History 101 Video Presentation 2 Hugh Capet

Hello, my name is John Paul, and today I'll be doing a video presentation on Hugh Capet. Disclaimer before I start. Some of the names and places may not be correctly pronounced according to the way they're supposed to be pronounced in French. Here's some background info about Hugh Capet. He was born in 936 in Paris in West Francia. His father was Hugh the Great, who was the Duke of the Franks. His mother was Hedgewidge of Saxony, and he was a descendant of Charlemagne through his grandmother's side of the family. He became Duke of the Franks at age 17. At this time, the Duke of the Franks was more powerful than the King of the Franks. Essentially, the Duke of the Franks was the power behind the throne, who controlled the day-to-day politics of West Francia. However, due to his young age and the King's age, his and the King's power was exercised by regents, who were heavily influenced by outside powers, especially by one particular individual who appointed the regents, who was the Holy Roman Emperor at the time. He was also his uncle, who was known as Otto I. Otto I also had influence over the King's regent, who was a youth at the time. The King's name was Lothair. King Lothair was a cousin of Hugh Capet. At the time, the Duchy of Normandy and Burgundy were independent. And at one point, there was a war between Normandy and the rest of France that was more loyal to the crown. One of the ambitions of Otto is that he wanted to have West Francia to be his vassal. This obviously did not happen due to Otto's death and the end of the regency, and that of East Francia. One of his goals at the end of the regency was to increase his power. One of the ways he tried doing this was marrying his wife, Aladine of Aquitaine. Aquitaine was a duchy in Southern France. However, his ambitions in Southern France did not turn out very well. He still did not have as much influence as he had hoped for in Southern France. Another thing that happened during the reign of King Lothair that Hugh Capet was involved in was a war between West Francia and East Francia over Lorraine. One of the reasons Lorraine was important and a huge flashpoint between West Francia and East Francia is that Hugh Capet and the king, Lothair, had Hugh's sister and the cousin of the king, who was the regent for the Duke of Upper Lorraine, who was her son. It was caused by the Holy Roman Emperor Otto II appointing a Duke of Lower Lorraine, which was a territory that was disputed between West Francia and East Francia. During this war, Hugh marched with the king of France, Lothair, and their armies eventually were so successful that they made it to the capital of East Francia at the time, otherwise known as the Holy Roman Empire. Otto retaliated by attempting to crown the kings of West Francia's brother as king when he attempted to invade West Francia. However, eventually the war ended in a stalemate, which basically changed nothing, except it increased the prestige of Hugh Capet. The war also created an enemy of Hugh Capet, Charles, who would later attempt to get the throne when Hugh Capet is trying to get the throne. In 986, King Lothair dies and is succeeded by his son, Louis V. During Louis V's reign, Hugh Capet was effectively the most powerful noble in France, and he effectively was the power behind the throne. However, his power behind the throne mostly started during the previous king's reign. King Louis V, however, only lasted one year before he died, and when he died childless, it left the throne open for Hugh Capet to take power. The nobles then held an election for a new king, and the two major candidates were Hugh Capet and Charles, who was the Duke of Lorraine, a person who was heavily influenced by the Holy Roman Emperor, Otto II. Many of the nobles originally wanted to support Charles. However, the church refused to crown him, especially the very important Archbishop of Reims, who was a very important archbishop at that time. They essentially argued that he betrayed West Francia, especially when he became a vassal of Otto II, the Holy Roman Emperor, who was a rival of West Francia. Also, that war that happened over when Charles became Duke of Lower Lorraine and pledged his allegiance to the Holy Roman Emperor as a vassal, where he essentially broke his oath to the King of France, which oath-swearing back then was very serious and not taken lightly when somebody broke their oath to someone, especially a king. One of the bishops pushing for Hugh was the future Pope, Sylvester II, who, by the way, was the first pope to ever come from France. Ever. Hugh Capet's election was unanimous when they elected him king. He was then coronated on July 3rd, 987, in the town of Noyne by the Bishop of Reims. Eventually, though, Charles did contest Hugh Capet's crown, which led to a brief conflict, which was started by a bishop he appointed, who was apparently pro-Carlingian, which was the dynasty he replaced, and the family which Charles was a member of. The bishop was named Arfmouth, and he was appointed by Hugh Capet to make the people less angry who supported the Capetan dynasty over his own, a new dynasty that he was starting. That archbishop was appointed to replace the previous archbishop who had died, who was a fervent supporter of Hugh Capet. This new bishop was, who was also an illegitimate son of King Luthar. When Hugh Capet heard of this bishop's betrayal, he sent a letter to the pope requesting that the bishop be removed from office. Unfortunately for Hugh Capet, this bishop was not removed by the pope because the pope had to deal with a bunch of problems happening at home at the time, with some dispute regarding the pope's nobles, which kept him preoccupied for a while. The Bishop of Reims essentially surrendered the city of Reims to Charles, where Arfmouth then swore an oath of fealty to Charles, essentially violating his oath with Hugh Capet. One of the nobles who escaped was a bishop who was loyal to Hugh Capet. His name was Albert Edun, and he was the bishop of Laon, who tried to mediate between the two, but in reality, he was very pro-Hugh Capet. He essentially pretended that he was friends with Charles and Arfmouth when he visited them, but he then betrayed them in the night, and kidnapped them and took them to Hugh Capet, who then had Charles in prison for the rest of his life. In the city of Orleans, he also had Arfmouth in prison. He was eventually released under his son, Robert II. As king, he never ventured to the south of the country, because many of the nobles did not like him and only nominally swore fealty to him. He mostly stuck to his lands during most of his reign. However, he was much more powerful than previous kings who came before him. He died eventually after nine years on the throne, and was succeeded by his son, Robert II. Hugh Capet's dynasty lasted until the 1300s, but it still continued through cadet branches of the family, and reigned in France until the French Revolution stopped it for a brief period, and they ruled after the French Revolution, after the overthrow of Napoleon. 1848 Revolution, which completely overthrew his family, which has lasted up to the present day. One of his descendants is the current king of Spain, who are descended from the French House of Bourbon, which is a cadet line of the Capet dynasty. Here are the sources for my project. Thanks for watching my video presentation.