The Psychology of Knights on the Battlefield part 2 (multipart )

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The Arming of Knights and its Influence

In the Middle Ages emphasis was always laid on the armour, for 'armed' meant wearing a coat of mail. Those without it were unarmed or 'inermes'. Knights were heavily armed cavalry; in the Crusades they were called 'armed' in contrast to their enemies who were called 'naked'. The knights are 'heavily armed', while the lightly-armed Moslems were 'unarmed' (desarmée).

The Christians are very well armed
And the Saracens are unarmed
They have only a bow, a mace or a sword
Or a well-sharpened stick
And a cuirass that is not heavy.

The armor and heavy weapons made knights invulnerable to the arrows of the Moslems. They were called the 'iron people' by the Turks. In the Third Crusade Saladin did not dare fight again after his defeat at Arsuf. Against the well-armored crusaders his troops had no chance of success.

Their armor and heavy weapons were tremendously important to the knights because they made them invulnerable or greatly restricted the numbers of those killed in action. There is ample evidence that a greater sense of security due to their good protective armor spurred the knights on to the utmost bravery on the battlefield.

We know already that Anna Comnena depicted the western knights in the first Crusade as 'unconquerable in a confined area, but easy to capture in open terrain: indomitable on horseback, but powerless when they have to fight on foot, irresistible in the first shock.'  She lays great stress on the advantages of heavy armor and equipment, which made it possible for a charge to be so violent that the Moslem cavalry never stood their ground, and generally avoided a hand-to-hand combat.

The disadvantages of heavy equipment were not overlooked, however, and she makes the contrast stand out sharply. But it is not true to say that the knights were easy to beat in the open field; on the contrary, the reverse was true for it enabled them to pursue the enemy effectively. Nor is it true that they were useless on foot. It is quite clear on balance that the armor was invaluable.

When the spoils were divided after the fall of Constantinople in 1204, the clerk Aleaume de Clari asked for a knight's share, since he had fought on horseback, wearing a coat of mail. The count of St Pol granted his request, because he had borne himself so bravely.

'Li Frans…s' arme pour poour de mort!'  The knights wear armor for fear of death! The importance of iron armor was great because it eliminated a large part of the danger on the battlefield: anyone who wore it had to fight like a knight, as is clear from the Rule of the Templars.

This Rule contains important information on the knightly art of war, and the distinction is sharply drawn between the armored aristocrats of the Order and the light sergeants, who were not so well armed and did not normally wear full armor. The same tenacity in battle was not expected of them as it was of the knights, and they were allowed to retreat. But if these sergeants were given a knight's equipment by their Order, and were therefore similarly armed, this permission was no longer valid. 'The brother sergeants who wear an iron cuirass must fight on the battlefield just as is required of the brother knights; and the other brother sergeants wearing no armor will have the gratitude of God and of the Order if they fight well. But if they see that they cannot endure the battle or are wounded, they may withdraw without asking permission and without punishment.' Heavily armored sergeants could not leave the battlefield without permission or before the Christian army had been routed.

Knights, covered from head to foot in armor, had little to worry about when facing ill-armed foot-soldiers. This is obvious from the swift subjugation of the Irish at the end of the twelfth century by ridiculously small armies. Against those 'unarmored men, who either won or were beaten in the first charge', such heavy armor was not necessary and this was true wherever the foot-soldiers were not well armed. As long as the common people were too poor to buy heavy arms, and the princes could not buy them any, the situation did not change, until the cities and rural communes solved the problem and at the same time infused greater self-confidence into their men.

The high degree of invulnerability and relatively small number of dead among the knights following a battle encouraged them to fight bravely. The state of the mail-shirt after a battle served as a means of judging the man had fought bravely or not:

I know full well that you are a coward:
Your coat of mail is neither pierced nor torn,
And neither your head nor arms are wounded.

says Bueves de Commarchis to his son Girart.

The excellent protection of the armor also impressed the Moslems after the defeat of the army from the kingdom of Jerusalem at Hattin near Lake Tiberias in 1187. The knights of king Guy of Lusignan had struggled vainly to break out of the encirclement of their army. Totally exhausted by thirst and fatigue after a full day's fighting in the scorching heat, and a night without food or drink, following sporadic attacks, they were forced the next day to cease fighting and capitulate. Their horses were dead tired and covered with wounds. 'It was an extraordinary and wonderful thing that the French knights kept on fighting as long as their horses were all right. They were armed from head to foot in a sort of armor made of a fabric of iron rings. They seemed to be an iron mass, off which blows simply glanced.' … 'These Christians were lions at the start of the battle; by the end they looked more like scattered sheep.' Their might had been feared at first, but the Moslems mocked the miserable aspect of their disarmed and exhausted prisoners.

Contemporary western observers were also conscious that in combat between knights there were fewer casualties than in battles of classical antiquity. 'Formerly, many thousands perished in battle, but now, because of increasing calamities the means of protection have also been improved, and new defense has been found against new weapons.'

It is true that there was no difference in equipment when knights in western Europe were fighting against their equals. In such case they knew they could give themselves up if the odds seemed hopeless, and they could count on their comrades in battle. We must now consider the units in which the knights fought, and discuss the inner cohesiveness of these formations.

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p2   Solidarity in the Knightly Families and Clans, and in a Lord's Retinue  (4 parts )

It is common knowledge that the old Germans in their mighty Geschlechter (clans) united in solid formations in time of war, thanks to the natural cohesiveness or solidarity which had developed among them from living close together in time of peace. The same men were leaders of society inpeace and in war. There was firm mutual trust, for the warriors were fighting by the side of companions whom they had known for years. Strict discipline, as imposed by the Romans to counteract fear, was not necessary, for anyone who fled from the field of battle was expelled from society, and had to live as an outlaw. Besides, if a people is warlike by nature, such characteristics of daily life may compensate for many other qualities which in an army of more civilized folk would have to be artificially fostered by long drilling under strict discipline, as in the case of the Romans.

The head of a family was also a military leader, so that if he was in command of a unit of men bound by ties of blood, he did so as the leader of a clan or tribe. 'Neither chance nor a haphazard grouping makes up the unit of cavalry or foot-soldiers, but families or clans.' The men so grouped from one family advanced under a sign or banner, the fano, gundfano, or bandwa.

After the Franks had settled in Gaul, this family organization and its concomitant military qualities disappeared. The warriors became farmers, and it has been thought that there was no question of the influence of the clans upon the art of war in the new military class which then arose, and later evolved towards chivalry. This however is a widely held misconception, sharply contradicted by trustworthy sources well into the thirteenth century.

The role of knightly clans in private wars has already been mentioned. In these conflicts between noble families there appear not only the actual family members, but also men of the retinue, the vassals who were maintained by the lord and lived with the family proper.

In comparison with the old Geschlechter, the medieval aristocratic clan or lignage did not perhaps have the same solidarity, but this is hard to decide, and other characteristics which the old Germans certainly did not possess compensated for what was lost. The knightly clan was smaller, making for greater solidarity. It was provided with better weapons and had much more efficient equipment. As warriors, the knights had greater individual dexterity, and better training in tournaments, which were held more often than the old Germans' war games. The knights were also conscious of belonging to the ruling class: for in their eyes they naturally occupied a lofty position far above the common people and even above the clergy. Many texts show this:

'That is well done', says the archbishop,
That is how a knight should behave,
Who is armed and well mounted:
He must be strong and proud in battle,
Otherwise he is not worth a groat,
And should go into a monastery and become a monk
And pray for our sins every day.

And elsewhere:

The archbishop …
Likes buying horses and fine weapons
For dubbing squires knights better
Than heaping up riches….
He explains this to the pope:
'Reverend Father, do not worry too much about this:
We ought to think well of knights,
When we are sitting down to dine,
Or are at matins,
They are fighting for the defence of our land.
You and I and our abbot Fromer
Ought to empty the treasure chest for them.
Each of us should give them so much
So that they will come and serve and honour us.'

The same sense of superiority comes out in a military form in mounted combat - the cavalryman always feels superior to the foot-soldier.

There are many texts which show the value of the ties binding the clan to the lord. The best known of these dates from the end of the thirteenth century, proving that these conditions lasted for a very long time. Joinville tells us that at the time of the battle of Mansurah in Egypt in 1250, during the first Crusade of St Louis, the bataille of Guy de Mauvoisin achieved splendid results: he adds that this should cause no surprise, for this formation consisted entirely of members of this clan and vassals of this lord. This was not of course true of all lords, since they were accompanied on Crusades by volunteers only.

To Ambroise the knightly clans and closely serried units were synonymous:

The clans advanced together
And regrouped themselves together
This made the army so tightly packed
That it could scarcely be harmed.

In the battle of Arsuf the great hero of the day was James of Avesnes, who fought with his clan and perished with three members of his family. During one of the battles of the Third Crusade, the Knights Templar were surprised by the enemy. Since they had had plenty of experience of fighting in the East, and were used to fighting in units, they dismounted and drew themselves up in crown formation, in which the men stood back to back to repel the enemy attack. They fought then, not as we should expect of a professional army, in very close units, but rather 'as if they all sprang from one father'. The poet shows that he considers that units formed from family members were much more closely united than those which the Templars could form as a military order, with their own rules for the conduct of war. The Schavedries clan began the battle of Worringen, and remained on the battlefield until the end.  Jan van Heelu wrote in the same vein about the men of Brabant, who fought as brothers under the leadership of their father, duke John I.

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These facts are born out in epic poems. In the German Heldenlieder there are constant references to magen und mannen, the family members and the vassals. The thousand liegemen of duke Bégue in Garin leLorrain all belonged to a single clan. They were the best warriors, and formed one of the most solid bases of a lord's power, together with his liegemen, his castles and his revenues. In the epics the clans had many members:

And there were more than a thousand comrades together
All of one lineage and one nation.

The whole group of chansons de geste about Aymeri de Narbonne and his sons is devoted to his clan. 'There is neither rivalry nor jealousy among the members, as soon as one of them is threatened they all rush to help. No one esteems himself more highly than his brothers: they make no boast of their own feats of arms, but about those of their clan, and each one is proud to be able to behold his own image in others, many times reflected as in mirrors. As the clan grows, the braver they feel.'

This is well expressed in another poem Le siége de Barbastre:

'…And I tell you, Sire, by fine truth
That the heroic deeds of Aymeri are kept in heredity.
Not one will die in a castle or a city,
but in hard battle against infidel heathen.
That fee will I keep as my best inheritance.
Well, let us go to strike the infidel heathen
So that nobody can sing a bad song about it,
So that Aimeri's family will not be criticised,
So that no cowardice will be done in his age.
Let us go to fight so that nothing can be changed.'
At these words they have pricked their horses
All together once, with good will.

The text shows that the clan cannot be permitted to be dishonoured by the cowardice of one of his sons. Even when other members of the clan were not on the battlefield, the thought of the family has its effect, and helps to overcome fear in terrible danger. 'Come and help me, that I may not be guilty of cowardice, which would be a reproach to my family!' Thus Guillaume d'Orange invoked the help of the Holy Virgin in order to be saved in extremity.  And why did not Roland summon the aid of Charlemagne's army by sounding the Oliphant?

'Now Roland, my companion, sound your horn,
If Charlemagne hears it, he will send the army back,
The king will save us with his great power.'

Roland answers: 'May it please God
Never to let me bring disgrace on my family,
Nor bring sweet France into disrepute.'

The honour of the clan would thereby be jeopardised, even the honour of the country; the shame would be general because the poets would make mockery in a song.

But the clan system alone did not bring cohesion in the knightly units. As we saw in the case of private wars, feudal bonds between the lord and his vassals must also be taken into account, and particularly those with the liegemen, who lived at court or in the castle of a lord, and who constituted part of the family itself. The maintenance of a retinue or band of warriors by a powerful lord followed a very old custom dating from the time of the Teutons.

In those days prominent leaders surrounded themselves with brave young men and tried to keep the greatest possible number of close companions in their following. In time of peace these warriors increased their prestige, their social position and their power, in time of war they formed their lord's bodyguard. On the battlefield it was a disgrace for the leader to be outdone by his companions in courage or bravery, and for them it was a disgrace not to equal their lord in these qualities. They were dishonoured for life if they survived their commander after his death in battle. As members of his bodyguard they had to protect him, rescue him and even ascribe their own heroic deeds to him. This was their most important duty. The commander fought for victory, his men fought for their leader. He maintained them out of the booty and the profits that flowed in from war, and he provided them with their costly charger, their arms and their board at his table instead of paying them a fixed salary.  Centuries later the same custom is found in Beowulf and in the Norse sagas.

In the tenth century the Normans knew such old German customs which they had doubtless brought with them from their northern fatherland. Three hundred men were ready to fight and die at the side of William Longsword. With one accord they came to him, swore their oath of fealty and promised to be true and faithful. In accordance with Danish custom they all touched lances together, this was called wapentake, and served to strengthen comradeship in arms ceremoniously in a special circumstances. In the eleventh century it appears again among the Anglo-Saxons and Normans.

Among the Franks private retinues also existed up to the sixth and seventh centuries. The royal trustis corresponds to the comitatus described by Tacitus. The bodyguard was a sort of permanent little army which had to protect the king, but which could also be set to other tasks. Its members were called antrustiones and enjoyed a special protection. When a member was killed, the murderer had to pay his family three times the normal wergeld. The member of a royal retinue was thus a person of considerable importance in society, even if he had risen from the lower classes. He enjoyed this special status because of the oath of fealty, sworn with his hand in the king's, and because he lived in the royal entourage. The chief lords of the Merovingians also had their personal retinues, which formed the cadre of professional soldiers. They were fed, clothed and protected in exchange for services rendered.

The Carolingians had the scara, a corps of young and strong warriors, living at the court, who could be sent where they were needed. Young squires were trained for the profession of arms and were maintained at the court. There are many examples of young squires and knights who were given bed and board by their lord in his court or castle. These were the tirones, the milites de sua familia, de sua domo, the domestici milites, the commilitones, the knights of the mesnie or the hus. In 1108 Louis the Fat was thus able to raise a small army made up exclusively of knights belonging to his household.

In the Third Crusade Richard I had a personal retinue, which formed one of the main units in the battle with his bodyguard. During the war in Wales Edward I's household consisted sometimes of more than a hundred bannerets and knights, and thirty or more sergeants-at-arms. During his campaign in Flanders in 1297 his household consisted first of 475 and later of 550 armoured cavalrymen. Some of these men were only temporarily incorporated into the royal retinue, which numbered at least 400–420 permanent members at that time, i.e. between August and 1 November 1297. The hostel of the king of France in 1317 included 235 armoured cavalrymen. The prince-bishop of Liége had a familia episcopalis which among other duties was charged with the defence of the castles.  Sometimes he recruited a special retinue to deal with rebellious liegemen.

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Rulers always wanted to surround themselves with specially brave liegemen who would protect them in battle as faithful body guards. Young Henry of England sought out the most courageous knights and tried to recruit them for high pay and lavish maintenance. Philip of Alsace made a similar offer to William the Marshal.  Baldwin IV and Baldwin V of Hainault chose the most courageous knights of the county as commilitones. There were about forty noblemen in the entourage of Baldwin V, who, like vassals completely supported by a prince, received horses, arms, clothes and money, and the fiefs of several of them were increased. 

All the members of the court of the count, the socially prominent knights as well as the lower servants, had to protect the count in the army, and in return their expenses were borne by him. If one of them became needy through sickness or age, he had a right to some assistance with food and clothing.  Jan van Heelu described how solid the bonds were between such humble servants and their prince. The sergeants who had received clothing from the duke fought particularly well in the battle of Worringen in John I's unit:

There were from Brabant
Many courageous sergeants,
Certainly the equals of knights,
That seemed so in the unit
Of the duke, their master,
Where they, with the most honour,
Did the best acts of fighting,
That anyone saw in the army.
And most of all those
Who received from the duke
Clothes, and were his servants,
They showed always, without stinting,
That they preferred to die
Than to abandon their master.

The harsh reality of the battlefield provides plenty of examples. Although the old German custom that members of a retinue should not survive their dead master no longer applied, it seems that this sort of thing did actually happen. It was the case at Courtrai in 1302.  At Mons-en-Pévéle the members of the royal retinue unhesitatingly offered themselves to rescue Philip the Fair, and many sacrificed their lives.  At Bouvines, both commanders, Otto and Philip Augustus, were rescued from certain death by the devotion of their followers.  At Steppes in 1213 Henry of Huldenberg wore the armorial devices of his master, duke Henry 1 of Brabant, and perished on that account.

It was one of the primary obligations of a vassal to defend and protect his lord. In an assembly of peers at the castle of Lille the lord spoke thus to his liegeman: 'You shall protect and defend my body, my honour, my estate and my possessions, as befits a vassal for his lord. I promise to protect you and the fief for which you do me homage, to give you counsel and support you as a lord must do for his liegeman.'

As time went on, feudal obligations assumed priority, although the influence of families was still felt. This can be seen in family relations themselves: the father was regarded as the lord, the sons as his vassals. Family bonds had to give way to obligations to the liege lord, for example in the punishment of the Erembalds after the murder of Charles the Good, and their resistance in the castle at Bruges, clan solidarity could not prevail against the lord. Anyone who fought with his family in such a case was mercilessly punished.

In the chanson de geste Raoul de Cambrai, the writer deals with this conflict between family bonds and feudal obligations. Raoul made war on the sons of Herbert de Vermandois. One of his squires, Bernier, who had belonged to Raoul's retinue from the age of fifteen, was descended through his father from the same clan as Herbert. Bernier's mother was a nun in the abbey of Origni. She implored her son to forsake Raoul, but Bernier refused, because his lord had given him horses and clothes, and the boy wanted to serve him until he had the right to leave him.

Lord Raoul is more felonious than Judas.
He is my lord; he gives me horses and cloth,
And garment and rich cloth of Baudas.
I will not abandon him for the honour of Damas,
Till the moment that everybody says: 'Bernier, you are right.'

His mother admits that he is right:

'Son,' said the mother, 'by my faith, you are right.
Work for your master, God will win by it.

But Raoul ordered an attack on Origni. The nunnery was set on fire, and Bernier's mother was burnt to death before the eyes of her son. After this attack Raoul returned to his camp. Under the influence of drink he insulted Bernier and even struck him in the face with the shaft of his lance. Other knights of the retinue came between the two men: now Bernier had the right to avenge himself if Raoul made no reparation. Raoul proposed that he should go on foot from Origni to Nesle (27 miles) with Bernier's saddle on his back as a punishment. The latter refused, and left Raoul's army with his men, despite the fact that the other knights considered that his lord had made him a fair proposal.  Bernier was absolutely loyal, although he had good grounds to abandon his lord, and when he finally left his master, he had right on his side. If the lord struck the vassal with a stick, the vassal could break the agreement; this had been laid down in a capitulary of Charlemagne.

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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.

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Tactical Units in Knightly Warfare

In order to lessen the danger for the individual, to give him confidence in battle, to carry out an effective charge and also go into action in tactical units, the formations of knights were in closely serried ranks. It's already been shown how Ambroise and Guillaume Guiart, the one late in the twelfth century and the other early in the fourteenth, described the advance of the knightly units. Both chroniclers were eyewitnesses, and had a sound knowledge of methods of warfare of their time. Ambroise gave us several fine examples, and it is hard to resist the temptation to quote another good extract:

There were many units,
The most beautiful Christian warriors
That ever saw the people of the earth.
They were serried in ranks
As if they were people forged in iron
The battle line was wide and strong
And could well sustain fierce attacks;
And the rearguard was so full
Of good knights that it was difficult
To see their heads,
If one was not higher up;
It was not possible to throw a prune
Except on mailed and armoured men.

And in the Chanson d'Antioche we read:

And the other units of the Frankish family
March serried and in step.
The princes lead them on their lively chargers,
There is no space open where a glove can fall to earth.

Even the chansons de geste which are naturally inclined to relate the individual heroic deeds of the great lords, are here close to the accounts of eyewitnesses. The same image of the apple or glove thrown in the air is used over and over again:

Their units advance towards them in serried ranks;
If you throw a glove over their helmets
It would not land within a mile.

And:

The barons are so closely packed as they advance
That if you throw a glove on their helmets
It would not fall to ground within a mile.

Even between the formations of knights, advancing beside each other on the same front, there were sometimes only small spaces. When a formation is especially well drawn up, in order to make a surprise attack on the enemy, it advanced like the detachment of duke Girart de Fraite in the Chanson d' Aspremont:

They advanced secretly through a valley.
He had seventeen hundred men with him.
He led them in such close formation
That the wind could not blow between their lances.

Allowing for poetic exaggeration, the fact remains that the units were so closely packed that the horses were touching each other in formation.

An excellent narrative source explains why the cavalrymen were formed up so closely. In 1180 king Amalric wanted to relieve the fortress of Darum in the kingdom of Jerusalem, which was being besieged by Saladin. It describes how the king acted in order to break the enemy lines: 'Our army observed the enemy camp. Terrified because they were so powerful, our men began to draw closer together, as they had been trained to do, indeed so closely that they could scarcely carry out an attack because of the mass. The enemy fell upon them at once, and tried to force them apart … but our men… were too tightly packed. They fought off the enemy attack and continued their advance deliberately.

By means of this dense formation, which made a charge very difficult, king Amalric broke through the besieging army and liberated the beleaguered fortress. Here it is explicitly stated that the very dense formation was used for fear of the enemy, and this shows that our analysis of the psychology of the knight is borne out by the statements of contemporaries. But at the same time the chronicler points out that in this case the formation was too dense, and made the charge more difficult: nevertheless, this density enabled the army to make stouter resistance to the attacks of the enemy, who tried vainly to break it up.

The importance of such descriptions of battle-order can scarcely be over-emphasized. If an advance in very close order is the ideal to be aimed at, and is indeed achieved as far as possible, then it follows that duels and individual combats are out of the question. They became, in fact, increasingly difficult as the ranks were more tightly packed. These formations are a complete negation of the so-called duels, of which a battle between two knightly armies was supposed to have consisted.

Closely drawn-up units are encountered in the tournaments as they were described in the Histoire de Guillaume le Maréchal. They are also found in the battles at Acre and Arsuf during the Third Crusade, in the battles of Bouvines, Worringen and Mons-en-Pévéle, and in most of the narrative sources. It has been shown elsewhere that the chronicles are clear on this point.  All the sources written in the vernacular and quoted above—Ambroise, the Histoire de Guillaume le Maréchal, Villehardouin, Robert de Clari, Joinville, Guiart, and many other chroniclers—mention conrois, banners, batailles and échelles. Knights in conrois, échelles or batailles fight on nearly every battlefield. The close similarity of the technical terms—bataille, battaglia, bataelge; eschiele, scara, scare, schiere; conrois and conroten—shows that they have a common origin and that they were widely spread over western Europe. The Germanic origin of the words indicates that tactical units had been used for a long time.

In small units the vassals wore the insignia of their lord, if he was rich and powerful enough to maintain them in his retinue. When William the Marshal belonged to the retinue of the chamberlain of Tancarville, he wore a shield with the device of his lord: 'Sis escuz est de Tankarvile'  In 1176 Raymond le Gros had a retinue of some thirty kinsmen with shields of one pattern in Ireland. A while later the coat of arms was introduced.

His horse was covered with iron
On it was placed a cloth of blue silk
With golden flowers of the arms of the king
Of France, the whole unit bore the same.

[Longmane]

p7

In the thirteenth century English barons had the right to let their knights and squires wear a badge or uniform. It was considered a scandalous thing when a robber captain gave his men a uniform, just as if he were a baron! In the fourteenth century a man had to be a banneret at least for his knights and squires to deck themselves out in such a fashion. In the Scalacronica, Sir Thomas Gray of Heton wrote that the followers of the English barons who rose against Edward II wore identical clothes. At Bouvines the emperor Otto was recognised by the device of his conroi.

The strength of these units varied according to the power of the liege lord, but at Worringen several small banners were grouped together. The second half of the twelfth century sees the appearance of the bannerets, commanders of a unit of twenty knights.  In the Welsh wars of Edward I some bannerets have 20 knights and squires, but others have less warriors in their unit. Since Guiart described these conrois as square units, it may be assumed that formations with 12 to 24 cavalrymen placed 6 or 8 of them in the front rank, the others lined up in a second or third rank. The great bataille was formed of a series of conrois drawn up next to each other. This gave rectangular formations two or three men deep, with a front of fifty, sixty or more knights and squires.

The best example of the complete deployment of an army in 'battles' and banners was that of the royal French army which advanced to Cassel in 1328 to crush the rebels from coastal Flanders. It was made up of ten 'battles' with 177 banners when it reached its destination, and with some reinforcements finally totalled 196 banners.

It is useful to trace what later happened to these small units: in 1351 king John the Good of France wanted to draw up his troops effectively, and gave the order to form larger units, routes of at least twenty-five cavalry, better still thirty to eighty. It is perfectly possible and logical that as far as the strength of small units was concerned, there was a return to the conditions that had prevailed in the twelfth century, when these formations apparently had more horsemen than in the early fourteenth century. This would certainly be in accordance with the decrease in the number of knights. According to the Histoire de Guillaume le Maréchal, the chamberlain of Tancarville actually had forty knights or more in his banner, while William the Marshal himself had fifty and more in his conestablie when he was in the service of Henry II.

One of the best indications that such small formations made up tactical units comes from the East, in the kingdom founded by Baldwin IX. His brother and successor, Henry of Constantinople, divided his army into fifteen 'battles', each of which consisted of twenty knights and armoured cavalry, except the fifteenth, made up of fifty men and commanded by the emperor himself. There were also three similar units made up of Greeks in this army. The units are notably small for the times, simply because the army was very small altogether.

This little army made its attack in four lines staggered in depth, in units of forty men each, that is, two small units joined. 'And Pieres de Braiscuel and Nicholes de Mailli were put in the vanguard with Joffroi the marshal, and they said that they would charge in front, between him and Milon le Brabant, and then Guillaumes dou Parcoi and Lyenars de Helemes; and the emperor covered the chargers' 

In 1211, there was another example of this sort in the battle by the river Espiga. Henry I had again formed fifteen units, each consisting of fifteen knights, except that of the emperor, which had fifty. Henry ordered twelve units to begin the attack, lest the balance of numbers turned out too much to the disadvantage of his troops. A detachment remained in camp to guard the tents. The emperor was victorious, and pursued the enemy from midday till sunset. He said that he lost no men.

Here we are clearly dealing with tactical units. What would be the point of carrying out their charges in the manner described if there were no tactical units executing the commands of the leader as one man? Why else were the formations so small, instead of forming a large detachment, and keeping another as a reserve as soon as the propitious moment comes. At the same time it must be pointed out how Henry was motivated in the second instance: this time the ratio of numbers was so much to his disadvantage that he only dared put a small part of his army in the second and possibly the third line.


NB Next “The Tactical Significance of the Standard”