How and from what soldiers died in the Middle Ages

2024 Author: Seth Attwood | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 15:55

We usually look at ancient battles from above - the right flank attacks the left, in the center the king leads the formation … Beautiful rectangles on the pictures, where arrows show who attacked whom and where, but what was happening directly at the place of the collision of the soldiers? As part of this popular article, I want to talk about wounds and the ways they were inflicted. This topic is not very popular in Russian historiography, as, in general, and other issues that consider the "face of war." On the other hand, a good amount of work has been accumulated in the West, in which the bone remains of ancient warriors are analyzed.

Modern methods of forensic examination make it possible to understand from the notches on the bones how the blow was struck, from which side, even the sequence of attacks can be restored, having understood the picture of the battle. I am sometimes asked to give a list of literature on the issue, therefore, in this article at the end there is a list of information sources, I have quite freely approached their design, this is still scientific pop, but there should be no problems with the search. However, if you do not want to dig deep into the question, you can simply ignore all links in square brackets. Conclusions at the end.

The most famous battle in this sense is the battle of Visby (1361) between the Gotland militia and Danish forces. It is remarkable because of the found mass grave of warriors, which could be correlated with the battle itself.

This is actually the largest burial to date, including about 1185 corpses (there is another mass grave that has not been excavated, presumably for 400 plus or minus people). At the same time, this burial is not the only one, and it is necessary to consider the seamy side of the war taking into account other battles - this is the battle of Towton (1461), the skirmish on Good Friday (1520), the battle of Aljubarrot (1381), in addition, the graves of individual soldiers, those killed in action also provide good material for analysis.

Let's start with Visby, I will not dwell in detail on the prehistory of the battle, we are more interested in the wounds received in it. And in general, his background, like many battles, is extremely simple - loot, and who will get it. The Battle of Visby clearly demonstrates the clash between a military organization based on universal conscription (Gotland peasants) and professional soldiers proper (Danish troops).

The result is sad for the Gotlandians - they were simply cut out and thrown into a mass grave. Moreover, in some places right in armor, but for the Middle Ages this is a picture, frankly speaking, atypical (usually everything iron was taken out from the battlefield). We are not interested in armor yet, but let's see the wounds, here are the statistics of injuries for all the skeletons found:

Illustrations of skeletons with percentages are from Matzke's dissertation [5]

As you can see, the main goal of the warrior is his legs, although I would like to emphasize that this is a picture of the battle that is characteristic of Visby, other burials show a slightly different distribution of blows. So, most of the blows were in the left leg, in order to understand how it looked live, you need to look at the fighting stance of a soldier armed with a sword and shield:

P. 126 Medieval Swordsmanship: Illustrated Methods and Techniques By John Clements

His left leg is slightly extended forward under the shield, like this:

P. 120 Medieval Swordsmanship: Illustrated Methods and Techniques By John Clements

As John Clements notes, defending the leg is an extremely difficult task - the opponent can make a false lunge to the head, which will force him to raise his shield, covering his face, and then go on to attack on the legs.

The Gotland army consisted of militias, and even disabled people were found among the bones - they clearly lacked skill. In second place, oddly enough, is the right leg - Ingelmark connects this with the fact that the enemy could continue to strike by slashing on the left shin.

In addition, some of the injuries are on the outside, which allows us to say that some of the warriors were on horseback - the rider, on the contrary, tries to drive up to the right in order to chop with a sword and at this time is open for a counterattack. The next part of the body that suffered the most is the head itself, and as you can see, the largest number of blows falls on the right side.

As noted by Boylston [2], this is due to the fact that most of the soldiers were right-handed, respectively, the blow was struck from right to left. The arms are the least affected, and the torso is completely unharmed - we will discuss this in the conclusions when we look at other battles. So, we get a clear picture of the battle - the soldiers sent the first blow to the shin of the opponent's left leg (possibly having previously made a false lunge to the head), if he was successful, then the unfortunate was seriously injured and could not continue the fight.

This was followed by finishing off with a blow to the head, Klim Zhukov suggests that this could have been done by a warrior from the second line, so that the first would not be distracted. Let us demonstrate this with the example of reconstructing the fate of a warrior from a grave under the Cisterian Abbey of Cara Insula in Jutland.

It is difficult to accurately date the time of the warrior's death; the authors of the study [10] give a range of 1250-1350 years. He was from 25 to 30 years old, his height was 162.7 cm (+/- 4, 31 cm) - the guy was slightly lower than the Gotland militias, whose average height fluctuated around 168 cm. Here are the places where our hero's limbs were injured:

The most serious blows were in the legs, plus there are cuts on the left forearm. After he received serious injuries to his legs, he was finished off with several strong blows to the head:

And here is the reconstruction of the battle

Let's go back to Visby - in addition to the actual injuries inflicted in close combat, there are also injuries received by shots from crossbows. Moreover, as Ingelmark notes, they were often beaten at close range, from which the arrow could pierce the skull through and through. Perhaps the rifle squads were mixed with heavy infantry or were nearby, targeting those who were gaping. The Gotland militia, which consisted of old people and underage youths, was staged a real massacre.

Now we see just cut skulls and cut bones, but what was happening then under the walls of Visby can be imagined.

Froissart describes a curious incident that took place under the walls of Norwich in 1381. Preacher John Ball at some point in time noticed that the situation of peasants in the country is very similar to slavery and generally unfair, while all people are equal. John came to the conclusion that it would be nice to distribute wealth fairly among all the inhabitants of England.

As you understand, in the era of developed feudalism, the ideas of communism were accepted by the nobility without enthusiasm and the preacher was locked away in prison. After serving the term, he did not come to his senses and carried the ideas of universal equality and brotherhood to the masses. So, in fact, with the banner of communism and forty thousand more associates from among the peasants, they went to London. Near Norwich, the newly-minted Bolsheviks met the knight Robert Sayle, to whom they made an offer to lead the fire of the revolution.

The valiant knight gave an answer in which only pretexts were decent (the venerable sir became a knight not by birthright, but by virtue of feats of arms, therefore he was fluent in the vocabulary of the common people). The people did not appreciate the message and got into a fight, and the horse ran away as luck would have it. It was then that the knight demonstrated that he could - Froissart colorfully describes how Robert chopped off the arms and legs (and some of the head) with well-aimed punches.

No, the miracle did not happen, in the end, the knight was knocked down and torn to pieces. And yes, this whole story was needed to mention the similarities between Robert's technique and the wounds at Visby. But what's an article without a good story?

Severed foot from Visby's grave

Battle of Towton

The famous bloody battle of the War of the Scarlet and White Rose in 1461 - according to various estimates, from 13,000 to 38,000 people died in the battle on both sides. There is also a small burial on the battlefield, which makes it possible to understand what happened directly to the soldiers themselves in battle [3].

Although the general tendencies, the distribution of wounds is similar to Visby, there are differences. The head and arms / legs are also affected, while the torso is not affected at all. Of the total number of injuries, 72% are in the head and 28% are in the limbs. Of the 28 skulls found (29 in total, but one was too badly damaged) 96% (!) Have injuries.

Do you know how many blows these 27 skulls had? One hundred and thirteen, about 4 blows for each victim, with a third on the left side of the skull, a third on the face and only a third on the back of the head. This is very significant and indicates that the battle was fierce and went face to face. In addition, a third of the skulls bear traces of past and healed combat injuries. Apparently, we are dealing mainly with professional soldiers who fought a fierce battle.

This is, in principle, confirmed by our information about the battle at Touton, which allows us to say that he walked almost all day (I don’t think they were cut for 10-12 hours, rather the battle was interspersed with pauses).

Than they beat

Predominantly chopping weapons (swords, possibly axes) - 65%, another 25% were inflicted with blunt weapons (maces, hammers, etc.), 10% fell on piercing weapons (here not only arrows, but also, for example, thorns on war hammers).

Distribution of skull injuries by weapon type:

If we talk about injuries to the rest of the body, they traditionally occur mainly on the arms and legs, but there is a certain difference from the Battle of Visby. There are many injuries affecting the wrist and forearm of the right hand.

This suggests that the warriors were caught on a counterattack, striking at his right hand, in which the sword was clenched.

P. 47 Medieval Swordsmanship: Illustrated Methods and Techniques By John Clements

Shannon Novak [3] paid special attention to the skeleton number 25 - this is a man aged 26-35, who had already been injured in battle, there is a trace of a healed wound on his skull. Most likely, he was an experienced warrior, as evidenced by both the old wound and the enemy's reactions to him. He received 5 (!) Blows to the head, which were not fatal, and it is possible that those (or the one) who inflicted three of them might not have seen the death of their offender.

To cover his back, this warrior apparently already had no one, and he received a fatal blow to the back of the head, which led to fatal brain damage. Shannon notes that after this, the warrior was most likely turned over on his back (from the blow he should have fallen face-first), and turned over with a sword, from which another notch remained. And finally, the last blow cut the warrior's head almost in half - from the left eye to the right incisor, in order to restore the whole picture of the battle, the researchers had to literally collect the skull in parts.

Good Friday battle and burial near Uppsala

Researchers [4] associate this burial near Uppsala castle with the battle on Good Friday, April 6, 1520. The battle took place between Swedish troops, consisting mainly of peasant militias, and Danish mercenaries, clearly more experienced in the art of war.

As often happens, the militia could not oppose anything to the professionals and the Swedish peasants were killed. In total, at least 60 people were found in the mass grave, at the age from 24 to 35 years old, by the way, quite tall - the average height is 174.5 cm. The vast majority (89%) of injuries occur on the head, and their distribution is rather curious.

The battle of Uppsala demonstrates exactly what has the strongest influence on the course of the battle. Something that we do not see in films, which is rarely written about. Fear. The battle was far from always being a dashing conning tower face to face; quite often whole detachments fled simply by seeing the enemy.

Most of the wounds in the Battle of Uppsala were inflicted on the back of the head, possibly during the pursuit. But what is interesting, the body of the warrior still remained unharmed - the main target, as in other battles, was the head. In general, the topic of the psychology of war is one of the most complex, the chronicles are scanty for describing the emotions of warriors, but even fragmentary data can shed light on this issue, for example, some of the blows at Visby were inflicted with a trembling hand.

Distribution of wounds received in the battle on Good Friday

Well? A short head injury story to take a break from the shards? The Danish chronicler Saxon Grammaticus, who lived in the late 12th and early 13th centuries, set out several sagas, mentioning interesting details of the duels. So at the wedding of a certain Agner, the groom's friends were amused by throwing bones and, unfortunately, got into Bjarka, who twisted his neck to the muzzle. Agner was very sad and challenged Bjarko to a fight, as Saxon describes him:

Then Bjarko chopped up several dissatisfied, and after a while he took his betrothed Agner as his wife. Nenuacho?

Have a rest? We take shovels and go to Portugal.

Battle of Aljubarroth

This battle took place in 1385 between Castilian and Portuguese troops. Found a mass grave researchers [7, 8], which is attributed to this battle. In total, at least 400 corpses were found, the average height of which was about 166 cm, slightly less than under Visby, Tauton and Uppsala, but in general this is the average height for the Middle Ages.

In principle, in terms of the nature of the damage, this battle is closest to Visby - more than 60% fell on the legs and about 18% were skull injuries. There are, however, and differences under Aljubarrota beat mainly in the thighs, and with a blunt weapon - hammers, chases and clubs were used. Probably, in this battle, the opponents tried to break the enemy's thigh, and then finish off with a blow to the head. The distribution of blows to the bones is shown below:

Summing up

There is a curious tendency for all burials - the vast majority of injuries occur on the head, with the exception of skeletons from the Fishergate cemetery, which have a large percentage of injuries to the ribs and chest [2, 5]. Researchers attribute this to the lesser prevalence of protective weapons among those buried there. But there is another unresolved question, perhaps they have already paid attention to it - if there are no wounds on the body, because it was reliably protected by armor, then why are there so many broken skulls, did they not use helmets? In fact, there is no good answer here - the researchers put forward different hypotheses, but they are all vulnerable to criticism:

Poor quality of helmets [3]. What is the advantage of this theory - it explains the same injuries in completely different battles, separated in space and time. The disadvantage is also obvious in the armor of the 14-15 centuries was already of relatively high quality, the samples that have come down to us demonstrate an extremely low percentage of slag inclusions. Well, in general, in order to pierce the helmet, remarkable strength is required.

The helmet was lost in battle or deliberately removed. The advantage of the theory is that it explains the rather severe trauma to the skull. The disadvantages of the theory are also visible - firstly, the battle picture is identical for many burials at different periods of time, and such a version would rather explain isolated examples. In addition, many soldiers already had healed skull injuries, so they had to understand how important the protection of the head was like no other.

It is difficult for me to say which is closer to the truth - I myself am more inclined towards the first version, since there are still examples of breaking through the most expensive and powerful helmets, for example, Charles the Bold at Nancy (1477) cut his head to the lower jaw with a halberd. Moreover, In the mass graves, although there were professionals, but still not the richest part (the fallen nobles were taken away with them), which means they did not have much money, so the quality of the helmets could really be mediocre. The absence of injuries directly on the skeleton is explained, apparently, by the use of shields, which, in combination with armor (or even without them), made the body an unprofitable target.

Illustration of Torso Shield Defense by John Clements

Burials of the 17th century, for example, the grave of soldiers who died at Lützen (1632), already demonstrate [6] numerous injuries on the hull, which can be associated with the gradual abandonment of armor due to the development of firearms. But the burials of the Thirty Years War are no longer so interesting - they already show that firearms play the first violin, almost half of the skeletons have been shot through.

In addition, we are partly dealing with the mistake of the survivor (in our case, the deceased) - we will not see injuries in the soft tissues, only those that left marks on the bones, so perhaps some of the soldiers had abdominal wounds. But again, even those burials that we obviously cannot compare with any battle [9, 11] still have the same advantage in the direction of blows to the head and, apparently, inflicted mainly on foot.

conclusions

The main target in medieval battles was by no means the heart, but the head, the second most traumatic is the left leg. Hand-to-hand fights were a little like beautiful fights in films, they were short fights that could end with one or two blows. There was little in them from modern reconstructions, and we do not see the reception of duelists from the fencing books of the XIV-XVI centuries there.

Only practical fights aimed at killing the enemy as quickly as possible - they chopped off their legs, finished off with a blow to the head. The researchers also note that head injuries are very similar, suggesting a well-delivered hit and roughly the same military school that the soldiers went through.

In 1477, the Duke of Burgundy, Charles the Bold, died in the battle of Nancy - he was a noble man, but they could only identify him by the color of his clothes, his body was so disfigured by blows. Now we know that this was by no means an exceptional case - the war did not spare either kings or ordinary peasants. Such were the medieval battles - bloody and fleeting.