France in the Middle Ages

France in the Middle Ages was a decentralised, feudal monarchy. In Brittany, Normandy, Lorraine, Provence, East Burgundy and Catalonia (the latter now a part of Spain), as well as Aquitaine, the authority of the French king was barely felt. During the Middle Ages (c. 10th–mid-15th century), the Kingdom of France evolved from the fragmentation of West Francia (843–987) to the gradual centralisation of power under the House of Capet (987–1328). This period saw royal struggles with semi-independent principalities like Normandy and Anjou, as well as administrative expansion – especially under Philip II Augustus and Louis IX. The House of Valois (1328–1589) then faced the House of Plantagenet and their Angevin Empire in the Hundred Years' War (1337–1453), a conflict exacerbated by the Black Death (1348). These events fostered a more centralised state and a nascent French identity by the early modern period.