France, History Of, Economy, society, and culture in the 14th and 15th centuries

The long war, fought almost entirely in France, benefited few but the captains and peculators; it injured almost everyone. Even the best disciplined companies lived off the land, so that French peasants and defeated townsfolk in effect paid the expenses of both sides; and undisciplined mercenary bands were a wearisome scourge in times of truce after the middle of