Kingdom of France

Source: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
Kingdom of France
Reaume de France (
Latin
)
987–1792
1814–1815
1815–1848
Coat of arms (1814/15–1830) of France
Coat of arms

(1814/15–1830)
Motto: 
The Kingdom of France in 1000
The Kingdom of France in 1000
The Kingdom of France in 1789
The Kingdom of France in 1789
Capital
  • Paris (987–1792; 1814–1848)
  • Versailles
    (unofficially, 1682–1789)
Largest cityParis
Common languages
Religion
  • Roman Catholicism
Demonym(s)French
Government
Monarch 
• 987–996
Hugh Capet (first)
• 1830–1848
Louis Philippe I (last)
Charles-Maurice de Talleyrand
• 1847–1848
François Guizot
Legislature
• Upper house
• Lower house
Historical era
Early modern
c. 10 August 843
• Capetian dynasty established
3 July 987
1337–1453
1562–1598
5 May 1789
21 September 1792
6 April 1814
2 August 1830
24 February 1848
CurrencyLivre, Livre parisis, Livre tournois, Denier, Sol/Sou, Franc, Écu, Louis d'or
ISO 3166 codeFR
Location of France
Map of the first (light blue) and second (dark blue) French colonial empires.
Preceded by		 Succeeded by
West Francia
1792:
French First Republic
1804:
First French Empire
1815:
First French Empire (Hundred Days)
1848:
French Second Republic
Part of a series on the
History of France
Carte de France dressée pour l'usage du Roy. Delisle Guillaume (1721)
Ancient
Prehistory  
Greek colonies 600 BC – 49 BC
Celtic Gaul   until 50 BC
Roman Gaul 50 BC – 486 AD
Middle Ages
Francia and the Frankish settlement  
Merovingians 481–751
Carolingians 751–987
    West Francia 843–987
Kingdom of France 987–1792
    Direct Capetians 987–1328
    Valois 1328–1498
Ancien Régime
Valois-Orléans kings 1498–1515
Valois-Angoulême kings 1515–1589
Bourbon kings 1589–1792
Long 19th century
French Revolution 1789–1799
Kingdom of France 1791–1792
First Republic 1792–1804
First Empire 1804–1814
Restoration 1814–1830
July Monarchy 1830–1848
Second Republic 1848–1852
Second Empire 1852–1870
Third Republic 1870–1940
    Belle Époque 1871–1914
20th century
Third Republic 1870–1940
    Interwar period 1919–1939
        Années folles 1920–1929
 1940–1944
Provisional Republic 1944–1946
Fourth Republic 1946–1958
Fifth Republic 1958–present
Topics
Timeline
flag France portal

The Kingdom of France is the historiographical name or

early modern period. It was one of the most powerful states in Europe since the High Middle Ages. It was also an early colonial power, with colonies in Asia and Africa, and the largest being New France
in North America.

The Kingdom of France was descended directly from the western Frankish realm of the Carolingian Empire, which was ceded to Charles the Bald with the Treaty of Verdun (843). A branch of the Carolingian dynasty continued to rule until 987, when Hugh Capet was elected king and founded the Capetian dynasty. The territory remained known as Francia and its ruler as rex Francorum ("king of the Franks") well into the High Middle Ages. The first king calling himself rex Francie ("King of France") was Philip II, in 1190, and officially from 1204. From then, France was continuously ruled by the Capetians and their cadet lines under the Valois and Bourbon until the monarchy was abolished in 1792 during the French Revolution. The Kingdom of France was also ruled in personal union with the Kingdom of Navarre over two time periods, 1284–1328 and 1572–1620, after which the institutions of Navarre were abolished and it was fully annexed by France (though the King of France continued to use the title "King of Navarre" through the end of the monarchy).

kings of England laid claim to the French throne. Emerging victorious from said conflicts, France subsequently sought to extend its influence into Italy, but after initial gains was defeated by Spain and the Holy Roman Empire in the ensuing Italian Wars
(1494–1559).

Ancien Régime, complicated by historic and regional irregularities in taxation, legal, judicial, and ecclesiastic divisions, and local prerogatives. Religiously, France became divided between the Catholic majority and a Protestant minority, the Huguenots, which led to a series of civil wars, the Wars of Religion (1562–1598). The Wars of Religion crippled France, but triumph over Spain and the Habsburg monarchy in the Thirty Years' War made France the most powerful nation on the continent once more. The kingdom became Europe's dominant cultural, political and military power in the 17th century under Louis XIV. Throughout the 17th, 18th and early 19th centuries, France was Europe's richest, largest, most populous, powerful and influential country.[2]
In parallel, France developed its first colonial empire in Asia, Africa, and in the Americas.

In the 16th to the 17th centuries, the First French colonial empire stretched from a total area at its peak in 1680 to over 10,000,000 square kilometres (3,900,000 sq mi), the second-largest empire in the world at the time behind the Spanish Empire. Colonial conflicts with Great Britain led to the loss of much of its North American holdings by 1763. French intervention in the American Revolutionary War helped the United States secure independence from King George III and the Kingdom of Great Britain, but was costly and achieved little for France.

France through its

Great Power until the Napoleonic Wars and the Independence of Spanish America). France lost its superpower status after Napoleon's defeat against the British, Prussians and Russians in 1815.[6]

Following the

First French Republic. The monarchy was restored by the other great powers in 1814 and, with the exception of the Hundred Days in 1815, lasted until the French Revolution of 1848
.

Political history

West Francia

Main article: West Francia
Further information: Carolingian Empire

During the later years of

King of Lotharingia after the death of Lothair II in 869, but in the Treaty of Meerssen (870) was forced to cede much of Lotharingia to his brothers, retaining the Rhône and Meuse basins (including Verdun, Vienne and Besançon) but leaving the Rhineland with Aachen, Metz, and Trier in East Francia
.

Viking incursions up the Loire, the Seine, and other inland waterways increased. During the reign of Charles the Simple (898–922), Vikings under Rollo from Scandinavia settled along the Seine, downstream from Paris, in a region that came to be known as Normandy.[8]

High Middle Ages

Main articles: France in the Middle Ages and Capetian dynasty

The

Carolingians were to share the fate of their predecessors: after an intermittent power struggle between the two dynasties, the accession in 987 of Hugh Capet, Duke of France and Count of Paris, established the Capetian dynasty on the throne. With its offshoots, the houses of Valois and Bourbon, it was to rule France for more than 800 years.[9]

The old order left the new dynasty in immediate control of little beyond the middle Seine and adjacent territories, while powerful territorial lords such as the 10th- and 11th-century counts of Blois accumulated large domains of their own through marriage and through private arrangements with lesser nobles for protection and support.

The area around the lower Seine became a source of particular concern when Duke

William of Normandy took possession of the Kingdom of England by the Norman Conquest
of 1066, making himself and his heirs the king's equal outside France (where he was still nominally subject to the Crown).

John of England's lengthy quarrel with Philip II, allowed Philip to recover influence over most of this territory. After the French victory at the Battle of Bouvines in 1214, the English monarchs maintained power only in southwestern Duchy of Aquitaine.[10]

Late Middle Ages and the Hundred Years' War

Main articles: France in the Middle Ages and Hundred Years' War

The death of

English peasants' revolt of 1381 and the Jacquerie of 1358 in France) and the growth of nationalism in both countries.[11]

The losses of the century of war were enormous, particularly owing to the plague (the Black Death, usually considered an outbreak of bubonic plague), which arrived from Italy in 1348, spreading rapidly up the Rhône valley and thence across most of the country: it is estimated that a population of some 18–20 million in modern-day France at the time of the 1328 hearth tax returns had been reduced 150 years later by 50 percent or more.[12]

Renaissance and Reformation

The Renaissance era was noted for the emergence of powerful centralized institutions, as well as a flourishing culture (much of it imported from Italy).[13] The kings built a strong fiscal system, which heightened the power of the king to raise armies that overawed the local nobility.[14] In Paris especially there emerged strong traditions in literature, art and music. The prevailing style was classical.[15]

The Ordinance of Villers-Cotterêts was signed into law by Francis I in 1539. Largely the work of Chancellor Guillaume Poyet, it dealt with a number of government, judicial and ecclesiastical matters. Articles 110 and 111, the most famous, called for the use of the French language in all legal acts, notarised contracts and official legislation.

Italian Wars

Main article: Italian Wars

After the Hundred Years' War,

Barcelona (1493). These three treaties cleared the way for France to undertake the long Italian Wars (1494–1559), which marked the beginning of early modern France. French efforts to gain dominance resulted only in the increased power of the House of Habsburg
.

Wars of Religion

Main article: French Wars of Religion

Barely were the Italian Wars over, when France was plunged into a domestic crisis with far-reaching consequences. Despite the conclusion of a

right of rebellion and the legitimacy of tyrannicide.[16]

The Wars of Religion culminated in the

Bourbon dynasty) and his subsequent abandonment of Protestantism (Expedient of 1592) effective in 1593, his acceptance by most of the Catholic establishment (1594) and by the Pope (1595), and his issue of the toleration decree known as the Edict of Nantes (1598), which guaranteed freedom of private worship and civil equality.[17]

Early modern period

Main article: France in the early modern period
Louis XIII (right), by Philippe de Champaigne
(1647)

Colonial France

Main article: New France

France's pacification under Henry IV laid much of the ground for the beginnings of France's rise to European hegemony. France was expansive during all but the end of the seventeenth century: the French began trading in India and

merchant marine
.

Thirty Years' War

Main article: Thirty Years' War

Henry IV's son

Fronde (1648–1653) which expanded into a Franco-Spanish War (1635–1659). The Treaty of the Pyrenees (1659) formalised France's seizure (1642) of the Spanish territory of Roussillon after the crushing of the ephemeral Catalan Republic and ushered a short period of peace.[18]

Administrative structures

Main article:
Ancien Régime

The Ancien Régime, a French term rendered in English as "Old Rule", or simply "Former Regime", refers primarily to the aristocratic, social and political system of early modern France under the late Valois and Bourbon dynasties. The administrative and social structures of the Ancien Régime were the result of years of state-building, legislative acts (like the

privilege and historic differences until the French Revolution
brought about a radical suppression of administrative incoherence.

Louis XIV, the Sun King

Main article: Louis XIV
Louis XIV, a 1701 portrait by Hyacinthe Rigaud

For most of the reign of

Cardinal Jules Mazarin, (1602–1661). Cardinal Mazarin oversaw the creation of a French Royal Navy that rivalled England's, expanding it from 25 ships to almost 200. The size of the French Royal Army was also considerably increased. Renewed wars (the War of Devolution, 1667–1668 and the Franco-Dutch War, 1672–1678) brought further territorial gains (Artois and western Flanders and the free County of Burgundy, previously left to the Empire in 1482), but at the cost of the increasingly concerted opposition of rival royal powers, and a legacy of an increasingly enormous national debt. An adherent of the theory of the "Divine Right of Kings", which advocates the divine origin of temporal power and any lack of earthly restraint of monarchical rule, Louis XIV continued his predecessors' work of creating a centralized state governed from the capital of Paris. He sought to eliminate the remnants of feudalism still persisting in parts of France and, by compelling the noble elite to regularly inhabit his lavish Palace of Versailles, built on the outskirts of Paris, succeeded in pacifying the aristocracy, many members of which had participated in the earlier "Fronde" rebellion during Louis' minority. By these means he consolidated a system of absolute monarchy in France that endured 150 years until the French Revolution.[19] McCabe says critics used fiction to portray the degraded Turkish court, using "the harem, the Sultan court, oriental despotism, luxury, gems and spices, carpets, and silk cushions" as an unfavorable analogy to the corruption of the French royal court.[20]

The king sought to impose total religious uniformity on the country, repealing the

Jansenists, a group that denied free will and had already been condemned by the popes. In this, he garnered the friendship of the papacy, which had previously been hostile to France because of its policy of putting all church property in the country under the jurisdiction of the state rather than that of Rome.[22]

In November 1700, King

War of the Grand Alliance (1688–1697, a.k.a. "War of the League of Augsburg") had just concluded.[23]

Dissent and revolution

Main article: French Revolution
The provinces of the Kingdom of France in 1789

The reign (1715–1774) of

Cardinal Fleury, prime minister in all but name. The exhaustion of Europe after two major wars resulted in a long period of peace, only interrupted by minor conflicts like the War of the Polish Succession from 1733 to 1735. Large-scale warfare resumed with the War of the Austrian Succession (1740–1748). But alliance with the traditional Habsburg enemy (the "Diplomatic Revolution" of 1756) against the rising power of Britain and Prussia led to costly failure in the Seven Years' War (1756–63) and the loss of France's North American colonies.[24]

Louis XVI (right), by Antoine-François Callet
(1775)

On the whole, the 18th century saw growing discontent with the monarchy and the established order. Louis XV was a highly unpopular king for his sexual excesses, overall weakness, and for losing New France to the British. A strong ruler like Louis XIV could enhance the position of the monarchy, while Louis XV weakened it. The writings of the philosophes such as Voltaire were a clear sign of discontent, but the king chose to ignore them. He died of smallpox in 1774, and the French people shed few tears at his death. While France had not yet experienced the Industrial Revolution that was beginning in Britain, the rising middle class of the cities felt increasingly frustrated with a system and rulers that seemed silly, frivolous, aloof, and antiquated, even if true feudalism no longer existed in France.

Upon Louis XV's death, his grandson Louis XVI became king. Initially popular, he too came to be widely detested by the 1780s. He was married to an Austrian archduchess, Marie Antoinette. French intervention in the American War of Independence was also very expensive.[25]

With the country deeply in debt, Louis XVI permitted the radical reforms of

Turgot and Malesherbes, but noble disaffection led to Turgot's dismissal and Malesherbes' resignation in 1776. They were replaced by Jacques Necker. Necker had resigned in 1781 to be replaced by Calonne and Brienne, before being restored in 1788. A harsh winter that year led to widespread food shortages, and by then France was a powder keg ready to explode.[26] On the eve of the French Revolution of July 1789, France was in a profound institutional and financial crisis, but the ideas of the Enlightenment had begun to permeate the educated classes of society.[23]

Limited monarchy

Main article: Kingdom of France (1791–92)

On September 3, 1791, the absolute monarchy which had governed France for 948 years was forced to limit its power and become a provisional constitutional monarchy. However, this too would not last very long and on September 21, 1792, the French monarchy was effectively abolished by the proclamation of the French First Republic. The role of the King in France was finally ended with the Execution of Louis XVI by guillotine on Monday, January 21, 1793, followed by the "Reign of Terror", mass executions and the provisional "Directory" form of republican government, and the eventual beginnings of twenty-five years of reform, upheaval, dictatorship, wars and renewal, with the various Napoleonic Wars.

Restoration

Main article: Bourbon Restoration in France
Louis XVIII (left) by François Gérard (1820s), Charles X (right) by François Gérard
(1825)

Following the French Revolution (1789–99) and the First French Empire under Napoleon (1804–1814), the monarchy was restored when a coalition of European powers restored by arms the monarchy to the House of Bourbon in 1814. However the deposed Emperor Napoleon I returned triumphantly to Paris from his exile in Elba and ruled France for a short period known as the Hundred Days.

When a

Seventh European Coalition again deposed Napoleon after the Battle of Waterloo
in 1815, the Bourbon monarchy was once again restored. The Count of Provence - brother of Louis XVI, who was guillotined in 1793 - was crowned as
Ferdinand VII of Spain to abolish the Constitution of 1812
.

However, the work of Louis XVIII was frustrated when, after his death on 16 September 1824, his brother the Count of Artois became king under the name of Charles X. Charles X was a strong reactionary who supported the ultra-royalists and the Catholic Church. Under his reign, the censorship of newspapers was reinforced, the Anti-Sacrilege Act passed, and compensations to Émigrés were increased. However, the reign also witnessed the French intervention in the Greek Revolution in favour of the Greek rebels, and the first phase of the conquest of Algeria.

The absolutist tendencies of the King were disliked by the Doctrinaire majority in the

Duke of Orléans as regent.[30]
However, it was too late, and the liberal opposition won out over the monarchy.

Aftermath and July Monarchy

Main article: July Monarchy
An 1841 portrait of Louis Philippe I by Franz Xaver Winterhalter

On 9 August 1830, the Chamber of Deputies elected

French tricolour,[31] and a new Charter was introduced in August 1830.[32]

The conquest of Algeria continued, and new settlements were established in the Gulf of Guinea, Gabon, Madagascar, and Mayotte, while Tahiti was placed under protectorate.[33]

However, despite the initial reforms, Louis Philippe was little different from his predecessors. The old

Republicans
, who fought against royalty and supported the principles of democracy.

The King tried to suppress the opposition with censorship, but when the Campagne des banquets ("Banquets' Campaign") was repressed in February 1848,[35] riots and seditions erupted in Paris and later all France, resulting in the February Revolution. The National Guard refused to repress the rebellion, resulting in Louis Philippe abdicating and fleeing to England. On 24 February 1848, the monarchy was abolished and the Second Republic was proclaimed.[36] Despite later attempts to re-establish the Kingdom in the 1870s, during the Third Republic, the French monarchy has not restored.

Territories and provinces

Main article: Provinces of France
Further information: Territorial evolution of France
West Francia during the reign of Hugh Capet between 987 and 996 AD with the royal domain is shown in blue
The Kingdom of France in 1030 with the kingdom's royal domain in light blue
Territorial development under King Philip II between 1180 and 1223

Before the 13th century, only a small part of what is now France was under control of the Frankish king; in the north there were Viking incursions leading to the formation of the

early modern period
.

Territories inherited from Western Francia:

Domain of the Frankish king (royal domain or demesne, see crown lands of France)
Direct vassals of the French king in the 10th to 12th centuries:

Acquisitions during the 13th to 14th centuries:

Acquisitions from the Plantagenet kings of England with the French victory in the Hundred Years' War 1453

Acquisitions after the end of the Hundred Years' War:

Religion

The Reims Cathedral, built where Clovis I was baptised by Remigius, functioned as the site for the coronations of the kings of France in the kingdom

Prior to the

King of France always maintained close links to the Pope,[38] receiving the title Most Christian Majesty from the Pope in 1464.[39] However, the French monarchy maintained a significant degree of autonomy, namely through its policy of "Gallicanism", whereby the king selected bishops rather than the papacy.[40]

During the Protestant Reformation of the mid 16th century, France developed a large and influential Protestant population, primarily of

brain drain, as many of them had occupied important places in society.[42]

Jews have a documented presence in France since at least the early Middle Ages.[43] The Kingdom of France was a center of Jewish learning in the Middle Ages, producing influential Jewish scholars such as Rashi and even hosting theological debates between Jews and Christians. Widespread persecution began in the 11th century and increased intermittently throughout the Middle Ages, with multiple expulsions and returns.[44]

Fundamental laws

Main article: Fundamental laws of the Kingdom of France
The
customary usage
and religious beliefs about the roles of God, monarch, and subjects.
The
totalitarian dictatorship, and there were limits on the king's power. These arose chiefly from religious constraints: because the monarchy was considered to be established by divine right, that is, that the king was chosen by God to carry out his will, this implied that the king's subjects should obey and respect him. The king is accountable only to God, however he doesn't have despotic power. There are limits imposed by the Gospels, and the king does not have the right of life and death over his subjects, and has a duty to be virtuous.[45]

See also

Notes

References

  1. ISBN 9780521257640
    – via Google Books.
  2. ^ R.R. Palmer; Joel Colton (1978). A History of the Modern World (5th ed.). p. 161.
  3. ^ Aldrich, Robert (1996). Greater France: A History of French Overseas Expansion. p. 304.
  4. ISBN 9781576073353 – via Google Books
    .
  5. ^ Englund, Steven (2005). Napoleon: A Political Life. Harvard University Press. p. 254.
  6. ^ Englund, Steven (2005). Napoleon: A Political Life. Harvard University Press. p. 254.
  7. ISBN 9780521844802
    .
  8. doi:10.1111/j.1468-0254.1993.tb00015.x
    .
  9. ISBN 9780824044442
    .
  10. ^ Peter Shervey Lewis, Later medieval France: the polity (1968).
  11. ^ Alice Minerva Atkinson, A Brief History of the Hundred Years' War (2012)
  12. ISBN 9780313332975
    .
  13. ^ James Russell Major, Representative Institutions in Renaissance France, 1421–1559 (1983).
  14. ^ Martin Wolfe, The fiscal system of renaissance France (1972).
  15. ^ Yarrow, Philip John (1974). A literary history of France: Renaissance France 1470–1589.; Zerner, Henri (2003). Renaissance art in France: the invention of classicism. Flammarion.
  16. ^ Holt, Mack P. (2005). The French wars of religion, 1562–1629.
  17. ISBN 9780044456353
    .
  18. ^ Peter H. Wilson, Europe's Tragedy: A History of the Thirty Years' War (2009).
  19. ^ Beik, William (2000). Louis XIV and Absolutism: A Brief Study with Documents.
  20. ISBN 9781847884633
    .
  21. ISBN 9782753531307
    .
  22. ISBN 9781349014705
    .
  23. ^ a b Daniel Roche, France in the Enlightenment (1998)
  24. ^ Colin Jones, The Great Nation: France from Louis XV to Napoleon (2003)
  25. ^ William Doyle, The French Revolution: A Very Short Introduction (2001)
  26. ^ Sylvia Neely, A Concise History of the French Revolution (2008)
  27. ^ Actes du congrès – vol. 3, 1961, p. 441.; Emmanuel de Waresquiel, 2003, pp. 460–461.
  28. ^ Duc de Dolberg, Castellan, II, 176 (letter 30 April 1827)
  29. ^ Mansel, Philip, Paris Between Empires (St. Martin Press, New York 2001) p. 245.
  30. Imprimerie nationale
    . 1831.
  31. ^ Michel Pastoureau (2001). Les emblèmes de la France. Bonneton. p. 223.
  32. ^ Barjot, Dominique; Chaline, Jean-Pierre; Encrevé, André (2014). La France au xixe siècle. Presses Universitaires de France. p. 656.
  33. ^ Barjot, Chaline & Encrevé (2014), pp. 232, 233.
  34. ^ Barjot, Chaline & Encrevé (2014), p. 202.
  35. ^ Barjot, Chaline & Encrevé (2014), pp. 211, 2012.
  36. ^ Barjot, Chaline & Encrevé (2014), pp. 298, 299.
  37. ISBN 9789733203162
    .
  38. ^ Parisse, Michael (2005). "Lotharingia". In Reuter, T. (ed.). The New Cambridge Medieval History: c. 900–c. 1024. Vol. III. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. pp. 313–315.
  39. ^ "Christian Majesty, His Most".
  40. ^ Wolfe, M. (2005). Jotham Parsons. The Church in the Republic: Gallicanism and Political Ideology in Renaissance France. Washington, D.C.: Catholic University of America Press. 2004. pp. ix, 322. The American Historical Review, 110(4), 1254–1255.
  41. ^ Hans J. Hillerbrand, Encyclopedia of Protestantism: 4-volume Set, paragraphs "France" and "Huguenots"; The Huguenot Population of France, 1600–1685: The Demographic Fate and Customs of a Religious Minority by Philip Benedict; American Philosophical Society, 1991, 164
  42. ^ Encyclopædia Britannica, 11th ed, Frank Puaux, "Huguenot"
  43. ISBN 0-486-42011-6
    .
  44. ^ Miller, Chaim (2013). "Rashi's Method of Biblical Commentary". chabad.org.
  45. ^ Dignat 2021.

Works cited

Further reading

Historiography

  • Gildea, Robert. The Past in French History (1996)
  • Nora, Pierre, ed. Realms of Memory: Rethinking the French Past (3 vol, 1996), essays by scholars; excerpt and text search; vol 2 excerpts; vol 3 excerpts
  • Pinkney, David H. "Two Thousand Years of Paris", Journal of Modern History (1951) 23#3 pp. 262–264 in JSTOR
  • Revel, Jacques, and Lynn Hunt, eds. Histories: French Constructions of the Past (1995). 654pp, 64 essays; emphasis on
    Annales School
  • Symes, Carol. "The Middle Ages between Nationalism and Colonialism", French Historical Studies (Winter 2011) 34#1 pp 37–46
  • Project MUSE

External links

Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Kingdom_of_France&oldid=1218371329"