ABSTRACT

French society in the early Capetian period used to be seen as a clearly defined ‘feudal hierarchy’. A wealth of regional and local studies of French society and politics in the Middle Ages has radically changed our perceptions of medieval France. In the southern regions of France, public power remained strong in theory, but in reality the princes there preserved some degree of authority only by making convenientiae, alliances with the lesser nobles, and relying on the peace of God and a rigid social structure to maintain their predominance. The princes were acting within the framework of the French kingdom. The duchy of Burgundy evolved from a part of one of the sub-kingdoms of the Carolingian empire to a nascent territorial principality in the tenth century, in a transition marked by considerable violence, as Steven Robbie has shown.