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i2th century, was highly organised. Philip II of France’s military bureaucrats listed the eąuipment in each royal castle. In Normandy, for example, Pacy-sur-Eure had 26 ‘stirrup’ crossbows, 38 of the ‘two foot’ kind and five larger crossbows ad tornum, 11 mail hauberks, 23 ‘doubled’ helmets (either with a mail coif or including a close-fitting cerveliere), and 23 ordinary helmets. Little Illiers L’Eveque only had two stirrup crossbows. Arsenals in fortified towns were eąually varied. Chinon had four crossbows ad tornum, three ‘two foot’ crossbows, 13 ‘stirrup’ crossbows and 22 others ‘in the hands of Pierre de Saint-Giles’ (later recorded as governor of nearby Langeais); 2,000 ąuarrels for the crossbows ad tornum, 10,000 for the ‘two foot’ type, 33,000 for the ‘stirrup’ crossbows; 20 ‘sharp blades’ and three ‘crosses’ (meanings unclear); 60 large shields and 30 smaller shields; 400 cords for petraria stone-throwing machines, 11 large siege engines of various kinds including one petraria turquesia (an early form of espringaf); six large waggons and 26 smaller types, Stores of food and winę; plus four ‘doubled’ helmets, 26 mail coifs and ten colerias (protections for the neck

and shoulders). At the other end of the scalę was Lyons-le-Foret with only five mail hauberks, four smaller mail shirts and nine helmets.

The provision of carts was a vital part of the commissariat, one being needed for every 40 or 50 sergeants under Philip Augustus. Tents were also important. The names given to various types suggest strong Arab-Islamic influence, either through Spain or via the Crusades, and the way they were madę would support such an idea.

Horses

Another area in which France, like the rest of Western Europę, gained much from contact with the Muslim world was that of horse-breeding. A lot of nonsense surrounds the medieval knight’s war-horse or destrier; in fact horses need physical weight to puli weight, not to carry it, for which they merely need strength. The medieval European war-horse was not a cold-blooded ‘heavy horse’, but what would be considered a Cob, a rare breed that now survives most obviously in the Suffolk Cob and the Punch. Only towards the later Middle Ages and Renaissance, with the adoption of massive piąte armour, might war-horses have taken on some of the characteristics of the modern Percheron and Ardennes breeds. Destriers had been known sińce the late ioth century. Information from a few centuries later indicates that they were trained to walk but not trot, which would have been painful for an armoured rider in the medieval ‘peaked’ saddle, and only at the last moment would they increase speed, charging at a slow canter rather than a gallop.

While these destriers were then, and would now be, regarded as ‘cold blooded’, the whole ąuestion of ‘hot’ and ‘cold’ blood is still widely misunderstood. There is no genetic basis for the distinction, which reflects temperament and the regions in which various breeds originated. Cob-like horses were abundant throughout medieval Europę in areas of good grass and clover. In earlier times Roman cavalry horses had morę in common with those of the nomadic Scythian peoples of Southern Russia, these

Ivory chess knight, South    form ofbrimmedchapel-

Frertch, I2th century. Notę de-fer. (Bargcllo Mus., the framed helmet with a    Florence; authoFs

substantial rim, perhaps    photograph)

intended to show an early

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