WI: Culture of a France that gets independence from England sometime during the late 1700s to mid 1800s?

[ETK023]

Basically, France gets conquered by England during the Hundred Years War. However, this happens late in the Hundred Years War, when the English Nobility identified as English and not French. England dominates the union, instead of being absorbed by France.

Sometime during the late 1700s to mid 1800s, a rebellion frees France from English rule.

What would France look like in this scenario? How much, (if any), of the population would speak English? How would France view England, and how would England view France? What cultural effects would this have on either?

 

[Nikoloz]

I find it difficult to imagine France not becoming the center of this Anglo-French realm. It is vastly more populated, rich, etc. and already among the English the French language and culture held considerable prestige. The court was French-dominated right to the end of the Plantagenet dynasty, from what I understand.

 

[ETK023]

I find it difficult to imagine France not becoming the center of this Anglo-French realm. It is vastly more populated, rich, etc. and already among the English the French language and culture held considerable prestige. The court was French-dominated right to the end of the Plantagenet dynasty, from what I understand.

Huh. Maybe, I'm wrong, but I swear I remember reading that England's nobility had mostly assimilated by the late HYW. Also, I read that the French themselves already considered the English nobility to be foreigners, so the English nobility couldn't just switch to France as their center of power.

As for prestige, wouldn't that take a hit after France was conquered by a smaller, poorer and generally weaker kingdom?

 

[TRH]

And by 'vastly more populated,' we mean France had about 4-5 times the population of England at this time. The idea of England keeping France under its boot for 350 years makes about as much sense as Scotland dominating England for that long.

As for prestige, wouldn't that take a hit after France was conquered by a smaller, poorer and generally weaker kingdom?

Greek culture wasn't much diminished by the Roman conquest.

 

[Migrant_Coconut]

You might have a North France (Normandy, Champagne, et al) that's half-Anglophone and a slight more Francophonic England.

 

[iMercadier]

Huh. Maybe, I'm wrong, but I swear I remember reading that England's nobility had mostly assimilated by the late HYW. Also, I read that the French themselves already considered the English nobility to be foreigners, so the English nobility couldn't just switch to France as their center of power.

As for prestige, wouldn't that take a hit after France was conquered by a smaller, poorer and generally weaker kingdom?

You are correct, my friend. The English nobility had greatly assimilated to English culture nearing the end of the Hundred Years' War. Even at the start, the nobility was more English than French.

 

[funnyhat]

Basically, France gets conquered by England during the Hundred Years War. However, this happens late in the Hundred Years War, when the English Nobility identified as English and not French. England dominates the union, instead of being absorbed by France.

This is anachronistic thinking. The Plantagenet position is that they are the rightful dynasty of France. They are not fighting on behalf of England but for their own family interest. They do not want to be seen as foreign conquerors, they want to be accepted by the local nobility.

The language of the English nobility really does not matter, because they are back in England. The Plantagenets will have to deal with the French nobility to reign in Paris.

 

[NotAMyth]

Huh. Maybe, I'm wrong, but I swear I remember reading that England's nobility had mostly assimilated by the late HYW. Also, I read that the French themselves already considered the English nobility to be foreigners, so the English nobility couldn't just switch to France as their center of power.

While the English Nobility had become "English", they still had considerable interest in the French Kingdom- Marriages and holdings across the channel were commonplace. Not to mention French was still the more prestigious culture/language.

As for prestige, wouldn't that take a hit after France was conquered by a smaller, poorer and generally weaker kingdom?

Again nationalism, as we know, didn't exist. France would not have been conquered by England, it would have been recovered by a rightful claimant through force of arms. If the King of France is also the King of England, that means it's a Personal Union, not outright conquest. No one in that era would even imagine incorporating french lands (beyond the Plantagenet inheritance) in the kingdom of England, or somehow show that the french crown was lesser than that of England.

 

[Jan Olbracht]

It would be England looking for independence from France if Plantagenets were victorious in HYW.

 

[ETK023]

While the English Nobility had become "English", they still had considerable interest in the French Kingdom- Marriages and holdings across the channel were commonplace. Not to mention French was still the more prestigious culture/language.

Again nationalism, as we know, didn't exist. France would not have been conquered by England, it would have been recovered by a rightful claimant through force of arms. If the King of France is also the King of England, that means it's a Personal Union, not outright conquest. No one in that era would even imagine incorporating french lands (beyond the Plantagenet inheritance) in the kingdom of England, or somehow show that the french crown was lesser than that of England.

I know nationalism didn't exist, but people still didn't like being ruled by foreigners with different ways than themselves, that's something as old as culture itself. IIRC, there were Czech Nobility rejecting German Nobles moving there as early the 1600s. My thought was that, with the French nobility rejecting the kings of England and France, the kings would still have to rely on England as their loyal support base, compared to rebellious France.

Also, everything I've read about the Hundred Years War says it was when the French and English identities as we know them truly began to solidify.

 

[ETK023]

This is anachronistic thinking. The Plantagenet position is that they are the rightful dynasty of France. They are not fighting on behalf of England but for their own family interest. They do not want to be seen as foreign conquerors, they want to be accepted by the local nobility.

The language of the English nobility really does not matter, because they are back in England. The Plantagenets will have to deal with the French nobility to reign in Paris.

They weren't personally fighting for England, but England is their base of power. The French nobles have already rejected Plantagenet rule for a century, and I doubt they would be significantly more loyal once conquered.

Meanwhile, England's Nobility have seen then through the HYW to take the French throne in the first place. It's not a good idea to alienate your loyal vassals in favor of your newly conquered vassals who resent you anyways. I think any scenario like that could easily just see the Plantagenets lose both the English and French thrones.

 

[Nikoloz]

Remember that the goal of the Plantagenets wasn't simply to occupy some land in France, it was to become the Kings of France. (They had no desire at all to obliterate the French system and replace it with an English one.) And if they succeeded, the linguistic preferences of their English subjects, or nobles, wouldn't count for much in the long term since they would be thoroughly outnumbered by the mainlanders.

On a tangential note, here are some observations regarding the state of French in England at around this time:

"[Recent] linguistic study of medieval English French [...] found the language-death of insular French to have been exaggerated by about a century: insular French remained a living and changing language into the early fifteenth rather than the early fourteenth century" (Wogan-Browne 2016: 2).

It was not until the English position in mainland France collapsed that they mostly gave up on French for official purposes; more Chancery documents, for instance, were written in French than in English until the mid 1430's (Douglas 1991: 67–68).

* Kibbee, Douglas A. 1991. For to speke Frenche trewely: The French language in England, 1000-1600: Its status, description and instruction. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
* Wogan-Browne, Jocelyn. 2016. Vernacular literary theory from the French of Medieval England: Texts and translations, c.1120–c.1450. Cambridge: D.S. Brewer.

 

[ETK023]

Remember that the goal of the Plantagenets wasn't simply to occupy some land in France, it was to become the Kings of France. (They had no desire at all to obliterate the French system and replace it with an English one.) And if they succeeded, the linguistic preferences of their English subjects, or nobles, wouldn't count for much in the long term since they would be thoroughly outnumbered by the mainlanders.

The thing is, the French nobility clearly didn't want the Plantagenets as kings. It's not so much a matter of if they want to favor France, the question is can they? The French nobility aren't going to be loyal, at least in the aftermath of the HYW. It seems like it would be suicidal to surround themselves with people who have fought against them for generations, whilst neglecting the people who fought for them.

On a tangential note, here are some observations regarding the state of French in England at around this time:

"[Recent] linguistic study of medieval English French [...] found the language-death of insular French to have been exaggerated by about a century: insular French remained a living and changing language into the early fifteenth rather than the early fourteenth century" (Wogan-Browne 2016: 2).

It was not until the English position in mainland France collapsed that they mostly gave up on French for official purposes; more Chancery documents, for instance, were written in French than in English until the mid 1430's (Douglas 1991: 67–68).

* Kibbee, Douglas A. 1991. For to speke Frenche trewely: The French language in England, 1000-1600: Its status, description and instruction. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
* Wogan-Browne, Jocelyn. 2016. Vernacular literary theory from the French of Medieval England: Texts and translations, c.1120–c.1450. Cambridge: D.S. Brewer.

I see, that's interesting. Everything I had read suggested that French amongst English nobility was all but dead by the late HYW, but if that's wrong then England would end up French dominated.

 

[NotAMyth]

I know nationalism didn't exist, but people still didn't like being ruled by foreigners with different ways than themselves, that's something as old as culture itself. IIRC, there were Czech Nobility rejecting German Nobles moving there as early the 1600s. My thought was that, with the French nobility rejecting the kings of England and France, the kings would still have to rely on England as their loyal support base, compared to rebellious France.

Also, everything I've read about the Hundred Years War says it was when the French and English identities as we know them truly began to solidify.

I mean you are not wrong, but you are reading way too much into the clear-cut boundaries of culture, language, or even ethnic identity, which are mostly modern terminologies retroactively assigned by later historians for ease of reference and classification. These assumptions are a reflection of how we perceive the medieval world rather than how the people living at that time perceived it.
For example in the era before the modern nation-state, to a peasant in Toulouse, even a man from Champagne would have been a foreigner and not to be trusted. He would probably not even recognize that they had any sort of government in common knowing only his own feudal lords (with perhaps a variable awareness as to the existence of a King). And even then the peasant would probably never interact with any of his feudal lords, except for maybe his own immediate lord. If he is not too oppressed, he wouldn't care who sat half the world away in Paris. And to an extent the same goes for the French nobility; as long as they are given the degree of autonomy they desire, they would have no reason to question the man on the throne.
The Nobles would only really care about foreigners with different ways, if those different ways were imposed on them. And no monarch is going to try that, at least in that era.

 

[ETK023]

I mean you are not wrong, but you are reading way too much into the clear-cut boundaries of culture, language, or even ethnic identity, which are mostly modern terminologies retroactively assigned by later historians for ease of reference and classification. These assumptions are a reflection of how we perceive the medieval world rather than how the people living at that time perceived it.
For example in the era before the modern nation-state, to a peasant in Toulouse, even a man from Champagne would have been a foreigner and not to be trusted. He would probably not even recognize that they had any sort of government in common knowing only his own feudal lords (with perhaps a variable awareness as to the existence of a King). And even then the peasant would probably never interact with any of his feudal lords, except for maybe his own immediate lord. If he is not too oppressed, he wouldn't care who sat half the world away in Paris. And to an extent the same goes for the French nobility; as long as they are given the degree of autonomy they desire, they would have no reason to question the man on the throne.
The Nobles would only really care about foreigners with different ways, if those different ways were imposed on them. And no monarch is going to try that, at least in that era.

My main point is that I don't see why the Plantagenets would trust recently conquered French nobility over their proven loyal English nobles. I'm not saying that it's a 19th century-like nationalism issue, I'm saying that the French nobility had already fought against the Plantagenets for a century, and wouldn't be loyal in the first place, thus resulting in the Plantagenets needing to favor their English vassals to maintain their realm and put down any revolts for the French throne.

 

[TRH]

For example in the era before the modern nation-state, to a peasant in Toulouse, even a man from Champagne would have been a foreigner and not to be trusted. He would probably not even recognize that they had any sort of government in common knowing only his own feudal lords (with perhaps a variable awareness as to the existence of a King). And even then the peasant would probably never interact with any of his feudal lords, except for maybe his own immediate lord. If he is not too oppressed, he wouldn't care who sat half the world away in Paris. And to an extent the same goes for the French nobility; as long as they are given the degree of autonomy they desire, they would have no reason to question the man on the throne.

I'm remembering a bit from the Midwife's Apprentice, when Alyce was trying to come up with a name for an orphan boy she'd met, and thought he could try the same name that the king had. It took a bunch of asking around, because it turned out only the village bailiff even knew what the current king's name was.

 

[NotAMyth]

My main point is that I don't see why the Plantagenets would trust recently conquered French nobility over their proven loyal English nobles. I'm not saying that it's a 19th century-like nationalism issue, I'm saying that the French nobility had already fought against the Plantagenets for a century, and wouldn't be loyal in the first place, thus resulting in the Plantagenets needing to favor their English vassals to maintain their realm and put down any revolts for the French throne.

'Trust'....is not the word I would assign to a feudal relationship. I think a better descripter would be 'self-interest'.
There were plenty of revolts against the Plantagenets by their English vassals too. It wasn't like the English lord was somehow inherently loyal. At the time it was in their self-interest to defend the english kings rights to the French throne, so as to defend/expand their own holdings or at the very least keep the metaphorical Royal gun pointed elsewhere and dependent on their support for further ammunition.
Plantagenets weren't devoid of support in France, and even the nobles supporting the Capetians/Valois were known to switch factions.

 

[ETK023]

'Trust'....is not the word I would assign to a feudal relationship. I think a better descripter would be 'self-interest'.
There were plenty of revolts against the Plantagenets by their English vassals too. It wasn't like the English lord was somehow inherently loyal. At the time it was in their self-interest to defend the english kings rights to the French throne, so as to defend/expand their own holdings or at the very least keep the metaphorical Royal gun pointed elsewhere and dependent on their support for further ammunition.
Plantagenets weren't devoid of support in France, and even the nobles supporting the Capetians/Valois were known to switch factions.

Huh, I had heard that the French nobility saw the Plantagenets as a threat to their power, hence their fight against them. I didn't know any French nobles supported them, outside of Burgundy and Flanders.