I. INTRODUCTION

I.1. European Military Literature in the High Middle Ages

There is not much original, specifically military literature relating to the organisation and behaviour of forces on the battlefield for Catholic Europe in the High Middle Ages. Texts from antiquity survived – Vegetius’ de re militari was extensively copied, translated, and likely used throughout the time; also known were texts such as Sextus Julius Frontinus’ anecdotal Strategemata.¹ An odd exception is the anonymous, probably late thirteenth-century Italian pulcher tractatus de materia belli, which quotes extensively from Vegetius, but also contains original passages.² Until true military writing appears as a genre towards the end of the fourteenth century, military-related facts and thinking are predominantly found in legal documents, chronicles, reality-affine hagiographies of military leaders, and outright fiction such as the various sagas, chansons de geste, and courtly poetry. Authors contributing original texts on military matters are rare, but they do exist, for example Gerald of Wales (c.1146-c.1223) or John of Salisbury (c.1110- 1180), but their focus is strategy, not the minutiae of command and formations.³

Original literature dedicated specifically to military matters burgeons from the late fourteenth century onwards; the witnesses, which include names such as Giovanni da Legnano, Christine de Pizan, Honoré Bouvet, Geoffroi de Charny, or Jean de Bueil, increasingly write in the vernacular rather than in Latin. The focus of this newly developing genre is on a complex of issues including just war, legitimate violence, acceptable profiteering, leadership, and honourable conduct (sometimes encapsulated by the term ‘chivalry’).⁴

I.2. The Siete Partidas

A code of law is unusual in the context of military tactical manuals, yet the term is not out of place for certain chapters of the Siete Partidas (the Seven Parts or Divisions), the common term for legislation compiled in the mid-thirteenth century by a committee of jurists reporting to Alfonso X, King of Castile, referred to as el sabio (the Wise). Composed in already fairly modern Spanish, it covers the seven subjects: church, government, law, family, commerce and the sea (Parts IV and V), and underworlds (Parts VI and VII deal with the dead, criminal, and marginalised). Each Partida is divided into titles or chapters, and each title contains several laws.⁵

The laws are written in essayistic, discursive text, not in the question/answer style of Justinian’s Digests, nor in the narrative legalese of the late Roman Novellae, nor in the terse if/then rhythm of the leges barbarorum or modern legislation, but also without the structured didactics of the Institutiones or the Decretum Gratiani.⁶ By virtue of their style, the text provides a practical and sensible guide to government, regardless of its format as legislation. The Siete Partidas was of importance to the laws of Castile, then Spain, and then the Spanish colonies, influencing also the laws of formerly Spanish US States such as Louisiana, Texas, Arizona, and California.⁷ Though largely superseded by the codi- fications based on the Napoleonic models, the principles set out in the Siete Partidas still echo through Iberian and related legal systems.

Of interest here is the second Partida, dealing with medieval government. The Spanish text used is the redaction issued in print by Gregorio Lopez in 1555; Spanish legal historians regard it as the most useful edition of the texts.⁸

This article focuses on selected passages of Titles XXI-XXX that deal with land battles (leaving out Title XXIV, which deals with naval warfare). I shall review the content of the military provisions, consider them in the context of what is known of the tactics of the time, and analyse whether they had any discernible influence on later military literature. The focus here is on three areas: the appointment of senior officers, battlefield formations for infantry and cavalry, and the rules on spoils. The Siete Partidas deals with a broader palette, but available space required a limitation, and it is proposed that the provisions reviewed offer additional insights into aspects of medieval battles.

I.3. Translations

English passages from the Siete Partidas are taken from Scott’s translation in Burns; other translations are mine unless otherwise indicated.⁹ In transcribing, I have resolved the ligatures in Gregorio Lopez’s typography, but otherwise quotations are given in the spelling used in the source referenced.

II. THE PRINCIPLES OF WARFARE

II.1. Knights, Senior Officers, and Commanding Officers

Title XXI (comprising twenty-five laws) is preoccupied with the selection, creation, and behaviour of knights (caualleros); Title XXII (comprising seven laws) then deals with the selection, creation, and powers of senior officers (adalides). It is not necessary that a senior officer be a knight, but he should be selected for his intelligence (or learning/knowledge), strength, good natural prudence, and loyalty (sabiduria, esfuerço, buen seso natural, lealtad).¹⁰

Adalides should be appointed on the recommendation of twelve wise commanders, and be given clothes, a horse, and arms.¹¹ During his promotion, a commander of knights should be raised on a shield, where he should strike his sword in the shape of a cross on all four points of the compass, and be given a banner. Once appointed, he has the rank of knight; he will then have the right to reprimand knights and omes honrrados (‘men of distinguishing rank’) under his command, and physically chastise light cavalry troopers and foot soldiers.¹²

The ceremony has a two-fold purpose: it demonstrates respect toward the commander for the responsibility he is assuming and also emphasises, to his men, that the commander must be obeyed. The commander is given both the authority and the responsibility to arrange for supplies, to post sentries and send out patrols, to organise foraging, to appoint subalterns, to allocate spoils, and to lead his troops into action. A commander who is remiss in his duties may be punished via his person or his property.¹³

Title XXII promises to be about ‘Commanders, Light Cavalry, and Foot Soldiers’.¹⁴ There is not much on the almogavares, the light cavalry, but the following passage in Law 6 is interesting:

Et maguer alguno fuesse a tal, que meresciesse ser adalid, non lo puede ser, amnos de ser algun tiempo, almogauar de cauallo. E segun dixeron los antiguos, las cosas que han de yr a bien, siempre han de yr, e de sober de vn grado a otro mejor. Assi como fazen del buen peon, buen almocaden, et del buen almocaden, buen almogauar de cauallo, e de aquel, el buen adalid.¹⁵

A rise in rank is described very clearly, and unlike modern military practice, the progression cuts across functions: the ordinary foot soldier is promoted to command an infantry unit, from there to light cavalry trooper, to finally become an officer with the rank of knight, with power over nobility and other knights.¹⁶

The ceremony for promotion of the infantry unit commander set out in Law 6 is similar to the one described for the senior officers, but less elaborate. Instead of being raised on his shield, he stands on the shafts of lances, and the protocol lacks the elements of dubbing inherent in the adalid’s appointment.¹⁷

The Partida suggests that promotion is open to the capable, regardless of social position. Whether that was the reality is hard to determine and a prosopographical investigation would be interesting. Writing of the situation two centuries later, Etxeberria finds that important military commands were reserved for the nobility, but capability and experience were determinative among the eligible. ¹⁸ The Partidas was written not long after the military heyday of Iberia’s city militia in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, so social permeability to military commands may have been more realistic, but the militias’ relevance to the warfare of the Christian Iberian kingdoms had receded by the fifteenth century.¹⁹

II.2. Light Cavalry

The Partida unfortunately does not elaborate on the light cavalry almogaveres, their composition, equipment, or tactical uses – though Title XXII Law 4 suggests that their role was foraging and patrolling.²⁰ It would be interesting to speculate that we are seeing an early reference to the ginetes, the light cavalry units copied from the Moroccan Berber cavalry imported by the Emir of Granada, and which were to feature prominently in the border actions between Granada and Castile in the fourteenth century; on the other hand, light cavalry – especially in the form of mounted municipal levies – were a perennial component in Iberian armies.²¹

II.3. Signals

In warfare, signals are an important means by which commanders communicate with their troops. In the noise of battle, mere voice is insufficient to communicate effectively, so commanders use visual signs or sounds which, due to their pitch or volume, carry further and overcome the general level of noise.²²

The Siete Partidas does not deal with sound signals, but Laws 12-15 of Title XXIII specify not only the different types of banners that may be used, but also those which must be used, where each type of banner indicates the size of the respective unit. At the same time, only the correct, permitted banners may be shown in order to avoid visual clutter and prevent the dilution of the information conveyed by the banners.²³

II.4. Other General Principles of Warfare

Title XXIII is lengthy, comprising thirty laws, and deals with general principles of war- fare: supplies and logistics, foraging, field tactics, sieges, organisation of the army on the march, reconnaissance, set pieces such as ambushes, and so on. To a very large extent, the subject matter finds its parallels in Vegetius, but it is not lifted from Vegetius. While all of these issues deserve closer investigation for their own merit, space does not permit a comprehensive treatment.

Not all issues dealt with here, however, are found in Vegetius; the discussions on the types of war (just war, unjust war, civil war, internecine war) in the introduction to the title and Law 1, for example, are peculiar to medieval literature. ²⁴ Similarly, the discussion on who should be appointed general is not found in Vegetius. According to the Siete Partidas, a general (cabdillo) should have one of three qualities, either one of which justifies his appointment: he should have lineage (linaje), or power (poderio), or wisdom (sabiduria), with the latter being the most meritorious.²⁵ However, these issues lie outside the battlefield, and so outside the focus of this article. Also not found in Vegetius are the battlefield formations.

III. BATTLEFIELD FORMATIONS

If general military literature is rare in the mid-thirteenth century, then details on the battlefield formations of the time are rarer still. The Roman literature that has survived – especially Vegetius – does not deal with formations, and the literature that does, like Asclepiodotus, Arrian, or Aelianus, was not in circulation in Latin Europe until the sixteenth century.²⁶ This is not the place to discuss why this may have been so, but the fact remains that the Siete Partidas is a rare source for specifics on battlefield formations.²⁷

III.1. Formation Types

The relevant discussion is contained in Title XXIII, Law 16; there is no systematic differentiation within foot formations and mounted formations, but the text allows for the distinction between the two types.

Law 16 lists the following formations:

· Haz, literally a bunch, compare Latin fasces, but here meant as ‘line’; compare French la haie, a hedge. Scott translates it as ‘rank’.

· Muela, millstone, a rounded square (carro redondo).

· Cuneo, wedge, see below.

· Muro, wall, a dense, square formation.

· Cerca or corral, a hollow, enclosure-like formation, also see below.

· Acitara, a wing, intended to protect the flanks, and to outflank an opposing formation.

· Tropel, literally a herd, translated by Scott as ‘troop’, simply refers to an assemblage of men, without defining their formation or number.²⁸

The commandants are instructed to familiarise themselves with these formations, so that they themselves can put them to use, and to know which ones to apply against a given enemy formation.²⁹

From the text, the millstone, the wall, and the corral are intended as infantry formations; the advantage of the millstone is that it has no flank, the entire formation makes a front against the enemy.

The muro and corral are described as follows:

E el muro fizieron para quando viessen los enemigos, que pudiessen meter todo lo suyo en medio para tener lo en saluo, porque non gelo pusiessen desbaratar, nin forçar. Esto vsauan, quando los Reyes auian a auer batalla los vnos con otros, que dexaua los vnos para guarder la compaña del rastro de la hueste, assi como sobredicho es, e los otros yuan a lidiar. E corral, o cerca, fazian para guardar sus Reyes, que estouiessen en saluo. E esto fazian, de omes de pie, que los parauan en tres hazes, unos empos de otros, et atauan los a los pies, por que non se pudiessen yr, e fazian les tener los cuentos de las lanças fincados en tierra, e las cuchillas endereçadas contra los enemigos, e ponian cabe ellos piedras, o dardos, o ballestas, o arcos con que pudiessen tirar et defender se de lueñe. E esto fazian por tener honrrado su Señor, que los enemigos non pudiessen llegar a el; ni le fazer mal, …³⁰

Two of the formations, the haz tendida and the cuneo, are explicitly mentioned as meant for cavalry: ‘las hazes tendidas, fizieron, por que paresciessen mejor en ellas los caualleros, et se muestran por mas delo que son, que es cosa que faze a la mala gente tomar mayor espanto, e vencer se mas ayna’. ³¹ The formation also allows an envelopment of the opposing formation.³²

The ‘wedge’ (cuneo) is also an explicitly cavalry formation, and its structure and purpose are likewise specified:

E la otra manera que llaman cuneo fue sacada, por que quando las hazes delos enemigos fuessen fuertes et espessas que las podiessen romper, e departir, e vencer, mas ayna. Ca desta guise vencen los pocos a los muchos. E deue ser fecha desta guisa, poniendo primeramente delante tres caualleros, e a las espaldas dellos seys, et empos de los seys, doze, e empos destos, veynte e quatro, et assi doblando los, e cresciendolos toda via, segun fuere la compaña. Pero si la gente fuesse poca, bien podrian fazer la delantera de vno, e de si doblar de dos e de quatro, segund la manera que desuso diximos.³³

The formations specific to the infantry come across as static, while those for the cavalry imply movement. Another formation that implies movement, the acitara or ‘wing’, could refer to infantry or cavalry.

In general, cavalry should take care, when attacking infantry, not to charge entrenched enemies, or those on high or broken ground, but should draw them out into the open plain where the cavalry’s advantages can be brought to bear.³⁴

III.2. Comparison with Other Sources

Most of the battle formations found in the Siete Partidas – for example line or square – are so basic and generic that their appearances in later texts or uses on the battlefield do not justify an argument about sources or a continuing influence of the Siete Partidas.

A possible exception, however, is in Giles of Rome’s de regimine principum, written probably between 1277 and 1281, so not long after – if not contemporary with – the Siete Partidas. In the final part, on warfare, he first refers to Vegetius’ injunctions to practice evolutions, but also to the circle, triangle (wedge), and square formations, formations which (other than the wedge) do not appear in Vegetius. Giles’ text is an odd mix; some parts are theoretical and surely impractical (and different from the instructions in the Siete Partidas), such as when he says that a wedge is easily formed by drawing a diagonal across the square and remarrying the halves.³⁵ On the other hand, his rationales for the uses of the formations are tactically more accurate, echoing the Siete Partidas, but are not copied from it.

The muela appears to be the Flemish foot formation used successfully against the French at the battle of Arques (1303), as described in the Annales Gandenses, and called therein a corona (‘circlet’ or ‘crown’). In said circumstance, the Flemish were unable to field cavalry, so an infantry formation that could not be outflanked by the strong French cavalry made tactical sense.³⁶

References to a line cavalry formation, and the risk of envelopment, can be found with William the Breton relating the arrangement of the battleline for Bouvines (1215), which predates the Siete Partidas, where the French cavalry is told ‘Campus amplus est; extendite vos per campum directe, ne hostes vos intercludant’.³⁷ Similarly, in Jan van Heelu’s verse epic on the 1288 battle of Worringen (or Woeringen), one of the formations discussed is the line, though in this specific case an alternative tactic proved successful. In van Heelu, the line formation is referred to as one being used in a tournament context.³⁸

The Siete Partidas’ wedge (cuneo) is quite specific, and specifically a cavalry formation; it also hearkens back to formations described in the manuals of antiquity. But the ‘wedge’ is rarely mentioned in medieval literature, and even where an author uses the Latin word cuneus, for instance, the context regularly shows that the author merely intended to refer to a dense array, not a wedge-shaped, battlefield attack formation.³⁹

An unequivocal reference to a cavalry wedge, however, is found in Erhard Schürstab’s description of the battle at Pillenreuth in 1450, where Nuremberg’s cavalry defeated the cavalry of Albrecht Achilles, Margrave of Brandenburg. ⁴⁰ Schürstab painstakingly describes the structure of the formation; if it had been a common military feature he could have contented himself with the statement that the respective cavalries were set up in a wedge, and in any event, the structure of Schürstab’s wedge is different from the one described in the Siete Partidas.

Fernão Lopes’ description of the battle of Aljubarrota (1385), on the other hand, is intriguing.⁴¹ The victory is seminal for Portuguese national identity, and it is common ground that it pitted a numerically overwhelming Castilian attacker against a small Portuguese force reinforced by English longbowmen. ⁴² The interesting feature of the Portuguese disposition – for the purposes of this article – is the following formation around the king:

Traz esta reguarda havia um espaçoso curral onde estava a carriagem, s. pagens, cavallos, azemulas, mantimento, gente de serventia e todas outras cousas que mister fazem pera a ordenança de uma hoste, e estes eram todos cercados de homens de pé e bésteiros, de geito que nas espaldas da reguarda e em esta carriage nenhum não podia topar pera fazer damno, que todo não achasse apercibido.⁴³

This precisely reflects the description of the muro and corral in the Siete Partidas, though there is no mention of the men being tied together.

Lopes wrote at least a century after the compilation of the Siete Partidas, and he wrote for the Portuguese defenders, while the Siete Partidas was the governing text for the Castilian attackers. Nevertheless, the Siete Partidas was known in Portugal, and partial Portuguese versions do survive, including passages from the second Partida, though the chapters discussed in this article are not evident in the witnesses.⁴⁴ Still, the Siete Partidas would have been known, and either way, it is not fanciful to see a common Iberian tradition in both the Siete Partidas and Lopes’ narrative, which remains as an artefact even if Lopes’ story is based on verisimilitude and traditions of wise military command rather than fact. Of course, the concept of a baggage train protected by troops is a regular feature of battle narratives, but both the explicit mention of the hollow square and the congruence in the vocabulary, to my mind, argue that more than coincidence is at play.

IV. BOOTY, RANSOMS, AND SPOILS

IV.1. Noble Largesse and Sources of Income

A distinctive mark of nobility was largesse – the liberality of the knight is a staple of the chansons de geste and courtly literature in general.⁴⁵ At the same time, medieval nobility were severely restricted in the sources of income that were status-compatible; pedestrian activities such as trades or crafts involving manual labour were off-limits, nor could they be trader ‘boxwallahs’ or engage in manufacturing, never mind how lucrative. Status- compatible income could be derived from rents from fiefs, principally from land, which tended to be fairly stable but meagre. Short of marrying into it, though, ‘real money’ could only be made from fighting by winning booty, ransoms, or spoils.⁴⁶

The Siete Partidas spends a remarkable amount of space on this issue proper in Titles XXVI (Spoils of War – thirty-four laws) and XXVII (War Prizes – ten laws), and even more if one takes into account the related issues of reparations (Title XXV – five laws), captives and captive property (Title XXIX – twelve laws), and redemption of captives (Title XXX – three laws) .⁴⁷

IV.2. Rules on Spoils

Title XXVI addresses the following issues:

· Premature looting – Laws 1-3 emphasise that looting must not commence until the victory is truly won; too often a supposedly victorious army focuses on pillage and the inevitable squabbles, thus rendering itself vulnerable to a resurgent enemy. In the same vein, all who participated in the success should share in it, especially any detachment sent to pursue and harass the fleeing enemy, but also sentries, scouts, and spies; they should not suffer any detriment from being absent from the looting or the battlefield itself.

· Prohibitions from booty-taking – In the context of insurrections, the taking of booty is prohibited, as is the taking of prisoners for ransom or sale, or the mutilation of prisoners or the dead (Laws 16 and 17). The Siete Partidas is concerned about maintaining civic peace, and not complicating an already tense and fraught situation by allowing the populace to be despoiled, or to inject an opportunity for gain at the cost of another subject, which would only generate further grievances that might make re-establishing peace and reconciliation more difficult.

· King’s share – The king is entitled to a share of 20% of the booty consisting of moveable property; the immovable property – towns, castles, palaces, capital ships – as well as the captured enemy commander, his wife or wives, and children, o r other high-value captives, all belonged to the king by right of prerogative.⁴⁸ If the king had personally provided the supplies for a raid, then 50% of the proceeds were his.

· The regular 20% royal cut applies to booty won in all manner of altercations, whether ‘en fazienda, o en lid, o en caualgada, o en torneo, o en espolonada, o en algara, o en celada […]’.⁴⁹ The cut is of the gross movable booty, before deducting the compensations for wounds, restor (the restaurum or restauro equorum, the compensation for horses lost in service), and other costs.

· Exemptions from the king’s share – It is not surprising that a royal collection of laws would seek to ensure the king’s cut, but some situations expressly exclude it; these are mentioned in Laws 8 and 18, and the latter law, regarding the booty from wartime jousts and from tournaments, is dealt with separately below.

· Compensations, restor, etc. – Title XXV (comprising five laws) deals with the entitlement to compensation for death or injury, or loss of horses or equipment; to enable just compensation to be made, a detailed inventory of the appraised values of the horses and equipment shall be recorded before taking the field.⁵⁰ Title XXVI Law 20 directs that once all the booty has been collected, first the king’s share is deducted, and then the officers’ compensations are paid. The rest is then divided.

· Division of the spoils – The remainder of Title XXVI, representing the bulk of the text, is preoccupied with the minutiae of guarding the spoils, ensuring a fair realisation of the value (by auction), and a fair distribution among all.

IV.3. Tournaments and Wartime Jousts

In what follows, I shall depart from Scott’s translation of torneo as ‘tournament’, and instead use ‘wartime joust’ – ‘tournament’, understood as a peacetime organised compe- tition, would be torneamiento,⁵¹ and ‘wartime joust’ fits better with the definition of torneo advanced in Title XXVI, Law 18: ‘Torneo que se bolviesse de dos huestes que estuuiesse vna cabo otra, o de los que tuuiesen cercado villa o castillo con aquellos que fuessen dentro’.⁵²

By way of differentiation, the same law defines the peacetime tournament proper: ‘… torneamiento que se faze, por razon de vsar las armas e non por matarse, nin por otra enemistad, que los omes ouiessen vnos con otros’.⁵³ In these ‘friendly’ jousts, there is no sharing of the booty and no obligation to pay the king’s share; whoever takes ransoms depends on the agreed rules of the tournament, and there is a presumption that the winner of a joust will receive the horse of the vanquished.⁵⁴ If it is a judicial duel, again the winner is solely entitled to the spoils. Since these are not strictly military situations, however, the subject shall not be further investigated.⁵⁵

‘Joust’ can be understood as a lance-on-lance action in battle, as already suggested by William of Malmesbury, who writes of the battle of Lincoln 1141 that ‘tentavere primo regii proludium pugnae facere, quod Justam vocant, quia tali periti erant arte’.⁵⁶

In the cases of the predatory excursion and the wartime jousts, the spoils are not just exempt from the king’s share, but each individual should keep what he won, without any obligation to share with anyone. The rationale given is that the individuals act on their commander’s orders, and expose themselves to greater personal risk away from the safety of the army.

Along with the predatory excursion (espolonada), wartime jousts and tournaments proper present an interesting situation. There is a clear contradiction between Law 5 of Title XXVI, which explicitly says that the king’s share is applied to spoils won in such events, and Law 18 of the same title, which says they are (mostly) exempt from the king’s share. The contradiction is likely the result of different jurists drafting the different sections.

IV.4. Equipment Quality and Levels of Compensation

Title XXV (comprising five laws) deals with compensation, mainly for injury or death suffered in action.⁵⁷ However, the loss of animals (particularly horses and mules) and kit was also compensated (Law 4), and to ensure fairness, the laws required all animals and equipment to be appraised at the beginning of the campaign; this involved a considerable amount of clerical effort, but one evidently thought worthwhile since the prospect of fair compensation encouraged the fighters to put their high-quality equipment at risk.⁵⁸

Another device to encourage fighters to present themselves well kitted out is in Title XXVI, Law 28: the better the fighter’s equipment, the greater his share of the booty.⁵⁹ A full share is (somewhat confusingly) called a caualleria.⁶⁰ The passage also throws a light on the arms and armour of the time.⁶¹ Remarkably, the focus of the provision is on defensive arms.⁶²

The Partidas helpfully offers a (partial) glossary of the terms: the loriga, or standard mail hauberk, is not explained, and is presumably a short-sleeved, thigh-length mail armour.⁶³ A lorigon is a suit of armour where the sleeves come to the elbow, and do not reach the hand; a camisote is one where the sleeves extend to the hand. A guardabraço has sleeves.

The law’s rules are here listed in full, as they provide an interesting glimpse of the arms and armour of the time as well as what combinations were considered sufficient protection; furthermore, Scott’s translation is not always persuasive, and occasionally requires clarification. Note especially the horse loriga; both Christian and Muslim Iberian cavalry were early adopters of horse armour:⁶⁴

· An individual mustering with horse, sword, and lance: entitled to one share.

· Horse’s coat of mail (loriga de cauallo): an additional share.⁶⁵

· Coat of mail complete with coif (loriga complida con almofar): one share.⁶⁶

· Complete rerebraces (upper arm protection) which buckle on (brafoneras complidas, que se cingan): half share.

· Lorigon, shield and iron cap: one share.⁶⁷

· Lorigon with sleeves that reach to the wrists, with rerebraces: one share.

· Camisote and perpunte (pourpoint, a quilted jacket or gambeson worn under the armour): one share.

· Guardabraços with pourpoint and iron cap: one share.

· Armour plates (fojas) with iron cap: one share.⁶⁸

· Complete armour plates and extensive mail (fojas complidas co mangas fasta la mano, e lorigon fasta el cobdo, con faldas de loriga): one share.⁶⁹

· Mounted crossbowman with his crossbow, with string and auancuerda, with his belt and quiver with a hundred quarrels or more: one share, and for his arms and horse as stated above.⁷⁰

· Crossbowman on foot with his crossbow and full gear as defined: one share.

· Infantryman with spear: half share.⁷¹

· Horse, other riding or pack animal: half share.

· Donkey-like animals: half a foot soldier’s share (media peonia).⁷²

The commanding officer (cabdillo) is entitled to double his regular share, in addition to the special allocations mentioned elsewhere, and the same applies as a rule to the other officers (adalid).⁷³

IV.5.The Tactical Function of Spoils Regulation

The question of ransoms, booty, and spoils is certainly not absent from the witnesses of the time – and there is no dearth of instances, in fact or fiction, where disagreements over the division of the spoils cause strife.⁷⁴ But apart from ransom as an aspect of the courtly tournament or battle ransoms, the administrative aspects of the question mostly receive short shrift in academic literature.⁷⁵

Beyond the issues of income, effective regulation of the division of the spoils also has a tactical aspect – an army that focuses on plundering before the victory is secured may well endanger its success, as they are not attentive to an enemy rallying, and are in no position to resist should that happen.⁷⁶ In Conradin’s defeat at Tagliacozzo in 1268, for example, the Stauffen – commanded by Henry of Castile – were initially successful, but scattered to plunder, and so fell victim to the rallying forces of Charles I of Anjou.⁷⁷ It may be notable that Conradin’s forces were a mixed bunch who may not have trusted in a fair distribution of the booty and so moved to secure what they could. By painstakingly laying out the entitlements and the process, the Siete Partidas provided all participants reassurance of a fair share, even if their orders took them away from the battlefield.⁷⁸

IV.6. Spoils, Largesse, and Arms

Liberality is generally a mark of nobility, but while the king has the resources of his realm at his disposal (and his treasury benefits from a preferential 20% cut of the loot, over and above his prerogatives), the knight first has to earn what he gives away. This is a recurring theme in Joanot Martorell’s Tirant lo Blanc.⁷⁹ His capacity to be generous is a direct result of his fighting prowess.

Some attention must also be paid to what is given: a lord giving his followers arms, armour, warhorses, or tack is not merely giving things of value but tools of the military trade that will make the recipient more effective by improving his equipment or enabling him to field more and better armed retainers (and the better they are equipped, the greater their booty entitlement).⁸⁰ A modern officer being promoted to lead a larger unit is not made a gift of the additional materiel; the commander expects the officer to use the additional resources effectively, and so play a greater role in securing the next victory. Similarly, compensation for lost arms is not merely compensation for the value lost, but designed to restore the knight to his fighting effectiveness.

William Marshal grew rich through peacetime tournament winnings, but his biographer also highlights Marshal’s first battle, where he proves himself resourceful and courageous.⁸¹ Marshal dictated his memoires in his eighties and the event would have happened in his late teens or early twenties, so it must have been seared in his memory.

At the feast after the victory, to which Marshal is acknowledged to have contributed, and in front of everyone, Marshal is still ridiculed by one of the senior knights because he not only failed to secure any spoils and so is unable to make gifts, but he lost the horse he had been given to boot. It is probably significant that the gift asked for is a minor strap from a horse harness.⁸²One must assume that Marshal’s superiors did not feel that he deserved to be entrusted with more military kit, as he spent the next months in professional limbo until one of his old officers took pity on him and gave him another chance.⁸³

By casting the issues of compensation and booty share into legislation, the Siete Partidas establishes a regime that seeks to be fair to all and promote military effectiveness, as exemplified by the provisions that also include in the booty-sharing units performing militarily important functions away from the battlefield. Compensation and booty share are emphatically not a royal gift, but the legal entitlement of all fighting men.⁸⁴

IV.7. The Siete Partidas and Geoffroi de Charny’s demandes

In the context of the knightly imperative to win spoils, the privileging of wartime jousts provides a gloss on one of the more knotty demandes raised by Geoffroi de Charny in 1351; in his question G10 in the demandes pour la guerre, a cavalry squadron is patrolling outside the walls of a besieged city. The commandant has given the explicit order not to leave the formation. A mounted force of the besiegers sallies out and offers jousts, which some from the patrol take up, in defiance of their orders. The question is whether those from the patrol who lose their horses in the process should be entitled to restor.⁸⁵

To the modern military mind, it seems bizarre that there would even be a question. Indeed, de Charny does not answer any of his demandes, and his response in this case may well have been no. But it is telling that for de Charny, the only issue open to debate is the granting of restor to the unhorsed. There is no question about punishing those who disobeyed, or depriving those who won spoils of their gains.⁸⁶ Reading the two texts in conjunction, though, a three-part argument for restor comes to mind:

· Firstly, the commander of a knightly unit was essentially a primus inter pares; he held leadership, but not command, and may well have been socially inferior to the individuals nominally under him.⁸⁷

· Secondly, a knight was under an imperative to win spoils; that the lord had to offer the opportunity for material gain was part of the equilibrium of a military constitution under which the knight was responsible for supplying his own horse, arms, armour, and retainers, was dependent on the income from spoils, and risked his life, limb, and property on behalf of the lord.

· Thirdly, the situation confronting de Charny’s knights was an explicitly privileged one. By depriving the knight of the opportunity for gain, the commandant was, to some extent, violating the implied contract between the knight and the war-making lord, which in turn justified the demand for restor.

V. SUMMARY AND OUTLOOK

V.1. Summary

The Siete Partidas was compiled at a time when Alfonso X was faced with the task of consolidating the phenomenal gains made by his father, Fernando III. It forms part of a legislative programme that also encompassed the standardisation of fueros, the municipal charters that constituted the various towns’ civilian government and militia organisation. Like so many attempts by medieval princes at imposing legislation, the Siete Partidas was a mix of restatement of the status quo, of justification of royal power and prerogative, and of not always successful programmatic ambition – the various feudatories defended their acquis tenaciously.⁸⁸

V.2. The Cities and Their Fueros

As Powers shows, the city militias were an important military element in the Christian Iberian kingdoms’ Reconquista, both in aggressive expeditionary warfare, as well as in the defence in depth of territory once conquered. The provisions in the Partidas regarding spoils, for example, largely reflect the tenor of the fueros, though the crown was also keen on slanting the rules to its benefit. But the cities also used their military might to jockey for power amongst each other, or in opposition to the crown. In the Partidas’ passages on the promotion of commoner commanders to noble rank, or in the fuero provisions where the crown exempts city-resident knights from municipal militia service, the crown is clearly seeking to weaken the cities’ nuisance value by securing the allegiance of the militarily important knightly class.⁸⁹

V.3. The Siete Partidas, Its Sources, and Influence

For other subject matters treated in the Partidas, it is difficult to identify precedents – the battlefield formations are a case in point. It is sometimes tempting to see a direct link, but on the basis of the current stage of research, the evidence is too tenuous and there are simply not enough unambiguous witnesses. Still, the provisions set out are eminently practical; they deal with the tools of command, military organisation, and equipment of the time. ⁹⁰ We can therefore confidently state that they were not antiquarian, and though the ‘ancients’ are, one may say, ritually invoked, there is very little evidence that the work’s compilers uncritically lifted text from classical authors.

Whether it influenced later writers or practitioners is also hard to confirm; the Partidas can be recognised in battle descriptions from a variety of sources, and where it appears in other literature, such as in Giles of Rome, there are obvious parallels, but also too much difference to suggest a direct relationship. Either way, the provisions were in the mainstream of contemporary thought, so barring any direct evidence, attributing a formative influence on later writings must remain speculative. The obvious parallels do suggest, though, that there was a common military tradition.

This parallelism, however, does not necessarily imply textual transmission, and given the disparity in time and place of the witnesses, such transmission appears unlikely to have been the sole conduit, if at all. The knowledge must therefore have (also) been spread through two other, not mutually exclusive avenues: on one hand by word of mouth, as lore passed down from senior knights to junior knights and squires during their long years of education.⁹¹ On the other hand, knights tended to travel and attach themselves to various, geographically dispersed lords and rulers, and could have spread the knowledge in that way; coalition military ventures like the Crusades also offered a forum for the creation of an unité de doctrine.

The rules on distribution of spoils raise a different issue; the Siete Partidas sets out the relevant legislation for Castile – but did other realms have corresponding legislation, and if so, what were the rules? Were they reliably enforced? Rules obviously existed else- where; Andrew Ayton refers to the changing practices for fourteenth-century England and Aldo Settia refers to numerous sources for Italy, but does not find a consistent set of rules or practice.⁹² It would be interesting to see a more detailed comparison between rules.

V.4. Mechanics for the Financial Aspects of Warfare for Its Participants

Finally, the Siete Partidas highlights an aspect of medieval warfare that is rarely investigated in academic literature: while the centrality of the financial element of warfare, especially as it relates to the caballeros, the knights or lower nobility, as well as its fiscal aspects, is regularly remarked upon, the detailed mechanics receive little attention. The chansons may gloss over the grubby aspects of acceptable profiteering but as a legal and practical text, the Siete Partidas deals with it matter-of-factly and embedsit into a matrix of legal entitlements, distinctions, and administrative process.

This article has narrowly focused on selected provisions of the second Partida relating to land battles. The earlier titles of this Partida, which also receive more attention in modern academic literature, deal with royal government in general, with links to the status of knights treated in the titles referenced here. Naval warfare has been omitted from this article and there was not the space to discuss the Partidas’ pronouncements on just war, or the off-battlefield tactical and organisational instructions, all of which have received relatively little notice. Also, on the basis that Iberian dynasties occupied numerous European thrones, and that Spanish armies were active across the continent, did the Siete Partidas leave any traces there? Considering the accessibility and practical relevance of the source, the comparative lack of attention is surprising.

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Notes