Companies of Ordinance

Timeline

1. 1439–1444Around Orléans-Tours · Loire ValleyThe 1439 Estates-General confirmed that only the king could recruit and train armed men, and that standing troops be funded by the military pay tax, while restricting nobles' private retainers. The truce of Tours let the crown screen mercenaries and disband unlawful bands, creating the conditions for forming companies by ordinance.
2. 1445–1448Louppy-le-Château · LorraineThe ordinance of 26 May 1445 designated fifteen captains, each with one hundred lances, forming a royal standing cavalry of about nine thousand men. Soldiers received fixed pay and were stationed at strategic points; scattered mercenaries refusing reorganization were cleared out, making the companies a deployable instrument of state force.
3. 1450–1453French battlefields and garrison towns · FranceBy around 1450 the companies were divided into grandes ordonnances for the field and petites ordonnances for garrison duty, providing sustained cavalry in the campaigns to recover Normandy and Guyenne. When the Hundred Years' War ended in 1453, the crown possessed a professional core force independent of ad hoc feudal levies.
4. 1461–1600Kingdom of France · FranceUnder Louis XI and later, company numbers expanded and contracted with the wars, and lance composition was adjusted. As the institutional shell of royal standing cavalry, the companies of ordinance were inherited in the 17th century by formations such as the royal gendarmerie; their significance lay in turning the army into a budgetable, quarterable state institution.