Combat of The Thirty - Background and Cause

Background and Cause

The Breton War of Succession was a struggle between the House of Montfort and House of Blois for control of the Duchy of Brittany. It came to be absorbed into the larger Hundred Years War between France and England, with England supporting the Montforts and France supporting the Blois family. At the time of the Combat, the war had become stalemated, with each faction controlling strongholds at different locations within Brittany, but occassionally making sorties into one another's territory.

Robert Bemborough, a knight leading the Montfortist faction which controlled Ploërmel, was challenged to single combat by Jean de Beaumanoir, the captain of nearby Josselin, controlled by the Blois faction. According to the chronicler Froissart, this purely personal duel between the two leaders became a larger struggle when Bemborough suggested a combat between twenty or thirty knights on each side, a proposal that was enthusiastically accepted by de Beaumanoir.

The motivation for the combat is unclear. The earliest written sources present it as a purely chivalric exercise, undertaken to "honour" the ladies for whom the knights were fighting: referring to Joan, Duchess of Brittany (House of Blois) and Joanna of Flanders (House of Montfort). These woman were leading the two factions at the time, as Joan's husband was in captivity and Joanna's was dead (her son was a young child at the time). This is the account given by the contemporary chroniclers Jean le Bel and Jean Froissart, both of whom present the conflict as purely a matter of honour with no personal animosity involved. Le Bel states that he had his information from one of the combatants. Froissart appears to simply copy le Bel's version.

However, popular ballads portrayed the cause differently. The earliest of these, written by an unknown local supporter of the Blois faction, depicts Bemborough and his knights as ruthless despoilers of the local population, who appealed to Beaumanoir for help. Beaumanoir is depicted as a hero coming to the aid of the defenceless people. The poet also portrays Beaumanoir as a model of Christian piety, who puts his faith in God, in contrast to Bemborough who relies on the Prophesies of Merlin. This version was standardised in Pierre Le Baud's History of the Bretons, written a century later, in which Bemborough's alleged cruelty is explained by his desire to avenge the death of Thomas Dagworth.

Whatever the cause, the fight was arranged in the form of 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. It was organised in the manner of a tournament, with refreshments on hand and a large gathering of spectators. Bemborough is supposed to have said,

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 Froissart: "the saying may not be authentic", Johan Huizinga remarks, "but it teaches us what Froissart thought".

Beaumanoir commanded thirty Bretons, Bemborough a mixed force of twenty Englishmen (including Robert Knolles and Hugh Calveley), six German mercenaries and four Breton partisans of Montfort. It is unclear whether Bemborough himself was English or German. His name is spelled in many variant forms, and is given as "Brandebourch" by Froissart, and also appears as "Bembro". His first name is sometimes given as Robert, sometimes as Richard. Both Le Bel and Froissart say he was a German knight, but historians have doubted this. All the Blois-faction knights can be identifed, though Jean de Beaumanoir's given name is "Robert" in some versions. The names and identities of the Montforists are much more confused and uncertain.