pt3 (last part)
Wagons could carry much more. By the eleventh century, the horseshoe had made the horse a formidably efficient form of traction. Better harnesses and linkages meant that a single horse could pull a load of 900 kg. Moreover, the better harnesses meant that teams could be linked to wagons, with improved results. Wagons themselves developed: pivoted front axles made large four-wheeled types possible, and by the thirteenth century they were replacing two-wheeled ones. But horses were not always available and oxen all too often had to be used. Moreover, even the most efficient wagon was limited by roads and weather, both very uncertain quantities in the medieval West.
In the right conditions, good wagons could help an army enormously. When Philip Augustus decided to retreat from Tournai before the Battle of Bouvines, his infantry were able to move very quickly because they put their weapons and equipment in carts which, perhaps, resembled the ladder-sided examples portrayed in the Maciejowski Bible, which were pulled by two horses. At Hattin, Guy was able to carry elaborate tents into battle, and these must have been transported in wagons. In the plain of the Po, armies carried wooden sheds for shelter and we hear of small missile throwers mounted on carts, but this was flat easy country in summer: in winter cartage would have been more difficult.
Lack of bridges was another formidable problem for an army that was dependent on wheeled transport – indeed, in Spain the existence of Roman bridges was a major influence on campaigns. On the northeastern frontier of Germany there were virtually no roads, and the German expansion was long confined to the river valleys where supply by ships was possible: on one occasion, scouts blazing a route through virgin territory took nine days to cover less than 70 miles.
Carts of the two-horsed type shown carrying armour and equipment in the Maciejowski Bible must have been able to carry a load of about 450kg, which would have fed 500 men for a day. But because good carts and good roads did not always coincide, we have to recognize that the transport problem continued. Moreover, many commanders would not have been able to specify what kind of transport they received.
The efficiency of carts explains why armies such as that of Frederick I on the Third Crusade could pass through friendly territory without pillaging and still sustain themselves. But there were definite limits to what could be carried, imposed by roads, weather and seasons and by military necessity – for mobility could be compromised by too elaborate a baggage-train. This is why armies often used fleets.
Henry II employed ships in his attacks on Wales. Edward I used huge fleets to supply his great armies as they destroyed Welsh resistance. Once the conquest was achieved, he built ports to supply his major strongpoints. Great engineering works were undertaken to straighten the River Clywdd, so that a port could be built by Rhuddlan castle. Edward’s elaborate logistic preparations for the Scottish campaigns are well known and always included a major fleet: even so, before the Battle of Falkirk in 1298 his supply situation was so bad that elements of his army were rebellious. The army of the First Crusade enjoyed invaluable naval support, as did Richard I at the Battle of Arsuf.
But naval support was not always available, and the transport problem was one of the factors that limited the size of medieval armies. It was probably not as important in this respect as cost or the need to adjust the force to the scale of the task, but it was a major consideration. In 1066, England was conquered by an army of about 7,000 Normans and allies. Just over 200 years later, the fate of South Italy was decided at Tagliocozzo by armies which, together, numbered only about 10,000.
In the light of this, scepticism of the large numbers that chroniclers often attribute to armies is a right and proper reaction: for example, the idea that Frederick Barbarossa mobilized 100,000 for the Third Crusade needs critical examination. In fact, the threat of starvation remained with armies from first to last: Jean le Bel reported his sufferings during a 1327 campaign against the Scots – bread, when there was any, soaked in horses’ sweat, foul water and expensive wine. His experience could stand for that of the soldiers across this period and far beyond.
It is very difficult to gain a real impression of what a medieval army on the march looked like. Our illustrations are only occasionally large-scale, but they convey a suspicious uniformity which was probably imposed by the artist on a much more diversified reality. Because weapons and armour changed only slowly, they must have enjoyed very long lives. The sword that Otto IV (1198–1215) bore at the Battle of Bouvines in 1214 was actually made in the eleventh century and redecorated for him in about 1208. Probably only the better-off could afford to be up to date, while the remainder wore what amounted to hand-me-downs, patched, developed and augmented as their pockets made possible.
However, the increasing production of iron improved the weapons and protection of even the footsoldiers. In the Maciejowski Bible of c.1250, many footsoldiers are seen wearing padded aketons and steel caps: this is the kind of equipment that contemporary kingdoms and cities were requiring their poorer citizens to keep for the purposes of war. A minority of the infantry illustrated carry much more elaborate equipment – hauberks and swords. In the case of mounted men, an apparent uniformity probably conceals considerable differences in the quality of protection, but they are almost invisible to us.
There must have been enormous diversity, but mainly of variants of basic types. Weapons and armour had advanced somewhat, but the knights and foot of the Bayeux Tapestry would have been able to fight perfectly competently at the end of the thirteenth century, although their equipment would have relegated them to the second or third rank. Better carts and more horses improved supply marginally, but without any dramatic advance. War had changed in the two and a half intervening centuries, but even at the end of the thirteenth century the warriors of the Bayeux Tapestry would not have found their equipment hopelessly obsolete.
