The video discusses the unreliability of numerical data in medieval chronicles, particularly regarding army sizes, battle scales, and casualties. Medieval chroniclers often presented specific, high numbers, but these figures are frequently inconsistent across different manuscripts and were not meant to be precise. Modern historians have often accepted these numbers at face value, but recent scholarship critiques this approach, arguing that logistical and demographic realities of the Middle Ages made such large armies impossible.
Inaccuracies in Medieval Chronicles #
- Battle of Formigny (1450): Gilles le Bouvier, a French royal chronicler, reported 3774 English casualties.
- Later copies of his chronicle show different figures, such as 4374, or other varying numbers, stemming from scribal errors or intentional changes.
- Jean Froissart's Chronicles: Another prominent chronicler, Froissart, personally oversaw the copying of his work.
- Despite this supervision, different versions of his chronicle provide widely disparate numbers for the same events.
- Example: The siege of Aiguillon is described with a French army of 5,000, 60,000, or even 100,000 in different authorized manuscripts.
- Within a single manuscript, Froissart once stated an army had 35,000 men, and later over 300,000.
Medieval Perspective on Numbers #
- Lack of Precision: Medieval people did not share our modern "obsession with accuracy" concerning numerical data.
- Symbolism over Fact: Numbers often conveyed meaning or emphasized the speaker's authority rather than providing exact figures.
- A French historian noted that the more precise a number in a chronicle, the more likely it is to be inaccurate.
- Concealing Ignorance: Apparent precision often masked a lack of actual knowledge.
- Misunderstanding Large Numbers: "1,000" meant "a lot," "10,000" meant "very a lot," and "100,000" meant "amazingly a lot." Specific large numbers (e.g., 100,256) indicated the author's perceived expertise rather than literal count.
- Symbolic Numbers: Numbers could be symbolic, such as the Roman army of 6,666 against King Arthur in a 12th-century English chronicle, which was not a calculation but a symbolic reference.
Modern Historical Reassessment of Medieval Army Sizes #
- Routine Exaggeration: Medieval chroniclers routinely and significantly inflated numbers, a convention not understood by 19th and 20th-century historians.
- Past historians accepted claims like Charlemagne having 100,000 men, 150,000 participants in the First Crusade, or battles with over 100,000 combatants.
- Growing Scepticism: For several decades, specialists, especially in Western academia, now believe medieval armies and battles were much smaller than chronicled.
- Logistical Impossibility: Early medieval economies and low population densities (before 1000-1100 AD) made it impossible to gather, move, feed, supply, and effectively command vast armies.
Evidence Against Large Medieval Armies #
- Army Size vs. Population:
- A 5,000-strong army in the Early Middle Ages equated to the population of over a hundred typical villages or surpassed large cities.
- Feeding a moving army was more challenging than feeding a metropolis with established infrastructure.
- Timothy Reuter on Charlemagne's Army: German medievalist Timothy Reuter noted that if Charlemagne constantly led 20,000 soldiers, he would have had to devastate his own land for supplies to an extent comparable to "radioactive fallout from an atomic bomb." (Paris in early 9th century had ~5,000 inhabitants).
- John Haldon's Analysis (Byzantine Empire):
- The 60,000-strong Byzantine army at Manzikert (1071 AD) would have required 25,000-33,000 mules for supply transport over two months.
- This number of draft animals would have exceeded the entire empire's capacity.
- Battle of Antioch (1098):
- The claim of over 100,000 Crusaders participating is logistically impossible.
- Marching such a force out of the city gates and into battle on the same day would have taken at least nine hours, with a column nearly 50 km long.
- Marching Column Length (Guy Halsall):
- Guy Halsall estimates a 5,000-strong Carolingian army traveling on forest paths would form a 6 km long column (two horsemen abreast, 2.5m per horseman and horse).
- Including baggage, wagons, and camp followers, this could easily double to 12 km.
- A 20,000-strong army would create a nearly 50 km long column, which is unrealistic.
- Slavic Army Strength: 10th-century Slavic leaders, including Mieszko I, could not have maintained cavalry forces of several thousand.
- Even the total number of horses in countries like Bohemia would have been insufficient.
Revised Estimates of Medieval Army Sizes #
- Early Middle Ages (before 1000 AD):
- No state could field a single army larger than 10,000 soldiers.
- Guy Halsall suggests an upper limit of 5,000-6,000 for armies in Western Europe immediately after the fall of Rome.
- Typical armies numbered from a few hundred to 2,000-3,000 soldiers.
- Later Middle Ages (after 1000 AD): Population growth and economic development allowed for armies of up to 10,000, though even these were impractical.
- Impact of Small but Mobile Forces: Even significantly smaller, well-armed, and mobile units were considered full-fledged armies and could inflict serious damage.
- King Alfred the Great's definition (9th century): less than 7 armed men were "robbers," 7-35 were a "gang," and anything above that was an "army."
- Specific Examples of Revised Estimates:
- Viking armies: usually a few hundred, rarely a few thousand soldiers.
- Reconquista battles in Iberia: chronicles claimed millions, but actual participation was likely a few thousand.
- Crusades battles: often involved only hundreds of men.
- Battle of Legnica: not 40,000, but perhaps 1,000 Polish warriors at most.
- Later Medieval Battles: While mobilization capacity increased in the High Middle Ages, estimates for major battles like Grunwald should still be treated with skepticism.
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