“Hoy escribiré una carta”: The News of Siege Warfare in Calderón’s El sitio de Bredá

This chapter provides an overview of how and with what consequences warfare was waged in the twelfth century, drawing particular attention to the landscape context of conflict. Case studies of the period’s two major pitched battles (Northallerton/the Battle of the Standard, 1138, and Lincoln, 1141) are presented, although the conflict as a whole saw few pitched battles and was instead dominated by siege warfare. The period saw the siege castle cemented as an essential part of the repertoire of Anglo-Norman conflict, mixing psychological and martial functions and favoured by rulers in an era when siege warfare was static and protracted while leaders needed to be mobile. The overall picture is that the conflict saw no radical departure in ways of waging war, and many of its characteristic features — such as the use of mercenaries, the avoidance of pitched battle, devastation of landscapes and the predominance of sieges — were not aberrations but part and parcel of an established pattern of Anglo-Norman warfare.

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Introduction

Anarchy: War and Status in 12th-Century Landscapes of Conflict ◽

10.5949/liverpool/9781781382424.003.0001 ◽

2017 ◽

Author(s):

Oliver H. Creighton ◽

Duncan W. Wright ◽

Michael Fradley ◽

Steven Trick

Keyword(s):

Civil War ◽

Material Culture ◽

Evidence Base ◽

Final Part ◽

Documentary History ◽

Siege Warfare ◽

Material Evidence ◽

The Church

This introductory chapter outlines the historiography of the reign of King Stephen (1135–54), highlighting how study has been dominated by documentary history while archaeological and other material evidence has played a marginal role. It identifies landmark studies of the period, summarises the principal chroniclers that cover Stephen’s reign and discusses charters as another cornerstone of the evidence base. A major debate has centred on whether or not the period should continue to be styled as ‘the Anarchy’, with scholars taking maximalist and minimalist views of the violence and disturbances of the period. The final part of the chapter explains the approach and structure of the volume: after a chronological outline of the civil war (Chapter 2), the book covers conflict landscapes and siege warfare (Chapter 3), castles (Chapter 4), artefacts and material culture (Chapter 5), weaponry and armour (Chapter 6), the church (Chapter 7), settlements and landscape (Chapter 8), and a detailed case study of the fenland campaigns (Chapter 9), while Chapter 10 presents a self-contained concluding essay that reflects on what the material evidence can and cannot us about the conflict and its consequences.

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