Incongruous
07-13-2008, 00:58
I have become rather interested in the Valois succession to the French crown.
I had always heard that it was a simple implementation of certain features of salic law, namely that the line had to be passed down through the males of the house.
I know that in 1316 the idea that only a male could ascend the throne of France and that when Philip V died such a practice now seemed legal.
But how did this stop houses of Plantagenet-Capet and Navarre-Évreux from claiming the throne?
It would seem that it did not and that the ascension of Philip de Valois was not legal, even though women could not inherit why couldn't their sons?
France was already in a bad position with England and many other Princes, Philip was not the great man like his father, so why did they allow this man to become king? Even his son's succession was suspect.
As I'm sure you can tell I have been reading far too much of Jonathan Sumption's excellent series on The Hundred Years War.
But despite that influence I am interested in the greater reasons for the decision, apart from the dislike of Edward as an English King.:smash:
I had always heard that it was a simple implementation of certain features of salic law, namely that the line had to be passed down through the males of the house.
I know that in 1316 the idea that only a male could ascend the throne of France and that when Philip V died such a practice now seemed legal.
But how did this stop houses of Plantagenet-Capet and Navarre-Évreux from claiming the throne?
It would seem that it did not and that the ascension of Philip de Valois was not legal, even though women could not inherit why couldn't their sons?
France was already in a bad position with England and many other Princes, Philip was not the great man like his father, so why did they allow this man to become king? Even his son's succession was suspect.
As I'm sure you can tell I have been reading far too much of Jonathan Sumption's excellent series on The Hundred Years War.
But despite that influence I am interested in the greater reasons for the decision, apart from the dislike of Edward as an English King.:smash: