Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- ARTICLES
- 1 A Lying Legacy? A Preliminary Discussion of Images of Antiquity and Altered Reality in Medieval Military History
- 2 War and Sanctity: Saints' Lives as Sources for Early Medieval Warfare
- 3 The 791 Equine Epidemic and its Impact on Charlemagne's Army
- 4 The Role of the Cavalry in Medieval Warfare
- 5 Sichelgaita of Salerno: Amazon or Trophy Wife?
- 6 Castilian Military Reform under the Reign of Alfonso XI (1312–50)
- 7 Sir Thomas Dagworth in Brittany, 1346–7: Restellou and La Roche Derrien
- 8 Ferrante d'Este's Letters as a Source for Military History
- Appendix: Selected Letters of Ferrante d'Este (Punctuation and accents added)
- NOTE: Provisions for the Ostend Militia on the Defense, August 1436
1 - A Lying Legacy? A Preliminary Discussion of Images of Antiquity and Altered Reality in Medieval Military History
from ARTICLES
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 12 September 2012
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- ARTICLES
- 1 A Lying Legacy? A Preliminary Discussion of Images of Antiquity and Altered Reality in Medieval Military History
- 2 War and Sanctity: Saints' Lives as Sources for Early Medieval Warfare
- 3 The 791 Equine Epidemic and its Impact on Charlemagne's Army
- 4 The Role of the Cavalry in Medieval Warfare
- 5 Sichelgaita of Salerno: Amazon or Trophy Wife?
- 6 Castilian Military Reform under the Reign of Alfonso XI (1312–50)
- 7 Sir Thomas Dagworth in Brittany, 1346–7: Restellou and La Roche Derrien
- 8 Ferrante d'Este's Letters as a Source for Military History
- Appendix: Selected Letters of Ferrante d'Este (Punctuation and accents added)
- NOTE: Provisions for the Ostend Militia on the Defense, August 1436
Summary
Introduction
In 1990 one of the co-authors of this article, Richard Abels, was asked by Donald Scragg to contribute a chapter on late tenth- and early eleventh-century English tactics and strategy to a volume of essays marking the millennium of the battle of Maldon. He agreed readily, though he was concerned about the paucity of source materials describing battles. Other than the poem of the battle of Maldon, he knew only two extended battle narratives for this period that might shed light on English tactics, John of Worcester's accounts of Edmund Ironside's victory over Cnut at Sherston and his subsequent defeat at Ashingdon in the year 1016. To the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle's accounts John added telling details. At Sherston, he tells us, when Edmund
drew up his army according to the terrain and the forces he had, he moved the best soldiers into the front line, placed the rest of the army in reserve [in subsidiis], and addressing each man by name, exhorted and entreated them to remember that they strove for country, children, wives and homes, and with these most inspiring words he fired the soldiers' spirits. Then he ordered the trumpets to sound, and the “cohorts” [cohortes] to advance gradually. The enemy army did the same. When they arrived at the place where they could join battle they rushed together with their hostile standards and with a great shout. They fought with spear and lance, striving with all their might. Meanwhile, King Edmund Ironside made his presence felt in fierce hand-to-hand fighting in the front line. He took thought for everything; he himself fought hard, often smote the enemy; he performed at once the duties of a hardy soldier and of an able general.
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- Chapter
- Information
- Journal of Medieval Military History , pp. 1 - 13Publisher: Boydell & BrewerPrint publication year: 2005