The Crusader Clancy

As I am pulling together a fighting kit I thought it would be a good idea to pick an era so that I can pull together a historically accurate set of arms and armour. So to do this I felt I should give my knight a story. He is Irish, a Clancy as you can tell from the arms, two lions gules on a field argent, regardant passant.

He was born in 1200 AD and at the age of 7 he was fostered to a McNamara family. The McNamara’s were the military arm of the Dalcassian Sept, and the Clancy’s were hereditary Brehons to the O’Brien clan, the senior clan of the sept. Fostering was a common practice in medieval Ireland which helped build relationships between clans. George R. R. Martin captures this culture in Game of Thrones. King Robert and Ned Stark build their friendship when they are fostered to Jon Arryn in the Eyrie.

My knight’s foster father has just returned from the disaster that was the 4th Crusade. He was held prisoner on an island in the Lido in Venice while the Venetians sought to squeeze the crusaders for every penny they could raise. When the money was not enough Doge Dandolo used the crusaders to raid Christian Cities, culminating in the sack of the Queen of Cities, Constantinople.

John McNamara returns from Constantinople a bitter and disillusioned man with a lifelong hatred of Venetians. He believes the only way to shrive himself of the sins committed by the 4th crusade is to return to Outremer on a proper crusade. He will only sail with the Knightly orders or the Genoese, never on a Venetian galley.

In 1218 John takes the 18 year old Donal on the 5th crusade as his squire. John is no knight, he serves as man at arms but takes vows with the Templars. When they reach Acre they join the fleet on its way to Damietta in Egypt. At the siege of Damietta it looks like the crusaders are going to be defeated by the well defended walls. But the John tells the Templar Knights how the Franks breached the walls of Constantinople by building ramps on the mastheads of ships and lowering them across the city towers. At Damietta the Crusaders modify the technique by tying two ships together and constructing a siege tower across their mastheads. The city is taken and John is fêted for bringing the winning strategy.

The young squire has a knack for languages and picks up enough Arabic to negotiate with the local traders. He gains a reputation for getting a better deal in the markets that serve the camp and gains some good friends as a result.

As the year drags on sickness strikes the camp in Damietta and sadly John McNamara becomes victim to a bloody flux. After his funeral Pierre de Montagut, Grand Master of the Templars, arranges for Donal to be knighted and he is presented with a fine set of arms and armour. Never personally under vows he is released to return to Ireland.

Nine years later, when the sixth crusade is being assembled Clancy is living in Clare, and is married with two children. He has modest lands and a run of bad luck finds him in debt to the monastery in Kilcarragh which is a Hospitaller house. The abbot proposes that Clancy join the crusade in exchange for his debts being pardoned. So he boards a hospitaller ship which brings a mixed group of hospitaller knights, freelance knights like Clancy and men at arms to the assembly point at Brindisi. There they meet up with a large group of English Knights in the companies of the Bishops of Exeter and Winchester. They sail together to Cyprus and on to Acre.

The sixth crusade is marked as a success of negotiations rather than battles, and makes up for the disasters of the fourth and fifth crusades. Clancy with the rustiness taken off his Arabic, has impressed the Bishop of Exeter, William Briwere as a translator and negotiator and is taken into his household guard. His clothing, arms and armour are upgraded. He secures enough funds to purchase silks and spices which, when sold back in Ireland, make him a modestly wealthy man.

Back in Ireland he extends his power by enlarging and enriching his lands. He invests in local businesses and they tend to do quite well. If a customer is slow to pay their debts the arrival of a fully armed and armoured knight backed up by a couple of sergeants and a half dozen kerns has a lubricating effect on tight purse strings.

Bishop Briwere commends Clancy to Richard, the Earl of Cornwall, the richest man in Western Europe. When Richard declares his intention to join the Barons’ Crusade in 1240 Clancy is offered a position as Banneret Knight in charge of a company. His experience of two crusades and his seniority work in his favour. He brings his second son, Gavin, now 14 years old, to train him as a squire. His older son Jeremiah remains home to hold the fort for his father’s return. Richard Cornwall leads yet another crusade of negotiation. Prisoner exchanges and the reconstruction of defences make it another successful crusade. With almost fluent Arabic and a good knowledge of Islamic customs, gift giving and outright bribery the Banneret Knight builds himself a tidy nest egg.

Clancy returns to County Clare, now a very wealthy Knight. He is able to expand his lands and construct a secure fortified house in the Norman style. He retires to a quiet life and from time to time dresses up in his knightly garb and entertains American tourists in Bunratty Castle with tales of his knightly exploits.

Authentic great helms were introduced early in the 13th Century and by 1240 it was common to have a rounded top which better deflects a blow. Also the piercing of the face plate became more common, helping knights to breathe in the heat of summer in the Holy Land. The two crosses at the bottom of the face plate identify the wearer as a Christian knight.

I will do further research on the kit of a knight assembled between 1227 and 1240 and make sure my other pieces sit in this time period.

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Teutonic Order

In terms of fame the Teutonic order of Knights tend to come third after the Templars and the Hospitallers.  Certainly in the Crusades of the Holy Lands they maintained only a modest presence.

The key focus for the Teutonics was the pagan tribes of the Baltic in the areas now populated by Poles, Lithuanians, Latvians, Estonians, Russians and Finns.  Their mission was to bring these peoples to God and they did this at the point of a lance.

Understandably the Baltic tribes did not just lie down and accept their fate.  The Northern Crusades were long, drawn out, bitter affairs.  Progress was measured in yards.  Campaigning was possible in the normal Spring/Summer season when grass was available to feed horses.  In a quirk of climate much of the fighting took place in the winter.  Frozen rivers and lakes in this area of the world make veritable highways through the dense forest and scrub.

So it was that in the winter of 1336 a force of Teutonic Knights besieged the Samotigian hill fort of Pilénai.  Accounts hold it that the defenders of the fort alone numbered 4,000 not counting women and children.  The Teutonic Knights must have numbered many thousands because the inhabitants of Pilénai realised that they could not defend themselves from the besieging army.

In a grand gesture of defiance the Lithuanians set fire to their own fort to deny it to the Crusaders.  Then, on this day, Feb 25th 1336, they committed what is the largest mass suicide in history.

 

A Song of Suicide; by Robert William Service

Deeming that I were better dead,
“How shall I kill myself?” I said.
Thus mooning by the river Seine
I sought extinction without pain,
When on a bridge I saw a flash
Of lingerie and heard a splash . . .
So as I am a swimmer stout
I plunged and pulled the poor wretch out.

The female that I saved? Ah yes,
To yield the Morgue of one corpse the less,
Apart from all heroic action,
Gave me a moral satisfaction.
was she an old and withered hag,
Too tired of life to long to lag?
Ah no, she was so young and fair
I fell in love with her right there.

And when she took me to her attic
Her gratitude was most emphatic.
A sweet and simple girl she proved,
Distraught because the man she loved
In battle his life-blood had shed . . .
So I, too, told her of my dead,
The girl who in a garret grey
Had coughed and coughed her life away.

Thus as we sought our griefs to smother,
With kisses we consoled each other . . .
And there’s the ending of my story;
It wasn’t grim, it wasn’t gory.
For comforted were hearts forlorn,
And from black sorrow joy was born:
So may our dead dears be forgiving,
And bless the rapture of the living.

 

Sciberras Peninsula

Capture of Fort St Elmo by Matteo Perez d’Aleccio

Valetta was founded on this day in the year 1566 on the Sciberras Peninsula in Malta.  The foundation stone for the City was laid by the eponymous Grand Master of the Knights Hospitaller Order, Jean de Valette.

It is fitting that the Maltese capital should be named after Valette.  It was he who commanded the defence of the Island against the Turkish invasion the previous year.  A force of only 500 knights and about 2,000 soldiers defended the island against an invading force of Turks and Algerians numbering between 30,000 and 50,000.

The defending force withstood 4 months of constant frontal attacks by elite Turkish troops and endured a relentless barrage from the Turkish cannon.  They rebuilt walls even as they were destroyed.

It was one of the greatest and most uplifting victories in history.  It is one of three great battles that stemmed the expansion of the Ottoman Empire; the others being the Siege of Vienna and Lepanto.

Valetta was built upon the ruins of Fort St Elmo, which was lost to the Turks in the siege.  The small star shaped fort was reduced to rubble by Turkish guns within a week of their arrival.  Still, it held out for two incredible months, the defenders fighting for every scrap of stone with every drop of their blood.  St Elmo took the lives of 6,000 Turkish attackers, and half of the elite Janissary force.

Farewell to Malta; by Lord Byron

Adieu, ye joys of La Valette!
Adieu, sirocco, sun, and sweat!
Adieu, thou palace rarely enter’d!
Adieu, ye mansions where I’ve ventured!
Adieu, ye cursed streets of stairs!
(How surely he who mounts you swears!)
Adieu, ye merchants often failing!
Adieu, thou mob for ever railing!
Adieu, ye packets without letters!
Adieu, ye fools who ape your betters!
Adieu, thou damned’st quarantine,
That gave me fever, and the spleen!
Adieu, that stage which makes us yawn, Sirs,
Adieu, his Excellency’s dancers!
Adieu to Peter–whom no fault’s in,
But could not teach a colonel waltzing;
Adieu, ye females fraught with graces!
Adieu, red coats, and redder faces!
Adieu, the supercilious air
Of all that strut ‘en militaire’!
I go–but God knows when, or why,
To smoky towns and cloudy sky,
To things (the honest truth to say)
As bad–but in a different way.

Farewell to these, but not adieu,
Triumphant sons of truest blue!
While either Adriatic shore,
And fallen chiefs, and fleets no more,
And nightly smiles, and daily dinners,
Proclaim you war and woman’s winners.
Pardon my Muse, who apt to prate is,
And take my rhyme–because ’tis ‘gratis.’

And now I’ve got to Mrs. Fraser,
Perhaps you think I mean to praise her­
And were I vain enough to think
My praise was worth this drop of ink,
A line–or two–were no hard matter,
As here, indeed, I need not flatter:
But she must be content to shine
In better praises than in mine,
With lively air, and open heart,
And fashion’s ease, without its art;
Her hours can gaily glide along,
Nor ask the aid of idle song.

And now, O Malta! since thou’st got us,
Thou little military hothouse!
I’ll not offend with words uncivil,
And wish thee rudely at the Devil,
But only stare from out my casement,
And ask, for what is such a place meant?
Then, in my solitary nook,
Return to scribbling, or a book,
Or take my physic while I’m able
(Two spoonfuls hourly by the label),
Prefer my nightcap to my beaver,
And bless the gods I’ve got a fever.

Formigny

Every Englishman knows about Crécy, Poitiers and Agincourt.   These were the great victories of the English over the French in the 100 years war, where the English longbow made the difference between the sides.  The common Englishman was able to slay mounted French knights and steal the victory on the battlefield.

After the victory of Agincourt Henry V established the high watermark of English rule on the continent.  Edward VI was crowned king of both England and France in 1422 on the death of his father.  Edward was 9 months old.  From that high point it all went downhill.

The battle of Formigny ended the presence of England in Normandy with a resounding defeat.  After a successful and sustained campaign by the French to retake Normandy the complete destruction of the English army at Formigny signalled the end of Normandy as an English possession.  It left Calais as the only English foothold in France, which was held until the reign of Bloody Mary Tudor.

Formigny is interesting from a historical perspective, because it laid out the future pattern of battle up until the invention of the rifled musket in the mid-nineteenth century in the US Civil War.

The English at Formigny, three quarters of whom were archers, established a strong defensive position, protected by ditches and stakes.  The French, who had at last learned the lessons of Crécy and Agincourt, did not get drawn into a cavalry charge.

Instead they mounted only sufficient cavalry skirmishes against the flanks of the English to keep them bunched.  They brought up artillery pieces and began to pound the archers from a safe distance.

The English infantry knew that if they remained in position they would be slaughtered by cannon fire.  They presented an easy target in their defensive square.

If they broke formation to escape the cavalry would run them down and rout them in open country.

So they bravely launched a frontal attack on the French and captured the guns.

Before they could retreat and reform an organised defensive position a new force of Breton cavalry appeared on the English flank.  They were charged and in their loose formation became easy pickings for the French knights.

This choreography of defensive square, infantry marching column and firing line evolved over the following years to become the tactics of Napoleonic era armies.  Archers were gradually replaced by musketeers.  Static defensive positions protected by stakes were replaced by mobile pike squares.

As artillery became lighter and more manoeuvrable the defensive squares had to become more agile.  The pike was replaced by the bayonet, providing a far greater concentration of firepower in the squares.

All of this was ordained at Formigny.  But what English man would remember such a day?

Formigny, sounds a bit like Fontenoy!

Fontenoy; by Thomas Osborne Davis

Thrice, at the huts of Fontenoy, the English column failed,
And twice the lines of Saint Antoine the Dutch in vain assailed;
For town and slope were filled with fort and flanking battery,
And well they swept the English ranks and Dutch auxiliary.
As vainly, through De Barri’s wood, the British soldiers burst,
The French artillery drove them back, diminished, and dispersed.
The bloody Duke of Cumberland beheld with anxious eye,
And ordered up his last reserve, his latest chance to try,
On Fontenoy, on Fontenoy, how fast his generals ride!
And mustering come his chosen troops, like clouds at eventide.

II.

Six thousand English veterans in stately column tread;
Their cannon blaze in front and flank, Lord Hay is at their head;
Steady they step a-down the slope–steady they climb the hill;
Steady they load–steady they fire, moving right onward still,
Betwixt the wood and Fontenoy, as through a furnace blast,
Through rampart, trench, and palisade, and bullets showering fast;
And on the open plain above they rose and kept their course,
With ready fire and grim resolve, that mocked at hostile force:
Past Fontenoy, past Fontenoy, while thinner grew their ranks–
They break, as broke the Zuyder Zee through Holland’s ocean banks.

III.

More idly than the summer flies, French tirailleurs rush round;
As stubble to the lava tide, French squadrons strew the ground;
Bomb-shell and grape and round-shot tore, still on they marched
and fired–
Fast from each volley grenadier and voltigeur retired.
‘Push on, my household cavalry!’ King Louis madly cried:
To death they rush, but rude their shock–not unavenged they died.
On through the camp the column trod–King Louis turns his rein:
‘Not yet, my liege,’ Saxe interposed, ‘the Irish troops remain.’
And Fontenoy, famed Fontenoy, had been a Waterloo
Were not these exiles ready then, fresh, vehement, and true.

IV.

‘Lord Clare,’ he says, ‘you have your wish; there are your Saxon foes!’
The Marshal almost smiles to see, so furiously he goes!
How fierce the look these exiles wear, who’re wont to be so gay,
The treasured wrongs of fifty years are in their hearts to-day–
The treaty broken, ere the ink wherewith ’twas writ could dry,
Their plundered homes, their ruined shrines, their women’s parting cry,
Their priesthood hunted down like wolves, their country overthrown–
Each looks as if revenge for all were staked on him alone
On Fontenoy, on Fontenoy, nor ever yet elsewhere,
Rushed on to fight a nobler band than these proud exiles were.

V.

O’Brien’s voice is hoarse with joy, as, halting, he commands
‘Fix bay’nets!–charge!’ Like mountain storm, rush on these fiery bands!
Thin is the English column now, and faint their volleys grow,
Yet, must’ring all the strength they have, they make a gallant show.
They dress their ranks upon the hill to face that battle-wind–
Their bayonets the breakers’ foam; like rocks, the men behind!
One volley crashes from their line, when, through the surging smoke,
With empty guns clutched in their hands, the headlong Irish broke.
On Fontenoy, on Fontenoy, hark to that fierce huzza!
‘Revenge, remember Limerick! dash down the Sacsanach!’

VI.

Like lions leaping at a fold when mad with hunger’s pang,
Right up against the English line the Irish exiles sprang:
Bright was their steel, ’tis bloody now, their guns are filled with
gore;
Through shattered ranks and severed files the trampled flags they
tore;
The English strove with desperate strength, paused, rallied, staggered,
fled–
The green hill-side is matted close with dying and with dead.
Across the plain, and far away, passed on that hideous wrack,
While cavalier and fantassin dash in upon their track.
On Fontenoy, on Fontenoy, like eagles in the sun,
With bloody plumes, the Irish stand–the field is fought and won!

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This site is available for free and I make no money from any ads you see here. If you would like to show your appreciation feel free to leave a comment or you can buy me a coffee! http://buymeacoffee.com/DonalClancy