The ‘Infantry Revolution’ of the Late Middle Ages - A Video Essay

the infantry revolution of the late middle ages is kind of a hot topic among armchair historians and academics alike this is how the argument goes in the late middle ages infantry grew in importance to the detriment of heavy cavalry by then battles were increasingly worn with pikes longbows and archibosses instead of mounted knights with lances this radically changed the way armies were structured the argument continues and as a result of that the socio-political makeup and development of european polities changed lastingly so this infantry revolution supposedly had an incredible impact on european state building processes and the argument finally concludes it laid the foundation of europe's conquest and colonization of many parts of the world however in public spaces such as youtube this whole debate seems to be more discussed in regards to tactics and fighting techniques than economics and politics consequently much of the public discussion is about how and if the importance of knights changed after the high medieval ages likewise topics such as the efficacy of the english longbow or the impact of pikes in the late middle ages are frequently the subject of discussions all of that is controversial to say the least but it gets worse these changes must be viewed in the broader military changes such as the rise of gunpowder artillery between the 1420s and the 1530s which is called artillery revolution the decline of sieges between the 1420s and the 1530s which among many things led to the resurgence of heavy cavalry in the later late middle ages lastly all of these revolutions belong to a notion called military revolution this video is not intended to argue one side or the other of the infantry revolution but to provide a broad overview over both the debates and the military changes during the 14th and 15th centuries it explains how contemporary historiography quarrels over the infantry revolution the belgian historian jan franz ferbrucken characterizes what the traditional academic view was quote medieval warfare in europe was characterized by the dominant role of heavy cavalry end quote today this statement is controversial among medievalists many historians have pointed to battles such as danshipre in 1106 bhuvin in 1214 dunbar in 1214 or falkirk in 1298 where infantry supposedly played an important role other historians such as clifford j rogers pointed the same battles saying that they were actually decided by a cavalry charge so the whole debate seems to be quite contradictory today scholars like rogers restrict the infantry revolution usually to the 14th and 15th century in central and western europe so pointing to the 30 years war or the wing who's sars as we've seen quite often would be misleading with that said we will guide you through the main arguments let's start at the beginning like so many historiographical disputes the infantry revolution goes back to the 19th century in our case it's the famous military historian hans delbrick who in a nutshell asserted that medieval knights usually charged each other and then dueled in pairs while the infantry was basically useless in all fairness the medieval sources overemphasized the role of knights and delbruck was one of the first to make such a large-scale study on military history basically delbruck simply followed the medieval sources and then came to the conclusion that medieval battles had no tactical thought to them delbrick's blind trust in the medieval sources may look naive nowadays but it is important to remember that historians at the time saw the middle ages as a backward period between classical antiquity and the modern world this view was influenced by arguably the most important intellectual movement of modernity the enlightenment we nowadays have of course a much more refined and balanced view of the middle ages here historians like jan franz ferbrucken come in he pointed out that warfare in the middle ages was not chaotic heavy cavalry for example operated in small coordinated contingents and regularly bested larger forces these kinds of engagement required close order formation if they wanted to break through enemy infantry lines such cavalry formations were coordinated by horn signals and at least from the 12th century onwards by flags and banners according to ferbrucken such combat maneuvers were relatively basic they mostly consisted of charges regrouping or fake retreats however none of this is as easy as it sounds and needs to be planned exercised and finally executed with precision the german historian folk schmidtkin explains that all these things were actually drilled in nightly tournaments in the early days these were the so called buhurtz in which knights would fight each other in two battle lines the jousting tournament with a small wall between the combatants only became popular in the 15th century so if you think about an infantry revolution we've got to ask first just how important was cavalry to begin with and to what extent did infantry actually gain significance cavalry was certainly important in high medieval battles traditionally the argument goes as follows in contrast to classical roman and early medieval armies the high medieval battlefields were dominated by knights with couched lances which means that lances were fixed under their armpit the rise of these heavily armored lancers is usually connected to the introduction of the stirrup and the adoption of longer saddles both of these innovations essentially allowed the rider to deal with the strong forces of impact better when attacking with veylons the impact of elance was way stronger than the one of a thrust because the knight could use the full force and weight of his horse on his enemy one expert on medieval warfare cali de frise affirms that the lance became the weapon for knights all over western europe he points to chronicles but also to an increasing number of medieval illustrations in addition horsemen became increasingly more armored in the 10th century a newtonian knight could have looked like this from the 11th century onwards cavalryman developed into an increasingly heavier force who could have looked like this since only nobles could afford such expensive equipment being a knight became associated with a strong social code of honor and political power subsequently the socio-political makeup of the medieval world changed this is usually referred to as feudalism today this term is controversial among medievalists but many military historians still tend to use it anyways so we'll stick to it for this video as a result armies were increasingly organized along these feudal structures let's pause for a moment at this point in the video it is obvious that we can never cover all the details of a certain topic for additional information we recommend you have a look at the various documentaries of today's sponsor curiosity stream curiosity stream is home to thousands of streamable documentaries and non-fiction tv shows on topics like history nature science and more one of our favorite series is the story of europe which spans across several centuries the documentary does a great job of giving you the bigger picture of what happened in europe and how it is connected it is hosted by dr christopher clark who is actually one of our favorite historians curiosity stream offers a great deal if you sign up using code sandro man you get unlimited access for just 14.99 for the whole year so go check that out now let's jump back to the infantry revolution thesis as always historians do not agree on topics so naturally some historians think that the importance of cavalry is overemphasized let's flip this around and look at the debate from their perspective these historians often point to the crusades they argue that such big enterprises as the crusades needed many flexible men to do all sorts of jobs knights simply didn't cut it by themselves at the battle of jaffa in 1192 for example the crusaders under richard lionheart resisted the attacks of saladin's men by forming a shield wall of infantry which was protected by stakes from behind the shields they shot their enemies with their crossbows some historians argue that at the end a cavalry charge of the knights drove saladin's men off the field regardless this battle shows that infantry was important in the high middle ages we should keep in mind though that they were in a fortified position and fought a comparatively light cavalry force which was not intended to break an infantry formation with a shock assault many of them were armed with bows because the enemy forces were so different it's hard to use the crusade as an example in general advocates of the infantry revolution theses usually restrict a discussion to central and western europe particularly around the french cavalry and its immediate enemies the english flemish swiss and later on the spanish moreover it is important to know two things here firstly most advocates of the infantry revolution don't deny that infantry was important in high medieval battles they are of the opinion however that cavalry was the decisive factor in these battles secondly historians usually form such wide-ranging hypotheses on the basis of ideal types rarely do they discuss every battle in all its complexity that means they generalize so generally speaking battles in europe that involve knights on both sides were indeed often decided by a cavalry engagement in addition falkor schmidtkin stresses the fact that footmen actually had good reasons to flee when their side fell behind not only because they hardly stood a chance against cavalry in the open but more so because if they were captured they were much less likely to be ransomed back to their families than knights they were instead either killed forced to work for the winners or sold into slavery it looks like knights could take higher risks than footmen on the battlefield but let's not jump to conclusions here let's next investigate a few battles that are frequently mentioned in this debate the battles of courtric in modern flanders panockburn in scotland and moorgarden in switzerland all of these count as early successes of all infantry forces it is true that in all of them some form of a peasant infantry force defeated well-equipped mounted knights however as clifford j rogers an advocate of the infantry revolution mentions himself the importance of these early victories should not be overemphasized at cortrick the flemings chose a battlefield which made it hard for the french cavalry to form up prior to their charge they charged anyways and were severely hampered by swampy ground and ditches the battle ended in a disaster for the french at bannockburn the scots put the english in a very similar situation the end of that battle was similar to cortrick at moorgarden lastly the swiss ambushed the austrians in a narrow mountain pass and never gave them a chance to form up in all three cases the infantry force fought with their back to the wall or was fighting for their independence this means they had less of an incentive to flee due to either a physical or psychological deterrent still on other occasions as the battle of mu un pevel in france or castle in germany knights bastard infantry in the open field all of this is evidence that no major shift in favor of infantry was taking place in the early 14th century what happened subsequently is vital for the debate the structure of armies changed in general high medieval armies partly levied for each battle separately and relying on heavy knights for most of their punching power were slowly replaced by armies formed of more professional soldiers who served over longer periods many of them had no horses such as the english in the hundred years war or mercenaries like the italian condo thierry the swiss mercenaries or the german landscapes usually the argument is that this was due to cost efficiency a general population surplus but also because sieges became increasingly more common the idea here is that to effectively lay siege to a city or a castle you could not rely on vassals to bring a few well-equipped knights and a bunch of peasants these sieges were large-scale operations that required hundreds or thousands of well-drilled and experienced men in addition campaigns became longer and occurred more frequently thus a need for more professional soldiers arose a word of caution we are not talking about armies of more infantry and less cavalry this seems to be a commonly held misconception about this topic generally what seems to be somewhat undisputed is this structural change from short-serving to long-serving soldiers so to put it simply a small high medieval city-state kingdom or league could master fewer and different men and would master them differently than a more centralized state in the late medieval period with these structural changes came tactical alterations as well mostly because these armies were armed with other weapons and consequently it made sense to form up differently for example the english increasingly relied on the longbow and the flemish and the swiss on pikes deployed in massive squares this led to a tactical change in these armies what can be observed then is a change in army structure and a change in tactics however it is very much unclear whether changing tactics led to a change in structure or changing structures led to a change in tactics let's first look at the english tactical system during the hundred years war naturally what comes to mind are longbows the iconic battles of cressi pattie and agence historians such as clifford j rogers tend to stress the importance of longbows in the battles of the hundred years war in 1346 at chrissie for example dismounted men at arms and english longbow men who were in an entrenched position behind stakes and ditches defeated the french army who consisted of mixed troops but deployed many heavily armored knights it's needless to say that archers were of vital importance in all english campaigns of that war it's just not entirely clear how exactly there is a quarrel about their efficacy which cannot be discussed here in detail in a nutshell the argument is often about the ability of longbows to penetrate armor testers such as todd from todd's workshop often have a hard time trying to penetrate plate armor with arrows which implies that it might have been similar for medieval archers historians on the other hand tend to think that they could have penetrated armor why because the medieval sources often explicitly say just that while we can't say for certain if and how longbows did it we can't be pretty sure that one way or another longbows were absolutely crucial for the english victories in the hundred years war there are simply too many medieval sources both french and english which are in agreement about that currently one moderate view is that the longbows should simply be viewed as a successful tactical change and not a technical armor-piercing improvement there is another crucial thing to keep in mind those battles of the hundred years war were actually fought many years and even decades apart kressi for example was fought a total of 69 years before ajahnaku in 1415 during this period smiths of course improved and adapted their armor then as from about 1430 reasonably effective artillery entered the stage sieges became rare because the cannons very effectively shot the walls of fortresses and cities to pieces as a result of that cavalry became once again more important because there were more open field battles and less sieges this in turn would again change in the 1530s when engineers designed star fortresses that could withstand heavy artillery fire for months in rare cases even years so overall the tactical changes are there however we do not know conclusively why they occurred was an army of longbow man just superior to knights or was it simply easier and more cost efficient to recruit longbowmen [Music] what is easier to grasp from the sources is the structural change in general soldiers surfed longer fought on foot and were armed differently than knights this leads us back to the core argument of the infantry revolution it's not that cavalry became useless but that infantry gained in importance and that this in turn led to changes in the administration of western european kingdoms simply put war was expensive and obviously required vast amounts of money which was collected most easily by taxes the historian malte pritzel summarizes the resulting process nicely quote the kingdoms of england and france suddenly raised taxes regularly something they had not done before this required an efficient administration which in turn required a qualified and steady number of bureaucrats this strengthened the one institution which controlled the administrations the kingdom the early modern state was created under the pressure of war efforts end quote this form of centralized taxation had far reaching consequences for the nobles they increasingly fought for money rather than feudal responsibilities simultaneously more and more of them no longer served as highly armored knights but as some sort of officer on foot or on horseback generally speaking infantry had many advantages over cavalry it could be equipped more cheaply and footmen received less pay and were trained more quickly rogers mentions that at cortrick the long county of flanders could master more infantry than the entirety of the kingdom of france could master knights so perhaps the dramatic change is not tactical but socio-economic roger goes on that this socio-economic change in the military setup had major socio-political implications for european states at large for example during the great revolt in england in 1381 which was sparked by regressive paul texas many commoners were armed with longbows their leader watts taylor had served and gathered battle experience in france the argument is that this uprising in england would not have happened like it did without lots of common longbow men trained and heartened in the hundred years war in france elsewhere in europe however the longbow was not used as much and there were still lasting changes in the socio-economic structures of mainland european powers this is usually connected to the rise of the pikemen tactically speaking pike's at their advantages when dealing with cavalry which is neatly illustrated if you look at this scene from the movie the king sometimes it is just forgotten how devastating a cavalry charge could be of course this scene is not a real scenario but it still makes the point infantry was much more secure behind several pints of pikes rather than armored in full plate most famously the rise of the pikeman is typified by the swiss similar to the english longbowmen there is a myth about their effectiveness the swiss fought in massive pike squares and were very successful here another important argument should be considered unlike the english during the 100 years war who relied on 45 positions and longbows the swiss used their infantry forces offensively and used few skirmishers some historians point to the battle of laupen in 1339 where the swiss defeated cavalry in the open field this is seen as something new because scholars like rogers argue that infantry in the high middle ages was mostly used defensively but let's not forget that chants and circumstances added much to the swiss victories in the burgundian wars for example the swiss surprised their enemies with a head-on charge at console while they were reforming their army and caught them again unaware at moura while they were still in their camp when the burgundians were besieging the town of north sea the swiss outflanked them under the cover of the snowy weather all in all they just never gave them the time to deploy their superior ranged weapons and efficiently exploited tactical mistakes of their enemies the pike brought tactical advantages for sure but many of the swiss victories like other battles across europe such as those at cortrick vanuckburn were later mythicized and glorified for a medieval observer these victories were unthinkable imagine a minor system of loosely connected states like the all swiss confederacy that suddenly defeated the noble dodgy of burgundy in three shattering victories contemporaries must have been overwhelmed by such news burgundy at the time had one of the most advanced forces with a combined arms approach yet they were defeated by hyperbolically speaking a bunch of peasants with pointy sticks it's actually quite hard to determine what exactly won these battles field fortifications or pikes circumstances or tactics there is an entire scholarly debate about this topic alone the great military theoretician carl von klausewitz already thought about that he coined the term military spirit which broadly refers to a mindset of veterans who had won many battles and thus were convinced they would win again consequently they fought with much more resolution which led them from victory to victory with regards to the swiss they certainly had a tradition of being successful mercenaries that might have helped what we can say with a good degree of certainty is that many contemporaries believed in the power of the swiss pikes and this perhaps is the crucial part the swiss victories were so influential that the holy roman emperor maximilian the first would adapt their pike squares he himself dismounted and stood with the common man a pike in his hands at the battle of queen god in 1479. this was a symbolic gesture rarely seen before the lanschnects at the beginning intended to be his private army were modeled off the swiss as well so here are some concluding thoughts much of the quarrel about the infantry revolution seems to be focused on tactics instead of army structure societal changes and economics it is evident that there was change in how armies were structured and raised in the burgundian wars for example both armies were too different from a high medieval army to warrant such a claim similarly the armor and weaponry changed cavalry became more and more armored and longbows archibosses and pole weapons saw an increase in usage the latter also brought a tactical change formations became deeper which allowed for better defense against cavalry in the open field however infantry did not suddenly best cavalry in every battle but perhaps one could say that infantry challenged the dominance cavalry had retained in the high middle ages more successfully and more regularly the essence of the whole debate however lies with the changing structure of armies the argument is that somehow the change in warfare played the foundation for a profound change in the socio-economic structure of european kingdoms this in turn would change feudal kingdoms and decentralized governments typified by leagues and city-states to more centralized states here a big problem with this particular historiographical debate becomes apparent tactics are merely an instrument in this discussion the thesis itself is about an entirely different thing so quite ironically in-depth analyses of actual tactics and fighting techniques tend to be rather rare in the scholarly literature for us some questions were never really answered what was first did tactics cause a socio-political change or did a socio-political change and a surplus in population cause a change in tactics did the changing army structure lead to a centralization of power in western europe or was the change in army structure simply a consequence of centralization if you feel yourself entertained and educated please consider tipping via patreon or paypal these videos take a lot of time and effort to create and a small tip goes a long way in helping us running the channel [Music] you

Channel: SandRhoman History

Views: 713,649

Keywords: infantry revolution, evolution of warfare, 14th century warfare, 15th century warfare, hundred years war, landsknechts, swiss mercenaries, rise of the pikemen, sandrhoman, history, documentary, education, educational, video essay, military history, english longbow, english archer, efficacy of the english longbow

Id: DhXcwWYIMJk

Length: 26min 25sec (1585 seconds)

Published: Sun Feb 21 2021