The Battle of Lewes

 

In his book “Seaward Sussex”  - Edric Holmes, describes the battle of Lewes fought on a hill near Lewes in 1264.

In the great struggle of May 1264 between the forces of the Barons and Henry III, for which Lewes will always be famous, Lewes Castle took no actual part and merely surrendered at discretion.

"The battle was fought on the hill where the races are held. Simon de Montfort, Earl of Leicester, headed the Baronial army. The Royal forces were divided into three bodies; the right entrusted to Prince Edward; the left to Richard, Earl of Cornwall, King of the Romans; and the centre to Henry himself. Prince Edward attacked the Londoners under Nicholas Seagrave with such impetuosity that they immediately fled and were pursued with great slaughter. Montfort taking advantage of this separation, vigorously charged the remaining division of the Royalists, which he put to rout. The King and the Earl of Cornwall hastened to the town, where they took refuge in the Priory. Prince Edward, returning in triumph from the pursuit of the Londoners, learned with amazement the fate of his father and uncle. He resolved to make an effort to set them at liberty, but his followers were too timid to second his ardour, and he was finally compelled to submit to the conditions subscribed by his father, who agreed that the Prince and his cousin Henry, son of the Earl of Cornwall, should remain as hostages in the hands of the Barons till their differences were adjusted by Parliament. In this contest, 5,000 men were slain. The King, who had his horse slain under him, performed prodigies of valour. Richard, Earl of Cornwall, was taken prisoner."

By all accounts, it was a good fight, and the best men won. A touch of humour is added to one record wherein it is related that Richard, King of the Romans, took refuge in a windmill, wherein he was afterwards captured amid shouts of "Come out, thou bad miller." This mill stood near the old Black Horse Inn, but has long since been burnt down.

Accounts vary exceedingly as to the number of the slain, some authorities giving as many as 20,000, others no more than 2,700.

Medieval Feasts

 Saxo Grammaticus (c. 1150 – c. 1220), also known as Saxo Cognomine Longus, was a Danish historian, theologian and author. He is thought to have been a clerk or secretary to Absalon, Archbishop of Lund, the main advisor to Valdemar I of Denmark. In his" Danish Histories" he explains social life in the early Medieval life.

"Feasts".—The hall-dinner was an important feature in the old Teutonic court life. Many a fine scene in a saga takes place in the hall while the king and his men are sitting over their ale. The hall decked with hangings, with its fires, lights, plate and provisions, appears in Saxo just as in the Eddic Lays, especially Rigsmal, and the Lives of the Norwegian Kings and Orkney Earls.

The order of seats is a great point of archaic manners. Behaviour at the table was a matter of careful observance. The service, especially that of the cup-bearer, was minutely regulated by etiquette. An honoured guest was welcomed by the host rising to receive him and giving him a seat near himself, but less distinguished visitors were often victims to the rough horseplay of the baser sort, and of the wanton young gentleman at court. The food was simple, boiled beef and pork, and mutton without sauce, ale served in horns from the butt. Roast meat, game, sauces, mead, and flagons set on the table, are looked on by Starcad as foreign luxuries, and Germany was credited with luxurious cookery.

"Mimes and jugglers", who went through the country or were attached to the lord's court to amuse the company, were a despised race because of their ribaldry, obscenity, cowardice, and unabashed self-debasement; and their new-fangled dances and piping were loathsome to the old court-poets, who accepted the harp alone as an instrument of music.

The story that once a king went to war with his jugglers and they ran away, would represent the point of view of the old house-carle, who was neglected, though "a first-class fighting man", for these debauched foreign buffoons.

Town Clocks

The end of the Middle Ages saw town clocks being introduced all over Europe. The concept of arriving for and leaving work at certain times was just one example of the effect clocks had, particularly in towns and cities, where increasingly efficiency was the underlying motive for introducing clocks.

By the middle of the 15^th century the steel spring had been introduced for powering clock mechanisms, instead of the weight drive. Smaller clocks could now be made, but springs lose their energy gradually as they unwind, so a device called a fusee had to be incorporated. It was tapered or conical drive wheel that compensated for the loss of energy. In 1581, Galileo Galilei noticed the phenomenon of the pendulum. A hundred years later the pendulum would set a new bench-mark in time-keeping accuracy.

The Blast Furance

In the 1100’s Europeans had mastered a technique for producing cast iron, some 1,500 after the Chinese. This was by means of a blast furnace, so called because of the blasts of air required to achieve a high enough temperature to melt iron. Water and sometimes wind power were used to operate the bellows and for crushing up the iron ore to increase its surface area. Blast furnaces gradually grew in capacity to meet the demand for the new cast iron, which had wider applications than wrought iron, but two distinct problems arose as a result.

Charcoal began to run short as Europe’s trees were increasingly felled, and slag impurities prevented as much as 50 percent of the iron from being run off for casting. The introduction of coke and lime into the process, solved both of these problems, but not for several centuries to come.

The Bombardment of Constantinople

The bombardment of Constantinople

In 1452, when Urban, a Hungarian engineer was turned away by Constantine, the Byzantine Emperor, he was employed by Mehmet II to construct a cannon 27ft long and with a range of a mile. The Ottomans had already realized the importance of cannons and by 1364 had begun production, they used field artillery at Kosovo in 1389.

Mehmet arrived at Constantinople with his 100,000 men, a huge train and kept up a ceaseless bombardment of the city for six weeks. Within a week, the outer wall had been breached in several places, and when the Ottoman placed more cannon on a pontoon across the Golden Horn of the city was safe from their bombardment. On two occasions, Mehmet thought that the bombardment had done enough, but was repulsed each time. On the third attempt, the city fell.

Gunpowder

Gunpowder became known in the West about the middle of the thirteenth century. The Franciscan scientist Roger Bacon mentioned it as something already widely known; this is his description of a firecracker:

“There is a child’s toy of sound and fire made in various parts of the world with powder of saltpetre, sulphur and charcoal of Hazelwood. This powder is enclosed in an instrument of parchment the size of a finger, and this can make such a noise that it seriously distresses the ears of men, especially if one is taken unawares, and the terrible flash is also alarming; if an instrument of a large size were used, no one could stand the terror of the noise and flash. If the instrument were made of sold material, the violence of the explosion would be much greater.”

Henry V Guns

Henry V’s force of 1415 was the first English army to use real artillery, though siege guns played no part at Agincourt. They had pet names as ‘London’ and the ‘Kings daughter ‘, and were served by German “gun-master,” 

Ten years later the Regent, Bedford took a powerful artillery train to France and introduced something like field-guns, small “hand-cannon” firing stone shot of two pounds’ weight.

Medieval 'Listeners'

Henry of Lancaster, Earl of Derby, may be called one of the earliest great English military engineers, for in 1345, the year before Crecy, he first taught the troops under his command how to set about fortified towns during the French campaigns, using saps and tunnels and mines to approach and blow up walls.

At this period young boys were often employed by these army engineers as “Listeners”. This was most dangerous and unpleasant task, for it meant that when a tunnel had been dug under or near to the enemy’s position, one of these lads was posted at the end of the sap to listen for knocking or other sounds which might show that miners of the opposite side were also working underground and likely to take the besieging force by surprise.

Besides the likelihood of being discovered or blown up by enemy mines, there was always the chance that a tunnel-roof would collapse upon the unfortunate listener. This happened one night when the English were besieging a town in France, but the boy who had been posted to listen to the end of the sap managed to scramble clear of the ruins and found himself in the cellar of a house inside the besieging town. Stealing out into the street, he discovered a postern gate which could be opened from within and through this he admitted the besiegers.

English Archers

An Italian cleric, Dominic Mancini, visited England in 1482-3. What impressed him during his visit were the archers.

“Their bows and arrows are thicker and longer than those used by other nations just as their arms are stronger than other peoples’, for they seem to have hands and arms of iron. As a result their bows have a long range as our crossbows. Almost every man has a helmet and carries an iron shield and a sword which is as long as our sword; but heavy and thick as well. Only the wealthy wear metal armour; ordinary soldiers prefer comfortable tunics (stuffed with tow) which reach down to their thigh. They say that the softer they are the better they withstand blows; besides which in summer they are lighter and in winter more useful than iron.”

Mancini stayed in London and was a spectator at the martial games which were a traditional part of the city scene

“On holidays the youths fight in the streets with blunted swords or staves clashing on shields. When they are older they go out into the fields with bows and arrows – indeed even the women go hunting with them.”