I’m going to talk a bit more broadly about English battle strategy in the early Hundred Years War rather than the specifics of Crecy. Crecy is certainly a battle worth studying, and it sure has been studied, but I think it’s easy to oversimplify English strategy down to what they did in France in 1346. I say it’s easy, because it’s literally been done before. In his article “The Archers of Crecy” (1897) J.E. Morris took the English battle strategy from Crecy and extrapolated an entire deliberate military philosophy across the entire Hundred Years War. While hardly the worst argument a historian has ever made, this view took a very generalized view of English strategy and tactics.

Morris is someone worth talking about in more detail. He laid much of the foundation of the belief in the deterministic power of the longbow. In his Welsh Wars of Edward I he presented one of the first fully realized arguments for the Welsh origin of the longbow. He also argued strongly for both the 13th century discovery of the weapon, as well as its status as the height of medieval military achievement. Perhaps my favorite argument of his is how he ‘proves’ that Richard I didn’t have the longbow. You see, the longbow was superior to the crossbow in literally every way, and Richard I was a very competent commander and warrior. However, Richard liked the crossbow, which is an inferior weapon. He never would have used the crossbow as much as he did, had he known about the longbow. QED. Morris’ longbow, and the archers who wielded it, was responsible for all the English victories of the Hundred Years War. Historians have since taken several steps back from Morris’ stance, but there is still an active debate about the role the longbow played in English victories. Clifford Rogers is probably the modern historian who clings the closest to Morris’ original arguments, although he has made substantial revisions to those opinions. In contrast, Kelly DeVries and Matthew Strickland represent a substantially different opinion on the role of the longbow in English strategy and victory.

The debate over the role of the longbow is completely intertwined with the history of the Infantry Revolution of the Fourteenth Century. The case for the latter is probably best outlined in Kelly DeVries’ Infantry Warfare in the Early Fourteenth century: Discipline, Tactics, and Technology. The short version of the argument is that from around the time of the Battle of Courtrai (1302) the battles of Europe saw a sudden shift from armies of mostly cavalry to armies of almost exclusively foot soldiers. A key element of this strategy involved the presence of mounted ‘knightly’ warriors, who dismounted before battle, and then re-mounted for the pursuit after their victory. The exact details of this ‘revolution’ have been hotly debated. Some historians, such as Michael Prestwich in his Three Edwards, have pointed out that some of the tactics of the Infantry Revolution can already be seen in Edward I’s Scottish Wars. Prestwich and others have pointed out the similarities between Robert the Bruce’s tactics in the early 14th century and those used by Edward III mid-century. They suggest that England adopted these tactics from the Scottish, and their novelty on the continent helped to explain English victories there. Others, like DeVries, point to Courtrai as the logical starting point for the Infantry Revolution. This undermines the idea of new tactics from Britain changing continental warfare, since Courtrai was a battle between the French and the Flemings. Matthew Strickland has argued that we shouldn’t accept the idea of High Medieval Armies as having been mostly cavalry in the first place, and that the Infantry Revolution is probably more of a shift in ratio of foot to cavalry, rather than a total change in strategy. The full details of this debate are interesting, and lengthy, but there is some general consensus towards the idea that battles in the 14th and 15th centuries were fought primarily on foot, with cavalry fulfilling more of a supporting role.

Enough broader context, let’s talk about the English specifically. I’m going to lean more heavily on the work of Kelly DeVries since I believe he makes the most convincing overall argument on this subject. In his already mentioned book, as well as his brilliantly named article ‘Catapults are not Atomic Bombs’, he’s presented an interesting overall argument for what he believes English strategy was in the early Hundred Years War. At its core his argument is this: England was so successful in battle in the mid-late 14th century because they could reliably force the French to attack. DeVries points to the English reliably taking strong defensive positions before battle, and then preparing the field of battle during the night before the French arrived. These preparations included things like digging ditches and simple pit-traps in the fields in front of the English camp. This would create hazards for any charging army (particularly cavalry, but also foot soldiers), and essentially break the unity of any charge coming toward English lines, while also exhausting enemy soldiers. They would also use woods and other natural features to limit the French army’s ability to flank them. This essentially helped to create the ideal circumstances for the English consistently at each battle they fought. DeVries argued in his article that the longbow fit into this overall strategy. He doesn’t buy into the belief that the longbow was some kind of medieval machine gun, killing all those who opposed it. Instead, he argued that it was probably at best able to maim a man-at-arms in full armour, and instead it was used to provoke the French into charging. The constant hail of arrows would make it difficult to coordinate troop movements, and could cause premature charges from some units. Even if an arrow didn’t penetrate armour, it can’t have been pleasant to be hit by a 2ft long piece of wood again and again. He sees the longbow as a sort of psychological weapon. It was capable of killing on occasion, but DeVries argues that we should see the longbow as one part of an overall military strategy employed by the English.

Now, DeVries argument isn’t perfect. It suffers the same problems as any argument for a general strategy in war. Each of the battles used as an example can be explained by means other than this English strategy. We can see the failure of French command at Crecy, and it’s not clear how much say the English had in picking the sites of Poitiers or Agincourt. DeVries also doesn’t spend very long discussing the possible differences in the quality of English and French armies. England at this time was switching to a semi-professional army, while France was mostly still stuck with a mix of mercenaries and common levy troops. England also had the natural morale advantage that comes with having nowhere to run, they were often deep behind enemy lines with the only options available being to win or to die. There’s also relatively few battles in the Hundred Years War, and they’re often decades apart, so can we really talk about a broad English battle strategy when it happened so rarely? That all having been said, I think DeVries makes some good points, and I accept many of his arguments. We must remember that other factors were at play, and also maybe allow for the possibility that not every aspect of English strategy was deliberate. It’s possible that the Black Prince formulated a complex strategy before Poitiers, but it’s also possible that his army was full of veterans from Crecy, and they all just pretty much did the same thing as last time since it had worked then.

On the subject of actual longbow effectiveness, I did a post on it a while ago, and my thoughts haven’t really changed much since then.

Great post above, just wanted to expand a bit on the infantry revolution and indeed the changing nature of chivalry as it related to the battlefield. Really just more background without a direct dissection of the events of Crecy.

As Maurice Keen notes chivalry cannot be divorced from war or war from the aristocracy, for chivalry was war and the aristocracy were those for whom chivalry was created. Given this intrinsic link it makes sense that any seismic change in the nature of warfare would affect chivalry. Heavy cavalry was the realm of the wealthy as not only did you have to be able to afford a war horse and armour but you also had to be physically fit enough to lift a lance and for that reason one had to be well fed. That’s why in 1302 when the Flemish defenders at Courtrai overcame the massed cavalry charge of French knights, it signalled the ‘first clang of the death knoll of heavy cavalry as the dominant force on the battlefields of western Europe’, heavy cavalry being the realm of the aristocrat, the realm of chivalry.

The Flemish had been drawn up eight lines deep with their pikes rammed deep in the wet mud of the battlefield for purchase, the enemy cavalry had charged with full expectation that they would break and flee but for the Flemish, just outside their city walls, there was nowhere to run. So when the cavalry struck, unable to reach full pace due to the muddy ground, they were impaled in their hundreds, with 1,000 of the 2,500 French knights left dead on the field. From this point onward mass infantry formations would begin to play larger roles on the battlefield before becoming the dominant force. Bannonckburn (1314), Mangarten (1315), Cassel (1328), Laupen (1339) Crecy (1346) and Poitiers (1356) are all example of where mass infantry formations, along with the most unchivalrous of warrior, archers won the day. This change in tactics led to a drastic change in martial chivalry.

As infantry began to dominate the battlefield customs which had been regular right until the end of the 13th century started to fall away to be replaced by a far more remorseless and bloody style of warfare. Cavalry had once again been resigned to a support unit, used to cover the flanks of the army and execute rapid flanking manoeuvres. Where then did this leave the chivalric practises of the knightly classes, the extreme end of which was demonstrated in 1127 during the Flanders war which involved 1,000 knights and saw only one casualty? Knights did not necessarily view war as a death sentence, due in part to their tremendous armour but mostly to the chivalric tradition of taking prisoners. In most cases their imprisonment would not even cause them to see the dungeon but rather to be confined under a sort of house arrest. The reason for such niceties is simple, reciprocity, the hope that the courtesy you extend to prisoners will similarly be extended to you in the case of your capture. The ransoms offered for a knight were generally exceptionally large which increased the incentive not to kill your enemy, it would be far more advantageous to return to camp with a living breathing man worth, in the case of King Jean II of France 3,000,000 crowns, the equivalent of twenty years of the English royal revenue.

Clifford Rogers’s theory of infantry revolution made this practice extremely difficult to continue as the great masses of infantry clashed together with the commons intermingled with the nobles. An example of this difficulty is Dupplin Moor in 1332, when the crush of infantry became so bad that men were crushed or suffocated to death and the same can be seen among the French army at Crecy. Andy King argues that a direct result of the ‘infantry revolution’ was that battles became far more ruthless affairs, with many examples of battles where no quarter was granted. Philip VI signalled that no quarter be granted at Crecy by unfurling the Oriflamme and in 1385, Joa I of Portugal decreed that no quarter be granted at Aljuarrota which led to the death of 4,000 men at arms. The reason behind this is an obvious one, generals actually needed to destroy the enemy force, not just give it a black eye because an army not destroyed was still capable of wreaking havoc across the countryside in a chevauchee. The English found an even more novel way to hasten the demise of chivalric warfare by integrating their longbow-men with the new infantry paradigm. No longer were individual act of valour the norm as soldiers were forced to dodge pikes and arrows both. At Poitiers in 1356 ‘the English archers were a huge asset to their side and a terror to the French’ offering them ‘no chance of offering ransoms or pleading for mercy.’ In this manner, between pikes and bows surrender became incredibly difficult given that you couldn’t reach your enemy without risking getting impaled or shot. On the flip side of that coin pike men could not capture the enemy without breaking their formation which would have been utterly disastrous. Men at arms and archers were also substantially cheaper to recruit and took less time to train which led to an increase in numbers. However from a chivalric point of view they were worth nothing in ransom and given that they were the most numerous on the battlefield finding a worthwhile prisoner was nigh impossible.

As a recovering longbow fanboy I’d like to thank /u/valkine for summarising the current debate on the matter, but I’d like to add some thoughts on culture in the English army. This is based on popular accounts of events and more recent leadership theory and I’m afraid it will bounce around the Hundred Years War for examples so I look forward to being challenged!

The English knightly culture (if it can be described as such) often comes across as one driven by personal example, desire to seize the initiative and outright ferocity on the battlefield. In The Perfect King Mortimer describes Edward III as a patron of a form of muscular chivalry where combat skills and bravery were prized. The Order of the Garter was established by him to recognise his closest allies and it quickly became a sort of exclusive group for men of great martial ability. In Agincourt Juliet Barker explains that Henry V didn’t lack for offensively minded knights who were up for a fight despite the apparently overwhelming size of the opposition. It seems he was born into this culture which had lasted three generations since his Great Grandfather. I have seen the wonderfully named Battle of the Herrings of 1429 cited as an example of the English fighting spirit: a small group of English soldiers led by Sir John Fastolf (not the drunken letch depicted by Shakespeare) escorting a consignment of pickled herrings to English forces besieging Orleans only to be attacked by a much larger French force. The pragmatic response to such an attack would be to abandon the consignment, recover the force and try again another day, but Fastolf chose to fight against the odds seemingly because that’s what English leaders were expected to do (Fastolf was a Knight of the Garter).

This approach to leadership extended to setting an example to the ordinary soldier. At Crecy, Edward III adopted a more raised position at the rear of the army in order to command the battle, but his son Edward of Woodstock, the Prince of Wales, was leading the army’s vanguard division and so was at the very front of the fighting. At one point where the Prince was particularly hard-pressed Edward III refused to send reinforcements reportedly saying “let the boy win his spurs”. The message seems clear – the heir to the throne has to muck in with everyone else. Prince Edward would go on to lead the English at the Battle of Poitiers in 1356 where Geoffrey the Baker (writing afte the event) states that he addressed his archers directly, singling them out for praise and referring to them as more than just peasants and being descendants of Kings of England (I’m afraid I don’t have the exact quote to hand). At Agincourt, Henry V fought on foot alongside his soldiers and was so involved that one of the decorative fleurs de lys was sliced from his helmet by a French sword.

In leadership terms then you have confident, offensively minded, militarily adept leadership who lead by example, but you also have a remarkable foot soldier. Although there is debate about the effectiveness of the longbow, I have seen little debate about the quality of the man wielding the bow – well equipped, exceptionally well trained and confident in his own, and his comrade’s, abilities. This was combined with his leaders who were prepared to fight alongside him and take their share of the danger regardless of their social standing. In modern military thought this is as close as you can get to the holy grail of military culture.

So to answer your question: I don’t think it was “knightly honour” per se because English foot soldiers were pretty remarkable in their own right. It was the martial culture of the English army as a whole that was a critical factor in the battle and other successes of the period.