What history records as the Hundred Years War was in fact a
succession of destructive conflicts, separated by tense intervals
of truce and dishonest and impermanent peace treaties, and one of
the central events in the history of England and France. It laid
the foundations of France's national consciousness, even while
destroying the prosperity and political preeminence which France
had once enjoyed. It formed the nation's institutions, creating the
germ of the absolute state of the seventeenth and eighteenth
centuries. In England, it brought intense effort and suffering, a
powerful tide of patriotism, great fortune succeeded by bankruptcy,
disintegration, and utter defeat. The war also brought turmoil and
ruin to neighboring Scotland, Germany, Italy, and Spain.
Trial by Fire, the second volume of Jonathan Sumption's
monumental history of the Hundred Years War, takes up the story in
1347, the year the Truce of Calais was negotiated. When the French
repudiated the truce in August 1349 it was to initiate a series of
engagements with the English until Edward's last campaign in 1360.
After this point the strength of the English companies in France
declined, and their presence became a serious diplomatic
embarrassment. At the same time, the fragmentation of French
society became apparent as violent groups of Bretons, Bearnais,
Navarrese, Germans, and above all Gascons roved the land. It was
not until the marriage of Philip of Burgundy and Margaret of
Flanders, in 1369, that the consolidation of France's territories
was achieved.
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