Battle of Poitiers 1356: Black Prince, King John II & Complete Field Guide

Poitiers was not Crécy repeated. The English army was smaller, deeper in enemy territory and trying to escape when the French forced battle.

On 19 September 1356, Edward of Woodstock—the Black Prince—defeated a French army under King John II. The king was captured along with many leading nobles. The victory produced one of the most extraordinary political shocks of the Hundred Years' War.

The chevauchée of 1356

The Black Prince led a destructive mounted raid from Aquitaine into central France. The aim was to damage resources, undermine royal authority and draw French forces into an unfavourable response.

John II assembled an army and moved to cut the English line of retreat.

Negotiation before battle

Both sides attempted negotiation. The papal cardinal Talleyrand tried to broker terms. The Black Prince offered concessions, but the French demands were too high for agreement.

The English therefore prepared a defensive position near Nouaillé-Maupertuis south of Poitiers.

The ground

Hedges, lanes and broken terrain narrowed the avenues of attack. The English position made it difficult for a larger army to bring all its strength to bear at once.

Archers were placed to exploit restricted approaches and threaten horses and flanks.

French attacks

Some French men-at-arms fought dismounted, reflecting lessons from earlier defeats. The battle developed in phases rather than one massed charge.

Pressure on the English was severe. At a critical moment, the Black Prince ordered a mounted force under the Captal de Buch to move against the French flank or rear while English men-at-arms counter-attacked.

King John captured

John II fought personally and was taken prisoner with his son Philip. Capturing a king transformed the victory from tactical success into diplomatic leverage.

The ransom problem

The Treaty of Brétigny in 1360 followed years of negotiation and attempted settlement. The enormous royal ransom became a financial burden, while territorial concessions expanded English holdings.

Yet the settlement did not end the Hundred Years' War. France later recovered much of the lost ground under Charles V and Bertrand du Guesclin.

Was the longbow decisive?

Archery mattered, but Poitiers should not be reduced to “longbows beat knights”. Terrain, phased French attacks, command decisions, English discipline and the final counter-stroke all contributed.

Why Poitiers belongs between Crécy and Agincourt

Without Poitiers, the Hundred Years' War becomes a misleading sequence of famous English victories with no political consequences. The capture of John II reshaped the French monarchy and created a settlement that England later struggled to hold.

Continue through the campaign

• Hundred Years' War 1337–1453
• Crécy 1346
• The Black Prince
• Castillon 1453

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The English army before battle

Edward of Woodstock's force had spent weeks on chevauchée—moving rapidly, burning resources and forcing the French monarchy to react. By September the English were not seeking a grand conquest of central France. They were trying to return safely toward Aquitaine with booty, prisoners and an army that had already consumed supplies.

That explains the defensive posture at Poitiers. The Black Prince did not choose battle because he expected an easy victory. He chose ground that could compensate for being intercepted by a larger royal army.

How the terrain narrowed the French advantage

Hedges, vineyards, lanes and broken approaches prevented the French from deploying their full strength simultaneously. The English line used those obstacles to channel attacks. Archers could fire from angles that threatened men and horses while dismounted men-at-arms held the key approaches.

This was not Crécy copied mechanically. The English position and French approach were different, and both armies had learned from earlier campaigns.

John II's battle plan

The French king divided his forces into successive bodies, with many men-at-arms dismounting to fight on foot. This reflected a real attempt to solve the vulnerability of mounted frontal attacks against English archery.

The difficulty was coordination. Successive attacks lost momentum, and exhausted units could interfere with fresh troops moving forward. A large army still had to pass through a limited battle space.

The Captal de Buch and the counter-stroke

The famous mounted movement led by Jean de Grailly, Captal de Buch, struck toward the French flank or rear at a critical point. At roughly the same time, the Black Prince ordered his main line forward.

This changed the character of the action. The English were no longer merely receiving attacks. They converted defensive survival into an offensive collapse while French command cohesion was already under strain.

Capturing a king

John II remained in the fighting and was captured with his son Philip. Medieval warfare placed enormous financial and political value on high-status prisoners. The king was therefore more valuable alive than dead.

His captivity created a constitutional and financial crisis in France. The dauphin Charles had to govern amid fiscal pressure, unrest and the Jacquerie while negotiations over ransom and territory continued.

Brétigny and the limits of victory

The 1360 settlement granted Edward III enlarged territories in France and established an enormous ransom for John. Yet English gains proved difficult to convert into lasting political control. Under Charles V and the commander Bertrand du Guesclin, France later avoided major set-piece battles and recovered territory through sieges, manoeuvre and pressure on isolated garrisons.

Poitiers was therefore a spectacular victory inside a war England did not ultimately win.

Longbow: important, not magical

English and Welsh archers helped disrupt attacks and shaped French decisions, but the battle also depended on ground, command timing, dismounted men-at-arms and the final counter-attack. The longbow works best in the analysis as part of a combined tactical system.

Reducing Poitiers to armour versus arrows hides the more important question: how did a smaller army survive long enough to seize the initiative? The answer is preparation, terrain and command as much as weapon performance.

Sources & further reading

• Jean Froissart, Chroniques, used critically.
• French and English administrative records relating to the 1356 campaign and royal captivity.
• Modern scholarship on the Black Prince and the Treaty of Brétigny.