Normans?

Capet ruled Danes? You people are crazy.

Originally posted by Quetzalcoatl Capet ruled Danes? You people are crazy.

That was the crown he received from the Archbishop of Reims ... his whole title was BS.

In actual fact he only ruled a little area, the Ile-de-France ... he was no more king of the Bretons or a number of other groups in France, than he was king of the Danes. I.e. Capet's claim is a big load of BS.

And the French nation can be traced back to this phoney claim. Adalberon was full of it .... you can't accept there was any truth to his proclamation, because, as you say, it's "crazy". Capet didn't inheirit any political legacy of Francia Occidentalis under the Carolinigians, just because Adalberon said so. Adalberon said he was King of Spain too! He ruled Spain about as much as he ruled France outside of his fief, which is to say, not at all.
    
    

Edited by edgewaters - 30-Jul-2006 at 12:31

Anyway, ignoring Edgewater's and gcle's flawed opinions, we all came to the conclusion that the Normans were as french as it can get (purest of all French, in fact, in those days since they had little Germanic blood unlike the Francilians) and the Merovingians were the yoke of the French culture.

Now I'm asking you guys, Chilb and Exarchus, do think the burgundians (kingdom) were French prior to the Sun king conquests. THe Burgundians were part of the HRE and at one time ruled an empire within an empire. The ruling elite of the burgundians spoke one of the three main French dialects: provencal, still spoken in the region. However, looking at the Burgundians cavalry, they were akin to the German counterpart in equipment unlike the French cavalry (Normans, Angevin, Francilians etc)for the same era . Their architecture was a French-german hybrid.

Nowadays, it is hard to think of burgundians anything but french, but during the 1000-1600 were they French?

 

Edited by Quetzalcoatl - 30-Jul-2006 at 23:55

Originally posted by edgewaters Originally posted by Quetzalcoatl Hmmm, I think you are not quite getting it. Capet had direct rule over the Royal domain but didn't have direct rule over Franci Occidentalis, but he was Overlord of Francia Occidentalis. His rule was somehow theoretical. Not only was it theoretical, it was illegitimate. It was just an empty proclamation by a corrupt bishop, without any basis in law, tradition, or reality. Ile-de-France was not the "Royal domain" of Francia Occidentalis. It was just a duchy before Adalberon's proclamation. The capitol of Western Francia had been Rouen from the 5th century, until the Treaty of Verdun, when Charles the Bald moved the Western Francian capitol to Compiegne. Paris was a vassal's fief, not the Royal Domain. In fact, Paris was demoted in power by Charles; the Edict of Pistes forbid six (out of nine) cities which had formerly minted coinage, from continuing to do so - Paris being one of them.

Edited by Quetzalcoatl - 31-Jul-2006 at 03:27

Originally posted by edgewaters Originally posted by Quetzalcoatl It is the same with the medieval Japan. There was an Emperor surrounded by hostile provinces, ruled by Daimyos. But they were all Japanese in the end. No, not at all. Again, you're projecting a notion of a French national identity backwards in time, before it existed. At that time, there were numerous groups who did not consider themselves "French"; Japanese had an island identity and all considered themselves Japanese, regardless of who their particular Daimyo might be. There were tiny minorities, like the Ainu, but they had no territories or leaders. There were no Burgundies or Brettonies or Basques or Gascons and if all these groups were considered French, then Adalberon wouldn't have bothered to give Capet the title of king of the Burgundians, Bretons, Basques and Gascons; "King of the French" would suffice, just as the Emperor of Japan was the Emperor of Japan.

Gcle, you have a problem of comprehension. A serious one. You seem to constantly confuse yourself by adding elements that don't exist. Creating an impossible chaos that is literally ruining this thread.

Edited by Quetzalcoatl - 31-Jul-2006 at 20:47

In what way Hugh Capet was illegitimate? He was a member of the Frankish aristocraty, had relatives that were king before him and was elected by the Western Frankish aristocracy (not appointed by a corrupt archbishop).

If I may, the feudalism excuse doesn't stand, counts and dukes existed long before Hugh Capet. The first dynasty of Counts I can name was the one of the Counts of Toulouse and find its roots to the times of Charles the Bald, Pippin II of Aquitaine and Fredelon. If you can find an earlier dynasty of count please point it out :).

Originally posted by Exarchus I would agree that Bretons, Gascons and maybe Occitans didn't have a French culture... but the Burgundians? Politic doesn't care about culture, I agree France isn't the cultural heir but is the political one.

Originally posted by gcle2003 If it was the political heir it would be ruling over much of Germany and Italy and the Netherlands. It isn't.   Could you maybe clarify what you mean by 'political heir'?

Borders change, There has been example of countries loosing their origin (in that case, Belgium), one example are the Mauritius, whose former capital is still a French oversea territories (whose population doesn't want to leave France, they were asked twice and last time they refused independance at more than 99%, this is a native population and not settlers).

In that case, since the Treaty of Verdun, there is a continuous existence of the Kingdom of France, sometimes as a loose confederation, sometimes as an absolute monarchy. To the French republic that succeeded the Kingdom.

Originally posted by gcle2003 Counts and dukes go back to Roman times, so I guess you're asking when did the offices become hereditary? The oldest trace I've come across is that the office of dux britanniarum (Duke of the Britons) stayed in the family of the rulers of the Votadini from about 400AD on for a century or so. I suspect the offices of comes britanniarum and comes litori saxonici also became hereditary during the period of tribal rule following the departure of the Romans. But the period is pretty murky

Actually these positions (comes and dux) became hereditary during Roman rule. Some became hereditary with the Diocletian reforms, the rest under Constantine's reforms.