Chivalry flourished during the 13th and the 14th centuries. Noblemen, highly accomplished amateurs fighting for the love of it, encased themselves in expensive and elaborate armor, to do battle against their counterparts on the enemy's side, both mounted on big strong, often armored horses.

The rest of the army was more or less an armed mob - at Marchfield in 1278 neither commander bothered to bring his infantry on to the field at all. With the singular exceptions of the Flemish pikemen at Courtrai in 1302 and the Swiss halbardiers at Mortgarten in 1315 (explained away by saying that the knights had tried to fight on impossible ground) these heavy cavalry carried all before them. Soon the undisputed reign of heavy armored cavalry was to come to an end - brought crashing to the ground by a peculiarly English weapon and tactics.

Photo at right: French troops. Figures owned and painted by Gary Leitzell.

In the 13th century it was the custom to supplement armies by hiring Gascon crossbowmen. King Edward I of England found in his Welsh and Scottish wars that these mercenaries were terribly expensive. Seeking an alternative, Edward recalled how his mailed horsemen had not been able to storm crags or scramble down the ravines of Wales, but that the Welsh archers had been able to-do this. Also, he had noticed that it was difficult for archers in open ground, lacking horsemen of their own to support them, to withstand the concentrated rush of cavalry. Edward reasoned that a blending of cavalry and missile-infantry would be a very formidable combination.

The Longbow

The six foot longbow in the hands of a well-trained, muscular archer had an effective range of about 250 yards. Each archer carried 24 arrows in his belt and stuck them in the ground before him when action was imminent. It was claimed that, at the height of their glory, the English archer could keep at lest half a dozen arrows in the air at one time.

The small head of the arrow and the enormous power behind it produced an immense penetrative ability that was quite capable of going right through a man without armor, and only heavy plate armor provided any sort of adequate protection against them. More than that, the droning, buzzing shower of arrows that darkened the sky demoralized and terrified the enemy.

But the archers did not rely on this effect, at Crecy they carefully and ruthlessly aimed at individual horses and at Agincourt into the visorholes of the plodding knights. When their arrows gave out, they joined in the battle with their hand-weapons, nimbly skipping around the heavily laden infantry in their restricting armor. Positioned in wedge-shaped bastion-like formations between the groups of dismounted men-at-arms, the archers were able to protect and enfilade the frontage of the men-at-arms.

With the archers, the English kings used mounted men-at-arms, sometimes dismounting them to fight. The higher born knight fought in the best armor and with a selection of battle horses at his disposal. The armies also contained Hobelars - mounted skirmishers who rode rough ponies; and lightly armored Welsh spearmen, the first uniformly clad troops in the English Army, wearing tunics and mandes provided by the king.

The English archers wore steel caps, breastplates or padded hauberks, sometimes covered by surcoats of white bearing the red lion of St. George, loose hose covered their lower limbs. In addition to their bow, they had a sword, a battle-ax swinging from their belt and sometimes a maul, or five-foot mallet was fastened to their leather shoulder belt by a hook in the center of its handle.

Spearmen were similarly attired but lacked a breastplate.

The knights wore many forms of armor, usually plate backed by chain mail. Over the armor was wom a surcoat emblazoned with the crest of the knight or that of the leader he served. The same device was displayed on the shield. The men-at-arms who were not knights wore armor that was less elaborate (therefore less expensive). They were armed with sword, lance, dagger and sometimes a battle-mace.

There were successes against the Scots at Falkirk in 1298 and Halidon Hill in 1333, and a defeat at Bannockbum in 1314, when Bruce scattered the English archers with Scottish cavalry and then beat the armored horsemen with his steady pike formations. At Crecy in 1346 came the first real test of the English archers, when Edward III and his young son the Black Prince were retreating to the French coast pursued by a much more numerous French army.

At Crecy, at Poitiers in 1336, and at Agincourt in 1415, the English archers, backed by dismounted men-at-arms and knights completely defeated the flower of French chivalry.

Each community was obliged to provide a certain number of troops who naturally differed greatly in quality. Sometimes, trained bands of professional soldiers were hired as substitutes. When competently led they were good, but often became little better than a rabble.

When these feudal armies fought, the first stage of the action was nearly always a flight of the infantry, unable to withstand a charge by cavalry, and remaining in confusion until their own cavalry attacked, then they followed up to hamstring the enemy horses and kill the wounded.

Genoese crossbowmen were the mercenary troops employed by the French to be their missile troops. The basic French cavalry unit was a small group known as a lance composed of the squire with knights and arms bearers forming six men in all.

It was not until nearly at the end of the Hundred Years War that the French learned how to cope with these English tactics. Often opposed by superior numbers, the English did not lose a battle from Morlaix in 1339 to Patay and Formigny in the 1420s.

Primitive artillery was used at Crecy in 1346, but was not much used until towards the end of the Hundred Years War when the French, inspired by Joan of Arc, began to use tactics which countered the deadly effect of the English archer. At this stage the war took the form of sieges and irregular combats, often of a guerrilla nature. After the Hundred Years War, the longbow was mainly used in battle by the Free Companies of Englishmen who served as mercenary troops in Italy, Spain and other parts of Europe. Oddly, the longbow was not adopted by other nations.

One of the factors which enabled the French to win the Hundred years War was the reorganization of their army in 1439 to include a cavalry force consisting of fifteen companies of gendarmerie, each of a hundred lances, numbering about 9,000 men. The infantry were reorganized, feudal troops being replaced by companies of paid crossbowmen, pikemen and gunners. After these sweeping changes, France possessed perhaps the best professional soldiers in Europe.

The French cavalry were worthy of note, being divided into three sections, the gendarmerie equipped with costly Milan armor and twelve foot lances; light cavalry with breast-plates and short lances formed the 2nd division and were known as reiters. In the 3rd division, among the light cavalry or scouts was the mounted hand gunner - some of the men having a small cannon of about half-an-inch bore, suspended by a ring around the neck. The weapon was really an iron tube fixed to a stock with a loop at the end of the stock. Using these forces, by 1453, the French had deprived the English of all her possessions in France except Calais.

FACTORS TO CONSIDER WHEN INTERPRETING MEDIEVAL WARFARE INTO WARGAMING

Assuming that it is the 100 Years War of England versus France and the occasional battles that took place between England and Scotland during this period to be considered, the period is remarkably consistent for about 90 of the 100 years. The massed volleys of the incomparable English archers broke up the attacks of heavily armored foot and horse, for the weary survivors who reached the battle line to be competently handled by the dismounted men-at-arms who had eagerly awaited their coming. This lays down certain predestined factors:

• The English generally fought on the defensive, at least for the majority of the battle until, as at Poitiers in 1356, they mounted and attacked. At Vemeuil, the English attacked on foot whilst their archers actually attacked mounted men-at-arms!
• The English rarely fought without a marked disparity in their numbers compensated for by the long-range effect of the longbow.
• The French, certainly in the later part of the period before the tide began to turn in their favor, must have had a considerably lower state of morale than the English.
• The French employed far more cavalry and far fewer (in proportion) infantry and missile-men than did the English. If the French refused to attack until they considered the time was propitious then they had a good chance of victory as at Patay in 1429 and at Fomligny in 1450.
• Similarly, if the French succeeded in closing with the English before suffering heavy losses (and in greater numbers) then they also had an excellent chance of winning.