The Third Estate inverted the Frankish conquest thesis against noble privilege

Evidence

The reason why the Franks were able to survive in the land they had conquered is that the first precaution they took was not only not to give the Gauls arms, but to confiscate their weapons. Which left a military caste that was both clearly differentiated from other castes and quite isolated from the rest of the country. It was a military caste, and it was purely Germanic. The Gauls no longer had any weapons , but on the other hand, they were left in actual possession of their lands, precisely because warfare was the only occupation of the Germans or Franks. The Franks fought, and the Gauls remained on their land and farmed it. They were merely required to pay certain taxes to allow the Germans to carry out their military functions. — Michel Foucault, Society Must Be Defended, 166 (#corroborates, via linked claim)

Their freedom made them far too intent on conquest and domination not to seize the land of Gaul for themselves on an individual basis. The Frankish victory therefore did not make their warlord the owner of the land of Gaul, but each of his warriors benefited, directly and in his own right, from the victory and conquest. Each warrior claimed for himself a piece of the land of Gaul. — Michel Foucault, Society Must Be Defended, 165 (#corroborates, via linked claim)

As you can see, this feudalism was a late phenomenon, and it was related not to the invasion, but to the destruction from within of central power. It was an effect, and it had the same effects as an invasion, but it was an invasion that was launched from within by people who had usurped a power that had been delegated to them. — Michel Foucault, Society Must Be Defended, 216 (#responds-to, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Nobility’s conquest doctrine split France into two peoples before race-thinking emerged; Frankish victory distributed land to warriors rather than to a sovereign — Michel Foucault, Society Must Be Defended, 165; The French Revolution reactivated Rome and Charlemagne as historical legitimation — Michel Foucault, Society Must Be Defended, 225 (+5 more)

Related

• Boulainvilliers explains Frankish dominance through caste division of labor (similarity 0.87)
• Frankish victory distributed land to warriors rather than to a sovereign (similarity 0.87)
• Boulainvilliers read Frankish conquest as the origin of feudalism rather than Roman sovereignty (similarity 0.83)
• Feudalism arose from internal usurpation of delegated royal power, not foreign invasion (similarity 0.80)
• Tracing feudalism’s origins to religious-racial war legitimated the social order externally (similarity 0.80)
• Nobility’s conquest doctrine split France into two peoples before race-thinking emerged (similarity 0.80)
• Boulainvilliers pioneered economico-political rather than juridical historical analysis (similarity 0.79)
• Feudal Europe layered multiple preexisting internal dominations rather than one conquest. (similarity 0.79)
• Dubos redefined feudalism as internal usurpation rather than foreign conquest (similarity 0.78)
• Histories of conquest functioned as groundings of public right alongside natural law (similarity 0.78)

Broader Connections

• Boulainvilliers explains Frankish dominance through caste division of labor #corroborates (0.90) — Michel Foucault, Society Must Be Defended, 166
• Frankish victory distributed land to warriors rather than to a sovereign #corroborates (0.85) — Michel Foucault, Society Must Be Defended, 165
• Dubos redefined feudalism as internal usurpation rather than foreign conquest #responds-to (0.85) — Michel Foucault, Society Must Be Defended, 216
• The French Revolution reactivated Rome and Charlemagne as historical legitimation #expands (0.80) — Michel Foucault, Society Must Be Defended, 225
• Histories of conquest functioned as groundings of public right alongside natural law #corroborates (0.80) — Michel Foucault, Society Must Be Defended, 140
• Tracing feudalism’s origins to religious-racial war legitimated the social order externally #complicates (0.75) — Michel Foucault, Society Must Be Defended, 141
• Race-thinking supplied a natural aristocracy to replace the feudal nobility #complicates (0.72)