The Black Prince

by David Green

  40. Hewitt, Black Prince’s Expedition, 118–19; Packe, Edward, 217.

  41. Hewitt, Black Prince’s Expedition, 121; Delachenal, Charles V, i, 222 and n. 3.

  42. Bennett, ‘Development of Battle Tactics’, 12–13; Burne, Crécy War, 300–6.

  43. T.F. Tout, ‘Some Neglected Fights Between Crécy and Poitiers’, EHR, xx (1905), 726–30. For the royal ordinance of Apr. 1351 see Ordonnances de Roys de France de la Troisième Race, ed. D.F. Secousse, iv, 67–70, partly translated by Allmand, Society at War, 45–8. See also Delachenal, Charles V, i, 221, 224.

  44. Hewitt, Black Prince’s Expedition, 115. The French also received advice from the Scottish knight, William Douglas.

  45. Anonimalle Chronicle, ed. Galbriath, contains unique details of the battle, see 36–9, 165n. Baker, Chronicon, 140ff. also provides a full account and includes an exhortation made by the prince to his men before the battle. Chandos Herald details the pre-battle negotiations: Life of the Black Prince, ed. Pope and Lodge, 193, ll. 881. See also Burne, Crécy War, 296–7; Delachenal, Charles V, i, 212–4, 228–33; Bennett, ‘Development of Battle Tactics’, 11–12.

  46. Bradbury, Medieval Archer, 109, 111, 113; Barber, Edward, 139; Hewitt, Black Prince’s Expedition, 114. Burne asserts that ‘The English army was about 6,000 strong and the French over 20,000’: Crécy War, 298. See also Delachenal, Charles V, i, 215–18.

  47. Philippe Contamine, Guerre, État et Société à la fin du Moyen ge. Etudes sur les Armées des Rois de France, 1337–1494, Paris, 1972, 45, 175. It was not the only such attack on the French aristocracy, see BL Cotton Caligula D III f. 33; Froissart, Oeuvres, ed. Lettenhove, xviii, 388.

  48. Delachenal, Charles V, i, 220. N.B. according to Baker, Chronicon, 151, French crossbows at Poitiers did considerable damage.

  49. Stephen Turnbull, The Book of the Medieval Knight, London, 1985, 54–5.

  50. Much of the argument concerning the weapons stems from archaeological evidence concerning the Mary Rose bows that showed an effective range of 300 yards or more. The wooden or composite crossbows of the time could shoot about 200 yards and for every 2 quarrels, a bowmen might fire 20 arrows. The proportion of longbowmen to other troops in armies were regularly 3, 4 or 5:1 and sometimes reached as high as 20:1, Hardy, ‘The Longbow’, 161–3, 180. See also Rogers, ‘Military Revolutions’, 249–51 and nn. 36–41. The ‘invincibility’ of the longbow has been questioned in recent years. It is argued that, rather than causing a great number of casualties, archer fire caused the enemy to become very disorganised which made them easy targets for the Anglo-Gascon infantry, Claude Gaier, ‘L’invincibilité anglaise et le grande arc après la guerre de cents ans: un mythe tenace’, Tijdschrift voor gescheidenis, 91 (1978), 378–85; John Keegan, Face of Battle: A Study of Agincourt, Waterloo and the Somme, Harmondsworth, 1978, 78–116. For a counter-argument see Clifford J. Rogers, ‘The Efficacy of the English Longbow: A Reply to Kelly DeVries’, War in History, 5:2 (1998), 233–42. The formation and disposition of the archer corps was described by Froissart, ‘a la maniere d’une herse’ which, according to Oman and Burne, was a triangular formation with the apex facing the enemy placed between divisions of dismounted men-at-arms. This is based on the translation of herce as ‘harrow’. Alternatively, they may have been placed on the flanks. Bradbury provides a number of possibilities: a candleabrum; a horn-shaped projection on the wings of the army; a hedgehog or something with spikes possibly using stakes or pikemen for protection: Medieval Archer, 99.

  51. See Ayton, ‘English Armies’, 34; Bradbury, Medieval Archer, 93, 95–101.

  52. Bennett, ‘Development of Battle Tactics’, 8–9; Sumption, Hundred Years War, i, 527; Hardy, ‘The Longbow’, 180; Bradbury, Medieval Archer, 111, 113.

  53. Froissart’s Chronicles, ed. J. Jolliffe, London, 1968, 175; Froissart, Oeuvres, ed. Lettenhove, v, 461, 463.

  Chapter 5

  1. Rymer, III, ii, 348–51; Delachenal, Charles V, ii, 52.

  2. BPR, ii, 98.

  3. BL Add. 40510 ff. 340, 342. Froissart says ‘that day he never took prisoner but always fought and went on after his enemies.’ The Chronicles of Froissart, trans. Berners, ed. Macaulay, 125; Oeuvres, ed. Lettenhove, v, 456–7. However, Audley, with Chandos and Robert Neville sold an unnamed prisoner to the Black Prince for £565 12s. 6d.: BPR, iv, 252.

  4. These were Philip, son of King Jean, the count of Sancerre and the lord of Craon, CPR, 1358–61, 300. A payment of £3,333 was made in 1362, F. Devon, ed., Issues of the Exchequer [Henry III – Henry VI], London, 1847, 177.

  5. John Palmer, ‘The War Aims of the Protagonists and the Negotiations for Peace’, The Hundred Years War, ed. K. Fowler, London, 1971, 59.

  6. Fowler, King’s Lieutenant, 201. Craon had been bishop of Reims since 1355 and was apparently friendly to the English royal family, Delachenal, Charles V, ii, 155.

  7. Delachenal, Charles V, ii, 144; Barber, Edward, 159.

  8. On the course of the campaign, see also Anonimalle Chronicle, 49–50; Delachenal, Charles V, ii, chs. iv–v and the sources cited there.

  9. A. Bricknell, The History of Edward Prince of Wales, Commonly termed the Black Prince, London, 1776, 212; Scalacronica, 146–7; Burne, Crécy War, 334. For an itinerary of the route see Delachenal, Charles V, ii, 151–3.

  10. Fowler, King’s Lieutenant, 200; Delachenal, Charles V, ii, 146 and n. 1, 154; Timbal, La Guerre de Cent Ans, 170 n. 190 and the references given.

  11. Bradbury, Medieval Siege, 156; Michael Wolfe, ‘Siege Warfare and the Bonnes Villes of France During the Hundred Years War’, The Medieval City Under Siege, ed. Ivy A. Corfis and Michael Wolfe, Woodbridge, 1995, 52.

  12. Archives administratives de la ville de Reims, ed. Pierre Varin, Paris, 1848, iii, 81–2, 93, 96–7, 119, 136–41, 150–1; Pierre Desportes, Reims et les Remois aux xiiie et xive siècles, Paris, 1979, 550–3, 560–1.

  13. In one of his early raids at Attigny, d’Aubrechicourt captured supplies that included 3,000 tuns of wine, Delachenal, Charles V, ii, 159 and n. 7.

  14. Burghersh fought a duel outside the walls of the city, à outrance, killing one opponent and wounding two others. He was stated incorrectly by Gray to have been in Lancaster’s retinue: Scalacronica, 148. He is noted as going ‘beyond seas with the prince for the furtherance of the war’, BPR, iii, 371.

  15. Knighton’s Chronicle, ed. Martin, 170–3. Burne stated that Mortimer, Burghersh and Gaunt alone were involved in the capture: Crécy War, 339. Audley joined the prince’s force after this, having travelled from his castle of Ferte in Brie with the captal de Buch, Scalacronica, 149; Fowler, King’s Lieutenant, 203; Barber, Edward, 162.

  16. Scalacronica, 150.

  17. On the Burgundian alliance and the terms of the treaty see Delachenal, Charles V, ii, 166–70, 169 n. 3. King Jean took over responsibility for the payment in 1361, Tout, Chapters, iii, 243–4; Burne, Crécy War, 342.

  18. Scalacronica, 153, 157, 159. Gray recounted an incident when the prince used siege engines to capture a fortified country house and with it Jacques de Greville, Hagenay de Bouille and 60 men-at-arms plus 100 others.

  19. BL Stowe 140.

  20. Léon Mirot et E. Déprez, Les ambassades Anglaises pendant la guerre de cent ans, Paris, 1900, 27–9; J. le Patourel, ‘The Treaty of Brétigny, 1360’, TRHS, 5th ser., 10 (1960), 24–5, 28–31.

  21. Curry, Hundred Years War, 152–5

  22. Denise N. Baker, ‘Meed and the Economics of Chivalry in Piers Ploughman’, Inscribing the Hundred Years War in French and English Cultures, ed. Denise N. Baker, Albany, 2000, 55–9 and n. 2.

  23. For further discussion see Clifford J. Rogers ed., The Military Revolution Debate. Readings on the Military Transformation of Early Modern Europe, Colorado and Oxford, 1995. Rogers describes the military developments of the war as a ‘punctuated equilibrium evolution’, ibid., 76–7.

  24. R.F. Green, ‘The Familia Regis and the Familia Cupidinis’, English Court Culture, ed. Scattergood and Sherborn
e, 90–1; Barnie, War in Medieval Society, 57–8; Gervase Mathew, ‘Ideals of Knighthood in Late Fourteenth Century England’, Studies in Medieval History Presented to F.M. Powicke, ed. R.W. Hunt, W.A. Pantin and R.W. Southern, Oxford, 1948, 358–62; John Taylor, English Historical Literature in the Fourteenth Century, Oxford, 1987, 168.

  25. Chandos Herald, Vie du Prince Noir, ed. Tyson, ll. 2729–80, 2740, ‘Raoul de Hastynges, Qi la mort ne counte a deux gynges.’ [Felton] ‘Comme homme sans sens et sans avis’.

  26. Barber, Knight and Chivalry, rev. ed., 43. See also Ayton, ‘War and the English Gentry’, 34–40.

  27. Ayton, Knights and Warhorses, 121–5; C. Given-Wilson, The English Nobility in the Late Middle Ages, London, 1987, 56.

  28. Hugh Collins, ‘The Order of the Garter, 1348–1461: Chivalry and Politics in Later Medieval England’, Courts, Counties and the Capital in the Later Middle Ages, ed. Diana E.S. Dunn, Far Thrupp, 1996, 156.

  29. Aldo Scaglione, Knights at Court: Courtliness, Chivalry and Courtesy From Ottonian Germany to the Italian Renaissance, Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1991, 28.

  30. M. Keen, The Laws of War in the Late Middle Ages, London, 1965, 3.

  31. Jean de Bueil, Le Jouvencel, ii, ed. C. Favre et L. Lecestre, Paris, 1887–9, 20 cited by Nicholas Wright, Knights and Peasants, The Hundred Years War in the French Countryside, Woodbridge, 1998, 26.

  32. R. Kaeuper and E. Kennedy, The Book of Chivalry of Geoffroi de Charny. Text, Context and Translation, Philadelphia, 1996, 37–8, 44–7; Keen, Chivalry, 14.

  33. Barnie, War in Medieval Society, 60–1, 65. Collins also refers to the ‘growing secularisation of the chivalric ethos’, ‘Order of the Garter’, 156.

  34. Barber, Edward, 49.

  35. Froissart’s Chronicles, ed. and trans, Jolliffe, 136.

  36. Froissart, Oeuvres, ed. Lettenhove, iv, 430; Hewitt, Black Prince’s Expedition, 72; Denifle, La désolation, 88–9.

  37. Noel Denholm-Young, ‘The Tournament in the Thirteenth Century’, Studies in Medieval History Presented to F.M. Powicke, ed. Hunt, Pantin and Southern, 240.

  38. Anna Comnena, The Alexiad, trans. Elizabeth A.S. Dawson, London, 1967, 122–3, 342.

  39. Ayton, ‘English Armies’, 1–13; 21–36; M. Prestwich, Armies and Warfare in the Middle Ages: The English Experience, New Haven and London, 1996, 231–43.

  40. Clifford J. Rogers, ‘The Military Revolutions of the Hundred Years’ War’, Journal of Military History, 57 (1993), 247–52; idem., ‘Edward III and the Dialectics of Strategy’, 83–102; Hardy, ‘Longbow’, 161–80; Philippe Contamine, War in the Middle Ages, trans. M. Jones, Oxford, 1984, 132–3.

  41. At Crécy, as at Poitiers, the deployment of the Oriflamme was seen by the English as a sign of guerre mortelle, see Murimuth, Chronicon, 247 and Knighton’s Chronicle, ed. Martin, 142 which states that ‘Dominus Galfridus Charneys baiulauit uexillum rubium quod erat mortis signiferum. Rex Francie edidit preceptum ne quis Anglicus uite reseruaretur, solo principe excepto.’

  42. The Chronicles of Froissart, trans. Berners, ed. Macaulay, 120; Froissart, Oeuvres, ed. Lettenhove, v, 403–4; Sumption, Hundred Years War, i, 515.

  43. Contamine, War in the Middle Ages, 126; Ayton, ‘English Armies’, 34–5.

  44. Prestwich, Armies and Warfare, 117–18; Ayton, Knights and Warhorses, 26.

  45. Bradbury, Medieval Archer, 91; Edouard Perroy, The Hundred Years War, trans. W.B. Wells, London, 1951, 119.

  46. Rogers, ‘Military Revolutions’, 247–8.

  47. See Prestwich, Armies and Warfare, 319–21 for a discussion of the possible formations used at Crécy.

  48. Prestwich, Three Edwards, 199.

  49. Andre Corvisier et Philippe Contamine, Histoire militaire de la France, Paris, 1992, i, 133–4.

  Chapter 6

  1. SC 7/22/17.

  2. Chronique des quatre premiers Valois (1327–1393), ed. S. Luce (SHF), Paris, 1862, 123; Montagu Burrows, The Family of Brocas of Beaurepaire and Roche Court, London, 1886, 53, 55. Burrows’ account of the life of Bernard, which was very similar to that in DNB, ii, 1273, has been questioned, particularly with regard to his relationship with the Black Prince in Roskell et al., History of Parliament, ii, 359–62.

  3. Dupuy, Prince Noir, 300.

  4. DNB, x, 829–30.

  5. For his appointment and powers as prince of Aquitaine see BL Stowe 140 ff. 50v–56; Add. 32097 f. 108v.

  6. See A. Bardonnet, Procès-verbal de deliverance a Jean Chandos commissaire du roi d’Angleterre des places Françaises abandonees par le traite de Brétigny, Niort, 1866; Lodge, Gascony Under English Rule, 93–4; Delachenal, Charles V, iv, 33–6, 44–50.

  7. Delachenal, Charles V, iv, 62–3; Charles Higounet, ed., Histoire de l’Aquitaine, Toulouse, 1971, 217.

  8. Delachenal, Charles V, iv, 16. It has been suggested that the creation of the principality could have been as banishment resulting from the prince’s marriage to Joan of Kent: Chronique de quarter premiers Valois, 122ff.

  9. For example, the Ombrière, Fronsac, Bourg, Blaye, Bayonne, Dax, Saint Sever, Malcolm Vale, ‘The War in Aquitaine’, Arms, Armies and Fortifications, ed. Curry and Hughes, 69, 74, 77.

  10. Pierre Capra, ‘L’Administration Anglo-Gasconne au temps de la lieutenance du Prince Noir, 1354–62’, Unpub. Thesis, Paris, 1972, ix.

  11. Robert Favreau, ‘Le cession de La Rochelle à l’Angleterre en 1360’, La France Anglaise au Moyen Age, Paris, 1988, 217–31; Capra, ‘L’administration Anglo-Gasconne’, 770, 835–50.

  12. E101/176/4, 13, 20.

  13. Capra, ‘L’Administration Anglo-Gasconne’, 811–24, 828, 836, 844 n. 12, 885–6, 890 n. 12. For Loryng’s accounts see E372/206/10 m. 2; E403/408/31–2; 411/34; 413/15. Hoghton arrived at Rabastens on 28 Jan. 1362, took oaths from nobles, churchmen and urban authorities and occupied 4 castles. Like Chandos he employed many Gascon officers.

  14. Harewell received £17,476 from the English exchequer but there were no further receipts before 1370: Harriss, King, Parliament and Public Finance, 476 n. 3. Gascon revenues never covered the pay of the chief officials, some £750 a year:Frank Musgrove, The North of England. A History, Oxford, 1990, 160.

  15. Lodge, Gascony Under English Rule, 138–41, 147–50. The court was a permanent tribunal in Bordeaux held by the seneschal or his lieutenant, the judge of Aquitaine. It was superior to other courts and could hear appeals from municipal courts and deal with disputes between secular and ecclesiastical jurisdictions, for which, in 1365, Edward III handed over responsibility. In 1370, a curia superioritatis, largely composed of Gascons was established.

  16. Capra, ‘L’administration Anglo-Gasconne’, 826, 838–40; 843 n. 3; C76/44/6; E361/5/3 r.–v.

  17. Françoise Bériac, ‘Une principauté sans chambre des comptes ni échiquier: L’Aquitaine (1362–1370)’, La France des principautés. Les chambre des comptes XIVe et XVe siècles, ed. Philippe Contamine et Olivier Mattéoni, Paris, 1996, 109–10, 113–15. He was commissioned at La Rochelle on 25 Apr. 1372. His duties were those of treasurer of Aquitaine. In 1362 he had served Nicholas Loveigne and was receiver of La Rochelle from 26 Oct. 1364, Timothy Runyan, ‘The Constabulary of Bordeaux: The Accounts of John Ludham (1372–3) and Robert de Wykford (1373–5)’, Mediaeval Studies, xxxvi (1974), i, 221–4, 239 n. 1. The Ombrière housed the court of Gascony, the council, the chancery of the seneschal and perhaps the court of sovereignty. It served as the local prison and was topped by 2 large towers; the tour du roi and the tour Arbalesteyre.

  18. Capra, ‘L’administration Anglo-Gasconne’, 741–2.

  19. Life and Campaigns, ed. Barber, 105.

  20. For details of the transportation of horses see C61/75/10. Thomas Dautre, John Ellerton and others provided ships for the prince and de Montfort: Rymer, III, ii, 666. Further supplies, forage and litter were levied in Devon, Cornwall and bows and arrows from London: Rymer, III, ii, 671, 720; Labarge, Gascony, 151.

  21. For Stafford’s and Chivereston’s ships see C61/74/
3; 75/27. Adam Hoghton received letters of protection 15 July 1361, Carte, Rôles Gascons, i, 149.

  22. Barber, Edward, 178–9. Ships were ‘arrested’ on 4 June 1362 and 16 Feb. 1363 for this purpose, C61/75/25; CPR, 1361–4, 317, also see C61/75/6, 8, 16–18; 76/5, 7; Carte, Rôles Gascons, i, 151–2. On 3 and 4 June 1363, payments were made to the masters of the ships Christophre of Fowey and Katerine of Hull, presumably in connection with the transfer to Aquitaine, BPR, iv, 497; Rymer, III, ii, 652. For payments to the masters of ships in 1363–4 see E101/29/1 (Ralph Kesteven’s account); 36/20 and payments to mariners, 1362–3 see E101/28/26 (Robert Crull’s account).

  23. The captal de Buch fought at Cocherel and Chandos led de Montfort’s forces at Auray.

  24. Charles T. Wood, The Age of Chivalry. Manners and Morals, 1000–1450, London, 1970, 148.

  25. By contrast, poems of social protest were circulating stressing knightly pride and vanity and demanding a return to the religious devotion thought of as the norm in some earlier age. Later writers such as Philippe de Mézières, Honoré Bouvet and Christine de Pizan described the pillaging of the Companies and their maltreatment of churchmen and civilians in terms of abandoning the laws of true chivalry, M.H. Keen, ‘War and Peace in the Middle Ages’, Nobles, Knights and Men-at-Arms in the Middle Ages, ed. B.P. McGuire, London and Rio Grande, 1996, 8–9.

  26. Russell, Intervention, 79ff; M. Keen, ‘Brotherhood-in-Arms’, History, 47 (1962), 1–16; K.B. McFarlane, ‘An Indenture of Agreement Between Two English Knights for Mutual Aid and Counsel in War and Peace’, BIHR, xxxviii (1965), 200–10.

  27. Linda M. Paterson, The World of the Troubadours. Medieval Occitan Society c.1100–c.1300, Cambridge, 1993, 68.

  28. Froissart, Chroniques, ed. Luce, vi, 81, 275–6.

  29. Anominalle Chronicle, 56; Paterson, World of the Troubadours, 68–71, 88, 101–4, 108–10.

  30. V.J. Scattergood, ‘Literary Culture at the Court of Richard II’, English Court Culture, ed. Scattergood and Sherborne, London, 1983, 35–6. After his execution, 40 books were recorded as formerly belonging to Simon Burley; 8 Nov. 1387, BL Add. 25459, f. 206.