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A History of Europe by Henri Pirenne
University Books, first published 1938 but written during the Great War
Book Eight
The European Crisis
(1300-1450)
The Avignon Papacy, the Great Schism, and the Hundred Years War
Chapter II
The Hundred Years War
1. To the Death of Edward III (1377)
p418 ...A war so long and so bitterly contested was possible only between France and England. They alone had governments disposing of sufficient resources, and peoples endowed with a sufficient national unity, to endure such an ordeal without perishing... After all the shedding of blood, after all the misery and devastation, the two adversaries found themselves still more or less at the point of departure, so that the Hundred Years' War had been merely a futile and terrible calamity... they [the kings of England] had no urgent motive for going to war... For France was not threatening or incommoding England... It is quite comprehensible that France might have attacked England in order to recover... [Guyenne], the last remnant of the Angivin possessions... but it was not France, it was England that provoked the war... In short, from whatever point of view we regard it, the Hundred Years' War is seen to have been a useless war, a needless war... As a matter of fact, it must be regarded merely as a war of prestige. And this, precisely, explains the passion with which the English people followed its kings into this war.
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p427 Hostilities began in 1337... In the following year... Edward III disembarked at Antwerp, with the intention of doing great things... in order to compel the Count of Flanders to come over to his side, he had... prohibited the export of wool, which was indispensable to the cloth trade of Gand, Bruge, and Ypres... the trade corporations and merchants of the cities had no intention of allowing themselves to be ruined or starved... Gand, where the corporations of the cloth trade had for some years been in power, took over the government of the country, under the direction of a wealthy burgess, Jan van Artevelde... Thus the solidarity of their interests brought about an alliance between Edward's monarchical and dynastic policy and the bourgeois and economic policy of the Flemish cities, an alliance to which Flanders was to show herself unshakably faithful. In this essentially industrial country, where the bourgeoisie was predominant, politics, sooner than anywhere else in the North of Europe, were subordinated to economic considerations.
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p428 ...In 1346... [Edward III] suddenly landed in Normandy. This was the beginning of a complete change of policy. A new system of tactics, based on the role of the archers on the battlefield, gave the English a series of brilliant victories... The battle of Crecy... proved the quality of his army... The victor profited by this un-hoped-for success to besiege Calais, which was taken after a siege of eleven months, and was not restored to France until 1558... On the Pope's intervention a truce was concluded in September 1347. This, owing to the appearance of the Black Death, was prolonged into the following year, and... was terminated only in 1355.
p429 ...The new King of France, Jean II the Good (1350-1364), had decided to convoke the States-General, which had furnished him with the means of equipping 30,000 men. These he led against the Black Prince, who was ravaging Guyenne. The battle of Maupertuis... [Poitiers] on September 19th, 1356, ended in a catastrophe even more overwhelming than that of Crecy. Jean himself was taken prisoner and sent to England as a captive.
p430 In France this disaster immediately provoked the first of the crises with which the monarchy was repeatedly confronted until the middle of the 15th century. The States-General of 1355, in which the influence of the bourgeoisie was predominant, led by the Provost of the merchants of Paris, Etienne Marcel, had demanded, in return for voting the taxes required by the king, a considerable voice in the government. They had stipulated that they themselves must levy and administer the new taxes, and they demanded guarantees in respect of their right to assemble in the future, and the introduction of administrative reforms... Unassailed and undisputed for a century past, the monarchy was asked to share its power with the nation... [In France] the bourgeoisie -- that is to say, the commercial and industrial class -- headed the movement. Now between this bourgeoisie and the nobles no understanding was possible. [Unlike in England where all the classes had been united against John Lackland.] The privileges of the one class were opposed to those of the other, giving rise to a mutual hostility, which the disasters of Crecy and Poitiers, for which the bourgeoisie held the chivalry responsible, increased to a maximum... If a few grands seigneurs [like Charles the Bad, King of Navarre] supported the efforts of the Third Estate, this was only by reason of personal interest, resentment, or ambition, and on the first opportunity they abandoned the allies whom they despised. The same may be said of the clergy... the States-General, composed of three orders which debated and voted separately, constituted in reality three distinct assemblies of privileged persons, incapable of agreement... Every one of their convocations corresponded with a crisis of the Treasury: they were assembled only that they might be asked for money. And it was precisely this fact that gave the bourgeoisie the preponderant role in the States. For... it was the bourgeoisie above all that was called upon to make payment... And it was precisely this fact that gave the bourgeoisie the preponderant role in the States...
Peace of Bretigny May 9th, 1360 gives Gascony, Guyenne, Poitou, Calais and the County of Guines to Edward III.
p434 Charles V (1364-1380), who succeeded his father Jean II in 1364 could not hope to break the peace which had barely been concluded. The kingdom was exhausted... The Count of Flanders, Louis de Maele... consented to the marriage of his daughter (June 29th, 1369) with the King's brother, Philip the Bold, who in 1361 had received the Duchy of Burgundy as his appanage. It seemed that the "Flemish question" which had so greatly preoccupied the Crown since the reign of Philip Augustus was on the point of being solved, since the succession of the powerful County was assured to a royal prince.
This period ends with the deaths, in 1377, of both Edward III and new French King, Charles V, with children inheriting both crowns leasing to periods of Regency.
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