The Treatment of Prisoners of War in the Middle Ages: Western European Examples

Andrzej Niewiński

doi:10.18290/rh.2019.68.2-1en

Andrzej Niewiński The John Paul II Catholic University of Lublin, Military and Historical Laboratory of KUL

DOI: https://doi.org/10.18290/rh.2019.68.2-1en

Keywords: Middle Ages; War; Prisoners

Abstract

The Polish version of the article was published in Roczniki Humanistyczne 64 (2014), issue 2.

The present article indicates some examples of the circumstances and ways of taking prisoners of war into captivity during military conflicts, the different possibilities of treating them and some measures to release them. The article includes, among others, fixed gestures and signs that were used to manifest the intention of giving oneself into the hands of one’s opponent and the ways of treating other prisoners of war.

The examples cited herein, related to the captivity of kings, illustrate how different were the ways of treating prisoners of war, even of the same rank. Moreover, they show that some aspects of a politico-economic nature were superior to those indicated by the chivalric code. At the same time, the Crusades and close encounters with the Islamic world contributed to the considerable growth of sensibility to the fate of prisoners of war, which was expressed by the institutionalised (at least partially) procedure of giving freedom.

References

Allmand, Christopher T. Society at War. The Experience of England and France during the Hundred Years’ War. Edinburgh: Boydell Press, 1973.

Ambühl, Rémy. The Prisoners of War in the Hundred Years’ War. Ransom Culture in the Late Middle Ages. Cambridge: Cambridge University Pres, 2013.

Barrera, María Teresa Ruiz. “Redención de cautivos: una especial obra de misericordia de la Orden de la Merced.” in La Iglesia Española y las instituciones de caridad: actas del Simposium (1/4–IX-2006), edited by F. Javier Campos y Fdez. de Sevilla, 841–862. Madrid: R.C.U. Escorial-Ma. Cristina, Servicio de Publicaciones, 2006.

Bensch, Stephen. “From Prizes of war to Domestic Merchandise. The Changing Face of Slavery in Catalonia and Aragon. Viator 25 (1994): 72–73.

Beriac-Laine, Françoise, and Chris Given-Wilson, Les prisonniers de la bataille de Poitiers. Paris: Honoré Champion, 2002.

Bonner, Elizabeth. “Scotland’s ‘Auld Alliance’ with France, 1295–1560.” History 84 (1999): 5–30.

Brodman, James William. Ransoming Captives in Crusader Spain. The Order of Merced on the Christian-Islamic Frontier. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1986.

Brodman, James. “Captives or Prisoners: Society and Obligation in Medieval Iberia.” Anuario de Historia de la Iglesia 20 (2011): 201–219.

Buresi, Pascal. “Captifs et rachat de captifs. Du miracle à l’institution.” Cahiers de Civilisation Médiévale Xe-XIIe Siècles 50 (2007): 113–129.

Curry, Anne. Agincourt: A New History. Stroud: Tempus Publishing, 2005.

Curry, Anne. Hundred Years’ War 1337–1453. Palgrave: Osprey Publishing, 2003.

Curry, Anne. The Battle of Agincourt. Sources and Interpretations. Woodbridge: BOYE6, 2000

Delachenal, Roland. Histoire de Charles V. Paris: Librairie Alphonse Picard, 1909.

Duncan, A.A.M. “Honi soit qui mal y pense: David II and Edward III, 1346–52.” Scottish Historical Review 67 (1988).

Ferrer y Malliol, María Teresa. “Els redemptors de captius: Mostolafs, eixees o alfaquecs (segles XII-XIII).” Medievalia 9 (1990): 85–106.

Flori, Jean. Rycerze i rycerstwo w średniowieczu [Knights and Chivalry in the Middle Ages]. Translated by Edyta Trojańska. Poznań: Dom Wydawniczy Rebis, 2003.

Forey, Alan John. “The Military Orders and the Ransoming of Captives from Islam (Twelfth to Early Fourteenth Centuries).” Studia Monastica 33 (1991), No. 2: 259–279.

Frati, Lodovico. La prigionia del re Enzo a Bologna con appendice di documenti. Bologna: Forgotten Books, 1902.

Friedman, Yvonne. “Between Prayer and Action: Responsibility for Prisoners of War.” Rivista di storia del christianesimo 5 (2008): 73–91.

Friedman, Yvonne. Encounter Between Enemies. Captivity and Ransom in the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem. Leiden: Brill, 2002.

Froissart, Jehan (Jean). Œuvres de Froissart. Chroniques, edited by M. Kervyn de Lettenhove. Vol. I-XXV. Osnabrück: BiblioVerlag, 1967; reimpression de l’edition de 1867–1877.

Gaposchkin, Cecilia. “The Captivity of Louis IX.” Quaestiones Medii Aevi Novae 18 (2013): 85–114.

Garcés, Maria Antonia. Cervantes in Algiers: A Captive’s Tale. Nashville: Vanderbilt University Press, 2002.

Gillingham, John. “1066 and the Introduction of Chivalry into England.” In Law and Government in Medieval England and Normandy: Essays in Honour of Sir James Holt, edited by George Garnett and John Hudson. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994.

Gillingham, John. “Cœur de Lion in Captivity.” Quaestiones Medii Aevi Novae 18 (2013): 59–83.

Gillingham, John. “Richard I and the Science of War.” in War and Government: Essays in Honour of J.O. Prestwich, edited by. John Gillingam and James Clarke Holt, 78–91. Woodbridge Suffolk: Boydell Press, 1984.

Gillingham, John. “Surrender in Medieval Europe — an Indirect Approach.” in How Fighting Ends: a History of Surrender, edited by Holgen Afflerbach and Hew Strachan, 55–72. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012.

Gillingham, John. “The Kidnapped King: Richard I in Germany 1192–1194,” German Historical Institute London Bulletin 30 (2008), No. 1.

Green, David. Edward, the Black Prince: Power in Medieval Europe. Harlow: Pearson Education, 2001.

Holt, Peter M. Bliski Wschód od wypraw krzyżowych do 1517 roku [The Age of the Crusades, The Near East from the Eleventh Century to 1517]. Translated by Barbara Czarska. Warszawa: Państwowy Instytut Wydawniczy, 1993.

Jackson, Peter. The Seventh Crusade 1244–1254. Sources and Documents. Farnham: Ashgate Publishing, 2009.

Joinville, Jean de. Czyny Ludwika Świętego króla Francji [Life of Saint Louis], introduction by Jerzy Hauziński, trans. and commentary by Marzena Głodek. Warszawa: Wydawnictwo Akademickie Dialog, 2002.

Keen, Maurice H. Chivalry. New Haven and London: Yale University, 1984.

Keen, Maurice H. The Laws of War in the Later Middle Ages. London: Routledge, 1965.

Kessler, Ulrike. Richard I. Löwenherz: König, Kreuzritter, Abenteurer. Graz: Styria Verlag, 1995.

King, Andy. “‘According to the custom used in French and Scottish wars’: Prisoners and casualties on the Scottish Marches in the fourteenth century.” Journal of Medieval History” 28 (2002), No. 3: 263–290.

McCrory, Donald P. No Ordinary Man: The Life and Times of Miguel de Cervantes. Mineola, N.Y.: Dover Publications, 2006.

Mills, Charles. The History of Chivalry or Knighthood and Its Times. Vol. I. London: Longman, 1828,

Murphy, Neil. “Politics, Honour and Display: The Captivity of John the Good.” Quaestiones Medii Aevi Novae 19 (2014): 317–341.

Neillands, Robin. The Hundred Years’ War. London: Routledge, 2002.

Niewiński, Andrzej. “Kościół w średniowieczu wobec problemów niewoli militarnej [The Medieval Church’s Attitude Towards the Problems of Military Captivity]. In Ecclesia et bellum. Kościół wobec wojny i zaangażowania militarnego duchowieństwa w wiekach średnich [Ecclesia et Bellum. The Church’s Attitude Towards War and Military Involvement of the Clergy in the Middle Ages], edited by Radosław Kotecki and Jacek Maciejewski, 64–81. Bydgoszcz: Wydawnictwo UKW, 2016.

Niewiński, Andrzej. Jeniectwo wojenne w późnośredniowiecznej Polsce. Studia nad problematyką zjawiska na tle zachodnioeuropejskim [Prisoners of War in Late Medieval Poland. Studies on the Issues of the Phenomenon against the Western European Background]. Lublin: Wydawnictwo Epiteme, 2015.

Payàs, Gertrudis, and Iclar Alonso. “La mediación lingüística institucionalizada en las fronteras hispano-mapuche e hispano-árabe, ¿un patrón similar?” Historia 42 (2009), vol. 1, enero-junio.

Penman, Michael. “The Lion Captive: Scottish Royals as Prisoners of England, c. 1070—c. 1424.” Quaestiones Medii Aevi Novae 19 (2015): 413–434.

Penman, Michael. The Bruce Dynasty in Scotland: David II, 1329–71. East Linton: Tuckwell, 2004

Pizan, Christine de. The Book of Feats of Arms and of Chivalry. Translated by Sumner Willard and edited by Charity Cannon Willard. Pennsylvania: Penn State Press, 1999.

Rigord, Histoire de Philippe Auguste, edition, traduction et notes sous la direction Élisabeth Carpentier, Georges Pon, and Yves Chauvin. Paris: CNRS éditions, 2006.

Rodriguez, Jarbel. Captives and their Saviors in the Medieval Crown of Aragon. Washington: The Catholic University of America Press, 2007.

Roversi Monaco, Francesco. “‘King of Bologna’: The Captivity of Enzo, King of Sardinia, between History and Myth.” Quaestiones Medii Aeve Novae 19 (2014): 279–302.

Śliwa, Krzysztof. Vida de Miguel de Cervantes. Kassel: Edition Reichenberger, 2005.

Stories from Froissart by Barry St. Leger, vol. I-III. London: Colburn and Bentley, 1832.

Strickland, Matthew. War and Chivalry: The Conduct and Perception of War in England and Normandy, 1066–1217. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996.

Strickland, Metthew. “Killing or Clemency? Ransom, Chivalry and Changing Attitudes to Defeated Opponents in Britain and Northern France, 7th–12th Centuries.” In Krieg in Mittelalter, edited by Hans-Henning Kortüm, 93–121. Berlin: Akademie Verlag, 2001.

Taylor, Craig. Chivalry and the Ideals of Knighthood in France during the Hundred Years War, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013.

The Book of Chivalry of Geoffroi de Charny, edited and translated by Richard W. Kaeuper and Elspeth Kennedy. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1996.

Vitale, Maurizio. La veneranda favella: studi di storia della lingua italiana. Napoli: Morano, 1988.

Winkelmann, E. “Zum Leben König Entios,” Forschungen zur Deutschen Geschichte 26 (1886): 311–312.

Zug Tucci, Hannelore. “Venezia e i prigionieri di guerra nel Medioevo.” Studi Veneziani 14 (1987): 15–89.