Page 147 - Conflitti Militari e Popolazioni Civili - Tomo I

147
aCta
The experience of civilian populations during the
Hundred Years War in France c. 1340-c.1440

MATTHEW BENNETT

‘But if on both sides war is decided upon and begun by the Councils of the two kings (of
England and France), the soldiery may take spoil from the kingdom at will, and make war
freely; and if sometimes the humble and innocent will suffer harm and lose their goods, it
cannot be otherwise; ... Valiant men and wise, however, who follow arms should take pains,
so far as they can, not to bear hard on the simple and innocent folk but only on those who
make and continue war and flee peace.’ (Honoré Bouvet, The Tree of Battles, Part Four,
th
ch. 48) This statement in a French vernacular law book, written in the late 14 century
1
and dedicated to the young King Charles VI of France sums up the problem of how to be a
responsible warrior. A generation later, a court poet envisaged that ‘Great She-Devil War’,
‘goddess of the infernal regions’ who brings nothing but pain and destruction to the poor
inhabitants of the kingdom. He was not the first to identify how ravaged was France by the
2
th
intermittent but long-lasting series of conflicts known since the mid-19 century as the Hun-
dred Years War. Jean de Venette, a Carmelite Friar and senior member of that Order wrote
feelingly about the disorder in France following the defeat and capture of King John at the
battle of Poitiers in 1356.
‘From that time on all went ill with the kingdom and the state was undone. thieves and
robbers rose up everywhere in the land. The nobles despised and hated all others and took no
thought for the mutual usefulness and profit of lord and men. They subjected and despoiled
the peasantry and the men of the villages. In no way did they defend their country from its en-
emies. Rather they did trample it under foot, robbing and pillaging the peasants’ goods.’ 3
It was hardly surprising that within a couple of years there began a series of peasant
rebellions known as the Jacquerie. These were named after the archetypal French peasant
Jacques Bonhomme; but that should not hide the fact that many people of gentry class and
town dwellers found themselves equally at odds with their supposed social betters in the
seigneurie.
‘In the same year of 1356, the citizens of Paris, fearing the enemy and putting little trust
in the nobility, placed iron chains across the streets and crossroads of their city. They dug a
ditch around the walls in the west and the suburbs in the east where no walls had been be-
fore, and they built new walls with gates and towers … They fortified the towers with giant
crossbows, cannons, and other artillery. They destroyed all the houses which adjoined the
wall and splendid dwellings both inside and out were completely demolished… I myself saw
(all this happening)’. 4

1 Coopland, p.154
2 Pierre de Nesson, Lay de Guerre, written c.1429, cited by Wright p. 71.
3 Trans. R. Birdsall, ed. R, Newhall p. 66.
4 Ibid. p. 67.