How Did the Capetian Dynasty Turn France Into a Superpower?

In 987, Hugh Capet, the most powerful nobleman in Northern Francia, was appointed to head the French Monarchy as king of the Franks. Upon his accession, he ruled directly only a sliver of land from Paris to Orleans and could claim only superficial loyalty (let alone fealty) from the nobles who dominated the vast majority of Francia.

How did the Capetians raise the French monarchy to become the most powerful crown in Christendom? Luck played an important role. From the accession of Hugh Capet in 987 to the death of Philip IV in 1314—a span of 327 years—eleven Capetian kings held the throne.

This meant that each king ruled for an average of 30 years and throughout this period, direct father-to-son succession was never broken. This was remarkable in the context of medieval Europe. The Capetians laid the perfect groundwork on which to establish a sacral royal line.

It must be remembered that patrilineal succession and the emphasis on a royal bloodline was not a given for medieval polities. Hugh Capet was appointed by the nobility, as was the Holy Roman Emperor. But with every Capetian king who acceded to the throne and ruled for many years, their legitimacy as a bloodline was cemented, and the Capetian lineage came to monopolize the throne.

Mighty Nobles: The 11th Century

Capetian longevity is particularly important when examining the 11th century. This period saw weak kings struggle to assert themselves as supreme among a host of mighty nobles. Yet, from the ascension of Robert II (son of Hugh Capet) in 996, to the death of Louis VI in 1137, France was ruled by just four kings. In England, over the same period, eleven different kings held the throne. Thus while powerful noble families rose and fell, French kings gradually cemented their legitimacy through the stability they provided.

Hugh Capet had made his son, Robert II (reigned 996-1031), junior king whilst he was still alive to secure the succession. Robert reigned during a period in which the power of the French Crown was at its nadir, and though he gained the territory of Burgundy for the

Capetian House he was unable to substantially move the dial with regard to monarchical power. Nevertheless, Robert helped enhance the image of the Crown through legends of his piety.

Known to posterity as “Robert the Pious,” he was said to have given generously to the poor and to churches, and he was a firm supporter of the Cluniac reforms and the Peace of God movement. He was said to have healed lepers with his touch, and this helped inspire the later belief that the French king could heal scrofula with his touch.

The reign of Robert’s successor Henry I (reigned 1031-1060) is often seen as the low point for the French monarchy, as he struggled to raise his head above his powerful nobles, including the counts of Anjou and Blois, and the Duke of Normandy. In Normandy Henry at first supported a young Duke William to suppress rebellions against his rule in the 1040s. This changed in the 1050s as Henry grew weary of William’s expansionism.

The king thrice invaded Normandy in 1053, 54, and 57, but was thrice defeated. William would of course go on to conquer England, making the neighboring duke of Normandy a king in his own right, and thus a powerful threat to French kings.

Under Henry I’s successor Philip I, the bureaucracy of the Crown grew and developed, while the king skillfully managed his relations with his nobles. Yet the defining event of his reign, and indeed of the age, saw the French monarch play no role. When Pope Urban II preached the First Crusade in 1095, Philip was in a state of excommunication from the Church due to his repudiation of his wife. Rather than trying to recruit the French king for this great venture, at the same council at which Urban preached the crusade, he reaffirmed Philip’s excommunication, ensuring that the king could not travel to the holy land.

The French king was not needed—for the army that captured Jerusalem in 1099 was led by mighty French nobles. Raymond, count of Toulouse, Robert, Duke of Normandy, Godfrey of Bouillon, Robert of Flanders, Stephen of Blois, and Hugh of Vermandois (Philip’s brother), to name the most prominent.

It says a great deal that such a perilous and important venture was not deemed by the Pope to require the participation of the French king, and that Philip’s nobles alone could provide the leadership and manpower to perform one of the great military feats of medieval Christendom. Yet things would soon change. By the time of the Second Crusade, the participation of the French king would be crucial to the entire enterprise.

From 1108 to 1180 the Franks were ruled by two King Louises (note again the length of the reigns!), under whom the power and status of the monarchy continued to steadily grow. It seemed as though the monarch’s territorial lordship was to take a great leap forward when Louis VI arranged for his son to marry the only daughter and heir of William X, Duke of Aquitaine. Eleanor brought with her the vast duchy that encompassed much of South-Eastern France.

Unfortunately for Louis, his marriage, as well as the Second Crusade which he led to the Holy Land in 1147, would end in failure. Eleanor would move on to marry Henry of Anjou, and thus Louis’ reign witnessed the rise of the Angevin Kings when Eleanor’s husband became Henry II of England in 1154. This left the French king overshadowed within his own realm by the King of England, who held lordship over Aquitaine, Normandy, Anjou, Maine, and Poitou—lands constituting the entire western half of France and far more extensive than those ruled directly by Louis.

Henry did perform homage to Louis for his French lands—something not commonly done in the 11th century—yet it was clear who the dominant figure was. This antagonistic relationship between the Capetians and the Plantagenets would prove a formative one for the French monarchy. Louis made numerous attempts to dent the power of Henry II, but by Louis’ death in 1180, the Angevin Empire remained a menacing foe for the King of the Franks.

It is worth at this stage examining how the influence and the sacrality—rather than the territorial power—of the French Crown had developed since the accession of Hugh Capet. The remarkable longevity of Capetian kings has been mentioned, but it should also be stressed that in almost 200 years (since 987) there had been an unbroken patrilineal succession to the French throne. This had infused the very blood of the monarch with a sense of legitimacy and power; in a chaotic landscape, the Capetian kings had become a rock of stability.

The move away from an elective monarchy had begun to raise the king far above his nobles since the lords no longer had a role in bringing the ruler to sovereignty (as in the Holy Roman Empire) and thus the king could in some ways ascend beyond the vicissitudes of noble factions.

The sacral power of the Crown was becoming formidable by the late 12th century. Kings were anointed upon ascending to the throne with the holy oil that was thought to have been brought to earth through divine intervention in order to baptize Clovis in the early 6th century.

Capetian kings emphasized their sacrality through their links to Charlemagne, Clovis, and Louis the Pious—all rulers who were closely associated with the Catholic religion. The kings maintained strong relations with the Pope and came to develop their own symbols of divinity. Under Louis VII (who was himself deeply pious) St Denis became embedded as the patron saint of the monarchy, and the Abbey of St Denis came to be the resting place of the Capetians.

In this abbey, the Oriflamme was kept, a sacred banner that was taken up by the king in times of crisis and used to rally his subjects to war. The origins of the Oriflamme are obscure, but in the early to mid-12th century it came to be closely associated with the king and would be used in the coming centuries in times of crisis as a symbol of the monarchy’s sacral leadership.

Philip II, nicknamed Augustus due to his being born in August, ascended to the throne upon the death of his father Louis VII in 1180. His rule would witness the collapse of the Angevin Empire and the transformation of the monarch from “king of the Franks” to “king of France.”

From the outset, Philip saw that the great weakness of the Plantagenet Dynasty lay in the fractious relationship between Henry II and his sons, and he sought to exploit this by allying with the rebellious Richard the Lion-Heart. Henry died in 1189, by which time Philip had expanded and strengthened his hold on royal lands in the Ile-de-France, as well as overseeing the completion of the cathedral of Notre Dame in Paris, a city that underwent great expansion during his reign.

Philip followed his father in embarking on a crusade to the Holy Land, traveling to the Middle East in 1191 to take part in the Third Crusade. Philip was joined by Richard, now King of England, and together they laid siege to and captured the port city of Acre. Philip fell gravely ill soon after this achievement, however, and returned to France.

Though Richard has soaked up most of the glory from the Third Crusade, Philip’s participation was vital to the capture of Acre. Moreover, crusading was the ultimate achievement for a medieval ruler—the uniquely medieval mix of piety and martial glory that resonated from participation in a crusade was potent. Whatever the end result, every Capetian monarch that went on crusade injected further luster into the French kingship—and the close association that the French king would have with the activity of crusading only enhanced the status of the Crown.

Another crusade took place during Philip’s reign—this time within France itself. The Albigensian Crusade began in 1209 and saw northern lords, at the instigation of the papacy, descend upon the region of Languedoc in southern France and subdue great parts of it in an attempt to root out the Cathar heresy and destroy the lords who abided with it. By the 1220s the counts of Toulouse were eclipsed by the Capetian royal house as the foremost power in the south—and the reach of the monarchy across France had been greatly extended.

Philip gave mild encouragement to the Albigensian Crusade but did not himself take part. His attentions were focused upon northern France. Philip invaded Normandy in 1193, but his offensive to conquer Plantagenet holdings in France was halted by Richard’s return from crusade and captivity.

Richard’s death in 1199 saw his younger brother John inherit the Angevin lands but John was unpopular with the nobility in England and France (who were already discontented by the heavy taxation of Richard’s reign) and lacked Richard’s military experience.

Philip saw John’s weakness and applied pressure. He captured the mighty castle of Richard I, Chateau Gaillard, in 1204 and Normandy soon fell to Philip as a result. He used his new access to the coast to develop the first French royal navy. The death of Eleanor of Aquitaine in the same year saw many of the major nobles in the South-East turn to Philip rather than acknowledge the lordship of John.

Meanwhile, Philip consolidated royal authority over the rest of his principalities by demanding homage from lords great and small and by developing the royal administration.

Philip was also aided in his reign by his strong relations with the mighty Pope Innocent III. Indeed this was a consistent strength for the French monarchy—relations with the papacy were strong for the majority of the Middle Ages, which generated strong legitimacy and authority for the rulers who became known as Rex Christianissimus by the 15th century.

Philip’s crowning achievement came in 1214 at the Battle of Bouvines. Here the French king faced a mighty coalition of those discontented by his rise—including the German Emperor Otto IV, King John of England, and major Flemish nobles.

On July 27, Philip met the coalition army in battle near the modern-day French/Belgian border and decisively defeated it. This victory utterly broke Philip’s enemies. John, though not present at the battle, now lost hope of regaining his northern French lands and his coalition’s defeat was a major factor in bringing on the baronial revolt that would produce the Magna Carta.

Philip died in 1223 and was succeeded by his son Louis. There is no better testament to his reign and its impact on the French kingship than to study his title before his accession and upon his death. Philip was, as his predecessors had been since Clovis, Rex Francorum—“King of the Franks.” Yet during his reign, he became Rex Franciae—“king of France.”

This apparently subtle change was a profound shift. It symbolized that the king’s authority did not come from the people, but was rather tied to the realm itself. Baking his authority into the land and the state made the monarch’s power more durable and profound.

Philip Augustus’s greatness came from his superb political instincts and brilliant opportunism. His hard-nosed skills helped expand the Crown’s land holdings and political power to new heights—yet it was his grandson who brought the French Crown a unique potency that elevated it beyond that of any other European sovereign.

The death of Philip’s son Louis VIII in 1214, after just three years on the throne, saw the formation of a regency led by his wife Blanche of Castile. Blanche ruled with great success, helping to consolidate royal control over the south of France following her husband’s campaigns in the Albigensian Crusade, and she made a considerable impression on her son, who would always have the utmost reverence for his mother.

Louis IX (reigned 1214-1270) is a difficult king to comprehend because soon after his death he was made a saint, and thus his life quickly became a blur between the heavenly and the earthly—the real man rapidly ensconced in a thick cloud of legend and symbolism. Yet it is clear that Louis was a man of intense piety, who consciously shaped his life around the Christian story and for whom religion was his ultimate guiding force.

Louis collected relics (including what was thought to be the original crown of thorns from Constantinople), dressed and ate modestly, and had himself whipped as an act of penance. He was generous to the poor and regularly washed the feet of paupers. He twice embarked on crusades to North Africa and visited the Christian lands in the Middle East. These adventures were utter failures—but still enhanced his prestige. Indeed, Louis’ reputation abroad was such that he was regularly called upon to arbitrate disputes between foreign rulers.

Louis was more than just a symbolic figure—he undertook substantial domestic reforms touching everything from coinage to administration to the law. His overhaul of monarchical government in France helped to settle and solidify the gains made since Philip Augustus and established the monarchy as the unquestioned center of authority, government, and prestige in most of what we recognize today as France. He promoted concord between his subdued barons and oversaw a remarkably peaceful reign. His strong diplomacy saw him secure lasting agreements with the English and Aragonese monarchs to stabilize France’s borders.

Louis’ importance to the French monarchy was profound. His legacy as the model of a Christian king imbued his successors with a divine legitimacy that they could lay claim to simply by being his heirs. His reign was seen as the gold standard to which any Christian monarch should aspire.

Internally, by the end of Louis’ reign, the supremacy of the Crown within France was utterly without question. Indeed, the 13th century as a whole would build up the power of the kingship such that it could survive the devastating storms of the 14th and early 15th centuries—storms that one could argue could have toppled the monarchy itself.

By the late 13th century, the French King possessed more power than any other European ruler. The full extent of this power would be realized under one of France’s most ruthless monarchs: Philip IV, “the Iron King” (reigned 1285-1314). Philip possessed all the hard-nosed ambition of Philip Augustus, yet wielded a more developed and centralized system of government. He has been admired and reviled in equal measure.

Philip succeeded his father Philip III in 1285, who reigned for 15 years and died on return from his ill-fated campaign into the Spanish kingdom of Aragon. Philip acceded to a throne whose power now far outweighed that of any other French nobleman, despite many realms such as Brittany, Burgundy, and Flanders still retaining a great deal of autonomy.

The concentration of the monarch’s power was symbolized by his capital, Paris, which at around 200,000 people was the largest city in Western Europe. However, with great power came great costs. Philip now ruled a vast expanse of territory with similarly vast ambitions, yet with the piecemeal expansion of direct monarchical rule an efficient system of taxation had not developed.

Grand ambitions, inadequate taxation: This was to be a continuous problem that would plague the French kings for centuries. Philip was unable to maintain his government via his landed income alone, and demanded the first general taxation throughout France in the late 1290s, to finance his war against Edward I.

This taxation did not become regularized, and almost never made demands of the nobility. When either of these were attempted, Philip was forced to back down in the face of opposition. France was too localized to have a regular system of national taxation that the nobility could contribute to. Kings could raise general taxes only when it seemed clear that necessity demanded it.

It was a drive for money that led Philip to some of the most infamous acts of his reign—namely the banishment of the Jews from France and the bloody destruction of the Knights Templar in the early 14th century. These actions were not driven entirely by the desire for wealth, but this was certainly a major factor. These actions demonstrated the immense power that now resided in the Crown of France, and the ruthlessness with which it could be exercised.

The French monarchy’s power at the dawn of the 14th century was encapsulated by the fierce dispute that erupted with the Pope. The papacy had long clashed with the Holy Roman Emperors, ever since the development and articulation of ideas about papal supremacy in the later 11th century. It was perhaps inevitable that as the kings of France replaced the German emperors as the most powerful secular lords in Christendom, some form of conflict would emerge, with a papacy that sought total authority over church matters. Further, Boniface VIII (1294-1303) was a particularly assertive and powerful pontiff.

The clash began when the Pope issued a bull in 1296 declaring that kings had no right to tax the clergy within their realm. Matters escalated in the early 1300s over the rights of the king to punish French bishops against the wishes of the Pope and reached its height in 1302 with the papal bull Unam Sanctam—a sensational statement of papal supremacy over all spiritual and even some secular matters. Philip and his ministers decided to bring the conflict to a head.

Philip sent royal representatives to Italy to “secure the peace and unity of the church.” In the Autumn of 1303, French troops and Italian allies seized the 86-year-old Pope, who died a month later.

Following the death of Boniface’s short-lived predecessor, the Gascon Clement V was elected Pope. Clement proved utterly unable to resist the pressure of Philip IV—he moved the papal curia from Rome to Avignon (not technically a part of the French kingdom but very much under its influence) and he appointed nine new French cardinals upon his accession and absolved Philip from all blame for the Boniface affair. For the next 70 years until the Papal Schism, the Roman pontiff would be firmly in the shadow of the French king.

Thus it was that at the death of his father Philip IV in 1314, Louis X acceded to the most powerful throne in Christendom, his veins coursing with unquestionably sacred and royal blood. Louis sat in a direct patrilineal line from kings that had ruled France for over 300 years in unbroken succession. His blood was sacred: his family chosen by God to rule, blessed with divine favor and elevated above all other Christian rulers. Louis himself was the great-grandson of a saint.

Legend has it that the last Grand Master of the Knights Templar, Jacques de Molay, put a curse upon Philip and his dynasty as he was burned at the stake in 1314. Though almost certainly fictional, the story illuminates a belief that those looking back upon the aftermath of Philip IV’s reign had; the divine favor that seemed to have belonged to the Capetians suddenly ceased following his attack on the Templar order.