How Old is the Country of France?

C.J. Adrien's Critical Thinking Lab | Episode 3

How Old is France? (Hint: It’s not 843 AD)

When was France actually “born”? If you look at most maps or textbooks, you’ll see the year 843 AD—the Division of the Carolingian Empire. But is that actually the start of France, or just a convenient date on a legend?

In today’s episode of the Critical Thinking Lab, we aren’t just looking at dates; we are modeling the behavior of a historian. Using specific criteria and “nomenclature,” we’re stripping away the myths of Clovis and Charlemagne to find the objective truth.

Transcript:

Welcome back to CJ Adrien’s Critical Thinking Lab. Today we’re going to try and answer one of those big, sticky questions in history to exercise our critical thinking skills. And that question is: How old is the country of France?

Now, this question came up while I was perusing the internet and I found this map. In the map, you’ll see that it stipulates in the legend that France started in 843, which I assume they’re considering the division of the Carolingian Empire into three parts, including West Francia.

Yeah, that oddly resembles modern France in terms of its territorial boundaries, but they’re making a critical error. And today we’re going to discuss why.

Now, before we dive into answering our question, I do want to reiterate the purpose of this channel, which is to help everyone who watches it to exercise their critical thinking skills. Remember, I’m a former school teacher, and while normally I would have you do some kind of exercise on the side to move along with me as I go through this subject matter, because this is a YouTube channel, I’m just going to do what teachers call “modeling the behavior.”

So, I’ll be going through the motions of how to establish criteria to arrive at as objective of a truth as I possibly can in answering this question. Now, I know some of you are going to go straight into the comments section and try to explain to me that Clovis founded France. No, wait, it was the Battle of Bouvines. No, wait, it was Charlemagne. No, wait, it was this. Okay, go ahead and do that. Have fun! But also keep watching this video, because as we get through our criteria, you may end up changing your mind by the end.

To answer the question, “How old is France?” we first need to make certain definitions clear. Now, words have meaning, and those meanings matter. In historical circles, we call that nomenclature. We need our nomenclature to be dialed in in order to set the criteria that we’re going to use to be able to answer the question.

There are three terms in particular that we’re going to pick apart. The first one is the word nation, the second one is the word state, and the third one is the word country. Each of these has a different definition and is going to impact how we answer today’s question a little bit differently. We also need to look at the relationship between the three so that we can establish clear guidelines.

So, let’s start with the question itself. The question asks: How old is France? So, what is France? Well, France is a country. “Country” is a word that designates a geographic boundary. That geographic boundary typically revolves around something of a nation and a state. It is also an inherently outside view of what’s going on inside. So, France is a country vis-à-vis the English view. England is a country vis-à-vis the French view.

I know it may sound like I’m splitting hairs, but it’s important to understand that it is an outside view. It is not a self-identification. Self-identification happens with a nation and with a state. But as far as the word “country” is concerned, that is another person from outside of your nation and your state identifying you as a country. So, when I ask how old France the country is, that means I’m taking an outside view of what France is and what France’s birthday could possibly be.

Now let’s move on. What is a nation? A nation is a self-identification. It is a group of people who typically share a common language, culture, customs, values, laws, and in France’s case, cuisine. So, what we’re really looking at is a group of people who share common traits.

Now we move on to the word “state.” What does “state” mean? A state is the culmination of institutions and levers of power that govern over a certain set of people. So, here’s where it gets a little bit tricky. There is such a phenomenon as a nation that is split up into different states. One of the best historical examples of this is Germany. Before reunification, there was a German nation, but it was split into several separate, smaller states. Then after unification, they became a single state. And then during the Cold War, of course, famously there were two Germanys. So again, a nation split into two: East and West.

A more modern example of this would be the Korean nation, which is split into two states: North Korea and South Korea. Now, there is an argument to be made that it’s been split for so long that North Korea is becoming its own sort of nation. I totally agree if that’s an argument somebody wants to make in the comment section, but for now, fundamentally, it started as a single nation split into two.

These are the exception rather than the rule. In fact, they are very rare, because the only examples I could really think of were Korea, Vietnam for a little bit, and Germany. Now, something that is more common is that there are states that rule over several nations. In fact, these tend to be the rule rather than the exception. A great example of this is the modern country of China. China is a central state that rules over several smaller nations, like the Uyghurs.

The United Kingdom is a state that rules over several smaller nations, such as the nation of England, the nation of Wales, the nation of Scotland, and the nation of Northern Ireland. Which is controversial, but I’m just going to leave that there. We actually see this reflected in the modern Tournament of Six Nations in rugby, where you have England, Wales, Scotland, and the Brittany region of France—because technically, Brittany still thinks of itself as its own little nation.

Now, when we turn to France, we realize that it occupies a somewhat liminal space in these categorizations, which is to say that France has actually become a nation that is represented by the state, and neither exceeds the other. This is what political scientists and historians have come to call the “nation-state.” And in fact, France at one point was the poster child for a nation-state.

France used to be composed of multiple nations, and to a certain extent, there are still some of those nations represented inside of France. But they’re so acculturated to the main nation, which is of the French people, that they no longer represent a distinct, separate nation inside the state. A great example of this is Brittany. The Brittany region still considers itself its own nation. In fact, in that Tournament of Six Nations that I talked about, they have their own team. However, they’re so acculturated that if you take a Breton person and you pluck them out of Brittany and you stick them into Paris, they are indistinguishable from the French.

Therefore, the nation of France is one. Now, that actually happened because of more recent history, particularly starting during the French Revolution, when the revolutionary government was seeking to consolidate its power and its legitimacy over the French people. They decided that these smaller nations within France were problematic and prone to uprisings, and so they had to acculturate the entire country into the one nation of France. This phenomenon actually plays into the wars that would happen in the 20th century, because once France became a nation-state and Germany became a nation-state, then we had these two big rivaling entities that would go head-to-head for almost a hundred years, and it was not pretty.

So now that we have our definitions and nomenclature in place, we can set the ground rules for how we’re going to evaluate different theories on the age of the country of France. If the modern country of France is a nation and a state, then what we’re going to be looking for is a time in history when: A) The institutions that would endure until today started. B) When a self-identification of a nation with a shared language, culture, and shared values came together as one.

So, let’s examine some of the 19th-century ideas and let’s pick them apart. Let’s start with one that is still taught in schools today: Clovis. Clovis was a 6th-century Frankish warlord who conquered the former province of Gaul after the collapse of the Western Roman Empire. Now, a particular thing you need to understand about Clovis is that his father was also a powerful chieftain who was allied with some of the Gallo-Roman provinces that were independent states after the collapse of the Western Roman Empire. He even fought for them, he was buried with Roman arms and armor, and he was called the “Roman Frank.”

So, there was this very close cultural tie between the Franks, who were descending into the former province of Gaul, and the people who actually lived there after the collapse of the Western Roman Empire. By the time Clovis burst onto the scene, the Franks weren’t exactly coming out of nowhere; they were well known to the Gallo-Romans. They, in fact, were fighting as mercenaries and also had received land grants. And so when Clovis conquered Gaul, it was kind of like, “Duh. We knew this was going to happen.”

Now, when he conquered Gaul, he encountered a problem, which is that the Roman Empire had Christianized. So, the people he conquered were perhaps in the majority Christian. So he made this very interesting move: he got baptized, he converted to Christianity, and in French history and French mythology, the baptism of Clovis is a major foundational pillar of what would become France. Why? Because it took the “heathen pagans” and it made them Christian. Now, France has been a Catholic country for a very long time, so this was an important event in terms of the cultural zeitgeist of what France was and what France would become. It turned into this foundational moment that the French looked back to as, “Ah, oui! This is when France began—when the Germanic tribes of the Franks became Christian, and then the country of France would begin.”

Okay, so let’s take a look at that theory from a critical lens. What biases can you pick out that make that theory problematic? It’s very religious, isn’t it? It smells fishy. I’m sorry, but I just have to pause... anyway, this theory is in fact infused with religious bias. It slots the entire narrative of the foundation of a nation and of a state within the confines of a religious dogma. Now, is it completely inappropriate? Perhaps not. In fact, a shared religion is part of what forms a nation. So, as far as the nation-building piece of this, Clovis plays a part. He in fact plays a big part, and his story should not be eliminated from the history of France.

Going back to the idea that a nation has a shared history, this foundational moment—at least for the cultural aspect of things—does play a role in the shared memory of the journey that was taken to arrive at modern France. Okay, so based on our criteria, can we consider the story of Clovis as the founding moment for the country of France? Let’s take a look. Was there a nation with a shared French language, culture, and values present at the time of Clovis? No. Was there a state that would resemble the institutions that we have today in France present at the time of Clovis? Also no. The institutions and levers of power that Clovis instituted did not survive past the Merovingian line. In fact, they were replaced by the Carolingians. So, we do not have a nation and we do not have a state. And from an outside perspective, that means that we cannot say that there was a country called France at the time of Clovis. It was a Germanic tribe that had invaded Gallo-Romans, and that’s the best we can say. They were kind of their own thing: Merovingian France. How about that?

Let’s look at another theory. Like in the map that I showed you at the beginning, it shows 843 as the separation of the Carolingian Empire, and then that separation moved into the west as West Francia under the rule of Charles the Bald. Was Charles the Bald the first King of France? Well, let’s take our two criteria. Was there a nation—a French nation with a shared language, values, culture, history, and cuisine? Did that exist under Charles the Bald? No. Again, we were dealing with Frankish tribes. There was no French language quite yet. There was no French culture quite yet. We see the beginnings of them, but they’re just not there yet.

Now let’s look at institutions. Did the Carolingian institutions survive until today? And while there are some French historians who have proposed that they did in some part—in fact, one or two things of political culture may have snuck through—in general, no. Those institutions did not survive. In fact, the Carolingians, just like the Merovingians, had a Germanic tradition of separating all of one’s lands among legitimate heirs, which means that all the rulers of the Merovingians and Carolingians who made any large territorial gains had to split them apart amongst their legitimate male children. This created a repeat phenomenon, what I call the “Frankish yo-yoing,” which is expansion, contraction, expansion, contraction. The Frankish yo-yo... I should make a product. Anyway!

Okay, so now that we’ve evaluated those two, we know that those are not the foundations of France. Then when is France’s birthday? Well, we have a candidate and he’s a good one, and in fact, he’s not too long after Charles the Bald. His name is Hugh Capet. He became King of France—the first “King of France” in title—in 987. What made him different was, one, he was not related to the Carolingians or the Merovingians. He ended those lines effectively. I mean, they were more or less ended before that, but this was new. He was new.

Now let’s take our criteria. In 987, was there a French nation with a shared language, culture, and values? It turns out there was. In fact, some of the earliest evidence for the French language having come into its own starts just before Hugh Capet takes the throne. So, we have a French language—the langue d’oïl—that has taken form and become the main language of a certain nation, and that is the nation of France. So, Hugh Capet really arrives as the French nation takes form.

Now, let’s look at the state. Hugh Capet instituted some royal reforms. Not just reforms; he threw out everything before and instituted something new. First of all, he instituted primogeniture, which is the passing of your lands to your single eldest child. That prevented the phenomenon of fracturing his kingdom into lots of smaller kingdoms. Second, he instituted some bureaucratic reforms. In fact, he created a bureaucracy to help him rule that included lawyers, which is really interesting. And the Capetians would endure until 1328 and continue to expand on this.

So, we have in Hugh Capet the satisfactory adherence to having a nation and having a state, and it is here that we may begin to say: “This was France.” I know what some of you are going to say. You’re going to say, “Wait a minute. The Capetians couldn’t have created the institutions that are in France today.” And to a significant extent, that’s true, because institutions were added over time by different kings, by different governments, et cetera. So it is not the French government as we know it today back during Hugh. But what he did was he created the first unbroken line of bureaucratic institutions that would survive until today. Those bureaucratic institutions came front and center during the Hundred Years’ War, when they became very bloated and expensive, making it hard to fight wars. They were actually some of the cogworks that made it so that France wasn’t able to fight effectively against the English. They were too bloated bureaucratically.

I think it’s worth also exploring some of the theories that say that France began after the Capetians. For example, the 1214 Battle of Bouvines, which is very consequential in preserving the Kingdom of France from destruction and then ushering in a new era of “Frenchness.” Now, it’s valid, but the institutions created by Hugh Capet preceded the Battle of Bouvines and continued after the Battle of Bouvines.

Same thing with the Hundred Years’ War. Didn’t the English conquer almost all of France? Wasn’t the king replaced by a new dynasty? Didn’t that new dynasty almost get wiped out? Yes, all those things are true, but the institutions created by Hugh Capet preceded the Hundred Years’ War, survived the Hundred Years’ War, and actually emerged from the Hundred Years’ War even stronger. Same thing with the nation. As France entered the Hundred Years’ War, they were hardly what one would consider a unified nation. You had the small nation of France with a state that ruled over other nations, and those nations were not French. But by the end of the Hundred Years’ War, they were starting to be so. The nation of France grew and strengthened. The state of France grew and strengthened, and it would only continue to do so through the absolutist period and beyond.

There’s only one place in time in history that we can call the foundation of the country of France, and that is when Hugh Capet took the throne in 987 and created the institutions and the political culture that would lead to modern France. By our criteria, 987 is France’s birthday.

Now let’s get back to the critical thinking piece of this. How does this help you exercise your critical thinking muscles? Well, here’s how: what I just did is model how to create criteria in order to answer a question with a certain degree of objectivity. And that’s the skill I want to help you develop, which is to take any question—however sticky, however nebulous, however unanswerable—and come up with a set of criteria that you can use to answer it to the best of your abilities and with the least amount of bias possible.

What we did today with the nomenclature, which is to define the criteria by which we were going to measure different events in history and whether they apply as the founding moments of a certain country, we had to define what a country is. We had to define what a nation was. We had to define what a state was and put it all together so that when we look at different historical events, we could measure them by those criteria that we set.

I hope you learned something today. I had a lot of fun answering this question. And next week I’m going to take a little bit of a risk and go after an even more dangerous question, which is: How old is Russia? Because that’s been in the news lately, and Vladimir Putin loves to talk about Kievan Rus’ as being part of Russian history. And it is kind of, but can the modern Russian state claim lineage to it? And that is what I’ll be tackling next time. See you then.