"A few 100 Years War Questions" Topic

Are there any good scenario references for the HYW battles, that list more detailed force descriptions for the opposing sides?

Most of the on-line references I'm seeing for many of even the larger, more well known battles only list estimated troop levels, and don't break things down much further than Knights/Men at Arms, and Archers, or Mtd. MAA/KN. For the French, they'll sometimes list the number of crossbowmen.

Would be great if there's a decent scenario book for the various battles to cover them, or even some more, generic type force recommendations for the less well know troops, e.g. infantry with bills, spears, etc., light cav, and so on.

For the French, in the HYW, when they fielded bows (not crossbows), I presume these to be an attempt to match the English troops with longbowmen of their own. Is that correct?

If so, would they be similarly clothed to those of the English, or perhaps more lightly dressed, e.g. padded jackets, helmets, or just plainly clothed, etc.?

Finally, for the early HYW period, I've seen mention of Gascons in the English force at Crecy as infantry, but no mention of what types of weapons they used. Would they have a mixed variety of weapons, or would they be armed pretty much with the same arms, e.g. spears, bills, etc.?

Any info you can shed on the above will be greatly appreciated.

Wargames Research Group, Armies of the Middle Ages Volume 1

I think this publication will increase your knowledge of the period significantly. And answer all your questions.

Check out, 'Froissart: Chronicles'
link

from what I can find after many years playing HYW games, is that there was lots of fighting throughout the period, yet not much out there to tell us about it. as for details, it seems only large battles which ended in English victory have any information written about them. the good news, is that I get to make my scenarios use pretty much whatever figures I want. im pretty sure common troops on both sides were armored the same.

one issue is that the sources at the time were horrible at giving accurate numbers. and the deeds of the nobles got the most attention. at least the English had good muster roles for the larger campaigns, but the endless smaller campaigns and battles are hardly covered.

osprey books give some good data. im sure there are great resources out there, but the fact that you really have to dig for it makes me not want to bother. and don't even get me started on how Anglo centric all the information is! like the fact that Bertrand Du Guesclin is not a famous hero despite his many battles and victories.

Canadian Wargames Group's Flower of Chivalry had some HYW scenarios, it looks like it's still available here: link or Noble Knight has some.

Extrapolation is possible. So be grateful! :)

In detail, we will never know more, because the information was never noted in the first place and it's too long ago.

Men-at-arms are the same on both sides. It's just that the French have so many more of them. So in small battles, skirmishes and formalized conflicts, such as the "combat of thirty", there will be no differences in the MAAs on either side: armed the same, trained the same, and they know each other in many cases.

Common troops are the same. Proportions vary enormously. Crossbowmen and longbowmen and "billmen" are on both sides. Spearmen or pikemen come from Scotland and Wales and feature on the side of the French and English respectively, but only in auxiliary roles.

If you were to make up army lists to balance the most typical troops against each other, the French are MAA dominant, the English and their continental allies are longbow dominant. Anymore detail than that is lacking….

Actually the English kept pretty good records regarding size and compositon of their armies and some of these have survived. Anne Curry amongest others have done lots of research on these issues. All her works are highly recommended. Clifford Rogers has also done great work on the earlier phase of the HYW (both these authors have companion source books if you wish to dive into primary sources).

Jonathan Sumption has a very good chapter in the third volume of HYW epic history titled "Men at Arms" which covers the armies of both sides.

The army lists provided with DBMM and DBA3.0 for this period are very helpful (I've got a few quibbles…)

The boxed sets of Perry Brother figures for this period have very useful painting guides.

Finally the about to be released Great Battles for DBA3.0 has a very good HYW battle included…

Short and dirty summary: English about 1/3 mounted men at arms (often dismounting as Blades); 2/3 yeoman archers (often also mounted but generally dismounting to fight). Supplemented by Gascons in some battles bascially men at arms but supported by crossbows. Welsh "spearmen" appear is some early armies but fade away in favor of more archers. Proportion of archers drifted up and late in period "billmen" began to be substituted for archers (who became harder to recruit).

French: about 1/3 Men at arms (also often dismounting as Blades); 1/3 foot (often Spear with pavises latter halbred men) and 1/3 missilemen (at first crossbows but latter in period Franc archers).

Burgundy sometimes allied with the English and would provide additional men at arms (upping the ratio of MAA to archers). Scots allied with French providing additional men at arms (and other foot) and archers (at least 1/3 of Scottish total). Scottish yeoman long spear men were for home defense and generally did not appear on the continent.

Be aware that in every battle there were variations in these numbers and ratios – above is just a rough general guide.

TomT

Thank you for all the replies, info, and suggestions. I really appreciate it.

I was a bit shocked by the number of English hobilars mentioned at Crecy, e.g. 3,000 men out of a fairly small force, making them about 25% – 33%+ of the entire army. I knew they'd have some light/medium horse for scouting, but that seems a bit over the top compared to other force lists I've seen that come with various rules systems, e.g. DBA, Tactica, etc.

Am I right about the French "bowmen" being armed with longbows?

I seem to recall reading about them, a long time ago, and know the Burgundians had them in place of crossbowmen, and/or in addition to them as well, in some cases. Anyone know when they first attempted to start mimicking the English with that weapon?

Would the French "bowmen" be mounted troops, or foot?

I suspect regardless, they'd dismount prior to combat, since I don't recall reading about any of them fighting Mongol-style, from horseback, firing their weapons. Of course, I suppose they might have done that in some skirmishes, but probably not for set-piece battles.

Finally, for Agincourt, I've seen the stunning Perry diorama of it in pics. Looks simply amazing.

I recall reading that the knights/MAA would sometimes use cut-down lances when attacking, especially through breaches in city and castle walls during sieges.

I was pleased, though a bit surprised to see so many French knights and MAA carrying cut down lances in their foot assault of the English lines, through the mud, in the Perry diorama for Agincourt.

I would have figured many would be armed with polearms and other weapons during that assault, e.g. swords, hammers, maces. Especially the polearms, to give them a long reach.

No doubt, they've carefully researched the issue, and I can only assume that the French chose to use lances like spears/pikes instead of the other weapons, due to how tightly they were packed together in battle, and due to their longer reach. Presumably, they'd still have their swords/maces, and daggers attached to them, as side-arms.

Does that seem like a reasonable interpretation of why they'd use lances on foot, instead of the other weapons?

Am I right about the French "bowmen" being armed with longbows?

I seem to recall reading about them, a long time ago, and know the Burgundians had them in place of crossbowmen, and/or in addition to them as well, in some cases. Anyone know when they first attempted to start mimicking the English with that weapon?

Would the French "bowmen" be mounted troops, or foot?

Yes the French archers were armed with longbow/warbow just as the English were. The French use of the longbow is still poorly researched but the available evidence suggests that archers were available in some numbers already by the late 14th Century. Marshal Boucicaut was able to raise 1000 archers for his expedition in support of the Byzantines and John the Fearless fielded a similar number in 1408.

The areas that produced french longbowmen seems to have been unevenly spread across France. Picard archers became famous in Burgundian service and it may well be that the Burgundian control of much of Picardy during the HYW limited the ability of the French Crown to recruit archers in the early 15th Century.

The real explosion of French archery comes in the post-Agincourt period with both the Bretons and the French adopting the longbow on an ever greater scale in order to catch up with the English and Burgundians. At the end of that development we find the Ordonnance Archers (who were mounted) and the Francs Archers (who were often on foot)

Equipment was basicly the same as the English, bascinet or sallet together with a jack or brigandine with either a mail aventail or mail collar protecting the throat. The Ordonnance Archers adopted increasingly heavy armour and seems to have regularly worn leg armour in the final years of the HYW. Mail sleeves could also have been worn together with brigandines.

The men-at-arms of both sides used the cut down lance as their standard primary weapon form much of the HYW. As a weapon it was well suited to the melees between men in heavy armour and period fighting manuals regard it as the main knightly polearm. Agincourt was the last battle were the cut down lance was used by the majority of the MAA, from then on it begins to be replaced first and foremost by the polaxe but also by other polearms.

(It should be noted that contrary to popular belief and the apperance at first glance the use of the polaxe involved a lot of thrust from both the front and rear spikes together with using the hammer and blade to hook and tear but mot nearly as many strikes & blows as one would expect at first glance)

Hobilars are just infantry with horses. Most of them would have been longbowmen….

Some 14th century French illustrations of archers:
From Chroniques de France ou de St Denis, British Library MS Royal 20 C VII, c.1398: French destroying Genoa
From Grandes Chroniques de France de Charles V, c.1375-1380, Bibliothèque nationale de France MS Français 2813: Siege of Acre (1189/1191) and Siege of Constantinople (1203)

Druzhina
14th Century Illustrations of Costume & Soldiers

Great stuff from Druzhina, as always….

Thomas Thomas…Kind of…A third or thereby of Scots in France would be archers. The rest would be largely heavy infantry with a long spear; a sizeable proportion of those would be men-at-arms, but the majority would be 'yeomen' – not really a very good term admittedly.

UGB:

Modern research generally indictes that the Scots in France formed retinues similar to the English (though with fewer archers).

Blocks of Scottish yeoman long spearmen do not seem to have been used in France. The men may have been "yeoman" at some point but fought as traditional men at arms (ie Blades).

Some sources list them as "axeman".

TomT

Really? What research did you have in mind? I have not, myself, seen anything to indicate that Scottish troops in France were any different to Scottish troops in Scotland. I can't imagine what source would list them as 'axemen' or the basis for a suggestion that the majority of them were not spearmen of a fairly well-armoured variety..as was the case in Scotland of course.
Men-at-arms…kind of a challenging term in modern times, but by-and-large 'homines ad arma' does generally mean a heavily armoured cavalry man – 'knights' in DBA terms – even if they fought on foot.

How about Brian Ditcham's PHD thesis "The Employment of Foreign Mercenary Troops in the French Royal Armies 1415-1470"? A review of the Scottish army at Bourges on the 245h of April 1424 showed that it contained some 2500 men-at-arms and 4000 archers (Page 46) and the archery duel between the Scottish and English archers featured prominently in Jehan de Waurin's eyewitness account of the battle of Verneuil that same year.
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It's not especially recent and Dr. Ditcham used the term 'men-at-arms' to cover all close-combat troops; understandable but a bit misleading. I doubt if there was ever a time when Scotland could field 2500 men-at-arms, whereas 2500 heavy infantry would be very manageable. As I recall the proportions were also the other way round – 2000 archers to 4000 spearmen and MAA.

Ditchman's work is quite good.

A contemporary sources describes the Scottish army sent to France in 1424 as follows:

"two thousand knights and esquires, six thousand good archers and two thousand Scots with axes".

The numbers may be high by the types and proportions seem correct. I don't know of any source that describes Scots fighting as spearmen in France (though many that mention this for Scots in Scotland). Archers are often mentioned.

Most logical explaination is that the yeoman spearman were a home defense force but exported armies followed the European pattern of retinues of men-at-arms and missilemen.

TomT

Ditcham's work was good, but it's well behind the times in regard to operational issues- bear in mind that Scottish medieval historiography has moved light years since 1978. Largely that's because of a kind of 'late start'…until 1965-ish (Barrow, Duncan, Nicholson) there really was n't any Scottish medieval scholarship at all, just a great deal of antiquarianism.
There's a much more recent St. Andrews thesis which is more useful – I'll try and find a title.
The contemporary source is maybe less than dependable…like Barbour's 30,000 Scots at Bannockburn. The army in France may have amounted to 7000 at it;s peak, but never 10,000. Fighting as spearmen would n't really need to be mentioned since that was the predominant troop-type, same as you would n't need to point out that most infantry in WW1 were riflemen.
Scottish 'axemen' really is n't at all credible. Dear to the hearts of figure-makers, but not a feature of what we know about Scottish armies.
Narrative material is important, but really you have to get well-dipped into the record material if your going to get the best from the narratives. IIRC there's some useful stuff in M. Brown's 'The Black Douglases'.
I do realise I'm precious about this stuff, but it is my work rather than my hobby – my hobby is the ACW and WW2.

Fighting as spearmen would have been mentioned since it was not the predominate type of troops in Europe. It is mentioned in most contempory accounts of the Scots in Scotland.

Historian Juliet Barker believes the "axemen" are highlanders.

I agree about the record material but all we have are the French records re the army in France which seems to have been composed of men-at-arms, bowmen and "axemen" (maybe auxillia types). Figure makers could hardly have influnenced a 15th century French source.

Had the Scots used large blocks of spearmen in contrast to everyone else surely Wavrin (an eyewitness) would have noticed. Archers were the predominant English troop type – but they are still mentioned. Even in Scotish armies troop types varied (much more than WWI). Scotish men arms are mentioned seperatly from spearman (or sometimes joining the spearmen). Scottish archers are nearly always mentioned in France but rarely in Scotland.

It seems clear that the continental armies were different than the "home front" armies.

TomT

In what sense would spearmen be 'in contrast to everyone else'?
Troop-types in Scottish medieval armies really did n't vary much at all…men-at-arms, spearmen, archers and from time to time hobilars, who were, by and large anyway, spearmen when it came to combat. One could make the same point about English armies too. The army in France certainly was different to those generally raised for service at home, but in proportions rather than anything else – chiefly a much larger proportion of archers and, possibly (in my view very probably) a higher proportion of men-at-arms
A good deal of the 'axeman' tradition is firmly rooted in Barbour's assertion that there was a large Highland element in Robert I's army at Bannockburn. For no reason at all that can be supported by evidence this has fostered a belief that Highland troops were armed/equipped differently to Lowland ones, so a romantic picture has emerged of hairy blokes with big axes and non-specialist historians have just gone with the flow of that.
Same applies to the rafts of unarmed peasant hangers-on that are so familiar of many (non-specialist) historians, but are unknown to record, or for that matter narrative material.

Well, Bannockburn had "rafts of unarmed peasant hangers-on". They apparently helped swing the battle….

It is not at all clear that that was the case. Barbour – the only person to mention them – had a political/romance agenda to pursue, rather like his assertion that there was a fourth Scottish formation under Douglas or the presence of Angus Og. Moreover, even in Barbour's narrative it is clear that the battle was won before any intervention by the camp 'staff' (for want of a better term). If you're interested I could send you a mightily dull lump of work on the subject….a sovereign cure for insomnia.

"two thousand knights and esquires" that does not seem correct maybe two thousand Men at arms, unless the Scots are going against the trend in of the late Middle ages.

Yup; but even 2000 MAA would be a gigantic force by Scottish standards – I'm not aware of any Scottish medieval army that ran to 2000 MAA, let alone 2000 landholding types of an age to go to war.