The Anglo-Gascon force that appeared before Limoges was modest in size but extraordinary in command. Three sons of Edward III led the army: Edward himself, the Black Prince; John of Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster; and Edmund of Langley, Earl of Cambridge. Alongside them rode seasoned soldiers including John Hastings, 2nd Earl of Pembroke, and the Captal de Buch. The entire force numbered roughly 3,200 men -- about a thousand men-at-arms, a thousand archers, and twelve hundred infantry. Facing them, the Duke of Berry had already departed with most of his army, leaving a garrison of just 140 men under Sir John Villemur, Hugh de la Roche, and Roger Beaufont. The defenders were badly outnumbered, and the outcome was never truly in doubt.

On 19 September, the English took Limoges by storm. What followed has been debated for more than six centuries. The chronicler Jean Froissart described wholesale slaughter of civilians, creating an image of the Black Prince as a ruthless destroyer. But Froissart's account has been challenged on multiple fronts. Richard Barber noted that a contemporary source from Limoges recorded 300 civilian casualties, while other period sources focused on property damage rather than killings. Jonathan Sumption estimated roughly 300 civilians dead -- perhaps a sixth of the population -- plus 60 members of the garrison. What is beyond dispute is the scale of physical destruction. The sack devastated Limoges's famous enamel industry, which had produced works renowned across Europe. That industry would not recover for approximately a century, a cultural and economic wound deeper than the military one.

Historians have struggled to explain why Edward acted with such severity. Sean McGlynn, in his study of medieval atrocity, identifies a tangle of motives: a desire to punish what Edward saw as treachery, frustration at his inability to hold his French territories, the psychological effects of his debilitating illness, and a practical calculation that if he could not defend Limoges, he would strip it of everything valuable and carry it away. Michael Jones, reviewing the archaeological and documentary evidence, concluded that property destruction was widespread and civilian casualties real, though not at the levels Froissart claimed. He placed the number of killed and captured between 200 and 400, calling Froissart's more dramatic account a 'slur.' Jim Bradbury took a different view, accepting Froissart's version but noting that Limoges was 'not an exceptional atrocity' by the standards of medieval warfare -- a reminder that the 14th century operated by rules that make modern observers flinch.

The siege of Limoges marked, in practical terms, the end of Edward the Black Prince's military career. He would return to England and die in 1376, six years after the sack. The city itself rebuilt, its enamel workshops eventually revived, and Limoges went on to become the porcelain capital of France. But the events of September 1370 left a lasting mark on how the Black Prince is remembered. Once celebrated as the flower of English chivalry -- the prince who showed mercy to the French king captured at Poitiers -- his reputation carries the shadow of Limoges. The three garrison commanders who made their last stand in a town square, Sir John Villemur, Hugh de la Roche, and Roger Beaufont, were captured rather than killed, a detail that suggests the violence was not wholly indiscriminate. The truth, as is often the case with medieval events, lies somewhere between the chronicle and the silence of the archaeological record.