Calais: An English Town in France, 1347-1558

Abstract

Exactly one hundred years after the publication of George Sandeman's Calais under English Rule Susan Rose has produced a timely book-length overview of the history of this northern French town under English governance. The book takes a narrative approach to some two hundred years of English rule, beginning with Edward III's siege in 1347 and ending with the town's capture by the duc de Guise in 1558. Other chapters explore its fourteenth-century history, the development of the wool staple, its role in the later Hundred Years War and the Wars of the Roses, and its economic and social history in the later fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. The book stresses the town's importance as a commercial centre, vital in the English wool trade with the Low Countries, rather than its military or diplomatic role. Rose's stress on the town's economic life might be due to her reliance on the wonderful letter collections of the Cely and Johnson families (both wool merchants). The account of mercantile life during the 1540s and 50s from the Johnson letters, for example, occupies as much space as her entire discussion of the administrative, diplomatic, military and religious developments of the early Tudor period (which witnessed the formal incorporation of Calais into the realm of England through its representation in Parliament from 1536). In this discussion, as elsewhere, Rose is reliant on the work of others; this is, first and foremost, a work of synthesis and the areas where she is weakest (the role of Calais in cultural exchange, for instance, particularly in the late fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries) are those where research is still in its infancy. Given the author's linguistic skills and knowledge of French history, however, it is disappointing that the book does not explore more fully the perception of the town and marches from the continent. This would have certainly given the book added value, but perhaps, as other have argued, Calais was indeed ‘un petit morceau d’Angleterre overseas’ after all? Nevertheless, this book should be welcomed. It is a well-written and lively account of one of the most overlooked towns of the late middle ages and should provide the basis for more research on the importance of Calais to both England and its continental neighbours.