Who had the biggest army during the Hundred Years War?

Does anyone have any information about who was militarily stronger, France or England? I'm particularly interested in the decade before the first peace, in the 1350s. Thanks!
 
Does anyone have any information about who was militarily stronger, France or England? I'm particularly interested in the decade before the first peace, in the 1350s. Thanks!

France - much bigger population and in the 3 major English victories that I can remember off the top of my head (Crecy, Poltiers and Agincourt) the English armies were massively outnumbered.

The invading armies of Edward III, the Black Prince and Henry V were essentially expeditionary forces assembled by private contractors who were paid by the Crown to show up on such and such a date with x number of Lances and y number of archers etc. The armies were limited essentially by how much money the King was able to raise from Parliament or otherwise had available. Although inferior in numbers the English armies were much more professional than their opponents.

The French armies on the other hand were the traditional feudal levies with the nobles turning up with their men at arms when summond by the King supplemented by specialist professionals such as the Genoese crossbowmen. Fighting on their home ground these armies were invariably much bigger than their English opponents.

Of course as the war dragged on the French armies evolved to meet the challenges imposed on them by the new English formations of dismounted men-at-arms supported by longbowmen.
 
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You can't really talks about an english and a french army, at least not before Charles VIII.

Both Plantagenet/Lancaster and Valois relied on huge mercenaries armies that, whatever their own origin, sold themselves to each side and eventually were used to ravage countryside (that did better than any "national" army).

They'll end by capturing their own castles, for their own purposes and dried out the treasuries of many cities to make them left by tribute, bribe, or war.

Concerning david assets, he's in truth when he said the english army was more contractual, but he forgets the social base of a non-mercenary army : the yeomen. These free land-owners formed the social base of archery and, we could almost say, the spine of english army.

The french army relied as well on mercenary, but aslo on feudal levies. It means less direct commendement, more disorganized but reflecting the royal power as it was the first cause to limit the contractual, urban militias that existed in the XII century.

For numbers between English and French side during the battles (as said, mercenaries could change side, being removed, levies downed, etc.)

For Azincourt/Agincourt we have

England : 6000/7000 men with 5 000 bowmen.
France : 12 000/15 000 men with 5 000/8 000 horsemen in center, 2 000 horsemen on side, 5 000 bowmen and crossbowmen in the back

For Verneuil

England : 8 000/10 000
France : 11 000
Scotland : 4 000/5 000

For Formigny

England : 7 000 (essentially bowmen)
France : 5 000 with 2 500 horsemen, 2 500 footmen
Brittany : 1 500 horsemen

For Castillon

England : 9 000
France : 10 000

As you can see it's hard to give an actual ratio of men, or actual number for armies that, I point it, weren't standing before Charles VIII (who put in place the first real standing armies in Europe since Roman Empire)
 
LSCatilina wrote:

For Formigny

England : 7 000 (essentially bowmen)
France : 5 000 with 2 500 horsemen, 2 500 footmen
Brittany : 1 500 horsemen

For Castillon

England : 9 000
France : 10 000

Your figures for the English are far too high. Both A H Burne and Ferdinand Lot put the English strength at Formigny at less than 4000 - and it would be strange that there'd be more English troops here than at Agincourt. Similarly both they and Jean Chartier put the English at Castillon at about 5-6000.
 
weirdly enough, one of the books I have on medieval warfare claims that the English outnumbered the French at most of the famous battles, while every other one notes that the French were the bigger armies. And another one claims that the English longbow didn't really exist during the 100 Years War, and was put in by historians later. Pretty sure both of those are wrong...
 
Does anyone have any information about who was militarily stronger, France or England? I'm particularly interested in the decade before the first peace, in the 1350s. Thanks!

Well - given the French preponderance for making huge mistakes in the big battles (Crecy, Agincourt, etc), military superiority is an open question. That said, the French had a much larger population, a better economy, in many big battles, numerical superiority.
 
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