Treaty of Br tignyThe Treaty of Brétigny, concluded on May 8 1360, between Edward III of England and John II of France, marked the end of the first phase of the Hundred Years' War (1337 - 1453). The Treaty of Brétigny (a village near Chartres) marked the high water of English hegemony in France, in the wake of the battle of Poitiers (September 19. 1356), in which John was taken prisoner. The ensuing conflicts in Paris between Stephen Marcel and the Dauphin (later Charles V of France), and the outbreak of the peasant revolt called the Jacquerie, weakened French bargaining power. The exactions of the English, who wished to yield as few as possible of the advantages claimed by them in the abortive Treaty of London the year before, made negotiations difficult, and the discussion of terms begun early in April lasted more than a month. By virtue of this treaty Edward III obtained, besides Guienne and Gascony, Poitou, Saintonge and Aunis, Agenais, Périgord, Limousin, Quercy, Bigorre, the countship of Gaure, Angoumois, Rouergue, Montreuil-sur-Mer, Ponthieu, Calais, Sangatte, Ham and the countship of Guines. The king of England was to hold these free and clear, without doing homage for them. On his side the king of England gave up the duchies of Normandy and Touraine, the countships of Anjou and Maine, and the suzerainty of Brittany and of Flanders, and all claim to the French throne. Thus the terms of Brétigny were meant to disentangle the feudal responsibilities that had caused so much conflict, and, as far as the English were concerned, would concentrate English territories in an expanded version of the Aquitaine John II had, moreover, to pay three million gold crowns for his ransom. The occasion was the first minting of the franc, equivalent to one livre (pound) tournois containing 20 sous, a standard money of account. As a guarantee for the payment of his ransom, John the Good gave as hostages two of his sons, several princes and nobles, four inhabitants of Paris, and two citizens from each of the nineteen principal towns of France. This treaty was ratified and sworn to by the two kings and by their eldest sons on October 24 1360, at Calais. At the same time were signed the special conditions relating to each important article of the treaty, and the renunciatory clauses in which the kings abandoned their rights over the territory they had yielded to one another. Edward III retired finally to england, for the last time. The treaty of Brétigny procured France nine years' repose. In the following years, French forces were involved in battles against the Anglo-Navarrais (Bertrand du Guesclin's victory at Cocherel, May 16, 1364) and the Bretons. When one of the hostages escaped from England, John II chivalrously gave himself up. He died in honorable captivity in 1364, whereupon Charles V became king of France. In 1369, on the pretext that Edward III had failed to observe the terms of the treaty of Brétigny, the king of France declared war once again. By the time of the death of Edward III in 1377, English forces had been pushed back into their territories in the south-west around Bordeaux. External link
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This article incorporates text from the public domain 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica.
fr:Traité de Brétigny Categories: 1911 Britannica | Hundred Years' War |
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