Henry de Grandpre defends himself against a sword blow from William Longespee, Earl of Salisbury, at the Battle of Bouvines.
© Giorgio AlbertiniThe Templars’ Rule of the Order of the Knights stressed the need to keep good order… as might be expected from a monastic order of obedience, poverty, and humility! Each of the Knight Brothers was assigned to their squadron which was led by a commander and a banner bearer. With ten knights acting as a bodyguard, the rest were to form up ‘in front and behind, to the left and to the right, and wherever they think they can torment their enemies’ so long as they were in a position to defend the banner if needed. Secular knights must have had similar structures of anywhere between 10 and 50 men.
The king of France leads his knights against a body of dismounted English men-at-arms at Bouvines.
When the charge was launched, the aim was to break through the enemy. Unlike the situation envisaged by many wargames rules, the horses did not stop dead on contact, but would either break and scatter their foe, push through their opponent and then turn to charge again, or bounce off, retiring in some state of disorder. Only very rarely, such as at Courtrai in 1302, did cavalry become mired in a protracted combat, having failed to break or break through the enemy.
No matter the