The Hundred Years War - Desmond Seward [17]
The following spring there was a massive French counter-attack in the south-west, Duke John of Normandy besieging the Earl of Derby at Aiguillon (where the rivers Lot and Garonne meet). The Duke may not have had 100,000 troops as Froissart tells us, but he could well have had 20,000—a considerable proportion of the French military might. Edward now prepared his third front. Reading the chronicles with all their tales of chivalry and knightly deeds, one tends not to realize the surprisingly modern thoroughness and professionalism of his strategy.
The French anticipated an English invasion from Flanders. But Jacob van Artevelde had been overthrown and a pro-French count returned. Against all expectations Edward chose to launch his third front, and main attack, in Normandy. It may have been an accidental choice. Froissart heard that Edward actually set sail for Guyenne, but was blown back to the marchesof Cornwall, where, while waiting, he was advised to try Normandy instead by an important Norman lord, Godefroi d‘Harcourt, who had fallen foul of Philip VI and fled to England. He told Edward that the people of Normandy were not used to war, and that ‘there shall ye find great towns that be not walled, whereby your men shall have such winning, that they shall be the better thereby twenty years after’.
When King Edward sailed from Porchester on 5 July 1346 he had with him ‘a thousand ships, pinnaces and supply vessels’, carrying about 15,000 men. (This was a considerable logistic achievement; even the great host which his father had led—on land—to defeat at Bannockburn thirty years before had numbered no more than 18,000.) As one of the most successful expeditionary forces in English history its composition—knights, lancers, bowmen (mounted and on foot) and knifemen—is worth examining in detail. It is significant that there was a far larger proportion of volunteers than hitherto, attracted by the prospect of plunder; noblemen had no difficulty in recruiting big companies under ‘indentures of war’.
In 1346 an English man-at-arms was still armoured mainly in ‘chainmail’ of interlinked metal rings. A shirt of this mail, over a padded tunic, covered him from neck to knees and was laced on to a conical helmet which was open faced but which occasionally had a visor. (The great barrel helm was seldom worn in battle nowadays.) He had steel breastplates and plates on his arms, together with elbow pieces and articulated foot-guards over mail stockings. Over all he wore a short linen surcoat. English knights were noticeably old-fashioned compared to the French, for across the Channel Philip VI’s paladins had their shoulders and limbs also covered by plate, and helmets (bascinets) with hinged, snout-like visors which had breathing holes. Their surcoat had been replaced by the shorter leather jupon. The horses also wore armour, with plate for their heads and mail or leather for their flanks. The basic weapon of both English and French was a long straight sword, hung in front at first but later moved to the left side and balanced by a short dagger on the right (called a misericord or ‘mercy’ on account of being used to dispatch the mortally wounded). On horseback, a ten-foot lance was carried and a small, flat-iron-shaped shield, and sometimes a short, steel-hafted battle-axe. On foot the principal weapon was usually the halberd—a combined half-pike and axe.
Only the men-at-arms—a term which covered knightbannerets (paid 4s a day), knights bachelor (2s a day) and esquires (is a day)—could afford this enormously expensive equipment which (in theory at least) also required two armed valets and three mounts per man-at-arms—a warhorse, a packhorse for the armour and a palfrey to ride when not on the battlefield. Some men-at-arms who could only afford a single horse wore instead the lighter, cheaper brigandine which was a leather jacket sewn with thin, overlapping metal plates. The light lancers or hobelars (also is a