Perhaps the most interesting aspect of the records of the English administration of Calais in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries is the information they provide about the weaponry used by the soldiers of the garrison. Such detailed information on the weapons used by English armies in this period is uncommon. In this chapter the type of weaponry used by the garrison, with special reference to the developments in gunpowder artillery, will be examined. The built defences of the Pale will also be described. In the final part of this chapter the weaponry and fortifications will be set in the wider context of the European ‘military revolution’ of the sixteenth century. In a time of rapid change in military technology, this insight into developments in English arms and their relationship to those in Europe more generally is especially important. To what extent was England, as illustrated by the experiences of the defence of the Pale, involved in these changes and how far were changes in the Calais garrison indicative of more general trends in English armies?

Weaponry

The Calais garrison was typical of the kind of infantry-based forces that characterised European armies at the end of the Middle Ages. It was, as we have seen, ostensibly divided into men-at-arms and archers for the purposes of administration, but this arbitrary division did not necessarily correspond to the tactical roles of the soldiers themselves, nor the weapons they used.