The Sergens à pied (Servientes) included the mass of the troops beneath the knightly dignity. Guillaume Guiart arms them with the lance and crossbow:—

"——bon serjanz i a
A arbaletes et a lances."
Chronique Métrique, 2e. partie, vers 8567.

And the same weapons are assigned to those levied by the ordonnance of Philip of France in 1303: "Et seront armés les sergens de pie de pourpoint et de hauberjons, gamboison, de bacinez et de lances: Et des six, il y en aura deux arbalestriers[268]."

The Sergens d'armes, (Servientes Armorum,) whose establishment in the twelfth century we have already observed, (page [100],) continued to form the royal body-guard throughout the present age. In 1214 they especially distinguished themselves at the battle of Bovines, as we find recorded by the monument (before noticed) in the church of St. Catherine. The inscription of the monument, though itself not earlier than the beginning of the fifteenth century, probably relates very exactly the circumstances of their victory, and of the foundation of the church. It is as follows:—"A la priere des Sergens darmes Monsr. Saint Loys fonda ceste Eglise et y mist la premiere pierre: Et fu pour la joie de la vittoire qui fu au Pont de Bouines lan Mil. cc et xiiii. Les Sergens darmes pour le temps gardoient ledit pont et vouerent que se Dieu leur donnoit vittoire ils fonderoient une eglise en lonneur de Madame Sainte Katherine. Et ainsi fu il." A statute of Philippe le Bel in 1285 limits the number of these guards attending the court to thirty: "Item, Sergens d'armes, trente, lesquels seront à Cour sans plus." From the same statute we learn that one of their weapons at this time was the crossbow: "Ils porteront toujours leurs carquois pleins de carreaux."

No. 48.

The Archer was becoming every day of more importance in the field; and if the bow was an efficient arm in battle, it was still more so in sieges, and the defence of strongholds and mountain-passes. From various Statutes of Arms we find that a portion of the military tenants are ordered to be provided with the longbow and arrows. The Statute of Winchester, in 1285, directs that each man "a quaraunte soudeesz de terre e de plus jeqs a cent souz, eit en sa mesun espe, ark, setes e cutel.... E tuz lez autres qui aver pount, eient arcs e setes hors de forestes, e dedenz forestes arcs e piles." Compare the statute of the 36th year of Henry III., printed in the Additamenta of the History of Matthew Paris[269]. The costume of the ordinary archer, defended only by his chapel de fer, appears to be depicted in our woodcut, No. [50], from Harleian MS. 4751, fol. 8, written at the commencement of this century. That the English occasionally mixed their bowmen with the cavalry, we have the express testimony of Matthew Paris: "Viri autem sagittarii gentis Anglorum equitibus permixti." In many illuminations of this time they appear fully armed in hauberk and helm, as in the miniature here given from Royal MS. 20, D. 1, fol. 307. See also our woodcut, No. [82], a group from the Painted Chamber of the palace at Westminster, where the archer wears a hauberk and coif of chain-mail. These examples of heavy-armed bowmen are fully borne out by written testimony. We have already observed Richard Cœur-de-Lion plying his arrows under the walls of Lincoln, (p. [157]); and Otto Morena has, "Ipse Imperator optime sciens sagittare, multos de Cremensibus interfecit." (p. [58].) For further pictorial examples of archers of this century, see Royal MS. 2, B. vi. fol. 10; and 20, D. i. ff. 60, 87, 150 and 285.

By a curious volume of "Proverbs" of the thirteenth century, printed from a manuscript of that date in the Vie privée des François[270], we learn that "the best archers are in Anjou." Other proverbial celebrities of this manuscript are: Chevaliers de Champagne, Ecuyers de Bourgogne, Sergens de Hainaut, Champions d'Eu, Ribauds de Troyes.

The provision of an equipped archer to attend the king in his wars, is the frequent sergeantry for lands at this time; and the particulars attached to the service occasionally partake of that whimsicality found in other tenures of the period. It is curious also to trace the changes which these charters undergo in a small lapse of years, as they come under the inspection of the jurors appointed to enforce their engagements. Thus, the service for the manor of Faintree, in Shropshire, in 1211, is "a foot-soldier, with a bow and arrows, for the king's army in Wales." In 1274 the soldier is bound to stay with the host only "till he has shot away his arrows." In 1284 the archer has "to attend the king in his Welsh wars, with a bow, three arrows, and a 'terpolus[271].'" This terpolus, or tribulus, was probably an "archer's stake," not the mere small iron caltrop, of which the provision of one only by each archer would be of little use in impeding a charge of cavalry. The duty of the bowman who had only to stay in the field till he had shot away three arrows was sufficiently easy; but on other occasions the archer did not escape so lightly. The manor of Chetton, co. Salop, supplies in 1283 an archer for the king's host in Wales, who is to take with him a flitch of bacon, and to remain with the army till he has eaten it all up[272].