Osprey - General Military - Knight - The Warrior and ... - Brego-weard

separate organizations drawn from shire levies or town militia. They formed
contingents with their own internal command structures (of 'twenties' and 'hundreds'
in England, led by vintenard and centenard, men who drew a higher rate of pay and
were probably leaders within the communities from which the troops came). The
mixed retinue, in contrast, saw the indentured lord recruiting both men-at-arms
and archers within the same organization. How these mixed retinues took the field
continues to be a matter of debate. None of our sources are clear enough to tell us
whether the archers were separated out and combined into units in their own right or
whether they formed along with the lord and his men-at-arms. The events of the Wars
of the Roses would suggest that the latter was the case. How else would lords and
their retinues switch sides during battle, as Lord Grey of Ruthin did at the battle of
Northampton in 1460, his whole force laying down their arms allowing the Yorkists
to march past? Separating out the archers would also require an extra layer of
command to be created, with a lord being designated as commander of the archers,
or of a part of them. It would make more sense to retain the archers under the
leadership of the lord and men-at-arms with whom they were indented rather than
have to create a whole new command structure.
The Ordonannce armies of 15th-century France and Burgundy were slightly
different, but their consistent organization and permanence did not ultimately change
the way in which the armies were formed on the field. The lanced fournied were
effectively the equivalent of conroid and these were combined into companies under
noble captains in the same way that the conroid were combined
within aristocratic retinues; these comp£
formed up into battles and divisions in
a way almost indistinguishable from
what are often considered less 'modern'
armies. Charles the Bold, Duke of
Burgundy, may have conceived of an
ideal battle plan for his engagement
against the Swiss at Lausanne in 1476,
consisting of eight battles in distinct
lines, interspersing archers, foot troops
and cavalry across the line and within,
but the overall structure was still a
symmetrical formation consisting of
a vanguard, main battle and rearguard,
and almost certainly at the point of
battle the overly complex structure
CAMPAIGN AND BATTLE •*}*•
Two armies lined up
for battle. Although these
supposedly represent the
battle of Agincourt, the
illustrator has in fact
drawn a fairly generic
image of a 15th-century
battle. (The Art Archive)
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