Duke of Normandy

 ( Normandy ) 

In the Middle Ages, the duke of Normandy was the ruler of the Duchy of Normandy. The duchy arose out of a grant of land to the Viking leader Rollo by the French king Charles the Simple in 911. In 924 and again in 933, Normandy was expanded by royal grant. Rollo's male-line descendants continued to rule it until 1135, and cognatic descendants ruled it until 1204. In 1202 the French king Philip Augustus declared Normandy a forfeited fief and by 1204 his army had conquered it (with the exception of the Channel Islands). It remained a French royal province thereafter, still called the Duchy of Normandy, but only occasionally granted to a duke of the royal house as an appanage.

Despite both the 13th century loss of mainland Normandy, the renunciation of the title by Henry III of England in the Treaty of Paris (1259), and the extinction of the duchy itself in modern-day France, the monarch of the United Kingdom is regardless still often informally referred to by the title "Duke of Normandy". This is the title used whether the monarch is a king or a queen.

The first official recorded use of the title duke ( dux) is in an act in favour of the Abbey of Fécamp in 1006 by Richard II, Duke of Normandy. Earlier, the writer Richerus had called Richard I a dux pyratorum, but which only means "leader of pirates" and was not a title. During the reign of Richard II, the French king's chancery began to call the Norman ruler "Duke of the Normans" ( dux Normannorum) for the first time. As late as the reign of Duke William II (1035–87), the ruler of Normandy could style himself "prince and duke, count of Normandy" as if unsure what his title should be. The literal Latin equivalent of "Duke of Normandy", dux Normanniae, was in use by 1066,George Beech, "The Participation of Aquitanians in the Conquest of England 1066–1100", in R. Allen Brown, ed., Anglo-Norman Studies IX: Proceedings of the Battle Conference, 1986 (Boydell Press, 1987), p. 16. but it did not supplant dux Normannorum until the Angevin Empire (1144–1204), at a time when Normans was fading.Nick Webber, The Evolution of Norman Identity, 911–1154 (Boydell Press, 2005), p. 178.

Richard I experimented with the title "marquis" ( marchio) as early as 966, when it was also used in a diploma of King Lothair.David Crouch, The Normans: The History of a Dynasty (Hambledon Continuum, 2002), p. 19. Richard II occasionally used it, but he seems to have preferred the title duke. It is his preference for the ducal title in his own charters that has led historians to believe that it was the chosen title of the Norman rulers. Certainly it was not granted to them by the French king. In the twelfth century, the Abbey of Fécamp spread the legend that it had been granted to Richard II by Pope Benedict VIII (ruled 1012–24). The French chancery did not regularly employ it until after 1204, when the duchy had been seized by the crown and Normandy lost its autonomy and its native rulers.

The actual reason for the adoption of a higher title than that of count was that the rulers of Normandy began to grant the comital title to members of their own family. The creation of Norman counts subject to the ruler of Normandy necessitated the latter taking a higher title. The same process was at work in other principalities of France in the eleventh century, as the comital title came into wider use and thus depreciated. The Normans nevertheless kept the title of count for the ducal family and no non-family member was granted a county until Helias of Saint-Saëns was made Count of Arques by Henry I in 1106.

From 1066, when William II Norman Conquest, becoming King William I, the title Duke of Normandy was often held by the King of England. In 1087, William died and the title passed to his eldest son, Robert Curthose, while his second surviving son, William Rufus, inherited England. In 1096, Robert mortgaged Normandy to William, who was succeeded by another brother, Henry I, in 1100. In 1106, Henry conquered Normandy. It remained with the King of England down to 1144, when, during the civil war known as the Anarchy, it was conquered by Geoffrey Plantagenet, the Count of Anjou. Geoffrey's son, Henry II, inherited Normandy (1150) and then England (1154), reuniting the two titles. In 1202, King Philip II of France, as feudal suzerain, declared Normandy forfeit and by 1204 his armies had conquered it (with the exception of the Channel Islands). Henry III finally renounced the English claim in the Treaty of Paris (1259).

Thereafter, the continental part of the duchy formed an integral part of the French royal demesne. The kings of the House of Valois started a tradition of granting the title to their heirs apparent. The title was granted four times (1332, 1350, 1465, 1785) between the French conquest of Normandy and the dissolution of the French monarchy in 1792. The French Revolution brought an end to the Duchy of Normandy as a political entity, by then a province of France, and it was replaced by several départements.

– 928/933
     

– 9 September 1087
     

– 3 February 1134
     

– 1 December 1135
     

In 1332, King Philip VI gave the Duchy in appanage to his son John, who became king John II of France in 1350. He in turn gave the Duchy in appanage to his son Charles, who became king Charles V of France in 1364. In 1465, Louis XI, under constraint, gave the Duchy to his brother Charles de Valois, Duke of Berry. Charles was unable to hold the Duchy and in 1466 it was again subsumed into the crown lands and remained a permanent part of them. The title was conferred on a few junior members of the French royal family before the abolition of the French monarchy in 1792.

• John (son of King Philip VI, later King John II of France), 1332–1350.
• Charles (son of John II of France, later King Charles V of France), 1350–1364
• Charles (brother of Louis XI of France, also Duke of Berry), 1465–1466
• James, Duke of York, later King James II of England. On 31 December 1660, a few months after the restoration of Charles II to the thrones of England and Scotland, Louis XIV proclaimed Charles's younger brother, James, Duke of York, "Duke of Normandy". This was probably done as a political gesture of support.Alison Weir (1996). 258. Britain's Royal Families: The Complete Genealogy. Revised Edition. Random House, London. .
• Louis XVII (son of Louis XVI, later Dauphin 1789–1791 and titular King Louis XVII 1792–1795), 1785–1792.

However, the king is customarily referred to as "The Duke of Normandy", the title used by the islanders, especially during their loyal toast, where they say, "The Duke of Normandy, our King", or "The King, our Duke", " L'Rouai, nouotre Duc" or " L'Roué, note Du" in Norman language (Jèrriais and Guernésiais respectively), or " Le Roi, notre Duc" in Standard French, rather than simply "The King", as is the practice in the United Kingdom.

The title 'Duke of Normandy' is not used in formal government publications, and, as a matter of Channel Islands law, does not exist.

Although Henry III of England formally renounced the ducal title over mainland Normandy in the Treaty of Paris (1259), the Channel Islands have continued to be governed under the original Norman feudal existing that existed during the duchy. When continental Normandy was lost to the French crown in 1204, the chief tenants of the islands — the Seigneurs holding their fiefs directly from the Crown — chose to remain loyal to the English sovereign rather than to the new French duchy, preserving the feudal structure and customary law under which they had always been governed and maintaining the former ducal relationship — a continuity never formally interrupted since the Norman grants of the tenth and eleventh centuries. Acts of the Westminster Parliament do not apply unless expressly extended to them.

This relationship continues to find institutional expression through the survival of fundamental feudal structures within the Bailiwicks. In Guernsey, the Court of Chief Pleas (Guernsey) Law, 2004 codifies the statutory obligation of the holders of eleven specified fiefs to perform Secta Curiae (suit of court); a parallel obligation is fulfilled in Jersey through the Assize d'Héritage. By attending and performing suit of court, the Seigneurs formally renew their tenure in capite from the Crown, maintaining the same jurisdictional framework through which the Sovereign exercises authority in the islands under Norman customary law, thus confirming the constitutional specificity of the islands.

File:Statue d'Dgilliaume lé Contchéthant à Falaise 01.jpg|Statue of William the Conqueror in Falaise (surrounded by six other Dukes of Normandy)

• Helmerichs, Robert. " Princeps, Comes, Dux Normannorum: Early Rollonid Designators and their Significance". Haskins Society Journal, 9 (2001): 57–77.

• The Dukes of Normandy: From Rollo to William of Normandy