When the Cannons Fall Silent: Demobilisation and Re-assimilation in Mid-Fifteenth Century England

当枪声平息，士兵们回家时会发生什么？如何才能使久经沙场、伤痕累累的个人重新融入和平社会？这些问题在整个历史上都是社会所面临的。本研究首次在中世纪晚期的英语语境中对这一现象进行了深入探讨。这具有社会和文化意义，并为现代世界继续面临的问题和挑战提供了一个重要的历史维度。在过去的三十年里，中世纪晚期战争的学术研究蓬勃发展，但这项工作的范围往往集中在有限的几条广为人知的道路上：军队招募、军事技术、战场战略、军事精神和指挥官的背景（最近，Bell等人，2013; Gribit，2016; Madden，2018）。几乎没有任何学者知道当战争结束时发生了什么，可能有数千名士兵返回他们的社区。现有的学术基础的一个假设是，中世纪的士兵只能被定义，他们的职业生涯跟踪，通过审查他们的军事功能：本论文通过考虑的生活和职业生涯的战斗男人，当他们停止战斗挑战这种偏见。本项目的重点是十五世纪中期，特别是1440年至1471年。这一时期见证了英法百年战争（1337-1453）的结束和玫瑰战争中最激烈的军事活动。因此，这项研究的一个重要内容将是比较“民族”战争和“内战”背景下的复员情况。“士兵”的定义尽可能广泛，适用于从卑微的弓箭手到上尉和指挥官的整个社会规模。关键的研究问题是：-在世纪中期，王室对复员过程的管理有多仔细？-退伍军人如何有效地融入当地社区？服兵役对退役士兵的职业和生活有哪些影响？如何看待战争创伤和残疾？这项研究的基石是中世纪士兵数据库，其中包含了百年战争中所有已知在英国军队服役的人的服役记录，数量超过10万。进一步的集合记录将用于确定玫瑰战争的战斗人员。根据中央政府已出版和未出版的记录（包括国家档案馆系列E101，C1，KB 27和KB 9），对选定个人进行的个人特征分析将阐明退伍军人的职业道路。分析将考虑担任公职、恩惠和奖励、婚姻和亲属关系、参与犯罪以及对严重受伤个人的看法等案件。历史学家早就注意到中世纪晚期社会的军事化本质，但很少有学者证明这一真理。这项研究将是第一次深入调查个人生活的军事和非军事方面的交叉点。它揭示了复员的社会和经济影响，并考虑了士兵是否通过他们的经历代表了一个与众不同的品种，或者很容易被同化回“平民”生活。

What happens when the guns fall silent and the soldiers return home? How can battle-hardened and battle-scarred individuals be reintegrated into peaceful society? These questions have faced societies throughout history. This study offers the first in-depth exploration of this phenomenon in a late medieval English context. This has both social and cultural significance, and provides an important historicaldimension to issues and challenges which the modern world continues to face.In the past thirty years, scholarship on late medieval warfare has blossomed, but the scope of this work has tended to focus on a limited number of well-trodden paths: recruitment into armies, military technologies, battlefield strategies, martial ethos and the background of commanders (most recently, Bell et al., 2013; Gribit, 2016; Madden, 2018). Almost no scholarship exists on what happened when warsended and potentially thousands of soldiers returned to their communities. An assumption underlying existing scholarship is that medieval soldiers can only be defined, and their careers traced, by scrutiny of their military function: this thesis challenges that preconception by considering the lives and careers of fighting men when they stopped fighting.The focus of this project is the mid-fifteenth century, specifically the years 1440-1471. The period witnessed the end of the Hundred Years War between England and France (1337-1453) and the most intensive military activity of the Wars of the Roses. An important element in the study will therefore be a comparison of demobilisation in the context of a 'national' war, on the one hand, and a 'civil war', on the other. 'Soldier' is defined in the broadest terms possible and applies across the social scale from the humble archer to captains and commanders.Key research questions are:-How carefully managed by the crown was the process of demobilisation in the mid-fifteenth century?-How effectively did veterans assimilate in their local communities?-In what ways did military service impact on the careers and lives of ex-soldiers?-How were war wounds and disabilities viewed?The building block for the study is the Medieval Soldier Database, which contains the service records of all known men who served in English armies in the Hundred Years War, numbering over 100,000. Further muster records will be used to identify the combatants of the Wars of the Roses. Prosopographical analysis of selected individuals, drawing on the published and unpublished records of central government (including The National Archives series E101, C1, KB27 and KB9), will illuminate the career paths of the veterans. Analysis will consider cases of office-holding, favour and reward, marriage and kinship ties, involvement in crime, and the perception of seriously injured individuals. Historians have long noted the militarised nature of late medieval society, but few scholars have demonstrated this truism. This study will be the first in-depth investigation into the intersection of the military and non-military aspects of individual lives. It shines light on the social and economic impact of demobilisation, and it considers whether, through their experiences, soldiers represented a breed apart, or were easily assimilated back into 'civilian' life.