'The Contending Kingdoms': France and England 1420-1700

Abstract

Studies of England and France come in many shapes and sizes, but for the late medieval and early modern period four have predominated. There are investigations of cultural transmission, usually from France to England. There are essays in comparative political analysis, usually pointing up the contrasts between a precociously centralized medieval England and an increasingly absolutist early modern France. There are reconstructions of French attitudes to the English and English attitudes to the French. And, commonest by far, there are accounts of the wars and (less often) negotiations between the two rival monarchies whose struggle dominated western European politics for nearly three centuries and influenced it for generations more. It is the aim of The Contending Kingdoms to ring the changes on this pattern. The editor's introduction reviews the historiography of Anglo-French relations and Anglo-French comparisons in the volume's chosen period, helpfully pointing out areas where coverage is surprisingly thin, such as trade or the diplomacy of the 1630s. The nine contributors then essay a series of studies in Anglo-French comparisons and connections.