The Age of Chivalry (4 page)

In 1023 Robert II and the German emperor Henry II arrived at a landmark decision: they resolved not to pursue claims to each other's territories. Although an agreed boundary between the French kingdom and the German empire was now in place, this early phase of Capetian history remained one of dynastic insecurity. Possessed of so few lands of his own, Robert pursued his rights to any feudal territories that became vacant. However, the fact that these were invariably also contested by other claimants embroiled him in numerous military campaigns. He tried to invade Burgundy in 1003, but it took another 13 years before the Church recognized his title as the duchy's ruler. Furthermore, the civil wars waged against him by his own sons—Hugh Magnus, Henry and Robert—were prolonged and bitter struggles centered on inheritance rights. The dynastic style meant that Hugh Magnus was crowned a king in his father's lifetime, and from 1017 onward he was co-ruler. But although earmarked for great things, he rebelled against Robert II and after his early death in 1025 the two surviving brothers continued with the campaign. When Henry succeeded to the throne, Robert maintained his dissidence until he was given the dukedom of Burgundy. In an age that was accustomed to violence Robert I of Burgundy remained notable for his uncontrollable behavior. He set aside his wife Helie of Semur in
c
.1046 and then killed her father—having already arranged for her brother's murder.

The question of how to deal with the increasingly powerful duchy of Normandy preoccupied both Henry I and his two immediate successors. Henry had helped Duke William to assert his authority internally in 1047, when he was threatened by rebel vassals. However, William's marriage to Matilda, daughter of the count of Flanders, threatened the French Crown with a pincer-like alliance, and the two military campaigns that Henry launched in 1054 and 1057 sought to subjugate the duchy. These ended in an unsurprising failure, and Philip I reconciled himself to the reality of Norman power by making peace. The reign of Louis VI nevertheless saw a resumption of the Franco-Norman conflict and a dramatic improvement in the fortunes of French monarchy, along with a vigorous assertion of royal rights.

CAROLINGIAN KINGS OF WEST FRANCIA 954–87

LOTHAIR IV

(941–86)

r. 954–86

LOUIS V

(967–87)
r. 986–87

By the end of the 11th century large areas of the Capetian demesne in the Île-de-France were controlled by feudal lords who ignored their duties of vassalage and exercised an independent power by illegal and violent means. Although the military campaigns fought by Louis on his own lands lasted some quarter of a century, he had succeeded in reasserting his feudal rights by the 1130s, and orderly government was restored in the royal demesne. Louis's foreign policy was just as strenuous, and here he could take advantage of a split within the Norman élite when William Clito, the son of Robert
Curthose, duke of Normandy, rebelled against his uncle Henry I and sought to replace him as ruler of both England and Normandy. In 1124 Louis's army and its allies won a great victory over the forces of Henry V—the German king and emperor who had been persuaded by Henry I that he should attempt an invasion of France. This martial success recalled Hugh Capet's prestige and earned Louis his acclamation as the second founder of his dynasty's authority.

A
BOVE
The Battle of Val-ès-Dunes, in which Henry I and Duke William quelled a Norman rebellion in 1047, is depicted in this section
(c.
1335/1340) from the
Grandes Chroniques de France
(1274–1461)
.

An arranged marriage between Louis's infant son and Eleanor of Aquitaine meant that the French Crown was, for a while, reunited with the duchy of the southwest. That union nonetheless proved to be one of history's most significant
mésalliances
because, following her divorce, Eleanor married Henry, count of Anjou (who was also Normandy's duke, following his father Geoffrey's conquest of the duchy in 1144). Henry's accession to the throne of England as Henry II therefore created the vast power block of the Angevin empire. In theory, Henry held Normandy and Anjou as a vassal of the French monarchy and, since he had married Eleanor without seeking his suzerain's permission, Louis declared war on him. Subsequent defeats showed how much greater were the resources available to Henry, but if Louis could not compete in that particular theater of war his pro-papal policies gave him a more positive role on the European stage. At the start of his reign he had rejected the papal nominee to the archbishopric of
Bourges, and Louis's territories had therefore been placed for a while under a papal interdict. His intervention in the great quarrel between Pope Alexander II and the German emperor Frederick I Barbarossa nonetheless showed the depth of Louis's attachment to the papal cause. Alexander had been elected pope by a majority of the College of Cardinals, but the minority who supported Cardinal Octavian broke away and elected him as Pope Victor IV. This anti-pope and his two successors enjoyed Barbarossa's support, and the years of Alexander III's exile in 1162–65 were spent in France where he enjoyed Louis's warm support. The alliance between the Church and the French Crown deepened as a result, and the strong identification of the French clergy with the monarchy gave Louis a chain of command that enabled his will to be imposed in areas far from the core royal demesne

The fact that both Louis VI and Louis VII survive in the documentary records as real personalities owes much to the pen of the Abbé Suger of Saint-Denis (
c
.1081–1151), who was a significant courtier by the late 1120s and the monarchy's chief adviser from the mid-1130s until his death. He wrote a history of Louis VII's reign as well as a detailed account of the governmental machinery, and these works in turn inspired the monks of Saint-Denis to embark on the chronicles that give a quasi-official account of the development of the French national monarchy during the 12th century. The challenges facing the kings remained enormous, and Louis VII's participation in the fiasco of the Second Crusade, which had to be abandoned in 1148, undermined the royal finances. But in other respects there was a real change of gear, with the city of Paris evolving both culturally and economically. The commercial quarter known as Les Halles started to operate on the right bank of the Seine during Louis VI's reign. The marshes on the left bank were drained, and this area became the heart of a celebrated academic
quartier
.

The problem of the succession had long tormented Louis VII in a manner entirely typical of his Capetian forebears. Eleanor had born him two daughters, as did his second wife Constance of Castile. It was his third wife, Adele of Champagne, who gave him the son and heir that he craved, however. In 1179, during the last year of his father's life, Philip II Augustus was crowned at Rheims in a ceremony whose precautionary nature would have been well understood by Hugh Capet.

THE EARLY CAPETIAN DYNASTY 987–1223

HUGH CAPET

(
c
.940–96)

r. 987–96

ROBERT II

[“the Pious”]

(972–1031)

r. 996–1031

HENRY I

(1008–60)

r. 1031–60

PHILIP I

(1052–1108)

r. 1060–1108

LOUIS VI

(1081–1137)

r. 1108–37

LOUIS VII

(1120–80)

r. 1137–80

PHILIP II AUGUSTUS

(1165–1223)

r. 1180–1223

The abbey of Saint-Denis was a Merovingian foundation, and it was therefore already ancient when Suger decided that the Romanesque structure had to be rebuilt. Suger was the first of the ecclesiastical statesmen who rose to greatness in the service of the French Crown
.

During the five years following his election as abbot in 1122 Suger devoted most of his time to the administration of Saint-Denis, and the extensive account he wrote of the building project also places the abbey in its historical context. As a center of learning, a royal necropolis and ceremonial setting, the abbey had reflected the policies and supported the interests of successive
reges Francorum
. If Saint-Denis was to remain relevant at the highest levels of government it needed to have a contemporary look, and for Suger that inevitably meant adopting the Gothic style. Suger was also a loyal servant to the monarchy and his work at Saint-Denis had aims similar to those of contemporary French kingship: in both cases the institution's past was being repackaged in order to secure its place in the future. By this time the principles of Gothic architecture typified by soaring spires, lofty rib vaults and pointed arches were being adopted by many of northern France's ecclesiastical foundations, and Saint-Denis would join the ranks of the Gothic masterpieces erected in Chartres, Laon, Bourges and Rheims. Gothic architecture's realization involved complex building plans, material wealth and a well-organized labor force, and the building projects reflected the self-belief of the ecclesiastical and courtly élite who were in overall charge. The fact that 12th-century summers were also proving to be unusually long and warm was an added bonus, and as a result the masons who labored on site had more time to get the work done. The building of Notre Dame on the Île de la Cité from
c
.1163 onward was a particularly spectacular example of the organizational capacity and self-confidence of the French monarchy. Maurice de Sully was the bishop who oversaw the work's initial phase and he also started the building of the Hôtel Dieu, a hospital that stood adjacent to Notre Dame.

The Gothic clerestory of the Basilica of Saint-Denis, in Paris, founded by the Merovingian King, Dagobert I, in the seventh century, and burial place of successive French monarchs
.

The Norman conquest of the English people is an event without parallel in both the history of England and of medieval Europe as a whole. No more than 10,000 knights—perhaps even as few as 5000 of them—enforced a policy of military subjugation and wholesale expropriation of land in the former Anglo-Saxon kingdom during the generation that followed the Battle of Hastings in 1066, with the leaders of the native population being excluded from public office because of their ethnicity. Often brutal, the conquest of England by the Normans was also efficient and wide-ranging, changing forever the systems of government, social structure and culture
.

The Anglo-Saxon kingdom had been one of the glories of Europe's Christian civilization. When the Viking ancestors of the Normans were starting to penetrate the lower Seine valley in
c
.900, Anglo-Saxon culture was already ancient. Its leaders could count among their ancestors royal saints and martyrs who were venerated across the continent, and whose witness testified to the sacred nature of the authority that emanated from England's throne. Neighboring powers admired the royal house of Wessex, England's reigning dynasty since the late ninth century, and marveled at the efficiency of the tax-collecting bureaucracy that enriched English kings. Eleventh-century Europe supplied abundant examples of native populations subjected to the cruelty and violence of a conquering invader. But they were all pagans, whereas the Anglo-Saxons shared with the Normans the Christian faith. What happened in England during the second half of the 11th century was therefore unprecedented, since it took place within Christendom. Contemporaries noted this fact, and there were also papal protests. But all to no avail. How and why, therefore, did the Normans get away with it?