Contamine, Philippe. “Points de vue sur la chevalerie en France a la fin du moyen âge.” Francia
4(1976):255–84.
Duby, Georges. The Chivalrous Society, trans. Cynthia Postan. Berkeley: University of California
Press, 1977.
Flori, Jean. L’idéologie du glaive: préhistoire de la chevalerie. Geneva: Droz, 1983.
——L’essor de la chevalerie, XIe-XIIe siècles. Geneva: Droz, 1986.
Keen, Maurice. Chivalry. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1984.
KNOLLES, ROBERT
(ca. 1325–1407). One of the most famous leaders of the English Free Companies during
the early Hundred Years’ War. Knolles rose from the lower ranks of the army, as the
English military leaders soon recognized his prowess, knighted him, and constantly
requested his assistance in military adventures.
Nothing is known about Knolles’s birth, although it is certain that he was not a noble,
nor is there anything known about the date or reason for his military muster. He had
attained a prestigious reputation as a soldier by 1351, when he fought in the Combat of
the Thirty, during which he was captured by the French. In 1356, he led an English force
of more than 800 men, which, after the victory at Poitiers, pillaged the coast of
Normandy. In 1358, Knolles again commanded a force in France; during the next two
years, it sacked the suburbs of Orléans, controlled forty castles in the Loire Valley, and
even threatened the pope at Avignon, for which he earned 100,000 crowns in French
booty. Knolles joined Edward III on a successful chevauchée that pillaged France in
1359–60, ending only with the signing of the Treaty of Brétigny (1360).
Knolles continued fighting through the 1360s, mostly in Brittany. In 1370, he again
undertook a chevauchée in France, but although this raid succeeded in destroying much
of the countryside, at Pontvallain his rearguard was annihilated and he retreated into
Brittany. Knolles’s military activity then diminished, although he again led chevauchées
in France in 1379 and in 1380.
In 1380, Knolles retired to a wealthy life in London. Only twice did he come out of
retirement to lead English armies: during the 1381 Peasant Revolt, when he was asked to
be the leader of the defense of London, and in 1385, when he led a relief force on
Damme. He died, an old man, in 1407.
Kelly De Vries
[See also: BRIGAND/BRIGANDAGE; GUESCLIN, BERTRAND DU; HUNDRED
YEARS’ WAR]
Venette, Jean de. Chronique, ed. Richard A.Newhall, trans. Jean Birdsall. New York: Columbia
University Press, 1953.
Burne, Alfred. The Crécy War. London: Oxford University Press, 1955.
Favier, Jean. La guerre de cent ans. Paris: Fayard, 1980.
Seward, Desmond. The Hundred Years’ War. New York: Atheneum, 1978.
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