The Hundred Years War is a term historians use to describe a period of multiple wars between England and France in which there were at least three main truces that lasted quite a few years in between each phase.
Moreover, each war involved a lot of starts and stops in which France and England weren’t directly fighting. To use the first “Edwardian phase” as an example: the war technically started in 1337 when King Phillip VI declared that Edward III was in breach of his obligations as a vassal and that the Duchy of Aquitaine would revert back to the crown, but the fighting didn’t start until 1340. Even after the Battle of Sluys on June 24 1340, the first invasion by Edward III (the one where Caen and Calais are taken) didn’t happen until 1346, because in the meantime Edward ran out of money, then both sides got distracted by a proxy war in Brittany. After that, there was a break between 1348-1355, because the Black Death happened and Edward ran out of money again. Then in 1355 and 1356, the Black Prince leads a series of raids through French territory which almost accidentally leads to the Battle of Poitiers where John II of France was captured. Then there’s another invasion by Edward in 1360 which goes badly awry due to a freak hailstorm, and thus Edward has to agree to the Treaty of
Brétigny, which leads to a nine year peace.
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