This is a wonderful volume of thirty-two short essays that together offer a new examination of the Hundred Years’ War centered around the Treaty of Troyes (21 May 1420). Focused on the decade between the murder of John the Fearless in September 1419 and the capitulation of Troyes to the forces of the dauphin in July 1429, the contributions address the myriad effects of the war and importantly the toll it took on the countryside and the people of Champagne in particular. The volume grew out of five successive journées d’études convened between January of 2020 and December of 2021 in Dijon, Chamarandes-Choignes, Épinal, and twice in Troyes to recognize the 600^th anniversary of the Treaty. The collection is particularly welcome as the planned exposition had to close due to the outbreak of Covid-19. Finally, it is also a tribute to Pierre Racine (1925–2021), who was the co-founder and president of the Centre de recherche et d’étude sur le commerce international médiéval (CRECIM), which sponsored the project, exposition, study-days, and volume. Guerre et paix importantly refocuses attention on the local, intimate details of war, its practicalities, and its effects on regional economies, monastic houses, gender relations, trade networks, and the rural hinterland all of which were profoundly reshaped by the exigencies of the on-going conflict.

Divided into five parts, the volume begins with a suite of essays that address John the Fearless and the events that pitted the royal party against the Duke of Burgundy, eventually resulting in the duke’s murder on the bridge at Montereau on 10 September 1419. Philippe Contamine’s essay surveys contemporary reactions to the news of the murder and the ways it was taken up in different and conflicting historiographic traditions. The murder was »a day that undid France«, and sparked infighting and political discord resulting in capitulation to the English. The essays that follow address the different factions: Alain Marchandisse and Bertrand Schnerb take up the inner circle of the duke; Éric Bousmar analyzes the iconographic representation of the murder; and Jean Devaux the literary legacy of the episode at Montereau. The physical body of the prince and its image is the focus of Julien De Palma’s essay, whereas Hervé Mouillebouche offers an excellent study of the residences of John the Fearless and the continued importance of itineracy to secure authority. Jacques Paviot crafts a portrait of Michelle of France (1395–1422), the young wife of the succeeding Duke of Burgundy, Philip the Good; and Rudi Beaulant analyzes the practice of grace, or granting pardons, as extended by John the Fearless and Duchess Margaret of Bavaria.

The next section turns to the Treaty of Troyes, »When France became English«. Alternating essays by Jean-Marie Moeglin and Anne Curry address the events surrounding the Treaty, the French royal party, and Henry V, analyzing the king of England’s two-week stay in Troyes; Alain Marchandisse and Bertrand Schnerb then assess the Burgundian faction in Troyes, and Stéphanie Richard reconsiders the marriage of Henry V and Catherine of France, which sealed the Treaty of Troyes and created a double monarchy. Rémy Ambühl shows how the Treaty was used as a way to subjugate rebellious cities. Arnaud Baudin reads the emblems of the English and French union as depicted in the iconography of seals and coinage. Finally, Sophie Tejedor frames the 1420 Treaty with respect to the »other« Treaty of Troyes in 1564, when England and France made peace again in the midst of the Wars of Religion. Section three then turns to the enduring effects of the war. Alain Morget uses the remarkable archival record of the complaints put forward against Jean de Rougement and his companions, who mercilessly prayed on the inhabitants of the Langrois. Their complaints to the king lay bare these wrongs, even before the marauding of the so-called écorcheurs. Véronique Beaulande-Barraud paints a picture of the destruction and reconstruction of the parishes of the Langrois by the year 1460; David Fiasson assesses the effects of the war on peasant communities and how they coped; and Benoît Rouzeau uses the archives of Morimond to assess the impact of war on the third daughter house of Cîteaux. Finally, Loïs Forster surveys the waning ideal of chivalry within the harsh realities of war.

After nearly a decade of English rule, the French began, under the leadership of Joan of Arc, to envision »driving the English out of France«. Catherine Guyon reassesses the spirituality of the Maid Joan grounded in the penitential and devout atmosphere of her native Lorraine. Aymeric Landot offers a study of the Baudricourt family and their service in royal administration along the frontier zone of the Barrois, whereas Laurent Vissière analyses the siege and capitulation of Troyes to the French in July 1429, in effect undoing the original Treaty of Troyes. This section closes with Céline Berry’s essay which posits a reassessment of the role of Jean de Luxembourg in turning over Joan of Arc to the English. The portraits of both Robert of Baudricourt and John of Luxembourg demonstrate the complex and often conflicted loyalties that many families had to navigate during this period.

Finally, the volume concludes with an excellent reevaluation of the effects of decades of war on the cities of Champagne and the contraction of trade in its aftermath. Although Champagne’s fair towns had begun to decline at the dawn of the fourteenth century, it was the long-term effects of the war that definitively reoriented the trade networks and centers of production toward the Netherlands, Lyon, and Northern Italy. Jean-Marie Yante traces the rise of Bruges and the Brabant fairs as part of the center of the economic system of the North, which focused on light drapery, tapestry, and cloth making. Jackie Provence uses the abundant archives of Saint-Étienne in Troyes to assess the ways that the war facilitated the breakdown of urban space and the contraction of commercial activity leaving a »wasteland« where the seasonal fairs of Troyes had once been. The community compensated for this by transforming that space into a new center for craft and local production. Nevertheless, as a second essay from Yante demonstrates, the rulers of France, and particularly Charles VII, periodically attempted to revive the fairs, working to render the Seine navigable to Troyes, which ultimately hosted five fairs by 1521. Normandy offers a contrast to Champagne. Using records from Rouen, Anne Kucab’s shows how many people learned to cope with debt, constriction of trade, and serial economic crises. Nevertheless, Milan Pajic challenges the older notion of the decline of the English cloth trade after reading customs accounts, inventories of foreign merchants in England and princely households in France, to demonstrate that English luxury cloth was still consumed by the wealthiest households, while lower quality cloth traded through ports in Aquitaine and Brittany. Finally, Ignazio A. M. Del Punta reminds us that the war was one of many exigencies – including famine and the recurrently epidemics of the plague – that altered the economy of Europe and transformed the contours of medium- and long-distance trade.

Anne Curry closes the volume with a brief concluding overview and further spur to reconsider the middle periods of the war and its consequences. Short French and English resumés of the essays follow, making the book easy to navigate. It is also beautifully produced with excellent images, maps, and reproductions of archival documents, all of which bring the material sources more clearly into view. This volume will be welcomed by anyone working on the Hundred Years’ War and those seeking to understand the complex political and social dynamics at the center of the conflict. Especially laudable is the attention to the local impacts of war, which in effect heralded the end of the medieval period. When France and England eventually remade themselves, they did so under very different circumstances that elevated different regional preferences and economic networks in ways that would favor the rise of national borders as we know them today.