Graham Truesdale <graham.truesdale@gmail.com> wrote:
> In Our Time Line: -
> 1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charlemagne and his son https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Louis_the_Pious reigned over the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carolingian_Empire which, at its height, stretched from to Schleswig in the north to Barcelona in the south-west to south of Rome in the south-east to the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Morava_(river) on the border of present-day Slovakia in the east.
>
> 2. After Louis? death in 843, the Carolingian Empire was partitioned into a number of states, the largest of which were https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/West_Francia (which evolved into France) and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/East_Francia (which evolved into Germany).
>
> 3. East Francia had Carolingian (descended from Charlemagne) monarchs until 911. Non-Carolingians were elected in 911 and 919, and the son of the latter was crowned as Holy Roman Emperor in 962.
>
> 4. West Francia had Carolingian monarchs until 888 and then some
> Carolingian and some non-Carolingian monarchs until 987.

In this period it was flicking back and forth between the
Carolingians and Robertian/Capetians.

> 5. In 987 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hugh_Capet was elected King of
> West Francia and his descendants reigned in France until 1792, and then again
> from 1815 to 1848.
>
> 6. France gradually evolved into a unitary state, while Germany/the
> Holy Roman Empire remained a loose confederation until the Empire was
> dissolved in 1806. Even to-day the Federal Republic of Germany is (as it says
> on the tin) a federal state, while the French Republic is a unitary one.
>
> So (historical question) at what point was the biggest shift towards France
> becoming a unitary state? The reign of
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philip_II_of_France (1180-1223)?

I've seen him presented as a key actor in a longer process
by which the Kings extended their initially limited royal demesne.

Of course,what effect did the Hundred Years' War have in terms of
making the anti-English French circle their wagons and exposing
pro-English French to confiscation of their lands on the occasion
of anti-English success?

> IOW how did
> France and Germany (under https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frederick_Barbarossa
> who seems to have been a strong ruler) compare in 1180, in terms of how
> unitary or how loosely fragmented they were?
>
> And (alternate history challenge) what would it have taken to make France a
> loose confederation like OTL Germany pre-1806, or Germany a unitary state
> like OTL France?
>
> I have seen it suggested that part of the reason was that there was an
> uninterrupted line of father-to-son successions in France from the death of
> Hugh Capet in 996 to the death of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_I_of_France
> in 1316. So WI Philip II of France is never born, or is a girl and thus
> unable to succeed, or dies as a result of the teenage illness referred to in
> his article? He was the son of his father Louis VII?s third marriage, after
> the first two had failed to produce a son. Louis VII?s next brother was
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_of_France,_Archbishop_of_Reims

He also had an older brother who died in a riding accident,
and younger brothers.

> Or WI the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ottonian_dynasty (919-1024), the
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salian_dynasty (1024-1125) or the Hohenstaufen
> dynasty (1138-1254) had lasted longer?
>
> Or could https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frederick_II,_Holy_Roman_Emperor
> (reigned 1220-1250) have acted differently so as to prevent the decline of
> the HRE?