The Battle of Pontvallain was fought on 4 December 1370, during the Hundred Years War. A French army under Bertrand du Guesclin and Louis de Sancerre attacked English forces in the Sarthe region. The engagement formed part of the defeat of Sir Robert Knolles’s expedition after it divided and contributed to the French recovery of territory under Charles V.
The Battle of Pontvallain, 1370
Knolles’s Chevauchée
Pontvallain was the culmination of a major English chevauchée that had begun several months earlier. Sir Robert Knolles landed at Calais in August 1370 with a large English force and led his army deep into northern France. The expedition passed through a wide area of northern and central France, moving through the regions around Arras, Reims and Troyes before turning towards Paris. The English reached the outskirts of the French capital in September, but Charles V refused to offer battle.
The expedition then moved south and west, continuing its advance through the French countryside. The campaign covered a considerable distance and placed considerable pressure on the French crown and its territories. The French response was complicated by the scale of the English movement, as Charles V sought to avoid giving Knolles the major battle for which the English commander was looking.
The English eventually moved into the Sarthe region. By this stage, the chevauchée had covered a considerable distance, but the expedition had not achieved the decisive confrontation that Knolles had sought. The final phase of the campaign would instead be determined by what the English commanders decided to do next.
The English Divide
The English commanders in the Sarthe region then disagreed over their next move. Sir Robert Knolles believed the best course was to withdraw towards the safety of Brittany. Other captains, led by Sir John Minsterworth, believed they should remain in the Sarthe.
The disagreement resulted in the English force dividing. Knolles and those who followed him moved towards Brittany, while other companies remained in the Sarthe region. One of these forces was associated with Grandison and was at Pontvallain, while another, under Baron FitzWalter, was at the abbey at Vaas.
The division was therefore a consequence of disagreement over the future of the expedition. It was this separation that gave the French commanders an opportunity to attack the English companies individually rather than having to confront Knolles’s entire force.
Du Guesclin’s Forced March
Bertrand du Guesclin and his men had reportedly marched a hundred miles in two days to reach Le Mans on 3 December. French intelligence had informed du Guesclin and Louis de Sancerre of the positions of the separated English companies.
The French commanders moved rapidly to exploit the division. Du Guesclin’s force approached the English company at Pontvallain after its forced march, while Louis de Sancerre was operating against the other English contingent at Vaas. The two engagements formed part of the same French response to the division of the English army, but they were separate actions.
For more on the French commander, see Bertrand du Guesclin.
The Battle of Pontvallain
The English force associated with Grandison was attacked near Pontvallain. The precise movements of the English immediately before the engagement and the sequence of the fighting should be treated cautiously, as the surviving accounts do not provide a fully consistent operational narrative.
The French attack included an armoured cavalry charge. The English were unable to make effective use of their longbowmen in the circumstances described by the chronicles, and Grandison’s company was overwhelmed. The surprise of the French attack and the speed with which du Guesclin had brought his force into the area were important features of the engagement.
Those reported captured included Grandison and Hugh Despenser. The defeat was a serious blow to the English force operating in the region.
Vaas and the Wider Defeat of Knolles’s Expedition
Pontvallain was not the only attack on the divided English army. At Vaas, Baron FitzWalter’s men had only just arrived when Louis de Sancerre’s force attacked them in the abbey. The fighting was fierce, and the arrival of men from du Guesclin’s force helped secure the French advantage.
Vaas was a separate engagement from Pontvallain, but the two actions were closely connected. Both resulted from the division of the English forces following the disagreement over the future of the expedition, and both formed part of the French effort to destroy the separated English companies.
The timing of the attacks meant that the English were unable to reunite their forces. The expedition that had crossed a large part of France during the summer and autumn of 1370 was consequently brought to an end through a series of attacks on its separated contingents.
The defeats undermined Knolles’s expedition and formed part of the wider recovery of territory under Charles V.
Escape from the Battle of Pontvallain
Sir John Minsterworth was one of the men who had disagreed with Sir Robert Knolles about the next steps of the chevauchée. He and men under his command were not present at Pontvallain, or at Vaas. Though relatively close, they were not attacked on 4 December and made their way to Brittany.
Many who survived the battle opted to flee to the south. This route led them towards fortified places held by Anglo-Gascon forces. They were pursued and harassed on their route towards safety. Many who survived the battle fled south towards fortified places held by Anglo-Gascon forces. They were pursued and harassed along the route. When they reached Bressuire Castle, their French pursuers were so close behind that the garrison refused to open the gates. The English were consequently caught outside the walls, where many were killed.
Sir Robert escaped the battlefield. He was able to return to England, where he was blamed for the disastrous end to the campaign. This included comment from the King’s Council as the expedition had been incredibly costly.
Financing Knolles’s Expedition
The Crown provided substantial financial support for Knolles’s expedition. The 1370 Issue Roll records payments made in connection with the campaign, including wages and transport. When the individual entries relating to the expedition are brought together, they amount to £38,414 2s 3d in documented expenditure: £34,864 12s in wages and £3,549 10s 3d in transport.
These figures are the cumulative amounts recorded in the Issue Roll, rather than an estimate of the expedition’s complete cost. The Roll does not necessarily capture every associated expense, particularly where payments were made through other arrangements or where the surviving financial record is incomplete.
The scale of the expenditure also needs to be understood within the wider financial pressures facing the Crown. The organisation of the expedition involved indentures, advances, taxation, customs revenue, loans and other forms of Crown finance. The financial arrangements surrounding Knolles’s expedition have also been examined in detail by Rémy Ambühl, J. W. Sherborne and W. Mark Ormrod, although they reach differing conclusions on aspects of the expedition’s financing.
Froissart on the Defeat at Pontvallain
Jean Froissart explicitly connected the defeat at Pontvallain with the collapse of the English chevauchée:
“Apriès celle desconfiture de Pont Volain, ou une partie des Englès furent ruet jus, pour quoi leur chevauchie se desrompi et deffist toute…”
After the defeat at Pontvallain, in which part of the English were overthrown, their chevauchée was broken up and entirely dissolved.
Froissart, Chroniques
The passage is significant because Froissart connects the defeat at Pontvallain directly with the ending of the English chevauchée. Pontvallain was therefore not an isolated encounter, but one of the decisive actions in the collapse of the expedition.
The Anonimalle Chronicle
The Anonimalle Chronicle attributed the English setback to the division among its commanders:
And before the feast of Christmas, the chief men of the army, out of envy and self-importance, split into four parts, to the great harm of England, and great comfort of the enemies: that is to say, the Lord of Grandson with his men in one part, the Lord FitzWalter in another, and Sir John Minsterworth in the third part, and Sir Robert Knolles in the fourth.
The Anonimalle Chronicle
Further Reading
- Rémy Ambühl, “A Licence to Conquest: The Indenture of War between Sir Robert Knolles and Edward III, 1370”, in Rémy Ambühl and Andy King (eds.), Documenting Warfare: Records of the Hundred Years War, Edited and Translated in Honour of Anne Curry (Woodbridge: Boydell Press, 2024), pp. 81–101. A study of the indenture governing Knolles’s expedition and the documentary basis of the campaign.
- Gary P. Baker, “Sir Robert Knolles’ Expedition to France in 1370: New Perspectives”, in Military Communities in Late Medieval England: Essays in Honour of Andrew Ayton, edited by Gary P. Baker, Craig L. Lambert and David Simpkin (Woodbridge: Boydell & Brewer, 2018), pp. 147–180. A modern study of the expedition, its command structure and the division of the English force.
- Nathaniel Ament, “Pillaged and Robbed so Well”: Captains in the Hundred Years War 1350–1380 (University of Maryland, 2024). A study of military captains and their careers during the later fourteenth century, drawing primarily on chronicle sources.
- J. W. Sherborne, “Indentured Retinues and English Expeditions to France, 1369–1380”, The English Historical Review, 79, no. 313 (1964), pp. 718–746. Oxford Academic | JSTOR.
- Jean Froissart, Chroniques. A near-contemporary narrative source describing the defeat at Pontvallain and the subsequent collapse of the English chevauchée.
- The Anonimalle Chronicle. A contemporary narrative source for the division of the English commanders.
- W. Mark Ormrod, Edward III (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2011). Yale University Press.