The Ancient Enemy. England, France and Europe from the Angevins to the Tudors

Abstract

Fanned by Anglo-French rivalries, the relationship between England and France in the Middle Ages has been a perennial topic of historical study, and the author of the present work has been one of its principal exponents, especially for the period of the Hundred Years War (1337–1453). In The Ancient Enemy, Vale places his previous work in a much longer perspective, beginning with the dynastic union of England and the duchy of Aquitaine under Henri II (1154–89), and ending with the last serious attempts to make good English claims to the French throne by Henri VIII in the 1540s. The chief aim of this short but thought-provoking book is to challenge the simplistic national myths that still bedevil the medieval historiography of France and the British Isles. The opening chapter considers the more general context of medieval England and its neighbours, drawing upon the insights of Rees Davies, Robin Frame and others that emphasize the multivalent nature of the territories ruled by the kings of England on both sides of the English Channel. Other chapters, organized in loosely chronological order, consider the ‘Angevin Empire’; the régime of the kings of England in Aquitaine; the third parties drawn into Anglo-French disputes, notably princes of the Low Countries and the papacy; the place of the French language in medieval English identity and culture; the ‘legend’ of Joan of Arc; the loss of Normandy and Aquitaine under Henri VI and the abortive revival of English royal aspirations in France under Henri VIII.