I'll use this piece to end the current thread so I can start another on the same topic, as with the last 3 items concerning very large, important battles, the writers gone to town in describing them so would make this thread way overlong.
The Course of a Battle
The leader formed one, two or three lines behind each other, according to the terrain and the formation of the enemy. The first line started the approach on the command 'Forward' (mouvez), or 'March' (allez le pas). The approach was done cautiously, 'as if the men were carrying a bride before them in the saddle'. The lances were carried upright, but as soon as they were within the appointed distance from the enemy they were levelled, and the charge began at the command 'Spur on' (poigniez), at a signal with the standard, or at the sound of a trumpet. Trumpets sounded the charge as at a tournament.
The soldiers shouted their war-cry to frighten the enemy and to bolster up their own courage. The speed of the advance was increased to a quick trot or even a gallop, being governed by the weight of the man and his equipment, and was naturally bound to be a compromise between speed and the maintenance of good order. All men attacked together, in a compact unit, for it was strictly forbidden to break ranks or to charge ahead on a faster horse.
Until the end of the eleventh century the lance was used to thrust and strike as well, but when later it was held under the arm, the charge was more forceful. A good initial shock could be quickly decisive in a battle. The army which fought under the best discipline won the battle. If the charge did not bring immediate victory, a mêlée developed.
Even in that phase of the battle they still fought in little units: since the charge was made in closed units and more slowly than was the case with later cavalry, the battleorder suffered less from the shock of the attack. The battles of Bouvines and Worringen were in this respect typical.
Exhausted units were withdrawn for a time and re-grouped, then they returned to the mêlée. Sometimes a leader even rallied widely scattered knights round a new banner. Fighting went on until the formations were shattered: once the troops were scattered and facing a better organized opponent, the standard easily fell into enemy hands.
If the standard was brought down or lost there was little chance of re-assembling the troops and they normally fled. For that reason the standard was often kept in the rear on a cart, with the reserve unit round it, so that the rallying point was well out of danger; this was frequently done in the Middle East, where often only part of the army went into action while the rest stayed in the rear to help the attacking troops in their return from a charge.
The Moslems did all they could to avoid the knights' charge, and on the whole there was usually no hand-to-hand combat, or if there was, it lasted only a very little while. An attack was exhausting, and the formations had to be systematically regrouped. A series of charges was made in order to hurl the deep Turkish formations on top of each other in confusion, and to shatter this mass of men in a decisive charge. If this was not successful, attacks were continued until the enemy realised that the Western knights were not vulnerable in their close units and fled.
But armies of knights had some major weaknesses in battle. Like later cavalry, they had to take the offensive, and it was their best method of defense as well. If they wanted to fight a defensive action, some of the knights had to fight on foot. A pursuit was a difficult business owing to the small number of troops, and to the continual necessity of regrouping; also a reserve corps had to be maintained. If there were none, the victors, pursuing the enemy in scattered formation, ran the risk of being beaten by a fresh enemy unit or by troops in ambush, as happened at Thielt in 1128, at Tagliacozzo in 1260 and at Bäsweiler in 1371.
