CHAPTER 1
KNIGHTS
AND NOBLES
FLOWERS
OF CHIVALRY
1346
I will
cross the sea, my subjects with me, and I will pass through the Cambresis … I
will set the country ablaze and there I will await my mortal enemy, Philip of
Valois, who wears the fleur-de-lys … I will fight him … even if I have only one
man to his ten. Does he believe he can take my land from me? I once paid him
homage, which confounds me now, I was young; that is not worth two ears of
corn. I swear to him as king, by St George, and St Denis that … neither youth
nor noble ever exacted such tribute in France as I intend to do[1].
Anon.,
Vow of the Heron (c.1340)
According
to the anonymous author of the Vow of the Heron, King Edward III
began the Hundred Years War with these words. The poem tells how the French
nobleman Robert d’Artois sought sanctuary in England and goaded the young king
into taking up arms against Philippe VI. Robert is said to have publicly
taunted Edward, accusing him of nothing short of cowardice, and to emphasise
his point he presented him with a heron pie – the heron being the most craven
of birds. The ladies of the court, echoing the jeers of the renegade Frenchman,
demanded Edward lead an expedition into France to defend his honour and theirs.
Indeed, the queen, Philippa of Hainault, swore she would take her own life and
that of her unborn child (the future Lionel of Antwerp) if the king did not
attempt to take what was rightfully his – the French throne[2].
The Vow
of the Heron was a political fiction but one that reveals a number of
truths. It emphasises the importance of chivalry and shame in late medieval
culture; indeed, it shows chivalry at the core of medieval aristocratic
identity. Although subject to a variety of definitions, chivalry had dominated
the thinking of the secular elite for three hundred years and it remained
central to the self-image of the aristocracy in the Hundred Years War. Chivalry
had become a cult, an ideology, little less than a ‘secular religion’, and as
such it influenced conduct during the conflict; the struggle was shaped by
demands of honour, demonstrations of prowess and exigencies of loyalty. As the
ethic associated with the knight – the chevalier – chivalric
strictures chiefly dictated the behaviour of and relations between knights and
nobles, and so in accounts of the war written for aristocratic readers and
audiences matters of politics, the fate of the peasantry, prosaic issues of
finance and diplomacy, were often lost. Such works focused on the rivalries and
(great) deeds of (great) men because this was the image of warfare in which the
chivalric caste revelled and that it wished to project.
But
chivalry was much more than a game, fantasy or a self-delusion: it exercised
enormous influence over military and diplomatic conduct[3]. The knights and
nobles who constituted the ‘chivalry of England and France’ (the word
‘chivalry’ was used most commonly as a collective noun) determined strategy and
policy, and the chivalric ethic conditioned their behaviour, tailoring it to
certain (loose) specifications. These qualities were not, however, ‘gentle’,
except in so far as they applied to gentlemen and gentlewomen, and so they do
not always conform to a modern conception of chivalry. It is sometimes assumed
that chivalry died as the Middle Ages waned, but chivalry was far from dead in
the Hundred Years War. The conflict, however, did exert new and weighty
pressures on knights and nobles – social, military and political.
Among
the many influences that coloured the character of chivalry and the role of the
knightly aristocracy during the Hundred Years War, one of the most important
was the nature of warfare itself. As the struggle progressed, soldiering became
an increasingly professional business, with innovations in strategy, tactics,
weapons and recruitment. As the nature of combat changed, so did the nature of
the hardships and perils faced by all the chivalrous and all ‘those who fought’
– the bellatores[4].
These developments threw into sharp relief some apparent contradictions between
the theory and practice of chivalry. Was true chivalry exemplified by the
mercenary leader Bertrand du Guesclin or the prud’homme (literally
‘worthy man’) Geoffrey de Charny, author of the Livre de chevalerie,
one of the key chivalric treatises of the fourteenth century? This was not a
simple question, for du Guesclin was laid to rest alongside the Valois kings in
the abbey of Saint-Denis in northern Paris and became the subject of a
chivalric biography[5],
while Charny was not above stooping to bribery in his attempt to take
Calais in 1350, an act for which he was reproached by no less a chivalric icon
than Edward III – who himself had broken a central tenet of chivalry when he
ordered the execution of prisoners after the battle of Halidon Hill in July
1333. Was chivalry exemplified by the glorious deeds of arms that Jean
Froissart (c.1337–c.1405) recounted in his chronicles or by those pitiless
actions condemned by Honoré Bonet (c.1340–c.1410) in his hugely influential
treatiseL’arbre des batailles (the Tree of Battles)?[6] Was this a chivalry
that mitigated the worst of war or encouraged it, feeding it with delusions of
honour and promises of loot and booty?
Such
questions were of as much interest and importance to contemporaries as they had
been to their predecessors. From its inception chivalry had comprised many
elements – religious, courtly and militaristic. As a result contending
definitions of the ethic had been evident from at least the early twelfth
century. Many groups and individuals had an interest in chivalry and a wish to
influence the behaviour of those who comprised the order of knighthood. Such
diverse views made the chivalric ethic highly adaptable, which explains its
enduring potency, but it also gave rise to its apparent incongruities. Chivalry
comprised an amalgam of qualities, and the priority one gave to those qualities
reflected one’s interests. Chivalric romances, for example, often projected an
ideal of knightly behaviour dominated by courtesy, and their authors prioritised
the relationship between knights and ladies. Others had little time for courtoisie and
placed much greater emphasis on the knight’s skill-at-arms, reflecting the
code’s martial antecedents. Religious authorities, meanwhile, viewed knighthood
as a divine order, albeit one that often fell far from grace, and believed that
the latent violence of knighthoodto needed to be channelled into ecclesiastical
service. According to church authorities it was service to God that made
knights into something more than mere soldiers. Such differences in
interpretation became even more apparent in the later Middle Ages because of
new stresses placed on the various conceptions of chivalry and on the members
of the chivalric orders[7].
As the
author of the Vow of the Heron suggested he should, Edward III
did invade France, and in July–August 1346 he burned and laid waste to the
Cambresis region in the north. Then, following a chevauchée –
a raid of calculated and widespread devastation – he met his ‘mortal enemy,
Philip of Valois’ (Philippe VI), his liege lord, in battle at Crécy on 26
August of that year. What followed was a comprehensive English victory and a
French catastrophe, the impact of which was not only deeply symbolic but also
had colossal military and political resonance. God, it was believed, expressed
His will through such tests of strength; victory in battle confirmed divine
favour for the nation and those who represented it on the field. Military
success represented heavenly benediction. The Crécy campaign, however, also
reveals those new strains to which knighthood was subjected in this
professional age, in addition to the apparent dichotomies intrinsic to the
chivalric ethic.
The
campaign was the most important element in a number of military expeditions
which the English launched in the mid-1340s. The aim of the strategy, involving
multiple incursions, was to disrupt French defensive preparations and to keep
English plans covert. The scale of the expedition was such that it could not be
kept secret, but the French were not aware of the true target until very late
in the day. Nor, frankly, were many of Edward’s commanders, since the king’s
intentions appear to have changed several times. Initially, it seems, he
intended to lead an expedition from Gascony. Later he decided to land in
Normandy and establish a bridgehead there. Only at the last moment did he
choose to launch a chevauchée[8].
The
army landed at La Hougue on the Cotentin peninsula on 12 July 1346. It split
into three divisions to cause maximum damage over a wide area and rode south,
then east. The strategic purpose of the initial phase of the campaign was to
inflict financial damage on the French government, psychological damage on the
French people and to humiliate the Valois regime. In a series of such chevauchées the
chivalry of England (the military aristocracy) attacked those least able to
defend themselves in order to undermine the legitimacy of the French monarchy
economically and symbolically. And yet this was considered chivalrous
behaviour. At its heart chivalry was a military code concerned with war, and
‘[w]ar as conducted by the chivalrous meant raiding and ravaging’[9]. So, in 1346, in a
display of often pitiless chivalry, the English laid waste to Cherbourg,
Harfleur and much of the Normandy coast. Caen fell, and there, in proper
chivalric fashion, a number of eminent (and valuable) French noblemen were
taken captive and held for ransom; then the army turned towards Paris. On 12
August it came within 20 miles of the capital. Edward, however, chose not to
engage the superior enemy forces arrayed before him there, and retreated to the
Somme. After struggling for some time to ford the river, he eventually forced a
passage at Blanchetaque and drew up his troops in battle formation at Crécy.
Philippe VI, who had been at his heels from Paris, attacked almost immediately[10].
The
English deployed at the end of an expanse of gently rising ground, their backs
to the forest of Crécy-Grange and the sun. Edward the Black Prince, then
sixteen years old, took nominal command of the vanguard alongside a number of
highly experienced soldiers, including the earls of Warwick (Thomas Beauchamp),
Northampton (William Bohun) and Kent (Edmund of Woodstock), as well as Godfrey
d’Harcourt (a Norman noble who had rebelled against King Philippe) and Sir John
Chandos. The king commanded the centre and the bishop of Durham, with the earls
of Arundel (Richard FitzAlan) and Suffolk (Robert Ufford), took charge of the
rearguard. Facing them were the French king, Philippe VI, and several princes
of the blood royal, including Charles, count of Alençon (the king’s brother),
Louis, count of Blois (Philippe’s nephew), and Louis of Nevers, count of
Flanders (the king’s cousin). In addition, there were Philippe’s relatives by
marriage: John of Luxembourg, the blind king of Bohemia (stationed on the left
wing), and his son Charles, king of Germany, later Emperor Charles IV (on the
right wing). A number of the great officers of state were also present,
including the marshals of France (stationed with the rearguard) – Charles of
Montmorency and Robert of Wavrin, lord of Saint-Venant[11].
The
battle that followed shocked Christendom. Crécy was an encounter that redefined
chivalric presumptions and reputations throughout Europe. Victory in 1346
transformed the image of English chivalry that had been so tarnished in the
defeat at Bannockburn more than thirty years previously. In truth it was an
image that in the British Isles had recovered much of its sheen in the early
years of Edward III’s reign through battles in Scotland such as Dupplin Moor
(1332) and Halidon Hill. Indeed, many of those who fought in France in 1346 had
been blooded in the Scottish wars of the 1330s and it was those experiences
that tempered them, forging a redoubtable fighting force. However, to the rest
of Europe this was an unwelcome revelation. As the poet Petrarch (1304–74)
noted, in his youth the Angli had been considered the most
timid of barbarians but now they were regarded as ‘a fiercely warmongering
people’[12]. This new military
reputation would last until Shakespeare’s time and beyond. As the archbishop of
Canterbury advised Henry V:
Look
back into your mighty ancestors:
Go, my
dread lord, to your great-grandsire’s tomb,
From
whom you claim; invoke his warlike spirit,
And
your great-uncle’s, Edward the Black Prince,
Who on
the French ground play’d a tragedy,
Making
defeat on the full power of France,
Whiles
his most mighty father on a hill
Stood
smiling to behold his lion’s whelp
Forage
in blood of French nobility.
O
noble English, that could entertain
With
half their forces the full Pride of France[13].
By
1346 the English had certainly become militarily formidable. The army that
fought at Crécy consisted of mixed retinues of archers and men-at-arms, many of
whom were knights who usually fought on foot. These units worked most
successfully when positioned defensively, using the terrain to their advantage,
having prepared the front and flanks with pits, traps and other means of
disrupting an enemy charge. It was a tactical model employed to good effect for
much of the Hundred Years War, but one that had serious implications for the
chivalric elite. The knight had acquired his august position, his social kudos
and cultural cachet, because of his skills as a mounted warrior, and chivalry
developed as a code for and a means of defining those who demonstrated these
skills[14]. However, the
tactics the English adopted in the Hundred Years War did not rely on heavy
cavalry; indeed, they were developed to counter its use. The cavalry charge,
which had proved a highly effective weapon for much of the Middle Ages, could
no longer be relied upon. The crushing defeat which the Scots inflicted at
Bannockburn had deeply influenced English strategic thinking. With absolute and
brutal clarity Robert Bruce’s army had shown that cavalry, with all its
chivalric connotations, could be terribly vulnerable to infantry, and its
weaknesses exposed not by individual prowess but by collective action and
discipline.
The
French had received a similarly chastening lesson in July 1302 at the hands of
the Flemish militia, at Courtrai, the battle of the Golden Spurs. It was so
called because of the number of gilded spurs collected from the bodies of
fallen French knights. It was not a lesson, however, that the French took to
heart. This was, in part, because Philippe VI had reversed the defeat at the
battle of Cassel in August 1328 using the traditional might of French cavalry.
At Crécy he persisted in using these same older tactics, but with disastrous
consequences. It was shocking evidence of a changing of the guard; cavalry was
no longer pre-eminent on the battlefield[15].
The
battle of Crécy began with a French attack, but not with cavalry: Philippe VI
did not only command horsemen. A substantial body of infantry and a large
contingent of Genoese crossbowmen led the assault. The crossbow would develop
into a highly formidable weapon over the course of the Hundred Years War, but
at this stage of its evolution it proved no match for the English longbow[16]. (Nor did it help
that the Italian mercenaries who comprised the majority of the crossbowmen had
been commanded to attack without their pavises, large shields
behind which they could reload, which were still en route to the battlefield
with the rest of the French baggage.) Faced with English archers who could
shoot further and more quickly, the Genoese soon retreated. This incensed the
French cavalry. Furious with the crossbowmen’s ‘cowardice’, the count of
Alençon led a charge against the English vanguard, but one that was poorly
organised. They rode into the arrow storm ‘in a jumbled mass, with no order
whatever’, and soon they were ‘tumbling over each other like a vast litter of
pigs’. Some, however, made it through to the English lines where the
hand-to-hand fighting began[17]. At one point the
English standard fell, only to be raised again by Thomas Daniel, one of the
Black Prince’s retainers; indeed, the prince himself was struck down and had to
be rescued by his standard-bearer, Richard FitzSimon[18]. The French cavalry
repeatedly wheeled, rallied and charged. During one of these attacks King
Edward was entreated to send reinforcements to bolster his son’s position. The
king, however, after being assured that the prince was, as yet, unharmed,
proclaimed ‘let the boy win his spurs, for if God has so ordained it, I wish
the day to be his’[19].
As the
French attacks faltered then failed, horses were brought up from behind the
English lines; the men-at-arms remounted and charged the surviving French
troops. A small bank or escarpment at the foot of the slope facing the English,
perhaps six feet in height, had disrupted the French assault and now impeded
their retreat, turning the valley into a killing ground. Seeing this, the bulk
of the army fled, leaving King Philippe with only a handful of companions, his
personal bodyguard and some infantry levies from Orléans. After being injured,
he was led away, forced to abandon the Oriflamme (the sacred banner French
kings carried to war) and the royal standard[20].
After
the battle, heralds began the grisly task of identifying the fallen. They
counted 1,542 French knights and squires who fell near the front line alone,
one of whom was John, the blind king of Bohemia[21]. Although defeated
and slain in battle, John of Bohemia’s conduct at Crécy reveals a good deal
about the values of the chivalric community at this time. When he heard that
the tide had turned against his French allies, the king asked his household
knights to lead him into the fray so that he might strike a blow:
[And]
because they cherished his honour and their own prowess [my
emphasis], his knights consented … In order to acquit themselves well and not
lose the king in the press, they tied all their horses together by the bridles,
set their king in front so that he might fulfil his wish, and rode towards the
enemy … They were found the next day lying around their leader, with their
horses still fastened together.[22]
Together,
the experiences of the Black Prince and John of Bohemia at Crécy and in the
wider campaign reveal a great deal about the role of chivalry in the early
stages of the Hundred Years War. They show that in spite of major changes in
military organisation, the chivalric ethos continued to shape the mindset of
the aristocracy and the image that its members wished to project of themselves.
Indeed, it may have been because of John’s bravery, witnessed at first hand,
that the Black Prince adopted the king’s emblem, the ostrich feathers, as his
device as Prince of Wales[23]. At Crécy,
John of Bohemia and the Black Prince demonstrated many of the key chivalric
virtues – prowess, honour and loyalty. Among these qualities prowess was valued
most highly. As Froissart noted, ‘as firewood cannot burn without flame,
neither can a gentleman [gentilz homs] achieve perfect honour nor
worldly renown without prowess’[24]. This was vital
since, first and foremost, the late medieval aristocracy was responsible for
the defence of the kingdom, and to shirk that responsibility meant ‘their
nobility [was] nothing but a mockery’[25].
Because
of this responsibility there was always a certain pragmatism intrinsic to
chivalry. For Geoffrey de Charny, military achievement determined chivalric
worth. One achieved ‘worth’ through deeds of arms, be they in tournaments, at
war or on crusade[26]. Hence, he
counselled knights and nobles to love deeds of arms, to be bold and give heart
to one another, to be truthful and fulfil their oaths, and to love and desire
honour. Charny, however, also recognised the changing nature of the military
landscape and that success in war depended on a high level of practicality.
Hence, he argued, to defeat their enemies his readers should be wise and
crafty, as well as brave. Tricks and stratagems were not necessarily contrary
to the strictures of chivalry. Prowess was valued, primarily because it brought
victory, and victory might also be achieved through subterfuge. Being caught
while engaged in such acts, however, might still be problematic. There was a
fine line between shrewd strategies and low cunning. If one employed some of
the more underhand ruses which Charny and other authors such as Christine de
Pizan advocated (noblemen, she wrote, should ‘be wise and crafty against their
enemies’), it was as well not to get caught, as happened to Charny, to his
shame, at Calais in 1350[27].
Charny
had become obsessed with recovering Calais, which had been lost to the English
in 1347 after the defeat at Crécy. He plotted to regain the port by bribing the
captain of the town, a Lombard named Aimery de Pavia. Despite being offered the
princely sum of 20,000 écus to let Charny and his men inside
the city walls, Aimery warned Edward III of the forthcoming attack and they set
a trap. The king secretly reinforced the garrison and he, the Black Prince and
some trusted companions travelled to Calais determined to defend it and to
capture the plotters. They did so with some ease and, later, Edward publicly
reproved Charny at a feast he held to celebrate the victory, saying ‘Sir
Geoffroi, I’ve little cause to love you when you try to steal by night what I
bought at such expense and effort! [The siege of Calais had lasted eleven
months.] It gives me great satisfaction that I caught you in the act!’ However,
despite Charny’s somewhat tarnished chivalric reputation, the new king of
France, Jean II (r.1350–64), considered him well worth ransoming and soon did
so[28].
Charny’s
actions at Calais, as well as those of the Black Prince and John of Bohemia at
Crécy and in the preceding chevauchée, reveal the broad scope of
chivalrous activity. Much of this behaviour does not fall within the compass of
chivalry as it is typically understood and it also raised questions for
contemporaries. The potency of the chivalric cult was such that it imbued
military service of all sorts with an allure and a certain glamour. Concerned
with the ‘deeds of great men’, certain writers rarely noticed or cared about
the depredations the peasantry suffered. As a consequence some found it
difficult to separate the actions of knights serving a king from soldiers (milites in
the older sense of the word) serving their own interests. In this way chivalry
became associated with and also tainted by the actions of the various mercenary
companies that flourished in the Hundred Years War. Criticism could become
particularly acute during peacetime when, now unemployed, the Free Companies
continued to fight for their own profit, offering the French population no
respite. The companies’ military potency was considerable: at the battle of
Brignais (1362) they defeated a French royal army. Chivalry had previously been
a concept linked to military service for one’s lord, engaged in a just cause.
This association was compromised when much of the fighting in the Hundred Years
War came to be seen as unjust and self-serving[29]. This weakened the
link between chivalry and ‘righteous’ violence that had been established in the
crusades and other ‘just wars’.
It is
not surprising that the actions of the Free Companies, alongside the
English chevauchée strategy, the pitiless character of siege
warfare and the casual brutality of occupation, have little in common with
popular views of chivalry today. There is little in such actions that suggests
the chivalrous should disdain conflict with their social inferiors or protect
women and clergymen. But the disparity with modern conceptions of chivalry does
not mean that the ethic was simply a fantasy in the late Middle Ages. It was
not merely a literary construct – an ideal perhaps, but one that few took truly
seriously during wartime. Chivalry did exert a real influence over the military
elite and it remained potent during the ‘autumn of the middle ages’. What has
changed in the intervening years is the dominant conception of chivalry. During
the Hundred Years War it offered more than a cynical and hypocritical facade,
and it provided something greater than a simple justification for looting,
pillage and rape. It is not correct to assume that by the time of Crécy all
that remained of this once idealistic military and social system was its
bastard child[30].
Nonetheless,
chivalry did provide a justification for the actions of the ruling elite, and
it served as a mechanism to protect the international, aristocratic, military
caste on the battlefield. During the Hundred Years War chivalry remained the
military code it had always been, one that shaped behaviour for and between
members of a warrior caste, despite having become bound up with concepts of
courtesy and imbued with a certain spirituality. Throughout the war it
continued to celebrate prowess and the defence of honour. Although chivalry
encouraged restraint in some circumstances, without violence there was no
chivalry[31].
A chevauchée,
therefore, such as that which led to Crécy, was not intrinsically unchivalric;
many contradictions become evident only from the vantage point of hindsight, by
which time definitions of chivalry had changed substantially. There was no
incongruity in the fact that the anonymous author of the highly laudatory Vie
du Prince Noir should record in the course of the same 1346 expedition
that
the
fair and noble Prince, made a right goodly beginning [as a knight]. All the
Cotentin he overrode and wholly burnt and laid waste, La Hogue, Barfleur,
Carentan, Saint-Lô, Bayeux, and up to Caen, where they conquered the bridge;
and there they fought mightily; by force they took the town, and the Count of
Tancarville and the Count of Eu were taken there. There the noble Prince gained
renown, for he was eager to acquit himself well[32].
The
Black Prince, therefore, built himself a chivalric reputation on the ashes of
peasant houses; he gained renown by burning the property of those least able to
defend themselves and by taking valuable prisoners. This military strategy,
which destroyed livelihoods and tax revenues, and that sought to undermine the
authority of the French king, was in no way unknightly, ignoble or ungentle.
Henry V knew this as well and would be glorified for it. He was celebrated for
campaigns that sought to destabilise France and destroy the political
legitimacy of the Valois monarch by razing his lands and demolishing his source
of income; hence Henry’s oft-repeated comment that war without fire had little
to recommend it – like sausages without mustard[33].
Burning
and looting, then, were not contrary to the dictates of chivalry. It is more
difficult, though, to determine whether victories such as Crécy or Agincourt –
victories shaped by new, perhaps revolutionary military approaches – were
equally chivalrous[34]. A tactical approach
based on discipline and defence ran counter to certain chivalric principles; it
did not rely on a number of traditional knightly virtues[35]. Qualities such as
skill-at-arms, prowess and bravery of course remained essential. However, the
battlefields of the Hundred Years War were dominated not by the mounted
aristocracy but by infantrymen, many of them commoners, and not by the lance
but the longbow, and later by artillery. As a result, in England, as the war
progressed, knighthood lost some of its cachet; fewer men sought to become
knights, fewer knights fought in English armies, and those who did so fought
mainly on foot. Such changes reflected a fundamental re-evaluation of military
strategy and tactics, a military revolution that also involved a major shift in
the social composition of armies. These changes also resulted in a challenge to
another central tenet of chivalry – the ransom system. The need for discipline
in the ranks, the greater use of long-range weapons and the increasing
proportion of lower-class soldiers in armies limited the protection that
chivalry had once offered the chivalrous, namely the opportunity to surrender
to a fellow member of the international chivalric brotherhood. The military
model that developed over the course of the Hundred Years War increased
casualty rates and limited the opportunities to take prisoners. However, because
chivalry remained a practical ethic, its practitioners recognised the changing
nature of military strategy. Consequently, while mercy remained a chivalric
ideal and ransoming very valuable (financially and politically), Henry V could
slaughter a number of his prisoners at Agincourt and receive remarkably little
censure because he did so for sound military reasons[36].
The
battlefields of fourteenth- and fifteenth-century Europe, therefore, marked the
graveyards of chivalry, literally but not figuratively, although there is no
doubt that the role of chivalry on the battlefield altered over the course of
the Hundred Years War. Nonetheless chivalry remained central to military
thinking. Ransoming, too, continued to offer practical advantages to both
sides. Prisoners of war retained great political and financial value, and many
continued to be treated according to traditional conventions. Unless taken by a
vindictive captor – the Spanish and Germans were often stereotyped as such –
the aristocratic captive could expect conditions to be none too onerous.
Periods of captivity were not supposed to be unreasonably extended either,
although this might be because a hostage took the place of the captured
man-at-arms. Ransom demands, similarly, should not be financially crippling.
Reality and theory might be very different but chivalry thrived throughout the
war nonetheless. Although exceptions in practice were numerous, this is not to
say that contemporaries completely ignored chivalric proprieties or that they
considered them worthless. Consequently, in March 1416, when Bernard d’Albret,
duke of Alençon, called on the duke of Dorset, Thomas Beaufort, to surrender
near Harfleur, he said:
Look,
you are caught between us and the sea; there is no place for you to escape.
Surrender to me therefore, so to not perish by the sword, but to be treated
most honourably as the nobility of your birth demands, and to be ransomed not
for an excessive sum, but for a reasonable one[37].
As it
was, Dorset chose not to accept the offer and, indeed, drove off the French
attack. The duke was very valuable, politically and financially, but his
experience does show that while the ransom system was a little bruised it
remained in good health.
The
ransom system also allowed for the production of a key text concerned with
attitudes to war and chivalry during the Hundred Years War, Sir Thomas
Gray’s Scalacronica. Gray (d.1369) was captured while leading a
retaliatory attack on a Scottish raiding party in 1355. He spent the next year
in comfortable captivity in Edinburgh Castle, where he had leisure to write his
chronicle – the musings of a conventional knight on the military deeds of his
family from the beginning of Edward I’s reign until his own times. Prior to his
capture Gray had been active in the Hundred Years War. He fought in Flanders in
1339, against the Scots at Neville’s Cross in October 1346, and after his
release he served with the Black Prince on the Reims campaign (1359–60). He was
also constable of Norham Castle in Northumberland. Gray’s attitudes, revealed
in the Scalacronica, show how a knight managed to blend the
practical with the more flamboyant aspects of chivalry.
For
Gray, honour was the focus of a chivalric life. Like the author of the Vow
of the Heron, he believed Edward III had a duty to wage war; indeed, he
argued it would have been dishonourable had Edward not taken up arms against
the French. The nation’s honour depended on the king fighting for his rights.
Second, Gray recognised the importance of prowess. He delighted in traditional
knightly skills but understood that a new military environment had developed in
which the shock and awe of cavalry had diminished. ‘Chivalric deeds,’ he
argued, ‘should be done on horseback rather than on foot,’ yet he added the
caveat ‘whenever this can suitably be done.’[38] Gray was a
pragmatist and this is particularly apparent when he discussed the subjects of
raiding and ‘collateral damage’. He spent no time whatsoever in his chronicle
remarking on the depredations the Scots inflicted south of the border, because
such events were so commonplace as to be entirely unremarkable. Consequently,
the Scalacronica reveals Gray’s recognition of the changing
character of warfare, while at the same time acknowledging the continuing
importance of chivalric convention and showing its author’s deep respect for
deeds of arms and those who performed them.[39]
Chivalry,
therefore, remained alive and well in the Hundred Years War. It remained more
than just a literary ideal and it continued to dictate ‘proper’ behaviour between
the chivalrous. That sense of ‘propriety’ altered over the course of the
conflict, but the war continued to be fought in a chivalrous manner – and not
only because it remained, chiefly, the business of the chivalric classes. Those
who commanded armies in the Hundred Years War may have been more or less
chivalrous than their ancestors but, for the most part, they were cut from the
same cloth and they were of the same order (ordo), members of the
chivalry of France and England. Some of them were also drawn together into even
tighter associations through chivalric bonds created in a wholly new way during
and because of the Hundred Years War.
The
importance of chivalry is clear in the manner by which English and French kings
sought to employ the ethic to defend their political ambitions and unite the
military aristocracy. Edward III founded the Order of the Garter in 1348 to
commemorate his own ‘honourable’ struggle in France, which had, surely,
received divine approval in the God-given victory at Crécy. This was a scheme
Edward had been toying with for some time. Plans had been well under way in
1344 for the development of a more grandiose foundation, the Round Table. This,
however, gave way to an Order dedicated to St George after the annus
mirabilis of 1346 with the victories against the ‘auld enemies’ at
Neville’s Cross and Crécy. The Garter motto, Honi soit qui mal y pense (‘dishonour
on he who thinks ill of it’), referred, most likely, to Edward’s French
campaigns and his claims to French lordship. The founder knights of the Order
were the king’s comrades in arms; many served in his household or as chamber
knights, and almost all were closely associated with his campaigns, most
especially the victory at Crécy[40].
In
this way the Order of the Garter linked the aristocratic community together in
common cause against France. The Garter served as a perpetual chivalric
memorial to Edward III’s continental ambitions and as a means to harness the
chivalric ethic, tying it to his political goals. It established a military
elite at the apex of English society, a fraternity bound to the king and each
other by ties of loyalty and a shared mission to make good the king’s and the
nation’s claim in France. The Order was also at the heart of a wider project –
the redefinition of English kingship; it imbued the monarchy with a new,
strongly chivalric character[41].
Meetings
of the Garter Knights on St George’s Day (23 April) emphasised the continuing
importance of chivalry and the military qualities of the aristocracy. These gatherings,
usually at Windsor, often included tournaments as well as religious festivals,
both of which were designed to strengthen the bonds between the king and key
members of the politico-military elite. Even though the lance and the cavalry
charge had proved somewhat ineffectual at Crécy, traditional military skills
and those who employed them were still valued and seen to be valued. Valour and
skill-at-arms were displayed in the company of fellow members of the elite and
presented before the public, who served to ensure the continuing validity of
the chivalric order.
The
Garter soon gained an international reputation, and as it did so successive
monarchs used membership of the Order to further their political ambitions at
home and abroad. Consequently, men such as Jean IV, duke of Brittany (d.1399),
Duke William I of Guelders (d.1402), Emperor Sigismund (d.1437) and King Juan I
of Portugal (d.1433) were granted membership and the places in St George’s
Chapel, Windsor, which accompanied the honour. In a similar fashion Henry V
knighted his captive King James I of Scotland at Windsor on St George’s Day in
1421. Although James was not made a knight of the Garter, this was a clear
attempt to use chivalry to secure the young king’s loyalty[42]. Influenced by this,
James adopted a similar policy on his return to Scotland in 1424, as King David
II had done some seventy years earlier. Both were encouraged by their time in
English captivity to use chivalry as a means of promoting loyalty to the Crown.[43]
Such
relationships were not to be entered into lightly. Membership of chivalric
orders such as the Garter had serious implications because of the emphasis
placed on loyalty to the master of the Order. In certain circumstances, because
of conflicting political priorities, membership might be refused. In 1424,
despite his alliance with England, Philippe the Good of Burgundy turned down
Garter membership for fear it might compromise his political independence. For
similar reasons Enguerrand de Coucy, Edward III’s son-in-law, surrendered his
membership of the Order in August 1377, as did the Aragonese mercenary captain
François de Surienne after the sack of Fougères in March 1449.[44]
In
France, Jean II imitated Edward III’s attempt to meld chivalry with royal
policy by establishing the Company of Our Lady of the Noble House, more
commonly known as the Company of the Star, in 1350. Spurred by the disaster of
Crécy and the defections of noblemen such as Robert d’Artois and Geoffrey de
Harcourt, the new king saw the potential of using the chivalric ethic to draw
together the military aristocracy in common cause despite the apparent poverty
of traditional cavalry tactics. The Company’s headquarters were sited just
north of Paris at the royal manor of Saint-Ouen-lès-Saint-Denis, later renamed
the Noble Maison. This was located between the capital and the Abbey of
Saint-Denis, both symbolic sites of French royal power. Jean II spent lavishly
expanding the manor’s facilities – a great deal of space was required for the
500 knights who he intended would comprise the Company[45]. Improvements
centred on the hall and chapel: like the Garter and other orders such as the
duke of Burgundy’s Golden Fleece (founded in 1430), the Star used religious
ceremonies to promote a sense of fraternity. Jean le Bel recorded that the
Company of the Star also had clear Arthurian connotations:
And at
least once a year the king would hold a plenary court which all the companions
[of the Star] would attend and where each would recount all his adventures –
the shameful as well as the glorious – that had befallen him since he had last
been at the noble court; and the king would appoint two or three clerks to
listen to these adventures and record them all in a book so that they should be
reported each year in front of all the companions, so that the most valiant
should be known and those honoured who most deserve it[46].
The
Companions of the Star were directed in their conduct by the Livre de
chevalerie, a guide written by a man still considered a shining exemplar of
chivalry despite his shaming at Calais in 1350. Geoffrey de Charny’s Book
of Chivalry, although aspirational and exhortatory, is no Arthurian
romance; nor is it an entirely pragmatic military guide such as
Vegetius’s De re militari. Rather, it is something between the two,
which reveals the attitudes and priorities of an aristocratic soldier, albeit
an exceptional one.[47] The foundation of
such orders shows the continuing appeal of chivalry, although there is no doubt
that conceptions of the chivalric ethic altered and were twisted in the war.
One
reason for changing conceptions can be found in the composition of armies.
Peasants had become bellatores, which had major implications for
the links between chivalry, nobility and deeds of arms. For much of the first
three centuries after the millennium a simple correlation existed: chivalry was
the code of the nobility and the noble classes were chivalrous. The origins of
this association and the caste distinction that lay behind it can be found in
the tripartite division of society, the Three Orders, which first emerged in an
organised form in the ninth century. According to this construct, those who
fought (bellatores) were distinguished in their divinely ordained
function from those who prayed (oratores) and from those who worked (laboratores).
Within these orders there were various ranks, sometimes ill defined, but a
common function bound their members together. When an association developed
between military function and noble status, miles and nobilis became
almost interchangeable terms; knights became noble and nobles joined the
knightly Order. As the twin poles of the aristocracy – nobles and knights –
were brought together by various military, political and social influences,
chivalry (the knightly ethic) became ennobling[48].
In the
later Middle Ages this simple correlation became uncertain, major differences
within the aristocracy re-emerged, and an exclusive Order of knighthood was
divided, defined and increasingly gradated. In England, beneath the nobility, a
lesser group developed – the gentry – while at the same time the chivalric
ethic began to be applied to the actions of men-at-arms of all sorts. In
France, while the petite noblesse had always been a group
divided from the greater nobility, the gap between the two widened and the
distinctiveness of the lesser aristocracy declined. This took place for two
main reasons: changes in military strategy, and the socio-economic
ramifications of the Black Death. As a consequence of these factors the impact
and value of the mounted knight declined on the battlefield, while at home the
distinctions – economic, social and political – between the lowest ranks of the
(military) aristocracy and the upper echelons of the peasantry became blurred.
This, however, was no simple transition.[49]
In
France in the early fifteenth century Christine de Pizan maintained that a
clear link remained between knights and nobles by writing of ‘the rank of
knighthood – that is, the worthy nobles who carry arms’. These men should not
be merely milites in armis strenuis (militarily active
knights/soldiers), they should be men of integrity, experienced in arms, noble
in manners and condition, loyal in deed and in courage, and wise in government
as well as diligent in chivalrous pursuits[50]. They should be men
fit to serve the king and protect and govern his people. During the turmoil of
the reign of the mad Charles VI and the ferment of the Armagnac-Burgundian
civil war, France was sorely in need of such men. It was, in part, to address
this need that Christine also composed a military treatise, The Book of
Deeds of Arms and of Chivalry for the dauphin. Much of her writing was
undertaken in the midst of great political upheaval, and Christine’s vision of
society as well as her extremely practical military approach were shaped by
these conditions[51]. In
her work we see a clear realisation that the chivalry of France needed to unite
to face the English threat, but also a recognition that tactical changes had to
be made in order to defeat it. Acts of stupendous, independent bravery and
sacrifice may have been wonderful but they were not (often) effective and
(usually) no match for disciplined infantrymen and troops armed and well
trained in the use of longbows, crossbows and artillery.
Such a
realisation reflected a wider question being posed about the correlation
between and respective purposes of knighthood and nobility (noblesse).
In the late thirteenth century the link between the two certainly did remain
strong. The earliest royal ennoblements made by Philippe III and Philippe IV
gave commoners permission to become knights. As lettres d’anoblissement became
more elaborate in the fourteenth century, they reveal significant differences
between nobles and non-nobles. A noble might arm himself as a knight if he
wished; he would enjoy tax exemptions and a range of judicial and other
privileges; in particular he could hold fiefs without the penalties that
applied to commoners. As a nobleman he would join the community of the noblesse.
This final element was of considerable importance – to be noble was, foremost,
to be judged noble by other nobles.
This
definition was central to a remarkable incident that took place in 1408 in the
Dauphiné province of southeastern France. Twenty-one persons, including 2
ecclesiastics, 11 nobles, and 8 commoners, were asked what it was to be noble.
The case involved a trial concerning the claim to exemption from tax by an
innkeeper on the grounds that he was a noble. The majority decided that to be
noble was ‘to live from one’s revenues and property without doing manual
labour, which is to say, not ploughing, reaping, digging, or doing other
peasant work’[52]. Sixteen
witnesses, with representatives from all groups, asserted this – all the
ecclesiastics and commoners and 6 of the 11 nobles. Nobility was therefore, for
most, a way of life. Remarkably, of the Dauphiné witnesses, only two believed
nobility to be dependent on birth and, equally significantly, only 11 saw it as
being tied to a career in arms, including 5 of the 11 nobles. Strangely, nine
of the witnesses, two fewer, stated that a noble was supposed to go to war on
behalf of his lord. Others suggested a nobleman had a duty to defend the
Church, perhaps going on crusade, and 5 of the 21 said a noble should not
engage in usury or trade. Another aspect emphasised by some of the deponents
was the importance of dining and entertaining in a suitable fashion, as well as
being clothed elegantly. In this sense, to be noble was to appear noble, so
keeping company with others of similar standing and participating in ‘noble’
activities such as tournaments were also mentioned. Those who were or who
considered themselves noble viewed the ‘courtly’ virtues of probity, goodness,
mildness and good manners as significant[53]. Nobility had to be
acknowledged publicly for it to be valid.
The
public acknowledgement of nobility might also be achieved through service to
the Crown. This might, increasingly, be in administrative or even legal
service. It was not easy in this new world of infantry and weapons that killed
at a distance to make a chivalric name for oneself on the battlefield. It may
have been for this reason that other forms of service, in law and
administration, became more acceptable. By serving in these areas members of
the aristocracy still contributed to the war effort and the fulfilment of a
national cause. The bureaucracy of government and the developing ‘State’
machine needed the services in the treasury and the courts of those who
previously had ridden out to defend their country’s borders and mete out
justice to her enemies.
As the
nature of the military aristocracy changed in this period, nobility and
knighthood, once almost synonymous, became disentangled from one another. Both
faced financial threats in the post-plague economic world, and also military
threats from commoners on foot or wielding long-range weapons. In England the
aristocracy became increasingly stratified, leading to the development of a
sub-knightly aristocracy, or gentry, who adopted the ranks of esquire and
gentleman. One could be chivalrous, one could bear arms (militarily and
heraldically), yet not be a knight. Just as knighthood and nobility were no
longer synonymous, nor were knighthood and chivalry. In France the distinctions
between the lower levels of the petite noblesse and the
peasantry also became increasingly uncertain, and chivalry started to be spread
thinly, as it was extended to a wider social group and as heavy cavalry lost
some of its potency on the battlefield.
Chivalry,
therefore, did not die in the Hundred Years War; it was not battered into
submission like the English in 1453 at Castillon, the concluding battle in the
conflict. The war was intrinsically chivalric; it could not be otherwise. It
defined and dominated the identities of the chivalrous in England and France.
But the conflict placed chivalry under new stresses, and these increased as it
drew to a close. The implementation of Charles VII’s military ordonnances led
to the creation of a standing army, and professionalisation cost chivalry some
of its purpose. At the heart of the reforms was the royal artillery,
coordinated and administered by Jean Bureau, which would destroy the remnants
of the Anglo-Gascon army in 1453. But this was not only an infantry and
artillery force, and the enduring appeal of cavalry is reflected in the
composition of the new national army. Despite the thousand natural shocks the
chivalry of France had suffered over the course of the struggle, aristocratic
cavalry remained central to French military thinking[54]. Over a decade after
the end of the Hundred Years War, Jean de Bueil, who fought at Verneuil in
1424, alongside Joan of Arc in the reconquest of Normandy, and at Castillon,
wrote Le Jouvencel, a didactic romance for young noblemen. In it he
exulted in warfare and the living values of chivalry. ‘The most dangerous arms
in the world,’ he wrote, ‘are those of horse and lance, because there is no
means of stopping them.’[55] He was, of course,
wrong. However, the author was not alone in expressing this opinion; the
conclusion of the war saw a flourishing of chivalric literature in England.
Such works reveal the enduring appeal and influence of chivalry, albeit a
conception reshaped by the Hundred Years War. Alongside the changes in military
strategy and tactics, chivalric individuality had been transformed by the war
into an ideal of collective service in defence of the nation.[56]
The
production of such works may show a touch of nostalgia but also the continuing
significance of the chivalric ethic. So, too, somewhat perversely, does the
criticism poured on knights and nobles when they were seen to be failing to
fulfil their responsibilities. Despite major military developments that
compromised the traditional skills of the chivalric elite, individual
commentators and the population at large in both England and France expected
the aristocracy to defend the nation and its honour through deeds of arms.
Unsurprisingly, criticism was most vociferous after a defeat. In England venom
dripped from the pen of the monk and chronicler Thomas Walsingham following the
military reversals of the last quarter of the fourteenth century. ‘It is so
awful,’ he said, in an entry for 1383:
The
land that once bore and gave birth to men who were respected by all who dwelt
nearby and feared by those who lived far off, now spews forth weaklings who are
laughed at by our enemies and a subject for gossip among our people. For seldom
or never is one of our knights found to be a man who devotes himself to his
country, or labours for the good of its citizens.[57]
In a
similar fashion the chivalry of France was condemned after Crécy, Agincourt,
and Poitiers most especially – for there its members ‘abandoned’ their king to
captivity and dishonour[58]. The consequences
were not restricted to literary attacks. The social and political upheaval
caused by the defeat at Poitiers in 1356, the disruption caused by soldiers of
all sorts and the humiliating failure of the military aristocracy to fulfil
their responsibilities to the king and nation resulted in a major revolt – the
Jacquerie.
[1] Wright, ed., Political
Poems and Songs, I, 6–7.
[2] Vale, Princely Court,
213–18.
[3] J. Huizinga, Homo
Ludens: A Study of the Play Element in Culture (London, 1970), 17–18.
[4] For further discussion of chivalrous
writing in this period, see C. Taylor, ‘English Writings on Chivalry and
Warfare during the Hundred Years War’, Soldiers, Nobles and Gentlemen:
Essays in Honour of Maurice Keen, ed. P. Coss and C. Tyerman (Woodbridge,
2009), 65–70.
[5] R. Vernier, The
Flower of Chivalry: Bertrand du Guesclin and the Hundred Years War (Woodbridge,
2003), 5–6.
[6] Honoré Bonet (sometimes called Bouvet)
became prior of Salon, near Embrun. He studied at the University of Avignon and
held various minor official positions. His book L’arbre des batailles is
a treatise on war and the laws of war. Written in 1387 for a broad readership,
it proved extremely influential: The Tree of Battles of Honoré Bouvet,
trans. G. W. Coopland (Liverpool, 1949).
[7] See further D. Crouch,
‘Chivalry and Courtliness: Colliding Constructs’, Soldiers, Nobles and
Gentlemen, ed. Coss and Tyerman, 32–48.
[8] J. Sumption, The Hundred Years
War, II: Trial by Fire (London, 1999), 494, 497–8, 532; J.
Viard, ‘La campagne de juillet-août et la bataille de Crécy’, Le Moyen
Âge, 2nd ser. 27 (1926), 3–4.
[9] R. Kaeuper, ‘The Societal Role of
Chivalry in Romance: Northwestern Europe’, The Cambridge Companion to
Medieval Romance, ed. R. L. Krueger (Cambridge, 2000), 99.
[10] On the vexed question of the
Blanchetaque crossing and whether Edward III was aware of the ford in advance,
see A. Ayton, ‘The Crécy Campaign’, Battle of Crécy, ed. Ayton and
Preston, 85–98.
[11] For accounts of the
battle of Crécy, see Chronicon Galfridi le Baker de Swynebroke, ed.
E. M. Thompson (Oxford, 1889), 82–5; Knighton’s Chronicle, 63; A.
Murimuth, Continuatio Chronicarum, ed. E. M. Thompson (London,
1889), 246; J. Froissart, Oeuvres, ed. Kervyn de Lettenhove, 28
vols (Brussels, 1867–77), V, 33–8; J. Froissart,Chroniques, ed. S. Luce,
G. Raynaud and L. Mirot, 15 vols (Paris, 1869–1975), III, 169, 405, 407, 409;
Le Bel, Chronique, II, 99ff. For various interpretations, see
Viard, ‘Le campagne de juillet-août’, 67, 70–1; Rogers, War Cruel and
Sharp, 266–70; B. Schnerb, ‘Vassals, Allies and Mercenaries: The French
Army before and after 1346’,Battle of Crécy, ed. Ayton and Preston,
269–70.
[12] Ayton, ‘The English Army at Crécy’,
200–15; K. DeVries, Infantry Warfare in the Early Fourteenth Century:
Discipline, Tactics and Technology (Woodbridge, 1996), 112–28 (on
Dupplin Moor and Halidon Hill); P. Boitani, ‘Petrarch and the “barbari
Britanni”’, Petrarch in Britain: Interpreters, Imitators, and
Translators over 700 Years, ed. M. McLaughlin, L. Panizza and P. Hainsworth
(Oxford, 2007), 9.
[13] W. Shakespeare, Henry
V, I. ii. 102–12.
[14] M. Keen, Chivalry (New
Haven, CT, and London, 1984), 18–43; D. Crouch, The Birth of Nobility:
Constructing Aristocracy in England and France, 900–1300 (Harlow,
2005), 46–86.
[15] C. J. Rogers, ‘The
Military Revolutions of the Hundred Years’ War’, Journal of Military
History, 57 (1993), 258–75; DeVries, Infantry Warfare, esp.
9–22, 66–85, 100–11.
[16] According to Le Baker, French crossbows
at Poitiers did inflict considerable damage: Chronicon, 151. For a
cautionary note regarding the disparity between longbows and crossbows, see R.
Mitchell, ‘The Longbow–Crossbow Shootout at Crécy (1346): Has the “Rate of Fire
Commonplace” been Overrated?’, The Hundred Years War, II:Different
Vistas, ed. L. J. A. Villalon and D. J. Kagay (Leiden, 2008), 233–57.
[17] The True Chronicles of Jean le Bel,
1290–1360, trans. N. Bryant (Woodbridge, 2011), 180.
[18] BPR, I, 14, 45;
P. Morgan, War and Society in Medieval Cheshire, 1277–1403(Manchester,
1987), 182, 186.
[19] Froissart: Chronicles, ed. and
trans. G. Brereton (Harmondsworth, 1978), 92; J. Froissart, Chroniques:
Le Manuscrit d’Amiens, III, ed. G. T. Diller (Geneva, 1992), 20. Despite
Edward’s comments, reported by Froissart, the bishop of Durham and the earls of
Huntingdon and Suffolk may have sent reinforcements to assist the Black Prince:Anonimalle
Chronicle, 1333–1381, ed. V. H. Galbraith (Manchester, 1927), 22.
[20] Le Baker, Chronicon, 82–5;
Froissart, Oeuvres, ed. Lettenhove, V, 37–8; R. Barber, Edward,
Prince of Wales and Aquitaine: A Biography of the Black Prince(Woodbridge,
1978), 68; Sumption, Trial by Fire, 530.
[21] Anonimalle
Chronicle, 23, 160.
[22] Froissart:
Chronicles, ed. and trans. Brereton, 89–90.
[23] J. Barker, The Tournament in
England, 1100–1400 (Woodbridge, 1986), 184.
[24] Cited by Kaeuper, ‘Societal Role of
Chivalry’, 102.
[25] C. de Pizan, The Book of the
Body Politic, ed. and trans. K. L. Forhan (Cambridge, 1994), 59, 63.
[26] For examples of the mantra qui
plus fait, mieux vault (‘he who achieves most is the most worthy’),
see G. de Charny, The Book of Chivalry, ed. and trans. R. W.
Kaeuper and E. Kennedy (Philadelphia, PA, 1996), 87, 93, 95, 97, 99. Similarly,
Chaucer and Dante judged individuals according to worth, although not only
their military value: N. Saul, ‘Chaucer and Gentility’, Chaucer’s
England: Literature in Historical Context, ed. B. A. Hanawalt (Minneapolis,
MN, 1992), 49.
[27] In the foreword to
Frontinus’s Stratagems, translated for Charles VII, Jean de
Rouvroy, dean of the faculty of theology at the University of Paris, noted
‘more battles … have been won by ruses and subtleties … than by greater numbers’:
Vale, Charles VII, 195; C. de Pizan, Book of the Body
Politic, 64.
[28] Charny, Book of Chivalry,
11–13; Le Bel, Chronicles, trans. Bryant, 208; Froissart, Oeuvres,
ed. Lettenhove, V, 220–51, 271–4; Y. N. Harari, Special Operations in
the Age of Chivalry, 1100–1550 (Woodbridge, 2007), 109–24.
[29] M. Keen, ‘War, Peace
and Chivalry’, Nobles, Knights and Men-at-Arms, 13–20.
[30] For such arguments see
J. Huizinga, The Autumn of the Middle Ages, trans. R. J. Payton and
U. Mammitzsch (Chicago, IL, 1996); R. Kilgour, The Decline of Chivalry
as Shown in the French Literature of the Late Middle Ages (Cambridge,
MA, 1937).
[31] R. W. Kaeuper, Chivalry and
Violence in Medieval Europe (Oxford, 1999), 129–49.
[32] Chandos Herald, Life of the
Black Prince, ed. and trans. M. K. Pope and E. C. Lodge (Oxford, 1910),
136.
[33] Jean Juvénal des
Ursins, cited by J. Gillingham, ‘Richard I and the Science of War in the Middle
Ages’, War and Government in the Middle Ages: Essays in Honour of J. O.
Prestwich, ed. J. Gillingham and J. C. Holt (Woodbridge, 1984), 85.
[34] A. Ayton and J. L. Price, eds, The
Medieval Military Revolution: State, Society and Military Change in Medieval
and Early Modern Europe (London, 1995); C. J. Rogers, ed., The
Military Revolution Debate: Readings on the Military Transformation of Early
Modern Europe (Boulder, CO, 1995), esp. ch. 3.
[35] On the recognition of the need for
discipline in French armies by the end of the war, see J. de Bueil, Le
Jouvencel, ed. C. Favre and L. Lecestre, 2 vols (Paris, 1887, repr. Geneva,
1996), II, 32; M. Chan Tsin, ‘Medieval Romances and Military History: Marching
Orders in Jean de Bueil’s Le Jouvencel introduit aux armes’, Journal
of Medieval Military History, VII, The Age of the Hundred Years War,
ed. C. J. Rogers, K. DeVries, and J. France (Woodbridge, 2009), 126–34.
[36] Keen, Chivalry,
221.
[37] Walsingham, The St Albans
Chronicle: The Chronica Maiora of Thomas Walsingham, II: 1394–1422,
ed. and trans. J. Taylor, W. R. Childs and L. Watkiss (Oxford, 2011), 687.
[38] Sir T. Gray, Scalacronica,
1272–1363, ed. and trans. A. King (Woodbridge, 2005), 83.
[39] A. King, ‘The Ethics of War in Sir
Thomas Gray’s Scalacronica’, War, Government and
Aristocracy in the British Isles c.1150–1500: Essays in Honour of Michael
Prestwich, ed. C. Given-Wilson, A. Kettle and L. Scales (Woodbridge, 2008),
153; idem, ‘A Helm with a Crest of Gold: The Order of Chivalry in
Thomas Gray’sScalacronica’,Fourteenth-Century England, I, ed. N.
Saul (Woodbridge, 2000), 22–4.
[40] R. Barber, ‘The Military Role of the
Order of the Garter’, Journal of Medieval Military History,
VII, The Age of the Hundred Years War, ed. C. J. Rogers, K.
DeVries, and J. France (Woodbridge, 2009), 1–11; D. A. J. D. Boulton, The
Knights of the Crown: The Monarchical Orders of Knighthood in Later Medieval
Europe, 1325–1520(Woodbridge, 1987), 127–8; J. Munby, R. Barber and R.
Brown, Edward III’s Round Table at Windsor (Woodbridge, 2007),
esp. 77–99; P. R. Coss, The Knight in Medieval England, 1000–1400 (Stroud,
1993), 91, 100.
[41] H. Collins, The
Order of the Garter, 1348–1461: Chivalry and Politics in Late Medieval England (Oxford,
2000), 1, 41; N. Saul, ‘Introduction’, St George’s Chapel, Windsor in
the Fourteenth Century, ed. N. Saul (Woodbridge, 2005), 1; J. R.
Major, From Renaissance Monarchy to Absolute Monarchy: French Kings,
Nobles and Estates(Baltimore, MD, and London, 1994), 68.
[42] TNA E101/407/4, 17 (knighting of James
I); M. G. A. Vale, War and Chivalry: Warfare and Aristocratic Culture
in England, France, and Burgundy at the End of the Middle Ages (Atlanta,
GA, 1981), 34, 36, 39–42.
[43] M. Penman, David
II (Edinburgh, 2004), 150–1; K. Stevenson, Chivalry and
Knighthood in Scotland, 1424–1513 (Woodbridge, 2006), 2, 170–9.
[44] M. Keen, ‘Coucy, Enguerrand (VII) de,
earl of Bedford (c.1340–1397)’, ODNB(online edn, 2004);
Griffiths, Reign of King Henry VI, 512–13.
[45] Boulton, Knights of the Crown,
181, 184–5, 197.
[46] Le Bel, Chronicles,
trans. Bryant, 217.
[47] See Book of Chivalry, esp.
48–64. On the distribution and influence of Vegetius’s text in the Middle Ages,
see C. T. Allmand, The De Re Militari of Vegetius: The Reception,
Transmission and Legacy of a Roman Text in the Middle Ages (Cambridge,
2011), esp. 121–32 (for its influence over C. de Pizan and Jean Juvénal des
Ursins).
[48] M. Bloch, Feudal
Society, trans. L. A. Manyon, 2 vols (London, 2nd edn, 1971), II, 283–344;
D. Crouch, The Image of the Aristocracy in Britain, 1100–1300 (London,
1992), 153; idem, Birth of Nobility, 29–36, 222–52; G. Duby, The
Chivalrous Society, trans. C. Postan (Berkeley and Los Angeles, CA, 1977),
75; idem, The Three Orders: Feudal Society Imagined, trans. A.
Goldhammer (Chicago, IL, 1980), 293–307; P. R. Coss, The Lady in
Medieval England, 1000–1500 (Stroud, 1998), 37; idem, Knight
in Medieval England, 50–2.
[49] P. Contamine, ‘Points de vue sur la
chevalerie en France à la fin du Moyen Âge’, Francia, 4 (1976),
256; P. R. Coss, The Origins of the English Gentry (Cambridge,
2003), 18, 239.
[50] C. de Pizan, Book of the Body
Politic, 50.
[51] C. de Pizan’s Book
of Deeds of Arms and of Chivalry is first and foremost a military
guide. While there is consideration of just wars (C. de Pizan, The Book
of Deeds of Arms and of Chivalry, trans. S. Willard, ed. C. C. Willard
[University Park, PA, 1999], 14–15), the perils of war and the consideration
that a prince should give to the matter prior to setting out on a campaign
(18–23), the bulk of the work is concerned with the appointment of military
officers (e.g. 23–6), the qualities they should possess (37–9), the lodging of
troops, procedures for marching, crossing natural obstacles, preparations for
battle, the arrangement of soldiers on the battlefield, provisions, advice on
storming and defending a fortress, soldiers’ pay (153–5), the distribution of
booty and similar matters. A section is devoted to the proper use of tricks and
subtlety in combat (163–4). Consideration is also given to topics such as
ransoms, judicial combats and heraldry.
[52] H. Kaminsky, ‘Estate,
Nobility and the Exhibition of Estate in the Later Middle Ages’, Speculum,
68 (1993), 701; H. Zmora, Monarchy, Aristocracy and State in Europe,
1300–1800 (London, 2000), 22–3; J. Mourier, ‘Nobilitas quid est? Un
procès à Tain-l’Hermitage en 1408’, BEC, 142 (1984), 255–69.
[53] Major, From Renaissance
Monarchy to Absolute Monarchy, 58–9. See also G. Prosser, ‘“Decayed
Feudalism” and “Royal Clienteles”: Royal Office and Magnate Service in the
Fifteenth Century’, War, Government and Power in Late Medieval France,
ed. C. T. Allmand (Liverpool, 2000), 180; idem, ‘The Later Medieval
French noblesse’,France in the Later Middle Ages, ed. D.
Potter (Oxford, 2003), 182–5.
[54] P. Contamine, ‘La
Guerre de Cent Ans: Le xve siècle. Du “Roi de Bourges” au très
victorieux Roi de France’, Histoire militaire de la France,
1: Des origines à 1715, ed. A. Corvisier (Paris, 1992), 198–208; D.
Potter, ‘Chivalry and Professionalism in the French Armies of the
Renaissance’, The Chivalric Ethos and the Development of Military
Professionalism, ed. D. J. B. Trim (Leiden, 2003), 152.
[55] Jean de Bueil, Le Jouvencel,
II, 100.
[56] Alongside a number of translations of
French works by Christine de Pizan, Alain Chartier and others Nicholas Upton
wrote De studio militari for Humphrey, duke of Gloucester, in
1447; and William Worcester’s Boke of Noblesse was later given
to Edward IV: Taylor, ‘English Writings on Chivalry and Warfare’, Soldiers,
Nobles and Gentlemen, ed. Coss and Tyerman, 68.
[57] The Chronica Maiora of Thomas
Walsingham (1376–1422), ed. and trans. D. Preest and J. G. Clark
(Woodbridge, 2005), 210; St Albans Chronicle, I, cv–cvi, 705.
[58] Report of the battle of Poitiers by
Robert Prite, clerk: BL Cotton Caligula D III f. 33. See also Froissart, Oeuvres,
ed. Lettenhove, XVIII, 388; ‘Complainte sur la bataille de Poitiers’, ed. Ch.
de Beaurepaire, BEC, 12 (1851), 257–63. French defeats were
attributed ‘à l’impéritie [incompetence] de la classe militaire par excellence,
c’est-à-dire de la noblesse’. See also P. Contamine, ‘De la puissance aux
privilèges: doléances de la noblesse française envers la monarchie aux XIVe et
XVe siècles’, La noblesse au Moyen Âge, XIe–XVe
siècles. Essais à la mémoire de Robert Boutruche, ed. P. Contamine (Paris,
1976), 250; idem, Guerre, état et société à la fin du Moyen Âge. Études
sur les armées des rois de France, 1337–1494 (Paris, 1972), 45, 175;
F. Autrand, ‘La déconfiture: La bataille de Poitiers (1356) à travers quelques
textes français des XIVe et XVe siècles’, Guerre
et société en France, en Angleterre et en Bourgogne, XIVe–XVe siècle,
ed. P. Contamine, C. Giry-Deloison and M. Keen (Villeneuve d’Ascq, 1991),
93–121.
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