Warfare in Medieval Brabant, 1356–1406

Warfare in Medieval Brabant, 1356–1406, by Sergio Boffa (Woodbridge: Boydell P., 2004; pp. xx + 292. £50). There is much more to this impressive monograph than its title suggests. In addition to the course and character of warfare, public and private, that involved Brabançons in the fourteenth and early fifteenth centuries, Sergio Boffa examines the personnel of Brabant's armies and all aspects of military organisation within the duchy. The result is an absorbing study of ‘one of the most powerful principalities of the Low Countries’ during the reigns of Wenceslas (d. 1383)—who like his father, King John of Bohemia, was forever on campaign, sword in hand—and his widow, Joan (d. 1406), whose war leadership was conducted at a greater distance from the fighting. As a foundation-laying work on late medieval Brabant, this book achieves a great deal. Indeed, it illuminates much else besides that duchy's history. Readers will find the Hundred Years War, the rise of Burgundy and the remarkable Luxembourg dynasty viewed from unusual angles; and amidst the detail concerning Brabant's military experience are to be found useful discussions of many topics that have wider significance. Boffa argues, for example, that the term ‘mercenary’ should be reserved for genuine outsiders, ‘those not linked by family, political or social links to whom they served’, thus excluding the many members of the ‘international community of men-at-arms’ for whom a spell of service might be prompted by honour, family, friends or lord. He reminds us of the role played by support personnel in the ‘glaive’ (lance), the valets, who rarely appear in the records; and, in a valuable comparative discussion, he examines the differences between the fief-rente (particularly popular in Brabant) and the military contract, though here some of his comments on English practice may be questioned. Wholly unexceptionable, however, is Boffa's observation—offered while analysing the social context of recruitment among noblemen, knights and squires—that the prosopographical investigation of Brabançon armies ‘would be richly informative’. Ideally, such research should be undertaken collaboratively, in order that the widest range of expertise and sources may be brought to bear on the ‘international community of men-at-arms’. Beyond such specific topics, close scrutiny of Brabant's wars serves as a reminder that medieval warfare did not always involve cutting-edge developments in tactics, organisation or technology. It is, therefore, without a trace of irony that this reviewer welcomes a study of military mediocrity, of ‘poor use of what was in principle an impressive military capacity’. Brabant's military performance during the half century considered here was at best chequered, punctuated with battlefield defeats (Scheut, 1356; Baesweiler, 1371; Ravenstein, 1388). In military organisation, ‘we find scarcely any original solutions or innovations subsequently copied by their neighbours’. There was no permanent ducal artillery train: when needed, guns were borrowed ad hoc from the towns. Boffa characterises the duke of Brabant's armies as ‘classical’, which some may interpret as ‘old-fashioned’. They were composed primarily of heavily armoured horsemen, who did not dismount to fight. Foot soldiers from the towns, if present on campaign, performed an auxiliary and often ineffective role. There is a striking contrast here, on the one hand, with the neighbouring county of Flanders and principality of Liège, both of which relied heavily on the mobilisation of urban militias who fought on foot, and on the other, with the French l'armée de la reconquête and contemporary English field armies, which were compact, mounted forces, with integrated archers or crossbowmen. Clearly, there was great diversity of military organisation in later medieval western Europe, and certainly no single blueprint or timetable for change. The inability of the duke of Brabant to exploit the urban population of his territories for army recruitment was but one of the constraints under which he fought his wars. Others included the logistical issues familiar to all commanders, and the growing political influence of the Estates, which took particular advantage of Wenceslas's capture at the battle of Baesweiler. Such practical constraints on war-making princes might be found across Europe, and much else about Brabant's wars could also be described as typical of the period. As elsewhere, there was an emphasis on chevauchées and siege warfare; and sometimes, argues Boffa, the duke hoped thereby to ‘draw his enemy into battle, where he could be decisively defeated’. And yet, Brabant's experience of war was also strongly affected by the ‘peculiar characteristics’ of Low Countries warfare that derived from the political geography of the region. Relationships between neighbouring principalities were complex and volatile, their rulers only too aware of the vulnerability of their frontiers, especially those of seigniorial enclaves. Wars between evenly-matched rivals with limited resources, in which fortunes ebbed and flowed, were generally wars of consolidation rather than of conquest. Negotiation could be an effective delaying tactic, while from the sidelines of a particular conflict, spectator princes sought to take advantage through mediation. This was not, however, a hermetically sealed region of war. As alliances shifted according to the dictates of self-interest, an appeal to a major power could have the effect of transforming a local conflict into a facet of the Hundred Years War. For all its distinctiveness, later medieval Brabant's experience of war cannot be separated from the bigger picture. In capturing so well both the specific and the general, Sergio Boffa's book joins the classic works of J.F. Verbruggen and Claude Gaier

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