Revisiting Mercenaries under Henry fitz Empress, 1167-1188

This is an offprint of:

Mercenaries and Paid MenThe Mercenary Identity in

the Middle Ages

Proceedings of a Conference held at University of Wales, Swansea, 7th–9th July 2005

Edited by

John France

LEIDEN • BOSTON2008

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REVISITING MERCENARIES UNDER HENRY FITZ EMPRESS, 1167–1188

John D. HoslerMorgan State University

The late Thomas Keefe once remarked that the most-cited medieval individual for sheer dependence upon mercenaries or stipendiarii is King Henry II of England (1154–1189).1 The historiographical tradition to which he referred can be traced back at least to the writings of William Stubbs, with other signifi cant studies emerging in the post-war years.2 In 1945, Jacques Boussard put forth the argument that Henry virtu-ally transformed English armies by preferring the shield-tax or scutage over the still-functioning feudal levy.3 Boussard found large quantities of mercenaries in the Pipe Rolls, peaking at just over 6,000 effectives during the Great Revolt of 1173–1174. He therefore concluded that Henry had reshaped feudal armies into paid, professional forces that were faster, better-organized, and more effective in both battle and siege operations.4 In 1962, Michael Powicke called attention to the ramifi cations of Boussard’s study by arguing that Henry’s association with mercenaries was ‘on a scale not perhaps matched again in intensity until the Hundred Years War’; eleven years later, W.L. Warren declared that mercenary footmen were indeed the mainstay of the king’s military power.5 A departure from such judgments is Michael Prestwich’s more recent counter: because the overall percentage of hired soldiers was rather low in Henry’s armies, any transformative infl uence of merce-naries occurred after Henry’s death, perhaps in the reigns of Richard (1189–1199) and John (1199–1216).6

Numbers and troop ratios aside, equally important is an analysis of how and why Henry used mercenaries on campaign. We are fortunate to have a contemporary remark on this question, found in Richard fi tz Nigel’s Dialogue of the Exchequer: ‘the prince prefers to expose mercenaries, rather than natives to the fortunes of war.’7 This paternalistic view found ready acceptance in the work of Hans Delbrück and has subsequently survived several decades of historical inquiry.8 While accepting that Henry sought to protect his vassals, we might also examine the Dialogue’s passage in a qualitative manner. Underneath Richard’s statement lays

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a twofold implication. First, the consideration of mortality implies that Henry foresaw combat (e.g. battle, skirmish, or siege) for his army. Second, given that combat was likely, Henry apparently considered his mercenaries worthy substitutes for the native soldiers. Of course, one could argue that neither applies because Henry was either foolish enough to deploy inferior troops or nonchalant about human casualties, but both of these notions are absurd. The king’s overriding concern throughout his reign was the effective defense and maintenance of the vast Angevin Empire through his various military exploits. Therefore, we must assume that Henry felt comfortable employing hired soldiers for potentially dangerous military campaigns, even during times of great peril to his realms. We may push the matter further by dispensing with the headcounts for a moment (the rolls are, in any case, incomplete) and instead examine how Henry employed his mercenary resources on campaign.9

During the High Middle Ages, mercenaries served a variety of func-tions but in Henry II’s armies they were integral to his battle tactics and often operated as independent, coherent units. J.F. Verbruggen has defi ned the medieval tactical unit thusly: ‘a battle formation in which such discipline prevails that the individuals obey the orders of their com-mander as one.’10 Hired troops under Henry do not fi t this defi nition exactly because he never arranged them into battle formations; instead, he deployed his mercenary units on separate, specifi c operations within general areas of confl ict. Even so, the spirit of Verbruggen’s defi ni-tion—that each unit obeys commands as one—remains at work here. Today I will offer three examples to illustrate how Henry’s mercenaries were deployed as coherent units of men: the use of Welshmen during the siege of Chaumont in 1167; Brabanter operations at the ‘Battle of Dol’ in 1173; and the relief of Rouen in 1174, which saw Welsh and Brabanter units operating jointly.

My train to Swansea was delayed due to the attacks in London, and I was sad to miss Dr. Rowland’s earlier lecture on ‘Welsh mercenaries in Angevin Service’, which has undoubtedly reacquainted you all with the military skills of the Welsh tribes in the mid-twelfth century.11 For now I will only recall the oration of Baldwin fi tz Gilbert of Clare before the Battle of Lincoln in 1141, in which he calls the Welsh ‘object[s] for our contempt . . . devoid of skill and all knowledge of the art of war, like cattle running upon the hunting-spears.’12 Henry II’s notions of Welsh military ability were quite different from Baldwin’s. Not only did skirmishers from Gwynedd nearly dispatch him at Coleshill Wood


revisiting mercenaries under henry fitz empress, 1167–1188 35

in 1157, a combined force of Welshman from Gwynedd, Powys, and Deheubarth fought him to a standstill in 1165 near the Berwyn Hills.13 In later years, Henry praised their fearlessness and battle prowess in correspondence to the Byzantine emperor Manuel Comnenus (1143–1180).14 Proving himself to be of the practical sort, Henry ultimately began hiring their services for his own campaigns.

And then there were the Brabanters (alternatively, Brabácons, Cotereaux, or Routiers), a loose term that could refer to soldiers from Brabant, Navarrese, Basques, or even Germans. These men, by whatever name, had a vicious reputation, and were singled out for their ruthlessness during the Third Lateran Council of 1179, which ordered the excom-munication of any Christian hiring their services.15 Yet the practical aspect of their reputation was a decent record of effectiveness in the fi eld. As John France has observed, Brabanters were not always suc-cessful, but when commanded from above in an orderly confl ict they comprised a useful group.16 King Henry used Brabanters to great advantage in his own campaigns and is found in the historical record hiring their services quite frequently.

Let us turn to our fi rst example of Henry II deploying tactical units of mercenaries, the siege of Chaumont in 1167. The cause of the siege is to be found seven years prior. Henry’s successful ravaging opera-tions during the Toulouse campaign of 1159 produced an agreement between himself and Louis VII of France (1137–1180) in May 1160, which granted Henry general control over Languedoc and the regions outside of Toulouse. The spring of 1167, however, featured events that would test the practicality of his lordship in the south. William VIII, count of Auvergne (d. 1182), broke his succession oath by disinheriting his nephew of the county in April.17 Henry demanded he stand trial to explain himself; William refused and forged an alliance with Louis instead. In typical fashion, Henry took the affront personally and sent soldiers into Auvergne to ravage William’s lands. Louis responded by attacking Normandy and burning several villages in the Vexin between Mantes and Pacy.18 Yet if William and Louis had hoped to form an effective alliance against the Angevin king they were sorely mistaken. Having successfully cowed William in the south, Henry swiftly marched back north to Normandy in May. Louis refused peace negotiations and Henry moved to Chaumont in July, burning it down in what Warren called a ‘brilliantly executed operation.’ Henry secretly sent his Welsh mercenaries swimming down the River Epte and into the town while he approached the gates with his army, goading the French to sally


36 john d. hosler

forth to meet him. The ruse was successful: as the garrison exited the gates and began to form up into battle array, the Welshmen were able to enter from behind and torch the buildings. Behind the French Chaumont burst into fl ames as the fi res caught hold. Trapped between the Normans and a burning town, they rushed back into the city to douse the fl ames and Henry followed, taking the gate in the confusion of the moment. Here Henry deployed his mercenaries as a unit, and because the Welsh followed their orders they played a key tactical role in the siege.19

Chaumont is an example of mercenary tactics employed in a con-strained area of operations, but in our second case, the Battle of Dol, we fi nd Henry placing more and more trust in the ability of mercenary groups to obey his command and those commands of his subordinates. Hired soldiers featured predominantly in the armies of both Henry and his enemies during the Great Revolt of 1173 and 1174, which include Louis VII and Henry’s sons Henry the Younger (d. 1183), Geoffrey (d. 1186), and Richard, as well as an assortment of displeased magnates. Following the initial outbreaks of violence, the elder Henry quickly demonstrated a knack for defensive campaigning. In August 1173, Henry scored a victory at Verneuil that drove Louis and young Henry back into France; moving quickly to address other threats to Normandy, Henry set his sights on Brittany in the west. There, a rebel Breton army led by the malcontents Hugh, earl of Chester (d. 1181), and Ralph de Fougères (d. 1196) was marching towards Avranches. Henry remained in Rouen to coordinate the defense of the northeast and in his place dispatched William de Humet to lead a group of Brabanter cavalry and Norman soldiers towards Brittany, keeping his familia and main host in reserve.20

The course of action did not favor the rebels. Barricaded in the castle Dol, they spied the Norman banners fl ying from a distance and gauged the number of warriors marching alongside. Ralph de Fougères concluded that the castle was too weak to resist a protracted siege, so he decided to meet William in the fi eld. On 20 August both sides drew up in battle array and the lines met in a clash of arms at the Battle of Dol, a formal and ultimately decisive battle.21 The Brabanters rode into the Breton ranks—perhaps in a direct charge of heavy cavalry, although specifi c details escape us—and routed them, killing up to 1,500. The defeated remainder, which we are told included sixty knights, fl ed back into the castle and was promptly besieged by the Brabanters.22 Henry soon joined the advance force and, receiving the good news with joy,



deployed his siege weaponry. The garrison surrendered in the face of such strong opposition, and both Chester and Fougères were taken prisoner.23 The fi rst phase of the rebellions on the Continent, June to August 1173, had been won with the use of mercenaries. At both Chaumont and Dol Henry II deployed different groups of mercenaries to perform specifi c military services. Without constituting the bulk of the king’s army they nevertheless played important tactical roles.

My fi nal example for today is the relief of Rouen in 1174, another operation during the Great Revolt that saw Henry II deploying Welsh-men and Brabanters jointly in order to achieve a single objective. On 22 July Louis VII besieged the Norman capital with Count Philip of Flanders (d. 1191) and Henry the Younger, but the city was too large to blockade fully. As an alternative, the coalition focused their attacks upon one portion of the city, while French soldiers dug protective ditches in front of their camp (so as to dissuade possible sallies by the city garrison) and scheduled eight-hour shifts to sustain the attack up Rouen’s walls. In a marvelous story spun by the chronicler William of Newburgh, the citizens of Rouen, loyal to Henry II and supported by his garrison, matched the French by keeping shifts of their own in order to defend the walls. They shouted insults at the besiegers and fl ashed and mooned them from the river banks. Exasperated, Philip proposed to scale the walls in a devious surprise rush on the feast day of St. Lawrence (10 August). As the French crept towards the city, however, a clerk happened to spy them through a window and rang the signal bell. The citizens immediately leaped to the defense and in a bloody fi ght tossed the besiegers from the walls.24 It was a great victory that revealed both the tenacity of Rouen’s citizens and the desperate level to which the coalition had sunk.

Rouen’s steadfastness was handsomely rewarded. Henry II landed at Barfl eur on 8 August and began planning a relief action with his familia, a hired force of Brabanters, and up to one thousand Welshmen brought over from England. After arriving at Rouen and surveying the scene, Henry took the Brabanters with him into the city through its western gate on the Seine, which had not been invested. The Welsh-men he sent across the river, through the woods, and into the French camp where they ambushed sleeping soldiers and slew more than a hundred; afterwards, they positioned themselves between the French and their supply line. Henry then sallied forth from inside Rouen with his household knights and Brabanters and rushed the ditches. His men


38 john d. hosler

fi lled the trenches with logs, stones, and piles of earth, leveling the fi eld before the city and opening a path to the French camp. Behind him the gates closed and the Rouen garrison manned the walls, ready for a counterattack that never came. Some of the French soldiers, already surprised once by the Welsh, chose to remain in their tents, while others destroyed their siege equipment. His material losses, combined with the fact that the Henry had reoccupied the city, persuaded King Louis to withdraw. A portion of his army was sent back into France and peace negotiations began that same day.25 At Rouen it appears that Henry II made deliberate tactical choices with his stipendiarii and deployed them according to collective ability. The implication is that he had fi gured them into his overall battle plans, and together the actions there and at Chaumont and Dol suggest that he had confi dence in the ability of hired men to work together as a unit and follow his orders.

Henry’s reliance upon mercenaries was again demonstrated in 1188 when he refused to confront an army of Philip Augustus (1180–1223) in Normandy without fi rst calling for his Welsh mercenaries from across the Channel.26 Here we are confronted with a related issue, Henry’s transportation of hired soldiers overseas. He brought Welshmen to the Continent in 1174 and again in 1188; in a similar fashion, in 1174 he also transported hired Brabanters from the Continent to England in order to confront Scottish rebels in Northumbria.27 This was a departure from normative methods of raising troops in the period. C. Warren Hollister once observed that Anglo-Norman leaders typically hired their soldiers according to geography; for English campaigns, troops were recruited in Wales or Scotland, and for Continental campaigns, Flem-ings or Brabanters.28 Yet Henry took on the added expense of hiring locally but then transporting abroad, not a cheap process considering that England had no standing navy. This must have been a deliberate strategy—why bother transporting Welshman to France unless there was some advantage to be gained from it? The answer is that Henry desired, on certain occasions, the unique attributes particular brands of mercenaries brought to a campaign.

Despite appearances, however, it would be unwise to always study Anglo-Norman era mercenaries as cohesive units of men. The actual number of mercenaries serving in a single campaign varied greatly and depended upon both the state of the royal treasury as well as the length and location of the campaign itself.29 They were recruited in the towns but often in disparate areas, and we cannot maintain that within a band of Welsh mercenaries each man viewed the others as his



equal, or even his kin; this holds equally true for Brabanter and Flemish mercenaries. The overall wartime effectiveness of hired men was also terribly inconsistent. John France has argued that because mercenaries were recruited as individuals they were highly divisive and often unde-pendable, as demonstrated by their periodic defeats in battle.30 Perhaps it took a commander with the requisite leadership ability to motivate mercenaries into following orders as a unit. Much also depended upon the nature of the battle: Henry did not relay commands to the Welsh as they sneaked across the Seine in 1174; rather, he issued a general order that was followed. Had the king ever arrayed the Welsh in formation and attempted to maneuver them in a sustained confl ict with changing conditions, the results might have been quite different.

Nevertheless, the signifi cance lays in the fact that he had any con-fi dence in the Welsh at all. It is probable that the frequent rebellions of his own barons forced him to reconsider his methods of raising troops, for the chronicler William of Newburgh wrote that mercenaries were more reliable than Henry’s own vassals, who at every moment seemed to turn against him.31 Henry used scutage from very early on in his reign, and combined with the success of the Welsh against his own armies, there was ample evidence of their military potential. That they served him well at Chaumont in 1167 may have cemented the utility of hired soldiers in his mind, and it is natural that he would call upon their services again. Mercenaries both in England and on the Continent were readily available, effective, and, at least in Henry’s reign, rather loyal.32

What lesson, then, are we historians to take away from Henry II’s incorporation of mercenary units? In 1999, Michael Mallet argued that the mercenary’s ‘foreignness and expertise’ were not recognized until the thirteenth century: today, I would like to suggest that such quali-ties were actually recognized in the twelfth.33 The evidence suggests that Henry chose his mercenaries with an eye towards expanding his options in the fi eld. He employed scutage in order to raise funds for hiring them, which was quite often because Henry’s many campaigns put him in constant need of men.34 As a commander, he was aware of the respective merits and limitations of the mercenaries and so deployed them not just within his army ranks but as separate units. These units were regionally distinct in that groups of Brabanters and Welshmen fought with their own during operations. Finally, Henry specifi cally sought out such mercenary units before initiating military campaigns and delayed his plans until they had arrived. I therefore fi nd the older


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views of Boussard, Powicke, and Warren to be interpretations close to the mark: mercenaries did indeed have a transformative infl uence on Anglo-Norman warfare during the reign of Henry II, not because of their numbers but because of their tactical roles. It is the full extent of this effect of hired men upon the tactics of medieval kings that now merits further exploration.

Notes

1 T.K. Keefe, Feudal Assessments and the Political Community under Henry II and his Sons (Berkeley, 1983), 24–6.

2 Stubbs felt that Henry used mercenaries for foreign wars and the fyrd (which was, in his conception, a national militia reconstituted through the 1181 Assize of Arms) for domestic peace; the feudal levy, on the other hand, was ‘occasionally useful.’ See The Constitutional History of England: its Origin and Development, 3 vols. (Oxford, 1880), l. 658–9.

3 On the matter of scutage, foundational is the analysis of J.H. Round, which focuses exclusively upon the regnal years of Henry II; see ‘The Introduction of Knight Service into England,’ in Feudal England (New York, 1964), 209–25 and esp. 221–2.

4 See J. Boussard, ‘Les mercenaires au xiie siècle: Henri II Plantagenet et les origins de l’armée de métier,’ Bibliothèque de l’école des Chartes 106 (1945–6), 189–224.

5 M. Powicke, Military Obligation in Medieval England: a Study of Liberty and Duty (Oxford, 1962), 49; W.L. Warren, Henry II (Berkeley, 1973), 232.

6 M. Prestwich, Armies and Warfare in the Middle Ages: the English Experience (New Haven, 1996), 149–150. For further discussions of the subject, see idem, ‘Money and Merce-naries in English Medieval Armies,’ in A. Haverkamp and H. Vollrath (eds), England and Germany in the High Middle Ages (Oxford, 1996), 129–30; and J. Schlight, Monarchs and Mercenaries: a Reappraisal of the Importance of Knight Service in Norman and Early Angevin England (Bridgeport, CT, 1968), 74.

7 Richard FitzNigel, Dialogus de Scaccario, by Richard, son of Nigel, Treasurer of England and Bishop of London, ed. A. Hughes, C.G. Crump, and C. Johnson (Oxford, 1902), 99: ‘Mauult enim princeps stipendarios quam domesticos bellicis opponere casibus.’

8 H. Delbrück, History of the Art of War, Volume III: Medieval Warfare, trans. W.J. Renfroe (Lincoln, 1982), 167.

9 The sum of the rolls from Henry II’s reign can be found in Publications of the Pipe Roll Society, 38 vols. (Reprint, Vaduz, 1966), and in The Great Rolls of the Pipe for the Second, Third, and Fourth Years of the Reign of King Henry the Second, 1155–58, ed. J. Hunter (London, 1844).

10 J.F. Verbruggen, The Art of Warfare in Western Europe during the Middle Ages, trans. S. Willard and S.C.M. Southern, 2nd ed. (Woodbridge, 1997), 2.

11 This paper was originally delivered in the late afternoon of 7 July 2005, the day of the London subway bombings. Dr. Ifor Rowland’s 11:30am paper was titled, ‘Welsh Troops in Angevin Service, 1154–1216.’

12 Henry of Huntingdon, Historia Anglorum, ed. and trans. D. Greenway (Oxford, 1996), 4. 17.

13 For the Welsh campaigns of 1157 and 1165 see J.D. Hosler, ‘Henry II’s Military Campaigns in Wales, 1157–1165,’ Journal of Medieval Military History 2 (2004), 53–71; P. Latimer, ‘Henry II’s Campaign against the Welsh in 1165,’ Welsh History Review 14 (1989), 523–52; J.G. Edwards, ‘Henry II and the Fight at Coleshill: some Further



Refl ections,’ Welsh History Review 3 (1967), 253–61; D.J.C. King, ‘The Fight at Coleshill,’ Welsh History Review 2 (1965) 367–73.

14 Gerald of Wales records the letter to Manuel in Itinerarium Kambriæ et Descriptio Kambriæ, ed. J.F. Dimock, in Giraldi Cambrensis Opera, 8 vols. (RS 21, 1868), 6. 181.

15 See the fi fth canon of the council in William of Newburgh, Historia Rerum Angli-carum, ed. R. Howlett, in Chronicles of the Reigns of Stephen, Henry II, and Richard I, 4 vols. (RS 82, 1884–9), 1. 209.

16 J. France, Western Warfare in the Age of the Crusades, 1000–1300 (Ithaca, 1999), 74.17 This was just one military problem Henry experienced in the south. Raymond

V of Toulouse was actively moving against both Henry and the king’s ally Alfonso of Aragon between 1167 and 1169; see R. Benjamin, ‘A Forty Years War: Toulouse and the Plantagenets, 1156–96,’ Historical Research 56 (1988), 274–5.

18 For the wars of 1167–1168, including the action at Chaumont, our primary authority is the single chronicle of Robert of Torigini; see Chronicle of Robert of Torigini, in Chronicles of the Reigns of Stephen, Henry II, and Richard I ed. and tr. R. Howlett, 4 vols (London,1889) 4. 231–9.

19 For modern narratives of the siege, see Warren, Henry II, 106; and P. Warner, Sieges of the Middle Ages (London, 1968), 118. The medieval sources are Ymagines Histo-riarum, ed. W. Stubbs, in Radulfi de Diceto decani Lundoniensis Opera Historica, 2 vols. (RS 68, 1876), 1. 330; Chronicle of Robert of Torigini, 232; Chronica Magistri Rogeri de Houedene, ed. W. Stubbs, 4 vols. (RS 51, 1868–1871), 1. 282.

20 William de Humet was the son of Richard de Humet, the constable of Normandy; see K.S.B. Keats-Rohan, Domesday Descendants: a Prosopography of Persons Occurring in English Documents 1066–1166, II. Pipe Rolls to Cartae Baronum (Woodbridge, 2002), 522. Henry’s familia at the time included William de Mandeville, earl of Essex (d. 1189); Richard, earl of Clare (d. 1217); and William, earl of Arundel (d. 1176), among others; see R.W. Eyton, Court, Household, and Itinerary of King Henry II (London, 1878), 176.

21 Having yet to fi nd this battle named in modern histories, I have dubbed it the ‘Battle of Dol.’

22 Thus confi rming Warren’s point that Henry specifi cally outfi tted his mercenaries for siege operations; see Henry II, 232.

23 The medieval accounts of the Battle of Dol are Chronica Magistri Rogeri de Houedene, 2. 51–3; Chronicle of Robert of Torigini, 259–60; Ymagines Historiarum, 1. 378; Historia Rerum Anglicarum, 1. 176; Jordan Fantosme’s Chronicle, ed. R.C. Johnston (Oxford, 1981), 12–17; and Gesta Regis Henrici Secundi Benedicti Abbatis, ed. W. Stubbs, 2 vols. (Rolls Series 49, 1867), 1. 56–8.

24 Historia Rerum Anglicarum, 1. 190–225 Chronica Magistri Rogeri de Houedene, 2. 65–6; Chronicle of Robert of Torigini, 265.

Roger of Howden’s account is especially useful because he was an eyewitness; see J. Gillingham, ‘The Travels of Roger of Howden and his Views of the Irish, Scots and Welsh,’ in The English in the Twelfth Century: Imperialism, National Identity and Political Values (Woodbridge, 2000), 83 n. 99.

26 Chronica Magistri Rogeri de Houedene, 2. 343. J. Beeler, Warfare in England 1066–1189 (Ithaca, 1966), 306, passes over this notable event by writing, ‘as might be expected, stipendiary troops appear less frequently after the end of hostilities in 1174’.

27 Chronicle of Robert of Torigini, 264. In that year King William the Lion (1165–1214) had besieged northern castles with some success, and the Brabanters were probably meant to augment the English levy already operating under the command of the justiciar Richard de Lucy (d. 1179). For a narrative of the events of 1174 in England, see Beeler, Warfare in England, 181–4.

28 C.W. Hollister, The Military Organization of Norman England (Oxford, 1965), 177.29 See the various remarks in Hollister, Military Organization, 167–8, 178–9, and

90.30 France, Western Warfare, 74–5.


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31 Historia Rerum Anglicarum, 2.172.32 See Warren, Henry II, 231, for his use of mercenaries in siege operations and

shock warfare.33 M. Mallett, ‘Mercenaries,’ in M. Keen (ed.), Medieval Warfare: a History (Oxford,

1999), 211.34 From his royal coronation in 1154 to his death in 1189, I count at least 29

separate campaigns.


Revisiting Mercenaries under Henry fitz Empress, 1167-1188

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