The Hundred Years’ War began in 1337 when long-standing tensions between England and France exploded after the French king Philip VI confiscated Aquitaine, a major English-held territory in France. This dispute built on a dynastic crisis: when France’s Charles IV died in 1328 without a son, England’s Edward III claimed the French throne through his mother, while the French nobles chose Philip VI instead. Combined with territorial rivalries, feudal conflicts over English lands in France, and econ