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

not that behind; presumably the stipulation was to limit the possibility of confusion as
the knights and their squires found themselves places within the line of march.
Another key function of the marshal and constable was the organization of shelter
for the army, and in particular the assigning of lodgings. The ordinances drawn up by
Richard II for his campaign in 1385 state that no one was to take lodging until assigned
it by these officers and, once lodged, none were to leave their lodgings, or they were to
be arrested by the marshal. The Rule of the Templars explains that each brother should
have a tent for himself, his squires and all his equipment, which they were to erect on
instruction of the marshal. There is no suggestion that each knight had a specific place
within the encampment - just as he found a place in the march column, so each found
his own space around the Order's chapel tent. In secular armies the majority
of combatants would have sought whatever shelter they could find on the march, the
knights and nobles commandeering houses or taking up lodging in monastic houses,
already set up to welcome pilgrims.
The great nobility travelled with all of the comforts of home. Amongst the items
purchased by the royal household for the Crecy campaign were barber's scissors, ivory
combs and a mirror, as well as two foldable thrones and a privy seat covered with
cloth, the latter costing 14 shillings and 6 pence (which was over a full week's pay for
a knight engaged in the campaign). The knight was not always so fortunate in his
lodgings. The Flemish knight Jean le Bel, who took part in the Weardale campaign
of 1327, which sought unsuccessfully to bring the Scots to battle, records how they
spent four nights in the rain with no wood to build shelters or make camp fires, their
armour rusting and their equipment rotting, their only supplies the bread they had
carried behind their saddles, which was soaked with their horses' sweat, and some
thin wine they had bought from traders who came to the army charging huge prices.
Both the marshal and constable also seem to have had some role in the discipline
in the army. As noted above, men who left their billets were to be placed in the
custody of the marshal. Many transgressions were punished with loss of horse and
harness, which were surrendered to the constable, perhaps to be redeemed at a later
point in return for a suitable fine. When Edward III was persuaded to stop the sack
of Caen during the Crecy campaign, it was the marshal Godfrey of Harcourt, with
his banner borne before him, who rode through the streets enforcing discipline in
the king's name.
Unlike the marshal in the Knights Templar or Hospitaller the secular marshal does
not appear to have automatically taken overall charge. However John Blount, in his
work of 1500 translating a mid-15th-centuiy Latin text on the militaiy arts, writes 'now
all things pertain to the constable's office or marshal of the realm or host, but it is by
commission for their power is committed to them by the grand captain of the battle'.
CAMPAIGN AND BATTLE •*}*•
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