h side--Burghersh. If anything, he
would exaggerate, of course; but he was a soldier (and Froissart was at
the other psychological pole!). He actually wrote from the spot, and he
thought that everything mounted in front of him came to about 8000, to
which he added 3000 men upon foot. Now, Burghersh may have been, and
probably was, concerned to mention no more than what he regarded as
fighting units worth mentioning: infantry more or less trained and
properly accoutred men-at-arms. For these latter, and their number of
8000, we have plenty of independent testimony, and especially Baker's.
Baker gives the same number. As regards the trained infantry, we know that
John had 2000 men armed with the arbalest (a mechanical cross-bow worked
with a ratchet), and we know that he also had, besides these cross-bowmen,
a number of trained mercenaries armed with javelins.

We may set inferior and exterior limits to the numbers somewhat as
follows: the French host included 8000 fully-armed mounted men; that is,
not quite double the Gascon and English units of the same rank and
equipment. It had somewhat less than the English contingent of
missile-armed soldiers, and these armed with a weapon inferior to their
opponents. Count these two factors at 10,000 against the Anglo-Gascon 7000
or 8000. There you have an inferior limit which was certainly exceeded,
for John's command included a number of other rougher mounted levies and
other less trained or untrained infantry. Above that minimum we may add
anything we like up to 10,000 for the untrained, and we get a superior
limit for the total of 20,000 men all told. Averaging the probabilities
from the various accounts, we are fairly safe in setting this addition at
5000, and perhaps a little over. So that the whole force which John could
have brought into the field, and which, had it been properly led and
organised, he might have used to full effect in that field, was about
double the numbers which the Black Prince could oppose to him. The
Anglo-Gascons, standing on the defensive, had from 7000 to 8000 men, and
the force marching against them on the offensive was presumably in the
neighbourhood of 15,000 to 16,000; while an analysis of the armament gives
you, in the capital factors of it, an inferior number of French missile
weapons to the missile weapons of the English prince, but double the
number of fully-armed knights.

As a fact, the organisation of the two sides offered a more striking