WHAT WERE BAD LORDS GOOD AT?

WHAT WERE BAD LORDS GOOD AT? What were the muscular athletes who were medieval knights good at? Steven Weinberg, the distinguished mathematical physicist says that they were not good at defeating foot soldiers. The foot soldiers got out of the way of the horses or chose good defensive positions. (This comes from Freeman Dyson’s review of Weinberg’s LAKE VIEWS: THIS WORLD AND THE UNIVERSE in the June 10 New York Review of Books.) According to a review by Robert Bartlett in the June 24 New York Review of Books, Thomas Bisson in THE CRISIS OF THE TWELFTH CENTURY argues that in the twelfth century (the time of King John), there was a “burgeoning new world” of castle-lords and knights who used violence against the local peasantry. There is a contrast between a king’s promises to provide justice and defend the weak and the reality of being “a warlord trained in mounted warfare, a leader of proud hard men, used to wielding lethal edged weapons….” That is, knights were more effective against unorganized peasants than against armies of foot soldiers. (I posted on another review of Bisson’s book here. I should also aknowledge that apparently there is still much scholarly debate about all this).