Sub-chapter from : II The Knights
NB Perhaps as interesting for it's detailing of the prices, supplies, paraphernalia etc, as for the insights into the tactical, strategic and evolution sides it offers.
The Marchfield and the Mayfield
In 692 Pepin II held the muster of the army in March, as was the custom in the kingdom of the Franks under Clovis. Charles Martel and his Austrasians attacked the army of Radbod and his Frisians in March 716, the army of Raganfred at Vinchy on 21 March 717. But in 755 or 756 Pepin III changed the date of the muster of the army from March to May, because in May there was enough grass for the horses to be fed. In 758, the tribute of the Saxons was changed from 500 cows to 300 horses. Pepin held the Field of May in 756, 758, 761, 763, 764 and 766. The army needed so much grass for the horses that a capitulary of 802–803 ordered two-thirds of the grass of some counties to be reserved. In 782 the army could start an expedition in the summer, because there was enough grass, but in April 798 there was not enough grass for the horses when the Saxons rebelled. There was still another reason to start the military operations later. It was better for the horsemen and their horses to invade the country of the enemy at the moment that the crop was ripe in the fields. Charlemagne held a Field of May at most seventeen times during his forty-five years of reign. In 775 and 781 the army went on campaign in July, in 777 in June or July. In 791 the big army on the frontier of Bavaria invaded the country of the Avars on 8 September. In 806 the general assembly was fixed on 17 June, in 807 in August. When the conquests ended and the yearly campaigns were no longer profitable, the poorer free men wished to stay at home. In 805 the emperor diminished the heribannum for the poorer free men. A capitulary of 806 shows a system of regulation: in Frisia a man who joined the army was helped by six men who stayed at home. In Saxony the number was five helpers for the man who participated in a campaign toward Spain or the land of the Avars, two helpers for one man who joined in an expedition towards Bohemia. In 807 the system shows that the poor warriors who had no land received five solidi from the five helpers. When Louis the Pious started his campaign against Brittany on 2 March 830, the free men rebelled and followed the sons of the emperor, Pepin and Lothar. During the struggle of Louis the Pious against his sons, and the war between the sons, in the years 840 to 842, the free men stayed at home and the fighting was done nearly exclusively by the leaders and their vassals, the horsemen. On 13 May 841 count Adalbert and the leaders of Lothar wanted to fight against the warriors of Louis the German in the Riessgau near the river Wornitz on the left side of the Danube. Before 'arriving at the point of the lances', the terrified vassals of Lothar turned back and fled, losing innumerable men in their flight. This was a combat of horsemen. The evolution was complete: armoured horsemen, vassals, were the principal element of the army, the foot-soldiers the secondary weapon. New and original tactics developed, for this European heavy cavalry used different methods from the Parthian tactics which were still being employed later by the Saracens and other Asiatic peoples. In western Europe the man who fought on horseback was known from the tenth century onwards as a knight. Thereafter, constant evolution took place: his equipment became increasingly heavy and impenetrable up to the end of the fifteenth century as armour was continually being further developed in a race with armour-piercing weapons. This heavy equipment made the cavalry supreme on the battlefield. It is important to consider the cost of equipping an armoured cavalryman in the middle of the eighth century, at the time when the Frankish heavy cavalry was being developed. The Ripuarian Law gives the price of weapons and equipment as well as the value of horses, oxen and cows.
The helmet 6 solidi
The brunia or byrny 12 solidi
The sword and scabbard 7 solidi
The sword alone, without scabbard 3 solidi
The leggings 6 solidi
The lance and shield 2 solidi
The horse 12 solidi
A sound ox with horns was then worth two solidi, a sound cow with horns anything between one and three solidi, a sound mare three solidi. The equipment of an armoured cavalryman thus cost as much as fifteen mares or nearly twenty-three oxen, an enormous sum of money. It is not surprising that in 761 a small landowner, Isanhard, sold his inheritance for a horse and a sword. Complete equipment could only be expected of the very rich. The Capitulary of Thionville in 805 required a brunia or cuirass only of those who possessed or held as beneficium twelve mansi, about 300–450 acres: there cannot have been many who were so rich. The emperor of course could provide cuirasses for his men, and bishops, abbots, abbesses and counts were obliged to have certain number to equip their men. A reserve of equipment for poorer vassals was formed from the payments of the fine of the heriban by those who did not fulfil their military obligations. Charlemagne certainly had a stronger army than his adversaries, but he owed his successes primarily to a relatively small number of armoured cavalrymen, whose superiority was largely due to their heavy armament. This small number of well armed men was aided by a considerable number of light cavalrymen, possessing no brunia, who formed the mass of the mounted army. The Frankish historiographers often stressed their more efficient equipment. Sometimes indeed, it was too heavy, as in 778, when Charlemagne's army was surprised in a Pyrenean mountain pass by the lightly armed Basques, and suffered the famous defeat which was later described in the Chanson de Roland. The armoured cavalrymen were mostly vassals who could be made knights. Up to the middle of the thirteenth century these knights were the most prominent and usually the most numerous section of the armoured cavalry. They were occasionally reinforced with well-equipped non-vassal cavalrymen serving as mercenaries. A prince's retinue also included warriors who received a mail-shirt from him, but were in no way vassals. Armoured cavalrymen who were not knights are mentioned five times in the army of the count of Hainault, and on four occasions they were equal in numbers to the knights.
In 1172: 340 knights and 340 armoured cavalry
In 1180: 100 knights and 100 armoured cavalry
In 1181: first 100 knights and as many cavalry, then eighty of each
In 1187 there were 110 knights and only eighty armoured cavalry, obviously small numbers. The count of Flanders had on one occasion 500 knights and 1,000 armoured horsemen in his army, at a time when many knights stayed in their own castles;21 no examples of this occur elsewhere. It is noteworthy that the princes were able to recruit and equip such armoured men. From the early ninth century to the end of the eleventh there were many vassals who at first had no brunia, and later no hauberk, but the social rise of vassals reduced the number of these light cavalrymen. When William the Conqueror introduced feudal organization into England, a knightly fief was a fief for which a vassal with a hauberk had to serve. In 1181 the first clause of the Assize of Arms of Henry II stipulated that every baron who had knights' fees on his demesne should provide hauberks, helmets, shields and lances for them. Horses were also armoured with chain mail after the middle of this century, and about that time a better saddle was introduced, in which the higher pommel and cantle gave more support before and behind. In 1187 the count of Hainault aided King Philip Augustus with a unit of 190 horsemen, of whom more than 109 had barded, or armoured horses.24 In the thirteenth century squires had to have barded horses to qualify for higher pay: under Edward I in his Welsh wars (1277–1295) squires with armoured horses were paid 1 shilling a day, those with unprotected horses 6d or 8d. Philip IV of France applied the same rule in his wars between 1294–1299: a squire with a good well armoured horse had a wage of 12s 6d tournois a day, others only 5s. The use of armoured horses naturally strengthened the cavalry units; the best horses and strongest knights were used in the front rank. From the middle of the thirteenth century onwards the number of squires (i.e. sons of knights who had not yet been knighted) grew continuously, until by the end of that century they were more numerous than the knights. In time of peace they chose to remain squires because the accolade was accompanied by great and expensive festivities. They hoped to be dubbed knights before a battle, as at Mons-en-Pévéle in 1304 and Worringen in 1288. Collectively, the knights and squires were known as armures de fer, because they wore mail shirts. This armour was always very expensive, and it was becoming stouter and heavier all the time. The brunia, a leather tunic with iron rings or plates, gave way to the hauberk, a mail-shirt, which in turn was replaced in the last third of the twelfth century by the great hauberk, or long mail-shirt. From the middle of the thirteenth century this was reinforced with metal plates. This technical evolution exerted an important influence on the social position of the knight—the completely-equipped horseman par excellence—who became increasingly prominent. The number of knights was greatest in the eleventh and early twelfth centuries. At the end of the twelfth, and specially in the thirteenth century, they dwindled rapidly, but those who remained were both more important and far richer than their counterparts of the eleventh century. As time went on, horses were increasingly used. As early as 1101 every one of the 1,000 knights who were promised by Count Robert II of Flanders to the king of England had three horses. A knight's horses were a great expense. In order to enable the ruler to replace the horses which knights lost during a campaign, the animals had a value placed upon them. The horses of Geraard de Moor, lord of Wessegem, were worth the following sums in 1297, in livres tournois:
(1) The best horse, called Mouton £300
(2) The black horse that he got from Louis, son of Robert of Bethune £250)
(3) The horse that he got from the king of France £125
(4) A horse he had from the count of Flanders £225
(5) Another from William of Dendermonde £120
(6) The horse from John of Namur £140
(7) A horse for the march (courser) £ 40 Total £1200
(NB Much abridged from here)
In England and France the rich barons and bannerets rode still more expensive war-horses. Evidently it was not easy for the knights to buy and maintain such expensive war-horses. In addition, they had to be fully equipped themselves, with a mail-shirt reinforced with chest, shoulder and elbow plates, helmet, sword, lance, silken pennon, tent, all sorts of kitchen utensils such as kettles, pots, and pans and of course a beast of burden to carry all this. By the thirteenth century this had become so expensive that the number of knights who could afford it had dwindled considerably. By the end of that century and in the early fourteenth real knights were less numerous: in the above-mentioned retinue of Geraard there were only three knights: his brother Philip, Pieter of Uitkerke and Riquart Standaerd. In 1302 Zeger of Ghent and his son had twenty-two squires with them. For nine knights from Zeeland in the same year we find 111 squires. The active strengths of an army of armoured cavalry was limited by the considerable cost of buying expensive arms and equipment. The knights formed a social class living on the work of subordinates who cultivated the land for them, or who helped to assure the welfare of their master in various ways, and the vassals who lived at the court of a prince and were completely supported there cannot have been very numerous. In time knighthood became a hereditary class which had all sorts of privileges and this exclusive class had to recruit its members from its own ranks, which again led to small armies. The armoured fighter had also to be trained as a horseman, and good cavalrymen cannot be turned out quickly.
