Late Middle Ages · Europe · War

1450

Battle of Formigny

April 15, 1450

French artillery under the Bureau brothers pulverized an English relief force in Normandy, and the longbow was finally outclassed by cannon. Within months, Normandy was French again. The Hundred Years' War was entering its last gasping phase; the English position was now technical collapse, not strategic retreat. The Bureau brothers' field artillery heralded the end of the longbow era and the beginning of gunpowder's dominance on European battlefields.