Just Finished Reading: A Brief History of The Hundred Years War – The English in France, 1337-1453 by Desmond Seward (FP: 1978) [265pp] 

Any war that lasts 100 years, or in this case 116, is going to be complex. Over that people, and especially during that age, leaders change – from Kings to warband captains – alliances shift, marriages and deaths change political dynamics, technologies change and mature (here the introduction and early use of gunpowder firearms) and outside events such as Crusades and Plague have impacts on who is available to fight. In fact, the use of ‘complex’ in reference to this was barely covers it. 

Of course, one of the (many) things that stick out in a jarring sort of way is that this wasn’t really a conflict between England and France at all. Although England was, by and large, a unified state at the point when the war started (essentially over who would sit on the French throne) the nation of France was nothing of the sort. ‘France’ was more of an idea than a reality, more of an aspiration – at least for some. ‘France’ was actually a loose confederation of regional powers with different histories and even different languages. Parts of what we now call ‘France’ had been owned and managed by the English for several hundred years and had no intention of changing that. So, when war broke out, the regions picked sides – or stayed neutral (or at least tried to). If that wasn’t complex enough, we have other actors involved. We have Holland and the Low Countries fighting for their independence offering their allegiance to anyone who could help them. We have the Holy Roman Emperor attempting to influence things and we had, for at least part of the war, the issue of rival Popes in Avignon and Rome excommunicating each other's followers.  

One thing that raised an eyebrow (or at least mine) was the authors ‘take’ on Joan d’Arc. I guess that I’ve grown up with the more Hollywood version of Joan that we know and admire [side note: I actually lit a candle for her in, I think, Sacré-Cœur, Paris during my brief visit there] so, naturally, though of her as a ‘big deal’ during the war. Although not completely dismissive the author, despite dedicating an entire chapter to the events surrounding her, put her impact at close to zero. Although the Dauphin was more than willing to use Joan (or indeed anything or anyone he could get) he made no effort to recover her injured from the battlefield and made no attempt to rescue her after she was captured by the Burgundians (French allies of England – complicated indeed) and handed over to the English for trial and execution. Apparently, it was only MUCH later that Joan became a patron saint of France. I have a few books on Joan (3 I think) so more RESEARCH to be done here, I think! 

Going into this book I thought that I had a reasonable, if rather top-level, knowledge of this pivotal conflict. I was wrong. My ‘knowledge’ it turns out was, if anything, rather superficial. So, I’ll see what I can do about rectifying that rather large gap in my knowledge. There’s certainly MUCH to explore here about both countries and the larger European context. The whole TWO POPES thing, which I was aware of previously, would be interesting to dig into further as would the whole shifting alliances that played such a large part in the process. One last thing that amused me somewhat was that Normandy was occupied by the English for around 30 years and was taxed heavily to pay for the war. I couldn’t help but wonder what it felt like with the shoe being on the other foot... 

As you can probably tell, I really enjoyed this brief history. I learnt a lot, I was pointed in other directions to learn more, and it (at least temporarily) changed my opinions on a few things. At the very least it’ll prompt me to finally read at least ONE of my Joan d’Arc books before too long. More to come from the author and the period. Definitely recommended.