the French crown, Edward effectively removed one source of Anglo-French tension at a stroke. Appeals from his subjects in Aquitaine to the Paris parlement (the supreme appellate jurisdiction of the French crown) were outlawed, because any such appeal would be to seek justice from a usurper. No longer could ducal authority in Aquitaine be undermined by the solicitation and encouragement of such appeals, as appears to have been the policy of Philip the Fair before the Anglo-French war of 1294-1303. There were willing supporters of Edward's claim both outside France and within its boundaries. The Flemings, especially the men of Ghent, saw his assumption of the title in 1340 as a vindication of their own claim to be free from the authority of their pro-French count, Louis de Nevers, and there were nobles within France (such as Charles 'the Bad', king of Navarre ( 1349-87) or the Gascon counts of Armagnac) who welcomed the choice of allegiance offered them by the Plantagenet--Valois rivalry for the throne. Local feuds could be prosecuted in the name of one side or another in the greater conflict, and such houses as those of Foix or Armagnac gained much from the lieutenancies which they held from either side.

In many areas of France, as in certain parts of Germany, the fourteenth century was the age of mercenary companies and Raubritter. Yet it would be an exaggeration to speak of 'anarchy' or of the total dislocation of French society at this time. Fourteenth- and fifteenth-century armies possessed only limited capacity for destruction and devastation, and much of the damage inflicted on the countryside by the Hundred Years War was very localized, confined to areas close to the main roads along which invading armies passed. More generally damaging were the private wars (as in Germany), or the subjection of an area to ransoming by a garrison of mercenaries or routiers, who in effect preyed upon the inhabitants of regions such as the marches of Brittany, Poitou, and Perigord. Peace between the two kingdoms spelt disaster for some areas: the demobilization of troops after the Anglo-French treaty of Bretigny-Calais ( 1360) unleashed companies of unemployed mercenaries upon the countryside. Some solution to the prob-

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