European Medieval Tactics 2: New Infantry, New Weapons 1260—1500

Osprey Elite #189

by David Nicolle

By about 1260 the steady rise of the European heavily armoured mounted knight to the predominant role in most pitched battles was complete. But though he dominated the actual day of battle, he did not dominate warfare - there were plenty of vital though unglamorous tasks for which footsoldiers were still necessary, 'cleaning up round the edges'. With the development in the 13th century of co-operative tactics using crossbowmen and heavy spearmen, deployed together to compensate for each others' vulnerabilities, circumstance began to arise in which the charge by Muslim horse-archers, and then by European armoured knights, could be defied.

Infantry were far cheaper and easier to train than knights, and potentially there were far more of them. Slowly, tactics emerged by which more numerous and more varied infantry played an increasing part in battles. The best-known examples of this 'democratization of the battlefield' are the English longbowmen who won battles against French knights in the Hundred Years' War, and the massed Swiss spearmen and halberdiers who did the same in wars against the Dukes of Burgundy.

Illustrated with specially commissioned full-colour artwork depicting the tactical formations of the era, this book traces these and other examples of this 'jerky' and uneven process through its regional differences, which were invariably entwined with parallel cavalry developments - the balanced army of 'mixed arms' was always the key to success. By the time serious hand-held firearms appeared on battlefields in large numbers in about 1500, the face of medieval warfare had been transformed.

Genres: History, Nonfiction, Military History, Military Fiction, Medieval, Historical, Medieval History

64 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2012

About the author

David C. Nicolle is a British historian specialising in the military history of the Middle Ages, with a particular interest in the Middle East.

Reviews

[Rindis · Rating 3 out of 5]

Part two of Osprey's survey of Medieval tactics is much like the first volume. Unfortunately, while I felt the first volume started strong and finished somewhat weaker, all of this volume is at the level of the later portions of the first.

The main problem is that the first one started with a fairly solid thesis, and then lost its way in the later part of the period. This volume is still useful as a general introduction to a subject that gets too little attention, but it just wanders from place to place, and time to time, without any central ideas stated.

There are another thirteen small battle diagrams (compared to seven in the first volume), which seem to be more crowded and harder to follow than before. This may indicate the battles are getting more complicated. I don't know this period as well, so fewer of the battles discussed there or in the eight color plates are familiar to me, though there were still a few I knew.

[Matthew Ferry · Rating 3 out of 5]

Some really great content - but wow, the print is small!