The League of Franche-Comté (1)

Otto IV, Count of Burgundy (1248-1302). His highly personalised style of armour is derived from a series of sketches commissioned by his wife for Otto's tomb in 1312, a decade after his death. The tomb hasn't survived, but the sketches have, so it appears Otto really did wear a metal lizard on his head.

Described as of weak character, spendthrift and debauched (sounds like fun), Otto had little interest in being a count and in 1295 sold Burgundy to Philip IV for a lump sum of 100,000 livres tournois and an annual fee of 10,000 livres in rents. This enabled him to live as Philip's pensioner at the French court, and be as debauched as he pleased with zero responsibility.

When the nobles of Franche-Comté (eastern Burgundy) learned that Otto had flogged his inheritance - and hence their independence - to the king of France, they formed a solemn league and covenant and declared they would never swear homage to Philip or his heirs, or give up their rights to the French crown.

Origins of conflict

Some shrewd remarks from Dr Malcolm Vale on the early stages of the Hundred Years War:

‘To describe a conflict as ‘futile’ or ‘useless’ may be to place too high a value upon the efficacy of war as a solvent to political problems. Medieval wars were not fought solely for political, economic or material gain. A society which set a high value upon lavish gift-giving and exchange, and upon what later generations have seen as a ‘conspicuous waste’ and conscious dissipation of resources, was unlikely to have much room for more recent notions of political and diplomatic gain. Warfare commenced when diplomacy failed. Diplomacy was conducted in a highly legalistic manner, and the points at issue in this extended lawsuit tended to focus upon rights and status as well as income and revenues. We should not underestimate the defence of honour or the realization of claims to certain titles, rights and privileges as motivating factors leading to the outbreak of open and public war during this period. Warfare was both a demonstration of right and a gesture, symptomatic of more general tendencies within later medieval society. However misguided and deluded we may believe the rulers of this period and their advisors to have been in seeking to resolve conflicts by force of arms, the relative weakness of diplomatic alternatives must always be borne in mind. Princes were conditioned to believe in the justificatory, and even cathartic nature of war as a positive force in human affairs.’

Vale was speaking of the Anglo-French war of 1294-98, but his comments can equally well be applied to later stages of the HYW. There is a recent argument that the war was a complete waste of time from an English view, and a shocking dissipation of manpower and resources. That is to apply some very convenient hindsight, and to judge the conflict via modern perceptions of ‘gain’.

It certainly wasn’t the view of the inhabitants of Gascony, the last major English possession in France. The Gascons went through hell and high water on behalf of the Plantagenets; to suggest they ought to have been abandoned to their fate, simply to avoid ‘waste’, is a rather Anglocentric perspective:

‘The war effort did not collapse and financial stringency apparently had little effect upon the determination of many Gascons to support the Plantagenets to the bitter end. Many of them - the dispossessed and disinherited nobles, had nothing more to lose. England certainly spent large sums of money on Gascony, but many of the duchy’s inhabitants abandoned their lands and possessions, endured imprisonment and underwent exile in return’.

 

Big Phil

The armour worn by Philip IV at the Battle of Mons-en-Pévèle in 1304. Looks a bit later 14th century to me, but I'm guessing kings got all the best stuff before anyone else.

Ah, Big Phil. Stole Gascony and Ponthieu from the English, stole Flanders from the Flemish, twice expelled the Jews after seizing their assets, gutted his Italian creditors and then threw them out of France, had the Knights Templar tortured to death on false charges of heresy and sodomy, had his men assault the pope, tortured men and women in public, exploited and abandoned his Scottish allies, debased the French currency, and had a good old laugh about it all. Quite a good medieval king, as medieval kings went.

Spiked clubs

The goedendag (also rendered godendac, godendard, godendart, and sometimes conflated with the related plançon) was a weapon originally used by the militias of Medieval Flanders in the 14th century. This multi-purpose butcher's tool was essentially a combo of club and spear, a wooden staff three to five feet long, wider at one end, with a sharp metal spike inserted into this end. Ideal for men who couldn't afford expensive kit.

At the Battle of Courtrai in 1302, Flemish militia armed with the goedendag slaughtered hundreds of armoured French knights. That showed 'em.

Seeds of the Hundred Years War

Deep in the bowels of the Archives Nationales in Paris is a document dating from 1294. It is written in Old French and has holes for sealing cords, long since rotted away. The document bears the endorsement ‘Non est ibi sigillum’ and the words (in a later hand):

“Certain conventions which the king of England’s men requested before the war, but the lord king [Philip le Bel] refused to consent to them.”

This is the original secret treaty implemented by Edmund of Lancaster, Edward I’s younger brother, in an effort to avoid war with France. The terms offered by Edmund are clearly laid out:

1) In exchange for peace, King Edward would marry Philip’s sister, Margaret of France.

2)The firstborn son of this union and his heirs would hold Gascony in perpetuity.

3) Edward’s subjects in Gascony would no longer be allowed to appeal to the French king in Paris if they rejected the justice of the English king-duke.

The treaty reveals the extent to which the Plantagenets were prepared to go to hold onto the remnants of the Angevin empire. In return for peace with France, Edward offered to take Gascony out of the direct line of succession. Instead the duchy would be held by a younger half-brother of his heir, the future Edward II. This meant that future kings of England would no longer have to perform the humiliating ritual of homage and fealty to the kings of France in Paris. It also meant the Capetian kings would not be able to cook up any excuses for invading Gascony: the child of Edward and Margaret would be of mixed Plantagenet and Capetian blood, and thus acceptable to all parties. Philip himself could hardly object to his own nephew as Duke of Gascony.

In return for this concession, Edward sought to take Gascony out of the legal orbit of Paris. The French royal pennonceaux, symbolic of Capetian protection and safeguard, would no longer fly over the castles, town-houses or maison-fortes in Gascony. Edward’s policy failed thanks to the duplicity of Phillip, who privately promised to abide by the terms of the treaty and then broke them in public.

The English king was perfectly aware of what would happen in the future: unless legal ties with Paris were severed, the French would seize upon one pretext after another to invade Gascony and drive the English from their last land holdings in France. And so it proved: the duchy was invaded repeatedly over the next 150 years, until the French finally conquered it in the reign of Henry VI.