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

•*FR KNIGHT
Opposite: In spite of his
impressive artillery train,
standing army and
complex battle strategy,
Charles the Bold of
Burgundy found that he
could not counter the elan
and ferocity of the Swiss
pikemen, being defeated
twice, at Grandson and
Morat. (The Art Archive)
214
administration. Whereas before the majority of clerks would have come from an
ecclesiastical background, now they were laity. Equally the complexity and extensive
mechanism of local and national government meant that duties which had once been
the preserve of the knight, service on juries and in commissions, were opened up to
those of lesser stock. Men of gentry rank, who once would have been considered too
lacking in honour for the role and, a generation or so earlier, would have been donning
the harness of a man-at-arms, now put on the robes of the clerk and lawyer and in
doing so acquired noble status. In France this showed itself in the distinction between
the nobl&fde de I'epe'e, the 'nobility of the sword' who attained their rank through military
service, and the nobledde ()e robe, those whose nobility came from service in
administrative and legal office. By the 16th century, then, nobility and the status that
one might have once termed 'knightly' might come from legal, administrative or
domestic service — all duties once shared by the knight. Mihtaiy service was no longer
an essential qualification.
As we discussed in the Introduction, however, the social status of the knight is only
one way of defining him. The main interest in this book has been in the knight on the
battlefield. What happened to him here?
For many the 14th century witnessed the end of the knight as a military figure.
Talking of a 'military revolution' it is argued that in this period the balance shifted firmly
in favour of the infantry. Pointing to battles such as Courtrai, Bannockburn, Crecy and
Poiters, and the 15th-century victories of the Swiss over Charles the Bold's Burgundian
Ordnnance army at Grandson and Morat, they argue that the quality of infantry had
now improved so tar that it was no longer cowed by the charge of the knight. Standing
firm behind a wall of pike or using weight of fire from missile weapons, and in particular
the longbow, the common infantryman was now able to hold his own against the knight.
It might be argued that by the end of the 15th century, the fully armoured cavalryman
was, if not wholly supplanted, then more or less defunct.
The knight was far from irrelevant at this period, and to suggest his demise here
is somewhat premature. Whilst a battle which saw the foot well prepared and in sound
defensive positions might indeed defeat the mounted knight, particularly if, as at
Courtrai and Bannockburn, he showed impatience and rashness, if the infantry was
caught unprepared, failed to stand firm or, worse still, went on the offensive then it
could be routed. The Flemings at Roosebeke in 1382 and the English at Castillon in
1453 both suffered defeat while attacking their French foes. The great 'longbow'
victories of the Hundred Years War were matched by a greater number of occasions
where the longbow was not able to stop the French cavaliy. At Pontvallain in 1370 and
at Patay in 1429 French knights were able to catch the English ill prepared and break
them. Similarly the Lombard cavalry serving with the French at Verneuil, five years