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 concludes his series and considers what the key reasons for the Hundred Years War truly were.

If you missed it, you can read Jonathan’s first piece on the rise of Capetian power here, and the expansion of Plantagenet power here, and Anglo-French conflict in the 13th century here.

A depiction of the marriage of King Charles IV of France and Marie of Luxembourg. By Jean Fouquet.

The Hundred Years War did not just begin as a dynastic dispute which left the throne of France having multiple claimants with the death of Charles IV of France, the last male of the mainline of the Capet dynasties, in 1328. The driving forces behind this conflict were geopolitical, historical, and dynastic disputes over the succession and the expansion of Capet’s dynastic power in France during the 12th and 13th centuries.

The End of the Capetian Kings of France

During Charles’ six years as the King of France from 1322 CE to 1328 CE, he launched his attempt to claim Gascony from King Edward III’s father, Edward II of England, who reigned from 1307 CE to 1327 CE. Philip VI of France, the successor to Charles IV and the first Valois King of France from 1328 CE to 1350 CE, attempted to seize Gascony from King Edward III of England the same way the French kings from 1295 tried to take Gascony away from the Plantagenet dynasty. Philip VI also blocked trade or attempted to block English wool merchants from selling their wool to be turned into cloth in Flanders; this was an economic reason for the Hundred Years' War (Sumption, 1999). Another reason that contributed to the conflict was the renewed alliance between King David I of Scotland and Philip Vi of France during the 1330s, when King Edward III attempted to bring Scotland into the English crown. This meant an inevitable clash between the kings of England and France over territory, economics, security, and the aims of both dynasties in England and France. Another factor that must be considered is the weight of history. Since Hugh Capet was elected King of the Franks in 987, this conflict became an inevitability because since Hugh became King, his descendants have all slowly expanded the role, dynastic prestige, and other avenues of symbolism, practicality to expand their power within and without the kingdom of France. This goes to show that the Hundred Years War was not created from a vacuum, merely a continuation of foreign policy and the conflict between territorial princes that began as early as the 1050s with Henry I of France fighting Duke William II of Normandy due to him being a threat to royal power in the north of France.

The Political and Geopolitics Between the Kingdoms of England & France

The kingdoms of England and France have historically been fighting each other since the Norman conquest. Until the battle of Waterloo in 1815 CE, this violence and conflict spanned the globe and Europe for centuries, although it did not come purely from the Hundred Years War. Still, there is a political and geopolitical dimension to this. There is a reason why nations, kingdoms, and even civilizations did not survive until the modern era; the answer can be summed up in simple geography. The kingdom of England, by the 13th century encompassed the principalities of Wales and parts of Scotland and Ireland, and by the start of the Hundred Years War in the mid-14th century, England had many good reasons to fight France. One of these reasons was that English territory too often did not enable trade - England was also full of swampland and hard to navigate terrain, with areas such as East Anglia and northern England being far from London. Equally, Wales is hilly and not useful for growing crops. So, why did this contribute to the Hundred Years War? The answer to that is that the kings of England no longer had useful territories that could be taken within the British Isles and that the ancestral Plantagenet lands in Europe were a good option for the continued growth of the kingdom.

As for the French, the rulers of the country had been in or wanted some type of conflict with England for centuries. The Valois dynasty that succeeded after the death of Charles IV of France in many ways continued the policy of Capetian Kings since 987 CE in securing and expanding the Royal domains. Indeed, Philip IV and his successors had attempted to remove Plantagenets from the mainland European continent.

All told, the reasons for the Hundred Years War were varied and complex - and they form part of a long history of conflict between England and France.

What do you think the key reasons for the Hundred Years War were? Let us know below.

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