Sacking, Looting, Raping, Burning

[King]

Be that as it may, he brutally devastated the whole county without bothering to make the distinction, and the focus of his wrath was inevitably on civilians.

Anyroad, that's just one of dozens of examples I could mention from the British Isles alone. The Scots were responsible for some terrible atrocities in these parts, frx.

Damn we get he blame for everything around here. The English troops were no kinder to Scottish towns. The only part of Britian that was really into their celbrations for the Act of union was the areas on the Scotland/England border.

 

[Earl Uhtred]

Damn we get he blame for everything around here. The English troops were no kinder to Scottish towns.

Aye, I just thought I'd put my bit in for the reeeeegion.

 

[barretta]

Damn we get he blame for everything around here. The English troops were no kinder to Scottish towns. The only part of Britian that was really into their celbrations for the Act of union was the areas on the Scotland/England border.

Well lets not forget the noble houses that went broke because of that Gulf of Darien disaster.. Act of Union bought/brought debt forgiveness.

 

[Giant Tourtiere]

i hate to argue excessively in favour of the Conqueror, but there is (and, more importantly, would have been at the time) a key distinction between "innocent bystanding civilians" and rebels. When William descended on Yorkshire (and it was mostly the city of York), it was because a Norman official had been killed and the city was in rebellion against his rule.

This is not the same as later ideas of "total war", or even the scorched earth tactics employed in the HYW.

 

[Earl Uhtred]

i hate to argue excessively in favour of the Conqueror, but there is (and, more importantly, would have been at the time) a key distinction between "innocent bystanding civilians" and rebels. When William descended on Yorkshire (and it was mostly the city of York), it was because a Norman official had been killed and the city was in rebellion against his rule.

It was not. He spent months systematically devastating the entire county. Chevauchee and mass retribution were features of warfare from the beginning.

 

[Giant Tourtiere]

Odd, then, that he chose *that* county, perhaps at random? Look, i'm not suggeting that civilians (non-armed, non-nobles) were not the victims of William's crackdown, nor am i defending it. But he didn't do this all over England. He did it in Yorkshire. And he did it there because there was a rebellion against his rule, justified or not, depending who you ask.

His wrath descended on, for example, the city of York, because the citizens there joined the rebellion.

To the more general question, i have not read any historian who suggests that "mass retribution" was a usual part of medieval warfare in Western Europe until the HYW, when the rules changed, for various reasons.

 

[Earl Uhtred]

So (limiting ourselves to England) what do you call this...

Then came King Ethelred home, in Lent, to his own people; and he
was gladly received by them all. Meanwhile, after the death of
Sweyn, sat Cnut with his army in Gainsborough until Easter; and
it was agreed between him and the people of Lindsey, that they
should supply him with horses, and afterwards go out all together
and plunder. But King Ethelred with his full force came to
Lindsey before they were ready; and they plundered and burned,
and slew all the men that they could reach...

How many examples do you need? The Scots in the North, Charlemagne in Germany, the excesses that led to the 'Peace of God', and on and on? Yorkshire was targeted mainly for its potential as a seat of rebellion, true, but the aim was to debilitate the province by burning villages and destroying the harvest - leaving the lower orders to starve and the provincial economy to waste regardless of each community's will or means to rebel.

 

[Giant Tourtiere]

hrrrm. first of all, is that from the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle? Just curious.

Anyway, "all the men that he could reach" is vague, as many medieval descriptions will tend to be. Numbers tend to be exaggerated, and we would be safe to question whether this means "any kind of man" or only freemen, or only warriors. Our chronicler does not say, and historians of the period are quite divided on the issue. "Plundered and burned", while suggestive, doesn't say *what* was plundered and burned ... it is most likely that whatever aristocratic residence were there would have been targetted (of course) but there would have been little point in plundering peasant villages...

You're quite right that the Conqueror burned the harvest & c. in Yorkshire.. but he did so to *punish* the area for its rebellion (not potential rebellion. one that happened), not as a pre-emptive strike.

The other examples you provide are subject to multiple interpretations, and the weight of opinion has been that early medieval warfare was remarkably *restricted* in scope... which was part of why the HYW was such a traumatic event for France.

 

[Earl Uhtred]

That is the ASC, aye.

It seems the issue is shifting from 'were innocent civilians deliberately targeted' to 'were innocent civilians deliberately targeted for no strategic end'. Either way, I'd still say yes.

Being more of an early medievalist I didn't know your PoV was standard - any recommended reading?