Today 681 years ago. See below: French Raid - Sotonopedia Why is it called French raid? The pirates came from all sorts of countries, France, Normandy, Spain. Stefan.
For the fairly obvious reason one would think that it was commanded by a French admiral Which I would think also made them not pirates - where do you get pirates from?
One of the Southampton guides used to say that one of the famililes involved in the raid were the Grimaldis, who went on to form Monaco. She said that this was done using the proceeds of the raid, therefore, Monaco belongs to Southampton.
My local newspaper mentioned Castile (today Spain) as well as the term pirates. So the admiral could have been from Spain as well. Stefan.
English Channel naval campaign, 1338–1339 - Wikipedia As I said before these anniversaries aren't quite right due to the change in calendar. Julian calendar - Wikipedia Gregorian calendar - Wikipedia
Because the French were the instigators/commanders. Castillian & Genoese Mercenaries were reasonably commonplace across continental armies of the time (though perhaps not as common as 'Italians' & 'Germans' in later centuries). It's hard to even define such groups as 'Italian', in modern terms, their home states being pre how we understand those areas today - some even existing almost solely by the skill at arms of their occupants - Castille & Leon were being forged into more what we know as Spain, but the Kingdom of France stood as an entity largely as the Republic does today. The Hundred Years was between England & France - nations have always used good paid (or religiously motivated) fighters if they can find them, but that doesn't change who the actual belligerents are.
