The Capetians rose from obscurity to unquestioned power in the space of three centuries.
The kings of the 11th century added political and territorial influence to Hugh Capet’s
legacy, but Louis VI (r. 1108–37), is usually considered to have reestablished French
royal power. Louis, who was fortunate in having a laudatory biographer in his friend
Suger, abbot of Saint-Denis, was effective in making the king’s vassals recognize royal
suzerainty; the great lords of France presented the Capetians with few problems after the
first decades of the 12th century. His greatest territorial triumph was acquiring Aquitaine
for his son, Louis VII (r. 1137–80), by marrying him to Eleanor, heiress to the vast
duchy. This triumph lasted only for fifteen years, however; Louis divorced Eleanor on
grounds of consanguinity in 1152, although the real reason seems to have been her failure
to produce a son. She brought Aquitaine to her new husband, Henry II of England, and
English control of Aquitaine was to last for 300 years. Because of this loss, and his
involvement in the unsuccessful Second Crusade (1147), Louis VII is often seen as a
weak king. But he should be credited with establishing excellent relations with both the
secular and ecclesiastical powers of the kingdom and with laying the foundations for the
achievements of his son, Philip II Augustus (r. 1180–1223).
Philip reorganized the government, using a system of royal officers to oversee estates
and courts. He relied especially on nonnobles, men who owed their position to the king,
rather than on the sometimes dangerously independent nobles who had earlier served as
royal officials. After the loss of the French royal archives at the Battle of Fréteval in
1194, Philip set up an efficient royal chancery, which remained at Paris rather than
traveling with the king. He was able to generate enough revenues to pay for expensive
wars against England, cultimating in the Battle of Bouvines (1214), where he took
Normandy from King John.
The governmental organization of the early 13th century laid the basis for the reign of
Philip’s grandson, Louis IX (r. 1226–70), the most celebrated of the Capetians. Louis, the
only king of the high Middle Ages to be sainted, is known especially from the
Medieval france: an encyclopedia 316