- Here is an article from some research I have done on French Archers
for an Ithra course. One should look towards Scotland and the Auld
Alliance also. Scottish Archers were part of the French Kings'
Strickland and Hardy's The Great War Bow is a good source of
THE FRENCH ARCHER
You fight fire with fire. If the English Archers were winning
battles against the French then there was a simple solution. You
develop your own archer troops.
In 1445, Charles VII started the Compagnies D'Ordonnance, a small
professional army. The army of 12,000 was divided into 20 companies
with each company consisting of 100 lance fournies.
chaque lance fournie ne se composera plus désormais que d'un homme
d'armes, un coutillier, un page et trois chevaux; de deux archers,
qui n'auront ensemble qu'un page ou valet de guerre, et de trois
each provided lance will not be composed any more from now on then
that of a man-at-arms, a coutillier, a page and three horses; of two
archers, who will have together only one page or servant of war, and
three horses; (web translation)
It is significant to note that the archers in the Company were
equipped with horses. Like the English had found, this allowed the
archers to be just as mobile as the Men-At-Arms. While the numbers
of archers to Men-at-arms was not as high as with the English Army,
it was much higher than normal for the rest of French Army.
Gilles le Bouvier described the archers being equipped with
brigandines, leg armour, and sallets of which many were ornamented
Charles VII also tried to encourage the formation of archer and
crossbowmen fraternities. In 1445, he allowed one group of archers
at Euregenies to form and choose a `king' and `constable'. This
allowed them to compete against other confraternities in nearby
towns. 1446, he gave special statues and privileges to the
Crossbowmen of Tournai that included the right to carry their
crossbows, wear the King's Livery badge, and even protection by
means of a pardon if a crossbowman accidently killed someone during
It was still not enough to develop the number of archers required so
Charles VII formed a militia that included archers. Early
legislation that attemped to make archery practise mandatory had
failed. Instead, Charles implemented a scheme where all the parishes
in the Kingdom were to supply archers or crossbowmen based on their
size and each would be equipped with a sallet, dagger, sword, bow,
sheaf, jack, and a short coat of mail. The archers were to be
selected by the regional royal officials from people of standing.
In return for his duties, the archer would free of certain taxation
and duties and receive pay of 4 francs a month. This archer militia
was called the Franc-Archers playing on Franc meaning free.