Hello, and welcome back to This Week in History! After a two-week break from the column, I’m hopeful that you are clamoring for more timely historical topics to read through like I am. This week, I’ve been perplexed by one historical event that made me reconsider my criteria for determining what goes into this column.
Usually, I peruse the lists of events occurring in a given week, and if an event seems to have some world-changing outcome, deep moral lesson or other interesting quirk, that’s what I run with. Yet, when I stumbled upon “The Combat of the Thirty,” I knew it would need to be a standalone topic.
It all begins in one of the most interesting, albeit complicated years in history: 1351. For scholars and armchair historians alike, it’s not necessarily a year that catches your attention—at least it didn’t catch mine. For instance, if you see the year 1940, it’s easy to think of World War II. It practically defined the year. Yet, to my mind, 1351 is undefinable.
Maybe that vagueness is because it falls into the long and blurry period of the Hundred Years War, a time when conventional history either turns dark with countless atrocities and conflicts obscuring any hope for peace or messy, as individual loyalties disintegrate.
Regardless, This Week in History, on March 26, “The Combat of the Thirty,” truly defines the year in which it occurred, and maybe the medieval period in general.
Brittany, a region in northwestern France, is a beautiful place in the modern day, with cliffed beaches, dotted woodlands and historic castles. It could be described the same way in 1351 as well. Nestled in the countryside are two major castles: one in Ploërmel, in the southeastern area of the region, and another in Josselin. These two castles were to be split by the divided loyalties of the Hundred Years War.
Knights and lords had to choose between the English and French crowns—both of which claimed the region of Brittany. This all started due to the death of John III of Brittany; after which his domain was claimed by Edward III of England and Philip VI (then Jean II) of France. This sparked the decades-long war of Breton Succession which wreaked havoc on the countryside and was ongoing when the trial began.
Jean de Beaumanoir, a knight and local ruler in Brittany in service of King Philip VI, advanced a challenge to Robert Bemborough (note: his name is largely inconsistent, being spelled many ways including Bembro and Brembro), a captain under Jean de Montfort who supported Edward III’s claim to Brittany. The terms of the challenge were a request for a pas de’armes between his soldiers, loyalty to France and the English in Ploërmel.
Now, it becomes difficult to comprehend what exactly issuing a challenge during this time entailed. With a chivalric sense of honor and mutual respect pervading the engagement, I would imagine that Bemborough would have received Beaumanoirs request for combat in a personal manner, as if it was a challenge to his worth which demanded a resolution. It would be as if I wrote a scathing critique of your favorite food—wouldn’t you feel inclined to respond? Probably—hopefully not in hand-to-hand combat though.
This whole interaction emphasizes one of the most fascinating developments in medieval Europe: chivalry. Of course, in movies, games, books and all sorts of interpretations of the concept, images of knights acting with courtesy, courage and honor come to mind. At surface level, that isn’t inaccurate. In fact, there were certainly those who were guided by noble intentions—I recommend checking out “Eight Knights Who Changed History” by Livia Gershon on History.com if you want to know about some of the most iconic of those figures. However, this request between the Breton parties was certainly beyond the scope of heroism or pure noble deeds; it assumed a deeper understanding of honor between both sides.
There were to be 30 knights, squires and soldiers on both sides. These men were of high status, yet not entirely equal in their position on the hierarchy. Under Beaumanoir there were nine knights and 21 squires; conversely, Bemborough had six knights and 23 squires (in addition to mercenaries). Indeed, their numbers were even, but the relative influence of the soldiery was not.
The combat to follow was a form of hastilude, or sword-play, in which both sides attempted to outlast the other—death was a very real risk.
According to close-to-contemporary sources such as Jean le Bel and Jean Froissart, the picture of the battle becomes a little clearer. It was set in a field with fair weather. At opposing ends of the clearing, the English and French parties set up their tents and adorned their armor. They were to fight in heavy gear in long lines. I recommend looking into video clips of the Battle of the Nations, an ongoing international medieval fighting tournament featuring videos showcasing how combat may have looked.
To put it lightly, the combat was far from quick. For hours the men fought, the stench of blood, both wet and dry would have been vomit-inducing, alongside the sweat and bodily odors which no doubt would have been a combat on the nostrils. Many expect medieval sword fighting to be quick, “hack and slack” combat. This is not the case; it was a battle of attrition.
Imagine it this way: you’re in full metal plate gear, or perhaps gambeson and chainmail—that weight, in addition to your sword, shield, spear and helmet would easily immobilize you, not to mention the lack of water sources and the heat of the sun. This was akin to modern-day leg day, except if you fell over as Bamberough did, your head would be split by a French ax.
After hours of combat, the English had only lost nine of its men and the French three. To further reiterate the slog that this was, the relatively slim losses were enough to force the party from Ploërmel to surrender. The French had won.
Later accounts, ballads, songs, novels, stories, movies and games all take elements of the “Combat of the Thirty” and depict it as a “triumph of chivalry.” Men engaged in civil combat in which the fighting could be temporarily paused for a break—isn’t that strange? While there was certainly animosity and rivalry between both groups, they had a shared bond of knighthood, for to be killed as one of the thirty was an honor, and to ever meet one of the thirty was a truly profound moment, as experienced by Froissart himself.
And with that, we wrap up This Week in History! While I still can’t grasp individuals who practiced such chivalric ways, I recommend reading the article “A most marvelous deed of arms which should never be forgotten…”:The Combat of the Thirty” by Daniele Cybulskie on Medievalists.net for a closer glimpse at the concept. There is also a brilliant video covering the Combat of the Thirty in detail by SandRhoman History on YouTube, which proved invaluable in writing this. See you next week!