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Recueil des croniques d’Engleterre
Collection of chronicles of England by Jean of Wavrin
Copy from North-East France (Lille?), c. 1470-1480
British Library MS. Royal 14 E IV
f.23r The siege of Mortagne


A larger image of f.23r The siege of Mortagne
This folio illuminated by the Master of the Vienna and Copenhagen Toison d’Or in c. 1470

Next: f.28v The siege of Pamplona
Back to the Recueil des croniques d’Engleterre, Collection of chronicles of England, by Jean of Wavrin. Copy from North-East France (Lille?), c. 1470-1480

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The timber-strengthened earthwork is referenced as Fig. 158 in Armies of the Middle Ages, Volume 1 by Ian Heath:

"158. As an additional defence against steadily improving artillery many towns and fortresses, in addition to having gun emplacements added to their walls, also added barbicans and further outer defences which, from the 1430s at the latest, often took the form of timber-strengthened earthworks called boulevards (from the German Bolwerk) which were well-stocked with artillery. These are recorded before the gates of Bordeaux in 1442, for example. Likewise, by the 1440s it had become customary for besiegers to construct similar field fortifications in the form of an entrenched artillery park beyond the range of the defenders' own guns, from which they would then dig a network of trenches and gun positions covered by wooden hoardings and mantlets. Based on a picture of c. 1475, the general form of such defensive positions can be seen in this figure. The Battle of Castillon in 1453 was basically an attack on a similar entrenched position."