“ HUGH CAPET (c. 938–996) , king of France and founder of the Capetian dynasty, was the eldest son of Hugh the Great by his wife Hadwig. When his father died in 956 he succeeded to his numerous fiefs around Paris and Orleans, and thus becoming one of the most powerful of the feudatories of his cousin, the Frankish king Lothair, he was recognized somewhat reluctantly by that monarch as duke of the Franks. Many of the counts of northern France did homage to him as their overlord, and Richard I., duke of Normandy, was both his vassal and his brother-in-law. ”

“ When Louis V. died without children in May 987, Hugh and the late king’s uncle Charles, duke of Lower Lorraine, were candidates for the vacant throne, and in this contest the energy of Hugh’s champions, Adalberon, archbishop of Reims, and Gerbert, afterwards Pope Sylvester II., prevailed. Declaring that the Frankish crown was an elective and not an hereditary dignity, Adalberon secured the election of his friend, and crowned him, probably at Noyon, in July 987. ”