The Historical Geography of Europe, Vol. I, Text

by Edward A. Freeman

But there is yet another distinction of greater practical importance. France was so early detached from the rest of the elder Frankish dominions that it was able to form from the first a nation as well as a power. Its separation happened at the time when the European nations were forming. The other powers did not split off till long after those nations were formed, and they did not in any strict sense form nations. But France is a nation in the fullest sense. Its history is therefore different from the history of Austria, of Burgundy, of Switzerland, or even of Italy. As a state which had become wholly distinct from the Empire, which was commonly the rival and enemy of the Empire, which largely grew at the expense of the Empire, above all, as a state which won for itself a most distinct national being, France fully deserves a chapter, and not a mere section. Still that chapter is in some sort an appendage to that which deals with the Imperial kingdoms of the West. It naturally follows on our survey of those kingdoms, before we go on further to deal with the European powers which arose out of the dismemberment of the Empire of the East.

♦Extent of the royal domain at the accession of the Parisian house. 987.♦

We left Karolingia or the Western Kingdom at that point where the modern French state took its real beginning under the kings of the house of Paris. Their duchy of France had since its foundation been cut short by the great grant of Normandy, and by the practical independence which had been won by the counts of Anjou, Maine, and Chartres. By their election to the kingdom the Dukes of the French added to their duchy the small territory which up to that time had still been in the immediate possession of the West-Frankish Kings at Laon. And, with the crown and the immediate territory of those kings, the French kings at Paris also inherited their claim to superiority over all the states which had arisen within the bounds of the Western Kingdom. ♦Definition of the word France.♦ But the name France, as it was used in the times with which we are dealing, means only the immediate territory of the King. ♦Two forms of growth; annexation of fiefs of the French crown and of lands altogether beyond the kingdom.♦ The use of the name spreads with every increase of that territory, whether that increase was made by the incorporation of a fief or by the annexation of territory wholly foreign to the kingdom. These two processes must be carefully distinguished. Both went on side by side for some centuries; but the incorporation of the vassal states naturally began before the annexation of altogether foreign territory.

♦Various feudal gradations.♦

Among the fiefs which were gradually annexed a distinction must be drawn between the great princes who were really national chiefs owing an external homage to the French crown, and the lesser counts whose dominions had been cut off from the original duchy of France. And a distinction must be again drawn between these last and the immediate tenants of the Crown within its own domains, vassals of the Duke as well as of the King. ♦The great vassals.♦ To the first class belong the Dukes and Counts of Burgundy, Aquitaine, Toulouse, and Flanders; to the second the Counts of Anjou, Chartres, and Champagne. ♦Special character of Normandy.♦ Historically, Normandy belongs to the second class, as the original grant to Rolf was undoubtedly cut off from the French duchy. But the whole circumstances of the Norman duchy made it a truly national state, owing to the French crown the merest external homage. ♦Britanny.♦ Britanny, yet more distinct in every way, was held to owe its immediate homage to the Duke of the Normans. ♦The Twelve Peers.♦ The so-called Twelve Peers of France seem to have been devised by Philip Augustus out of the romances of Charlemagne; but the selection shows who were looked on as the greatest vassals of the crown in his day. The six lay peers were the Dukes of Burgundy, Normandy, and Aquitaine, the Counts of Flanders, Toulouse, and Champagne. ♦Champagne.♦ This last was the only one of the six who could not be looked upon as a national sovereign. His dominions were French in a sense in which Normandy or Aquitaine could not be called French. ♦Different position of the Bishops in the Eastern and Western kingdom.♦ The six ecclesiastical peers offer a marked contrast to the ecclesiastical electors of the Empire. The German bishops became princes, holding directly of the Empire. But the bishops within the dominions of the great vassals of the French crown were the subjects of their immediate sovereigns. The Archbishop of Rouen or the Archbishop of Bourdeaux stood in no relation to the King of the French. The ecclesiastical peerage of France consisted only of certain bishops who were immediate vassals of the King in his character of King, among whom was only one prelate of the first rank, the Archbishop and Duke of Rheims. The others were the Bishops and Dukes of Langres and Laon, and the Bishops and Counts of Beauvais, Noyon, and Châlons. As the bishops within the dominions of the great feudatories had no claim to rank as peers of the kingdom, neither had those prelates who were actually within the King’s immediate territory, vassals therefore of the Duke of the French as well as of the King. Thus the Bishop of Paris and his metropolitan the Archbishop of Sens had no place among the twelve peers.

§ 1. Incorporation of the Vassal States.

At the accession of the Parisian dynasty, the royal domain took in the greater part of the later Isle of France, the territory to which the old name specially clung, the greater part of the later government of Orleans, besides some outlying fiefs holding immediately of the King. ♦Chief vassals within the royal domain.♦ Within this territory the counties of Clermont, Dreux, Moulins, Valois, and Gatinois, are of the greatest historical importance. Two of the great rivers of Gaul, the Seine and the Loire, flowed through the royal dominions; but the King was wholly cut off from the sea by the great feudatories who commanded the lower course of the rivers. ♦States on the Channel and♦ The coast of the channel was held by the princes of Britanny, Normandy, and Flanders, and the smaller county of Ponthieu, which lay between Normandy and Flanders and fluctuated in its homage between the two. ♦on the Ocean;♦ The ocean coast was held by the rulers of Britanny, of Poitou and Aquitaine united under a single sovereign, and of Gascony to the south of them. ♦on the Mediterranean coast.♦ That small part of the Mediterranean coast which nominally belonged to the Western Kingdom was held by the counts of Toulouse and Barcelona. ♦Neighbours of the royal domain.♦ Of these great feudatories, the princes of Flanders, Burgundy, Normandy, and Champagne, were all immediate neighbours of the King. To the west of the royal domain lay several states of the second rank which played a great part in the history of France and Normandy. ♦Chartres and Blois. 1125-1152.♦ These were the counties of Chartres and Blois, which were for a while united with Champagne. ♦Anjou and Touraine united. 1044.
Maine.♦ Beyond these, besides some smaller counties, were Anjou and Touraine, and Maine, the great borderland of Normandy and France. Thus surrounded by their own vassals, the early Kings of the house of Paris had far less dealings with powers beyond their own kingdom than their Karolingian predecessors. They were thus able to make themselves the great power of Gaul before they stood forth on a wider field as one of the great powers of Europe.

♦The kingdom smaller than the old duchy.♦

As regards their extent of territory, the Kings of the French at the beginning of the eleventh century had altogether fallen away from the commanding position which had been held by the Dukes of the French in the middle of the tenth. But this seeming loss of power was fully outweighed by the fact that there were now Kings and not merely Dukes, lords and no longer vassals. ♦Advantage of the kingly position.♦ As feudal principles grew, opportunities were constantly found for annexing the lands of the vassal to the lands of his lord. ♦First advances of the Kings.
Gatinois. 1068.
Viscounty of Bourges. 1100.♦ Towards the end of the eleventh century the royal domain had already begun to increase by the acquisition of the Gatinois and of the viscounty of Bourges, a small part only of the later province of Berry, but an addition which made France and Aquitaine more clearly neighbours than before. Towards the end of the twelfth century began a more important advance to the north-east. The first aggrandizement of France at the expense of Flanders was the beginning of an important chain of events in European history. ♦Amiens and Vermandois. 1183.
Valois. 1185.♦ In the early years of Philip Augustus the counties of Amiens and Vermandois were united to the crown, as was the county of Valois two years later. ♦Artois. 1180-1187.♦ So for a while was the more important land of Artois. Later in the reign of the same prince came an annexation on a far greater scale, which did not happen till the first years of the thirteenth century, but which was the result of causes which had been going on ever since the eleventh.

♦Growth of the House of Anjou.♦