"A Model of Virtue" France, according to John of Salisbury, was "of all nations, the sweetest and most civilised." The House of Capet had ruled the country since 987, when the feudal lord Hugh Capet had been elected King after the death of Louis V, the last monarch of the Carolingian dynasty, which descended from the Emperor Charlemagne.1 In the early twelfth century, the kingdom of France found itself in a struggle for supremacy with feudal vassals who had extended their territories and become more powerful than the crown, whose own authority held little weight beyond the royal demesne. This comprised the lie de France, a small feudatory that had evolved from the Carolingian county of Paris, as well as Sens, Orléans, and part of Berry. The greatest threats to French expansion were posed by the Count of Blois, linked by strong family and political ties to the Count of Champagne, and by the Count of Anjou, who was determined to annex the duchy of Normandy, which he claimed in right of his wife Matilda, heiress of Henry I, King of England.
