Hundred Years War Causes

The Hundred Years’ War, a long battle between England and France, caused several factors directly and indirectly and greatly affected both countries afterwards, changing the European societies from feudal states to modern sovereign states. This extremely long battle was not a mere fight, but a turning point that affected the way nations are ruled today. This war started in 1339 when Edward Ⅲ invaded Northern France. It continued intermittently for more than a hundred years, involving several generations of English and French kings. This war finally ended in 1453 with France defeating England, as France had dominated all the British-ruled places except Calais in its country. Although the direct causes for this battle are the issue of territorial rights in France and the problem of whom the next successor of France should, several other factors had triggered this war. One is a long history of discord between the two kingdoms, which dates back to the the two dynasties in England; the Norman dynasty, the duke of Normandy in France conquered England in 1066 and the Plantagenet dynasty, the count of Anjou in France ascended the throne as Henry Ⅱ in 1154. Since then, England had kept its own territory in Western France, though the area was reduced later when King John was defeated in the battle against King Philip Ⅱ in France. France did not accept the …show more content…
As the governance forces are centralized, military forces have become more powerful, and territorial disputes have been more violent. Actually, the Age of Exploration for colonization started just after the end of battle, in the mid of 15th century. Yet those are the undesirable effects of centralized governance, it is still attractive as people could face in the same direction, achieving a big goal or getting over a big obstacle, which made the wealthy world we live in today. We definitely have learned a lot from the story of the