Review: Bloody Crowns: A New History of the Hundred Years War by Michael Livingston

Bloody Crowns: A New History of the Hundred Years War

by Michael Livingston

Release Date: October 21, 2025

2025 Basic Books

Ebook ARC; 592 Pages

ISBN: 978-1541607705

ASIN: B0DVSNML5L

Genre: Non-Fiction / History / Europe

Source: Review copy from publisher

 

5 / 5 Stars

 

Summary

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.

 

My Thoughts

Bloody Crowns did what I didn't think was really possible, bring a confusing mess of a series of skirmishes and battles into something fairly coherent that even someone without a background in history could somewhat understand. Everything else I have read about this time period has been fairly convoluted and while I have a history background and taught it my entire career, let's face it, the political, social, and religious situation of this time period was very different from out modern day sensibilities, so it's sometimes hard to understand why a certain person did this or why they chose to do that. Michael Livingston did a great job trying to show why certain decisions were made and why other options just weren't available for these people at the time. 

  

In this book though, the author goes beyond the actual timeline of the Hundred Years War and argues convincingly that it actually began years before the historical start of the war.  The political events before the events that are typically attributed to the Hundred Years War are vital to understanding how the events spiraled out of control and should be included in the timeline.  Even my own history professors agreed with this concept as events don't typically just start, except for a few exceptions, but are part of a timeline of events that led into the major skirmishes that have far-reaching consequences.  While I don't think the concept is 'radically original' as stated by the author as my own professors thought this way, it certainly does help to understand what led into the major events of the Hundred Years War, what led to Agincourt (for another great read, see Livingston's Agincourt: Battle of the Scarred King) and the importance of Jeanne d'Arc (I'm French so I just don't think of her name in English terms.) 

 

This is a very tumultuous time in history and it doesn't help when every third person is named Henry, Charles, or Louis and property boundaries of countries as well as allegiances changed between breakfast and dinnertime.   I thought the author did a great job sorting out who was who, what was what, trying to explain the allegiances in terms of the time period and what that meant, and the importance of what was happening, even the little things, and trying to explain to people who had a familiarity with France where some of these skirmishes would have taken place today.  And this is what I found the most interesting, the attention to the details of things non-battle that nevertheless played such a critical role in what happened during this time period. Something like the development of weapons that changed the course of a skirmish, the wedding between two nobles that may have changed an important allegiance, the death of a child, the birth of a child, the friendship between former foes, the madness of a king, the death of a king, etc... It wasn't always the big battles that had a profound effect on what was happening, but the smaller, but still very significant events that changed the course of history.  England's claim to the throne pushed France into strengthening its central monarchy (leading to the development of the God-kings we will see in the future), asserting control over independent duchies like Brittany, Burgundy, and Gascony to name a few, and developing a centralized army that would be funded by a taxation system (one that would have repercussions in the future we all know about, but that was still three hundred years away), all controlled by the crown.  And what happened to England? The War of the Roses.

 

Verdict 

Bloody Crowns walks the reader through centuries of battles, politics, and people concisely, but manages to do so in a way that is fascinating and interesting, without falling into that dry recitation that some of these books sometimes do.  Personally, I'm not sure how difficult this book would be for someone who has absolutely no knowledge of the subject as I have a really good background and have no difficulty understanding the players in this drama, but it did seem like the author did a great job explaining who was who and what was what.   I also know that not everything was covered in this book, as the author readily acknowledges, but that was not the point of this book, it was to show how the Hundred Years War started much earlier than historians typically think, a point he made very, very well.  For history buffs though, it does give you a lot to think about and I highly recommend.