60 knights paused a war to fight a battle royale

Re:60 knights paused a war to fight a battle royale by somenameforme on Friday September 23, 2022 @02:08PM (#32955238)

It also would not have been chivalrous to kill an opponent who yielded, so the only ones dying are those who were killed in short order on the battle field, or those who refused to yield in hopeless circumstance.

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Re:60 knights paused a war to fight a battle royale by telchior on Friday September 23, 2022 @02:47PM (#32955620)

Probably much more important than chivalry: you can't ransom off a captive who is dead.

Ransoms were really, really large in that period. Five years after this battle, the English captured the French king at Poitiers. His ransom was 4 million gold coins plus, I think, various concessions. The French ended up having to pay a lot of ransoms through the whole war, and as a result, the nobility and crown were so poor they couldn't prevent banditry and famines.

Barbara Tuchman's A Distant Mirror: The Calamitous 14th Century is a very engaging account of this period.

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Re:60 knights paused a war to fight a battle royale by greesil on Friday September 23, 2022 @08:39PM (#32958730)

My takeaway from reading that book was that if I was a time traveler I'd avoid that place and time. I thought the banditry may have served as inspiration for the middle books of Game of Thrones.

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Re:60 knights paused a war to fight a battle royale by MomoXenosaga on Friday September 23, 2022 @10:51PM (#32959338)

I think the religious wars of the 16th and 17th century were worse. Even high nobility was not immune from torture and gruesome executions.

You can't bribe a fanatic.

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Re:60 knights paused a war to fight a battle royale by hprotagonist on Friday September 23, 2022 @02:40PM (#32955553)

"you can't ransom the dead!" and basically all the combatants were noble.

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Re:60 knights paused a war to fight a battle royale by varjag on Friday September 23, 2022 @03:25PM (#32956023)

Weren't they all executed in the end?

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Re:60 knights paused a war to fight a battle royale by henryfjordan on Friday September 23, 2022 @03:52PM (#32956302)

>All the prisoners were treated well and were released promptly on the payment of a small ransom.

https://www.britannica.com/event/Battle-of-the-Thirty

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Re:60 knights paused a war to fight a battle royale by varjag on Sunday September 25, 2022 @01:10PM (#32973461)

But then again,

According to the visitors' guide to the Chateau de Josselin "As evening fell that day, the victor, Captain de Beaumanoir, returned the prisoners to Josselin and had them executed."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Combat_of_the_Thirty#Battle

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Re:60 knights paused a war to fight a battle royale by birdyrooster on Friday September 23, 2022 @02:19PM (#32955355)

Tis but a scratch

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