In 1259, Henry II of England and Louis IX signed a peace treaty in Paris bringing to end a state of warfare that had existed between the two countries since 1180. In doing so they had laid a cornerstone to a further 250 years of dynastic and feudal conflict between the two countries and the Hundred Years War. By including within its writing's the demand for liege homage to be paid by the King/Duke of England to the King of France, it ordered a pre-determined hierarchy of kings, a situation which was untenable to a sovereign lord in their own right. Yet was this feudal issue the only factor one must consider when analysing this period?…
