Renaissance Magazine
Vol 9, Issue #37

The End of Knight - the Battle of Crecy
By Dan Derby

English longbowmen, protected by dismounted men-at-arms, could fire as many as a dozen arrows in a minute with a range of nearly a quarter of mile. The battle of Crecy, the opening of the One Hundred Years War, was the first major application of such relentless massed archer volley fire.

Early the day of the battle it had rained. Crows, driven by the storm, flew ominously overhead. The fields below King Edward III's force were wet and soggy. His English troops were damp but the archers had managed to keep their bow strings dry by removing them. Over the green rolling fields beyond them were French King Philip VI's fighting force.  It had chased the English troops for days and finally  pinned them against the French coastline a few days earlier.  Drawn from all over France, their  numbers continued to grow even as the sun rose. It was nine in the morning when Edward rode down among his troops, carrying a white staff and shouting inspirational words to his men.   The year  was 1346.

The English had encountered French troops the previous day and, with classic Gallic effrontery, the French soldiers had dropped their drawers and mooned the English. The French had marched over six leagues (eighteen miles) exhausting their 6,000 Genoese mercenaries carrying heavy crossbows. Facing the English across the muddy field were 4,000 mounted knights with 12,000 ground backed by 20,000 local militia and the Genoese crossbowmen. This was the largest collection of French fighting men ever assembled.

Setting the Stage

A month before, Edward had landed in northeastern France, claiming his right to the French throne. His army was organized into three fighting forces or "battles." The king lead his own battle while Godfrey of Harcourt and the Earl of Warwick directed the other two. In spite of Edward's claims of sovereignty, his main purpose was plunder. Moving in an arc from the disembarkation point at Hogue Saint-Vasast, Edward's forces cut a swath through the French countryside, looting, burning, and murdering those who resisted. Edward kept on the move, bypassing well-fortified towns but burning their unprotected suburbs.   He made a point of avoiding engagements wherever possible. This strategy allowed Edward's forces to maximize their pillage while minimizing the depletion of their own forces.

In mid August, the king spent the night at Saint-Messien Abbey, leaving it unharmed in the morning. However, a trailing force burned it to the ground for no particular reason other than it was French. A very religious man, Edward had banned any violation of churches or abbeys during his campaign. The penalty was death. Edward hanged the 20 men responsible.

As word of the English encroachment spread through western Europe, the French and their allies grew hysterically angry. The economy of northern France was being devastated and the peoples of Philip's kingdom, particularly the powerful Paris citizens were growing fearful about a possible invasion of the City of Light itself. When Philip called for help, tens of thousands of fighting men converged north of Paris.

Outnumbered and on the run, the going become increasingly perilous for the English. Momentarily trapped at the river Somme on August 23rd , Edward convinced a local to reveal a secret fording place were the river ebbed twice a day. It was called "Blanche-tague". But Philip knew of this "place of white stones", too and sent a 1,000 men-at-arms with 6,000 foot soldiers and crossbowmen to block the English. As the river rose, the two groups met violently in mid-river. After a pitched battle, the bulk of the English were able to make their passage across. The French, unable to cross with sufficient forces to do battle, were forced to pull back from the rising waters.

It was late that Friday when Philip's vast force halted its pursuit. While the English moved on to the northeast, Philip returned to Abbeyville to wait for the river to recede enough to allow his troops to cross. It was now clear to Edward that he was not going to outrun the massive French army. He sent his best commanders to find a favorable location to meet the French, knowing that they would come at the river's next change. The English settled onto a gentle hill just south of the town of Wadicourt and north of the river Maye. Next to them was a tiny town which would give it's name to the one of the most famous battles in English history, Crecy.

Preparing for Battle

In preparation for the battle, Edward had the English carts and carriages pulled into a defended square, called a "baggage". Then, against all tradition, he had his knights dismount and put their horses in the "baggage", too. This effectively converted the mounted men-at-arms into armored infantry. That formidable infantry's job was defensive, protecting their position on this small hill and, more importantly, defending their deadly English longbowmen. Once repositioned, Edward had his men bed down on the small hill overlooking the meadow, and went to bed. With this change alone, Edward would re-write warfare in Europe for nearly 100 years. The shift in tactics it represented would devastate the French the next morning..

Saturday morning Edward rose early and heard mass. His knights were outnumbered four-to-one, his contingent of 11,000 archers were nearly matched by the mercenary Genoese who carried the more modern crossbow.  His 5,000 English light troops were far outnumbered by the tens of thousands of French town militia who were still chaotically arriving as battle lines were drawn.

At nine that morning, Edward rode among his troops, exhorting them to fight. They maintained their three "battle" groupings with the two outer ranks set up slightly forward of Edward's own. On his left was the "battle" lead by the Earl of North Hampton and on his right was the battle now commanded by his 16-year-old son, Edward, Prince of Wales. Edward would later be known as "the Black Prince" and Edward's 3,000 men-at-arms waited for the French on foot behind their short spears .

Philip, having exhausted his own troops by pursuing the English through much of northern France, ordered the Genoese to advance on the unmoving English.   They had not have time to retrieve their pavises, or large shields. Suffering from fatigue and with wet bow strings, Genoese tried to break the English ranks by shouting at them en masse.  The stolid English men-at-arms stayed in formation. The Genoese tried twice again before actually firing their crossbows.  Their heavy quarrels fell short of the massed English men-at-arms. The English longbowmen then fired back, releasing 10,000 arrows at once in a sheet of "hissing death". Described as "thick as snow" by survivors, the blankets of falling arrows left no place to hide.  The Genoese broke and ran.

As the Genoese retreated under the successive massed volleys, the enraged French leaders ordered their mounted knights to trample the fleeing Genoese. The result was mayhem, dead and dying men blocking retreat, while the front ranks of crossbowmen were pushed into the charging horses by the panicked rear ranks. The unengaged French mounted knights at the rear could see the one-sided battle but tradition spoke louder than their leaders and wave after wave of knights, each intent on a hand-to-hand combat, charged into the muddy cauldron.

Prior to the battle, the English had dug holes to trip the French war horses in front of their positions. These were doubly affective since the holes often broke horses legs, creating yet another barrier to the next wave of mounted nights. Now the English were building protective barriers out of French bodies.

The English combination of longbowmen and protective men-at-arms was defensive. It depended on the French charging the nearly impenetrable English ranks. This they did over and over. Operating without any central command, the obvious folly of riding into the raining arrows was lost on the individual French knights. Each, in turn, chose valor over good sense and bravely attacked the front line.

So many English arrows were fired (some 500,000 by one estimate), that King Edward had to send his archers out after each charge to retrieve undamaged ones. Most crossbowmen carried about two dozen arrows. Even with considerable discipline in choosing their shots, the archers' rapid firing rate quickly depleted their supply. Through the day, 15 French charges failed when they could not get past their own dead and dying at the death dealing archers.

The legend of the English longbowmen had begun.

What French knights did make it into the front ranks of the standing English found themselves fighting a line of men stretching over a mile. The French died by the hundreds. Eventually, weighted down by his terrible losses, Philip withdrew from the field of battle. And as dusk fell, 4,000 French lay dead or dying. Two kings, Charles, King of Bohemia and the King of Majorca died. Also killed were the dukes of Alencon and Lorraine, along with the Count of Flanders and nearly a half dozen earls. The English, on the other hand, had lost less than 200 men.

The French had maintained a tradition nearly a millennium old. They could not comprehend the tactics they faced. Chivalry drove Philip's knights and it respected only the bravery of man-to-man contests. Edward, on the other hand, depended on the discipline of his dismounted men-at-arms and archers working together en masse.

Standing against the French at Crecy were simple English yeomen, paid six pence a day. They were a remarkable contrast to haughty French noblemen. They were not brave, they were not educated.  They did what they were told. The French would eventually adopt these methods of warfare to meet the English threat. But this day in Crecy will always be remembered as the beginning of the end of their proud chivalric heritage.