Brabançons

The Brabançons or Brabanters ( la, Brabantiones) were ''routiers'' (mercenary troops) originally from the Duchy of Brabant active between 1166 and 1214.

Origins

Brabant was a part of the Holy Roman Empire. The social origins of the Brabançons are uncertain. Some were the younger sons of the knightly class who had received formal military training. Others were drawn from the lower classes and had little or no such training. There were some women in their ranks. They mostly fought as infantry, possessing few horses. They were feared because of their ruthlessness, but probably had less of a tactical impact than the ''routiers'' of the later Middle Ages. Despite their name, the Brabançons came to be drawn from all across northern Europe. Walter Map in his ''De nugis curialium'' written about 1180 described the origins of the Brabançons thus:

A new and particularly noxious sect of heretics arose. The fighters of these ''rotten'' were protected from head to foot by a leather jerkin, and were armed with steel, staves and iron. They went about in bands of thousands and reduced monasteries, villages and cities to ashes. With violence, yet thinking it no sin, they committed adultery, saying "There is no God". This movement arose in Brabant, hence the name Brabançons. From the start these marauders drew up for themselves a curious law, which properly speaking was based on no concept of right. Fugitive rebels, false clerks, renegade monks and all who had forsaken God for any reason joined them.

Groups of Brabançons are mentioned for the first time in a letter of 1166 from the abbot of Cluny, Stephen, to the king of France, Louis VII. They may have been unemployed mercenaries left over after the end in 1160 of the twenty-year war over Grimbergen between Count Godfrey III of Louvain and Walter II Berthout. The devastation of the land and the famine of 1162 may have left many men in search of employment. Renegade priests and monks often joined them, serving as chaplains, although they were regarded as heretics by the church.

History

Under the command of William of Cambrai, Brabançons took part in the Emperor Frederick I's campaign in Italy in 1167. Their first recorded battle is the battle of Tusculum on 29 May 1167. It was apparently these Brabançons who passed through Burgundy on their way to join the imperial army, so alarming the abbot of Cluny with their lack of discipline. The abbot gave their number as 400. The number in Frederick's army is variously given as 500 (''Chronica regia Coloniensis''), 800 (Otto of Sankt Blasien) or 1,500 ( Vincent of Prague). The '' Annals of Magdeburg'' says that there were some from Flanders as well as Brabant. They fought so well in their first engagement that they were given all of the booty, the knights being satisfied with the victory alone. On their march home, they so devastated the county of Champagne and the archdiocese of Reims that Frederick I and Louis VII signed an agreement banning the use of Brabançons and ''coterelli'' in the area bounded by the Alps, the Rhine and the Paris Basin. This agreement was designed to keep the mercenaries out of France while leaving Frederick free to use them in Germany east of the Rhine or in Italy. Frederick I brought them into Italy a second time in 1175.

King Henry II of England recruited Brabançons to crush the revolt of 1173–74. Roger of Howden estimated their strength at 20,000.''Habuit enim secum viginti millia Brabancenorum, qui fideliter servierunt illi, et non sine magna mercede, quam eis dedit'' in . Because he trusted them more than the other troops, according to Howden, Henry sent the Brabançons to relieve Louis VII's siege of Verneuil ( fr) and occupy Brittany. In 1174, he brought them to England before returning with them to relieve Louis VII's siege of Rouen. The reputation of the Brabançons had been enough to prevent a Flemish invasion of England and force Louis VII to retreat from Verneuil.

Count William VI of Angoulême brought them to the Poitou in 1177. They were defeated by the Poitevin knights at Barbezieux