ABSTRACT
TO study the development of the French monarchy in the framework of Feudalism, we will take up our position at its traditional starting point, the accession of Hugh Capet in 987. This is not due to any inability to suggest good reasons for choosing some other. Ever since the end of the ninth century the transformation of political society by the system of homage, by infeudation, and the excessive weakening of the royal power had been an accomplished fact. Moreover, since that period the ancestors of Hugh Capet had held the throne alternately with the Carolingians: Hugh was the fourth of his family to assume the crown and the pretended change of dynasty in 987 is only a legal convention, an invention of historians to make classification more easy. It would be quite possible, therefore, to start at an earlier date. We could equally well select one more recent and ignore the reigns of Hugh Capet (987-996), Robert the Pious (996-1031), and Henry I (1031-1060) for during this three-quarters of a century the nature of the royal power, its instruments, and its sphere of authority, even its political exterior, did not differ from those of the later Carolingians. It was only in the time of Philip I (1060-1108) that the first outlines of a less nebulous French monarchy were drafted and that the conquest of England by the Duke of Normandy created a new problem.
