HH381: War in Medieval Europe
Fall 2008
Prof.
Richard Abels
PLAGIARISM STATEMENT:
REQUIRED READING
Citations
in Chicago Manual Style (REQUIRED NOTE FORMAT FOR THIS CLASS)
COURSE DESCRIPTION:
This course examines the evolution of the nature of warfare and military
institutions in Western Europe from the decline of the
The readings include primary and secondary sources. The student will thus be exposed both to modern historians' and contemporary views of warfare in each era studied. Primary sources are especially valuable for illuminating military theory and practice, for revealing typical attitudes about war in the period, and for testing propositions advanced by the secondary authorities.
COURSE OBJECTIVES:
1. To provide an increased understanding of the nature of medieval war and and the interrelationship between military and civil
societies.
2. To foster analytic skills through the close study of primary and secondary
sources.
3. To sharpen communication skills through class discussion and written
assignments.
ASSIGNMENTS (read fully and carefully):
1. CLASS PARTICIPATION (5%). Students are expected to complete all reading assignments before the class for which they are assigned. Class participation and instructor's discretion will comprise 5% of the final grade but will be given additional consideration when awarding grades in borderline situations.
2. EXAMINATIONS (45%). There will be one scheduled in-class midterm examination (30 Oct) and a comprehensive final. Questions will be based on material covered in class and upon the readings. The examinations will consist of essay questions, which may supplemented by short identifications or objective questions. The midterm examination will comprise 15% of the final grade; the final will account for 30%.
3. HOMEWORK/SHORT WRITING ASSIGNMENTS (30% of final grade). You
will be given a series of short writing assignments (maximum 600 words) on the
assigned secondary source reading. (NOTE: These are mainly assigned for the
first half of the semester.) All homework assignments are due at the
beginning of class on the day they appear in the syllabus.
4. RESEARCH
PAPER OPTION (25% of final grade). FINAL PAPER IS DUE 18 Nov.
If you choose this option, you will write a research paper
on any aspect of ancient or medieval warfare. It is to be 11-15
typewritten pages in length, including a one page summary statement (see
below) but excluding endnotes, bibliography, and title page. One possible
approach is to focus the paper on a specific military leader or engagement
and show how that person or event illuminates some aspect of the military
history of the era. But this is only a suggested approach. You may write on
ANY TOPIC that deals with a well-defined and significant historical issue or
problem relating to the military history of Western Europe between A.D. 350 and
1500 (e.g. the strategic significance of the battle of Agincourt in Henry
V's conquest of France).
4a. ANNOTATED BIBLIOGRAPHY AND DESCRIPTION OF PROJECT will be due on Tuesday, 7 Oct. The bibliography is to list the works that you have consulted in your research of the topic and explain why each will be useful in writing the paper. The description of project is an explanation of the topic you have chosen, its historical significance, and (if you are far enough along in your research) of your tentative findings. All topics must be cleared by me. If on the basis of the annotated bibliography and description of project I determine that it is unlikely that you will produce an adequate research paper, I will instruct you to do the Analytical Essay option instead.
4b. You are to attach to your final paper a ONE-PAGE SUMMARY STATEMENT in which you concisely define your paper's thesis and explain its findings. PAPERS LACKING A SUMMARY STATEMENT WILL BE DOCKED ONE FULL GRADE.
5. ANALYTICAL ESSAY & CRITICAL ESSAY REVIEW OPTION (book review 10% and analytical essay 15% of final grade). Rather than writing a research paper, you may write an additional analytical essay (5-7 pages) on an assigned topic (due 18 Nov) AND one 3-4 page article (or book) review (due 4 Nov). The book/article review must explain and critique the author’s arguments and place them within the context of your assigned reading for this course. In other words, you must explain how this book or article confirms or challenges conclusions and arguments presented in your assigned readings. The book or article you review must be scholarly, which means that it must be based on primary sources and written by a specialist in the field. You may choose any scholarly book or article on late Roman military history or warfare in the Middle Ages before 1300 that I have NOT assigned for this course. The are a number of journals in Nimitz on history and warfare. The De Re Militari website also has links to many relevant articles and even books, but beware: some of them are 'popular' and not scholarly history. If in doubt, come see me!
6. DOCUMENTATION AND PLAGIARISM: Papers lacking full documentation--endnotes or footnotes or parenthetical references with proper bibliography--will receive at best a D. All direct quotations (more than three words in a row), paraphrases, allusions to specific passages in a text, and use of another's interpretations and research must be documented with a note that includes a specific page/section reference to the work used. I prefer the Chicago Manual of Style citation format. The link provides examples of that format.
To 'paraphrase' means to put another's ideas into your OWN words. If you take another's words and fail to indicate that fact with quotations marks, that is PLAGIARISM. See the History Department's plagiarism statement linked to this syllabus. If you commit plagiarism unintentionally--either out of carelessness or laziness (or failure to read the department's plagiarism statement)--you will receive a ZERO on the assignment. If I believe that you intended to deceive, the paper will get a zero AND I will turn the matter over to the midshipman honor board.
7. LATE POLICY. Papers are due by the beginning of class on the day
indicated in the syllabus. Papers handed in later that day will be docked 5
points. Papers will lose ten points for each class late.
Because papers can be lost, mutilated, or
swallowed up by angry computers, you should always make a copy before
handing one in and a hard copy before turning off your computer. I will not accept as an excuse, "The
computer ate my paper." It is your responsibility to make sure that it
doesn't. (At the very least, I will want to see your notes for the paper or a
rough draft.)
Departmental policy requires that ALL writing assignments
be handed in by the beginning of the final exam in order to pass the course. I
will adhere to this policy.
8. INSTRUCTOR'S DISCRETION. A semester's grade does not represent simply the total points received on assignments during the course of the semester. It is the instructor's professional evaluation of how well the student performed and how much he or she learned in the course. In assigning the final grades, I will take into account upward and downward trends, whether the student took advantage of extra-credit opportunities, and how well the student mastered the course material for the final exam. A student going into the final with a low B- who writes an exceptional examination may well receive an A for the semester, even though his or her final 'average' might be 86. Conversely, a student who has a strong C going into the final and writes a failing exam, demonstrating an unsatisfactory understanding and mastery of the course material, might well forfeit that C.
WEIGHT OF ASSIGNMENTS
Midterm examination 15% .
Writing assignments 50%
Class participation 5%
Final examination 30%
ASSIGNED
for purchase:
VERBRUGGEN, J.F. The
Art of War in
ISBN: 0851155707
CONTAMINE,
Philippe. War in the Middle Ages. Blackwell
Publishing
ISBN: 0631144692
VILLEHARDOUIN, Geoffrey de/JOINVILLE, Jean de. Chronicles of the Crusades. Penguin
ISBN 0140441247
FROISSART, Jean. Chronicles. Penguin
01400442006
There are internet readings linked to the syllabus. Click on the
hypertext for them. Many of these are posted on the website for De
Re Militari: The Society for Medieval
Military History
LESSON PLAN
NOTE: reading assignments for each class day are in brackets.
All assignments, whether
reading or writing, are due on the day they appear in the syllabus.)
I. LATE ANTIQUITY AND THE EARLY MIDDLE AGES (c. 400-c.1050)
Week of 18 Aug
T. Introduction: Overview of the Middle Ages and Introduction to Medieval
Military History
Reading: Medieval
periodization and overview (Abels); military
terminology; McGlynn, Myths of Medieval Warfare, History Today 44 (1994)
Thought question: (which will appear on
the final): There are at least two ways of understanding the history
of war. The first is a “scientific”
model of war that emphasizes unchanging principles of strategic conduct and
inherent military probability. According to this model, regardless of the era
or society, war is a rational endeavor carried out according to tactical and
strategic pragmatic necessities and directed at achieving the goals of a state.
This approach also puts a priority on the material factors in war, in
particular technological determinacy, and tests what the historical sources claim to have happened against what
we know to be physiologically or technically possible, or, in some cases,
militarily sensible. If the details
recorded in even an authentic primary source fail this test, or stretch credibility,
then they are to be rejected and material reality upheld.
Others
contend that war is a cultural activity: the reasons why societies engage in
war and the methods by which they fight them are defined by the particular
norms, values, institutions, and mentalities of a society passed on from one
generation to the next that defines that group as an entity. What we call the “unchanging principles
of war” are themselves a cultural construct derived from a particular
approach to war and a particular organization of the state characteristic of
the West from the late eighteenth-century to the present. We may call this the ‘culturalist’ approach.
How
would you go about testing the validity of these two models for the study of
military history?
Th. Late Roman Military
Primary Sources: Vegetius, Epitoma Rei Militaris, excerpts
Map: Roman Empire in 395
Week of 25 Aug
T. “Fall” of the Roman
Empire in the West: the Military Context
Reading: Contamine 11-13; Dick
Whittaker, “Landlords and warlords in the later Roman Empire,” in War and Society in the Roman World, ed.
J. Rich et al (1993) (handout); Hugh
Elton, "The Collapse of the Roman Empire: Military Aspects"; Abels:
“Overview of the Late Roman Military,” II. Disintegration of the
Western Military; The Huns and the end
of the Roman Empire - Peter Heather.
Primary Sources: Jordanes on the Battle of Chalons
Images and maps: Gothic artifacts ; Franks Casket (northern England, c. 700) ; Maps of the Roman Empire (click on A.D. 337-538); map of Roman world, ca. 500; Europe and the Eastern Roman Empire 533-600 (for site of battle of Chalons in north central France/Gaul, south east of Paris, see map of Roman Empire in 395 for previous class); map of Roman world, 565
Th. Historians debate military
continuity between Rome and the Barbarian West, 400-750
Reading: Contamine 13-22, 175-9, Amory,
People and Identity in Ostrogothic Italy, Abels:
Overview of the Late Roman Military: III & IV ; Benard S. Bachrach, "The
Imperial roots of Merovingian military organization"
Primary Source: Theodoric the Great's military organization; Gregory of Tours on Warfare
Images: A
Visual Tour through Late Antiquity
HOMEWORK (write on either homework topic 1 OR 2):
1. Identify and explain Bachrach’s
thesis. Does Abels (OR Contamine) agree with it? [An
article’s “thesis” is the author’s main point, that is,
the answer to the historical question posed at the beginning of the article.]
2. Do the two primary sources support or
contradict Bachrach’s thesis?
Week of 01 Sept
T. Byzantium and Early Arab Conquests
Primary Sources: Al-Baladhuri: The Battle Of The Yarmuk ; Three accounts of the Battle of Tours (732) ; Ibn abd al-Hakem on the Muslim Conquest of Spain (Al-Andalus)
Map: Muslim expansion in the west to 750 ; Byzantine theme system, ca. 900 ]
HOMEWORK ASSIGNMENT (do either
option A or B):
Option A: According to Donner, what factors account for
the early Arab conquests?
Th. Charlemagne and Carolingian Warfare
Primary Source: Charlemagne's edicts on raising troops; Charlemagne's Saxon Campaign of 782-4 from the Frankish Annals; Charlemagne's campaigns of 808-10 from the Frankish Annals; The siege of Barcelona and warfare in Moorish Spain
HOMEWORK ASSIGNMENT (do either
option A or B):
Option A: Explain the “problem of the
stirrup” (Contamine 179-84). Why is the answer
to this controversy historically important?
Week of 08 Sept
T. Europe under Siege: Responses to Viking, Magyar, and Arab Invasions
Primary Source: Viking Raids in France and the Siege or Paris
Th.
The political and military landscape of "feudal" Europe in the tenth
and eleventh centuries
[Reading: Contamine 27-50, 184-8; John
France, "Recent Writing on Medieval Warfare" pp. 448-58; Abels
on "Feudalism" (what does the term mean and why historians are
reluctant to use it)
Primary Source: Agreement
between William V of Aquitaine and Hugh IV of Lusignan
;
Images: motte and bailey ; Bayeux Tapestry (ca. 1070): building motte and bailey castle/burning house ; Bayeux Tapestry: attack on a castle ; Bayeux Tapestry: charging knights ; Evolution of armor, 1050-1500 ]
HOMEWORK ASSIGNMENT
Why, how, and by whom were wars
fought in the Agreement
between William V of Aquitaine and Hugh IV of Lusignan?
II. THE 'HIGH MIDDLE AGES' (c. 1050-c.1300)
Week of 15 Sept
T. The Norman Conquest of
Images: Bayeux
Tapestry , click on parts 16-35 for the
Maps: Maps of the Norman Conquest of Italy; Stephen Morillo’s maps and hourly chronology of the battle of Hastings (half way down the page); Map of William's and Harold's movement
HOMEWORK ASSIGNMENT
According to Gillingham,
how did Duke William of
Th. Medieval Logistics and Supply: the case of
Week of 22 Sept
T. Strategy in the High Middle Ages
Reading Clifford Rogers, “The Vegetian ‘Science of Warfare’ in the Middle Ages,” J. of Medieval Military History 1 (2002): 1-19 (handout); John Gillingham, “Rejoinder: ’Up with Orthodoxy!’ In Defense of Vegetian Warfare,” J. of Medieval Military History 2 (2003): 148-58.
Primary source: review Vegetius, Epitoma Rei Militaris, excerpts
HOMEWORK ASSIGNMENT (do either
option A or B):
Option A: What is the ‘Gillingham
paradigm,’ what are
Th. Combatants and Military Service in the High Middle Ages
HOMEWORK ASSIGNMENT (do either
option A or B):
Option B: Based on the Contamine reading, who fought in the High Middle and how were armies recruited?
Week of 29 Sept
T. The Knight: Chivalry, Courage, and Fear
Primary source: Bertran de Born (ca. 1180): poems 3 & 4
images: Maciejowski Bible (1250 French): click on this image and the next four; how a knight put on his armor, c. 1300 (click on following pages); evolution of English armor, 1075-c.1500
HOMEWORK ASSIGNMENT:
Answer either 1 or 2
1. According to
2. According to Verbruggen what were medieval
knights afraid of and how did they overcome that fear?
Th. The Knight in Combat
Week of 06 Oct
T. Foot-Soldiers
ANNOTATED
BIBLIOGRAPHY AND TOPIC STATEMENT FOR RESEARCH OPTION DUE
Th. Raiding and Sieges
Primary Sources: Peter of les Vaux-de-Cernay, Siege of Termes during the Albigensian Crusade (1210); Richard the Lionheart's Gisors campaign of 1198
Images: Motte-and-bailey castle building/ravaging in the Bayeux Tapestry ; Taking a castle (Bayeux Tapestry, ca. 1077) ; Welsh motte-and-bailey castles ; Chateau-Gaillard (Richard I, 1197-8) ; trebuchet (modern reconstruction from Denmark) ; Nova builds a trebuchet; Edward I's Welsh Castles (look at map and click on links to images of Conwy and Caernarfon]
HOMEWORK ASSIGNMENT:
Answer either 1, 2, or 3:
1. What obstacles did Count Simon de Montfort face in the siege of Termes? How did he try to take the castle, and how did he
finally succeed?
2. What was the relationship between siege, raiding, and battle as depicted in Richard the Lionheart’s Gisors campaign?
3. Does Roger of Howden’s
account of the Gisors campaign of 1198 support or
undermine the Gillingham paradigm of battle accepted Vegetian Strategy.
Week of 13 Oct
T. Battlefield Tactics: Bouvines (1214)
Reading: Verbruggen 204-24, 239—60
Primary Source: The Battle of Bouvines according to William the Breton;
Image: Maciejowski Bible (1250 French): click on this image and the next four
Th. Naval Warfare
Primary Source: Admiral Roger de Luria in Ramon Muntaner's Chronicle (1325-8). In Parenthesis, Catalan Series , pp. 39-43, 143-6, 154-63, 211-18, 231-7, 287-91, 327-30, 360-3.
III. CRUSADING WARFARE
Week of 20 Oct
T. Crusade and Chivalry
Reading: Contamine 278-84, 74-7; Matthew
Bennett, "La Régle du Temple as a Military
Manual, or How to Deliver a Cavalry Charge"; John
France, Victory in the East (Chapter
1: "The Roots of Victory");
: Malcolm
Barber, "The Albigensian Crusades: Wars Like Any
Other?"
Th. Crusading Warfare in the East
Reading: Contamine 55-64, Verbruggen 232-9; Benjamin Kedar, "The Battle of Hattin Revisited," from The Horns of Hattin (1992) ; Malcolm Barber, Frontier Warfare in the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem; Marshall, "Use of the Charge in Battles in the Latin East, 1192-1291"
Primary Source: Abu al Hasan ‘Ali bin Abi Bakr al-Harawi, Discussion on the Stratagems of War (1192 x 1215) (handout), De Expugnatione: Saladin's Conquest of the Holy Land
(FINAL REQUIRED) HOMEWORK ASSIGNMENT (write on either 1 or 2)
1. According to Contamine, what challenges did the Crusaders face on the First Crusade and how did they overcome them?
2. Compare Saladin’s and Richard the Lionheart’s conduct of war.
Week of 27 Oct
T. Mongols, Mamlukes and the West
Primary Source: Rashiduddin Fazlullah on the
Mongol sack of Baghdad in 1258;
Images: Pictures of Mongol Warriors
Th. MID-TERM EXAM
Week of 03 Nov
T. Intercultural and subcultural
warfare in the Middle Ages
Reading: Malcolm
Barber, “The Albigensian Crusades: Wars like
Any Other?”; Stephen Morillo, “A General Typology of Transcultural Wars: The Early Middle Ages and
Beyond”, in Hans-Henning Kortüm, ed., Transcultural
Wars from the Middle Ages to the 21st Century (2006) (handout);
John Gillingham, “Conquering the barbarians : war and chivalry
in twelfth-century Britain,” Haskins Society Journal 4 (1993 for
1992) (handout)
CRITICAL REVIEW OF ARTICLE OR BOOK DUE
Th. (St.) Louis IX's
Crusade against
Primary Source: Joinville, pp. 191-228
Week of 10 Nov
T. Veterans Day
Th. (St.) Louis IX's
Crusade against
Primary Source: Joinville, pp.
228-64, 295-305
REPLACEMENT HOMEWORK ASSIGNMENT (optional assignment: replaces lowest homework grade): What does Joinville’s account of the Battle of Mansourah and its aftermath reveal about how fear and courage among the crusaders?
OR
According to Joinville, what was
IV. THE LATE MIDDLE AGES: HUNDRED YEARS WAR, 1337-1453
Siege of Aubenton (1340) as depicted in ms. Froissart's Chronicles ca. 1470, BN FR2643)
Week of 17 Nov
T.
Warfare in the Late Middle Ages (Overview)
Th. Military Institutions and
Forces in the Late Middle Ages
Reading: Contamine 126-37, 150-64; Simon Walker,
"Profit and Loss in the Hundred Years War"; Abels,
"Fourteenth-Century Mercenaries"
Primary Source: Froissart pp. 280-94; An indenture of war, 1347
Image 14th- and 15th-century manuscript illustrations of war (French)
ANALYTICAL
ESSAY DUE (FOR ESSAY/REVIEW
OPTION)
OR
Week of 24 Nov
T. Overview of the Hundred Years War
Th. THANKSGIVING
Week of 01 Dec
T. Hundred Years’ War: Conduct of War
Primary Source: Froissart pp. 46-54, 68-96, 181-92, 373-81
REPLACEMENT HOMEWORK ASSIGNMENT (optional assignment: replaces lowest homework grade):
Analyze the types of military
activities reported by Froissart during the Scottish campaign of 1327 and the
Th. Victory in
Reading: Matthew Bennett, The Development of Battle Tactics in the Hundred Years War (1994)
Primary Source
REPLACEMENT HOMEWORK ASSIGNMENT (optional assignment: replaces lowest homework grade):
According to Bennett, what explains
the success of the English in the battles of
OR
According to Froissart, what
military activities had Edward the Black Prince been engaged in before the
French brought him to battle at
Week of 8 Dec
T.
Gunpowder, Standing Armies and Nationalism: A Medieval Military
Revolution?