English Monarchs and the Treatment of Prisoners of War

Here is a paper I gave in 2001 for the De Re Militari sessions during the International Congress on Medieval Studies:

English Monarchs and the Treatment of Prisoners of War
By Peter Konieczny

Good morning all. I believe it is rather appropriate that the De Re Militari society finish off its sessions here at Kalamazoo with a topic that deals with what happens when the battle is over. In this case, I will be dealing with prisoners of war.
This is a subject which has been somewhat neglected in the past, sometimes given no more than a couple of sentences in books on medieval warfare Recent works on medieval military history have started paying more attention to this topic, including Matthew Strickland's book War and Chivalry, but a lot of work still has to be done. Today, I hope to show one small aspect of the treatment of prisoners of war, namely the role of English kings in deciding the fate of these captives.
Stephen Morillo wrote in his recent book Warfare under the Anglo-Norman Kings that what happened to prisoners "varied depending on the captor, the prisoner, and the circumstances of the capture." I would another factor to this list, namely the King and his wishes. The English monarchs that I am looking at, from William the Conqueror to Henry the Third, had several powers over prisoners of war, and used these captives to gain more power for themselves.
Victory or defeat in warfare of the High Middle Ages often occurred when one of the leading commanders was taken prisoner, and English monarchs new full well how much it meant to capture their enemies. The capture of Robert Curthose at the battle ofTinchebrai in 1104 gave the Henry the First the duchy of Normandy. The capture of the Scottish king William the Lion in 1174, allowed Henry the Second to achieve major gains along his northern borders. If it was not for the capture of the earl of Gloucester, King Stephen may never have regained his freedom, let alone his crown. Several rebellions against the English rulers ended only when their enemies were taken prisoner. Holding their enemies captive allowed English kings to make political and territorial gains that could not be achieved otherwise. Having your enemy in your chains always makes for a good bargaining position.
I think the first fact about the role of English kings is that they had a very important right: namely they could take custody of any prisoner of war that their followers captured for themselves. Following a battle or siege, those captured would be handed over to the king - not only the high-ranking captives, but frequently every prisoner down to the lowliest crossbowman. There are many instances which show this, but I'll just give you a few examples.
The battle of Tinchebrai in 1106 netted not only Henry's brother, Robert Curthose, but many more captives. In his letter to the archbishop of Canterbury following the victory, the English ruler wrote that all the prisoners were delivered into his hands, numbering them at four hundred knights and ten thousand foot. Orderic Vitalis added that Henry's only trouble in getting these captives came not from his own men, but from his Breton allies, who were unwilling to surrender Count William of Mortain, but even he was eventually given up.
Henry the Second's war with his own sons and the French in 1173 and 1174 also saw the English ruler gaining huge numbers of prisoners. Among Henry's triumphs was the capture of Dol, which brought with it many important captives. Robert of Torigni wrote that "the king distributed them among his castles, where they were committed to prison, but some of them he kept near himself." Roger of Howden added in his report of the capture a list of eighty-one names of prisoners taken at Dol. This list was probably made so that the royal government could know who their prisoners were, and help them make preparations on where to send them for their safekeeping. The several victories scored by Henry and his forces during that war netted the English king over a thousand prisoners of war in just two years of fighting. Finally, one of King John's last victories was the capture of Rochester in 1215. After the King was persuaded by his supporters not to execute all the prisoners, John decided to keep the knights for himself, but allowed the footsoldiers to be given up to his own men for ransoming and ordered that some of the crossbowmen be hung.
Without monetary gain, some captors could be easily swayed by bribes from their captives to release them. The Gesta Stephani reported that at the battle of Stockbridge in 1141, the King of Scotland was captured by Stephen's supporters but let go on consideration of a bribe. But the crown did not take kindly to those who did not deliver their prisoners to the King, as the following two examples illustrate. In 1138, fighting around the city of Bath led to the capture of a prominent soldier named Geoffrey Talbot. But soon after he was imprisoned, Geoffrey's kinsmen managed to seize the bishop of Bath, and forced him to release Geoffrey in exchange for his own freedom. When King Stephen arrived in Bath to take custody of the prisoner, he was outraged to learn that Geoffrey got away, and even threatened to strip the bishop of his office. Stephen was eventually mollified when he learned that the bishop's very life was in danger if he did not turn over the prisoner, and as Stephen's biographer wrote in the Gesta Stephani "there is no obligation on him...to give his own life in exchange for another's."
In another dramatic episode, William of Grandcourt was fighting on the side of Henry the Second at the battle of Bourgtheroulde in 1124, where he captured the Count of Evreux. William knew that if he had kept the count, the latter would have been turned over to the English king and would then suffer a long imprisonment or perhaps a worse fate. So as Orderic wrote, William, "Out of human compassion took pity on a man of such great valour" and released him. To avoid the punishment he would have had to face from King Henry, William also decided to accompany the Count of Evreux into exile in France.
One might ask what did the soldiers receive in return for handing over his prisoners to the King? In War and Chivalry, Matthew Strickland suggests that kings had to adequately reward their men for their captives, such as by giving them a share of the ransom. But in my examination of English monarchs, I find almost no evidence to support Strickland's view. But the kings did compensate their soldiers in another way, which I will deal with a little later.
Now that the prisoners are in the king's hands, we can look at how they were treated by their captor. Most of the studies done on prisoners of war for the middle ages suggests that nobles and knights were usually well-treated while in captivity and could soon pay a sum of money to ransom themselves. In fact, many medieval writers condemn captors who cruelly treated their prisoners or refused to ransom them. The villainous depictions of Robert Belleme, Thomas de Marie and Robert fitz Hubert often centre around their torturing and killing of prisoners, including knights. Clearly, medieval writers believed that these men were violating a code of conduct regarding the treatment of prisoners.
But English kings could play by different rules and were able to inflict any type of punishment they wanted. Prisoners of war could face exile, mutilation, imprisonment for life and even death, although these sterner punishments were usually only given to those who rebelled against the monarchy. These punishments were also far more common in the reigns of William the Conqueror and his two sons than they were with later kings. The father would often remove the hands or eyes of captured rebels, while his son William Rufus had William of Eu blinded and castrated for his disloyalty, and had Eu's steward hanged as well. Orderic Vitalis wrote that the prisoners of Henry the First often "died in his fetters, and could neither gain release through kinship or noble birth, nor ransom themselves with money." This even included Henry's brother Robert Curthose, although his captivity was reportedly not too severe.
Why did these monarchs believe that they had the power to impose such harsh punishments, and why were medieval writers, who detested similar actions done by counts or knights, willing to look the other way when the king did them. The answer lies with the medieval notion of royal justice where the king had a "sacred duty to enforce peace and curb violence and treachery" by any means necessary. Furthermore a severe punishment was also seen as deterrent, done to prevent others who had rebellious thoughts. Henry of Huntingdon even criticizes King Stephen when he captured a rebellious castle after a siege and, in the words of the chronicler "did not execute punishment on those who had betrayed him. For if he had done so at that time, there would not have been so many castles held against him later."
A good illustration of this notion comes after the battle of Bourgetheroulde. Henry decided to blind three of the important prisoners taken in the fight. Charles the Good, count of Flanders, happened to be around, and objected to the king, believing it was wrong to punish knights in this fashion. Henry replied that two of these prisoners were his liegemen and that they had betrayed him by going to war against him, therefore deserving a punishment of death or mutilation. As for the third captive, Luke of La Barre, he had previously mocked Henry with scurrilous songs, and that by blinding this man, he would force him to give up this practice and give an example for others to see.
Typically, if a prisoner was blinded or mutilated, he was then released, becoming a living advertisement for the iron rule of the monarchy. There were more practical reasons for kings to impose severe punishments. In times of war, threatening an important prisoner with death or torture was used as way to make other gains. One practice that can be found throughout the reigns of these monarchs was to force a captive noble to turn over his castles over to the king. Often the prisoner would be brought to just outside the castle, where he would be tortured or prepared for execution unless the garrison surrendered immediately. King Stephen was perhaps the most notorious practitioner of this method, but William Rufus and John both were able to gain the surrender of important castles by threatening to kill or mutilate the captured owners.
Although monarchs always had the stick when dealing with prisoners, more and more during this period they were willing to use the carrot when dealing with them. Between the reigns of William the conqueror and the last years of Henry the Third, no high-ranking English noble was executed by the monarchy, even if they had rebelled against him. William of Poitiers specifically mentioned prisoners of war when he noted that the Conqueror tried to avoid killing and "preferred to punish with exile, imprisonment, or some other penalty which did not cost death." Furthermore, the punishments of mutilation or life-long imprisonment almost disappeared after the reign of Henry the First. Some prisoners were also dealt with leniently by Henry, such as Count Waleran of Meulan and Hugh, son of Gervase, both of whom were also taken at Bourgtheroulde. They did spend five years in captivity, but then they were released and restored to mush of their former power. Count Waleran in fact, became an important part of Henry' s royal household and was said to have become a good friend of the king. Henry the Second was himself praised by a several of contemporaries for his compassion when dealing with prisoners of war. Of course, the kings were not giving clemency for its own sake, but probably believed that by doing so, they could win their enemies over to the king's side.
Kindness was sometimes extended to less important prisoners as well. In 1097 William Rufus arrived at a castle, where a large number of prisoners of war were being held. As they heard the king's approach the captives shouted out for the king to help them. William did just that, not only releasing the captives from their cells, but also gave them a good meal and allowed them to walk where they pleased in the castle. When some of the king's followers objected to this action,
pointing out that a prisoner might easily escape this way, William rebuked them for their severity.
There are also several instances where an English king released his captives or pardoned their ransom fines. Even if English kings were becoming more lenient towards their captives, there were occasions when harsh measures were used. One story about Richard the First is that when he heard about the destruction of one of his Welsh contingents during his continuing war with Phillip Augustus, he reacted by having three French prisoners thrown off a cliff and then blinded fifteen others and sent them to the French king. Phillip reciprocated with some of his English captives. In 1224, after Henry the Third had captured the castle of Bedford, he had most of the garrison hanged after they surrendered to him. On several other occasions, the massacre of entire garrisons was avoided only by the pleas of the king's followers.
Once the English monarch had his prisoners and decided to hold them in captivity, he was faced with a new problem on where to keep them. As seen before, the English king might have hundreds of prisoners of war in his custody at anyone time, and they all needed to be accommodated. Some of the captives, like the footsoldiers taken at Rochester in 1215, would be given over to the king's followers as a reward, but many other prisoners, including all the high-ranking ones, would be kept by the king. These men were split up into small groups and sent throughout the kingdom, to be placed in the custody of various lords and nobles. This can be seen as another feudal service that the vassals owed to their English rulers: they were expected to care and guard for prisoners of war, as well hostages and other captives. A good example of this movement of prisoners can be seen in the Pipe rolls following John's victory at Mirebeau in 1202. While the king took his nephew Arthur to Falaise in Normandy, many of the other prisoners were shipped across the English channel to Portsmouth. From there, the records show that these captives were dispatched to various places throughout the country, including London, York, Lancaster, Corfe, Wallingford, Sherburn, Nottingham, Doncaster and Newcastle. It would be preferable for the king not to have too many prisoners held in anyone place, since regrettable incidents might happen, such as at Corfe, where the Mirebeau captives overpowered their guards and took control of the castle for a short period of time.
For those who had to take care and guard these prisoners, they could expect some compensation form the king. Hubert de Burgh received four pounds from John for having to handle several Mirebeau prisoners. Government documents also show that many payments were made for transporting captives from one place to another and even for the costs of iron chains, although it is not clear in every case, whether the captive was a prisoner of war or not. One must believe that sometimes these prisonkeepers, who probably did not profit much for there work, might get somewhat careless in their guard duties, or that they were tempted by bribes, and allowed the prisoner to escape. Of course, monarchs were not pleased to lose their prisoners and they exacted harsh penalties to any negligent jailer. The huge debt of twenty-two hundred pounds owed by William de Mandeville to Henry the First was probably due to when William was in command of the Tower of London and allowed one of the important captives to slide down a rope from a tower window and escape.
Another irresponsible jailer was Robert de Ros. In 1196 he had one of his charges, an important French prisoner, escape, and King Richard fined Robert eight hundred pounds. The sergeant that Robert had watching the prisoner, who may have been complicit in the escape, was excuted. Robert apparently did not learn his lesson, since eleven years later he was punished with a two hundred pound fine for losing more captives.
I wondered earlier that if monarchs had the right to taking prisoners of war for himself, what kind of trade off was their for the rest of army, the people that actually did the capturing. Well, it seems that while English kings had great authority over prisoners of war, he also had a large responsibility in freeing his own forces that had been captured. Either through prisoner exchanges or by ransoming, the English kings would attempt to free their followers from enemy prisons. Part of the reason why the monarchs did this was that they would need these men to fight their wars. As William Rufus and Louis the Fat were fighting over the Vexin Louis' biographer Suger notes that "King William, concerned at his need to hire more knights, quickly ransomed the English prisoners." When Stephen had his steward and close mend, William Martel, captured by Angevin supporters, the king gave up a castle to have Martel freed.
Another reason to help free one's followers would be to keep their loyalty and make sure that they continue to fight for you. When Prince Louis of France invaded England during the early years of Henry the Third's reign, the Patent rolls record a letter sent to castle garrisons holding out against the French, encouraging them not to give up, and promising to pay a reasonable ransom should any royal fortress be forced to capitulate.
But more importantly, those vassals who fought under the banner of the English kings probably believed that the monarch owed something to them if they were taken prisoner, especially since they often had to give up their valuable prisoners to the king. In 1140, one of Stephen's counts abandoned his king and joined the Angevins, since, according to Orderic Vitalis, "he had recently had cause to be angry with the king, because he had sought his help over the release of his nephew and got no satisfaction through him. "
Prisoner exchanges was one of the methods through which English monarchs got their followers released. There are several instances of these exchanges taking place as part of a truce or peace agreement. The first known exchange occurred in 1098 between William Rufus and the Count of Anjou, where both sides released their prisoners. In 1120 Henry the First and Louis the Fat set free all their captive knights, including those taken at the battle of Bremule the year before. The war between Henry the Second and his son Henry the younger king ended in 1175 with a prisoner exchange that involved more than a thousand captives. King Richard and Phillip Augustus included prisoner releases in their truces on two occasions, the first in 1194 and then in 1197. Finally, the regents for Henry the Third made peace with the French prince Louis after the English victories at Lincoln and Sandwich in 1215, with the agreement including a clause for all prisoners to be released, including those taken at the two battles.
These prisoner exchanges not only involved the captives held by the English king and his counterpart, but even those held by their supporters. Understandably, the various lords sometimes refused to go along with this part of the deal. During the negotiations for the exchange of King Stephen for Robert, earl of Gloucester, the latter tried to have all prisoners of war set free, but Stephen's followers scuttled this part of the deal, because, according to William of Malmesbury, they did not want to give up their own captives and suffer "any of loss of money to themselves."
Even after an agreement was made, it might be difficult for the English king to have his vassals comply with the terms. When Prince Louis reached the French throne in 1223, he complained that many of his own men who were supposed to have been freed were kept in English dungeons until they paid a heavy ransom. Patent rolls also show that Henry the Third and his government were often sending out letters to his vassals, such as the mercenary leader turned noble Fulk de Breaute, for several years after 1215, demanding that they release French prisoners.
The other method used by monarchs for freeing their own followers was to pay for their ransoms. Some evidence of this practice can be seen in various chronicles, such as when Roger of Wendover reported that in 1196 Richard paid two thousand pounds to free the garrison of one castle, which had surrendered to the French. But stronger evidence of this practice comes out in government documents found in the reigns of John and Henry the Third. The money given out by these kings varied from some large payments, including over a thousand pounds each for Roger de Lacy and for the son of William Briewerre, to smaller amounts like the hundred shillings given out to the wife of John de Talemund, so she could free her husband from the French. These payments sometimes came in the form of a loan, but as in the case of Roger de Lacy and others, these debts were usually pardoned.
By finishing, I'll recap the importance of these High Medieval Kings in regards to prisoners of war. If you were an enemy soldier that got captured, it would be very likely that your captor would hand you over to the king. Some of the unlucky prisoners might have been killed or mutilated, but most would be sent throughout the king's domain, where they would be imprisoned until they could await their freedom.
For those knights and soldiers who had been captured in the service of the English king, their fates also often upon their monarch. Many of these prisoners of war never had to pay a ransom for their own release, but instead relied on the crown to free them. Sometimes they would be ransomed by the king, but most of the prisoners that got their freedom through the royalty were part of the six large scale prisoner exchanges that occurred between 1098 and 1215.
There is no doubt that from William the Conqueror to Henry the Third, that these English monarchs played an important role with what happened to prisoners of war from both sides of the battlefield.