Herefordshire, joining the Lancastrians at Tewkesbury from his base in Herefordshire, only about thirty miles away from the site of the battle.40 The force may also have included the John Parker who is mentioned by Warkworth

36

37

38 39

40

C. D. Ross, Edward IV (London, 1991), pp. 122–3; M. Hicks, Warwick the Kingmaker (Oxford, 1998), p. 269; CPR, 1461–67, pp. 101, 181, 284, 363–5; Calendar of Fine Rolls, 1461–71 (London, 1949), p. 216; Wedgwood, Biographies, p. 485. Castor, Duchy of Lancaster, pp. 137–40; H. Castor, Blood and Roses: The Paston Family in the Fifteenth Century (London, 2004), pp. 51–2, 53–4, 65. For Barrow’s presence at Gresham, see TNA: PRO, KB 29/113, Trinity Term 14 Edward IV. TNA: PRO, C 67/49 m. 19; CPR, 1452–61, p. 509; Calendar of Close Rolls, 1454–61, p. 55; Wedgwood, Biographies, p. 53; Mercer, “Lancastrian Loyalism,” pp. 45–6, 47–8. H. T. Evans, Wales and the Wars of the Roses (Stroud, 1995), pp. 114–15; G. Williams, “Prophecy, Poetry and Politics in Medieval and Tudor Wales,” in British Government and Administration: Studies Presented to S. B. Chrimes, eds. H. Hearder and H. R. Loyn (Cardiff, 1974), p. 115; Wedgwood, Biographies, pp. 331–2. Scudamore had been a leading resistance figure in the West Country, was identified with Pembroke in Wales in 1461, and stood surety for him in 1471. Wedgwood, Biographies, 753–4; TNA: PRO, C 67/49, m. 2; E 210/3166; CPR 1467–77, p. 454; William Worcestre, Itineraries (hereafter cited as Itineraries), ed. J. H. Harvey (Oxford, 1969), pp. 203, 205.

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and was possibly a connection of Thomas Parker of the Ford in Herefordshire.41 Tudor connections loomed large in this group. Could William Henmar, referred to in the Paston Letters, have been a part of it? Henmar is undoubtedly a misspelling for Hanmer and the Hanmers could claim kinship with Tudor. A John Hanmer of Flint was even with Jasper Tudor at Harlech Castle until its surrender in August 1468 and was probably the attorney who had been appointed to receive attornments in the lordships of Chirk and Chirkland in 1461.42 The Hanmers enjoyed interests in the Welsh Marches. A William Hanmer, probably son of John, was the grandson of Sir Thomas Barry of Herefordshire, which suggests a further link with the group led by Sir Thomas FitzHarry.43 Yet another member of the Tudor affinity could have been “Master Gogh” or “Master Gowgh” who appears both in John Benet’s list and the Chronicle of Tewkesbury Abbey. His identity is impossible to prove, although William Worcestre does record a connection between the Hanmers and the Goghs. Moreover, the Goghs could also claim kinship with the Tudors.44 Elsewhere Lancastrian appeals went largely ignored. Overtures were made to the gentry in Lancashire and Cheshire. The Crowland Chronicler states that the Lancastrian commanders were confident that they would be joined by a large number of supporters from this region. The Arrivall adds that as the Lancastrian forces were moving towards Gloucester they were expecting to join up with a “greate nombar of men of Lancashire and Chesshere, upon whom they much trustyd.” But in Lancashire, the response was limited and those who decided to take military action chose to join Sir James Harrington instead who, according to the Arrivall, led a force of over 600 men from the north west to Edward IV at Nottingham. Despite the friction that existed between the Harringtons and the Stanleys, the principal power-brokers in the region, the latter were also involved in the raising of this force. This suggests that any loyalist support that might have

41

42 43

44

Thomas Parker was a known associate of FitzHarry: TNA: PRO, KB 27/804, rot. 53r; 805, rot. 37r; 809, rot. 44r; 810, rot. 50v. Parker appears to have been caught up in the disturbances which occurred in Herefordshire in the the late 1450s. Along with FitzHarry he was part of the group which opposed Sir Walter Devereux, an associate of the duke of York, in the city of Hereford: A. Herbert, “Herefordshire, 1413–61: Some Aspects of Society and Public Order,” in Patronage, the Crown and the Provinces in Later Medieval England, ed. R. Griffiths (Gloucester, 1981), pp. 104, 105–107, 111, 114. There is a possibility that he was a connection of the John Parker who was master of the ordnance under the earl of Salisbury, which might indicate a Neville connection although this seems unlikely: TNA: PRO, E 101/51/27, 30. Paston Letters and Papers, 2:592–3; CPR, 1461–67, p. 37; TNA: PRO, PRO, 30/2/4/22 (Pedigrees of the Family of Hanmer of Hanmer in Flint); Itineraries, p. 351. Calendar of Inquisitions Post Mortem Henry VII, 1 (London, 1898), nos. 682, 684. William Hanmer’s cousin, Sir John Barry, possibly fought for the Lancastrians at Northampton in July 1460. His arrest was ordered by the Yorkists in August 1460. Thereafter, no opposition to Edward IV can be found: Hampton, Memorials of the Wars of the Roses, p. 79. Itineraries, p. 351; TNA: PRO, 30/2/4/22 (Pedigrees of the Family of Hanmer of Hanmer in Flint). I am grateful to Professor Ralph Griffiths for his views on the identity of Gogh. Unfortunately, because the surname is adjectival meaning “red” it is impossible to identity the family with any certainty.

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existed in that region was quickly replaced by an eagerness to demonstrate Yorkist allegiance.45 In Cheshire the Lancastrians were similarly disappointed. Queen Margaret had already exploited the hereditary links of the Prince of Wales and earldom of Chester by recruiting a substantial number of Cheshiremen before the encounter at Blore Heath in 1459. Yet the apparent administrative breakdown in the palatinate of Chester between Michaelmas 1470 and August 1471, when no indictments were taken, did not result in an upsurge in support for the House of Lancaster. It was stated that process had been discontinued because Edward IV was not in the kingdom. Although retainers of Queen Margaret and Prince Edward made attempts to marshal support for the Lancastrians in this region the gentry remained unwilling to respond. Sir John Delves, who died at Tewkesbury, had strong ties in Cheshire and North Staffordshire and could easily have coordinated recruitment in that region. There is a hint that he succeeded amongst his own network. Thomas Wykenbury and Robert Quareour, both from Doddington in Cheshire, where one of the principal Delves residences lay, obtained pardons in February 1472.46 Additional evidence from the Pardon Rolls suggests that other leading figures from Cheshire were involved, including Delves’s kinsman, Sir Hugh Calveley, a survivor from Blore Heath in 1459. In June 1472 Calveley took the precaution of securing a pardon. In the event, however, it would seem that any force that was arrayed in Cheshire did not reach Tewkesbury.47 Relatively few, in fact, were prepared to turn out during April and May 1471 in support of a Lancastrian monarchy that had all but collapsed. Set against the events of these two months the battle of Tewkesbury appears to be nothing more than a last-ditch attempt by an ever-decreasing number of Lancastrian loyalists to salvage a future for themselves. It is clear that the Lancastrians were only successful in drawing military support from particular groups on the kingdom’s peripheries and from amongst those who had maintained a deep-rooted sense of personal loyalty during the first reign of Edward IV. Even in areas where Lancastrianism persisted, the response was by no means universal. Whatever their innermost feelings, though, very few were willing to translate those emotions into active, military assistance. Many remained on the sidelines preferring to wait for the struggle between Lancaster and York to be resolved. In the West Country, a region which contemporary chronicles admitted contained considerable support for the Lancastrian dynasty and exiled Lancastrian magnates, the recruitment effort only succeeded amongst the affinities of former Lancastrian

45 46 47

Crowland Chronicle, p. 127; Arrivall, p. 27; Ross, Edward IV, p. 164. Delves also had a connection to Clarence, having served as treasurer of his household: Hicks, Clarence, pp. 78, 203; TNA: PRO, C 67/48, mm. 3, 4; 49 m. 24. Davies, An English Chronicle, p. 80; J. L. Gillespie, “Cheshiremen at Blore Heath: A Swan Dive,” in People, Politics and Community in the Later Middle Ages, eds. J. Rosenthal and C. Richmond (Gloucester, 1987), pp. 77–89; TNA: PRO, CHES 20/3, mm. 13r–v, CHES 19/6, mm. 7–8.

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magnates. In Wales the response was largely confined to the Tudor connection. In Lancashire and Cheshire, an expected gathering of Lancastrian supporters did not materialise. That pattern was also repeated elsewhere. In Yorkshire the initial reaction after Edward IV’s landing in March was hesitancy with many waiting to see the earl of Northumberland’s reaction. Too late did an unspecified number eventually by-pass the earl and organise a rising in early May, only to receive the news of the defeat at Tewkesbury.48 Historians have noted that the tendency to sit on the sidelines was most pronounced in the Midlands. As recently as March 1470 Warwick and Clarence had sought to recruit support in the region, but the gentry from Warwickshire and Staffordshire, and in particular from the duchy of Lancaster Honor of Tutbury, had refused to respond even when they had marched through the area. Events of the spring of 1471 did little to alter the gentry’s desire to remain neutral. Despite the intense activity during March and April in the Midlands very few gentry opted to join Warwick and the Readeption forces at Barnet or Queen Margaret and Prince Edward at Tewkesbury. William, Lord Beaumont and Sir Robert and Sir Nicholas Strelley might have brought small followings from Leicestershire and Nottinghamshire to Barnet but this is only conjecture. Similarly, those who accompanied Sir William Fielding from Leicestershire to Tewkesbury were undoubtedly in the minority. The Leicestershire gentry had proved unwilling to fight in defence of the House of Lancaster in 1460–1. In 1471 those who did decide to take action chose the Yorkist option instead. Fielding’s limited success stands in stark contrast to that of William, Lord Hastings who was able to muster the tenantry from the lands of disgraced Lancastrians and former duchy of Lancaster lands at the same time. According to the Arrivall he reputedly gathered 3,000 well-equipped men on behalf of Edward IV.49 Evidence from Tewkesbury suggests that by 1471 wholehearted support for the Lancastrians no longer existed, even on the kingdom’s peripheries. Following the death of Prince Edward on the battlefield, and the murder of Henry VI soon after Edward IV’s triumphal entry into London on 21–22 May, the conflict between the Houses of Lancaster and York was judged by many to be over. Nothing now prevented reliable service to Edward IV. The handful of prominent Lancastrians who were not killed at Barnet or Tewkesbury acknowledged this and were therefore able to transfer smoothly into Yorkist service. Even one of the most recalcitrant Lancastrians, Sir Richard Tunstall, received his pardon and went on to successfully serve both Edward IV and Henry VII until his death in 1492. As Tunstall’s career demonstrated, even loyalty had its practical limits.50 48

49

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C. Carpenter, “The Duke of Clarence and the Midlands: A Study in the Interplay of Local and National Politics,” Midlands History 11 (1986), p. 24; A. J. Pollard, North-Eastern England during the Wars of the Roses (Oxford, 1990), pp. 307–9, 312–14. Arrivall, pp. 8–9 ; I. Rowney, “The Hastings Affinity in Staffordshire and the Honour of Tutbury,” Bulletin of the Institute of Historical Research 57 (1984), 45; Carpenter, Locality and Polity, pp. 481, 485; Acheson, Leicestershire in the Fifteenth Century, pp. 103–4. Acheson’s view is that neither the Lancastrians nor the Yorkists had a coherent policy of interference in the internal affairs of Leicestershire. M. Hicks, “Edward IV, the Duke of Somerset and Lancastrian Loyalism in the North,” Northern History 20 (1984), 33–5; Wedgwood, Biographies, pp. 882–4.

7 Soldiers and Gentlemen: The Rise of the Duel in Renaissance Italy Steven C. Hughes

It is generally agreed that the modern code of honor, which adopted the rituals of the duel for its enforcement, evolved in Italy during the Renaissance and from there gradually spread to the rest of Europe.1 With the rise of the duel itself, Italy also saw a veritable explosion of books and pamphlets which purported to justify, explicate, and teach the proper defense of one’s honor. Thus lawyers and literati created and articulated an ethical code that refined and sharpened sensibilities to insult while dictating proper behavior among “gentlemen,” a handily ambiguous category that suited the social flux of the period. Print capitalism found this scienza cavalleresca or “science of chivalry” to be a tasty topic, and during the sixteenth century Italian presses would crank out forty-six new dueling manuals released in 110 different editions.2 This massive edifice of paper was reinforced by steel as Italians refined the rapier out of the broadsword and developed scientific fencing techniques to go with it. Such innovations spread quickly to the rest of the continent through teachers such as Sanseverino, Lovino, Pompeo, Bonetti, and Fabrizio, as well as instruction manuals by Marozzo, Agrippa, Saviolo, and Capo Ferro.3 In short, Italy became famous as “dueling 1

2 3

François Billacois, The Duel: Its Rise and Fall in Early Modern France (New Haven, 1990), pp. 18–20; Robert Schneider, “Swordplay and Statemaking: Aspects of the Campaign against the Duel in Early Modern France,” in Statemaking and Social Movements, eds. Charles Bright and Susan Harding (Ann Arbor, 1984), p. 269; Henri Morel, “La fin du duel judiciaire en France et la naissance du point d’honneur,” Revue historique de droit français et étranger 42 (1964), 633–634; Micheline Cuénin, Le Duel sous l’ancien régime (Paris, 1982), p. 24; Markku Peltonen, The Duel in Early Modern England: Civility, Politeness and Honour (Cambridge, UK, 2003), pp. 4–64; Claude Chauchadis, La loi du duel. Le code du point d’honneur dans l’Espagne des XVI et XVIIe siècle (Toulouse, 1997); Marco Cavina, Il duello giudiziario per punto d’onore: genesi, apogeo e crisi nell’elaborazione dottrinale italiana (sec. XIV–XVI), (Turin, 2003); Marco Cavina, Il sangue d’onore: storia del duello, (Rome, 2005). Francesco Erspamer, La biblioteca di Don Ferrante (Rome, 1982), pp. 58–61. Sydney Anglo, “How to Kill a Man at Your Ease,” in Chivalry in the Renaissance (Woodbridge, 1990), pp. 6–9. For France see Pascal Brioist, Hervé Drévillon, and Pierre Serna, Croiser le fer: violence et culture de l’épée dans la France moderne, XVIe–XVIIIe siècle (Paris, 2002), pp. 63–70. On Italian fencing teachers in England see Iacopo Gelli, Duelli celebri (Milan, 1928), pp. 54–58. For a general treatment of masters and manuals see Sydney Anglo, The Martial Arts of Renaissance Europe (New Haven, 2000), pp. 7–90.

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central” in theory, practice, and propaganda for more than a hundred years. Even in the early seventeenth century, John Selden still felt comfortable using the Italian term Duello to adorn his English treatise (1610) on the topic.4 Yet, despite its preeminence as the birthplace of the modern duel, Italy eventually lost its pride of place to the French. The actual number of duels fought on Italian soil gradually diminished throughout the seventeenth century and, with the important exception of Piedmont, virtually disappeared after the mid-eighteenth century. This strange career of rise and fall serves as the focus of this study. Specifically, it argues that the dueling code of honor evolved and proliferated as Renaissance regimes sought to introduce greater discipline among their soldiers while attempting to rein in the endemic violence of feud and vendetta amongst the nobility. Likewise, fighting over honor according to semi-juridical rituals allowed new and old elites to enhance or protect their status in the rapidly changing political and social environment of the Renaissance city-states. Thus a search for individual, caste, and state legitimacy would lead to an affirmation of the myth of medieval chivalry as a model of masculine behavior, but one that served the psychological and social needs of a rather different society. Newly codified and sanctioned, the dueling ritual quickly spread during the Italian Wars to French and Spanish soldiers who exported it back to their home countries where it would take on a life of its own. Back in Italy, the duel’s very success eventually outstripped its usefulness, and growing concern for public order prompted its abolition by the various princely governments, as well as by the papacy, which would bring the full weight of the Council of Trent down on the practice. Equally important in the decline of the duel, however, was the gradual demilitarization of Italian society during the seventeenth century, the relevance of which was demonstrated by the counter-example of Piedmont, the only Italian state to maintain both its own army and the dueling tradition. On the rest of the peninsula the downward trajectory of the military vocation among Italian elites matched the gradual disappearance of the duel, and strongly suggests that deprived of a military ethos and identity the ritual gave way to the legal, intellectual, and religious forces arrayed against it. The duel would of course eventually return to Italy, but only as reimported by the French army under the command of Bonaparte, who hoped to revivify the Italians’ military traditions for his own purposes.5

In Search of the Modern Duel The origins of the point of honor duel, fought over dignity rather than property and insult rather than injury, are difficult to unravel because, like most

4 5

John Selden, The Duello or Single Combat (London, 1610). I have previously examined the return of the duel during the Napoleonic period in “Deadly Play. Napoleon, Dueling and the Rearmament of Honor in Italy,” Rivista Napoleonica 2 (2001), 27–60.

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Renaissance innovations, the practice had long medieval roots.6 It emerged in a confused fashion from a complex historical matrix of ritualized fighting, which included single encounters during regular battles, judicial trials by combat, and celebratory tournaments which could be as violent as they were supposed to be entertaining. One such event held in Rome in 1333 reportedly resulted in the death of some eighteen knights.7 Marco Cavina has recently argued that the tournament was particularly important in the formation of the modern duel, which he sees as already evolving in the fourteenth century, because it allowed mutually consenting knights to fight for fame in a legal ritual that might easily end in serious bloodshed.8 Certainly, it is fair to say that the point of honor duel was already well developed in the court chronicles of the latter decades of the fifteenth century and had become firmly established by the time Castiglione wrote The Courtier between 1513 and 1516. Thus he has one of his noble protagonists explain regarding the perfect courtier: … I judge it his first duty to know how to handle every kind of weapon, both on foot and on horse, and know the advantages of each kind; and be especially acquainted with those arms that are ordinarily used among gentlemen, because apart from using them in war (where perhaps so many fine points are not necessary), there often arise differences between one gentleman and another, resulting in duels, and quite often those weapons are used which happen to be at hand. Hence knowledge of them is a very safe thing.

Nor does Castiglione shy away from the cause of these differences. Then, both for his own sake and for his friend’s he must understand the quarrels and differences that can arise, and must be alert to seize an advantage, and must show courage and prudence in all things. Nor should he be quick to enter into a fight, except in so far as his honor demands it of him; for, besides the great danger that an uncertain fate can bring, he who rushes into such things precipitately and without urgent cause deserves greatly to be censured, even though he should meet with success. But when he finds that he is so far involved that he cannot withdraw without reproach, he must be very deliberate both in the preliminaries to the duel and in the duel itself, and always show readiness and daring. Nor must he do as some who spend their time in wrangling over points of honor; … 9

6

7

8 9

The best work on the early evolution of the duel can be found in Marco Cavina, “Gli albori di un ‘diritto’: Profili del duello cavalleresco a metà del cinquecento,” Studi Senesi 97 (1985), 379–429; and more recently Il duello giudiziario, which contains an extensive bibliography; and Sangue d’onore, pp. 3–164. Also see Cavina’s edited volume from a conference in Modena in 2000 Duelli, faide e rappacificazioni: elaborazioni culturali, esperienze storiche (Milan, 2001). Giovanni Maresca di Serracapriola, “La tradizione delle armi in Napoli e l’Accademia Nazionale di Scherma,” in Studi in onore di Riccardo Filangeri (Naples, 1959), p. 473. Frederick R. Bryson, The Sixteenth-Century Italian Duel (Chicago, 1938), p. xxii. He adds that sometimes participants challenged each other over personal rancors beforehand. Cavina, Sangue d’onore, pp. 30–40. Baldassare Castiglione, The Book of the Courtier, trans. Charles Singleton (New York, 1959), p. 37.

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Obviously, Castiglione is here describing a courtly world in which issues of individual honor were already volatile and the duel had become a ubiquitous and immanent possibility. And he could speak from experience, for Castiglione wrote to his mother with complete nonchalance of his own participation as a second in a duel in 1510, casually bracketing this news between some business advice and an impassioned request for money from home.10 The question becomes then, why did the point of honor duel arise in Italy during the fifteenth century, and the answer, to quote one top authority, is still “poorly understood.”11 Indeed, the social history of the early Italian duel remains to be written, a task complicated by the need for multi-archival research in various regions. Nevertheless, four critical themes emerge from the current literature on the topic.12 First, the rituals of the modern duel derived primarily from the traditional practices, or lois d’armes, of the soldier/knights who provided military muscle throughout the Italian peninsula. These customary laws began to be codified by Italian jurists starting in the 1470s and then spread to other elite sectors of society. Second, and of major importance, the modern duel – despite its later illegality – received substantial support in its infancy from the Renaissance courts, whose princes granted both their “fields” and their good offices to duelists. Many of the early duels of honor were officiated by ruling princes, or judges appointed by them, thus reinforcing the “legalistic” image of the duel being presented by the jurists.13 The courts offered official sanction to an evolving rite of honor and in return they gained the prestige attending an ancient but virtually defunct practice – the judicial duel – while introducing new forms of

10

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Letter of Nov. 17, 1510. “Questo mio combattente ha fatto bene: tanto che noi havemo portato la maior parte de l’honore a casa nostra. Tutti dui sono valentissimi cavalleri, et estimati assai.” Baldassare Castiglione, Le lettere, ed. Guido la Rocca (Verona, 1978), p. 317. According to Bryson, The Sixteenth-Century Italian Duel, p. 188, Castiglione was also present at a quite famous duel between Ugo Pepoli of Bologna and Guido Rangoni of Modena in 1516 which was held in a Gonzaga castle in Mantuan territory. Edward Muir, “The Double Binds of Manly Revenge in Renaissance Italy,” in Gender Rhetorics, Postures of Dominance and Submission in History, ed. Richard Trexler (Binghamton NY, 1994), p. 66. In addition to Cavina’s opus, important works include David Quint, “Duelling and Civility in Sixteenth Century Italy,” I Tatti Studies: Essays in the Renaissance 7 (1997), 231–278; Claude Chauchadis, La loi du duel; Edward Muir, Mad Blood Stirring: Vendetta and Factions in Friuli during the Renaissance (Baltimore, 1993). Giancarlo Angelozzi, “La trattatistica su nobiltà ed onore a Bologna nei secoli XVI e XVII,” in Atti e memorie della deputazione di storia patria per le provincie di Romagna 25–26 (1974–1975), 187–256; Claudio Donati, L’idea di nobiltà in Italia: secoli XIV–XVII (Rome, 1995); Donald Weinstein, “Fighting or Flyting? Verbal Dueling in mid-Sixteenth-Century Italy,” in Crime, Society, and the Law in Renaissance Italy (Cambridge, UK, 1994), pp. 204–220; Antonio Merendoni, Il duello pubblico negli stati minori di Rodomonte e degli altri marchesi Gonzaga dal 1492–1563 (Bozzolo, 1999). Still somewhat useful are two early works by Frederick Robertson Bryson, The Sixteenth-Century Italian Duel (Chicago, 1938) and The Point of Honor in Sixteenth-Century Italy: An Aspect of the Life of a Gentleman (New York, 1935). Bryson, The Sixteenth Century Italian Duel, pp. 178–186; Cavina, Il duello giudiziario.

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discipline among their elite subjects. Third, despite its links to medieval precedents – ordeals, jousts, tournaments, pas d’armes, melees – the modern duel was something different, and it was dependent on a new private concept of masculine honor which raised men’s sensitivity to personal sleights, but which simultaneously limited the field of those immediately involved in the conflict. Hence the appropriateness of the term “point” of honor, because the duel focused attention on a particular affront and reduced its resolution to a single point in both time and space. This narrowed the scope of honor from the collective notions of the past, which had extended commitments of vendetta and feud tied to family and friends across generations. Instead the duel placed one’s reputation as a gentleman on the willingness to seek personal satisfaction in a single ritualized encounter. Birth or office might confer nobility, but it had to be constantly defended on the individual level. Finally, for all its chivalric trimmings, the dueling code did not arise in France or Spain where the traditions and structures of feudal knighthood had retained much of their vigor, but came instead from Italy where the warrior aristocracy had suffered its greatest competition in both theory and practice during most of the middle ages. Thus the duel functioned in part to help redefine the concept of aristocracy or at least demarcate those who should be accorded the attributes of honor in a constantly shifting social landscape. It could “ennoble” talented elites while protecting the position of those traditionally accorded honor because of their rank, or at least who thought they should be. What binds these features of the early duel together is a search for legitimacy and status as Italy adjusted to the extraordinary developments that marked the period we generally refer to as the Renaissance. Culturally, those changes were dominated by the triumph of humanism in arts, education, and manners. Schools proliferated which taught the importance of classical models in both life and literature, the need for elegant but practical modes of expression, and a combination of moral and physical excellence. Such pedagogical principles found a ready audience among the merchant and banking classes, which arose in variety and number out of the economic resurgence after the Black Death, as well as among traditional urban elites and members of the nobility. Thus no Renaissance court was complete without its entourage of poets, painters, and philosophers, and a fierce debate raged over the relative importance of arms and letters in the life of a gentleman. But just who could be called a gentleman was greatly complicated by the substantial social mobility induced by increased urbanization, expanding trade, and economic diversification. Hence a growing number of “how to books” promised social distinction through one’s actions, manners, and demeanor, of which Della Casa’s Galateo would eventually be the most popular and Macchiavelli’s Il Principe by far the most audacious.14 14

In this regard one has to recognize Machiavelli’s notorious treatise as a “how to” book for those who would grab and hold power. Aside from his famous advocacy of the end justifies the means, it was in my opinion just this competitive and egalitarian approach to power that accounted for the general condemnation of his work.

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As for politics, it is important to remember that the modern duel completed its evolution during a time of relative stability after the Peace of Lodi in 1454. Precipitated out of a long and violent struggle among Italy’s many independent communes, feudatories, and principalities, the treaty of Lodi recognized and confirmed a system of larger states, dominated by Florence, Milan, Rome, Naples and Venice, each of which in varying degree set out to consolidate control over its expanded territory. These states benefited from the new labor pool trained by the humanists and employed educated courtiers and agents to run their bureaucracies, man their embassies, and administer their justice. In this process they created something of a nobility of the robe whose roots were likely to be in commerce or finance, although the regimes also had to grant privileges to local nobles in exchange for loyalty and service. The general administrative trend was thus towards a greater centralization of power, whether by an openly proclaimed prince, or by a political dynasty (e.g. the Medici) or hereditary oligarchy. Able to balance each other’s interests with their own, these states managed to secure some forty years of relative peace and prosperity for the peninsula, during which the code duello appeared in its modern form. As we shall see, however, the full flowering of that code would only come with the return of widespread war after the French invasion of 1494 and the eventual subjugation of much of Italy to foreign rule. But whether in peace or war, the general theme of Renaissance Italy was a shifting series of new political arrangements which forced constant accommodation on the part of new and old elites, who came to rely on an autodefinition of honor as an anchor for some and a sail for others to handle the seas of change. The dueling code would offer the “breviary,” as one commentator wrote, to those who would define themselves as “honorable” and the duel itself would offer the blood sacrifice that occasionally tested and sanctified their adherence to its tenets.15 In order to understand as best we can just how this cult of honor developed we need to examine these four themes more carefully and see how they intertwined with the social and political matrix of the evolving states of Italy.

Soldiers and Jurists Brantôme, the famous French courtier, reported in the mid-sixteenth century that the point of honor duel first developed among the “great Italian captains” who then taught it to the rest of the Europeans.16 Brantôme’s analysis may have

15 16

Muzio’s Duello was so popular as to be called by one French historian “le bréviare dueliste de la seconde moitiè du XVIe”: Pierre Geneste as quoted in Claude Chauchadis, La Loi du duel, p. 37. Pierre Bourdeille de Brantôme, Discours sur les duels (Paris, 1887), p. 133. Here he clearly states, “Voylà (pour conclure ceste dispute) ce que j’en ay ouy discourir et appris de grand capitaines italiens, qui sont esté les premiers fondateurs jadis de ces combats et de leurs poinctilles, et en ont tres-bien sceu les theoriques et pratiques; Les Espaignols aussy, mais non tant qu’eux.” On Italy’s influence on France also see Morel, “La fin du duel judiciaire,” pp. 632–636.

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been colored by the fact that he was himself a military man campaigning in Italy, and soldiers would have offered him a consistent frame of reference. Nevertheless, most scholars agree that the immediate antecedents of the duel of honor derived from the customary lois d’armes which could be found operating among the knights, men-at-arms, and condottieri throughout western Europe.17 Roughly based on the ordeal by combat of medieval justice, these customs allowed knights to challenge each other and fight before a referee either for “necessary” causes, which could only involve serious charges such as treason, or “voluntary” causes, which could include personal competition (perhaps for a lady’s favor) or a desire to demonstrate one’s superiority as a warrior. There was supposed to be a substantial difference between these forms of combat. Thus “necessary” duels entailed preliminary oaths, bloodshed to the extreme or ad oltranza, and severe penalties for the loser, while “voluntary” duels could be confused with the more recreational rules of tournaments. Through the course of the fifteenth century, however, there was a blurring of lines between the causes and the consequences of these knightly combats, and duels ad oltranza or to the extreme began to be fought over personal animosity or in the name of glory rather than for specific accusations of malfeasance or treachery.18 This muddling was enhanced by the lack of written legislation regarding such encounters and the natural disparity of customs between one region and another or even between different bands of soldiers. Likewise, some disputants opted to dispense with the formalities of public combat and sought redress in private or with a few confederates, a practice that became known as fighting alla macchia or literally in the woods. One assumes it was this increase in “extreme” dueling, often over personal rather than criminal matters, which prompted the King of Castile to outlaw the issuing of challenges among his knights in 1480, although it also clearly figured in with his general attempt to reduce the autonomy of the nobility and the independent military orders. Italians, however, took the opposite tack and formalized control over individual combat among soldiers, thus offering it a mantle of juridical legitimacy, and laying the basis of what would eventually become the code duello.19 As painstakingly reconstructed by Marco Cavina, Italy’s long legal traditions inspired late medieval juridical scholars, such as Ubaldo degli Ubaldi and Giovanni di Legnano, to adjust old theories of trial by battle, which had died out by the fourteenth century, to accommodate customary combat based on issues of personal honor.20 These authors set a pattern of legal justification of dueling in its

17 18 19

20

Chauchadis, La loi du duel, pp. 67–79; and Cavina, Sangue d’onore, p. 60. Chauchadis, La loi du duel, pp. 78–79. Chauchadis, La loi du duel, pp. 100–1, “Il semble qu’on assiste alors à un changement d’attitude de la part d’hommes de lois qui, davant l’incapacité des pouvoirs civil et religieux à endiguer le phénomème du duel, se décident à le contrôler à leur façon, c’est-à-dire en précisant et en fixant par écrit des règles fondées sur la coutume.” Cavina, Il duello giudiziario, pp. 59–88. For an earlier emphasis on this juridical tradition see Morel, “La fin du duel judiciaire,” pp. 633–634.

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infancy that would continue into the next century, and with the advent of the printing press Legnano’s 1360 Tractatus de bello, de represaliis et de duello would be published in Bologna in 1477, in Pavia in 1484 and 1487, and in Milan in 1487 and 1503.21 However, the first full-fledged detailed codification of the dueling ritual is generally attributed to Paride del Pozzo, or Paris de Puteo, a distinguished jurist and humanist working at the Aragonese court in Naples. Originally published around 1471, his Libellus de re militari would eventually go through numerous editions in both the original Latin and Italian and would become one of the bedrock references for other early dueling codes, which were primarily penned by other jurists.22 His book was well suited to such Encyclopedic purposes, containing a compendium of the different kinds of single combat and general comments on insults, accusations, challenges, and, of course, honor.23 That Del Pozzo had possible ulterior motives for writing his book will be examined later as they relate to class and caste, but his intended purpose rings clearly in the first sentence: “The sublime doctrine of discipline and of the military arts essential to the government of the republic and to the opposition of tyrants, having been lost (sepolta) and unknown to all but a few knights, [I] want to gather in one place the cases and [information] necessary for the singular battles which knights will fight from ancient models, and judicial authorities, and emperors.”24 Despite his often prolix style and sometimes contradictory logic, Del Pozzo returns time and again to this main theme of military discipline and its importance for society. There are, he says, too many duels being fought for dubious reasons, and too many soldiers who rely on a “common proverb” that justice consists only in fighting.25 With that problem in mind, it is obvious through the rest of the text that he hopes to take account of the need of soldiers and knights to protect their individual honor, which he agrees wholeheartedly must be defended, but to do so in such a way as to maintain esprit de corps and operational efficiency. And all of this will work to the good of the republic, which he uses not to describe a particular form of government, but rather as the res publica, that is the “public thing” or general welfare of the state. His immediate aim, in fact, may have been to restore some equilibrium to the elite sectors of Neapolitan society following the recent conflict between Aragonese and Angevin pretenders. This internal strife had brought forth a series of “betrayals, blackmails, pardons and royal concessions” among the Neapolitan nobility and offered a fertile field for just 21 22

23

24 25

For a publication history on all the dueling tracts see Erspamer, La biblioteca, pp. 205–216. Del Pozzo’s code, Duello. Libro de rei …, was republished five times in Latin and eight times in Italian between 1508 and 1549. Erspamer, La biblioteca, p. 209. On differences between the original Latin and the Italian version published in 1475 see Angelozzi, “Il duello nella trattistica,” p. 16. In one extraordinary chapter he argues how between two combatants who wound each other, one losing an eye, the other a nose, which one gained more honor from the fight. Book 8, chapter 25. For Del Pozzo, I have used the 1521 Italian edition published in Venice under the name Paris de Puteo. It has no page numbers and so references are to specific books and chapters. Ibid., Introduction. Ibid., Book one, chapter seven.

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the kind of accusations and insults – especially those of past treason and cowardice – that might lead to individual combats.26 Consequently, he sets forth a series of rules – based on a mixture of past juridical codes and current military customs – designed to control each and every aspect of such encounters from start to finish.27 Who might challenge whom, who should have choice of weapons and field, who might prohibit the combat, what should happen if one combatant should fail to show up, what should happen to the loser if he should live: the list goes on and on for almost four hundred pages as he literally lays down the law for potential duelists and judges alike. Yet while baptizing the duel in a flood of juridical verbiage and legal precedents, which include references to Roman, Imperial, and Lombard law as well as the Holy Bible, and while praising the virility and courage of soldiers, Del Pozzo also wants to limit the number of duels, and especially “extreme” duels.28 These he says should only be allowed for bonafide accusations of a criminal nature, particularly treason, which truly strike at the roots of a man’s honor and have to end with a clear winner to determine the issue.29 Likewise, Del Pozzo clearly attempts to tie all dueling activity tightly to legitimate political authority, offering de jure approval in exchange for de facto control, and roundly condemning any duelists not seeking a license or sneaking off to the woods.30 To reinforce this limitation he insists that only “free” princes – those actually endowed with sovereign rights – should be allowed to grant dueling licenses, and he specifically excludes those “barons even if they have the title of prince or duke” who fail to meet this criterion.31 However, he offers a critically revealing exception for military men: “Grand constables, captains of war, or condottieri of the army of either Emperor, King, or other free prince, can allow a duel [battaglia particulare] among those who fight [exercitano la militia] under his flag, even if they be foreign knights who find themselves in his camp.” In part, this stems from Del Pozzo’s recognition of the special relationship of soldiers to the duel. Thus he stresses that his code reflected consultation with “experienced” knights and “ancient military authorities,” and at one point he hazards to equate the duel with a “religion of the

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Maria Visceglia, Il bisogno di eternità: I comportamenti aristocratici a Napoli in eta moderna (Naples, 1988), p. 24. Visceglia also mentions a renewal of this “Angevin” war in 1485, which further restructured the Neapolitan nobility. It is important to note that Del Pozzo was not simply creating legislation out of thin air. Naples, along with Sicily, had a legal tradition of trial by battle that was still officially “on the books” although its application had virtually disappeared. See below. Del Pozzo, Duello. Libro de rei, Books 8 and 9 attempt to differentiate between duels of virtú, based on a desire to demonstrate one’e prowess, and duels of honor, which are obviously more serious and must always end ad oltranza, but frankly the differences become murky as the chapters pile up. Ibid., Book Two, chapter 14. Ibid., Book Two, chapter 19. Such, he suggests, is contrary to “ogni disciplina militare” and only worthy of “vilissimi beccarini, ruffiani, and gente plebea.” Ibid., Book 2, chapter 11

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soldiery.”32 He assumes that legal duels will utilize standard military weaponry, including defensive armor, and he disdains fighting only with swords as appropriate for vile “beccarini” rather than valorous knights.33 Overall, he makes the assumption that legitimate dueling is a privilege of the military, although he insists that all members of the nobility, including those at court, must by definition be willing to fight because “chivalry and military honor” are more important than official titles, and he exhorts them to practice martial arts to be worthy of such encounters.34 Indeed, it has been pointed out that Del Pozzo’s selection of terms for those who have the right to duel, cavalieri, milite, armeggeri, were ambiguous in their social demarcations, and allowed their application to a wide spectrum of soldiers.35 He even goes so far as to suggest that non-noble warriors, if consistently proven in battle, have the right to challenge members of the aristocracy because “in military discipline one does not look more to birth [natura] than to virtue,” and martial action creates honor.36 On the other hand, given the stated goals of Del Pozzo’s book, it seems obvious that his extension of the licensing authority to military officers, which effectively put them on a par with princes and kings, derived from his desire to increase both personal and collective discipline among the ranks of those for whom violence was a profession. Thus he reinforced the chain of command and officially recognized the captains as arbiters of honor as well as purveyors of orders. In this desire he reflected the general concerns of the period, and we see the same stress on organizational discipline in two military tracts from 1477 and 1479 by Orso degli Orsini and Diomede Carafa, both Neapolitan commanders who offer advice on how to keep soldiers busy, honest, and out of trouble, as well as more responsive to orders in the field. According to Piero Pieri, this implied greater concern on the part of commanders for the immediate and continuing welfare and behavior of their men and represented a shift away from the old bands of adventurers, which had been simultaneously “utilized and feared by signori and cities.”37 Nor was this a purely Neapolitan phenomenon. Rather, Del Pozzo’s codification of military honor resonated with the general concerns of the new regional states, which were attempting to set up more permanent and stable military establishments of one kind or another so as to help defend and consolidate their expanding territories.38 It must be remembered just how splintered and destructive

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Ibid., Intro.; Book 6, chapter 23. Ibid., Book 4, chapter 3. Ibid., Book 7, chapter 7. Angelozzi, “Il duello nella trattatistica,” pp. 20–22; Cavina, “Gli albori,” p. 382. Del Pozzo, Duello. Libro de rei, Book 7, chapter 9 (Se uno nobile po refiutare a guagio de battaglia uno armigero verterano, quale non sia de natura nobile). Piero Pieri, “Il ‘govern et exercitio de la militia’ di Orso degli Orsini e I ‘Memoriali’ di Diomede Carafa,” Archivio storico per le province napoletane 19 (1933), 108, 136–7, 160–1. Pieri discusses the widely varying degrees to which this was occurring in the different states. Piero Pieri, Il rinascimento e la crisi militare italiana. (Milan, 1952), pp. 258–264. Maria Nadia Covini, “Liens politiques et militaires dans le système des États italiens (XIII–XVI

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the mercenary bands, often made up of foreigners, had been in the late fourteenth and early fifteenth centuries. Undisciplined and unattached to the masters they supposedly served, they wreaked havoc throughout the peninsula to such an extent that weaker city-states were forced to subjugate themselves to their more powerful brethren.39 The course of the fifteenth century, however, had seen a reversal of this trend as larger city-states attempted to secure greater coordination over the often motley combination of forces at their disposal. They began to favor Italian condottieri, who were generally recruited from the rural nobility, and they were willing to offer them permanent feudal lands, particularly near the border areas, so as to keep a steady and loyal supply of military muscle at hand.40 Such “refeudalization” had the effect of incorporating previously unattached bands of mercenaries into civil society. According to Covini then the period saw “the re-establishment in military organization of strong bonds between the city system and the aristocratic and feudal world of the countryside; in other words, between the city as the principal focus of the regional states and the rural signoria as the main breeding ground for military recruitment.”41 This, she argues, was part of a general process of “disciplining and domesticating the condottieri” which was only enhanced with the emergence of the larger regional states which dominated after the treaty of Lodi in 1454. As part of this general trend, one can suggest that the dueling code arose and proliferated because it offered a more formal means of adjudicating disputes between the knights, condottieri, and men at arms who now began serving the regional states on a more stable basis.42 And its stress on individual honor harked back to chivalric traditions of the rural nobility, all the while stressing loyalty to the current regimes. Thus in the rough and tumble world of fifteenth century statemaking, any control over individual conflicts could be seen as a step towards a more efficient fighting force and, as Paride Del Pozzo would claim, a happier republic. The impetus to such control was only enhanced by the arrival of Charles VIII’s invading troops in 1494, which turned much of Italy into an armed camp as Spain, France, and the Empire struggled for supremacy on the peninsula. For the some sixty years leading up to the treaty of Cateau-Cambrésis (1559), various armies occupied cities, fought battles, and carried out sieges with little respite. The grands capitaines italiens, mentioned by Brantôme, may well have accepted and promoted the newly codified rules of dueling as a means of regulating the

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siècle),” in Guerre et concurrence entre les États européens du XIVe au XVIIIe siècle, ed. Philippe Contamine (Paris, 1998), pp. 30–37. Also see Michael Mallett, Mercenaries and their Masters: Warfare in Renaissance Italy (Totowa, 1974), pp. 4–5, 219, 257; and for Venice, Michael Mallett and J. R. Hale, The Military Organization of a Renaissance State: Venice c. 1400 to 1617 (Cambridge, UK, 1984), pp. 2–5, 186–198. Maria Nadia Covini, “Political and Military Bonds in the Italian State System, Thirteenth to Sixteenth Centuries,” in War and Competition between the States, ed. Philippe Contamine (Oxford, 2000), p. 21. Michael Mallett, Mercenaries and their Masters, pp. 216–217. Covini, “Political and Military Bonds,” p. 24. This general line of argument was suggested to me by Prof. Edward Muir.

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actions of the growing number of soldiers who often remained idle between battles, and whose unchecked squabbling would have threatened both public security and military efficiency. Indeed, many of the stories regarding military duels after 1494 have the flavor of exercises in relieving the ennui of well-armed men forced to endure long campaigns and extended sieges.43 In this regard the duel offered a safety valve for the tension and tedium of knights and soldiers thrown together, and made its legitimization and control by commander and prince alike a rational mode of operation. We can witness this process in a letter of the famous general Prospero Colonna who wrote from Milan in June, 1523 (between one French siege and another) to Count Roberto Boschetti asking that he grant a “secure field” and a “license” to two sets of Neapolitan gentlemen who seemed unable to settle their differences without resort to personal combat. He further asked that the licenses for the two duels be written in such a way so as to set the duel sometime in the next month (July) but without establishing specific days. The exact dates would be filled in on the licenses once they came back to Milan, and the good count would be informed in a timely manner of when to expect the duelists.44 While noting the legalistic flavor of the exercise, complete with a fill-in-the-blank form, what is striking here is Colonna’s decision to seek a field for his men away from his own theater of operations. Moreover, he is looking to an exterior (although legitimate) source of authority to sanction the contest, thus taking responsibility off his own shoulders and settling the matter away from any factional complications which might exist in his own command. Likewise, the letter underlines the primacy of soldiers in promulgating the dueling ethic during the rather dizzying movement of men and allegiances occasioned by the introduction of foreign armies after the French invasion. In this case, Colonna, a Roman nobleman who is commanding a Neapolitan army for the Spanish, requests, from his current headquarters in Milan, approval of a duel from a relatively minor aristocrat in the Romagna. Nothing could better symbolize the rapidity with which the dueling code spread through the entire peninsula as soldiers of all the states were swept up in extended campaigns in far-off places. In the same vein, Claudio Povolo has argued that the permanent introduction of foreign armies during the Italian Wars after 1494 helped push a more individualized sense of honor as aristocratic soldiers turned to exterior sources of validation detached from their local surroundings and kin networks. Self-worth came to rely on individual prizes or titles conferred for actions far afield by distant and often foreign leaders rather than on participation in older collective forms of combat such as faida or vendetta. In a sense, a noble soldier came to carry his honor with him as he served masters ignorant and uncaring of past family disputes,

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For some examples see Bryson, The Sixteenth-century Italian Duel, pp. 183–184; and Donati, who cites Guicciardini, L’idea di nobiltà, pp. 36–3; Brantôme, Discours sur les duels, pp. 18– 19. Also see the case of the “Sfida di Barletta,” below. Text of letter in Anton Ferrante Boschetti, San Cesario (Territorio nel Modenese) dall’anno 752 fino al presente (Modena, 1922), p. 70.

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which helped promote the acceptance of the new standardized dueling ritual. And this tendency would only increase as foreign princes came to permanently control much of the peninsula and Italian soldiers ranged farther afield in their service.45 All in all then, dueling among the military allowed for an honorable settlement of disputes, while having the advantage of boosting martial character, promoting practice in the use of arms, and increasing esprit de corps. Given these traditions, it made sense that soldiers would thoroughly embrace the new dueling ethic as it took on a legislation and life of its own, primarily in the hands of jurists who came to consider themselves as arbiters of all honor.46 Consequently, soldiers remained heavily represented in Italian affairs of honor throughout the sixteenth century and beyond, despite the spread of the practice to other sectors of society. This is only a subjective analysis, but the existing evidence heartily suggests that at least with regard to “legal” combats, sanctioned by some political authority, the upper ranks of the soldiery proved a major source of “honorable” litigation.47 This is obvious in the writings of Brantôme, who described dueling as a constant in the garrisons of Italy. Others commented on the fact as well, and Andrea Alciato, in his influential treatise of 1528, lamented the duels fought “everyday” among soldiers and nobles, all for the protection of their honor.48 Likewise, Girolamo Muzio, whose Duello of 1550 became the best selling tract of the century, commented to a friend that he had picked up his knowledge on dueling “as a man of court used to living among soldiers … ”49 The importance of the duel among Italy’s soldiers was advertised by certain famous encounters which, although not really counting as private conflicts, became symbolic of their collective sensitivity to insult. Of these the most noted was the sfida or “challenge” which took place in 1503 during the siege of Barletta, a small town on the coast of Puglia in Southern Italy.50 According to the story, 45

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Claudio Povolo, “La conflittualità nobiliare in Italia nella seconda metà del Cinquecento: il caso della Repubblica di Venezia: Alciune ipostesi e possibili interpretazioni,” Atti dell’Istituto veneto di scienze, lettere e arti – Classe di Scienze morali, lettere ed arti 151 (1992–93), 104, 115–117. There is evidence that some soldiers bridled at the presumption of such outsiders, but having adopted the code as a semi-legal practice they had to at least listen to the opinions of experts. See for instance Cavina, “Gli albori,” pp. 388–389; Il duello giudiziario, pp. 121–150, and Angelozzi, Il duello nella trattatistica, p. 17. Indeed, when the Spanish Viceroy of Naples was challenged by the Marchese di Pescara to a duel for supposedly taking credit for a victory he did not deserve, Guicciardini reported the challenge as being “secondo le leggi militari.” Donati, L’idea di nobiltà, p. 36. Consider the various examples in Bryson, The Sixteenth-century Italian Duel, pp. 156–173, 178–186. For Alciato, I have used the 1545 version in Italian printed in Venice, in particular see p. 72. On Alciato, who did not publish his work until the 1540s, see Cavina, “Gli albori,” pp. 399–429; and Il duello giudiziario, pp. 106–112. Quoted in Donati, L’idea di nobiltà, p. 94; also consider the comment of the jurist and exwarrior Dario Attendolo on p. 107; i.e. “consuetudine di combattere a singolar battaglia per prova della verità in causa d’honore ritrovata fosse da gente militare per soverchia gelosia d’honore e poscia approvata da mano in mano dal tacito consenso di tutti i soldati.” For a general treatment of the event see Renato Russo, La disfida di Barletta: L’epoca e i suoi protagonisti (Barletta, 1993).

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thirteen Italian knights challenged thirteen French knights in response to a general slur made against the bravery of all Italians by a Frenchman who had been recently captured by Spanish troops. Significantly, the French commander was originally against the idea, but he relented in the face of Italian pressure. Under the command of Ettore Fieramosca, whose name and fame would reemerge in nineteenth century opera, the Italians drove the French from the field, took a number of prisoners, and received a variety of noble titles from their Spanish commander.51 Whatever the exact truth, the story soon became legend and served to publicize the prestige to be gained by soldiers defending their honor in public. This was perhaps particularly important for the Italians, whose abilities on the battlefield would come under serious criticism as foreign armies quickly came to dominate the scene after 1494.52 Although modern historians have in many ways resuscitated the image of the Italian military in the Renaissance, there is little doubt that at the time disaster seemed to have struck, and Machiavelli’s exhortations at the end of The Prince, written in 1513, amply illustrate the sense of frustration and chagrin occasioned by Italy’s subordination to foreign arms.53 “Look how in duels and in contests of a few the Italians are superior in strength, dexterity, and intelligence. But when it comes to armies they make a poor show; … Hence it comes about that for so long a time, in all the wars waged during the last twenty years, whenever there has been an entirely Italian army it has always been a failure … ”54 Likewise Castiglione in his Courtier has the aristocratic Canossa complaining that “for all their knowledge of letters the Italians have shown little worth in arms for some time now,” and he mournfully adds “it is better to pass over in silence what cannot be remembered without pain.”55 One might well suggest that such “pain” put Italian soldiers in the position of having to prove their individual martial worth as well as their bravery in the face of defeat, and the most obvious way to do this – as mentioned by Machiavelli – was to participate in well-publicized combats over even the most insignificant slights to one’s honor. Such in fact was the basis of Fausto da Longiano’s lengthy apology (1551) for the duel and the “religion of honor” which he hoped to promulgate as an antidote to the decadence of Italian arms.56 The actual influence of 51 52 53 54 55

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Bryson, The Sixteenth-century Italian Duel, p. 185. According to Rossi, Italian military men were “ritenuti generalmente pavidi” already at the beginning of the sixteenth century. La disfida di Barletta, p. 62 Mallett, Mercenaries and their Masters, pp. 231–256. Niccolò Machiavelli, The Prince and the Discourses (New York, 1950), pp. 96–97. On this point see J. R. Hale, “Castiglione’s Military Career,” in Castiglione: The Ideal and the Real in Renaissance Culture, eds. Robert W. Hanning and David Rosand (New Haven, 1983), pp. 160–161. The original language of Castiglione is even more indicative, that is “gli Franzesi col suo non sapere lettere avere subiugato l’Italia.” Quoted in Donati, L’Idea di nobiltà, p. 42. Ersparmer, La biblioteca, p. 97. Likewise Fausto in his treatise “Il Gentil’uomo” (1544) bemoaned Italy’s loss of martial values: “Italia è scacciata, battuta, quale vil feminuccia. Nulla meraviglia se hora tutta l’Italia giå sì nobile per gloria d’arme s’è data in parte a l’essercitio vilissimo delle mercantie, un’altra parte per servire a Dio ha sprezzato ogni specie di gloria. Se qualch’uno è dato all’arme, [si comporta] così freddamente, che possiamo ben dire quella indomita ferocità dell’animo essere convertita in pigritia e negligenza, e qull’antico valore in tutto estinto.” Quoted in Donati, L’Idea di nobiltà, p. 63. Also on Longiano see Angelozzi, “Il duello nella trattistica”, p. 17.

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this inferiority complex is difficult if not impossible to prove, but it would help to explain the notoriety of Italian soldiers as avid duelists. It might be suggested as well that Italian knights turned to the duel as a means of asserting their military prowess because they were losing their primacy on the battlefield to both gunpowder weaponry and coordinated infantry tactics. According to this logic, the public display of individual martial virtue inherent to the old heavy cavalry had given away to the anonymity of mass maneuvers, and thus the only recourse was to resurrect trial by battle in the form of the duel as a means of demonstrating one’s virtuosity and courage.57 Although it is true that Ariosto fulminated against the gun in Orlando furioso as a “cursed abominable engine,” and he was well aware of its effectiveness in the field, the evidence suggests that the armored cavalry did not lose its importance in Italy at least up until the mid-sixteenth century.58 Certainly, Castiglione still believed in the mounted man-at-arms as the keystone of military success and he himself was obsessed with obtaining proper armor and horses for his campaigns.59 There is some hint in the Courtier that he realized that more modern tactics could obscure an individual’s actions, but he affirmed both the possibility and necessity of gaining personal glory in combat: “whenever the Courtier chances to be engaged in a skirmish or an action or a battle in the field … he should discreetly withdraw from the crowd, and do the outstanding and daring things that he has to do in as small a company as possible, before the very eyes of his king or the prince he is serving.”60 This is not the lament of a man who feels that knighthood is in danger or that his efforts are irrelevant, although it may well help historians explain the weakness of Italy’s armies in their lack of coordinated movement. But the point is that Castiglione still embraced a vision of chivalric warfare based on heavily armed cavalry, in which honor could still be obtained with feats of daring-do against the enemy. Yet, as we have seen, the duel of honor was already firmly established in Castiglione’s courtly view of the world, and thus the more democratic mechanisms of war may account more readily for its popularity elsewhere than for its genesis in Italy.61 Be that as it may, there is no denying the importance of the military tradition in the advent of the dueling code in Italy at the end of fifteenth century. Nor would the primacy of the military fade as the new code of honor which established itself throughout the peninsula and among other sectors of society. That new code would be substantially different than the old customs of the leggi militari, primarily because it would stress the very act of dueling as much or more than 57 58

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See for instance Muir, Mad Blood, p. 263; and Quint, “Dueling and Civility,” pp. 231–232. Michael Murrin, History and Warfare in Renaissance Epic. (Chicago, 1994), pp. 124–127; Hall maintains that it was not the arquebuses or muskets which caused the “end of knighthood,” but rather the increasing use of the wheellock pistol in the latter half of the sixteenth century. Bert S. Hall, Weapons and Warfare in Renaissance Europe: Gunpowder, Technology, and Tactics (Baltimore, 1997), pp. 190ff. See his letter to his mother of May 20, 1512. Castiglione, Le lettere, p. 317. Castiglione, The Courtier, p. 99; also see Hale, “Castiglione’s Military Career,” p. 160. Muir, Mad Blood, p. 263.

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the outcome. In other words, importance would shift from glory or exoneration obtained by victory in the field to the honor obtained from participation in the combat and particularly in the preliminaries leading up to it. Nevertheless, even after Italian independence gave way to Spanish hegemony, the duel would persist among Italian military men, who came to serve in the armies of Spain, Austria, and others. For by then the duel of honor was thoroughly entrenched among the soldiery of the great powers, and in 1590 one Jesuit critic, Francisco Antonio, complained that “few are the soldiers who do not have the books of the duel written in their hearts and customs.”62

The Prestige of Princes If the military was the cradle of the dueling code, it was rocked by the princely courts during the early years. Throughout the peninsula duelists could seek legal licenses to fight from a wide spectrum of independent or semi-independent potentates, and if one’s own prince proved reticent, there were others close at hand who might be more accommodating. The Spanish expert on honor, Urrea, commented as late as the 1560s that he felt all Italian princes still subscribed to the dueling code.63 Certainly this was an overstatement, but there is no denying that the duel had earlier enjoyed considerable support from the Renaissance courts. Leo X described the situation rather succinctly in 1519 when he issued his condemnation, Quam Deo, of the ritual in the Papal States: moltissimi baroni, signori temporali ed altri, soprattutto sudditi della Chiesa romana, sono diventati a tal punto inclini a battersi in duello, che quasi quotidianamente ovunque son viste commettersi sifatte singolari tenzoni, e I predtti signori temporali ed I capi militari non paventano di promuoverle, invece di impedirle, anche perché nei loro territori e giurisdizioni preparano l’area o campo protetto, ed esibiscono tali cruenti spettacoli, ed offrono loro il pubblico. Many barons, temporal lords and others, above all subjects of the Roman Church, have become inclined to duel to such an extent that almost daily they are everywhere seen to commit themselves to such singular combat, and the aforementioned temporal lords and military commanders are not afraid to promote them rather than impede them, because in their territories and jurisdictions they also prepare an area or protected field, and exhibit such bloody spectacles and offer them to the public.64

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Quoted in Chauchadis, La loi du duel, p. 39. “Basta, para yo tener esta costumbre por ley antigua y buena, entender que es el supremo juyzio de los valientes hombres, y que todos los Prícipes de Italia favorencen.” 1567, quoted in Chauchadis, La loi du duel, p. 99. Urrea may have been trying to push the Spanish crown in this direction. Quoted in Cavina, Il duello giudiziario, p. 336. Also see his citation of Castillo on p. 198: “Codesto Signore o Principe che concede I duelli dovrebbe dire [al non nobile e non militare] ‘Tu devi richiedere gli ordinari rimedi giuridici, infatti non ti spetta dirimere le tue liti con la consuetudine militare etc’. Ma oggi soprattutto l’Italia è piena di tiranni … che di fatto concedono I duelli non solo ai nobili, ma anche ai non-nobili in contrasto con ogni diritto e

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On the other end of the political spectrum from such petty princes, the Dieci Conservatori of the Republic of Siena, offered their sanction and a field to two Neapolitan noblemen in the late 1540s.65 Even after the Council of Trent condemned princely support of the duel, the Duke of Tuscany in 1582 reportedly granted a license for a lethal duel in his territory to two men from Rome, and did so in defiance of a specific request from Cardinal Carlo Borromeo to prevent the encounter.66 So why should Italy’s princes agree to become the arbiters of honor and offer sanctuary even to duelists coming from outside their territories? Once again the theme of legitimacy seems the key, but there were also practical benefits for public order and political power as disputes among elites came to be resolved in a controlled environment rather than in the streets and highways of the various realms. With regards to legitimacy, the obvious link between the courts and the duel was the tradition of trial by battle. Introduced by the Lombards, the Franks, and the Normans, judicial combat had been used throughout Italy during much of the communal period and was still a normal feature of most law codes in the twelve hundreds. It had eventually waned as the “rediscovery” of Roman law had taken ever greater hold and as courts moved away from seeking divine intervention in determining cases to more rational approaches to evidence.67 Faced as well with growing church opposition, it declined precipitously in the fourteenth century, and by 1350 had virtually disappeared from the statute books. The major exception lay in the South, where Frederick II’s Constitutiones Augustales (1231) remained in force and which allowed for trial by combat in cases involving treason and certain forms of murder.68 Even here, however, the actual practice was rare after 1400 and one fifteenth-century Neapolitan commentator declared the law regarding trial by combat as simply moribund.69 Despite its passing from the legislative scene, however, there is no mistaking the influence of earlier judicial

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giustizia, infatti è privilegio che il nobile non sia tenuto a combattere con il plebeo od il contadino.” The case is examined in Cavina, “Gli albori,” pp. 387–406. The two gentlemen were from Rome, and one, Gaspare Miccinelli, died as a result of the encounter. Borromeo also wrote to the Dukes of Ferrara and Mantova to try to stop the encounter. His letters are in Orazio Premoli, “Il duello nella pubblica opinione,” in Estratto dalla Rivista internazionale di scienze sociali e discipline ausiliarie (1910), pp. 7–9; a copy can be found in BNR, Levi, Duello. Even so, Dante could still extoll the virtues of trial by combat “iustitia in duello succumbere nequit” in his De monarchia – quoted in P. S. Leicht, “Ultime menzioni delle ordalie e del duello giudiziario in Italia,” in Scritti vari di storia del diritto italiano (Milano, 1948), 2:428. One might argue that Del Pozzo was in a better position to “codify” the duel because of this continuing judicial tradition, of which he was unquestionably aware. See Andrea d’Isernia as quoted in Leicht, “Ultime menzioni delle ordalie,” 2:429. Leicht denigrates d’Isernia’s statement as inaccurate because he found a judicial reference to trial by combat as late as 1572, but by then one would suggest that the whole issue had shifted terms because of the rise of the court sanctioned duel of honor. Also see Cavina, Sangue d’onore, pp. 17–28.

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combat on the evolution of the point of honor duel.70 The rituals involved in both the challenge and the combat, the use of padrini or seconds, and even the vocabulary applied to the combatants – reo for the challenger, attore for the challenged – all came from past juridical practices. Moreover, the constant and sometime tortured attempt to boil all affairs of honor down to the mentita or “lie” appears connected to the fact that the medieval trial by combat was utilized and only utilized to determine the truth or falsity of given charges.71 As we have seen, this connection was already clear in the survival of the customary leggi militari, but as Italian jurists such as Del Pozzo and Alciato came to codify dueling practices, they would consciously and consistently refer back to earlier medieval legal precedents. This general antiquarian interest was further confirmed by the aforementioned renewed popularity of Giovanni de Legnano’s fourteenth century tract on war and the duel in the late fifteenth century.72 Clearly, there was a growing market for information on trial by combat, and it underlines the attempt to tie the emerging duel of honor to a long legal tradition. Traditionally, the right to oversee such bloody practices was still in the arsenal of all of Europe’s princes, but it was rarely exercised. Instead it was the Italians who resurrected and transformed them into a new jurisprudence of honor, in large part because they were in desperate need of legitimizing symbols of power. The Italian political landscape of the late middle ages had been something of a mess: the centuries-long result of the vacuum created by the conflicting universalist claims of papacy and empire. Republics, ex-republics, oligarchies, despotisms, duchies, feudatories, and even the occasional king had jockeyed for position and control in ever-shifting patterns of accumulation and accretion. The city-states had played the major role in this game, and their freedom had created a wide spectrum of theoretical justifications and allegiances, although there had always remained a need to seek de jure authority from the traditional hierarchy of either pope or emperor.73 In effect, early Renaissance Italy had become a giant political science experiment, and it was not by accident that it was here that Machiavelli, who had experienced the process, tried to rise above the fray and draw from its comparative history systematic principles of power. In the Quattrocento, this free-for-all competition had gradually managed to produce a limited number of centralizing regional states, which then enlisted the aid of smaller principalities as their satellites. But this more or less stable arrangement had only come after a devastating series of wars in which territories had been won and held with little more justification than the military prowess of the ruling signore or condottiere. The surviving regimes, all of which, including the 70 71 72 73

The legal history of the transition is carefully laid out in Marco Cavina, Il duello giudiziario, pp. 5–116. Ibid., also pp. 253–266; on la mentita see Bryson, The Point of Honor, p. 55. For the publication history on all the dueling tracts see Erspamer, La biblioteca, pp. 205–216. On the complicated issue of legitmacy among the communes and despotisms see Pierangelo Schiera, “Legitimacy, Discipline, and Institutions: Three Necessary Conditions for the Birth of the Modern State,” in The Origins of the State in Italy: 1300–1600, ed. Julius Kirshner (Chicago, 1996), pp. 23–30.

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republics, were despotic, or at least oligarchic, in nature, thus anxiously sought authority beyond the sword in order to consolidate their power.74 Hence the urgency with which new “princes” looked to the papacy or empire to confirm their vicariates while simultaneously getting ancient, but subservient, communal councils to rubberstamp their rule in the name of the popolo.75 Aside from these formal fonts of legitimacy, however, princes also self-consciously created a propaganda of power which accrued glory to themselves and their heirs. Humanists were hired to trace, or rather create, ancient lineages while praising their patrons as new Caesars. Artists were brought in to provide and prove aesthetic taste, culture, and discernment as well as depict the despots to their advantage and demonstrate their civic largesse. Elaborate public ceremonies – including jousts and tournaments – were underwritten as symbols of magnificence and munificence on the part of the rulers. Although these new regimes were anything but medieval in their centralizing pretensions and use of rational administrative techniques, they often adopted feudal symbols and rituals as a residual source of honor and dignity.76 It is in this overall search for validation in the past and the consequent embracing of a “neo-feudal style” that one can perhaps understand the willingness of the Renaissance princes to act as godfathers to the point of honor duel as it was born in the legal guise of the antique trial by battle. Clearly, it enhanced their prestige as the main arbiters of honor among the nobility and focused attention on the centrality of their rule. And it did so with direct reference to august legal procedures which evoked the primacy of ancient kings and emperors, but which had also been sanctioned by the independent medieval communes. Such double gravitas was only enhanced by the highly public nature of the early duel which took on the ceremonial flavor of a tournament, complete with a designated “field” and appropriate seating for the courtly entourage. And the psychological impact was all the greater compared to a tournament because of the assurance that the event had to end in bloodshed, and that the risk of death was both immanent and eminent. Perhaps for this reason, the encounters were often well attended, and one duel in 1546 reportedly attracted some three thousand knights, in addition to the less gentile public.77 Nor was the experience limited to those able to attend, for famous duels were celebrated in poetry and prose, certainly to the honor of the combatants but also 74 75

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Brian Pullan, A History of Early Renaissance Italy (New York, 1973), p. 265. Thus, when Borso d’Este took over the despotism of Ferrara from his brother in 1450 he was immediatedly proclaimed Signore by his court and entourage, but still had himself “elected” by the communal council, and then sought papal approval from Nicolas V as vicar. Werner L. Gundersheimer, Ferrara: The Style of a Renaissance Despotism (Princeton, 1973), pp. 134– 135. Likewise, after King Alfonso of Aragon had consolidated his take-over of Naples from the Angevins, he still desired the recognition of the pope who was theoretically his feudal overlord. Even the Venetians sought approval from the emperor as they expropriated imperial fiefs in the fifteenth century, despite the fact that they had always vaunted their freedom from imperial sovereignty. Pullan, A History, pp. 257 and 263 respectively. E.g. Gundersheimer, Ferrara, pp. 275–276. Cavina, Sangue d’onore, p. 94.

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to that of the presiding lord. All in all, in an era in which judicial systems were rapidly becoming more bureaucratized with an aim to serving the state, the legal duel offered an immediate and personal example of princely prerogatives. And these were broadcast all the more effectively if the participants came from the territories of other princes. Of course, the same applied to the lesser signorie and “free” feudatories who could share in the prestige of granting fields to duelists, a process that was encouraged by the disruption of the status quo by persistent foreign invasion after 1494.78 Playing off the constant conflict and fluid diplomacy of the “Italian wars,” the smaller courts could vaunt their seigneurial prestige vis-à-vis the larger states by accepting their duelists, and this in part helps explain the rapid spread of the practice after 1500.79 Beyond their own status-confirming participation, however, the princely courts gained some practical advantages from the point of honor duel as it developed through the sixteenth century. Specifically, it aided in the attempt to pacify the nobility and worked towards the central governments’ goal of monopolizing violence.80 Although we now know that blood feud or faida was recognized by the late medieval courts as an important mechanism of limiting the extremes of inter-clan and intra-clan conflicts, there is no denying that, especially after 1500, the trend of the regional states was towards greater official prosecution of crimes of personal violence.81 The growth of dueling indirectly contributed to this process

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A case in point: during the famous duel-manqué of the Flemish seigneur, Richard de Mérode, and the Spanish courtier, Rodrigo de Benavides, neither participant could gain consent by their sovereign for their encounter, but three Italian seigneurs, the count d’Arco, the count of Gazoldo, and the seigneur of Castelnovo each agreed separately to offer a license and a field. The entire case is studied in Chauchadis, La lois, pp. 108–110. It may be that the smaller states became even more likely to grant “fields” after the invasion of the French and the Spanish because, according to Covini, in the ensuing anarchy “les petites puissances de la Lombardie et de Lemilie se trouverent en position de force pour participer au jeu politique et valoriser leures traditions militaires. Le signori, trouverent dans l’Empire et le roi de France de nouveaux points de références et les relations établies avec les puissances étrangères leur permirent de renouveler une tradition seigneruriale et guerrière qui s’était sclérosée au XV siècle, dans le système des États régionaux.” Covini, “Liens politiques,” p. 41. Quint, “Duelling and Civility,” pp. 245–249. On general issues of pacification see Randolph Starn, Contrary Commonwealth (Berkely, 1982), pp. 96–101; Sergio Bertelli, “Potere e mediazione,” in Bertelli ed., La mediazione: Max Weber, “Wirtschaft und Gesellschaft, I, III, 5, (Florence, 1992), p. 14; Gabriel Maugain, Moeurs Italiennes de la Renaissance: La Vengeance (Paris, 1935), pp. 248–260, although the latter concentrates on the mid–16th century. John Larner, “Order and Disorder in Romagna, 1450–1500,” in Violence and Civil Disorder in Italian Cities, 1200–1500, ed. Lauro Martines (Berkeley, 1971), pp. 68–69; Muir, “The Double Binds,” pp. 66–67. On the moderating influence of blood feud or “faida” see Marco Bellabarba, “Norme e ordini processuali. Osservazioni sul principato di Trento tra XV e XVI secolo,” in Origini dello Stato Processi di formazione statale in Italia fra medioevo ed età moderna, eds. Giorgio Chittolini, Anthony Molho and Pierangelo Schiera (Bologna, 1994), pp. 360–366. Ironically, the penetration of state power into the periphery may have actually had the reverse effect of increasing vendetta as traditional clan/power relations were disrupted. See Andrea Zorzi, “Jus erat in armis. Faide e conflitti tra pratiche sociali e pratiche di governo,” in ibid., pp. 609–629.

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of pacification in two ways. First, by individualizing honor, it helped break down corporate bonds that had prompted conflicts to proliferate through families and generations.82 Secondly, it offered a more “respectable” manner of settling disputes which channeled violent energy into one-time affairs and wrapped the proceedings in a net of chivalric rules and rituals.83 Thus according to Edward Muir, “ … the duel greatly limited actual acts of violence because of the long delays in accepting and acting on a challenge, because the complicated etiquette surrounding the contest of arms allowed numerous avenues for escape, and because a fight in a legitimate duel terminated the dispute in an honorable way.”84 Nor was this all on the Prince’s side. Muir has suggested as well that rural nobles may have found refuge in the new ethic of individual honor specifically because it released them from the “double bind” of psychological and economic trauma inherent in vendetta practices. A sense of how these pacifying propensities of the duel played out can be garnered from a short but pithy chronicle concerning the property of San Cesarino which lay between Bologna and Modena. Between 1501 and 1502, Count Albertino V offered his territory and good offices to five different sets of duelists. Of those involved, none apparently died, although two clearly managed to best their opponents. One pair of opponents, a courtier from Mantova and a Venetian captain, decided not to fight at all, and in two other cases the Count and various “signori” intervened after the participants were both wounded and enjoined them to make peace.85 Distilling disputes into one-time encounters which were heavily mediated in their execution clearly satisfied honor while reducing bloodshed and neutralizing the chain-reactions of vendetta.86 Moreover, according to the rules, once two opponents had initiated the preliminary rituals of a duel, which could take months or even years, they were forbidden from further conflict or insult.87 These peace-keeping functions may have been more of an effect than a cause of princely support of the duels, but they fall into the general pattern of how rulers of increasing sovereignty utilized etiquette and ceremony to articulate their power over the nobility first at court and then in the provinces: a process carefully analyzed in the now famous works of Norbert Elias.88 To what extent the 82

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Thus according to Trexler regarding fifteenth-century Florence “individualism and governmental strength were two sides of the same coin.” Richard Trexler, Public Life in Renaissance Florence (New York, 1980), p. 235. According to one French expert on arms, the Italians had “reduced everything to rules.” Quoted in Anglo, “How to Kill,” p. 8. Muir, “Double Binds,” p. 78. The chronicle is quoted in Boschetti, San Cesario, p. 69. Consequently Muir contends “At least in its early phases in Italy, the duel dramatically reduced levels of interpersonal violence and even more importantly eliminated many of the residual effects of vendetta practices.” Muir, “Double Binds,” p. 81. Cavina, “Gli albori,” p. 417. Italy has always been difficult for Elias and his supporters and it is significant that he left it out of his major work on the civilizing power of the court, which was based on Germany, England, and above all France. Nevertheless, with regard to the legal duel – which was primarily an

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princes were aware of these oblique political advantages when they opted to sanction the mechanisms of dueling remains unclear, but given their conscious manipulation of other feudal symbols, it does not seem absurd to suggest that they at least appreciated a ritual which circumscribed conflicts with semi-legal rules and which placed themselves at the top of a hierarchy of chivalry. On the other hand, the duel also fit into a pattern of early modern justice which very often mixed public and private concerns. There is now a substantial body of evidence which indicates how the centralizing pretensions of the princes – whose aims were already personal or at most dynastic – consistently had to compromise with peripheral power brokers through the granting of privileges and exemptions. Thus, according to Chittolini Venality of office, corruption, and occasional fees were deeply ingrained in the “bureaucracies” of these states. Their administration of justice was molded on one side by arbitrary interventions, letters of grace, suspensiones causarum, and the like, and on the other by the innumerable informal strategies of conflict resolution they recognized and often even promoted. The state was, in short, a system of institutions, of powers and practices, that has as one of its defining features a sort of programmatic permeability to extraneous (or, if one prefers, “private”) powers and purposes while retaining an overall unity of political organization.89 The duel certainly fit this model, especially after the princes gradually decided that the practice had gotten out of hand and began criminalizing it during the 1540s. At that point, the duel became a privilege of illegality, which allowed princes to disseminate pardons for those in their favor or conversely allowed nobles to demonstrate their immunity from prosecution. By the same token, even if the princes could no longer directly officiate duels or grant fields, especially after the Council of Trent made it a mortal sin to do so, they could allow such latitude to their vassals if it suited their purposes.90 The importance of official sanction on the part of the princes in the early history of the duel can hardly be stressed enough. What had been a fairly rare custom of military life now became a public function of court, where it naturally found a greater audience. Moreover, princely approval made the codification begun by Del Pozzo and continued by other jurists appear truly legal, even though they had not written in the name of a particular regime. Each encounter permitted or officiated essentially established a liminally legal precedent, which would invite commentary and collation by later authorities interested in propagating their own codes of chivalry. And the mantle of approval would wear well, even

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aristocratic practice based at court – I think we can accept his basic analysis of how manners could be used as a means of political control. Norbert Elias, Power and Civility: the Civilizing Process (New York, 1982). Giorgio Chittolini, “The ‘Private,’ the ‘Public,’ the State,” in The Origins of the State in Italy: 1300–1600, ed. Julius Kirshner (Chicago, 1996), p. 47. Cavina, Il duello, p. 344.

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after the duel had been banned in the various states of Italy, for the myth of legality had its roots in reality and princely prerogative could always be massaged for those who broke the law. Conversely, once the duel had become illegal, it left the field open to amateurs (in the original sense of the word), who maintained the momentum of the jurists while offering their own expertise based on the common experiences of gentlemen in conflict. Thus the long history of a parallel code of honor, which rivaled the laws of the land, had actually begun with the blessing of the political establishment. And that blessing was equally an advertisement that demanding satisfaction for honor was a sign of prestige and rank, and hence it would develop a popularity that would cater to those wanting to make or maintain a place in society.

The Individualization of Honor It would seem negligent to try to explain the birth of the modern duel without some reference to Renaissance individualism. These are dangerous historiographical waters, for medieval scholars have spent a great deal of time and effort effectively debunking Jacob Burckhardt’s sweeping generalization that Renaissance Italy promoted the “development of the Individual” in its modern form.91 Nevertheless, the notion that Renaissance humanists and courtiers did approach selfconception differently than their medieval brethren has gained new credence primarily among students of Renaissance literature, who stress the importance of “self-fashioning” as a key to understanding the elite psychology of the period.92 The point of honor duel, based on words and actions of personal insult rather than physical damage to person or property, seems to add weight to this interpretation, but even more important was the style and restriction of combat over issues of honor that allowed for the adjudication of conflicts without involving bonds of family or extended kinship. People in Italy had been fighting each other over honor throughout the middle ages, but it had taken the collective forms of blood-feud and vendetta. Thus the duel represented a channeling of violence related to honor into individual encounters rather than something completely new. Illuminating in this regard is the application of Marvin Becker’s ideas on the evolution of civility to the individualization of honor.93 Becker argues that one of the most radical transformations of Trecento and Quattrocento society was a “tilt” to civility which permeated social relations, intellectual trends, political

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Jacob Burckhardt, The Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy, vol. 1 (New York, 1958), pp. 143–174. For a creative approach to the problem by an historian see John Martin, “Inventing Sincerity, Refashioning Prudence: The Discovery of the Individual in Renaissance Europe,” The American Historical Review 102 (1997), 1309–1342. Also important on this point is Quint, Duelling and Civility, but he does not take Becker’s work into account.

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institutions, criminal proceedings, and above all the construction of one’s own identity as a member of a greater “abstract” community. The keystone of this change was the diminution of archaic allegiances to family and friends to the advantage of the state and the public good. Not by accident, says Becker, did this impulse come out of the Northern and Central Italian city states, where magnates, patricians, and popolani had gradually come to realize that peace and stability made for good business and good government alike. The privatization of liability and breakdown of traditional solidarities helped limit financial risk and promote economic innovation, but they also had the more important function of limiting the factional feuds and clan vendettas which had kept the medieval communes in constant turmoil. Thus during the period he sees “a persistent tendency to regard violence as a matter of public concern rather than a private right.”94 In consequence, elites had to learn that the “republic” was not just a term legitimated by ancient example, but rather the “res publica” or public affairs demanded their attention to the exclusion of seemingly automatic traditional loyalties. In short, Becker stresses that the new paradigm of elite behavior became the la vita civile which “stood opposite the tyrannical life with its deep psychic investment in blood, kinship, and lineage.”95 And this tilt to “civil life” found its propagandists and professors in the humanists who criticized the heroic chivalry of the “old country ways” which had prized spontaneous action and grand gestures. In contrast they called for moderation, circumspection, discernment, and self-control. Hence their stress on good manners, on graceful comportment, and on moral self-sufficiency, all in the service of one’s own status which was now tied to the abstract notion of the public weal rather than the concrete bonds of clan and oath. Moreover, as part of this self-conscious educational program the humanists supplied rhetorical practices which allowed for greater latitude in discussion, making room for differing opinions and creating a middle ground which tended to blunt controversy, or rather to depersonalize it, so as to avoid bombast and bloodletting. One had to be flexible in conversation and capable of adjusting to the exigencies of the moment, just as one had to one’s hide true feelings that might lead to offense.96 Thus “good arms” had to be married to “good letters,” and in Italian educato took on multiple meanings that included knowledge, rationality, sophistication, civic comportment, and worldly nonchalance.97 All of this added up to the training of a new professional elite, including condottieri and their captains, which could serve the expanding territorial states as they conquered their lesser neighbors and established

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Marvin B. Becker, “Changing Patterns of Violence and Justice in Fourteenth- and FifteenthCentury Florence,” Comparative Studies in Society and History 18 (1976), 288. Becker, Civility and Society in Western Europe, 1300–1600 (Bloomington, 1988), p. xvii. Becker, Civility and Society, p. 148. On the humanistic educational interests of soldiers of various ranks see Mallett, Mercenaries and their Masters, pp. 219–224.

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larger political allegiances and bureaucracies.98 In this sense the Renaissance states, with the collusion of the humanists, had turned the taming of nobles into the training of courtiers.99 Becker’s analysis obviously applies to the rise of the duel on a number of levels. First and foremost, the distancing of financial, legal, and emotional obligations away from collective concerns and towards individual ones, found a parallel movement in the privatization and miniaturization of honor.100 In a sense, insult and injury became the property of the offended parties and did not necessarily extend, as they would have previously, to kinship networks. Following the rationalizing examples of business, government, and law, and bolstered by the humanists’ criticisms of “gross” and “rude” violence, the duel established an economy of blood that worked to limit conflicts in time, place, and players. Likewise, the duel dovetailed nicely with Becker’s image of the growing abstraction of interpersonal relations as well as state politics, for what could be more abstract than the point-of-honor offenses which usually turned on slander and slur rather than concrete injury? Serious physical damage and contention over property rights now tended to head for legal settlement in the judicial courts – another benefit, according to Becker, of the growing abstract trust which Renaissance elites put into their institutions.101 In contrast, duels devolved on the seemingly minor points (although they could also mask real interests) of what people said rather than what they did. In this regard, the point-of-honor tended to be terribly “punctilious” about causality and even a brief perusal of the contemporary dueling treatises reveals the considerable casuistry that could be wound around the questions of who had offended whom, who had given the lie, and who should be labeled the challenger. Likewise, the physical “facts” that might induce a duel were of a highly symbolic but essentially innocuous nature, such as spitting, shoving, or slapping: breaches of manners and etiquette which demanded redress so as to restore not only personal honor, but also the balance and distance of polite society. It was not that honor had lost importance, rather it had been transvalued to reflect the abstract reputation of individuals within a wider social and political landscape. And this leads us to Becker’s emphasis on self-discipline as a main marker of the new civility; for the duel embodied such concerns in two ways. First, the best path to avoid duels was quite literally to keep a “civil” tongue in one’s head. But this also entailed a strenuous control over one’s own emotions which was

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For a good example of an “educated” soldier see Kidwell’s treatment of Marullus who wrote poetry, served princes, and fought battles all while maintaining close contacts with both Neapolitan and Florentine humanists. Carol Kidwell, Marullus: Soldier Poet of the Renaissance (London, 1989). On the fundamental impact of humanism on court life at Ferrara see Gundersheimer, Ferrara: The Style of a Renaissance Despotism, p. 223. Becker, Civility and Society, p. 146. Ibid., p. 92. Also see Becker, “Changing Patterns,” on attitudes toward law and justice.

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constantly reinforced by the new manners attached to courtesy. Elaborate rituals of etiquette arose to channel behavior in prescribed patterns that blunted natural impulses of rage or fear and, according to Edward Muir, “subjected the inner person to an outer tyrant who in all expressions of feeling abhorred excess of any kind, especially the angry kind.”102 Moreover, the duel itself became part of the etiquette of control as it developed into the only legitimate form of violence allowed to gentlemen. On the other hand, self-discipline was the centerpiece of the rituals leading up to and through the duel. Insult or injury were not to be met with anger and violence but rather with calm sophistication that postponed action until the appropriate moment. Meanwhile, “good arms and good letters” would find their marriage in the compilation of a written challenge, or cartello, detailing the offense and the demand for satisfaction, which more often than not would lead to a complicated series of negotiations which consistently placed the original insult far in the distance. All of this conveyed a certain objectivity in the matter of one’s own emotions and a discerning approach to the issue of one’s honor. Just as important was the maintenance of control on the day of the duel. Formalities had to be observed, rules obeyed, and above all courage displayed, but displayed with sang-froid and detachment rather than the wrath and fury attached to the “mad-blood” of clan vendetta.103 Keeping one’s cool under the duress of danger was the central node of the dueling ritual and it reflected the larger social purpose to which the vita civile ascribed. The promotion of self-control, however, went beyond public behavior to the conditioning of one’s own body, and this too had its reciprocal relationship with the duel. Looking back to classical models, the humanists underscored the relationship between physical grace and moral virtue, and the duel allowed this to become manifest through the “art” of fencing. One can legitimately propose that it was not simply Italy’s technological perfection of the lightweight and elegant rapier that prompted Italians to develop the first scientific methods of swordfighting based on general principles. Like Quattrocento painting and sculpture, modern fencing was based on a dynamic of three dimensions that focused on a single point of perspective, in this case one of steel. The “art” of fencing was thus perfectly adapted to a Renaissance aesthetic of movement, which stressed balance, coordination, and timing. These were the same attributes that informed Italian court dancing, which, like fencing, became a popular export to the rest of Europe.104 Moreover, such arts as fencing and dancing could be learned – indeed 102 103

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Muir, “The Double Binds,” p. 79. I am not unaware of the ahistorical anachronism that has often been associated with vendetta, a practice which not only had its own rules but served as well as a mechanism of maintaining peace and for this reason was acknowledged and utilized by judicial authorities. See Zorzi, “Jus erat in armis.” Becker refers to a Renaissance “cult of bodily grace” based on dancing, fencing and riding, which “called for the importation of Italian Masters.” Civility and Society, pp. 123–124. Also see p. 116 on dance as a symbol of social integration. Such was the overlap in these pursuits that some fencing masters also taught dance – or perhaps vice versa. See Briost et al., Croiser le fer, pp. 63–66; and more specifically Patrick J. Pugliese, “Issues in Fencing and Dancing in

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had to be learned – from masters who naturally catered to the upper classes and this only increased their cachet among those seeking favor at the princely courts.105 But the larger point is that in the development of fencing one had a form of combat that exuded elegance, demanded learned skills, and promoted one’s physical grace to a general audience. This display was emphasized by the gradual isolation of the human body within the ritual as defensive elements such as armor, visors, and helmets gave way to reveal the duelist as an individual presence, armed only with sword, talent, and bravery. Such combat was also increasingly divorced from the actual practices of the battlefield and thus became dedicated as a tool to defending one’s honor: a fact that may have encouraged the fashion of wearing swords as part of regular courtly dress, a custom apparently not common before the Renaissance.106 Thus, if the rise of the art of fencing did not actually cause the proliferation of the duel, as we will argue later, it at least helped determine its details, as individual masculine honor came to be established through grace and elegance, combined with courage.

Nobles and Gentlemen If dueling maintained one’s honor, it implied that one had honor to lose, and having honor implied nobility. This simple social algorithm cuts to the core of why the code duello came out of “change-loving Italy where nothing stands firm and no ancient dynasty exists.”107 The economic and political history of the medieval Italian city-states had greatly complicated the question of who was noble and what that actually meant. The free communes of the north and the center had managed to incorporate and subjugate their feudal warrior neighbors through a process of conquest, co-optation, and compromise. But urbanization had not led to pacification, and the communal nobility had proven arrogant, obstreperous, and violent. Indeed, Franco Cardini has suggested that the very definition of nobility in the medieval cities entailed supposed prerogatives of private justice and bloody vendetta, a tendency attested to by the family towers that still dominate the skylines of Gubbio, San Gimignano, and Bologna.108 Nor were nobles alone in their mayhem. The cities produced their own wealthy elites or magnati who soon rivaled the titled nobility in both their pretensions and their high-handed ways. The communes also recruited their own non-noble cavalry, often endowing them with the title of “knight,” which blurred the distinctions of the old

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the Late Sixteenth Century,” paper presented at Proceedings Terpsichore 1450–1900, International Dance Conference, Ghent, Belgium 11–18 April 2000, ed. B. Ravelhofer, Institute for Historical Dance Practice (2000), pp. 39–44. On the importance of learning grace from masters see Castiglione, The Courtier, pp. 40–42. Anglo, “How to Kill,” p. 3. Aeneas Sylvius (1450), quoted in Burckhardt, The Civiliation, p. 43. Franco Cardini, L’acciar de’cavalieri: studi sulla cavalleria nel mondo toscano e italico (secc. XII–XV), (Florence, 1997), p. 14.

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aristocracy while creating yet another group endowed with a warrior ethic. As the communes prospered during the thirteenth century the evolving middle classes or popolani often moved to deprive the magnates and nobles of their monopoly on municipal offices and curtail their turbulent tendencies. Seizing control of the cities, they passed legislation against the “potentates” (a category generally lumping knights, nobles, magnates and their families together) that excluded them from certain offices, forced them to post bonds pledging peaceful behavior, and prescribed special punishments for their violent activities, especially against popolani. The republics also created their own dignities tied to office-holding and service to the state, essentially constructing a model of honorable behavior that rivaled the old notions of the feudal nobility. These practical and political developments were matched by a theoretical attack on the hereditary nature of nobility. Claudio Donati, in an exhaustive study, has shown how, through the late middle ages, Italian intellectuals, from the poet Dante to the jurist Bartolus, affirmed that individual virtue and actions rather than family connections should determine nobility.109 These arguments were adopted and amplified by later humanists who were anxious to extend honor to the talented new men coming forward to work for the expanding city-states. Although few of these authors completely rejected the idea of “natural” honor inherent to the aristocracy, they saw education, civic service, and office-holding as automatically conferring nobility: a useful doctrine for a society as dynamic and eclectic as that of fifteenth century Italy. In short, both the concept and the reality of feudal hierarchy had been seriously challenged by the city states, which allowed trade, finance, and learning equal footing with fighting on the pathways to success and status. But it would be impossible to understand the rise of the modern duel without understanding the persistence of both the power and the symbols of the warrior nobility. While the communal republics had generally subjugated the feudal lords and limited the sway of the magnates, constant inter-city wars had forced them to rely anew on the rural aristocracy for military support, primarily as mercenaries. Thus according to Maria Nadia Covini, … the more powerful territorial signori were able to encourage the rivalry between the cities and insert themselves into the conflicts between the opposing powers, offering their services to the stronger party. The longer the wars lasted, the greater their advantage, and they took every opportunity to increase the size of their territories and extend their sphere of jurisdiction. The more enterprising among the rural lords financed their own wars by taking part in those of the others. It has been rightly said that feudal Italy became the recruiting reservoir for the other city-based Italy … In central Italy and the Appenines, the city-state institutions coexisted with a substratum of power in the hands of minor and major rural lords who cultivated military traditions.110

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Donati, L’idea di nobiltà, pp. 3–28. Covini, “Political and Military Bonds,” p. 16.

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The influence of those traditions would only increase as many republics gave way to one-man-rule under the signorie, which – as we have seen – were naturally well disposed to the trappings of a feudal style. In addition, however, one has to recognize the continuing vitality of the chivalric tradition as a cultural and ethical ideal, which would prove itself eminently adaptable to the varied political and social systems arising out of medieval Italy. A major part of this vitality was literary, and scholars such as Franco Cardini have studied how Carolingian and Arthurian romances permeated the peninsula during the twelfth and thirteenth centuries (if not earlier) to capture the imagination of nobles and commoners alike. These tales of knights-errant, courtly love, epic battles, and glory won or lost, enjoyed consistent renewal through the next two hundred years not only in the libraries of the well-to-do, but also as material for the public cantarini or song-singers who could reach a wider audience.111 Eventually, Boiardo, Ariosto and Tasso would marry these chivalric traditions with Renaissance aesthetics and sensibilities (including contemporary versions of single combats) and thus help assure their propagation through the early modern period.112 One Victorian bibliographer, Gaetano Melzi, catalogued over eight hundred poems and novels based on the chivalric tradition as being published in the fifteenth and sixteenth century.113 Later travelers through Italy commented on the fact that gondoliers, street performers, and just plain folk could recite large chunks of such works, especially Ariosto’s Orlando Furioso; all of which naturally reinforced the images of honor, glory, and combat in the public sphere.114 More specifically, chivalry recalled a world of warrior nobles whose place in society depended on their swords, their faith, and the respect of their fellow knights. It celebrated a mythical feudal simplicity of hierarchy and allegiance which contrasted sharply with the political and social diversity of Italy. At the same time, however, its familiar images and emblems could be employed to offer knightly honor to those who traditionally had none. Thus knighthoods could be conferred, as they were in the Republic of Siena, to men who had never carried a sword nor ridden a horse in battle, but whose skills, be they bureaucratic or economic, were critical to the commune.115 Likewise, chivalric celebrations, including jousts, tournaments, and armeggiari abounded in fifteenth century Italy where they served a variety of social and political purposes, whether it was to

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Cardini, L’acciar de’cavalieri, pp. 73–110. See for instance the various examples in Enrico Musacchio and Giuseppe Monorchio, eds., Il duello (Bologna, 1985). According to Becker, Ariosto’s Orlando Furioso saw twenty different editions in less than a century. Civility and Society, p. 123. Gaetano Melzi, Bibliografia dei romanzi e poemi cavallereschi italiani (Milan, 1838). John Moore, A View of Society and Manners in Italy with Anecdotes Relating to some Emminent Characters, vol. 2 (London, 1795), pp. 159–163; George Tobias Smollett, Travels through France and Italy, ed. Frank Felsenstein (Oxford, 1979), p. 232. Giuseppe Baretti, An Account of the Manners and Customs of Italy, vol. 2 (London, 1769), p. 153. One also thinks of the famous marionettes of Orlando Furioso in Sicily. Cardini, L’acciar de’cavalieri, pp. 135–150.

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blunt family conflicts or vaunt one faction’s wealth over another.116 The continuing importance of such displays might be obvious in a city like Ferrara, which had maintained much of its feudal flavor under a series of signorie, but they were just as effective in republican Florence, where, as Richard Trexler has pointed out, the city consistently sponsored jousting despite its “uncivic” nature and message. Not only did this “noble sport” offer prestige to the commune, which paid for and presided over the ceremonies, but the joust also promoted individual virtue and skill at the expense of “family charisma.”117 Thus chivalry and the knightly tradition provided an ethical framework of honor, love, and combat, which could be adapted to different social situations. New groups could use chivalry to enhance their honor and justify their sharing of power just as the powerful could attempt to use it as a means of exclusion. With regards to dueling, these various elements of culture, class, and politics came to a head in the latter half of the fifteenth century to create tensions that would lead to a new ethic of honor. On the one hand the general direction of politics was, as we have seen, towards despotism which was naturally proactive in its revocation of feudal forms. On the other hand, the diplomatic wrangling that attended the growth of regional states in the fifteenth century had necessitated trained courtiers, capable of dealing with different layers of power, just as the growing bureaucracies demanded people of letters and practical experience to administer the ever widening concerns of a prince consolidating new territories. Even the free-agent condottieri, despite their primarily military purpose, maintained a domu which included chancellors, secretaries, and agents who could oversee contracts and help decipher the political intricacies of an ever-changing tableau of power.118 The result of these trends was eventually the creation of a de facto nobility of the robe, generally recruited from non-noble roots, which competed for rank and dignity with the ever-present and important nobility of the sword. This was even true of the kingdom of Naples, famous for its feudal traditions, where a dynamic and educated set of jurists emerged as a major presence at court.119 In fact, nowhere do we see the causal relationship between this growing tension at the top of Renaissance society and the rise of the modern duel more acutely than in Naples, where Paride Del Pozzo launched the codification process in 1471. Indeed, the very act of a jurist writing a book of rules on single combat was rather revolutionary, for he was purporting to dictate custom to knights, captains, barons, and beyond. In doing so he was, however obliquely, setting himself over them as both legislator and arbiter, a heady position for one

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In an armeggiare, young members of elite families would adorn themselves and followers in sumptuous livery and then ride through the city demonstrating their equestrian skills before the public. Ibid., 123–133. Trexler, Public Life, pp. 225–233. Covini, “Liens politiques,” pp. 28–31, 36. Pieri, Il rinascimento e la crisi militare italiana, p. 176.

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who could not even claim noble blood. But Del Pozzo did not stop there. Drawing on the aforementioned tradition of Dante, Bartolus and others, he sustained a causal link between virtue, action, and nobility, and he firmly asserted the honor of men of letters. He even postulated the possibility that a knight might challenge a philosopher, although he dismissed it because the obvious disparity in their training could only bring dishonor to such an encounter.120 Even more to the point, he forcefully asserted the nobility of doctors of law such as himself and he extended that nobility to their sons. … li figlioli delli doctori de lege liquali viveranno in virtu e bon costumi, e como nobili potranno combattre con glihomini nobili di natura, e non potranno essere refutati per causa de parti non sieno stati nobili per natura, ma per scientia, e per virtu che loro patri forono nobilissimi, perche la scientia sie nobilita (como di sopra habiamo scritto)e non solamente questi doctori sono nobilissimi, ma habiando letto in studio per vintanni uno doctore de lege si applellara conte, e la lege da privilegii de conti, … … the sons of doctors of law, who live in virtue and good behavior, and in the manner of nobles, should be able to fight against those of noble birth, and should not be refused, because they are not nobles by birth but by science and by virtue [of the fact] that their fathers were very noble, and because science is nobility (as we have written above) not only are these doctors nobilissimi, but having studied for twenty years a doctor of law is called count, and the law gives [him] the privileges of counts … 121

We can forgive Del Pozzo his convenient lapse of logic, given his previous stress on virtue, which allowed a judge’s son to inherit “earned” nobility and, one assumes, pass it on to future generations.122 He was, after all, a man of his times and it was just this tension between talent and privilege that he was trying to finesse. A judge’s son may not have a titled pedigree or feudal lands, but he could still offer and accept challenges to his honor, which automatically anointed him in the name of the entire chivalric tradition. And this liberality of opportunity ran parallel to Del Pozzo’s assertion, previously noted, that soldiers of humble birth could win, through time-tested service on the battlefield, the privilege of challenging men above their station. Thus the right to fight offered a public demonstration of nobility to virtuous newcomers that could not be denied, at least as long as everyone followed the rules as written by Del Pozzo.123 His treatise, bound in the sacred robes of the judiciary, demonstrated and promoted the function of the duel as a litmus test of honor in a process of upward social mobility.

120 121 122

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Del Pozzo, De rei militari, Book 6, chapter 26. Ibid., Book 8, chapter 1. Del Pozzo knew this was a tricky maneuver, because he immediately went on to attack “alcuni ultramontani nobili per natura” who felt that “gli nobili per scientia non sonno nobili,” an obvious swipe at French aristocrats, who must have found such pretensions rather unfathomable. By setting up the French, who had only recently been defeated in their bid for the kingdom of Naples, he was cleverly placing opposition to his ideas into the suspect hands of foreigners, whom he could portray as blind to the true nature of nobility as defined in Italy. Ibid. On Del Pozzo’s “democratic” tendencies see Angelozzi, “Il duello nella trattistica,” p. 20.

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The inverse of this function can be seen some forty years later in Il Cortegiano, which Castiglione wrote with the avowed purpose of putting “down the many fools who in their presumption and ineptitude think to gain the name of good courtiers.” Towards this goal, the very first discussion of the book focuses on whether the prefect courtier should be of noble birth or not.124 Castiglione lays out arguments on both sides, but in the end his proponent of aristocracy retreats to the decidedly weak position that aristocratic blood simply makes it easier to be a courtier – a resounding defeat of the original premise which equated real courtiers with “natural” bloodline nobles to the exclusion of all others.125 But having eliminated inherited nobility as the sine qua non of being a courtier, and thus kept the door open to talented commoners, he immediately insists on the much-quoted proviso that the principal and true profession of the Courtier must be that of arms; which I wish him to exercise with vigor: and let him be known among the others as bold, energetic and faithful to whomever he serves. And the repute of these good qualities will be earned by exercising them in every time and place, inasmuch as one may not ever fail therein without blame. And, just as among women the name of purity, once stained, is never restored, so the reputation of a gentleman whose profession is arms, if ever in the least way he sullies himself through cowardice or other disgrace always remains defiled before the world and covered with ignominy.

Nor is such bravado limited to great commanders, “for oftentimes men are known for their courage in small things rather than great.” And he exalts “… those men who, even when they think they will not be observed or seen or recognized by anyone, show courage and are not careless of anything, however slight, for which they could be blamed” for they have “the quality of spirit we are seeking in our Courtier.”126 The stress here is not so much on great deeds on the battlefield as a punctilious need to demonstrate bravery under stress and avoid any hint of timidity. Consequently, Castiglione, perhaps under French and Spanish influence, which still equated knighthood with nobility, affirms the military aspects of honor, while allowing the recruitment of non-noble courtiers. Within this framework, the duel, which Castiglione heartily supported, offered a critical mechanism for anyone with pretensions to honor because it provided a martial substitute for marching off to war. Court society had evolved in its sophistication well beyond the point where every useful member was a warrior or even a blueblood. Castiglione himself, as E. R. Hale has shown, was far more useful to his masters as a diplomat and adviser than as a soldier, and, despite his bellicose posturing, he actually saw little combat.127 Castiglione may have wanted every courtier to also be a warrior, but the social reality dictated that

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Castiglione, The Courtier, p. 25; 28–32. Thomas M. Greene, “Il Cortegiano and the Choice of a Game”, in Castiglione: The Ideal and the Real in Renaissance Culture (New Haven, 1983), p. 9. Castiglione, The Courtier, pp. 32–33. Hale, “Castiglione’s Military Career,” pp. 1–16.

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many would read his treatise as a confirmation of the dueling ethic of honor rather than a call to arms against the enemies of the prince. Equally important in this regard was the fact that pretensions of honor in early sixteenth century Italy went well beyond the princely courts. Each city-state as a free political entity had over time developed its own definitions of honor, often tied to municipal office holding, mediated by the proclivities of local economic life, and reinforced in judicial terms by definitions of who could give evidence on oath in court.128 The university graduate, the city notary, the wealthy merchant who purchased land or even a title: all could aspire to some tradition of honor. Around the turn of the sixteenth century, there would be increasing attempts to rein in and formalize these centrifugal forces through the famous serrate or “closings” by which certain elites were officially recognized as having exclusive privileges, but all in all the top end of society remained relatively porous.129 Thus, according to Giancarlo Angelozzi, one began to see the formation of a new “noble” class which si tratta di un gruppo sociale dai contorni ancora abbastanza fluidi, al suo interno molto composito e disomogeneo per origini, richezza, presitigio, partecipazione al potere politico, ma che rispetto agli altri segmenti della società si caratterizza e si differenzia essenzialmente per due aspetti: il rifiuto di ogni arte “meccanica” e ‘servile’ e l’adozione di un modello di comportamento il cui nucleo centrale è costituito dal codice d’onore cavalleresco. consists of a social group of still fluid contours, internally very varied and inhomogeneous according to origins, wealth, prestige, [and] participation in political power, but which in respect to the other segments of society essentially characterizes and differentiates itself by two aspects: the refusal of any kind of manual or servile job and the adoption of a model of behavior whose central nucleus is constituted by the chivalric code of honor.130

Consequently, as the duel spread from the military to the courts after 1500, it also gradually became the touchstone of anyone seeking to establish his credentials as a “gentleman,” a term which carried sufficient ambiguity to cover a host of social and educational possibilities while maintaining an important distinction of status. The problem was that, once it escaped the confines of the court, there was little to prevent its spread across an ever broader spectrum of society, and very quickly the duel of honor would evolve into an issue of public order. On the other hand, the general direction of Italian society following the eventual triumph of Habsburg arms in 1529 was towards less social mobility. The gates of opportunity were closing as governments came to terms with Spanish

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Dal Pozzo had consistently used juridical tests to support his broader definition of honor. Alciato, for instance, in his famous tract on the duel, maintained there were three sources of nobility: (1) offices and dignities conferred by a prince, (2) noble family roots and (3) men of great virtue whose fame had made them illustrious in the eyes of others. Andrea Alciato, Duello de lo Eccellentissimo (Venice, 1545), p. 33. Angelozzi, “Il duello nella trattistica,” p. 29.

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hegemony, and elites sought to consolidate their positions in the new order of things. While the old view of late sixteenth-century economic stagnation has been seriously challenged, there seems little doubt that energy and investments that previously might have gone to trade or manufacture now went to land, as well as to the purchase of letters of nobility and the ostentatious display that attended them.131 There was felt an urgent need, especially after 1549, when the treaty of Cateau-Cambrésis confirmed the Habsburg settlement, to determine who exactly was a gentleman and who was not. As Claudio Donati suggests, Quali furono i connotati principal di tale periodo, e della stabilità che lo caratterizzò? Aristocratizzazione, chiusura oligarchica, rifeudalizzazione, corsa alla terra, tradimento della borghesia; molte sono le formule storiografiche – più o meno convincenti e condivisibili – cui si può fare ricorso. In tutte, ad ogni modo, è presente un elemento, che ci pare la principale nota distintiva degli anni intorno alla metà del Cinquecento: la tendenza, cioè, verso una sempre più netta omogeneizzazione ideologica di segno nobiliare delle diverse classi dominanti italiani. What were the principle features of this period, and of the stability that characterized it? Aristocratitization, oligarchic closure, refeudalization, flight to the land, betrayal of the bourgeoisie; many are the historiographic formulae – more or less convincing and similar – to which one can turn. In all of them, in any event, there is present one element, which seems to us the principle distinctive note of the years around the middle of the sixteenth century; the tendency that is towards an always more clear-cut ideological homogenization of noble distinction among the diverse dominant Italian classes.132

Yet what would be the focus of this longing for homogeneity? In response, there were those like Possevino who would argue that purity of aristocratic blood was the only criterion, an assertion which fit the prevailing opinion coming out of Spain. But, as always, such hereditary precision fit poorly with Italy’s motley crew of elites, who could lay claim in a variety of ways to honorable if not noble status. More than ever, some verifiable criteria of distinction seemed necessary in order to assure one’s place at the right end of society, but all were subject to local variance and interpretation. Donati sees this tension clearly in the various sumptuary laws which arose as part of the “closure” process after mid-century. In Florence, people with titles, such as counts or marchesi, were exempt from many restrictions on dress, but so were courtiers, knights, judges, captains, vicars, and mayors of the realm, although the latter only for the tenure of their office. In Urbino, only the direct servants of the Duke were exempted, while Ancona, a port city, provided special provisions for the wives of wholesale merchants. In other words, the whole attempt to “crystalize the social hierarchy” was conditioned by the economies, traditions, and politics of each state, or even each city.133

131 132 133

Gregory Hanlon, Early Modern Italy, 1550–1800 (London, 2000), pp. 74–103. Donati, L’idea di nobiltà, p. 93. Ibid., pp. 134–136.

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The resulting insecurity of elites in a period of growing social rigidity helps explain the extraordinary outpouring of treatises and manuals on honor and dueling that started in 1550.134 This included twenty-eight new titles in sixty-five editions in just nineteen years.135 And the tenor of these books changed as well. Like their juridical predecessors, they often disagreed over the exact provenance of honor, while universally agreeing that a person who had honor would certainly defend it in a duel. On the other hand, they became obsessed, each in their own way, with fine gradations of rank and privilege and how they related to the compulsion to duel.136 Issues of honor were only supposed to be settled between equals, but if all nobles had honor it clearly blurred the lines of condescension and consent. As Claudio Donati has put it, the literature of dueling thus became “closely bound up with the broader literature on nobility.”137 In this sense, the new scienza cavalleresca offered the cultural parallel of the social/political “closures” which clearly defined the lines of aristocracy and made a hyper-sensitive defense against perceived insults an almost sacred duty. In this more rigid world of honor, however, the causes for duels became ever more carefully scrutinized, categorized and weighted, leading to lengthy and punctilious discussions of sleights and insults. Muzio, for instance, was famous for having some thirty definitions for giving the lie or “mentita” and how one might respond to it. There is perhaps nothing more boring that reading comparative analyses of the minutia regarding chivalric insult and response such as “mentita, soddisfazione, discarico, negativa, schiaffo, sprezzo, soperchiera, remissione, pace,” but they were of critical importance to men who held the proper protection of their honor to be more important than protection of their lives. Moreover, the real message behind many of the manuals was that the final arbiter in determining honor was not just the duel, but also the acquisition and

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A similar story emerges in the Veneto, where the nobles and condottieri of the terra ferma, no matter what their past pedigree or prodigious actions, were not allowed to join the Republic’s patriciate. This perhaps helps explain the apparent paradox that Venice, which had a legally defined nobility, was vaunted to have fewer duels than other areas of Italy, yet the city saw the publication of the majority of the dueling tracts in the sixteenth century. J. R. Hale has argued that the many manuals were probably intended for the “aristocratic subjects in the castles and cities” of the mainland who were influenced by the chivalric “cult of dueling” of neighboring states, such as Milan, Ferrara, and Mantua. Although one should not discount the impact of such geographic cultural diffusion, one might also suggest that the mainland nobles of the Veneto, who still held critical positions of power in their previously-free states, but were excluded from the official Venetian “nobility,” found the affirmation of honor intrinsic to the duel and its rituals to be an efficient means of boosting their claims of status both within and beyond the bounds of the Serenissima. Once again it was the dissonance of noble identities that prompted the compulsion to protect one’s honor. Hale and Mallett, Military Organization, pp. 450–451. Ersparmer, La biblioteca, p. 58. Donati, L’idea di nobiltà, pp. 96–130. Donati, “A project of ‘Expurgation’ by the Congregation of the Index: Treatises on Duelling,” in Church, Censorship and Culture in Early Modern Italy, ed. Gigliola Fragnito (Cambridge, UK, 2001), p. 138.

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embodiment of the details of the manuals themselves, which became precious possessions for noble households. Nor was it a one-way street. The proliferation of so much “expert” advice allowed each honorable person to become an expert and contribute to the ongoing discussion contained in the appendices of manuals or in the cartelli and sfide that circulated around individual cases. This all fit into a larger theater of public status, which, as Chauchadis has argued, offered a variety of validations of honor that had little to do with the actual combat. The posting of cartelli, the recourse to exalted experts, the constant delays of negotiation: all of these worked towards creating a public theater that benefited the stature of the participants.138 In this manner, the dueling codes themselves and the constant debate over details became the instruments of honor, and the system had the added advantage of often achieving all of this notoriety without ever having to come blows with one’s opponent. They allowed an auto-reinforcing ideology of nobility that could be embraced by “gentlemen” of different varieties, while keeping the vast majority of society at bay.139 Thus was born the scienza cavalleresca or science of chivalry in which the study of chivalric interchange became as important as chivalric combat itself, although the duel was always there as the final enforcer of the rules. However, the rise of the scienza cavalleresca was not tied purely to the tensions of a society “refeudalizing” its social and cultural assumptions, but came in reaction as well to the fact that by the mid-sixteenth century the duel had gotten rather out of hand. One never knew from what quarter a challenge might come, unlicensed encounters were rampant, and the duel had become a pressing problem of public order that had to be addressed by secular and religious authorities alike.

Proliferation, Criminalization, and the “Science of Chivalry” In April of 1541, the republic of Venice bemoaned the fact that for some time many cartelli of challenge had been plastered around the city which used “harsh and ignominious words” to promote combat between individuals. Nor was this phenomenon restricted to the confines of the lagoon; it was occurring in other cities of the Serenississma and generally resulting in homicides and other “scandalous inconveniences.”140 Obviously, the military mystique, the support of the princes, the power of individualism, and the social/psychological pretensions of new and old elites had brought the duel of honor into the mainstream of Italian life. Thus, Alciato, writing in 1528, declared that there were duels on a daily 138 139

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Chauchadis, La loi, p. 112. Donati, La idea di nobiltà, p. 152, quotes Villari that this was not “dello scontro frontale di forze antitetiche, ma dell’aspetto formale di un processo di assimilazione di ampliamento e di modificazioine della classe dominante.” Antonio Pertile, Storia del diritto italiano, 6 vols. (Turin, 1892–1902), 5:509. Also see Luigi Costantino Borghi, La legislazione della Republica Veneta sul duello (Venice, 1898), pp. 12–13.

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basis among soldiers and nobles, and he sharply criticized those “signori of Italy who publicly and without other distinction concede their jurisdiction and field to whomever should ask.” Moreover, he found the causes of the duels to be lacking in substance, and blood was flowing over who had said what about some other and who had lied in the first place.141 By mid-century contemporaries were reporting a virtual wave of deadly duels across the peninsula, and while staying in Milan Brantôme recalled seeing “an infinity” of corpses each day as a result.142 Similar descriptions could be found in experts such as Olevano and Muzio who lamented the almost daily “spectacle” of individual combat and honorable bloodshed.143 One catalyst for this increase in dueling activity may have come from the spread of new fencing techniques, which we have already examined in relationship to Renaissance individualism. In 1509, Pietro Monte, a traditional master at arms, was still ridiculing those who fought only with swords and in their shirtsleeves as “pimps, blasphemers, and shopkeepers;” but the style caught on and soon had developed into a “science” that would eventually dominate the continent.144 As fencing evolved into both an art and a science, sword fighting without armor lost its lower class connotations and became acceptable to gentlemen looking to defend their honor.145 In a sense, the art of fencing helped extend the dignity of chivalrous combat to those gentlemen who for one reason or another lacked military training and service. Warriors tended to duel, but increasingly not all duelists were warriors. The new instruction allowed people who had not been brought up in the profession of arms to learn the skills necessary to defend their honor when the occasion arose. On the other hand, the move away from military equipment, which included armor, sword, buckler, and probably a horse and lance as well, also meant that dueling became a cheaper enterprise and allowed for a larger group of possible participants. Moreover, Sydney Anglo has argued that it was not just the skills involved in fencing that encouraged the duel, but rather the aggressive mindset and offensive posture which fencing masters attempted to inculcate in their students.146 141 142 143

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Alciato, Duello, pp. 6 and 72; also see p. 92. Brantôme, “Discours sur les duels,” pp. 143–144. Cavina, Il duello giudiziario, pp. 236–237. Also see the statements made in 1549 by William Thomas in Peltonen, The Duel in Early Modern England, p. 17. The frequency of duels in Rome prompted Ignatius Loyola to write a letter in 1554 condemning “this perverse and diabolical practice among Christian men,” which “even the infidels” avoided. He applauded the King of Portugal’s recent condemnation of dueling and called on the Christian princes to attach “infamy” to the regular penalties and to set up special councils of prominent men to settle out disputes arising over honor. Letter of April 5, 1554 to Father James Miron in Letters of St. Ignatius of Loyola, ed. William J. Young, S.J. (Chicago, 1959), pp. 334–335. The critical treatise in this “revolution” in fencing was Camillo Agrippa’s Tratto di scientia d’arme, published in 1553. Anglo, “How to Kill,” p. 6. One Spanish observer noted that already in the 1520s, such duels had come to be accepted among the soldiery and were no longer seen as the style fit only for “ruffians.” Chauchadis, La lois, p. 102. Anglo, “How to Kill.”

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Anglo’s idea reflected contemporary commentary. Muzio, in his treatise of 1550, condemned “those masters of the new discipline of arms” for pushing an ersatz code that allowed dueling without armor, over mentite which did not merit combat, and even among men who had already been defeated in previous duels. The epicenter of this disturbing “plague” was Naples, “refuge of this scum” of fencing masters, and from there it had spread to real gentlemen and on to the courts where it had been mistaken for the work of cavalieri.147 And these new rules had led to an increase in illicit duels in the Kingdom of Naples whereby cavalieri … strabocchevolmente alla macchia si correva; e senza alcun risquardo, e senza alcuna cagione, pur che altri domandati gli havesse, senza domandare il perchè là s’inviavano, e il sangue sparge vano, e gittavano la vita, e l’anima, credendosi di far bene atto honorevole, à non haver consideratione al diritto, ne al dovere, e che l’essersi volutio regoar con ragione fosse stato bene un gran difetto. … run to the woods; and without any consideration, and without any motive except that others have asked them, [and] without asking why they go there, they spill blood in vain and they throw away their lives and their souls, believing that they are doing an honorable act, and they have no consideration for the law, nor for duty, and as if wanting to regulate oneself with reason was a great defect.148

The solemn or legal duel had in theory been about serious insults and was intended to end badly for the loser who, if he survived, might suffer penalties up to death and enslavement as well as dishonor. Yet in practice such duels had often been interrupted by the “judge” after both men had shown their chivalric mettle, and peace would be pressed upon them. Now, however, men fought over frivolous sleights just to show their pluck, and because there was no legal oversight of these encounters, there was a tendency for the duelists and their seconds to lose control, for everyone to draw their swords, and for the whole affair to degenerate into a rissa or brawl with ever greater bloodshed.149 Obviously, the new style of fencing could not blamed for all of these woes, and fencing masters must have been responding to market forces as people sought their services. Nevertheless, it makes sense that the democratization of weaponry and training, combined with the Renaissance tendency to have “art” or “science” imply respectability, was offering greater opportunities of combat to those who felt their honor worth defending. In turn this lead greater numbers of gentlemen to duel over minor puntigli and in a manner which seriously affected public security. Combined with the increase in “legal” encounters, such duels alla macchia, or “in the woods” reinforced an image of growing violence and disorder that led various Italian states to try to dampen enthusiasm for the ritual. Most noticeably they began to pass laws specifically aimed against dueling, something that had

147 148 149

Muzio, Il duello (Vinegia, 1551), pp. 85–86. Although Muzio criticizes Naples for its lead, he acknowledges the problem “in altri luoghi d’Italia.” Ibid., p. 86. Ibid., p. 85.

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previously not been deemed necessary150 The Papacy led the way, in 1509 and 1519 reaffirming the Church’s longstanding opposition to bloody spectacle, but now targeting the duel within the Papal States.151 The secular states were substantially slower to make the move. The Kingdom of Naples was among the first with a decree of January, 1540, which provided the death penalty for all involved in a duel or its preliminaries.152 Milan and Venice followed suit in 1541, although the former restricted punishment to un-licensed duels and the latter lessened the penalty to banishment for ten years. Mantova (1543) and Parma (1543) also set out sanctions ranging from death to confiscation of all one’s property.153 Other regimes such as Tuscany (1556) would fall into line somewhat later, and throughout the process one senses a desire on the part of some princes to preserve their prerogatives over single combat. Licenses continued to be granted to duelists through the 1550s, and princes still agreed to judge vertenze submitted for their arbitration, but it became increasingly difficult to get a legal “field,” which only led to a greater number of “unregulated” duels.154 It is hard to generalize about the immediate impact because the situation was complicated by the number of independent regimes, each of which implemented varying degrees of criminalization. A coordinated policy of repression would only arrive in 1560 when the Papacy looked beyond its own borders and explicitly ordered all princes to stop supporting the practice. This command would take on real weight when it was included in the Council of Trent’s pronouncements in 1564, and any prince offering a field to duelists was subject to excommunication.155 The growing legal ambiguity surrounding the duel and the proliferation of encounters alla macchia further explains the development of the scienza cavalleresca. The trattistica of the post–1550 period found its scope and its

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Not surprisingly, the 1550s saw the first formal anti-dueling treatises. The first of these appears to have been Antonio Massa’s tract of 1554, Contra usum duelli, which was reprinted in Italian only a year later as Contra l’uso del duello (Venice, 1555). That same year saw G. B. Susio’s I tre libri dell’ingiustizia del duello e di coloro che lo permettono (Venice, 1555). For a brief analysis of this early anti-dueling literature see Sabrina D’Antini, “Tra teoria e prassi; duello e violenza interpersonale nella Roma del Cinquecento” (thesis [Tesi di Laurea], University of Rome, 1992/3), pp. 50–70. Cavina, Sangue d’onore, pp. 108–109; Cavina, Il duello giudiziario, pp. 333–338. Giancarlo Angelozzi, “La proibizione del duello, Chiesa e ideologia nobiliare,” in Il concilio di Trento e il moderno, eds. Paolo Prodi and Wolfgang Reinhard (Bologna, 1996), pp. 271–282. Little Lucca actually appears to have been the first and in 1539, prescribed the death penatly for anyone dueling within fifty miles of the city, and punished those assisting with three years’ exile. Pertile, Storia del diritto penale, 5:511. Ibid.; also Donati, L’idea di nobiltà, pp. 102–103. Looking at the court records of the Duchy of Ferrara/Modena, Billacois found 13 affairs of honor submitted between 1541 and 1550 compared to 21 submitted between 1551 and 1560. But Ferrara and Modena were renowned centers of chivalrous activity and may well not reflect what was happening in other areas. François Billacois, Le Duel dans la société française des XVI–XVII siècles. Essai de psychosociologie historique (Paris, 1986), pp. 73–75. Cavina, Il duello giudiziario, pp. 339–344. Giancarlo Angelozzi, “La proibizione del duello,” pp. 283–297.

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function in trying to settle out the myriad forms, exceptions, and possibilities which attended the duel as it was increasingly cut off from its juridical roots. Of particular importance in this shift was the growing problem of whether a gentleman was bound to accept a challenge that did not lead to a legitimate license and field granted by a figure of authority. Having embraced the duel as a signifier of nobility, elites had to face the possibility of fighting without the supposed guarantees of the formal “solemn” duel, and the “science” of chivalry offered leverage against the dangers inherent to fighting alla macchia. Thus the lawyers, such as Del Pozzo, Alciati and Castillo de Villasanta, gave way to the courtiers, such as Muzio, who sought to make their names by solving the questions regarding the duel as it proliferated and mutated through the peninsula. Leaving behind the legalistic dialogue of jurists, the duel became a matter of debate among “experts,” each of whom claimed to carry both experience and tradition on his side. And this outpouring of “chivalric science” would find a ready market on the part of all those seeking to authenticate and legitimate their own sense of honor, either through actual duels or, increasingly, through a punctilious exchange of arguments over details and procedures which could eventually lead to pacification rather than bloodshed. Thus Chauchadis makes the point that the treatises generally stressed the negotiable nature of most offenses. Based on words of insult, the offenses could in a sense be solved by words and there was a common assumption that many vertenze could be settled peacefully without damage to anyone’s honor.156 Consider for example the apology written by Antonio Possevino for the treatise on honor written by his brother Giambattista, which was dedicated to the Cardinal of Santa Fiora. Né dee parere strano a V.S. Rev. ma che essendo ells Cardinale, io le dedichi un libro, dove oltra le altre cose si tratta anchora del duello. Percioché parlandosi dell’honore et dei mezzi, per li quali essendo perduto si racquista, et essendo il duello tra I detti mezzi, mio fratello fu sforzato di ragionarne, civilmente però et non secondo la nostra santa religione, ma nondimeno in tal guisa, che se si tenesse questa strada, di rado si verrebbe a duello: et quando pur vi si venisse, vi si verrebbe giustificantmente, et per men male, il quale ha sempre, come dice Aristotele, luogo di bene. Neither should it appear strange to your Eminence that although you are a Cardinal I should dedicate a book to you which among other things discusses the duel. Because speaking about honor and the means by which it can be regained once it is lost, and since the duel is among those means, my brother was forced to consider it, albeit in a civil vein and not as part of our saintly religion, but nonetheless in such a way that if one takes this route, rarely will one come to a duel: and when in fact one does duel, it would be justifiable as a lesser evil, which as Aristotle says is always a good thing.157

This formed part of a larger tautology by which experts touted the right and necessity, or rather privilege and duty, of truly noble men to defend their honor,

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Chauchadis, La lois, pp. 107–108. Quoted in Donati, L’idea di nobiltà, p. 100.

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even if it ran counter to the will of the prince, but then offered a variety of means to limit those claiming such a right and to circumscribe its practical applications. As a consequence, the treatises helped popularize a body of arguments promoting the duel, such as its biblical roots in David and Goliath, its natural basis in reactions of self defense, or (as adumbrated by Possevino’s mention of Aristole) its role as the lesser of two evils, specifically as a means of avoiding wider warfare. Yet they promoted a bulwark of paper and opinion that allowed gentlemen to move along with their honorable lives without constantly having to defend them. In fact, one can see the treatises as a highly evolved social/ethical antimony that vaunted and legitimized the duel as a source of aristocratic privilege while attempting to reduce its frequency and violence.158 This was the dialectic of the duel as it spread from Italy to the rest of Europe: ritualized and consensual combat as a badge of noble status combined with competing treatises of reference that mixed the control of codification, the romance of chivalry, and the mantle of “science,” a term still of useful ambiguity in the sixteenth century.

The Decline of the Duel in Italy Italy’s primacy as creator and promulgator of the modern duel faded rapidly towards the end of the sixteenth century, and the epicenter of chivalric honor shifted to France. Duels seem to have diminished through the next century and, with the notable exception of Piedmont, they were relatively rare by the 1750s. The rate of this general decline is difficult to discern. The Elizabethan English traveler Fynes Morrison proclaimed the duel as being dead in Italy as early as the turn of the seventeenth century, a sad victim of the counter-reformation, whose demise, he suggested, had occasioned untold assassinations and poisonings for the sake of frustrated honor.159 Far less dramatic and rather more objective, the modern French historian François Billacois also thought that the duel dropped off rather quickly after the 1560s.160 In contrast, one finds references to duels throughout the seventeenth century, such as a Venetian law of 1631 which complained that dueling “more than before” was becoming a real problem.161 Both

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This helps explain the original decision on the part of the Council of Trent not to ban the dueling manuals as part of its condemnation of the practice: a leniency that would be later be rectified as dueling continued despite the anathema of the church. On the relation of the Council to the treatises see Donati, “A Project of ‘Expurgation,’” and Angelozzi, “La proibizione del duello,” pp. 296–298. Also see Cavina, duello giudiziario, pp. 333–344. Fynes Moryson’s comments in Charles Hughes, ed., Shakespeare’s Europe: A Survey of the Condition of Europe at the End of the 16th Century: Being Unpublished Chapters of Fynes Moryson’s Itinerary (1617) (New York, 1967), pp. 402–407. For a somewhat similar report in 1595 from another Englishman, Robert Dallington, see Weinstein, “Fighting or Flyting,” pp. 213–215. He added that it virtually disappeared after 1650. Billacois, Le Duel dans la société, pp. 75–79. Quoted in Borghi, La legislazione della Republica, p. 14.

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Croce and Galasso reported waves of violent duels in the South in the 1630s and 1660s which rather resembled noble gang fights, while Fanizzi has described more formal encounters, complete with cartelli and secondi, among the Neapolitan nobility as late as 1678. Significantly, the last one he mentioned had to be fought in Nuremburg, Germany, “because these sorts of combat are not permitted in Catholic countries … ”162 In fact, all three of these authors noted that duels were becoming increasingly rare through the last quarter of the century.163 In their detailed study of noble violence in Bologna, Angelozzi and Casanova encountered a number of duels in the second half of the seventeenth century, but they began to fall off after 1700.164 As a primary source, Lassels in his Voyage of Italy from 1670 echoed Morrison’s comment on how punctilious about their honor the Italians were, but rather than duel they would hire an assassin to take their revenge. “They are hard to please, when they have been once red hot with offence; but they will not meet revenge in the face, and the field; and they will rather hire it, than take it.”165 Giacomo Casanova fought a couple of spontaneous encounters in northern Italy in the 1740s, and made a point of affirming his honor wherever he went – but then he had a lot to prove. Even so, he maintained that duels were far less frequent in Italy than France, and his only formal duels were outside of Italy, including a notorious affair in Poland which he later wrote up and published in order to make some ready cash.166 Evidence suggests then that by the early eighteenth century the duel had truly started to disappear among the nobility and by mid-century it lay on the margins of society in much of Italy. Thus in 1756 the Legate of Bologna, Cardinal Serbelloni, actually apologized in his code of criminal law for even mentioning dueling among the various forms of homicide because it had so completely disappeared from use.167 Likewise, Paolo Vergani, in his 1776 anti-dueling tract 162 163

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Antonio Fanizzi, Armi e Baroni: controversie e duelli degli Acquaviva D’Aragona dal 1636– 1723 (Bari, 1985), p. 108. Benedetto Croce, “Duelli nel seicento,” Archivio storico per le provincie napoletane (Naples, 1895), pp. 543–553. Croce actually quoted most of his article from a book published in German on Naples by Alfredo di Reumont in 1851. Also see Giuseppe Galasso, Napoli spagnola dopo Masaniello: politica, cultura, società (Florence, 1982), pp. 76–77, 150, 174, 259–260, 308, 319, 366–367, 476, 505. The reference to 1723 in Fanizzi’s title, noted above, was to a vertenza between the Count of Conversano and the Marquis of Oijra that was resolved peacefully through arbitration. Fanizzi, Armi e baroni, pp. 25, 137–142. Also regarding the lessening of duels see Ersparmer, La biblioteca, p. 18. Giancarlo Angelozzi and Cesarina Casanova, La nobiltà disciplinata: violenza nobiliare, procedure di giustizia e scienza cavalleresca a Bologna nel XVII secolo (Bologna, 2003), pp. 275–282. For an example of a duel in 1703 in the same general area see Filippo Crispolti, “La tragica fine di un patrizio di Rieti,” extract from Latina Gens, Aug. 1929, fasc. 8, pp. 1–7. Richard Lassels, Voyage of Italy (1670) (London, 1698), p. 11. Jacques Casanova, The Memoirs of Jacques Casanova de Seingalt, ed. and trans. Arthur Machen, 6 vols. (New York, 1959–1961), 1:597–598, 652–653; 6:35. For a good analysis of the Polish duel see Cavina, Il sangue d’onore, pp. 214–217. Serbelloni’s comments were corroborated by a check of the records of the Tribunale del Torrone in the Archivio di Stato di Bologna for the years after 1711 in which I found no cases listed for “duello.” Fabrizio Serbelloni, Bando generale della legazione di Bologna e suo contado (Bologna, 1756), p. 35.

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Dell’enormezza del duello, fully admitted that his arguments were aimed at a practice that had almost disappeared.168 This view was the same to foreign eyes, and Smollet, who in his Travels through Italy and France commented at length on the readiness of French officers in 1764 to fight over even minor affronts to their honor, made no mention of dueling in Italy at all.169 Samual Sharpe, in his Letters from Italy of 1766, was highly interested in social customs and particularly those regarding relations between men and women. Observant and critical, he chastised the Italians for their system of cicisbeismo, in which married women were constantly paid court by a favorite gallant, a practice he found degrading and inappropriate. Gallantry prevailed, women could do what they wanted and “the word jealousy is become obsolete.”170 Yet he did not once refer to the chivalric code or dueling as part of the Italian scene. On the contrary, he suggested there was no way for men to “vent their indignation,” no “salve for their honor,” and hence “It is amazing how many assassinations there are in Italy almost all of them effects of quarrels.”171 Other visitors who were silent on the duel in their writings on Italy included Charles De Brosses (1739–1740), Patrice Brydone (1770), John Moore (1778), and Alexis de Krüdener (1786).172 Particularly interesting in this group was Brydone, a cogent commentator on brigandage, poverty, marriage, and other social issues, and he wrote at some length on his surprise that dueling was actually legal, if not frequent, in Malta. Still, he did not find evidence of the practice anywhere in Italy, including Sicily where he spent the bulk of his travels.173 Literary tastes mirrored this general trend. While no new dueling manuals were actually written after the Tridentine prohibition of the practice, books on honor and its defense continued to be popular and were still heavily in demand at the beginning of the eighteenth century. Although the Index condemned books explicitly about dueling in 1596, expurgated reprints were allowed, new books about pacification still embraced the chivalric ethic, and banned books no doubt

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Paolo Vergani, Dell’enormezza del duello (Milan, 1776), pp. 1–2. George Tobias Smollett, Travels through France and Italy, ed. Frank Felsenstein (Oxford, 1979), pp. 135–138, 174. Samuel Sharp, Letters from Italy, Describing the Customs and Manners of that Country in the Years 1765 and 1766 (London, 1766), p. 11. Ibid., p. 174. Interestingly, he saw the solution to this problem in teaching the Italians to box, which he saw as “a laudable and innocent fashion” back in England, an idea that would resurface in the late nineteenth century. Interestingly, Moore wrote that citizens of all classes in Ferrara felt they had a right to wear swords and that the town prided itself on its fencing instructors; yet on dueling not a word. John Moore, A View of Society, pp. 257–258. Charles De Brosses, Lettres familières, ed. Giuseppina Cafasso (Naples, 1991). Alexis de Krüdener, Voyage en Italie en 1786 (Paris, n.d.). Patrick Brydone, Viaggio in Sicilia e Malta (Messina, 1901), pp. 166–169. Brydone pointed out that the duel in Malta was bound by strict rules which limited its effects. For confirmation of this view see Isacco Pesaro-Maurogonato, Intorno al duello: Dissertazione di I. PesaroMaurogonato in occasione della sua laurea in legge nell’I.R. Università di Padova (Venice, 1839), p. 126.

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remained in silent circulation.174 If anything their value would have been enhanced by their increasing rarity. By 1750, however, the whole lexicon of scienza cavalleresca had become mired, according to Erspamer, “in a state of profound decadence,” and he quoted a contemporary, Apostolo Zeno, on the crisis. “Thank God that today those books have fallen so decidedly into disfavor (disprezzo) that no one takes them, and with great difficulty do they sell, and if one does sell them it’s at a miserable price of a few coins, having become trash of the bookcases and useless clutter in the shops.”175 The extent of this “degradation” of Italy’s chivalric expertise would eventually have both indirect confirmation and practical results after the Restoration when, with the gradual return of the dueling ethic, Italian elites would find themselves relying on French dueling manuals rather than on the earlier efforts of their compatriots. So why did the duel more or less disappear among Italian elites in the eighteenth century, while remaining a viable and vibrant tradition in nations to the north, such as France, Germany, Ireland, and England? The most obvious cause was the impact of the Council of Trent which emphasized, propagated, and enforced the Papacy’s prior opposition to the practice.176 Cast within the Counter Reformation’s growing atmosphere of greater moral conformity, the Church’s severe condemnation, constant exhortation, and spiritual punishments – such as prohibiting Christian burial for duelists – apparently prompted some nobles to seek alternative means to settling private disputes.177 Certainly, as Marco Cavina has demonstrated, the Council’s harsh sanctions against those princes offering their authority and territory to duelists virtually wiped out the duello giudiziario, which had been so important in prompting the original codification and subsequent popularity of the practice.178 As for the private duel, Cavina, Angelozzi, and Donati have all demonstrated the rather extraordinary arguments put forth by noble proponents of the chivalric ethic as they attempted to circumvent or mitigate the church’s condemnation. Splitting hairs over what actually constituted a duel once its judicial definition had been trumped by the papacy, they devised categories of combat such as the questione and the rissa which allowed individual combat over honor without risking the obvious spiritual penalties.179 174 175 176

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Claudio Donati, “A project of ‘Expurgation,’” pp. 134–155. Erspamer, La biblioteca, pp. 18–20. Gian Carlo Angelozzi has argued that, despite its apparent vehemence against the duel, the Council’s declaration only summed up previous pontifical legislation and offered some legalistic loopholes that allowed churchmen to excuse duelists. Nevertheless, Angelozzi concludes that the prohibition set an important base line of intolerance which eventually had its effect. “La proibizione,” pp. 271–308. On this ambiguous relationship between Church and duel also see Claudio Donati, “A Project of ‘Expurgation,’” pp. 134–162. Oscar di Simplicio, Peccato, penitenza, perdono, Siena 1575–1800 (Milan, 1994), pp. 49–58. For a contemporary, albeit foreign, view of the effects of the Council’s prohibition see Fynes Moryson’s comments in Charles Hughes, ed., Shakespeare’s Europe, pp. 402–407. Cavina, Il duello giudiziario, pp. 333–334. Cavina, Il duello giudiziario, 333–370; Angelozzi, “La proibizione del duello,” pp. 292–305, Donati, “A Project of ‘Expurgation,’” and also “La trattistica sull’onore e il duello tra cinquecento e seicento: tra consenso e censura,” Studia Borromaica 14 (2000), 30–56.

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Nevertheless, the papacy kept responding with new prohibitions – Ad Romani pontificis (1573), Firmum ita (1582), Ad tollendum (1582), and Illius vices (1592), so as to combat these oftentimes specious arguments ending up in 1752 with Benedict XIV’s all-inclusive bull, Detestabilem, which carefully closed the remaining loopholes generated over the centuries.180 While this lively debate demonstrated the resiliency of the dueling ethic as it entered the counter-reformation period, it also testified to the importance of spiritual legitimacy on the part of those seeking absolution for their actions in the name of honor. In other words, these issues were important to members of the aristocracy and one can assume that the constant pressure of the Church must have given some pause to men torn between eternal salvation and gentlemanly duty. This can help explain as well the wave of Paci books that emerged after the council which were dedicated to the peaceful settlement of vertenze rather than the execution of combat. Under fire by the imposition of the Index, the science of chivalry mutated towards ever more anodyne solutions, albeit well couched within a continuing dialogue of protecting one’s honor. One must also consider the general problem of trying to overcome the inertia of a tradition that had been well over a hundred years in the making with deep medieval roots and princely support. Recent research on concepts of female honor in Piedmont have shown how counter-reformation reforms could take over a century to affect some behaviors, but when the changes came they had a profound and lasting impact; such seems to have been the case of with the automatic assumptions of chivalry as the Church refused to relent in its opposition.181 Gregory Hanlon has talked about how the “disciplinary church” of the baroque period got a second reforming wind after 1650 that combined the efforts of priests, bishops, and monks to carry a moral message of conformance and contrition through the peninsula. A new stress on sin and salvation aimed to affect all sorts of delinquency, from bastardy to prostitution, and the duel would have been an obvious if not always easy target for such zeal.182 These tensions were perfectly portrayed in a case revealed in 1929 by the head of Italy’s anti-dueling league, Marchese Filippo Crispolti, which involved one of his ancestors, Cavaliere Antonio Girolamo dei Crispolti, whose bones were found buried under the steps of a small parish church in Emilia. Born in Rieti, this young knight had fought bravely on pontifical galleys against Algerian pirates at the end of the seventeenth century and eventually moved on to serve as a cavalry captain in the Imperial army under Eugene of Savoy. In 1703 he sent a proper sfida to Cav. Orazio Rasponi, captain of the pontifical garrison in Cento, for having insulted one of his servants in person (and himself in abstentia) during a routine registration process. Negotiations had followed and Rasponi

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had eventually agreed to a pistol duel on horseback. They met a few miles outside of Cento, and during the first exchange of fire Crispolti fell dead instantly from a bullet to the head. His body was taken to Finale. That’s where the story becomes interesting. The local Governor, count Paolo Forni, requested the Rector of Finale, Rev. Gianbattista Fabri, to bury Crispolti in his parish church, but he refused, saying that he had heard a rumor that the knight had been killed in a duel. Forni provided the classic cover that it had been a spontaneous rissa between the two men and had thus lacked the preplanning and calculation of a formal duel – which of course was untrue, although, according to the modern Crispolti, Forni might have been deceived by the surviving participants. The priest, however, still had his doubts and having consulted with his immediate superior and a visiting Carmelite preacher he requested that Forni offer written confirmation of his assertions concerning the encounter. Forni agreed to do so, and Crispolti’s body finally found its way to sacred burial in an unmarked grave on the most exterior tangent of the church, all of which begs the question as to whether the good father really believed the story or not. Nevertheless, as Crispolti commented in 1929, the case offered vivid evidence of how readily noble military officers – even in service to the Pope – might still risk their lives over minimal issues of honor at the start of the eighteenth century, and also how thorough was “the vigilance of the church, even in small places and among modest clergy, in maintaining the canonical prescriptions against the duel … ” It simultaneously demonstrated how important proper burial was to the memory of such men, enough in fact to induce obvious fraud within the chain of chivalry. All of which goes to underline the constantly conflicted position of Italian gentlemen as they sought to satisfy god and honor.183 Leaving religious pressures aside, the stability brought on by Spanish hegemony in the latter half of the sixteenth century gradually reduced the social and political dynamics that had fueled the duel during the Renaissance. In contrast to the Italian Wars during which the ritual had evolved and proliferated, the Pax Hispanica offered a less bellicose environment, and one in which people increasingly knew their place both spatially and socially. In this context, Billacois, the great French historian of the duel, has suggested that after mid-century the Italians became increasingly absorbed with the punctilious repartee of their own dueling manuals and turned to words rather than swords to adjudicate matters of honor. Thus the voluminous “science of chivalry” helped antagonists convert points of honor into points of argument as flurries of paper and protocol buffered tempers and smoothed ruffled feathers.184 It should be said that Billacois seems to have maintained a certain disdain for the mitigating and anodyne effect of Italy’s later dueling literature, whereas, as we have seen, reducing the violence of the dueling fad was one of the major goals of the “scienza cavalleresca” and 183 184

Filippo Crispolti, “La tragica fine di un patrizio di Rieti,” extract from Latina Gens, Aug. 1929, fasc. 8, pp. 1–7. Thus for Italy “Duel à la plume bien plus que de rencontres à l’épée … ” François Billacois, Le Duel dans la société, p. 79.

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thus should be seen as something of a social success.185 The growing efficiency and declining tolerance of the early modern governments may also have had some effect. They certainly kept up a stream of often draconian penalties for duelists through the seventeenth century, although one doubts their regular imposition in the face of noble privilege and popular pressure for leniency in matters of honor.186 Nevertheless, Angelozzi and Casanova have demonstrated that in Bologna the pacifying influence of the scienza cavalleresca was enhanced by the increasing willingness of the central government to exert its control over all forms of noble violence. It was not, however, so much the use of the criminal courts, which were subject to local (read noble) interference, as the imposition of administrative and economic sanctions that had the greatest effect in helping eliminate the duel. Another approach came from the King of Naples, Carlo Borbone, who in 1738 created the Order of St. Gennaro, the members of which had to swear an obligation not to fight duels and to submit all disputes of honor to him as Grand Master of the Order.187 According to one local historian, dueling virtually disappeared from the Kingdom of Naples during Carlo’s reign, and one might reasonably assume at least some connection with this institutional innovation, which combined chivalry and religion.188 Also for the eighteenth century, Francesco Erspamer has examined the rationalizing effects of Enlightenment thought and pointed to the enormous publishing success and presumed influence of Scipione Maffei’s monumental anti-dueling treatise, Della scienza cavalleresca, which went through some ten editions after its appearance in 1710.189 Although a Marchese, Maffei did not hesitate to combine humor and philosophy to ridicule the dueling ethic while at the same time offering a new service-oriented definition of nobility that, according to Donati, better fit the “utilitarian tenor of times.”190 The extraordinary popularity

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For a similar criticism of Billacois see Weinstein, “Fighting or Flyting,” pp. 215–216. A brief overview for some of the different states can be found in Giulio Crivellari, Il duello nella dottrina e nella giurisprudenza: studio sui progetti del nuovo codice penale (Turin, 1884), pp. 31–32. Crivellari and others argued that the severest laws were the least applicable because they lacked popular favor. Giuseppe Patroni, Il duello. Ragionamento letto nella Romana Accademia degli Arcadi il 3 febbraio 1881 (Siena, 1881), p. 35. Maresca di Serracapriola, “La tradizione,” p. 484. For an earlier attempt at such a combination consider the role of the Order of Santo Stefano in Tuscany as portrayed in Donald Weinstein, The Captain’s Concubine: Love, Honor, and Violence in Renaissance Tuscany (Baltimore, 2000). Erspamer, La biblioteca, pp. 19–21. Claudio Donati, “L’evoluzione della coscienza nobiliare,” in Patriziati e aristocrazie nobiliari, eds. Cesare Mozzarelli and Pierangelo Schiera (Trent, 1978), pp. 32–33; also by Donati, “Scipione Maffei e la ‘Scienza chiamata cavalleresca’: saggio sull’ideologia nobiliare al principio del Settecento,” Rivista storica Italiana 90 (1978), 30–71. On Maffei’s impact also see Captain N. A. Bianco, Sul duello (Naples, 1848), p. 21; Isacco Pesaro-Maurogonato, Intorno al duello. Dissertazione di I. Pesaro-Maurogonato in occasione della sua laurea in legge nell’I.R. Università di Padova (Venice, 1839), p. 122.

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of Maffei’s lengthy tome suggests a growing audience for these ideas through the following decades, despite an early noble reaction to its publication.191 This all figures into what Gregory Hanlon has seen as a well-documented tendency towards a more “policed” society in the eighteenth century by which the nobility in particular attempted to solve their quarrels without violence. This was marked by a reduction in noble banditry and also in aristocratic “prepotenza” by which barons, princes, and the like attempted to force their will on their subordinates as well as their equals.192 The disappearance of the duel naturally fit such a larger pattern of elite behavior. Equal in importance to all these causes, however, was the gradual yet certain demilitarization of the Italian nobility during the early modern period. As noted, the army had always been the prime mover of the chivalric ethic in Italy. Although other sectors of the evolving elite society eventually expropriated the right to duel, it had been done by laying claim to potential warrior status.193 The general assumption that soldiers were duty bound to protect their honor with weapons had never been shaken, and duels had been a constant feature of the military camps that had attended the Italian wars. Even after peace was imposed by Spain, Italian nobles continued to serve as soldiers in the pay of other armies outside the peninsula, and this kept them in constant contact with the dueling ethic which had quickly spread beyond Italy’s borders. This all changed in the course of the seventeenth century, however, and Gregory Hanlon has effectively traced the extraordinary decline of the military vocation among the Italian aristocracy, especially after about 1660. This derived primarily from economic considerations as noble families found the cost of outfitting an officer for action in the Habsburg armies exorbitant, especially in the face of declining pay scales and the elimination of booty as an incentive. Noble families thought their resources better spent on educating their sons for administrative service to state or better yet the church, which offered tax exemptions that could be liberally interpreted to hide wealth.194 Inheritance strategies became increasingly focused on a single heir, and the resulting restrictions on marriage led to a diminution in the number of nobles, whose talents were better used in the bureaucracy than fighting abroad. Parenthetically, this demographic crisis of the nobility may have in and of itself limited the tendency to duel, as illustrated by a young Neapolitan aristocrat, who, when issued a sfida to fight at the end of the eighteenth century, replied “I am an only son and await the inheritance of my dynasty (casa), in consequence I cannot fight, otherwise I would be doing wrong to my ancestors”: a response apparently deemed honorable by his antagonist.195 191 192 193 194 195

On that reaction see Cavina, Sangue d’onore, pp. 207–214. Hanlon, Early Modern Italy, pp. 306–307, 367. Donati, “A Project of ‘Expurgation,’” p. 138. Hanlon, Early Modern Italy, pp. 166–169. Francesco Domenico Prato, Lettera all’Illustrissimo Signor D. Pasquale Salinero, Capitano nel Real Corpo d’Artiglieria Regimento la Regina. Sull’Origine ed abbuso del duello (Naples, 1790), p. 14. The case also certainly reflects the severe erosion of the chivalric tradition among the aristorcracy towards the end of the ancien régime in Italy.

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Geo-political forces also worked against Italy’s military traditions. Spain’s fortunes dwindled after the Thirty Years War, and France was not in the habit of hiring Italian soldiers, while the Empire tended to take them ever farther from home.196 Living in the security of first Spanish and then Austrian hegemony, the smaller states had few incentives to develop their own armies, and government funds could be easily spent elsewhere, such as princely conspicuous consumption.197 All of this contributed to the slow but sure withdrawal of the nobility from the military across much of Italy, and efforts to counter the trend, such as those of the Bourbons in Naples after their arrival in the 1730s, met with little success.198 This downward trajectory at the end of the seventeenth century and then through the next, closely matched the gradual disappearance of the duel in Italy.199 It strongly indicates that, deprived of a military ethos and identity, Italian elites gave way to the aforementioned religious, social, political, and intellectual forces impinging on the dueling ritual.

The Piedmontese Exception That such was in fact the case was evidenced by Piedmont, which was the one clear-cut exception in the general process of demilitarization and which was the only region of Italy to maintain a vibrant and continuous dueling tradition through the eighteenth century.200 This was obvious in Piedmont’s evolving legislation aimed at controlling the practice, which stretched across the seventeenth century (1619, 1632, 1637,1643, 1648, 1661, 1667, and 1675), and included, besides the perennial punishments of death and confiscation of property, the innovative use of a royal court of honor and mandatory oaths not to engage in single combat.201 Draconian legislation would continue in the next century, but so would dueling; and Giuseppe Baretti reported in 1768 that the Piedmontese “are withal so punctilious and so ready to draw the sword, that more duels are fought in Piedmont

196 197 198 199

200 201

Gregory Hanlon, The Twilight of a Military Tradition: Italian Aristocrats and European Conflicts, 1560–1800 (New York, 1998), pp. 181–218, 237ff, 303–327. Geoffrey Symcox, “The Demilitarisation of Italian Society in the 16th–17th Centuries,” paper presented at the American Historical Conference, Chicago, 5–8 January 1994. Hanlon, Early Modern Italy, pp. 340–343. In 1879, Giovanni De Castro found a decidely anti-military cast to Milanese pasquinades in the late eighteenth century which he tied to an absence of combativeness and a general phlegmatic acceptance of things as they were. Milano e la Repubblica Cisalpina, Gusta le poesie, le Caricature ed altre testimonianze dei tempi (Milano, 1879), pp. 5–6. “Tutto il nostro paese aveva concepito una specie di orrore per le armi; quasi non is comprendeva più l’eroismo … Il solo Piemonte fa eccezione. Negli altri Stati le poche milizie erano cernite tra la feccia.” De Castro here was perhaps projecting current concerns about Italy’s lack of military character. Hanlon, Early Modern Italy, pp. 275–301. Gian Carlo Buraggi, Le prime leggi sabaude contro il duello (Asti, 1913); Editti antichi e nuovi de sovrani principi della Real Casa di Savoia, ed. Giovanni Battista Borelli (Turin, 1681), pp. 728–735, 852–853.

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than in the rest of Italy taken together.”202 Likewise, Fougeroux de Campigneulles in his classic history of dueling, recounted how prior to the French Revolution, Piedmont’s judges, students, and professors all carried swords and felt authorized to use them to defend their honor.203 Military men were especially obstreperous, as witnessed by one southern author, Francesco Domenico Prato, who, proclaiming his horror at a duel among soldiers in Naples in 1890, could at least take solace in the fact that it was a rarity when compared to Piedmont. Nelle truppe di S.M. Sarda vi regna molto questo pestilenzia costume. Ho veduto in una Città ove vi era un Reggimento nazionale, ed un Reggimento Francese in guarnigione succedere tredici duelli in un giorno; ed ho sorpresi quindici o sedici Uomini in un’istante, che si battevano in duello. Fattoli fare alto in nome del Re, chiesi per qual cagione cercassero di uccidersi in questa guisa, mi rispose uno d’essi. Per essere stato provocato di essere più debole del mio Avversario alla spada. E gli altri si battevano per sostenere ognuno la riputazione del suo compagno. This pestilential custom reigns among the troops of his Sardinian Majesty. I saw in one city where there was garrisoned a national regiment and a French regiment thirteen duels in one day; and I surprised fifteen or sixteen men in one instant who were fighting a duel. Ordering them to halt in the name of the king, I asked for what reason they sought to kill each other in this way, and one of them responded. For having been provoked as being less able than my adversary with a sword. And the others were each fighting in order to sustain the reputation of their companions.204

Prato claimed one Adjutant major, a certain Cavaliere d’Ambrione (Reggimento Austa al servigio di S. M. Sarda) had fought more than twenty duels.205 Such anecdotal evidence was bolstered by official reports, and it was especially disturbing to commentators that simple soldiers were indulging in honorable combat as much as officers.206 Morevoer, Paola Bianchi, in her careful reconstruction of eighteenth-century Piedmontese military culture, has indicated that the frequency of dueling was apparently growing as the century wore on; and this in the face of her own argument that technical expertise, dispensed in the burgeoning military academies, had come to rival antique notions of honor as the primary attribute of an officer.207 The Piedmontese exception is all the more telling because, as Hanlon writes, the House of Savoy was “ferociously Counter Reformation” in its religious

202 203 204 205 206

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Giuseppe Baretti, An Account of the Manners and Customs of Italy, vol. 2 (London, 1769), pp. 121–122. M. Fougeroux de Campigneulles, Histoire des duels ancien e modernes (Paris, 1835), pp. 294– 295. Francesco Domenico Prato, Lettera all’Illustrissim, pp. 11–12. Ibid. Ferdinando Pinelli, Storia militare di Piemonte, vol. 1, (1748–96) (Turin, 1854), p. 40; Paola Bianchi, Onore e mestiere: le riforme militare nel Piemonte del settecento (Turin, 2002), pp. 250. Ibid., p. 71.

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policies, and thus the region’s continuing tolerance of chivalric combat offers a healthy corrective to any assumption that the Council of Trent tolled the death knell for dueling in Italy.208 It also provides an extremely interesting paradox. Scholars generally agree that Piedmont was the only early modern Italian state that managed to create a successful absolutist government, complete with a reliable service nobility, a centralized bureaucracy, and an efficient exchequer. Yet it was also the only area where dueling, traditionally interpreted as being antithetical to the judicial prerogatives of the crown, continued to flourish. Part of this probably resulted from cultural and political proximity to France, which maintained its own dueling culture as it built a modern state, but it also reflected the importance of the military mindset of the house of Savoy as it carved out an independent policy and polity in the shadow of Europe’s great powers. Combining the image of a warrior-king with the physical reality of a fortified state and capital, Piedmont’s princes created its “absolutist revolution” with military motives in mind, and expected its nobility to offer up their talent and blood to the purpose. Having secured political, social, and economic success through continuous intervention in the continent’s wars, the dynasty, which raised itself to royal status in 1719, committed itself during the eighteenth century to strengthening its military machine. In order to keep pace with the need for officers in an expanding permanent army that by 1744 was 50,000 strong, the government sold large numbers of letters-of-patent to nascent nobles and allowed wealthy and ambitious commoners to enter the officer corps.209 This was a perfect blend for the stimulation of the dueling ethic. The regime promoted a warrior ethic among its elites, for whom the carrying of swords was a critical privilege, and then mixed their social provenance. Within the army, it only made sense that the dueling ethic offered a common ground of honor to officers of new and old extraction, all the while projecting a symbolic theater of controlled combat which perhaps became increasingly important as the regime entered a long period of peace afer 1748. The need for such a mechanism may well have been bolstered by the constant presence of foreign soldiers and even regiments, which, as Bianchi has demonstrated, circulated through the Piedmontese military machine.210 Providing critical information on technical innovations elsewhere on the continent, they may also have offered a source of extra intramural friction and, more importantly, reinforcement of the dueling ethic from regions where it was generally more common than in Italy. As for the rest of society, the limitation of transmission of offices to only one generation

208 209

210

Hanlon, The Twilight, p. 348. By the 1790s some one third of the officer corps may have been of non-noble extraction. Hanlon, Early Modern Italy, pp. 271–282. Especially revealing in this regard are Bianchi’s charts describing the social provenance of candidates to Turin’s artillery school in 1776 and 1787, Onore e mestiere, pp. 172–177. According to one rule, no more than one in every eight soldiers could be of foreign origin, although of course this did not apply to the entire regiments hired on a contract basis. Bianchi, Onore e mestiere, pp. 78–88.

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inclined elite families to keep a steady rotation of their offspring into different sectors of public service, including the military, thus assuring wider circulation of the dueling ethic beyond the army.211 Meanwhile, albeit perhaps unwittingly, the crown gained the pacifying functions of the point of honor as it sought to control faida and vendetta, yet maintained its harsh anti-dueling laws and countervailing royal pardons as a means of setting limits to the ritual violence. Unfortunately a history of the duel in eighteenth-century Piedmont has yet to be written, but there is some indication that most duelists, and particularly those in the military, could expect less than severe penalties, usually entailing short term confinement in one of the state’s many fortresses.212 Having created a court and an army saturated with honor, the advantages of the duel to the state at least indirectly outweighed the costs of trying to bring it to an end. As in other absolutist states, such as France and Prussia, the duel maintained its exalted position among Piedmont’s aristocrats and this stood in stark contrast to the rest of Italy. It would also come to play an important later when Piedmont extended it army and its traditions to the rest of united Italy.

Conclusion The emergence of the duel in the Renaissance adumbrated many of the themes that would mark its resurgence during the nineteenth century. First, it would be driven by the search for legitimacy among elites in a period of rapid political and social change. Second, that search would in part be cast in terms of the autodefinition of status as competing claims of privilege and power were played out in the public sphere. Thus, adherence to the chivalric code of honor provided a means of demarcating an individual’s nobility in the sixteenth century just as it would help define one’s position as a member of the “civil class” in the nineteenth. Third, the very need for a code which, once free of its juridical roots, demanded extra-legal regulation would combine with the opportunities of print capitalism to create a proliferation of competing treatises each offering the “true” path to honor. In both cases, these “experts” were able to draw on a mythical past bolstered by a literary tradition of medieval courtly gestures that was deeply engrained in Italian society. Moreover, the treatises of both epochs would promote the duel while simultaneously calling for its strict limitation to the proper people and causes, offering as well a variety of strategies that could lead to pacification rather than combat. Finally, the new ethos stressed martial courage as the key to masculine honor, but also embraced civility and self-control as critical components of being a gentleman. 211 212

Hanlon, Early Modern Italy, p. 278. Pinelli discusses how legislative attempts to inflict more serious and dishonorable punishments, such as whipping by the executioner, were rejected during the reorganization of the army in 1776. Pinelli, Storia militare di Piemonte, 1:40. After the Restoration the Fenestrelle was well known as a place for punishing duelists and this probably went well back into the previous century.

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Yet Italy’s nineteenth –century passion for the duel would not emerge from an unbroken tradition. The power of the counter-reformation and the demilitarization of the nobility combined to drain the ritual of its energy, and in most of the Italy’s states it virtually disappeared. However, its decline proved to be something of a two edged sword. Foreign commentators (as we have seen with Morrison, Lassels, Dallington, and Sharpe) often attributed high rates of personal violence in Italy to the fact that gentlemen failed to face each other on the field of honor, an opinion apparently legitimized by no less an authority than Jeremy Bentham. 213 Anachronistically underwritten by the popularity of Machiavelli’s assertions of princely deception, daggers and poison became the common descriptors of action among Italian men, and one English critic inveighed against “O Italy, the Academie of manslaughter, the sporting place of murther, the Apothecary shop of poyson for all Nations: how many kinds of weapons hast thou invented for malice?”214 Nor had things improved much by the time Rousseau claimed in his Nouveau Héloise that “At Messina or Naples, one waits for his man at the corner of a street and stabs him from behind. That’s what they call being brave in that country… ”215 Such unfortunate images could be mixed with foreign misapprehension of cicisbeismo – the custom of married women being paid constant court by a favorite gallant – to suggest that eighteenth-century Italian nobles were fecklessly unconcerned with protecting the morality of their wives.216 Certainly travelers other than Boswell must have gone off on the Grand Tour with the explicit hope of availing themselves of such easy society.217 It was just this perceived combination of sexual nonchalance and dishonorable perfidy in Sharpe’s Letters from Italy that led Giuseppe Baretti to proclaim angrily that at least the Piedmontese “mix in intercourse exactly after the manner of the French and the English, and the Piedmontese weapon in deciding sudden quarrels is the sword … and not the dagger.”218 The burden of such negative stereotypes might have been relatively light in the eighteenth century, but as Italy became caught up in the greater game of Napoleonic expansion, they would help spark a return to earlier forms of honorable combat. The whole science of chivalry as it developed in Italy had gone on to influence the rest of Europe, much of which would maintain a closer relationship

213 214 215

216 217 218

Filippo Rizzi, Osservazioni sul duello lette nell’Accademia Pontaniana in una tornata del 1835 (Naples, 1836), p. 22, refers to Bentham’s Trattati di legislazione civile e penale. Thomas Nash, Pierce Penilesse: His Supplication to the Devil (London, 1592), p. 18. Thanks to Andrea Branchi for providing this dramatic source. Lettre LVII, quoted in Fougeroux, Histoire de duels, pp. 289–290. Also see John Walter Stoye, English Travellers Abroad and their Influence in English Society and Politics: 1604–1667 (London, 1952), pp. 109–110. On the lack of jealousy in Italy see Smollett, Travels, pp. 230–231; De Brosses, Lettres Familières, pp. 843–844; Brydone, Viaggio in Sicilia e Malta, pp. 211–212. James Boswell, Boswell on the Grand Tour: Italy, Corsica, and France, ed. Frank Brady and Frederick A. Pottle (New York, 1955), pp. 15–17, 30. Baretti, An Account, p. 124.

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to the duel. As Billaçois would say for France, Italy provided two critical components for the development of the cult of honor: “a technique for single combat (fencing) and a juridico-ethical corpus (scienza cavalleresca).”219 Eventually, France would return the favor as its revolutionary armies brought new concepts of citizenship as well as a mass attempt to militarize the Italians; in so doing they would reawaken the dueling tradition by both example and provocation. By the same token, Italians after unity would be able to refer back with patriotic pride to a time when their country had taught the world how to put honor on the point of a sword.

219

Billacois, The Duel, p. 18. Many thanks to Dr. Margherita Breccia Fratadocchi and her staff in the manuscripts and rare book room at the Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale in Rome, which houses the dueling collection of Baron Giorgio Enrico Levi. In Leuven, Belgium, thanks are owed to Chris Coopens and Guido Cloet who facilitated my use of the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven’s special collection on fencing originally donated by Archibald H. Corbel. Likewise gratitude goes to the Interlibrary Loan Office of Loyola College in Maryland and especially Peggy Feild, who went above and beyond the norm to get materials from far and wide. For assistance with translations, I have to thank Pier Massimo Forni, Kelly DeVries, Joe Walsh, Leslie Morgan, and especially Giuliana Risso Robberto. Other forms of help came from Claudio Donati, Inge Botteri, Carlo Mozzarelli, Marco Cavina, Giancarlo Angelozzi, Andrea Branchi, Renata Ago, Maria Nadia Covina, Claudio Povolo, Geoffrey Symcox, Gergory Hanlon, Sergio Morara, Antonio Merendoni, Pietro Del Negro, Oscar di Simplicio, Edward Muir, Pieter Spierenburg, Andrea Merlotti and Paola Bianchi. The orgininal funding came from a Fulbright senior research grant in Rome, and much additional support came from Loyola College in Maryland. Special thanks to Prof. Cliff Rogers whose keen-eyed, multilingual, copy editing is a credit to the enterprise.

“A Lying Legacy” Revisited: The Abels-Morillo Defense of Discontinuity Bernard S. Bachrach*

In their recent “Preliminary Discussion of Images of Antiquity and Altered Reality in Medieval Military History,” Richard Abels and Stephen Morillo suggest that some modern scholars have been seriously misled by the authors of various early medieval narrative texts. These authors, writing in Latin, often use traditional Roman military terminology and even incorporate imperial ideas about warfare into their narratives when describing operations undertaken by medieval commanders. The fundamental thesis presented by Abels and Morillo is that there was little continuity with regard to materia militaria in the West from the later Roman empire into what earlier generations of historians termed the “Dark Ages.” In postulating this thesis, Abels and Morillo ignore what has come to be the dominant pattern of periodization, i.e. the Late Antique, which is supposed to have lasted from c. A.D. 300 or even earlier to c. A.D. 1000 and perhaps even later. As will be seen below, this new construction of Western periodization, at least in regard to the continental mainland of the western half of the Roman empire, is seen by most specialists in this field as a viable replacement for the once dominant but now untenable “Dark Ages,” which often has been dominated by a racialist-motivated notion of Germanentum. The construction of Germanentum itself frequently resulted in the serious misrepresentation of early medieval texts.1 Not having heeded the Late Antique construct, Abels and Morillo are misled with regard to a broad spectrum of fundamental continuities from the later Roman empire to the early Middle Ages. With regard to military matters, they view the terminology and descriptions of command structures, tactics, mobilization, and strategy originally found in the works of Roman writers and subsequently used, however carefully, by medieval writers, as merely a pedantic

* 1

I would like to thank Clifford Rogers for his very helpful comments on this paper. For the most recent exposé of the ways in which the construction of Germanentum resulted in the misuse of later Roman and early medieval texts, see Walter Goffart, Barbarian Tides: The Migration Age and the Later Roman Empire (Philadelphia, 2006); and the brilliant article by Alexander Callander Murray, “Reinhard Wenskus on ‘Ethnogenesis.’ Ethnicity and the Origin of the Franks,” in On Barbarian Identity: Critical Approaches to Ethnicity in the Early Middle Ages, ed. Andrew Gillett (Turnhout, 2002), pp. 39–68. Many of the other essays in this volume also demonstrate the crude distortations inherent in the Germanentum-construct.

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show of erudition by the latter. Abels and Morillo see the use by these medieval authors of allusions to behavior previously attributed to Roman commanders as having no relation to what actually happened during the early Middle Ages or was happening with regard to their own contemporary reality or the recent past about which they wrote. Initially, Abels and Morillo try to make this case through a single extended example, i.e. John of Worcester’s treatment of the battles of Sherston and Ashingdon in the eleventh century where Edmund Ironside commanded the Anglo-Saxon army. The careful choices John made, presumably for the purpose of casting light on Edmund’s efforts, in editing and integrating material drawn from Sallust are rejected as having no value for understanding early eleventh century Anglo-Saxon military operations in general or the king’s efforts in particular. This thoroughgoing rejection of John’s effort regarding the early eleventh century is made despite the fact that Abels and Morillo recognize that the Worcester chronicler did very carefully edit Sallust’s work and substituted, where necessary, terms and ideas that would likely make sense to his readers while at the same time editing out anachronisms, although the word lancea, which John substitutes for pilum, should be translated in this context as spear not “lance.”2 Abels and Morillo fail to examine, even briefly, Anglo-Saxon weapons, tactics, and deployment techniques of the early eleventh century, which is the period about which John is writing. Nevertheless, they argue that “it is inherently less likely” that “Edmund Ironsides actually fought and commanded like a first century B.C. Roman general” than that John merely created a false impression of such similarity by writing like a first century B.C. Roman historian.3 This approach to John’s methods results, in my opinion, in a serious misrepresentation of his carefully edited treatment of the material that he borrowed from Sallust. Those, however, who accept what I consider a caricature of John’s methods – does Edmund really look like Julius Caesar? – presented by Abels and Morillo, should note that they have nothing to say regarding how a first century B.C. Roman general actually commanded and fought.4 Abels and Morillo, having presented no relevant information regarding the two key periods at issue, and having assumed that John is unlikely to have had available information regarding the early eleventh century that was more detailed than that found in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, would seem to doubt that he was in a position to know the differences between Roman Republican military activities and those of the later Anglo-Saxons.5 2 3 4

5

Richard Abels and Stephen Morillo, “A Lying Legacy. A Preliminary Discussion of Images of Antiquity and Altered Reality in Medieval Military History,” JMMH 3 (2004), 1–13. “A Lying Legacy,” p. 3, for the quotation. It is perhaps indicative of Abels and Morillo’s failure to understand the Romans, when they observe (“A Lying Legacy,” p. 11), “Orderic does not imply that milites never quarrel (which might be the expectation if indeed they were part of a military machine run according to principles of Roman organization and discipline) … “ (my italics). What specialist in Roman military history or Roman writer deals in such absurd stereotypes? Stephen Morillo, Warfare under the Anglo-Norman Kings, 1066–1135 (Woodbridge, Suffolk, 1994), p. 118, n. 89, presented a somewhat different view when he observed that the Romans worked out certain military principles, such as “camping, centralised distribution of supplies,

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Perhaps John was better read in classical literature and understood Roman institutions more thoroughly than Abels and Morillo believe. Indeed, John also may have been better informed regarding Anglo-Saxon warfare than our two authors. For example, the Anglo-Saxon “select fyrd” was still functioning during John’s lifetime.6 Yet, he is dismissed as being interested only “to demonstrate his familiarity with a classical authority then in vogue.”7 This seems to be an overly narrow and, indeed, simplistic estimate of John’s motives. In this context, the reader should be aware that writers of history in the regnum Francorum as well as those of the eleventh and twelfth century on the mainland, presumably as compared with John of Worcester, pursued agendas that were far more sophisticated than simple personal aggrandizement.8 Abels and Morillo demonstrate to their own satisfaction that John of Worcester was driven by a single purpose, vanity, and only by vanity.9 If they are correct, it must be noted that vanity was a serious sin even for writers of the AngloNorman period in England. Abels and Morillo, however, provide no evidence that contemporaries condemned John for his vanity or even that they thought that he was motivated by vanity. Rather, on the basis of a brief treatment of a selection of dubious examples (see below), Abels and Morillo argue that those sources which use anachronistic terminology likely are “misleading.” They assert that “when classical episodes and motifs appear, they can be “more or less totally discounted.”10 In this context, Abels and Morillo would seem to share

6

7

8

9

10

maintenance of discipline, providing an exercise area for men and horses” (many more could be added) which are “such basic common sense measures that any intelligent general … would have been able to work them out independently.” Morillo’s argument, supported by Abels (Abels and Morillo, “A Lying Legacy,” p. 10, n. 37) seems to imply that the Anglo-Saxons and the Romans of the Republican era shared a great deal, but whatever they shared, our authors insist that the Anglo-Saxons could have discovered these items for themselves without any help from history, and any effort by a historian such as John of Worcester to call attention to such similarities may have a “distorting” effect. See Bernard S. Bachrach, “William Rufus’s Plan for the Invasion of the Mainland in 1101,” in The Normans and their Adversaries: Studies in Honor of C. Warren Hollister, ed. Bernard S. Bachrach and Richard Abels (Woodbridge, Suffolk, 2001), pp. 31–63. “A Lying Legacy,” p. 3. See, however, n. 8, where Abels and Morillo ask three crucial questions, which, had they answered them, might have led them not to rely solely upon speculation regarding John’s vanity as the cause for his behavior. For a different view of the Worcester historian, see James Campbell, “Some Twelfth-Century Views of the Anglo-Saxon Past,” in James Campbell, Essays in Anglo-Saxon History (London–Ronceverte, 1986), pp. 209, 213, 214, 219. See the excellent study by Matthew Innes and Rosamond McKitterick, “The Writing of History,” in Carolingian Culture: Emulation and Innovation, ed. Rosamond McKitterick (Cambridge, 1994), pp. 193–220. Concerning the highly complex and nuanced motivations of the writers of history in the regnum Francorum, see Rosamond Mckitterick, History and its Audiences (Cambridge, 2000). In regard to Norman historians, see Emily Albu, The Normans in their Histories: Propaganda, Myth and Subversion (Woodbridge, Suffolk, 2001). “A Lying Legacy,” p. 6. Exactly what is meant by “more or less totally discounted” is not clear. Are they waffling?

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some of the views of Timothy Reuter, a vigorous adherent of minimalism, who asserted that “it was accident rather than design that so much of the literature of classical antiquity was preserved by the clerics of the Carolingian era.”11 Reuter recognizes, however, that the Carolingian minuscule, developed during the later eighth century period, was suitable for “an extensive and self-evident use of writing in administrative and intellectual life.” Contrary to the dominant theme of “imitatio imperii” in early medieval historiography (see below), Reuter fails to see this classical learning as having a serious impact on government administration in general or military matters in particular.12 According to Abels and Morillo, some modern scholars (they chose to name three: Bernard Bachrach, Charles Bowlus, and Karl-Ferdinand Werner) have been led astray by the so-called “lying” sources. Thus, Bachrach et al. are characterized as judging that there were very broad elements of continuity in military matters from the later Roman period to the early Middle Ages. They are chided for believing that early medieval authors, who use later Roman Latin terminology and descriptions, even when appropriately edited and molded to a new context, have value for understanding the contemporary reality of the later writers.13 Since I have been identified, thusly, as a naive victim of the so-called “Lying Legacy,” I am very pleased to thank the editors of The Journal of Medieval Military History for providing me with an opportunity to respond to the arguments presented by Abels and Morillo. I am assuming, of course, that Abels and Morillo merely believe that I am naive, because they make it clear that they recognize that I am not ignorant. Indeed, their citation of numerous of my works also makes clear that both referees for books and editors of various journals have found my work worthy of publication. It seems, as well, that they give me more benefit of the doubt than they allow to early medieval authors, and do not suspect that there is something more sinister in my work such as the intentional perversion of the truth for some as yet unidentified windfall of personal gain or perhaps the pursuit of some subversive imperialist agenda. Abels and Morillo depict those of us who they believe have been led astray by the supposedly “distorting” early medieval authors as “Roman continuity maximilists” because we reject the notion that most of Late Roman ways of operating in the military sphere were swept away by the dissolution of imperial political authority in Gaul during the late fifth century.14 Another possible label, 11

12 13

14

Timothy Reuter, Germany in the Early Middle Ages, 800–1056 (London-New York, 1991), p. 39, and for the general sentiment, see idem, “Carolingian and Ottonian Warfare,” in Medieval Warfare: A History, ed. Maurice Keen (Oxford, 1999), pp. 19–21. See the very negative review of the latter work by Bernard S. Bachrach, in Journal of International History 22 (2000), 886– 890. Reuter, Germany in the Early Middle Ages, p. 41, for the quotation, and passim for a lack of appreciation of the impact of classical learning on Germany in the early Middle Ages. However, as noted above, Abels and Morillo, “A Lying Legacy,” p. 3, admit the possibility that John of Worcester may have got some things right regarding contemporary military matters in the course of editing Sallust. Still, their overall view is better illustrated by the observation (p. 6) that “when classical episodes and motifs appear, they can be more or less totally discounted.” “A Lying Legacy,” p. 7.

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implied but not used explicitly by Abels and Morillo, would be “Germanic minimalists.” This would be absolutely correct in that Bowlus, Werner, and I do see the supposed “barbarian” or “Germanic” element in the regnum Francorum in general, and in military matters in particular, to be of relatively little significance. In short, we reject the corrupt and corrupting Germanentum-construct, mentioned above. This appreciation of my work and that of both Bowlus and Werner accurately captures what I concluded in 1972: “As with much else in Merovingian Gaul, the military reflects Romania rather than Germania.”15 Professors Abels and Morillo, by contrast, are “Roman continuity minimalists” or more pointedly “barbarian” or “Germanic maximalists.” It is important to emphasize, in this context, that it is very difficult if not impossible to adhere to a Germanic maximalist position without subscribing, at the least, to key aspects of the Germanentum-construct. Indeed, Alexander Murray, while pointing out the widespread nature of the deleterius Germanentum-construct, discusses its spread among Anglo-Saxonists and indicates that Abels’ work “is notable for its appeal also to the German theory of the king’s free.”16 It seems to me not unfair to go even a step further and suggest the possibility that Abels and Morillo are doctrinaire continuity minimalists. I make this tentative suggestion because they make no serious effort to identify medieval writers, who they believe accurately related what they knew of the Roman world to contemporary situations with regard to military matters. As a corollary, they do not seem to have tried to identify any medieval military commander who benefited from information that was made available either directly through the copy or preservation of Roman manuscripts or indirectly by his access either to medieval writers or his own advisers who studied these texts.17 The views of Abels and Morillo are best represented by their observation, “when classical episodes and motifs appear, they can be more or less totally discounted … ”18 15 16 17

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Merovingian Military Organization (Minneapolis, 1972), p. 128, for the quotation. See the works cited above in note 1, and particularly Murray, “Reinhard Wenskus on ‘Ethnogenesis’,” p. 67, n. 99, for the quotation. In trying to overturn the consensus among the early medieval military historians whom they have identified, Abels and Morillo, “A Lying Legacy?” p. 4, recognize that that they cannot make “an exhaustive survey of all the possible evidence” and claim that they “will examine a few selected and representative pieces of evidence in order to make a point about the evidence as a whole.” (My italics.) The notion that the information that they selected is “representative” of anything other than their parti pris is, at best, tendentious. For example, from the six volumes of Ordericus’s Ecclesiastical History, they opportunistically select three examples that would seem to maintain their position, but only if one follows their interpretation of the texts in question. For a methodologically sound approach to narrative sources which results in a balanced treatment of the value of the source for the study of medieval military history, see three articles by Bernard S. Bachrach, “Dudo of Saint Quentin as a Military Historian,” The Haskins Society Journal: Studies in Medieval History 12 (2002 appeared in 2003), 155–185; “Dudo of Saint Quentin’s Views on Religion and Warfare, ca. 1000. A mise au point,” in Foi chrétienne et églises dans la société de l’Occident du Haut Moyen Âge (IVe–XIIe siècle), eds. Jacqueline Hoareau-Dodinau and Pascal Texier (Limoges, 2004), pp. 241–252; and “Dudo of Saint Quentin and Norman Military Strategy,” Anglo-Norman Studies 26 (2004), 21–36. “A Lying Legacy,” p. 6.

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By contrast, in order to demonstrate that I am not doctrinaire in such matters, I am willing to admit that not all medieval commanders were privy to useful information from the Roman past. Indeed, I am also willing to admit that those medieval military commanders who were informed about the Roman past did not always apply information regarding what they had learned from the past in every case. Moreover, I even recognize that there were cases in which a chronicler was well-informed regarding what was done during the Roman past and that he described his principal using such information, when it is likely that the latter either did not have such information or if he had such information he did not use it in the particular context at issue. Indeed, it may be said in regard to such a case that the chronicler lied. From a methodological perspective, it is incumbent upon modern scholars, who deal with these narratives, to ascertain which chroniclers “lied” and which chroniclers did not lie, and, more explicitly, in which particular contexts they lied and in which particular contexts they did not lie. In a preliminary observation, I would suggest that when we ascertain that a particular chronicler “lied” in a particular context, the reasons why he “lied” must be identified and often are very complex. For example, the chronicler may even have been motivated by the expectation that his audience supposed that an effective military leader was, in fact, using tactics or strategy informed by Roman ideas. Surely, an effective military leader who patronized such a “lying” chronicler must be thought to have approved of having been described as using Roman tactics and strategy.19 In terms of method, the opportunistic selection of a particular example of socalled “lying,” like pointing out that one or another chronicler exaggerated the size of an army, means only that the particular bit of information at issue is to be rejected as not representing accurately the actions of one or another military commander. The wholesale rejection of an immense corpus of information, or even the work of a particular author on the basis of a few scattered examples, much less on the basis a single example, is unsound. Added to the problem, in the present case, is that Abels and Morillo have opportunistically selected their examples in order to make an argument rather than reviewing, for example, the work of a single author to establish a balanced method for the evaluation of a source.20 19

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These methodological questions are discussed in a preliminary manner with relevant scholarly literature by Bernard S. Bachrach, “The Practical Use of Vegetius’ De Re Militari during the Early Middle Ages,” The Historian 47 (1985), 239–255; and reprinted in Bernard S. Bachrach, Warfare and Military Organization in Pre-Crusade Europe (London, 2002), with the same pagination. Abels and Morillo, “A Lying Legacy,” pp. 5–6, provide an interesting case in this context. They laud William of Poitiers for rejecting the information provided by Julius Caesar regarding his invasion of Britain as a model for Duke William’s effort. However, they do indicate that they are “suspicious” because the chronicler claims that the Norman ruler became separated from his fleet as did Caesar. Abels and Morillo would seem to have forgotten that the duke’s troop and horse transports were equipped with sails but lacked oars, while William’s ship was rowed and also was equipped with sails. As a result, the Norman duke’s vessel could move much faster than the transports. See Bernard S. Bachrach, “On the Origins of William the Conqueror’s

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In addition to employing a suspect methodology, Abels and Morillo follow an earlier view expressed by the latter, who would seem to have misconstrued suggestions by some modern scholars regarding the abilities of early medieval commanders, who, it has been argued, learned from the Roman past how better to conduct military operations. Morillo claims that “the assumption that medieval generals depended widely on classical sources, especially Vegetius, seems to denigrate their intelligence.”21 On the contrary, many scholars see the tendency to rely on books to learn from the past to be a sign not only of individual intelligence, in particular, but of social and intellectual progress, in general.22 Morillo, by contrast, places a great deal of faith in “common sense,” and the reader would seem to be encouraged to infer that common sense is to be preferred to formal education when understanding how early medieval commanders were trained.23 Indeed, many continuity minimalists, sunk in the mire of Germanentum, are wont to believe that illiterate Germanic warriors, especially as leaders of Beowulfianstyle comitatus, commanded the main fighting forces of the early Middle Ages (see below). Throughout the history of the West, Greeks, Romans, Byzantines, early modern Europeans, and even modern Europeans and Americans have made the study of military history and theory a fundamental aspect of the training required for would-be officers. Those who subscribe to a primitivist model of society, consistent with notions of a Dark Age dominated by the Germanentum-construct, which focuses on radical discontinuity, are not inclined to espouse a position of significant continuity between the later Roman empire and the early Middle Ages, in which early medieval generals learned in a manner similar to that of their laterRoman predecessors.24

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Horse Transports,” Technology and Culture 26 (1985), 505–531; and reprinted in Bernard S. Bachrach, Warfare and Military Organization in Pre-Crusade Europe (London, 2002), with the same pagination. William of Poitiers’ account of the Norman invasion is in need of detailed study, and I hope to provide one in the near future. Concerning the misuse of occasionally untenable numbers and the proper methods to be pursued in dealing with such texts, see Bernard S. Bachrach, “Early Medieval Military Demography: Some Observations on the Methods of Hans Delbrück,” in The Circle of War, ed. Donald Kagay and L. J. Andrew Villalon (Woodbridge, Suffolk, 1999), pp. 3–20. Morillo, Warfare under the Anglo-Norman Kings, p. 118, n. 89, which is accepted by Abels and Morillo, “A Lying Legacy,” p. 10, n. 37. Representative of this view is Alexander Murray, Reason and Society in the Middle Ages, corrected edition (Oxford, 1986), pp. 110–137, who emphasizes the importance of learning from books to control the present and to plan for the future. See esp. pp. 127–130, with regard to Vegetius and military matters. Morillo, Warfare under the Anglo-Norman Kings, p. 118. Michael Richter, The Formation of the Medieval West. Studies in the Oral Culture of the Barbarians (Dublin, 1994), provides a classic example of a Roman minimalist defender dedicated to the Germanentum-construct. Richter assumes that oral and written cultures are mutually exclusive and that primitive societies, such as that of the regnum Francorum, by definition lack a written culture. Among the Carolingians, he is willing to recognize that there was an elite clerical culture, but asserts that this did not have an impact of any significance upon the secular

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It seems to me perverse that an impression should be left that during the early Middle Ages book-learning in the highly sophisticated areas of strategy, military operations (including logistics), and tactics was not used, at least to complement common sense, or perhaps even the other way round. Frontinus, a classical author, whose work was well-known to the Carolingians,25 advocates book learning and the extrapolation of such information into new situations. Perhaps this is what Morillo regards as “common sense”? Frontinus observed that from reading books “Commanders will be equipped with examples of good planning and foresight.” He emphasized that “this knowledge will [help them] to develop their own ability to think out and carry out operations successfully that are similar in nature [to those that they have studied].” Frontinus goes on to note that “the commander” who is so educated “will have an added benefit insofar as he will not be worried concerning the likelihood for the success of his plans because he has learned that similar plans have already worked in practice.”26

The Abels-Morillo Methodology On the whole, along with Werner and Bowlus, I have studied and emphasized continuity in military matters, among a great many other aspects of early medieval society, in the context of the transition from later Roman Gaul to the regnum Francorum. Thus, I find it somewhat bizarre, not to mention methodologically problematic, to have my argument that there were strong, indeed, very strong, tendencies toward continuity on the mainland criticized on the basis of the kind of information that Abels and Morillo provide. This information, by and large, concerns later Anglo-Saxon and early Anglo-Norman England. Abels and Morillo employ their speculations concerning the supposed lack of attention to Roman

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world. Here he sees things much in the same way as Reuter. For a clear understanding of the issues regarding the interaction of orality and written culture, as well as a fundamental elucidation of role of Latin in everyday life at the administrative, legal, and religious levels, not only in the western parts of the regnum Francorum but also in Francia orientalis, see Rosamond McKitterick, “Latin and Romance: an Historian Perspective,” in Latin and Romance Languages in the Early Middle Ages, ed. Roger Wright (London, 1991), pp. 130–145; and “The Written Word and Oral Communication: Rome’s Legacy to the Franks,” in Latin Culture and Medieval German Europe, eds. Richard North and Tette Hofstra, Germania Latina 1 (1992), 89–112. Both have been reprinted with the same pagination in Rosamond McKitterick, The Frankish Kings and Culture in the Early Middle Ages (Aldershot, Hants, 1995). L. D. Reynolds, “Frontinus, Strategemata,” in Texts and Transmission: A Survey of the Latin Calssics, ed. L. D. Reynolds (Oxford, 1993), 171–174. The oldest surviving manuscript is British Library, Harley 2666, which was copied in Francia during the second quarter of ninth century. I hope in the future to write a study of the use of Frontinus’s work by the Carolingians. Frontinus, Strategemata, I.1 (De Iuli Frontini strategematon libro qui fertur quarto [Leipzig, 1888]).

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military texts by Alfred the Great (d.899) and the behavior of Edmund Ironsides in 1016 as relevant, for example, to our understanding of the reigns of Charlemagne (768–814) or even his grandson Charles the Bald (840–877).27 On the chronological plane, this method surely must be considered beyond even a post-modernist’s sense of what constitutes the sequential nature of evidence to demonstrate cause and effect.28 In the marketplace of ideas, it might seem to some that Abels and Morillo have employed the technique of “bait and switch.” Thus, I would suggest that the watch words “caveat lector” are relevant here. Readers should be aware that when late Anglo-Saxon material is used by “German maximalists” to criticize arguments concerning continuity between later Roman Gaul and the regnum Francorum during the first century or so of Carolingian rule, something may well be amiss.29 Abels and Morillo begin their critique of so-called “continuity maximalists,” such as myself, with a rather commonplace but essentially unexceptionable observation: “how we read the military terminology depends crucially on how we conceptualize the economic, social and administrative worlds that produced the armed forces … “ They continue in this vein, again quite correctly, when they observe that it is a “given that armies are shaped by the worlds that produce them, reflecting the material capabilities and cultures of these worlds.” However,

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Abels and Morillo, “A Lying Legacy,” p. 4, quote my observation regarding the maintenance of various continuities from the later Roman empire into the later Middle Ages. However, in the observation they quote, I say nothing about classical literary sources or their use. When they do focus on my work in relation to the use of classical sources (p. 6, n. 7), they treat material that I developed on the early Carolingians. In order to cast doubt on the meaningfulness of the Carolingian use of the term legio, they cite a comment by John France, “The Composition and Raising of the Armies of Charlemagne,” in Journal of Medieval Military History 1 (2002), p. 73, who points out that while one Carolingian source uses scarae another uses legiones. Following France (n. 73), Abels and Morillo would have their readers believe that this is evidence for the misuse of classical terminology. Neither France nor Abels and Morillo cite, in this context, much less refute, my observations (Bachrach, Early Carolingian Warfare, pp. 81–82), where it is shown that writers connected to Charlemagne’s court used the terms legio and scara as synonyms to indicate a force of professional soldiers connected to the king’s obsequium and juxtaposed these to select levies, which were a militia force. Note that Abels and Morillo, “A Lying Legacy,” p. 7, note 21, cite work by Werner and Bowlus that deals with the Carolingians and Ottonian eras. They also call attention to my work on Fulk Nerra, 987–1040, but none of this work treats Anglo-Saxon England. Moreover, only my work on the Carolingians is singled out for detailed discussion. The works of Bowlus and Werner are generally ignored, after their initial notice. The all-inclusive nature of Germanentum, which, for example, permits the use of thirteenthcentury Icelandic sources to be used for the purpose of “reconstructing” early medieval “Germanic” institutions, often lurks in the shadows when chronological sequences are not given their due. In addtion to the works cited in note 1, above, see “Translators’ Introduction,” pp. xvii–xxxix, in Otto Brunner, Land and Lordship: Structures of Governance in Medieval Austria, translated with an introduction by Howard Kaminsky and James Van Horn Melton (Philadelphia, 1994), where it is shown that supposed early medieval institutions such as Hausherrschaft (house lordship) and Herrschaft (lordship) are “autogenic” concepts not based on the sources but “generated out of the masturbatory Germanic mystique that seemed intensely ‘relevant’ in the 1930s” (p. xxxii).

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Abels and Morillo go on to assert that “armies and warfare, so central to the narrative sources for early medieval history, are by their very centrality a large part [my italics] of the evidence we have for the economic, social and administrative capabilities of those worlds.”30 This last assertion, however, is exceptionable in regard to the nature of the available sources concerning the mainland of Western Europe during the early Middle Ages. Indeed, it is simply wrong. In regard to the regnum Francorum, the narrative sources concerning “the economic, social and administrative worlds that produced the armed forces” constitute only a small and not very significant part of the entire corpus of material that provides information on these subjects.31 It is perhaps unfair to criticize specialists in English history with regard to their lack of timely knowledge concerning mainland sources and scholarship.32 However, on the basis of their inaccurate characterization of the corpus of information provided by the early medieval sources regarding the mainland, Abels and Morillo assert: “In this situation, pervasive classical terminology creates a great danger of tautology.” They follow up this observation with a straw man of 30 31

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“A Lying Legacy,” p. 6. The bibliography dealing with “the economic, social and administrative worlds” of the regnum Francorum is immense and does not depend on narrative sources but on documents such as polyptychs, capitularies, law codes, consiliar enactments, and charters. Indeed, with regard to administrative and economic history the documents are given support by archaeological and numismatic evidence. See, for example, F. L. Ganshof, Recherches sur les Capitulaires (Paris, 1958); Karl Ferdinand Werner, “Missus-Marchio-Comes. Entre l’administration centrale et l’administration locale de l’Empire carolingien,” in Histoire comparée de l’administration (IVe–XXVIIe siècles), ed. Werner Paravicini and Karl Ferdinand Werner (Munich, 1980), pp. 191–239; Pierre Devroey, “Les méthodes d’analyse démographique des polyptyques du haut moyen âge,” Acta Historia Bruxellensia 4 (1981), 71–88; idem, “Les premiers polyptyques rémois, VIIe–IX siècles,” in Le grand domaine aux époques mérovingienne et carolingienne. Actes du colloque international Gand 1983, ed. A. Verhulst (Ghent, 1985), pp. 78–97; idem, “The Economy,” in The Early Middle Ages: Europe 400–1000, ed. Rosamond McKitterick (Oxford, 2001), pp. 97–129; several works by Adriaan Verhulst, “Economic Organization,” in The New Cambridge Medieval History, c. 700–c. 900 II, ed. Rosamond McKitterick (Cambridge, 1995), pp. 481–509; “The Origins of Towns in the Low Countries and the Pirenne Thesis,” Past and Present 122 (1989), 3–35; The Rise of Cities in North-West Europe (Cambridge, 1999); and The Carolingian Economy (Cambridge, 2003). Concerning Carolingian trade in the Mediterranean, see the magisterial study by Michael McCormick, The Origins of the European Economy: Communications and Commerce, A.D. 300–900 (Cambridge, 2001). It is of some interest, in this context, that Richard Abels, Lordship and Military Obligation in Anglo-Saxon England (Berkeley, 1988), bases his understanding of important aspects of AngloSaxon military organization on the highly romanticized concept of the so-called Königsfreien. As Murray observed (n. 16, above), Abels’ work “is notable for its appeal also to the German theory of the king’s free.” The dubius value of the königsfreien-construct was pointed out by Franz Staab, “A Reconsideration of the Ancestry of Modern Political Liberty: The Problem of the King’s Free,” Viator 11 (1980), 57–69, on the basis of earlier critiques by German scholars. This was eight years before Abels published his Lordship and Military Obligation. Two years after Abels’ book appeared, Timothy Reuter, “The End of Carolingian Military,” in Charlemagne’s Heir: New Perspectives on the Reign of Louis the Pious (814–840) (Oxford, 1990), p. 393, cited various older German works which affirmed that the “king’s free” was a failed construction.

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their own creation: “How do we know early medieval kingdoms were administratively sophisticated? Because they produced legiones. How do we know that these legiones were up to Roman military standards? Because they were produced by administratively sophisticated governments operating on Roman models.”33

Mainland Continuity It is a cliché that specialists in English history tend to ignore the mainland. Thus, perhaps I should not continue to flog Abels and Morillo for failing to recognize the state of the question with regard to continuity between later Roman Gaul and the regnum Francorum. Nevertheless, I think it is important to make clear how those of us who study the mainland “conceptualize the economic, social and administrative worlds that produced the armed forces” which we discuss. For those unaware of the status quaestionis in regard to continuity, which Werner, Bowlus, and I share with many other specialists in the field such as Peter Brown and the late J. M. Wallace-Hadrill, it is fundamental that the various “barbarians,” including Franks, who came to dwell within the borders of Roman Gaul from the later third century forward are seen to be greatly acculturated.34 As a result, little of a once widely heralded Germanentum survived in the regnum Francorum during the early Middle Ages.35 Rather, Latin, if the pun be

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“A Lying Legacy,” p. 6. J. M. Wallace-Hadrill, The Barbarian West: 400–1000 (London, 1952), chose the periodization 400–1000 because he argued that it had “unity.” For good introductions to “the Late Antique,” see Peter Brown, The World of Late Antiquity, A.D. 150–750 (New York, 1971); and The Rise of Western Christendom: Triumph and Diversity, A.D. 200–1000 (2nd ed., Malden, MA, 2003). Of considerable importance in the establishment of the Late Antique, see the work of Glen W. Bowersock, “The Vanishing Paradigm of the Fall of Rome,” Bulletin of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences 49 (1996), 29–43; and reprinted in Glen W. Bowersock, Selected Papers on Late Antiquity (Bari, 2000), pp. 187–97, at p. 196. He certainly is on the right track when he observes: “Now, in 1995, it is probably fair to say that no responsible historian of the ancient or medieval world would want to address or acknowledge the fall of Rome as either fact or paradigm.” Bowersock saw no reason to revise this observation when this essay was reprinted five years later. It is gradually becoming clear that modern scholars are beginning to favor the construct “Late Antique,” covering a period of perhaps a half-millennium and even more which focuses on continuity and acculturation. See also, Glen W. Bowersock, “The Dissolution of the Roman Empire,” in The Collapse of Ancient Civilizations, eds. N. Yoffee and G. L. Cowgill (Tucson, 1988), pp. 165–177; and reprinted in Glen W. Bowersock, Selected Papers on Late Antiquity (Bari, 2000), pp. 175–185. Illuminating with regard to the systematic dismantling of Germanentum as a valid context for understanding early medieval history and especially the history of the regnum Francorum are two important essays published in On Barbarian Identity: Critical Approaches to Ethnicity in the Early Middle Ages, ed. Andrew Gillett (Turnhout, 2002): Walter Goffart, “Does the Distant Past Impinge on the Invasion Age Germans?”; and Alexander Callander Murray, “Reinhard Wenskus on ‘Ethnogenesis’, Ethnicity, and the Origin of the Franks,” pp. 21–39 and 39–68,

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excused, became the lingua franca of these barbarians.36 The so-called leges barbarorum, e.g. lex Salica, lex Burgundionum, and the early redactions of the leges Visigothorum, were constructed by Gallo-Roman legal experts and published in Latin.37 Indeed, these redactions are so thoroughly permeated by Roman law that it is difficult to identify very much that may be characterized in a compelling manner as “purely” Germanic.38 In this context, it should be emphasized that Charlemagne’s grandson, Charles the Bald (d.877), following Carolingian tradition, made explicit use of the Codex Theodosianus in his capitularies.39 Patterns of land tenure, such as alods, beneficia, and praecariae, and, indeed, even the much discussed terra salica also are instances of fundamental continuity. In addition, all of these have military significance in various contexts, and were established in Gaul by the imperial government under Roman law. They do not reflect ancient Frankish customs.40 In this context, it is clear that agricultural organization in Gaul during the early period of barbarian settlement was based upon Roman models dominated by great slave-worked estates, i.e. the latifundia. These forms of organization subsequently underwent substantial new development

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respectively. Matthew Innis, “Teutons or Trojans? The Carolingians and the Germanic Past,” in The Uses of the Past in the Early Middle Ages, eds. Yitzhak Hen and Michael Innis (Cambridge, 2000), 191–227, provides a very important discussion of how Germanentum was constructed at the Carolingian court and the purposes for which it was constructed. It is important to make clear that Abels, Lordship and Military Obligation, pp. 3–4, 25, 27–28, implicated himself as a supporter of some of the more bizarre Germanist theories through his acceptance of the work of Hector Munro Chadwick, The Origin of the English Nation (Cambridge, 1907). On this point, see Murray, “Reinhard Wenskus on ‘Ethnogenesis’”, p. 67, n. 99. Two works of particular importance are basic, Michel Banniard, Viva voce: communication écrite et communication orale du IVe au IXe siècle en occident Latin (Paris, 1992); and Roger Wright, Late Latin and Early Romance in Spain and Carolingian France (Liverpool, 1982). See also the effective treatment of these matters in two studies by McKitterick, “Latin and Romance: An Historian’s Perspective,” pp. 130–145; and “The Written Word and Oral Communication: Rome’s Legacy to the Franks,” pp. 89–112. Rudolf Buchner, Die Rechtsquellen (Weimar, 1953), provides a very helpful introduction. See the excellent study by Alexander Murray, Germanic Kingship Structure: Studies in Law and Society in Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages (Toronto, 1983); and the review by Bernard S. Bachrach in Speculum 60 (1985), 1003–1004. Of special importance because it focuses on family life, the putatively most enduring aspect of any culture, is Ruth Mazo Karras, “The History of Marriage and the Myth of Friedelehe,” Early Medieval Europe 14 (2006) 119–151, who shows that nothing of so-called “Germanic” laws regarding marriage survived the settlement within the borders of the Roman empire. In addition, she provides a fundamental critique of the seriously flawed methods used by “Germanists” in trying to prove the enduring nature of institutions from the Urzeit into the early Middle Ages. In a more general vein, see the summary of the literature provided by McKitterick, “The Written Word and Oral Communication: Rome’s Legacy to the Franks,” pp. 100–101. See McKitterick, “The Written Word and Oral Communication: Rome’s Legacy to the Franks,” p. 100. Concerning terra salica and the historical context of military lands along with various other tenures in the later Roman empire, early Middle Ages, and the early Byzantine empire, see Bernard S. Bachrach, “Military Lands in Historical Perspective,” Haskins Society Journal 9 (1997), 95–122.

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with the introduction of the highly productive bi-partite estate. This new form of estate organization was created in the eastern half of the later Roman empire in the fourth century and, thereafter, was implanted in the west. Like the latifundia, the bi-partite estate in no way reflected either the agricultural organization or the tenurial arrangements of the various barbarians during the period when they lived beyond the borders of the empire.41 With regard to another important aspect of economic development, it is rapidly becoming the case that specialists in later Roman history and archaeology, whom many medievalists would appear largely to have ignored, have, in recent years, seen Pirenne’s views regarding the economy in the later Roman West rather more positively. Indeed, Pirenne’s argument for continuity in Mediterranean trade well into the seventh century now is vigorously sustained by a growing group of specialists with access to an ever increasing corpus of archaeological data.42 I could add to the voices of those scholars, both in the history and archaeology of the Late Antique, who are cited in the note above. However, I will leave to Christine Delaplace the last word regarding those who continue to rely on a no-longeracceptable “Dark Age” model in regard to the mainland. She complains vigorously that “Des historiens peuvent demeurer ignorants des travaux novateurs lorsque la périod étudiée n’est pas tout à fait celle de leur spécialité.”43 With Pirenne’s views now largely intact with regard to the economy of Gaul well into the seventh century, it is now being argued that from the eighth century onward, the regnum Francorum saw an explosion in the production of goods and services and that Mediterranean trade continued to develop. Here Pirenne’s argument for the closing of mare nostrum as a result of various Moslem conquests of Christian

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See the breakthrough study by Peter Sarris, “The Origins of the Manorial Economy: New Insights from Late Antiquity,” English Historical Review, 119 (2004), 280–311. With regard to the importance of the bi-partite estate to positive economic developments in the west, see numerous studies by Verhulst: “Economic Organization,” pp. 481–509; “The ‘Agricultural Revolution’ of the Middle Ages Reconsidered,” pp. 17–28; and The Carolingian Economy (Cambridge, 2002). See also Jean-Pierre Devroey, Etudes sur le grand domaine carolingien (Aldershot, Hants., 1993). See, for example, C. R. Whittaker, “Late Roman Trade and Traders,” in Trade in the Ancient Economy, eds. P. Garnsey, K. Hopkins, and C. R. Whittaker (London–Berkeley, 1983), pp. 163–180, 208–211, who observes (p. 162) that Pirenne’s thesis with regard to the later Roman economy “is still—despite some dissent—largely supported by modern research.” Somewhat later, S. J. B.Barnish, “The Transformation of Classical Cities and the Pirenne Debate,” Journal of Roman Archaeology 2 (1989), 396, observed: “On the whole, recent archaeology has tended to confirm Pirenne’s picture of a lively Mediterranean commerce in the 5th and 6th centuries.” Even more recently, see Jeremy K. Knight, The End of Antiquity: Archaeology, Society and Religion, AD 235–700 (Stroud, Glos., 1999), p. 166, who observes: “His view that the economic unity of the Mediterranean world continued until destroyed by the Arab invasions of the seventh century is now supported by much archaeological evidence still below ground when Pirenne wrote.” “Débats et problèmes,” in Les campagnes de la Gaule à la fin de l’Antiquité: Actes du colloque Montpelier, 11–14 mars 1998, ed. Pierre Ouzoulias, Christophe Pellecuer, Claude Raynaud, Paul Van Ossel, and Pierre Garmy (Antibes, 2001), pp. 16–17, for the quotation.

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territory is now believed to have failed.44 In the wake of the largely peaceful transfer of political regnum from the imperial government to various barbarian kings in Gaul, the civitas, also sometimes referred to as the pagus, continued to be the basis for provincial administration.45 Government at the local level was based within the fortress walls of the urbs, which served as the regional capital under the jurisdiction of the count, who administered the civitas, as a whole. This pattern of continuity in local government both administratively and legally, is well illustrated by numerous surviving formularies and actual documents drawn up on the basis of these formularies.46 This basic pattern, continued to thrive in the regnum Francorum throughout the early Middle Ages and beyond.47 Of course, the Franks became Christians, indeed, Roman Christians. Before the end of the sixth century, both the Burgundians and the Visigoths abandoned the Arianism which they had acquired through Roman-trained missionaries such as Ulfilas prior to settlement within the empire.48 Indeed, both Burgundians and Visigoths became Roman Christians before Augustine began operations at

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With regard to the more northerly parts of the regnum Francorum, several works by Verhulst, “Economic Organization,” pp. 481–509; “The Origins of Towns in the Low Countries and the Pirenne Thesis,” pp. 3–35; The Rise of Cities in North-West Europe; and The Carolingian Economy. Concerning Carolingian trade in the Mediterranean, see the magisterial study by McCormick, The Origins of the European Economy. Cf. two studies by Dietrich Claude, “Die Handwerker der Merowingerzeit nach dem erzälende und urkundlichen Quellen,” in Das Handwerk in vor- und frühgeschichtlicher Zeit, I, Historische und rechtshistorische Beiträge und Untersuchungen zur Frühgeschichte der Gilde, eds. Herbert Jankuhn, Walter Hanssen, Ruth Schmidt-Wiegand, Heinrich Tiefenbach (Göttingen, 1981), pp. 204–266; and “Aspekte des Binnenhandels im Merowingerreich auf Grund der Schriftquellen,” in Untersuchungen zu Handel und Verkehr der vor- und frühgeschichtlichen Zeit in Mittel- und Nordeuropa. Vol 3: Der Handel des frühen Mittelalters, ed. K. Düwel, H. Jankuhn, H. Siems, and D. Timpe (Göttingen, 1985), pp. 9–99, who sees the take-off period in the seventh century rather than in the eighth. Werner, “Missus-Marchio-Comes,” pp. 191–239. For a general appreciation of these texts as evidence for continuity, see Buchner, Die Rechtsquellen, pp. 49–55. Concerning the texts of the formularies, themselves, see Formulae Merowingici et Karolini aevi, ed. K. Zeumer, in Monumenta Germaniae Historica: Legum, sectio 5 (Hanover, 1886). Warren Brown, “When Documents are Destroyed or Lost: Lay People and Archives in the Early Middle Ages,” Early Medieval Europe 11 (2002), 337–366, provides an excellent study of the formulae being used in the West of Francia. Basic here is Bernard S. Bachrach, “Imperial Walled Cities in the West: An Examination of their Early Medieval Nachleben,” in City Walls: The Urban Enceinte in Global Perspective, ed. James T. Tracy (Cambridge, 2000), pp. 192–218, with the extensive literature cited throughout. The effort by J. H. W. G. Liebeschuetz, Decline and Fall of the Roman City (Oxford, 2001) to argue for a decaying urban model is unsuccessful, and has been characterized accurately in a recent review by Richard Alston, Journal of Roman Studies 92 (2002), 406, as “a radically conservative statement that challenges a new orthodoxy among historians of Late Antiquity who tend to emphasize continuity, prefer ‘transformation’ to ‘decline’ and are deeply suspicious of grand historical narratives.” Yitzhak Hen, Culture and Religion in Merovingian Gaul, A.D. 481–751 (Leiden, 1995), provides a sound treatment of this process.

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Canterbury in order to bring Christianity to the Anglo-Saxons. The cathedral, the center of episcopal administration, was located in the urbs under the rule of the bishop. Within the walls of these urbes and of lesser places, such as castra and vici, continuity prevailed in education from the later Roman empire through the Merovingian period and into the Carolingian era. This was institutionalized not only for the instruction of clerics but also for the education of important lay people and even lesser lay people who were taught practical literacy for administrative purposes so they could serve, for example, as notaries and scribes in the law courts and other governmental bureaucracies.49 Early modern ideas concerning the supposed ethnic or racial purity of various barbarian groups grossly overstimulated the imaginations of earlier generations of German maximalist scholars, including several noteworthy Anglo-Saxonists. They believed that a panoply of customs, especially those dealing with the family and military life, were brought west from the Urheimat in “Free Germany” and that these customs flourished, untainted, on erstwhile imperial soil following the conquest of the empire.50 Fortunately, these myths have been thoroughly discredited, at least in regard to the mainland, in the wake of Germany’s defeat in World War Two.51 First, it is clear that intermarriage played a key role, especially among the upper classes, in a thoroughgoing process of barbarian acculturation and assimilation among society’s leaders.52 Secondly, the notion that the early medieval mainland saw the flourishing of a Germanic “warrior” culture that had been brought to Gaul by the barbarians has been shown to be unfounded. The “warrior” culture is nothing more than a literary topos, which, for various unsavory modern reasons, was too easily mistaken for reality by some “nationalist” scholars in search of a usable past.53 Finally, it is now firmly understood, as well, 49

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Concerning the Merovingians, see Pierre Riché, Education and Culture in the Barbarain West, Sixth through Eighth Centuries, trans. John Contrini (Columbia, SC, 1976); and regarding the Carolingians, see the compelling outline presented by McKitterick, The Carolingians and the Written Word, pp. 213–270. Regarding the implication of Anglo-Saxonists in these matters, see Hugh A. MacDougall, Racial Myth in English History: Trojans, Teutons, and Anglo-Saxons (Hannover, NH, 1982). At base, this is the major positive result of Reinhard Wenskus, Stammesbildung und Verfassung: Das Werden der frühmittelalterliche Gentes (Cologne, 1961); see the detailed discussion by Murray, “Reinhard Wenskus on ‘Ethnogenesis’,” pp. 21–39; and Bernard S. Bachrach, “Medieval Identity: People and Place,” The International History Review 25 (2003), 866–870. Regarding elite and not-so-elite marriages see Alexander Demandt, “The Osmosis of Late Roman and Germanic Aristocracies,” in Das Reich und die Barbaren, eds. Evangelos K. Chrysos and Andreas Schwarcz (Cologne, 1989), pp. 75–89. See also Karras, “The History of Marriage.” For a discussion of the state of the question, see Innis, “Teutons or Trojans? The Carolingians and the Germanic Past,” pp. 229–230. Roberta Frank, “Germanic Legend in Old English Literature,” in The Cambridge Companion to Old English Literature, eds. M. Godden and M. Lapidge (Cambridge, 1991), pp. 88–106, is to be given great credit for debunking the even more virulent version of the “warrior” myth that has long flourished in England. Also Steven C. Fanning, “Tacitus, Beowulf and the Comitatus,” The Haskins Society Journal 9 (2001), 17– 38, deserves special attention for showing how generations of German primitivists have misused the notion of the comitatus, as a part of trying to sustain the “warrior culture” myth.

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that there is no reason to believe that any barbarian group of significant size in any part of Gaul was biologically homogeneous. Notions of race once so popular among traditional Anglo-Saxonists and other Germanic maximalists have ceased to be of relevance in the scholarly literature on the mainland.54 In virtually all matters of political, military, religious, economic, social, and ideological significance, imitatio imperii tended to dominate the behavior of the barbarian rulers who settled in Gaul and their successors in the regnum Francorum.55 This conceptualization of “the economic, social and administrative worlds that produced the armed forces” of the regnum Francorum, in which continuity dominates, is very different from the tradititonal Germanists’ picture of an AngloSaxon “warrior culture.” This view of a warrior culture, based on Anglo-Saxon literary sources such as Beowulf, has served as the basis for a critique of continuity on the mainland.56 Specialists in the history of the regnum Francorum who argue in favor of substantial continuity between the later Roman empire and the early Middle Ages do not follow the process outlined by Abels and Morillo. The information available to demonstrate administrative sophistication in the regnum Francorum, for example, is massive, and, as noted above, is not found largely in narrative sources putatively corrupted by imperial Latin terminology. No one, to my knowledge, argues for Carolingian administrative sophistication or economic expansion or population growth on the basis of narrative sources simply because they use Roman terminology. Certainly, the case for military continuity is not based on finding a term such as legio in one or another narrative source. Nor do any of the so-called continuity maximalists, so far as I am aware, engage in the tautology that early medieval legiones were “up to Roman military

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Wenskus, Stammesbildung und Verfassung, made a major contribution here; and see, for example, Walter Pohl, “Ethnicity, Theory, and Tradition: A Response,” in On Barbarian Identity: Critical Approaches to Ethnicity in the Early Middle Ages, ed. Andrew Gillett (Turnhout– Belgium, 2002), pp. 221–239, who takes it for granted that the matter of biology and race no longer are relevant to the discussion of various German peoples. The general idea of imitatio imperii is effectively developed by Michael McCormick, Eternal Victory: Triumphal Rulership in Late Antiquity, Byzantium and the Early Medieval West (Cambridge, 1986). For similar observations regarding this process of imitatio in both administration and military matters in Lombard Italy, see T. S. Brown, Gentlemen and Officers: Imperial Administration and Aristocratic Power in Byzantine Italy, A.D. 554–800 (Rome, 1984), pp. 74–75. The state of the question regarding military continuity in the regnum Francorum has recently been summarized by Bernard S. Bachrach and Charles R. Bowlus, “Heerwesen,” in Reallexikon der germanischen Altertumskunde, ed. Heinrich Beck, et al. (Berlin–New York, 2000), pp. 14, 122–136. With regard to the so-called Anglo-Saxon warrior culture, see the discussion, above, of the comitatus, where serious doubt is raised regarding the value of information found in Beowulf as evidence for military matters in Anglo-Saxon England. More generally, see the review by Bernard S. Bachrach of Richard Abels, Alfred the Great: War, Kingship and Culture in AngloSaxon England (London, 1988), in Albion 32 (2000), 620–621. With regard to Abels’ use of Beowulf, see, for example, Lordship and Military Obligation, pp. 12, 26, 44, 137, 147–148, 168–169. Abels’ involvement in the Germanentum-model has been discussed,above.

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standards,” whatever is meant by such a throwaway line, because they were sustained by a sophisticated administration which in turn is taken as an argument for the existence of these same legiones.57 I trust that the foregoing paragraphs concerning the state of the question with regard to continuity have broken up some of the fog that traditionally would appear to have enveloped the Channel, and, which, as a result, has isolated the mainland from the view of some AngloSaxonists.

Learning from Books It is widely agreed, at least by scholars who study the regnum Francorum, that both secular and religious leaders not only wanted to learn from books written in the Roman past but, in fact, did so in order to help them with life in the present and to plan for the future.58 In this context, it would seem, as well, that King Alfred, who paradoxically is the Anglo-Saxon protagonist of Abels and Morillo’s German maximalist exercise based upon notions of discontinuity, also very likely shared this view regarding the importance of learning from the past through “Roman” books.59 Indeed, he not only sought out books for the royal library but 57

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As noted above (n. 27), at Charlemagne’s court the terms legio and scara were synonyms and indicated a force of professional soldiers connected to the king’s obsequium. Both terms were used interchangeably to differentiate professional soldiers from expeditionary militia forces, who operated beyond their home districts, and local levies, who were assigned to defend the area in which they lived. Also shown there is the process by which Abels and Morillo failed to appreciate this fact. J. M. Wallace-Hadrill, The Barbarian West, 400–1000 (3rd revised ed., Oxford, 1967), pp. 98– 103, convincingly affirms the importance of learning for Charlemagne’s successes. The author is admonishing an earlier generation of scholars who believed in the so-called “Dark Ages” and followed a German primitivist tradition. For a very effective defense of efforts to learn from books, see Mayke de Jong, “The Empire as Ecclesia: Hrabanus Maurus and Biblical historia for Rulers,” in The Uses of the Past in the Early Middle Ages, eds. Y. Hen and Michael Innis (Cambridge, 2000), pp. 191–226. There is a more modern and far more subtle version of the early Middle Ages as a Dark Age, which emphasizes minimalism and primitivism. See, for example, M. T. Clanchy, From Memory to Written Record: England 1066–1307 (Oxford, 1979), who, however, in the face of criticism by early medievalists such as McKitterick, has retreated somewhat from his previous position; see Clanchy, 2nd ed. (1993), pp. 12, 20–21. See also Brian Stock, The Implications of Literacy: Written Language and Models of Interpretation in the Eleventh and Twelfth Centuries (Princeton, 1983), which is justly criticized by Rosamond McKitterick, “Introduction,” in The Uses of Literacy in Early Medieval Europe, ed. Rosamond McKitterick (Cambridge, 1990), p. 2, because “it begins too late and is too categorical about the irrelevance of the earlier period.” Brian Stock, Listening for the Text: On the Uses of the Past (Baltimore, 1990), seems to be less certain concerning the irrelevance of the early Middle Ages, but he does not appear to be convinced that the immense output of written work from the Carolingian scriptoria was very much read. The basic work is Richard Abels, Alfred the Great: War, Kingship and Culture in Anglo-Saxon England (London, 1998), here p. 310; and see the review by Bernard S. Bachrach in Albion 32 (2000), 620–621. As will be seen below, Abels and Morillo are more than skeptical regarding Alfred’s interest in using such Roman books for military purposes.

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even translated, or, at the very least, oversaw the translation into Anglo-Saxon, of a considerable corpus of later Roman Latin texts, ostensibly for practical purposes.60 Because of this monarch’s apparent dedication to learning from Roman books, I find fundamentally unpersuasive the admonition by Abels and Morillo that “we ought not imagine that Alfred found a copy of Vegetius or Frontinus’s Strategemata … and revived the Roman ‘tortoise’ formation” or presumably for that matter any other aspect of imperial materia militaria that could be learned from Latin military writers and Roman historians. Rather, in using the term testudo, Abels and Morillo believe that Asser (ch. 38) was “using – or misusing – a classical term to express something quite different, a ‘shield wall’ maintained by untrained and, by Roman standards, atrociously undisciplined troops.”61 Before going further, it is important to make clear that Abels and Morillo misunderstand the situation described by Asser in ch. 38. This is because they wrench it from context and ignore the subsequent battle as Asser described it very briefly in ch. 39. In the latter chapter, Asser, in effect, explains why Alfred ordered his men to establish a testudo – a formation in which all of the ranks to the rear of the front line place their shields above their heads in order to minimize the effect of missiles launched against them. Asser emphasizes more than once that the Vikings had seized the high ground, and, as a result, it was necessary for Alfred’s force to deploy in a testudo before they began their advance up the hill in order to reach the enemy. Without the testudo, they potentially could be badly harmed by enemy missiles launched from above.62

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Abels, Alfred the Great, pp. 9–10, 19–20, 227–242. “A Lying Legacy,” pp. 11–12. Abels and Morillo follow the translation by Simon Keynes and Michael Lapidge of Alfred the Great: Asser’s Life of King Alfred and Other Contemporary Sources (Harmondsworth, Middx., 1983), p. 79. Note should be taken that the Annales Fuldenses [Regensburg continuation], an. 894, desribe how the testudo was used in a similar circumstance by Carolingian troops. Indeed, there is good written evidence from Anglo-Saxon England, as well, as from the regnum Francorum, for the use of the testudo prior to Alfred’s accession as king of Wessex. There is also material evidence in the form of a carving on the so-called “Franks Casket.” See Bachrach, Early Carolingian Warfare, pp. 183–184, 360–361. For the use by Vikings of missiles against an enemy advancing on foot “from below,” see Annales Fuldenses, an. 891, with regard to the battle of the Dyle. For these texts, see Annales Fuldenses, ed. F. Kurze: MGH, SRG (Hanover, 1891). For discussions of the battle of the Dyle, see two studies by Bernard S. Bachrach, “Charles Martel, Mounted Shock Combat, the Stirrup and Feudalism,” Studies in Medieval and Renaissance History 7 (1970), 49–75; and “Animals and Warfare in Early Medieval Europe,” Settimane di Studio del Centro Italiano di Studi sull’alto Medioevo 31 (Spoleto, 1985) 1:707–764. Both studies have been reprinted with the same pagination in Armies and Politics in the Early Medieval West (London, 1993), 51–53, and 734, respectively. Clifford Rogers has reminded me that Asser uses the term testudo on two other occasions, chs. 37 and 56 (which Abels and Morillo do not treat). In ch. 37, Asser describes the Vikings as deployed in a testudo. This raises two questions: first, did the Vikings know about the testudo? and second, was deployment in a testudo relevant to the situation described by Asser? In regard to the second point we simply do not have enough information, as we do not know whether the Anglo-Saxons were shooting arrows at the Vikings prior to engaging. The first point is more simple since, as noted above, the Franks used the testudo against the Vikings, who therefore

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The very fact that Alfred’s troops were involved in an advance, uphill against the enemy, rather than remaining stationary, militates against translating testudo, as used by Asser in the context of chapters 38–39, as “shield wall.” Indeed, a wall of any type, by its very nature, is not intended to move and this is particularly true of a shield wall. See, for example, the steadfast shield wall deployed by Charles Martel against the Moslems in 732 and that of Harold at Hastings in 1066. The purpose of the shield wall formation was to remain firm. It was not deployed for the purpose of advancing against the enemy.63 Parenthetically, there is no consensus as to the whether Anglo-Saxon troops were “untrained”, as Abels and Morillo assert, or that they were “atrociously undisciplined” even “by Roman standards.” Indeed, a cogent argument has been made that even the maintenance of a “shield wall,” much less one that could move forward up a hill under a hail of enemy missiles, required extensive training and discipline.64 Abels and Morillo, driven by their primitivist parti pris, which assumes that these particular Anglo-Saxon troops were “atrociously undisciplined” by Roman standards, misunderstood Asser with regard to the deployment of the testudo. Abels and Morillo’s throwaway line “we ought not imagine that Alfred found a copy of Vegetius or Frontinus’s Strategemata … and revived the Roman ‘tortoise’ formation” is something of a burlesque. Indeed, they seem loathe to admit that there was a copy of De re Militari available in England during Alfred’s reign. Had either of our authors studied Vegetius’s De re Militari with sufficient thoroughness, they would have known that he does not discuss the “tortoise” formation. His only treatment of the testudo is in the context of a shed to protect

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had an opportunity to learn how it worked. In addition, Scandinavians had been serving in Roman armies for centuries and many still went to Constantinople. In ch. 56, Asser talks about the Anglo-Saxons who were formed into a “densa testudine” and ultimately won the lengthy battle (“diu persistens”). Asser’s account does not eliminate the possibility that the AngloSaxons at one or another time during this lengthy battle formed in a testudo in order to thwart the effect of the enemy’s missile weapons. Only chs. 38–39 provide sufficient information for the reader to know what happened and why it was done. For a discussion of the famous “shield wall” deployed by Charles Martel against the Moslems at Poitiers in 732, see Bachrach, Early Carolingian Warfare, pp. 26–32; and regarding the Anglo-Saxon shield wall at Hastings, which was not intended to move, see R. Allen Brown, “The Battle of Hastings,” Proceedings of the Battle Conference 1980, ed. R. Allen Brown (Woodbridge, Suffolk, 1981), 10–11, 15–16. See, for example, W. Spatz, Die Schlacht von Hastings (Berlin, 1896), p. 48: “Nur ein in langwierigen militärischen Exerzitien geschultes, also aus taktischen Körpen zusammengesetztes Heer würde imstande sein, eine so ausserordentlich schwierige Formation, wie sie ein lang fortlaufender, gerader Schildwall ist, zu bilden.” I am reminded by the editor (Clifford Rogers) that Spatz’s work is not “highly regarded.” This, of course, is true in regard to his reconstruction of the battle. However, it is generally agreed that the foot soldiers in Harald’s army at Hastings demonstrated considerable discipline under very difficult conditions. They repelled several attacks by heavily armed mounted troops, regarded by some as the best in Europe, apparently an even greater number of attacks by William’s foot soldiers, and through it all held their ground under a hail of enemy arrows. They held for nine hours in these very tough conditions.

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various types of siege machines.65 Frontinus (2.3.5) likewise does not discuss the testudo in sufficient detail as compared with various encyclopaedias (see below) to be of great help in figuring out how the testudo worked.66 Clearly, Frontinus is unlikely to have provided information concerning the testudo for Asser or Alfred, and Vegetius’s De re Militari could not have done so. Rather, it is likely that information in regard to this formation was obtained by the Anglo-Saxons through one or another of the many Latin histories, or some other handbook that treated military matters, that was then available in England. Or perhaps the information had come to Alfred from someone who had studied these works on the mainland. For example, discussion of the testudo as an infantry formation that was developed to thwart the effect of missiles coming from above is to be found in various of the encyclopaedias written during the early Middle Ages. The most famous, of course, was that of Isidore of Seville (d.636), which had a fundamental influence on work of Hrabanus Maurus (d.856).67 The text of Isidore’s encyclopaedia certainly was available to Alfred’s court, and the king may even have had access to information from Hrabanus’s encyclopaedia.68 There were many possible conduits for the movement from the mainland to King Alfred’s court of the types of information that are found in Hrabanus’s text, which was penned in the environs of the monastery of Fulda on the Saxon border. In this context, it is perhaps illuminating that the Wessex ruler gave preferment to a cleric named John, who had come to England from Saxony in Francia orientalis. John is of interest in the present context because all that the AngloSaxon sources care to tell us about him, in addition to his mainland origins, is the fact that he was widely recognized by his contemporaries as a man who was very experienced in the “military arts.”69 One may surely wonder why Alfred recruited such a military expert from the mainland. Indeed, those of us who do not see the use of educated military experts as undermining the use of “common sense” find

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Vegetius, De re Militari, Bk. II, ch. 25; Bk. IV, chs. 14, 23. (Epitoma rei militaris, ed. Carl Lang ([Leipzig, 1885]). Iulius Frontinus Strategemata, ed. R. I. Ireland (Leipzig, 1990). Isidore, Origines, Bk. XVIII, ch. x (Isidori Hispalensis episcopi Etymologiarum sive Originum libri xx, ed. W. M. Lindsey, 2 vols. [Oxford, 1911]); and Hrabanus, De Naturis rerum, Bk. XX, ch. 10 (PL, vol. 111). With regard to the intellectual and institutional context in which these encyclopaedias were written, see Bernard Ribémont, Les origines des encyclopédies mévévales d’Isidore de Séville aux Carolingiens (Paris, 2001); and with specific reference to Hrabanus’s effort, see Elizabeth Heyse, Hrabanus Maurus’s Enzyklopädie ‘De rerum naturis’. Untersuchungen den Quellen und zur Methode der Kompilation (Munich, 1969). Note that Bede, De natura rerum, ed. C. W. Jones, Opera didascalica, Corpus Christianorum, Series latina, 123A (Turnhout, 1977), does not treat the testudo despite the fact that he knew Isidore’s encyclopaedia very well. For an almost complete list of manuscripts of the Etymologiae, excluding those from Spain, down to the middle of the ninth century, see Charles H. Beeson, Isidorstudien (Munich, 1913), p. 19. The source for John’s wide reputation in military matters is Asser, De rebus gestis Aelfredi, ch. 27 (Asser’s Life of King Alfred … , ed. William Henry Stevenson [repr. Oxford, 1959]), whose account Abels, Alfred the Great, p. 223, paraphrases.

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it interesting that a foreign military expert was recruited by Alfred or one of his men. Abels and Morillo are certainly correct in warning us that “we ought not imagine that Alfred found a copy of Vegetius or Frontinus’s Strategemata … and revived the Roman ‘tortoise’ formation.” However, their lack of study of these two works ought not encourage us to forget that both of these texts had the potential to be put to good use by an intelligent commander who had such information available to him even if these writers did not provide information regarding the testudo.70 In this context, it should be emphasized that copies of Vegetius and Frontinus had long been available in Anglo-Saxon England when Alfred came to power in the later ninth century. Indeed, many more copies of both texts, as well as other sources of information concerning Roman military matters, were easily available at courts and centers of learning throughout the more northerly parts of the regnum Francorum with which Alfred and his circle, building on the patterns of interaction developed by his predecessors, had frequent and often very close contact.71 Once Asser’s chapters 38–39 have been read and understood correctly, we should be free to focus on Alfred’s interest in learning from books. The reason, 70

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Even Bede (d.735) knew De re Militari. See on this matter, Charles Jones, “Bede and Vegetius,” The Classical Review 46 (1932), 248–249; and concerning Frontinus, see, M. D. Reeve, “Frontinus,” in Texts and Transmission: A Survey of the Latin Classics (Oxford, 1983), 171– 172. Abels and Morillo, “A Lying Legacy,” p. 11, n. 40, speculate that Bede may have had a florilegium containing material from Vegetius available to him, but they fail to discuss the matter of florilegia in regard to Bede’s “library” which might give some weight to such speculation. What really is important to Abels and Morillo, in this context, is the “fact” that the earliest surviving manuscript of Vegetius’s text in England is dated to the first half of the eleventh century. Actually, the most recent study, Philippe Richardot, Végèce et la culture militaire au moyen âge (Ve–Xve siècles) (Paris, 1998), p. 202, no. 75, dates this manuscript, Cotton Cleopatra D.I, as tenth- to eleventh-century. Abels and Morillo argue that the abovementioned manuscript probably was copied at St. Augustine’s Canterbury, which means, of course, that the monks there had a manuscript which antedated the copy they made. A careful examination of the manuscript stemma from which Cotton Cleopatra D.I descends is a project that would be helpful in this case. It also should be pointed out that when it suits Abels’ purpose, he blithely assumes that manuscripts were available to Alfred, e.g. in the case of De viris illustribus, when there is no surviving exemplum either from the period of the Wessex king’s reign or previously to it in Anglo-Saxon England. See my review of Abels, Alfred the Great, cited above. It hardly needs to be said, in any case, that surviving manuscripts from the early Middle Ages represent only a tiny percentage of the total that were produced. For the latest catalogue of surviving Vegetius manuscripts, Richardot, Végèce et la culture militaire, pp. 199–210. Regarding earlier contacts between Anglo-Saxon England and the Carolingians, see Joanna Story, Carolingian Connections: Anglo-Saxon England the Carolingian Francia, c 750–870 (Aldershot, Hants., 2003). Of particular importance, in this context, is Rosamond McKitterick, “The Diffusion of Insular Culture in Neustria between 650 and 850: The Implications of the Manuscript Evidence,” in La Neustrie. Les pays au nord de la Loire de 650 à 850, ed. Hartmut Atsma, Beihefte der Francia 16/11 (Sigmaringen, 1989), pp. 395–432, and reprinted with the same pagination in Rosamond McKitterick, Books, Scribes and Learning in the Frankish Kingdoms, 6th–9th Centuries (Aldershot, Hants., 1994), who provides important insights into the exchange of manuscripts between Anglo-Saxon England and the regnum Francorum.

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however, that we are admonished by Abels and Morillo to restrain our imaginations with regard to the possible use by the Wessex monarch of military information found in these Roman military handbooks is that neither Vegetius nor Frontinus “was quoted in an Alfredian text.”72 This criterion, however, is both too narrow and too rigid. From a methodological perspective, argument from quotation is perhaps close to being “best evidence,” as the lawyers put it, but it is not the only evidence historians are permitted to use in the context of trying to ascertain if a particular person had access to one or another written text. Were, for example, “quotation” the only admissible evidence, we would have to conclude that Gregory of Tours (d.594) had never used or even read the writings of St. Augustine (d.430). Indeed, the bishop of Tours does not mention St. Augustine, much less quote from his works. However, it is generally agreed by modern scholars that Gregory’s works are suffused with St. Augustine’s ideas.73 From a methodological perspective, the identification of paraphrases, allusions, thematic tendencies, and even the mere availability of a particular work to any person, who otherwise is known to have been dedicated to study from books, are viable conditions for suggesting that Alfred, for example, may have had knowledge of Vegetius’s or Frontinus’s work, which in turn provided information regarding Roman military matters from which he could learn.74 Future studies of Alfred’s military operations, with Roman military texts kept in mind by the researcher, may well provide sufficient information to conclude that the West Saxon ruler learned from such texts even though he does not quote them. It is not my purpose here to make a sustained argument that King Alfred either read or for that matter used Roman military handbooks, such as those of Vegetius or Frontinus, or that he learned about warfare from the numerous Roman histories then available in Anglo-Saxon England, or even from one or another encyclopaedia in order to improve his position in military matters.75 Nevertheless, it is uncontroversial to point out that Alfred subscribed to imitatio imperii in numerous important ways. For example, he “produced coinage closely modeled on Roman originals.”76 It can also be noted that in building the defensein-depth system, later depicted in the Burghal Hidage, Alfred had several new

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“A Lying Legacy,” p. 11. Martin Heinzelmann, Gregory of Tours, History and Society in the Sixth Century, trans. Christopher Carroll (Cambridge, 2001), p. 154. Some of the methodological questions are discussed by Bernard S. Bachrach, “Gregory of Tours, Vegetius, and the Study of War,” in Famille, violence et christianisation au Moyen Âge: Mélanges offerts à Michel Rouche, eds. Martin Aurell and Thomas Deswarte (Paris, 2005), pp. 299–308. See McKitterick, “The Diffusion of Insular Culture in Neustria between 650 and 850,” pp. 401–402, who provides a partial list that includes: Livy, Pompeius Trogus, Ammianus Marcellinus, Tacitus (Germania and the Annales), Suetonius, Statius, Valerius Flaccus, and Justinus. See also Janet Bately, “Those Books that are Most Necessary for All Men to Know: The Classics and Late Ninth-Century England, A Reappraisal,” in The Classics in the Middle Ages (Binghamton, NY, 1990), pp. 45–78. Abels and Morillo, “A Lying Legacy,” p. 7.

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fortifications constructed and in these he imposed a street plan that looks very much like that of a traditional Roman urban grid.77 Although the inclination of King Alfred to learn from Roman books is important, it is not fundamental to our understanding of what happened on the mainland. Rather, it is important to emphasize that the knowledge found in Roman handbooks and Roman histories that dealt with military matters was regarded in the regnum Francorum, following Roman imperial tradition, as important to successful military leadership. It had been the norm in the Roman world for those who aspired to be army officers, i.e. to hold the officium of command, and ultimately to be generals, i.e. duces, to undertake a tripartite educational formation. These would-be Alexanders and Caesars were required to read history, especially works that dealt with warfare, to study military handbooks, and to gain practical experience by participating in the full spectrum of military life from planning at all levels to actual combat.78

Mainland Practice During the early Middle Ages, the rulers of Rome’s successor states worked diligently to imitate their predecessors. Indeed, imitatio imperii in virtually every area of governance, both secular and ecclesiastical, was fundamental to their agenda. When they innovated, they built on a Roman base, not upon the customs and the institutions that had been brought west by the barbarians from their

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Abels, Alfred the Great, p. 215. Surely, such street plans were not passed down by oral tradition for some four centuries from the village elders of Germania libra. Finally, and only in a footnote, Abels and Morillo (p. 9, n. 33) are willing to recognize that “the Old English words … for measure and measurer derive from the Latin” and then go on to admit that this suggests that “the early Anglo-Saxons associated measures and surveying with Rome.” The matter of vocabulary combined with that of street grids brings into serious question Abels and Morillo’s assumption that the redactors of the Burghal Hidage had no knowledge of the Agrimensores prior to the earliest surviving text copied in England which dates to the tenth century. Unfortunately, there is insufficient room in this study to give the required attention to Abels and Morillo’s revisionist views regarding the Burghal Hidage (pp. 8–10). For now, suffice it to say that whatever differences one may identify between the perimeter walls that were of original Roman construction and the situation resulting from Alfred’s or his heirs’ efforts to put these fortresses in defensible condition, surely results from the fact that repairing and reconstructing at a remove of some six centuries is likely to be inexact. The extension or contraction of a fortification by a few dozen meters here or there is hardly a cause for doubting the importance of these erstwhile Roman fortifications in Alfred’s plans. The addition of a ditch and a supported earthen wall to the defenses at Winchester, for example, hardly proves that the AngloSaxons lacked tuition from Roman sources in these matters. Such earthen outworks were common on the mainland in late imperial fortress cities of Gaul and were not merely limited to army camps as Abels and Morillo would seem to have their readers believe. J. Brian Campbell, The Emperor and the Roman Army, 31 BC–AD 235 (Oxford, 1984), pp. 325–332, provides a useful introduction to these matters for the period indicated in the title. See, in addition, his more focused study, J. Brian Campbell, “Teach Yourself How to Be a General,” Journal of Roman Studies 77 (1987), 13–29.

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primeval forest homelands.79 In light of this tendency to build on Roman practices, it is hardly surprising that the three principles, mentioned above, i.e. the reading of history, the study of handbooks, and practical military experience, which had served for centuries as the basis for the education of future imperial duces, were not lost in the transition from the later Roman empire to its Romanized successor kingdoms in Gaul. Rather, these educational imperatives were vigorously pursued, especially in the regnum Francorum.80 The idea that books were to be used to learn from the past in order to influence the present, with God’s help, and to plan for the future was central to the early medieval encyclopaedia tradition. In this context, Isidore of Seville (d.636) made it clear in his Etymologies, a handbook of unrivaled popularity in the early Middle Ages, that men who wished to be effective rulers should read history. The ability to be effective in warfare was, of course, a basic if not the basic requirement for successful regnum.81 It should be noted also that Hrabanus Maurus (d.856), a student of the Anglo-Saxon Alcuin (d.804) as well as being an important churchman and adviser to kings, copied much of what Isidore had to say on military matters into his own encyclopaedia, De naturis rerum.82 Hrabanus also 79

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McCormick, Eternal Victory, provides an excellent introduction to the idea of imitatio imperii. In this context, see the recent study by Natalia Lozovsky, “Roman Geography and Ethnography in the Carolingian Empire,” Speculum 81 (1906), 325–364, which creatively opens numerous questions that require further study with regard to the use of Roman geographical texts by the Carolingians. For the importance of learning from books for military purposes during the earlier Middle Ages see a series of studies by Bernard S. Bachrach, “The Education of the ‘Officer Corps’ in the Fifth and Sixth Centuries,” in La noblesse romaine et les chefs barbares du IIIe au VIII siècle, eds. Françoise Vallet and Michel Kazanski (Paris, 1995), 7–13; “Adalhard’s De ordine palatii: Some Methodological Observations Regarding Chapters 29–36,” Cithara 39 (2001), 3–36; “Charlemagne and the Carolingian General Staff,” The Journal of Military History 66 (2002), 313–357; and “Charlemagne’s Military Responsibilities ‘Am Vorabend der Kaiserkrönung’,” in Kaiser Krönung: Das Epos ‘Karolus Magnus et Leo papa’ und der Papstbesuch in Paderborn 799, eds. Peter Godman, Jörg Jarnut, and Peter Johanek (Paderborn, 2002), pp. 231–255. Isidore had emphasized, following his classical sources, that those who would be statesmen were to read history so that they would benefit from the experience of the past. Isidore, Origines, Bk. I, ch. xliii. See the discussion by Jacques Fontaine, Isidore de Séville et la culture classique dans l’Espagne wisigothique (Paris, 1959), pp. 180–185, regarding Isidore’s view of history; and the general observations by Pierre Riché, Education and Culture in the Barbarian West: Sixth through Eighth Centuries, trans. J. Contrini (Columbia, SC, l976), p. 261. See also M. L. W. Laistner, Thought and Letters in Western Europe (rev. ed. Ithaca, NY, 1956), pp. 218–220. See Isidore, Origines, Bk. XVII; and for Hrabanus’s encyclopaedia, see De naturis rerum, Bk. XX. Regarding the reliance of Hrabanus on Isidore in this context, see Heyse, Hrabanus Maurus’s Enzyklopädie, p. 143. The enduring impact of Hrabanus’s practical orientation is aptly illustrated with specific regard to military matters by Hrabanus Maurus, De procinctu Romanae militiae, ed. Ernst Dümmler in Zeitschrift für deutsches Alterthum 15 (1872), 413– 451, which is based in large part on Vegetius’s De re Militari. For the importance both of Vegetius’s work and Hrabanus’s handbook, see Bernard S. Bachrach, Early Carolingian Warfare: Prelude to Empire (Philadelphia, 2001), pp. 85–107. The unsupported notion advanced by Reuter, “Carolingian and Ottonian Warfare,” p. 19, that “the impulse behind this [Hrbanus’s handbook] was perhaps as much antiquarian as practical” is meaningless Oxbridge rhetoric. There is nothing in the immense corpus of Hrabanus’s writings

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vigorously encouraged the writing of history.83 The study of history as a means by which medieval commanders, in part, learned the military craft has been neglected by modern scholars, who have tended to focus on the importance of Vegetius’s De re Militari. This focus, however, is now in the process of being broadened.84 Charlemagne’s interest in historiae and res gestae antiquorum, as sources of information about the past, was well documented in Einhard’s popular Vita Karoli.85 Thus, it is worthwhile calling attention even to a partial list of the historical works that the early Carolingians possessed and of which they made new copies.86 In this context, it is clear that some histories were of more rather than less value for learning about war. See, for example, Ammianus Marcellinus,87 Julius Caesar,88 Quintus Curtius Rufus,89 Eutropius,90 Florus,91 Justinus,92 Livy,93

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that would lead to the conclusion that he had the slightest interest in antiquarianism. Regarding Hrabanus’s exceptionally practical turn of mind, see, for example, Mayke de Jong, “The Empire as Ecclesia,” pp. 191–226. More generally with regard to Vegetius and the charge of antiquarianism, see Marjorie Chibnall, “Aspects of Knighthood: The Knight and his Horse,” in Chivalry, Knighthood, and War in the Middle Ages, ed. Susan Ridyard (Sewanee, 2001), p. 11, who observes that Vegetius’s advice was relied upon by medieval military commanders and makes the point “there is nothing antiquarian in the medieval interest in the late Roman manual of Vegetius.” Rosamond McKitterick, History and Memory in the Carolingian World (Cambridge, 2004), pp. 188–189. For a start on this line of thinking, which gives attention to the use of history, see Bernard S. Bachrach, “Charlemagne’s Military Responsibilities,” pp. 231–255. For some useful background, see Rosamond McKitterick, “The Audience for Latin Historiography in the Early Middle Ages: Text Transmission and Manuscript Dissemination,” in Historiographie in frühen Mittelalter, eds. Anton Scharer and Georg Scheibelreiter, Veröffentlichungen des Istituts für Österreichische Geschichtsforschung 32 (Vienna, 1994), pp. 96–114. Einhard, V. Karoli, ed. and trans. Louis Halphen (Paris, 1947), ch. 24. Note that as Halphen makes clear in his edition, p. 72, n. 1, this recognition of the importance of the study of history is not found in Suetonius’s biography of Augustus, which Einhard used as his basic model. Regarding Charlemagne’s library, see Bernhard Bischoff, Manuscripts and Libraries in the Age of Charlemagne, trans. and ed. Michael Gorman (Cambridge, 1994); and concerning the library of Louis the Pious, see Bernhard Bischoff, “Die Hofbibliothek unter Ludwig dem Frommen,” in Mediaeval Learning and Literature. Essays presented to R. W. Hunt, ed. M. T. Gibson and J. J. G. Alexander (Oxford, 1976), pp. 3–22. L. D. Reynolds, “Ammianus Marcellinus,” in Texts and Transmission: A Survey of the Latin Classics, ed. L. D. Reynolds and P. K. Marshall (Oxford, 1983), pp. 6–8 and Bischoff, Manuscripts and Libraries, pp. 150, 151, 157. M. Winterbottom, “Caesar,” in Texts and Transmission, pp. 35–36; and Bischoff, Manuscripts and Libraries, pp. 144, 146. M. Winterbottom, “Curtius Rufus,” in Texts and Transmission, pp. 35–36; and Bischoff, Manuscripts and Libraries, p. 150. L. D. Reynolds, “Eutropius,” in Texts and Transmission, pp. 159–162; and Bischoff, Manuscripts and Libraries, pp. 131, 150. P. K. Marshall, “Florus,” in Texts and Transmission, pp. 164–166. L. D. Reynolds, “Justinus,” in Texts and Transmission, pp. 197–199; and Bischoff, Manuscripts and Libraries, pp. 15, 29, 64, 79, 117, 137, 139, 140, 149, 150. L. D. Reynolds, “Livy,” in Texts and Transmission, pp. 205–214; and Bischoff, Manuscripts and Libraries, pp. 8, 16, 75, 116, 123, 125; 130, 133–147, 153.

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Lucan, 94 Sallust, 95 the anonymous author(s) of the Historia Augusta, 96 Suetonius,97 Tacitus,98 Valerius Maximus,99 and Valleius Paterculus.100 Further study of the Latin translations of Josephus’s works, which also were widely available, is very much needed because his works are so filled with a wide variety of military information. Indeed, almost every major Carolingian library had a copy of the Latin translation of Josephus’s work.101 Similarly, Quintus Curtius Rufus’s History of Alexander the Great, which also is filled with a great deal of information on warfare, was copied several times during the ninth century at various scriptoria in the regnum Francorum. Indeed, a Frankish count, Conrad, who, as his title illustrates, was an important administrator with major military obligations in the Loire region, is known to have ordered and received a copy of this text from a scribe named Haimo. Greater study of this text and the circumstances under which new copies were made obviously also is a desideratum.102 Moreover, these historical works were not mere antiquarian acquisitions destined to lie unused on dusty shelves. Charlemagne, as is well known, is reported to have had ancient histories and the deeds of great men from antiquity read aloud to him. This was an important aspect of the classical tradition, which was imitated at the Carolingian court and likely was copied at lesser courts throughout the regnum Francorum.103 Some Carolingian scholars are known to have

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R. J. Tarrant, “Lucan,” in Texts and Transmission, pp. 215–218; Bischoff, Manuscripts and Libraries, pp. 95, 137, 138, 153, 156. L. D. Reynolds, “Sallust,” in Texts and Transmission, pp. 341–349; and Bischoff, Manuscripts and Libraries, pp. 72, 74, 136, 142, 143, 146, 148, 156. P. K. Marshall, “Scriptores Historiae Augustae,” in Texts and Transmission, pp. 354–356; and Bischoff, Manuscripts and Libraries, pp. 118, 120, 150. M. D. Reeve, “Suetonius,” in Texts and Transmission, pp. 399–406; and Bischoff, Manuscripts and Libraries, pp. 133, 143–145, 150. R. J. Tarrant, “Tacitus,” in Texts and Transmission, pp. 406–409; Bischoff, Manuscripts and Libraries, pp. 150, 153. P. K. Marshall, “Valerius Maximus,” in Texts and Transmission, pp. 428–430; and Bischoff, Manuscripts and Libraries, pp. 117, 123, 126, 129, 144, 154. L. D. Reynolds, “Velleius Paterculus,” in Texts and Transmission, pp. 431–433; and Bischoff, Manuscripts and Libraries, p. 148. M. L. W. Laistner, Thought and Letters in Western Europe, A.D. 500–900, 2nd rev. ed. (London–Ithaca, 1957), pp. 100, 161, 266, 304; and McKitterick, History and Memory in the Carolingian World, pp. 45–47, 190, 193–194, 291. McKitterick, History and Memory in the Carolingian World, pp. 28–29, 40–41, 55, 59, 193; and McKitterick “The Audience for Latin Historiography in the Early Middle Ages,” pp. 96–97. V. Karoli, ch. 24. It is worthwhile here to call attention to the difference between putatively vernacular songs, “barbara et antiquissima carmina,” mentioned by Einhard in ch. 29, which Charlemagne ordered to be written down, and the Latin historiae and res gestae, noted above. De Jong, “The Empire as Ecclesia,” pp. 195–196, describes in detail some of the processes of reading aloud at court and the reasons for them. See also Matthew Innis, “Teutons or Trojans? The Carolingians and the Germanic past,” in The Uses of the Past in the Early Middle Ages, eds. Yitzhak Hen and Matthew Innis (Cambridge, 2000), pp. 227–249, who discusses some important differences between the kinds of information that were transmitted in writing and orally.

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memorized vast quantities of Latin historical literature from the numerous available manuscripts, which, like the memorization of aspects of Roman law, was seen by contemporaries as having practical value.104 There is much contemporary evidence that works of history had value for military purposes. For example, King Lothair I, Charlemagne’s grandson, indicated in a letter to Hrabanus Maurus, then archbishop of Mainz, that while on military campaign, expeditio, he often had to travel light. However, he emphasizes that his first priority was to take with him his bibliotheca historiarum. The obvious inference is that these books were to be close at hand if he needed any of them.105 Charlemagne and his successors, consistent with this imperative to learn from books, oversaw a system as a result of which substantial resources were expended

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John of Salerno, Vita Odonis, cols. 45–46 (PL, vol. 130); and McKitterick, The Carolingians and the Written Word, p. 218, who accepts this information as accurate. See the important study of memory by Mary Carruthers, The Book of Memory: A Study of Memory in Medieval Culture (Cambrige, 1990), pp. 16–17, who emphasizes continuity in the training of memory for practical purposes from the later Roman empire through the Middle Ages. Hrabanus Maurus, Epistolae, ed. Ernst Dümmler, Monumenta Germaniae Historica, Epp., V (Berlin, 1899), no. 49, p. 503. Note that McKitterick, History and Memory in the Carolingian World, p. 276, has accepted the information in the king’s letter as an accurate representation of his behavior and thinking on this matter. I find too narrowly conceived the notion put forth by de Jong, “The Empire as Ecclesia,” pp. 212–220, who seems to be arguing that the bibliotheca historiarum to which Lothair’s letter refers was limited to material from the books of Esther, Ruth, and Maccabees, perhaps with the addition of material from some other “historical books” of the Hebrew Bible. In this context, it should be noted that Hrabanus’s commentaries on Esther, Ruth, and Maccabees were done for the Empress Judith, Charles the Bald’s mother and step-grandmother of Lothair II. Regarding these commentaries, see Rosamond McKitterick, “Charles the Bald (823–877) and his Library: The Patronage of Learning,” English Historical Review 95 (1980), 28–47, and reprinted with the same pagination in Rosamond McKitterick, The Frankish Kings and Culture in the Early Middle Ages (Aldershot, Hants., 1995), 30. In the context of Lothair’s letter, the bibliotheca historiarum is juxtaposed by the king in his request to Hrabanus to make a new abbreviated liturgical compendium (“expositio et omiliaticus sermo”) that could easily be taken on campaign like the bibliotheca historiarum. The campaign context of Lothair’s request would seem to permit the inference that the bibliotheca historiarum was a collection of excerpts of historical texts of military value that Lothair might use for practical purposes while on expeditio. There is no reason, however, to believe that these were only biblical texts. De Jong notes (p. 202), “much of his [Hrabanus’s] exegitical work operated according to the principle of the florilegium … “ It should be noted, as well, that even when Hrabanus wrote commentaries on sacred texts, he often included lengthy excerpts from secular histories and even from non-Christian histories. See, for example, McKitterick, “The Audience for Latin Historiography in the Early Middle Ages,” p. 103; and also Eva M. Sanford, “The Use of Classical Latin Authors in the Libri Manuales,” Transactions of the American Philological Association 55 (1924), 190–248. I would suggest that the bibliotheca historiarum was a florilegium (probably now lost) of both biblical and secular historical texts that contained useful information, sapientia utilis, for military campaigning. Seen in this light, the bibliotheca historiarum can be understood as a complement to Hrabanus’s military handbook, based upon Vegetius’s De re Militari, the bishop of Mainz wrote for Lothair II. With such a florilegium and Hrabanus’s De procinctu Romanae miliciae, Lothair II would have had both the histories and the handbook needed by any welleducated military commander while on campaign.

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throughout Carolingian society not only to acquire and copy works such as the histories, noted above, but also military handbooks such as Vegetius’s De re Militari106 and the Strategemata of Frontinus.107 The building of substantial library collections, both by laymen, who were not royal princes, and by ecclesiastics was fundamental to the educational program that was diffused throughout the empire.108 In this context, it should be noted that the Carolingian court also obtained a copy of an anonymously authored tract, De rebus bellicis, which was a highly innovative and suggestive fourth-century work on military technology and strategy.109 This work was considered to have sufficient potential value that at least one new copy was made at the royal court. The same is true with regard to the Mappae Clavicula, which contains important information regarding the manufacture of incendiary weapons.110 In addition, the Carolingian court obtained a copy of the Notitia Dignitatum, which provided, among many other types of information, the order of battle of the Roman army in Gaul and its environs as that situation prevailed c. 430.111 The Carolingians also made at least one new copy of this valuable document.112 Some of our Germanist colleagues of a maximalist bent believe that such books were regarded by important men during the early Middle Ages merely as

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For the importance of Vegetius’s handbook, see Bachrach, Early Carolingian Warfare, pp. 85– 107. L. D. Reynolds, “Frontinus,” in Texts and Transmission, pp. 167–172. Campbell, The Emperor and the Roman Army, pp. 326–327; and regarding the early Middle Ages, see Bachrach, “The Education of the ‘Officer Corps’,” pp. 7–13. It is clear that Charlemagne followed his father’s lead and saw to the development of an extensive library at the royal court as shown by Bischoff, Manuscripts and Libraries, pp. 56–75. Also of importance in this context is Donald Bullough, “Roman Books and Carolingian renovatio,” Church History 14 (1977) and republished with corrections in Donald Bullough, Carolingian Renewal: Sources and Heritage (Manchester, 1991), pp. 14–15. In about 780, for example, it is generally agreed that Charlemagne sent out what Bischoff (p. 61) rightly considered a circular letter “to many countries (multis … terris)” requesting that copies of rare and/ or remarkable books be sent to the court. See Michael Gorman, “The Commentary on Genesis Prepared for Charlemagne by Wigbod,” Recherches Augustiniennes 17 (1982), 173–201. For a very useful survey with extensive bibliography regarding the building of libraries, both by laymen and by ecclesiastics, see McKitterick, The Carolingians and the Written Word, pp. 153–154, 169–175, 196–200. A Roman Reformer and Inventor: Being a New Text of the Treatise De rebus bellicis, ed. E. A. Thompson (Oxford, 1952). Regarding the early manuscript tradition of De rebus bellicis, see E. A. Thompson, “Introduction,” in A Roman Reformer and Inventor, p. 13. Regarding the manuscript history of Mappae Clavicula: A Little Key to the World of Medieval Techniques, ed. and trans. Cyril Smith and John Hawthorne (Philadelphia, l974), pp. 3–14; and regarding incendiaries, see pp. 162, 266, 276. These matters are discussed by Bachrach, Early Carolingian Warfare, pp. 99, 111, 116, 117. Notitia Dignitatum, ed. Otto Seeck (Berlin, 1876). Concerning the date see M. J. Nicasie, Twilight of Empire: The Roman Army from the Reign of Diocletian until the Battle of Adrianople (Amsterdam, 1998), p. 76. Regarding the early manuscript tradition, see Otto Seeck, “Zur Kritik der Notitia Dignitatum,” Hermes 9 (1875), p. 275, and accepted by Thompson, “Introduction,” p. 34, who provides additional support.

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pretty things. These books, the argument continues, were copied and maintained for antiquarian purposes as, for example, anachronistic decoration or to impress visiting Byzantine, papal, or Moslem ambassadors, among others.113 One of these extreme Germanic maximalists, as mentioned above, went so far as to observe that all this copying of texts was accidental rather than “by design” and finds no place for these works as having any practical value for medieval government.114 113

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This denigration of the Carolingians’ interest in books for practical purposes is merely a part of a larger argument intended to sustain an effort to “primitivize” the regnum Francorum. For example Patrick Wormald, “Lex scripta and Verbum Regis: Legislation and Germanic Kingship from Euric to Cnut,” in Early Medieval Kingship, ed. Peter Sawyer and Ian Wood (Leeds, 1977), pp. 105–138, argues that royal legislation was more a matter of wishful thinking than practical solutions that obtained tangible results. Another tack among German maximalists is to argue that Carolingian administration not only was very small but ineffective. On this point, see the rhetorical efforts of Karl Brunner, “Continuity and Discontinuity of Roman Agricultural Knowledge in the Early Middle Ages,” in Agriculture in the Middle Ages, ed. Del Sweeney (Philadelphia, 1995), pp. 21–40. For a useful critique of these minimalists, see Rosamond McKitterick, “Some Carolingian Law Books and their Function,” in Authority and Power: Studies on Medieval Law and Government Presented to Walter Ullmann, ed. Brian Tierney and Peter Linehan (Cambridge 1980), 13–27. Also, for the defense of the sophistication of the Carolingian court, see two studies by Janet Nelson, “The Voice of Charlemagne,” in Belief and Culture in the Middle Ages: Essays Presented to Henry Mayr-Harting, eds. Richard Gameson and Henrietta Leyser (Oxford, 2001), pp. 76–88, and “La cour impériale de Charlemagne,” in La royauté et les élites dans l’europe carolingienne (du début de IXe aux environs de 920), ed. Régine le Jan (Lille, 1998), pp. 177– 191, and reprinted with the same pagination in Janet L. Nelson, Rulers and Ruling Families in Early Medieval Europe (Aldershot, Hants., 1999). Likely, the maintenance of a “Dark Age” model, and more particularly the downgrading of Charlemagne, can be traced, in great part, to two sources. First, there remains a significant Nachleben from Pirenne’s now largely discredited views regarding the catastrophic impact of the Moslem invasions on Western civilization and particularly on the economy of the regnum Francorum. Secondly, the disillusionment caused by the “failure of Europe” in the 1930s, which culminated in the Nazi debacle, turned many scholars very pessimistic about the past and especially concerning Charlemagne’s imperial policy of unification which had so animated the supporters of the failed League of Nations following World War I. Bernard S. Bachrach, “Pirenne and Charlemagne,” in After Rome’s Fall: Narrators and Sources of Early Medieval History. Essays lpresented to Walter Goffart, ed. Alexander C. Murray (Toronto, 1998), pp. 214–231. Regarding the minimalist methodology, also referred to here as the Germanist-maximalist approach, and efforts to primitivize early medieval history so that anthropological models from non-literate societies may be used, see Bernard S. Bachrach, “Magyar-Ottonian Warfare: à-propos a New Minimalist Interpretation,” Francia 27 (2000), 211–230. In addition, efforts to primitivize the German past, i.e. to bleach out Roman influence, enable neo-nationalists to see an echt and rein German identity emerge from the ashes of the Carolingian empire. See the discussion of this in Bernard S. Bachrach, “Review Article: The New Cambridge History, 2: c.700–c. 900, ed. Rosamond McKitterick,” in Speculum 75 (1999), 217–220. Reuter, Medieval Germany, p. 39, and passim. De Jong, “The Empire as Ecclesia,” pp. 191– 226, is one among many scholars who show how this vast production of books and tracts had practical value. Concerning Reuter’s primitivist Germanic Gefolgschaft-model of Carolingian warfare as sustained by plunder and a warrior ethic, see the critique by John France, “The Composition and Raising of the Armies of Charlemagne,” in Journal of Medieval Military History 1 (2002), pp. 66–67.

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This line of argument proffers the view that there was a German Sonderweg, or “special way,” which was radically different from contemporary developments in Latin-Romance speaking lands. Such a Sonderweg, however, has been effectively rejected with regard to the regnum Francorum, and this includes both the German speaking parts of Francia media and Francia orientalis, as a whole.115 Rather, it is clear that the Carolingians saw considerable practical value in these texts. This was the case, for example, with regard to the famous Theodosius Map at Charlemagne’s court and the Roman geographical handbooks that Carolingian scholars copied, edited, and augmented. In this context, the importance of the corpus of the Agrimensores, which was frequently copied and edited at the royal court and scriptoria connected to it, should not be ignored.116 These secular texts and especially the handbooks had much the same value for those men engaged in governmental and military matters as biblical commentaries and other religious tracts, written during earlier centuries of the Christian era, so obviously had for clerical intellectuals. Such materials, indeed, made possible both theological research and the legislative endeavors that resulted in the establishment of canons for the governance of Christian society through the

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For a rejection of this primitivist approach see, for example, McKitterick, “Some Carolingian Law Books and their Function,” pp. 13–27; and two articles by Bernard S. Bachrach, “Pirenne and Charlemagne,” pp. 214–231; and “Magyar-Ottonian Warfare,” pp. 211–230. This rejection of Germanic primitivism, even as regards Francia orientalis, is also to be found in Eric Goldberg, Struggle for Empire: Kingship and Conflict under Louis the German, 817–876 (Ithaca, NY, 2006). See Bachrach, “Charlemagne’s Military Responsibilities ‘Am Vorabend der Kaiserkrönung’,” pp. 231–255, with the literature cited there; and Bernard S. Bachrach, “Charlemagne and the Carolingian General Staff,” The Journal of Military History 66 (2002), 313–357. For more recent work dealing with the Agrimensores, see J. B. Campbell, The Writings of the Roman Land Surveyors: Introduction, Text, Translation and Commentary (London, 2000). Abels and Morillo, “A Lying Legacy,” p. 9, are at pains to argue that the earliest surviving texts of the Agrimensores in England date to the tenth century. They further opine that what they regard as the supposedly “most useful” of the surveyors’ manuals “for military purposes,” i.e. that of pseudo-Hyginus II, was “lost” until 1493. These observations by Abels and Morillo are at best misleading. First, the relevant part of the pseudo-Hygenius-II corpus that putatively was lost until the late fifteenth century is De metatione castrorum. A careful reading of this text (see two useful modern editions: Hygini qui dicitur de metatione castrorum liber, ed. Antonio Grillone [Leipzig, 1977] and Pseudo-Hygin, Des Fortifications du Camp, ed. and trans. Maurice Lenoir [Paris, 1979]) places in doubt the view asserted by Abels and Morillo that it was the “most useful” for military purposes of the texts in the corpus of the Agrimensores. A careful reading of the other texts in the corpus of the Agrimensores, which were not “lost,” (see Campbell, above), indicates that many of these were of considerable military importance. Secondly, the type of information made available in De metatione castrorum was more easily found and in simpler form in various parts of Vegetius, De re Militari. If early medieval military thinkers were interested in more complex mathematical formulas for measuring out castra, they could turn to Alcuin, Propositiones ad acuendos juvenes (PL, vol. 101, cols. 1143–1160). In regard to Alcuin’s Propositiones, see Bachrach, Early Carolingian Warfare, p. 206. A careful comparison of Propositiones with various parts of De metatione castrorum, unfortunately well beyond the warrant for this study, may well suggest that the latter had not, in fact, been “lost.”

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Church. This case, i.e. the reliance on books, also has been made very effectively in regard to the study and use in the early Middle Ages of imperial legal literature.117 In this context, there is the example of the father of Odo of Cluny, who during the second half of the ninth century resided in the Touraine and maintained his legal practice there likely as both an advocate and a judge; he is credited with having memorized as part of his education the Novellae appended to the Codex Justinianus. 118 The reader should also remember that the leges barbarorum, as discussed above, were redacted by Roman lawyers on the mainland, who radically “edited” these laws so that they would, by and large, make sense in regard to the integration of various outsiders into a Gallo-Roman society. Concerning the specific use of later Roman documents and institutions with regard to practical aspects of governmental administration that had a bearing on military operations, attention should be given to the geographical handbooks. These were based on Roman models and, for example, provided detailed information on the imperial road system, which included accurate distances between various cities and lesser centers of habitation. The imperial network of highways and lesser roads was kept in repair in the regnum Francorum as a public service, which followed an antiqua consuetudo found in the Codex Theodosianus. Indeed, when the term antiqua consuetudo appears in the early medieval texts of the regnum Francorum, it refers explicitly to Roman law and not to “Germanic” custom brought west by the barbarians or invented by Germans on the basis of common sense.119 The taxes and labor services that were used on the mainland to sustain the physical infrastructure, e.g. the via publica and mansiones, required for military operations and government administrative activities, were subsequently enshrined in Anglo-Saxon England as an element of the Trinoda Necessitas. These socalled “common burdens,” as they often are characterized by specialists in AngloSaxon history, are generally agreed to have been copied from mainland practices.120 The importance of the Roman road system, which required regular repair, was clearly recognized in the geographical handbooks developed on the mainland. Indeed, these works, as noted above, indicated travel times between various places. This information undergirded, in part, the Tractoria or public

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McKitterick, The Carolingians and the Written Word, pp. 272–273, concludes “the role of the written word in the legal process and secular life as a whole made a vital and remarkable contribution to the fabric of Frankish society.” See the very favorable review of this work by Bernard S. Bachrach, Journal of Interdisciplinary History 21 (1990), 321–323. McKitterick, The Carolingians and the Written Word, pp. 272–273. See Bachrach, Early Carolingian Warfare, pp. 55, 93, 125. When commenting on the Trinoda Necessitas, Abels, Lordship and Military Obligation, p. 53, clearly gets it right when he observes: “The maintenance of roads and bridges was a service traditionally performed in Gaul by the residents of the immediate area, an obligation that probably found its legal roots in the Theodosain code and West Roman vulgar law.” Abels goes on to speculate that the introduction of these burdens into England may have been the “byproduct of vigorous cross-Channel trade.” It seems more likely to have been an effort stimulated by one or another Anglo-Saxon king which he copied from a Frankish contemporary.

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post system that was maintained in the regnum Francorum from the later Roman empire through the reign of Charlemagne and beyond.121 In regard to recognizing the importance of information generated in Roman books in order to govern his kingdom and improve his military opportunities, are we to believe that Alfred the Great was so different from Charlemagne and Charles the Bald, his older contemporary and step-grandfather? Indeed, I think that even Anglophone “Germanic maximalists” should embrace the notion that Alfred would have been equally eager to use whatever Roman texts he could find to help him in his military operations. Indeed, specialists in this field should work as hard to identify such behavior as they have to identify his use of other Roman sources.122 Earlier in his career, Abels certainly seems to have leaned toward seeing Alfred’s “literacy campaign” as having practical value. In fact, he quoted with approval Alfred’s view that “wisdom” was a “precondition to both the wealth of a people and their success in war [my italics].”123 Indeed, this very notion of the importance of sapientia utilis was expressed by more than one royal adviser in the regnum Francorum during the century prior to Alfred’s accession to the Wessex throne.124 On the whole, it is certainly reasonable to suggest that Alfred chose to learn from the past in this as in many other areas of royal responsibility.

Royal Education in the Regnum Francorum It is clear that it was Carolingian royal policy for both the male and female children of kings and the offspring of even lesser people to be well educated. In the early eighth century, Charlemagne’s father, King Pippin (d.768), was sent by his father Charles Martel (d.741) to study at the monastery of St. Denis and at the Lombard court of King Liutprand.125 Charlemagne’s own education, though the

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F. L. Ganshof, “La Tractoria: Contribution à l’étude des origines du droit de gîte,” Tijdschrift voor Rechtsgeschiedenis 8 (1928), 69–91. Lozovsky, “Roman Geography and Ethnography in the Carolingian Empire,” pp. 325–364, broaches the matter of the usefulness of Roman geographical works to the Carolingians, but further study is required with regard to the value of these texts for practical purposes in both education and for military purposes. See the incisive observations of James Campbell, “England, France, Flanders, and Germany: Some Comparisons and Connections,” in Ethelred the Unready: Papers from the Millenary Conference, ed. D. Hill (Oxford, 1978), pp. 255–270; and reprinted in James Campbell, Essays in Anglo-Saxon History (London–Ronceverte, 1986), pp. 191–207. See Abels, Alfred the Great, p. 310, for the quotation. See the well taken observations by Janet Nelson, Charles the Bald (London–New York, 1992), pp. 84–85, with regard to the importance of the acquisition of “wisdom.” Concerning the education of Pippin, see Pierre Riché, “Le renouveau cultural à la couer de Pepin III,” Francia 2 (1974), 59–70; and McKitterick, The Carolingians and the Written Word, p. 220, n. 33.

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subject of frequent discussion, obviously was of very high quality insofar as no one doubts, for example, that he was capable of understanding both the rather difficult Latin and the no less difficult ideas of Augustine’s De civitas Dei.126 Indeed, it now has been established that Charlemagne also played an active if not perhaps even a key role in the editing of Theodulf’s Libri Carolini.127 Charlemagne not only orchestrated the education of his own sons, in a manner which likely mirrored his own formation, but also the education of the young aristocrats who were being trained for military command at the royal court. However, in the royal schola, these youths, the sons of the king and others, were not limited merely to a military education. Efforts were made to enhance their intellectual development. Einhard, for example, makes the point that Charlemagne’s sons were educated in “liberalibus studiis.” Indeed, Einhard asserts that intellectual matters came “first” and that military training came afterward. This emphasis may perhaps have been somewhat exaggerated and stimulated by Einhard’s appreciation that one learned important lessons in a systematic manner from books more effectively than such lessons could be learned through the vagaries of experience.128

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Einhard, V. Karoli, ch. 24, for discussion of Charlemagne’s interest in and access to Augustine’s De civitate Dei. For the general acceptance of the notion that Augustine’s ideas were important to Charlemagne, see Gerhard Ladner, “Die mittelalterliche Reform-Idee und ihr Verhältnis zur Renaissance,” Mitteilungen des Instituts für österreichische Geschichtsforschung 60 (1952), 54; and Janet Nelson, “On the Limits of the Carolingian Renaissance,” Studies in Church History 14 (1973), 51–67, reprinted in Janet Nelson, Politics and Ritual in Early Medieval Europe (London–Renoceverte, 1986), pp. 49–50, 54. Even Heinrich Fichtenau, The Carolingian Empire, trans. Peter Munz (Oxford, 1957), p. 64, who is loathe to attribute very much special to Charlemagne’s learning, is willing to concede that he “had without doubt read Augustine’s De civitate Dei … “ Walter Ullmann, The Carolingian Renaissance and the Idea of Kingship (London, 1969), who was not enthralled either by Charlemagne’s intelligence (p. 3) or by his learning (p. 6) recognizes that he was very knowledgeable regarding Augustine’s De civitate Dei (pp. 139–140). Indeed, Ullmann claims that Charlemagne “devoured St. Augustine’s City of God.” More recently, Thomas F. X. Noble, “From Brigandage to Justice: Charlemagne, 785–794,” in Literacy, Politics, and Artistic Innovation in the Early Medieval West. Papers Delivered at “A Symposium on Early Medieval Culture,” Bryn Mawr College, Bryn Mawr, PA, ed. Celia M. Chazelle (New York, 1992), pp. 49–75, emphasizes the importance of Augustine’s writings to Charlemagne. The basic work on the Libri Carolini remains a series of articles by Ann Freeman: “Theodulf of Orleans and the Libri Carolini”; “Further Studies in the Libri Carolini I and II”; “Further Studies in the Libri Carolini III. The Marginal Notes in Vaticanus latinus 7207,” all published in Speculum 32 (1957), 663–705; 40 (1965), 203–239; 46 (1971), 597–616. See also Walther Schmandt, Studien zu den Libri Carolini (Mainz, 1966). For Charlemagne’s active participation in the making of the Libri Carolini as a means to advance his imperial agenda at the expense of the emperor in the East, see Noble, “From Brigandage to Justice,” pp. 61–63, and p. 74, n. 60, for additional literature. V. Karoli, ch. 19, makes clear that education in “liberalis studiis” was not military training. Charlemagne also had his daughters educated in these “liberal arts.” Einhard’s placement of book learning before military training may well have been the order of things since one must be of a certain physical strength to engage in serious military training.

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A similar educational curriculum, which combined a dual emphasis on the “liberal arts” and military training, also is noted by a contemporary in regard to the “scola palatium” of Charlemagne’s grandson, Charles the Bald. Thus, Heiric of Auxerre, a prolific writer and likely a student of Lupus of Férriers, is seen to praise the king’s scola by noting that on any given day one can see the students involved “no less in study [scolaribus (lit. scholarly matters)] than in military training [militaribus].”129 This pattern of educating the lay leaders of society is thoroughly illustrated by a great many well-documented examples and was to dominate in the regnum Francorum through the remainder of the early Middle Ages.130 The education and career of Charles the Bald (d.877) very well represents the formation of early medieval military leaders within the regnum Francorum in consonance with Roman educational doctrine for military commanders.131 As will be seen below, not only was Charles provided with a copy of Vegetius’s De re Militari, the classic military handbook, but also, in consonance with the teaching of Isidore of Seville, the king also was the beneficiary of advice with regard to the reading of military history. Thus, for example, in 844, Lupus of Férriers, Charles’ onetime courtier and later abbot of Saint-Benoît-sur-Loire, wrote to his king indicating that he was sending him a copy of The Deeds of the Roman Emperors. Lupus, who earlier in his career had taught in Charles’ palace school and had studied at Fulda with Hrabanus Maurus, made clear to the king that after reading this text, he would be well-informed concerning the methods by which he could identify the types of behavior that he should imitate and those which he should avoid. In this context, Lupus especially calls Charles’ attention in Imperatorum gesta to the accounts dealing with Trajan (d.117) and Theodosius I (d.395), whose auspicious military careers were widely appreciated both during the Roman era and throughout the Middle Ages.132 The availability of Roman and early medieval historical works to Charles the Bald begins, of course, with his personal library, in which Roman handbooks and histories play a noteworty role. Indeed, the important Abbot Hilduin of St. Bertin has been identified as Charles’ bibliothecarius, the head of the royal library.133 Surely, some books from this library traveled with the king as he itinerated through much of Francia occidentalis, much in the same way as Lothair’s

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See Heiric of Auxerre, Vita sancti Germani, ed. Ernst Dümmler, p. 429 (Monumenta Germaniae Historica, Poetae, III). For more general observations, see Rosamond McKitterick, “The Palace School of Charles the Bald,” in Charles the Bald: Court and Kingdom, ed. Janel L. Nelson and Margaret T. Gibson (Aldershot, Hants., 1990), pp. 326–339; and reprinted with the same pagination in Rosamond McKitterick, Books, Scribes and Learning in the Frankish Kingdoms, 6th–9th Centuries (Aldershot, Hants., 1994), at p. 326. In general, see McKitterick, The Carolingians and the Written Word, pp. 211–273. Janet Nelson, Charles the Bald (London–New York, 1992), pp. 82–85, provides a brief survey of Charles’ education. Lupus, Epist., no. 37 in Loup de Ferrières, Correspondance, ed. and trans. Léon Levillain, 2 vols., 2nd ed. (Paris, 1964), p. 165. See McKitterick, “Charles the Bald (823–877) and his Library,” p. 28.

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bibliotheca historiarum, discussed above, was a vademecum for military campaigning. The king’s personal library, however, should not be confused with that of the schola palatium, where, as noted above, laymen were educated in both intellectual and military matters.134 Beyond his personal library and that of the palace school, Charles, who was frequently on the road and found hospitality at various religious institutions, had easy access to numerous monastic libraries.135 For example, the library of the monastery of St. Benoît, headed by Lupus, had a massive collection of histories, as did the library of the monastery of St. Amand.136 This latter library is of considerable importance, in the present context, because of Charles’ very close and continuing relationship with Abbot Gauzlin of St. Amand (d.886), who served as royal arch-chancellor and later as Bishop of Paris.137 With Frechulf’s edited copy of De re Militari, Lupus’s edited copy of the Imperatorum gesta, and the extensive resources of both his personal library and those of various monasteries, Charles the Bald held in his hands two of the traditional necessities for the training of military officers. It remained only for the king to gain practical experience in the field, which he did in abundance.138 Roman military ideas along with subsequent early medieval variations gradually became part of the domain of learning common to those with command responsibilities in the regnum Francorum. Information certainly could be obtained through oral as well as written transmission by these commanders as part of the practical experience and social contacts that were intrinsic to their activities as serving officers.139 This learning process, of course, had been true for would-be Roman military officers, as well. However, the dissemination of

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McKitterick, “The Palace School of Charles the Bald,” pp. 328–329. See also Janet L. Nelson, “History-writing at the Courts of Louis the Pious and Charles the Bald,” in Historiographie in frühen Mittelalter, eds. Anton Scharer and Georg Scheibelreiter, Veröffentlichungen des Istituts für Österreichische Geschichtsforschung, 32 (Vienna, 1994), pp. 435–442. Concerning Charles the Bald’s itineration, see Carorichard Brühl, Fodrum, gistum, servitium regis: Studien zu den wirtschafts Grundlagen des Königtums im Frankenreich und in den frankischen Nachfolgestaaten Deutschland, Frankreich, Italien vom 6 bis zur Mitte des 14 Jahrhunderts, 2 vols. (Cologne, 1968), 1:39–48. With regard to St. Benoît’s library, see Marco Mostert, The Library of Fleury: A Provisional List of Manuscripts. Middeleeuwse Studies en Bronnen, 3 (Hilversum, 1989). Concerning St. Amand’s historical resources, see Rosamond McKitterick, “The Reading of History of St. Amand in the Ninth and Tenth Centuries,” in Reading and the Book in the Middle Ages, ed. Susan Ridyard (Swanee, TN, 2001), pp. 39–46. It should be noted, in this context, that the monastery of St. Amand, which was founded in the seventh century, already had close relations with the Carolingian royal court during the reign of Charlemagne if not, indeed, earlier. See, on this point, Rosamond McKitterick, “Carolingian Book Production: Some Problems,” The Library, 6th ser., 12 (1990), 1–33; and reprinted with the same pagination in Rosamond McKitterick, Books, Scribes and Learning in the Frankish Kingdoms, 6th–9th Centuries (Aldershot, Hants., 1994), p. 16. Regarding Charles the Bald’s military experiences, see Nelson, Charles the Bald, passim. Some very preliminary ideas on this subject have been presented in two articles by Bernard S. Bachrach, “Gregory of Tours, Vegetius, and the Study of War,” in Famille, violence et christianisation au Moyen Âge: Mélanges offerts à Michel Rouche, eds. Martin Aurell and Thomas Deswarte (Paris, 2005), pp. 299–308; and “The Practical Use of Vegetius,” pp. 239–255.

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important strategic and tactical concepts through contacts with other military officers had not deterred Roman commanders from studying both military handbooks and histories. The same can be noted with great confidence in regard to the use of both handbooks and history in the Byzantine empire.140 In the West, the history of De re Militari, as the most frequently copied late Roman secular text, provides prima facie evidence for the importance of Vegetius’s work as a tool for learning how to be a military officer, however much some of the information found therein may also have been disseminated orally.141

The Use of Vegetius The particular importance of Vegetius’s text is highlighted in regard to the Carolingian era by the work of Hrabanus Maurus, who c.856 wrote a military handbook based on De re Militari for King Lothair II (d.869). In this work, which in its present state seems to be incomplete, Hrabanus averred that he would include only those parts of De re Militari that are of value “tempore moderno.”142 In a similar context, as mentioned above, Frechulf of Lisieux, royal chancellor of the West Frankish kingdom, provided King Charles the Bald with a specially revised edition of De re Militari.143 This work, according to Frechulf’s surviving preface, was intended to provide guidance in both strategy and tactics when dealing with the Viking menace.144 It is of importance that Frechulf, who has been accurately characterized as a protégé of Hrabanus Maurus, also wrote a world history.145 The second volume was commissioned by the Empress Judith for the 140

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For a still useful survey of the Byzantine military handbooks, see A. Dain, “Les stratégistes byzantins,” Traveaux et mémoires 2 (1969), 317–390; and for the use of the works by Byzantine military commanders, see John Haldon, Warfare, State and Society in the Byzantine World, 565–1204 (London–New York, 1999), passim. Richardot, Végèce et la culture militaire, pp. 199–215, provides the basic manuscript references. Hrabanus Maurus, De procinctu Romanae militiae, ed. Dümmler, pp. 413–451; and for the quotation, p. 450. For the importance both of Vegetius and Hrabanus’s handbook, see Bachrach, Early Carolingian Warfare, pp. 85–107. Abels and Morillo, “The Lying Legacy,” p. 44, call attention to my “careful delineation of the difference between Hrabanus Maurus’s De Procinctu romanae miliciae and his source, Vegetius … “ However, they miss the point insofar as they fail to relate these differences to Hrabanus’ claim that he was going to include from De re Militari only what was of value “tempore moderno.” It is important to emphasize that in numerous works, Hrabanus calls attention to his intention to relate his effort to contemporary interests, i.e. “tempore moderno.” On this point, see de Jong, “The Empire as Ecclesia,” pp. 191–226. Rosamond McKitterick, “Charles the Bald (823–877) and his Library,” p. 31. See also M. D. Reeve, “The Transmission of Vegetius’s Epitoma rei militaris,” Aevum 74 (2000), 243–354. This is the view of Friedrick Prinz, Klerus und Krieg im früheren Mittelalter (Stuttgart, 1971), p. 11; and is accepted by McKitterick, “Charles the Bald (823–877),” p. 31. See the review of Prinz’s study by Bernard S. Bachrach in Catholic Historical Review 60 (1974), 478–479. Frechulfi Lexoviensis Episcopi Opera Omnia, ed. Michael I. Allen, Corpus Christianorum: Continuatio Mediaevalis, CLXIX, 2 vols. (Turnhout, 2002).

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education of her son Charles the Bald.146 Not incidentally, Louis the German, Charles’ elder brother and king of Francia orientalis (d.876), also greatly valued his royal library. This library contained numerous histories and not surprisingly also a copy of Vegetius’s handbook.147 Outside the Carolingian royal family, De re Militari attracted the attention of King Odo of Francia occidentalis. The latter acquired a copy of Vegetius’s handbook from the monastery of St. Denis sometime before his death in 898.148 Eberhard of Friuli is perhaps of even more interest because he was not a monarch. He came from a high aristocratic family in the heartland of Francia, but spent the greater part of his career as the Frankish military commander in northern Italy until his death c.869.149 Sometime before 855, Bishop Hartgar of Liège, a good friend of Eberhard, had a copy of Vegetius’s De re Militari sent to the margrave of Friuli. There is extant a poem which accompanied this gift, written by Hartgar’s close associate, Sedulius Scottus, who had come from Ireland to Francia ca. 840. Sedulius served as a resident intellectual at several courts in Francia media and Francia orientalis. He emphasizes with a certain amount of poetic license, that whosoever places a high value on the art of war (“belligerae … artis”) will find all that is necessary in this “treasury” of knowledge, i.e. Vegetius’s De re Militari.150 It should be noted that Sedulius was very well acquainted both with Vegetius’s De re Militari and the work of Frontinus as well as with numerous Roman histories which dealt with military matters.151 Sedulius’s knowledge regarding warfare is shown in various of his poems and also provides an important focus for his De rectoribus Christianis. This was a highly competent “mirror of the prince” tract, which he wrote for King Lothar II.152 In this context, two points are worthy 146 147 148 149

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Innes and McKitterick, “The Writing of History,” pp. 212–213. Eric Goldberg, Struggle for Empire: Kingship and Conflict under Louis the German, 817–876 (Ithaca, NY, 2006), pp. 40–42. McKitterick, “Charles the Bald (823–877),” p. 31, n. 4. Speculations regarding whether Charles’ copy was the one obtained by Odo have no evidence to support them. For the career of Eberhard, see Harald Krahwinkler, Friaul im Frühmittelalter: Geschichte einer Region vom Ende des fünften bis zum End des zehnten Jahrhunderts (Vienna, 1992), pp. 245–266. Sedulius Scotus, “Hartgarius Episcopus ad Eberhard” in Poetae Latini Aevi Carolini, ed. Ludwig Traube, Monumenta Germaniae Historicae (Berlin, 1896), vol. 3, no. LIII (p. 212). From various of the poems written by Sedulius for Eberhard, it is possible to gauge the quality of the Latin that the poet believed the general to command. See, for example, poems XXXVII– XXXIX, LXII, ed. Traube. It is clear that the Latin of these poems is far more complex than that of Vegetius’s De re Militari. Sedulius also would seem to have headed the cathedral school at Liège and also either taught or served as an adviser to the bishops of both Metz and Cologne. He associated both personally and through his poems with the rulers of Frankish society, with numerous lesser secular magnates and ecclesiastical leaders. See Sedulius Scotus, Collectaneum Miscellanum, ed. Dean Simpson, Corpus Christianorum, Continuatio Mediaevalis LXVII (Turnhout, 1988), pp. xiii, xvii. xxii–xxv, xxviii. De rectoribus Christianis, in Siegmund Hellmann Sedulius Scotus: Quellen und Untersuchungen zur lateinischen Philologie des Mittelalters, ed. Ludwig Traube, I (Munich, 1906), chs. I–III, VI, XIV–XVII; and regarding the poems see nos. VIII, XXV, XXVIII, XXXIX, XLV, LIII, LX,

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of emphasis. First, bishops Hartgar and Franco (855–901), Sedulius’s principals at Liège, were remarkably successful in undertaking military operations against the Vikings. As a result, one certainly cannot rule out the possibility that Sedulius, who served as an adviser to both of these prelates, was a source of useful information about the waging of war that was garnered from Roman miltary handbooks and histories.153 Secondly, Sedulius highlights in De rectoribus Christianis the fundamental advice that counselor after counselor gave to the rulers in Rome’s Frankish successor states: “Sit ergo fortis imitator ipsorum principum, qui ante … in vouluntate Dei regnaverunt … .”154 These Christian princes, who were to be imitated, included Roman emperors at least from Constantine the Great onward. Like Eberhard, who had acquired a substantial library in the course of his distinguished military career, his contemporary Count Eccard of Mâcon did the same. As might be expected, Eccard also possessed a copy of Vegetius’s De re Militari as well as various histories.155 In addition, like many secular military leaders, both these men had copies of De Virtutibus et Vitiis. This handbook was authored originally by Alcuin at the request of Wido, Roland’s successor as count of the Breton March. The latter had indicated to Charlemagne’s Anglo-Saxon adviser that he wanted a book of spiritual advice that was appropriate for a man who was thoroughly involved in “bellicis rebus.”156 As Rosamond McKitterick put it in her discussion of the types of books that important laymen acquired: “they possessed essential handbooks for men of their class – law books and tracts on war and agriculture” in addition, of course, to the requisite religious texts.157 Indeed, Pierre Riché made clear that such libraries were maintained by important laymen, who, like the king, saw to the training of young men in their households. Such libraries, Riché recognizes, were “le type de la bibliothèque de

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LXVII, ed. Traube. With regard to De rectoribus Christianis, see Hans H. Anton, Fürstenspiegel und Herrscherethos in der Karolingerzeit (Bonn, 1968), pp. 261–281. See poems, VIII, XLV (2), LXVI, ed. Traube. De rectoribus Christianis, ch. XIX, ed. Hellmann. “Therefore, be a brave imitator of those princes, who earlier … ruled by God’s will …” For the text of Eberhard’s will in which at least some of his books are noted, see Percy Ernst Schramm and Florentine Muterich, Denkmale der deutschen Könige und Kaiser (Munich, 1981), 1:93–94, and for that of Eccard, see Recueil des chartes de l’abbaye de Saint-Benoîtsur Loire, eds. Maurice Prou and A. Vidier, 2 vols. (Paris, 1900–1907), 1:65–66. For useful discussions of these texts, see Pierre Riché, “Les bibliothèques de trois aristocrates laïcs carolingiens,” Le moyen âge 69 (1963), 87–104; and McKitterick, The Carolingians and the Written Word, pp. 245–250. Alcuin, De Virtutibus et Vitiis (PL, vol. 101), cols. 613–638; and for the letters at the beginning and end of the handbook see Alcuin, Epist., no. 305 (Epistolae, ed. Ernst Dümmler, Monumenta Germaniae Historica, Karolini aevi, 2 (Hanover, 1895). Luitpold Wallach, “Alcuin on Virtues and Vices: A Manual for a Carolingian Soldier,” Harvard Theological Review 48 (1955), 175– 195, provides a useful introduction to the text and its problems. For further discussion, see Bachrach, Early Carolingian Warfare, p. 73; and McKitterick, The Carolingians and the Written Word, pp. 245, 247, 266–267. McKitterick, The Carolingians and the Written Word, p. 249. McKitterick, “The Written Word and Oral Communication,” p. 101, discusses the “practical” texts and gives particular emphasis to both Vegetius and the Agrimensores.

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fonctionnaires carolingiens, soldats, grands propriétaires, et chrétiens.”158

Conclusions As noted above, I agree with Abels and Morillo that “how we read the military terminology depends crucially on how we conceptualize the economic, social and administrative worlds that produced the armed forces … .” and, as I also indicated, I agree, as well, with their view that “armies are shaped by the worlds that produce them, reflecting the material capabilities and cultures of these worlds.” In my response to Abels and Morillo, I have argued that the information generated by all types of sources, e.g. letters, administrative tracts, capitulary legislation, and ecclesiastical canons, and not simply by narrative texts, vigorously affirm continuity from the later Roman empire in Gaul to the regnum Francorum. These sources highlight imitatio imperii in a wide variety of areas including military matters. More particularly, it has been shown that important men, both ecclesiastical and secular, throughout the history of the regnum Francorum, were encouraged to study and to learn from the past with regard to all fields of knowledge. However, it was seen to be of primary importance for those men who would have significant military responsibilities to gain military knowledge from handbooks and histories, as had been the case among the Romans. As a result, it should not be thought “misleading” that Frankish authors, when writing in Latin, present Charlemagne and others, in their carefully crafted texts, as undertaking military operations within a framework that betrays the influence of Roman behavior upon these leaders. By contrast, continuity between the institutions and structures of the later Roman empire and Anglo-Saxon England is traditionally rejected by specialists in English history.159 Very few of these scholars, it should be made clear, follow the road taken by Abels and Morillo and try to argue from this Anglo-Saxon discontinuity model to earlier conditions on the mainland. For example, it is clear that the fortress cities of the later Roman empire flourished in Late Antique Gaul and that, as a result, sieges were the focus of real warfare aimed at territorial conquest and the holding of lands acquired through sophisticated military operations.160 By contrast, British historians traditionally regard the cities of their

158 159

For the quotation see Riché, “Les bibliothèques,” p. 103, and note that McKitterick, The Carolingians and the Written Word, pp. 249–250, aso quotes Riché with great approval. However, one should not forget that on the western fringes of the Anglo-Saxons’ insular world, a Britano-Roman culture survived and may even have flourished. For example, into the ninth century, the historiographical tradition marked by Gildas early in the sixth century was continued in the Historia Brittonum, which highlighted the importance of the island’s Roman past. See the exceptionally stimulating study by David Dumville, “Historia Brittonum: an Insular History from the Carolingian Age,” in Historiographie in frühen Mittelalter, ed. Anton Scharer and Georg Scheibelreiter, Veröffentlichungen des Istituts für Österreichische Geschichtsforschung, 32 (Vienna, 1994), 406–434.

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island as “empty shells” and “ghost towns” during the period of transition from the later Roman empire to the early Middle Ages and, with but one radical and flawed recent exception known to me, do not venture to impose this model on Gaul.161 The flourishing of a Germanic Sonderweg north of the Channel, which continues to have strong support from the community of Anglo-Saxon scholars, has become almost a doctrine of faith. Those who have opposed it, such as Eric John, who argued, for example, that “the history of English law begins by the Mediterranean,” have been pilloried by Stentonites and their posterity.162 However, it may well be worth the effort for Abels and Morillo to reexamine whether Late Antique institutions, as they were modified gradually in the regnum Francorum, were reintroduced into England. Attention in the matter certainly is 160

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Hans Delbrück spoke for the pre-World War Two generation when he wrote: “Throughout the entire Middle Ages we find … the exploitation of the defensive in fortified places … “ Geschichte der Kriegskunst im Rahmen der politischen Geschichte (2nd ed., Berlin, 1923), vols. 2 and 3. For the convenience of the reader I have cited the English translations History of the Art of War: Within the Framework of Political History, vol. 2 The Germans 3, The Middle Ages, trans. Walter J. Renfroe (Westport, CT, 1980, l982), 3, 324. Charles Oman, Delbrück’s contemporary, took much the same position. History of the Art of War in the Middle Ages, 2 vols. (2nd ed. l924, repr. New York, l964), 2:52–54. With regard to the state of the question in the later twentieth century, Philippe Contamine noted: “In its most usual form medieval warfare was made up of a succession of sieges accompanied by skirmishes and devastation … “ Indeed, Contamine goes so far as to suggest, correctly I believe, that medieval warfare was dominated by “fear of the pitched battle” and a “siege mentality.” La Guerre au moyen âge (Paris, 1980) and translated by Michael Jones as War in the Middle Ages (Oxford, 1984), pp. 101, 219, for the quotations. Ferdinand Lot, L’Art militaire et les armées au moyen âge et dans le proche orient, 2 vols. (Paris, 1945), 1:17, observed, “la guerre de sièges … joué un … grand rôle dans les siècles qu’on a passés en revue.” More recently, see the pathbreaking study by Jim Bradbury, The Medieval Siege (Woodbridge, Suffolk, 1992); and Bernard S. Bachrach, “Medieval Siege Warfare: A Reconnaissance,” The Journal of Military History 58 (1994), 119–133; and reprinted in Bernard S. Bachrach, Warfare and Military Organization in Pre-Crusade Europe (London, 2002), with the same pagination. See the disastrous effort by Guy Halsall, Settlement and Social Organization: The Merovingian Region of Metz (Cambridge, 1996), to impose the British model on later Roman Metz. For a thoroughgoing critique of Halsall’s flawed methods, see Bernard S. Bachrach, “Fifth Century Metz: Later Roman Christian Urbs or Ghost Town?” Antiquité Tardive 10 (2002), 363–381. Note that the military history textbook authored by Guy Halsall, Warfare and Society in the Barbarian West, 450–900 (New York, 2003) is no less flawed than his work on Metz. Indeed, he argues in the course of pressing a Marxist problematic that the fortress cities of Gaul were ghost towns. See the review by Bernard S. Bachrach in The American Historical Review 109 (2004), 959. Eric John, Land Tenure in Early England (Leicester, 1960), p. 63, for the quotation. It is to the credit of Abels, Lordship and Military Obligation, pp. 45–46, that he recognizes that much in Anglo-Saxon land tenure had its origins on the mainland, even as regards the support of milites. Note should be taken of the chiding of Stenton for his “primitivist view of the Anglo-Saxon past,” by James Campbell, “Stenton’s Anglo-Saxon England, with Special Reference to the Earlier Period,” in Stenton’s ‘Anglo-Saxon England’ Fifty Years On, ed. D. Matthew, Reading Historical Studies I (Reading , 1994), pp. 49–59, and reprinted in James Campbell, The AngloSaxon State (London, 2000), 57.

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due to leaders such as Alfred the Great. Perhaps some of this reintroduction began even earlier through the influence of the Merovingian royal courts, mainland merchants, and the work of Augustine’s mission late in the sixth century, which resulted ultimately in the reestablishment of Christianity on the island.163 Indeed, James Campbell’s argument that later Anglo-Saxon England was a Carolingian-type state has much to recommend it.164

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For example, Abels, Alfred the Great, p. 39, who continues to believe correctly that “Bookland tenure had been introduced into England in the seventh century by churchmen … “ Clearly, these were the bearers of the tradition of Roman law. See two important articles by James Campbell: “Observations on English Government from the Tenth to the Twelfth Century,” Transactions of the Royal Historical Society, fifth series, 25 (1975), 39–54; and “The Significance of the Anglo-Norman State in the Administrative History of Western Europe,” in Histoire comparée de l’administration (IVe–XVIIIe siècles), ed. Werner Paravicini and Karl Ferdinand Werner (Munich, 1980), pp. 117–134. Both of these studies have been reprinted with additional notes in James Campbell, Essays in Anglo-Saxon History (London–Ronceverte, 1986). In this context, it is of no little importance that Asser’s biography of Alfred owed much to Einhard’s life of Charlemagne. See M. Schutt, “The Literary Form of Asser’s Vita Alfredi,” English Historical Review 72 (1957), 209–220, and the observations by Matthew Innis, “The Classical Tradition in the Carolingian Renaissance: Ninthcentury Encounters with Suetonius,” International Journal of Classical Tradition 3 (1997), 265–282, with regard to the importance of Suetonius to the writing of biography in early medieval England. It also has been noted that the Anglo-Saxon view of Christendom was borrowed from that of Charlemagne’s court. On this see Judith Herrin, The Formation of Christendom (Princeton, 1987), p. 8.