The Hundred Years War took place between France and England in the 14th and 15th centuries, but the causes of the war are many and complex. Here, Jonathan Riley looks at the Norman conquest of England and the expansion of Plantagenet power in the 11th and 12th Centuries as factors for the later outbreak of war.

If you missed it, you can read Jonathan’s first piece on the rise of Capetian power here.

William the Conqueror, or William II of Normandy, as shown in the Bayeux Tapestry.

William II of Normandy, was nominated heir to the throne of England in 1066 CE. This created unfortunate political conflicts between the thrones of England and France because, under feudal politics, God’s anointed cannot bow to other kings or emperors (Bates, 2018). This meant that in practical terms, the relationship between the Dukes of Normandy, who were also kings of England from 1066 to 1204, was that there was an un-codified feudal, political and social relationship between the Dukes of Normandy and the Kings of the Franks.

Feudal Relationships

There is such contention in the feudal relationship between the kings of England after the Norman conquest and the Kings of the Franks because of the vast territories the kings of England held within the kingdom of modern day France by 1154. The Norman dynasty’s crown, after the extinction of the male line of William the Conqueror in 1135 with the death of King Henry I of England, passed to Stephen of Balos, who became King Stephen I of England. He fought for control of the crown from Empress Matilda who was the only legitimate surviving child of Henry I of England, thus leading to over 20 years of anarchy from 1135 to 1154. When the Plantagenets managed to finally secure the crown with a peace deal with King Stephen, the Plantagenets were not only the Counts of greater Anjou but also the Dukes of Normandy and Dukes of Aquitaine. This massive territorial expansion placed the Plantagenet dynasties and Capetian Kings of France on a collision course of conflict and war (Jones, 2014).

To reiterate, the kings of the Franks did not truly have centralized government to control their lords. This meant a constant power struggle between the territorial princes over power and prestige with the crown, at least symbolically the head of the kingdom. With the rapid expansion of Norman power with the conquest of England, England and Normandy during the 11th and 12th centuries were probably the most centralized kingdoms in Europe in terms of resources. This meant that the kings of England, also as Dukes of Normandy, could outcompete the kings of France, Dukes of Brittany, Counts of Anjou, and other lords within the kingdom of the Franks. The massive gains of King Henry II of England with his marriage to the heiress of the Aquitaine, Eleanor of Aquitaine, further catapulted the kings of England as the most powerful rulers in Western Europe for a time. However, even with these gains, the accurate picture is not that simple. King Henry II of England did not rule his continental domains as a fiefdom of the kingdom of England; this can be hard to grasp with the modern concepts of nationhood and country. It is essential to highlight that from 1066 CE until 1399 CE, the language of the English nobility was not English, but French. The coronation oath was not spoken predominantly in English until the rule of King Henry IV of England (1399 CE to 1413 CE). In practical terms, until the beginning of the Hundred Years War and the long divorce between the English and French nobility, England and its aristocracy would be predominantly French and involved in affairs on the continent. Henry II of England styled himself as the King of the English, Lord of the Normans, Lord of the Angevin, and the Lord of Aquitania (Gold, 2019). What this meant in practical terms was that the Plantagenets were not ruling monarchs in their continental lands; they were still subservient to the throne of the Franks, for these holdings created a constitutional, legal and diplomatic problem regarding the legal relationship between the kings of England and the kings of France which contributed to the causes of the Hundred Years War (Strayer, 1956).

Anglo-Norman Realm and Hundred Years War

The establishment of the Anglo-Norman realm between 1066 CE and 1204 CE placed the dynasties of England and France on a collision course towards war and conflict, and it is more accurate to say that there have been three different Hundred Years’ War between the kingdoms. The first was from 1052 CE to 1214 CE, the second was from 1294 CE to 1453 CE, and the final conflict was from 1689 CE to 1814 CE. Though these dates are all more than 100 years, and historians have debated the start of these conflicts, the main point is that over nearly 800 years, England and France have been trying to conquer one another (Zeihan, 2020).

The cause of the Hundred Years War was the feudal relationship between the English kings as Dukes of Normandy, Dukes of Aquitaine and other territories on the continent as vassals to the King of France. This position was untenable and was one of the driving factors in conflicts between the dynasties (Sumption, 1999). Even after Philip II, Augustus of France (1180 CE to 1223 CE) won back the bulk of the Plantagenet and Norman territories from King John of England in the early 13th century. Then, after the Battle of Bouvines in 1214, which was a pivotal battle in French history which is the cultural equivalent of the Battle of Hastings in 1066 or the Battle of Bosworth Field which ended the Plantagenets rule in England in 1485. The battle of Bouvines was significant in the emergence of French national identity, with proto-nationalism in France and England starting to emerge in the 13th and 14th centuries (van Gorp, 2011). Philip II and his son Louis VIII of France, who between them ruled from 1180 CE to 1226 CE, established Capetian authority in northern, central and southern France, reaching its apex under Philip IV of France in the late 13th and early 14th centuries. This is relevant to the causes of the Hundred Years War. Until their destruction in 1485, the Plantagenet dynasty would continue to try to reclaim its lost territories. However, this answer is not entirely clear cut because King Henry III of England, who reigned from 1216 CE to 1272 CE, made a peace treaty with St Louis or Louis IX of France, who reigned from 1226 CE to 1270 CE. This peace treaty was the Treaty of Paris signed in 1259 CE (Rothwell, 1927). The treaty would be important because it maintained peace between the kingdoms from 1259 CE to 1294 CE. After all, no framework split the duties of the kings of England and their duties as the Dukes of Aquitaine/Gascony. It was this legal framework that, by a technicality, gave Philip IV of France’s claims to dominion or at least legal dominion over the kings of England. This legal framework was a massive contributor towards the beginning of the Hundred Years War (Morris, 2016).

What do you think of the rise of the expansion of Plantagenet power Let us know below.

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