Clerics are still found participating the dangers and glories of the battle-field; not alone as councillors or leaders, but sturdily wielding the deadly mace, and clad in hauberk and helm, like the lay vassals and men-at-arms around them. We have already seen the Bishop of Durham leading a division of the English at the battle of Falkirk. At the great battle of Bovines, in 1214, the French army was commanded by Guerin, bishop-elect of Senlis; and there too, armed to the teeth, and plying the cleric weapon, the mace, contended that bishop of Beauvais, whom we have, on a former occasion, seen the prisoner of Richard Cœur-de-Lion. At the siege of Milan, in 1238, "the bishop-elect of Valentia, who knew more of temporal than spiritual arms, hastened with the knights whom the counts of Toulouse and Provence had sent to assist the emperor[314]." In 1239 the Emperor Frederic, writing to the king of England, complains of the Pope becoming a general and his monks men-at-arms, to wrest from him his crown of empire. "He hath openly declared himself the leader and chief of the war against us and the empire, making the cause of the Milanese and other faithless traitors his own, and openly turning their business to suit his own interests. Moreover, he appointed as his lieutenants over the Milanese, or rather the papal, army, the before-mentioned Gregory de Monte Longo and brother Leo, a minister of the Minorite order, who not only girded on the sword and clad themselves in armour, presenting the false appearance of soldiers; but also, continuing their office of preaching, absolved from their sins the Milanese and others, when they insulted our person or those of our followers[315]." Father John of Gatesden boldly throws aside alb and chasuble to don the knightly hauberk and chausses in good earnest. "Anno Domini 1245, King Henry passed Christmas at London, and observed the solemnities of that festival in the company of many of his nobles. At that place, on Christmas-day, he conferred the honour of knighthood on John de Gatesden, a clerk, who had enjoyed several rich benefices; but who, as was proper, now resigned them all[316]." In the contest for the empire in 1248, the army raised against Conrad by the legate, "was commanded by the archbishops of Mayence, Metz, Lorraine and Strasburg, and consisted of innumerable bands from their provinces and from Friesland, Gothland, Russia, Dacia, and from the provinces of Germany and those adjoining who had _received the cross_[317]," &c. For it was part of the papal tactics to invest the soldiers who fought in the quarrels of the Holy See with the sacred dignity of Crusaders. In the revolt of the Scots under Bruce in 1306, among the prisoners captured by the English were the Abbot of Scone and the Bishops of St. Andrew's and Glasgow, all taken in complete armour[318].
Fishing Report
Ancient Armour and Weapons in Europe — Part 127
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