IT.) EARLIER KINGS. CHAPTER II. THE EARLIER KINGS OF THE HOUSE OF PARIS. 1. Hugh Capet's Dominions, 987. — When Hugh Capet became king, he gained more in name than in actual power, though the title opened an infinite future to a family of ability. His actual personal lands, consisting of the duchy of France, less by what had been cut off by Normandy and Anjou, with the former royal territory of Laon, were in his own hands as immediate lord. As king he had a right to the homage of all the princes of all the. .Western kingdom; but he had no power south of the Loire, and not much north of it, except in France itself. In the north his chief vassals were his brother, Henry, Duke of Burgundy, the Karling Herbert, Count of Vermandois, /^?///&, Count of Anjou., the head of a fierce and able family which had arisen at the same time as the House of Paris, and Richard, duke of the Normans, who claimed the homage of the Celtic duke of Britanny. In all these lands, except Britanny, was spoken the French form of Romance which is called the Langue-d'-oil, because their form of yes was oil, or out, while the Romance of the country south of the Loire was called Langne-d'-oc, because they said oc (from the Latin hoc). The princes of these lands, from the Loire to the Ebro, the Dnkes of Aquitaine or Guyenne., and of Gascony, and the Counts of Foix, Narbonne, Toulouse, Roussillon, and Barcelona, now and then paid grudging homage to the King of the French. In the north-east, the county of Flanders, where Low-Dutch was the lan- guage, was also a fief of the French crown. Lotharingia, which had hitherto fluctuated between the Eastern and Western crowns, was from this time always a fief of Germany. 2. War with Aquitaine, 990. — When Hugh was elected and crowned, he next caused his son Robert to be crowned king also, to secure his succession. This was very com- monly done for some generations, and it helped to keep the crown in the family. But Hugh was opposed by the Karling Charles of Lorraine, who set himself up at Laon, and was supported by Duke William of Aquitaine and other
