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

it seems clear that retinues would form around their lord, in part to protect him but also
to clear the way through so that he might engage an opposing noble. When our
narratives tell us, as they often do, of the great deeds of an individual lord he was almost
certainly surrounded and supported by the members of his household.
The most important aspect of the charge was that it should be conducted ordinate,
in good order. George Bernard Shaw, in his satirical play Amu and the Man, likened
a charge to throwing peas against a window pane: first comes one, then two or three
close behind him, then all the rest in a lump'. For a charge to be successful it was vital
that all of the participants arrived together. Orderic Vitalis tells us that the French
launched the first fierce charge against the Anglo-Normans at the battle of Bremule
but 'charging in disorder, they were beaten off and, quickly tiring, turned tail'.
This analysis is supported by Orderic's contemporary, the Frenchman Abbot Suger.
He says of the same French attack that they 'were in disorder, and fell upon the
extremely well ordered and smartly formed troops. As happens in such a case, they
could not withstand the controlled pressure of the enemy, and beat a hasty retreat.
A total of 80 knights who were in the forefront of the charge, including a number
of Normans who had joined the French king against their own duke, Robert Curthose,
were quickly surrounded and cut off. With a fifth of his force lost to him Louis was
persuaded to flee the field. In another example, it was disorder amongst the troops of
the Holy Roman Emperor, who pursued the French force too quickly and lost their
cohesion, that was a prime cause of their defeat at the battle of Bouvines in 1214.
The ideally conducted charge saw the squadrons formed up in dense order,
'so tightly packed', say a number of sources, 'that a gauntlet could not fall between
them', advancing steadily so that all arrived against the enemy together and, through
sheer weight and impetus, broke their line and put them to flight. This did not always
happen. Perfecting the timing of a charge was a very difficult thing to achieve. If the
enemy held, or even if they fled, the impetus of the charge would wane and the cohesion
of the squadron break down, at which point the knights became vulnerable to
counter-attack. William of Tyre relates how after driving off a large force of Saracens
during an engagement in 1179, the knights of Baldwin IV of Jerusalem set to looting
the field. The main body of the Muslim army appeared and:
... when the knights saw the enemy, whom they had considered defeated, streaming in
their direction with renewed strength, they had neither time nor opportunity to form
up their units and get into position according to military discipline. They fought in
disorder, offered resistance for a time and withstood the onslaught bravely. But in the
end the odds were too much against them, because they had to fight spread out and in
disorder, and could not help each other. They were shamefully put to flight.