The Hundred Years War - Desmond Seward [4]
Nevertheless in 1329 Edward had to go to Amiens and pay homage to ‘our right dear cousin’, swearing in the cathedral to become ‘the King of France’s man for the Duchy of Guyenne’. He also did homage for his County of Ponthieu at the mouth of the Somme ; its capital was Abbeville and another of its towns was Crécy, of which more will be heard. After Mortimer’s fall, Edward had to agree in a document drawn up in March 1331 I ‘to bear faith and loyalty’ to the Valois. If he had refused, he might well have lost both Guyenne and Ponthieu. Since 1259 there had been incessant wrangling over the duchy’s boundaries and over the respective powers of the Duke-King and his overlord—whether the Plantagenets held Guyenne in full sovereignty or as tenants who must obey the King of France. From time to time fighting broke out. In 1325 the English Governor of Guyenne, the Earl of Kent, had been forced to surrender to Charles IV at the bastide of La Réole during the ‘War of Saint-Sardos’, which had been largely brought about by Edward II’s refusal to pay homage. King Charles had then contented himself with retaining the Agenais (the border area between the rivers Garonne and Dordogne), but Edward III must have recognized that the conquest of Guyenne was a logical step in the unification of France. In the latter part of 1331, disguised as a wool merchant, he again crossed the Channel to meet Philip secretly at Pont-Saint-Maxence and try to negotiate a lasting peace.
At that time the French monarchy appeared to be far stronger than the English. Matthew Paris, the famous thirteenth-century chronicler, wrote that: ‘The King of France is the King of all earthly Kings,’ and the French King was undoubtedly the first ruler in western Europe. He far outshone the Holy Roman Emperor and more or less controlled the Papacy which since 1309 had been established at Avignon—the French King being both the Pope’s protector and quasi-gaoler. And for over a century there had been no unruly nobles in France as there were in England, but a steady bringing to heel of the counts and barons. If Flanders and Brittany—and of course Guyenne—remained semi-autonomous, Philip VI none the less inherited direct control of more than three-quarters of his mighty realm.
Since the tenth century new agricultural techniques had enabled the peasants of north-western Europe to exploit their rich soil, bringing more and more forest land under the plough. Until the early fourteenth century the area under cultivation expanded every year, with an accompanying rise in the birthrate. Nowhere was this more evident than in France which in the 1330s had a population of perhaps 21 million—five times that of England. French merchants and artisans multiplied, creating the most beautiful cities and cathedrals this side of the Alps; Gothic Paris became the capital of northern Europe, with perhaps 150,000 inhabitants. Froissart, who travelled a good deal, comments: ‘One may well marvel at the noble realm of France, therein are so many towns and castles, both in the distant marches and in the heart of the realm.’
By contrast, medieval England was an underpopulated land, rather like modern Norway, with more forest and moor than arable; a poor little country whose wealth was its wool. London held some 30,000 souls. The King, unlike Philip in France, ruled with difficulty. Edward III was not the absolute monarch his grandfather had been—that had gone under Edward II. Edward III always had to take into careful