Key Idea: Medieval wars are never random. Dig into any of them and the reasons fall into three families: dynastic (who owns the throne), religious (holy war and the power of the Church), and economic/territorial (land, trade, tribute and gold). This topic hands you a full toolkit — the three families, the long-term vs short-term split, and the role of individuals — then tests it on two set wars: the First Crusade (1095–1099) and the Hundred Years' War (1337–1453). Master the toolkit and you can dismantle any war Paper 2 throws at you.
Everything in 7.1 hangs off one memory hook: D-R-E. Dynastic, Religious, Economic. Whenever a war lands on your paper, ask yourself — was this about a throne, about God, or about gold and land? Almost always the honest answer is more than one, and spotting that overlap is where the marks live.
- Dynastic — rivals fight over a contested {{throne|the position and power of a ruler}}, especially when a ruler dies without a clear heir.
- Religious — {{holy war|a war believed to be fought for God or a faith}} like crusade or jihad, defending or spreading a faith, and the political muscle of {{the papacy|the pope and the leadership of the Catholic Church}}.
- Economic/territorial — grabbing land, seizing {{trade routes|the roads and sea-lanes merchants used to move goods}}, and forcing weaker rulers to pay {{tribute|regular forced payments from one ruler to another}}.
The analysis toolkit — this is what earns the marks
Naming D-R-E is only step one. A top Paper 2 answer never lists causes — it sorts and weighs them. Two tools do the heavy lifting: splitting causes by timing, and pinning down the role of individuals.
Long-term (underlying) causes: Deep pressures building over years or decades. Structural: rivalries, disputed borders, tangled inheritance claims. Long-standing religious tension between faiths. Explain why a war was **likely** — not why it started this year.
Short-term (immediate) causes: The spark that sets war off **now**. A specific event: a death, an insult, a broken treaty, a confiscation. A sudden papal call to crusade. Explain the exact **timing** — why THIS year, not another.
Wars need people to start them — an ambitious king, a determined pope, a bold noble. But individuals almost always act within deeper pressures: a leader precipitates a war that structural causes had already made likely. The sharp exam move is to ask: would this war still have happened without this person? That single question tests how much the individual really mattered.
Case study 1 — The First Crusade (1095–1099)
- 1071 — Battle of Manzikert — the {{Seljuk Turks|a Muslim Turkic people who conquered much of the Middle East in the 1000s}} crushed the Christian Byzantine Empire and captured its emperor, losing Byzantium most of Anatolia.
- Alexios I Komnenos — the Byzantine emperor who asked the West for mercenaries, never expecting a mass army marching on Jerusalem.
- 1095 — Council of Clermont — Pope Urban II turned that limited plea into a full holy war, and the crowd roared 'God wills it!' (Deus vult).
- The indulgence — Urban's promise of {{remission of sins|cancelling the punishment owed to God for one's sins}} made a violent journey feel like a guaranteed path to heaven.
- Worldly pull — landless younger sons (blocked by {{primogeniture|the custom where the eldest son inherits everything}}) wanted estates; poorer men wanted plunder; Genoa, Pisa and Venice wanted Mediterranean trade.
- Leaders — Godfrey of Bouillon and Bohemond of Taranto turned the idea into a real fighting force, each eyeing land of their own.
Example: Never say it was 'just' faith or 'just' greed. A knight could win land AND save his soul on the very same journey — religious devotion and self-interest pointed in exactly the same direction. That fusion of holy motive and worldly reward is what made the response so enormous — and saying so is what pushes you into the top band.
Case study 2 — The Hundred Years' War (1337–1453)
- 1328 — the throne falls empty — Charles IV of France dies with no son — the direct royal line runs out for the first time in over 300 years. His nephew Edward III of England has a blood claim through his mother Isabella.
- France crowns Philip VI — French nobles refuse a boy-king of England and argue the crown cannot pass through a woman. They choose Charles's cousin, Philip of Valois — Philip VI. Edward, only 15, accepts for now, but the grievance festers.
- The feudal knot of Gascony — The English king owned rich Gascony but held it FROM the French king as his {{vassal|a lord holding land from a greater lord in return for loyalty}}, owing {{homage|a kneeling promise of loyalty to an overlord}}. One king bowing to another was unworkable — and gave France a legal excuse to meddle.
- 1337 — the spark — Philip VI declares Gascony confiscated. Edward III answers by claiming the French crown outright, turning a land dispute into a war for the throne itself.
1328 empty throne → Philip VI crowned → 1337 confiscation → Edward claims the crown.
| War | Dynastic | Religious | Economic/territorial | The trigger |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| First Crusade | Nobles like Bohemond carving out their own lands | Urban II's call, the indulgence, recovering Jerusalem | Land for landless knights, plunder, Italian trade | Urban II's appeal at Clermont, 1095 |
| Hundred Years' War | Edward III vs Philip VI for the French crown (1328) | (minor) | Gascon wine trade + Flanders wool trade | Philip VI confiscates Gascony, 1337 |
For the Hundred Years' War, the deepest cause pre-dates 1328 by nearly two centuries. Back in the 1150s Henry II ruled the vast {{Angevin Empire|the huge block of French lands ruled by English kings from the 1150s}}. French kings spent 200 years clawing it back — by 1337 only Gascony remained, and its unresolved status was the leftover wound that made war likely.
Examine the causes of two medieval wars, each chosen from a different region.
🔒 Model answer plan
See the mark-by-mark plan — for / against / judgement, with marking guidance — in study mode.
How do I weigh causes instead of listing them? Do not treat every cause as equal. Argue which mattered most and why — perhaps a long-term rivalry was decisive while a royal death was only the trigger. Ranking causes with reasons is the single move that separates the top band from the middle.
What does 'multiple interacting causes' actually mean? Most wars have causes that feed each other — economic need strengthens a dynastic claim, which a pope then blesses as holy. Show the links between causes, not just a stack of separate paragraphs. In the Crusade, faith and greed reinforced each other; in the Hundred Years' War, the feudal knot and the succession crisis did.
How much credit do individuals get? Treat an ambitious ruler as a short-term cause who exploits long-term conditions. Urban II, Philip VI and Edward III all lit fuses on situations already primed to explode. Ask whether the war would still have happened without them — that tests, rather than assumes, their importance.
Paper 2 is essay-based, not source-based — command terms like Examine, Evaluate, Discuss and To what extent all demand a judgement. Your top-band checklist: (1) open with a clear thesis that states your line; (2) group causes by the D-R-E families and by long-term vs short-term; (3) back every point with precise dates and names (1071, 1095, 1328, 1337; Urban II, Alexios, Edward III, Philip VI); (4) show the causes interacting, not just sitting side by side; (5) finish by weighing them into a supported verdict. A list of causes, however accurate, stays stuck in the lower bands — the judgement is the mark.