The Life and Campaigns of the Black Prince: from contemporary letters, diaries and chronicles, including Chandos Herald's Life of the Black Prince [Paperback]

Richard Barber (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: July 10, 2002

`An invaluable collection of contemporary source material-we see events through the eyes of the men who made them.'TIMES EDUCATIONAL SUPPLEMENTEdward of Woodstock, eldest son of Edward III, known as the Black Prince, is one of those heroes of history books so impressive as to seem slightly unreal. At sixteen he played a leading part in the fighting at Crécy; at twenty-six he captured the king of France at Poitiers; and eleven years later he restored Pedro of Castile to histhrone at the battle of Najera. His exploits were chronicled by Jean Froissart, but Froissart was writing three or four decades after the events he describes. There are other sources much closer to events, and it is on these that the present volume draws. Most immediate are the reports sent home by the prince's companions-in-arms and his own letters, which graphically convey the hardships and difficulties of campaigning, its dangers and sheer fatigue. These are followed by campaign diaries and the story of Crécy and other exploits of the prince's from Geoffrey le Baker's chronicle (c.1358-60), itself drawing on similar letters and diaries. Finally there is the chronicle of Chandos Herald, which shows the prince as he appeared to an English writer in the 1380s. Each of the sources is discussed in detail in the introductions to the extracts. RICHARD BARBER's books on the age of chivalry include The Knight and Chivalry, Edward Prince of Wales and Aquitaine, King Arthur: Hero and Legend and Arthurian Legends. He has also written the Companion Guide to Gascony and the Dordogne, the background to so many of the Black Prince's exploits, and thePenguin Guide to Medieval Europe.

Editorial Reviews

Review

An invaluable collection of contemporary source material- we see events through the eyes of the men who made them. TIMES EDUCATIONAL SUPPLEMENT

Language Notes

Text: English (translation)
Original Language: French

Product Details

• Paperback: 148 pages
• Publisher: Boydell Press (July 10, 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0851154697
• ISBN-13: 978-0851154695
• Product Dimensions: 8.5 x 5.4 x 0.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 10.2 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #932,596 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A True Historical Account, May 19, 2003

By A Customer

This review is from: The Life and Campaigns of the Black Prince: from contemporary letters, diaries and chronicles, including Chandos Herald's Life of the Black Prince (Paperback)

I gave this book five stars for its originality. I loved that the author (who has a number of great works) pretty much steps back and allows the people of the 14th century to do most of the talking. After all, who better then them to tell their own story?
It was also interesting to read how the Black Prince's contemporaries viewed him. Which was not at all like the tyrant recent historians have made him to be. But this book was more then just about the Black Prince, it gave an insight into medieval warfare and what these soldiers truly lived.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars One of the best primary sources of the Hundred Years War, April 28, 2007

By 

Michael A Neulander "Political Philosophy" (VA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Life and Campaigns of the Black Prince: from contemporary letters, diaries and chronicles, including Chandos Herald's Life of the Black Prince (Paperback)

Read this for graduate history course in medieval history.
Richard Barber's edited works of "The Life and Campaigns of the Black Prince," is one of the best primary sources of the fourteenth-century. Unlike many historians' accounts, Edward's prose make for an engaging read. Edward's writings may be short on the type of battlefield details that modern historians yearn for; however, they are rich in explaining some of the tactical decision-making made by Edward III before and during the Crécy campaign.

The Black Prince noted that Edward III's purpose for the invasion of France, which started the military action in the Hundred Years War, was to conduct a chevauchée, which was essentially a procession of the army through the countryside that pillaged as it traveled. Edward III then intended to use his superior mobility to make his escape up the coast to Flanders without having to fight a major battle with the numerically superior French forces. However, Crécy was the sight of the first major battle of The Hundred Years' War and was a rousing success for the invading English army of Edward III. The battle, which took place on just two days in August of 1346, was emblematic of the tactical successes that the British enjoyed at the battles of Poitiers and Agincourt.

The book accounts the skill and courage that the Black Prince and his men fought with as they fended off several waves of French attacks on that day and the next day as well. The book has an excellent account about the sixteen-year-old Black Prince's baptism by fire in battle. "There he learnt that knightly skill which he later put to excellent use at the battle of Poitiers, where he captured the French king." Although heavily outnumbered, Edward III's longbow men were the force multiplier that garnered a stunning victory for the British over the French. Most estimates of the longbow tactics used in the battle state the over one-half million arrows fired by the English easily cut down the French cavalry. Thus, the longbow, and the brilliant way in which it was employed, was responsible for the lopsided casualty figures of the battle. Although casualty figures are somewhat unreliable, most sources put the French losses at one-third of the French nobility-about 12,000 men in all, against the English losses of 150 to 1,000 total. Froissart sums up the mastery of the longbow men and the tactics they employed turning them into a weapon of mass destruction and a force multiplier. "They were some of the finest, most highly trained and militarily efficient troops that any nation ever put into the field of battle." The battle of Crécy taught all the armies of Europe that the longbow would reign as the supreme weapon in battle for the next 100 years.

Ten years later in 1356, and a few years after the ravages of the Black Death, the Black Prince conducted and won the most valuable battle of the Hundred Year's War, at Poitiers. The Black Prince won a stunning victory over King John II of France, culminating with the king being captured and killing and capturing of thousands of other French noblemen. Clearly, this action far surpassed the victory won at Crécy. France's military was decimated. The country was pushed to the brink of political collapse, and was left with a tremendous debt in both money and territory to pay for the king's ransom.

Recommended reading for those interested in medieval history.

2 of 32 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Rock On, October 22, 2002

By 

Vince (OHIO USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Life and Campaigns of the Black Prince: from contemporary letters, diaries and chronicles, including Chandos Herald's Life of the Black Prince (Paperback)

LONG LIVE THE PRINCE OF WALES.

THE BLACK PRINCE ALWAYS TRIUMPHS.

KILLER RABBITS