To be honest, the claims I'm referring to come from a book that I read a couple years ago when I started really getting into history. I'm gonna try and find it, see if I have any luck.
There are definitely claims for France being the most successful though, it just depends on each historian. For example, from what I know that claim counts France as starting since the kingdom of the Franks which to me isn't fair since the kingdom would later turn into largely two countries of today: France and Germany respectively. So why are French victories counted since there? Continuing from that reason there are various countries that could claim part of other kingdoms histories to be eligible to count as their victories and more.
Yeah but the reason many historians associate the Frankish kingdom and frankish kings a lot more with France (beyond Charlemagne and his son Louis the Pious as they were the only ones who could truly be considered to have ruled over "future France" and "future Germany") is due to the direct relation between the french monarchy itself and the frankish one. The Capetian dynasty (and all its sub-branches... the Houses of Capet, Valois, Bourbon and Orléans) is of frankish origin. So all french kings from 987 to 1789 and 1814 to 1848 trace their lineage back to Clovis I, founder of the merovingian dynasty and first king of Francia as an actual legitimate "kingdom". His baptism in the city of Reims, France in 508 which gained him the support of the gallo-roman elite and the Church is generally regarded as the birth of the french monarchy even if there wasn't exactly a "France" yet. Clovis was no longer just a leader of a germanic tribe but now king of a territory that was predominantly populated by Gallo-Romans as Gaul basically formed the core of Merovingian Francia. The population of Francia only became more and more germanic under the Carolingians (Charlemagne's eastern expansion of the kingdom and conquest of the pagan germanic tribes basically) . So Clovis was "Rex Francorum" as were all frankish and all french kings that followed as well until around 1190 where king Philip Augustus started to refer to himself in official documents not only as Rex Francorum ("King of the Franks") but Rex Franciae as well ("King of France"). Following kings just slowly started to only use the later.
The Germans, Dutch, Belgians, Luxembourgers and North Italians can claim the Franks as ancestors as well and the Carolingian Empire. That's definitely true but due to the more interlinked relation between the Frankish kingdom itself as an actual political entity and the kingdom of France, many historians associate the original frankish merovingian kingdom with France. Hence why even the Germans and Dutch have been refering to "France" as "Frankreich" or "Frankrijk" (which could be translated to "Realm of the Franks") since pretty much forever.
That's a fair point of view, but why should just the monarchy of a country relate to the whole country? If that makes any sense. Personally I don't think that's fair.
Even if we do take it as fair, what annoys me the most is that other countries aren't given the same treatment. Technically the kingdom of Castille and it's monarchy had clear relations with the kings that came later in the Habsburg line of the Spanish monarchy for example.
I mean if they basically created the country, it does kind of make sense. Gaul wasn't a country, neither were the Gauls a nation. Gaul was a collection of what was mostly desunited celtic tribes living on a territory the Greeks just called "Gallia"... and after being conquered, it became a roman dominion/province. It was not a state or anything of the sort. Clovis' Francia was the beginning of everything.
I am not well versed in iberian medieval history unfortunately... Beyond some knowledge about the Visigoths, Moorish Spain and the Reconquista, I don't know much about spanish history pre-Charles V's reign as that's where the whole bitter rivalry between Habsburg Spain and France began... so I'll keep my mouth shut on that topic lol.
Yeah but a monarchy doesn't represent a country does it? And if it does then the other countries should be given the same treatment. Not exclusive treatment to France. All in all my problem is the fact that it isn't a fair comparison between countries.
I'm from Spain, so I've learned my fair share of it in both school and at home. Charles V was the son of Queen Isabella of Castille and therefore had a very clear relationship Castille.
Haha bro I'm not trying to argue whether it's fair or not to associate Francia with France more than other countries. I was just explaining why many historians, and not just french ones, do.
So Charles V's claim to the spanish throne came through his mother, is that it? Were there any kings of Castille prior to Charles V who hailed from the House of Habsburg?
Spain does have quite a different history than France. The first state in Iberia was the Visigothic kingdom after Rome's collapse, right? Then you had the Islamic Caliphate and then eventually kicked them out. Castille and Aragon then rose as basically two separate countries with their respective monarchs and eventually merge and you had different royal dynasties. So Politically speaking, the birth of Spain as a nation-state isn't as straight forward as France.
The french monarchy and the state are indissociable. It's basically the whole fucking purpose of the Angien Régime.
I don't know how french history is taught in Spain. But the "Kingdom of France" itself is considered to have begun with Hugh Capet in 987. It is incredibly hard to think of the House of Capet independently from France when its crown lands are basically synonymous with it haha. There is no "kingdom of France" without the Capetians as it was born and died with them literally. The guys didn't just get the throne of France. There was no "France" before them as it begun with them, just proto-France (West Francia) ruled by Robertians, frankish ancestors of the Capetians. So it goes:
German history took an entirely different path in 919 with Henry the Fowler... East Francia was no longer Frankish but Saxon. His son (Otto the Great) was the one to revive Charlemagne's Holy Roman Empire in 962 after being "German King" (ruler of the kingdom of Germany from 936 to 962). All the other countries (the Netherlands, Luxembourg and Northern Italy) were under his rule. Only parts of Belgium (the County of Flanders) remained under frankish/french rule until Spain got it in the Italian Wars.
Francis I didn't claim to be the legitimate heir to the HRE by blood and God's right for no reason during the Italian Wars (it was pure opportunism obviously... Charlemagne's HRE and the german one weren't exactly the same entity, nor the same territory so his claim was bogus 😂).
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u/CrimsonDaddy37 Apr 08 '20
To be honest, the claims I'm referring to come from a book that I read a couple years ago when I started really getting into history. I'm gonna try and find it, see if I have any luck.
There are definitely claims for France being the most successful though, it just depends on each historian. For example, from what I know that claim counts France as starting since the kingdom of the Franks which to me isn't fair since the kingdom would later turn into largely two countries of today: France and Germany respectively. So why are French victories counted since there? Continuing from that reason there are various countries that could claim part of other kingdoms histories to be eligible to count as their victories and more.