Hugh Capet was the King of the Franks from 987 to 996.
28 Facts About Hugh Capet
2.
Hugh Capet is the founder of and first king from the House of Capet.
3.
The son of the powerful duke Hugh the Great and his wife Hedwige of Saxony, he was elected as the successor of the last Carolingian king, Louis V Hugh was descended from Charlemagne's sons Louis the Pious and Pepin of Italy through his mother and paternal grandmother, respectively, and was a nephew of Otto the Great.
4.
The son of Hugh the Great, Duke of the Franks, and Hedwige of Saxony, daughter of the German king Henry the Fowler, Hugh was born sometime between 938 and 941.
5.
Hugh Capet was born into a well-connected and powerful family with many ties to the royal houses of France and Germany.
6.
Hugh Capet's grandfather had been King Robert I King Odo was his granduncle and Emma of France, the wife of King Rudolph, was his aunt.
7.
Hugh Capet's paternal grandmother Beatrice of Vermandois was a patrilineal descendant of Charlemagne.
8.
Hugh Capet gained power when Herbert II of Vermandois died in 943, because Herbert's powerful principality was then divided among his four sons.
9.
The realm in which Hugh Capet grew up, and of which he would one day be king, bore little resemblance to modern France.
10.
Hugh Capet's predecessors did not call themselves kings of France, and that title was not used by his successors until the time of his descendant Philip II.
11.
In 956, Hugh Capet inherited his father's estates, in theory making him one of the most powerful nobles in the much-reduced kingdom of West Francia.
12.
Theobald I of Blois, a former vassal of Hugh Capet's father, took the counties of Chartres and Chateaudun.
13.
In 978, Hugh Capet thus supported Lothair in opening a war against Otto.
14.
Hugh Capet met with little resistance on French territory, devastating the land around Rheims, Soissons, and Laon.
15.
Hugh Capet was for them the ideal candidate, especially since he actively supported monastic reform in the abbeys while other contenders continued to distribute church revenues to their own partisans.
16.
Hugh Capet supported him and summoned the great nobles of the kingdom.
17.
Hugh Capet brought with her Auvergne and the county of Toulouse, enough to pincer the Robertian territories from the south.
18.
For ten years, Hugh Capet had been openly competing against his king, and appeared to have subjected the great vassals.
19.
Hugh Capet is most illustrious by his exploits, his nobility, his forces.
20.
Immediately after his coronation, Hugh Capet began to push for the coronation of his son Robert.
21.
Hugh Capet claimed that he was planning an expedition against the Moorish armies harassing Borrel II, Count of Barcelona, and that the stability of the country necessitated two kings should he die while on expedition.
22.
Hugh Capet drew support from the Count of Vermandois, a cadet of the Carolingian dynasty; and from the Count of Flanders, loyal to the Carolingian cause.
23.
Hugh Capet decided to make an alliance with Theophano, but she never replied.
24.
Hugh Capet's authority ended there, and if he dared travel outside his small area, he risked being captured and held for ransom, though his life would be largely safe.
25.
Therefore, Hugh Capet's reign was marked by numerous power struggles with the vassals on the borders of the Seine and the Loire.
26.
Hugh Capet is regarded as the founder of the Capetian dynasty.
27.
Hugh Capet married Adelaide, daughter of William Towhead, Count of Poitou.
28.
When he became king, Hugh Capet refused to wear the insignia of royalty, hoping that it would extend his descendants' reign by one generation.