Battle Trauma in Medieval Warfare
27
Chapter 1 Woosnam-Savage and DeVries
Battle Trauma in Medieval Warfare: Wounds,
Weapons and Armor
Robert C. Woosnam-Savage and Kelly DeVries1
The Battle of Campaldino, fought on 11 July 1289 between the Ghibelline forces
(those ostensibly loyal to the Holy Roman Empire, largely drawn from the
Italian city of Arezzo), and the Guelphs (those loyal to the Papacy, drawn primarily from Florence, Pistoia, Lucca, Siena, and Prato), might not be as well
remembered had Dante Alighieri, Florence’s already renowned poet, not been
on the field that day. What is certain is that what he saw there completely
changed his life. In Canto V of his Purgatorio, Dante meets Buonconte da
Montefeltro, a Ghibelline who fought against him:
Another spoke: “So may the Lord Divine
fulfill the wish that draws you up the mountain,
for sweet compassion, lend your air to mine.
I am Buonconte, once of Montefeltro.
Because Giovanna and the rest forget me,
I go among these souls with head bowed low.”
And I: “What force or chance led you to stray
so far from Campaldino that your grave
remains to be discovered to this day?”
And he: “There flows below the Casentino
a stream, the Archiana, which arises
above the hermitage in Appennino.
There where its name ends in the Arno’s flood
I came, my throat pierced through, fleeing on foot
and staining all my course with my life’s blood.
There my sight failed. There with a final moan
which was the name of Mary, speech went from me
1 The authors wish to express their appreciation to Michael Livingston and Larissa Tracy for
reading previous drafts of this article and offering suggestions to improve it. Kelly DeVries
wishes also to thank Niccolò Capponi for taking him to Poppi Castle, from where we were able
to see the battlefield, observe the distance Buonconte would have traveled between receiving
his wound and his death, and discuss what Dante would have observed that unfortunate day.
© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, 2015 | doi 10.1163/9789004306455_003
28
Woosnam-savage And Devries
I fell, and there my body lay alone.
…
The saturated air changed into rain
and down it crashed, flooding the rivulets
with what the sodden earth could not retain;
the rills merged into torrents, and a flood
swept irresistibly to the royal river.
The Archiana, raging froth and mud,
found my remains in their last frozen rest
just at its mouth, swept them into the Arno,
and broke the cross I had formed upon my breast
in the last agony of pain and guilt.
Along its banks and down its bed it rolled me,
and then it bound and buried me in silt.” (ll. 88–108, 121–135)2
Dante was on the victorious side. Buonconte da Montefeltro was on the losing
side. Although not one of the highest of Ghibelline leaders he led a contingent
of cavalry into the middle of the battle where he became one of its casualties,
pierced through the neck, probably by a crossbow bolt.3 Dante is not more
specific, which may mean that he did not see the actual wounding, but he does
seem to have followed the trail of blood – “staining all my course with my life’s
blood,” are the words he put in Buonconte’s mouth. The distance between the
battlefield and the convergence of the two rivers where Buonconte fell is about
a kilometer. Obviously fleeing for his life – he was running in the direction of
his home – it took one kilometer for him to exsanguinate, to “bleed out.” There
he fell into the river and was swept away; his corpse was never discovered.
Exsanguination was the fate of most killed on the medieval battlefield. In
the premodern world, the main weapons used were sharp- or blunt-edged, and
wielded or thrown by hand, or shot, ball or lead from a mechanical device, by
a bow, crossbow, sling or gun. Battlefield victims could suffer sharp-force
trauma wounds from being cut or stabbed; penetration-force trauma wounds
2 Dante Alighieri, The Divine Comedy: Purgatorio, trans. John Ciardi (New York: The New
American Library, 1957), 68–69.
3 Both Giovanni Villani and Dino Compagni, in their excellent accounts of the battle, indicate
that the Ghibelline cavalry were struck by a hail of crossbow bolts. See: Villani, Croniche di
Giovanni, Matteo e Filippo Villani, 2 vols. (Trieste: Sezione letterario-artistica del Lloyd autriaco,
1857–1858), 2:161–62; and Compagni, La cronaca fiorentina, ed. Domenico Carbone, 8th ed.
(Florence: G. Barbèra, 1905), 8–12. However, it is difficult to say for certain whether these were
the cause of Buonconte’s wound. It could also have been a dagger wound, a sword, or hafted
weapon not able to “pierce through,” as Dante describes the wound.
Battle Trauma in Medieval Warfare
29
from being shot by projectile weapons, such as arrows, bolts, or balls; or bluntforce trauma wounds from being bashed or smashed.4 Sometimes these
wounds were fatal immediately (if a vital organ or the brain were hit) or almost
immediately (if one of the major arteries were hit or an organ ruptured). At
other times, if stabbed or cut, and the blood flow not quickly and completely
stanched, those wounded would linger until too much of their blood had been
spilled for them to survive: exsanguination. Bashed soldiers, again, if there was
no brain damage or internal bleeding, generally survived their wounds,
although not without resulting fractures, tears, or bruises.
Simply put, all weapons used during the Middle Ages caused wounds. The
blade of a sword, axe, staff weapon, or dagger could slash; all of those, except
the axe, could also stab. An arrow from a bow, a bolt from a crossbow, a shot
from a sling, or a ball from a small-caliber gunpowder weapon could also stab,
with the velocity of entry also frequently causing blunt-force trauma. And a
weighted head of a staff weapon (including maces and hammers) or a ball
from a larger-caliber gunpowder weapon could bash, although a piece of that
ball (usually stone in the fourteenth and fifteenth century) – or a shard of what
had been hit by that ball – could also stab or slash. In response to the ferocity
of these weapons, medieval soldiers covered themselves with armor made of
leather, padded felt or other cloth, cuir-bouilli (hardened rawhide),5 iron rings,
small- and medium-sized metal plates, and, ultimately, full-metal plate harnesses. Those who wore armor were more likely to survive medieval weapon
attacks than those who did not. The better the armor, the more protection it
provided against wounding.
Thesauruses are replete with words describing violence, and every one of
these accurately describes the experience of premodern warfare. Literary
sources describing medieval warfare, such as this from Egil’s Saga on the battle
of Brunanburh in 937, are often considered exaggerations:
4 The terms used here – sharp-force trauma wounds; penetration-force trauma wounds; bluntforce trauma wounds – are redundant by osteoarchaeological definitions. All wounds are
trauma (although not all trauma are necessarily wounds). For non-osteoarchaeologists, trauma generally means an emotional rather than a physical wound, therefore, we have chosen
to use the redundant phrase for definitional purposes here. In the catalogue of osteoarchaeological excavations of wounded bodies below, we use the correct osteoarchaeological terminology “trauma” alone.
5 Eddie Cheshire proved conclusively that cuir-bouilli was not simply hardened leather, as has
been traditionally thought, but hardened rawhide. “Non-metallic Armour” (PhD thesis,
University of Reading, History and Engineering, 2010).
30
Woosnam-savage And Devries
Thorolf then fought so fiercely that he cast his shield over his back and
took his halberd in two hands. He leaped forward and hewed and thrust
to either side. Men sprang away in both directions but he slew many. He
cleared a path to Earl Hring’s standard and nothing could stand against
him. He slew the man who bore King [sic] Hring’s standard and hewed
down the standard pole. Then he thrust his spearhead into the earl’s
breast, through his mail and his body so that it came out between his
shoulders, and he lifted him up over his own head upon the great halberd
and drove the other end into the earth.6
Exaggerated though they might be, such accounts surely cannot be dismissed
as complete fiction; they differ surprisingly little from the experiences of medieval combat related by reliable eyewitnesses. Jean de Joinville, for instance,
who fought on the Seventh Crusade in Egypt with (Saint) Louis IX of France,
describes combat he participated in as not too distant from Thorolf’s killing of
Hring at Brunanburh:
Then suddenly a Turk came from the direction of the King’s division
which was in our rear and struck my Lord Peter of Neuville from behind
with a mace. The weight of the blow forced him down on the neck of his
horse, and the Turk dashed over the bridge and rejoined his men … they
brought up another foot-soldier, who three times threw Greek fire at
them. On one occasion William of Boon caught the fire-bomb on his
buckler; had the fire set light to any part of his clothing he would have
been burnt alive. We were covered with arrows that missed the men-atarms. Fortunately I found a Saracen’s padded jerkin, stuffed with wadding.
I turned the open side towards me and made a shield of the jerkin; it
served me well, for I was wounded by the arrows in only five places, while
my horse was in fifteen.7
6 Egil’s Saga, in The Battle of Brunanburh: A Casebook, ed. Michael Livingston (Exeter: University
of Exeter Press, 2011), 76–77.
7 Jean de Joinville, The Life of St. Louis, trans. Rene Hague, ed. Natalis de Wailly (New York: Sheed
and Ward, 1955), 84. The men-at-arms Joinville refers to are infantry, while he and the other
nobles were cavalry. The Greek fire of thirteenth-century Egypt was an incendiary made of
naphtha and other flammable liquid. It could be placed in a ceramic grenade and thrown,
which was clearly what was used here. See: P. Pentz, “A Medieval Workshop for Producing
‘Greek Fire’ Grenades,” Antiquity 62 (1988): 88–93 which describes the archaeological excavation of a laboratory in Cairo of the same period as the Crusade. A padded jerkin was a cloth
armor used to cover the torso; from this description it appears to have been thickened with
other cloth.
Battle Trauma in Medieval Warfare
31
Medieval battles were intense. According to participants, the possibility of
dealing out death brought about an adrenaline-filled rush, a machismo that
hid the fear of facing death dealt out by an opponent, as Jean de Joinville suggests: “Every time we saw that the men-at-arms were pressed we charged the
Turks and drove them off. While we were there the good Count of Soissons was
joking with me and saying, ‘Seneschal, let these curs howl; by God’s bonnet [his
favourite oath] you and I shall yet talk in ladies’ chambers of this day’s work.’”8
Medieval battles were also confusing. No matter how well-drilled an army
was or how well-ordered an attack may have begun, the actual interaction
between combatants soon became chaotic and disordered. Jean le Bel describes
the French cavalry attack at the battle of Crécy in 1346 as such:
they charged, all in chaos and entangled without any order, so that they
closed in on the professional soldiers and Genoese between themselves
and the English; because there was nothing those men could do, falling
under the horses’ hooves, they stormed and fell one over another as lots
of pigs. And the other side’s archers shot so marvelously that the horses,
feeling the barbed arrows, which did marvels, did not want to advance:
some rode against others as if deranged, others bucked dreadfully, others
turned their backs to their enemies, despite their masters, because of the
arrows that they felt, and others let their masters fall, because they were
unable to do anything else. And the English lords standing on foot
advanced and fell upon the men who were not able to deal with their
horses.9
Even the most brave soon faltered and “turned their backs” – so frequent a
phrase that it becomes a narrative motif for “fled.”
Flight generally heralded victory for the opposing side. After all, the object
of medieval battles was not so much to kill one’s opponents as to make them
run away. Battles were generally over quickly; the defeat of one side tended to
be recognizable soon after the conflict began. Only the most loyal, the most
foolhardy, or the most suicidal continued to fight after defeat was apparent.
Exemplifying the last was Johann, the king of Bohemia, who had gone blind
during his years of warfare throughout Europe and was fighting with the
French against the English at Crécy. The Rimini chronicler, Marco Battagli,
records what he asked his companions to do:
8 Jean de Joinville, The Life of St. Louis, 85.
9 Jean le Bel, Chronique, ed. Jules Viard and Eugène Déprez (Paris: Libraire Renouard, 1904–05),
2:103. Translation by Kelly DeVries.
32
Woosnam-savage And Devries
His own soldiers, his guards, realizing that the army of the king of France
could not win the battle against the English, carefully took the bravely
fighting king of Bohemia from the battle. But the king, feeling no fear of
war, said to them, “Where are we? Do I not hear the crash of weapons
striking?” They said, “Lord, already this battle for our side is thoroughly
lost; we wish to deliver you out of the hands of your enemies.” Then King
John furiously shouted these words: “In my youth I never avoided the face
of enemies; now, when I am old and blind, I do not want my strong name
to be wiped out in my old age. It is better to die bravely with honor, than
with shame and worthlessness; as a man consumes his life you would
have him wither away, and you would make him worthless and ashamed
in front of others. I beseech you to lead me into the fight, that I will be
buried with a sword in my hand.”10
His desire to die on the battlefield was granted; unfortunately, his “suicide” also
took the lives of the two soldiers to whom he was tied and many more who
loyally followed him.
When the outcome was not so quickly determined, a medieval battle could
go on for hours. Eyewitnesses often recorded heroism. Mary Dupuis participated in the final attack of the Ottoman Turks on the walls of Rhodes in 1480
and wrote what she saw, when even the Grand Master of the Hospitallers,
Pierre d’Aubusson, was involved in the hand-to-hand combat:
The Grand Master, who was not far away [from where the Turks had broken through the walls], accompanied by many knights and other soldiers,
came to one of the stairs and was the first to climb. With great courage
and marvellous feats of arms he climbed to the top; but in climbing he
received great and awful blows, but he gave as good as he got. And he was
thrown two or three times from the stairs to the ground. But he was valiantly aided and helped by the other knights who were with him, all of
whom carried themselves so well and so valiantly that by force and in
spite of all the Turks they climbed onto the walls, and there the Grand
Master was wounded in two places.11
Yet, the eyewitness chronicler of the Annales Gandenses who observed at the
battle of Mons-en-Pévèle in August 1304, recorded fatigue:
10
11
Marco Battagli, Marcha di Marco Battagli da Rimini [1212–1354], ed. Aldo Francesco
Massèra (Città di Castello: S. Lapi, 1900), 49­–50. Translation by Michael Livingston.
Mary Dupuis, quoted in Robert Douglas Smith and Kelly DeVries, Rhodes Besieged: A New
History (Stroud: The History Press, 2011), 59. Translation by Kelly DeVries.
Battle Trauma in Medieval Warfare
33
Fighting … had continued for the better part of a day between two long
opposing lines [the French and the Flemings] … and between them lay
great numbers of men and horses who had been killed, and also, on both
sides, many who had been suffocated, though unwounded, through the
weight of their armour and the summer heat … Many of the Flemings,
especially those from Ypres, Courtrai and Ghent, tired out by the summer
heat, thirst, and the individual combats already mentioned, lacerated by
wounds, and in some cases trembling at heart, as looking about they saw
the field everywhere open to the retreating hosts of the enemy, fled
towards Lille.12
The least fatigued army might eventually claim success. But both armies might
also simply retreat to carry on fighting the following day. The continuation of
warfare was frequent in sieges but much rarer in battle – the battle of
Bannockburn in 1314 is a notable exception.13 Usually, during the night, one of
the sides would account their losses too high to continue another day and slip
away from the battlefield under the cover of darkness, giving victory to those
who remain.14
Mostly, though, medieval battles were bloody. It is not surprising that in
almost all narratives recording the fighting of medieval battles and sieges, soldiers’ wounds are noted. The violence of battle is confirmed by the excavation
of numerous bodies of men killed throughout Europe during the Middle Ages
that have been studied forensically. Some of these wounds led to death, while
some were not life threatening and show signs of being completely healed or
healing at the time of death. Only those found on or near a battlefield (Visby,
Aljubarrota, Towton, or Dornach) or at a siege site (Lincoln, Jacob’s Ford, and
Stirling Castles) can be linked to warfare,15 but they all provide examples of
the physical trauma that could be caused by weapons of the time.
12
13
14
15
Annales Gandenses/Annals of Ghent, ed. and trans. Hilda Johnstone (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1951), 70.
For a short account of Bannockburn, see: Kelly DeVries, Infantry Warfare in the Early Fourteenth Century: Discipline, Tactics, and Technology (Woodbridge: The Boydell Press, 1996),
66–85. Cf. Iain A. MacInnes, “Heads, Shoulders, Knees and Toes: Injury and Death in
Anglo-Scottish Combat, c. 1296–c. 1403,” in this volume, 102–27.
Examples include the battles of the Catalaunian Fields in 451 and Mons-en-Pévèle in 1304.
In the first, Attila chose to withdraw his Huns rather than to face another day of battle
against the Romano-Visigothic troops; and in the former, the Flemings chose to retreat
rather than fighting against the French the following day.
It is likely, however, that only a small percentage of injuries were received in non-warfare
related violent activities. For a more general look at medieval violence, see: Warren C.
34
Woosnam-savage And Devries
Unfortunately, the ability to access factual information about wounds is
limited. There are the narrative sources, in addition to the occasional surgical
account (such as the description of the wounding of Prince Hal), or indirect
sources of information (like the stocking of medicinal honey for campaigns).16
There are also visual sources (like the Wound Men illustrations of the fif­
teenth century). But beyond these records that, in one way or another, can
be considered susceptible to exaggeration or misinterpretation, there is the
archaeological record. Simple soft-tissue wounds leave little trace, but deeper
wounds may leave their marks and scars on the bones. Skeletal excavations may
thus be the most reliable source for the trauma of wounds received in military
actions. What follows is a chronological catalogue of the numerous excavations
of bodies that display sharp-force, blunt-force, or penetrative-force wounds.
Some of these remains and their wounds have been studied thoroughly and
reported in great detail. Others have been studied only cursorily where the
wounds are only mentioned as part of the larger study of the medieval corpses.
The reports for some of these excavations have not been published at all, and
their entries are based almost solely on what can be observed through display
or photographs.
– The earliest excavations of wounded bodies, found in England, date to
the Roman occupation or slightly afterwards. Fourteen bodies have been
excavated from six cemeteries (Snell’s Corner, Hampshire; Dunstable,
Bedfordshire; Cirencester, Gloucestershire; Ancaster, Lincolnshire;
Baddock, Hertfordshire; and Poundberry, Dorset). All had sharp-force
trauma; one also suffered a blunt-force trauma. Eight of these were
caused by swords (one body had two sword wounds), two by daggers, and
one by a lance or arrow; the cause of two wounds could not be determined. In two cases, the wounded remains were female, and may not be
from battle (although they could certainly have been received them in
non-battlefield military violence). Eight of the wounds were healed or in
the process of healing.17
16
17
Brown, Violence in Medieval Europe (Harlow: Pearson Education Limited, 2011).
For a detailed account of the treatment of Prince Hal’s wound, see: Michael Livingston,
“‘The Depth of Six Inches’: Prince Hal’s Head-Wound at the Battle of Shrewsbury,” in this
volume, 215–30; and for a discussion honey stores in sieges, see: Ilana Krug, “The Wounded
Soldier: Honey and Late Medieval Military Medicine,” in this volume, 194–214.
Anthea Boylston, “Evidence for Weapon-related Trauma in British Archaeological Samples,” in Human Osteology in Archaeology and Forensic Medicine, ed. M. Cox and S. Mays
(London: Greenwich Medical Media, 2000), 366–68.
Battle Trauma in Medieval Warfare
35
– Among the 228 bodies dating between the fifth and tenth centuries
excavated from three church graveyards in Maastricht, seven showed violent wounds; three were perimortal and the cause of death; six had blows
to the skull (one also had blows to the torso and hand) and one to the
tibia – all were from sharp-edged weapons, most likely swords.18
– A single male body from Maiden Castle, once thought to be prehistoric,
but now firmly carbon-dated to roughly 635 CE, suffered eight wounds to
the skull, including two deep sharp-force trauma, as well as several other
sharp-force wounds to the upper limbs and wrists (these have been
deemed to be attempts to cut off the man’s arms or hands).19
– Three Lombard-Avar skeletons excavated from the Campochiaro cemetery in Molise (among 234 graves opened that date from between the
sixth and eighth centuries) had significant weapon-related injuries. One,
a male, more than 55 years of age, was likely an Avar – the skull shows
“characteristics of Mongolic type” – and was almost certainly a horse
archer, as shown by “the deep and strongly imprinted” muscular insertion
areas on the humerus and femur.20 His military experience appears to
have been lengthy: a previously received blunt-edged wound that made
an extremely wide hole in the skull to the dura mater and arachnoid
membrane of the brain was already healing, although it remained an
open hole in the skull at the time of death. This wound was probably
made by a blow delivered from above (possibly by an opponent on horseback) with an axe or mace. The perimortal wound was a penetration of
the cranium delivered by an arrow near to the ante-mortem wound. The
second body was male, aged 50–55 years. Also a soldier, he, too, had an
ante-mortem sharp-force trauma to the skull. This wound, possibly from
an axe, fractured the bone but did not penetrate it. The cause of death
could not be determined, but it appears not to have been related to his
wound that had begun to heal. The third set of remains also belonged to
a male over fifty years old. His wound was a laceration (10.2 cm long and
2 mm wide) that descended the left side of the face from the forehead to
the top of the left eye orbital socket. This wound shows no healing and,
18
19
20
Raphael G.A.M. Panhuysen, “Het scherp van de snede: Sporen van geweld in vroegmiddeleeuws Maastricht,” Archeologie in Limburg 92 (Dec 2002): 2–7.
Boylston, “Evidence for Weapons-related Trauma,” 371; and D. Brothwell, “Forensic
Aspects of the So-called Neolithic Skeleton Q1 from Maiden Castle, Dorset,” World Archaeology 3 (1971): 233–41.
For later Steppe medicine, especially the treatment of arrow wounds, see: Timothy May,
“Spitting Blood: Medieval Mongol Medical Practices,” in this volume, 175–93
36
Woosnam-savage And Devries
despite its minor fracture, may have been the cause of his death. Although,
the man also had leprosy, so it is possible that it was only coincidental
with death and not the cause of it. Campochiaro was located near a fortified Byzantine outpost, and, thus, it is assumed by the archaeologists who
studied the bodies (correctly no doubt) that all three injuries were the
result of military actions.21
– Thirty skulls, dating from between the sixth and eighth centuries, found
in several medieval cemeteries in southern Germany, exhibit cranial fractures that might be the result of sharp-edged or blunt-force weapons.
However, twenty-three of these skulls show healing, indicating an impressive rate of survival from such wounds.22
– Six wounded bodies from the seventh century, all but one (aged between
20 and 35), were excavated from a church graveyard at Eccles, Kent (from
among 176 bodies). Two suffered multiple wounds; all had at least one
cranial wound, which was the cause of their death. One wound, 96 mm
long sharp-force to the posterior part of the occipital bone, was determined by those studying the skeletons to be from a very sharp sword
wielded by someone fighting on the same level as the wounded man.
Four of the other men were also struck by swords, and one by an undetermined sharp-edged weapon.23
– Nithard, grandson of Charlemagne, counselor to and chronicler of his
cousin, Charles the Bald, and abbot of the Saint-Riquier monastery, was
said to have been killed in 844 during a battle against Pepin II, king of
Aquitaine, or in 859 against the Vikings; the former date is most accepted.
All sources indicate that he was struck down by a blow to the head. Buried
at Saint-Riquier, and reburied twice before the end of the ninth century,
his corpse remained undisturbed until 1989 when it was excavated and
studied. Unfortunately, no archaeological report of this excavation has
been published, although photos taken of his skull during the examination reveal that a sharp-edged or blunt-force weapon (likely a sword, axe,
21
22
23
Mauro Rubini and Paola Zaio, “Warriors from the East: Skeletal Evidence of Warfare from
a Lombard-Avar Cemetery in Central Italy (Campochiaro, Molise, 6th–8th Century AD),”
Journal of Archaeological Science 38 (2011): 1551–59.
J. Weber and A. Czarnetzki, “Neurotraumatological Aspects of Head Injuries Resulting
from Sharp and Blunt Force in the Early Medieval Period of Southwestern Germany,”
American Journal of Physical Anthropology 114 (2001): 352–56; and Piers D. Mitchell, Medicine in the Crusades: Warfare, Wounds, and the Medieval Surgeon (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 2004), 112.
Boylston, “Evidence for Weapons-related Trauma,” 369.
Battle Trauma in Medieval Warfare
37
or club) did indeed cave in the lower left side of his skull, killing the
warrior-abbot.24
– Twenty-nine male bodies with wounds dating to the tenth and eleventh
centuries have been excavated from the St. Andrew’s cemetery at
Fishergate in York (out of 152 corpses). Taken together, these corpses
reveal wounds on nearly every part of the body, though they are concentrated on the head, torso, hips, and legs, there are multiple wounds to
multiple body parts. Nineteen, an unusually high number in comparison
with other excavations, had sharp-force trauma to the ribs, and several
had wounds to the back. At least one suffered a penetrative-force wound
to the left pelvis; all other skeletal wounds were apparently made by
sharp-edged weapons. Because the battles of Fulford Gate and Stamford
Bridge (both 1066) were fought nearby, as were skirmishes of William the
Conqueror’s harrying of the north (of 1069 and 1070), archaeologists who
have studied these bodies have connected them to this warfare. But there
is no conclusive link between them.25
– Two mass graves of Vikings have been excavated in England. The first,
at Oxford was unearthed in 2008. It contained the skeletons of at least 35
Viking men, 27 of whom had received cranial injuries. All had suffered
sharp-and penetrative force trauma to the head, pelvis and ribs and at
least one had been decapitated. A number of the dead also bore signs
of healed ante-mortem trauma, indicating that these were likely veterans
of previous military conflicts. Radiocarbon dating placed the bones to
between 893 to 978. The second mass grave was discovered on Ridgeway
Hill in Dorset in 2009. It contained the bodies of some 50 executed
Vikings. All were male and had been killed by decapitation (probably by
sword) with their heads placed in the southern part of the grave. Apart
from obvious evidence of trauma to the neck vertebra and skulls (76% of
the skulls bore evidence of sharp-force trauma), some victims also appear
to have attempted to ward off blows with their forearms and hands,
as injuries were sustained to a number of fingers too. These remains have
24
25
Discussion of the excavation and photos of Nithard’s skull are found in Cahier spécial
Saint-Riquier (Jun 25, 2014), I and VII-VIII.
Boylston, “Evidence for Weapons-related Trauma,” 371; G. Stroud and R.I. Kemp, Cemetaries of the Church and Priory of St. Andrews, Fishergate, The Archaeology of York 12: The
Medieval Cemeteries 2 (York: Council of British Archaeology, 1993); and G. McKinnon,
“‘Where Swords Seek to Shatter …’: A Study of Deliberate Trauma in the Medieval Cemeteries of St. Andrew, Fishergate” (PhD dissertation, University of Bradford, 1998).
38
Woosnam-savage And Devries
been dated to between 972 and 1025 and may have been associated with
Viking attacks on the South Coast of England in 982–1016.26
– A body excavated in Cox Lane, Ipswich, dating to the late-Anglo-Sax­on /
early-Anglo-Norman period, suffered a sword cut that vertically transected the cranium, indicating that it may have been delivered from
horseback to a man standing, as well as another sword cut to the left
femur, the amputation of the right wrist (possibly by a sword), and other
sharp-force wounds to the right eighth and ninth ribs. These wounds
could only have been delivered by other assailants on foot. Although C.
Wells, who studied the skeleton, has posited that this could have been a
murder, it seems more likely that these wounds were received in military
action.27
– Twenty-four other bodies suffering wounds to the head have been excavated from thirteen other Anglo-Saxon cemeteries. All were male, except
for two females and one of indeterminate gender; two males were in their
early twenties; half of the others were between 25 and 35 years, and half
over 45 years of age. Nineteen were wounded by swords, one by an axe,
two by arrows, one by an unspecified blunt-force weapon, and one suffered several wounds by indeterminate weapons. However, only ten of
these wounds were fatal.28
– At Lincoln Castle, the bodies of fourteen men and two women were
excavated. One of the males suffered numerous, significant wounds,
including a wide and long wound on the occipital bone, delivered possibly by an axe, and an arrow wound to the cranium. It is difficult to
determine which of these was the cause of death, although Anthea
Boylston credits the arrow penetration without explanation. Other
wounds had begun to heal, indicating that the conflict in which this man
perished, c. 1140 during the civil war between Stephen and Matilda, was
hardly the first in which he had fought.29
26
27
28
29
Ceri Falys, “A Late Saxon Mass Grave: The Human Bone,” in The Oxford Henge and Late
Saxon Massacre with Medieval and Later Occupation at St. John’s College, Oxford, ed. Sean
Wallis (Oxford: Thames Valley Archaeological Services, 2014), 41–130, and Louise Loe,
Angela Boyle, Helen Webb, and David Score, “Given to the Ground”: A Viking Age Mass
Grave on Ridgeway Hill, Weymouth (Oxford: Oxford Archaeology, 2014).
Boylston, “Evidence for Weapons-related Trauma,” 370; and C. Wells, “The Human Skeleton from Cox Lane, Ipswich,” Proceedings of the Suffolk Institute of Archaeology 29 (1963):
329–33.
Boylston, “Evidence for Weapons-related Trauma,” 370. Boylston also cites where more
extensive reports of these excavations can be found.
Boylston, “Evidence for Weapons-related Trauma,” 373.
Battle Trauma in Medieval Warfare
39
– Five members of the Crusader garrison of Vadum Jacob (Jacob’s Ford),
killed during the capture of the fortress by Saladin in 1179, have been
excavated. All, aged 20 to 40 years, have been judged by Piers Mitchell,
Yossi Nagar, and Ronnie Ellenblum, who led the excavation, to have been
killed either in the attack on the fortification or in the execution of prisoners afterwards: one had an arrow lodged in the left iliac bone; one had
an arrow in the left humerus, although it did not penetrate the bone; one
had three arrows in his vertebrae; one had a sword cut to the left elbow,
which had sliced the bone in two (only the upper part of the arm was
found with the body); one had a deep and fatal sword cut to the left
shoulder; and one had no visible wounds, though, because he was buried
with the others, he was thought to have died from soft tissue damage.30
– Other Crusaders’ bodies have been excavated at Le Petit Guerin, a
twelfth-century Templar fortified site, and a “cave cemetery” outside
Safed, Israel. In the former, among the thirty-four young adult and six
adult individual remains were one adult male, in his twenties (buried in
the Christian graveyard) with two sharp-force wounds to his left shoulder, probably from a sword, although both had begun to heal and, thus,
were not immediately fatal blows, allowing the man to live at least a week
after they were inflicted. Another, buried in the Muslim graveyard, had a
wound to the head caused by a sword or axe that had healed completely.31 Two young adult males and one adult male with wounds were
excavated from the Safed cave cemetery. The first young adult had a
blunt-force trauma to the left side of his head, inflicted by a mace or sling
shot, resulting in death. The second young adult survived for a number of
years after being stuck through the top of his skull by an arrow or crossbow bolt. The adult had been wounded twice in the front of his head: the
first was a sword slash 2 cm round, indicating perhaps a glancing blow
that had shaved off a part of the head near the coronal suture, and the
second was 1 cm square, from a lance or arrow, on the lower part of the
forehead near the sinus. Neither was fatal.32
30
31
32
Piers D. Mitchell, Yossi Nagar, and Ronnie Ellenblum, “Weapon Injuries in the TwelfthCentury Crusader Garrison of Vadum Iacob Castle, Galilee,” International Journal of
Osteoarchaeology 16 (2006): 145–55; and Mitchell, Medicine in the Crusades, 119–22.
Mitchell, Medicine in the Crusades, 118; and Piers D. Mitchell, “The Integration of the Palaeopathology and Medical History of the Crusades,” International Journal of Osteoarchaeology 9 (1999): 333–43.
Piers D. Mitchell, “The Palaeopathology of Skulls Recovered from a Medieval Cave Cemetery near Safed, Israel (Thirteenth to Seventeenth Century),” Levant 36 (2004): 243–250.
40
Woosnam-savage And Devries
– Nine Knights of the Order of St. Benedict of Aviz, dating to the eleventh-thirteenth centuries, have been excavated. One set of remains had a
perimortal sharp-force trauma to the front of the chest, and three more
suffered other, non-fatal wounds.33
– Nine bodies with wounds were excavated in 1997 from within Stirling
Castle. There are seven males, one female, and one of indeterminate gender. Two or possibly three are teenagers, while the rest range in age
between 24 and 60. Unusually, in comparison with other osteoarchaeological finds, only three of these suffered wounds from sharp-edged
weapons: one a cut to the skull, probably from a sword; one, a hole near
the central incisors in the mouth (an arrow found also buried in the grave
may have been the weapon), as well as an antemortem sharp-force
trauma that had healed; and one, a stab wound to the back, perhaps from
a dagger, although the body also suffered blunt-force trauma to nearly
every part of the body (right humerus, right scapula, ribs, cranial base,
both temples, and back). The other six all suffered blunt-force trauma of
various sizes and numbers. Despite initial dating of the bodies to the
fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, finding so many blunt-force trauma
has led Jo Buckberry to the preliminary suggestion that the deaths might
be connected to the sieges of Scottish Wars of Independence, perhaps to
Edward I’s siege of 1304 in which twelve large stone-throwing trebuchets
were used against the walls and parapets of the castle, including the
enormous Warwolf, a machine so large that it took thirty wagons to carry
the materials to construct it. Being hit by trebuchet projectiles or, at least
by stones from walls dislodged or fractured by a blow from one of these
projectiles, might explain the high proportion of blunt-force trauma, as
well as the female bodies.34
– At least twenty-four other bodies displaying wounds to the cranium
have been excavated from ten other medieval English sites. Not many
have been studied forensically: only twelve specify gender (nine male
and three female); and only eight specify age. Thirteen suffered sharpforce trauma (four from swords, the others undetermined), three
33
34
Mitchell, Medicine in the Crusades, 112; and L. Santos, C. Umbelino, A. Goncalves, and F.D.
Pereira, “Mortal Combat during the Medieval Christian Reconquest in Evora, Portugal,”
International Journal of Osteoarchaeology 8 (1998): 454–56.
Jo Buckberry, “Brutal and Bloody: Evidence of Trauma from the Scottish Wars of Independence” (unpublished paper, International Medieval Congress, University of Leeds, 7 July
2014). Dr. Buckberry assures me that an official report of this excavation is forthcoming.
Battle Trauma in Medieval Warfare
41
blunt-force trauma, and two penetrative-force wounds; and six wounds
were undetermined. More than half the wounds show healing.35
– Among the 10,000 bodies excavated from the medieval cemetery of St.
Mary-without-Bishopgate, Spitalfields, London, was one male, aged
33–45 years old and pin-pointed by site and carbon-dating to 1310–1320,
who had received three sharp-force trauma to the right side of his cranium but survived all three. These wounds range in length from 33 to 67
mm with a width of 15 to 27 mm. No external beveling fractures around
the wounds could be seen, indicating that all three were the result of
sharp-edged weapons, most likely a sword or dagger. The direction of the
wounds suggests they were delivered by an assailant standing behind the
man. A criminal attack has been suggested as a possible cause of these
wounds as well as military activity.36
– Nine bodies excavated from a well near Corinth, Greece, are thought to
have been victims of the military massacre of townspeople by soldiers
from the Catalan Company in 1312. All bear sharp-force trauma to the
skull, backs of the legs, and forearms.37
– In 1980, Emmanuel Vlček, a Czech anthropologist, studied the body of
Johann of Bohemia, the king who died as an ally of King Philip VI at the
battle of Crécy (mentioned above). Bones and some mummified soft tissues remain. The wound that felled the king during his suicidal entry into
the fighting was a deep stab into the rear of left shoulder, likely delivered
by a sword, lance, or staff weapon. However, the fatal wound was probably the dagger thrust through the left eye. Several other injuries were also
found, indicating the fierceness of fighting at Crécy; however, three that
nearly severed the right hand at the wrist were possibly made post-mortem, perhaps to remove the sword or something else on the hand.38
– Three excavations were undertaken on the Gotland battlefield of Visby
in 1905, 1912, and 1928–30. The last uncovered the remains of 1185 soldiers
from the battle, fought in 1361 between the inhabitants of Gotland –
35
36
37
38
Boylston, “Evidence for Weapons-related Trauma,” 372.
N. Powers, “Cranial Trauma and Treatment: A Case Study from the Medieval Cemetery of
St. Mary Spital, London,” International Journal of Osteoarchaeology 15 (2005): 1–14.
Mitchell, Medicine in the Crusades, 112; C.K. Williams, E. Barnes and L.M. Snyder, “Frankish
Corinth: 1996,” Hesperia 66 (1997): 7–47; and E. Barnes, “The Dead Do Tell Tales,” in
Corinth: The Centenary, 1896–1996, ed. C.K. Williams and N. Bookidis (Princeton: American School of Classical Studies at Athens), 435–43.
Emmanuel Vlček, Jak zemreli: Významné osobnosti ceských dejin z pohledu antropologie a
lékarství (Prague: Academia, 1993), 97–104. My thanks to Vaclav Zurek and Jan Biedermann for this reference and an English summary of Vlćek’s findings.
42
Woosnam-savage And Devries
without the citizens of Visby who seemed to have stayed behind their
walls while the battle was fought outside – and invading Danes. From
these excavations, it is clear that the bodies were buried quickly; several
were still wearing their cloth-covered armor, mail coifs, and other difficult-to-remove armors. Because the fighting took place on the lands of a
Cistercian nunnery, Solberga Abbey, the battlefield itself was considered
“consecrated ground.” Most of these bodies showed visible wounds made
by a diverse range of weapons: swords, axes, crossbow bolts, staff weapons, maces, lances, and possibly hammers. The largest number of wounds
was from sharp-edged weapons (swords or axes), with 126 bodies suffering penetrations (from bolts or the points of staff weapons), and sixty
with both sharp-force and penetrative trauma. Cranial wounds were frequent (most of which would have probably caused instant death)
although the majority of wounds were to the arms and legs and would
not have been immediately fatal. Those not slain instantly most likely
died more slowly by exsanguination, for all those found in the gravemounds at Solberga had died during the battle.39
– The second largest excavation of demonstrable military-related
remains, much less well known than Visby, was carried out at the battlefield of Aljubarrota in Portugal. The battle, fought on 14 August 1385
between King João I of Portugal and King Juan I of Castile – the former
army assisted by English troops and the latter by Aragonese, Italian, and
French troops – was a lengthy and very bloody engagement between soldiers wielding all the weapons of the period as well as a number of
gunpowder artillery pieces. Ultimately, the Portuguese won. Although as
many as 5,000 Castilian soldiers may have been massacred by Portuguese
non-combatants as they tried to flee, it is likely that the more than 400
bodies found by Afonso do Paço during his excavations of the battlefield
in 1958 were among the 4,000–5,000 warriors killed during the battle.
Sharp-force trauma, the result of wounds made by swords and axes, was
numerous, as was penetrative trauma; wounds made by lances and
arrows. Several sharp-force cuts were to the head, some quite deep and
likely fatal, and there were many arrow and bolt wounds to the frontal
39
Bengt Thordeman, Poul Nörlund, Brian R. Price, and Bo. E. Ingelmark, Armour from the
Battle of Wisby, 1361 (Stockholm: Almquist & Wiksells Boktryckeri, 1939; rpt. Union City:
Chivalry Bookshelf, 2001), 149–209. Despite the title of this book, which focuses on the
cloth-covered armor that remained on the body (and the use of an antiquated spelling of
town’s name) the analysis of weapon-related injuries, by Bo E. Ingelmark, is extremely
detailed and analytical.
Battle Trauma in Medieval Warfare
43
and parietal bones of the cranium, suggesting that bows and crossbows
shot these projectiles from in front, with a relatively steep arc. Many
wounds were also to the limbs, only three of which showed complete
amputation, confirming that limb-loss during battle was comparatively
rare and that, when it did happen, even such a significant trauma could
perhaps be survived. One Aljubarrota soldier was fighting on the healed
stump of a leg that, because of the roughness of the cut, was likely the
result of an earlier battlefield wound. Several other bodies also showed
previous wounds that had healed or begun to heal.40
– One of the four late medieval bodies excavated at Lepenski Vir, in
Serbia, displayed sharp-force trauma to the left parietal bone of the skull,
29 mm long and 9 mm wide. Because of its size, the wound was probably
delivered by an axe. But it was not fatal because it had begun to heal. The
remains were of a mature male, and, thus, may have been wounded in
fighting one of the numerous wars in the Balkans during the fourteenth
and fifteenth centuries.41
– Three among forty-three late medieval male bodies excavated from
Vajunga, Serbia, had blunt-force trauma, which may have been received
in similar warfare as the Lepenski Vir remains.42
– In 1996, in the town of Towton, a gravepit was excavated containing the
bodies of forty-three men killed at the battle fought outside what was
then a village in 1461. This battle, one of many fought during the Wars of
the Roses, has the unfortunate distinction of being the bloodiest battle
fought on English soil, with an estimated 9,000–28,000 casualties. Wounds
could not be found on thirteen of the bodies, although this does not necessarily mean that these men did not suffer wounds, only that their
wounds failed to impact the bones. Of the remaining thirty bodies, only
three had single wounds (one sharp-force, one blunt-force, and one penetrative-force), while all others had multiple wounds. One man received
eight sharp-force trauma; one man had nine sharp-force and two penetrative-force wounds; and another suffered ten sharp-force and three
blunt-force trauma. Twenty-seven out of twenty-eight crania found (two
40
41
42
Eugénia Cunha and Ana Maria Silva, “War Lesions from the Famous Portuguese Medieval
Battle of Aljubarrota,” International Journal of Osteoarchaeology 7 (1998): 595–99.
M. Roksandic, C. Wood, and D. Vlak, “Death in the Line of Duty: Late Medieval Burials at
the Site of Lepenski Vir, Serbia,” International Journal of Osteoarchaeology 17 (2007): 635–
642.
S. Živanović, “Communication sur les squelettes humains de la Necropole I et II Vajunga,”
in Cahiers des Portes de Fer (Belgrade: Institut archéologique de Belgrade, 1986), 228–36.
44
Woosnam-savage And Devries
skeletons did not include crania, while another had a cranium too damaged for study) displayed wounds: Seventy-three were sharp-force
(fifty-one of which penetrated the skull); twenty-eight were blunt-force
(eighteen of which penetrated); and twelve were penetrative-force (all of
which penetrated). Any of these had the potential to cause death. Ten
bodies showed wounds to the neck, three to the shoulders, twelve to the
arms, twenty to the hands and wrists, and seven to the legs and feet.
Weapons potentially causing these wounds included swords, daggers,
maces, war hammers, staff weapons, longbow arrows, and possibly crossbow bolts. What is almost unique among excavated bodies exhibiting
violent trauma is how many of these wounds were made to the rear and
back of the skull by men wielding their weapons from above. Initially,
this led to the conclusion that the men were prisoners who were executed while kneeling by standing soldiers; however, absent written
evidence that this happened at Towton, it is more likely that they were
Lancastrian soldiers fleeing on foot from the battlefield who were ridden
down and killed by Yorkist horsemen.43 In 2005, four more bodies were
excavated from beneath the dining room of Towton Hall, all exhibiting
similar wounds to those studied previously, but a detailed report of these
bodies has not yet been published.44
– A skull said to have been found on the battlefield of Murten (fought in
1476) and currently on display in the Murten Historisches Museum has
two, very long sharp-force trauma to the occipital bone (7 and 10 cm, both
3–4 mm wide), which are thought to have been delivered by a halberd, a
staff weapon bearing an axe-like blade, favored by the Swiss during the
Swiss-Burgundian Wars.45
– Perhaps the most famous skeleton of someone known to have died in
combat is that of King Richard III, excavated in August 2012 in Leicester,
England. Buried at what was then Greyfriars Church following his death
at the battle of Bosworth in 1485, the body was positively proven to be
that of the last Yorkist king not only from the burial site, the curved spine
(from scoliosis) that Richard was reputed to have, but by DNA from two
43
44
45
Veronica Fiorato, Anthea Boylston, and Christopher Knüsel, Blood Red Roses: The Archaeology of a Mass Grave from the Battle of Towton, AD 1461 (Oxford: Oxbow Books, 2000).
Tim Sutherland, chief archaeologist of the 2005 dig, presented these findings at a conference held 4 October 2006 at Yorkshire Museum in York. A detailed study of these remains
is forthcoming.
John Waldman, Hafted Weapons in Medieval and Renaissance Europe: The Evolution of
European Staff Weapons between 1200 and 1650 (Leiden: Brill, 2005), 102.
Battle Trauma in Medieval Warfare
45
descendants of his sister, Anne. The skeleton bore the traces of at least
eleven perimortem wounds, nine of which were probably received at the
time of his death and two probably subsequent to it, thus confirming the
sources from the battle that suggest the king was attacked by a number of
assailants, that he died in the thickest press of his enemies, and that his
body was insulted after death. It has been suggested that daggers and
knives made three of the perimortal wounds (to the top of the cranium,
jaw, and cheekbone) and the two post-mortem wounds (to the right tenth
rib and right pelvis). It is unlikely that any of these killed the king,
although it is possible that, if Richard received the trauma to the pelvis
while alive, he could have exsanguinated because his bowel would have
been perforated. However, this trauma can be interpreted as one of the
unspecified insults that the body was recorded as having received, particularly since sources indicate that the body was slung over the back of a
horse after the battle, the legs dangling on one side and the arms on the
other, thus, providing an opportunistic target for an assailant. More likely,
death came from either the axe-blade of a staff weapon, such as a bill or
halberd (then favored by English soldiers), which sliced through the base
of his skull, creating a 6 × 5 cm wound; and/or a sword tip or the point of
a staff weapon that penetrated 10 cms into the skull, also from the underside. Interestingly, the large slicing wound fits with the one account that
names the weapon used to kill Richard, a halberd. The massive trauma to
Richard’s skull indicates that he was probably both helmetless and lying
prone, face down. Sword blades appear to have caused the remaining
four wounds to the skull and atlas vertebra.46
– At least fifteen skulls were excavated from the Swiss battlefield of
Dornach (fought in 1499) that show large angled sharp-force trauma. All
blows penetrated the skull and sliced off a significant part of the bone
and scalp, several centimeters in length and width, and were immediately fatal. In many cases, the skulls bear more than one such trauma,
indicating significant “overkill,” whether due to “bloodlust” or tactics –
one blow is delivered by an opponent who carries on moving forward
leaving the remaining blows (ensuring the enemy is dead) to be delivered
46
Jo Appleby, Guy N. Rutty, Sarah V. Hainsworth, Robert C. Woosnam-Savage, Bruno
­Morgan, Alison Brough, Richard W. Earp, Claire Robinson, Turi E. King, Mathew Morris,
and ­Richard Buckley, “Perimortem Trauma in King Richard III: A Skeletal Analysis,” The
Lancet 385.9964 (17–23 September 2014): 253–59.
46
Woosnam-savage And Devries
by those following – is not yet clear. This trauma was likely caused by
halberds, although some might have also been the result of swords.47
Of course, after reading this catalogue of wounds, it is easy to conclude that
medieval warfare was violent and bloody. Many of the victims would no doubt
have been killed instantly and, considering the number of others that would
have led to slow exsanguination before dying, those who died immediately
might be the lucky ones.
Yet, the men who fought medieval battles could be surprisingly hardy. Take,
for example, the tale of Pero Niño, the count of Buelna in Castile, found in his
biographical chronicle written by his retainer Gutierre Diez de Games. In the
battle of Ponteverdra (1397), Pero first had to face a “famous footsoldier,”
Gomez Domao, with whom he traded blows: “they … gave each other such
sword blows upon the head, that Pero Niño averred that sparks flew from his
eyes.”48 Ultimately, he bested Gomez and moved on to fight others, “as a wolf
does among the sheep when there is no shepherd to defend them,” when “it
befell that an arrow struck him in the neck … the arrow had knit together his
gorget and his neck; but such was his will to bring to a finish the enterprise that
he had entered upon that he felt not his wound, or hardly at all; only it hindered him much in the movement of the upper part of his body” (37). The
wound actually slowed him less than the stumps of opponents’ lances anchored
in his shield, writes Diez de Games. Pero was then hit by a crossbow bolt,
“piercing his nostrils through most painfully, whereat he was dazed” (37). But
he soon recovered from that blow too and continued to fight: “There he did
receive many sword blows on head and shoulders … [he] cut himself a path
and found himself so pressed against his enemies that sometimes they hit the
bolt embedded in his nose, which made him suffer great pain. It happened
even that one of them, seeking to cover himself, hit a great blow with his shield
and drove it further into his head” (37–8). Nevertheless, he survived. Returning
to camp, he found his shield shattered, his armor broken, his sword hilt broken,
and its blade “toothed like a saw and dyed in blood” (38). Only then did he seek
surgical attention, not just for the arrow in his neck and the bolt in his nose but
47
48
Waldman, Hafted Weapons in Medieval and Renaissance Europe, 100–02. For a discussion
of the skeletal remains and the weapons that probably caused the trauma, see also:
C. Cooper, “Forensisch-anthropologische und traumatologische Untersuchungen an den
menschlichen Skeletten aus der spätmittelalterlichen Schlacht von Dornach (1499 n.
Chr.)” (PhD thesis, Gutenberg University, 2009).
Gutierre Diaz de Gamez, The Unconquered Knight: A Chronicle of the Deeds of Don Pero
Niño, trans. Joan Evans (New York: Harcourt, Brace and Company, 1928), 36. Hereafter,
page numbers will be given in parentheses.
Battle Trauma in Medieval Warfare
47
for the many flesh wounds he had received from swords and lances. He would
live for another fifty-six years, taking part in numerous other military engagements before dying at 75.
Even those with gunshot wounds could, and did, survive. In April 1422,
Michael Bouyer, esquire, was “gravely ill and mutilated in one of his legs by a
cannon shot,” but was alive and imprisoned in Meaux.49 In 1451, Bernard of
Bearn, a lower-level French leader at the siege of Bayonne, was hit in the leg by
handheld gunshot, “the ball [becoming] lodged between the two bones of his
leg.”50 It was removed by a surgeon and Bernard survived. In 1465 at the battle
of Montlhéry, a French archer was wounded in the thigh (also by handheld
gunshot), and he too survived once attended to by a surgeon.51
These accounts are confirmed by the excavations catalogued above. What is
surprising is how many of those who suffered wounds survived even very serious ones, some for many years afterwards. The 76% survival rate from wounds
found by archaeologists in their excavations of thirty early medieval bodies in
southern Germany is far higher than other excavations have proven, but almost
all of these excavations have unearthed bodies with healed or healing wounds.
Sometimes these are quite dramatic, such as the 55 year-old Avar who lived for
quite a while with a large hole in his skull, or the 50-year-old soldier who
received a massive gash down the side of his face that had healed long before
he met his death at the battle of Towton, or the soldier at Visby who fought
with a fractured limb that had reset at a shortened length, or his fellow Swedish
soldier who fought with a knee-joint fixed at a 55° flexion, or the soldier at
Aljubarrota who was fighting with a healed amputated leg. Perhaps not all of
these were wounds sustained in previous warfare, but the fact that they did not
limit the future military participation of these men and others is remarkable.
There were two principal reasons for the survival of wounded soldiers in
the Middle Ages, although both are largely neglected in modern studies of
medieval warfare: the effectiveness of military surgery and armor.52 Of course,
49
50
51
52
L. Douet d’Arcq, ed., Choix de pièces inédites relatives au règne de Charles VI, 2 vols. (Paris:
J. Renouard, 1864), 2:86. On these types of wounds see: Kelly DeVries, “Military Surgical
Practice and the Advent of Gunpowder Weaponry,” Canadian Bulletin of Medical History 7
(1990): 131–46.
Gilles le Bouvier, Chronique, in Histoire de Charles VII, ed. Denis Godfrey (Paris, 1661), 465.
Jean de Haynin, Mémoires, 1465–77, ed. D.D. Brouwers, 2 vols. (Liège: Société des Bibliophiles Liégeois, 1905), 1:67.
Those which fail to discuss medieval military surgery include: Philippe Contamine, War
in the Middle Ages, trans. Michael Jones (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1984); Helen Nicholson,
Medieval Warfare: Theory and Practice of War in Europe, 300–1500 (New York: Palgrave
Macmillan, 2004); Maurice Keen, ed., Medieval Warfare: A History (Oxford: Oxford
48
Woosnam-savage And Devries
medieval military surgeons were not the first such medical officials. Most
ancient armies had military surgeons and, by the time of the Roman Empire,
military surgery had progressed so far that, unless severely wounded, most soldiers survived.53 Nor were these surgical techniques lost with the fall of Rome.
The Byzantines followed the Roman military system and organization, including having surgeons in their armies. Military treatises written by or for Emperor
Maurice (582–602), the Strategikon, and Emperor Leo VI (886–912), the Tactika,
decreed that each unit of 300–400 cavalry or infantry have two physicians (a
general practitioner and a surgeon) and eight to ten orderlies.54 Surgeons travelled with the barbarian armies invading the Empire, although little other than
their existence can be gleaned from the sources, which are not as detailed as
those of the Byzantines. However, it does appear that, as Ammianus Marcellinus
complains in the fourth century, neither the Romans nor the barbarians had
enough trained surgeons to care for the larger numbers of wounded soldiers
that their increased warfare produced.55
A tradition of military medicine that valued soldiers’ lives equally appears
in Islamic armies. By the turn of the first millennium, Islamic military surgeons
may also have been better than their European counterparts, at least if one
accepts the account of the twelfth-century Arab Usāmah ibn-Munqidh. In an
oft-cited passage, Usāmah describes the experience of his uncle, who sent a
Syrian surgeon “to treat certain sick persons” among the Christians.56 However,
at the point of successfully healing some of these, this surgeon was pushed
aside by a Crusader surgeon whose crude techniques not only killed his
patients but increased their pain exponentially in the process.
53
54
55
56
University Press, 1999); John France, Western Warfare in the Age of the Crusades, 1000–1300
(Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1999); Sean McGlynn, By Sword and Fire: Cruelty and
Atrocity in Medieval Warfare (London: Phoenix, 2009), and Michael Prestwich, Armies and
Warfare in the Middle Ages: The English Experience (New Haven: Yale University Press,
1996).
Guido Guido Majno, The Healing Hand: Man and Wound in the Ancient World (Cambridge,
MA: Harvard University Press, 1975).
On the Byzantine military system, including the aspects of military surgery and care for
the wounded and aging veterans, see: John Haldon, Warfare, State and Society in the Byzantine World, 565–1204 (London: UCL Press, 1999); and Warren Treadgold, Byzantium and
Its Army, 284–1081 (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1995).
Ammianus Marcellinus, Rerum Gestarum, 19, 215.
Usāmah ibn-Munqidh, An Arab-Syrian Gentleman and Warrior in the Period of the Crusades: Memoires of Usāmah ibn Munqidh, trans. Philip K. Hitti (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1987), 162. For a study of this passage see: David C. Nicolle, “Wounds, Military
Surgery and the Reality of Crusading Warfare: The Evidence of Usamah’s Memoires,” Journal of Oriental and African Studies 5 (1993): 33–46.
Battle Trauma in Medieval Warfare
49
Usāmah’s judgment of Crusader surgical skills is, perhaps understandably,
biased.57 There is no doubt, however, that Europeans benefitted from exposure
to Islamic surgical practice during the Crusades, and there is also no doubt that
Islamic surgeons benefitted from exposure to European methods.58 In particular, around 1110, the monastic military order known as the Knights of St. John,
or the Hospitallers, was established to have a concern for the health of soldiers
and pilgrims; only later did it evolve into a fighting organization, although it
never gave up its initial mission.59 This cross-cultural education also produced
the most widely influential European surgical manual of Middle Ages. The
Chirurgia, written in 1180 and attributed to Roger Frugard of Salerno, survives
in more than twenty manuscripts in England and France alone. Several of
them are illustrated, and more than fifteen translations were made before the
sixteenth century. Roger’s manual is a compilation of numerous other texts
(many now lost), and it was influenced by Byzantine and Islamic, as well as
European, traditions. While the Chirurgia was not specifically written for military surgeons, they certainly used it.60
A number of surgical manuals followed, written in the thirteenth and the
first half of the fourteenth centuries, including those by Gilbertus, Roger de
Barone, Lanfranc, Arnald of Villanova, Anselm of Genoa, Guy de Vigevano, Jan
Yperman, Bernard de Gordon, Jean Pitart, Jean de Prouville, Pierre Fromont,
Henri de Mondeville, Guy de Chauliac, Thomas Scellinck, John of Arderne, and
57
58
59
60
See: Kelly DeVries, “Medieval Warfare and the Value of a Human Life,” in Noble Ideals and
Bloody Realities: Warfare in the Middle Ages, ed. Niall Christie and Maya Yazigi (Leiden:
Brill, 2006), 27–55, where it is suggested that too much credibility is given to Usāmah’s
story.
Mitchell’s Medicine in the Crusades is the recognized authority on surgical practice during
the Crusades. Carmel Ferragud discusses the intersection of Arabic and Western medical
and surgical practice on the Iberian Peninsula. See: “Wounds, Amputations, and Expert
Procedures in the City of Valencia in the Early Fifteenth Century,” in this volume, 233–51.
There are several histories of the military monastic orders and several different histories
of the Hospitaller order. One could do no better than to start with Helen Nicholson, The
Knights Hospitaller (Woodbridge: The Boydell Press, 2001) and Jonathan Riley-Smith, Hospitallers: The History of the Order of St. John (London: Hambledon Press, 1999). For the
later history of the order see: H.J.A. Sire, The Knights of Malta (New Haven: Yale University
Press, 1994).
Linda M. Paterson, “Military Surgery: Knights, Sergeants, and Raimon of Avignon’s
Version of the Chirurgia of Roger of Salerno (1180–1209),” in The Ideals and Practice of
Medieval Knighthood II, ed. Christopher Harper-Bill and Ruth Harvey (Woodbridge, 1988):
117–46.
50
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John de Gaddesdens.61 Most of these were surgeons associated with royal or
noble courts, and many also served as military surgeons.62 Guy de Vigevano
served as a surgeon to the Holy Roman Emperor, Henry VI, during his early
fourteenth-century campaigns in Italy.63 John of Arderne served as a military
surgeon on the English king Edward III’s opening campaign of the Hundred
Years War.64 Others may not have served as battlefield surgeons but their writings include instructions on how to treat wounds received in warfare. Henri de
Mondeville’s Cyrurgia, for example, directs the surgeon to cleanse the wound,
removing all detritus, especially “strange metals,” and then to bandage the
wound, to allow suppuration, or to suture it. If the material inside the wound
proved too difficult to be removed by fingers or probes, Mondeville instructs
the surgeon to use a crossbow to assist in its removal – by cocking the crossbow
string, attaching the string to the object in question, and then discharging the
weapon. The detritus would be jerked out of the wound with such a speed that
it would minimize the pain to the victim.65
One curious appearance in late medieval surgical manuals is “The Wound
Man” (Figure 1.1). This illumination colorfully illustrates the many types of
wounds that a military surgeon might treat. The Wound Man in the Wellcome
Library, London MS 49, Apocalypse, f. 35r (c. 1420–30) is a striking example: the
head is pierced by a dagger and bashed by a club; there are gashes, contusions,
and other apparent trauma. An arrow penetrates the left arm and both arms
are cut and lacerated. A knife cuts into the left shoulder. Swords are stuck quite
deeply into the right breast and left ribcage. A long arrow/javelin pierces the
61
62
63
64
65
Several contributions to this volume discuss these surgical manuals and procedures. See:
Krug, “The Wounded Soldier,” 194–214; Ferragud, “Wounds, Amputations, and Expert Procedures,” 233–51; Elina Gertsman, “Wandering Wounds: the Urban Body in Imitatio
Christi,” 340–65; Virginia Langum, “‘The Wounded Surgeon’: Devotion, Compassion and
Metaphor in Medieval England,” 269–90; Livingston, “‘The Depth of Six Inches,’” 215–30;
Larissa Tracy, “‘Into the hede, throw the helme and creste’: Head Wounds and a Question
of Kingship in the Stanzaic Morte Arthur,” 496–518.
Pierre Huard and Mirko Drazen Grmek, Mille ans de chirurgie en occident: Ve-XVe siècles
(Paris: R. Dacosta, 1966), 32–53.
Huard and Grmek, Mille ans de chirurgie, 35–36.
Huard and Grmek, Mille ans de chirurgie, 51–52; and Jeremy J. Citrome,“Bodies that Splatter: Surgery, Chivalry, and the Body in the Practica of John Arderne,” Exemplaria 13 (2001):
137–72.
Huard and Grmek, Mille ans de chirurgie, 40. Mondeville’s treatise, in Latin, is badly in
need of a modern critical edition. On the use of the crossbow as a surgical tool see: Robert
Ignatius Burns, “The Medieval Crossbow as Surgical Instrument: An Illustrated Case History,” in Essays and Notes on the History of Medicine, ed. Saul Jarcho (New York: Science
History Publications, 1976), 64–70.
Battle Trauma in Medieval Warfare
Figure 1.1
The Wound Man” (c. 1420) from Thuringia that survives in London, Wellcome
Library MS 49, fol. 35r.
51
52
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stomach. The legs show wounds by an arrow, a sword, a crossbow bolt, and a
spear, with sundry other gashes and cuts; a spider and worm crawl along the
left leg, representing bites that such creatures might give to a soldier. Finally, a
caltrop penetrates one foot while the other is pierced by an arrowhead, possibly one spent after flight but still harmful to the soft leather boots of those who
might tread over it. A rodent, snake, and a scorpion-type of insect also wound
the feet.66
By the end of the Middle Ages, the constant warfare demanded skilled medical personnel to treat the wounds of soldiers and almost all surgeons of the
fourteenth and fifteenth centuries saw military action. Medical practitioners
also encountered wounds made by gunpowder weapons, which required new
surgical techniques. Initially, it seems, they treated these wounds using
Mondeville’s direction: cleansing the wound, removing the detritus, and then
suppurating or suturing. However, some surgeons considered wounds caused
by gunpowder weapons to be poisoned, suggesting that cauterization was the
means of removing that poison. This practice continued into the sixteenth
century.67
A second reason for the survival of so many wounded soldiers was the protective capabilities of the armor they wore. As with military surgery, armor had
been worn before the Middle Ages; metal armor (bronze) appeared in Ancient
Egypt and Mesopotamia. The lorica hamata (mail armor) became the dominant type of armor worn by Romans from the mid-third century. Mail was
made from small, open-ended iron rings, with the two ends of each ring overlapped, flattened and pierced with a tiny hole. Each ring was then interlinked
through four others and fastened by a tiny rivet inserted through the holes in
the ends. Mail was flexible, but the wearer bore most of its weight on the shoulders; so a padded garment, the aketon, was worn under the mail to make it
more comfortable and to act as a shock absorber. The barbarian invaders of the
Empire also wore mail, although it is unclear if it was of their own construction
or was learned, bought, or looted from the Romans.68
Emperor Charlemagne, recognizing that his military conquests depended
on the security of his soldiers, whose expertise at fighting wars could not be
easily replaced, standardized all the military equipment of his army, requiring
by law that all his soldiers must own, and be trained in wearing, a shirt of mail
66
67
68
Another illumination is found in London, Wellcome Historical Medical Library, MS 49, at
f. 35r (1420–1430) in a German manuscript.
DeVries, “Military Surgical Practice,” 131–46.
Pat Southern and Karen R. Dixon, The Late Roman Army (New Haven: Yale University
Press, 1996), 96–97;
Battle Trauma in Medieval Warfare
53
armor (called a byrnie), a helmet, and a shield.69 Byrnies were cuirasses of
interlaced rings, which were draped from the shoulders but also covered the
thighs and upper arms, with bibs and coifs that could be attached by laces to
the requisite helmet.70 Furthermore, he refused to allow Carolingian byrnies to
be sold to foreign soldiers or armies; soldiers were forbidden, on pain of death,
to give a byrnie to any merchant to be resold, even within the Empire.
However, graveyards from this period and later show that, despite these
restrictions, byrnies were acquired by outsiders. More importantly, they began
to be copied by everyone: mail became the standard armor until the end of the
Middle Ages. By the early fourteenth century, plates began to be attached to
vulnerable parts of the coats of mail and then, in the early fifteenth century, to
be formed into complete metal suits.71 Plate armor could vary in quality, ranging from that made from a low carbon iron to high quality steel, which may or
may not have been hardened. The latter was obviously more effective in
defending its wearer from attack. It was made up of specially-shaped sheet
iron, or mild steel, forged at furnaces and bloomeries. These billets were
pounded into flat sheets, which were quenched in water or oil to harden the
surface of the armor; further reheating, or tempering, toughened it even more.
After shaping, the exterior of the plate could be burnished bright, and the
whole armor assembled to ensure it worked effectively.72
Yet, plate armor was extremely expensive, which limited its ownership to
only the most elite, wealthy soldiers. Cheaper types of armor included the
brigandine, a canvas jacket onto which hundreds of small overlapping tinned
iron plates had been riveted, and jacks, thickly padded, thigh length, jackets
made from as many as thirty layers of linen or canvas that could be lined with
small rectangular iron or horn plates or discs stitched together.73
The head was also covered. Helmets worn by the barbarians, spangenhelms,
were made by attaching iron plates to iron strips fitted around and over the
top of the head. By the eleventh century, spangenhelms had acquired a more
69
70
71
72
73
Simon Coupland, “Carolingian Arms and Armor in the Ninth Century,” Viator 21 (1990):
29–50, at 30.
Kelly DeVries and Robert Douglas Smith, Medieval Military Technology, 2nd ed. (Toronto:
University of Toronto Press, 2012), 61–62.
DeVries and Smith, Medieval Military Technology, 64–75; and Claude Blair, European
Armour: circa 1066 to circa 1700 (London: B.T. Batsford, 1958), 19–36.
DeVries and Smith, Medieval Military Technology, 75–85; and Blair, European Armour,
37–111.
DeVries and Smith, Medieval Military Technology, 85–86; and Ian Eaves, “On the Remains
of a Jack of Plate Excavated from Beeston Castle in Cheshire,” Journal of the Arms and
Armour Society 13 (1989–91): 81–154.
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distinct conical shape with a nasal guard attached to the brim, descending to
protect the nose and face. These so-called “nasal helms” were used into the
thirteenth century, although, increasingly, they were made from a single plate
of metal. From these developed the bascinet, a simple, rounded skull-shaped
helmet. It could be fitted with a visor, to guard the face, and an aventail (mail)
or gorget or bevor (plates) to protect the neck.
The great helm appeared about the same time, around 1200. When fully
developed, these helmets had a cylindrical form and a flat top, with sight and
openings for breathing cut into its front. It could be worn atop a mail coif but
also required a padded arming cap on top of the head and a chin-strap under
the helmet to hold it on firmly, as it was both heavy and uncomfortable to wear.
But it was very protective. The great helm was the cavalry soldiers’ helmet until
around 1350 and was used in jousts into the sixteenth century.
Three further late medieval helmet designs evolved from the bascinet. The
first was the barbuta that consisted of a visored helmet made from a single
piece of metal. The second was the armet, a single-metal skullcap, reaching
only to the tops of the ears, except in the rear where it extended to the neck.
The third was the sallet, made either from one piece with the sight cut into the
front or with a broad open face, over which a visor could be fixed. All were
worn with a gorget or bevor.74
Contemporary documents, narrative sources, literature, art works, and excavations, confirm that, for most of the Middle Ages, armor was worn by nearly
all soldiers, infantry, or cavalry. By the fourteenth century, even urban militias
were outfitted with armor; the excavations at Visby, Aljubarrota, and Towton
suggest that this was also true of rural militias. Never in military history have
armies been so well (and so effectively) armored. The catalogue of wounds
above shows how protective armor was in the Middle Ages; wounds to the
limbs and head were most common but could be survived, while those to the
head were, of course, the fatal ones. Only those killed in what are clearly
recorded as massacres of unarmored individuals, as at Corinth, or possibly
massacres, as at Ridgeway Hill show wounds to the torso. Experiments carried
out by the Royal Armouries in England and elsewhere have confirmed how difficult it was to penetrate a moving target covered by mail or plate armor,
especially if the soldier was also wearing some clothing under this armor; even
74
DeVries and Smith, Medieval Military Technology, 53–93 (in passim). See also: T.P.D. Blackburn, D.A. Edge, A.R. Williams, C.B.T. Adams, “Head Protection in England before the First
World War,” Neurosurgery 47.6 (December 2000): 1261–1286.
Battle Trauma in Medieval Warfare
55
a thick felt would provide extra protection, but a quilted or leather aketon was
ideal.75
But the puzzling aspect of these finds is why there were so many excavated
bodies with head wounds. The helmet, made of the same thickness of armor, if
not thicker, should have offered the same amount of protection to the medieval soldier as his armor did. No doubt it did, but the number of head wounds
shows how frequently soldiers needed to open their visor, like Henry V did at
the battle of Shrewsbury in 1403, or lower their bevor, as Cornelius, the Grand
Bastard of Burgundy (illegitimate son of Philip the Good, duke of Burgundy),
did at the battle of Rupelmonde in 1452, probably in order to more easily speak
or breathe.76 Or, perhaps, they were fleeing from the battlefield and either
discarded their helmets because of the weight or they were knocked off their
heads, as it seems happened to the soldiers at Towton.77 Some, maybe because
they did not expect to be in hand-to-hand combat, such as archers and crossbowmen, wore no helmets because they impeded their sight. Johann of
Bohemia had to be stabbed through the eye-slit of his helmet and Richard III
of England’s helmet chin-straps were probably cut before the fatal blows could
be struck, which confirms that medieval helmets, like medieval armor, provided good protection to those soldiers who wore them.78 Simply put, if it was
not effective it would not have been worn.
Wars were fought continuously throughout the Middle Ages, sometimes
without good reason. Most soldiers fighting those wars had little to gain and
probably less understanding of why they were being fought. But these were
the men who fought the many battles and sieges that defined these wars. It
75
76
77
78
About twelve years ago, members of the Royal Armouries staff carried out a number of
experiments using different medieval weapons against a free moving dummy to approximate human movement and dressed it in mail armor, varying the garments under the
mail – leather, quilted fabric, thick felt, etc. In all cases, the armor with all the undergarments protected its user almost completely against all weapon attacks: hand-held, cast,
and shot. These experiments have not yet been published. The Spike TV show, Deadliest
Warrior: Knight vs. Pirate (broadcast in May 2009), on which one of the authors of this
article, Kelly DeVries, was a consultant, duplicated these experiments with similar results.
Other experiments have proven the weapons to be more successful, but these were carried out against staid targets without various layers of undergarments. See, for example:
Peter N. Jones, “The Metallography and Relative Effectiveness of Arrowheads and Armor
during the Middle Ages,” Materials Characterization 29 (1992): 111–117.
Olivier de la Marche, Mémoires, ed. Henri Beaune and J. d’Arbaumont (Paris: Librairie,
1883–88), 2:269–70.
Fiorato, Boylston, and Knüsel, Blood Red Roses, 186.
Cf. M.R. Geldof, “‘And to describe the shapes of the dead’: Making Sense of the Archaeology of Armed Violence,” in this volume, 57–80.
56
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mattered little whether those battles were long or short: men were swinging,
thrusting, or shooting sharp-edged, blunt-edged or projectile weapons at each
other, wounding their opponents while, simultaneously, hoping their own
skills and armor might keep them from being wounded themselves. When that
happened, they still had the possibility of being saved by skilled military
surgeons. Sometimes they survived; sometimes they did not.