Vadia Guerre

Abstract English campaigns in France during the Hundred Years War were military operations and significant governmental undertakings. The monarchy needed to mobilize and deploy men, animals, and equipment across the Channel to wage war in France. Once assembled, the English army employed a complex administrative system to ensure its soldiers were funded and resourced, leaving records of financial expenditures. The often-cited Vadia Guerre (War Wages) represented one section of the military finances for such English campaigns. This article presents a snapshot of English efforts to wage war during King Edward III's final campaign in France, culminating in the Treaty of Brétigny in 1360. It utilizes a database to track the names, numbers, and payments of various English troops and subsidies for expenses. It then uses the categories of newly created knights and combat support personnel to highlight the challenges of employing administrative records in such research and complicate our understanding of service and military-financial compensation in the fourteenth century.