was due the gradual break-down of feudal jurisdiction. The _cour du roy_, at first either the court of the royal domain or the court of peers for the trial of cases concerning tenants-in-chief, became, as the Parliament of Paris, the supreme judicial court for the whole of France. Side by side with the advance of the central judicial power, another great change was going on—the extension of the royal domain. In the great fiefs female succession was admitted in default of male heirs, and this proved fatal to the permanence of many of the old families. With regard to the crown there was no acknowledged rule of succession, because no occasion for dispute arose. From the accession of Hugh Capet in 987, to the death of Louis X. in 1316, there was never wanting a son to succeed to his father. This uninterrupted male succession for so many generations, almost unparalleled among the reigning families of Europe, was an invaluable element of strength to the crown in its struggle with feudalism. One by one the great fiefs fell in, were conquered, or were acquired by marriage with heiresses. The most notable successes were the acquisition of Normandy by Philip Augustus, and of Languedoc after the Albigensian crusade. By the time of Philip the Fair the only provinces which retained their feudal independence were the county of Flanders in the north, the duchy of Brittany in the west, the duchy of Burgundy in the east, and the duchy of Aquitaine in the south. The royal power and the territorial unity of France had advanced _pari passu_, and Philip IV. found himself strong enough to attempt acquisitions beyond the traditional frontiers of France.