HUNDRED YEARS’ WAR
. The name posterity has bestowed on the series of Anglo-French conflicts that occurred
between 1337 and 1453. Two major issues were at stake: the claim of English kings to be
rightful kings of France and the irritations arising from the fact that the king of England,
as duke of Aquitaine, was a liege vassal of the king of France. The dynastic claim to the
French throne was important to Edward III but was at best tenuous in the 15th century.
The feudal status of Aquitaine, regarded by some scholars as the key to the whole
conflict, was eliminated by the expulsion of the English from southwestern France in
1453.
The Hundred Years’ War in fact comprised three wars of particular intensity, each of
twenty years’ duration, preceded and followed by lesser conflicts. The “Edwardian” war
of 1340–60 was dominated by Edward III of England. The “Caroline” war of 1369–89
was dominated by the military establishment of Charles V of France. The “Lancastrian”
war of 1415–35 was dominated by Henry V of England and his brother John, duke of
Bedford. Besides these three major conflicts, there was indecisive Anglo-French fighting
in the periods 1294–1303,1323–25,1337–39, and 1436–44, in addition to the French
campaign of reconquest (1449–53), an abortive English invasion in 1475, and various
war scares at other times.
The periods of intermittent conflict after 1294 were marked by fairly easy French
victories that gave way to stalemate, but each monarchy also suffered one humiliating
defeat at the hands of a supposedly inferior neighbor, Flanders (1302) and Scotland
(1314), respectively. These were the first of many other European states to be drawn into
the Anglo-French struggle over the course of a century.
In 1340, when Edward III first called himself king of France, the opposing kings
assembled large and expensive armies that confronted each other without engaging in
decisive action, to the annoyance of taxpayers on both sides of the Channel. A war of
succession in Brittany broke out in 1341 and breathed new life into the Anglo-French
war. France was weakened by a tradition of not collecting taxes in time of truce, and
especially by internal divisions in which important segments of the politically influential
classes opposed the government. Edward launched two well-organized campaigns, about
a decade apart. The first of these, in 1345–47, produced decisive English victories at
Auberoche in the southwest (1345), Crécy (1346) and Calais (1347) in the north, and La
Roche-Derrien (1347) in Brittany. The crisis caused by the Black Death then intervened,
but the second great campaign began in 1355, when the Prince of Wales ravaged upper
Languedoc. In the next year, he defeated and captured John II at Poitiers. France was
virtually paralyzed by social strife, political rivalries, and an empty treasury, while her
captive king attempted to negotiate a treaty.
Six centuries of historical commentary have failed to give a satisfactory explanation
for the French defeats. The noble knights, specialists in the traditional tactics of heavy
cavalry, seemed reluctant to appreciate the military value of nonnoble infantry, to adapt
to the problems posed by new and more powerful missile weapons, and to place
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