The very fact that a town was under threat of siege usually implied that its lord was not able or ready to attack the enemy army in open battle. Nonetheless, it was by no means automatic that the defenders of a town would immediately retreat behind their principal walls. Large towns, especially if reinforced by neighbors and by a substantial detachment from, or the full strength of, a shadowing force, could field reasonably large bodies of soldiers. Especially in the late Middle Ages, they might be well armed and equipped, including with mail armor and helmets. They could sometimes be lured out into an open fight (or even immediate surrender) by the sight of their farms and properties outside the walls being put to the torch, which was a usual opening move by besieging armies when they arrived in front of a town. Sometimes a small detachment was sent in advance of the main force to drive a herd of plundered cattle, perhaps along with local peasants captured in the fields, past a town’s gate, as bait to draw a sally force into an ambush.
Wise defenders, however, usually declined such gambits. Forces composed to a large extent of townsmen would, of course, be infantry-heavy, well suited for the defense of a fixed position but at a great disadvantage in more open combat. Still, that did not mean that they refused to fight, only that they declined to do so except on their own terms. Even a simple ditch and palisade, if manned resolutely, could go a long way toward compensating for the skill differential between a burgher and a man-at-arms or hardened foot sergeant. If positioned 30 or so yards out from the walls, a line of footmen behind such a palisade could also be very effectively supported by the fire of engines and archers or crossbowmen stationed on the town’s ramparts and towers. Even a suburb that did not have any sort of defenses but the buildings themselves and the enclosures of the gardens (and perhaps chains or barricades in the streets) could offer militiamen very favorable fighting conditions.15 Should it nonetheless prove impossible to hold such a position indefinitely, the defenders might still be able to inflict significant casualties on their enemies, fighting with those advantages, and then retreat back to their principal defenses. If, on the other hand, the defense of the suburbs was successful, it would prevent the destruction of valuable properties, keep the townsfolk’s gardens and their produce available to sustain the defense, and keep the enemy’s engines at a distance from the walls. And, not insignificantly, the defenders would usually have in mind that the approaching army might not be committed to besieging them after all and that a show of resolution might divert it to seek easier prey. A particularly vivid description of a situation like this can be found in the St. Omer Chronicle, clearly written by an eyewitness:
Around this time, the earl of Northampton and the earl of Warwick assembled [from the forces in Calais] a good thousand men-at-arms, and
Took with them the Welsh and the Irish. They came before St. Omer in their divisions; they scattered through the fields, seizing booty and killing people. They overran the countryside without array and without order, like men who thought they had already conquered everything. Then throughout the town the alarm was called, and the trumpets and horns were sounded. And once milord Jacques de Bourbon [the captain of the garrison] was armed, he exited from the gate with all his [300] men[-at-arms]. Then he took stock of the situation, and saw that he did not have enough men to attack his enemies, who were approaching to charge him. So they dismounted and sent their horses back into the town, and awaited their enemies there like valiant men. And behind them, the townsmen had sent out of the gate a large division of crossbowmen. And inside the gate, in the market square, they had a very large division of footmen. And the lords had ordered that as soon as the enemy should have engaged with them, the crossbowmen should begin to shoot, and the large division should issue out of the port to join the melee. But the Englishmen, who well understood what the townsmen were up to, did not dare engage. Then the [French] knights and footmen split up into bands and separately went through the suburbs and the gardens, and there they found the Englishmen who were scattered everywhere [to pillage], and didn’t know how to rejoin their formations. Full many of them were killed thus, and such a tremendous number of them captured that it is a wonder to speak of. And the Englishmen lost a large number of great men there, which caused them much sorrow. Immediately they departed and returned to Calais. And they lost a good five hundred of their number that day, either killed or captured.16
Hence when the soldiers of an invading army approached a town, they would often find a challenge of this sort waiting for them.
Given that this was in fact the town that the army’s leaders had decided to besiege, the challenge would almost always be taken up. Determined fighters might be able to defend a palisade quite effectively, but it was far from guaranteed that all the townsmen would be able to withstand an attack with resolution, and if even only a few of them panicked, that would mean the collapse of the defense. That, in turn, would create at least a chance of avoiding a real siege altogether, if the defeated force could be pressed hard enough, followed tightly enough, that the attackers could enter the gates with them. Also, if the burghers were taking the risk of trying to defend their suburbs, that likely meant that the buildings had not been emptied out and that driving the townsmen back would create an opportunity for some profitable looting. Even if things did not go as well as that, seizing the outworks was a necessary precondition for assaults on the town’s principal defenses, and the sooner those were begun, the better.
Palisades were often used to defend camps and sometimes used to prepare fighting positions in open battle, but the soldier was most likely to find himself fighting at them in the situation we are dealing with here. Unfortunately, even the most detailed sources, though they often mention fighting at the barriers, rarely give much information about either the palisades themselves or about how they affected the fighting. Simone Martini’s fourteenth-century fresco of the siege of Monte Massi shows something similar to a waist-high picket fence, but the 2,200 stakes purchased by Agen in 1349 for construction of a palisade were about 12 to 15 feet long, implying more of a stockade-like defense.17 Outworks could also take the form of wooden walls, made of planks or tree trunks, sometimes revetted with earth to resist bombardment. This was the norm in the fifteenth century.18 No further analysis can give a better picture of the soldier’s experience of a combat “at the barriers” than another passage from the St. Omer Chronicle:
They climbed the Mont de Cassel, but found. . . the gates and towers were defended by banners of archers and crossbowmen, and good men who knew how to defend themselves. The men of Courtrai were there guarding the place, along with plenty of men-at-arms who went around everywhere encouraging the others to do well. The aforesaid [French] noblemen dismounted and, having their shields carried in front of them, advanced towards the town. In addition, the crossbowmen formed up, and shot as thick as rain. Then the assault began, so extremely vigorous that it is a wonder to speak of: for the great lords and the noble men-at-arms advanced to the breastworks and with their bare hands tore down the planks of the palisade, striking the [defenders] they could reach with axes and swords, eager to capture the town. But those on the other side defended themselves very boldly, striking the knights down into the ditches with pikes and large stones. When those who had not yet come to the front saw this, they came forward with great boldness to take the places of the fallen. The assault was bitterly contested, both with missiles and hand-to-hand fighting. Many valiant knights could be seen doing their duty. But the defenders shot so thickly with quarrels, arrows, and bolts from springalds [giant crossbows] that they wounded very many with their shot. A very good knight named Sir Gilles de Mailly was killed in this assault. The attack lasted [from early morning] until noon, when the high lords concluded that they were wasting their time, and had the trumpet sounded for the retreat.19
In this example the attacking French were attempting a coup de main rather than initiating a siege and did not return to the attack later. Had they intended a determined effort to capture Cassel, they would have tried again, probably several times, if necessary. If none of those efforts succeeded, they could have begun preparing engines to demolish the palisades from a distance, but if they had driven the Flemings back from the barriers, they would doubtless have pressed them as tightly as they could, trying to enter the gate along with them or, failing that, to mount a hasty assault on the walls.
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