Foot Knights
It was by no means a new departure for English knights to fight on foot. To say nothing of the times before the Conquest, Henry I. won two victories with dismounted knights: Tenchebrai (1106) over his brother Robert, and Bremule (1119) over Louis VI. of France. At Tenchebrai he followed Robert’s example in making his knights dismount “ut constantius pugnarcnt,” but he kept a small body of French knights on horseback and posted them at some distance on his right, to charge the flank and rear of the enemy. At Bremule (according to Ordericus Vitalis) he dismounted 400 knights out of 500 in an open plain, and awaited the charge of the French knights, who as usual preferred to fight on horseback. They won some success at first, perhaps against Henry’s mounted detachment, but they could not break the men on foot ; many of their horses were killed, and the riders made prisoners ; the rest fled, including Louis himself. The Anglo-Norman knights remounted, and pursued them so vigorously that the French king was driven to take refuge in a wood, and his horse and banner were captured.
Again at the Battle of the Standard (1138) the EngHsh knights fought on foot, drawn up with the Yorkshire levies of spearmen and archers that had been brought together to check the Scotti.sh invasion. The Highlanders refused to let King David’s knights lead the way, and claimed the front place. Their wild rush made only a momentary impression on the armoured spearmen, and they bristled like hedgehogs, we are told, from the arrows of the archers. Their ardour was quenched, and the Scottish army melted away to the rear, in spite of some success achieved by a small body of mounted knights.
Three years later, at the battle of Lincoln, Stephen fought on foot with the greater part of his knights and with the burghers of the city. He had two bodies of horsemen, but they were routed and driven off” the field, and the horse and foot of the two earls (Gloucester and Chester) then combined against the king’s corps, the foot charging it in front, while the horse fell upon its flanks and rear. After a stout resistance it broke up, many of the men seeking refuge in the city, and Stephen, who continued fighting by his standard, was overthrown and made prisoner.
Considering the weight of armour, it must have been a disagreeable necessity for knights to fight on foot. There seem to have been two motives for it : to encourage and stiffen bodies of less well-armed footmen which had been brought into the field, or to make a stand against an enemy to whom they were unequal as cavalry, either in numbers or quaUty. The French knights were said to be terrible on horseback, but little to be feared on foot. The Germans were described as unskilful horsemen, and better able to strike with the sword than to thrust with the lance, and it became recognised as a Teutonic custom to dismount in grave emergencies. But probably it was a question of horses rather than of men. Matthew Paris speaks of English knights being mounted ” in equis satis bonis, licet non Hispanis, vel Italicis, vel aliis preciosis.” William the Conqueror had a Spanish charger, and the infusion of Arab blood made the horses of Southern Europe generally sought after ; but in England only the richest barons and knights could afford them. In the thirteenth century plate armour began to come into use, superseding mail. As it developed the weight to be carried by a barded war-horse increased, and became s omething over 25 sto ne. Flanders and the north of France produced the animals best suited to such heavy loads; they could not move rapidly for any distance, but men on lighter horses were at a great disadvantage in direct collision.