Read complete books and articles on: Hundred Years War

Hundred Years War - 1337–1453, conflict between England and France.

Causes

Hundred Years War - 1337–1453, conflict between England and France.

Causes

Its basic cause was a dynastic quarrel that originated when the conquest of England by William of Normandy created a state lying on both sides of the English Channel. In the 14th cent. the English kings held the duchy of Guienne in France; they resented paying homage to the French kings, and they feared the increasing control exerted by the French crown over its great feudal vassals. The immediate causes of the Hundred Years War were the dissatisfaction of Edward III of England with the nonfulfillment by Philip VI of France of his pledges to restore a part of Guienne taken by Charles IV; the English attempts to control Flanders, an important market for English wool and a source of cloth; and Philip's support of Scotland against England.

The War

The war may be dated from 1337, when Edward III of England assumed the title of king of France, a title held by Philip VI. Edward first invaded France from the Low Countries (1339–40), winning small success on land but defeating (1340) a French fleet at the battle of Sluis. In 1346 he won the battle of Crécy and besieged Calais, which surrendered in 1347. In 1356 the English won the battle of Poitiers, capturing King John II of France. After prolonged negotiations, the Treaty of Brétigny was signed (1360); England received Calais and practically all of Aquitaine, as well as a large ransom for the captive king.

The Gascon nobles, oppressively taxed by Edward the Black Prince, appealed (1369) to King Charles V. The war was renewed, and by 1373, Du Guesclin had won back most of the lost French territory. In 1415, Henry V of England renewed the English claims, took Harfleur, and defeated France's best knights at Agincourt. By 1419 he had subdued Normandy, with the connivance of John the Fearless, duke of Burgundy. Philip the Good, successor of John the Fearless, mediated between Henry V and Charles VI of France (see Troyes, Treaty of), and Charles recognized Henry as heir to the crown of France.

By 1429 the English and their Burgundian allies were masters of practically all France N of the Loire, but in that year Joan of Arc raised the siege of Orléans and saw Charles VII crowned king of France at Reims. Her capture by the Burgundians and her judicial murder after extradition to the British did not stop the renewal of French successes. In 1435, Charles obtained the alliance of Burgundy (see Arras, Treaty of). By 1450 the French reconquered Normandy, and by 1451 all Guienne but Bordeaux was taken. After the fall (1453) of Bordeaux, England retained only Calais, which was not conquered by France until 1558. England, torn by the Wars of the Roses, made no further attempt to conquer France.

Results of the War

The Hundred Years War inflicted untold misery on France. Farmlands were laid waste, the population was decimated by war, famine, and the Black Death (see plague), and marauders terrorized the countryside. Civil wars (see Jacquerie; Cabochiens; Armagnacs and Burgundians) and local wars (see Breton Succession, War of the) increased the destruction and the social disintegration. Yet the successor of Charles VII, Louis XI, benefited from these evils. The virtual destruction of the feudal nobility enabled him to unite France more solidly under the royal authority and to promote and ally with the middle class. From the ruins of the war an entirely new France emerged. For England, the results of the war were equally decisive; it ceased to be a continental power and increasingly sought expansion as a naval power.

Bibliography

The great chronicler of the war was Froissart. Shakespeare, taking liberties with history, dramatized the war in Henry V and Henry VI. See also E. Perroy, The Hundred Years War (tr. 1951, repr. 1967); K. A. Fowler, The Age of Plantagenet and Valois (1967); Christopher Allmand, The Hundred Years War (1988).

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15 of the Best Books and Articles on: Hundred Years War

as selected by Questia librarians

1.

The Hundred Years War: A Wider Focus » Read Now
by Donald J. Kagay, L. J. Andrew Villalon. 520 pgs.

Collections: History, Entire Library

This volume, the first of a two-volume set, is the work of fourteen European and American scholars and focuses on the wider aspects of the Hundred Years. These essays range far afield from the traditional heartlands of Hundred Years War studies to investigate the influence of the conflict on Italy...
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This volume, the first of a two-volume set, is the work of fourteen European and American scholars and focuses on the wider aspects of the Hundred Years. These essays range far afield from the traditional heartlands of Hundred Years War studies to investigate the influence of the conflict on Italy, the Low Countries, and Spain and on such topics as urban history, and the actualities of weapon use on the battlefield. A number of the essays in this collection seek to reexamine old but thorny questions long associated with the conflict, including the real immediate impact of gunpowder technology on siege warfare during the fourteenth century and the "purposeful" strategy of Henry V in staging and bringing about the battle of Agincourt in 1415.
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2.

The Hundred Years War » Read Now
by Robin Neillands. 310 pgs.

Collections: History, Entire Library

The Hundred Years War was the longest war in European history, a quarrel between two cousins resulting in decades of violence in the battle for the French throne. It was a war which wrought great change in two medieval societies, ushering in the Renaissance and having repurcussions down to the present day.
3.

The Low Countries and the Hundred Years' War: 1326-1347 (1929) » Read Now
by Henry Stephen Lucas. 706 pgs.

Collections: History, Entire Library
4.

Events That Changed Great Britain, from 1066 to 1714 (Chap. 4 "The Hundred Years' War, 1337-1453") » Read Now
by John E. Findling, Frank W. Thackeray. 201 pgs.

Collections: History, Entire Library

This unique resource describes and evaluates ten of the most important events in British history between the Norman Conquest of 1066 and the Glorious Revolution of 1689 and its aftermath. A full chapter is devoted to each event, and each chapter includes an introduction presenting factual information in a clear, chronological order.
5.

Events That Changed the World through the Sixteenth Century (Chap. 3 "Hundred Year's War, 1337-1453") » Read Now
by John E. Findling, Frank W. Thackeray. 223 pgs.

Collections: History, Entire Library

Except for the twentieth century, the period from the late Middle Ages through the sixteenth century witnessed the most significant developments in the history of the world. From the expulsion of the Muslims from Spain, through the flowering of the Renaissance, the religious strife of the...
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Except for the twentieth century, the period from the late Middle Ages through the sixteenth century witnessed the most significant developments in the history of the world. From the expulsion of the Muslims from Spain, through the flowering of the Renaissance, the religious strife of the Reformation, and the attempts by great empires to conquer their own continent and expand into the New World, the enormous political, religious, and social changes that took place on every continent of the globe are examined. These events and their impact have been carefully described and analyzed in this useful student resource.
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6.

Imagining Peace: A History of Early English Pacifist Ideas, 1340-1560 (Chap. 3 "Antiwar Discourse during the Hundred Years War" and Chap. 4 "Peace Discourse during the Hundred Years War: Clerical and Later Literary Responses") » Read Now
by Ben Lowe. 362 pgs.

Collections: History, Entire Library
7.

The Military Revolution Debate: Readings on the Military Transformation of Early Modern Europe (Chap. 3 "The Military Revolutions of the Hundred Years War") » Read Now
by Clifford J. Rogers. 387 pgs.

Collections: History, Entire Library
8.

Feeding Mars: Logistics in Western Warfare from the Middle Ages to the Present (Chap. 5 "Naval Logistics in the Late Middle Ages: The Example of the Hundred Years' War") » Read Now
by John A. Lynn. 332 pgs.

Collections: History, Entire Library
9.

Medieval Warfare: A History (Chap. 7 "The Age of the Hundred Years War") » Read Now
by Maurice Keen. 342 pgs.

Collections: History, Entire Library

This richly illustrated book explores over seven hundred years of European warfare, from the time of Charlemagne to the end of the middle ages (c.1500). The period covered has a distinctive character in military history. It was an age when organization for war was integral to social structure, when...
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This richly illustrated book explores over seven hundred years of European warfare, from the time of Charlemagne to the end of the middle ages (c.1500). The period covered has a distinctive character in military history. It was an age when organization for war was integral to social structure, when the secular aristocrat was by necessity also a warrior, and whose culture was profoundly influenced by martial ideas. Twelve scholars, experts in their own fields, have contributed to this finely illustrated book. It is divided into two parts. Part I seeks to explore the experience of war viewed chronologically with separate chapters on, for instance, the Viking age, on the wars and expansion of the eleventh and twelfth centuries, on the Crusades and on the great Hundred Years War between England and France. The chapters in Part II trace thematically the principal developments in the art of warfare; in fortification and siege craft; in the role of armoured cavalrymen; in the employment of mercenary forces; the advent of gunpowder artillery; and of new skills in navigation and shipbuilding. In both parts of the book, the overall aim has been to offer the general reader an impression, not just of the where and the when of great confrontations, but above all of the social experience of warfare in the middle ages, and of the impact of its demands on human resources and human endurance.
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10.

The Later Middle Ages, 1272-1485 (Chap. 10 "The Hundred Years' War 1361-1453") » Read Now
by George Holmes. 276 pgs.

Collections: History, Entire Library
11.

War, Peace and World Orders in European History (Chap. 11 "War, Peace, and National Identity in the Hundred Years' War") » Read Now
by Anja V. Hartmann, Beatrice Heuser. 271 pgs.

Collections: History, Entire Library

This book explores a new way for students of International Relations to look at war, peace and world orders throughout European history. The contributors argue that the predominant 'realist' paradigm that focuses on states and their self-interest is not applicable to the largest period of European...
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This book explores a new way for students of International Relations to look at war, peace and world orders throughout European history. The contributors argue that the predominant 'realist' paradigm that focuses on states and their self-interest is not applicable to the largest period of European history, because states either did not exist or were only in the making. Instead, they argue, we have to look through the eyes of historical entities to see how they understood the world in which they lived, The authors use a wide range of case-studies, focusing on subjects as diverse as the ancient Greek concept of honour and persecution under Communist regimes during the Cold War to explore the ways in which people in different societies at different times perceived and felt about war and peace in the world around them.
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12.

Economic and Social History of Europe in the Later Middle Ages (1300-1530) (Chap. III "First Period of the Hundred Years' War (1337-80)" and Chap. XII "Second Period of the Hundred Years' War (1380-1453)") » Read Now
by James Westfall Thompson. 544 pgs.

Collections: History, Entire Library
13.

English Medieval Diplomacy (Chap. IV "The Hundred Years War") » Read Now
by G. P. Cuttino. 162 pgs.

Collections: History, Entire Library
14.

England in the Later Middle Ages: A Political History (Chap. 6 "Edward III and the Hundred Years War 1337-1360") » Read Now
by M. H. Keen. 492 pgs.

Collections: History, Entire Library

First published to wide critical acclaim in 1973, England in the Later Middle Ages has become a seminal text for students studying this diverse, complex period. This spirited work surveys the period from Edward I to the death of Richard III at the Battle of Bosworth, which heralded in the Tudor...
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First published to wide critical acclaim in 1973, England in the Later Middle Ages has become a seminal text for students studying this diverse, complex period. This spirited work surveys the period from Edward I to the death of Richard III at the Battle of Bosworth, which heralded in the Tudor Age.The second edition of this book, while maintaining the character of the original, brings the study up to date. Each chapter includes a discussion of the historiographical developments of the last decade and the author takes a fresh look at the changing world of the Later Middle Ages, particularly the plague and the economy. Also included is a rewritten introduction.
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15.

Historical Dictionary of Late Medieval England, 1272-1485 ("Hundred Years War (1337-1453)" begins on p. 265) » Read Now
by Ronald H. Fritze, William B. Robison. 658 pgs.

Collections: History, Entire Library

Providing the chronological setting for many of Shakespeare's plays, various swashbuckling novels from Sir Walter Scott's to Robert Louis Stevenson's, and such Hollywood films as Braveheart, late Medieval England is superficially well known. Yet its true complexity remains elusive, locked in the...
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Providing the chronological setting for many of Shakespeare's plays, various swashbuckling novels from Sir Walter Scott's to Robert Louis Stevenson's, and such Hollywood films as Braveheart, late Medieval England is superficially well known. Yet its true complexity remains elusive, locked in the covers of specialized monographs and journal articles. In over 300 entries written by 80 scholars, this book makes the factual information and historical interpretations of the era readily available. Covering political, military, religious, and constitutional subjects as well as social and economic topics, the volume is easy to use, comprehensive, and authoritative. It provides a useful resource for undergraduate and graduate students, scholars, and educated laymen.
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