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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hugh_Capet_of_FranceHugh Capet[1] was the first
King of France of the eponymous
Capetian dynasty from his election to succeed the
Carolingian Louis V in 987 until his death.
The son of
Hugh the Great,
Duke of France, and
Hedwige of Saxony, daughter of the
German king Henry the Fowler, Hugh was born about 940. His paternal family, the
Robertians, were powerful landowners in the
Île-de-France. His grandfather had been
King Robert I and his grandmother
Beatrice was a Carolingian, a daughter of
Herbert I of Vermandois.
King Odo was his great uncle and
King Rudolph Odo's son-in-law. Hugh was born into a well-connected and powerful family with many ties to the reigning nobility of Europe.
[2] But for all this, Hugh's father was never king. When Rudolph died in 936, Hugh the Great organized the return of
Louis d'Outremer, son of
Charles the Simple, from his exile at the court of
Athelstan of England. Hugh's motives are unknown, but it is presumed that he acted to forestall Rudolph's brother and successor as Duke of Burgundy,
Hugh the Black from taking the French throne, or to prevent it from falling into the grasping hands of
Herbert II of Vermandois or
William Longsword,
duke of Normandy[3].
In 956, Hugh inherited his father's estates and became one of the most powerful nobles in the much-reduced West Frankish kingdom. However, as he was not yet an adult, his uncle
Bruno,
Archbishop of Cologne, acted as
regent. Young Hugh's neighbours made the most of the opportunity.
Theobald I of Blois, a former vassal of Hugh the Great, took the counties of
Chartres and
Châteaudun. Further south, on the border of the kingdom,
Fulk II of Anjou, another former client of Hugh the Great, carved out a principality at Hugh's expense and that of the
Bretons.
[4]The realm in which Hugh died, and of which he would one day be king, bore no resemblance to modern France. Hugh's predecessors did not call themselves rois de France , and that title was not used until the time of his distant descendant
Philip the Fair . Kings ruled as rex Francorum and the lands over which they ruled comprised only a very small part of the former
Carolingian Empire. The
eastern Frankish lands, the
Holy Roman Empire, were ruled by the
Ottonian dynasty, represented by Hugh's first cousin
Otto II and then by Otto's son,
Otto III. The lands south of the
river Loire had largely ceased to be part of the West Frankish kingdom in the years after Charles the Simple was deposed in 922. The
Duchy of Normandy and the
Duchy of Burgundy were largely independent, and
Brittany entirely so, although from 956 Burgundy was ruled by Hugh's brothers
Odo and
Henry.
[5]