11 - The Garrison Establishment in Lancastrian Normandy in 1436 according to Surviving Lists in Bibliothèque Nationale de France manuscrit français 25773

Summary

The greatest contrast between English strategy in France in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, and between Edward III and Henry V as military leaders, is in the military occupation of territory through a garrison system. Whilst Edward III and his commanders had not completely eschewed this method of subduing and controlling the French, there was no real precedent for the systematic conquest of Normandy by Henry V and for the establishment of a network of garrisons in order to hold on to what had been conquered. Even after the treaty of Troyes the ‘English kingdom of France’ relied much on the maintenance of fortified and manned centres, both for internal security and for expansion into areas which remained loyal to the Dauphin. As the latter's fortunes improved, the English increasingly fell back on their original conquests and power base in Normandy, until they were finally expelled from the area in 1450.

Thanks to the survival of financial records on both sides of the Channel, we can know much about the English military establishment in this fifteenthcentury phase of the war, especially in Normandy. Muster rolls within these records, for instance, generated 128,526 nominal records for ‘The Soldier in Later Medieval England’ project, a figure which represented around half of the total names collected. Although the archives of the chambre des comptes have suffered many vicissitudes over the years, enough survives to enable a reconstruction of the garrison establishment as well as of field campaigns, and to facilitate research into many aspects of military activity and interactions. The key word, however, is reconstruction. Whilst relevant materials survive for every year, there are gaps in the evidence. In the light of the inconsistency of data survival, therefore, it is very helpful that a number of documents provide a fuller picture, such as the surviving accounts of Pierre Surreau, receiver-general of Normandy, for the years 1423–25, 1425–26 and 1428–29. Unfortunately the account of the receiver-general of Normandy for 1448–49 survives only in part and is missing its garrison section.

Five documents are known which provide a complete listing of all the garrisons at a particular point in time.