88: The Medieval Tour de France
We're starting a whole new journey, looking beyond 'France' to all the parts of it that made it, well, France!
Since introducing the Capetians, the main series has primarily focused on the north of France. Beginning with the scion of House Capet, we followed their struggle for dominance over their far-flung territories. We watched them rise to the occasion time and again, subduing rebellious lords. In the early 13th century Philippe II Auguste broke the medieval arithmetic when he destroyed the Angevin Empire and repulsed an attack by the Holy Roman Emperor. His victory ushered in a new era of royal primacy throughout the north.
Not long after, the monarchy stretched its hand across the south as well. In 1209, Pope Innocent III called for a crusade against the Cathar heresy that had spread through Occitania. The brutal Albigensian Crusade lasted twenty years and claimed over 200,000 souls as northern lords rampaged across the sun-washed coastal terrain. Philippe II’s grandson, Saint Louis IX granted the northern crusaders titles to southern lands; as vassals of the king, the monarchy indirectly held power along the Mediterranean. A later marriage alliance and new forms of administration meant that the north-based kings could exercise direct power over the faraway provinces.
The Albigensian Crusade will be an odyssey for a later date. Before we cover that cataclysmic war we are going to go back and look at the different regions of the kingdom. The period before the early 13th century was one of incredible diversity in culture, language and even religious movements, all of which must be covered before we barrel forward with the latter half of the Capetian dynasty.
First, there was the territory of Provence in the southeast. In 933 this region had managed to break away entirely from France, becoming the Kingdom of Arles before its incorporation into the Holy Roman Empire in 1032. Despite political separation, Provence remained connected to the kingdom of France through common culture, the similarity of the Provençal dialect to other versions of French and through the shared religious affiliations of their churches. After expelling an Islamic force from Fraxinetum, Provence flourished under its counts. As Provence fell into a period of internecine violence, the powerful regional church developed the first codes of chivalry to turn the brigand lords into Christian knights. Through marriage with the ruling house of Barcelona, there existed a cross-Mediterranean culture as Catalan and Italian poets crafted poems of love and Christian virtue. Provence served as France’s gateway to Italy, which meant great material wealth flowed through it. Later on, when Pope Gregory VII pushed for reform in the church, Provence reoriented towards Italy, becoming closer in religious ideals to the peninsula than northern France.
Westward along the coast was the County of Toulouse. Toulouse served as the heart of Occitan culture. Troubadours inaugurated a whole new style of romantic poetry, renowned throughout the Western Mediterranean. The later Italian poet Dante Aligheri, said that the people of Occitania, “first composed poems in this sweeter and more perfect language.” Dante was such an admirer of the southern French that his masterwork, The Divine Comedy, included eight verses in Occitan. No other foreign language was given such an honor, as the rest was reserved for Italian. It was in this region that the mighty Count of Toulouse ruled as a king of the south, though he soon came to fear being surrounded as the House of Barcelona married into the ruling house of Provence, creating a personal Catalan-Provençal union. The people of Toulouse were perhaps more active in religious experimentation than anywhere else, though they would come to regret it. When townsfolk from Albi preached that there were two gods, one the good God of the New Testament, and the other an evil god of the Old Testament, devout Catholics sought to crush these wild beliefs.
Then there was Aquitaine. From their seat in Poitiers, the ruling house controlled an area that stretched over a quarter of France. Its dukes were among the most powerful and distinguished in the West. Duke Guillaume IX was their most famous leader, as he was the first known troubadour poet and a leader of the Crusade of 1101, a failed attempt to assist the new crusader states. Pilgrims traversed Aquitaine on the route to Santiago de Compostela, one of the holiest sites in Christendom. If Poitiers was the political center of Aquitaine, then Bordeaux was its heart. With its enormous wine industry, Bordeaux provided joy as far away as England. Furthermore, it was the Aquitanians who produced the Rolls of Oléron, the first maritime laws regulating trade in the Atlantic Ocean.
To the far northwest was the peninsula of Brittany. The Bretons had always been a fiercely independent people, going back to the time of Astérix and Obelix. They resisted incorporation into the Frankish Empire in one of the few defeats Charlemagne ever faced. In this rugged landscape, the Celtic peoples fought against Normans for independence, that is, when the rival houses of Nantes and Rennes weren’t fighting with each other for dominance. Bretons maintained their culture through their Celtic language, which they turned into lais, rhyming romantic poems. The most famous of these were written by Marie de France, a rare woman writer. This period was a defining time for Breton culture, as poets crafted the foundational Arthurian legends.
Still other regions, such as Anjou, Champagne and Burgundy, were home to vibrant cultures, powerful lords, and sites of epic battles.
Beyond major territories, we’ll look at the figures, artworks and cultural achievements that defined this era. As we shall see, this was a time of intellectual giants. Philosopher Pierre Abélard overturned centuries of religious thinking by pointing out contradictions in the Bible and church tradition as a means of reconciling them through logical interpretation. A devout theologian and scholar, his work set the stage for Scholasticism. One of his contemporaries, Saint Bernard of Clairvaux, founded the Knights Templar and led the Cistercian movement. Meanwhile, Chrétien de Troyes founded many of the major Arthurian legends and pioneered a new era of romantic literature.
This was also a period where many great women left their mark on history. While Héloïse is mostly remembered for her doomed romance with Pierre Abélard, she was a brilliant philosopher whose works were centuries ahead of their time. Her theories on love and her critiques of marriage as a legal framework for subsuming a woman’s identity made her a powerful feminist voice seven hundred years before the word ‘feminism’ existed. Marie de France not only composed Breton lais but translated Aesop’s Fables into Norman French and is the first known woman writer working in French. Add to these an entire genre of remarkable women trobairitz, that is female troubadours, who added their own voices to the growing musical culture of the south and we have an era where women carved important spaces for themselves not as behind-the-scenes helpers of men, but as changemakers in their own right.
The early High Middle Ages in France birthed some of the country’s greatest and lasting artistic achievements. The Song of Roland created a whole new genre, known as the chanson de geste, or ‘song of great deeds.’ From these epics comes our very conception of fantasy, of a noble time of honorable knights with enchanted swords fighting wicked foes and evil creatures to save beautiful damsels. Gothic architecture literally raised the roof, creating spaces of unprecedented light. Add to this a whole new focus on stained glass windows which produced still-unmatched marvels such as Notre-Dame de Paris’ Rose Window. Abbot Suger’s theory that ethereal light inside cathedrals created an illumination that brought one closer to a spiritual plane led to a colored glassmaking frenzy.
Then there’s everyone’s favorite medieval creation: castles. Castles changed more than virtually anything else during this period. When Hugues Capet ascended the throne of West Francia in 987 most castles were wooden motte-and-bailey structures. These were soon replaced by Norman stoneworks whose simple design could be replicated anywhere, yet were hardy enough to withstand the paltry siege equipment of the time. By the 12th century the Angevins and Capetians engaged in an arms race, building larger and more sophisticated castles until Philippe II Auguste won their contest with the Louvre, which became the model for medieval European fortresses.
If there is one major takeaway from this new journey we’re setting out on, it’s that a decline in central power did not necessarily mean a decline in the country’s economic, cultural, intellectual or artistic output; it could mean the exact opposite. Regional lords created their own courts where they patronized artists and intellectuals, leading to a diversity of culture never seen before. Local churches and monasteries were freer to develop ideas and lead powerful movements, such as the Cluniacs and Cistercians, or the heretical Cathars. At times, the absence of authority led to chaos, as in early 11th century Provence when upstart lords regularly pillaged each other’s lands. Yet, even here there was creativity and energy, as the church responded to the daily violence with the creation of the Truce of God movement.
One last sector of development I should mention is food. France experienced an agricultural revolution as farmers adopted the three-field rotation system, wherein two fields grew crops while the third was left to rest. This new method replaced the two-field system and led to far more productivity. This meant more food, less famine and a greater variety of crops and animals entered people’s diets. Cooks for the aristocracy developed sauces, which supplemented the spices imported through Mediterranean ports. This was also a time of ample wine production. Monasteries produced for local customers while Bordeaux developed a wine industry that shipped along Western Europe’s Atlantic coasts. While still in its early stages, French cuisine made great strides during this period.
This will be our roadmap: we’re going to put the Capetians aside for a moment and look at the different regions of France and the many exciting developments therein. We’ll dive into the daily lives of nobles and commoners alike. We’ll recite poetry and gossip about courtly love. All the finer things will be covered during this special time in French history when, without a dominant central power, the country’s various regions were more unique than perhaps at any other time.