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Comment by wavefunction | Hacker News Reader

When did England invade France in the Medieval era?

The Kings of England were nobles in France with lands over there ever since William the Conqueror. He didn't stop being Duke of Normandy just because he was also now King of England and his lands and titles stayed in the family. Many of them primarily spoke French up to the Tudors. They didn't see it as invading France, but protecting and securing their ancestral rights.

Constantly. From 1066 onward until the Tudors finally lost Calais, English monarchs were also barons or counts or dukes of lands in what is now France, whether in Normandy or Aquitaine or Gascony, or other places, and they were constantly getting snarled up in conflicts with other French nobles or the French king.

The Hundred Years War, 1337 to 1453. Henry V and Agincourt etc.

Edit: Dates :)

That's the answer I was expecting. It seems strange to me to use the end of the High Medieval era and extrapolate that back across the whole.

It's the most well known. It's not like the English longbow or archery was a recent innovation by the time of the Hundred Years Wars. by that point there had been centuries of extensive use. The Burhs defending against Viking raids in the time of Alfred needed arrowheads too, as did the Vikings themselves.

Adding a response to the original question: The Battle of Gisors in 1198 was an English victory on French soil.[1]

Regarding the English Longbow, there appears to be an ongoing debate regarding when the longbow was developed, as used in the Hundred Years War. There are some who argue that prior to the late thirteenth Century, English bows were either a shortbow or less powerful "ordinary bow."[2]

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Gisors

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English_longbow#Origins

You're right. There's a respectably wide span across which the longbow may have become dominant, and another period of using some amount of both. I think most certainty is their origination in Wales. The Welsh and Normans were constantly learning from each other's tactics from the earliest excursions by the Normans. There are some who document longbows being used during the war of succession between England and Normandy in the 1140s (The Anarchy), and in Wales a little later in the 12th.

Others have argued much later. Unless we get an older find of Mary Rose quality, I think that debate will run on. :)

Centuries? In Wales perhaps, but not in the large-scale standardised way across England. That was initiated by Edward I who saw the longbow in action during a campaign in Wales, and ordered every able-bodied man in England to practice every Sunday on the village green. That's what lead his grandson to have access to so many highly trained longbow archers.

Archery definitely existed before that time, but that was not the same as the famous heavy longbow of the late Middle Ages.

Some have argued earlier, see my sibling comment: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18544499

It's quite possible that they existed earlier, but as far as I know, they weren't in widespread use until Edward I ordered everybody to practice with them. And that makes a huge difference, because you need a lot of practice to be good with a longbow, and many many people practicing with them made it easier for Edward III and Henry V to field so many good archers.

England was also under French rule during much of this time so I would expect smiting to aid war efforts on the continent, also the middle part of this period has all those crusades.

Prior to that, Vikings, Norsemen. Lots of interchange over the channel.

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