Crécy

Battle of Five Kings

By: Michael Livingston

Narrated by: Rupert Farley

Bloomsbury presents Crécy by Michael Livingston, read by Rupert Farley.

Like Crécy itself, this book is a triumph and the tale it tells gives an old story new life.’- Bernard Cornwell, bestselling author of The Last Kingdom series

A groundbreaking new study of the battle of Crécy, in which the outnumbered English under King Edward III won a decisive victory over the French and changed the course of the Hundred Years War.

The battle of Crécy in 1346 is one of the most famous and widely studied military engagements in history. The repercussions of this battle were felt for hundreds of years, and the exploits of those fighting reached the status of legend. Yet cutting-edge research has shown that nearly everything that has been written about this dramatic event may be wrong.

In this new study, Michael Livingston reveals how modern scholars have used archived manuscripts, satellite technologies and traditional fieldwork to help unlock what was arguably the battle’s greatest secret: the location of the now quiet fields where so many thousands died.

Crécy: Battle of Five Kings is a story of past and present. It is a new history of one of the most important battles of the Middle Ages: a compelling narrative account of the battle of Crécy that still adheres to the highest scholarly standards in its detail. It is also an account that incorporates the most cutting-edge revelations and the personal story of how those discoveries were made.©2022 Michael Livingston Foreword © Bernard Cornwell 2022 (P)2022 Bloomsbury Publishing Plc

Fantastic book!

This fantastic book makes a very compelling argument for the Donvast location of the battlefield. This along with the Casebook should be on every Medievalist’s bookshelf.

A must for the Medieval Historian

This work accomplishes what it sets out to do and so much more. Sure, Livingston sets the stage for the battle and tells you what most likely happened, but he does it through a master historian's perspective. In other words, he brings you along and teaches you the historical theory behind many of the major assumptions about this battle and the campaign leading up to it. This means you will walk away knowing more about the battle, but also being armed with many principles that will make you a better historian. Livingston takes simple truths about people and places in general, regardless of the era they exist in, that are commonly overlooked, and uses them to shape the historical narrative despite what the collective thought on the matter is. I find this method to be as interesting as it is convincing, and the 10 hour duration of the book flew by. I'll certainly be re-listening to this book and I'm very glad I bought it.

Farley's narration is captivating and I have to believe he was genuinely interested in the topic as he reads it. Anyone who has listened to a few audiobooks on the Middle Ages knows that sometimes the narrators sometimes seem to be fighting to stay awake. This is not the case with Farley, who delivers the work energetically and with proper French pronunciations.

Big Reveal Missing

Presents alternative battle site seemingly building to a reveal of archeological corroboration but left hanging.

Controversial But Correct Take

I was skeptical of this book at the start and was thinking of it as revisionist history that was conflicting with cannon just to be contrarian but as it went on it became clear the author is just committed to being as correct as possible.
My only complaint is too much time was spent covering the history of the conflicts between England and France since the time of William The Conqueror but that's easily fixed by skipping ahead.

Extraordinary

A well- researched and written work that carefully distinguishes between what we know and what we think we know. The narrator was superb. While I’ll look for more works by Livingston, I definitely want to hear more read by Farley.