Medieval Warfare And Weaponry Essay Research Paper

Medieval Warfare And Weaponry Essay, Research Paper

Medieval Warfare and Weaponry

In the Middle Ages, the nobility of many cultures had large fortifications built to house a small town as well as themselves. These fortification were called castles, and they were so well defended that some historians have called it “the most formidable weapon of medieval warfare” (Hull 1). As one can imagine, conquering such a colossal structure cost much money, even more time, and many lives.

There were three main ways to infiltrate a castle; each no more common than the other two. The first way to conquer to castle is known as the siege. In a siege, an army would bar passageways into the castle, and continue to pound away at the castle’s defenses until it was vulnerable to a final attack. In this form of assault, the attacking party did not have to approach the castle, as was required in a storm, the second way to attack a castle. In a siege, the ramparts of the castle were often bombarded by large projectiles from catapults. The defenders of the castle were killed off by hunger, plague, or actual weapons such as Greek fire arrows. Greek fire was a mixture comprised of highly flammable substances that was agonizingly hot. Bits of cloth were dipped into the Greek fire compound and wrapped it behind the head of an arrow, and then lit on fire. Yet another common tactic in the siege was undermining. Undermining was the digging of tunnels underneath towers. However, the purposes of such subterranean activity were not for passage, but to create instability in the towers, and in the end cause their disintergration.

The second, more certain form of attack upon a castle was the blockade. To blockade a place was to preclude all entry and departure from the site. In doing so to a castle, one limited their food supply, for a castle, unlike a manor, could not survive unless contact with the outer world could be attained. However, starving a castle out was costly in both money and especially time. For a long while an army waited for the castle to deplete their resources, the army itself had to continue to supply themselves with such resources, and the soldiers were to be paid for their vigilant act.

Although it was costly and lengthy, blockade did work. Richard the Lionhearted’s stronghold, the Chateau-Gaillard, which was built in only a year along the Seine River, was sacked on March 6, 1204 by blockade. The Chateau, like many great citadels, was regarded as invicible, for “the art of siegecraft had not kept pace with that of fortification” (Nofi 1). The man responsible for this zenith in French and English history was King Philip Augustus II. He set up “something more than a passive blockade, for he erected siege works and successfully stormed the outer walls” (Nofi 2). By the time the French made their final storming of the fortress, the defending army was not even two hundred men. Due to the changing of possession of the Chateau-Gaillard, Normandy’s capital, Rouen, and eventually all of Normandy returned to French rule. In addition, King Philip attained control of traffic along the Seine.

The third, and presumably most venturesome of all castle assaults was the storm. In storming a castle, the aggressive army approached the castle with a battering ram and literally hammered away at the stone aegis of the castle. Then, troops would traverse the newly created rubble and enter the castle. Another option was to take a cumbersome siege tower, known as a belfry, to the castle walls and climb over the walls into the castle. In storming a castle, an army could not steathily approach the stronghold. The belfry could not be hidden, for it was multiple stories high.

Once military tactics were of no use in the invasion of a castle, the attack became simply a ruthless and barborous man-to-man fight with weapons. Strategy was no longer applied. Men of the armies fought with double-edged swords, battle-axes, lances, slings, and weapons of archery. The weapons of archery were the short and long bows, and the most fearsome weapon known before the discovery of gunpowder: the crossbow.

A man with a sword had great status. “The Saxons considered a sword to have equal value of one hundred-twenty oxen or fifteen male slaves.” (Barber 63) They remained popular in many different forms throughout the Middle Ages. The battle-axe was a product of the Scandanavian Vikings of the nineth century. The axe was large and formidable and had no specific types of strikes as the sword did. One simply swung the axe in the general vicinity of a rival. The sling was a thin piece of leather with a thick pocket near the middle. A small stone was placed in this pocket, and the sling was set into spinning motion. Once the sling was released, the stone would flit through the air at an enemy. The short bow was used in the early Middle Ages until the thirteenth century, when the Welsh’s longbow appeared on the battleground. The Welsh had been using the longbow since the twelfth century, but in the Welsh Wars of Edward I, it was introduced to the English. With the introduction of gunpowder, only in England did the long bow survive. However, neither of these bows could ever compare to the brutality of the crossbow. This tool of death was smaller than a longbow, but more cumbersome.

“The purpose of this short, powerful bow was to give the missile greater initial speed and thus to