We shall see clubs and swords, gaily-coloured helmets and shields shattered and spoiled, at the beginning of the battle, and many vassals all together receiving great blows, by reason of which many horses will wander riderless, belonging to the killed and wounded. Once he has started fighting, no noble knight thinks of anything but breaking heads and arms -better a dead man than a live one who is useless.
Betrand de Born (medieval poem)
It is a joyous thing, a war. . . You love your comrade so much in war. When you see that your quarrel is just, and your blood is fighting well, tears rise to your eyes. A great sweet feeling of loyalty and of pity fills your heart on seeing your friend so valiantly exposing his body to execute and accomplish the command of our Creator.
Le Jouvencel (medieval story)
Anyone who knows anything about the Franks has looked on them as beasts, outdoing all others in courage and warlike spirit, just as animals are our superiors when it comes to strength and aggression.
Ousama ibn Munquidh (on Christian crusaders)
Knights were still human beings who feared for their lives in the presence of danger, and who behaved as men have always done in battle
æ in fear of death, mutiliation, wounds and captivity. . . . The oversimplified picture of undaunted gallantry is not really a true one. Fear in the fighting man in time of war and on the battlefield is easy to see.The Art of Warfare in Western Europe (1997)
We were all herded together like sheep in a sheepfold, trembling and frightened, and were gradually totally surrounded by the enemy. . .
We feigned bravery but feared death.
Fulcher of Chartres (on a crusade in 1097)
While the Turks lay sunk in sleep, the Christian knights fled, casting aside as they went all their costly possessions, their clothes, tents, silver and gold vessels. . . . Many crusaders. . . galloped on, so hard of hearing did their terror make them. . . .
On the Battle of Harran (1104)