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The Hundred Years War #2
Trial by Fire: The Hundred Years War, Volume 2
In the second volume of his celebrated history of the Hundred Years War, Jonathan Sumption examines the middle years of the fourteenth century and the succession of crises that threatened French affairs of state, including defeat at Poitiers and the capture of the king.
655 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1999
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About the author
Jonathan Sumption
31 books112 followersThe son of a barrister, Jonathan Philip Chadwick Sumption attended Eton then Magdalen College, Oxford, where he graduated with first-class honours in history in 1970. After being called to the bar at Inner Temple in 1975, he became a Queen's Council in 1986 and a Bencher in 1991. He is joint head of Brick Court Chambers and was appointed to the UK Supreme Court in 2011. He has written numerous books on history and is a governor of the Royal Academy of Music.
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February 2, 2021
De todos los libros que puedan haberse escrito acerca de ese conflicto sangriento y cuasi eterno entre Francia e Inglaterra a lo largo de los siglos XIV y XV y que se denominó “La Guerra de los Cien Años”; salta a la vista que es la ciclópea obra del historiador y juez de la Suprema Corte del Reino Unido, Jonathan Sumption – Lord Sumption - la que se erige como la publicación definitiva de una de las conflagraciones más emocionantes y que mejor definieron el futuro y la configuración del continente europeo, así como el principio del fin de la Edad Media.
“The Hundred Years War” es una gigantesca obra histórica que está dividida en 4 volúmenes, los cuales han sido publicados entre 1990 y 2015. El estilo narrativo de Lord Sumption es una delicia de la prosa inglesa (según sus propias declaraciones, influenciado por la “pulida e impecable prosa de Edward Gibbon”), con una manera especial de narrar los acontecimientos, la preparación y el desarrollo de las batallas, la actuación de los personajes y las consecuencias de los enfrentamientos bélicos y diplomáticos; algo que se agradece considerando los distintos escenarios en lo que se desarrolló una guerra más que todo estática y llena de escaramuzas y treguas cortas seguidas de largos períodos de inactividad, lo que podría hacer perder y confundir al lector casual. La bibliografía es bastante extensa y las fuentes por lo general, son primarias y soportan un exhaustivo trabajo de investigación que se ve reflejado en una maravillosa y muy objetiva exposición histórica del conflicto que arrasó los campos y pueblos de Francia.
En este segundo volumen titulado “Trial by Fire” continuaremos con las lides tal como las dejamos en el tomo anterior: La humillante derrota francesa en Calais y la posterior tregua declarada en 1347 que no serían nada más que abrebocas para las desgracias que vendrían para Francia en los próximos años: Las esporádicas y mortales reapariciones de la Peste Negra; la muerte del rey Felipe VI y el ascenso de su sucesor, un mediocre, terco y defensor a ultranza de las ya caducas técnicas de caballería Juan II “El Bueno”; el surgimiento de la figura de Carlos II de Navarra “El Malo” quien en su disputa por la corona de Francia y los territorios de Borgoña y Normandía (por línea materna, con los mismos derechos sucesorales que Juan II), traería a Francia una innecesaria e inconveniente guerra civil que la desangraría hasta 1365. Por si fueran pocas las tribulaciones que enfrentaba la corona francesa otro revés militar de considerable envergadura, la famosa batalla de Poitiers de 1356 acabaría no sólo con la élite militar de Francia sino también con la captura del Rey Juan II a manos de Eduardo de Woodstock (mejor conocido como el Príncipe Negro, heredero de la corona inglesa). Con el rey preso en Inglaterra, el Delfín Carlos tuvo que enfrentarse no sólo a los continuos ataques ingleses y al asedio de las tropas de Carlos de Navarra a París sino también a dos de los fenómenos que marcarán la guerra en los 22 años contenidos en este volumen: Las primeras revueltas campesinas en la Europa feudal, coronada con la Grande Jacquerie de 1358 que condensó todo el descontento popular luego de 20 años de guerra, campos devastados por ingleses, bretones y gascones así como la humillante derrota en Poitiers. De igual manera, surgirían en Francia las llamadas “Compañías Libres”, grupos de soldados y mercenarios que en tiempos de paz se dedicaban a saquear y extorsionar pueblos y castillos y que recorrían Francia y el norte de Italia buscando combatir por el mejor postor. Estas compañías, compuestas en su mayoría por soldados ingleses, bretones, normandos y gascones, impidieron que en Francia se consolidara un gobierno central y como consecuencia, fraccionó la defensa del reino de la cual quedaría encargada cada región o condado. La situación se vería agravada con el tratado de paz de Brétigny de 1360 firmado entre Inglaterra y Francia, dejando a muchos de ellos desempleados y con el bandidaje y el saqueo como única fuente de ingresos.
Este segundo volumen termina con el giro de tornas a favor de los franceses con la muerte de Juan II y el ascenso de su hijo Carlos V “El Sabio”, un rey extremadamente audaz, inteligente y ambicioso -cualidades de las que carecía su padre-; forjado a sangre y fuego en las lides de la guerra durante el cautiverio de Juan II. Carlos logra diseñar la estrategia para expulsar a las Compañías de territorio francés, así como sanear las finanzas del reino. Por otra parte, las conquistas de Eduardo III y el Príncipe Negro en Francia, si bien espectaculares, se hacen efímeras y se desvanecen ante la imposibilidad de contar con los recursos administrativos y financieros para dirigirlas, sumado al declive de un Eduardo III que con los años se vuelve excesivamente avaricioso y la vez dilapidador, endeudando cada vez más al reino. La cereza del helado sería la campaña inglesa en Castilla, donde el Príncipe Negro logró un apabullante triunfo en Nájera en 1367, victoria pírrica si se consideran las consecuencias políticas y el descalabro económico que supuso la aventura en tierras españolas y que desembocarían en 1369 en el repudio al tratado de Brétigny y el reinicio de las hostilidades.
Por la apasionante narración histórica aquí contenida; por la impresionante atención que presta el autor a los pequeños detalles y hechos que fueron configurando poco a poco la enmarañada red de acciones y protagonistas de una conflagración ya consolidada; por la forma minuciosa y ordenada como se presenta la cronología de una guerra que duró más de un siglo y por la manera amena y a la vez erudita de presentar este tomo, no me resta más que recomendar la obra a todo aquel apasionado por la historia de la Edad Media, de Francia y de Inglaterra o por quien desee conocer el desarrollo de los años más brutales de la Guerra de los Cien Años. Más que ansioso por hincarle el diente al tercer tomo, “Divided Houses”, donde seguramente llegue el declive de la fortuna inglesa en batalla, la sonrisa del hado para los franceses y la aparición de la locura en los tronos de Europa.
“The Hundred Years War” es una gigantesca obra histórica que está dividida en 4 volúmenes, los cuales han sido publicados entre 1990 y 2015. El estilo narrativo de Lord Sumption es una delicia de la prosa inglesa (según sus propias declaraciones, influenciado por la “pulida e impecable prosa de Edward Gibbon”), con una manera especial de narrar los acontecimientos, la preparación y el desarrollo de las batallas, la actuación de los personajes y las consecuencias de los enfrentamientos bélicos y diplomáticos; algo que se agradece considerando los distintos escenarios en lo que se desarrolló una guerra más que todo estática y llena de escaramuzas y treguas cortas seguidas de largos períodos de inactividad, lo que podría hacer perder y confundir al lector casual. La bibliografía es bastante extensa y las fuentes por lo general, son primarias y soportan un exhaustivo trabajo de investigación que se ve reflejado en una maravillosa y muy objetiva exposición histórica del conflicto que arrasó los campos y pueblos de Francia.
En este segundo volumen titulado “Trial by Fire” continuaremos con las lides tal como las dejamos en el tomo anterior: La humillante derrota francesa en Calais y la posterior tregua declarada en 1347 que no serían nada más que abrebocas para las desgracias que vendrían para Francia en los próximos años: Las esporádicas y mortales reapariciones de la Peste Negra; la muerte del rey Felipe VI y el ascenso de su sucesor, un mediocre, terco y defensor a ultranza de las ya caducas técnicas de caballería Juan II “El Bueno”; el surgimiento de la figura de Carlos II de Navarra “El Malo” quien en su disputa por la corona de Francia y los territorios de Borgoña y Normandía (por línea materna, con los mismos derechos sucesorales que Juan II), traería a Francia una innecesaria e inconveniente guerra civil que la desangraría hasta 1365. Por si fueran pocas las tribulaciones que enfrentaba la corona francesa otro revés militar de considerable envergadura, la famosa batalla de Poitiers de 1356 acabaría no sólo con la élite militar de Francia sino también con la captura del Rey Juan II a manos de Eduardo de Woodstock (mejor conocido como el Príncipe Negro, heredero de la corona inglesa). Con el rey preso en Inglaterra, el Delfín Carlos tuvo que enfrentarse no sólo a los continuos ataques ingleses y al asedio de las tropas de Carlos de Navarra a París sino también a dos de los fenómenos que marcarán la guerra en los 22 años contenidos en este volumen: Las primeras revueltas campesinas en la Europa feudal, coronada con la Grande Jacquerie de 1358 que condensó todo el descontento popular luego de 20 años de guerra, campos devastados por ingleses, bretones y gascones así como la humillante derrota en Poitiers. De igual manera, surgirían en Francia las llamadas “Compañías Libres”, grupos de soldados y mercenarios que en tiempos de paz se dedicaban a saquear y extorsionar pueblos y castillos y que recorrían Francia y el norte de Italia buscando combatir por el mejor postor. Estas compañías, compuestas en su mayoría por soldados ingleses, bretones, normandos y gascones, impidieron que en Francia se consolidara un gobierno central y como consecuencia, fraccionó la defensa del reino de la cual quedaría encargada cada región o condado. La situación se vería agravada con el tratado de paz de Brétigny de 1360 firmado entre Inglaterra y Francia, dejando a muchos de ellos desempleados y con el bandidaje y el saqueo como única fuente de ingresos.
Este segundo volumen termina con el giro de tornas a favor de los franceses con la muerte de Juan II y el ascenso de su hijo Carlos V “El Sabio”, un rey extremadamente audaz, inteligente y ambicioso -cualidades de las que carecía su padre-; forjado a sangre y fuego en las lides de la guerra durante el cautiverio de Juan II. Carlos logra diseñar la estrategia para expulsar a las Compañías de territorio francés, así como sanear las finanzas del reino. Por otra parte, las conquistas de Eduardo III y el Príncipe Negro en Francia, si bien espectaculares, se hacen efímeras y se desvanecen ante la imposibilidad de contar con los recursos administrativos y financieros para dirigirlas, sumado al declive de un Eduardo III que con los años se vuelve excesivamente avaricioso y la vez dilapidador, endeudando cada vez más al reino. La cereza del helado sería la campaña inglesa en Castilla, donde el Príncipe Negro logró un apabullante triunfo en Nájera en 1367, victoria pírrica si se consideran las consecuencias políticas y el descalabro económico que supuso la aventura en tierras españolas y que desembocarían en 1369 en el repudio al tratado de Brétigny y el reinicio de las hostilidades.
Por la apasionante narración histórica aquí contenida; por la impresionante atención que presta el autor a los pequeños detalles y hechos que fueron configurando poco a poco la enmarañada red de acciones y protagonistas de una conflagración ya consolidada; por la forma minuciosa y ordenada como se presenta la cronología de una guerra que duró más de un siglo y por la manera amena y a la vez erudita de presentar este tomo, no me resta más que recomendar la obra a todo aquel apasionado por la historia de la Edad Media, de Francia y de Inglaterra o por quien desee conocer el desarrollo de los años más brutales de la Guerra de los Cien Años. Más que ansioso por hincarle el diente al tercer tomo, “Divided Houses”, donde seguramente llegue el declive de la fortuna inglesa en batalla, la sonrisa del hado para los franceses y la aparición de la locura en los tronos de Europa.
November 17, 2025
The Hundred Years War, Volume II: Trial by Fire (Volume I, 1990, was Trial by Battle), Jonathan Sumption, 1999, 680 pages, Library-of-Congress DC 96 S96 1990 v. 2 Memorial Library, ISBN 0571138969. UW-Madison has volumes 2 & 3 only.
This volume covers 1347-1369, from the Truce of Calais through the battle of Nájera.
Very readable. A good (true) story, well told. The author has read the surviving original documents in their original languages, evaluated them for probable veracity or exaggeration, and told us the story.
Maps pp. 586-591.
France was almost destroyed in the 1350s, but survived great destruction but short-lived occupation by the armies of Edward III of England, and of Gascony. p. xi.
Everyone welcomed peace "except traitors, freebooters, and arms manufacturers." p. 448.
Edward III's gains in battle would dissolve in political, financial, and logistical problems. p. 11.
The occupation of territory was enormously expensive and unproductive. pp. 24, 28, 73. Land occupied in wartime commonly yielded no revenue. pp. 38, 370. The financial burden fell, ultimately, on commoners. pp. 75, 90, 369.
The proportion of the population that fought in organised military units was always very small. Armies' sizes were constrained mainly by the financial resources and organisational skills of governments and, for England, by the availability of shipping. pp. 9, 425.
The capacity of medieval communities to produce surpluses for tax collectors was always marginal. pp. 195, 269, 284, 293, 415, 417, 543, 573.
The war could be fought only because the public tolerated it. p. 158.
To persuade people that the enemy was an imminent, deadly threat, was the way to extract what tax they could pay. p. 435.
By pillaging and burning, the English and Gascons lowered French tax revenue and diverted French wealth from war to reconstruction. Wars are fought with money. pp. 185-186, 305, 356, 403.
France by 1364 gained the ability to begin retaking its territory thanks to money raised on taxes of Languedoc, ostensibly to pay ransoms. p. 513.
France adopted a steeply regressive income tax in 1356. p. 203.
To pay part of his ransom, King John II of France sold his 11-year-old daughter to the Duke of Milan. p. 450
The war was fought largely by captains answerable only to themselves, for plunder. Like vikings. The line between military service and banditry was blurry and repeatedly crossed by both sides. pp. 34-35, 39, 64, 121, 168, 268-269, 286-288, 305, 360, 373, 383, 421-424, 429, 462, 492-493, 521.
The 1347-1349 Truce of Calais made little difference. The English reduced their garrisons in trucetime; redundant soldiers joined with any independent captain who could offer them work. p. 44, 47, 288, 490. The 1357 truce of Bordeaux and the 1359 and 1364 surrenders of Charles of Navarre likewise left a glut of unemployed soldiers for hire. p. 359, 422, 523. France could not govern her south and west. pp. 132, 212, 299.
When King Edward III of England wanted to make peace, he promised that captains who held castles in Edward's name, in territory Edward ceded, would vacate. They would not. p. 455. They had to be bought out, regardless of the treaty. Many English captains became French lords. p. 459.
When brigand armies are paid to leave, they go plunder elsewhere. p. 567.
Pope Innocent VI arranged for an army of 6,000 mercenaries to go kill and plunder around Milan in 1361. pp. 467-469. Pope Urban V in 1365 tried to send an army of brigands to fight the Turks. pp. 523-524. He failed. The brigand army plundered Burgundy. Finally in late 1365, most of the companies that had been plundering France for 30 years, took payments to go plunder Spain. That was the beginning of better times for France. p. 530.
With only weak bands of brigands remaining in France, judges began treating them as criminals rather than honorable combatants. p. 531.
The horde of soldiers quickly occupied Castille in 1366, their captains becoming the royalty and nobility. The soldiers were permitted to prey on the Jews and Muslims of the Castilian capital, and were paid to leave with the royal treasure of the former king. pp. 537-538.
English king Edward III didn't want a French puppet government in Castile. He sent an army to overthrow it, using many of the same mercenary soldiers who had been well paid to install Henry of Trastámara on the throne. They were happy to earn more to depose him. p. 547. The English and Gascons wiped out the Castilian army at Nájera, 1367.04.03. The foot soldiers were slaughtered; the ransomable rich were all preserved alive. p. 555. The rethroned King Pedro of Castille reneged on his promises to the English, leaving the prince of Wales bankrupt. p. 557, 568. King Charles V of France renewed his support of the pretender, who succeeded in defeating and killing King Pedro in 1369. p. 576. France prepared to rout the English from Gascony.
The bloody chaos attending the failure of royal authority and of provincial governmental authority, suggests that there may be something to Thomas Hobbes' claim that, absent a powerful overlord, every man fights his fellow. (/Leviathan/, 1651.)
England controlled the French port of Calais. This was essential to English military ambitions in France. pp. 19-20. The English maintained their control of Calais only at great expense. pp. 22-23.
Neither side could expect to get much at the conference table unless its threat to make war was taken seriously. pp. 64, 365, 420.
The English, French, Navarrese, Flemish, and Scots all lied to each other about their intentions. pp. 102-194, 535-536, 557.
French barons shifted allegiance when advantageous. p. 193.
In 1350, Philip VI of France was succeeded by his son John II. John II made disastrous decisions in moments of pique, on the advice of scheming counselors who despised him. pp. 68, 102, 110, 129, 137, 227. John II provoked a civil war by summarily executing the head of the leading noble house of Normandy. p. 207. John II surrounded himself with sycophants, parasites and profiteers who mismanaged his wars, finances, mints, and courts. pp. 255-256. The English captured John II in battle in 1356.
France fractured into separate regions, preyed on by bands of armed men, both foreign and French. pp. 262, 295, 373, 385, 407, 430. The constable of France in 1359 pillaged the churches of Troyes for plate to pay his men. p. 431.
King John II of France died in London in 1364. p. 500. His sickly but astute son Charles V succeeded him. p. 511.
Even in prosperity, great medieval cities lived on the edge of famine, vulnerable to natural and human disasters. pp. 319, 325.
Paris dwarfed every other city of Europe in the 1350s. p. 252. London was about a quarter as populous as Paris. p. 289.
Armed mobs in Paris took control of what was left of the French government, in 1358. p. 314. A prelude to 1792 and 1870. p. 323.
Nobles' failure to protect commoners from the foreign invader; nobles' troops' behavior toward the French people, indistinguishable from that of enemy troops, provoked civil war between commoners and nobles in eastern France in 1358. pp. 327-328. The king of Navarre led over 1,000 mounted knights to butcher the peasants. p. 333-335.
Let down by their government, the French fortified their churches, monasteries, manor houses, mills, stone barns. These were all taken very quickly by marauding armies. pp. 385-392, 521.
Town walls, if any, generally dated from, or before, the 1100s, the last period of persistent warfare in southwestern France. pp. 46, 361, 383, 394. By 1359, most towns that could not wall their suburbs had razed them. p. 399.
Large armies of bandits could be starved in their strongholds. Small ones could be overwhelmed in battle by great numbers of infantry from the towns. So, they kept moving pp. 409, 464, 479.
By 1359, the French could hide within the walls of their towns, repelling the English, who found nothing to eat in the abandoned farms. pp. 427, 444.
Gaucher de Châtillon, of Champagne, organized the successful defense of Reims against the English in 1359. This may have saved France. p. 429.
Champagne and other provinces that retained some autonomy during 150 years of expansive royal government were better able to repel invaders than those thoroughly subordinated to royal officialdom. p. 411.
The English won a big battle against the French in 1364 at Auray, on the south coast of Brittany, installing John de Montfort as duke. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_... John de Montfort then swore fealty to the French king, Charles V. p. 520.
1347-1350 About one-third of the population of Western Europe died of plague. pp. 7, 294.
The papacy, at Avignon in Provence since 1309, was an enticing source of wealth to soldiers of fortune. p. 482. A 2,700-man bandit army surrounded Marseille in 1358, but failed to take it. pp. 361-365. Cardinals and their attendants were robbed of all they had, on the road back to Avignon from peace talks in England. p. 385. By 1368 the pope was back in Rome. p. 562.
Cavalry, on unarmored horses, was vulnerable to flights of arrows. Armored soldiers on foot, with shields raised overhead as a roof, were protected. p. 554.
The battle of Winchelsea in 1350 was one of the last important naval battles in which sailing ships were drawn up like armies on land and soldiers fought each other directly from the decks. About 48 small English ships suffered heavy losses to Castilian crossbows and catapults but, once the English grappled and boarded the large enemy ships, they easily killed the Castilian and Flemish enemies. p. 67.
Gunpowder artillery existed, but could not yet breach proper city walls. p. 388, 393.
It took from July 10 through August 31, 1355, for an English fleet to sail from the Thames to Portsmouth, in storms. pp. 166-167. A French fleet in headwinds took over two weeks to sail from the mouth of the Somme to Sussex, in 1360. p. 436.
By 1356, Newcastle was becoming the coal capital of England. p. 187.
For all their literary qualities, the narratives of survivors need to be approached with the same caution which one brings to reading newspaper accounts of modern wars. pp. xii, 478, 512, 530, 563, 568.
The poet Chaucer was captured by the French in 1360 in Champagne and held for ransom. p. 433, 576.
War is better recorded than peace. p. 352.
Northern France spoke langues d'oïl; southern France spoke langues d'oc. Roughly north and south of a Geneva-La Rochelle parallel. p. 251. In these terms, French is now the langue d'oui. https://fr.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Langu... The province of Languedoc refused money to relieve the siege of French-speaking Anse, 1365. p. 524.
Money
France used livres (pounds), sous (silver pennies), and deniers (fractions of a silver penny). The French words give Britain its abbreviations, £, s, d, for pounds, shillings, pence. p. 266.
The maps don't label all the rivers nor counties. There are occasional quotes in untranslated French and Italian. The genealogy chart lacks dates. pp. 104-105.
This volume covers 1347-1369, from the Truce of Calais through the battle of Nájera.
Very readable. A good (true) story, well told. The author has read the surviving original documents in their original languages, evaluated them for probable veracity or exaggeration, and told us the story.
Maps pp. 586-591.
France was almost destroyed in the 1350s, but survived great destruction but short-lived occupation by the armies of Edward III of England, and of Gascony. p. xi.
Everyone welcomed peace "except traitors, freebooters, and arms manufacturers." p. 448.
Edward III's gains in battle would dissolve in political, financial, and logistical problems. p. 11.
The occupation of territory was enormously expensive and unproductive. pp. 24, 28, 73. Land occupied in wartime commonly yielded no revenue. pp. 38, 370. The financial burden fell, ultimately, on commoners. pp. 75, 90, 369.
The proportion of the population that fought in organised military units was always very small. Armies' sizes were constrained mainly by the financial resources and organisational skills of governments and, for England, by the availability of shipping. pp. 9, 425.
The capacity of medieval communities to produce surpluses for tax collectors was always marginal. pp. 195, 269, 284, 293, 415, 417, 543, 573.
The war could be fought only because the public tolerated it. p. 158.
To persuade people that the enemy was an imminent, deadly threat, was the way to extract what tax they could pay. p. 435.
By pillaging and burning, the English and Gascons lowered French tax revenue and diverted French wealth from war to reconstruction. Wars are fought with money. pp. 185-186, 305, 356, 403.
France by 1364 gained the ability to begin retaking its territory thanks to money raised on taxes of Languedoc, ostensibly to pay ransoms. p. 513.
France adopted a steeply regressive income tax in 1356. p. 203.
To pay part of his ransom, King John II of France sold his 11-year-old daughter to the Duke of Milan. p. 450
The war was fought largely by captains answerable only to themselves, for plunder. Like vikings. The line between military service and banditry was blurry and repeatedly crossed by both sides. pp. 34-35, 39, 64, 121, 168, 268-269, 286-288, 305, 360, 373, 383, 421-424, 429, 462, 492-493, 521.
The 1347-1349 Truce of Calais made little difference. The English reduced their garrisons in trucetime; redundant soldiers joined with any independent captain who could offer them work. p. 44, 47, 288, 490. The 1357 truce of Bordeaux and the 1359 and 1364 surrenders of Charles of Navarre likewise left a glut of unemployed soldiers for hire. p. 359, 422, 523. France could not govern her south and west. pp. 132, 212, 299.
When King Edward III of England wanted to make peace, he promised that captains who held castles in Edward's name, in territory Edward ceded, would vacate. They would not. p. 455. They had to be bought out, regardless of the treaty. Many English captains became French lords. p. 459.
When brigand armies are paid to leave, they go plunder elsewhere. p. 567.
Pope Innocent VI arranged for an army of 6,000 mercenaries to go kill and plunder around Milan in 1361. pp. 467-469. Pope Urban V in 1365 tried to send an army of brigands to fight the Turks. pp. 523-524. He failed. The brigand army plundered Burgundy. Finally in late 1365, most of the companies that had been plundering France for 30 years, took payments to go plunder Spain. That was the beginning of better times for France. p. 530.
With only weak bands of brigands remaining in France, judges began treating them as criminals rather than honorable combatants. p. 531.
The horde of soldiers quickly occupied Castille in 1366, their captains becoming the royalty and nobility. The soldiers were permitted to prey on the Jews and Muslims of the Castilian capital, and were paid to leave with the royal treasure of the former king. pp. 537-538.
English king Edward III didn't want a French puppet government in Castile. He sent an army to overthrow it, using many of the same mercenary soldiers who had been well paid to install Henry of Trastámara on the throne. They were happy to earn more to depose him. p. 547. The English and Gascons wiped out the Castilian army at Nájera, 1367.04.03. The foot soldiers were slaughtered; the ransomable rich were all preserved alive. p. 555. The rethroned King Pedro of Castille reneged on his promises to the English, leaving the prince of Wales bankrupt. p. 557, 568. King Charles V of France renewed his support of the pretender, who succeeded in defeating and killing King Pedro in 1369. p. 576. France prepared to rout the English from Gascony.
The bloody chaos attending the failure of royal authority and of provincial governmental authority, suggests that there may be something to Thomas Hobbes' claim that, absent a powerful overlord, every man fights his fellow. (/Leviathan/, 1651.)
England controlled the French port of Calais. This was essential to English military ambitions in France. pp. 19-20. The English maintained their control of Calais only at great expense. pp. 22-23.
Neither side could expect to get much at the conference table unless its threat to make war was taken seriously. pp. 64, 365, 420.
The English, French, Navarrese, Flemish, and Scots all lied to each other about their intentions. pp. 102-194, 535-536, 557.
French barons shifted allegiance when advantageous. p. 193.
In 1350, Philip VI of France was succeeded by his son John II. John II made disastrous decisions in moments of pique, on the advice of scheming counselors who despised him. pp. 68, 102, 110, 129, 137, 227. John II provoked a civil war by summarily executing the head of the leading noble house of Normandy. p. 207. John II surrounded himself with sycophants, parasites and profiteers who mismanaged his wars, finances, mints, and courts. pp. 255-256. The English captured John II in battle in 1356.
France fractured into separate regions, preyed on by bands of armed men, both foreign and French. pp. 262, 295, 373, 385, 407, 430. The constable of France in 1359 pillaged the churches of Troyes for plate to pay his men. p. 431.
King John II of France died in London in 1364. p. 500. His sickly but astute son Charles V succeeded him. p. 511.
Even in prosperity, great medieval cities lived on the edge of famine, vulnerable to natural and human disasters. pp. 319, 325.
Paris dwarfed every other city of Europe in the 1350s. p. 252. London was about a quarter as populous as Paris. p. 289.
Armed mobs in Paris took control of what was left of the French government, in 1358. p. 314. A prelude to 1792 and 1870. p. 323.
Nobles' failure to protect commoners from the foreign invader; nobles' troops' behavior toward the French people, indistinguishable from that of enemy troops, provoked civil war between commoners and nobles in eastern France in 1358. pp. 327-328. The king of Navarre led over 1,000 mounted knights to butcher the peasants. p. 333-335.
Let down by their government, the French fortified their churches, monasteries, manor houses, mills, stone barns. These were all taken very quickly by marauding armies. pp. 385-392, 521.
Town walls, if any, generally dated from, or before, the 1100s, the last period of persistent warfare in southwestern France. pp. 46, 361, 383, 394. By 1359, most towns that could not wall their suburbs had razed them. p. 399.
Large armies of bandits could be starved in their strongholds. Small ones could be overwhelmed in battle by great numbers of infantry from the towns. So, they kept moving pp. 409, 464, 479.
By 1359, the French could hide within the walls of their towns, repelling the English, who found nothing to eat in the abandoned farms. pp. 427, 444.
Gaucher de Châtillon, of Champagne, organized the successful defense of Reims against the English in 1359. This may have saved France. p. 429.
Champagne and other provinces that retained some autonomy during 150 years of expansive royal government were better able to repel invaders than those thoroughly subordinated to royal officialdom. p. 411.
The English won a big battle against the French in 1364 at Auray, on the south coast of Brittany, installing John de Montfort as duke. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_... John de Montfort then swore fealty to the French king, Charles V. p. 520.
1347-1350 About one-third of the population of Western Europe died of plague. pp. 7, 294.
The papacy, at Avignon in Provence since 1309, was an enticing source of wealth to soldiers of fortune. p. 482. A 2,700-man bandit army surrounded Marseille in 1358, but failed to take it. pp. 361-365. Cardinals and their attendants were robbed of all they had, on the road back to Avignon from peace talks in England. p. 385. By 1368 the pope was back in Rome. p. 562.
Cavalry, on unarmored horses, was vulnerable to flights of arrows. Armored soldiers on foot, with shields raised overhead as a roof, were protected. p. 554.
The battle of Winchelsea in 1350 was one of the last important naval battles in which sailing ships were drawn up like armies on land and soldiers fought each other directly from the decks. About 48 small English ships suffered heavy losses to Castilian crossbows and catapults but, once the English grappled and boarded the large enemy ships, they easily killed the Castilian and Flemish enemies. p. 67.
Gunpowder artillery existed, but could not yet breach proper city walls. p. 388, 393.
It took from July 10 through August 31, 1355, for an English fleet to sail from the Thames to Portsmouth, in storms. pp. 166-167. A French fleet in headwinds took over two weeks to sail from the mouth of the Somme to Sussex, in 1360. p. 436.
By 1356, Newcastle was becoming the coal capital of England. p. 187.
For all their literary qualities, the narratives of survivors need to be approached with the same caution which one brings to reading newspaper accounts of modern wars. pp. xii, 478, 512, 530, 563, 568.
The poet Chaucer was captured by the French in 1360 in Champagne and held for ransom. p. 433, 576.
War is better recorded than peace. p. 352.
Northern France spoke langues d'oïl; southern France spoke langues d'oc. Roughly north and south of a Geneva-La Rochelle parallel. p. 251. In these terms, French is now the langue d'oui. https://fr.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Langu... The province of Languedoc refused money to relieve the siege of French-speaking Anse, 1365. p. 524.
Money
France used livres (pounds), sous (silver pennies), and deniers (fractions of a silver penny). The French words give Britain its abbreviations, £, s, d, for pounds, shillings, pence. p. 266.
The maps don't label all the rivers nor counties. There are occasional quotes in untranslated French and Italian. The genealogy chart lacks dates. pp. 104-105.
June 2, 2021
Part 2 of a delightful history of the Hundred Years War. The wealth of detail in this book is amazing. It takes you right into the 14th Century and the intrigues and machinations at courts across Western Europe ("countries" are still part cultural/geographic entities and part dynastic accident)
A rattling read, though I must admit to being a bit confused at times by the regular lists of castles and fortified monastries held, captured and lost by the English, French and sundry freebooters and bandits in between.
This second volume leaves us on a real cliffhanger. England has won a number of stunning victories, captured French Who's Who 1360 and central authority in France has disintegrated. The Prince of Wales owns much of South West France and is running it as his own principalty. He even has time to meddle in dynastic rows in Spain - though in winning the crown of Castile for his favoured candidate he may just have bankrupted himself in the process. It seems that rulers are great with promises but reluctant to pay the bills when presented - plus ca change.
Now the pendulum is starting to swing back as a new King reinvigorates France, and disgruntled local barons decide they don't quite like English rule. I think the Rosbifs are in for a basting.
A rattling read, though I must admit to being a bit confused at times by the regular lists of castles and fortified monastries held, captured and lost by the English, French and sundry freebooters and bandits in between.
This second volume leaves us on a real cliffhanger. England has won a number of stunning victories, captured French Who's Who 1360 and central authority in France has disintegrated. The Prince of Wales owns much of South West France and is running it as his own principalty. He even has time to meddle in dynastic rows in Spain - though in winning the crown of Castile for his favoured candidate he may just have bankrupted himself in the process. It seems that rulers are great with promises but reluctant to pay the bills when presented - plus ca change.
Now the pendulum is starting to swing back as a new King reinvigorates France, and disgruntled local barons decide they don't quite like English rule. I think the Rosbifs are in for a basting.
January 18, 2013
Originally published on my blog here in February 2002.
The second volume of Sumption's enormous history of the Hundred Years' War covers the period between the aftermath of Crécy and that of Nájera, just under twenty five years - basically the reign of John II of France. The first part up until the treaty of Brétigny marks one of the lowest points in France's fortunes in the whole war, with the country unable to do anything about the destructive raids of the routier companies, holding towns and villages to ransome, encouraged yet not controlled by the English; the after effects of the Black Death; the battle of Poitiers, with the capture of the French king and many high ranking nobles; revolution in Paris and other northern cities; and effective civil war between different members of the Valois dynasty.
The major cause of the French problems dates back all the way to the weakness of the late Carolingian kings. This led to power becoming diffused among the provincial nobility, causing cultural fragmentation and political disunity symbolised by the Angevin empire, where Henry II ruled more of France than the French kings. The major aim of the Capetian and then Valois monarchy over centuries was to centralise power into their own hands, but even in the fourteenth century this was far from being realised. Although France was much richer than England, collecting taxes was so difficult that much of this period saw the crown in financial crisis. Different communities tended to refuse to pay taxes, and even when they did often put unwelcome conditions on the money raised, such as reserving it for operations within their specific area (with the result that the most hard hit areas were unable to pay for defence and the others were unwilling). Rulers who had a high level of personal prestige were more easily able to persuade the different areas of France to grant them money, but continual defeat and perceptions that the money was used to enrich favourites reduced the reputations of the Valois monarchs almost to nothing.
Militarily, the English had the advantage of better generalship (Dagworth, Lancaster, Chandos, Knolles and the Black Prince all outclassed the French regularly), but they lacked the resources to hold on to their gains. Once the French managed to reform their finances - bringing in the franc in 1360 and setting up a new tax system to end decades where the main source of the crown's income had been unpopular manipulation of the silver content of the currency - the end of this phase of the war became inevitable. They still had to make concessions, the English holdings in Gascony being extended and gains in the area around Calais being confirmed, but the treaty of Brétigny and the accession of Charles V marked something of a new beginning.
The story of these turbulent decades is ably told by Sumption, the details he gives (principally drawing on French archives) helping to make the whole course of events much clearer. The history is truly a great (if old fashioned) achievement, and it is to be hoped that Sumption manages to bring the whole thing to completion in as accomplished a manner.
The second volume of Sumption's enormous history of the Hundred Years' War covers the period between the aftermath of Crécy and that of Nájera, just under twenty five years - basically the reign of John II of France. The first part up until the treaty of Brétigny marks one of the lowest points in France's fortunes in the whole war, with the country unable to do anything about the destructive raids of the routier companies, holding towns and villages to ransome, encouraged yet not controlled by the English; the after effects of the Black Death; the battle of Poitiers, with the capture of the French king and many high ranking nobles; revolution in Paris and other northern cities; and effective civil war between different members of the Valois dynasty.
The major cause of the French problems dates back all the way to the weakness of the late Carolingian kings. This led to power becoming diffused among the provincial nobility, causing cultural fragmentation and political disunity symbolised by the Angevin empire, where Henry II ruled more of France than the French kings. The major aim of the Capetian and then Valois monarchy over centuries was to centralise power into their own hands, but even in the fourteenth century this was far from being realised. Although France was much richer than England, collecting taxes was so difficult that much of this period saw the crown in financial crisis. Different communities tended to refuse to pay taxes, and even when they did often put unwelcome conditions on the money raised, such as reserving it for operations within their specific area (with the result that the most hard hit areas were unable to pay for defence and the others were unwilling). Rulers who had a high level of personal prestige were more easily able to persuade the different areas of France to grant them money, but continual defeat and perceptions that the money was used to enrich favourites reduced the reputations of the Valois monarchs almost to nothing.
Militarily, the English had the advantage of better generalship (Dagworth, Lancaster, Chandos, Knolles and the Black Prince all outclassed the French regularly), but they lacked the resources to hold on to their gains. Once the French managed to reform their finances - bringing in the franc in 1360 and setting up a new tax system to end decades where the main source of the crown's income had been unpopular manipulation of the silver content of the currency - the end of this phase of the war became inevitable. They still had to make concessions, the English holdings in Gascony being extended and gains in the area around Calais being confirmed, but the treaty of Brétigny and the accession of Charles V marked something of a new beginning.
The story of these turbulent decades is ably told by Sumption, the details he gives (principally drawing on French archives) helping to make the whole course of events much clearer. The history is truly a great (if old fashioned) achievement, and it is to be hoped that Sumption manages to bring the whole thing to completion in as accomplished a manner.
February 13, 2019
The second volume of Jonathan Sumption's monumental history of the Hundred Years War begins with the English basking in the glow of the twin victories of Crécy and the capture of Calais. It was only the beginning of a series of miseries for the French, though, with the military blows soon followed by the destabilizing effects of the Black Death and the demise of their king Philip VI. Though his successor, John II, subsequently had the appellation "the Good" attached to his name, Sumption leaves the reader wondering what he had done to deserve it, as his 14-year reign was characterized by a series of missteps. The ambitions of his son-in-law, Charles of Navarre, only added to the chaos of French politics, while the resumption of the war in 1355 saw an invasion of France the following year by the English king Edward III's son, the "Black Prince." Confronting the English invaders at Poitiers, John led his forces to a defeat that ended in his capture.
While a king's capture (or at least the inescapable prospect of it) may signal the end of a chess match, John's capture did not signify the end of the war. For while the French king negotiated with his captors in London, his kingdom gradually unraveled. With power dispersed among several individuals, there was no effective coordinated response to the bands of unemployed soldiers who roamed the country living off of plunder and extortion. In response, French peasants rose up in the rebellion known as the Jacquerie, while the demands for John's enormous ransom created a political crisis in Pars that ended in bloodshed. Though the English king Edward III enjoyed a commanding position, the terms he sought proved too objectionable to John's subjects, while a second treaty was never fully implemented because of Edward's unwillingness to make the necessary renunciation of his claims to the French throne. As Sumption demonstrates, this soon proved to be a serious error, as John's death in captivity in 1364 brought to the throne a new king who would prove a far more formidable opponent to English ambitions.
All of this Sumption recounts in a detailed account that builds upon his previous volume, Trial by Battle, to convey the complexity of this epic conflict. His narrative ranges widely, from the maneuvering of monarchs to the efforts by towns to resist the locust-like hordes of mercenaries that periodically descended upon them. Buttressing his description is an analysis that offers nuanced judgments that help explain the reason why events took the course that they did. In all this is history at its finest, one that is must-reading for anyone seeking to understand this complex conflict which defined so much of the history of the Middle Ages.
While a king's capture (or at least the inescapable prospect of it) may signal the end of a chess match, John's capture did not signify the end of the war. For while the French king negotiated with his captors in London, his kingdom gradually unraveled. With power dispersed among several individuals, there was no effective coordinated response to the bands of unemployed soldiers who roamed the country living off of plunder and extortion. In response, French peasants rose up in the rebellion known as the Jacquerie, while the demands for John's enormous ransom created a political crisis in Pars that ended in bloodshed. Though the English king Edward III enjoyed a commanding position, the terms he sought proved too objectionable to John's subjects, while a second treaty was never fully implemented because of Edward's unwillingness to make the necessary renunciation of his claims to the French throne. As Sumption demonstrates, this soon proved to be a serious error, as John's death in captivity in 1364 brought to the throne a new king who would prove a far more formidable opponent to English ambitions.
All of this Sumption recounts in a detailed account that builds upon his previous volume, Trial by Battle, to convey the complexity of this epic conflict. His narrative ranges widely, from the maneuvering of monarchs to the efforts by towns to resist the locust-like hordes of mercenaries that periodically descended upon them. Buttressing his description is an analysis that offers nuanced judgments that help explain the reason why events took the course that they did. In all this is history at its finest, one that is must-reading for anyone seeking to understand this complex conflict which defined so much of the history of the Middle Ages.
January 13, 2017
Justly acclaimed and excellent narrative history which details the conflict between the capture of Calais and the reopening of hostilities after a short peace treaty -in just under 600 pages.
There's lots of juicy anecdotes and welcome personal profiles of some less high profile protagonists of the conflict and Sumption is at his strongest when describing these. He's also strong on using primary source material from provincial towns which brings alive the Black Death (in which soldiers remarkably survived for the most part as they were fitter and better fed than their civilian counterparts). He also uses these sources to describe how France shockingly jumped from crises and near-crises whilst England applied the pressure by invasion and alliances with Charles of Navarre and the civil war for the dukedom of Brittany.
The narrative is disrupted somewhat by the detailed accounts of the Jacquerie and uprising in Paris against the Crown following the defeat at Poitiers at the hands of the Black Prince. The same is true for several chapters on the soldiers turned brigands rampaging France in companies - Sumption gets bogged down by so much geographic and personal detail it becomes wearying. He's clearly access primary sources and it shows.
References are unhelpfully bunched together in footnotes but the maps are excellent and in my copy at least I only spotted 3 typos out of 600 plus pages.
A medievalists summer reading.
There's lots of juicy anecdotes and welcome personal profiles of some less high profile protagonists of the conflict and Sumption is at his strongest when describing these. He's also strong on using primary source material from provincial towns which brings alive the Black Death (in which soldiers remarkably survived for the most part as they were fitter and better fed than their civilian counterparts). He also uses these sources to describe how France shockingly jumped from crises and near-crises whilst England applied the pressure by invasion and alliances with Charles of Navarre and the civil war for the dukedom of Brittany.
The narrative is disrupted somewhat by the detailed accounts of the Jacquerie and uprising in Paris against the Crown following the defeat at Poitiers at the hands of the Black Prince. The same is true for several chapters on the soldiers turned brigands rampaging France in companies - Sumption gets bogged down by so much geographic and personal detail it becomes wearying. He's clearly access primary sources and it shows.
References are unhelpfully bunched together in footnotes but the maps are excellent and in my copy at least I only spotted 3 typos out of 600 plus pages.
A medievalists summer reading.
February 28, 2022
The second volume of Sumption's massive, and excellent history of the Hundred Years War covers just over twenty years, from 1347 to 1369. The first volume ended with the siege of Calais, which the English ended up occupying for 212 years.
Of course, a city on the coast by itself is not a very secure, nor self-sustaining location. So even as a truce is agreed to, it becomes a friction point as English troops start taking over other nearby locations and building up a proper defensive zone for the city, which became the Pale of Calais. This was made all the more important by the collapse of Flanders communes, and the Count of Flanders' reasserting control, which meant that Calais was now the only realistic point of debarkation of an English army in northern France.
So even as repeated efforts at truces and real peace are made, there's plenty of friction and not a little actual fighting. A few things complicate what would ordinarily have probably led to a renewed round of hostilities. First, the arrival of the Black Death disrupts plans, and more seriously(!) France's finances are a shambles, and collecting money to collect troops is nearly impossible in any great scale.
Fortunately for France, England's financial woes are also serious. There's actually a fair amount of money coming in (unlike France, which misses out on a decade of economic prosperity enjoyed by the rest of western Europe), but just garrisoning Calais and other 'static' military expenditures eat up most of what is left after paying off the debts caused by the previous decade of warfare.
However, the real action is in south-western France, where all this trouble began. Companies of military adventurers had gotten fairly well organized (as far as such things go) and were carrying out operations of seizing local castles and fortified points, and then effectively holding the surrounding region for ransom. Then, they find somewhere else in reach of that point and take that.
This isn't armies on the move, and sieges, great or small, these are quick operations done by surprise at night, generally by escalade (and I'll save you trip to the dictionary; it means taking the place by putting ladders against the walls, and climbing over; this is also a commentary on how boring guard duty is). A lot of the book is actually taken up describing the course of these campaigns and showing how widespread they ended up. The upshot is that these regions are effectively no longer administered by France, and aren't contributing any taxes, and most of the rest of France was insisting that taxes collected be used for local defense instead of providing an army to defeat the English and retake strategically important castles.
The ending portion of the book deals with the sequel to all of this as the formal Treaty of Bretigny puts these companies out of any official work, and both sides are trying to get them out so that the terms of the treaty can be implemented. This turns into several years of trying to corner and ship out of the country bands of experienced military adventurers.
Meanwhile, we have the King of Navarre, who has extensive holdings in France, has a number of grievances with the French court, and quite a lot of ambition. He murders one of John II's advisors and launches several rounds of civil war with France. There's the battle of Poitiers, in which John II is captured, and the interminable treaty wrangling after that (and need to gather a 'king's ransom' for real). The Estates General and the Dauphin struggle for control, and neither can raise the money needed for the war effort or ransoming the king, and Paris ends up cut off on all sides and controlled a middle-class council. All of this erodes the power and prestige as France as a nation.
But all of this is not enough to actually dissolve it as an entity, and end of the book shows how French authority recovered in the late 1360s, as well as going into the complicated situation around Pedro of Castile and Henry of Trastamara, which both sides get involved in. Sumption takes his time with all these complications, which is why this is such a massive series, and of course, why it such an informative one. This is definitely an essential work on the period.
Of course, a city on the coast by itself is not a very secure, nor self-sustaining location. So even as a truce is agreed to, it becomes a friction point as English troops start taking over other nearby locations and building up a proper defensive zone for the city, which became the Pale of Calais. This was made all the more important by the collapse of Flanders communes, and the Count of Flanders' reasserting control, which meant that Calais was now the only realistic point of debarkation of an English army in northern France.
So even as repeated efforts at truces and real peace are made, there's plenty of friction and not a little actual fighting. A few things complicate what would ordinarily have probably led to a renewed round of hostilities. First, the arrival of the Black Death disrupts plans, and more seriously(!) France's finances are a shambles, and collecting money to collect troops is nearly impossible in any great scale.
Fortunately for France, England's financial woes are also serious. There's actually a fair amount of money coming in (unlike France, which misses out on a decade of economic prosperity enjoyed by the rest of western Europe), but just garrisoning Calais and other 'static' military expenditures eat up most of what is left after paying off the debts caused by the previous decade of warfare.
However, the real action is in south-western France, where all this trouble began. Companies of military adventurers had gotten fairly well organized (as far as such things go) and were carrying out operations of seizing local castles and fortified points, and then effectively holding the surrounding region for ransom. Then, they find somewhere else in reach of that point and take that.
This isn't armies on the move, and sieges, great or small, these are quick operations done by surprise at night, generally by escalade (and I'll save you trip to the dictionary; it means taking the place by putting ladders against the walls, and climbing over; this is also a commentary on how boring guard duty is). A lot of the book is actually taken up describing the course of these campaigns and showing how widespread they ended up. The upshot is that these regions are effectively no longer administered by France, and aren't contributing any taxes, and most of the rest of France was insisting that taxes collected be used for local defense instead of providing an army to defeat the English and retake strategically important castles.
The ending portion of the book deals with the sequel to all of this as the formal Treaty of Bretigny puts these companies out of any official work, and both sides are trying to get them out so that the terms of the treaty can be implemented. This turns into several years of trying to corner and ship out of the country bands of experienced military adventurers.
Meanwhile, we have the King of Navarre, who has extensive holdings in France, has a number of grievances with the French court, and quite a lot of ambition. He murders one of John II's advisors and launches several rounds of civil war with France. There's the battle of Poitiers, in which John II is captured, and the interminable treaty wrangling after that (and need to gather a 'king's ransom' for real). The Estates General and the Dauphin struggle for control, and neither can raise the money needed for the war effort or ransoming the king, and Paris ends up cut off on all sides and controlled a middle-class council. All of this erodes the power and prestige as France as a nation.
But all of this is not enough to actually dissolve it as an entity, and end of the book shows how French authority recovered in the late 1360s, as well as going into the complicated situation around Pedro of Castile and Henry of Trastamara, which both sides get involved in. Sumption takes his time with all these complications, which is why this is such a massive series, and of course, why it such an informative one. This is definitely an essential work on the period.
September 3, 2025
Very good as a source of information if you're interested in this topic.
It's a bit more chaotic due to the events it's describing than volume one however, still was entertaining and useful even if I'm gonna have to read a time or two more to absorb a better understanding.
It's a bit more chaotic due to the events it's describing than volume one however, still was entertaining and useful even if I'm gonna have to read a time or two more to absorb a better understanding.
March 20, 2024
As well as being a lock-down sceptic and former supreme court judge, Jonathan Sumption is a distinguished historian who has produced a magisterial five-volume history of the Hundred Years War between England and France. Trial By Fire is the second volume in the series. It was first published in 1999 and is still regarded as the most accurate and detailed account of the war so far written – on this side of the Channel at any rate.
This volume covers the period from 1347 to 1369, so it starts with the aftermath of England’s superb defeat of the French nobility at Crecy in 1346. It then takes us through a decade of conflict to England’s equally superb victory at Poitiers in 1356. That battle ended with the capture of King John (Jean) II of France by the Prince of Wales, Edward III of England’s eldest son. Not only was John’s capture humiliating for him personally and for the French as a nation; it was also a financial catastrophe as by the laws of war, the English were entitled to demand a phenomenal ransom for him. In fact, the ransom was so large that many French people – including John’s heir – were not at all keen to stump up the cash. John was held prisoner in Bordeaux for a while but when it became clear that the ransom would be a long time coming, he was moved to London. Having sworn that he would not try to escape, he was allowed to go hunting, send messages to France and establish a court, mainly made up of the other nobles who were captured with him at Poitiers. Eventually he had a retinue of seventy servants, he was invited to lavish banquets with Edward III and overall his imprisonment was probably almost as luxurious as that of the Colombian drug baron, Pablo Escobar.
Meanwhile, France itself was in a mess and the author’s theme is not so much England’s military glory but French resilience in the face of internal rebellions, invasions and the depredations of foreign – including English – mercenaries and freebooters. In fact, it does seem like a miracle that France survived the 1350s and 1360s as anything like a unified state. After the king’s capture, the rebellions against any kind of centralised rule came from all regions and all classes. John’s heir, the Dauphin, tried to establish himself as some kind of regent but was a feather for every wind that blew. Charles, King of Navarre, was plotting to make himself king of France. Other nobles wanted semi- or total independence. Townsmen wanted to stop paying taxes. Rural people were fed up with all the brigandage and banditry.
On that point, the author is very clear that many of the military men operating in France at that time were not fired by patriotism but by the prospect of loot and personal glory. He is very good at explaining how the tangled web of “companies” of marauding mercenaries coalesced, plundered and fell apart. These included men from England, Gascony, the various French provinces and other parts of Europe. The author shows how medieval warfare presented lots of opportunities for getting rich quickly. These included ransoming upper class prisoners, running protection rackets and good old-fashioned plundering of captured towns and castles.
It’s almost incredible how much damage relatively small groups of combat- hardened veterans could do in a country that was struggling to raise and maintain a regular army. That is, an army accountable to someone with legitimate authority. All the big players – kings, princes and dukes – made use of these companies of mercenaries when it suited them. Then they struggled to deal with them when peace broke out. At one point the Pope and various nobles hatch a plan to send a large number of freebooters off to the Byzantine Empire to fight against the Ottomans. That falls flat. Another scheme to send some of them down to Spain is more successful.
In the later chapters the war crosses borders into the Spanish states of Aragon, Navarre and Castile. This becomes a kind of proxy war for the French and the English. The Spanish kings have their own reasons for fighting each other, but for France, the plan is to establish a friendly king in Castile so they can invade the English Duchy of Aquitaine from the south. The English have an obvious interest in preventing that by getting their man on the throne instead. At one point in the 1360s England is poised to become the most powerful state in western Europe, thanks to the planned marriage of one of Edward III’s younger sons with the Count of Flander’s daughter, Margaret. This marriage would have brought several provinces around France under English control like a noose around the French neck. But Pope Urban V blocks it on the grounds that the betrothed are too closely related. He then allows Margaret to marry a French toff to whom she is even more closely related. Obviously realpolitik trumps religious doctrine.
The volume ends with a bit of an anticlimax. John II was eventually released by the English but he returns to London in 1364 to negotiate personally with Edward III. He then fall ills and dies. The Dauphin then becomes Charles V and seeks to repudiate the peace treaty his father had signed with the English. Just as England is poised to be the biggest military power in western Europe Edward III seems to lose his mojo. He still wants to rule France but he has no energy for anything. His heir, the Prince of Wales, has been shaping up as a successful military man in Aquitaine but lacks political his father’s political nous. His demands for tax to fund his lavish lifestyle and court alienate potential allies. Having meddled in Spain he comes back to Bordeaux with some kind of recurring illness, possibly malaria, and is laid up for months at a time.
I have a few niggles. As in the first volume, the author talks about the “German Empire” rather than the Holy Roman Empire. Confusingly, he also refers to “Germany” as if it is a political entity five hundred years before it came into existence. This volume also has a lot of typos, mainly words missed out or repeated. I’m surprised because the research and attention to detail are otherwise so meticulous.
I would recommend this book to anyone who wants to learn more about English history and about our relations with Europe, especially our turbulent relationship with France. I am really looking forward to Volume III.
This volume covers the period from 1347 to 1369, so it starts with the aftermath of England’s superb defeat of the French nobility at Crecy in 1346. It then takes us through a decade of conflict to England’s equally superb victory at Poitiers in 1356. That battle ended with the capture of King John (Jean) II of France by the Prince of Wales, Edward III of England’s eldest son. Not only was John’s capture humiliating for him personally and for the French as a nation; it was also a financial catastrophe as by the laws of war, the English were entitled to demand a phenomenal ransom for him. In fact, the ransom was so large that many French people – including John’s heir – were not at all keen to stump up the cash. John was held prisoner in Bordeaux for a while but when it became clear that the ransom would be a long time coming, he was moved to London. Having sworn that he would not try to escape, he was allowed to go hunting, send messages to France and establish a court, mainly made up of the other nobles who were captured with him at Poitiers. Eventually he had a retinue of seventy servants, he was invited to lavish banquets with Edward III and overall his imprisonment was probably almost as luxurious as that of the Colombian drug baron, Pablo Escobar.
Meanwhile, France itself was in a mess and the author’s theme is not so much England’s military glory but French resilience in the face of internal rebellions, invasions and the depredations of foreign – including English – mercenaries and freebooters. In fact, it does seem like a miracle that France survived the 1350s and 1360s as anything like a unified state. After the king’s capture, the rebellions against any kind of centralised rule came from all regions and all classes. John’s heir, the Dauphin, tried to establish himself as some kind of regent but was a feather for every wind that blew. Charles, King of Navarre, was plotting to make himself king of France. Other nobles wanted semi- or total independence. Townsmen wanted to stop paying taxes. Rural people were fed up with all the brigandage and banditry.
On that point, the author is very clear that many of the military men operating in France at that time were not fired by patriotism but by the prospect of loot and personal glory. He is very good at explaining how the tangled web of “companies” of marauding mercenaries coalesced, plundered and fell apart. These included men from England, Gascony, the various French provinces and other parts of Europe. The author shows how medieval warfare presented lots of opportunities for getting rich quickly. These included ransoming upper class prisoners, running protection rackets and good old-fashioned plundering of captured towns and castles.
It’s almost incredible how much damage relatively small groups of combat- hardened veterans could do in a country that was struggling to raise and maintain a regular army. That is, an army accountable to someone with legitimate authority. All the big players – kings, princes and dukes – made use of these companies of mercenaries when it suited them. Then they struggled to deal with them when peace broke out. At one point the Pope and various nobles hatch a plan to send a large number of freebooters off to the Byzantine Empire to fight against the Ottomans. That falls flat. Another scheme to send some of them down to Spain is more successful.
In the later chapters the war crosses borders into the Spanish states of Aragon, Navarre and Castile. This becomes a kind of proxy war for the French and the English. The Spanish kings have their own reasons for fighting each other, but for France, the plan is to establish a friendly king in Castile so they can invade the English Duchy of Aquitaine from the south. The English have an obvious interest in preventing that by getting their man on the throne instead. At one point in the 1360s England is poised to become the most powerful state in western Europe, thanks to the planned marriage of one of Edward III’s younger sons with the Count of Flander’s daughter, Margaret. This marriage would have brought several provinces around France under English control like a noose around the French neck. But Pope Urban V blocks it on the grounds that the betrothed are too closely related. He then allows Margaret to marry a French toff to whom she is even more closely related. Obviously realpolitik trumps religious doctrine.
The volume ends with a bit of an anticlimax. John II was eventually released by the English but he returns to London in 1364 to negotiate personally with Edward III. He then fall ills and dies. The Dauphin then becomes Charles V and seeks to repudiate the peace treaty his father had signed with the English. Just as England is poised to be the biggest military power in western Europe Edward III seems to lose his mojo. He still wants to rule France but he has no energy for anything. His heir, the Prince of Wales, has been shaping up as a successful military man in Aquitaine but lacks political his father’s political nous. His demands for tax to fund his lavish lifestyle and court alienate potential allies. Having meddled in Spain he comes back to Bordeaux with some kind of recurring illness, possibly malaria, and is laid up for months at a time.
I have a few niggles. As in the first volume, the author talks about the “German Empire” rather than the Holy Roman Empire. Confusingly, he also refers to “Germany” as if it is a political entity five hundred years before it came into existence. This volume also has a lot of typos, mainly words missed out or repeated. I’m surprised because the research and attention to detail are otherwise so meticulous.
I would recommend this book to anyone who wants to learn more about English history and about our relations with Europe, especially our turbulent relationship with France. I am really looking forward to Volume III.
March 6, 2010
The first 200 pages are slow, though this is more the nature of the history - one small-scale destructive raid is pretty much indistinguisable from another - than the fault of the author.
But once it reaches the battle of Poitiers and its aftermath its an absorbing read. The collapse of French rule, rebellion and sheer destruction of the bands of (literally) robber barons is stunning.
My only concern is that with about 30 years covered per volume and taking 9 years to do each one, the author will have died before completing the series.
But once it reaches the battle of Poitiers and its aftermath its an absorbing read. The collapse of French rule, rebellion and sheer destruction of the bands of (literally) robber barons is stunning.
My only concern is that with about 30 years covered per volume and taking 9 years to do each one, the author will have died before completing the series.
May 4, 2013
Very good. Narrative about the freebooters can be a bit daunting at times but it is an exquisite work of narrative history
October 23, 2022
Trial by fire is the second book of Jonathan Sumption’s monumental series telling the story of the hundred years war. In this book England is at an apogee; Starting in 1347 in the aftermath of the battle of Crecy it spans to the collapse of the treaty of Bretigny that was supposed to bring peace in 1369. The is a comprehensive and sparkling narrative taking the reader through all the main campaigns in different theatres of war as well as innumerable minor companies plaguing France. It therefore takes in the Battle of Poitiers and the capture of the French King and efforts to pay off the gigantic ransom demanded for his return.
Other aspects of war are not forgotten. As is to be expected diplomacy is at the forefront as attempts are made to bring about peace. The book also gets into the sinews of war. It is here in finances that France and England are unbalanced and will ultimately prove England’s undoing even if it can win great victories on the battlefield. Lack of money often seems to scupper ambitious plans on both sides and struggling to finance expeditions and the expedients to do so – such as debasing the coinage – have important effects.
The writing is accessible and makes it easy to follow the travails of the armies marching through France as well as the twists and turns of diplomacy. Sumption illuminates how armies worked and how kings and nobles in the 14th century were motivated. If there is one failing in this regard it is the failure to put the flesh on the bones of individuals to show their characters. This is both no doubt because of a lack of sources, and also because the cast list for 20 years of war across much of western Europe is huge. We can’t have everything, but one thing we can have with this book is maps, lots of them. And this is a really good thing; many towns that were important in the 13th century are tiny now, fortunately that the town you have never heard of before will be marked on one of Sumption’s maps.
There is a problem in the comprehensiveness of the book; Poitiers is only a third of the way into the book and yet once it and the great decisive campaigns are over the narrative begins to fizzle out. Instead the main themes become the rather chaotic internal sometime civil war between Charles of Navarre and the Dauphin and the ravages of the Companies neither of which have a clear direction. Following all the main companies in particular can get a bit tedious. It is difficult to see what Sumption could have done about this as it is important in the context of the main narrative as the ravages of the companies explain Frances financial problems, why Castile gets invaded, and why the peace does not stick. But perhaps not being so comprehensive and just taking one or two examples rather than covering the whole of France might have moved things along faster.
And yet for all its detail there will always be intriguing throwaways that it might be nice to have more on. For example the King of Navarre having arranged to have himself ambushed and held captive is said to have “deceived no one” and made him “a laughing-stock throughout western Europe”, (p.549) as well it might, but could have been fun to have had a quote illustrating it!
Trial by Fire is an excellent sequel. But as a sequel you do really need to know what came first. And it ends just as the war is heating up again so there is a bit of a cliff-hanger forcing you to get the next book. So it is not a book for taking up on its own without either reading the previous book or else having a fair bit of prior knowledge. But for those wanting a comprehensive look at this phase of the hundred years war this is the book for you.
Other aspects of war are not forgotten. As is to be expected diplomacy is at the forefront as attempts are made to bring about peace. The book also gets into the sinews of war. It is here in finances that France and England are unbalanced and will ultimately prove England’s undoing even if it can win great victories on the battlefield. Lack of money often seems to scupper ambitious plans on both sides and struggling to finance expeditions and the expedients to do so – such as debasing the coinage – have important effects.
The writing is accessible and makes it easy to follow the travails of the armies marching through France as well as the twists and turns of diplomacy. Sumption illuminates how armies worked and how kings and nobles in the 14th century were motivated. If there is one failing in this regard it is the failure to put the flesh on the bones of individuals to show their characters. This is both no doubt because of a lack of sources, and also because the cast list for 20 years of war across much of western Europe is huge. We can’t have everything, but one thing we can have with this book is maps, lots of them. And this is a really good thing; many towns that were important in the 13th century are tiny now, fortunately that the town you have never heard of before will be marked on one of Sumption’s maps.
There is a problem in the comprehensiveness of the book; Poitiers is only a third of the way into the book and yet once it and the great decisive campaigns are over the narrative begins to fizzle out. Instead the main themes become the rather chaotic internal sometime civil war between Charles of Navarre and the Dauphin and the ravages of the Companies neither of which have a clear direction. Following all the main companies in particular can get a bit tedious. It is difficult to see what Sumption could have done about this as it is important in the context of the main narrative as the ravages of the companies explain Frances financial problems, why Castile gets invaded, and why the peace does not stick. But perhaps not being so comprehensive and just taking one or two examples rather than covering the whole of France might have moved things along faster.
And yet for all its detail there will always be intriguing throwaways that it might be nice to have more on. For example the King of Navarre having arranged to have himself ambushed and held captive is said to have “deceived no one” and made him “a laughing-stock throughout western Europe”, (p.549) as well it might, but could have been fun to have had a quote illustrating it!
Trial by Fire is an excellent sequel. But as a sequel you do really need to know what came first. And it ends just as the war is heating up again so there is a bit of a cliff-hanger forcing you to get the next book. So it is not a book for taking up on its own without either reading the previous book or else having a fair bit of prior knowledge. But for those wanting a comprehensive look at this phase of the hundred years war this is the book for you.
May 9, 2025
Jonathan Sumption's magisterial history continues in this second volume, with the disasters France faces with the capture and ransom of King John II, the civil wars erupting at the instigation of Navarre's Charles the Bad, and Edward's glorious victories that, while militarily impressive, fail to result in a permanent settlement of the dueling claims to sovereignty over France. Observers of America's modern wars, waged across the globe in futile attempts to bring peace, prosperity, and democracy to places like Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghanistan may spy the same troubled history with Edward III - English longbowmen and tax schemes result in mighty victories on the battlefield, and yet the French state remains resilient, the people of walled towns loyal to a vague sense of nationalistic pride. The other theme is the Hobbesian war of all against all, as independent companies (bandits) roam the French territories and lay waste to lands already devastated by disease and economic ruin. We end the narrative with France's Charles V eyeing a return to war and seeking to throw back English territorial advances, with results to be decided on future battlefields.
June 25, 2020
This is an amazingly well-written history of an extraordinarily complex period of French history (the history of England does not enter into the account). The research and the presentation are really amazing!
I developed a very visceral loathing for a large number of the leaders of the various companies roaming about France during this period, but particularly for Charles ("The Bad"), King of Navarre. That personalities can emerge from the mists of history is another tribute to the author.
This book does not require that the previous book in the series be read first. I read the first book about 15 years ago, and found that I was able to understand the situation at the start of this volume. It is pretty much necessary, though, that the reader already have some familiarity with the Medieval age of Europe and the practise of feudalism.
I developed a very visceral loathing for a large number of the leaders of the various companies roaming about France during this period, but particularly for Charles ("The Bad"), King of Navarre. That personalities can emerge from the mists of history is another tribute to the author.
This book does not require that the previous book in the series be read first. I read the first book about 15 years ago, and found that I was able to understand the situation at the start of this volume. It is pretty much necessary, though, that the reader already have some familiarity with the Medieval age of Europe and the practise of feudalism.
October 16, 2019
Uneven in holding my interest. The general observations about life during this period are interesting. Unfortunately the author has a great passion for the details of the people and places in France connected with this period, which results in long bits where the reader is unable to follow (or care ) who all the people are, nor follow where the action is happening.
Remarkable insights into the constraints imposed from lack of funds. And this period has geopolitical power games like our own - just slower paced due to slower pace of travel and communication.
Much of the internal divisions of France, and that Paris was such a powerful centre, seemed to explain part of the background to the French Revolution which followed many centuries later
Remarkable insights into the constraints imposed from lack of funds. And this period has geopolitical power games like our own - just slower paced due to slower pace of travel and communication.
Much of the internal divisions of France, and that Paris was such a powerful centre, seemed to explain part of the background to the French Revolution which followed many centuries later
February 8, 2024
Superb book, but at the same time very detailed. Not for someone seeking an overview of the period, but really for a reader who wants a detailed understanding of the twists and turns of the war. Sumption's style carries you along , and he is very willing to make judgments of the different characters of the period, In honest truth, I would recommend reading this work purely to learn about Charles le Mauvais and the various other colourful characters brought to life by Sumption.
One potential issue is that it would be challenging for me, as a pure amateur, to judge the extent to which he is determining between different interpretations of the events. However, given I am not a professional historian then the book was perfectly suited to my needs.
One potential issue is that it would be challenging for me, as a pure amateur, to judge the extent to which he is determining between different interpretations of the events. However, given I am not a professional historian then the book was perfectly suited to my needs.
April 12, 2023
Home experiencing a bad case of vertigo. So had lots of time to finish several books I've been reading. Finished the second of Lord Sumption's outstanding history of the 100 Years War. These books are the most comprehensive history I have ever read. Vol. II covered the 1350's and 1360's, which includes the Battle of Poitiers and the death of the Black Prince. It ends with the renewal of hostilities between Charles V and a now, weakened Edward III. If you are a history nerd like me, these are must-read works
December 14, 2024
The English come across as daring, dangerous, and contemptible. They unleash violence they cannot control. They burn but cannot conquer. They are unable to plant the seeds for a lasting peace. All this is done when France is governed by weak and foolish men. But though this volume ends with the English on top of the world, the causes of their downfall are readily apparent, and it's time for the tide to turn. Excited for the next volume.
September 3, 2023
A fascinating account of the Hundred Years’ War 1347-1369. Extremely well researched. Covering the broad aspects of: the economic realities, medieval warfare, technological developments, political machinations, ego, culture, logistics etc. particular highlights for me was learning about Poitiers 1356. Looking forward to volume 3.
December 6, 2023
Follows on right from the first and is just as good, if not better. Follows a particularly anarchic phase of the war characterized by enormous, organized bandit hordes, social revolution in northern France, the civil war fomented by the King of Navarre, and the opening of a parallel front in Iberia.
November 23, 2025
One should really open France maps in parallel to reading to this, way too many endless names of castles, rivers, cities and routiers and so on.
Other than that, a solid continuation of the first volume, a good overview of the absolute chaos and carnage than engulfed the kingdom of France following the infamous Poitiers incident and the beginning of it's rebounding from disaster.
Other than that, a solid continuation of the first volume, a good overview of the absolute chaos and carnage than engulfed the kingdom of France following the infamous Poitiers incident and the beginning of it's rebounding from disaster.
May 20, 2019
Even better than the first volume. To present such a complicated and convoluted story in such a readable fashion is incredible. Shame (and a surprise) about the numerous spelling and grammatical errors.
August 27, 2020
Fascinating read with a very engrossing narrative.
September 25, 2020
Continuation of this great history of the Hundred Year’s War.
March 6, 2024
Superb!! Volume 3 next.
December 17, 2024
Interesting to read
Want to read
May 14, 2010
September 29, 2014
Second in Sumption's excellent series about the Hundred Years War, this book begins with the end of the siege of Calais and leads on to Poitiers and beyond. For anyone wanting to learn more about the catastrophe that was the Hundred Years War, this is the series to buy.
July 28, 2012
Indepth.
September 10, 2012
Book two of the definitive history of the Hundred Years War.
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