General Notes

bk&q p 475 "Because of a series of political marriages amongst his auntsa
nd his own sisters, Athelstan was on close terms with many of the major ru
lers in Europe.  These included Count Baldwin of Flanders, who had marri
ed his aunt Elfreda, Charles III of France, who had married his sister Edg
iva, the influential HUGH, COUNT OF PARIS, who had married another siste
r, Edhilda, and Otto, duke of Saxony and subsequently German emperor, w
ho had married a further sister, Eadgyth."
FIMA p 19-20 "in fact HUGH [CAPET] was not merely chosen for his charact
er and political acumen.  Adalbero reassured Hugh's son ROBERT [II]:  'Y
ou are king and Emperor by virtue of your ancestors' long line of descent
.'  Hugh Capet's father, HUGH the Great, had been the son of one king of t
he Franks (ROBERT I) and the nephew of another (Odo).  Admittedly, he h
ad not succeeded to a kingdom.  When his brother-in-law King Ralph di
ed in 936, Hugh the Great had played a major role in securing the successi
on of LOUIS IV, thereby re-establishing the Carolingian dynasty.  At th
is point he assumed the title 'duke of the Franks', or 'duke of the Gauls
', as Richer has it.  Hugh the Great had inherited the rights to episcop
al and comital appointments in Neustria (north-western France).  He was t
he overlord of counts with lands along the Seine and around Paris, as we
ll as being lay abbot of St. Martin at Tours.  This was the largest colleg
iate church in France, with 200 canons praying around the relics of the sa
int who had been responsible for the conversion of Gaul, patron of the Fra
nks.  The most important of these relics was St. Martin's cloak, or chap
e, which gave Hugh the Great's son (the future king) his sobriquet 'Capet
'.  Hugh the Great also held the important monasteries of St Denis a
nd St Germain-des-Pres.  In practice, it was he who ruled the lands of Clo
vis.  The Norman leaders acknowledged his supremacy.  Moreover, LOUIS IV m
ade this powerful relation 'the second after himself in all his kingdoms
', a kind of super-prince; for he was the king's lieutenant in both Franc
ia and all the old Carolingian imperial lands claimed by the king.  Accord
ing to Flodoard, Louis IV granted him Burgundy and Aquitaine as well.
In the course of the tenth century, the descendants of ROBERT the Str
ong, marquis of Neustria, gradually established themselves as a powerful d
ynasty within the Carolingian administrative system.  HUGH the Great, he
ad of this house, made marriage alliances for his children as if he we
re a king; he sent his liegeman the archbishop of Orleans on an embas
sy to the Pope, just as a king would. "
Also FIMA pp 28 "There had long been a king of Aquitaine, son of the ki
ng of the Franks; then--on the northern model--the kingdom was giv
en to a duke in the early tenth century.  He tried to increase his pow
er by obtaining oaths of personal fidelity and acts of homage from the cou
nts in his territory.  . . . . later HUGH the Great did the same with RICH
ARD of Normandy."
p 83 "As for ROLLO's grandson, RICHARD I, if we are to believe Dudo, he go
verned Normandy 'like a king, subject to no one but God, and servant of ne
ither king nor duke' (a clear reference to HUGH the Great) . . . Norman
dy was emphatically not a fief.  . . . Dudo of St Quentin . . . inven
ts a conversation to define these limits [of the relationship between t
he duke of Normandy and the king of the Franks].  HUGH the Great tells t
he intermediary who will take his message to Richard I:  'It is not a Fran
kish custom [one of Dudo's great themes is the integration of Normandy wit
hin Francia] for a prince or a duke to hold a lordship without forming a b
ond--voluntarily or by coercion--between himself and the Emperor, ki
ng or duke.  If he does not take this step of his own accord, he risks bei
ng forced to do so.'
At the beginning of the eleventh century it was generally accepted th
at, since territorial p