FRENCH-ENGLISH BATTLES IN THE EARLY MIDDLE AGES

Who would have thought that the Battle of Hastings would somehow trigger a Thousand Years' War between France and England ? This interminable vendetta interspersed with more or less brief truces sowed desolation in both countries and cost millions of lives to several nations : the French of course but also the Scots the Welsh the Irish the English and above all the Germans who supplied hundreds of thousands of mercenaries to England as this Country built up its merchant Empire. But it is unlikely that William the Bastard (later Williamthe Conqueror) who commanded this invading French Army would have resisted his ambition to seize the English Crown even if he could foreseen that his choice would result in such a bloodbath. The present alphabetical directory is intended to provide an inventory of French-English battles in the early Middle Ages from the French invasion of England (1066) to the outbreak of the Hundred Years' War