In the Far East of Lancastrian France: English garrisons is Bassigny

The paper looking at one of the later stages of the Hundred Years War aims to explore the relations between the English military forces in France in the 1420s -1430s with their French and Burgundian partisans. A case study under consideration are the two garrisons – those of Nogent-le-Roy and Montigny-le-Roy – on eastern borders of Champagne in the royal bailliage of Chaumont (now the departément of Haute Marne). The English presence in the region established c. 1424-1425 and was maintained for about a decade, until the rupture of the Anglo-Burgundian alliance in 1435. The specifics of these garrisons is their location on the very periphery of the Lancastrian kingdom of France in the region adjacent to the borders of Burgundy, over 250 km away from Paris and some 200 km away from the nearest English garrisons at Meaux, Montereau and Villeneuve-le-Roy (now Villeneuve-sur-Yonne). Their isolation became still more complete when most of the Champagne was lost to the Dauphinists in 1429. These factors must have resulted in little control over these garrisons from the Lancastrian government in Paris and, especially in the 1430s their greater contacts with the Burgundian administration. The paper will make an attempt to place the history of the garrisons of Nogent and Montigny within the greater context of the Anglo-Burgundian relations in the 1420s-1430s by looking at the personalities of the captains and soldiers serving there, their engagement in the Lancastrian and Burgundian military enterprises and their conflicts with local population and nobles.