THE DISTRIBUTION OF POWER IN WESTERN FRANCIA

In most of western Francia a very different set of conditions existed from the neighbouring regions of Normandy. The power of the Capetian dynasty had undoubtedly waned in the eleventh century, as the royal domain, the king's itinerary and the effective reach of the royal court all contracted drastically. The eleventh-century Capetian kings were frequently constrained to campaign against castellans of quite minor status within only a few miles of the main centres of their power such as Paris, Orléans and Etampes. The diminution in Capetian power may be overstated: Lemarignier attributed changes in royal diplomatic practice from c.1030 onwards to a deepening crisis of royal authority, notably the increasing preponderance amongst witnesses to royal acts of minor castellans and knights and a corresponding decline in the number of magnates, but such changes may have reflected the impact of ecclesiastical reform upon the production of documents as much as genuine political collapse. A more telling indication of royal decline is the narrowing geographical scope of royal acts in the eleventh century. Conversely, royal authority was gradually reasserted after 1100, a process which accelerated rapidly from the later years of Louis VII's reign. In the borderlands towards Normandy, however, the processes of royal justice and finance were largely confined to the Beauvaisis, the French Vexin and the Seine valley until after 1200, even though effective royal power extended northwards into the Amiénois from 1185 onwards.