Checking the small print
In November 1297 Lord Robert de Scales, a Knight Templar in the English army in Flanders, was paid his wages for service to date:
To lord Robert de Scales, knight, for his wages from the sixth day of October when he first raised his standard before Damme and for his one knight made a knight on the same day and six of his squires, until the eleventh day of November, each of whom are credited for 37 days; with the aforesaid Robert at 4 shillings per day, his knight at 2 shillings per day, and for all the squires 12 pence per day by his own hand.
Robert had 'raised his standard' before the walls of Damme, a port town that controlled direct access to the Channel, on 6 October. This contradicts the chronicle account of the Minorite of Flanders, a Flemish annalist who loathed the English. The Minorite claims the English marched to attack Damme on 10 October.
So what of it? Edward I had signed a truce with his enemy, Philip le Bel, on 9 October. By pushing forward the allied assault on Damme by four days, the Minorite made Edward and the English look like oath-breakers. In reality the attack began on the 6, three days before the truce was signed.
The moral of this lesson hath been: always check the small print, forsooth.
*Thanks to Rich Price for checking my translation.
To lord Robert de Scales, knight, for his wages from the sixth day of October when he first raised his standard before Damme and for his one knight made a knight on the same day and six of his squires, until the eleventh day of November, each of whom are credited for 37 days; with the aforesaid Robert at 4 shillings per day, his knight at 2 shillings per day, and for all the squires 12 pence per day by his own hand.
Robert had 'raised his standard' before the walls of Damme, a port town that controlled direct access to the Channel, on 6 October. This contradicts the chronicle account of the Minorite of Flanders, a Flemish annalist who loathed the English. The Minorite claims the English marched to attack Damme on 10 October.
So what of it? Edward I had signed a truce with his enemy, Philip le Bel, on 9 October. By pushing forward the allied assault on Damme by four days, the Minorite made Edward and the English look like oath-breakers. In reality the attack began on the 6, three days before the truce was signed.
The moral of this lesson hath been: always check the small print, forsooth.
*Thanks to Rich Price for checking my translation.
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