Slitherine

Looking at various of the later Medieval lists I am puzzled at the proliferation of stakes/field defenses for Longbowmen.

For example: they appear in the Wars of the Roses lists, when it is recognised that even for Edwards continental expeditionary force, stakes were not used.
NB: Spiked pavices were used by Burgundian Handgunners in Warwicks service at 2nd St Albans (so maybe they should have this) but I'd be interested to hear where the source was for other use of stakes.
Similarly there are stakes for the Ordonnance Archers in the French Ordonnance lists, when there are no records of stakes being used by these troops.

These are the only 2 examples I can remember without my 'Storm of Arrows' companion in front of me, but I think there are a couple of others - probably in the Italian Condotta list - if memory serves me correctly & the rather 'unusual' Continental Scottish list - again I can find no justification for these longbows using field defenses/stakes (or for that matter the large % of archers in the list - but that's another issue).

The use of pots/pits for earlier English LB (on the continent) raises another interesting issue, as to whether these should have the same effect in the rules as stakes/caltraps etc or be similar to field fortification/defenses.

Thanks
Aetius

Also not having the lists with me, and it's way too long ago to remember the decision making process, I can't really comment on that.

However, the Scots Continental list is based on the surviving documents relating to the Scots contingents in France around the 1420's which show them to have beem made up of men-at-arms and archers in a ration of roughly 1:2. If anything the dubious bit is the Spearmen IIRC there is information somewhere on the De Re Militari site - http://www.deremilitari.org/ - and also in the Strickland and Hardy book "The Great Warbow".