Talk:Marquisate of Provence

I wasn't sure where to place the page : Orange is in Germania, Provence, Forcalquier, Viennois and Valentinois are in Francia and Savoy in Italia. Surely there's a more consistent way to represent imperial lands located in modern France.Solo (talk) 17:33, 5 February 2018 (UTC)

I've moved Orange to Francia, it got "stuck" in Germania somehow since the start of this page... Savoy for example could be in both Italia and in Francia, as long as they point to the same page. JSpuller (talk) 09:54, 6 February 2018 (UTC)

Orange should in fact be in Germania IMOas we placed it there from the start due to fact it was a vassal state of the Holy Roman Empire. We had a similar issue with some of the Low Countries but in general with the political entities in between what is now Germany and France, Benelux and Northwestern Italy the picture isn't really clear since some of them changed hands and political affiliations throughout centuries. As for Savoy...the thing there is kinda weird since it was part of HRE but since we have the Italia section we decided to put it there...although that whole region would politically and historically belong within Germania. So the question is do we place them by modern geo-political understanding what "Francia" or "Germania" would be...or we go with the vassalage i.e. the old geo-political context. Finellach (talk)

I don't dispute the fact that Orange is a vassal state of the HRE but it is not an exception in any way in that regard. In southern France, all counts east of the Rhone are vassals of the emperor at the time (everyone in Provence, Dauphiné and Savoie). This is the same for all of eastern France in any case.
Understand me, I'm just saying there should be some logic to it. Treating Orange as an exception in the area can't be justified by any kind of logic that couldn't be applied better to its neighbours (if anything the princes of Orange are the first one to exit imperial influence as they neighboured the lands of the king on the other side of the Rhone, were very close to the angevines who they followed in southern Italy, establishing another principality there, and became pretty much vassals of the pope in Avignon in the 14th c.).
As for Savoy, I understand the link between the modern duchy of Savoy and Italia makes it relevant for the page of Italia, not questionning it but it's an arpitan cultured area, part of empire, just the same as Viennois in the middle ages (both counts lived less than 50km apart). The best way imo would indeed be representing Savoie as a county in Francia and the duchy in Italia, pointing to the same page (because the post medieval duchy holds land in modern Italy and later even moves it capital there).

My best argument against choosing to treat Germania as all vassals of the HRE is that political borders evolved a lot during the middle ages (most vassals in modern France have already switched allegiance by the end of the MA, while others like Flanders have escaped french influence). Plus that's opening the door to other kingdoms being treated the same : vassals of the capetians (wish you didn't name them House of Capet btw) in southern Italy (not much left of Italia afterwards), vassals of England in France, etc.
Seems much less of a headache to treat entities by following modern political borders if you ask me (to be clear : I'm not suggesting to divide Germania or anything else any further but putting a stop to the HRE at the french and italian modern borders, that's all). Nobody will object since everyone does that academically anyway and that's an easy way to determine where goes what. The only other option I see is setting a fixed date to establish the border between those entities but there'd still be the problem of other kingdoms' vassals being treated the same.

Sorry for the wall of text, not trying to be a pain in the *** here but I think it's a discussion that was bound to happen :p --Solo (talk) 17:13, 6 February 2018 (UTC)

Orange shouldn't be under Germania but rather under Holy Roman Empire JSpuller (talk) 10:07, 7 February 2018 (UTC)

It creates great confusion if we go that way though...where does Bar belong? Or Lorraine? Or bunch of counties and lordships that were in and around Alsace and so on? Would we put them in "Francia" or "Germania"? Why do we have section "Stem Duchies" in Germania page, and so on and on... Finellach (talk)