La Brossinière 1423 AD

[Erpingham]

Name of the Battle and Date
Battle of La Brossinière 26th September 1423 (aka the Battle of la Gravelle)
Protagonists
English commanded by Sir John de la Pole
French commanded by Jean VIII de Harcourt, Count of Aumale
Numbers if known  or a reasonable estimate
English :2,000-2,500.  Modern French sources repeat a figure of 2,000 "soldiers" and 800 archers but it is unclear where this comes from and seems an unlikely force composition.  The English army was drawn from a task force besieging Mont St Michel and local garrisons.  Even allowing for the fact that not all garrison archers were mounted  and so unsuitable for a chevauchée, a majority of archers would still be expected.
French : Less clear but probably similar to English.  Jean de Wavrin gives 6,000 French but Cousinot only gives the size of two cavalry companies (140-160).  Modern French sources state Yolande of Aragon sent 900 foot (400 infantry and 500 archers) to the army, which probably comes from another French account or record material, and Aumale collected local commons and gentry along with his own force of men-at-arms and foot.  A force 2,000 – 3,000 therefore is a reasonable guess.
The title of and chapter and verse of original source with edition and citation if possible.

Chronique de la Pucelle; ou, Chronique de Cousinot, suivie de la Chronique normande de P. Cochon, relatives aux règnes de Charles 6 et de Charles 7, restituées à leurs auteurs et publiées pour la première fois intégralement à partir de l'an 1403, d'après les manuscrits; avec notices, notes et développements par Vallet de Viriville , 1859 pp214-8

(The translation is a personal one, aided by Justin Swanton and Duncan Head.  You can see our group translation process and the original French text in the Forum Sandbox.  The translation  is deliberately quite literal, to get the flavour of Cousinot's style.  His sentence structure in particular would have given my old French teacher apoplexy.)

At that time the, a knight of England, named La Poulle, of great lineage and valiant knight; left the country of Normandy with good two thousand five hundred English combatants, and went raiding in the land of Anjou and lodged in the said country before a castle called Segré. Something which came to knowledge of Sir Ambrose de Loré, who sent very diligently and quickly made known to the Count of Aumale, who was in Tours assembling people for an enterprise he had in the land of Normandy, which the said Lord de Loré knew well.

When the said Poulle was in the  said country of Anjou, the Count of Aumale was lieutenant of the King, and he had immediately received letters from the said de Loré, he came very quickly to the town of Laval, and summoned people everywhere them to present themselves to him, which they did willingly; the Lord of Fontaines went. And there came a knight named Sir Jean de la Haye, Baron Coulonces, who brought a beautiful and noble company of war; who was in disgrace with said Count of Aumale for several disobediences of him he had said or made in the country and he[Aumale] did not wish him to join his company. However de Loré went to great lengths to get him [Aumale]to be content this time to let him [Coulances] stay there, to which he agreed on condition that he did not see him and that he did not show himself before him ; indeed he [de Loré] was a very worthy knight.
And the next morning went well said Count of Aumale and company ,which was Saturday, to place himself between the country of Normandy and said English, in a place they ought to pass to return and enter the said country of Normandy, and more soldiers were chosen, more capable and knowledgeable, for riding out, and were charged by the said Count to him bring him new knowledge of the aforesaid English . They found they had left the said castle of Segré and were coming before another chateau named La Gravelle and brought with them the hostages of the said castle of Segré and others, and more than a thousand to twelve hundred oxen and cows .
   
And the said Count of Aumale lodged in a  house in a village called  Bourgneuf-la-Forêt,  and had certain news that the English had gone three leagues from the said place[Segré], or thereabouts, and they headed straight for a place called La Brossinière, a league from the said place of Bourgneuf. And then the said Count of Aumale, who was wise and valiant, sent for the bastard of Alençon, and also sent to Madame de Laval, praying her that he wished her to send her eldest son, named Andre de Laval, him being at the young age of twelve; which she did very willingly, and sent him to accompany Sir Guy de Laval, lord of Mont Jean and everyone of the lordship of Laval and as many other vassals and men she may have available elsewhere.

The said Count of Aumale similarly summoned Louis Tromargon and the Sire de Loré, to whom he said the news came to him of the said English, and requested their counsel, for he wished there to conclude what he had to do; and there were various opinions and ideas, and finally it was decided to fight the said English if they would wait and that the said Count and all the people would be arrayed  at the said place of La Brossinière on Sunday morning at sunrise, and that the said Count of Aumale  would place himself there on foot, with the above said lords, to await the said English; and that the said de Loré and Louis Tromargon be arrayed on horseback, all seven or eight score spears for work on aforesaid English, and they would be without orders : if they had need of another Captain, they were able to take one.  And it was said that they would have for the captain the said Coulonces,  with whom the said Count of Aumale was displeased.

They were thus as ordered and on time at that place of Brossinière; and the battle was ordered on foot, and the said Loré, Tromargon and Coulonces on horseback; and the battle order was so made . Within two hours after, the scouts of the English came, who pursued some French scouts and during this the aforementioned captains on horseback charged at aforementioned English scouts, and skirmished with them so much that they forced them to dismount near their battle and the English were marching in fine order, advanced against the battle of the Count of Aumale, which they could not see well for those on horse were always between the two , and were holding themselves together, retiring in good order to the said Count de Aumale .

And when the battles of that Count of Aumale and the aforesaid the Englishman Poulle were close to one another, about a bow shot, the English marched in good order and advancing they emplaced [picquoient] big stakes, which they had in large numbers and bore with them and when the said three captains and horsemen passed through between the two battles, expecting to hit the said English on the one side; they simply were not able to on occasion of the stakes: and they suddenly turned on the one side of the battle where they [the English]had no stakes and there valiantly smote them. Those on foot continued to march against each other; with the blow made by those horses, the English were broken, and were forced together against a big ditch, and were without order. And when the battle on foot joined the English, and fought hand to hand; there were great feats of arms.
 
But the aforementioned English could not bear the distress that the French inflicted on them and were discomforted in the field and there were from fourteen to 1500 killed, which were buried by dictates of the  lady [de Laval], on whose land had been the battle.  And there was present Alençon Herald who reported the number of dead and there were killed in the chase two to three hundred. And there were several prisoners, among others, the aforesaid lord of Poulle, Thomas Aubourg, and Sir Thomas Clisseton and escaped not six score, all the others were killed or taken. 

And then there were made knights Sir Andre de Laval, who was (later) Lord of Lohéac and Marshal of France, and many others. And there was a French knight killed Sir Jehan le Roux, and few others. And from there the said Count of Aumale and company went to La Gravelle.  From La Gravelle, the said Count of Aumale took his way straight to the land of Normandy and went to Avranches, and left there with the Lord of Aussebourg with a quantity of  men-at-arms to know whether  they might put the city of Avranches in the obedience of the king; and said Count passed on and went to the suburbs of Saint Lo in Normandy to lodge, and was there three or four days; and there were several good prisoners taken, then returned to the city proper by Avranches, which at that time he did not have enough to take; and he returned with his entire company  to Maine of the country without doing anything else.

Source 2
A Collection Of The Chronicles And Ancient Histories Of Great Britain, Now Called England, By John De Waurin, Lord Of Forestel. Translated Edward L. C.P. Hardy, F.S.A.,Of Lincoln's Inn, Barrister-At-Law.
From A.D. 1422 To A.D. 1431. 1891

Chapter VIII. How Lord de la Pole and Sir Thomas Bouttry assembled a great number of English in Normandy to make a raid.

In this same year there assembled in Normandy about two thousand five hundred English combatants, under the lead of Lord de la Pole and Sir Thomas Bouttry and some other war-captains ; these set out on their way, and passed in good order the country of Maine, and from thence, laying waste the country, they went as far as Angers, where they did great damage, and took in the said country a great spoil of prisoners, cattle, and other goods, with which booty they retired ; and one time among others they came to lodge at a large town named Busignies, very near La Gravelle. During the time that the aforesaid English were gathering their spoil, John count of Aumale, who knew of this inroad by information from the country people, and with him the baron of Colliloure, the lord of Fontaines in the country of Anjou, and Sir Peter-le-Porc, made a great muster of men-of-war and peasants or common people ; and they placed themselves in front of their enemies the English in a place advantageous enough for them, and there awaited them in very good order near the said place of La Gravelle. The English, who knew nothing of their enemies until they were in the fields about half a league from their lodging, when they perceived them, halted hastily, as soon as they saw them coming towards them ; and all dismounted, putting their baggage behind them, and, raising a very loud shout, they began to march vigorously at a great pace against their adversaries ; and in the same manner did the French, who were in great number and mostly on horseback, and dashed very sharply among the English, who received them very valiantly, and in the encounter there were many wounded and slain as well on one side as on the other ; however, in the end the victory remained to the French, who were fully six thousand armed men, so there was a very hard struggle. Notwithstanding which, if the English could have got their backs against any sort of hedge, the French would never have got the better of them without great loss ; but the said English, not knowing of the approach of their enemies, were so taken by surprise, that with great difficulty they found time to put themselves in order, and to choose a place for vigorous defence, and at length they were forced to yield the victory to their said enemies ; and they lost upon the spot about eight hundred men, and the French five hundred, and there was taken prisoners the said Lord de la Pole, and with him thirty gentlemen of his party.


Commentary

La Brossiniere is not a well known battle in English sources, probably because it was a disastrous defeat.  Burne, for example, doesn't even mention it.  It has been interesting to discover many more French versions, French historians of the 19th century giving quite detailed descriptions, and how these have propagated across the internet, with similar statements without acknowledgement of source e.g. most French sources think the English commander was William de la Pole, rather than his brother John.  It is worth studying because, if you only know the famous actions like Crecy and Agincourt, you get a distorted view of what French cavalry were capable of.

While the English may wish to avert their eyes, this battle is actually very typical of the Hundred Years War.  It is provoked by a chevauchée , with the French taking the classic counter measure of putting themselves across the line of retreat .  This was standard practice and de la Pole should have taken much better precautions against it.  However, he wasn't totally unprepared.  Jean de Beuill's Le Jouvencel describes raid formations preceded by scouts, with an advance guard to back them up if they hit trouble.  This seems to be what happens here, with reinforcement by both sides of their scouts.  It may be that the English thought they had hit a small interception force and could brush past, rather than the cavalry screen of a major force positioned ahead.  Some of the modern French sources think the French cavalry cleverly drew the English onto the main French army but, given the latter was bang astride the road the English were taking back to Normandy, this seems a bit unnecessary.

Whatever the preliminaries, the English are shocked to find, very close, a French army.  It seems unlikely they can have come as close as a bow shot, as the English do a great deal before the battle starts.  They bring the whole force forward and dismount in front of their baggage and the archers emplace stakes.  Wavrin makes clear that they didn't have enough time to find an ideal position and they were vulnerable to the enemy getting behind them (for another battle where a hedge is used to form up against, see Coutantin 1356 in this section of the Forum).

What then happens is confusing.  Both Coustinot and Wavrin say the foot battles advanced on each other.  Why did the English do this, if they had stakes emplaced?  Perhaps it was because they hadn't covered their whole front, as the French cavalry manage to attack a flank without stakes. 

The cavalry action is clearly important, but Cousinot and Wavrin have different perspectives, with the former having on few hundred mounted men-at-arms whereas the latter has the majority of his 6,000 French on horseback.  The impression given by Cousinot that the French cavalry start on one flank, cross between the two armies and hit the other flank.  If the armies are within bowshot, this would be difficult with limited room to manoeuvre and being shot at.  The French cavalry cave in the English flank but don't immediately roll up the English as at this point the infantry lines come together.  Wavrin is less specific about the cavalry, who seem to just charge in across the front.  Cousinot is preferable here as more reflective of known French (and Burgundian) tactics of the time.  Bodies of cavalry were placed on one or both flanks, either specifically to deal with the archers placed there or just to attack when the opportunity arose.

There seems to have been a stiff fight between the main bodies.  Wavrin is of the view that numbers told but the envelopment by the cavalry must have been significant.

Cousinot gives us a comprehensive breakdown of the English casualties in the battle.  Wavrin gives a much lower figure.  Comparing Monstrelet's account, which is the basis for Wavrin, we can see he has revised downwards from Monstrelet's 1200.   French casualties are harder to reconcile.  Cousinot employs that annoying medieval formula of "one knight and a few lesser people", whereas Wavrin places the French loses much closer to the English at 500.  Monstrelet's figure of 120 seems much more plausible, as it fits with French perceptions their casualties were very light. 

[Duncan Head]

An interesting battle, Anthony, many thanks.

[Jim Webster]

Yes, it's perhaps one worth trying on the table

Jim

[Andreas Johansson]

Yes, quite interesting (and another battle where archery doesn't seem to make a big difference).

[Duncan Head]

Yes, quite interesting (and another battle where archery doesn't seem to make a big difference).

Though we can't really claim to know how many archers there were, on either side.

[Erpingham]

Yes, quite interesting (and another battle where archery doesn't seem to make a big difference).

Though we can't really claim to know how many archers there were, on either side.

No, the only certainty is that the cavalry didn't want to tangle with men behind stakes, who may have been archers, but charged the men without stakes on the other flanks, who again may have been archers.  The proposed 500 French archers may have been absolutely critical but they aren't mentioned, so probably not.