The Hundred Years War, Volume 2: Trial by Fire (The Middle Ages Series) Paperback – September 28, 2001

This is the second volume of a brilliantly written work covering the 100 years war. This covers the period after the Battle of Crecy and up to the birth of John of Gaunt, 1369. The focal point is the battle of Poitiers but it includes all of the skirmishes in between. In my opinion the high points are:1. Poitiers, the Black Prince masses his forces from Bordeaux and then massacres his way through the French countryside. The intent of these local attack and destroy missions was effectively to deny John II the revenue from the taxes.2. The capture of John II at Poitiers seems to be almost a farcical act. John surrenders in a chivalrous manner and then spends time in England as the guest of Edward III. Hardly an imprisonment.3. Charles of Navarre appears to be a truly malignant person but a member of the French Royal family who most likely never spent too much time in Navarre. He spent most of his time trying to overthrow the French Prince, the Dauphin.4. The ageing Edward III seems to hang on trying to get some peace settlement, and always coming askew. It is almost a comedic act of give and take and yet many are killed off in the process.5. The revolt of the Jacques or common people against the royalty would presage the 1381 revolt in London. The discussion here is excellent in detail and allows a full comprehension of the changing mood of the populace. It seems that this may very well have been the initial revolt of the common man against the ever warring royals.This sets up the process of entering the fifteenth century slowly but it does demonstrate all of the intrigues by and between the players.The book is superbly written, as are all in the series. The author provides dates with all discussions so that the reader can maintain an understanding of the time lines. There are so many things happening in every camp that one may readily get lost. However the author's approach negates any of that potential.This is a wonderful series of books detailing in a highly accessible manner all elements of this period.

My ‘period’ has been 14-15thC for awhile but I grew up a devotee of the Hundred Years War - from the French perspective and admittedly from it’s second (really middle) phase, c 1420’s. Talk about a too narrow scope! So, when I found myself reading glowing reviews of Sumption I recklessly bought all 4 in the series. And walked into a cement wall writhing pages of volume 1 … To others who have particularized knowledge of the period I say, do not give up, do not put Sumption aside and do not discount him as ‘inside baseball’ - if I can devour him now, and after just a couple months of my own path to Sumption then anyone can. And I suspect that there are many roads to Sumption. For some it may be the political or diplomatic aspects, or the Royal intrigues, for myself it was the Free Companies, the routiers, and in particular, the work of Kenneth Fowler. I lean toward the military part of the HYW, so I was busy devouring Prestwich, Allmand, Ambuhl, TB Pugh, Bradbury, Michael Jones, Nicholas Savy’s (somewhat pop culture bio) on Bertrucat d’Albret, Bostock’s work on Knolles and Calverley, Curry, etc etc , Livingston on Crecy and Hoskins on Edward prince of Wales’s Chevauchee (also no slouch himself where the routiers were concerned), so while my pivot point was the military angle it gave me a foothold. I had an ‘in’ now with Sumption. So, I restarted with Sumption, vol.2 and 3 as those were the two sections most closely aligned with my current research - I will eventually get to vol.1 and 4 (which should be a snap as my area is WoTR) - I dearly hope Sumption continues to write a fifth volume, which I am convinced now is necessary. For many years I made the mistake of thinking the WoTR was a feud born of Gaunt’s descendants (his grandchildren) all vying for the same throne - having done a far deeper dive now into the English and French (Gascon, Picard, Burgundian, Limousin, Flemish, Navarrese, etc) debacle that was the HYW that War was not only the author of France’s generational misery (read Geremek’s Margins of Soviet in Late Medieval Paris) but spawned the ruinous feuds across virtually all of the nobility and gentility in England during the 15thc - it’s not enough to blame the ineptitude of Henry VI either, he just caught the tidal bore of that fury unleaded by England losing the HYW (first in 1370’s) and then again in 1420’s (ok, so it took Charles VII till 1453 to drive the final stake thru Talbot’s heart but track the military losses from 1429 onwards, it was relentless)

One would think that a history of a war lasting 100 years and starting in about 1330 would be a bit dry and dull. Not so this amazing tale of medieval kings, nobles, merchants, weavers, churchmen, knights, and kingly wannabes. The Hundred Years War was 300 years in the making (yes, about 1066, more or less), the source of many stories and tales as memorialized by Shakespeare, among others, and a historical event (really a series of events) that shapes much of our modern world. The history of Flanders in the early 1300s, for example, could be the story of any political dispute in any century or place. The history written by Sumption is fascinating and reads like a modern-day tale of politics. As incredible as it sounds, I could hardly put it down. It is truly a great and magisterial history.

I live in France, so this is more or less prescribed reading and I found it absolutely fascinating. Very well researched and full of detail so the characters of Edward III and John II and the Popes become quite familiar, and what a generally unpleasant bunch they were ! I was surprised to learn though that the black-death plagues had rather less influence on the 100 years war than I had imagined, and also how after major battles,the various armies consisted mostly of small groups of thugs more or less completely out of control by their monarchs. Not light reading but carefully written, and it gives a detailed new perspective of the histories of France and England.

Sumption, the author, is a British historian, par excellence. I’ve started on the first volume and can’t wait to read this collection.

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.

Já no segundo volume o problema do papel parece ter sido corrigido, espero que os próximos volumes mantenham o padrão de qualidade.

History is not boring; at least in the manner in which Sumption writes. His history is detailed - day by day, even hour by hour telling of event. His characters are complex - aggressive, mad, devious. His locations include most of western Europe from the Scottish Highland to Naples, from Lisbon to Bohemia. And of course England and France. His clear crisp writing and narrative style brings this tragic period to life. Never pompous or sententious, just simple clear short sentences accompanied by maps that allow the reader to enter into the actions of battles, sieges and chevauchées. Hours of delight reading such excellent prose and absorbing so much information so easily.

This is a great read and full of information about a seminal event in European History.