The Origins of France

by Edward James

In a departure from traditional histories of France, Edward James does not concentrate solely on the history of the monarchy, but examines the five centuries which followed the collapse of the Roman Empire in the fifth century.

Genres: History, France, Nonfiction

253 pages, Paperback

First published August 15, 1989

About the author

Librarian Note: There is more than one author by this name in the Goodreads database.

Edward James is Professor of Medieval History at University College Dublin. He won the University of California's Eaton Prize for his book Science Fiction in the Twentieth Century (1994) and a Hugo Award for (jointly) editing The Cambridge Companion to Science Fiction. He co-wrote, with Farah Mendlesohn, A Short History of Fantasy (2009) and he has co-edited a number of other books, all of them essay collections, with Farah Mendlesohn and others. One of these is the first and only academic book on Terry Pratchett, called Terry Pratchett: Guilty of Literature (first edition 2000, shortlisted for a Hugo Award in 2001). He is currently working on book-length studies of Gregory of Tours and Lois McMaster Bujold.

Reviews

[Timothy Stead · Rating 4 out of 5]

Still one of the best introductions to the history of what would become France between the fall of the Roman Empire and the millennium. Contains a very readable narrative, with just enough archaeological insights thrown in to add colour and illuminate the perpetually thorny questions of ethnicity and identity. Especially refreshing is an emphasis on the regional diversity of early medieval France, from the highly Romanised south of Aquitaine and Provence to the poorer but more militarily powerful Frankish heartlands and the Celtic, Gothic and Basque areas. The Germanic speaking Franks, for example, settled in north eastern France, had much stronger cultural and political ties with their fellow Franks in what is now western Germany and the Low Countries than they did with the Latin speaking aristocrats of the Mediterranean coast or the Goths of Septimania. Even by the year 1000 the political unity of what we know call France was still a couple of centuries in the future. Culturally, there's a pretty good line of argument that the idea of 'Frenchness', compared to strong regional identies united by a common allegiance to a single throne, was really an invention of the French Revolution.
It's nice to read a history that doesn't start out with a picture of a united France foremost in mind and then explain teleologicaly how this unity came about. Rather, what we are dealing with is a bunch of radically different areas which moved in and out of domination by the Merovingian and then the Carolingian kings, before collapsing back into a state of extreme regionality after the breakup of the Carolingian empire, from which, painfully slowly, one kingdom (that of the Franks, largely contained in the reigns of the first Capetians to the areas around Paris) would come, through design and accident, to establish what is now France. Despite its title, this book isn't really about the origins of 'France', but about how the ground was laid for future developments which, under the Capetian kings, would result in the establishment of that kingdom. In that respect, it succeeds extremely well.

[Taylor · Rating 4 out of 5]

Overall, a generally good general survey of the institutions in the area that eventually became France and how they evolved over time, from just after the fall of Rome to the end of the first millennium. This is not a linear history but rather a survey of the socioeconomic forces at play and how these caused the evolution of society throughout the era discussed. Particularly fascinating was the emphasis not on kings and emperors but on smaller nobles and clergy and how the various relationships between the various societal strata impacted further development of society overall.

My one main complaint is that I would have liked more details. I realize this is most likely a source documentation issue: there just are not many reliable source documents from this time. However, the book gives glimpses at fascinating details, but glimpses only.

Overall, though, I would recommend this to anyone who wants to learn more about this important time period, echoes of which impacted the overall development of the French monarchy at least through to the French Revolution.

[Naomi Ruth · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a well-written, well-researched book. I liked the division of the topics. To be honest, while I read the last two chapters I didn't really grasp much of the content, because I was reading it more for the Merovingian time period, but I kept reading it because I found it engaging. Will definitely want to own this one day. Very useful for researching this topic.