Dictionnaire de la Guerre de Cent Ans

This monumental work, written by the best French and foreign experts under the direction of Jean-Marie Moeglin, offers the most comprehensive picture of a centuries-old conflict that defined the history of two nations - France and England - between the 14th and 15th centuries.

For a long time, the Hundred Years' War suffered from an old and narrow historiographical concept; it was described as a more or less erratic sequence of battles; it was seen anachronistically as the clash of two types of imperialism, a struggle for supremacy between two nation states, France and England. A comprehensive revision was needed. That has been done here. This dictionary offers a new perspective on the Hundred Years' War, which arose from a rivalry between two kings, one of whom claimed a crown that the other had unlawfully usurped. A multitude of other local disputes centred around this feud. This logic turned the Hundred Years' War into an episode in which personal relationships, wounded honour, stubborn claims to land and rights and hatred passed down from generation to generation were at the forefront. The book shows how peripheral conflicts grafted onto the central conflict between two powerful kings, and the need to give them political legitimacy, led to the kingdoms of France and England being transformed into states that were administratively organised, militarised and endowed with a coherent ideology in which obedience to the rightful king became the supreme virtue. Beyond the myth, this scientifically accurate encyclopaedia offers a comprehensive history of the Hundred Years' War.