Charles VII: Joan of Arc, Reconquest and Restoration of the State (1422–1461)
p51422 à 1461
The accession of Charles VII, in 1422, took place in conditions of extreme fragility. Upon the death of Charles VI, the kingdom of France was not unified around a single sovereign: by virtue of the Treaty of Troyes of 1420, the young Henry VI of England was recognised in Paris as heir to the crown, while the dauphin, taking refuge at Bourges, proclaimed himself king under the name of Charles VII. The new reign therefore opened with a fundamental question: who was the true king of France?
This crisis was not merely dynastic. It was also territorial, political and military. The north of the kingdom, Paris and a large part of Normandy escaped the control of the new sovereign. The Burgundian party, allied to the English since the assassination of John the Fearless in 1419, still supported the order born of Troyes. The Valois monarchy seemed reduced to a narrow space around the Loire, to the point that contemporaries would later sometimes speak of the “King of Bourges.”
Yet this reign also began with a possibility of recovery. Despite political isolation, financial weakness and English pressure, Charles VII retained the support of a significant portion of the elites of the centre and south of the kingdom. Around him was maintained a Capetian-Valois legitimacy that neither the Treaty of Troyes nor the English military successes could entirely erase. This loyalty to the dauphin turned king formed the foundation upon which the reconquest could be built.
It was in this context that Joan of Arc appeared, a major figure of the reign. Through her intervention, the lifting of the siege of Orléans in 1429, then the coronation at Reims, she gave the king a new legitimacy, at once political, religious and symbolic. If Charles VII did not owe his recovery to Joan alone, her action nonetheless marked a decisive turning point: she transformed a contested king into a consecrated sovereign, and made possible the reconquest of the kingdom.
The reign of Charles VII is thus one of the most decisive in the history of medieval France. It began in doubt, almost in effacement, but it ended with the spectacular restoration of royal authority. Between these two moments unfolded several major stages: the alliance with Joan of Arc, the reconciliation with Burgundy, the reform of the army and taxation, and then the progressive expulsion of the English from the kingdom.
Thus, the chapter of Charles VII is one of profound transformation. It was not merely a military reconquest, but a political refoundation of the monarchy. Under his reign, the crown slowly emerged from civil war and English tutelage, while more durable instruments of government were put in place. With Charles VII, France passed from dynastic survival to the reconstruction of royal power.
I. 1423: Diplomatic Isolation, the Setback at Cravant and the First Resistance of Charles VII’s Camp
The year 1423 opened in a very unfavourable situation for Charles VII. Proclaimed king at Bourges after the death of Charles VI, he truly controlled only part of the centre and south of the kingdom, while the north of France, Paris and a large part of Normandy remained under Anglo-Burgundian domination. The new reign therefore began under the sign of political and military isolation.
This isolation was worsened by the Treaty of Amiens, signed on 13 April 1423. By this agreement, the English regent John of Lancaster, Duke of Bedford, Duke Philip the Good and the house of Brittany tightened their alliance against the Valois king. The treaty recognised Henry VI as King of France and committed its signatories to act together against Charles VII. Breton participation was particularly significant: it meant that Duke John V of Brittany, though long concerned with preserving a certain margin of autonomy, then accepted to align himself with the Anglo-Burgundian diplomatic framework.
This rapprochement was consolidated shortly afterward by the marriage of Bedford with Anne of Burgundy, celebrated on 13 May 1423. This union strengthened the ties between English and Burgundian interests at the very moment when the party of Charles VII was still seeking to establish its legitimacy. The opposing camp then appeared politically more structured, better connected by princely alliances and more solidly installed in the northern part of the kingdom.
Battle of Cravant: Bibliothèque nationale de France, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
In this context, the military situation of the King of Bourges remained fragile. The most serious moment of the year was the Battle of Cravant, on 31 July 1423. The Franco-Scottish forces engaged to retake the initiative in the north of the kingdom were beaten near Cravant, in Burgundy, by an Anglo-Burgundian army. This defeat effectively closed off Charles VII’s access to the north of France and confirmed his territorial marginalisation. It also contributed to fixing, in the following years, the image of a sovereign reduced to his Loire and Berry lands, whom his adversaries readily designated as the “King of Bourges.”
This difficult year was not, however, entirely devoid of cause for hope for the Valois camp. On 3 July 1423, the future Louis XI, son of Charles VII, was born at Bourges. This birth reinforced the dynastic continuity of the House of Valois at the very moment when the Troyes treaty sought precisely to disqualify it. In a disputed kingdom, where the question of royal legitimacy remained central, the existence of a direct heir constituted an important political element.
Battle of La Brossinière: Bibliothèque nationale de France, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Above all, the end of the year showed that French resistance had not been broken. On 26 September 1423, French troops won a victory at the Battle of La Brossinière, also called the battle of La Gravelle. An English army ravaging Maine and Anjou was intercepted and severely beaten. This success, limited at the scale of the kingdom, nonetheless had strong symbolic reach: it proved that the English were not invincible, that their domination was not without resistance, and that the camp of Charles VII remained capable of achieving local victories despite the setbacks suffered further north.
The year 1423 was also marked by other signs of political and cultural recomposition in the Burgundian space. The founding of the University of Dole, undertaken by Philip the Good, showed the duke’s determination to endow his States with their own prestigious institutions. This element, though indirect in relation to the war, recalls that the conflict between Valois, Burgundians and Lancastrians also took place in a space of princely construction and institutional affirmation.
II. 1424–1425: The Shock of Verneuil, the Resistance of Mont-Saint-Michel and the Reorganisation of Charles VII’s Camp
The years 1424 and 1425 confirmed the extreme fragility of Charles VII’s position at the beginning of his reign. After the difficulties of 1423, the king had to face a new great military defeat, while the English continued their advance in Normandy and the West. Yet, in this very unfavourable context, a few signs of resistance were already appearing, notably around Mont-Saint-Michel and through the appointment of Arthur of Richemont at the head of the royal army.
Battle of Verneuil: Attributed to Philippe de Mazerolles, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
The main disaster of this sequence was the Battle of Verneuil, fought on 17 August 1424. The forces of Charles VII, supported notably by Scottish contingents, were beaten there by the English army of the Duke of Bedford. The defeat was very heavy and recalled, by its symbolic scale, the great reverses suffered by France in the 14th century. It dashed the hopes of a rapid reconquest of the north of the kingdom and instead reinforced Anglo-Burgundian domination over the northern regions. For the Valois party, Verneuil appeared as one of the last great failures before the later recovery of the reign.
In the wake of this, the English increased their pressure on the positions still held by the loyalists of Charles VII. On 28 September 1424, they laid siege to Mont-Saint-Michel, one of the few remaining French strongholds on the Norman coast. The significance of this siege was as much strategic as symbolic: the Mount was a fortress difficult to reduce, but also a major religious site whose resistance kept alive the idea that not all of Normandy was subdued. The siege continued until 24 June 1425, without decisive success for the English.
Arthur III of Richemont in statue: Fab5669, CC BY-SA 4.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0, via Wikimedia Commons
The year 1425 began, however, with an important decision for the Valois monarchy. On 7 March, Arthur III of Richemont, brother of the Duke of Brittany, became Constable of France. This appointment marked an attempt at military and political reorganisation around a high-ranking Breton prince, capable of drawing the crown closer to certain Breton circles and of giving firmer direction to the resistance. Richemont did not immediately transform the situation, but his entry into the foreground constituted an important step in the progressive reconstruction of Charles VII’s camp.
The resistance at Mont-Saint-Michel provided, the same year, a rare cause for confidence. On 16 June 1425, sailors from Saint-Malo seized the English fleet and managed to relieve the besieged stronghold. This episode, in which notably Briand III de Châteaubriant-Beaufort participated, showed that the war was not limited to the great battles lost by the king: it was also made up of local actions, regional loyalties and raids that prevented the enemy from completing its domination. Mont-Saint-Michel, thanks to this resistance, remained a symbol of the survival of the French cause in Normandy.
At the same time, the kingdom remained deeply exposed to insecurity. In July 1425, an armed band seized livestock from Domrémy and Greux, recalling that rural populations lived in direct contact with war, pillaging and mercenary companies. This type of episode, commonplace at the scale of the conflict, illuminates the climate of daily insecurity that then prevailed in the eastern marches of the kingdom. It also gives a glimpse of the world in which the future Joan of Arc was growing up.
Finally, despite a few instances of resistance, the English advance continued. On 2 August 1425, Le Mans surrendered to the English, confirming the weakening of the Valois apparatus in the West. The town, important for control of Maine, thus reinforced the territorial continuity of the English positions between Normandy and the areas of north-western influence. At this stage of the reign, Charles VII still seemed far from being able to retake the initiative.
III. 1426–1427: Court Intrigues, the Rise of Richemont and the Rally at Montargis
In 1426, the general context remained unfavourable to the King of Bourges. Outside the kingdom, the Burgundian victory at Brouwershaven, on 13 January, further reinforced the position of the princes allied to the Anglo-Burgundian camp in the space of the former Low Countries. At the same time, the government of Charles VII continued to rely heavily on the Angevin entourage, notably on Yolande of Aragon, the king’s mother-in-law, who retained a decisive influence in the kingdom’s affairs and in the balance of the court.
The main issue of 1427 was, however, internal. On 8 February, Pierre II de Giac, favourite of Charles VII, was arrested at Issoudun on the orders of Constable Arthur of Richemont and with the support of Yolande of Aragon. Accused of abusing his closeness to the king and of diverting the affairs of government for his own benefit, he was quickly tried and then executed by drowning. The episode showed how much the court of Charles VII was then dominated by personal rivalries and by the struggle to control access to the sovereign.
The disappearance of Giac did not put an end to these tensions; on the contrary, it opened a new phase of instability. During the year, another close associate of the king, Le Camus de Beaulieu, was assassinated, while Georges de La Trémoille gradually imposed himself as the new royal favourite and as one of the most influential figures of the government. This rise to power accentuated friction with Arthur of Richemont, whose military and political authority appeared threatened. An attempt at rapprochement between Richemont, the Duke of Brittany and other princes failed in the autumn of 1427, confirming the persistent division in Charles VII’s camp at the very moment when it most needed unity.
The siege of Montargis: Bibliothèque nationale de France, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
On the military front, however, the year was not entirely unfavourable to the king. On 5 September 1427, the siege of Montargis was lifted thanks to the intervention of Jean de Dunois, known as the Bastard of Orléans, of La Hire and other captains loyal to the king. The English, who had been besieging the town, suffered a clear defeat. This success was important, less for its territorial scale than for its moral reach: it constituted one of the first great English reverses of this phase of the war and showed that the camp of Charles VII retained a real capacity for resistance. The episode also heralded the rise of military commanders destined to play an essential role in the following years.
This rally was not, however, sufficient to immediately reverse the general dynamic. On 2 August 1425, Le Mans had already surrendered to the English, and the space loyal to Charles VII remained very limited. Even in regions still outside direct English domination, insecurity remained high: the violence of armed bands struck the countryside, as shown in July 1425 by the looting of livestock from Domrémy and Greux, a modest episode at the scale of the kingdom but revealing of the general climate of war and precariousness.
IV. 1428: Joan of Arc at the Threshold of History and the Beginning of the Siege of Orléans
The year 1428 constituted a decisive moment in the early reign of Charles VII. Militarily, the king’s situation remained very fragile: the English retained the initiative and sought to break the last footholds of the Valois camp on the Loire. Yet it was also that year that the figure of Joan of Arc appeared, still obscurely, at the very moment when the siege of Orléans began, an episode destined to become the symbolic and political turning point of the reign.
On 13 May 1428, Joan of Arc, a young girl from Domrémy, presented herself at Vaucouleurs before Robert de Baudricourt. She claimed to be sent to rescue the King of France and requested safe conduct to join the court of Charles VII. This first approach did not yet succeed, but it marked Joan’s entry into the political history of the kingdom. At this stage, her word appeared exceptional but was received with scepticism; nothing yet allowed one to measure the role she would play a few months later.
At the same time, the war continued to reshape the balance of princes. On 3 July 1428, the Peace of Delft ended the conflict between Philip the Good and Jacqueline of Bavaria. Without directly concerning the camp of Charles VII, this agreement reinforced the stabilisation of the Burgundian space and consolidated the position of the Duke of Burgundy, still an essential ally of the English. It thus confirmed, indirectly, the diplomatic and territorial isolation of the Valois king.
Siege of Orléans: Bibliothèque nationale de France, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
The capital military fact of the year was, however, the opening of the siege of Orléans. After having taken, during the summer and autumn, several positions controlling the Loire crossings, the English arrived before the city on 12 October 1428. Orléans occupied a major strategic position: it commanded the passage between the north of the kingdom, largely dominated by the English and their Burgundian allies, and the lands of the centre and south that remained loyal to Charles VII. Its fall would open the road to Berry for the English and directly threaten the heart of the Valois kingdom.
Ramparts of Orléans during the siege: Unknown author in 19th century, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
The siege quickly took shape. On 23 and 24 October, the English seized the boulevard and then the fort des Tourelles, which commanded the southern access to the bridge of Orléans. The city found itself closely threatened from that moment. But an unexpected event momentarily slowed the offensive: on 27 October, the Earl of Salisbury, principal English commander of the operation, was mortally wounded; he died a few days later, on 3 November. His successor, William de la Pole, resumed the siege, however, and the inhabitants of Orléans used the respite to reinforce their defences.
At the end of the year, English pressure intensified again. On 30 December 1428, new reinforcements arrived before Orléans, and the siege resumed with vigour. At this moment, the situation appeared extremely dangerous for Charles VII. If the city fell, the strategic balance of the kingdom could tip definitively in favour of the English. It was therefore in a context of extreme military urgency that the approach undertaken a few months earlier by Joan of Arc suddenly took on its full meaning.
V. 1429: Joan of Arc, the Lifting of the Siege of Orléans and the Coronation at Reims
The year 1429 constituted the great turning point of the early reign of Charles VII. While the king’s military situation had seemed almost desperate at the end of 1428, the lifting of the siege of Orléans, the victorious Loire campaign and then the coronation at Reims profoundly reversed the political and symbolic dynamic of the conflict. At the heart of this shift now stood the figure of Joan of Arc.
Battle of the Herrings: Attributed to Philippe de Mazerolles, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
The year began nonetheless under ill omens for the Valois camp. On 12 February 1429, at the Battle of Rouvray, also called the Battle of the Herrings, a French attempt to intercept an English supply convoy destined for the siege of Orléans ended in failure. Many defenders of the city died there, and this clash further reinforced the pressure on Orléans, whose provisioning was becoming more difficult. The siege, begun in October 1428, then seemed likely to lead to the fall of the city and open the road to the centre of the kingdom for the English.
It was in this context that Joan of Arc intervened. After a first attempt the previous year, she finally managed to reach Chinon, where she met Charles VII on 6 March 1429. She was then examined by theologians at Poitiers; the opinion rendered being favourable, the king agreed to give her a role in the expedition destined to relieve Orléans. Joan then left the court, joined the royal army and made her way to the Loire. She entered Orléans on 29 April 1429, where her presence powerfully rekindled the hope of the besieged and of the entire Valois cause.
The following days saw a series of decisive actions against the English positions around the city. After several assaults, the French progressively gained the upper hand. On 8 May 1429, the English finally lifted the siege of Orléans. This event had considerable reach: it was not only a major military success, but also a psychological shock. For the first time in a long while, the French camp achieved a clear victory against the English in an operation of primary importance. The lifting of the siege appeared from then on as the starting point of the recovery of Charles VII’s reign.
The Battle of Patay: Bibliothèque nationale de France, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
In the wake of this, the royal army retook the initiative on the Loire. In June 1429, it successively seized Jargeau, Meung and Beaugency, before winning on 18 June the Battle of Patay, where the English forces were beaten and Talbot was taken prisoner. These rapid successes liberated the Loire country and completed the transformation of the military climate of the kingdom. Where defeat had seemed inevitable a few months earlier, victory now became possible.
Bolstered by this momentum, Joan of Arc pressed the king to go to Reims to receive the coronation, an essential condition of full Capetian legitimacy. The departure took place at Gien on 29 June 1429. Despite the risks, the march through still uncertain regions succeeded: Troyes opened its gates, then Reims welcomed the royal cortege. On 17 July 1429, Charles VII was crowned King of France in Reims Cathedral. This coronation constituted the political and symbolic culmination of Joan’s action: it gave the sovereign a consecration that neither the Treaty of Troyes nor the English successes had been able to erase. It transformed a contested king into a consecrated king.
Map of France in 1429: Democ-soc, CC BY-SA 4.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0, via Wikimedia Commons
The second half of the year, however, revealed the immediate limits of this recovery. After an action at Montépilloy in August, Joan joined Saint-Denis, while Charles VII concluded on 28 August 1429 a four-month truce with the Duke of Burgundy. This decision checked the offensive momentum. When the French then attempted to retake Paris, Joan of Arc was wounded on 8 September before the Porte Saint-Honoré. The king forbade renewing the assault and finally ordered a retreat. This failure showed that the reconquest of the kingdom could not be immediate, despite the enthusiasm generated by Orléans and Reims.
The end of the year was even more mixed. Joan won a new success in November at Saint-Pierre-le-Moûtier, but then failed before La Charité-sur-Loire, a stronghold held for the Anglo-Burgundians by Perrinet Gressart. This siege, conducted from the end of November until December 1429, ended without decisive result for the royal camp. Meanwhile, on 6 November 1429, Henry VI was crowned in London as King of England, proof that the war of legitimacy between the two crowns remained entirely open.
Thus, 1429 was both a year of victory and a year of political foundation. Through the action of Joan of Arc, Charles VII emerged from the marginality into which the Treaty of Troyes and the English successes had relegated him. The lifting of the siege of Orléans, the Loire campaign and the coronation at Reims restored to the Valois monarchy an active and visible legitimacy. But the failures at Paris and La Charité also recalled that this recovery remained incomplete: the kingdom was not yet reconquered, and the war between the two royal pretensions continued.
VI. 1430: Capture of Joan of Arc, Burgundian Ascendancy and the Continuation of the War
The year 1430 marked a clear slowdown in the momentum born from the victories of 1429. While the camp of Charles VII continued the war on several fronts, the political balance shifted in favour of the Duke of Burgundy, whose princely authority was further reinforced. Above all, the capture of Joan of Arc before Compiègne deprived the king of the figure who had embodied the recovery of the kingdom since Orléans and the coronation at Reims.
On 10 January 1430, Philip the Good founded the Order of the Golden Fleece on the occasion of his marriage with Isabella of Portugal. This chivalric order, conceived to exalt the duke’s prestige and cement the loyalty of his nobility, symbolised the rise to power of the Burgundian State within the French and European space. By this act, Philip the Good affirmed that he was not merely a great vassal of the kingdom, but the head of a principality destined to play a leading role in western affairs.
In Charles VII’s camp, the year was also marked by the continuation of the war in the southern and eastern provinces. In the Dauphiné, Raoul de Gaucourt, governor of the province, convened the Estates of the Dauphiné to obtain the subsidies needed to combat Louis of Chalon and the forces threatening the region. This mobilisation led, on 11 June 1430, to the Battle of Anthon, where the Dauphinois troops won an important victory against the Orangist forces. This success, less celebrated than those of the Loire, showed that resistance to the Anglo-Burgundian camp was not limited to the Loire theatre alone.
The capture of Joan of Arc by the Burgundians during the siege of Compiègne: A. Burgun (engraver), Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
The major event of the year remained linked to Compiègne. On 20 May 1430, upon the expiration of a truce, Philip the Good besieged the town, a strategic position on the Oise, situated at the juncture between the Burgundian, English and Dauphinois spaces. Joan of Arc, who had left Sully-sur-Loire without having received a clear mission from the king, then joined the garrison and attempted to support its defence. On 23 May 1430, during a sortie against the Burgundian forces, she was captured on the outskirts of the town. This capture was of immense consequence: it ended the military career of the one who had, in a few months, transformed the moral and political situation of the Valois camp.
The capture of Joan was not immediately followed by her transfer to the English, but her situation quickly became a major political issue. The University of Paris, loyal to the Anglo-Burgundian camp, demanded her trial. Finally, the Burgundians ceded her to the English in exchange for a large sum, and she was taken to Rouen at the end of the year. By this chain of events, Joan’s affair left the military field to enter the political-religious field, where her adversaries intended to destroy the legitimacy that she had helped to give to Charles VII.
Despite this very hard blow, the war continued. The siege of Compiègne lasted several months, but the town resisted, and the Burgundians finally had to lift the siege in autumn. The maintenance of the stronghold in the hands of the Dauphinois party partially mitigated the effect of Joan’s capture and showed that the camp of Charles VII still retained solid footholds north of the Loire.
VII. 1431: Trial and Execution of Joan of Arc, Coronation of Henry VI in Paris and the Continuation of the Kingdom’s Division
The Trial of Joan of Arc: Louis-Maurice Boutet de Monvel, CC0, via Wikimedia Commons
On 21 February 1431, Joan of Arc appeared at Rouen before her judges for the opening of her trial. Captured the previous year at Compiègne, then handed over to the English by the Burgundians, she was now in the hands of a tribunal dominated by the Bishop of Beauvais, Pierre Cauchon, loyal to the Anglo-Burgundian camp. The trial, conducted within an ecclesiastical framework, aimed less at condemning a person than at delegitimising the political and religious work she had accomplished in the service of Charles VII. By striking Joan as a heretic, her adversaries intended to strike, through her, the very validity of the coronation at Reims and the Valois king’s claim to hold his crown from God.
Joan of Arc at the stake: Jules-Eugène Lenepveu, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
After several weeks of interrogations, the proceedings concluded in spring. On 29 May 1431, Joan was condemned as a relapsed heretic; the following day, 30 May, she was burned alive in the square of the Vieux-Marché in Rouen. Her execution constituted one of the most famous and most heavily significant episodes of the Hundred Years’ War. In the short term, the Anglo-Burgundian camp believed it had destroyed the figure who had restored the Valois party’s momentum of 1429. But, in the longer term, Joan’s death on the contrary nourished the memory of a sacrificed cause, destined to further reinforce the spiritual legitimacy of Charles VII.
At the same time, the power of Charles VII sought to consolidate itself in the spaces that remained loyal to him. A bull from Pope Eugene IV authorised the creation of the University of Poitiers, desired by the king to reward the loyalty of Poitou. This gesture showed that the Valois camp, though militarily weakened, never ceased to organise its own institutions in the regions that remained loyal to it. The war of legitimacy also passed through university, judicial and administrative anchorage of royal power.
On the military level, the year was not entirely frozen. On 2 July 1431, at the Battle of Bulgnéville, René of Anjou was taken prisoner by the Burgundians. This episode recalled the constant intertwining of the Franco-English war, the dynastic interests of the princes and the Lorraine or Burgundian conflicts. At the same time, the English presence continued to strengthen in the Norman space: on 25 October, Louviers fell into English hands, confirming the solidity of their implantation north of the Loire.
Coronation of the child Henry as King of France at Notre-Dame de Paris on 16 December 1431: Bibliothèque nationale de France, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
The other great event of the year was the symbolic offensive led by the opposing camp. On 2 December 1431, Henry VI of England made his solemn entry into Paris. On 16 December, he was crowned King of France at Notre-Dame de Paris by Cardinal Henry Beaufort. This coronation clearly responded to that of Charles VII at Reims in 1429: it was a matter of endowing the young English king with the sacred legitimacy that he still lacked in France and of giving ceremonial prolongation to the Treaty of Troyes. However, the reach of this act remained limited: unlike the traditional coronation of the Kings of France at Reims, that of Paris did not carry the same symbolic force in the Capetian imagination.
The year 1431 was also inscribed within the broader context of the resolution of the Great Western Schism. The Council of Basel, convened since the previous year, again affirmed its superiority over the pope and confirmed the spirit of the Frequens decree from Constance. Eugene IV, who attempted to dissolve the assembly, met with its resistance. This tension recalled that the restored unity of the Roman Church had not put an end to the great conciliar debates on papal authority. For the kingdom of France, these discussions were not secondary: they were inserted in a moment when the legitimacy of powers, religious as much as political, was more contested than ever.
Thus, 1431 appeared as a year of extreme symbolic confrontation. The Anglo-Burgundian camp had Joan of Arc put to death and had Henry VI crowned in Paris; the camp of Charles VII, meanwhile, maintained its political and institutional continuity in the centre of the kingdom. The Hundred Years’ War was therefore not only fought on battlefields: it was also fought in courts of law, in cathedrals, in universities and in the memory that each camp sought to impose on the kingdom.
VIII. 1432–1435: Reorganisation of Charles VII’s Camp, Norman Agitation and the Shift of the Treaty of Arras
In 1432, the power of Charles VII remained weakened by the divisions of his court, but certain rapprochements were taking shape. The Treaty of Rennes of 5 March 1432 restored an agreement between Arthur of Richemont, his brother the Duke of Brittany, and the king, despite the persistent influence of Georges de La Trémoille over the sovereign. This agreement did not suppress tensions, but it showed that the monarchy sought to reconcile itself with princely forces indispensable to the continuation of the war. The same year, the European religious crisis continued: the Council of Basel summoned the pope to reverse his bull of dissolution and soon opened proceedings against him, a sign that the conciliar question remained an important backdrop of European politics.
The political turning point came in 1433 with the fall of Georges de La Trémoille. On 3 June, the favourite and principal minister of Charles VII was overthrown; the influence of Yolande of Aragon, of Charles of Maine and especially of Constable Arthur of Richemont was thereby reinforced. This episode was crucial, as it ended a court domination long considered harmful to the cohesion of the royal party. The government of Charles VII then became more capable of pursuing a coherent political and military line, even if the rebalancing remained gradual. Meanwhile, the Council of Basel further accentuated its confrontation with the papacy, stripping the pope of certain prerogatives over high ecclesiastical dignities.
In 1434, signs of a wearing down of English power became more visible in Normandy. Recent scholarship highlights that from this year, the English authorities felt overwhelmed both by the guerrilla of Charles VII’s partisans and by the agitation of local militias. In certain areas of Lower Normandy, villagers took up arms against the occupiers, which testified to a progressive weakening of English authority in the duchy. This evolution did not yet lead to a general reconquest, but it indicated that the English domination, solid in appearance, was beginning to be undermined from within.
Battle of Gerberoy: Bibliothèque nationale de France, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
The year 1435 was that of the great diplomatic shift. First, French arms regained vigour: on 9 May 1435, at the Battle of Gerberoy, the captains of Charles VII, notably La Hire and Jean Poton de Xaintrailles, won an important victory over the English. But it was above all the Conference of Arras, held from summer until 21 September 1435, that changed the situation. By the Treaty of Arras, Philip the Good was reconciled with Charles VII and abandoned the English alliance concluded after the assassination of John the Fearless. In exchange, the king acknowledged his wrongs in the murder of the Duke of Burgundy, dispensed Philip from personal homage for his French lands and granted him important territorial compensations, notably the towns of the Somme, as well as the Auxerrois and the Mâconnais. The treaty ended the civil war between Armagnacs and Burgundians and diplomatically isolated England.
The Anglo-Burgundian rupture had immediate consequences. In the autumn of 1435, Dieppe was retaken by surprise by the French, triggering a broader uprising in the Pays de Caux. Thousands of peasants then took up arms against the English; even though the subsequent repression was severe, this episode showed that the French reconquest was no longer based solely on princes and captains, but also on a growing popular hostility toward the occupation. Thus, between 1432 and 1435, the reign of Charles VII progressively emerged from mere survival: the king reorganised his government, the English occupation began to crack, and the Treaty of Arras finally offered him the possibility of confronting England without having to fight Burgundy at the same time.
IX. 1436–1437: Retaking of Paris, Return of Royal Institutions and the Fragility of the Reconquest
Entry of the French army into Paris in 1436: Jean-Simon Berthélémy, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
At the start of 1436, the English authorities already felt their position in the capital weakening. On 15 March, they demanded of the Parisians a new oath to observe the Treaty of Troyes, a sign that their domination was no longer a matter of course. A few weeks later, Constable Arthur of Richemont, tasked by Charles VII with retaking the city, established himself at Saint-Denis. On 13 April 1436, French troops entered Paris with the support of inhabitants hostile to the English occupation. This retaking ended the English presence in the capital, which had lasted since 1420, and constituted one of the greatest political successes of Charles VII since his coronation. The reconquest of Paris was not achieved through a great pitched battle, but through a siege, a blockade and an internal opening of the gates, which well illustrated the new French method of war, more patient and more political.
The recovery of Paris had immense symbolic reach. The king could not yet install himself there durably, but the former capital of the Valois, long dominated by the Burgundians then by the English, once again became a centre of the royal party. This success also showed the concrete effects of the Treaty of Arras: deprived of Burgundian support, the English could no longer hold their positions in the Île-de-France as solidly. The retaking of Paris did not, however, signal the end of the war; it above all shifted its centre of gravity in favour of the king.
The year 1436 remained moreover marked by strong social tensions. In Lyon, the Rebeyne, a popular revolt directed against the gabelle tax, erupted in spring. This movement recalled that the reconstruction of royal power was accompanied everywhere by heavy fiscal pressure, felt harshly by towns and populations. Even in a context of reconquest, the needs of war continued to feed social discontent.
In 1437, the monarchy sought to more fully restore its institutions in the capital. On 12 November 1437, Charles VII finally made his solemn entry into Paris, accompanied by the dauphin, the future Louis XI. Shortly afterwards, the Parlement of Poitiers, created during the years of division to serve as the sovereign court for the Valois camp, returned to install itself in Paris. This transfer was fundamental: it signified that the city had henceforth become again, not only militarily but also institutionally, one of the centres of royal government.
However, this reassertion of control remained fragile. As early as 12 February 1437, the English had retaken Pontoise, and they still held several strongholds around the capital and in Normandy. In August–October 1437, Montereau was besieged and then retaken by the royal troops, but the fighting showed that the reconquest remained slow and contested. The English presence remained capable of directly threatening the outskirts of Paris, while the roads and countryside still suffered from armed companies and accumulated destruction.
To these military difficulties was added an economic and demographic crisis. In 1437, monetary scarcity was such that the government had to put back into circulation, after devaluing them, coins struck in the name of Henry V. This measure illustrated the persistent fragility of royal finances. At the same time, a general famine struck the north of France between 1437 and 1439, while plague and bands of Écorcheurs further worsened the situation in several regions. The reconquest of the kingdom did not therefore yet mean the return of prosperity; it took place in a country weakened by decades of war, taxation and disorder.
Thus, between 1436 and 1437, the reign of Charles VII crossed an essential threshold with the retaking of Paris and the return of the great royal institutions to the capital. But this victory remained precarious: the enemy was not driven from the kingdom, the war continued around the Île-de-France and Normandy, and the monarchical reconstruction took place in a climate of strong social and economic tension. The recovery was underway, but it was still far from complete.
X. 1438–1439: Religious Crisis, Reform of the Kingdom and the Birth of the Fiscal-Military State
The year 1438 was first marked by a difficult situation. Harvests were poor, the summer mediocre, the grape harvest late in the north of the kingdom, and the price of grain rose sharply. In several towns, notably in Rouen, famine made itself felt. This economic fragility recalled that the military reconquest was taking place in a country still deeply afflicted by decades of war, destruction and monetary instability.
At the same time, the European religious crisis remained open. On 8 January 1438, the Council of Ferrara-Florence opened, supported by Pope Eugene IV and rivalling the Council of Basel. The two assemblies violently opposed one another on the question of supreme authority in the Church: the pope sought to retake the initiative, while the conciliarists of Basel continued to defend the superiority of the council over the pontiff. This division did not concern only theology: it also engaged the relations between monarchies and the papacy, notably in a kingdom of France very attached to defending the autonomy of its Church.
It was in this context that one of the great acts of the reign intervened: the Pragmatic Sanction of Bourges, promulgated by Charles VII on 7 July 1438. This text recognised several principles derived from conciliarism, notably the superiority of the general council over the pope, limited certain papal interventions in the Church of France and more strictly governed the conferring of ecclesiastical benefices. Without breaking with Rome, the king thus more clearly affirmed the autonomy of the kingdom in the religious domain. The Pragmatic Sanction is often considered as a founding act of Gallicanism, in that it affirmed the capacity of the French monarchy to defend the liberties of the Church of the kingdom in the face of papal claims.
The year 1439 prolonged and deepened this reorientation. It opened in a particularly harsh climate: the winter of 1438–1439 was so severe that the Seine froze and chroniclers reported the presence of wolves as far as Paris. To the climatic harshness was added continued difficulties of provisioning and social tensions. On the military level, however, the king continued to advance: between 20 July and 10 August 1439, Arthur of Richemont retook Meaux, further consolidating royal control around the Île-de-France.
On the religious level, the oppositions between Basel and Ferrara-Florence reached their peak. On 25 June 1439, the Council of Basel declared Eugene IV a heretic and deposed him. A few days later, on 6 July, at the Council of Ferrara-Florence, the bull Laetentur Coeli proclaimed the union of the Churches of Rome and Constantinople. This union remained fragile and largely theoretical, but it manifested the pontifical ambition to restore Christian unity in the face of eastern threats. In November 1439, the schismatic fathers of Basel even elected Amadeus of Savoy as antipope under the name of Felix V, proof that the schism, though different from that of the previous century, remained a major political reality.
But the capital event of 1439, for the history of the kingdom, was played out at the Estates General of Orléans, convened in autumn. On 2 November 1439, the Estates accepted the principle of maintaining a permanent army in the service of the king. To finance this effort, they authorised the regular levy of the taille, a direct tax henceforth collected each year. The decision was fundamental: until then, direct taxation had remained in principle exceptional; henceforth, it became durable and structural. By this reform, Charles VII endowed the monarchy with stable resources, which permitted a progressive exit from dependence on feudal levies, uncontrolled mercenary companies and occasional aids.
This evolution constituted a major turning point in the history of the French monarchy. By linking permanent army and permanent taxation, the reign of Charles VII laid the foundations of what could be called a fiscal-military state. The king was no longer merely the feudal head of a coalition of princes and lords: he became the centre of a more continuous, more administrative and more centralised apparatus of war and government. This transformation was not without resistance: it contributed directly to provoking, the very following year, the noble revolt known as the Praguerie.
Finally, the same year, the strengthening of the monarchical apparatus also passed through better financial organisation. Jacques Cœur then became Grand Master of the Treasury of the kingdom, a sign that the crown intended to support its military recovery with more efficient administration of resources and financing circuits.
XI. 1440: The Praguerie, the Affirmation of Royal Authority and the Execution of Gilles de Rais
The year 1440 marked a decisive stage in the reign of Charles VII. After the reforms undertaken in 1438–1439 — in particular the creation of a permanent army financed by a taille henceforth levied each year — the king ran up against a violent reaction from the high nobility. This revolt, known as the Praguerie, revealed the hostility of a portion of the princes and great lords in the face of the rise of a more centralised, more taxed royal power less dependent on feudal clienteles.
The movement erupted at the beginning of 1440. Among the rebels were princes of the first rank, such as Jean II of Alençon, Charles of Bourbon, Georges de La Trémoille, Dunois, and even Dauphin Louis, the future Louis XI. The very name of Praguerie referred to the revolts of Prague and conveyed the seriousness with which contemporaries perceived this contestation. Its causes were clear: the royal ordinances of 1439 had increased the king’s military and fiscal power, limited the autonomy of the great lords and threatened the traditional place of the nobility in the conduct of war.
The reaction of Charles VII was rapid and effective. The king refused to be drawn into a long war against his own princes. In spring, he led an energetic campaign in Poitou, Auvergne and Bourbonnais, breaking the rebels’ momentum before they could constitute a lasting coalition. As early as 3 April, he was at Poitiers, and the speed of his movements as much as the effectiveness of his forces already showed the concrete effects of the military reform that he had precisely sought to impose. The rebels, lacking solid support and unable to unite durably, progressively found themselves forced into submission.
The conflict ended with the Treaty of Cusset, signed on 24 July 1440. The monarchy emerged victorious. The rebel princes had to make amends, and Dauphin Louis, compromised in the rebellion, was removed from the centre of power and sent to the Dauphiné. This outcome was essential: it showed that Charles VII was no longer a king defended only by a few regional loyalties or by inspired captains, but the head of a State capable of subduing its own great feudatories. The Praguerie is thus often considered the last great serious feudal revolt against the monarchical reconstruction undertaken by Charles VII.
The same year, other events recalled, however, that the kingdom was still traversed by deep tensions. On 16 May 1440, the marriage of Charles the Bold with Catherine of France further reinforced the dynastic ties between the house of Burgundy and the royal dynasty. A few months later, on 23 July, Amadeus VIII of Savoy, elected antipope under the name of Felix V, was enthroned, proof that the religious upheavals born of conciliarism and the schism had not entirely disappeared from the European political landscape.
Standing at the stake, Gilles de Rais begged forgiveness of the crowd of onlookers for his crimes.: Alfred Jean-Marie Paris, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Finally, the year 1440 was also that of the spectacular fall of Gilles de Rais. A former companion-in-arms of Joan of Arc, Marshal of France and great Breton lord, he was judged by the authorities of the Duke of Brittany and the Bishopric of Nantes, then executed on 26 October 1440. His trial, which bore notably on accusations of murdering children, heresy and practices judged demonic, made a lasting impression. By the scale of the crimes attributed to him and the celebrity of the personage, the affair became one of the most famous judicial episodes of 15th-century France.
XII. 1441–1442: Reconquest of the Île-de-France, the Guyenne Campaign and the Last Princely Resistance
The years 1441 and 1442 confirmed the recovery undertaken by Charles VII after the crushing of the Praguerie. The king pursued the reconquest of the kingdom, secured his authority in the Île-de-France, then took the war toward the South and Guyenne. At the same time, the great princes still attempted to limit the extension of monarchical power, but without managing to check the royal dynamic.
In 1441, Charles VII first worked to restore order in the kingdom. On 23 January, at Niort, he stigmatised by a royal act the depredations of the gentleman écorcheurs, those armed bands living off the land who had long ruined the countryside. This condemnation was part of a broader policy: henceforth, the monarchy intended not only to defeat the external enemy, but also to impose the king’s peace within the kingdom.
The reconquest of Charles VII at Pontoise: Martial d’Auvergne, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
The military priority of the year was, however, the Île-de-France. The king successively besieged Creil and then Pontoise, two essential English strongholds for control of the approaches to Paris. Creil, invested in spring, capitulated on 24 June 1441. Pontoise, besieged from 4 June, fell in turn on 19 September. This double victory had major strategic reach: it practically completed the reconquest of the Île-de-France and consolidated royal mastery around the capital. By retaking these strongholds, Charles VII further reduced the depth of the English apparatus north of the Loire and showed that the reconquest was no longer limited to isolated successes, but proceeded from that point in a methodical progression.
The year 1441 was also marked by several institutional and ecclesiastical reorganisations. A bull from Pope Eugene IV created the University of Bordeaux, a sign of the growing intellectual and political importance of the great Aquitaine city in a space still disputed. In Brittany, the Concordat of Redon of 14 August reinforced the duchy’s autonomy vis-à-vis the Gallican Church, while in Burgundian lands, other agreements with the Holy See confirmed the dukes’ growing hold over ecclesiastical benefices. These evolutions recalled that, despite the progression of the King of France, the great princely entities still retained strong autonomous organisational capacity.
In 1442, the opposition of the kingdom’s great lords again manifested itself. Gathered at Nevers on 28 January, several princes attempted to form a new coalition against Charles VII: this was the Duperie de Nevers. As during the Praguerie, they sought to check the concentration of monarchical power and notably called for recourse to the Estates General. But this attempt quickly failed. The episode above all showed that the high nobility could no longer transform its discontents into an effective revolt in the face of a king henceforth better armed, better financed and politically more solid.
The same year, the monarchical apparatus continued to structure itself. On 7 April 1442, Jacques Cœur appeared officially as treasurer and royal councillor. His rise to prominence testified to the growing importance of finances, credit and administration in the conduct of the war. The recovery of the kingdom now rested as much on the force of arms as on the crown’s capacity to mobilise durable resources.
But the essential events of 1442 were played out on the military field. In spring and summer, Charles VII led a vast campaign in the South-West, sometimes called the Voyage de Tartas. The king showed himself in person in the South, passing through Limoges then Toulouse, and convened the Estates of Languedoc. This royal presence had strong symbolic reach: it manifested that the king was no longer a sovereign entrenched around the Loire, but a military commander capable of traversing his kingdom and imposing his authority in the southern provinces.
The day of Tartas, on 24 June 1442, was one of the highlights of this show of force. Without necessarily giving rise to a great battle, it marked the reassertion of control over an essential area of Guyenne and confirmed the weakening of the English positions in the South-West. The campaign then continued with a series of successes: Charles VII retook Saint-Sever, Dax, Condom, Agen, Marmande and then La Réole, which fell on 8 December 1442. This advance showed that the royal reconquest was no longer limited to the Île-de-France and the Loire valley: it now extended more clearly to the Aquitaine space.
The siege of Dieppe: Martial d’Auvergne, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
At the same time, the war remained fierce on other fronts. The English undertook at the end of the year the siege of Dieppe, which opened on 2 November 1442. The town resisted, and the siege would not be lifted until 1443. This episode recalled that, despite the king’s successes, England still retained important means of action on the coast and in Normandy. Moreover, the Écorcheurs continued to ravage several regions of the centre and south-east of the kingdom, notably the Lyonnais, the Forez and the Velay, proof that internal pacification was not yet complete.
XIII. 1443–1444: Administrative Reforms, Truce with England and New Royal Ambitions
In 1443, Charles VII spent an important part of the year in the South. After his Guyenne expedition, he wintered at Montauban then stayed at Toulouse, where he made a solemn entry on 26 February. This southern stay confirmed that the king was no longer merely a war sovereign, but also a prince who personally governed the reconquered or consolidated provinces. He received there notably René of Anjou and Isabelle of Lorraine, which showed the persistent importance of Angevin ties in the royal entourage. It was also in this context that the influence of Agnès Sorel, future royal favourite, was reinforced, whose presence at court symbolised the evolution of the political and cultural customs of the reign.
The same year, the monarchy pursued its work of economic recovery. Charles VII encouraged trade by developing notably the fairs of Lyon, destined to become one of the great exchange centres of the kingdom. Above all, on 25 September 1443, the great ordinance of Saumur, prepared in the wake of Jacques Cœur, aimed to better oversee and clean up royal finances. This reform was part of a broader movement: since the Estates General of Orléans of 1439, the monarchy had been working to give the war and government more regular, more administered fiscal bases less dependent on old expedients.
This rise in royal power could also be read in the composition of the council. Around the king there imposed themselves new servants, often from non-princely backgrounds, such as Jacques Cœur, Jean Bureau, Étienne Chevalier, Guillaume Cousinot or Juvénal des Ursins. Their growing influence accompanied the development of a more technical, more administrative and more centralised mode of government. The monarchy of Charles VII thus progressively distanced itself from the model of a power based solely on great princes and approached a State governed by officers, financiers and jurists.
This logic of reorganisation was also expressed in the judicial domain. On 11 October 1443, the king signed at Saumur the edict creating a parlement at Toulouse, the first provincial parlement durably established outside of Paris. Its effective opening took place on 4 June 1444. The creation of this sovereign court marked a capital stage in the territorial structuring of royal justice. It showed that royal authority, far from being limited to the court and the capital, henceforth intended to embody itself more solidly in the provinces, particularly in the great southern space.
At the same time, neighbouring princes continued their own consolidation. In November 1443, Philip the Good seized Luxembourg, adding a new piece to the Burgundian territorial ensemble. This expansion recalled that, despite the reconciliation of Arras, Burgundian power remained one of the great political facts of the time. Charles VII therefore had to continue strengthening his kingdom without losing sight of the considerable weight of his former adversary turned ally.
The year 1444 saw this monarchy in reconstruction assert itself even further. On 28 May, the Truce of Tours was concluded with England for two years; it would then be extended and last in practice until 1449. This agreement offered the king precious respite. It allowed him to concentrate his forces not on an immediate war against the English, but on internal pacification, military reorganisation and the diplomatic ambitions of the crown. The truce did not mean definitive peace, but it gave the kingdom the necessary time to strengthen itself.
In this framework, the monarchy also intervened in the East. Dauphin Louis received command of an army sent against the Swiss in Upper Alsace, within the framework of commitments made with Emperor Frederick III. The campaign led to the Battle of the Birse, on 26 August 1444, then to operations conducted around Basel and Dambach. Even if these actions partly belonged to the imperial game rather than to purely French interest, they showed that the monarchy of Charles VII was beginning to intervene again in the great balances of the western and Rhenish space. The role entrusted to the dauphin also underscored the growing place he was taking in the kingdom’s affairs.
At the same time, the crown continued its implantation in border regions. The inhabitants of Épinal submitted to the king in September 1444, while royal and Angevin troops intervened in Lorraine and besieged Metz. Even if this operation did not lead to a lasting conquest, it revealed the new ambition of a royal power no longer merely on the defensive, but capable of projecting its force beyond the zones traditionally held by the English.
Finally, administrative reforms continued. After the opening of the parlement of Toulouse, the creation in November 1444 of a chambre des aides in the same city completed the institutional edifice desired by Charles VII. Justice, taxation, army, trade: all the great instruments of power were gradually reorganised. The reign thus entered a phase of profound consolidation, where the military reconquest was accompanied by a genuine reconstruction of the State.
XIV. 1445–1448: The Permanent Army, the Lasting Taille and the Consolidation of the Royal Recovery
In 1445, the Ordinance of Louppy-le-Châtel, promulgated on 26 May. This text created the companies of ordinance, that is to say the first permanent troops of the King of France. The objective was twofold: to have a more disciplined military force, more directly subject to the crown, and to put an end to the disorder caused by mercenary companies and bands of Écorcheurs that had been ravaging the kingdom for years. The men retained in the king’s service were organised into lances, basic units combining men-at-arms, mounted archers, cutlers, pages and valets. This reform constituted a major turning point: it gave rise to a royal professional army, distinct from the old feudal levies.
This military reorganisation was accompanied by a decisive fiscal reform. By the ordinance of Sarry-lès-Châlons of 19 June 1445, the taille was established as a permanent tax destined to finance the maintenance of the new royal forces. The nobility were exempt from it, but were required in return to follow the military profession. The link between permanent army and permanent taxation, initiated in 1439, thus became fully operational. The monarchy of Charles VII endowed itself with regular means of ensuring its defence without depending exclusively on feudal summonses or financial expedients. This evolution was one of the most solid foundations of the strengthening of the royal State at the end of the Middle Ages.
The year 1445 also showed that this reconstruction was not without tensions. The bands of Écorcheurs returned from Switzerland and Upper Alsace, led in the context of Dauphin Louis’s expeditions, still ravaged certain regions, notably Burgundy. The military reform of Charles VII aimed precisely to end this type of diffuse violence by selecting the men retained in the king’s service and dispersing or setting aside the most undisciplined elements. The permanent army thus appeared as a political response to the scourge of armed bands as much as to the English threat.
In 1446, the process continued with a new ordinance of 26 May, which more definitively organised the companies of ordinance. The kingdom was progressively endowing itself with a more stable military apparatus, financed by the annual levy of a taille now better integrated into the functioning of the State. At the same time, tensions between the king and Dauphin Louis became more visible. On 27 September 1446, the break between father and son erupted openly; shortly afterward, the future Louis XI left the court for the Dauphiné. This quarrel did not prevent the reform from continuing, but it recalled that the monarchical reconstruction took place also in a climate of dynastic rivalries.
The year 1447 confirmed the rise to prominence of a more technical and administrative royal personnel. Jacques Cœur, the king’s Grand Master of the Treasury, was associated with an important monetary ordinance taken on 27 July 1447, which restored the minting of sound silver coins. This measure participated in the broader recovery of the kingdom’s finances and monetary confidence. War, taxation and the permanent army required indeed a more reliable circulation of currency and better mastery of resources. The military recovery desired by Charles VII was therefore inseparable from an effort at financial stabilisation.
Siege of Le Mans: The siege of Le Mans, by Martial d’Auvergne, illumination from the work Vigiles de Charles VII, Paris, France, 15th century., Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
In 1448, the royal reform crossed a new threshold with the ordinance of 28 April, which created the corps of free archers. Each group of fifty hearths was henceforth to provide one archer, exempt from certain taxes in return for his service. After the creation of the companies of ordinance, essentially composed of cavalry, this decision endowed the monarchy with the beginnings of a regular infantry organised at the scale of the kingdom. The same year, the retaking of Le Mans from the English, on 16 March 1448, showed that this reorganisation of the military apparatus was beginning to produce concrete effects on the ground.
Thus, between 1445 and 1448, the reign of Charles VII truly changed in nature. The king was no longer content to profit from favourable circumstances of war: he was building the durable instruments of monarchical power. The companies of ordinance, the permanent taille, then the free archers constituted the pillars of a more centralised, better financed and militarily more effective royal State. These reforms explain in large part why the French monarchy could, in the following years, retake the advantage decisively over England.
XV. 1449: Breaking the Truce, Reconquest of Normandy and Charles VII’s Entry into Rouen
The year 1449 marked a decisive turning point in the reconquest led by Charles VII. After several years of truce, military reforms and consolidation of royal power, the war against England resumed in conditions now much more favourable to the French monarchy. This resumption did not proceed from a single great isolated battle, but from a methodical offensive that inaugurated the reconquest of Normandy.
On the religious level, the year opened on the conclusion of a long crisis. On 18 January 1449, the last antipope, Amadeus VIII of Savoy, submitted to Pope Nicholas V; a few months later, he received the title of cardinal and legate in Savoy. On 19 April, the Council of Basel, transferred to Lausanne, in turn recognised Nicholas V, before concluding definitively on 25 April 1449. Thus ended the last remnant of the great conciliarist movement which, since the beginning of the century, had durably contested papal authority. For France, this religious stabilisation came at the very moment when the monarchy was preparing to relaunch the war.
François de Surienne and his men seize Fougères: by Martial d’Auvergne, illumination from the work Vigiles de Charles VII, Paris, France, 15th century. Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
The break with England occurred in spring. On 23 and 24 March 1449, the truce was broken following the seizure of Fougères by François de Surienne, an adventurer in the service of the English. The affair was serious, for Fougères was a town belonging to the Breton sphere, hence to an essential ally of Charles VII. By attacking this position during a truce, the English provided the King of France with the political and legal pretext awaited to officially resume hostilities. The war then resumed in a very different context from that of the preceding decades: the French monarchy now possessed a better organised army, more stable finances and a more coherent command.
Within the kingdom, Charles VII simultaneously pursued his work of restoration. On 26 May 1449, he issued an ordinance intended to repopulate Paris, still weakened by the demographic, economic and political crises of the early 15th century: anyone coming to inhabit the city or its suburbs was exempt from the taille. This measure showed that the reconquest of the kingdom was not reduced to military operations; it was accompanied also by a policy of urban and fiscal recovery.
At the breaking of the truce between English and French in 1449, the French armies attacked the English positions in Upper Normandy, liberating Rouen, while Breton troops advanced through the Cotentin.: Martin Leveneur, CC BY-SA 4.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0, via Wikimedia Commons
The French offensive truly began in the height of summer. On 19 July 1449, Verneuil was retaken by Pierre de Brézé. This event carried strong symbolic reach, since Verneuil had been the site of a heavy French defeat in 1424. Its reconquest therefore marked both a military success and a kind of historical revenge for the camp of Charles VII. In this campaign, the king relied on several of his best commanders, notably Dunois, Richemont and Pierre de Brézé, while Jacques Cœur contributed to the financing of the military effort.
The French strategy was then clear: to cut Normandy into several sections in order to isolate the great strongholds still held by the English. On 8 August 1449, Dunois marched from Évreux toward Pont-Audemer, which fell on 12 August. This advance aimed to separate Rouen from Caen and to disorganise the entire English apparatus. It illustrated the new manner of waging war under Charles VII: fewer decisive chivalric confrontations, more methodical manoeuvres, sieges, logistical coordination and exploitation of enemy weaknesses.
The reconquest also benefited from the attitude of local populations. On 15 September 1449, the inhabitants of Saint-Lô opened the gates of their town to the French troops led by Constable Arthur of Richemont. This rally showed how much English authority had weakened in Normandy. The occupation, long endured out of necessity or prudence, now encountered more open hostility, which the French military successes further encouraged.
Meanwhile, the Breton question was resolved in the west. Fougères, whose seizure had triggered the resumption of the war, was finally returned to the Duke of Brittany on 4 November 1449, after two months of siege. This success completed the general offensive and confirmed the solidity of the alliance between the crown of France and the house of Brittany.
French victory at the siege of Rouen: A. Burgun (engraver), Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
The great achievement of the campaign was the retaking of Rouen. On 10 November 1449, Charles VII made his solemn entry into the liberated Norman capital. The event was of primary importance. Rouen had been one of the principal centres of English power in France; it was also the city where Joan of Arc had been tried and executed in 1431. The reconquest of the city thus possessed a reach that was at once strategic, political and memorial. With the fall of Rouen, English domination in Normandy was gravely compromised.
Thus, 1449 opened the decisive phase of the final reconquest. In a few months, Charles VII showed that the reforms undertaken over the previous decade were now fully bearing fruit: the permanent army, royal taxation, the restored authority of command and the support of a portion of the populations allowed the king to retake the initiative on a large scale. The Normandy campaign was not yet complete, but the year 1449 clearly marked the moment when the French monarchy passed from reconstruction to victory.
XVI. 1450–1452: Completion of the Norman Reconquest, Submission of Guyenne and the English Return to Bordeaux
The year 1450 opened under the sign of the Norman reconquest. Harfleur was retaken as early as 1 January, and the French advance continued in the following months. On 9 February, Agnès Sorel, the king’s favourite, died while she had joined Charles VII in Normandy; her disappearance struck the royal entourage forcefully and would later become the starting point for rumours of poisoning directed against Jacques Cœur. Meanwhile, England was going through a growing political crisis: the fall of William de la Pole, accused of mismanagement of the government, and then the rising discontent that would lead to Jack Cade’s revolt, further weakened England’s capacity to defend its French positions.
The Battle of Formigny: Rémy-Eugène Julien, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
The decisive moment of the 1450 campaign was the Battle of Formigny, fought on 15 April. This French victory opened the way to the collapse of the English apparatus in Normandy. In the weeks that followed, Caen capitulated on 24 June, then Cherbourg, the last great English bastion of the duchy, fell in turn on 12 August. With these capitulations, Normandy was definitively reconquered by the crown of France. The year also saw the continuation of operations in Guyenne, where Bergerac was taken in October, a sign that the war was now extending to the last great ensemble still solidly linked to England.
After the Battle of Formigny, French and Breton troops conquered one by one the last positions held by the English, including Caen and Cherbourg.: Martin Leveneur, CC BY-SA 4.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0, via Wikimedia Commons
At the same time, the monarchy accompanied the military reconquest with a policy of restoration of royal order. The ordinance of 28 October 1450 restored the king’s loyal subjects to possession of the goods from which they had been deprived during the war. This type of measure showed that Charles VII was no longer content merely to retake towns: he was working to concretely restore monarchical authority in the reconquered territories, to restore the rights of the king’s loyal subjects therein and to progressively erase the legal and social effects of the English occupation.
The year 1451 prolonged this dynamic of success. On 12 June, a capitulation treaty was concluded for Bordeaux between the representatives of the King of France and those of the King of England; it was ratified by Charles VII on 20 June. This surrender was a major event: it seemed to signify the end of the long association of Guyenne with England. A few weeks later, on 20 August 1451, Bayonne fell in turn into French hands. For many contemporaries, the war then appeared virtually over, with England retaining no more than Calais in France.
But this year of victory was also marked by an important domestic crisis. On 31 July 1451, Jacques Cœur, grand treasurer and one of the principal architects of the financial recovery of the reign, was accused of lèse-majesté and arrested. The accusation of having poisoned Agnès Sorel, false according to modern sources, was used against him in a context of jealousies, political rivalries and challenges to his immense fortune. His arrest showed that the monarchical reconstruction, despite its military successes, remained traversed by court struggles and deep tensions around the new men of the royal government.
However, the conquest of Guyenne was not yet assured. The inhabitants of Bordeaux, long tied to the English world by their commercial and political interests, badly tolerated French domination. In October 1452, the appeal of the Bordelais allowed John Talbot, Earl of Shrewsbury, to land with a small English army; the city then quickly returned to English obedience. This reversal proved that loyalty to England remained vivid in a portion of Gascon society, and that the French victory of 1451 had not yet definitively consolidated the region.
Thus, between 1450 and 1452, the reign of Charles VII reached a level of military success unknown since the beginning of the century: Normandy was reconquered, Guyenne seemed subdued, and England appeared close to being entirely expelled from the kingdom. But the English return to Bordeaux in 1452 showed that the end of the war was not yet won. This last English resistance would lead to the final campaign of the conflict and to the military conclusion of the Hundred Years’ War.
XVII. 1453: Castillon, the Fall of Bordeaux and the End of the Hundred Years’ War
The year 1453 was one of the most decisive in the entire reign of Charles VII. While the English retaking of Bordeaux in 1452 had shown that the reconquest of Guyenne was not yet definitively won, the campaign of 1453 concluded with the military crushing of the English at Castillon and then with the capitulation of Bordeaux. These events marked the effective end of the Hundred Years’ War, begun in 1337, even though England still retained Calais.
The context of the year, however, extended beyond the kingdom of France alone. On 29 May 1453, Constantinople fell to the Ottomans of Mehmed II, ending the Byzantine Empire. The fall of the city, after a siege of several weeks, upset the balance of the Mediterranean and eastern world. For western contemporaries, this event had immense reach: it signified the disappearance of the Eastern Roman Empire and the durable affirmation of Ottoman power in the Balkans and the eastern Mediterranean.
At the same time, French affairs were inscribed within a broader Italian game. On 11 April 1453, an agreement was concluded at Tours between René of Anjou and the republic of Florence concerning a campaign in Lombardy. René then left for Italy, hoping to intervene in the affairs of the northern peninsula with French and Angevin support. This expedition, despite movements as far as Asti, Alessandria, Pavia, Milan and Cremona, did not produce lasting political results. It showed, nonetheless, that France, now more solid, could again take an interest in the great Italian balances without this diverting the kingdom from its main objective: the completion of the reconquest.
Battle of Castillon: Bibliothèque nationale de France, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
The capital event of the year was the Battle of Castillon, fought on 17 July 1453. The English, commanded by John Talbot, attempted to relieve Guyenne, but they attacked a solidly entrenched French position supported by numerous artillery. The English defeat was crushing. Castillon is generally considered the battle that ended the Hundred Years’ War; it also illustrated the new importance of field artillery in the warfare of the late Middle Ages. The French victory dashed the last English hopes of retaining Guyenne durably.
After Castillon, the reconquest was swiftly completed. Bordeaux, heart of the English presence in Guyenne for centuries, capitulated on 9 October 1453. The French entered on 19 October. With this surrender, the long political association of the city with the English world came to an end. The reconquest of Guyenne was then complete, and England retained no more than Calais in France. The Hundred Years’ War was militarily over.
This victory crowned several years of reforms undertaken by Charles VII. Without the companies of ordinance, the permanent taille, the improvement of royal finances and the action of men such as Jacques Cœur, Jean Bureau, Dunois or Xaintrailles, such a campaign would not have been possible. The end of the war was therefore not merely the result of a momentary military success: it sanctioned the profound transformation of the French monarchy into a more stable, more administrative power capable of sustaining a prolonged war effort.
The year 1453 was not, however, free of domestic tensions. Jacques Cœur, already under prosecution since 1451, was condemned at Lusignan; his goods were seized, and his immense fortune served as a resource for the crown. This contrast was revealing of the reign: at the very moment when the monarchy triumphed externally, it continued to resolve its internal conflicts harshly and to redistribute the balances of power within the royal State.
Thus, 1453 closed a cycle of more than a century of war between France and England. The victory of Castillon and the retaking of Bordeaux ended the almost total English presence in Guyenne and consecrated the success of the recovery undertaken under Charles VII. What had begun, in 1422, as a reign of survival in a torn kingdom ended with the almost complete restoration of royal authority over French territory.
XVIII. 1454–1457: After the War, Princely Prestige, Rehabilitation of Joan and Dynastic Tensions
The years 1454 to 1457 belonged to the post-war period of Charles VII’s reign. The military reconquest was almost complete, but the kingdom entered a different phase, made up of territorial reorganisation, institutional reforms, resounding judicial affairs and new tensions within the dynasty itself. The victorious monarchy now had to govern the peace, while watching over its great princes, its officers and its own heir.
The Banquet of the Pheasant Vow: L.G. van Hoorn Bequest, Bloemendaal — anonymous, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
In 1454, several signs showed this recomposition of the kingdom. The county of Comminges was attached to the royal domain after the death of Mathieu de Foix, who had retained enjoyment of it after the bequest of Marguerite de Comminges to the king. The same year, at Lille, on 17 February 1454, Philip the Good gave the famous Banquet of the Pheasant Vow, during which he promised, with his court, to go and deliver Constantinople, fallen into Ottoman hands the previous year. This crusade project, very spectacular, was never realised, but it illustrated the political and symbolic prestige attained by the Burgundian court in the mid-15th century.
The year 1454 was also marked by the Jacques Cœur affair. Arrested in 1451, stripped of his goods and condemned in a climate of great hostility, the former Grand Master of the Treasury managed to escape in October 1454 and finally joined the pontifical East; he died in 1456 at Chios, while serving in an expedition against the Turks. His fate encapsulated in itself the ambiguities of the monarchical reconstruction: the royal State was strengthened thanks to new men like him, but it did not hesitate to sacrifice them when court balances or political grievances demanded it.
In 1455, France remained integrated into a western world in full intellectual and cultural transformation. The Gutenberg Bible, printed around 1455, established itself as one of the great milestones of the history of the book in Europe, showing the new power of printing with movable metal type. The same year, on 7 November 1455, at Notre-Dame de Paris, the trial for the rehabilitation of Joan of Arc opened. This trial, conducted on the initiative of the pope and with royal support, aimed to revisit the condemnation of 1431. It was not merely a religious or moral gesture: in rehabilitating Joan, the legitimacy of the king she had helped to crown at Reims was also indirectly rehabilitated.
The year 1456 saw precisely the conclusion of this great work of memorial revision. On 7 July 1456, at Rouen, the rehabilitation trial concluded that the condemnation of Joan of Arc was null. Twenty-five years after the stake, ecclesiastical justice therefore annulled the sentence handed down under Anglo-Burgundian control. At the same time, the monarchy continued its work of military oversight of the reconquered towns: at Bordeaux, the foundation stone of the Château du Hâ was laid in January 1456, to house a royal garrison and better hold a city long linked to the English world.
The Lit de justice of Vendôme, Boccaccio, De casibus virorum illustrium.: attributed to Jean Fouquet, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
But this same year also revealed the growing tensions between Charles VII and the great princes of the blood. The Duke of Alençon, already implicated in several oppositions to the king, was arrested and then tried for treason; his death sentence was finally commuted to perpetual imprisonment. Above all, Dauphin Louis, heir to the throne, definitively broke with his father. After years of mistrust, he left the kingdom in 1456 and took refuge with Philip the Good, Duke of Burgundy. This flight was fraught with consequences: it showed that, even after victory over England, the monarchy of Charles VII was still worked from within by deep familial and political fractures.
Finally, in 1457, the reorganisation of the kingdom also continued at the provincial scale. The Estates of Languedoc henceforth convened regularly at Pézenas, which progressively became one of the major administrative centres of the royal South. This shift illustrated the growing rootedness of monarchical government in the provinces, at the very moment when the crown was completing the transformation of its military authority into durable administrative and territorial domination.
Thus, between 1454 and 1457, the reign of Charles VII was no longer dominated solely by the reconquest. It entered a phase of institutionalisation of victory: attachment of lands to the royal domain, control of retaken towns, rehabilitation of Joan of Arc, rise of administrative apparatuses, but also court crises and confrontation with the dauphin. Peace restored revealed other problems, and already prepared the issues of the future reign of Louis XI.
XIX. 1458–1461: Italian Ambitions, Dynastic Crisis and the End of Charles VII’s Reign
The last years of Charles VII’s reign showed a monarchy henceforth victorious on French soil, but still confronted with princely tensions, external ambitions and a difficult succession. The war against England was practically over in France, but the kingdom remained inserted in the affairs of Italy, in rivalries with Burgundy and in an increasingly conflictual relationship between the king and Dauphin Louis, the future Louis XI.
In 1458, French policy looked again toward the Mediterranean. On 11 May 1458, René of Anjou seized Genoa in the name of the King of France, and his son John of Calabria exercised the government there. This intervention prolonged Angevin and French ambitions in Italy, where the crown still sought to weigh on the Ligurian and Neapolitan balances. The same year, the king continued his policy of firmness toward troublesome great princes: the Duke of Alençon, already implicated in several intrigues, was tried at Vendôme in October 1458, sentenced to death and then imprisoned, while his duchy was annexed to the royal domain. This severity illustrated Charles VII’s determination no longer to tolerate princely treacheries after the successes of the reconquest.
But French domination over Genoa remained fragile. As early as 9 March 1461, a revolt broke out in the city against French authority; the garrison took refuge in the Castelletto, before an army sent to its relief was beaten in July. These troubles showed that France under Charles VII, though it had triumphed on its own territory, did not yet possess the means of lasting domination in the Italian space. The Genoese operations thus recalled the external limits of a reign otherwise victorious within the kingdom.
On the dynastic level, the last phase of the reign was dominated by the conflict between Charles VII and Dauphin Louis. As early as 6 October 1460, the dauphin, taking refuge at Genappe, concluded an agreement with the Duke of Milan, Francesco Sforza, against Savoy. This gesture showed that he was already conducting his own foreign policy, independent of his father’s. Since his flight from the kingdom in 1456, Louis was increasingly behaving as an autonomous prince, installed in the margins of the Burgundian space and ready to prepare his future accession to the throne. This rupture morally weakened the end of Charles VII’s reign, even if it did not call into question the king’s immediate authority in the kingdom.
On 22 July 1461, Charles VII died. His son succeeded him under the name of Louis XI. The new king was crowned at Reims on 15 August 1461. His accession was not a simple change of person: it was accompanied by a clear political break with the end of the preceding reign. From autumn onward, Louis XI dismissed several of his father’s councillors, surrounded himself with new men and sought to remodel the balance of power in his favour. This determination for personal government was inscribed in the continuation of the monarchical strengthening accomplished under Charles VII, but it profoundly modified its style and networks.
The change of reign also had religious and institutional reach. On 30 August 1461, during a service celebrated at Saint-Denis in memory of Charles VII, the papal legate lifted the censures incurred by the deceased king on account of the Pragmatic Sanction of Bourges. Then, on 27 November 1461, Louis XI notified the pope of the abolition of this Pragmatic Sanction, which he had promised to suppress when he was dauphin. This gesture marked a change of tone relative to his father’s ecclesiastical policy, even if the effects of this abolition would remain limited and contested within the kingdom.
Thus, between 1458 and 1461, the reign of Charles VII came to an end in a mixed situation. The kingdom of France was reconquered, the monarchy had recovered its military and fiscal strength, but Italian ambitions remained uncertain, the Genoese question showed the limits of French expansion, and the break with the dauphin already heralded a new manner of governing. The death of Charles VII therefore closed a reign of restoration and victory, while the accession of Louis XI opened a different era, more personal, more tense and more resolutely turned toward the direct affirmation of royal authority.
🧠 Key points
- 1422: the reign of Charles VII opened on a legitimacy crisis; the kingdom was divided between the King of Bourges and the Anglo-Burgundian camp.
- 1423–1428: the beginnings of the reign were marked by political isolation, military setbacks and the siege of Orléans.
- 1429: Joan of Arc changed the course of the reign with the lifting of the siege of Orléans, the Loire campaign and the coronation at Reims.
- 1430–1431: the capture and then execution of Joan of Arc broke the momentum of 1429, but not the legitimacy of Charles VII.
- 1435: the Treaty of Arras ended the civil war with Burgundy and lastingly isolated England.
- 1438: the Pragmatic Sanction of Bourges affirmed the autonomy of the Church of France vis-à-vis Rome.
- 1439–1445: the monarchy transformed profoundly with the permanent taille and the companies of ordinance; the State became a durable military instrument.
- 1440: the Praguerie showed that the great princes still resisted, but the crown prevailed.
- 1449–1450: the reconquest of Normandy marked the great offensive return of the monarchy.
- 1451–1453: the retaking of Guyenne, then the victory of Castillon, ended the Hundred Years’ War on the continent.
- 1455–1456: the trial for the rehabilitation of Joan of Arc symbolically repaired the condemnation of 1431 and reinforced the dynastic memory of the reign.
- 1456–1461: despite victory, the reign ended with new tensions, notably with Dauphin Louis, the future Louis XI.