Subj: REPLY:Masculinity & Honor in 16th Cent Enlisted Men
Date: 96-05-19 20:37:43 EDT
From: Norton T. Downs
To: H-MINERVA@h-net.msu.edu
Here are a couple of 'long-shot' suggestions.
The first is a title which is also out-of-period but which may provide some pointers. The book is *The Face of Battle* by John Keegan. He looks at three battles-Agincourt, Waterloo and 1 July, 1916-not in terms of "what happened" but how each battle was experienced by the participants. Perhaps the section on Agincourt might be useful.
My impression of 16th century armies is that private soldiers were regarded as coming from the dregs of society (which may be the case). It would not occur to anyone that such men would be interested in such moral/philosophical issues as these. There might be an exception, however. I'm thinking of the Protestant armies of the Religious Wars. I have encountered references to codes of conduct being laid down by Gustavus Adolphus and by the commanders of the New Model Army (no drinking, no dicing etc.) . Since the typical private soldier was illiterate, any 'moral education' would have been done by the spoken word.
That leads to the following thought: are there any collections of transcriptions of sermons preached by army chaplains? Sermons would be a major source of such instruction. As I said, this is a long shot.
Good luck with your research.
Tom Downs
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