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Mounted Infantry in Mediæval Warfare

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  12 February 2009

Extract

I have put together here a certain number of facts of some interest. A good deal of my material is already common property, and may be found in the volumes of the Records Commission or in Mr. Joseph Bain's ‘Calendar.’ Yet some is new, simply because the old manuscript catalogue of the Exchequer Accounts in the P.R.O. was not so good or systematic as the present printed catalogue, and therefore a gleaner in the field traversed by Mr. Bain may yet pick up much. I have already used or referred to some documents, partly in a paper read some years ago to the Cumberland and Westmorland Antiquarian and Archæological Society, partly in a work on Bannockburn which the Cambridge University Press has just published. I was ambitious to put before this Society some results of my researches, as this is the sixth centenary year of that battle, yet hesitated to offer a paper on the battle itself. But one cannot look at any of the facts without reference to that epoch-making event, and so I tried to find a thread upon which to string them. The most suitable title for my paper seemed to be ‘The Development of Mounted Infantry,’ because, although some of the documents illustrate the fortunes of an infantry which was very much not mounted, it was just the striving of the English leaders after Bannock-burn to find the most suitable type of soldier and the most suitable tactics, a striving necessitated by failure and the terrible experiences of the northern counties at the hands of the Scottish raiders, that at last produced the finest fighting man of the middle ages, viz. the horse-archer.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © Royal Historical Society 1914

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References

page 77 note 1 Transactions, New Series, vol. iii.Google Scholar

page 79 note 1 But almost every writer quotes from Froissart. In several recent books which give origines to illustrate English history Froissart's passage is given; yet he simply copied from Jehan le Bel, whose evidence is that of a soldier on actual service.

page 80 note 1 Exchequer Accounts, This roll is calendared by Stevenson, but not by Bain.

page 81 note 1 Bain, ii. No. 1084.

page 81 note 2 Ibid. Nos. 1089 and 1115.

page 81 note 3 Ibid. Nos. 1127 and 1128.

page 81 note 4 Exchequer Accounts, .

page 82 note 1 Exchequer Accounts, (Bain, iii. No. 278).

page 82 note 2 Exchequer Accounts, (Bain, No. 304).

page 82 note 3 Bain, in an appendix, pp. 393–434, from Cotton MSS., Vespasian 116.Google Scholar The figures for Stirling, Perth, and Dundee, are for heavy cavalry only.

page 83 note 1 This Clifford was son of Isabella, co-heiress of Robert de Vipont, hereditary sheriff of Westmorland in her father's place, and lady of Appleby and Brougham; her sister Idonea, the other co-heiress, inheriting Brough and Pendragon, married John Cromwell, but he disappeared from Westmorland after her death, and thus later all the Vipont lands and castles came to the Cliffords.

page 83 note 2 Exchequer Accounts, and , portions of the same document which have been separated.

page 83 note 3 Exchequer Accounts, The year is 1316.

page 84 note 1 Exchequer Accounts, (Bain, No. 403), for 1314; for 1315; for 1316. One entry informs us that a few horsemen were paid 8d. a day, being scutiferi ad arma cum sufficientibus armaturis et hakenays, i.e. the man is armoured, but the horse not. They are intermediate between men-at-arms and hobelars.

page 84 note 2 Bain, No. 515.

page 84 note 3 See Bain, Nos. 675, 799.

page 84 note 4 Exchequer Accounts, My totals do not quite agree with Mr. Bain's; see No. 668.

page 85 note 1 In another document, Exchequer Accounts, , we have an interesting detail about the North Welsh contingent. They reached Chester 400 strong, en route for Newcastle, and there ‘eux demorerent par iiij iours par raison du contek (q) feut entre les gentz de la ville et eux en quieu contek furent tuez et naufrez plusurs deux, tant come ie fu a Salopesbire a cheuir deniers, …. et dilloeqs sempartirent a grant peyne qeux ne fuissent retournez a lour pais.’ Then the contingent from Clun and Oswestry and Powys were not allowed to march by way of Chester, ‘mais por peair (q) la Justice auoit lour menours ne autres ne voleient il lour chemyn prendre par Cestre.’ This tussle at Chester between the Welsh soldiers and the townsfolk may be compared with the trouble on the eve of the battle of Falkirk, and if such scenes were common it is easy to understand why the Kings, as soon as ever the north-country English were able to fight their own battles, no longer cared to bring up Welshmen to Scotland, and belong to the same expedition.

page 85 note 2 Exchequer Accounts, This is a horse-list for the months July to October. Not all the 288 men served at the same time. The horses had gone up in value since Edward I's reign; Aymer's own charger was priced at £100, and the cheapest mounts of the men-at-arms at £10. The list may be usefully compared with the number of letters of protection issued to Aymer's followers according to the Scottish Roll of 8 Edw. II. Thus forty-five out of the sixty-nine knights, and sixty-five out of the 219 men-at-arms, had protections. Now, from Scottish Roll 7 Edw. II, I have collected 830 names of men with protections. If, therefore, in 1315 we find protections granted to 109 out of 288 men known to have actually served, the 830 protections of 1314 indicate a total of about 2000 heavy cavalry in all at Bannockburn, or perhaps 2500.

page 86 note 1 Exchequer Accounts, This is a con trac t, not a horse-list. Except Cromwell's own comitiva, the household, and the Gascons, par reson de lour lounteineGoogle Scholar, the men-at-arms were only paid 8d. a day. From the same document we learn that the King paid for fifteen men-at-arms at Bamborough, twenty men-at-arms and twenty hobelars at Alnwick, eight men-at-arms and eight hobelars at Warkworth—all these in excess of the regular garrison in each castle, and this shows that the King saw the necessity of helping the private owners of castles.

page 87 note 1 Bain, Nos. 770, 772, 777, 783. Parliamentary Writs, ii. 604.Google Scholar The siege of Norhani was proceeding on September 20, 1322, diversis ingeniis et machinis, and in the Scalacronica the Scots who wounded Marmion made a surprise attack.

page 88 note 1 These writs are all in the printed Rotuli Scotiœ and in Parliamentary Writs, ii. 558 onwards.Google Scholar

page 89 note 1 Exchequer Accounts,

page 89 note 2 Parliamentary Writs, p. 602Google Scholar: ‘receptis vadiis nostris se ab obsequio nostro sine licencia nostra elongarunt.’

page 89 note 3 This fact is worth consideration, for some writers argue that large numbers of Irish swelled the English army at Bannockburn; here, in 1322, we see thousands summoned, very few hundreds serving.

page 90 note 1 Exchequer Accounts, Bain, No. 765, and Introduction, p. xxix.

page 91 note 1 Mr. W. M. Mackenzie denies that this was the first occasion. But the men of the ‘divers counties’ in previous armies were very few, and ‘divers’ does not mean ‘all.’ Edward I once summoned thousands of foot from all the counties for a French war; but clearly he only meant to indicate the number liable to be called out. The statement is absolutely true that 1322 is the first year of a levy from all England.

page 93 note 1 Rolls Series, p. 202.

page 94 note 1 Exchequer Accounts, Also £500 was paid to Edward Balliol, Arundel, Percy, Neville, and Beaumont, and if the whole sum was for the wages of men-at-arms it would have maintained 100 knights and men-at-arms for about two months. The county horse-archers were 1874, and the extra hundred were in the retinues of lords.

page 95 note 1 Exchequer Accounts,

page 95 note 2 See above; a few horse-archers in retinues had the higher pay in 1338.

page 96 note 1 The July figures are from Exchequer Accounts, those of August from

page 96 note 2 Ibid.

page 96 note 3 Ibid.

page 96 note 4 The 300 are from Kent; the 186 are the elect archers of Kent and Sussex.

page 97 note 1 Exchequer Accounts,

page 98 note 1 Exchequer Accounts,

page 98 note 2 Exchequer Accounts,

page 99 note 1 A study of the Latin of the roll, given later on, shows that 3 knights, 42 men-at-arms, 640 horse-archers, and 240 foot-archers were paid October 13 to 17 inclusive, and one knight, 18 men-at-arms, and 320 horse-archers for only four of the five days. Possibly, therefore, these last were not up for the battle, just as, I take it, was the case of the York-shiremen. But they seem to have been all led usque helium iuxta Dunolm, whereas the Yorkshiremen were led pro bello predichi. I should say that the smaller Lancastrian contingent was up a day sooner than the larger, and that the four days were October 14 to 17; perhaps the 240 foot-archers impeded the others.

I find now that I have given the figures wrong in my Bannockburn, p. 102Google Scholar, the Yorkshiremen being entered there as 3200 in place of 3020.