Medieval War: How do you prepare for medieval war?

imagine this situation you're a knight happily in your manner getting on with your general business and a letter arrived from the King of England the King says we're going to war with France I want you there shortly because you've got a fight for me what do you do how do you get there how do you organize things let's find out [Music] fighting battles today involves a huge amount of organization there are armies of people looking after logistics just to keep a certain number of people in the field and a knight in armor was the fighting point if you like with a whole retinue of people behind him logistics would have been harder though this parchment and writing involved there's no internet there's no easy connection or communication with people you must have ordered things months in advance and said I need the food there in July well when in July I'm exactly where but it happened and it was organized and battles were fought on huge scales so they must have had an infrastructure that would allow that to actually happen one of the things that's easy for people to forget is that a knight doesn't travel on his own the knight is the head of a household and that household consists of retainers of all sorts of different types you don't just have your warhorse you have the people to look after your warhorse you don't just have transportation horses you have the people to look after the transportation horses you have cooks you have Squires you have your fellow soldiers as well because no Knight would have fought on their own they would have had people either side literally wingmen he'd also had archers supporting you you'd have probably had men at arms as well armed with poems that's a lot of people and I would imagine that those people also had followers wives children potentially coming along there might also be a whole train of people bringing other kin just in case she wants to buy it let alone your supplies your wine your food your tents there's an awful lot of stuff and all of it has got to be carried by men horses or wagons one of the things that hasn't changed throughout history is that an army marches on its stomach in fact battles have been won and lost because one side is hungry and the other side isn't there are stories of Kings ordering merchants to go and feed their armies but they had to use reduced prices which of course really angered the merchants so I imagine a lot of merchants didn't actually make it to the army to give them the food but of course it pleased the men and then other Kings said actually we need more food so they bring in the merchants and say charge what you like and the merchants being merchants realizing they've got a captive audience they've literally got an army of hungry men in front of them charged extra excess money so eventually you get to the situation where an army is marching into enemy territory and they're not going to be able to be supplied by merchants in the same way so they have to resort to pillaging and looting a local area now that might not be very good for hearts and minds but it is good for the belly so you can imagine people going out scouting for the army kind of checking for the enemy half an eye on the enemy and half an eye on those fat chickens in the farmyard over there it's said that a medieval Army on the march created a swathe of destruction through the countryside ten I can believe that because people marching wearing heavy armor traveling to war they're going to consume a lot of calories and there isn't that much calorific value in in one local area at a time so it probably would have been completely destroyed by that passing army I've traveled to the continent with my horses several times I've just sit at Agincourt I've fought mock battles in Germany and I've just it in the Low Countries in tournament so I'm quite aware of the difficulties and complexity of traveling horses today let alone back in the medieval period for a start you have to have a vet certify that your horse is safe you have to have imports and then export papers because you've got to actually export your horse from this country and then import it again which is a bit weird but that's how the system works you've also got to have regular rest stops because a horse's welfare has to be looked after now imagine the situation in the medieval period you don't really have a road network of the same kind of consistency there's no tarmac there's probably old Roman roads that you're going down you're probably walking and riding as well and when you get to the coast that journey will have taken you maybe you can go 20 miles in a day 25 miles in a day but everybody's gotta get organized everything's got to be packed up on carts on Sumpter horses or ponies your Destrier is going to be led as well because you don't want to ride your Destrier all the way on the journey you ride at different horse for the actual journey itself and you get to the coast with all of these people all of these noises everybody's come from different areas gathered this one place where the king and his organization they have gathered together 700 transport ships to take you across the channel to go and fight in France 700 ships each of them is going to take dozens of horses and hundreds of men behind me there's a horse box with a modern ramp on it and horses have to be trained to go up that ramp they don't like it straight away so how much more difficult would it be to get a warhorse onto a boat well we see this on the Bayeux Tapestry they put slings around them and winch them on so the the slight indignity for a wild warhorse to actually have straps put around its belly and winched up and put on a boat I imagine I imagined it was quite a scene because war horses are very physical things they're stallions they don't like each other they'll often fight against each other when a horse is frightened a horse will dung and it's poo will go everywhere so you have a whole these horses gather the stallions there'll be some non stallions geldings mares all sorts big ones small ones all pooing everywhere all frightened lots of noise some of them being winched onto the ships the ships to be absolutely covered in horse poo as well and they'll be spittle and sweat and men swearing and all sorts of things going on all of this chaos to get your horses onto a boat you've not left England yet all of that effort all of that noise all of that chaos and not a single blow has yet been struck in anger thanks for watching please like and subscribe don't forget to use that notification button and we'll see you next time [Music]

Channel: Modern History TV

Views: 269,028

Keywords: history documentary, jason kingsley, medieval, middle ages, knight, War, King, Horse, Travel, English Channel, Horse Transport

Id: bDebB0kqO9Q

Length: 7min 5sec (425 seconds)

Published: Fri May 25 2018