House of Capet
family
The House of Capet (French: Maison capétienne) ruled the Kingdom of France from 987 to 1328. It was the most senior line of the Capetian dynasty – itself a derivative dynasty from the Robertians and the Carolingians.
The direct line of the House of Capet came to an end in 1328, when the three sons of Philip IV (reigned 1285–1314) all failed to produce surviving male heirs to the French throne. With the death of Charles IV (reigned 1322–1328), the throne passed to the House of Valois, descended from a younger brother of Philip IV.
Royal power would pass on, in 1589, to another Capetian branch, the House of Bourbon, descended from the youngest son of Louis IX (reigned 1226–1270). From 1830 on the crown would go to a Bourbon cadet branch, the House of Orléans, always remaining in the hands of agnatic descendants of Hugh Capet, himself a descendant of Charlemagne, except for the reigns of Napoleon and Napoleon III.
Names
The House of Capet (French: Maison capétienne) were also called the Direct Capetians (Capétiens directs), the House of France (la maison de France), or simply the Capets. Historians in the 19th century came to apply the name "Capetian" to both the ruling house of France and to the wider-spread male-line descendants of Hugh Capet (c. 941 – 996). Contemporaries did not use the name "Capetian" (see House of France). The Capets were sometimes called "the Third Race of Kings" (following the Merovingians and the Carolingians). The name "Capet" derives from the nickname (of uncertain meaning) given to Hugh, the first Capetian king.
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Vocabulary and entity names are the principal evidence signals here, because they determine the precision of every later search. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 14, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q2937731. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1328, 1285, 1314 and 1322.
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This entry incorporates text from “House of Capet” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.