Combat of the Thirty

The Combat of the Thirty (26 March 1351^[1]) [known as Combat des Trente in French] was an episode in the struggle for the succession to the Duchy of Brittany. It was fought at a site midway between the Breton castles of Josselin and Ploërmel between thirty champions, knights and squires on each side, in a challenge issued by Jean de Beaumanoir, a captain of Charles of Blois supported by the King of France, to Robert Bramborough, a captain of Jean de Montfort supported by the King of England.

Robert Bramborough, the English captain of Ploërmel, had been ignoring a truce in the district commanded by Jean de Beaumanoir, the captain of Josselin. Beaumanoir sent him a challenge, which resulted in an emprise —an arranged Pas d'armes— which took place at an area known as the chêne de Mi-Voie (the Halfway Oak) between Ploërmel and Josselin, between picked combatants.

And let us right there try ourselves and do so much that people will speak of it in future times in halls, in palaces, in public places and elsewhere throughout the world.

The words are recorded by the aristocratic chronicler Jean Froissart:^[2] "the saying may not be authentic", Johan Huizinga remarks, "but it teaches us what Froissart thought".^[3]

Beaumanoir commanded thirty Bretons, Bramborough a mixed force of twenty Englishmen (including Robert Knolles and Hugh Calveley), six German mercenaries and four Breton partisans of Montfort. The battle, fought with swords, daggers, spears, and axes, mounted or on foot, was of the most desperate character, in its details very reminiscent of the last fight of the Burgundians in the Nibelungenlied, especially in the celebrated advice of Geoffroy du Bois to his wounded leader, who was asking for water: "Drink your blood, Beaumanoir; thy thirst will pass" (Bois ton sang, Beaumanoir, la soif te passera).

In the end, the victory was decided by Guillaume de Montauban, who mounted his horse and overthrew seven of the English champions, the rest being forced to surrender. All the combatants on either side were either dead or seriously wounded, Bramborough being among the nine on the English side to be slain. The prisoners were well treated and released on payment of a small ransom.

While the combat did not have any significant effect on the outcome of the Breton succession, it was considered by contemporaries to be an example of the finest chivalry. It was sung by trouvères, retold in the chronicles of Froissart and largely admired, and honoured in verse and the visual arts. A commemorative stone was placed at the site of the combat situated between Josselin and Ploermel. The renown attached to those who participated was such that twenty years later, Jean Froissart noticed a scarred survivor at the table of Charles V, where he was honoured above all others due to having been one of the Thirty.

The Combatants

† indicates that the combatant was killed. The English side lost nine killed in total and the remainder captured. The Franco-Breton side lost at least three and probably more. A number of them were captured during the fighting, but were released at the final outcome of the conflict.

References

• A Distant Mirror by Barbara W. Tuchman (1978)
• Le Poème du combat des Trente, in the Panthéon litteraire;
• H.R. Brush, ed., "La Bataille de trente Anglois et de trente Bretons," Modern Philology, 9 (1911-2): 511-44; 10 (1912-3): 82-136.
• Steven Muhlberger, Deeds of Arms: Formal combats in the late fourteenth century, (Highland Village, TX: The Chivalry Bookshelf, 2005), 76-120.
•  Chisholm, Hugh, ed (1911). "Beaumanoir". Encyclopædia Britannica (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. 
• Sébastien Nadot, Rompez les lances ! Chevaliers et tournois au Moyen Age, Paris, ed. Autrement, 2010. (Couch your lances ! Knights and tournaments in the Middle Ages...)

External links

• A Verse Account of the Combat of the Thirty
• Re-enacting the Combat of the Thirty in Australia