Killing and Being Killed conference papers

[Erpingham]

An entire conference report on medieval combat for free?  Surely some mistake?  An interesting group of papers covering Goths, Scots and Catalans among others.

Contents :

Killed and Being Killed.
Perspectives on Bodies in Battle
in the Middle Ages - an Introduction....................9
JÖRG ROGGE

"The Goths Drew their Swords Together".
Individual and Collective Acts of Violence
by Gothic Warlords and their War Bands..................   15
GUIDO M. BERNDT

The Torture of Bodies in Byzantium
After the Riots (Sec. IV-VIII)  .......................................   43
BOGDAN-PETRU MALEON

"One man slashes, one slays, one warns, one wounds". Injury and Death in
Anglo-Scottish Combat, c.1296-c.1403  ....................   61
IAIN MACINNES

Willing Body, Willing Mind: Non-Combatant Culpability According to
English Combatant Writers 1327-77 ..........................   79
TREVOR RUSSELL SMITH

Body Techniques of Combat: The Depiction of
a Personal Fighting System in the Fight Books
of Hans Talhofer (1443-1467 CE) ............................... 109
ERIC BURKART

Six Weeks to Prepare for Combat: Instruction and Practices from the Fight Books at the End
of the Middle Ages, a Note on Ritualised
Single Combats  ......................................................... 131
DANIEL JAQUET

The Body of the Condottiero. A Link Between Physical Pain and Military Virtue as it was
Interpreted in Renaissance Italy ................................ 165
GUILIA MOROSINI

Two Kinds of War? Brutality and Atrocity in
Later Medieval Scotland............................................. 199
ALASTAIR J. MACDONALD

Logistics and Food Supply in the Crònica of
Ramon Muntaner ........................................................ 231
JUDITH MENGLER

Summary and Conclusions:
Silent Men and the Art of Fighting............................. 251
DOMINIK SCHUH

Contributors ............................................................... 267

[Andreas Johansson]

Thanks. Would you also happen to know where I find time to read it?

[Jim Webster]

Thanks. Would you also happen to know where I find time to read it?

I asked myself the same question even as I downloaded it 

[Imperial Dave]

super find!

[aligern]

Read the paper on Goths drawing theirswords and was not blown away. We started with a description if what a warband was , but mainly speculation that young men of warlike disposition could join whichever warband they wanted..and that may well not be true. We did not get, or did I skip, a description of known bucellary relationships as described in the Breviarum Alaricum or the Laws of Wessex , ir whatever is available from other laws. No reference to Tacitus description of German comitates, or the snippets of evidence from histories, such as the feaud of Sarus. I missed any investigation into whether Githic leaders were members of prexisting nobilities or dud 'new men' arise as the article suggests. Personally I favour the view that jobles are quite tightly defined and cone from soecific families abd if you are not from a family with retainers then your chance of just making warband leadership with your own strong right arm is remote.
Lastly the author seens to be saying that the status of a Theoderic ( either) or a Fritigern is warband leader and that his warband has between 6 and 30,000 warriors. There appears to be no structure between the leader and these thousabds of warband members whereas there was, in reality, structure and the tribal menfolk and warband members are overlapping groups and have various relationships with the Gothic nobility and the king. In fact we are not absolutely sure if Githic Optimates all folliwed individual leaders and there was a oyramidal relationship through to thenking or if that is only for the personal comitansenses of major nobles and the majority of free Goths related to the king directly and simply had jobles appointed over them for the purposes of military command.
So not an article that took us anywhere in particular.
Roy.

[Erpingham]

I've read a number of them now and they are a bit patchy.  The two Scots ones are good but Ian MacInnes' is pretty similar to another he wrote for another anthology, which we've already discussed here.  The condottiero one is interesting but shows hallmarks of google translate.  I have still got to tackle the Catalan logistics one (is it me, or does it stick out like a sore thumb in this theme?).

[Nick Harbud]

I need to read the piece on the Catalan Grand Company logistics.

In the same vein, the best collection of papers on medieval logistics that I have come across is Logistics of Warfare in the Age of the Crusades edited by John Pryor.  One of the papers shows how the 4^th Crusade was diverted to Constantinople as a result of its organisers trying to sort out its logistics and failing miserably.

[Erpingham]

I've read the Catalan one.  Nice little introduction to medieval logistics but no great depth.  However, if you want a clue as to how difficult it was to keep 6,500 men supplied in the Gallipoli area have a read.  Some believe the Persians could supply an army of millions in this area a few centuries before

[Patrick Waterson]

Some believe the Persians could supply an army of millions in this area a few centuries before

Xerxes apparently being among them.  Of course the Persians had four years preparation (gathering supplies) and the entire shipping of the East Med at their beck and call, as opposed to the occasional grudging vessel from a peripherally involved Italian.

[Erpingham]

Some believe the Persians could supply an army of millions in this area a few centuries before

Xerxes apparently being among them.  Of course the Persians had four years preparation (gathering supplies) and the entire shipping of the East Med at their beck and call, as opposed to the occasional grudging vessel from a peripherally involved Italian.

I don't think logistics is something we are going to agree on soon and any refutation will be futile.  But welcome back Patrick.

[Jim Webster]

Some believe the Persians could supply an army of millions in this area a few centuries before

Xerxes apparently being among them.  Of course the Persians had four years preparation (gathering supplies) and the entire shipping of the East Med at their beck and call, as opposed to the occasional grudging vessel from a peripherally involved Italian.

They didn't have the entire shipping of the east Med at their beck and call. The entire shipping already had work to do, otherwise it wouldn't be there. You cannot withdraw it at a whim, cities would have gone hungry.
Depending on the size of his budget, he had a proportion of the shipping. Just as he was only shipping a proportion of the local harvest surplus

[Patrick Waterson]

They didn't have the entire shipping of the east Med at their beck and call. The entire shipping already had work to do, otherwise it wouldn't be there. You cannot withdraw it at a whim, cities would have gone hungry.
Depending on the size of his budget, he had a proportion of the shipping. Just as he was only shipping a proportion of the local harvest surplus

I fear I must flatly contradict you here, Jim, Xerxes being King of Kings and able to order pretty much what he liked irrespective of consequences, so he could commandeer it, despite it having other work to do.  It anyway had four years' advance warning, during which much of it would have been involved in stockpiling for the campaign, so it would not have been missed until campaign time was up, by which time it had scarpered following Salamis and was back doing what it usually did.

Budget would not be a constraint: if Xerxes felt like paying anything to anyone, his accumulated treasury had more than enough to cover whatever he wanted to spend.  In any event, his subjects owed him service free of charge.  (One Lydian noble even placed his entire fortune at Xerxes' disposal, only to have it returned rounded up to the nearest million.) Things were done differently back then.

But as Anthony says:

I don't think logistics is something we are going to agree on soon and any refutation will be futile.  But welcome back Patrick.

Thank you, although yours truly is not quite back just yet.

[Jim Webster]

They didn't have the entire shipping of the east Med at their beck and call. The entire shipping already had work to do, otherwise it wouldn't be there. You cannot withdraw it at a whim, cities would have gone hungry.
Depending on the size of his budget, he had a proportion of the shipping. Just as he was only shipping a proportion of the local harvest surplus

I fear I must flatly contradict you here, Jim, Xerxes being King of Kings and able to order pretty much what he liked irrespective of consequences, so he could commandeer it, despite it having other work to do.  It anyway had four years' advance warning, during which much of it would have been involved in stockpiling for the campaign, so it would not have been missed until campaign time was up, by which time it had scarpered following Salamis and was back doing what it usually did.

Budget would not be a constraint: if Xerxes felt like paying anything to anyone, his accumulated treasury had more than enough to cover whatever he wanted to spend.  In any event, his subjects owed him service free of charge.  (One Lydian noble even placed his entire fortune at Xerxes' disposal, only to have it returned rounded up to the nearest million.) Things were done differently back then.

Merely contradicting me doesn't make you right 
Work it out from first principles.

Let us take Egypt. We know that thanks to the Nile it was a rich agricultural country which tended to export food. In the Achmenied period a lot of estates were held by noble Persians who farmed them commercially.
Now then, the Egyptians were not engaged in recreational ploughing. The crops they planted were all used. They had markets for them.
So if the Great King, King of Kings, decided to arbitrarily withdraw shipping from Egypt after harvest time when the grain was to be moved, it would just sit there unsold in warehouses, deteriorating slowly
Within Egypt grain prices would collapse (it's a very inelastic market, a 10% over production can produce anywhere up to a 50% drop in price, a 10% under production can see people selling their children) because there is so much unsold grain about, and there would be a major economic crisis as there wouldn't be the money in the country to pay taxes with. You'd get peasant discontent and situations like that lead to revolts, especially in a country which has just been recovered for the Empire
At the same time there are customers for this grain. But of course they cannot get it because there's no shipping. So the cities of Phoenicia which don't have a lot of arable land are going to become restive, because people are hungry and you've got bread riots.
At the same time wealthy persian nobles, for whom budgets are a problem, are noticing they're not getting money from their estates.

Given that a Persian noble, Artabanus, finally assassinated Xerxes, a wise many probably didn't go out of his way to irritate his landowning nobility.

I've just used Egypt as a brief example, because the situation would occur all over the Empire. Unless Xerxes wanted to lose provinces to revolt he would have to be very careful. Giving orders a year in advance to his agents to encourage grain production, by letting people know that he would be in the market for the next few years would probably let him buy wheat without starving other parts of his empire. The knowledge that he'd have to shift it would probably keep old boats in the water another season or two and would encourage people who were pondering building a new boat to get their finger out.
But saying he merely had to clap his hands together and just do what he liked doesn't wash.

[Patrick Waterson]

Couple of points there I have to question, Jim.

1.

Now then, the Egyptians were not engaged in recreational ploughing. The crops they planted were all used. They had markets for them.

Actually completely untrue. Much of the crop was stored, as had been the tradition from the First Dynasty, against any need for campaigning or famine relief, or even both.  You may remember that chaps of Abraham's lineage were in  the habit of dropping into Egypt when they seriously needed a bit of grain.  The crops the Egyptians planted were not all used.  Nor did they have markets for them (later on, e.g. in the 5th century BC, they would have markets for some of the crop, often in Greece, but this was a fraction of what they had available).

1a.

So if the Great King, King of Kings, decided to arbitrarily withdraw shipping from Egypt after harvest time when the grain was to be moved, it would just sit there unsold in warehouses, deteriorating slowly
Within Egypt grain prices would collapse (it's a very inelastic market, a 10% over production can produce anywhere up to a 50% drop in price, a 10% under production can see people selling their children) because there is so much unsold grain about, and there would be a major economic crisis as there wouldn't be the money in the country to pay taxes with. You'd get peasant discontent and situations like that lead to revolts, especially in a country which has just been recovered for the Empire

I think we need to go back to first principles here.  Egypt was what we might term a command economy, in that surpluses did not cause a collapse in prices (indeed the vast majority of people did not buy grain at all; they grew it and stored it) and scarcity did not, as far as I can see, cause price increases.  Surplus grain was not 'unsold', it was stored.  And yes, it did slowly go off, but in well-designed buildings in dry climatic conditions and with good rodent control this would take decades, not months.

And the King of Kings would not withdraw Nile boats, which would be useless on the open seas.

1b.

At the same time there are customers for this grain. But of course they cannot get it because there's no shipping. So the cities of Phoenicia which don't have a lot of arable land are going to become restive, because people are hungry and you've got bread riots.
At the same time wealthy persian nobles, for whom budgets are a problem, are noticing they're not getting money from their estates.

Name three of these 'customers' In any event, Phoenician grain traditionally came from Phoenicia, or at a pinch Syria.  And why are budgets a problem for wealthy Persian nobles?

1c.

Given that a Persian noble, Artabanus, finally assassinated Xerxes, a wise many probably didn't go out of his way to irritate his landowning nobility.

I would suggest it was more a matter of wise kings not losing a considerable slice of the Empire's manpower and an even bigger segment of its prestige in an attempt to conquer a gallant little barbarian country on the imperial fringes.

2.

I've just used Egypt as a brief example, because the situation would occur all over the Empire. Unless Xerxes wanted to lose provinces to revolt he would have to be very careful. Giving orders a year in advance to his agents to encourage grain production, by letting people know that he would be in the market for the next few years would probably let him buy wheat without starving other parts of his empire. The knowledge that he'd have to shift it would probably keep old boats in the water another season or two and would encourage people who were pondering building a new boat to get their finger out.

Excuse me, but when did Xerxes ever buy wheat? He was the King of Kings.  The Empire and all within it were pretty much regarded as his personal property.  (The Thebans who joined him at Thermopylae were even marked as his personal property.)  If he said he wanted so much wheat at a certain location by a certain time (in practice he would have had a few consultations with his satraps and they would all have agreed a schedule) then his subjects were duty-bound to accept it.  The point that all this preparation involved, and required, a considerable amount of advance planing and preparation is a good one, and from Herodotus' and Diodorus' accounts this is exactly what happened, e.g. four years' preparation for the 480 BC invasion of Greece; three years' preparation for the attempt to reconquer Egyopt in 374-3 BC.

2a

But saying he merely had to clap his hands together and just do what he liked doesn't wash.

Actually this was pretty much the definition of Biblical period kingship.  (By the time of the late Roman Republic it had degenerated into foot-stamping to make things happen, but the principle was the same.)  The actual storm following the flapping of the butterfly's wings would take a while to arrive, but if the King of Kings ordered something to happen, his empire bent its will and resources to making it happen, whether it be getting together supplies for 1.7 million fighting men or cutting a canal past Mount Athos.  If this meant diverting a lot of the Empire's shipping, then coastal cities would store extra to cover the period for which the diverted shipping was expected to be unavailable.

The essential point at issue here seems to be: were Xerxes' logistical arrangements comparable to those of mediaeval Catalans?  The answer has to be: no, not in the slightest.

[Jim Webster]

Couple of points there I have to question, Jim.

1.

Now then, the Egyptians were not engaged in recreational ploughing. The crops they planted were all used. They had markets for them.

Actually completely untrue. Much of the crop was stored, as had been the tradition from the First Dynasty, against any need for campaigning or famine relief, or even both. 

No it isn't. By definition you do not build up a continually increasing stockpile of grain. Even now the damned stuff goes off. The first thing you'd do is shift the old stuff onto the market and store new.
BUT the proportion stored is never high
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Grain-Market-Roman-Empire-Political/dp/0521117836/  is good on that sort of thing.
In crude terms, even now, with the same land, given the same inputs, and farmed by the same people, the yields can happily vary by more than 10% per annum just because of the weather. But demand is so inelastic that if you have 5% over production the market collapses and 5% under production some people end up selling their children. So you have a stockpile you draw on, but it's small and it's not static. (The CAP is a modern version and remarkably successful)
Also you didn't store more than you had to, because it was grain unsold. It was grain nobody paid you for. Only the very wealthy (which includes the state and temples) could afford to do it and they expected to see a margin at the end of it.