How could we make Occitan the official language of France instead of French, could a capital in Poitou, Barcelona or Toulouse work.
It used to be Occitan actually(in the dark ages i think) and can even revert back to Occitan later on..Was Poitou even Occitan-speaking? I always thought it was Oil territory.
Because Marseille is in Provence, a region that did join France until the late middle ages. Poitiers would be a good capital due to its central location in France.Why not Marseille, it's the second largest city in France, and it is on the Mediterranean coast
The best way would be to have an Occitan speaking Feudal Lord take the French throne and do the same thing the Capetians did : impose its language to the Kingdom.
If you could have the Counts of Toulouse or the Dukes of Aquitaine take the French Crown rather than the Capetians, that could work. These two were the most powerful nobles of Southern France. On how to do that, I have no real idea...
The main advantage of the franks wereHmm doesn't the north have more power because it has better soil with certain tech improvements?
The main advantage of the franks were
-Better army
-Better access to the new medieval tradeways
-Better stability (yes, it's not a joke, they had one of the best stability in western world)
I think Occitan will fare better if Occitania is a part of Spain in the medieval era rather than France, it has an edge over Castillian because it is older than Castillan and can overwhelm it or prevent it's birth on reconquista and Occitan becomes the Spanish language
Bordeaux makes far more sense than Poitiers, since it was a far more important city in Aquitaine. Of course it would probably have the side-effect that we'd talk more about Aquitaine than France and France would be treated in modern history books as the "rebellious duchy".
Then simple just have Eleanor not divorce Louis and persuade him to transfer the court to Aquitaine in Bordeu.
Theodoric said:How about a *Southern France country develop on its own, with its own more Occitan tongue, Roman law system, etc., and have it conquer *Northern France somewhere past the year 1000?