Abstract
When Henry VIII captured Boulogne in 1544, he did not seek to rule the
Boulonnais territory as the rightful king of France but instead annexed
these lands to the English crown. His move to justify his actions by right of
conquest rather than through dynastic succession led to the development
of precisely mapped linear borders. The geometric maps of the Boulonnais
produced in the mid-1540s visually represented the ideology of the right of
conquest. Henry’s effforts to obtain a geometrically measured border of his
lands in the Boulonnais facilitated the development of linear boundaries
by moving away from the less precise ‘feudal’ defijinitions of sovereignty,
whereby diffferent rulers could have settlements in the same territory,
towards one based around precisely mapped linear borders.
Boulonnais territory as the rightful king of France but instead annexed
these lands to the English crown. His move to justify his actions by right of
conquest rather than through dynastic succession led to the development
of precisely mapped linear borders. The geometric maps of the Boulonnais
produced in the mid-1540s visually represented the ideology of the right of
conquest. Henry’s effforts to obtain a geometrically measured border of his
lands in the Boulonnais facilitated the development of linear boundaries
by moving away from the less precise ‘feudal’ defijinitions of sovereignty,
whereby diffferent rulers could have settlements in the same territory,
towards one based around precisely mapped linear borders.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Title of host publication | Constructing and Representing Territory in Late Medieval and Early Modern Europe |
| Editors | Mario Damen, Kim Overlaet |
| Publisher | Amsterdam University Press |
| Chapter | 7 |
| Pages | 199-216 |
| Number of pages | 17 |
| ISBN (Print) | 9789463726139 |
| Publication status | Published - 21 Dec 2020 |