How many men served in the defence of Calais at any one time? To answer this question the composition and different status of those bodies of men that formed the Calais garrison must first be understood The soldiers involved in the defence of the Pale were not all recruited and paid for in the same way, nor did they all serve under the one commander. The defence of Calais, certainly at the beginning of our period, was undertaken by a series of separate retinues, each under the command of one of the captains of the town or the various fortresses in the Pale. Those in regular wages, that is limited in number by the terms of the captains' indentures and paid for by the treasurer of Calais, comprised the regular garrison. To these should be added the temporary reinforcements or ‘crews’ which augmented the defences in times of crisis and those in ‘petty wages’, in other words, men in private wages who did not form part of the regular establishment. The aim of this chapter is to identify the numbers involved in the defence of Calais and the way in which they were organised as a military force. Did the numbers involved and the way in which they were deployed change over time? To what extent did the organisation of the Calais garrison serve as a model for English military establishments elsewhere?