The development of France in the 14th and 15th centuries without the Hundred Years' War?
- Thread starter CaliGuy
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in 1336, France had 16 million people (and when I say France, I say the one with its 1336 borders, not the 2016 one, in which case it would be 20-21 millions). In 1453, the country had 10 million people. Sure the black death of 1348, 1360, 1410 and 1420 caused a horrible number of deaths ( probably one third of the population in 1350!) but the war had consequences, both direct and indirect. War destoys harvests, forces the peasants to go into the woods, spreads diseases. Thus human bodies are weaker and more vulnerable when winter and the epidemics come. Normandy, according to various censuses after its reconquest in 1450, had lost 75 percents of its prewar population: a countless number of houses were empty or were inhabited by one person instead of a family of four of five. Ederly people (some of them being more than 80 years old) lived alone, in stick houses. The wolves wandered near the villages, sometimes eating children. Girls who were 15 years old and who had been defiled by sellswords ( "french" or "english") were dishonored and forced to leave their villages and to go in the cities where they had to find a way to survive (I let you guess how): they often died at 25. The religious sources or the chronicles of Thomas Basin (the future bishop of Lisieux) described all that. As for the plunder, here is an indication of its scale: basically every house in England, from the biggest to the poorest, had something which came from France: furs, dresses, jewels etc etc. France in 1450 was utterly ruined: a fracking lot of people benefited from tax exemption for a period of 5-10 years.
Plus the society, used to war, had become incredibly more violent than in 1336: there is a "funny" tale: in Paris, a Parisian laughted at a man coming Picardy because of his accent. He imitated the poor dude. The guy didn't like it and the two men fought each other... with knives. Result: one dead. So yeah. The black death couldn't be avoided but I let you guess how the situation would have been better without a HYW which ONLY happened in France. England was spared the horrors of this war (except for its coastal cities which were attacked by french privateers from time to time). No wonder that the French people hated their guts for centuries.
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England also suffered a population decline during this period, from just under 4 million people to around 2 million. The Hundred Years' War can't have helped, but France's overall population losses during this period weren't uniquely bad.
England had a specific problem in 1336: it was overpopulated to the point that the country was no more in position to feed itself. England (not including Wales) had 5,5 million people, so roughly 42 inhabitants per km2 when the agriculture until the XIXth century could roughly feed 40 inhabitants per km2 at the very most. As a consequence, if the famine of 1316 was already bad for France (bad weather for three years, hence bad harvests), it was disastrous for England. Again human bodies which are malnourished are weaker and more vulnerable to the diseases. Hence the black death in 1348 being so lethal in England (plus the plague travels by sea and hits the ports first: for an island country, I let you imagine the results). And the statement that England had 2 million people in 1453 is too much pessimistic and had been corrected by the recent historians: the consensus is now around 3 million people... before the War of the Roses. In 1483, the population had declined to 2,5 million.
And the problem with France was that each time, for an entire century, that they was a demographic growth, war and disease came to kill it. After the plague in 1348, people began to live their lives again and made a ton of babies (the sources show it). In 1360, the plague came back, the adult population was more resistant since they were the survivors of the first wave. The children were not. Hence the 1360 plague being called the "children's plague" back then. Perhaps 80 percents of the children in France who were between 1 to 12 years old died: that's an entire generation wiped out! And again, the war worsened the situation, since, like I said before, armies tended to plunder, burn or steal harvests, forced the peasants to take refuge into the woods (notably after a failed peasant revolt like in Normandy after the 1430's) where women and children had nothing to eat and were more vulnerable to the cold. Sure England suffered, sure Italy or the Low Countries suffered: the bad weather and the plagues hit everyone. But the permanent war in France worsened the situation. England didn't see its harvests burned, its apple trees and vines uprooted everytime (that was a sellsword's usual practice according to the chronicles) etc etc, except perhaps one time in 1399 when the dynasty changed.
I wouldn't be so sure about the French monarchy becoming weaker... Sure, they profited a lot from the Hundred Years War but they also had done a pretty good job at centralizing and increasing Royal power. Philip Augustus, Saint Louis and Philip the Fair had all done a pretty good job at increasing the authority of the French King and they also had given France a pretty strong administration. The French Royal Desmene was also extremly large: sure you still had a good number of strong noble houses but I think roughly half of the realm was in the hands of the crown of France by the time the Hundred Years War happened.
From my POV, the French Kings would still do their best to increase their authority and power, with or without the Hundred Years War. This might not lead to a French monarchy as strong as we got OTL because of different circumstances, but I think we can still get a pretty strong royal authority. Of course, this will actually depend on the various French Kings that will rule after the POD and how effective they are. It will also depend on how well France does when faced with the Black Plague (I doubt butterflying the HYW means France avoids the epidemic) and other potential issues such as conflicts with the English Kings for Aquitaine (not a Hundred Years War but more a dispute due the mess that comes with having the King of England be the Duke of Aquitaine and thus a technical vassal of the French King) or Flemish revolts.
Most likely yes. That being said, I wouldn't completely rule the possibility of Joanna or one of her descendants marrying into the French royal family.
Two major things factor in this: the various succession crisis that France faced from 1316 to 1328 and the fact the King of England was also Duke of Aquitaine.
Regarding the succession crisis
King Philip IV "the Fair" of France died in 1314. He left behind four children: three sons and a daughter, the latter being married to the King of England.
In 1316, the eldest of Philip IV's son, Louis X, died. He left behind a pregnant wife but no adult male heir at the moment of his death, which was a first for France and the Capetians. Louis X's widow eventually gave birth to a son, John I the Posthumous, but said boy only lived for five days. After John I's death, the succession was disputed between Louis X's daughter Joanna and his brother Philip, count of Poitiers. Joanna was eventually left on the sidelines for a number of reasons (she was a girl, she was underaged and there were suspicions on her legitimacy because her mother had been condemned for adultery) and thus Philip of Poitiers became King Philip V.
But in 1322, Philip V himself died and again left no sons behind: only four daughters. Going by the precedent established in 1316, all these daughters were put on the sidelines in favor of the last son of Philip IV, Charles IV the Fair. This was all fine and good until Charles IV himself died in 1328: like his brother Louis X, he left a pregnant wife behind but no sons. Unlike Louis X however, Charles IV's widow gave birth to a gril...
We thus arrive to the 1328 succession crisis were the following candidates were considered:
- Joanna of Navarra, the daughter of Louis X, and her husband Philip of Evreux, who was also her cousin and a nephew of Philip IV (Philip's father was Louis of Evreux, the youngest brother of Philip IV).
- Joanna of Burgundy, eldest daughter of Philip V, married to Duke Eudes IV of Burgundy. She also had a five year old son, Philip, by this point.
- One of Charles IV's daughters: I don't know which one because I know he had three daughters but I can only find information about the third one, Blanche, who was born after her father's death. I don't know or remember what happened to the first two (most likely they died young)
- Edward III of England, on the account his mother was Isabella of France, the daughter of Philip IV of France.
- Philip of Valois, nephew to King Philip IV and the closest male heir through a male line as his father, Charles of Valois, was the eldest of Philip IV's younger brothers.
In retrospect, Edward III's claim to the French throne wasn't that much valid. No matter how you look at it, the claim doesn't hold up under scrutiny, even if you invalidate Salic Law:
- Under male-preference primogeniture, the rightful heir would have been Joanna of Navarra because she was the eldest daughter of Louis X. To make this even clearer, Joanna eventually got awarded the crown of Navarra in 1328 after the death of both her uncles because she was the eldest descendant of Queen Joan I (Philip IV's wife) and because her uncles had kinda usurped the crown of Navarra from a legal point of view. You can eventually dismiss Joan's claim because of her dubious legitimacy but one 1) that wasn't necessarilly as big as it was made and 2) even then, their heir would be Joanna of Burgundy, the eldest daughter of Philip V.
- Under male-preference proximity of blood, Edward's claim was stronger because of his status as grandson of Philip IV and nephew to both Louis X, Philip V and Charles IV. But even then, it wasn't the strongest nor the more legitimate at the time: the son of Joanna of Burgundy, Philip, was arguably better placed because he was a grandson to Philip V. To make matters worse, when Edward made his claim in 1337, Joanna of Navarra had already given birth to OTL Charles II the Bad... Whose claim was by any means even stronger (grandson to Louis X).
The Aquitaine question
Ever since Eleanor of Aquitaine's marriage to Henry II of England, the Duke of Aquitaine was also the King of England. This caused a number of problems for both France and England because you had the situation of the English King being technically a vassal of the King of France in Aquitaine... And this also caused a number of territorial dispute as well as a clash of authority in the region. Which in turn naturally led to numerous localized conflicts over the years. A clash had even happened between Edward II and Charles IV shortly before the Hundred Years War.
In 1337, there was once again a conflict over Aquitaine between the King of France and the King of England. To solve the issue, Edward III basically claimed the French throne to solve the issue: if he was both King of France and England, the question of Aquitaine was solved. IMO, at the time, it was more a political stunt than a true intent to claim the throne. As pointed out earlier in the thread, Edward captured King John II of France in 1357 and didn't ask for him to surrender the crown: the subsequent treaty just gave him a larger chunk of Aquitaine.
Henry V was the only English King who seriously tried to claim the French crown and nearly succeeded because of the political context at the time. But whether or not he would have been able to keep it is another problem alltogether.
B-29_Bomber
Banned
So, some medieval bullshit mumbo-jumbo in order to give the English a vague excuse to kill some Frenchies and steal some of dat sweet sweet French land?
Two words also that must be considered when discussing the population drop. The first is "Bubonic."
The second however, is not "Plague", but "carrying capacity." That's two words. No matter. Point is that by the time the HYW starts, the population is huge for the agricultural capacities of the time. Land is under the plow in 1310 that will not be under the plow again until the 1800's. Its often not the best land, but there are so many people there is no other choice.
The plague will be a disaster due to the wars, but also due to a string of subsistence crisis in 1320s and 1330s. These famines are close to inevitable. This does not do good things for the social order and legitimacy; it's gas waiting for the flame, here provided by our old friend the Salic law.
The second however, is not "Plague", but "carrying capacity." That's two words. No matter. Point is that by the time the HYW starts, the population is huge for the agricultural capacities of the time. Land is under the plow in 1310 that will not be under the plow again until the 1800's. Its often not the best land, but there are so many people there is no other choice.
The plague will be a disaster due to the wars, but also due to a string of subsistence crisis in 1320s and 1330s. These famines are close to inevitable. This does not do good things for the social order and legitimacy; it's gas waiting for the flame, here provided by our old friend the Salic law.
A couple points;
1) medieval successions were often as much a scorecard as a rule book, ie Party A wins and the rule of succession is post-applied to fit. Most people wanted some kind of understood principle, just not the actual power players themselves. So, while the English claim was a serious stretch, it wasn't violating some sacrosanct indelible process. Later this becomes increasingly codified, but that's still a long way off.
2) that said, I personally don't think Hank Cinq had any real intention to press for the Crown before the...fluke?...of Agincourt. I think his motivations were various, but pretty standard Royal chevauchee, by which I mean Norman style diplomacy. Raid to plunder, to put pressure on the resident power to offer concessions or money (kinda like a medieval protection racket), let air out of your domestic pressures and consolidate your own rule through a demonstration of military vigour.
Before Agincourt, the Lancastrian credibility was in trouble. Henry IV had died a horrible lingering death that many, probably including himself in the end, saw as a divine judgment on his usurpation/regicide, and even before that the bloom was off his rose. Henry V himself was more popular...young kings usually are for a while...but still saw significant dangers to his rule, the Southhampton Plot being the most serious we know of. And the Agincourt campaign itself was something of a disaster up until the decisive battle, Harfleur was costlier and bloodier than expected, plunder was meh and disease beginning to take hold of the army, and Henry V was mostly trying to gtfo of French territory alive until finally cornered. In retrospect it's the moment when a convenient pretext for occasional chevauchees became something much more significant, but I'll bet Henry was as surprised as everyone else.
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From the point of view of the HYW - how different is England without it? The amount the Plantagenet monarchy got out of the chevauchee is hard to understate. It's long periods where the Anglo-Norman monarchy can send its troublesome chivalry off to cause havoc elsewhere. It's large amounts of cash for the nobility. It's also a way for Edward III to reassert royal power after the disaster of the previous reign.
And when there's no chevauchee... trouble. It hurts Richard II's legitimacy, and he gets overthrown by a man who'd had to go off to Lithuania for a good fight. So not only does France's development look different if there aren't Norman knights rampaging everywhere - England is radically different as well.
CaliGuy
Banned
Wasn't Richard II also plagued by his inability to effectively lead, though? Indeed, didn't Richard II become a tyrant in the latter years of his reign?
CaliGuy
Banned
Very interesting!
However, two questions:1. Didn't Henry IV's claim have legitimacy based on agnatic primogeniture?
2. Can anyone else here affirm your claim that Henry V strongly lucked out at Agincourt? Indeed, I'm very curious about this since I myself have never previously heard this!
CaliGuy
Banned
Question--are you suggesting that the Hundred Years' War was a good way for English and French Kings to distract their people (and nobles) from things such as the Black Plague?
Distract? It's hard to distract Medieval people, they're usually trying not to starve to death. I'm more suggesting that the chevauchee was an excellent way to keep your heavily armed nobility in check. Which if you're the English Kings, looks like a really good idea because they get feisty when they are board.
I'm more suggesting that there are serious, serious stresses on both monarchies without the HYW; yet the presence of these stressors probably make some conflagration likely. There are too many desperate people with too little agricultural production, and at some point fighting is inevitable, as is the desire to have the fighting happen somewhere else. Once people enjoy the fruits of fighting, they tend to keep fighting. I could see there being a crap show in France for some reasons during the 14th because it was primed for it.
Very interesting!
1. Didn't Henry IV's claim have legitimacy based on agnatic primogeniture?
2. Can anyone else here affirm your claim that Henry V strongly lucked out at Agincourt? Indeed, I'm very curious about this since I myself have never previously heard this!
1. He has a claim, but that would not really have quashed the stigma of overthrowing and killing an anointed King, especially being forsworn.
2. I mean fluke in the sense of a whole slew of factors lining up just right, and in the context of a tepid-at-best campaign that was rapidly degenerating with hunger, disease and discontent and one he was looking to finish asap. Not saying he wasn't an excellent commander who chose ideal terrain for his weapon system. But no one imagined the kind of game changing massacre that ensued.
Very interesting!
1. Didn't Henry IV's claim have legitimacy based on agnatic primogeniture?
2. Can anyone else here affirm your claim that Henry V strongly lucked out at Agincourt? Indeed, I'm very curious about this since I myself have never previously heard this!
On 2), I'd throw in that the English at the time beating up the French wasn't all that unknown - long bows, better command structures, and a willingness not to treat the charge as the be all and end all mean that the English winning a field battle isn't that unknown. The luck is 1) The French choosing to fight, instead of just letting the English starve and dysentery there way home, 2) The top-heaviness of the French force in terms of notables, and 3) the scale of the curb-stomping. This wasn't a Poiters ransom lottery; this decapitted the French power structure, after Charles VI's madness had rotted out a lot of the support.
CaliGuy
Banned
OK; understood.
However, why exactly would the French order all of their nobles to be in one place? Indeed, that opened up the possibility that French nobles would be captured en masse!
The reason Agincourt was such an astonishing stroke of fortune for Henry V is because the French basically bit the stupid ball so hard they nearly chocked on it. The English and French had been fighting on and off ever since William of Normandy had become King of England and generally speaking the French had come out ahead. King John had lost Normandy, Henry III lost Brittany and much of his Grandmother's inheritance in Aquitaine and despite Crecy and Poitiers Edward III had failed to reclaim all of his ancestral lands and Richard II had then lost most of what had been reclaimed. The reason wasn't just French numbers and shorter lines of communication, French mounted men at arms were the finest Heavy Cavalry in Europe and while they certainly had their weaknesses so did English Longbowmen, both were fairly one trick ponies. After Poitiers the French learned from the disaster and avoided frontal charges into English defensive positions tempted the English to fight on their terms and attacked their flanks and won at Cocherel, Pontvallain and elsewhere. And then at Agincourt they forgot everything they had learned and launched a head on attack into a prepared defensive position without support and were slaughtered. It was stupidity of an astonishing degree largely caused by the presence of pretty much the entire top tier of the French nobility all of whom wanted the glory of trouncing the English, because that's what recent experience suggested would happen. So the command structure completely broke down and thus massive stupidity.
CaliGuy
Banned
Thank you very much for all of this information!
Also, even after the humiliation at Agincourt, the French advantages were what allowed France to ultimately regroup and fight back under Joan of Arc and beyond, correct? After all, even after Agincourt, the English failed to achieve a total victory over the French in the Hundred Years' War (though Henry V's death almost certainly helped the French in regards to this)!
Derek Pullem
Donor
Not sure I'd agree with that. Rathermore it was the fundamental weakness of the English position rather than the strength of the French. A surviving Henry V may not be significantly better militarily but politically he would be in a much stronger position than his infant son.
It would be much harder for Charles and Joan to succeed if the English hold on the French throne was reasonably secure (legally). And much more unlikely that the Burgundians would desert the alliance.
It would be much harder for Charles and Joan to succeed if the English hold on the French throne was reasonably secure (legally). And much more unlikely that the Burgundians would desert the alliance.