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Asinus Docet
Mind What You Find Here
AH Contributions
Medieval Memes
Manuscript Illuminations
Author: Asinus Docet
I peruse medieval manuscripts and make memes. I'm also a flaired user at r/AskHistorians and my contributions end up on my blog @ http://asinusdocet.tv
How to Find Turtles in Medieval Manuscripts Online
26 May 2020 6 Jun 2020 Asinus Docet
This video has been recorded and uploaded on #WorldTurtleDay 2020!
Digitized manuscripts contains mountain of incredible artwork that can't be found through Google, Pinterest or other regular search engines. You need to know the back alleyways of the Internet to find those gems.
This video introduces you to a few of those little known paths and explains you the shortcomings of mainstream search engines and why you need to look beyond them. Websites introduced in this video:
05:30 – Cambridge Digital Library: https://cudl.lib.cam.ac.uk/
07:35 – Digital Bodleian: https://digital.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/
09:50 – British Library, Digitised Manuscripts: http://www.bl.uk/manuscripts/Browse.aspx
15:50 – Initiale (illuminations of manuscripts NOT contained at the French national library, or BnF): http://initiale.irht.cnrs.fr/
20:40 – Mandragore (illuminations of manuscrits contained at the French national library, or BnF): http://mandragore.bnf.fr/html/accueil…
23:25 – Online catalogue of BnF manuscripts: https://archivesetmanuscrits.bnf.fr/
24:55 – Gallica (digitised works contained at the French national library, or BnF: https://gallica.bnf.fr/accueil/fr/con…
Don't forget to subscribe for more content, give a like and leave a comment. If you've found a pretty little turtle yourself in digitized manuscripts, gave us the link to it in the comment section 😉
Tagged Digital Humanities, Medieval ManuscriptsLeave a comment
Joan of Arc's Charisma
5 Apr 2020 5 Apr 2020 Asinus Docet
Wild Reddit Question Appears!
Why did anyone take Joan of Arc seriously?
She was a teenage girl saying she had a holy vision, not of noble heritage. How did she end up leading an army? Why was she taken seriously?
>>> Original post on Ask Historians
I feel that there is a lot to unpack in this question. I'll do my best to untangle the many webs intertwined here and weave them as clearly as I can in a nice little pattern 🙂
The Question of Joan's Heritage
You mention that "[Joan was] not of noble heritage." You're perfectly right! She was a proper nobody. Now, believe it or not but it posed troubles to many pseudo-historians and conspiracy theorists. They couldn't believe that Joan, having achieved what she achieved, wasn't somehow of noble blood. They even came up with the crazy theory that Joan was of royal blood! I've already pinpointed the fallacies at the basis of that theory and I invite you to read it if you find the time 😉 It's basically a Shakespearian fiction turned into a historical phony hypothesis. The fact is that Joan didn't accomplish so much on her own for that matter. A lot of people were talking about her and granted her magical powers still. Most chroniclers of the time had an opinion on her or at least wrote about her.Joan and the French military hierarchy
Nevertheless, Joan faced a wall when she first met the men she'd fought alongside with. They wouldn't believe in her. They wouldn't listen to her. She was so relentless though that she carved herself a place among them. I wrote about it a little time ago. The fact that Joan actively searched to engage into battles and showed the greatest courage on the battlefield turned her into an inspiring figure. Also, it helped that she was always quick with a sharp reply. Some people in power, mostly Georges de La Trémoille, thought she'd make a nice figurehead. They didn't actually believe in her. However, a few high ranked military leaders of the French army, such as Dunois (Bastard of Orléans) and the duke of Alençon, would years later report on Joan's miracles at Orléans, on her second trial*.
*Joan was condemned as a heretic on her trial at Rouen. Many years later, her mother called to the king and the Church to undo this trial and clean her daughter's name. That's when many people who met Joan and fought alongside her witnessed in her favour.
Who Took Joan of Arc Seriously?
The better question is who took Joan seriously? Which brings me to an anecdote I've never reported in my various contributions up to this point. On September 3rd, 1430, two women had been arrested and were executed in Paris in front of the cathedral. They believed that Joan of Arc was good. One of them was called Piéronne and originated from Britanny. She declared that God himself had appeared to her, dressed with a red mantel over a white gown, which was considered as blasphemous (for God's clothing was a white mantel over a red gown–he had fashion sense!)*.
At the meantime, when Joan died, a few captains that fought with her at Orléans tried to replace her with a random shepherd. Those two anecdotes go a long way in telling us how seriously she was taken and by whom. She contributed to a long standing superstitious culture in a world in which people believed in miracles and named miracles even the silliest things–even an unexpected colour for bread. Rational thinking was not the paradigm that most people followed. Sophie Page writes: "Since both magicians and saints claimed to possess supernatural powers, it was necessary for the ecclesiastical authorities to distinguish between the categories of magic and miracle**."
* Colette Beaune (ed.), Journal d'un bourgeois de Paris. Paris: Livre de Poche, 1990, p. 281-282.
** Sophie Page, Magic in Medieval Manuscripts. London: British Library, 2017, p. 16.
A Too Short of an Introduction to Medieval Magic
When Joan arrived at Chinon and met the king she was then sent to Poitiers to meet theologians who were charged to assess the holiness of her visions. As it happens Augustine had written about visions in his De Genesi ad litteram (book XII). He described three types of visions: the best were spiritual and touched the soul, some were carried by dreams, the last belonged to the physical realm. The people who judged Joan at Rouen determined that her visions belonged to the third and least noble kind. They took a very long time asking Joan how the Archangel Michael was dressed and tried to pinpoint inconsistencies in her narrative. "Was he naked when he came to you?" they asked. "Do you think he'd have nothing to wear?" she answered as if they were stupid. It was common in female saint biographies that they'd be tempted by the devil at some point in their journey. He would appear to them in the flesh and try to lay with them. Having sex with a demon was certainly a "physical" and devilish vision.
"In the medieval universe, angelic mediators carried prayers to God. Demons sought to divert the souls of men and women from heaven*." Augustine wrote that angels existed for every living things, hence the concept of guardian angels developed in the Late Middle Ages. However, "theologians were naturally dubious of the human ability to distinguish between angelic and demonic spirits, as it was well known that demons could assume fairer forms to deceive mankind*." This led to the writings of many more texts on visions, the meeting of angels and the conjuring of demons. A whole literature flourished on the subject. All Joan had to do was to convince people she had vision and that those visions were sent by God. She certainly had visions and she never denied them. Moreover, it belonged to the realm of the possible in those times to the less pragmatic of minds had no trouble to join in on the narrative. Once Orléans was delivered only a few days after she entered the city, Joan gained enough charisma that people believed in her.
Max Weber argued in his essay on authority and domination** that in times of great disorder and general unrest, people would easily turn to a charismatic figure to lead them. Someone who came from nothing. Someone who had no title nor experience but someone who actually showed up and led them to victory. This charismatic leader finds his/her authority rooted in his/her success. He/she has to safeguared his/her people. As soon as the charismatic leader faces a defeat or couldn't translate his authority into another form of domination (feudal or bureaucratic, for example), he/she's discarded. This pattern doesn't only apply to Joan. Throughout history many figures became charismatic leaders according to that definition. Oliver Cromwell was one of them in my opinion. I find it particularily striking that he also hated that people took the name of the Lord in vain and that he promoted, as well as Joan, a very strict and religious discipline within the military. Joan is known for having chased allegded prostitutes with a sword. She broke her sword on the back of one of them and, according to Jean Chartier, a French chronicler and Valois partisan, that's when she lost it. That's the moment the magic stopped working and she went from incredible victories to repetitive defeats.
People took her seriously because they believed in magic and miracles. She was only human though, but that's what makes her story even more fascinating.
* S. Page, Ibidem, p. 75, 78.
** Max Weber, La domination. Paris: La Découverte, 2013. Translated into French by Isabelle Kalinowski.
Tagged Hundred Years War, Joan of Arc, Medieval Culture, Medieval WarfareLeave a comment
John Talbot, 1st Earl of Shrewsbury (1387-1453)
John Talbot became the most feared of the English captains. La Hire himself would run away.
I wasn't aware of this. I always imagined that the Poitiers-level casualties was the reason the Battle of Castillon doomed the English war effort, but did the death of Talbot play a significant part too?
>>> Original comment on AskHistorians
A.J. Pollard, The Theatre of War in Northern France (1427-1450)
In Short: Who's John Talbot, 1st Earl of Shrewsbury?
John Talbot was a relentless captain. So relentless in fact that he would find reasons to fight even in times of peace. Once, he came back to England for a few years and he started a judicial quarrel that almost led to an open conflict. The Duke of Bedford was wise enough to summon him in France, on the frontline, where he brought havoc to his enemies. Talbot was very gifted in starting and managing feuds.
This man was to the French people, a very scorge and a daily terror, […] in so much that women in Fraunce to feare their yonge children would cry 'The Talbot Cometh! The Talbot Cometh!'
Talbot learned the art of war in Ireland where the chivalric code didn't exist. He grew very attached to it later on–though he had a very technical, heartless and cold take on it–but he first learned his ways through skirmish and guerilla warfare. He was an utmost expert at night attacks, raids and decisive "coups de force". He was very cruel too: he burnt down churches with people in it, he executed men-at-arms when they didn't respect a surrender treaty and gave up the fortress too late, he basically scorched the earth in Normandy when the peasants revolted in 1435-1436. I personnally found several occurences of French or Burgundians troop litteraly TURNING BACK when they learned it was John Talbot they were going to face. He was that fearsome.
John Talbot became the most feared of the English captains. He was cruel, crafty and relentless. A terror to the French. Edward Hall wrote an epitaph that Grimgor Ironhide would envy: "This man was to the French people, a very scorge and a daily terror, in so much that his person was fearful and terrible to his adversaries present, so his name and frame was spiteful and dreadful to the common people absent, in so much that women in Fraunce to feare their yonge children would cry 'The Talbot Cometh! The Talbot Cometh!'"
Yet Shakespeare depicted him as a most chivalrous knight in Henry V.
At the time of the battle of Castillon (1453), Charles VII had already recovered most of France from the English. Normandy had been taken back. The Burgundians had fallen back in line. Several military campaigns in southern France meant the English were basically holding onto pretty much nothing concrete. Only Calais would remain the unpenetrable English fortress on French soil for the centuries to come (it still belonged to the British crown when Henry VIII was king!). The Duke of Bedford had passed away. Henry VI of England never grew up to have the military charisma nor the natural authority his father wielded. This sweet and pious king aspired to peace and he married a French princess after all, whilst a English princess was married to the Duke of Burgundy. John Talbot, really, was the last living and kicking remnant of the Hundred Years' War. Most of his foes were dead or had retired. He was facing a younger generation now.
No one can state as fact that John Talbot's death led to the end of the Hundred Years' War. It was only diplomatically ended in 1475! However, no one had the energy nor the shoulders to pick up his mantle and continue the old fight. His death, really, is symptomatic of how times changed. It was certainly a symbolic victory for the French who had to dread no longer the "English Achilles".
One Story To Remember Him By
Ridiculously Chivalrous John Talbot
Forced to retreat at Orléans, Talbot was met unexpectedly by La Hire and his friends at Patay (1430). Talbot's troops had covered as much as 100 miles in two days to defend the Loire valley. La Hire and company fell upon the English army before they could organize a defensive line. Talbot was ultimately captured by the archers of Poton de Xaintrailles–La Hire's best friend and brother-in-arms.
Talbot was put to ransom, but to a ridiculously high amount. Talbot, in fact, came very close to bankruptcy while he was held prisonner from 1429 to 1433. Charles VII of France even acquired Talbot's as a prisoner of note, exercising his regal priviledges. It was customary that the king could demand any famed knight who was put to ransom by a vassal of his in exchange of a fixed fee. As it turns out, Charles VII later exchanged Talbot for Poton de Xaintrailles! The latter had indeed been captured by Talbot's father-in-law, the powerful earl of Warwick.
Once released, Talbot couldn't let it stand. He took it to the Order of the Garter and blamed John Fastolf of cowardice. At Patay, the latter reportedly fled the battlefield and brought great dishonor to his knightly title. Talbot argued so passionately that Falstolf was stripped of his Garter until the early 1440's. Facing financial ruin rendered him especially callous and mercy wouldn't be his strongsuit in later installments of the Hundred Years' War…
Click on this link to read one more story about Talbot. Or this one, if you want to know the role he played at Orléans.
More about Talbot:
A.J. Pollard, John Talbot and the War in France: 1427-1453. London & New Jersey: RHS and Humanities Press Inc., 1983.
Fun Fact About Downton Abbey
Henry Talbot (Matthew Goode), who marries Lady Mary Crawley (Michelle Dockery) by the end of the unforgettable Downton Abbey TV series, is a descendant of John Talbot, 1st earl of Shrewsbury!
Needless is to say, when I heard he was a Talbot, I geeked out. Moreover, just the thought that Michelle Dockery portrayed a Talbot lady makes me squeak like a teenage girl. I mean… look at those eyes if they don't breathe fire!!! Mary Josephine Talbot. What a nice ring to it!
Can't wait to see her in a spin-off series stretching from the 40s to the 60s.
Tagged Hundred Years War, Medieval Politics and Nobility, Medieval Warfare1 Comment
Edward of Woodstock, the Black Prince (1330-1376)
Why is the Edward the Black Prince so famous?
Since I watched a Knight's Tale, I was curious about the Black Prince, I learnt that he was never king, so why is he famous? I know he's called the Black Prince because of his black armour. Is he famous because he was a skilled knight or what?
>>> Original post on AskHistorians
In Short: Who's Edward of Woodstock, the Black Prince?
Edward of Woodstock only became known as the "Black Prince" by the sixteenth century. No one called him as such during his lifetime. The origin of his pseudonym remains clouded in mystery. I would argue he became worthy of the name when he dressed in black to mourn his opponent, John the Blind, dead at Crécy (1346). Nevertheless, the "Black Prince" appellation has become a common name for him in history books and therefore it sticks. It's certainly more convenient than searching for Edward, the one who was heir to the throne of England but never made it to kingship because he died not too long before his father.
Joke aside, the answer is really quite simple. The Black Prince achieved great military deeds and dazzled many people with his lavish court in southern France–he was prince of Aquitaine. At age 16 he "won his spurs" leading the English vanguard at the Battle of Crécy (1346). Ten years later he vanquished the French at Poitiers and even managed to capture their king, John the Good! He would still insure a great military victory at Najera (1367) against a Franco-Trastamaran coalition. The man was a military prodigy.
Being prince of Wales, duke of Cornwall and earl of Cheshire, he introduced the welsh longbowmen into the English army. The havoc they brought to their enemies at Crécy, Poitiers and Najera was unheard of at the time. Moreover, the Black Prince showed all the expected virtues of a great knight. He contributed to found the Order of the Garter with his father, which is to this day the oldest knightly order in existence–quite a feat!
It is also worth reminding that he married for love!
Most of all, however, the Black Prince was a great hero in Froissart's chronicles and he's pictured as a legendary ancestor to Henry V in Shakespeare's plays.
Look back into your mighty ancestors:
Go, my dread lord, to your great-grandsire's tomb,
From whom you claim; invoke his warlike spirit,
And your great-uncle's, Edward the Black Prince,
Who on the French ground play'd a tragedy,
Making defeat on the full power of France,
While his most mighty father on a hill
Stood smiling to behold his lion's whelp
Forage in blood of French nobility.
[Henry V, I, ii]
Charles VI piles on the trope a bit later in the same play, warning his men about Henry V:
He is bred out of that bloody strain
That haunted us in our familiar paths:
Witness our too much memorable shame
When Cressy battle fatally was struck,
And all our princes captiv'd by the hand
Of that black name, Edward, Black Prince of Wales;
While that his mountain sire, on mountain standing,
Up in the air, crown'd with the golden sun,
Saw his heroical seed, and smiled to see him,
Mangle the work of nature and deface
The patterns that by God and by French fathers
Had twenty years been made.
[Henry V, II, iv]
The French* didn't have the Black Prince at heart, though. Louis of Anjou commissionned a set of Apocalpse tapestries in 1373 which depicts Edward of Woodstock as a follower of his demonic father. Neat.
Most of what we see on TV or in videogames today is heavily drawn from historical fictions or historical plays: Shakespeare, Walter Scott, Mark Twain, Alexandre Dumas… I doubt screenwriters in general spend much time reading actual history books. By any standard, the Black Prince should be remembered for his great victories at least. It is the kind of historical trivia that sticks to the collective memory. However, he also became a mysterious and legendary figure in Shakespeare's plays and that was passed on to later novelists and screenwriters, which magnified his standing as a chivalric icon.
* The French, here, are the people who belonged to the Valois party during the Hundred Years' War. Edward of Woodstock spoke French and was, by any contemporary standard, a French aristocrat himself.
Good Knight Black Prince
The battle of Poitiers (1356) saw the Black Prince and his 6,000 men (3,000 men-at-arms, 2,000 archers and 1,000 mounted infantry) oppose a French army 10,000 men strong, led by King John II himself, his heir, who would later become Charles V of France, and the full force of the royal army: the Constable and both Marshals* were there.
The French army charged the Black Prince's troops on three occasions. Each wave was defeated when a fourth almost brought Edward of Woodstock to his knees. His men were exhausted from the battle, his archers almost out of arrows and, this time, King John himself was leading the charge with his elite reserve and many rallied soldiers. In a desperate counterattack, the Black Prince moved forward and pushed towards the French, leaving his defensive position. He sent the Captal de Buch to circle around toward the French rear with 160 mounted men, hoping to break the French's formation. He won his risky gamble. The French were routed out of the battlefield and King John was captured!
The same night, Edward of Woodstock waited on King John's table himself. Sensing there might be tension, he kneeled in front of the king and handed him his rosary. He told King John his father, Edward III of England, would treat him right and be his friend, for they had much in common. This show of humility moved the many ransomed French knights who witnessed the scene and it gave much credit to the Black Prince.
* The Constable was the highest ranking officier of the French army. Two Marshals were appointed to be his lieutenants. Those positions were given to highly skilled military captains instead of close relatives to the king.
Shelley Reid, Battle of Poitiers (1356)
More on Edward of Woodstock, the Black Prince:
Barber, Richard W., Edward, Prince of Wales and Aquitaine: A Biography of the Black Prince. London: Allen Lane, 1978.
Green, David, Edward the Black Prince: Power in Medieval Europe. Harlow, U.K. and New York: Longman, 2007.
Tagged Hundred Years War, Medieval Memes, Medieval Politics and Nobility, Medieval Warfare1 Comment
The Scout Rush Build Order: Interview with La Hire about Age of Empires 2
26 Mar 2020 6 Jun 2020 Asinus Docet
This blogpost is dedicated to PROject_Belgium. Follow him on Twitch!
There I was, with my men, my brothers-in-arms. Maybe there was even one of my actual brothers with us—I don't remember. We're looking at the English encampment. There's no way of chasing them away if we go for some fancy open battle. We don't want to repeat the Agincourt disaster. That's why we struck them at dawn even before the rooster sang!
A few years back I was ran over by a car. I literally flew over it and landed right back on my feet. My head hit the windshield so hard that when I landed I couldn't stand anymore. I dropped like an apple from a tree and thumped the pavement on my ass. It wasn't like in the movies where everything gets fuzzy. I wasn't disoriented so to speak. I just couldn't put two and two together anymore. I saw the car drive away but I didn't notice that the driver had hit the brakes. I looked at my jacket and got mad it was damaged but I didn't notice the blood on my sleeves. I wanted to jump back up but I only landed once more on my buttock.
Now, the thing I've never told anyone up to this day is that during the short time I was flying over the car, my mind actually wandered away in another spiritual realm. Before my ass thumped on the pavement I landed in the Purgatory! Believe it or not but it looks a lot like a giant waiting room, pretty much like what you'd find in an airport. People get in line, get a ticket and then they sit and wait. They just wait. Some of them are playing on their phones. Others take a prolonged nap. The fun part begins when you stray far, far away from the ticket line. That's when you start to see creative people who turned the waiting room into a massive pillow fort with actual trenches, a Renaissance art gallery or even a jousting field.
I had my ticket, I was waiting for my number to be called out, so I head straight to the jousting fields when I saw them. I felt like I just stumbled on a splendid movie set. The ladies were so pretty in their exquisite dresses. The knights wore shiny armors. It was like walking in a dream. A tavern was abutted the jousting fields, I eventually went to it once I'd seen close to a hundred jousting matches and lost a fair dozen of hours gazing at the ladies around me.
The tavern was wild and loud. Beer and wine were spilled all over the floor. A bunch of unruly men-at-arms were busy binge drinking in the most competitive manner. A monk was walking around with an idol or icon of the Virgin Mary. He was the drunkest of the whole lot! Many things happened in that place that I couldn't tell you how and why they took place. Eventually I found myself faced with my childhood hero, Étienne de Vignolles, also known as La Hire. I knew him because he stars in Age of Empires 2—the video game—next to Joan of Arc for the Battle of Patay. I couldn't believe my luck. I told him how much I admired him. He asked me how I knew him. I told him about Age of Empires 2. He was confused at first but I think he got it somehow. I took my chance and asked him a few question.
Mr. La Hire, my friends and I are playing this videogame that brings us back to the Middle Ages, your original time period, and the goal of the game is to take down our enemies with cunning and cutthroat strategies. I'd love to get your take on those and tell us if they remind you of tactics that you've actually done yourself?
Sure. Why the hell not?
So, to begin with I'd like to talk about the "Scout Rush."
A Scout Rush is a strategy that you go for if you want to overwhelm your enemy, as fast as possible, with light cavalry units. You don't need too many of them, you only need them to take the enemy by surprise so that it disrupt his plans.
I was wondering if you were some kind of punk, playing videogames instead of fighting on a horse, but I like what I'm hearing. That's my go-to move!
As I was saying, the English wanted to take Montargis. The castle was very impressive, seating very high on a hill, and Warwick had his men spread all around the city. Facing the castle they'd built a little fortress of their own, a "bastille" as we called them. Warwick had his men in the North and his lieutenants, Suffolk and La Pole, were controlling the roads going South and West out of the city.
Yeah. Back in 1427, when Montargis was besieged by those bloody English, there was no way to get rid of them, you see? Eventually, the Constable came to me and my friends. We said we had a plan. A good plan! A solid plan. But we needed money! So he found a way to get some money, he gave it to us and then our men were very happy to fight. Motivation is key. Whatever! So we gather our troops, the Constable wants to come with us and we tell him that it is a bad idea. Someone as important as him shouldn't mingle with low people like us or take unnecessary risks. What if we fail? Wouldn't that be shameful? He wasn't happy about it but we got rid of him nonetheless. Going with him meant we had to follow a protocol. However, if winning is what you're really going for, I say drop the damn protocol and go for the jugular! There I was, with my men, my brothers-in-arms. Maybe there was even one of my actual brothers with us—I don't remember. We're looking at the English encampment. There's no way of chasing them away if we go for some fancy open battle. We don't want to repeat the Agincourt disaster. That's why we struck them at dawn even before the rooster sang! What a debacle—for the English I mean. No offense to good old Warwick who was commanding the troops but his men lost all common sense and started to run all over the place like headless chicken, pleading for their lives. It was almost too easy to route them out. Some of them were standing there, idle, praying or hoping that we wouldn't spot them. It was an utter victory and it brought us a lot of well-deserved glory. The English were pissed. The Constable had something to show for at the court. The good people of Montargis celebrated us. A most perfect win! I'll never forget it.
It sounds like you struck them real hard! Did you have a lot of men with you? I mean, what was the men ratio between your army and the English army?
What you need to understand is that Montargis was not a big town, but it had a massive castle. It could fit an army of 6,000 men. Easy. That's why the English wanted to take it. Eventually they got it, even! And we took it back. I mean, I was someplace else kicking somebody's ass. I couldn't be everywhere all the time. Who am I? God? No. Though I pray that he'd do for me what I'd do for him if he were me and if I was him. You know, I'm straightforward like that. Blunt and honest. God likes that. I may have committed sins, I'll admit, but I've always stayed true to myself and my king and that must count for something, right? God damn it.
As I was saying, the English wanted to take Montargis. The castle was very impressive, seating very high on a hill, and Warwick had his men spread all around the city. Facing the castle they'd built a little fortress of their own, a "bastille" as we called them. Warwick had his men in the North and his lieutenants, Suffolk and La Pole, were controlling the roads going South and West out of the city. Montargis was surrounded by hills, cliffs and rivers. The English had built a few bridges to communicate more easily among themselves, you see? That's when the English started to bombard the city.
A common bombard could fire a stone or iron ball weighing around fifty pounds*. The most impressive one, though, they were fifteen to twenty feet long, could fire no less than three hundred heavy projectiles! Sure, you had to take the artillery seriously, I mean, it killed people, but it couldn't take over a properly defended castle.
Map of Montargis besieged by the English (1427)
I told you that the city was surrounded by rivers, right? Well, the townspeople of Montargis did the most amazing thing. There were sluices in most rivers. They closed them all and flooded the meadows around the city walls. The English couldn't regroup. They were stuck, unorganized, divided and taken by surprise.
Didn't that destroy the town and opened a few breaches in the walls?
Oh, no. Bombard cannons were not very accurate. They had more of a psychological effect, if you want. It was a fancy and expensive thing that let people know you meant business. Be loud or go home, am I right? Ha-ha. Cannons could sometimes hit the right spot and open a breach, sure, but that's why we built "boulevards" in front of city gates to absorb most of the hits and fire back at the enemy. Moreover the English wanted the place. They had no interest in destroying it, they needed Montargis to take control over the region. A common bombard could fire a stone or iron ball weighing around fifty pounds*. The most impressive one, though, they were fifteen to twenty feet long, could fire no less than three hundred heavy projectiles! Sure, you had to take the artillery seriously, I mean, it killed people, but it couldn't take over a properly defended castle.
* Philippe Contamine, La Guerre au Moyen Âge. Paris: PUF, 1980, p. 265.
So the English were surrounding Montargis and bombarding it. The city was close to surrender but then you arrived with your men and stormed the English positions by surprise, is that it?
Most certainly. That's what happened. Can I tell you a little secret? Between you and me, we were only supposed to resupply the city with some food and what-not. That's why we could so easily get rid of the Constable. "Listen, Sir, you're far too noble to go on a stupid resupply mission, are you?" He bought it! Well, now, our attack had a very tactical value. We needed to find a way for the convoy to get into the city. What better way than to attack the enemy and to create a distraction? That's why I gathered my lads, gave them a little speech like I liked to do, telling them to kill some Englishmen, you know, then we moved on to La Pole's position, South-West of the city. It was around noon and the English had a few outposts out in the fields. However, no one was attending them! The English were too busy napping or eating, I don't know, but I got as close as the ditches surrounding la Pole's camp that no one had thought to call on the alarm!
It seems like you rushed the enemy very fast!
What's the point of a light cavalry company, I'll ask you? It's to hit the enemy fast! We Gascons were not like the English or most French knights. We didn't bother with a heavy armor. Our horses were quick. They could zigzag or flip around on a battlefield, no question! We were in the middle of La Pole's camp that we were yelling "Montjoye! Saint-Denis!" and there was nothing the English could do about it!
Montjoye!
What a glorious battle! Sauton de Mercadieu, can you believe that guy? A spear ran through his mouth and he kept on fighting! He had blood all over his armor. What a mess. He pulled the spear out of his mouth himself. He was like a man enraged.
Por li rei!
They hadn't spot us despite their outposts. At first they panicked, but they soon figured that we were only a few men-at-arms and that they could get the better of us if they kept their cool and regrouped. It was only a matter of time before Suffolk or Warwick came to the rescue. Good thing the Bastard of Orléans had tagged along! He was protecting the convoy. He saw the battle. He never expected it to be in our favor, let me tell you. But there I was, right in the middle of La Pole's camp, bringing havoc and routing the English. The Bastard directly joined in on the fun. He prevented the English to reinforce La Pole's troops. Even better, the townspeople joined in!
Really? What did the people of Montargis do to help?
I told you that the city was surrounded by rivers, right? Well, the townspeople of Montargis did the most amazing thing. There were sluices in most rivers. They closed them all and flooded the meadows around the city walls. The English couldn't regroup. They were stuck, unorganized, divided and taken by surprise. La Pole's camp was eventually conquered. La Pole himself is trying to get away on a small boat for the waters are so high around the city. Many of his men drowned. We won just in time for me to reinforce the Bastard of Orléans, along with the townspeople, and we gave it all we had. God! What a glorious battle! Sauton de Mercadieu, can you believe that guy? A spear ran through his mouth and he kept on fighting! He had blood all over his armor. What a mess. He pulled the spear out of his mouth himself. He was like a man enraged. The English, those "Godons" as we call them*, start to flee and try to reach Warwick's camp. They walk over one of those bridges that they had built. Ha-ha! It broke and they fell in the water. Again, many of them drowned. Well, we may have helped a little. In the meantime, the convoy peacefully entered the city and our mission was accomplished. Warwick and Suffolk were in no position to prevent it or to rally their men, they were stuck because of the flood. Sure, they regrouped on a hill and waited for us to chase them down but we were no idiots. We let them be. The siege had been lifted. Montargis was freed and resupplied. We'd done more than what we got paid for! Even better, we even captured Warwick's banner since he abandoned his camp in a hurry. What more could have we dreamed about? Personally, I don't want to brag, but I was given a little "bonus" as a thank you gift. A thousand moutons d'or! A real fortune!
* Englishmen were called "Godons" by the French during the Hundred Years' War for the common use they had of the colloquialism "God damn!"
This story is frankly amazing and quite incredible. It must have been a spectacular battle. I can't wait to see a cinematographic adaptation of it! However, I noticed that you first said you attacked at dawn, then you said you attacked at noon? At the beginning you told me you had a plan, but the narrative of the battle let us believe that it was quite improvised actually? How can you account for those discrepancies?
Am I boring you with too many details? Don't question my recollections. Memory is a funny thing. The only thing that matters is that we won because we caught the English off guard and unaware with our speed and restlessness. We freed Montargis and routed the English*! Hear-hear!
* Later on I was able to cross-reference the facts and most of them were true! The chronicles give contradictory accounts of the details, though. Read: D. Cornet, Le Siège de Montargis par les Anglais (1427). Montargis: Librairie Roger, 1903.
Everybody around us shouted "Hear-hear!" I can't recall if I was drunk. I mean, I was only seventeen at the time. My head was spinning, sure, but it could have been the unforeseen side effect of being hit by a car. I didn't hear my number being called out so I kept on questioning La Hire and talk to him about Age of Empires 2. I don't know why he indulged me but I was certainly most grateful for the time he granted me.
Even better, we even captured Warwick's banner since he abandoned his camp in a hurry. What more could have we dreamed about? Personally, I don't want to brag, but I was given a little "bonus" as a thank you gift. A thousand moutons d'or! A real fortune!
The Scout Rush Build Order
The Scout Rush is a standard and classic opening in Age of Empires 2, especially on Arabia. You'll find many tutorials online. Here's a short list of video and written tutorials to help you improve your gameplay. However, make sure to check out first how DauT, Our Lord and Savior, turned the overused Scout Rush into a masterpiece! It is casted by Resonance22, one of the most gorgeous voice to have ever comment AoE2 games.
DauT's Scout Rush Masterpiece
Before he amazed us as Princess Yodit in Hidden Cup 3, DauT was already a strategy mastermind.
Hera's Scout Rush Tutorial
Hera became very famous for his fast paced Arabia games. Opening with scouts? He knows what's what!
Nili's Scout Rush Tutorial
Nili's an AoE2 pro-caster who recently made it to the Team Secret! His AoE2 knowledge is hippoclopedic.
ZeroEmpire's Scout Rush Tutorial
Before T90Official became the #1 AoE2 caster, ZeroEmpire pioneered and excelled in casting AoE2 games.
Now, daddy Zack is back to teach us the classics!
Scout Rush Tutorials on Paper
The most extensive written guide I found about the Scout Rush build order certainly belongs to Age of Notes. A must read!
Don't miss out the Forgotten Empire strategy center and learn the basic principles of the Feudal war and rushes.
Are you being rushed? Well, you'd better learn how to defend yourself. Hopefully the Steam community came up with a few answers that might help you out.
Tagged Age of Empires 2, Hundred Years War, Medieval Warfare1 Comment
Medieval Memes #6
How didn't I think of that meme before?!?!
I introduce you… Domna Fortuna.
Which allows me to micro-blog on my use of 'Domna' here instead of 'Domina', which would be the proper Latin word for it.
Have you ever heard of "lexical renewal"? Yeah, that's a process that involves ALL languages.
Words tend to be spoken. That is a fact.
As they get used, they slowly morph. It can happen in many ways. A word too short will become longer. A word a tad too long will be shortened. Words that totally lost their primary meaning will be utterly replaced.
The Latin word for 'sun' was 'sol'. It was too short and could easily be confused with other words on the long run. Therefore, a diminutive was added to give 'solellus' (which basically means 'little sun'). It later gave 'soleil' in French (see, it was shortened here!).
The word 'caput', meaning 'head', progressively lost its primary meaning and was slowly replaced by 'testa' (a kind of jar). It gave 'tête' in French.
Fun fact, nowadays we use 'tête' in French to describe many things beyond a physical and bodily head. We come up with new words to describe it such as 'tronche', 'trogne' or 'gueule'. Those are very familiar words but such was also 'testa' in Latin at first!
'Domina' belonged to the words that were shortened and gave 'domna' (a word already used by native Latin speakers in the 1st century AD). It would later turn into 'doña' in Spanish or 'dame' in French.
Latin had little use of possessive articles such a 'my' or 'mine'. They became very common though for later European languages since the declinations fell out of use. Therefore 'domina mea' gave way to 'madame' or… 'madonna'!
Didn't you just learn something cool?
Lingua Franca Moderna
Paris, BnF, MS fr. 137, f. 57r.
Lingua Franca Obsoleta
Black Death Lockdown Be Like
London, British Library, Royal MS 15 E VI, f. 6r.
Only AoE2 Players Will Get It
Brussels, KBR, MS 15652-56, f. 2v.
Drop A Like For This Blogpost!
Coligny, Fond. Martin Bodmer, Cod. Bodmer 49, f. 20v
Tagged Age of Empires 2, Foolery, NonsenseLeave a comment
Your Survival Guide To Medieval Siege Warfare
#1. Know Your Way Around The City
#2. Keep It Up With The Joneses
#3. Pick Yourself A Strong Leader
#4. Put Money Aside
#5. Keep An Eye Out For Food
#6. Play It Cool When The Siege Engines Show Up
#7. Beware Of Small Commando Enemy Operations
#8. Check On Your Countryside
#9. Stick With Your Friends
#10. Do Your Chores
#11. Fortify Your City Walls
#12. Don't Get Trapped!
#13. Boil Some Oil
#14. Take Down Fake News
#15. Deal Your Way Out Of Trouble
>>> Link to the original Reddit post on AskHistorians
I'm your average medieval citizen. My city is under siege; they're starving us out over months but we're fine for now. What is my daily life like? Is my coin still worth something? Do people trade or is the guard distributing rations? Do we still have fun to pass the time?
Just trying to get an idea for life during the long months of a siege.
Obviously once food starts getting low and people start getting desperate things change, but to start with, is life relatively normal?
The following answer mostly applies for 14th and 15th century western warfare 😉
The Medieval Town
It must first be understood that medieval cities were not "whole". The total control of a medieval town required a lot of conniving and plot. The bigger the city, the more factions it had. A "standard" town would have at least two seats of power: the bishopric and the city hall. A representative of the king, like the 'bailly' in France could be another player. Whoever wished to take Paris had to get the university on their side, too.
I observed that when Amiens was taken back by the Burgundians in 1435 (read Monstrelet's Chronicle), the 'city' (where the bishop ruled) was left untouched. Rebels from the 'town' (under the jurisdiction of the city hall and the guilds) actually tried to take refuge with the bishop but he simply sent them on their way and the new bailly took over unchallenged.
Those types of situations gave way to funny happenstances. A medieval town could be taken and re-taken in a very short amount of time if leaders of opposing factions were living in the same city. Funnier were the cases of city defenders having lost their town but kept the control of one or two towers among the city walls.
When the crusaders took Antioch during the first crusade they found themselves in a very difficult situation. They had gained control of the city but not of the fortress. However, a new army was coming to reinforce the defending army. The crusaders were therefore besieged within the city they had just taken yet didn't totally control. We can find many examples of the like in later centuries.
Urban Planning?
>>> When you say the bishop turned people away, how much of the city did he control? Was he refusing to open the doors of the cathedral? The gates of a walled compound? A large section of the city which just happened to be walled and under his control? Are there any good maps to illustrate how cities were divided in this period?
When I said a bishop turned away people, I made a mistake. The details of the story got fuzzy in my memory and I oversimplified. As it so happened during the 1435 Amiens revolt, the good people of Amiens had gathered behind a captain of their choosing, Honoré Coquin. The city belonged to the royal demesne since 1185 and the king of France was count of Amiens. However, because of the 1435 treaty of Arras, Charles VII gave control of the city to the Duke of Burgundy as part of their pact of alliance. Philip the Good refused to lower the taxes and the townpeople were pretty upset about it. They'd been taxed for many years because of the war and they wished for it to stop. The Duke of Burgundy was no one to be trifled with though. He sent his new appointed bailly to deal with the situation. Honoré Coquin pleaded to the Burgundians military leaders but to no effect. They entered the city and took control of the market square. That's when one of the leaders of the revolt flead to a nearby church in which a priest was actually officing the mass. Nevertheless he was caught and done for. What amazes me in that story is that a mass was celebrated when a skirmish was about to happen on the market square! I studied the city history a few years back, I checked my notes and I found it very interesting that the town (ruled by the king and the city council) passed on different deals with enemy military companies than the city (ruled by the bishop and the religious congregations). As a matter of fact, the people ruled by the bishop were exempt from the tax that the other townpeople had to pay. It's as if you had two towns in a single city and everybody knew about it and behaved, even on a military standpoint, accordingly.
Medieval City Maps
Amiens is an old medieval town and I was lucky to find a pretty good enough map about its medieval layout (see below). It shows city walls from the 12th and the 14-15th centuries. Within the old 12th century walls, we find both seats of power of the town and the city: the beffroi (number 8) and the episcopal palace (number 4). Next to the beffroi is a place called the "Malemaison". It was traditionnaly the place were the mayor and the town council would gather. The market place is marked by a black triangle. The church in which the fleeing rebel leader tried to find refuge is marked by the number 11 on the map. The town and the city seems to fit into two opposing neighbourhoods within the old city walls but the positioning of this church and the central location of the market place shows that it was more mixed up than what we can think firsthand.
The city of Laon had a more clearcut layout. Look at the following map from the 17th century. Laon hasn't changed much through time and this layout, because of how high the hills are, is still what we find today (careful, the North is upside down!). Instead of mills at the eastern end of the city, we find a large clinic centre there nowadays but the cathedral hasn't moved one bit. When I visited the city with my former research centre, we observed how the streets near the cathedral still showed how they were inhabited by clerics for how straight and square they were. It really looked like an easily fortified neighbourhood. Right behind the cathedral was the citadel: seat of power to the king. The other side of town shows a less organized pattern. It was known as the 'bourg'. Funnily enough the city and the 'bourg' or town would each have streets dedicated to a specific professional association before it was all more or less centralized and the whole town became a one and single urbanistic unit.
https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/btv1b8492478h/f1.item.zoom
Brussels today still has streets that bear the name of former guilds and corporations: rue des bouchers, rue des teinturiers, rue des frippiers… Craftmen didn't spread out. They united and lived by the same rules according to a royal granted chart. They fixed the prices and sticked together. It showed in the urban pattern. However, there were not always clearcut boundaries from one neighbourhood to another which part of the city obeyed to the king's justice, the bishop's, or else. You had to live there and know it. It was pretty much on a case to case basis.
Who's Who In A Medieval City?
>>> I was wondering more specifically about the thing you mentioned with Paris. What were the factions in Paris at this time period, why was the university so important, and how did the university work as a "political player" so to speak at this juncture?
A Short Class On Urban Social Stratification
Everyone had a place to be in a medieval town. Nevertheless people of all background were scattered all over the place more often than not. Medieval cities didn't follow rationalized patterns. They were not built like ancient greek colonies.
There were other ways to differenciate the people within a town though. Mostly through clothing. Nevermind that, the urban social stratification started to form around the 11th century with the communal movement. Townpeople made more money and were taxed accordingly. In response they fought back to get priviledges. Those very first priviledges created the 'bourgeoisie' which was nothing like what it grew to become by the 18th century. Being a bourgeois only meant you had judicial priviledges from being a city-dweller. They could assemble and vote for a mayor who'd represent them to the lord. Craftmen who moved in city walls eventually got their own mayors but they were mostly suppressed in the 14th century in favor of guild associations defined by charts. The lord of a city, either the king or someone else, often had a representative of his own: a prevot, a bailly or a senechal in France. Such a man was in charge of military and police matters. He'd often have a lieutenant too.
A city could also be home to various religious congregations, especially once the mendicant orders were formed. Those congregations didn't always answer to the bishop. Sometimes they only answered to the pope if they got their priviledges right like the Templars or the Teutonic Knights. They could also answer to their monastic order. Some religious congregations were more like laymen guilds, united under a holy patron. The bishop himself presided a chapter of canons who elected him. Also the bishop had lands of his own and though he was a spiritual lord, he also had temporal power. He couldn't exercice his temporal power by himself most of the time though, that's why he had a representative to do so, like a vidame.
Everyone had a specific status within a medieval town, from lord to beggar. There were priviledges and duties for each member of the society. The townwatch was split between the bourgeois and the craftmen. The former would have sitting watch duties, the latter walking watch duties. Boulevards and city walls were built, cared by and watched over by city-dwellers who could gather as militia in times of need under the lawful authority of the prevot, the bailly or the senechal. When the city had a proper fortress it would more likely be guarded by proper men-at-arms or knights under the command of a noble lord.
Political Players Within A City
Governing a medieval city was not an easy task. There were so many centres of power and money that political players only multiplied until the Early Modern Era when the centralization state building process really hit western societes. It was an administrative nightmare too in order to know who you could tax and what?
Which brings us to the university of Paris. The word 'universitas' used to design a guild or professional association of people sharing the same priviledges. As a matter of facts, students and teachers at the university of Paris benefited from the same rights. They were equals in the eye of the law and could only be judged by the bishop of Paris. Also, they benefited from several tax exemptions. From the 12th to the 14th century, the university was not properly installed in any buildings. Lectures were given wherever it could. It meant that if university members were unhappy with the way they were treated they could simply scatter through the winds for a few months. Now, since they made up for a lot of the economical vitality of the French capital, the authorities prefered to treat them right. Then Charles VI rose to power and his council saw it a good idea to rationalize the royal treasure and the taxation system. The duke of Orléans was all in on those new reforms when he managed the realm for his brother once Charles VI fell into dementia. Hell! The university and the good people of Paris were not happy. They felt their priviledges were undermined and threatened. That's when the duke of Burgundy showed up and insured he would protect ans safeguard them. The university heavily turned to John the Fearless for guidance and support. In exchange, the best intellectual of the realm provided the intellectual backbone to legitimize the assassination of the duke of Orléans, who died in Paris in 1407 at the hand of Burgundians hired thugs. What a messy affair…
Locking all the seats of power in a medieval city was a much arduous endeavour. When cities got nearly as big as Paris it was practically impossible to achieve. The merchants, the craftmen, the noblemen, the clergymen, everybody fought for their own tiny bit of power.
To Siege Or Not To Siege
Besieging a city was a very expensive and risky venture. Elite knights and men-at-arms were few. Most battles were fought among a few hundreds of "soldiers". How can you take over a city where several thousands can show up to defend the walls? You needed to rally the 'communes' or the 'common people' so to speak to manage an effective siege. Then you'd get along the tens of thousands of men on the battlefield. Commoners lacked the knightly culture though and they were quite unpredictable. That's why most cities were taken by surprise thanks to some commando type of missions.
Since medieval towns had rivaling political players within their walls, a big part of taking a city over was to seduce those party leaders and grant them satisfaction. Jean de Villiers de l'Isle-Adam, who managed to take Paris not only once, but twice, first in 1418 then back in 1436, only achieved it because he was good friend with the butcher guild and the university. When Joan of Arc attacked the city in September 1429, there was no friends within the walls to help take over the capital.
Another problem was that towns were very difficult to surround properly. Even when he arrived with something like twenty thousand flemish militia to attack Calais in 1436, Philip the Good couldn't strangle the city completely. The people of Calais were still going out with their cattle, for example, which gave way to epic or ridiculours skirmishes. It is very rare that we find a siege like the one of Melun, in 1420, when the French starved so close to death that they had to kill and eat their own horses.
The Siege of Rouen, 1418-1419
>>> What are some of the more extreme cases of a city being starved of?
The best example that comes to mind is the 1418-1419 siege of Rouen by Henry V of England. He was not messing around. He had an impressive army of 7,000 men (mostly war professionals, the English didn't rely on the commoners too much and that really helped them win the war until the Siege of Orléans, where most of their veteran troops were slaughtered at Patay). Rouen had a population of about 20,000 people with 4,000 garrisoned soldiers*. Henry couldn't take the city by force but he had the authority and the means to starve it to death. His plan followed the three following steps.
Step 1: Surround The City
Rouen ranked among the largest city of France by the beginning of the 15th century. It's position on the Seine made it a most valuable link between Paris and the English Channel. Nevertheless Henry V had his army build fortified places all over the town (I'll put a picture on my blog later on when I publish my answers over there). Not only that, he also chained the river to make sure no food would come to relieve the city during the siege AND he sent his guerilla-minded Irish soldiers in the nearby smaller towns to gather all the food there was and keep the population in check.
The French tried to gather some troops to help Rouen but they were much too busy fighting each other. Paris had just been taken by the Burgundians (see above, when Jean de Villiers de l'Isle-Adam took it back in 1418 with the help of the butcher guild). It led to a proper massacre and it overthrew the Armagnac government. The Dauphin, who would later on be known as Charles VII, barely made it with his life and had to exile the Parliament to Poitiers. He couldn't make peace with the Duke of Burgundy and the latter couldn't also come in terms with the Duke of Britanny. It was an overall mess and Henry just had to wait. And see.
Step 2: Do Not Bombard The City
Rouen was heavily fortified. It would have taken a lot of artillery power to take it down. It would have been a useless expense however since Henry V hoped to take the city whole and make it his own fortress. He wanted it intact! Had he read Sun Tzu's art of war? Maybe not. But he was surely following his principles.
Step 3: Wait It Out And Show Mercy
When it became sure the French couldn't send reinforcement nor food to the besieged city, the townpeople of Rouen received a message from the Duke of Burgundy to deal with Henry V. Eventually, they asked for the women, the children, the priests, the poor and the elderly to be granted a safe passage. Henry sure complied and even more, he gave food to the escapees! They actually started to sing his praise and cursed their French allies who had abandonned them.
Monstrelet writes in his chronicle that most of the food was sold overpiced on the black market around Christmas. Henry V had started to besiege the city in July 1418. The city surrendered completely by January 1419. From that point onward he could easily take Pontoise and threaten Paris which not only survived a massacre but also a good old plague epidemic the same year. In the meantime, the French were no where close to conclude their own civil unrest and Henry V remained unchallenged.
This is really a classic case of siege by starvation. It led to an utter victory but it can't be taken out of context. Henry V played it very smart in a context in which his enemies were paralysed and militarily powerless to face him.
* According to The Oxford Encyclopedia of Medieval Warfare and Military Technology (2010).
>>> Didn't Henry refuse to let the people leave the city, leaving them to starve in a ditch between the city walls and his siege lines?
A Short Study Of Historical Method
Could you be able to source that information? I wrote this short answer after The Oxford Encyclopedia of Medieval Warfare and Military Technology.
What I gather from Monstrelet is that after the townpeople of Rouen learned they had to deal with the king of England themselves, he had a first surrender treaty rejected by the Archbishop of Canterbury. To which the townpeople came up with the plan to run for their lives by breaching their own walls and give it a last desperate go. Monstrelet's narrative may be incomplete though.
In Gerald Harris, Shaping the Nation. England 1360-1461. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 2005 (The New Oxford History of England), p. 548, I find the following statement though: "The siege, prolonged by the intense cold of mid-winter, became a test of endurance for the English. But the defenders were in a worse plight: as the influx of refugees reduced the inhabitants to starbation, it was decided to expel the non-combatants, wome, childrend, and the old being forced into the town ditches between the walls and the English lines. Refused food by the English, they perished in large numbers."
The Oxford Encyclopedia states only that food was given to the expelled townpeople by Henry V at Christmas: "At Chrismas, Henry had food brought to them in the ditches. They, according to Page, responded with a hymn of praise for Henry 'who has more compassion than has our own nation'."
The encyclopedia entry is written by Anne Curry, who's a recognized expert of the period. I'd conclude therefore that indeed the expelled townpeople were denied food but were still given some at Christmas by Henry V. Nuance is everything in this case. We could go further and question Page's account of the event but I don't have the time (nor the energy) to go that far 🙂
>>> So they had around 6 months worth of food. Was this typical for a city of its size? Was food storage mostly by household or centralized under one or more powers?
This question requires a kind of research that I haven't conducted. Nor do I know if it has been. Maybe? I couldn't say without diving deep into my bibliographies. I read recently that it took 10 months for the Normans to take Palermo through a siege of starvation, in the years 1071-1072. The city also resigned in the early winter.
Refugees would flock to the city by the hundreds when a siege of that magnitude was a-coming. On the long run it would not help with the stocks. However, conducting a statistic analysis of such events would prove very, very difficult. We don't have enough data to define any normalcy in those matters, I'd say.
As for the second part of your follow-up question, chronicles clearly show that the food was not centralized. It was sold on markets and speculation in times of war ran wild. It meant that the poor would starve first if they couldn't find a patron or didn't belong to some kind of association (like a guild, a university or the clerical members of a congregation). I hope it gives some kind of answer to your follow-up question 🙂 I'm sorry I can't give a more conclusive answer at the moment.
Medieval Siege Engines
>>> Were actual battles to take the castle common or do continuous flinging of trebuchet or catapults common?
Is The Trebuchet The Superior Siege Engine?
To give an idea, a single trebuchet required around 60-100 specialized and trained personel to keep it firing 1 to 2 projectiles a hour*. That's people that you need to feed, pay wages, and everything. Artilery was very expensive and it was especially difficult to move around from one town to the other from siege to siege.
Contrarily to what the trebuchet subreddit advertises, the projectiles weighed around 140 kg (306.7 pounds) and had a range of 220 meters (240.6 yards)*. It was specifically designed to hit weak spots within a city wall in order to open a breach. The solution was to reinforce the weak spot with palissades and earth behind it to absorb the hit. However, the single sight of a trebuchet could incite a fortified place to just give up and surrender directly.
* Renaud Beffeyte, L'art de la guerre au Moyen Age. Rennes: Ouest France, 2010. With a preface by Philippe Contamine, p. 80-81.
"Come In Like A Wreeecking Ball!"
Orléans was bombarded quite continuously by the English in 1428-1429 but it had little meaningful results, especially since the city could bombard back! Jean de Lorraine was the French artillary specialist. More than once he pretended to be dead, was carried back to Orléans, only to return to the battlefield and handle his cannons against the English to their outmost dread and distate. Firing a canon was an art but not everybody mastered it. More often than not it resulted in accidental results. The Earl of Salisbury, who was leading the siege for the English at Orléans, died only a few days after a canonball crashed in the window he was looking through. Similarly, the Earl of Arundel, hit by a canonball (in the leg, I think) at the battle of Gerberoy in 1435, also died but only a few days after the battle from his injury. The uneffectiveness of such canonballs may be explained by the fact that many of them were made out of stone instead of metal.
Canons didn't have the firepower that they would have later on. And pretty much like trebuchets, they required a lot of trained personel. The people who made church bells were those who forged canons. It is reported that one bombard canon required no less than 20 horses to be dragged across the countryside during the 14th century*. Fire artilery became lighter and more effective during the 15th century, but it couldn't guarantee a victory yet. Charles the Bold, Duke of Burgundy, learned it the hard way when he died at the battle of Nancy (1467). As a conclusion, artilery fire was certainly used for very strategic or psychological purposes, but it couldn't make up for armed men climbing ladders and siege towers to conquer city walls the "old fashion way".
* Valérie Toureille (ed.), Guerre et Société. 1270-1480. Paris: Atlante, 2013, p. 161.
>>> How did the besieger Earl of Salisbury die? How does an accident cause a canonball to boomerang back to allied lines 😛
Haha! I love the idea but the reality is more prosaic.
A Shot In The Dark
The canonball was shot from Orléans. No one really knows where from. At that moment, Salisbury was looking through a window from the Tourelles fortress, at the end of the southern bridge linking Orléans to the western bench of the river Loire. Bad luck made it that the canonball hit the window Salisbury was looking through. He didn't die on the impact but he passed away a few days later from his injuries.
Since he was the master-mind behind the overall English strategy since Agincourt and had pushed himself to besiege Orléans when the Duke of Bedford thought that it was a bad idea, there was little morale left in the English camp after his death. Many men actually thought themselves freed from their military duties since they belonged to Salisbury's retinue and they left the siege. Once the Burgundians left too, the English were scattered really thin around Orléans and that's when Joan of Arc arrived with heavy reinforcements from Blois (though most of the French army turned back to Blois… and left the people of Orléans on their own with Joan and about the craftiest captains who were serving Charles VII at the time).
Philip the Good also almost got hit by a canonball when he besieged Calais. As he rode down on the beach with a small party of men, a canonball hit the ground not too far from him. Such events are easily recorded when they concern distinguished aristocrats. The Duke of Burgundy and the Earl of Salisbury were not "nobodies". However there is a good chance that collateral casualties from such artilary fire were more common than we think. The lack of narrative on the matter only probably relates to the social status of the people casted in the Chronicles of the time. To be counted as a casualty, you had to have a "name".
Commando Operations
>>> When you say that how do you mean? Am I supposed to imagine a handful of knights crossing the mote in the cover of dark, to open the Door for the rest? Or was it more like smuggling a diplomat into the walls to get him to the [faction] and promise them [something worth promising].
The covert and sneaky operations that led to the taking of a castle, a town or any fortress were very imaginative!
A Timeless Classic: Bertrand Du Guesclin Desguised As A Lumberjack (1340)
The English were holding the castle of Fougeray, near Rennes (France). Robert Pembrough, a renowned captain, was commanding the troops. Bertrand Du Guesclin wished to take it back. He was not yet the mighty connétable, supreme leader of the French army, second only to the king, but this little aventure made him quite a name for himself.
A man of his came up with the crazy idea to dress as lumberjacks and approach the castle under that desguise. They were to pretend that they were coming to work for the castle with a cart full of lumber and wood fagot. Du Guesclin selected a few daring souls to accompany him and risked himself in this crazy venture. The chronicles give quite a vivid sdepiction of the story and the battle that followed.
Du Guesclin made it to the castle. His cart blocked the drawbridge. The men in desguised were close to flee for their lives. They had weapons under their funny clothes but no armour to defend themselves and they risked being made any minute. However, that's when Du Guesclin called it. He started the fight and called the rest of his men, a whole lot of 60 men-at-arms at most, to join him in the fight.
The battle was nasty and bloody. However, Du Guesclin took the place and his trick became so famous that castles would build TWO drawbridges to protect their entry: one that only a single man could walk through, to check up the upcoming carts, and a second, for the said carts.
It is said that some of the soldiers accompanying Du Guesclin in disguise pushed it as far as to dress as "lumberjills".
La Hire: Who Takes One, Loses One
La Hire was quite familiar with "commando operations". That's how he took Louviers (located between Paris and Rouen, on the river Seine) when Joan of Arc was busy attacking Paris. Under the cover of night, approaching the fortified city with a boat, he took it by climbing a ladder thrown over the city walls. Yet he had a limp! As soon as the English heard the bad news, they sent troops to retake the city. La Hire defended it until he tried to make it out of the town to go fetch reinforcements himself (as mentioned elsewhere in this thread). Meanwhile, Charles VII did grant new privileges to the townpeople to gain their loyalty. La Hire knew! He'd been betrayed by the good people of Château-Thierry, in Picardy, a decade earlier.
Also, having an inside man is often key in taking or losing a city. That's how he chanced to take back Rouen, in 1436. He had a few friends within the city walls but the English caught them and then came down running at La Hire and his companions to chase them away from Normandy. It was a debacle so funny that Monstrelet tells it three separate times in his Chronicles.
The taking of Marchenoir, in 1427, on the other hand, was a real "coup de maître" orchestrated by La Hire's proud pupil: Jean de Bueil. The latter came up with a crazy idea. See? A very large pile of manure was abutted the city walls. Jean de Bueil thought that a few men could hide in that pile of manure overnight. Then, during the day, a small group of men-at-arms would ride by the city and lure the garrison outside the city walls. It worked! As soon as it happened, the men-at-arms hidden in the manure got out of it, stormed the gates and helped to take over the city. The lured garrison met its end when the luring party rejoined the bulk of the military company. Because who would hide in a pile of manure? Seriously?! Nothing but highly motivated men.
John Talbot: A Crafty Devil
John Talbot became the most feared of the English captains. La Hire himself would run away whenever learning Talbot was coming after him if he hadn't had the time to properly fortify his positions. Tablot was cruel, crafty and relentless. As the mightily fortified city of Pontoise was kept by an old friend and former ally of his, Jean de Villiers de l'Isle-Adam, he chose to take it back. The Burgundians had recently decided to leave the Lancastrian alliance and fight again alongside Charles VII of Valois. Only a few months ago were Talbot and L'Isle-Adam fighting next to each other! Now they were enemies.
The moat of Pontoise had frozen with the winter and no one had thought to break the ice. I mentioned this case in my main answer. Talbot took an opportunity where he found one. A few number of men crawled under the cover of night and beneath a white blanket (!!!) to reach the fortress of Pontoise. No one saw them coming. They were camouflaged as snow! They threw ladders or ropes over the walls, climbed them and took the fortress in the dead of the night. L'Isle-Adam barely had the time to flee and his noble name was certainly ternished by the venture.
A Charming Bastard: Villars' Shame And The Loss Of Montargis
Villars, who was put in charge with defending Montargis, had a barber. His barber was taking care of a young woman who was neither his wife nor his daughter. At the same time, Villars was himself married. His brother-in-law was an enemy of his, the Bastard of Jardes. Indeed, the Bastard of Jardes was serving under the command of L'Aragonais, a faithful captain of the English party despite his Spanish nickname. This makes up for quite a complicated story but as Berry tells the tale, the Bastard of Jardes seduced the barber's ward. He promised to marry her if she would help him take over the city. As part of the ruse, she seduced the barber who was taking care of her, beguiling him with a large promise of reward by the English.
Sex and money make up for an ugly combo… The barber and his ward helped the Bastard of Jardes to climb over the city walls. He could come and go within the city as he pleased him since his sister was the governor's wife. Getting his men inside was another matter. It happened that a house from the suburbs was abutted to the walls (more often than not those houses were destroyed when a city was besieged). From the top of that house, the Bastard climbed over the walls with his men thanks to the barber and his ward. From then on he took over the city, chased away his brother-in-law and didn't respect any of the promises he made towards the young woman or the barber.
I hope you like this little set of anecdotes? Really, it shows that taking a city through a "commando operation" required a lot of imagination and dedication. It was not as simple as moving under the cover of the night. Men-at-arms had to be creative. However, luring an enemy garrison outside of their walls with a small party only to surprise them with an ambush and take the city gates at the meantime was quite a common tactic. So was getting inside help. I even read a story of maids distracting men-at-arms with pastry! It's much more entertaining than anything found in fantasy novels in my opinion.
The City And Its Countryside
The question arises: why take a city when you can plunder the countryside? Well, for one, there might be castles and garisoned troops all over the place to prevent such acts of aggression. Jean de Luxembourg, lord of Beaurevoir, had such a system in place to defend the Eastern part of Picardy. However he was a well-respected, renowned and mostly feared overlord with close connections to the Burgundian court. Once the political chessboard was overturned, though, even the Duke of Burgundy thought twice and eventually didn't risk to mount an army against him. The king did, but that's another story. (Jean de Luxembourg died before the king's army reached his lands and his heir and nephew settled the matter by acknowledging the king's authority.)
Most of the territory wasn't safeguarded by some Jean de Luxembourg, though. It was quite easy to tear the countryside apart. The English did it several times during the first half of the Hundred Years' War. They would do it to provoke the French into an open-field battle. Crécy (1346) and Poitiers (1356) were the results of such provocations. Charles V said no more and chose for a war of attrition: no more open-field battles, only skirmishes and surprise city take-overs. It really changed the face of the war.
Pillaging and plundering a countryside was nevertheless a fine way to bring a city to its knees. Medieval cities were directly co-dependant from their neighbouring countryside. If an army were to threaten it then a city would easily pay up in order to safeguard it. Sure, the city was well-defended enough that it couldn't be taken. But could the citizens chase away a company of men-at-arms without a proper company of their own sent over by their lord? They couldn't.
Rural Communities Sticking Together
>>> Would it be common to ask the bishop of your church to petition the new lord for repayment for a house burnt by his men. Or a stonemason asking his guild-master to try and find his daughter taken by mercenaries during a sacking of the town. Etc. It's just hard to imagine that people would be willing to accept that you had no way to protect yourself and your family from roaming armies that survived by "living off the land". Or were peasant rebellions more common against such occurrences?
Is Charity The Best Insurance Policy?
I've read a few medieval accounting records. They are just fascinating because they're full of little anecdotes! Each expense or income is justified by a short story. Some of them are quite dry. A few of them are full of details! As it happens, you sometimes have the story of people who received compensation money for services given. Like a man climbed a ladder to extinguish the fire which started a-top a Burgundian palace and he was granted a few francs for his bravery. A knight came in, only had to show up and received much more money. I don't remember the numbers nor exactly where I read it, it was years ago in class, you'll have to forgive me.
Money as well as judicial pardons were also given to people who suffered in the service of a lord. Now say your house was destroyed because of an enemy military company. Who could help you out? What could you do? You could at first rely on your community. Are you part of a guild? Of a religious congregation? Did you have an extensive family? Joan of Arc had countless godfathers and godmothers. The social ties were really strongs within medieval communites. You could rely on your "people" to help you out, get you some resources, help you rebuild your house, etc. Though private properties were a real thing, communal areas were also very common. Enclosure was not a thing yet. Especially in the countryside, the forest–depending a few strict regulations–was a free source of wood, pasture, hunt and resources for everybody. You could get a fine if your pigs roamed through it too wildly though.
Someone could ask pitty money to a lay or ecclesiastic lord, too. They could expect to get it freely by waiting outside a church on big Christian celebration days, but they mostly ever got anything if they could legitimize it if they officially asked for it. Then it mostly depended on the will of the lord. Some saw charity as a great mean to control the population (like the Duke of Burgundy, from Philip the Bold to Philip the Good). Others rather indulged into extortion and saw their lordship as a mean to get as rich as possible as fast as possible (like the Duke of Berry, John the Magnificent). There was no instituted way for anyone to recover from a war related destruction of property. You had to play creative, rely on your social network and hope for the best.
Law And Order: Medieval Edition
It was the social expected duty of rulers to put pressure on bandits, unruly rogue military companies, and make safeguard the peace in the realm. It was difficult to insure when the centralized power showed weakness. When Charles VI descended into madness and the high princes of the land started a civil war, inviting the English to fight as mercenaries (around 1410-1412) it quickly led to devasted countrysides. It got so bad that countrymen took refuge into the woods and created military companies of their own. Those bandits really posed a threat to the moving of troops on the military chess. They would keep on fighting from 1411 to 1418!
Self-defence often became a necessity to rural communities. During the Écorcherie crisis of 1438-1439 a city closed its door to a military company that was actually charged with chasing down a rogue military company. They eventually let the men-at-arms go through in very little numbers because they mistrusted them so much. The Écorcheurs, or skinners, allegedly commited some of the worst war crimes of the Hundred Years' War. They destroyed things for fun or so it seems. Their numbers grew exponentially because their ranks swelled with newcomers who wished to avoid plunder and to join in on the loot. Military companies were very exotic things back then: men-at-arms had armed and non-armed servants. Even old women could be part of a company and could serve as support or spy. It saved the French captains trapped at Gerberoy in 1435 to know more about the enemy surrounding them! It would take the 1445 military reform to really define who could or couldn't join the army or be part of a military company.
The most famous peasant who took up arms to defend his people was certainly Grand Ferré, who fought in the year 1359. He supposedly killed 60 Englishmen by himself with an axe when they attacked his company of two hundred patriots at the Longueil-Sainte-Marie manor, near Compiègne (France). He even resisted an assassination attempt but eventually died from his injuries. His venture had been authorized by proper political leaders! When the "Great Companies" stormed all over France in the year 1360's and brought havoc with their rogue military depredation, however, such peasant heroes would act more autonomously. Their ventures would more often than not be shortlived.
The real hope for rural population against rogue military companies were to get their 'bailly' or any military representative of the king or their lord to muster his troops and chase them down. Sometimes a lord could also call his people to arms and lead them to a cleansing expedition of epic disproportions. Again, however, nothing was systematic and it mostly depended on the people in charge. Who were they? How did they conceive their role? Could they perform their duties effectively? Etc. Peasants rebellions were quite common in the end and often bound to happen in such circumstances.
The Daily Duties Of A City-Dweller
Though city-dwellers were "free men and women" they still had to accomplish many tasks. One of them was the town-watch. It was up to city-dwellers to make the rounds on the walls, to break the ice of the moat around the city (to make sure no one would cross it and make their way to the walls too easily–which happened!), etc. They had to provide material support in times of war, women too, by bringing water, boiling oil, and many other things to the "frontline".
The roads were guarded by "boulevards", or road-block fortifications, and they prevented enemy troops to get too close from a city. Besieging a city therefore often began miles away from the city walls. It guaranteed the safekeeping of pastures, agricultural fields and suburbs around the town. Such boulevards had to be built by city-dwellers themselves. Even besieged, a city could keep some kind of normal life unless the situation became too dire. Since a city was not often properly surrounded, exterior communication was not so difficult and food could easily be brought in.
Some people speculated and made a fortune during times of war by raising the price on crops, for example. It was a criminal offense but many got away with it… Money often became an issue for besieged populations and they hoped to rely on the church or their lord to get by. Having a rich protector, serving in a mighty house, was certainly a way to stay on safe side of things. Anyway, it took quite some time for the situation to be really desperate unless the enemy army was actually overwhelming.
When Boulevards Were Medieval Fortifications
>>> About boulevards: how did it help? If we're talking about a siege done by hundreds or many thousands of armed people, why would something on a road stop enemy so far from the city? I realise it's not that easy but… why not walk around something that isn't a single piece of wall?
Is This A Tower? Is This A Fortress? It's A Boulevard!
When fire artillery started to spread by the end of the 14th century, most fortifications were not ready to endure a copious bombarding. Putting bombards or cannons a-top of city walls was also very difficult to do. The rare case of Beauvais providing its walls with ramps to help push the canons at the top of them, by the first half of the 15th century, shows that it was a very expensive type of construction to undertake.
The 'boulevard' was made up in the Burgundian Low Countries to answer the need to protect old fortifications against bombard showers and to provide the town with actual counter-canons. Boulevard were originally made out of wood and filled-in with earth to absorb the shock of canonballs. They looked like hillside slopes that stopped on a sharp cliff and they were put in front of fortification weak spots such as city gates or others. Eventually they were built out of stone and gained massive dimensions! They could spread as wide as 15 to 45 meters (16.4 to 42.2 yards) on each of their sides, pretty much like squares, and be elevated up to 10 meters high (10.9 yards)*! It was quite a bad place to find yourself on if you had the fear of heights. As to how many people it could hold, I'd say as much as they could depending on their dimensions. You needed personel to fire the canons but also a few men-at-arms and archers to defend the place.
*A. Salamagne, Les villes fortes au Moyen Âge. Paris: Jean-Paul Gisserot, 2002.
"Up And Down The Boulevard"
I would invite you to look at the following maps of Orléans during the 1428-1429 siege 😉
Plan de la ville et du siège d'Orléans en 1428. Jollois restituit ; Harttweig sculpsit
As you can see, the walled city is surrounded by a large suburb area. Everywhere you see the letter 'B' (first map) also means there was a barrier or fortification of some kind. Getting close to the city implied a prolonged guerilla type of warfare. Neighbourhoods were to be taken one by one.
Then, if you spot the number 37 on the bridge (first map), the "Boulevart de la belle Croix", you'll see that there isn't getting around that specific boulevard unless you dive down for a swim (look at map 2 for a detailed plan of the area).
Plan de l'ancien Pont d'Orléans et de ses abords avec ses bastilles et boulevards, le fort des Tournelles et la bastille des Augustins. Jollois restituit
Roads and paths around a city were not as wide or clear as one might think. Paris in particular had two lines of moat in addition to its fortified walls surrounding the city. When Joan attacked it, one was dry but the other was still filled in with water. The only way to go around a boulevard defending the entrance of a city door was to somehow fill in the moat with wood fagot in order to cross it eventually.
Indeed–I wasn't clear and I'm sorry–boulevards were mostly built in front of city doors to prevent enemies to knock it down. The boulevards were moreover protected by the higher city walls behind it. Also they were firing canonballs so it proved quite difficult to get close to it safely.
The Art Of Surrounding A City
>>> "Since a city was not often properly surrounded, exterior communication was not so difficult and food could easily be brought in." Couldn't that be solved by making a few bands of "raiders" out of soldiers?
When Henry V of England besieged Rouen in 1418-1419 (see my addition somewhere else on the thread on that matter), he made sure to dig trenches all around the city to connect his network of fortified places. His band of Irish soldier policing the neighbouring towns and chaining the river Seine were not enough.
At Orléans, where the English attempted a remake of the siege of Rouen, they didn't dig trenches and they didn't chain the river Loire. As a matter of fact, Joan of Arc got around them by crossing the river East and just passing near the Bastille of St Loup (that you can also see on the map). A little band of soldier made it out of Orléans as a distraction and she reached the eastern gate with reinforcement and food for the city without too much problems.
Therefore raiding was not enough to insure the total paralysis of a besieged city. When he was defending Louviers in 1431, La Hire tried to make it out of the city by himself in order to get reinforcements at La Ferté-Bernard. He's spotted by Burgundians soldiers and captured. The sole fact that he tried though, as experienced as he was, meant that there he had a chance!
About Boiling Oil
>>> Do you have a source for this? I thought that boiling oil was a bit of a common misconception given the cost of pouring boiling oil on attackers was much much more expensive than just pouring boiling water on them
I wrote about the boiling oils by following the subsequent passage from the Journal of Orléans*, which praise how townwomen came to the rescue by providing those who defended a boulevard with many useful things:
"Pareillement y feirent grant secours les femmes d'Orléans ; car elles ne cessoient de porter très diligemment à ceulx qui deffendoient le boulevert, plusieurs choses nécessaires, comme eaues, huilles, gresses bouillans*, chaux, cendres et chaussetrape.*"
Technically, it doesn't say boiling oil but boiling grease (and oils are mentioned) which is pretty much the same I'd say? I perused my copy of The Oxford Encyclopedia of Medieval Warfare and Military Technology and I couldn't find anything about boiling oil as a myth. It deserves more research certainly.
*Paul Charpentier & Charles Cuissard (ed.), Journal du Siège d'Orléans, 1428-1429. Orléans: Herluison, 1896, p. 7
A Short Reading List
>>> May I have your sources you used for the section "The Daily Duties Of A City-Dweller" ?
Here's a short list of references (almost exclusively in French, sorry…) that talk about townwatch and other duties expected from city-dwellers:
Primary source (a total must read!): Janet Shirley (ed.), A Parisian Journal. 1405-1449. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1968 (read especially the narrative of the year 1418).
Secondary literature:
Guilhem Ferrand, "Les Murs, le guet et la communauté : la construction d'un système défensif", Archéologie du Midi Médiéval, 25 (2007), p. 141-155; URL: https://www.persee.fr/doc/amime_0758-7708_2007_num_25_1_1642
Gustave Fagniez, "Essai sur l'organisation de l'industrie à Paris aux XIIIe et XIVe siècles (deuxième article)", Bibliothèque de l'École des chartes, 30 (1869), p. 80-105, in particular pp. 98-103; URL: https://www.persee.fr/doc/bec_0373-6237_1869_num_30_1_446253
A.-M. Hayez, "Travaux à l'enceinte d'Avignon sous les pontificats d'Urbain V et de Grégoire IX", La Guerre et la paix au Moyen Âge. Paris: Bibliothèque nationale, 1978, p. 119-223.
R. Cazelle, Paris, de Philippe Auguste à Charles V. Paris: Hachette, 1994.
N. Savy, Les villes du Quercy en guerre : la défense des villes et des bourges du Haut-Quercy pendant la guerre de Cent Ans. Pradines: Savy A.E., 2009.
There must be articles or monographs in English dealing with such a topic but I can't find them right off the bat without going into a university library or diving too far in additional research.
From Skirmishes To Victory Or Surrender
If a city was besieged and couldn't be taken over "Rambo style" with a clever, daring an deceitful tactic, it would first open on several weeks of skirmishes around the boulevards and the countryside. Nearby smaller towns would also serve as battlefields. People often found refuge in stone built churches: they were torn apart or put on fire.
Delay was the key words for the defenders. The name of the game was to hold as long as possible for ally troops to find their way to the siege and help. Montargis waited and waited until La Hire arrived and saved the day, in 1427. It is an interesting case, however, because La Hire and his friends wouldn't help Montargis unless they got paid. Indeed, if besieging a city was a most expensive affair, so was defending it!
Larger cities would hold much longer. They often had pastures and fields within their walls that belonged to this or that abbey. You'd have cattle within the city walls too: cow, pigs, sheep… Not enough to feed the entire population for a prolonged time, but just enough to help the city hold against the enemy.
Renowned knights would then square things off in many skirmishes until one or the other party gathered enough money to push the siege forward or to break it off. Journals and chronicles of the time often mention who fought bravely during the first hours/days/weeks of a siege.
The surrender would always come into the form of a peace treaty between the military leaders of both parties. Often the defender would ask for his people to get a safe-passage accross the enemy territory to get back to an allied city. The military leader of a city was not always taking the city-dwellers into consideration, or just couldn't protect them, and more often than not he allowed his enemy to pillage and plunder the taken city. That's why, among so many other reasons, city-dwellers didn't have men-at-arms to heart and often mistrusted them. There are cases of city-dwellers that actually denied entry to supposedly allied men-at-arms when the countryside was torn apart by roaming rogue companies. Hell, the Duke of Burgundy found himself trapped inside the city of Brugge and had to fight his way out!
Tagged Historical Method and Historiography, Hundred Years War, Medieval Memes, Medieval Politics and Nobility, Medieval Warfare4 Comments
Inca Civilization Analysis with Historical Commentary
8 Mar 2020 7 Jun 2020 Asinus Docet
The Adventures of Tintin: Prisoners of the Sun. Captain Haddock and the Anachronisms.
1. Go-To Strategies
1.1. Early Game Rushes
1.2. Late Game
2. Civilization Bonuses
2.1. A Free Llama
2.2. Blacksmith Upgrades
2.3. Housing and Stone Costs
When I play at Age of Empires 2, it's mostly to meet up with a regular group of friends. Among them Iancu certainly ranks at the top of our little clan. He used to play a lot with Franks, mass paladins and storm in our bases with packs of heavy cavalry.
I. Hated. That.
Therefore I came up with a solution: the ultimate heavy cavalry counter-unit. It's so good, in fact, that when AoE2:DE was released and steppe lancers were flooding most ranked games, I didn't fret. I knew the counter already: the deadly Inca long speared kamayuks!
The Inca road and provincial installation (tampu) system, after Hyslop (1984): frontispiece; the four parts of the Inca relm are shown in the inset map. Terence N. D'Altroy, The Incas, 2nd ed. Oxford: Blackwell, 2015, Figure 1.1
I picked up the Inca civilization to learn how to counter pretty much everything. Indeed, they do counter (almost) everything (except on water):
Scary paladins incoming? Kamayuks spamming underway!
Some good old fashion huskarls Goth flood? Slingers and kamayuks counter-flood at the ready!
Persian or British archers massing at your borders? Send in some eagle warriors and wipe them out!
He used to play a lot with Franks, mass paladins and storm in our bases with packs of heavy cavalry.
Therefore I came up with a solution: the deadly Inca long speared kamayuks!
Incas can counter everything, however, all of their units cost gold and none of them constitutes a powerhouse unit.
Kamayuks literally melt against arrows.
Slingers can't deal with cavalry.
Eagle warriors are properly butchered by champions.
Moreover, Incas really struggle against siege civilization such as Celts. I would know because that's what Iancu picked up once he saw how easily I would counter his paladins. Mass onagers and scorpions are very difficult to overcome with Incas since they lack the mobility of a proper cavalry civilization or the range of the British longbowmen.
Nevertheless I love Incas and my father picked them up too. It's a great civ to start up with and learn how to adapt your strategy to your opponents. It really helped me to get better at the game and whenever I pick them now our band of friends goes "Oh boy… Here we go again!"
Locations of major pre-Inca sites and culture regions. Terence N. D'Altroy, The Incas, 2nd ed. Oxford: Blackwell, 2015, Figure 2.3
The Birth of Western Astrology: A Short Story 11 Nov 2020
The priest of Bel Marduk Berossus only taught astrology to the Greeks around 280 B.C. when he dedicated his Babyloniaca to King Antiochus I Soter. By then, the Classical era of the Greek city states was long gone. Though Berossus first taught astrology to the Greeks within the boundaries of the Seleucid Empire, it quickly caught on in Egypt, especially at Alexandria where the most advanced mathematical observations about the Earth and the stars were being made.
A Crash Course on Medieval Tournaments 12 Jul 2020
Tournaments followed the chivalric code of war! Indeed, jousts and tournaments were nothing like modern sporting events. They were true exercises of warfare during peace times more than anything else. It was a way to make war without declaring it.
The Success Story of the Fleur-de-Lys in Medieval Heraldry 2 Jul 2020
Welcome to our class of Heraldry 101, young Padawan. I'm glad you made it on time. Today, we'll discuss why the kings of France preferred a flower over, say, some powerful predator like the lion or the bear. I mean, isn't it weird? And even weirded when you think that Charles VI chose winged deer as his emblem instead of… I don't know… winged wolves, or dragons?
Inca AoE2 Go-To Strategies
Before AoE2:DE was released, the Incas were the #2 civilization by win rate on Voobly. However, they were certainly less popular than the two other Mesoamerican civilizations: the Mayans and the Aztecs. Mayans were often picked for their plumed archers and their insane mobility (that was before they were nerfed and costed more gold) whereas Aztecs rank among the best monk civilization notably thanks to their incredible relic gold bonus. Even after AoE2:DE, Incas remain less popular than their neighboring civilizations.
Highest Civ Win Rates as of November 21th 2019, on https://aoestats.io/
Since most of Inca strategies are pretty gold expensive, they struggle against civilization that have potent late game bonuses or rely more heavily on wood for post-imperial strategies, such as the Chinese, the Britons or the Celts.
According to AoeStats, Incas win rate is at its peak within the first twenty minutes of a 1v1 face off. That's because they benefit from great early aggression bonuses. They come in very handy for lame, drush or tower rush tactics. The win rate drops until the reach of late castle age-early imperial age, then it drops back though it remains above average until the hour long plus game. Since most of Inca strategies are pretty gold expensive, they struggle against civilization that have potent late game bonuses or rely more heavily on wood for post-imperial strategies, such as the Chinese, the Britons or the Celts. The Chinese, in particular, really shine in long games thanks to their less expensive technology research cost bonus. That is, of course, if they ever manage to survive the early attacks from Inca players!
Ideal Early Game Tactics with Incas
I was once facing LilTrouble_ on 1v1 Arabia, I don't remember which civ I had but she had Incas and I certainly regretted it. Oh boy, did our Lady of the Empires teach me a lesson! She started by laming one of my boars. Indeed, Incas as a Meso civ have a formidable advantage when it comes to laming tactics. The eagle scout has a greater line of sight than the regular mounted scout so it spots wild boars more easily. Moreover, it runs a bit slower, meaning it's easier for an eagle scout to remain within the three tiles line of sight of wild boars and keep them chasing them. Just like that, LilTrouble_ stole my boar and messed up with my build order. I didn't know yet how to adapt from such a situation and it derailed my strategy.
A great Inca early go-to strategy would be to lame the enemy then to plan out a drush or a militia rush into a fast castle, or to add extra feudal pressure with cheap towers and tanky villagers. Such strategies requires well rounded build orders though but it makes up for great practice!
In this drawing by Felipe Guaman Poma de Ayala, Native troops storm a pucara, or fortress. Guaman Poma de Ayala, Felipe. El primer nueva corónica y buen gobierno. Edited by John V. Murra and Rolena Adorno, 51/63. Mexico City: Siglo Veintiuno, 1980 [1615].
Then she started to build tower behind my wood lines to lame me from my other resources—as if stealing my food was not enough! Incas have a bonus that their buildings cost -15% stones, it makes it easy for them to spam towers to harass their enemy. It piles up on other bonuses that make their tower rushes even more potent. Their houses support 10 villagers: it means less houses to build which grants more wood for towers (or an early barrack). Moreover, their villagers are affected by blacksmith upgrades: Incas villagers can become really tanky! Not only can they build towers but they can also fight off a counterattack and make the pressure worse.
I managed to destroy LilTrouble_'s tower since they've been nerfed in AoE2:DE (they have less HP in feudal age than they used to). However, she'd mess up with me six ways to Sunday. I didn't know what to go for. I was on the back foot and my economy was a disaster. She won as soon as she hit castle age. GG. It was an honor. To sum it up: a great Inca early go-to strategy would be to lame the enemy then to plan out a drush or a militia rush into a fast castle, or to add extra feudal pressure with cheap towers and tanky villagers. Such strategies requires well rounded build orders though but it makes up for great practice! Try it out. If you don't win within the first 30 minutes, you can just tap out and move on to your next target for more practice and quickly add up to five games into a single gaming evening.
Late Team Game Strategies with Incas
On the long run in 1v1, Incas become less and less able to build up momentum and take advantage of their flexibility. Their Andean Sling unique technology certainly comes in handy in a full-on trash war, once the gold has totally run out. However, a victory is pretty much desired before that point. Incas can adapt and counter pretty much everything on land but it comes at quite a high cost in gold when you take into account all the blacksmith, university, barrack, archery range and castle technologies required to beef up the Inca units properly.
The gold problem however is easily solved in team games: build markets and trade make up for depleted gold mines! All of a sudden, Incas become a great support civilization in a team game because their counter options, cheaper towers and castles can substantially help defend your teammate bases while they move forward for a knockout. Fully upgraded eagle warriors also constitutes wonderful raiding units to distract your opponents whilst your allies are mounting their attack.
Age of Empires 2 | Luring Wild Boars | Tips & Historical Trivia
Joan of Arc in AoE2: Quick Words
Inca Civilization Bonuses
Incas Start with a Free Llama
The Adventures of Tintin: Prisoners of the Sun.
Captain Haddock and the Angry Llama.
It used to be that you wouldn't always get your four starting sheep from the get go once you started a game. You'd have to scout for a bit or hope to find them by building your houses at the edge of the fog of war. If your starting sheep were playing hide and seek then a free starting llama was certainly a treat. I experienced however that starting sheep were a more reliable food source. They tend to pop up as soon as you start a game on AoE2:DE. Still, the free llama remains extra food you can bank up for an early rush strategy. Otherwise, it can serve as an extra scout to find your wild boars whilst your scout is already searching for the enemy… in case you want, again, to go for an early rush. Never forget, Incas top win rate is below the twenty minutes mark!
The Temple of the Sun (or Qorikancha, "Golden Enclosure") had real-life sized golden llama statues when the Spanish first set foot into it. It certainly contributed to the myth of the Eldorado! The Incas also named a constellation the "llama dark cloud", which was supposedly the ancestor of all camelids.
Historically speaking—because that's what I do after all—it's very fitting that Incas should start with a free llama. As Terence N. D'Altroy writes*: "Llama and alpaca herding became both a successful adaptation and a source of wealth for mountain peoples." Llamas were "the principal beast[s] of burden and source of meat for Andean peoples." It is reported that male bucks can carry a load of 30kg for 20km a day. Not only that: "llamas and alpaca produce useful wool, but the light weight and fineness of alpaca wool make it preferable for clothes and other textiles."
Just as sheep became part of Christian rituals**, llamas got intertwined with the religious life of the Incas. We've found many figurines of llamas in old ritual caches. The Temple of the Sun (or Qorikancha, "Golden Enclosure") had real-life sized golden llama statues when the Spanish first set foot into it. It certainly contributed to the myth of the Eldorado! The Incas also named a constellation the "llama dark cloud", which was supposedly the ancestor of all camelids. No animal was nobler than the mighty llama to the Incas.
Captain Haddock and the Angry Llama. The Revenge!
* Terence N. D'Altroy, The Incas, 2nd ed. Oxford: Blackwell, 2015.
** I'm referencing the 15th century famous Ghent Altarpiece which picture the "Mystic Lamb" or "Lamb of God".
Inca Villagers Benefit from Blacksmith Upgrades
Never forget, Incas top win rate is below the twenty minutes mark! If it sounds like I'm repeating myself, it's because I am. Picture the following: your opponent is walling his/her base on Arabia to attempt a Fast Castle. What can you do? Punish him! Or… her. Go in for the infamous Militia + Tower Rush—the militia to rip the palisade walls apart and get into your enemy economy to disrupt it, the towers to prevent the enemy walling behind the palisades and make sure to get in with the added bonus of denying resources like berries, stones, gold or wood.
I observed The Viper go for a full trush (no militia) and when he clicked Feudal he threw no less than eight villagers with loom at the enemy. His build order was the following: 6 on sheep, 4 on wood, 2 on boar, 3 on berries, +4 on boar and sheep; feudal transition: from the 12 villagers on boar and sheep: 1 to wood, 4 to stone and 8 for the trush. He could basically keep on building towers all over the place, from two groups of 4 villagers each. A total pest! I don't remember clearly if he was playing with Incas, I think he was randomly assigned Koreans, but if he'd been playing Incas, his villagers wouldn't have been in need of additional militia to protect them. Inca villagers benefit from blacksmith upgrades, meaning you can beef them up and make them extra tanky! Forging and Scale Mail Armor insures that they don't fear any Feudal military unit as long as you micro them properly and fight in "packs". Add Fletching to improve the range of your towers and you're golden!
T90Official actually found a player who loved this all-in Inca strategy and even recorded a few Legend Videos about him. Noburu, as is his screen name, enjoys to vill rush and drop towers into his enemy economy with Incas. It is especially efficient on open maps such as Arabia. If you face an opponent that knows how to push you back, however, you'd better learn how to transition from this very aggressive early rush to a more balanced late game strategy because if you can't punish a player walling his/her base properly, you'd better believe he/she'll punish you back! I had a F1re 1v1 Inca mirror match on Arabia I wanted to break down for you here, too, but since this is a replay pre-dating the February 35584 game update, I can't watch it passed the 17 seconds game time mark… Therefore I won't say no more on the subject and move on to my historical commentary of this civilization bonus.
I know I keep quoting the guy but that's only because he writes so clearly: "Soldiers often wore quilted cloth armor that was so effective against Andean weapons [such as slings!] that many Spaniards discarded their own metal plate in favor of the lighter protection." Isn't that amazing!?
From all the Pre-Columbian civilizations, the Incas were most skilled at forging and bending metal. It somehow justifies their blacksmith bonus. Terence N. D'Altroy writes that "Inca smiths drew from millennia of Andean knowledge, which was the most sophisticated in the Americas." Only they were more skilled at dealing with gold, silver and copper. They even forged platinum treasures long before it was possible in Europe*! However, to quote Terence N. D'Altroy again: "the products that they made were primarily symbolic, decorative, and status related, rather than utilitarian." As a matter of fact: "In Inca cosmology, gold was the sweat of the Sun and silver the tears of the Moon."
It also means that Incas didn't wear iron armors! Indeed, they rather wore quilted armors that were more suited anyway to Andean warfare. I know I keep quoting the guy but that's only because he writes so clearly: "Soldiers often wore quilted cloth armor that was so effective against Andean weapons [such as slings!] that many Spaniards discarded their own metal plate in favor of the lighter protection." Isn't that amazing!? If Age of Empires 2 was more historically friendly, it'd mean that the Scale Mail Armor tech should be renamed for the Incas to Quilted Cloth Armor. It'd be a treat and it'd help the sense of diversity within the game.
Every Inca subject was part of a household or tribe called the ayllu. At the top of an ayllu you'd find a chief or kuraka. The kuraka's duties were to take care of his people and grant them gifts that'd insure a fair redistribution of wealth within the ayllu. In exchange of those gifts, the Inca subjects had to engage into labor duties, or the mita. It'd range from agricultural tasks to military expeditions. Any grown-up subject (meaning any married man who'd started a family) could be drafted for the mita. Somehow, it fits the Age of Empires 2 economy model perfectly!
Another historical merit behind the "villagers benefiting from blacksmith upgrades" Inca bonus is that the Incas didn't have any regular army and that any Inca subject could be drafted as a soldier. The Incas didn't have any trade or taxation system, their economy solely relied on labor duties or "corvées". The technical term is mita. Every Inca subject was part of a household or tribe called the ayllu. At the top of an ayllu you'd find a chief or kuraka. The kuraka's duties were to take care of his people and grant them gifts that'd insure a fair redistribution of wealth within the ayllu. In exchange of those gifts, the Inca subjects had to engage into labor duties, or the mita. It'd range from agricultural tasks to military expeditions. Any grown-up subject (meaning any married man who'd started a family) could be drafted for the mita. Somehow, it fits the Age of Empires 2 economy model perfectly!
Villagers within an AoE2 empires don't trade, they don't have a life of their own, and they only do what's asked of them. They only comply with unpaid free labor and that's their life. In exchange, they get… houses… Unless they're Huns or post-imp Mongols. Then they don't even get houses or their houses could get destroyed and they wouldn't get new ones. Male villagers have been asking for clothes on snowy maps for decades but it brought them nothing. They can't even go on a strike. They can only accidentally go idle for some extended period of time… But that's what you get from butchering sheep and llama without shearing them first!!!
There was no regular army to speak of, but the Inca Empire certainly had skilled military specialists.
On a more serious note, military duties became the prerogative of a few specific ayllu within the Inca Empire. Once a tribe was conquered, its population could be scattered around the Empire to prevent any further resistance. Unrooted and taken away from their homeland, Inca subjects could then be converted into a permanent military status and be garrisoned at the frontier to insure the borders. Such was the fate of many Chachapoyas, for example. Kañari people also became a major part of the Inca military. "Up to half of the two ethnic groups was dispersed as permanent military personnel." That's what'd cost to you to resist and fight off the Inca conquest. There was no regular army to speak of, but the Inca Empire certainly had skilled military specialists, doomed to serve.
* The forging of platinum wasn't mastered in Europe before 1730, cf. Henri Favre, Les Incas, 9th ed. Paris: PUF, 2011 (Que Sais-Je? no 1504), p. 101.
Inca Houses Support 10 Population and their Buildings Cost -15% Stone
Stonecutting was certainly more than just a science for Inca builders. Not only could they cut perfectly shaped stone blocks, they could also fit together oddly shaped stone blocks into perfectly fitted walls or even adapt their walls to the terrain they were building upon, therefore building "naturally" curved walls.
Finely cut regular ashlar masonry on the exterior of the Hatunkancha compound, facing the more uneven masonry of the Amarukancha compound. Terence N. D'Altroy, The Incas, 2nd ed. Oxford: Blackwell, 2015, Plate 7.3
Incas were not only great metallurgist, they were also amazing stonecutters. So amazing in fact that one could read in the Encyclopedia of the Incas* the following: "How Inca builders—who lacked iron tools and the wheel—cut stone, achieved the tight fit, and transported and hoisted the stones (some of which weigh over a hundred metric tons) has been the subject of wild speculation. These conjectures range from the intervention of extraterrestrials to the use of laser-like tools—and even the application of stone-softening herbs." I mean, you know a civilization has done great on the tech ladder when modern people blame the aliens for their achievements.
Detail of a terrace wall at Tarahuasi, west of Cuzco, composed of stones fitted in the polygonal style. © Adriana von Hagen.
Stonecutting was certainly more than just a science for Inca builders. Not only could they cut perfectly shaped stone blocks, they could also fit together oddly shaped stone blocks into perfectly fitted walls or even adapt their walls to the terrain they were building upon, therefore building "naturally" curved walls. It makes up for incredible construction work! You couldn't fit the finest sheet of paper between two Inca stone blocks. You couldn't even rebuild their walls if you dismantled it. Examples of such fine masonry were seldom found in the Ancient Greek world, especially at Delphi, but never to that extend.
Incas were also great urbanists. They really knew how to build a city and make it not only fully functional but properly amazing. The Spaniards were certainly impressed. Their only complaint was that you couldn't fit two horses side by side in an Inca street. However, Incas didn't have horses so… you see? It only makes sense, therefore, that Inca benefit from stone reduction cost and housing bonuses in Age of Empires 2. It honors well their stonecutting and architecture skills. I certainly could write more on the subject, but I'd like to save that for a historical analysis of the city of Cuzco in the Pakachuti campaign if you don't mind.
Melding of worked bedrod and inset blocks below the Torreón. Torreón within the royal sector at Machu Picchu. Terence N. D'Altroy, The Incas, 2nd ed. Oxford: Blackwell, 2015, Plate 7.14
* Gary Urton & Adriana Von Hagen (ed.), Encyclopedia of the Incas. New York, London: Rowman & Littlefield, 2015.
Tagged Age of Empires 2, Global Middle Ages, Medieval WarfareLeave a comment
The Long Middle Ages
18 Feb 2020 19 Feb 2020 Asinus Docet
1. The Periodization of the Middle Ages
2. The Historical Meaning of Dates
3. Who First Came Up With The Idea Of "Dark Ages"?
4. The Long Middle Ages According to Jacques Le Goff, A French Medievalist
5. A Philosophical Standpoint On History By Ernest Gellner
>>> Link to the original reddit post <<<
Is the Long Middle Ages theory seriously considered by historians?
My brother told me about his history teacher when he was at the university telling him that he believed in a theory saying that the Middle Ages should be reconsidered as not ending with the fall of Constantinople or the discovery of America, but rather with the Industrial Revolution/French Revolution. Is this a real thing considered by some historians, or is it some obscure theory from dark places?
The Periodization of the Middle Ages
The periodization of the Middle Ages is a historiographical legacy. It should be challenged. It should be revised. However, university chairs and editorial directives are now defined by this legacy and it'd be very hard to change anything about it…
Cartoon mocking the concept of Dark Ages by Michel Summer
I can't for the life of me find the historian who first said that the Middle Ages started in 476 and ended in 1453 or 1492. I think I'll never find him… However, the medieval era is commonly defined between the infamous "fall of Rome" (was it a "fall", really? was it still "Rome"? who could answer such things?), set in 476, and the less notorious "fall of Constantinople" or "second fall of Rome", set in 1453. Oddly enough 1453 is also the year that marks the symbolic end of the Hundred Years' War (it was only put to an end diplomatically in 1475) and some historians would also like to make it a big thing. However, other argued that 1492 served as a better moment to mark the "end of an era" or a "new dawn for mankind" since it's the year Columbus reaches the America—though he thinks at the time he's found a new way to China; he'll actually die without knowing that he actually landed on an uncharted continent. 1492 was also a big year for Spain for another reason: it marks the end of the Reconquista. The last Muslim kingdom of Granada falls to the Catholic Kings, Ferdinand of Aragon and Isabella of Castile.
What's funny with those dates is that they prioritize military achievements and political events above everything else. The invention of the printing press doesn't serve as a landmark in that discussion. Events from outside Europe are totally ignored. The list could go on for several pages. In the end, the periodization of the Middle Ages is a historiographical legacy. It should be challenged. It should be revised. However, university chairs and editorial directives are now defined by this legacy and it'd be very hard to change anything about it… It's both a blessing and a curse! It helps us to navigate through history easily but it also blinds us from a lot of different realities.
What in a Date? A Year, by any Other Time…
"Do you think people changed their way of life overnight? Of course not! Why then do we say that 1492 ends the Middle Ages? It's more a landmark than anything else. People's life didn't change all of a sudden. If it did it was through a long process. 1492 is the high note of a long symphony, not some point of no return."
The 9gag army was here
I distinctively remember my history teacher, Mrs B., telling us about the "great" discovery of America by Columbus, in 1492. She said: "Do you think people changed their way of life overnight? Of course not! Why then do we say that 1492 ends the Middle Ages? It's more a landmark than anything else. People's life didn't change all of a sudden. If it did it was through a long process. 1492 is the high note of a long symphony, not some point of no return."
I recently wrote an answer about the importance given to the 1066 conquest of England by William of Normandy. Back in the 11th century, 1066 was just another year in the span of a lifetime. It is true that the Norman rule brought a lot of change in the political management of the British Isles. However, those change came slowly and not overnight. It took time to William to assert his authority and deal with the last pockets of resistance. Then he had to know his new kingdom better before he could do anything with it. That's when the Doomsday Book came to fruition.
The year 1066 became a "big thing" only in retrospect. When 14th and 15th century chroniclers tried to justify the over-expensive and never-ending war led by the kings of England against the kings of France. The latter were defined as a threat for the English people and even as a threat to the English language itself! The Norman conquest of 1066 served as a painful reminder. This was more a construct than anything, though.
Historians still do that when they look back into the past. They elevate a few dates to the level symbolic and meaningful constructs. It becomes a part of their reasoning. A way for them to "make sense" out of the past and put everything into a coherent narrative. In and of themselves, however, dates and years basically mean nothing to the great scale of the universe.
The Birth of Western Astrology: A Short Story
A Crash Course on Medieval Tournaments
The Success Story of the Fleur-de-Lys in Medieval Heraldry
Petrarch's "Dark Ages"
Petrarch saw the beginning of the Dark Ages as the moment Rome fell under foreign control. It means that the so-called golden age of the Antonin dynasty marks as the downfall of Rome in Petrarch's mind. It would backtrack the start of the Middle Ages to the year 96!
Sculpture of Petrarch in Florence (Italy)
Many have attributed to Petrarch the notion of "Middle Ages". Theodore E. Mommsen wrote convincingly about it in his article: "Petrarch's Conception of the 'Dark Ages'" (1942)—available on JStor. As Petrarch roamed through Rome and its ruins he was flabbergasted by the little knowledge that its inhabitants had of those great historical landmarks. Mommsen writes (p. 232): "Petrarch complains bitterly that the contemporary Romans know nothing about Rome and things Roman. In his opinion this ignorance is disastrous. For he asks: 'Who can doubt that Rome would rise up again if she but began to know herself?'"
As a matter of fact, Petrarch saw the beginning of the Dark Ages as the moment Rome fell under foreign control. It means that the so-called golden age of the Antonin dynasty marks as the downfall of Rome in Petrarch's mind. It would backtrack the start of the Middle Ages to the year 96! Again, what was "Rome"? How did it "fall"? Cato the Elder, Cicero, Petrarch and Edward Gibbon would each argue a very different point of view on the matter! I chuckled recently when I read that no one actively sought to destroy the Western Roman Empire. It collapsed on its own. There's actually nothing inherently wrong in that statement. The Western Roman Empire just… died out.
Jacques Le Goff, Inventor of the Long Middle Ages?
The age of mills was only put to an end by the age of machines. Le Goff lists up most of what argue in favour of a continuity instead of a divide between the Middle Ages and the Renaissance: means of transportation, economic structures (both material and intellectual), metallurgy, manners and politeness, landscape features, etc.
Picture of Jacques Le Goff
By the way… "Ceci est bel et bien une pipe."
Jacques Le Goff is probably the most influential French medievalist of the latter 20th century. He still has students and admirers all over the world. His historical biography of Louis IX of France revolutionized the genre. The deeds of a man were not to be taken out of their context from anymore and that context had to be thoroughly studied. It didn't suffice to enumerate the facts on a man's life. You also had to understand his era, the social mind-set of his time and the economical structures he grew up in. That's why Le Goff's biography of Louis IX is one very heavy book!
Now, not to point out fingers, but Le Goff actually came up with the idea of the Long Middle Ages! He spent many interviews defending its validity before he eventually wrote a book about it. Recently translated into English, Must We Divide History Into Periods? argues in its final chapter that the Middle Ages lasted until the Industrial Revolution. The age of mills was only put to an end by the age of machines. Le Goff lists up most of what argue in favour of a continuity instead of a divide between the Middle Ages and the Renaissance: means of transportation, economic structures (both material and intellectual), metallurgy, manners and politeness, landscape features, etc. Alcohol is pointed out as a proper novelty, yet he writes (p. 85): "As Braudel remarks, if the sixteenth created alcohol, it was the eighteenth that popularized it. Brandy, produced especially in monasteries, was commonly prescribed by physicians and apothecaries as a remedy against plague, gout, and loss of voice. It did not become a festive drink until the eighteenth century." The eighteenth century represents the real "turning point" in history whereas the Renaissance is mostly seen as the medieval demonstration of a somewhat typical spiritual and political crisis.
Therefore we could conclude that, indeed, the Long Middle Age theory is seriously considered by historians. It's a theory that was propagated by historians in the first place!
Ernest Gellner and the Two Only Real Revolutions
His book Plough, Sword and Book: The Structure of Human History argues that there were only two real revolutions: the Neolithic Revolution and the Industrial Revolution. It means that he sees a very long continuity between late Prehistoric Times or early Ancient History and the Contemporary Era.
Picture of Ernest Gellner
An idea, however great or bad it is, is never the fact of one single man. Ideas float in the air. Anyone can grab them if you keep your mind open. Ernest Gellner, a philosopher who wrote most of his books on how to make sense of history, also argued that the Industrial Revolution more than any revolution or "Renaissance" before it brought a definitive change to human societies. To be fair, his book Plough, Sword and Book: The Structure of Human History argues that there were only two real revolutions: the Neolithic Revolution and the Industrial Revolution. It means that he sees a very long continuity between late Prehistoric Times or early Ancient History and the Contemporary Era. The overthrowing of governments doesn't mean a thing from a philosophical standpoint. Political or military history are negligible. What really matters is the structure of human society: how people live day-by-day? How do they organize their time? What do they give importance to? How do they run their society? Every pre-industrialized civilization shares a lot of traits with each other. The patterns follow the same rules though they show a lot of variations. Gellner's theory is quite long and arduous to read. After all, he criticizes the theories of Hegel and Husserl while building upon it. Make sure to understand it fully before dismissing it as "dumb" or "inaccurate". Many people tend to react poorly when faced with heavy philosophy for they're suddenly faced with unfamiliar concepts and ideas that critically challenge their daily preconceptions of the world.
In conclusion, not only is the idea of a Long Middle Ages a pretty serious theory among medievalists. It's also only the start of a greater concept of history for philosophers.
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Tagged Historical Method and HistoriographyLeave a comment
Did Joan of Arc actually Lead the French Army?
17 Feb 2020 4 Mar 2020 Asinus Docet
1. Was Joan of Arc a Military Leader?
2. Joan of Arc as a Hero-General in Age of Empires 2
2.1. Mark Twain Makes Joan of Arc General
2.2. How Mark Twain Strayed Away From Historical Facts
2.3. The Proof Mark Twain inspired Age of Empires 2
3. The Real "General in Chief" of the French Army: Arthur de Richemont
3.1. Why Didn't Richemont Lead the Army at Orléans?
3.2. Joan of Arc Meets Arthur the Richemont
Wild Reddit Question Appears
Did Joan of Arc actually fight and lead an army in the battle of Orleans, or was she propped up as a figurehead?
So I've always wondered this since I learned about Joan of Arc in grade school. IIRC, she was an illiterate girl whose only real education was in Catholicism. After apparently hearing the voice of God telling her that she's destined to lead France to victory, she convinced then-prince Charles to give her an army to take back Orleans, and that she would install him as king. And of course, she succeeded in both endeavors.
Here's my question: in lieu her limited education and experience, did she actually fight in and lead an army/devise tactics for the battle to retake Orleans? Or was she simply "given credit" for political, troop morale, and enemy intimidation purposes?
Make sure to join the AskHistorians subreddit!!!
Joan is being captured by the Burgundians at Compiègne – Paris, BnF, fr. 5054, f. 70r
The idea of Joan fighting is not debated. Many written sources relayed the fact that she was properly armed on the battlefield and participated in the war effort. She got hit by arrows twice, at Orléans (in the shoulder) and at Paris (in the leg). She was fighting alright!
Now, what about her commanding the troops? Kelly DeVries wrote a biography on Joan of Arc to argue that she was in fact "A Military Leader" (1999). However he gives Joan too much credit in my opinion. He states that Joan's rashness inspired other military leaders of her time when I actually observed in the 15th century chronicles that everything Joan "did", the other captains serving Charles VII were already doing it long before she came to the scene (attacking the enemy by surprise, being relentless, etc.). What mostly held them back was the politics behind the war.
Many written sources relayed the fact that she was properly armed on the battlefield and participated in the war effort. She got hit by arrows twice, at Orléans (in the shoulder) and at Paris (in the leg).
Philippe Contamine, the most expert French historian about the 15th century, already observed that the English were poorly organized at Orléans. Their forces were too widely spread around the town. It was "easy" to take down one fort after the other. When Joan arrived, the most skilled of Charles VII's captains were already at Orléans: La Hire, Poton de Xaintrailles, the Chabanne brothers, the bastard of Orléans… Those people knew how to fight and they had no duke nor prince to overrule them. They could "play ugly" and they didn't care for the glory or the etiquette. The battle of Patay is an obvious example of that. La Hire and Xaintrailles rushed the enemy as soon as they spotted them, taking them by surprise and routing them out. A few months ago, at the battle of the Herrings, they'd been asked to wait for the arrival of the duke of Bourbon, who wished to claim the glory of the battle. It led to a gory defeat as the English mustered the time to organize their defending position and make themselves impervious to swift and heavy cavalry charges (a French specialty).
Joan of Arc besieges Paris – Paris, BnF, fr. 5054, f. 66v
Nevertheless, Joan certainly wished to act as a commander. She was quite bossy, and sassy too. She was never given any proper command title, but she certainly became a leading figure in the French army. Though she mostly became some kind of celebrity–people loved and/or hated her, she was on every lips—she also acted as a proper commander. At Compiègne, when she was captured, she was actually insuring the retreat of "her" troops by staying behind. According to the chivalric art of war, a leader was always supposed to be on the front line, the closest to the enemy. Joan of Arc was also the most relentless "leader" at the siege of Paris. She was determined to take the city (which was defended by Burgundian soldiers—she hated the Burgundians). The duke of Alençon actually had to go and fetch her to take her away from the battle when everybody knew the day was lost.
There was a glass-ceiling that she never could break. She never was a formal military leader. Moreover her military "career" was far too short for her to prove herself as an autonomous leader.
The school of war was done on the battlefield at the beginning of the 15th century. We suspect some of Charles VII's captains of not being able to write or read. Yet they could certainly fight and come up with crazy and daring tactics. Many of Charles VII's captains were actually "self-taught" (meaning they were schooled by masters on the battlefield through practice and didn't go to an academy of any kind) and were appointed/elected to their position by their peers since the military institutions of that time fell into total anarchy between 1418 and 1441. Some of them even had pretty obscure origins, pretty much like Joan of Arc.
In conclusion there was a glass-ceiling that she never could break. She never was a formal military leader. Moreover her military "career" was far too short for her to prove herself as an autonomous leader. She didn't have any military company of her own (any proper "captain" had his own band of brothers-in-arms). She always tagged along or she was placed, here and there, as a mascot–which infuriated her. La Hire, Xaintrailles and others actually tried to replace her once she was dead with a random shepherd they found on some field or something. It led to an utter disaster of a battle that, to my knowledge, was only recorded by a Burgundian chronicler (but a reliable one). The endeavor was never repeated. However, Joan of Arc showed promises and at that time women could lead armies. Princesses, Queens or Duchesses actually commanded their troops in some cases when their husbands were away (or dead). Little is known about them actually fighting, though, but they certainly knew how to rule and strategize. The key at that time for any ruler was to surround themselves with shrewd and capable advisors and to listen to them, then only to take decisions and boss people around—well, that's what I believe at least—but also what people at that time thought of good government!
La Hire, Xaintrailles and others actually tried to replace her once she was dead with a random shepherd they found on some field or something.
For further readings, don't hesitate to ask, but most of the scholarly work on Joan of Arc was written in French. A good place to start though is the forever great Pernoud, Régine & Clin, Marie-Véronique. Joan of Arc: Her Story. trans. Jeremy Duquesnay Adams. New York: St. Martin's Griffin, 1999.
More about Joan of Arc
People took Joan of Arc seriously because they believed in magic and miracles. She was only human though, but that's what makes her story even more fascinating.
Joan of Arc Hero-General in Age of Empires 2
In a former post I briefly discussed about how Age of Empires 2 wrongly gave Joan of Arc the title of "Commander of the Army of France". That function actually lied with the "Connétable" (which was the proper title of such a high office) who was chosen for life by the king—once he'd obtained his title, it couldn't be taken away from him. Back in 1429, the French Connétable was Arthur de Richemont, who has an entry on my blog regarding his background.
First, I would like to pinpoint where that historical mistake came from. Then I would like to say a few more words about Richemont's relationship with Joan of Arc as the actual commander-in-chief or the French army.
Joe Staten, creative director for Microsoft who helped to design the first Age of Empires game stated that his "real passion was history. [He] read a lot of historical fiction and so when Age came around […] it was this perfect melding of the kinds of games that [he] liked to play: real-time strategy games with this history that [he] loved."
There we have it: the Age of Empires series doesn't draw from history books but from historical novels. Building on that fact it becomes quite easy to find out the novel that inspired the Joan of Arc campaign in Age of Empires 2. We just have to look at the most influential of them all: the Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc by Mark Twain, first published in 1896. As a matter of fact, that very novel contains a chapter titled "She Is Made General-In-Chief." It isn't too long so I'll simply paste it here for you to read.
Mark Twain Creates Joan of Arc General
It was indeed a great day, and a stirring thing to see.
She had won! It was a mistake of Tremouille and her other ill-wishers to let her hold court those nights.
The commission of priests sent to Lorraine ostensibly to inquire into Joan's character—in fact to weary her with delays and wear out her purpose and make her give it up—arrived back and reported her character perfect. Our affairs were in full career now, you see.
Dead France woke suddenly to life, wherever the great news travelled. Whereas before, the spiritless and cowed people hung their heads and slunk away if one mentioned war to them, now they came clamoring to be enlisted under the banner of the Maid of Vaucouleurs, and the roaring of war-songs and the thundering of the drums filled all the air.
Illustration by F. V. Du Mond.
The verdict made a prodigious stir. Dead France woke suddenly to life, wherever the great news travelled. Whereas before, the spiritless and cowed people hung their heads and slunk away if one mentioned war to them, now they came clamoring to be enlisted under the banner of the Maid of Vaucouleurs, and the roaring of war-songs and the thundering of the drums filled all the air. I remembered now what she had said, that time there in our village when I proved by facts and statistics that France's case was hopeless, and nothing could ever rouse the people from their lethargy:
"They will hear the drums—and they will answer, they will march!"
It has been said that misfortunes never come one at a time, but in a body. In our case it was the same with good luck. Having got a start, it came flooding in, tide after tide. Our next wave of it was of this sort. There had been grave doubts among the priests as to whether the Church ought to permit a female soldier to dress like a man. But now came a verdict on that head. Two of the greatest scholars and theologians of the time—one of whom had been Chancellor of the University of Paris—rendered it. They decided that since Joan "must do the work of a man and a soldier, it is just and legitimate that her apparel should conform to the situation."
Two of the greatest scholars and theologians of the time—one of whom had been Chancellor of the University of Paris—rendered it. They decided that since Joan "must do the work of a man and a soldier, it is just and legitimate that her apparel should conform to the situation."
It was a great point gained, the Church's authority to dress as a man. Oh, yes, wave on wave the good luck came sweeping in. Never mind about the smaller waves, let us come to the largest one of all, the wave that swept us small fry quite off our feet and almost drowned us with joy. The day of the great verdict, couriers had been despatched to the King with it, and the next morning bright and early the clear notes of a bugle came floating to us on the crisp air, and we pricked up our ears and began to count them. One—two—three; pause; one—two; pause; one—two—three, again—and out we skipped and went flying; for that formula was used only when the King's herald-at-arms would deliver a proclamation to the people. As we hurried along, people came racing out of every street and house and alley, men, women, and children, all flushed, excited, and throwing lacking articles of clothing on as they ran; still those clear notes pealed out, and still the rush of people increased till the whole town was abroad and streaming along the principal street. At last we reached the square, which was now packed with citizens, and there, high on the pedestal of the great cross, we saw the herald in his brilliant costume, with his servitors about him. The next moment he began his delivery in the powerful voice proper to his office:
"Know all men, and take heed therefore, that the most high, the most illustrious Charles, by the grace of God King of France, hath been pleased to confer upon his well-beloved servant Joan of Arc, called the Maid, the title, emoluments, authorities, and dignity of General-in-Chief of the Armies of France—"
"The most illustrious Charles, by the grace of God King of France, hath been pleased to confer upon his well-beloved servant Joan of Arc, called the Maid, the title, emoluments, authorities, and dignity of General-in-Chief of the Armies of France."
Here a thousand caps flew in the air, and the multitude burst into a hurricane of cheers that raged and raged till it seemed as if it would never come to an end; but at last it did; then the herald went on and finished:
—"and hath appointed to be her lieutenant and chief of staff a prince of his royal house, his grace the Duke of Alençon!"
That was the end, and the hurricane began again, and was split up into innumerable strips by the blowers of it and wafted through all the lanes and streets of the town.
General of the Armies of France, with a prince of the blood for subordinate! Yesterday she was nothing—to-day she was this. Yesterday she was not even a sergeant, not even a corporal, not even a private—to-day, with one step, she was at the top. Yesterday she was less than nobody to the newest recruit—to-day her command was law to La Hire, Saintrailles, the Bastard of Orleans, and all those others, veterans of old renown, illustrious masters of the trade of war. These were the thoughts I was thinking; I was trying to realize this strange and wonderful thing that had happened, you see.
Yesterday she was not even a sergeant, not even a corporal, not even a private—to-day, with one step, she was at the top. Yesterday she was less than nobody to the newest recruit—to-day her command was law to La Hire.
My mind went travelling back, and presently lighted upon a picture—a picture which was still so new and fresh in my memory that it seemed a matter of only yesterday—and indeed its date was no further back than the first days of January. This is what it was. A peasant-girl in a far-off village, her seventeenth year not yet quite completed, and herself and her village as unknown as if they had been on the other side of the globe. She had picked up a friendless wanderer somewhere and brought it home—a small gray kitten in a forlorn and starving condition—and had fed it and comforted it and got its confidence and made it believe in her, and now it was curled up in her lap asleep, and she was knitting a coarse stocking and thinking—dreaming—about what, one may never know. And now—the kitten had hardly had time to become a cat, and yet already the girl is General of the Armies of France, with a prince of the blood to give orders to, and out of her village obscurity her name has climbed up like the sun and is visible from all corners of the land! It made me dizzy to think of these things, they were so out of the common order, and seemed so impossible.
3 Historical Mistakes In Twain's Narrative
Unfortunately Mark Twain wasn't writing a history book but a historical novel. To be good or great novels abide to a set of dramatic rules. Everything seems "bigger than life" though at the same time "oddly probable" in a novel.
In order to make his novel more enticing or catchy, Mark Twain tweaked a few facts here and there. Nothing much… but just enough to mix the historical truth with pure fiction and sell a few lies as facts.
There Were No Statistics in the Middle Ages
Twain really wants to make us understand how crazy Joan's mission was. How impossible it was deemed to achieve. How incredible it was when it was. That's what makes her story worthy of being told. Joan's story is worth to be remembered because she did the impossible. She was a simple peasant girl who lead the French army to an impossible victory against the English. That's the pitch.
Therefore Joan is not only confronted to a fixed social order but also to cold hard reason. It's being shown in the novel through the anachronistic use of statistics. There were to statistics in the Middle Age. The mathematical optimisation of the public order was not yet a thing. The mathematical language in itself had not even been constructed yet! However, "numbers don't lie". We live today with the deluded notion that numbers reflect the truth and reality itself (as if the production of those statistical numbers wasn't a problem in and of itself).
Twain uses that familiarity he expects from the reader with the everyday use of statistics to make Joan's tale "bigger than life" and even more incredible than it actually is. The anachronism of that literary stratagem doesn't even pose a problem.
Joan of Arc Never Was General in Chief
Remember the pitch. Joan's story is worth to be remembered because she did the impossible. She was a simple peasant girl who lead the French army to an impossible victory against the English. We already have the "bigger than life" element sorted out: her quest defeated all the statistics that could be thrown at her. Now comes the "oddly probable" moment.
How come that she led the French army to victory? Simple. She was made General in Chief. Twain is starting to pile up lies here. He's building a proper house of cards. But here comes the wind.
Short story short, the duke of Alençon had been captured into battle a few months prior to the siege of Orléans. He'd been invited by the duke of Burgundy to join the English alliance but he refused. His grandfather had died at Crécy and his father, most heroically, at Agincourt. His lands had been taken away from him by the English. He was left penniless with nothing to go on but his good name and sense of honour. Therefore if politely but firmly declined the offer.
First order of business: Joan was never created General in Chief. Not only did that title not existed at the time, but also Joan wasn't given any official commanding title of any kind. It was merely agreed that she could accompany the army. Nothing more, although she quickly rose as a moral and religious exemplary figure and natural leader. She made the French army ring the Te Deum on their departure from Blois to Orléans.
What's funny is that Twain resorts again to anachronism here, by referencing to modern military grades and titles of command. He talks of "privates" when there was no such thing back then. It could be construed as a literary adaptation, a way to make the subject clearer to the reader. However, it mostly induces a fake sense of the medieval reality…
Moreover, any basic knowledge of medieval armies at the time makes this "oddly probable" moment another "bigger than life" ingredient of narration. So big, this one, in fact, that we need to resort to a suspension of disbelief to make the rest of the novel any enjoyable. We clearly left the realm of facts for the country of fictions.
The Duke of Alençon Never Was Joan's Lieutenant
Since Twain started to pile lies up, why not top it with a cherry and make it a nice cake with frosting and everything? The duke of Alençon is made Joan's lieutenant. She has a really bloody prince under her command! What's up with that?
At that point he was released and could rejoin his wife who, to make things less complicated, was the step-sister of the king of England. You know. Family's a bitch. Nevertheless he couldn't fight the English nor the Burgundians anymore as long as he hadn't settle his ransom. It was not yet the case when Joan left for Orléans. That's why he didn't contributed to the city being liberated. He couldn't have. He was bond by the code of chivalry. The man of the hour at Orléans was the Bastard of Orléans. And he certainly took no order from Joan! He kept her in the dark regarding most of the strategic decisions and meetings which drove her mad.
Joan's story is worth to be remembered because she did the impossible. She was a simple peasant girl who lead the French army to an impossible victory against the English. That's the pitch.
You'd understand though that for a novelist trying to sell a narrative pitch, those kind of facts would be deemed negligible and wouldn't make out for a "great story". They had to be tweaked if not properly erased and presented differently.
The Proof that Age of Empires 2 Was Based on Twain's Novel
Age of Empires 2 (1999). Joan of Arc's Campaign. Scenario 2: The Maid of Orléans
We have already stated that Joe Staten, creative director for the Age of Empires series, got his inspiration from historical novels. Mark Twain wrote a historical novel about Joan of Arc. We only have to connect the dots now.
As a matter of fact there is no mention of any statistics in Age of Empires 2 within Joan of Arc's narrative. We can therefore rule that lumpy anachronism out. There is no connection there.
The most obvious evidence that AoE2 told the story of Joan of Arc after Twain's novel lies with the duke of Alençon. Indeed, he greets the player as he/she starts the second scenario: The Maid of Orléans. Not only is it a historical inacurracy. It's the very embellishment that Twain drew out to make Joan's story "bigger than life".
The duke of Alençon greets Joan of Arc at Chinon as she leaves for Blois in AoE2.
This is hard evidence if there is any. The fact that AoE2 also gives Joan the title of general could contribute to build our case here but there is much more to say regading the Twain-AoE2 romance about the portrayal of La Hire [blogpost on that topic underway].
The Real "General" of the French Army: Arthur de Richemont
Richemont appears in Age of Empires 2 when the players reaches the last scenario in Joan's story. He's to lead the French army at the battle of Castillon alongside other heroes among which La Hire who either survived his own death or crawled out of his grave. La Hire dies in 1443 and the battle of Castillon takes place in 1453. I let you work the numbers out. Remember! "Numbers don't lie."
The Medieval French Army … In Theory
The French Army went under a lot of development during the Hundred Years' War. It took quite a bit of time for it but waging war became the business of professionals, a small group of people who devoted their whole life to the art of war. Noblemen were slowly being pushed out of the business for their religious worship of proper etiquette led to utter military disasters. The feudal pyramid of old was crumbling from within. Noblemen were more and more focused on administrative matters and less and less prone to the actual exercice of war. This tendency does NOT constitute an absolute however. The Burgundian alliance was renowned for its traditionnalism. The duke of Burgundy found many capable military leaders within his nobility. Just as the French army grew out of the Feudal System, the Burgundian army maintained everything it could from it: the titles of old, the etiquette, the chivalrous ranking system, etc.
The French army had a constable at its head and two marshalls (maréchaux) to fill in for him. They represented the king himself and anyone challenging their authority was also challenging the king. Once appointed they couldn't be replaced until their death.
The shift for the French army started with Charles V (1338-1380). This king properly turned the tables on the English and his son would have put an end to the Hundred Years' War if he hadn't gone mad. The French army was put under the 'managment' of its constable (connétable): Bertrand Du Guesclin. It followed strict rules: no open engagement on any battlefield, a war of attrition, sneak and surgical attacks, a solid regulation of the men-at-arms roaming the country. The great dukes and princes were pushed out of the leadership of the war but the king feared no real opposition for he heavily relied upon his brothers (the duke of Berry and the duke of Burgundy) and they followed his leadership closely, going as far as copying the royal administration within their own estates to manage it.
At this point the French army had a constable at its head and two marshalls (maréchaux) to fill in for him. They represented the king himself and anyone challenging their authority was also challenging the king. Once appointed they couldn't be replaced until their death. Now what happened is that Charles VI couldn't maintain this neat system intact. He delved into demencia, his uncles took control of the government and the dukes and princes started to fight each other for power. The royal army was dried out of money and the king's authority came to naught. When Charles VII eventually took over his father, the French army was in a state of utter anarchy. The soldiers were not being paid and resorted to plunder and unregulated attacks on the king's enemy to make a living. They were often high in debt and roamed the country in search of lucrative ventures. Captains were appointed by their own men and the military military mistruted the mighty dukes and princes for they usually knew better how to take or to defend a city.
Charles VII had a weak character and was easily manipulated. He favoured close friends a bit too much and he let the people he liked rule in his stead. First there was Pierre de Giac, then there was Camus de Beaulieu. Richemont had both of them killed.
Richemont Falls Into Disgrace
Richemont was a highborn son of the House of Britanny. Though he was not the firstborn son of his father, he eventually became Duke of Britanny at the end of his life. Since his mother married Henry IV of England, he also had close ties to the House of Lancaster. However, he was raised by the duke of Burgundy and had even closer ties to the Burgundian nobility. He even became himself a Burgundian lord when he married a Burgundian princess. Nevertheless he refused to enter the Anglo-Burgundian alliance and reached for Charles VII through the Queen of Sicily, Yolande of Aragon. She made him constable and from 1425 onwards he became the official "General in Chief" of the French army.
Charles VII had a weak character and was easily manipulated. He favoured close friends a bit too much and he let the people he liked rule in his stead. First there was Pierre de Giac, then there was Camus de Beaulieu. Richemont had both of them killed then he appointed Georges de La Trémoille to watch over the king and gain his favours. However, La Trémoille was far richer than Giac or Beaulieu and, most of all, shrewd as hell. His ambition led him to challenge his former patron and create a faction within Charles VII's council against Richemont.
Despite a few splendid military successes, like the liberation of Montargis (1427), Richemont had to go into exile and avoid the king's court altogether. His brother, Duke of Britanny, had joined again the Anglo-Burgundian alliance and Richemont's name was utterly ternished by such a diplomatic failure. The English could push forward against a disorganized French army and they eventually reached Orléans. La Trémoille reigned supreme and unchallenged. That's when Joan of Arc showed up at Chinon.
La Trémoille was far richer than Giac or Beaulieu and, most of all, shrewd as hell. His ambition led him to challenge his former patron and create a faction within Charles VII's council against Richemont.
As Joan convinced the king to take action, Richemont was still in exile. He was even formerly forbidden by the king to join with the French army on the battlefield. However, the captains that were defending Orléans were kind of his good men. The Bastard of Orléans, La Hire, Poton de Xaintrailles, such leaders had formerly found a strong political ally in Richemont when it came to liberate Montargis back in 1427. Richemont had even took out of his own pocket to insure their military services. Moreover they had no love for the high and mighty lords that haunted the king's court.
They had had their reservation against Richemont, of course. He was a high born himself and they knew through experience that such people used to look down on them. At Montargis they had bluntly told him to stay behind and leave them deal with the enemy (which they did most successfully! routing John Talbot, earl of Shrewsbury, himself!). Nevertheless Richemont had recognized their proper value when no one else had and it sure meant something.
Joan of Arc Meets Arthur de Richemont
Let's rewind this story for a minute.
To make complicated matters quite simple, Arthur's mother married Henry IV of England when Arthur's dad, who had been duke of Britanny, died. Do you remember? However, as Henry V rose to the throne, Arthur's mother was deemed… a nuisance. Therefore she was put on trial for sorcery. She never had to fear for her life though, this trial was more of a way to put her aside politically and make room for the new king. Nevertheless, I think we need to keep that piece of background history in mind when we come to the moment Arthur de Richemont met Joan of Arc.
Now, let's jump to this blogpost conclusion.
Orléans was free! The Maid had achieved her miracle. However, the Loire still had to be cleansed from English rule. At that very moment, the duke of Alençon had finally paid the last chunk of his ransom and could ride back into battle to honour the memory of his ancestors. The king appointed him as his "lieutenant-général", meaning he was now put in charge of the French army. Jargeau, Meung, Beaugency: those powerful cities were to fall back under French rule!
Jargeau fell. Then Meung. Joan the Maid, the duke of Alençon and La Hire were heading towards Beaugency but the English were gathering more troops to fight them off. The troops were tired. A victory seemed uncertain at this point. Were the French heading to a new Vae Victis?
Sensing a change in the winds, Richemont decided to turn up with his personal army. La Trémoille got enraged. The French army led by Alençon was under a great commotion. Joan had been convinced that Richemont had to be defeated. She turned to the captains of the army, the Bastard of Orléans, La Hire, Poton de Xaintrailles. Their reaction was as rash as it can be: "If you go against the constable, you'll find someone to talk to! We'd rather serve under the command of Richemont and fight alongside his men than to fight alongside all the maids of the realm!" Joan wisened up fast and convinced Alençon that fighting Richemont was a bad idea. La Trémoille could enrage all he wanted, Richemont reached the French army and both parties met in the most joyfull manner.
Richemont eventually met the Maid of Lorraine and spoke with her. His words were recorded for the posterity. He said: "Joan, I'm being told you want to fight against me… I don't know if you are sent by the devil or by God. If you're sent by God, I don't fear you. If you're sent by the devil, I fear you even less." Then he asked Joan to plead for him to the king to reinstate him in his charge before they went on and took back Beugeancy together whilst Richemont's reinforcements helped to defend Meung that was under a heavy counterattack.
I'll surely write more on those historical events when I ever write my walkthrough + historical commentary of Joan's third scenario in Age of Empires 2: "The Cleansing of the Loire".
Tagged Age of Empires 2, Joan of Arc, Medieval Politics and Nobility, Medieval Warfare3 Comments
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