The medieval battlefield is the screams of combatants, the neighing of terrified horses, a river of blood, severed limbs and split bodies. A truly Dantean painting, but no less cruel, could be found next door - in a field hospital where death was less glorious but equally painful.
Contrary to popular belief, the battles of the Middle Ages were not common. Fighters valued their lives and most often did everything to prevent a fight from taking place. Plunder, looting, burning villages and settlements - it brought profits and minimized the loss of personnel . However, when a major clash did take place, the brutality of the medieval battlefield had little to do with the world of an exalted chivalrous ethos. People were trained to kill the enemy as quickly as possible. As a consequence, relatively few were injured. And those who could not be ransomed at that time - were simply killed.
Cuts and crushing wounds
We derive our knowledge of the course of medieval battles mainly from chronicles. And so, taking our native Grunwald example, Długosz writes about blows with swords against the faces of enemies . In turn, from the description of the Battle of Agincourt in 1415, we learn that Henry V sentenced to behead 1,000 French prisoners. Chronicles also tell us about the victims of still fledgling firearms, such as the vicar of Biechów who died in 1383 during the siege of Pyzdry, or the earl of Salisbury hit by a cannonball in the Hundred Years' War. Descriptions of knightly tournaments are also bloody to us. This presumably sports competition has often brought a real hecatomb of victims - like the one in which were killed by the crush, heat and dust .
Battle of Agincourt
The chroniclers' statements are complemented by iconography, presenting the clashes as a tangle of human and horse bodies (eg Code of St. Jadwiga, Maciejowski Bible, Breton Chronicles, Code of Manesse). You can see cuts, blows, armor and armor piercing there. Iconography is also full of depictions of the effects of firing bows, crossbows and firearms. An important source, combining good features of written and iconographic sources, are medieval fencing treatises (eg by Hans Talhoffer). It is in them that we find instructions on how to fight with all kinds of weapons against an opponent with various weapons. You can see there a whole range of blows dealt mainly to the head, neck, throat, heart, but also ... kidneys . The remains of the fallen are also invaluable in recreating the realities of a medieval battle. An example is the research of archaeologists on the Battlefield of Towton. They showed that most of the victims of the battle fought on March 29, 1461 died as a result of multiple cuts and crushing wounds. Similar results were also obtained from the research near Grunwald. And king Richard III York, who died at the Battle of Bosworth (August 22, 1485), suffered as many as 12 massive cuts with a sword or an ax.
Battle of Towton - most of the victims were cuts and crushing wounds
The protections used by the combatants, such as chain mail, gambesons, sheets of hardened leather or, finally, steel plates were intended to make the penetration of the enemy's weapons as difficult as possible. And they did pass the test in combat many times, while making the warrior who carried them into a real living projectile (especially if it was a cavalryman). The weight of the rider and his horse gave tremendous impact force. This, in turn, could lead to severe fractures and internal bleeding . Especially the latter became weapons with delayed fire - the fighter might not feel any major ailments right away and only after some time died in pain. It was equally dangerous to throw the rider from the saddle and fall under the hooves of the warring parties' mounts. Speaking of horses, they were not only silent witnesses and victims of the clashes. The sources mention that horses were specially trained to kick and bite their opponents . Although there was always a danger that the steeds in battle fever would turn against their owners.
Prayers, boiling oil and amputations
Of course, as far as possible, efforts were made not to leave the wounded unreserved. Very often, however, it was ineffective, and the bloody losses of the fighters increased by the ranks of those dying in the torments of first aid . For what also waited for the happily survivors of the slaughter of the battle? First of all, the unskilled hands of peculiar medical craftsmen, such as barbers, bathroom workers, clergymen, but also charlatans. In common use were ... prayers and boiling oil and red-hot iron treated wounds - the easiest way to tissue necrosis and death from infection . Improperly treated injuries from slashing weapons, blunt weapons or arrows and bolts led to pathological conditions of the organism. Even a long time after the injury itself had elapsed, this resulted in death. The bleeding was also staunched with kneaded bread with cobwebs . Interestingly, the English archers were equipped with boxes with cobwebs for dressing wounds. What would a field hospital be without a remedy for all wounds, i.e. amputation . Performed live, often led to death during the procedure. It is therefore not surprising that the surgeons of that time often deserved unflattering nicknames in the chronicles, of which the "butcher" - ineffectively providing Ryszard the Lionheart - seems to be the most successful.
There were also glorious cases of effective help, such as the one from Bolesław Krzywousty's camp, when knight Wojsław managed to cut out the bones of the shattered skull. Using the experience of Arabic medicine shyly, people started to create their own recommendations for using wine on wounds , intoxicants, as well as the need to maintain cleanliness during treatments. But in the ghastly reality of the post-battle landscape, any news caught on with reluctance. It also happened that medics of the Middle Ages had to demonstrate their locksmith and blacksmith skills. Like during the Grunwald expedition, when the damaged helmet of Piotr of Oleśnica was removed from the head with hammers.
Battle of Legnica
When the rescuers turned out to be powerless, the victims themselves took matters into their own hands. And while Ryszard the Lionheart's attempt to remove his arrow was unsuccessful, a certain Teutonic veteran of the Thirteen Years' War pulled a crossbow bolt out of his head, and after several years of living with this war souvenir
As you can see, the number of injuries suffered by former warriors on the battlefields was enormous. Their resistance to "healing" was also enormous. It is known that some lucky ones returned to the battlefields in subsequent campaigns. Probably many of those who came to the ER at that time regretted that they had not died immediately from the enemy's blow, not the doctor's.
Bibliography:
- Jan Długosz's Annals or chronicles of the famous Kingdom of Poland , Fr. 10 and Fr. 11 (1406–1412), ed. Józef Garbacik, Krystyna Pieradzka, PWN, Warsaw 1982.
- Chronicle of the conflict between Władysław the Polish king and the Teutonic Knights in the Lord's year 1410 , Museum of Warmia and Mazury, Olsztyn 1984.
- Art M., The only proper school for a surgeon is war - traumatology of a medieval battlefield, "Military Doctor" 2011, No. 4, pp. 395-403.
- Rajchert J., Cranial injuries with particular emphasis on the medieval sites of today's Poland, "Światowit" 2002, vol. 4 (45), No. B, pp. 189-204.
- Contamine P., War in the Middle Ages, Bellona, Warsaw 1999.
- Brzeziński T., Historia Medycyny, Warsaw 2019.
- Broda M., Doctors in the state of the Teutonic Order in Prussia in the 14th-15th centuries, Kraków 2013.
- Hooper N., Bennett M., Atlas of the Art of War in the Middle Ages, Bellona 2004