Many historians, sociologists and political scientists have argued that war was the main impetus behind the growth of the modern state and that the development of military institutions played a central role in state formation. Yet the later medieval French and English monarchies responded differently to the pressures of war. Despite their long struggle with one another and their parallel experience of civil war, they emerged from our period with dissimilar military systems. Philippe Contamine has underlined the differences in a brief comparison between the two in the mid-fifteenth century, but no systematic long-term comparative treatment has been made. To understand the nature and causes of this divergence, we must consider first the evolution of French and English military institutions, then noble attitudes towards royal military policy, thirdly the wider means by which kings drew men to their service in war and finally the impact of military service on the values and political networks of the nobility. Our starting point is the late thirteenth century, the age of Philip IV and Edward I, when France and England made war by generally similar means despite the large difference in the size and population of the kingdoms. Each had fiscal and administrative systems capable of supporting large armies and, on occasion, navies, yet neither had significant permanent forces. Paid service was steadily replacing unpaid and each king had access to international markets to recruit skilled soldiers. But chivalrous values and feudal obligations were still important in inspiring noble service; towns were sometimes summoned to provide contingents for royal armies at their own cost; and custom bound the general population, however brief their service and doubtful their military effectiveness, to fight in local defence. 1. Institutions and policies In France the growth in the number of troops available to the king bore testimony to the power of the monarchical edifice. In 1346—7, 31, 280 men spread through the kingdom were in the pay of Philip VI.
