Bouvines (MED0006)

The Battle of Bouvines, 27 July 1214

On a summer Sunday, in marshy ground between Lille and Tournai, Philip Augustus faced a coalition of Emperor Otto IV, Count Ferrand of Flanders and Count Renaud of Boulogne, funded by English money from King John. The French king had not sought the engagement: his army was withdrawing towards Lille and had to turn about when the rearguard was caught at the Bouvines bridge. Fighting on a Sunday broke convention — a sign that the battle was forced on him as much as chosen.

The action opened on the wings and was decided in the centre. French cavalry broke the Flemings on the right; on the left the communal militias held under pressure; in the centre Philip Augustus was unhorsed and nearly killed before his knights cut him free. The capture of Ferrand and Renaud settled the outcome: a medieval battle was won less by casualties inflicted than by prisoners of rank, whose ransom and submission were worth more than slaughter.

Giuseppe Rava reconstructs the heavy cavalry mêlée of the early thirteenth century: closed helms, mail hauberks, lances and maces in a crowded space. The political consequences were considerable — Flanders subdued, Otto IV discredited, and King John weakened to the point of conceding Magna Carta the following year.