Edward III, the Black Prince, and the Battle of Crécy

Medieval warfare is sometimes caricatured as a matter of crude frontal collisions lacking in tactical finesse. This was sometimes true. Anglo-Saxon and Viking warfare seems to have consisted of little more than head-on clashes between dense blocks of spearmen ranged behind their respective shield-walls. Much later, the Wars of the Roses seems to have been similarly lacking in tactical sophistication, perhaps because the English way of war developed in the early 14th century – discussed in this special – culminated in tactical stalemate when both sides deployed the same system, especially as armoured protection reached its dizzy peak in the late 15th century. But stalemate is a recu