Introducción a los sistemas de control.

In many instances, we do not know the exact fate of the prisoners who were acquired by the sovereigns. There is no doubt that in some cases authorities made profits out of the ransoms of their captives. Contrary to their men who speculated over the financial value of prisoners of war, princes, either French or English, were not primarily interested in making monetary profits. The case of Waleran de Luxembourg, count of Saint-Pol, illustrates this point. Luxembourg was captured by an esquire from Guelders (Netherlands) near Ardres, in

August 1374.19 According to Froissart, he was purchased by John, lord of Gommegnies for

£1,667 (10,000 francs) and subsequently sold to Edward III for double that, £3,334 (20,000 francs).20If we believe the chronicler, this investment proved to be extremely lucrative for the English king, as we know that he sealed a contract with Luxembourg in July 1376 which set the amount of his ransom at a huge £16,667 (100,000 francs).21 Edward’s initial purpose in acquiring Luxembourg was not however to make a profit, but rather to use him as a possible trade-off for the release of the Gascon knight Jean de Grailly, captal de Buch, who had fallen into the hands of Charles V in 1372.22 The French monarch refused the deal and Grailly died in captivity in September 1376 which is the reason why Edward subsequently ransomed

Luxembourg.23

Those motives behind princely acquisitions which are brought to light by the sources can be put broadly in two categories: they were either political or strategic. At the highest level, prisoners of ‘public standing’ were used by princes to secure advantageous treaties of peace with their enemy. Michael Jones, Françoise-Bériac Lainé & Chris Given-Wilson and

19

Anonimalle Chronicle, pp. 76-7; Froissart,Chroniques, viii. 187. 20

Froissart,Chroniques, viii. 187-9. 21_{TNA, E 30/1686 (1376, July 17).} 22_{Froissart,Chroniques, viii. 189, 239-41.} 23

R. Delachenal,Histoire de Charles V, 5 vol., Paris, 1909-31, iv. 478. The payment of this great amount of money ran over several years. Various pieces of accountancy and other sources relating to this case have survived in the National Archives in London. See, for instance, TNA, E 1278/1 (1379, August 15); E 1513 (1379, August 17): E 101/619/23; E 318/23, 24. Luxembourg’s marriage with Maud Holland, in 1380, seems to have put an end to the payment of his ransom.

Christopher Allmand have all demonstrated this through the cases of Charles de Blois (and his son Jean de Bretagne, count of Penthièvre), Jean le Bon, king of France, and Charles de France, duke of Orléans respectively.24 Without going into details, the capture of Charles de Blois led to the treaty of Westminster (1356) and that of Jean le Bon to the treaty of Calais- Brétigny (1359-60). The negotiations for a peace treaty between France and England in 1439 in which Charles d’Orléans played an active part, however, failed. Henry V also used Orléans and the other prisoners of Agincourt to put pressure on Charles VI to restore the terms of the Great Peace. After Troyes, he tried to persuade them to accept his inheritance of France, which both the duke of Bourbon and the count of Richemont agreed to do.25 Also, there is certainly much to say about the political consequences of the English capture of two kings of Scotland, David II and James I.26 For the sake of brevity and clarity, I will however not investigate these well-known French and Scottish cases in more detail. It is nevertheless interesting to note here that political uses of prisoners of war at this level of the hierarchy were essentially English. This was, at least partially, a consequence of English military successes in battles where significant French lords had been captured.27

In the same political category, princes acquired prisoners in the hope of rallying them to their cause. Freedom in return for allegiance or the promise not to rearm against him was the deal put into the hands of numerous Scottish and French captives who were acquired by Edward III.28This way to cope with prisoners was however not exclusive to the English king. Charles V used the same method to obtain the allegiance of some rebellious lords who were captured by his men. Acting on Charles V’s behalf, the duke of Anjou acquired four significant Gascon lords (Guillaume Aramon de Madaillan, lord of Rauzan, Bérart d’Albret, lord of Langoiran, Raymond de Montaut, lord of Mussidan, and Galhart de Durfort, lord of Duras) who had been captured at the battle of Eymet in 1377 in order to yceulx tourner et faire venir a l'obeyssance de Monseigneur et de nous, as is mentioned in the contract of

24 _{Bériac-Lainé & Given-Wilson, ‘Edward III’s prisoners’, pp. 818-9; M. Jones, ‘The Ransom of Jean de} Bretagne, count of Penthièvre’, H.R., 45 (1972), 7-26; C.T. Allmand, ‘The Anglo-French negotiations, 1439’,

H.R., 40 (1967), 1-33.

25 _{A. Leguai, ‘Le problème des rançons au XVe siècle: la captivité de Jean Ier, duc de Bourbon’, Cahier}

d’Histoire, 6 (1961), 41-58 ; Curry,Agincourt, p. 247. 26

M. A. Penman,David II, 1329-71, Phantassie, 2004, esp. chap. 5-7 ; M. Brown,James I, Phantassie, 1994, pp. 24-32.

27_{The French also took some important English captives. We will discuss their fate later on.}

28_{Edward however met the refusal of Bertrand Du Guesclin who was subsequently ransomed. Bériac-Lainé &} Given-Wilson, ‘Edward III’s prisoners’, pp. 812, 29.

purchase of three of them.29The case of another Gascon lord, Jean de Grailly, captal de Buch, is also worth a mention. We have already seen that Grailly had been captured by the French in 1372, passed to Charles V and perished in prison in Paris in 1376. Why was he the victim of this cruel fate? There was a precedent to this case. After his capture at Cocherel in 1364, Grailly agreed to become the liege man of the French monarch in order to recover his liberty.30 Back in Gascony, he was reprimanded by the Black Prince and, receptive to the latter’s argument, he sent two esquires to Paris to renounce his oath of fealty to Charles V. After his second capture at Soubise in August 1372, Charles V put the same deal in Grailly’s hands: his liberty in return for his allegiance. Grailly’s strong rebuttal eventually led to his death.31

In the strategic category, princes got hold of prisoners in order to obtain the evacuation of a place which was occupied by the enemy. This well-documented practice was instrumental in effecting French recovery during the 1370s and the 1450s. A few examples will illustrate this point. In 1371, Yvon de Tremagon received £126 (760 francs) for his part of the ransom of Guillaume du Chemin and Pierrot de Malvoisin, who had been purchased by the count of Alençon (as lieutenant of Charles V in Lower Normandy). The release of the two prisoners was part of the treaty for the evacuation of the fortress of Thury.32 The liberation of the English prisoners included in the treaty for the surrender of the castle of Esse cost £232 (1,400 francs) to Charles V (in total, the marshal of Sancerre paid £282 – 1,700 francs – to the English occupants).33 More significantly, the English garrison of the castle of La Roche-sur- Yonne, which surrendered in August 1373, requested the release of the prestigious English captain John Devereux and several others.34

29

BN, PO 2624, Sancerre, no. 28; as cited in Delachenal,Histoire de Charles V, v. 54, n. 6. (1377, October 8). The four men wisely agreed to give their oath to the French king, but Duras and Rauzan deserted from the French cause very shortly afterwards. Froissart,Chroniques, ix. 20-1.

30_{Bériac-Lainé & Given-Wilson,Les prisonniers, p. 163.} 31

Many other examples could be quoted here. The duke of Lorraine took similar measures to obtain peace in his duchy. In 1424, 119 men in garrison in Commercy, who fell into the hands of the duke, were all released on the provision that they swore not to cause any further harm to the duke and his subjects. Luce, Jeanne d’Arc, p. 314, no. 329-33 (1424, November 8). See also above, pp. 54-6.

32

For the treaty for the evacuation of Thury, see BN, Ms Fr 26011, no. 1282 (1371, April 31). For the quittance of payment for the purchase of the two prisoners, see BN, PO, 2876, Trémagon, 3 (1371, May 25)

33 _{Mandements et actes divers de Charles V, 1364-1380, recueillis dans les Collections de la Bibliothèque}

Nationale, L. Delisle (ed.), Paris, 1874, pp. 434-5, no. 846. 34

Cuvelier,Chronique, ii. 311 ; F. Lehoux, Jean de France, duc de Berri. Sa vie, son action politique, 1340- 1416, 4 vol., Paris, 1966-8, i. 313-4. His ransom was estimated at 10,000 francs. At the very least, it was the sum that several French lords were bound to pay to the masters of Devereux, Du Guesclin, Jean Macé and Alain du Parc.Letters, orders and musters, pp. 214-5 (no. 577), 223 (no. 597), 226 (no. 608), 262-3 (no. 709), 265 (no. 715).

The ultimate expulsion of the English from the French territories in the early 1450s gave rise to similar transactions. In March 1450, Charles VII ordered Charles Desmarets, captain of Dieppe, to be paid £264 (1,200 crowns) for having set free, at the king’s request, his (unknown) English captive, in some proceedings relative to the surrender of the town and castle of Arques.35 In January 1451, Jacques de Clermont, esquire, bailli of Caen, received £373 (2,250 l.t.) in compensation for the ransom of his prisoner, John Merbury, whose release contributed to the reduction of the town and castle of Gisors.36 At the same time, Jean de Dunois, bastard of Orléans, was granted £116 (700 l.t.) for the ransom of his prisoner Osborn Mondefort, formerly captain of Fresnoy-le-Vicomte, who was liberated, by order of Charles VII, in return for the evacuation of the said place of Fresnoy-le-Vicomte.37 This motive for the acquisition of prisoners was not strictly French. Some Anglo-Burgundian examples during the time of the English occupation could be quoted here.38All in all, however, it appears that this use of prisoners was more characteristic of the French princes than the English. If we cannot draw any firm conclusions, one may however link this phenomenon with the fact that the war was essentially fought on French territory. The French were constantly preoccupied with the recovery of their towns, fortresses and lands, and the liberation of prisoners was an easy, if costly, way to achieve this aim.39

Finally, princes also acquired prisoners in order to exchange them with one particular subject who had been captured by the enemy. This last motive may well have been more personal than strategic, in some instances, but this remains hard to identify. A couple of examples of these acquisitions follow. Edward III purchased the count of Saint-Pol from Gommegnies in order to release the Captal de Buch. To take another example, towards the end of the war, Charles VII reserved for himself the lord of Cliqueton (Clyfton?), straight

35_{BL, Add Ch 151 (1450 n.st., March 9).}

36_{BN, Coll. Clairambault, 152, no. 80 (1451, January 10).} 37_{BL, Add Ch 152 (1451, January n.st.).}

38

For instance, on 4 February 1422, Jean de Luxembourg, lord of Beaurevoir received £332.2 (2,000 francs royaux) from the duke that the latter owed him for the surrender of Louis de Nesle, brother of the lord of Offremont, prisoner of Luxembourg, captured at Mons-en-Vimeu. The duke purchased Nesles because he could obtain the capitulation and obedience of the town of St-Riquier thanks to Nesles and other prisoners. ADN, B 1925, fol. 123 vo. The cession of Poton de Xaintrailles, another prisoner of Mons-en-Vimeu, gave rise to a contract between the duke and his captor, Galois de Renty, according to which the latter would receive a first instalment of 1,200 golden crowns at the surrender of the prisoner. ADN, B 1925, fol. 123 ro (1421, December 28). For two other examples, see C.A.J. Armstrong, ‘Sir John Falstof and the law of arms’, in C.T. Allmand (ed.),War, Literature and Politics in the Late Middle Ages, Liverpool, 1976, 46-56 and BN, ms fr. 26063/3236, 3256 (1437, July 16).

39_{Interestingly, we read in an order in 1421 that the dauphin and Charles de Bourbon considered the seizure of} towns through composition and purchase as la plus aisée voye et plus prouffitable que nulle autres.N.H.L., x. col. 2008-11, no. 821 (1421, July 13).

after his capture at the hospital of Notre-Dame at Pontoise in the early 1440s,40as he wanted

to exchange him with Raoul de Gaucourt who had again been captured by the English.41

While other minor motives could probably be added to the two broad categories, I believe that this is a comprehensive overview of the principal reasons for the acquisitions of prisoners of war.42