Download PDF | Randall Rogers, Latin Siege Warfare in the Twelfth Century, Oxford University Press, 1992.
301 Pages
PREFACE
IN writing this book I have benefited from the assistance and kindnesses of a considerable number of teachers and friends. In acknowledging my most prominent debts, I hope that others will once again bear with me.
I owe the most to Professor Karl Leyser, whose erudition and patience has been instrumental. Dr Maurice Keen has maintained an encouraging interest in my work for a considerable period, sharing insights and giving guidance as well as occasional consolation. | am also grateful for the assistance and enthusiasm of Professor P. R. Hyams and Dr Henry Mayr-Harting. I owe much to Mr J. O. Prestwich and the late Dr R. C. Smail, who taught me a very great deal. Dr William Hamblin, Dr Jeremy Johns, and Dr Christopher Corrie each helped with subjects about which I remain all too unfamiliar. Dr Charles Everret, Dr Stuart Airlie, Mr D. N. Fishel, and Dr D. L. D’Avray also helped me greatly. I would also like to thank Professors Robert Brentano, Thomas Bisson, and Randolph Starn for directing my interests at an early stage. Anne Gelling and Hilary. Walford of Oxford University Press have been enormously helpful in dealing with a difficult typescript.
My wife Susie has been much beleaguered by twelfth-century siege warfare and its pursuit. I would like to thank my father, J. G. Rogers, for first interesting me in military history and the experiences of those caught up in it.
RR. Baton Rouge November 1991
INTRODUCTION
THE importance of siege warfare in the twelfth century manifests itself in the political and military history of the period. As commentators have noted, sometimes in exasperation, much of the military activity of the age revolved around fortifications. In such an environment an ability to conduct and endure siege operations was fundamental. Blockade and attrition were the staples of siege warfare in this period as in most others. Many fortifications were stormed in onslaughts in which the number and ardour of attackers were paramount. Yet some positions were taken by assaults based on complex machinery which overcame stone and personnel defences. On one hand, castles and cities were either captured or compelled to seek a negotiated surrender. On the other, the failure of a major attack and the destruction of large and expensive siege engines on occasion brought an end to the siege.
Although sieges in which the latter methods were predominant were not unknown in the early Middle Ages, their number and scale increased significantly after 1050. While in part due to the considerable bellicose activity in Latin Europe from about 1060 to 1120, it was also a response to military problems. The twelfth century marked a transition from earth and wood to stone in castle construction, as well as growth and development in urban fortifications. It also encompassed a notable increase in complex siege operations.
The Mediterranean was profoundly affected by these developments during the twelfth century. The extension of Latin authority which characterizes the history of the Mediterranean during this period involved much siege warfare in the Levant, southern Italy, and Iberia. The establishment of Latin rule depended substantially on the conquest of the cities of these regions. Every method of siegecraft, including bribéry, was employed in these endeavours. However, it was Latin ability in overcoming the formidable defences of great cities which proved decisive.
The impulses behind much of this military activity were similar to those which shaped the twelfth century. The Crusades and the growth of Latin maritime power brought diverse groups of warriors, sailors, and pilgrims before large and well-fortified cities, Although powerfully motivated by spiritual and often material concerns, these composite forces were assembled from disparate groups of crusaders with a rudimentary common organization. Moreover, their logistical support was limited and sometimes precarious. While centred initially on the Holy Land, such expeditions played a notable role in military endeavours throughout the Mediterranean. That such forces maintained their concentration outside major fortifications and organized themselves to capture them is a measure of Latin achievement in the twelfth century.
Those who served their leaders out of obligation or for pay also fought in Latin sieges. Crusading expeditions after the First Crusade usually operated in conjunction with a Latin power which recruited locally. Some rulers charinelled fiscal and military resources into besieging units which contributed significantly to the growth and centralization of their political authority. Although the majority of these troops were assembled and financed on an ad hoc basis, some nascent states became adept in this kind of military organization. To a degree twelfth-century siege warfare is a manifestation of the ‘growth of government’ often associated with the period.
Another customary theme of the characteristic features of the twelfth century prominent in its siege warfare is urbanism. Although castles and dependent fortifications were the scenes of protracted and sometimes bitter fighting, decisive encounters in southern Europe and the Levant revolved arourid urban centres. While this was also the case in some areas of northern Europe, particularly as the century progressed, towns did not dominate siege warfare to such a degree. In the Mediterranean the measure of Latin siege technique was the reduction of cities.
In some areas of Italy urban communities were not only the objects of siege warfare but also some of its most effective practitioners. Communal militias assisted in defence and in the suppression of seigniorial depredations throughout Latin Europe. Moreover, Italian cities and particularly those of Lombardy conducted campaigns of siege warfare on a large scale. The personnel, material, and technological resources of cities made them significant in waging siege warfare.
Experts in the organization and technology of this form of conflict are notable in their involvement in twelfth-century sieges. While some were political and military leaders who developed abilities in conducting siege operations, others were clearly professional military engineers. Evident more in narrative sources than in fiscal records, their often briefly noted presence nevertheless demonstrates their significance. Although the means by which they acquired their esoteric knowledge remains largely conjectural, their role in Latin siege warfare is a reflection of some of the impulses of the twelfth century.
Unlike the role of heavy cavalry or developments in fortification, siege warfare has received relatively little attention from modern military historians. This contrasts with the twelfth century, in which siege warfare was understood to be an integral part of military experience and a suitable subject for historical writing. This is not to assert that modern analysts have been unaware of the importance of sieges in medieval military affairs. Lot provides an example of an influential historian who clearly noted the importance of siege warfare during the central Middle Ages.! Lot is also representative in that, despite his acknowledgement, he chose not to write systematically about siege warfare. Smail’s model study of crusading warfare discusses the place of battle in a wider context, and among other points clearly establishes the relationship between field armies and fortifications in defending the Latin states.* However, Smail provides littie concerning relationships between offensive forces and fortifications.
When siege warfare has been discussed, it is usually as an adjunct to the history of military architecture. This has reinforced a tendency to concentrate upon devices and methods by which besiegers overcame the fortifications of the Middle Ages. However, despite this sometimes acute interest, depictions of siege engines and their employment are often far from unclouded, and owe much of the accuracy they possess to accounts of ancient rather than medieval writers. This is primarily a result of the nature of the sources and particularly their use of terminology. Yet an element of this confusion stems from a desire to extract clarity from difficult material and the imposition of anachronistic conceptions on to the medieval period and evidence. While a number of examples could be noted here, the most pertinent comes from the work of General Kohler.
After more than forty years’ service in the Prussian artillery, Kohler retired to write a thorough history of warfare from the mid-eleventh to the mid-fifteenth centuries. While laudable in its scope and range of material, his work was deficient in several regards and trenchantly criticized by several writers, including Hans Delbriick. Although Delbriick’s comments did not focus upon Kéhler’s discussions of siege warfare, they could be applied with equal vigour to these sections of his work.* While a fuller discussion of KGhler and the problem of artillery follows in Appendix III, further comment is merited here.
KGhler’s greatest limitation was an uncomplicated if thoroughgoing application of the assumptions and standards of the later nineteenth century on to the problems and sources of the Middle Ages. His treatment of siege warfare and particularly its technology was considerably affected by this tendency, and his own professional experience may have played a role in this. Of course, Kéhler was not the only medieval military historian of his period whose work suffered from this problem. Smail lucidly demonstrates how profoundly beliefs and concerns of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries shaped medieval military historiography.*
While many topics within military history have been placed in a clearer perspective by more recent writers, siege warfare and technology have fared less well. The frequency with which the fanciful imaginings of Viollet-le-Duc continue to be reproduced as illustrations of siege engines demonstrates this. Kéhler’s work continues to exercise an influence, particularly on English-speaking students, because it provided much of the basis for Sir Charles Oman.* Although Oman’s account of siege warfare is not solely dependent on Kohler, his descriptions of machinery and particularly artillery are. While scholars have developed a more accurate understanding of medieval artillery since the time of Kéhler and Oman, much of it has remained obscure, resulting in continued reliance on Oman.’
Another and probably more important reason for the confusion which surrounds the technology of medieval siege warfare is that an accurate understanding of machines, their capabilities, and limitations cannot be completely developed in the abstract. The employment of machinery depended on the particular factors of a given siege as well as the technology of attackers. The choice of devices and methods brought against a position was influenced and sometimes dictated by topography. The design and strength of masonry of a fortress as well as the number and condition of its defenders were also important if not critical factors. The availability of materials, threats posed by field forces operating in support of the besieged, available supplies of food and forage, as well as weather conditions affected the choice of method as well as other aspects of a siege. The length of time allocated, as well as the willingness of attackers to contend with the tedium of blockade or the efforts and casualties of close assault, also affected operations. Tensions within composite besieging forces on occasion influenced methods, and the attackers’ willingness to accept a conditional surrender. While these factors varied from siege to siege, their influence must be taken into account.
If establishing a proper context is important for poliorcetics—the art of conducting and resisting sieges—then it is essential in understanding the place of sieges in medieval warfare. It is a commonplace that patterns of conflict in several portions of the medieval period were dominated by sieges. Oman’s work is representative of this view and his is one of the strongest interpretations that ‘the military art’ of the twelfth century suffered because of a predominance of defence over offence, leading to a preponderance of sieges over field battles.* It may be noted that this assessment also involves a considerable grafting of late nineteenth-century military opinions and conventions on to the twelfth century.
For Oman, like many of his time, decisive battles were the consummate military experience, and periods in which such encounters were few were judged accordingly. Keegan’s observations about the place of battles in military historiography, and particularly the tendency of English writers to perceive military affairs primarily in terms of great battles, is pertinent here.” While this is not the place for an extended critique, it should be noted that the nature of warfare in much of the Latin west renders this orientation largely irrelevant. For economic and political as well as military reasons, sieges largely displaced field battles and, to a degree, were the ‘decisive encounters’ of a campaign. It is probably not possible to resolve, and doubtless not worth debating, whether the sieges or field battles of the First Crusade were more important in the expedition’s outcome. This might seem superfluous, except that this section of Oman’s study remains a quarry.’° As with other aspects of medieval military history, siege warfare needs to be examined in its own terms as much as is possible.
In addition historians have seldom looked at the character of siege warfare within periods of the medieval epoch. Given the diverse ways in which armies were raised across the medieval centuries, and their varied strategic objectives, the intrinsic aspects of siege warfare within specific periods is significant.
Moreover, siege warfare in the twelfth century has particularly notable and distinctive characteristics which should be illuminated. Contamine’s survey addresses this question by discussing siege warfare according to his divisions of the medieval period." Important as this work is, it serves more as a beginning than as a detailed discussion of the character and notable features of siege warfare in the twelfth century.
This study hopes to further understanding of these matters by dis~ cussing the characteristic features of twelfth-century siege warfare in the context of the Latin expansion of the age. In this endeavour important or representative sieges will be examined as part of the campaigns and wars of which they were a part. In so doing it will be necessary to identify particular factors which shaped the course of notable actions. While this initially makes comparison difficult, it is hoped that this approach will reveal, not only differences, but also some broader pat~ terns in the siege warfare of the twelfth century.
By way of introduction it is appropriate to mention something about the focus and scope of this enquiry. If nothing else this may serve as a partial explanation to readers who feel that the sieges in which they are most interested have been given short shrift, and that the choice of examples has been arbitrary.
In regard to poliorcetics, the twelfth century is a fitting period upon which to concentrate. Historians have tightly considered the time between the First and Third Crusades as one in which western Europeans matched the standards of the Romans and may have surpassed them, particularly in the development of fortification-destroying artillery. One commentator has even added poliorcetics to the evergrowing list of arts and endeavours which enjoyed a renaissance during the twelfth century.” Some historians have maintained that this development was the result of a movement of advanced techniques from east to west in the wake of the Crusades. White characteristically reversed this assessment, arguing that the successes of the crusaders stemmed from a superiority in military technology, including poliorcetics.3 A concentration upon the Latin siege warfare of the twelfth century may not answer questions about the diffusion of military techniques definitively, largely because they need to be examined from much broader geographical, cultural, and linguistic perspectives. However, it is possible to focus these problems in their proper perspective, and concentrate on diffusion and development within the Latin west.
Having set forth reasons for concentrating upon the twelfth century, it is appropriate to explain the Mediterranean focus of this study. In the first place, the primary sources are compelling. Men who witnessed or heard or read something about the great sieges of the Crusades and othet campaigns wrote some of the most illuminating accounts of the Middle Ages. In some ways the concentrations of this study are determined by these writers and the evidence they provide.
Historians of fortification in twelfth-century England and France have worked material from these areas more thoroughly than has been done for the Mediterranean.'* Consequently a concentration on Latin activities in the Mediterranean will provide material which may be compared with that unearthed concerning the wars of the Conqueror, his sons, Plantagenets, and Capetians.
Latin siege warfare in the Mediterranean was often waged on a scale far beyond that customary in north-western Europe. As Contamine has noted, the period in which feudal Europe experienced conflicts which consisted largely of very small-scale arnbushes, skirmishes, burnings, and sieges also saw the conquests of the Normans in Italy, the Crusades, and the Reconquista. There was, of course, much siege warfare waged in the Mediterranean comparable to that conducted north of the Alps. However, there was also a great deal of action which went far beyond the usual experience of Latin combatants. These actions were of the essence in what distinguishes the twelfth century in the history of the Middle Ages. While a focus on this activity may eclipse more ‘typical’ twelfth-century siege warfare, it will take a measure of the twelfth-century Latin west.
It may be noted by way of introduction that this study began as an examination of siege warfare in the Holy Land Crusades. However, it became clear that crusader operations in the Levant were but a part ofa larger phenomenon evident in other areas of Latin military expansion. At the least, it is hoped that this enquiry will locate twelfth-century crusading siege warfare in its wider context.
Readers comfortable in the parallels and ravellins of Vauban and Uncle Toby may find aspects of twelfth-century siege warfare and its organization unfamiliar. While a number of these differences are manifest in the pages which follow, two should be underscored here.
The first concerns the number of combatants involved in twelfthcentury siege warfare. Accurately ascertaining the number of those who fought vexes almost all enquiries into medieval military affairs. Chroniclers are notoriously unreliable in estimating combatants mixed up in a conflict, and on occasion give considerably exaggerated figures. While this is true of some medieval historians of siege warfare, many otherwise accurate writers simply fail to mention the number of besiegers or defenders at a given siege. While figures have been given when possible, this information is often simply not recorded.
Moreover, there is another difficulty in estimating participants in siege warfare not common to other forms of conflict. Personnel who were normally non-combatants played a role in siege warfare. Cities mobilized all available personnel in manning fortifications, repairing damage, and sometimes in resisting attacks. The spectre of the sacking which inevitably followed a successful general assault by Latin forces concentrated the efforts as well as the minds of those attacked wonderfully.
This problem also affects measuring attacking forces, particularly those involved in some of the great sieges of the Crusades. Those expeditions motivated a significant number of ‘non-military’ personnel, including the aged and juvenile, as well as those whose station and gender rendered them unsuitable for the military life, Whatever their limitations in full battle or on the march, they played a role in siege warfare, and should be listed among those whose efforts facilitated the capture of notable fortifications.
A second and related problem is what might be termed the structure of forces involved. As mentioned above, defenders often included both garrison and citizens, whose interests were not always coterminous. Moreover, as in many large communities, not all inhabitants had the same interests, and some groups could accommodate a change in lordship with greater equanimity than others. However, this is a facet of urban siege warfare in many times and places, although perhaps heightened during the central Middle Ages.
What should be emphasized for the twelfth century is that attacking forces were on occasion equally if not more disparate. Some besieging forces were composed of coalitions of different and sometimes conflicting interest groups. A ‘fair’ distribution of plunder to all those who laboured and fought was often difficult. This problem was usually met by an agreement and/or common oath to distribute booty according to a pre-arranged formula. More critical were divergences in long- and short-term political and economic gains, which occasionally led to sharp divisions, especially over accepting a negotiated surrender. A considerable number of important twelfth-century sieges cannot be analysed as simply ‘two-player games’—that is as contests between one attacker and one defender. The composition of besiegers as well as the besieged was often more complex.
Moreover, the possible outcome of operations cannot be seen in terms of whether one side or another enjoyed control of a given position. Besieged communities strove above all to survive. In some cases they preserved their own religion and legal customs under the lordship of an infidel, and in others counted themselves fortunate to be exiles. Some attacking groups sought plunder, which was often employed in further military ventures, and revenge for their fallen comrades. Others served a ruler seeking lucrative sources of taxation. Twelfth-century siege warfare was profoundly affected by these factors and their interplay.
Twelfth-century sieges differed in several notable respects from those of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. In regard to the organization of forces, objectives, and logistics, the two periods may appear more divergent than similar. This is equally, if not more so, for poliorcetics. No medieval military engineer is known to have boasted that the date of the fall of a fortification could be accurately predicted by an expert from its outset. Such forecasting depends not only on an accurate knowledge of opposing fortifications and the condition of their defenders, but also certainty regarding the resources and capabilities of attackers. Twelfth-century engineers and commanders were on occasion unsure of the latter concerns, and improvisation was a keynote of a number of major siege operations of the period. It is to these subjects—notable sieges of the twelfth century and the manner in which they were organized and conducted—that we now turn.
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