8
In his ground-breaking book, Guerre, État et Société à la Fin du Moyen Age, Philippe Contamine refers several times to the problems regarding desertion which faced French armies during the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. In the French context, the gradual worsening of the problem occurred largely as the result of developments within an army founded on feudal obligation but now coming to rely largely on paid volunteers.1 On a broader canvas, desertion was but one of many problems encountered by kings of France as they developed an army called upon to play an ever-increasing role in the constant expansion of the French state. The study of desertion helps us, therefore, to appreciate both aspects of military organisation and the part played by the soldiery through the continually developing role given to the army at the very heart of society.
1 P. Contamine, Guerre, État et Société à la fin du Moyen Age. Études sur les armées des rois de France, 1337–1494 (Paris and The Hague, 1972), pp. 60–61.
Surviving evidence shows that, from the late thirteenth century onwards, English kings, too, had experienced difficulties arising out of desertion. Archival documents dating from the Scottish wars of Edward I contain many references to the matter.2 Between 1299 and 1301, for instance, the king’s plans and strategies with relation to Scotland were seriously affected when, in 1300, he deplored his inability to recruit the numbers he required. Many were said to have remained at home having, it seems, bribed royal recruiters to allow them to do so. In Yorkshire, people complained that members of the local gentry had prevented their men from going to serve the king, which suggests a genuine lack of enthusiasm for the king’s wars.3
2 M. Prestwich, Edward I (new edn, New Haven and London, 1997), pp. 483, 486, 513.3 Calendar of the Patent Rolls Preserved in the Public Record Office. Edward I, A.D. 1292–1301 (London, 1895), pp. 527–528, 601. For examples, taken from a later time, of the reluctance of people from Yorkshire to serve, see A. E. Goodman, ‘Responses to Requests in Yorkshire for Military Service under Henry V’, Northern History, 17 (1981), 240–252.
A further, more significant element was the attitude of those who accepted their wage but then returned home without leave from the king to do so: ‘receurent leurs gages et sont retournez sans comandement ou congie du roy’. The English practice of paying part of a man’s wages in advance may have been at the root of the problem. Paid, but not necessarily enrolled, and often far from satisfied, such men were reported to have returned home, and remained there.4 What might be said of French armies fifty years later already applied to English forces about 1300. To set up an army on paper was one thing: quite another to mould it into an effective force, ready for service, men who were unaccustomed to military discipline.5 Such conditions could push some into desertion, especially if they could do this after having received the first part of their wage.
4 Documents and Records Illustrating the History of Scotland and the Transactions between the Crowns of Scotland and England, ed. F. Palgrave (London, 1837), I, p. 204.5 Contamine, Guerre, État et Société, p. 170. Vegetius (De re militari, II, p. 5) had claimed that a legion required at least four months of training before taking part in active service.
Fifty years later the king of France was faced with desertion within his army. The 1351 ordinance of king John II (‘the Good’) referred to the problem as seen by the French leadership. Disloyalty was on the increase among the soldiers. Action must be taken to ensure that both men-at-arms and infantry should serve loyally and willingly: ‘que noz Genz d’armes & de pie loyaument, de cuer & tres bonne volonte, Nous puissant server … en bon & net estat de conscience’. Soldiers should be reviewed frequently to prevent fraud; they were forbidden from leaving their captain’s company to serve in that of another without the military authorities being informed. Those deserting were to have their names removed from the records, and captains were ordered to submit the names of those identified as deserters. Such measures are a clear indication of steps taken to encourage a sense of responsibility and service among members of the royal army, and to emphasise to those whose names were recorded on muster rolls of the importance of their obligation to serve. Furthermore, this underlined the active role played in the disciplinary process by officers appointed by the crown. Captains should not only know the names of their men: they should also report on their activities, on their absences in particular, to the military authorities.6
6 Ordonnances des roys de France de la troisième race, IV (Paris, 1734), pp. 67–69.
By 1374, the problem had not yet been resolved. An ordinance of that year refers to the lack of loyalty and inclination to corruption shown by captains, who failed to inform the treasurer for war that men placed under their command deserted before the period of their service had been completed: ‘se partoient avant le temps qu’ilz devoient servir’. The situation required a firm response. Only those actually present at musters should have their names recorded so that they could be paid; each should swear on the gospels that he would serve for the time for which he was paid: ‘que en tel estat servira pour le temps qu’il recevra noz gaiges’, unless he had a ‘congié’, or leave of absence, which should not be easily granted, ‘sans cause raisonnable’. Every soldier who left early should have his name sent to the treasurer for war, his wage to be reduced as a consequence, the measure underlining the twofold implication of such desertions, in terms of both human and financial resources. Captains were to require all soldiers under their command to swear that they would serve them ‘continuellement’, and not leave without permission.7 Now, more than ever, the problem of desertion was being closely associated with an undertaking, or promise, to serve, made both verbally and, more formally, confirmed by the terms of the soldier’s indenture, which now carried an increasingly greater sense of legal obligation to be fulfilled through the oath, taken by all soldiers, to serve out the term agreed.8,9
7 Idem, V (Paris, 1736), pp. 658–659.8 Contemporary fears regarding the non-fulfilment of contracts by soldiers who had been paid can be seen reflected in Honoré Bouvet, L’Arbre des Batailles, IV, p. 40.9 Calendar of the Close Rolls Preserved in the Public Record Office, Henry V. 1413–1419 (London, 1929), p. 315.
In spite of some successes achieved in France, the measures taken to curtail desertion proved insufficient at the time of the English invasion of 1415. The English authorities were very much aware of the problem as it involved those serving in the duke of Bedford’s fleet in 1416. Sometimes the authorities over-reacted to events, as when men who had been wounded or who were unfit for active service were arrested in London and accused of desertion, only to be later released, their names having none the less been sent to the proper authority.
The only legal way for a soldier serving under contract to be relieved of all military obligation was for him to receive a written leave of absence from his captain, which could only be sought for a serious reason, such as illness. In 1415, at the time of the siege of Harfleur, Henry V granted a large number of such certificates (‘billes’) to the sick among his army, thus enabling the recipients to return home in a perfectly legal and honourable way.10 Yet, in June 1419, the sheriffs of several counties and port authorities received orders to arrest all those who might try to use out-dated ‘billes’ as justification for returning from Normandy to England. Such persons should be arrested and sent before the king’s council.11
10 C. Allmand, Henry V (new edn, New Haven and London, 1997), pl. 11. On the ‘congé’ (commeatus) commented on by Vegetius, see De re militari, II, p. 19.11 CCR, 1419–1422 (London, 1932), p. 6.
In July 1424 the English administration in France, concerned that some soldiers, having been paid several months wages in advance, were leaving their captains to serve under others (a practice of which the French ordinance of 1351 had accused French soldiers),12 wrote in the name of Henry VI underlining the fact that certain captains, anxious to maintain the number of men in their retinues, had failed to check the past record of recruits joining their companies, thereby contributing to the continuation of a complex financial fraud which was constantly getting worse. By 1 August, the situation had become so critical that some soldiers were accused of having deserted because they could not face the prospect of battle against the dauphin’s army which, it seemed inevitable, would very soon take place. (As indeed, it did at Verneuil, on 17 August.) Port authorities were ordered to arrest and imprison all those trying to return to England if they lacked any documentation issued in the king’s name.13
12 Ordonnances, V, pp. 68–69.13 Chronique du Mont-Saint-Michel (1343–1468), ed. S. Luce (Paris, 1879), I, pp. 137–138, 144–146.
The problem surrounding desertion emerged as even more important after the victory at Verneuil had caused English military responsibilities to be extended. An echo of this is to be found in the indenture for war sealed between the earl of Salisbury and king Henry VI for six months’ service beginning in March 1428.14 The terms of this contract prevented the earl from recruiting men already serving in France or who had returned without authorisation to England and, further, any who benefited from landed revenues in France which already involved military service in France. Any found belonging to this category must repay the money received; they might be put in prison until this was done. In May 1430, captains and soldiers doing military service under contract were reminded by the English crown of the obligation to honour these terms of service.15 All those contemplating possible desertion will have understood that this applied to them. By 1439, however, the problem had become so intractable that it was discussed in Parliament, where legislation was decided upon. Two aspects of the problem were considered. Captains were blamed for withholding wages, earmarked for the purpose and legitimately earned, from their men. By acting in this way soldiers were being forced to act not as if they had been paid in full but to act as thieves and pillagers (‘a voler et a piller’) with all that this implied in terms of discipline. At the same time many soldiers were criticised for having taken their pay before leaving without proper authorisation, thereby causing great harm to the king and his kingdom. Men who deserted before the expiry of their indentures (‘deins son terme’) must return the wages received, the money being used to pay others. In future, no soldier should return home before his contract had been fulfilled without leave from his captain, such permission to be expressed in a document issued in the king’s name and under the captain’s seal. Anyone caught acting otherwise should be brought before justices, and punished as a felon (‘comme felon’).16
14 Letters and Papers Illustrative of the Wars of the English in France during the Reign of Henry the Sixth, King of England, ed. J. Stevenson (RS, London, 1864), I, pp. 404–406.15 Foedera, ed. T. Rymer (The Hague, 1740), IV, 160; CCR, 1429–35 (London, 1933), pp. 47–48.16 Rotuli Parliamentorum, V, 32–33, 444: Statutes of the Realm, II, 314–315.
In Burgundy, too, Charles the Bold would be forced to grapple with the problem of desertion in the ordinances which he published between 1471 and 1476. In the first he tried, in what was the first positive reaction to the problem, to have the practical solution of ‘permission to leave’ accepted. This failed, and in the following year he decided to deal severely with deserters who were to be punished with the co-operation of the civil authorities. Early in 1473, Charles addressed an assembly of the Burgundian Estates, meeting in Bruges, in terms which reflected his determination to act with energy against deserters, a policy for which, as Henry VI had done in 1439, he sought the help of public opinion. Yet, even the threat of the death sentence appears to have had little effect. Charles was soon obliged to soften his attitude and to assume a more positive approach to the problem by giving new life to the system of ‘congés’ by combining it this time with the obligation for every soldier using the system to leave in the camp his horse or his weapons as a material security against his return. But even this plan appears to have failed. As the military reputation of the duke declined, so soldiers were increasingly tempted to desert. His reign ended in a spirit of mutual incomprehension between the duke and his soldiers. Deserters were joined to rebels, and in December 1476, the duke ordered the immediate execution of all deserters, secular lords and civil judges being again asked to apply this penalty when the occasion demanded it.17
17 J.-M. Cauchies, ‘La désertion dans les armées bourguignonnes de 1465 à 1476’, Revue belge d’histoire militaire, 22 (1977), 132–148.
How is the historian to understand the importance and interest of these acts? What can they teach us regarding the changes affecting war in the late Middle Ages?
That a soldier should disappear after having received his pay was increasingly regarded as a felony, a fraud perpetrated at the expense of public funds.18 The deserter was also damned for the practical consequences, financial and military, of his action. So, to change retinue without permission, which usually allowed the deserter to receive his pay twice, was more often seen as a dishonourable act than as one whose financial and military effects, if repeated on a large scale, risked causing serious practical consequences for the army. From this time, the moral reprobation associated with such an act had less importance than its likely practical effects. The soldier was no longer regarded as an individual; he was, rather, a member of a unit.
18 ‘… la peccune publique dont on devoit paier les souldoiers du roy … [l]’argent qui estoit a la chose publique pour la deffense du pais’, (English Suits before the Parlement of Paris, 1420–36, ed. C. Allmand and C. A. J. Armstrong (R. Hist.S., London, 1982), pp. 237, 241.
The language used underlines another point. Desertion was an act of direct defiance aimed at the crown and its authority. In 1305, Nicholas de Segrave had been accused before the English Parliament of having challenged John Cromwell to personal combat before the French court, since Cromwell had accused him of having left the army of Edward I, thus abandoning the king to his enemies.19 Desertion? Certainly. Treason? Perhaps. Desertion was now accepted as having an increasingly inclusive sense, which could make it a treasonable act. But it was an act aimed not only against the king and his authority, but against the person of the king as representing the community; against that exercised by captains appointed by the king; against, too, the deserter’s fellow soldiers, put in danger by him without need, as well as the troubles such treason could cause to the country’s interests.20 In May 1430, although royal documents still present the deserter as acting against the royal authority (‘in gravem nostri contemptum & praejudicium’), greater emphasis was none the less placed on the adverse effects of non-respect for the terms of the indenture regarded as prejudicial ‘to our person, country and subjects’ (‘personam nostram … ac patriam & subditos nostros’).21 English legislation of 1439 recalled that soldiers should fulfil every clause of their contracts; thus the fulfilment of a private contract became an obligation under public law and its non-fulfilment ‘a crime against the king’.22 It was understandable that a whole millennium earlier Vegetius had been surprised that a soldier, paid and maintained out of public funds, could have been allowed to give priority to his personal affairs.23
19 Rotuli Parliamentorum, I, p. 172: Prestwich, Edward I, pp. 461–462.20 CCR, 1413–19, p. 315; Chronique du Mont-Saint-Michel, I, pp. 144–146; Rotuli Parliamentorum, V, p. 444.21 Foedera, IV, p. 160.22 R. A. Newhall, Muster and Review: A Problem of English Military Administration, 1420–1440 (Cambridge, MA, 1940), pp. 150–154. In 1491 the crime of desertion (‘departyng’) would be defined as a ‘hurt and jopardie of the king oure Souerayn Lord, the nobles of the Realme and of all the commen wele thereof’, in short, an act against society as a whole (Statutes of the Realm, II, p. 549).23 ‘… incongruum videretur imperatoris militem, qui veste et annona publica pascebatur, utilitatibus vacare privatis’ (De re militari, II, p. 19).
What factors encouraged men to desert in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries? Vegetius had already noted the impact which some factors, such as hunger, home-sickness, inactivity and its opposite, fatigue, or witnessing the death of others could have on the morale and efficiency of a force.24 Fear was certainly one of the factors which encouraged English soldiers to desert both in 1424 (on the eve of the battle of Verneuil which, ironically, was to be marked by an English victory) and in 1429–1430, at the very height of the successes achieved by Joan of Arc.25
24 Ibid, III, p. 9. See also J. Dufournet, La Destruction des Mythes dans les Mémoires de Philippe de Commynes (Geneva, 1966), pp. 604–608.25 ‘De proclamationibus contra capitaneos et soldarios tergiversantes in cantationibus puellas terrificatos’ (Foedera, IV, p. 160); C. Allmand, Lancastrian Normandy, 1415–50: The History of a Medieval Occupation (Oxford, 1983), p. 33, n. 28.
Such explanations, however, do not tell the full story. The matter should be seen against its institutional and social background. It is clear that desertion (and the efforts taken to counter it) reflect in a certain way the development of military organisation and administration at the end of the Middle Ages. Both those who carried out recruitment and those who became captains bore a heavy responsibility, and can be judged as having created conditions and situations which encouraged men to desert. There was a risk in paying wages ahead of the time to be served, very much an English practice which could mean soldiers being paid for up to six months in advance.26 Even more influential were the problems arising from the fact that it was necessary to create armies from men coming from many backgrounds, including those totally unaccustomed to the rigours of military discipline, and rarely sufficiently motivated to accept the troubles of this form of life.27 There were, of course, other factors, such as the recruitment of common criminals28 or the irregular payment of wages, more often the fault of the captains than of the central, financial administration. In such circumstances it was difficult to organise and maintain an army as an effective fighting force. Vegetius was, perhaps, right in thinking that desertion may have been one of the ways which allowed an army to purge and renew itself.29 Rather than simply condemn desertion, it was perhaps better to regard it as a means of ‘natural selection’, which allowed those capable and willing to fight to be distinguished from those who were not, so that in punishing a deserter (if he could be caught) and forcing him to rejoin his company was probably not the most advisable thing to do.
26 Vegetius recommended the Roman practice as enabling soldiers to deposit money which could be spent at a later date, thus discouraging early desertion (De re militari, II, p. 20).27 Contamine, Guerre, État et Société, pp. 169–170.28 E. Powell, Kingship, Law and Society: Criminal Justice in the Reign of Henry V (Oxford, 1989), p. 233; Gesta Henrici Quinti: The Deeds of Henry V, ed. and trans. F. Taylor and J. S. Roskell (Oxford, 1975), pp. 54–55. See also H. J. Hewitt, The Organizaton of War under Edward III (Manchester and New York, 1966), pp. 29–31.29 Vegetius, De re militari, ii, 3.
If desertion can be considered against its institutional background, it should also be seen in a context in which the army was increasingly regarded as a political instrument, available to further the interests of a country. Similarly, the soldier’s calling was increasingly regarded as belonging to a body whose very existence was coming to be seen and justified by the contribution which it made to the public good.30 Military service was a way of doing service to both ruler and the wider community. The soldier had a certain responsibility for the public good, shown and fulfilled in the way he behaved.
30 C. Allmand, ‘Changing Views of the Soldier in Late Medieval France’, Guerre et Société en France, en Angletterre et en Bourgogne XIVe–XVe siècle, ed. P. Contamine, C. Giry-Deloison, and M. H. Keen (Lille, 1991), pp. 171–188. The text constitutes no 5 of the present text.
Not all, however, saw it in this way. When in September 1444, Richard, duke of York was ordered to follow a policy of aggression against the French, his attention was drawn to those English captains who, although in theory given life-long commands in France, ‘contynuelly be here in Englande not labouring nor emploieng theire parsones in the kingis services, nor no thing done for the well of his conquest’.31 The duke was told that ‘the well of hym silffe [the king] and of the garde publique’32 required that all captains not residing in France ‘for the sauffgarde of them and the welle of oure said souveraine lorde and his treu suggetis and his liege peple within thayme’33 should be relieved of their posts. This advice showed that a captain’s position was no sinecure, but an important position of military responsibility intended to protect the good of both the king and his people. The indolence and indifference of such captains, who accepted their wages while avoiding their responsibilities (which made them into genuine deserters) was an affront to the king’s efforts to defend the public good, and, in these particular circumstances, the future of his French subjects and their lands in Normandy and Maine. Both the king’s honour and the material prosperity of his subjects were in danger.
31 Letters and Papers, ed. Stevenson, II, ii, pp. 590–591.32 Idem.33 Idem.
We have here increasingly clear evidence of the notion that the soldier was to be held to the fulfilment of all the clauses in his contract, something which the Estates of Languedoc had already said in 1357.34 It was now understood that, henceforth, the fulfilment of this obligation arose from the acceptance of this notion publicly accepted by the soldier, as confirmed by English law in 1439. It can be seen how the concept of public service, fulfilled by the captain and his men, had evolved in the course of a century.
34 ‘… servient et exhibebunt debitum servitium pro tempore quo recipient stipendia, & non recedent a dicto servicio sine causa necessaria et speciali licentia Locumtenentis Regii seu deputandorum ad eo Marescallorrum dicte Guerre’ (Ordonnances, III, p. 105, cited by Contamine, Guerre, État et Société, p. 61).
It was clearly not easy to arrive at this stage, as the many problems of corruption and desertion which had to be faced demonstrate. Slowly, however, in particular by developing the system of muster and review, kings began to exercise greater control over their armies. This was, in part, the result of the development of offices and institutions intended to facilitate the creation of new military policy. It is clear that the French crown and, up to a point, that of England, too, made use of the increase in military offices, administrative, judicial and financial,35 to tighten the control of the crown over the army. The willingness to counter desertion through institutional means contributed to the growth and development of these institutions, acting on behalf of the king, and with his authority.36
35 The treasurers for war, for instance, claimed the right to have lists of names of men whom they paid.36 Contamine, Guerre, État et Société, p. 518 and n. 177.
What of the penalties planned to counter desertion? Towards the end of the fourteenth century Honoré Bouvet had written that a knight who had deserted should in future fight on foot; but he also recommended that this man should quickly be pardoned, especially if his record was a good one.37 In works reflecting chivalric tradition, desertion is usually punished by infamy, moral and social, for an individual having failed to live up to his oath and having abandoned his lord. Such punishments may have proved appropriate when the guilty person enjoyed knightly status and had known what he was doing.38 Nicholas de Segrave, accused of having acted ‘nequiter et maliciose, in persone domini regis periculum, curie sue contemptum corone et dignitatis sue regie lesionem et exhereditationem manifestum, et contra legianciam, homagium, juramentum et fidelitatem quibus ipsi domino regi tenebatur’.39 But since he had admitted his guilt he was spared the supreme penalty which he had deserved. However, most of those who deserted were of lower social rank, and were motivated by considerations for which the death sentence seemed inappropriate.40 In 1303, Edward I ordered that deserters should be imprisoned, and wages paid to them should be recovered. Half a century later, when the Black Prince had deserters brought back to Gascony, some deserted again almost immediately, while others, however, fought at Poitiers. When the English found themselves in difficulties in France in the fifteenth century, the penalties for desertion became heavier. First came a period of imprisonment and an appearance before the royal council; this was followed by confiscation of lands granted by the crown in France, or even the ‘peine de la hart’, or execution by hanging.41 It is significant that it was under the influence of Roman military law that Nicholas Upton wrote in his De studio militari, composed in the early 1440s, that those guilty of abandoning their companies should have their heads cut off, exactly as Giovanni da Legnano had advised the application of the death penalty upon the man guilty of desertion.42
37 L’Arbre des Batailles d’Honoré Bonet, ed. E. Nys (Brussels: Leipzig, 1883), p. 99.38 See, e.g., ‘Le Livre des Quatre Dames d’Alain Chartier’, The Poetical Works of Alain Chartier, ed. J. C. Laidlaw (Cambridge, 1974), pp. 198–304.39 Rotuli Parliamentorum, I, p. 172.40 Prestwich, Edward I (new edn, New Haven and London, 1997), p. 513; P. Morgan, War and Society in Medieval Cheshire, 1272–1403 (Manchester, 1987), p. 113.41 Allmand, Lancastrian Normandy, p. 55; CCR, 1419–22, p. 7; Chronique du Mont-Saint-Michel, I, pp. 137–138, 144–146.42 The Essential Portions of Nicholas Upton’s De Studio Militari before 1446, ed. F. P. Barnard (Oxford, 1931), p. 5; Giovanni da Legnano, De bello, de represaliis et de duello, ed. T. E. Holland (Oxford, 1917), pp. 97, 237–238.
In general, penalties appear to have been the most severe in France. In 1382, those who left camp were threatened with death and the confiscation of possessions,43 whilst the so-called Ordonnance Cabochienne of May 1413 stated that captains guilty of fraud in their companies (it was their action, as we have observed, which often encouraged desertions) should be looked upon and punished as traitors against both the king and the public good.44 Later, in 1477, some soldiers were executed for having gone over to the enemy including Jean de Laudarraic, dit Oeiole, who, with his lieutenant, was executed at Tours, their heads and body parts being sent to Arras and Bethune in Picardy for public display.45 In the same year certain archers, whose desertion was regarded as having endangered the public good of the kingdom, were punished with death, these being punished as false traitors guilty of ‘leze majeste’ (treason) in such a way that others might heed this example.46 Henceforth, crimes against the common good might attract the supreme penalty. Precisely because it was the function of the soldier to defend the common good, there was a certain logic in applying this penalty upon him for having failed in his undertaking to society.
43 Choix de pièces inédites relatives au règne de Charles VI, ed. L Douët d’Arcq (Paris, SHF, 1863–64), ii, p. 80.44 Ordonnances, X, p. 138.45 Journal de Jean de Roye, connu sous le nom de Chronique Scandaleuse, ed. B. de Mandrot (Paris, 1896), II, pp. 83–84; S. Cuttler, The Law of Treason and Treason Trials in Later Medieval France (Cambridge, 1981), p. 35.46 Lettres de Louis XI, roi de France, ed. J. Vaeen and E. Charavay (Paris, 1883–1909), vi, p. 204.
In Burgundy, the penalties applied for desertion appear to have followed a rather variable success in achieving their aim, namely the prevention of desertion. During the War of the Public Good, some deserters were brought back to their camp, while others were threatened with the death penalty. During the 1470s, a critical period during which the civil authorities were encouraged to arrest and punish deserters, the penalties imposed upon them varied. While desertion could merit banishment and confiscation of goods, in 1475, this was considered too harsh, and those arrested for desertion were simply returned to their garrisons. In the following year, however, after the Burgundians had lost more manpower through desertion than through death at the battle of Grandson, and the Italians had deserted in droves at Morat, certain draconian sanctions (executions and confiscations) were re-imposed. Henceforth, deserters were counted alongside rebels, and were liable to the same punishments. Desertion was now clearly looked upon as a form of treason.47
47 Cauchies, ‘La désertion’, pp. 139–143.
What can be drawn from the facts set out here? As already emphasised, much depends on the context from which those facts are drawn. As an act of contempt of military discipline, for example, desertion is reduced to a problem of control, an attack upon authority and due order, which, together reflects some of the principal problems, social, political and economic encountered by late medieval society which suffered greatly at the hands of soldiers, whose activities were a constant reminder to those in authority of their duty to establish and maintain social peace in lands over which they exercised authority.
These facts are important, too, for what they can do to make the historian reflect upon the nature of the army, both in France and England at the end of the Middle Ages. Do they suggest a decline in the values of traditional chivalry? What do they tell us about those men who were to fight together, sometimes not knowing for how long, sometimes far from home, and often without adequate training? Did fear drive men to desertion? Was, for some, the practice of paying soldiers in advance too great a temptation to ignore? Similarly, was the fact that soldiers were often robbed of their money by their leaders the explanation, but not an excuse, that some were forced into desertion? Of one thing we can be sure: those whose numbers made up armies were, like most men, only human, indeed all too human.48
48 Rotuli Parliamentorum, V, p. 444.
The phenomenon of desertion compels the historian anxious to judge the efficiency of the army to consider its characteristics and daily working. He is forced to consider how the army was regarded by late medieval society, what was its role as an instrument of state power, and what were the responsibilities of the soldiers themselves towards a society which paid them from the produce of taxation. Greater and greater emphasis is placed at this time upon desertion as a crime against the king (as his right to control his army and to appoint its officers was being rapidly developed at this time) and against the public good in general. Paid by society, the soldier must fulfil all his commitments towards it, as set out in his indentures. A regular and well trained army was perhaps the logical response to certain problems raised by desertion.
Certainly, recourse to the penalties for treason shows how far society had come to regard desertion no longer as simply as an annoying feature, but very much as act which was, in many respects, an act of defiance towards the ruler and a direct attack upon the public good. In keeping with the ideas of the time, the death sentence was increasingly regarded as the appropriate penalty to be paid by the deserter who, in all but name, was seen as a traitor.