West Francia: the northern principalities

doi:10.1017/CHOL9780521364478.017

16 - West Francia: the northern principalities

from PART II - POST-CAROLINGIAN EUROPE

Published online by Cambridge University Press: 28 March 2008

David Bates

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Timothy Reuter

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Timothy Reuter: Affiliation:
University of Southampton

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Summary

the area over which the ‘west Frankish’ kings exercised meaningful authority contracted during the tenth century and new units of power emerged. These have customarily been termed ‘territorial principalities’ since the publication of Jan Dhondt’s important book. By the early eleventh century the monarchy was effectively confined to what can justifiably be called a royal principality, situated around Paris and Orléans, and even within this area its control was patchy. The rest of the region was dominated by five major principalities: Flanders, Normandy, Brittany, Anjou and Blois-Chartres, the last of which was from c. 1021 combined with Champagne. Between the great principalities were zones containing several smaller lordships, over which no prince exercised real authority, and in which counts who dominated a single county, or a small group of counties, had power in some respects analogous to that of the greater princes. This was particularly the case in the lands surrounded by Normandy, Anjou, Blois-Chartres and the royal principality, and in the area between Flanders, Champagne, the royal principality and Normandy. The principalities were themselves far from being monolithic entities; Normandy and Flanders were close to being territorially compact units, but Anjou, Blois-Chartres, Brittany and the royal principality all contained enclaves under the control of lords who were vassals of other princes. In broad terms, the period as a whole was one of dramatic and profound change which shaped the history of the region for centuries to come. Commentators such as Werner and Fossier have firmly emphasised that the ‘age of the principalities’, that is, the period roughly speaking from 900 to 1200, is a crucial phase in the creation of the French state.

Keywords

Duke Richard Flanders Carolingian kings west Frankish kings modern French historiography Norman counts Historia Normannorum northern principalities

Type: Chapter
Information: The New Cambridge Medieval History , pp. 398 - 419

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CHOL9780521364478.017 [Opens in a new window]

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Print publication year: 2000

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16 - West Francia: the northern principalities

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