Hello,
I am trying to get a good feeling on how high middle ages battles would play out. Note that I am not looking for battles where army A ambushes army B, but battles where armies faced each other like the Battle of Las Navas de Tolosa, Hasting, Crecy, etc.
I know they were more the exception than the norm and that documentation is sketchy at best, but I would like to know if you could refer me to well-documented battles of the high middle ages, like the Battle of Las Navas de Tolosa (at least, in the Spanish wiki), where we know fairly well the formation of both sides and how the battle took place.
Thank you in advance!
I'd recommend J.F. Verbruggen's The Art of Warfare In Western Europe. Verbruggen was reacting to older battle-based military histories, so he discusses a number of different battles - complete with maps - in detail in order to demonstrate his points, and also discusses the general trends and methods of battle. His reconstructions of the battles are still for the most part current, although there have been some disagreements and minor modifications from other authors.
Although Verbruggen is overall still the general overview of how medieval battles were fought and his grasp of strategy and the "face of battle" are incredibly modern, he does gloss over some parts of warfare as a whole and time has moved on from others, so I recommend you read John France's Western Warfare in the Age of the Crusades in addition to cover any gaps.