So a lot of it's just down to luck. It's actually amazing that there was an unbroken line of patrilineal succession for 12 generations. So between 987 and 1316, it passed from father to son. There was always a son. There was some times when it looked a bit dodgy, Philipp Augustus was Louis VII's only son. It really looked like it might end there, but they just kept getting lucky until they didn't anymore. In 1316, Louis X doesn't have a son. So for the first time, the throne has to pass to a brother, rather than a son. Actually, he has a posthumous son who dies four days after his birth. So there is a son, but doesn't really count. Not really. So that's a lot of luck. Although there's also, there is some skill in that they never face a major baronial rebellion that threatens to overthrow them, that they never have a cadet line, a younger brother, who says, actually, I should be king. The closest that ever comes is during Louis the ninth minority when Blanche of Castile is regent. And she is just so good at facing it down, at making alliances that counteract that baronial rebellion, the challenge from Louis' uncle, that it's okay. A lot of it is just down to sheer dumb genealogical luck, though.

Agri-Vioder 1X was asked us about the capability of individual monarchs, and whether this also played a role in the stability.

Very much so, I think. There are times when the Caputians had very weak kings incapable of monarchs, and you do really see a downturn in their fortunes. Philip the first around the year 1100 was a very weak king. He got involved in an adultery scandal, and it just really ruined all of his alliances, got the pope against him, was a big problem. But it is true that the Caputian success is not down to luck, but really down to people like Philip Augustus, like Blanche of Castile, like Louis the ninth, and indeed like Philip the fourth, who was a very unattractive person in his personal qualities. Apparently he was one of the most beautiful men in the world, but very unattractive in terms of his character, but also a very strong king. And then when you get weak kings like a couple of his sons, yeah, those fortunes turn down again. So it does have to do with the personality of the monarch. It's not just luck.

Is it possible to perhaps break down this period of long rule into moments of prosperity and misfortune at all?

Yeah, so you actually start out pretty strong under Hugh Capet's son Robert the pious. Robert conquers the duchy of Burgundy, and he really founds this reputation of Caputian kings as pious, as miracle workers, as people with a special relationship with the church and with God. His successors though are increasingly weak during this period of the rise of Normandy, the rise of the Castilins. Louis the sixth, who rules from 1108 to 1137, who is rather comically known as Louis the fat, that was what he was known as at the time. But despite that nickname, he's a very strong king. And it's really because of him that the Caputians fight back against the Castilins. And there's a lot of ideological development under his reign as well in partnership with the abbey of Sandini, this abbey that's just north of Paris, which is where all the French kings are buried, is where the chronicle tradition of the Caputian monarchy starts. It's where Gothic starts actually. So Louis the sixth reign is a real watershed moment, even though his son Louis the seventh is maybe not so much a strong king. But then his son is Philip Augustus. And that's when we get that real moment. Okay, now the Caputian miracle can take off. And that really lasts until sometime in the reign of Philip the Fair, Philip the fourth, who dies in 1314. And then things go down really quickly. Like I'm reminded of those memes where some just like walking along and then suddenly stumbles and then like they break a window and like sirens are going off. Those last three kings are just a disaster. And the kingdom really falls apart. The first one comes to the throne at the end of 1314, dies in 1316. No son except for this little boy who lives for four days. Crown passes to his brother, Philip the fifth, who rolls from 1316 to 22. He dies without a son, passes to his brother, Charles the fourth. He dies without a son. And that's the end of the dynasty. So you would think in 1314, Philip the Fair has three sons. Surely things are going to be all right. And then it's just a disaster. It's just gone so quickly. And I

think we're probably going to come back to this bit of this dramatic fall. But I think we should probably focus on the highs or the relative highs first. Could you tell me a little bit about how the region moved from being this sort of insecure foothold around Paris to becoming this quite widespread nation. How did that happen? And how much of a world of the coefficients as individuals having that?

Yeah, that's their work. I would say that the territorial expansion absolutely you can lay that at the feet of the capicians and their military skill, their political acumen, the original capician lands to their original family lands in the north of France are fairly restricted but wealthy. And the kingdom of West Franky is huge. It's actually probably bigger than France today because it includes Catalonia. But Hugh has really very nominal control over all of this. And the great princes, the great dukes and counts pretty much do their own thing in their counties and duchies. And Hugh leaves them alone as long as they leave him alone. And of course things go kind of sideways once William of Normandy, William the Conqueror creates his cross-channel empire. But the capicians just kind of bide their time. And so once you get to Philip Augustus, he is in a good position to know what the strengths and weaknesses of the Plantagenites are. So this constant warfare between Normandy and France in this period. And so once Henry's sons start rebelling against him, the capicians that have this long time tested strategy of playing the Plantagenites, first the Normans and the Plantagenites, off against one another because they're always fighting. So they always adopt this strategy of divide and conquer. And so Philip Augustus can do that with Henry II and his sons. Then once Henry is dead, he can do it with Richard and his brothers. And then once John is on the throne, well, goodness help all of us once John is on the throne, right? He's known as John the Bad for a reason. People have tried to rehabilitate him, but goodness, he was not a good monarch. You can divide and conquer John and his barons. Philip Augustus is a very good general. He's also a very good politician. And he's also very good at marriage strategy and making sure that some of the great baronies where there isn't an heir, isn't a clear heir. Well, we'll just absorb those into the crown. Yeah, why not? It's interesting that Philip Augustus isn't interested in the Elbegensin crusade at first. He has his hands full with John. So when he is approached to say, you know, will you go down and deal with the heretics? He's like, no. If my lords, my vassals want to go down there, that's fine. I myself am not doing that. His son wants to go down. And it is his son who actually completes that work. By the time you get to Louis the 9th, basically the borders are pretty set. And there's not a lot more expansion that happens. They gain some small things like the city of Lyon. But I don't think they ever actually give up that expansionist dream. So when Louis goes on crusade in 1248, he heads for Egypt. That's the way they're going to get to Jerusalem is pushing through Egypt. He actually seems to have it in his mind that he might conquer Egypt and colonize it. So they never really give up this idea that, okay, maybe maybe there are more lands out there for us. They try and get themselves elected a holy Roman emperor. A capitian cadet does take over the kingdom of Naples in southern Italy. So there is this constant expansionary idea there that ends up running up against some limits. But I don't think that that idea is ever really extinguished. Now one

thing you mentioned that was the capitian interaction with the ongivens and the plantagenets. Obviously there's the big element in the room. How responsible would you say that they almost were for sowing the seeds of 100 years

war? Oh absolutely. I tend to think of the capitians as for me because I think the 14th century is the best century of the Middle Ages. I think of the capitians as sort of a prelude to the 100 Years War. You can see it. If you know it's coming, you can really see it certainly as you could say, okay, back to 1066. That's the break. Certainly, when Eleanor of Aquitaine marries Henry Plantagenet, the future Henry II who is then Count of Anjou in 1152, bringing him Aquitaine. This huge dowry that had belonged to Louis VII. I think really that's the moment because those lands could never really be separated from France, but they could never really be separated from England either. And that creates a permanent problem that persists even after the French conquest of Normandy, that the French kings have ultimate jurisdiction over Aquitaine, eventually just Gascony. And the English kings have to do the ceremony of homage to the French kings for this duchy. And that is a very humiliating ceremony as well as having implications about French jurisdictional supremacy. So when you're doing homage, you kneel in front of your lord and you put your hands between his or her hands. And no king wants to do that. So it's there certainly from 1152, there are moments of Rapotchmont between them. Louis IX and Henry III are very close. The brothers-in-law, they have very similar attitudes toward religious piety. But it's just, I think the geopolitics of it are just so problematic that it was always going to end up in war. Did it have to be the 100 years war? Well, it's only became that because it became not just that sort of old-fashioned feudal conflict between the Duke of Gascony and the king of France, his lord, but also war for the crown of France. And that actually has a lot to do with choices that Philip the Fair's sons made in that period where the crown is passing from brother to brother that created some real resentments among French nobility that were hard to address any other way than war.

So I guess we should probably talk about that particular moment. Could you tell us a little bit about this sort of downturn in the fortunes of with brother versus brother almost?

Yeah, so we call this period the period of the Cursid kings, which is actually the title of a series of books by a French author. They're fictional, but they're wonderful. So if you look up the Cursid king series, they're great. Don't believe everything they say, but they are based on fact. So as I said, Philip the Fair had four sons, Louis, Philip, and Charles, and one daughter, Isabel. Isabel was sent to England to marry Edward II as a way to end a war in Gascony, actually. These sons very early, even before Philip dies, we know there are problems because their wives are caught committing adultery. Yeah, which is a pretty crazy thing to happen to the commissions who part of their piety is that they're known as incredibly chased. They actually do seem to be faithful to their wives, right? So for the wives, not to be faithful to their husbands is pretty amazing. And of course, it cast out on the paternity of their children. So the daughters in law, two of them are convicted and they are sent to a terrible cold castle. One of them dies a year later. The other one eventually dies in an unnery, but they're out of the picture. And the men that they supposedly committed adultery with are flayed alive, castrated, and then hung in the public square in a city called Pontoise with the king looking on, right? So already we have really a shadow cast over these kings and over the children they have so far. Philip the Fair dies later that year. And his son, Louis the 10th, takes the throne as was always expected. But seems like haunted. It takes him nine months, even to have himself crowned. At the time his adulterous wife is still alive. Though she dies in mysterious circumstances some months later. Yes, probably murdered, probably murdered. And then once he finally does have himself crowned, almost the first thing that happens is he has a really unsuccessful war. And then we hear almost nothing from him for nine months. And then he dies at like the age of 25 really mysteriously. There's an interregnum because he's left his wife pregnant. She has that son who doesn't live very long. And then there's a question as to whether the throne should pass to Louis the 10th's daughter, four year old girl named Joan, or whether his brother Philip should take the throne. And Philip really out maneuvers everybody else out maneuvers this four year old girl. Of course the four year old girl's paternity is questionable because it was her mother who was involved in this adultery scandal. But a lot of people do not feel good about what Philip has done. And what he has done is say the reason she can inherit is because women can't have the throne of France. Later this will be turned into the idea of the Salic law that we really don't get that until the 15th century. So there are a lot of people who feel that Philip shouldn't be king. And his coronation takes place basically under armed guard. And it's interesting the chronicles say that when he goes back to Paris afterwards he has he calls a big public assembly says no women can inherit the throne of France. And the next thing that happens is his baby son who turns out to be the only son Philip is ever going to

have dies.

Yeah, Philip only lives for another five years. He suddenly seconds people say maybe he was poisoned. I mean people are actually bragging about maybe he was poisoned because he's such a bad king that we need to get rid of him. The succession that time isn't contested. He has left daughters but it moves smoothly to his brother Charles the fourth. Charles the fourth goes through three wives. One son still born the wife dies like three days after that. He marries again immediately when he dies she is pregnant but that time it's a girl. So it's incredibly lucky as the capicians had been for 300 years. In a manner of 14 years they become incredibly unlucky. So unlucky that people said maybe this is actually a curse because this is so incredibly surprising how this ended. As we've been speaking

there've been so many interesting female characters in this as well as the male characters. And so we've spoken about Blanche Castile, we've talked about Ellervacatine. We've also got these adultish wives who obviously seem to be playing quite a big part in the fortune of the Capitian dynasty. Could you tell us a little bit what influenced women had over the Capitian dynasty? Yeah

it's really important when we think about power in the Middle Ages to realize it's really a family affair and that means that women are always very important as wives, as mothers, as daughters, not in the case of the Capitians but in a case of about 20% of powerful families in Europe the family is headed by a woman because those are just the accidents of genealogy and blood is generally more important than sex to people in the Middle Ages. So yeah a lot of these women are really important particularly the mothers talked about Blanche. Eleanor when she is married to Louis VII is very important as a wife. She has great influence over Louis VII because he is just besotted with Eleanor. So he does a lot of what she tells him to do which since they are both teenagers is not always maybe the cleverest of moves but she has a lot of influence there and if she had managed to give him a son I think she always would have been Queen of France. The reason they get divorced doesn't have to do with Eleanor needing to be free or anything like that. It's that she doesn't seem to be able to produce boys with Louis. She then does produce a lot of boys with Henry II so Louis doesn't feel that great about that but there are also women who influence the Capitian family, the Capitian power that are very powerful but not necessarily in ways that strengthen Capitian power. So Philip I talked about him this very weak king around the time of the first crusade. He falls in love with the count of Anjou's wife and elopes with her which gets him and her excommunicated and he just he can't give her up even though it's it's really a big stumbling block for him politically and religiously and she has a big influence over the kingdom. Robert the Pius is the second king of France. Hugh Capit's son. His second wife, Constance of Arl. Oh they do not get along at all so she has his favorite friend assassinated. She incites his sons in rebellion against him. Robert is always wanting to give away jewels and treasure to beggars and you know she's threatening him about how he has to stop doing this. So you know she's a very strong woman. Louis the Ninth's sister is another interesting case and then there are so many but I'll leave with Isabel. So Louis the Ninth has lots of brothers but only one sister and normally with a royal daughter her real value is her marriage, the marriage she's going to make and in fact they betrothed her to the son of the Holy Roman Emperor intending for her to be the Empress and she says no what I really want to do is to found a Franciscan nunnery and that is what she does and actually some people think that Louis own piety is really has to do with emulation of his sister with his sister's model because it's Isabel who defies Blanche's plans and after an illness as well just as Louis the Ninth is going to do when he decides to go on crusade. So there are a lot of really strong women in the Compucian story who are really changing the course of events. There

are so many interesting characters it seems. If you had to pick one of the monarchs that most fascinate your most intrigued you or there's something a bit fun about them that just makes oh you just can't put it into words.

Who would you pick? Probably the one I don't think I've mentioned yet who is Henry the First and we don't talk a lot about Henry the First so he reigns from 1030 to 1061 and mostly what he does is kind of hold the fort

down but he does one really

interesting thing. He marries a woman named Anne of Kiev. Why does he do this? Why does he marry a woman so far away? You know she can't bring anything in terms of lands she can't bring anything in terms of really useful political alliances. Now Anne's father has a very clear matrimonial policy. He is marrying his offspring, his sister off to any monarch he can find right? But why is Henry interested in this? One thing that Anne does bring is this large red jewel and hyacinth which disappears eventually. So she comes with this dowry of jewels and she's a bit exotic and she's actually the reason that so many capillian kings are named Philip. At the time Philip was a Greek name people in the west didn't use it but she names her son Philip this eastern name and it just explodes in popularity. So this is this very mysterious moment there that I just like thinking about. What is going on there? Why did he do this and what were things like for Anne? We know that she read and wrote because we actually have, she wrote her name in Cyrillic at the bottom of a document right? So this is a woman who is

very interesting but we just don't know that much about them. I think obviously when we think of the French monarchy we do think of the Louis and the Phillips, there are lots of Louisa Phillips but also something like the Fleur de Lee. Ah yes. Were the capillians responsible for popularizing this?

Absolutely.