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HISTORY OF FRANCE


Cave-dwellers of France and Spain: from 30,000 years ago

The area to the north and south of the Pyrenees, in modern France and Spain, is occupied from about 30,000 years ago by palaeolithic hunter-gatherers who make good use of the many caves in the area. They leave astonishing signs of their presence, and of their sophistication, in the paintings with which they decorate the walls.

There are many surviving examples, of which the best known are Lascaux in France and Altamira in Spain. But almost twice as old are the paintings recently discovered in the Chauvet Cave in France.

Neolithic villages: from the 5th millennium BC

In the regions bordering the Atlantic coast, the transition from palaeolithic hunter-gatherers to neolithic villagers begins in about 4500 BC. These villagers later develop a striking tradition of prehistoric architecture.

In most of Europe neolithic communities live in villages of timber houses, often with a communal longhouse. But along the entire Atlantic coast, from Spain through France to the British Isles and Denmark, the central feature of each village is a great tomb, around which simple huts are clustered. The tomb chambers of these regions introduce the tradition of stonework which includes passage graves and megaliths.
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A famous early example of a stone passage grave, from about 4000 BC on the åle Longue off the southern coast of Brittany, has a magnificent dome formed by corbelling (each ring of stone juts slightly inwards from the one below). It is the same principle as the beehive tombs of Mycenae, but they are more than 2000 years later.


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The arrival of the Celts: from the 6th century BC

During the last centuries of their prehistory, France and northern Spain are infiltrated by energetic tribes originating in central Europe. They speak an Indo-European language, and they know how to work iron. Their arrival inaugurates the Iron Age in these regions. They are the Celts, known to the Romans as the Gauls.

Meanwhile civilization has been brought to the coasts of both France and Spain by colonists from further east in the Mediterrean. The most important colonies are Massilia (Marseilles), settled by Greeks in about 600, and Cadiz, established by the Phoenicians at about the same time (though tradition gives it a much earlier date).
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Marseilles and the Romans: 3rd - 1st century BC

The traders of Marseilles extend a network of colonies along the coast, and so become the commercial rivals of the Carthaginians, the successors of the Phoenicians in Spain. This makes Marseilles the natural ally of Rome in the Punic Wars. Thereafter Marseilles is of great importance to Rome in keeping open the coastal route between Italy and Spain.

In 121 a Roman army wins a conclusive victory over the surrounding Celtic tribes. The Roman province of Gallia Transalpina (also called Gallia Narbonnensis, from its capital at Narbonne) is established by 118 BC. Marseilles, a loyal ally to Rome, remains a free city. The tribes elsewhere in Gaul retain their independence until the campaigns of Julius Caesar.

Caesar's years in Gaul: 58-50 BC

Caesar is away from Rome for eight years. During this time he systematically subdues the Celtic tribes in Gaul, making separate alliances with their many independent chieftains. He even adventures beyond the natural boundaries of Gaul - the region framed by the Alps, the Rhine, the Atlantic and the Pyrenees.

In 55 and again in 53 he bridges the Rhine for brief campaigns into Germany. Twice in the same period he crosses the Channel to test the mettle of the Celts in Britain. According to Plutarch, writing 150 years later, this expedition is the first to prove to certain sceptical scholars in Rome that Britain really exists.

Caesar's campaigns into Germany and Britain suggest that he considers Gaul itself secure. The year 52 BC proves him wrong. The Celts find an inspiring leader in Vercingetorix, a young chieftain of the Averni. His early successes against Roman contingents are in the absence of Caesar, who has been wintering south of the Alps. But the great general's arrival does not make quite the difference to which he has become accustomed.

Caesar is besieging the town of Gergovia when Vercingetorix attacks and routs the Roman forces, killing 700. This is Caesar's first defeat in all his years in Gaul. It prompts many more tribes to come out in support of the rebels.

The next siege in the campaign reverses the situation. Vercingetorix holds the fortress of Alesia. Caesar and his troops, attempting to blockade the garrison, are themselves threatened by a large army of Gauls. But when the Romans win the first major battle between the two sides, the Gauls melt away. To save further lives, Vercingetorix rides out of the town and surrenders - in a dramatic gesture of Celtic chivalry.

He is kept in captivity for six years, until Caesar finds the right moment to lead him through the streets of Rome in a triumphal parade.

The Gallic War: 52 BC

It is probably in the autumn of 52 BC, after his defeat of Vercingetorix, that Caesar settles down in his winter quarters at Bibracte (to the northwest of modern Lyons) to record for posterity his successes in Gaul over the past six years.

The title he writes at the head of his papyrus is 'Gaius Julius Caesar's Notes on his Achievements' - though historians will come to know his book simply as The Gallic War. When the work is finished a copy goes off to Rome, where it is probably published during 51. Caesar has been assiduously cultivating support back in the capital, for political struggles to come. The book of his achievements is an important shot in this other campaign.

Roman Gaul: 1st century BC - 5th century AD

Gaul proves one of the most stable and economically important regions of the Roman empire outside Italy itself. This can be clearly seen in a town such as N”mes. Founded during the reign of Augustus, it is supplied with water by one of the most spectacular pieces of Roman engineering - the great aqueduct known as the Pont du Gard.

Other superbly preserved buildings in the town demonstrate how the Romans export both their state religion and their favourite entertainment. The famous Maison Carr»e is an exquisitely simple temple to the Roman gods. The amphitheatre holds some 24,000 people (about half as many as the contemporary Colosseum in Rome) for gladiatorial shows or chariot races.

But N”mes also shows traces of the end of Roman Gaul. In 407 it is sacked by the Vandals. About sixty years later it is occupied by the Visigoths, who build a fortress in the amphitheatre.

Great Germanic tribes, of which these are but two, have been pressing for centuries on Gaul's eastern frontier. Often they have made deep and devastating incursions into Roman territory. Always, eventually, the Roman armies have driven them back - until the 5th century, when new forms of accomodation are devised, turning the tribes into Roman allies. The result, by the end of that century, is a Gaul shared between Visigoths, Burgundians and Franks.

Visigothic kingdoms: 5th - 8th century AD

During the 5th century the Visigoths rule a large kingdom in southern France and frequently campaign south of the Pyrenees into Spain. In both contexts they are acting as allies of Rome. But in 475 a Visigothic king, Euric, declares his independence and energetically extends his own territory on his own account.

Spain is at first of secondary importance to the Visigoths, compared to France. But in 507 Euric's son is defeated by Clovis, king of the Franks, north of Poitiers. The French territory of the Visigoths is reduced to a coastal strip from the Pyrenees to the RhŸne.

The Merovingians: 5th - 8th century AD

The Franks provide the dynasty which can be seen as the first royal house of France. From them, in origin one of the Germanic tribes, the word France derives. The dynasty itself is called Merovingian, from Merovech - a leader of the tribe in the mid-5th century of whom nothing is known but his name.

The fortunes of the Franks begin with his grandson, Clovis. When Clovis inherits the crown, in about 481, he is only fifteen. The tribe's capital is then at Tournai, in what is now southern Belgium.

The reign of Clovis is a turning point in European history on two counts: his establishment of the first great barbarian kingdom north of the Alps; and his adoption of Roman Catholic Christianity, when the other barbarian rulers in Gaul are at this time all Arians.

Clovis extends his power from the Somme down to the Loire by using an unscrupulous blend of warfare, intrigue and murder to assert his authority over other Frankish tribes in the region. He then sucessfuly demands tribute from the Burgundians in the southeast and, more significantly, drives the Visigoths from the southwest. By 507 the whole of France, except a narrow strip along the Mediterranean, is his acknowledged realm.

In achieving this territorial success, Clovis has been much helped by his acceptance of the Roman version of Christianity. Many Christians in Gaul, loyal to Rome, accept him as a liberator from the Arian Visigoths.

His conversion follows a classic Christian pattern, involving a victory in battle (as with Constantine) and an already pious wife (as with Ethelbert of Kent). Clovis marries a Burgundian princess, Clotilda, who unlike the rest of her people is a Catholic. Her efforts to convert her powerful pagan husband bear fruit once he believes that Jesus has helped him defeat a rival Germanic tribe, the Alamanni, who have recently moved west across the Rhine into Alsace.

Clovis's victory over the Alamanni, taking place at some time between 495 and 506, is followed by a scene of mass baptism. A faith good enough for the king must be good for the army too. At Reims the bishop baptizes Clovis and some 3000 of his soldiers.

Clovis makes his capital in Paris, where he commissions the writing of the ancient pre-Christian code of law of the Salian Franks. His Frankish kingdom will lapse for a while into chaos; Paris will not immediately retain its central status; and only parts of the Salic Law will later be followed. But the kingdom of Clovis is unmistakably a new departure of great significance for northern Europe and for France.

Austrasia, Neustria and Burgundy: 6th - 7th century AD

After the death of Clovis, in 511, his territories are divided between his four sons. In the long term this form of equal inheritance will weaken the Merovingian realm, but for the moment expansion continues. The rich and important territory of Burgundy, formerly a tribute payer, is annexed as part of the Frankish kingdom in 534.

Gradually three separate kingdoms emerge within the wider Frankish realm. The original tribal territories, approximating to modern Belgium and northeast France, becomes known as Austrasia. The lands acquired by Clovis in central France are called Neustria (neu meaning 'new'). And Burgundy retains its own identity.

For more than two centuries after the death of Clovis these kingdoms are at least nominally ruled by his descendants, in varying combinations (Neustria and Burgundy often go together). Occasionally rulers are strong enough to unite the whole realm under central control - Clotaire II and his son Dagobert I are the most notable examples, from 613 to 639.

After the death of Dagobert the Frankish kings gradually lose power to their own lieutenants, in a pattern similar to what is happening at this same time in Japan (the process leading there to rule by shoguns). The Frankish equivalent of the shogun is the mayor of the palace.

Mayors of the palace: 7th - 8th century AD

In the Roman empire large households were run by an official known as major domus ('mayor of the house'), from whom we derive our major-domo. The Frankish kings adapt this system, calling their chief administrative officer major palatii, the mayor of the palace.

Administrators of this kind always tend to enlarge their own fief. The mayors of the palace gradually add to their domestic duties the roles of tutor to royal princes, adviser to the king on matters of policy and eventually even commander of the royal army. From the mid-7th century the usual conflict between Austrasia, Neustria and Burgundy evolves into a power struggle and outright warfare between the mayors of the respective palaces.

In 687, for the first time, one mayor controls all three kingdoms. He is Pepin II, who fights his way to this pre-eminence after becoming mayor of the palace in Austrasia in 679. His rule can be seen, with hindsight, as the start of a new royal dynasty. But the turmoil following his death in 714 makes this seem, at the time, improbable.

Pepin's only male descendants at his death are legitimate grandsons and an illegitimate son, Charles. Civil war results, by 727, in victory for Charles. His military prowess brings him the title Charles Martel ('the Hammer'). And from his Christian name (Carolus in Latin) his descendants become known to history as the Carolingians.

Charles Martel: AD 727-741

After asserting his rule over the traditional territories of the Frankish realm, Charles wages long campaigns against the pagan Germanic tribes who constantly raid his northern and eastern borders - Frisians, Saxons and Bavarians. (He also lends strong support to the missionary activities of St Boniface, hoping that conversion to Christianity will tame the heathens). Barbarians on these frontiers have been a constant threat for centuries to settled Gaul. But in recent decades there has also been a new and powerful group of intruders pressing in from the south - the Arabs in Spain.

They have advanced rapidly northwards through Spain in the few years since their arrival in 711. They are soon beyond the Pyrenees.

Narbonne is taken in 720. An extended raid in 725 brings the Arabs briefly into Burgundy. There is then a lull until 732, when a Muslim army takes Bordeaux, destroys a church near Poitiers and rides on towards Tours. Here the Arabs are confronted by an army of Franks led by Charles Martel.

It is not known precisely where the battle (known either as Poitiers or Tours) takes place, but it is won by the Franks. It marks the end, in the west, of the apparently inexorable advance of the Arabs. A few years later they withdraw to Spain and never again threaten Gaul. It is a significant turning point. Even so, an uprising by the Berbers of mercenaries in Spain in 741 causes the eventual Arab retreat from Gaul, rather than this one defeat on the battlefield.

The turning back of the Muslims is what assures Charles Martel his place in popular history. But his family's supplanting of the Merovingian rulers is an achievement of equal significance.

Charles himself maintains the fiction of Merovingian power. At first his son Pepin III (also known as Pepin the Short) does the same. He appoints a new puppet king, Childeric III, in 743. But in 751 he decides to replace him on the throne himself. Before doing so he secures the approval of the pope. Such direct involvement in the dynastic politics of Europe is a significant departure for the papacy.

Charles the Great: AD 768-814

The only empire which has ever united France and Germany (apart from a few years under Napoleon) is the one established in the 8th century by Charlemagne, the grandson of Charles Martel and son of Pepin III.

Charles - whose name Charlemagne is a version of the Latin Carolus Magnus (Charles the Great) - inherits the western part of the Frankish empire, a coastal strip from southwest France up through the Netherlands into northern Germany, on the death of his father in 768. Three years later his brother Carloman dies. Charlemagne annexes Carloman's inheritance - central France and southwest Germany. By the time of his own death, in 814, he rules much of the rest of Germany together with northern Italy.

The Carolingian inheritance: AD 814

Charlemagne intends, in the tradition of the Franks, to divide his territory equally between his sons. But the two eldest die, in 810 and 811, leaving only Louis - who succeeds as sole emperor in 814. His subsequent name, Louis the Pious, reveals a character different from his father's; he is more interested in asserting authority through the medium of church and monastery than on the battlefield.

Charlemagne's great empire remains precariously intact for this one reign after his death. Its fragmentation begins when Louis dies, in 840. But the name of Charlemagne in legend and literature remains vigorously alive .

The region united by Charlemagne includes, in modern terms, northeast Spain, France, Belgium, the Netherlands, much of Germany, Switzerland, Austria and north Italy. In 840, on the death of Charlemagne's son Louis the Pious, war breaks out between his three sons over their shares of this inheritance.

A division between the brothers is finally agreed, in 843, in a treaty signed at Verdun. The dividing lines drawn on this occasion prove of lasting and dark significance in the history of Europe.

Three slices of Francia: AD 843

Two facts of European geography (the Atlantic coast and the Rhine) dictate a vertical division of the Frankish empire, known in Latin as Francia. The three available sections are the west, the middle and the east - Francia Occidentalis, Francia Media and Francia Orientalis.

It is clear that Francia Occidentalis will include much of modern France, and that Francia Orientalis will approximate to the German-speaking areas east of the Rhine. Francia Media, an ambiguous region between them, is the richest strip of territory. Allotted to Charlemagne's eldest son, Lothair I, it stretches from the Netherlands and Belgium down both sides of the Rhine to Switzerland and Italy.

This central Frankish kingdom is in subsequent centuries, including our own, one of the great fault lines of Europe. The northern section becomes known as Lotharingia (the territory of Lothair) and thus, in French, Lorraine; between it and Switzerland is Alsace. As power grows or decreases to the west or the east, in the great regions emerging slowly as France and Germany, these Rhineland provinces frequently change hands or allegiance.

So, for many centuries, do the Low Countries, Burgundy and northern Italy.

Vikings in France: 9th - 12th century AD

As elsewhere in northwest Europe, Viking raids on the coast of France gradually evolve into settlement. During the last decades of the 9th century, Danes are in possession of the territory round the lower reaches of the Seine. Early in the 10th century they are joined by a Norwegian who has already distinguished himself adventuring in Scotland and Ireland. His name is Hràlfr. He is known in western history as Rollo the Ganger.

Rollo becomes leader of the Seine Vikings and by 911 he is strong enough to besiege the French city of Chartres. The siege ends when the Frankish king, Charles III, agrees at St. Clair-sur-Epte to grant Rollo feudal rights over the territory round Rouen.

The Viking word for a Scandinavian is Northman, which in medieval French becomes Normand. Rollo the Viking and his successors, rapidly expanding their territory beyond his original feudal grant, are known therefore as Normans. Their dukedom, in its larger boundaries, becomes and remains Normandy.

Rollo's descendants rule Normandy for two centuries, until the male line dies out in 1135 with the death of Henry I. Meanwhile they have become keen Christians (Rollo is baptized, though his son William I is the first Norman duke fully committed to the religion). But they lose nothing of their Viking restlessness, which finds expression in adventures outside Normandy.

Feudal upstarts: 9th - 10th century AD

The external threat from marauding Vikings in the west and from Magyars in the east aggravates an already grave internal problem for the feudal dynasties of Charlemagne's descendants. Feudalism, with its decentralization of military and territorial power, has at the best of times a tendency to foster regional independence. In periods of crisis, when the regions need to be well armed if they are to repel invaders, it is almost inevitable that the feudal holders of large tracts of frontier territory grow in strength until they are capable of challenging their own king.

Baronial contenders upset the succession to the throne in the west Frankish kingdom from the late 9th century and in the eastern kingdom a few years later.

The main rival to the Carolingian kings in Francia Occidentalis is the family of Robert the Strong. Count of extensive territories around the Loire, he plays a leading part in the struggle against the Normans. His son, Eudes, adds Paris to his feudal domains and defends it successfully in 885-6 against a Norman siege.

When the west Frankish king dies in 888, the nobles elect Eudes in his place instead of a member of the Carolingian dynasty. Subsequently the crown returns to Carolingian monarchs, but by the mid-10th century they rule only with the support of the descendants of Robert the Strong. One of them, Hugh the Great, exemplifies the nature of a great nobleman's power base.

Part of Hugh's strength derives directly from his feudal lands; he is count of Paris, with large territories between the Seine and the Loire. He also acquires a title of romantic resonance, capable of inspiring a special kind of loyalty; from 937 he is called 'duke of the Franks'. And he has useful brothers-in-law; his first wife is sister of an Anglo-Saxon king of England, his second is sister of the emperor Otto I.

More surprisingly, Hugh is the lay abbot of at least four great monasteries, bringing him considerable wealth and a voice in the vast network of Benedictines . This astonishing portfolio, as early as the 10th century, reveals the peculiar blend of secular and religious power in European feudalism.

At different periods Hugh supports and opposes the Carolingian dynasty in the west Frankish kingdom, depending on where he considers the best interest of his own family to lie. When he dies in 956, succeeded by three sons, he has considerably extended his territory around Paris and has secured the important duchy of Burgundy for his descendants.

Some thirty years later, in 987, Hugh's eldest son - also Hugh - is elected king by the west Frankish nobles in preference to a Carolingian claimant. His nickname, because of the capa or 'cape' which he wears, is Hugh Capet. His descendants become known as the Capetians.

The Capetian kings of France: AD 987-1328

The choice of Hugh Capet as king in 987 is the moment at which the western half of the empire of the Franks unmistakably becomes France. By a happy accident Hugh and his descendants for twelve generations have sons by whom they are succeeded without conflict, in a direct line of kings of France ruling from Paris. The last of these kings has no living heir, but he is succeeded on the throne by two brothers - making a total of fifteen Capetian kings in what is called 'the direct line'.

Meanwhile the duchy of Burgundy, though a separate realm, is held by members of the same family, beginning with two brothers of Hugh Capet. They tend to act in alliance with their cousins on the throne of France.

In the early years of the Capetian dynasty, their feudal lands around Paris are not vast by comparison with the holdings of other powerful dukes and counts. The Capetians gradually extend their power (they have an advantage as kings, being able to claim various royal dues, rights and taxes all over France). But other great lords also strengthen their territories - enlarging them by warfare, securing them by the building of stone castles, calming them by the establishment of monasteries.

By far the greatest threat to the royal dynasty comes from the neighbouring counts of Anjou, who by judicious marriages become the Plantagenet rulers of England, Normandy and much of western France.

Lands across the Channel: 11th - 15th century AD

The Norman conquest of England introduces a new situation in northwest Europe. Lands on both sides of the English Channel are from this time under the control of a single dynasty. The kings of England are also the dukes of Normandy.

A Norman-French royal family crowned in Westminster seeks to extend its territories on the French side of the water. At the same time a Frankish-French royal family crowned in Reims strives to assert its authority over the whole geographical region of France. The result is a prolonged struggle, eventually spanning some four centuries, in which the identities of medieval Europe's two strongest kingdoms are gradually shaped.

The struggle is not just one of warfare and battles. It is a complex game of dynastic marriages and interconnecting obligations. William the Conqueror, king of England, is technically the king of France's vassal - in his other role as the duke of Normandy.

Even more dramatic is the case of William's great-grandson, Henry II. Though a vassal of the French king, his lands occupy a region of France which is larger than the royal domain. The French king rules a realm around Paris and Orleans in the north. Henry II inherits a broad swathe down the entire west of the country.

Henry receives Anjou from his father's family, and Normandy (together with England) through his mother. But his largest holding in continental Europe comes through his marriage to Eleanor of Aquitaine. Henry is her second husband. Her first was the king of France, Louis VII. Were it not for this matrimonial switch, Louis rather than Henry would have secured Eleanor's regions of Aquitaine and Gascony.

In such a manner, in feudal Europe, are territories gained or lost. The major players in this vast board game are the two French dynasties - the Norman French line in England and the Frankish (or Capetian) line in France.

The princes of the two houses marry within the same limited circle, so western Europe becomes an interconnected web of French-speaking cousins - often with good claims to each other's territories. Louis VII and Henry II set a powerful example, as kings of France and England who marry the same heiress from Aquitaine. But the point can be made almost equally well among their successsors.

The kings who follow Henry II on the throne of England marry, in this sequence, daughters of the rulers of Navarre, Angouleme, Provence, Castile, France, Hainaut, Bohemia, Navarre, France and Avignon. During the same period kings of France marry daughters of Navarre, Provence, Castile and Hainaut.

In the long run the advantage lies with the French kings. Geography makes the Channel a natural boundary. A gradual trend away from patchwork feudal territories and towards the cohesive nation state means that eventually the proper place for the English must be north and west of this coastal boundary.

The process is a long one, not finally resolved until the end of the Hundred Years' War. The French first make major advances at the expense of the Norman English during the reign of Philip II.

Philip II and Louis IX: AD 1180-1270

The Capetian dynasty greatly extends its control in France during two reigns, of grandfather and grandson, who between them rule for a span of nearly ninety years.

The grandfather is Philip II. When he comes to the throne in 1180, the greater part of France owes allegiance not to Paris but to Westminster. Henry II, on the English throne, has among his hereditary possessions Normandy, Maine, Anjou, Touraine, Aquitaine (granted to his eldest son, Richard) and Brittany (granted to his second son, Geoffrey). Technically the English king is the feudal vassal of the French king in these territories. But between such powerful rulers this is little more than a nicety.

By the end of Philip's reign, in 1223, he has used a feudal pretext (the failure of the English king to present himself when summoned) as an excuse to seize Normandy, Maine, Touraine and Anjou. He completes this programme of armed acquisition in 1204-5. The territories form a convenient bloc with the royal heartland around Paris.

To the north Philip makes alliances which bring under his control Artois, Valois and parts of Flanders. In the last years of his reign the crusade against the Albigensians results in much of southern France being attached to the French crown.

Philip's son rules for only three years, as Louis VIII. His death in 1226 brings to the throne Philip's 12-year-old grandson, Louis IX. The contribution of Louis, in a reign which lasts until 1270, is to stabilize the newly extended Capetian inheritance.

It is a task for which he is well suited. His reputation among his contempories for wisdom and piety is not a mask for weakness. A measure of that reputation is the English acceptance of Louis as an arbitrator in 1264 between Henry III and his barons.

The piety of Saint Louis (he is canonized in 1297) is very much in the spirit of his time. He creates one of the most spectacular of Gothic buildings, the Sainte Chapelle, to house a relic - the supposed Crown of Thorns. And he twice goes on crusade to the Middle East, dying in north Africa during the second expedition.

Louis' domestic policy to some extent reflects this piety. Solemn edicts are issued against prostitution, gambling and blasphemy. But he also runs an honest and efficient administration, in which justice and legislation are subject to a new institution, that of parlement, with its own premises in the royal residence in Paris.

Centre of medieval Europe: 11th - 13th century

The Capetian kings preside over a French civilization which is a glittering source of inspiration within a rapidly developing Europe.

Monasteries are powerful forces in that development, and France is the home of the most significant new departures in monasticism. In the 11th century the reforms of Cluny offer an example widely copied throughout the west. In the late 12th century the two most influential new orders have their origins on French soil - the Carthusians in the Chartreuse region, the Cistercians at C”teaux.

In intellectual matters Paris has a commanding reputation by the 12th century, with teaching carried out in schools attached to the cathedral of Notre Dame and to monasteries in the city. Early in the century Abelard employs his dialectic skills to stimulating and often controversial effect at both Notre Dame and Sainte-GeneviÀve.

In 1231 pope Gregory IX licences the Sorbonne, Paris's university, as an independent institution. It soon becomes Europe's most famous centre of education, attracting theological students from all over western Christendom. Thomas Aquinas teaches there from 1257.

France enjoys a similar lead in artistic fields. The Gothic style of architecture has its origins here, first in the royal church at St Denis and then in Chartres. Many of the greatest examples of Gothic cathedrals are in other French cities. Pioneering developments in sculpture and stained glass form part of the same burst of creativity.

Meanwhile French vernacular literature invents and elaborates the medieval theme of romance, in poems such as the chansons de geste and in the lyrics of the troubadours of Provence.

France and the papacy: 13th - 14th century AD

From the early 13th century the papacy develops a particularly intense relationship with France. An example is the joint response to the Catharist heresy; the crusade to stamp it out is conducted by French nobles and the French crown on behalf of the pope.

In mid-century, Rome has close links with the devotedly Christian monarch Louis IX, who goes twice on crusade to the east and is canonized twenty-seven years after his death. In 1263 it is a French pope, Urban IV, who selects Louis' younger brother Charles of Anjou to rule the kingdom of Naples and Sicily.

By the end of the century the relationship is even more intense, but it has turned sour. From 1296 Boniface VIII is involved in a struggle with Philip IV of France about whether the king has the right to tax and discipline clergy in his own realm without the pope's permission. This struggle for temporal power between church and state prolongs, in another form, the earlier tussle of the investiture controversy.

In 1302 Philip enlists the estates general in Paris in support of his cause. Then, claiming that there were irregularities in the election of Boniface, he sends an envoy to Italy with instructions to stir up insurrection against the pope.

Hearing in 1303 that Boniface is about to issue a bull excommunicating his royal master, Philip's envoy (Guillaume de Nogaret) takes a bold step. He raises a small armed force and surprises Boniface at his birthplace, Anagni. He arrests the pope and holds him prisoner for two days.

Boniface dies a month later in Rome. The prestige of the papacy is severely dented by this episode, while Philip IV's power seems enhanced. A few years later he even contrives to destroy the great order of the Templars, forcing a French pope, Clement V, to comply with his wishes. Clement formally suppresses the order in 1312.

For much of the 14th century France appears to have the papacy in its pocket, almost literally. Clement V is the first of seven French popes in an unbroken succession spanning seventy-three years, to 1378. From 1309 these popes are based not in Rome but on French soil, at Avignon.

Clement moves his headquarters to Avignon in 1309 to prepare for a council which he has called in central France, at Vienne, to discuss the king of France's charges against the Templars. The town is friendly, for it belongs to a papal prot»g» - the Angevin dynasty of Naples. When major extensions to the bishop's palace are undertaken, from 1316, it becomes evident that the papal residence in Avignon is to be a long one.


A disputed inheritance: AD 1328

In 1325 France is unmistakably the heart of Europe. A French pope is resident in Avignon. The French king, Charles IV, has inherited from his Capetian ancestors a realm which, from its early beginnings around Paris, has grown steadily in size, wealth and influence. The kingdom has a larger population than any rival state in Europe (around 15 million). Paris is the continent's intellectual centre.

Three years later this stability is severely threatened by the early death of the king.

When Charles IV dies, at the age of thirty-four in 1328, he has been three times married but he has no son. Since the death of Hugh Capet in 996 there has always been a son (or very occasionally a brother) to inherit the French crown. In the present generation the pattern is broken. Charles IV succeeds two elder brothers (Louis X and Philip V), and he leaves two daughters - one of them born posthumously.

The claim of Charles's elder daughter is rejected on the grounds of her sex, even though the Salic law is not yet officially enshrined in the French system. A great assembly of feudal magnates is charged with deciding who is the rightful heir.

The closest male relative of Charles IV is his nephew Edward, the son of Charles's sister Isabella. There is a certain logical objection to Edward's inheritance; if the crown may not be inherited by a woman, it would seem inconsistent for it to be inherited through a woman.

There is another factor which the chronicles of the time imply to be an even more powerful obstacle. Edward is now Edward III, king of England. France does not want an English king.

In the circumstances it is not surprising that the assembly awards the crown to a more distant relation. Philip of Valois is only a cousin of Charles IV, but his descent is all-male and all-French (he is the son of a younger brother of Charles's father, Philip IV).

The Valois prince is crowned king at Reims in May 1328 as Philip VI, beginning a new (though closely related) line on the French throne. The dynasty's first reign is a difficult one. It includes the human and economic disaster of the Black Death. And the disputed succession brings on the long-drawn-out conflict known as the Hundred Years' War.

Two kings of chivalry: AD 1328-1364

The reigns of the first two Valois kings, Philip VI and John II, are troubled times in France. This is partly due to early English successes in the Hundred Years' War. These in turn result to a large extent from the French kings seeing war and international affairs in terms of chivalry - the code of honour of the medieval knight at arms.

At Cr»cy in 1346 Philip VI launches an attack on an English army withdrawing from France after a brief campaign of plunder. An old-fashioned and visually impressive cavalry charge against more pedestrian English archers leads to disastrous French losses. An even more significant defeat follows ten years later at Poitiers, under the leadership of John II.


The battle of Poitiers takes place over three days - a long weekend in modern terms, from Saturday to Monday in September 1356. Sunday is a truce, brokered between the two sides by the papal legate. The day of rest reveals, once again, the contrast between the romantically amateur French view of warfare and the new professionalism of the English.

The French knights treat their day off as a holiday, eating, drinking, socializing, relaxing. Meanwhile the English and their Gascon allies are busy digging trenches and making fences. The intention, as at Cr»cy, is to fight from a defensive position.

The final battle begins early on the Monday morning. By a combination of ambushes, hails of arrows and sudden cavalry charges downhill, the English and the Gascons throw the vanguard of the French army into disarray. The rearguard, commanded by the king himself, fights with great resolve. John II wins renown for his personal courage. But by mid-afternoon his army is overwhelmed, and he is a prisoner in English hands.

It is the beginning of four years of royal captivity, first in Bordeaux and then in the Savoy palace in London. After much negotiation a vast ransom of three million gold crowns is agreed in 1360. The taxation required to raise this sum is yet another burden in France so soon after the Black Death.

John II is freed in December 1360 and returns to Paris. While the ransom is being raised, two of his sons are held as hostages by the English. In 1363 one of them escapes. In a final gesture of medieval chivalry, John II atones for this dishonourable behaviour by returning to London. In January 1364 he delivers himself back into captivity in the Savoy palace. He dies there three months later.

The first two Valois generations have presided over a reduction in French prestige and power. John II's son, regent during his father's captivity and by nature more canny than chivalrous, reverses this decline during his reign as Charles V.

Charles V and Reims: AD 1364-1380

Charles V is known as Charles the Wise, a title earned as much by his statecraft as by his love of learning. He is indeed a friend of scholars and a passionate collector of books, building up an impressive royal library in a tower in the Louvre. But he also builds up royal France, recovering territories by patient attrition rather than direct conflict. Where his grandfather and father tend to plunge into battle, Charles prefers diplomacy.

At the centre of his statecraft is a consistent policy to enhance power by emphasizing the divine nature of kingship.

Medieval men and women are predisposed to the idea that divinity surrounds a king. Charles reinforces this theme by emphasizing his anointment during the coronation at Reims. There is a special magic in the oil used in this French ceremony, thanks to the miracle of the Sainte Ampoule or Holy Ampulla. This vessel, together with the holy oil which it contains, was supposedly brought from heaven by the dove of the Holy Spirit for the baptism of Clovis at Reims in 496.

Charles V's emphasis on the unique nature of the ceremony at Reims enhances his own status. And it later proves of paramount importance in resolving the crisis which engulfs France during the reigns of his son and grandson.

Charles VI: AD 1380-1422

The long reign of Charles VI brings disaster to France. During the first eight years the king is a minor; power accrues dangerously to his uncle, the duke of Burgundy. During the last 30 years, from 1392, the king is mentally deranged - bringing him the name Charles the Mad, in contrast to his father (Charles the Wise).

The elder Charles, dying in 1380, entrusts the realm to his three brothers during his son's minority. Of these three dukes one (Louis of Anjou) is mainly concerned with his claims to the Angevin kingdom of Naples. Another, John of Berry, plays some role in politics, but devotes most of his time to his famous collection. The field is open to the youngest (Philip of Burgundy).

Philip the Bold, duke of Burgundy from 1364, is also the heir through his wife to the rich but rebellious territory of Flanders. He persuades the young Charles VI to undertake a campaign to suppress the Flemish cities, a task achieved in a victory at Roosebeke in 1382. The army is French but the advantage of the victory flows to Burgundy. In this contrast lies the seed of much future trouble.

Philip the Bold acts as regent until Charles VI takes power into his own hands in 1388. The young king rules with skill and success, but only for four years. In 1392 he has an attack of violent madness, of a kind which recurs for the rest of his life.

Philip the Bold finds it easy to take control again. He rules, largely in his own interest, for twelve years. But his death in 1404 is followed by a bitter rivalry, leading to civil war, which paralyzes France for three decades.

The two great nobles vying for power are cousins - Louis, duke of Orl»ans, younger brother of the mad king, and John the Fearless who has succeeded his father as duke of Burgundy. In 1407 the duke of Orl»ans is murdered in a Paris street by henchmen of John the Fearless. The result is civil war between the Burgundians and the partisans of the murdered duke.

The Orl»ans supporters are known as the Armagnacs, being led by the count of Armagnac (whose son is married to a daughter of the murdered duke of Orl»ans ). The situation is much complicated by a third warlike power on the scene.

In 1415 a new king on the English throne, Henry V, escalates hostilities against the French. The Hundred Years' War has been rumbling on at a steady pace in recent years. But the arrival of Henry V in person in the Seine estuary, in August 1415, confronts the squabbling French with a sharp and immediate challenge.

Civil war: AD 1407-1435

The French array of knightood defeated by Henry V at Agincourt in 1415 represents one half of France's strength. This is only the Armagnac contingent. John the Fearless of Burgundy plays a watchful and duplicitous game, negotiating both with the English and the Armagnacs.

After Henry V takes Rouen in 1419, it seems that the two French factions may unite against the English threat. But this hope is dashed when John the Fearless, meeting the Armagnac leaders to negotiate, is murdered in 1419 in the presence of the 16-year-old dauphin, the future Charles VII.

By this time the mad king and his heir are on opposite sides of the struggle. Charles VI's queen, Isabella of Bavaria, has brought her incapacitated husband into the camp of the Burgundians. From 1418 they control Paris, after an uprising in the city ejects the Armagnacs. The dauphin, son of Charles VI and Isabella, escapes with the Armagnacs to Bourges where he declares himself to be regent of France.

This hollow boast is mocked by the treaty of Troyes, agreed in 1420 between Isabella and her Burgundian ally (the new duke, Philip the Good) on one side and Henry V of England on the other.

At Troyes Isabella disowns her son, the dauphin. Instead she offers his sister Catherine to Henry V as bride and heiress to the French throne. It is agreed that Henry will become king of France on the death of Catherine's mad father, Charles VI.

Events soon make a mockery of this cynical liaison. The marriage takes place in June 1420. A son, the future Henry VI of England, is born in December 1421. Henry V dies campaigning in France in August 1422. His father-in-law dies seven weeks later. By the terms of the treaty, a ten-month-old English infant becomes the king of France.

The king of Bourges: AD 1422-1437

Meanwhile the dauphin, the rightful king by descent, proclaims himself Charles VII of France. But he is confined south of the Loire, with Paris in the hands of his enemies (the English and Burgundians in alliance). Charles is known mockingly as the king of Bourges, where he maintains his court.

There is political impasse and desultory warfare until a dramatic development in 1429. For six months the English have been besieging Orl»ans, an important town on the Loire commanding the route south towards Bourges. In April a French force arrives to raise the siege. It is unusual in that it is led by a young peasant girl, Joan of Arc.

Inspired by Joan, the French drive the English north from Orl»ans. The raising of the siege proves the turning point in the long war. Joan leads Charles VII to Reims, where his consecration in 1429 brings him for the first time the undivided allegiance of the French people. Even the death of Joan at English hands, in 1431, does nothing to stem the new surge of national enthusiasm and success.

The duke of Burgundy, Philip the Good, acknowledges the trend when he makes peace with Charles VII in 1435 at Arras. This treaty ends the civil war. In 1437 the king enters Paris, now once again the capital. The French kingdom is almost back to normal.

The monarchy restored: AD 1437-1461

Charles VII's reign, beginning so unpromisingly in 1422, takes a remarkable turn for the better after his return to Paris in 1437. In his remaining quarter of a century he greatly enhances the power of the French monarchy.

He improves the kingdom's revenue. Taxes, increasingly fixed now by decree of the king's council, begin to be accepted as a permanent levy. Previously they were special payments granted by the estates general to meet a particular crisis in the royal finances. One result of this change is that the estates general meet less frequently, and thus gradually lose their power.

On the ecclesiastical front the freedom of the French king is much improved by an assembly of French clergy at Bourges in 1438. They declare a policy, immediately adopted by the king as a 'pragmatic sanction', which restricts the power of the pope to raise money or to make ecclesiastical appointments within French territory.

The pragmatic sanction of Bourges is an important step in the development of Gallicanism, the political creed which asserts the indpendence of the French church (though in reality exchanging papal control for royal interference).

In military matters Charles VII takes two important initiatives. He establishes France's first permanent professional army, with cavalry drawn from the nobility and infantry from the rest of the population. And he invests heavily in the new weapon which is only now beginning to come into its own on the battlefield - artillery.

Charles's guns play a part in the victories which recover from the English first Normandy and then Aquitaine. The battles of Formigny in 1450 and Castillon in 1453 are the last two major engagements of the Hundred Years' War, though the long conflict drags on formally for another two decades.

Even in commerce there is a strong advance, with much improvement in French trade - as seen in the extraordinary career of a merchant of Bourges, Jacques Coeur.

By the end of the reign, in 1461, the French king directly controls nearly all the vast area once held by his vassals. The only territories enjoying effective independence are Burgundy, Flanders and Brittany. Much of Burgundy and Flanders is lost in subsequent reigns, but Brittany is brought into the fold in 1491 when an heiress to the dukedom marries Charles VII's grandson, Charles VIII. All in all France's great martyr, Joan of Arc, would be well pleased with the turn of events in the decades after her death.

Louis XI: AD 1461-1483

The trend towards an autocratic monarchy is continued by Louis XI, son of Charles VII, though at times during his reign it seems as though he will lose control to rebellious nobles or to his great rival and enemy, Charles the Bold of Burgundy.

Louis fails diplomatically in relation to Burgundy, doing nothing to ensure that the Burgundian heiress, daughter of Charles the Bold, marries his own son, the French dauphin. Instead she marries a Habsburg, and most of the extensive territories of Burgundy are lost to France.

But diplomacy pays off, at a price, when Louis brings the Hundred Years' War to its final conclusion in 1475. He persuades the English king, Edward IV, to take his invading army straight home with financial compensation for lost opportunities.

Louis takes active steps to improve his kingdom's trade and commerce, as when he begins a great tradition of Lyons fairs by granting the city the privilege in 1463 to hold four such events annually. In the following year he establishes an official postal system for government business. He bequeaths a strong and prosperous France to his son, Charles VIII. But the young king has romantic ideas which endanger French interests.

Charles VIII and the Italian campaign: AD 1494-1495

Charles VIII is thirteen when he inherits the crown of France in 1483. He is twenty-four when he marches south, in 1494, to involve the kingdom in a series of disastrous Italian campaigns which will drain its resources to no good purpose over the next five decades.

Charles is misled by a romantic notion (encouraged by the duke of Milan, who needs support in Italy) that he can march to claim the throne of Naples, to which he has a right through the Angevin line. He even dreams of a further stage of glory. He imagines himself sailing from Naples to drive the Turks from Constantinople or Jerusalem. He will be crowned a new eastern emperor.

Charles VIII crosses the Alps in September 1494 with a massive army of 30,000 men. They pass peacefully through the territory of Milan and no doubt expect to do the same through Florence's Tuscan lands. France's quarrel is only with Naples.

But Florence has been recently identified as an ally of Naples. Sensing a crisis, the young Piero de' Medici imitates his father's famous act of personal diplomacy (his visit in 1479 to the king of Naples). Without informing the signoria, the official government of Florence, Piero makes his way to the camp of the French king.

In this encounter between two inexperienced young rulers, both in their early twenties, the Frenchman has the better of the bargain. Charles VIII emphasizes that all he wants is an assurance of Florence's good will, but adds that a convincing token of this would be the delivery into French hands of several key castles together with the ports of Pisa and Livorno. The records suggest that the French are astonished when Piero agrees.

So, when they hear of it, are the signoria in Florence. They protest that Piero has no authority to cede these Florentine possesssions, but it is too late. The French enter Florence and occupy Pisa (glad to be rid of the Florentine yoke) before moving on south.

Charles VIII and his army reach Rome on the last day of 1494. Pope Alexander VI, powerless to resist them, takes shelter in the Castel Sant' Angelo. On February 22, still unopposed, the French enter Naples. Two months later, on May 12, Charles is crowned king in his new city.

But in his inexperience he has left his line of withdrawal undefended. During March the pope and the other main Italian powers (except Florence) form the League of Venice against the intruder. As Charles withdraws north he is confronted at Fornovo, in July, by an army of the League (also sometimes known as the Holy League). The battle is confused and indecisive. Charles and his army escape to safety in France.

Charles has left French garrisons in Naples, but they soon lose the kingdom again to the Aragonese. Nevertheless Charles is preparing a new expedition to Naples when he dies, as the result of an accident at Amboise, in 1498.

This Neapolitan adventure, fruitless though it is, gives the kings of France a taste for campaigning in Italy. They briefly recover part of the kingdom of Naples in 1501-3. But their ambitions focus increasingly on northern Italy - which becomes in the early 16th century an almost permanent international battleground.

The Italian bran tub: AD 1499-1512

During the first three decades of the 16th century Italy is the scene of almost ceaseless warfare between local contenders (particularly Venice and the papacy) and foreign claimants (France and Spain), with occasional interventions from north of the Alps by Habsburgs and by armies from the Swiss cantons.

The Italian adventures of the French king Charles VIII are continued by Louis XII, his cousin and successor. To the long-standing French claim to Naples, Louis adds a new demand - he believes himself to be duke of Milan, by descent from his Visconti grandmother.

French armies seize Milan for Louis XII in 1499, and the French occupy part of the kingdom of Naples in 1501. The Spanish soon recover full control of Naples (by 1504), but the presence of the French in Milan causes an ambitious new pope, Julius II, to intervene in the unstable affairs of northern Italy. He marches north and captures Bologna in 1506.

Julius believes Venice and the French to be the two main threats to the papal states of central Italy. With ruthless diplomatic skill he organizes two different alignments of the principal players, to deal with each of his enemies in turn.

The pope forms first the league of Cambrai, in 1508, in which he persuades France, Spain and the Austrian Habsburgs to join him against Venice. The Venetians are defeated at Agnadello in 1509, after which Julius and the Habsburgs appropriate much of Venice's mainland territory.

With this achieved, the pope moves on to his second objective. He organizes the Holy League of 1511. Again there is a single enemy, but this time it is France. Venice, recently humbled, is enrolled with Spain and the Habsburgs on the papal side; and there is useful support from the Swiss, now considered Europe's most formidable fighters. Even Henry VIII of England joins in, at a distance.

In 1512 a joint army of papal, Spanish and Venetian forces weakens the French in a battle near Ravenna, after which the Swiss are able to sweep through Lombardy and drive the intruders from Milan.

At this stage Venice and France are the clear losers. But this has only been round one. In the next bout, the contest becomes much more clearly a clash between Spain and France - and in particular a personal rivalry between two young kings. Francis inherits the throne of France in 1515. Charles, a Habsburg, becomes king of Spain in the following year on the death of Ferdinand II.

Francis I and Marignano: AD 1515-1519

A new mood of youth and enthusiasm enters France with the accession in 1515 of the 20-year-old Francis I. The centre of a glamorous young group of courtiers, he is a cousin of the previous king, Louis XII, and is married to Louis' daughter.

In a spirit of adventure, Francis takes up his father-in-law's ailing and expensive cause in northern Italy. In the summer of 1515 he rides south to recover Milan from the forces of the Holy League. In a two-day battle at Marignano in September, the French defeat the ranks of Swiss infantry - mercenaries, fighting in the pope's cause, whose pikes and halberds have previously seemed invincible.

French artilllery plays its part in the victory at Marignano, but the French cavalry also cuts a dash - with the young king prominent in person. In a mood of medieval chivalry, Francis is knighted on the battlefield by a famous French warrior, Pierre de Bayard, the brave victor in many past encounters and known in his own lifetime as the chevalier sans peur et sans reproche ('knight without fear or reproach').

The rapid capture of Milan, in the first year of his reign, makes Francis the most glamorous monarch in Europe. Leo X, the Medici pope who was funding the defeated Swiss mercenaries, entertains the victor of Marignano in lavish style at his papal court in Bologna.

Francis, liking what he sees of the Italian Renaissance (the pope offers him a madonna by Raphael), determines to enjoy these splendours. He invites Italian artists to France, including even the aged Leonardo da Vinci. By the spring of 1517 Italy's most versatile genius has moved to Amboise, where a rocky fortress has recently been adapted as a royal residence.

Leonardo lives the last two years of his life with the title 'first painter and engineer and architect' of the French king. But in the year of Leonardo's death, 1519, there is a serious challenge to the status now enjoyed by Francis as the premier monarch of Europe. Charles, the even younger head of the Habsburg dynasty, emerges as a rival.

Charles versus Francis: AD 1529-1547

While coping with French hostility, Charles has other major concerns not shared by his rival - aggression from the Turks (on the empire's eastern frontier, and in the Mediterranean), and the Protestant unrest which is creating turmoil in Germany.

In 1529 (the year of the treaty between Charles and Francis) the Turks besiege Vienna and the pirate Barbarossa, working in alliance with the Turkish sultan, secures himself a base in Algiers. In 1530 Charles finds time to have himself formally crowned emperor by the pope in Bologna. Then he hurries north to negotiate with the Protestants at Augsburg. In 1531 Protestant princes form the League of Schmalkalden in opposition to Charles.

In these circumstances there is every reason for the two leading European monarchs, both Roman Catholic, to stand together. But Francis cannot accept the defeat implicit in the treaty of Cambrai. He now shocks contemporary opinion by negotiating with Protestants and even Muslims for an alliance against the Habsburg empire.

Francis goes to war twice more against Charles, in 1536-8 and 1542-4. The fate of Nice in 1543 suggests very well the bitter and improbable results of this royal rivalry. The Muslim ally of Francis in the siege of Nice (in the duchy of Savoy, which is part of the empire) is Barbarossa. The famous pirate, now a Turkish admiral, carries off 2500 Christians into captivity.

The legacy of Francis I: AD 1547

Although the loser in the long struggle with Charles V, Francis I leaves his mark on France in many ways. As in England and Spain at the same period, royal authority is strengthened during his reign with an increasingly centralized administration. And the royal splendour is reflected in art and architecture. Francis is the monarch, more than any other, who brings the Renaissance to France.

Leonardo da Vinci is the greatest artist attracted to the court of Francis I, but he is only one of many. And these artists adorn buildings which are now palaces, rather than royal castles or hunting lodges.

The centre of French court life is Fontainebleau, a royal hunting lodge almost entirely rebuilt by Francis I from 1527. Here he brings the Italian artists Rosso Fiorentino (in 1530) and Primaticcio (in 1532), who together establish a French style of mannerist painting known as the school of Fontainebleau. They are joined in 1540 by the goldsmith and sculptor Benvenuto Cellini, whose famous golden salt cellar is made at Fontainebleau.

Francis has earlier rebuilt Chambord, from 1519 - in name a castle on the Loire, in style a palace. In 1546 he begins to transform Paris's old royal castle, the Louvre, into yet another palace. France is later the home of absolute monarchy. In Francis I it has a foretaste of the theme.

Placards, Waldenses and chambre ardente: 1534-47

In the last few years of the reign of Francis I the persecution of Protestants within Catholic France grows more pronounced. The religious clash first becomes a prominent issue in France with the so-called 'affair of the placards' in 1534, when radical Protestants indulge in an unwise and intemperate gesture.

During the night of October 17 the streets of Paris and other towns are secretly plastered with posters mocking the sacrament of the mass. One is even found the next morning on the door of the bedroom in which Francis I is sleeping at Amboise.

Over the next few months there is an energetic rounding up of Protestants. Twenty-three are burnt at the stake before politics dampens religious fervour. Francis needs the friendship of German Lutheran princes.

In the 1540s there is a return to religious severity. It is prompted partly by the publication in 1541 of Calvin's French version of his Latin Institutes, in which he sums up his Protestant theology. His book is burnt in 1544, and the martyrdom of Protestants resumes - though not as yet in dramatic numbers. In 1555 Jean Crespin records their suffering in his Book of Martyrs, the equivalent of Foxe's influential volume in England.

The greatest outrage of the 1540s, the massacre of the Waldenses, cannot be blamed directly on Francis or on government policy. Local officials in Provence deliberately mislead the king in order to justify the persecution. The Waldenses, a medieval sect attracted by the ideals of reform, adopt a creed close to that of Calvin. In 1545 their villages are burnt and some 3000 men, women and children are massacred.

Religious policy becomes more rigid during the reign of Francis's son, Henry II. A special court (the chambre ardente, 'burning chamber') is set up in Paris in 1547 for the trying of heretics. The French Reformation is about to acquire its uniquely intense and political character.

Reformation in France: AD 1559-1572

France is affected by the Reformation in a manner and to an extent different from any other country. The reason is that the community is split from top to bottom on the issue; and the sides are so evenly balanced that a civil war based largely on religion lasts for four decades.

During the first half of the 16th century the reformed faith spreads among the ordinary people of France, encouraged by missionary priests trained in Geneva. The Protestants, who become known in France as Huguenots, are confident enough to organize in 1559 a national synod in Paris.

By this time there are powerful aristocrats in the Protestant camp, among them even members of the great Bourbon dynasty - a branch of the royal family, by distant descent from Louis IX. Their enemies are the Guise family, passionately committed to the Catholic cause. France's wars of religion in the 16th century are also a struggle between these rival camps.

In 1559, the year of the Protestant synod in Paris, Henry II dies (he is killed jousting in a tournament). For the next three decades the throne of France is occupied in succession by three of his sons. But the first two are in their teens when they inherit. The real power lies with the Guise family and with Henry's widow, Catherine de M»dicis.

At first, in 1559, the Guises have the upper hand. The young king, Francis II, is married to Mary Queen of Scots - whose mother is a Guise. But Francis dies in 1560. With the accession of her second son, Charles IX, Catherine de M»dicis becomes regent.

While sporadic warfare continues in France between Catholic and Protestant forces, Catherine's main concern is to retain a balance of power which will keep her family on the throne. To this end she arranges a marriage between her daughter, Margaret, and Henry of Navarre - the leading member of the Bourbon family. The wedding takes place in 1572. It is followed within a week by the atrocities of St Bartholomew's day.

From a massacre to a mass: AD 1572-1594

Many of France's Huguenot nobility are in Paris in August 1572 for the wedding of the princess Margaret and Henry of Navarre. Four days after the ceremony there is an assassination attempt on a leading Protestant, Admiral Coligny. It is probably planned by the regent, Catherine de M»dicis, together with the Guise family. But the admiral is only wounded.

The bungled plot prompts Catherine to over-react. She orders a massacre of all the Huguenots in Paris. The killing begins before dawn on August 24, St Bartholomew's day. Shops are pillaged, families butchered. By the evening of August 25 the government calls a halt, but the mob is now out of control.

Other towns follow suit. Estimates of the dead vary, with a likely total of between 10,000 and 15,000 Huguenots killed. Th