INTRODUCTIONI
This collection has emerged from a conversation that occurred some
years ago at the Medieval Congress in Kalamazoo, Michigan. While
debating the significance of the Hundred Years War for the history
of southern Europe, one of the editors raised the question of its
influence on Spain with a fellow Hispanist. The reply was immediate and categorical: “There was no Hundred Years War in Spain.”
In reading the first section of this volume, it will become readily
apparent that the editors disagree. Starting around the middle of the
1360s, events in Spain significantly altered the course of the struggle north of the Pyrenees. Not only did Spanish involvement in the
Hundred Years War propel that conflict in new directions, it also
worked a profound effect on peninsular history, bringing a new
dynasty, the Trastámaras, to the throne of Castile and cementing
that kingdom into a French orbit for more that a century to come.
A second spill-over of the war south of the Pyrenees occurred in the
mid-1380s, albeit with less dramatic results. Nor was the Spanish
experience unique. The great Anglo-French struggle that dominated
western Europe had a noteworthy impact on the history of other
neighboring regions, in particular Italy and the Low Countries.1
Copyright © 2005. BRILL. All rights reserved.
1
The Hundred Years War remains one of the most widely studied topics in
medieval history. Others include the reign of Charlemagne, the Investiture Controversy,
the Crusades, the destruction of the Templars, and the Black Death. For some idea
of the extensive bibliography surrounding the Hundred Years War, see Kelly DeVries,
A Cumulative Bibliography of Medieval Military History and Technology (Leiden, 2002),
285–410. General works on medieval military history that consider the Hundred
Years War in its wider context include Charles Oman, A History of War in the Middle
Ages (New York, 1924) and Philippe Contamine, War in the Middle Ages, trans. Michael
Jones (Oxford, 1984). For easily accessible short histories of the conflict, see: Desmond
Seward, The Hundred Years War, The English in France, 1337–1453 (New York, 1978)
and Robin Neillands, The Hundred Years War (New York, 1990). The most ambitious project underway is Jonathan Sumption’s multivolume treatment of the war,
the first two volumes of which—The Hundred Years War: Trial by Battle (Philadelphia,
1990) and The Hundred Years War: Trial by Fire (Philadelphia, 1999)—are currently
in print. There are many books that provide illustrations of period arms, armor,
and artwork; see, for example, H.W. Koch, Medieval Warfare (London, 1978) and
Richard Humble, Warfare in the Middle Ages (London, 1989). Several of the contributors
Villalon, A., & Kagay, D. (Eds.). (2005). The hundred years war : A wider focus. BRILL.
Created from tcu on 2022-03-31 01:47:44.
xxiv
introduction
Copyright © 2005. BRILL. All rights reserved.
The editors decided that a volume giving greater prominence to
the issue of “geographic spillover” might carve itself a niche in the
voluminous literature on the Hundred Years War. Later on, in speaking to scholars who studied areas on “the periphery” of the conflict,
it became clear that many shared a belief that their regions’ involvement in the conflict had also received inadequate attention; as a
result, a number of essays could be gathered which would place the
Hundred Years War into this wider geographic focus.
The original plan was to achieve a “balance” between these essays
from “the periphery” and others having a more traditional focus;
however, a turning point came during a meeting with the editor of
Brill’s medieval military history series, Kelly DeVries. Brill had already
expressed interest in the collection and the editors hoped to tap
DeVries’ expertise and network of contacts in order to help line up
some of the more traditional contributors. Immediately, he cut to
the chase: why not forego the idea of a balance and concentrate
instead on matters which in the past have been considered “peripheral,” demonstrating their true relevance to the war. Such a collection could prove useful to scholars of the Hundred Years War at
the same time that it broadened the general reader’s understanding
of the conflict.
Once the decision was made to concentrate exclusively on this
“wider focus,” only one thing remained: to widen it still farther. As
a result, the collection not only looks at how the Hundred Years
War affected geographical areas outside the main theatres, it also
contains articles that either deal with understudied aspects of the
war or revise old shiboleths. The response from potential contributors has been extensive enough to make possible a multi-volume
work, the second volume of which will appear at a later date. It is
for the reader to decide the extent to which our efforts to achieve
“a wider focus”have been successful.
to the present collection have published books that deal largely or entirely with the
conflict, while others are in the works. For example, see: Kelly DeVries, Infantry
Warfare in the Early Fourteenth Century: Discipline, Tactics, and Technology (1996); Clifford
Rogers, War Cruel and Sharp: English Strategy under Edward III, 1327–1360 (2000). A
third contributor, Jane Marie Pinzino, is currently completing a manuscript entitled The Grand Inquisitor, the Bishop and the Maid: Joan of Arc’s Nullification Trial and the
Reform of Inquisition.
Villalon, A., & Kagay, D. (Eds.). (2005). The hundred years war : A wider focus. BRILL.
Created from tcu on 2022-03-31 01:47:44.
introduction
xxv
II
Copyright © 2005. BRILL. All rights reserved.
The Hundred Years War was fought primarily between France and
England in the years 1337–1453,2 though (as we shall see in the
course of these essays), it spilled over into surrounding regions such
as Italy, Spain, the Low Countries, and western Germany. Viewed
in a longer perspective, the war was really the last round in a 400year struggle between two of medieval Europe’s major dynasties to
determine which would control much if not all of France, a fact that
has led several prominent historians to refer to the conflict as “the
second Hundred Years War.”3 On one side stood the Valois Dynasty,
a cadet branch of the Capetians who had controlled France since
the elevation of Hugh Capet to the kingship in 987.4 Against these
Capetian-Valois kings were ranged the Plantagenets, a family that
had ruled England since William the Conqueror, Duke of Normandy,
had sailed across the channel in 1066 and seized the throne from
its last Anglo-Saxon ruler.5
In the end, after many stunning reversals of fortune, the CapetianValois dynasty triumphed. In 1453, its current incumbent, Charles
VII (1422–61), expelled his English rivals from all the lands they
held on the continent, with the sole exception of the port city of
Calais and its environs. Calais, seized early in the conflict (1346–47),
would not fall back into French hands until another war was fought
between the traditional enemies in the mid-sixteenth century.
While many factors helped precipitate the Hundred Years War,
its most immediate cause lay in conflicting claims on the French
2
Although these are the dates regularly assigned to the Hundred Years War,
both involve chronological problems of the sort that characterize the conflict. For
example, although which Edward III began to gather allies for his conflict with the
French in 1337, he did not actually launch an attack on that country until 1339
and he officially claimed the French crown only in 1340. And while the final expulsion of the English from all French territory but Calais occurred in 1453, no treaty
ended the conflict at that time. Not recognizing that the war was for all intents
and purposes over, England again dispatched armies to the continent in 1475 and
1492.
3
James Westfall Thompson and Edgar Nathaniel Johnson, An Introduction to Medieval Europe 300–1500 (New York, 1937), 879; arguably the finest medieval history
text written in English.
4
For a list of Capetian-Valois monarchs who participated in the conflict, see
Genealogical Charts at the end of the introduction and the list in the Appendix.
5
For a list of Plantagenet monarchs who participated in the conflict, see Appendix
and genealogical chart.
Villalon, A., & Kagay, D. (Eds.). (2005). The hundred years war : A wider focus. BRILL.
Created from tcu on 2022-03-31 01:47:44.
xxvi
introduction
Copyright © 2005. BRILL. All rights reserved.
crown.6 Having left behind three sons, Philip IV “the Fair” (1285–
1314), whose actions had led to the creation of the Estates General
(1302), the establishment of the Avignon Papacy (1305–1378)7 and
destruction of the Templars (1307–1314),8 died in the full confidence
that he, like his predecessors for many generations, had ensured
succession by the direct line of Hugh Capet. Unfortunately for the
Capetians, in just over a dozen years, each of his sons succeeded to
the throne, only to die without male issue: first came Louis X
(1314–1316), then Philip V (1316–1322), and finally, Charles IV
(1322–1328).
A minor crisis arose in 1316 when the French aristocracy passed
over Louis’s daughters and transferred the crown to his younger
brother. The same happened again in 1322 and 1328, though on
the last occasion, the problem was rendered considerably more serious by the fact that there were now no more sons of Philip IV available to succeed. Consequently, in 1328, the nobles passed over not
only Charles IV’s daughter, Blanche, but also his sister Isabelle;
instead transferring the crown to a male line descended from Philip
IV’s brother, Charles of Valois. To justify what amounted to disinherison of the daughters, the French reached far back into their history, citing a highly questionable legal precedent that has become
known to historians as Salic Law, said to forbid the succession of a
woman.
6
For the contributing causes to the conflict, see Malcolm Vale, The Origins of the
Hundred Years War: The Angevin Legacy 1250–1340 (Oxford, 1996); J.R. Maddicott,
“The Origins of the Hundred Years War,” History Today 36 (1986): 31–37; G.P.
Cuttino, “Historical Revision: The Causes of the Hundred Years War,” Speculum
39 (1956): 463–77.
7
G. Mollat, The Popes at Avignon: The “Babylonian Captivity” of the Medieval Church,
trans. Janet Love (New York, 1963), 3–6; Yves Renouard, The Avignon Papacy: The
Popes in Exile 1305–1403, trans. Denis Bethell (1954: reprint, New York, 1994),
13–15.
8
Malcolm Barber, The Trial of the Templars (Cambridge, 1978); The Templars, ed.
Malcolm Barber and Keith Bate (Manchester, 2002), 243–328 (docs. 66–79); Alan
Forey, The Military Orders from the Twelfth to the early Fourteenth Centuries (Toronto,
1992), 204–41. Among the numerous websites that deal with this most famous of
crusading orders—a Google search conducted on April 3, 2004, produced “about
167,000” hits—there is one that is well worth accessing, if only to see the intense
“buff ” interest in this subject: Templar History, Home of Templar History Magazine,
www.templarhistory.com. (As of the same date, the site claimed 1,072,107 visitors.)
Despite its highly commercialized nature, Templar History contains some interesting historical material, including English translations of a number of relevant documents (the accusations against the Templars, an anonymous tract defending them,
Clement V’s bull Vox In Excelso, ordering that they be disbanded, etc.).
Villalon, A., & Kagay, D. (Eds.). (2005). The hundred years war : A wider focus. BRILL.
Created from tcu on 2022-03-31 01:47:44.
introduction
xxvii
Most of the great nobles soon swore allegiance to Charles of
Valois’s son, Philip VI (1328–1350). This included the young English
king, Edward III (1327–1377), who owed homage for the remaining Planagenet lands on the continent. Edward, however, possessed
a rival claim to the French crown derived through his father, his
mother, Isabelle, the passed-over princess who in 1308 had married
Edward II (1307–1327). Although the young English king did not
choose to press the issue seriously until the late 1330s, tensions began
to mount well before that time. In 1337, Edward started casting
about for military allies who might help him vindicate the claim that
he would advance publicly three years later.9
What is called the Hundred Years War was by no means an
unbroken century of conflict. Although this seemingly interminable
struggle stretched out over nearly twelve decades, bursts of intense
military activity alternated with years or even decades when hostilities were largely suspended. During each active phase, the fortunes
of war tended to favor either one side or the other: for example,
the years between 1345 and 1360 were characterized by an almost
unbroken string of English victories, while those from 1369 to 1380
witnessed an equally dramatic turning of the tide in favor of France.
Traditional tripartite divisions of the Hundred Years War,10 while
not incorrect, are most certainly inadequate if one wishes to convey
any meaningful understanding of the ebb-and-flow that characterized the conflict. Consequently, this brief summary of the struggle
divides it into eight periods:
Copyright © 2005. BRILL. All rights reserved.
1. 1337–1345: Preliminary maneuvering
2. 1345–1360: First floodtide of English victory
9
Powicke characterized this claim as the result of “family quarrels . . . [that] only
gradually grew into national emnity.” F.M. Powicke, King Henry III and Lord Edward:
The Community of the Realm in the Thirteenth Century, 2 vols. (Oxford, 1947), 1:161.
10
In his History of the Middle Ages (forerunner to An Introduction to Medieval Europe),
Thompson divides the conflict into three chronological periods: 1337–1380, 1380–1415,
1415–1453. His contemporary, Edward Cheyney, advances a rather different periodization, albeit one that is also tripartite: 1337–1360, 1369–1415, 1415–1453. By
contrast, in what is perhaps the best short account of the war written for the
Encyclopedia Britannica, Charles Oman envisages six periods: 1338–1345, 1346–1360,
1360–1396, 1396–1414, 1414–1420, 1414–1422, 1423–1453. For reasons too detailed
to go into, the editors do not adhere to any of these earlier periodizations. See
James Westfall Thompson, History of the Middle Ages, 300–1500 (New York, 1931),
362; Edward P. Cheyney, The Dawn of a New Era, 1250–1453 (New York, 1936),
158; Encyclopedia Britannica (Chicago, 1958), 11:889–93.
Villalon, A., & Kagay, D. (Eds.). (2005). The hundred years war : A wider focus. BRILL.
Created from tcu on 2022-03-31 01:47:44.
xxviii
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
1360–1369:
1369–1380:
1380–1415:
1415–1429:
1429–1435:
1435–1453:
introduction
The short hiatus
The tide turns for France
The long hiatus
Another English floodtide
Another French resurgence
Final French victory
Copyright © 2005. BRILL. All rights reserved.
1. Preliminary Maneuvering (1337–1345)
Late in the 1330s, Edward III began to lay the groundwork for war.
In 1337, he launched a diplomatic effort to gather allies on the
northern and eastern borders of France, resulting in a loose confederation of princes and nobles whose lands stretched from the
North Sea nearly to Switzerland. Among them, the most prominent
were the dukes and counts of Brabant, Hainault, Lorraine, Holland,
Guelders, Bavaria, and the palatinate of the Rhine. At the same
time, Edward attempted to maximize his revenues, expropriating
with parliamentary approval half of the annual wool export and
soliciting loans from international banking houses, several of which
would go under when Edward was forced to declare bankruptcy a
decade later. Concurrent efforts in the south were less successful as
the Spanish kingdoms and Naples leaned toward France.
Meanwhile, pressure was brought on the key county of Flanders,
whose ruler, Louis of Nevers, had maintained his loyal to the house
of Valois. When the Flemish refused to renounce French sovereignty
and place themselves under English protection, Edward extended to
Flanders an embargo on the export of all English goods to France.
The resulting lack of English wool and food supplies inspired a
Flemish uprising in 1377 that began in Ghent and spread to most
other urban centers, including Bruges and Ypres. Its leader, a wealthy
merchant named Jacob van Artevelde, arranged for Flemish neutrality in the coming struggle in return for England’s lifting its
embargo.
In 1338, Edward visited the continent, confirming the terms of
his alliances and recruiting the Holy Roman Emperor who agreed
to supply troops and to appoint him Vicar-General of the Empire
west of the Rhine. The first campaign of the war occurred in autumn,
1339, when the king led an English army, backed by contingents
from the Low Countries, into northeastern France on a plundering
Villalon, A., & Kagay, D. (Eds.). (2005). The hundred years war : A wider focus. BRILL.
Created from tcu on 2022-03-31 01:47:44.
introduction
xxix
Copyright © 2005. BRILL. All rights reserved.
raid that set the pattern for the devastating chevauchées of future
decades. In 1340, Artevelde brought Flanders in on the English side
of the conflict, by recognizing Edward III as the rightful king of
France, a claim Edward voiced officially in the marketplace at Ghent.11
Despite this promising start, England accomplished very little by
the initial campaign of 1339 or the protracted and unsuccessful siege
of Tournai the following year. Edward’s grand alliance began to fall
apart almost as soon as it was put together when a number of allies
either withdrew from the conflict or changed sides. Soon after Tournai,
the king agreed to a truce (the first of many) that would remain in
force until 1345; he then returned to England, not to return to the
Low Countries.12 Only one encounter of note occurred during this
opening phase of the conflict: in June, 1340, an English fleet defeated
one made up of French, Spanish, and Genoese ships off the port of
Sluys, thus winning control of the sea for nearly three decades. It
was here that the English longbow, the most feared missile weapon
of the conflict, first demonstrated its extraordinary value in continental warfare.
Despite the truce, conflict between England and France continued in the duchy of Brittany. In 1341, the childless death of the
duke sparked a civil war between two claimants—the duke’s brother,
John of Monfort, and his niece’s husband, Charles of Blois, a member of the French royal family. England and France quickly became
involved on opposite sides: the English backing Montfort, while the
French supported Charles. Neither the capture of Montfort soon
after the war began, nor that of his opponent several years later
diminished the intensity of the struggle, for in their absence, their
redoubtable wives fought on without let-up. For over two decades,
the war in Brittany would continue unabated and England and
France, even in periods of truce, would face off through their Breton
surrogates.
11
G.P. Cuttino, English Medieval Diplomacy (Bloomington, Ind., 1985), 84. For a
general treatment of medieval diplomacy and diplomatic practices, see Donald E.
Queller, The Office of Ambassador in the Middle Ages (Princeton, N.J., 1967).
12
Jonathan Sumption, Trial by Battle, 325–29; Kelly DeVries, “God, Leadership,
Flemings, and Archery: Contemporary Perceptions of Victory and Defeat at the
Battle of Sluys, 1340,” American Neptune 55 (1995): 223–42.
Villalon, A., & Kagay, D. (Eds.). (2005). The hundred years war : A wider focus. BRILL.
Created from tcu on 2022-03-31 01:47:44.
xxx
introduction
2. First Floodtide of English Victory (1345–1360)
Copyright © 2005. BRILL. All rights reserved.
The second phase of the conflict began in 1345 when the five-year
truce ended. An English army landed at Bordeaux and began operations against the neighboring province of Gascony. In 1346, Edward
III returned to continent, landing in Normandy and launching a sixweek campaign of devastation as he marched northward toward
Flanders. Overtaken by a far larger French army commanded by
Philip VI, Edward made a stand near Crécy on August 26 where
he won the first of a series of spectacular English victories that would
characterize the Hundred Years War.13 With the French army in
shambles, its king fled the battlefield. At Crécy, the heir to the English
throne, Edward, Prince of Wales (d. 1376), better known to history
as the Black Prince, began making a reputation as the foremost soldier of his age.14
Following the victory, the English king immediately initiated the
siege of Calais, which he took in the spring of 1347.15 To solidify
England’s hold on what would become her major port of entry to
the continent, Edward expelled the French inhabitants and resettled
the area with English colonists. Calais not only supplied England
with an advance military outpost, it also provided a permanent home
for the wool staple.
Although the ravages of the Black Death (1348–1352) and another
truce (1347–1355) temporarily halted fighting, hostilities again broke
out in 1355 when the Black Prince conducted a devastating chevauchée
through Armagnac, Languedoc, and the Toulousain. The following
13
Alfred H. Burne, The Crécy War: A Military History of the Hundred Years War to
the Peace of Brétigny (1955; reprint, London, 1999), 169–223; Jules Viard, “La campagne de juillet-aôut 1346 et la bataille de Crécy,” Moyen Âge 27 [2nd ser.] (1926):
1–84; Henri de Wailly, Crecy, 1346: Anatomy of a Battle (Poole, 1987).
14
Recent biographies of the Black Prince include: Richard Barber, Edward Prince
of Wales and Aquitaine: A Biography of the Black Prince (1978; reprint, Woodbridge, 1996)
and Henry Dwight Sedgwick, The Black Prince (New York, 1993). For easy access
to some of the standard contemporary documents dealing with the prince’s life, see:
Richard Barber, The Life and Campaigns of the Black Prince (London, 1979), a new
version of which has recently come out with Boydell and Brewer.
15
Jules Viard, “Le siège de Calais, 4 septembre 1346–4 aôut 1347,” Moyen Âge
30 [2nd ser.] (1929): 124–89; Kelly DeVries, “Hunger, Flemish Participation and
the Flight of Philip VI: Contemporary Accounts of the Siege of Calais, 1346–47,”
Studies in Medieval and Renaissance History 12 [n.s.] (1991): 129–81.
Villalon, A., & Kagay, D. (Eds.). (2005). The hundred years war : A wider focus. BRILL.
Created from tcu on 2022-03-31 01:47:44.
introduction
xxxi
Copyright © 2005. BRILL. All rights reserved.
year (1356), Edward led a similar filibustering expedition northward
from Aquitaine.16
As had been the case with Crécy tens years earlier, the English
army was cut off by a vastly superior French force commanded by
the new French king, Jean II (1350–1364) and his sons. At Poiters,
on September 19, 1356, the prince was forced to stand and fight.
The ensuing battle became the second great victory of his career,
marked by the death or capture of much of the French nobility,
including the French king and two of the princes who now found
themselves in English hands. The dauphin17 (the future Charles V)
barely managed to escape from the battlefield; in his father’s absence,
he now became the regent of France.18
There followed four years during which the kingdom descended
into one of the most chaotic periods of its history, as the very fabric of French society seemed to be dissolving. Although another short
truce temporarily suspended open warfare, internal problems beset
the beleaguered regent, including the establishment of a revolutionary government in Paris led by the provost of the merchants, Etienne
Marcel, a serious attempt by the Estates General under Marcel’s
leadership to take over control of royal appointments and the kingdom’s finances, and the great peasant uprising of 1358, known as
the Jacquerie.19
By the end of the decade, the dauphin had weathered these challenges and managed to reestablish a measure of royal control. What
is more, Edward III’s last campaign of the period, the chevauchée of
1359, fizzled badly. Nevertheless, in 1360, Charles had no choice
but to ratify the treaty negotiated at Brétigny and in large part
confirmed at Calais, a treaty that called for the effective dismembering of France. In return for renouncing his claim on the French
16
H.J. Hewitt, The Black Prince’s Expedition of 1355–1357 (Manchester, 1958);
Barber, Edward Prince of Wales, 110–29.
17
The title dauphin referring to the heir apparent to the French throne first
appeared shortly before the Hundred Years War. Having gained the Dauphiné for
the French crown, Philip VI established it as the hereditary property of the heir
to the throne. The title became comparable to the English “Prince of Wales.”
18
J.M Tourneur-Aumont, La bataille de Poitiers (1356) et la construction de la France
(Paris, 1940); Barber, Edward Prince of Wales, 136–48.
19
J. Russell Major, Representative Government in Early Modern France (New Haven,
Conn., 1980), 12–17; Lewis, Later Medieval France, 283–86.
Villalon, A., & Kagay, D. (Eds.). (2005). The hundred years war : A wider focus. BRILL.
Created from tcu on 2022-03-31 01:47:44.
xxxii
introduction
throne, Edward III received full sovereignty over vast stretches of
southwestern France (Aquitaine, Gascony, Poitou) as well a lesser,
but still impressive array of territories in the north, including Calais.
What is more, the French king’s ransom was indeed that—three million gold crowns.20 Only at the height of Plantagenet power during
Henry II’s reign had England’s holdings on the continent been greater.
The question now became, could the English maintain their position?
Copyright © 2005. BRILL. All rights reserved.
3. The Short Hiatus (1360–1369)
The period was characterized by an uneasy peace between the
two major combatants, during which the English governed much of
western France. The key figure in this occupation was the Black
Prince who, serving as governor of Aquitaine, held court in Bordeaux.
Although his reputation as the foremost soldier of the age would be
solidified by the events of this decade, the extravagance of his lifestyle,
his inability to win the loyalty of the people whom he governed,
and the financial crisis brought on by his campaign in Spain would
together sew the seeds of future English defeat.
The period started inauspiciously for the French: by the terms of
the treaty, Jean II was released from captivity and resumed the reigns
of power from his far more talented son, Charles. The king returned
only to find that the problems confronting his kingdom far outweighed his meager abilities. In 1363, after several years of “drift,”
he did the most sensible thing of his entire reign: he seized a pretense to remove himself from the scene. When his son, Louis of
Anjou, retained in England as a hostage, broke faith and fled, the
debonair but ineffectual monarch voluntarily reentered his comfortable captivity across the channel, where he died the following year.
Jean’s last act before departing would haunt the French monarchy for the rest of the Hundred Years War and beyond. Having
secured the duchy of Burgundy for the crown, he promptly regranted
it to his youngest son, Philip “the Bold” (1363–1404), who had earned
his sobriquet fighting beside his father at Poitiers. At the same time,
he convinced the emperor to invest Philip with the free county of
Burgundy (Franche-Comté). Over the course of the next century,
20
John Le Parourel, “The Treaty of Brétigny, 1360,” Transactions of the Royal
Historical Society [5th ser.] 10 (1960): 19–39.
Villalon, A., & Kagay, D. (Eds.). (2005). The hundred years war : A wider focus. BRILL.
Created from tcu on 2022-03-31 01:47:44.
introduction
xxxiii
Copyright © 2005. BRILL. All rights reserved.
Philip’s successors would progressively extend their control northward into the Low Countries, thus resurrecting what was, in effect,
a “middle kingdom,” largely independent of French control, one that
would continue to plague Jean’s successors until reclaimed by his
great-grandson, Louix XI (1461–1483) in 1477.
The most difficult problem that Jean had briefly confronted and
been utterly unable to resolve involved the so-called “free companies.” While the treaty of Brétigny put an end to official hostilities
for nearly a decade, it did not spell peace. During this period, France
experienced a serious threat from roving bands of soldiery, discharged
by both sides for reasons of economy and then left to fend for themselves. These hard-bitten veterans banded together into quasi-military units known as “free companies,” sometimes numbering in the
thousands, always living off the land and its civilian population. For
those regions of France that experienced their depredations, peace
and war became indistinguishable.21 In spring, 1361, the newly restored
king dispatched the count de la Marche to crush the companies;
instead, it was the royal army that suffered a humiliating defeat at
Brignais. After this, neither the government nor the population put
up much further military resistance; some other means of dealing
with the companies would have to be found.
John’s death in 1364 brought to the throne the one truly fine
French monarch of the Hundred Years War, Charles V “the Wise”
(1364–1380).22 At the same time, however, France suffered another
setback. In September, 1364, at the battle of Auray, Charles of Blois,
the French-backed duke of Brittany, suffered a crushing defeat at
the hands of his opponent, John of Montfort.23 Charles of Blois
died on the field and his general, Bertrand DuGuesclin, was captured by the English commander of Montfort’s army, Sir John
Chandos. The victory at Auray strengthened England’s hold on western France and rendered regular seaborne contact with Aquitaine
far more certain. This and the concurrent end of a conflict between
France and Navarre over the duchy of Normandy also led to the
21
Kenneth Fowler, Medieval Mercenaries, 1 vol. to date (Oxford, 2001), 24–43.
The classic treatment of the reign is R. Delachenal, Histoire de Charles V, 5 vols.
(Paris 1909–1931).
23
A valuable aid to understanding the Breton question is Michael Jones, Ducal
Brittany 1364–1399: Relations with England and France during the Reign of Duke John IV
(Oxford, 1970).
22
Villalon, A., & Kagay, D. (Eds.). (2005). The hundred years war : A wider focus. BRILL.
Created from tcu on 2022-03-31 01:47:44.
xxxiv
introduction
Copyright © 2005. BRILL. All rights reserved.
release of thousands of fighting men who, in their unemployed state,
now swelled the companies’ ranks. The fact that their depredations
were not as extensive in English-held territory led many contemporaries to accuse England of sponsoring their activities.
Although a few of the companies had begun to filter across the
Alps into Italy where they took service as mercenaries,24 the majority remained an ever-present threat to France, a threat that Charles
V now addressed. When an attempt failed to ship them off to fight
the Turks in southeastern Europe, the French monarch looked for
a solution closer to home. In 1365, he joined with the king of Aragon,
Pere III “the Ceremonious” (1336–1387) and Pope Urban V (1362–
1370) to engage the companies for service in Spain. The following
year, under the leadership of the newly-ransomed Breton warrior,
Bertrand DuGuesclin, they intervened in the War of the Two Pedros
(1356–1366) currently being fought between Aragon and Castile.
Here, they decisively shifted the military balance, overthrowing the
pro-English monarch of Castile, Pedro I “the Cruel” (1350–1369),25
and replacing him with his pro-French half-brother, Enrique II
(1366–1367, 1369–1379).26
In 1367, these events forced the Black Prince to launch his own
campaign south of the Pyrenees, culminating in his third great victory at Nájera. On April 3, he crushed the Castilian army and its
Franco-Breton allies, putting Enrique to flight and taking large numbers of prisoners, including DuGuesclin. However, despite its military success, Edward’s campaign ultimately turned into a costly fiasco
when the restored English ally, Pedro, failed to pay his war debts,
leaving the prince and many in his army to suffer and fall sick during the hot Castilian summer. Having returned to Aquitaine, Edward
tried to recoup his expenses by collecting an extremely unpopular
hearth tax ( fouage) throughout England’s continental lands.27 The dis24
For the companies’ malignant influence on Italy, see William Caferro, Mercenary
Companies and the Decline of Siena (Baltimore, 1998); idem, “Slaying the Hydra-headed
Beast: Italy and the Companies of Adventure in the Fourteenth Century,” in Crusaders,
Condotierri, and Cannon: Medieval Warfare Around the Mediterranean, ed. Donald J. Kagay
and L.J. Andrew Villalon, (Leiden, 2002), 285–304.
25
The best English account of this king’s reign was written by a contributor to
this volume. See Clara Estow, Pedro the Cruel, 1350–1369 (Leiden, 1995).
26
For a recent treatment of the Iberian invasions, see L.J. Andrew Villalon,
“Seeking Castles in Spain: Sir Hugh Calveley and the Free Companies’ MidFourteenth Century Iberian Intervention,” in Crusaders, Condotierri, and Cannon, 305–28.
27
For the “hearth tax” ( fouage, focagium) in France, see John Bell Henneman,
Villalon, A., & Kagay, D. (Eds.). (2005). The hundred years war : A wider focus. BRILL.
Created from tcu on 2022-03-31 01:47:44.
introduction
xxxv
gruntled Gascon lords resisted, appealing their case to the king of
France as the prince’s overlord. Despite the fact that such an appeal
breeched the treaty of Brétigny, Charles seized the opportunity to
reassert sovereignty over the lost province by summoning Edward
to Paris for trial. When the prince threatened to march on Paris
instead, the French king declared him delinquent. Edward III now
resumed his claim to the French crown and, in 1369, the conflict
once again erupted.
Copyright © 2005. BRILL. All rights reserved.
4. The Tide Turns for France (1369–1380)
The next decade witnessed a complete reversal in the fortunes of
war. The English renewed their strategy of launching grand chevauchées,
one of which was conducted by the duke of Lancaster in 1372,
another by his younger brother, the earl of Buckingham, in 1379.
Although such expeditions devastated wide swaths of French territory, they were unable to provoke one of those set piece battles that
during previous phases of the struggle had become the grave of
French chivalry. Instead, Charles V, with the aid of his constable,
DuGuesclin, and the latter’s fellow Breton, Olivier de Clisson,28 initiated a military strategy amounting to guerrilla warfare. The war
now settled down into a succession of sieges and smaller engagements during which the French overran English-held strongholds and
picked off out-numbered units. This new strategy maximized the
French advantage in numbers while neutralizing tactical factors that
had favored the English such as superior military cohesion and the
greater firepower that resulted from use of the longbow.
As DuGuesclin and Clisson seized the military initiative, England
lost her three greatest warriors. First to fall was John Chandos, long
the right-hand man of the Black Prince, who met his end in 1369
during a minor skirmish on the bridge of Lussac. Several years thereafter, the prince, increasingly debilitated by the disease he had contracted at the time of the Spanish campaign, was forced to abandon
active military service. Edward conducted his last campaign, the siege
of Limoge in 1370, from a litter; the following year, he returned to
Royal Taxation in Fourteenth Century France: The Development of War Financing 1322–1356
(Princeton, N.J. 1971), 4–5, 310.
28
John Bell Henneman, Olivier de Clisson and Political Society in France Under Charles
V and Charles VI (Philadelphia, 1996).
Villalon, A., & Kagay, D. (Eds.). (2005). The hundred years war : A wider focus. BRILL.
Created from tcu on 2022-03-31 01:47:44.
xxxvi
introduction
Copyright © 2005. BRILL. All rights reserved.
England after turning over command to his considerably less talented
brother, John of Gaunt, duke of Lancaster. Edward’s condition continued to deteriorate and in 1376, he died, without having ever come
to the throne. The prince’s other leading captain, Jean de Grailly,
captal de Buch, was captured in 1372, during fighting that led up
to the French reoccupation of La Rochelle. Refused ransom or
exchange by Charles V, he died five years later in a French prison.
The major military action of this period that cost England the
captal’s services centered around the port of La Rochelle. Here, in
1372, a fleet made up largely of ships supplied by Enrique II of
Castile attacked an English squadron bringing to the continent the
new seneschal of Poitou, the earl of Pembroke, as well as large sums
to pay English troops. During the ensuing two-day battle, the people of La Rochelle refused to take part and the English suffered a
severe defeat, in which the earl and many of the surviving nobles
were taken prisoner and the troop payments were lost. The battle
of La Rochelle effectively ended England’s three decades of naval
superiority. Not long thereafter, the port was retaken by the French.
Throughout this period, John of Montfort progressively lost his
hold on the duchy of Brittany, due largely to his alliance with the
English and the resulting opposition of many Bretons, including
DuGuesclin and Clisson. At different moments, he was forced to
take refuge in Flanders and even back across the channel in England.
Despite being restored by the English in 1379, Montfort recognized
how the wind was blowing and immediately entered into negotiations with the French. In 1380, following the death of his old enemy,
Charles V, he signed a treaty with the new king, Charles VI (1380–
1422), effectively changing sides and denying the English an important entry point to the continent.
By 1380, France had regained most of the lands lost by the treaties
of Brétigny and Calais; England’s remaining hold on the continent
was reduced to the regions around Bordeaux in the south and Calais
in the north.
5. The Long Hiatus (1380–1415)
A critical turning point came in 1380 when the principal architects
of French victory, Charles V and DuGuesclin, died within a few
months of one another. Their removal from the scene robbed the
French campaign of reconquest of its impetus and set the stage for
Villalon, A., & Kagay, D. (Eds.). (2005). The hundred years war : A wider focus. BRILL.
Created from tcu on 2022-03-31 01:47:44.
introduction
xxxvii
Copyright © 2005. BRILL. All rights reserved.
a long hiatus in the war. Although no actual treaty was ever signed,
a number of truces held the conflict in a state of suspension for over
three decades.29
Throughout this long hiatus, the attention of both countries turned
inward. During the 1380s, France and England experienced severe
social unrest, traceable in large part to the hardships resulting from
decades of warfare. In 1381, the Peasant’s Revolt30 rocked English
society while at virtually the same time, the French experienced the
uprising of the Mallotins in such cities as Paris and Rouen.
The long and inauspicious reign of Charles VI began in a brief
minority, during which the young king fell under the control of his
uncles. In 1392, only a few years after achieving his majority, Charles
suffered his first bout of insanity (he would eventually become known
as Charles the Mad),31 after which the rest of his reign fell victim
to an often-violent competition for power among noble factions. The
most spectacular quarrel pitted the king’s younger brother, Louis
d’Orléans, against their most powerful uncle, Philip the Bold of
Burgundy. In 1407, matters reached a crisis when the new Burgundian
duke, Philip’s son, John the Fearless (1404–1419), arranged the assassination of his rival. Louis’ murder plunged France into a bloody
civil war between the Burgundian and Orléanist-Armagnac factions,
in which the contestants divided on a number of key issues, including whether or not to resume the contest with England.32 This infighting that continued to paralyze France for decades would also
become a key factor in English success during the next phase of the
conflict.
Meanwhile, across the channel, events also conspired to prevent
any renewal of the conflict. The death of Edward III in 1377 had
brought to the throne his eleven year old grandson, Richard, son
and heir of the Black Prince. Here, as in France, a royal minority
29
The most important of these, signed in 1396, was supposed to suspend fighting
for thirty years.
30
For the Peasant’s Revolt, see Rodney Hilton, Bond Man Made Free: Medieval
Peasant Movements and the English Rising of 1381 (New York, 1973); Phillipp R. Schofield,
Peasant and Community in Medieval England 1200–1500 (Houndmills, 2003), 164–65;
E.B. Fryde, Peasants and Landlords in Later Medieval England (Stroud, 1996), 1–6.
31
For the madness of Charles VI, see J. Saltel, La folie du roi Chalres VI (Toulouse,
1907); E. Dupré, “La Folie de Charles VI roi de France,” Revue de Deux Mondes 60
(1910): 835–66.
32
Burgundy and Armagnac also differed on the Great Schism (1378–1417), the
former maintaining neutrality while the latter announced for Avignon.
Villalon, A., & Kagay, D. (Eds.). (2005). The hundred years war : A wider focus. BRILL.
Created from tcu on 2022-03-31 01:47:44.
Copyright © 2005. BRILL. All rights reserved.
xxxviii
introduction
provided an occasion for the king’s uncles to seize control of the
government. For the first half of his reign, Richard faced an ongoing struggle against the aristocratic factions that dominated English
policy, a struggle that left little time to consider events in France.
Over the years, the English people, who had once supported the
war, became increasingly disillusioned with the never-ending expense
that produced less and less military success. England’s attitude toward
the conflict would only be hardened by the country’s two major continental adventures of the period, both of which ended in failure:
the notorious Norwich Crusade of 1383 that led to a parliamentary
inquest aimed at its leaders and the duke of Lancaster’s putative
attempt to exercise his wife’s claim on the Castilian throne three
years later.
Interestingly, England sacrificed its best opportunity to renew the
war on favorable terms when it failed to support the latest popular
uprising in Flanders. Early in the 1380s, Philip van Artevelde, son
of England’s former ally, Jacob, assumed leadership in Ghent and
in April, 1382, smashed Count Louis de Male’s army before the
gates of Bruges. Afterwards, many of the Flemish towns joined van
Artevelde who assumed the title “regent of Flanders.”
Both sides appealed for outside help: the count turned to the
French monarchy and his son-in-law, the duke of Burgundy, while
van Artevelde tried to resuscitate the old Ango-Flemish alliance.
Unfortunately for the Gantois, the English hesitated to become
involved while the French launched a full scale invasion of Flanders
led by the king, the duke of Burgundy, and the new constable of
France, Clisson. When the two sides met at the battle of Roosebeke
in November, 1382, a large Flemish force was virtually annihilated
and Artevelde killed. Thereafter, most of Flanders surrendered to
the French. Even though Ghent for a time continued to resist,
England had lost its best opportunity for a long time to come.
In 1399, Richard’s conflict with the English barony ended in his
deposition and subsequent murder, bringing to the throne the
Lancastrian Dynasty in the person of Henry IV (1399–1413), whose
principal interest was to hold onto the throne he had usurped. Not
until the succession of his war-like son, Henry V (1413–1422), would
England once again turn its attention to France and put an end to
the long hiatus with a spectacular victory.
Villalon, A., & Kagay, D. (Eds.). (2005). The hundred years war : A wider focus. BRILL.
Created from tcu on 2022-03-31 01:47:44.
introduction
xxxix
6. Another English Floodtide (1415–1429)
Copyright © 2005. BRILL. All rights reserved.
The second period of English victory began in 1415, when Henry
V, the third royal to prove himself a great general (all were English),
landed in France with the intention of resurrecting his dynasty’s
claim on the throne. He would be greatly aided in this endeavor by
the enduring Armagnac-Burgundian split.
Having besieged and captured the Norman port of Harfleur, his
army marched toward Calais. On October 25, it smashed a vastly
superior French force at Agincourt, producing yet another English
victory to rival those of Edward III and the Black Prince.33 Three
years later, the king, having allied himself loosely with the Burgundian
faction, conquered Normandy.34 At about the same time, his ally,
John the Fearless, occupied Paris. Members of the Armagnac faction who escaped the slaughter that followed moved south of the
Loire River with the dauphin, the future Charles VII (1422–1461),
where they established a shaky government.
Despite his English connection, the duke of Burgundy now began
negotiations to end the civil war and form a united front against
England. All possibilities of such an alliance ended for a time when,
on September, 10, 1419, during what was supposed to be a peace
conference on the bridge of Montereau, an axe-wielding Armagnac
supporter in the royal entourage murdered Duke John.35 The dead
man’s son and successor, Philip the Good (1419–1467) immediately
strengthened his ties with England and, in 1420, helped force on
the French crown the humiliating treaty of Troyes. The second major
treaty of the war proved even harsher than that of Brétigny six
decades earlier. Setting aside the Valois dauphin, it established the
English king as heir apparent to the French throne. To cement this
agreement, Henry V now married Charles VI’s daughter, Catherine,
and quickly produced a successor to both realms, the future Henry
VI (1422–1461, 1471).36
33
Christopher Hibbert, Agincourt (New York, 1978); Philippe Contamine, Agincourt
(Paris, 1964); Nicholas H. Nicolas, History of the Battle of Agincourt and of the Expedition
of Henry the Fifth into France in 1415 (1833; reprint, London, 1971); Christopher
Phillpotts, “The French Plan of battle during the Agincourt Campaign,” English
Historical Review 99 (1990): 59–66.
34
Desmond Seward, Henry V as Warlord (London, 1987), 111–43.
35
Lewis, Later Medieval France, 40–41.
36
Seward, Henry V, 143–46; Cuttino, English Medieval Diplomacy, 19–24.
Villalon, A., & Kagay, D. (Eds.). (2005). The hundred years war : A wider focus. BRILL.
Created from tcu on 2022-03-31 01:47:44.
xl
introduction
In 1422, Charles VI died. Unfortunately for the English, the near
simultaneous death of Henry V threw the whole issue back into
question. Once again, France became a divided realm ruled by competing monarchs: In the north, the English duke of Bedford, with
support from the house of Burgundy, governed in the name of his
nephew, Henry VI; in the south, the Armagnac faction acknowledged Charles VII as king, even though he had neither been crowned
nor consecrated at Rheims, the coronation site of medieval French
kings. Cowering in his châteaux of Chinon and Bourges, the young
monarch cut such a poor figure that he was nicknamed by friend
and foe alike, “the king of Bourges.”
During the 1420s, Bedford continued to build on Henry V’s success. Defeating the French at the battle of Verneuil in 1424, he
extended his control farther into central France and by 1429, he
was besieging Orléans, preparatory to attacking the Armagnac holdings south of the Loire. Despite appearances, however, the English
presence, poorly supported by the faction-ridden government surrounding the young king, was sustained less by real military force
than by the inaction of Charles VII, the myth of English invincibility born of past victories, and the continuing support of the house
of Burgundy.
Copyright © 2005. BRILL. All rights reserved.
7. Another French Resurgence (1429–1435)
The critical turning point in the Hundred Years War came with
what many regarded (and many still regard) as a miracle: In spring,
1429, an uneducated, seventeen year old peasant girl from Domrémy,
named Joan of Arc, appeared at Chinon, headquarters of the erstwhile dauphin. Inspired by her “voices” whom she identified as Saints
Catherine, Marguerite, and Michael, Joan claimed that it was her
mission to conduct the dauphin to his coronation at Rheims and to
free France from the English.
Having convinced the indolent monarch, she was sent to join a
French army gathering for the relief of Orléans. The inspiration provided by her presence paid enormous dividends. Early in May, 1429,
Joan participated prominently in the French victory that broke the
English siege. A month later, she was present during another French
triumph at Patay. And, in July, she led Charles on a triumphant
Villalon, A., & Kagay, D. (Eds.). (2005). The hundred years war : A wider focus. BRILL.
Created from tcu on 2022-03-31 01:47:44.
introduction
xli
procession through northern France that resulted in his belated coronation at Rheims.37
For Joan, the coronation at Rheims proved to be the highpoint
in a meteoric career. During September, 1429, without adequate
support from her king, she failed to retake Paris. In May, 1430,
while trying to break the siege of Compiègne, she was captured by
the Burgundians who sold her to the English. Tried before an ecclesiastical court dominated by the English, Joan was found guilty of
heresy and witchcraft and on May 30, 1431, she was burnt at the
stake in the town square at Rouen. Despite her later failures, the
Maid of Orléan supplied France with the inspiration that would ultimately lead to English defeat and, six centuries later, to her own
canonization.38
In 1435, the rise of French military fortunes initiated by Joan
reached another important milestone at the Congress of Arras, called
to explore the possibility of a peace treaty. Despite Burgundian warnings that the duchy intended to reach a peace with France, the
English ambassadors arrogantly withdrew from the negotiations when
their extravagant demands were not met. This left France and
Burgundy free to sign a treaty that ceded extensive territories to the
Burgundian duke in return for a guarantee that he would switch
sides and aid Charles VII against the English. During the six years
between 1429 and 1430, England lost both the initiative and its principal ally.
8. French Victory (1435–1453)
Copyright © 2005. BRILL. All rights reserved.
While the events of the preceding period set the stage for a final
decision, they did not bear full fruit until nearly two decades later.
37
Marina Warner, Joan of Arc, The Image of Female Heroism (New York, 1981);
Kelly DeVries, Joan of Arc: A Military Leader (Stroud, 1999). The proceedings of
Joan’s trial are available in English; see: The Trial of Joan of Arc, being the verbatim
report of the proceedings from the Orleans Manuscript, trans. W.S. Scott (Westport, Conn.,
1956).
38
The sentence against Joan was reversed by the Nullification Trial of 1457. In
1909, Pius X beatified her and in 1920, during the pontificate of Benedict XV,
Joan became Saint Joan. Thompson and Johnson (incorrectly) give the canonization date as 1919. Donald Attwater, Avenel Dictionary of Saints (New York, 1979),
187. Thompson and Johnson, Medieval Europe, 892.
Villalon, A., & Kagay, D. (Eds.). (2005). The hundred years war : A wider focus. BRILL.
Created from tcu on 2022-03-31 01:47:44.
Copyright © 2005. BRILL. All rights reserved.
xlii
introduction
Although Charles VII recovered Paris in 1436, the troubles besetting his kingdom continued. In 1439, the Burgundians made a separate peace with England, effectively withdrawing from the war
entirely in order to pursue their territorial ambitions in the Low
Countries. In 1440, the new dauphin, the future Louis XI (1461–1483),
organized a revolt against his father (la Praguerie). Meanwhile, the
“free company” scourge of the preceding century enjoyed a resurgence in the so-called écorcheurs, bands of out-of-work soldiers who
lived up to their name by “flaying” whole regions of France.
In 1439, in the midst of these woes, the Estates General once
again stepped into the breech, passing laws that afforded the crown
a monopoly on military recruitment and training and that provided
a direct tax known as the taille to support a new royal army. In
1445, the much-needed military reforms reduced the private companies that were troubling the peace, merging many of them into
the crown’s newly-established cavalry force, the so-called compagnies
d’ordonnance. Provision was also made for recruiting a native infantry,
the “free archers” ( franc archiers), whose name derived from the fact
that as part of the condition for their service, they were freed from
paying the taille. Perhaps the most significant reform involved a massive increase in the reliance on gunpowder weaponry that converted
the French artillery into the finest in Europe.
In 1449, backed by a rejuvenated military establishment and
employing the financial talents of men like Jacques Coeur,39 Charles
VII was now able to begin the final round of the conflict. Within
a year, the French had won the battle of Formigny and driven the
English from Normandy. Without pause, their army marched into
Aquitaine, the longest-held and now last-remaining English stronghold in southern France. In 1450–51, the cities of Bayonne and
Bordeaux were taken.
England’s last gasp came when the neighboring region of Gascony,
always troublesome to whomever held it, revolted against French
control and called on the English for help. The government of Henry
VI dispatched a force led by the last great veteran of Agincourt,
John Talbot, earl of Shrewsbury. On July, 17, 1453, Talbot and his
39
Kathryn L. Reyerson, Jacques Coeur: Entrpreneur and King’s Bursar (New York,
2005).
Villalon, A., & Kagay, D. (Eds.). (2005). The hundred years war : A wider focus. BRILL.
Created from tcu on 2022-03-31 01:47:44.
introduction
xliii
Gascon allies were crushed at the battle of Castillon (Chatillon),40 by
a superior French army and its formidible artillery. Within several
months, France had reclaimed the rebellious provinces and the
Hundred Years War, for all intents and purposes, came to an end.
Copyright © 2005. BRILL. All rights reserved.
III
The first article in this volume, Andrew Villalon’s “Spanish Involvement
in the Hundred Years War and the Battle of Nájera,” introduces
Part One, “The Spanish Connection.” Villalon examines how, in
the mid-1360s, the conflict spilled over across the Pyrenees where it
merged with a decade-long struggle, the War of the Two Pedros
(1356–1366), currently being fought between Castile and Aragon. In
1366, the dreaded free companies, thrown out of work by the Treaty
of Brétigny and the cessation of hostilities in both Normandy and
Brittany, intervened in Spain, touching off a round of the Hundred
Years War in which France and England, while nominally at peace,
confronted one another through their Spanish surrogates. Peninsular
events of this period had enormous repercussions for all involved:
they reignited the conflict north of the Pyrenees, brought a new
dynasty, the Trastámaras, to the throne of Castile, forged a longlasting Franco-Castilian alliance that played an important role in
French military success throughout the 1370s, laid low England’s
greatest soldier, the Black Prince, and completed the military education of his French counterpart, Beltran DuGuesclin.
The next three articles explore in greater detail aspects of the
Iberian struggle that in 1366 became inexorably intertwined with the
Hundred Years War. In “The Southern Valencia Frontier during
the War of the Two Pedro’s,” Maria Teresa Ferrer i Mallol examines how that conflict unfolded in one of its major theaters, the border region separating the kingdom of Valencia, southernmost of the
realms that composed the Crown of Aragon, and the neighboring
Castilian province of Murcia. In this region, that saw much of the
war’s heaviest fighting, military activity took the form of a long series
of sieges and raids, devoid of any set-piece battles. Ferrer i Mallol’s
40
Alfred H. Burne, “The Battle of Castillon, 1453,” History Today 3 (1953):
249–56.
Villalon, A., & Kagay, D. (Eds.). (2005). The hundred years war : A wider focus. BRILL.
Created from tcu on 2022-03-31 01:47:44.
Copyright © 2005. BRILL. All rights reserved.
xliv
introduction
article explores the social cost of this ten-year struggle on southern
Valencia and highlights the “nationalistic” antagonisms born of the
bitter struggle that subsequently clouded relations between Castile
and the Crown of Aragon throughout the later Middle Ages.
Donald Kagay’s article, “A Government Besieged by Conflict: The
Parliament of Monzón (1362–1363) as Military Financier” focuses
on a crucial meeting ( parlamentum) of representatives from all three
realms composing the Crown of Aragon-Catalonia, Valencia, and
Aragon proper. The general assembly held in Monzón, like others
during this crisis-filled decade, was called for one reason: to fund
Pere III’s war effort aimed at throwing back the Castilian armies
that were progressively overrunning extensive territories along the
southern and eastern borders. All such meetings were held against
a backdrop of simmering frustration with a crown that always seemed
to come up short militarily while consuming ever greater sums of
money. The delegates demanded that Pere address their “grievances”
before they would supply new funds for the conflict with Castile.
Meanwhile, Catalan representatives, who found their region underwriting a disproportionate share of a war being fought largely to
protect the other two realms, moved to take over from the crown
the entire process of military funding. They won the power to appoint
tax commissioners, hire soldiers, and even decide where they would
be stationed. Extremely detailed records left by this parlemantum indicate just how diffuse the Crown of Aragon actually was, with the
different realms squabbling bitterly among themselves in the midst
of national crisis.
The final essay in Part One, Clara Estow’s “War and Peace in
Medieval Iberia: Castilian-Granadan Relations in the Mid-Fourteenth
Century,” tracks the influence of the Hundred Years War beyond
the borders of Christendom, into the one remaining Islamic outpost
in western Europe, the kingdom of Granada. Estow examines the
improbable survival of that small state, hemmed in to the north by
an expansionist Castile and reeling from defeats suffered during the
first half of the fourteenth century. She argues that Granada owned
its continued existence to two factors: first, Castile’s war against
Aragon, a conflict that diverted its military attentions eastward and
led inexorably to a growing involvement in the struggle north of the
Pyrenees; second, a masterful diplomatic and military policy exercised by the contemporary Granadan ruler, Mu˙ammad V (1354–
1391), who skillfully played his Christian neighbors off against one
Villalon, A., & Kagay, D. (Eds.). (2005). The hundred years war : A wider focus. BRILL.
Created from tcu on 2022-03-31 01:47:44.
Copyright © 2005. BRILL. All rights reserved.
introduction
xlv
another. It was Mu˙ammad’s careful maneuvering of the 1350s and
1360s that spared the Muslim kingdom at a critical moment and
helped postpone its demise for over a century.
Part Two of the collection considers the “spillover” of the Hundred
Years War into two other neighboring regions, Italy and Brabant.
In “The Fox and the Lion”: The White Company and the Hundred
Years War in Italy,” William Caferro traces the arrival of the free
companies on the peninsula, exploring the early history of one of
the most famous of these mercenary bands, the so-called White
Company, and its legendary leader, John Hawkwood, an English
renegade whose mortal remains now rest in the cathedral at Florence.
Caferro shows how the presence of these refugees from the Hundred
Years War encouraged the future growth of their native counterparts, the Italian condotierri —a phenomenon roundly criticized a century and a half later in the writings of Niccolò Machiavelli.
While the Hundred Years War spilled over into Spain and Italy,
no neighbor suffered from the on-going hostilities more than the
Low Countries. Lying between the two great antagonists and tied
economically to both, the cities and feudal principalities of this region
veered back and forth in their allegiances as changing circumstances
dictated. Although one thinks first of the county of Flanders, site of
leading commercial cities such as Ghent and Bruges and home to
the Van Arteveldes, other regional powers, including Hainault and
Brabant, also played their role. In his article, “The Duchy of Brabant
Caught Between France and England: Geopolitics and Diplomacy
during the Hundred Years War,” Sergio Boffa explores the conflict’s
impact upon this small state and its reigning dukes. In steering their
duchy through the vagaries of war, these fourteenth century nobles
shifted sides several times and although ducal self-interest played an
important part in dictating these diplomatic moves, it was by no
means the only factor at work. Such things as the economic wellbeing of Brabant’s inhabitants and even popular sentiments helped
shape policy decisions. Boffa defends Duke John against some of the
charges laid at his door by later historians, in particular the accusation that he did not fulfill his commitment to England during the
early stages of the conflict.
Part Three looks at urban reactions to the Hundred Years War,
focusing upon three important, but geographically diverse cities—
London, Toulouse, and Barcelona. In “London’s War Effort during the Early Years of the Reign of Edward III,” Peter Konieczny
Villalon, A., & Kagay, D. (Eds.). (2005). The hundred years war : A wider focus. BRILL.
Created from tcu on 2022-03-31 01:47:44.
Copyright © 2005. BRILL. All rights reserved.
xlvi
introduction
discusses how the lord mayor and other city authorities went about
fulfilling requests from Edward III to provide military assistance
against England’s enemies. Londoners had to send soldiers, ships,
supplies, and money for various mid-fourteenth century campaigns,
including those fought across the channel to vindicate the king’s
claim on the crown of France. In addition to examining how the
city carried out its military responsibilities, Konieczny shows the reaction of ordinary London residents to the demands for their support
resulting from the war effort.
In 1355, the destructive English chevauchée through Languedoc gave
the inhabitants of Toulouse a rude awakening. Although the Hundred
Years War had been in progress for nearly two decades, its affect
on the region had been minimal. Now, for the first time in more
than a century, the city faced a true military threat. Even though
no attack on the formidable city walls materialized, the people of
the Toulousain watched as their fields and villages burned and the
French governor general, the count of Armagnac, stood by helplessly. In his article, “Tholosanna Fides: Toulouse as a Military Actor
in Late Medieval France,” Paul Solon traces the impact of this event
and the war of which it was a small part upon one of the great
walled towns of France, know to contemporaries as the bonnes villes.
Toulouse resumed the vigilance of an earlier age and went back on
the defensive in a serious way. Throughout the rest of the Hundred
Years War and for sometime thereafter, the city assumed control of
its military and diplomatic destiny, maneuvering between two powerful regional rivals, the counts of Armagnac and Foix, alternately
negotiating or fighting with the mercenary bands that troubled the
countryside, repairing walls and raising forces, both to defend itself
and serve the crown. According to Solon, during this period, the
elites of Toulouse conducted an independent and creative policy that
helped shape the regional balance of power. The city carefully applied
its military and logistical capacity as well as its diplomatic clout to
achieving its own policy objectives. As the conflict progressed, this
policy increasingly involved supplying men and materiel to Valois
armies, even when those armies were operating far from Toulouse.
In an article entitled “The Invocation of Princeps namque in 1368
and its Repercussions for the City of Barcelona,” Manuel Sánchez
Martínez provides a detailed treatment of how the major city of
eastern Spain recruited its troops during this volatile period. Since
Villalon, A., & Kagay, D. (Eds.). (2005). The hundred years war : A wider focus. BRILL.
Created from tcu on 2022-03-31 01:47:44.
Copyright © 2005. BRILL. All rights reserved.
introduction
xlvii
the great Catalan law code, the Usatges of Barcelona, first surfaced in
the 1150s, Aragonese monarchs had increasingly invoked the socalled “national defense clause” (Princeps namque) contained in article
64 as a means of raising military forces. Now, during the war-torn
1360s, the city council of Barcelona launched a fiscal experiment,
which it hoped world supply a cheaper and more efficient way of
providing men for the war effort. It diverted taxes assessed on urban
households ( fogatge) to both the hiring of military professionals and
the payment of a militia raised from among the city’s male population. Using a wealth of contemporary documentation, Sánchez
Martínez traces the extent to which this experiment succeeded in
the face of royal attempts not to lose control of military financing.
The fourth part of the volume deals with one of the most underconsidered medieval topics, “Women at War.” James Gilbert’s essay,
“A Medieval ‘Rosie the Riveter’?: Women in France and Southern
England during the Hundred Years War” examines the ways in
which medieval women and the warfare raging around them had a
profound impact upon one another and how contemporaries perceived female involvement in conflict. Gilbert, who establishes a number of useful categories for gauging female participation, argues that
for the Hundred Years War, the stereotype of women as non-combatants is badly oversimplified. Women played an active role in the
struggle, even if that role was almost exclusively defensive in nature.
The author demonstrates that while women took little to no part on
the battlefield, they were regularly involved in the raids and sieges
that characterized period warfare, often defending hearth and home
against both regular soldiers and routiers and, on a few occasions,
assuming leadership roles. The offensive actions of Joan of Arc, the
principal female figure of the conflict (arguably the most famous individual of either gender), were an exception to the general rule. What
is more, according to Gilbert, many of her actions, when viewed
from a larger perspective, might actually be categorized as defensive.
In her article, “Just War, Joan of Arc, and the Politics of Salvation,”
Jane Marie Pinzino treats just war theory as it relates to Joan. When
the Hundred Years War resumed early in the fifteenth century, the
Christian doctrine of “just war” infused the struggle waged by the
Armagnac faction to liberate France from its foreign oppressors and
uphold the sacred kingship of the Valois line. This ideology was
highly spiritual, claiming God’s command to take up arms against
Villalon, A., & Kagay, D. (Eds.). (2005). The hundred years war : A wider focus. BRILL.
Created from tcu on 2022-03-31 01:47:44.
Copyright © 2005. BRILL. All rights reserved.
xlviii
introduction
the prideful English invaders who had defiled French soil and caused
profound suffering for the French people. While there exists an extensive scholarly literature on the development of medieval just war
doctrine among the educated elite, its role as a popular movement
voiced by the uneducated as well as educated, poets as well as soldiers, women as well as men, peasants as well as nobles, laypeople
as well as clergy, has heretofore been overlooked. During the closing phases of the struggle, the diverse strata of French society united
in a political resistance to the English that embraced a prophetic
piety and instilled “a broad-reaching spirituality of peoplehood that
would ultimately energize a new humanism across Europe.” It is in
the context of French society’s freshly evolving sense of self-identity
that the Maid of Orleans’ successes are best understood. Joan demonstrated heaven’s ability to grant even the lowliest members of a society threatened by unjust war extraordinary powers to promote the
common good.
The final section, “Strategy, Technology, and Techniques of Combat” contains three articles, each of which is in its own way an exercise in revisionist history. In “Henry V’s Military Strategy in 1415,”
Clifford Rogers reexamines the English monarch’s decision to march
overland from Harfleur to Calais in 1415, a decision which led to
the battle of Agincourt. Conventional wisdom holds that Henry had
intended to score a propaganda victory by traversing the territory
he claimed, while at the same time, moving so quickly that he would
avoid having to do battle with the French. Only when left with no
alternative did he turn and fight. Based on the king’s strategic situation, personal experiences, and knowledge of history, Rogers argues
convincingly that, in fact, Henry recognized the need for an early
battlefield victory if he hoped to win a strategic success in his French
campaign. Consequently, the march to Calais was really designed to
lure the French into combat—at a time and on a field of Henry’s
choosing.
Examining the experiences of two Dukes of Burgundy, Philip the
Good and Charles the Bold, Kelly DeVries revisits the old question
of just how effective fifteenth century gunpowder artillery really proved
to be when directed against traditional medieval fortifications. DeVries
shows that despite possessing one of the most advanced artillery trains
in western Europe, the dukes had surprisingly little success in attacking cities whose walls were still medieval in nature and argues on
the basis of this that cannon of the period were not as effective
Villalon, A., & Kagay, D. (Eds.). (2005). The hundred years war : A wider focus. BRILL.
Created from tcu on 2022-03-31 01:47:44.
introduction
xlix
Copyright © 2005. BRILL. All rights reserved.
against “old fashioned” fortifications as “military revolution” historians would have us believe.
The last essay in the collection is of a somewhat different nature
from the others. It is written by one of the foremost medieval and
Renaissance martial artists (not to be mistaken for “reenactors”), John
Clements, director of the Association for Renaissance Martial Arts
[ARMA].41 Many years of hands-on experience with a wide variety
of medieval weaponry have left Clements well-versed in the medieval
practice of arms. Based in large part upon little-known combat manuals of the later Middle Ages as well as its author’s personal experience, this article provides the reader with information on the weapons
commonly in use as well as how men actually trained and fought
with such weapons during the so-called age of chivalry.
41
ARMA’s fascinating website can be found at www.thearma.org.
Villalon, A., & Kagay, D. (Eds.). (2005). The hundred years war : A wider focus. BRILL.
Created from tcu on 2022-03-31 01:47:44.
Copyright © 2005. BRILL. All rights reserved.
l
maps
Map 1. France in 1328.
Villalon, A., & Kagay, D. (Eds.). (2005). The hundred years war : A wider focus. BRILL.
Created from tcu on 2022-03-31 01:47:44.
Copyright © 2005. BRILL. All rights reserved.
maps
li
Map 2. French Territory Ceded to England after the Treaty of Brétigny 1360.
Villalon, A., & Kagay, D. (Eds.). (2005). The hundred years war : A wider focus. BRILL.
Created from tcu on 2022-03-31 01:47:44.
Copyright © 2005. BRILL. All rights reserved.
lii
introduction
Map 3. England and France in the later Hundred Years War.
Villalon, A., & Kagay, D. (Eds.). (2005). The hundred years war : A wider focus. BRILL.
Created from tcu on 2022-03-31 01:47:44.
Villalon, A., & Kagay, D. (Eds.). (2005). The hundred years war : A wider focus. BRILL.
Created from tcu on 2022-03-31 01:47:44.
Louis III
Flanders
Philip
Burgundy
Charles the Bad
Navarre
Orléans
Philip
Blanche
Henry V,
1422
Henry IV, 1413
Catharine
Genealogy 1
Charles VII, 1461
Charles VI, 1422
Charles V, 1380
John, 1364
Philip VI, 1350
Charles of Valois
Henry VI, 1471
King of England and France
Married
John of Gaunt, 1399
Edward III, 1377
The dates, years of death. French kings, in black type. Descendants of Edward I, in italics.
Margaret
Edward I,
1306
Isabella = Edward II,
1328
Philip III, 1285
The Succession in 1328
Charles IV, 1328
Jane
Philip IV, 1322
Jane
Louis X, 1316
Philips IV, 1314
Copyright © 2005. BRILL. All rights reserved.
introduction
liii
Villalon, A., & Kagay, D. (Eds.). (2005). The hundred years war : A wider focus. BRILL.
Created from tcu on 2022-03-31 01:47:44.
Philippa,
Elizabeth
m.
(d. 1428)
John I of Portugal
m.(1)
John Hastings, Earl of Pembroke
m.(2)
John Holland, Duke of Exeter
m.(3)
Sir John Cornwall, Lord
Fanhope
HENRY VI
(1422–71)
m.
Margaret of Anjou
Catherine of France
Henry, Cardinal Beaufort
and Bp. of Winchester
(1374–1447)
Genealogy 2
Henry, Earl of Somerset John, Duke of Somerset Edmund, Duke of Somerset
(1403–44)
(1401–18)
(1406–55)
John Beaufort, Earl of Somerset
(1390–1447)
Thomas, Duke of Exeter
(d. 1426)
Philippa
m.
Eric IX of Denmark
John of Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster
(1340–99)
m.(1)
m.(2)
Blanche of Lancaster
Constance of Castile
(d. 1369)
(d. 1394)
m.(3)
Catherine Swynford
Catherine
(d. 1403)
m.
Henry III
of Castile
HENRY V Thomas, Duke of Clarence John, Duke of Bedford
Humphrey,
Blanche
(1413–22)
(1388–1421)
(1389–1435)
Duke of Gloucester
m.
m.
(1390–1477)
Ludwig of Bavaria
HENRY IV
(1399–1413)
The Houses of Lancaster and Beaufort
Copyright © 2005. BRILL. All rights reserved.
liv
introduction
Villalon, A., & Kagay, D. (Eds.). (2005). The hundred years war : A wider focus. BRILL.
Created from tcu on 2022-03-31 01:47:44.
CHARLES VIII
(1483–98)
John,
CHARLES VII
dauphin
(1422–61)
(d. 1417)
LOUIS XI
(1461–83)
Louis III
(d. 1434)
Louis, Duke of
Orléans,
founder of the line
of Valois-Orléans
John, Duke
of Berry
Charles (d. 1481
leaving Anjou
to Louis XI)
Charles of
Maine
Genealogy 3
René
(d. 1480)
Louis II
(d. 1417)
Louis, Duke of anjou,
founder of the
second royal
house of Naples
JOHN
(1350–64)
PHILIP VI
(1328–50)
Charles of Valois
CAPITALS denote kings of France.
Small Caps denote kings of Naples of the first house of Anjou.
Italics denote kings (titular) of Naples of the second house of Anjou.
Louis
dauphin
(d. 1415)
CHARLES VI
(1380–1422)
m. Isabel of Bavaria
CHARLES V
(1364–80)
LOUIS X PHILIP V CHARLES X
(1322–28)
(1314–16) (1316–22)
PHILIP IV
(1285–1314)
Joan II
(d. 1435)
Mary = Maximilian
Archduke of Austria
Philip = Joanna, heiress
of (d. 1506)
Castlile
Charles V, King of Spain,
Lord of the Netherlands,
and Emperor
Charles the Bold
(d. 1477)
Philip the Good
(d. 1467)
John the Fearless
(d. 1419)
Philip, Duke of
Burgundy (d. 1404)
BURGUNDY
Charles III
(d. 1386)
Louis
Charles
Joan I
(d. 1382)
John
Robert (d. 1343)
Charles II (d. 1309)
Charles I of Anjou (d. 1285)
VALOIS
LOUIS IX
(1226–70)
PHILIP III (1270–85)
ANJOU
LOUIS VIII
(1223–26)
France, Burgundy, and Naples
CARPET
Copyright © 2005. BRILL. All rights reserved.
introduction
lv
Copyright © 2005. BRILL. All rights reserved.
Villalon, A., & Kagay, D. (Eds.). (2005). The hundred years war : A wider focus. BRILL.
Created from tcu on 2022-03-31 01:47:44.
PART ONE
Copyright © 2005. BRILL. All rights reserved.
THE SPANISH CONNECTION
Villalon, A., & Kagay, D. (Eds.). (2005). The hundred years war : A wider focus. BRILL.
Created from tcu on 2022-03-31 01:47:44.
Copyright © 2005. BRILL. All rights reserved.
Villalon, A., & Kagay, D. (Eds.). (2005). The hundred years war : A wider focus. BRILL.
Created from tcu on 2022-03-31 01:47:44.
Copyright © 2008. BRILL. All rights reserved.
INTRODUCTION
This second volume dedicated to studies on the Hundred Years War
continues the dual focus of the rst.1 To begin with, it too stresses the
editors’ belief that the Hundred Years War encompassed far more than
an Anglo-French conict to decide who would rule France, that in fact,
it also inuenced or was inuenced by events and conicts occurring
throughout western Europe and that it is only logical to view these as
part and parcel of that larger war that dominated the later Middle Ages.
As was the case with the earlier volume, volume two has also tried to
include revisionist articles that take a fresh look at even such well-studied
topics as the battles of Crécy (1346) and Agincourt (1415).
The rst part, “Broader Horizons of the Hundred Years War,” contains a single article, “The Hundred Years Wars: Not One War But
Many” by Kelly DeVries, that establishes the volume’s overall point
of view. DeVries briey surveys the military history of this period,
looking at the interrelated series of conicts that occurred throughout
Western Europe, while showing how they were inextricably linked to
the Anglo-French struggle and, in many cases, to one another. Starting
with Scotland, his essay supplies a gazeteer of military and political
activity occurring in the Holy Roman Empire, the Iberian kingdoms
of Castile, Navarre, Portugal, and the Crown of Aragon, the Low
Countries, and Burgundy, stressing that most of the wars were really
part of the one larger conict. From the perspective of a historian
highly conversant with the literature of the period, DeVries also suggests fruitful directions in which future scholarship on the Hundred
Years War might proceed.
The second part, “Agincourt and its Aftermath,” focuses in on the
conict’s best known and best-documented battle, later immortalized
in William Shakespeare’s Henry V. By closely analyzing not only the
contemporary chronicles, but also the most recent archaeological and
technological evidence, Clifford Rogers has produced in his article
“The Battle of Agincourt” what is arguably the most thorough and
1
The Hundred Years War: A Wider Focus, ed. L. J. Andrew Villalon and Donald J.
Kagay (Leiden, 2005).
Villalon,
A., & Kagay, D. (Eds.). (2008). The
VILLALON-KAGAY_f1_i-xxxii.indd
xxv hundred years war (part ii) : Different vistas. BRILL.
Created from tcu on 2022-03-31 01:56:00.
7/5/2008 3:46:53 PM
Copyright © 2008. BRILL. All rights reserved.
xxvi
introduction
sophisticated treatment to date, one that any future scholarship on this
encounter will have to address. Among the topics on which Rogers
sheds new light are the formation and tactics employed by both side,
the probable numbers involved, the actual effect of the English arrow
rain, the penetrative power of the longbow, and the explanation for
the magnitude of French defeat despite an overwhelming numerical
superiority. Included with Rogers’s essay are several detailed appendices
further exploring technical matters raised in the text.
A second article in this section, “Grief and Memory after the Battle
of Agincourt” by Megan Cassidy-Welch deals with the psychological
toll the battle exacted on survivors and their families, in particular
those who had been on the losing side. For the French, public and
private grief was deeply felt and emotionally expressed not only by
veterans and families mourning their dead, but also by a society crushed
by defeat. It was memorialized in private funeral ceremonies and in
state-sponsored rites and writings aimed at keeping alive the memory
of those who lost their lives at Agincourt. Among the reactions closely
examined are those of chroniclers, including the foremost female writer
of the period, Christine de Pizan.
In Part Three of this volume, “The Iberian Face of the Hundred
Years War,” a pair of papers focuses on a theatre of conict far from
central stage, but one which would on several occasions in the second
half of the fourteenth century greatly inuence the war’s course. In the
mid-1360s, during a hiatus in the ghting north of the Pyrenees that
followed the Treaty of Brétigny (1360), the Hundred Years War spilled
across the mountains into Iberia where it merged with a decade-long
struggle, the War of the Two Pedro’s (1356–1366), being fought primarily between Castile and the Crown of Aragon, but also involving to
a lesser extent the other Iberian kingdoms of Granada, Portugal, and
Navarre. Essays by Andrew Villalon and Donald Kagay explore from
opposite sides this regional conict which touched off two invasions
of Castile (1366 and 1367) by English, French, Gascon, and Breton
forces, invasions that brought into play many leading gures from the
larger struggle, including the Black Prince and the future constable,
Beltran duGuesclin. In “Cut Off Their Head’s or I’ll Cut Off Yours:
Castilian Strategy and Tactics in the War of the Two Pedros and the
Supporting Evidence from Murcia,” Villalon treats the lengthy assault
on his eastern neighbor launched by the Castilian monarch, Pedro I
“the Cruel” (1350–1366/69); in particular, highlighting the counterproductivity of Pedro’s “strategy of terror” and stressing the importance of
Villalon,
A., & Kagay, D. (Eds.). (2008). The
VILLALON-KAGAY_f1_i-xxxii.indd
xxvi hundred years war (part ii) : Different vistas. BRILL.
Created from tcu on 2022-03-31 01:56:00.
7/5/2008 3:46:53 PM
Copyright © 2008. BRILL. All rights reserved.
introduction
xxvii
surviving evidence from the archives at Murcia. By contrast, Kagay has
produced an article, “The Defense of the Crown of Aragon during the
War of the Two Pedros (1356–1366),” based on extensive research in
Barcelona’s Archivo de la Corona de Aragón, which closely examines
the complex array of defensive actions employed by Pedro’s Aragonese
opponent, Pere III (aka Pedro IV) (1337–1387) in his attempt to counter
Castilian aggression. Ultimately, the events in Spain set the stage for a
signicant intervention by both France and England (1366–1367) that
in turn did much to bring about a renewal of fullscale warfare between
the two countries in 1369.
What would any collection on the Hundred Years War be without
some treatment of the most effective missile weapons of the Middle
Ages: the English longbow and the crossbow employed by most continental armies? Part Four, “The Technical Aspects of Archery in the
Hundred Years War” serves this purpose.
In “The English Longbow: A Revolution in Technology?” David
Whetham supplies a ne summary of the evolution of the English
longbow, indicating that what was new to the central and later Middle
Ages was not the weapon itself, but the way in which the weapon was
used in battle. Long, powerful bows had actually been in use for centuries by various cultures; on the other hand, massed and coordinated
volleys had begun to emerge as a potent force on the eld of battle
only toward the end of the thirteenth century. It was this tactical use
of the weapon that led to the great English victories of the Hundred
Years War, in turn giving rise to myths extolling the longbow’s newness
and invincibility.
The second article, “The Longbow-Crossbow Shootout at Crécy
(1346): Has the ‘Rate of Fire Commonplace’ Been Overrated?” by
Russell Mitchell, takes a fresh look at the alleged matchup between
the two weapons that occurred during the initial stages of the battle
of Crécy (1346). Rather than reafrming the conventional wisdom that
this confrontation reected the absolute technological superiority of
the former over the latter, Mitchell argues that Crécy was not really a
meaningful test of two weapons systems going head-to-head with one
another. Instead, the highly-professional Genoese crossbowmen ghting
in the service of France, realizing that they had been thrown into the
mêlée almost as an afterthought and without a crucial piece of their
equipment (the pavises that would have helped shield them from the
rain of English arrows) hastily red a volley or two, then withdrew
from the eld before any real exchange with the enemy could develop.
Villalon,
A., & Kagay, D. (Eds.). (2008). The
VILLALON-KAGAY_f1_i-xxxii.indd
xxviihundred years war (part ii) : Different vistas. BRILL.
Created from tcu on 2022-03-31 01:56:00.
7/5/2008 3:46:53 PM
Copyright © 2008. BRILL. All rights reserved.
xxviii
introduction
According to Mitchell, it was this precipitate withdrawal that probably
spurred the French king to accuse his Genoese mercenaries of treason
and order his horsemen to ride them down. Mitchell further argues
that had the French waited for arrival of the crossbowmen’s baggage
containing their pavises and only then committed to battle the potent
weapons system they represented, the story of Crécy might have been
very different.
Part Five—“Military Participants in the Hundred Years War”—examines three signicant gures to come out of the conict and a famous
exercise in chivalry uncharacteristic of the bloody struggle. In “Philip VI’s
Mortal Enemy: Robert of Artois and the Beginning of the Hundred
Years War,” Dana Sample reevaluates the role of Robert, Count of
Artois, in inciting the conict, reafrming to an extent the view of
contemporary chroniclers that attribute to this slippery gure a greater
role than most modern historians concede to him.
Steven Muhlberger’s essay, “The Combat of the Thirty against
Thirty: An Example of Medieval Chivalry?” examines a famous chivalric episode of the year 1350 that pitted thirty Franco-Breton knights
against a like number of Englishmen and their allies. Muhlberger shows
that just how chivalric this event truly was depends largely on what
sources the historian credits: the principal chroniclers of the event, Jean
le Bel and Jean Froissart, paint the combat in far more knightly colors
than does a highly partisan Breton poet who saw the English as evil
and rejoiced at their defeat.
In “John Hawkwood: Florentine Hero and Faithful Englishman,”
William Caferro continues his examination of the career of the English
adventurer begun in the rst volume of this collection. Here, Caferro
shows that the conversion of this refugee from the Hundred Years War
into a Florentine hero has been overstated throughout the centuries;
that, in fact, his conversion suited the propagandistic needs of Florence
and his national loyalties may have remained far more English than
earlier historians ever imagined.
Richard Vernier’s “The Afterlife of a Hero: Bertrand du Guesclin
Imagined” traces how one of the two great French heroes of the Hundred Years War, Constable Bertrand du Guesclin, has been viewed over
succeeding centuries and how his image has changed to meet the needs
of subsequent generations. Vernier also compares du Guesclin’s afterlife
to that of Joan of Arc, the premier French hero of the conict.
The nal part, “Fiscal, Literary and Psychological Aspects of the
Hundred Years War,” contains three articles. In “Purveyance and
Villalon,
A., & Kagay, D. (Eds.). (2008). The
VILLALON-KAGAY_f1_i-xxxii.indd
xxviiihundred years war (part ii) : Different vistas. BRILL.
Created from tcu on 2022-03-31 01:56:00.
7/5/2008 3:46:54 PM
introduction
xxix
Copyright © 2008. BRILL. All rights reserved.
Peasants at the Beginning of the Hundred Years War: Maddicott Reexamined,” Ilana Krug focuses on the system of purveyance through use
of which the English monarchy secured at favorable prices foodstuffs
for its armies serving on the continent. Krug argues that the primary
authority on purveyance, H. R. Maddicott, overstates the negative effect
the system had on the English peasantry.
Lia Ross examines the works of a leading French literary gure of
the later fourteenth century in her article, “The Good, the Bad, and
the Ugly: Visions of Burgundy, France, and England in the Oeuvres
of Georges Chastellain.” In the opening sections of his chronicle that
have survived, Chastellain, who is writing for the most part after the
conict has ended, supplies a retrospective view of the Hundred Years
War. Although Chastellain primarily served the duke of Burgundy, Philip
the Good (1419–1467), who had in the early years of his reign sided
with England against France, the chronicle is in general pro-French and
vitriolically anti-English. As a result, the author takes pains to explain
and excuse his master’s anti-French stance. Ross points out that despite
his antipathy toward England, Chastellain paints a surprising mixed
portrait of France’s major adversary, Henry V (1414–1422), depicting
him as a talented political and military leader.
The nal essay in the collection, “Mental Incapacity and the Financing
of War in Medieval England” by Wendy Turner, explores connections
between the treatment of madness and the nancing of war in medieval
England. Having surveyed how the horrors of combat and captivity
could unhinge the minds of men who had experienced them, Turner
then shows how the crown benetted nancially from a system that
afforded it considerable control over the mentally incompetent and how,
in turn, this freed up funds for the war effort.
Villalon,
A., & Kagay, D. (Eds.). (2008). The
VILLALON-KAGAY_f1_i-xxxii.indd
xxix hundred years war (part ii) : Different vistas. BRILL.
Created from tcu on 2022-03-31 01:56:00.
7/5/2008 3:46:54 PM
Copyright © 2008. BRILL. All rights reserved.
xxx
Direct domain of the
King of France
maps
Fiefs of the
French Crown
Fiefs of the
English King
Map 1: France in 1328.
Villalon,
A., & Kagay, D. (Eds.). (2008). The
VILLALON-KAGAY_f1_i-xxxii.indd
xxx hundred years war (part ii) : Different vistas. BRILL.
Created from tcu on 2022-03-31 01:56:00.
7/5/2008 3:46:54 PM
Copyright © 2008. BRILL. All rights reserved.
maps
xxxi
Map 2: French Territory Ceded to England after the Treaty of Brétigny 1360.
Villalon,
A., & Kagay, D. (Eds.). (2008). The
VILLALON-KAGAY_f1_i-xxxii.indd
xxxi hundred years war (part ii) : Different vistas. BRILL.
Created from tcu on 2022-03-31 01:56:00.
7/5/2008 3:46:55 PM
Copyright © 2008. BRILL. All rights reserved.
xxxii
maps
Map 3: England and France in the later Hundred Years War.
Villalon,
A., & Kagay, D. (Eds.). (2008). The
VILLALON-KAGAY_f1_i-xxxii.indd
xxxiihundred years war (part ii) : Different vistas. BRILL.
Created from tcu on 2022-03-31 01:56:00.
7/5/2008 3:46:56 PM
ECON 30723
History of Economic Thought
John Lovett
Problem Set 3: Get that research started!!
Overview
In this problem set you and your partner will share and review two potential sources for you paper. This is due
by 11:59 pm on Wed, 30 March.
Steps
Step 1: Done! Find a partner and topic if you have not already done so. Use the discussion boards under
papers to communicate with potential paper partners.
Step 2: Find a good academic source; a journal article or book, that is likely relevant to your paper. Search the
TCU library’s databases as described by Diana Boerner.
Step 3: Read and ponder this source. Also, get an electronic copy of the first page of this source. You might
actually need two images to do this; one a page that identifies the source, and the second the first page
of actual writing. Typically, articles from JSTOR require two pages. Book chapters require two pages
(the book’s title page and the first page of the chapter you will use). Journal articles found on ECON lit
usually only need one page to both identify the source and show the first page of writing.
Step 4: Write a review of this source for your partner. You review should be at least 340 words. More is
generally better, but substance counts for more than length. I like 11 font and 1.5 spacing. That being
said, you can use a different format if you wish. Just remember the 340 (or more) word goal. There is
more than one way to write a good review. However, I strongly suggest the following format.
Briefly describe your source and what it says. Use your own words. Nonetheless, remember that
the abstract (if your source has one) is a good summary of what the author is trying to say.
Discuss how one could use your source in a paper on your topic area.
Explain any thesis questions (big questions upon which to center a paper) suggested by source. Your
paper will need a thesis question. The sooner you start pondering these, the better.
Tell your partner how you found the source. What databases did you search? What search terms
did you use.
Finally, discuss any “leads” this paper gives you. A “lead” could be an item listed in the bibliography.
It could be an idea or thesis question you derive from the paper.
Don’t forget your in‐text citations. You should have at least one in‐text citation for each review you
write (your long review of your article and the short response to your partner’s article).
Step 5: Send your partner your source and your review. Make sure your partner does the same.
1
ECON 30723
History of Economic Thought
John Lovett
Step 6: Write a brief response to the source and review your partner sent you. It should be 170 words or more.
Acknowledge their work and ideas. Most importantly, let them know your thoughts on the source. Are
there any other connections, or other ways to use the source, that you can think of? Did you find any
sources in the bibliography that look interesting? What paths might one pursue based on this source?
If you are going it alone, you do not need to comment on your review. Skip this part.
Step 7: Create a reference or bibliography page for your two sources. Use APA style.
Step 8: Put together a packet like that described in the next section. Go to “Contents”, then “C) Problem Sets”,
then “Turn in PS‐3 here.” Turn in your PS‐3.
Step 9: Encourage your partner to do the same (if you have a partner). Your problem set and your partners
should be identical, but I want you both to turn them in. If you are the only one of the two to turn in a
problem set, you can get the full 20 points. Your partner, however, can only get a maximum of 17 of 20.
Organization of the problem set and how points are awarded.
3 pts. Did you turn in a problem set? If your partner turns in your problem set, but you do not also turn
it in, you will not get these points. Your maximum score will therefore be 17 of 20.The two should be
identical, but I still want one submission from each of you. If you are going it alone (i.e. have no partner),
one submission is enough.
1 pt. Cover Page (page 1). Use whatever format you wish as long as it is neat, identifies you and your
partner, and identifies your topic.
2 pts. Page 2 or 3: A copy of the first page of your 1st source. This should include information about
where (what journal or book) your source comes from. It should also include the first written page form
your source. In some cases, this just means one page. In other cases, this will mean two pages. In the
example on the following page, the first source (Solow, 2006) takes two pages. One page tells us where
the chapter is from: A Yale University Press book by Thomas Solow. The other page shows the first page
of the particular chapter. Actually, the JSTOR title page seems to be missing the publication year, but it’ll
work.
2 pts. Page 3 or 2: A copy of the first page of your partner’s source. This should include information
about where (what journal or book) your source comes from. It should also include the first written page
form your source. In some cases, this just means one page. In the example on the following page, only
one page is needed for the Lutz (2019) article.
5 pts. Page 4 or 5: Your and your partner’s comments on your source. Again, you should have
about 340 words. Your partner should have about 170. Also, don’t forget the in‐text citations.
5 pts. Page 4 or 5: Your and your partner’s comments on your partner’s source. Again, your
partner should have about 340 words. Yours should have about 170. Don’t forget the in‐text citations.
2 pts. Page 6: A reference page showing your two sources. Use APA format.
The format is shown on the next page. Your PS could be as short as 6 pages although most are longer.
2
ECON 30723
History of Economic Thought
John Lovett
1st page the 1st source.
Source info for the 1st source.
Problem Set 3
Abbie Baker and Yvette Zimmerman
Topic # 72: Simonde de Sismondi
ECON 30723, European Economic History I
Spring 2022
2
1
Review of 1st source by Abbie Baker
Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
Source info and first
page of the 2nd source.
Yakkitty yakkity yak.
Yakkitty yakkity yak.
Yakkitty yakkity yak.
Yakkitty yakkity yak.
Review of 2nd source by Yvette Z.
Yakkitty yakkity yak.
Yakkitty yakkity yak.
Yakkitty yakkity yak.
Yakkitty yakkity yak.
Yakkitty yakkity yak.
Yakkitty yakkity yak.
Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
Yakkitty yakkity yak.
Yakkitty yakkity yak.
Yakkitty yakkity yak.
Yakkitty yakkity yak.
Comments on 1st source by Yvette Z.
Yakkitty yakkity yak.
Yakkitty yakkity yak.
Yakkitty yakkity yak.
Yakkitty yakkity yak.
Yakkitty yakkity yak.
Yakkitty yakkity yak.
Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
Comments on 2nd source by Abbie Baker.
Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Yakkitty yakkity yak.
Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Yakkitty yakkity yak.
Yakkitty yakkity yak. Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
Yakkitty yakkity yak. Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
Yakkitty yakkity yak. Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
Yakkitty yakkity yak. Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
4
3
5
Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Yakkitty yakkity yak.
Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Yakkitty yakkity yak.
Yakkitty yakkity yak. Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
Yakkitty yakkity yak. Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
Yakkitty yakkity yak. Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
Yakkitty yakkity yak. Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
6
References
In most cases, the review and
comments will take more than one
page per article.
Last, F (2009). T…