The Saber and Scroll Journal Volume 6, Issue 1, Winter 2017 | Page 7

The Hundred Years’ War: A Different Contextual Overview
Dr. Robert G. Smith
The origin of most wars is invariably traceable in a linear sense to certain
events or key personalities. World War One is easy—the assassination of the
Archduke Franz Ferdinand in Sarajevo gave the Austro-Hungarian Empire its
raison d'être to deal with its Serbian Problem. World War Two is traceable
through a series of events such as the Italian Invasion of Ethiopia, the Marco Polo
Bridge Incident in 1937, and perhaps even Munich. In the late twentieth century,
Saddam Hussein’s invasion of Kuwait was the pretext for the First Gulf War. But
the casual student of history would see no obvious historical markers to direct their
attention to the immediate causes of the Hundred Years’ War.
Here the historian has to conduct a forensic examination of both the
economics of feudal Europe and of states and principalities that no longer exist. In
the early fourteenth century, Flanders was the industrial heart of Europe, based in
large part upon its manufacture of cloth. To meet the demands for its products, the
manufacturers of Flanders had to import English fleece. The English Crown in turn
became dependent upon this source of foreign revenue. This set poorly with the
French, for in the not too distant past the nobility of Flanders had been vassals to
the French King. Much like Vladimir Putin’s machinations in the Ukraine, the
French worked to undermine the English position, supporting the landed nobility
in their efforts to rein in the manufactures—those with no nobility whose
economic engine was loosening the feudal ties the landed nobility depended upon
for their economic well-being. A civil war caused by two different economic
systems, manufacturing versus the feudal land system, soon engulfed Flanders.
Here is the center of gravity for understanding the Hundred Years’ War. 1 Although
England’s King Henry III relinquished his control of the French territories in 1259,
there were still English settlers there. Dealing with them was a source of friction
between France and England, giving England an excuse for intervention, much as
the Tsar and Soviets used for the pretext of invasions to protect ethnic Russians
elsewhere.
The Struggle for Control of France
Ironically, when the editors of the Saber and Scroll Journal
commissioned an article on the Hundred Years’ War, this author accepted the
project unenthusiastically. However, as research progressed, the outlines of pre-
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