5 Misconceptions about Medieval Sieges in Movies

medieval sieges have become my favorite of movie makers and game studios impenetrable walls spectacular siege engines a good dose of hands-on fighting and destruction make for an ideal canvas for heroism and drama as history buffs we celebrate this attention as historians we often shed a tear in general most sieges were by far not as spectacular as depicted in popular media historical authenticity often falls victim to drama over time the emphasis on dramatic storytelling in pop culture together with the doubtful work of some historians have created several misconceptions about medieval sieges in this video we're going to tackle 5 of these misunderstandings and look at one controversial aspect as a bonus at the end [Music] catapults battering rams and trebuchets didn't simply tear down ramparts and towers depending on their size and quality of the walls they could do some serious damage but they weren't very effective against sturdy walls of stone blocks which is exactly what movie fortresses tend to have sometimes trebuchets managed to breach such a wall for example during the siege of sterling castle in 1304 but if they did it was usually because they had been bombarding the same piece of wool for a long time this is nicely depicted in the king where the castle of achfleur is bombarded over several days although the burning projectiles are again just there for dramatic effect the 13th century king's mirror a medieval military manual recommends having quote few powerful trebuchets with which to throw large rocks against stone walls to determine whether they are able to resist such violent blows end quote this combined with the fact that there were many long sieges in the period in which stone throwers were deployed implies that some stone walls could be breached but most could not this is also why the attackers standed to aim at soft targets such as wooden works merlin's or simply the town itself which is in fact what most projectiles were directed at when primary sources mention that walls were damaged by artillery we should not imagine a full bridge but simply that the top of the wall was made useless as a fighting platform because the medieval author would usually mention a real breach in more explicit terms almost the same goes for battering rams although they were effective against gates or softer walls for example made of brick or loose stones in such cases a battering ram might open up a hole which could then be further exploited by miners however deploying a battering ram against a solid stone wall was almost a symbolic move the chances of dealing any real damage were virtually non-existent before the advent of effective gunpowder artillery in the early 15th century there was really only one reliable means to tear down a rampart deep mining this is nicely depicted in the otherwise historically well doubtful 2011 movie ironclad pigs were driven into the mines and the castle set on fire which causes parts of the castle to collapse while the protagonists fight a very dramatic last stand on the stairs of the very same castle [Music] one part of a wall crumbling to dust and rubble was not as climactic an event as you might think just because one part of the wall gave in it was still very difficult for the attacker to storm a stronghold granted some defenders surrendered once their walls were breached but they determined garrison could still resist an attack for quite a bit longer first off a breach in the wall did not mean that the way was now suddenly clear the rubble of the collapsed wall often beared away and the attackers had to clear this out first when the crusaders besieged acre in 1191 king richard the lionheart offered two gold bazants for every block carried away from the pile of rubble and later even increased this to 4 bazants because the work was so dangerous four gold bazants roughly equal half a month's pay for a skilled physician at the time but even if the breach was cleared fairly well the remnants of a wall let's say half a man's height was a significant obstacle to attack over what's more a breach always created a bottleneck through which only a small number of men could attack when these entered the breach they were exposed to enemy archers and crossbowmen firing from above their own archers meanwhile could do little to help them because they had no elevated position to shoot from in addition they could be certain to face the hand-picked elite of the defenders some of the fiercest struggles occurred in breaches and high casualties on the attacker's side were almost guaranteed lastly one never knew what to expect behind a breach besides all kinds of ambushes traps and other warm welcoming gifts it may well be the case that the defenders had used their time to simply build a second wall behind the destroyed section of their defenses having two walls is very much a luxury but you can now double up your defenses and use nordvpn's double vpn to make sure your privacy is protected nord is the sponsor of this video they route your traffic through a double vpn meaning you're protected by two vpn servers without a vpn your digital footprint is quite easy to trace so vpns have become a necessity these days we like nordvpn because it's been rated the fastest vpn in recent speed tests it can be used of up to six devices simultaneously and has gotten good reviews across the board nordvpn now even comes with a threat protection feature that protects you from unwanted tracking malicious websites and infected files and annoying ads you can easily turn it on via the shield icon in the left sidebar this way will be fully protected regardless of your vpn connection up your privacy game and support our channel by clicking the link in the pinned comment and description and get knowed for two years and one month for free with a huge discount all of this is entirely risk-free thanks to nord's 30-day money-back guarantee everyone can imagine that being in a besieged place must have been tough but living in a siege camp outside a city was no holiday either a soldier in a siege army rarely had any free time and he was certainly not simply living the good life laying siege to a city was way more than encircling it and waiting until the defenders were starving on the opposite there was a lot of hard work and there were a lot of things to worry about besides combat the schedule was especially tight at the beginning of a siege when the defenses of the camp were not finished yet in order to prevent sorties a large share of the men was needed on guard sometimes up to a third of an army this meant that every single soldier had watched duty for 8 hours a day and let me be clear these were not 8 hour working days besides standing guard the soldiers had to help build the camp defenses and siege works and most often also go on patrols forage and raid living the good life probably only for workaholics the biggest fear were diseases a severe epidemic could easily kill large parts of an army siege armies were prone to diseases because they were far from home and the stomachs of the man usually weren't used to the local climate and microorganisms keep in mind that many people in the middle ages hardly left their hometown let alone their home region all their life sicknesses suggest the plague or dysentery which is an inflammation of the stomach and intestines that result in bloody diarrhea could perfectly flourish under camp conditions especially if the sewage systems were improvised and fresh water limited at the siege of mo in 1422 for example the besieging english army under king henry v was afflicted by dysentery quite early during the siege the sickness allegedly killed six to seven percent of the whole army including the king in addition to diseases there were several other hazards such as relief armies the constant threat of sorties that is counter-attacks by the besieged and in stable supply lines resulting in hunger simply going to the woods and shooting some game as robin hood and his comrades do in the 2010 movie wasn't a suitable method of supplying a large army a big army would have eaten all the food in a large radius around them fairly quickly all in all besieging a town meant hard work and hardship [Music] movies tend to portray medieval war camps as ten cities and leave aside other dwellings and in fact we did the same in almost all of our videos but tents were actually not the norm because they were rather expensive the historian andrew boardman has concluded that as late as the war of the roses which took place in the second half of the 15th century quote billeting outdoors without proper tents and in all weathers was accepted as effect of everyday army life end quote only for those who could pay for it tents were an important part of their gear but they were probably not available to most simple soldiers for much of the middle ages even a modest pavilion tent of 11 foot diameter cost around 2 pounds which equals 160 days of pay for a simple footman the chronicle of lanarkost refers to the tens being set up only for quote the chief man of the army end quote during the siege of dunbar in 1336 it is however unclear how far down the ranks this went and there were big differences depending on time place and economic circumstances those who couldn't afford hands usually build huts of wood and straw some even dug foxholes so for most of the middle ages camps were not ten cities we should probably picture them rather as small towns of huts arranged in orderly rows around the tans of the commander and some important men at arms with a free square where the men could assemble as we depicted it in our video on how to lay siege to a medieval town [Music] a rolling line of siege towers moving up towards the walls definitely is an epic shot but it sadly doesn't depict reality in a real siege these ponderous constructions were pushed forward slowly if at all in very small numbers siege towers were huge and hugely expensive they reached heights of up to 80 or 90 feet 25 to 28 meters but most sieges never saw one they were the kind of extremely heavy equipment that was only ever deployed when a fortress was extraordinarily hard to crack it was very laborious to move them and even so they moved excruciatingly slowly if they were mobile at all the most effective and perhaps the most common way of moving them towards the wall was to anchor them in the ground with rings of iron close to the wall then run ropes through these rings and then pull the tower forward via pulleys from safe cover which could either be the tower itself or a position further back this way the hauling crew or the harnessed oxen could pull away from the wall given how slow they were we must understand that they were movable towers rather than armored assault vehicles the main purpose of a siege tower was not to drive up to the wall and dispatch a load of soldiers by a drawbridge even though this did occasionally happen the boarding via drawbridge was only a secondary purpose a siege tower was primarily an elevated platform from which crossbowmen and archers could shoot at the ramparts suppress enemy fire and sweep the wall walks empty this gave cover to infantry who were attempting to escalate or to miners who were undermining the wall directly because of this the towers were always built a good deal higher than the part of the wall they should attack usually at least 15 feet or 4.5 meters funnily enough the defenders when they saw a siege tower was constructed often reacted by building their own wall higher as well [Music] up high from the walls defenders dropped a plethora of objects onto the attackers ranging from rocks to beehives feces and even hats and limbs they're also often said to be pouring hot oil down the wall but wallshot oil as for example depicted in the 2005 fictional history drama kingdom of heaven really part of the defender's arsenal the historian raul canandaigue famously denied it in a 2021 insider rating video on ancient battle tactics it's not a thing didn't happen sorry as far as the scene in kingdom of heaven is concerned conan deak is definitely right it was very unlikely that hot oil was poured from the walls in these quantities for a number of reasons firstly oil was expensive and probably not readily at hand in masses secondly it would have been difficult to heat and handle such large quantities of oil on a narrow wall walk and lastly the amount of effort would have been totally out of scale compared to the effect it had these arguments make it quite clear that oil was certainly not used in large quantities but it is difficult to determine what sort of quantities could have been plausibly used the primary sources are too often ambiguous biased or simply written so much later that they have to be taken with a grain of salt some historians however have found evidence that some sort of boiling oil or molten animal fat was used peter pertin for example an expert in the field of medieval sieges mentions the siege of pontois in 1441 during which the english defenders allegedly made use of boiling animal fat jim bradbury another expert for european siege warfare has found some evidence that small pots of hot oil or molten fat were poured through murder holes or meshy collations still this was very uncommon in conclusion we can't simply label the use of boiling oil in castle defense as truth or myth but we can say that the depiction of some heroic crusaders generously splattering loads of oil all over walls attackers and themselves is a modern cinematic fantasy these are our six misconceptions about medieval sieges if you want to learn more about medieval sieges click here also these videos are nearly as laborious as laying siege to a medieval castle so please consider supporting our work on patreon [Music]

Channel: SandRhoman History

Views: 1,714,748

Keywords: medieval, sieges, history, castle, defense, education, educational, documentary, sandrhoman, staggering sieges, movies, siege, sandrhomanhistory, history buffs

Id: ZRBJKeRfox8

Length: 15min 34sec (934 seconds)

Published: Sun May 29 2022