Hundred Years' War

I

Introduction

Hundred Years' War, armed conflict between France and England during the years 1337 to 1453. The Hundred Years’ War was a series of short conflicts, broken intermittently by a number of truces and peace treaties. It resulted from disputes between the ruling families of the two countries—the French Capetians (see Capet) and the English Plantagenets—over territories in France, and the succession to the French throne.

II

Roots of the Conflict

The conflict stemmed from the fact that successive kings of England, beginning with William I in 1066, had controlled large areas of France as fiefs, which were lands they held in exchange for service and loyalty to the king of France (see Feudalism). By the time Edward I of England died in 1307, few of these French territories remained in English hands. The most important of these remaining few was Gascony, a valuable wine-producing region in the south-western part of France. However, the French kept trying to extend their jurisdiction in Gascony, and the two countries had often fought small skirmishes over its control. The situation between the two countries grew more complicated in 1308 when Edward I’s son, Edward II, married the daughter of Philip IV of France. Their son, Edward III, thus had a claim to the French throne when Philip IV’s last son died in 1328 without a male heir.

However, the French nobles were unwilling to consider Edward III as their king. They declared that the French crown could pass only to a man whose claim to the throne was through his male ancestors. Thus Philip VI, a nephew of Philip IV, became king of France in 1328. Though Edward III did not challenge this decision at the time, he never renounced his claim to the French throne, and he reasserted it more forcefully when hostilities with France began.

The Hundred Years’ War involved three major conflicts: the Edwardian war (1340-1360), dominated by Edward III; the Caroline war (1369-1389), dominated by Charles V of France and his gifted military commanders; and the Lancastrian war (1415-1435), dominated by Henry V of England and his brother John of Lancaster, Duke of Bedford.

III

The Edwardian War (1340-1360)

The Edwardian War was a great English success. The English were able to put together a strong, well-financed army. In addition, the use of the English longbow against French forces enabled the English to win many important victories. By the end of the Edwardian War, the English had taken control of much of south-western France, as well as the important port of Calais in the north-east.

A

Opposing Forces

Though England was smaller and poorer than France, it had more highly developed governing institutions, including a system of regular taxation. In France before the late 1350s, the king could levy taxes only by long negotiations at a local level, and Frenchmen stubbornly resisted paying anything when war was not actually in progress. Frequently short of money, the French found their advantages over England in wealth and population at the start of the war negated by inadequate financial institutions.

The English still faced challenges, however, as they had to fight on French soil. It was very complicated and expensive to transport an army of heavily armoured knights to France, and so the English found it much cheaper to send mainly infantrymen and foot soldiers. As a result, their armies were much smaller and contained fewer powerful horse-mounted cavalry than did those of the French.

However, the English compensated for their lack of cavalry by arming their infantry with the longbow, a powerful weapon that could fire an arrow both quickly and accurately. The longbow could penetrate knights’ chain mail, even when shot from a substantial distance. It enabled the English archers to destroy French cavalry charges. Consequently, the English, even when outnumbered, usually won the pitched battles.

Hostilities began on May 24, 1337, when Philip VI invaded the English-held region of Gascony in south-western France. In retaliation, Edward III reaffirmed his claim to the French throne and invaded France from the north. The English won command of the sea in June 1340 when they destroyed a French fleet off Sluis in the Netherlands. They were thus able to control the English Channel and prevent French forces from invading England.