Imperial Angevin List

Author: Andrew Fisher

IV/3 bis ‘Imperial’ Angevin 1149-1217

Cold, Aggression 3 if in Britain or Ireland, 0 elsewhere. WW, Rv, H(S), H(G), Wd, O, V, RGo, Rd, BUA

Nominal list scale: 1 element equals 125 men.

CinC irr Kn (s) 1

Sub-General irr Kn (s) 1-2

Replace sub-general with mercenary sub-general irr Kn (o), Irr LH (i) or irr mtd Bw (o) 0-1

Ally General irr Kn (s) 0-1

Knights, sergeants and rich burghers irr Kn (s) or irr Kn (o) 9-32

Crossbowmen irr Bw (o) or irr LH (i) or irr mtd Bw (o) 0-4

Sergeants, militia and mercenaries all irr Bd (i) or all irr Sp (i) 12-48

Bowmen and a few slingers irr Ps (o) 0-8

Welsh infantry irr Ax (o) 0-16

Replace Welsh infantry with Welsh equites or archerii irr Cv (o) Up to ¼

Only if outside Ireland, Wales and Scotland

French allies – List Feudal French (Bk 4)

Only in England or Wales

Scots allies – List Scots Common (Bk 4)

Only in Britain or Ireland

Galwegian Warriors irr Wb (f) 0-8

Only in Britain or Ireland before 1169

Dublin Viking allies – List Norse, Viking and Leidang (Bk 3)

Only in Ireland

Irish infantry, up to ½ irr Ps (s), remainder irr Ps (i) 0-4

Irish allies – List Norse Irish (Bk 3) Up to 2 contingents

Only Richard I between 1194 and 1199

Saracens reg Cv (o) or irr LH (s) or reg Bw (o) 0-1

Only Richard I between 1194 and 1196, outside Britain and Ireland

Navarrese allies – List Feudal Spanish (Book 3)

Only after 1200

Galleys irr Bt (s) {crossbowmen as Bw (o), militia or mercenaries} 0-4

Boats irr Bts (o) {mercenaries} 0-4

Special Rules

1. Dublin Viking allies must include longships

2. Welsh equites can always dismount as Irr Ax (o)

3. No more than one nationality of foreign allies may be used

Historical Notes

This list replaces parts of current Book 4 lists 3 and 23. The consensus among historians for at least the last twenty years has been that Henry II’s Assize of Arms had little or nothing to do with raising armies, and it makes no mention of the bow as a weapon, so it seems strange that the current Feudal English list dates the massed introduction of bow from 1181. In fact there is little or no evidence of massed tactical archery in English or Angevin armies between the battle of the Standard and the reign of Edward I.

Aggression is driven by the fact that the Angevins were mostly on the defensive against the low-aggression Feudal French, but more often on the offensive against Welsh, Scots and Irish.

The list represents the large armies that were gathered (but rarely fought) rather than the smaller forces which often did the actual fighting. The list can represent both sides in any of the frequent Angevin family squabbles.

Numbers of mounted are based on the invasions of Ireland, especially John’s in 1210, for which there is excellent evidence. It is unlikely that this was the largest force of knights ever assembled, so the figure is probably too low. Evidence for the Welsh and Galwegians is based on Pipe Rolls and writs, so is fairly secure – the Welsh may be a little on the low side. Boussard argued on very insubstantial evidence that Henry II might have had 6,000 mercenaries in his pay. Modern scholars regard this figure as a good deal too high, and I have used it as the number for all mercenary, communal and feudal foot. Even so it is still higher than I can easily justify, but it is difficult to base any other number on either primary or secondary sources.

The knights in an Angevin army could be almost all English, or almost all French, dependant on where it was fighting, so I see no option to restrict the mix of Kn(s)/ Kn(o). Why the French are automatically (s) I don’t really understand, but the Angevins were certainly not inferior to them in a straight fight. Illustrations of the period (and the limited evidence of records, most of which are later) suggests infantry armed with heavier cutting weapons and swords more often than spears, but the Sp(i) option is retained for traditionalists. There is evidence that militia contingents were winnowed of their weaker and less well-equipped men when they reached the army, so an option for Horde didn’t seem to be justified.

I rated the Welsh as Ax (o) rather than the traditional Bw because there is no evidence of their use for massed archery. They were generally used for advance-guard work, especially in poor terrain, and the Ax (o) classification seems suitable for that. Scholarly opinion is currently that the archerius was a mounted archer who probably shot from the saddle, but I have taken the wimp’s option of rating them as Cv (o) rather than LH (f) both because direct evidence is weak and because LH would tend to make them a highly valued troop type, but there is little evidence that they were. In practice, they needn’t all have been Welsh, but evidence for non-Welsh archerii doesn’t amount to a whole element’s-worth even at half scale.