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Perhaps the most important technological change was the introduction of the stirrup, which arrived in Europe in the 8th century, but had been in China and the Middle East beforehand. The stirrup, along with breeding and more advanced iron and steel working, allowed for the creation of far more powerful cavalry. Earlier empires, such as the Romans, used horse-borne fighters primarily as lightly-armed scouts and auxiliaries, but the stirrup brought cavalry to the forefront by enabling riders to wield weapons while remaining seated. In Europe, the heavily-armoured knight became central; in Mongolia, lightly armoured horse archers did so. In China and the Middle East, the main forces were somewhere in between.
The Second Battle of Adrianople is considered by many to mark the end of the era of the Roman Empire and the beginning of the Middle Ages. In this battle, the superiority of mounted cavalry over traditional ground forces was demonstrated, helping to set the character that medieval warfare would maintain for the next several centuries.
Warfare centred on small cadres of elite, and very expensive, mounted fighters: this was both a product of and a contributing factor to the social order of the Middle Ages. Being a mounted warrior required great skill and much training and thus, unlike in earlier citizen armies, had to be a full time job. This encouraged the division of society into an upper class of nobles and a great mass of commoners. These feudal nobles quickly developed great power within weakly centralized states. This made it more difficult to have large, well trained and organized forces such as the Roman legions. Rather the bulk of the force made up of peasants were vassals of individual lords who both recruited and armed them.
The potency of the Medieval knight offensively and the castle defensively, both very costly, made for the utter dominance of the wealthy during the Medieval period. While peasant revolts were common, they were, without exception, dispatched.
The end of medieval style warfare was also caused by technological and social change. Gunpowder, cannons, and firearms made both armour and castles obsolete. A revival of the power of central governments would see the rise of much larger and more coordinated armies.
Medieval European armies were typically divided into three sections called 'battles' or 'battalions'—the vanguard or vaward, the centre or main-battle, and the rearguard or rearward. This was usually the order of march, and the three battles deployed on the battlefield with the vanguard on the right, the center in the center and the rearward on the left. However, as armies grew larger and more unwieldy they often deployed as they arrived on the field.
Each section deployed in either linear or block formation. A linear formation had the advantage that all soldiers could take part in battle almost at once (especially those with ranged weapons such as longbows or crossbows). However, a linear formation was easily scattered by a cavalry charge. A block formation prevented this, but the soldiers in the rear ranks would be delayed from entering the fighting (or totally prevented in the case of the French at the Battle of Agincourt).
The vanguard was often composed of archers and infantry, while the center was composed of infantry and armored cavalry (knights), and the rearguard often composed of more agile cavalry.
(more needed on deployment for combined arms armies, cavalry, ranged weapons etc., importance of terrain, and maneuver possibilities)
Medieval armies had minimal training and little cohesion. Any pre-battle planning was limited and battlefield communications were very difficult. Medieval battles tended to be very disorganized affairs almost always resembling a large mêlée.
The purpose of the vanguard for an attacking army was generally to help create holes in the defending front line. The archers would fire over the shields of the infantry into the defending army, who would be prepared to return that fire.
Eventually, the center would move in, and the infantry would charge alongside the mounted knights.
Cannon were introduced to the battlefield in the later medieval period. However, their very poor rate of fire (which often meant that only one shot was fired in the course of an entire battle) and their inaccuracy made them more of a decoration than an effective part of the fighting forces.
A fact of medieval warfare was that a hasty retreat could cause greater casualties than an organized withdrawal. When the losing side began to retreat, the fast cavalry of the rearguard intercepted the fleeing enemy while the infantry pressed on. In most medieval battles, more soldiers were killed during the retreat than in battle, since mounted knights could quickly and easily dispatch the archers and infantry who had been protected by a line of pikes during the fighting.
The breakdown in centralized states lead to the rise of a number of groups that turned to pillage as a main source of income. Most notably the Vikings (but also Arabs, Mongols and Hungarians) also raided significantly. As these groups were generally small and needed to move quickly, building fortifications was an easy way to keep them at bay.
These fortifications evolved over the course of the Middle Ages, the most important form being the castle, a structure which had become synonymous with the Medieval era to many.
Fortifications had a great many advantages in the Medieval period. The ability of the heavy cavalry to dominate a battle on an open field was useless against fortifications. Primitive or nonexistent roads made transporting siege equipment very difficult and time consuming. The general lack of central military organization also made large and sustained sieges difficult.
In the Medieval period a large variety of siege engines were used by besieging armies, including catapults, trebuchets, mangonels, onagers and siege towers.
Advances in the prosecution of sieges encouraged the development of a variety of defensive counter-measures. In particular, medieval fortifications became progressively stronger—for example, the advent of the concentric castle from the period of the Crusades—and more dangerous to attackers—witness the increasing use of machiolations and murder-holes, as well the preparation of boiling oil, molten lead or hot sand. Arrow slits, concealed doors for sallies, and deep water wells were also integral means of resisting siege at this time. Particular attention would be paid to defending entrances, with gates protected by drawbridges, portcullises and barbicans. Moats and other water defenses, whether natural or augmented, were also vital to defenders.
In the European Middle Ages, virtually all large cities had city walls—Dubrovnik in Dalmatia is an impressive and well-preserved example—and more important cities had citadels, forts or castles. Great effort was expended to ensure a good water supply inside the city in case of siege. In some cases, long tunnels were constructed to carry water into the city. Complex systems of underground tunnels were used for storage and communications in medieval cities like Tábor in Bohemia. Against these would be matched the mining skills of teams of trained sappers, who were sometimes employed by besieging armies.
Until the invention of gunpowder-based weapons (and the resulting higher-velocity projectiles), the balance of power and logistics definitely favored the defender. With the invention of gunpowder, the traditional methods of defense became less and less effective against a determined siege.
A Medieval Knight was a mounted and armored soldier, often connected with nobility or royalty. The cost of their armor, horses, and weapons was great; this, among other things, helped gradually transform the Knight into a distinct social class seperate from other warriors. Knights fought extensively in the Crusades (see Knights Templar).
Heavily armed cavalry, armed with swords or lances, played a significant part in the battles of the Middle Ages. They were often used for charging enemy formations.
The role of infantry has been ignored in the past by writers who focused on the role of knights and heavy cavalry. Their part, however, was essential. Most armies contained significant amounts of spearmen, archers, and other unmounted soldiers. In sieges, perhaps the most common element of medieval warfare, infantry units served as garrison troops, bowmen, among other positions.
In the early Middle Ages it was the obligation of every noble to respond to the call to battle with his own equipment and archer, and infantry. This decentralized system was necessary due to the social order of the time, but lead to motley forces with variable training, equipment and abilities.
As central governments grew in power, a return to the citizen armies of the classical period also began, as central levies of the peasantry began to be the central recruiting tool. England was one of the most centralized states in the Middle Ages, and the armies that fought the Hundred Years' War were mostly paid professionals. In theory, every Englishman had an obligation to serve for forty days. Forty days was not long enough for a campaign, especially one on the continent, however. Thus the scutage was introduced, whereby most Englishmen paid to escape their service and this money was used to create a permanent army.
As the Middle Ages progressed, the wealthier parts of Europe, especially Italy, began to rely mostly on mercenaries to do their fighting. These would be groups of career soldiers who would be paid a set rate. Mercenaries were highly effective soldiers, but dangerous as, if they were not paid, they were liable to turn quickly on their employers. Mercenary-on-mercenary warfare also led to relatively bloodless campaigns which relied as much on maneuver as on battles.
The knights were drawn to battle by feudal and social obligation, and also by the prospect of profit and advancement. Those who performed well were likely to increase their landholdings and advance in the social hierarchy. The prospect of significant income from pillage and ransoming prisoners was also important. For the mounted knight Medieval Warfare was a relatively low risk affair; for numerous reasons, the nobles avoided killing each other. Even peasants would often avoid killing a nobleman, valuing the high ransom that a live capture could bring, as well as the valuable horse, armor and equipment that came with him.
A traveling army would often reap all edible resources from the land they passed through. Conservation of foodstuffs by the marching army or by the locals was very poor in this period. The resources had to be there at the right time, in the first place bfore they could be plundered, so all the steps of campaign were closely tied to the seasons.
In the Mediterranean, naval warfare in the medieval period resembled that of the ancient period: fleets of galleys rowed by slaves would attempt to ram each other, or come alongside for marines to fight on deck. This mode of naval warfare continued even into the early modern period, as, for example, at the Battle of Lepanto. Famous admirals included Andrea Doria, Khair ed-Din, and Don John of Austria.
However, galleys were fragile and difficult to use in the cold and turbulent North Sea and northern Atlantic. Bulkier ships were developed which were primarily sail-driven. Ramming was impossible, but the main purpose of these warships remained the transportation of soldiers to fight on the decks of the opposing ship (as, for example, at the Battle of Sluys. Warships resembled floating fortresses, with towers in the bows and at the stern (respectively, the forecastle and aftcastle). The large superstructure made these warships quite unstable.
In the medieval period, it had proved difficult to mount cannons on board a warship, although some were placed in the fore- and aftcastles. Small hand-held anti-personnel cannons were used, but large cannons mounted on deck further compromised the stability of warships, and cannons at that time had a slow rate of fire and were inaccurate.
All this was about to change at the end of the medieval period. The gunport was invented at the beginning of the 16th century by a shipwright from Brest, France named Descharges. The insertion of opening in the side of a ship, with a hinged cover, allowed the creation of a gundeck below the main deck. The weight of cannon distributed to lower decks of the ship increased its stability immensely, effectively providing ballast, and a row of cannon on a lower deck produced the broadside, where the weight of shot overcame the inherent inaccuracy of firing cannons from a ship at sea. An example is the Mary Rose, the flagship of King Henry VIII's fleet, which had around thirty cannon per side, all of which were capable of firing shot nine pounds or more.
The Spanish took this English concept and produced the galleon. However, the Spanish continued to consider warships as floating fortresses, whereas the English began to emphasize long distance gunnery and seamanship. The difference between the English approach and the Spanish approach was typified by the Spanish Armada.
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