Most of my posts are on kings and things, but occasionally the records provide us with a glimpse of men lower down the social scale. Let’s have a look at an ordinary soldier, a crossbowman of Gascony named Ernald Basculus de la Ripe de Oléron (yes, really). He usually appears as ‘Basculus the Crossbowman’.
As his extravagant name suggests, Basculus was from the Isle of Oléron, off the coast of Gascony. As such he did military service for the Plantagenet king-dukes, wherever they chose to send him. Bascules first appears in 1289, at a place called Petra Nigra (now Peyranère) a height of about 1500 metres on the border between Aragon and Gascony: it still marks the line between France and Spain today. His job was to help guard a temporary lodge or fortress built on this snowy pass, where Edward I came to meet a group of high-status hostages, returned by the King of Aragon. Among other tasks, Basculus supervised the mending of the road for the king’s journey.
Our crossbowman next crops up in 1294, serving against the Welsh in Gwynedd, where he received wages on 19 September. In 1298 he was in Scotland, where he fought at the battle of Falkirk mounted on a black rouncy, a cheaper form of warhorse to the expensive beasts ridden by the nobles. His horse was lost in the fighting, for which he was paid decent compensation of £10.
Basculus next turns up in 1301, when his luck ran out. On 28 July 1301 he was captured by the Scots at Peebles, while the main English army under Edward I marched towards Glasgow. Perhaps he was taken in a skirmish.
Although he was not a knight, Basculus must have been considered worth ransoming. He was back in service by August 1303, when he bought a horse for the king at Dunblane. On 12 March 1304 he was entrusted with a much more delicate task. The entry reads:
"12 March: 5.0d to Basculus the crossbowman, for money paid by him to five harpers meeting the king on the roads above Sabulum between Dovayn and Sanford, 6 March, of the king’s gift."
Basculus was awarded 5 shillings, by the king's gift, as recompense for money paid by him to five harpers who met King Edward on the road somewhere near 'Sabulum' in Scotland.
This was part of Edward's propaganda drive in 1304, when he paid Scottish musicians to walk beside his horse as he rode through Scotland, singing songs “as they did in the time of King Alexander”. The idea was to promote him as the natural successor to Alexander III, who had fallen off a cliff back in 1286. That whole John Balliol project was quietly shelved.
As the entry suggests, Basculus was now a trusted servant, and part of the king‘s household. In the payroll for this year he is described as Basculus Balistarius, sergeant to the king, in pay for the whole of the leap year of 366 days: 264 days with a valued horse at a rate of 12d per day, and 102 days without one at 8d per day. Good money, when one considers the average wage was 2d for an infantryman.
After that I lose sight of Basculus. By now he had been in service for at least fifteen years, with a lot of travel and hard campaigning. Perhaps he was killed, or died of dysentery, or was pensioned off. He may well appear in a later entry or two, but I have yet to spot him.
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