Warren Ellis: Crécy

[jlroberson.insanejournal.com]

Not exactly Simon Schama...

From one of my favorite GNs of the past few years, Warren Ellis and Raulo Caceres' Crécy from Avatar/Apparat.

I have posted my favorite pages, but to remain under the limit they're not consecutive mostly. Afraid you'll just have to read the whole thing after this, and it's still in print so do that.



A few words about arrowheads. And the Welsh.



And because the French would not allow commoners in the army and got unprepared mercenaries instead, and because the English had an army of trained commoner longbowmen, this happened. After the battle, we tie off loose ends, and learn the origin of a certain English gesture.


The reason for the gesture was that when archers were caught, those fingers were cut off. It was proof you could still fire an arrow.
All story and artwork (c)2007 Warren Ellis and Raulo Caceres

Comments

[runespoor7.insanejournal.com]

One would suppose there's only so many ways to fight medieval battles, especially if you're going to restrict your leading posts to the nobility.

As far as I can tell, except the Normans, the French could only hold power by brutalizing those weaker than themselves

How do you define that? If winning a war supposedly makes a country stronger than their opponents, then yes, I imagine most wars/battles are won against weaker opponents, but otherwise I'm not sure how to understand your point.

[jlroberson.insanejournal.com]

I guess I'm just thinking of things like, the reason commoners weren't then in the French army was because the nobility feared allowing commoners to become skilled with arms.

But really, I'm probably off-base, because in both situations, Crecy and, even more, Agincourt, the greater military might was on the French side. And yet they still lost, both times.

[runespoor7.insanejournal.com]

But then the upper class is always afraid of the power those they exploit could wield. And in the end they were right! :D

[jlroberson.insanejournal.com]

They certainly were. Another reason I love history.