Infantry - A Summary

According to Baker of Swynbrook, the archers were placed, not in front of the men-at-arms, but at the sides of the king’s army, like wings, so that they might not get in the way of the men-at-arms, nor meet the enemy face to face, but discharge their arrows at his flanks. Similarly a Valenciennes chronicler says that King Edward “ne fist que deux batailles d’archiers a deux costes en la maniere d’un escut ; et au milieu d’eulx se tenoit le prince de Galles.”  Froissart, on the contrary, says of the Prince’s “battle” that the archers were placed in front in the form of a “herse,” and the men-at-arms at the back. He mentions that in the course of the fight some of the French knights went round the archers, and others broke through them, and fought hand to hand with the Prince’s men-at-arms. King Philip would gladly have done the same, but there was such a great hedge of archers and men-atarms in front that he could not.

Sir John Smythe, who wrote when archers were still to be seen in the field, and described how they were drawn up by “our most skilful and warlike ancestors,” helps us to reconcile these conflicting statements. He says they were formed ” into hearses  that is broad in front and narrow in flank, as for example if there were 25, 30, 35, or more or fewer archers in front, the flanks did consist but of seven or eight ranks at the most. . . . They placed their hearses of archers either before the front of their armed footmen, or else in wings upon the corners of their battles, and sometimes both in front and wings.”  A contemporary plate of the battle of Pinkie (1547) shows the archers extended across the whole front of the three corps which are advancing to attack the Scots. George Monk, writing during the Civil War, shows how musketeers forming wings to a body of pikemen should be moved forward and spread out across its front for more eft’ective fire. We may conclude that the archers at Crecy were formed by companies of 100 men in oblongs not more than eight men deep, with open ranks and files, that their normal position was on the flanks of the men-at-arms and a little in advance of them, but that they may also have formed a continuous screen in their front, at all events at the beginning of the action. Shallow pits were dug in front of the line of battle, and would give the archers some protection from charging horsemen. ‘

It was late in the afternoon when the French army came up, but the impetuosity of the lords, each eager to be foremost, disregarded Philip’s orders to halt. The Genoese crossbowmen were sent forward, weary from a long march, and their bowstrings wet from rain, for they could not be taken off’ and put under cover like the string of the longbow. As they came on they gave great shouts at intervals to scare the English, and when they reckoned themselves within range they shot fiercely; but their bolts fell short. ” Then the English archers stept forth one pace and let fly their arrows so wholly and so thick that it seemed snow. When the Genoese felt the arrows piercing through heads, arms, and breasts, many of them cast down their crossbows and did cut their strings and returned discomfited.”

For the foot English kings depended mainly on county levies. Military service, which was tending to become a matter of privilege abroad, was insisted on as the duty of all freemen. The arms and equipment which they were bound to have, according to their means, were specified by Henry II. in the Assize of Arms of 1181. The rules were revised by Henry III. in 1252, and by the Statute of Wmchester (1285); the bow was introduced among the weapons, and periodical inspection of arms was provided for. When a war broke out, commissioners of array were sent to the counties to take over from the sherifts the number of men called for, and to see that they were well chosen. Acts of Parliament provided that men sent abroad on the king’s service should be at the king’s wages (1344), and that no one should be forced to serve without the sanction of Parliament, unless he was bound by the terms of his tenure (1351). The foot were formed into bands of a score, a hundred, or a thousand, under vintcnars, centenars, and millenars. The muster rolls of 1339 show that out of a levy of 11,200 men (exclusive of men-at-arms) half were armed with hand weapons and the other half were archers.”

The bow was little used in England before the Conquest. It always played an important part in naval warfare, and just as the Athenians and the Genoese were quick to recognise its value, so the Vikings of the north made it one of their weapons, and prided themselves on their skill with it.i They seem to have dropped it when they settled in England. The ” huscaiies ” or bodyguard of Canute were armed with the two-handed Danish axe, and that weapon largely superseded the Saxon spear. At Hastings Harold’s best troops fought in the Danish fashion, on foot, armed with axes, and awaiting attack behind a stockade.They may have hung their shields on the stockade, as was done on the bulwarks of ships. But William was well provided with bowmen and crossbowmen, as well as with mailed horsemen, and it was by the co-operation of archers and cavalry that the battle was won. ” The Saxon mass was subjected to exactly the same trial which befell the British squares in the battle of Waterloo  incessant charges by a gallant cavalry mixed with a destructive hail of missiles.”  The stockade gave little protection against the curved flight of arrows, especially when they were aimed high, as the duke directed. Darts, axes, and stones made a feeble reply to them ; and sorties upon the assailants, sometimes provoked by feigned flights, ended in the rout of the men who made them. At length the Norman horsemen forced an entrance, and the English broke up.

From that time forward archers formed an important part of English armies, and archery was encouraged as a national sport. Fitzstephen speaks of it as one of the pastimes of Londoners in the time of Henry 11. Richard I. took a thousand bowmen with him when he went to Palestine. Henry III. m the Assize of Arms of 1252 required all forty-shilling freeholders to provide themselves with bow and arrows, and arrows were sometimes exacted for the tenure of lands. But the Norman bow was under live feet in length, and had no great range or penetration. The early Plantagenets preferred the crossbow. The six-foot long-bow with its cloth-yard shaft dates from the time of Edward I, and probably from his wars in Wales.

The germ of feudalism is to be seen in Tacitus’s description of the German tribes, though the fruit was slow in forming : ” It is the renown and glory of a chief to be distinguished for the number and valour of his followers. … To defend, to protect him, to ascribe one’s own brave deeds to his renown, is the height of loyalty. The chief fights for victory ; his vassals fight for their chief . . . men look to the liberality of their chief for their war-horse and their blood-stained and victorious lance. Feasts and entertainments, which, though inelegant, are plentifully furnished, are their only pay. The means of this bounty come from war and rapine It is a duty among them to adopt the feuds as well as the friendships of a father or a kinsman.”

Bands held together by ties of this kmd might co for a time into an army, but they fought for pe not for national objects. Their chiefs claimed the ngh of private war, and courts of justice were –ely court of conciliation whose awards were not bmdmg. In the rudest times there was little difference of equipment between one man and another, but the conquest of the Roman provinces put wealth and technical skill at their disposal, and the art of the armourer fostered inequal y^ The weight of armour tempted men to ride, and rapidity of movement was important for the forays and skirmishes of which private war mainly consisted. Hence the chief and his chosen followers became mounted men-at-arms Those who had neither horses nor armour fought at great disadvantage and were held in contempt The Ly name “infantry” is significant. It dates from a time when those who went afoot were the lads m attendance on armoured horse soldiers for whom the term miles came to be reserved.

Charlemagne resisted this tendency. While exacting due service from his vassals, and doing his best to secure a large and well-armed force of cavalry, he msisted on the old principle of the “ban,” that every IVeeman was bound to serve at the king’s summons. In order to obtain a well-equipped infantry militia instead of a mere horde of peasants, such as would be yielded by a levy en .nassX provided that the smaller owners sho^d be grouped, and that one of them should eo as the armed at their joint cost. But under his successors this militia fell mto disuse.