Medaeval War Tactics

[Innocentius]

Others, exactly what do you expect from me, from a question basicaly telling me to go somewhere else?

I expect only what I would expect from myself: a thought-out questions, asked politely and with my own personal research to back it up. For example:

"From what I've read on X, it seems A and B participated in battles mainly when Y or Z were present. [Insert example/proof]. Why was A and B so dependant on Y or Z in X?"

X being the geographic area, time, people involved etc. I think you can figure the rest out yourself.

Did france use professional (not knights) soldiers often?

I don't know, actually. Considering the time, professional soldiers hardly existed in Western Europe, with the possible exception of Italian mercenaries. That is: if you don't count levy soldiers and such as professional soldiers.

Did knights use spears?

The lance was the primary weapon, yes. These were come-and-go weapons however, and would often break in the first clash, or be rendered useless once it got to close-up melee fighting.

Did knights decide the battle, with only them fighting?

There were battles in which knights fought knights, and the infantry assembled were never engaged in actual combat. So yes, some battles were decided by the knights alone.

infintry battles were 1v1? (whole line charging then pick target)

Impossible to know. Judging from what we know from later centuries, it was preferable if the infantry fought as units, but less experienced/professional soldiers could very well engage in those foolish slugfests you see in the movies (NB: movies are a horrible source if you want to learn anything about history).

[Watchman]

Feudal warriors like knights could be termed "semi-professionals" methinks. The early knights were basically the household guards and retainers of the feudal barons, and spent a lot of time attending to assorted duties around their employer's dwelling (or tending to their fief, if enfeoffed with land) when not practising their fighting skills. Ditto for the lower feudal warrior ranks, the sergeants.
The whole point of the system was after all the maintenance of a body of trained warriors capable of economically sustaining themselves.

Mercenaries would have been the only "professional" soldiers in the sense of it being their only occupation.

Anyway, by the end of the 11th century European heavy cavalry - knights - had AFAIK gone completely over to the couched lance (the overhand and throwing-spear approach was still around by the Battle of Hastings, 1066, but was apparently abandoned soon after). The early lance was not meaningfully different from any long cavalry spear (the "wasp-waisted" heavy tapering lance was a much later developement that accompanied the invention of plate armour), and served as such readily enough; nor was the couching technique particularly new or confined to Europe. What the Europeans began to do differently was specialising in shock action with it, and altering their cavalry tactics accordingly; the basic two-rank attack line (with lighter cavalry following close behind in support) described in later sources was probably around this early already.

In other words, the knights became specialists in linear frontal assault; the downside was that the resulting tactical formation was rather lacking in agility, and encounters with solid infantry capable of repelling the attack sometimes led to quite spectacular failures.

IIRC this developement started in France, and was quite succesfully exported by the Normans; by the Crusades it was the signature of European heavy cavalry.

Knights were commonly enough dismounted in sieges, and sometimes in field battles as well; period German knights were noted to be particularly willing to do this and highly competent as heavy infantry, doubtless due to the prevalence of forests (where cavalry have major trouble) in their homelands.


European infantry of the period was a mixed bag. Generally speaking the quality tended to be low in heavily feudalised regions where the heavy cavalry dominated, a trend carried over from late Carolingian times already. The commoner infantry levy of such parts tended to be of rather low quality, and incapable of standing up to a cavalry charge or better foot. There would have been the infantry sergeants (low-ranking feudal troops) and the upper end of of the independent peasantry who would have been much better equipped and of higher fighting calibre, but they would not have been very numerous; certainly warlords preferred to augment their domestically available quality infantry forces with mercenaries whenever possible.

In northern Europe a major source for such capable hired heavy infantry was the Low Countries. The region was heavily urbanised and had little in the way of feudalism (being economically and geographically somewhat unsuited for the system), and relied primarily on infantry militias for its defense; many of these made a career selling their skills to feudal warlords short of solid foot soldiers. Northern Italy was much similar in the south.

Generally speaking period infantry was divided into close-order spearmen and missile troops. The primary job of the former was to form a solid bulwark shieldwall to anchor the line, which the cavalry (the primary offensive arm) could use as a rallying point and the missile troops could shelter behind. Much period heavy infantry was "unarticulated", that is, incapable of performing offensive maneuvers without excessively compromising their formation. This meant that while they could advance to attack against their similarly cumbersome opposite numbers, they were rendered immobile in the face of enemy cavalry as moving would have upset the ranks and allowed the horsemen to smash the disordered unit apart. Primarily the infantry offensive action was left to the missile troops, whose job (besides countering their opposite numbers) was above all to weaken the enemy ranks; later on the northern Italians would indeed rely chiefly on the crossbow (covered by heavy spearmen) for the destruction of the enemy.

The higher-grade infantry of the Low Countries, northern Italy, Scandinavia (which out of necessity retained much of "Viking" approaches to combat long into the Middle Ages) and probably Germany were probably well enough drilled that they may have been (and definitely were, in the case of Scandinavia at least) capable of "articulated" offensives, though.

infintry battles were 1v1? (whole line charging then pick target)

Normally heavy infantry fought in a dense shieldwall (as mentioned above); there's not much room for individual combat there, rather unit cohesion and teamwork is everything. Dismounted knights, being considerably better armed and trained than most foot troops, would have been better capable of carrying themselves in more open-order and indivdualistic fashion if necessary, but normally fought in similarly dense ranks (they were in fact often spread out among the common foot to stiffen the line and add some punch to it).

Actual open-order melees would have been rare, and primarily limited to rugged terrain where solid formations could not be maintained (people usually avoided using heavy troops in such ground anyway), or rare instances where units lost cohesion and became intermingled without either side immediately breaking.

[Boyar Son]

THANK YOU!!

[The Stranger]

Watchman

The higher-grade infantry of the Low Countries, northern Italy, Scandinavia (which out of necessity retained much of "Viking" approaches to combat long into the Middle Ages) and probably Germany were probably well enough drilled that they may have been (and definitely were, in the case of Scandinavia at least) capable of "articulated" offensives, though.
Normally heavy infantry fought in a dense shieldwall (as mentioned above); there's not much room for individual combat there, rather unit cohesion and teamwork is everything. Dismounted knights, being considerably better armed and trained than most foot troops, would have been better capable of carrying themselves in more open-order and indivdualistic fashion if necessary, but normally fought in similarly dense ranks (they were in fact often spread out among the common foot to stiffen the line and add some punch to it).

I would like to add the swiss and the scots to that in the 14th century.

a frequently used formation was also the schiltrom or crownformation. Infantry formed a circle or halfcircle in which infantry was closely packed together, this formation deemed very hard to break for knights but was an easy target for trained archers.

still I would recommend the book the art of warfare in western europe during the middle ages. it has answers to all your questions...

[Watchman]

Sure, but the topic was 11th century... I mean, if you wanted to go for a greater coverage there'd already have been the Iberian peninsula where even knights long fought as light cavalry with javelins, and things were generally done in a rather unusual way owing to terrain and politics.

[Fisherking]

When you get down to it, it is too general a topic for a simple answer. Everything changed several times and you had a wide variance in every region. Who was considered a noble changed and who could own and bare arms.

But as a general rule you could say that most armies until the late period where peasant levies. They fought with what they had or were given and disserted or went home at the first opportunity. Mercenary armies became more popular in the north during the hundred years war and that was basically the beginnings of professional armies of that time. No one really kept a standing army until after the medieval period ended.

As tactics are the best use of men and their weapons you can see that the prevalent weapons of the time and place are the key to any tactical discussion.

[The Stranger]

Sure, but the topic was 11th century... I mean, if you wanted to go for a greater coverage there'd already have been the Iberian peninsula where even knights long fought as light cavalry with javelins, and things were generally done in a rather unusual way owing to terrain and politics.

sorry forgot about that

[Incongruous]

The English were noted of coarse for their use of infantry tactics and skill as such.

I think I am correct in saying that the former Frankish Empire was the area where infantry quality declined rapidly due to it being the heartland of proto-feudal ideals and millitary tactics. Cavalry being the dominant force in these areas well into the 14th century.

The Arab armies also made use of well armed cavalry during this period dind't they? Heavily armed and aroured? In the Western Islamic area's large amounts of well armed archers were common were they not?

The Irish and other Celto-Nordic cultures were also master infantrymen, but also used light cavalry, didn't they? Highly organised war fleets were a feature of Norse kingdoms of britain, at least imediatley after they invaded.

[Hound of Ulster]

The Irish chieftains prefered Kerns (tribal warriors armed with javelins) and Gallowglass (heavy infantry). They also used lots of cavalry.