- Treaty of Brétigny
The Treaty of Brétigny was a
treaty signed onMay 8 ,1360 , between King Edward III ofEngland and King John II (the Good) ofFrance . The treaty was signed at Brétigny, a village nearChartres , and marked the end of the first phase of theHundred Years' War (1337 –1453 ), as well as the height of Englishhegemony on the Continent. The treaty was signed several years after John was taken as aprisoner of war at the Battle of Poitiers (September 19 ,1356 ). The ensuing conflicts inParis betweenÉtienne Marcel and the Dauphin (later King Charles V) and the outbreak of theJacquerie peasant revolt weakened French bargaining power. The treaty did not lead to lasting peace, but procured nine years' respite from the Hundred Years' War. 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.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
Guyenne andGascony ,Poitou ,Saintonge andAunis ,Agenais ,Périgord , Limousin,Quercy ,Bigorre , the countship ofGauré ,Angoumois ,Rouergue ,Montreuil-sur-Mer ,Ponthieu ,Calais ,Sangatte , Ham and thecountship ofGuînes . 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 andTouraine , the countships ofAnjou and Maine, and the suzerainty ofBrittany and ofFlanders . He also renounced all claims to the French throne. 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 ofAquitaine .John II had to pay three million gold crowns for his ransom, and would be released after he paid one million. The occasion was the first minting of the
franc , equivalent to onelivre tournois (20 sous). As a guarantee for the payment of his ransom, John 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 onOctober 24 ,1360 , atCalais . At the same time 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 were signed. Edward III retired finally to England, for the last time.When his own son Louis I, Duc d'Anjou (one of the hostages) escaped from England in
1362 , John II gave himself up. He died in captivity in1364 and Charles V succeeded him as king of France. In1369 , 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 southwest aroundBordeaux .ee also
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List of treaties ources
*"Brétigny, Treaty of." "Encyclopædia Britannica". 2005. [http://www.britannica.com/ebc/article?tocId=9357997]
*Burne, Alfred H. "The Crecy War: Military History of the Hundred Years War from 1337 to the Peace of Bretigny, 1360". Eyre & Spottiswoode: 1955. ISBN 0837183014.
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