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Mould for thc ‘Seal of Raymond dc Mondragon I2th cen tury. Here a knight from the Rhóne \allcy is shown in rcverse, wearing a mail haubcrk with mail chausses on his lcgs. His

helmet is of a type próba bly developed from the nth century form seen in thc Atlantic Bibie. (Bib. Nat., Cab. des Medailles, Paris)

the Royal Domain steadily inereased as the crown accepted money instead of military service. The oldest surviving Royal Accounts for 1202-3 show that a town paid three livres (pounds) in lieu of a fully eąuipped warrior, while a mercenary knight himself earned seven sous per day. Only along the borders of his Domain did the king insist on maintaining effective militias. Fortunately the Ile de France, the heart of the Royal Domain, was one of the richest areas in France and could pay for the king’s wars as he extended his authority. Royal mercenaries became, in fact, a readily available and ruthless army which included many skilled specialists. Most seem to have come from outside the kingdom, from Imperial Brabant, Hainault, the western parts of Germany and from Navarre in the south. Others came from the County of Flanders which, though within the French kingdom, was culturally close to Brabant and Hainault (these three counties are now western-central Belgium). Such forces enabled the king to mount longer sieges than would be possible with the 40 days’ service of a feudal hosting.

Increasing specialisation was a feature of French

armies in the early i3th century, paid mercenaries now including armoured knights, mounted ser-geants, mounted archers (who would actually have fought on foot) and various other infantry, some enlisted under long contracts. Unlike other mercenaries, the paid knights normally bought their own eąuipment and war-horses. A wide social gulf also developed between knights who held land and those mercenary knights who did not. Nevertheless a successful mercenary leader could rise to prominence under the king’s protection, some becoming castel-lans of royal castles or baillis of royal provinces. Baillis played a particularly important role under King Philip II Augustus (1180-1223), some having been poor knights while others were merchants’ sons and other townsfolk.

Mercenary sergeants, both cavalry and infantry, were naturally cheaper than mercenary knights, though mounted sergeants with three or four sous per day still got four times as much as the marescallus equorum horse-master in charge of the sąuires. Infantry sergeants received nine deniers per day, slightly morę than a constable in charge of a militia unit. The mounted sergeants also provided King Philip Augustus with his mace-armed cavalry bodyguard at the battle ofBouvines. In 1231 a cavalry sergeant was expected to have three horses (a destrier war-horse, a palfrey for riding and a baggage animal), as did a knight. By the late I3th and early i4th centuries sergeants, both cavalry and infantry, formed the bulk of French royal armies, while even the troops of leading barons included many such professionals. Though scorned by the aristocratic elite and with their most effective weapons often condemned by both knights and Church, the usefulness of such infantry was recognised by all. There was even some Professional respect between mercenary knights and infantry but not, of course, any social contact.

Among the earliest mercenary infantry were the Brabanęons, most of whom came from the County of Brabant in modern Belgium. They earned a consider-able reputation from the mid-i2th to early i3th centuries in siege operations, for their speed of marching and their ferocity against civilians. Most fought with long spears or pikes and formed a defensive rather than offensive force in open battle. Some had helmets and mail hauberks but the majority wore ‘leather armour’—probably ąuilted

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