The cult of Saint Denis and Capetian kingship

Throughout its history, the monastery of Saint-Denis sought to establish a tie with the ruling house, to make the abbey indispensable to the crown as the chief and privileged guardian of the royal presence. Beyond that, as the home of the principal Apostle of Gaul and the first bishop of Paris, it had a symbolic importance for the whole of France, independent of the monarchy itself. The representation of Saint Denis as a national saint, guiding, protecting, and promoting the well-being of the monarchy, was a monastic theme from the ninth century forward. The cult assumed its chief importance, however, in relation to the Capetians when, it is argued, it performed a critical function in the definition of French national identity under the aegis of the monarchy. In its importance for both France and the monarchy, the cult of Saint Denis helped make possible the fusion of two streams of national consciousness that might otherwise have remained distinct. Further, Capetian kings, by identifying themselves with the cult of Saint Denis, were able to tap a significant element of national devotion which contributed to the creation of a royal personality of national scope in France.     

The cult of Saint Denis and Capetian kingship

Throughout its history, the monastery of Saint-Denis sought to establish a tie with the ruling house, to make the abbey indispensable to the crown as the chief and privileged guardian of the royal presence. Beyond that, as the home of the principal Apostle of Gaul and the first bishop of Paris, it had a symbolic importance for the whole of France, independent of the monarchy itself.The representation of Saint Denis as a national saint, guiding, protecting, and promoting the well-being of the monarchy, was a monastic theme from the ninth century forward. The cult assumed its chief importance, however, in relation to the Capetians when, it is argued, it performed a critical function in the definition of French national identity under the aegis of the monarchy. In its importance for both France and the monarchy, the cult of Saint Denis helped make possible the fusion of two streams of national consciousness that might otherwise have remained distinct. Further, Capetian kings, by identifying themselves with the cult of Saint Denis, were able to tap a significant element of national devotion which contributed to the creation of a royal personality of national scope in France.     

The Capetian apanages and the nature of the French kingdom

The Capetian apanages have traditionally been studied from the perspective of the developing national monarchy. This approach is anachronistic; its premises are drawn from a later century, and even within the Capetian period it groups together with little differentiation the attitudes and intentions of five generations of kings.The context for the early Capetian apanages is the successional customs of the nobility, which the kings knew well from having seen them practised by their baronial neighbors. The determining concepts behind these measures were not those of the crown and the royal domain, but rather the societal ones by which, through the succession, the individual members of the family were ordered in relation to the family's lands.Only in the last quarter of the thirteenth and the first quarter of the fourteenth centuries did the kings and the Parlement impose the series of rulings which molded Capetian practice into a distinctively royal pattern. For most of the period under consideration, the territorial kingdom was treated as an aggregate of separable holdings, most of which were the private inheritance of the ruling family.     

The Capetian apanages and the nature of the French kingdom

The Capetian apanages have traditionally been studied from the perspective of the developing national monarchy. This approach is anachronistic; its premises are drawn from a later century, and even within the Capetian period it groups together with little differentiation the attitudes and intentions of five generations of kings.The context for the early Capetian apanages is the successional customs of the nobility, which the kings knew well from having seen them practised by their baronial neighbors. The determining concepts behind these measures were not those of the crown and the royal domain, but rather the societal ones by which, through the succession, the individual members of the family were ordered in relation to the family's lands.Only in the last quarter of the thirteenth and the first quarter of the fourteenth centuries did the kings and the Parlement impose the series of rulings which molded Capetian practice into a distinctively royal pattern. For most of the period under consideration, the territorial kingdom was treated as an aggregate of separable holdings, most of which were the private inheritance of the ruling family.     

‘Defense of the realm’: evolution of a Capetian propaganda slogan

Historians have long recognized the importance of the Roman-canonical maxim ‘defense of the realm’ to the propaganda politics practised by later Capetian kings, most notably in the climactic struggle between Philip the Fair and Boniface VIII. Although rightly conceding to Roman law the major impulse to its formulation, they have been less sensitive to the way in which the doctrine fits into historical images of Capetian kingship. The theory of the king as defender of the realm was critical in the early as well as late middle ages. In tracing the evolution of this slogan through the chronicle tradition of Saint-Denis, the most extensive and consistently royalist historical corpus in Capetian France, one sees the emergence of concepts congruent with those developed in legal and canonical texts, but which reveal little or no influence from these more learned sources.This article argues that the chroniclers' persistent focus on the image of the king as royal defender facilitated the interior evolution of the meaning of ‘defense of the realm’ from that of feudal tuitio to the public concept of Roman jurisprudence. The chroniclers of Saint-Denis thus testify to the way in which older theories of monarchy were being subtly transformed by the changing nature of kingship itself. But at the same time they lend an air of coherency and familiarity to one of the most disruptive periods of Capetian history and sustain a sense of the evolution of the French monarchy within the context of fundamental notions governing medieval kingship.