The Hundred Years' War is a series of conflicts waged from 1337 to 1453 between the Kings of France and the Kings of England and their various allies for control of the French throne, which had become vacant upon the extinction of the senior Capetian line of French kings.

The House of Valois controls France in the wake of the House of Capet; a Capetian cadet branch, the Valois claims the throne under Salic Law.

This is contested by the House of Plantagenet, the Angevin family that has ruled England since 1154, who claims the throne of France through the 1308 marriage of Edward II of England and Isabella of France.The war owes its historical significance to a number of factors.

Although primarily a dynastic conflict, the war gives impetus to ideas of both French and English nationalism.

Militarily, it sees the introduction of new weapons and tactics that erodes the older system of feudal armies dominated by heavy cavalry in Western Europe.

The first standing armies in Western Europe since the time of the Western Roman Empire are introduced for the war, thus changing the role of the peasantry.

For all this, as well as for its long duration, it is often viewed as one of the most significant conflicts in the history of medieval warfare.

In France, civil wars, deadly epidemics, famines and marauding mercenary armies turned to banditry reduce the population by about one-half.

The French victory destabilizes English society and, as a consequence, a civil war, known as the War of the Roses (1455–1485), erupts in England shortly after the end of the Hundred Years' War.