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Other writers of chansons de geste described what close bonds existed between the lord and his retinue. In Doon de Mayence the attachment of the liegeman was well described: 'If my lord is killed, I shall die too. If he is cast into the fire? I too shall be burned. And if he is drowned, let them throw me in too! The vassal had to endure a great deal for his lord:
A man must bear much hardship for his lord
And endure great heat and great cold
And lose both hair and hide for him if need be.
In the Chanson d'Aspremont Charlemagne entrusted the standard to the seneschal Fagon, who had guarded it for thirty-three years and had never been driven from the field of battle. He belonged to the royal house and guarded the banner with his personal retinue of a thousand liegemen.
A thousand knights elected from the country,
His liegemen, of his private retinue,
Everybody has his head well armed,
All wish to come in the fight
He leads them that day so close together
That an apple thrown in the air
Would not touch the ground during half a mile.
When Joinville wrote of the famous bataille of Guy de Mauvoisin, he praised not only the clan, but also the liegemen who gave assistance to their lord: as vassals most closely bound to their lord, their obligations were absolute, in contrast with those of many ordinary vassals who had different lords. The system existed from the middle of the eleventh century, and contributed a great deal to the tightening of personal bonds between the overlord and his vassals, as is evident from the narrative sources and the chansons de geste. The thirteenth and fourteenth centuries saw a relaxation of the obligations of the liegemen, but in the same period it became usual for soldiers practically everywhere to be paid. The knights and squires were then very well paid for their military service, so that their devotion generally left nothing to be desired.
In the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries there were fewer knights and more squires, and by the end of the thirteenth century squires were in fact more numerous than knights. Did this weaken the solidarity between the lord and his vassals? There is insufficient evidence for this despite the defection of the Flemish knights and squires in 1297. These nobles were divided into two factions, that of the count of Flanders and that of the king of France; the incident is too isolated to permit any conclusions to be drawn.
The professional military class was made up of knights and squires who were more than ever the social elite. The solidarity seems not to have been weakened among the French noblemen who perished in such numbers at Courtrai, some of them had not wanted to survive their lord and returned to the battlefield instead of fleeing after the defeat. The Anglo-Norman nobles too suffered heavy losses at Bannockburn. In both battles knights and squires were ready to sacrifice themselves, nor is there any reason to doubt the devotion and solidarity of the men who fought at Monsen-Pévèle.
Yet these great defeats were, after all, concrete examples of the weakening of the noble caste. From the middle of the twelfth century the knights had gradually formed a caste which was closed by the mid-thirteenth century: this contained the germ of the decline. The great knightly defeats which came after the beginning of the fourteenth century were a sign of inner weakening, not yet clearly visible, but becoming clearer by the middle of the fourteenth century.
In short, the units which were formed from a knightly clan, or from the retinue of a lord, or from his liegemen, showed exceptional cohesiveness in this period. In most cases the formations in the West were composed of these elements, or at least had a solid core of such men. Of course there were also bad vassals, and cowards, but they were mercilessly abused by the chroniclers, if their flight was too obviously prompted by a lack of courage. Heelu praised the lord of Borne thus for his heroic deeds:
…the good knight of Borne
who was the finest of the Dutch tongue
among old or young
to be found at that time
in the Roman empire, far and wide…
and above all because, having been wounded, he had to be removed by force, and wanted
…rather to die with honour
than dishonour the name of Borne.
The lord of Keppel, on the other hand, was severely censured for having abandoned his overlord, the count of Guelders:
Another followed, fleeing
with untattered banners,
and after him a great band
of knights and squires, without need:
he was called the lord of Keppel.
May God condemn him
for fleeing so shamefully
and leaving his overlord in the lurch.
The example of the lord of Keppel, who fled with his whole unit, and 'without need', is instructive. The evidence of various writers is contradictory; it seems clear that despite the bonds of clans, personal retinues of lords, lofty conceptions of individual and collective honour, there was still not always sufficient solidarity and spirit of sacrifice to stand up to the ordeal of battle. Sometimes still more was needed. Together with the individual and collective training, the tightly knit social structure, noble conceptions of honour and duty, there was still another means of reducing danger, overcoming fear, preventing capture, and increasing the effectiveness of fighting units - this was to go into battle in small tactical units, which in turn formed larger units, batailles or 'battles', in order to be able to give more effective support.
