I have been wondering this for so long. I love historical fiction and we obviously see so many intense battles between tens of thousands of men, just running in, slashing each other, and trying to survive.
In the heat of battle, with weapons flying from all sides, how could they tell they were swinging towards and enemy or an ally? Not only is there so much chaos and adrenaline, but wouldn't the armies have a lot common folk that wouldn't have any special armor, helmets, or markings?
Every single time I watch or read a battle scene, this is what I think about and I feel like there would just be so much "friendly fire" unless I am missing something here.
Thank you!
I feel like there would just be so much "friendly fire" unless I am missing something here.
What you're missing is that the way premodern pitched battles are depicted in movies is complete nonsense. The idea of "thousands of men just running in, slashing each other, and trying to survive" does not correspond at all to what we know about ancient and medieval infantry combat. These fights were not a wild free-for-all, but a likely tentative encounter between orderly formations, in which the preservation of at least some semblance of ranks and files was absolutely essential to morale and outcome. Simply put, you would know who was on your side in the battle because they would literally be on your side, while the people you were supposed to stab were on the other side. If this ever turned out not to be the case, you would almost certainly try to run like hell and get out of there as quickly as you could.
I wrote about this in more detail in an older post which you might find interesting!
In medieval warfare, they would ... well ... yell :-D
Knights in shining armor could be identified by their coat of arms (starting from the 12th century onwards) but only if you could "read" them and most knights had lions on their coat of arms. Blue, white, golden, black, green or red lions on white, blue, black, golden, red or green backgrounds. It wasn't easy to spot your allies.
So people would yell: "Montjoie!" "Saint-Denis!" "Saint-George!" "Bourgogne!" etc. You often cried such words when charging the enemy but they most probably were yelled again once the melee started.
If you had zero knowledge about coat of arms in general, however, you often knew the coat of arms of your king or liege. They were carried as standards on the battlefield by "chevaliers bannerets" (banner knights). You had to regroup around them and protect them for the banner could never be lost--its capture was highly symbolic.
When the French liberated Orléans, it appears that Joan of Arc's banner was branded at the feet of the Tourelles castle right when the day seemed lost, after she was shot in the shoulder. The army flocked to the banner and tried one last time to take over the Tourelles. And they did!
Soldiers wore no uniforms back then and they spoke multiple languages/dialects. It is often a wonder to see that some military companies were able to communicate at all. But every body could gather around a banner or rally to a cry and they identified to it.
So the next time you find yourself in the middle of a melee, shout out the rallying cry of your king and you should be able to see you allies from your enemies ;-)