When we think of elite medieval and early modern warriors like noble knights or high-end mercenaries, we like to think of them as men in their physical prime resembling modern athletes in terms of training and fitness. This comparison can indeed be helpful for the most part. Just like modern athletes, medieval warriors were involved in a profession that required them to be in good physical shape and just like modern athletes, their proficiency depended on honing a set of skills that often required a lifetime of training to learn and perfect.
For example the famous French warrior knight Jean II Le Maingre called “Boucicaut” (1366-1421) detailed his training in his biography where he described the strenuous exercises that kept him in shape and improved his strength and agility. Among other things he liked to lean a scaling ladder against a wall and then climb to the top of the underside of the ladder in full armor. He also bragged that he could do a somersault fully armed but for his bascinet.
But unlike modern athletes, knights and mercenaries did not necessarily retire once their physical abilities declined. For some of them, war was a profession that extended deep into their old age.
This was not a situation most knights would want to be in. In 1260 veteran crusader knight Philip of Novara warned impressionable young knights that they will not be young forever and advised them to set themselves up for “honorable life” in retirement. He told them that while they should “work to gain honor so as to become famous for their valor” in battles, they should also try to acquire “earthly property and riches and land” so that they would be able to “help their friends and those who serve them and be able to retire in their old age.” His advice was very similar to what people would tell athletes today, as they also have a short time frame to earn as much money as they can to set themselves up for old age after retirement. Philip of Novara was an experienced knight and probably saw many fellow knights ending up impoverished at an old age and did not want the young up and coming ones to suffer the same fate.
So the concept of “retiring” due to old age was there among knights. But for some warriors, there would be no retirement and they kept fighting until they would meet a violent end at a very old age when they would be way past their physical prime.
This was due to several reasons. Some warrior knights were important noblemen who fought for their political and dynastic reasons and decided that they had to continue to personally take part in battles to demonstrate that they were in control of things. In a warrior society like medieval Europe, military and social hierarchy were of course closely linked. Being present in battles was important for prestige. Some of the old men who fought and died in battles were also experienced veteran commanders who were very valuable for the army and commanded respect. Senior commanders leading armies would not be uncommon in any period of military history, but due to chaotic and volatile nature of medieval warfare, these old commanders could end up in the thick of battle and had to fight themselves. Entering a medieval or renaissance battle, there was always a good chance of ending up captured or killed, no matter what your rank was.
Lastly, some of these veteran warriors were so immersed in the warrior culture of which they had been part of their entire lives that they didn’t just participate in melees when needed, but actively sought to take part in the fiercest clashes on the battlefield despite their physical shortcomings due to old age.
Most famous such case was John the Blind, King of Bohemia, at the Battle of Crécy in 1346. He was 50 years old at the time and had already been blind for a decade. When the battle was already clearly lost he was advised to retreat, but instead he instructed his knights to take him to “where the noise of the battle is the loudest”. His wish was fulfilled and he perished in that battle. He was an old warrior who had participated in many crusades in the Baltic as well as other military campaigns prior to Crécy, and certainly believed in the chivalric warrior ideal of the time which praised honorable death on the battlefield.
However I definitely don’t want to give an impression that it was common for knights in that period to willingly die in a hopeless cause just to attain a glorious legacy. This was the ideal and not the norm. The more pragmatic approach, like the one which Philip of Novara suggested to the up and coming knights of trying to attain wealth and power to secure a comfortable retirement, was much more popular. But there were also rare men who were willing to make sacrifices to embody contemporary warrior ideals of honor, fighting until the end, trying to leave a legacy behind. John the Blind was one of them and so was Jean II Le Maingre “Boucicaut”, the knight whom I mentioned earlier who relentlessly trained to be in top physical shape like a modern elite athlete. Just like John the Blind, Boucicaut also extended his military career far beyond his physical prime. He first fought in a battle at 16 years of age at the Battle of Roosebeke in 1382 where he was also knighted on the eve of the battle. Since that day he fought in countless battles and campaigns either for French interests or as a crusader, taking part in the Hundred Years’ War against the English, joining crusades in the Baltic three times, fighting Moors in Spain, Ottomans at Nicopolis, and participating in conflicts all over eastern Mediterranean where he was fighting various enemies of Republic of Genoa which was under French control at the time. His 33 years long military career ended at the famous Battle of Agincourt in 1415 where he was captured by the English. He was 49 years old at the time and died in captivity in Yorkshire six years later. But despite his illustrious reputation as a knight, he did not have enough money, influence and power to ransom himself out. In this aspect, Boucicaut’s fate ultimately was not much better than that of impoverished knights Philip of Novara warned about. On the other hand, he left a great legacy as a warrior behind in the eyes of contemporaries.
But there were also men who fought in battles at an even much older age than John the Blind and Boucicaut. Here are seven examples of warriors who fought and died in battles older than 65 years of age: Guglielmino degli Ubertini (died in a battle aged somewhere between 69-74), John Talbot (66 years old), Roberto Sanseverino d'Aragona (69), Nicholas of Salm (71), Anne de Montmorency (74), Stanisław Żółkiewski (73) and Paul-Bernard de Fontaines (77).
Let’s explore the lives of these men and how they died.
Even though these veteran warriors lived in different times spanning from 13-17th centuries, they all had a lot of common. They were all part of the same warrior culture tradition of the medieval/early-modern West and lived a long life of war. But while they all died a violent death at the end of their long violent lives, the path that took them there was slightly different and fueled with different motives.
Guglielmino degli Ubertini (c. 1219–1289) was perhaps the most unusual character out of the ones I listed as he was technically not part of warrior chivalry but a member of the Catholic clergy, a “warrior-bishop”. But for all intents and purposes, he was a warrior like all the other ones, and came from a lineage of warrior nobility. He personally fought in battles and during his long reign as the Bishop of Arezzo (1248-1289) he used violence to cement his rule. He also often used most shameless political scheming to achieve his goals. His rule was defined by the struggle between Guelphs and Ghibellines in Italy and he would switch sides between them. Both parties formed large coalitions while Bishop Ubertini had his own interests in mind as the ruler of the small Arezzo situated in warring Tuscany where big cities like Florence and Siena could raise formidable armies, whereas he could only rely on his retinue of nobles and a much smaller urban militia. Therefore it was important for him to pick the right side at the right time. Ubertini would ultimately end up fighting on the Ghibelline side in his first big battle, the brutal Battle of Montaperti in 1260 where he fought for the Sienese Ghibellines against the Florentine Guelphs. This proved to be a good decision because his side won.
Being a bishop did not prevent Ubertini from personally fighting in battles himself. While there was a rule imposed by the Catholic Church against clergymen “shedding blood”, he cynically mocked this rule by wielding a mace in battles, suggesting that he intended to bludgeon his enemies with mace instead of using sharp weapons, therefore technically not “shedding blood”. Far from hiding his cleric rank, he wore the episcopal mitre on top of his helmet to show it off. At Montaperti, Ubertini led a contingent of Aretine noble knights and helped the Ghibellines secure victory, and according to sources he personally captured and killed many Guelphs in the process. By all accounts, he was a brutal and violent man who would relentlessly try to increase his might and prestige and crush anyone who was in the way.
The great victory at Montaperti would not be the end of Ubertini’s military career as a warrior bishop. The struggle between the Guelphs and the Ghibellines continued with the same intensity over the next decades. The two sides would meet in another major battle at Campaldino in 1289. Ubertini was somewhere between 69 and 74 years old at the time, but this did not prevent him from personally fighting in battle yet again. Initially, he wanted to avoid this conflict and tried to make a deal with the enemy to preserve his possessions and secure a pension from the Florentines in return to stay out of conflict between Guelphs and Ghibellines. But he couldn’t make this deal. In a desperate attempt to preserve his power, he found himself commanding a coalition of Ghibelline forces. The enemies were the Florentine Guelphs again, joined by neighboring fellow Guelphs from Tuscan cities. Ubertini’s forces consisted of local Ghibellines and also included Florentine Ghibelline exiles, while the Guelphs likewise included Aretine Guelph exiles.
Despite being reluctant to fight initially, Ubertini ended up being the one pushing for this battle the most even though the Geulphs were outnumbering his army quite significantly. The Guelphs had a twice stronger cavalry and also a more experienced infantry. The bulk of their troops consisted of well motivated Florentine soldiers. But Ubertini wanted the battle. He couldn’t afford Guelphs raiding his lands anymore and wanted to deal with them as soon as possible rather than prolonging the conflict he wasn’t able to avoid. The victory at Montaperti years ago, in which he took an important part in, must have emboldened him as well, as the Ghibelline forces were outnumbered in that battle as well, but managed to win in the end.
But the Ghibellines were not able to pull off a miracle again. The numerical superiority of the Guelphs eventually overwhelmed them. As the battle was being lost, the Ghibelline knights suggested to the old bishop Ubertini that he should save himself by fleeing back to Arezzo. But as Ubertini saw his Aretine infantry desperately continuing to fight in a losing battle, he asked if the infantry could be saved as well. “Impossible”, they answered him. “In that case,” Ubertini is reported to reply, “may we share death, since I am the one who led them to peril, and I refuse to leave them now.” Following these words, the old warrior-bishop launched one last desperate charge into the already lost battle! His dead body was later found after the battle, easily recognized by the bishop’s mitre on top of his helm.
Compared to Ubertini, John Talbot (c. 1387-1453) was more of a typical medieval warrior knight. He was in many ways similar to Boucicaut but fought for the opposite side in the Hundred Years’ War, fighting for the English at battles at Verneuil (1425) and Patay (1429). A capable leader, he became known as the “English Achilles” and was greatly feared by the French for his aggressive and unpredictable attacks and ambushes. This earned him another nickname, “the Terror of the French”.
But Talbot’s misfortune was that he had entered the Hundred Years’ War at the time when the tide was starting to swing heavily into French favor. Forced to improvise, he needed to take a risky approach. This led him to some unexpected triumphs, but also exposed him to danger. He was captured by the French at Rouen in 1449 and was only released after a promise that he would never wear armor against French again. He remained true to his word but kept leading his army to battles anyway, without wearing any armor or weapons. He would finally suffer a fatal defeat at Castillon in 1453 where he was personally leading his troops aged 66, after ordering a bold charge at the French. The French were patiently waiting for the English and bombarded them with artillery from well-fortified positions. Talbot stubbornly didn’t put an end to the charge, trying to go for all or nothing. He kept exposing himself to danger, unarmed and unarmored as he promised he would be years ago. Eventually, his horse was shot beneath him by a cannonball. As he was trapped beneath the dead animal, a French knight appeared and killed him with a battleaxe. Similar to John the Blind, Talbot’s death was seen as honorable and heroic, and his already great legacy was even further enhanced, immortalized and romanticized.
While the likes of Talbot and Boucicaut were renowned for their loyalty to their respective kings, Roberto Sanseverino d'Aragona (1418-1487) earned his fame as a mercenary captain, serving pretty much every major power in 15th century Italy at some point of his long life as a condottiero. In fact, his military career resembles a career of a typical modern professional football player who keeps changing teams a lot in search for better contracts and opportunities. Sanseverino began his mercenary journey serving Milan for his uncle Francesco Sforza in the 1440s and continued to serve the Sforzas until 1458. After a brief break, he started serving King Ferdinand I of Naples in the Angevin-Aragonese War between 1460 and 1464 where he distinguished himself as a capable commander and increased his reputation. But he would have a falling out with King of Naples as he felt he wasn’t getting paid as much as he deserved, and later also had a conflict with the Sforzas for the same reason. Just like with modern football players, his value rose after solid performances and he eventually found employers who would be willing to pay what he wanted. In 1467 he entered the service of Republic of Florence. He helped the Florentines to victory against Venetians at the Battle of Riccardina that same year. But in 1471 he started serving the Milanese again, signing a 4-year contract with the Sforzas. After this was finished, he entered the service of a new employer in 1476, Duchy of Savoy, fighting in the Burgundian Wars against Charles the Bold. And after that another new employer, Genoa, where he fought against his old employers the Milanese in 1478. The following year he agreed to serve the Pope to fight against another one of his old employers, the Florentines.
It was all business for Sanseverino, and he would continue to serve as a mercenary despite his old age. In 1482, when he was already 64, he was hired by Republic of Venice and continued to fight all over Italy. He would eventually die fighting for Venice. But it wouldn’t be in Italy. In 1487 he went to fight for one last time in the Tyrolean Alps against the forces of Sigismund of Habsburg, the Count of Tyrol who was causing problems for his Venetian neighbors. At the time, Sanseverino was 69 years old, a veteran of war and an experienced commander. Some accounts also praise him that he was still in very good shape for his age and as eager to fight as ever. But Tyrolean terrain proved treacherous and the hated German “barbarian” enemies determined and ferocious. At the battle of Calliano that followed, Sanseverino’s Venetian troops were taken by surprise by the Tyrolean Landsknechte troops who would later earn much renown as mercenaries themselves in future Italian Wars. The ambush shocked the Venetians and many of them tried to swim the Adige River to save their lives. The veteran mercenary Roberto Sanseverino d'Aragona died in that battle. It is said that he was one of the men who stayed fighting until the end even after everything was lost.
Nicholas of Salm (1459-1530) had a similarly long and renowned military career, but unlike Sanseverino who kept switching allegiances, Salm’s legacy ended up being defined by his loyalty to the Habsburgs whom he served for 47 years. His first experience of war was in the Burgundian Wars where he fought for the Lower League alliance against Charles the Bold, fighting in his first battle at 17 years of age at Morat in 1476. He came from a long lineage of warriors from the illustrious Salm family, one of his ancestors being the rebellious 11th century German anti-King Hermann of Salm who fought against Holy Roman Emperor Henry IV of the Salian dynasty from 1081 until 1088. Hermann of Salm died fighting during one of the skirmishes and five centuries later, his descendant Nicholas of Salm would eventually face similar destiny of dying from wounds inflicted during battle. But the latter’s warrior career would be much longer, and he would fight for the emperor, not against him.
Salm entered the Habsburg service in 1483 and served the Austrian dynasty in various wars for 47 years during which he faced the “who’s who” of elite warrior units at the time, fighting under the Habsburg banner against the likes of Swiss pikemen, Bohemian war wagons, French knights and Ottoman janissaries. Salm’s first battles for the Habsburgs were against the famous Hungarian mercenary Black Army of Matthias Corvinus in 1480s. Following the latter’s death in 1490, the Black Army started collapsing and in the 1490s, Salm took part in reclaiming the Hungarian-occupied Habsburg lands. In 1499 Salm participated in the Swabian War against the Old Swiss Confederacy where he fought against the renowned Swiss pikemen. The campaign turned disastrous for the Habsburg forces, although Salm did distinguish himself winning a minor skirmish prior to the defeat at the Battle of Schwaderloh. Despite the setback, the Habsburgs kept fighting with same intensity in constant wars all over Europe, and new battles came soon. In the War of the Succession of Landshut in 1505, Salm faced the Bohemian Hussite mercenaries hired by the Bavarians. The Bohemians employed their famous war wagon tactics but Landsknecht pikemen fighting for the Habsburgs, in combination with artillery and experienced knights like Salm, proved superior and brought victory. In 1510s Salm fought against another Habsburg enemy, the Venetians, in a series of clashes in Italy and along the Habsburg-Venetian border, as part of the Italian Wars.
Salm’s already remarkable military resume would get even better in his final years. In 1525 he participated in the famous victory at Pavia where the Habsburg Imperial-Spanish forces destroyed the French during another one of the Italian Wars and captured the French king Francis I. According to one account, Nicholas of Salm, who commanded a cavalry unit at that battle, was instrumental in capturing the enemy king. Later that year Salm also helped to put down a peasant rebellion at Schladming. The next year he faced the Hungarians again, defeating the Habsburg rival John Zápolya at the Battle of Tarcal in 1527.
In 1529 it seemed that the old veteran Nicholas of Salm was finally retired from war. He was a 70 year old man and was staying at Baden recovering from an unspecified “weakness of body”. But extraordinary circumstances led to him being called into service by the Habsburgs for one last time. Even though the old man Salm was not in the best physical condition, the Habsburgs had no one else to call as a huge Ottoman army was approaching Vienna, kicking off the Habsburg-Ottoman wars which would define the next two centuries. Due to attrition caused by the endless wars in Italy, the Habsburgs lacked men, resources and commanders and were in big trouble. The unpaid Landsknecht mercenaries had recently went wild in Italy and sacked Rome in 1527 while practically leaderless. The most renowned Imperial commanders from the battle of Pavia, - Fernando d'Avalos, Georg von Frundsberg and Charles de Lannoy, - were all dead by 1528. Another veteran commander in Habsburg service, Charles of Bourbon, who led the Landsknecht troops to sack Rome, died during the siege. In this situation, the 70-year-old Salm was literally the only one whom the Habsburgs could call. He was the only one who commanded enough respect and had the experience to defend Vienna which was at the time still a poorly defended city with outdated medieval walls.
Salm joined the 15,000 fresh inexperienced soldiers recruited to defend Vienna with around 2000 elite veterans of the Italian Wars he brought with him. The 1529 Siege of Vienna, now unfairly overshadowed by the much more famous 1683 Siege of Vienna, would become the finest victory of Salm’s long and esteemed military career as he faced a much stronger Ottoman army and was able to successfully defend the city. This siege really showed the importance of having an experienced commander who knew what he was doing, and what a difference a great commander can make. During the siege, Salm engaged in clever psychological warfare, spreading misinformation on purpose and ordering the citizens to celebrate every successful action as loudly as possible. After more than 50 years of warrior experience, he must have known all the tricks. He made the Ottomans think that the defending force was much larger than it actually was, making them believe that all the important nobility of Austria and Bohemia was present. Salm was also able to enforce some unpopular decisions due to his unquestioned authority as a renowned veteran warrior, such as razing around 800 buildings to have a clear line of fire and removed flammable shingle roofs. Crucially, the Habsburg forces used pike infantry tactics with which the Ottomans were not yet familiar enough with. Salm’s leadership led the defenders to a great victory when the demoralized Ottoman army finally retreated as the siege extended deep into autumn and the weather kept getting worse.
But the great hero Nicholas of Salm would not live long after his big triumph. Ever present in the most dangerous situations during the siege, he was seriously wounded during the last Ottoman assault. Apparently he was hit by a falling rock. He succumbed to injuries a few months later in spring of 1530.
Anne de Montmorency (1493-1567) was another veteran of the Italian Wars, however he fought for the French side. He was from a prominent French noble family and would start playing a prominent role on the French court after Francis I became king in 1515. He was named after his godmother Queen Anne of Brittany, but the name Anne was used for men at the time as well so it was not particularly unusual. He first fought at the particularly brutal Battle of Ravenna in 1512 when he was 19 years old, and would continue to fight in the Italian Wars ever since, taking part in many other famous battles. He accompanied King Francis I in the Battle of Marignano in 1516 and by the Battle of Bicocca in 1522 he was already a commander. However things would go badly for the French in the 1520s. They lost at Bicocca and Montmorency was also one of the nobles captured at the defeat at Pavia in 1525. But the brutal Italian Wars shaped Montmorency into one of the premier warriors and commanders of his age and in the future decades, he would continue to play an important role for different French kings, albeit sometimes falling out of favor due to court politics.
Anne de Montmorency would go through all the turmoil of 16th century France, participating in numerous conflicts, battles, skirmishes and sieges, and had to quell several uprisings. It was in the French Wars of Religion where the veteran warrior finally met a violent end. At the Battle of Dreux in 1562 he commanded the Catholic royal army against the Huguenots at 69 years of age. During the battle he was captured by the German mercenary reiter cavalry employed by the Huguenots. They shot him and broke his jaw, but he survived to live another day. The Catholic army managed to win the battle without him. After he was released from captivity, Montmorency went back into fighting. Five years after Dreux he helped the Catholic royal forces to another victory at Saint-Denis in 1567, where he was wounded again. But this time he would not be so lucky. He succumbed to wounds and died two days later. The old warrior finally died, aged 74. This was 55 years after he had fought in his first battle at Ravenna.
Dying a heroic death on the battlefield always increased one’s legacy in those days. Polish nobleman Stanisław Żółkiewski (1547-1620) is one of the best examples of that. Like Salm and Montmorency, he had a long life of war behind him when he finally died at the Battle of Cecora in 1620 aged 73. His first experience of battle was when he helped squash the Danzig rebellion in 1577 as a commander of a rota of Polish hussars. Fighting for the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, he subsequently joined the Livonian campaign and fought against Russians in many battles until 1582. Just like Salm and Montmorency, Żółkiewski would also face many different enemies on the battlefield in his long military career. In 1588 he fought against the Austrians in War of the Polish Succession and received a knee wound that crippled him for the rest of his life. But by that time he was already a distinguished warrior and was appointed Field Crown Hetman. He would continue his great warrior legacy as a commander.
Over the next decades Żółkiewski fought for the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth all over Eastern Europe and the Baltics, from Moldavia to modern-day Estonia, facing the likes of Tatars, Ottomans, Cossacks, Wallachians and Swedes in numerous engagements. His greatest victory came at the Battle of Klushino in 1610 during the Polish-Muscovite War of 1605-1618 where he faced the joint Russian and Swedish army. The famous Polish hussars achieved a great victory against numerically superior enemy and the path to Moscow was open. Żółkiewski became the first Westerner in history to occupy Moscow. It was the highlight of his military career.
But like it often happens, the victories get forgotten over time and over the next decade, Żółkiewski’s reputation started to plummet. Political intrigues and old age took their toll. He was falling out of favor with the king and other influential people. Even a great warrior and commander is often only as good as his last battle. In 1620 he would fight his final battle, an old man over the age of 70. He faced the Ottomans at Cecora in modern day Moldavia. But the campaign was poorly planned and the Polish-Lithuanian army was outnumbered. The battle ended with a defeat and Żółkiewski himself died on the battlefield. However despite this failure, Żółkiewski’s heroic death as an old warrior enhanced his reputation again. It was said that he died after simply refusing to retreat from the already lost battle, staying with the rear guard until the end.
And finally there was Paul-Bernard de Fontaines (1566-1643). He was one of the commanders of the Spanish tercio infantry during the Eighty Years’ War. He joined the Spanish Army of Flanders as a volunteer in 1566 and rose through the ranks. In 1638 he became Maestre de campo, commanding his own tercio. He was already 72 years old at the time and in bad physical condition. Suffering from gout, he had to be carried around in a chair. However he still commanded great respect among his troops. His enemies had great respect for him as well. Fontaines died at 77 years of age at the famous Battle of Rocroi in 1643 where the French forces led by Louis de Bourbon, Duke of Enghien, defeated the Spanish Army of Flanders. Fontaines’ tercios remained in the thick of battle in a desperate situation and the old infantry commander was eventually shot dead during the clashes with the French. When the victorious Duke of Enghien saw the body of the veteran of war Fontaines after the battle, he made a comment which echoed the old warrior ideal embodied by his dead enemy. “Had I not won the day, I wish I had died like him.”
These men lived different lives, were born in different times and fought under different banners. But they all had one thing in common. When the time finally came, they all knew how to die with dignity. Decades of war experience prepared them for that moment.
I must say that I am pleasantly surprised by how much I enjoyed reading this. Keep up the good work.
Great post