:
and bicause I tolde you that one of these battailes, ought to bee made
of fower hundred men heavie armed, I wil staie my self upon this nomber.
Thei ought then to be brought into lxxx. rankes, and five to a ranke:
afterward goyng fast, or softly, to knit them together, and to lose
them: the whiche how it is dooen, maie bee shewed better with deedes,
then with wordes. Which nedeth not gretly to be taught, for that every
manne, whom is practised in servise of warre, knoweth how this order
procedeth, whiche is good for no other, then to use the souldiours to
keepe the raie: but let us come to putte together one of these
battailes, I saie, that there is given them three facions principally,
the firste, and the moste profitablest is, to make al massive, and to
give it the facion of two squares, the second is, to make it square with
the front horned, the thirde is, to make it with a voide space in the
middest: the maner to put men together in the first facion, maie be of
twoo sortes, tho together in the first facion, maie be of twoo sortes,
thone is to double the rankes, that is, to make the seconde ranke enter
into the first, the iiii. into the third, the sixt into the fift, and so
foorth, so that where there was lxxx. rankes, five to a ranke, thei maie
become xl. rankes, x. to a ranke. Afterward cause theim to double ones
more in thesame maner, settyng the one ranke into an other, and so there
shall remain twentie rankes, twentie men to a ranke: this maketh twoo
squares aboute, for as moche as albeit that there bee as many men the
one waie, as in the other, notwithstandyng to wardes the hedde, thei
joine together, that the one side toucheth the other: but by the other
waie, thei be distant the one from the other, at least a yarde and a
haulfe, after soche sorte, that the square is moche longer, from the
backe to the fronte, then from the one side to thother: and bicause we
have at this presente, to speake often of the partes afore, of behinde,
and of the sides of these battailes, and of all the armie together,
knowe you, that when I saie either hedde or fronte, I meane the parte
afore, when I shall saie backe, the part behind, when I shall saie
flankes, the partes on the sides. The fiftie ordinarie veliti of the
battaile, muste not mingle with the other rankes, but so sone as the
battaile is facioned, thei shalbe set a long by the flankes therof. The
other waie to set together the battaile is this, and bicause it is
better