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- [00:02]
Matt Lewis
From long lost Viking ships and kings buried in unexpected places to tales of murder, power, faith, and the lives of ordinary people across medieval Europe and beyond. Join me, Matt Lewis, Dr. Eleanor Jarninger, and some of the world's leading historians as we bring history's most fascinating stories to life. Only on History Hit with your subscription, you'll unlock hundreds of hours of exclusive documentaries with with a brand new release every week exploring everything from the ancient world to World War II. Just visit historyhit.com subscribe.
- [00:42]
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- [01:13]
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- [01:45]
Matt Lewis
Hello, I'm Matt Lewis. Welcome to Gone Medieval. From History Hit, the podcast that delves into the greatest millennium in human history. We've got the most intriguing mysteries, the gobsmacking details, and latest groundbreaking research. From the Vikings to the printing press, from kings to popes to the Crusades, we cross centuries and continents to delve into rebellions, plots and murders, to find the stories, big and small, that tell us how we got here. Find out who we really were with. Gone Medieval. Welcome to this episode of Gone Medieval. I'm Matt Lewis. We're free at last. Eleanor and I are out of the Gone Medieval dungeon. We're in a wide open field, the sun warming our skin white Clouds drifting lazily across the sky. And the sound of. Wait, what's that? The sound of 5,000 heavily armored men on their way to try and kill us. Oh, great. Really? Now you give us a note? We thought it would be interesting to hear you both think about how to win a medieval battle and how overwhelming odds against you might focus your minds. Don't worry. We'll have you back in the dungeon in time to be deprived of your tea, hopefully. Ah, great. Well, if I have to do this, I can't think of anyone I'd rather try and work it out with then. Elena. So here goes. Now, where's our armor and weapons? What? None. Oh, boy. Hello, Eleanor. We've been allowed out of the dungeon, and they've dumped us onto a battlefield. Charming.
- [03:37]
Dr. Eleanor Yanaga
Oh, this is incredibly exciting in one way and horrifying in another. But I'm glad I'm here with you, Matt.
- [03:44]
Matt Lewis
We're gonna get through this together. I mean, we definitely get the worst sides of the medieval world, don't we? It's either dungeons or battles for us.
- [03:50]
Dr. Eleanor Yanaga
Yeah, absolutely. But it is one of these interesting things, I think when you do medieval history, I think one of the big things people always want to talk to you about is stuff like wars and battles. A lot of the time when you say you work on the medieval period, people will say, oh, it's uniquely violent, things like that. And I think that's a really interesting way of approaching it, because medieval battles are actually pretty rare, aren't they?
- [04:16]
Matt Lewis
It's weird, because it's one of those things that people can probably name quite a few really famous medieval battles throughout the period. But actually, they're really spread out across the millennium of the medieval period. And it's hard to find times when there are, you know, relentlessly battles happening all of the time all across the continent of Europe or even wider. They're just not something that people particularly want to engage in because they're dangerous and massively unpredictable. And that's not a situation that anyone wants to get themselves into.
- [04:49]
Dr. Eleanor Yanaga
Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I think that we tend to forget in this era of relative abundance in the modern period, how much it takes to sustain an army. So you need to raise a lot of money in order to go to battle. And if you do go to battle, if you. It's also going to devastate the area around the place of battle as well, because armies can't bring all provisions with them. So they're going to be doing things like living off the land. They are going to steal Your peasants, pigs. Right. Like that's what's going to happen. So people really don't want to have armies in their backyard, even if they think, oh, there's a possibility I could defeat this other guy.
- [05:31]
Matt Lewis
Yeah. And you do see, you know, right at the end of the medieval period, Henry VII famously pays reparations to farmers for fields of crops that have been destroyed by his armies, because it's not a great look for a ruler to be traipsing through the provisions that are meant to help your people get through the winter.
- [05:48]
Dr. Eleanor Yanaga
Yeah, absolutely. And that's one of the reasons we do tend to see people avoiding civil war in particular. Now, that isn't to say it doesn't happen, especially here in England, as you know very well, but I think you absolutely hit on something here where we do know a lot of names of battles, and I think that it's partially because they are so consequential. You know, they're incredibly rare. So as a result, when you have one, it's because something really big is afoot and they tend to have very rapid knock on effects.
- [06:21]
Matt Lewis
Yeah. And it's striking how some of the people that we think of as the finest rulers of this period simply don't engage in battles. We tend to think they'll be good rulers, so they'll be, you know, wading through fields of blood everywhere, hacking peasants to pieces. But, you know, I'm going to take Henry II as someone who I have argued is perhaps the most competent person ever to sit on the throne of England or Britain. That man did not fight a single battle in his life.
- [06:50]
Dr. Eleanor Yanaga
Yeah, absolutely. Henry ii, you know, you and I are Henry the fans. So, you know, you're not going to hear anything different from us. But also, similarly, my favorite Holy Roman imperial guy, Charles iv, doesn't do anything. You know, he's involved in certain battles. So, for example, the Battle of Crecy, but he himself doesn't say, okay, we're leading a big imperial army. Like, this is something that I want to do. It's more like sometimes, I don't know, your uncle starts some things and you have to show up and be like, hey, yeah.
- [07:20]
Matt Lewis
And you've got Philip II in 12th century France is fighting, like, one battle. Even, you know, Henry II's son, Richard the Lionheart, perhaps one of the most famous warrior kings of medieval English history, isn't fighting battles all over the place till he goes on crusade. Really? I mean, yes. It starts to kick off a little bit then, because he's wading into the Holy Land looking to pick a fight. But despite all of the troubles that he has at home, he is not fighting pitched battles in England or France at all.
- [07:51]
Dr. Eleanor Yanaga
And I suppose this is a really important place to make a bit of a distinction, because I'm sure that people are going to be listening to this and thinking, well, what do you mean? I thought that there was, you know, Richard the Lionheart was involved in all sorts of shenanigans. And it's true he's involved in military shenanigans. But, and this is crucial, a siege is not a battle. And I think that people kind of forget. You know, the thing is with sieges, and the reason why you have castles is so that you can get everyone inside and you can just, like, go sit outside and insult each other and, you know, throw things at each other and, you know, wait and see if someone gets hungry enough. And that is not the same thing as a pitched battle where two armies face each other probably in a field.
- [08:32]
Matt Lewis
Yeah. Because a siege has a very particular set of rules that everybody understands, everybody is expected to stick to, and that makes them predictable and makes them relatively safe. Not safe if you're, you know, in the town, starving to death. I don't mean that, but from a commander's point of view, you can be fairly sure what's going to happen in a siege. Either a relieving force will come or you will eventually take the city if they're. They're starved out, if you have the. The resources to do that. Whereas battles are just massively unpredictable. So, you know, Henry ii, he didn't take part in any battles, but this guy is raising tens of thousands of Brabanta mercenaries and stomping them through France, turning up at places he wants to lay siege to. And it gets to the point where he's so effective at this that, you know, his army appears on the horizon and they just put their hands up in the air and they give up. Because he's so good at this, but he doesn't fight battles, and he makes sure that he doesn't have to fight battles. That's what makes him such a good king, I think.
- [09:31]
Dr. Eleanor Yanaga
Yeah, absolutely. And it is this ability to really think about whether or not a battle is necessary or whether or not you should engage in it, that actually makes you a good military leader, in my opinion. However, this isn't to say that battles don't happen. And, you know, listen, what I will say about battles, and indeed our conversation today in general, is that dudes rock. You know, this is. This is Like a real. Like we're getting down into the doodliness of this. This is going to be some real gender history about men. It's quite a fun and interesting to look at through the way that varying rulers decide to get involved in battle. And in particular, I think when we talk about medieval military battles, there's one guy and one book that really takes precedence. Would you agree with me there?
- [10:31]
Matt Lewis
I think so. I'm assuming you're going to say Vegetius de Rey Minotaur. I mean, this is the equivalent of the Bible for soldiers, the medieval period. This is a treatise that is written towards the end of the. The Roman Empire by a man named Vegetas. Maybe it's written by Fidgetus, maybe it's written by loads of people, who knows? And that's not really the point of what we're talking about, but it's a way of, of reflecting on what the Roman Empire had done well and what it had done badly. And it, it constitutes a set of, of advice for a general, for a commander about how to deal with your army, how to operate on campaign. And Fidgetius's main line, you know, if there is one thing that you will take away from Vegetius is this. This man says, don't have battles. He devotes so much time to building camps, to besieging people, to, you know, ravaging the landscape and all of those kinds of things. But he will absolutely say, don't be getting into any battles because it's rubbish. You know, there's a line where he says fortune had more influence than bravery when it comes to battle. You know, you can't win just by being the best prepared, the bravest person on the battlefield. And it's interesting what you say about, you know, this is going to be about dudes rocking, because for so many people, knights and lords and all of those kind of things, they literally spend their entire lives training to do this stuff and then do their best to never have to do it in real life.
- [11:48]
Dr. Eleanor Yanaga
I think it's really cool. Like, I actually think that that restraint in these sorts of things is really admirable. And I like people who are able to say, okay, yeah, I'm a big, bold warrior, but I'm just. We're not going to get into all of that, right. I think that it is one of the things that's really interesting about the medieval period. Now, that isn't to say that I'm saying that every single medieval ruler didn't do things that I think are, I don't know, morally questionable with armies, because. So, for example, ravaging as a technique, one of the things that that does do is it does put a lot of pressures on your small folk and the ordinary people who live in a landscape. So, you know, big example here that springs to mind is Charlemagne, right? So around about 790, he goes and gets into Avvar territory. And we have specific sources from the time that, according to them, say that the territory is left like a desert, according to Einhard on this. And that's not great, you know, but. But it is incredibly effective. And, you know, that is one way of doing things. You can just kind of scorch the earth, such as it is. And people will just say, oh, yeah, actually, it turns out we probably need to eat at some point. Never mind. And then they'll make terms. Right. Because that is also a big part of what medieval people are aiming for. I think with battles, it's not this sort of like, oh, I'm going to take everything. And that can be confusing because, again, you know, we've got famous battles, like, for example, here. You know, you can have battles that mean that the kingdom changes hands completely, but that's totally out of the ordinary. Right. You know, not everything is the Battle of Hastings. Yeah.
- [13:42]
Matt Lewis
Normally, a battle is a kind of a last resort. And you think of things like Agincourt, this is someone who is trapped and forced into giving battle. It's not something commanders will generally want to do. So again, you know, things like the Black Princess CHEV in the 100 Years War, you know, that's completely separate from battles, and that's a tactic that says it's a way of embarrassing your enemy, really, isn't it? Of saying you can't protect your people and of saying to those people whose lands and crops that you're destroying, wouldn't it be better for you if you were part of our team? Because then this wouldn't be happening to you and we would be able to protect you. So it. And, and it's always striking. I mean, things like this. We talk about chivalry throughout this period and, and part of the big code of chivalry is look after the. The peasant folk. You know, you don't be targeting people who can't fight for themselves. Whereas the vast majority of medieval military tactics, whether it's a siege or a Chevy or anything like that, does exactly that. It's targeting the people you're supposed to be protecting. So, yes, yes, we're a very, very chivalrous bunch. Just don't Watch what we're about to do.
- [14:42]
Dr. Eleanor Yanaga
Yeah, listen, the chivalry, right, it's not a written down code. It's more of a vibe. Right. Which is certainly true. And it's more like, I mean, maybe don't be rude while you're doing it, you know, because otherwise people might start asking questions about why we're doing all of this. But yeah, it's absolutely true.
- [15:01]
Matt Lewis
I mean, so we've talked a lot about what isn't a battle. And given that we're here to talk about how you would win a medieval battle, maybe we need to get to a gone medieval, trademark approved version of what a battle is. What do we mean when we talk about a medieval battle?
- [15:15]
Dr. Eleanor Yanaga
Okay, for me, I want a pitched battle. Okay. I need at least two armies. You can have more people have more, you know, I'm not saying that you have to limit yourself. And I want more than one type of combatant. So I don't necessarily care if you just have like a pikeman, infantrymen and cavalry, that's fine if you've got archers in there. I'm gonna start getting more excited because I love an archer moment, but I need you to have kind of like a mix bag of guys who are standing on a field against another mixed bag of guys.
- [15:55]
Matt Lewis
Yeah. And I think you want maybe something to be at stake as well. For the most part, there is a reason that the two armies will have come to a battle, because there will be something really important that he's on the line, I think. Yeah, you've got to be looking at preferably a big open field. Occasionally they happen inside towns and things like that, but that's kind of the exception rather than the rule. So you want a big open field, a couple of armies squaring off against each other, deployed, ready for battle. So both sides are clear that we're here to have.
- [16:27]
Dr. Eleanor Yanaga
Absolutely. So this has to be something that's kind of been announced that they agree upon and then they all show up. Now, you may disagree with us, gentle listeners, and if you do come at me, bro, fight us in the comments. Let me know what you think a battle actually is.
- [16:43]
Matt Lewis
Yeah, comments are open for a medieval battle about what a medieval battle really is. And I guess something else we can talk about. You mentioned there the different kinds of soldiers that you can have within an army. And I guess we ought to talk about what. What makes an ideal composition for an army and is there an ideal composition for an army? Eleanor, if me and you are going to go and have a battle against somebody Else, because obviously we're on the same side.
- [17:10]
Dr. Eleanor Yanaga
Obviously, if we're going to go to.
- [17:12]
Matt Lewis
A battle against somebody else, what are you looking to drum up? What do you want to surround yourself with?
- [17:17]
Dr. Eleanor Yanaga
It depends on when we're doing it, I suppose, because I think that this is something that really changes over the period. Like earlier in the medieval period, I would want to be really heavy on cavalry, right? And I think a really important way to think about cavalry and knights in the medieval period and why they're so important is these are essentially like tanks in the medieval period. You know, war horses are big. They are wearing armor, you know, they're wearing plate, they're wearing mail, they're wearing. They've got huge weapons. And, you know, if you ever stood just next to, for example, a policeman on horseback, you suddenly realize how small.
- [17:59]
Matt Lewis
You are, there's gonna be a reason why police still use things like that today. Because it's a tactic of intimidation, isn't it?
- [18:06]
Dr. Eleanor Yanaga
Absolutely. And it works, right? Well, up to a point. I'm gonna go up to that horsey and attempt to meet it. I'm gonna be so real with you. But, like, probably not a war horse and probably not in battle, but I think that that is a really, really effective, effective thing to do. So I would want earlier on, a lot more horsemen. And I think later on, I am more interested in having rather a lot of archers. I think that projectile weapons are pretty good. Because, listen, if we're listening to Vegidius, right, and we're saying that the best thing that you can do is try to not have a battle. A big thing that also tends to happen in battles is like trying not to get involved, right? So if you've got arrows, you can just like annoy the other side and pick people off until they do something. Right? So I guess that I want a lot of ballistics so that people get a bit harried and they do something stupid that I can take advantage of. What about you?
- [19:06]
Matt Lewis
Archers are great for forcing people to move, aren't they? Because the other thing that Vegetas will say is that as a rule, the first army to move will lose a battle. And I think. I think it's striking how many times you can see that playing out and being absolutely 100% true. So Arch has become a really good way to force your opponent to move because they don't want to stand under hail after hail of thousands and thousands of arrows being slowly picked off. It's going to force them to make the first move, which puts Them at a disadvantage in the battle. And I guess we shouldn't be surprised that we see these tactics changing through the period because the reliance on heavy cavalry means that people are going to come up with a way to defeat heavy cavalry. And you get the development of things like shield walls and children's and all of those kinds of things. And then people have got to find a way to defeat those. And the way to get in amongst those maybe is archers. And by the time you get to the end of the medieval period, we're also dealing with, particularly for the English, the fact that archers are so commonplace. You know, everybody is forced, required by law to pick up a bow and train with it. And they're also cheap. So you get, you can get lots of them for a lot less money. So they become the kind of unit of choice for, for an English army. So I guess as well as when we're fighting, you've got to think about who we're going to be fighting against. Because you might want to add, you know, Henry V will famously on the Agincourt, what becomes the Agincourt campaign. Will, will overload his army with archers because he thinks that's what he needs against the French at that point. So you kind of want to be tailoring your army to the opponent you think you're going to be fighting.
- [20:39]
Dr. Eleanor Yanaga
So that's going to bring us to one of the things that is a bit of a wild card in the medieval period though, which is what if you put your hands together and combine cavalry with archers? Because I'll tell you what, listen, the Mongols are good friends. Gosh, there aren't a whole lot of good answers for that. In the medieval period. It takes lots of people down, it destroys kingdoms, it creates the largest contiguous land empire ever seen. Because if you put enough guys on horseback who are really good at shooting bows, there's only so much you can do for quite some time.
- [21:24]
Matt Lewis
Yeah, I mean if there is a perfect medieval military unit, it might be the mounted archer which is, you know, far more common in the, the near east and across Asia than it ever, ever is in Europe really. We think of the, the English longbow becoming this devastating weapon on the battlefield. But imagine that on a horse. So it's got all of the benefits of, of cavalry. The speed and the ability to get in and get out, but the accuracy and the devastation and the long range effect of a bowman, you combine those two things, it feels like it could be the perfect military unit for the medieval period. And, and it, and that's played out in the fact that no one knows how to beat them.
- [22:04]
Dr. Eleanor Yanaga
Yeah, I think you're right. I think that perhaps here in Europe there is a reason that it's kind of classed that this doesn't develop, because bowmen tend to come from the ordinary groups of people. You know, this is something peasants do. It's something that you order your peasants to do is learn how to use a bow and arrow. And horsies are for fancy lads, all right? So by the time that you're a fancy lad, you're like, I'm not, I'm not going to learn how to do archery. What are you talking about? I've got a big sword, you know, I've got all of these things that are often limited legally, very particularly to the upper classes, because it's part of what denotes you as being noble. Right. So I think that here's one of these times when having a really stratified society can backfire. If what you truly want to do is devastate a bunch of people in a battle.
- [22:52]
Matt Lewis
And the Mongols simply don't have that kind of class system, do they? Everybody is equal. If you can fire a bow from a horse, you're in.
- [22:59]
Dr. Eleanor Yanaga
That's right. And so I think that's one of the reasons why we're all still so obsessed with them. It's a really interesting group of people and an interesting milieu, you know.
- [23:07]
Matt Lewis
Yeah. And I think even for the European archers as well, there's an interesting turning on its head of the chivalric ideas that we were talking about before. This idea that you, you would train to do all of this fighting and this kind of one on one dueling combat to prove who is the greatest soldier. All of that is completely blown away by a bow. And I think that's part of the reason maybe, that the French never really get to grips with the English longbow because they're so obsessed with chivalry and knighthood, they can't comprehend this idea that commoners can take down knights. The commoners are meant to be there for the knights to take down.
- [23:39]
Dr. Eleanor Yanaga
Oh, yeah. And I think that's also a really important thing to talk about. And I never tire of talking about it. You know, for medieval people, warfare and battles, a lot of the time it's, it's really not about killing other knights. I mean, like, please help yourself to peasants. Kill as many as you'd like. You know, all they've got is a big pointy stick and you can go ahead and mow them down what you want to do. Is kidnap other knights, hold them for ransom and make a bunch of money. Right. And that means that you do different things during battles. So that also kind of tends to make sense. If we think that earlier on there's more of an emphasis on cavalry because it's sort of cavalry at cavalry attempting to capture each other. Later on, we have a bit more of an interest in just killing people. And that's also a big reason why the French kind of struggled with English in the Hundred Years War, because they're like. What do you mean? Like, I was just trying to. To uphold the chivalric ideals. I was trying to kidnap guys, you know, I'm trying to get a new war horse out of this. I don't want to kill anybody, you know. And it's a really big shift in terms of how people think about things.
- [24:47]
Matt Lewis
Yeah. And I think there's a great example of that in the. The Battle of Lincoln in 1217. So one of those exceptions, a battle that takes place within the walls of a town. And this is kind of. I mean, William Marshall's there, so it's an obvious reason to talk about the Battle of Lincoln. We love to talk about the Marshall, but the. They, you know, the English get into Lincoln and are attacking the. The French and northern rebel baron forces that are gathered in there. And there is a. A situation in which someone thrusts up a spear and it goes into the visor of the Count of Persh's helmet, this French nobleman. And there is such shock that William Marshal apparently jumps down off his horse, grabs the counter perch's rein and tries to help him. A counter perch kind of falls off his horse after whacking Marshal over the head. And they remove his helmet because they think he's fainted to help him breathe. And they realize that the spear has gone through his eye and into his brain and killed him. And that is literally such a shock that they stop fighting. They stop the battle because a nobleman has died here. That is not meant to happen.
- [25:46]
Dr. Eleanor Yanaga
You know, the battles are not fought to kill other fancy people. They don't care if you live or die, if you're ordinary. But nobility are supposed to be above all of that. I guess that brings me to a question for you, Matt. What are medieval battles for?
- [26:07]
Matt Lewis
They're for avoiding, I think. I think we've already said that. But yeah, I guess, you know, it's a legit question because when we think about battles that happen, particularly between Christian nations in Europe, the Church at this time will say, no shedding of Christian blood. It's a sin. So there's always a lot of mental gymnastics about justifying the fact that you're going to war. And that's why you see William the Conqueror keen to paint Harold as an oath breaker. You know, he's broken his word given on holy relics, therefore the protection of the Christian Church is removed from him. So there are religious reasons that you can get around this idea of battle and there are religious reasons for doing it. So the Crusades, obviously the most famous of those, whether that's in Iberia in the Baltics, or against the Cathars in the south of France or in the near east in the Holy Land, There are religious reasons that you can justify going to battle against people who aren't Christians. You have to do a bit more mental gymnastics to justify going against people who are Christians. And often this will require you to paint them as having, I don't know, having lost the protection of the Church in some way. So there is a propaganda effort that needs to be made to position them as someone that it's justifiable to attack in that way. You might want to have a battle to. Famously, again, the Battle of Lincoln in 1217 is about the fact that William Marshall knows he doesn't have the resources to defeat all of his enemies together, so he manages to catch half of them somewhere. So here's an opportunity to defeat them when he doesn't think he'll be able to do it if they were at their full complement. So you might pick a tactical reason to set Fujitius aside and think, I'm just going to have to do it this time. There is, as you said, you know, there's the financial element of taking hostages. There is, you know, the desire to take territory and to prove something. There is, I think there's an interesting angle in particularly things like Agincourt and Bosworth, where I think you can see a ruler, whether it's Henry V or Richard iii, kind of willing to put their. Their position as king before God for judgment, because the outcome of battles is judged by God, you know, and this plays again into Fidgetius's idea that they're so unpredictable. You can't win simply by having more numbers or better men or whatever else. It's. You can't predict what's going to happen. So the medieval mind believes that God is deciding who wins the battle. So there is an element of being willing to put your cause before God for judgment on the field of battle. Because if you win, man, you are in an unassailable position.
- [28:48]
Dr. Eleanor Yanaga
And I Mean, good thing that you are too, because. So, for example, if you're trying to take over England, you really need people to just kind of accept what happened there as inevitable and divine, I think.
- [29:01]
Matt Lewis
Yeah. And I think we need to talk about if we're going to think about how you might win a medieval battle as well. We need to think about where you're going to fight. Can you influence the chances of winning a medieval battle by the terrain that you choose to fight on?
- [29:16]
Dr. Eleanor Yanaga
Yeah, I think that this is something, for example, that we tend to see come into play a lot in the Near East. So one big thing that tends to be employed, especially like people like Saladin, quite famously, for example, one of the things they're going to attempt to do is draw you away from sources of water, right? So, you know, pick a terrain where the invading army, the people who are kind of coming in, who don't know where things are, where you can cut off their supply lines, where they're not going to have a good way of doing things. That's like one incredibly common tactic. It's just that Saladin is quite good at it. Another thing that you might attempt to do is have the high ground. Right. And you know, this is so incredibly common that we now use this as a way of talking about intellectual arguments or moral arguments. Right. Like having the high ground.
- [30:16]
Matt Lewis
And also Obi Wan Kenobi knows that's right. It's over, Anakin.
- [30:23]
Dr. Eleanor Yanaga
So I think that that's, you know, both of these are kind of like really, you know, important things. So looking at maybe if you are a little bit under sourced, is there something that you can use to your advantage, like forest? That is something that will come up a lot. My good friends the Hussites use this quite often. They will kind of come out of forests and things like that and then go back in, you know, which is a nice hit and run sort of a technique. But that is usually a specific technique that you use when you are not nobility.
- [30:59]
Matt Lewis
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- [33:23]
Matt Lewis
World where swords were sharp and hygiene.
- [33:26]
Dr. Eleanor Yanaga
Was actually probably better than you think it is. Two fearless historians, me, Matt Lewis, and me, Dr. Eleanor Yanaga, dive head first into the mud, blood and very strange custom systems of the Middle Ages.
- [33:40]
Matt Lewis
So for plagues, crusades and Viking raids, and plenty of other things that don't rhyme, subscribe to Gone Medieval from History Hit wherever you get your podcasts. There's two things if we want to think about how to win a medieval battle, we're either going to be in a position where we appear to have most of the advantages or where we don't appear to have most of the advantages. So there are two situations that we can think about. How? How are you going to win if you look like you're going to win? Because I think probably maybe the vast majority of battles that people will think of off the top of Their head are when the underdog actually wins. So if we're the favorites going into this battle, what can we do to help us try and drive home all of those advantages? And I think what you said about Saladin then, and particularly the Battle of Hatin, is a perfect example of how to win a fight when you should win a fight.
- [34:49]
Dr. Eleanor Yanaga
Everyone kind of expected he was going to win, although, I don't know, the Europeans for some reason went with it anyway. I suppose that's just a God thing and that's the difficulty of really sort of believing that God will be involved in the outcomes of battles. Right. So we've got Saladin on one side and then we have Guy de Lusignan on the other. And basically Saladin has about maybe twice as many men, at least 1.2 times as many men. So a lot, a lot more guys. So we do know that there is at least a numerical advantage there. So, you know, he can really afford to, to drag Gi further and further from water, you know, because it could just be like, yeah, what about now? And just wait it out, right? So he lures them out into the desert and this is also a very smart kind of thing to do because it's not just that it's the desert, it's that it's also in theory the territory of one of the Franks. Right. And so the Frenchmen don't necessarily think that they're kind of like wrong footed here. And that's very smart. Right. So not only has he kind of like used the terrain to his advantage, he's also used essentially a psychological tactic here, I would say.
- [36:10]
Matt Lewis
Yeah, And I think it's a really good example of someone like Saladin, a great military leader, and not necessarily a European who is focusing too heavily on Vegetius, like many of the people we've spoken about, but nevertheless recognizing that simply having the numbers isn't enough. And he is going to eke out every single possible advantage that he can get. He is going to drag the Crusaders away from their cities, he's going to drag them away from their water supplies, he's going to force them to march through sandy deserts in their armor when that's going to cause them discomfort and they're going to get exhausted and hot and he's going to absolutely milk every single one of those things until he is ready. You know, this is not about thinking that he's going to fight when the Franks want to fight. He's going to fight when he thinks they are so utterly beaten down by the things that he's done to them that they have no hope of winning. He's not saying, I've got twice as many men. This is going to be dead easy. Pick a time and place and I'll meet you there. He is recognizing that despite his numerical advantage, he needs more. He needs his enemy to be at much more of a disadvantage before he's actually willing to throw some soldiers into this.
- [37:22]
Dr. Eleanor Yanaga
What I really like about Saladin is he is in some ways, like, I guess maybe the Napoleon of the Middle Ages where people are like, ooh, stupid Saladin. I respect him so much. Europeans are like obsessed with him. They're constantly trying to fight him, but at the same time being like, what's he like? Saladin? He's so smart.
- [37:43]
Matt Lewis
Yeah. And I think that is exemplified by Richard I's relationship with Saladin, which is so interesting, I think, because they are mortal sworn enemies who are desperate to kill each other. And yet they seem to have this really friendly, banter filled relationship of sending each other gifts and whatever else whilst doing horrendous things, killing people all over the place and killing prisoners and all sorts of stuff like that. But there is this weird respect between them that I think game recognizes game.
- [38:16]
Dr. Eleanor Yanaga
Listen, Matt, I said it before this episode. I'm not gonna stop saying it. Dudes rock. It's beautiful. This is a beautiful form of masculinity, and I'm into it. But okay, listen, if this is how you win, when you've got the advantage and everyone expects you to win, how do you win if it would be weird that you do?
- [38:34]
Matt Lewis
Yeah, fingers crossed.
- [38:36]
Dr. Eleanor Yanaga
Say you're in the minority. You know you're in the minority. Maybe you're not on your home terrain. What do you need to do to win?
- [38:42]
Matt Lewis
I think this is about the leader, a good general looking to do exactly the opposite of what Saladin's done. You know, how can I maximize what I do have? Let's not think about what I don't have. I don't have enough men. You know, I might be on foreign soil. Things aren't going my way, but what can I do? What can I leverage? And again, you talked a little bit about terrain. So we think about Agincourt. You know, Henry V is leading a few thousand sick men who have marched for miles and miles and miles across France on barely any food. They're exhausted, they're starving to death. They are massively outnumbered by the French in front of them. And Henry is thinking, how can I fix this? And he absolutely leans into that. The hot gates of Thermopylae, kind of narrow the field of battle so that their numbers count for less. So he picks a. A field between two wooded areas because he knows the French are going to be relying on their heavy cavalry. The field between them is a heavily plowed field, so nowhere near ideal for horses to be charging across anyway. So he is trying to negate every advantage that the French would have against him. And he's. He's again, populated his army so heavily with archers that he feels like this must give him an advantage. And he stations them at, throughout his army to make the absolute most of them. When the French charge to create these kind of overlapping fields of fire that the horses are going to have to try and run through. And then, I mean, he obviously gets a bit of luck as well, because it rains the night before Agincourt. So that ploughed field becomes a muddy ploughed field, which is even better for Henry and even worse for the French. And here's an opportunity to say, well, you know why that is? That's because God loves me.
- [40:29]
Dr. Eleanor Yanaga
You're absolutely right. I. I think that this is a really important point. One of the big things they're going to try to do is take out the advantage of cavalry. So, for example, we see a lot of that on display in Bannockburn as well.
- [40:44]
Matt Lewis
Yeah. So, again, the English have turned up with an absolutely vast army against Robert the Bruce, you know, and they're much like the French at Agincourt, ridiculously cocky, absolutely certain they're going to devastate the Scottish army here. And what Robert the Bruce has here is an element of surprise. So, you know, the French knew that the English are going to rely on archers at Aincourt. What Bruce does at Banit Burn is take the English completely by surprise. So he forces them to cross a narrow part of the. The Bannock Burn the stream, by digging kind of holes on. On the other side of it so that the horses can't sort of walk through that. They have to use a narrower place. So he's slowing them down, getting across there. And then he. He sticks all of these children out on the. The field, so these kind of rectangular groups of men with their spears facing out, the hedgehog kind of formation. And this is your standard defense against cavalry. So they will stand there and they will brace and rely on the fact that the horse won't charge into the. The spear, or even if the horse is brave enough to do that, that the spear is going to keep them far enough away from you. But the, the surprise that Robert the Bruce has, for the English is that he's managed to train his children to move. And you can kind of imagine the English going, haha, the old children tactic, hey, we can, we can deal with this. And then the children start to move towards them and it's like the English just go, what? What? No, no, don't know how to deal with this. Cannot compute 404 error. And they just, you know, they bug out and they just don't have a clue how to deal with this kind of innovative tactic that Robert the Bruce has come up with. And it seems, it seems almost simple, you know, do something unexpected, make your children move.
- [42:27]
Dr. Eleanor Yanaga
Yeah, absolutely.
- [42:28]
Matt Lewis
But it works.
- [42:30]
Dr. Eleanor Yanaga
And it really, really works too. Like, this is a humiliation, it's not just a defeat, it is crushing. And we'll go some way to dampening English spirits for a little while, although it's not going to stop them trying it on, as we will see for the rest of the medieval period. But I think that one of the things that Bannockburn also really shows us is that one of the really big things that you kind of need to do in order to win a medieval battle is be adaptable. But there's a certain difficulty within that because you kind of need to, to have a plan B that you communicate beforehand to people.
- [43:17]
Matt Lewis
Yeah. So we see so many armies will have a battle plan. You know, fortunately, not many of them survive for us, but there will have been a battle plan set out the day before or days before in preparation for this meeting. And before Bannockburn, you know, we see, I think, the Earl of Gloucester arguing with Edward II that they shouldn't give battle, and Edward calls him a coward. And so Gloucester is so enraged by this that he rides off into the Scots at Bannockburn on his own, effectively, and ends up getting himself killed. Because there is a certain inflexibility about some of these. And it appears to me to be that the bigger the army, the less flexible they become. So you think about the English at Bannockburn, you think about the French at Agincourt, and they kind of relentlessly rely on a single tactic that they utterly believe is going to work. So despite the French having trouble getting across the muddy plowed field at Agincourt and facing the arrows that are taking them down, and the fact that they're. They're having to clamber over the dead bodies of their comrades and being suffocated in the mud and all that kind of thing, they just keep sending more cavalry forwards because it's almost like they. They don't have that plan B. And as you said, once you get onto a medieval battlefield, it's so hard to communicate a completely radical change of plan that you almost have to have had Robert the Bruce's brilliant moving childrens lined up beforehand. It's so hard to suddenly change what you're doing on a medieval battlefield, I think.
- [44:45]
Dr. Eleanor Yanaga
Yeah. I mean, now soldiers can have headsets on, and they can receive new orders at any given moment. You know, eventually we will come up with things like semaphore and, you know, different ways of communicating, but we've just not got those yet in the medieval period. So it's sort of like there's plan A. Go for it. And, I mean, I think we definitely also see this, for example, the Battle of Hastings. That's maybe one of the issues that the. The English have. You know, they've got the shield wall that they've got up, and it works really well for most of the day. You know, they're like, oh, yeah, great. We're exhausting. All of these Norman cavalry that are just crashing against us, and then the Normans feign retreat, and they're like, oh, okay, well, that's. That's done. Fantastic. And then suddenly, once they've surrendered the hill, because they started walking off, that's it. They're done. Right. So whether or not that was something that was intentional on the part of William the Conqueror, we don't know. We can't. We know that this happens. We know there's this feigned retreat, but at the same time, we don't even necessarily know if it is feigned retreat. We know they retreated, and then maybe they're like, oh, hang on a minute. It seems like they've gone off the hill. It seems like the shield walls are. Well, how about now? Right. And I think that to an extent, one of the reasons that we see that is that I think William the Conqueror knows that if he doesn't win this battle, he's maybe had his chips at least, you know, this year, and how's he gonna get everybody back over to Normandy and everything? Like, you know, he's facing a lot of things. So it's sort of a now or never kind of moment.
- [46:21]
Matt Lewis
Yeah. So there's an element. If you. If you don't necessarily have everything in your favor, desperation can. Can kind of work in your favor to being against all of those odds and. And having to fight for your life rather than for, you know, some abstract sense of glory or nobility or chivalry or something like that. The fact that you are with your back against the wall and you've. You've got to fight, and you've got to fight for the man next to you, and he's got to fight for you, that seems like it can count for a lot sometimes.
- [46:49]
Dr. Eleanor Yanaga
Yeah, absolutely. I mean, can you make a quick decision? Can you inspire people to follow you when you've done that? That's a big question. So I think that that thinking on the fly is incredibly important, but it's also something that doesn't come naturally to a society that is stratified in a very particular way and that really reveres particular battle techniques written by one guy in the Roman period.
- [47:20]
Matt Lewis
You know, why change it? Why change it? And I guess the. The other thing, if you want to win a medieval battle, you've got to be thinking about who your commander is. Probably you and I aren't commanding an army on a battlefield. We're going to have a superior, and so much of it is going to depend on his. And I'm saying his. It's going to be his competence or lack thereof, isn't it? You know, you. A brilliant general can swing a battle in the same way that a terrible one can lose it for you.
- [47:50]
Dr. Eleanor Yanaga
Oh, absolutely. And I mean, this is one of those big things that we see. For example, again, we have to keep bringing him up. Saladin, right. He is an incredible tactician, which is how he got to the level that he did to begin with. You know, the reason why Europeans are fighting him. You know, he's already come out of Egypt, right? So he's been. He's been fighting, like, the local rulers as well, you know, and it's like, well, what's one more. What's one more battle, right? And if I can fight the locals who have provisions and actually know what's going on, how much easier is it going to be to fight a bunch of guys who just got off a boat? Right? It's going to be a little bit easier. But he's, I think, one of those really big names for a good reason, Right? Yeah.
- [48:33]
Matt Lewis
And I think the same is true of Richard the Lionheart, you know, his famous kind of rival. He gets an awful lot of stick for not being a very good king of England, not caring about England, not looking after his territories in Europe very well. But you put him on a battlefield in the near east, in hostile territory that he's not used to, and this man is working wonders. You know, he. He is a devastatingly effective general and leader of an army in the same Way, I think Henry V, you know, come back to Henry the Fish and that Agincourt, he is absolutely driving that day. And I think with Henry V, you get that sense that he puts himself on the front line of his army, despite the fact that they're massively outnumbered, despite the fact that they may well get slaughtered and all ridden down by a charge of the heavy cavalry. He's going to stand there with all of his men. And you contrast that with the French, where, you know, Charles VI isn't present, Charles V, 6 heir, the Dauphin isn't present. And there is a real difference there in the kind of the inspiring impact that a good leader can have.
- [49:36]
Dr. Eleanor Yanaga
Well, I want to talk about a leader now. And actually, you should congratulate me for making it this long without bringing up Janzika. So, you know, I think, please, everybody, clap. I did it.
- [49:51]
Matt Lewis
I mean, to be fair, you mentioned the Hussites earlier, and I thought, you know what?
- [49:55]
Dr. Eleanor Yanaga
It's like, she's gonna do it. She's gonna listen. Look, look at the restraint. But I think that it's very important to talk about Janyzka, because he is one of the most important medieval military leaders. And he's right at the end of the period. Absolutely. But he wins every single battle that he commands between 1420 and 1424. And he does this, I hasten to add, in the face of incredible outnumbering. There are over the Hussite war periods. There are several crusades that are called against the Hussites, and the armies of Europe just descend on them because it's like, hey, free land in the first place. You know, if the Pope is excommunicated, people, you know, they're. They're not. They don't count as Christians anymore. And Bohemia is one of the richest kingdoms in the country. So of course you're gonna just throw everything at it. But Janzicka comes up with this incredible tactic that we call the Wagenberg. And it is essentially a thing where they would take wagons and then they would connect them up, usually into a square or a circle, and then you kind of chain them together, and then they're on kind of like a cant, like slightly on their side, so you can't get over them. Then they would dig a ditch around this, and they would have a certain number of soldiers, usually between 16 and 24. You're going to have about four to eight varying crossbowmen, a couple of handgunners, because we have guns by this point in time. But, like, let's be so real, it's going to take you like 15 minutes to reload your gun. So you have a couple of those. And then they would have soldiers that have either pikes or flails. And so these are really. These are commoners weapons, right? These are things that anybody can use. Like you can pick up a flail and give someone a whack with it. You can pick up a pointed stick, all right? And what they would essentially do is they would get their little Wagenberg in place, and then they would just annoy the hell out of the army because they would just like keep taking shots at them until they provoke them into doing something. Then they would use the artillery to specifically aim at the cavalry, which you can get really good casualties. And also the horses, you know, they're very big, but they can't get over the Wagenberg. And then eventually when they fall off their horses or things like that, and they realize that the advantage has been lost on the opposite side, then they come out from behind the Wagenbergs, they very quickly stab everybody, and then they already have their horses linked up to their wagons, and then they just peace out. They're like, goodbye. And it's hilarious because this works for four years. They do not change tactics at no point in time. And they will continue to do this over the period of the Hussite wars. They don't stop doing it. There is no answer to this at all. From the Catholic side. They don't really know what to do. At some points in time, they attempt to try to do it, but it actually takes training, it takes drilling to do it. So they try to do it themselves. And they're very bad at it because, like, trying to get a bunch of knights to do it. The knights are like, oh, I'll do it on the day. I don't want to practice. You know, Whereas these are, you know, just some regular guys who are doing it. And work's a treat. So shout out to Janzicka, who came up with one of the coolest battle tactics ever.
- [53:44]
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- [54:14]
Tara Davis Woodhull
Hey, this is U.S. olympic gold medalist Tara Davis Woodhull. And I'm U.S. paralympic gold medalist Hunter Woodhull. As athletes, our lives are about having a clear path and a team that you can absolutely trust. So when it came to getting the best mortgage, we chose PennyMac. PennyMac is proud to be the official mortgage provider of Team USA.
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- [55:01]
Matt Lewis
Yeah, I mean, I think three, three things strike me about this as you're talking about it. It's the. The reliance on the common folk. So again, you don't have to be massively highly trained, you don't have to be rich to be able to afford the equipment that they're going to use to do this. It's something that you can very quickly train almost anyone to do, which makes it incredibly easy to put into place, easy to teach people, and therefore an effective tactic. It also sounds a little bit like portable high ground. You're getting all of those advantages of being on the high ground, but you can take your wagons anywhere and set up your own little bit of high ground with a ditch round it, sort of tilted wagons, creating that sense that you can't get up, you can't get to the enemy, and you've got a position to defend. And the third thing is that all the time that you were talking, I was just hearing the A Team music, because this sounds like the A Team getting into a garage and welding up a bulletproof lorry with rocket launchers in the back of it and then bursting out and magically escaping when nobody thought they could. It sounds Janzicka should be in the A team.
- [56:02]
Dr. Eleanor Yanaga
I mean, you know, we're pitching it right now. That's our copyright. You can't steal right now.
- [56:08]
Matt Lewis
Yeah, the J Team.
- [56:10]
Dr. Eleanor Yanaga
Oh, I love. Come on, Hollywood. I'm telling you. But, and also, I guess that we should kind of point out here, though, but Janczyka's also got those other real medieval things that, you know, help, you know, people really believe in him. He's got a bit of a cult of personality going on. You know, he's not a king or Anything. But everybody wants to fight with Janizika. And the Hussites are desperate. You know, they are trying to protect their own homeland from foreign invaders. So that helps. You know, they know where all their supplies are. Everyone else has come from outside, and they believe that they are chosen by God, which helps, you know, so they've got a lot of belief on their side. They also do some things like execute their prisoners, which. Listen, don't come over here then. If you don't. If you don't want that to happen. But I feel like that's one thing where, like, that's written a lot about in sources where they're like, oh, Jesus, these chicks are just killing people. And the checks are like, yeah, we told you not to come here. And, like. And, like, there's a lot written, for example, that, like, women are often fighting. And it's like, yeah, because you attacked the town, dude. And then they're like, those ladies are bloodthirsty. To which I say, yes, I am. It's genetic.
- [57:32]
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- [57:32]
Dr. Eleanor Yanaga
I can't help it, you know, so.
- [57:34]
Matt Lewis
And I guess the flip side of this is for. For all of the positive impact that a good leader, a good general can have, there is the bad impact that an equally ineffective leader can have, which we, you know, we talked a little bit about Bannockburn. Well, Edward II is at Bannockburn with the English army and is sort of, you know, dragged away by his men when it's going badly because he has to flee the battlefield because they're terrified he's going to get caught or killed. And, you know, he's fallen out with his nobleman the day during the night before. He's had arguments. He's been calling his nobleman cowards and questioning their advice on tactics and stuff like that. So, you know, really not creating this cohesive sense of common purpose, and the outcome is disastrous for him. You get people like John King John, you know, losing territory all over the place. And, I mean, it's tricky saying he lost the Battle of Bouvines because he wasn't there, but maybe that was the mistake that he made. You know, the biggest battle of his reign, and he's not even there. You get Charles VI again, not at Agincourt, Henry VI in England, you know, an ineffective leader who can't lead his men onto the battlefield, constantly losing battles and fights everywhere. So for all of the positives that a good general can bring, there is the real danger that a bad one can bring as well.
- [58:51]
Dr. Eleanor Yanaga
Yeah, listen, imagine being such a bad king and so bad at war that everyone is like, you can't name him John. Like, again, like you can just say King John because we just said the one. Because everyone is like, no, absolutely not. Do not get involved in that. It's a bettinglet.
- [59:09]
Matt Lewis
Yeah, yeah. And I guess the trouble is if you're on a medieval battlefield and you're following Edward II into battle, there's not much you can do about that because those kinds of people as well aren't usually very good at recognizing their own failings and delegating. You know, find, find the inspiring general from amongst your men and allow them to do the thing that you can't do. And this is, this is what I will always say in defense. As much as I hate defending Henry Tudor, Henry vii, he gets, you know, called a coward an awful lot for hanging around at the back of Bosworth and Stoke and things like that. But I think this is a man who knows he can't do that. And in the Earl of Oxford, he's got a really competent, experienced general who knows how to organize an army, inspire men and fight. And Henry says, will you go and do what you can do? I'll sit back, you know, I'll. I don't know what he does, but, you know, I'll have a cup of tea and a biscuit. But that's the best thing that he could do. If he'd been so bloody minded that he has thought, I'm going to lead these men into battle, he would probably have lost both of those fights because it's not what he's good at. And the one thing about Henry VII is that he recognizes that.
- [60:12]
Dr. Eleanor Yanaga
And I think that it will, this will eventually lead to the downfall of, for example, Edward ii. Right. Because this is. He's not liked by his men. They're like, look, I'm not going to go against you because I don't want to get embarrassed in front of the Scottish, like, please. But then it becomes not particularly popular to support him later on, you know, when he's under attack, you're just sort of like, what is the use of you? Exactly. You know, and there are two things can be true. You can say that someone is your king and that you should sort of follow them. But if you really do put your followers into stupid positions, risk their lives, which so many people are lost at, panic burn, which that it's just not supposed to happen. So that just shows that there is no real reason why the nobility should support him. So that really comes back to vitamin.
- [61:02]
Matt Lewis
Yeah.
- [61:02]
Dr. Eleanor Yanaga
In the end, I would Say, and.
- [61:03]
Matt Lewis
I guess, you know, having mentioned Henry vii, I guess we're getting to the end of the medieval period, so we ought to have a think about how medieval battles change by the end of the period, because I think by the time we get to the end of the medieval period, we're really seeing a shift away from the siege warfare that has been dominant. You know, we've been talking about battles, but we mentioned at the start that really the way you do war in the medieval period is, is by siege. And the, the increasing prevalence throughout the, the 15th century of, of gunpowder weapons as cannons as a way of, of defeating castles, of pummeling down walls, changes the way that people have to think about war by the end of the period.
- [61:45]
Dr. Eleanor Yanaga
Oh, absolutely. And I think that we begin to see this effect fairly early on, you know. So, for example, you know, our girl Joan of Arc, one of the things that she's quite.
- [61:55]
Matt Lewis
Oh, if only there was a good documentary about Joan of Arc.
- [61:57]
Dr. Eleanor Yanaga
Only if only two people didn't have an interesting conversation about the siege of Orleans, for example. But one of the things that, that Joan of Arc is really good at doing, other than inspiring people, you know, she's very good at, you know, saying, I've been sent by God, You've been blessed. She's also really good at canon placement, which. Okay, fair enough. Who's to say she isn't sent by God? Because how else did a peasant girl learn this? But she's really good at understanding how to use canon in particular. And that's the major thing that she advises with. You know, people tend to say, oh, yeah, and then she advised in battle. And like, I think that for one reason or another, this was the thing. And that is incredibly important for the siege of Orleans in 1428. But then also repeatedly also, this is one of the things that really takes down the English time and time again is cannon placement. And this is a very interesting kind of thing because you can be a little bit more mobile with cannon. You can kind of bring them with things. Previously, if you were trying to lay waste to castles or cities, you would need something like, you know, siege weaponry. You're going to need, you know, a trebuchet, and I love a trebuchet, but that's like something you need to assemble on the spot. A cannon you can kind of bring along. That's cool.
- [63:22]
Matt Lewis
Yeah.
- [63:22]
Dr. Eleanor Yanaga
And.
- [63:23]
Matt Lewis
And I think the, the gunpowder weapons in France become the equivalent of the English war bow that the French have never managed to come to terms with. The cannon kind of does the Same thing to the English, for the French. The English just don't know how to deal with all of this. And we see the, the impact of gunpowder is kind of fairly universal across the continent in this period too, because you think of the shock of the fall of Constantinople in 1453, where the Ottoman under Sultan Mehmed II uses a huge bronze cannon to destroy the walls of Constantinople, which were thought to be indestructible. These things had stood for centuries and centuries and were thought to be unbreachable. No one was ever going to break the walls of Constantinople. Mehmed brings up a cannon and goes, doink. There you go. That's how you do it. And I think that is changing the way that people think. They think of castles as safe. As long as you've got food and water, that's the only thing that's going to defeat you in a castle. And all of a sudden you've got these new forms of weaponry that render your castle kind of useless. Pointless.
- [64:34]
Dr. Eleanor Yanaga
Yeah. And this is going to mean that we have to completely rethink how we protect cities and castles. Although I want to just shout out really quickly Mehmet II's very cool canon which is named Basilica. You know, you're, you know you're in a problem. Okay. By the time you got a name for the thing, it's like, it's like the Warwolf on the giant trebuchet.
- [64:58]
Matt Lewis
Fetch Basilica.
- [65:00]
Dr. Eleanor Yanaga
My favorite, my favorite fun fact about this is in order to cool the gun down between firing, because water was at a premium, they were pouring olive oil over it. And I just love a world where olive oil is in better supply than water. But, you know, that's fun. And I'm just like.
- [65:16]
Matt Lewis
And also a perfectly greased cannon.
- [65:18]
Dr. Eleanor Yanaga
Basilica and olive oil. Yum, yum. Delicious.
- [65:23]
Matt Lewis
And I think, I do think it's this advent of gunpowder weapons and cannons and things that causes the divergence. So castles cease to be a thing of any real importance. And you see this divergence between what are more like gun forts and, and also the, the country house, the, the more palatial, unfortified, comfortable home that people are going to live in. Because there's no point having an uncomfortable, drafty castle when it doesn't do what you used to need it to do. So you see this, this kind of divergence in two directions of the military gun fort and the comfortable country home, which in a sense makes battles more likely and more commonplace over the, the centuries that follow. Because now you've removed the way that fighting has been done for a thousand years, predominantly by siege. It's no longer an option. Your only real option that you have left is to think about a pitched battle in the field.
- [66:17]
Dr. Eleanor Yanaga
Yeah. And Lord knows we're going to have a lot of those over the early modern and into the modern period. But, I mean, you're absolutely right. We have this move in terms of large fortifications, especially towards the starfort, which are cute and very pretty. And so one of the big things that you will do in order to get out in front of cannon is you put varying points at the end of each of the squares of your castle. Or indeed, oftentimes they're more rounded off because it prevents them from collapsing quite as easily if they're hit with cannon. And then this just kind of prevents the guns from getting a better placement on your fort. But no rich guy's going to go live in that at this point in time. They say, never mind. Like, you know, just throw a star fort up there. I'm going to go build a new luxurious country home. I'm going to do it in the park of the castle. And then we're all going to look out the windows of the castle at the ruin of the castle and say, hmm, beautiful.
- [67:09]
Matt Lewis
You know. Yes. I mean, again, I think we can talk about how the medieval millennium there has ultimately revolutionized warfare. It's changed it forever by the end of the period.
- [67:19]
Dr. Eleanor Yanaga
Absolutely. Not necessarily for the better. One of the things that we will see with this giant shift to having pitched battles is much higher casualties. Certainly the introduction of gunpowder weapons sees to that as well. A lot easier to kill someone from far away with a gun. You get a lot less moral injury than if you actually have to walk up to them and stab them, it turns out. And also, it just is, you know, they're more effective weapons. You can kill more people with machine gun spray, for example. So one of the big things that we will see in modern warfare is a much higher kill count. And we do tend to see things like, for example, more battles taking place in cities, things like this. So, you know, modernization isn't always a good thing, but we can't say that medieval people didn't contribute to that. So what are you gonna do, you know?
- [68:16]
Matt Lewis
Yeah. So, I mean, I guess in summary, there's a fair bit of advice in there for how to win a medieval battle. If you ever find yourself stuck in one, you're gonna want. You're gonna want a good general, preferably Janzika, if at all possible, if he's available. Get him drafted in. You're going to want a variety of different units. You are going to want to leverage every advantage that you possibly can, whether you. Whether you have the numbers and you look on paper like you should win or whether you look like you might lose. Look for the advantages and make the absolute most of those that you possibly can believe. You've got God on your side, I guess, is a. Is a pretty big one that seems to motivate and drive people, too. And yeah, good variety of units in there and have a. If at all possible, have a shock tactic, a surprise tactic. Have a moving Schulter and have a Wagonberg, something like that. Think what the 18 would do in this situation.
- [69:07]
Dr. Eleanor Yanaga
Break the rules, I would say.
- [69:11]
Matt Lewis
I think I'm still giving away how much of an 80s kid I am by mentioning the A team every 10 minutes.
- [69:15]
Dr. Eleanor Yanaga
I love that.
- [69:17]
Matt Lewis
Right. Well, I mean, I guess, you know, you and I are about as ready as we're going to be to head off into a medieval battle somewhere. We just need to find us a fight to get involved in.
- [69:26]
Dr. Eleanor Yanaga
Which fight would you pick? You can go to any battle where you want.
- [69:29]
Matt Lewis
A tricky one. I mean, I feel like I would want to be at the Battle of Towton because there's so many stories told about Towton that we don't know if it's true or not. It would be interesting to see. And I think it's one where people are moved off the high ground using archers, which influences the outcome of the battle. And maybe fought in the snow, maybe fought in high winds. Who knows for sure? But I think there's some interesting tactics that go on at Towton as we understand it at the moment. So I might like to see that. I don't know which side I want to be on. The winning side, obviously.
- [70:03]
Dr. Eleanor Yanaga
Well, you know, I kind of. I'm hoping to be a fly on the wall, I suppose, in all of these things.
- [70:07]
Matt Lewis
How about you? Which. Which Janzika victory would you like to be at?
- [70:12]
Dr. Eleanor Yanaga
Let's just go for the classic. Let's go for the Battle of Prague. I want to see, you know, original flavor. Let's just. I want to see Sigismund get embarrassed. Get out of my town. That's get. Please. I'm not interested in all of this. So, yeah, do you know what? It's a classic for a reason. We simply love to see it. Husseights forever.
- [70:33]
Matt Lewis
Yeah, Perfect. Well, let's see if we can fight our way out. We need to escape, flee, run away.
- [70:40]
Dr. Eleanor Yanaga
I'm right behind you.
- [70:42]
Matt Lewis
Probably my reaction to a medieval battle, if the truth be known.
- [70:44]
Dr. Eleanor Yanaga
Just run. Just run.
- [70:52]
Matt Lewis
Yeah, please.
- [70:53]
Dr. Eleanor Yanaga
I actually don't want to be involved though. Thank you very much.
- [70:56]
Matt Lewis
Don't want any of this. It's been fantastic to talk to you again, Elena. Thank you very, very much.
- [71:00]
Dr. Eleanor Yanaga
Always a pleasure, Matt. Thank you so much.
- [71:05]
Matt Lewis
Well, we made it back to the dungeon. Never thought I'd be relieved to hear the latrine shoot dripping. I hope you found that interesting and maybe helpful. If you ever face hundreds of angry knights baying for your blood, you can catch other episodes Eleanor and I have done together on the periodization of the medieval era, what the early and high Middle Ages are and why we have them. There are new installments of Gone Medieval every Tuesday and Friday, so please come back to join Eleanor and I for more from the greatest millennium in human history. Don't forget to also subscribe or follow us on Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts and tell all of your friends and family that you've gone medieval. You can also sign up to History Hit for hundreds of hours of original documentaries with a new release every week@historyhit.com subscribe anyway, I better let you go. I've been Matt Lewis and we've just Gone medieval with History.
- [72:21]
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Dr. Eleanor Yanaga
The IRS said I filed my return, but I haven't.
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Dr. Eleanor Yanaga
My refund though. I'm freaking out.
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Dr. Eleanor Yanaga
I'm so relieved.
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Matt Lewis
I'll be with you every step of the way.
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