Jim Bradbury. Battles in England and Normandy, 1066-1154
Jim Bradbury. Battles in England and Normandy, 1066-1154 // Anglo-Norman Studies VI: Proceedings of the Battle Conference 1983. 1984. Рр. 1-13
Two responses to the question come to mind. Professor Hollister was concerned with those battles which had been described in sufficient detail to allow some discussion of tactics. There were certainly more battles, many of which were at least as large in scale as Bourgthe'roulde, but are given little space by the chroniclers. There were at least fifteen lesser battles in the period. A second consideration is the frequency with which battles were avoided. Sometimes this was achieved by a form of truce or treaty, sometimes simply by backing down from a challenge.
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In order to examine tactics fruitfully we need to clear the ground in two respects. Firstly it is important to value the evidence we use, chiefly chronicle evidence, to employ the best and earliest accounts. This may seem an unnecessary point, until one uses some modern accounts and realises that the normal process is to take every piece of evidence from all quality of sources and construct a jigsaw account of battles. What is needed is chiefly an exercise in pruning. As a part of this process it is also necessary to review the practice of evaluating medieval tactics by consideration of the ground over which the battles were fought. In ninety-nine cases out of a hundred, precise location of a battle is guesswork, often very broad guesswork indeed. It may be fun to try and identify a site, but to give a proper account we should rely on historical evidence, and not historical fiction.
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Let us then summarise the battle tactics employed in this century after Hastings. There are three common elements: knights who are dismounted to fight with the foot; archers usually placed in a forward position; and cavalry normally reserved for a decisive charge. Our final problem is to try and explain why these tactics were used. Were they novel or unique tactics, something confined to England and Normandy? It seems not. Leo the Wise had said of the Franks: 'when their soldiers are hard pressed in a cavalry fight, they will turn their horses loose, dismount, and stand back to back against superior numbers, rather than flee'. At the Battle of the Dyle in 891, knights were dismounted by Arnulf against the Vikings. According to Morice, the Bretons dismounted against the Angevins in the second Battle of Conquereux in 992, and it is possible that knights dismounted at Pontlevoy in 1016. In a later period, during the Second Crusade, Conrad III dismounted knights at Damascus in 1148, and William of Tyre makes the interesting comment that this was the 'custom of the Teutons when they were faced with a crisis in battle'. The famous Byzantine remark that the Franks were ungainly when they fought on foot, nevertheless suggests that this did occur.
Можно еще дополнительно выделить - при характеристике известий ранний и лучший часто идут рука об руку. Но часто, а не всегда. К примеру - комментарии Д. Райли-Смита к Форби.
Иордан. О происхождении и деяниях гетов. Пер. Е.Ч. Скржинской. 1997
Идя обратно по иным, чем раньше, дорогам, Аттила решил подчинить своей власти ту часть аланов, которая сидела за рекой Лигером, чтобы, изменив после их [поражения] самый вид войны, угрожать еще ужаснее. Итак, выступив из Дакии и Паннонии, провинций, где жили тогда гунны и разные подчиненные им племена, Аттила двинул войско на аланов. Но Торисмуд, король везеготов, предвосхитил злой умысел Аттилы с не меньшим, чем у него, хитроумием: он с крайней быстротой первый явился к аланам и, уже подготовленный, встретил движение войск подходившего Аттилы. Завязалась битва почти такая же, какая была до того на Каталаунских полях; Торисмуд лишил Аттилу всякой надежды на победу, изгнал его из своих краев без триумфа и заставил бежать к своим местам. Так достославный Аттила, одержавший так много побед, когда хотел унизить славу своего погубителя и стереть то, что испытал когда-то от везеготов, претерпел теперь вдвойне и бесславно отступил.
Не то что описания - даты и места нет.