History of France I:

From Antiquity to the Middle Ages

France in ancient times

France boasts many archaeological sites where traces of early human life have been found, some dating back as far as 40, 000 BC. Lascaux and Cro-Magnon in the Southwest are among the best known, but the people who first settled France and displayed signs of an organized society with rulers, warriors, cult leaders, farmers, artists and tool makers, were the Gauls. Of Celtic origin, their domain was roughly that of present-day France and Italy. Fierce fighters, they threatened Rome itself, and in 390 BC exacted a huge ransom in exchange for sparing most of the city and its inhabitants. They often sold their services to other nations in need of armed men. During the Punic wars that pitted the Romans against the Carthaginians, they fought on Carthage's side under the command of Hannibal. But they were not a united people, and eventually were conquered by Julius Caesar.

In 52 BC, the fall of their stronghold, Alésia, and the capture and enslavement of their chief, Vercingétorix, marked the beginning of the Roman occupation. Gaul became a province of the Empire, and remained so until the fifth century. Vestiges of the Roman administration can be found everywhere in France: arenas, aqueducts, roads, bridges and many visible landmarks of French culture.

Today's French cherish the cultural affinities they share with their "gaulois" ancestors, and have popularized those in comic strips such as Astérix le Gaulois; but modern France is really the legacy of the Gallo-Roman civilization, combined with elements brought by a Germanic tribe, the Francs, who successfully broke through the territorial defence of the Roman empire and settled in northern Gaul. The Francs were not alone in overrunning the limits of the Empire; with them came the Vandals, who first settled Spain before being pushed to North Africa, the Wisigoths, who settled the Southwest of France before being pushed into Spain by the Francs, the Burgonds, who gave their name to Burgundy, and the Alamans, who settled in Alsace. Gaul, which had been ruled for almost five centuries by the Romans, became the theatre of invasions and fighting among various barbarian tribes.

At the same time, the Angles and the Saxons were being pushed by the same invaders across the channel to the British isles, where they in turn displaced the Celts. The Celts moved north to Scotland, or retreated across the English Channel to the westernmost part of France, now known as Brittany (Bretagne).

The Middle Ages

The fragility of a Western Roman Empire that could no longer contain its neighbours was an opportunity that the Francs seized. They established a small kingdom in northern France and Belgium. King Clovis expanded his territory by defeating the Alamans, the Wisigoths and what was left of the Gallo-Roman kingdom of Syagrius. In 499, Clovis converted to Christianity, and accepted the divine authority of the Pope. In return, he received the support of the Church, the only structured organization that could assist in the administration of a large territory.

The sixth and seventh centuries saw mostly mediocre monarchs referred to as les rois fainéants (the lazy kings), and in the eighth century, the kingdom was threatened by the incursions of the Muslim Saracens. Warrior kings were once again needed. Charles Martel, a prince without immediate family ties to the king but the actual governor of the kingdom, stopped the invaders at Poitiers in 732. He subordinated Provence, Aquitaine (the Bordeaux area) and Burgundy. In control of the destiny of the country, he handed the king's crown to his own son, Pépin le Bref. And so, a new dynasty was born that bore his name, the Carolingiens (from Carolus for Charles in Latin). His grandson, Charlemagne (Carolus Magnus) is the best-known king of the Francs. In 800, the Pope consecrated him the first Emperor of the Holy Roman and Germanic Empire, a countermeasure by the church to contain the influence of the Eastern (or Byzantine) Roman empire. Through the treaty of Verdun in 843, Charlemagne's grandsons avoided a fratricidal war and agreed to peacefully split the empire among themselves. This partition lay the ground for the future nations of Europe. The kingdom ended up divided not so much according to the natural borders but rather based on the influences that had most dominated its peoples: Roman or Germanic.

The Norman Invasions

The ninth century saw the arrival of new invaders: the Vikings or Norsemen. They first invaded the British isles, and soon controlled the Atlantic shores of northern France. Using their oar boats, they moved up the rivers and threatened the major cities of France, including Paris. In order to stop them, King Charles le Simple (Charles the Simple) gave the invaders, in 911, a domain that stretched from the shores they had landed on to the proximity of the Capital. That domain was appropriately named Normandy. By doing so, the King was buying peace. In exchange, the Norsemen swore their allegiance to Charles' authority. In 1066, The Duke of Normandy, William the Conqueror, defeated the last of the Saxon kings, Harold II, at the battle of Hastings, and seized the crown of England. A vassal of the king of France, William thus brought the monarchy of England under the authority of the French king.

Consolidation of institutions and holy wars

During the eleventh and twelfth centuries, crusaders set out to re-conquer the Holy Sites of Palestine from the Muslims. Feudalism was at its height, and the Capétiens (named after King Hughes Capet) ruled.

At the beginning of the thirteenth century, Philippe-Auguste built a wall around Paris and erected a fortress, the Louvre, to defend the river access to his capital. One hundred and fifty years later, Charles V expanded the fortifications further out to protect an enlarged city.

The monarch that typifies this period of the Middle Ages is Louix IX, later canonized as Saint Louis. Crusader, defender and propagator of the Christian faith, Louis IX embodied the virtues of chivalry. His goal was to centralize justice, and wrestle it away from the local feudal lords. He laid the groundwork for a unified and codified system of law, and introduced an appeal procedure.

During the seventh crusade, Louis IX was taken prisoner in Egypt by the Turks. He was released after four years of captivity in Syria, and the payment of a king's ransom. He died of the plague in Tunis, in 1270, on his way to another crusade.

The Hundred Years War

In 1328, the death of Charles IV left the throne of France without direct heirs. A cousin, Philippe VI, inherited the throne and started the dynasty of the Valois. But the king of England, Edward III, a descendant of William of Normandy, claimed that his lineage gave him a priority right to the French crown. The rivalry between the two men was intense. The hundred year war between France and England began with the battle of Crécy in 1346, and ultimately devastated France. At first, English victories were swift and decisive, for their army was light and fast moving, and used a new manner of conducting war that took their adversary by surprise. The French army, by contrast, was traditional, plagued by in-fighting and composed exclusively of noblemen organized into a heavy cavalry. In 1347, the port of Calais fell after a long siege. Shortly afterward, the Black Plague ravaged the kingdom.

In 1425, Joan of Arc, a young shepherdess from Lorraine inspired by divine voices, started her odyssey to rally French forces under the authority of the young King Charles VII. She fell victim to treason and rivalry between French noblemen, and was captured trying to defend the city of Compiègne. Turned over to the English, she was convicted as a heretic, and was burned at the stake in the city of Rouen in 1431. But her passion galvanized the forces of France, rallied them behind King Charles VII and ultimately prepared them for the victories that would mark the end of the conflict in 1453 at Castillon.

The sufferings of France had been enormous, and the country was ruined. But the stature and authority of a victorious Charles VII were augmented. His grandson, Louis XI, waged a successful war of intrigue against the higher nobility and clergy; this allowed him to consolidate his authority and to expand his territory by confiscating the domains of disobedient vassals. He reorganized the military and the economy, and created new industries (such as silk weaving) in Lyon.