BATTLE // April 3, 1351

Combat of the Thirty

Name: Combat of the Thirty
Start: 1351-04-03
End: 1351-04-03
Location: Combat of the Thirty

LOADING MAP TELEMETRY…

Significance

The Combat of the Thirty was an arranged engagement within the War of the Breton Succession, the dynastic conflict over control of the Duchy of Brittany between the houses of Blois and Montfort, backed respectively by France and England. Rather than a conventional pitched battle, it took the form of a formal challenge: Jean de Beaumanoir, fighting for Charles of Blois, issued a challenge to Robert Bemborough, captain for Jean de Montfort, and both sides selected thirty champions, knights, and squires to meet at a site midway between the castles of Josselin and Ploërmel. The episode reflects the degree to which the Breton conflict, itself a subsidiary theater of the broader Anglo-French rivalry, retained chivalric conventions even amid extended military campaigning. As a deliberate, bounded contest chosen by commanders on each side, it stood apart from the operational conduct of the war while remaining rooted in its factional alignment — Blois-France against Montfort-England — that defined the succession struggle from 1341 onward.

Tactics

The combat was fought between thirty selected combatants from each side at a site midway between the castles of Josselin and Ploërmel. Beyond the arranged nature of the encounter and the roughly equal composition of knights and squires on each side, the overview does not describe the tactical conduct of the fighting.