Hugh Capet

founder of the Capetian dynasty

c. 940 – 996 · 56 years · Paris · Europe

Reign: 987 – 996 (Franks and France)

Duke of the Franks, elected king in 987 after the death of the last Carolingian, Louis V. His male-line descendants ruled France until 1848.

Portrait: Public domain · Wikimedia Commons

Contemporaries around the world

Otto the Great — founder of the Holy Roman Empire who crushed the Magyars at the Lech, 28 years older
Æthelred the Unready — king who paid off the Vikings with Danegeld, 26 years younger
Edgar the Peaceful — king of a peaceful united England and patron of monastic reform, 3 years younger
Otto II — emperor wed to the Byzantine Theophanu, defeated by the Arabs in Calabria, 15 years younger
Robert II the Pious — pious king excommunicated for marrying a kinswoman, 32 years younger
Henry II — last Ottonian emperor, founder of the see of Bamberg, canonised as a saint, 33 years younger

Vladimir the Great — Grand Prince of Kiev, 20 years younger
Olga of Kiev — grand princess of Kiev, 20 years older
Yaroslav the Wise — Grand Prince of Kiev, 38 years younger
Sviatoslav I — Grand Prince of Kiev, warrior, 2 years younger
Yaropolk I — prince of Kiev who fell in a civil war with his brother Vladimir, 15 years younger
Sviatopolk the Accursed — prince of Kiev blamed by the chronicles for murdering Boris and Gleb, 40 years younger