King John, France, and the Duke of Brittany: a few background notes for the WIP
1180: the King of England held the Duchies & Counties in red My work-in-progress KNIGHTS TO QUEEN takes place in the year 1202. John is King of England and was invested as Duke of Normandy when he became king in 1199. He was also Count of Anjou, Maine, and Poitou. Though I've been hanging out with the Plantagenets for close to 20 years, I still have to wrap my head around the vassal relationship of the King of England to the King of France. How can the sovereign of one country be a vassal of another king? Let's go back to the year 911: the duchy of Normandy was created that year in a treaty between the French King Charles and the Viking Rollo. As part of that agreement, Charles gave Rollo land around Rouen, which became Normandy, and for that, Rollo and subsequent dukes of Normandy (until 1204) swore fealty to France. So... when William, Duke of Normandy, aka William the Conqueror, defeated Harold Godwinson at the Battle of Hastings and became King of England in 1066, he m...
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