Political Instability
In the late 14th century, after the Black Death, the European governments began to become more and more unstable. It began with the decimation of the traditional lord-vassal relationship. Instead of providing land for military service the vassals, because of the increase of the availability of land due to large death tolls and the need for better pay, asked for money based contracts in the place of land. This was called scutage. Because of this new form of payment the lord-vassal relationship became very impersonal, which in turn gave way to all kinds of political corruption and influence opportunities.
The lords formed factions in an attempt to increase their own wealth and power by undermining the wealth and power of other nobles in competing factions through politics and such. They even went so far as to politically undermine the monarchy and therefore the kings.
This was nothing much to the kings however as they had other problems such as attempting to gain control of their country. This was due to the increasing number of cases in which there was a lack of a direct heir to the throne and the kings had to, in result, fight for power amongst themselves while the lords fought for more power themselves. As well as having to fight for power the kings also had to deal with the ever pressing matter of money, which they always seemed to be short of. They didn't have the same steady income due to the Black Death and they decided to go with an increasingly popular choice of mercenaries instead of traditional soldiers all of which drained their income with which to work.
The lords formed factions in an attempt to increase their own wealth and power by undermining the wealth and power of other nobles in competing factions through politics and such. They even went so far as to politically undermine the monarchy and therefore the kings.
This was nothing much to the kings however as they had other problems such as attempting to gain control of their country. This was due to the increasing number of cases in which there was a lack of a direct heir to the throne and the kings had to, in result, fight for power amongst themselves while the lords fought for more power themselves. As well as having to fight for power the kings also had to deal with the ever pressing matter of money, which they always seemed to be short of. They didn't have the same steady income due to the Black Death and they decided to go with an increasingly popular choice of mercenaries instead of traditional soldiers all of which drained their income with which to work.