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

with limited objectives, if any, beyond gathering in plunder, causing damage and
destruction, and minimizing outlay on the part of the raiders — they are a form of
warfare which suits a society like that of medieval Europe. Its weak central authority,
with a collection of strong and independent lordships, encouraged such internecine,
small-scale activity. The 14th-century chevauchee (the word literally means 'a ride )
was, in effect, a larger and centrally run version of this operation, although it arguably
had a broader strategic aim of keeping the pressure on the French king. Such ravaging
might also serve as a means of punishing rebellion. After the revolt of 1069 in the north
of England, which saw the murder of Robert of Comines, Earl of Northumbria, and
a Scottish-supported rebel army capturing York, William the Conqueror launched a
punitive campaign that famously cut a swathe through the northern counties. Symeon
of Durham writes that:
... so great a famine prevailed that men, compelled by hunger, devoured human flesh,
that of horses, dogs, and cats, and whatever custom abhors; others sold themselves to
perpetual slavery, so that they might in any way preserve their wretched existence;
others, while about to go into exile from their country, fell down in the middle of their
journey and gave up the ghost. It was horrific to behold human corpses decaying in
the houses, the streets, and the roads, swarming with worms, while they were
consuming in corruption with an abominable stench. For no one was left to bury them
in the earth, all being cut off either by the sword or by famine. Meanwhile, the land
being thus deprived of any one to cultivate it for nine years, an extensive solitude
prevailed all around. There was no village inhabited between York and Durham; they
became lurking places to wild beasts and robbers, and were a great dread to travellers.
Whilst the campaign was clearly harsh, current scholarship suggests that the long-
term costs of the 'harrying of the north' were nowhere near as great as were
traditionally thought. Ravaging might cause short-term hardship but a single chevauchee
was unlikely to cause serious economic damage. It was the crossing and re-crossing
of the same territory by the French and English armies, not to mention the bands of
routierd, unemployed soldiers seeking to maintain themselves in the peace between
the campaigns of the Hundred Years War, that saw large areas of France wasted
and impoverished.
Similarly the plundering of farms and villages was unlikely to make any man rich,
but the levying of patui, protection money demanded from the towns along the
chevauchees line of march, could prove very lucrative and, just as with the ransoming
of prisoners (of which more below), the ordinances had clear rules on the division of
the spoils. Knights and men-at-arms were no less likely to break these rules than the
CAMPAIGN AND BATTLE •*}*•
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