Daniel Baloup

L’homme armé: Expériences de la guerre et du combat en Castille au XVe siècle

(Casa de Velázquez, 2022), 309 pp. €35.00

Lope Garcia de Salazar was a paradoxical figure. A brutal thug even by the bloodstained standards of the Viscayan nobility, he spent most of his life pursuing violent feuds with his neighbours. Sexually predatory, he fathered illegitimate children on an almost industrial scale. Eventually even his surviving sons fell out with him and locked him up in one of his castles. The chosen castle, however, contained his library, for he was also a highly literate individual. Salazar spent the remaining days of his life writing a massive chronicle of world history which in its later volumes gave a blow by blow account of the feuds which divided his native region.

Daniel Baloup introduces us to Salazar in the opening pages of his examination of the military culture of fifteenth century Castile as revealed in the pages of chronicle accounts authored by members of the military nobility. His chosen texts split roughly equally between biographies of individual players in the warfare and politics of the era and general histories of the period. The conflicts covered include campaigns against Nasrid Granada but also wars against fellow Christians, almost entirely within the Iberian peninsula (the only exception, and probably the best known of Baloup’s sources to non-Spanish specialists is Gutierre Diaz de Games’ “El Victorial” whose subject, Pero Niño, fought at sea in the Mediterranean and alongside the French in raiding English coasts in the 1400’s). The wars against Aragon or Portugal were also, to a substantial extent, Castilian civil wars (and vice versa) given the complex family links between the kingdoms.

Baloup links this corpus of writings to a noble culture marked by the persistent instability which plagued Castile for much of the century (both biographies and chronicles were often written with clear apologetic agendas) but also influenced by ongoing debates also encountered outside Iberia over the origins and functions of nobility. Spanish writers looked back to a supposed golden age under Alfonso X and drew on concepts developed at his court; they were also influenced by contemporary Italian thinkers. Classical antiquity was an important referent (Vegetius and Frontinus appear frequently in Baloup’s chosen texts)- though not reflecting Renaissance philological concerns (references to the Trojan War come primarily from the post- and anti-Homeric tradition of Dares and Dictys favoured by medieval authors). There were some specifically Spanish twists to arguments over, for instance, the claims of noble blood descent versus those of merit given the permeability of the elite to converts from Judaism (the father of Diego de Valera, one of the chroniclers frequently cited by Baloup was a convert), though on Baloup’s telling this aspect is relatively minor in his chosen sources. Royal service, especially in military terms, was central to the claims for consideration advanced in these texts- though how that service was expressed and rewarded and even the identity of the true ruler could be problematic in the conflictual politics of fifteenth century Castile (one of the texts relates to the deeply contentious figure of Alvaro de Luna, executed in 1453, whose role at the court of Juan II divided  Castilian noble society for decades; another covers the activities of Miguel Lucas de Iranzo whose attempts to regain royal favour by active warfare on the Granadan frontier ended in his assassination in 1473).

Baloup devotes significant space to the question of how groups conventionally excluded from direct participation in warfare were treated in this literature. The results are intriguing if on reflection perhaps unsurprising. Female participation in war in everything short of active combat on the battlefield raised few concerns- at least for members of the royal family and senior nobility (and this seems to have been the case even before Queen Isabella projected her powerful presence into the wars of her reign). Clergy were accepted even on the battlefield  (or at least senior clergy were- Baloup’s evidence relates almost entirely to the episcopate) provided they were of noble birth. The fighting bishop was very much part of the Castilian scene in the fifteenth century (indeed one of the military biographies Baloup draws on relates to an archbishop of Toledo), though he suggests that this topos was confined to a limited number of sees either on the Granadan frontier or very closely linked to royal government. Non-noble troops, particularly the urban militias so important in Spanish warfare, were regarded with ambivalence. Useful scapegoats for defeat, their contribution was nevertheless recognised as essential to any campaign involving sieges and even on the battlefield provided they knew their place socially and accepted noble leadership. Interestingly the growing role of gunpowder weaponry barely figures in Baloup’s account.

Turning to the experience of warfare and combat among the explicitly military elites projected by this literature, it is fair to say that little in Baloup will come as a huge surprise. Loyalty was a core value- both to blood family but perhaps even more to one’s lord and captain, and this loyalty was supposed to work both ways. The death of a leader on the field of battle could easily lead to the collapse of his following. Banners mattered enormously- de Games’ role as Niño’s standard bearer gave him a unique angle of vision on combat and made him particularly conscious of the complex role men like him had to play (one ends up truly impressed by the courage and trust in their comrades which he and his peers had to display, compelled to be in the forefront of battle but unable to strike a blow in their own defence). As for overarching loyalties, fidelity to the crown and even a nascent sense of more abstract patriotism were important. Religious motivations for combat might be stressed when fighting Nasrid Granada but in practice it is hard to discern much difference between how war was waged there and how it was conducted against Christian foes- with a great deal of violence against combatant and noncombatant alike, massive destruction of crops and property and a rather erratic approach to taking captives for ransom (the fact that wars against fellow Christians were also more or less civil wars may have sharpened the asperities here). Overall, courage mattered- but it was better to be a living hero than a dead one (none of Baloup’s subjects died on the field of battle) and years of training and experience went along with caution in engaging in battle to improve the odds on survival for the military elite. Prudence was also a key military virtue.

Baloup focuses on an area all too often slightly overlooked in general studies of late medieval warfare- at least until the Italian Wars brought Spanish troops into conflict with forces from outside Iberia. The results are interesting, though there are few startling revelations here; give or take the influence of the Granadan frontier there does not seem to have been a truly unique Castilian way of warfare and Baloup’s own account is a shade Hispano-centric (it is, for instance, disappointing that Craig Taylor’s work on very similar issues in the Franco-Burgundian area is not even cited in the bibliography). Nevertheless it is a book worth reading for those interested in how the military elites of late medieval Europe saw themselves and their battlefield activities.

Brian Ditcham
Independent Scholar