MEDIEVAL WARFARE

Seven hundred years ago fighting was very very different to what we expect now. It had changed drastically with the arrival of Norman Knights with their trained men at arms and heavy cavalry who so easily took over Alfreds England but failed to make inroads north of Hadrians wall. Two hundred years after The Norman Conquest, Scotland had no army, but simply relied on men giving up their work to support families in what was really a hand to mouth existence and coming out to fight, and die, for their country, or more likely just at the whim of their clan chief.

These men were not highly trained or well armed and used the day to day equipment available, or adopted what they found around them. Some of the “BRAVEHEART” film scenarios were quite realistic, where for example, the Scots only had to cut branches of wood from living trees, sharpen one end to a point, ground the other end and quickly lift up the pointed end hoping that the enemy cavalry horses relatively unnarmoured stomach would be sufficiently exposed to enable them to cut the stomach open, causing the rider to fall and if not killed by the fall itself, be finished off with a dirk or skian dubh.

Incorporating hooks at the end to take hold of armour or clothing and hence unbalance and pull off the rider was an easy adaptation which developed into the LOCHABER AXE and HALBERDS. Indeed variations of halberds and swords were the basic equipment of militias and town guards throughout Europe for centuries.

A claymore or even a broadsword is difficult to parry. They are heavy lumps of metal which crash down on bodies, armoured or not, causing horrendous problems. Smashing bones, slashing through flesh. Even if you were fit and able to get out of the way of such a weapon and only received a skelp on the knuckles of your sword arm you would drop whatever weapon you carried and be unable to defend yourself. Believe me . It hurts.

Many of these old weapons can be seen in use today- by re-enactment groups such as THE CLANRANALD TRUST based in Edinburgh who demonstrate claymores , broadswords, axes of all types and sizes, etc. etc. at schools and gala days all over Scotland and abroad. A number of their members provide stunt fighting coordination and training for extras in films and TV. The first battle in “GLADIATOR” shows the Romans preparing to take on a Germanic tribe who were lead into battle by CHICK ALLAN of Clanranald, who coincidentally lives in Roslin, supported by a number of clan members and associates plus the normal extras.

Likewise the famous highland charge came from experience, of running downhill, hitting whatever enemy hard and making good their escape to repeat the attacks again and again, or if required running off to the hills to strike the enemy yet another time. This was the basic nature of the Battle of Roslin, with the Scots attacking potentially overwhelming numbers of invaders again and again. The simple tactic that worked so well for centuries did again on that fateful day at Roslin. The lessons so learned at Roslin were put to great use less than a dozen years later when the English returned to relieve Stirling , of which, more after.