someone asked you earlier what time of day did the battle of the blackwater take place, which got me thinking there’s probably pros and cons of time of day right? renly and stannis’ battle that didn’t happen was supposed to take place at dawn for the sun advantage, but there’s gotta be a stealth advantage to a night battle, yeah? what’s the real world medieval analogue to this question

There is a stealth advantage, definitely, although there’s a tradeoff in that it’s extremely difficult to coordinate the movement of military units at night and it’s very easy to get lost.

The best historical example of this is the NIght Attack at Târgovişte, masterminded by none other than Vlad Tepes, aka Vlad the Impaler, aka Vlad Dracula.

While formally a subject of the Ottoman Empire – Vlad had been a hostage of the Sultan growing up, had sought refuge in the Empire when his father had been murdered by a usurper, and had twice been backed by the Sultan in invasions of Wallachia to take back the throne – Vlad didn’t want to pay taxes to the Sultan, especially the tax on non-Muslim citizens of the Empire, and rather fancied the idea of ruling Bulgaria, and decided to ram the point home by having tens of thousands of Turks impaled on spikes when he invaded said kingdom.

This naturally angered Mehmed II, who decided to invade Wallachia and annex it to the Ottoman Empire outright – no more half-measures of coddling the local aristos. The war between Vlad and the Ottomans was a brutal counter-insurgency campaign, with the Ottoman’s superior heavy infantry and artillery slowly grinding its way through Wallachian territory while Vlad’s cavalry ambushed them and then retreated, poisoned the wells and food and evacuated the population and livestock, and sent people suffering from tuberculosis, syphilis, and the bubonic plague into the Turkish camp to infect them.

The Night Attack came at the the regional capital of Târgovişte, where the Ottomans were enamped waiting to besiege the city. According to one source, Vlad actually disguised himself as a Turk and walked into the camp looking for the Sultan’s tent – while there, he learned that Mehmet had ordered his soldiers to remain in their tents. Vlad then launched a series of night attacks aimed at killing or capturing the Sultan himself, but got the wrong tent. A chaotic, bloody brawl ensued, and although the Ottoman army was not dislodged and the Wallachians had to withdraw, the combination of casualties and low morale took its toll, and the Turks soon withdrew from Wallachia, although notably both sides would declare victory.

Moral of the story: do not pick a fight with Vlad Tepes unless you’re ready to fight dirty.

Guerrillas

Outside the realm of Robin Hood, is there any basis for a social/guerrilla movement like the Brotherhood Without Banners from actual medieval history, or would we have to look to the post medieval era to find a group as complex and organized as this resisting an overlord?

Social movements? Absolutely. There were a whole host of “peasant uprisings” in the 14th century, from the Battle of Golden Spurs to the Jacquerie revolt of 1358 to the Great Peasant Revolt of 1381.

In the 15th century, you had Jack Cade’s rebellion, and then in the 16th century you had the Bauernkrieg.

These uprisings tended to involve at least some organized groups – craft guilds, local notables and local governments, former mercenaries, John Ball’s “Great Society,” Yorkist sympathizers in Cade’s example, the German peasant haufen which were organized along professional military lines, etc.

Guerrilla tactics? See here.

Hi! Long time fan. Quick question, what’s the difference between a castle and a citadel?

Hi! Glad you’ve been enjoying the work.

Good question!

Citadel is a word that’s used in a slightly confusing fashion when it comes to fortification. For example, citadel can mean a fortress attached to a city (whereas a castle may or may not be attached to a city) that forms the inner defenses, to which an army could retreat to if the city walls fell.

However, a citadel can also be used to describe a part of a castle: another layer of walls between the outer walls and the inner keep. This is, however, a more rare use of the term.

In the medieval world was it illegal for a retainer to go AWOL ? For instance, if the Lannisters ever apprehend Sandor, could they put him on trial for desertion during Blackwater ?

Well, if they held a fiefdom, technically it’s a felony.

But even for those who don’t…

(Royal Responsibility in Anglo-Norman Historical Writing, Emily A. Winkler)

While your note about chainmail under plate armour was informative, I can’t help but wincingly imagine that people sometimes got hit really hard in those flexible places and got rings of chainmail buried in their skin. Do we know much about what kind of injuries knights and similarly armoured fighters sustained in the course of battle?

Well, people did wear heavy quilted gambesons between the chainmail and their skin, but yes, having chainmail rings driven into someone’s flesh absolutely could and did happen.

As to what kinds of injuries could happen, let me introduce you to a favorite of medieval surgical manuals, the Wound Man:

The Wound Man was supposed to teach surgeons and other medical professionals all the different ways that someone could be injured. To take a quick inventory by body part:

Head: hit by a club, hit by a rock, stabbed by a poinard/misericorde, stabbed by a knife.
Shoulders/arms: slashed by a saber, hit by a rock, shoulder broken by a hammer, elbow broken by a club, hand cut off by a cannonball, hand partially cut off.
Torso: shot with an arrow, stabbed by a javelin, run through with a sword, stabbed by a poinard/misericorde.
Legs: boils, shot with an arrow with the shaft intact, arrowhead left embedded after shaft breaks, leg pierced by a spear, foot stabbed with a spear, treading on a thorn, leg broken by a cannonball.

How did ancient and medieval armies get their horses off their ships?

Great question!

One of the problems that had to be dealt with in medieval warfare was that you had all of these armies where the mounted knight dominated, but if you have to attack somewhere from the sea, you need to take your horses with you.

And so a variety of strategies were used. For example, the Norman Invasion of 1066 involved a flotilla of longships which would land, and then horses would be led off the side of the ship and into the shallows/beach, as seen in the Bayeux tapestry:

And that works well as long as you control the beach-head and have time to get your horses off the ship, get them saddled and so forth, and then distribute them to their waiting riders. It’s not so good if your enemy are right there on the beach and able to disrupt your preparations.

So by the time of the Fourth Crusade, we see specialized horse transports where knights could mount their horses on deck and charge straight off the side of the ship, presumably either via a ramp or gunwales that could be lowered:

And they were quite successful, allowing the Crusaders to surprise the Byzantines with their speed and mobility and seize the vital fortress of Galata, which guarded the northern end of the boom chain that protected Constantinople’s Golden Horn. With the boom chain down, Venetian galleys could sail into the Golden Horn and launch amphibious attacks against the city’s less formidable northern walls.

how much more usefull would being made of valyrian steel make axes, hammers, spears and halberds?

The main thing that makes Valyrian steel better is that it’s lighter, stronger, and sharper than ordinary steel. So it’s going to be better with weapons that take advantage of those properties:

Axes: the sharper part will certainly help the axe improve its ability to cut into things, and the stronger part will prevent the axe-head from breaking but that’s pretty rare. The lightness thing doesn’t help – axes want weight behind them so that all that momentum gets channeled by the wedge of the blade to a point.
Hammers: Same thing that goes for axes wrt to lightness goes doubly for hammers. The less a hammer weighs, the less impact it has. However, the sharper part will help with the pick end of the warhammer. Overall, not really a good idea.
Spear: Think of a spear as a sword blade on a stick and you begin to see why a Valyrian spearhead would be very handy – lighter spears make it easier to fight longer or to throw the spear, sharper spears make it easier to puncture shields and armor, harder spears won’t break or bend when they hit something. Now, as with the axe, there is an issue that doesn’t crop up with swords: spears and axes are on wooden hafts, which can break or be cut through and then you’re screwed. However, if you have enough metal for a Valyrian steel shaft, then you’ve got something really special.
Halberd: as discussed before, a halberd is basically a Swiss army knife of polearms – it’s an axe, a spear, and a hook. Valyrian steel aids in 2/3 of those, so it’s not a terrible idea. However, it also has the same haft issue but more so because it’s a polearm and has a longer haft.

Re: medieval war length (different anon): Weren’t wars like the Wars of the Roses and the Hundred Years’ War sort of off-again on-again affairs with a decade or two of peace between each conflict flaring up? So with Aegon and Dany getting involved in the Wot5K couldn’t some future historians label the whole 283-300 period one long ‘War of the Stag’ or whatever?

That’s true, but the lengths of the conficts within were still longer than most GRRMatical wars and the peaces were often quite briefer than a decade.

With the Wars of the Roses, you have 1455-1458 (depending on whether you count Nevillle/Percy fighting as part of the whole, which you should), then 1459-1462, then 1464-5, then 1469-1471, then a gap until 1483, then 1485. So that’s 4 years, 4 years, 2 years, 3 years, 1 year, and 1 year respectively, so the average is much higher than in Westeros.

With the Hundred Years War (taking just the Edwardian period because I don’t want this to go crazy) you have fighting in 1338-1340, 1341-1345 (despite a truce technically being in effect from ‘43-45), then 1346-1347, then 1355-1358, then 1359-1360. So that’s 3 years, 5 years, then 2 years, 4 years, and 2 years, again a much higher average.

Got a question for you Steven. In a previous ask you agreed that the length of wars under the Targaryens is implausible. My question then is what would be a more realistic timespan for the Conquest, Dance of the Dragons, First Blackfyre Rebellion, Robert’s Rebellion, and the War of the Five Kings? Thanks.

Hoo boy, that’s kind of a can of worms I’m not sure you want to open, because it’ll play merry hell with the timeline.

See, all of GRRM’s wars are very short: the Conquest was one year, the Dance was three, First Blackfyre was one, Ninepenny Kings was one, Robert’s Rebellion was one year but across two, Greyjoy Rebellion was one, and the War of Five Kings is three and counting.

But to give a few examples from medieval warfare:

FIrst Crusade (4 years)
Second Crusade (3 years)
Third Crusade (5 years)
First War of Scottish Independence (32 years)
Hundred Years’ War (115 years)
Wars of the Roses (30 years)

And that’s just a handful of cases, you can find many many more.

So GRRM’s longest wars are Medieval history’s shorter wars.

Besides carrying the standard, would a standard bearer typically have any other duties?

The standard bearer’s primary role is to motivate and help direct the troops by showing them which direction they were to go and where they should rally to in the confusion of battle – thus why standard-bearers were chosen from among the strongest and bravest, to make sure that they would be right at the front of every charge and would never abandon their position even in the most dire situation, which in turn would ensure that the soldiers looking to them for guidance would not go astray.

In the Middle Ages, it was also common for standard-bearers to act as bodyguards for the lords and kings whose banners they held. For example, at the Battle of Bosworth Field, when Richard III made his suicidal cavalry charge intending to kill Henry Tudor, Sir William Brandon (Henry’s standard-bearer) placed himself in between Richard and his prey and was slain by the king, saving Henry’s life. Equally impressively, Richard III’s standard-bearer, Sir Percival Thirlwall, kept the Yorkist banner flying even after losing both of his legs.