There is a very cool quote from history that I like.
I is pretty much a reply to people who think that the knights were thoughtless lunks who could charge into battle and nothing else. It is my justification for the way charge and retreat works in the Book of Battle.

For purposes of training, games were often arranged in the following manner. Fighting-men would be deployed in a place where they could be observed. The entire group of Saxons, Gascons, Austrasians, and Bretons were divided into two units of equal size. They charged forward from both sides and came toward each other at full speed. Then [before contact was made] one side turned its back and under the protection of their shields pretended to be trying to escape. Then those who had been engaged in a feigned retreat counter-attacked and the pursuers simulated flight. Then both kings [Louis the German and Charles the Bald] and all of the young men, raising a great yell, charged forward on their horses brandishing their spear shafts. Now one group feigned retreat and then the other. It was a spectacle worthy of being seen as much because of its nobility as because of its discipline.

Greg,

Do you have an original source for this?

I have been looking for Saxon and Gothic accounts of Battles, but they seem to mostly be accounts from foreigners (Franks for Saxons, or Byzantines for Goths).

Never mind... Turns out to be another Frankish account from Carolingian France (Chalemagne's Nephew, I think)

Still not without Value.

I have been reading Tolkien's translations of The Fall of Arthur, and much of the commentary deals with the dichotomy between fragments of Saxon Poetry preserved by the Normans. Seems that the Normans methodically erased as much of Saxon Culture as they possibly could.

I have just returned to the Arthurian Myths after finally being able to avoid it no longer in my study of Tolkien (who seems to view Arthur with a bit of disdain, while at the same time being deeply emmersed in his myths - Tolkien viewed the Normans much like he viewed the Third Reich in some regards, and saw the Arthurian Myths as largely a product of the French).

Still... A worthwhile passage to consider on martial drill.

MB

MUCH SNIPPAGE
I have been reading Tolkien's translations of The Fall of Arthur, and much of the commentary deals with the dichotomy between fragments of Saxon Poetry preserved by the Normans.
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MBThe Fall of Arthur was an Arthurian poem written *by* Tolkien, not translated by him from another source.

Being a student of medieval history, I would also be interested in knowing the source for that quote, as I want to read more about what they were describing.

MUCH SNIPPAGE
I have been reading Tolkien's translations of The Fall of Arthur, and much of the commentary deals with the dichotomy between fragments of Saxon Poetry preserved by the Normans.
MORE SNIPPAGE
MBThe Fall of Arthur was an Arthurian poem written *by* Tolkien, not translated by him from another source.


Yes, correct.

Poor communication on my part.

Tolkien's Fall of Arthur, as Christopher points out in both the notes, within the book, and in other publications (Such as Tom Shippey's Road to Middle-earth), has various portions that are constructs, found snippets of prior poetry, which Tolkien made use of in his own work (much as the Beowulf Poet had done).

Tolkien discusses this as well in Monsters and the Critics.

Pardon my mistake, please.

MB

Being a student of medieval history, I would also be interested in knowing the source for that quote, as I want to read more about what they were describing.


It looks to be from Nithard's History of the son(s) of Louis the Pious from the Carolingian Chronicles, which I found on scribd (an online library where you pay a monthly access fee to as many books from their library as you wish).

This was why my disappointment when I thought it may have been a Saxon source, rather than a Frankish, Latin, or Roman Greek source.

But... I am not knocking this source. Nithard's account of Carolingian life and Europe are among the best.

It presents a foundation for the later Medieval Chivalric works, upon which we base things like Arthur.

Arthur's Britain is a mythic amalgamation of Celtic, Saxon, Roman, Frankish, Norman, and other Dark Age and Medieval myths regarding a Time of Legend for England. And Myth never makes things easy in a comparison to History.

MB