Book contents
- Frontmatter
- 1 Introduction: reading the tenth century
- PART I GENERAL THEMES
- PART II POST-CAROLINGIAN EUROPE
- 9 The Ottonians as kings and emperors
- 10 Saxony and the Elbe Slavs in the tenth century
- 11 Bavaria in the tenth and early eleventh centuries
- 12 Lotharingia
- 13 Burgundy and Provence, 879–1032
- 14 The kingdom of Italy
- 15 West Francia: the kingdom
- 16 West Francia: the northern principalities
- 17 Western Francia: the southern principalities
- 18 England, c. 900–1016
- PART III NON-CAROLINGIAN EUROPE
- Appendix genealogical tables
- List of primary sources
- Bibliography of secondary works arranged by chapter
- Index
- Frontispiece
- Plate section
- Map 2: Archbishoprics and bishoprics in the early eleventh century
- Map 4: Germany
- Map 13: Byzantium in 1025
- References
16 - West Francia: the northern principalities
from PART II - POST-CAROLINGIAN EUROPE
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 28 March 2008
- Frontmatter
- 1 Introduction: reading the tenth century
- PART I GENERAL THEMES
- PART II POST-CAROLINGIAN EUROPE
- 9 The Ottonians as kings and emperors
- 10 Saxony and the Elbe Slavs in the tenth century
- 11 Bavaria in the tenth and early eleventh centuries
- 12 Lotharingia
- 13 Burgundy and Provence, 879–1032
- 14 The kingdom of Italy
- 15 West Francia: the kingdom
- 16 West Francia: the northern principalities
- 17 Western Francia: the southern principalities
- 18 England, c. 900–1016
- PART III NON-CAROLINGIAN EUROPE
- Appendix genealogical tables
- List of primary sources
- Bibliography of secondary works arranged by chapter
- Index
- Frontispiece
- Plate section
- Map 2: Archbishoprics and bishoprics in the early eleventh century
- Map 4: Germany
- Map 13: Byzantium in 1025
- References
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.
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- The New Cambridge Medieval History , pp. 398 - 419Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2000
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