The Assassination of Flavias Aetius

 The Assassination of Flavias Aetius

      Flavias Aetius was the Roman commander at the Battle of Chalons (451), where along with forces of the Visigothic Empire, it under the command of its King, Theodoric, the Huns under Attila were defeated.  Flavias had been appointed magister militum (essentially “supreme commander” of all Roman military forces) by Valentinian III, a particularly weak (and in this era that is saying something) emperor.  While Boethius is oft identified as the last gasp of the Roman Empire’s (or at least its western components) intellectual life, Flavius Aetius can equally be described as the last of the great western Roman generals.  Gibbons called him the Last of the Romans

      Only three years after Chalons on September 21, 454, Aetius was assassinated by Valentinian.  Within the year, Valentinian would in turn be assassinated by friends of Aetius while Valentinian’s guard watched; the members of the guard had been followers of Aetius. The shrinking remnants of the Western Roman Empire would finally collapse in 476 with the deposition of the last emperor of the Western Roman Empire, Romulus Augustus.

 

The Battle of Poitiers

    The Hundred Years War, which actually lasted 116 years, is famous for the fact that it is remembered for three primary engagements, each of which resulted in a decisive English victory, and still in the end England lost the war. Today is the anniversary of the first of those engagements, the Battle of Poitiers fought in 1356. The other two battles were Crecy in 1346 and Agincourt in 1415.

    Poitiers is the outlier among these three; it did not involve an attempted uphill charge of the French against a prepared line of English archers, men at arms and other infantry. In addition it involved an important contribution by an English calvary force. But there the dissimilarities end. The French, while significantly outnumbering the English forces, were again hampered by poor chain of command. And the final casualty count was far in favor of the English.

    The English forces, which included a significant contingent from the French province of Gascony, were led by Edward the Black Prince, son of Edward III and heir apparent (the throne would go eventually to Richard III, son of the Black Prince and heir presumptive while his father lived). At that time Gascony was the remaining remnant in France of the Angevin Empire assembled by Henry II and Eleanor of Aquitain; Bordeaux its capital was larger than London. A dispute over Gascony was the impetus for the Hundred Years War. 

    The Black Prince and many of the force that had fought at Crecy were there as Poitiers loomed; they knew what lay ahead. In October, 1355 they began a chevauchée (think Sherman's March to the Sea) through Southern France, then returning to Gascony. Over the winter and into the spring of 1356 numerous towns were captured with some nobles switching their alliance to the English. Meanwhile in that summer another English army invaded Normandy and did significant damage to French property and alliances.

    In August of 1356 the English/Gascon forse set out north and then north-east in another chevauchee some 50 miles wide, described by David Green as “deliberately destructive, extremely brutal ... methodical and sophisticated." The Black Prince at 51. Meanwhile the French King John continued to focus on unsuccessful seige operations in Normandy, attempting without success to dislodge dug-in English forces at Breteuil, a venture described by Sumption as "a pointless endeavour". Jonathan Sumption,  Trial by Fire. The Hundred Years' War (Vol II) at 224. Eventually he convinced the English garrison to abandon Breteuil with safe passage, an agreement they could take with them their loot and treasure, and a substantial additional payment (a/k/a a bribe). Only then did the French army, buttressed by some 200 Scotsman, move against Edward’s forces, they now each maneuvering for an advantageous field of battle. Meanwhile a French force of maybe 700 was ambushed by the English with some 240 killed or captured. At that point King John turned to make battle while the forces of the Black Prince picked and fortified with stakes and trenches a position from which they, unmounted, would answer a French assault.

    After fruitless negotiations for English safe passage back to Gascony a French army of some 15,000 (maybe 11,000 men at arms, 2000 light infantry and 2000 crossbow men). organized against the English/Gascon army of maybe 6,000 (3000 men at arms, 2000 bowmen and 1000 Gascon light infantry). At dawn on September 19 the French organized some 500 yards in front of the English’ prepared position, but they did not advance for some two hours. The battle began with French mounted forces attacking the bowmen arrayed on the two flanks. On one side they were hampered by a swamp the horses could not traverse. While many of the horses were protected from arrow fire by armor on their chests and heads, their hindquarters were not protected, and a continent of archers moved so they could shoot at the unprotected areas. The first French assault fell largely to the English longbow, although hand-to-hand combat on the English right flank was an important contributor to repulsing that onslaught.

    And then came the second French attack of some 4000 men at arms, an often hand-to-hand battle that waged for two hours. Here the flexibility of the English/Gascon forces proved vital; while the French may be praised for following their orders the English and Gascon proved flexible in responding to threatened breakthroughs; Green in his Battle of Poiters (pp. 52-53) commended "an extremely flexible tactical response" while Hoskins in In the Steps of the Black Prince: The Road to Poitiers, 1355–1356 (p. 192) observed that having fought together since 1355 the Black Prince's army was disciplined as a unit. Eventually the contingent fighting with the dauphin (the French heir apparent) and two of his brothers retreated, which it seems all the French forces took as a signal to disengage. From the French perspective the timing might not have been more disadvantageous; at that point all English reserves were committed.

    A lackluster third attack had no real bearing on the battle, while the fourth, comprised of maybe 4000 men at arms, some fresh and some survivors of an earlier wave, around the French king John, marched at the English position with the French national banner, the Oriflamme unfurled - under it all French were forbidden to take prisoners; all combat was to the death.

    While the details are debated, the English took a two prong approach to this now forth onslaught. First, a group of unknown size mounted their horses, rode around the flank, and from the rear attacked the French forces. At the same time, the main body, led by the Black Prince, moved forward from their secured position, advancing on the main French body. Eventually the French force collapsed and disintegrated. The bearer of the Oriflamne was killed and that national banner captured as was, eventually, King John himself and his son Philip.

    While casualty figures are notoriously difficult to ascertain, the French likely lost 2500 men-at-arms, and an equal number of other soldiers. Meanwhile, the English likely lost 40 men-at-arms and an unknown number of infantry and bowmen. 

    The Black Prince’s army retreated to Gascony with the French king in hand. After several fits and starts including a treaty providing for John’s ransom that the dauphin rejected as too costly, John was freed in return for the French transferring to the English significant territory in France and a ransom of 3 million ecu (the 1360 Treaty of Bretigny).

    David Green’s The Black Prince (2011) is a good resource, as is Peter Hoskin’svSteps of the Black Prince: The Road to Poitiers, 1355–1356 (also 2011). Still, Jonathan Sumption’s monumental five volume history of the Hundred Years War (The Hundred Years War I – Trial by Battle; The Hundred Years War II – Trial by Fire; The Hundred Years War III – Divided Houses;The Hundred Years War IV – Cursed Kings; and The Hundred Years War V - Triumph and Illusion) is without a bout the definitive treatment.

The Death of Theodore of Tarsus

 Theodore of Tarsus

Today marks the anniversary of the death, in the year 690, of Theodore of Tarsus. At the time of his death, he was the Archbishop of Canterbury. Probably you have never heard of him. That’s unfortunate; he led a most interesting life. 

Theodore was born in Tarsus (the same city as was born Paul the Apostle) on the southern coast of what is today Turkey. He grew up at a time of conflict between the Byzantine Empire controlled out of Constantinople and the Sassanid Empire out of what was then referred to as Persia (today’s Iran). At this time, pre-the rise of Islam, most of the Sassanid Empire was Zorastrian.  By the early 600s and the rise of Islam, the Sassanid Empire converted to Islam. As such, through this stage in his life, Theodore had been immersed in classical Persian and then Muslim cultures even as he studied classical Western and Christian studies. Ultimately, he relocated first to Constantinople and then to Rome, where he entered a monastery and continued his studies. 

Following the death, before consecration, of a man intended to be the Archbishop of Canterbury (a certain Wighard), Theodore was chosen by the Pope to fill that vacant See. He was consecrated as the Archbishop of Canterbury in Rome, and at some point thereafter departed for England. Once in England, he took steps with respect to a variety of issues ranging from the calculation on what day Easter should be held to a variety of matters of church discipline. He is well served as a mediator in a number of political disputes, and founded a famous school at Canterbury. Many factors of his time as the Archbishop of Canterbury are known through Bede’s Ecclesiastical History of the English People. 

He would ultimately die in Canterbury at the age of approximately 88.

So there you have it. Theodore was born in southern Turkey, lived under both the Persian Sassanid and then the Persian Islamic Empires, studied in Constantinople and then in Rome, and spent over 20 years as the Archbishop of Canterbury. This suggesting the people in the Middle Ages did not travel far from where they were born is simply not accurate.

The Passing of Dante

                      The Passing of Dante

On this day in 1321, in the city of Ravenna, his home after being exiled from Florence, died Dante Alighieri, author of numerous works but especially the epic Comedy.  Today better known as the “Divine” Comedy after Boccaccio a generation later informally amended its title, Dante wrote his greatest work in his native Tuscan dialect of Italian, abandoning the more typical approach of writing in Latin (and thereby earning the enmity of Petrarch), and in so doing fixing that dialect as “proper Italian.”

Dante’s remains remain in Ravenna; his “tomb” in Florence is a cenotaph, and numerous request to return his remains to the Florence have been rejected. 

The post-death story of Dante’s influence is recounted in Dante’s Bones: How a Poet Invented Italy by Guy P. Rafa, while his best biography is Dante: The Story of His Life by Marco Santagata.  If you are looking for some help in reading the Comedy, Joseph Gallagher’s A Modern Reader's Guide to Dante's The Divine Comedy may be for you. Another good resource is The Cambridge Companion to Dante by Rachel Jacoff.

The Hundred Years War and the Battle of Crecy

 

The Battle of Crecy

 

Today is the anniversary of the Battle of Crecy, it taking place in 1346 as part of the Hundred Years War (a later developed label that would have mystified its participants and contemporaries). One of the three defining battles of that conflict, the others being Poitiers (1356) and Agincourt (1415), the English decisively prevailed at each. Still they lost the Hundred Years War.

 

The English army, under the direct command of King Edward III and including amongst its nobles his son Edward the Prince of Wales (a/k/a the Black Prince, so named because of the blackened steel of his armor), had landed in the Cherbourg Peninsula at St. Vaast de Hogue and proceeded to march across Normandy. St. Lo and Caen, both known to students of the D-Day invasion of 1944, were in Edward’s path of pillage; Caen was captured and looted for five days. The spoils of war were loaded into Edward’s fleet and dispatched back to England with orders to collect more men and equipment and meet him at Le Crotoy at the mouth of the Somme.

 

Continuing the ongoing pillage , just short of Rouen they turned south towards Paris, but did not proceed past Poissey (20 miles from Paris) as his army there crossed the Seine, the crossings further north having been destroyed in an effort to deprive Edward of an opportunity to proceed further north. Still, the complete failure of the French forces was feared, a general levy was ordered, and plans for the defense of Paris were prepared. 

 

Having crossed the Seine, Edward’s forces moved generally north-east towards their goal of Le Crotoy, crossing the Somme river at Blanchetaque where they defeated a French defensive force on the river’s north bank. After maneuvering between the forces the French under the command of King Phillip VI thought they had pinned down the English forces, thereby forcing a direct battle. Be careful what you ask for.

 

Determining the number of combatants in medieval warfare is notoriously difficult with many ranges being up to 100%. Crecy is no exception; the English forces are estimated to have been between a low of 7000 and a high of 15,000. Jonathan Sumption, author of a monumental five-volume history of the Hundred Years War (links below), put the English forces at between 7000 and 10,000. Regardless they were clearly outnumbered; the French forces were somewhere in the range of 20,000 to 30,000.

 

Edward picked the site of the battle, positioning his line uphill from the  expected advance of the French. In preparation his forces set up some primitive small cannon and as well dug holes throughout the hill to interrupt any cavalry charge. Likely the archers were protected by sharpened stakes driven into the ground at an angle, especially useful against cavalry. Once in place the English settled into position and rested, awaiting the expected French attack. The Black Prince commanded one of the forward elements; Edward III was in the rear with a reserve force.

 

While the why is less than clear, it is clear that French discipline failed and what could have been an organized attack by an overwhelming force became a string of uncoordinated actions without a unifying plan or mutual support. Initially a mercenary force of Italian crossbow men, largely if not exclusively from Genoa engaged, but without the heavy wooden shields they needed for protection while reloading; a crossbow could fire maybe twice a minute during which time a Welsh bowman could unleash ten arrows at significantly longer range. In addition, it rained, and the softened ground made it more difficult to reload the crossbows. The crossbow men retreated, pushing against the other forces moving forward who thought them cowards and killed many of them. Meanwhile the forward edge of the French forces came into range of the English bows.

 

Having pushed their way to the front, French mounted knights and men at arms initiated a cavalry charge. Uphill. Across ground recently rained upon and containing trenches and holes dug by the English to impede a cavalry charge. It went as well as you might expect. While likely most of the mounted soldiers had some plate armor, particularly helmets, padded tunics and chain mail were still predominant, and at 200/250 feet a longbow’s arrow might penetrate plate and even if it didn't the recipient would have felt the blow. Even more vulnerable were the unarmored horses, and each one that fell brought down not only its rider but as well impeded the horses behind it. No doubt wounded and terrified horses ran thru the French forces further shattering its cohesion. The few French forces who survived the cloud of arrows to reach the English line were dispatched in hand to hand combat.

 

That was just the first wave. As more French forces arrived they organized and launched further calvary charges. Again uphill. Again over wet ground, now impeded not just by English dug trenches and holes but by the bodies of dead and injured men and horses and against the force of retreating men and horses. Into the face of archers who knew they were winning, who knew that not winning meant certain death, and who had the experience against the first cavalry charge to inform how to handle each that followed. The same fate awaited those few French who survived the arrows of the long bowmen and reached the English line. And it happened again. And again. The charges continued through dusk into the night, perhaps as late as midnight. King Phillip was injured by an arrow to his jaw, and the French battle standard, the Oriflamme, was captured. Finally the French just stopped attacking.

 

The total number of prisoners taken that day by the English forces is a rare clearly quantified figure: zero.

 

The next day various English forces sallied forth to attack, killing perhaps another 2000.

 

The total French casualties are unknown; the English heralds counted 1542 nobles among the dead. Credible estimates of up to 4000 men at arms and 10,000 common soldiers are supported. As for the English, they lost 300 or fewer.

 

The English army, morale no doubt boosted by their victory at Crecy, continued on its route and would besiege for eleven months and capture Calais, it remaining English territory until lost in January, 1558 during the reign of Queen Mary Tudor.

 

A good single volume review is The Battle of Crecy (1346), a collection of essays edited by Andrew Ayton and Philip Preston. In addition, Crecy: Battle of Five Kings by Michael Livingston is worthwhile. That said, Jonathan Sumption’s monumental five-volume history of the Hundred Years War (The Hundred Years War I – Trial by Battle; The Hundred Years War II – Trial by Fire; The Hundred Years War III – Divided Houses;The Hundred Years War IV – Cursed Kings; and The Hundred Years War V - Triumph and Illusion) is without compare.

 

The Death of William Wallace

 The Death of William Wallace

      Today marks the anniversary of the death (execution), in 1305, of William Wallace. 

       Most people in this age, to the extent they know anything about William Wallace, learned it from the movie Braveheart in which Mel Gibson played the role of William Wallace. The movie is entirely correct that William Wallace lived and fought for an independent Scotland in the First Scottish War for Independence. The movie is correct in that the he was opposed by King Edward I, who was known by the nickname “long shanks” (he was quite tall for the age). It is true, as depicted in the movie, that William Wallace was executed by being drawn and quartered, that being the accepted method of execution for traitors.

       Almost everything else in the movie is incorrect. For example:

►        Wallace was from a minor noble family; he was not a peasant farmer.

►        Wallace’s father was not executed by the English and may well have been alive when Wallace was appointed Protector of Scotland.

►        Piers Galveston, the “friend” of Edward II, was never thrown from a window (a/k/a a defenestration) by Edward I. Rather, Galveston lived well into the reign of Edward II, although he was ultimately killed as a component of a revolt of the nobles upset about their relationship and Piers’ access to royal largess.

►        In all likelihood, William Wallace and Robert the Bruce (the 7th) never met.

►        Isabella of France did not marry Edward II until 1308, well after the death of William Wallace.

►        The depiction of the Battle of Sterling Bridge omitted the namesake bridge.

►        Isabella of France never negotiated with William Wallace for the treatment of York or anything else; she was born in 1295 and in consequence would have been less than 10 years old at the time of Wallace’s death.

►        Edward I died in July, 1307.  While the movie suggests he was on his deathbed at the time Wallace was executed, in fact he outlived Wallace by almost two years.

►        It is suggested that Isabella of France was secretly “involved" with Wallace and carried his baby at the time of Wallace’s execution. Edward III was born on November 13, 1312. Wallace could have been his father only if Isabella was able to pull off a pregnancy of more than seven years.

►        The moniker “Braveheart” was attributed not to Wallace, but rather to Robert the Bruce. In fact, after his death, his heart was cut out and carried in a chest by Scottish forces going into battle.

A Horse, a Horse, My Kingdom for a Horse

 A Horse, a Horse, My Kingdom for a Horse

      Today is the anniversary of the Battle of Bosworth (1485), the final major battle of that English civil war titled The War of the Roses (this conflict was at the time sometimes referred to as the Cousin’s War).  It was at this battle that King Richard III, variously identified as the last King from the House of Plantagenet or the House of York, was killed. He was the last English King to die in battle.  Henry Tudor, the victor at Bosworth, then became King Henry VII.

      Henry’s victory in battle was if anything surprising.  Richard’s forces outnumbered those of Henry.  Meanwhile, William Stanley held back his own force; if combined with that of Henry, that of Richard would have been out-numbered. Conversely, if Stanley joined with Richard, the weight of the forces arrayed against Henry would have been overwhelming.  Richard held William Stanley’s nephew George (Lord Strange) as a hostage. That nephew’s father, Lord Thomas Stanley, was married to Henry Tudor’s mother Margaret Beaufort.   As battle was about to commence, Richard sent word to Thomas Stanley that if the Stanley forces did not join with his, he would execute Lord Strange (Henry Tudor’s step-brother).  Stanley replied, “I have other sons.”  

       To provide but a taste as to why this conflict was referred to as the Cousins War, consider that Thomas Stanley was the brother of William Stanley, husband of Margaret Beaufort, she being the mother of Henry Tudor.  Ergo, William Stanley was the brother-in-law to Henry’s mother.  Thomas Stanley had previously been married to Eleanor Neville, sister to Warwick the Kingmaker and aunt to Richard III’s recently deceased wife Anne Neville. Anne Neville was a daughter of Warwick. 

      Richard’s attack upon Henry’s position nearly succeeded; Henry’s standard-bearer William Brandon was killed at Henry’s side.  Polydore Virgil, a contemporary historian/chronicler, recorded that Richard fought well.  However, Richard’s fate was sealed when the William Stanley and his troops, having until then not committed to either side, rode against Richard’s infantry as his cavalry was separately moving against Henry. Thomas Stanley would place the coronet (crown) of Richard III on Henry Tudor’s head.

      William Brandon’s son Charles, ultimately Duke of Suffolk, would become the best friend of Henry VIII.

       In 2012, Richard’s remains were located in the course of excavations under a parking lot that now covers part of what was the Blackfriars (Dominican) Church in Leicester, England; early 2013 saw the announcement that testing had confirmed the remains were those of Richard.  In sad testimony to the modern age, litigation ensued as to whether Richard should be re-buried in Leicester Cathedral, apparently consistent with the terms of the agreement by which the archaeological work was performed and other British law, or in York where certain claimed descendants of Richard assert he would want to have been buried.  That question was resolved in favor of Leicester, and in 2016 Richard III was laid to rest in Leicester Cathedral.

       Notwithstanding Polydore Virgil’s positive comments as to Richard III (many of which are now disputed by historians), in proof of the adage that the winners write the history, his reputation was besmirched by various Tudor affiliates such as St. Thomas More and William Shakespeare.   The quote above, “A horse, a horse, my kingdom for a horse,” is from Shakespeare’s play Richard III,  Act V, Scene IV.  He is currently being reassessed by historians who are not so indebted to supporting the legitimacy of the House of Tudor. The “standard” biographies of Richard III are those of Paul Murray Kendall and Charles Ross, each titled Richard III.