ABSTRACT
At the beginning of the twelfth century, the Capetian realm lacked political and cultural unity within the frontiers set in 843 because of the divisions caused by the feudal crisis of the tenth and eleventh centuries. In 1130, the two main propagators of Innocent's influence in France were the two French cardinals, Matthew and Aimeric, who had built a huge network of acquaintances at the royal court and in the Ecclesia gallicana, while Anacletus could only rely on a single French cardinal, Gilo of Tusculum. An old friend of Louis VI and Henry I of England, Matthew was sent as legate to France from late 1127 to 1129, and improved relations with the French prelates, especially the reformers whom he met while travelling and at various councils. It was in significant measure through Matthew's wide friendship network that Innocent II quickly found supporters in Capetian France and the Anglo-Norman world in 1130-1131.
