"Dunc vindrent soldéirs à lui:
Et uns è uns, è dui è dui,
E quatre è quatre, è cinc è sis,
E set è wit, è nof è dis:
E li Dus toz les reteneit:
Mult lor donout è prameteit.
Alquanz soldées demandoent,
Livreisuns è duns covetoent."—Line 11544.
Besides the troops enumerated above, the King's Body-guard became a corps of some celebrity at the close of the twelfth century. Philip Augustus is said to have instituted this corps in the Holy Land, to protect his person from the machinations of the Old Man of the Mountain; and in imitation of his ally, Richard of England embodied a similar force. The Servientes armorum, Sergens d'armes, or Sergens à maces, were armed cap-à-pie, and besides their distinctive weapon, the mace, carried a bow and arrows[161], and of course a sword. In the fourteenth century they had a lance[162]. In the beginning of the fifteenth century, as we learn from the curious incised stones[163] formerly placed in the church of their brotherhood, St. Catherine-du-val, at Paris, and now preserved in the Church of St. Denis, the sergens d'armes were still clad in complete armour, their weapons being a mace and sword. The number of these guards at their first institution is not clear, but in the time of Louis VI. of France they were reduced to a hundred. It must be borne in mind that the name of serviens or sergent, as applied to military persons, had a much wider signification than this of a body-guard. It often included all beneath the dignity of a knight.
The Archers in the army of William the Conqueror fulfilled those duties of preliminary fight which at a later period fell to the lot of the musquetiers, and in our own day have passed to the cannonier. The Norman bowmen are the first of the invading troops to set foot on English soil:—
"Li archiers sunt primiers iessuz:
El terrain sunt primiers venuz.
Dunc a chescun son arc tendu,
Couire et archaiz el lez pendu.
Tuit furent rez è tuit tondu,
De cors dras furent tuit vestu."—Rom. de Rou, l. 11626.
These shaven and shorn, short-coated archers, with their quivers hung at their side, are exactly reproduced in the Bayeux tapestry (Plates xiii., xv., and xvi.):—
"La gent à pié fu bien armée:
Chescun porta arc et espée.
Sor lor testes orent chapels,
A lor piez liez lor panels.
Alquanz unt bones coiriés,
K'il unt à lor ventre liés.
Plusors orent vestu gambais,
Couires orent ceinz et archais.
Cil a pié aloient avant
Serréement, lors ars portant."—Line 12805.