Pt 3
In a campaign so far from home, escape can be much more dangerous than battle when it comes to saving one's life. Fulcher reports Baldwin as having given this advice at Ramla in 1101: 'Escape is no good since France is too far away.' Robert de Clari says much the same sort of thing of the Fourth Crusade. The new emperor of Byzantium, the usurper Murzuphlus or Alexius V, had ambushed the troops of Henry, brother of Baldwin IX of Flanders. As soon as the crusaders saw this, 'they were terrified', but then they reflected: 'By God! If we flee we'll all be killed! We might just as well die trying to defend ourselves, rather than while trying to escape.' Before Constantinople was captured, many in the army hoped that the ships would be swept away by the current, so that they might be delivered from danger and be able to return home.
Henry of Valenciennes also mentions the special circumstances of fighting in a remote theatre of war, in the reign of Henry I of Constantinople: 'You are gathered here in a foreign land, and have neither castle nor any place of refuge where you can seek safety, except your shields, your swords, your horses and the help of God.' The soldiers were then to make their confessions in order to have complete faith in the outcome of the battle; they were to know 'neither fear nor doubt'.
Joinville too confessed quite sincerely what fear he felt, together with other knights, in the army of St Louis in Egypt. This fear was intensified by the enemy's use of Greek fire, which was a great surprise to the French. The king of France was trying to build a dam across one of the tributaries of the Nile. In order to protect the workmen and to guard the dam he had wooden towers built, which the enemy set on fire. The guards in the towers were faced with a dilemma: they could either stay in the towers and be burned to death, or disgrace themselves utterly by evacuating them. They decided that each time the enemy sent over Greek fire they would fall on their knees and beseech God to save them from the terrible holocaust. Another day Joinville was lucky as he honestly admits: the ''cats" or towers were destroyed by enemy fire just before he had to go on night watch with his knights. 'God did a good turn to my knights', he wrote.
In the battle of Mansurah he saw important nobles flee, but did not record their names for the whole family of the fugitive would suffer too much from the great shame. Later on he was still trembling with fright, but also from sickness and fever. Even a nobleman's piety was of no avail when it comes to such a pinch. When Joinville and his servants were on the point of being taken prisoner, one of his cellarers proposed that they should all let themselves be killed so that they might go to heaven as martyrs, 'but we did not believe it' wrote Joinville, who chose to live.
During his imprisonment he had some other unpleasant moments. He found himself in a galley with St Louis, when the sultan who was holding them prisoner was put to death by his own rebellious soldiers under their very eyes. Thirty enemy soldiers came for them with drawn swords, their Danish axes round their necks. 'I asked the lord Baldwin of Ibelin, who knew the Saracen tongue well, what the men were saying,' says Joinville.
He answered that they were talking about cutting off our heads. Many men then made confession to a brother of the Holy Trinity, named John, belonging to the retinue of count William of Flanders. I could not think of a single sin. At the same time I was thinking that the more I defended myself the worse it would be. Then I crossed myself and knelt at the foot of a Saracen who had a Danish axe in his hand, and said 'Thus was St Agnes killed.' Guy d'Ibelin, constable of Cyprus, knelt beside me and made his confession to me. I answered him: 'I grant you absolution by the power which God has given me.' But when I got up, I could not remember what he had said or told me.
The strict rule of the Templars also anticipated that knights might flee por paor des Sarrasins, for fear of the Saracens. They were mercilessly expelled from the Order.
These examples from the literature of the crusades and the wars in the East are equally valid for western Europe. There too men fled from the field of battle, and there are many references to panic. There is no need to quote all these. The most beautiful of them all is the ironical mockery which the author of Le voeu du héron puts into the mouth of Jean de Beaumont, expressing this wish in the royal palace of Edward III in London in 1337:
When we are in the tavern drinking strong wines, and the ladies pass and look at us with those white throats, and tight bodices, those sparkling eyes resplendent with smiling beauty; then Nature urges us to have a desiring heart. Then we could overcome Yaumont and Agoulant and the others could conquer Oliver and Roland. But when we are in camp on our trotting chargers, our bucklers round our necks and our lances lowered, and the great cold is freezing us altogether and our limbs are crushed before and behind, and our enemies are approaching us, then we should wish to be in a cellar so large that we might never be seen by any means.
This realistic confession shows how great the difference was between harsh reality and the embellished accounts of knightly gallantry or battle vows taken in the taverns and ladies' chambers of which Joinville wrote. On the battlefield there is no wine to go to the head, and no fair ladies to spur on the knights, but fear strikes to the very marrow of the warriors. Then everyone wishes he were far away from the dreaded battlefield, instead of defeating Eaumons and Agoulant, two Saracen heroes of the Chanson d'Aspremont.
In this chanson de geste the same idea is expressed, not as a Christian knight's confession, but as a sharp reproof to the soldiers of the Saracen camp. Surely the poet was also thinking of the less brave western knights. Eaumons complains bitterly about the lack of courage and bravery among his men, who had taken all sorts of vows about the battle in the presence of beautiful ladies, with the best wine to provide a cheerful atmosphere:
In my great palaces, back in Africa, they were conquering the Christians' land while wooing my fresh-cheeked damsels, giving them loving kisses, drinking my best wines. There, they were splendid conquerors, dividing up the cities and castles of France as spoils. But the French are no cowards-they know how to use the sword and lance.
Lastly, let us look at the account of Jean le Bel, a canon of Liège who went with Jean de Beaumont in the army of the young king Edward III on an expedition to Scotland in 1327. At York, a dispute arose between men of Hainault and English archers over a game. The dispute led to a fight. Knights from Hainault, Flanders, Brabant, and Hesbaye hastened to the help of their men, charged the archers and drove them off. But the English archers in the royal army were very numerous, and they threatened the knights.
'Each day someone came on behalf of the king and of the English knights who bore us no hatred, to warn our leaders that we must be on our guard. They knew that 6,000 Englishmen were gathered in the city, and that they were out to kill or injure us by day or night.'
The knights of the Low Countries realized that their fate was in their own hands, and that they must look out for themselves. Their feeling of solidarity increased. They slept at night with their armor on and their arms ready to hand so that they could turn out at the first alarm. During the day they stayed in their lodgings and kept their armor and weapons close at hand. They posted a guard, commanded by the constables, day and night in the fields and on the roads. Half a mile outside the city they set up listening posts to warn the constables, who in turn were to sound the alarm to call the nobles to arms. This would give the heavy armoured cavalrymen time to mount their horses and line up at the appointed place under their banners.
For three weeks rumours spread daily of an approaching attack by the English archers, but each time they proved false. The noblemen of the Low Countries did not dare go into the city, but stayed together all the time with their armour on, well protected by their foresight and precautions.
This example suggests the great influence fear had on the art of war, for it made the knights act cautiously and wisely.
