The Experience of Disability and Becoming Disabled in the Hundred Years’ War
- EPOCH
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Eleanor J. Bailey │ University of Sheffield
‘In our said service he was and is mutilated in one of his arms’ (‘en notre dit service il a este et est mutile dun de ses bras’), is the text justifying the pardon by the council of the King of England and France in December 1424 of a young logger from Reims, France, named Collesson la Hilla. Collesson had confessed to carrying out multiple thefts and raids in the French countryside but testified that he had been forced into doing so because an injury obtained during the Hundred Years’ War left him ‘impotent’. The council elected to show mercy, and Collesson was permitted to return home to his family. Was Collesson an outlier, or were their others who suffered like him and were forced to throw themselves upon the mercy of a gracious king?
Pardon letters (or lettres de rémission) are an excellent source through which to explore the experience of disability, as they highlight the interactions of vulnerable people in society with royal justice. Through these letters the crown delivered its verdict on petitions for mercy from imprisoned or self-exiled criminals and vulnerable individuals who desired to return to their lives and livelihoods. They explained their actions according to several sympathetic conventions of vulnerability including poverty, warfare, coercion, temptation, the tempers of youth, and disability. Physical disabilities were often described in Middle French as ‘impotencies’ and ‘mutilations’, and mental illnesses were usually referred to as ‘debilitations of the senses’ or ‘simpleness’. Another way in which trauma was conceptualised was as the ‘temptation of the devil’ or demonic possession, in a society where mental illness was often understood as an impairment of the soul rather than the ‘mind’. If the crown thought them redeemable, the petitioner was forgiven and spared from justice by the ‘special royal grace’ imbued in the monarch. The resulting pardon letters are thus an intimate confessional insight into the lives of vulnerable people, many of them living with disabilities, and how they navigated conflict and peace.
The conflict we call the Hundred Years’ War between England and France in fact spanned over a century (at least 1337 to 1453) and beleaguered the reigns of five English kings and five French kings. During this period war accounted for a large amount of combat and trauma related disabilities, but the term ‘disability’ and modern diagnostic language for war-related trauma such as Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) was not used until the twentieth century. However, while the exact terms are different, it is striking how similarly medieval petitioners presented their experience of disability for the crown’s consideration under the same framework as modern law. Under the UK Equality Act (2010) a disability is described as a:
‘Physical or mental impairment’ with a ‘substantial and long-term adverse effect’ on someone’s ability to carry out normal day-to-day activities’.
These same parameters shaped how individuals living with disabilities described their experience of war and its aftermath in the pardon letters of the late Middle Ages. It is important to uncover these stories, as they shed light on the experience of disability through disabled voices themselves.
Collesson la Hilla’s life was turned upside down by the Hundred Years’ War. At the age of 20 he was working as a timber seller and had a wife and a four-year-old child under his duty of care. Collesson alleged that sometime in the year 1422 the enemies of the King of England stole the cart and horses he owned for his business. Forced into poverty and unable to ‘help himself’, Collesson’s ‘simpleness’ and ‘youth’ led him into a life of mercenary soldiery in the company of Jean the ‘bastard’ of Luxembourg, an ally of the English. During this time enemies of the King of England also tried to steal horses belonging to Collesson’s father, Colin, and when Collesson resisted he was ‘mutilated in one of his arms’ and left ‘impotent’, implicitly for life.
As a result, Collesson was captured and imprisoned by the King’s enemies, and he alleged that he was held to a ‘large and excessive ransom in relation to his ability and power’ (‘grosse et excessive raencon en regard a sa faculte et puissance’). He was ‘out of their hands’ by the end of the year 1422 but was forced into stealing cows and sheep to feed himself and his travelling companions. Completely destitute, Collesson found himself in a raiding party ravaging the French countryside and dared not go back to Reims for fear of justice. Two years later, in December 1424, Collesson presented himself to the royal officers in Vermandois and begged for mercy for his actions from the minority council acting on behalf of the English king in France Henry VI to return to his wife and child. His previous mutilation was noted in the decision to grant royal grace, as was his youth and the ‘temptation of the enemy (the devil)’ which had induced Collesson to act criminally. This suggests that on some level the kings of England and their representatives recognised that they had a duty to protect and provide for those who had been impaired fighting for them in France and could not ‘help’ themselves.
Collesson promised that he had fought for the English when he could, but even those who were disabled resisting the English might seek mercy and assistance from the English King. The Hundred Years War witnessed the transformation of warfare in Western Europe through the introduction of cannon artillery, which is to blame for a large portion of combat-related physical disabilities. In the town of Meaux, around twenty-five miles east of Paris, twenty-five-year-old Michael Bouyer participated in resisting the siege of King Henry V of England of this town (October 1421-May 1422) as the latter conducted the conquest of northern France. Sometime during the siege Michael was struck by a cannonball, which left him ‘mutilated in one of his legs’ (‘mutille en lune de ses jambes’) and unable to ‘help himself’ or his young wife Marguerite.
Michael was imprisoned after the town fell, though it is not clear whether he was imprisoned because he had resisted the King or because his ‘mutilation’ put him into poverty and possibly debt after the fact. His situation meant that for him and his wife
‘nothing remains for them, and for this reason he is on the verge of starving to death in the said prisons’ (‘est riens demoure et pour ce est en voye de mourir de faim es dictes prisons’).
Marguerite thus sought the help of the English King in April 1423 and the release of her husband from prison. Michael was freed, and his good name and possessions returned to him by the duke of Bedford who was acting as regent in France for the infant King Henry VI.
It is noteworthy that Marguerite was therefore seeking assistance from the son and heir of the conqueror who was responsible for her husband’s debilitating injury. As part of her appeal, Marguerite assured the chancery that her husband had goodwill to the new King and would swear a ‘good and loyal oath’ to the treaty of Troyes, which was signed in 1420. This treaty ratified the position of the English kings as heirs to the crown of France, after a series of English victories in the Hundred Years’ War from 1417-1420. English victory came at a high cost to the local populations, who now needed to negotiate and protect their place in the new order. The pardon to Michael and his wife indicates how these letters were used to secure the allegiance of conquered populations. It is also noteworthy that this letter shows that wives could advocate on behalf of their injured husbands. Based on her husband’s inability to carry out normal day-to-day activities to support them, Marguerite’s testimony before the chancery was successful in obtaining a favourable outcome.
In some cases, those who appealed for mercy and help during the Hundred Years War had been disabled from birth or by the encroachment of old age rather than warfare. Guillaume du Croq, aged sixty years old, lived in Picardy in northern France, and like Collesson sold wood to get by. Guillaume was described as ‘impotent of his limbs and debilitated of his senses’ ‘impotent de ses members et debilite de ses sens’), for which reason he was known personally to the King’s officer at Cannes. Around 1429 Guillaume inadvertently assisted the King’s opponents in France because the French lord Guillaume d’Estouteville, who knew of Guillaume du Croq’s ‘simpleness’, manipulated him while he was drinking into burning incriminating letters given to him. Fearing that d’Estouteville would hurt him or burn his house down, Guillaume du Croq did as he was asked and did not tell anyone what had happened. However, he was imprisoned in Rouen after he was denounced to the King’s justices for this crime. On the 5 April 1431 a party of concerned friends and family asked the regent duke of Bedford in person to show mercy and free Guillaume. This was granted, Guillaume’s good name and reputation was restored (such proclamations were commonly announced at busy marketplaces and crossroads), and he was allowed to return home.
It is remarkable how much detail the letter of pardon obtained for Guillaume gives about his day-to-day life and the ways in which he was accommodated. His disability was acquired in later life and attributed to his age, but he maintained ownership of several rents and wood-marches for timber (‘plusis rentes et marchiez de bois’) and was married with children (‘chargie de femme et plusis petiz enfans’). Guillaume also owned a house ‘in the town of Étaples’ and could evidently purchase drink with his income. When asked by d’Estouteville to burn the said letters
‘…appearing insensible or overcome by drink, he responded that he would do the best he could. And notwithstanding this he threw the said letters into the fire without showing them or speaking of them to anyone’ (‘…demoustrant insensible ou seurmonte de boisson respondi quil feroit le mieulx quil pourroit. Et ce non obstant getta lesdictes lettres ou feu sans les monstrer ne en parler a quelque personne’).
In his selling of wood, he was supported by the local community, and
‘governed by a foreign hand, otherwise he could not make payments or render accounts of the said marches’ (‘gouvernez par main estrange, ou autrement il ne eust facere paiez ne rendre comptes desdictes marchies’).
Guillaume evidently also had a ‘party of relatives and dear friends’ (‘partie des parens et amis charnelz’) who sought help on his behalf after he was imprisoned. When he was pardoned, it was taken into account that he was provably (‘veritablement’) ‘debilitated of his senses and of his limbs’ (‘debilite de son sens et de ses membres’). It is tempting to wonder whether Guillaume’s disability was assessed in person by the regent duke of Bedford or one of his officers, as in 1431 Rouen (where Guillaume was imprisoned) was the second seat of English rule in France after Paris and Bedford resided there personally.
The letter is thus a tantalising glimpse into the everyday life and experience of the judicial system of someone living with a progressive mental disability who was socially included, able to economically participate, and supported by tight-knit networks of sociability, conveyed in terms of normal day-to-day activities. However, we must also acknowledge that individuals such as Guillaume du Croq, Michael Bouyer, and Collesson la Hilla were left impoverished on the edges of society during the Hundred Years War due to their experience of disability. Their mark on the historical record was made from a point of vulnerability and, ultimately, resulted from their exclusion from the able-bodied hierarchies of the Middle Ages. Further study of the vast archives of pardon letters which survive from this period might uncover previously unheard stories about these vulnerable veterans and civilians caught in the crossfire of the Hundred Years’ War and how they described their normal day-to-day lives. For more information about how to conduct this research, see the EPOCH tutorial.
Further Reading:
Helen Lacey, Royal Pardon: Access to Mercy in Fourteenth-Century England (Boydell & Brewer, 2009).
Irina Metzler, Disability in Medieval Europe: Thinking about Physical Impairment during the High Middle Ages, c. 1100–1400 (Routledge, 2006).
Aleksandra Pfau, Medieval Communities and the Mad: Narratives of Crime and Mental Illness in Late Medieval France (Amsterdam University Press, 2021).
Wendy J. Turner, Care and Custody of the Mentally Ill, Incompetent, and Disabled in Medieval England (Brepols, 2013).
Natalie Zemon-Davis, Fiction in the Archives: Pardon Tales and Their Tellers in Sixteenth–Century France (Stanford University Press, 1987).
Eleanor J. Bailey is a recent PhD graduate from the University of Sheffield researching the interactions between loyalty, legitimacy, and protective power in late medieval England and France, c. 1415-1450. She was supervised by Professor Martial Staub and is in the process of preparing articles and a monograph proposal. She is also a co-organiser of the research group ‘Loyalty in the Medieval World’.