Everything about Hugh Capet totally explained
Hugh Capet (c.
940 –
24 October,
996) was the first
King of France of the eponymous
Capetian dynasty from his election to succeed the
Carolingian Louis V in 987 until his death.
Descent and inheritance
The son of
Hugh the Great,
Duke of France, and
Hedwige of Saxony, son of the
German king Henry the Fowler, Hugh was born about 940. His paternal family, the
Robertians, were powerful landowners in the
Île-de-France. His grandfather had been
King Robert I and his grandmother
Beatrice was a Carolingian, a daughter of
Herbert I of Vermandois.
King Odo was his great uncle and
King Rudolph Odo's son-in-law. Hugh was born into a well-connected and powerful family with many ties to the reigning nobility of Europe. But for all this, Hugh's father was never king. When Rudolph died in 936, Hugh the Great organized the return of
Louis d'Outremer, son of
Charles the Simple, from his exile at the court of
Athelstan of England. Hugh's motives are unknown, but it's presumed that he acted to forestall Rudolph's brother and successor as Duke of Burgundy,
Hugh the Black from taking the French throne, or to prevent it from falling into the grasping hands of
Herbert II of Vermandois or
William Longsword,
Count of Rouen.
In 956, Hugh inherited his father's estates and became one of the most powerful nobles in the much-reduced
West Frankish kingdom. However, as he wasn't yet an adult, his uncle
Bruno,
Archbishop of Cologne, acted as
regent. Young Hugh's neighbours made the most of the opportunity.
Theobald I of Blois, a former vassal of Hugh the Great, took the counties of
Chartres and
Châteaudun. Further south, on the border of the kingdom,
Fulk II of Anjou, another former client of Hugh the Great, carved out a principality at Hugh's expense and that of the
Bretons.
The kingdom in which Hugh grew up, and of which he'd one day be king, bore no resemblance to modern France. Hugh's predecessors didn't call themselves
rois de France ("Kings of France"), and that title wasn't used until the time of his distant descendant
Philip the Fair (died 1314). Kings ruled as
rex Francorum ("King of the Franks") and the lands over which they ruled comprised only a very small part of the former
Carolingian Empire. The
eastern Frankish lands, the
Holy Roman Empire, were ruled by the
Ottonian dynasty, represented by Hugh's first cousin
Otto II and then by Otto's son,
Otto III. The lands south of the
river Loire had largely ceased to be part of the West Frankish kingdom in the years after Charles the Simple was deposed in 922. The
Duchy of Normandy and the
Duchy of Burgundy were largely independent, and
Brittany entirely so, although from 956 Burgundy was ruled by Hugh's brothers
Odo and
Henry.
Election and extent of power
From 978 to 986, Hugh Capet allied himself with the German emperors Otto II and Otto III and with
Archbishop Adalberon of Reims to dominate the Carolingian king,
Lothair. By 986, he was king in all but name. After Lothair and his son died in early 987, the archbishop of Reims and
Gerbert of Aurillac convened an assembly of nobles to elect Hugh Capet as their king. In front of an electoral assembly at
Senlis, Adalberon gave a stirring oration and pleaded to the nobles:
» Crown the Duke. He is most illustrious by his exploits, his nobility, his forces. The throne isn't acquired by hereditary right; no one should be raised to it unless distinguished not only for nobility of birth, but for the goodness of his soul.
He was elected and crowned
rex Francorum at
Noyon in
Picardy on
3 July 987, by the prelate of Reims, the first of the house that would later bear his name to rule France. Immediately after his coronation, Hugh began to push for the coronation of his son
Robert. Hugh's own claimed reason was that he was planning an expedition against the
Moorish armies harassing
Borrel II of Barcelona, an invasion which never occurred, and that the stability of the country necessitated two kings should he die while on expedition.
Ralph Glaber, however, attributes Hugh's request to his old age and inability to control the nobility. Modern scholarship has largely imputed to Hugh the motive of establishing a dynasty against the pretension of electoral power on the part of the aristocracy, but this isn't the typical view of contemporaries and even some modern scholars have been less sceptical of Hugh's "plan" to campaign in Spain. Robert was eventually crowned on
30 December that same year.
Hugh Capet possessed minor properties near Chartres and Angers. Between
Paris and
Orléans he possessed towns and estates amounting to approximately 400 square miles (1,000 km²). His authority ended there, and if he dared travel outside his small area, he risked being captured and held for ransom, though, as God's anointed, his life was largely safe. Indeed, there was a plot in 993, masterminded by the
Bishop of Laon and
Odo I of Blois, to deliver Hugh Capet into the custody of Otto III. The plot failed, but the fact that no one was punished illustrates how tenuous his hold on power was. Beyond his power base, in the rest of France, there were still as many codes of law as there were fiefdoms. The "country" operated with 150 different forms of currency and at least a dozen languages. Uniting all this into one cohesive unit was a formidable task and a constant struggle between those who wore the crown of France and its feudal lords. As such, Hugh Capet's reign was marked by numerous power struggles with the vassals on the borders of the
Seine and the Loire.
While Hugh Capet's military power was limited and he'd to seek military aid from
Richard I of Normandy, his unanimous election as king gave him great moral authority and influence.
Adémar de Chabannes records, probably apocryphally, that during an argument with the
Count of Auvergne, Hugh demanded of him: "Who made you count?" The count riposted: "Who made you king?"
Dispute with the papacy
Hugh made
Arnulf Archbishop of Reims in 988, even though Arnulf was the nephew of the his bitter rival,
Charles of Lorraine. Charles thereupon succeeded in capturing Reims and took the archbishop prisoner. Hugh, however, considered Arnulf a turncoat and demanded his deposition by
Pope John XV. The turn of events outran the messages, when Hugh captured both Charles and Arnulf and convoked a synod at Reims in June 991, which obediently deposed Arnulf and chose as his successor Gerbert of Aurillac. These proceedings were repudiated by Rome, although a second synod had ratified the decrees issued at Reims. John XV summoned the French bishops to hold an independent synod outside the King's realm, at
Aachen, to reconsider the case. When they refused, he called them to Rome, but they protested that the unsettled conditions en route and in Rome made that impossible. The Pope then sent a legate with instructions to call a council of French and German bishops at
Mousson, where only the German bishops appeared, the French being stopped on the way by Hugh and Robert.
Through the exertions of the legate, the deposition of Arnulf was finally pronounced illegal. After Hugh's death, Arnulf was released from his imprisonment and soon restored to all his dignities.
Legacy
Hugh Capet died on
24 October 996 in Paris and was interred in the
Saint Denis Basilica. His son
Robert continued to reign.
Most historians regard the beginnings of modern France with the coronation of Hugh Capet. This is because, as
Count of Paris, he made the city his power center. The monarch began a long process of exerting control of the rest of the country from there.
He is regarded as the founder of the
Capetian dynasty. The direct Capetians, or the
House of Capet, ruled France from 987 to 1328; thereafter, the Kingdom was ruled by collateral branches of the dynasty. All French Kings down to
Louis Philippe, and royal
pretenders since then, have been members of the dynasty.
As of 2007, the
Capetian dynasty is still the head of state in the kingdom of
Spain (in the person of the
Bourbon Juan Carlos) and the duchy of
Luxembourg, being the oldest continuously reigning dynasty in Europe.
Queen Elizabeth II is a direct descendent of Hugh Capet.
Ancestors
Marriage and issue
Hugh Capet married
Adelaide, daughter of
William Towhead,
Count of Poitou. Their children are as follows:
A number of other daughters are less reliably attested.
Further Information
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