Combat of the Thirty The Combat of the Thirty ( 26 March 1351 ) , known as " Combat des Trente " in French , was an episode in the Breton War of Succession , a war fought to determine who would rule the Duchy of Brittany . It was an arranged fight between picked combatants from both sides of the conflict . It was fought at a site midway between the Breton castles of Josselin and Ploërmel between thirty champions , knights and squires on each side , in a challenge issued by Jean de Beaumanoir , a captain of Charles of Blois supported by the King of France , to Robert Bemborough , a captain of Jean de Montfort supported by the King of England . After a hard - fought battle , the Franco - Breton Blois faction emerged victorious . The combat was later celebrated by medieval chroniclers and balladeers as a noble display of the ideals of chivalry . In the words of Jean Froissart , the warriors " held themselves as valiantly on both sides as if they had been all Rolands and Olivers . " This idealised account conflicts with a version according to which the combat arose from the mistreatment of the local population by Bemborough . Background and cause . The Breton War of Succession was a struggle between the House of Montfort and House of Blois for control of the Duchy of Brittany . It came to be absorbed into the larger Hundred Years War between France and England , with England supporting the Montforts and France supporting the Blois family . At the time of the Combat , the war had become stalemated , with each faction controlling strongholds at different locations within Brittany , but occasionally making sorties into one another ' s territory . Robert Bemborough , a knight leading the Montfortist faction which controlled Ploërmel , was challenged to single combat by Jean de Beaumanoir , the captain of nearby Josselin , controlled by the Blois faction . According to the chronicler Froissart , this purely personal duel between the two leaders became a larger struggle when Bemborough suggested a combat between twenty or thirty knights on each side , a proposal that was enthusiastically accepted by de Beaumanoir . The motivation for the combat is unclear . The earliest written sources present it as a purely chivalric exercise , undertaken to " honour " the ladies for whom the knights were fighting : referring to Joan , Duchess of Brittany ( House of Blois ) and Joanna of Flanders ( House of Montfort ) . These woman were leading the two factions at the time , as Joan ' s husband was in captivity and Joanna ' s was dead ( her son was a young child at the time ) . This is the account given by the contemporary chroniclers Jean le Bel and Jean Froissart , both of whom present the conflict as purely a matter of honour with no personal animosity involved . Le Bel states that he had his information from one of the combatants . Froissart appears to simply copy le Bel ' s version . However , popular ballads portrayed the cause differently . The earliest of these , written by an unknown local supporter of the Blois faction , depicts Bemborough and his knights as ruthless despoilers of the local population , who appealed to Beaumanoir for help . Beaumanoir is depicted as a hero coming to the aid of the defenceless people . The poet also portrays Beaumanoir as a model of Christian piety , who puts his faith in God , in contrast to Bemborough who relies on the Prophesies of Merlin . This version was standardised in Pierre Le Baud ' s " History of the Bretons " , written a century later , in which Bemborough ' s alleged cruelty is explained by his desire to avenge the death of Thomas Dagworth . Whatever the cause , the fight was arranged in the form of an " emprise " — an arranged Pas d ' armes — which took place at an area known as the " chêne de Mi - Voie " ( the Halfway Oak ) between Ploërmel and Josselin , between picked combatants . It was organised in the manner of a tournament , with refreshments on hand and a large gathering of spectators . Bemborough is supposed to have said , " And let us right there try ourselves and do so much that people will speak of it in future times in halls , in palaces , in public places and elsewhere throughout the world . " The words are recorded by Froissart : " the saying may not be authentic " , Johan Huizinga remarks , " but it teaches us what Froissart thought " . Beaumanoir commanded thirty Bretons , Bemborough a mixed force of twenty Englishmen ( including Robert Knolles and Hugh Calveley ) , six German mercenaries and four Breton partisans of Montfort . It is unclear whether Bemborough himself was English or German . His name is spelled in many variant forms , and is given as " Brandebourch " by Froissart , and also appears as " Bembro " . His first name is sometimes given as Robert , sometimes as Richard . Both Le Bel and Froissart say he was a German knight , but historians have doubted this . All the Blois - faction knights can be identified , though Jean de Beaumanoir ' s given name is " Robert " in some versions . The names and identities of the Montforists are much more confused and uncertain . Battle . The battle , fought with sword s , daggers , spear s , and axes , mounted or on foot , was of the most desperate character , in its details very reminiscent of the last fight of the Burgundians in the " Nibelungenlied " , especially in the celebrated advice of Geoffroy du Bois to his wounded leader , who was asking for water : " Drink thy blood , Beaumanoir ; thy thirst will pass " ( " Bois ton sang , Beaumanoir , la soif te passera " ) . According to Froissart , the battle was fought with great gallantry on both sides . After several hours of fighting there were four dead on the French side and two on the English side . Both sides were exhausted and agreed to a break for refreshments and bandaging of injuries . After the battle resumed , the English leader Bemborough was wounded and then killed , apparently by du Bois . At this point the English faction formed a tight defensive body , which the French repeatedly attacked . A German soldier called Croquart is said to have displayed the greatest prowess in rallying the Anglo - Breton defence . In the end , the victory was decided by Guillaume de Montauban , a squire who mounted his horse and rode into the English line , breaking it . He overthrew seven of the English champions , the rest being forced to surrender . All the combatants on either side were either dead or seriously wounded , with nine on the English side slain . The prisoners were well treated and released on payment of a small ransom . Reputation . While the combat did not have any effect on the outcome of the Breton war of succession , it was considered by contemporaries to be an example of the finest chivalry . It was sung by trouvères , retold in the chronicles of Froissart and largely admired , and honoured in verse and the visual arts . A commemorative stone was placed at the site of the combat situated between Josselin and Ploermel and king Charles V of France commissioned a tapestry depicting it . The renown attached to those who participated was such that twenty years later , Jean Froissart noticed a scarred survivor , Yves Charruel , at the table of Charles V , where he was honoured above all others due to having been one of the Thirty . According to historian Steven Muhlberger , this chivalric version concentrates on " how the deed was done and not on who won . The willingness of all concerned to agree to rules and to actually observe them , to fight their best and not to run when injured or in danger of capture are the focus - and both sides are shown as equally worthy in that respect . " Later , the combat came to be seen in very different terms , influenced by the most famous of the contemporary popular ballads on the topic . In this version the English knights are villains , and the Blois faction are loyal and worthy local warriors . The balladeer lists each fighter on both sides ( though garbles several English names ) . He situates the Franco - Breton Blois faction as all local gentry and aristocracy performing their proper social duty to protect the people , thus justifying " the privileges that nobles held as brave defenders of the weak " . The Montfortists are a melange of foreign mercenaries and brigands who " torment the poor people " . After Brittany was absorbed into France , this version was incorporated into French nationalist accounts of the Hundred Years War , which was portrayed as a heroic struggle against foreign invaders who sought to violate France . Since the French faction had lost the War of Succession itself , the Combat was promoted as a symbolic and moral victory . A large monumental obelisk was commissioned by Napoleon in 1811 to be placed at the site of the battle , but it was not built during his reign . It was eventually erected in 1819 by the restored Bourbon king Louis XVIII , after the fall of Napoleon , with an inscription stating " God give the King long life , the Bourbons eternity ! " The inscription goes on to assert that the " thirty Bretons whose names are given as follows , fought to defend the poor , labourers and craftsmen and they vanquished foreigners attracted on the soil of the Country by fateful dissents . Breton posterity , imitate your ancestors ! " Though the combat had much less significance for the English , the fact that it was won because one combatant mounted a horse to break the Anglo - Breton line was later portrayed as evidence that the Franco - Bretons cheated . Edward Smedley ' s " History of France " ( 1836 ) states that the manoeuvre " wears some appearance of treachery " . This version was fictionalised by Arthur Conan Doyle in his historical novel " Sir Nigel " , in which Bemborough ( called Richard of Bambro ' in the novel ) accepts the rules of the challenge in a chivalric spirit , but the Franco - Bretons only win because Montauban , portrayed as Beaumanoir ' s squire , mounts his horse , when the conflict was supposed to be on foot , and rides upon the English trampling them . A free English translation in verse of the ballad was written by Harrison Ainsworth , who gives the name of the English leader as " Sir Robert Pembroke " . He is fancifully portrayed as the overall English leader after the death of Thomas Dagworth . Ainsworth argued that " Bembro " was originally " Pembroke " on the grounds that the Breton language version of the name was " Pennbrock " . " Penn brock " means " badger head " in Breton , which had become a derogatory nickname for Bemborough in Breton ballads . The Combatants . † indicates that the combatant was killed . The English side lost nine killed in total and the remainder captured . The Franco - Breton side lost at least three and probably more . A number of them were captured during the fighting , but were released at the final outcome of the conflict .