In the event of a failed norman conquest, what would the effects on the Kingdom of France be? On the surface we might assume france would steamroll the european continent as seen here and also here, but middle ages france was seriously decentralized, with Brittany, Burgundy, even Provence and Lorraine being incredibly autonomous if not wholly separated. So what turned course and allowed for a single, centralized force?

The Hundred Years War. Edward III's decision to press his not-really-existent claim was pressed because of Phillip Vi's decision to revoke some french lands edward held. French lands they wouldn't have held without a norman conquest, especially considering Henry II's, the king who brought those lands to England own rise to power was partially luck based.

So, that baguettes the question: would France have been a centralized, great power of europe without the Norman Conquest and subsequent 100 Year's War? or would it be gobbled up into other neighbors gradually?
 
Lorraine and Provence were detached because these were not French-Frankish crownlands.... French crownlands included:

Paris
Loire Valley
Toulouse
Gascogne
Anjou
Picardie
Flanders
Auvergne
Lyon
Normandy
Champagne
Bourbon
Burgundy

Provence, Lorraine, Alsace, etc, were sectors of the Holy Roman Empire, including Namur, Liege and so forth. These were part of the Holy Roman empire, as appendages of the kingdom of Lotharingia, comprising:

Franche-Comte
Vesoul
Areas near Lake Leman
Provence
Savoy
Holland
Brabant
Alsace-Lorraine
etc...

Thus, Paris not ruling these lands, is not a statement of her weakness, but a statement to Medieval legal precedence regarding the borders of feudal holdings. This is why in the later middle ages, the duke of Burgundy is regarded as a vassal of both France and of the Empire, as Burgundy was in possession of many of these Lotharingian lands, yet their status as dukes of Burgundy in Dijon, placed them inside French crown holdings.

Regarding the Hundred Years War, it is my understanding, that generally speaking, the French monarchy was inspired to centralize due to its military affairs with external monarchies, especially the Norman monarchs of England or the Albigensian crusade, a war against French southern vassals-appendages.
 
In the event of a failed norman conquest, what would the effects on the Kingdom of France be? On the surface we might assume france would steamroll the european continent as seen here and also here, but middle ages france was seriously decentralized, with Brittany, Burgundy, even Provence and Lorraine being incredibly autonomous if not wholly separated. So what turned course and allowed for a single, centralized force?

The Hundred Years War. Edward III's decision to press his not-really-existent claim was pressed because of Phillip Vi's decision to revoke some french lands edward held. French lands they wouldn't have held without a norman conquest, especially considering Henry II's, the king who brought those lands to England own rise to power was partially luck based.

So, that baguettes the question: would France have been a centralized, great power of europe without the Norman Conquest and subsequent 100 Year's War? or would it be gobbled up into other neighbors gradually?
Edward III’s claim on France in truth had a very good base as he was the last male heir of Philip IV (France had already rejected female succession but not yet succession thought the female line).
When his cousin Jeanne was passed over in favour of her uncle France established the fact who no woman would be able to claim the Crown of France but they had not rejected the possibility of a successful claim by a male heir from a female line before their rejection of Edward III’s claim and the full establishment of the Salic law of successions
 
Edward III’s claim on France in truth had a very good base as he was the last male heir of Philip IV (France had already rejected female succession but not yet succession thought the female line)

Just nitpicking, but "last male heir" is perhaps a bit too strongly worded. By 1328, when Charles IV died, there was another male heir through a female line who was even descended from a more recent monarch than Edward III was: Philip of Auvergne, the grandson of Philip V through his daugther Joan. By 1337, Philip V had even one more grandson - Louis II of Male. Not to mention Joan of Navarre's two eldest sons. (And, to be really pedantic, Edward's own son and his Guelders nephues.)

So even when you accept succession through a female line, it's not necessarily a given that you'll end up with Edward III. You'll still have to decide which kind of succession logic you'd want to apply:
- if you ask the question "who's genealogically closest to the king who just died", then it's Edward (nephew of Charles IV), not Philip (grand-nephew)
- but if you design some algorithm, based on the logic "1. if there's a man amongst the children, choose him, 2. if there is no man between the children but if he does have daughters, imagine the daughters were male and transfer their rights to their actual male children, 3. if there are no descendants, go back a generation and repeat the above process", you'll end up with Philip. Such a system certainly has it's logic as well.

But it is true that his claim wasn't as weak as it's sometimes being portrayed: there certainly were arguments in favour of them.
 
It can be argued that France's centralization and consolidation of power towards the crown started with Philip II, who did fully conquer Normandy and confiscated so many Norman and Angevin lands that the English were left only with Gascony. John and Henry III made several attempts to regain their footholds up north, all while Philip and his heirs created conditions where many of northern French heiresses couldn't marry without the crown's approval.

You may actually see an odd, 5 way stalemate develop in France if William fails to obtain the English throne. Normandy, Anjou, Aquitaine, and Toulouse would all have serious power blocks and lands, along with the crown holdings of the French king. Each of those vassals would pay their homage to the king and go about their own business, periodically rankling for greater autonomy and whatnot.
 
The Hundred Years War. Edward III's decision to press his not-really-existent claim was pressed because of Phillip Vi's decision to revoke some french lands edward held. French lands they wouldn't have held without a norman conquest, especially considering Henry II's, the king who brought those lands to England own rise to power was partially luck based.
AFAIK, Aquitaine had nothing to do with the Norman conquest (and Normandy was lost well before EIII had been born) and the issue was not as much Phillip’s decision to “revoke” these lands (from EII) but refusal of the kings of England to play the obedient vassals of the kings of France in their capacity of the Dukes of Aquitaine, etc. Not that claim of EIII was “not-really-existent” because at the time of question the issue with a Salic Law was anything but clear in the terms of extent of its application.
 
Just nitpicking, but "last male heir" is perhaps a bit too strongly worded. By 1328, when Charles IV died, there was another male heir through a female line who was even descended from a more recent monarch than Edward III was: Philip of Auvergne, the grandson of Philip V through his daugther Joan. By 1337, Philip V had even one more grandson - Louis II of Male. Not to mention Joan of Navarre's two eldest sons. (And, to be really pedantic, Edward's own son and his Guelders nephues.)

So even when you accept succession through a female line, it's not necessarily a given that you'll end up with Edward III. You'll still have to decide which kind of succession logic you'd want to apply:
- if you ask the question "who's genealogically closest to the king who just died", then it's Edward (nephew of Charles IV), not Philip (grand-nephew)
- but if you design some algorithm, based on the logic "1. if there's a man amongst the children, choose him, 2. if there is no man between the children but if he does have daughters, imagine the daughters were male and transfer their rights to their actual male children, 3. if there are no descendants, go back a generation and repeat the above process", you'll end up with Philip. Such a system certainly has it's logic as well.

But it is true that his claim wasn't as weak as it's sometimes being portrayed: there certainly were arguments in favour of them.
Well I guess that Edward’s claim rested on both being the adult male heir of Philip IV and on his closer kinship to Charles IV (something pretty difficult to attack for his rivals as their inheritance of Artois was through female line and based only on kinship grade over a legitimate male heir in male line).
I think who if Edward III of England had been a French noble instead of the English King he would likely be able to obtain the crown of France (but he was the King of England so nobody would have accepted him as King).
In any case usually in case of inheritance thought female lines the system used most often was the grade of kinship with the last holder.
 
AFAIK, Aquitaine had nothing to do with the Norman conquest (and Normandy was lost well before EIII had been born) and the issue was not as much Phillip’s decision to “revoke” these lands (from EII) but refusal of the kings of England to play the obedient vassals of the kings of France in their capacity of the Dukes of Aquitaine, etc. Not that claim of EIII was “not-really-existent” because at the time of question the issue with a Salic Law was anything but clear in the terms of extent of its application.
I was having a bit of trouble understanding how the Angevians came to power, but it seemed that the french duke of normandy had a claim to england, and was married to the duches of Aquitaine, and so when he inherited england as part of the treaty that allowed Steven of Blois to keep the throne of England, he took those duchies away from france again, and they remained under english land until the french won them back as the 100 year war dragged on?
 
I was having a bit of trouble understanding how the Angevians came to power, but it seemed that the french duke of normandy had a claim to england, and was married to the duches of Aquitaine, and so when he inherited england as part of the treaty that allowed Steven of Blois to keep the throne of England, he took those duchies away from france again, and they remained under english land until the french won them back as the 100 year war dragged on?
No. The Duke of Normandy aka William I the Conqueror conquered England so both Normandy and England were under the same rule. After some internal conflict about inheritances, William’s youngest son Henry I united again England and Normandy but his only legitimate son died heirless before him.
Henry named his only daughter Maud as heiress of England and Normandy and married her to the ruler of Anjou and Maine. (Stephen who was a younger son of one of William’s daughters and a favorite of Henry I usurped his cousin’s inheritance but soon lost Normandy to Maud and her husband).
So we have Stephen in England and Maud + husband with Normandy, Maine and Anjou. Maud’s son Henry II married Eleanor, heiress of Aquitaine (and Gascony) and Poitou and then reconquered England (forcing Stephen to name him as his heir) and put also Brittany under his rule (marrying one of his sons to the heiress)
The king of France Philip II was able to retake most of the Angevin lands from Henry and Eleanor’s youngest son (who had eventually inherited almost everything but was unable to keep said lands).
The 100 years war is totally another thing and was later than this first conflict and unrelated to it.
 
I was having a bit of trouble understanding how the Angevians came to power, but it seemed that the french duke of normandy had a claim to england, and was married to the duches of Aquitaine, and so when he inherited england as part of the treaty that allowed Steven of Blois to keep the throne of England, he took those duchies away from france again, and they remained under english land until the french won them back as the 100 year war dragged on?
Not exactly.
William the Bastard conquered England.
His first son Robert inherited Normandy, the second William (Rufus) England, the third Henry Beauclerc was intended for the church.
William died in a "hunting accident" leading to Henry acclaimed as king and objections from Robert.
Henry defeated Robert and held him captive and took Normandy, leading to some later complaints from Robert's son William Clito.
Henry had conflicts with Anjou which he resolved by marriage of his son William Adelin with a daughter.
Then the White Ship accident killed young William leaving Henry to force his nobles to accept his daughter Matilda/Maude (widowed Empress of HRE) as heir, and married her to Anjou's son.
Henry died and the nobles promptly declared her cousin Stephen, third son of Blois, as king instead.
The resultant civil war (of England and Normandy) is the Anarchy.
The Anarchy was concluded by Stephen adopting Matilda's son Henry Curtmantle as heir.
He dies and Henry Count of Anjou is now King of England and Duke of Normandy. He married Eleanor Duchess of Aquitaine. And created the so-called Angevin Empire.
 
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