The Kingdom of France was a decentralised, feudal monarchy in the Middle Ages (c. 10th–mid-15th century). In Brittany, Normandy, Lorraine, Provence, East Burgundy and Catalonia (the latter now a part of Spain), as well as Aquitaine, the authority of the French king was barely felt. France evolved from the fragmentation of West Francia () to the gradual centralisation of power under the House of Capet (987–1328). This period saw royal struggles with semi-independent principalities like Normandy and Anjou, as well as administrative expansion – especially under Philip II Augustus and Louis IX. The House of Valois (1328–1589) then faced the House of Plantagenet and their Angevin Empire in the Hundred Years' War (1337–1453), a conflict exacerbated by the Black Death (1348). These events fostered a more centralised state and a nascent French identity by the early modern period.
Up to the 12th century, the territory experienced an elaboration and extension of the seigneurial economic system (including the attachment of peasants to the land through serfdom); the extension of the feudal system of political rights and obligations between lords and vassals; the so-called "feudal revolution" of the 11th century, during which ever smaller lords took control of local lands in many regions; and the appropriation by regional/local seigneurs of various administrative, fiscal and judicial rights for themselves. From the 13th century on, the state slowly regained control of a number of these lost powers. The crises of the 13th and 14th centuries led to the convening of an advisory assembly, the Estates General, and an effective end to serfdom. During the 70-year reign of Louis XIV, absolutist policies from Paris tightly constrained the regional nobility, centralising political power at Versailles.
From the 12th and 13th centuries on, France was at the centre of a vibrant cultural production that extended across much of western Europe, including the transition from Romanesque architecture to Gothic architecture and Gothic art; the foundation of medieval universities (such as the universities of Paris (recognised in 1150), Montpellier (1220), Toulouse (1229), and Orleans (1235)) and the so-called "Renaissance of the 12th century"; a growing body of secular vernacular literature (including the , chivalric romance, troubadour and trouvère poetry, etc.) and medieval music (such as the flowering of the Notre Dame school of polyphony).
Geography
From the Middle Ages onward, French rulers believed their kingdoms had natural borders: the Pyrenees, the Alps and the Rhine. This belief was used as a pretext for an aggressive policy and repeated invasions.Hallam & Everard, pp. 1–2. However, not all of these territories were part of the kingdom, and the authority of the king within his kingdom was quite fluctuant. The lands that composed the Kingdom of France showed great geographical diversity; the northern and central parts enjoyed a temperate climate while the southern part was closer to the Mediterranean climate. While there were great differences between the northern and southern parts of the kingdom, there were equally important differences depending on the distance of mountains: mainly the Alps, the Pyrenees and the Massif Central. France had important rivers that were used as waterways: the Loire, the Rhône, the Seine and the Garonne. These rivers were settled earlier than the rest, and important cities were founded on their banks, but they were separated by large forests, marsh, and other rough terrains.
Before the Romans conquered Gaul, the Gauls lived in villages organised in wider tribes. The Romans referred to the smallest of these groups as pagi and the widest ones as civitates. These pagi and civitates were often taken as a basis for the imperial administration and would survive up to the Middle Ages, when their capitals became centres of bishoprics. These religious provinces would survive until the French Revolution. Southern Gaul was more heavily populated, and therefore more episcopal sees were present there at first while, in northern France, they shrank greatly in size because of the barbarian invasions and became heavily fortified to resist the invaders.
Discussion of the size of France in the Middle Ages is complicated by distinctions between lands personally held by the king (the "domaine royal") and lands held in homage by another lord. The notion of res publica, inherited from the Roman province of Gaul, was not fully maintained by the Frankish kingdom and the Carolingian Empire; by the early years of the Direct Capetians, the French kingdom was more or less a fiction. The "domaine royal" of the Capetians was limited to the regions around Paris, Bourges and Sens. The great majority of French territory was part of Aquitaine, the Duchy of Normandy, the Duchy of Brittany, the Comté of Champagne, the Duchy of Burgundy, the County of Flanders and other territories. In principle, the lords of these lands owed homage to the French king for their possession, but in reality, the king in Paris had little control over these lands, and this was confounded by the uniting of Normandy, Aquitaine and England under the Plantagenet dynasty in the 12th century.
Philip II Augustus undertook a massive expansion in the 13th century, but most of these acquisitions were lost both by the royal system of "apanage" (the giving of regions to members of the royal family to be administered) and losses in the Hundred Years' War. Only in the 15th century would Charles VII and Louis XI gain control of most of modern-day France (except for Brittany, Navarre, and parts of eastern and northern France).
Demography
The weather in France and Europe in the Middle Ages was significantly milder than during the periods preceding or following it. Historians refer to this as the "Medieval Warm Period", lasting from about the 10th century to about the 14th century. Part of the French population growth in this period is directly linked to this temperate weather and its effect on crops and livestock. The vast majority of the population—between 80 and 90 percent—were peasants.Over the course of the 13th century, one historian (G. Sivery) estimates that the percentage dropped from 90% to 85%.. Bourin-Derruau, p. 75.
In the early Middle Ages, France was a center of Jewish learning, but increasing persecution and a series of expulsions in the 14th century caused considerable suffering for French Jews. At the end of the Middle Ages, France was the most populous region in Europe—having overtaken Spain and Italy by 1340. In the 14th century, prior to the arrival of the Black Death, France had an estimated 16 to 17 million inhabitants within its historical borders, while the total population of the area covered by modern-day France has been estimated at 20 million. The population of Paris is controversial.Josiah Russell, Medieval Regions and Their Cities, p. 150. Josiah Russell estimates about 80,000 in the early 14th century, although he notes that some other scholars suggest 200,000. The higher count would make it by far the largest city in western Europe; the lower count would put it behind Venice with 100,000 and Florence with 96,000.Josiah Russell, Medieval Regions and Their Cities, pp. 44, 64, 148, 150. The Black Death killed an estimated one-third of the population after its appearance in 1348. The concurrent Hundred Years' War slowed recovery. By the mid-16th century the population had recovered to mid-14th century levels.McEvedy, Colin, and Richard Jones, Atlas of World Population History. Harmondsworth, Middlesex, England: Penguin Books, 1978, pp. 55–58.
Languages and literacy
Medieval Latin was the primary medium of scholarly exchange as well as the liturgical language of the Catholic Church; it was also the language of science, literature, law, and administration. From the 13th century on, vernacular languages were used in administrative work and the law courts,Cantor, 344. but Latin remained the administrative and legal language until the Ordinance of Villers-Cotterêts (1539) prescribed the use of French in all judicial acts, notarized contracts, and official legislation. The vast majority of the population, however, spoke a variety of vernacular languages derived from vulgar Latin, the common spoken language of the Western Roman Empire.
The medieval Italian poet Dante, in his Latin De vulgari eloquentia, classified the Romance languages into three groups based on their respective words for "yes": Nam alii oc, alii si, alii vero dicunt oil ("For some say oc, others say si, others say oïl"). The oïl languagesfrom Latin , "that is it"were spoken primarily in northern France, the oc languagesfrom Latin , "that"in southern France, and the si languagesfrom Latin , "thus"on the Italian and Iberian Peninsula. Modern linguists typically add a third group within France around Lyon, the "Arpitan" or "Franco-Provençal language", whose modern word for "yes" is ouè. The langue d'oc, consisting of the languages which use oc or òc for "yes", was the language group spoken in the south of France and northeastern Spain. These languages, such as Gascon and Provençal, have relatively little Frankish influence.
The Gallo-Romance group in the north of France, consisting of langues d'oïl such as Picard, Walloon, and Francien, were influenced by Germanic languages spoken by the earliest Frankish invaders. From the time of Clovis I on, the Franks expanded their rule over northern Gaul. Over time, the French language developed from either the Oïl languages found around Paris and Île-de-France (the Francien theory) or from a standard administrative language based on common characteristics found in all Oïl languages (the lingua franca theory).
From the 4th to 7th centuries, Brythonic-speaking peoples from Cornwall, Devon, and Wales travelled across the English Channel, both for reasons of trade and of flight from the Anglo-Saxon invasions of England, and established themselves in Armorica in northwest France. Their dialect evolved into the Breton language, and they gave their name to the peninsula they inhabited: Brittany.
Attested since the time of Julius Caesar, a non-Celtic people who spoke a Basque-related language inhabited the Novempopulania (Aquitania Tertia) in southwestern France, though the language gradually lost ground to the expanding Romance during a period spanning most of the Early Middle Ages. This Proto-Basque influenced the emerging Latin-based language spoken in the area between the Garonne and the Pyrenees, eventually resulting in the dialect of Occitan called Gascon.
Scandinavian Vikings invaded France from the 9th century onwards and established themselves mostly in what would come to be called Normandy. The Normans took up the langue d'oïl spoken there, although Norman French remained heavily influenced by Old Norse and its dialects. They also contributed many words related to sailing and farming to the French language. After the Norman Conquest of England in 1066, the Normans' language developed into Anglo-Norman. Anglo-Norman served as the language of the ruling classes and commerce in England from the time of the conquest until the Hundred Years' War,Baugh, Cable, "A History of the English Language, 104." by which time the use of French-influenced English had spread throughout English society.
Also around this time period, many words from the Arabic language entered French, mainly indirectly through Medieval Latin, Italian and Spanish. These include words for luxury goods (élixir, orange), spices (camphre, safran), trade goods (alcool, bougie, coton), sciences (alchimie, hasard), and mathematics (algèbre, algorithme).