Rogers -- Soldiers' Lives through History

Introduction

Clifford Rogers’ contributions to the field of medieval military history need little introduction. His studies of Edward III’s strategy and his participation in the debates over the medieval “military revolutions” have helped make medieval military history an exciting and innovative field of research. His latest book is a worthy addition to his prior work: The Middle Ages, from the series Soldiers’ Lives Through History, is an outstanding survey of the experience of war in the medieval period, drawing on a wide range of primary source material, and is sure to please both scholars and non-specialists (for which latter the volume is especially intended). Although, given the range of the subject, there are areas where one might quibble with choice of emphasis and evidence, it is a remarkable study in a field which has seen many fine ones.

The book is organized in topical fashion, reconstructing a medieval soldier’s experience: “joining the host,” the rigors of camp life, campaigning, and the aftermath of battles. Slightly less time is devoted to sieges (46 pages) than to battles (56), and the “battle” chapter is followed by “the aftermath” of conflict, which essentially adds to the total space given to open-field conflicts. The centrality of battle is doubtless in keeping with Dr. Rogers’ firm belief in the importance of the “clash of arms” to medieval strategists (which belief this reviewer partially shares), but one would have wished slightly more attention given to sieges and “little war,” as the penultimate chapter is entitled. The concluding chapter, a case study of the life of Sir Thomas Gray of Heton (d. 1344), synthesizes the themes of the volume.

Fit and finish

The book benefits from quality fit and finish, with a strong binding and fairly thick pages; it is clear that The Middle Ages is meant to withstand considerable use. The copious illustrations are all black-and-white, and while some color would have been preferable, black-and-white makes the most sense for a volume which is already rather steeply priced. Although certainly within the reach of most institutional libraries’ acquisitions departments, the price tag may discourage general classroom use.

Contents

Chapter 1 Soldiering in Peacetime

The first chapter opens with lengthy quote from Díaz de Gamez’s tales of Pero Niño, through which Dr. Rogers immediately cautions the reader about the sources of medieval warfare. The Spanish warrior’s account “is so one-sided as to be seriously misleading. It depicts some of the hardships that were only occasionally experienced by men on campaign as if they were the norm, contrasts them with a picture of life in peacetime that few could aspire to, and suggests a much stricter line between soldiers and other man than existed in reality” (1-2). The rest of the chapter is devoted to explaining the reality behind the distortions, beginning with the medieval tripartite social theory: those who fight (subdivided into “standing armies, garrisons, and household troops”), those who work (including townsmen and villagers), and those who pray. It is an effective discussion, one which manages to convey general trends in medieval life as they affected soldiering, but without getting bogged down in the endless debates and fine points of medieval social organization and obligation. And it is a tribute to Dr. Rogers’ skill as a writer that he manages to make even this (potentially the driest of chapters!) a lively discussion.

Chapter 2 Joining the Host

Chapter 2 is devoted to that mysterious gap between “regular life” and “military life”, when the medieval soldier would learn a) that there was a war on and b) he was going. An extended discussion of recruitment by the great magnates and their men (27) and the “material preparations” of horsemen (30) develops from this, and Dr. Rogers emphasizes how the need to demonstrate means and social status would often affect the number and type of equipment a lord would bring in his entourage. “Horizontal recruitment” deals with the recruitment and array of the infantry levies (42), and so on through muster and joining the army (47). The attention given to infantry levies is especially welcome, since students, fixated as they often are on the armored horseman, forget all too easily that the bulk of medieval armies did not just appear out of thin air!

Chapter 3 Camp Life and Mobile Operations

In chapter 3 we see the lines begin to blur between life in camp and actual military operations—indeed, as Dr. Rogers points out, camp activities often directly contributed to military effectiveness (69). In considering the camp as a social unit, we are reminded that, in the Early Middle Ages, the army reflected the polity, whereas in the later centuries that was not the case (71). Next follows a vivid description of the army on the march, in which the ever-present need for food and shelter is most often satisfied at the expense of the local population (76). When the banners are unfurled, we are in enemy territory, where scouting, pillaging, and skirmishing are the orders of the day. All-in-all, it is a cogent reminder (and for many students, a discovery), that medieval armies conducted most of the operations which they do today—scouting being an excellent example of this, and one to which Dr. Rogers draws special attention (79).

Chapter 4 Sieges

The siege being such a defining feature of medieval warfare, it deserves careful attention. Dr. Rogers pays the siege its due, in the process highlighting the (underestimated) dilemmas which sieges posed to medieval commanders. Would one try to overwhelm the fortifications immediately? How good was one’s intelligence? If a hasty assault failed, would the commander still have the wherewithal to maintain a longer investment? Defensive sallies (126) posed a genuine threat to an army waiting the right moment to mount a carefully prepared attack (133). Noticeable on occasion is the lack of obvious context for various lengthy quotes, which, in absence of time of place, are rendered somewhat less effective than they would otherwise be.

Chapter 5 Battle

Chapter 5 Battle is the core of The Middle Ages, being the longest chapter in the book. Given the heavy emphasis on the Hundred Years’ War, it may seem somewhat surprising at first that the major example is the Battle of Hastings in 1066 (157). Yet, as Dr. Rogers demonstrates, Hastings actually exhibits most of medieval battle’s major features, from orations to archer skirmishing to major engagements between different types of troops. Features which many students would either take for granted or unknowingly dismiss are painstakingly delineated, not least “the press”—the crushing, claustrophobic chaos once battle was joined. Despite the confusion of “the press”, however, the number of people actually exposed to danger in a medieval army was much smaller than we are accustomed to in a modern army (171-2). It may be assumed that this applies rather more to the winning side.

Chapter 6 The Aftermath of a Victory

If an army was fortunate enough to have taken the field (literally), their tasks did not stop there. The enemy had to be pursued, plunder had to be taken, often assessed and divided, prisoners and ransoms organized. Further, casualties and medical care had to be assessed and administered, while at the same time it was imperative for the army to continue to “hold the field.” One is reminded that victory could easily be as draining an experience as defeat.

Chapter 7 Little War

Since battle, in this account, is the ultimate martial experience, it should come as no surprise that the “other” activities (already partially covered in chapter 3) follow the major engagement (more on this aspect of the book below). The chapter is organized around “raids” (238), “ambushes” (240), “larger forays” (243), reaction (244), “escort duty” (247), “coups de main” (248), and finally that nebulous category, “private wars” (250). In many ways this is the best chapter in the book, with a slightly informal style which makes the text more accessible. Further, it makes us realize that “special operations” are not the domain of twentieth-century armies!

Chapter 8 Conclusion: The Life of One Active Warrior

Rather than a conventional conclusion, Dr. Rogers opts to synthesize the elements of the book by presenting Sir Thomas Gray’s military career. Gray was as “typical” a medieval soldier as one can hope to find, having participated in most types of warfare several times, and as such is an excellent example of how medieval soldiers and commanders seamlessly moved from one area of endeavor to another. On the other hand, we do not get much idea of how Sir Thomas would have spent the majority of his time—i.e., the non-military side of life, the administrative, legal, political, and economic aspects of his posts and positions. Such attention, one might argue, would have further served to place the medieval soldier’s experience in context. Yet Dr. Rogers is doubtless correct when he states that it is possible learn more from one well-chosen case study than we can from numerous graphs and charts about medieval armies (268).

Bibliography

The final gem in the book is the bibliography, which is a goldmine for students and scholars alike (the index, one feels, could have been a tad more extensive). Perhaps the most useful item of all is the list of websites and databases on medieval history, some of which, if one either does not know them or know their exact web address, would be very difficult to find. Combined with the footnote apparatus at the end of each chapter, the bibliography makes The Middle Ages a superb reference tool.

Critiques and major areas of criticism

Encomiums aside, it is only appropriate here to assess areas where some scholars will wish for a different emphasis, arrangement of material, and ontological approach. To start, I would draw attention to a general lack of coverage of the series’ topic: soldiers’ motivation, morale, and ideological make-up. Dennis Showalter’s forward to the series states that “[t]he authors’ intentions are to facilitate understanding of one of history’s fundamental questions: Why do humans fight wars?” (xii). Yet topics which might suggest themselves as possible answers to that question are largely absent from the text, outside of chapter 1 “Soldiering in Peacetime,” and parts of chapter 2 “Joining the Host.” Granted, Dr. Rogers’ study seems to share this feature with Richard A. Gabriel’s companion series volume The Ancient World, and it probably has more to do with the uncertain nature of the sources than anything else. As Michael Prestwich has remarked, “It is hard to reconstruct the cast of mind of those who fought in medieval armies. Numbers of men can be calculated, their food consumption estimated, their speed of march worked out. It is not so easy to depict the cultural identity of the world in which they lived.”[1] Conversely, Showalter’s own volume The Early Modern World (written with William J. Astore) has more space devoted to the larger social and cultural contexts of soldiering—and of course the surviving sources multiply exponentially during this period. Ultimately, however, with The Middle Ages we have a detailed picture of how the medieval soldier fought, but not precisely why—and although a firm believer that the “how” often (at least partially) answers the “why,” I must confess to finding this omission of The Middle Ages rather puzzling, as the next couple of paragraphs may elucidate.

Some scholars will remark on the near-total absence of “medieval chivalry” from the study, with only three references aside from primary source quotations. Yet the undeniable affect which both chivalry and discussions of “the just warrior” had upon the practice of warfare (and by extension the medieval soldier’s life) has been well established by studies such as Nicholas Wright’s Knights and Peasants: The Hundred Years’ War in the French Countryside,[2] Malcolm Vale’s War and Chivalry, and Michael Prestwich’s Armies and Warfare in the Middle Ages: The English Experience.[3] Others might note the scattered treatment of religion throughout the text, with the most detail coming on pages 166-169, where Dr. Rogers reconstructs the suspenseful period before battle. This section also serves as the main (and virtually only) discussion of medieval ideas of the “just war,” centered in large part around the commanders’ supposed battlefield orations. Illuminating reflections by medieval soldiers on just war and soldiering, such as those scattered in the works of Philippe de Commynges and Jean de Bueil, are rather thinly supplied (though Bertran de Born receives a couple mentions). In this connection, it is worth noting that, in addition to Wright’s volume, studies such as David Bachrach’s Religion and the Conduct of War and John Bliese’s articles on battle rhetoric do not appear in the bibliography.[4]

Another area which may cause some scholars to hesitate is in the thematic layout of the text. Given the book’s target audience and purpose, the thematic approach seems well chosen, since it emphasizes the unity of the medieval military experience, as Dr. Rogers himself notes in the preface. Moreover, in an era when most studies of medieval military history emphasize change (the various “revolutions” of medieval military affairs being the obvious example),[5] Rogers’ work is a cogent and timely reminder of the continuities of lived experience across generations—especially given the relative stability of technology during the medieval period. As such, The Middle Ages follows the finest traditions of military history, which see the didactical value of past events to current affairs. It is also calculated to better appeal to the average student, who is likely to want easy access to specific information, such as camp life, pursuit, medical services, and so on, and whose eyes might well glaze over had the book been arranged by chronological watersheds. Indeed, a number of my own students have praised the book for precisely these reasons.

Again, some scholars might criticize the de-emphasis of Carolingian and Ottonian era warfare, but since space is limited, and since those subjects inevitably commit the author to dealing with debates which he is expressly trying to avoid, little need be said about this feature of the work. In any case, differences of opinion and emphasis are often indicated in the copious footnotes. Dr. Rogers has quite appropriately used the sources at his disposal, and they happen to be concentrated in thirteenth-, fourteenth-, and fifteenth-century France and England. However, although material from Spain, Germany, Italy, and elsewhere is not absent, one feels that the volume could have been subtitled “The Hundred Years War.” One might have wished for a closer analysis and larger selection from the Italian wars of the trecento, which would have set the French-English examples in larger context. However, since the average student will find few of these sources translated (as Caferro’s recent biography of Hawkwood makes depressingly clear), their omission makes sense from a pedagogical perspective. Further, although the bibliography’s excellent collection of primary sources contains many rather antiquated translations, it is certain to be useful to teachers constantly looking (and often in vain, one might add) for sources to broaden their students’ research papers.

On the other hand, it is worth pointing out that, while it is good to understand the similarities between a Carolingian warrior of the early ninth century and a man-at-arms from the late fourteenth, identifying the points where their experience differed is of scholarly and pedagogical use as well. A chronological-thematic approach similar to Philippe Contamine’s War in the Middle Ages has much to recommend it. In this regard, one might also wonder at the overall interpretation of medieval warfare which students are rather likely to take from this volume: that of an enterprise which was defined by the (decisive) battle, to which all other forms of combat were in reality ancillary activities. Certainly, fourteenth-century knights like Geoffroi de Charny ranked battle as the highest chivalric endeavor, the defining experience.[6] However, given Dr. Rogers’ caution about taking such accounts as normative, should these professional beliefs be privileged over more general experience? While Edward III may certainly have “sought battle” in 1346, for example, the fact remains that many medieval soldiers, though they mustered to the host, never participated in an engagement larger than perhaps a thousand combatants altogther, and that what Dr. Rogers terms “little war” was in fact “large war” to many combatants, especially in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries.[7] Hence, as John France has demonstrated in Victory in the East, a closer connection between “little war” and sieges, would not have come amiss, since the two—besides being intimately connected—formed a greater part of the medieval soldier’s experience than the average student would realize when reading this study.

Conclusion

These critiques should be read in a spirit of continuing discussion and debate. Given a subject as vast as the one encompassed, The Middle Ages is an outstanding volume, certain to be popular with students and a valuable resource for teachers and scholars alike. In general, Clifford Rogers’ devotion to understanding the how of medieval warfare is successful, and will greatly assist students in coming to the elusive realization that medieval folk were actually very like us, even though they may have lacked radios and MREs. Scholars will appreciate the synthesis of medieval soldiering on a grand scale, and will come away with a renewed respect, both for the ingenuity of the medieval soldier as well as the meticulous scholarship of the author. Soldiers’ Lives Through History: The Middle Ages should be on the shelf of every serious student of medieval warfare.

De Re Militari | Book Reviews

Clifford J. Rogers

Soldiers' Lives through History - The Middle Ages

Greenwood Press, 2007. ISBN: 0-313-33350-5; ISBN-13: 978-0-313-33350-7. 336 pages, figures. $65.00/£37.95.

Notes

Daniel Franke

University of Rochester <[email protected]>