WHEN KNIGHTLY COURAGE

MAYFAIL: BATTLEORATIONS
IN MEDIEVAL EUROPE
JOHN R. E.BLIESE

HE POETS OF MEDIEVAL EUROPE often portrayed knights as fearless war-

TBorn,
de
riors with a virtually insatiable lust for battle. The troubadour Bertran
who died early in the thirteenth century, praised warfare: "Iam
overjoyed when I see knights and horses, all in armour, drawn up on the
field. I love it when the chargers throw everything and everybody into
confusion, and when I see a great host of armed men advancing all togeth-
.
er behind them. . . Once he has started fighting, no noble knight thinks
of anything but breaking heads and arms-better a dead man than a live
one who is useless." In the early thirteenth-century epic Girart de Vienne,
Garin de Montglane claimed that peace would make him ill and that he
liked nothing better than the neighing of horses and battle in the open
field. The Chanson d'Antioche from the First Crusade revealed the "rugged
feudal heart that loved battle better than money or fine gold."' From the
fifteenth century came a similar expression of the love of combat in Le
Jouvencel: "It is a joyous thing, is war. . . . You love your comrade so in
war. When you see that your quarrel is just, and your blood is fighting
well, tears rise to your eye. . . . Do you think that a man who does that
fears death? Not at all; for he feels so strengthened, he is so elated, that he
does not know where he is. Truly he is afraid of nothing."'
Such medieval literary descriptions have heavily influenced the
modern concept of chivalry and knighthood. In his classic study of the late
Middle Ages, Johan Huizinga accepted the passage from Le Jouvencelas "a
remarkable portrayal, hardly to be surpassed, of the psychology of warlike
courage of a simple and touching kind." A few years earlier, k n Gautier

Iohn R. E. Bliese is pmfessor of communication studies at Taxas Tech University.

*Bertran de Born and Garin de Montglane, quoted in J. F. Verbruggen, The Art of
Warfare in Western Europe during the Middle Ages, trans. Sumner Willard and S. C. M.
Southern (Amsterdam, 1977),39-40; Chanson d'Antioche, in Michael Foss, Chivalry (Lon-
don, 19751,117; Le Jouvencef,in J o h n Huizinga, The Waning of the Middle Ages (London,
1927),64-65.Mapr works such as Le Iouvencel will remain italicized even when contained
within a larger work, as in this footnote.
490 THEHISTORIAN

had concluded that the warriors “too often loved fighting for its own sake,
and not for the cause which they had espoused.”2
Military historian J. F. Verbruggen contended that this literary picture
of medieval warriors and combat needs serious correction because the
knights were, after all, human beings. In an excellent recent analysis of the
psychology of medieval warfare, he marshaled evidence from eyewitness
accounts of battles. For example, he quoted Fulcher of Chartres’ descrip-
tion of how afraid the Crusaders were at the Battle of Dorylaeum in 1097
’We were all herded together like sheep in a sheepfold, trembling and
frightened.” On a later occasion, Fulcher admitted, ’We feigned bravery
but feared death.” The next year at Antioch, some of the Crusaders de-
fected after things began to go badly. When one was brought back, the
knights begged mercy for their guilty brother-in-arms. Verbruggen ob-
served that “they all understood human weakness, and knew that some
men were not strong enough to overcome it.” Verbruggen cited further
instances in which the knights panicked and fled. For example, in 1102, the
army of King Louis VI of France had its morale destroyed by a severe
thunderstorm during the night and fled at daybreak. He also considered
the battle at Harran between the Crusaders and the Muslims in May 1104.
Although the Crusaders won, they had to spend the night on the battle-
field on the enemy’s side of a river. Fear overcame them, and they fled.
Verbruggen concluded from this material that medieval knights had all the
normal human fears of death and mutilation in combat.3
Indeed, Peter of Blois, writing in the twelfth century, claimed the knights
of his day were not brave at all but showed courage only against defenseless
men: ’They carry splendid plated shields, which they greatly hope to bring
back unused. On their armor and on their saddles are pictured scenes of
battle; these are sufficientfor them: they have no desire to see
Were the knights of the Middle Ages the fearless fighting machines of
poetry, with an enormous lust for combat? Surely Verbruggen was right in
rejecting that image. Yet Peter of Blois’ characterization should also be r e
jected as an exaggeration. How brave were the knights when facing the
dangers of combat? Or, to put the question in a manageable form, how
brave were they generally thought to be? How did their contemporaries
believe the knights overcame their fears?
This article approaches the question of knightly fear and bravery by
looking at battle rhetoric. The chroniclers of the central Middle Ages

Huizinga, Waning of the Middle Ages, 65; Leon Gautier, Chivalry, trans. Henry Frith
(London, 1891), 56.
Verbruggen, Art of Warfare,41-50.
Peter of Blois, quoted in Achille Luchaire, Social France at the Time of Philip Augwtus,
trans. Edward Benjamin Krehbiel N e w York, 1912),274-75.
 COURAGE
KNIGHTLY 491

frequently claimed that before a battle began, the leader harangued his
army.This analysis is based on 360 such speeches in 92 chronicles written
between approximately 1000 and 1250. In this rhetorical situation, the com-
mander must have used those persuasive appeals that he thought would
strike at the core of his warriors’ motives to get them to fight to the utmost,
to kill, and if necessary to die in the battle that was about to begin5
The speeches, of course, are not verbatim reports of what the com-
manders actually said; they are the rhetorical products of the chroniclers
themselves. However, the speeches are not mere flights of fancy. The
tradition of rhetorical historiography in which the chroniclers were
writing demanded that devices of amplification and ornamentation such
as speeches had to be plausible. Battle orations thus contain much useful
information because they are a recurrent rhetorical form that concentrates
the authors’ conceptions of motivation and morale in war.6
The chroniclers all had some knowledge of the mentality of the
knights. A few of them were knights themselves: William of Poitiers was a
knight before he became chaplain to William the Conqueror; the anon-
ymous author of the Gestu Francorurn fought in the First Crusade; Robert of
Clari participated in the Fourth Crusade; and Geoffrey of Villehardouin
was one of the leaders of the Fourth Crusade. Some of the clerics, such as
Fulcher of Chartres and Peter Tudebode, had accompanied armies on the

Other military historians offer little help on questions of courage and morale in
medieval armies, but for excellent battle descriptions, see John Beeler, Wutfare in Feudal
Europe, 73&2200 (Ithaca, N.Y., 1971); idem, Warfare in England, 1066-2289 (Ithaca, N.Y.,
1966); CharlesOman, A History of the Art of War in the Middle Ages, 2 vols. (London, 1924);
Hans Delbriick, History of the Art of War: The Middle Ages, trans. Walter J. Renfroe, Jr.
(Westport, Conn., 1982).For one important exception, see Philippe Contamine, War in the
Middle Ages, trans.Michael Jones (Oxford, 1984),chap. 9; his discussionis largely focused
on theological definitionsof courage as a virtue and on an assessment of risk in the wan
of the later Middle Ages.For the Battle of Agincourt in 1415,John Keegan has a remark-
able analysis of fighting spirits; John Keegan, The Face of Battle (New York, 1976),113-16.
This study included orations from works such as Geoffrey of Monmouth’s History of the
Kings of Britain and Wace’s Roman de Brut, because they were presented and accepted as
histories. Since this analysis focuses on knights of westem Europe, it excludes speeches
attributed to Byzantine or Muslim commanders. For additionalanalysis of all the motive
appeals, see John R. E. Bliese, ”Rhetoric and Morale: A Study of Battle Orations from the
Central Middle Ages,” Iournal o f M ed i m l History 15 (1989): 201-26.

These battle orations were not simply copied from models, but significant details
may have been borrowed from earlier medieval works. Where chroniclerscopied battle
orations, both versions were counted as separate speeches. For plausibility as a
“rhetorical imperative,” see Nancy Partner, “The New Comificius: Medieval History and
the Artifice of Words,” and Roger Ray, ”Rhetorical Skepticism and Verisimilar Narrative
in John of Salisbury’sHistoria Pontificalis,” in CIassical Rhetoric and Medieval Historiography,
ed. Emst Breisach (Kalamazoo, 1985), 12,66, 83-84. For the precepts in the rhetorical
textbooks most popular at the time,see Cicero, De Inventione, 1.7.9.,1.19.27 - 1.21.30;Rhef-
orica ad Herennium, 1.2.3.,1.8.11- 1.9.16.
492 THEHISTORIAN

Crusades. Even the monks had ample opportunities to learn about the
psychology of war, since they came from the same social background as
the knights, and there were converted knights in many monasteries. One
historian recently concluded: ”It was natural for observant monks to be
well informed about war.”7
While these battle speeches do not reveal specifically what was said on
any one occasion, collectively they can aid in understanding knights as
they faced combat by showing in some detail how the mentality of the
knights was perceived by their contemporaries. In these speeches, leaders
use a number of recurrent motive appeals (rhetorical topoi)to build up the
courage of their men. Within these appeals lies a psychological profile of
the structure of morale and courage for the medieval man at arms (as
perceived, of course, by the chroniclers).Primary among these are appeals
to bravery and valor; justice; God’s intercession; superiority over the
enemy; and promises of plunder and booty.
The leaders appealed most frequently, in 156 speeches, to the men’s
bravery and valor. Thus, Odo Borleng said to his men before the Battle of
Bourgthkoulde in 1124, “Today on this battlefield the courage and deter-
mination of every champion will be manifest to all.” Concern for the justice
of the cause appeared in 109 orations. In 1158, Frederick Barbarossa,
campaigning against Milan’s revolt against the Roman empire, declared to
his assembled forces, ”Milan . . . has given us just cause for war . . . [we are
acting] in the service of justice. . . . We are not inflicting injury, but are
removing it.” The commanders claimed in 108 speeches that God and the
saints were on their side and would help them in the battle. King Philip
Augustus encouraged his men before the Battle of Bouvines in 1214 ”to trust
that God will be merciful to us sinners and give us the victory over his en-
emies and OUTS.’’ In 69 speeches, the commanders told their men how super-
ior they were to the enemy. Hengist ”promised his own men victory [over
Aurelius] and personal safety, too, in view of their greater number.” Promises
of plunder and booty were also important, appearing in 48 speeches. At the
Battle of Dorylaeum, the knights exhorted each other by passing a message
along their line to “stand fast all together, trusting in Christ and in the victory
of the Holy Cross. Today, please God, you will all gain much booty.”s

John Gillingham, ”William the Bastard at War,” in Studies in Medieval History

Presented to R . Allen Brown, ed. Christopher Harper-Bill, Christopher J. Holdsworth, and
Janet L. Nelson (Woodbridge, Suffolk, 1989), 143. Maurice Keen agrees: “Knights and
clerks . . . understood each other’s worlds better than is often allowed for”; Maurice
Keen, Chivalry (New Haven, 1984), 32.

Orderic Vitalis, The Ecclesiastical History, ed. and trans. Marjorie Chibnall, 6 vols.
(Oxford, 1969-1980), vol. 6, 348-49; Otto of Freising and Rahewin, Gesta Friderici
Imperatoris, vol. 46 of Monumenta Germaniae Historica, Scriptores Rerum Gomanicarum in
Usum Scholarum (Hannover, 1867), 203 (The Deeds of Frederick Barbarossa, trans. Charles
KNIGHTLYCOURAGE 493

Commanders also pleaded with the men to defend themselves, their

families, and their country in 46 speeches. Before one battle against Cnut
in 1016, Edmund Ironside asked his men to "remember that they are
fighting for their country and children, their wives and inheritances." In 45
orations, the speakers reminded the warriors of their many past victories.
Before another battle against Cnut, Edmund Ironside "drew up his troops
in three divisions, and then going round each troop, exhorted and entreat-
ed them, bearing in mind their ancient . . . victories . . . and reminded
them that they were about to engage with those whom they had conquered
already." The leaders promised their men victory in 42 speeches. King
Charles at the Battle of Soissons in 923 "reminds them that they have
nothing to fear, that victory is not in doubt." The knights were asked to take
revenge on an evil enemy in 39 orations. Before attacking the walls of
Jerusalemin 1099, the Crusaders were told, "If some foreign enemy kills any
of your relatives, would you not avenge your blood? By much more ought
you to avenge your God." The speakers referred 37 times to the glorious
reputation of their ancestors. During a battle at Antioch in 1098 in the First
Crusade, when the Norman commander Bohemond sent in reinforcements,
he asked his men to "remember . . . our kinsfolk and do not tarnish the
bright honour of the Franks." Leaders 36 times assured their armies that a
small force can beat a larger foe. At the Battle of the Standard in 1138, as the
Anglo-Normans faced a much larger Scottish force, one of their leaders said,
"It is not so much the multitude of a host as the valour of a few, which is
decisive. . . . What, then, does the renown of your fathers, your practice of
arms, your military discipline avail, unless they make you, few though you
are in numbers, invincible against the enemy's hosts?" Speakers promised
eternal rewards in heaven in 36 speeches. On the Second Crusade, a group
of Anglo-Norman warriors sailing for the Holy Land stopped at Lisbon to
help the local Christians take the city from the Muslims in 1147/48. Before
they assaulted the walls, a priest addressed them, concluding, "If it should
happen that anyone signed with this cross should die, we do not believe that
life has been taken from him, for we have no doubt that he is changed into
something better. Here, therefore, to live is glory and to die is gain."9

Mierow and Richard Emery [New York, 19531,20546);William the Breton, Gestu Philippi
Augush', vol. 1 of Oeuvres de Rigord et de Guilluume le Breton, ed. H. Francois Delaborde, 2
vols. (Paris, 1882-1885), 273; Geoffrey of Monmouth, Historia Regum Britunniae, vol. 3 of
La Ggende Arthurienne, ed. Edmond Faral, 3 vols. (Paris, 1929), 206 (The History of the
Kings of Britain, trans. Lewis Thorpe [Baltimore, 19661, 189); Gestu Fruncorum, ed. and
trans. Rosalind Hill (London, 19621, 19-20. English translations of these battle orations
follow the original language editions and are placed within parentheses in these citations.

Roger of Wendover, Chronica sive Flores Historiurum, ed. Henry 0. Coxe, 4 vols.
(London, 184-1844), vol. 1,454 (The Flowers of History, trans. J. A. Giles, 2 vols. [London,
18491, vol. 1, 288); Roger of Hoveden, Chronica, ed. William Stubbs, 4 vols., Rolls Series
(London, 1868-1871), vol. 1, 84 (The Annals of Roger of Hoveden, trans. Henry T. Riley, 2
494 THEHISTORIAN

These topoi fit well with the normal image of chivalry, even the literary
image. They show a class of professional warriors motivated by valor and
justice and, of cou~se,by rewards material and spiritual. The knights were
concerned to maintain their record of victory and to uphold the glorious repu-
tation of their ancestors. They were encouraged to know that they enjoyed
some kind of military superiority and that God would help them win. They
believed that they could emerge victorious over a more numerous enemy.
It is therefore surprising--even somewhat disconcerting-to find that
the leaders very often feared that the courage of their men might fail. In
1173, in one incident during the rebellion against King Henry I1 of England,
an English earl addressed the king‘s forces and extolled the men’s military
prowess, their renowned victories, and the justice of their cause. He assur-
ed the knights that God would help them win the battle but then warned:
”There is one thing I want to stress firmly: it is not possible to flee, for we
are surrounded on all sides by our enemies. Therefore since there is no
hope of flight, this alone remains, that we conquer or we fall.” This motive
appeal, found in 50 speeches, was fifth in frequency, Since the chroniclers
clearly believed that the knights might try to flee from the battle, these
pleas deserve a closer look in terms of the occasions on which they were
used, the reasons the speakers offered, and some implications for the
morale and courage of medieval armies.lO
The chroniclers used this topos in two different rhetorical situations.
Usually the speeches were made before the beginning of combat. For ex-
ample, King Alfred, after withdrawing into the marshes at Athelney, told his
men that the Danes sought them everywhere and there was nowhere further
to flee. With no refuge left, they attacked and, with the aid of St. Cuthbert, de-
feated the Danes at the Battle of Edington in 878. In Robert of Clari’s account
of the siege of Constantinople in the Fourth Crusade, some French knights
were ambushed by a Byzantine force and exhorted each other: ”If we flee,
we are all dead men. It becomes us better to die fighting than fleeing.”I1
Sometimes, however, a leader tried to rally his army in battle. During
vols. [London, 18531, vol. 1,101); Richer, Histoire de France, 888-995, ed. Robert Latouche, 2
vols. (Paris, 1967), vol. 1,88439;Baudri of Bourgueil, Histoh Jerosolymifunu,vol. 4 of Recueil
des Historiens des Croisudes: Hisforiens Occidentaux, 5 vols. (Paris, 1841-1885), 101; Orderic
Vitalis, Ecclesiastical History, vol. 5, 78-79; Henry of Huntingdon, History of the English
(Histoh Anglorum), ed.Thomas h o l d , Rolls Series (London, 1879), 263 (The Chronicle of
Henry ofHunfingdon, trans. Thomas Forester [London, 18531,268-69); The Conquest of Lisbon
(De Expuptione Lyxbonensi),ed. and trans.CharlesWendell David (New York, 1936), 156-57.

lo [Benedict of Peterborough], The Chronicle of the Reigns of Henry I1 and Richard I, ed.
William Stubbs, 2 vols., Rolls Series (London, 1867), vol. 1,52-53.

Cupitulu de Miraculis et Trunslationibus Sancti Cuthberti, in Simeon of Durham, @era

Omniu, ed. Thomas h o l d , 2 vols., Rolls Series (1882-1885), vol. 1,233; Robert of Clari, La
ConquPte de Constantinople, ed. Philippe Lauer (Paris, 1956),66 (The Conquest of Consfun-
tinople, trans. Edgar Holmes McNeal [New York,19361,89).
KNIGHTLYCOURAGE 495

the Battle of Hastings in 1066, when a Norman charge was stopped by the
English, the knights turned and fled amid rumors that Duke William had
fallen. Several chroniclers claimed that William had to rally his men with a
short speech and some physical threats as well. The Bayeux Tapestry, woven
in the 1070s to show the events of the Norman conquest of England, has a
picture of this incident, showing William taking off his helmet so the men
could see that he was still alive and Eustace of Boulogne pointing to him.
There was also a famous incident at the Battle of Dorylaeum when the
Crusaders had split their forces and were marching in two separate groups.
When the Turks suddenly attacked one column and put the knights to flight,
Duke Robert of Normandy had to rally them with a short s ~ e e c h . ' ~
The pleas not to flee can also be divided into two groups based on the
overall rhetorical strategies the speakers employed as they tried to justify
why the knights should not run away. Such strategies are of considerable
interest for the light they cast on the contemporary perceptions of the
psychology of the warrior classes. Most often the commanders tried to
overcome the flight instinct pragmatically, by analyzing the military
realities they faced. Sometimes, however, the commanders argued for
some higher moral value.
The pragmatic approach yielded several different possible claims, two
of which were most important. The speakers sometimes told their men that
they could not flee - it was simply impossible. Alternately, they presented a
"risk analysis" and claimed that more would die in flight than if they fought.
Sometimes they were too far from their homeland to flee. In Fulcher of
Chartres' history of the First Crusade, King Baldwin addressed his army
before the Battle of Jaffa in 1101 and concluded, "If, however, you wish to
flee, remember that France is indeed a long distance away." Likewise, in
the twelfth-century history of the Angevin counts, Geoffrey Martel, having
attacked his neighbors, said, "Do not even think of fleeing, because Anjou
is very far away." As an expedition made u p primarily of Pisans and
Genoese prepared to attack Zawila, a Muslim city on the north coast of
Africa in 1087, Bishop Benedict of Modena told the army that they could
not flee, for a long sea journey stood behind them.l3

l 2 Orderic Vitalis, Ecclesiastical History, vol. 2, 174-75; William of Poitiers, Histoire de

Guillaume le Conquerant, ed. Raymonde Foreville (Paris, 1952), 190-91 (The Deeds of
William, Duke of the Normans and King of the English, trans. David C. Douglas and George
W. Greenaway, in English Historical Documents [London, 19531, vol. 2,226);Guy, Bishop of
Amiens, The Carmen de Hastingae Proelio . . . , ed. and trans. Catherine Morton and Hope
Muntz (Oxford, 19721, 28-31; Frank Stenton, ed., The Bayeux Tapestry (New York, 1965),
plate 68. The version of the speech at Dorylaeum most often repeated seems to have
originated with Henry of Huntingdon, History of the English, 221 (Chronicle, trans.
Forester, 229); Charles Wendell David, Robert Curfhose (Cambridge, Mass., 1920), 194.

l3 Fulcher of Chartres, Historia Iherosolymitana, vol. 3 of Recueil des Historiens des

496 THEHISTORIAN

The army’s location may also have made it impossible to find safety in
flight. In 1188, Giraldus Cambrensis wrote a history of the conquest of
Ireland by the English in the reign of Henry I1 in which he described
Raymond le Gros’ attempts to relieve a garrison besieged in Limerick.
When Raymond approached the town in 1176, he found that the enemy
had blocked his path. His men prepared to open the way, and one of their
Irish allies warned them that there were no places of refuge: ”Be warned,
my friends, be warned. Cities and castles are far distant, while any hope of
escape is very remote.” He added that if they started to flee, their Irish allies
would instantly become their enemies. Shortly after the Norman conquest of
England, William of Poitiers wrote a biography of William the Conqueror
that contained Duke William’s speech to his men before the Battle of
Hastings: “There is no road for retreat. In front, your advance is blocked by
an army and a hostile countryside; behind you, there is the sea where an
enemy fleet bars your flight.” When they did turn and flee, the duke once
again exhorted them to face the realities of their situation: ‘What is this
madness which makes you fly, and what way is open for your retreatY14
These exhortations could be highly elaborate. Helmold of Bosau’s
Chronicleof the Slavs described Henry, the Abdorite prince, leading a mixed
army of Slavs and Saxons to punish the Rugians for killing his son. As
they prepared for battle, he addressed his men: “Behold, we are surround-
ed on all sides by the sea: enemies before us, enemies behind us, and
refuge by flight has passed from us. Be strengthened, therefore, in the Lord
God on high and be valiant warriors, because one of two things is left-
either to conquer or to die valiantly.” Before the Battle of Lincoln in 1141
against the forces of King Stephen, Earl Robert of Gloucester pointed out
to his men that their position made flight impossible. To approach the city,
Robert’s army had crossed the Fossdyke and the marshy ground on either
side. With this barrier behind them, Robert warned his men:
There is one thing, however, brave nobles and soldiers all, which I
wish to impress on your minds. There is no possibility of retreat over
the marshes which you have just crossed with difficulty. Here,
therefore, you must either conquer or die; for there is no hope of
safety in flight. The only course that remains is, to open a way to the
city with your swords. If my mind conjectures truly, as flee you

Croisudes: Historiens Occidentuur, 392 ( A Histoy of the Expedition to lerusulem, ed. Harold S.
Fink, trans. Frances Rita Ryan [Knoxville,Tenn., 19691,158);Gesfu Consulurn Andegavorum
et Dominorum Ambuziensium, in Chroniques d’Anjou, ed. Paul Marchegay and Andre
Salmon (Paris, 1856), 120; Curmen in Vicforiam Pisunorum, ed. H. E. J. Cowdrey, ”The
Mahdia Campaign of 1087,” English Historical Review 92 (1977):25.

l4 Giraldus Cambrensis, Expugnutio Hibernicu, ed. and trans. A. B. Scott and F. X.

Martin (Dublin, 1978), 162-63; William of Poitiers, Histoire de Guilluume, 18245, 19C-91
(Deeds of William, trans. Douglas and Greenaway,225-26).
KNIGHTLYCOURAGE 497

cannot, by God's help you will this day triumph. Those must rely
wholly on their valour who have no other refuge.15
As developed in this manner, the appeal not to flee was not only a rhet-
orician's t o p s but was based on a realistic military analysis, which can be
found in Vegetius' Epitoma Rei Militaris, the standard military authority of
the time. Vegetius warned that a general should never corner an enemy force
and leave them no chance for retreat. If the enemy could flee, they would be
likely to think of safety and could be cut to pieces while in flight. If, howev-
er, they were cornered, they would fight to the death out of desperation.16
Enemy generals may have made the mistake Vegetius warned against
in some cases. In others, the army may have put itself in a position where
flight was impossible. Indeed, the chroniclers claimed that a commander
sometimes purposely put his men in a desperate situation to prevent their
flight. According to two twelfth-century Anglo-Norman sources, Duke
William destroyed his ships before the Battle of Hastings so his men would
not be tempted to make a run for them. At the Battle of the Standard, the
northern Anglo-Norman barons faced an enormous invading army led by
King David of Scotland. They fought on foot, leaving their horses far
behind the battle line. Two of the northern English chroniclers claimed that
they did this so no one would try to flee. King David II of Georgia asked
his army to block up its own path to make flight impossible in the battle
against Il Ghazi in 1121. Thus, the frustrated tendency toward flight could
turn men into a more desperate, fierce arrny.17

l5 Helmold of Bosau, Cronica Slavorum, ed. B. Schmeidler, vol. 32 of Monumenta

Germaniue Historica Scriptores Rerwm Germanicarum in Usum Scholarwm, 76 (The Chronicle of
the Slavs, trans. Francis Joseph Tschan [New York, 19351, 130); Henry of Huntingdon,
History of the English, 269 (Chronicle, trans. Forester, 275).

Flavius Vegetius Renatus, Epitoma Rei Militaris, ed. C. Lang (Stuttgart, 1967), 111
(The Military Institutions of the Romans, trans. John Clarke, in Roots of Strategy, ed. T. R.
Phillips [Harrisburg,Penn., 19401,16445). For the use of this fourth- or fifth-century mili-
tary manual in the Middle Ages, see Contamine, War in the Middle Ages, 210-12; Bernard
S. Bachrach, 'The Practical Use of Vegetius' De Re Militari during the Early Middle Ages,"
The Historian 47 (1985): 239-55; Josette A. Wisman, "L'Epitoma rei milifatis de Vegke et sa
fortune au Moyen Age," Le Moyen Age 85 (1979): 13-31; Charles R. Shrader, "A Handlist
of Extant Manuscripts Containing the De Re Militari of Flavius Vegetius Renatus,"
Scriptorium 33 (1979): 280-305;idem, 'The Influence of Vegetius' De Re Milifan'," Military
Affairs 45 (1981): 167-72.
l7 Wace, Le Roman de Rou, ed. A. J. Holden, 3 vols. (Paris, 1970-1973), vol. 2, 129
(Chronicle of the Norman Conquest, trans. Edgar Taylor [London, 18371,131); The Chronicle
of Battle Abbey, ed. and trans. Eleanor Searle (Oxford, 1980), 34-35; Aelred of Rievaulx,
Relatio de Standardo, in Chronicles of the Reigns of Stephen, Henry I1 and Richard I, ed. Richard
Howlett, 4 vols., Rolls Series (London, 18&1-1890), vol. 3, 185-89; John of Hexham, The
Chronicle of John, Prior offfexham, ed.James Raine, 2 vols. (Surtees Society, 1864), vol. 1,119;
Walter the Chancellor, Bella Antiochena, ed. Heinrich Hagenmeyer (Innsbruck, 1896), 113.
498 THEHISTORIAN

In the second pragmatic approach, the speaker assessed the increased

risk of flight-the odds of dying were greater. O n the Third Crusade,
Richard Lion-Heart, under attack by Saladin‘s army in 1192, encouraged
his knights to bear u p as brave men, for with the Turks all around, “to
attempt to flee is to provoke certain death.” Likewise, William of Apulia,
writing in the late eleventh or early twelfth century, depicted the Norman
Robert Guiscard telling his men that they would find safety only in their
weapons; if they fled, all would be butchered. In Wace’s version of the
speech of Duke William at Hastings, he combined a risk analysis with the
impossibility of flight. The duke gave a long harangue in which, after
praising the bravery of his men, he explained why they could not find
safety by fleeing:
There will be no safety in peace or flight; the English will never love
or spare Normans. Felons they were and are; false they were and false
they will be. Show no weakness toward them, for they will have no
pity on you; neither the coward for his flight, nor the bold man for his
strokes, will be the better liked by the English, nor will any be the
more spared on that account. You may fly to the sea, but you can fly
no further; you will find neither ship nor bridge there; there will be
no sailors to receive you; and the English will overtake you and kill
you in your shame. . . , Flight, therefore, will not secure you; but
fight, and you will conquer.18
In a few cases the risk was more of a threat. Jordan Fantosme, who
witnessed many of the events of the rebellion against Henry I1 in 1173,
related that when Robert, earl of Leicester, advanced against an army loyal
to the king at Fornham, he said, ’Woe be to the body of the man who may
be first to flee!” In Ralph of Coggeshall’s early thirteenth-century account
of the Third Crusade, the threat was plain. King Richard before the Turks‘
attack at Jaffa in 1192 swore by almighty God that if h e saw anyone flee, he
would cut off that man’s head.’9
There were two other minor appeals that pragmatically focused on the
current military situation and the more remote consequences of flight. A
monk at Rheims who wrote at the end of the tenth century described a
French army fighting, early in that century, against the Normans. The

18 Richard, Canon of Holy Trinity, London, Itinerarium Peregrinorum et Gesta Regis

Ricardi, vol. 1 of Chronicles and Memoriuls of the Reign of Richard I , ed. William Stubbs, 6
vols., Rolls Series (London, 1864-1865), 417 ([Geoffrey of Vinsaufl,Itinerary of Richard I,
trans. J. A. Giles, in Chronicles of the Crusades [London, 19031,322); William of Apulia, La
Geste de Robert Guiscard, ed. Marguerite Mathieu (Palermo, 19611,226-27; Wace, Le Roman
de Rou, vol. 2,161-62 (Chronicle, trans. Taylor, 161-62).

l9 Jordan Fantosme, Chronique, trans. Richard Howlett, in Chronicles of the Reigns of

Stephen, Henry II and Richard I, vol. 3,290-91; Ralph of Coggeshall, Chronicon Anglicanum,
ed. Joseph Stevenson,Rolls Series (London, 1875),47.
KNIGHTLY
COURAGE 499

Norman “pirates” had already taken much plunder, and the French were
reminded that if they fled, none of their remaining possessions would be
left. As another example, King Louis of France and his crusading army
attempted to advance from Damietta toward Cairo in 1250. Part of the
army, trying to win glory by themselves, went ahead and were massacred
by the Saracens. When he learned of the disaster, Louis addressed his men
and claimed if they retreated:
Our enemies will exult over us, as though they had gained a triumph
over all of us; they will glory more in our retreat than in the slaughter
of our companions, they will be the more strongly encouraged to
attack and to pursue us, as they are more swift than we are, and so
they will soon destroy us hom the face of the earth, to the confusion
of all Christianity; and by such a proceeding the universal Church
will be more utterly ruined, and France will be stained with indelible
disgrace.
Louis then called on his men to attack their enemies-but the French suf-
fered another disastrous defeat, and Louis was captured.20
As a final pragmatic approach, the speaker simply claimed that there
was no reason to flee. Ralph of Coggeshall told of King Richard exhorting
his men during the battle at Jaffa after they had just driven off the first on-
slaught of Turks. The king told his knights that they no longer had reason
to flee, for the enemy had thrown everything he had at them in the first
attack.21
Besides pragmatism, the other major rhetorical strategy was for the
speaker to ask the men to transcend their fears by subordinating survival
instincts to some higher moral value. Even if they could flee, they should
not do so. Several moral pleas were used.
First, medieval wisdom taught that to flee was cowardly. Henry of
Huntingdon’s chronicle, written near the middle of the twelfth century,
described the Roman invasion of Britain during which Julius Caesar told
his men that flight was the refuge of cowards. The chaplain to King
Philip Augustus of France described a night attack on the French camp
during Philip’s siege of Chateau Gaillard in 1203. As most of the French
fled in confusion, a few others tried to stop them, charging them with
cowardice.Z2

2o Richer, Histoire de France, vol. 1,6&67; Matthew Paris, Chmnica Majora, ed. Henry
Richards Luard, 7 vols., Rolls Series (London, 1872-1884), vol. 5,154-55 (English History,
trans. J. A. Giles, 3 vols. [London, 18531, vol. 2,373).

Ralph of Coggeshall,Chronicon Anglicanum, 48.

22 Henry of Huntingdon, History of the English, 17 (Chronicle, trans. Forester, 14);
William the Breton, Philippidos Libri 72 . . . , in Historiens de Philippe-Auguste, ed. H.
Francois Delaborde, 2 vols. (Paris, 1882-1885), vol. 2,185.
500 THEHISTORIAN

Second, medieval soldiers saw flight as shameful. In Helmold's chron-

icle, Count Adolph of Holzatia in a war with the Danes in 1149 or 1150 told
his men, "The time has come in which we are to find out who is an intrepid
and ever valorous man. . . for the shame of flight. . . demands recourse
to battle." In the late twelfth or early thirteenth century, Sax0 Grammaticus
composed a history of Denmark in which he described a most unusual
situation. King Sweyn, facing a rebellion in 1154, summoned loyal forces
and waited for the enemy. Much of his army deserted and the king de-
cided to flee. The remaining troops discovered his intention and exhorted
him to face his enemies. They told him that "it is utterly disgraceful to en-
trust his fortunes to flight rather than to battle. . . . Then they tell him not to
change from a valiant monarch into a cowardly deserter of his own men, nor
consent to blot his numerous victories by the shame of a single flight." The
troops were unable to persuade their king to stay and fight, so they en-
couraged each other and resolved to stand against the enemy without
their leader. Ralph of Caen early in the twelfth century wrote a biography
of a Norman who fought on the First Crusade. During the final battle for
Jerusalem, a Muslim force put some of the Crusaders to flight and Ralph
depicted Everard du Puiset rallying them: "Oh shameful flight, for shame!
Have we come to fight or only to run?"23
Third, knights thought flight would even tarnish the honor of their
descendants. In his account of the Battle of Bourgtheroulde in 1124, the
Anglo-Norman monk Orderic Vitalis told of some knights encouraging
each other to fight against a larger force "for fear of shaming ourselves and
our heirs by a dishonorable flight."u
Fourth, on a few occasions, the speakers used loyalty or comradeship
as the higher values on which to base their appeal not to flee. King Richard
in 1192 tried to get some of his Crusaders who had fled to return to the bat-
tle by asking them to share the fate of their comrades. In a desperate battle
against the Bulgarians at Adrianople in 1205, Emperor Baldwin tried to
prevent his men from fleeing by promising that he would never do so and
asking them to remain with him. But when the emperor was captured,
some of his knights fled. At the Battle of the Standard, the Anglo-Norman
barons swore a pact among themselves that they would not back out of the
fight. Finally, the twelfth-century historian of the Christian principality of
Antioch related an incident of 1121 in which the Christians of Georgia

23 Helmold of Bosau, Cronica Slavorum, 127 (Chronicle, trans. Tschan, 185); Sax0
Grammaticus, Danorum Regum Heroumque Historia, Books 20-16, ed. and trans. Eric
Christiansen, 3 vols. (Oxford, 1980-1981), 396-97; Ralph of Caen, Gesta Tancredi in
Expeditione Hierosolymitana, vol. 3 of Recueil des Historiens des Croisades: Historiens
Occidentaux, 698.
24 Orderic Vitalis, Ecclesiastical History, vol. 6,350-51.
KNIGHTLY COURAGE 501

faced a force of Turks under I1 Ghazi and were asked to promise God that
they would never flee.25
Psychologically, there is a great differencebetween the two basic rhet-
orical strategies of appeals to pragmatism and to higher values, which can
perhaps best be seen by using the insights of the psychologist Abraham
Maslow, i.e., the hierarchy of needs. Maslow claimed that human needs
fall into several categoriesthat structurally form a hierarchy or pyramid: at
the lowest and most basic level are physiological needs-food, drink,
sleep, etc.; next are safety needs; followed by needs for belonging and love,
esteem, and, highest of all, self-actualization. Maslow argued that lower-
level needs must largely be met before higher-level ones become opera-
tive. The knights faced an immediate threat to their safety. The first rhet-
orical strategy, based entirely on pragmatic considerations, remained at
that need level: the speaker asserted that they would be safer and have a
greater chance of surviving if they did not flee but rather stood and fought.
But in the second rhetorical approach, the speaker tried to transcend the
level of survival needs and to make operative a higher order-belonging
and esteem needs. On the assumption that Maslow‘s theory may be ap-
plied to Europeans regardless of the era in which they lived, the pragmatic
rhetorical strategy probably had the better chance of success. The chron-
iclers implicitly agreed, since that was by far the more common approach
in their speeches. Of the 50 cases, 34 were purely pragmatic, 12 relied on
strategies of transcendence, and 4 combined both approaches.26
In analyzing the context within the speeches, it is apparent that the
plea not to flee seldom constituted the entire speech but was usually juxta-
posed with other motive appeals, with one combination particularly
significant. In 28 speeches, the appeal was accompanied by an exhortation
to be brave and courageous. These two pleas may be the opposite sides of
the same coin: be brave and do not flee. However, in many cases, the

25 Richard, Canon of Holy Trinity, Itinerarium Peregrinorum, 420 (Itinerary, trans. Giles,
325); Geoffrey of Villehardouin, La Conquate de Constantinople, ed. Edmond Faral, 2 vols.
(Paris, 1961), vol. 2, 168-69 (Chronicle of the Fourth Crusade and the Conquest of
Constantinople, trans. Frank Marzials, in Memoirs of the Crusades [London, 19081, 94);
Aelred of Rievaulx, Relatio de Standardo, 189; Walter the Chancellor, Bellu Antiochena, 113.

26 Abraham H. Maslow, Motivation and Personality, 2d ed. (New York, 1970),35-58,

97-104. For an application of Maslow’s theory to modem warriors, see Anthony Kellet!,
Combat Motivation: The Behavior of Soldiers in Battle (Boston, 1982),5. Maslow treats people
who become martyrs for high ideals or values as ”exceptions”; Maslow, Motivation and
Personality, 53; cf. U.S. Army historian S. L. A. Marshall’s conclusion that the soldier is
likely to value one thing more highly than life itself ”His reputation as a man among
other men”;S. L. A. Marshall, Men Against Fire (New York, 1947), 153. Marshall headed the
army’s historical team in World War 11, which interviewed soldiers immediately after
battles.
502 THE HISTORIAN

speakers seemed to believe that the men were brave, had proven themselves
to be brave-but still might turn and run. Archbishop Christian of Maim
drew up his German forces against the Romans in 1167 and inflamed the
spirits of his men by showing them why they could put no hope in flight
and then reminded them of their innate courage. Before the Battle of
Hastings, according to Wace, William praised his men, saying, "In all the
world there is not so brave an army, neither such proved men and vassals,
as are here assembled." The men interrupted him, shouting that he would
not see one coward. And then the duke, just a few lines later, told them
why they could not flee. That battle also showed that the plea might not
always be successful in preventing flight, since William's men did indeed
turn their backs and had to be rallied.27
It is important to note that the chroniclers did not seem to think they
demeaned or degraded an army when they wrote that the knights had to
be warned not to flee. They did not use this appeal to slander the character
of those whom they did not like. Nor did they use this appeal simply
when morale was low. At the Battle of Hastings, for example, there is
good reason to conclude that morale on both sides was very high. The
English had just won a major victory at Stamford Bridge, and the Nor-
mans had great hopes for enrichment. Wace showed the Normans very
eager for the fight, interrupting William's harangue with their boasts of
bravery. And yet in Wace's and William of Poitiers' versions, the plea not
to flee was developed to the fullest extent in the speech to the Normans.
On the other hand, at the Battle of the Standard, the morale of the Anglo-
Normans seems to have been quite low, so they purposely put them-
selves in a position such that they could not flee-yet this appeal does
not appear in either of the two lengthy accounts of the harangue to the
army.28
The army that was warned not to flee usually won in the end, even
when, as at Hastings and Dorylaeum, they turned from battle and had to
be rallied. It may be significant that most battle orations, whether or not
they contain this topos, are given to the winning side. But this is not always
true; many times the army did not win. From the examples cited above,
King Louis was defeated and captured, as were Emperor Baldwin and the

27 Otto of St. Blasien, Chronica, ed. A. Hofmeister, vol. 47 of Monumenta Germaniae

Historica Scriptores Rerum Germanicarum in Usum Scholarum, 23; Wace, Le Roman de Rou,
vol. 2,161 (Chronicle, trans. Taylor, 16142).

28 Beeler, Warfare in England, 17; Wace, Le Roman de Rou, vol. 2, 16142,155 (Chronicle,
trans. Taylor, 161-62,153); William of Poitiers, Histoire de Guillaume, 182-85 (Deeds of
William, trans. Douglas and Greenawav, 225); Aelred of Rievaulx, Relatio de Standardo.
185-89; Henry of guntingdon, Hktory'of the English, 26243 (Chronicle, trans. Forester,
267-69).
KNIGHTLYCOURAGE 503

earl of Leicester. The knights at BourgthQoulde who were concerned

about the shame of fleeing did just that in the end.29
This same appeal not to flee from battle is also found in medieval
literature, such as the Song of Roland in which the French responded to
Oliver's exhortation, "Damn anyone who flees," by proclaiming, "Our
French have no intention of fleeing." But later, after the knights saw the
enormous number of pagans they had to face, they implored Oliver and
Roland and the Twelve Peers to be their protectors. Archbishop Turpin
had to admonish them:
My lord barons, don't harbor base thoughts!
For God's sake I beg you not to flee,
So that no worthy individual sing bad songs about it.
It is much better that we should die fighting.30
One scholar now sees this plea in the Song of Roland as performing a
function of "enculturation." Its duty was to instill into the audience one of
the ideals of chivalry, that knights do not flee from battle. Indeed, one of
Lkon Gautier's ten commandments of chivalry was, 'Thou shalt not recoil
before thine enemy." Another scholar notes that in the chansons de geste "a
sense of honor . . . in particular forbade flight before the enemy . . . the
knights feared most of all being denounced as cowards." He quickly adds,
however, that "practice always differed from the ideal."3l
Could enculturation also have been the goal of the chroniclers? The
plea not to flee was especially common in Norman histories, which were
valued for the role they played in the education of their youth, providing
Norman boys with "moral and practical examples on which to model their
conduct." However, it is important to note that the pragmatic approach in
the battle speeches clearly dominated over the idealistic or moralistic one,
even in the Norman speeches. The appeal to honor and the threat of dis-
grace took a distant second place to risk analysis and the impossibility of
flight. The purpose of this appeal in the chronicles, therefore, was not only
to enculturate but also to mirror reality: the military situations medieval
knights faced, the natural human reactions to battle despite knightly ideals,

29 Matthew Paris, Chmnica Majoru, 154-55 (English Histoy, trans. Giles, 373); Geoffrey
of Villehardouin, La ConquCte de Constuntinople, 168-69 (Chronicle, trans. Marzials, 94);
Fantosme, Chmnique, 2W91; Chderic Vitalis, Ecclesiastical History, vol. 6,350-51.

30 La Chanson de Roland, ed. and trans. Gerard J. Brault (University Park, Penn., 1984),
lines 1047,1255,1472-75.

31 John F. Benton, "'Nostre Franceis n'unt talent de fuir': The Song of Roland and the
Enculturation of a Warrior Class," OZifnnt 6 (1979): 237-58; Gautier, Chivuly, 26, 55-58;
Verbruggen, Art of Warfare, 56-57.
504 THEHISTORIAN

and sound military advice. The topoi the chroniclers included in the battle
harangues were those they thought appropriate and effective. The authors
plainly thought it essential to show leaders pleading with the knights not
to run from battle.32
The battle speeches, thus, support Verbruggen's conclusion that the
knights were not the fearless fighting machines of medieval literature.
They were human in their reactions to the dangers and uncertainties of
battle. War they might have loved, but that was not the same as love of
battle. Typical medieval warfare involved mostly plundering and ravaging
the countryside. As another military historian has observed, "Unques-
tionably there were men who enjoyed going to war, but there were very
few, if any, who enjoyed the imminent prospect of a pitched battle." Battles
were risky, and medieval commanders normally avoided them. When
they had to face an enemy, the chroniclers clearly believed that the courage
of their knights might fail. A realistic image of knights must, therefore,
take fully into account their fear in the face of death and mutilation and
make allowances for departures from the literary ideal of chivalry.33
That many knights were outstandingly brave cannot be doubted. But
as a physician who participated in both World War I and I1 contended,
courage is not the absence of fear, but "the care and management of fear."
The battle speeches with their recurrent motive appeals show how the
chroniclers thought fear was best managed. To prevent the disaster of
panic and flight, the knights could be exhorted to transcend their fears and
to value honor and renown above life itself. But the chroniclers apparently
thought it much more effective-and not at all dishonorable-to remind
the knights of the hard military reality that flight was either an impos-
sibility or more dangerous than standing their ground.%

32 Ovidio Capitani, "Specific Motivations and Continuing Themes in the Norman

Chronicles of Southern Italy: Eleventh and Twelfth Centuries," in The Normans in Sicily
and Southern Italy (Oxford, 1977), 18, 23. Gautier also claims that "instead of telling the
young squires to be valiant-they rather said, Look at Ogier, and think of Roland";
Gautier, Chivalry, 58.

33 JohnGillingham, "Richard I and the Science of War in the Middle Ages," in War and
Government in the Middle Ages: Essays in Honour of 1.0.Prestwich, ed. John Gillingham and
J. C. Holt (Woodbridge,Suffolk, 1984), 86.

34 Lord Moran, The Anatomy of Courage (Boston, 1%7), 38.