Today in 1470

Losecote Field was fought today March 12th in 1470 "more a rout than
a battle, for even before the two armies came to blows the rebel army
broke and fled the field" says Philip Haigh.
Most of the rebels, Welles' men, were wearing livery jackets of the
Earl of Warwick and the Duke of Clarence. So as not to be caught
wearing them by King Edward's men, they discarded them as they ran.

Paul

Richard liveth yet

Just curious - is today not actually the anniversary of "Losecoat Field" because of the conversion to the Gregorian calendar?

I would keep the old-style date just to avoid headaches, however...

--- In , Paul Trevor Bale <paul.bale@...> wrote:
>
> Losecote Field was fought today March 12th in 1470 "more a rout than
> a battle, for even before the two armies came to blows the rebel army
> broke and fled the field" says Philip Haigh.
> Most of the rebels, Welles' men, were wearing livery jackets of the
> Earl of Warwick and the Duke of Clarence. So as not to be caught
> wearing them by King Edward's men, they discarded them as they ran.
>
> Paul
>
> Richard liveth yet
>
>
>
>
>
>
>

Here's a typical standard account:

"Edward soon had the Lincolnshire leaders under lock and key; the rebel host, attempting to join Warwick near Leicester, was cut off and dispersed on 12 March [1470] at Lose-Cote Field near Stamford (so called because the rebels cast away their jackets in their haste to escape the field)."
- Charles Ross, The Wars of the Roses, p.82.

It would appear, however, that the name is a post-medieval fantasy (as is the term "Wars of the Roses," for that matter!). Note the following:

"The engagement at Empingham on 12 May 1470 [sic] seems to have received no name from contemporaries other than the topographical description applied to the attainder of Richard, Lord Welles, which recorded his treason as having taken place `in a field called Hornefeld in Empyngham.' Another field or parcel called `Losecoat' field, from Old English hlose-cot, `pigsty cottage,' seems to have been the source for a local tradition, unrecorded before the early nineteenth century, that the name referred to the fact that the defeated Lancastrians had cast their liveries aside to escape detection after the battle. It remains the battle of Losecoat field or Empingham, complete with explanations of the contemptuous appellation as contemporary, in most modern scholarship."
- Philip Morgan, "The Naming of Battlefields in the Middle Ages," in Diana Dunn, ed., War and Society in Medieval and Early Modern Britain (Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 2000), 41.

Morgan derives his information from this source:

"Losecoat Field: …local name for the site of the Battle of Empingham, 12th May 1470 [sic]. Popular lore maintains that it refers to the tradition that the defeated Lancastrians threw off their coats to escape detection after the battle, but the name is no doubt from the more mundane OE hlose-cot `pigsty cottage'…the contemporary name for the battleground was Hornefeld in Empyngham…because it was adjacent to Horn."
- Barrie Cox, The Place-Names of Rutland (Nottingham: English Place-Name Society, 1994).

Cox's explanation rings true for me.

Any thoughts?

--- In , Paul Trevor Bale <paul.bale@...> wrote:
>
> Losecote Field was fought today March 12th in 1470 "more a rout than
> a battle, for even before the two armies came to blows the rebel army
> broke and fled the field" says Philip Haigh.
> Most of the rebels, Welles' men, were wearing livery jackets of the
> Earl of Warwick and the Duke of Clarence. So as not to be caught
> wearing them by King Edward's men, they discarded them as they ran.
>
> Paul
>
> Richard liveth yet
>
>
>
>
>
>
>

Nobody remembers any date from before the introduction of the
Gregorian calendar by any other than the date it took place.
Bosworth on September 2nd anyone?
Paul


On 12 Mar 2009, at 14:30, yorkistjoe wrote:

> Just curious - is today not actually the anniversary of "Losecoat
> Field" because of the conversion to the Gregorian calendar?
>
> I would keep the old-style date just to avoid headaches, however...
>
> --- In , Paul Trevor Bale
> <paul.bale@...> wrote:
>>
>> Losecote Field was fought today March 12th in 1470 "more a rout than
>> a battle, for even before the two armies came to blows the rebel army
>> broke and fled the field" says Philip Haigh.
>> Most of the rebels, Welles' men, were wearing livery jackets of the
>> Earl of Warwick and the Duke of Clarence. So as not to be caught
>> wearing them by King Edward's men, they discarded them as they ran.
>>
>> Paul
>>
>> Richard liveth yet
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>
>
>
>
> ------------------------------------
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Richard liveth yet