How It's Used

"You cannot spend long in Bourges without hearing about Jacques Coeur. A picturesque old house on the Rue des Armuriers has traditionally been labeled as his birthplace: this is almost certainly untrue, since the house, or one on that site, actually belonged to his wife's family, but the unpretentious nature of the building does convey the right impression. His father was a skin and fleece merchant, a traditional occupation in Bourges but hardly an upper-class one. However, the young Jacques took journeys far afield: to Italy, Spain and Greece, to Turkey and north Africa, and brought back not only exciting and profitable new goods but also ideas—mercantile, financial and architectural.

"He acquired ships of his own and became one of the international merchant princes of that expanding era; he was also perhaps the first modern capitalist. Ennobled by Charles VII, he became the king's argentier—in effect, both his private banker and the man in charge of France's finances. While the Hundred Years' War with England still dragged on, France was in a state of disarray. At one point the English ruled in Paris, and this was when the king made Bourges his own royal city. It is odd to think that, if history had gone just a little differently, today this centrally situated town might be the bustling capital city and Paris a charming provincial one."

—Gillian Tindall, "In Bourges A Lively Past, Cast in Stone," The New York Times, April 4, 1999.

"In truth, and hence Sven-Goran modulated response, the Franco-England soccer rivalry has never really taken off since then, which is all a bit disappointing given that rather promising opening kick-off at Crecy and the sub sequent Hundred Years war. If only the French had played cricket, or we had taken cycling seriously and kicked a few wheels in up L'Alpe d'Huez.

"So it has been left to our rugby boys to plant the flag of xenophobia whenever and wherever possible, and perpetually renew and usher in the next era of Anglo-French misunderstanding and loathing. Will Carling, in particular, used to get himself stuck in the craw of the French during the early 1990s—a time when the England side was generally dominant—by shaking the hands of the defeated French and smiling 'good game'."

—Stephen Bierley, "England v France? Just don't mention the Hundred Years War," The Guardian (UK), December 2, 2003.

"The sad truth is, "The Alamo," directed and co-written by John Lee Hancock, squanders an opportunity to re-create one of the great events in American history. Instead of an inspiring rally around the flag of a budding America (at this time, Texas wasn't a state yet), the movie's just cheap semaphore: the Hollywood language, that is, of shorthand storytelling. Crockett is cool, Santa Anna is bad, Travis is a prig and so on. With the notable exception of Thornton's Crockett, none of these characters engages you. The script (reportedly written by a small army) leaves them no room to maneuver.

"And then there's the politically correct dimension...

"These passing themes may give us an enriched cultural perspective, but they also feel shoved in at the behest of studio bureaucrats. It's this kind of jam-packing -- a little bit of everything and a whole lot of nothing—that makes these storied 13 days feel like the Hundred Years War."

—Desson Thomson, "'Alamo': An Army Can't Save This," The Washington Post, April 9, 2004, p. C05.

"Agincourt, Crécy, Poitiers...the longbow has been admired by military historians as the instrument that allowed us to give the French several handsome thrashings during the Hundred Years' War. Now, six centuries later, it is enjoying a renaissance among ordinary folk as a result of films, books and television series featuring the medieval weapon.

"'Everybody wants to be Robin Hood,' says Carol Edwards, 53, a leading figure in the National Field Archery Society and a longbow teacher..."

—Angus Donald, "'Don't aim. Just think where the arrow should go': Out of the ordinary," The Times (UK), July 25, 2009.

"One hundred seventeen years, to be precise. And you thought the current conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan were never-ending—although at this rate, they might be. Iraq has now outlasted World War II, while in March Afghanistan will edge out Vietnam as the longest American war ever."

—Ian Yarett, "How Long Was the Hundred Years’ War?" Newsweek, October 5, 2009.

Links

Related on eAlmanac
The Six Day War
The Seven Years' War

Beyond eAlmanac
Wikipedia article on the Hundred Years' War