Peasants at War in France: Guillaume l'Aloue in 1359

The campaigns and warfare of the Hundred Years War between England and France often had disastrous consequences for simple peasants and townsmen.  Many accounts show that countless villages were looted and burnt by passing armies, and many people would find themselves captured and held for ransom.  The following account shows some French peasants fighting back, and defeating the English.  The peasants were led by Guillaume l'Aloue.  There are three accounts of this local fighting.  The first comes from Jean de Venette, a Carmelite friar who apparently was born near the area where these events took place.  The second comes from another French chronicler named Jean de Noyal, while the last account is that of Sir Thomas Gray, an English knight who took part in many campaigns.

From the Chronicle of Jean de Venette

The English grieved at this peace and tried to harass the land still more grievously. They did not succeed in all their enterprises and sometimes, by God's will, had the worst of it in single engagements. I will recount on this page such an instance for the pleasure it gives me, as I heard it at first hand, for it took place near the village where I was born. This affair was valiantly conducted by the peasants, by Jacques Bonhomme.  In a little village called Longueil, near Compiegne, in the diocese of Beauvais, not far from Verberie but on the other side of the Oise, there is a farmhouse, strong and well built, which belongs to the monastery of Saint-Corneille at Compiegne. The peasants dwelling round it realized that it would be dangerous for them if perchance the enemy were to occupy this stronghold. Wherefore, they sought the permission of the regent and the ab­bot of the monastery and established themselves in it, after they had stocked it suitably with arms and food, and appointed one of their number their captain. All this they did with the permission of the duke, promising him to defend it stoutly, even at the risk of their lives. With the same permission, many peasants from the neighboring villages took refuge there. They made Guillaume l'Aloue, a tall handsome man, their captain. He had with him his servant, another peasant who took the place of a squire, an incredibly strong and powerful man, exceptionally tall and broad-shouldered and well proportioned, and, in addition, full of energy and daring. This giant, as humble and modest as he was strong, was named Grandferre. There came to the stronghold about two hundred men, all laborers who supported their humble existence by the work of their hands. The English in Creil castle, on hearing that it was men of this sort who were preparing to resist men of their quality, despised them and regarded them as nothing worth. They made ready to attack them, saying, "Let us drive out these peasants and make this well-stocked and well-built fortress our own."  Two hundred of them came up before Longueil and, finding the peasants off their guard and the doors open, boldly pushed into the courtyard. The peasants, who were on the second story of the manor house by the windows, caught sight of all these fully armed men and were at first stunned by the unexpectedness of the attack. Their captain, however, descended with a few of his men and began to lay about him on all sides. His courage availed him little, for he was surrounded by the English and was mortally wounded. Perceiving this, those of his companions who were still in the upper room, Grandferre among them, said, "Let us go down and sell ourselves dearly. Otherwise they will slay us without mercy." They descended cautiously in small groups and issued from different doors. They struck at the English as if they were engaged in their wonted task of flailing wheat in a barn. They lifted their arms so high and brought them down upon the English with such force that no blow failed to inflict a mortal wound. Grandferre groaned deeply for the grief he felt on seeing his master, the captain, lying close to death. He attacked the English, over whom as well as over his companions he towered head and shoulders, brandishing his ax and redoubling heavy, mortal blows upon them. He struck to such purpose that he emptied the court in front of him. One of his blows, aimed straight, never failed to cleave a man's helmet and to leave him prostrate, his brain pouring out of his skull. Thus he broke the head of one, the arms of another and dashed a third to the ground. He bore himself so surpassingly well that in a scant hour he had, in this first encounter, killed with his own hands eighteen, in ad­dition to those he had wounded. His companions, too, watching his prowess, struck at the English with good courage.

What more need I say? The English fell in such numbers, especially before Grandferre, that the survivors were forced to turn and flee. Some leaped into the moat and were drowned; some thought to escape by the door and reeled under the blows of the peasants holding the farmhouse. Grandferre went to the center of the court where the English had fixed their banner, slew the standard bearer, pulled up the banner, and told one of his companions to carry it to the moat through an opening there was in the walls. (The wall had never been completed.) The man shook his head and said that he could not do it because there were too many Englishmen between them and the moat. Grandferre then said to him, "Follow me with the banner." He went ahead and, lifting his ax with both hands, struck furiously to the right and to the left. Thus, by his courage, he opened a path to the moat, killing and overwhelming most of the men in his way, and his follower was able to throw the banner into the moat without hindrance. Grandferre returned to the conflict after a moment's rest and attacked those who remained in such a way that all who could quickly fled. On that day almost all the Englishmen who came to that fight were slain or drowned, or disabled by the aid of God and by Grandferre. It is said that he wounded sorely or slew more than sixty as men in that conflict. The captain, Guillaume l'Aloue, who had been, as I said, mortally wounded in the first assault, was still breathing at the battle's close. He summoned all his men to his bed and in their presence made another captain in his stead, and then, forthwith succumbed to his grievous wounds and departed this life. They buried him with many tears, for he had been wise and kind.

The other Englishmen in France mourned the death and destruction of their men deeply, saying that it was too much that so many of their good fighters had been killed by mere peasants. Wherefore, all the English from the fortresses in the neighborhood assembled and marched against the peasants at Longueil. They were taken by surprise, for they feared nothing more from the English for the present. Yet when the English assailed their farmhouse stoutly, they came forth to battle with good courage. In the front rank was Grandferre, of whom the English had been told, and of whose crushing blows they had heard.  No sooner had they seen him and felt the weight of his ax and the force of his arms than they heartily wished that they had not come to that battle on that day.  For, to be brief, all of them were put to flight or mortally wounded or slain. The peasants captured some English noblemen of high rank for whom they would have received all the money they wanted had they been willing to hold them for ransom. But they refused and said that these men should have no chance to do them further harm. So it was that the English were defeated twice because Grandferre struck so hard and bore himself so well that they could not defend themselves against him.

When the English had been defeated and the battle was over, Grandferre, heated by the excessive warmth of the day and by his violent exertion, drew up and drank off great quantities of cold water and was forthwith seized with a burning fever. He took leave of his companions and returned with his wife to his cottage in a nearby village called Rivecourt. He went to bed, ill, but not without his ax, which was so heavy that an ordinary man could only with great difficulty lift it from the ground to his shoulders. When the English heard that Grandferre was ill, they rejoiced greatly, for no one had dared attack Longueil so long as he was there. They were afraid that he might recover and, accordingly, sent secretly twelve of their companions to strangle him in his house. His wife saw them coming in the distance, ran to her husband lying on his pallet and said, "Alas! dearest Ferre, the English are here, looking for you, I verily believe. What can you do?" Unmindful of his fever, he armed himself swiftly and, taking up his heavy ax or gisarme with which he had already overwhelmed so many enemies, went forth from his house. As he came out into his little yard, he saw the Englishmen and cried out, "Robbers, you have come to take me in my bed but you have not yet taken me." He stood with his back to the wall so that he could not be surrounded and assailed them violently, wielding his ax with all his old spirit. They pressed him cruelly for they desired with all their hearts to take him or kill him. On seeing himself so extraordinarily hard pressed, he hurled himself mightily upon them with such an access of fury that no one whom he struck escaped an ill death. The mere sight of his blows took from the English almost all desire to defend themselves. In a moment, he had laid five of them prostrate on the ground with mortal wounds. The other seven then left him and turned and fled in confusion." Thus triumphant over them, he went back to bed, and heated by the blows he had delivered, drank abundantly of cold water and so relapsed into a still more violent fever. He grew worse and within a few days he had received the last sacraments and had departed this world. He is buried in the cemetery of his village. That village and the whole countryside lamented Grandferre's death, for as long as he lived the English dared not come near.

From the Chronicle of Jean de Noyal

In the year 1359 Philip of Navarre and Robert Knolles took the city of Auxerre [March 10, 1359], which certain citizens betrayed to them for money. And after this atrocity there gathered together in arms about three hundred peasants of the Beauvaisis, and their leader was named Guillaume l'Aloue; and they waged war against the English who were then in many fortresses in that region, repeatedly committing great depredation. And the peasants had their retreat at Longueil-Sainte-Marie. It was a house surrounded with walls but without other means of defense, except that the gate was defensible. Then more than seventeen hundred English from many fortresses gathered together and went in broad daylight to attack this house. And some six hundred of them got over the walls because the peasants could not defend them. And the peasants took refuge in a tall building, where they had lodged their wives and children to be out of the way because of their outcry. And the English rushed about seizing provisions and horses and whatever they could find. Others brought fire and threatened to set the building ablaze if the peasants did not surrender, to be killed without ransom. Then the peasants took counsel together and decided that it was better to die defending themselves. So they all came down together making great outcry and shouting many slogans, and rushed on the English and defeated them. More than eight score of the latter were killed, of whom twenty-four were knights. But of the peasants only two were killed, of whom Guillaume l'Aloue, their captain, was one. And because of his death they were unwilling to hold anyone for ransom, except one named Sancho Lopez, in return for whom were exchanged a hundred captives from Compiegne whom the English held in many fortresses. And after this event these peasants dug ditches around that building, and named Colart Sade captain. And they received into their stronghouse all those of the countryside who wished to protect themselves in bodies and goods, except men of noble lineage, but no noble could take refuge in their place. And they sustained many strong attacks on the part of their enemies and held their place throughout the whole course of the war.

From Sir Thomas Gray's Scalacronica

John of Fotheringay, with other English captains [coming] out of the town of Creil, attacked a fortress and an abbey which the French had fortified between the said Creil and Compiegne, carried the palisade and the fosses with the base court, [when] those within treated for their lives with those without. The captain of the garrison came out and surrendered to the pennon of one of the English commanders, whereat one and another of the English took offense, wrangling for a share in his ransom, so that in the strife he was murdered among them. He to whom [the captain] had surrendered went off straightway in a rage, telling them that it served them right. Those within the fortress, seeing that they were bound to die, with one consent descended a vaulted stair with such din - shouting and clattering of shields and staves, with other noises, yelling the different war cries of the chief men of the country - that the English who had remained fell into such a sudden panic, believing that they had been betrayed, partly because of the departure of the said captain who had gone off in a rage in the manner [described], partly by the bold front and spirit of the enemy, that they fell back in disorder, each man falling over the others in the deep water of the ditches, where five or six English knights and several others were drowned. Others who could get on horseback fled, and thus the people of the fortress were saved, being for the most part only Brigauntz and common folk of the band of Jacques Bonhomme.

From 1) Chronique latine de Guillaume de Nangis de 1113 a 1300 avec les continuations de cette de 1300 a 1368, ed. H. Geraud (Paris, 1843). A full English translation of Jean de Venette can be found in The Chronicle of Jean de Venette, trans. Jean Birdsall (New York, 1953)

2) "Fragment de la chronique inedite de Jean de Noyal, abbe de Saint-Vincent-de-Laon, relatif a Guillaume l'Aloue", Annuaire-Bulletin de la Soc. de l'hist. de France (1875)

3) Scalacronica: the reigns of Edward I, Edward II and Edward II, as recorded by Sir Thomas Gray, and now translated by Sir Herbert Maxwell, (Glasgow, 1907)