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The subject of The Life of King Louis the Fat  was Louis VI, the first important Capetian king of France, who reigned from 1108 to 1137.  Louis's main achievement was to consolidate royal power within the Ile-de-France by suppressing the castellans who dominated the royal domain lands. (The term "castellan" refers to a noble who possessed one or more castles.) Louis's success owed much to an alliance he forged between the French monarch and the great Churchmen (bishops and abbots) and the leading townsmen of northern France.  Suspicious of the power of his barons, Louis used clergy and burghers rather than great nobles as royal administrators. His efforts to establish peace and maintain order facilitated the development of agriculture, trade and intellectual activity in the Ile-de-France. Under his rule, Paris began its expansion which would make it by 1200 the greatest Christian city north of the Alps. The following excerpts describe Louis's military actions against the "robber barons" of the Ile-de-France and the King of England Henry I (r.1100-1135).

Il existe une remarquable galerie de portraits des rois de France sur Gallica : il s'agit, d'après les notices des photos, de médailles du graveur Dassier, mais cette identification est inexacte : cette série gravée avec des portraits de profil des souverains français fut commandée en 1712 par Nicolas de Launay, directeur de la Monnaie de Paris et de la Monnaie des médailles du Louvre. Le médailleur responsable fut l'artiste français Thomas Bernard (1650-1713). Les deux derniers portraits de la série, ceux de Louis XV et Louis XVI, sont dûs à Gatteaux et Duvivier. On peut découvrir la totalité cette galerie de portraits des rois de France (67 photos des rois) dans le diaporama ci-dessous.

Abonnez vous gratuitement à la diffusion scientifique en audio du Collège de France et recevez automatiquement sur votre ordinateur les cours, séminaires et colloques qui ont été enregistrés.

gothic cathedral and church construction - cathedrals in France

The Romance language group (or Gallo-Romance) in the north of France is that of the langue d'oïl, the languages which use oïl (in modern usage, oui) for "yes". These languages, like Picard, Walloon, and Francien, were influenced by the Germanic languages spoken by the Frankish invaders; Norman was later also heavily influenced by the Norse settlers who founded the Norman state of Normandy. From the time period Clovis I on, the Franks extended their rule over northern Gaul. Over time, the French language developed from either the Oïl language found around Paris and Ile-de-France (the Francien theory) or from a standard administrative language based on common characteristics found in all Oïl languages (the lingua franca theory). Oïl derives from the Latin hoc ille ("that is it").

ETHNIC CLEANSING OF THE ENGLISH 'THE HARRYING OF THE NORTH'   The previous article talked of the ethnic cleansing of the English known as the Harrying of the North, and how much of the northern counties of England was laid waste*. The Normans seemed to combine up to date military skill and tactics, with their own violent Scandinavian Viking heritage. They had many vengeful Bretons with them. They were the Romano-Brythons (who some mistakenly call Celts,) who had fled the English / Saxon onslaught in 458 AD to Brittany in northwestern France and sought some weird revenge. French mercenaries accompanied them. Later English retaliation on northern France was furious. In their blood lust the Normans killed 150,000 English. The Harrying of the North was a brutal act that wouldn't have been worthy of an English King, but was certainly worthy of the usurper William Duke of Normandy. His 'harrying' not only affected Northumberland and Cumberland, and Yorkshire, but also large tracts of Cheshire, Shropshire, Staffordshire and Derbyshire.

"Edward II was born on 25 April 1284 as the youngest child of Edward I and his first wife Eleanor of Castile, and succeeded his father as king of England at the age of twenty-three on 7 July 1307.  On 25 January 1308 at Boulogne in northern France, Edward married Isabella, only surviving daughter of the reigning king of France, Philip IV, and the late Joan I, queen of Navarre in her own right.  Isabella was only twelve at the time of her wedding, born probably in the second half of 1295.  The couple's betrothal had been arranged all the way back in June 1299, when Edward was fifteen and Isabella probably only three."

CARTE INTERACTIVE DES LIEUX D'HISTOIRE ET DE MÉMOIRE - prehistory, antiquity, middle ages, modern times, contemporary history.  In French

Monarchs and Monasteries: Knowledge and Power in Medieval France

The French state has its origin in the middle ages. Before the 13th century, the king of France had very little power. He had to deal with many other feudal lords, some of which were more powerful than him. He had, however a model : the Roman catholic Church who had just reorganized itself. The pope was surrounded by jurists as advisors. Roman law had been rediscovered too : the corpus iuris civilis of Justinian. Canon law had been codified according to this model with the decree of Gratien.

Periode Capetienne Abbé Suger: Sur la jeunesse de Louis VI le Gros, dans  la Vie de Louis VI le Gros Abbé Suger: De la prise du château de Montaigu 1103, dans   la Vie de Louis VI le Gros Abbé Suger: De la venue en France du pape Pascal II 1107, dans   la Vie de Louis VI le Gros Abbé Suger: Louis VI s'attaque aux châteaux de Gournay et Sainte-Sévère 1107-1108, dans  la Vie de Louis VI le Gros Abbé Suger: La mort de Philippe Ier 1108, dans  la Vie de Louis VI le Gros Abbé Suger: Quant Louis devint roi 1108, dans  la Vie de Louis VI le Gros Abbé Suger: De méchants seigneurs 1108, dans  la Vie de Louis VI le Gros Traictié de la forme et devis d'ung tournoy 1108, [At Princeton]

Gothic architecture in France, England, and Italy - read the book at  http://www.archive.org/details/gothicarchitectu02jackuoft

"The current paper surveys and analyzes the ecological and economic crisis of 1093- 1096, as the prelude to the First Crusade, chiefly in its "popular" form. The pestilence of 1093-1094, drought and famine of 1095 have increased the religious zeal and social violence of the popular masses in regions of Germany, the Low Countries and France. This combination has turned into the (failed) crusade. The collective behaviour of the crusading rustics reflects their economic distress, religious zeal and violent mood, at the same time."

elcome to the Roman de la Rose Digital Library, a joint project of the Sheridan Libraries of Johns Hopkins University and the Bibliothèque nationale de France. The creation of this resource and the digitization of manuscripts from the BnF was made possible by generous support from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. The goal of the Roman de la Rose Digital Library is to create an online library of all manuscripts containing the Roman de la Rose poem. We will have digital surrogates of roughly 130 Roman de la Rose manuscripts available here by the end of 2009.

The letters of Pope Clement IV (1265-1268) contain largely chronologically arranged, with its 556 pieces of the political and personal correspondence of the Pope and are well regarded as the main source of his pontificate. The target audience is broad and largely prominent. Included are letters to the kings of Sicily, France, England, Aragon, Castile, to the Emperor of Byzantium and the princes of the Tartars, in many cases, to cardinals, who were just outside the Roman Curia, and the rest to various ecclesiastical prelates, secular lords, to acquaintances and relatives of Provençal home of the Pope and many others.

"NPR's Sheilah Kast speaks with Eric Jager, author of The Last Duel: A True Story of Crime, Scandal and Trial by Combat in Medieval France. At about this time of year in 1386, two knights in armor faced a duel to the death at a monastery in Paris -- it would be the last time the French government authorized a duel to settle a legal dispute."

The weakness of the Crusader States in Outremer came mostly from their build up - the same feudal system that was used in France and Germany. The situation in Outremer, however, was not fitting for the feudal system despite the fact that the Muslim states used a system relatively similar.

photographs of medieval buildings in France

Helen Castor and The Women Who Ruled England Before Elizabeth. This segment of the BBC 4's Women's Hour radio program was broadcast on 4 October 2010. In Chapter 4 of the program, Jane Garvey interviews Dr. Helen Castor, Fellow in History at Sidney Sussex College, University of Cambridge, about her new book, She-Wolves. From the synopsis by the publisher, Faber 6 Faber: "In 1553, England was about to experience the 'monstrous regiment' - the unnatural rule - of a woman. But female rule in England also had a past. Four hundred years before Edward's death, Matilda, daughter of Henry I and granddaughter of William the Conquerer, came tantalisingly close to securing her hold on the power of the crown. And between the 12th and the 15th centuries three more exceptional women - Eleanor of Aquitaine, Isabella of France, and Margaret of Anjou - discovered, as queens consort and dowager, how much was possible if the presumptions of male rule were not confronted so explicitly."

Froissart's famous Chronicle deals with the period 1326-1400. Mainly occupied with the affairs of France, England, Scotland and Flanders, he supplies much valuable information about Germany, Italy and Spain. He is of all medieval chroniclers the most vivid and entertaining, accurate and impartial in his statements.