France

C

3

The Vikings and the Foundation of Normandy

The disunity of the Franks facilitated the raiding missions of the Vikings. Seaports, river towns, and monasteries situated near waterways became their victims. Rouen and Paris on the River Seine, Nantes, Tours, Blois, and Orléans on the Loire, Bordeaux on the Garonne, and many other towns were pillaged by the Vikings. The same was true for the abbeys of St Denis, St Philibert, St Martin, St Benoît, and others. One of the few effective defenders against these raids was Robert the Bold, a magnate in the Seine Valley in the mid-9th century.

The Vikings set up bases for their operations, usually at the mouths of rivers, but eventually they sought to make permanent settlements. In 911 a large company of Vikings (French Normands), under their leader Rollo, accepted from the West Frankish king Charles III (the Simple) the territory in the lower Seine Valley that became known as Normandy.

In 888 the West Frankish crown was offered to Count Odo, or Eudes, son of Robert the Bold. After his death it reverted to the Carolingians, but they had little influence. By the time of Louis V (967-987), effective power had filtered down to the level of the castellan, a strongman with a retinue of fighters who controlled a castle and its immediate surroundings.

D

The Early Capetians, 987-1180

When Louis V died, the magnates turned to Hugh Capet, Duke of France, and descendant of Robert the Bold and of Odo. Hugh was elected King not because he was strong but precisely because he would not be strong enough to control the other magnates; in fact, he secured election only by giving much of his land to the electors.

The French nobles may have had no intention of installing the Capetians as a dynasty, but Hugh moved quickly to have his son Robert crowned. When Robert became King (as Robert II) in 996, he named his son Hugh as his successor, but due to Hugh’s death, another son, Henry, became King in 1031. The Capetians eventually passed the crown through a direct male line for more than three centuries, from 987 until 1328.

The earliest Capetians remained subservient to the feudal princes, but the rebuilding of a royal administration, indicated by a new importance of royal provosts, was evident by the 1040s. Nevertheless, in the late 11th century, William the Conqueror, Duke of Normandy, and Hugh the Great, abbot of the monastery of Cluny, although nominally vassals of the King, were far more powerful than the Capetian King Philip I (reigned 1060-1108).

Philip’s successor, Louis VI (reigned 1108-1137), consolidated royal power once and for all in the Île-de-France, a region centring on Paris that measures about 160 km (100 mi) from north to south and 80 km (50 mi) from east to west. Here he systematically suppressed all feudal opposition to the royal government. He had his son, the future Louis VII, brought up at the abbey of St Denis, north of Paris, and in 1137 arranged for him to marry Eleanor, heiress to the Duchy of Aquitaine.

Eleanor’s possessions were far larger than the Île-de-France, and by making her his wife, Louis VII won control of extensive territories between the River Loire and the Pyrenees. In 1147 Louis went on a Crusade to the Holy Land, taking Eleanor along with him. While they were in the East it was rumoured that she had committed adultery. Since the marriage had never been agreeable to Eleanor, and had not produced a male heir, both spouses wanted the papal annulment of the marriage, granted in 1152. Two months later Eleanor married Henry, Count of Anjou and Duke of Normandy, who in 1154 became King of England as Henry II. Thus, Aquitaine passed from the French Crown to the English Crown, and the lands controlled by Henry in France (the Angevin Empire) vastly exceeded in size those of his feudal lord, Louis VII.

E

The Later Capetians

The fortunes of the Capetian dynasty improved under Louis VII’s successor, Philip II Augustus.

E

1

The Reign of Philip Augustus, 1180-1223

Through his first marriage, Philip acquired new territories in northern France—Artois, Valois, and Vermandois. He also secured royal control of the Vexin, a small but critical area on the Seine at the juncture of Normandy and the Île-de-France. Philip served briefly in the Third Crusade (1190-1191).

His chance to move against the Angevin Empire came when King John of England married a princess already betrothed to another of Philip’s vassals. Philip summoned John to his court three times, and when John failed to appear, Philip was able to condemn John and declare his lands forfeit. In 1204 Philip undertook the military conquest of Normandy and Anjou. Ten years later he secured his conquests by defeating the combined armies of England and the Holy Roman Empire at the Battle of Bouvines.

An opportunity for northern French intervention in the south was furnished by the Cathari, or Albigenses, a dissident religious sect particularly strong in Provence and Languedoc. St Bernard and others had preached against the Cathars in the 12th century, but without much success. Pope Innocent III (reigned 1198-1216) encouraged new preaching missions until one of his representatives in the region, Peter of Castelnau, was assassinated in 1208. Innocent thereupon adopted the weapon of the Crusade, which until then had only been used against Muslims, as a means of fighting the Cathar heretics. Crusaders were promised the land they succeeded in taking from the heretics, and northern French knights under Count Simon de Montfort rushed to participate. Philip Augustus was too occupied with the English to join in the first phase of the Albigensian Crusade, but his son Louis VIII led a successful campaign that resulted in the extension of the royal domain south to the coast of the Mediterranean Sea. One price of this political integration of the south into the Kingdom of France was the destruction of the independent culture of Provence and Languedoc. Another was the life of Louis VIII, who was killed in the Crusade.

E

2

Louis IX

Louis IX (reigned 1226-1270) ascended the throne at the age of 12, with his mother Blanche of Castile as regent. Some of the French barons, thinking this an appropriate moment to rebel against the royal government, joined forces with the English, who were eager to regain their lost territories, but Blanche was able to put down all their plots and rebellions.

Louis’s great accomplishment at home was to gain the loyalty of the conquered provinces by means of a just and humane administration. He was careful to guard against corruption or the abuse of authority by sending out investigators from his court to hear complaints from his subjects about royal officials. Under him, the royal government became larger, more professional, and more specialized.

A devoutly religious man, Louis wished to crown his career with a Crusade. He put his affairs in order in 1247 and left for the Middle East. He launched an attack in Egypt at Damietta, but his advance was soon halted by the Muslim defenders. He then went to the Holy Land to supervise the strengthening of the Christian fortifications there. In 1270 he again went on a Crusade: this time, along with many of his soldiers, he was struck down by disease and died while attacking Tunis. Despite these two ill-fated expeditions, Louis was loved and respected. After his death, miracles were attributed to him, and in 1297 he was officially declared a saint.

Philip III (reigned 1270-1285) was the fifth French king in a row to go on a Crusade—this one to fight the Moors in Spain—and the third in a row to die on one. He had, however, arranged for the marriage of his son to the heiress of the county of Champagne, thus adding to the possessions of the royal house.