The Plantagenets and the war of one hundred years

Flavio Sivieri e Pompilio Parodi

The last Carolingians king,Carl V died in an hunt incident.

He didn’t have any heirs. The only blood parent that could succeded Carl didn’t have the support of the church,that wanted Hugh Capet.

So with Carl V died the house of Caroligians.

He was the first Capetians King.

He was elected by the Church and lords, after the death of Carl V because he wasn’t a really powerful man.

During his kingdom, the lords governed their own provinces without the influence of the king.

After the first king, Hugh Capet, those who succeded him didn’t have any political power, but all of them had long lives and male heirs.

After Hugh, another important king was Louis the Fat. With this king the Capetians began to have more power.

In fact he was known as a good king and he had the support of the Church.

His son, Louis increased his power after marrying Eleanor, because she ruled Aquitaine.So they formed a powerful kingdom until they divorced in 1152.

Louis’s son, Philippe Auguste, came to the throne in 1180 . He was more ambitious than his father. He managed to get his land larger. He died in 1223 in France after returning from the Third crusade.

He had created a loyal civil service which administered and oversaw every province of his kingdom.

His descendant Louis IX was really religious, so religious that he became a saint after his death.

He managed to get everyone to love him and convinced pretty much everyone in France that it was better to follow the king.

He died in the Eight cruisade, probably for dysentery.

The last king before the hundred years war was Philippe IV’s son, Charles IV.

Lords didn’t agree to have Charles IV as their king so they choose Charles IV’s cousin ,Philippe of Valois.

With that king began the hundred years war.

They took the wealth from the taxes on roads and markets, and also from selling their tenants’s products.

With these wealth they organized an army so that attacked other lands or defended their territory.

For exemple the duke of Normandy conquered England and part of Italy

CAUSES

• Economy point: the king increased the taxes in Thr Flanders on the wool trade, vital for England, in order to cut up the allegiance between The Flanders’lords and the English King.

Dinastic point: the English king, Edward III, and the French Charles IV’s cousin wanted the throne of France, because they thought to have the right to take it.

Lands point:The duke of Normandy was also the king of England and he wanted to have more lands.

TIME LINE

1337

WAR BEGAN

1453END OF

WAR

1346

Crecy’s battle

1348

Blackdeath

1381

English peasant revolts

1415

Azincourt’s battle

1420

Troyes’s treaty

1429

The rising of France

1431

Death of Joan

Of Arc

France was caught in a “nutcracker” between Edward’s lands and his allies.

In 1340 the French king prepared a great fleet, but it was destoyed by the English near Dunkerque.

After that the English king had the contol of the Channel.

In 1346 the English invaders were weakened by sickness and retreated to the Channel port.

The English attackers massacred the French army composed by heavy cavalry.

After Crecy, Edward III besieged Calais, that he managed to conquer after a year.

Calais began a fortified English stronghold,a base for military expeditions into France and the near continent for the next two centuries.

The first half of the hundred years war was plagued by the Black Death, that killed a third of the population of both England and France.

That created some violent and bloody revolts, in fact pesants looted lords’ houses and castels.

In 1381 they revolted against English lords because of Poll taxes.

At Poitiers,in 1356, The English army won against the French army, and they captured the French King Jean le Bon, released after a ransom paid in gold and lands.

After this battle both nations proclamed peace.

Peace allowed the French King to established more control. He managed to broke the alliance between England and court of Burgundy.

At the end the French king took the whole area of Flanders.

In 1380 the French captured the Isle of Wight, and burned some English cities on the British coast. The English expected a French invasion…that never happened, because the king died without sons, so in 1407 the French royal family was divided in two factions:Armagnacs and Burgundians.

Armagnacs in the end won the civil battle.

In 1415 Henry V king of England was returning towards Calais with a small army when he met the French army composed of 30000 men.They defeated again the French cavalry and won the battle. Henry V conquered the north and west of France.

Agincourt

Tramecourt

Azincourt

English camp

French camp

Crecy

King Philp

King Edoard

Final part

In 1429 Joan of Arc began her quest to unite France, sacrifying her life.

She inspired the French people and with a well-organized army managed to drive English back, conquering one by one all English stronghold in France.

In 1435 they captured Bordeaux.