England
The 14th Century
England was much like other north-European lands such as Normandy or northern Germany, but it's worth pointing out how small and peripheral the country was at this time. The population was tiny--maybe a million or so people--and relatively poor in comparison with many regions of France or Germany or Italy. Also, it was on the edge of European civilization, across a stretch of 25 miles or so of choppy water.
England wasn't on the way to anywhere. You only went there on purpose. The result was that England could have been, well, insular--a world unto itself on the model of the Scandinavian countries. But in fact it had powerful and long-standing ties to the Continent, dating all the way back to William the Conqueror (longer, actually, but it's the connection with France I wish to stress here).
The two main influences came from Normandy and from Gascony, with the former being the more important. Plenty of Normans came to England in the wake of 1066, but afterward came Angevins (from Anjou) under Henry I and Henry II. In fact, at the opening of the 14th century, the language spoken at the English court was French. Many of the English nobility also had estates in Normandy or Gascony or Poitou or Anjou or elsewhere on the Continent. They had relatives living there and paid regular visits. Some lived more regularly in France, visiting their English estates only on occasion.
By the 14th century, though, English was slowly becoming more prevalent. English kings were busy trying to subdue both the Scottish and the Welsh, working their way towards an idea that the King of England should be king of the entire island and not just of the English people. And an English Parliament was beginning to take shape that could have some pretence to represent the nation no matter where the king happened to be.