



Produced by Chris Curnow, Charlie Howard, and the Online
Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This
file was produced from images generously made available
by The Internet Archive)









Transcriber's note: Transliterations of Greek were added by transcriber
and are enclosed in {curly braces} This version of this eBook does not
contain actual Greek letters, but other versions do.




    Lothian Prize Essay
    1884

    THE ART OF WAR
    IN THE
    MIDDLE AGES




    Oxford

    PRINTED BY HORACE HART, PRINTER TO THE UNIVERSITY




    THE ART OF WAR
    IN THE
    MIDDLE AGES
    A.D. 378-1515

    BY
    C. W. C. OMAN, B.A.
    FELLOW OF ALL SOULS COLLEGE

    _WITH MAPS AND PLANS_

    OXFORD
    B. H. BLACKWELL, 50 BROAD STREET
    LONDON
    T. FISHER UNWIN, 26 PATERNOSTER SQUARE
    1885

    [_All rights reserved_]




The Author desires to acknowledge much kind help received in the
revision and correction of this Essay from the Rev. H. B. George, of
New College, and Mr. F. York Powell, of Christ Church.




CONTENTS.


                                                                  PAGE

  INTRODUCTION                                                       1


  CHAPTER I.

  THE TRANSITION FROM ROMAN TO MEDIAEVAL FORMS IN WAR (A.D. 378-582).

  Disappearance of the Legion.--Constantine's reorganization.--
    The German tribes.--Battle of Adrianople.--Theodosius
    accepts its teaching.--Vegetius and the army at the end of
    the fourth century.--The Goths and the Huns.--Army of the
    Eastern Empire.--Cavalry all-important                        3-14


  CHAPTER II.

  THE EARLY MIDDLE AGES (A.D. 476-1066).

  Paucity of Data for the period.--The Franks in the sixth
    century.--Battle of Tours.--Armies of Charles the Great.--
    The Franks become horsemen.--The Northman and the Magyar.--
    Rise of Feudalism.--The Anglo-Saxons and their wars.--The
    Danes and the Fyrd.--Military importance of the Thegnhood.--
    The House-Carles.--Battle of Hastings.--Battle of Durazzo    15-27


  CHAPTER III.

  THE BYZANTINES AND THEIR ENEMIES (A.D. 582-1071).

  Sec. 1. _Character of Byzantine Strategy._

  Excellence of the Byzantine Army.--Scientific study of the art
    of war.--Leo's 'Tactica.'--Wars with the Frank.--With the
    Turk.--With the Slav.--With the Saracen.--Border warfare
    of Christendom and Islam.--Defence of the Anatolic Themes.--
    Cavalry as a defensive force.--Professional and unchivalrous
    character of Byzantine officers                              28-38

  Sec. 2. _Arms, Organization, and Tactics of the Byzantines._

  Reorganization of the Army of the Eastern Empire by Maurice.--
    Its composition.--Armament of the Horseman, A.D. 600-1000.--
    Armament of the Infantry.--Military Train and Engineers.--
    The Officers.--Cavalry tactics.--Leo's ideal line of
    battle.--Military Machines and their importance              38-48


  CHAPTER IV.

  THE SUPREMACY OF FEUDAL CAVALRY (A.D. 1066-1346).

  Unscientific nature of feudal warfare.--Consequences
    of headlong charges.--Tactical arrangements.--Their
    primitive nature.--Non-existence of strategy.--Weakness
    of Infantry.--Attempts to introduce discipline.--Rise of
    Mercenaries.--Supreme importance of fortified places.--
    Ascendency of the defensive.--The Mediaeval siege.--
    Improvement of the Arts of Attack and Defence of fortified
    places.--General character of Campaigns.--The Crusades       49-61


  CHAPTER V.

  THE SWISS (A.D. 1315-1515).

  Sec. 1. _Their Character, Arms, and Organization._

  The Swiss and the Ancient Romans.--Excellence of system more
    important than excellence of generals.--The column of
    pikemen.--The halberdier.--Rapidity of the movements of the
    Swiss.--Defensive armour.--Character of Swiss armies         62-69

  Sec. 2. _Tactics and Strategy._

  The 'Captains' of the Confederates.--The Echelon of three
    columns.--The 'Wedge' and the 'Hedgehog' formations          70-73

  Sec. 3. _Development of Swiss Military Supremacy._

  Battle of Morgarten.--Battle of Laupen.--Battle of Sempach.--
    Battle of Arbedo.--Moral ascendency of the Swiss.--Battle
    of Granson.--Battle of Morat.--Wars of the last years of
    the fifteenth century                                        73-87

  Sec. 4. _Causes of the Decline of Swiss Ascendency._

  The tactics of the Swiss become stereotyped.--The Landsknechts
    and their rivalry with the Swiss.--The Spanish Infantry
    and the short sword.--Battle of Ravenna.--Fortified
    Positions.--Battle of Bicocca.--Increased use of
    Artillery.--Battle of Marignano.--Decay of discipline in
    the Swiss Armies and its consequences                        87-95


  CHAPTER VI.

  THE ENGLISH AND THEIR ENEMIES (A.D. 1272-1485).

  The Long-bow and its origin, Welsh rather than Norman.--Its
    rivalry with the Cross-bow.--Edward I and the Battle of
    Falkirk.--The bow and the pike.--Battle of Bannockburn
    and its lessons.--The French Knighthood and the English
    Archery.--Battle of Cressy.--Battle of Poictiers.--Du
    Guesclin and the English reverses.--Battle of Agincourt.--
    The French wars, 1415-1453.--Battle of Formigny.--Wars of
    the Roses.--King Edward IV and his generalship.--Barnet
    and Tewkesbury.--Towton and Ferrybridge                     96-123


  CHAPTER VII.

  CONCLUSION.

  Zisca and the Hussites.--The Waggon-fortress and the tactics
    depending on it.--Ascendency and decline of the Hussites.--
    Battle of Lipan.--The Ottomans.--Organization and equipment
    of the Janissaries.--The Timariot cavalry.--The other
    nations of Europe.--Concluding remarks                     124-134




INTRODUCTION.


The Art of War has been very simply defined as 'the art which enables
any commander to worst the forces opposed to him.' It is therefore
conversant with an enormous variety of subjects: Strategy and
Tactics are but two of the more important of its branches. Besides
dealing with discipline, organization, and armament, it is bound to
investigate every means which can be adapted to increase the physical
or moral efficiency of an army. The author who opened his work with a
dissertation on 'the age which is preferable in a generalissimo,' or
'the average height which the infantry soldier should attain[1],' was
dealing with the Art of War, no less than he who confined himself to
purely tactical speculations.

The complicated nature of the subject being taken into consideration,
it is evident that a complete sketch, of the social and political
history of any period would be necessary to account fully for the
state of the 'Art of War' at the time. That art has existed, in a
rudimentary form, ever since the day on which two bodies of men first
met in anger to settle a dispute by the arbitrament of force. At
some epochs, however, military and social history have been far more
closely bound up than at others. In the present century wars are but
episodes in a people's existence: there have, however, been times when
the whole national organization was founded on the supposition of a
normal state of strife. In such cases the history of the race and of
its 'art of war' are one and the same. To detail the constitution of
Sparta, or of Ancient Germany, is to give little more than a list of
military institutions. Conversely, to speak of the characteristics of
their military science involves the mention of many of their political
institutions.

At no time was this interpenetration more complete than in the age
which forms the central part of our period. Feudalism, in its origin
and development, had a military as well as a social side, and its
decline is by no means unaffected by military considerations. There is
a point of view from which its history could be described as 'the rise,
supremacy, and decline of heavy cavalry as the chief power in war.' To
a certain extent the tracing out of this thesis will form the subject
of our researches. It is here that we find the thread which links the
history of the military art in the middle ages into a connected whole.
Between Adrianople, the first, and Marignano, the last, of the triumphs
of the mediaeval horseman, lie the chapters in the scientific history of
war which we are about to investigate.




I.

THE TRANSITION FROM ROMAN TO MEDIAEVAL FORMS IN WAR.

A.D. 378-582.

[From the battle of Adrianople to the Accession of Maurice.]


Between the middle of the fourth and the end of the sixth century lies
a period of transition in military history, an epoch of transformations
as strange and as complete as those contemporary changes which turned
into a new channel the course of political history and civilisation in
Europe. In war, as in all else, the institutions of the ancient world
are seen to pass away, and a new order of things develops itself.

Numerous and striking as are the symptoms of that period of transition,
none is more characteristic than the gradual disuse of the honoured
name of 'Legion,' the title intimately bound up with all the ages of
Roman greatness. Surviving in a very limited acceptance in the time of
Justinian[2], it had fifty