Posts: 2,121 Location: Northern Utah
Sat 24 Jan, 2009 11:56 pm
M.,
While most of what Hugh said is right on about formations there are other and often confusing period sources that might indicate varied formations were carried out. Cliff Rogers in his new
Agincourt article in the HYW: a Different Vista has very convincing evidence for mixed men at arms/archers in the HYW. I’d still be wary to say who killed who at Agincourt and especially Poitier but I think more important is both fulfil certain functions. The flexibility of the English tactics is what in many battles give them victory over their less flexible enemies. Several English defeats both of the HYW and the WotR can be seen as lack of flexibility. One interesting ordinance from Charles of Burgundy states that archers need learn shoot with their men at arms before them as if from a wall. This is an interesting ordinance to me as it shows another formation in use. My guess is that archers and men at arms were fairly flexible for various tactics and formations for the situation. You get some interesting lines in the Gesta and others as well that seem to indicate mixed formations.
The battle of Patay and Verneuil show what Hugh was explained in the difficulty in maintaining large forces of men at arms for the English. My guess is that most of it was simply expense as England still could raise large forces of men at arms but could not pay them over even relatively short periods. The use of stakes was a way to protect archers (in theory) to cut down on large numbers of men at arms. I think it should be kept in mind that in the 14th the most common numbers were 1 to 1, maybe 1 to 2 or max 1 to 3 (MAA to archer). In the 15th it goes all the way to 1 to 19, though the average is usually much less at 1 to 3 or 1 to 5. At Patay and Verneuil the short coming of the stake can be seen. Both forces of English had smaller groups of men at arms. In Verneuil it seems the archers protected by MAA did fine while those with stakes failed to get their stakes to stay and fled over staying, being ridden down and killed without being able to shoot into the Lombard Cavalry. Patay shows the same issue. Lots of archers w/out MAA and failure of stakes = inability to maintain the field. The bow is a missile weapon and if you have to be worrying about the incoming enemy coming in at your without obstacle you will break sooner than normal, which cuts out the archer as his weapon would have become more dangerous at closer distances. To me this is where the billman comes in. Much better than a stake and well cheaper than a men at arms. He could protect the archers from attack and remain there at the ready to move making the army more flexible.
Since we have inventories of musters and the like of the arms and armour archers had I do not think this a big issue. We can get a decent idea of the average archer and his armour this way. The garrisons in Normandy have such musters fairly often.
The sons of knights often did serve as archers, as archers. This could be in fulfilling an indenture or just for experience. I'd assume on average such men would have better armour but I have never seen one in full white harness so I'd assume not. The issue of whether all were gentry is tricky as it misses the social development in England at the time. Gentry by the 15th does not just include the knightly class. The Yeomanry was now often very wealthy and most archers and mounted archers were from this class. So clearly archers were not a rag tag peasant horde or predominantly the sons of nobles or knights. They were a wealthy upper class among the common class.
RPM