Medieval WarfareKiwood Manor

By: Adelaide, Nedaa, and Eliya

Weapons

• Weapons are according to their status and position on the futile system – The richer the person, the nicer the weapon

• Weapons are expensive • Every man is expected to be able to use

weapons• Weapons fall generally under these three

categories: siege weapons, weapons used by lower class, and weapons used by knights

Siege weapons

• Used for barricading someone in somewhere• Ballista

– Similar to a big crossbow– Works by using tension

• Mangonels– Missiles launched from a bowl-shaped bucket

• Battering rams– Used for breaking down buildings and walls

• Trebuchets– Consisted of a level and sling that slung very large rocks very

far distances

Polearms Battle axes Maces

Billhook Caltrops Flail

Serf’s Weapons

Halberd Serf’s Weapons Cont’d

Longbow • 6 inches, can penetrate armor• Can shoot a yard long arrow with great

accuracy up to 200 yards• With the longbow an English army of

11,000 defeated a French army of 60,000 at Crécy, France, in 1346

Bows Crossbow

Scimitar

Pike

Serf’s Weapons Cont’d Poleaxe Quarterstaff

Spears Warhammer Batons

Knight’s weapons

• Medieval swords– Broadsword– Falchion sword– Greatsword– Longsword

• Lance

• Also use many of the serf’s weapons

Other WeaponsRicher people had better weapons, although most Lords used the

weapons that knights usedOther weapons included• Ladders• Sappers • Pikes • Canons• First canon used in 1324 in Metz, France

– Early canon – Small – Used to attack inside walls– Canons have grown in size sine then, so a canon is a good weapon to use

• Many more!

Armor

• Body armor:– Leather– Fabric– Chainmail– Briganine– Plate

• Shield• helmet Briganine

Animals

• Camels in warfare• Dogs in warfare• Horses in warfare• War elephant• War pigs• War pigeons

Supplies (Offense)

• Gunpowder– Invented by Roger Bacon– Was invented in 1248

• Supply trains– Contain necessary supplies for the army– Easiest to travel by river or sea– Some wars can last for years, supply trains get refilled and then stop

back at the army’s camp• Border castles

– Stocked with supplies– In case a supply train gets attacked, armies can refill here

• We take a lot of food from the fields of the place that we are in

Relics

• Relics are touched by Jesus• Relics are believed to be an important source

of power that serve both as a spiritual weapon and a form of defense

• This ladybug statue is a relic, so we will win

Castle- ways of attacking• Methods for storming castles: ladders, battering rams, sappers

– Siege engines– Siege towers

• A wheeled tower that serves as a place to attack from; called a belfry

– Catapults– Siege weapons (listed previously)– Mining- tunnels dug under walls then collapsed to make walls fall so we will

have an easy enter and escape– Climbing over the walls– Surrounding walls; then waiting– Using an inside man to get what we need– Terrorizing the tower-dwellers– Sending in a diseased animal or poisoning the water so as to spread disease

and weaken the people

Castles- defense• Castles were virtually impregnable• Castles act as power bases• Almost impossible to take away a castle once it belonged to a line of rulers who

would pass it on to their children• Very good for hiding out in • Cavalry were useless against castles• Defending against siege towers

– Sloping walls– Moats

• Murder holes-holes in the ceilings through which deathly murder weapons were dropped

• Hot substances• Arrow slits-vertical slits in the wall through which arrows were shot• Concealed doors• Fire retardation techniques such as wet blankets

Castle- defense

• Sturdy- made of stone• Very steep• Surrounded by deep ditches• Strong fences of upright stone polls to give

extra protection• Heaped up earth and stone to make mounds• Moats (wooden tower on top surrounded by

palasades)

Castle- defense

• Baileys- clear spaces on level ground– Guarded with fences and ditches– Food, storage, water, and horse shelters are inside

the baileys – Linked to moats by movable draw brides or fenced

walkways• Ten foot thick, 50 feet high, and 100 feet long

walls around the castle– No corners- round castles

Organization

• Logistics:– Cost of war (armor horses & weapons)- expensive– Money comes from lord– Heavy calvary was important

Transportation

• Usually by horse• We always travel across bridges– Chapels to the saints at end of bridges which make

the bridges blessed– We always travel across bridges because they give

us good luck in the war• Knights may use boats to travel across the sea

Transportation

• Heavy cavalry—hardly any foot soldiers• Mostly no standing army until the end of the

Middle Ages• Horses had to be big—had to carry rider and

survive lance attacks• We only travel on 32 and 64-foot wide roads.

Although these are less common, they are safer for us because if we go on a 4, 8, or 16-foot wide roads, we will be more spread out, more susceptible to being attacked, and it will be harder to defend if they attack

Fighters

• Foot soldiers played a small role until the end of the Middle Ages– Could not wear heavy armor– Were often trampled by their own side’s knights– Cavalry (men on horseback) were used instead

• It is harder to be killed on a horse (though definitely not impossible) so it made the death toll lower

• Most vassals swore to help their lord for only 40 days– Many left after that 40 day period was over, even if it was the middle

of a battle• Quintain

– Used by fighters to train– Consisted of a dummy and shield swinging from a suspended pole

Strategies • Our lord is friends with the king• The king has scrofula (royal touch to cure) so he heals us if we are

wounded or if we get sick• We will have a plan into action that all the fighters are aware of• We start out blowing a horn very loudly

– One battle in the middle ages as many knights died from excessive horn blowing as from the enemies weapons.

• First send infantry (foot soldiers) who will attack their first line of defense• Our weaker calvary (men on horse) will follow who will attack their

second line of defense • Stronger calvary will follow once chaos has erupted, and kill many people• We will use the longbow to kill the other team’s horses and then we will

easily kill their cavalry, who are now on the ground– They will be wearing heavy armor so they will be clumsy.

Strategies Continued

• Another tactic we will use is siege warfare, which is, according to ninjawords.com: “Warfare in which the defender is trapped in a position (such as a fort or castle) while the attacker bombards and/or barricades them from outside.”– This is more for offense, but it can work for defense as well

• We will surround them. If we are on offense, we will cut them off from their castle, and only leave an opening in the opposite direction so they have to flee away from their castle. If the war goes on for a while, they will be cut off from their supplies. If we are on defense, we will use the same tactics but cut them off from their camp, not their castle.

Strategies Continued • We know that our fighters are likely to run away

– They only are bound to stay for 40 days– The natural reaction of the body in such situations that can result in death is to run– So… we will train them hard both mentally and psychologically so that they are

prepared– We will put them on the battlefield with people that they are close to so that they will

feel it is wrong to desert. We will make sure that they are all closely bonded because we will allow time into training for socialization

– We will make their contract longer than the 40 days that most serfs are expected to fight for so that if the other team’s serfs run away, ours will not

– We will make sure that they are afraid of their commander so that they consider the consequences

– We will put them in large groups so that they do not feel alone– We will put the strongest warriors at the front so that the weaker warriors feel

protected• If the other team tries this, we will attack not the front but the middle so that they feel less

secure

Strategies Continued• We will have battlefield communications that symbolize different

strategies to put into effect– Musical signals – Audible commands– Visual signals

• Such as raising a standard banner or flag

• We will make a bunch of code words and say them loudly. When we say them we will run around and then come back to the same formation so it looks like we are changing formation but we actually aren’t. This will intimidate the other team and make them think that we are much more organized than they are, which would lead them to believed that we have trained harder and longer than they have.

• If we start to lose: someone will yell a code word and everyone will look really scared and run away screaming. We will hide behind any sort of barriers and then charge at the other team when we see

Strategies Continued

• Most armies during the middle ages did not have enough money for extensive training. Our lord is vey worried about her safety. As a result, she saves a good chunk of money every year to go towards training

• We will bring a priest to the battlefield with us so that we can have him pray for us before we charge into battle. This will boost their spirits and will make them feel more comfortable about winning– Our priest can consecrate (make holy) our swords so that

they will win

Kiwood Manor is

ready to win!