As a spin-off from our conversations on the question of artillery and archers, I ended up reading more about the battle of Formingny.
Robert Blondel, who gives us a clear account of the battle, gives some detail on the English dispositions. Although Burne ignores most of what he says, placing the English in a single battle with angled enfilades of archers on the flanks, Strickland and Hardy in The Great Warbow relate the detail, translating one of Blondel's two descriptions of the English formation. This is where the questions start. In the course of the research on artillery, I read a French translation of Blondel's Latin and it didn't match up to the Great Warbow version. As we know, my Latin is even worse than my French and so, to help solve this connundrum, I present the two passages of Blondel here and ask for help with a translation
Profecto in tripartitum gradus ordinem apposite pugnatores collocant; anteriorem. docti sagittarii jactu telorum mortiferi, mediam robusti gladiatores gesorum ictu sanguinolenti; armati nobiles lancearum vibramine prevalidi aciem tenent extremam. 180
Profecto acies Anglorum perpulchre construuntur. Triplices enim ordines, ut solidi civitatis muri, hostium invasionem detrudunt. Tres vero turmae sagittariorum, qualibet ex septingentis compositae, duae bellorum extrema et altera medium tenentes, veluti tres turres firmae, hostium aggressionem ne frangat proeliorum ordines in praesidio constructae arcent. 182
The second passage is translated by S&H and this does seem to concur with the French translation. Essentially, we have three bodies of English archers seven hundred strong, one in the middle, one each side. These protect the main battle line like towers in a wall.
The first passage S&H interpret as that, behind the archers, the English are drawn up in a "threefold" line, a front rank of men-at-arms, a middle rank of bills and a rear rank of archers. This would be a very rare example of detailed make up of the ranks of an English mixed infantry formation.
The French translation however has the English in three "batailles", the first of archers, the second billmen (guisarmiers), the third nobles with lances. My limited Latin suggests that the French are closer and it is easier to reconcile the two (the front line of archers in each account are the same men - S&H have to have them as an additional line, not initially mentioned). However, I'd be grateful if any of our many Latin speakers could help out with a translation.
Many thanks.
Mediaeval Latin is not my strong point, but the second passage seems to agree with the translation.
The first passage required some work with the Perseus online dictionary, and it does not appear to say what people think. What it seems to say is as follows:
Profecto in tripartitum gradus ordinem apposite pugnatores collocant anteriorem.
Certainly, divided between three positions arranged by the side of the combatants they arranged in the front line
docti sagittarii jactu telorum mortiferi
skilled archers deadly in the shooting of missiles.
In other words, skilled archers were parcelled out in three parts as part of the fighting line.
mediam robusti gladiatores gesorum ictu sanguinolenti
Between them sturdy warriors who shed blood with strokes of [gesorum unknown, probably bills]
armati nobiles lancearum vibramine prevalidi aciem tenent extremam.
Renowned men-at-arms with quivering [of] lances [prevalidi unknown] held the ends of the line of battle.
In essence, what we have is three clumps of archers; between them are billmen; beyond them on the wings are men-at-arms. There is one line of battle containing everyone.
This both agrees with and amplifies the second description, the one which has not been giving us problems.
I wonder how good the original author's Latin was? :-[
Quote from: Jim Webster on February 04, 2018, 07:24:16 AM
I wonder how good the original author's Latin was? :-[
Well, he was a tutor to the children of the Duke of Brittany before becoming a member of the royal court and wrote several works in Latin. That's the best I can get from French wikipedia - English wikipedia doesn't have an entry for him.
Thank you Patrick. That is quite a dramatic re-interpretation but not implausible from what we know of other formations. Certainly different from the French interpretation which has three lines or S&H with their three ranks.
Anyone else have a view on the translation?
Quote from: Patrick Waterson on February 03, 2018, 08:33:25 PM
[gesorum unknown, probably bills]
Gen. pl of
gesum, variant of
gaesum, classically "spear, javelin", from same Celtic source as
Gaesati. Given the fluidity of medieval polearm terminology, it seems quite possible bills are meant here (if they were spears, would the author have differentiated them from the nobles' lances?).
Quote from: Patrick Waterson[prevalidi unknown]
"Very strong" (classically:
praevalidi)
Thanks, Andreas.
Prevalidi would appear to agree with
armati, making the men-at-arms both very strong and renowned.
Quote from: Jim Webster on February 04, 2018, 07:24:16 AM
I wonder how good the original author's Latin was? :-[
Quite good for the time, from what I can see (which accords with what Anthony has unearthed about his background); it is just that by his time - and here is the rub - the Latin in use was about as different from classical Latin as current English is from Shakespearian.
Quote from: Erpingham on February 04, 2018, 08:45:14 AM
Thank you Patrick. That is quite a dramatic re-interpretation but not implausible from what we know of other formations. Certainly different from the French interpretation which has three lines or S&H with their three ranks.
It looks as if the word
ordinem had everyone misdirected. In classical Latin
ordo means a subunit, rank or file and
ordinem is the accusative (meaning something is done to it). Hitherto it looks as if everyone took it to go with
anteriorem and assumed a 'front rank' was meant. However in the Perseus dictionary
ordinem is also derivable from
ordino, to arrange, draw up, and
ordo is capable of meaning a regular arrangement, a series, a correct order. Taking it as indicating the overall arrangement instead of as one of several ranks/lines allows the rest of the passage to make eminent and agreeable sense.
Anteriorem (from
anterior, opposite of
posterior) goes with
ordinem but appears to mean 'frontally' or 'to the front' or even 'facing the front' rather than being the 'first' of an implied multiplicity of lines.
that's what I was wondering Patrick, we know Latin evolved during the time of the Empire, and I assume it continued its evolution. Also would the language have taken on a more 'clerical' flavour with a lot of military terms reusing archaic words in a new context?
Patrick's translation reminded me if the passage in the Jouvencel where Crathor is explaining the way one should draw up an army to fight on foot.
il est force que leur bataille soit longue; et
par raison doivent mettre la puissance de leurs gens
d'armes ou millieu, et aux esles leurs archiers et
autres gens de traict, s'ilz en ont. Et, pour garder
leurs gens de traict, fault qu ilz aient au bout de
leurs esles quelque nombre de gens d'armes selon
la puissance qu'ilz seront.
It helps to know that esles is Middle French for ailes - wings :) Gens de traict are basically "shooters". So, essentially, the ideal formation has the main body of men at arms in the middle, archers on the wings and at the ends of the wings some men-at-arms to protect the archers. Crathor will go on to say that, if you've got enough men, have a reserve of men-at-arms.
This makes an interesting comparison to Patrick's translation.
Quote from: Jim Webster on February 04, 2018, 10:07:36 AM
that's what I was wondering Patrick, we know Latin evolved during the time of the Empire, and I assume it continued its evolution.
During the Empire, literary Latin was still recognizably a form of the same language as the vernacular, and to some extent underwent normal living language evolution. By the 15C, that hadn't been so for centuries and what evolution was going on was a curious tug-of-war between the tendency of writers to bring in words and constructions from their native languages and period attacks of classicizing purism.
QuoteAlso would the language have taken on a more 'clerical' flavour with a lot of military terms reusing archaic words in a new context?
Late medieval Latin technical terminology in any field is a curious mixture of classical words put to new uses and more-or-less thoroughly Latinized vernacular words, neither used with much consistency.
Quote from: Jim Webster on February 04, 2018, 10:07:36 AM
that's what I was wondering Patrick, we know Latin evolved during the time of the Empire, and I assume it continued its evolution. Also would the language have taken on a more 'clerical' flavour with a lot of military terms reusing archaic words in a new context?
Andreas has answered this rather better than I could, Jim: he knows his stuff.
Quote from: Erpingham on February 04, 2018, 10:13:03 AM
So, essentially, the ideal formation has the main body of men at arms in the middle, archers on the wings and at the ends of the wings some men-at-arms to protect the archers. Crathor will go on to say that, if you've got enough men, have a reserve of men-at-arms.
This makes an interesting comparison to Patrick's translation.
Sir Thomas Kyriell was apparently doing things by the book. And here is the book! :)
When we find a happy correlation such as this, it makes me think I really did get the translation right - without such independent evidence, there is always some doubt that one has hit upon the essentials. As Andreas points out, Mediaeval Latin has a number of peculiarities (for the classical Latin user) which can vary with source. Here we seem to have ended up with a better understanding than previously existed thanks to latching onto the right idea as opposed to the obvious one.
Anyway, the good news is that we seem to have a viable lineup for the English at Formigny.
Tangentially, I wonder if
guisarme derives from the usage of
gesorum seen here. Grammatically it makes no sense, but phonetically it seems closer than the traditional candidate, the High German
getisarn or 'weeding iron'.
Quote from: Patrick Waterson on February 04, 2018, 07:16:06 PM
Tangentially, I wonder if guisarme derives from the usage of gesorum seen here.
Unlikely. Both Latin
gesum,
gaesum and any vernacular descendant of it would have been pronounced by Old French speakers with a soft 'g', so it wouldn't sound much like
guisarme at all.
The
getisarn etymology does not seem to universally accepted, though; Wiktionary sends me to a page (http://www.cnrtl.fr/definition/guisarme) offering this:
QuoteÉtymol. et Hist. 1160-74 gisarme (Wace, Rou, éd. A. J. Holden, III, 885). De l'a. b. frq. *wîsarm, de même sens que le fr., et dont le deuxième élém., correspondant à l'all. Arm « bras », a été pris en fr. pour arme*; l'élém. wîs- correspond prob. à l'all. weisen « guider », v. FEW t. 17, p. 598 b.
Now, my French is rudimentary at best, but near as I can guess it says that the
guis- is from a cognate of German
weisen "guide, direct"* and the
-arme either from Germanic 'arm' or French
arme "weapon". Can Anthony confirm?
* In modern German this sounds like "vizen" (long i), but in the twelfth century it'll have been more like "weezen". French /g/ from Germanic /w/ is regular, cf e.g.
guerre from a source akin to Modern English 'war'.
Well hang on. What's the punctuation of this passage, if there was any, originally? As transcribed above it's not right ("collocant; anteriorem. docti sagittarii...").
I assume it should be: "pugnatores collocant; anteriorem docti sagittarii...; mediam robusti gladiatores...; armati nobiles... extremam" with anteriorem, mediam, extremam being the three parts of the formation.
And the meaning would be, more or less: "Indeed in three-part position formation they suitably (?) place the warriors; first, trained archers deadly in the shooting of missiles; in the middle, strong fighters shedding blood with blows of spears; noble men at arms outstanding in the shaking of lances hold the final battleline."
So - a line of archers, then billmen (?) then men at arms. Is this the opposite of what S&H say? Either way it's very different from the second passage, but the two can't be made to agree - what would the middle of three bodies of archers be?
QuoteThe French translation however has the English in three "batailles", the first of archers, the second billmen (guisarmiers), the third nobles with lances.
Yes, that seems to be correct.
And to make an attempt at the second passage (without any attempt at good English):
"Indeed the battleline of the English was well constructed. For triple formations, like strong town walls, fended off the attack of the enemy. Truly three bodies of archers held off, each made up of 700, two holding the ends of the battle and another the middle, like three strong towers, the enemy attack not able to break the formation of the battles formed up in protection."
Quote from: RichT on February 05, 2018, 09:32:34 AM
Well hang on. What's the punctuation of this passage, if there was any, originally? As transcribed above it's not right ("collocant; anteriorem. docti sagittarii...").
I assume it should be: "pugnatores collocant; anteriorem docti sagittarii...; mediam robusti gladiatores...; armati nobiles... extremam" with anteriorem, mediam, extremam being the three parts of the formation.
And the meaning would be, more or less: "Indeed in three-part position formation they suitably (?) place the warriors; first, trained archers deadly in the shooting of missiles; in the middle, strong fighters shedding blood with blows of spears; noble men at arms outstanding in the shaking of lances hold the final battleline."
It does read as if Homer were part of the inspiration for the prose 8)
The correct punctuation and spelling, as given by Stevenson, is
Profecto in tripartitum gradus ordinem apposite pugnatores collocant; anteriorem docti sagittarii jactu telorum mortiferi, mediam robusti gladiatores gesorum ictu sanguinolenti; armati nobiles lancearum vibramine praevalidi aciem tenent extremam. 180
Blondel spelled
praevalidi correctly - I didn't spot it when I corrected the guess of the scan (which can't cope with the dipthong). The error was a random full stop before
docti, which may have thrown Patrick off.
QuoteIt does read as if Homer were part of the inspiration for the prose
Blondel was originally a poet, although he is probably imitating a Latin poetic style, as we don't seem to have evidence of knowledge of Greek.
QuoteNow, my French is rudimentary at best, but near as I can guess it says that the guis- is from a cognate of German weisen "guide, direct"* and the -arme either from Germanic 'arm' or French arme "weapon". Can Anthony confirm?
Afraid I'm using the same definitions sets as everyone else. There does seem to be a difference in English and French views of the origin of the word. Neither etymology is overwhelming convincing. German wikipedia reckons there is a German variant Gesa but German wiki doesn't have a wiktionary (or, if it does, an entry for Guisarme) to check etymology.
One interesting thing is the first use trail. French sources say first use was by Wace in 1160s. Wace was Anglo-Norman so this will be the first English use too but first use in English is 13th century. German wiki puts first German use in 11th century. So, a German origin for the weapon, or at least its name, seems plausible.
Quote from: Erpingham on February 05, 2018, 12:50:37 PM
QuoteNow, my French is rudimentary at best, but near as I can guess it says that the guis- is from a cognate of German weisen "guide, direct"* and the -arme either from Germanic 'arm' or French arme "weapon". Can Anthony confirm?
Afraid I'm using the same definitions sets as everyone else.
Actually, I was just asking if you could confirm if I read the French right. Whether the French
is right is a another question. :)
Quote from: Erpingham on February 05, 2018, 12:18:24 PM
The correct punctuation and spelling, as given by Stevenson, is
Profecto in tripartitum gradus ordinem apposite pugnatores collocant; anteriorem docti sagittarii jactu telorum mortiferi, mediam robusti gladiatores gesorum ictu sanguinolenti; armati nobiles lancearum vibramine praevalidi aciem tenent extremam. 180
Blondel spelled praevalidi correctly - I didn't spot it when I corrected the guess of the scan (which can't cope with the dipthong). The error was a random full stop before docti, which may have thrown Patrick off.
Actually, Patrick ignored the punctuation as it was obviously in error.
I shall be interested to see whether members decide whether Blondel is describing a Crathor-style lineup or the puzzling mix-up resulting from translating according to the strict rules of Latin, which are fine provided the source in question is also using those rules ...
[BTW I shall be unavailable for a while, so enjoy yourselves meantime. :)]
The strict rules of Latin are called grammar. It is how Latin expresses meaning - it cannot be separated from the language, it IS the language. For example, English uses word order - "the dog bit the man", "the man bit the dog" - different meanings. Latin doesn't - "canis virum mordet", "virum canis mordet" - the same meaning.
Neither of the two Blondel passages describe a Crathor style line up, not least because Crathor has two bodies of gens de traict, and 'tres' and 'triplex' can't mean 'two', however much one ignores the grammar.
So it comes down to whether people are interested in what the sources actually say, or what they imagine they might have meant to say.
I apologise for the excerpt from the Jouvencel, which is a rather tenuous link. It was the idea of placing MAA at the ends of the lines that was an interesting comparison. Jean de Beuil (Crathor is his alter ego at this point, while the Jouvencel is based on his younger self) is, of course, describing a French battle formation, albeit one contemporary to Blondel (At the time of Formigny, de Beuil was Admiral of France and in the field in the same campaign, though not at the battle). As a French army, the proportion of gens de traict would be smaller, so he doesn't have so many to dispose. Kyriell has a lot more archers than a French commander and bulking his line with them could be important (cf Agincourt, where, according to some interpretations, the English stuck bodies (cunei) of archers among the men-at-arms to bulk the line).
I have another apology to make, this time to Col. Burne. Burne does discuss Blondel's formation (Agincourt War, p.317), even if he then carries on with out paying it much attention. He produces the following:
Three wedges of archers in front of a line of men at arms, then a line of archers, then a line of billmen. The order of these lines must be wrong, in the same way as S&H are wrong. The wedges reflect Burne's view that the English always used a herse formation and this meant wedges sticking out the front of the line. This is questioned by more modern writers, mainly on the grounds of lack of evidence.
I've gone a bit mad and drawn a non-scale diagram to illustrate some of the variants.
a) The French translation
b) Patrick's "Crathor" version
c) A H Burne
With the disclaimer that I know nothing about the period or English armies or typical deployments or anything else, and based entirely on the Latin passages quoted, I would say a), the French translation version, is correct.
The two Blondel passages can be reconciled (as the French version has done by the looks of it) by assuming that the archers of the first line are the same as the archers of the three 'towers'. So a triplex acies of which the first line is also in three parts (in order to cause confusion among later generations of historians). Quite simple really.
Just a quick drop-in.
It might be an idea to familiarise oneself with some aspects of Mediaeval Latin (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medieval_Latin) before drawing conclusions, especially with regard to the sanctity of grammar.
For example:
QuoteVarious changes occurred in vocabulary, and certain words were mixed into different declensions or conjugations. Many new compound verbs were formed. Some words retained their original structure but drastically changed in meaning: animositas specifically means "wrath" in Medieval Latin while in Classical Latin, it generally referred to "high spirits, excited spirits" of any kind.
Classical Latin used the ablative absolute, but as stated above, in Medieval Latin examples of nominative absolute or accusative absolute may be found. This was a point of difference between the ecclesiastical Latin of the clergy and the "Vulgar Latin" of the laity, which existed alongside it. The educated clergy mostly knew that traditional Latin did not use the nominative or accusative case in such constructions, but only the ablative case. These constructions are observed in the medieval era, but they are changes that developed among the uneducated commoners.
There are many other anomalies; suffice to say that I stand by my original interpretation with one caveat: "extremam aciem" could mean '[each] end of the battleline' or 'the final battleline' - in the former event, the men-at-arms would be on the wings, protecting the archers' flanks, while in the latter case they would be in reserve. The visual description of their spears 'quivering' (may have meant 'bristling' rather than 'trembling') suggests they were visible and hence on the wings rather than in reserve, Jouvencal-style.
And while Crathor is describing a French deployment, it is not a traditional French deployment (three battles etc.). This is a new French deployment and guess whom they may have learned it from. :)
QuoteAnd while Crathor is describing a French deployment, it is not a traditional French deployment (three battles etc.). This is a new French deployment and guess whom they may have learned it from. :)
But you can relate it to other French military thinking. Compare it to the Somme Plan pre Agincourt, for example. The main differences are the formation of a single line (because it is for a smaller force - you only put in a reserve if you have enough men) and the groups of men-at-arms at the ends of the archer bodies. It is, however, all on foot. This is probably because unlike Christine de Pizan's plan, the Somme Plan and even the Burgundian 1417 plan, it doesn't envisage offensive action by cavalry wings or flankers.
QuoteI stand by my original interpretation
As you wish. I'm sure we can all draw our own conclusions.
Quote from: Erpingham on February 16, 2018, 09:59:13 AM
QuoteAnd while Crathor is describing a French deployment, it is not a traditional French deployment (three battles etc.). This is a new French deployment and guess whom they may have learned it from. :)
But you can relate it to other French military thinking. Compare it to the Somme Plan pre Agincourt, for example. The main differences are the formation of a single line (because it is for a smaller force - you only put in a reserve if you have enough men) and the groups of men-at-arms at the ends of the archer bodies. It is, however, all on foot. This is probably because unlike Christine de Pizan's plan, the Somme Plan and even the Burgundian 1417 plan, it doesn't envisage offensive action by cavalry wings or flankers.
Makes sense. I was just thinking the development may have owed something to those classic fighters on foot, the Hundred Years War English.
Anyway, I am off again, so you can have some peace. ;)