FranceandAND⤬THE JUNCTION
6 SHARED EVENTSUnited Kingdom

Entangled histories

6 events in which either nation’s sourced chronicle names the other — including under earlier names of the same state. Each is the same record, with the same sources, as on its own chronicle; nothing here was written for this page.

ONE SPINE OF YEARS · TWO WALLS OF EVENTS · FRA LEFT · GBR RIGHT

1. c. 911

   Rollo and the Viking grant of Normandy

   Around 911 the West Frankish king Charles the Simple granted the Viking leader Rollo lands around Rouen in return for baptism and the defence of the Seine, the beginning of the duchy whose rulers conquered England in 1066.

   Formation · from the France chronicle · The Franks & the Birth of France · REFS 1 — Treaty of Saint-Clair-sur-Epte

2. 1204

   Normandy lost; the Channel Islands stay with the Crown

   Philip II of France conquered mainland Normandy from King John in 1204, but the Channel Islands remained loyal to the English Crown, which still holds them as Crown Dependencies.

   War & Rupture · from the United Kingdom chronicle · The Norman Conquest and medieval England · REFS 2 — Explained: why do we say 'La Reine, notre Duc'?, Channel Islands

3. 1337

   Hundred Years' War begins

   A dynastic struggle with England that would last until 1453 and forge French identity.

   War & Rupture · from the France chronicle · The Medieval & Early-Modern Kingdom · REFS 1 — Hundred Years' War

4. 1362

   Pleading in English Act

   Parliament ruled that all pleas in the courts be pleaded and judged in English, because French was too little known among ordinary people, ending nearly three centuries of French as the language of court proceedings (records stayed in Latin).

   Politics & Power · from the United Kingdom chronicle · The Norman Conquest and medieval England · REFS 2 — Pleading in English Act 1362, Law French: when law and language collide

5. 1429

   Joan of Arc at Orléans

   Joan lifts the siege of Orléans, reversing English fortunes; she is executed in 1431.

   War & Rupture · from the France chronicle · The Medieval & Early-Modern Kingdom · REFS 1 — St. Joan of Arc

6. 1643

   Cayenne settled

   A Rouen company's expedition under Charles Poncet de Brétigny buys the hill at the mouth of the Cayenne river from a local leader, Cépérou, and builds a fort. Dutch and English forces take the town several times before France regains it for good in 1664.

   Colonisation · from the France chronicle · The Medieval & Early-Modern Kingdom · REFS 1 — Histoire des chefs-lieux d’Outre-mer: Cayenne