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31.32. 32. In what Manner the Crown of France was transferred to the House
of Hugh Capet.

The inheritance of the fiefs, and the general establishment of rear-fiefs, extinguished the political and formed a feudal government. Instead of that prodigious multitude of vassals who were formerly under the king, there were now a few only, on whom the others depended. The kings had scarcely any longer a direct authority; a power which was to pass through so many other and through such great powers either stopped or was lost before it reached its term. Those great vassals would no longer obey; and they even made use of their rear-vassals to withdraw their obedience. The kings, deprived of their demesnes and reduced to the cities of Rheims and Laon, were left exposed to their mercy; the tree stretched out its branches too far, and the head was withered. The kingdom found itself without a demesne, as the empire is at present. The crown was, therefore, given to one of the most potent vassals.

The Normans ravaged the kingdom; they sailed in open boats or small vessels, entered the mouths of rivers, and laid the country waste on both sides. The cities of Orleans and Paris put a stop to those plunderers, so that they could not advance farther, either on the Seine, or on the Loire. [201] Hugh Capet, who was master of those cities, held in his hands the two keys of the unhappy remains of the kingdom; the crown was conferred upon him as the only person able to defend it. It is thus the empire was afterwards given to a family whose dominions form so strong a barrier against the Turks.

The empire went from Charlemagne's family at a time when the inheritance of fiefs was established only as a mere condescendence. It even appears that this inheritance obtained much later among the Germans than among the French; [202] which was the reason that the empire, considered as a fief, was elective. On the contrary, when the crown of France went from the family of Charlemagne, the fiefs were really hereditary in this kingdom; and the crown, as a great fief, was also hereditary.

But it is very wrong to refer to the very moment of this revolution all the changes which happened, either before or afterwards. The whole was reduced to two events; the reigning family changed, and the crown was united to a great fief.

Footnotes

[201]

See the "Capitulary of Charles the Bald," in the year 877, apud Carisiacum, on the importance of Paris, St. Denis, and the castles on the Loire, in those days.

[202]

See above, chapter 30.