Fighting on Horseback Did Not Make a Knight Out of a Soldier
Fighting on horseback with lance, sword, and heavy armor did not necessarily make a knight out of a soldier, even during the early period. Other mounted and nonmounted soldiers coexisted in the immediate retinue of the knight (the “lance”) or as independent or semi-independent units of mounted sergeants, or routiers. The retinue of a knight changed with time and location. In 1100 [C.E.] Robert II, Count of Flanders, promised to provide 1,000 knights, each with three horses, to King Henry I of England, suggesting that the knights were accompanied by other men who may have fought with them besides taking care of the horses. The religious Order of the Knights Templar listed three horses for each member. In 1268, when Charles, Count of Anjou, moved into Italy to take the southern peninsula from the successors of the Normans, he ordered each knight to bring four horses, suitable armor and weapons, as well as a squire (armiger) and two other retainers (gardiones). Each member of the “lance” performed different functions on the battlefield. The squire, who was not necessarily a young man, acted as a light cavalryman, the others as footmen with bows or crossbows and spears. Later on, larger retinues became common.
Sergeants were also common in the armies of the middle period of medieval warfare. In 1187 the count of Hainault sent Philip Augustus 110 of his best knights together with eighty sergeants equipped like the knights. In 1194 the king of France could count on the recruitment of 240 sergeants from St-Denis, 300 from Sens, Laon, and Tournai, 500 from Beauvais, and 1,000 from Arras. Generally their wages were between three and four sous a day, well below the five to seven sous given to knights. When the loot taken at Constantinople in 1204 was divided, their share was double the share of foot sergeants but half that of knights. Mounted sergeants were not identical to squires but of mixed social origins. Some came from the lower ranks of nobility, holders of small fiefs who could boast neither prestige nor financial means. Others may have originated from the ranks of the bourgeoisie, or even the peasantry, who had training in arms, become supporters of a lord, and learned how to fight on horseback. Their role on the battlefield varied. At times they lined up with the knights; sometimes they fought as a separate unit; sometimes they were given instructions to carry out a specific mission. At the Battle of Bouvines [(1214)] they were grouped as a light cavalry to soften up the enemy for the knights. Toward the end of the battle, 3,000 were given the task of crushing any remaining resistance. However, by the second half of the thirteenth century sergeants on horseback disappeared from the French armies; the mounted men were usually divided between knights and squires. The term knight was replaced by the generic term man-at-arms.
The routiers fought from horseback but were different from knights and mounted sergeants. The term routiers, probably originating from the Latin rumpere and meaning “members of a detachment,” constituted groups of adventurers, men known for their wild behavior and not constrained by the ethical rules of knighthood….
— Barbarians, Marauders, and Infidels, pp. 175-76
