The Battle of Crécy
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the brutal 1346 conflict between the French army, led by Philip VI, and the English, under Edward III, after years of simmering tension.
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the brutal events of 26 August 1346, when the armies of France and England met in a funnel-shaped valley outside the town of Crécy in northern France.
Although the French, led by Philip VI, massively outnumbered the English, under the command of Edward III, the English won the battle, and French casualties were huge. The English victory is often attributed to the success of their longbowmen against the heavy cavalry of the French.
The Battle of Crécy was the result of years of simmering tension between Edward III and Philip VI, and it led to decades of further conflict between England and France, a conflict that came to be known as the Hundred Years War.
With
Anne Curry
Emeritus Professor of Medieval History at the University of Southampton
Andrew Ayton
Senior Research Fellow in History at Keele University
and
Erika Graham-Goering
Lecturer in Late Medieval History at Durham University
Producer Luke Mulhall
Last on
LINKS AND FURTHER READING
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READING LIST
Andrew Ayton and Philip Preston, The Battle of Crécy, 1346 (Boydell, 2005)
Richard Barber, Edward III and the Triumph of England. The Battle of Crécy and the Company of the Garter (Allen Lane, 2013)
Anne Curry, The Hundred Years War (2nd edn, Red Globe Press, 2003)
Anne Curry (ed.), The Hundred Years War Revisited (Red Globe Press, 2019)
Erika Graham-Goering, Princely Power in Late Medieval France. Jeanne de Penthièvre and the War for Brittany (Cambridge University Press, 2020)
Peter Hoskins with Richard Barber, Crécy 1346: A Tourists’ Guide (Pen & Sword, 2016)
Marilyn Livingstone and Morgen Witzel, The Road to Crécy. The English Invasion of France, 1346 (Pearson Longman, 2005)Ìý
W. Mark Ormrod, Edward III (Yale University Press, 2011)
David Potter (ed.), France in the Later Middle Ages (Oxford University Press, 2002)
Michael Prestwich, A Short History of the Hundred Years War (I.B. Tauris, 2018)
Clifford J. Rogers, War Cruel and Sharp: English Strategy under Edward III, 1327-1360 (Boydell, 2000)
Graeme Small, Late Medieval France (Palgrave Macmillan, 2009)
Jonathan Sumption, The Hundred Years War, Volume 1: Trial by Battle (Faber & Faber, 1990)
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RELATED LINKS
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Centre Historique Crécy La Bataille, Crécy-en-Ponthieu
Broadcasts
- Thu 13 Apr 2023 09:00±«Óãtv Radio 4
- Thu 13 Apr 2023 21:30±«Óãtv Radio 4
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