A Practical Guide to Medieval Warfare Exploring History Through Wargaming

Medieval warfare is part of our culture. Each generation has taken inspiration from the medieval era for its own purposes. The problem is there are severe limits to our current understanding of the conduct of military campaigns culminating in sieges and pitch battles during the medieval era. We are peering back through the mists of time from a very different cultural perspective. This book is an attempt to develop further understanding of some aspects of the medieval military reality, in particular around the operational and tactical scale.Warfare changed considerably over this era, but this book attempted to draw out the themes that were predominate over the whole period. The divides into four sections. First it looks at the medieval operation art of war. It explores topics such as the numbers involved, scouting, logistics, march rates and the length of the campaign season. The second section looks at the medieval battle; how armies deployed, advanced, fought, won and lost. The many topics include dressing the ranks, the advance to contact, battle cries, pre-battle speeches. It aims to integrate close reading of the original sources, with other sources such as experimental archaeology, the experience of living history re-enactors, UK riot police and insights from research into modern combat phycology. The third section explores medieval sieges and street fighting. It includes details about the lengths of sieges and success rates. Then it discusses the practical details involved in storming a castle.The fourth section of the book includes five sets of rules for different aspects of medieval warfare. From pitch battles, to skirmishes, raids and retreats, the games allow the reader to create interactive models of medieval warfare on the tabletop for them to explore. This book is written from the perspective that there was a medieval art of war. War took time, effort, planning, logistics and skill to initiate, conduct and win. We assume that the medieval warrior largely knew what they were doing and if we do not comprehend the decisions they took when waging war, this reflects our lack of understanding, not theirs. This book aims to fill some of the gaps in our mental models of the medieval warfare.