The Hundred Years' War (French French is a Romance language spoken as a first language by about 136 million people worldwide. Around 190 million people speak French as a second language, and an additional 200 million speak it as an acquired foreign language. French speaking communities are present in 57 countries and territories. Most native speakers of the language live in: Guerre de Cent Ans) was a series of separate wars lasting from 1337 to 1453 between two royal houses for the French throne, which was vacant with the extinction of the senior Capetian The House of Capet, or The Direct Capetian Dynasty, , also called The House of France (la maison de France), or simply the Capets, which ruled the Kingdom of France from 987 to 1328, was the most senior line of the Capetian dynasty - itself a derivative dynasty from the Robertians. As rulers of France, the dynasty succeeded the Carolingian dynasty line of French kings. The two primary contenders were the House of Valois The House of Valois was a cadet branch of the Capetian dynasty, succeeding the House of Capet (or "Direct Capetians") as kings of France from 1328 to 1589. A cadet branch of the family reigned as dukes of Burgundy from 1363 to 1482 and the House of Plantagenet The House of Plantagenet , or First House of Anjou, was a royal house founded by Henry II of England, son of Geoffrey V of Anjou. The Plantagenet kings first ruled the Kingdom of England in the 12th century. Their male line originated in Gâtinais in France, while their direct ancestors had ruled the County of Anjou since the 9th century. The, also known as the House of Anjou. The House of Valois claimed the title of King of France, while the Plantagenets from England claimed to be Kings of France and England. Plantagenet Kings were the 12th century rulers of the Kingdom of England, and had their roots in the French regions of Anjou Anjou is a former county (c. 880), duchy (1360) and province centred on the city of Angers in the lower Loire Valley of western France. It corresponds largely to the present-day département of Maine-et-Loire. Its traditional Latin name is Andegavia and Normandy Normandy is a geographical region corresponding to the former Duchy of Normandy. It is situated along the English Channel coast of Northern France between Brittany (to the west) and Picardy (to the east) and comprises territory in northern France and the Channel Islands. The continental territory covers 30,627 km² and forms the preponderant part. French soldiers fought on both sides, with Burgundy The Duchy of Burgundy was a feudal territory in Medieval Europe. It roughly conforms to the modern Bourgogne, although it grew to have considerable possessions in the Low Countries as well. Existing between 843 and 1477, the Duchy was ruled by a succession of dukes, whose extinction with the death of Charles the Bold in 1477 led to the southern and Aquitaine Aquitaine , archaic Guyenne/Guienne (Occitan: Guiana), is one of the 26 regions of France, in the south-western part of metropolitan France, along the Atlantic Ocean and the Pyrenees mountain range on the border with Spain. It comprises the 5 departments of Dordogne, Lot et Garonne, Pyrénées-Atlantiques, Landes and Gironde. In the Middle Ages providing notable support for the Plantagenet side.

The conflict lasted 116 years but was punctuated by several periods of peace, before it finally ended in the expulsion of the Plantagenets The House of Plantagenet , a branch of the Angevins, was a royal house founded by Geoffrey V of Anjou, father of Henry II of England. Plantagenet kings first ruled the Kingdom of England in the 12th century. Their paternal ancestors originated in the French province of Gâtinais and gained the County of Anjou through marriage during the 11th from France (except the Pale of Calais). The war was eventually a victory for the house of Valois, who succeeded in recovering the Plantagenet gains made initially and expelling them from the majority of France by the 1450s. However, the war nearly ruined the Valois, while the Plantagenets gained huge amounts of plunder from the mainland, which enriched England. France itself likewise suffered greatly from the war, as most of the conflict occurred on the continent.

The war was in fact a series of conflicts and is commonly divided into three or four phases: the Edwardian War (1337–1360), the Caroline War (1369–1389), the Lancastrian War (1415–1429), and the slow decline of English fortunes after the appearance of Joan of Arc Saint Joan of Arc or The Maid of Orléans is considered a national heroine of France and a Catholic saint. A peasant girl born in eastern France who claimed Divine guidance, she led the French army to several important victories during the Hundred Years' War which paved the way for the coronation of Charles VII. She was captured by the Burgundians, (1412–1431). Several other contemporary European conflicts were directly related to this conflict: the Breton War of Succession, the Castilian Civil War The First Castilian Civil War lasted three years from 1366 to 1369. It became part of the larger conflict then raging between the Kingdom of England and the Kingdom of France: the Hundred Years' War. It was fought primarily in the Kingdom of Castile and its coastal waters between the local and allied forces of the reigning king, Peter, and his, the War of the Two Peters, and the 1383-1385 Crisis The 1383–1385 Crisis was a period of civil war in Portuguese history that began with the death of King Ferdinand I of Portugal, who left no male heirs, and ended with the accession to the throne of King John I in 1385, in the wake of the Battle of Aljubarrota. The term "Hundred Years' War" was a later term invented by historians to describe the series of events.

The war owes its historical significance to a number of factors. Though primarily a dynastic conflict, the war gave impetus to ideas of both French and English nationalism Nationalism involves a strong identification of a group of individuals with a political entity defined in national terms, i.e. a nation. Often, it is the belief that an ethnic group has a right to statehood, or that citizenship in a state should be limited to one ethnic group, or that multinationality in a single state should necessarily comprise. Militarily, it saw the introduction of new weapons and tactics, which eroded the older system of feudal Feudalism is a political and military system between a feudal aristocracy , and his vassals. In its most classic sense, feudalism refers to the Medieval European political system composed of a set of reciprocal legal and military obligations among the warrior nobility, revolving around the three key concepts of lords, vassals, and fiefs. Although armies dominated by heavy cavalry Heavy cavalry is a class of cavalry whose primary role was to engage in direct combat with enemy forces . Although their equipment differed greatly depending on the region and historical period, they were generally mounted on large powerful horses, and were often equipped with some form of scale, plated, chainmail or lamellar armor as well as. The first standing armies A standing army is an army composed of full-time career soldiers who 'stand over', in other words, who do not disband during times of peace. They differ from army reserves who are activated only during such times as war or natural disasters. Standing armies tend to be better equipped, better trained, and better prepared for emergencies, defensive in Western Europe Western Europe is a loose term for the collection of countries in the westernmost region of Europe, though this definition is context-dependent and carries cultural and political connotations. One definition describes Western Europe as a geographic entity — the region lying in the Western part of Europe. Another definition was created during the since the time of the Western Roman Empire The Western Roman Empire was the western half of the Roman Empire, from its division by Diocletian in 285; the other half of the Roman Empire was the Eastern Roman Empire, today widely known as the Byzantine Empire were introduced for the war, thus changing the role of the peasantry. For all this, as well as for its long duration, it is often viewed as one of the most significant conflicts in the history of medieval warfare Medieval warfare is the warfare of the Middle Ages. In Europe, technological, cultural, and social developments had forced a dramatic transformation in the character of warfare from antiquity, changing military tactics and the role of cavalry and artillery. In terms of fortification, the Middle Ages saw the emergence of the castle in Europe and. In France, the English The area now called England has been settled by people of various cultures for about 35,000 years, but it takes its name from the Angles, one of the Germanic tribes who settled during the 5th and 6th centuries. England became a unified state in AD 927, and since the Age of Discovery, which began during the 15th century, has had a significant invasion An invasion is a military offensive consisting of all, or large parts of the armed forces of one geopolitical entity aggressively entering territory controlled by another such entity, generally with the objective of either conquering, liberating or re-establishing control or authority over a territory, forcing the partition of a country, altering, civil wars, deadly epidemics Categories: Disaster lists | Epidemics | Pandemics | Epidemiology | History of medicine, famines A famine is a widespread scarcity of food that may apply to any faunal species. This phenomenon is usually accompanied by regional malnutrition, starvation, epidemic, and increased mortality and marauding mercenary A mercenary is a person who takes part in an armed conflict, who is not a national or a party to the conflict, and is "motivated to take part in the hostilities essentially by the desire for private gain and, in fact, is promised, by or on behalf of a party to the conflict, material compensation substantially in excess of that promised or armies (turned to banditry) reduced the population by two-thirds.^[1] Shorn of its Continental possessions, England was left an island nation, a fact which profoundly affected its outlook and development for more than 500 years.^[2]

Background

The background to the conflict is to be found in 1066, when William, Duke of Normandy William the Conqueror , also known as William I of England, was the King of England from Christmas, 1066 until his death. He was also William II, Duke of Normandy, from 3 July 1035 until his death. Before his conquest of England, he was known as "William the Bastard" (French: Guillaume le Bâtard) because of the illegitimacy of his birth, led an invasion of England The Norman conquest of England began on 28 September 1066 with the invasion of the Kingdom of England by the troops of William the Conqueror, Duke of Normandy and their victory at the Battle of Hastings (on the other side of the Channel in Southeast England) on 14 October 1066 over King Harold II of England. Harold's army had been badly depleted. He defeated the English Anglo-Saxons is the term usually used to describe the invading Germanic tribes in the south and east of Great Britain from the early 5th century AD, and their creation of the English nation, to the Norman conquest of 1066. The Benedictine monk, Bede, identified them as the descendants of three Germanic tribes: King Harold II Harold Godwinson or Harold II was the last Anglo-Saxon King of England before the Norman Conquest. Harold reigned from 5 January 1066, until his death at the Battle of Hastings on 14 October of that same year, fighting the Norman invaders led by William the Conqueror. Harold is one of only three Kings of England to have died as a result of battle, at the Battle of Hastings The Battle of Hastings, which took place on 14 October 1066, was the decisive Norman victory in the Norman Conquest of England. It was fought between the Norman army of Duke William II of Normandy and the English army of Harold II. The battle took place at Senlac Hill, approximately 6 miles northwest of Hastings, close to the present-day town of, and had himself crowned King of England. As Duke of Normandy, he remained a vassal A vassal, in the terminology that preceded and accompanied the feudalism of medieval Europe, is one who enters into mutual obligations with a monarch, usually of military support and mutual protection, in exchange for certain guarantees, which came to include the terrain held as a fief. By analogy it is applied to similar systems in other feudal of the French King, and was required to swear fealty An oath of fealty, from the Latin fidelitas , is a pledge of allegiance of one person to another. Typically the oath is made upon a religious object such as a Bible or saint's relic, thus binding the oath-taker before God to the latter for his lands in France; for a King to swear fealty to another King was considered humiliating, and the Norman Kings of England generally attempted to avoid the service. On the French side, the Capetian monarchs resented a neighbouring king holding lands within their own realm, and sought to neutralise the threat England now posed to France.

Following a period of civil wars A civil war is a war between organized groups within a single nation state, or, less commonly, between two countries created from a formerly-united nation-state. The aim of one side may be to take control of the country or a region, to achieve independence for a region, or to change government policies. It is high-intensity conflict, often and unrest in England known as The Anarchy The Anarchy or The Nineteen-Year Winter refers to a period of English history during the reign of King Stephen, which was characterised by civil war and unsettled government. The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle describes it as a time during which "Christ and his saints slept" (1135–1154), the Anglo-Norman dynasty was succeeded by the Angevin The House of Plantagenet , or First House of Anjou, was a royal house founded by Henry II of England, son of Geoffrey V of Anjou. The Plantagenet kings first ruled the Kingdom of England in the 12th century. Their male line originated in Gâtinais in France, while their direct ancestors had ruled the County of Anjou since the 9th century. The Kings. At the height of power the Angevins controlled Normandy and England, along with Maine Maine is one of the traditional provinces of France . It corresponds to the old county of Maine, with its center, the city of Le Mans, Anjou Anjou is a former county (c. 880), duchy (1360) and province centred on the city of Angers in the lower Loire Valley of western France. It corresponds largely to the present-day département of Maine-et-Loire. Its traditional Latin name is Andegavia, Touraine The Touraine is a former province of France. Its capital was Tours. During the political reorganization of French territory in 1790, the Touraine was divided between the departments of Indre-et-Loire, Loir-et-Cher and Indre, Poitou Poitou was a province of west-central France whose capital city was Poitiers, Gascony Gascony is an area of southwest France that was part of the "Province of Guyenne and Gascony" prior to the French Revolution. The region is vaguely defined and the distinction between Guyenne and Gascony is unclear; sometimes they are considered to overlap, and sometimes Gascony is considered a part of Guyenne. Most definitions put, Saintonge Saintonge is a small region on the Atlantic coast of France within the département Charente-Maritime, west and south of Charente in the administrative region of Poitou-Charentes. It derives its name from the ancient Gallic tribe of the Santones who lived in this area, around the current city of Saintes, and Aquitaine Aquitaine , archaic Guyenne/Guienne (Occitan: Guiana), is one of the 26 regions of France, in the south-western part of metropolitan France, along the Atlantic Ocean and the Pyrenees mountain range on the border with Spain. It comprises the 5 departments of Dordogne, Lot et Garonne, Pyrénées-Atlantiques, Landes and Gironde. In the Middle Ages. The King of England directly ruled more territory on the continent than the King of France himself. This situation – where the Angevin kings owed vassalage A vassal, in the terminology that preceded and accompanied the feudalism of medieval Europe, is one who enters into mutual obligations with a monarch, usually of military support and mutual protection, in exchange for certain guarantees, which came to include the terrain held as a fief. By analogy it is applied to similar systems in other feudal to a ruler who was de facto much weaker – was a cause of continual conflict. This assemblage of lands is sometimes known as the Angevin Empire The term Angevin Empire is a modern term describing the collection of states once ruled by the Angevin Plantagenet dynasty.

John of England John was King of England from 6 April 1199 until his death. He acceded to the throne as the younger brother of King Richard I, who died without issue. John was the youngest of five sons of King Henry II of England and Eleanor, Duchess of Aquitaine, and was their second surviving son to ascend the throne; thus, he continued the line of Plantagenet inherited this great estate from King Richard I Richard I was King of England from 6 July 1189 until his death in 1199. He also ruled as Duke of Normandy, Duke of Aquitaine, Duke of Gascony, Lord of Ireland, Lord of Cyprus, Count of Anjou, Count of Maine, Count of Nantes, and Overlord of Brittany at various times during the same period. He was known as Cœur de Lion, or Richard the Lionheart,. However, Philip II of France Philip II Augustus was the King of France from 1180 until his death. A member of the House of Capet, Philip Augustus was born at Gonesse in the Val-d'Oise, the son of Louis VII and his third wife, Adela of Champagne. He was originally nicknamed Dieudonné—the God-given—as he was the first son of Louis VII late in his father's life acted decisively to exploit the weaknesses of King John, both legally and militarily, and by 1204 had succeeded in wresting control of most of the ancient territorial possessions. The subsequent Battle of Bouvines The Battle of Bouvines, 27 July 1214, was a conclusive medieval battle ending the twelve year old War of Bouvines that was important to the early development of both the French state by confirming the French crown's sovereignty over the Norman lands of Brittany and Normandy and also in forcing the English king, John of England to sign the Great (1214), along with the Saintonge War (1242) and finally the War of Saint-Sardos (1324), reduced Angevin hold on the continent to a few small provinces in Gascony, and the complete loss of the crown jewel of Normandy.

By the early 14th century, many in the English aristocracy could still remember a time when their grandparents and great-grandparents had control over wealthy continental regions, such as Normandy, which they also considered their ancestral homeland, and were motivated to regain possession of these territories.

Dynastic turmoil: 1314–1328

The specific events leading up to the war took place in France, where the unbroken line of the Direct Capetian The House of Capet, or The Direct Capetian Dynasty, , also called The House of France (la maison de France), or simply the Capets, which ruled the Kingdom of France from 987 to 1328, was the most senior line of the Capetian dynasty - itself a derivative dynasty from the Robertians. As rulers of France, the dynasty succeeded the Carolingian dynasty firstborn sons had succeeded each other for centuries. It was the longest continuous dynasty in medieval Europe. In 1314, the Direct Capetian, King Philip IV Philip IV of France , called the Fair (French: le Bel), son and successor of Philip III, reigned as King of France from 1285 until his death. He was the husband of Joan I of Navarre, by virtue of which he was King of Navarre (as Philip I) and Count of Champagne from 1284 to 1305. The nickname Philip "the Fair" or "the Handsome", died, leaving three male heirs: Louis X Louis X of France, , called the Quarreler, the Headstrong, or the Stubborn (French: le Hutin; Spanish: el Obstinado), was the King of Navarre (as Louis I) from 1305 and King of France from 1314 until his death, Philip V, and Charles IV. A fourth child of Phillip IV, Isabella, was married to Edward II of England, and in 1312 had produced a son, Edward of Windsor, who was a potential heir to the thrones of both England (through his father) and France (through his grandfather).

Philip IV's eldest son and heir, Louis X, died in 1316, leaving only his posthumous son John I, who was born and died that same year, and a daughter Joan, whose paternity was suspect.

Upon the deaths of Louis X and John I, Philip IV's second-eldest son, Philip V, sought the throne for himself, using rumours that his niece Joan was a result of her mother's adultery (and thus barred from the succession). A by-product of this was the invocation in the 1380s of Salic law to assert that women could not inherit the French throne.^[3] When Philip V himself died in 1322, his daughters, too, were put aside in favour of an uncle: Charles IV, the third son of Philip IV.

In 1324, Charles IV of France and his brother-in-law, Edward II of England fought the short War of Saint-Sardos in Gascony. The major event of the war was the brief siege of the English fortress of La Réole, on the Garonne. The English forces, led by Edmund of Woodstock, Earl of Kent, were forced to surrender after a month of bombardment from the French cannons, after promised reinforcements never arrived. The war was a complete failure for England, and only Bordeaux and a narrow coastal strip of the once great Duchy of Aquitaine remained in English hands.

The recovery of these lost lands became a major focus of English diplomacy. The war also galvanised opposition to Edward II among the English nobility and led to his being deposed from the throne in 1327, in favour of his young son, Edward of Windsor, who thus became Edward III. Charles IV died in 1328, leaving only a daughter, and an unborn infant who would prove to be a girl. The senior line of the Capetian dynasty thus ended, creating a crisis over the French succession.

Meanwhile in England, the young Edward of Windsor had become King Edward III of England in 1327. Being also the nephew of Charles IV of France, Edward was Charles' closest living male relative, and the only surviving male descendent of Philip IV. By the English interpretation of feudal law, this made Edward III the legitimate heir to the throne of France.

The French nobility, however, balked at the prospect of a foreign king, particularly one who was also king of England. They asserted, based on their interpretation of the ancient Salic Law, that the royal inheritance could not pass to a woman or through her to her offspring. Therefore, the most senior male of the Capetian dynasty after Charles IV, Philip of Valois, grandson of Philip III of France, was the legitimate heir in the eyes of the French. He had taken regency after Charles IV's death and was allowed to take the throne after Charles' widow gave birth to a daughter. Philip of Valois was crowned as Philip VI, the first of the House of Valois, a cadet branch of the Capetian dynasty.

Joan II of Navarre, the daughter of Louis X, also had a good legal claim to the French throne, but lacked the power to back it up. The Kingdom of Navarre had no precedent against female rulers (the House of Capet having inherited it through Joan's grandmother, Joan I of Navarre), and so by treaty she and her husband, Philip of Evreux, were permitted to inherit that Kingdom; however, the same treaty forced Joan and her husband to accept the accession of Philip VI in France, and to surrender her hereditary French domains of Champagne and Brie to the French crown in exchange for inferior estates. Joan and Philip of Evreux then produced a son, Charles II of Navarre. Born in 1332, Charles replaced Edward III as Philip IV's male heir in primogeniture, and in proximity to Louis X; although Edward remained the male heir in proximity to Saint Louis, Philip IV, and Charles IV.

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