| dc.description.abstract | This thesis examines the organisation of defence in the towns
of southern France during the Hundred Years Wart and contributes to
the debate on the part played by the non-combatant civilian population
in late-medieval warfare. The construction, maintenance,
funding and architecture of the fortifications, which were at the
centre of the defensive effort, are dealt with extensively, although
equal emphasis is placed on the human aspects; on the obligations
of guet, arrière-guet, garde, corvées and service in the militia,
incumbent on every citizen. The wartime government of towns by
consuls and syndics, complemented in some cases by special war
committee, and the often uneasy relationship between the Municipality
and its seigneur, the king, the king's officers and other
towns and villages in the area# form an important part of the study.
The broad chronological limits are 1337 and 1453, although the
greatest attention has been paid to the thirty years after 13559
which were the most crucial of the war in the Midi. The impression
emerges that$ for all its flaws, town defence was in most instances
efficiently and conscientiously organised, and the larger conclusion
drawn is that, while there were limits to the ability of the towns
to protect themselves against the garrison warfare of the 1370s and
-80s, the greater preparedness of the towns of Languedoo in the
later fourteenth century probably discouraged the English from
attempting again the kind of chevauchee undertaken by the Prince
of Wales in 1355. | en |
