
Peter Burkholder |
Review of Antonio Santosuosso,
Barbarians, Marauders, and Infidels: The Ways of Medieval
Warfare. 2004; rpt. New York: MJF Books, 2008. Pp. xiv, 344. ISBN
978-1-56731-891-3. |
Writing a one-volume work that covers over a thousand years' worth
of medieval military history for the whole of Europe is a daunting
task. Little wonder, then, that books that have succeeded remain
popular decades after publication.[1]
Antonio
Santosuosso's Barbarians, Marauders, and Infidels is the
latest to attempt the feat. Not content to restrict himself to
Europe, Santosuosso, an emeritus history professor at the University
of Western Ontario, adds to the historical scope by including a
section on the neglected topic of Islamic warfare. This author of two
previous books on Republican and Imperial Roman history[2]
clearly has the background to view medieval warfare through the lens
of its ancient antecedents, and to show how conflict in the Middle
Ages grew out of, or departed from, Roman practices. His stated goal
for the present volume is to extend his earlier work through the
medieval period (xiii), arguing that "medieval war was carried out
for God, personal profit, and honor" (2).
The book is divided into four parts. The first, "The Barbarian
Kingdoms," exams the transition of the Roman Empire into Germanic
polities. Here, the Huns assume central importance, not so much for
direct damage to Rome, but for impelling other barbarian groups into
Roman imperial lands. To Santosuosso, the western Roman Empire had
ceased to exist by
A.D.
500, at least as a political unit, with the successor kingdoms
seething in endemic violence. Two chapters discuss the
politico-military situation in Italy, where Byzantines battled
Ostrogoths for control. Perhaps to simplify this complicated
history, Santosuosso focuses on the Byzantine general Belisarius's
capture and desperate defense of the city of Rome against a much
larger Gothic army, and on the confrontation between the Byzantine
Narses and his Gothic foe, Totila, at the battle of Taginae in 552.
Despite their victories, Constantinople's goal to retake Italy was
hopeless and seriously depleted the Byzantine treasury. The arrival
of a new invader, the Longobards, ensured that Germanic peoples
would continue to play a crucial role in the West. One group in
particular, the Franks, had a bright future. These people of murky
origins quickly conquered or assimilated with everyone in their
path, receiving the backing of the Roman Catholic Church, due to
their direct conversion (as opposed to passing through a heretical
Arian phase). Militarily, the Franks reached their apogee under
Charlemagne (r. 768-814), who, according to Santosuosso, ushered in
an era of cavalry dominance and overwhelming force to extend his
empire.
The second part of the book, "The Muslim Empire," gives separate
treatment to an aspect of medieval warfare often subsumed within
coverage of the Crusades or ignored altogether. After a thumbnail
account of the rise and tenets of Islam, Santosuosso discusses
Muslim armies' triumphs over weakened Byzantines and Persians. The
battles of Yarmûk in 636 against the Byzantines and Al-Qâdisiyya in
637 against the Persians serve as case studies of Islamic victories
over larger armies. How did they do it? The author suggests, among
other factors, that the Muslims expertly used harsh desert
environments to their advantage, and, in their religious zeal,
associated God with military victory in a way that largely eluded
Europeans until the Crusades. Finally, Santosuosso covers the much
slower Muslim takeover of North Africa, the assimilation of the
Berbers, and the destruction and occupation of Visigothic Spain,
with the obligatory nod to unsuccessful confrontation with the
Franks at Tours/Poitiers in 732.
Europe suffers invasions, ends them, then expands outward in Part
Three, "New Invaders and the Expansion of the West, 800-1300." Here,
Santosuosso mixes chronological and thematic treatments: in addition
to examining Viking and Magyar invasions, the Norman Conquest of
England, and the Crusades, he also delves into such subjects as
medieval weapons and armor, siege warfare, knighthood, and foot
soldiers. This approach is echoed in the final section, "The End of
the Middle Ages, 1300-1453," where a chapter on the Hundred Years'
War provides a framework for separate chapters on Joan of Arc as
soldier, mercenaries, new weapons, and a putative shift away from
the mounted knight as the critical component of fighting.
Given such breadth of subject matter, there are inevitably some
problems. In view of Santosuosso's background in Roman history,
there is surprisingly little direct discussion of continuities (or
lack thereof) between the Roman Imperial and medieval periods.
Vegetius, the late Roman military writer, whose De re militari
("On Military Matters") remained of central importance throughout
the Middle Ages, gets no mention anywhere. Despite recognition that
the Franks appear to have learned siege methods from the Romans
(57), and that many medieval rulers practiced battle avoidance,
Santosuosso's medieval military landscape bears precious little
resemblance to that of the Roman Empire.
The author's choice of topics--admittedly difficult within the
constraints of a one-volume study of the entire Middle Ages--is a
bit puzzling. For example, at a mere six pages, the shortest chapter
in the book is dedicated to siege warfare (165-70), for which
Santosuosso wisely draws on Jim Bradbury's acclaimed The Medieval
Siege.[3]
Yet,
he misses the central thesis of that work, namely, that sieges were
the mainstay of armed conflict in the Middle Ages. Rather, he gives
simple descriptions of various siege techniques and fails to note
that key field engagements (e.g., Lechfeld, Antioch, Courtrai, all
of which are treated in the book) often transpired because of a
siege already in progress. Although the roles of women in general
and Joan of Arc in particular in medieval warfare (Chapter 16) are
certainly important topics, one might reasonably ask whether these
subjects merit nearly twice as many pages as sieges.
This leads to a related problem, namely, Santosuosso's contention
that "[h]eavy cavalry remained dominant on the battlefield during
the Middle Ages until the very end" (208), a stance reflected in his
concentration on battles. This is a not a trivial point, for if
sieges were more frequent and more significant than battles, then
mounted knights did not dominate armed conflict of the age. On this
important matter, Santosuosso seems to accept the knight-centered
model forwarded by medievalists like Contamine and J.-F. Verbruggen,[4]
which has,
however, been seriously challenged by more recent experts like
Bradbury and others.[5]
Santosuosso
discusses famous triumphs of infantry over mounted knights at
Courtrai, Crécy, and Agincourt, to name but a few later medieval
battles where heavy cavalry was decimated. These examples, however,
are used to demonstrate how foot soldiers' new weapons and tactics
reclaimed the battlefield from the towering knight, rather than to
indicate how properly trained infantry (a mere "accessory to the
knight" [186]) had always been able to stand up to heavy cavalry. As
Santosuosso demonstrates, cavalry experienced its greatest successes
not by charging into enemy formations, but by delivering
well-coordinated feints to entice a strongly positioned foe into the
open. He rightly recognizes chivalric literature depicting knights
in action as "propaganda" (178), but cannot bring himself to discard
the flawed model of heavy cavalry's centrality.
The strengths of this book include exceptionally clear writing, the
absence of technical jargon, and the use of colorful stories to set
the scene at the start of most chapters. The introduction to Chapter
9, "Protecting the Borders Against the New Enemy: Vikings and
Magyars," is typical in this regard:
A blackish boat split the dark waves under a sky barely lit by a
cold moon. Its prow was high, the shape of a dragon emerging now and
then from the fog. Fear struck the few monks who had left their
modest cells to look out to sea. They could barely distinguish the
crew except for the sudden flash of weapons, the multicolored
shields carefully lined along the gunnels, and the hair, which
seemed the color of the sun. Soon they would land and march against
the barely defended walls of the monastery. They had been there
before, and they were coming back. They were the strangers, the
heathens (139).
Although some might object to this literary flair, such lively
writing will instantly appeal to the novices who appear to be
Santosuosso's intended audience, so teachers of the subject may find
certain chapters worth assigning to students. More seasoned
historians, however, will find little that is new here. Despite
ample endnotes and spotty invocations of scholars' names in the
narrative, readers will come away without an appreciation for the
controversies that roil the medieval military community. Further,
the themes of God, gold, and glory are not sustained throughout,
leaving the chapters isolated from one another. Of the book's dozens
of maps, most are helpful, but some are of poor quality, even
bordering on illegible. The complete absence of a conclusion is a
serious omission.
Fairleigh Dickinson University
burk0032@fdu.edu
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[1]
E.g.,
Philippe Contamine, War in the Middle Ages [1980], trans.
M. Jones (NY: Blackwell, 1984).
[2]
Soldiers, Citizens, and the Symbols of War: From Classical
Greece to Republican Rome, 500-167 B.C. (Boulder, CO:
Westview, 1997) and Storming the Heavens: Soldiers, Emperors,
and Civilians in the Roman Empire (Boulder, CO: Westview,
2001). The latter has been excerpted in J.R Mitchell & H.B.
Mitchell, edd., Taking Sides: Clashing Views on Controversial
Issues in World History, vol. 1, 3rd ed. (NY: McGraw Hill,
2009).
[3]
Rochester, NY: Boydell Pr, 1992.
[4]
The Art of Warfare in Western Europe during the Middle Ages:
From the Eighth Century to 1340 [1954], trans. S. Willard &
R.W. Southern, 2nd ed. (Rochester, NY: Boydell Pr, 1997).
[5]
See Bernard Bachrach, "Medieval Siege Warfare: A
Reconnaissance," Journal of Military History 58 (1994)
119-33, "Medieval Military Historiography," in Michael Bentley,
ed., Companion to Historiography (NY/London:
Routledge, 1997) 203-20, and for the state-of-the-question
regarding the role of medieval cavalry, "Debate: Verbruggen's
'Cavalry' and the Lyon-Thesis," Journal of Medieval Military
History 4 (2006) 137-63; Kelly DeVries, Infantry Warfare
in the Early Fourteenth Century: Discipline, Tactics, and
Technology (Rochester, NY: Boydell Pr, 1997); Carroll
Gillmor, "Practical Chivalry: The Training of Horses for
Tournaments and Warfare," Studies in Medieval and Renaissance
History 13 (1992) 7-29; and Stephen Morillo, "The 'Age of
Cavalry' Revisited," in Donald Kagay & L.J. Andrew Villalon,
edd., The Circle of War in the Middle Ages (Rochester,
NY: Boydell Press, 1999) 45-58.
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