ABSTRACT
While the Anglo-Norman monarchy was being evolved and struggling for control of all power in the tumult of conquest and civil wars, the Capetian dynasty was succeeding in losing the nominal prestige and the general powers which it had inherited from the Carolingians. The century which elapsed between the accession of Philip I (1060) and the death of Louis VII and the foundation of the Angevin Empire was one of great events, great conflicts, and great innovations. The Capetian monarchs took little or no part in them and could merely watch their development either owing to weakness or because they had to fight, even in the lie de France, against brigandage.
