<Li> 1793--1802 </Li> <Li> 1803--1814 </Li> <P> The Hundred Years' War was a series of conflicts waged from 1337 to 1453 by the House of Plantagenet, rulers of the Kingdom of England, against the House of Valois, rulers of the Kingdom of France, over the succession to the French throne . Each side drew many allies into the war . It was one of the most notable conflicts of the Middle Ages, in which five generations of kings from two rival dynasties fought for the throne of the largest kingdom in Western Europe . The war marked both the height of chivalry and its subsequent decline, and the development of strong national identities in both countries . </P> <P> After the Norman conquest of 1066, the kings of England were vassals of the kings of France for their possessions in France . The French kings had endeavored, over the centuries, to reduce these possessions, to the effect that, roughly, only Gascony was left to the English . The confiscation or threat of confiscating this duchy had been part of French policy to check the growth of English power, particularly whenever the English were at war with the Kingdom of Scotland, an ally of France . </P>

Why were england and france fighting in the hundred years' war