Warrior Ancient and Medieval Rules

[joncleaves]

In a message dated 2/22/2004 19:20:15 Central Standard Time,
mark@... writes:
> This seems to apply to Stakes also, given my reading of the TFF clinic
> document. So, no mounted can charge any troops across stakes....No mounted
can
> even move across stakes that just happen to be sitting around, either.

I'll just point out that this would seem to fly in the face of the most well
known Medieval battle we know of in which the use of stakes is documented:
Agincourt.
No worries. Frank's supposition is incorrect.


[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

[Mark Stone]

On 2/22 Frank Gilson wrote:

> This seems to apply to Stakes also, given my reading of the TFF clinic
> document. So, no mounted can charge any troops across stakes....No mounted can
> even move across stakes that just happen to be sitting around, either.

I'll just point out that this would seem to fly in the face of the most well
known Medieval battle we know of in which the use of stakes is documented:
Agincourt.

It's well known that the French attacked the center of the English line with
_dismounted_ knights (recall the scene in Kenneth Brannagh's rendition of Henry
V). What's often overlooked is that hostilities initiated with a French cavalry
charge on the English flank. This is documented many places, but I'll just quote
a source that a number of us no doubt have readily at hand -- The Osprey
Men-at-Arms Series "Armies of Agincourt":

"From the French right flank the heavy cavalry, under Sir William de Saveuses,
lumbered forward.... The French knights hunched themselves low in the saddle and
bent their heads forward to deflect the hail of arrows falling upon them. The
French made their point of impact the English left flank, but the archers here,
with their ranks close against the Agincourt wood, gave no ground and made it
impossible for the French cavalry to ride down the line. Quickly the whole
attack was reduced to a frontal assault, but those knights who survived the
showers of arrows could not force their way through the wall of stakes. Many
horses, thrust forward by the momentum of those behind them or maddened by the
numerous arrows that pierced their flesh, were forced onto the stakes and
impaled, their riders being quickly despatched by the archers."

I see no way to read this and similar descriptions of the battle as anything
other than a French cavalry charge that contacted English longbowmen behind
stakes and was repulsed in hand to hand combat.

I also see nothing to indicate that the charge reach of the French knights was
shortened by the stakes. This is even clearer in the case of Poitier, where
we're talking about hedge rows as an obtacle rather than stakes. At Poitier, the
French charge -- mounted -- came very, very close to success.


-Mark Stone