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CONTENTS

* 1 Background
* 2 Dynastic turmoil: 1314–1328
* 3 On the eve of war: 1328-1337
* 4 Beginning of the war: 1337–1360
* 5 First peace: 1360–1369
* 6 French victories under Charles V: 1369–1389
* 7 Second peace: 1389–1415
* 8 English victories under Henry V: 1415–1429
* 9 End of the war: 1429–1453
* 10 Significance
* 10.1 Weapons
* 10.2 War and society
* 11 Major Battles
* 12 Important People
* 13 Continuing English claim to the French throne
* 14 See also
* 15 Notes
* 16 Bibliography
* 17 External links

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HUNDRED YEARS' WAR

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Hundred Years War
Romantic painting of Joan of Arc at the Siege of Orléans.

Date 1337–1453 Location Primarily France and the Low Countries Result French
victory

Combatants File:Arms of Edward III of England.svg England
File:BOcoat.gif Burgundy
File:BRcoat1.gif Brittany
File:PortugueseFlag1385.png Portugal
File:Blason Navarre.png Navarre
File:Flag Belgium flanders.svg Flanders
Hainault
Aquitaine
File:Coat of arms Grand Duchy of Luxembourg large.png Luxembourg File:Blason
France moderne.svg France
File:Blason Castille Léon.png Castile
File:Royal Arms of Scotland.png Scotland
File:CoA civ ITA genova.png Genoa
File:Armoiries Majorque.png Majorca
File:Kingdom of Bohemia.gif Bohemia
File:Armas de Aragon.png Aragon

Hundred Years' War Edwardian – Caroline – Lancastrian

Hundred Years' War (1337-1360) Cadsand – English Channel – Sluys – Saint-Omer –
Auberoche – Caen – Blanchetaque – Crécy – Calais – Neville's Cross – Les
Espagnols sur Mer – Poitiers

Hundred Years' War (1369-1389) Nájera (Navarette) – Montiel – La Rochelle

Hundred Years' War (1415-1453) Agincourt – Rouen – Baugé – Meaux – Cravant –
Verneuil – Orléans – Jargeau – Meung-sur-Loire – Beaugency – Patay – Compiègne –
Gerbevoy – Formigny – Castillon

The Hundred Years War was a conflict between England and France, lasting 116
years from 1337 to 1453. It was fought primarily over claims by the English
kings to the French throne and was punctuated by several brief periods of peace
and two lasting ones before it finally ended in the expulsion of the English
from France,apart from Calais. Thus, 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. The
term "Hundred Years' War" was given afterward.

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 nationality. Militarily, it saw the introduction of new weapons and
tactics, which eroded the older system of feudal armies dominated by heavy
cavalry. The first standing armies in Western Europe since the time of the
Western Roman 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.

CONTENTS

BACKGROUND[]

The background to the conflict can be found 400 years earlier, in 911, when
Carolingian Charles the Simple allowed the Viking Rollo to settle in a part of
his kingdom (a region known afterwards as "Normandy"). In 1066 the "Normans"
were led by William the Conqueror (the Duke of Normandy) and conquered England,
defeating the Anglo-Saxon leadership at the Battle of Hastings and installed a
new Anglo-Norman power structure.

The Norman dynasty was replaced by the Angevin Kings (also called the
Plantagenets) after The Anarchy. At the height of their power the Angevins
controlled Normandy and England, along with Maine, Anjou, Touraine, Gascony,
Saintonge and Aquitaine. Such assemblage of lands is sometimes known as the
Angevin Empire although it had little in common with a real empire. At this
moment the King of England therefore directly ruled more French territory than
the king of France. This situation, where the Plantagenet kings owed vassalage
to a ruler who was de facto much weaker - was the cause of constant conflict.
The Capetian Kings successfully ended such situation by three consecutive wars:
the Battle of Bouvines, the Saintonge War and finally the War of Saint-Sardos.
The once mighting Angevin fiefdom was reduced to England and the coastal area of
Gascony so the Hundred Years' War was the logical continuation of this conflict.
Every king of England from Henry II to Edward II had engaged in warfare against
Capetian kings on the continent. By 1214, the kings of England had lost a
substantial portion of their lands in France, including Normandy and their
homeland of "Greater Anjou".

DYNASTIC TURMOIL: 1314–1328[]

The specific events leading up to the war took place in France, where an
unbroken line of Capetian dynasty firstborn sons had succeeded each other for
centuries. It was the longest continuous dynasty in medieval Europe. In 1314,
the Capetian king Philip IV died, leaving three male heirs: Louis X, Philip V,
and Charles IV. The 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, who was married to Philip, Count of Évreux, and inherited Navarre
unopposed.

In order to secure his claim to the throne through the Salic Law, which gave the
inheritance to only the male line, Philip IV's second-eldest son, Philip V, was
obliged to buy Joan off (using the rumour that Joan was a product of her
mother's adultery). When Philip died in 1322, his daughters too were put aside
in favour of the third son and heir of Philip IV, Charles IV.

In 1324, Charles IV of France and 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, and after being promised reinforcements
which never arrived. The war was a complete failure for England, and only
Bordeaux and a narrow coastal strip remained in English possession of the once
great duchy of Aquitaine.

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 eventual assassination (1327), which in turn caused the succession of the
young Edward III. Charles IV died in 1328, leaving only daughters, and an infant
yet to be born. The senior line of the Capetian dynasty ended thus, creating a
crisis over the French succession.

Meanwhile living in England, Charles IV's sister Isabella, widow of Edward II,
was at the time effectively in control of the crown in the name of the young
king. Edward III, being the nephew of Charles, was his closest living male
relative, and was at that time the only surviving male descendant of the senior
line of the Capetian dynasty descending through Philip IV. By the English
interpretation of feudal law, this made Edward III the legitimate heir to the
throne of France.

File:Hundred Years War family tree.png

Family tree relating the French and English royal houses at the beginning of the
war.

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 (as previously alleged) or through her to her offspring.
Therefore, the nearest male relative in the greater Capetian family, Philip of
Valois, who had taken regency after Charles IV's death, was the legitimate heir
in the eyes of the French. Charles' unborn child, had it been male, would have
become king. When it was instead a daughter, Philip was crowned as Philip VI,
the first of the House of Valois, a cadet branch of the Capetian house.

Joan II of Navarre, the daughter of Louis X, also had a good legal case to the
French throne, but lacked the power to back it up. The kingdom of Navarre was
accustomed to female rulers, having no Salic impediment. In time this line would
produce an additional claimant to the French throne, the son of Joan: Charles II
of Navarre. Born in 1332, Charles replaced Edward III as Philip IV's male heir
in primogeniture; although Edward remained the male heir in proximity.

ON THE EVE OF WAR: 1328-1337[]

After Philip's accession, the English still controlled Gascony. Gascony produced
vital shipments of salt and wine, and was very profitable. It was a separate
fief, held of the French crown, rather than a territory of England. The homage
done for its possession was a bone of contention between the two kings. Philip
VI demanded Edward's recognition as sovereign; Edward wanted the return of
further lands lost by his father. A compromise "homage" in 1329 pleased neither
side; but in 1331, facing serious problems at home, Edward accepted Philip as
King of France and gave up his claims to the French throne. In effect, England
kept Gascony, in return for Edward giving up his claims to be the rightful king
of France.

In 1333, Edward III went to war with David II of Scotland, a French ally under
the Auld Alliance, and began the Second War of Scottish Independence. Philip saw
the opportunity to reclaim Gascony while England's attention was concentrated
northwards. However, the war was a quick success for England, and David was
forced to flee to France after being defeated by King Edward and Edward Balliol
at the Battle of Halidon Hill in July. In 1336, Philip made plans for an
expedition to restore David to the Scottish throne, and to also seize Gascony.

BEGINNING OF THE WAR: 1337–1360[]

Main article: Hundred Years' War (1337-1360)

Template:Seealso Open hostilities broke out as French ships began ravaging
coastal settlements on the English Channel and in 1337 Philip reclaimed the
Gascon fief, citing feudal law and saying that Edward had broken his oath (a
felony) by not attending to the needs and demands of his lord. Edward III
responded by saying he was in fact the rightful heir to the French throne, and
on All Saints' Day, Henry Burghersh, Bishop of Lincoln, arrived in Paris with
the defiance of the king of England. War had been declared.

When the war began, France had a population of fourteen million, whereas England
had a population of only two million. Moreover, France was generally considered
to have the best-trained knights in the greatest number in Europe.

File:BattleofSluys.jpeg

Battle of Sluys from a fourteenth-century miniature of Jean Froissart's
Chroniques.

In the early years of the war, Edward III allied with the nobles of the Low
Countries and the burghers of Flanders, but after two campaigns where nothing
was achieved, the alliance fell apart in 1340. The payments of subsidies to the
German princes and the costs of maintaining an army abroad dragged the English
government into bankruptcy, with huge damages to Edward III’s prestige. At sea,
France enjoyed supremacy for some time, through the use of Genoese ships and
crews. Several towns on the English coast were sacked, some repeatedly. This was
a cause of fear and disruption along the English coastline. There was a constant
fear through this part of the war that the French would invade. France's sea
power led to economic disruptions in England as it cut down on the wool trade to
Flanders and the wine trade from Gascony. However, in 1340, while attempting to
hinder the English army from landing, the French fleet was almost completely
destroyed in the Battle of Sluys. After this, England was able to dominate the
English Channel for the rest of the war, preventing French invasions.

In 1341, conflict over the succession to the Duchy of Brittany began the Breton
War of Succession, in which Edward backed John of Montfort and Philip backed
Charles of Blois. Action for the next few years focused around a back and forth
struggle in Brittany, with the city of Vannes changing hands several times, as
well as further campaigns in Gascony with mixed success for both sides.

In July 1346, Edward mounted a major invasion across the Channel, landing in the
Cotentin. Philip gathered a large army to oppose him, and Edward chose to march
northward toward the Low Countries, pillaging as he went, rather than attempt to
take and hold territory. Finding himself unable to outmanoeuvre Philip, Edward
positioned his forces for battle, and Philip's army attacked. This, the famous
Battle of Crécy, was a complete disaster for the French and victory was largely
creditable to the English longbowmen. Edward proceeded north unopposed and
besieged the coastal city of Calais on the English Channel, capturing it in
1347. This became an important strategic location for the English. It allowed
the English to keep troops in France safely. In the same year, an English
victory against Scotland in the Battle of Neville's Cross led to the capture of
David II and greatly reduced the threat from Scotland.

In 1348, the Black Death began to ravage Europe. In 1356, after it had passed
and England was able to recover financially, Edward's son and namesake, the
Prince of Wales, known as the Black Prince, invaded France from Gascony, winning
a great victory in the Battle of Poitiers, where the English archers repeated
the same tactics used at Crécy. The new French King, John II, was captured. John
signed a truce with Edward, and in his absence much of the government began to
collapse. Later that year, the Second Treaty of London was signed, by which
England gained possession of Aquitaine and John was freed. John eventually had
to return to England as the hostages placed on his behalf had returned to
France.

The countryside of France at this point began to fall into complete chaos.
Brigandage, the actions of the professional soldiery when fighting was at low
ebb, was rampant. In 1358, the peasants rose in rebellion in what was called the
Jacquerie. Edward invaded France, for the third and last time, hoping to
capitalise on the discontent and seize the throne, but although no French army
stood against him in the field, he was unable to take Paris or Rheims from the
dauphin, later King Charles V. He negotiated the Treaty of Brétigny which was
signed in 1360. The English came out of this phase of the war with half of
Brittany, Aquitaine (about a quarter of France), Calais, Ponthieu, and about
half of France's vassal states as their allies, representing the clear advantage
of a united England against a generally disunified kingdom of France.

FIRST PEACE: 1360–1369[]

Main article: Treaty of Brétigny

Template:Seealso The treaty made Edward renounce his claim to the French crown,
but it greatly expanded his territory in Aquitaine and confirmed his conquest of
Calais. In reality, Edward never renounced his claim to the French crown, and
Charles made a point to retake Edward's new territory as soon as he ascended to
the throne.

When his own son Louis I, Duc d'Anjou (one of the hostages) escaped from England
in 1362, John II chivalrously gave himself up. He died in honorable captivity in
1364 and Charles V succeeded him as king of France. In 1369, on the pretext that
Edward III had failed to observe the terms of the treaty of Brétigny, the king
of France declared war once again.

FRENCH VICTORIES UNDER CHARLES V: 1369–1389[]

Main article: Hundred Years' War (1369-1389)
File:Du Guesclin Dinan.jpg

Statue of Du Guesclin in Dinan.

The reign of Charles V saw the English steadily pushed back. Although the Breton
war ended in their favour at the Battle of Auray, the dukes of Brittany
eventually reconciled with the French throne. The Breton soldier Bertrand du
Guesclin became one of the most successful French generals of the Hundred Years'
War.

Simultaneously, the Black Prince was occupied with war in Spain from 1366 and
due to illness was relieved of command in 1371, whilst Edward III was too
elderly to fight; providing France with even more advantages. Pedro of Castile,
whose daughters Constance and Isabella were married to the Black Prince's
brothers John of Gaunt and Edmund of Langley, was deposed by Henry of Trastámara
in 1370 with the support of Du Guesclin and the French. War erupted between
Castile and France on one side and Portugal and England on the other.

With the death of John Chandos, seneschal of Poitou, in the field and the
capture of the Captal de Buch, the English were deprived of some of their best
generals in France. Du Guesclin, in a series of careful Fabian campaigns,
avoiding major English field armies, captured many towns, including Poitiers in
1372 and Bergerac in 1377. The English response to Du Guesclin was to launch a
series of destructive chevauchées. But Du Guesclin refused to be drawn in by
them.

With the death of the Black Prince in 1376 and Edward III in 1377, the prince's
underaged son Richard of Bordeaux succeeded to the English throne. Then, with Du
Guesclin's death in 1380, the war inevitably wound down to a truce in 1389. The
peace was extended many times before open war flared up again.

SECOND PEACE: 1389–1415[]

Although Henry IV planned campaigns in France, he was unable to put them into
effect due to his short reign. In the meantime, though, the French King Charles
VI was descending into madness, and an open conflict for power began between his
cousin, John of Burgundy, and his brother, Louis of Orléans. After Louis's
assassination, the Armagnac family took political power in opposition to John.
By 1410, both sides were bidding for the help of English forces in a civil war.

ENGLISH VICTORIES UNDER HENRY V: 1415–1429[]

Main article: Hundred Years' War (1415-1429)

The final flurry of warmaking which engulfed France between 1415 and 1435 is the
most famous phase of the Hundred Year's War. Plans had been laid for the
declaration of war since the rise to the throne of Henry Bolingbroke, Duke of
Lancaster, in 1399. However, it was his son, Henry V, who was finally given the
opportunity. In 1414, Henry turned down an Armagnac offer to restore the
Brétigny frontiers in return for his support. Instead, he demanded a return to
the territorial status during the reign of Henry II. In August 1415, he landed
with an army at Harfleur and took it. Although tempted to march on Paris
directly, he elected to make a raiding expedition across France toward
English-occupied Calais. In a campaign reminiscent of Crécy, he found himself
outmaneuvered and low on supplies, and had to make a stand against a much larger
French army at the Battle of Agincourt, north of the Somme. In spite of his
disadvantages, his victory was near-total, and the French defeat was
catastrophic, with the loss of many of the Armagnac leaders.

File:Agincour.JPG

Fifteenth-century miniature depicting the Battle of Agincourt.

Henry took much of Normandy, including Caen in 1417 and Rouen on January 19,
1419, making Normandy English for the first time in two centuries. He made
formal alliance with the Duchy of Burgundy, who had taken Paris, after the
assassination of Duke John the Fearless in 1419. In 1420, Henry met with the mad
king Charles VI, who signed the Treaty of Troyes, by which Henry would marry
Charles' daughter Catherine and Henry's heirs would inherit the throne of
France. The Dauphin, Charles VII, was declared illegitimate. Henry formally
entered Paris later that year and the agreement was ratified by the
Estates-General.

Henry continued his progress through France, but died at Meaux in 1422. Soon,
Charles too had died. Henry's infant son, Henry VI, was immediately crowned king
of England and France, but the Armagnacs remained loyal to Charles' son and the
war continued in central France.

The English continued the victory streak until 1429. In that year, a
Franco-Scottish army isolated a supply convoy led by John Fastolf. By circling
his supply wagons (largely filled with herring) around his archers, he repelled
the much larger army in what was to be one of the last English successes won on
the backs of their outstanding longbowmen: the Battle of the Herrings. Later
that year, however, a French saviour appeared in the form of a peasant woman
from Lorraine named Joan of Arc.

END OF THE WAR: 1429–1453[]

File:Hundred years war france england 1435.jpg

France in 1428.

By 1424, the uncles of Henry VI had begun to quarrel over the infant's regency,
and one, Humphrey, Duke of Gloucester, married Jacqueline, Countess of Hainaut,
and invaded Holland to regain her former dominions, bringing him into direct
conflict with Philip III, Duke of Burgundy.

By 1428, the English were ready to pursue the war again, laying siege to
Orléans. Their force was insufficient to fully invest the city, but larger
French forces remained passive. In 1429, Joan of Arc convinced the Dauphin to
send her to the siege, saying she had received visions from God telling her to
drive out the English. She raised the morale of the local troops and they
attacked the English redoubts, forcing the English to lift the siege. Inspired
by Joan, the French took several English strongpoints on the Loire. Shortly
afterwards a French army some 8000 strong broke through English archers at Patay
with heavy cavalry, defeating a 3000 strong army commanded by John Fastolf and
John Talbot, 1st Earl of Shrewsbury. The first major French land victory of the
wars, this opened the way for the Dauphin to march to Reims for his coronation
as Charles VII.

After Joan was captured by the Burgundians in 1430 and later sold to the English
and executed, the French advance stalled in negotiations. But, in 1435, the
Burgundians under Philip III switched sides, signing the Treaty of Arras and
returning Paris to the King of France. Burgundy's allegiance remained fickle,
but their focus on expanding their domains into the Low Countries left them
little energy to intervene in France. The long truces that marked the war also
gave Charles time to reorganize his army and government, replacing his feudal
levies with a more modern professional army that could put its superior numbers
to good use, and centralizing the French state.

Generally, though, the tactical superiority of English forces remained a potent
factor; John Talbot, for instance, who specialised in fast attacks, routed
French forces at Ry and Avranches in Normandy in 1436 and 1439 respectively.
Talbot, one of the most daring warriors of the age, was the victor in 40 battles
and skirmishes. This was one of the main reasons the war was so prolonged. The
biographer of the Constable Richemont put it plainly when he wrote that, "The
English and their captains, above all Talbot, had a well established reputation
for superiority, Richemont knew them better than anyone".

But a repetition of Du Guesclin's battle avoidance strategy paid dividends and
the French were able to recover town after town.

By 1449, the French had retaken Rouen, and in 1450 the count of Clermont and
Arthur de Richemont, Earl of Richmond, of the Montfort family (the future Arthur
III, Duke of Brittany) caught an English army attempting to relieve Caen at the
Battle of Formigny and defeated it, the English army having been attacked from
the flank and rear by Richemont's force just as they were on the verge of
beating Clermont's army. The French proceeded to capture Cherbourg on July 6 and
Bordeaux and Bayonne in 1451. The attempt by Talbot to retake Gascony, though
initially welcomed by the locals, was crushed by Jean Bureau and his cannon at
the Battle of Castillon in 1453 where Talbot had led a small Anglo-Gascon force
in a frontal attack on an entrenched camp. This is considered the last battle of
the Hundred Years' War.

File:Europe in 1430.PNG

Europe in 1430.

SIGNIFICANCE[]

The Hundred Years' War was a time of military evolution. Weapons, tactics, army
structure, and the societal meaning of war all changed, partly in response to
the demands of the war, partly through advancement in technology, and partly
through lessons that warfare taught.

England was what might be considered a more modern state than France. It had a
centralized authority—Parliament—with the authority to tax. As the military
writer Colonel Alfred Burne notes, England had revolutionized its recruitment
system, substituting a paid army for one drawn from feudal obligation.
Professional captains were appointed who recruited troops for a specified
(theoretically short) period. This "modern army", to some extent a
necessity—many barons refused to go on a foreign campaign, as feudal service was
supposed to be for protection of the realm[citation needed] —also gave England a
military advantage early on.[citation needed]

Before the Hundred Years' War, heavy cavalry was considered the most powerful
unit in an army, but by the war's end this belief had definitely shifted. The
heavy horse was increasingly negated by the use of the longbow and fixed
defensive positions of men-at-arms, tactics which helped lead to English
victories at Crécy and Agincourt. Learning from the Scots, the English began
using lightly armored, mounted troops, who would dismount in order to fight
battles. By the end of the Hundred Years War this meant a fading of the
expensively outfitted, highly trained heavy cavalry.

Although they had a tactical advantage, a major problem the English faced as the
military writer General Fuller pointed out was: "nevertheless the size of France
prohibited lengthy, let alone permanent, occupation."

An insoluble problem for English commanders was that in an age of siege warfare
the more territory that was occupied, the greater the requirements for
garrisons. This lessened the striking power of English armies as time went on.
Salisbury's army at Orleans only consisted of 5000 men, insufficient not only to
invest the city but also numerically inferior to French forces within and
without the city. The French only needed to recover some part of their shattered
confidence, the result of many years of defeat, for the outcome to become
inevitable. At Orleans they were assisted by the death of Salisbury through a
fluke cannon shot and by the inspiration of Joan of Arc.

Further the ending of the Burgundian alliance spelt the end of English efforts
in France, despite the campaigns of the aggressive John, Lord Talbot and his
forces to stay the inevitable.

The war also stimulated nationalistic sentiment. It devastated France as a land,
but it also awakened French nationalism. The Hundred Years' War accelerated the
process of transforming France from a feudal monarchy to a centralized state.
The conflict became not one of just English and French kings but one between
English and French people. There were constant rumors in England that the French
meant to invade and destroy the English language. National feeling emerged out
of rumors like these that unified both France and England further.

The latter stages of the war saw the emergence of the dukes of Burgundy as
important players on the political field, and it encouraged the English, in
response to the seesawing alliance of the southern Netherlands (now Belgium, a
very important textile hub at the time) throughout the conflict, to develop
their own clothing industry and foreign markets.

WEAPONS[]

File:Longbow arrow.jpg

Reconstruction of an English longbow and arrow.

The most famous weapon was the Welsh (or English) longbow of the yeoman archer;
while not a new weapon at the time, it played a significant role in the
strategic advantage it gave the English. The French mainly counted on crossbows,
many times manned by Genoese men. The crossbow was used because it took little
training or skill to operate. It however was slow to reload, prone to damage
(rain could easily damage it), and lacked the accuracy of the longbow. The
longbow was a weapon of skill and required a lifetime to be proficient at it. It
also required tremendous strength to use requiring tension rates of around one
hundred pounds to draw. It was the wide spread use of it in the British Isles
that gave the English the ability to use it as a weapon. It was the tactical
developments that brought it to prominence. The English in their battles with
the Scots had learned through defeat what dismounted bowmen in fixed positions
could do to heavy horse. Since the arrows shot from a longbow could kill or
incapacitate plate armored knights a charge could be dissipated before it ever
reached an army's lines. The longbow enabled an often-outnumbered English army
to pick battle locations, fortify, and destroy opposing armies. For some reason
as the Hundred Years' War came to a close the number of able longbow men began
to drop off and therefore the longbow as a weapon became less viable as there
were not the men to wield them.

A number of new weapons were introduced during the Hundred Years' War as well.
Gunpowder, firearms and cannons played significant roles as early as 1375. The
last battle of the war, the Battle of Castillon, was the first battle in
European history where artillery was the deciding factor. The early phase of the
war triggered the development and rising popularity of the longsword, and the
longbow success triggered transformations in armour (e.g. plate armour).

WAR AND SOCIETY[]

The consequences of these new weapons meant that the nobility was no longer the
deciding factor in battle; peasants armed with longbows or firearms could gain
access to the power, rewards and prestige once reserved only for knights who
bore arms. The composition of armies changed, from feudal lords who may or may
not show up when called by their lord, to paid mercenaries. By the end of the
war, both France and England were able to raise enough money through taxation to
create standing armies, the first time since the fall of the Western Roman
Empire that there were standing armies in Western or Central Europe. Standing
armies represented an entirely new form of power for kings. Not only could they
defend their kingdoms from invaders, but standing armies could also protect the
king from internal threats and also keep the population in check. It was a major
step in early developments towards new monarchies and nations and entirely broke
down the Medieval orders.

At the first major battle of the war, the Battle of Crécy, it is said that the
age of chivalry came to an end. Ironically, there had been a revival of chivalry
during this time, and it was deemed to be of the highest importance to fight,
and to die, in the most chivalrous way possible. The English even apologized for
fighting non-chivalrously, saying they had no choice since they were so unfairly
outnumbered, leaving the dirty business to the Welsh (non-English or French
speakers). It was a lesson the French would take a long time to learn and at
great cost, before they also began to fight in less chivalrous ways. The notion
of chivalry was strongly influenced by the Romantic epics of the 12th century
and knights literally imagined themselves re-enacting the stories on the field
of battle. Someone like Bertrand Du Guesclin was said to have gone in to battle
with one eye closed, declaring "I will not open my eye for the honor of my lady
until I have killed three Englishmen." Knights often carried the colors of their
ladies in to battle.

In France during the captivity of King John II, the Estates General attempted to
arrogate power from the king. The Estates General was a body of representatives
from the three groups who traditionally had rights in France: the clergy, the
nobles, and the townspeople. First called together under Philip IV “the Fair”,
the Estates had the right to confirm or disagree with the “levée”, the principal
tax by which the kings of France raised money. Under the leadership of a
merchant named Etienne Marcel, the Estates General attempted to force the
monarchy to accept a sort of agreement called the Great Ordinance. Like the
English Magna Carta, the Great Ordinance held that the Estates should supervise
the collection and spending of the levy, meet at regular intervals independent
of the king’s call, exercise certain judicial powers, and generally play a
greater role in government. The nobles took this power to excess, however,
causing in 1358 a peasant rebellion known as the Jacquerie. Swarms of peasant
furious over the nobles’ high taxes and forced labor policies, killed and burned
in the north of France. One of their victims proved to be Etienne Marcel, and
without his leadership they divided

The effects of the Hundred Years’ War in England also raised some questions
about the extent of royal authority. Like the French, the English experienced a
serious rebellion against the king during a gap in the succession caused by the
death of Edward III when his grandson had not yet reached maturity. Called the
Peasants' Revolt and also Wat Tyler’s Rebellion, the 1381 uprising threatened
saw some 100,000 peasants march on London to protest the payment of high war
taxes and efforts by the nobility to reduce English peasants to serfdom. The mob
murdered and burned the houses of government officials and tax collectors. The
young king-to-be, Richard II, met the peasants outside his castle, defusing
their violence by promising to meet their demands. At the same time, agents of
the throne murdered Wat Tyler, a key leader of the revolt, and Richard II sent
the peasants back to their homes in the countryside. After they left, however,
he reneged on his promises and kept taxes high.

MAJOR BATTLES[]

* 1337 Battle of Cadsand initiates hostilities. The Flemish defenders of the
island were thrown into disorder by the first use of the English longbow on
Continental soil
* 1340 Battle of Sluys June 24 Edward III beats Franco-Genoese fleet of Philip
VI of France off the coast of Flanders and gains control of the English
Channel
* 1345 Longbow victory by Henry, Earl of Derby against a French army at
Auberoche in Gascony
* 1346 Battle of Crécy August 26 English longbowmen soundly defeat French
cavalry at Abbeville
* 1346-1347 Siege of Calais
* 1350 Les Espagnols sur Mer English fleet defeats Castilian fleet in a close
fight.
* 1351 Combat of the Thirty Thirty French Knights from Chateau Josselin under
Beaumanoir call out and defeat thirty English Knights under Pembroke and
Brambaugh
* French army under De Nesle defeated by English under Bentley at Mauron in
Brittany, De Nesle killed
* 1356 Battle of Poitiers Edward the Black Prince captures King John II of
France, France plunges into chaos
* 1364 September 29 - Battle of Auray, end of Breton War of Succession French
defeat, Du Gueschlin captured
* 1367 Battle of Nájera (Navarette) Black Prince defeats a Castillian/French
army at Nájera in Spain
* 1372 Battle of La Rochelle Castilian-French fleet defeats the English fleet,
leading to loss of dominance at sea and French piracy and coastal raids
* 1415 Battle of Agincourt October 25 English longbowmen under Henry V defeat
French under Charles d'Albert
* 1416 English defeat numerically greater French army at Valmont near Harfleur
* 1417 Naval victory in the River Seine under Bedford
* 1418 Siege of Rouen July 31 ? January 19 1419 Henry V of England gains a
foothold in Normandy.
* 1419 Battle of La Rochelle (1419) Castilian fleet defeats Anglo-Hanseatic
fleet
* 1421 22 March Battle of Bauge The French and Scottish forces of Charles VII
commanded by the Earl of Buchan defeat an outmanoeuvered English force
commanded by the Duke of Clarence, the first English loss in a land battle of
the Wars.
* 1423 31 July Battle of Cravant. The French army is defeated at Cravant on the
banks of the river Yonne.
* 1424 17 August Battle of Vernuil. The Scots forces are decisively defeated
* 1426 March 6 French besieging army under Richemont dispersed by a small force
under Sir Thomas Rempstone in "The Rout of St James" in Brittany
* 1429 12 February Battle of the Herrings. English force under Sir John Fastolf
defeats French army.
* 1428 12 October - 8 May 1429 Siege of Orléans English forces commanded by the
Earl of Salisbury, the Earl of Suffolk, and Talbot (Earl of Shrewsbury) lay
siege to Orleans, and are forced to withdraw after a relief army accompanied
by Joan of Arc arrives at the city.
* 1429 17 July Battle of Patay A French army under La Hire, Richemont, Joan of
Arc, and other commanders break through English archers under Lord Talbot and
then pursue and mop up the other sections of the English army, killing or
capturing about half (2,200) of their troops. The Earl of Shrewsbury (Talbot)
and Hungerford are captured.
* 1435 Battle of Gerbevoy La Hire defeats an English force under Arundel
* 1436 John Talbot, 1st Earl of Shrewsbury routs a larger French force under La
Hire and Xantrailles at Ry near Rouen
* 1437 John Talbot defeats the Burgundians at Crotoy
* 1439 John Talbot disperses a French army of 6000 under the Constable
Richemont at Avranches in Normandy.
* 1440 John Talbot takes Harfleur
* 1450 Battle of Formigny Two French armies under the Count of Clermont and the
Earl of Richmond defeat the English under Kyriell
* 1453 Battle of Castillon The Valois use cannon to defeat the Lancastrians and
end the Hundred Years War. The 70-year old Talbot is killed while trying to
rally his fleeing troops

IMPORTANT PEOPLE[]

England King Edward III 1327-1377 Edward II's son King Richard II 1377-1399
Edward III's grandson King Henry IV 1399-1413 Edward III's grandson King Henry V
1413-1422 Henry IV's son King Henry VI 1422-1461 Henry V's son Edward, the Black
Prince 1330-1376 Son of Edward III Henry of Grosmont, 1st Duke of Lancaster
1306-1361 Knight John Talbot, 1st Earl of Shrewsbury Knight Sir John Fastolf
Knight

France King Philip VI the Fortunate 1328-1350 King John II the Good 1350-1364
King Charles V the Wise 1364-1380 King Charles VI the Well-Beloved or the Mad
1380-1422 Louis I of Anjou 1380-1382 Regent for Charles VI King Charles VII the
Victorious 1422-1461 Joan of Arc 1412–1431 Jean de Dunois 1403–1468 Jean
d'Orléans Gilles de Rais 1404–1440 Bertrand du Guesclin 1320–1380 Jean Bureau La
Hire 1390–1443

CONTINUING ENGLISH CLAIM TO THE FRENCH THRONE[]

Main article: English claims to the French throne

After the end of the Hundred Years' War, England continued to make claims on the
French throne for years afterwards until the Act of Union in 1801. Here the
title of King of France was omitted from the new royal style.

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