Grand Super Cycle National Bankruptcies

Part V

The Hundred Years War and The Black Death

 

By

 

Joseph M. Miller

jmiller585@mchsi.com

 

Daan Joubert

daanj@kingsley.co.za

 

Marion Butler

juneb01@msn.com

 

“Ring a-round the rosy,

Pocket full of posies,

Ashes, ashes!

We all fall down!”

- 14^th century nursery rhyme

 

URLs for previous articles in this series are provided at the end.

 

Following the end of the Dark Ages in 1000 AD, Europe enjoyed three centuries of progress, representing the first Grand Super Cycle after the fall of Rome.  This was followed by one of the most calamitous epochs in Western history in the 14^th century.  This article, Part V of the series, will examine the 14^th century decline, focusing on the Hundred Years War and the Black Death.

 

Monetary Systems of the Early 14^th Century

 

ENGLAND:  The British pound sterling, equal to 240 silver pence, originally weighed one troy pound of sterling silver.  Following a debasement in 1275, the British pound contained 323.7 grams pure silver (see Table 1 below).  Denominations were:

- 1 pound (L)   = 20 shillings  = 240 pence

- 1 shilling (s)    = 12 pence

            - 1 penny (d)    = 1.46 grams in weight (1.35 grams pure silver)

 

Table 1. The English Penny and Pound Sterling  (7: p.2)

 

Conversion table of troy to metric weights is available at end of article.  

 

FRANCE: Denominations were:  1 livre tournois (l.t.) = 20 sols (s) = 240 denier (d)

Before the Hundred Years War, 1 British pound was equivalent to approximately 4.67 l.t. (see note at end of article for explanation).  French debasements during the war were more frequent and severe than in England. 

 

ITALY:  1 florin (Florence) or 1 ducat (Genoa and Venice) = 3.5 grams gold.

1 florin was equal to 3 English shillings (36d).  (Note: the gold:silver ratio in Florence was 13.62 in 1324.  During the first half of the 14^th century the ratio fluctuated between 11 and 13 in England and France.  See Part VIII: Appendix III for more details.)

 

Europe in 1300

 

“While political power centralized during the 12^th and 13^th centuries, the energies and talents of Europe were gathering in one of civilization’s great bursts of development.  Stimulated by commerce, a surge took place in art, technology, building, learning, exploration by land and sea, universities, cities, banking and credit, and every sphere that enriched life and widened horizons.” (3: Tuchman, p.9)

 

The population of Europe in the early 1300s was about 60 million.  France was the most populous nation with 16 million, while Italy had about 10 million people and England had about 4 million.  The largest European cities were Paris, Venice, Genoa, and Florence, with about 100,000 inhabitants each.  In England, with a quarter the population of France, only York and London had more than over 10,000 inhabitants. London, the largest, contained about 40,000 people.  (3: Tuchman, p.96)

 

Italian city-states such as Florence, Venice, and Genoa were the most modern states of Europe, with a rising middle class and republican forms of government.  Genoa and Venice had become powerful mini-empires.  Genoa controlled Sardinia, Corsica, Lesbos and Chios in the Aegian, and numerous colonies on the coasts of Spain, Africa, and the Black Sea.  Venice controlled the Dalmatian coast, Euboea and other sections of Greece, and numerous colonies throughout the Mediterranean.  From these widespread bases, Genoa and Venice controlled much of the trade in the Mediterranean, and brought great wealth into Italy.

 

This influx of wealth allowed the Italian states to mint gold coins starting in the mid-13^th century: Genoa and Florence starting in 1252 and Venice starting in 1284.  These were the first European gold coins produced since the 8th century, and the quantities produced were impressive.  During the first two centuries of Venetian gold coinage, annual production ranged from a low of 600,000 ducats to a high of 1.2 million ducats - figures equivalent to 1/4 to 1/2 of annual gold coin production of the Roman Empire in the second century (1.1 million aurii average at 7.8 grams/aureus)  (4: Duncan-Jones, p.167).  This huge gold monetary base allowed the development of large banking operations in the Italian city-states, on a scale capable of financing the high cost of military operations that would occur in the Hundred Years War.    

 

State Revenues and General Costs

 

Feudal kings were expected to operate their governments, under normal circumstances, from their own personal revenues.  This caused huge fiscal problems as feudal states evolved into modern states requiring large bureaucracies.  On a positive note, feudal kings in wartime could call upon their great vassals, Dukes and Earls, who controlled substantial revenue and human resources on their own account.   

 

French royal revenue was typically 400,000 l.t. to 600,000 l.t in the early 14^th century, with a low of 260,000 l.t in 1336 (1: Sumption, pp.24 &160).  England’s revenue consisted of L15-20,000 of Edward III’s royal revenue, and customs duties of L13,000.  In addition, Edward had L13,000 revenue as Duke of Aquitaine (serving as a French vassal) (1:Sumption, pp.46 & 72) .

 

To put these figures in perspective, daily wages of English craftsmen in 1351 were 3d for carpenters, 3.5d for thatchers (roofers) and 4d for master masons.  Thatchers’ wages from 1311 to 1501 are shown in Table 2 below. (5: Hodges, pp.9-10). 

 

Table 2. Daily wages of an English Thatcher in pence and silver grams

 

Medieval civilian wages were nearly identical to their ancient counterparts, and this was also true of the military.  In 1346, English military wages per day were: infantry earned 2d; archers earned 3d; mounted archers and armored infantry earned 6d.  A knight’s daily wage in 1316 was 2s  (5: Hodges, p.9).   This makes it fairly easy to comprehend military-related financial stress in medieval times, compared with the ancient examples described in Parts II to IV of this series.

 

Medieval navies used oared galleys not unlike ancient warships, although costs were higher in the Middle Ages.  A medieval 60-oar galley cost 800 l.t. to build (about 1,782 ounces silver), and wages to man it were 2,280 l.t for an 8-month sailing season (about 635 ounces silver per month). (1: Sumption, p.174).  (The 85-oar Greek trireme was cheaper to build but more expensive to man.)  

 

Medieval navies also utilized merchant sailing ships, allowing for great economy of force, since large standing navies were not essential.  The downside, of course, was that use of the merchant marine in a protracted war would reduce the amount of shipping engaged in trade.  Edward’s navy consisted of three sailing ships in 1336, the largest of which, the Cog Edward, cost L450 (4,682 ounces silver) (1: Sumption, p.175).  When merchant ships were impressed into service by England, owners were compensated at the rate of 3s 4d per ton per quarter (1: Sumption, p.176).

 

Introduction to the Hundred Years War

 

This article is only concerned with the financial and economic impact of the war.  For readers interested in historical details, a good website is:

www.100yearswar.co.uk/.  Maps of France at various stages of the war are located at:

www.boisestate.edu/course/hy309/topics/100yw/100yw.maps.html

 

The Hundred Years War was actually a series of wars separated by uneasy truce periods.  The war can be organized into two phases, the first lasting from 1337 to 1396, and the second lasting from 1413 to 1453.  We are only concerned with the first phase, which served as one cause of the 14^th century European economic decline.  The first phase of the war consists of the Sluys Period (1337-1343), a truce (1343-1345), the Crecy Period (1345-1347), the Truce of Calais (1347-1354), the Poitiers Period (1355-1360), the Peace of Bretigny (1360-1367), and the Du Guesclin Period (1368-1396).  The Du Guesclin Period contained ill-observed truce periods from 1375-1383 and 1389-1396.  The Truce of Paris in 1396, separating the two phases of the war, lasted until 1413. 

 

There were three principle causes of the war (8: Dupuy, p.353):

 

1. Edward III was both sovereign of England and vassal of France.  He disliked his subordinate role, and Philip VI of France feared Edward might consolidate his French holdings under the English crown.

 

2. French hegemony in Flanders was threatened by growing commercial relations between the Flemish and English.  The wool trade accounted for half of England’s wealth, and much of this trade was with Flemish burghers and weavers. 

 

3. French influence in Scotland.

 

In 1336 Flemish ports and ships were used by the French to attack the English coast and shipping, and to aid Scotland.  England retaliated by stopping all wool and leather exports to Flanders, where the economy was entirely dependant on English wool.    “The economic damage done to England was grave enough, but in Flanders the effect was catastrophic…. Textile workers were passing through the country begging for bread in roadside villages sometimes as far afield as Tournai and northern France.  In the new year, public order began to break down in Ghent and Bruges.“ (1: Sumption, p.189)   In the end, Edward’s measures brought the Flemish into his alliance against France.

 

Sluys Period: 1337 - 1343

 

War commenced after Philip announced forfeiture of Edward’s fiefs south of the Loire River.  Philip invaded Edward’s French territory with about 12,000 men while Edward raided northern France.  There was plenty of bloody fighting in the early years of the war, but only one decisive battle - the Battle of Sluys, at the entrance to Sluys harbor, in 1340.  Edward’s fleet, less than 160 ships, annihilated the French fleet of 213 vessels, capturing 190 of them.  French deaths in the battle were 16-18,000.    

 

By the middle of 1340 Edward was bankrupt - deeply in debt, unable to borrow more, and unable to pay even his personal household expenses.  “On 24 July 1340 the Earls of Northumberland, Derby and Warwick, who had guaranteed some of the King’s past debts, were arrested in Brussels and taken to a debtor’s prison.” (1: Sumption, p.344).   With both sides financially incapacitated, England and France signed a truce but remained in conflict from 1341 to 1343 by supporting opposing sides in a dynastic war in Brittany.   

 

Through 1341 the war had cost England a total of L500,000.  “In three years the King had borrowed some L400,000 and levied taxation on a scale so great as to bring parts of the country to the edge of rebellion.  The financial history of the following years was a story of disorderly repayments to those of the creditors who were secured or too powerful to offend.  The earls of Derby and Warwick remained in captivity at Mechelin until May 1341.  The Great Crown of England was not redeemed until 1345.” (1: Sumption, p.363).  Much of Edward’s financing had come from Florentine banking firms - an estimated 600,000 – 900,000 florins from the Bardi, and two-thirds that amount from the Peruzzi, secured by anticipated wool taxes.  Receipts were insufficient to pay the loan, and Edward defaulted, bankrupting his creditors.  “The Peruzzi failed in 1343, the Bardi suspended a year later, and their crash brought down a third firm, the Acciovoli.  Capital vanished, stores and workshops closed, wages and purchases stopped.” (3: Tuchman, p.81)

 

The war caused greater financial strain in France, which had maintained a larger army and navy than England.  French war taxes were high, and Philip also resorted to massive debasement of the coinage.  “The silver coinage was devalued in February 1337 and December 1338 and three times in 1340, representing a total reduction of 60 per cent of its nominal value.  The monnayage (the proportion of the silver value which was taken by the King as a coinage fee) rose to 25 per cent in the spring of 1340.” (1: Sumption, p.366)   In addition to these costs, individual French towns spent large amounts for hastily constructed defensive works, with Reims, for example, spending 10,000 l.t from 1337 to 1340.

 

“On top of all this came direct damage done by troops.  The horrifying wastage of the Thierache by Edward III in the autumn of 1339 and by John of Hainault in the following spring had a profound impact.  The scale and system of these destructive expeditions was relatively new to western European warfare.  In the summer of 1340 the province of Artois lost two border towns, Aire and Arques, both razed to the ground by Flemish armies.  Three substantial towns of the Tournaisis were wiped out during the seven-week siege of Tournai, one of them (Saint-Amand), for a recognizable political object, the others for loot and entertainment.  These places were at the epicenter of the earthquake.  Lessor tremors spread outward over long distances: from the carnage at Sluys to Dieppe and other Norman towns which lost many of their adult menfolk… Not all of the destruction was the work of the enemy.  Towns like Saint-Omer, Aire and Lille had to destroy their own suburbs on the approach of the enemy.  They were often the newest and richest districts.  When the King of England landed at Antwerp in 1338 orders went out to all French officials to break every river bridge and causeway in the frontier provinces by which the invaders might pass.” (1: Sumption, pp. 367-8)

 

Crecy Period: 1345-1347

 

The war in Brittany renewed in 1345 and France invaded Edward’s French territory in 1346.  Edward reached Normandy in July 1346 with 3,000 heavy cavalry (knights and men-at-arms), some 3,000 of their squires and retainers, 10,000 English archers, and 4,000 Welsh infantry, some of whom were also bowmen.  Edward marched to the outskirts of Paris, pillaging along the way and terrifying the French capital, then wheeled left, marching north toward Calais.  The French army followed, some 12,000 heavy cavalry, 17,000 light cavalry retainers, 6,000 Genoese crossbowmen, and more than 20,000 militia levies who were inexperienced and poorly armed.  Much of the French army caught up with Edward north of the Somme River near the village of Crecy, and sent 15 to 16 assault waves against the English, each wave shattered by the English longbow.  French deaths of 10-20,000 included 1,542 knights and lords, the flower of French chivalry.  English casualties were about 200.  Following the Battle of Crecy, Edward besieged the port of Calais and captured it on August 4, 1347. 

 

France was ruined.  “Defeat dried up tax revenues and fear made men spend what they had on patching up their walls.  The growing desperation of the French government was reflected in the brutal measures which had become necessary to extract even small sums of money.  The purveyors of the army, sent about their work without funds, began to take victuals, carts and horses without payment, provoking anger and riots in the northern towns.  The richer churches were made to surrender their jewelry and their gold and silver plate.” (1: Sumption, p.540)  

 

Unable to fight on, France signed the Truce of Calais with England on September 28.  This truce lasted eight years because the ravages of the Black Death compounded the wartime financial losses, leaving neither side capable of renewing the conflict.  While England benefited from the capture of Calais, the Crecy Period also produced a new round of creditors ruined by Edward’s ambitions. 

 

“Walter Chiriton, the London financier whose syndicate had paid most of the cost of the siege of Calais, crashed in April 1349, a victim of the King’s duplicity and of his own dishonesty and greed.  Edward’s ministers turned to more orthodox methods of public finance as much from necessity as conviction.  The debt generated by the campaigns of the mid-1340s was gradually paid off, a process that was continuing well into the next decade.  Chiriton’s affairs were wound up over a period of two years by his creditors and guarantors.  The revenues of the customs had been mortgaged to Chiriton years before.  Edward did not recover control of them until the summer of 1351.  The seedy experiments of the past were perforce abandoned in favour of ordinary parliamentary taxation.” (2: Sumption, pp.2-3)  Parliament granted Edward a three-year subsidy in exchange for reform of Edward’s financial practices, and this subsidy was renewed for an additional three years in 1352.

 

“Behind this unaccustomed financial prudence lay Edward III’s growing awareness of the limits of his realm’s resources and the difficulty of maintaining public support for a war without end.  Many of Edward’s subjects had supposed that his victories at Crecy and Calais meant the end of war taxation.  When the collectors continued to go about their work as if nothing had happened, some of them encountered serious resistance.  For the King, the recovery of his just rights in France was a point of honour as well as political ambition.  It was supported by the great majority of the higher nobility, many of whom profited mightily by it.  Yet the expenditure of so much effort and money, the abandonment of the conquest of Scotland and the sufferings of the coasts and harbours of southern England was a high price, not self-evidently justified in anyone else’s eyes.” (2: Sumption, p.3) 

 

The Black Death

 

The plague was brought to Italy in Genoese ships in the fall 1347, two months after the fall of Calais to the English.  It followed the European trade routes, hitting Paris, England, Germany and the Low Countries in 1348.  The plague then reached Scandinavia by way of a ghost ship, filled with dead sailors, which ran aground in Norway.   (3: Tuchman, p.94)   By 1350 the plague had run its initial course in Western Europe, killing 1/3 of the population, some 20 million people.  Losses were higher in the cities than the countryside, because of high urban population density and poor sanitation.  Paris, for example, lacked sewers before 1374.   “Privies, cesspools, drainage pipes, and public latrines existed, though they did not replace open street sewers.” (3: Tuchman, p.107).  Examples of urban population loss are: Venice, Hamburg and Bremen lost 2/3; Florence lost 3/5 to 4/5; Paris and Avignon lost 1/2 (3: Tuchman, p.95).  The plague returned in diminished form several times by the end of the century, and total population loss was 40% by 1380 and 50% by 1400. 

 

The economic impact was enormous, with some cities experiencing total economic collapse.  In the countryside, farmland was unattended and countless animals died from the plague and lack of care.  Thousands of settlements were simply abandoned.  “The sense of a vanishing future created a kind of dementia of despair…. Fields went uncultivated, spring seed unsown.  Second growth with nature’s awful energy crept back over cleared land, dikes crumbled, salt water reinvaded and soured the lowlands.  With so few hands remaining to restore the work of centuries, people felt, in Walsingham’s words, that ‘the world could never again regain its former prosperity.’” (3: Tuchman, p.99)   Accordingly, tax revenues were dramatically reduced, more so in France than in England.  

 

Labor shortage following the plague caused wages to rise during the latter 14^th century.  Table 2 above, showing a thatcher’s daily wage from 1311 to 1501, provides an example of what happened.  Nominal wages, in terms of pence, increased from 3.0d in 1311 to 3.5d in 1351; but real wages, in terms of silver, declined from 4.04 grams in 1311 to 3.77 grams in 1351.  This represents a 7% real wage decrease due to the debasements of the penny during that period.  From 1351 to 1401 nominal wages increased from 3.5d to 4.5d, while real wages increased from 3.77 grams to 4.85 grams silver - both nominal and real increases equaling 28% during the latter half of the 14^th century.  Note that part of the 28% increase merely offset the previous 7% real wage decline due to debasement.  By 1501 real wages had declined to 4.13 grams silver, not much higher than they had been in 1311.  Skilled wages for other English trades in the last half of the 14^th century rose from 34% to 70%, with farm wages increasing 50%.  Unskilled wages and women’s wages rose about 100%.  (10: Rogers, pp. 233-7). These wage increases endured for two or three generations. 

 

Wage increases brought price inflation, with many items increasing from 60% (cattle, iron) to 300% (some construction materials).  Other prices increased only slightly (eg. grain, oxen) or not at all (eg. horses, poultry, sheep, pigs, butter, cheese, eggs, and candles) (10: Rogers, pp.237-40).

 

More information on the Black Death is available at the following websites:

http://history.boisestate.edu/westciv/plague/ and

www.insecta-inspecta.com/fleas/bdeath/Path.html.

 

Poitiers Period: 1355-1360

 

Edward invaded France again and was brought to bay by the new French King, John II, at Poitiers on September 19, 1356.  The English army consisted of 4,000 heavy cavalry, 4,000 light cavalry, 3,000 archers and 1,000 light infantry.  French forces consisted of 8,000 heavy cavalry, 8,000 light cavalry, 4,500 mercenaries (including 2,000 crossbowmen), and possibly 15,000 militia levies.  Most of the French cavalry dismounted for battle, “on the supposition that this was the only way to beat the dismounted Englishmen.  John did not understand that the secret of English success at Crecy had been the use of dismounted men-at-arms only as a solid defensive base for the devastating power of the English archers.  By dismounting his knights he deprived them of their principle assets for offensive action: mobility and shock.” (8: Dupuy, p.358)   French losses in the battle were 2,500 killed and 2,600 prisoners including the French King.  English losses were about 1,000 killed and 1,000 wounded.

 

France was now bankrupt, with civil disorder in much of the country and revolt in Paris over another planned reform of the coinage.  The Estates-General forced the Dauphin (the King’s heir) to accept sweeping governmental reforms.  King John, still an English prisoner attempting to negotiate a ransom (which would ultimately be L667,000), repudiated the reforms and even encouraged his subjects not to pay taxes levied by the Estates-General.  Paris rose in arms against the King, and the Dauphin had to raise an army of 12,000 men to retake the capital in the summer of 1358. 

 

The Dauphin, unable to pay his troops, “was reduced to authorizing his garrisons to plunder his own subjects in lieu of wages.  The result was to reduce to chaos the few areas which were still loyal and reasonably secure.” (2: Sumption, p.305)  On top of these woes, France was also plagued by Free Companies of unemployed soldiers who “spread through the provinces of France, occupying castles, manors and church towers from which they subjected the districts around to a brutal military occupation before passing on to find fresh prey.” (2: Sumption, p.351)

 

In May 1358 there was also an uprising of peasants known as the Jacques, with peasant armies as large as 5,000 who went about destroying properties of nobles, gang-raping women, torturing men, and sometimes burning families in their homes.  The last of these peasant armies was destroyed in mid-June, followed by a period of terrible vengeance by the nobles.

 

Du Guesclin Period: 1368-1396

 

Preston and Wise provide a succinct summary of the Du Guesclin Period.  “After 1370, the tide of war turned for a space in favor of France.  England was hampered by the passing of her outstanding leaders, the Black Prince in 1376 and the aged Edward III in 1377; by the succession of a minor, Richard II; by the rural unrest which culminated in the Peasants’ Revolt; and by a political crisis that brought the deposition of Richard but did not end domestic troubles.  In the Constable of France, Bertrand du Guesclin, King Charles V discovered a general with real ability, and not another rash feudal incompetent.  Du Guesclin realized that it was not necessary to fight the English army in the field to regain French territory; the key to the retention of any area lay with the combatant who held its strong points, the castles.  There was nothing of the chivalrous or romantic in him.  His refusal to consider the pleas of the feudal noblesse for yet another test of strength with the English removed them temporarily from the war and into their castles, out of harm’s way.  Using almost exclusively the professional soldiers of the free companies, du Guesclin and his successors fought a war of harassment, surprises, ambushes, sudden assaults, and slow sieges, which reduced piecemeal the English holdings in France.” (6: Preston, p.89) 

 

As Edward’s death approached, England had descended to the level of chaos that France had known for decades.  Many peasants had turned outlaw, and unemployed soldiers had become brigands, despoiling the countryside in a manner similar to the Free Companies in France.  The failure to achieve peace, “had brought to a climax public resentment of corrupt royal officials, a profitless war, military mismanagement, and waste or embezzlement of the people’s tax money.  These were the same ills that twenty years earlier had generated the French Third Estate’s challenge to the monarchy.” (3: Tuchman, p.284)

 

“The once exuberant Edward who looked down on victory from the windmill at Crecy was now a foolish infatuated old man ‘not stronger in mind than a boy of eight.’  The high tide of success had turned to loss, with every loss paid for by disrupted trade and renewed taxes.  A fifty-year reign of incessant warring was coming to a close in a rising sense of wasted effort and misrule.” (3: Tuchman, p.285)

 

Conclusion

 

The end of the Medieval Grand Super Cycle does not present quite the same clean picture as the others we have studied, either in the causes of decline or in the final results.  Nevertheless, important similarities do exist.  In terms of monetary history, there was debasement in England and France, similar to the monetary problems in the ancient GSC declines.  There was economic decline and great financial stress in both the public and private sectors; and similar to the ancient examples, war was a significant cause of these problems.  Population loss is also a common theme in all of the GSC declines examined so far. 

 

Political collapse following the Medieval Grand Super Cycle was milder than in previous examples.  Revolts in England and France did not topple either monarchy, although Richard II was deposed in 1399.  There was serious political upheaval in Italy, however, which we were not able to cover in depth in this article.   For example, in 1339 the patrician families of Genoa were overthrown in a popular revolution, and Florence was ruled by a tyranny in the 1340s.  There was also the Great Schism in the Catholic Church, with two simultaneous Popes, from 1378 to 1409, who excommunicated each other  (See 9: Harrison, for more details).  The Church also suffered financially, both from rapacious French tax collectors and by serving as a principle creditor of France during the war.

 

There was a moral decline in the 14^th century, which is also a typical development at the end of GSC waves.  To solve French financial difficulties before the war, Philip IV of France, in league with the Pope, seized the great wealth of the Templar order, torturing and killing its leaders.  After 1376, “Italy, which had been steadily pulling away from the Church under the pressure of its secular governments, began its return to the Church.” (9: Harrison, p.1)   The looting of Church treasures during the war recalls the use of temple treasure to fund the military in the ancient examples.  Finally, the years of plundering by French and English Kings finally taught their subjects to do the same, as unemployed soldiers on both sides became brigands, destroying their own homelands.  (It was during the 1370s that the legend of Robin Hood gained its great popularity in England.)    

 

The Medieval Grand Super Cycle is unique, compared with ancient examples, in the role played by public debt for the first time as the primary funding source for war, and therefore, as a principle cause of decline.  Moreover, the debt problems in this Grand Super Cycle serve as a harbinger of greater financial ruin to come in the next Grand Super Cycle (to be examined in Part VI, Fall of the French Monarchy).  In coming centuries government debt grows to enormous size, and becomes the direct and immediate cause of France’s political and financial collapse in the 18^th century. 

 

Note on the livre tournois:  Because the livre was debased so frequently, it is very difficult to obtain information on its value at specific times, either in books or on the internet; and available information is contradictory.  Jonathon Sumption calculates the total annual operating cost of a 60-oar galley at the start of the war at 3,555 l.t. including three-year, straight-line depreciation of construction costs, wages, and other maintenance expenses such as “oars, cables, sails, armor and consumable stores” and says this was equivalent to about L760  (1: Sumption, p.174). We have used this to derive the relationship of L1 = 4.67 l.t.  If any of our readers possesses better data, we would like to hear it.

 

 

Sources

 

1. Sumption, Jonathon. The Hundred Years War, Vol. I. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1990.

 

2. Sumption, Jonathon. The Hundred Years War, Vol. II.  Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1999.

 

3. Tuchman, Barbara. A Distant Mirror, The Calamitous 14^th Century. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1978.

 

4. Duncan-Jones, Richard. Money and Government in the Roman Empire. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994.

 

5. Hodges, Kenneth. Medieval Sourcebook: Medieval Prices. www.fordham.edu/halsall/source/medievalprices.html

 

6. Preston, Richard A. and Sydney F. Wise. Men in Arms, A History of Warfare and its Interrelationships with Western Society. New York: Praeger Publishers, 1970.

 

7. British Coins before the Florin, Compared to French Coins of the Ancien Regime. www.friesian.com/coins.htm

 

8. Dupuy, R.E. and T.N. Dupuy. The Encyclopedia of Military History. New York: Harper & Row, 1970. 

 

9. Harrison, James. W. Papal Schism, 100 Years War and the Black Plague. 

http://lib.li.suu.edu/library/courses/hum101/papal.htm

 

10. Rogers, James E. Thorold, M.P. Six Centuries of Work and Wages. London: W. Swan Sonnenschein & Co., 1884.

 

Jonathon Sumption has apparently made the history of the Hundred Years War his life’s work.  Volume II, published in 1999, only takes us through 1369, so we assume additional volumes will be forthcoming in the future.  His work contains immense detail for anyone interested in this period.  Tuchman’s A Distant Mirror is recommended for anyone with a general interest in history.

 

Previous Articles in this Series

 

Part I: Introduction:

www.freebuck.com/articles/elliott/030104bankruptcies1.htm.

Part II: Fall of the Athenian Empire:

www.freebuck.com/articles/elliott/030113bankruptcies1.htm.

Part III: Fall of the Roman Republic:

www.freebuck.com/articles/elliott/030127bankruptcies1.htm

Part IV: Fall of the Roman Empire:

www.freebuck.com/articles/elliott/030209bankruptcies.htm

 

© copyright 2003 by Joseph M. Miller, Daan Joubert and Marion Butler, all rights reserved