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

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with limited objectives, if any, beyond gathering in plunder, causing damage <strong>and</strong><br />

destruction, <strong>and</strong> minimizing outlay on the part of the raiders — they are a form of<br />

warfare which suits a society like that of medieval Europe. Its weak central authority,<br />

with a collection of strong <strong>and</strong> independent lordships, encouraged such internecine,<br />

small-scale activity. <strong>The</strong> 14th-century chevauchee (the word literally means 'a ride )<br />

was, in effect, a larger <strong>and</strong> centrally run version of this operation, although it arguably<br />

had a broader strategic aim of keeping the pressure on the French king. Such ravaging<br />

might also serve as a means of punishing rebellion. After the revolt of 1069 in the north<br />

of Engl<strong>and</strong>, which saw the murder of Robert of Comines, Earl of Northumbria, <strong>and</strong><br />

a Scottish-supported rebel army capturing York, William the Conqueror launched a<br />

punitive campaign that famously cut a swathe through the northern counties. Symeon<br />

of Durham writes that:<br />

... so great a famine prevailed that men, compelled by hunger, devoured human flesh,<br />

that of horses, dogs, <strong>and</strong> cats, <strong>and</strong> whatever custom abhors; others sold themselves to<br />

perpetual slavery, so that they might in any way preserve their wretched existence;<br />

others, while about to go into exile from their country, fell down in the middle of their<br />

journey <strong>and</strong> gave up the ghost. It was horrific to behold human corpses decaying in<br />

the houses, the streets, <strong>and</strong> the roads, swarming with worms, while they were<br />

consuming in corruption with an abominable stench. For no one was left to bury them<br />

in the earth, all being cut off either by the sword or by famine. Meanwhile, the l<strong>and</strong><br />

being thus deprived of any one to cultivate it for nine years, an extensive solitude<br />

prevailed all around. <strong>The</strong>re was no village inhabited between York <strong>and</strong> Durham; they<br />

became lurking places to wild beasts <strong>and</strong> robbers, <strong>and</strong> were a great dread to travellers.<br />

Whilst the campaign was clearly harsh, current scholarship suggests that the long-<br />

term costs of the 'harrying of the north' were nowhere near as great as were<br />

traditionally thought. Ravaging might cause short-term hardship but a single chevauchee<br />

was unlikely to cause serious economic damage. It was the crossing <strong>and</strong> re-crossing<br />

of the same territory by the French <strong>and</strong> English armies, not to mention the b<strong>and</strong>s of<br />

routierd, unemployed soldiers seeking to maintain themselves in the peace between<br />

the campaigns of the Hundred Years War, that saw large areas of France wasted<br />

<strong>and</strong> impoverished.<br />

Similarly the plundering of farms <strong>and</strong> villages was unlikely to make any man rich,<br />

but the levying of patui, protection money dem<strong>and</strong>ed from the towns along the<br />

chevauchees line of march, could prove very lucrative <strong>and</strong>, just as with the ransoming<br />

of prisoners (of which more below), the ordinances had clear rules on the division of<br />

the spoils. <strong>Knight</strong>s <strong>and</strong> men-at-arms were no less likely to break these rules than the<br />

CAMPAIGN AND BATTLE •*}*•<br />

109<br />

J

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