The rise of the third estate, and especially that of communal government, brought about modifications of the system as time moved on. These causes, with their influence on military matters, will be lightly touched upon in these pages as they arise; but it must be borne in mind that though feudalism was the same in principle everywhere, it differed in its application in the various countries it dominated, according to the characteristics and circumstances of the peoples. The principle of the ban or feudal levy was that those holding land should contribute to the king’s army in war time a certain fixed proportion of retainers, according to the acreage of their holding; but in cases of great national peril the levy, the arrière-ban, was much larger, and there was often an arrangement under which actual service might be compounded by a money payment called “scutage.” The arrière-ban or the ban-fieffé dates from the sixth century. It summoned the vassals, which the suzerain alone had a right to command. The increasing number of mercenary troops employed steadily diminished the importance of the ban, and “scutage” became more general. The battle of Courtray, fought in 1302, was the turning point in the greater estimation of the use of infantry combinations, when the French chivalry was so completely routed by the Flemish guild-bands, armed with the goedendag, which, whatever its form really was, then proved a most effective weapon against a rush of horsemen. About six thousand of the chevaliers were killed, a heavy blow struck at the nobility of France. The object-lesson thus afforded showed, even at this early period, that heavy horsemen charging with the lance, or striking with the mace or battle-axe, had ceased to be “the strength of the battle.” This experience was amply confirmed at a later period at the decisive battles--Granson, Morat, and Nancy. After the death of Charles the Bold at Nancy, in 1477, a victory won by the Swiss infantry with staff weapons, the “chivalry” of battle became much discredited, and the extreme feudalism which had hitherto dominated the military systems of Europe underwent its first serious check in the diminished importance of the mailed horseman, and the growing power of the third estate, which henceforward became a more weighty factor in warlike tactics and combinations. This process, which had been growing for some time in the gradual enfranchisement of the communes, developed from the motley swarms of yeomen and peasants at length into a communal militia. To these were now added “condottieri” and other free companies, such as stradiots, routiers, brabançons, and tard-venus, and with these more stable elements of an army, tactics and generalship, which had hitherto been of the most elementary character, soon made great strides. There are, however, early instances of the addition of “mercenary bands” to armies in the field. William the Conqueror’s army at Hastings