Hugh Capet was the King of the Franks from 987 to 996. He is the founder of and first king from the House of Capet. The son of the powerful duke Hugh the Great and his wife Hedwige of Saxony, he was elected as the successor of the last Carolingian king, Louis V. Hugh was descended from Charlemagne's son Pepin of Italy through his mother and paternal grandmother, respectively, and was also a nephew of Otto the Great.
Charles III, called the Simple or the Straightforward, was the king of West Francia from 898 until 922 and the king of Lotharingia from 911 until 919–923. He was a member of the Carolingian dynasty.
Robert II, called the Pious or the Wise, was King of the Franks from 996 to 1031, the second from the Capetian dynasty. Crowned Junior King in 987, he assisted his father on military matters. His solid education, provided by Gerbert of Aurillac in Reims, allowed him to deal with religious questions of which he quickly became the guarantor. Continuing the political work of his father, after becoming sole ruler in 996, he managed to maintain the alliance with the Duchy of Normandy and the County of Anjou and thus was able to contain the ambitions of Count Odo II of Blois.
Odo was the elected King of West Francia from 888 to 898. He was the first king from the Robertian dynasty, the parent house of the House of Capet. Before assuming the kingship, Odo was the count of Paris. His reign marked the definitive separation of West Francia from the Carolingian Empire, which would never be reunited.
Hugh the Great was the duke of the Franks and count of Paris. He was the most powerful magnate in France.
Hedwige of Saxony, a member of the Ottonian dynasty, was Duchess consort of the Franks by her marriage to the Robertian duke Hugh the Great. Upon her husband's death in 956, she acted as a regent during the minority of their son Hugh Capet, the founder of the Elder House of Capet.
Lothair, sometimes called Lothair II, III or IV, was the penultimate Carolingian king of West Francia, reigning from 10 September 954 until his death in 986.
Adbelahide, Adele, Adela or Adelaide of Aquitaine, was Queen of France by marriage to Hugh Capet, King of the Franks. Adelaide and Hugh were the founders of the Capetian dynasty of France, which would rule France until the 18th and 19th centuries. As queen consort, Adelaide had some extent of influence over her husband's governance of France. Adelaide is typically only briefly mentioned in connection to her husband, Hugh, and her son Robert II.
Charles was the duke of Lower Lorraine from 977 until his death.
Adalbero was the archbishop of Reims, chancellor of Kings Lothair and Louis V of France.
Odo I, Count of Blois, Chartres, Reims, Châteaudun and Omois, lord of Provins, was the son of Theobald I of Blois and Luitgard, daughter of Herbert II of Vermandois. He received the title of count palatine from King Lothair of West Francia.
Arnulf was the illegitimate son of King Lothair of France. He became archbishop of Reims.
In medieval historiography, West Francia or the Kingdom of the West Franks constitutes the initial stage of the Kingdom of France and extends from the year 843, from the Treaty of Verdun, to 987, the beginning of the Capetian dynasty. It was created from the division of the Carolingian Empire following the death of Louis the Pious, with its neighbor East Francia eventually evolving into the Kingdom of Germany.
Godfrey I, called the Prisoner or the Captive, sometimes the Old, was the count of Bidgau and Methingau from 959 and the sovereign count of Verdun 963 to his death. In 969, he obtained the Margraviate of Antwerp and Ename. Between 974 and 998, he was also the sovereign count of Hainault and Mons.
Louis of Lower Lorraine, Frankish royalty and a member of the Carolingian dynasty, was a younger son of Charles, Duke of Lower Lorraine, through his second wife, Adelaide.
Adelaide-Blanche of Anjou(c. 940 –1010 or 1026) was, by her successive marriages, countess of Gévaudan and Forez, of Toulouse, of Provence, and of Burgundy, and queen of Aquitaine. She was the regent of Gevaudan during the minority of her sons in the 960s, and the regent of Provence during the minority of her son from 994 until 999.
Emma of France was a Frankish queen. The daughter of Robert I of France, she was a descendant of the powerful aristocratic Robertian family; her younger half-brother was Hugh the Great, the duke of the Franks and count of Paris.
Emma of Italy was Queen of Western Francia as the wife of King Lothair, whom she married in 965. Their son, Louis V, was the last Carolingian king.
The Robertians are the proposed Frankish family which was ancestral to the Capetian dynasty, and thus to the royal families of France and of many other countries. The Capetians appear first in the records as powerful nobles serving under the Carolingian dynasty of Charlemagne in West Francia, which later became France. As their power increased, they came into conflict with the older royal family and attained the crown several times before the eventual start of the continuous rule of the descendants of Hugh Capet.
Louis IV, called d'Outremer or Transmarinus, reigned as King of West Francia from 936 to 954. A member of the Carolingian dynasty, he was the only son of king Charles the Simple and his second wife Eadgifu of Wessex, daughter of King Edward the Elder of Wessex. His reign is mostly known thanks to the Annals of Flodoard and the later Historiae of Richerus.
