The Hundred Years War, Volume 1

By: Alfred H. Burne

Narrated by: Charlton Griffin

The bitter conflict between England and France we call The Hundred Years War, and lasting 116 years between 1337 and 1453, was fought over claims by the English kings to the French throne. By the end of this titanic struggle, it can fairly be said that the Middle Ages had come to an end. By the mid-15th century, in the place of feudal monarchies that had depended on the support of their vassals at the outbreak of the war, we find the genesis of the modern nation state with a stable, centralized government backed by a standing professional army, paid for by taxation.

Volume One briefly traces the causes of the conflict and then plunges straight ahead into the military preparations and initial clashes, mainly naval. Under what many consider the leadership of England's greatest sovereign, Edward III, Calais is seized as a port-of-entry for English arms and supplies. With Calais secure in his rear, Edward marches into the interior of France and comes to grips with Philip's army at Crécy in 1346, an epoch changing calamity for France. After numerous sieges, marches and smaller battles, the next French King, John II, is captured by Edward's son, the Black Prince, at the battle of Poitiers in 1356. By the time of Edward III's death in 1377, England controls a good third of French territory. But the French doggedly resist, and the war drags on into a desultory second phase lasting well into the early 1400s.

The Hundred Years War is a military history, and probably the finest English chronicle of these confusing events. Drawing upon all known English and French sources, A. H. Burne has assembled a stunning narrative that sweeps you into the military camps of the English and French kings. Volume 2 carries the story to its climactic ending in 1453.

(P)2007 Audio Connoisseur

History written fairly well.

If you like the period, or are interested in events of this email it is good. It lacks some of the politics on the french side that equated to the vast losses at the battles at Crecy , and Agincourt.

100 Year War

I became interested in the 100 Year War after reading George R.R. Martin's "Song of Ice and Fire" series. I had heard that Martin's series was based on the 100 year war (and The War of the Roses).

"The Hundred Year War, Volume 1" is no fantansy, but it's still a good story. It introduced me to two fascinating historical figures I was not familiar with -- King Edward III, and his son, "The Black Prince", Edward the IV.

"The Song of Ice and Fire" gives a fictional account of the horrors of medieval warfare. After reading this history, I'd say Martin got it right. It was brutal warfare, especially if you were a peasant.

For fantasy fans this is a good read. It is certainly not fantasy and reads as a history, but it provides so much back-ground material that is present in modern fantasy. Much of the warfare depicted in Robert Jordan's "Wheel of Time" series comes right out of the 100 year war. (The "Two Rivers" bow, is of course, the English longbow.)

As to the English longbow, it utterly dominated the battlefield. It was a simple, but brutally effective weapon and was the main reason why the English army was so effective in this war.

I am no fan of feudalism or Kingdoms, and would not like to live under such systems, but when the ruling classes of the medieval era decided to go to war, they were right in the thick of the battle. King Edwards or his son was present in every major battle depicted in this book. Compare that to our own effete ruling classes. Except in very rare circumstances, they and their children will be many thousands of miles from the battles of the wars they start.

Totally Anglo-centric

An obviously biased tension of history with the author constantly referring to “our” army when describing English actions. I stopped listening about a quarter through and started searching for a more unbiased rendition of the 100 Years War.

Solid, Old School Military History

It's indeed "Old School" and not because the subject is "medieval". I have been trained in and prefer the later approach with infusions of cultural history that bring so many details to the "nuts and bolts" of military history in the earlier-mid 20th century, BUT Burne's work is NOT to be dismissed.

Ignore the introduction, ignore everything political or social justice-related or Euro-centric that (however rightly) bothers you. TRY to ignore the eye roll inducing "well we won't be discussing how the army was mustered/fed/ etc."

There are reasons we read FOUNDATION works in our field. We read them to understand the shaping of the historiography, the shaping of HOW a story is told--and if you think that's not important in 2018, you live under a rock, congratulations.
We also read them because when a less current author retains enough common sense and enough rich detail in their exploration of the primary sources and details which are, let's face it, not going anywhere, we can still get an over-arching view of the events dealt with in a way that is useful.
I believe this may be such a foundation work in Medieval Military history, albeit not in the "top 10".
Full disclosure: I am an insomniac and I needed something I would be interested in listening to, and engaged with but would be able to fall asleep--the equivalent of a good but not dramatically heart-racing story.
For that, while I do listen longer, due to the interest factor, it works admirably and the narrator is very good for pace.

Well written, poorly read

The book itself is a decent enough account of the period it describes. It is well researched and reasonably well written. If there is any bias shown in the book to the English or to anyone else I say, "So what?".

It is foolish to think that there should be one definitive book to describe historical events from all angles. Instead, if we want to really understand a period from every perspective we should try reading more than one book on the subject.

Unfortunately I am unable to rate the reading as highly as the actual text of the book being read. The best I can say about the reader is that he has a nice deep voice and he reads fairly fluently. He might be OK at reading a contemporary genre novel, a crime thriller etc., but he should stay away from reading history, or non-fiction of any kind.

His major failing is that he gives stress and emphasis to words and phrases in inappropriate places, and this gets annoying fairly quickly.

Also, his pronunciation of the French quotes is quite off.

Finally, he is obviously unfamiliar with the correct pronunciation of English names. You would think that a professional reader would take the trouble to learn the correct pronunciations for a book he was reading, wouldn't you? Salisbury is pronounced SAULS-bury, and NOT SALLIS-bury, I don't know how many times I had to endure him reading it the wrong way over and over.

A fairly biased account

Monotony seem to be a pitfall of most military histories, that's I can handle, since the detail of military action of the time can be of interests to some, however, what I've found particularly troubling about this book is that the author seemed to feel compelled to defend English whenever he could, as if the English were somehow, morally superior, that element tainted the objectivity of this two volume book throughout.

Perfect match

The book itself is well-written. Mostly concerned with the military aspect, it moves along quickly. It concentrates on England and has a very British flavour to it, which is aided by the wonderful narrator.

Well written, poorly read

I enjoy books about English history. The battles King Edward and The Black Prince won when they were greatly outnumbered are very interesting to me. I really appreciated all of the details this author gives.
However... Whoever read this book can't speak French. It was painful to listen to him try. There are hundreds and hundreds of French names and phrases in the text; not having a bilingual narrator is irresponsible.

Amazing detail

This book is masterfully done. The author successfully walks the reader through situations and conclusions in this time in which so much documentation has been lost. I read Medieval history books constantly and this is far and away one of my favorites.

Targeted for a Niche Audience

There are few offerings on Audible for this particular set of campaigns, so anyone interested in this really needs to know up front what they're getting into.

The first thing to note is that there are different kinds of historical accounts, and these serve different functions. This account is NOT a political history. It's a military history. That means that, just as the synopsis says, the causes of the war are briefly touched upon, but the bulk of this narrative deals with troop movements, battles, and the overall progress of the armies involved. For the armchair war gamer, this book will be the type that gets people to pull out the old maps and push around plastic markers.

For those not familiar with the time period, please understand that this work isn't targeted for those seeking to learn the basics, and it was never meant to be. In other words, you will not find here an understanding of who these people are and why they're doing any of what they do. This book is targeted for those who are already interested in (and thus have a solid idea of) the biographies and politics of the age and want to dig deeper into the campaigns themselves. Personally, I'd recommend starting with overview histories of Medieval England and France so as to learn who the key players are and to get a sense of the politics. Start broad so you can see how each era molds the next, then start narrowing the focus to this era. Get to know the likes of Edward III, the Black Prince, John of Gaunt, Philip the Fair, Henry V, and Joan of Arc. From there, move to a working knowledge of armor, of castle sieges, and of swords, longbows, and cannon, as these things will inform your understanding of what these troops were dealing with. And then if you decide you absolutely love the idea of a military history, this is the book for you. Most general history enthusiasts never get to this point. It's not a mark against the historian or the audience, it's simply a measure of the specialization involved. Some might take a book such as this as an opportunity to test their personal limits.

If you ARE in this target audience, you might want to know that some details within are compared to battles and movements through the same areas in World War I, and there are even parallels to the American Civil War, so if you know something about those campaigns, even better.

It should also be noted that this is not a fair and balanced account of the war. This is a more British-centric account, by a British historian, for a British audience, using mostly British resources. And while that might also be a big negative for some, it's folly to assume every history has to be a balanced account. There are considerably fewer Muslim-centric accounts of the Crusades available in English, for example, than there are Crusader-oriented accounts by the very nature of the historians. Understanding the strengths and interests of the historian helps to better understand the history being provided. General audiences will have a harder time wrapping their heads around this, but this is common, especially for military histories. It's also important to note that the French forces were largely pounded, especially under Edward III's campaigns, so their records are simply harder to find. That we have anything at all is of value.

Other reviewers have commented on the quality of the narration. I'm predisposed to enjoying Charlton Griffin's work, though admittedly most of what I've heard him narrate up to this point is more literary. For example, he did an amazing job with Milton's Paradise Lost and Paradise Regained, but you won't find such poetry here. Griffin is clearly aware of it too. He brings some level of drama to this account, but the account doesn't lend itself to melodrama. It's dry and scholarly reading for a niche audience, as you might expect an historian to deliver. Griffin does his best to kick it up a notch, and to my mind he does so admirably. As to his pronunciation of French... I don't know French, so I can't tell how close to the mark he is. I only know that most British speakers have peculiar but consistent ways they mangle the French language as a cultural prerogative that goes all the way back to 1066, and this is probably in keeping with it. All things considered, it sounded good to my ears, but as I say, I don't speak French. My advice is to listen to the sample and judge accordingly.

Having understood up front what to expect, and being interested enough to give it a go anyway, I think my only real gripe is that this title is broken into two parts. For the life of me, I can't imagine why, especially since the physical book is a single volume. If I can get the entirety of the Bible or the original Sherlock Holmes canon spanning dozens of hours for only one credit, why can't I get 20 hours of military audio for the same? Also, it'd be nice if there were maybe some PDF material that gave us some workable military maps. Still, for what it is, I'm rather pleased with it. I'd still love to get some better political overviews of this era on Audible though.