Blood Cries Afar (23 page)

By now the Germans were fighting a rearguard action, buying time for the Emperor’s escape with their freedom and their lives. Many of those taken by the French were the elite of the Teutonic chivalry chosen for the imperial body guard for their bravery, loyalty and prowess. As Otto was escorted to safety off the field, Counts Conrad von Dortmund, Otto von Tecklenburg, Bernard von Ostemale (who had obviously found a horse to replace the one he had offered up to the Emperor) and Gerard von Randeradt, were amongst the many who courageously hindered the French advance, thereby sacrificing their own chance to evade capture. Only when further resistance was futile did they surrender. The imperial
caroccio
was destroyed in the combat and the battered standard was seized by the French. The golden eagle had lost its wings and the dragon was broken. This shattered symbol of imperial authority was brought to Philip.

But the battle was not over; indeed, it was about to enter a particularly bloody phase. On the French left flank the struggle continued as furiously as ever, with no sign of either side gaining the upper hand as they fought over the dead and dying bodies of their fallen comrades and enemies. Renaud de Dammartin, Count of Boulogne, was proving himself the most effective allied commander on the field of battle, and his mercenaries the toughest soldiers. Easily picked out by his large helmet and distinctive physique, the Count supported a weighty lance made of ash that few but he had the strength and skill to carry. Renaud had formed his
routier
infantry into a large circle or horse-shoe shape of two ranks of closely-knit pikemen. From within this defensive position the Count led his heavy cavalry in charges against the French, possibly in the form of tactical thrusts when and where they were needed. When his cavalry needed rest or regrouping it withdrew into the relative safety of this bristling enclosure. From here the Count and his men made several sallies.

Historians of the battle have made much of the Count’s tactics, usually to praise them as an innovative and effective deployment of infantry. Misguided modern authorities express pleasant surprise that foot soldiers could play an important role at all. The attention these tactics have attracted may in large part be due to William the Breton’s assertion that they represented ‘a new form of warfare’. William is extremely well-informed on military matters and remains one of the best but least utilised sources for medieval warfare, but it is unlikely that Renaud’s manoeuvres were, as William believes, entirely novel. For all William’s first hand experiences, he actually witnessed very little in the way of pitched battles, rather he was present at a number of skirmishes and encounters, some of them substantial in themselves, but nothing on the scale of Bouvines. We have already mentioned Alençon in 1118 and Louis VI’s tactics in 1124, both occasions offering examples of ad hoc defensive enclosures on the battlefield. On the latter occasion Suger, who gives the fullest account of events, spoke of a circle defended like a ‘castle’; William the Breton gives almost exactly the same term in the
Philippidos
to describe Renaud’s formation, which he likens to a ‘castle under siege’. Variations of such tactics were employed in the crusades, including the Third Crusade of 1191–2, in which Philip had participated; they were used with great effect by Richard the Lionheart at the Battle of Jaffa, which occurred just a few days after Philip embarked on his return journey home to France, which may explain their novelty to William.
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With the Count of Boulogne was Earl William of Salisbury, known as ‘Longsword’ on account of his martial ability, and his force of mercenaries. These two formidable warriors were engaged in a bitter mêlée with the French left wing, where they faced Count Robert de Dreux, Thomas de St Valéry, Bishop Philip de Beauvais and the Count of Ponthieu, all with their formations. According only to the
Philippidos
, the Bishop of Beauvais saw the battalion of his brother, the Count of Dreux, under extreme pressure from Salisbury’s contingent, and so the Bishop rode up the Earl and bludgeoned him on the head with his mace (
clava
). As an ecclesiastic he was not permitted to shed blood and so did not wield a cutting weapon such as a sword or an axe (the Bayeux Tapestry famously depicts Bishop Odo of Bayeux in the thick of the fighting at the Battle of Hastings swinging a dangerous looking club). Such was the blow delivered by the Bishop it shattered the Earl’s helmet and knocked Salisbury to the ground on which he landed with so much force that the imprint of his body was left upon it. Remembering his modesty as a cleric, the Bishop then judiciously permitted a knight called Jean to take Salisbury as an immensely prestigious prisoner and to receive the reward for him. Given William’s propensity in his poem to inflate his heroes, it would not be too difficult to argue that it was in fact Jean who had taken the Earl prisoner in the first instance and had captured him after a struggle, perhaps having been instructed to do so by the Bishop in an endeavour to lift the acute pressure that his brother was under.

The loss of Longsword came amidst a flurry of losses that sapped the allies’ power. Hugh de Boves, the keenest advocate of delivering battle to the French, is nowhere mentioned in the fighting and we only hear of him (from Wendover and William the Breton) when he flees from the battlefield. De Boves’ hasty departure was precipitated when he became aware of Count Ferrand’s capture and recognised that the collapse of the Emperor’s central division was imminent. Ironically, and in contrast, it was the Count of Boulogne, who had vehemently opposed the engagement, that fought on the longest and hardest. But by now he had little support: Longsword and Ferrand had been captured; de Boves and the Emperor had fled the field. The contingent from Bruges, witnessing de Boves’ withdrawal, at once sounded a general retreat, further depleting both the centre and the left wing. The Flemish infantry that had at this stage only just arrived on the scene and who might have made a significant difference to the day’s outcome had the battle been delayed, realised that there was little point in committing themselves to the fray at this late stage. With the centre and left gone, and with the series of battlefield desertions and captures, Boulogne was left to fight alone.

Count Renaud’s tenacious resistance and the stand of his mercenaries marks the conclusion of this epic battle in a suitably dramatic fashion. He fought so valiantly that even William the Breton had to admit admiringly that ‘his unbridled valour did not permit anyone to vanquish him’, and his great accomplishment with weapons and in fighting ‘loudly proclaimed that he was the true issue of French parents’. Praise indeed from William. Temporarily safe within his enclosure of pikemen the Count was nevertheless exposed to the dangers of arrows and missiles and from combat during his sorties, the more so now that he had only five or six knights left in his command. Hopelessly outnumbered, he perhaps continued the struggle in the hope that the allied army could regroup and return to the field. He was taking a huge risk but had much to gain from Philip’s defeat: in 1211 the King of France had deprived him of his lands, and Renaud was making a determined effort to capture or kill the King. During one of his sallies the Count confronted a sergeant called Pierre de la Tournelle, who was fighting on foot as his horse had been slain. Pierre quickly approached the Count in best infantry tradition, attempting to bring down the rider by disabling his horse. Renaud’s horse may well have been stationary, hemmed in by the press of battle. Pierre was able with his left hand to lift up the horse’s armour, which was held in place by broad straps, and expose its belly. He drew his sword and plunged it deep into the
destrier’s
groin and into its guts, right up to the sword’s guard. One of Renaud’s knights, seeing his lord’s mount fatally struck, grabbed the bridle of the dying horse and, against the Count’s will, began leading it out of the fray. But this knight was set upon by the brothers Quesnes and Jean de Coudon and knocked to the ground. Renaud soon followed him, landing on his back with his horse collapsed on top of his right leg, pinning him to the earth.

There followed an unsavoury scramble to take the Count prisoner and thereby claim an invaluable prize. A swarm of knights closed in on Renaud with this aim in mind. The Coudon brothers were about to bind him while Jean de Rouvrai and Hugh and Gautier de Fontaine appeared on the scene where they proceeded to argue over who should take the Count of Boulogne captive. Jean de Nestle then bustled among them to stake his claim, even though, says William mockingly, ‘he had fought no one in the course of the whole day.’ While this unseemly squabble ensued to determine a lucrative outcome to the day’s events (thus portraying clearly the profiteering nature of chivalry), Count Renaud’s life remained in peril as fighting continued around him. Comotus, a young commoner (
garcio),
who by dint of his lowly birth could lay no claim to such a noble prize, was doing his best to slay the Count. This servant of Guérin tried raising the side of Renaud’s hauberk to stab him in the stomach (or to emasculate him), but the knife was denied entrance by the quality of armour, the chausses being securely attached to the mail shirt. He then managed to rip off the Count’s helmet and inflicted a nasty head wound. Comotus was preparing to slit the Count’s throat while Renaud desperately tried to fend him off with his hands as he lay trapped underneath his horse. Just as Comotus was about to deliver his
coup de grace,
his master Guérin arrived on the scene to stay his arm. Renaud willingly surrendered himself to the bishop-elect, securing his safety by becoming the prisoner of the most powerful figure present. Hardly able to stand and covered in his own blood, Renaud was dragged to his feet. While this was occurring, the Count of Boulogne’s loyal knight, Arnulf of Oudenaarde, led a desperate rescue attempt. The Count was forced by a series of blows to clamber onto the back of a pack-horse and, under the guard of Jean de Nesle and his men, he was led off to King Philip. Arnulf and his comrades were all captured.

There was still one last drama to be played out on the field of battle. Some 400–700 of Renaud’s Brabançons remained in their tight-knit formation, bristling with their pikes. The French cavalry, who had for the most part discarded their lances earlier in the battle, were extremely wary of these mercenaries: ‘They, with their pikes longer than knives and swords, and moreover lined up in an invincible formation of triple ranks of walls, were so cleverly disposed there was no way that they could be breached.’ The healthy respect that knights had for footsoldiers is highlighted by this episode. Philip was taking no chances with his valuable cavalry: he would not have forgotten the defeat inflicted on his knights by Henry II’s infantry at Gisors in 1188. But for this last display of defiance the French commanded the battlefield; they were thus free to re-equip the cavalry with lances to take on the mercenaries. Philip ordered overwhelming force to be used in crushing the mercenaries. Up to 2000 infantry and 50 cavalry under the leadership of Thomas de St Valéry were sent against them. The cavalry shock charge that followed succeeded in its task of breaking up the defensive wall of pikes; such was the clamour of battle it was impossible to hear the blare of trumpets. Although not mentioned anywhere by William the Breton, archery probably played its part in loosening up the mercenary ranks. We know from the Anonymous of Béthune – and we would expect anyway – that bowmen were present. Despite their lowly status, it is nevertheless surprising not to hear of their actions in the battle; as William the Breton attests on other occasions, they were an effective component of medieval armies. As we shall see later, field armies, especially those made up quickly as the French one was in 1214, included a large element of garrison troops – predominantly archers and crossbowmen. When St Valéry’s cavalry had achieved their initial task against the mercenaries, it combined with the infantry to move in for the kill. The pikes and fearsome double-headed axes of the mercenaries could not counter the sheer weight of numbers pressing against them. They were slaughtered. According to William the Breton, St Valéry’s force suffered only one minor casualty, a remarkable result given his earlier alarming description of the mercenaries. But it is likely that here William is only referring to the cavalry: infantry losses, invariably much higher due to lighter armour and the limits of chivalry, were not a noteworthy statistic for most chroniclers. With the mercenaries’ last stand ending in their massacre, the killing had finished. The battle was over.

Most battles, especially major ones, do not end cleanly on the field of conflict: there is usually a substantial mopping-up operation afterwards which involves further casualties. At La Roche-au-Moine the Marshal of France probably received a mortal wound when pursuing the fleeing enemy. After the Battle of Hastings in 1066 it is thought that some victorious Norman cavalry fell into trouble in a steep ravine when, in the ‘Malfosse incident’, in pursuit of the defeated forces, they encountered a last stand of Anglo-Saxons. Nor is this solely a feature of medieval warfare: at Waterloo in 1815 the French put up a number of rearguard actions to hinder pursuit. This may have been the role of Renaud’s mercenaries at Bouvines. Bouvines, however, did end on the battlefield. Philip, ever cautious, knew that he had won a seminal victory, and wished immediately to consolidate his huge gains rather than seek further, indefinite ones. He did not want his army dispersed in running down the enemy; as William the Breton explains, ‘The King did not want our people to hunt further than a mile for the men in flight because of the danger of little known paths and the oncoming night and, also, so that the captured princes and wealthy men would not escape.’ This last point is what Philip feared most: an enemy that regrouped and counter-attacked when his own army was scattered. Although a concerted regrouping of the allied army was improbable given the scale of the defeat, the loyalty and ties of self-interest many had for their captured lord may have prompted an attempt to snatch certain prisoners from the French. It was this haul of captives that Philip had netted for himself which made Bouvines such an eminently satisfying victory for him. Of over 130 knights that had fallen into his hands, 25 were knights banneret and five were counts; held at his will were his great enemies Count Ferrand of Flanders, Count Renaud of Boulogne and King John’s brother, Earl William of Salisbury. The Anonymous of Béthune wrote: ‘It was a marvel that the number of barons, knights and sergeants taken was so great.’
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While many of his great confederates were locked in chains, Emperor Otto made good his escape, heading for Valenciennes and spending the night at the Abbey of St Sage. The allied coalition that a few hours earlier had threatened the very existence of Capetian France had been smashed.