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From: "Pierre Aronax" <>
Subject: Re: Charlemagne to Agnes Harris
Date: Sat, 28 Aug 2004 13:24:09 +0200
References: <5B5872B2.510A9EEB.007FA2F6@aol.com> <41304cdc$0$6043$79c14f64@nan-newsreader-07.noos.net> <cdZXc.10922$D7.8438@news-server.bigpond.net.au>


"Peter Stewart" <> a crit dans le message de
news:cdZXc.10922$...
Pierre Aronax wrote:

<...>

>> West Francis is what will become France later, as opposed to East Francia
>> which will become Germany. But actually, the title used by king Robert I
as
>> by king Eudes was simply "king of the Franks". Although it is traditional
>> and so perfectly proper to call them "king of France", all the kings
before
>> Philip II August would be more correctly referred to as "king of the
>> Franks".

> This is right, but as with practically all titles in the 10th and 11th
> centuries there are a few exceptions - although "king of the Franks" was
> by far the most common usage for the first Capetians, differing examples
> can be found: for example, the second continuator of Ado of Vienne
> described Hugo Capet before he became king in territorial terms as
> "totius Francie, Burgundiae, Britanniae et Normanniae dux et princeps"
> (duke and ruler of all Francia, Burgundy, Brittany and Normandy).

I was considering titles in official documents, that is titles used by the
sovereigns themselves to describe their power. Here the title was always
"Francorum rex" at the time of the Capetians, despite the sometimes chaotic
conditions of production of the documents. Of course, other titles can be
found in narrative sources (as today we can find "Queen of England" in
newspapers when in fact this animal is extinct for three centuries), and the
title "Franciae rex" (as opposed to "Francorum rex") appeared in narrative
sources before he was used in the royal chancery (although it never made is
way to reach the intitulatio of the king at the beginning of his acts, at
least not in Latin).


> By the way (to save replying to another post in this thread) the
> counting of indictions in Hugo's time was even messier than with
> calendar & regnal years, and every possible anomaly occurs...plus a few
> extra, that are quite unfathomable. There are circus animals that can
> count better than some medieval monks.

But here the indiction could perfectly *not* be anomalous. Why supposing it
is? Some monks were certainly not at ease with the indiction, but probably
Abbon less than others: he was not exactly a circus donkey.

Pierre


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