Skirmishing over a Mill?

[Howard Fielding]

Does anyone recall a story about how besieged and besiegers were fighting over a mill that lay just outside the entrance to the castle? Both sides depended on it to supply food so neither could destroy it.

If true it sounds like a ready-made scenario.

It also sounds like the plot of "For a Few Dollars" or "A Few Dollars More" or similar! 

[Erpingham]

I don't recall anything directly fitting the scenario described but there is (I think) in Froissart the tale of a small force of English men-at-arms and Welsh archers defending a mill against a French raid.

Add : Found it.  It's actually in Gray's Scalacronica and took place in April 1360.

And eight Welsh Archers of Lord Spencer's retinue had a pretty encounter in Beauce when the said king's army was billeted in the villages. These archers, having charge of the millers in a corn mill outside the lines near Bonneval, were espied by the French garrisons in the neighbourhood, who came to attack them with 26 lances and 12 French Breton archers. Both sides dismounted and engaged smartly ; the French were defeated, three of their men-at-arms being killed and nine made prisoners, every man on both sides being wounded nearly to death. Some of the said English had surrendered on parole to the said enemy during the mellay, but were rescued by the said Welshmen, who behaved very gallantly there.

Gray isn't entirely clear about the size of the English force.  Presumably, the English who had surrendered were part of the force and, given they had surrendered on parole, they were men-at-arms.  Whether the millers were French forced labour or English varlets of some sort isn't clear either. 

[Jon Freitag]

Anthony, your quick search capabilities are impressive!

[Erpingham]

Anthony, your quick search capabilities are impressive!

Thank you, Jon.  Sadly, it is a function of underemployment    But it does keep the brain active and the googling skills I have used for work sharp   In this case, the key pointer came from an article on Chaucer's Yeoman.  Chaucer actually fought on this campaign, and had been captured.  The King paid his ransom in March, a month or so before this skirmish.

[Howard Fielding]

Thanks!

"26 Lances" seems like a large force, unless only a single person is meant and not the "unit"?

[Erpingham]

Thanks!

"26 Lances" seems like a large force, unless only a single person is meant and not the "unit"?

The English tended to use the word "lance" to mean "man-at-arms", although each of these would probably have a page or petit varlet.  Gray seems to have finished the Scalacronica in 1363, which would be before the widespread use of the three-man lance in France too.