Abstract
The ‘Hundred Years War’ is, strictly speaking, an invention of historians. The phrase ‘Guerre de Cent Ans’ first occurs in print in France in 1823, and was later taken up with enthusiasm in England.1 Thenceforward the term has enjoyed universal acceptance in popular and academic circles alike. By the time it was coined, much ink had already been expended on the Anglo-French conflicts of the later middle ages. Even within the period itself, the wars formed the predominant subject of many narratives, and these in turn provided the principal materials for historians of subsequent centuries. Thus there is much to read, even if some of it, both medieval and later, is blatantly derivative or prejudiced. In this study we can outline only the main themes of the subject’s historiography. As we shall see, many influences played on those who wrote about the wars in the past: the sources at their disposal; their patriotic or political sympathies; their purpose in writing; their expected audience; and the view of ‘history’ which obtained at the time of writing.
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Notes
P. Contamine, La Guerre de Cent Ans (Paris: PUF, 1968), p. 5, n. 1.
See also K. A. Fowler, The Age of Plantagenet and Valois (London: Elek Press, 1967), pp. 13–14, although Fowler is more convinced than I am that contemporaries had some notion of a ‘hundred year’ war.
J. J. N. Palmer, Froissart: Historian (Woodbridge: Boydell and Brewer, 1981)
P. F. Ainsworth, Jean Froissart and the Fabric of History: Truth, Myth and Fiction in the Chroniques (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1990).
The Chandos herald’s work is translated in R. Barber (ed.), The Life and Campaigns of the Black Prince (Woodbridge: Boydell and Brewer, 1979).
London, College of Arms, Ms 9. See B. J. H. Rowe, ‘A contemporary account of the Hundred Years War from 1415 to 1429’, EHR, 41 (1926), pp. 504–13.
J. Speed, The History of Great Britain under the Conquests of the Romans, Saxons, Danes and Normans (London, 1611), p. 573.
J. Sumption, The Hundred Years War: Trial by Battle (London: Faber, 1990), p. x.
H. Ellis (ed.), Three Books of Polydore Vergil’s English History (London: Camden Society, first series, 1844), p. xxviii.
C. L. Kingsford (ed.), The First English Life of Henry the Fifth (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1911), p. 4.
Berners’ preface as cited in R. M. Smith, Froissart and the English Chronicle Play (New York: Columbia University Press, 1915), p. 32;
S. J. Gunn, ‘The French wars of Henry VIII’, in The Origins of War in Early Modern Europe, ed. J. Black (Edinburgh: Donald, 1987), pp. 28–51.
M. McKisack, Medieval History in the Tudor Age (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1971), esp. chapters 3 and 4;
R. B. Wernham, ‘The public records in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries’, in English Historical Scholarship in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries, ed. L. Fox (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1956), pp. 11–30.
E. Hallam, ‘Nine centuries of keeping the public records’, in The Records of the Nation. The Public Record Office 1838–1988: The British Record Society 1888–1988, ed. G. Martin and P. Spufford (Woodbridge: Boydell and Brewer, 1990), pp. 23–40.
M. Nortier, ‘Le sort des archives dispersés de la Chambre des Comptes’, Bibliothèque de L’Ecole des Chartes, 123 (1965), pp. 460–537;
C. T. Allmand, ‘The collection of Dom Lenoir’, Archives, 6 (1964), pp. 202–10. For an example of an early guide to governmental records see J. Strachey, An Index to the Records with Directions to the Several Places where They are to be Found (London, 1739) .
M. McKisack, ‘Edward III and the historians’, History, 45 (1960), p. 2.
For a fascinating discussion of the later reputation of Edward III see D. A. L. Morgan, ‘The political after-life of Edward III: the apotheosis of a warmonger’, EHR, 112 (1997), pp. 856–81.
C. T. Allmand, Henry V (London: Historical Association pamphlet G68, 1968), pp. 6–8.
G. P. Cuttino, ‘Historical revision: the causes of the Hundred Years War’, Speculum, 31 (1956), pp. 463–77.
J. Le Patourel, ‘Edward III and the kingdom of France’, History, 43 (1958), pp. 173–89;
C. J. Rogers, ‘Edward III and the dialectics of strategy, 1327–1360’, TRHS, 6th series, 4 (1994), reprinted in his The Wars of Edward III (Woodbridge: Boydell Press, 1999), pp. 265–83;
C. J. Rogers, War Cruel and Sharp: English Strategy under Edward III, 1327–1360 (Woodbridge: Boydell Press, 2000), quotation at p. 396;
C. J. Rogers, ‘The Anglo-French peace negotiations of 1354–1360 reconsidered’, in The Age of Edward III, ed. J. S. Bothwell (Woodbridge: York Medieval Press, 2002), pp. 193–213;
J. J. N. Palmer, ‘The war aims of the protagonists’, in The Hundred Years War, ed. K. A. Fowler (London: Macmillan, 1971), pp. 69–70.
A. Ayton, Knights and Warhorses: Military Service and the English Aristocracy under Edward III (Woodbridge: Boydell Press, 1994).
A. Curry, ‘English armies in the fifteenth century’, in Arms, Armies and Fortifications in the Hundred Years War, ed. A. Curry and M. Hughes (Woodbridge: Boydell Press, 1994), pp. 39–68,
A. Curry, The Battle of Agincourt: Sources and Interpretations (Woodbridge: Boydell Press, 2000).
D. Goulay, ‘La résistance à l’occupant anglais en Haute-Normandie, II’, Annales de Normandie, 36 (1986), pp. 92–6.
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© 2003 Anne Curry
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Curry, A. (2003). The Hundred Years War and Historians. In: The Hundred Years War. British History in Perspective. Palgrave, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-0-230-62969-1_2
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