Gilded Pennoncel

My most recent flag project was a silk pennoncel, with three gold sandglasses on a blue field. Modern fabric paint was the lowest layer of the sandglasses,  with gold leaf burnished atop that with gum arabic.

Flags, coat armor and caparisons were often painted in the Middle Ages, and Cennino Cennini had much useful advice on painting cloth. Both silk and linen was used for surviving flags, and the Earl of Wawick owned standards of worsted. Cennini also described how to paint velvet, and woolen cloth for jousts or tournaments.  Cennini generally sized the cloth where it would be painted, which is essential to protect the cloth if oil based paint or mordant for gilding is used.

I sewed the silk to a peripheral piece of cloth, shaped so it could be stretched over a modern canvas stretcher just like a canvas for easel painting.

Modern acrylic fabric paint can be applied to cloth directly, but has a gloss that is somewhat different from oil paint over size or tempera.

Note that medieval flag makers seem to have been more flexible in arranging charges than their modern emulators, as long as the number was correct. The crowns on Arthur’s pennoncel in the Nine Worthies Tapestry are arranged similarly to here, but those on his shield are two and one.

Using resist and dyes to paint silk seems to have been unknown in Europe before the 19th century.

The Medieval Longsword, by Guy Windsor

Mastering the Art of Arms, Volume 2: The Medieval Longsword Guy Windsor, 2014 The School Of European Swordsmanship.

This teaches the early 15th century Italian style of Fiore dei Liberi, with more general advice on sources, swords, clothing, protection, footgear, general principles of time, measure, structure and flow. debatable issues, drills, freeplay and its limitations, and warming up exercises.

Windsor promises to cover the German school in Volume 3.

Volume 2 is reviewed here and here.

Chinstraps on Medieval Helmets

On some sallets the chinstraps have survived, and there are images showing chin straps or laces on kettle hats in the Morgan Bible and on helms in the Manesse Codex.

No chinstraps have survived on medieval bascinets, and for bascinets with mail aventails they would be invisible in contemporary images.

It is well to know that it is quite rare for chin straps to survive on medieval helmets of any kind. There must be thousands of surviving morions, but very few still have their chin straps, although they are well attested in contemporary iconography. And many barbutes and Italian sallets have rivets to attach chinstraps, but no straps.

However, in Christ before Caiphas in The Très Belles Heures of Jean de Berry we see a chinstrap on a small, round skulled bascinet worn without a mail aventail, as well as on a similar, somewhat more pointed helmet covered with scales.

Note how the straps widen to where they attach to the helmet. Surviving sallet straps often split to attach to the helmet at two points on each side, or attach to a shorter strap attached at two points on each side.

There is a reference in Froissart, Vol. III, chapter cxv. to a deed of arms between Sir Thomas Hapurgan, and Sir John des Barres.

It was then the usage (or at least, it seemed to me that it was) that one laced on their bascinet with a mere thong (une seule laniere), so that the point of the lance wouldn't set itself.

Froissart records a similar tactic was used by Sir Reginald de Roye against Sir John Holland in a combat before the duke of Lancaster, although in that case the helmets were heaumes.

Military Minstrels

The earl of Derby took six minstrels with him on his two expeditions to Prussia in 1390-93: two trumpeters, three pipers and a nakerer in the first expedition, three trumpeters and three pipers in the second. The three kinds of instruments are typical of those shown used by musicians accompanying soldiers in manuscript illustrations of the 13th to 15th centuries.  Several pictures from Le chroniche di Giovanni Sercambi ASL MS.107,  1368-1424, show a musician at the head of a column of infantry playing a pipe and tabor.

Froissart reports trumpets being used to signal alarm, command attention for orders, and command attack and retreat. By this time civilian huntsmen like William Twyti knew at least six different horn calls, each with a different meaning, and military trumpeters may have had at least as complete a vocabulary.

Machiavelli wrote in 1521 about commands also being given by pipe and drum as common practice in his time, and later fife and drum were used to deliver a rich vocabulary of battlefield and camp commands. I don't know how long before 1521 the practice began.

There is a lot we don't know.

Waxed Arrows and Glued Arrows.

L’Art d’archerie divides arrows into two types, waxed and glued. The arrows from the Mary Rose seem to be examples of the first type. At the shaftment, where the fletchings would be attached, archaeologists have identified traces of wax, tallow, copper, and the imprints of thread wound in a spiral around the shaft that they believe to be silk. The copper was probably in the form of verdigris.

The Westminster Abbey arrow, from sometime after 1420, also shows the traces of spiral wound thread. In both cases the thread has almost entirely perished, but enough survives to identify the color as dark red.

Wax, red silk and "verdegresse" were mentioned for the making and repair of arrows for the king of Scotland in 1456.

Speaking of waxed arrows, L’Art d’archerie says: "The harder the silk is on the wax, the better the arrow will fly and the stiffer it will be." (Plus est dure la soye sur la cyre et plus est le trait errant et plus dure.) Submerging the thread in a coating of wax would both help lock it in place and protect it from wear as it shot down the bow.

L’Art d’archerie identifies a different approach, the glued arrow. Animal glue can provide an acceptable bond without thread. Surviving arrows made by Turks and Romans seem to have relied entirely on glue, and at some point before modern adhesives the English longbow tradition came to do so as well. Hugh Soar reports that an English fletcher was still being taught to fletch with hoof glue in the early 20th c.

Some fairly detailed medieval paintings show no sign of spiral bindings:

Above: Portrait of Antoine, 'Grand Bâtard' of Burgundy,  c. 1460 Rogier van der Weyden, Portrait of a Man with an Arrow c. 1470 Hans Memling, Portrait of a Youth Holding an Arrow, c. 1500-10 Giovanni Antonio Boltraffio,

While the Mary Rose arrows were almost certainly waxed, and the Westminster Abbey arrow probably was,  L’Art d’archerie tells us: "There are two sorts of glued arrows, sheaf (tacle) and flight. The sheaf arrows are usually thick, with high swan feathers, cut large, in the same shape as those of flight arrows, and have round iron heads. They are the regular arrows which the English use for butt and target shooting (au chapperons i.e. clout shooting), for they find them, as they are, truer than any waxed arrow.

We find further evidence that the even the English didn't always use the waterproof Mary Rose style waxed arrow with spiral thread winding in this report from Ireland by Sir William Skeffington in 1535.

"...there did fall suche a rayne as hath not been seene in thes parties; so that the fotemen wadid by the way to the middels in waters, which was pite to see,....the sayd fotemen that coulde not have defended themselfes with ther bowes, for ther stringes wer so weate, and moost of the fethers of ther arrowes fallen of."

Robert MacPherson has kindly provided me to a reference to an incident in 1594 when a serving-man  in Yldre managed to burn down a farmhouse while fletching bolts with his gluepot. This was probably a good example of fletching with hot animal glue.

Reproduction Crossbow Bolts

These were made by Robert MacPherson. The heads were ground from 3 Rivers Archery Short Bodkin Points. The point before grinding is on the left below, and after grinding at top with the point upwards to show the reshaped diamond section. The shafts are ash.

More Hats

Before Ascham: Early Works on Archery

Livre du roy Modus et de la royne Racio, a mid 14th century book on hunting, contains a brief section on archery. The advice is specific to hunting: the author advises "his bow should be very weak and gentle, so that he may hold it drawn a reasonable space".

Le livre de la chasse was written by Gaston Phoebus, count of Foix, between 1387 and 1388. It discusses archery briefly, closely following Modus.  George Agar Hansard offered a translation in his The book of archery.

"The sportsman's bow should be of yew, and measure twenty palms (five feet) from one notch to the other, and, when braced, have a hand's breadth between string and wood. The string must ever be of silk. The bow should be weak, because an archer over-bowed cannot take aim freely and with address; besides, such a bow may be held half-drawn a long time without fatigue, whilst the hunter stands in wait for the deer.

"The wood of a well-formed arrow measures eight handsful in length from the end of the nock to the barbs of the head, which will be exactly four fingers broad, from the point of one barb to the point of the other. It must be duly proportioned in every part, well filed and sharpened, and five fingers in length. 

"When a deer is discovered approaching the archers, as soon as they hear the hounds are slipped, they ought to set their arrows on their bows, bringing the two arms into such a position as to be prepared to shoot. For, should the animal espy the men in motion whilst nocking their shafts, he will assuredly escape in another direction. Thus, a keen sportsman is ever cautiously on the alert, ready to let his arrow fly without the slightest motion, except that of drawing with the arms." 

He then goes on to describe the different modes of shooting at game in every possible position, somewhat after the fashion of the text; and gives a remarkable reason why an archer should point his shaft in a rather slanting direction when the aim is at the stag's broadside, in preference to straight forwards. He says,-- "There is peril to him who shoots directly at the side, independently of great uncertainty of killing when the arrow does prove fatal, it sometimes passes through and through the beast, and may thus wound a companion on the opposite side. Such an accident I did myself see once happen to Messire Godfrey de Harcourt, who was pierced through one of his arms."

L’Art d’archerie was printed around 1515. In 1901 Henri Gallice published the text of a manuscript of the work in his possession that he believed dated somewhat earlier, to the end of the 15th century. Henry Walrond published an English translation in 1903.

Walrond''s translation contains several errors. What Walrond translates as "target shooting" is some variant of "au chapperon" in the original French, and shot at ranges of 300 or even 400 paces (about 240 or 330 yards). It is better translated as clout shooting in English. "Arrows are likewise made hollow, like balista arrows" should be "Arrows are likewise made hollow, like crossbow bolts".

He explains waxed arrows, trait cyre in the original, as where the feathers are "fastened with waxed silk". This probably an oversimplification.

Our best candidates for waxed arrows are the many arrows recovered from the Mary Rose, sunk in 1545. At the shaftment, where the fletchings would be attached, archaeologists have identified traces of wax, tallow, copper, and the imprints of thread that they believe to be silk.

I think that that a plausible reconstruction is that the fletchings were first tacked down with hot wax and then secured more permanently with thread wound first about the trimmed spine of the feather, spiral wound for the rest of the untrimmed fletching, and then wound about the trimmed spine at the rear of of the fletching.

A final application of hot wax and tallow to the shaftment would have further secured the thread and ensured that the thread was not disturbed as it slid down the bow. Copper acetate would have discouraged vermin from eating the tallow.

Walrond translates tacles in the original as sheaf arrows, but it seems more likely that he is simply using takel, a Middle English word for arrows as well as archery equipment more generally.

L’Art d’archerie gives us insight into European archery at least a generation before Ascham, and it shows how the author thought three different sorts of sports archery, butts, clout and flight, had different optimal gear, which were in turn distinguished from what was best for war. And the earlier texts show that optimal hunting gear differed from all of these.

Interestingly, the author of L’Art d’archerie claims the the English found glued fletchings truer than waxed. Perhaps eagerness to base all reconstructions of longbow arrows entirely on the Mary Rose is misplaced.

A Chaucerian Bookshelf

The following works were written by authors who were adults when Chaucer was alive.

Boccaccio, Giovanni. Decameron. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1972. Shares Chaucer’s diversity; indeed, Chaucer retells many of Boccaccio’s tales.

Bonet, Honoré. The Tree of Battles of Honoré Bonet. Transl. G. W. Coopland. Liverpool: University Press of Liverpool 1949. A learned clerk writes about law, justice, morality and violence, legitimate and otherwise.

Charny, Geoffroi de. The Book of Chivalry. Transl. Richard W. Kaeuper and Elspeth Kennedy. University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1996. A knight writes about the ideals and obligations of knighthood.

Charny, Geoffroi de and Muhlberger, Steven. Charny's Men-at-Arms: Questions Concerning the Joust, Tournaments, and War. , Wheaton; Freelance Academy Press, 2014. Revealing questions from the famous knight about what does and does not conform to the law of arms, as seen by contemporary men at arms.

Froissart, Jean. Chronicles. Transl. Geoffrey Brereton. New York: Penguin 1978. A vivid and detailed contemporary chronicle; Froissart writes like an eyewitness even when he wasn’t, providing details that may not always be accurate but are always true to the author’s view of chivalric culture.

Kempe, Margery. The Book of Margery Kempe. Transl. Barry Windeatt. New York: Penguin 1988. Written after Chaucer’s lifetime by a woman who grew up during the late 1300s—this account of the author’s lifetime of spiritual exploration is one of few substantial medieval works to come from us from an English laywoman.

Langland, William. Piers the Plowman. Transl. J. F. Goodridge. New York: Penguin 1987. An allegorical exploration of contemporary society and morals, this was one of the most popular works in English during Chaucer’s lifetime.

Mandeville, John. Travels. Trans, C. W. R. D. Moseley. New York: Penguin 1983. Purporting to be the account of a fourteenth-century Englishman’s journeys, this book was also very popular in Chaucer’s day; it incorporates both fact and fantasy, and reflects popular ideas about the nature of the world.

Pizan, Christine de. The Book of Deeds of Arms and of Chivalry. Ed. and transl. Sumner and Charity Cannon Willard. University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press 1999. Christine updates the late Roman military manual of Vegetius and Bonet’s Tree of Battles with a great deal of practical contemporary advice such as the number of bowstrings and wheelbarrows to bring to a siege.
Christine de Pizan was probably the first woman to make her living as a professional writer.

Pizan, Christine de and Rosalind Brown-Grant. 2005. The book of the city of ladies. Penguin Books. 2005. Christine gives advice on good conduct to women of all ranks, from women of high rank to prostitutes and the wives of laborers.

Pizan, Christine de. The Book of the Duke of True Lovers Transl.Thelma S Feinster and Nadia Margolis New York, Persea Books 1991  A profoundly unromantic and subversive romance presenting the argument that most of what male courtly lovers say about serving their ladies is self serving "since the honor and profit remains with them and not at all with the lady!"

Power, Eileen, transl. The Goodman of Paris. Woodbridge: Boydell Press, 1928. A wealthy and aged Parisian writes moral and practical advice to his young wife regarding the management of her household.

Tolkien, J. R. R., transl. Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, Pearl, and Sir Orfeo. New York: Ballantine Books, 1975. Dating to the late fourteenth century, Sir Gawain is one of the finest examples of Middle English romance; it offers both chivalric adventure and sophisticated humor.

Wright, Thomas, transl. The Book of the Knight of La Tour-Landry. New York: Greenwood Press, 1969. A late fourteenth-century knight dispenses moral advice to his daughters illustrated by many anecdotes, some learned and classical, some lively and contemporary.

A shorter version of this list appears in:

Forgeng, Jeffrey L, and Will McLean. Daily Life in Chaucer's England. Westport, Conn: Greenwood Press, 2009. Print.

Credo

Credo in Deum Patrem Omnipotentem
Creatorem coeli et terrae
Et in Jesum Christum Filium eius unicum, dominum Nostrum
Qui conceptus est de Spiritu Sancto
Natus ex Maria Virgine
Passus sub Pontio Pilato,
Crucifixus Mortuus, et sepultus
Descendit ad inferna
Tertia die resurrexit a mortuis
Ascendit ad coelos
Sedet ad dexteram Dei Patris omnipotentis
Inde venturur judicare
Vivos et mortuos
Credo in Spiritum Sanctum,
Sanctam Ecclesiam Catholicam,
Sanctorum communionem
Remissionem peccatorum
Carnis ressurectionem
Et vitam aeternam.
Amen.


I beleve in God, Fader almyghty,
Makere of heven and erthe,
And in Ihesu Crist, his onely sone oure Lorde
That is concyved by the Holy Gost,
Born of the Mayden Marye
Suffred under Pounce Pylate,
Crucifyed, Ded, and beryed;
Descended to helle;
The thridde day he aros fro dethes
Styed [rose] up to hevene
Sitte on his Fader half [side]
Schal come to deme [judge] The quick and dede. I
 beleue in the Holy Gost,
Holy Chirche, That is alle that schulle be saved,
And in communion of hem,
Remissioun of synnes,
Risyng of flesch,
And everlastynge lyf.
Amen.

Translation from Book to a Mother, ed. Adrian James McCarthy, Elizabethan and Renaissance Studies 92 (Salzburg: Institut für Anglistik und Amerikanistik, 1981), 1.

Ave Maria

Ave Maria, gratia plena
Dominus tecum
Benedicta tu in mulieribus
Et benedictus fructus ventris tui.
Amen.

Heil Marye, ful of grace
God is with the [thee]
Of alle wymmen thou art most blessed
And blessid be the fruyt of thi wombe, Ihesu.
So mote it be.

Translation from Book to a Mother, ed. Adrian James McCarthy, Elizabethan and Renaissance Studies 92 (Salzburg: Institut für Anglistik und Amerikanistik, 1981), 1.

Pater Noster

Pater noster, qui es in caelis:
sanctificetur Nomen Tuum;
adveniat Regnum Tuum;
fiat voluntas Tua,
sicut in caelo, et in terra.
Panem nostrum cotidianum da nobis hodie;
et dimitte nobis debita nostra,
sicut et nos dimittimus debitoribus nostris;
et ne nos inducas in tentationem;
sed libera nos a Malo. Amen

Fader oure that art in hevene
halwed be thi name,
thi Kyngdom come to,
thi wille be doon
in erthe as in hevene,
oure eche daies bred gif us to day
and forgive us our dettes,
as we forgive to our detoures
and lede us nought into temptacion
bote delivere us from yvel, Amen.

English translation from MS. G. 24, ,of about AD. 1400, in St. John’s College, Cambridge:

The Month. 1882. London: Simpkin, Marshall, and Co. p.281

Shooting Speed of Longbow and Crossbow

This video suggests that with a belt hook, the disparity in shooting speed was not as great as commonly supposed: four shots in 30 seconds for the crossbow vs. nine for the longbow. Of course, a windlass crossbow would be much slower.

Leo "Tod" Todeschini was present at the shoot, and reports that the crossbow had a draw weight of 150 lbs, far too light for a war weapon. He reckons that a belt and claw can span a crossbow up to about 350 lbs in draw, at a rate of about six shots a minute. This agrees with the contemporary Florentine chronicler Villani's account of Crecy that the English shot three times in the time it took the Genoese crossbowmen to fire once.

Before about 1390,  minutes and seconds were things known only by the very learned. A first person portrayal of an English bowman from before then might  say " I can shoot six times in the time it takes to say the Lord's Prayer, three times the speed of a crossbowman spanning from the belt."

"But, if I shoot as fast as I can, I'll use a whole sheaf of 24 arrows before French men-at-arms on foot, starting 200 yards out, are still more than 60 yards out. And this is not to be thought on, since everyone knows that an archer does the greatest injury at close range.  So I will shoot more deliberately at long range, especially since there is much advantage to marking where your first shot falls before firing the second, which can scarcely be  done if you shoot when your first shot is still in the air."

An English bowman who shoots his arrows wisely will shoot his last arrow only a few seconds before he drops his bow and takes up another weapon.





In these videos Tod Todeschini shoots heavy crossbows spanned with a belt and pulley and a goat's foot lever, getting off about three and five shots a minute respectively.  I don't think he's trying to shoot as fast as he possibly can. The belt and pulley is, of course, somewhat more cumbersome than a simple belt hook, but allows a heavier draw.

Note Tod's superior biomechanics compare to the first video: he presses downward with one leg rather than lifting his entire body as he spans the bow. The downward leg press is often visible in medieval images of crossbowmen spanning from a belt.

In comments, Jason Daub says that he can get off six shots in 34 seconds with a 240 lb. bow using a simple belt hook. It is well to know that the draw weights of crossbows and hand bows are not directly comparable, since the crossbow generally has a much shorter power stroke. A 240 lb. composite crossbow might put no more energy into the missile than an 80 lb. hand bow. And crossbows with steel prods suffer further  in comparison, because much of the stored energy goes into accelerating the relatively heavy prod.

Medieval Chess

The following is based on Caxton's The Game and Playe of Chesse from the 1470s, a translation of the late 13th c. Liber de moribus hominum et officiis nobilium super ludo scacchorum of Jacobus de Cessolis, probably primarily a translation of a French translation of the original. The book uses chess as the starting point for an elaborate allegory about medieval society.

So, I edited out most of the allegory to get to the chess rules. But the work also uses the allegory as positional notation: each of the eight pawns on each side represents a specific type of commoner. So I needed to add some explanation of the movement rules in italics that doesn't depend on the allegory.

This is a slower game than modern chess. Queens and bishops (alphyns or judges in Caxton) are much slower and weaker than in the modern game. Their powering up for the modern game started around this time in Iberia, Italy and France, but took time to spread .

The Game and Playe of Chesse

And in this playe we ought to knowe by the nature of hit how the kynge meueth hym and yssueth oute of his place/ For y'e shall vnderstande that he is sette in the fourth quadrante or poynt of theschequer. And whan he is black/ he standeth in the white/ and the knyght on his ryght side in white/ And the Alphyn and the rooke in black/ And on the lifte side the foure holden the places opposite/

For whan he wele meue hym/ he ought not to passe at the first draught the nombre of .iii. poynts/ And whan he begynneth thus to meue from his whyt point/ He may move ii ponts either right or cornerly/ And hit happen that the aduersarie be not couered in ony poynt in the seconde ligne/ All these yssues hath y'e kyng out of his propre place of his owen vertue whan he begynneth to meue. But whan he is ones meuyd fro his propre place/ He may not meue but in to one space or poynt/ and so from one to an other/After that the kynge begynneth to meue he may lede wyth hym the quene/ after the maner of his yffue

Whan the Quene whiche is accompanyed vnto the kynge begynneth to meue from her propre place/ She goth in dowble manere/ that is to wete as an Alphyn on her first draught she may jump two points cornerwise. And whan she is meuyd ones oute of her place she may not goo but fro oon poynt to an other and yet cornerly whether hit be foreward or backward takynge or to be taken/

The manere and nature of the draught of the Alphyn is suche/ that he that is black in his propre fiege is sette on the right side of the kynge/ And he that is whyt is sette on the lifte side/ And ben callyd and named black and white/ But for no cause that they be so in subftance of her propre colour/ But for the colour of the places in whiche they ben sette/ And alleway be they black or white/ whan they ben sette in theyr places/ the alphyn goynge oute of his place comyth two spaces cornerly.

After the yssue of the Alphyns we shall deuyse to yow the yssue & the moeuynge of the knyghtes/ And we saye that the knyght on the right syde is whyt/ And on the lifte syde black/ And the yssue and moeuynge of hem bothe is in one maner whan so is that the knyght on the ryght syde Is whyt/ The lyfte knyght is black/ The moeuynge of hem is suche/that they may jump three poynts, one ryght forth going and the last at an angle. 

The moeuynge and yssue of the rooks whiche ben vicairs of the kynge is suche/ that the ryght rook is black and the lifte rook is whyte/ And whan the chesse ben sette as well the nobles as the comyn peple first in their propre places/ The rooks by their propre vertue haue no wey to yssue but yf hyt be made to them by the nobles or comyn peple/ For they ben enclosed in their propre sieges/ And as fer may they renne as they fynde the tablier voyde whether hit be of his aduersaryes as of his owen felowship/ And whan the rook is in the myddell of the tablier/ he may goo whiche way he wyll in to foure right lignes on euery side/ and hit is to wete that he may in no wyse goo cornerwyse/ but allway ryght forth goynge.

 One yffue and one mouynge apperteyneth vnto alle the peple/ For they may goo fro the poynt they stande in at the first meuynge vnto the thirde poynt right forth to fore them/ & whan they haue so don they may afterward meue no more but fro one poynt ryght forth in to an other/ And they may neuer retorne backward And thus goynge forth fro poynt to poynt They may gete by vertue and strengthe/ that thynge that the other noble fynde by dignyte/ And yf the knyghtes and other nobles helpe hem that they come to the ferthest lygne to fore them where theyr aduersaryes were sette. They acquyre the dignyte that the quene hath graunted to her by grace/ And y'e shall vnderftande/ whan thyse comyn peple meue right forth in her ligne/ and fynde ony noble persone or of the peple of their aduersaries sette in the poynt at on ony side to fore hym/ In that corner poynt he may take his aduersarye wherther hit be on the right side or on the lifte.

 Jacobus, de Cessolis, William Caxton, and William E. A. Axon. 1883. Caxton's Game and playe of the chesse, 1474. London: E. Stock.

Passage, Hazard and Raffle

Of PASSAGE.
Passage is a Game at Dice to be plaid at but by two, and it is perform'd with three Dice. The Caster throws continually till he hath thrown Doublets under ten, and then he is out, and loseth, or Doublets above ten, and then he passeth and wins.

HAZZARD.
Hazzard is a proper Name for this Game; for it speedily makes a Man or undoes him, in the twinkling of an Eye either a Man or a Mouse. This Game is play'd but with two Dice, but there may play at it as many as as can stand round the largest round Table. 

There are two Things chiefly to be observed, that.is Main and Chance; the Chance is the Caster's, and the Main theirs who are concerned in Play with him. There can be no Main thrown above nine and under five, so that five, six, seven, eight, and nine, are the only Mains, and no more which are flung at Hazzard; Chances and Nicks are from four to ten, thus four is a Chance to nine, five to eight, six to seven, seven to fix, eight to five;  and nine and ten a Chance to five, six, seven and eight; in short, four five, six, seven, eight, nine and ten, are Chances to any Main, if any of these Nick it not: Now Nicks are either when the Chance is the same with the Main, as five and five, six and six, seven and seven, and so on, or six and twelve, seven and eleven, eight and twelvej where note, that twelve is out to nine, seven and five; and eleven is out to nine, eight, six and five; Ames-Ace and Deuce-Ace (2 or 3) are out to all Mains whatever. 

That I may the better illustrate this this Game, it will not be amiss to give one Examble for your better Information; Seven's the Main, the Caster throws five, and that's his Chance, and so hath five to seven; if the Caster throw his own Chance, he wins all the Money was set him, but if he throw seven, which was the Main, he must pay as much Money as is on the Board, if again seven be the Main, and the Caster throws eleven, that is a Nick, and sweeps away all the Money on the Table; but if he throws a Chance, he must wait which will come first. Lastly, if seven be the Main, and the Caster throws Ames-Ace, Deuce-Ace or twelve, he is out, but if he throw from four to ten, he hath a Chance, though they are accounted the worst Chances on the Dice, as seven is reputed the best and easiest Main to be flung  thus it is in eight or six, if either of them be the Main, and the Caster throws either four, five, seven, nine or ten, this is is Chance, which if he throw first, he wins, otherwise loseth, if he throw twelve to eight, or six to the same Cast with the Main, he wins; but if Ames-Ace or Deuce-Ace to all he loseth or if twelve, when the Main is either five or nine. Here note, that nothing nicks five but five, nor nothing nine but nine.

THIS IS THE GAME OF RIFFA (raffle?)
There is another kind of game which they call riffa that is played in this way: he who first rolls the dice should roll them as many times until he rolls a pair on two, then he should roll the other one. Then the pips of this third die are to be counted with the pips of the other first two dice. And if the other who is playing  with him, in rolling the dice in this same way rolls more points he wins, and if as many he ties, and if less he loses.

Cotton, Charles. 1725. The compleat gamester: or, Full and easy instructions for playing at above twenty several games upon the cards with variety of diverting fancies and tricks upon the same now first added ; as likewise at all the games on the tables, together with the royal game of chess and billiards. London: J. Wilford.

Musser Golladay, Sonja. 2007. Los libros de acedrex dados e tablas: historical, artistic and metaphysical dimensions of Alfonso X's Book of Games. Ann Arbor, Michigan, USA: UMI Dissertation Services, from ProQuest Co.

Calais under English Rule: 1347-1558

The town of Calais, while ruled by England, was very much an English town. Most of the original French inhabitants were expelled when Edward III took the town, and English settlers brought in. The names of streets and inns were all English.

This was less true of the Pale of Calais, the territory under English control outside Calais proper, including the outlying forts at Hammes and Guisnes (now Guînes). While some English settled in the Pale, the population outside the town remained predominantly French or Flemish. The Pale covered about 20 square miles, and Guînes is about 6.5  miles from Calais by road.

Even though Edward III expelled most of the original population of the town, a few were allowed to remain: a priest, "and other auncyent personages such as knewe the customes, lawes and ordynaunces of the towne and to signe out the herytages howe they were devyded", and some others by special leave of the king. Foreigners could not become a burgess, hold freehold property or keep an inn. Over time these regulations became less well enforced, and in 1364 there was a complaint of foreigners owning hostelries in Calais. In 1413, Henry V renewed the prohibition on foreigners becoming burgesses or keeping an inn, and required foreigners settling in Calais to be taxed at 1/15th of their wealth.

Lodging keepers were required to make a report of what strangers were lodging with them each night.

During herring time, between the feasts of Michaelmas and St. Andrew, when many foreign fishermen brought their catch to Calais, there were extra precautions: only one of the town gates was open,  there was an additional watch, and foreign fishermen were not allowed in town overnight.

The Calais Staple was an important institution under English Rule. From 1348 until the French retook Calais, with brief lapses in the 14th century, most wool, woolfells, tin and lead exported from England was required to pass through the Staple, a marketplace governed by the Company of the Staple, where it could be conveniently taxed. The Staple was an important source of revenue for the Crown, and the Staplers an important source of financing.

After the garrison mutinied over unpaid wages, in 1407 Henry IV assigned half of the wool duties to pay the garrison. This was insufficient, and Henry borrowed the remainder from the Staplers, repaying them by excusing them from wool customs for a time.

While most of the Staplers and members of the garrison expected to eventually return to England, some of the burgesses, descendants of the original English settlers, expected Calais to be their home for life.

From 1365 on, the town was ruled by a mayor and 12 aldermen, but there was also a Mayor of the Staple, leading to repeated conflicts as to who had precedence, the Mayor of the Town or the Mayor of the Staple. This bickering would continue into the reign of Edward IV, to be resolved for a time in favor of the Mayor of the Staple, only to be revived in the early 16th c.

The town is estimated to have had a population of 4,500 in the 15th c.

When Henry VIII visited in 1532, the town was reckoned capable of providing 2,400 beds and stables for 2,000 horses.

Brewing beer was a major local industry. There were at least 7 brewhouses in the 16th c., including a large one owned by the crown.

A 16th century English report on Calais spells the name of its inhabitants "Calisian"

Sandeman, George Amelius Crawshay. 1908. Calais under English rule. Oxford: B.H. Blackwell; [etc., etc.].

Christine de Pizan.

Christine de Pizan was an admirable author of the late 14th and early 15th c. Born in Venice in 1364, her father moved his family to Paris in 1368 where he served as royal astrologer. She wrote in French, as a French patriot. Widowed when her husband died in 1390, she was the sole support of her mother, niece and two children. She turned to writing to support them, a remarkable choice in an age when Geoffrey Chaucer was careful to retain his day job as a govenrment bureaucrat. She was probably the first woman to make a living as a professional author.

She was industrious, prolific and influential. She wrote poems about love and deeds of arms, works on the proper role of women in society, and a cruel but fair criticism of Jean de Meun’s misogyny in the Romance of the Rose. She also wrote on politics, wrote a biography of Charles V and a profoundly unromantic and subversive romance, The Book of the Duke of True Lovers, presenting the argument that most of what male courtly lovers say about serving their ladies is self serving "since the honor and profit remains with them and not at all with the lady!"

She also wrote an influential treatise on war, Les faits d'armes et de chevalerie, in part based on the late Roman author Vegetius, in part on the slightly earlier Honoré Bonet, and the rest based on contemporary advice from experienced soldiers on how to carry out or repel a siege or carry out a campaign.

One measure of her influence is that one of the earliest books printed in English is a translation of her work: The Book of the Order of Chivalry, and her The Epistle of Othea was also translated into English in the middle of the 15th century.

Although she signed herself Christine de Pizan, later authors and editions of her work overwhelmingly gave her name as Christine de Pisan, The original spelling of her name only returned  to predominance in the 1980s in English in the 1990s in French. It seems likely that there was a wide assumption that her family originally came from Pisa, rather than the town of Pizzano near Bologna.

The English Archers' Equipment at Agincourt

The archers were for the most part without armor, in their pourpoints, with their hose rolled down, with hatchets and axes hanging from their belts, or long swords.  Some were completely barefoot, and some wore hunettes (huvettes in Waurin) or cappelines of boiled leather, and some of osier reinforced with iron (sur lesquelz avoit une croisure de fer: covered with pitch or leather in Waurin )

Jean Le Fèvre and Jean Waurin were both present at that battle, and both wrote chronicles that described what happened at Agincourt. Their accounts were not independent: they essentially compared notes after the battle and their two versions of what happened were very similar. I have translated Le Fèvre above, with significant variations in Waurin noted.

Hunettes/huvettes and cappelins were head defenses.  Huvettes  could be made of boiled leather, but also iron, scales and plates, and were sometimes described as small and round.  Cappelins seem to have been a sort of helmet favored by infantry and light cavalry. Le Fèvre and Waurin seem to be describing some of the English archers wearing small helmets with lower, less pointed crowns than the bascinet of the contemporary man at arms.


Le Fèvre de Saint-Remy, Jean, and François Morand. 1876. Chronique de Jean Le Fèvre, seigneur de Saint-Rémy, transcrite d'un manuscrit appartenant à la bibliothèque de Boulogne-sur-Mer. Paris: Loones.

The Great Docudramatist of the 16th Century

It is well to remember, in watching any of Shakespeare's histories, that he was always a playwright first. Whenever he had to choose between good drama and good history, drama would win.  And he was working from Holinshed, at least one remove from the primary sources.

Shakespeare was in the business of writing seductive untruths for a living. Remember that when you watch his Henry V, or any of his histories.

Reorganization at Harfleur: 1415

Anne Curry has noted that several retinues who lost men from illness during the siege of Harfleur in 1415 managed to find replacements for some of their losses before they marched away to fight at Agincourt. Where did these men come from?

Curry argues that either extra men crossed with the original force or reinforcements arrived later, but I think there is a better explanation.

We know that dysentery killed  some leaders like the earl of Suffolk, and sent the duke of Clarence, the Earl Marshal and the earls of March and Arundel home as invalids.

Suffolk had a son and heir to take command, and the Earl Marshal and earl of March had trustworthy subordinates who preserved their retinues as ongoing units.

What happened to the Clarence and Arundel retinues after their leaders went home as invalids is unclear.

But it seems very plausible that some retinues lost enough of their upper command that they could no longer continue as independent contractors. This was particularly likely when the retinue was small, and some consisted of only a man at arms and three archers. The remaining fighting men would have sought and found employment in continuing units with vacancies.