fore him in what follows
is the result of an expansion and criticism of the few details which
writers of the period have bequeathed to us.

When the documentary evidence, contemporary, or as nearly contemporary as
possible, has been tabulated, the historian of a medieval battle next
proceeds to consider what may be called the "limiting circumstances"
within which the action developed, and these have much more than a
negative value. As he proceeds to examine and to compare them, they
illuminate many a doubtful point and expand many an obscure allusion.

For instance, in the case of Crecy, we carefully consider the contours,
upon the modern map, of a terrain which no considerable building
operations or mining has disfigured. We mark the ascertainable point at
which the Somme was crossed, and calculate the minimum time in which a
host of the least size to which we can limit Edward's force could have
marched from that to the various points mentioned in the approach to the
battle-field. We ascertain the distance from the scene of action to the
forest boundary. We argue from the original royal possession and
subsequent conservation of that forest its permanent limits. We can even
establish with some accuracy the direction of the wind, knowing how the
armies marched, how the sun stood relative to the advancing force, and
their impression of the storm that broke upon them. We calculate, within
certain limits of error, the distance necessary for deployment. We argue
from the known character of the armour and weapons employed certain
details of the attack and defence. We mark what were certainly the ancient
roads, and we measure the permanent obstacles afforded by the physical
nature of the field.

I give these few points as examples only. They are multiplied
indefinitely as one's study proceeds, and in the result a fairly accurate
description of so famous, though so ill attested, an action as this of
Crecy can be reconstituted.

With all this there remains a large margin which cannot be generally set
down as certain, and which even in matters essential must be written
tentatively, with such phrases as "it would seem," or "probably" to excuse
it. But history is consoled by the reflection that all these gaps may be
filled by further research or further discovery, and that each new effort
of scholarship bridges one and then another.

As to the critical power by which each individual writer will decide
between conflicting state