WI: Holy Romanised France?

Is there any way to simply keep France part of the HRE? Im sure the pod would haveto be earlier.

Would the title King of Franks have to be kept with the Imperial title?
 
Is there any way to simply keep France part of the HRE? Im sure the pod would haveto be earlier.

Would the title King of Franks have to be kept with the Imperial title?

France was never part of the HRE. It was part of the Carolingian Empire, but that was broken into three parts (of which France evolved from one) about 200 years before the HRE came into existence.
 
So I'm trying to imagine the main states that could evolve out of this situation. I want to stop both the French Royals or another group (like the Angevins) dominating the place.

Royal domain
Normandy
Brittany
Champagne
Greater Anjou
Aquitaine
Auverne (?)
Burgundy
Gascony
Toulose
and Provence outside the borders

Are these reasonable? Could different cultures evolve in each?
 
So I'm trying to imagine the main states that could evolve out of this situation. I want to stop both the French Royals or another group (like the Angevins) dominating the place.

Royal domain
Normandy
Brittany
Champagne
Greater Anjou
Aquitaine
Auverne (?)
Burgundy
Gascony
Toulose
and Provence outside the borders

Are these reasonable? Could different cultures evolve in each?

Why "Greater Anjou"? Why not Anjou, Maine, Vendome etc all separately? After all, a great weakening of royal control and the establishment of the various royal vassals as semi-sovereign subjects is going to encourage any lord with no direct liege between himself and the King to flaunt the new opportunities. I doubt you'll see smaller counties spontaneously blobbing together, and I doubt that there will be much annexation of the weaker, as too many of the newly-powerful lords will appreciate that accepting wanton warlording and dominations of the weaker lords is the way to allowing one Duke to eventually grow powerful enough to seize the throne - there were enough large Duchies in France already. Most likely the aspirations of all but the petty lordlings would be blocked by the rest of the electoral college.

Also, Berry, Bourbonnais, maybe Foix asserting itself in time, Orleans (depending on the time period, I guess)...?
 
Also, Berry, Bourbonnais, maybe Foix asserting itself in time, Orleans (depending on the time period, I guess)...?

How powerful and independent were places like Bourbonnais and Orleans that were under the same family as the Kings of France? Did they do their own thing or did they do as told by the monarchy?
 

scholar

Banned
Arguably, it wouldn't be France. A France which is not dominated by Paris and Ile de France would be a vastly different nation. You could get Hapsburg-esque dynasties centered in places like Avignon for centuries at a time.
No nation, with a sufficiently ancient POD, be even remotely similar to the countries we know of today by the time the ripples are done with it. Even if a country bearing geo-political resemblance to modern France existed sharing its name, it would not necessarily bare resemblance to what we think of with France because the social structure could very well be fundamentally different.
 
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