The Life and Campaigns of the Black Prince: From Contemporary Letters, Diaries and Chronicles, Including Chandos Herald's Life of the Black Prince

by Richard Barber

Book Overview

Letters, reports, campaign diaries and the chronicles of Geoffrey le Baker and Chandos Herald document the life and dazzling exploits of the legendary Black Prince.

Edward of Woodstock, eldest son of Edward III, known as the Black Prince, is one of those heroes of history books so impressive as to seem slightly unreal. At sixteen he played a leading part in the fighting at Cr cy; at twenty-six he captured the king of France at Poitiers; and...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0851154697
• ISBN13: 9780851154695
• Release Date: August 2002
• Publisher: Boydell Press
• Length: 148 Pages
• Weight: 0.65 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.5" x 5.4" x 8.4"

Customer Reviews

One of the best primary sources of the Hundred Years War

Read this for graduate history course in medieval history. Richard Barber's edited works of "The Life and Campaigns of the Black Prince," is one of the best primary sources of the fourteenth-century. Unlike many historians' accounts, Edward's prose make for an engaging read. Edward's writings may be short on the type of battlefield details that modern historians yearn for; however, they are rich in explaining some of the tactical decision-making made by Edward III before and during the Crécy campaign. The Black Prince noted that Edward III's purpose for the invasion of France, which started the military action in the Hundred Years War, was to conduct a chevauchée, which was essentially a procession of the army through the countryside that pillaged as it traveled. Edward III then intended to use his superior mobility to make his escape up the coast to Flanders without having to fight a major battle with the numerically superior French forces. However, Crécy was the sight of the first major battle of The Hundred Years' War and was a rousing success for the invading English army of Edward III. The battle, which took place on just two days in August of 1346, was emblematic of the tactical successes that the British enjoyed at the battles of Poitiers and Agincourt. The book accounts the skill and courage that the Black Prince and his men fought with as they fended off several waves of French attacks on that day and the next day as well. The book has an excellent account about the sixteen-year-old Black Prince's baptism by fire in battle. "There he learnt that knightly skill which he later put to excellent use at the battle of Poitiers, where he captured the French king." Although heavily outnumbered, Edward III's longbow men were the force multiplier that garnered a stunning victory for the British over the French. Most estimates of the longbow tactics used in the battle state the over one-half million arrows fired by the English easily cut down the French cavalry. Thus, the longbow, and the brilliant way in which it was employed, was responsible for the lopsided casualty figures of the battle. Although casualty figures are somewhat unreliable, most sources put the French losses at one-third of the French nobility-about 12,000 men in all, against the English losses of 150 to 1,000 total. Froissart sums up the mastery of the longbow men and the tactics they employed turning them into a weapon of mass destruction and a force multiplier. "They were some of the finest, most highly trained and militarily efficient troops that any nation ever put into the field of battle." The battle of Crécy taught all the armies of Europe that the longbow would reign as the supreme weapon in battle for the next 100 years. Ten years later in 1356, and a few years after the ravages of the Black Death, the Black Prince conducted and won the most valuable battle of the Hundred Year's War, at Poitiers. The Black Prince won a stunning victory over King J