Appendix One: the Hundred Years War and Genealogical Charts

APPENDIX ONE: THE HUNDRED YEARS WAR AND GENEALOGICAL CHARTS L. J. Andrew Villalon The Hundred Years War was fought primarily between France and England in the years 1337–1453,1 though (as we shall see in the course of these essays), it spilled over into surrounding regions such as Italy, Spain, the Low Countries, and western Germany. Viewed in a longer perspective, the war was really the last round in a 400-year struggle between two of medieval Europe’s major dynasties to determine which would control much if not all of France, a fact that has led several prominent historians to refer to the con ict as “the second Hundred Years War.”2 On one side stood the Valois Dynasty, a cadet branch of the Capetians who had controlled France since the elevation of Hugh Capet to the kingship in 987.3 Against these Capetian-Valois kings were ranged the Plantagenets, a family that had ruled England since William the Conqueror, Duke of Normandy, had sailed across the channel in 1066 and seized the throne from its last Anglo-Saxon ruler.4 In the end, after many stunning reversals of fortune, the Capetian- Valois dynasty triumphed. In 1453, its current incumbent, Charles VII (1422–61), expelled his English rivals from all the lands they held on the continent, with the sole exception of the port city of Calais and its 1 Although these are the dates usually assigned to the Hundred Years War, both involve chronological problems of the sort that characterize the con ict. For example, while Edward III began to gather allies for his con ict with the French in 1337, he did not actually launch an attack on that country until 1339 and he of\ cially claimed the French crown only in 1340. And while the nal expulsion of the English from all French territory but Calais occurred in 1453, no treaty ended the con ict at that time. Not recognizing that the war was for all intents and purposes over, England again dispatched armies to the continent in 1475 and 1492. 2 James Westfall Thompson and Edgar Nathaniel Johnson, An Introduction to Medieval Europe 300–1500 (New York, 1937), 879; arguably the nest medieval history text written in English. 3 For a list of Capetian-Valois monarchs who participated in the con ict, see the Genealogical Charts at the conclusion of this Appendix and the Genealogical lists in Appendix Two. 4 For a list of Plantagenet monarchs who participated in the con ict, see the Genealogical Charts at the conclusion of this Appendix and the Genealogical lists in Appendix Two. 404 appendix one environs. Calais, seized early in the con ict (1346–47), would not fall back into French hands until another war fought between the traditional enemies in the mid-sixteenth century. While many factors helped precipitate the Hundred Years War, its most immediate cause lay in con icting claims on the French crown.5 Having left behind three sons, Philip IV “the Fair” (1285–1314), whose actions had led to the creation of the Estates General (1302), the establishment of the Avignon Papacy (1305–1378)6 and destruction of the Templars (1307–1314),7 died in the full con dence that he, like his predecessors for many generations, had ensured succession by the direct line of Hugh Capet. Unfortunately for the Capetians, in just over a dozen years, each of his three sons succeeded to the throne, only to die without male issue: rst came Louis X (1314–1316), then Philip V (1316–1322), and \ nally, Charles IV (1322–1328). A minor crisis arose in 1316 when the French aristocracy passed over Louis’s daughters and transferred the crown to his younger brother. The same happened again in 1322 and 1328, though on the last occa- sion, the problem was rendered considerably more serious by the fact that there were now no more sons of Philip IV available to succeed. Consequently, in 1328, the nobles passed over not only Charles IV’s daughter, Blanche, but also his sister Isabelle; instead transferring the crown to a male line descended from Philip IV’s brother, Charles of Valois. To justify what amounted to disinherison of the daughters, the 5 For the contributing causes to the con ict, see Malcolm Vale, The Origins of the Hundred Years War: The Angevin Legacy 1250–1340 (Oxford, 1996); J. R. Maddicott, “The Origins of the Hundred Years War,” History Today 36 (1986): 31–37; G. P. Cuttino, “Historical Revision: The Causes of the Hundred Years War,” Speculum 39 (1956): 463–77. 6 G. Mollat, The Popes at Avignon: The “Babylonian Captivity” of the Medieval Church, trans. Janet Love (New York, 1963), 3–6; Yves Renouard, The Avignon Papacy: The Popes in Exile 1305–1403, trans. Denis Bethell (1954: reprint, New York, 1994), 13–15. 7 Malcolm Barber, The Trial of the Templars (Cambridge, 1978); The Templars, ed. Malcolm Barber and Keith Bate (Manchester, 2002), 243–328 (docs. 66–79); Alan Forey, The Military Orders from the Twelfth to the early Fourteenth Centuries (Toronto, 1992), 204–41. Among the numerous websites that deal with this most famous of crusading orders—a Google search conducted on April 3, 2004, produced “about 167,000” hits—there is one that is worth accessing, if only to see the intense “buff” interest in this subject: Templar History, Home of Templar History Magazine, www.templar history.com. (As of the same date, the site claimed 1,072,107 visitors.) Despite its highly commercialized nature, Templar History contains some interesting historical material, including English translations of a number of relevant documents (the accusations against the Templars, an anonymous tract defending them, Clement V’s bull Vox In Excelso, ordering that they be disbanded, etc.)..

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