THE ARMS, ARMOUR AND TACTICS OF THE NORMANS AND IRISH.
This would seem to be the proper place to point out the peculiarities
in arms, equipment, and tactics, which gave the first Normans those
military advantages over the Irish and Dano-Irish, which they had
hitherto maintained over the Saxons, Welsh and Scots. In instituting
such a comparison, we do not intend to confine it strictly to the age
of Strongbow and Dermid; the description will extend to the entire
period from the arrival of Fitzstephen to the death of Richard, Earl of
Ulster—from 1169 to 1333—a period of five or six generations, which we
propose to treat of in the present book. After this Earl's decease, the
Normans and Irish approximated more closely in all their customs, and
no longer presented those marked contrasts which existed in their
earlier intercourse and conflicts with each other. The armour of the
first adventurers, both for man and horse, excited the wonder, the
sarcasms, and the fears of the Irish. No such equipments had yet been
seen in that country, nor indeed in any other, where the Normans were
still strangers. As the Knights advanced on horseback, in their metal
coating, they looked more like iron cylinders filled with flesh and
blood, than like lithe and limber human combatants. The man-at-arms,
whether Knight or Squire, was almost invariably mounted; his war-horse
was usually led, while he rode a hackney, to spare the _destrier_. The
body armour was a hauberk of netted iron or steel, to which were joined
a hood, sleeves, breeches, hose and sabatons, or shoes, of the same
material. Under the hauberk was worn a quilted gambeson of silk or
cotton, reaching to the knees; over armour, except when actually
engaged, all men of family wore costly coats of satin, velvet, cloth of
gold or cloth of silver, emblazoned with their arms. The shields of the
thirteenth century were of triangular form, pointed at the bottom; the
helmet conical, with or without bars; the beaver, vizor and plate
armour, were inventions of a later day. Earls, Dukes, and Princes, wore
small crowns upon their helmets; lovers wore the favours of their
mistresses; and victors the crests of champions they had overthrown.
The ordinary weapons of these cavaliers were sword, lance, and knife;
the demi-launce, or light horsemen, were similarly armed; and a force
of this class, common in the Irish wars, was composed of mounted
cross-bow men, and called from the swift, light _hobbies_ they rode,
Hobiler-Archers. Besides many improvements in arms and manual exercise,
the Normans perfected the old Roman machines and engines used in
sieges. The scorpion was a huge cross-bow, the catapults showered
stones to a great distance; the ballista discharged flights of darts
and arrows. There were many other varieties of stone-throwing
machinery; "the war-wolf" was long the chief of projectile machines, as
the ram was of manual forces. The power of a battering-ram of the
largest size, worked by a thousand men, has been proven to be equal to
a point-blank shot from a thirty-six pounder. There were moveable
towers of all sizes and of many names: "the sow" was a variety which
continued in use in England and Ireland till the middle of the
seventeenth century. The divisions of the cavalry were: first, the
_Constable's_ command, some twenty-five men; next, the _Banneret_ was
entitled to unfurl his own colours with consent of the Marshal, and
might unite under his pennon one or more constabularies; the _Knight_
led into the field all his retainers who held of him by feudal tenure,
and sometimes the retainers of his squires, wards, or valets, and
kinsmen. The laws of chivalry were fast shaping themselves into a code
complete and coherent in all its parts, when these iron-clad, inventive
and invincible masters of the art of war first entered on the invasion
of Ireland.
The body of their followers in this enterprise, consisting of Flemish,
Welsh, and Cornish archers, may be best described by the arms they
carried. The irresistible cross-bow was their main reliance. Its shot
was so deadly that the Lateran Council, in 1139, strictly forbade its
employment among Christian enemies. It combined with its stock, or bed,
wheel, and trigger, almost all the force of the modern musket, and
discharged square pieces of iron, leaden balls, or, in scarcity of
ammunition, flint stones. The common cross-bow would kill, point blank,
at forty or fifty yards distance, and the best improved at fully one
hundred yards. The manufacture of these weapons must have been
profitable, since their cost was equal, in the relative value of money,
to that of the rifle, in our times. In the reign of Edward II. each
cross-bow, purchased for the garrison of Sherborne Castle, cost 3
shillings and 8 pence; and every hundred of _quarrels_—the ammunition
just mentioned—1 shilling and 6 pence. Iron, steel, and wood, were the
materials used in the manufacture of this weapon.
The long-bow had been introduced into England by the Normans, who are
said to have been more indebted to that arm than any other, for their
victory at Hastings. To encourage the use of the long-bow many statutes
were passed, and so late as the time of the Stuarts, royal commissions
were issued for the promotion of this national exercise. Under the
early statutes no archer was permitted to practise at any standing mark
at less than "eleven score yards distant;" no archer under twenty-four
years of age was allowed to shoot twice from the same stand-point;
parents and masters were subject to a fine of 6 shillings and 8 pence
if they allowed their youth, under the age of seventeen, "to be without
a bow and two arrows for one month together;" the walled towns were
required to set up their butts, to keep them in repair, and to turn out
for target-practice on holidays, and at other convenient times. Aliens
residing in England were forbidden the use of this weapon—a jealous
precaution showing the great importance attached to its possession. The
usual length of the bow—which was made of yew, witch-hazel, ash, or
elm—was about six feet; and the arrow, about half that length. Arrows
were made of ash, feathered with part of a goose's wing, and barbed
with iron or steel. In the reign of Edward III., a painted bow cost 1
shilling and 6 pence, a white bow, 1 shilling; a sheaf of steel-tipped
arrows (24 to the sheaf), 1 shilling and 2 pence, and a sheaf of _non
accerata_ (the blunt sort), 1 shilling. The range of the long-bow, at
its highest perfection, was, as we have seen, "eleven score yards,"
more than double that of the ordinary cross-bow. The common sort of
both these weapons carried about the same distance—nearly 100 yards.
The natural genius of the Normans for war had been sharpened and
perfected by their campaigns in France and England, but more especially
in the first and second Crusades. All that was to be learned of
military science in other countries—all that Italian skill, Greek
subtlety, or Saracen invention could teach, they knew and combined into
one system. Their feudal discipline, moreover, in which the youth who
entered the service of a veteran as page, rose in time to the rank of
esquire and bachelor-at-arms, and finally won his spurs on some
well-contested field, was eminently favourable to the training and
proficiency of military talents. Not less remarkable was the skill they
displayed in seizing on the strong and commanding points of
communication within the country, as we see at this day, from the sites
of their old Castles, many of which must have been, before the
invention of gunpowder, all but impregnable.
The art of war, if art it could in their case be called, was in a much
less forward stage among the Irish in the twelfth and thirteenth
centuries than amongst the Normans. Of the science of fortification
they perhaps knew no more than they had learned in their long struggle
with the Danes and Norwegians. To render roads impassable, to
strengthen their islands by stockades, to hold the naturally difficult
passes which connect one province or one district with another—these
seem to have been their chief ideas of the aid that valour may derive
from artificial appliances. The fortresses of which we hear so
frequently, during and after the Danish period, and which are
erroneously called _Danes'-forts_, were more numerous than formidable
to such enemies as the Normans. Some of these earth-and-stone-works are
older than the Milesian invasion, and of Cyclopean style and strength.
Those of the Milesians are generally of larger size, contain much more
earth, and the internal chambers are of less massive masonry. They are
almost invariably of circular form, and the largest remaining specimens
are the Giant's Ring, near Belfast; the fort at Netterville, which
measures 300 paces in circumference round the top of the embankment;
the Black Rath, on the Boyne, which measures 321 paces round the outer
wall of circumvallation; and the King's Rath, at Tara, upwards of 280
in length. The height of the outer embankment in forts of this size
varied from fifteen to twenty feet; this embankment was usually
surrounded by a fosse; within the embankment there was a platform,
depressed so as to leave a circular parapet above its level. Many of
these military raths have been found to contain subterranean chambers
and circular winding passages, supposed to be used as granaries and
armories. They are accounted capable of containing garrisons of from
200 to 500 men; but many of the fortresses mentioned from age to age in
our annals were mere private residences, enclosing within their outer
and inner walls space enough for the immediate retainers and domestics
of the chief. Although coats of mail are mentioned in manuscripts long
anterior to the Norman invasion, the Irish soldiers seem seldom or
never to have been completely clothed in armour. Like the northern
_Berserkers_, they prided themselves in fighting, if not naked, in
their orange coloured shirts, dyed with saffron. The helmet and the
shield were the only defensive articles of dress; nor do they seem to
have had trappings for their horses. Their favourite missile weapon was
the dart or javelin, and in earlier ages the sling. The spear or lance,
the sword, and the sharp, short-handled battle-axe, were their
favourite manual weapons. Their power with the battle-axe was
prodigious; _Giraldus_ says they sometimes lopped off a horseman's leg
at a single blow, his body falling over on the other side. Their
bridle-bits and spurs were of bronze, as were generally their spear
heads and short swords. Of siege implements, beyond the torch and the
scaling-ladder, they seem to have had no knowledge, and to have desired
none. The Dano-Irish alone were accustomed to fortify and defend their
towns, on the general principles, which then composed the sum of what
was known in Christendom of military engineering. Quick to acquire in
almost every department of the art, the native Irish continued till the
last obstinately insensible to the absolute necessity of learning how
modern fortifications are constructed, defended, and captured; a
national infatuation, of which we find melancholy evidence in every
recurring native insurrection.
The two divisions of the Irish infantry were the _galloglass_, or
heavily armed foot soldier, called _gall_, either as a mercenary, or
from having been equipped after the Norman method, and the _kerne_, or
light infantry. The horsemen were men of the free tribes, who followed
their chief on terms almost of equality, and who, except his immediate
retainers, equipped and foraged for themselves. The highest unit of
this force was a _Cath_, or battalion of 3,000 men; but the subdivision
of command and the laws which established and maintained discipline
have yet to be recovered and explained. The old Spanish "right of
insurrection" seems to have been recognized in every chief of a free
tribe, and no Hidalgo of old Spain, for real or fancied slight, was
ever more ready to turn his horse's head homeward than were those
refractory lords, with whom Roderick O'Conor and his successors, in the
front of the national battle, had to contend or to co-operate.