And the dead lay in heaps

[Erpingham]

I must admit Jim, I had a sudden image of a technical discussion about the disposal of battlefield dead among some of the characters in one of your fantasy books.  A bit of dark humour, perhaps

[Jim Webster]

I must admit Jim, I had a sudden image of a technical discussion about the disposal of battlefield dead among some of the characters in one of your fantasy books.  A bit of dark humour, perhaps

I only had one battle which needed bodies disposed of and 'ours' were collected later, because it was below freezing they would keep. 'Theirs' couldn't be buried because of the freezing conditions so were eventually burned (I didn't go into technical details but envisaged problems with fuel etc as it was on the outskirts of a city that had burned as well

But on a serious note, it would make for a bit of good dark humour. It is one of the touches that makes a point without getting all didactic about it 

[RichT]

Well the Battlefields Trust article on Dupplin Moor (http://www.battlefieldstrust.com/media/646%2Epdf) says "One contemporary source says that the dead were buried in a large deep ditch." Of course, the depth of a deep ditch, the height of a spear, and the length of a piece of string have much in common.

Three further topics suggest themselves:
- the disposal of battlefield dead
- the sources of chroniclers (and of ancient and medieval historians generally)
- the reliability of eyewitnesses (there's a lot of work in legal circles on this - false memories, psychology of recall etc - much of which would apply also to eyewitnesses of historical events).

Sadly, not enough hours in the day.

[Erpingham]

Well the Battlefields Trust article on Dupplin Moor (http://www.battlefieldstrust.com/media/646%2Epdf) says "One contemporary source says that the dead were buried in a large deep ditch." Of course, the depth of a deep ditch, the height of a spear, and the length of a piece of string have much in common.

Following the references, this was Walsingham.  Scarcely contemporary as he lived at the end of the 14th century but he did have earlier material to draw on.  Frustratingly, I can't find an online translation of this passage (it references Riley's latin edition  vol I, 194).  Using natural holes in the ground would be a sensible labour saving device, though there would still be be a lot of deturfing and top soil shifting to back fill a hole you hadn't dug the muck out of.   

Three further topics suggest themselves:
- the disposal of battlefield dead
- the sources of chroniclers (and of ancient and medieval historians generally)
- the reliability of eyewitnesses (there's a lot of work in legal circles on this - false memories, psychology of recall etc - much of which would apply also to eyewitnesses of historical events).

Sadly, not enough hours in the day.

Well I'm up for the archaeology side of battlefield dead, if anyone wants to start that one.

[Patrick Waterson]

All of which indicates we probably do not have to worry about the depth of burial trenches being confused with heaps of dead on the battlefield.  This leaves us with the said heaps, or more accurately the accounts thereof, and what to make of Dupplin Moor in particular.

Dupplin Moor is unique in the sheer height of its deadpile whether this is ten feet, fifteen or somewhere in between.  Under normal circumstances it is hard to see how this could happen.

The circumstances at Dupplin Moor were, however, not normal.  The Scots were advancing up a shallow, narrow valley against a defender in better armour on higher ground.  Along the tops of the valley slopes were archers, who on the one hand poured in missiles and on the other made it impossible for the Scots to climb out of the valley.  To begin with, we just get a slightly squeezed schiltrom shuffling its way up the valley, clashing with the defenders, driving them back a little and being driven back in turn.

Then, with the first Scottish attack stalled, two things happen.  The attackers, under continual archery from above, start to waver and fall back and the next division of Scots heads full tilt up the valley, crashing into the rear of those doing the attacking, believing they are acting as reinforcements.  What they are in fact doing is trapping their already-under-pressure comrades in a situation from which there is no escape.  The dead begin to pile up as Scots in the rear push forwards and trapped Scots at the front try to push and struggle back.  Meanwhile bodies start to pile up and the archers pour it on.

Then the Scots in the lead break: they have had enough.  Ahead of them are friendly bodies and hostile spears.  Behind them are friendly bodies and a crush of oncoming reinforcements.  They start to scramble up the sides of the valley to try and get around the obstruction to their rear.  The English (or rather predominantly Welsh) archers shoot them down as they climb.  Bodies roll down onto a crush of bodies and living men.  As the attack directly up the valley loses impetus, it frees men-at-arms to move along the tops of the valley if need be, aiding the archers to slay any Scot climbing the valley sides.  These bodies, too, roll down onto a developing deadpile.  After a while, there is a huge mass of dead, held up by the walls of the valley at the sides and  up and down the valley by a tapering ramp of bodies.  English men-at-arms are gingerly making their way down the valley slopes to stand on the heap and finish off anyone still moving - perhaps as much a mercy gesture as a gruesome slaughter of the helpless, considering that anyone moving is probably being smothered and cannot escape or be retrieved.

That is how I see it, based on what we have.

[Erpingham]

I think we have to avoid the danger of creating an interpretation to explain a single dramatic incident in a battle.  Although the deep pile of dead is pretty universal in English accounts, we do have to apply rationality to it.  Exaggeration remains the best explanation we have, produced by the transmission process.

I have however done a bit more digging I can now identify the "15ft deep" quote.  It's in the Bridlington Chronicle.  Much, no doubt, to Patrick's delight, the Meaux Chronicle gives the height as 20ft.  However, more interesting is the Robert of Avesbury says the pile was 6 cubits high in places and 200 yards long, which gives us another dimension.  200 yds would be equivalent to the frontage of the English men-at-arms standing three deep.  Scots casualties are very variable in the sources but the Scots are consistent that they lost 2-3000 and this fits with the lower English estimates, allowing for untallied individuals and groups killed in the rout.    This gives us some idea of the scale of these clearly exceptional piles of dead.

Looking at the effect of the piles on the fighting, it isn't clear what these were.  The essential issue for the Scots performance was their first division was crushed between the English and their second division.  It was this that caused the piles to form and rendered the Scots unable to ultimately to utilise their numerical advantage.  The accounts do suggest contact between the English and the Scots second division before the latter routed, so the mound didn't prevent all fighting.  The English were also able to pursue past the pile.

[RichT]

Also worth remembering that Dupplin Moor (at least in its traditional site, and nobody knows different) was not fought in a slot canyon, but in a rather gentle Scottish valley:

https://www.google.co.uk/maps/@56.3533841,-3.5283676,3a,75y,241.54h,80.78t/data=!3m7!1e1!3m5!1szAqhwbNJI4ZLADaaX8vK5A!2e0!6s%2F%2Fgeo0.ggpht.com%2Fcbk%3Fpanoid%3DzAqhwbNJI4ZLADaaX8vK5A%26output%3Dthumbnail%26cb_client%3Dmaps_sv.tactile.gps%26thumb%3D2%26w%3D203%26h%3D100%26yaw%3D242.22444%26pitch%3D0%26thumbfov%3D100!7i13312!8i6656

The slopes of which don't look remarkable enough to contribute to any particular mound building.

I remember at infant school we were set the task of estimating the height of various things, including the teacher. I clearly remember my answer - "I estimate Mr Ratnett is 20 feet tall". I couldn't understand why he thought that was so funny. No particular relevance to this discussion, it just popped into my head.

[Patrick Waterson]

I think we have to avoid the danger of creating an interpretation to explain a single dramatic incident in a battle.  Although the deep pile of dead is pretty universal in English accounts, we do have to apply rationality to it.  Exaggeration remains the best explanation we have, produced by the transmission process.

Does not that statement in itself also illustrate the danger of 'creating an interpretation to explain a single dramatic incident in a battle', in this case 'exaggeration'?

I have however done a bit more digging I can now identify the "15ft deep" quote.  It's in the Bridlington Chronicle.  Much, no doubt, to Patrick's delight, the Meaux Chronicle gives the height as 20ft.  However, more interesting is the Robert of Avesbury says the pile was 6 cubits high in places and 200 yards long, which gives us another dimension.  200 yds would be equivalent to the frontage of the English men-at-arms standing three deep.  Scots casualties are very variable in the sources but the Scots are consistent that they lost 2-3000 and this fits with the lower English estimates, allowing for untallied individuals and groups killed in the rout.    This gives us some idea of the scale of these clearly exceptional piles of dead.

Assuming the Scots are right.  Would they really make such a fuss over the loss of a mere 2-3,000 men?.  Dupplin Moor is more or less woe incarnate for Scots balladeers (and some more recent novelists).  This amount of national and cultural angst suggests a loss figure closer to an order of magnitude higher.

However the inconsistency in heights does mean someone among our sources has to be wrong.  The question is whom.  Perhaps the Meaux chronicler had very small feet?

Looking at the effect of the piles on the fighting, it isn't clear what these were.  The essential issue for the Scots performance was their first division was crushed between the English and their second division.  It was this that caused the piles to form and rendered the Scots unable to ultimately to utilise their numerical advantage.  The accounts do suggest contact between the English and the Scots second division before the latter routed, so the mound didn't prevent all fighting.  The English were also able to pursue past the pile.

The English were also able to stand on top of the pile and skewer still-moving Scotsmen.  The English pursuit past the pile was presumably past and not over.  The question naturally arises: if there was room for the English to pursue past, why did the Scots feel compelled to climb over?  Peer pressure again ...

Also worth remembering that Dupplin Moor (at least in its traditional site, and nobody knows different) was not fought in a slot canyon, but in a rather gentle Scottish valley:

Not quite so gentle, more like a 1 in 3 slope; see also this Battlefields Trust map and this.  Richard is however right that it is not in a 'slot canyon'.

[Erpingham]

Does not that statement in itself also illustrate the danger of 'creating an interpretation to explain a single dramatic incident in a battle', in this case 'exaggeration'?

No.  No one is interpreting the battle around the pile of dead being an exaggeration.  It is just the explanation of a recorded statement.  The interesting thing about the pile of dead isn't fantasising around its height but that it was unusual and the consideration whether it had an impact.  The accounts referred to so far mainly suggest it is a consequence rather than a cause of the Scots problems.

Assuming the Scots are right.  Would they really make such a fuss over the loss of a mere 2-3,000 men?.  Dupplin Moor is more or less woe incarnate for Scots balladeers (and some more recent novelists).  This amount of national and cultural angst suggests a loss figure closer to an order of magnitude higher.

How big is this Scots army supposed to be, if it can lose 20-30,000 men and still have plenty left over?  The odds are amazing enough if we put the Scots at a more plausible 15,000, of whom probably only about 5,000 were of much worth.  As to why it was a disaster, I would put that down to the fact the Scots were used to beating the English.  Given the numbers of men available and the small English force, the result was shocking.  The casualties were also a disaster not by simple numbers but because a high proportion of the better sort fell.  3 earls, perhaps 160 knights and 800 esquires.   

[Mark G]

It is a truth of the scots, that when they win at something they believe they should be good at, they feel themselves to have always been unbeatable, the subsequent five losses come as a shock before they revert to their normal position if expecting to lose again... Until that next win.

[RichT]

Where does 1 in 3 come from? I can't find any such gradient in the Battlefields Trust article. From the map, the distance form the cross to the river is around 500 metres (probably a bit more but let's round down). The cross is on the 90 metre contour, and the river at 9 metres (see spot height at Forteviot Bridge). Slope therefore around 16% or a little less than 1 in 6.

[Patrick Waterson]

OK, we shall say 1 in 6.  It just struck me that, curiously enough, all the figures for the size of the heap might actually be correct.

Permit me to explain.

We have a heap stretched across a slope.  I am not sure what angle the bodies would settle at, but let us take 30 degrees from the horizontal as the likely angle for the slope of the deadpile.  Call the point at the lower end of the deadpile A, the peak or top of the deadpile B and the upper end of the deadpile C.  Because of the 1 in 6 gradient, there is a sixteen-degree angle cutting across the horizontal, which has the effect of protracting the length of AB and shortening AC compared to the effect of a horizontal base.

In other words, the effect of the slope is to give one long side and one short side to the heap.  Hence, depending upon whether the heap is viewed from upslope (Robert of Avesbury?), downslope (Meaux Chronicle?) or sideways on (Lanercost and Bridlington chronicles?) one might get a quite different estimate or even measurement made in absolutely good faith.  And they all might be correct - from a particular standpoint.

Considering casualties, funnily enough the highest estimates (c.20,000 from a force of perhaps 40,000) seem to be accepted, even urged, by Ecossophile author Nigel Tranter in his Bruce series - or rather post-Bruce series, in this particular instance.  It is English academics who seem to want to pare down the losses.

[Erpingham]

Considering casualties, funnily enough the highest estimates (c.20,000 from a force of perhaps 40,000) seem to be accepted, even urged, by Ecossophile author Nigel Tranter in his Bruce series - or rather post-Bruce series, in this particular instance.  It is English academics who seem to want to pare down the losses.

Much as I liked Nigel Tranter's books, his opinions were formed a long time ago.  There has been a lot of work around the 1st War of Independence since he wrote, a lot of it since his death.

[Patrick Waterson]

Much as I liked Nigel Tranter's books, his opinions were formed a long time ago.  There has been a lot of work around the 1st War of Independence since he wrote, a lot of it since his death.

I do not doubt it.  It is just that army and casualty size estimates tend to come and go with the centuries, and I would have thought Mr Tranter would have leant towards the least painful option available at the time he was writing - even if it were his own - rather than what appears to be the high point of Scottish casualty estimation.

[Erpingham]

Moving away from Dupplin Moor for a moment and returning to our theme, might we look at the circumstances of battles with body heaps to draw thoughts as to why they appear rare in the literature (assuming it is not that they occured everywhere but were seldom mentioned)?