The Best of the Bureau/The_Best_of_the_Bureau_Bureau_Development_Inc._1992.iso/dp/0087/00873.txt

Text File | 1992-08-07 | 37KB | 545 lines

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$Title{History Of Europe During The Middle Ages
Part XII}
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$Author{Hallam, Henry}
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Title:       History Of Europe During The Middle Ages
Book:        Book III: The History Of Italy
Author:      Hallam, Henry

Part XII

     Many disadvantages attended the security against wounds for which this
armor had been devised.  The enormous weight exhausted the force and crippled
the limbs.  It rendered the heat of a southern climate insupportable.  In some
circumstances it increased the danger of death, as in the passage of a river
or morass.  It was impossible to compel an enemy to fight, because the least
intrenchment or natural obstacle could stop such unwieldy assailants.  The
troops must be kept in constant alarm at night, and either compelled to sleep
under arms, or run the risk of being surprised before they could rivet their
plates of steel. ^h Neither the Italians, however, nor the Transalpines, would
surrender a mode of defence which they ought to have deemed inglorious.  But
in order to obviate some of its military inconveniences, as well as to give a
concentration in attack, which lancers impetuously charging in a single line,
according to the practice at least of France in the middle ages, did not
preserve, it became usual for the cavalry to dismount, and, leaving their
horses at some distance, to combat on foot with the lance.  This practice,
which must have been singularly embarrassing with the plate-armor of the
fifteenth century, was introduced before it became so ponderous.  It is
mentioned by historians of the twelfth century, both as a German and an
English custom. ^i We find it in the wars of Edward III.  Hawkwood, the
disciple of that school, introduced it into Italy. ^j And it was practised by
the English in their second wars with France, especially at the battles of
Crevant and Verneuil. ^k

[Footnote h: Sismondi, t. ix. p. 158.]

[Footnote i: The Emperor Conrad's cavalry in the second crusade are said by
William of Tyre to have dismounted on one occasion, and fought on foot, de
equis descendentes, et facti pedites; sicut mos est Teutonicis in summis
necessitatibus bellica tractare negotia.  l. xvii. c. 4.  And the same was
done by the English in their engagement with the Scotch near North-Allerton,
commonly called the battle of the Standard, in 1138.  Twysden, Decem. Script.
p. 342.]

[Footnote j: Sismondi, t. vi. p. 429; Azarius, in Script. Rer. Ital. t. vxi.;
Matt. Villani.]

[Footnote k: Monstrelet, t. ii. fol. 7, 14, 76; Villaret, t. xvii. p. 89. It
was a Burgundian as well as English fashion.  Entre les Bourguignons, says
Comines, lors estoient les plus honorez ceux que descendoient avec les
archers. l. i. c. 3.]

     Meanwhile a discovery accidentally made, perhaps in some remote age and
distant region, and whose importance was but slowly perceived by Europe, had
prepared the way not only for a change in her military system, but for
political effects still more extensive.  If we consider gunpowder as an
instrument of human destruction, incalculably more powerful than any that
skill had devised or accident presented before, acquiring, as experience shows
us, a more sanguinary dominion in every succeeding age, and borrowing all the
progressive resources of science and civilization for the extermination of
mankind, we shall be appalled at the future prospects of the species, and feel
perhaps in no other instance so much difficulty in reconciling the mysterious
dispensation with the benevolent order of Providence.  As the great security
for established governments, the surest preservation against popular tumult,
it assumes a more equivocal character, depending upon the solution of a
doubtful problem, whether the sum of general happiness has lost more in the
last three centuries through arbitrary power, than it has gained through
regular police and suppression of disorder.

     There seems little reason to doubt that gunpowder was introduced through
the means of the Saracens into Europe.  Its use in engines of war, though they
may seem to have been rather like our fireworks than artillery, is mentioned
by an Arabic writer in the Escurial collection about the year 1249. ^l It was
known not long afterwards to our philosopher Roger Bacon, though he concealed,
in some degree, the secret of its composition.  In the first part of the
fourteenth century cannon, or rather mortars, were invented, and the
applicability of gunpowder to purposes of war was understood.  Edward III.
employed some pieces of artillery with considerable effect at Crecy. ^m But
its use was still not very frequent; a circumstance which will surprise us
less when we consider the unscientific construction of artillery; the slowness
with which it could be loaded; its stone balls, of uncertain aim and imperfect
force, being commonly fired at a considerable elevation; and especially the
difficulty of removing it from place to place during an action.  In sieges,
and in naval engagements, as, for example, in the war of Chioggia, it was more
frequently employed. ^n Gradually, however, the new artifice of evil gained
ground.  The French made the principal improvements.  They cast their cannon
smaller, placed them on lighter carriages, and used balls of iron. ^o They
invented portable arms for a single soldier, which, though clumsy in
comparison with their present state, gave an augury of a prodigious revolution
in the military art.  John, Duke of Burgundy, in 1411, had 4,000 hand-cannons,
as they were called, in his army. ^p They are found under different names and
modifications of form - for which I refer the reader to professed writers on
tactics - in most of the wars that historians of the fifteenth century record,
but less in Italy than beyond the Alps.  The Milanese, in 1449, are said to
have armed their militia with 20,000 muskets, which struck terror into the old
generals. ^q But these muskets, supported on a rest, and charged with great
delay, did less execution than our sanguinary science would require; and,
uncombined with the admirable invention of the bayonet, could not in any
degree resist a charge of cavalry.  The pike had a greater tendency to subvert
the military system of the middle ages, and to demonstrate the efficiency of
disciplined infantry.  Two free nations had already discomfited, by the help
of such infantry, those arrogant knights on whom the fate of battles had
depended - the Bohemians, instructed in the art of war by their great master,
John Zisca; and the Swiss, who, after winning their independence inch by inch
from the house of Austria, had lately established their renown by a splendid
victory over Charles of Burgundy.  Louis XI. took a body of mercenaries from
the United Cantons into pay.  Maximilian had recourse to the same assistance.
^r And though the importance of infantry was not perhaps decidedly established
till the Milanese wars of Louis XII. and Francis I., in the sixteenth century,
yet the last years of the middle ages, according to our division, indicated
the commencement of that military revolution in the general employment of
pikemen and musketeers.

[Footnote l: Casiri, Bibl. Arab. Hispan. t. ii. p. 7, thus renders the
original description of certain missiles used by the Moors.  Serpunt,
susurrantque scorpiones circumligati ac pulvere nitrato incensi, unde explosi
fulgurant ac incendunt.  Jam videre erat manganum excussum veluti nubem per
aera extendi ac tonitrus instar horrendum edere fragorem, ignemque undequaque
vomens, omnia dirumpere, incendere, in cineres redigere.  The Arabic passage
is at the bottom of the page; and one would be glad to know whether pulvis
nitratus is a fair translation.  But I think there can on the whole be no
doubt that gunpowder is meant.  Another Arabian writer seems to describe the
use of cannon in the years 1312 and 1323.  Id. ibid.  And the chronicle of
Alphonso XI., King of Castile, distinctly mention