HH381 Midterm Exam (AY2010)

Prof. Richard Abels

Part A. 50 points. Identifications: five ids of people/events/concepts. For each you are to answer the following questions: who or what the item was; where he or she lived or it happened; when he or she lived or it happened (yes, I want dates); and why the item is significant for military history. At least two of the ids must be subjects from Late Antiquity or the Early Middle Ages.

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Model Identification:

Identification of the “Agreement between Hugh IV and Count William V”

What: This is an eleventh-century narrative text recounting a dispute in Poitou (western France) in the early eleventh century between a castellan, Hugh of Lusignan, and his lord, Count William of Aquitaine, told from the viewpoint of the castellan. It revolves around Hugh’s claims to lands and castles that had been held from the count by his deceased kinsmen, and the count’s refusal to give Hugh those ‘honors’ (fiefs). The narrative presents Hugh as an ideal vassal, exhibiting love and loyalty to his lord Count William, and Count William as a bad lord who constantly reneges on his promises to Hugh, refusing to aid him in his conflicts with other castellans. It justifies Hugh’s eventual withdrawal of loyalty from and war upon Count William that led to an “agreement” between the two about the disputed lands.

When: ca. 1030. The events in the document take place in the 1020s.

Where. Poitou (southwestern France, south of Anjou and north of Aquitaine).

Military History Significance. The text is a window on the violent and turbulent political and military world of early eleventh-century France. Militarily, the “Agreement” depicts a world in which small wars constantly erupted between neighboring noble landowners over disputed claims to property and castles. Military power, as represented in the text, was based upon a noble’s control over castles and his retinue of knights (called horsemen in the text) bound to him by personal loyalty. The treatment accorded captured knights—they have their hands cut off—indicates that they did not yet have the status of nobles. In theory, the count ruled his county and the castellans held their castles from him. In reality, the castellans possessed power that could threaten the count and regarded the castles they held as familial property and their horsemen as their private military force.

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Possible IDs for Late Antiquity/Early Middle Ages

1) Emperor Constantine and his reorganization of the Roman military; 2) Battle of Adrianople; 3) Ammianus Marcellinus; 4) Emperor Theodosius I and the Battle of the Frigid River; 5) Stilicho OR Alaric; 6) Vegetius; 7) Aetius and Attila; 8) the Battle of Chalons; 9) Theodoric the Great; 10) Jihad and first century of Arab expansion; 11) Heraclius and the Battle of Yarmuk; 12) Charles Martel and the Battle of Poitiers; 13) Lynn White’s stirrup thesis (and Bachrach’s refutation); 14) Charlemagne; 15) King Alfred the Great; 16) Otto I and the Battle of the Lechfeld; 17) King Æthelred II the Unready and the vikings.

Possible IDS for the High Middle Ages and Crusades:

1) Duke William the Bastard/King William the Conqueror and the Battle of Hastings; 2) King Louis VI the Fat; 3) feudal-vassalic military obligation; 4) Richard the Lionheart’s Gisors Campaign; 5) Edward I and his prise/purveyance system; 6) Edward III’s Scottish campaign of 1327; 7) siege of Chateau Gaillard OR siege of Termes; 8) Edward I’s Welsh castles and conquest of Wales (from Abels online posting); 9) Hainault campaign of 1184; 10) Battle of Bouvines; 11) Battle of Courtai; 12) Admiral Roger of Lauria; 13) William Marshal’s “practical chivalry”; 14) twelfth-century tournaments and their relationship to warfare; 16) Battle of Bremule of 1119 (Orderic Vitalis’ account); 16) First Crusade (in identifying this, define “crusade”); 17) Albigensian Crusade (in identifying this, define “crusade”); 18) Battle of Hattin; 19) the Third Crusade (in identifying this, define “crusade”); 20) Richard I’s march from Acre to Jaffa and the battle of Arsuf;

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Part B. 20 points. You will have to write one short conceptual essay (about four to five paragraphs long). Possible essay topics (you will see at least two and possible all of the following on the exam):

1. Take any three of the above people/events/concepts in the list of ids on the exam and connect them historically. Then explain how knowing how they are historically connected (or related to one another) enhances your understanding of warfare in the Middle Ages.

2. Explain Bernard Bachrach’s thesis about continuity between Late Roman and “barbarian” and early medieval military organization and institutions, and evaluate its historical accuracy using two case studies (e.g. Merovingian, Ostrogothic practice, Charlemagen, Alfred’s Wessex, or eleventh-century Poitou as revealed in “The Agreement.”). (For this you will need to have read the assigned article by Bachrach and my online posting on late Roman and barbarian military organizations. You needn’t conclude that Bachrach—or Halsall or Abels—is completely right or completely wrong.).

3. Explain John Gillingham’s thesis about “Vegetian strategy” in the High Middle Ages, and identify the normative offensive and defensive strategies prescribed by that strategy. Then evaluate the historical accuracy of this model based on two military case studies from the High Middle Ages. (To receive an A on this, you must demonstrate knowledge of both C.W.C. Oman’s earlier interpretation of medieval strategy and Stephen Morillo’s modification of the Gillingham thesis.)

4. Based on the assigned reading (Abels’ posting, the excerpt from Matthew Strickland’s book, and the primary sources), explain what “chivalry” meant in the High Middle Ages and assess its influence upon the practice of warfare in the High Middle Ages using two case studies. Can “chivalry” be reconciled with Gillingham’s “Vegetian strategy”?

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Part C. 20 points. Geography ids. Name and locate ten (10) places out of 15 that I will choose from the following list.

(You get one point for naming the place and one point for locating it by the numbers on the map.)

1. Emperor Valens died in battle here against the Goths____________

(hint: near Constantinople)

2. Where Aetius stopped Attila _________

(hint: just east of Paris, between Reims and Troyes in France. This battle has two names. You can give either one.)

3. Where the Arabs defeated Heraclius and the Byzantine army__________

4. Where Charles Martel defeated the Saracens________

5. Charlemagne fought multiple campaigns to subdue the pagan people of this region; Henry the Fowler and Otto I ruled it as dukes before they were elected kings of Germany _______________ (hint: south of Denmark)

6. Vikings came from this region______________

7. Kingdom ruled by Alfred the Great and which he dotted with “burhs” ____________

8. Decisive battle in which Alfred the Great defeated Guthrum’s viking army in 878____________

9. River on which King Charles the Bald had fortified bridges built and where the viking Weland defeated another viking band threatening Paris_____________ (Also river on which Chateau Gaillard was built.)

10. Where Otto the Great defeated the Magyars_______________

(hint: south of Danube)

11. Region in which the events of “The Agreement of Count William and Hugh of Lusignan” took place_______________

12. Count Fulk Nerra dotted this county with castles (south of Normandy)___________

13. What King Louis VI the Fat ruled_______________

14. Duchy ruled by Duke William the Bastard_______________

15. Where William the Conqueror defeated King Harold Godwineson ______________

16. Name and locate the “cheeky castle” that Richard the Lionheart built (in the region called the Vexin, on the border of Normandy and “France,” overlooking the Seine River between Rouen and Paris)________________

17. Region in Britain—note, not “England—where Edward I built a system of castles to consolidate his conquest _______________

18. Castle near which Richard the Lionheart made King Philip Augustus ‘take a drink’ from the River Epte in 1198 ________________

19. County that Count Baldwin V defended against invasion in 1184___________

20. Where Philip Augustus defeated Emperor Otto IV_________

Or

Where Flemish rebels defeated Count Robert of Artois________

(The two battle sites are located very near each other. Courtrai, now in Belgium, is just north of Lille, France; Courtrai, France, is just south of Lille. Both are approximately 35 x 50 miles south of Bruges, Belgium; 125 x 150 miles north by northeast of Paris and 75 miles due east of Calais.)

21. Site of one of Roger de Lauria’s naval victories (your choice of battle)________________

22. Island fought over by Aragon/Catalonia and the Angevin kingdom (War of the ______Vespers). Roger de Lauria won victories off its coast; Normans conquered it in the late eleventh and early twelfth centuries; Richard and Philip stopped there on their way to the Third Crusade_________________

23. This city was the object of the First and Third Crusades________

24. Crusade against the Cathar heretics was fought in this region (hint: it’s in Europe) (You may give either the name of the region or the name of the Crusade)_________________

25. Saladin won a decisive victory over King Guy de Lusignan here ________

(hint: east of Acre and west of the Sea of Galilee)

26. Richard the Lionheart captured this large island off the coasts of Turkey and Syria in 1191 before landing at Acre________

27. Richard the Lionheart took this city (now in northern Israel) by siege as his first military act on crusade__________________

28. Richard the Lionheart fought a battle here at the end of his march from Acre to Jaffa at this place (about 10 miles north of Tel Aviv)________

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Part D. 5 points. Geostrategic significance. Choose any of the above places and explain its geostrategic significance. By geostrategic significance I mean the strategic reason that the military event occurred in that particular place. E.g., Why did D-Day take place at Normandy?