Some questions about medieval knights

[Miles Sueborum]

Hello everybody - I got some questions about medieval knights

1st If a group of knights would have to fight dismounted for what reason ever - how would they have fought? Would have stood in something comparable to the early shieldwalls or would everybody have fought for himself or did they use some totally difrent tactics?
I guess this changed over time so I ask this for three diffrent periods: Round about 1100, round about 1250 and round about 1400.

2nd In battle and on tournament knights wore armor, during feasts their best clothes - but in every days life or on journies? What did they wear than?

Looking forward to answers ^^

[Watchman]

Dismounted knights would naturally enough have fought as any comparable armed heavy infantry did - ie. in as close order as their particular weapon selection permitted. Mind you, as they were very highly trained and well equipped fighters they weren't as dependent on such mutually supporting formation as humbler troops, as they had rather less shortcomings in the skill and gear departement to compensate for; but particularly when facing cavalry closed ranks would be very beneficial.

"Off duty" knights would of course wear whatever articles appropriate for their status they could afford, as everyone now did. It tended to be sort of de rigeur particularly for the upper classes to show off their standing as much as possible, not in the least as a badge of rank in a world quite bereft of any real kind of standardized and verifiable ID papers.

[Furious Mental]

Don't know about the rest of Europe, but when Anglo-Norman knights fought dismounted it was generally when they expected to face a cavalry charge and they were placed in the front ranks of the army in front of the fyrd. Since the fyrd presumably fought in a shield wall and this was already pretty good at stopping a cavalry charge, I'd expect dismounted knights to have fought in the same fashion. Since at that stage knights seem to have used a relatively light lance, and carried a big kite shield, it was easy enough. In the Hundred Years War English knights sometimes used their lances like pikes. One account of a battle referred to their formation as being like a "hedgehog", which would suggest something like a schiltron. Once fighting on foot became the rule they probably more as individuals since the sort of weapons used- two handed axes or swords, hammers, etc needed room to swing. More than likely they had a retinue to accompany them though; if they were just men-at-arms maybe not.

[Miles Sueborum]

Thank you for your good answers.

[Flavius Clemens]

I remember a TV documentary series about medieaval weapons, presented by Mike Loades

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mike_Loades

(forget the show's name though) in which he gave the opinion that dismounted knights would fight in pairs to watch one another's backs, making up for the limited visibility allowed by their helmets.

[Furious Mental]

I wouldn't rely too heavily on conjecture by a television program. Not saying it is wrong- that is impossible to prove. But as far as I know it is conjecture. One could equally well conjecture that the need for an attendant could be fulfilled by a knight's retainer. More than likely they acted as was convenient in the circumstances.

For example, an account of a battle in the HYW between some free companies mreferred to the men-at-arms on one side advancing in a formation protected by large shields (pavises perhaps) to thwart the longbowmen on the other side. According to the account it worked. On a completely different note, like archers, one thing that English men-at-arms were very good at when they fought on foot was using things like trous de loup and abatis and natural obstacles to obstruct the approach of the enemy.

[Flavius Clemens]

"I wouldn't rely too heavily on conjecture by a television program. Not saying it is wrong- that is impossible to prove. But as far as I know it is conjecture."

Indeed - 'opinion' was the key phrase.

[Watchman]

It would sound rather more likely they usually just formed up in close enough order they didn't have to worry about their sides and rear - since there were only friendlies there. For such frontal shock combat in closed ranks it doesn't really matter much, for either horse or foot, if the helmet screws up your peripheral vision; for the sake of comparision, recall the early Greek hoplites with their "closed" Corinthian helmets or the Eastern cataphracts and their close-fitted anthropomorphic metal face-masks with only small openings to see through. Or the fully visored heavy-cavalry helmets of Late Medieval and Early Modern periods, still in use by some heavy formations in the English Civil Wars.

[edyzmedieval]

Watching each other's back is quite a misconception. If there was a fully fledged battle where the width of the army was matched by the other one, the need for watching the back was pretty useless. Sometimes spearmen were often used in the front line, in order to dissolve the shock of the frontal charge, and then let the knights a row behind to do the killing. Many of the knights were fairly well equipped as they were heavy infantry which was required to do most of the killing.

[Kraxis]

Obviously the knights fought in what can be considered strong formations. At least if they were dismounted.

Being heavy cavalry themselves, they would know what they didn't like to face. Also, the Norman practice of a knee-to-knee line of cavalrymen or the less used diamond/wedge, would indicate that they were neither unruly nor too independant. They were highly trained for cooperation, and as such they would stand their ground in infantryformations. And equipmentwise they were the best you could get.
And as far as I know the early knights generally won if they were dismounted and not surprised versus a mounted foe of similar strength. Obviously they were highly effective infantry.

That obviously begs the question: Why didn't they always ride to battle and dismount, much like the Saxons?
Well, just because the dismounted knights beat up the mounted knights, and generally could paste most infantry as well, didn't mean that it was the most powerful force.
The loss of mobility would be the greatest loss obviously, but the loss of a heavy shock and pursuit would also speak in favour of a greater impact while mounted. Mind you, this would be against non-knights or specilaized troops.
Dismounted they could beat what they wanted (gross generalization, but bear with me), but they would suffer losses they wouldn't suffer otherwise, would be vulnerable in case of a slip-up, and couldn't just move on to a new target after beating a foe. Their potential as a battlewinner would go down the drain as infantry.

As infantry they would be the security for not suffering a loss, as cavalry they would secure the victory. And thus it becomes obvious why an outnumbered force of knights dismounted. They needed to not lose more than they needed to win.

[Watchman]

AFAIK the standard tactical sub-unit of mounted knights was a "squad" of usually five men which tried to stick together and cover each others' backs - a necessary precaution given the tendency of horse-horse fights to dissolve into rather confused swirling melees. It would be right strange if these selfsame "squads" didn't similarly stick together dismounted; close-order infantry normally maintain fomration integrity rather better than cavalry by default, but nevertheless it's always good for a soldier to be surrounded by comrades he's familiar with and knows he can trust. This is particularly important when receiving a cavalry charge, as the infantry "sticking to their guns" and not budging - and therefore failing to provide the horsemen convenient gaps in the lines to plow into - is by far their most important defense and best achieved when the men can count on not only standing their ground themselves, but that their mates will do the same instead of dooming everybody by dithering.

Moreover, combat between close-order infantry always tended to be primarily about hacking a hole in the enemy ranks and pushing into it, therefore starting to compromise their formation cohesion and integrity and thus defray their morale and confidence; an obviously risky and dangerous thing to do (as the man stepping "into the breach" would at least momentarily be functionally surrounded by enemies on around three sides), and greatly benefiting from immediate close support from his mates. Obviously not too many folks would be willing to even try wading into the enemy ranks that way should they not be able to count on with a fair degree of certainty that their comrades would follow without delay.

[The Stranger]

Hello everybody - I got some questions about medieval knights

1st If a group of knights would have to fight dismounted for what reason ever - how would they have fought? Would have stood in something comparable to the early shieldwalls or would everybody have fought for himself or did they use some totally difrent tactics?
I guess this changed over time so I ask this for three diffrent periods: Round about 1100, round about 1250 and round about 1400.

2nd In battle and on tournament knights wore armor, during feasts their best clothes - but in every days life or on journies? What did they wear than?

Looking forward to answers ^^

usually when knights dismounted they were mixed between ranks of common footsoldiers to stiffen their ranks... about formation.. watchman answered that...

[Furious Mental]

"AFAIK the standard tactical sub-unit of mounted knights was a "squad" of usually five men"

Well some claim that knights were organised in such a way but that's pretty dubious. In actuality their tactical organisation was probably exactly the same as their logistical organisation, i.e. that they fought with other knights from the same manor, military household, mercenary company or whatever. That might have been five knights or it might have been some other number depending on the particular case.

[Watchman]

"Knight" outside the social significance of the title is interchangeable with "man-at-arms", ie. a fully armed and trained cavalryman also capable of fighting on foot. A lot of these guys were of the "armed household retainer" status rather than estate-owners per ce. Heavy cavalry in particular only works worth a crap when properly trained in at least small-unit level group tactics, and obviously the warriors attached to the same lord (or whatever) mostly trained with each other. That forms a natural basis for a tactical sub-unit when feudal contingents are amalgamated into larger battlefield formations; but it doesn't really make much sense to use them "as is", as such individual contingents might well vary in size from a couple to dozens of men; in other words, they would need to be organized into smaller, more manageable "squads". The specific size and constituent of these would of course vary by time and place, tactical preference and any number of other onsiderations, but AFAIK about five horses has been a very common size the world over (as well as decimal multipliers, which have been particularly popular for infantry) presumably because it offers a reasonably optimal balance between numbers, flexibility and manageability - large enough to be an effective combat unit, but not too large to become clumsy and unmanageable in the typically rather confused and fluid circumstances where it becomes particularly important.

[Furious Mental]

Well five may have been the optimal number but to then go on and conclude that it was therefore standard is just conjecture. If we went over other military forces through history we could come up with all sorts of numbers. The only thing we know for sure is that tactical units have always been based on the chain of command and with medieval knights there was no chain of command akin to that which exists in modern armies. The chain of command was essentially the same as the chain of military obligations, that is, orders were taken from whoever the man served under. Take the English.

- A list of knights serving John in 1215, mostly foreign mercenaries, had them grouped into constabularies of 25.
- A document from Edward I's reign showed cavalry of the royal household grouped in 10 man constabularies led by the lord who provided them.
- In the fourteenth century there are a couple of references to ten man conrois, e.g. Froissart wrote that the Black Prince's marshal ordered the army to form into conrois for an assault, and In the same year Geoffrey of Harcourt's army broke up because they did not maintain their "conroi".
- The vast majority of references are simply to retinues, which could be any size. In 1300 Robert Clifford had a retinue of four knights and eighteen squires, John de la Mare one of two knights and eight squires, while Arnald de Gavaston had a mere four squires. Larger retinues were led by bannerets, which varied in size over time. The Histoire of William Marshal took his army to have about 200 men because he had 15 bannerets, which would suggest about 13 to each. The average size of bannerets in Edward I's army in Scotland was 13 to 15. Then bannerets got bigger and bigger and by the late fourteenth century there were about 200 to each. Presumably they had their own internal organisation, but how that was done was probably the discretion of the banneret.

For all we know five might have been the optimal number but all the evidence indicates that was not accepted wisdom, in fact that there was no accepted wisdom, hence the wide variation in numbers.

[Watchman]

Yet as you might note the above can also be described as "multiplies of five plus sundry". Decimal chains-of-command which neatly sub-divide into tens or, if necessary, further down to fives have also seemed to be inordinately common particularly among "horse peoples", such as various steppe nomads and the ancient Persians.

...although of course in practice the units would of course tend to be understrenght thanks to the usual suspects, but them's the breaks. Commanders fought their battles with what they had, not what they would have liked to have or what prevailing military theory regarded as preferable.