6
Almost instinctively, we take a country’s army for granted. It is a mark of a state’s independence, a sign of a nation’s determination and ability to defend itself, its people and its interests. Badges and uniforms distinguish personnel from those of other armies. The army is a sign, perhaps we should say, the ultimate sign of a nation’s independent existence. But it was not always so.
Thanks to recent studies on the growth of armies in medieval Europe, we now have a much better idea of the processes which witnessed such developments. With the use of the wide-angled lens, patterns emerge, enabling useful comparisons and contrasts to be made. Less frequently considered, however, are questions relating to the intellectual climate in which such advances occurred, and the contributions upon which they may have depended. The development of armies as limbs of the growing state deserves to be considered from this perspective. The history of the state cannot ignore the role envisaged in its development as the controller and organiser of force, at least in its early days, while the history of its army demands some consideration of the factors and forces which had an influence upon its creation.
In 1159 John of Salisbury, later bishop of Chartres, completed his Policraticus,1 a work destined to have a lasting influence on western political thought. John placed emphasis on the primacy of the res publica, which placed the common good above that of the particular. In France, this had long involved the defence of that good against local forces resisting the gradually expanding power of the monarchy determined to stamp out private warfare. In the process of bringing military society on to the side of peace, the Church extolled Christian knighthood, giving it a set of ideals to live by, and an honoured, and socially privileged, place in society.
1 Ed. C. C. J. Webb (2 vols, Oxford, 1927). His discussion of military matters is contained in Book VI.
Within the context of a wide-ranging discussion regarding society and the ruler’s responsibilities for its well-being, particularly the maintenance of peace and defence, Salisbury set out the purpose the army was intended to serve. His proposals would require changes in the way that society considered the use and organisation of force; radical limitations, too, to the numbers who might legitimately use it. Since, in Salisbury’s view, the army was nothing less than the king’s ‘armed hand’ (armata manus), used by him to preserve order in society, he envisaged a monarchy with a monopoly of the use of force restoring order to society through the abolition of private wars. Here was encouragement to monarchy to reassert itself for the good of its own name and for the benefit of the res publica.
In search of ideas, and in keeping with his interests, Salisbury turned to the Roman world for inspiration and guidance. These he found in large measure in the late-Roman text, the Epitoma rei militaris of Vegetius,2 a work composed for an earlier time but whose content, if applied tempore moderno, might be regarded as bearing not only a military message but a political one, too. The properly controlled use of force, Salisbury would urge, should be directed primarily towards securing and maintaining the public good under the authority of the ruler. On this matter the past had much to teach.
2 Vegetius: Epitoma rei militaris, ed. M. D. Reeve (Oxford, 2004).
In what ways did the army described by Vegetius differ from that of Salisbury’s day? One was the composition of the Roman army, with its broader social base, which had a better claim to fight for the res publica as a whole than the largely feudal army of the twelfth century, all too reliant upon the contingents sent by the possessores. A second difference was the process of selection (and the importance attached to personal ability which it implied) insisted upon by Vegetius. This had made possible the effective development of discipline and control within the Roman army which had brought it such success in the past. Thirdly, the army of the Vegetian model was the emperor’s army, acting on oath in obedience to him or to his captains (lieutenants) all working, in Vegetius’s words, ‘pro Romana re publica’, ‘for the Roman state’.3
3 Ibid, II, 5.
Such was the theory. What practical application did such ideas receive? Little more than fifty years after John of Salisbury the chronicler, Guillaume le Breton, chaplain to Philip Augustus, writing his Philippidos, could describe the success of the king’s force against the baronial factions of northern France in terms of a victory for the general good of the kingdom achieved by the royal authority against the ambitions and, by implication, self-seeking interests of certain provincial nobility. No direct reference to the Epitoma proves that le Breton had read Vegetius’s work. However, he came so close to the expression of Vegetian military principles that it is likely that he knew the text (or a collection of excerpts taken from it) or another text, such as that of Salisbury, which reflected it. The victory at Bouvines was described as a triumph for the king’s army, fighting in the name of the organised ‘state’, over the individual ‘proesce’ and ‘hardiesce’ of its opponents, the country’s dysfunctional aristocracy anxious to preserve its independence, interests and privileges, a success which would stabilise the wider good of the kingdom.4 It was also regarded as a major step towards the establishment by the king of the crown’s pre-eminent position within French society as a whole, proof of the monarchy’s responsibility and ability to act for the wider good by bringing unity to the country. Nor was a further point missed. The victory of the king’s army was presented in terms of a success achieved not through feats of heroism but by a well disciplined army which fought as a body, each group following its captain through the use of banners which identified units and kept them together in the fight – practices recommended in the Epitoma. The manner in which le Breton described the forward thinking, or ‘prudence’, of commanders who anticipated the needs of their armies (an ability attributed to experienced commanders) underlined the ordered approach to fighting as the way to military success in the future. The true ‘chevalerie’ was now coming to be seen as the royal army, whose future would reflect the growing power of an effective monarchy on whose orders it should be ready to act. Increasingly regarded as the sole vehicle of legitimate force, the royal army would gradually be given prime responsibility for achieving the order upon which the res publica would be founded.
4 See M. Spiegel, ‘Moral Imagination and the Rise of the Bureaucratic State: Images of Government in the Chronique des Rois de France, Chantilly, MS 869’, Journal of Medieval and Renaissance Studies, 18 (1988), 157–173; ‘Les débuts français de l’historiographie royale: quelques aspects inattendus’, Saints-Denis et la royauté. Etudes offertes à Bernard Guenée (Paris, 1999), pp. 395–404.
Sixty years on, a changing scenario; a further step forward. It was probably between 1275 and 1277 that Giles of Rome (Aegidius Romanus), follower of Thomas Aquinas and a future archbishop of Bourges, compiled his De regimine principum as a work of instruction for the young man destined to become Philip the Fair. By this time the Aristotelian revolution had given a strong impetus to the idea of the independent state with obligations for its citizens’ defence. After a period of relative peace during the thirteenth century, it was the need to use force to maintain territorial integrity which encouraged discussion regarding its legitimate use under royal authority. This allowed Giles to ask a fundamental question: ‘What is the army, and what purpose does it serve?’: ‘Quid sit militia, & ad quid sit instituta?’ His reply, both original and unexpected, was expressed in succinct, philosophical terms. An army, he wrote, in language which showed that he had clearly understood one of John of Salisbury’s main messages, was simply ‘a certain kind of prudence’: ‘Sciendum igitur militiam esse quandam prudentiam, sive quandam speciem prudentiae’, a definition which might be interpreted as meaning an investment in foresight and planning, which should earn a big return if and when society was threatened. Military activity now had one principal aim, namely ‘ad obtinendam victoriam’ over those threatening the common good (‘bonum civile et commune’). Such was the role and raison d’être of the army in society; to use Giles’ words, ‘ex hoc autem apparet ad quid sit militia instituta’.5
5 Aegidii Columnae Romani, De regimine principum, Lib. III (Rome, 1607, repr. Aalen, 1967), III, iii, 1 (pp. 555–559).
Presented by Giles as a public servant whose duty it was to defend society, the soldier could not be simply any man. He should possess moral and physical qualities, ‘animositas’ and ‘strenuitas bellandi’, while also demonstrating a measured and thoughtful approach to fighting ‘prudentia erga bella’, which enabled him to fulfil his obligations to the society of which he was a member, and which, by this time, may have been paying him to do its fighting. In support of what he had in mind, Giles dug deep into Vegetius’ text. As Salisbury had done before him, he emphasised the importance of quality, rather than numbers; preparation, too, in the form of regular training and practice in the use of arms. Such were the ways of achieving the successful defence of a society’s interests for which the army existed.
As Vegetius had done, Giles also emphasised the supreme importance of good leadership in securing victory. Since the common effort of the army normally contributed more to the defence of the res publica than did the outstanding actions of individuals, military effectiveness could be greatly increased by having command structures enabling an army to act not as a collection of individuals but as a body, as the army of Philip Augustus was reported to have done. So important, too, was the need for the army to be led by the best available leaders that Vegetius had placed strong emphasis upon the need to appoint only those of proven military skills, experience and cerebral qualities to positions of command. Men should not assume a right to exercise leadership by virtue of their birth or social position; that right belonged to the ruler and could only be conveyed through his written delegation of authority to those whom he chose to act as his appointed lieutenants (‘locum tenentes’). The inference was clear. The ruler was the ‘natural’ leader of the army, acting on behalf of society; those who exercised authority within the army did so purely in his name.
To intellectuals imbued with Roman ideas and accustomed to a Latin vocabulary, terms such as bonum commune and res publica summed up the concept of order, stability and peace, maintained by the central authority. The need to achieve these required a step in the evolution of the knight, his assumption of a more overtly public role, a process which would gradually transform the traditional knighthood into the nascent national army which, under the command of the king and his lieutenants, would create an instrument vital for the defence of the bonum commune, and, indeed, for the very existence of the state itself.
Vegetius’ text had emphasised the army’s commitment to the defence of a society, its land and its wealth. In describing the army’s function in terms of the benefits which it brought to society (an approach later adopted by John of Salisbury and many others) Vegetius had elevated both the army and its personnel into a corps whose calling and raison d’être, the defence of the res publica, should be regarded as honourable. Although all too often not the respected figure depicted in the works of theory,6 when engaged in fighting a ‘just’ war with the author-ity of his ruler the soldier was none the less regarded as acting in a public cause, the defence of the rights and property of his countrymen and the integrity of his country. A reading of the Epitoma suggests that the picture which Vegetius had painted of the miles, ‘excelling in mind and body’, selected in preference to others, who had accepted, on oath, the obligation to serve the emperor and to be ready, at his bidding, to give up his life ‘for his own good and for the liberty of all’, was a member of a corps which should be held in high esteem.7 However, the sense of responsibility under which he laboured, and the financial rewards which he received in wages, placed certain moral, even quasi-legal, obligations upon him. Under the orders and leadership of the ruler, the miles was in the process of becoming the servant of the state.
6 C. Allmand, ‘Changing Views of the Soldier in Late Medieval France’, Guerre et société en France, en Angleterre et en Bourgogne XIVe–XV siècle, ed. P. Contamine, C. Giry-Deloison, et M. Keen (Lille, 1991), pp. 171–188. See infra, pp. 57–71. (currently).7 Epitoma rei militaris, II, 5 et 24.
The evidence of a number of manuscripts of the Epitoma showing that the parts of Vegetius’ work which dealt with these matters were of great interest to readers who left signs of approval and comments on the manuscripts themselves, should cause no surprise. By stressing that obedience to the emperor or ruler, or to his lieutenants, and strict attention to duty were public obligations formally undertaken by the soldier, those who wrote their comments on copies of the text were implicitly recognising that the army was becoming a public instrument through which the res publica should be defended. As Vegetius had written with an optimism which won much approval, the army made the state invincible.
The Epitoma had devoted much space to matters of command structure and military organisation. In the final two centuries of the Middle Ages, France, in particular, but Burgundy, too, developed and put into practice ideas owing much to Vegetius. French kings gradually asserted their right to stand at the top of the military structure; later, in Burgundy, the dukes would do the same. In France, the king appointed the constable and admiral and their lieutenants to take charge of military and naval concerns; in the Burgundy of Charles the Bold, it was the duke who awarded commissions to certain captains to assist him in military affairs, commissions which were surrendered at the end of each year, thus emphasising that the powers which they conferred were entirely dependent upon the duke himself.8
8 C. Allmand, ‘Did the De re militari of Vegetius Influence the Military Ordinances of Charles the Bold?’ ‘Le héros bourguignon: histoire et épopée’. Rencontres d’Edimbourg-Glasgow (28 septembre au 1er octobre 2000. Publication du Centre Européen d’Etudes Bourguignonnes (XIVe–XVIe siècle), 41 (2001), 135–143. See infra, pp. 47–54. (currently).
Yet transforming this vision of the army into an effective weapon for the advancement of royal policy and the defence of the kingdom would not always be easy. Long-accepted attitudes and practices would not change overnight. It might be difficult, for example to persuade the nobility of France, who formed the core of the kingdom’s army, and who was still loyal to a tradition and an obligation more personal than territorial or national, to appreciate the ‘big picture’ or national interest which demanded that they should fight under the command of the king himself, on behalf of French society as a whole.9 When confronted with the need for discipline and planning demanded with insistence by Vegetius, they were likely to stand by their traditional attitudes and fighting practices.
9 J. R. Strayer, ‘Defense of the Realm and Royal Power in France’, Studi in onore di Gino Luzzatto (4 vols, Milan, 1949), iv, pp. 289–296; repr. in Medieval Statecraft and Perspectives in History: Essays by Joseph R. Strayer (Princeton, 1971), pp. 291–299. Nor were the nobility alone in being reluctant to see the war against England fought on a ‘national’ scale (C. Allmand, The Hundred Years’ War (Paris, 1989), p. 154).
None the less an early indication of a change of attitude in intellectual circles towards the fighting of war may be found in the Chapelle des Fleurs de Lis, written by Philippe de Vitri in the early 1330s. It was probably a certain familiarity with the work of Vegetius which caused him to make two surprising but significant comments, coming as they did from a man of noble descent. The first was that the chevalerie (by which he probably meant the army) should arise from the people for whose defence it existed; if knights did much of the fighting, they did so, in fact, because they received money from the people to perform this task. Secondly, Vitri argued that since they were responsible for the country’s defence those (and he included kings and princes) who carried it out should do so on a basis of knowledge, acquired from both the written word and training, enabling them to act with ‘sens’, thus encouraging a reasoned rather than an emotional or irrational response to the needs of war. (They should be ‘sages et bien lettrez’, Vitri wrote, for ‘ou temps de bataille/Mestier est que sens avant aille’). Men should not fight on impulse, but should plan before they fought.10
10 A. Piaget, ‘‘Le chapelle des Fleurs de Lis’ par Philippe de Vitri’, Romania, 27 (1898), 55–92.
Tragically, events were to underline the need for such pleading. The early, disastrous French defeats at the hands of the English in the Hundred Years’ War only served to underline what Vitri had written. What went wrong at Crécy is not entirely clear.11 On the French side bad advice, impatience to attack the enemy, lack of both self-discipline and central control, enabled a ‘little company’ to triumph over ‘all the power of France’ in the ensuing disorder. The desire of many of knightly rank to enhance their sense of personal honour, which was at the heart of the traditional chivalric mentality, got the better of too many French knights that day. According to Philippe de Mézières, writing forty years later, even the king, Philip VI, attacked ‘legierement’, with little forethought, when victory was normally to be achieved by those acting ‘saigement et meureement’.12
11 The latest analysis is contained in the contributions gathered in The Battle of Crécy, 1346, ed. A. Ayton and P. Preston (Woodbridge, 2005). It includes that of Bertrand Schnerb on the French army of the time.12 Philippe de Mézières, Le songe du vieil pèlerin, ed. G. W. Coopland (2 vols, Cambridge, 1969), II, pp. 74–75, 382–383.
It was the pursuit of the ‘bien commun’ expressed, in this case, in the requirements of national defence that led to the appointment of Bertrand du Guesclin as constable in 1370, an act which also enabled Charles V to assert firmly the royal authority over the army. The significance of this appointment ‘on merit’ is underlined by the contrast between the well-known military skills of du Guesclin and those conspicuously lacking in Raoul, count of Eu, who had been appointed constable as recently as 1329 even though, in the words of a modern writer, his ‘qualités d’homme de guerre … étaient réduites’.13 In the intervening years, the military world had become more demanding. The new constable received a free hand to approach war in a fresh, markedly ‘Vegetian’ way: greater centralisation in recruitment was introduced; the army was reorganised into smaller, more mobile and more effective units of uniform size to make the calculation of wages easier; while captains, appointed by the king, were made responsible for the discipline of those under their command.14 Thus reconstituted, its members wearing the white cross as a sign of being French, and pursuing its aims in a very deliberate fashion, the army waged highly effective campaigns against the English. With such successes, the prestige of, and respect for, the crown and army began to increase.15
13 Emilie Lebailly, ‘Raoul d’Eu, connétable de France et seigneur anglais et irlandais’, La Normandie et l’Angleterre au Moyen Age, ed P. Bouet et V. Gazeau (Caen, 2003), p. 240.14 Ordonnances des roys de France de la troisième race, V, pp. 660–661.15 Histoire militaire de la France. 1; Des origines à 1715, ed. P. Contamine (Paris, 1992), pp. 147–152.
Yet such advances were not destined to last. By 1420, France was tragically caught up in political division, civil war, foreign invasion, and moral dismemberment. The debate regarding the best course of action to follow is significant, not least for the fact that almost all who took part (c.1385–c.1465) supported the observance of Roman principles and practices, many set out by Vegetius, as the most likely road to recovery and victory. Thus Honoré Bouvet advocated the acceptance of the Roman virtues of discipline and organisation: Philippe de Mézières advised the king not to rely on the arrière-ban, (‘tu useras pou du droit royal qui s’appelle l’arriere ban…’) but to have the support of properly trained troops; in language reminiscent of John of Salisbury, Christine de Pizan encouraged the nobility to become the arms and hands of the ‘corps de policie’, the state itself; Alain Chartier called upon the nobility to join the ‘treshonnourable’ profession of arms, to recognise the authority of the crown, and to show readiness to fight ‘soubz le commandement du chief et pour l’utilité publique’; Jean Juvénal des Ursins emphasised obedience to the king and a willingness to act under captains appointed by him for their experience rather than for their birth, thus creating a socially diversified army for service which was itself ‘ennobling’; while Jean de Bueil, when underlining the need for those active in war to train and thus prepare themselves effectively for action, stressed that the outcome of war depended less on courage and bravery than on the skills, experience and discipline shown by the participants.
The process of restructuring the royal army, based on military experience and obedience to the king, begun in 1439, was later advanced with the recruitment of considerable numbers of nobles to replace the foreign troops who had been relied upon in the past. Paid regularly, these men came to form the grande ordonnance, consisting mainly of nobles who, with many of them facing difficult financial circumstances, welcomed the opportunity to serve the king and be rewarded financially for the privilege. As evidence of the importance attached to furthering the growth and effectiveness of the army we may note the increasing tendency towards promotion on grounds of skill and experience, while another sign, also based on advice offered by Vegetius, was the development of career structures for those, often of knightly or even noble lineage, whose active years were spent serving society in the king’s army. Such developments would finally make possible the creation of a permanent army, whose origins in France and neighbouring Burgundy date from the middle years of the fifteenth century. In both, the royal/ducal character was emphasised by the appointment by the king/duke of his army’s leading officers, named as royal/ducal lieutenants and acting on authority specifically conferred by either king or duke. The army thus became, in a very real way, the living expression of royal/ducal power. In the coming years thousands of nobles found military careers in the royal service, sometimes lasting some twenty years in the same company, fighting the king’s or the duke’s wars. As the inscriptions on their tombstones would indicate, these men now regarded themselves as members of a profession. France had seen the military caste become the military profession under the crown.16
16 Histoire militaire de la France, ed. Contamine, pp. 201–204, 220–221; and notes 9, 11 and 13.
Roman ideas, many derived from the work of Vegetius and later incorporated into the Policraticus of John of Salisbury, began to influence thinking about the army and its role in France from the late twelfth century onwards. By the late thirteenth century, the De regimine principum of Giles of Rome, the translation of Vegetius by Jean de Meun (1284) and the first signs of the needs of the coming conflict with England, sparked off an increased awareness that national defence should be organised centrally by the crown, thus giving added relevance and influence to Roman ideas and practices. The future, however, was not straightforward. It would take time for the individual chevalier, and the attitude to military authority and fighting which many of his kind represented, to be fully metamorphosed into membership of the royal chevalerie, or army. The defeats suffered between 1346 and 1415, which underlined the failure of the traditional ‘chivalric’ way of fighting when facing a better disciplined enemy and lacking the proper leadership demanded by Vegetius, clearly demonstrated what the problem was. Equally, the reforms carried out in response by Charles V and Bertrand du Guesclin underlined what could be achieved in a short period of time. It was these reforms which gave a glimmer of hope and which kept alive the reputation of these men in the days of defeat and despair which characterised the last years of the reign of Charles VI and the early decades of that of Charles VII. By the end of that reign, however, with the acceptance and adaptation of many Roman ideas, the new royal chevalerie of France was becoming one of the leading armies in Europe.
In the 1460s, Jean de Bueil would add his contribution to the discussion in his long, impressive and influential work, Le Jouvencel … In one incident, two compagnons who had asked their captain for leave to go and perform an exploit, had their request turned down. Refusing them their request to absent themselves from their company for such a purpose, the captain chided them for thinking about themselves and putting their reputation before the successes which their company might achieve. What would happen to their common cause, he asked, if things went wrong and they were killed? Who would be the losers in that case? The wider good could not be allowed to come second to that of the reputation of individuals.
Later in the work, Bueil worked in a further dilemma, this time regarding the use of deception in war, whose use Eustache Deschamps had deplored almost a century earlier. Traditional values had stood on the side of ‘openness’ and ‘honesty’ in war. Courage, not deceit, won battles. Bueil’s story told of a commander who thought that the capture of an enemy town would bring him victory in a war. But it was so well defended as to be impregnable. Like any captain he spoke to his king, his superior from whom his authority derived, proposing a plan to take the town by ruse. The king was torn. He could clearly see the advantage of capturing the town; but would it be to act dishonourably to achieve this by the use of deception? In the end he decided not to stand in his captain’s way. ‘I leave it to you’, he said, hoping to wash his hands of the whole matter. Not having been forbidden to use deception, the captain went ahead and successfully captured his objective. The war was over; the greater good had been achieved – but at a cost, since deceit had been used. The reader was left to ask himself questions. There was little doubt, however, where Bueil’s sympathies in the matter lay.
This is the story of how intellectual, as well as practical, influences had a bearing upon the development of one army, that of late medieval France. Those influences, many borrowed from Vegetius’s De re militari, bore on how men came to understand two crucial meanings in the evolution of the word chevalerie, and how the word came to be used from the thirteenth century onwards, in particular in the years of the long Anglo-French war which dominated the military history of the late Middle Ages.
Throughout his work Vegetius had insisted upon the need to act in advance of events; it was an aspect of preparation which lay at the heart of Roman success. So came his demand that a commander should do everything to prepare his men psychologically for battle (not only sound training but a pre-battle talk by the commander inspired confidence in his men). A further aspect of preparation was for the commander to inform himself, as best he could, about enemy numbers, plans and dispositions, and then to draw up his own accordingly. The number of words bearing the Latin prefix ‘prae’ used by Vegetius indicate what he intended. Thought and foresight were military imperatives. While action must react to events and developments on the field, making flexibility of approach essential, no commander should enter a battle without some sort of plan.
In brief, the influence of Vegetius upon the word chevalerie understood, as in De la chevalerie, as being concerned with the skills and training required to defeat an enemy, was considerable. Vegetius taught that the successful waging of war was based upon principles which led to certain assumptions: that the commander’s orders should be instantly recognised and obeyed; that both soldier and commander should know what the army was capable of achieving; that the army should practise what it had been taught to do with order and discipline, as Guillaume le Breton noted with satisfaction that the army of Philip Augustus had done.
Chevalerie, then, while presenting a certain approach to the waging of war, also came to represent the body which exercised the use of legitimate force on behalf of society, something, however, which it could do only under the command of the king. The army thus became a royal instrument, one which might be wrongly used but which was primarily intended as a legitimate means of defending the res publica. Thus, although under royal command, the army’s function dictated that it should be a body with a wider, public responsibility to fulfil, increasingly supported, in due time, by taxation which, in return, would demand a high level of professional competence.
As the powers of the crown were extended, so the process was justified by the claim that the king was responsible for the defence of the kingdom. Such a claim, supported by Roman examples gleaned from reading history and, more significantly, the work of Vegetius, was used to justify the development of the country’s army under the authority of the crown, which regarded it as an instrument which both bolstered its power and fulfilled a major obligation, defence of the country.