Review of a new database: The soldier in later medieval England
Were any of your medieval ancestors soldiers? You can find
out the names of soldiers during 1369-1453 thanks to researchers
at the Universities of Reading and Southampton who have received
a major grant to make available records of soldiers fighting in
those years. By then armies were paid by the Crown, rather than
being raised under the old feudal system. Expedition commanders
received indentures and they, or captains they subcontracted,
had to provide soldiers at agreed rates of pay. Officers from
the Exchequer carried out musters to ensure the agreed number of
soldiers were present. So far over 80,000 service records based
on indentures and muster rolls have been included in a database
which went online at the end of 2007 at website <http://www.medievalsoldier.org>.
A search facility enables you to look for the names of
individual soldiers, captains and commanders or to find
information in a particular year or area of activity. Overall,
it is possible to get an idea of the deployment of troops, for
example as standing forces in Ireland, Scotland, Wales, and
France or on land and naval expeditions.
In the 14th and 15th Centuries some
soldiers were still known by their place of origin. Several
soldiers were almost certainly recruited from this area as
archers and men-at-arms: William Tikhill, man-at-arms, who went
on the expedition to Scotland in 1384 under the captaincy of the
Duke of Northumberland and the overall command of John of Gaunt,
and Robert de Tykhill, archer, who also went to Scotland, but in
1400. Other names suggesting local recruitment include Robert
Malteby, Henry de Edlyngton, John Misterton, Richard Rossington,
and Adam Blithe.
Among the archers on the expedition to Scotland in 1400 were
the following whose surnames (give or take slight variations in
spelling) will be familiar to some members of our Society: Peter
de Bradeley, John Browne, John Carter, Alan Cook, Stigbert
Eliot, John Grene, William Nicholson, John Page, John Thorp,
Richard Tyas, Robert West and John Wilkynson. John Cornysh and
Thomas Payne were archers on board ship in 1404 responsible for
‘keeping the sea’ and William Sully was an archer in the
standing force in Ireland during 1395-7. Some of the soldiers’
surnames are less likely to have survived to modern times. These
include John Brymkehulle, Walter Ethirdakes, William Futty,
Paton Gudeneghbour, Clays Mastemaker, William Qwhit and Robert
Wynddislayr.
The database does not contain information on where the troops
were recruited, their age or whether they survived their
military service, all of which would have been of great
interest. However, it is likely that most men required to serve
in Scotland would have come from the northern half of the
country, similarly the soldiers who went to France probably
lived in the south. One other feature of the website is that it
invites people to submit their own research about individual
soldiers, to have the chance of being published as ‘soldier of
the month’. This database is well worth browsing whether to look
for possible family connections or to get a sense of our history
in the later Middle Ages.
