It wasn’t a single war. Not really. It was more like a grueling, intergenerational family feud that spiraled out of control and dragged two entire nations into the mud for 116 years. If you’re looking for a quick answer on who won the Hundred Years' War, the short version is France. But "winning" in the 15th century didn't look like a trophy ceremony or a neat treaty signing. It looked like a slow, bloody realization by the English that they simply couldn't hold onto a territory that didn't want them there anymore.
Think about the timeline. From 1337 to 1453, kings lived and died while this conflict hummed in the background. Most people born in 1400 never knew a world where the English and French weren't trying to kill each other over a patch of land in Aquitaine or the right to wear a crown.
The Scoreboard: France’s Final Victory
By the time the dust settled after the Battle of Castillon in 1453, the English were basically kicked off the continent. They lost everything. Every single bit of land they had spent a century fighting for—Normandy, Gascony, Aquitaine—was gone. The only thing they managed to keep was Calais, a tiny coastal foothold that they clung to like a security blanket until the mid-1500s.
France won. They unified. They turned from a loose collection of squabbling feudal lords into a centralized powerhouse.
But honestly, for the first eighty years, it looked like England was going to run away with it. You’ve probably heard of Agincourt. In 1415, Henry V basically dismantled the French nobility in a muddy field. He was so successful that he actually got himself named the heir to the French throne. If he hadn't died of dysentery a few weeks before the French king passed away, we might be talking about a very different United Kingdom today.
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How the Tide Actually Turned
The shift didn't happen because of a better sword or a bigger horse. It happened because of a teenage girl from a village nobody cared about and a massive technological shift in how humans blow things up.
Joan of Arc is often treated like a legend or a myth, but her impact on the question of who won the Hundred Years' War was intensely practical. Before she showed up at Orléans, the French were demoralized. They were losing. They were fighting amongst themselves—the Burgundians were actually helping the English. Joan provided a psychological shock to the system. She gave the French a reason to believe that God was on their side, which, in 1429, was the ultimate PR win.
While Joan provided the soul, gunpowder provided the muscle.
The French army under Jean Bureau became the first to truly master field artillery. At the final Battle of Castillon, the English commander, John Talbot, charged into what he thought was a retreating French camp. Instead, he ran straight into a wall of nearly 300 cannons. It wasn't a knightly duel. It was a massacre. The age of the armored knight was dying, and the age of the professional, state-funded army was born.
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Why England Lost (Despite Winning the Big Battles)
It’s one of history's great ironies. England won the "famous" battles—Crécy, Poitiers, Agincourt. Their longbowmen were the snipers of the Middle Ages, capable of punching through French plate armor from hundreds of yards away. So why did they lose?
Logistics.
England was a smaller country with fewer people and less money. Occupying France is hard. It’s a massive landmass. Every time the English won a province, they had to garrison it. They had to tax the locals. They had to deal with constant rebellions. Eventually, the English Parliament got tired of paying for it. The cost of the war was bankrupting the English crown, leading to the internal chaos we now call the Wars of the Roses.
Basically, the English won the battles but lost the occupation.
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The Aftermath: A New Europe
The end of the war changed what it meant to be "French" or "English." Before this, the English royalty mostly spoke French. They saw themselves as continental aristocrats. After 1453, they were forced back onto their island. They started leaning into the English language and their own distinct identity.
In France, King Charles VII emerged as a much stronger monarch. He used the war as an excuse to establish the first standing army in Europe since the Romans. He didn't have to rely on fickle dukes anymore; he had his own soldiers and his own taxes.
Key Takeaways for History Buffs
If you're digging into this for a project or just because you're a nerd for medieval geopolitics, keep these nuances in mind:
- The Burgundian Factor: For a huge chunk of the war, the most powerful "French" dukes (the Burgundians) were actually allied with England. When they switched sides back to France in 1435 (Treaty of Arras), England’s fate was sealed.
- The Longbow vs. The Cannon: The war started with the English longbow as the dominant weapon and ended with French artillery as the king of the battlefield.
- The 1453 Date: Historians use 1453 as the end date, but no formal peace treaty was actually signed then. The English just stopped showing up to fight because they were too busy fighting a civil war at home.
Moving Forward with This Knowledge
To really understand the impact of the Hundred Years' War, you should look into how it directly triggered the end of feudalism. When kings started hiring professional soldiers instead of relying on knights, the whole social structure of the Middle Ages collapsed.
Your next step should be to look at the Wars of the Roses. It is essentially the direct sequel to the Hundred Years' War. When all those English soldiers came home with no land, no money, and a lot of anger, they turned their weapons on each other. Studying the fall of the Plantagenet dynasty will give you the full picture of what happened to the "losers" of 1453.
Also, if you're ever in southwest France, visit the site of the Battle of Castillon. They do a massive reenactment every summer, and it's one of the best ways to see exactly how those 300 cannons ended the Middle Ages for good.