War and the Modern World

At 5:30 on the morning of 16 July 1945 at Alamogordo in the New Mexico desert, the first atomic bomb, the equivalent of 20,000 tons of TNT, was exploded as a test for the first such aerial explosion to be utilized on the Empire of Japan. On witnessing the first massive atomic explosion, J. Robert Oppenheimer, the leader of the team of scientists that produced the bomb, immediately discerned its terrible potential. He realized that neither he nor the modern world could avoid the horrific ramifications of a world in which modern science was clearly the handmaiden of war. Like Krishna in the Hindu sacred epic, Bhavagad Gita, he could not escape the sad fact that: “I am become death/ the destroyer of worlds.”

In the final analysis, the Alamogordo blast provided humankind with a weapon of such destructive dimensions that it could potentially render much of the Earth's environment too toxic for human life. When the advancement of military technology gave men the very real possibility of killing off their fellows in unprecedented numbers, international law was called upon to formulate new ethical standards for human battlefields, in response to a movement toward ever-more complex implements of warfare that seemed to steadily lessen human control over war-making.

The War at Sea, 1359

Medieval Spain's longest conflict between Christian forces, the War of the Two Pedros (1356–66), was largely fought along the rugged frontiers of Castile and Murcia on the one hand and those of Aragon and Valencia on the other. Military exchanges between the Iberian enemies were normally fought as cabalgadas, cross-border raids that seldom involved more than 3,000 troops, most of them mounted. After almost three years of this kind of asymmetrical warfare, the twenty-five-old Castilian king, Pedro I (r. 1350–66/69), attempted to attack the lucrative Mediterranean waters of Valencia and Catalonia.

As the thirteenth century faded in the Iberian Peninsula, the Castilian king, Sancho IV (r. 1312–1350), wrote a royal guidebook for his son, the future Fernando IV (r.1312–1350). In it, he discussed the elements that made a sovereign powerful. Of all these, he concluded that a ruler's word was the most powerful weapon he could wield. The careless use of this powerful tool could do more to weaken a king's position of power than a well-armed and -trained army could in attempting to overthrow him.

This focus on the importance of the spoken word had a long history in Greek and Roman war-making and throughout the Middle Ages.

Such discussions that manifested themselves during the Middle Ages viewed the waging of war as either a positive or negative aspect of human life. The great majority of these texts considered warfare an important experience of human existence. Some authors, warriors themselves, such as Bertran de Born (c. 1158–1215), portrayed their colorful memories of the battlefield, complete with the snorting of charging horses, the clang of sword upon sword, and the great spilling of human blood. This heroic reflection of combat was occasionally met with an opposite position that saw and condemned warfare's violent side as a danger to human society. An example of such condemnation is apparent in an Arabic magic text translated into Latin at the court of Alfonso X of Castile (r. 1252–1284) with the title, Picatrix. This treatise looked on human conflict as a doleful source of “deaths and damage…battles, terrors, discord… anxiety and misery.”

Although a battle zone from early in its history, the Roman province of Hispania began to undergo external military pressure in the fifth century ce with the invasions of the Visigoths, Suevi, and Vandals.1 Within a century, the Visigoths had come to dominate the Peninsula, establishing their capital at Toledo and exchanging their Arian brand of Christianity for Roman Catholicism.2 Like its Roman imperial predecessor, the Visigothic kingdom was structurally weak and revealed this instability each time a sovereign died. Rulers were seldom replaced without a civil war in which members of the royal family and their supporters fought for the throne. In the last of these struggles, Roderick (710–11) was opposed by the heirs of his predecessor, Watiza (701–10), led by Count Julian of Ceuta on the African litoral. Gathering a small army of Berber tribesmen, many of who had recently converted to Islam, Julian led an assault against Roderick in the late spring of 711. He was eventually disposed by Tarik ibn Zīyad, an agent of the Muslim governor of Tangier.3

The registers of Barcelona's Archivo de la Corona de Aragón have long provided great archival historians such as Robert I. Burns and Teresa-Maria Vinyoles with evidentiary material for the study of eastern Spanish women of all classes during the later Middle Ages. Unsurprisingly, this massive depository has also provided scholars – myself included – with a great deal of evidence about royal women of the same region and era, including Elionor (r. 1349–75), the third wife of Pere III (r. 1336–87), who well served her husband's realms, the Crown of Aragon, and the land of her birth, the island of Sicily. To follow Father Burns’ plan aired over twenty years ago, I will briefly explore the many roles of a “single woman” as they affected both eastern Spain and Sicily by assessing “random charters … to construct a narrative of her [family, administrative, diplomatic, and political] life.”

This linked archival information will allow the assessment of the Aragonese queen as a faithful wife and mother who, with her “most beloved husband and lord,” had three sons and a daughter, three of whom advanced to royal life for themselves. We will also see her as an important administrative figure in Pere III's government, who, exercising the offices of governor of Catalonia and royal lieutenant, served as a critically important figure in conflicts against Sardinia (1354––55) and Castile (1356––66). Elionor will also be seen as an important player in her husband's military endeavors who often kept his captains in line, contributed money from her official revenues and private funds to pay troops and naval crews while even having ships armed, and maintained communication lines between the king, his officials, and captains.

One of the most memorable speeches in American presidential history was that delivered on December 8, 1941, when Franklin D. Roosevelt demanded a declaration of war against Japan before a joint session of Congress. What the president demanded from the legislature was not only a formal recognition of the war's existence, but an open-ended though unstated pledge of assistance – especially of the financial sort – until the conflict came to a military or diplomatic conclusion. Though remarkable in the governmental history of the United States, such calls for money to fight wars were quite normal in the British “mother of parliaments” and in other medieval assemblies. To review how one set of later medieval parliamentary institutions came to the aid of its embattled king, this paper will explore the repeated efforts of the estate assemblies of Aragon and Valencia (Cortes) and Catalonia (Corts) in support of the crafty statesman, Pere III [Pedro IV] (r. 1336–87), during the largest conflict between the polities of Christian Spain, the later-named War of the Two Pedros (1356–66).

Like all parliamentary assemblies of the medieval world, those of the Crown of Aragon sprang from the royal court, that ill-defined collection of noble and ecclesiastical advisers along with the king's relatives and body servants. When the count of Barcelona or the king of Aragon or Valencia needed either “advice” (consilium) or “aid” (auxilium) – this usually meant soldiers or the money to pay for them – he summoned his churchmen, nobles, and townsmen to meet in an expanded session of his court. This “full,” “distinguished,” “praiseworthy,” “solemn,” or “general court” was called into existence by the king and after it had acceded to the king's wishes, it was adjourned and ceased to be, having existed only as an “occasion, an occurrence, and not yet a separate court.” Despite this shadow life, the national assemblies of eastern Spain became important adjuncts to the long periods of war against Islam practiced by the great reconquest warrior, Jaume I (Jaime I) (r. 1214–76). By the end of his life, such meetings functioned in all of his peninsular territories of Aragon, Catalonia, and Valencia, and by 1287 they had all gained legal recognition of their existence.

Introduction

Over the centuries, a great deal of poetry has been devoted to warfare and its practitioners. While the majority has tended to celebrate the heroism of men involved in conflict, a not insignificant part has condemned the carnage and futility, a condemnation that reached its height during the First World War in the works of such writers as Wilfred Owens, Siegfried Sassoon, and Robert Service.

During the Middle Ages, martial poetry followed both strains. Much of it emphasized the glory of combat, serving as the supreme tool for recalling honor and assigning shame earned on the battlefield. This was true of the most widely-recited works of the period, the great epics and chanson de geste, including Beowulf, the Song of Roland, the Tales of King Arthur, and the Poema del mio Cid, to name only the most prominent. All centered on human conflict and extolled the heroism of their protagonists. Poets, like the great troubadour, Bertran de Born (c. 1140–c. 1215), could look on war as a spectacle complete with “proud pavilions high … squadrons of armored chivalry … trumpets and tabors, ensigns and pennants.” To Born's mind, participants were expected to spill blood and engage in butchery in their pursuit of “death or victory.”

Byzantine military events in the early fourteenth century have captured the imagination of Western scholars for well over a century, thanks to the participation of Spanish mercenaries in the Catalan Company led by the flamboyant Roger de Flor. The important contribution to this military adventure made by another company of mercenaries composed entirely of Alans has been grossly underestimated when not totally ignored by both Western and Russian historians. Since the Alans were implicated in the disastrous defeat of the Byzantines in Anatolia as well as the first historical success of the Turkish leader Osman, eponymous founder of the Ottoman state, examining the specific role of these warriors may shed light on the military debacle that the Byzantines suffered at the hands of the Turks and Catalans in the first decade of the fourteenth century. Despite its importance, the military effectiveness of this company while contributing to the defense of the empire has never been examined in detail, so that the question remains: why did a Mongol-trained division of considerable military potential fail so spectacularly?

The appearance of the Alans in Byzantine service first attracted attention because scholars in Western Europe, especially Spain, have long been fascinated by the adventures of the Catalan Company, comparing its exploits in the East with those of Cortez and Pizarro in the Americas. Although composed of Aragonese, Calabrians, and Sicilians, it is usually referred to as the Catalan Company since most of the officers and men were from Catalonia.

The “Little Battles”

Italian communal armies were, as is well known, largely made up of infantry. Admittedly, the strength of these latter would have resulted more from numbers and determination than from combat experience; still, the term “infantry” properly means “a group of soldiers with a certain level of training and discipline,” two qualities that result only from some form of instruction. And yet, if we wish to develop at least a rough understanding of the military obligations of the mass of the population, of the armament the people had to provide for themselves, and of how it (the population) was mobilized to train for war – with the exception of some late provisions concerning marksmen – the sources as a rule are simply silent concerning training.

One can certainly maintain that economic reasons would have prevented regular exercises for the communal infantry in times of peace, but it is difficult to believe that all training would have taken place on the battlefield or in the course of the socio-political conflicts between milites and pedites. There is, however, a third possibility offered by certain war games – a sort of plebeian rival to the aristocratic tournaments – practiced specifically by those classes that furnished the infantry for the city militia.

In 1966, John R. Hale, following up an earlier essay, which had addressed in general the subject of warfare and public opinion during the fifteenth and sixteenth century, published an article focusing on the question of that same society's acceptance of early gunpowder weaponry. In this article, “Gunpowder and the Renaissance: An Essay in the History of Ideas,” Professor Hale concluded that although there were historical examples of societal acceptance of early guns, on the whole, the people of the fourteenth through the sixteenth centuries had rejected this new military technology. In a time of scholarly protest against the war in Vietnam and a growing concern over the arms race of the Cold War, Hale found some solace in the fact that substantial literary evidence showed that the period of his research also had a large number of intelligentsia who criticized their kingdoms' weapons policies. And while, as he concludes, “by the early seventeenth century, ideals had given ground to the arguments of fact,” yielding to an increased use of and, equally, a growing complacency towards, gunpowder weapons, that period of intellectual fervor known as the Renaissance had at least held out a disdain for the killing power of the new weapons.

Sir John Radcliffe of Attleborough, Norfolk, had an admirable career as a soldier and administrator in the service of the Lancastrian kings of England. His assignments took him into all the dominions of the crown: Ireland, Wales, Normandy, and Gascony. While Sir John's life is of considerable interest in its own right, his career both exemplifies as well as personalizes the English military experience of his lifetime.

Sir John came from a landed family with Lancashire roots. He was the second son of James Radcliffe (d. 1410) and his wife Joan, daughter of Sir John Tempest of Bracewell, Yorkshire. Nothing has come to light on the early years of Sir John, but his career suggests that he was given a firm grounding in military, financial, and administrative matters. The first sure record of John Radcliffe is in a military context helping his king consolidate his hold upon the throne. Many years after the event, in 1429, it was noted that while an esquire (probably in the service of his father, James), John had participated in the battle of Shrewsbury on 21 July 1403. In that battle the first king of the Lancastrian dynasty, Henry IV, defeated a rebel force led by Henry Percy, known as Hotspur, the son of Henry Percy, earl of Northumberland. Six days after the battle, James Radcliffe was one of the men commissioned to gather forces from Lancashire and bring them to the king at Pontefract in Yorkshire.

Introduction

The purpose of this study is to examine the military schemes of defense that were employed in the town of Southampton during the late medieval period, 1300–1500. In many ways this is the most basic and vital of the varied roles Southampton had as a military entity. If the town was incapable of protecting its own possessions and dependencies, it would be unable to fulfill its other military roles. Moreover, if the town was unable to defend the area it was expected to, that would represent a major vulnerability in the region and ultimately the kingdom. If, on the other hand, the townsmen of Southampton were able to fulfill this responsibility of self-protection, that would not only maintain their day-to-day activities but would also give the kingdom an important defense.

The protection of Southampton was actually a multi-tiered system of various parties and individuals. The townspeople of Southampton managed their own defense in two primary methods. First they created various plans to organize themselves for conflict, second they participated in the gathering and control of information. The town also fitted into a wider defense structure in the kingdom with various groups and individuals supporting it in this endeavor. This organization was at one point the basis of English defense though many questions remain unanswered. How did these defensive schemes develop in Southampton? Were these schemes created in response to or in preparation for dangers posed to the town?

Preface

“We learn from history that we do not learn from history”: this was the title of an address by Captain B. H. Liddell Hart on 3 May 1938 to the Manchester Luncheon Club at the Midland hotel. A major point he made, based on twenty years' of study of the records of the First World War, was:

Liddell Hart's conclusions were based on abundant data which contradicted official documentation. He interviewed people who participated in battles, read the memoirs of politicians and army officers, compared archives, etc. All these are utterly irrelevant while dealing with medieval battles. In these cases, the only relevant part of Liddell Hart's assertion is that documentation is not reliable. In other words, fishing out facts from medieval records is almost impossible. Therefore, having independent data which may shed some light on events that took place during a battle might be an important contribution to its reconstruction and understanding.

This article will examine the nature of the military operations conducted by the armies of the duke of Cephalonia, Carlo I Tocco (c. 1375–1429). The Toccos were originally from Benevento and served the Angevin rulers of Sicily for many years. In 1330/31 Carlo's grandfather, Guglielmo, was appointed captain of Corfu. In 1357, Carlo's father, also Guglielmo, was appointed by Robert of Taranto count of Cephalonia and Zakynthos and soon added Vonitsa (Bonditsa) and Leukas to his domains. Guglielmo Tocco died in 1375/76 while his sons, Carlo and Leonardo were still infants. Their mother, Maddalena Buondelmonti, who was acting as their regent, had their titles confirmed by Queen Joanna of Naples. When he took over the reins of his principality, Carlo I Tocco exploited the extreme political fragmentation, which ensued after the collapse of the Serbian empire of Stefan Dušan (1331–55) and the dramatic territorial reduction of the Byzantine empire, to expand his principality in Western Greece, in Albania and in the Peloponnese. His military exploits are the subject of an anonymous chronicle known as the Chronicle of the Toccos which covers the period 1375–1422 and its compilation was completed in 1429. It is likely that this anonymous work was commissioned by Carlo I Tocco himself. Nevertheless, in spite of being a work of propaganda, the chronicle of the family of the Toccos is an excellent source of material on the warfare between the small political entities that were established in Western Greece and Albania in the late fourteenth and early fifteenth centuries.

On 18 June 1053 in the undulating open country of the Capitanata of northern Apulia, near an ancient Roman city which no longer exists, one of the most crucial battles of the Middle Ages was fought. At Civitate, a modest force of Norman adventurers faced a papal army of Germans, Italians and Lombards, perhaps twice its size. The outcome of that clash in what is today a sparsely populated region would profoundly influence the course of Mediterranean history for centuries to come. It is recorded in more than a score of contemporary sources. The most comprehensive accounts are provided by the three primary chroniclers of the Normans in the South: Amatus of Montecassino, Geoffrey Malaterra and, especially, William of Apulia. Their narratives are largely corroborated by the Swabian historian Herman of Reichenau, and the various biographers of Pope Leo IX. Yet the details of the event remain mired in myth.

Although much has been written about the engagement, what actually happened has been obfuscated by legend, poetic license and outright partisan myth-making. Even Dante Alighieri reserved a few effusive lines of verse in his renowned La divina commedia to extol the exploits of one the battle's epic heroes: “With those who felt the agony of blows by making counterstand to Robert Guiscard.” In the modern era, Sir Edward Gibbon's account of the encounter in The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire is rather short and somewhat impaired by the pretentious prose of the era.