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De Re Militari | Book Reviews

Andrew Ayton and Sir Philip Preston, Bart., et al.

The Battle of Crécy, 1346

Warfare in History 22 (Woodbridge: Boydell and Brewer, 2005). XII+390 pp. £25.00/$49.95. ISBN 1843831155.


The battle of Crécy, although well-known, has not attracted attention of the academic world that it should deserve, probably overshadowed by Shakespeare’s Agincourt. This collaborative volume (with articles by Andrew Ayton, Sir Philip Preston, Michael Prestwich, Christophe Biel, Bertrand Schnerb and Françoise Autrand) aims to fill such a gap in the studies on the Hundred Years War. The thorough and massive use of the sources, both primary and secondary, is perhaps one of the first key features of this book that the reader notes and makes it a valuable work. Those interested in military history, even though not particularly in this period, will appreciate the many ideas which can be exploited for other subjects.

The first chapter, "The Battle of Crécy: Context and Significance," by Andrew Ayton, points out that the campaign, at first glance a ‘chivalrous adventure’, as Oman puts it, actually was not. Edward III’s army was not a ‘band of brothers’, but the largest English host ever shipped to France during the war. Contrary to what many historians think, Ayton says, King Edward and his counsellors planned the campaign carefully and the choice of Crécy as battlefield was far from fortuitous. After the great victory the English became a force to be reckoned with.

"The Crécy Campaign," by Ayton, examines what happened from the disembarkation of the English army at St-Vaast-la-Hougue in Normandy on 12 July 1346 until Crécy. Edward III would have welcomed a battle in the previous campaigns, but King Philip VI had refused to engage. This time Edward decided to select a new theatre of war in order to provoke his enemy to accept battle on his terms and on ground of his own choosing. The composition of the English army, heavily dependent on infantry, shows that the king was looking for a battlefield confrontation. Ayton refuses the thesis of the ‘chivalrous adventure’: Normandy as a starting point for the expedition and Crécy as a suitable place to take on the French had been chosen well in advance. Edward was the hunter, not the prey.

In his, "The Traditional Battlefield of Crécy," Sir Philip Preston analyses the battlefield and what historians have written about it. If the site has been generally accepted for more than 150 years, we have to keep in mind that there are some neglected features of the ground which have attracted no mention, for instance the existence of the eastern bank of the Vallée des Clercs, which made a wide frontal attack from the plateau of Estrées-lès-Crécy very unlikely.

The next chapter, "The Battle of Crécy," by Michael Prestwich, begins with a concise phrase: ‘It is impossible to reconstruct the past’. The first part of this article introduces the reader to the problems that historians have to face when trying to describe medieval battles. Chronicles provide little or no information about strategy and tactics, and topographical detail to locate where battles took place. If we do not know very much about these aspects of Crécy, there is no doubt that the fight was a cruel killing, with no room for mercy. The role of the English longbow played an important part in the outcome of the battle, more than the development of the archers in the field. Edward III’s army had long-experienced commanders and a solid core of hardened men, a well-organised host, which the French did not have. The English victory was the triumph of their tactics, developed in the years after Bannockburn.

"The English Army at Crécy," by Ayton, is a long and in-depth study of the composition of King Edward’s host in 1346. Largely based on archival sources, Ayton’s work is a mine of information. His close scrutiny tells us a great deal about the size and structure of the army during the Crécy expedition. It is interesting to read, for example, how many soldiers the English government hoped to raise from the shires and towns of the kingdom. Ayton also deals with what he calls ‘military service prosopography’, reconstructing the careers of captains and rank and file men-at-arms. But these are only some subjects of this rich work.

Chapter 6, "The Nobilty of Normandy and the English Campaign of 1346," written by Christophe Piel, is the first of three articles devoted to the French side of the story. Not that in the works above mentioned Philip VI and his men have no room, but now they become the focus of attention. In this chapter we can see how Normandy, under the French rule from 1204, was involved in the Crécy campaign. Its autonomy had increased in the firts years of the XIV century, and most of its nobility remained loyal to the French crown, being present and dying in the battle. It was because of the strategic mistakes of Philip VI and his counsellors that the English were able to be successful in Normandy.

It is Bertand Schnerb, with "Vassals, Allies and Mercenaries: the French before and after 1346," who studies Philip’s forces. If we know how the army was raised, both by the ‘feudal ban’ and the arrière ban, military obligation extended to all men between the age of eighteen and the age of sixty, unfortunately the financial accounts of the Crécy period are lost, so that we have no knowledge of the strength of the French host. The king himself was in command of the army and was present on the battlefield and with him were the great lords, heading large units called ‘batailles’. The defeat at Crécy brought few changes to the military system, but some were made in tactics. After experiencing the effectiveness of the English men-at-arms fighting on foot, the French began to do the same. However, the nobility continued preferring to die on the field than to take flight. Only King Charles V was to reform things.

The next article, "The Battle of Crécy: A Hard Blow for the Monarchy of France," by Françoise Autrand, analyses the consequences of the rout for the crown. King Philip’s retreat from the battle was unanimously seen as a shame, while King John of Bohemia’s romantic death became a symbol for the opposition to the French monarchy. This, evidently unable to defend the country, had to find and punish guilty men in order to satisfy public opinion.

In "Crécy and the Chroniclers" Ayton treats some of the most useful and known accounts of the battle, from the English newsletters to Froissart, from Giovanni Villani to Geoffrey le Baker, and how much reliable they are. Late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century historians preferred to trust only a small group of sources, thence their Crécy was a simple battle, while it was not and much is still obscure.

The last chapter, "Topography and Archery: Further Reflections on the Battle of Crécy," by Ayton and Preston, deals with a much-discussed question: the role of the English archers and their development on the field. The authors stress that anyone wanting to reconstruct what really happened cannot ignore the ground. By best exploiting it the English leaders were able to make their archers more deadly.

A great compelling read, no doubt a volume that shall leave a mark. For those interested in the Hundred Years War, but not only for them, this is essential reading. Perhaps experts in the field could put it up for discussion, but good books often generate a debate. “But if this book- Ayton writes- succeeds in casting new light on the events of 26 August 1346 and in demonstrating the wider significance of those events, it will have fulfilled its primary purpose”. Let us hope it will.

Sergio Mantovani

Independent Scholar <[email protected]>

Page Added: April 2006