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Women of the Hundred Years War

Women played important roles throughout the Hundred Years War. Queens, duchesses and noblewomen exercised political influence, defended territories and maintained claims to land and inheritance. Others became directly involved in military affairs, while women such as Joan of Arc and her contemporaries acquired influence through their roles in the French campaigns of the fifteenth century.

Women of the Hundred Years War
Women of the Hundred Years War

This page provides an index to the women of the Hundred Years War covered on this website. Their lives and activities illustrate the many different ways in which women could influence the course of the conflict, from politics and diplomacy to warfare, religious visions and the defence of towns and territories.

Women who shaped the Hundred Years War

Queens of England

Isabella of Valois, Queen of England.
Isabella of Valois, 15th-century illustration from Froissart’s Chronicles

Queens of France

  • Joan of Burgundy, r. 1328–1349
  • Blanche of Navarre, r. 1350
  • Joanna of Auvergne, r. 1350–1360
Jeanne [Joanna] of Bourbon, Queen Consort of Charles V of France. Crowned in 1364 during the Hundred Years War.
Coronation of Jeanne of Bourbon, consort of Charles V (1364)
  • Joanna of Bourbon, r. 1364–1378
  • Isabeau of Bavaria, r. 1385–1422
  • Marie of Anjou, r. 1422–1461

Women and Political Power

Women and Warfare

Joan of Arc and Her Contemporaries

Religious and Literary Figures