The Angevin Empire in England and Western France

       

The Angevin Empire describes the possessions of the Angevin kings of England who held lands in England and France during the 12th and 13th centuries. Its rulers were Henry II (1154–1189), Richard the Lionheart (1189–1199), and John (1199–1216).

The Angevins were a royal house having its origin in the county of Anjou in the west of France. In the 10 years from 1144, two successive counts of Anjou in France, Geoffrey and his son, the future Henry II, won control of a vast assemblage of lands in western Europe that would last for 80 years and would retrospectively be referred to as the Angevin Empire. As a political entity this was structurally different from the preceding Norman and subsequent Plantagenet realms.

Geoffrey became Duke of Normandy in 1144 and died in 1151. In 1152 his heir, Henry, added

Aquitaine by virtue of his marriage to Eleanor of Aquitaine. Henry also inherited the claim of his

mother, Empress Matilda, the daughter of King Henry I, to the English throne, to which he succeeded

in 1154 following the death of King Stephen.

During the early years of his reign, Henry II restored the royal administration in England, re-

established hegemony over Wales and gained full control over his lands in Anjou, Maine and Touraine. Henry's desire to reform the relationship with the Church led to conflict with his former friend Thomas Becket, the Archbishop of Canterbury. This controversy lasted for much of the 1160s and resulted in Becket's murder in 1170.

The influence and power of the House of Anjou brought them into conflict with the kings of France of the House of Capet, to whom they also owed feudal homage to their French possessions, bringing in a period of rivalry between both dynasties.

At that time King of France was Louis VII. Louis VII led an ineffective war against Henry for having married without the authorization of his suzerain. The result was a humiliation for the enemies of Henry and Eleanor. In spite of Louis understanding the danger of the growing Angevin power, through indecision and a lack of fiscal and military resources in comparison to Henry II, he failed to oppose Angevin hegemony effectively.

Henry expanded his empire, at Louis' expense, taking Brittany and pushing east into central France and south into Toulouse, while the two rulers fought what has been termed a "cold war" over several decades.

 Henry and Eleanor had eight children—three daughters and five sons. Three of his sons would be king, though Henry the Young King was named his father's co-ruler rather than a stand-alone king.
As the sons grew up, tensions over the future inheritance of the empire began to emerge, encouraged by Louis and his son King Philip II. In 1173 Henry's heir apparent, "Young Henry", rebelled in protest; he was joined by his brothers Richard (later a king) and Geoffrey and by their mother, Eleanor. France, Scotland, Brittany, Flanders, and Boulogne allied themselves with the rebels. The Great Revolt was only defeated by Henry's vigorous military action and talented local commanders, many of them "new men" appointed for their loyalty and administrative skills.

Young Henry and Geoffrey revolted again in 1183, resulting in Young Henry's death. The Norman invasion of Ireland provided lands for his youngest son John (later a king), but Henry struggled to find ways to satisfy all his sons' desires for land and immediate power. By 1189, Young Henry and Geoffrey were dead, and Philip successfully played on Richard's fears that Henry II would make John king, leading to a final rebellion. Richard paid homage to Philip for the continental lands his father held then they attacked Henry together. Decisively defeated by Philip and Richard and suffering from a bleeding ulcer, Henry II retreated to Chinon castle in Anjou. He died soon afterwards and was succeeded by Richard.

Richard I was officially invested as Duke of Normandy on 20 July 1189 and crowned king in Westminster Abbey on 3 September 1189.

Richard was one of the leaders of the Third Crusade against Saladin, which never actually succeeded. King Richard and King Philip left in 1190, traveling together to Sicily. They quarreled most of the time, and then they separated, Filip leaving for Accra, and Richard stopped in Cyprus. In May 1191, Richard quarreled with the local ruler and conquered the island. He fought in the Battle of Acre and the Battle of Arsuf. In the end, as he was unable to win back Jerusalem from the Muslims, he decided to return home to England in October 1192.

King Richard left the Holy Land over a year later than Philip, and possibly could have retrieved his empire intact had he reached France soon after. However, during the crusade Leopold V, Duke of Austria, had been insulted by Richard, and so he arrested Richard near Vienna, on his journey home.
When word reached Philip that Richard had been captured on his way back from the Holy Land, he promptly invaded Normandy, reaching as far as Dieppe, and laid siege to Rouen, the ducal capital of Normandy.

In January 1193, Richard's brother, John, was summoned to Paris, where he did homage to Philip for all of Richard's lands, and promised to marry Alys with Artois as her dowry. In return, the Vexin and the castle of Gisors would be given to Philip. With the help of Philip, John went to invade England and incite rebellion against Richard's justiciars. John failed and then had worse luck when it was discovered Richard was alive, which was unknown until this point.

To prevent Richard from spoiling their plans, Philip and John attempted to bribe Holy Roman Emperor Henry VI in order to keep the English king captive for a little while longer. Henry refused, and Richard was released from captivity on 4 February 1194. By 13 March Richard had returned to England, and by 12 May he had set sail for Normandy with some 300 ships, eager to engage Philip in war.

John betrayed Philip by murdering the garrison of Évreux and handing the town down to Richard. The first part of this war was difficult for Richard who suffered several setbacks. After Philip was abandoned by some of his vassals, things changed and his army suffered a serious defeat at Gisors near Paris. By autumn 1198, Richard had regained almost all that had been lost in 1193. In desperate circumstances, Philip offered a truce so that discussions could begin towards a more permanent peace, with the offer that he would return all of the territories except for Gisors.

Richard accepted the truce in January 1199, and in Aquitaine he held more territories than he had before the war. Richard I had to deal with a revolt once again, but this time from Limousin. He was struck by a bolt in April 1199 at Châlus-Chabrol and died of a subsequent infection.

Richard produced no legitimate heirs and was succeeded by his brother John as King of England. He came to an agreement with Philip II of France to recognise John's possession of the continental Angevin lands at the peace treaty of Le Goulet in 1200.

When war with France broke out again in 1202, John achieved early victories, but shortages of military resources and his treatment of Norman, Breton, and Anjou nobles resulted in the collapse of his empire in northern France in 1204. He spent much of the next decade attempting to regain these lands, raising huge revenues, reforming his armed forces and rebuilding continental alliances. His judicial reforms had a lasting effect on the English common law system, as well as providing an additional source of revenue.

An argument with Pope Innocent III led to John's excommunication in 1209, a dispute he finally settled in 1213. John's attempt to defeat Philip in 1214 failed due to the French victory over John's allies at the battle of Bouvines. Philip's victory was crucial to the political order in England and France, and the battle was instrumental in establishing absolute monarchy in France. John lost control of most of his continental possessions, apart from Gascony in southern Aquitaine. This defeat set the

scene for further conflicts between England and France, leading up to the Hundred Years' War.
When he returned to England, John faced a rebellion by many of his barons, who were unhappy with his fiscal policies and his treatment of many of England's most powerful nobles. Although both John and the barons agreed to the Magna Carta peace treaty in 1215, neither side complied with its

conditions. Civil war broke out shortly afterwards, with the barons aided by Louis VIII of France. It soon descended into a stalemate. John died of dysentery contracted whilst on campaign in eastern England during late 1216. Supporters of his son Henry III went on to achieve victory over Louis and the rebel barons the following year.

Many historians use John's death and William Marshall's appointment as protector of nine-year-old Henry III to mark the end of the Angevin period and the beginning of the Plantagenet dynasty. Henry III continued his attempts to reclaim Normandy and Anjou until 1259, but John's continental losses and the consequent growth of Capetian power during the 13th century marked a "turning point in European history".

Seine-Oise-Marne culture in northern France and southern Belgium

         

The Seine-Oise-Marne culture is the name given by archaeologists to the final culture of the Neolithic and first culture of the Chalcolithic in northern France and southern Belgium. The Seine-Oise-Marne culture has been named because of the numerous archaeological discoveries made in the Seine, Oise and Marne basins. but this crop has spread far beyond, throughout northwestern France and southern Belgium.

It lasted from around 3100 to 2000 BC and is most famous for its gallery grave megalithic tombs which incorporate a port-hole slab separating the entrance from the main burial chamber. In the chalk valley of the River Marne rock-cut tombs were dug to a similar design. Some have examples of megalithic art with images of axes, breasts and necklaces carved on their walls.

The culture of Seine-Oise-Marne is characterized by the use of a thick pottery, rather coarse style, whose typical shape is called "pot-de-fleur" because of its resemblance with this contemporary object. This ceramic is poorly decorated, the patterns being limited to incisions or patterns scored by printing.

Diagnostic artefacts include transverse arrowheads, antler sleeves and crude, flat-based cylindrical and bucket-shaped pottery decorated with appliqué cordons. The Seine-Oise-Marne culture had trade links with neighbouring cultures enabling the use of Callaïs and Grand Pressingy flint imported from Brittany and the Loire and later, the use of copper.

The trepanation was widespread in the Paris Basin. Treated skulls were found in almost all of Allées couvertes, and many bones were found among the burial objects. Even more mysterious than the skull bore are T-shaped signs, which were dug into a number of female skulls during their lifetime. They resemble the double ax shown in a rock tomb on the Marne.

The culture seems to have had strong links with other areas and may have arisen from a composite of influences as indicated by the gallery grave design common across Europe and the pottery types which have comparators in Western France from 2600 BC and also in Brittany, Switzerland and Denmark.

The Seine-Oise-Marne culture is contemporary with the culture of corded ceramics stretching from the East of France to Russia, with which it shares enough common cultural elements so that we can consider the first as a subset of the second.

Hundred Years War (1337 - 1453)

         
The Hundred Years' War is the modern term for a series of conflicts between England and France over succession to the French throne. It lasted from 1337 to 1453, so it might more accurately be called the "116 Years' War." It was one of the most notable conflicts of the Middle Ages, in which five generations of kings from two rival dynasties, House of Plantagenet, rulers of the Kingdom of England and House of Valois, rulers of the Kingdom of France fought for the throne of the largest kingdom in Western Europe. The war marked both the height of chivalry and its subsequent decline, and the development of strong national identities in both countries.

The Hundred Years' War was divided into four phases separated by truces: the Edwardian Era War (1337–1360), ended with English victory; the Caroline War (1369–1389), ended with French victory; The 1st phase of the Lancastrian War (1415–1420), ended with English victory; and  The 2nd phase of the Lancastrian War (1420–1453), ended with French victory.

 
Tensions between the English and French thrones over continental land dated to 1066 when William, Duke of Normandy, conquered England. His descendants in England had gained further lands in France by the reign of Henry II, who inherited the County of Anjou from his father and control of the Dukedom of Aquitaine through his wife. Tensions simmered between the growing power of the French kings and the great power of their most powerful, and in some eyes equal, English royal vassal, occasionally leading to armed conflict.

King John of England lost Normandy, Anjou and other lands in France in 1204, and his son was forced to sign the Treaty of Paris ceding this land. In return he received Aquitaine and other territory to be held as a vassal of France. This was one king bowing to another, and there were further wars in 1294 and 1324, when Aquitaine was confiscated by France and won back by the English crown. As the profits from Aquitaine alone rivalled those of England, the region was important, and retained many differences from the rest of France.

The outbreak of war was motivated by a gradual rise in tension between the Kings of France and England about Guyenne, Flanders and Scotland. The dynastic question, which arose due to an interruption of the direct male line of the Capetians, was the official pretext.

Charles IV of France, the last direct Capetian King of France and King of Navarre, died in 1328, leaving a daughter and a pregnant wife. If the unborn child was male, he would become king; if not, Charles left the choice of his successor to the nobles.

By proximity of blood, the nearest male relative of Charles IV  was his nephew Edward III of England. Edward was the son of Isabella, the sister of the dead Charles IV, but the question arose whether she should be able to transmit a right to inherit that she did not herself possess. The assemblies of the French barons and prelates and the University of Paris decided that males who derive their right to inheritance through their mother should be excluded. Thus the nearest heir through male ancestry was Charles IV's first cousin, Philip, Count of Valois, and it was decided that he should be crowned Philip VI.

Edward III reluctantly recognized Philip VI and paid him homage for his French fiefs. He made concessions in Guyenne, but reserved the right to reclaim territories arbitrarily confiscated. After that, he expected to be left undisturbed while he made war on Scotland. In 1326 Charles IV renewed the treaty with Scotland, promising support if England will invade them. Similarly, the French would find Scottish support if their own kingdom was attacked. 

Philip VI assembled a large naval fleet in 1336, threatening England. To deal with this crisis, Edward proposed that the English raise two armies, one to deal with the Scots "at a suitable time", the other to proceed at once to Gascony. At the same time ambassadors were to be sent to France with a proposed treaty for the French king. At the end of April 1337, Philip of France was invited to meet the delegation from England but refused. Then, in May 1337, Philip met with his Great Council in Paris. It was agreed that the Duchy of Aquitaine, effectively Gascony, should be taken back into the king's hands on the grounds that Edward the 3rd was in breach of his obligations as vassal and had sheltered the king's 'mortal enemy' Robert d'Artois. Edward responded to the confiscation of Aquitaine by challenging Philip's right to the French throne.

This was the beginning of the first phase of the Hundred Years' War – the     Edwardian War (1337–1360).

Edward, with his fleet, sailed from England on 22 June 1340, and arrived the next day off the Zwyn estuary. The French fleet assumed a defensive formation off the port of Sluis. The English fleet apparently tricked the French into believing they were withdrawing. However, when the wind turned in the late afternoon, the English attacked with the wind and sun behind them. The French fleet was almost completely destroyed in what became known as the Battle of Sluys. England dominated the English Channel for the rest of the war, preventing French invasions.

After the battle of Sluys, Edward III landed in Normandy in July 1346 with about 10,000 men. The English army captured the completely unguarded Caen in just one day, surprising the French. Philip gathered a large army to oppose Edward, who chose to march northward toward the Low Countries, pillaging as he went, rather than attempting to take and hold territory. The battle was fought on 26 August 1346 near Crécy, in northern France. An army of English, Welsh, and allied troops from the Holy Roman Empire led by Edward the 3rd of England, engaged and defeated a much larger army of French, Genoese and Majorcan troops led by Philip VI of France. The French vanguard made contact and started to attack without the benefit of a plan. The French made as many as 15 attacks and the English checked each one in turn mainly because of the English longbowmen. At the end, the French were decimated and the English had a decisive victory. From an army of 30,000 men, the French had 2,000 men-at-arms killed.

The battle crippled the French army's ability to come to the aid of Calais, which was besieged by Edward's army the following month. Calais fell after a year-long siege and became an exclave of England, remaining under English rule until 1558.

In 1348, the Black Death began to ravage Europe. The population of France decreased from 16 to 12 million, while population of England decreased from 4 to 2 million.

In 1356, after the plague had passed and England was able to recover financially, Edward's son and namesake, the Prince of Wales, later known as the Black Prince, invaded France from Gascony, winning a great victory in the Battle of Poitiers on 19 September. French army lost 2,500 soldiers killed, and 2,000 captured, including king John the 2nd and many of his nobles. With John held hostage, his son the Dauphin (later to become Charles V of France) assumed the powers of the king as regent.
Edward wanted the crown and chose the cathedral city of Reims for his coronation. Reims was the traditional coronation city. Edward besieged the city for five weeks, but the defences held and there was no coronation.

On Easter Monday April 13 1360, Edward's army arrived at the gates of Chartres. The French defenders refused battle, instead sheltering behind their fortifications, and a siege ensued. That night a huge hail storm struck and killed an estimated 1,000 Englishmen and up to 6,000 horses. The storm was so devastating that it caused more English military casualties than any of the previous battles of the war. Edward III of England was convinced the phenomenon was a sign from God against his endeavors. 

On May 8, 1360, three weeks later, the Treaty of Brétigny was signed, marking the end of the first phase of the Hundred Years' War. In return for increased lands in Aquitaine, Edward renounced Normandy, Touraine, Anjou and Maine and set King John's ransom at 3 million crowns. Edward also abandoned his claim to the crown of France. In 1364, John II died in London, while still in honourable captivity. Charles the V succeeded him as king of France.

In May 1369, the Black Prince, son of Edward III of England, received summons from the French king demanding his presence in Paris. The Black Prince answered that he would go to Paris with sixty thousand men behind him. War broke out again and Edward the III resumed the title of King of France, while Charles V declared that all the English possessions in France were forfeited. 

This was the beginning of the second phase of the Hundred Years' War – the Caroline War (1369–1389), so-named after Charles the V of France, who resumed the war nine years after the Treaty of Brétigny.

With his health continuing to deteriorate, the Black Prince returned to England in January 1371, where by now his father Edward the III was elderly and also in poor health. The prince's illness was debilitating, and he died on 8 June 1376. Edward the 3rd died the following year on 21 June 1377. He was succeeded by the Black Prince's second son Richard the II, who was still a child.

Richard faced many challenges during his reign, including the Peasants' Revolt led by Wat Tyler in 1381 and an Anglo-Scottish war in 1384–85. His attempts to raise taxes to pay for his Scottish adventure and for the protection of Calais against the French made him increasingly unpopular.

Charles the V resumed the war in favorable conditions. France, after all, was still the foremost kingdom in Western Europe. French army continued a series of careful campaigns, avoiding major English field forces, but capturing town after town, including Poitiers in 1372 and Bergerac in 1377.
In 1372, English command of the sea, which had been kept since the Battle of Sluys, came to an end by their disastrous defeat by a joint Franco-Castilian fleet at the Battle of La Rochelle in the Bay of Biscay. This defeat undermined English seaborne trade and supplies and isolated their Gascon possessions. By the time of Charles V death in 1380, the English only held Calais. Charles V was succeeded by his underage son, Charles the VI, who was placed under the joint regency of his three uncles.

Charles VI, made peace with the son of the Black Prince, Richard II, in 1389. This truce was extended many times until the war was resumed in 1415. In the meantime Charles VI of France was descending into madness and an open conflict for power began between his cousin John the Fearless and his brother, Louis of Orléans.

The domestic and dynastic difficulties faced by England and France in this period quieted the war for a decade. Henry the IV of England died in 1413 and was replaced by his eldest son Henry the V. Charles VI of France's mental illness allowed his power to be exercised by royal princes whose rivalries caused deep divisions in France. Henry V was well aware of these divisions and hoped to exploit them. 

Henry V made territorial claims in France, and also demanded the hand of Charles VI's youngest daughter Catherine of Valois. The French rejected his demands, leading Henry to prepare for war.
This was the beginning of the 3rd phase of the war, Lancastrian War (1415–1453), who can also be divided in 2 phases.

In August 1415, Henry V sailed from England with a force of about 10,500 and laid siege to Harfleur. After the city surrendered on 22 September 1415, Henry started a raiding expedition across France toward English-occupied Calais. During his march the French army of 20,000 was able to position itself between Henry and Calais, near Agincourt, north of the Somme. Henry used a narrow front channeled by woodland to give his heavily outnumbered force a chance. The French deployed in three lines. The first line of French knights attacked only to be repulsed by the English longbowmen. The second line attacked and was beaten back, their charge bogged down by the mud on the field. The third line moved to engage but lost heart when they crossed the field covered with French dead; they soon retreated. Henry was left with control of the battlefield and a decisive victory.

Henry ordered the slaughter of what were perhaps several thousand French prisoners, sparing only the most high ranked. According to most chroniclers, Henry's fear was that the prisoners who outnumbered their captors would realize their advantage in numbers, rearm themselves with the weapons strewn about the field and overwhelm the exhausted English forces.

Henry retook much of Normandy, including Caen in 1417, and Rouen on 19 January 1419, turning Normandy English for the first time in two centuries. A formal alliance was made with the Duchy of Burgundy, which had taken Paris after the assassination of Duke John the Fearless in 1419. In 1420, Henry met with King Charles VI. They signed the Treaty of Troyes, by which Henry finally married Charles' daughter Catherine of Valois and Henry's heirs would inherit the throne of France. The Dauphin, Charles VII, was declared illegitimate.

Henry V of England died on 31 August 1422, leaving only one heir, his nine-month-old son, Henry, later to become Henry VI. Also, the elderly and insane Charles VI of France died two months later, on 21 October 1422. The war in France continued with English victories. The English won an emphatic victory at the Battle of Verneuil, (17 August 1424). The archers fought to devastating effect against the Franco-Scottish army. The effect of the battle was to virtually destroy the Dauphin's field army and to eliminate the Scots as a significant military force for the rest of the war.

Everything changed after appearance of Joan of Arc. Joan of Arc (1412-1431) nicknamed "The Maid of Orléans", said she received visions of the Archangel Michael, Saint Margaret, and Saint Catherine of Alexandria instructing her to support CharlesVII and recover France from English domination. The uncrowned King Charles VII sent Joan to the siege of Orléans as part of a relief mission. She gained prominence after the siege was lifted only nine days later.

Inspired by Joan, the French took several English strongholds on the Loire. The English retreated from the Loire Valley, pursued by a French army. Near the village of Patay, French cavalry broke through a unit of English longbowmen that had been sent to block the road, then swept through the retreating English army. The English lost 2,200 men, and the commander, John Talbot, 1st Earl of Shrewsbury, was taken prisoner. This victory opened the way for the Dauphin to march to Reims for his coronation as Charles VII, on 16 July 1429.

Manwhile, Henry VI was crowned king of England at Westminster Abbey on 5 November 1429 and king of France at Notre-Dame, in Paris, on 16 December 1431. Joan of Arc was captured by the Burgundians at the siege of Compiegne on 23 May 1430. The Burgundians transferred her to the English, who organised a trial headed by Pierre Cauchon, Bishop of Beauvais and member of the English Council at Rouen. Joan was convicted and burned at the stake on 30 May 1431. In 1456, an inquisitorial court authorized by Pope Callixtus III examined the trial, debunked the charges against her, pronounced her innocent, and declared her a martyr.

After the death of Joan of Arc, the fortunes of war turned dramatically against the English. In September 1435 , Philip III, duke of Burgundy, deserted to Charles VII, signing the Treaty of Arras that returned Paris to the King of France. This was a major blow to English sovereignty in France.

The long truces that marked the war gave Charles time to centralise the French state and reorganise his army and government, replacing his feudal levies with a more modern professional army that could put its superior numbers to good use. A castle that once could only be captured after a prolonged siege would now fall after a few days from cannon bombardment. The French artillery developed a reputation as the best in the world.

In 1449, an English force sacked and looted Fougères in Brittany. Charles VII, declared himself no longer bound by the terms of the truce. His forces rapidly overran Normandy during 1449-1450. After French victory at Rouen in October 1449, Charles VII continues the French offensive and presses the English back into the town of Formigny. On 15 April 1450, French artillary blasts away at most of the English army and the English are badly defeated losing more than 4,000 men out of a force of 5,000. With no other significant English forces in Normandy, the whole region quickly fell to the victorious French.

After Charles VII successful Normandy campaign in 1450, he concentrated his efforts on Gascony, the last province held by the English. Bordeaux, Gascony's capital, was besieged and surrendered to the French on 30 June 1451. Largely due to the English sympathies of the Gascon people, this was reversed when John Talbot and his army retook the city on 23 October 1452. However, the English were decisively defeated at the Battle of Castillon on 17 July 1453, losing 4,000 men. English authority in Gascony eroded and the French retook Bordeaux on 19 October 1453.

Henry VI of England lost his mental capacity in late 1453, which led to the outbreak of the Wars of the Roses in England. The English Crown lost all its continental possessions except for the Pale of Calais, which was the last English possession in mainland France, and the Channel Islands, historically part of the Duchy of Normandy and thus of the Kingdom of France. Calais was finally lost in 1558, while The Channel Islands have remained British Crown Dependencies.

England and France remained formally at war for another 20 years until the Treaty of Picquigny (1475). The treaty formally ended the Hundred Years' War with Edward renouncing his claim to the throne of France. However, future Kings of England (and later of Great Britain) continued to claim the title until 1803, when they were dropped in deference to the exiled Count of Provence, titular King Louis XVIII of France, who was living in England after the French Revolution.