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.Rome began the practice of refer-ring to both Pepin and Charlemagne as most Christian kings for liv-ing up to the promise placed in them the one as protector, the otheras propagator of the faith.Hincmar (d.882)Hincmar, archbishop of Reims from 845 to 882, was a learned the-ologian and nimble politician, whose fame in the development of sacredkingship rests on his introduction of the legend of the Holy Ampulla intothe history of Clovis, four centuries after the fact.In an effort to provethe continuity of Frankish kingship and, it is commonly believed, to chal-lenge the influence of the abbey of Saint-Denis then successfully fus-ing its own history with that of the monarchy Hincmar authorized anew myth.He is often believed to have fabricated the story himself inan attempt to expand the importance of the see of Reims.In all likeli-hood, he did not invent it, although he had confessed to forging otherdocuments.The myth made the astonishing assertion that the liquid usedto consecrate Frankish kings was of divine origin.A dove, the Christiansymbol of the Holy Spirit, had allegedly delivered the Ampulla, or vial,of sacred liquid in its beak, when the bustling crowd at Clovis baptismhad prevented the bearer of the baptismal oil from a timely arrival at theceremony.Through this myth the election of French kings was seen as 48 JOAN OF ARC AND THE HUNDRED YEARS WARthe will of God.Furthermore, the continuity of their rule was guaranteedby an inexhaustible supply of anointing balm held in the Holy Ampulla,which could anoint French kings to the end of time.The effect of this fiction on the course of French kingship was as vitalas if it had been genuine historical fact.The legend created a dazzlingidentity between French kingship and the archbishopric of Reims a con-venient counterweight to the competing influence of the monastery ofSaint-Denis.In 869, during the coronation and consecration of Charlesthe Bald, Hincmar compared the Frankish king to the kings of Israel.TheFranks, according to Hincmar, were kings in the tradition of God s electand consequently endowed with both superiority and a religious mission.But since the privilege of consecration suggested the king s resemblanceto priests, a possible threat to priestly power, Hincmar clarified to Charlesthe Bald: It is to your anointing.much more than to your temporalpower, that you owe your royal dignity. 3 This was Hincmar s way of say-ing that through consecration prelates held control over kingship.Hinc-mar s fable of the Holy Ampulla became so closely linked to the essenceof French kingship that after the French revolution, in a symbolic finalerasure of the French monarchy, a citizen of the new republic destroyedthe Holy Ampulla, breaking it against a statue of Louis XV to cries of Vive la République! Until then it was, in the words of French historianColette Beaune, an obligatory truth of French patriotism, so funda-mental to the realm that the details of the legend scarcely ever varied inthe retelling.4Philip II Augustus (r.1180 1223)The reign of Philip Augustus, seventh ruler of the Capetians, France sthird dynasty, was marked by astonishing territorial conquests.Focusedon England as his primary enemy, in a conflict sometimes called the firstHundred Years War, King Philip eventually dismantled most of theAngevin legacy of England in France.Aquitaine was more or less all thatremained of England s French dominions.By the time Philip had seizedFrench lands from his third Plantagenet king, the king in question, JohnI Lackland, was being called the king without a kingdom and the fifthwheel of a cart. 5 The Plantagenet dynasty survived the Capetian on-slaught of Philip Augustus, although considerably weakened, while Philipnearly quadrupled the size of French lands. The Creation of Royal Authority in France 49By acquiring this vast territory, holding it, and effectively administer-ing it, Philip Augustus established the foundations of French royal powerin the Middle Ages.During his reign, the French monarchy, previouslyrecognized as little more than the Paris basin, or Ile-de-France, started totake on the flavor and feel of a national monarchy.In recognition of theincreasingly definable entity called France, royal correspondence duringPhilip s reign began to substitute the title king of France for king ofthe Franks. By 1205 the phrase kingdom of France appeared
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