France in the Middle Ages

France in the Middle Ages was a decentralised, feudal monarchy. In Brittany, Normandy, Lorraine, Provence, East Burgundy and Catalonia (the latter now a part of Spain), as well as Aquitaine, the authority of the French king was barely felt. During the Middle Ages (c. 10th–mid-15th century), the Kingdom of France evolved from the fragmentation of West Francia (843–987) to the gradual centralisation of power under the House of Capet (987–1328). This period saw royal struggles with semi-independent principalities like Normandy and Anjou, as well as administrative expansion – especially under Philip II Augustus and Louis IX. The House of Valois (1328–1589) then faced the House of Plantagenet and their Angevin Empire in the Hundred Years' War (1337–1453), a conflict exacerbated by the Black Death (1348). These events fostered a more centralised state and a nascent French identity by the early modern period. Quotes At least, when the French monarchy, founded by Philippe-Auguste and Philippe-le-Bel, closed with Louis XVI, it had one consolation in its death. It perished in the midst of the vast glory of a young republic which, as its first trial of strength, conquered Europe and gave it new life. But the poor middle age — but papacy, chivalry, feudalism, by whose hands do they perish? By those of the attorney, the bankrupt, the false-coiner.The complaint is excusable; this new world is ugly. If more legitimate than that which it replaces, yet what eye, were it even Dante's, could discover it at this period? It is born with the wrinkles of the old Roman law, of the old imperial system of finance. It is born lawyer, usurer, Gascon, Lombard, and Jew.What most provokes against this modern system, against France, its first representative, is its perpetual contradictions, its doubleness of nature, the naive hypocrisy, if I may so speak, with which it goes on adjuring by turns its two principles — Roman and feudal, and shifting from one to the other.France is at this period a legist in cuirass, a lawyer barred in iron; and has recourse to feudal force to carry into execution the sentence of the Roman and canonical law.Obedient daughter of the Church, she takes possession both of Italy and the Church itself. If she beat the Church, it is as a daughter, obliged in conscience to correct her mother. Jules Michelet, History of France, translated by G. H. Smith, vol. 1 (New York: D. Appleton and Company, 1882), bk. 5, ch. 2: "Philip the Fair — Boniface VIII (1285–1304)", p. 343 External links Category:History of France