European bellicosity, 1100-1700

One of the reasons for the rapid advance of military technology in Europe and for the growing impact of warfare on the structure of states and societies was the increasing frequency of conflict, which culminated in the war-torn seventeenth century. 

The pace of European military innovation accelerated from the fifteenth century onward. The introduction of gunpowder weapons was part of that broader development, but what turned Europe into a major global laboratory for military technology, strategy, tactics, and logistics was the growing frequency, intensity, scope and scale of European warfare and the impact which such conflict had on the structure of states, economies, and societies. 

Viewed from a global perspective, geography was an underlying factor here: fragmentation of the European landmass by bodies of water (the Mediterranean and its component parts, the Baltic, the North Sea and English Channel) and mountain ranges (Alps, Pyrenees, etc.) made the continent difficult to unify.  Within this geographical context, a wide range of impulses kept Europeans fighting with one and their neighbors at a rate which may be difficult to parallel elsewhere.  

As an aid to grasping this point, some of the major conflicts of the late medieval and early modern period are listed below, with links to more information elsewhere.  Rather than providing a simple chronological list, these conflicts are clustered together in categories.  These categories are purely heuristic and non-exclusive.  There was no such thing as a purely religious war, for instance, but religion certainly motivated and complicated many conflicts of the period. Many of the other sources of conflict also overlap: regional and dynastic conflicts, civil wars and wars of independence are not exclusive categories.

(A useful list of European wars -- major and minor -- arranged chronologically can be found here)

Religious wars
Regional conflicts
Dynastic conflicts
Civil wars
Wars of independence
Trade wars
Incipient global conflicts

Religious wars

• Ad extra: wars against non-Christians
  • Major: Against Islam
    • Reconquista (718–1492)
    • In the Holy Land (1095–1291)
      • First Crusade (1095–1099)
      • Second Crusade (1147–1149)
      • Third Crusade (1189–1192)
      • Fourth Crusade (1202–1204)
      • Fifth Crusade (1217–1221)
      • Sixth, Seventh, Eighth, Ninth Crusades
      • fall of Acre (1291)
    • Expansion of the Ottoman Empire
      • 1366–1526 Ottoman–Hungarian Wars
      • 1371–1913 Serbian–Ottoman wars
      • 1463–1479 Ottoman–Venetian War
      • 1493–1593 Hundred Years' Croatian–Ottoman War
      • 1521–1718 Ottoman–Habsburg wars
    • Wars with the Ottomans (selection!)
      • 1663–1664 Austro-Turkish War
      • Polish–Cossack–Tatar War (1666–1671), 
      • Polish–Ottoman War (1672–1676),
      • Russo-Turkish War (1676–1681)
      • The Great Turkish War or the War of the Holy League, 1683–1699
  • Minor: Against paganism
    • The Northern Crusade, 1147-1410

• Ad infra: wars between Christians
  • Conflict between pope and emperor
    • Wars of the Guelphs and Ghibellines, 1159–1345
    • Example: Sack of Rome, 1525
  • Crusades against heresy
    • Albigensian Crusade or the Cathar Crusade (1209–1229)
    • Hussite wars, 1419-1434
  • Wars of religion
    • 1546–1547 Schmalkaldic War
    • 1562–1598 French Wars of Religion
    • 1568–1648 Eighty Years' War
    • 1585–1604 English-Spanish War 

Regional conflicts

• Italian Wars /  Great Wars of Italy / Habsburg–Valois Wars, 1494-1559
  • 1494–1498 Italian War of 1494–98
  • 1499–1504 Italian War of 1499–1504
  • 1521–1526 Italian War of 1521–1526 
  • 1526–1530 War of the League of Cognac 
  • 1542–1546 Italian War of 1542–1546
  • 1551–1559 Italian War of 1551–1559
• Northern Wars, 1554-1583, 1654-1712
  • The Russo-Swedish War (1554–1557)
  • The Livonian War (1558–1583)
  • The Northern Seven Years' War (1562–1570)
  • The Russo-Polish or Thirteen Years' War (1654–1667)
  • The Second Northern War (1655–1660)
  • The Scanian War (1674–1679)
  • The Great Northern War (1700–1721)
• Border wars
  • 1688–1697 Nine Years' War

Dynastic conflicts

• 1337–1453 Hundred Years' War
• Habsburg–Valois Wars, 1494-1559 (see under regionalconflicts) and thereafter
• 1701–1713 War of the Spanish Succession

Civil wars (most important have a religious dimensions)

• 1350–1498 Wars of the Vetkopers and Schieringers
• 1455–1485 Wars of the Roses
• 1639–1653 Wars of the Three Kingdoms
  • 1639-1640 Bishops' Wars
  • 1641-1653 Irish Confederate Wars
  • 1642-1651 English Civil War
• 1618–1648 Thirty Years' War (Holy Roman Empire), 1618-1648

Wars of independence

• 1296–1357 Wars of Scottish Independence
• 1640–1668 Spanish-Portuguese War

Trade wars

• 1256–1381 Venetian–Genoese Wars
• 1588–1654 Dutch–Portuguese War
• 1652–1674 Anglo-Dutch Wars

Incipient global conflicts

• 1688–1697 Nine Years' War