120 RENTS AND SERVICES
further appears that all villeins " secundum quantitatem terrarum
et catallorum suorum" were to bear arms. It was the force
assembled by these means to which Edward I appealed when
war broke out against the Welsh in 1276. The military resources
of the nation at that time have been admirably summarised by
Dr J. E. Morris in these words:
The arms were ready, and each man was equipped at his own
expense, the country bore the expense of mobilisation, and the crown
paid wages from the date of the outward march. In 1277 occasionally
the sheriff led his contingent to the war, but as the reign wore on the
King appointed special officers to take over the men from the sheriff.
Writs were issued authorising them to raise a specified number of
men; such writs became more common from the war of 1282 on-
wards, and the system was in full force in 1294. The Commissioners
of Array, as they came to be called, were usually experienced officers,
and being often sent, war after war, to the same counties, they
doubtless knew the right men to choose.1
Edward I soon learnt that the measures taken by his ancestors
were insufficient to provide the numbers of men which his
growing knowledge of the technique of war and of the im-
portance of infantry saw to be necessary. The Statute of Win-
chester in 1285 reorganised the military resources of the country,
and brought the vast mass of peasants definitely within reach of
the King's Commissioners of Array. From this time onwards,
the continuous wars in France, Scotland and Wales became of
considerable moment to the serf; and, more and more, he found
himself caught up by great forces whose ultimate aims were far
beyond his comprehension, but whose immediate needs absorbed
him and his fellows in increasing numbers and threw them into
the wars. At first it was the peasantry of the Welsh marches,
together with the men of the neighbouring counties, who were
forced to march at the word of command; then the battles in
Scotland called for levies from all the counties north of the
Trent, and finally the wars of Edward III necessitated the raising
of promising recruits from the peasantry of all England.
How far this continuous demand was met by a willing response
it is not possible to decide, but, as we might expect, the balance
of evidence suggests that the Commissioners met with con-
siderable difficulties in their recruiting marches. The peasant was
1 J. E. Morris, The Welsh Wars of Edward I, 92.