Roberta L.Krueger
[See also: ÉTIENNE DE FOUGÈRES; HÉLINANT DE FROIDMONT; LI MUISIS,
GILLES]
Van Hamel, Anton Gerardus, ed. “Li romans de Carité” et “Miserere” du renclus de Moiliens,
poèmes de la fin du XIIe siècle. 2 vols. Paris: Vieweg, 1885.
Langlois, Charles-Victor. La vie en France au moyen âge de la fin du XIIe au milieu du XIVe
siècle. 4 vols. Paris: Hachette, 1926–28, Vol. 2: D’après des moralistes du temps, pp. 141–75.
RECONQUEST OF FRANCE
. The Valois campaigns of 1449–53 ended in triumph for Charles VII, with the En-glish
expelled from Normandy and Guyenne. In July 1449, armies under Dunois had entered
Normandy, meeting feeble resistance. His troops were welcomed as liberators. Although
English reinforcements landed in March 1450, on April 15 the French won a decisive
victory at Formigny. More formidable resistance came in Guyenne. Dunois’s main force
entered the region in April 1451, and, after a series of sieges the final Lancastrian citadel
at Bayonne fell on August 20, 1451. The English returned in autumn 1452 with
considerable local support, and a second Valois army was dispatched. The destruction of
Talbot’s army at Castillon, July 17, 1453, effectively ended the war, though the threat of
renewed English incursions troubled France for many decades.
These campaigns revealed not only the bankruptcy of Lancastrian government but the
wisdom of the recent French reforms that had professionalized the army, mobilized a
popular militia, and regularized an effective artillery force. The real genius of Charles
VII, however, was to be revealed not in his reforms and conquests but in the subsequent
retention of these territories and the reconciliation of their people to Valois rule.
Paul D.Solon
[See also: DUNOIS, JEAN, COMTE DE; HUNDRED YEARS’ WAR;
RICHEMONT, ARTHUR DE; TALBOT, JOHN]
Allmand, Christopher T. Lancastrian Normandy, 1415–1450. Oxford: Clarendon, 1983.
Burne, Alfred Higgins. The Agincourt War. London: Eyre and Spottiswoode, 1956.
Perroy, E. The Hundred Years War. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1951.
Vale, Malcolm G.A. English Gascony, 1399–1453. London: Oxford University Press, 1970.
REFRAIN
. A recurring segment, from one word to a verse or more, that sets off a strophic form.
Music for a refrain, if present, also recurs. In Guillaume de Dole and other 13th-century
narratives with lyrical insertions, refrains appear as parts of convivial dance songs, or
caroles. They may also appear isolated—courtly amorous aphorisms—sometimes with
melody. Refrains apparently form part of a vast, for the most part orally transmitted
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