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Melee

For other uses, see Melee (disambiguation).
Mêlée aboard ships at the Battle of Sluys in 1340 (BNF Fr. 2643, 15th century)
Battle of Lützen by Carl Wahlbom depicting a mêlée in which King Gustavus Adolphus of Sweden was killed on 6 November 1632

A melee (/ˈmeɪleɪ/ or /ˈmɛleɪ/, French: mêlée, (French: [mɛle])) or pell-mell is disorganized hand-to-hand combat in battles fought at abnormally close range with little central control once it starts.[1] In military aviation, a mêlée has been defined as "an air battle in which several aircraft, both friend and foe, are confusingly intermingled".[2]

History of the term

The term melee originates in the 1640s from the French word mêlée, which refers to disorganized hand-to-hand combat, a close-quarters battle, a brawl, or a confused fight; especially involving many combatants.[3][4][5]

In the 1579 translation of Plutarch's Lives of the noble Grecians and Romanes, Sir Thomas North uses the term 'pelmel' to refer to a disorganized retreat.[6] The phrase was later used in its current spelling in Shakespeare's Richard III, 1594:

"March on, ioine brauelie, let vs to it pell mell, / If not to heauen then hand in hand to hell."

The phrase comes from the French expression pêle-mêle, a rhyme based on the old French mesler, meaning to mix or mingle.[6][7]

The French term melee was first used in English in c. 1640 (also derived from the old French mesler,[8] but the Old French stem survives in medley and meddle).[1]

Lord Nelson described his tactics for the Battle of Trafalgar as inducing a "pell mell battle" focused on engagements between individual ships where the superior morale and skill of the Royal Navy would prevail.[9]

Usage in gaming

The 1812 tabletop war game Kriegsspiel referred to the hand-combat stage of the game as a melee.[10] Later war games would follow this pattern.[11][12][13] From there, gamers would eventually begin to call the weapons used in that stage melee weapons.[14][15]

H.G. Wells' 1913 Little Wars was the first to specifically outline a "melee" rule in his eponymous war game.[16] Many later wargames (and video games) can trace their origins to the rulesets first laid out in Little Wars.[17][18]

In 1968, Gary Gygax and Jeff Perren adopted and modified the rules for Siege of Bodenburg, a medieval war game, and expanded on rules for one-on-one melee combat and specific melee weapon rules.[19][20] This modified ruleset was published as Chainmail and included a fantasy supplement which would later be known as Dungeons & Dragons. The popularity of Dungeons & Dragons, which featured a "melee phase" to represent the fighting of characters outside of bows and magic, would help spread the use of "melee" as a phrase for other table-top and video games regarding any form of combat involving close proximity to and direct physical contact with an opponent, whether unarmed, using weapons or, occasionally, through other methods besides typical strikes and grappling, such as certain status effects that require physical contact to implement.

See also

Look up melee or mêlée in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.

Notes

  1. ^ a b OED 2015.
  2. ^ Kumar, DeRemer & Marshall 2004, p. 462.
  3. ^ "the definition of melee". Dictionary.com. Archived from the original on 2 March 2021. Retrieved 10 June 2017.
  4. ^ "Definition of MELEE". Merriam-Webster. Archived from the original on 2 March 2021. Retrieved 10 June 2017.
  5. ^ Oxford English Dictionary. 2015. mêlée. "A battle or engagement at close quarters, a skirmish; a confused struggle or scuffle, esp. one involving many people. Also hist.: a tournament involving two groups of combatants."
  6. ^ a b "'Pell-mell' - the meaning and origin of this phrase".
  7. ^ "Pell-mell". 26 July 2021.
  8. ^ "Melee". 29 November 2021.
  9. ^ Fremont-Barnes 2005, p. 38.
  10. ^ W. R. Livermore (1882). The American Kriegsspiel (PDF). Riverside Press, Cambridge. p. 105. Archived (PDF) from the original on 2020-06-04. Retrieved 2019-08-14. The first point to be considered is the number of combatants on either side and the relative advantages under which they are fighting; the second the losses and duration of the melee
  11. ^ H.G. Wells (1913). Little Wars. Frank Palmer Publishing. We did at last contrive to do so ; we invented what we call the melee, and our revised rules in the event of a melee will be found set out upon a later page
  12. ^ Trevor Timpson (August 3, 2013). "Little Wars: How HG Wells created hobby war gaming". BBC News. Archived from the original on October 7, 2017. Retrieved October 6, 2017.
  13. ^ Luke Plunkett (September 18, 2012). "HG Wells Practically Invented Modern Tabletop Wargaming". Kotaku. Archived from the original on October 7, 2017. Retrieved October 6, 2017.
  14. ^ "Interview with Gary Gygax". Gamebanshee. Archived from the original on 2009-02-03.
  15. ^ Michael J. Tresca (November 10, 2010). The Evolution of Fantasy Role-Playing Games. McFarland. ISBN 9780786460090. Archived from the original on March 27, 2023. Retrieved October 27, 2020.
  16. ^ H.G. Wells (1913). Little Wars. Frank Palmer Publishing. We did at last contrive to do so ; we invented what we call the melee, and our revised rules in the event of a melee will be found set out upon a later page
  17. ^ Trevor Timpson (August 3, 2013). "Little Wars: How HG Wells created hobby war gaming". BBC News. Retrieved October 6, 2017.
  18. ^ Luke Plunkett (September 18, 2012). "HG Wells Practically Invented Modern Tabletop Wargaming". Kotaku. Retrieved October 6, 2017.
  19. ^ "Interview with Gary Gygax". Gamebanshee. Archived from the original on 2009-02-03.
  20. ^ Michael J. Tresca (November 10, 2010). The Evolution of Fantasy Role-Playing Games. McFarland. ISBN 9780786460090.

References


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