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De Re Militari | Book Reviews

Witold Sarnecki and David Nicolle

Medieval Polish Armies 966-1500

Men-at-Arms 445 (Botley, Oxford: Osprey Publishing, 2008). 48pp. US$17.95/CDN$21.00. ISBN 978-1-84603-014-7.

This book is without any doubt a welcome addition to the Osprey Men-at-Arms series. If readers interested in medieval history know David Nicolle�s works, among which are a number of Osprey titles, they have now the opportunity to meet a new, young author, Witold Sarnecki. After the brilliant result of this duo, we can only look forward to future collaborations.

In the five centuries under consideration here, Poland was not short of enemies: the Holy Roman Emperors, the pagan tribes of Pomerania, the Russians, and the Teutonic Knights, just to mention some of them. The Polish princes could rely on the druzhina (household troops), whose members were almost full-time soldiers who served as the prince�s bodyguards and as garrisons of small towns. Besides these professionals, the army was largely made up by the levy of all free men elegible for military service, the great majority of whom were infantry. It was in the second half of the eleventh century that the prince�s druzhina began to decline, replaced by the lords� own household troops, while the levy en-masse evolved into a levy of knights. The reign of King Casimir the Great witnessed the most important reforms to the Polish military system: the service consisted of the �expeditio generalis�, made up of the aristocracy and the knights; the mobilization of domains and towns, which mustered the infantry and the �defensio terrae�, the serfs. Mercenaries were first employed on a large scale during the Thirteen Years� War against the Teutonic Order, as firearms were too. In the early sixteenth century the cavalry forces, which had to face mobile enemies such as the Crimean Tartars, underwent some radical changes: mounted archers appeared on the field and the numbers of light cavalry increased considerably.

The next part of the book deals with arms and armour, a subject of which both authors have a wide knowledge. Interestingly, the study of early Polish weapons is lacking of archaeological evidence, so scholars have to rely on what is known of neighbouring countries. For the next periods sources increase, and Western influence on military equipment became more evident and lasted until the middle of the sixteenth century.

A good starting point to a fascinating topic, the book is aimed at a general rather than scholarly audience, and provides a good number of plans, drawings and photos that Osprey have became known for. Noteworthy among the others are a panel painting of the �Massacre of the Innocents� (end of the fifteenth century), another of the battle of Orsha in 1514 and a remarkable bas-relief carving from the Church of St Mary the Virgin in Cracow.

Sergio Mantovani

Independent Scholar <[email protected]>

Page Added: April 2009