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The first twenty years (1377-97) of Richar II's reign was characterised by war and rebellion, show trials, scandalous royalty, horrible murders, attempts to solve the Irish question and the making of England's oldest alliance. This richly-documented period offers exceptional opportunities and challenges to students, and the editor has selected material from a wide range of sources: well-known English chronicles, foreign chronicles, and legal, administrative and financial records. This book describes the complex domestic and international situation which confronted the young king, and offers guidance on the strengths and weaknesses of the reign's leading chronicles. Students of Richard II's reign are blessed with numerous written sources. This reign saw the last great flowering of medieval chronicle-writing.
This chapter focus on the German understanding of French moneys and what this can teach us about the Thirty Years’ War. Subsidies were primarily seen and described as functional, as a means by which the German princes could levy troops, manage their supply and maintenance, and employ them in the fight to preserve princely liberties from what they saw as Habsburg tyranny. French subsidies were also freighted with additional, and often contradictory, meanings. On the one hand the German subsidy-recipients described French moneys as beneficial, functional, and indeed necessary tools for the pursuit of their political and religious goals. On the other hand, those opposed to French involvement in the war complained that such subsidy agreements were not helpful but foolish, and damaging to the German liberties, in that they not only allowed a hostile foreign crown to meddle in imperial affairs but probably concealed sinister efforts by the French to weaken, conquer, or even dismember the empire.