Battle of Crécy

The Battle of Crécy, also called Battle of Cressy, was an important English victory during the Edwardian phase of the Hundred Years' War. Coupled with the later battles of Poitiers (also fought during the Edwardian phase) and Agincourt, it was the first of three major English successes during the conflict.

The battle was fought on 26 August 1346 near Crécy, in northern France. An army of English, Welsh and allied troops from the Holy Roman Empire led by Edward III of England engaged and defeated a much larger army of French, Genoese and Majorcan troops led by Philip VI of France. Emboldened by the lessons of tactical flexibility and utilisation of terrain learned from the earlier Saxons and Vikings and the recent battles with the Scots, the English army won a decisive victory.

The battle saw the rise as the dominant Western European battlefield weapon of the longbow, whose effects were devastating when used en masse. Crécy also saw the use by the English army of some very early cannon: archaeological digs found shot on the battlefield centuries later. The combined-arms approach of the English, the new weapons and tactics used, which were far more focused on the infantry than previous battles in the Middle Ages (whose predominant focus was the heavily armoured knight), and the killing of incapacitated knights by peasantry after the battle, have led to the engagement being described as "the beginning of the end of chivalry".

Crécy (comics)

Crécy is a graphic novel written by Warren Ellis and illustrated by Raulo Cáceres, depicting some of the events surrounding the historical Battle of Crécy. The graphic novel was published in 2007 by Avatar Press, under the Apparat imprint. The story is told from the point of view of the fictional William of Stoneham, a longbowman in the service of the English. It features several important characters from the event, including Edward III and Philip VI, the kings of England and France respectively.

See also

V sign, the two-fingered "Longbowman's Salute" described in Crécy, and shown on the cover of the book.

References

External links