Thursday, January 01, 2009

Name that king!

Louis the Lazy



On this day in 898, Charles III, known as Charles the Simple, was crowned King of the Franks. I was relieved to discover that at that time, ‘simple’ meant ‘honest’ rather than 'stupid' but it got me thinking about the other nicknames the French gave to their kings.

Whereas the English named their monarchs ‘the unready’ or ‘the glorious’ or ‘the peaceable’, they didn’t often resort to personal insults, like the French (unless you count William the Conqueror who was also known as William the Bastard – but I have a feeling that wasn’t meant to be an insult and anyway, he was French).

I mean, fancy calling your king Charles the Fat, Charles the Bald or Charles the Mad! Not to mention Louis the Stammerer, Louis the Lazy, Louis the Quarreller, Louis the Universal Spider and - my favourite – John the Posthumous (perhaps he was just very quiet).

Still - what can you expect from a people who call the heir to the throne a dolphin?



BONNE ANNEE!

14 comments:

Anonymous said...

Bonne Année!

Gigi said...

Thank you, Your Majesty :-)

Gary Benfold said...

Thanks, Gigi; yes she is very sweet. Saw your new posting today - glad you're still there.

And, because you don't seem to get emails I send direct to you, I'll post this on your blog.


Does 'dauphin' really mean 'dolphin'? If so - why do the French...

sablonneuse said...

Yes, I've often wondered why they called the heir the dauphin.
Happy New Year and all good wishes for some more chapters of your book.

Gigi said...

Well - it's a long story...but it's to do with someone having a dolphin on his coat of arms and thus the nickname 'the dolphin'...and the region he possessed was then called 'dauphiné' and that got annexed by the French...who kept the name.

Something like that :-)

Gigi said...

Oh - and Happy New Year, sablonneuse :-)

Jonas said...

I suppose there are worse things in life than having a dolphin as your king...

Gary Benfold said...

Yes, Jonas - after all, the heir to our throne is the Prince of Whales...

Gigi said...

Just brilliant, Gary!!! :-) :-)

julia said...

This is great. I never knew that the French gave their kings such names, no wonder they ended up losing their heads!

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