General Notes

Louis VI, called The Fat (1081-1137), king of France (1108-1137), son and successor of Philip I; he was married to Adelaide of Savoy. Almost his entire reign was spent in subduing the robber barons, who preyed on the environs of Paris but were finally forced to yield to royal authority. For some 20 years during the period from 1109-1135, Louis waged war against Henry I, the Norman king of England, and against Henry's son-in-law, Holy Roman Emperor Henry V; he successfully repelled an invasion by Henry V in 1124. Louis greatly strengthed the royal power in France, granted benefactions to the church and privileges to towns, and became known as the protector of the peasants and as a fearless military leader. He was succeeded on the throne by his son Louis VII.
LOUIS VI (the Fat). A brave soldier of tremendous physique, intelligent,
affable; liked by the peasantry, commercial class, and clergy; the first
popular Capetian. Consolidation of his Norman frontier (wars with Henry I
of England: 1109-12; 1116-20), and steady reduction of his lesser vassals
as far as the Loire. His charters to colonizers (hôtes) of waste lands,
and frequent if inconsistent support of the communes, especially on the
lands of the Church and the baronage, began the long alliance of the
Capetians with bourgeois interests; Louis's charter of Lorris, widely
copied in town charters, was a significant sign of the great urban
development setting in all over Europe in this period. As protector of
the Church, Louis gained a foothold in the lands of his vassals. Careers
at court were opened to talented clergy and bourgeois. Louis's compromise
with the Church over feudal patronage and investiture initiated the king
of France's effective role as eldest son of the Church. He was the first
Capetian to intervene effectively outside his own feudal lands. He
defeated the alliance of Henry I of England with the Emperor Henry V, and
stopped a German invasion (1124). The marriage (1137) of his son Louis to
Eleanor, heiress of William X of Aquitaine (i.e., Guienne [Aquitania
Secunda] and Gascony), marked the Capetian effort to balance the
Anglo-Norman menace in the north with additions of territory south of the
Loire. The Anglo-Norman danger had appeared in aggravated form when, in
1129, Geoffrey became count of Anjou, Maine, and Touraine. He had married
Matilda (daughter of Henry I of England) in 1128 and proceeded (1135) to
conquer Normandy.

Development of royal administration under the early Capetians. The court
of the king, usually known as the curia regis, consisting as it did of
magnates, royal vassals, and court officials (mainly chosen from the
baronage), was essentially feudal in spirit and tradition. Meeting on
royal summons and relatively frequently, its early duties were
undifferentiated, its functions judicial, advisory, legislative. The
royal administration was in control of the great officers of the crown,
whose aim was to concentrate power in their own hands, a process that
culminated in a virtual monopoly of such power by the Garlande family
early in the 12th century. Louis VI, after a struggle (1128-30),
terminated their dominance, and thenceforth the Capetians relied
increasingly on lesser and more docile nobles, clerics, and bourgeois men
of affairs. These career men were devoted to the crown rather than to
feudal ambitions, and their presence in the curia regis began the
differentiation of its functions and its subjection to royal rather than
feudal influences. Most notable of these careerists was Suger, Louis's
old tutor, a cleric of peasant origin, who became abbot of St. Denis
(1122). An able statesman, his influence was decisive in the reigns of
Louis and his son Louis VII. Suger began (c. 1136) the new abbey church
of St. Denis, the first edifice Gothic in design. 5