Who can resist a medieval Colclough Archer?
Following on from a piece on WW1 army officers I wrote elsewhere
Officer Ancestor WW1 – GenealogyandYou
I
will outline a few more sources you might consider in your UK military ancestor
search, I will just widen the time frame, and try to work logically.
First one to mention and the subject of this piece is:
“The Soldier in
Medieval England” a database formed out of a project headed by Professor
Adrian Bell of the Henley Business School and Professor Anne Curry of the
University of Southampton to challenge assumptions about the emergence of
professional soldiery between 1369 and 1453. The database has grown with input
from ‘citizen historians’ like you and I, among others. The datasets used are:
1.Musters Dataset, held in The National Archive a record of
the army ‘mustered’ to leave the country between 1369 and 1450, kept and
maintained to account for the money spent on overseas campaigns. A captain
raised forces for the crown and had a contract specifying size of force, type
of troops, length and location of service. The muster was to check if the
captains had kept their side of the contract, if troops had not turned up, they
had not ‘passed muster’. The database includes English garrisons in Calais, as
well as garrisons in Wales, Scotland and England. There are also musters of
‘standing forces’, these would have been troops serving with the lieutenants of
Gascony and Ireland.
2.French Garrisons. Data recorded for the soldiers who
served in the English garrisons in Northern France, principally Normandy, at
the end of the Hundred Years War from the capture of Harfleur by Henry V in
1415 to the fall of Lancastrian Normandy in 1450. Also holding data on garrison
reinforcements, armies operating in the field or undertaking particular sieges
in France during this period. These soldiers were regularly mustered and review
on a monthly to quarterly basis dependent on the nature of service. The Musters
occasionally include information on the geographical origins of the soldiers
when the English rulers became concerned about the loyalty of local troops
after the successes of Joan of Arc.
3.Protections Dataset, the letters of protection and
appointments of attorneys granted and recorded on the Treaty (or French) Rolls ,
Gascon rolls and Scottish Rolls for the years 1369-1453. They are legal
instruments that would be taken out by soldiers prior to undertaking military
service outside England, in order to protect their interests whilst they were
absent. The letter of protection protected an individual from prosecution or
legal action whilst serving overseas; by letters of attorney an individual
appointed legal representatives to act on his behalf whilst absent. However,
both types of letter only indicate an intention to serve, and do not in
themselves prove that service was actually given.
4. The ‘Agincourt roll’, was a part of the Musters dataset
and now separate, it contains the names of some retinue leaders and men-at-arms
(but no archers) who were with Henry V in the battle of Agincourt in 1415. Unlike
the documents in the Muster dataset, created for accounting purposes, this list
is a result of heraldic and genealogic interest of the Tudor age.
With many thanks to the project: Information on soldiers has
been taken from the AHRC-funded ‘The Soldier in Later Medieval England Online
Database’, www.medievalsoldier.org
[1].
Given all the above what can you discover?
Raise your hand anyone wouldn’t search on their own name you
don’t need to be a narcissist!
I searched for John Colclough with first name variations and
there I was not.
Take John out…
I found one Colclough.
Thomas Colclough, Rank: Archer, Service: Garrison
of Rouen, Captain: John of Lancaster (1389 - 1435) duke of Bedford, Lieutenant
/ Sub-Captain: Handford, John, Sir (b. 1391) seigneur de Maisons-sur-Seine.
Service date: 15 06 1435, Source type: Muster Roll, Reference: BNF, MS.
Fr. 25772, no. 954.
With background research opening up who knows where this
might lead.
For further reading try:
Was
your ancestor on the Agincourt ... - Medieval Soldier
Exploring
a medieval muster roll
The Battle of Agincourt -
The National Archives
https://www.genealogyandyou.com/2021/03/03/mustering-a-post/
[1] AHRC.
The Soldier in Later Medieval England Online Database. www.medievalsoldier.org : accessed
03March 2021
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