Buttress

Decisive large pitched battles, the Hundred Years’ War was characterized by siege warfare, regional expeditions, local operations and ambushes. In France, villages were raided, looted or burned by passing armies who practiced scorched-earth destruction.

The Hundred Years’ War was actually a tangling up of Franco-English wars, civil conflicts between Frenchmen, large-scale banditry and popular insurrections. Hostilities were actually interrupted by truces and long periods of relative peace, because neither the English nor the French could sustain the war effort. Permanent armies, fortifications and ransoms being very expensive, both belligerents rapidly became financially exhausted and neither was ever able to gather enough means, money and men to allow a decisive strike that would bring the war to a victorious end. The official time of real war was about 30 years, but the habit of violence created a new class of armed men, and unchecked gangs, wandering private armies and unemployed mercenaries brought additional insecurity, murder and pillage to the devastated countryside.

The Hundred Years’ War resulted in enormous growth of fortifications. Although few new fortresses were built, many older works were rearmed, many castles were modernized, and many existing structures were embellished. In addition, many points of importance were fortified—not only military strategic strongholds hnt places important to the economy, such as towns, villages,, hamlets, farms, mills and bridges, as well as religious buildings such as isolated monasteries, churches and chapels. Simultaneously, the vicissitudes of the Franco-English war resulted in the destruction of many places both by military operations and by intentional dismantling: A castle might be destroyed if strategically vulnerable, hard to defend, or too advanced in territory held by the enemy, for example.

The technical evolution of military architecture occurring during this period of war, plague and disorder was mainly characterized by continuation of traditional methods, minor improvements and a few innovations. Everything previously described was still employed, and

Cross-section of a wall made of blocage 136