During the Hundred Years War that lasted from 1377 to 1453, how many soldiers lost their lives?
– J.M., Raeford A: It’s impossible to know for sure, and not only because we’re talking about something that happened more than 500 years ago. The “Hundred Years War” label was coined by historians to sum up more than a century of struggle over French rule between the royal houses of England and France. It comprised several conflicts separated by periods of relative peace, which only makes estimating the total losses more difficult. However, historian and social scientist Pitirim Sorokin gave a very specific estimate in the 1937 edition of his book, “Social and Cultural Dynamics: A Study of Change in Major Systems of Art, Truth, Ethics, Law and Social Relationships.” Sorokin said battlefield losses on both sides totaled 185,250. This estimate includes the dead and wounded and was made by multiplying the average size of the armies involved by contemporary accounts of the percentage of casualties, then multiplying that by the number of fronts in the fighting and the duration of the battl
