On 5 June 1461 Philip the Good granted a charter of rights to the archers and crossbowmen of Gravelines. He allowed the guild-brothers of the archery guild of Saint Sebastian and the crossbow guild of Saint George to carry their ‘bastons et armures loisibles’ throughout his lands. Philip did so, his preamble states, with the advice of the men of the Council of Flanders and the Great Council and the privilege was granted for the ‘bien, garde et deffence’ (well-being, guard and defence) of Gravelines. Twenty years earlier a slightly longer charter had been issued to the lord of Drincham allowing him to re-establish an archery guild. The guild had been granted a charter by John the Fearless, but these letters had been burnt, and so Philip was persuaded to grant new privileges to Jehan, lord of Drincham. Philip recognised the good service of Jehan of Drincham and allowed him to (re-)establish an archery guild of 150 men, wearing his own livery, dedicated to Saint Sebastian and free to bear arms across Flanders. The 1441 charter was granted for the ‘seurte, garde et deffense’ (security, guard and defence) of the lordship of Drincham and rights were granted ‘comme font les archiers des autres confraires de notre dit pais de Flandre’ (as made for the other archery guilds in our land of Flanders).

Numerous other examples could be added of charters and rights being granted to guilds for the guard and defence of their towns. In both of the above cases charters are almost the only details known about the guilds. Gravelines was a relatively new town, founded in the 1160s as an outpost of Saint-Omer, but as a coastal port it was often caught up in conflict. John the Fearless had to defend it in 1405 and it was subjected to English pillage in 1412–13. Drincham was even smaller, meaning that a guild of 150 men was likely to be a personal retinue of some sort, as we shall see below, and yet the language here is very close to earlier charters granted to far larger towns. In 1405 the archers of Lille were granted permission by John the Fearless to bear their arms across Flanders ‘for the defence’ of Lille and in 1430 those of Mechelen had been granted land and an annual income ‘for the defence of the town’.