AHC/WI: Occitan-, Arpitan-, or Breton-dominated France, and how does it develop?
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Occitan : Have a more sucessful Aquitaine in Early Middle Ages, if possible during Ramnulf II's reign when he claimed the crown of Aquitaine. There's a possibility to make Eudes "only" Duke of Francia and you could have a reverse situation.
Arpitan : Almost impossible, considering Arpitan stuff appeared in the 70's. The 70's of the XX century.
Breton : Hardly doable. Bretons could have settled a bit more of atlantic coast but the places they took had little chance to take over the whole Gaul.
Arpitan : Almost impossible, considering Arpitan stuff appeared in the 70's. The 70's of the XX century.
Breton : Hardly doable. Bretons could have settled a bit more of atlantic coast but the places they took had little chance to take over the whole Gaul.
Well, It wouldn't be called Arpitan of course, but a Lyon-centered alt-France (I suppose it would be called 'Burgundy' or whatnot) could have a form quite close to it as dominant language. If the name of the place needs to be "France", I think it's harder for any variety not coming form the North to be successful, though Occitan can have a chance.
No, you didn't get me. At this point, Franco-Provencal or whatever you name it isn't distinguishable from dialectal french, from french institution and culture.
While, in MA by exemple, you had very different and specific feudalisms in France and Occitania, you didn't have that between Burgundy and France.
When I said created in 70's, I meant it. Hell, you didn't even had a proper ethonym, and that's quite telling about a so-called "Arpitan" identity, as even "Arpitan" is a word forged in late XX century.
Could a Piemontese kingdom/duchy/anything expand into France, or is the Alps going to make that impossible?
What about Occitans from Provence instead of Aquitaine?
Depends of what you want to say by "that". If it's "could it make butterflies", then yes.
Well...
1)Too much excentered.
2)Muslim piracy
3)Not rich enough in lands.
There was an opportunity for Geoffrey Plantagenet to marry a Breton heiress instead of Matilda and if that happened Anjou-Bretagne could be a powerful faction in France.
And it wouldn't be a Breton but an Angevine take over, as Anjou was far more important in this couple.
Like I said though, that is functionally identical to france ruling france, the problem here is that where Bretons to take the french throne they would not rule from Nantes, they would relocate to France take up speaking french at all times and essentially be french kings who happen to be named De Rennes or De Cournevalle rather than Bourgon. Its similar to how Henry V was Welsh but he didnt actually change much in england back towards celtic rule.
And that's is basically impossible.
1)France was considered as the senior kingdom of all the western Christianity. When the english kings claimed the throne of France they felt themselves forced to put the arms of France before their own. Hell, even the german reconstitution of Charlemagne's arms gave the first place to the lys.
2)Paris was huge. No really. One of the biggest cities of the west, even before it reached monstruous demographics in the XIII century.
Choosing Nantes or Rennes over Paris to rule would be like choosing Bluckenburg, MI to rule the US instead of New York.
They already partially did.
1)Half of Brittany spoke "Gallo", a french dialect. The maximum breton range never reached the whole borders of Brittany.
2)Breton court certainly didn't spoke the language of peasants. At the point that Brittany used french as official language one century before France.
That's a bit of an exaggeration since there were more differences between FP (itself a misnomer, Jurassic might be more accurate
) and "Francian French" at the time than that between FF and Norman for example.But I agree to some extent about cultural attitude since French Burgundy was in the common feudality of the Kingdom of the Franks/France.
Except that the difference between Francian french and Jurassian french (actually, quite a good name) isn't a language/language difference, but dialectal one.That's a bit of an exaggeration since there were more differences between FP (itself a misnomer, Jurassic might be more accurate
It beneficied from the withdraw of southern-Gallo Roman up to the IX that had particular traits.
Admittedly, it's a really specific dialect but have the same bases than other french dialects. It's as Gascon with Occitan or Asturian with Spanish.
It looks really different now because, 1)French was standardised 2)Dialects were far less dynamic 3)As almost nobody using them and "standard" french being instutionalised as the only "real" french people lost the use to listen dialects.
Now you see people arguing that as FP is a language, people should acknowledge the Gallo, the Picard, the Normand, the Lorrain, the Wallon as distinct languages. As stupid it sounds, it's coherant if you confuse dialects with language.
You had local differences but the bases were the same. In fact, the part of France where feudalism was the more distinct was the western part with more alleus by exemple.
How would you round out the rest of the top five, out of interest?
If you had to divide up France into cultural areas in the middle ages, what regions would they be?
I'm sorry, but I don't understand what you mean.
Okay, this is a personal classification, so maybe it's not really accurate.
Before all, MA is a really heterogenous period, so you'll have different classification regarding the era.
Early Middle-Ages (500-800)
Aquitaine, Provence, Burgundy, Neustria, Austrasia, Septimania, Brittany
eventually Auvergne, Frisia, Bavaria.
High Middle-Ages (800-1000)
Aquitaine-Gothia, Provence-Burgundy, West (Normandy-Anjou-Brittany), Flanders, Francia (francia proper, aka more or less Ile de France), Gascony, Champagne
Classical Middle-Ages (1000-1300)
West (Normandy-Anjou), Francia-Champagne, Burgundy, Provence, Aquitaine, Tolsan-Gothia, Flanders, Gascony
Late Middle-Ages (1300-1500)
France (Normandy-Francia-Anjou-Champagne), West (Brittany-Poitou), Languedoc, Provence, Burgundy-Flanders.
I meant what would be numbers two through four in the most senior list of European Kingdoms? (I assume the HRE was more senior than France, but you excluded it as an Empire.)
Very interesting. A few questions:
- What happened to Gascony & Guyenne in your grouping for the Late Middle Ages?
- What is Tolsan?
- Where would Auvergne/La Marche fit in in the last two sections?
- Is Brittany in the Normandy-Anjou grouping during the Classical ages? What common features overcame the Celtic-Roman language/cultural difference?
- I'm guessing Picardy generally fits with Normandy, is this right?
Much appreciated this - you're a mine of information!
Well, it's guesstimate but I would say. And actually, HRE wasn't considered as senior than france. More something like "ex-aequo".
I'm talking there of symbolical precedence, not actual balance of powers.
1)France
2)Germany
3)Italy
4)England
1)Guyenne = Aquitaine.
Aquitania -> Aguiana -> Guiana.
2) Gascony is largely entered in Languedoc (in the large and original sense of the word, aka Oc-speaking aeras of the kingdom)
Guyenne was denenitly entered in the "West" portion.
Lands corresponding to County of Toulouse's dominion that was both in Aquitaine and Provence and independent from both.
Aquitaine and Languedoc
Yes.
Feudalism.
More Francia than Normandy.
I was going for a united France dominated by Occitans, 'Arpitans', or Bretons, rather than 'Franks'.
Clovis failing to unify Gaul would likely butterfly the Muslim invasion of Spain.
Otherwise, not a bad idea at all, except that would change as well what *Occitan would be ITTL (for instance, even less distinction with Catalan)