“If I am not in God’s grace, may God put me there; and if I am, may He so keep me.” – Joan of Arc
The Hundred Years’ War (1337–1453) was a brutal, stop‑and‑start conflict between England and France that actually stretched for 116 years. Kingdoms were torn by plague, royal ambition, and even a divided church. Yet through all this brokenness, the Triune God—Father, Son, and Holy Spirit—was quietly weaving His larger story of grace.
This article traces key moments of the war and shows how God’s grace shone through sin, suffering, and political upheaval. We’ll look at historical flashpoints, hear voices like Joan of Arc, and anchor it all in Scripture. Along the way, we’ll connect the war’s long-term outcomes to the freedoms we now enjoy in the Western world, especially in America.
God never wastes fractured seasons. He turns division into community and bondage into liberty—just as the Trinity models perfect unity in diversity.
1. The Spark: Thrones, Feudal Tension, and God’s Larger Purpose (1337)
Medieval armies confronting
The conflict erupted when Philip VI of France confiscated the duchy of Aquitaine (Guyenne) from England in 1337. Edward III of England, already a French vassal for his lands across the Channel, responded by pressing his dynastic claim to the French crown through his mother, Isabella. In 1340 he even quartered the French fleur‑de‑lis into his royal arms as a public statement that he considered himself king of France.
Edward presented his cause as lawful and God‑honoring, but underneath were the usual drivers: pride, land hunger, and power politics. Feudal loyalties stretched and snapped, dividing regions, towns, and families. The devastation was compounded when the Black Death (1348–1350) swept across Europe, killing a huge portion of the population and intensifying the misery of war.
Yet even here, God’s grace was at work in history’s shadows. Romans 8:28 reminds us: “And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.” Royal greed and dynastic conflict did not derail God’s purposes; they became raw material for His redemptive story.
2. Early Victories, Heavy Costs: Crécy and Poitiers
Hundred Years’ War battle
In the Edwardian phase (1337–1360), English armies won stunning victories over larger French forces. At Crécy (1346) and Poitiers (1356), English longbowmen devastated French knightly charges, and at Poitiers the Black Prince captured France’s King John II. The Treaty of Brétigny (1360) then granted England major territorial gains and confirmed Edward III’s sovereignty over expanded lands in France, even as he formally renounced his claim to the French crown—for a time.
But behind the military glory lay horrific suffering. Chroniclers recorded burned villages, ruined harvests, and fields strewn with the dead. Peasants starved and entire regions were ravaged. The war exposed humanity’s brokenness—greed, violence, and the collapse of feudal promises meant to protect the weak.
Yet God’s grace was quietly reshaping society. These campaigns weakened the old feudal order and elevated the importance of common soldiers and new tactics over hereditary knights. In England, the need to fund war pushed kings to seek parliamentary approval for new taxes, strengthening Parliament’s voice and planting seeds of representative government.
Ephesians 2:8–9 grounds this history in gospel reality: “For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God— not by works, so that no one can boast.” No king could claim God’s favor by victory in battle. Grace remained a gift, not a medal to be won.
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3. A Church Torn in Two: Avignon Papacy and Great Schism
While kingdoms fought, the Western Church itself fractured. From 1309 to 1377, popes lived in Avignon under strong French influence. When Gregory XI returned the papacy to Rome, conflict over his successor led in 1378 to rival popes—one in Rome and one in Avignon, a divide known as the Great Schism.
Secular rulers quickly turned this spiritual crisis into political leverage, backing whichever pope best served their interests. The church’s witness was weakened by power struggles and neglect of the poor. Yet the schism also awakened a hunger for genuine unity and reform. Believers increasingly looked past earthly hierarchies and longed for the deeper, Spirit‑wrought unity Jesus prayed for in John 17.
Here God’s story of grace confronts human division. The Trinity is three Persons, one God—perfect unity without erasing difference. The Church’s fractures exposed our need for that same reconciling grace, binding diverse people together in Christ.
4. Joan of Arc: A Peasant Girl, Amazing Grace (1429)
Into this long conflict stepped Joan of Arc, a teenage peasant girl from rural France. Convinced God had called her to support the Dauphin (the future Charles VII), she persuaded him to give her a role in lifting the English siege of Orléans. In 1429, under her leadership and inspiration, French forces broke the siege and revived national morale. Charles was crowned at Reims shortly afterward, a powerful symbol that God had not abandoned France.
Joan’s own words testify to a profound awareness of grace: “If I am not in God’s grace, may God place me there; if I am, may God so keep me.” She urged soldiers, “Trust in God… for so God will help you,” and consistently pointed away from herself and back to the Lord’s counsel. Even at her trial, before being burned at the stake in 1431, she insisted that everything she had done remained “in the hands of God.”
Her mission united disparate French factions around a cause larger than feudal loyalties and helped shift the war’s momentum. Though England would later win at Agincourt (1415), by the final Lancastrian phase France captured the initiative and ultimately secured victory at Castillon in 1453, leaving England with only Calais on the continent.
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5. Legacy Lessons: Grace Expanding Through Broken History
The Hundred Years’ War left deep scars—millions dead or displaced, economies shattered, and a church badly discredited in many eyes. Yet God’s story of grace expanded through and beyond this devastation.
Grace in Brokenness
God used unlikely servants—like a teenage peasant—to redirect the course of empires. Joan’s life reflects how divine grace can work through weakness and obscurity to humble the proud and lift up the lowly.
Freedom from Feudal Bondage
The war accelerated the decline of feudalism. National identity in England and France increasingly centered on the crown and shared language rather than on local lords. In England, Parliament grew as a check on royal power; in France, royal authority was consolidated over formerly independent nobles. These shifts helped pave the way for sovereign nation‑states instead of fragmented feudal realms.
Unity in Diversity
As kingdoms stabilized, communities began to cohere around shared stories, law, and language. This painful journey toward unity echoes Jesus’ prayer in John 17:21: “that all of them may be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you.” God’s Trinitarian life—unity without sameness—became a pattern for peoples learning to live together amid difference.
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Use this siege scene to illustrate the destructive cost of the war alongside the theme of God’s reconstructing grace.
6. From Medieval Battlefields to Modern Freedom: The Road to America
Battle of Agincourt
The political and social shifts forged in the Hundred Years’ War helped shape the Western freedom story that later blossomed in the English‑speaking world and, eventually, in America.
In England, the long strain of war strengthened representative institutions as kings repeatedly turned to Parliament for consent to raise taxes, sparking debates about law, rights, and the limits of royal power. Over time, this contributed to documents like the English Bill of Rights, building on the earlier Magna Carta tradition. Those ideas crossed the Atlantic and influenced the American founders as they articulated ideals like limited government, individual liberty, and “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.”
Socially, the decline of rigid feudal structures and the rise of common soldiers and taxpayers elevated ordinary voices and prepared the soil for later democratic participation. Politically, stronger nation‑states helped establish the concepts of national sovereignty and rule of law that would be vital for modern constitutional government. Spiritually, the later Reformation and movements for religious freedom grew in the space created as old medieval patterns gave way.
In America, these streams flowed together into a republic where power is—at least in principle—entrusted to the people, and where the gospel can be preached without a king’s permission. God’s grace turned centuries of conflict into foundations for freedom.
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Conclusion: Joining God’s Story of Grace Today
The Hundred Years’ War was messy, violent, and often senseless from a human perspective. Yet God’s story of grace marched on—through war and plague, through political schemes and church division, through a teenage girl’s obedience and the slow rise of new institutions.
Today, when our world feels fractured by culture wars, injustice, or spiritual confusion, we can remember: the same Trinitarian God who worked through a century of conflict is still writing a story of grace. He is still turning division into community, bondage into freedom, and weakness into witness.
The invitation is simple: step into God’s story. Receive His grace in Christ, live as a citizen of His kingdom, and become a small but real part of His work to bring unity, justice, and freedom in our own fractured age.