THE PEASANT AND WAR 121
untrained in war, and was slow to see that any advantage could
come from leaving his fields and going to an unknown country,
while travellers' tales of the wild and barbarous Scots and Welsh
did not allay his fears. So the King was constantly calling for
fresh forces, and the Commissioners were hard pressed to find
even half or three-quarters of the men that were required.
Although the King paid them twopence or threepence a day (as
compared with a penny a day which was often given for hired
field work), and although they were seldom kept on active service
for more than three months at a time, the fear of the unknown
and the reluctance to leave their homes held most men from the
army, and it was only the more hardy and adventurous spirits who
came forward willingly. The Commissioners had to find men,
however, and were aided in their task by the Muster Rolls which
were compiled in each county. From these they were able to see
fairly exactly what men there were available for service in each
village and town throughout the realm, and from such drew their
levies. Thus from nine hundreds of the Rape of Hastings in 1335
there were returned the names of 751 men liable for service, and
from the existing Muster Roll we can see how these names were
arranged in military fashion in companies nominally 100 strong,
each company divided into groups or sections of twenty men.
The Commissioners drew from this Roll the 200 archers and the
200 armed men which they were ordered by King's writ to raise
from the county. These lists, therefore, are of the greatest im-
portance and interest, for not only do they show the number and
names of those available, but also they give us information about
their weapons, and we find these Sussex men were variously
armed—some with bows and arrows, others with knives and
cudgels, while others again are described as pikemen and billmen.1
There can be little doubt that men bearing arms such as these
were of humble origin for the most part, and this view is sup-
ported by the clearest evidence when we look at the manorial
records. For example, an entry in the Hales Court Rolls of 1295
shows that several suitors of the Court were elected to serve in
the King's army in Wales,2 or again from a document of 1307 we
1 Dawson, History of Hastings Castle, I, 176; J. G. Nichols, Collectanea
Genealogical and Topographical, vn, 118. Cf. Norf. Arch, xrv, 263; Hearne,
Textus Roffensis (Oxford, 1720), 236.
2 Op. cit. 318; cf. 324, 329; cf. Select Coroner's Rolls, p. 75.