skiU 

 dible. 

 and 

 first 



CHAP. VII. J 



DECLINE OF FEUDALISM. 



•205 



When the buttle wus about commencing the archer 

 loosened his sheaf, and placed some arrows under liis left 

 foot, the points outwards, and picked them up one by one 

 as he required them. The late Emperor Napoleon III. 

 says in his work on artillery, that a first-rate English 

 archer, who in a single minute was unable to discharge 

 his bo^^^ twelve times, with a range of 200 yards, and 

 who in these twelve shots once missed his man, was very 

 lightly esteemed.^ 



The personal competence and civil freedom of these 

 yeomen rendered them fearless and self-reliant, a spirit 

 which was encouraged rather than resented by the English 

 nobles, who treated them with great consideration, com- 

 manded their companies, and dismounted and fought 

 beside them in action. The French nobles treated their 

 infantry on the contrary with great harshness, oppressed 

 them in camp, and rode over them without compunction 

 in the field, as for instance at Crecy, where the knights of 

 the French army charged over and through their own 

 allies, the Genoese cross- bowmen. 



The number of archers that England could bring into 

 the field was very great. In 1386, in addition to the army 

 led by the Duke of Lancaster to Castile, Froissart says 

 that the English forces consisted of 10,000 men-at-arms, 

 and 100,000 archers.^ He also mentions that in 1394, the 

 King of England invaded Ireland " with 4,000 knights 

 and squires, and 30,000 archers, all regularly paid every 

 week, and so they were well satisfied." ^ The Irish cavalry 

 of this period were light irregular horsemen, using neither 

 saddles nor stirrups, and fighting with spears and javelins. 



The Genoese cross-bowmen acquired also a high reputa- 

 tion as infantry soldiers, and large numbers of them used 

 to be employed by neighbouring states. Philip de Valois 

 at the battle of Crecy had a body of nearly 15,000 

 Genoese mercenary arbaldtriers, and according to Pfere 

 Daniel these cross-bowmen served him also on the sea.* 

 As Genoa was a maritime republic, it is natural to 



^ Lacombe, 135; Bardin, 225. ^ Froissart, book iii. oh. 37. 



* Ibid, book iv. ch. 64. * Daniel, i. 109. 



