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

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KNIGHT
CAPTURE, WOUNDS AND THE RISK
OF DEATH
It is often said that the majority of casualties in battle were inflicted during the rout.
A fleeing man turning his back on his loe and making no attempt to defend himself was
much easier to kill, especially if he had thrown oft his heavy armour to speed his
escape. Just as often, however, it was mischance rather than enemy action that killed
men as they ran. Large numbers might be drowned as they sought to escape across
rivers. Many of the Londoners fleeing Edward's knights at Lewes drowned in the
Ouse; a large number of English were killed at the Bannock burn, slowed up as they
tried to cross it; and against the Scots at Myton on 1319 more were killed fleeing across
the river Swale than were killed on the battlefield.
The battles themselves were far from bloodless but, as with determining the
number of combatants, the exact number of casualties is difficult to ascertain from
the source material. Quite often the chroniclers will only put it in terms of mass,
writing that 'many were killed' or hundreds' or thousands', aiming to give an
impression of scale rather than an accurate account of losses. After all, they were
unlikely to be privy to such information. Just as with the number of combatants, the
numbers of dead are often inflated, particularly if the chronicler is partial. Nor will we
always get complete figures. Orderic Vitalis tells us that at the battle of Bremule only
three were killed, but these are the knights; he says nothing of the footsoldiers who
fought. Emphasis was inevitably placed on naming the nobles who fell, the men ol
note and those from the local area whose families patronized the chroniclers' work
or abbey.
The knightly combatant was, perhaps, the man who risked the least on the field.
As has been noted his armour offered him substantial protection from weapons, whilst
the chivalric ethos that he shared with many of his opponents might also serve him
well. It would be wrong, however, to assume from this that battle offered no risks for
the knight. The historical narratives do give details of wounds suffered by individuals.
Joinville records how during the battle of Mansourah Erard de Siverey, one of his
household, received a blow that cut through his nose so that it was left dangling
over his lips. Although he survived for most of the battle, indeed riding off to get
reinforcements for Joinville's beleaguered household, he died at its end. The future
Henry V was hit in the face by an arrow at the battle of Shrewsbury in 1403. But such
wounds need not be fatal. Surgical techniques were not as basic as one might think and
it was possible for men to survive quite terrible wounds. The skull of body number 16
from the excavation of the mass grave at the Wars of the Roses battlefield of Towton,