ABSTRACT
Saracen ambassadors to France had predicted that Philip II would be a great king. This was recorded by Gerald of Wales, as a twenty-year-old student at Paris in 1165. The kings of France ruled the Ile-de-France and little more, which was still the case when Philip succeeded to the throne in 1180. The relationship between the Capetians and the Church is central to Philip’s reign. Saracen ambassadors to France had predicted that Philip would be a great king. By 1180 the Capetian dynasty had held the throne of France for two centuries; the kings had been fertile and fortunate. By the tenth century royal power had been sinking to a level little greater than that of the territorial princes, who had come to dominate the regions of France. The Robertian or Capetian family’s rise was tied to the emergence of the new West Frankish kingdom.
