Annotated Bibliography: Late Medieval Warfare

Bibliography

Contamine, Philippe. War in the Middle Ages. New York: B.Blackwell, 1984.

Honig, Jan Willem. “Reappraising Late Medieval Strategy.” War in History 19 (2012): 123-151. Accessed September 26, 2013 on Academic One File.

Keen, Maurice. Medieval Warfare: a history. Oxford New York: Oxford University Press, 1999.

Mortimer, Ian. “What Hundred Years War?.” History Today 59 (2009): 27-33. Accessed September 16, 2013 on JSTOR.

“The Sack of Limoges: On warfare without chivalry” in Sources of Western Society, edited by McKay, John P. et al., 195-196. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2010.

Source Analysis-On warfare without chivalry

On Warfare without Chivalry(The Sack of
Limoges) written by Jean Froissart and published around 1400 in The Chronicles of England, France, Spain and the adjoining countries outlines the changes in warfare during the hundred years war, regarding the change from the chivalric, noble, horse riding knight to a footed warrior who might even use a longbow, especially by comparing the new strategies used by the English troops to the ideals of chivalry.
The passage shows that moral values played a fundamental role in the chivalric society, that religion was considered an important part of being a good knight and that good behaviour was one of the key characteristics for being an ideal chivalric knight.
Moral Values in Chivalry played a significant role since the knights had to stick to a chivalric code who determined what was correct and what not.1 When the English in the
passage enter the town, they actively slay every person that is in their way, no matter what gender or age they are¹. This evidently offends against the chivalric moral values. The knights were supposed to protect the weak, poor and defenseless² and not to kill and hunt them down like animals. They should rather use their sword to defend everyone fair and deserved than to beat someone with it³ Another moral chivalric value coming out in the source is not to kill people without thinking about it.
In Limoges, everyone is killed, even the poor who did not even do something bad which could be reasonable to kill them.¹ Sticking to the Code of conduct, knights were supposed to kill as few people as possible. They should behave morally correct in a strict way as for example announcing a battle before you start it and not just start entering the town⁵which explains, why the inhabitants were so surprised about¹ the attack, even if they realized the mines before. Also, a knight always had to follow his Superior, in most cases his king.⁶ Besides the moral values the code of conduct also contained religious rules for the knights to follow. Anyone who has any feeling of religion would supremely bemoan the for them unbelievably cruel Situation in Limoges.¹ This states that the English were not thinking religious and therefore not acting chivalric. The religious connection to the code of chivalry was formed during the crusades when the knights fought for religion and thus came even closer to god.⁷ The Chivalric knights were even considered as knights of god⁸ , which shows that god
really had a strong influence on them. The religious rules are very close to the moral values. The church also wanted knights to protect old, weak and poor people. Further, knights had to be christian and to perform the religion intensively. Everything they did should not offend against any moral or religious values. For a king it was even harder to be considered a chivalric ideal. The king was supposed to be the ultimate example of political, military, social and economic norms.⁶ He was the one who made the rules and who told his knights how to behave and what to do. In such a position he could not be the one who allows himself an exception from his own or God 's rules. X Overall this historical narrative explains the major changes in medieval warfare and makes the reader understand, how the new kind of warfare affected society during the war. Jean Froissart seems to be really shocked about the non chivalric behaviour of knights when they attack Limoges without sticking to any moral and religious values and neither to the code of behaviour that was considered as standard for the chivalric society. The chivalric knight is really described as the typical knight that comes to our mind when we think about the middle ages. Anyways whenever we refer to this passage we should keep in mind that this is a narrative, written for aristocratic patrons which means that there could be overstatements in the text, to make it more shocking and to increase suspense.¹