Cannon using gunpowder to launch projectiles were first seen in European warfare during the reconquista in the 13th century, and the English used them at the Battle of Crécy in 1346. They initially had a poor rate of fire and were very cumbersome to deploy until one-handed cannon were developed. Nonetheless, the introduction of cannonry heralded the end of the siege as a method of warfare and would also play a decisive role in the development of naval warfare—a phenomenon that contributed in its own way to the displacement of cavalry and the diminution of knighthood. The galley propelled by oarsmen enjoyed a long dominance in medieval naval battles: missile fire would be exchanged and the combatant crews would then board the enemy’s ships and fight on deck. Bulkier and sail-powered ships were then introduced, with cannon being mounted on their decks by the 15th century. Although here again the weaponry’s bulk initially counted against it, the subsequent development of anti-personnel, hand-held cannon proved highly effective at sea. But it was the introduction of the gun deck—created by the insertion of an opening in the ship’s side and below the main deck—which really transformed naval warfare by c.1500.
RIGHT At the Battle of Sluys (1340) Philip VI’s French fleet was destroyed by Edward III’s naval force. England’s command of the channel meant that the rest of the Hundred Years’ War was fought on French soil. This late-15th-century illustration appeared in Jean de Wavrin’s Chronique d’Angleterre.
Monarchs with extensive revenue-raising powers could afford to buy the new artillery, and the nobility found it more difficult to wage war independently. A strong association with national identity, evident in the case of English and French monarchies from the 14th century onward, underpinned the public role of kings as enforcers of domestic authority and war-leaders. Patriotism’s call to the drum therefore meant not just more taxes but also a greater willingness to pay the tax demand, since monarchs now associated their territorial and dynastic objectives with the “national interest.” Governments, especially in France and Spain, were now relying on paid and standing professional armies rather than occasional levies, and the improved weaponry led to more nobles being killed than in the past. During the Hussite wars, waged by the followers of Jan Huss against the nobility of Bohemia in the 1420s, fighting men in the lower ranks displayed great skill in outmaneuvering and slaughtering aristocratic warriors. Earlier such military insurrections by the lower orders, such as England’s Peasant Revolt (1381) and the Parisian Jacquerie led by Étienne Marcel in 1358, had been markedly ineffective by comparison.
AMAZONS
The medieval female warriors who played an important role in military strategy and even as commanders in the field were mostly either aristocrats or of royal blood.
Matilda of England (1102–67) was her father Henry I’s sole legitimate heir to survive to adulthood. Following Stephen of Blois’s seizure of the throne in 1135 she led a series of military campaigns in an attempt at securing the English Crown for herself. Matilda of Tuscany (1046–1115), who ruled the region in her own right as its countess, is a major figure in the military and diplomatic history of the Investiture crisis, since she was Pope Gregory VII’s chief supporter in Italy. Medieval warfare’s most famous female warrior, however, was of peasant stock. Jeanne d’Arc (c.1412–31) inspired the military engagements that led to the relief of the town of Orléans in 1429 and the subsequent capture of Rheims—previously held by the Burgundian faction who were English allies during this late stage in the Hundred Years’ War.
Gwenllian ap Gruffudd (c.1097–1136) was the daughter of Gruffudd ap Cynan (1055–1137), a dominant figure in Welsh politics and military strategy during his 62-year reign as prince of Gwynedd in north Wales. She married Gruffudd ap Rhys, ruler of the kingdom of Deheubarth, which extended across the southwest of Wales, and became the chatelaine at his castle in Dinefwr, near the town of Llandeilo. The royal house of Dinefwr, a cadet branch of the dynasty of Aberffraw that ruled Gwynedd, was already venerable by the time of Gwenllian’s arrival at its court. Hywel Dda (“the Good”) (c.880–950) had expanded the early medieval kingdom of Dyfed to form Deheubarth in the 920s, and the codification of Welsh law in a single volume was achieved under his patronage in the 940s. By the early 12th century, however, Deheubarth was under sustained attack and Gruffudd ap Rhys, joined by his princess-consort, launched several retaliatory raids against the Norman, English and Flemish colonists who had established themselves within the kingdom. The years of “the Anarchy” during the reign (1135–54) of King Stephen of England were an opportunity to recover Deheubarth’s authority. Gruffudd raised the banner of revolt, and in 1136 he traveled to Gwynedd where he debated terms of alliance with his wife’s father. Norman raiding in Deheubarth continued in his absence, and Gwenllian raised an army that she then led into battle at a site near Cydweli. Although defeated, captured and then beheaded by the opposing Norman force, Gwenllian’s action proved the catalyst for a major Welsh rebellion that spread to the south of Wales. The memory of her exploits inspired Welsh military commanders, and the highly successful campaigns led by her son Rhys ap Gruffudd (1132–97) against Henry II in 1164–70 made Deheubarth the dominant power in late-12th-century Wales.
The combination of social grievance with religious dissent, witnessed during the Hussite wars, recurred to explosive effect during the early 16th-century Protestant reformation. An idealized view of Christendom, and a belief in its unity, had been a defining feature of Europe’s medieval civilization. But a world in which Protestants and Catholics killed each other also witnessed the progressive dissolution of the medieval world view, and the grave of “Christendom” is to be found in the battlefields of early modern Europe.
INDEX
Page numbers in bold type indicate main references to the various topics; those in italic refer to illustrations.
A
’Abbasid dynasty 121, 122, 177
’Abd Allah 123
’Abd al-Rahman 121, 122
’Abd al-Rahman III 123
Abelard 90
Peter 203
Aberffraw dynasty 217
Abu al-Kasim 11
Achaea 129, 131
Acre, siege of 105
Adalberon, archbishop of Rheims 18
Adele of Champagne 21
Adelheid, Queen of Italy 10
Adhemar, Bishop of Le Puy 48, 52
Aelred 30
Agilulf, king of the Lombards 200
Agincourt, Battle of 144, 146, 214
agriculture, medieval 190, 191
al-Andalus 120–2, 172, 174, 175
Alarcos, Battle of 176
Alaric 118
Albania 130
Albertus Magnus 89
Albigensian Crusade 110–17
Aleppo 102
Alexander II, pope 21, 58
Alexander III, pope 69
Alexander III of Scotland 151
Alexius I Commensus, emperor of Greece 48
Alfonso I of Portugal 175
Alfonso II of Aragon 80
Alfonso II of the Asturias 172
Alfonso III of the Asturias 173
Alfonso VI of León 174–5, 175
Alfonso V of Aragon and Sicily 135
Alfonso Henriques, prince 175
Alfred the Great, king of Wessex 26
Alhambra Decree 176
Alhambra Palace 176, 177, 177
al-Idrisi, Muhammad 47
al-Mansur, Abu ’Amir 124, 125, 174
Almohads 175, 176
Almoravids 175–6
Al-Nasir li-Din Allah 123
Alphonse of Toulouse 128
Amalfi 40, 43
Amalric I, king 102
Amalric of Lusignan 107
Amazons 217
Anacletus II, pope 45
Anagni 154, 157–8
slap of 157
al-Andalus 120–2, 172, 174, 175, 176
Andalusian life 125
Andrew, prince of Naples 134
Anfortas 73
Angevin dynast
y 134, 136
Angevin empire 20, 74–83
Anglo-Saxons 24
Anjou-Naples, house of 134–5
Anno II, archbishop of Cologne 59
Anselm, Archbishop of Canterbury 28–9, 90
Antioch, siege of 52, 53
Aquitaine 141
Aquitania 118
Arab influences in science and culture 88–9
architecture
Florence 165–6, 166
Gothic French 22, 22–3
Arduin, margrave of Ivrea 13
Arianism 120
aristocracy 32–3, 193–6, 199
Aristotle 89, 90, 206, 207
Armagnacs 143, 144, 145
Arnold of Brescia 38
Arras, Treaty of 146
Arsuf 106
art
Ottonian legacy 14–15
realism in 169, 169
Arte dei Mercanti 164
Assisi 183
Assize of Clarendon 76
Assizes of Ariano 46
astrolabe 125
astrology 198
astronomy 125, 125
Asturias 121, 123, 172, 173, 174
Atheling, Edgar 26, 29
Ausculta fili 156
Averroes 90, 206, 207
Averroism 206
Avignon and the Schism 152–61
foreign exchange 159
papacy at 158, 159–60
Ayyubid dynasty 71–2, 100
Azaz, Battle of 100
B
Badby, John 186
Baldwin I of Jerusalem 100
Baldwin II of Jerusalem 108
Baldwin II of Constantinople 129
Baldwin III of Jerusalem 102
Baldwin IV of Jerusalem 102–3
Baldwin V of Jerusalem 103
Baldwin IX, count of Flanders 126
Baldwin of Boulogne 51, 52
Baldwin of Edessa 54
bannum 190
barbarians 188
Barcelona 172
Bari 43
Bauge, Battle of 145
Baybars 96, 130
Bayeux tapestry 25
Becket, Thomas 77–8, 77, 80
Bede 201
begging 206
Benedict VIII, pope 13
Benedict X, antipope 58
Benedict XI, pope 161
Benedict of Nursia 201
Benedictines 201, 206
benefices 159
Benevento 40, 43
Battle of 72, 128, 129, 165
Berbers 120–1, 122, 124, 175–6
Berengar, margrave of Ivrea 10, 11
Bergerac 143
Bermudo III of León 174
Bernard of Clairvaux 108, 183, 187
Bernard VII, count of Armagnac 143, 144
Berthold of Carinthia 59
Bertrand of Toulouse 54
Beziers 116
Black Death 167, 196
Black Prince 139, 141–2, 143
Blanche of Castile 128
Bohemond, prince of Taranto 51, 52
Bohemond of Antioch, count 103
Bohemond, Mark 44
Bolingbroke, Henry 143
Boniface 201
Boniface VIII, pope 39, 97, 152, 153, 154, 155, 157, 158
books 86
books of hours 184, 184
Borrel II, count of Barcelona 18, 172
Boutoumites, Manuel 52
Bouvines, Battle of 95, 96, 136
Brétigny, Treaty of 141, 144
Brion, Simon de 131
Brittany 79–80
Brunswick 68
Buchan, earl of 145
Bureau, Jean 146
Burgundians 143, 144–6
Burgundy, duke of 205
Byzantium 40, 43, 126, 130–1, 177
C
Cadiz 176
Caetani, Benedetto 39, 154
Caetani clan 157
Calabria 11, 40, 42, 43
Calais 139, 149
siege of 214
calendar 201–2
Campaldino, Battle of 165
cannon 148, 148, 215–16
Canossa Castle 60, 61
Capet, Hugh 17
Capetians
language derivations 16
rise of 16–23
triumph of 92–9
Capua 42
Carcassonne 115–16, 115
Cardinals, College of 155, 157
Carmina Burana 87
Cassian, John 201
Castel San’ Angelo 61
Castello di Venere 44
Castelnau, Pierre de 114
Castile 174
Castillon, Battle of 146, 148
Castracani, Castruccio, duke of Lucca 167
Cathars 110, 185, 186
doctrine 110–13
war with 113–17, 116
cathedrals 84
Gothic 191–2
Catherine of Alexandria 185
Catherine of Siena 160
Celestine III, pope 70
Cencio I Frangipane 60
Cerami, Battle of 41
Cerchi family 167
Cervera, Battle of 174
Chandos, John 143
Chanson de Roland (Song of Roland) 55, 55, 122
Charlemagne 122, 171–2, 177, 193, 194
canonization 68, 69
King of the Franks 8
Charles I of Hungary 134
Charles II of Naples 133, 134
Charles III of Naples 134
Charles IV of France 92, 98–9, 138
Charles V of France 141, 142
Charles VI of France 143, 144, 145
Charles VII of France 144, 145, 146, 147
Charles, duke of Orléans 144
Charles of Anjou 72, 126–33, 127, 134, 165
Charles of Blois 212
Charles of Calabria, duke 167
Charles of Durazzo 134
Charles of Lorraine 18
Charles of Valois 132–3, 167
Charter of Liberties 29
charters (fueros) 170
Chartres 86
Chartres Cathedral 85, 184
Château de Lusignan 189
China, missions in 205
Chintila, king of Galicia 120
chivalry 195, 203–4, 211
Christianity 198–202, 204–7
Cicero 86
Cilicia 52
Cimabue 169
Cistercians 201
cities, medieval growth of 192–3
city-states
birth of 32–9
German 33–6
Italian 36–8
Venice 38
Civitate, Battle of 42–3, 51
civitates 188–90
Clare, Osbert de 30
Clare of Assisi, saint 183, 184
Clarendon
Assize of 76
Constitutions of 77–8
Clement II, pope 65
Clement III, pope 61
Clement IV, pope 165
Clement V, pope 98, 109, 152, 158, 159
Clement VI, pope 160
Clement VII, antipope 154
clergy 183, 200, 202
curbing the power of 35–6
investiture of senior 56–63
Clericis laicos 154, 155–6
clerks, employed by rulers 84
Clermont, Council of 48, 49
Clito, William 19
Clotilda, queen 200
Clovis 120, 200
Cluny Abbey 58
Cluny, monastery of 201
Cnut, king of England 26
Cola di Rienzo 38
College of Cardinals 58
coloni 188
Colonna, Sciarrillo 157
Columbanus, saint 200, 201
Commensus, Duke 105
Commons 150
communes 32, 33, 37
communications in battle 214
Compostella 123
Conan III, duke of Brittany 79
Conan IV, duke of Brittany 79
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Concordat of London 29, 62
Concordat of Worms 62
confession 200
Conrad II of Germany 42, 64–5
Conrad III of Germany 102
Conrad IV of Germany 72, 129
Conrad, duke of Franconia 66–8
Conrad of Italy 62
Conrad of Montferrat 104, 105, 106, 107
Conradin 72
conseil du roi 92
Constance of Aragon 132
Constance of Castile 21
Constantinople 126, 129, 177
Constitutions of Clarendon 77–8
Constitutions of Melfi 71
Conti, Lotario dei 154
Conversos 176
Córdoba 118, 120, 121, 122, 124, 176
Great Mosque 119, 123–4
viceroyalty of 124
Corpus Juris Civilis 87–8
Cortenuova, Battle of 72
Cotentin Peninsula 139
Council of the Church (Tours) 113
Council of Clermont 48, 49
Council of Nablus 100
Council of Ten 38
cour des comptes 98
Covadonga, Battle of 170
craft guilds 35
Crécy, Battle of 137, 139, 146, 214
Crogen, Battle of 78
Crusades 205
First 48–55
Second 102
Third 100–9, 101, 104, 107
Fourth 113, 126
Seventh 96, 129
Eighth 96, 130
Albigensian 110–17
Crusader states 107
People’s 51
culture, Arab influences in 88–9
culture
European 204–5
medieval 198–207
cultus 180, 183–4
curia 161
curia regis 92
D
Damascus, capture of 102
Danegeld 215
Dante Alighieri 39, 117, 157, 158, 167
David I of Scotland 78–9
David II of Scotland 139
Decretum 88
Decretum Gratiani 202–3
Deheubarth 217
demesne 190
Dermot of Leinster 78
dhimmi 124
Didascalicon 203
Dinefwr, royal house of 217
Dionysius Exiguus 201
Diplomata Ottonianum 10
Doctors of the Church 178, 207
Domesday Book 28
Dominicans 206
Dominic de Guzman (St. Dominic) 114, 183
Donati, Corso 167
Donati family 167
Dorylaeum, Battle of 52
drama 87
Drengot, Ranulf 42
Drengot, Richard 43
Duccio 169
Dyrrhachium, Battle of 44
The Age of Chivalry Page 28