John II of France
John II, called John the Good, was King of France from 1350 until his death. He was the second monarch from the House of Valois; when John II came to power, France was facing several disasters: the Black Death, which killed nearly half of its population. While John was a prisoner in London, his son Charles became regent and faced several rebellions, which he overcame. To liberate his father, he concluded the Treaty of Brétigny, by which France lost many territories and paid an enormous ransom. In an exchange of hostages, which included his second son Louis, Duke of Anjou, John was released from captivity to raise funds for his ransom. Upon his return to France, he created the franc to stabilize the currency and tried to get rid of the free companies by sending them to a crusade, but Pope Innocent VI died shortly before their meeting in Avignon; when John was informed that Louis had escaped from captivity, he voluntarily returned to England, where he died in 1364. He was succeeded by his son Charles V.
John was nine years old. Philip VI's ascent to the throne was unexpected: because of the Salic law, all female descendants of his great uncle Philip the Fair were passed over. Thus, as new King of France, Philip had to consolidate his power in order to protect his throne from rival claimants. A marriage with Eleanor of Woodstock, sister of King Edward III of England, was considered, but instead Philip invited John of Luxembourg, King of Bohemia, to Fontainebleau. Bohemia needed French diplomatic support. A treaty was drawn up; the military clauses stipulated that, in the event of war, Bohemia would support the French army with four hundred infantrymen. The political clauses ensured that the Lombard crown would not be disputed if the king of Bohemia managed to obtain it. Philip selected Bonne of Bohemia as a wife for his son, as she was closer to child-bearing age, the dowry was fixed at 120,000 florins. John reached the age of majority, 13 years and one day, on 27 April 1332, received overlordship of the duchy of Normandy, as well as the counties of Anjou and Maine.
The wedding was celebrated on 28 July at the church of Notre-Dame in Melun in the presence of six thousand guests. The festivities were prolonged by a further two months when the young groom was knighted at the cathedral of Notre-Dame in Paris; as the new Duke of Normandy, John was solemnly granted the arms of a knight in front of a prestigious assembly bringing together the kings of Bohemia and Navarre, the dukes of Burgundy and the Brabant. Upon his accession as Duke of Normandy in 1332, John had to deal with the reality that most of the Norman nobility was allied with the English camp. Normandy depended economically more on maritime trade across the English Channel than on river trade on the Seine; the duchy had not been English for 150 years. To line up behind one or other sovereign risked confiscation. Therefore, Norman members of the nobility were governed as interdependent clans, which allowed them to obtain and maintain charters guaranteeing the duchy a measure of autonomy, it was split into two key camps, the counts of Tancarville and the counts of Harcourt, in conflict for generations.
Tension arose again in 1341. King Philip, worried about the richest area of the kingdom breaking into bloodshed, ordered the bailiffs of Bayeux and Cotentin to quell the dispute. Geoffroy d'Harcourt raised troops against the king, rallying a number of nobles protective of their autonomy and against royal interference; the rebels demanded that Geoffroy be made duke, thus guaranteeing the autonomy granted by the charter. Royal troops took the castle at Geoffroy was exiled to Brabant. Three of his companions were decapitated in Paris on 3 April 1344. In 1342, John was in Avignon at the coronation of Pope Clement VI, in the latter part of 1343, he was a member of a peace parley with Edward III of England's chancery clerk. By 1345, increasing numbers of Norman rebels had begun to pay homage to Edward III, constituting a major threat to the legitimacy of the Valois kings; the defeat at the Battle of Crécy on 26 August 1346, the capitulation of Calais on 3 August 1347, after an eleven-month siege, further damaged royal prestige.
Defections by the nobility, whose land fell within the broad economic influence of England in the north and west, increased. King Philip VI decided to seek a truce. Duke John met Geoffroy d'Harcourt, to whom the king agreed to return all confiscated goods appointing him sovereign captain in Normandy. John approached the Tancarville family, whose loyalty could ensure his authority in Normandy; the marriage of John, Viscount of Melun, to Jeanne, the only heiress of the county of Tancarville, ensured that the Melun-Tancarville party remained loyal to John, while Geoffroy d'Harcourt continued to act as defender for Norman freedoms and thus of the reforming party. On 11 September 1349, John's wife, Bonne of Bohemia, died at the Maubu
Robert II of France
Robert II, called the Pious or the Wise, was King of the Franks from 996 to 1031, the second from the House of Capet. He was born in Orléans to Hugh Adelaide of Aquitaine. Robert distinguished himself with an extraordinarily long reign for the time, his 35-year-long reign was marked by his attempts to expand the royal domain by any means by his long struggle to gain the Duchy of Burgundy. His policies earned him many enemies, including three of his sons, he was known for his difficult marriages: he married three times, annulling two of these and attempting to annul the third, prevented only by the Pope's refusal to accept a third annulment. After his own coronation, Robert's father Hugh began to push for the coronation of his son. "The essential means by which the early Capetians were seen to have kept the throne in their family was through the association of the eldest surviving son in the royalty during the father's lifetime," Andrew W. Lewis has observed, in tracing the phenomenon in this line of kings who lacked dynastic legitimacy.
Hugh's claimed reason was that he was planning an expedition against the Moorish armies harassing Borrel II of Barcelona, an invasion which never occurred, that the stability of the country necessitated a co-king, should he die while on expedition. Ralph Glaber, attributes Hugh's request to his old age and inability to control the nobility. Modern scholarship has imputed to Hugh the motive of establishing a dynasty against the claims of electoral power on the part of the aristocracy, but this is not the typical view of contemporaries and some modern scholars have been less sceptical of Hugh's "plan" to campaign in Spain. Robert was crowned on 25 December 987. A measure of Hugh's success is that when Hugh died in 996, Robert continued to reign without any succession dispute, but during his long reign actual royal power dissipated into the hands of the great territorial magnates. Robert had begun to take on active royal duties with his father in the early 990s. In 991, he helped his father prevent the French bishops from trekking to Mousson in the Kingdom of Germany for a synod called by Pope John XV, with whom Hugh was in disagreement.
As early as 989, having been rebuffed in his search for a Byzantine princess, Hugh Capet arranged for Robert to marry Rozala, the widowed daughter of Berengar II of Italy, many years his senior, who took the name of Susanna upon becoming queen. She was the widow of Arnulf II of Flanders, with. Robert divorced her within a year of his father's death in 996, he tried instead to marry Bertha, daughter of Conrad of Burgundy, around the time of his father's death. She was a widow of Odo I of Blois, but was Robert's cousin. For reasons of consanguinity, Pope Gregory V refused to sanction the marriage, Robert was excommunicated. After long negotiations with Gregory's successor, Sylvester II, the marriage was annulled. In 1001, Robert entered into his final and longest-lasting marriage—to Constance of Arles, the daughter of William I of Provence, her southern customs and entourage were regarded with suspicion at court. After his companion Hugh of Beauvais urged the king to repudiate her as well, knights of her kinsman Fulk III, Count of Anjou had Beauvais murdered.
The king and Bertha went to Rome to ask Pope Sergius IV for an annulment so they could remarry. After this was refused, he fathered several children by her, her ambition alienated the chroniclers of her day, who blamed her for several of the king's decisions. Constance and Robert remained married until his death in 1031. Robert was a devout Catholic, hence his sobriquet "the Pious." He was musically inclined, being a composer and poet, made his palace a place of religious seclusion where he conducted the matins and vespers in his royal robes. Robert's reputation for piety resulted from his lack of toleration for heretics, whom he harshly punished, he is said to have advocated forced conversions of local Jewry. He supported riots against the Jews of Orléans who were accused of conspiring to destroy the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem. Furthermore, Robert reinstated the Roman imperial custom of burning heretics at the stake. In 1030–1031, Robert confirmed the foundation of Noyers Abbey; the kingdom Robert inherited was not large and, in an effort to increase his power, he vigorously pursued his claim to any feudal lands that became vacant resulting in war with a counter-claimant.
In 1003, his invasion of the Duchy of Burgundy was thwarted, it would not be until 1016 that he was able to get the support of the Church to be recognized as Duke of Burgundy. The pious Robert made few friends and many enemies, including three of his own sons: Hugh and Robert, they turned against their father in a civil war over property. Hugh died in revolt in 1025. In a conflict with Henry and the younger Robert, King Robert's army was defeated, he retreated to Beaugency outside Paris, his capital, he died in the middle of the war with his sons on 20 July 1031 at Melun. He was interred with Constance in Saint Denis Basilica and succeeded by his son Henry, in both France and Burgundy. Robert had no children from his short-lived marriage to Susanna, his illegal marriage to Bertha gave him one stillborn son in 999, but only Constance gave him surviving children: Hedwig, Countess of Auxerre, married Renauld I, Count of Nevers on 25 January 1016 and had issue. Hugh Magnus, co-king Henry I, successor Adela, Countess of Flanders, married Richard III of Normandy and Count Baldwin V of F
Palace of the Dukes of Burgundy
The Palace of the Dukes and Estates of Burgundy or Palais des ducs et des États de Bourgogne is a remarkably well-preserved architectural assemblage in Dijon. The oldest part is the 14th and 15th century Gothic ducal palace and seat of the Dukes of Burgundy, made up of a logis still visible on place de la Liberation, the ducal kitchens on cour de Bar, the tour de Philippe le Bon, a "guette" overlooking the whole city, tour de Bar. Most of what can be seen today, was built in the 17th and the 18th centuries, in a classical style, when the palace was a royal residence building and housed the estates of Burgundy; the 19th façade of the musée on place de la Sainte-Chapelle was added on the site of the palace's Sainte-Chapelle, demolished in 1802. The Palace houses the musée des Beaux-Arts; the Duchy of Burgundy was founded in the 9th century, around the year 880, from the Kingdom of Burgundy by the Carolingian kings of France, Louis III and Carloman II, the Princes who shared the Carolingian Empire, after reorganizing the entire kingdom into duchies and counties.
Richard, Count of Autun, known as "Richard the Justiciar", was named the first Margrave and Duke of Burgundy. He was one of the six in the French Peerage installed under King Louis III of France. Philip the Bold, son of the King John II of France John the Fearless Philip the Good Charles the Bold The palace turned into a Royal residence when the Duchy of Burgundy was occupied by the Kingdom of France after the death of Charles the Bold, in 1477, the treaty of Arras of 1482 between the king Louis XI and Maximilian I, Holy Roman Emperor. After 1477, the kings of France named governors to rule Burgundy. Sometimes they came to Dijon, where the palace was turned into a royal residence to receive them while in the province of Burgundy; the restored ducal tombs were installed in the Salle de garde following the razing of the Chartreuse de Champmol in the nineteenth century. During the 2010–12 renovation of the palace, a number of sculptures from the tombs travelled on exhibition. Musée des Beaux-Arts de Dijon Dukes of Burgundy Dijon Media related to Palais des Ducs at Wikimedia Commons Official Site of the Musée des Beaux-Arts de Dijon
Saône
The Saône is a river of eastern France. It is a right tributary of the Rhône, rising at Vioménil in the Vosges department and joining the Rhône in Lyon, just south of the Presqu'île; the name Saône derives from that of the Gallic river goddess Souconna, connected with a local Celtic tribe, the Sequanes. Monastic copyists progressively transformed Souconna to Saoconna, which gave rise to Saône; the other recorded ancient names for the river were Arar. The Saône rises at Vioménil at the foot of the cliff of the Faucilles in the Vosges at an elevation of 392 metres, flows into the Rhône at Lyon at an elevation of 158 metres, its length is 480 kilometres. Its largest tributary is the Doubs. In fact the Doubs' mean annual flow rate is stronger than that of the Petite Saône, 175 cubic metres per second compared to 160 cubic metres per second. Nonetheless the Saône has a larger watershed than the Doubs, at 11,500 square kilometres vs. 7,500 square kilometres. At 30,000 square kilometres the Saône has the largest watershed of any French river that does not flow directly into the sea, covering 1/18 of metropolitan France.
In pre-Roman times the river's name was a doubling of the Indo-European root ar. According to Caesar's Gallic Wars this doubling reflected the idea that it was difficult to identify the direction of the river due to its slow rate of flow, its current name came from a sacred spring, Sauc-Onna, located at Chalon, used by Roman legionnaries to refer to the entire river. Vosges: Darney, Monthureux-sur-Saône, Châtillon-sur-Saône Haute-Saône: Jonvelle, Jussey, Port-sur-Saône, Scey-sur-Saône, Gray Côte-d'Or: Auxonne, Saint-Jean-de-Losne, Seurre Saône-et-Loire: Verdun-sur-le-Doubs, Chalon-sur-Saône, Tournus, Mâcon, Crêches-sur-Saône Rhône: Belleville-sur-Saône, Villefranche-sur-Saône, Neuville-sur-Saône, Fontaines-sur-Saône, Caluire-et-Cuire, Lyon Ain: Thoissey, Jassans-Riottier, R indicates a right tributary, L indicates a left tributary; the Saône is navigable from its confluence with the Coney at Corre in the north of the département Haute-Saône all the way to its confluence with the Rhône at La Mulatière, in Lyon.
The navigable stretch is 367 kilometres long, of which 206 kilometres has been redeveloped to European high-capacity dimensions from Saint-Symphorien-sur-Saône to Lyon. It has 5 locks; the 161 km long part upstream from Saint-Symphorien-sur-Saône to Corre named Petite Saône, is navigable for Freycinet gauge ships and has 19 locks. The Saône is linked with the Loire by the Canal du Centre, with the Yonne by the Canal de Bourgogne, with the Marne by the Canal entre Champagne et Bourgogne, with the Meuse by the Canal de l'Est, whose southern branch has been renamed the Canal des Vosges, with the Rhine by the Canal du Rhône au Rhin. All the canals are Freycinet gauge. Navigable are the small Canal de Pont-de-Vaux, the Seille, navigable in a 40-kilometre stretch up to Louhans, the lower part of the Doubs. None of these three connect the Saône to any other waterway; the lesser Saône has a tendency to flood, with a strong oceanic effect. The soils are not susceptible to much infiltration, so that they saturate which contributes to surface runoff.
The flow rate grows quickly, after receiving the waters of the Lanterne, the Saône becomes a powerful river. The mean annual flow rate, or discharge, of the Saône has been measured over 50 years at the Ray-sur-Saône hydrological station, situated about 30 kilometres after the Lanterne confluence between Port-sur-Saône and Gray; the figure is 59.7 cubic metres per second for a watershed area of 3,740 square kilometres, has an annual maximum of 64.5 cubic metres per second and a minimum of 54.8 cubic metres per second. The river exhibits seasonal variations in flow rate, with winter floods from 84 to 108 cubic metres per second from December to March inclusive, summer reductions in July/August/September falling to a monthly average of 16.9 cubic metres per second in August. The runoff curve number in the upper basin of the lesser Saône is 505 millimetres annually, cf. 687 millimetres for the Lanterne, an elevated figure resulting from the high rainfall in the Vosgian part of its watershed. The specific flow rate rises to 16.0 litres per second per square kilometre of watershed.
The maximum instantaneous recorded flow rate was 930 cubic metres per second on December 19, 1982. The greater Saône is formed by the confluence of the Doubs and the lesser Saône at Verdun-sur-le-Doubs; the Doubs brings a mean annual flow rate of 175 cubic metres per second, the lesser Saône, 160 cubic metres per second. The greater Saône has only modest tributaries which have little effect on floods or other hydrological properties, it flows in a vast plain 3 kilometres wide as far as Lyon in the basin of the former Bressan lake. The slope is gradual, without hydraulic projects up to the north of Chalon aimed at guaranteeing a deep navigation channel, overflows would b
Ancien Régime
The Ancien Régime was the political and social system of the Kingdom of France from the Late Middle Ages until 1789, when hereditary monarchy and the feudal system of French nobility were abolished by the French Revolution. The Ancien Régime was ruled by Bourbon dynasties; the term is used to refer to the similar feudal systems of the time elsewhere in Europe. The administrative and social structures of the Ancien Régime were the result of years of state-building, legislative acts, internal conflicts, civil wars, but they remained and the Valois Dynasty's attempts at re-establishing control over the scattered political centres of the country were hindered by the Huguenot Wars. Much of the reigns of Henry IV and Louis XIII and the early years of Louis XIV were focused on administrative centralization. Despite, the notion of "absolute monarchy" and the efforts by the kings to create a centralized state, the Kingdom of France retained its irregularities: authority overlapped and nobles struggled to retain autonomy.
The need for centralization in this period was directly linked to the question of royal finances and the ability to wage war. The internal conflicts and dynastic crises of the 16th and 17th centuries and the territorial expansion of France in the 17th century demanded great sums which needed to be raised through taxes, such as the land tax and the tax on salt and by contributions of men and service from the nobility. One key to this centralization was the replacing of personal patronage systems organized around the king and other nobles by institutional systems around the state; the creation of intendants—representatives of royal power in the provinces—did much to undermine local control by regional nobles. The same was true of the greater reliance shown by the royal court on the noblesse de robe as judges and royal counselors; the creation of regional parlements had the same goal of facilitating the introduction of royal power into newly assimilated territories, but as the parlements gained in self-assurance, they began to be sources of disunity.
The term in French means "old regime" or "former regime". However, most English language books use the French term Ancien Régime; the term first appeared in print in English in 1794, was pejorative in nature. It conjured up a society so encrusted with anachronisms that only a shock of great violence could free the living organism within. Institutionally torpid, economically immobile, culturally atrophied and stratified, this'old regime' was incapable of self-modernization."More ancien régime refers to any political and social system having the principal features of the French Ancien Régime. Europe's other anciens régimes had diverse fates; the Nine Years' War was a major conflict between France and a European-wide coalition of Austria and the Holy Roman Empire, the Dutch Republic, Spain and Savoy. It was fought on the European continent and the surrounding seas, in Ireland, North America, India, it was the first global war. Louis XIV had emerged from the Franco-Dutch War in 1678 as the most powerful monarch in Europe, an absolute ruler who had won numerous military victories.
Using a combination of aggression and quasilegal means, Louis XIV set about extending his gains to stabilize and strengthen France's frontiers, culminating in the brief War of the Reunions. The resulting Truce of Ratisbon guaranteed France's new borders for 20 years, but Louis XIV's subsequent actions – notably his revocation of the Edict of Nantes in 1685 – led to the deterioration of his military and political dominance. Louis XIV's decision to cross the Rhine in September 1688 was designed to extend his influence and pressure the Holy Roman Empire into accepting his territorial and dynastic claims, but when Leopold I and the German princes resolved to resist, when the States General and William III brought the Dutch and the English into the war against France, the French King at last faced a powerful coalition aimed at curtailing his ambitions; the main fighting took place around France's borders, in the Spanish Netherlands, the Rhineland, Duchy of Savoy, Catalonia. The fighting favoured Louis XIV's armies, but by 1696, his country was in the grip of an economic crisis.
The Maritime Powers were financially exhausted, when Savoy defected from the alliance, all parties were keen for a negotiated settlement. By the terms of the Treaty of Ryswick, Louis XIV retained the whole of Alsace, but he was forced to return Lorraine to its ruler and give up any gains on the right bank of the Rhine. Louis XIV accepted William III as the rightful King of England, while the Dutch acquired their barrier fortress system in the Spanish Netherlands to help secure their own borders. However, with the ailing and childless Charles II of Spain approaching his end, a new conflict over the inheritance of the Spanish Empire would soon embroil Louis XIV and the Grand Alliance in a final war – the War of the Spanish Succession. Spain had a number of major assets, apart from its homeland itself, it controlled important territory in the New World. S
West Francia
In medieval historiography, West Francia or the Kingdom of the West Franks was the western part of Charlemagne's Empire, ruled by the Germanic Franks that forms the earliest stage of the Kingdom of France, lasting from about 840 until 987. West Francia was formed out of the division of the Carolingian Empire in 843 under the Treaty of Verdun after the death of Emperor Louis the Pious and the east–west division which "gradually hardened into the establishment of separate kingdoms of what we can begin to call Germany and France."West Francia extended further south than modern France, but it did not extend as far east. West Francia did not include such future French holdings as Lorraine, Burgundy and Provence in the east and southeast. In addition, by the 10th century the rule of its kings was reduced within the West Frankish realm by the increase in power of great territorial magnates over their large and territorially contiguous fiefs; this process was compounded by wars among those magnates, including against or alongside the Crown, by foreign invasion.
Notably, Normandy was given to the rule of Norse invaders under Rollo as a county and duchy in return for their willingness to end their raids, like other great fiefs became autonomous of, more powerful than, the Crown. In Brittany and Catalonia the authority of the West Frankish king was felt. West Frankish kings were elected by the secular and ecclesiastic magnates, for the half-century between 888 and 936 they chose alternately from the Carolingian and Robertian houses. By this time the power of king became weaker and more nominal, as the regional dukes and nobles became more powerful in their semi-independent regions; the Robertians, after becoming counts of Paris and dukes of France, became kings themselves and established the Capetian dynasty. In August 843, after three years of civil war following the death of Louis the Pious on 20 June 840, the Treaty of Verdun was signed by his three sons and heirs; the youngest, Charles the Bald, received western Francia. The contemporary West Frankish Annales Bertiniani describes Charles arriving at Verdun, "where the distribution of portions" took place.
After describing the portions of his brothers, Lothair the Emperor and Louis the German, he notes that "the rest as far as Spain they ceded to Charles". The Annales Fuldenses of East Francia describe Charles as holding the western part after the kingdom was "divided in three". Since the death of King Pippin I of Aquitaine in December 838, his son had been recognised by the Aquitainian nobility as King Pippin II of Aquitaine, although the succession had not been recognised by the emperor. Charles the Bald was at war with Pippin II from the start of his reign in 840, the Treaty of Verdun ignored the claimant and assigned Aquitaine to Charles. Accordingly, in June 845, after several military defeats, Charles signed the Treaty of Benoît-sur-Loire and recognised his nephew's rule; this agreement lasted until 25 March 848, when the Aquitainian barons recognised Charles as their king. Thereafter Charles's armies had the upper hand, by 849 had secured most of Aquitaine. In May, Charles had himself crowned "King of the Aquitainians" in Orléans.
Archbishop Wenilo of Sens officiated at the coronation, which included the first instance of royal unction in West Francia. The idea of anointing Charles may be owed to Archbishop Hincmar of Reims, who composed no less than four ordines describing appropriate liturgies for a royal consecration. By the time of the Synod of Quierzy, Hincmar was claiming that Charles was anointed to the entire West Frankish kingdom. With the Treaty of Mersen in 870 the western part of Lotharingia was added to West Francia. In 875 Charles the Bald was crowned Emperor of Rome; the last record in the Annales Bertiniani dates to 882, so the only contemporary narrative source for the next eighteen years in West Francia is the Annales Vedastini. The next set of original annals from the West Frankish kingdom are those of Flodoard, who began his account with the year 919. After the death of Charles's grandson, Carloman II, on 12 December 884, the West Frankish nobles elected his uncle, Charles the Fat king in East Francia and Kingdom of Italy, as their king.
He was crowned "King in Gaul" on 20 May 885 at Grand. His reign was the only time after the death of Louis the Pious that all of Francia would be re-united under one ruler. In his capacity as king of West Francia, he seems to have granted the royal title and regalia to the semi-independent ruler of Brittany, Alan I, his handling of the Viking siege of Paris in 885–86 reduced his prestige. In November 887 his nephew, Arnulf of Carinthia revolted and assumed the title as King of the East Franks. Charles retired and soon died on 13 January 888. In Aquitaine, Duke Ranulf II may have had himself recognised as king, but he only lived another two years. Although Aquitaine did not become a separate kingdom, it was outside the control of the West Frankish kings. Odo, Count of Paris was elected by nobles as the new king of West Francia, was crowned the next month. At this point, West Francia was composed of Neustria in the west and in the east by Francia proper, the region between the Meuse and the Seine.
After the 860s, Lotharingian noble Robert the Strong became powerful as count of Anjou and Maine. Robert's brother Hugh, abbot of Saint-Denis, was given control over Austrasia by Charles the Bald. Robert's son Odo was elected king in 888. Odo's brother Robert I ruled between 922 and 923 and was followed by Rudolph from 923 until 936. Hugh the Great, son of Robert I, was elevated to the title "duke of the Franks" b
Boso of Provence
Boso was a Frankish nobleman of the Bosonid family, related to the Carolingian dynasty and who rose to become King of Lower Burgundy and Provence. Boso was the son of Bivin of Gorze, Count of Lotharingia, by Richildis of Arles, the daughter of Boso the Elder by his wife Engeltrude, his maternal aunt Teutberga was the wife of King of Lotharingia. Boso was the nephew of the Boso, Count of Valois, for whom he was named, of Hucbert, lay abbot of St. Maurice's Abbey, to which Boso succeeded in 869, he would marry Ermengard of Italy, the daughter of Louis II of Italy and granddaughter of the Holy Roman Emperor Lothair I, whom he married at age 35. In 870, Charles the Bald, King of West Francia, married Boso's sister Richilde; this marriage paved the way for Boso's career in the service of his royal brother-in-law. In the same year, Boso was appointed Count of Vienne, replacing Gerard of Roussillon. In 872, Charles appointed him magister ostiariorum to his heir Louis the Stammerer. Boso received investiture as Count of Bourges.
Louis was reigning as a subordinate king of Aquitaine, but because of his youth, it was Boso who looked after the administration of that realm. In the autumn of 875, Boso accompanied Charles on his first Italian campaign and at the diet of Pavia in February 876 he was appointed arch-minister and missus dominicus for Italy and elevated to the rank of duke, he became Governor and Count of Provence in 877. He acted as a viceroy and married Ermengarde of Italy, the only daughter of the Emperor Louis II. Boso disapproved of Charles' second Italian campaign in 877 and conspired with other like-minded nobles against his king. After Charles's death in October, these nobles forced Charles's son to confirm their rights and privileges. Boso formed close relations to the papacy and accompanied Pope John VIII in September 878 to Troyes, where the Pope asked King Louis for his support in Italy; the Pope adopted Boso as his son and offered to crown Louis emperor. It is said. In April 879, Louis the Stammerer died, leaving two adult sons, Louis III of France and Carloman II.
Boso joined with other western Frankish nobles and advocated making Louis III of France the sole heir of the western kingdom, but both brothers were elected kings. Boso renounced allegiance to the brothers and in July claimed independence by claiming the title Dei gratia id quod sum: by the Grace of God, what I am, he claimed that his imperial father-in-law had named him as his heir. On 15 October 879, the bishops and nobles of the region around the rivers Rhône and Saône assembled in the Synod of Mantaille, they elected Boso King and successor to Louis the Stammerer, the first non-Carolingian king in Western Europe in more than a century. This event was the first "free election" among the Franks, without regard to royal descent, inspired by a canonical principle of ecclesiastical elections. Boso's realm called the Kingdom of Provence, comprised the ecclesiastical provinces of the archbishops of Arles, Vienne and Besançon, the dioceses of Tarentaise, Uzès, Viviers. After Louis and Carloman divided their father's realm at Amiens in March 880, the two brothers joined to march against Boso.
They took the northern parts of Boso's realm. Uniting their forces with those of Charles the Fat, they unsuccessfully besieged Vienne from August to November. In August 882, Boso was again besieged at Vienne by his brother, Duke of Burgundy, Count of Autun, who took the city in September. Boso never was restricted to the county of Vienne, he was succeeded by his son Louis the Blind. Boso was married twice; the identity of his first wife is not known. His issue was, in supposed chronological order: Guilla/Willa, married firstly Rudolph I of Burgundy, secondly Hugh of Italy.
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