The Hundred Years War

The aim of this paper is to highlight the interregional consequences of the Battle of Brignais and how the authorities handled the problem of the routiers after having been exposed to Petit Meschin and Seguin du Badefol, the leaders of the winning army. I will also discuss Arnaud de Cervole, another mercenary captain, who was one of the leaders of the losing royal army. However, I will mainly focus on how the magnates and ordinary people reacted to the threat, what deals they entered into to survive.

"By Fire and Sword:  Bellum Hostile and 'Civilians' in the Hundred Years War,” in Civilians in the Path of War, ed. Mark Grimsley and Clifford J. Rogers (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2002): 33-78.  Examines the nature of and reasons for the use of violence against civilians during the Hundred Years War.

This article offers the first analysis of Anglo-Scottish tension at the general ecclesiastical council of Pavia-Siena (1423-4), where Thomas Murray, Abbot of Paisley, spearheaded attacks on the English delegation in the name of the French and Scottish kingdoms with Castilian and Italian allies. Murray's attacks illustrate how the council formed a frontline in the ongoing Anglo-French conflict and that the tensions between the kingdoms of Scotland and England played out on a European stage wider than usually recognised. Often dismissed as a non-event, the article establishes that Pavia-Siena formed a more significant centre for international diplomacy than historians have allowed.
Accessible online: https://academic.oup.com/histres/article-abstract/93/261/420/5879244?redirectedFrom=fulltext

The Jacquerie of 1358 is one of the most famous and mysterious peasant uprisings of the Middle Ages. Beginning in a small village but eventually overrunning most of northern France, the Jacquerie rebels destroyed noble castles and killed dozens of noblemen before being put down in a bloody wave of suppression. The revolt occurred in the wake of the Black Death and during the Hundred Years War, and it was closely connected to a rebellion in Paris against the French crown. This book, the first extended study of the Jacquerie in over a century, resolves long-standing controversies about whether the revolt was just an irrational explosion of peasant hatred or simply an extension of the Parisian revolt. It shows that these apparently contradcitory conclusions are based on the illusory assumption that the revolt was a unified movement with a single goal. In fact, the Jacquerie has to be understood as a constellation of many events that evolved over time. It involved thousands of people, who understood what they were doing in different and changing ways. The story of the Jacquerie is about how individuals and communities navigated their specific political, social, and military dilemmas, how they reacted to events as they unfolded, and how they chose to remember (or to forget) in its aftermath. The Jacquerie Revolt of 1358 re-writes the narrative of this tumultuous period and gives special attention to how violence and social relationships were harnessed to mobilize popular rebellion.

Old maps convey messages about early spatial arrangements. In some cases, they also tell a story, and hence can be qualified as 'history maps'. The interpretation of such maps is not easy, because they are witnesses to a strong dichotomy between the static representation of the landscape and the dynamic sequence of historical events. Digital Thematic Deconstruction allows to break through the iconographic composition and to extract the visual discourse from such an image stuffed with information. In this article, the method is applied to the bird's-eye view of the siege of Ypres in 1383, engraved by Guillaume du Tielt at the beginning of the seventeenth century, in order to assess the accuracy of the mapped topography and to get at the visual narrative. The results not only help interpret the meaning of such a history map, but also offer perspectives for comparing and juxtaposing history maps and textual records.

The Hundred Years War (1337-1453) dominated life in England and France for well over a century. It became the defining feature of existence for generations. This sweeping book is the first to tell the human story of the longest military conflict in history. Historian David Green focuses on the ways the war affected different groups, among them knights, clerics, women, peasants, soldiers, peacemakers and kings. He also explores how the long war altered governance in England and France and reshaped people's perceptions of themselves and of their national character. Using the events of the war as a narrative thread, Green illuminates the realities of battle and the conditions of those compelled to live in occupied territory; the roles played by clergy and their shifting loyalties to king and pope; and the influence of the war on developing notions of government, literacy and education. Peopled with vivid and well-known characters - Henry V, Joan of Arc, Philippe the Good of Burgundy, Edward the Black Prince, John the Blind of Bohemia, and many others - as well as a host of ordinary individuals who were drawn into the struggle, this absorbing book reveals for the first time not only the Hundred Years War's impact on warfare, institutions and nations, but also its true human cost. - See more at: http://yalebooks.co.uk/display.asp?K=9780300134513&nat=false&sort=%24rank&sf1=keyword&st1=David+Green&m=1&dc=15#sthash.KyD7jual.dpuf

Co-authored with Anne Curry, Peter Hoskins and Thom Richardson

The Battle of Agincourt on October, 25, 1415, remains one of the most glorious victories in British history, with a legacy that endures today. A pivotal moment in the Hundred Years War between France and England, it reinvigoratead the English campaign in France and bolstered the English crown's hereditary claims to French land. Published to mark the 600th anniversary of this famous victory, The Agincourt Companion tells a wider story about warfare in the middle ages. Delving into the development and advances in weaponry, armour and tactics during this period and the impact this had on the battlefield, this is a richly detailed look at the world of medieval warfare.

An atlas of maps to accompany primary source readings in Ancient and Medieval Warfare, including the siege of Syracuse during the Peloponnesian War, the battle of Cynoscephalae, the Granicus, the Jugurthan War, Caesar's Gallic and Civil Wars, Fantosme, and Muntaner.

The overt mercantilism of The Libelle of Englyshe Polycye has overshadowed important questions surrounding the poem’s purpose and literary form. As the work attempts to justify economic protectionism, its preoccupation with legal and bureaucratic practices breaks new ground for the hybrid genre of bill-poems. This article associates The Libelle of Englyshe Polycye with civilian bills, or libelli, and re-evaluates the immediate historical context surrounding the poem’s composition. The wealth and accuracy of economic, political, and legal information that is contained in the poem points to the poet’s intimate familiarity with the highest functions of the King’s writing offices at Westminster. I argue that The Libelle of Englyshe Polycye must have been composed from within the closest circle of Henry VI’s senior administrators. The poem, I shall contend, formed part of the Privy Seal’s strategy to identify the adolescent monarch, who had only just begun to exercise the royal privilege of granting petitions, with a defence of Calais and an ideological pursuit of peace. Central to this process were William Lyndwood, Keeper of the Privy Seal, and Walter Hungerford, the poem’s sponsor. In additionto historical and circumstantial evidence, Lyndwood’s association with The Libelle of Englyshe Polycye is supported by the centrality the poem assigns to seals and documentary validity, its legal mode as a libellus, and its programmatic emphasis on peace and unity, which Lyndwood had championed in a parliamentary sermon of 1431.

Résumé : Si l’histoire de la guerre au Moyen-Âge font l’objet d’une place reconnue  dans le champ de la recherche universitaire, il faut bien reconnaître que rares  sont les tentatives de braquer la focale sur le guerrier et ses armes en situation de bataille. L’exercice est difficile. Les sources narratives sont souvent très vagues, centrées sur l’action des « grands hommes ». L’archéologie peine à combler les lacunes des chroniques car trouver des traces matérielles d’un événement qui n’a duré qu’une heure relève de l’exceptionnel. Il ne reste à l’historien que la possibilité de bâtir des modèles. Deux nouveaux axes de recherche nous permettent aujourd’hui de mieux les étayer. D’un côté il s’agit de l’histoire matérielle  et de l’autre des études sur les « Livres de combat »  médiévaux.
Abstract: If medieval war’s studies are well settled in academic’s research, few try to focus on warriors and weapons in battle context. The exercise is complex. Narratives are often vague, focus on famous men’s action. Archeology barely tend to fill the gap left by chronicles because finding material’s evidences about an event which lasts one hour is exceptional. Historian last hope is to modelize. However, two new axes appears today to better set them: Material History and  medieval “Fight’s Book” studies.

La guerra forse più lunga della storia, durata oltre 100 anni, che la cronologia anglosassone suddivide in più fasi intervallate da periodi di interruzione se non di pace: dalla Guerra Edoardiana, alla Pace di Bretigny, alla Guerra Carolina, a quella dei Lancaster, alla fase finale in cui, tra gli altri, emerse la figura di Giovanna d'Arco.
In questa prima parte si analizzano le cause scatenanti del conflitto e la prima fase, la Guerra Edoardiana, iniziata nel 1337 e conclusa con la Pace di Bretigny del 1360 .

The impact and legacy of Scottish raiding of Northern England during the First Scottish War of Independence has been the subject of significant study. English evidence in particular provides quite detailed accounts of the extent of the raids of Robert Bruce and his commanders, the amount of money and goods taken, and the impact that such raids had on the economy and society of this region. Considerably less analysis has focused, however, on the raids undertaken by Scottish commanders during the next phase of conflict, in particular in the later 1330s and 1340s.

In part this is because the Neville’s Cross campaign (1346), which acts as an endpoint for this phase of raiding, casts a long shadow and affects the perception of this period of Scottish warfare. Moreover, the relatively short duration of this raiding phase has ensured that it remains a less-appreciated element in discussions of this period of Anglo-Scottish conflict. I would argue, however, that these raids deserve to be re-examined in order to better understand the nature, extent and impact of these attacks on the English countryside during a period when English focus was increasingly drawn towards France.

In particular, this paper will consider the depiction of these raids in English sources and the picture that the available evidence presents of these incursions. It is the contention of this paper that: the English north returned to something like the dark days of the 1310s, and that its people quite seamlessly recommenced paying protection money to Scottish raiders to be left in peace; that local lords could not be depended upon to defend the region from Scottish depredations; and that this was a period when the English crown largely abandoned the English north to its fate and northern Englishmen to deal with the Scots as best they could.

La guerra forse più lunga della storia, durata oltre 100 anni, che la cronologia anglosassone suddivide in più fasi intervallate da periodi di interruzione se non di pace: dalla Guerra Edoardiana, alla Pace di Bretigny, alla Guerra Carolina, a quella dei Lancaster, alla Fase Finale in cui, tra gli altri, emerse la figura di Giovanna d'Arco. In questa quarta parte, dopo un riassunto delle fasi precedenti, la Fase Finale (1429-1453) in cui emerge la figura di Giovanna d'Arco.

This is the only English translation based on the recent critical edition by Daniel Hobbins. Another reliable translation (though based on an earlier edition) can be found in Craig Taylor's source volume "Joan of Arc:  La Pucelle" (Manchester, 2006).  I regret that I was unaware of that translation when I published this article!

Published in the "Revue Historique de Bordeaux et du département de la Gironde", no. 20, 2014.
Several unpublished documents permit to know the paid truces (the "patis") made between places of Aquitaine-Gascony, particularly Saint-Emilion, and some neighbouring "French" garrisons.

This article offers a study and edition of a collection of Middle English recipes for gunpowder from the early fifteenth century in London, Society of Antiquaries, MS 101. These are entirely unknown outside of their descriptions in a few works listing the texts in the manuscript and studies of the manuscript itself. These four distinct recipes are the earliest in Middle English and also include the earliest mention of gunpowder corning in England (the earliest in Europe is from Germany in 1411), which made the resulting product more reliable (especially against spoilage) and more powerful.

"This article explores the politics of owning, or taking ownership, of
Bible historiale manuscripts during the Hundred Years’ War. As theft and capture disrupted predictable patterns of patronage and exchange, new owners’ additions, erasures, and alterations can shed new light on ways in which the French Bible conditioned readers’ experience of the war on both sides. Such marginal acts of appropriation also force us to revise traditional notions of patronage to account for the sometimes violent refashioning of books to match the image and needs of unintended owners."

Published in "Les Cahiers du Bazadais", no. 152 (2006).
This article is about the political song written by the late troubadour Pey de Ladils of the town of Bazas (now in département Gironde, France) about the conflict in Gascony between the king of England and the king of France. Ladils criticizes there the inaction of the king of England (probably Edward II) against the attacks of the king of France. He underlines the fidelity of the Gascons towards the king of England.

Published in "Nottingham Medieval Studies", L, 2006, pp. 59-114.
Contrary to assumed ideas, the support of inhabitants of the principality of Aquitaine to its prince Edward of Woodstock (nicknamed "the Black Prince" from the 16th century onwards) was more important than usually assumed, particularly in Poitou, Saintonge and Angoumois until the military defeat of the "Poitevins" in 1372, but also in other regions (ex. of the towns of Millau and Montauban). Similarly while the "City" of Limoges submitted to the French and was later sacked by the Black Prince's army on 19 September 1370, the "Castle" of Limoges, the main part of Limoges, remained faithful to the Prince until 1371. Several other examples demonstrate that the assumed ideas on a tyrannical rule of the English and the Black Prince in Aquitaine are to be seriously qualified or even refused.

Was Joan of Arc mentally unstable? Did she fabricate her visions and voices? Or, was Joan of Arc really visited by the saints - as she claimed - who delivered a message from God, sending her on a mission that would  ultimately save France?

Arguably, whether Joan was visited by the saints or not is irrelevant.  What is important, however, is that those around her believed that she was visited and believed that she had been sent a message from God. 

Was Joan of Arc divine intervention personified?

While this paper does not claim to discuss military tactics at any great length, or with any expertise in the area, it does argue that Joan was an effective medieval military leader, despite - or in spite of - having no prior military training or experience.

This paper examines Joan's exploits as a military leader in order to determine the extent of the impact she had in relation to French success in the latter stages of the Hundred Years War.

Book review of: Michael Livingston and Kelly DeVries, eds, 'The Battle of Crécy: A Casebook' (Liverpool University Press, 2015), in De re militari, published online 18 May 2016

<http://deremilitari.org/2016/05/michael-livingston-and-kelly-devries-eds-the-battle-of-crecy-a-casebook-smith/>

This paper was submitted as my undergraduate dissertation in April 2014. The paper examines the armies raised by John of Gaunt, first duke of Lancaster, in 1373 and 1378. In particular, this work looks at the identifiable individuals who served directly under Gaunt.

"""Bodiam Castle, one of the most visually striking medieval castles in England, is situated in East Sussex on the river Rother, near Robertsbridge. In 1385 Sir Edward Dallingridge (c.1364-1393) was licensed to ‘strengthen with a wall of stone and lime and crenellate and construct and make into a castle his manor house at Bodyham [Bodiam], near the sea in the county of Sussex, for defence of the adjacent county and resistance to our enemies’.  This licence was issued at a particularly turbulent time in English history. England faced the threat of invasion from France and internal conflict during the reign of Richard II. However, interpretations of the function and purpose of the castle have been deeply divisive in the field of castle studies over the course of the last two decades. In the absence of documentary sources, with the exception of the licence to crenellate, attention has focused on the architectural evidence for the castle. The traditional view, as characterised by Thompson, is that Bodiam Castle was built to provide protection for the nearby coastal towns of Rye and New Winchelsea, which were navigable from Bodiam via the river Rother. 

However, since the 1990s, a new consensus on castle studies, particularly following from the work of Charles Coulson, using the evidence of licences to crenellate, claims that castle architecture in the Late Medieval Period was primarily motivated by symbolism and status.  In his view, Bodiam has weak defensive features, such as an easy-to-drain moat, badly situated gun-ports, and thin walls, with the military themed architecture intended to convey a ‘message of power and deterrence’ through the studied exaggeration of features of defensive origin.  In Coulson’s opinion, Dallingridge was a newcomer to the area, who needed to compensate for his lack of pedigree; by constructing a magnificent looking castle he was able to promote his wealth and social standing.  This interpretation is contested by Platt, who stresses that Bodiam Castle was intended to serve a military purpose, but other authors, such as Creighton and Liddiard, have sought to move away from the ‘war or status’ debate. 

The most contentious issue regarding Bodiam Castle has centred on Dallingridge’s motivation in building the castle. Why would a member of the gentry build such an impressive castle at this particular time in Southern England?  In the absence of other evidence, the study of Dallingridge’s life is important in understanding why Bodiam Castle was built. Previous studies on Bodiam Castle have been rather superficial in their treatment of Dallingridge, which has tended to reflect their views on the motivation for its construction; for instance, by laying emphasis on his social aspirations or his military career. This article will examine Dallingridge’s life to see what insights it provides into the circumstances in which Bodiam was built in the late fourteenth century. By looking at his family background, military career, political career and his financial holdings, it will show that the motivation for the construction of Bodiam Castle was influenced by the turbulent events of 1385, and served as a visual demonstration of Dallingridge’s social standing in east Sussex."""

Que sait-on vraiment de l'art de la guerre dans la première moitié du XVe siècle? Cet article propose d'étudier 3 opérations militaires impliquant la ville de Bordeaux entre 1406 et 1450. Il s'interroge sur la tactique, sur la mobilisation et sur leur portée.

Published in "Les Cahiers du Bazadais", no. 187, December 2014.
This paper is about the family of Preissac whose elder members where nicknamed Soudan of la Trau. They were issued from a nephew of Pope Clement V and its most famous member has been Arnaut-Bernat IV de Preissac who became knight of the Garter c. 1380-1381. He was also present at the battles of Poitiers (1356), Cocherel (1364) and Najera (1367), and has participated at the expedition against the Tunisian town of Madhia (1390) led by the duke of Bourbon. There are some details about the siege of Mortagne-sur-Gironde (1377-8) and the murder of Owain of Wales, the last Welsh pretender of the principality of Wales.

Abstract 
The Hundred Years War has had a profound impact on the history of France and England. Yet its impact and importance on the history of other European countries and of Europe in general has been overlooked and much less studied. Even the supporters of the so-called “late medieval crisis”, have not shown any interest in establishing any kind of relationship between the “crisis” of the Late Middle Ages, and the Hundred Years War, although both match perfectly in chronological terms. We aim to establish a relation between the anglo-french conflict of the Late Middle Ages and the difficulties and/or the decline of some European countries and regions during the same time span. Before the war France was the commercial hub of Europe, but during the course of the war became its main battlefield. It was a conflict between England and France, fought and decided entirely in French territories and dependencies. So, how this transformation of the biggest, the richest, the most central and the most important kingdom of Europe, from a commercial hub to a battlefield, influenced the economic landscape of the continent, is a central question to answer? Instead of focusing the attention on the movements and itineraries of the fighting or ravaging armies, we aim to focus on the itineraries of the traders and on the shifting geography of the trade routes. Through her transformation in a battlefield France, once a paradise for the traders, became a paradise for the chivalry and the soldiers, but a hell for the traders. Thus, many countries and regions better suited to serve as an alternative choice for the commerce and the traders, increased their share of the commercial traffic, or better said, of the wealth available.
Portugal became one of these commercial paradises that helped the stream of goods and wealth to flow. At the same time this shifting geography of the trade routes, not only helped these new commercial paradises to strengthen their economies, but it increased the costs of transactions and maintenance of the commerce. Goods and wealth flowed easily through the new routes, but these new trade routes were expensive alternatives of the old French-centred routes. With the end of the Hundred Years War, ended the need to avoid the French routes, and the flow of commerce shifted back to France, but the new geography of the expanded commerce and the wealth accumulated during the war continued for some time to foster the development of the these countries during the time that France was retaking its centrality in the commercial routes of the continent.
Portugal’s economic outlook during the Hundred Years War has been traditionally linked by the historians to the French pattern, widely accepted as negative, depressionist and in deep crisis. The broad framework for this relation is the “late medieval crisis”, or the Malthusian interpretation of the history of Late Middle Ages. According to this interpretation, the “late medieval crisis” was general to the whole of Europe, and even beyond, although recognizing some insignificant exceptions. In fact, focusing on the broad picture, except the generalized effect of the Black Death, most parts of Europe did not go through a “late medieval crisis”. Portugal had all the conditions to gain from the shift of the trade routes, and was one of the most important countries that served the economic system of the continent to continue to run smoothly even with the significant obstacle of the war. During the supposed “crisis”, Portugal went from strength to strength in economic terms. The Black Death took its toll and the money was devalued, but commerce expanded, the area under cultivation increased, its political and geographical boundaries expanded, technological advance was one of the greatest in the continent, its international projection increased, its independence was assured, its towns increased at the time that agriculture boomed and the wealth and the welfare of its people increased.

There was nothing second-rate about the English way of war in the Late Middle Ages, argues Tobias Capwell, Curator of Arms and Armour at London’s Wallace Collection, in a major new study published late last year. The early 15th-century English warrior was at the forefront of military innovation. And the key to success was combined-arms tactics.