Why were casualities so low on medieval battles?

[IrishBlood]

Completely wrong, the English spotted the French scouts and they were prepared.
They actually started constructing fortifications and stakes but failed to completely finish them.

The frontal charge of the French was met with about 3000 longbowmen and 2000 men at arms, an elite army of the English led by two of their most esteemed military commanders.
They were prepared and they were still slaughtered regardless because, and this might shock you, heavy cavalry does a really good job at killing people if it's not stuck in mud.

The same happened at the battle of La Brossiniere( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle...ossini%C3%A8re ) where a couple of hundred French knights detached from the main army and frontally, uphill and in a forest, charged the English army and destroyed them with loosing only 1 knight who died in melee and "a few others".

The longbowmen were completely incapable of penetrating their armor even in point blank range, in fact, and I repeat this often, there is not a single historical source mentioning a person being killed by an arrow or bolt penetrating his plate armor.

Seriously, 0, not a single one.


But the argument is the same regardless, the French were incapable or (more likely)unwilling to pursue the routing English, even though they were mounted and the English were on foot.
That was my argument, that chasing down scattered troops was not as safe as total war "continue battle" mode would like you to believe.

The French knights might have been ready and willing to continue the chase, but the French horses most likely were not However tiring it might be for a heavily armored knight to charge up a steep hill and then slaughter some Englishmen, I assure you it is far more tiring for the poor horse who has to carry said heavily armored knight up the hill! Chances are the horses were simply too tired to continue and pushing them to go on a further chase after charging up a hill might have been too much and could have 'broken' them.

As I am sure you know horses are damn expensive animals and they were cripplingly expensive back in medieval times, so i'd imagine the knights would have been reluctant to push their likely exhausted horses much further in case they ended up killing them.

[Ludicus]

But what does "lost" mean?.

Casualties.
According to Contamine, at Courtrai, 1302, the defeated French may have lost 75 great lords and over 1,000 knights, representing perhaps of 40% of their entire cavalry force.According to Preston, at the battle of Crécy,1346, the French casualties may have been as high as 8,000.At Poitiers, based on herald's list, the French suffered 2,445 casualties and near 2,000 men had been taken prisoners.At Verneuil (Jones, The Battle of Verneuil) 1424,English heralds reported that the French army suffered 7,262 casualties while the Scottish contingent was virtually wiped out, with all commanders of rank killed.