"The Francs-Archers were infantry, raised from the 1440's onward (the Bretons actually raised theirs from the 1420's) to provide the French with additional archers they were manily armed with longbows together with a small part armed with crossbows. Orginally 8000 strong they were expanded to 16000 strong in 1466. At the same time the equipment was made much more diverse. Alongside the original archers & crossbowmen men were now accepted into service armed with pike or voulge. A small number of handgunners is also recorded in the musters though handguns were not mentioned in the equipment regulations.
Following the defeat in the battle of Guinegate 1479 Louis XI rearmed most of the Francs-Archers with pike and halberd and only kept a small 'elite' armed with bow. The sources get confusing as the Francs-archers began to be reorganised, suppressed and re-raised in a very confusing manner. Hence later day writers will provide somewhat diffrent details about their fate. Sufficent to say the Francs-Archers were on a downward slope from the 1480's ownard regardless of when one think that their existence ended."
http://theminiaturespage.com/boards/msg.mv?id=194047
Now if this chap is correct then that raises a number of issues, particularly about the Later French Ordonnance list.
First of all, Chris has said that the “francs archers” listed in the Early Medieval French and Medieval French lists should actually be listed as “French archers”, so that seems to be just a typo; also, the entry for the “francs archers” in the Later Medieval French list (1400-1455) would seem to be correct. In all the French Medieval lists the maximum number of BG’s is just 2.
But in both the Early French Ordonnance (1455-65) and Later French Ordonnance (1480-1500) lists we are given the option of choosing between 3 and 9 BG’s of “francs archers” (i.e. longbow).
Now it may be the case that the Early French Ordonnance list is correct, although 9 BG’s of longbows does seem rather a lot (given that their numbers were not increased until 1466 and they fought in just one major battle at Guinegate in 1479 and fared rather badly) but the Later French Ordonnance list does seem to be incorrect given that the “francs archers” were largely re-armed with pikes and halberds after the debacle at Guinegate. The Later French Ordonnance list does include an option to pick up to 6 BG’s of “poor” pikes, which may represent this newly organised “francs archers” contingent, but it doesn’t seem right that there is still the option to choose up to 9 longbow units as well as the pikemen.
I would be interested if somebody would comment about this - maybe I am misunderstanding something. Thanks.
