IMC 2013: Sessions
Session 718: Military Skills and Martial Pleasures, III: Archery and Jousts in War and in Literature
Tuesday 2 July 2013, 14.15-15.45
| Organiser: | Laura Crombie, Centre for Medieval Studies, University of York |
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| Moderator/Chair: | Mark Whelan, Department of History, Royal Holloway, University of London |
| Paper 718-a | Contesting the Chivalric Ideal and Crusading Ethos: Tournaments, Tithes, and Contingents in Late Medieval Scottish Statecraft, 1248-1270 (Language: English) Index terms: Crusades, Military History, Political Thought, Politics and Diplomacy, Rhetoric |
| Paper 718-b | Hunting, Shooting, and Showing Off: Archery as a Gentry Pastime in Medieval Welsh Literature (Language: English) Index terms: Language and Literature - Celtic, Mentalities, Military History, Social History |
| Paper 718-c | The Reforms in the Byzantine Army of the 10th Century and the Operational Role of the Archers: Tactical Innovation or Adaptation to the Strategic Reality in the East? (Language: English) Index terms: Byzantine Studies, Islamic and Arabic Studies, Military History, Technology |
| Abstract | As war evolved, so too did styles and purposes of military skills. Tournaments can be seen as training for war, and fighting-manuals (fechtbücher) as distillation of Western Martial Arts, but a nuanced approach to their relation to war is needed. In late medieval Welsh poetry, archery in hunting and target-shooting is praiseworthy for the gentry, yet there is little indication that poets saw this as a preparation for war. In 10th-century Byzantine armies archery was a military necessity, in a mini-tactical revolution archers were incorporated into the heavy infantry and trained hard to shoot in unison for maximum psychological impact. |