as the greatest of church
builders in Christendom. They gave their name to a style of Christian
architecture in Europe and a line of kings to England,[38] Naples and
Sicily.

[Footnote 38: William the Conqueror was also known as William the
Builder.]

The people of Paris and of France never forgot the lesson of the dark
century of the invasions. A subtle change had been operating. The
empire had decomposed into kingdoms; the kingdoms were segregating
into lordships. Men in their need were attracted to the few strong and
dominant lords whose courage and resource afforded them a rallying
point and shelter against disintegrating forces: the poor and
defenceless huddled for protection to the seigneurs of strongholds
which had withstood the floods of barbarians that were devastating the
land. The seeds of feudalism were sown in the long winter of the
Norman terror.

CHAPTER IV

_The Rise of the Capetian Kings and the Growth of Feudal Paris_

From 936 to the coronation of Hugh Capet at Noyon in 987, the
Carlovingians exercised a slowly decaying power. The real rulers at
Paris were Hugh the Tall and Hugh Capet,[39] grandson and
great-grandson of Robert the Strong. They revolutionized the ideal of
kingship and founded the line of kings of France which stretches
onward through history for a thousand years until the guillotine of
the Revolution cut it in twain. It is Hugh Capet whom Dante, following
a legend of his time, calls the son of a butcher of Paris, and whom he
hears among the weeping souls cleaving to the dust and purging their
avarice in the fifth cornice of Purgatory.

[Footnote 39: The surname Capet is said to have originated in the
_capet_ or hood of the abbot's mantle which Hugh wore as lay Abbot of
St. Martin's, having laid aside the crown after his coronation.]

Their patrimony was a small one--the provinces of the Isle de France,
La Brie, La Beauce, Beauvais and Valois; but their sway extended over
the land of the Langue d'oil, with its strenuous northern life, _le
doux royaume de la France_, the sweet realm of France, whose head was
Paris, cradle of the great French Monarchy and home of art, learning
and chivalry. The globe of the earth, symbol of universal empire,
gives way to the hand of justice as the emblem of kingship. The Capets
were, it is true, at first little more than seigneurs over other
seigneurs, some of whom were almost as powerful as they; but that
little, the drop of holy chris