Capetian Expansion and New Urbanism, 1225–1325

Abstract

The evolving relationship between towns and feudatory princes took more stable institutional form in the thirteenth century. As such, it provided an essential framework for the return of public governance in the lands of old Francia. Leading the way were the Capetians, whose ascendancy prompted like efforts by other regional rulers, such as the counts of Flanders, Champagne, and Toulouse, the dukes of Brittany and Burgundy, and, above all, the kings of England in their continental domains. Urban economies produced more wealth that, in turn, whetted bourgeois ambitions to realize more self-rule and flaunt their self-importance. Perhaps the most potent expression of these urban aspirations came in the grand cathedrals that merchants and artisans paid so dearly to erect. These huge, soaring edifices dramatically changed the entire visual aspect of medieval cityscapes even more than royal keeps or old lordly châteaux-forts. Yet as competition among feudatory rulers continued, and more brutal, large-scale forms of warfare visited new horrors on communities, towns began to invest more heavily in massive stone walls and towers for security. In time, the great age of cathedrals gave way to the hard times embodied in the fully militarized urban edge.