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What was a destrier? The word probably refers to the tradition that a squire led a charger with his right hand, though it is also possible that it related to the horse leading with the right leg as it charged. This does little to provide an answer. Relatively few horses were classed as destriers, as Andrew Ayton wisely pointed out: ‘There is a danger in assuming that all late medieval warhorses were destriers … which is like assuming every saloon car to be a Rolls-Royce.’ The lists of horses on the Falkirk campaign of 1298 include just thirty-eight destriers, out of a total of some 1,370. Destriers were elite mounts but, for the historian, they are not as easy to identify as Rolls- Royces are. It is far from clear what differentiated them from other horses. Size is the most likely explanation, but the evidence for their stature and weight is not consistent. The traditional assumption was that destriers were very large. In 1900 J. E. Morris described them as ‘slow but powerful shire-horses’; more recently, R. H. C. Davis suggested, without citing any evidence, that they were seventeen or eighteen hands tall. That is equivalent to a modern Clydesdale. Andrew Ayton's carefully qualified view was that ‘the most expensive horses were, indeed, of formidable stature’. As recently as 2008, it was argued in a general history of cavalry that ‘the destrier was twice as large as a riding horse’. Recent work, using both pictorial and archaeological evidence, has suggested that this is implausible. As a result, the popular vision of knights trundling about on heavy draught horses, some so tall that their riders had to be mounted by means of cranes, has been replaced by a scholarly view that they rode small, nimble but sturdy horses, resembling Welsh cobs. One argument is that pictorial evidence, such as the Bayeux Tapestry, the illustration of Sir Geoffrey Luttrell, mounted and armoured, or Ucello's fresco in Florence depicting Sir John Hawkwood, implies a height of no more than fifteen hands for a warhorse. Equally, while archaeological evidence is limited, there is nothing to support the hypothesis of the tall destrier. Material, primarily from London, such as horseshoes and bits, suggests that ‘the great majority of medieval horses did not reach the sort of fifteen-hands height and proportionate bulk that is today expected of an ordinary riding horse’.

In a typically ingenious and innovative manner, Bernard Bachrach demonstrated the importance of quantitative data in the study of medieval castles with an analysis of Fulk Nerra’s castle at Langeais. He was able to do this, in the absence of any building records, by using the surviving remains as the basis of his calculations and arguments.1 The problems presented by the three great trebuchets built by Edward I at the Tower of London in 1278 are very different, for there are no remains, but there are detailed financial accounts for their construction, and for that of the springalds that replaced them early in Edward II’s reign. The trebuchet accounts in particular give a remarkable insight into the capabilities of medieval engineers, for these engines were probably among the largest of the sort ever built. Their construction was a major and very costly project, an important element in the refortification of the Tower, which took place in the early part of Edward I’s reign, but one which has been strangely neglected.

This article reassesses some of the evidence for Edward I’s armies, and suggests that the extent to which these armies anticipated the organisation and tactics used in the Hundred Years War should not be exaggerated. Cavalry numbers are hard to calculate, but historians may have underestimated the quantity of support staff. While horses were imported at the time of the Welsh wars, there is little evidence for this in Edward’s later years. Infantry forces were large and well organised in theory, but desertion was a major problem. Commanders, especially castle constables, had considerable experience. For some, pay and rewards were inadequate. Engineers were highly skilled, with notable achievements in castle warfare and bridge building. The crown’s chief concern in providing supplies was to ensure that there was sufficient for the royal household and for castle garrisons. Battles were few, and evidence for innovative tactics is thin. Bannockburn provided a test for the type of army developed under Edward I,...

The nature of the surviving evidence subjects biographers of medieval figures to certain difficulties. As a case in point, my biography of Edward I was more a history of the reign than a study of the king alone, though documents provided clues about his character. Although a number of biographical studies have led to significant advances in understanding the history of medieval England during the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, the lives of kings and queens, as well as nobles and bishops, dominate the field simply because information about the lives of people in less grandiose positions is severely limited. There is a market for popular books about medieval figures, but these biographies do little more than tell a good story.