The king of France died and so France needs a new king. The king did not have a son so his nephew wants to be his replacement but he is already the king of England. The french refused his claim to the throne and a war begun.
Fine then, lets have a war to settle this.
Well since I am his nephew, I should get to be king of France.
Nonsense! You are already the king of England and no one should get to be king of TWO places!
The king is dead and he did not have a son so we need a replacement.
FINE!
They go to war many times. One of the wars is the battle of Agincourt, shown below where Henry V leads England to victory. The French had way more soldiers but the English had better weapons, for example: the longbow.
YAY WE WIN!!!
With the French losing hope they will do about anything to get France back. So when Joan of arc came they let her fight with the army. Joan of arc came saying that god sent her to fight for France so that they could win.
(Joan of arc) I can help! God send me to fight for your army. I can lead you to victory.
Oh my gosh! We have lost to the English so many times, We need to finally beat the them and get France back!
Okay, I am desperate so I guess we can give it a shot.
After the french agreed to have Joan of arc fight in there army they beat England in the siege of Orleands and then many after that. Tragically England took Joan of arc and burned her at the stake. She was eventually made a saint by the church.
We WON?!
Even though Joan of arc died, the French kept going and adapted by getting better methods for warfare. They developed more accurate and powerful cannons that can easily destroy small castle walls. These new methods helped them win the battle of Castillion where they won almost all of their land back.
After the 100 years war Europe began moving out of the middle ages with feudalism dying and castles and knights no longer needed. With the English's hope of having an empire gone they decided to go overseas to look for exploration and trade. The end of the 100 years war combined with the end of the black death contributed to a massive increase in population for Europe. All of these changes ended up leading to a period of time called the Renaissance.