Pierre Terrail, seigneur de Bayard ( – 30 April 1524) was a French knight and military leader at the transition between the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, generally known as the Chevalier de Bayard. Throughout the centuries since his death, he has been known as "the knight without fear and beyond reproach" (le chevalier sans peur et sans reproche). He himself preferred the name given him by his contemporaries for his gaiety and kindness, le bon chevalier ("the good knight").
Early life The descendant of a noble family with a military tradition – three generations of Terrail ancestors had fallen in battle successively from 1356 to 1465 – Bayard was born at the Château Bayard, Dauphiné (near Pontcharra, Isère) in southern France. He served as a page to the young Duke Charles I of Savoy until March 1490, when the Duke died of an illness.
At age thirteen he came to the attention of King Charles VIII of France when he put on a remarkable display of horsemanship for the Duke of Savoy that earned him the nickname piquet (spur).Simms, William Gilmore (1847) The Life of the Chevalier Bayard; New York: Harper & Brothers. pp.8–11.
1490 – Service of King Charles VIII of France
1490 – Man at arms of Louis de Luxembourg In 1490 Bayard took service as a man-at-arms in the household of Louis de Luxembourg, the seigneur de Ligny (November 1490) and a favorite of King Charles VIII of France. As a youth, Bayard was distinguished by his looks, charming manner, and skill in the tiltyard.
On 20 July 1494, a tournée was held in Lyons, attended by the king and his court. Though not yet eighteen, Bayard won the highest honors, again coming to the attention of the king.Simms, William Gilmore, The Life of the Chevalier Bayard"; Harper & Brothers Publishers, 1847. P. 29, para 1–3.
1494 – Battle of Naples In 1494, Bayard accompanied Charles VIII's expedition into Italy to seize the Kingdom of Naples. This campaign is now known as the Italian War of 1494–1498.
1495 – Battle of Fornovo Bayard was knighted after the 1495 Battle of Fornovo in which he captured a standard. Shortly afterward, entering Milan alone in pursuit of the enemy, he was taken prisoner but was set free without a ransom by Ludovico Sforza.
Duel with Sotomayor What first made Bayard truly famous in Italy, was an episode that took place in 1502, when a Gascon named Gaspar took prisoner Alonso de Sotomayor, a Spanish knight of gigantic stature and endowed with Herculean strength, while he was on his way to Rome. While Gaspar was waiting for the ransom due, Bayard took over the prisoner to prevent him from suffering ill-treatment, welcomed him into his home and treated him with all the respect and honor that he granted to his friends. However, the Spaniard, after gaining his freedom, accused Bayard of mistreating him and of having suffered terrible pains. As soon as he learned of this, the indignant Bayard challenged him to a duel to the death.
Bayard suffered at that time from serious attacks of malaria that weakened him physically and, as a sick person, he had the right to be represented by another. His friend Bellabre immediately volunteered in his place, but Bayard refused, saying he wanted to defend his own honor. On the day of the duel he had just recovered from the last attack of fever; after lying on the ground and having entrusted his soul to God, he went down to wait for his adversary. Sotomayor made him wait a long time in armor under the sun with the intent to tire him and weaken him further.
La Palice, worried about the delay, went to urge the Spaniard to present himself on the field. However, Sotomayor now placed a condition on the duel: as the challenged party, it was up to him to choose the weapons to be used. He declared that he wanted to fight on foot with a sword and a dagger. In this way, thanks to his build, he would have outreached his opponent. The request was disconcerting, as knights always clashed on horseback with lance and sword. He hoped that Bayard would be pushed by his friends to call off the duel. Instead, Bayard dismounted and the duel began.
Sotomayor initially feinted at Bayard, still trying to tire his opponent. Several times he repeated the same move: to raise the sword with two hands to lower it on the head of Bayard, who always dodged him. At the fourth time that the tactic was repeated, Bayard took advantage of the opportunity, threw himself forward and with the tip of the sword skewered from below the uncovered throat of the Spaniard, then finished him by planting the dagger in one eye. The French celebrated him exultantly with drums and piffari, but Bayard ordered them to be silent, since he did not want death to be celebrated. He went to a church where he began to pray on his knees for the soul of the dead.
1502 – Battle of Canossa In 1502 Bayard was wounded at Canossa.
1503 – Battle of Garigliano
In the autumn of 1503, the French army moved towards Naples and in November reached the Garigliano river; there, sentinels sighted the Spanish troops commanded by Gonzalo Fernández de Córdoba, a general who months earlier had inflicted a heavy defeat on the French near Cerignola. Because the river was in flood, the French threw a bridge of boats across it, covered by artillery fire that prevented the Spaniards from disturbing the operation. Having established the bridge, the French made camp, preferring to postpone the advance towards Naples to the following Spring. The army, too numerous to stay in the same camp, was divided and several battalions were dispersed in the surrounding villages. The Spaniards, taking advantage of the winter mists and the division of the French army, on 28 December, on the advice of Bartolomeo d'Alviano, threw another bridge of boats across the river and seized the unguarded and poorly defended camp. The rout that followed was catastrophic for the army of Louis XII: the sentinels noticed the attack too late and the commanders, caught off guard, did not have time to organize an effective defense and so turned to flight, pressed hard by Italian and Spanish cavalry.
Bayard, armed with sword and spear, then placed himself in the middle of the bridge, challenging alone about 300 or 400 Spaniards who, though numerous, could not even make him retreat. Around the knight rained arrows, spears, and spades, but he, dodging them, continued to repel all who climbed the bridge to face him, until his friend Bellabre rushed to pull him away from there to take him to safety. Bayard's intervention made it possible to cover the retreat of the French army and gave them time to place the artillery to be ready to face the Spaniards and start the counterattack.
This feat, cloaked in legend, contributed significantly to his fame as a knight "without spot and without fear", so much so that Pope Julius II himself tried in vain to secure his services.
Despite the value of Bayard, the French still had the worst on the Garigliano: their army was nearly annihilated; according to Bartolomeo d'Alviano, the main architect of the resounding Spanish victory, the army of Louis XII counted 1,500 spears, 3,400 cavalrymen, and 8,000 infantry that after the battle had been reduced to just 200 spears, 150 cavalrymen, and 600 infantry. These troops barricaded themselves in Gaeta, where a few days later they negotiated the surrender, but demanded that all prisoners be released and that transit to the north be ensured. Fernández de Córdoba agreed.
1508 – Service of King Louis XII of France In 1508, Bayard accompanied King Louis XII against rebellious Genoa. In the battle that broke the back of the rebellion, Bayard played the role of champion and spearhead in the French assault, a breakneck cavalry charge up a mountain slope against a seemingly impregnable barricade defended by a pike-phalanx of Genoese militia. The Genoese broke and fled before the furious charge of Bayard and the French gendarmes. Genoa subsequently fell, and Bayard entered the city in triumph behind his king.
In June of that year, Louis XII played host to the Spanish king, Ferdinand. Weeks of festivities followed, including tourneys, banquets, and balls. Bayard was the champion of the first, and at the last became reacquainted with his former opponent at the Garigliano, Gonzalo Fernández de Córdoba, El Gran Capitán ("The Great Captain") of Spain.
1509 – Battle of Agnadello In 1509, the League of Cambrai was formed between France, the Holy Roman Empire, Spain, and the Papacy in an effort to wrest from Venice its territorial empire in northeastern Italy.
For this campaign, the king commissioned Bayard to raise a company of horse and foot. Until that time, French infantry had been a despised rabble. Bayard's company became a model of discipline, high morale, and battlefield effectiveness, and played a key role that year in rescuing the French vanguard at the Battle of Agnadello, on 14 May 1509 against the Venetian forces led by Bartolomeo d'Alviano.
1509 – Siege of Padua Later that year, Bayard was among the French forces under Jacques de La Palice sent to join their German ally, the Emperor Maximilian I at the Siege of Padua. Though the siege ultimately failed, what early success the allies enjoyed was largely due to Bayard's combination of cool-headed leadership and dashing bravado.
Following the lifting of the siege by the Emperor, Bayard and a force of 300 men-at-arms retired into garrison at Verona. Bayard successfully carried out a series of raids and ambushes against Venetian forces in the vicinity, proving himself a master of "small war", and adept at the leading of what today would be called "special operations".
In 1510 the Duchy of Ferrara joined the alliance. Bayard was co-commander of the French contingent sent to garrison and aid the city and its Duke, Alfonso d'Este. During his eight-month stay, Bayard won the admiration of the duke and his wife, the lady Lucrezia Borgia. According to his biographer, "The Loyal Servant" (likely Bayard's archer and lifelong secretary, Jacques de Mailles), Bayard fully reciprocated Lucrezia's admiration, considering her "a pearl" among women. He returned to Ferrara on other occasions to pay homage to the lady, once in the company of Gaston de Foix, duc de Nemours, just months before the Battle of Ravenna, where the Duke lost his life.
1511 – Holy League By 1511 the League of Cambrai had collapsed due to papal fears of the growing power of France in Italy. To counter this, Pope Julius II declared the formation of the Holy League. This alliance put France at odds with not only the papacy but its erstwhile ally, the Holy Roman Empire, as well as Spain and ultimately the Swiss Confederation.
In various skirmishes with papal troops around Ferrara, Bayard continued to win renown. In one instance, he very nearly captured the Pope himself. About this time, the Duke Alphonso and Bayard found themselves under papal interdict. How long Bayard's period of excommunication lasted is unclear.
1512 – Siege of Brescia At the Siege of Brescia in 1512, Bayard led a wedge of dismounted men-at-arms against the defenders, himself at its tip. Several times the French assault was thrown back. Each time Bayard rallied the French forces and led them in renewed attacks. His boldness at last resulted in a severe wound to the thigh, but not before the defenses were breached and the French entered the town.
The soldiers carried Bayard into a neighbouring mansion, the residence of a nobleman, whose wife and daughters he protected from threatened insult. Bayard was charmed by the young daughters, who sang to him nightly. Before his wound was healed, he learned that battle was imminent at Ravenna, and he hurried to depart to rejoin his comrades. He endowed the two daughters with a thousand gold ducats each, the money the lady of the house had paid him as ransom for her family.
1512 – Battle of Ravenna