Some Useful Works on the Hundred Years' War

The object here is to provide a general reading list, rather than an exhaustive one. Scholarly works are numerous, but likely to be dense, unavailable, and of limited use.

Introductory: The best general introduction to the period is Barbara Tuchman's A Distant Mirror (many editions). It was upon reading this book that Jim Dunnigan got the idea for creating the Hundred Years War game (all the way back in the late 1970s.)

General Political: If you really want to get into it, nothing beats the relevant portions of The Cambridge Medieval History

The following are rather less ambitious, but useful in various ways.

-Allmond, Christopher, The Hundred Years War (1988), probably the best general treatment.

-Fowler, Kenneth, The Age of Plantagenet and Valois (1967)

-Fowler, Kenneth, ed., The Hundred Years War (1971);

-Palmer, J. J. N., England, France and Christendom, 1377-1399 (1972)

-Perroy, Edouard, The Hundred Years War (1967)

-Seward, Desmond, The Hundred Years War (1982).

For anyone interested in the gory details of royal finance and power in the period, see John B. Henneman's Royal Taxation in Fourteenth-Century France (1976)

Military:

For general surveys of the military system of the day, one can't go wrong by consulting

-Contamine, Philippe, War in the Middle Ages (1984)

-Oman, Charles, A History of the Art of War in the Middle Ages, two volumes (1924 and many reprints since)

For organization, hardware, fortifications, and the like, try

-Blair, Claude, European Armour, circa 1066 to circa 1700 (1959)

-Braun, Hugh, The English Castle (1943)

-Hewitt, H.J., The Organization of War under Edward III, 1338-1367 (1966)

-Ian Heath, Armies of the Middle Ages: The HYW, Wars of the Roses, and the Burgundian Wars, 1300-1487 (Wargames Research Group, 1982) is a marvellous work for coats of arms of the French, Gascons, and English.

Some useful specific studies of particular campaigns and battles are

-Burne, Alfred H., The Crecy War: A Military History of the Hundred Years War from 1337 to the Peace of Bretigny, 1360 (1955) and The Agincourt War: A Military History of the Hundred Years War from 1369 to 1453 (1956)

-Hewitt, H.J., The Black Prince's Expedition of 1355-1357 (1958)

-Hibbet, Christopher, Agincourt (1986)

-Keegan, John, The Face of Battle (1976)

-Newall, Richard A., The English Conquest of Normandy, 1416-1424 (1924)

Although scholarly works and source books are generally dense, one wonderful old book on Agincourt is worthy of note, Nichol's Battle of Agincourt, reissued in 1974.

Biographies: There are loads of these, but not all are particularly valuable.

-Barber, Richard, Edward Prince of Wales and Aquitaine: A Biography of the Black Prince (1978)

-Earle, Peter, The Life and Times of Henry V (1972)

-Emerson, Barbara, The Black Prince (1976).

-Harriss, G.L., Henry V (1985)

-Labarge, Margaret Wade, Henry V (1975);

-Lightbody, Charles W., The Judgements of Joan (1960)

-Longman, W., History of the Life and Times of Edward the Third, two volumes, (1869; repr. 1979)

-Lucie-Smith, Edward, Joan of Arc (1977)

-MacKinnon, James, History of Edward the Third: 1327-1377 (1900; repr. 1974).

-Michelet, Jules, Joan of Arc (1957)

-Packe, M., King Edward III (1983).

-Pernoud, Regine, Joan of Arc By Herself and Her Witnesses (1969)

-Sackville-West, Victoria, Saint Joan of Arc (1936)

-Seward, Desmond, Henry V (1988).

-Wood, Richard, Joan of Arc and Richard III (1988).