200 Years' War - Michael Livingston

Summary

Gone Medieval — Podcast Summary

Episode: 200 Years' War - Michael Livingston

Host: Matt Lewis | Guest: Professor Michael Livingston

Date: November 7, 2025

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Overview

In this intellectually invigorating episode of Gone Medieval, host Matt Lewis welcomes historian and author Professor Michael Livingston to discuss his new book, The 200 Years War. Livingston questions the traditional "Hundred Years War" framework, arguing for a broader, more nuanced perspective — one that reshapes our understanding of medieval France, England, and the evolution of European states. The episode dives deeply into periodization, national identity, overlooked historical narratives, and the real consequences of how we label and frame history.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Reframing Historical Labels and Periodization

• Origins of the "200 Years War" Concept
  • Livingston challenges the adequacy of the Hundred Years War (traditionally 1337–1453, actually 116 years) as a historical period, advocating a 1292–1492 timeline to reflect a more accurate, French-centric evolution of the conflict.
  • On the problem with labels:

    “The periodization of history, as you said, is useful... but is also hugely problematic... it’s all just something we’re doing to it. It’s not something that comes intrinsic with history itself.” — Professor Michael Livingston (07:27)

• Why 1292–1492?
  • 1292 marks the outbreak of hostilities (the "pirate war") and 1492, coincidentally two centuries later, is the Peace of Étaples, when France formally consolidates control and England relinquishes claims (except in title).
  • This broader frame shows a 'French project' of state-building, as opposed to the English conquest narrative.

2. The Spark: 1292 and the ‘Pirate War’

• What Happened in 1292?
  • A minor incident over water access between French- and English-allied ships escalates to reprisals, open naval warfare, and a French royal declaration stripping England of their French lands—echoing later moments like the war's 'official' start in 1337.

    “No one is immediately saying, right, that’s it, we’re France and England are at war. It’s almost like they’re testing the waters a little bit...” — Matt Lewis (14:09)

  • Livingston compares this to the murder that ignited WWI, emphasizing how small triggers can escalate when conditions are ripe.

3. Wars: Hot, Cold, and International

• Not a Linear Conflict
  • The war was characterized by hot battles and long periods of "cold war" — economic, diplomatic, and proxy conflicts, not continuous fighting.
  • Internal crises (e.g., the Black Death) and international entanglements (Low Countries, Burgundy, Brittany, Papal States, Spain, Scotland, Holy Roman Empire) shaped the trajectory and intensity of conflict.
  • The English economic lifeline—wool exports to the Low Countries—made Flanders a perpetual battleground.

4. France’s Existential Struggle

• State-Building, Identity, and Centralization
  • The "200 Years War" frames the era as France's attempt to define itself: territory, language, governance, identity, and the centralization of royal authority—a process that, through bloodshed, culminated in the France we recognize.

    “This is the story... of that invention, that discovery of a national identity. What does it mean to be English? What does it mean to be French?” — Professor Michael Livingston (19:13)

• England’s Changing Identity
  • Losing continental territories forced the English to redefine “Englishness”—formerly entwined with vast French lands.

5. Anglocentric Narratives vs. Continental Realities

• Agincourt, Henry V, and Anglocentrism (29:40)
  • The English victories at Crecy, Poitiers, Agincourt are culturally overblown; the French perspective highlights these defeats as spurs to unity, state-building, and, ultimately, victory.

    “I say things like, y’ all lost the war. You didn’t win the 100 Years War.” — Professor Michael Livingston (32:06)

  • Joan of Arc marks a critical inflection point—her rise makes ultimate English victory impossible.

6. The Endgame: After Castillon (1453) and the Peace of Étaples (1492)

• Why Not End at 1453?
  • The war’s aims and animosities persisted beyond that, manifesting in England’s (failed) attempts to reverse fate, and France’s growing confidence and interventions in English politics.
  • French support for Henry Tudor before Bosworth (1485) and for rebels against Yorkist kings illustrates this reversal of fortunes.
  • 1492’s Peace of Étaples sees England formally recognize the new state of affairs, marking the true end of this era and the beginning of a new geopolitical chapter.

7. Periodization: Usefulness, Limitations, and Self-Awareness

• Are Labels Helpful?
  • Both Lewis and Livingston stress that labels are necessary for discussion, but can become misleading if taken as intrinsic realities.

    “If we think we have a settled view of the periodization of history... Well, actually you can [rethink it] because you can have the 200 Years War as well as the 100 Years War.” — Matt Lewis (56:06)

  • Periodization frames the narrative, shaping which questions and voices get seen and heard (e.g., Anglo- vs. Franco-centric views).
  • The answer: Flexibility and self-awareness; using frames as tools, not as immutable truths.

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On the social construction of periods:

  “Nobody woke up one day and was like, well, all right, Middle Ages, here we go. Nobody woke up and thought, oh, good, Middle Ages are over. It’s the Renaissance... It doesn’t happen. The periodization of history is really useful, but also hugely problematic.” — Professor Michael Livingston (07:27)

• On the spark of conflict:

  “It all blows up... In 1292, two ships meet at an island that nobody listening to this will have ever heard of... There’s a fight that breaks out over who’s going to draw water first, and a man is killed… It escalates rapidly to what’s often called a pirate war...” — Professor Michael Livingston (10:15)

• Why the English victories aren’t the ‘whole story’:

  “I say things like, y’ all lost the war. You didn’t win the 100 Years War... The glory of those events, those three most in particular, but Agincourt especially, not only kind of the historical reality of what a win that is, but the cultural weight of it, is this juggernaut that is so hard to get past.” — Professor Michael Livingston (32:06, 32:21)

• On periodization and perspective:

  “As soon as we put a frame around any kind of period, you’re necessarily viewing it from a very specific angle... so as soon as we do it, it becomes useful... but we need to be aware that we’re getting a very particular view.” — Matt Lewis (53:25)

• On the legitimacy and perils of periodization:

  “All labels are not about the things themselves; they’re about our relationship to it. It’s us pushing things back onto the past.” — Professor Michael Livingston (50:29)

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Timestamps of Key Segments

• [04:29] — Why rethink the Hundred Years War?
• [10:15] — The 1292 ‘pirate war’ and the real start of unceasing Anglo-French conflict
• [16:31] — How reframing changes the understanding of pre-1337 events
• [19:13] — The war as an existential struggle for national identity
• [23:11] — The international entanglements: Low Countries, Scotland, Papal States, Spain, and more
• [29:40] — The Anglocentric view: Agincourt, Henry V, Joan of Arc, and their real significance
• [36:36] — Why end in 1492? The Peace of Étaples and the final consolidation of France
• [43:57] — France inserts itself into English politics: the Wars of the Roses and beyond
• [49:55] — Periodization: necessity vs. the danger of fixed narratives
• [53:25] — The effect of labels on narrative and perspective

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Flow & Tone

The episode is marked by thoughtful, good-humored banter, critical reflection, and intellectual openness. Livingston is candid about the constructed nature of historical categories and the need to question received narratives, while Lewis both challenges and reaffirms these points from his own expertise. The conversation is rich, accessible, and respectful of complexity.

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Takeaways

• The "Hundred Years War" is an artificial, limiting frame; a 200-year perspective reveals deeper truths about the making of France and the shifting identities in Europe.
• Periodization and historical labels are needed for clarity but must be handled flexibly and critically—they shape which stories are told and how we understand ourselves.
• Re-examining the edges of traditional narratives uncovers lost events, neglected impacts, and broader contexts critical to understanding the medieval past—and its legacy in modern Europe.

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For listeners and history lovers, this episode offers not just a revisionist view of the Hundred Years War, but a masterclass in critical historical thinking.

Transcript

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[Matt Lewis]

Hello, I'm Matt Lewis. Welcome to Gone Medieval From History Hit, the podcast that delves into the greatest millennium in human history. We've got the most intriguing mysteries, the gobsmacking details and latest groundbreaking research. From the Vikings to the printing press, from kings to popes to the Crusades, we cross centuries and continents to delve into rebellions, plots and murders, to find the stories, big and small, that tell us how we got here, find out who we really were with. Gone Medieval Foreign welcome to this episode of Gone Medieval. I'm Matt Lewis. Why do we label some parts of history the way that we do? Eleanor and I have wondered about this in a couple of episodes about the early and high medieval periods that you might like to dig out from the archive. But a good friend of history, Hit and Gone Medieval, has gone one step further and written a book to challenge one of those labels in particular, the Hundred Years War. Professor Michael Livingstone has visited us before and has a new series with history hit on medieval rebels that takes in William Wallace, Owen Glyndour and Simon de Montfort. Mike's new book, the 200 Years War, well, does what it says on the tin. It takes a different perspective on a conflict and offers a new view of its impact on medieval European history. And I'm delighted that Mike is joining us now to talk to us all about this fascinating new book. Mike, a very warm welcome back to Gone Medieval. You're becoming a firm friend of the podcast.

[Professor Michael Livingstone]

You know, it's a podcast that you want to be a friend to, so thank you for having me. It's very gracious.

[Matt Lewis]

Lovely. The ten quid for saying that is in the post. Oh, your new book, the 200 Years War, is possibly a title that's going to have people frowning because we know all about the Hundred Years War, maybe, but we don't know about this idea of the 200 Years War. And the book feels like a bit of an account of the creation, the emergence, the growing confidence of what we might consider to be a more modern French kingdom. Is that a reasonable way for me to look at it?

[Professor Michael Livingstone]

I think it's absolutely a reasonable way to think about it. I didn't intend, when I first started thinking about this, I didn't intend to redefine a period of history that was not in the cards. I'm not that crazy.

[Matt Lewis]

When was the last time you wrote a book that didn't redefine something, though, Mike? Come on.

[Professor Michael Livingstone]

Well, touche. Okay, fair. You got me there, Matt. Yeah, I was, you know, Dan Jones is to blame for this. So, I mean, not for this. Dan Jones had suggested I do a single volume history of the Hundred Years War, which was like a crazy idea, I think. I. When he said that we were actually Walking along the Somme, we were shooting a show for history hit for his Essex Dogs show. And we had just met and he knew my work, I knew his work. And he said, yeah, you should do 100 years war, like a single volume. And I laughed. I thought, that's a hilarious joke. And he wasn't laughing and he said, no, seriously, I think you could actually pull this off. So, yeah, as I started putting it together, it became increasingly clear to me that this periodization didn't hold a lot of water like that. The story I had been told wasn't really fitting together. And yeah, I guess that sounds like a lot of my work, but yeah, and this case, this label, you know, it didn't even exist until, you know, in the 19th century. And it wasn't really like scholarly defined. It was just sort of a label tossed off for a textbook. And we've nevertheless used it and it's got good coinage. But. But yeah, the more I looked at it, I'm like, this thing is longer than 116 years, right? The 100 years war is actually 116 years as traditionally defined. But 116 year war doesn't roll off the tongue. So, yeah, the more I started looking at it, the more it was, this needs to be longer on both ends and actually broader too. That it needs to be broader. And that, yeah, I felt like it's more French driven than English driven, which is the received story I had was English driven and it didn't turn out that way.

[Matt Lewis]

Yeah. It's interesting sometimes how these things can have really kind of mushy, porous boundaries. We tend to give them a beginning date and an end date, which is convenient. It's a helpful way sometimes to box it up and look at it. But as soon as you start examining that beginning date, it's clear that it's really porous. And there is so much that's led to that beginning date that you need to know about as well. You can always keep going backwards and keep going forwards because nothing begins and no one wakes up in the morning, says, right, we're going to start 116 years of war today.

[Professor Michael Livingstone]

Yeah, I mean, it's like the old joke. Well, at least around, around our kind of people. Right. You know, that get five medievalists in a room and you, you got 10 different definitions of the Middle Ages. Yeah, because nobody, nobody woke up one day and was like, well, all right, Middle Ages, here we go. Nobody woke up and thought, oh, good, Middle Ages are over. It's the Renaissance or something like that. Doesn't happen. Yeah, there are always. The periodization of history, as you said, is useful. I mean, it's really useful, but is also hugely problematic because there's. Because it's all just something we're doing to it. It's not something that comes intrinsic with history itself. So I tried in the book, to be honest about that, even as I was creating that very thing. Right. But I was like, well, let me be transparent. Here's all my cards, right? Here's why I'm doing it this way. And if this makes sense to people, great. If it doesn't, at least, hopefully there's a conversation about, well, okay, then what would make sense? Like, what rationale would there be for an alternative? Because maybe there is a far better alternative than the one I've given here. But this is what made the most sense to me as a story and as something that had a logical consistency to it, even though it meant sort of blowing up a lot of what I once thought. I have a lot of Books about 100 years War that talk about the Hundred Years War. And here I'm like, just kicking that to the curb. Oh, well, that's how history works. You should be moving forward and not just sort of stuck on tradition.

[Matt Lewis]

Yeah. And I definitely want to come back to a bit more of a chat about periodization and the difficulties and the problems and the benefits of that a little bit later on. But I'd also like to get into the meat of some of the story that the book does tell. The 200 Years War, as you framed it, begins in 1292. Why is that a good place to start it? Because again, you've got to pick a year to begin, I guess. But what is happening in France around that time? Why is that a good point to. To kick off this story?

[Professor Michael Livingstone]

Well, hopefully it's a good point. You know, as I kind of started working backwards, right. To sort of find where is that that starting point? I was like, well, the traditional is 1337 to 1453. And one of my initial concerns there was, if 1337 is the beginning, well, 1453 isn't the end of that story. And sort of vice versa. They're kind of like, about different things. So trying to find something cohesive and whole. Yeah, it kept kind of like marching back. And I say in the book, the whole first chapter is like all the history that you got to get even to 1292. I don't even say at one point you could even count this as some of the same conflict. Right. And you end up with a much bigger war.

[Matt Lewis]

But is that the sequel to 300 Years War?

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[Matt Lewis]

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[Professor Michael Livingstone]

Yeah. Try and stop me now. Well, it was. I mean, part of it, in all honesty, with anything like this is you're also thinking about word count too. You're like, well, I could start the story with the breaking up of Pangea, but, you know, word count's not gonna let me do that. So. So yeah, in 1292, what is. What has happened is there was a preexisting conflict, the Angevin Empire conflict. All of that had resolved in the middle of the 13th century. And we have a new treaty, Treaty of Paris, a new status quo. Everything's basically settled in theory. And then suddenly in 1292, it all blows up. What happens? And I, I didn't in again, it's like, weird, one of these things. I didn't intend for this to actually be exactly two centuries that would end in 1492 of all dates. It was just simply in doing the research, like, oh man, this is it. In 1292, two ships meet at an island that nobody listening to this probably will have ever heard of, the island of Kimnez, which is off the archipelago off the tip of Brittany, out in the middle of the Atlantic. Two ships meet. One is, we'll kind of say French allied, and one is English allied. That's ish. All right. They both want to draw water. There's a fight that breaks out over who's going to draw water first, and a man is killed. We actually do not know and probably will never know which side that guy was on, because our sources have it both ways. And in its sense, it sort of doesn't matter what. What it results in is a kind of quid pro quo, like. Like, you know, reciprocity killings. And it escalates rapidly to what's often called a pirate war. But it's sort of not a pirate war in the sense that both sides are saying that the other side is sponsoring this. So the English are saying the French king is making this happen. The French are saying the English king's making this happen. Probably neither king is making it happen, but people are popularly conceiving of it that way. And as they're ratcheting it up and it really quickly becomes open warfare and we get an actual fight. The very thing that people talk about starts the Hundred Years War where the French king says the English king can no longer hold lands in France. That happens as a result of 1292. So it's not noticed by a lot of people, but this actually happened before Edward iii. It happened back with Edward I in this pirate war and what results from that. So it's a situation where you have the conditions are right and the personnel are right. Edward the first is not the kind of guy to roll over. And on the flip side, the French king is a absolute force of nature, Philippe the the Fourth, and he's deeply invested in solidifying power within the state of France and defining what the state of France is. And the English are afoul of all that. And so this is a great opportunity to like, let's have it out. And that really establishes the playing ground and the motivations for the entire story moving forward. And again, it really doesn't resolve until the piece of Etape in 1492, which happens to be two centuries later. So, yeah, it is a much bigger story and much more French driven than certainly the story I was taught, which was always kind of, this is all about England. It's about England, of course, but. But I think France is the one that ratchets this up. Philippe is the one who could have put a stop to it in the immediacy of 1292, and instead is like.

[Matt Lewis]

And it's interesting that it. It kind of begins as a. Some almost a proxy war that you've got these kind of ships and a pirate war, and no one is immediately saying, right, that's it, we're France and England are at war. It's almost like they're testing the waters a little bit, because Edward the First is. Is happy to go and have a fight. Philippe IV is happy to go and have a fight. You've got their two kings, neither of whom are going to back down. And it's almost like they're both dipping a toe in the water and seeing how this goes. And it very quickly blows up into an international conflict.

[Professor Michael Livingstone]

Exactly. So. And, you know, as I was writing this and putting it together, I remember this moment of thinking, there's no way just like one murder could result in something this big. And then I was like, well, yeah, well, World War I, you know, Archduke Ferdinand was. Why would that result in that? You know, like. Like it seems so improbable. And yet that's, in fact, exactly what happened. Right. You know, I mean, that. And it's not like Archduke Ferdinand was the prince of one of these main, you know, conflict states or whatever. It's just like that took this and it's a domino effect that. That gets bigger and bigger. And results in this enormous conflict. That's exactly what happens here. And it, it's as you say, like nobody in the immediacy of it is like, okay, well here we go. But also nobody's backing down as each side ratchets it up a little bit and to the point where again, the, the French king says, you know, well, you're in forfeit of, of your lands, get out. And we're sitting in the army, which is exactly, of course, what we get then with Edward iii more famously. It's the same story. It's the same things that are happening. And whether or not they are sort of as familiar to us is a bit immaterial in the end.

[Matt Lewis]

So then does, as we move into the 14th century, does the build up to 1337, where we generally think of the Hundred Years War beginning, does that take on a slightly different perspective when you look at it in this, as this longer conflict? In that it seems like for a generation earlier there was this desire for the French king to take away the English king's land and for the English king to be at war. It's almost like, you know, they were waiting for conditions to be right and they're both to be in the mood. And 1337, like 1292 is maybe just one of those moments where everything aligns and it's back to all out war.

[Professor Michael Livingstone]

Yeah, that's exactly right. And you know, yes, you have these periods and you have these. By the way, even if we kind of stick with the tradition nights 1337-1453, that is not a period of continuous conflict. There are hot moments of hot war, but then there's Cold war. The whole thing is at least theoretically, one big war. But it is, yeah, in and out of the bloodshed. What's causing those lulls? There's lots of different reasons. Obviously in the middle of it all is the Black Death. That puts a bit of a damper on the fighting for a bit. It's not as many people to be around to fight. But there's also like economic reasons that there'll be a lull, there's political reasons, there'll be a lull from one side or the other. But it doesn't change the fact that they are still, the motivations are all still there and they're still actively working to the disadvantage of the other side, whether it's economically or politically, even when we're not militarily in the field, were still engaged in this attempt from the French side, as I perceive it here, to establish a boundary of France that is consistent with what they believe France should be. And that I start the story going all the way back to Clovis and the coronation of Clovis as like, that's the memory they're going back to. It's Clovis, it's Charlemagne. Like, this is what France should be. And the English are in the way of that and we have to get rid of them one way or the other. And it. It takes two centuries to get that done. But with the piece of etop, the France has now defined itself and sort of modern France as we would understand it, and Calais is still in English hands, but there's no. There's no sort of questioning whose land that is. It's an occupation. All of that is sort of like legally codified now as to. As to what the borders are and what that means. And it took a lot, a lot of blood to get there. And that's the reason for the book.

[Matt Lewis]

Yeah. And as we work our way through the 14th century, when we're, you know, the middle of the 14th century is probably what we think of as the peak of the Hundred Years War, although it's early on in the 100 Years War that we normally think of. How does that story move France along? And also, what are some of the key moments for you during that period that perhaps we've missed or not given enough emphasis to. By looking at 100 years war, rather than looking at a. And probably looking at it generally in an Anglo centric way, instead of looking at this longer period that is a French project about defining France, does that sort of alter your perception of what are the key moments?

[Professor Michael Livingstone]

I think it does. And this isn't to say that those moments we all know are unimportant. Right. The Battle of Crecy, Agincourt, these are enormously important events and I spend a lot of time in the book talking about them. But we're also missing a lot of peripheral events that are just as important for this conflict, in some cases more. So what's happening in the Low Countries, for instance, what we now think of as Belgium and the Netherlands is utterly vital to every action from the beginning because both sides are well aware of how important the Low Countries are to England. The English economy, the backbone is sheep. It's wool. Well, that wool becomes money when you ship it to the Low Countries and the textile industry is there. That may not be as sort of sexy as talking about a battle, but it's kind of essential to it because you can't have a war without money, you got to fund this whole thing and both sides know it. So the French are doing everything they can to wrestle control of that region. The English are doing everything they can to push the French out of that region. It's a proxy war zone throughout this conflict. And if you're simply kind of thinking about the English king versus French king in kind of like a direct conflict way, you miss that, you miss the bigger picture here. We miss all the internal dynamics of what's happening on the French side. The French are not monolithic any more really than the English are. Both of these sides are in the process of figuring out who the heck they are. And this story is in, in some respects, the story of that invention, that discovery of a national identity. What does it mean to be English? What does it mean to be French? You know, for the English, one of the possible definitions would be a land based definition. Well, that's got to change when you lose all these lands which were at one point very, very extensive. Like half of France, you can't say English were. Are from the island of England if they're in Bordeaux. So, like, what is the mix of English? Is it then language? Is that. What does it like? That is a process that is, of course, enormous ramifications for us today about how we define ourselves. And it's something that occurs in this story. And I think to really recognize that, you again, have to move off of the scale of just. This is like a fight between kings in this little window and it's these kings. I think you've got to take the bigger picture of what's happening in Europe and on the continent. That certainly I was never taught. And so. And I think most people probably don't really kind of have that. And so really trying to get that to people was a major part of the book. And in large part because I needed to figure it out, like, in order to write the dang thing.

[Matt Lewis]

Yeah. And when you view it the way that you do in the book, it starts to feel a lot more like both an existential fight for, as you described, what is it to be English, what is England, what is it to be French, and what is France? So it becomes a much more existential thing than just fighting for. For money and land and battle and. And glory and battle. But then you also have to make it much more of an international kind of Western European war rather than just England and France fighting and everybody sitting on the sidelines crossing their arms, waiting for these idiots to finish bashing each other. Because actually everybody else around it is all involved in one way or another, either economically or politically. Or they have a vested interest in one side winning or the other side losing.

[Professor Michael Livingstone]

Exactly so. Exactly so, I mean, you know, we just. As now, no state stands alone. You know, some. Some of them might want them to, but. But they just don't. That's not reality. So, yeah, France exists in relationship to other states. England exists in relationship to other states. Some of those relationships are again, political, economic, cultural. There's lots of different things that are going on, but they're not in a vacuum. And that makes what can look like separate fights. Right, The. The fight that the English are having against the Welsh in 1400 with the Owen Glyndur rebellion. I know you just recently did a podcast on that.

[Matt Lewis]

Just back up your wonderful film about it.

[Professor Michael Livingstone]

Let's all just compliment each other.

[Matt Lewis]

I'll catch each other on the back for a while.

[Professor Michael Livingstone]

Cheers. So, like, that fight is not unconnected to the 200 years of war. It is integrally part of that war. You know, there's a. There's a reason that a French army shows up in support of Owain Glendor and marches into England, even though most people don't know about that. Like, there's a rationale.

[Matt Lewis]

And who does Owen Glendor write to when he wants help?

[Professor Michael Livingstone]

Yeah, who does he write to? He writes to the French.

[Matt Lewis]

He sends a letter to France.

[Professor Michael Livingstone]

What are the Scots doing? Like, what. How can the French help us? Because it's part of the same conflict. And that extends out right to the Holy Roman Empire plays a role in this. Like, obviously all the Low Countries do. The Papal States play a major role in this because it ends up metastizing into a almost quasi holy war when we got two popes running around and each side supports a different pope because of course they do. So we can make it religious in what we now think of as Spain. Modern, modern Spain. And in Portugal, the states there become proxy war zones. So it is a European conflict. I mean, as I say in the book, like, there is no state that survives this unscathed. They. Everybody is changed by this. The map is literally changed by this. Like the map of Europe we have today here. It is like this is where that is coming from. It is from this fight. And that is a much bigger landscape, much harder book to write honestly. But is more reality than thinking about these things in. In like vacuumed silos, you know, that exists independent of stuff. Right? The story of Agincourt, like to tell that story without the French side of it. And what's going on in the quarter of France and why it is that only half of France shows up. You know, despite whatever the English propaganda is, they're like, you've only really fought half the other side because they're in the middle of a civil war. Oh, that makes a difference. That's a pretty integral part of all this. So, yeah, throughout, really working hard to recon, consider and reconfigure everything I'm seeing on what feels like a more appropriate level to the historical facts.

[Dr. Eleanor Jaenega]

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[Matt Lewis]

Yeah, yeah. And you mentioned Agincour then I wanted to move into the, particularly the, the first, say third of the 15th century, because this is a point when the view of, of the conflict tends to be really Anglo centric, because you've got Agincourt, you've got those successes of Henry V which, you know, drive him to the verge of the throne of France. And it feels like huge victory. And obviously the English are celebrating that an awful lot. And that's the view that I think we have tended to take away. But what does this period mean when you consider the French view? What is this doing for this project of crafting France, that they are seeming to lose an awful lot of ground very quickly there?

[Professor Michael Livingstone]

Well, this is the period in which France is on the ropes. France has been split up into competing factions. And so Henry's not having to fight a unified France, which is enormously useful. Good show. I'm not trying to take anything away from Henry. In fact, I'm like, what a brilliant move. Like any, anytime you can attack your enemy and they're only half engaged is a good time to attack. Well done, buddy. But at the same time, what's happening as a result of Henry's successes is you are forcing the other side to coalesce its definition and response in response to those losses. You are also kind of creating the space for the creation of a new ideology. And it really is the darkest moments of those days that plant the seeds for what we now think of as like the French monarchy and kind of all its sort of, you know, proverbial glory that's going to come out of this, that, that mentality, like, you know, Sun King mentality kind of stuff, to take it to its most extreme form in, in the coming centuries, like that, that comes out of this and it comes out of the, these darkest years for France when it looked like for a hot minute that it was game over, like that it could actually run, run out and England would take over. I honestly don't think that probably could have happened. I don't think that was possible. But certainly, you know, Henry V's death put that on life support and Joan of Arc showing up, it unplugged it like it was, you know, before Joan of Arc there was the chance maybe that England could actually win this. After Joan, there's no chance, there's no chance. It's a done deal. It's just going to take a while to work out. But the math is too against them at that point, against the Danglish. So yeah, it is this Period. That again, as you said, we think of as Anglocentric. We think of the Band of Brothers speech. We think of that and then we're like. And that's kind of the end of the story. No, it's not. As I say, I've made this joke before that at some point I'm half worried that I'm going to get not allowed into England or something because I say things like, y' all lost the war. You didn't win the 100 Years War.

[Matt Lewis]

I constantly say to everyone that we, the English, are terrible at remembering Cressy and Poitier and Agincourt and forgetting that we lost the whole thing. We had a few really good moments in there, but we fought for 100 years, 116 years, and we lost.

[Professor Michael Livingstone]

Yeah, and that look, that's okay. You didn't lose. It was back then they did. But yeah, it is. So the glory of those events, those. Those three most in particular, but Agincourt especially, not only kind of the historical reality of what a win that is, but the cultural weight of it, you know, with Shakespeare, with Olivier, is this juggernaut that is so hard to get past. And it's hard for me to get past it. And I'm a bloody American, like. And I have trouble getting past that. I'm like. I'm like, yeah, man, once more into the breach. Like, all right. Like, oh, that never happened. Oh, shoot. Because it's such a good. A good story and it means so.

[Matt Lewis]

Much, you kind of almost need it to be true, even if it's not. But it's striking that kind of 15 year period or so, from Agincourt to Joan of Arc's successes, Henry V's initial success there creates again that kind of idea of an existential crisis for France that they are on the brink of being destroyed. And the problem, I guess I'm in danger of looking at it from an English point of view again here. That's all right. But the danger of it is that in crushing your enemies, or so nearly crushing your enemies like that, you galvanize them and you force them to ask questions about, you know, do we want France to be torn apart and destroyed? France is. Is driven by faction. But if those factions start to think, if we don't come together, we don't have a country. Henry's success is almost driving the French project further forward, accidentally.

[Professor Michael Livingstone]

Yeah, exactly. So. Exactly. So, I mean, this, the civil conflict in France, it's not like this sort of like overnight flicks a switch. By no means, but it has planted the seeds for the solution, which is a more authoritative centralized state, a modern monarchy and a modern administrative state, a modern army, the modern taxation practices you need and all the administration for that. Like those things that we almost kind of like by default think of as being in existence, right, that you have, the government maintains an army and maintains taxes to support the army and to support its own state and blah, blah, blah, blah that's birthed here. Like this is when this happens. It's not to mention all the other things like gunpowder and everything else that happens in this fight, but that is a result of that darkness, as you quite rightly put it there, that you have by measure of your victory and the conditions of that really left the enemy with not a lot of choices. And it's again, not by any intention. And there's no way that Henry V could have possibly sort of processed that this was the way things were going to go. I mean, like, and that's not because I think he was not smart or something like that. How could you actually kind of process that even today, much less in a medieval mindset, but from the perspective of 2025, looking back, you go, all right, I can see how this happened and what a remarkable impact that had then on our world today. And the things that we hold dear and the definitions we hold of who we are all taking place in this remarkable hero with these remarkable cast of characters. Henry V is like him or not, utterly remarkable. Joan of Arc, utterly remarkable. Edward iii, remarkable. Like it's just full of these, of this cast that, you know, the book needs to be five times as long to really give them all space. Which is the reason why I laughed when, when Dan said you should write a one volume because like, that's insane. How do you get all this in there? Because they really are. Are a remarkable cast and doing remarkable things and it all has an impact. I just love this period.

[Matt Lewis]

Yeah, yeah. As you've mentioned a couple of times, the book ends in 1492, exactly 200 years after it starts. And I want to get to 1490 and why that year in a moment. But we, we've traditionally ended the Hundred Years War at the Battle of Castillon in 1453 with a French victory. The French win the war. Let's just remember that. So what happens kind of from, from Castillon to 1492? What is going on in that sort of 40 year period that you still consider that the continuation of that war? Why hasn't it ended?

[Professor Michael Livingstone]

Because nobody has said it ended. Now, to be fair, nobody really said it began. So this is a war that. That nobody declared, but nobody has declared it done. After Castillon, the English now have the War of the Roses. Like, you just go right off the cliff into that. And England's sort of dark days and that is preventing sort of, you know, hot warfare. Right. We're not able to field an army to go into France because we're busy fielding an army to. To deal with people in England. But it doesn't mean that. It's that the motivations, the desire, the aims, everything is still not in play. I mean, multiple times, as soon as somebody feels like they've got things settled for the moment, it's like, all right, let's go back to France, let's raise an army and go back, and then things will fall apart and they can't quite do it. But the desire is still there. And there are, in fact, a few occasionally do manage it, and they do manage to go back and have an invasion. And 1492 is the. The last of these kind of big invasions where it's settled at what's called the peace of a top, where everybody signs off on effectively ending the conflict. And what has been transpiring in the intervening years is England having been sort of pushed off the immediate horizon. Right. As, you know, the King of France. I don't have to immediately deal with the English because they're not here right now. Do they want to come back? Yeah, they want to come back. Are they probably going to come back? Yeah, they're probably going to come back, but I don't got to deal with them right now. So that means I can deal with these people right here. And France is now able to settle a lot of these internal disputes. What is the place of Burgundy within? Is it within France and how is that going to function? What is the place of Brittany? Is it within France? How is that going to function? What is, like, all of those fights now have to get settled and once that's all done, we have essentially modern France and then we get the piece of etop which is like England signs off on all that. So England, which had been using Burgundy and been using Brittany and been you like all these proxy fights that they've been engaged in, England says, no, all right, we're cool, man. Not going to do it. We're done. The English, to be fair, still hold a nominal claim to the king of France that isn't officially abandoned until there was actually a post Napoleon. There's no longer a monarchy. Yeah, there's no king of France. That's finally, when it's like, all right, all right, we'll stop making that claim.

[Matt Lewis]

We're chopping the heads off the kings of France. Anyone want to lay a claim? No, no, you're okay.

[Dr. Eleanor Jaenega]

We're.

[Matt Lewis]

We'll set that aside now.

[Professor Michael Livingstone]

We'll set it aside. But, you know, even early on, I mean, Henry viii, I end the book actually with this. With the field of the cloth of gold, which is an amazing event in any case. But, you know, this. This wonderful exchange where Henry VIII and the king of France are being sort of introduced, and by tradition, the king of France, or the king of England is. Henry viii is. Is said to be the king of France, you know, king of England and of France. And Henry immediately stops the proceedings and turns to the king of France and laughs about it and says, don't worry about it, man. It's just a title we use and it doesn't mean anything. That's a really telling difference from where we started or where we were in the middle, I should say now, where we started. But where Edward III is like, no, no, this is serious. So, yeah, this 1492 is the end of the story of France defining itself and therefore England's sort of standing in the way of that. And therefore this continental conflict, as it had been ongoing, is really kind of ended at this point. It doesn't mean England and France are now like, jolly with each other. I think we all know that some stuff happened after 1492, like, that continues, but now it has to kind of move to other landscapes. Right. It moves to my neck of the woods. Right. It moves to the new world. It moves beyond and begins a process of imperialism and colonialism and all that that has wrought in our history. So it is a. Again, when I was like, oh, well, what? Okay, the piece of a top. That's pretty much it. And then it was like, oh, wow, that's. That's exactly 200 years. That's really cool. Yeah.

[Matt Lewis]

Oh, yeah.

[Professor Michael Livingstone]

I was like, perfect. Couldn't have planned that better. But it wasn't. Yeah, that wasn't. It wasn't like, oh, what. What happens in 1492 that I could pin all this on. It was kind of the other way around, but it. Yeah, it worked out great.

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[Matt Lewis]

Yeah, and I'm fascinated, fascinated by that element of the story of the second half of the 15th century. So you know, the wars, the Roses is where I'm, I'm really at home in, in history. And again, there is a danger of thinking of that as an exclusively English affair. But actually, when you think about it, part of my reading of this second half of the 15th century is France turning the tables. And where England has been almost continually attacking and invading and inserting itself into France, you begin to see this resurgent, newly confident France turning the tables and inserting itself into English politics. So when you think about the re adeption when Edward IV is kicked off the throne and Henry VI put back, who makes that happen? Louis XI of France makes that happen and supplies men to invade England and change who is on the throne of England. Edward IV will invade France in 1475, but it doesn't really get him anywhere except to get some a bunch of money. When Richard III comes to the throne in 1483, he's immediately building this alliance with Isabella in Spain, trying to drag in the Holy Roman Emperor and the Burgundians in a huge aggressive alliance against France. And what is France's reaction to this? They sponsor Henry Tudor's invasion of England in 1485 and they change who is on the throne of England.

[Professor Michael Livingstone]

Yeah, beautiful master.

[Matt Lewis]

The king of France isn't claiming to be king of England, but what he is beginning to do is insert himself into English politics and have a say and an effect on who is on the throne of England. And you know, 1492. Why is Henry VII invading France? He's Invading France because they're sheltering Perkin Warbeck, who is claiming to be a rival to the English.

[Professor Michael Livingstone]

You know, you're right to come like that big scape. Right. And the flip of that, because the, you know, the dark days for France were when their king was mad. You had a mad king in France and that absolutely crippled the kingdom. At the end of all this, you essentially have a mad king in. In England that cripples the kingdom.

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[Professor Michael Livingstone]

And. And cracks everything. Right. So.

[Matt Lewis]

Yeah. The French king's grandson. Yeah.

[Professor Michael Livingstone]

Bizarre. I mean, and since it's not bizarre, they're actually. They're related by blood. And so it's. You could probably sort of like, figure out the odds of this happening.

[Matt Lewis]

We're.

[Professor Michael Livingstone]

We're pretty good. But, you know, the. The fact that the. That it has flipped that directly. You know, the a mad king and then invasion and breaks everything. Right. And the side has to pick up this. The pieces. Everything is flipped now. Yeah. France is absolutely on top and England has to redefine itself to take account of that, like. And it's bloody. It's not a state. Redefining itself is never. At least that I can think of in history, clean. And. And everybody's just like, shake hands and we're all good. It tends to be disastrously, tragically bloody. But hopefully on the other side, things come out. I don't want to say better or whatever, but like, like that act is done now. And now you have a restabilized state that can deal with whatever crisis it was. And which, again, I would say is what happens in England as well. It takes time and I have to sort of leave that story untold because I'm like, well, I'm telling the story of this conflict and that's over. The conflict that is now born in England will continue, obviously, and not be settled for quite some time. Fascinating though it is. I mean, obviously, you know, War of the Roses and as you know, more than anyone, is incredible period of time. So. Yeah, I would have loved to spend more time there to do that. But even as it was, I had to cut something like 50,000 words out of this book to. To have it that the publisher would actually public publish it. So a lot of things had to. Had to hit the cutting room floor, unfortunately.

[Matt Lewis]

Yeah. And it's interesting to think in 1492, it's potentially one of the smartest things that Henry VII does to. To launch that kind of sharp invasion of France that leads to the peace of Etaple, because maybe he, more than anyone else, having benefited from French backing to take the English throne. Can see that the tables have turned and now is the time to put an end to all of this. To sign the bit of paper, have some peace, set those boundaries before France, do it to England again.

[Professor Michael Livingstone]

And get a lot of money in the process. Right. Get paid off too, which is nice and needed. I think that that moment is not been studied enough. I think it gets, it gets lost and it gets lost the same thing going back to where we started, 1292, the pirate war. I think those are absolutely vital moments in history, but they get lost because they're overshadowed by the stuff around it. 1492 gets overshadowed. Gets overshadowed by. As Columbus guy does something. Of course. But even on the kind of English historical scale. Yeah. Who really writes about that? Right. You're. Now you're, you're involved in this other stuff that's going on. That's where the headlines are, that's where the neon lights are. And yet it's not a small thing. It's not like he showed up in France with like 20 dudes. Like, it's a, it's massive, really massive and has tremendous outcomes. And yeah, we don't study enough. It gets sidelined. You know, again, I keep saying like among the things I try to do in the book, but trying to sort of think about this wider story that we haven't told and bits of it that are incredibly important we haven't told because we've been too caught up on this traditional narrative and traditional definitions and periodization of things that I don't think really reflect reality and are costing us something of understanding ourselves as a result.

[Matt Lewis]

Yeah, I mean you have very nicely and very professionally brought me directly back around to the conversation that I wanted to end on about periodization and I wanted to ask what you think about whether it's helpful to divide history up the way that we do or whether we need to be a little bit more flexible. Do we lose a kind of a macro, macro view when we don't have a wide enough lens and we focus in on these narrow things? Or, or do we need, as historians and as humans do we need these stories broken up into manageable bite sized pieces? Otherwise it just becomes too much.

[Professor Michael Livingstone]

I think honestly both are true. Right. You, you can't as, as I just said, you know, like, like physically this book has to exist, which physically means it needs to be X number of pages, which physically means like. So the story is somewhat defined by the need to produce something just as, you know, like this podcast here, this episode like it's got a definition to it so that we can actually have this conversation. We need that, we have to have that. But I think it's utterly vital that we are self aware that what we're doing is kind of false. Right? Not, not that doesn't have value, but that, that if we think that those definitions are those, you know, like the starting and end timing of this conversation, that, that, that somehow carries definitional weight in the world, that is bad. And that is not. Like, that means that we don't see the bigger picture. Just as I would say, in one day of the week, maybe I'm writing a very highly specialized academic article or essay or book or something that is very siloed, right? And I am like talking to an audience of, I don't know, 25 people or whatever. Like, it's very siloed in what it's doing, very specialized in what it's doing. There's enormous value to that, but also it's enormously limited. And it's limited not only in the, the scope of who it reaches, but also in the scope of its study because it's getting into those really kind of fine details and something is lost. If that's all we had, well, how does that connect to this other thing? Oh, I don't know. That's something else. We need to have both. We have to have this sense of the porousness. To go back to a word used earlier, the porousness of these labels, that they are convenient, they're useful. I mean, I'm a medievalist, okay? Like, well, what the hell is medieval? I don't know, but it's useful to be like, well, but I'm not modern, you know? And like, okay, well, what's modern? Oh, well, come on now. Like, all of these labels have a kind of nebulousness to it. Have use. That's great, that's awesome. But let's be honest about what we're doing. It was one of the tensions I actually felt in writing the book was here I'm sort of pulling out the rug from underneath labels in order to produce a label. Like, there's just kind of a central, like, well, what am I doing? But I tried to explain, certainly in the introduction, then come back to it at the end. Yeah. I also want to be transparent about what I'm doing. This is why I've used these definitions. This is why I've done it this way. And here's what I think we gain by using this kind of labeling. But understand that all labels are not about the things themselves, they're about our relationship to it. It's us pushing things back onto the past. And that's always been the case and always will be the case.

[Matt Lewis]

Yeah. And I think what you mentioned about being self aware when we apply these labels is perhaps the, one of the most important things. It struck me as I was reading that when you traditionally box up the Hundred Years War, it becomes about England's attempt to take the throne of France. When you look at it as a 200 year war that you have, it becomes about France's effort to define itself and make itself a functioning kingdom that can survive in the world without being attacked and invaded. So as soon as you put a, a frame around any kind of period, you're necessarily viewing it from a very specific angle. You know, you put a frame on it and hang it on the wall. You're looking straight at it. You can't see the sides anymore and you can't see what's behind it. So as soon as we do it, it becomes useful and it gives us a section, a manageable chunk of, to look at. But we need to be aware that we're getting a very particular view of it which is, is quite often one sided. You know, the Hundred Years War can become a very Anglo centric thing. The 200 Years War is, is quite a Franco centric thing. And as long as we're aware that we're doing that, it's fine. But if we, if we lose our awareness, then we begin to skew our view of some of the history.

[Professor Michael Livingstone]

Yeah, I mean it's, you know, this really is. I, I think at one point I even toyed with calling it the 200 years wars because I wanted to sort of try and emphasize that this isn't, there's no singular entity to it. And even if you, when you read the book, you see how often I try to go back to primary sources as much as possible and quote them as much as possible. Like, okay, this is where this is coming from. And that, that's not contained either. Right. You know, I'm not looking at English sources or only at French sources, or only I'm like, who was there? I don't, like what side were they on? Is, is obviously relevant, but is not how I'm defining who I'm listening to. I'm listening to human beings who were engaged in this continental conflict from all sides, from all backgrounds. Like who has a voice? Let me hear them and let me bring those voices to, to people so they can hear them too. And if, you know, if in the end you walk away and say, well, yeah, I don't really buy a 200 years war. But also, yeah, the 100 years war kind of doesn't make sense. Okay, cool, great. I think it's that, it's that sense of kind of, again, breaking down those limitations that is most important to me. Whether they're periodization of time, chronology or of, you know, definitions of linguistics or nationality like that, these are all just human beings and they were. Are dealing with their world as human beings just as we're dealing with ours. And we should approach them as such.

[Matt Lewis]

Yeah. And part of the danger, I think it feels like, is that if we think we have a settled view of the periodization of history, like there is 100 years war and you can't mess with that label. Well, actually you can because you can just view it in a different way and you can have the 200 Years War as well as the, the 100 Years War. They're just simply different ways of looking at a similar period in time that give you a different perspective on it. So they can all coexist together. And perhaps what we need to take away is that we can be flexible about that periodization. It's not about putting one in the bin so that we can have a new one. It's about having them all lined up against each other and understanding the benefits and the limitations of each one, I think.

[Professor Michael Livingstone]

Exactly. So. Well said, sir.

[Matt Lewis]

Wonderful. I mean, that seems like a good place to end. Then I'll end on a. Well said. Thank you so much for joining us again, Mike. It's been an absolute, absolute pleasure to chat to you again and everyone who subscribes to History Kit can carry on enjoying your. Your brilliant documentaries on medieval rebels and the Gone Medieval episodes that are supporting those as well. And I look forward to your next book and what that might challenge about what we think about history. But thank you so much for joining us, Mike. It's been an absolute pleasure as always.

[Professor Michael Livingstone]

Pleasure is all mine. Thank you, Matt.

[Matt Lewis]

Mike's book the 200 Years War is out now. If you'd like a fresh take on the. The conflict between England and France. You can also find Mike's previous visits to God Medieval to talk about the Battle of Crecy and the Battle of Agincourt in our back catalogue, along with others about the Hundred Years War, including Jonathan Sumption talking about the end of the conflict. There are new installments of Go Medieval every Tuesday or Friday. So please come back to join Eleanor and I for more from the greatest millennium in human history. Don't forget to also subscribe or follow us on Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts and tell all of your friends and family that you've gone medieval. You can sign up to History Hit to access hundreds of hours of original documentaries with a new release every week and all of History Hits podcasts ad free. Head to historyhit.com subscribe. Go on, you know you want to. Anyway, I better let you go. I've been Matt Lewis and we've just gone medieval with History Hits.

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