French light cavalry

Here are two units of French 'light' cavalry, twenty figures in total. As far as I'm aware in the late 15th century there weren't actually dedicated light cavalry formations in the French or Burgundian military, so these should really be seen as informal groupings of (mostly) lightly armoured horsemen pulled together for specific tasks. As such they will probably just see action in smaller skirmish-style games rather than large battles.

The French 'lance' featured two mounted archers to each man-at-arms. Would these archers always be fielded on foot as missile troops, or could they also double up as lightly-equipped lancers, either to support the mounted men-at-arms or used as scouts, etc? Certainly by some point in the 16th century the term 'archer' actually came to refer to an armoured lancer, so could the start of this be traced back as early as 1477? I don't know, but it makes sense to me that at times some of the 'archers' might be seen fighting on horseback with a light lance. It's not actually clear to me if the French 'lance' also featured a coustillier - I've found conflicting accounts.

One of the units features mostly fully armoured men, so in fact represents men-at-arms in a 'light cavalry' role, or perhaps just suitably based for small skirmish games.

The heraldic banner is swappable, but the one you see here is for Gaston du Lion. He was a nobleman who fought in Burgundy under Georges de la Trémoille, so at least in 1477 and probably for longer after la Trémoille's dismissal. I came across his name from an account of a letter he wrote to la Trémoille, bragging about having routed a force of Swiss outside the walls of Dole. The idea seems to be that his boasting suggested to la Trémoille that he would have an easy victory when he came to besiege the town, but in that he would be disappointed! I haven't been able to find out much more about him other than he was Lord of Besaudun and Seneschal of Toulouse, and his brother was Archbishop of Toulouse. The flag is his family arms, but I can't say if those were the ones he would have used in 1477.

The figures are mostly a mix of Perry plastics and metals, plus a couple of old Wargames Foundry sculpts converted to fit in with the modern Perry range. I've got a few of the metal Perry horses in there as well - they are noticeably smaller than the plastic ones, but I raised their height with an extra 1.5mm Renedra base and now they blend in much better. I wish I'd used more of them for my earlier cavalry units now.... There's also two plastic horses from the Perry ACW range - once the 19th century saddlery is carefully carved off they fit into the 15th century quite fine.