How to Lay Siege to a Fortress in the High Middle Ages (1000-1300 AD)

throughout the middle ages warfare in western europe revolved around fortified places castles and wall towns controlled large parts of their surroundings the garrisons especially the cavalry had large operational range within which they could protect and force attack ravage and forage if an invading force was seriously looking for victory these fortified centers of resistance needed to be dealt with first castles and wall towns however were designed not to be taken easily so as an attacker how should you deal with them well there are several ways to conquer a medieval fortress in this video we will focus on sieges here is a 9-step guide on how to lay siege to a medieval fortress [Music] the first move was to send a mounted advance force which approached the town at night in a forced march this quick and surprising movement prevented the defenders from preparing themselves ideally a town would have had no time to stock its supplies build any additional defenses and summon reinforcements in very rare cases an advanced force even managed to take the town in a coup domain more often though the attackers simply harassed the town from a secured position nearby by raiding farms and villages ambushing merchants and capturing working people these actions are often summarized under the technical terms small war or chevoshi they had a big impact the people's morale was lowered goods became more expensive and stocks emptied before the real siege would even begin james the conqueror when he proceeded against valencia in 1238 caught this first step of the siege the ripening of the town quote just as one would with a fruit that one wishes to eat end quote before we get to peeling and eating this proverbial fruit let's quickly pause to say a few words about medieval sieges in general if we think of a siege we imagine a long lasting conflict with spectacular siege engines and a completely enclosed town which is almost reduced to rubble before finally surrendering while there were sieges like this most of them were actually far from spectacular let alone staggering the majority of them ended before they had really begun sometimes because of a successful assault or stratagem of war but even more often simply because of an early surrender or because the besieging army was needed elsewhere for obvious reasons medieval sources modern scholarly literature as well as movies books and games focus on those rare cases in which both sides showed unusual resolution and fought to the bitter end we too are guilty of cherry-picking these really staggering sieges although each siege was unique in its own way and shaped by numerous factors the basic methods and principles of attack and defense remained constant throughout the middle ages at least before gunpowder artillery changed the game in the 1420s and 1430s these constant principles allow us to simplify this tremendously complex topic by taking reoccurring elements from different sieges to construct a typical and idealized siege which might never have happened exactly this way but illustrates the general nature of a medieval siege as most sieges of the middle ages were fought for walled towns and these do not differ too drastically from sieges of castles our idealized siege will focus on a walled town too it will be set before the advent of gunpowder artillery as the effective variants of this weapon only arrived at the very end of the medieval period when the fruit had been ripening for long enough and the main army had arrived before the walls negotiations between the two sides would open this could save lives time and money however when it came to surrender the defenders were in a predicament on one hand they had to put up a minimum of resistance and make sure that no help was approaching before they gave in otherwise they had to fear their own lord's anger on the other hand resisting for too long could result in very harsh treatment punishment and even a brutal sack by the besiegers for these reasons defenders like to arrange a truce for a certain time if no relief force would come to help within the designated time the garrison would hand the town over to the attackers if negotiations failed however the siege began [Music] now things had to be set in motion quickly the attacking army would set out for a first hasty assault trying to storm the city either by scaling it with ladders or by pursuing some panicking defenders through a gate this was the case at the town of bezier in 1209 when crusaders were sent to southern france to eliminate catharism a movement seen as heretical while the army was setting up its camp the defenders made a careless sortie some mercenaries in the service of the crusaders seized the opportunity and pushed through a gate as the defenders were retreating soon the crusaders themselves joined in and the town fell within hours allegedly under the motto killed them all god will know his own most of the inhabitants of bezier were slaughtered and the town was burned to the ground such a hasty assault was risky and usually involved high losses but the opportunity of taking the town quickly was very alluring because the defenders might be ill-prepared an assault of this kind was obviously much more difficult if the town was protected by natural features such as cliffs water or had a ditch which was very common with medieval fortresses if there were no lucky circumstances suggested bezier then the first obstacle were outworks or sometimes defended suburbs according to peter pertin a historian who wrote two volumes on medieval sieges nearly 1 000 pages in total outworks most often consisted of earthwork wooden palisades and even wooden walls reinforced with earth and smeared with mud to resist bombardment and fire pushing forward through these outwards was difficult but the most challenging impediment for the attackers were the main walls attacking a sturdy rampart of several meters height with nothing but ladders was an insane venture nevertheless the rewards could be high individual soldiers saw an immense opportunity to distinguish themselves even if the attack failed for the leaders of the army it offered a chance to end the siege quickly every passing day was very expensive in terms of money resources and lives at any moment a relief force could show up and force a battle an epidemic could spread and take its toll on the procedures a hasty assault was a high risk high reward endeavor which as to be expected failed in most cases the wall was a decisive advantage for the defenders an attacker had to advance climb up a ladder and enter a well-defended wall walk all while arrows and balls rained down on him the defenders also dropped all sorts of dangerous things from spiked tree trunks to beehives to bodies although very creative and suited ideally for the dramatization in modern pop culture such fancy means were probably not used too often in the case of hot oil and tar historians even heatedly debate whether they were used at all the expert on ancient siege warfare royal canainendaik clearly thinks of it as a myth and suggests that hot water would have been a simpler alternative in contrast our house historian clifford rogers thinks that hot water would have been less effective because it cools rather quickly when poured down several meters however there's no serious historian denying that the most common tool were probably simple rocks after all a rock is cheap easily available and stops an attacker in his tracks if it is dropped on his head if a soldier reached the top of the ladder without falling being hit by an arrow or having his head smashed in by a rock he still had to pull himself over the battlements while at least one enemy was battering down on him and even if one or two men at arms made it onto the wall they found themselves surrounded by enemies trying to kill them or throw them back over the battlements but in some cases they were able to hold the defenders back long enough to let some comrades enter the wall walk as well it was this unlikely eventuality that made hasty assaults worth a try [Music] if all efforts failed or the circumstances prevented a hasty assault in the first place the attackers had to acknowledge at some point that they wouldn't be able to take the town the quick way in this case the army would prepare for an extended stay this required the setting up of a fortified camp a well-organized system of guards and watch posts and a steady stream of supplies all of these tasks were rather labor-intensive especially at the beginning of a siege when the danger of a major sortie was greatest sorties or sally's were sudden counter-attacks launched against the besiegers by the defenders this was the most powerful tool in the hands of the defenders an unexpected sally had the advantage of initiative and succeeded quite often in dealing a quick blow to the attackers especially if a siege engine could be destroyed or a mine tunnel brought to collapse during the siege of orleon in 1428 to 1429 for example an english fort san luip blocked away to the city for french reinforcements a sortie from the city distracted the garrison of the fort long enough for reinforcements under the famous john of arc to pass the outposts in boats and enter the city through the eastern gate this is a good moment to talk about today's sponsor curiosity stream if you don't know already curiosity stream is home to thousands of streamable documentaries and non-fiction tv shows on topics like history nature science and more today we want to recommend their documentary on the siege of orleans the episode of aurelion is part of a series called besieged fortress which also features the sieges of la rochelle and chateau gallagher the daunting fortress of richard leinhardt these documentaries always feature a variety of historians and beautiful 3d animations which we could simply not offer you they also give rich background information about the historical setting and characters for anybody who is into sieges like us there is much more content on curiosity stream like their documentary on castle defense in the middle ages to name but one other example to check them out sign up to curiosity stream by using code sandro man for just 14.99 for the whole year this way you get a 25 discount and help out our channel even if the besieging army had a well-fortified camp or a circumvallation a system of walls and ditches completely embracing the town chances were high that a selling force got their hands on some of the attackers supplies or killed some of their horses the only present threat of sorties forced the besieging army to have a significant number of men guarding the camp and the siege engines at all times at the beginning of a siege when the defenders were still fresh and the camp's defense is unfinished up to a third of the soldiers were needed as guards meaning that the whole army had to stand guard in three shifts eight hours each to limit the exit points of a garrison attacking armies sometimes even build forts or block houses in front of the gates and sally ports which were essentially protected doors in the walls explicitly designed as starting points for sally's however most vital for the security of the procedures was a well-fortified camp constructing a good camp was deemed part of the high art of warfare and consequently closely supervised by the leader of an army james the conqueror wrote quote for in battle kings should be in the rear guard whilst in quartering their army they should be foremost in order to place their men better end quote first a fitting spot had to be found it had to be dry flat and close to water preferably a river or stream because this aided sanitation a lot provided water for cooking drinking and washing and made defending much easier in addition it could neither be too far from the valley or town nor too close and preferably had a suitable spot to build siege engines the camp and the siege engines shouldn't be too far apart because they were most likely to be targeted by the defender's sorties once a suitable spot was found the dwellings of the army were installed in rows tents and huts were arranged around the tent of the commander and an open assembly square then the camp was properly fortified with palisades and a simple ditch rather pragmatically ditches and pits stuck for garbage and waste were often integrated into the defenses the defenders of acre during the siege of 1291 had to learn this the smelly way when they made a sortie one night quote they put the outposts to flight and reached the tents where they became tangled up in guy ropes one knight fell into the latrine trench and was killed in some cases more than one camp was needed for example when a river flew through a town this put the attackers at risk because they had to divide their army to limit this threat armies made huge efforts for example by building bridges besides security supply was the biggest concern according to jim bradbury one of the experts on european siege warfare supply for distant campaigns such as sieges could be particularly difficult end quote a large army had an immense demand for food and there was no simple solution to this for the first couple of days or so the food brought and foraged in the hinterland would suffice but after that there were about three options wide-ranging foraging expeditions supply lines from own or friendly territory or the cooperation of the local people be it voluntary or not supply from home was the most reliable option if a safe supply route was available this could be either over water which was much quicker by land or both the supply trains and boats however were a popular target for allies of the besieged city thus a lot of convoy duty was necessary which affected especially the cavalryman all of this was logistically quite challenging and examples of such systems really working are only found as of the 13th century foraging required enormous manpower exposed the foraging party to attacks and was unreliable this was reflected by the prices in the camps markets if a foraging party brought back a large amount of food prices dropped if their return was delayed or a couple of forays were unsuccessful a simple footman might not afford to buy bread the camp markets were also the main way to integrate the local people into the supply system the opportunity for profit attracted merchants and others who brought additional supplies to a camp either directly or via the camp merchants and settlers who usually followed an army in an ideal case this could amount to a steady flow of goods most importantly food brought to the camp thus the soldiers were strictly forbidden to attack or rob merchants sometimes the locals were coerced into bringing food to the camp sometimes they were easily convinced whether it was out of greed or fear the population of the region often greatly contributed to supplying a besieging army [Music] while some built the cam gathered supplies or stood watch others would focus on the next offensive step this was usually a combination of bombardment mining and negotiations the goal of these combined efforts was to equalize the advantage of the besieger's superior position in other words the goal was to damage the walls and gates the core of medieval artillery were stone throwers such as mangonels and traction trebuchets though stone was the main ammunition in some cases various other objects were hurled from bodies to debris and in very rare cases incendiaries in the 12th century the counterweight trebuchet was added to the arsenal in contrast to the traction trebuchet it wasn't operated by manpower that is by a crew of pullers who hauled simultaneously but by immense counterweights these monstrous machines only heard a few stones per hour but each shot was powerful compared to earlier variants of this weapon both forms of trebuchets and some hybrids were used side by side while the quicker smaller traction trebuchets covered the town in a reign of stone the bigger counterweight trebuchets shot their heavy stones in an unnervingly slow manner but with greater impact just how effective an extended bombardment with a counterweight trebuchet could be was demonstrated during the siege of acre in 1191 after the attacking mamluks had bombarded the town for weeks the walls of the crusader-held city began to crumble a machine named god's stone thrower reportedly tore a gap of 30 feet in the upper part of the wall although the base remained intact and thus a significant barrier remained this shows that counterweight trebuchets were capable of doing some serious damage however according to clifford rogers before gunpowder artillery became effective in the 15th century siege engines only caused limited damage against sturdy walls of stone it usually took prolonged bombardments to do serious damage and still some walls simply couldn't be breached at all the chronicle of haeno for example mockingly states that the defenders during the siege of dunbar in 1336 used a towel to wipe off the marks the stones had left on the wall still trebuchets were very effective siege engines they were useful against walls made of less resistant materials and against the less solid parts of the defenses such as wooden boarding breastwork merlin's or sometimes even flanking towers if these weaker elements of a defensive structure could be destroyed the wall lost some of its potential as a fighting platform another soft target which was often the focus of the attackers was the town itself usually more stones were sent over the walls than at them this did not only cause severe damage but also put the townspeople under immense pressure which could result in upheavals against the garrison and eventually surrender however the most effective means to bring down a solid wall was deep mining miners and sappers usually set out to dig a tunnel from a covered position all the way to the walls where they made a large cavity stretching under the walls then the supporting pillars holding the tunnel and the wall above were covered in oil and the mine filled with combustible materials when these inflammables were set on fire the flames would slowly eat away at the supporting pillars until they collapsed together with the wall above this was for example the case at rochester castle during the first war of barons from 1215 to 1217. the castle was captured by a group of rebellious landowners commonly referred to as barons and then besieged by king john who was trying to subdue the rebellion this siege inspired the 2011 movie ironclad as shown in the movie the miners of the king dug a tunnel under the south east corner of the keep filled it with brushwood and unlike in the movie with the carcasses of 40 picks the fire destroyed the supporting pillars and a large part of the keep collapsed however even under ideal conditions deep mining was very slow usually a matter of weeks or months and if the ground was of solid rock and the water level was too high it was sometimes even impossible in addition the defenders often dug counter mines and placed listening posts in cellars to detect enemy miners and sometimes also vassals of water which would mirror the vibration of digging when they detected underground enemy activity they did everything to stop it while miners were digging their way towards the walls underground above ground workers had to fill the ditch or mode of the town so the battering rams siege towers or mobile armored shelters so-called sows could be brought up to the wall whenever an attack was called although siege towers were reasonably common in long sieges they were not deployed in the numbers and in the way often portrayed in movies and games according to the expert on medieval military technology kelly de frise their main purpose was to protect and elevate archers and crossbowmen rather than boarding the wall even though there are cases in which this happened for example during the fall of jerusalem in 1099 usually such a tower was constructed on site and built to be higher than the wall so that the crew could shoot down at the wall thus suppressing the defender's firepower this in turn allowed the troops to climb the wall with ladders and miners to come close to the wall to undermine it still most towers included a drawbridge and some a battering ram on ground level but a siege tower couldn't simply drive up to the wall it had to be hauled or pushed there slowly and thus was not suited for quick assaults it was after all a movable tower not a vehicle cali defrees mentions an average speed of 30 meters a day the weak point of these huge constructions are fire and stone they had as sean mclin puts it quote an unnerving propensity to collapse or topple stone throwers of any kind could damage the towers rendering them useless and although they were usually covered in wet raw heights they could catch fire and the crew could inevitably burn to death even more robust than siege towers or battery grams their strong wooden framework had to support the weight of the ram itself which was in most cases a large tree suspended from a rope or chains there are rarely any reliable depictions of medieval rams and written sources usually only mention uncommon features such as when the end was encased in iron in many cases however rams were protected by a roof which was covered in heights as well this construction could withstand a lot of small missiles without a problem but was vulnerable to large stones and incendiary mixtures it seems however that they themselves were only effective against weak spots kali the freeze notes quote a wooden gate no matter how thick and even a portcullis were vulnerable but regardless of its size a battering ram was unlikely to make much of a dent on stone walls that were 2 or 3 meters thick regarding such walls clifford rogers adds quote one almost gets the impression that they were used more for the sake of trying everything and in order to worry the defenders than because they were expected to accomplish anything concrete [Music] while the engineers were preparing the siege engines the miners digging their tunnels and the soldiers building the camp the army's leaders wouldn't remain idle they would use the well-visible threat of the preparations to persuade the defenders to surrender if this worked jackpot the attackers won an intact town without having to put their man and purse to the strain of a long siege however for the defenders the promise of good treatment in case of quick surrender was equally tempting in fact the preparations described previously had the purpose of frightening the defenders just as much as they were paving the way for an assault such methods might not convince very determined defenders but there were always some who had to lose more than others chances were that a faction favored surrender or a traitor was willing to help the attackers to get in this was for example the case during the siege of antioch in 1098 when the crusader behemoth of taranto established a contact with an insider an armenian christian who held a high position and went by the name firu in exchange for money title and protection firu organized for some of the crusaders to scale the towers of the two sisters where he was on guard duty the crusaders then opened a nearby postern gate and let their comrades in they quickly overwhelmed the surprised garrison and conquered the town bit by bit for feru however the events took a bad turn as the crusaders and the local armenians massacred thousands of people in the so-called massacre of antioch including ferrous's own brother while the negotiations of the leaders were usually quite mannered the common soldiers and townspeople had their own back and forth of threatening each other the intricate messages they shouted call to mind a mediocre rap battle most often addressing wives progeny and hunger quote surrender knives lest you die of hunger and we take your women end quote or quote your wives will not be concerned about your deaths since they'll have bastard progeny enough end quote while this gnashing of teeth is somewhat amusing to a modern viewer it certainly addressed the deepest fears of a soldier far away from home or encircled in a city with the scaringly real prospect of a sack just to be clear a siege was not a well-ordered step-by-step procedure in most cases at least not yet there was a whole lot of improvisation the bombardment of the town negotiations the construction of siege towers and filling ditches and mining all went side by side in addition to these long-term preparations which had mostly the goal to exert pressure on the defenders so that they would surrender as quick as possible it was advisable to try one's luck in a night attack from time to time the chances of success were not too great if the town had a working watch system but long hours on guard over a long period of time exhausted the defenders a watchman might fall asleep or let his mind wander although the chances of success were small with every attack the townspeople were brutally reminded of the fact that they wouldn't be able to beat off every assault forever and they knew that a town taken by storm suffered much harsher conditions than one surrendering in time because of that every assault increased the chance of surrender in contrast to such small operations a major upcoming assault was visible and open to the defender's eye in the face of its preparation the purpose of preparations including ceremonial acts and religious services the dubbing of new knights and loud proclamations was to put up a threatening scene this was more powerful than any spoken or written word it was the entire army flexing its collective muscles when the banners formed up and took their positions the world paused for a moment normally the defenders were given the chance to surrender and surely some must have been thinking hard about it if they didn't surrender the attack began the sound of trumpets and drums announced the end of waiting war cries and horns sounded the banners tilted forward and the man advanced because protection was more important than agility the well-armored man fled the attack in addition to armor and shields the soldiers carried or pushed wooden screens to protect themselves the attackers had to take the same route as in the first hasty assault through the reign of enemy missiles up to the wall up a ladder or siege tower and then onto the wall walk if the first assault failed new waves moved against the walls until the attackers were exhausted or had to give up for some other reason meanwhile the slow and ponderous siege towers were set in motion all while the defenders as missiles were raining down on them both armies were watching with great suspension the defenders cheering when a stone hit groaning if it missed from the siege of acre we know that the attackers danced in joy when the enemy's stone throwers missed however the joy was short-lived since it turned out that the trebuchets on the walls did not fire stones but pots of flammable liquid flaming arrows soon lead the tower and the crew died in flames meanwhile archers crossbowmen slingers and the like took their position at a reasonable distance also covered by mantlets of wicker and wood on the walls each opening in the battlements was assigned to a number of shooters so that a dance reign of projectiles forced the defenders to keep their hats down this was where the elevated platform of the siege tower came in especially handy by providing suppressing fire from above again action was multi-dimensional while waves of infantry were running against the wall and archers were providing cover miners were trying to undermine it directly covered by wooden shelters they worked to directly penetrate the base of the wall this was nearly impossible if the wall was made of big solid blocks of stone but there are cases in which they succeeded to carve out a niche for example with walls of brick adobe or masonry faced earth then they either dug further down to undermine the foundations or try to weaken the construction directly on ground level again the chances of breaching the wall were small but there are cases in which it worked out [Music] a breach was most likely to be caused by deep mining once the wall was breached the procedures would advance to storm it but sometimes the rubble hindered an assault or made it even impassable then it had to be cleared first which was often a costly matter because the workers had to be paid extra for the dangerous work and even if the breach was cleared fairly well remnants of walls and debris were a significant obstacle in addition a breach or an open gate were still bottlenecks only a small number of men could push through at the same time and they were likely to face the hand-picked elite fighters of the defenders all while being battered by stones arrows and bolts from nearby towers and walls the attackers as bowmen in contrast usually did not have the advantage of an elevated position and thus couldn't shoot without risking to hit their comrades the balance of power in such situations is probably best shown by several examples in which the defenders left their gaze open on purpose going through a breach was a daunting prospect success was far from guaranteed and casualties were usually very high because of this storms of breaches were often a make or break moment sometimes it took a lot of persuasion to get the man to attack a famous example is james the conqueror siege of the city of medina mallorca modern day palma de mallorca during the spanish wreck on krista after weeks of mining the besiegers opened a breach in the wall james the conqueror took four days to prepare the assault he positioned his veteran footmen in the front and the knights behind them each one had to swear an oath that they wouldn't turn around if they were wounded still no one moved when the order to attack was given only after three calls to action the army began to march when they finally entered the breach where a phalanx of spearmen waited for them neither side dared attacking but then the knights advanced to the front and threw their horses against the enemy pikes the first wave was deterred but the second one pushed into the breach there the fight came to a standstill with the soldiers on both sides densely packed in the area of the breach finally the horsemen made another attempt and broke through soon after the city fell if no negotiation no bombardment and no mine yielded any fruit and it became evident that not even the most determined assault would crack the city the besieger's last resort was a full blockade the siege became a game of attrition it was all about letting the defenders exhaust their supplies and weakening them until they gave in however this involved costs and risks not all attacking armies could afford while a blockade was important at any stage of the siege as it prevented a beleaguered garrison from receiving reinforcements and supplies or food now it became the main means of the besiegers if not already done the besieging army would now try to cut off the town completely most often by building a complete circumvention this meant that a ditch a rampart or both were built around the whole town and guarded at all times in addition efforts were often made to interfere with the defender's water supplies for example by destroying conduits or even by diverting streams or rivers because encircling and starving a town was a very lengthy process the camp would be improved and logistics stabilized in some cases the siege camp would itself grow to resemble a small town with walls wooden houses a marketplace artisans brothels shops and so on when food became scarce and hunger widespread pressure on the defenders rose tremendously tensions began to build as not all had to lose equally much in contrast to the townspeople the man of the garrison had a castle to retreat to and usually no family and home to lose the besiegers knew this all too well and tried to instigate the townspeople to give up the attackers hoped to cause quarrels among the people within the walls or even to incite a traitor to let them in if the commander of the defense and the garrison kept control people soon began to die of hunger and thirst in such dire situations desperate measures were taken to stretch food and supplies the garrisons sometimes forced the so-called useless mouse children women and elderly people to leave the city while a merciful commander might let them escape a good tactician didn't this way they were caught between the lions and the defenders had either to watch their own people starve or feed them of their scars reserves this happened for example during the siege of ruin in 1417. according to the historian juliet baker 12 000 people were expelled from the city the refugees were forced to live in the ditches through winter neither permitted to leave nor to return to the city the site of this misery even troubled the english procedures hunger as well as disease were a threat to both besieged and procedures especially if the sewage systems were improvised and fresh water limited disease could easily spread and inflict losses higher than a full-blown battle it took good preparations and some luck to go through a siege without having an epidemic the same goes for crowded towns it seems however that epidemics were less common on the side of the besieged probably because they had better shelter working sanitation and were used to the local microorganisms generally speaking a siege could end in three ways either the besieged army abandoned it at some point the fortress was taken by storm or the defenders surrendered if the siege ended in an agreement of surrender the town wasn't handed over immediately though the contract often included a so-called conditional respite which means that the defenders were given the chance to appeal to their lord for help one last time for the duration of this last respite there was a truce no shots were exchanged no blows dealt no repairs made in this time if the agreed time had passed the keys to the city were handed over in a formal ceremony and the victor could make his entry into the town depending on how the attackers deemed the town's conduct during the siege it would simply change possession or it would be plundered if the towns surrendered without permission of the garrison they might burn it from their refuge punishing the townspeople for their cowardice and treachery but more often they simply made their last stand or negotiated separate terms then they handed their fortress over in exchange for permission to depart unharmed with their possessions or even under arms with flying collars if a town was taken by assault its worst nightmares were to become true the victorious soldiers sometimes even encouraged by their commanders treated the inhabitants brutally they considered draping and looting their well-earned right this was even worse when the two adversaries hated each other anyways for example because of religious differences where it was allowed to take slaves bloodlust was overcome by the lust for profit unfortunately these darkest hours of a siege are most often only described by our sources in very general terms such as everyone was put to the sword but all in all it seems that after an initial killing spree the soldiers usually only kill those who resisted after a short period of time often three days the sack was called to a halt the townspeople now had the chance to accept their new lord or keep at least their homes sometimes however they were expelled and their homes redistributed or burned to the ground please use the information provided in this video wisely and responsibly only plunder peasants bombard towns and undermine buildings if absolutely necessary since we expect you to profit greatly from the practical information we provided we think it would only be fair if we get a share please consider donating via patreon

Channel: SandRhoman History

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Keywords: medieval sieges, sieges, medieval, middle ages, staggering siege, evolution of warfare, medieval warfare, warfare, history, documentary, education, educational, sandrhoman, sandrhoman sieges, medieval siege warfare, siege towers, siege tower history, trebuchet, catapult, battering ram, medieval castle, castle middle ages, castle, fortress, perfect castle, how to lay siege, siege middle ages, siege medieval

Id: aQ7hTNoK-OA

Length: 40min 36sec (2436 seconds)

Published: Sun Mar 20 2022