Bloody Crowns: A New History of the Hundred Years War

by Michael Livingston

A prize-winning scholar’s new and expansive telling of the Hundred Years War, revealing how the lines drawn on medieval battlefields forged the modern world

Henry V at Agincourt. Edward III at Crécy. The Black Prince at Poitiers. Joan of Arc at Orléans. The period we call “the Hundred Years War” was a cascade of violence bursting with some of the most famous figures and fascinating fights in history. The central combatants, England and France, bore witness to uncountable deaths, unbelievable tragedy, and uncompromising glory. But there was much more to this period than a struggle between two nations for dominance.  

Bloody Crowns tells a new story of how medieval Europe was consumed, not by a hundred years’ war, but by two full centuries of war from 1292 to 1492. During those years, blood was spilled far beyond the borders of England and France. The Low Countries became war zones. Italy was swept up. So, too, the Holy Roman Empire, the Iberian Peninsula, Scotland, and Wales. The conflict drove enormous leaps forward in military technology and organization, political systems and national identities, laying the groundwork for the modern world.

With a keen eye for military intrigue and drama, Bloody Crowns critically revises our understanding of how modern Europe arose from medieval battlefields.

Genres: History, Nonfiction, Medieval, France, European History

592 pages, Hardcover

First published October 21, 2025

About the author

A native of Colorado, Michael Livingston holds degrees in History, Medieval Studies, and English. He lives today in Charleston, South Carolina, where he teaches at The Citadel.

In his author life, he is a winner of the prestigious international Writers of the Future Contest (in 2005), and his novel SHARDS OF HEAVEN, the first in a trilogy of historical fantasies, will be published by Tor Books in November 2015. He has also published in a variety of other genres and venues, from a historical retelling of BEOWULF to a brief story about quantum physics in the world-renowned journal of science, NATURE.

In his academic life, he has published more than a dozen articles on subjects as varied as early Christianity, BEOWULF, Chaucer, James Joyce, J.R.R. Tolkien, and digital and practical pedagogies (though never all of them at once!). He has investigated European maps of America that pre-date Columbus, found unrecorded Anasazi ruins and artifacts, and written about the handwriting of fourteenth-century scribes. He is the general editor of the Liverpool Historical Casebooks Series, for which he has edited casebooks on the Battle of Brunanburh (Exeter, 2011), the Welsh rebel hero Owain Glyndwr (co-edited with John Bollard; Liverpool, 2013), and, coming soon, the Battle of Crécy (co-edited with Kelly DeVries; 2015).

Reviews

[SnarkyMoggie · Rating 5 out of 5]

I received a proof of this book from NetGalley. The following review is made up of my own thoughts, and hasn't been influenced by the author, the supplier or NetGalley.

This is yet another book that once I finished it, I automatically bought the audiobook of it. I've read other books about the One Hundred Year War, and found it difficult to understand. I knew that this was probably because, like the War of the Roses, too much were happening; there were too many cogs spinning; and I couldn't wrap my head around. I saw this on NetGalley, and something about it; mostly the author stating that he'd believed that the years attributed to the One Hundred Year War, didn't give the reader enough of an understanding. Events before and after this period, highly influenced the war(s) between England and France, and so he decided to expand it.

And I'm really glad that he did. This one, with it's clear writing style and the voice of the author, made it much easier for me to keep up with the book. I felt that I had much more of an idea of what was going on, not all of it, but I didn't become aggravated when I did get confused. And to get around that, I only needed to go back a few paragraphs, maybe a page, and I'd be able to follow it again. I liked that I was able to keep many of the important people in my head, without doing lists. Many details, or bits of information, mentioned previously in the book, would be brought back later on and then shown how it all tied together.

Yet there isn't such repetition that the reader feels as though the author thinks they don't have memory retention.

I would highly recommend this book. As I said, I bought the audiobook. I will be listening to this once I've lowered my TBR pile.

5 Stars.

[Mergulum · Rating 5 out of 5]

I found this to be a thoroughly absorbing history of a tumultuous period of European history. The publisher promotes it as “radically original”. I don’t have the expertise to challenge that but it did not appear to me that a prevailing orthodoxy was disregarded and indeed the author acknowledges the extent of his agreement with other scholars. In fact the proposition that we should refer to this a 200 year conflict rather than a mere century seems the most obvious departure from the norm. But for me any process of periodization can be a subject for debate as a principal purpose of such a process is to help divide the past into more manageable chunks. Indeed as part of the context setting the author goes back as far as the crowning of Clovis in 507. So whether you consider it a 100 year war or a 200 year war or even just one damn thing after another I’d unreservedly recommend that you put time aside for this excellent work.

[Jo-anne Atkinson · Rating 4 out of 5]

In this new interpretation of the wars between France and England, Livingston takes a different perspective. By making his history more focused on France then the conflicts are no longer narrowed to a one hundred year period and not just to wars with England. Livingston argues that to ignore the actions of the Scots, the Welsh, the Navarrese, the Castilians, the Burgundians, the Bretons etc does not consider the bigger picture in Europe in the 14th and 15th centuries. I really liked this idea and found it put different actions into a clearer perspective.

[Dave Taylor · Rating 4 out of 5]

Did the Hundred Years War really last one hundred years? According to historian Michael Livingston, people who claim it was only between 1337-1453 are missing the bigger context of this epic conflict between the French and English royal families. He suggests that it is more accurately referred to as the Two Hundred Years Wars and backs up his claim with exhaustive details on a long list of skirmishes and battles between the various nations involved. This includes iconic battles like Crécy, Poitiers, Agincourt, and the Siege of Orléans, along with dozens of other armed conflicts.

His engaging narrative explores the failures of military organization and planning, the continual surprise of one side against new and innovative tactics from the other (particularly the wily Scots and their parallel fight for independence from England), and the melding and splitting of national identities that fed into the conflicts. For many years, the English head of state was also a vassal of the French king, even while Gascony (including the Duchy of Aquitaine), Normandy, and Calais were under English control.

Livingston is daring in his revisionist exploration of this period of European history. How does one identify the first and last battle of an extended war? "Bloody Crowns" is also so detailed that reading it is overwhelming at times. An abridged edition would be great for armchair historians, as only the most dedicated are going to wade through all 600 pages of content. Worth noting is that the ebook galley I previewed was prose only, so I was not able to reference maps and other additional material that would have helped locate the battles. Still, this is a solid analysis and commentary of a complex era in European history and will reward the patient reader.

[Robert · Rating 4 out of 5]

Disclosure: I received a free copy of this book from NetGalley and Head of Zeus in exchange for an honest review

A very interesting and informative read about the Hundred Years War (which the author argues lasted two hundred years). This was a complex series of events across a wide area, so it could have easily become confusing (especially with the various noble titles) but the book is written in a very clear and readable style.

Chapters are broken into manageable sub-sections focused on a particular battle or event, which makes the journey across two hundred years very enjoyable. I don't read a lot about medieval warfare, but I really enjoyed this book and would recommend it.

[Jonathan Crain · Rating 5 out of 5]

Michael Livingston's "Bloody Crowns: A New History of the Hundred Years War" undertakes what might be called a re-mapping of one of Europe's most examined conflicts. Far from offering another retelling of Edward III's campaigns or Joan of Arc's visions, Livingston insists that we have misread the scale and shape of the war itself. The "Hundred Years War," he argues, is a misnomer born of later convenience—a label coined in the nineteenth century, long after the smoke cleared. The real struggle lasted two full centuries, from 1292 to 1492. In fact, the UK edition is tellingly titled "The Two Hundred Years War: The Bloody Crowns of England and France, 1292–1492" (Apollo, 9 October 2025). Livingston doesn't merely adjust dates—he reframes how we understand Europe's emergence from feudalism into recognizable nation-states.

Livingston's central premise—that the conflict was a two-hundred-year process by which France defined itself—is both persuasive and clarifying. He discards the familiar English-centered framework in which the story unfolds as a succession of royal ambitions and battlefield glories. Instead, he presents the conflict as France's long and painful act of self-definition: the shaping of borders, authority, and identity against England's persistent obstruction. What emerges is a multi-national narrative—a continental history in which Philippe IV and Charles VII are as central as Edward III or Henry V.

This intentionally non-Anglocentric perspective alters the emotional and moral texture of the story. Livingston prefers French naming conventions (Philippe VI rather than Philip VI), a decision that resituates readers within the mental geography of medieval France rather than that of later English chroniclers. It may challenge an English-speaking audience, but it reinforces the book's purpose—to restore a European balance to a tale long filtered through English triumphalism.

The author's training as both scholar and storyteller shapes his execution effectively. His command of archival material—royal letters, treaties, chronicles, and the practical minutiae of campaigns—anchors the narrative, while his instinct for structure keeps it readable. Livingston follows a chronological course but organizes it through what he calls "keystones" of history: pivotal events and turning points that hold the long arc of the war together. For instance, the 1292 mariners' brawl that sparks the war—a seemingly minor incident on a desolate island that Livingston traces through escalating reprisals until it becomes a casus belli. This approach, focusing on essential structural moments rather than comprehensive detail, gives the narrative momentum and depth. His careful tracing of the political machinery behind the Peace of Étaples in 1492 makes clear how local quarrels could escalate into larger systemic conflict.

The book's greatest strength lies in its balance of scope and precision. Livingston can shift from the grand strategy of kings to the commercial importance of the wine and wool trades without losing the reader. His discussion of sovereignty—whether the English king's lands in France were subject to homage—is rendered with both exactness and lucidity. He draws on sources like Edward III's Kitchen Journal to track the king's 1346 campaign with remarkable specificity, grounding abstract political claims in the concrete details of armies on the march. And beneath the politics runs a steady awareness of cost: the shattered towns, the displaced peasantry, the "uncountable casualties" of a war too often remembered through its pageantry.

The narrative's primary limitation stems from its ambition. Compressing two centuries into a single volume demands selectivity; some regions, factions, and social layers inevitably recede from view. Yet the tradeoff is coherence—a through-line from medieval fealty to early modern statehood. The argument's boldness, rather than archival novelty, provides the book's argumentative force.

"Bloody Crowns" is both revision and restoration. It replaces the narrow frame of dynastic rivalry with the broader lens of nation-making, showing that the war was less about who wore the crown of France than about what France and England were becoming. Livingston's reframing has practical implications: understanding the Treaty of Troyes not as the apex of English ambition but as a desperate French fracture—a civil war that invited foreign intervention—changes how we read the conflict's resolution. Instead of a mere battlefield inspiration, Joan of Arc becomes the embodiment of an emerging national consciousness that could survive even catastrophic political division. In that sense, Livingston's thesis feels less like provocation than correction. To accept his premise is to see that the so-called Hundred Years War was never a single conflict, but a multi-century crucible that forged the modern West.

This review is of an advance reader's edition provided by NetGalley and Basic Books.

[Heidi Malagisi · Rating 5 out of 5]

Medieval Europe was a time of conflicts and change. While smaller disputes between countries or civil wars would define borders, the most prominent conflict during this period was the Hundred Years' War. A conflict that has been traditionally taught to have lasted 116 years between England and France. It is often told from the English perspective, with battles such as Agincourt, Crecy, and Poitiers celebrated. But what if we look at the bigger picture and expand our lens to the whole of Europe while keeping a neutral approach to the France vs England conflict? What if the conflict did not last a mere hundred years, but in fact two hundred years? What type of story would this kind of approach tell when it comes to medieval European history? Michael Livingston takes on the mammoth challenge of telling the tale of how this war changed European history forever in his latest book, “Bloody Crowns: A New History of the Hundred Years War.”

I would like to thank Basic Books and Net Galley for sending me a copy of this book. I enjoyed the previous book that I read by Michael Livingston on the Battle of Crecy, so when I heard that he was writing a new book about the Hundred Years' War, I was intrigued. I wanted to see what new information he could provide for a conflict that has been discussed heavily for centuries.

Livingston delivers with a plethora of information. He begins by explaining that the term Hundred Years’ War came from a French textbook in 1823. We often think that it began when King Philippe VI of France declared English lands forfeit on May 24, 1337, so King Edward III declared that he was the rightful king of France; and the end of the war was when the French seized the city of Bordeaux on October 19, 1453. However, Livingston argues that the war began in 1292 and ended in 1492, which means it was a two-hundred-year war. Livingston then goes into explaining the origins of France and England to explain how on earth they even got to a state of strife.

While the study of the conflict between France and England tends to focus on these countries, Livingston expands his view to include a pirate war between English and Norman merchants, wars in Portugal, the Burgundian Wars, fights between England, Scotland, and Wales, peasant revolts of all varieties, and wars with the Flemish. We also see a few civil wars in both France and England, including the Wars of the Roses. There are also colorful characters, including a couple of mad kings, the Black Prince, Henry V, Joan of Arc, William Wallace, earls and dukes of every variety, knights who were loyal to a fault, queens who fought for their families, heiresses fighting for their land rights, and a ton of family squabbles. And of course, Livingston focuses on the battles that defined the period, including Crecy, Poitiers, Agincourt, and Orleans, as well as lesser-known battles that helped shift the momentum for either side. Livingston can provide such vivid details that it feels like you are on the battlefield, even when it comes to the more obscure battles.

In my opinion, Livingston is one of the finest medieval military historians right now, and this is his magnum opus. I learned so much by reading this book that it kind of redefined what I think of the Hundred Years' War. This is one of the best books I have read this year. If you want a book about medieval Europe that will challenge your way of thinking about one of the biggest conflicts of the age, I highly recommend you read “Bloody Crowns: A New History of the Hundred Years War” by Michael Livingston.

[Sifa Poulton · Rating 4 out of 5]

I received an ARC from the publisher in exchange for an honest review. It has not affected my opinions.

THE TWO HUNDRED YEARS WAR is a pretty monumental reframing of the conflict between England and France in the High Middle Ages, claiming that we should not look at the Hundred Years War as a contain entity but the middle portion of a much longer conflict.

I am really struggling with non-fiction at the moment, for which I blame the PhD - my brain just does not want to read facts right now. So it is telling that I got through this in half a week (and that's even with how much slower I am when annotating!) The book has a very engaging style, looking at both the wider conflicts in the region and the smaller acts that characterise this period.

This is a period I'm pretty familiar with - I might have a *minor* obsession with the 14th century and as a teenager, it was the Wars of the Roses - but for those who aren't quite so... invested in the period, Livingston makes it very easy for the reader to follow along the endless twists and turns. Not to mention the fact that everyone has one of about six names (his frustration with this is obvious at times.)

I do agree with Livingston's argument that we need to re-frame the Hundred Years War in the context of the wider clash. What struck me about this book was the very strong argument for how the conflict led to the re-constituting of France into something resembling the modern state - certainly in borders and centralisation. In the history of France and England, it's often Philip II (Philip Augustus) who is the main man credited with the push back against English power and uniting France. And while it's true that he probably did the single most of any medieval monarch in forging a French state, it is certainly far from done - and only really started - at the end of his reign. This book does a good job of showing how progressive kings and conflict (with plenty of ups and downs) took the Frankish lands from a collection of loosely held together powers into a single country.

Therefore, this book serves as a good companion to TWO HOUSES, TWO KINGDOMS, which tells the story of England and France in the two hundred years before this book and gives a more detailed account therefore of how we ended up in the place where this bloody conflict stretches on between England and France for so long.

[Jackie Hughes · Rating 4 out of 5]

Thank you Netgalley and the publisher for this eARC.

3.5 Stars!

Bloody Crowns: A New History of the Hundred Years War is a history of the Hundred Years War, that Livingston argues is actually the Two Hundred Years War, beginning in 1292 and ending in 1492.

Beginning with a murder on a French island all the way to Field of the Cloth of Gold in 1520 AD, this tells the history of France v England and all of the kings, queens, nobles, and citizens affected by it's battles and treaties and many, many untimely deaths.

This is my first non-fiction book about a war, so read my review knowing that I personally have never much read the history of battle tactics and troop movement in a war before. I did get battle fatigue after awhile, to be honest. Livingston really takes the time to explain these movements and their importance, the battles outcome, as well as the negotiations that followed, but you really need a map and a family tree to keep track of everything going on here.

Being much more familiar with the English side of this war in terms of history, I learned so much about France and their side of this conflict, and it inspired me to learn even more about their history. Thank you for that!

All in all, I'm really glad I read this as I really wanted to understand this War in greater detail and this book 100% delivers on that.

[Fatguyreading · Rating 5 out of 5]

The Two Hundred Years War is a clear, consise and quite captivating new interpretation of the Wars between England and France between the years 1292 - 1492.

As someone who's always been interested in history from a young age, I found this to be quite the riveting page turner that discusses a different take on those turbulent times than we're used to.

I found It to be incredibly readable and a book, I think, not just aimed at experts or scholars, but easy to understand by even the casual history reader.

It covers all the main protagonists and battles and the social impacts thereafter in an approachable, engaging style.

5 🌟 🌟 🌟 🌟 🌟 's from me.

[Andrea Wenger · Rating 5 out of 5]

This unique perspective on the Hundred Years’ War shows that the conflict actually lasted for two centuries, from 1292 to 1492, impacting much of Europe and driving significant advancements in military and political systems. Informative, revealing, and fun to read, the book brings together a variety of viewpoints to offer a broader understanding of how the interwoven states of northwestern Europe evolved during the medieval period.

Thanks, NetGalley, for the ARC I received. This is my honest and voluntary review.

[Carol · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was a very interesting book. I had heard of the biggest battles but did not know much about them this book was extremely detailed and often told from the French angle giving a different perspective on the period. Including all of the different regions of France as it was not a country as we know it now.
I would thoroughly recommend this book It flowed and was easy to read for a person like me with no knowledge but some interest
Thanks to Netgalley and Apollo publishing for my arc copy

[Ron Nurmi · Rating 4 out of 5]

A good brief history of what is traditionally called the Hundred Years War. But the real point of the book is that we should view it as a 200-year war. The author gives his evidence of why this is and does a convincing job.

If you have not read Jonathan Sumption's five-volume history of this period, this is a good start.

[Jannette Roberge · Rating 5 out of 5]

I had much difficulty putting this book down. There was just something about the writing style that was so easyI look forward to more books from this author!

[Martin Southard · Rating 4 out of 5]

Many thanks to Head of Zeus, Michael Livingston and Netgalley for providing this advance copy. to review.
As someone who’s always eager to learn more about history but often finds some books hard to follow, I was relieved that this one is so clear and readable. It makes a huge, complex conflict easy to understand, showing both the battles and the wider social impact. The chapter divisions help navigate shifting alliances and rivalries, while familiar events are mixed with lesser-known moments. Overall, it’s an engaging, approachable, and rewarding read for any history enthusiast.