The reputation of foot soldiers

In the preamble to his infantry ordinance of March 1551, Henri II declared the importance of having ‘experienced and battle-hardened men of our nation.’ This came after a long period of trial and error in infantry recruitment. The predominance of infantry on the battlefield has long been a theme of early modern military history and it has obvious implications for the survival of chivalric attitudes and the inception of a professional army. One modern historian, while accepting that the birth of a national infantry was undeniable, still emphasised difficulties that were caused by the reluctance of the kings to arm the masses. This preoccupation was clear in the earlier work of Alfred Spont and Gaston Zeller. Where did these assumptions come from? Despite its increasing importance in warfare since the 14th century, infantry did remain a problem and the assumption was deep-rooted among foreigners and French alike that France, unable to produce its own infantry, relied excessively on foreign mercenaries. Such observers, if they were military men, tended to look with contempt on French infantry levies and, if they were writers, speculated on the reasons for failure. The publication of manuals on the command and organisation of piétons is testimony enough to this, including the Familière instruction of 1536 and Fourquevaux's Instruction of 1548. It was in the later 15th century, under Italian influence, that the term ‘infanterie’ (la fanteria) began to appear, though it took a century to push out the traditional terms, ‘gens de pied’ or ‘piétons.’ ‘Lacquais’, a term common in the early 15th century, had dropped out of use but aventurier for an ordinary foot soldier was still very common and ‘soldat’ was also appearing.

The late medieval French army was not an exclusively cavalry force. Lessons had been learned from the catastrophic defeats of Crécy, Poitiers and Agincourt so that, when French men-at-arms took the field after 1346 and until 1415 they often dismounted to fight. The accompanying formations of archers and crossbow-men also travelled on horseback and dismounted for battle. Terminology can therefore be misleading. There was certainly an assumption that the effective core of the King's host was his force of men-at-arms.