A. Kurkin
Kyiv

Decline of European chivalry

"Win and endure
defeat must be done with honor"
Pierre Bayard

The crisis of chivalry was clearly manifested during the Hundred Years' War. The French heavy cavalry turned out to be absolutely powerless against the English infantry system. The terrible defeat at Crecy (1346) and the failed attempt of the French to take revenge at Poitiers (1356) literally blew up feudal society. The fact of the relative uselessness of chivalry on the battlefield clearly appeared before the shocked gaze of the European man in the street.
However, it would hardly be correct to consider English archers or Swiss pikemen as gravediggers of the military class.
The process of decomposition of chivalry as a military-social institution began several earlier than the key events of the Hundred Years and subsequent European wars. Crécy, Poitiers and Agincourt were only illustrations of this decomposition.
The most prominent representatives of European chivalry - primarily Edward III Plantagenet, John II Valois and Philip the Good - made truly titanic efforts to somehow stop this process of destruction. Apologists for chivalry tried to revive the legendary times of the heroes of Arthur's Round Table, putting forward, as a counterweight to the idea of ​​national consolidation, the idea of ​​a supranational pan-European knightly union. The English king Edward III, one of the main instigators of the Hundred Years' War, with all his “unknightly” attitude towards methods of combat (remember the English tactics at Sluys or Crecy), intensively cultivated the norms of courtliness: he sent the king of France a challenge to a duel, and during the fighting he issued French knights received special letters of safe conduct so that they could come to the tournament in England, etc.
In September 1351, after resounding victories on the continent, Edward III created the first secular knightly Order of the Garter. All 24 knights of the order distinguished themselves at the Battle of Crecy, during which, according to legend, the English king picked up a garter that had come off his clothes from the ground to give the signal for the attack.
There is another version of such a strange order badge. It is known that Edward III was not indifferent to the Countess of Salisbury. When the beautiful Countess lost her blue, jeweled garter during a ball at Windsor Castle, the king allegedly picked it up from the floor and said loudly: “Shame on anyone who thinks ill of it.” Subsequently, these words became the motto of the first secular order of knighthood.
The French, eternal opponents of the British, who considered France the birthplace of chivalry, instantly took up the initiative of the islanders. In the same 1351, John II of Valois, in defiance of Edward III, created the French secular order of the Knights of Our Lady of the Noble House (Chevaliers Nostre Dame de la Noble Maison). The sign of the order was a black eight-pointed star embroidered on a scarlet robe, as a result of which this knightly union received the second unofficial name “Order of the Star”.
The holders of the order who distinguished themselves most in battle held their assemblies in the so-called. Noble House in Saint-Ouen (near Saint-Denis). There was a special ceremony for meals of the order knights: during various celebrations at the Table of Honor (Table d'oneur), three places were allocated for princes, knights with their own banners and single-shielded knights - postulants.
Each holder of the Order of the Star took a vow during battle not to move further than four steps (arpana) from the battlefield.
It should be noted that the Knights of the Star remained true to their oath. At the Battle of Poitiers, almost 90 members of the order and their retinues died because they refused to flee. And the King of France John II himself, the head of the order, disregarding state interests, remained on the battlefield to the end and was captured. With the death of John II in English captivity (1364), the Order of the Knights of Our Lady of the Noble House disintegrated.
One of the most famous knightly orders that evolved from a direct corporate association to an award as such was the Order of the Golden Fleece, founded in Bruges on February 10, 1430 (according to other sources - January 10, 1429) by Duke of Burgundy Philip the Good *1.
The order was founded in honor of the marriage of Philip the Good and Isabella of Portugal and was originally conceived as a personal order of the Duke of Burgundy.
Formally, the Order of the Golden Fleece (Toison d'or) was dedicated to the Virgin Mary and Saint Andrew and pursued the good goal of protecting the church and faith. The number of members of the order was initially limited to twenty-four of the most noble knights.
The first holders of the order were Philip the Good himself and Guillaume of Vienne.
Along with the knights, the order also included employees: chancellor, treasurer, secretary, master of arms with a staff of heralds and retinue. The first chancellor of the order was the Bishop of Chalons, Jean Germain, and the first master of arms was Jean Lefebvre.
The names of the heralds traditionally repeated the names of the lords: Charolais, Zealand, Berry, Sicily, Austria, etc.
The first of the squires bore the name Flint (Fusil) in connection with the image of flint - the emblem of Philip the Good - in the order chain. Other squires had equally sonorous and romantic names: Perseverance, Humble Regueste, Doulce Pensee, Leal Poursuite, etc.
The king of arms himself bore the name "Golden Fleece".
Misha Tayevan emphasized the spiritual and knightly character of the order in poetic form:
Not to fit in with others,
Not for play or fun at all,
But in order to give praise to the Lord,
And tea for the faithful - honors and glory.
The badge of the order was a golden image of a sheep's skin, stolen from Colchis by Jason, which was attached to a chain. Twenty-eight links of the chain carried images of flints with tongues of flame and flint with scenes of Jason’s battle with the dragon.
The spiritual nature of the order was emphasized by a strict ritual: compulsory attendance at church and going to mass, the placement of knights during assemblies in the chairs of canons, commemoration of the deceased gentlemen of the order according to church rite, etc.
However, very soon the ill-wishers of the Duke of Burgundy noticed a contradiction between the symbolism and the ethical concept of the order:

For God and people are despicable
Coming, trampling the law,
Through deception and treason, -
Not counted among the brave
Colchis fleece Jason,
Stole only by treason.
You still can’t hide the theft.
(Alain Chartier)

A way out of the difficult situation was found by the chancellor of the order, Jean Germain, who drew the attention of Philip the Good to a scene from Holy Scripture: Gideon spread wool on which the dew of heaven fell. Thus, the Jason fleece (Vellus yasonis) evolved into a symbol of the mystery of the conception of the Virgin Mary, and the order itself received its second name “Sign of Gideon” (Gedeonis signa).
Guillaume Philastre, the new chancellor of the order, went further than his predecessor and found in Scripture four more runes, in addition to those mentioned, with which Jacob, Job, King David and the King of Moab are associated. Jacob's speckled sheep came to be seen as a symbol of justice (fustitia).
Philaster never tired of repeating to Charles the Bold: “Your father did not establish this order in vain, as some say.” Charles himself, trying to bring to life the ideas of consolidation of European chivalry, divorced from reality, exchanged insignia of the Orders of the Golden Fleece and the Garter with the English King Edward IV of York. The unification, however, did not happen. With the death of Charles the Bold, the Archduke of Austria, and later the Holy Roman Emperor Maximilian of Habsburg, Burgund's son-in-law, became the head of the order. The Order of the Golden Fleece successfully survived the death of knighthood, eventually becoming the founder of the European award order system.
The genesis of social relations in Western and Central Europe in the 15th century, the birth of a new political concept of serving the state, and finally, the growth of the socio-economic importance of the so-called. The "third estate" willy-nilly forced chivalry to adapt to a system of changing ethical values. Philippe de Maizières made a risky attempt to consolidate all three classes ("those who pray", "those who fight" and "those who plow") by joining their representatives into the ranks of the Order of the Passion of the Lord (Ordre de la passion) that he founded. According to Mézières' plan, the top of the order (grandmaster and knights) was to be made up of the aristocracy, the patriarch and suffragan bishops could be elected from the ranks of the clergy, the merchants supplied brothers, and the peasants and bourgeois - servants. To the classic vows of spiritual knightly orders (poverty and obedience), Mézières added a vow of marital chastity and a vow of striving for the highest personal perfection (summa perfectio).
By creating the Order of the Passion of the Lord primarily with the aim of counteracting Turkish expansion, Philippe de Maizières, without even realizing it, purely intuitively came close to realizing the idea of ​​the “common good”, which was once so significant for the foundations of Roman law. To some extent, Mézières anticipated the only all-class award of its kind, which would later be the “Order of the Legion of Honor” founded by Napoleon I.
However, not all representatives of European chivalry realized the need for cooperation with the “third estate.” Moreover, many feudal lords sought the reasons for the decline of the military caste in its oblivion of “good knightly customs” and tried with all their might to revive them. The Duke of Burgundy, Charles the Bold, succeeded most of all in this path. A passionate admirer of chivalric traditions, Charles was fond of reading the lives of Alexander the Great and Caesar, Charlemagne and Saint Louis from childhood. Under the pen of the creators of heroic novels, both the Macedonian and Saint Michael turned into knights “without fear or reproach,” serving as an example to the ambitious Burgundian. Through the efforts of Charles, Burgundy turned into a kind of oasis of chivalry with magnificent paraphernalia and revived courtliness. Knightly festivals reached the apogee of their development - tournaments, which were arranged more magnificently, the less noticeable the influence of knightly cavalry on the outcome of real battles became. The feudal nobility, feeling the gradual increase in the proportion of representatives of the “new nobility”, which was increasingly grouped around the royal thrones, tried by all possible means to declare their individuality. All this was reflected in architecture, clothing, and behavior. The modern reader cannot help but be struck, for example, by the numerous vows of representatives of the military-political elite of that time. Thus, at the feast that Edward III gave before being sent to France, Count Solbercy, according to Froissart, swore to his Lady not to open his right eye until he won a victory in battle with the French *2.
Even more absurd and, to some extent, inhumane was the oath of Edward III’s wife, Philippa of Genegau, sworn by her at the same memorable feast:

My flesh has recognized that the child within me is growing.
It sways a little, not expecting trouble.
But I swear to the Creator and make a vow...
The fruit of my womb will not be born,
Until she herself entered those alien lands,
I will not see the fruits of the promised victories.
And if I give birth to a child, then this stiletto
Life will end for both him and me without fear,
May I destroy my soul and let the fruit follow after it!

The French commander Bertrand du Guesclin, who learned “non-knightly” methods of combat from the British, nevertheless could not get rid of some of the absurdities of courtly behavior. For example, once before a duel with an English knight, he vowed not to draw his sword until he had eaten three bowls of wine stew in the name of the Holy Trinity.
And here are examples of knightly vows given at a feast in Lille (1454) in the presence of Philip the Good. “I swear not to go to bed on Saturdays and not to stay in the same city for more than 15 days until I kill a Saracen,” “I swear on Fridays not to feed my horse until I touch the enemy’s banner,” etc.
The norms of courtly behavior became increasingly bizarre and divorced from reality. In particular, on the path of serving the Lady of the Heart, the knight was obliged to go through a number of stages in turn.
First, the knight identified “his” Lady - as a rule, a married woman - and, without revealing his feelings to her, began to perform various feats, which he dedicated to his chosen one. At this stage the knight was called "Lurking".
When the object of passion paid attention to his “admirer,” the latter became a “Prayer.”
If the Lady listened to her gentleman’s pleas for leniency and attention, he became an officially recognized “Admirer.”
Finally, when the Lady showed reciprocity to the knight - she gave souvenirs, tied her scarf or the torn sleeve of her dress to his tournament spear - the lucky man reached the highest rank of courtier and turned into “Beloved”.
However, the maximum that a truly courtly knight could get from amorous pleasures (and what he could count on!) was a short kiss, for the meaning of knightly service to the Lady was suffering, not possession. Examples of the tragic love of Tristan and Lancelot for married women only strengthened the true “Beloved” in their thoughts about the unattainability of the fruit of their passion.
Life, however, took its toll. So, in France in the 15th century. There was an erotic order of Admirers and Admirers (Galois et Galoises), whose members took a vow to wear fur coats and muffs in the summer, and a light dress in the winter.
If a fellow member of the order came to a knight, the first obliged to place his house and wife at his disposal, and he, in turn, went to the guest’s “Admirer.”
Elements of phantasmagoria increasingly invaded the life of knights, and the scenarios of knightly festivities began to be based on fairy-tale scenes with dwarfs who shackled giants, powerful witches from underground castles and princesses from unknown islands. A typical example of such a tournament, organized in Bruges (1468) in honor of the marriage of Charles the Bold with Margaret of York, was left in his memoirs by the master of ceremonies of the Burgundian court, Olivier de la Marche. A more detailed description of the ceremony accompanying the tournament is contained in the so-called. "Tournament Book" by Rene I of Anjou, King of Sicily (1460s)*3.
Talking about the tournament between the Dukes of Brittany and Bourbon, the author tried to show not so much the fight itself, but the elements of knightly courtship that preceded it, to create some ideal set of rules or regulations of tournament etiquette.
The initiator of the described tournament, Francis II, Duke of Breton, who was the “instigator” (adventurer), sent a formal challenge to Jean II, Duke of Bourbon, who thus turned out to be the recipient (mantenador).
The embassy of the Duke of Breton was headed by the so-called. "king of arms" (first squire), accompanied by four heralds - heralds.

At the entrance to the city in which the tournament was to take place, the procession lined up in a strictly defined sequence: first came the “challenger” and “receiver”, followed by the “king of arms”, heralds with assistants and the ducal retinue. The “King of Arms” was dressed in a heraldic robe, stylized as ermine fur, one of the symbols of Brittany, and held in his hands a tournament sword and a scroll with the coats of arms of the tournament participants and a list of their placement in apartments. One of the heralds carried an unfolded tournament poster and loudly shouted the contents of his lord's challenge.
The second day of the knightly festival was dedicated to bringing the banners of the participants to the apartments: first - the banner of the Duke of Breton, after - the Duke of Bourbon.
Then, in a specially fenced place - in some cases it could become the city cathedral - the signs of the knights taking part in the tournament were displayed. The most noble ladies, accompanied by heralds, inspected these signs - usually tournament helmets with armorial crests - in order to mark the emblem of the knight who had ever slandered them. Each such precedent was examined by a heraldic commission and the knight, if his guilt was proven, was punished - he was expelled from the tournament.
On the third day, the tournament rules were read to the participants, and the knights swore to comply with them. The ladies chose the main referee of the tournament - the “Knight of Honor”, ​​who could stop this or that fight, or remove from the field a knight who used a prohibited technique.
The fifth day was dedicated to the tournament competition itself.
After undergoing the appropriate religious procedure, the Dukes of Breton and Bourbon, at the head of their troops, took places at the edges of the lists and prepared for battle.
The tournament field was a rectangular area surrounded by a double fence. Behind the fence, in the center, there was a tribune of judges, to the right and left of it were boxes for noble ladies and lords.
The tents of the participants were set up on both sides of the lists and their banners were displayed. The knights' weapons and equipment consisted of a tournament sword, a wooden mace and half-armor with a lattice helmet. The helmet bore the coat of arms of the owner - kleynod, which for the Duke of Brittany was a three-dimensional image of a leopard placed between two horns painted in the color of an ermine mantle, and for the Duke of Bourbon - a gilded image of a lily. The coat of arms symbols were duplicated on the tabars of knights and the blankets of their horses. All other participants in the tournament were also dressed in coat of arms and had similar weapons.
The author of the Tournament Book devotes relatively little space to the description of the battle itself, and the battle itself, apparently, was very fleeting.
One of the illustrations of the book, apparently made by the court artist of Rene of Anjou, Bartholomew d'Eyck, shows the fight of knights "inside the barriers." In the center of the battle is the Knight of Honor with a white banner in his hands, with which he gave signals to start and stop the battle or to the removal from the lists of knights who have violated the rules.The head of the Knight of Honor is bare, and his helmet is displayed on one of the stands.
At the end of the battle, the chief judge and heralds elected the “Dame of the Tournament”, who, together with her two assistants (damoiselle), presented prizes and gifts to the winners.
The disproportion in the description of the tournament ceremony and the competition itself, which is given by the source, reflects what is typical of the 15th century. a picture of the degeneration of European chivalry as a fighting force.
Tournaments are increasingly turning into costume performances and less and less reminiscent of the apotheosis of primordial power that reigned on the lists two hundred years before:

The Dane looked at the stranger with an angry look,
The riders put spurs into the sides of the horses,
Aiming at the enemy's shield, their spears bowed,
And Ludegast became alarmed, even though he was powerful and dashing.
The horses collided and reared up,
Then they passed each other like the wind.
The soldiers turned them around and gathered again,
To try your luck in a fierce battle with swords.
Siegfried struck the enemy, and the earth trembled.
Sparks flew up in a column above the king's helmet,
It’s as if someone lit a big fire nearby,
The fighters were worth each other: no one could gain the upper hand.*4

In fairness, it should be noted that the tournaments never became completely safe for their participants, and the assertions of a number of researchers of the knightly era (more than once, by the way, criticized recently) that a warrior, knocked out of the saddle, could not get up without outside help, have real justifications. Such types of tournament fights as geshtech “clad in armor” or rennen, in which participants at full gallop tried to knock each other out of their saddles with spears, were very dangerous. Indeed, a knight who lost a spear clash, received a terrible blow to the chest or head and fell to the ground with all his might, was unlikely to be able to get back to his feet without outside help.
We can also mention a textbook example of a tragic combination of circumstances and criminal negligence of squires - the death of the French king Henry II at a tournament in 1559. The cause of the crown bearer's death was an unfixed visor, under which fragments of the Earl of Montgomery's spear penetrated.
In the terminology related to knightly competitions, there is a traditional confusion associated with both different interpretations of sources and the impossibility of complete philological adaptation.
In addition, it is necessary to take into account various innovations in certain tournament exercises that the feudal lords carried out, guided by both their own tastes and national mental characteristics.
Horse and foot battles, which could be paired or group, are more or less distinguishable. Paired horse fighting with spears (German geschtech, French juxta, Italian dgostra) had such varieties as geschtech of “high saddles”, “general German” geschtech and geschtech of “armored”. Paired horse fights also include rennen (German “horse racing”), in which the so-called "accurate" rennen. Equestrian group combat, the tournament itself (French Turneu), also differed in the weapons of the participants and the methods of conducting the fight. A fighter could demonstrate his personal abilities during the performance of various tournament exercises - quintata, rings, etc., distinguishable under the general Italian term bagordo.
However, the realities of the Hundred Years' War negated all the skill that chivalry demonstrated in tournaments.
And at the final stage of the wars of Charles the Bold or during the War of the Scarlet and White Roses, opponents already tried not to remember about knightly courtesies.

Challenges to combat, which were sent to each other by warring kings, emperors or dukes, increasingly began to be viewed as an empty, non-binding formality.
Nevertheless, like the lightning of heroic times that had sunk into oblivion, sparks of knightly nobility suddenly flared up on the battlefields of the Late Middle Ages. In 1351, a tournament battle took place in Brittany near the city of Ploermel between the French on the one hand, and the British and Germans on the other - "Battle of Thirty". The opponents selected 30 participants each, led by Marshal of France Jean de Beaumanoir and English captain John Bemborough, who fought for everyone in front of the line. During this tournament-battle, knights and squires could kill the enemy or take him prisoner. Moreover, the prisoners, without any security, waited for the end of the battle and could enter into battle again only if their winner died, because his death freed them from the oath.
It is interesting that both troops watched the battle and did not even think of intervening in it on their own side.
During the Battle of Grunwald (1410), the German knight Diepold Käckteritz von Dieber rode up to the front of the Polish banner and challenged King Jagiello (Wladislaus) to a duel, and again, none of the Polish knights dared to prevent the duel, with the exception of the royal notary Zbigniew Olesinski, who was not bound norms of knightly ethics.
In the same 1410, in a battle near the city of Koronova, the Poles and Germans, by mutual agreement, interrupted the battle once in order to rest.
Such famous knights and commanders as du Guesclin, Hawkwood, Tremouille, La Hire, and Sentrail glorified their names with resounding victories in duels to the death - “courts of God with weapons.”
In 1501, near the city of Barletta, the famous Pierre Bayard defeated the famous Spanish knight Soto Major during a duel.
By an evil irony of fate, the most famous knights of the Late Middle Ages - Treimul, Charles the Bold and Bayard - fell at the hands of representatives of the very “third estate” that they so despised: the first was killed by a cannonball, the second died under the pikes of the militia, the third received a mortal wound musket bullet.
The moral ideals of chivalry, which were so zealously defended by such prominent representatives of chivalric literature as Jean Froissart, Olivier de La Marche, Jean Molineux and Jean d'Authon, were supplanted by the pragmatic norms of the “new people” - Philippe de Commines, Jean de Busem and Niccolò Machiavelli , who in their works developed the concept of the “common good” to the ideas of patriotism.
The combat value of chivalry, the myth of which was preached by Charles the Bold, Gaston de Foix and Pierre Bayard, was mercilessly defeated by the commanders of the new era, Maximilian Habsburg, Jacques de Romont and Gonzalo de Cordova, who relied on faceless and disciplined infantry masses.
The development of metallurgy and the "in-line" production of weapons in the 14th - 15th centuries. led to the relative cheapness of combat equipment. Helmets, chain mail and swords became democratic weapons. The latter fact stimulated a quantitative increase in detachments of well-armed mercenaries - “commoners”, who in their fighting qualities initially equaled the knightly militia, and then surpassed it. So Philippe de Commines paints a very unsightly picture of the military professionalism of the feudal Burgundian cavalry at the Battle of Montlhéry (1465): “Out of about 1200 of these cavalrymen, no more than 50, I believe, knew how to hold a spear at the ready and at most 400 were in cuirasses, and the servants were all unarmed, since they had not known war for many years."*5
It should be emphasized that the evolution of firearms did not play the decisive role in the decline of chivalry that the historiographical tradition ascribes to it. Heavy cavalry attacks were repelled much more effectively with the help of an English bow or a Swiss pike.
Only the simplicity of learning to shoot from a culverin and arquebus, the accessibility, and democratic nature of the new type of weapon, multiplied by the psychological effect that it had, allowed the latter by the middle of the 16th century. oust the bow from European military affairs, and by the middle of the 18th century. - infantry pike.
The stumbling block for specialists in the field of military history was the periodization of the knightly era, the identification of certain, as a rule, artificially adjusted to a common denominator, milestones of the origin, development and death of European chivalry.

It is obvious that the origins of the emergence of chivalry as a military-social institution do not lie in the invention of the stirrup or the ratification of the beneficial reform of Charles Martel, and the reasons for its decline and death can hardly be sought in the skill and discipline of the Swiss halberdier or the Spanish musketeer. In addition, the term “chivalry” itself is extremely conditional and can be interpreted in completely different philological, ethical and military planes. The empirical way of thinking of a person requires a clear dating of a particular phenomenon. However, the chronology of aspects of social activity such as politics or economics is usually very difficult to decipher. Therefore, when talking about the decline of chivalry and taking into account the conventionality of both the phraseology and the phenomenon itself, one can responsibly declare only those chronological milestones that the contemporaries of the events themselves interpreted identically to the given position and documented.
Thus, the French knighthood, as a military corporation, lost its professional immunity and was theoretically abolished thanks to the royal ordinances of 1445-1447. The same thing happened in 1471 with the Burgundian knighthood.
For all their external similarity, the knightly banner and the company of gendarmes were completely different in internal content. It is difficult to imagine a baron who receives leave at a strictly defined time and for a clearly limited period, who performs drill techniques and shares a courtesan with his sergeant.
In the XIV - XV centuries. European knighthood is also losing its class barriers. The patrician of Italian communes and Dutch cities, perceiving the paraphernalia of knighthood as an element of some sophisticated game, acquires his own coats of arms and proud mottos. At the same time, many nobles begin to neglect the rite of knighting, and mastering the seven knightly arts comes down to irregular exercises in vaulting and fencing.
However, knightly ideals managed to outlive their creators for a long time. The modern era left its mark on them, and the knightly credo “life is nothing, honor is everything” was eventually transformed into the motto of the French Legion of Honor: HONOR AND HOMELAND.

Notes:
*1. Vsevolodov I.V. Conversations about faleristics. From the history of reward systems. M., 1990.
*2. Froisser I. Chronigues. V. I, Paris, 1975.
*3. Le Livre des Tournois du Roi Rene. Hercher, 1986.
*4. Song of the Nibelungs. L., 1972.
*5. Commin F. Memoirs. M.; 1986.

Illustrations (artist - A. Kurkin):
On the first cover page:
Armor of Archduke Sigismund of Tyrol.
Made by the famous Augsburg gunsmith Lorenz Helmschmidt for the eighteen-year-old Archduke in 1480. Currently stored in Vienna.
Rice. 1. Variants of chains and signs of the Order of the Golden Fleece.
Rice. 2. Armament and equipment for equestrian combat (tournament) of Francis II, Duke of Brittany (from the “tournament book” of Rene of Anjou).
Fig 3. “Gothic” armor and its elements (second half of the 15th century Germany).
Rice. 4. Full weapons and equipment of the captain of the gendarmes, made in the “Gothic” style. (mid-15th century France, Germany).

Any use of materials is permitted only with the permission of the editors.
When using materials, a reference to "PARA BELLVM" IS MANDATORY.

The heyday of feudalism was the time of chivalry and its inherent method of combat. Heavy cavalry in the 12th–13th centuries. reigns supreme on the battlefield. At the same time, the number of troops is reduced - even in large battles, the number of participants usually does not exceed hundreds, rarely reaching several thousand.

Auxiliary units of infantry and light-armed horsemen are numerous, but the outcome of wars depends almost exclusively on the knights.

The rider's armament undergoes some changes. The heavy cavalry spear is still used for the offensive. It gradually becomes more complex structurally and increases in size: a hand guard appears on the spear, covering part of the rider’s body, the shaft becomes heavier and longer. A ramming blow with such a spear leads to dire consequences for the enemy. A firm seat in the saddle also serves the purpose: it becomes more and more difficult to knock the knight out of it.

The Carolingian sword, without changing in design, also increases in size. In the 13th century its one-and-a-half variants appear (with a slightly elongated handle, which was sometimes grasped with both hands), as well as prototypes of a full-fledged two-handed sword. In the 13th century it transforms into a classic knight's sword of approximately the same dimensions, but with a noticeably tapering blade equipped with a pronounced tip. This sword has a developed guard and a powerful pommel (apple), demonstrating the increased role of sword fencing in the absence of a shield. It becomes smaller, according to the requirements of the time: the function of protecting the body is increasingly performed by armor.

Numerous examples of striking weapons are actively used: flails, maces, etc. Being common in the early Middle Ages, over time they found application in the knightly environment. Their popularity is associated with the flourishing of spiritual knightly orders. To defeat the enemy without shedding blood was somewhat weakened by the contradiction with the Gospel commandments, which every warrior-monk faced.

Small arms were still not represented in the arsenal of chivalry as ignoble. The crossbow was sometimes used willingly, especially during sieges of castles. However, he is not very encouraged - in the 12th century. a papal bull was issued ordering the use of crossbows only in wars with infidels (of course, because of their effectiveness) - in this way they sought to limit losses among knights in European wars.

The armor was also transformed. In the classical period, the chain mail hauberk dominated - a shirt with a hood and gloves made at the same time as it. Chain mail stockings are put on the legs and attached to the belt. This kit would become a classic during the Crusades, usually complete with a helmet, although sometimes it was missing. To soften the blows, leather or quilted cloth robes were worn under the chain mail.

All this helped protect against accidental (unparried) slashing blows, but was not a guarantee of safety. Small arms almost always penetrated armor. However, European knights, as a rule, did not encounter nomads, and therefore the problem was not too acute. For European theaters of war, such armor was ideal.

Gradually increasing requirements for the quality of protection and technological advances in metallurgy made it possible to create a typical pot-shaped helmet of the 13th century. (the so-called tophelm) and reinforce the chain mail with metal plates, which over time covered an increasingly larger area of ​​the body. Plate armor began with the shins and forearms, which were primarily exposed to impacts.

During the Crusades, it was discovered that armor would heat up in the sun, causing a lot of inconvenience. That’s when they came up with the idea of ​​using cloth clothing (cotta or surcoat). It became common practice to wear cloaks over protective weapons. Knightly armor would no longer be covered with clothing only in the first half of the 15th century.

Typical of the classical period were raids by relatively small feudal armies, the core of which were detachments of knights. The main forms of military clashes are regular battles, destruction of the surrounding area and siege of fortresses.

Usually the battle, which initially consisted of a horse attack - wall to wall, turned into a series of duels when the knights tried to choose an opponent in accordance with their own status. Very quickly, the main task became not murder, but forcing surrender in order to receive a ransom, as well as the horse and armor of the vanquished. Therefore, knightly wars were almost bloodless. In a battle in which hundreds of knights took part, often only a few people died.

Other branches of the military served auxiliary purposes. The light cavalry was intended for reconnaissance, the infantry covered the convoys and created the effect of extras, also being involved in sieges. Classic examples of such battles were the battles of Bouvines and Laroche-aux-Moines (both in 1214).

The devastation of enemy territory was the most important form of warfare in the Middle Ages, since it was the easiest way to inflict damage on the enemy.

As for siege operations, with the beginning of the mass construction of stone castles in Europe (from the 11th century) and the emergence of many large and small cities, they turned out to be increasingly relevant.

The fortress made it possible to gather troops and maintain their combat effectiveness, as well as control the surrounding territory. The construction of castles quickly turned into a whole branch of military art - they were built taking into account the features of the landscape. Particularly impregnable were castles built in mountainous areas on the Upper Rhine, in the foothills of the Alps, Pyrenees, Apennines and Carpathians, etc. In the absence of gunpowder and high-quality siege equipment, it was not possible to take them.

As a rule, the castle included a main tower (donjon), a complex of economic, military and residential buildings, one or several rings of powerful stone or brick walls with towers. His siege could last for months and even years; The castle was sometimes defended by a very small contingent of several dozen people. At the same time, in the XII–XIII centuries. siege and throwing techniques are noticeably developing; even samples appear that sometimes surpass the inventions of antiquity.

Tournaments are becoming extremely popular - regular competitions of knights, which boil down to classic duels with spears and other forms of knightly combat. Gradually their rules became stricter. If at first they fought exclusively with blunt weapons, then they increasingly used military weapons. In a certain sense, the line between the tournament and knightly war became illusory, and its disappearance was prevented only by the revival of the infantry.

The emergence of specific societies dominated by the third estate (for example, in Switzerland), the organization of self-defense units in cities, the progress of infantry weapons (the appearance of the halberd and the spread of bows and crossbows) made it possible by the end of the 13th - beginning of the 14th centuries. to form effective detachments of infantrymen, capable of equally resisting even the closed formations of knightly cavalry. A kind of specialization was created: English archers, Genoese crossbowmen, Flemish and Swiss halberdiers - by the 14th century. an important force on the battlefield. The era of the dominance of chivalry was coming to an end.

Classic examples of successful infantry actions are the Battle of Courtrai (1302) and all the main battles of the Hundred Years' War (Crecy - 1346, Poitiers - 1356, Agincourt - 1415).

Less revolutionary, oddly enough, was the first military use of gunpowder. Until the end of the 15th century. firearms remained mostly stationary (artillery) and had an extremely low rate of fire. This excluded its use in field battles, limiting it to counterfortification actions. Only in the 16th century. Truly mobile and effective models of small arms will come into use, replacing the bow and crossbow.

The appearance of knightly weapons in the XIV–XV centuries. takes on a textbook appearance: a steel plate cuirass covering the torso is complemented by plate coverings for the arms and legs, assembled from dozens of parts, usually on leather belts. Under the armor there is almost always chain mail. The shield becomes completely symbolic in size (tarch) and is usually completely metal.

The helmet is modified, two versions are created. One is a bascinet (“dog muzzle”) with a movable and strongly protruding visor, which gradually transformed into the classic helmets of the 15th century. - such as armais and bourguignon. The second - the salad, sometimes with a visor, but covering the head only from above - is widespread in both cavalry and infantry.

By the end of the 15th century. knightly (Gothic) armor with a total weight of about 25–33 kg made it possible to achieve maximum efficiency in battle while maintaining maneuverability. Improving the model - Maximilian armor - is only an attempt to prolong the existence of the once main element of knightly equipment.

The spear as the main weapon of a knight becomes an anachronism, giving way in the 15th–16th centuries. primacy to the sword. Over time, a giant two-handed sword appears, up to 150–160 cm long or more, which is becoming increasingly popular among the infantry, in particular among the German landsknechts. The manner of fighting with such weapons is no longer reminiscent of the actions of warriors of the early Middle Ages; the shield is practically not used. The desire to hit an armored enemy in vulnerable places leads to the fact that a heavy chopping sword turns into an elegant sword, which is intended for fencing. This is where the evolution of bladed weapons in the Middle Ages ends.

At the turn of the XV-XVI centuries. The strategic role of castles becomes less significant due to the development of artillery. Improvements in the actions of infantry and its weapons make the use of steel armor pointless, and by the 1550s they almost universally went out of use, remaining only an element of the ceremonial costume of commanders and sometimes being revived in the form of a cuirass in heavy cavalry. The era of knightly wars is finally ending.

Anyone who has ever visited the St. Petersburg Hermitage will certainly not forget the impression left by the famous Knights' Hall. And so it seems - through narrow slits in helmets decorated with magnificent plumes, stern warrior-knights from ancient times, clad in steel from head to toe, warily watch everyone who enters. The war horses are almost completely covered with heavy armor - as if they were just waiting for the trumpet signal to rush into battle.

However, what is perhaps most striking is the exquisite craftsmanship of finishing the armor: they are decorated with niello, and expensive gilding, and embossing.

And you can’t take your eyes off the knightly weapons in the glass cases - there are precious stones, silver, gilding on the hilts of the swords, and the mottos of their owners are engraved on the blued blades. The long narrow daggers amaze with the elegance of their work, the perfection and proportionality of their form - it seems that it was not a blacksmith-gunsmith who worked on them, but a skilled jeweler. The spears are decorated with flags, the halberds with lush tassels...

In a word, in all its splendor, in all its romantic beauty, distant knightly times are resurrected before us in one of the museum halls. So you won’t believe it right away: all this colorful, festive splendor belongs... to the worst period of chivalry, to its decline, extinction.

But it really is! These armor and these weapons of amazing beauty were forged at a time when knights were increasingly losing their importance as the main military force. The first cannons were already thundering on the battlefields, capable of scattering at a distance the armored ranks of a mounted knightly attack; already trained, well-prepared infantry, with the help of special hooks, easily pulled knights from their saddles in close combat, turning the formidable fighters into a pile of metal, helplessly stretched out on the ground.

And neither the weapons masters, nor the knights themselves, accustomed to battles that broke up into separate hand-to-hand duels with the same knights, could no longer oppose the new principles of warfare.

Regular armies appeared in Europe - mobile, disciplined. The knightly army was always, in fact, a militia that gathered only at the call of its lord. And by the 16th century - and most of the shiny armor and weapons date back to this time - all that remained for the knightly class was to shine at royal parades as an honorary escort, and go to tournaments in the hope of earning the favorable glance of some of the court ladies on a luxuriously decorated podium.

And yet, for more than half a thousand years, knights were the main force of medieval Europe, and not only military. Much has changed during this time - a person’s worldview, his way of life, architecture, art. And the knight of the 10th century was not at all similar to the knight of, say, the 12th century; Even their appearance was strikingly different. This is due to the development of knightly weapons - both protective armor and offensive weapons were constantly improved. In the military sphere, the eternal competition between attack and defense has never ceased, and gunsmiths have found many original solutions.

True, it is now not so easy to judge how European weapons changed before the 10th century: historians rely mainly only on miniatures of ancient manuscripts, which are not always accurately executed. But there is no doubt that European peoples used the main types of ancient Roman weapons, slightly changing them.

Roman warriors used a double-edged sword with a width of 3 to 5 centimeters and a length of 50 to 70 centimeters as an offensive weapon. The cone-shaped edge of the sword was well sharpened; such a weapon could both chop and stab in battle. Roman legionnaires were armed with throwing spears and used bows and arrows.

Defensive weapons consisted of a helmet with a high crest, a slightly curved rectangular shield and a leather tunic covered with metal plaques. Probably, the protective weapons of a warrior were similar in Europe in the early Middle Ages.

Starting from the X-XI centuries, the development of armor and offensive weapons can be traced much more clearly. Queen Matilda, the wife of William the Conqueror, leader of the Normans who conquered England in the 11th century, did a lot for future historians.

According to legend, it was Matilda who personally wove a huge carpet, now kept in the museum of the French city of Bayeux, which depicts in detail the episodes of the conquest of the British Isle by her husband, including the legendary Battle of Hastings in 1066. Samples of weapons of both warring sides are also clearly shown on the carpet.

The offensive weapon of this era was a long spear, decorated with a flag, with two or even more points on a steel tip, as well as a straight, long sword, slightly beveled at the end. Its handle was cylindrical, with a disc-shaped knob and a straight steel crossbar. A bow and arrows were also used in battle; its design was the simplest.

Protective weapons consisted of a long leather shirt, onto which iron scales or even just iron strips were riveted. This shirt with short wide sleeves hung freely on the warrior and should not have hampered his movements. Sometimes such armor was complemented by short, knee-length leather pants.

On the warrior's head was a leather hood, over which was worn a conical helmet with a wide metal arrow covering the nose. The shield was long, almost full-length, almond-shaped. It was knocked together from strong boards and upholstered on the outside with thick leather with metal fittings. A warrior protected in this way was almost invulnerable to modern offensive weapons.

Sometimes, instead of iron scales or stripes, rows of iron rings were sewn onto the leather base; in this case, the rings of one row covered half of the next one. Later, gunsmiths began to make armor consisting of only steel rings, each of which captured four adjacent rings and was tightly sealed.

However, in fairness, it must be emphasized that this idea was borrowed by Europeans in the East. Already in the first crusade, at the very end of the XI, the knights encountered an enemy dressed in light and flexible chain mail, and appreciated such weapons at their true worth. They got a lot of this eastern armor as war trophies, and later the production of chain mail was established in Europe.

If we turn again to Walter Scott's novel Ivanhoe, we can read how one of the heroes, the knight Briand de Boisguillebert, who fought in Palestine for a long time and took his armor from there, was armed:

“Under the cloak one could see a coat of chain mail with sleeves and gloves made of small metal rings; it was made extremely skillfully and fit as tightly and elastically to the body as our sweatshirts, knitted from soft wool. As far as the folds of the cloak could be seen, his hips were protected by the same chain mail; the knees were covered with thin steel plates, and the calves with metal chain mail stockings.”

By the middle of the 12th century, knighthood was completely dressed in chain mail. Engravings of that time show that steel chain mail literally covered the warrior from head to toe: they were used to make leg guards, gloves, and hoods. This flexible steel garment was worn over a leather or quilted undershirt to protect against bruises, and they could be very sensitive, even if a sword or battle ax did not cut through the steel rings. On top of the chain mail they wore a linen tunic, which protected the armor from damage, as well as from heating by the sun's rays.

At first, the tunic looked very modest - it was intended for battle, after all - but over time it became a luxurious, dandy attire. It was sewn from expensive fabric and decorated with embroidery - usually with images of the family knight's coat of arms.

The chain mail weapons were incomparably lighter than before. Contemporaries claimed that it was as easy and comfortable to move in it as in ordinary clothes. The knight received greater freedom of action in battle and was able to inflict quick and unexpected blows on the enemy.

In such conditions, a large shield covering almost the entire body was, rather, a hindrance: the chain mail weave already sufficiently protected the knight’s body. The shield, gradually becoming smaller, began to serve only as additional protection from blows from a spear or sword. The shape of the shields was now very diverse. The coat of arms was depicted on the outside, and straps were fastened on the inside so that the shield could be held comfortably and firmly on the left hand.

For rectangular or elongated shields, the arrangement of such handle-belts was transverse. In six- or octagonal, as well as round shields, the belts were positioned so that when worn, the base of the coat of arms was always at the bottom. The widest belt fell on the forearm, and the shortest and narrowest was clamped with the hand.

The helmet also changed; now it was not conical, but tub-shaped. Its lower edges rested on the knight's shoulders. The face was completely covered, leaving only narrow slits for the eyes. Decorations also appeared on helmets made of wood, bone, metal - in the form of horns, huge claws, wings, iron knight's gloves...

However, even this seemingly quite advanced, reliable and convenient weapon had its drawbacks. The tub-shaped helmet provided too little air for breathing. At the height of the fight, I even had to take it off so as not to suffocate. It was not easy to navigate through the narrow eye sockets; It happened that the knight could not immediately distinguish enemy from friend. In addition, the helmet was not fastened with other armor in any way, and with a deft blow it could be turned so that the blind side appeared in front of the eyes instead of slits. In this case, the knight was at the complete mercy of the enemy.

And offensive weapons have now also become different. In the 10th century, protective armor was easier to cut than to pierce. But if the enemy is protected by chain mail, then the chopping blow, instead of strips of iron riveted on the skin, meets a continuous sliding and hanging flexible metal surface in folds.

Here, a piercing blow was much more effective, pushing apart and piercing the relatively thin rings of chain mail. Therefore, the sword takes on a shape more convenient for thrusting: the blade ends with a sharp end, and the entire strip of the blade is reinforced by a convex rib running in the middle from the tip to the handle.

Such a sword was forged from a steel strip from 3 to 8 centimeters wide and up to a meter long. The blade was double-edged, well sharpened at the end. The handle was made of wood or bone, protected by a small cross-shaped cover - a guard, and ended with a thickening counterweight to make the sword more comfortable to hold.

They wore the sword in a sheath on the left side on a special sling fastened with a buckle. By the end of the 13th century, the sword, as well as the dagger, was sometimes equipped with thin but strong steel chains, which were attached to the knight's armor. There was less chance of losing them in battle. Each knight's sword had its own name, as if it were an animate creature. The sword of the knight Roland, the hero of the famous “Song,” was called Durandal, the sword of his faithful friend Olivier was called Altclair.

Another main knightly weapon - the spear - became longer. The painted shaft sometimes reached four meters; the tip was, as a rule, narrow and tetrahedral.

Gunsmiths now had to look for protection specifically from a piercing blow. As often happens, I again had to remember something that seemed to have already been abandoned - scale armor. True, they have changed beyond recognition.

The basis for additional protective weapons was an elegant tunic, which was worn over chain mail. But they began to sew it from very durable material, or even leather. However, it was covered on top with silk or velvet, and lined with metal scales underneath. Each of the scales was attached to a separate pin, and the ends of the pins were passed out and were gilded, or even decorated with precious stones.

Such weapons, which complemented the chain mail shirt, turned out to be very reliable, but also, of course, prohibitively expensive. Not every knight could afford it. And the one who had it took care of it in every possible way, using it no longer in battle, but in tournaments or solemn court ceremonies. However, it was precisely such weapons that influenced the further evolution of knightly armor.

Over time, additional metal strips began to be strengthened directly on the chain mail. The chain mail thighs were also strengthened. Particular attention was paid to protecting those parts of the armor that were most open to attack in battle. This is how another type of additional weapons appeared - shoulder pads, bracers, knee pads with leggings.

The bracers - from the shoulder to the elbow, and the greaves - from the knee to the foot, were already so large that they covered the arms and legs to the middle of their thickness, completely protecting the front. They were fastened at the back with strong belts and buckles. It was no longer possible to put on such armor without the help of a squire.

Sometimes small movable parts were attached to the bracers from narrow transverse strips connected to each other according to the principle of the same scales, covering the shoulder and elbow. The leggings were also lengthened - the instep of the leg was protected. Leather knight's gloves were made with wide bells and reinforced on the outside with solid metal scales.

By the beginning of the 15th century, there was already so much metal on the basis of chain mail that it made sense to abandon chain mail altogether. The individual metal parts were fastened together with strips of hard, pressed leather boiled in oil.

Under such a shell the knight wore a thick quilted jacket made of leather or some dense material. A smart tunic was still worn on top, but now it consisted of two parts - upper and lower. The front half of the top was significantly shortened to open the bottom, and narrowed so that it fit smoothly, without folds, to the body. One or two metal plaques began to be sewn onto the upper tunic, to which chains from a helmet, sword and dagger were attached. The knight was girded with a wide belt with a metal frame and a buckle. They wore it without tightening it, but loosely lowering it on the hips. On such a sword hung a sword and a dagger in a scabbard.

The shield at this time was still small, but its shape almost everywhere became triangular.

But the shape of the spurs, which served as a necessary accessory for the rider, and in addition were the main distinction of the knighthood - upon initiation, the knight was given golden spurs as a symbol - almost did not change. They were a round, or even faceted, spike, or a gear wheel on a short neck. The spurs were secured with straps that were fastened quite high above the heel.

Changes also affected the weapons used to protect the knight’s warhorse. Here, as with the horseman, chain mail was replaced by metal strips fastened with leather.

There was, of course, a good reason for the constant improvement of knightly offensive and defensive weapons in the 14th-15th centuries. It was the Hundred Years' War between England and France, during which the British captured vast French territory, owned Paris, but were eventually expelled and retained only the seaside city of Calais. The war was replete with bloody battles and losses on both sides were so great that gunsmiths had to show a lot of ingenuity. However, precisely because the clashes between the British and the French were too frequent, any improvement made by either side was immediately adopted by the other, and the chances were again equalized.

By the way, the development of weapons was also influenced by some other factors - for example... changes in the cut of secular clothing. When tight camisoles, tight trousers with puffs at the belly and long, sometimes even turned-up shoe toes were in fashion, knightly armor was also adjusted to this standard. As soon as wider, looser clothing became widespread, armor was forged in this manner.

The development of weapons was even influenced by the fact that at the beginning of the war success constantly accompanied the British, and this strengthened the already developing tendency among English knights to flaunt beautiful and richly decorated military equipment. In this they wanted, if not to surpass, then at least to compare with the French knights, who had such panache, as they say, in their blood, and who, of course, accepted the enemy’s challenge here too.

But the German knights were distinguished by obvious conservatism in fashion. They lived in their castles rather secludedly; French innovations reached their lands with a great delay. However, the penchant for ostentation was not entirely alien to them: German knights loved to decorate their armor with bells and bells.

In the 15th century, knightly weapons quickly changed, and individual parts continued to be improved.

The bracers were significantly improved by the addition of round convex plaques that protected the elbow. Later, complementary parts were added to the formerly half-shaped bracers, connected to them by hinges and straps with buckles. Now the knight's entire arm from shoulder to hand, with the exception of the elbow, was covered with steel. But the elbow was also covered with narrow transverse strips of iron. With the help of hinges they were made movable.

In exactly the same way as bracers, leggings were also improved. With the help of small side plates, the knee pads became movable. If previously the metal covered the legs only in front and half, now another metal half is added, fastened to the first with hinges and straps, which were gradually replaced by more convenient and reliable hooks. Now, from the popliteal cavity to the heel, the knight’s leg was protected with steel.

In the end, the knight's spurs also changed - they became longer and with very large wheels.

The uncomfortable tub-shaped helmet was replaced by a helmet with a metal visor equipped with eye and breathing holes. The visor was hinged on the sides of the helmet, and if necessary, it could be raised up, revealing the face, and lowered again in case of danger.

However, the old heavy helmet did not completely go out of use, but began to be used in tournaments, for which armor, unlike combat ones, was made even more massive. True, it did undergo some changes: the tournament helmet began to be attached to the shoulder pads, there were larger slits for the eyes, but for greater safety they were covered with an additional metal grill.

With such improved knightly weapons, the shield, it seems, became less necessary; it continued to be worn rather according to tradition. But gradually the former triangular shield was completely replaced by another - quadrangular, with a rounded lower edge and a cutout for a spear, which was made in the upper right corner. And such a shield was worn in a special way - not on the left hand, but hung on a short belt worn over the shoulder. It only protected the upper right chest and right arm. Subsequently, they also abandoned the belt from which it was suspended - the shield was attached to the shell on hooks or screwed in with screws. And from the second half of the 15th century, like the old-fashioned tub-shaped helmet, it began to be used only in tournaments.

Individual metal plates of protective weapons became more and more enlarged and assembled together. In the end, the knight found himself completely clad in iron.

The chest and back were covered with a solid cuirass, fastened with side hooks. The lower abdomen and upper legs were protected by additional plates attached to the cuirass. Individual parts of the cuirass were riveted onto belts, and therefore, in general, the armor was quite flexible.

The helmet changed again - gunsmiths invented the so-called “salad”. It looked like an overturned bowl with slightly sloped sides and an elongated back plate. When the salad was pulled over the head, it covered it entirely up to the line of the nose. To protect the lower part of the face, a special chin guard was attached to the bottom of the breastplate. In this way, both the head and face were completely protected, and for the eyes there was a narrow gap between the lower edge of the salad and the upper edge of the chin.

The salad could be thrown back a little to the back of the head, opening the face and allowing more air access, and in case of danger, it could be quickly pulled back over the head.

Armor of this type, of course, required considerable skill and time to manufacture and was very expensive. In addition, the new weapons also gave rise to a special type of decoration: individual parts of the armor began to be covered with artistic embossing, gilding, and niello. This fashion originated from the court of the Duke of Burgundy, Charles the Bold, and quickly spread. Now there was no need to wear an embroidered rich tunic, since the armor itself looked much more luxurious. Of course, they were available only to the most noble and wealthy knights. However, anyone else could get them, as a trophy on the battlefield or at a tournament, or even as a ransom for a prisoner.

Such armor did not weigh that much - 12-16 kilograms. But at the end of the 15th century it became much more massive, and for good reason: the knight had to defend himself from firearms. Now the weight of defensive weapons could exceed 30 kilograms; individual parts in armor reached one and a half hundred. Of course, it was possible to move in it only on horseback; there was now no point in thinking about fighting on foot.

And although such super-heavy armor really dates back to the decline of chivalry, one cannot help but be amazed not only by the artistic decoration of the armor, but also by the perfection and thoughtfulness of their design itself.

By the end of the 15th century, gunsmiths finally found an extremely comfortable and perfect form of helmet, which replaced the salad. Here all the parts that already existed, but had previously been worn separately, were successfully combined together.

The knight's helmet took on an almost spherical shape and was equipped with a high crest. A visor was attached to it on hinges, which could move up and down along the ridge. The chin was connected to the helmet with loops and covered the lower face and neck.

A round metal “necklace” protected the upper chest, back and shoulders. It was made with a vertically standing “collar”, forged along the upper edge with a flagellum. There was a corresponding groove on the lower edge of the helmet, and this made it possible to connect the helmet with the necklace very firmly and securely.

The cuirass consisted of a breastplate and a backrest, connected with clasps. The breastplate was shaped in such a way that it seemed to deflect a direct blow from a spear or sword, softening it.

A support hook was riveted to the breastplate on the right side to support the heavy and long spear. Abdominal plates were attached to the front, covering the upper abdomen. Legguards were their continuation, and a lumbar cover was attached to the backrest.

The mantles were attached to the necklace using straps or using special pins. The right mantle was always smaller than the left, to make it more convenient to hold a spear under the right armpit. Sometimes the mantles were equipped with high ridges that protected the neck from side blows.

The bracers were divided into two parts. The upper one was a blank metal tube, and the lower one consisted of two halves, fastened from the inside. The elbow was covered with a special ulnar shell, allowing the arm to bend freely.

The hands were protected with metal gloves. Sometimes they were even made with separated fingers.

The legs up to the knees were covered with so-called half-tube covers. Below were knee pads with a side “socket” that protected the bend of the leg, and finally leg guards, which were a detachable tube that reached from the knee to the ankle. Leggings, which completely protected the top of the feet, were made in different shapes at different times, depending on how the fashion for secular shoes changed.

The war horse, the knight's faithful companion, was now also almost completely hidden by armor. To carry him, and even an equally heavily armed rider, the horse, of course, required special strength and endurance.

The headrest or browband for a horse was usually forged from a single sheet of metal and covered its forehead. It had large eye holes with convex edges, covered with iron bars.

The horse's neck was covered with a collar. It was made up of transverse striped scales and most of all resembled... the tail of a crayfish. This type of armor completely covered the mane underneath and was attached to the forehead with a metal latch.

A special bib was also provided. Composed of several wide transverse stripes, it closed with the collar and, in addition to the chest, protected the upper part of the front legs. The sides of the horse were covered by two solid steel sheets connected by the upper concave edges. The side parts of the armor were closely connected to the breastplate.

From behind, the horse was also protected from possible attacks by very wide and convex armor, forged from solid sheets or assembled from separate narrow strips. To keep such armor firmly in place and not harm the horse, a special support base was placed under it, made of wood and upholstered in fabric or leather, or made entirely of whalebone.

The saddles on such armor were large, massive, with a wide shield-shaped pommel that reliably covered the rider’s hips, and with a high back. The reins and bridle straps were very wide, with metal plaques densely riveted on them, which served both for decoration and for additional protection from the chopping blows of the sword.

At ceremonial parades, tournaments or some other celebrations, knightly war horses were covered over armor with luxurious, richly embroidered blankets, which could, in addition to this, be decorated in some other way.

There truly was no limit to imagination here. As contemporaries testify, in 1461, during the ceremonial entry of Louis XI into Paris for coronation, the horses of his knightly retinue were covered partly with brocade, partly with velvet blankets, descending to the very ground and completely studded with small silver bells. And one of the knights close to the king named La Roche, wanting to stand out especially, hung bells the size of a human head around the blanket of his horse, which, as an eyewitness writes, “caused a terrifying ringing.”

Here the external changes were not as striking as in defensive weapons. The main weapon always remained the sword. By the second half of the 14th century, its blade was lengthened and, to enhance the blow, it became not double-edged, but sharpened only on one side; the other turned into a wide butt. For greater convenience, the previously wide handle became thinner and was wrapped with wire. The scabbard was made of hard leather, which was painted or covered with fabric, and then covered with metal plates and decorations.

Interestingly, fashion also changed in the way of wearing a sword. In the middle of the 14th century, for example, and then in the second half of the 15th century, knights wore swords not on the left hip, as was customary in all other times, but in front, in the middle of the belt...

The spear, another main weapon of a knight, gradually divided into two main types: combat and tournament. The tournament constantly changed in the length, thickness and shape of the tip, which could be either blunt or sharp. The battle spear retained its original shape for a long time and consisted of a strong wooden shaft 3 to 5 meters long, usually ash, and a metal tip. Only the advent of solid metal armor forced gunsmiths to improve the spear. It became much shorter and thicker. The knight's hand holding the spear was now protected by a funnel-shaped steel cap on the shaft.

A mandatory accessory for a knight was a dagger with a narrow and long quadrangular blade. They could hit a defeated enemy in the slightest opening in the armor. Such a weapon was called the “dagger of mercy,” because it happened that a defeated knight, not wanting to beg for mercy, asked the winner to finish him off, which he did, showing the enemy the last mercy as a sign of respect for his valor and honor.

Other types of offensive weapons eventually appeared in medieval Europe - for example, a huge sword that reached up to two meters in length. It could only be wielded with two hands, which is why it was called two-handed. There was a sword and “one and a half hands.” Special types of striking weapons also became widespread - the club, the ax, the reed. It was intended to break through metal armor and helmets. However, as a rule, all these types of weapons were not used by knights. They were used by hired regular troops and infantry.

Unfortunately, not many names of those who created knightly weapons have survived to our time. It’s a pity - it was made with skillful hands, and many of the armor, swords, spears, daggers, helmets, shields that are now on display in the best museums in the world can rightfully be called real masterpieces. They happily combine carefully thought-out functionality and complete artistic beauty. True, we still know something, albeit a little.

In the late period of chivalry, gunsmiths began to put marks on their products, and thanks to this, it can be argued that hereditary masters Aguirro, Hernandez, Martinez, Ruiz, and some others worked in the Spanish city of Toledo.

In northern Italy, Milan became a major weapons center, where the Piccinino and Missaglia families of craftsmen were especially famous. And the famous brand of another Italian city - Genoa - was even counterfeited by less conscientious gunsmiths in other places in Europe for the purpose of better sales.

In Germany, the city of Solingen has always been a famous weapons center.

However, each knight had his own, individual weapons. The knight relied only on himself in a one-on-one duel. However, in a big battle, the knights acted as a single force, interacting with each other. Therefore, of course, the knightly army also had special tactics for conducting general combat. Moreover, unlike weapons, it remained almost unchanged for centuries.

Now, from the height of our time, it is easy to judge its primitiveness and monotony, reproaching the knights for carelessly following elementary discipline, for complete contempt for the infantry, and for their own too. However, it was the knights who decided the outcome of any battle. What could the infantry, albeit numerous, oppose to a detachment of professional warriors clad in armor, sweeping away everything in their path? When the principles of combat began to change, chivalry had to leave. Not only from the battlefields, but also from the stage of history.

The knightly army gathered like this: each knight brought several squires under the banner of his lord, who during the battle remained behind the battle line, keeping several spare horses and spare weapons at the ready. In addition, the knight was accompanied by lightly armed horsemen, who were none other than household servants, as well as a detachment of infantry recruited from serfs.

The knights themselves usually formed into wedge units before battle. In the first row there were no more than five horsemen, in the next two there were seven, followed by rows of nine, eleven and thirteen horsemen. Behind, forming a regular quadrangle, followed the rest of the knight's cavalry.

These formations, as everyone probably remembers from the film by Sergei Eisentstein, were the knights of the Teutonic Order advancing on the army of Alexander Nevsky in the famous Battle of the Ice in 1242. But, by the way, the Russian squads eagerly used the same principle when they were the first to attack the enemy.

With such a narrow wedge it was easy to ram the enemy’s defenses; especially since the defending side usually fielded poorly armed and poorly trained infantry. In order to maintain formation for the decisive moment of the battle, the wedge initially moved very slowly, almost at a walk, and only when approaching the enemy almost closely did the knights start their horses into a gait.

The huge mass of the wedge easily broke through the infantry, and immediately the horsemen turned around in a wide front. That's when the real battle began, breaking up into many separate fights. It could continue for hours, and often the leaders of both sides could not intervene in its course.

At first, the knights fought on horseback: two horsemen with spears at the ready, covering themselves with shields, rushed at each other, aiming at the enemy’s shield or helmet. The blow, amplified by the weight of the armor, the speed and mass of the horse, was terrible. The less agile knight, stunned, flew out of the saddle with a split shield or knocked off helmet; in another case, both of their spears broke like reeds. Then the knights threw their horses, and a sword fight began.

During the Middle Ages it was quite different from the graceful, relaxed fencing of the later age of musketeers. The blows were rare and very heavy. The only way to repel them was with a shield. However, in close combat, the shield could serve not only as a defensive weapon, but also as an offensive one: it could, seizing the moment, unexpectedly push the enemy so that he lost his balance, and immediately deal him a decisive blow.

Quite reliable ideas about what a knightly duel looked like can be obtained, for example, from the famous novel by Henry Rider Haggard “The Fair Margaret”, where in one of the scenes the sworn enemies of the Englishman Peter Brook and the Spaniard Morella came face to face, although not on the battlefield, but on the lists, in the presence of the king himself and many spectators, but the battle nevertheless was not for life, but for death:

"The collision was so strong that Peter's spear was shattered into pieces, and Morell's spear, sliding along the enemy's shield, got stuck in his visor. Peter staggered in the saddle and began to fall backwards. It seemed that he was about to fall, the strings of his helmet burst The helmet was torn from his head, and Morella rode past with the helmet on the point of a spear.

But Peter didn't fall. He threw away the broken spear and, grabbing the saddle strap, pulled himself back up. Morella tried to stop his horse in order to turn and attack the Englishman before he recovered, but his horse was rushing quickly, it was impossible to stop him. Finally the opponents turned to each other again. But Peter did not have a spear or helmet, and on the tip of Morell’s spear hung the helmet of his enemy, from which he tried in vain to free himself.

Morell's spear was aimed at Peter's unprotected face, but when the spear was very close, Peter dropped the reins and struck with his shield the white plume that fluttered at the end of Morell's spear, the same one that had previously been torn from Peter's head. He calculated correctly: the white feathers swayed very low, but enough so that, bending in the saddle, Peter could slip under his deadly spear. And when the opponents drew level, Peter threw out his long right arm and, grasping Morell like a steel hook, pulled him out of the saddle. The black horse rushed forward without a rider, and the white horse with a double burden.

Morella grabbed Peter by the neck, the opponents rocked in the saddle, and the frightened horse rushed until it finally turned sharply to the side. The opponents fell on the sand and lay for some time, stunned by the fall...

Peter and Morella jumped away from each other and drew their long swords. Peter, who had no helmet, held his shield high to protect his head and calmly awaited the attack.

Morella struck first, his sword clashing with steel. Before Morella could get back into position, Peter struck back at him, but Morella ducked and the sword only cut the black feathers off his helmet. With the speed of lightning, the tip of Morell's sword rushed straight into Peter's face, but the Englishman managed to deflect slightly, and the blow missed him. Morella attacked again and struck with such force that, although Peter managed to substitute his shield, the Spaniard's sword slid across him and struck his unprotected neck and shoulder. Blood stained the white armor and Peter staggered.

Apparently enraged by the pain of the wound and the fear of defeat, with the battle cry: “Long live the Brums!” - Peter gathered all his strength and rushed at Morell. Spectators saw that half of the Spaniard's helmet was lying on the sand. This time it was Morell's turn to sway. Moreover, he dropped his shield..."

But although the blows inflicted by the knight’s hand were powerful, knights died in battle much less often than peasant infantrymen or lightly armed horsemen. And the point here is not only that the knights were reliably protected by armor.

Each of the knights saw in the other knight an opponent equal to himself, a member of the same common knightly brotherhood, a closed caste for which borders and kings mattered little. Borders were constantly changing, lands passed from one sovereign to another, and the knights owned the same castles and villages and were all considered faithful servants of one Holy Christian Church. There was no point in killing the enemy, except in those cases when he was the enemy of enemies or did not want to give up and asked to finish him off in the name of knightly honor. However, much more often the defeated knight recognized himself as a prisoner, and the winner received a horse, expensive armor, or even lands with villages as a ransom for his freedom...

But, of course, there were battles in the Middle Ages when the fate of entire countries was at stake, and sometimes the enemy could not be considered equal to oneself - for example, the “infidels” during the crusades for the liberation of the Holy Land. So the knights were quite capable of various military tricks: flanking maneuvers, false attacks and retreats that lured the enemy.

In 1066, Duke William of Normandy laid claim to the English throne. But since the Anglo-Saxon king Harold was not going to voluntarily give it up, William called all the Norman knights under his banner. The assembled army was also joined by many poor, landless knights from all over France, hoping for rich booty. On equipped ships, William sailed across the English Channel and landed in southeastern England near the city of Hastings.

Harold, not supported by the majority of his vassals, managed to gather only a small squad and a peasant militia armed with battle axes. However, the Norman knightly army, which attacked Harold’s detachment on October 14, 1066, did not manage to gain the upper hand for a long time. The Anglo-Saxons successfully fortified themselves on the hillside and, one after another, repelled the attacks of the horsemen with long spears.

Then Wilhelm had to resort to a military trick: part of his army took a feigned flight. Believing that victory was already in his hands, Harold set off to pursue the enemy, and in the open the ranks of the Anglo-Saxon infantry were mixed. A new battle ensued, and now the Norman knights were complete masters of the situation. Harold died, and his army fled. In December 1066, William was crowned on the English throne.

Another medieval battle is famous for its skillful maneuver that ensured victory. It dates back to the Hundred Years' War and happened in 1370 near the town of Valen. The French knights suddenly attacked the English camp, but the enemy managed to form a battle formation, and at first the French attack was repulsed. But still, the leader of the French knightly army, Bertrand Du Guesclin, managed to conduct a distracting flank maneuver. The ranks of the British, as at Hastings three centuries ago, mixed up, and they were defeated, losing - a huge number at that time - 10,000 soldiers, killed, wounded and surrendered.

It must be assumed that the French knight Bertrand Du Guesclin was a capable and skillful military leader, since such an unexpected maneuver was not the first in his record. Six years earlier, near the town of Cocherel, his ten-thousand-strong knightly army was attacked by a large detachment of English mercenaries and Navarrese cavalry acting in alliance with them. Du Guesclin retreated, and then completely surrounded the enemy and forced him to surrender.

At the same time, in the same XIV century, the knightly army, alas, increasingly lost its claims to a primary role on the battlefield.

As early as 1302, the Battle of Courtrai in Flanders demonstrated just how powerful a well-organized, disciplined infantry could be. The French army that invaded Flanders was completely defeated by the people's militia, and the losses among the knights were so great that after the battle, seven hundred golden spurs were hung as trophies in the cathedral of the city of Courtrai. In history, this battle is often called the “Battle of the Golden Spurs.”

And as it turned out, the English nobility, during the Hundred Years' War, much earlier than the French, realized that for success it was necessary not to despise their own infantry, but to act with it, as well as with archers from bows and crossbows, in unity and cooperation. The French did not trust their militia at all. Even at the height of the war, the authorities sometimes forbade townspeople to practice archery, and when the Parisians once volunteered to field 6 thousand crossbowmen, the knights arrogantly refused the help of the “shopkeepers.”

August 26, 1346 entered the history of France as a black date. It was then, in the Battle of Crecy, that the main role in the actions of a small, nine thousand-strong detachment of the British, commanded by King Edward III himself, was first assigned to the infantry. The French army, under the command of King Philip VI, consisted of twelve thousand knights, twelve thousand hired foreign infantry, which included six thousand Genoese crossbow shooters, and fifty thousand weakly armed townspeople with almost no military training.

The defeat of the French army turned out to be terrible and at the same time instructive. The opponents acted in completely different ways in the battle.

Edward III, in front of his entire detachment, lined up a long chain of English archers, who brought their art to amazing perfection and were famous for the fact that they could hit any target from three hundred steps.

Behind the shooters, knights mixed with infantry and other shooters were placed in three battle lines. The horses of the dismounted knights remained in the convoy behind the army.

When Philip moved his army against the English, it obeyed very unfriendly, the last ranks were just about to set out, and the front ones were already far away. But when the French came close enough to the British, Philip suddenly decided to postpone the battle and give the scattered detachments the opportunity to unite and rest overnight.

However, the French knights, carried away by the thirst for battle, continued to move forward - without any order, overtaking and pushing back one another. Finally they came close to the British. It seemed to them the greatest disgrace to their honor to delay the battle, and by this time the king himself had already forgotten his first prudent decision and gave the order to attack.

According to the previously planned disposition, the Genoese riflemen were supposed to move forward, and the ranks of the French parted to give them way. However, the mercenaries moved without much desire. They were already tired from the march, and their shields remained in the lagging carts, because, following the first royal order, they expected to fight only the next day.

The leaders of the mercenaries loudly cursed the new order. Hearing this, the Count of Alençon arrogantly said, as the chroniclers report: “That’s all the benefit of this bastard, she’s only good for eating, and for us it will be more of a hindrance than a help.”

The Genoese, however, came close to the British and uttered their wild war cry three times, hoping to terrify them. But in response, they calmly began murderous shooting from their bows.

Long arrows with feathers hit the Genoese before they had time to pull the bowstrings of their crossbows. The English bows were so powerful that the arrows pierced the armor of the mercenaries.

When the Genoese finally fled, the French knights themselves began to trample them with their war horses - the mercenaries prevented them from rushing to attack. All military formations had collapsed, and now the English archers were shooting not only the Genoese, but also the knights, and they especially tried to hit the horses.

Soon in front of the ranks of the British there was only a shapeless mass of horsemen and dead mercenaries stretched out under fallen horses. It was then that the English infantry rushed onto the battlefield, calmly finishing off the defeated. The rest of the French army fled in disarray.

French losses were horrific. 11 dukes and counts, representatives of the highest nobility of the kingdom, 1,500 knights with simpler titles and 10,000 infantry remained on the battlefield.

And more than once during the Hundred Years' War, the English side showed the French what discipline, thoughtful tactics and unity of action mean on the battlefield. On September 19, 1356, the French knighthood suffered another terrible defeat at the Battle of Poitiers.

An English detachment of six thousand, commanded by the eldest son of Edward 111, nicknamed the Black Prince because of the color of his armor, took up a very advantageous position in the vicinity of Poitiers behind hedges and vineyards in which archers were hidden. The French knights moved to attack along a narrow passage between the hedges, but a hail of arrows fell on them, and then the English knights hit the French knights huddled in a disorderly crowd. About five thousand soldiers died, not counting the huge number taken prisoner. King John II himself, who by this time had replaced Philip VI on the French throne, also surrendered to the mercy of the winner.

The French army outnumbered the enemy almost five times, but this time the English archers were hiding behind a specially constructed palisade, which prevented the advance of the heavily armed knights. At Agincourt, the French lost six thousand killed, among whom were the Dukes of Brabant and Breton, and another two thousand knights were captured, including the king's closest relative, the Duke of Orleans.

And yet, in the end, the French were the victors in the Hundred Years' War, conquering vast territories of the kingdom that the British had owned for many years. Having learned the lessons taught, France relied in the war against the invaders not so much on chivalry as on the entire people; It was not without reason that the greatest successes in the war were associated with a simple village girl named Joan of Arc. Time changed inexorably, and chivalry left the historical stage, where it had played the main roles for so long, giving way to other forces.

The Hundred Years' War - the decline of chivalry

And more than once during the Hundred Years' War, the English side showed the French what discipline, thoughtful tactics and unity of action mean on the battlefield. On September 19, 1356, the French knighthood suffered another terrible defeat at the Battle of Poitiers.

An English detachment of six thousand, commanded by the eldest son of Edward 111, nicknamed the Black Prince because of the color of his armor, took up a very advantageous position in the vicinity of Poitiers behind hedges and vineyards in which archers were hidden. The French knights moved to attack along a narrow passage between the hedges, but a hail of arrows fell on them, and then the English knights hit the French knights huddled in a disorderly crowd. About five thousand soldiers died, not counting the huge number taken prisoner. King John II himself, who by this time had replaced Philip VI on the French throne, also surrendered to the mercy of the winner.

The French army outnumbered the enemy almost five times, but this time the English archers were hiding behind a specially constructed palisade, which prevented the advance of the heavily armed knights. At Agincourt, the French lost six thousand killed, among whom were the Dukes of Brabant and Breton, and another two thousand knights were captured, including the king's closest relative, the Duke of Orleans.

And yet, in the end, the French were the victors in the Hundred Years' War, conquering vast territories of the kingdom that the British had owned for many years. Having learned the lessons taught, France relied in the war against the invaders not so much on chivalry as on the entire people; It was not without reason that the greatest successes in the war were associated with a simple village girl named Joan of Arc. Time changed inexorably, and chivalry left the historical stage, where it had played the main roles for so long, giving way to other forces.

Knights Malov Vladimir Igorevich

The Hundred Years' War - the decline of chivalry

And more than once during the Hundred Years' War, the English side showed the French what discipline, thoughtful tactics and unity of action mean on the battlefield. On September 19, 1356, the French knighthood suffered another terrible defeat at the Battle of Poitiers.

An English detachment of six thousand, commanded by the eldest son of Edward 111, nicknamed the Black Prince because of the color of his armor, took up a very advantageous position in the vicinity of Poitiers behind hedges and vineyards in which archers were hidden. The French knights moved to attack along a narrow passage between the hedges, but a hail of arrows fell on them, and then the English knights hit the French knights huddled in a disorderly crowd. About five thousand soldiers died, not counting the huge number taken prisoner. King John II himself, who by this time had replaced Philip VI on the French throne, also surrendered to the mercy of the winner.

The French army outnumbered the enemy almost five times, but this time the English archers were hiding behind a specially constructed palisade, which prevented the advance of the heavily armed knights. At Agincourt, the French lost six thousand killed, among whom were the Dukes of Brabant and Breton, and another two thousand knights were captured, including the king's closest relative, the Duke of Orleans.

And yet, in the end, the French were the victors in the Hundred Years' War, conquering vast territories of the kingdom that the British had owned for many years. Having learned the lessons taught, France relied in the war against the invaders not so much on chivalry as on the entire people; It was not without reason that the greatest successes in the war were associated with a simple village girl named Joan of Arc. Time changed inexorably, and chivalry left the historical stage, where it had played the main roles for so long, giving way to other forces.