The Animal Mirror

          The meditation of the dove with all its layers of significance and signs was practiced to develop perspective. By contemplating the dove and its properties, a human can find the traces of God in His own creation, and the human can perceive beyond the visible qualities of life to the invisible and sublime. Interpreting creation through animals allows the human to interpret creation through himself, for the dove is a mirror to the human. Hugh of Fouilloy outlines the three kinds of doves in Scripture and how they each exemplify a unique method to cease from sin. To follow the dove of Noah, you much cease from sin. To follow the dove of David, you must do battle against sin. To follow the dove of Jesus Christ, you must seek salvation.[1] The meditation of the dove will lead to instruction and then action for the human who practices contemplation.

            The dove is a mirror to the human who searches for the invisible trace of God in nature and for instruction for devout life. The human can identify with the dove, can take on its characteristics in order to sincerely practice their love for God. The dove can also become a mirror for the Church and the community. “The silvered dove is the Church,” and its physical shape holds the source of spirituality.[2]

            This was the atmosphere of the medieval world. As Dutton writes, “…the early Middle Ages seemed awash with divine power.”[3] Doves and other kinds of birds, beasts, and even the smallest insects were both manifestations of God’s creation and agents of His will. But animal metaphors were also used for courtly life, and instead of careful contemplation of nature, human would identify themselves and others through stock characteristics and behaviors of animals.

            Dutton implies that Charlemagne’s own court was a mock menagerie in which his courtiers and companions carried animal nicknames and communicated in animal code.[4] Charlemagne himself was referred to as the lion because of the animal’s role as king of beasts.[5] This association was determined by the nature and characteristics of the animals in the same way Hugh determined the signs of the dove by its properties. However, when the animal mirror is applied to the superficial personality of an individual as opposed to trace of God left in a creature from its creation, does the metaphor hold its significance?

            Charlemagne identified with the lion as a king, but he also knew himself to be the king of humans and beasts. He played his kingly role by collecting exotic animals in his forests to show the extent of his control over the natural world.[6] Significantly, he collected a variety of birds of paradise such as peacocks, doves, and swans, and their presence in his menagerie were not ornamental. As a lion, as a king, Charlemagne needed to display his control over a harmonious and civilized paradise that housed birds and beasts. Using the characteristics of the animals, Charlemagne could metaphorically and literary mirror his superiority. But does the recognition of animal properties within the self translate to the same kind of immersive introspective Hugh of Fouilloy was trying to stimulate through his dove?

            In some ways I am quick to say no to my own question. It seems silly that Charlemagne’s political strategy involving animal metaphors and peacocks could be made similar to the deeply spiritual meditation conducted by Hugh’s dove. Yet, as Dutton reminds his readers, the Middle Ages were deeply spiritual and deeply animal. In a longer format I would tease out Charlemagne’s identification with animals, especially the lion and the birds of paradise in his garden. Dutton wants to suggest that the king’s plan for his animals was also meant to associate him with Adam as he collected the creatures in Eden and gave them names.[7] Perhaps this is the entrance to the comparison between the dove and the courtly menagerie.

            What persists, though, is the emphasis on the qualities of the animal that will lead to the central, invisible qualities of its creation. Medieval humans, I will argue, were not insistent on the animal’s appearance or physical accuracy. Although Hugh does spend a lot of time discussing the dove’s colors and form, his descriptions are not accurate for a realistic bird found in wildlife, even if Hugh does claim to have seen a golden dove. I believe the medieval observer was most aware of an animal’s behavior as it compared to his own. In this way he could more easily construct a metaphorical comparison and determine its place in the divine plan. As Ohly details in his article, the purpose of the looking at the dove for Hugh and others was to transcend the visible qualities and to perceive its invisible characteristics: “It leads from the foundations of the sense structure to its vault, from the earthly to the heavenly. Its essence is not foreshortening, but extension to the sublime. It does not relativize by means of an earthly view but is directed to the absolute and makes what has been created transparent vis-à-vis the eternal.”[8] According to this interpretation, the people of the medieval age care more about interpreting the invisible nature of the animal than analyzing its physical properties. While the properties of an animal are important to obtain perspective, the goal is to mirror the dove’s behavior as a vessel of God’s creation and support to Scripture.

            Therefore, the strange depictions of animals in medieval artwork, even those animals that were available for direct observation, have one version of explanation. I argue that medieval artists were too busy trying to capture the introspective trace of God to feel the need to paint realistically or accurately. They were creating images of the animals according to their nature, not always according to how they looked in nature.

K. Beach

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[1] Hugh 121

[2] Hugh 123

[3] Dutton 50

[4] Dutton 47

[5] Dutton 43

[6] Dutton 54

[7] Dutton 56

[8] Ohly 71

"Two Medieval Monks Invent Bestiaries"

Following our discussion on naturalism and art and in anticipation of our discussion on aviaries, a fun little link: http://the-toast.net/2015/04/01/two-medieval-monks-invent-bestiaries/#jagBx6M1mwCLwZB4.01

RAE

The Art Historian's Dilemma and Thoughts on Marignalia

In Flores’ piece “The Mirror of Nature Distorted,” the argument is advanced that there was a shift in the depictions of animals in medieval art that corresponded to the changing intellectual attitudes of the time. Medieval artists, it is claimed, were influenced more or less by both the “allegorical” and “scientific” attitudes (Flores 4). As Flores tells it, by the early modern period, allegory, symbolism, and instruction had given way to a secular, scientific naturalism. The subtitle of Flores’ paper is “The Medieval Artist’s Dilemma in Depicting Animals,” but the dilemma may belong more to the art historian than it did to the artist. Following our class discussion on Thursday, while a general shift in the style of representation of animals throughout the Middle Ages is clear, the model Flores provides obscures as well as explains—though a “realistic” aesthetic may have become dominant, this in no way translates to the extinction of allegorical representation. In particular, I would like to push back against the location of the motivation of this shift in a “new aesthetic principle” (Flores 10).           

“Art is an imitation of nature. Works of art are successful to the extent that they achieve a likeness of nature” (Flores 10). These are the words of St. Thomas Aquinas that Flores tells us are a sort of motto for the naturalistic form of representation. While I do not doubt that this standard is relevant for the elephant sketches of Matthew Paris and illustrations in hunting manuals, it is not at all clear to me that this standard was anything novel. To claim that the images which accompanied the Physiologus were not intended to achieve a likeness of nature, as Flores implies, is inappropriate. Crucial is the definition of “nature.” It might be more fruitful to take St. Thomas Aquinas’ words as a timeless standard for art. Thus, as we witness changes in the likenesses on display in art, the question becomes, how did conceptions and perceptions of nature change?

Evidently, what Flores and Resl mean by “naturalistic” is a resemblance to the world as it comes to us through our eyes. That Matthew Paris’ drawings of the elephant at the Tower of London are naturalistic is to say that, relative to other drawings, they better resemble what a real-world elephant looks like. Is it right to say that, for having seen one in person, Matthew Paris better captured the nature of the elephant than those who had drawn before him? But where is the dragon in his sketch? Or the small elephant lifting the fallen elephant with its trunk? Taking Aquinas’ standard as a new aesthetic principle implies that the artists’ who did not have access to the actual animals they drew could not imitate the nature of the animal. I have a sense that I may have set myself a little bit of a trap though. It may be important to distinguish between the natural animal and the nature of the animal. Anyhow, I suspect that medieval scholars and artists would not readily agree that the legend of the elephant and its symbolic, religious meanings were apart from the nature of the elephant. Thus I take issue with Flores’ claim that “[i]n examining depictions of animals during the Middle Ages, it becomes apparent that an artist’s ability to reproduce nature is not necessarily the overriding consideration in his creation of a work of art” (5). While this may simply be relocating the allegorical/scientific distinction, I think it is important to ask, in evaluating an animal image, what conception of nature or what facet of the nature of the animal is being reproduced?

            I want to shift gears here and ramble briefly about a different aspect of the depictions of animals in medieval art: the enjoyment, both of the artist and the audience. Animals are good to think, and they are also good to draw and good to look at it. Resl acknowledges that the care and enthusiasm manifest in animal depictions in religious contexts goes beyond what was required by the moral and religious messages that the animals were intended to, could have been intended to, communicate (199). Both Resl and Janson too, in his discussion of apes in marginalia, recognize the simultaneous futility and irrelevance of the question of meaning for many instances of animals in medieval art. While it certainly varies and I am sure that many of the tropes, in marginalia in particular, started off playing off of particular set of meanings, it seems not implausible that much of marginalia may be the elaborate doodling of highly skilled artists situated in a particular tradition and thus inheritors of a particular repertoire of motifs.

            As somebody pointed out in class, the apes and rabbits and other animals in marginal art are nearly always situated in a crawling floral or leafy pattern. If I may speculate, I have a little hypothesis regarding the role of marginalia. Writing has long been a powerful symbol of artifice and civilization, and the beautiful penmanship of medieval scribes was a particular peak. The orderly lines of text on the page of a manuscript are an embodiment of the human. The margins of the manuscript seem to serve as a sort of buffer zone, a liminal space between the human and the nonhuman. Hence the ordered naturalness of the vines and flowers, but also the confusion and upside-down-ness of apes absorbed in reading and giving shaves.

-J.S.

More Animal Categories: Allegorical, Scientific, and Marginal Art

            In his lengthy enumeration of depictions of elephants in medieval manuscripts in "The Elephant in Medieval Legend and Art", G.C. Druce offers his own opinions on the artistic abilities of each artist, saying such comments as “[This] is a realistic picture” or “The elephant is like a pig,” and even that one “[displays] the artists’ disregard for natural coloring.”[1]  In doing so, Druce slips into the all too inviting trap of assuming that every medieval illuminator or artist attempted to make their art as realistic as possible; some just had more skill than others. He does not, as Nora Flores does in "The Mirror of Nature Distorted", recognize that there may in fact be multiple purposes for depicting animals. Flores divides medieval animal art into two categories: “allegorical” and “scientific.”[2] I would venture to add a third category, that of marginalia, which often bridges the gap between allegorical and scientific and adds a complication to our desired, neat categorical division.

            The “allegorical” depiction of animals derives, according to Flores, from the belief that each animal reflected something about the nature of God or of humans. The life cycle of the elephant, for example, was held to be an allegory of the Fall of Man. When the female elephant is ready to mate, she tempts the male with a mandrake, as Eve tempted Adam. When she gives birth, her mate must guard her from dragons, symbolic of the snake that tempted Eve. Typically, the moral lessons one should learn from the animals dictated how they were drawn in bestiaries; in some cases, “authority rather than reality direct[ed] their composition.”[3] If ancient authors, such as the author of the Physiologus, made a claim about a certain, creature, it would likely be repeated by later authors, even if later observation of the animal proved such a statement false. For example, it was commonly held that elephants lacked knees, and when they leaned against a tree to sleep, the tree could be partially cut and broken by the elephant’s weight, and the elephant successfully captured. Even as knowledge of elephant joints spread, it is likely that some artists chose to keep their drawn elephants jointless to match the description of how an elephant could be hunted. As Bridgette Resl, in "Beyond the Ark: Animals in Medieval Art," writes, “What mattered first and foremost, therefore, was ease of recognition. In such a context it was more important for the subject to look typical than realistic.”[4]

            The “scientific” category of animal art is less straight-forward than “allegorical” art. Flores claims, “By the mid-thirteenth century, artists were also looking more critically at nature and using it more often as a model for their creations.”[5] We see this most clearly in the elephant allegedly drawn from life by Matthew Paris, who saw the elephant presented to Henry III for his menagerie. Paris gets the placement of the knee correct, has a very natural-looking trunk, and even places the tusks in the upper jaw rather than the lower (a flaw Druce is rather fond of point out). But then again, of course Paris’ sketch looks more natural than other illuminations; he actually saw an elephant with his own eyes! But this does not mean that a realistic elephant, or any realistic creature for that matter, suddenly lost its symbolic meaning. We are reminded of the 17^th-century paintings of birds in a park, a scene that is entirely realistic, but perhaps has no meaning without an understanding of the symbolism associated with each type of bird. Flores, then, goes too far with her assertion that the “scientific” overtook the “allegorical” from the 15^th century on. As I have already mentioned, it was sometimes necessary for the allegorical purpose of an animal to be clearer to a viewer than the animal’s actual appearance.

           

            Then there is the question of marginalia. Are these drawings outside of the text still related to the text? If not, what is their purpose, especially the incredibly naturalistic marginalia of the Annunciation in the Hastings Hours? H.W. Janson, in his chapter on marginalia in Apes and Ape Lore, gives a number of examples of apes in the margins of manuscripts in order to discuss specific tropes of apes in art; in those images he chose to print with the chapter, the images are unfortunately separated from their larger context on the page. For the sake of argument, let us assume they are not easily connected to the text with which they appear. Janson goes too far in stating at the beginning of his chapter “The Ape in Gothic Marginal Art” that marginalia “have no illustrative function.”[6] I would propose that marginalia help bridge the gap between allegory and science that we seem so desirous of creating. Searching for symbolism in each marginal creature can often prove fruitless; as one student said in class regarding a particular manuscript page, “I can explain the ape but not the man with the crossbow.” When no symbolism can be found, what prevents us from assuming this is the illuminator’s chance to work on their ability to draw from nature? The Luttrell Psalter artist who drew an ape holding an owl on the back of a goat (MS 42130, f.38r)[7] may not have had the chance to see an ape in person, but their owl is fairly naturalistic. If the typical meaning of ape and owl does not apply to the accompanying text, then who is to say that the illuminator included it simply because they were talented at drawing the owls they had observed around their monastery? One could even come up with a scenario of the Hastings Hours illuminator, tired of drawing only Biblical scenes they feel no connection to and yearning to draw the butterflies they see in the cloister every day. Of course, the anonymity of these artists is more of a hindrance than help in explaining the exact purpose of marginalia. But I think it is safe to assume that marginalia fall somewhere in the middle of Flores’ “allegorical” and “scientific” categories, and therefore show to us that the division between the two is not as distinct as, for ease of comprehension, we would wish them to be. 

RAE

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[1] Druce, 35, 42.

[2] Flores, 5.

[3] Ibid,, 27.

[4] Resl, 191-192.

[5] Flores, 10.

[6] Janson, 163.

[7] Ibid., Plate XXIIId.

Bonds with Beasts: How close were people to their animals in the Middle Ages?

During class, we as a unit seemed to struggle with defining the relationship that was developed between man and animal when it came to the warhorse. To varying degrees, we attempted to explain the relationship as it compared to the readings we’ve done on falconry and on pets. In reflection of the topic, I wanted to go back to the readings we’ve done thus far and see how the interpretation of the human-animal relationship has compared to the relationship between man and his warhorse.

First, what did we learn about the relationship between nobles and their horses?

Bennett provided some idea of how this relationship was developed. We learned that the horses needed to be trained extensively, ensuring they were able to take commands and would be useful tools in battle. Bennett explained that Stallions have some fighting qualities that may seem useful in combat, but those behaviors had to be trained out. Biting and kicking, he said, were not a useful tactic. Rather, the horses had to be obedient, and discipline was what was required.[1]

This is not to say the horses were simply instruments of war. Bennett explains that there is an undoubted bond of affection formed between rider and mount.

Hyland, in talking about the Templars in particular, gives further clues to how important the horse was to the rider. The rules of the Temple, Hyland writes, contained over 100 rules relating to the horse, ranging from equipment, maintenance, breeding, and acquisition. This, Hyland writes, was just as present as the ‘praying factor’.[2] This alone does not tell us emotionally invested the Templars were in their horses, perhaps only going so far as to explain they were valuable and required the most extensive care. Hyland also explains how valuable the horses were, and how military units did what they could to ensure that warhorses were not lost to the enemy.[3] This great care could simply be a measure of the horses’ value.

The measure of how great this connection was between master and horse could perhaps be a function of how invested the rider is in his animal. Hyland explains the Templars had to provide their horses, but they were supplied by the Temple once the horses were registered. In the event of a horse’s death, the rider would be compensated by the Temple.[4]  I make the inference here that perhaps the connection would be greater if the rider was the one who was tasked with being the sole person to feed, supply, and maintain his mount. Sure, the rider may have brought the horses to battle, but the point at which they can be compensated for its loss, and the point at which they no longer feed it, would seem to me as a point where the horse becomes less of a partner and more of a military instrument which can be reimbursed.

Hyland says the horses used in battle were either very stupid, or a courageous partner to its rider. But Hyland also characterizes the actions of horses in combat as the product of “the mastery of the man, instilled through years of training and association.”[5]

So what can be made of the relationship between horse and rider? Certainly, there existed some sort of bond, as had to naturally come from the extensive training that occurred. At the same time, though, it’s difficult to pinpoint exactly to what extent this relationship existed. The sources seem to indicate the horses could just as easily been perceived principally as instruments of war, and the connection through training was only useful in that it made the horse perform better in combat. Templars in particular did have to provide their horses, but all sources indicate that they traveled with several horses, not one who they formed an incredibly strong bond with. The fact that the Temple had such extensive rules for the horses could be a sign, and the fact that the Temple was willing to pay the value of the horse in the event of death, seems to indicate a military interest rather than an intrinsic one. The rules ensured that horses would be properly prepared for battle, and the financial commitment ensured Templars would be willing to bring their horses to combat, lest they be out a significant financial investment.

How does our understanding of warhorses compare to other house animals or falcons?

Smith gives us the only piece which directly compares horses with a more conventional house-animal. In terms of dogs, most of what is discussed relates to “function.” Smith talks at length about the functionality of dogs, with hints of the relationship between animal and man. Primarily the focus is on what dogs could do, with mentions relating to the use of dogs in herding and home security. Smith does however mention a small hint of the relationship between dog and owner, mentioning the probability that dogs were kept unmuzzled (although this could again just be tied to the practicality of a muzzled dog).[6]

As to their status as pets, Smith states that the evidence of that treatment is sparse and “pets” were in the minority. Rather, animals were exploited for their furs, hides, meat, and labor.[7]

So it’s hard to say horses are pets, because the evidence isn’t really there that pets were a widespread phenomenon. This makes sense, because most people likely lacked the wealth to sustain another non-human mouth to feed.

But what about the elite, and their connection to animals? How does the relationship compare to falcons and falconry?

Again, the language is focused on teaching and training. A falconer must “teach his falcon” to hunt only the prey desired by the hunter, thus creating a behavior “counter to [the falcon’s] natural inclination.”[8]

This is similar to what Smith said about the training of warhorses, that they too needed to be broken of some of their natural behaviors. Frederick does talk about the care that has to be taken to acclimate the bird to the trainer, writing that the chief aim of the falconer should be to “train his hunting bird to make use of all her faculties in his presence without any sense of terror.”[9] The falconry text goes to great lengths to talk about the relationship that must form between bird and man, and its length is a testament to how much care is given to the training of falcons. The process of prepping the bird, the restoring of sight to the bird, soothing the bird, keeping it fed and trained, all of this is important in making a proper falcon for hunting, but must be done with the utmost care.

Ultimately, the conclusion we can come to here is that there certainly had to be a connection between man and animal, as there always has been. The degree to which that connection is evident is based on the evidence and sources we have. Perhaps that is the biggest shortcoming we have here. Perhaps the conflicting view of the connection between falcon and horse and dog is a product of the lack of primary sources. If there were more primary sources on horses and sheep dogs like the one Frederick penned on falconry, we may have a better idea of how close knights were to their horses. Without them, we’re left looking at horses the same way that dogs and cats were apparently viewed, primarily as animals with utility. Certainly, the evidence suggests that war horses were likely viewed more in the way that falcons were, but without primary sources, we are left mostly with the impression that war horses were certainly companions to some extent, but the focus seems to be on the utility the animals had in war.

- Jeramee Tiger Gwozdz

(It's a clever pun if you know my middle name is '"Tyler")

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[1] Bennett 37

[2] Hyland 149

[3] Hyland 148

[4] Hyland 154

[5] Hyland 164

[6] Smith 874

[7] Smith 881

[8] Frederick 106

[9] Frederick 171

Revising Revisionism: The Case of Medieval Heavy Cavalry

 In challenging cherished assumptions, we must be careful that we are not simply reproducing past errors in an inverted form. Trusting medieval illustrators on the size of horses is neither more important nor more rigorous than trusting medieval commanders on the importance of those horses, regardless of their exact dimensions. Both Carroll Gillmor in “Practical Chivalry: The Training of Horses for Tournaments and Warfare” and Matthew Bennett in “The Medieval Warhorse Reconsidered” stake out positions within a new orthodoxy that largely discounts the worth of heavy cavalry in medieval European warfare. But this position then requires both to explain the cultural and documentary ubiquity of armored men on armored horses. Bennett, having assembled some contradictory evidence, is noncommittal - “There remains the question of just how much a warhorse – the specialist destrier – existed as a vehicle for status rather than battle” (39). Gillmor has no such qualms, asserting outright, “The infrequency of set battles in the period 1050 – 1300 and the relative unimportance of mounted knights when set battles did occur, must mean that horses were primarily trained to fight in tournament-style contests” (18).

This blog post has neither the space nor the expertise to challenge the fine work and intriguing conclusions of these historians. Suffice it to investigate a few of their points – both authors' discussion of infantry effectiveness and Gillmor's account of tactics and the cultural centrality of tournaments – before comparing the mustered evidence to how that evidence is expected to perform.

Ridiculing the comparison of the knight with the tank, Bennett notes that, “Most academics, however, have been pointing out for a long time that formed infantry will always see off a cavalry charge if they stand firm and do not dissolve into panicky flight” (21). “Formed infantry” and “do not dissolve” are key here, because most infantry – in antiquity, the Middle Ages, and even as late as the 19^th century – were poorly trained and minimally motivated to participate in the feudal battles of their superiors. Heavy cavalry, after all, don't need to smash through enemy lines or trample their opponents. The ordinary reaction of someone on foot who is charged by a horseman is to turn around and run, and shock tactics from ancient Assyria to riot policing have relied on precisely this fear. As late as Waterloo, in 1815, Napoleon hoped that his cuirassiers might break the Duke of Wellington's infantry, and their failure to do so testifies much more to the discipline of the British soldiers than to Napoleon's ignorance of what horses can or cannot do.

Likewise, at Courtrai and Bannockburn – examples that Gillmor is quick to cite (17-18) attacking knights ran up against well-drilled footmen in close ranks, united by loyalty to their commanders and homelands. But in accounting for these unusually capable infantry, we must also account for the mounted knights' apparent belief in their own chances of victory, to the point of risking their own lives and those of their immensely costly destriers. Far from representing the knights' failures to understand their own obvious obsolescence, these defeats were likely shocking.

Perhaps most illustrative here is the detailed example that Bennett provides to prove the uselessness of the heavy cavalry charge. On pages 33 and 34, he quotes Usama ibn Munqidh's report of the crusader Prince Tancred's failure against Syrian footmen at Shaizar in 1110. “You have these sergeants... in front of you,” Tancred berates his riders, “yet you are not capable of moving them!' They answered, 'We fear only for our horses; otherwise we would have crushed and pierced such enemies with our lances'... They then made several charges against the men of Shaizar, and lost seventy horses, but could not move the enemy from the position that they had taken up.”

For Bennett, this showcases the knightly charge as a futile and rarely successful tactic. But it seems to me that Munqidh's account in fact suggests the opposite. In 1110, Tancred was 36, an experienced commander who had been engaged in more or less continuous crusading warfare for fifteen years leading up to the confrontation at Shaizar. Either he was an unusually stupid man who had been unusually lucky in his earlier battles – or he was acting according to his experience that a frontal assault of well-equipped horsemen was usually sufficient to see off opposing infantry. That he persisted in this conviction even as his men were beaten back time and again, sustaining the grievous and hard-to-replace loss of seventy warhorses, indicates that Tancred was surprised and frustrated by the extraordinary, unexpected tenacity of the Syrians.

In certain situations, fighters (including knights themselves) did indeed “fight better” on foot, as Bennett states on 36. But his subsequent grudging admission that they did not always do so – indeed, that the cases when they did were unusual enough to warrant special mention by the chroniclers – should suggest that commanders like Tancred were not fools to invest in their heavy cavalry and expect it to achieve victory.

Carroll Gillmor's article is even more selective in its use of sources and fixation on certain exceptions. Its focus on the Frankish empire in the centuries around the turn of the first millenium does indeed create a very different picture of cavalry warfare from the smashing charges of cliché medievalism. But generalizing from the Bretons – an isolated and culturally distinct population at the margin of Europe – is almost certainly unjustified. Rather than providing a pattern that High Medieval heavy cavalry likely imitated, Regino's Bretons seem to be performing a difficult but recognizable maneuver, somewhat similar to what the Spanish later termed the caracole. It represents one adaptation of heroic mounted warfare to a more organized military model, based on evasion, missile weapons, and, yes, swift lead change to produce circular sweeping maneuvers and feigned retreats. But the Bretons seem to have abandoned these tactics as they became culturally and politically assimilated with the French – certainly there are no later references to distinct Breton maneuvers in the battles of Jean de Montfort or Bertrand du Guesclin.

The history of cavalry in the West is, to some degree, a history of the alternation of these evasive tactics with an alternate approach based on direct charge and close combat. This opposition can be seen in accounts of the confrontation between Darius' javelineers and Alexander the Great's lancers in the late 4^th century BCE, all the way through the tactical innovations of Gustavus Adolphus' hakkapeliitta against the Imperial pistoleers at Breitenfield and Lutzen during the Thirty Year's War.

In places, the evidence is in clearly unresolved dissonance. On page 15 of the article, Gillmor attempts to undermine Bachrach's challenge of the importance of the stirrup by asserting that feigned retreats would have been “very difficult to accomplish” without them. And yet they were accomplished without stirrups, by riders across vast swathes of Eurasia - Spain, North Africa, the Middle East, Central Asia – almost from the moment that cavalry enters the historical record. That such tactics were not only possible but widespread suggests that we know very little about the actual techniques used in historical horsemanship, and that attempting to apply modern standards to them is perhaps a futile exercise.

Finally, the insistence on knights as primarily “athletes” (20) is, I think, charming but misguided. No modern polity has staked its survival on a NASCAR competition. Medieval kings routinely bet their kingdoms on armed confrontation, and the list of monarchs killed while fighting (as knights – that is, mounted and wearing armor) is ample testimony to the stakes attached to the martial skills honed in tournaments (as well as a persistent reliance on the charge and melee combat). Of course the line between the tournament and warfare was blurred – both featured weapons, ransoms, and death. But one suspects that Richard III, whose recently-discovered body is a forensic catalog of the effects of close-combat weaponry on human flesh, would disagree profoundly with Gillmor's assertion of the tournament as the ultimate test of knightly ability. An imperfect but perhaps more apt analogy might be modern fighter pilots like the Thunderbirds, whose aerial displays are indeed stunning spectator sports, performed at great cost and substantial personal risk. But no one would argue that the Air Force exists primarily for such entertainments. 

-SLasman

Why are Infantry Good Against Cavalry, and Why Do Charges Sometimes Work?

                In class, we substantially discussed the nature of the warhorse, and the way in which it was portrayed. We accepted, following the opinions of Hyland, Bennett, Davis, and others, that the height of a medieval warhorse was only about 15 hands, instead of the massive horses modern imaginations conceive for the period. We also rejected the idea that cavalry forces could or would “ride down any foot in its way” (Bennett 21). Instead, we followed historical evidence, such as what Gillmor described, to prove that complicated and nimble maneuvers like the feigned retreat were the effective strategies of medieval knights. We also noted the specific instance in which the mounted charge was recorded as being highly effective: the Battle of Dyrrhacium in 1081 and possibly the Battle of Ascalon in 1099. However, we did not discuss for the most part why infantry forces were so potent against cavalry, and what made Ascalon different.

                Infantry tactics in early medieval Europe revolved around one concept: the shield wall. Essentially, as depicted in the Bayeux Tapestry, a long line would be formed using a significant amount of the infantry forces, all equipped with a large shield, especially a kite shield, which covers a soldier’s legs. The soldiers stand next to each together, so that the shields defend the front and sides of the entire army. In addition, as the Bayeux Tapestry shows, the most common weapons would be spears or swords, which are held past the wall to kill any fighters who approach. In addition, as the Anglo-Saxon poems The Battle of Maldon and The Battle of Brunanburh describe and the Bayeux Tapestry pictures, archers were placed with the shield wall to pick off as many people as possible. At the Battle of Hastings, the wall was supplemented by the Dane-axes: large (nearly as tall as a man according to the Bayeux tapestry) two-handed axes which in one panel of the tapestry is shown killing a horse in one blow. To an onlooker, the shield wall would provide no targets then, but rather be a solid barrier with a spikes sticking out of it, much like the fortifications used since Roman times.

                The shield wall proved to be a hugely effective strategy even against other infantry forces. At the Battle of Maldon in 991, the poet claims that two men held a narrow strait against several hundred Vikings, who eventually resorted to deceit to cross. For cavalry, a charge against that would be unthinkable. The first reason for this is that horses “prefer not to step on people, but will often do anything to avoid it”. There is a large crowd of people very close together in a shield wall with no space for a horse. In that case, the animal would balk at the idea of running at all close to so many people. The second reason why any charge is laughable is that the horse would have to run directly onto a wall of sharp objects. Not only is this against the horse’s nature again, but it is against the riders! As Gillmor and Bennett mention, the bond between horses and riders would be extensive. In order to support the training and the maneuvering of the battle, the horse and rider must understand each other and communicate instantly. Such training would be sure to create a bond of affection between rider and horse. It is for that reason that in 1110, knights were recorded as avoiding a charge by saying “We fear only for our horses” (Bennett 33-34). Even if the opposing infantry were not in a shield wall in the same way the Anglo-Saxons were at Hastings, the same principle applies. A charge might shatter some shields, as the Bayeux Tapestry shows when depicting the shield wall, but it would certainly kill the horses. Such an action would be a tactical disaster by any measurement, meaning that a simple charge could not work against a cohesive shield wall for multiple reasons.

                So why was the charge demonstrated as effective multiple times at the end of the 12^th century? It seems that at both major instances, the only reason the charge was effective is due to an error on the opposing side. At Dyrrhacium, a battle between the Normans and the Byzantines, the Norman charge is documented as thoroughly effective. It is interesting to note that, as the Byzantine writer Anna Comnena noted, the feigned retreat failed to draw out the shield wall. However, it seems that the Byzantine army was concerned enough with the Norman feint that a charge actually broke into the army. The reason for this, according to some historians, was that the couched lance was thoroughly documented as the tactic of the Normans. The extra impact of the direct charge seems to have been enough to disrupt the Byzantine formation. However, it is worth noting that Comnena describes the Norman knights as immediately being routed by the horse’s panic after the charge. So, while it was effective, the same battle proves the idea that horses were opposed to running straight into masses of enemies.

                At Ascalon, the tactical error seems to be that the Fatimid army was simply not ready for battle. In an account by Fulcher of Chartres, the Fatimids were caught unprepared for the attacking Crusaders. In this case, a charge would be highly effective, as “one-to-one, the weight of the warhorses did count” (Bennett 36). It would not matter what gear the Fatimids used, their lack of formation would have lost the battle.

                So, it is clear overall that it is the formation of the infantry more so than the details of gear that deterred the warhorses. A well-organized infantry block would win against a much larger group of cavalry, but if a charge could be enacted through some opening, it was possible for a group of knights to obliterate a much larger force.

~AFB

Sources:

Gillmor, Caroll, “Practical Chivalry: The Training of Horses for Tournaments and Warfare”

Bennett, Matthew, “The Medieval Warhorse Reconsidered”

Davis, R.H.C, “The Warhorses of the Normans”

Bayeux Tapestry, scenes 2 and 3 of the Battle, accessed from http://www.bayeuxtapestry.org.uk/

Liuzza, R.M, The Battle of Maldon,

       https://web.utk.edu/~rliuzza/514/pdf/The%20Battle%20of%20Maldon.pdf

Comnena, Anna, The Alexiad, trans. E.R.A. Sewter, Penguin Books, 1996

Haldon, John, The Byzantine Wars: Battles and Campaigns of the Byzantine Era., Tempus Publishing, 2001

Speaking of animals used in warfare...
German Rocket Cats!
-SG