Need help with assignment - The Hundred Years' War

[Johnnyfirs]

Hello my beautiful cousins of cRPG!
I'm assigned to a major english/history project due to around 20 pages that has to be handed in around Christmas.
Since I'm a M&B player, I generally wanted to write about ancient/medieval history.
My history tutor recommended the Hundred Years' War between France and England - I did not hesistate! It's an interesting war especially due to the military advancements and experiments.
Problem is my english teacher is whining because she doesn't know any modern litterature that revolves around this era, so I'm asking you guys!

Do you know any relevant and interesting novelles that depicts this time? I'm allowed to use fiction, as long as it's historically accurate (or atleast somewhat accurate).
I'm looking for good books, but I just had a feel that you could point me in a good direction since I have lurked the historical discussion boards for a while.

PS - if you have something else that could be interesting to investigate while looking at this conflict, please add it!
I'm focusing on the military advancements and tactics that ultimately won the war (eg. the english longbow).

[Rhuarc91]

I might be able to find some stuff. When I get home I'll look.

[Johnnyfirs]

I found this while looking
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Azincourt_%28novel%29
and it looks like exactly the kind of fiction historical-novel I'm on the hunt for.

This is still relevant tho

PS - if you have something else that could be interesting to investigate while looking at this conflict, please add it!
I'm focusing on the military advancements and tactics that ultimately won the war (eg. the english longbow).

[Paul]

Seems like the typical English bullshitting about Azincourt and the magical longbow. Try this instead.

[Vammo75]

If you like Sherlock Holmes then "The White Company" and "Sir Nigel" by Arthur Conan Doyle

Free from project gutenburg....

http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/903

http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/2845

[Dionysus]

If you need a contemporary source, Froissart is a good place to start.

[Bobthehero]

http://www.currentmiddleages.org/artsci/docs/Champ_Bane_Archery-Testing.pdf

Notice that the longbow is not *that* efficient agaisnt plate armor. Which was used at the time by the (rich) French.

Edit: whoops, didn't read op, well, still, read that, its very informative.

[Johnnyfirs]

Want fiction set in the 100 years war? 'Azincourt' by Bernard Cornwell, he's a god of historical fiction, it's a really good book and he takes good care with his sources, at the back of the book he outlines the modern debates and books on the subjects he writes about, so if you query something he's said (Eg. if you think the Longbow is a piece of shit invented by English propaganda) then you can follow the paper-trail he lists at the back of the book of contesting theories, and see which you prefer, he (obviously, or he couldn't write his book) picks one side himself and explains why, but the historical note at the back gives you the option of making your own mind up and gives you a window into the current literature you can go find yourself.

Not getting into longbow debate here, read for yourself, make your own mind up. The story itself works on the premise that the bows did kill at close range when hitting a flat surface or join, but far from being a self-glorifying 'huzzah' of a story for British audiences it does go into more detail about the tactical disaster that led to the English being trapped in France and forced to battle a larger force, and the total failure of the siege that led to this situation (the conditions in the siege camp being arguably responsibly for Henry V's illness and death shortly after Agincourt).

Not *that* efficient? The article lists the needle bodkin as 'probable death' even against the heaviest armour tested in the table on page 22 (also the armours listed on pages 20, 18, 16, 14 and 12, so that's every armour). I've seen this article before and the method is full of enough unquantified mathematical error to make my old physics teachers cry xD so i'm not gonna turn this around and use it as proof that the longbow combined with needle bodkin was effective against even the heaviest armour (what this claims in every results table), cos i despise the scientific method even though it says what i want it to say.

*Note to OP, remember this link, if you have a good understanding of scientific process, some mathematical skill, and can simply read data off a table this could be a very useful way to bleed a thousand or so words off your assignment, there's a reason academics like finding theories to tear down, it eats lots of words and it's easy to do. You can use the paper's own data to disprove what it's conclusion says (they never expect you to actually read the data), and you can also explain why the methodology is far from perfect at the same time.

Actually if you look at my link before, you'll see that's the exact book I mentioned that I'd choose! But I'm glad you mentioned it aswell to prove my choice was right!
I'm looking very much forward to read it

[Bobthehero]

=snip=

Have you read the conclusion about the plate at least?

[Tot.]

 Warfare in the Medieval World by Brian Todd Carey - covers Crecy, Azincourt and other stuff like the evolution of warfare in medieval period in general.

PS. Don't turn this into another longbow myth discussion mess, kkthx.

[Johnnyfirs]

It's for my final year of Gymnasium (equavilent to a 4th year of high school - we start a year later than you guys).
It's a massive project which grades count as x2. It's due to around 18-26 pages (including formalia).

It should be fun, I've always liked medieval history so this should be a positive challenge, hopefully with a good reward!

[Kalam]

Crecy is an entertaining pseudo-informative pamphlet on the Hundred Years War in graphic novel form, by writer Warren Ellis. It's pro-English, as many things are, but it doesn't shy away from letting you know that what the English did in that war was deplorable.

Also fucking ranged.

They were spoiling things for melee even then.