The Bishop of Beauvais and the Surrender of William Longespée, Bouvines 1214 (MED0083)

The bishop’s mace and the surrender of William Longespée

At the centre, a man in mail and a banded surcoat, gilded helm, a pectoral cross on his chest and a mace in his hand. On the ground, in blue sown with golden lioncels, William Longespée, Earl of Salisbury: his great helm has been torn off, his sword lies in the grass, his hands are raised. This is the moment of capture rather than the moment of the charge, and at Bouvines it was capture that decided things.

A bishop in armour was not an anomaly

Philippe de Dreux, Bishop of Beauvais, was a cousin of Philip Augustus, had been on crusade, and had already been a prisoner of Richard the Lionheart, who treated him as a warlord rather than a prelate. Great French bishops of this period were feudal lords with vassals, castles and military obligations. Canon law forbade them to fight; their temporal position assumed it.

The mace and the story about the mace

Tradition says a churchman fought with a blunt weapon because he was forbidden to shed blood — the same explanation given for Bishop Odo of Bayeux and his club in the Tapestry. It is a neat story and it deserves caution: the prohibition was on fighting, not on edged weapons, and the mace-instead-of-sword reading is largely a later rationalisation. What is true is the usage. The mace is the attribute by which an armed bishop is depicted and recognised, which is why it is in the painting — and against a man in mail it was also the better weapon, since mail stops a cut and passes on the shock.

Why Longespée is still alive

An unhorsed earl is not killed but taken. Longespée was the half-brother of King John, and as a prisoner he was worth a ransom, an exchange and a political advantage: he was in fact traded for Robert of Dreux, the bishop’s own brother, who was in English hands. A battle between nobles was a transaction before it was a slaughter — you fought to take, and the men worth most ran the least risk. For the infantry on the same field the arithmetic was the exact opposite.